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vyingeyes · 3 months

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Project Crown - 1 - Ground Zero

Geonosis was the kind of nightmare that nobody could ever really prepare you for. The Kaminoans had tried, but the divide between training and a real battlefield stretched unfathomably wide, and the only way to bridge that gap is to experience the latter firsthand.

Course was one of many clones deployed to Geonosis. He also seemed to be the only one with a functioning brain.

“48! Get back in formation!” Kyr snapped beside him.

Course didn’t bother turning to see what trouble their idiot brother was getting up to this time, far too preoccupied trying to patch up the unnamed clone that a Geonosian had flung down to their squad from one of the ledges a few meters above them in the canyon. The poor guy was thoroughly dazed from his short flight, but his wounds weren’t serious.

Kyr’s steady presence hovered by Course’s left side. “Status?”

“Stable. He’ll be able to keep fighting as soon as he’s able to think straight.”

The newcomer groaned out something vaguely interrogative, and Course turned to address Kyr head-on.

“Give me two minutes.”

Kyr’s visor tilted toward the ledges, and Course knew he was on the lookout for more bugs. “Hurry.”

There’s not really much I can do to speed the process up, Course thought dryly as their unit moved to block the wounded clone from any new avenue of attack. Nonetheless, he leaned over the clone.

“Break’s over,” he said bluntly. “As soon as you’re up we can get you back to your unit.”

“What… Where…?”

A flash of annoyance flickered through Course, and he tried his best to smother it. It was reasonable that a trooper would be confused after such an atypical experience. It wasn’t his fault he’d hit his head. Probably.

“A Geo dropped you down onto my squad. We’re gonna get you back up to yours.”

“Oh.” The other clone pushed himself into a sitting position, crest waving like a flag as he looked around to try and get his bearings back about him.

“Is he up?” Kyr called from where he spoke with 48.

“It hasn’t been two minutes,” Course reminded.

“I’m up,” the clone announced, pushing himself the rest of the way up.

Course sighed, but offered the clone a hand, pulling him to his feet.

“Myth contacted his unit,” Kyr told Course. “They’re sending down their gunner to help bring him back up. We just have to stick around to make sure no Geonosians interrupt their climb.”

The gunner in question just barely peeked over the edge of the east-side ledge, fiddling with something, presumably in preparation to drop down. The ledge wasn’t too tall, maybe six meters, but the wall was sheer, and the Crown-Green unit didn’t have the gear to scale it even if they wanted to. Fortunately, the unit above them seemed to be prepared for this exact situation, and in moments, the heavy gunner was descending.

Course knew that Green Squad alone could probably handle bug-watching, so he didn’t hesitate to use the lapse of downtime to head directly over to Myth and drag him under an overhang to check him over.

“Wh- Course!” Myth yelped, staggering as Course pulled him along. “I’m fine!”

Course ignored him, opting instead to remove Myth’s upper bicep armor with a quick click and pull of the release mechanism. Immediately, the magnets deactivated and the rerebrace fell away from his brother’s arm in two pieces. Course twisted Myth’s arm to better assess the area where a stray bolt had skimmed him earlier that morning during their first big firefight.

Course removed the hastily applied bacta patch from the sliver of blister-bright skin revealed by the incision in the body glove, and Myth’s hiss through clenched teeth told Course that he wasn’t enjoying it. But the bacta did its job, and as Course applied a new one (more careful now that he had the time to dedicate to it, carefully centered so that the bacta-infused center sat flush with the worst of the burn), he grew confident that it would be fully closed by the time all this mess was over.

“Seriously, it was fine,” Myth muttered, his words just barely making it through the vocoder.

“Don’t be a brat,” Course said. “Infection is one of the stupidest ways you could die. I’ve been wanting to fix that patch for hours.”

“We’re supposed to be watching for Geonosians!”

The sound of blasters firing followed immediately by a bright, “Got it!” from their unit made Course raise an unimpressed eyebrow under his helmet even knowing his brother wouldn’t be able to see it.

“I think they’ve got it handled.”

Myth’s visor dropped toward the ground, and for a moment Course considered poking fun at him for being so petulant, but then Kyr ducked into the cover with them.

“Dral’s back with Orbit-Nexu,” he informed. “We need to keep moving.”

Course latched Myth’s rerebrace back on. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Myth echoed absently, already moving back toward the unit the moment his armor was secured.

“Any problems?” Kyr asked, a hint of his Leader Voice peeking in past the otherwise innocuous question.

Course shook his head. “Just took a second to redress Myth’s graze,” he dismissed. “Didn’t have time to do it properly the first time.”

“Good. Let’s get going, then.”

Together, they headed back toward the unit, where 48 was giving Myth a dramatic retelling of what Course guessed would be the Geo kill that he had just performed.

“—hit it right in the wing, it went spiraling, and I—”

“Alright soldiers,” Kyr interrupted, “break’s over. We’ve still got a rendezvous to make.”

48 threw his head back, clearly personally targeted, but he moved with the rest of them to get back into formation. Kyr and Punch side-by-side in the lead, followed by Myth and Push, then Course and Pinch, Pull and Punt, and 48 on his own at the rear of the group. Comfortable. Familiar. Protocol.

Technically speaking, it was protocol to have infantry at the rear to prevent any specialists from getting attacked from behind. Course knew that 48 specifically got put in that slot to prevent him from getting sidetracked trying to talk to the person beside him, but it felt like a bigger risk that he would get a bright idea and leave the formation, and then none of them would notice until he was already gone. Kyr clearly had more faith in him than Course did.

“8ball is heading back our way,” Kyr announced over local comms as they continued the trek through the dusty canyon. “He says it should be a clear shot to the landing field.”

Kyr did his best to conceal his apprehension, but unfortunately, Course was also familiar with their brother. Just because 8ball thought the path was clear, that didn’t mean that it was by anyone else’s standards.

And, as the Crown-Green unit caught sight of their scout dashing back toward them, a small horde of B1s trailing behind him, Course’s skepticism was rewarded.

Their helmet comms crackled as 8ball connected to the local frequency. “Hey guys! Help!”

Blaster bolts filled the air between the two parties, and in a frankly impressively short moment 8ball found himself barreling into their formation at top speed. He did not slow down once he got past the leads, and Myth and Push jerked to either side to avoid getting run over. Beside Course, Pinch moved to the right. So did Course.

8ball scrambled to slow down in the two meters he had to realize Course was stepping into his path, sending up a spray of dust and grit as he tried to hit the brakes. Course braced. 8ball hit him with a loud CLACK, armor colliding with armor, and Course stumbled backwards to keep them both from falling to the ground.

Course gripped his brother by his shoulders and bodily turned him back toward the droids, pushing him a bit to give himself the room needed to raise his own rifle.

48 shoved his way up to be with the two of them, shooting all the while. “Y’know, 8ball, typically you want to shoot the droids that are shooting at you.”

8ball snarled something distinctly offensive as he fumbled to equip his rifle with its sniper extension.

“Focus,” Course snapped at the both of them. “This isn’t a sim.”

48 straightened up theatrically. “Yes sir, medic sir!”

Course scowled, but 8ball laughed and began lining up his shots.

“What happened to ‘clear’?” Kyr demanded over their comm.

8ball fired off a shot, and Course watched a clanker fall bodily into its neighbor. “I said ‘pretty clear’! And it is! Once we get past these guys.”

There was a laugh from someone in Green Squad at that, and in front of Course, Punch shook his head in the resigned sort of way that most sane individuals did after more than ten minutes alone with Crown Squad. Course would know it. He did it daily.

“Charge primed!” Punt announced behind them, and the unit scattered like clockwork while the ordnance specialist readied his shot. In an instant, the path cleared, and the explosive was flying through the air toward the unit of droids.

Even from the moderate distance between the groups, Course could hear the cartoonish, “uh oh” that came from at least three separate droids when the explosive rolled neatly into the center of the group. The explosion itself was quick and controlled, enough to fill the comm channel with brief feedback from the sheer number of open lines, but not enough to shake the walls of the cliffs on either side of them.

“Nice shot,” Kyr complimented, lowering his gun now that the threat was neutralized. “8ball?”

8ball flitted to the front of the unit. “Yes?”

“What the hell was that?”

“Well, I snuck by them really easily on the first trip,” the scout started, “but then on the way back they’d decided to get in the way and I couldn’t get back without getting their attention, and it’d take too long to deal with them alone, and I knew the SBDs would be too slow to follow all the way back to the group so I thought—”

“Supers?” Punch interrupted, head jolting back the way that 8ball had come and half-lifting his Z-6 like he expected a Super to appear dramatically out of the dust, summoned by the very mention.

“It’s just the Supers now,” 8ball said, a bit defensive now at the tone of the other squad leader. “That’s why I said it was ‘pretty’ clear. It was just two squads of B1s and the SBDs. That’s nothing.”

Kyr went quiet, head tilting, and Course knew he was trying to be patient.

“How many SBDs?” Course asked, shooting a glance towards Kyr that hopefully conveyed it happened, cope.

“Just two,” 8ball said, and the tension drained out of Kyr’s shoulders.

“Alright, that’s workable.” Kyr glanced toward Punch, then Punt. “Do you have enough ordnance to deal with both of them?”

Technically they all had some ordnance, but Kyr would be trying to keep them all as armed as possible for as long as possible, so taking care of these Supers would fall primarily on Punt.

“Easily,” Punt said, waving him off. “Leave the clankers to me.”

“8ball, I want you to be with him,” Kyr said. “You know the drill with B2s. See if you can’t get their plating to crumble before Punt takes his shot.”

Punch examined the group. “It might be useful to have 48 with them, too. I know he knows his way around a grenade, if it comes down to it.”

48 lit up even through the thick layers of armor, practically glowing under the plastoid. “Happily, sir.”

Kyr shot Punch a look, then 48. “It’s not a bad idea,” he permitted. “You three will head in. Course, I want you with them. The rest of us will be behind you to prevent a flank.”

Course wanted to argue against that. It made more sense to keep the medic with the bigger chunk of the group, especially when the men taking point would be ideally staying out of range of the B2s. But it wasn’t his job to question the order, and if Kyr was the one giving it, he’d follow it. Hopefully the rest of the unit would be staying close enough to them that it wouldn’t matter in the end anyway.

“Alright,” he said. At least if he went, he’d be able to stop 8ball and 48 from doing something inadvisable. He didn’t trust Punt to do as much.

Kyr grasped Course by the vambrace and tapped their helmets together for a few short seconds. “Good luck.”

Bastard. “You’re better off telling that to 8ball.”

An amused huff crackled through Kyr’s vocoder, and he gave Course one last pat to the back before moving to give 8ball and 48 the same treatment. The second Kyr stepped away from him, Myth fluttered up to Course.

“SBDs are slow but they hit hard,” Myth blurted. Then, all in the same breath, “Their plating is blast proof but there are weak points at the edges of each plate that if targeted can cause the internal components to be exposed and leave them more susceptible—”

Course shook his head. “Myth. We’ve got it. You focus on keeping the Geos away from us, we’ll worry about the Supers.”

Myth hovered a second longer, arms moving in little aborted jerks like he had more to say, before his head snapped into a nod and he hurried back toward Push and Pull.

An arm slung itself around Course’s shoulders and he tensed, turning his helmet and nearly clacking his helmet against 48’s.

“So… Babysitting duty,” 48 dragged out.

Course blinked slowly. “Yes. Babysitting you.”

“Kyr’s mad at 8ball right now, not me,” 48 dismissed. “You’re babysitting him.”

“You broke formation. He’s mad at both of you.”

“Yeah, but I only broke formation. 8ball’s doing 8ball-level stupid shit. He takes the lead.”

“Alright Crowns,” Punt sighed, pushing himself into their little bubble and grabbing 48 by the strap of his armor. “Let’s go blow up some B2s.”

They steered toward 8ball and, having collected their last stray teammate, set out into the valley that 8ball had scouted.

8ball darted to take point. “They should still be pretty far in, the big ones don’t do well with uphill slopes, if they even bothered chasing.”

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Punt asked, glancing around the steepening cliffs with a wariness that you couldn’t help but gain after having one too many Geonosians appear out of nowhere.

“There’s a gap between the cliffs that we need to go through to get to the landing zone,” 8ball said. “But a little bit before that there’s this place where a bunch of these mountain passes meet at a sort of crossroads. The droids were down the left one when I passed the first time. It’s only a few minutes out. I was thinking we could scale one of the ledges that overlook it and take pot shots from there.”

Course breathed an impatient sigh. “Coordinates, 8ball.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sending them now.”

A ping on the corner of his HUD appeared, and Course accepted it to update his local map with a location marker.

“We should probably start climbing now,” 8ball considered. “It’ll just get steeper the further in we go.”

Nobody was going to argue with a scout about local topography, so they began to painstakingly increase the distance between themselves and the ground, following 8ball as he made occasionally precarious hops between the cliffside’s sporadic footholds. Course’s only regret was that he wouldn’t get to watch the rest of their unit attempt the journey.

Course trailed behind the three of them, focusing his attention on the cliffs around them more than the conversation going on over their comms. Any sudden shadow made by the clouds drifting above them could be a Geonosian gunning for them, if not for the undisturbed quiet of the canyon. Geos typically didn’t run at them, though. All of the ones that Course had encountered thus far flew, and their wings made a distinct droning buzz that had reminded him of the insects they studied in their flash training modules—they hadn’t included audio, but the description couldn’t be like anything else. The Geos were presumably louder than a traditionally sized insect, but so far, he hadn’t run across one to compare them with.

“What do you think, Course?” 48 prompted suddenly over their comm. They were on relatively flat ground, now, and his brother peered over his shoulder back at him.

Course did not know what the topic was, but given the clones present, he didn’t think it mattered very much. He fixed his visor on 48 and stared wordlessly.

“See? I told you Course would agree with me,” 8ball bragged. “Your idea is stupid anyway. There’s no way that you’d be able to—”

Course rolled his eyes. “Stay on task.”

8ball sighed, but if he kept talking, it happened on a comm frequency that didn’t include Course, which was really all he could ask for.

They made it to the overlook in good time. Kyr would be glad, given that their rendezvous was supposed to be in twenty-two minutes and they were already pushing it. 8ball made quick work of dropping to his stomach and propping his sniper while 48 stooped to help Punt arm the grenades.

“Told you. I think they might be stuck,” 8ball crackled through the comm.

Course glanced over the ledge to get an idea of the scene and saw that, as 8ball had suggested earlier, the so-called “super” battle droids did indeed seem to be stuck at the bottom of a fifty-degree slope. Course struggled to think of too many other reasons the droids wouldn’t have gone to reinforce the B1s’ attack.

“Either that or they’re guarding the pass,” 8ball continued idly. “That’s the way we need to go. You need to make sure that you don’t blow up the entrance or I’m gonna have to find a new route and then we’re really gonna be late.”

Course looked past the SBDs and saw what 8ball must be referring to. Half blocked by the hulking frames of the supers was a crack in the cliff face. A clone could probably fit, if they took their time and entered sideways, but an SBD had no hope. Course just hoped that the rest of the pass widened out, if that’s the way they’d be having to go soon.

“Alright,” Course said. “Get to work.”

“Yeah? And what’re you gonna do, watch us?” 48 demanded.

Course knew intrinsically that 48 just wanted to get a rise out of him, but he couldn’t help the slight air of annoyance as he said, “I’m going to watch your six so you don’t get ambushed. Hurry up.”

48 laughed as Course turned and stepped away to watch their flank. Course never did understand the carelessness of his brothers, but he wouldn’t be wasting the time trying to figure it out now of all times.

He was aware, vaguely, of Punt and 8ball coordinating their attack a solid few meters away, but Course examined the rocky ledges above and below them. This planet had an eerie atmosphere— eerie in the way that it seemed to house enemies that could appear or disappear in a moment. On the gunship down, Myth had rattled off a hundred different facts about the planet’s geography, but the one that Course remembered most clearly was that the Geonosians lived primarily under the surface, in dingy caves and tunnels. It made sense, if you wanted to avoid the glaring heat of the Geonosian sun, but it also meant that Course could never be sure that a shadow was just a shadow. The natural texture of the cliffs meant that there could be a tunnel mouth hiding just out of view at any point, and none of them would know any better.

“Ready?” 8ball asked.

Punt’s comm crackled as he spoke. “Go.”

A deafening crack shattered the quiet as 8ball took his first shot, followed quickly by a second. Course looked over just long enough to see Punt lobbing his first explosive down at the droids, a muffled blast following just seconds after.

“One damaged, one staggered,” 48 reported through their local helmet comm. “Eighty, target the one by the wall. Punt, the other one should be easy to finish off, its hull’s warping—”

Another crack as 8ball fired his sniper rifle, but Course didn’t look to see if it hit. Punt said something about the SBDs below, loud in Course’s ears as he fumbled to mute the incoming audio. A high pitched droning echoed in the walls of the canyon, quickly growing louder as its source approached. Where was it coming from?

“Course!”

That wasn’t over the comms, and Course didn’t have time to identify which brother had called out to him before unyielding hands grabbed him and hoisted him into the air.

Course had been trained for a lot of things. Impromptu, uncontrolled flight was one of them, actually, but it had always been in the context of jetkits, not flying enemies. He couldn’t cut the fuel line or unlatch this carrier from his armor. He couldn’t even complete a fraction of a twist, due to the hold the bug had him in, so wriggling his way out didn’t look likely. The droning from before now rattled his skull as the ground shrank underneath him, and he couldn’t hope to hear his brothers even if they somehow knew what to do in this situation—Myth would, but he wasn’t here either way. Course was alone.

Plasma bolts flew into the orange rock around him as the others tried to shoot at the bug, occasionally accompanied by the resounding crack of 8ball’s sniper, but either Course had been picked up by a master of evasion, or they were too afraid of shooting him instead of it. He’d love to tell them to just commit, because he’d much rather die getting shot than by whatever this thing had planned for him. The sound of rushing air muffled the shouts coming from below him, and as Course craned his neck to peer down, he realized that his window for surviving getting away from this bug was closing rapidly. Damned if you do…

Course would take death by falling over a secondary location any day. With that thought in mind, he ducked his chin as close to his chest as he could manage and slammed his head back into his captor with all his strength. He doubted he’d hit it anywhere important—the bugs that were big enough to carry a clone trooper had eerily long torsos—but between the barrage of blaster bolts and the headbutt, the bug loosened its grip enough for Course to jerk halfway out of its hold. The two of them dipped in the air for a moment as the Geonosian fought to maintain its grip on him, but with one arm free, Course was free to wretch the medical scissors out of his belt and stab at the bug until it gave up and dropped him completely.

Hurtling toward the ground was louder than heading up; the rushing air was familiar, and the absence of insectoid wings was more than made up for by the blood that roared in his ears. Somehow, both of those constants disappeared to highlight the sound his armor made as he skimmed the rock wall of the canyon. Course wasn’t sure if it would have been enough to slow his speed, but he had no time to run calculations. If he’d been thinking, he would have counted how long it took him to fall. It would give him an idea of how he should go about treating himself, should he survive the landing.

Unlike the first collision, Course did not hear himself hitting the ground. He could tell you how he landed—feet first, and then crumpling forward onto frantically-outstretched arms—but nothing else. He must have blacked out for a moment, perhaps upon impact? One minute he was falling, the next, he was flat on the ground. He knew how it happened but would be hard-pressed to describe it in any detail.

Sound filtered slowly back in through his helmet. Fuzzy voices of panicked brothers, indistinguishable without focus that he did not have. No more blaster-fire, no explosions, nothing to suggest they were still in danger. He found himself still on his front. The others must have caught up, because Myth or Pull would be the only ones with enough sense through the chaos to tell the others not to turn Course over in case of injury to the spine.

Course ignored the voices for a moment to focus deeply on the feel of his legs. They were in sharp, searing agony, which was nice. It meant that at the very least, he probably wasn’t paralyzed. His arms, too, ached, though not nearly as badly. But he survived, somehow, and although the realization slowly dawned that he hurt all over—no doubt from the events of the entire day, not just his impromptu flight—there was little more he could ask for.

Someone’s arm jostling his shoulder drew him out of himself, and a small sound of discomfort left him at the disruption.

“Course?” Kyr’s Leader Voice, unmistakably, which could only mean that he’d terrified his brother. “Can you hear me, vod?”

Course closed his eyes for a second. Can’t even fall out of the sky without having to do everything on his terms, he thought bitterly. He knew that was uncharitable. He also figured he was more than entitled to a little bit of a bad attitude, at that moment. He took a moment to brace himself. “… Yes.”

A chorus of identical voices broke out, quickly hushed, before Kyr spoke again. “What’s your status?”

Status? Course thought, astonished. That was… an unbelievable ask. He knew, logically, that Kyr falling back on protocol helped him to hold onto some sense of normalcy. His brother was definitely, certainly, very deeply concerned about Course. It still pissed him off. “… Blunt force trauma to the legs. Extensive. Probable minor damage to arms and skull,” he droned. “Recommended course of action is to administer one stim cannister to each leg and continue to the rendezvous.”

The chatter picked up again, and nobody shushed it this time.

“What?” Kyr demanded, pitch increasing in fractions. “You just broke both of your legs. You are not getting a stim and a pat on the back.”

“Protocol says I do.”

“This is an exception,” the Leader-Voice intoned, back in full-force and leaving no room for debate. “We’ve got seventeen minutes to get to the rendezvous. We can’t have you hobbling along behind us slowing us down. I’ll carry you.”

Course’s eyes shot open. “No, you won’t,” he argued, his normally flat tone lilting up with frustration and incredulity. “If you’d just administer the stim, I will be up faster than it will take you to figure out how to get me through that opening.”

“We’ll give you the stim and you can get through the narrowest part of the path,” Kyr agreed, “but once we can, I’m carrying you.”

“That is not protocol,” Course snarled, anger simmering up from his stomach.

“It’ll be faster.” Kyr’s voice held no concern for any potential breach in protocol. “The most important thing is that we make it to our rendezvous. How we get there isn’t so important.”

Course took a moment to process. If Kyr truly refused to relent on this… “Then I’ll be noting your disregard for protocol in my report.”

The quiet murmur of their other brothers cut out suddenly. Nobody said anything for a few long moments. A hesitant voice—who had to be either Myth or Pinch—was the next to speak.

“It’s really not worth it, Kyr. As long as we move now, we can still make it—”

“Write me up, then,” Kyr interrupted, ignoring the input entirely. His words grew sharper, edged in frustration. “I don’t care. I’m not having you walk on broken legs the entire way.”

He did not wait for a response, immediately injecting stim into the gaps between Course’s leg plates. Course supposed Kyr had spent the duration of the argument rummaging through Course’s med kit. A third, unexpected jab at the top of the neck startled Course, and he flinched away from it.

“I don’t trust that you didn’t hurt your back.” Kyr’s voice wasn’t so sharp now, perhaps in apology for the unwarranted extra shot.

Course did not grace him with any further reaction, instead rolling to his side and pushing himself upright. He ignored the influx of brothers at his every side, jerking to his feet with gritted teeth. Every pound of weight he put onto his legs sent screaming agony directly through his lower half, but he would not be encouraging Kyr’s disregard for regulation by doing anything other than breathe through it.

Kyr finally seemed to understand that he wouldn’t be getting acceptance out of Course today. “48, take point with 8ball.” Kyr continued to instruct the unit how they would proceed, fully ignoring the Green Squad Lead two meters away from him.

To Punch’s merit, he said nothing. He looked Course over and gave him a small nod as Kyr did his job for him. Course wondered how he just decided to let it go. Course wasn’t a squad lead. Wasn’t even kind of an officer, in any sense, other than being a medic, and even that being dismissed for what Kyr wanted to do was rage inducing. He couldn’t imagine spending his entire life being trained to lead others and then having some hard-headed ass swoop in and take that away from him.

They progressed to the ground level in a very nontraditional huddle of plastoid, half of them pointing their guns at every shadow on the rocks and the other half hovering around Course like he could turn to dust at any moment. If Course could focus on anything other than the amount of pain he was in, he was sure he’d tell them off so badly they wouldn’t ever look at him twice again.

The charred heaps of scrap that were once Super Battle Droids lay just in front of the narrow crevice that their unit would have to squeeze through. If Course was lucky, it would stay that narrow long enough for Kyr to drop the subject of carrying him.

Course glanced to 8ball. The scout inspected his sniper, uncharacteristically quiet, while 48 spoke lowly by the audio receptor of his helmet. What they were talking about, Course couldn’t say, but after a moment, 8ball nodded and pushed toward the front of the group to take point as previously instructed. He turned to the side and squeezed into the gap between the cliffs. A few steps in, he turned to face the unit again, waving cheerily.

48 went next, followed by half of Green Squad. There was a brief moment of concern where Punch nearly got his Z-6 stuck going through, but with a little pulling by 48, both clone and gun were in.

Kyr gestured Course to go first. Course assumed it was so that he could breathe down his neck the entire time, but bitterly followed the given instruction. Kyr followed close after. Blessedly, he did not attempt to hoist Course over his shoulder the moment they could walk straight.

Once the entire unit was confirmed to be in the passage, they began to make their trek. According to Course’s comm, they had approximately ten minutes before they were late for the rendezvous. Despite himself, anxiety began to bloom in the pit of Course’s stomach. The hard part of this deployment had already concluded—a brief firefight with Geonosian ground forces while the command class troopers and commandos knocked out the big stuff—and the only thing left was to show up on time. What would happen to them if they failed to do something as simple as that?

He knew the others had to be feeling the same stress. Some of his brothers knew how to hide it better than others—he was pretty sure if Myth looked over his shoulder one more time, his neck would break—but every one of their lives hinged on a good combat report. Failure to do the one part of the mission that required them to think on their own feet wouldn’t look good. If they were lucky, they might end up somewhere nice and boring. If they weren’t—well, you don’t send your best troopers to fight on the front lines of losing battles. Maybe the Kaminoans would find the bleakest battle possible and deploy them there as cannon fodder.

About a minute later, the passage widened further, allowing them to pull up into a traditional two-lined formation lead by 8ball and 48 side-by-side. It was then that Kyr walked around Course and blocked his path.

Course fixed his T-visor on his brother. Kyr’s emotionless helmet peered back. He was sure both of them had their jaws set, could almost see the annoyed scowl Kyr must be wearing. He knew all of their faces well, but he knew Kyr’s micro expressions better than anyone else.

Kyr didn’t seem eager to prolong their standoff any more than Course was. “You can let me carry you, or I will wrangle you into a hold.”

Unspoken: we don’t have time for this. Course knew that. At least Kyr didn’t feel the need to spell that one out for him.

Course said nothing for a moment. Reflected on the situation as a whole. Remembered the unspoken message he gave Kyr not an hour before—it happened, cope. He took a breath.

“It will be going in the medical report.”

“Fine by me.”

The air cleared suddenly. Course hadn’t realized it had ever thickened, but he felt it then.

Everyone else had expected him to cause a scene about it. They were waiting for him to dig his heels in and start an argument. Maybe because that’s what most of his batchmates would’ve done. Hell, if Kyr and Course were to trade positions, it was likely what Kyr himself would do. Maybe if they had any more time, Course wouldn’t let it fly so soon, but he knew that they didn’t have time to argue about it any more than they already had. So he let Kyr heft him over one shoulder.

Every step Kyr took, Course seethed. Not only was this a humiliating position to be in, but it was entirely unnecessary. Course had personally told Kyr of how every metric said they should proceed, and Kyr ignored him at every turn. The fact that he had gotten into this situation at all in the first place was ridiculous. There was no reason to send him on the team against the SBDs, except for that Kyr wanted supervision for the squadmates that he felt unable to trust with such a task. Which was stupid, given that all three had stayed on task just fine. Apparently, they even managed to take out the SBDs while trying to recover Course from the grips of the Geonosian. Punch should have been the one to go with 8ball, 48, and Punt. A heavy gunner would not only be helpful against the SBDs, but he would have stood a much better chance at deterring an oversized bug from trying to make off with a clone.

Anger rolled steadily through Course’s chest by the time they got to the rendezvous—with three minutes to spare, maybe Course had had some room to argue. Kyr set Course down just before they were swamped by other troopers. How kind of him. A company’s worth of clones milled about, a sea of shiny white plastoid ever-shifting as everyone tried to keep organized and stay with their squad while boarding the dropships meant to take them back to transport.

Kyr continued instructing their unit like he was the only one who knew what to do. Course listened as a formality, then turned to head toward the transport with their assigned number. They’d all read the brief—not just Kyr.

The troopers managing the transports gave him a nod as he limped up to the open door. Course couldn’t identify them, assuming he’d ever met them, but he did pity them a bit. Administrative tasks like they were doing weren’t the most impressive on a combat report. Might land them a title, but it’d be a title on some low-level base, given they weren’t command-class. It wasn’t the worst thing Course could imagine happening to a clone, but to many, it was world-ending.

Maybe clones were dramatic by nature, and it skipped a generation with him?

The rest of the unit piled into the transport, Greens brushing elbows with Crowns, and in minutes the ship was humming to life. Back to Kamino.

Course looked forward to his report.

-- -- -- --

Tumblr formatting is agonizing but I will learn it. Anything for my boys.

Chapter 2 can be found here

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vyingeyes · 2 days

Text

Project Crown - 2 - Recovery

Myth’s favorite place in Tipoca City had to be their barracks. The stark white tiles might freeze bare feet and blind unsuspecting eyes from time to time, but they were consistent. Quiet peace compensated for the lack of privacy that came from being bunked with other squads, and a sleep pod was about the closest thing any of them had to a personal space.

Myth’s least favorite place had to be the hangar. The only experience he had with it was during storms, so he had only ever seen the metal floor slick and hazardous. Freezing sheets of rain blew in from the open bay doors, and the chaos of everyone running around trying to get sorted sent him into a tizzy of his own. It probably didn’t help that every time ended up in the hangar, it was due to a situation that did nothing except cause him stress. It didn’t matter that there were other, less-severe places in Tipoca that he was subjected to more frequently—the hangar was just worse.

“When we touch down, I want 48 and 8ball to help Course to medical. Myth, with me.”

The transport ship rocked ominously in the gale of the storm as Kyr gave them their instructions. Myth found himself relaxing despite it. If he was with Kyr, that meant he’d probably be doing something administrative. Helping with the combat report, maybe, or recounting inventory and expended supplies. No matter what, it would almost certainly be better than a trip to the medical bay.

8ball seemed to think the same. “I’m sure 48 could take Course alone,” the scout implored. “Or, hell, Course could probably get to the medbay on his own?” He inched a bit closer to Myth.

Kyr fixed a tired glare on 8ball. “No. You were both there when Course got hurt, you’re responsible for making sure he gets helped.”

8ball bristled immediately. “He was supposed to be the one watching for bugs! I was shooting an SBD—and so was 48! You can’t just put us on babysitting duty because you’re mad you didn’t do anything to stop Course from—”

“He can.” Course’s voice cut in flatly, immediately shutting 8ball up. “He is squad lead, and he tells you what you do, where, and when.”

Blood buzzed in Myth’s ears at the undercurrent of anger in Course’s voice. Course was… not frightening. None of his brothers were frightening. But Myth hated conflict on a good day, and today… hadn’t been a good day. And Course was never the one to start a conflict. He was the closest thing they had to a mediator—the only one that could ever hope to redirect Kyr—and hearing him with that barely concealed hint of something boiling under the surface did frighten Myth.

“—miserable existence! Ooh, wow, he’s got a fancy title! He’s still got the same brain as any of us!”

Uh oh. Myth missed the first half of that, but it didn’t take an information analyst to see that 8ball wasn’t responding well to Course’s attempt at grace. His mouth opened uncertainly, but he quickly shut it as 48 began to speak.

“Shut up, man.” Myth could hear the rolling eyes, even if his brother still wore his helmet—48 was not impressed. “It’s been a long day already. Do you have to do this right now?”

It was as close to defending Kyr as 48 would get right now. Probably more for Course than anyone else, but Myth doubted any of them were enjoying this argument. Green Squad, silent backdrops in the dim transport, made no attempt to intrude on this display. Pull and Push shared a look, and Myth’s stomach dropped.

“It won’t take too long,” Myth blurted. “If you just get out of the ship as quickly as you can and go directly to the medical bay—you probably wouldn’t even have to stay to explain the situation to the medical droids, Course is awake, and it isn’t like there’ll be any trainers looking to cause problems right now with everything going on—”

“You’re stressing Myth out,” 48 interjected, annoyance growing. “Just suck it up.”

8ball elbowed 48 in retort, but he turned to glance at Myth, eyes searching for a moment. “… Fine. I’ll do the thing that nobody involved thinks is necessary to satisfy Kyr’s ego—but I’m not doing it because you told me to,” he directed at Kyr, an accusing finger tapping the squad leader on the chest.

Kyr did not respond. Probably for the best. He was probably seething—he had a temper just as bad as 8ball, but he was usually a little better at handling it. Plus, it was typically reserved for just 8ball and 48. Myth and Course got a little more lenience from him—except for when one of them had two broken limbs and tried to argue against being helped, apparently? That was a new development, and he’d have to take it into account. Myth couldn’t remember Kyr ever blatantly disregarding protocol like that before, and it concerned him, but Myth hoped that they could convince Course to at least be a little kinder to Kyr in the medical report than he’d been in the canyon.

The transport shuddered as it landed in the hangar, jolting Myth out of his thoughts. Kyr put a hand on his back while Punch and Punt slid the transport door open. All ten troopers immediately poured out of the cramped space, more than eager to get away from the stifling air they’d been stuck in.

Kyr set a steady hand on Myth’s shoulder to both ground him and guide him through the cacophonous hangar. Myth glued himself to Kyr’s side, not eager to get nudged or shoved by any clone that didn’t put much stock in the idea of personal space. One of the best parts about being placed with Kyr was that he had a certain way of walking that made other people move out of his path. Even when he had full kit, just the set of his shoulders and the weight with which he stepped had even the brothers that didn’t know him scrambling to make space. In another life, he would have been a CC. Maybe even an RC. Myth didn’t like to think in “could-have-been”s, but that was one thought he couldn’t help but sit with sometimes.

People steered clear of Kyr because he was intimidating, in-control, and good at what he did. People avoided Myth because he talked too much and never gave a straight answer.

… It wasn’t quite the same.

“I want you to help me with this report,” Kyr said in the quiet of the sterile white halls, voice as steady and confident as always. Only the barely perceptible swivel of his head (searching for eavesdroppers?) told Myth why he wanted help.

“Do you think Course will really put your protocol breach in his report?” Myth couldn’t help but ask. He wanted to backtrack immediately, nervous about speaking it into being. “I mean, he wouldn’t, right? That would hurt all our chances at a decent placement. He was bluffing to get you to back off.”

Kyr didn’t answer immediately, steering Myth into the cafeteria. Not many troopers had found it in them to eat yet, so the usual chatter was a pleasant murmur. They got in line, Kyr ahead of Myth. Myth didn’t comment on Kyr filling his tray for him.

Kyr took him toward the far wall, leaving a couple tables of buffer for any incoming troopers who preferred to hug the wall outright, and they sat together at a round table. It was only once Myth took the first bite of his meal that Kyr answered his question.

“He said he would, so he will. He might let 48 talk him into being a little forgiving about it, but he won’t go back on the threat.”

Anxiety burst through Myth’s chest, freezing tendrils wrapping around his heart. He tapped his foot on the metal leg of the table. If one of the biggest outliers of their performance in their reports was that Kyr had ignored protocol, they would be lucky to get a placement at all. The idea of the Kaminoans reading that, deciding they wouldn’t get deployed after all, and putting them back in training popped into his head and refused to leave. They could hold them back. Use them as an example to any of the ninth-cycle cadets getting too big for their helmets. Or they could recondition Kyr and send them all to a moon where he'd never get the opportunity to break protocol ever again, even if he wanted to.

“Myth. Myth! Hey.” The warmth of Kyr’s hand between his arm plates snapped Myth out of his thoughts and reminded him painfully that he had been shot earlier. “We can make it work. That’s why I want your help. There’s a reason they use us instead of droids.” His voice dropped a bit, careful not to be overheard in the relative quiet of the mess. “If I can give a really good reason why I didn’t listen to Course, we’ll be fine.”

He wanted to wave it away. If they could justify the decision effectively enough, Kyr’s hardheaded decision could prove the benefit of using clones, not the drawbacks. It could work. It could at least keep them away from the attention of the wrong people.

“Okay. Okay. You—have you started the report? I can help.”

Kyr exhaled, and Myth watched the crease between his eyebrows relax as he removed his hand from Myth’s arm to take another bite of his food. “I did inventory and expended resources on the transport. Finished everything up to the… attack, on the way into atmo. Once you’ve eaten, we can head to the barracks and finish it. I need to submit this—soon. I got an alert when we landed that they’re reviewing and assigning us ASAP.”

Another quick bolt of anxiety raced through Myth. “Already?” He set his spoon down. “I don’t—we don’t have to eat. We can work on it now.”

“No. Eat your food.” Kyr nodded at Myth’s tray. “You’ve had a long day, and you barely ate before we left.”

Myth stared at his nutrient mush, mouth suddenly dry. “… It’s really fine. I’d rather get the report out of the way.”

Kyr sighed, and Myth shrank back a bit. “How about this. You eat, and I’ll start working on it. I’ll ask you for your help as I need it.”

“… Okay.”

The mush did not grow any more appetizing as Kyr put on his helmet and started tapping at his bracer. Myth knew he was looking at the report draft, but between the emotionless visor and the rapid typing, he exuded an aura of annoyance that did nothing to ease Myth’s discomfort.

He began poking at the mush. Really, it wasn’t appetizing on a good day—not since they’d changed its consistency. Where before you could at least pretend to chew it, the new mush was almost slimy. It made the exact same taste seem vastly less appealing.

When they’d originally made the change, Myth hadn’t been able to stomach it. He’d tried—really, really tried, but he couldn’t manage to eat more than a bite at each meal before his rolling stomach stopped him. He’d given his portions to 8ball for a week before his body started to get too weak for their squad training. Despite the physical issues, the real catalyst that had forced him to start eating again had been his specialty track scores. The brain fog that came over him had resulted in him getting the worst scores he’s pretty sure any information analyst had ever gotten. He never scored great—he could never settle on a single strategy, and the trainers never let him forget it—but the threat of detracking looming over him was more than enough to make him push through the nausea.

He'd gotten used to it. Eventually. Staring at the goop now brought him memories of the way he threw up the entire meal the first time he’d managed to make himself eat all of it. Not fun memories. He’d gotten odd stares from all the other squads in the mess, and more than a couple cadets had laughed at him. He’d been dragged off to the medbay by a droid and poked and prodded for an hour before it declared that he must have eaten too quickly and sent him back on his way with a ration bar, since he didn’t have time to go back for a new meal before his squad training.

Myth took a deep breath, studying the glint of the overhead lights on the mush. “You sent Course with 48, 8ball, and Punt because Course has the highest scores in close-range fighting and the position of the SBDs at the intersection of the passes meant he’d be best positioned on the frontlines.”

Kyr didn’t have the audacity to pretend he’d originally had a good reason to send Course with the smaller group, so he nodded and tapped away accordingly.

Slowly, Myth lifted a small glob of nutrient mush to his mouth, swallowing it quickly. “… Course was ambushed by a Geonosian warrior. He was disarmed and lifted while the others were in the middle of eliminating the SBDs, leaving them unable to help quickly enough to prevent him from being taken. They split their focus between the remaining SBDs and the Geonosian—Punt and Eighty finished off the supers while 48, who was sent as backup, began to shoot at the Geonosian. When the last super went down, they focused all fire on the Geonosian. The increased fire provided enough distraction for Course to extract himself from the hold, and he fell.” Myth paused for a moment.

Kyr didn’t push him, continuing to tap away with increased speed following Myth’s massive information outburst.

Myth breathed in slowly, then out, then took another small bite of his food. In, out, bite. After a third repetition, he spoke again, slowly, but as firmly as he knew how. “Course hit his head against the rocks on the way down. Although he was verbal and cognizant, you did not think him fully aware at the time of his landing.” He paused again, air stalling in his chest until he remembered to breathe. “You expressed concern of Course’s ability to walk quickly enough to the rendezvous point. He only repeated the protocol for broken limbs. Believing him to be concussed and not fully understanding of the extent of the damage to his legs, you followed protocol to deliver stim shots to the affected limbs, as well as to his spinal cord in case of spinal injury and to hopefully alleviate the suspected concussion.”

Kyr nodded slowly, tapping with deliberate intent.

“Following the injections, you carried him through the majority of the mountain pass until you were certain we would make the rendezvous on time with his impeded pace.”

“So, we’re playing up the urgency aspect of it?” Kyr took off his helmet to take a bite of his own food.

“Course likely won’t include the exact timeline in his own report,” Myth reasoned, slowly growing more confident in his words. “His reports are very short. It’ll be something like ‘advised squad lead of protocol but was dismissed’.”

“I almost feel bad for implying he isn’t a reliable source of medical advice,” Kyr muttered dryly.

“For good reason,” Myth said mindlessly. “He’s never given us any reason not to listen to him before.”

Kyr went quiet, picking at his food for another minute before putting his helmet back on and continuing to fill out his report.

Myth made slow work of his mush. With his job fully completed, he wasn’t as anxious, but his hunger had already been spoiled. Not much any of them could do to fix that.

The rest of their squad would have long since made it to the medical wing by then. Myth wondered if he and Kyr would pass 8ball and 48 on the way to their barracks. He was pretty sure both of them had eaten all of their food pre-deployment, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be hungry. But if neither Kyr nor Course hounded them to go get food, would they…?

“Are you not going to finish your food?”

Kyr’s unmodulated voice snapped Myth out of his mind abruptly, and Myth stared as the goop dripped from his spoon back down to his tray. “… I’m really not hungry,” he mumbled.

Kyr sighed, and Myth shrank back a bit. Kyr shook his head. “It’s fine. You ate something, at least…”

Myth pushed the tray away from himself at the—not quite permission, but acceptance. He watched Kyr finish his own food in a couple bites, then stand.

“Well, we may as well go to our barracks,” Kyr said with another sigh. “Our training is cancelled for at least the next day cycle. I’m sure the trainers are trying to figure out what happens now.”

Myth stood with him, wringing his hands a bit as Kyr took both of their trays to disposal. “You submitted your report?” he verified.

“Yeah. It’s getting processed now.”

Shoulders relaxing, Myth found it easier to breathe. If their report was turned in, that meant it would be reviewed shortly. He wondered if Course would even have time to submit his medical report. He hadn’t been looking during the flight; had Course submitted it while they were still on the shuttle? Surely, they wouldn’t make judgements on placement before both reports were in.

Despite himself, Myth’s anxiety began to blossom into anticipation. If their generous take on the events of the day were taken at face value… Well, it wouldn’t look half bad. Only one major injury, 100% survival rate, and they followed instructions to a T.

“Myth.”

Myth startled guiltily, quickly turning to Kyr, who stood waiting for him. To his credit, he didn’t seem like he was actually annoyed with Myth’s spaciness, but the tired look in his eye and the tenseness in his back made Myth still feel like he was only adding on to his squad lead’s stress.

Kyr’s expression softened after a moment, and his next sigh was not nearly as severe as the last several had been. “Let’s go back to our barracks,” he said, voice gentler. “We’ve done our jobs. Now we get to shower and rest.”

Myth faltered for just a moment, then nodded. That nervous anticipation remained, but if Kyr deemed there to be nothing more they could do, then that was that. He stepped in beside Kyr and let himself be herded toward the promising chill of their sleep pods.

The walk itself held no surprises for them, but upon reaching the door to their wing, a small droid sat stationary. As they approached, its eyes lit up—eerie, opaque white windows—and its head swiveled toward them.

“CT-0105-203-0918-01.”

Myth’s eyes widened, and his attention snapped directly to Kyr, who looked as stricken as Myth felt to hear his full identification code spoken at him.

It took Kyr only a moment to recover from the surprise. “That would be me.”

The rest of the droid’s mechanics began to start up. Its boosters activated with a high whir, and it lifted itself a few feet to bring itself level with the clones’ eyes. “CT-0918, you are summoned to briefing room 27-8 to await orders. The rest of your squad may continue their designated recovery period.”

Myth couldn’t help but stare. Kyr’s expression schooled itself in a matter of seconds to something more confident, like he wouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Alright. Are you here to escort me?”

“Affirmative. Follow me.”

Kyr put a warm hand on Myth’s shoulder as the droid began to drift down the hall. “I’ll be back,” he said, promptly following his escort.

Myth stood in the hall for a few seconds after he lost sight of Kyr. Even though Kyr had told him that they would be placed as soon as possible, pulling squad leads to wait for results sounded like a sudden decision. How long before they were given their placement? How closely would the details of their reports be examined, really?

He wandered into the barracks in a daze, oblivious to the bemused glances he received from the other squads as he made his way to the Crown Squad bunks.

48 was the one to jar him out of his muddled state. “Did you hear? We’re going to be placed! Pull heard a nattie saying that the CCs were all reviewing the reports ASAP.”

Myth started to regret eating the caf food, given how much his stomach began to roll. The thought of a CC—a future officer—reviewing their messily spun report made him want to throw up again. What if they realized it was intentionally skewed? What if they pulled the security footage of the caf and realized Kyr asked Myth for help? Myth’s earlier paranoia of reconditioning sprung back to the forefront of his mind. Falsifying official reports wasn’t a light crime. Did this count?

“… hope we go somewhere busy,” he heard 8ball telling 48 from his place in his extended pod.

“Like Coruscant?” 48 asked, dubious. “You wouldn’t find me dead there. If I’m gonna get deployed, I’m gonna be somewhere I can show the clankers who’s the superior soldier. Can’t do that so close to the core.”

“I was thinking more like big warzones. Somewhere I can run around, y’know? Lots of fun angles to catch ‘em off guard.”

48 rolled his eyes. “So you wanna give Course a heart attack? Poor guy spent the whole time on Geonosis hovering over Myth’s graze. He wouldn’t survive somewhere busier.”

Myth realized then that Course wasn’t present. His pod was closed, and the panel suggested it wasn’t occupied. He glanced between 8ball and 48. “Is Course still in medical?” he asked.

48 turned back to him. “Oh. Yeah, apparently his legs are super fucked up. The droid said it wasn’t that big of a deal, but they held him to make sure the injections didn’t get screwed by him walking around.”

Frowning, Myth nodded. That made sense.

“Did you get your graze checked out?” 8ball asked. It wasn’t said accusingly, but it didn’t need to be for Myth’s expression to turn guilty.

“I forgot,” he said. He really had. He hadn’t thought about it at all since Kyr put pressure on it earlier—he’d been quickly distracted by the borderline insubordination they committed.

48 shook his head. “It’s just a graze, and Course treated it anyway. Probably better to wait until the medbay isn’t so busy with the guys who really got injured.”

“Hope you’re ready for Kyr and Course to accept that answer,” 8ball warned. “They’ll be fussing the minute they figure you out.”

Myth moved to their storage bins and started methodically removing his armor. “I’ll go when it isn’t so busy,” he echoed 48. “They’re probably oversaturated with injured by now.”

A passing clone laughed, and Myth froze mid doffing.

“Don’t suppose they could fix your head while you’re there?” Myth did not turn his head, but the unknown brother kept teasing anyway. “Or is your condition terminal?”

“Fuck off, Hud,” 48 ground out. “You’re not any funnier today than you were yesterday. Or the day before that.”

“Just a joke, bud. I know you clowns are delicate, but you gotta lighten up.”

Myth saw 8ball jumping down from his pod from the corner of his eye.

“Yeah? We aren’t the ones that threw up in the dropships. Unless Bingo was misremembering when they told me about that?”

The passing brother—Hud—went quiet for a few seconds before hotly going, “It was motion sickness. We’ve never been in actual ships before, I couldn’t exactly help it.”

48 spoke again, evidently gleeful to learn this piece of gossip. “Delicate stomach, Hud? I didn’t expect that out of you.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Hud’s voice grew fainter, and Myth relaxed as he realized the other clone was walking away. “You guys’re gonna regret that in a year when I’m an officer.”

A hysterical laugh broke out of 48, and he collapsed onto his bunk in sporadic giggles as they were left alone again. “That dumbass? An officer? Over my dead body.”

8ball scoffed in response, walking over and beginning to help Myth remove his armor. “If he can’t even handle a little turbulence, you won’t have to worry about it.”

Myth bit the inside of his cheek, slowly continuing to doff his armor with 8ball’s help.

“I mean,” continued 48, “seriously, good on him for having plans, but really? He’s gotta find some more attainable life goals. Like surviving.”

8ball floated into Myth’s peripheral in the process of unlatching his rerebrace, and Myth watched him raise an eyebrow. “What, like you? Sir ‘I Can Become A Commando, No Really, It’s Entirely Feasible’—”

“It is!” 48 insisted. “Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it won’t.”

Their voices faded out while Myth focused on removing his armor. He couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t upset by the teasing. He never could—he just didn’t know how. 48 always did it without problem. Course and Kyr hardly seemed to blink whenever cruel words ended up being thrown in their direction. 8ball could give it back better than he got it. Why was Myth the only one that always shut down?

The teasing wasn’t even that big of a deal. It wasn’t malicious. Like Hud said, it was a joke.

8ball put a hand around Myth’s wrist, drawing his eyes up.

His brother wasn’t making a deal about it, but Myth could see the concern creased in his brow. “What about you?” 8ball asked, those creases easing a little while he spoke. “What’s your plan? Where would you want us to get sent?”

Myth took a moment to find his words, and when he did any energy from earlier was gone. “… Somewhere with an interesting ecosystem,” he mumbled.

8ball nodded, pulling him toward the ladder to the bunks. “That sounds good. I’d probably have good cover, too.”

“… I want to see different plants and animals.” Myth remembered his modules; he’d always gotten more modules and more in-depth modules than the rest of his squad, as an information analyst, and he remembered how many times he’d come back fawning over the flora and fauna of different planets. He understood more about the different lifeforms of Felucia than he understood about natborns as a whole.

“So definitely not Coruscant,” 48 laughed. “Unless stray tookas and criminal lowlifes count?”

Myth climbed up to his own bunk while 8ball responded.

“I think Course’s the only one who’d actually like us to end up there. Although, Kyr…” 8ball got a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe.”

“It would be them,” 48 complained.

8ball did not climb back up to his bunk, instead sitting cross-legged on the cold metal flooring. “Well, wherever we end up it’s gonna be with Green Squad. I’m pretty sure they’re legally not allowed to separate us, what with Punch being Kyr’s handler.”

48 sighed. “Truly, a masterclass of a soldier. Able to lead without leading… What would we do without him?”

“Get chewed out. Constantly. And maybe killed,” 8ball deadpanned.

Myth weighed the merit of closing his pod. It wasn’t that he disliked his brothers bantering, but his nerves had been fried throughout the course of the past twenty-four hours, and the thought of them talking poorly about their squad lead in the middle of the crowded barracks made him want to smother them with his thin pillow. Best to just not hear it at all.

Despite his misgivings, Myth did not close the pod. Hearing his brothers joke like their world wasn’t changing irrevocably put Myth a little bit more at ease than he would be with his own thoughts, even if the jokes added to his overall stress. The lesser of two evils.

His compromise for this was to zone out. He didn’t have a datapad, which had been left behind in the rush of the first call to Geonosis, so he couldn’t study his modules—which, he hadn’t considered before then, likely would not be continued. If they were deployed, they would have no more time for educational modules. Would they just have to get by with briefings? Would the information analysts have time before engagements to study the terrain and wildlife modules for the planets they were being sent to? They wouldn’t always have time for that.

There were too many unknown variables. Myth couldn’t finish drafting a single plan without it being countered with a potential roadblock he hadn’t ever dreamed of two moments prior.

Myth wasn’t sure how much time had passed between climbing into his bunk and the door to the barracks opening again. The Crown bunks weren’t terribly close, but it didn’t take proximity to figure out that the flood of clones entering were the squad leads. Within moments Kyr approached, fully absorbed in a datapad. A quick glance to Green Squad across the room confirmed that Punch had a matching one. Our orders.

All three present Crowns dropped down to the floor without hesitation.

“Well?” 8ball pressed. “Where are we going? What’s the verdict?”

48 clasped his hands together pleadingly. “Don’t say Coruscant.” he muttered. “Don’t say Coruscant, don’t say Coruscant, don’t say—”

“It isn’t Coruscant!” Kyr snapped, physically swatting at 48 without looking up from the datapad. Then, reading directly from the screen, he said, “Following the Green-Crown Unit’s performance at Geonosis, CTs—well, all of us, I’m not reading that—have been selected for deployment with the 212th Attack Battalion—”

“Led by who?” 8ball pressed.

“Do we get a Jedi?” 48 cut in.

Kyr finally broke eye contact with the datapad to glare at them both. “If you two would shut up for twenty seconds, I would answer those exact questions!”

Both of their mouths snapped shut, too excited at hearing about where they’d ended up to bother being nuisances.

“As I was saying,” Kyr muttered. “Let’s see… deployment with the 212th Attack Battalion of the 7th Sky Corps, lead by High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Commander Anakin Skywalker, alongside Marshal Commander CC-2224—”

48 interrupted again immediately. “2224?”

“Wrong focus,” 8ball shook a hand in 48’s face. “Hello? Who are the Jedi? We get two?”

“Jedi Commanders are Jedi apprentices,” Myth found himself saying. “The High General would be his mentor.”

“Second priority focus,” 8ball said pleasantly, physically covering 48’s mouth when it opened again. “High General? That’s for the corps, obviously. What about the battalion?”

“That is for the battalion.” Myth did a double take, but Kyr’s face stayed deathly serious. “The 212th Battalion’s only listed commanders and general are the same as that for the corps.”

“Surely that must be an error,” Myth muttered.

48 did not seem nearly as bothered as Myth was to learn this. “Oh, Hud is about to hate me.”

Kyr raised an eyebrow, but rather than question it, he said, “Only if he got deployed to the same battalion as us. We ship out first thing in the morning.”

Every new piece of information made Myth’s heart palpitate more sporadically. “First—? But—Course…?”

��The wounded will be transferred to the medical bay of the Star Destroyers,” Kyr said emotionlessly. “From my understanding, we’re being transferred to Coruscant, where our home ships will be designated, and the Jedi briefed.”

48 sighed bodily, but 8ball’s eyes lit up. “This really is just starting, huh?”

“Very suddenly.” Myth’s mouth felt dry.

They’d had ten years and yet no time at all to prepare. Course’s legs were broken. 48 had just barely reached the final stage growth requirements last cycle, and Myth wasn’t any of them had ever passed their exams with anything more than a “Permissible” score. How had they ended up in a High General’s battalion? A Marshal Commander’s battalion?

Something had gone wrong. He couldn’t be more certain, but none of his brothers seemed to be nearly as concerned. The Kaminoans are using us as fodder, his mind whispered traitorously. We’ll all be dead in a month.

An attack battalion of this calibre had to have sandbags to throw at the front lines. That would be the Crowns—and Green Squad, unwitting but unavoidable casualties in the crashing dropship that was the Crown track record.

Myth felt ill.

But looking at his brothers, 48 and 8ball excitedly scheming and dreaming up all of the crazy battles they’d surely see and even Kyr cracking a smile in their beaming presence, Myth couldn’t find it in himself to say any of his thoughts aloud. Instead, silently, he returned to his bunk. He would skip his shower for now.

His brothers noticed his movement, quieting down a bit as he moved, but Myth didn’t bother sitting in his extended pod. Instead, he climbed directly in and closed it, flimsy pillow over his head as though he could still make out any of the words in the barracks beyond. He didn’t think about their odds—or the disaster that had followed them from decanting to deployment. Instead, he recalled the way Course had twisted out of the grasp of that Geonosian. He remembered the excited sound 48 had made when he got his first confirmed kill, and the way 8ball had clapped him and 48 both on the shoulder when the mission was complete, when it was time to move to the rendezvous.

He and his brothers weren’t fodder. They weren’t meat droids, and they weren’t going to die easy. Not after they’d made it as far as they had. In a way, the hard part was over. They’d never had a simple day in their lives, on Kamino. Geonosis… hadn’t ended well. But up until Course got picked up, it was the closest Myth had ever come to feeling like they were doing something really right.

Remembering Green Squad truly put Myth’s racing heart to rest. As long as they had the Greens, they would be fine. Maybe he didn’t have quite enough faith in his own batchmates, but their brothers from Green Squad were needed to temper some of the worse habits of the Crowns. The thought of being deployed without Punch to temper Kyr or Pull to make sense of Myth’s own nonsensical plans was just a bit nauseating.

He remembered Course pulling him aside to repatch his arm, and the way Kyr had insisted on carrying Course out of that canyon. He remembered 8ball’s adrenaline-filled hurtling back to their unit, pursued by a squad of B1s who weren’t prepared for what Green Squad and Crown Squad had in store for them.

They would stick together, and they would survive. They always looked out for one another.

They would be fine.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I still hate web tumblr. Why can't I just insert a line? Why have the gods forsaken us?

Chapter 3 is in an interesting purgatory atm but the accompanying ficlet has been written for literally like 6 months, so there's that.

Chapter 1 (Tumblr)

Chapter 2 Spotify Playlist Here (Spoiler Free, I believe)

AO3 Chapter 2

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