Content Advisory: swearing, violence, death, implied self-harm

Note: Also! If you're interested in Stormtrooper fics or just really well written, thoughtfully constructed fic in general, please check out And Then There Were None by Glory-To-Our-August-King, it's a really fantastic piece which follows FN2187/Finn's squad in the aftermath of his desertion.


"What do we need a fire for?" FN2457, her arms half full of branches, wanted to know. She had kept her mouth shut with the rest of the squad around, but now that it was just her and the Old Man, she decided to risk it. "We've got the thermal generator."

"Generator isn't much good in the open," said Thirteen, "Heat goes straight up."

"But we have the tent?"

"Loaded it up with the rest of the equipment this morning. Extraction exercise was supposed to be personnel only."

The extraction exercise was supposed to have been hours ago, the close of a ten day FTX, but due to a miscommunication, as their superiors had phrased it, the ships would not be available until the following morning, leaving their company and the rest of 2nd Battalion to weather the brittle Starkiller night in the open. They were in little danger; the black thermal weave they wore beneath their armor kept in enough body heat to keep them from freezing, but as Seven was finding out, the gap between not freezing to death and actually being warm was a wide one, and the wind off the tundra had an edge like a vibrodagger.

Something in her manner must have betrayed her misgivings, because he added, "Won't be so bad. Fire will take the edge off. And tomorrow morning we'll be back on base - hot food, hot showers..."

"Unless there's another 'miscommunication." Seven could have bitten her tongue, she was normally better at keeping her thoughts to herself; she was only a few months out of training and new to the unit, it wasn't her place to comment on the way things were. More than that, it wasn't safe. These weren't her old squadmates.

She braced herself for a rebuke, but Thirteen just laughed. "You're learning fast."

The praise was half in jest, but Seven smiled despite herself. They were heading back, cutting across the tundra, they had the wind to their backs this time, pushing them along.

"Keep an eye out for moss. Good fire starter."

"So is Niner's D-93."

Thirteen laughed again. "Only if you want to spend the night huffing conflagrine."

Seven grinned. "Is that it?" she asked, pointing to a feathery patch of grey on the ground several yards away to their left.

"Yeah, that should work. Don't need much."

She dropped her armload of wood and clawed up several handfuls. It looked alive, but felt dry and brittle. That had to be a good sign.

F Company had pulled back from the tree line by the time they returned; they found their squad sheltered where the dip of the terrain and the roots of a fallen tree gave a little cover from the wind. Eight-One slid over, making room for Seven against the tree bowl. Thirteen dropped his armload of wood in the growing pile and pulled off his helmet, coughing as the cold air hit his lungs.

"Alright, Old Man?" Four-Five was only half teasing.

"Yeah. 'Course." But he was breathing rather more heavily than their brief exertion warranted, and his face, as he sank to the ground beside them, was lined with exhaustion. Twenty-Six was watching him with that hull piercing stare of hers, but he avoided her eyes, and Seven pretended not to notice as he pulled a small bottle out of his pack and tossed back one of the pills. He pulled out something else as well, turning it over in his hand with a sad sort of fondness, before tossing it to Tree-Four who was busy constructing a tent shaped mess out of sticks.

Niner let out an exasperated curse and reached for his Incinerator, "We'll be permafrost before you finish with that, just let me-"

"No," Tree-Four cut him off. "Pass me some of that moss, will you , Sev?"

"You can eat that, you know?" remarked Dubs as Seven handed a clump to Tree-Four.

"Really?" Seven plucked a stray piece out of the snow at her feet and popped it in her mouth. She was hungry and eager for anything which broke the monotony of ration bars which they'd been subsisting on for the past week and a half.

She realized her mistake almost at once. It was bitter as poison and so sharp tasting that it seemed to suck all the moisture out of her mouth. She spat it out, retching and coughing, but the bitterness only got worse.

Someone pressed something into her hand. "Chew on that, it'll cut the taste." She recognized Thirteen's soft undertone and bit down on whatever it was, and something strong and medicinal tasting flooded her mouth. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but it doused the caustic taste of the moss at least. "What the hell?" she gasped when she could breathe again.

The other were still laughing. Four-Five had collapsed sideways in the snow.

"Take it easy," Twenty-Six said mildly, "It's happened to just about all of us."

"At least you spat it out," added Tree-Four.

"Unlike this idiot," Dubs elbowed Zero. "Swallowed a whole handful before he figured it out."

Tree-Four finished arranging sticks and pulled out the item Thirteen had given her; a lighter, Seven realized, as a small tongue of blue flame emerged from the top. There were numbers crudely scratched into its metal shell, but she could only make out the last two: a five and a zero.

"Ah, leave it, I'll light it up," Niner protested.

"No!" chorused Tree-Four and Zero in unison.

"Can't cook on it if you spray it with that shit," added Zero, scooping snow into a metal cup.

Niner scowled, but the prospect of hot food was ultimately more persuasive than the prospect of setting things on fire.

They all crowded closer as the flames licked up through the branches, the light was nearly gone and the temperature dropping like a stone. Seven held out her hands; she could feel the warmth through her armored gloves.

Zero had nested several metal cups full of snow among the branches at the edge of blaze. The snow had just about melted now and the water was beginning to heat. They had all pooled their ration bars and Seven watched as Zero broke them into pieces and began to stir them into the cups of water. The resulting mush was hardly appetizing, but at least it was hot.

It was too hot in fact, but they were all of them too hungry to be cautious. Eight-One passed the cup to Seven, gasping out a curse as she sucked air into her scalded mouth. Seven grabbed a handful of snow and added it to the cup.

"Now why did none of you idiots think of that?" demanded Dubs, nursing a burnt lip.

Seven grinned and swallowed a steaming spoonful, before passing it on to Thirteen.

Niner sniffed at the contents of his own cup and grimaced. "I have not missed your cooking, Zero."

"Never stopped you eating it."

"You know," remarked Tree-Four, "This doesn't taste nearly as bad as I remember."

"Water's too clean," laughed Thirteen. "Not enough rust and pipe silt in it."

There was a snort from Twenty-Six. "That wasn't rust."

"What?"

"It wasn't rust. Those pipes weren't metal. Not the water ones, anyway."

Thirteen stared at her. "Then what the hell was that red shit?" he demanded, half horrified, half laughing. "Why didn't - You're only telling me this now?"

Twenty-Six was trying to hold a straight face, but her eyes were laughing. "You were happier thinking it was rust."

"What was it Six used to say? Something about needing delusions to survive?" teased Zero.

"Yeah," snorted Dubs, "Like Niner's delusion that he can shoot straight." She twisted sideways with a triumphant cackle as the other trooper sent a handful of snow hurtling harmlessly past her shoulder.

Zero grinned, "You know what they say about Flamers."

"Ah, go to hell," Niner scowled, grabbing the cup from Zero and swallowing a sullen spoonful of the hot mush.

Seven tried to smother her amusement. "Where was that? The red water?"

There was a pause and then Twenty-Six said, "Jelucan,"

Niner spat.

Seven hesitated. "What's Jelucan?"

"Frozen piece of rock at the ass end of the galaxy."

"Low-tech planet. There was a rebellion there a couple years back," Twenty-Six clarified.

Dubs scraped at the bottom of her cup, trying to scrounge another mouthful. "You think Starkiller is cold and miserable? You should have seen Jelucan."

"Heavy, damp sort of cold, though," added Tree-four, shifting a little closer to the fire, "Not like here. Nothing ever dried out."

"Messed with the blasters something awful," Zero muttered.

"That's how A-One got it, remember?" Dubs had given up on whatever residue remained in the cup. "First one through the door, he'd have had the bastard too, only his blaster choked. Next thing he's on the floor with a hole burning through his guts."

Niner's lip curled. "Figures it would be the one Jelk with a proper blaster, not one of those damned slug throwers most of 'em carried."

"He always did have shit for luck."

There was silence for a moment.

"Wasn't so bad in the beginning," said Zero, "First month or so they kept us moving, cleaning out towns, fortified positions, anywhere the rebels had a foothold. Then they dropped us in Hull. Big, old mining and refinery town. 'Town.' More like a giant scrap heap than anything else."

Seven inched a little closer to the fire, listening as the others chimed in with details. It sounded like no place she'd ever heard of - mountains made from buildings, fashioned from scavenged scrap, jammed together, one on top of the other, listing, tumbling down, rock slides of sheet metal and dust, and for their peaks, soaring refinery towers, choked with exhaust. She pictured rain and cold, and fire belching from black holes in the earth and rivers running dark with refinery tailings.

"Place was a tactical nightmare," Zero continued, "Oh! Remember - Was it you, Thirteen, with the grenade? And Five-Oh? Remember?"

Thirteen's mouth twisted into a wry half smile. "You mean with that repeater?"

He remembered.