Disclaimer: I do not own the Star Wars universe. It belongs to George Lucas, Disney, and Lucasfilm. I don't own Ventress, General Grievous, or anyone else who has been in Star Wars movies, books, or TV shows. I don't own the planets either! Unfortunatly...
I don't own Sleepsong either, that belongs to Secret Garden.
I do own aaallll of the OC's in this piece tho!
Go gently on the reviews please, this is my first one, but there will be more chapters coming! And maybe one shots!
Kar'taylir Darasuum adol Kyr'am (Love through Death)
"Duke...I-I….kar'taylir darasuum….gar."
Those words are all Duke, the clone Captain of the 51st, can hear as he and his brothers stand around the fire or his commander's pyre. His hands curl into fists as he gazes at the young woman's dead body, his eyes prickling with tears. Tears of anger, grief, and guilt. His brothers watch him with eyes of anger, pity, sadness, grief, and neutral. No one shows tears, through the eyes of every man are misty with unshed tears for their fallen commander. He blinks at them as he looks around and numbly shakes his head no. He knows that they want him to talk about her. He can't, he can't explain, not when her pyre is so close and her death still closer. The fire burns on and when it dies down, all that's left is her ashes, her lightsaber, and a ring. Duke leans down and picks up the ring and puts it in one of his pockets and grabs the lightsaber his commander once used in their defense and put it on his belt. He looks up at the stars and constellations of the planet Dantooine, tears jump in his eyes and he lets out a scream of pain and loss. Sly, the medic of the 51st, rushes over with Spark as Duke screams and falls to his knees.
"Duke!"
They both grasp his shoulders, all they receive as a reply is broken sobs. They look at each other in concern. Sly smiles slightly as he pats Duke's back,
"It's alright, Vod. Hey,"
He looks up,
"You guys remember when she first came to us? As a shiny?"
All three of them laugh.
"Oh yeah. She was a deer in the headlights."
Duke stands on the Venator class cruiser in its hangar deck awaiting the arrival of his new commander. From what he's heard, she is a warrior with a gentle heart towards her men. A ship comes in for a smooth landing. The ramp lowers and a young human female with blonde hair and blue eyes with a few scars on her face walks down the ramp. The girl walks up to him and she is slightly shorter than him. He salutes,
"Commander."
She bows,
"Captain."
He notices the tension around her shoulders as she bows,
"Are you alright, sir?"
She has to tilt her chin up to look at him,
"I am fine, Captain. Just sore from my latest mission with Master Voss."
He can't hold in his snort of laughter,
"Master Voss? Haven't heard that name in awhile. I used to serve with him. Good man, but on the cold side with us clones."
He removes his helmet,
"I'm Captain Duke, by the way sir. Duke works just as well as Captain. Welcome aboard, Sir."
She smiles,
"Call me Marissa."
She extends her hand and he extends his. To his surprise, they are in a warrior's arm grip. He looks at her in confusion. She smirks,
"I was with the 501st before I came here."
He laughs,
"Come on, sir...Marissa."
She nods and walks with him. As they walk, he sees her eyes gradually widen. She bumps into a trooper with a datapad and a cup of caf in hand. He drops both items, but only catches the datapad. Marissa splays her fingers on her right hand as the clone's eyes widen as his caf drops. Time seems to freeze.
"Grab it quickly please. I can't hold this forever."
Both Duke and the other clone turn to look at Marissa. She seems frozen too. The other clone quickly grabs his caf and Marissa lowers her hand, time flows once again. He notices that the commander smiles and apologizes,
"I am soo sorry for bumping into you...um?"
"My name is Sly, sir. Field medic of the 51st. You must be the new commander."
She nods,
"I am. And please, call me Marissa. Nice to meet you Sly."
"Nice meeting you too, command-er, Marissa."
Sly walks away as does Duke and Marissa. Marissa is still wide eyed as they walk.
Sly, Duke, and Spark chuckle. Duke smiles sadly,
"Heh. Yeah, she was like that for the first few days. Until the first mission. Remember that one?"
They nod,
"Yeah,...that took its toll on her afterwards."
A few shinies walk over and sit down them. The way they're sitting means that they want to hear about their fallen commander. Duke smile wavers slightly and takes a deep breath.
Duke watches Marissa deflect and redirect blaster bolts away from them with her purple lightsaber. He finds himself admiring the way she moves. She moves with grace, but when it came down to crunch time, she moves with bit more jerky movements. He shakes his head, telling himself to focus on the fight at hand. He and his men fire frantically into the enemy lines to take out as many droids as they can. They are all shocked when a blaster bolt hits Marissa's hand and sends her lightsaber out of her reach. She looks at them in shock before getting hit by two more blaster bolts, one in the stomach and one in the right shoulder. She stumbles back, then another one hits her in her chest. She crumples to the ground. Duke turns to his men,
"Sly! Go! Spark, Shredder! Go with him! Everyone else, hold the line!"
Everyone of his men nod and does as he says. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Sly quickly assesses the commander while Spark and Shredder cover him. Soon, Shredder is carrying Marissa to the medical tent with Sly walking in front of them and Spark covering them. In a matter of moments, the battle is over. They take off their helmets and look around. Duke turns to them,
"Alright. I want this place cleaned up by five o'hundred hours. I'm going to check on our commander's status."
They nod and get to work. He turns, sharply, on his heel and starts to walk in the direction of the medical tent. He walks in and sees Sly working on Seaweed. Duke walks over and puts a hand on Seaweed's shoulder when he tries to get up,
"Easy, Seaweed. Get some 'll need you at your best when we're back on Kamino."
Seaweed smiles and nods,
"Understood, Duke."
Duke looks at Sly. Sly is covered with dirt and blood and has a tired and worried look on his face. Sly jerks his head and walks away. Duke follows with a concerned look on his face. Sly stops when they reach a quiet part of the medical tent and turns around. Sly has fear in his eyes,
"I don't think she'll make it through the night, Duke. Her wounds are bad, fatal too."
Duke lowers his head and closes his eyes,
"She can't die! We need her!"
"I'm sorry Duke. I can't do anything else. Not here. I could on the ship, but it's too dangerous to move her."
Duke sighs,
"Where is she?"
Sly leads him to the isolation room. In the viewing window, he can see Marissa, otherwise known as their commander, lies on a cot. She has an IV in her left arm, bandages and bacta patches on the three wounds, an oxygen mask on her face, and the monitors she's attached to are showing her vitals are low. Duke's face turns into one of sorrow as he looks at his alling commander's body then looks at Sly,
"Can I...can I see her?"
Sly nods and opens the door. Duke steps into the room and quickly crosses to where she lies. He kneels next to her and takes her right hand in his left and puts his right on her forehead. He stays there forever then Sly comes in,
"Duke, you need to rest."
He nods numbly and gets up and walks to his quarters. He wakes up in the middle of the night to his holocom going off. He reaches over,
"What?"
Sly's panicked voice comes through the transmitter,
"Duke!"
"Sly! What is it?!"
"It's Marissa. She's gotten worse! We need you here now!"
"I'm on my way!"
Duke jumps up and quickly gets his armor on and runs to the medical tent. He comes to where Marissa is and stops dead in his tracks. All of the men of the 51st are standing close to the window. They make a hole for him to see. What he sees is worse than what he imagined. He sees Marissa, their young commander, on her side facing the window coughing up blood. Her wounds still leak blood out and her face is the worst part. Her face is of pure agonizing pain. Duke puts his hand on the window and Marissa looks up. Her lips quirk into a small smile, before she has another coughing fit. Sly opens the door and gestures Duke in. Duke is in before anyone can blink. He crosses over and kneels next to his commander. He rubs her back as she coughs. To his and everyone else's horror, she goes onto her back and just lies there, gasping for breath. Duke puts a hand on her forehead and his eyes close in a grimace. Fever. One of the worst things to have when you're injured. That either means you're sick or you have an infection. Duke keeps his hand on her forehead as she sighs in relief. He grips her hand and brings it to his chest. She looks at him through a pain filled gaze,
"D..Duke?..."
He smiles sadly and nods,
"I'm right here, commander. We got you."
She relaxes into the cot and her eyes slowly slip close and her breathing slows. He mutters,
"K'oyacyi, Marissa."
He keeps holding her hand, waiting for her to breath her last. Yet, she never does. She heals enough to be moved to the ship by morning. She spends several days in a bacta tank. When she's out and resting, she receives visitors. Duke is one of the first. He gives her an update on the battle and that they won. She smiles at that and gestures for him to sit. He does. They talk about many things, the main one is that there should be bacta tanks on the surface of the planet they're on so they can use it.
The shinies look at them with bewilderment as they laugh. The shinies ask,
"Weren't you worried for her?"
"She had us worrying since she got shot."
"Then why do you laugh?"
Spark smiles slightly,
"Because these are memories, shinies."
Now the entire 51st is laughing. Half of the 51st was with the original company that served with Marissa while the other half are completely shinies, newbies, barely knew her. So one of the shinies raises his hand,
"Sir...could you tell us more?
Duke smiles,
"How much more, kid?"
"All the way to now."
Duke, Sly, Spark, Shredder, and Seaweed all look at each other as well as the others that knew her and they nod.
"Alright kid, but this'll take awhile."
Marissa and Duke stand across from each other in the training room. Both are panting and sweating, but they smile at one another. The cheers and yells of their audience keeps them going at it. Duke wears simple training clothes while Marissa wears shorts and an exercise bra. She scars from her first mission seem to stick out because of her pale complexion. Duke's eyes eye the scars. To him, those scars means failure. He's supposed to protect her not the other way around. She looks at him so concerned and he's about to say he's fine when she mouths,
"Later."
They charge at each other. They fall in a tangle of limbs. He elbows her in the stomach, in the same spot she was shot. She lets out a small hiss of pain, but keeps him in a headlock. Duke is forced to tap out. Marissa let's go and they both roll to their feet, her hand goes to the scarred over wound on her stomach. Duke walks up to her and puts a hand on her arm,
"I'm sorry sir."
"Don't worry about it, Duke. It's still healing. Still sore."
Sly heard this and walks up to them,
"Marissa? Do you need for me to look at it?"
Marissa shakes her head,
"I'll be fine, Sly. I'll come to you if I do need you to."
Sly nods and backs off. Duke turns to leave,
"Duke. We need to talk."
Duke turns to his commander. She motions for him to follow her. He does follow her. She stops in front of her quarters. They enter and she turns around,
"What was the look for in our sparring match?"
"What look sir?"
"The one that reads guilt."
Duke looks down,
"I was supposed to protect you! And you protected us. That almost killed you."
"It's what I do, Captain. I am a Jedi. I will always look after my men."
"We thank you for that, Commander. But let us return the favor."
"On a few occasions, I'll allow it."
"Allow it? But sir…!"
"NO! I'm not losing anyone else! That's final."
Duke recoils. He is shocked to see tears falling down her face, her hands in fists, and the look of failure on her face. She lowers her head. That's when he realized that the deaths of her men took its toll on her. He walks over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder,
"Commander...Marissa, look at me."
Her head tilts up to look at him with tears in her eyes. He wipes away her tears, gently,
"You can't blame yourself for their deaths. It's what we were born to do."
"That doesn't mean that they have to die!"
Duke pulls her into a hug and she sobs into his chest,
"Marissa….Commander, you can't let the death of your men overwhelm you. I had to learn it the hard way. Trust me on it."
She sniffles and pulls away,
"Ok. Ok. I'll trust you."
They smile weakly at each other before Marissa wipes her tears,
"You're dismissed, Captain."
Duke salutes and walks out. He makes his way to his own quarters.
The 51st are on the planet of Taris, fighting the droid army. Marissa, their brave and loyal commander, is up front. Next to her is Duke, Captain of the 51st. Their goal is to capture a listening outpost, as quickly and as quietly as possible. They get inside and destroy the droids before grabbing the information they needed to get. On the way out, Marissa is admiring Duke's aim as well as how well he's keeping up with her after five hours of fighting, or was it six? She shakes herself out of those thoughts and goes back to focusing on the battle at hand. She turns as she hears a scream of agony behind her. She gasps and splays her fingers on her left hand to freeze time as she sees Duke get hit. She and Duke are the only ones that freeze. Sly and Shredder scramble to get to him. They grab him and pull him out of the way before he hits the ground. She lets her hand fall and goes back to getting out of the droids alive. In another hour, the fight is over. She turns to her men,
"Make sure they never knew we were here. Spark, if a droid isn't that damaged, fix it and wipe its memory of us being here. Tin, erase the memory of the terminal so it never showed us in it and erase the camera footage too."
Tin, Spark, and the rest of the men get to work. Marissa turns and runs to where Sly is treating Duke. She kneels next to them,
"Sly?"
Sly looks up,
"He has a chance if the transport gets here in time. If not, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."
Marissa nods numbly,
"I'll stay with him. Come to me if the men are done with what they're doing."
Sly salutes,
"Yes sir."
He walks away. Marissa puts his head in her lap and runs her hand through his hair. Duke gives a groan of pain,
"Shh, captain. I gotcha."
Duke groans again. This time, Marissa takes a deep breath and begins to sing a song taught to her in the temple. Her voice is like an angel to Duke,
"Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay
Lay down your head and I'll sing you a lullaby
Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay
And I'll sing you to sleep and I'll sing you tomorrow
Bless you with love for the road that you go
May you sail far to the far fields of fortune
With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet
And may you need never to banish misfortune
May you find kindness in all that you meet
May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
May you bring love and may you bring happiness
Be loved in return to the end of your days
Now fall off to sleep, I'm not meaning to keep you
I'll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay
May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay
Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay
Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay
Loo-li, lai-lay"
When the song is done, all of the men are around them. They stand there with their heads lowered. Duke's breathing is labored. Marissa lowers her head so that their foreheads are touching. Her head darts up when she hears the sound of a gunship landing. She smiles and hands Duke over to his brothers. Marissa watches, concerned, as Duke is put on the gunship. The blast door close and the gunship lifts into the air. Marissa takes a deep breath and walks to another gunship. A few moments later, she's on the cruiser, The Cenotaph. She rushes to the medbay. While on her way there, she bumps into Spark,
"I'm sorry, Spark."
"It's alright, Commander."
They both kept walking in the other direction. Marissa gets to the medbay after what feels like eternity. She enters and Sly immediately notices her. Sly quickly walks to her with a smile on his face. Marissa sighs in relief,
"I'm guessing that he's ok."
"He is. Thanks to you. When he woke, he asked where you were."
"Can I see him?"
Sly nods and leads her to a cot where Duke is lying with bandages and bacta patches cover his wounds. He looks up and smiles,
"Commander."
"Captain."
Marissa smiles and looks at him,
"Get some rest. It wouldn't be good if you were sleep deprived in the next battle."
"I'll sleep when I know how many men we lost."
"Then I'll help you rest easy. We have no dead. Everyone is either wounded or fine."
Duke is shocked,
"Wha...What? No dead?"
"No dead."
Duke smiles in relief and relaxes into the cot. Marissa's smile broadens,
"I'll leave you to rest."
She leaves before he can even say anything. Duke just stares after her with his mouth open. He hears a snicker and looks over to Joker,
"What's so funny, Vod?"
"Oh. Nothing."
Joker turns away from Duke, leaving him confused.
A few days later, Duke and Marissa and the 51st are on the planet of Geonosis for a mission. It's a simple one, get in, get out, blow the factory. But they didn't foresee that Ventress would be there, waiting. Duke tried to force Marissa to the back, but instead, she stood her ground and fought Ventress. Marissa's brilliant purple lightsaber clashes with Ventress' blood red ones. Marissa force pushes her back and turns to them,
"GO!"
Duke and everyone else stares at her like she's crazy. Duke snaps out of it first,
"No way, Commander. We are not leaving you here with that hairless harpy!"
"Captain, that is an order!"
Duke remembers the conversation after her wounds. He hears her words to him. Duke closes his eyes and looks into her's. Marissa's eyes are pleading for them to finish the mission. He makes his choice. Duke nods and begins to run to the elevator with the rest of the 51st following him, leaving Marissa to fight Ventress, alone. Duke and his men recover Republic info and have set the charges. They return to the area they last saw Marissa and Ventress, except no one is there. The only thing there is Marissa's lightsaber and blood staining the floor. Duke frowns,
"Oh no."
Duke runs over to Marissa's lightsaber and picks it up. Sly goes to the bloodstain and takes a sample. Sly turns to Duke,
"It's Marissa's blood."
Duke stared at the blood in horror,
"We have to find her!"
"We can't! We have to finish the mission! She would've wanted it…..We can look for her after we succeed in our mission."
Duke's shoulders slump and he nods. They all run out of the factory and blow it sky high. They are assigned with finding Marissa, their commander, and rescue her. It takes them an entire year to locate her. When they do, they storm the ship, kill the droids and search for her. They find her bleeding heavily, barely breathing, and barely hanging onto life. Duke runs into the cell and catches her as she falls from where they had her chained. Duke cradles her in his arms as he carries her out of the cell and onto the ship and into the medbay where they tell him to get out. He gets out and paces in the waiting room, but no one tells him to stop. Eventually, one of the medical droids came out and approached them. Everyone who was sitting, stood up and looked at the droid with the expression that if it didn't start providing answers soon, they'd tear it apart.
"She sustained many injuries, internal and external. We've treated what we could, now the rest is up to her."
The droid rolls back into the room while the clones turn and look at each other. Duke walks in first and holds her hand. A few months later, Marissa is up and strong enough to train. She mainly spares with Duke or Sly. Duke accidentally punches her where one of her wounds are and she backs away hissing. Duke stops and walks over. Marissa smirks and gets him on the floor. She pants,
"I win."
Duke groans,
"For the thousandth time."
She chuckles and lets him up. They walk to the view port and talk. Eventually, Duke works up enough courage to look at her and say,
"Commander…"
"Hm?"
"I-I have something to tell you…"
She looks over at him with an arched eyebrow,
"Oh?"
He gulps,
"I-I love you….."
Marissa's eyes widen before she smiles. She doesn't say anything. She just kisses him. Duke gives her a ring to show his love for her. It is a golden ring with two stones in the middle, one purple and one black. As the months go by, their relationship becomes deeper. All of that changed when they were assigned to the planet, Dantooine, to stop the Separatists from moving closer to any of the core worlds. Marissa, as usual, was on the front lines with her men. They were faring quite well when General Grievous showed up. Marissa looked back at them with an apologetic look before running over to Grievous and locking sabers with him. Duke saw this and screamed at the top of his lungs,
"COMMANDER! NO!"
Marissa didn't seem to hear him, for she just kept leading Grievous away from him and his men. Duke and his brothers kept fighting until all that was left was smoke and droid parts. A piercing scream filled the air causing all of the clones to look at each other. Duke stiffened and ran towards the sound,
"Marissa!"
When he arrived in a clearing, he wasn't expecting to see his commander lying on her back and gasping for air with her lightsaber on her belt. Duke ran over to her and removed his helmet before taking her in his arms,
"Marissa…."
Her fading blue eyes focused on his face,
"D-Duke…cyar'ika..."
"I'm here. I'm right here. We'll get you fixed up."
Marissa smiles before turning her head away, wincing in pain from the many lightsaber wounds on her body. Duke takes in her situation with pain filled eyes. He strokes her hair and pulls her closer,
"Don't go…..we still need you….I still need you…"
Marissa raises a shaky hand to cup Duke's chin. She gives a sad smile as her body relaxes and her hand falls. Duke catches her hand and brings it to his chest,
"K'oyacyi Marissa….K'oyacyi cyare…"
Marissa's head lolls to rest on Duke's shoulder. Her breathing is labored and her eyes are glazing over. The ever present fire in her eyes, close to being extinguished. Duke holds her tighter,
"Don't leave me….please don't leave me…."
Marissa looks up at him and whispers,
"Duke...I-I….kar'taylir darasuum….gar."
Duke pulls her into a kiss, but it is ended too soon when Marissa goes limp and she breathes her last. Duke puts his forehead to hers as he fights back the tears. He picks up his commander's body and carries her back to her, and his, brothers.
Duke finishes the story as his brothers put comforting hands on his shoulders. There is not one dry eye after the story of their commander. Duke grits his teeth and stands up before walking over to a different part of their camp. He closes his before having them snap open again. He turns to his brothers and holds up a hand and an eerie silence falls over the camp. They hear metal feet hitting the ground and they grabs their weapons and armor. They form a line of defense and wait for their enemy or enemies to show themselves. They hear a robotic laugh and a hacking cough before four lightsabers come to life in front of them. General Grievous laughs,
"Hello there."
-
Translations for Mando'a words(In order of appearence):
kar'taylir darasuum gar-I love you
K'oyacyi-stay alive
cyar'ika-darling, sweetheart
cyare-beloved, loved
Annnddd, that's my first fic!
Review if you want, just be gentle...please.
Let me know if you have any requests on these lovely characters or scenarios they find themselves in.
May the force be with you all!