"This is where it gets dangerous, apparently." Gree looked out the window pensively.
"So far, I can't see anything out there, sir. We'll be fine." the pilot grinned.
Barriss looked at Gree nervously and he gave a knowing nod. For every 'we'll be fine,' they both had just as many ships go down and men die as times people had said that.
For a while they seemed to fly well, so Barriss went back down to her barracks to think for a bit. She'd had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach for a while now. This wasn't her first mission without other Jedi, but it was going to be one of the only ones that she'd done to date. She knew the clones respected her, but would they work well together? Gree really only worked directly with Masters Luminara and Yoda, so she didn't know whether or not they would have the fluidity in their relationship that she'd seen out of Commander Bly and Master Aayla or even Captain Rex and Ahsoka.
The ship shook violently, and Barriss knew that her premonitions had come true. Running to the cockpit, she found the pilot giving the controls the death grip and Gree clutching the back of a chair like his life depended on it.
"Commanders! Go to the back of the ship and strap yourselves in; we need you alive!" the pilot shouted, a wavering in his voice. "Go! The engine's shot and we're being pulled into that planet over there."
Tears started to form in his eyes, and Barriss understood that he knew that he was going to die.
"Sir, are you sure that you want to do this?" she asked frantically.
"I have to." he replied grimly."
Gree pulled on his helmet and led the way to the back of the ship. The two of them strapped themselves into the seats, hoping the pilot could land them successfully.
Another tremor rocked the ship, and Barriss started to feel them plummet rapidly. She closed her eyes and tried to help the ship with the Force, but so many things felt clouded, and she didn't know where to start, from the shot wing to the fried engine to the sheer panic of the few clones that were on the ship with her.
Barriss felt when the ship smashed into the ground as she wildly shook about and the air heated up around her. She wasted no time in getting up as soon as the ship hit the ground, unstrapping herself and taking a quick look over to make sure Gree was okay. He got up as well and began to run desperately for the exit.
"What about the other clones?" she asked, but it was more of a command to go see if they were alright.
"Let's check." Gree nodded.
They turned around from the exit. They ran, looking at the five other clones on this ship with them, and all were dead men in tombs of white armor. They got out of the ship and sat down.
For a few seconds, all was quiet as they looked at the burning ship until Gree pointed at the sky.
"Separatists. We need to move if we want to live."
Barriss and Gree wasted no time in running from the crash site as fast as their legs could carry them.
"The planet could have a couple less mountains and make this easier for us, eh?" Gree panted as they ran up to a dense forest. The two weaved in and out of the large, thick trunks with ease, hoping that the Seps didn't go the same way as they did.
"Yes, but nature does as nature wills." Barriss said and kept running.
The two kept going at a jog for the next ten minutes until Gree finally had enough and collapsed by a tree.
"I don't think they'll get us here, Commander."
Barriss tiredly sat down beside him. "Neither do I."
"How do you think we'll get off of this rock?"
Barriss frowned and looked down, "I don't quite know, to be honest."
"Do you know how to repair the ship?" Gree asked sheepishly, "I don't; I was only ever okay at tech stuff."
"Yes, it was always Skywalker covered in engine grease and not me; I was too busy reading to go see what he was doing."
"Bet you never found Skywalker in the archives." Gree laughed. Barriss joined and Gree smiled, happy to elicit a chuckle from his normally stoic Commander.
"Anyway, neither of us know how to repair this ship?"
"Apart from the basics, I have nothing."
"How that ship burned indicates that repair will be far beyond the basics." Barriss shook her head.
"We should find a place to sleep for the night. Something tells me we're not getting off of this mountainous hell for a while." Gree started walking.
After thinking for a while to see what they best they could make of their solution was, Barriss' face lit up. "Have you ever made a lean-to?" Barriss asked.
"No; what's that?"
"It's a shelter made out of trees, sticks, and leaves, and judging by this forest, we've got good cover, especially with the pine boughs. I don't normally like to cut down live trees, but we need to find some sort of shelter for the night until we can get something more substantial. Would you help me up this tree so I can start cutting some branches down?"
"Yes, Comm-look, can I just call you Barriss? We're both Commanders, but seeing as we're going to be stuck here for a while, I figure it'd be shorter and better." Gree asked, slightly flustered. He stood behind his words and Barriss saw that he was sincere.
"Okay, Gree." she said. Just saying Gree's name felt lighter already, more friendly. Though it felt awkward, she was glad for it.
Gree made a cradle with his hands for her foot and indicated that she should step in it. Barriss hoped that he could maintain his balance. She leaned on the tree as Gree stood up.
"I know that I'm not supposed to comment on a woman's weight, but you are very light." Gree said, looking awkwardly to the side.
"Are you implying that I looked heavy before?" Barriss grinned down at Gree.
"No, not at all. I just didn't really consider it and only having lifted clones before, I guess that some part of me expected you to weigh the same."
"I thought you were as logical as I was, Gree."
Gree laughed, "Aren't you supposed to be climbing a tree?"
Barriss hoisted herself onto a branch and ignited her lightsaber.
"When I cut, you catch." she said. The lightsaber easily sliced through the pine trees and many boughs came tumbling down to the ground. Within minutes, Gree was carrying as many as he possibly could.
Barriss leaped down gracefully and offered to help Gree carry their material.
"So, are you sure you know how to build this?" Gree asked.
"Of course I do. Jedi have many skills, including how to survive in the wilderness while harming as little nature as possible. We just need a long stick, so if you see one of those anywhere, pick it up, please."
Gree nodded and followed Barriss back to their original spot.
"I'll go look for the big branch while you clean the ground off." Gree said.
"That sounds like a good idea." Barriss said, bent over, and started picking up small sticks and stones off the ground.
She listened to Gree walk off into the forest, hearing him take loud steps, disrupting the peace. It struck her that clones were never taught to move in harmony with nature, to respect the foliage they tread upon. The thought saddened her and reminded her again that the clones, despite their humanity, were just killing machines and were trained as such. She shook her head and told herself to focus on her duties and continued to pick up sticks and rocks.
After about half an hour, Gree came back, hefting a sapling behind him.
"I know you don't want to harm nature, but this was all I could find in terms of large branches."
He set the sapling in front of Barriss and sat down, still breathing heavily. Barriss took out her lightsaber and began to start cutting off erroneous branches and the roots.
After Barriss was done with cleaning the area, she propped up the trunk of the sapling against a large pine with a flat surface area beneath it. She then started leaning the smaller sticks against it to create a triangle shape of sorts. Gree followed suit, admiring the simple idea and how tentlike it was.
"Barriss, isn't this a bit small for the two of us?" he asked, gesturing toward their finished handiwork.
"You can't really make it much bigger or rain might get in or it may collapse in on itself. I don't think you mind sleeping in close quarters?"
"I don't, I just didn't know if you did."
"Not at all. I actually would like the extra warmth. This seems like a cooler mountainous area."
"Good observation."
Barriss and Gree spent the rest of the evening trying to start a fire and eventually wound up doing it solely because of Gree shooting near a stray dry branch and catching it on fire.
"We did it Barriss! We finally did it!" Gree was almost crying with happiness.
"That must have been at least an hour, Gree." Barriss sighed happily
Both quickly added tinder to the fire ("not too much, Gree!"), and Barriss volunteered to take first watch.
She looked into the quiet, peaceful forest, feeling through the Force that the night would be calm; they were in harmony with the mountain. She almost got lost in nature's protective blanket, but then she remembered the situation she and Gree were in. There were Separatists on the planet, their engine was burnt to a crisp, and neither of them knew how to fix it. They'd be there for a long while.