Jealousy over Jaig Eyes
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The locker door swung open again, and for an instant, Sunny thought that Rex had come for her at last. But no, instead he was unloading armour plates. He finished unloading, the clattering of plastoid against metal stopping, and he met her gaze at last.
"Don't worry about a thing, old girl," he said softly. "You're not going anywhere."
Not going anywhere? Why wouldn't she be going anywhere? Perhaps the war was over and her Rex was finally safe. Then he reached into the locker and pushed her away.
Sunny was shoved into the back corner of the shelf. Then Rex reached up and put another, different helmet in her place, blocking her view of him. What was going on? Why did Rex need two helmets? He already had his Sunny. But her precious captain didn't say anything, instead clanging the locker door closed. Sunny was left in the dark with the stranger.
What are you, it asked.
Sunny, she said, irked that this newcomer was demanding answers from her. I am Rex's helmet.
Not anymore, it said smugly. I am Buddy, I am the helmet of CT-7567, he named me and you are obsolete.
That stung. Your database is inaccurate; I belong to Rex, she insisted. Me, not you. Sunny suddenly wished that Rex was here so she could at least look this smug stranger in the visor, rather than glare at the back of its head. She wished for Rex to come and take this other helmet away.
I was with him at Atraken, she said. At Christophsis, Teth, Jan Fathal, Maridun, Naboo, and Ryloth. I was there for him on Geonosis and Saleucami. I have kept him safe all this time, tell me what it is that you do that I have not already done?
I am a superior design, Buddy said simply. How many times has he almost been killed? I offer increased protection against blaster fire.
Sunny was silent. The tallies of yellow told their own story.
If I do not belong to Rex, Buddy continued, then why did he paint me in his colours and with his design?
He wouldn't!
He did. Jaig eyes, he called them, said they—
Sunny shut off all external links. She remembered when Rex had first told her about jaig eyes.
They'd made it. They'd gone into Atraken together and Rex had not only brought them back, but he'd earned himself a promotion and a command of his own into the bargain. Sunny was so proud of him.
The ship's navicomputer pulsed, letting Sunny and all the other helmets aboard know that they were jumping to hyperspace. Rex didn't flinch, still striding along the grey corridors. He stormed through the ready room, kicking aside a chair that someone had left in the way, and into one of the deserted bunkrooms.
He stood there, breathing raggedly, and clenching and unclenching his fists. Any moment, she expected him to move, but he just stood there staring at the deck as the chrono ticked onwards. Sunny was puzzled. On Kamino, after battle exercises with Cascade Company, Rex would always head for the showers and then look after her and the rest of the armour. Now that there were fewer men in the company, it ought to be even easier for her Rex to get a shower. He could even have a six-minute shower for a change, so why didn't he move?
Sunny registered the hiss of the door opening, but Rex didn't turn around. In the wrap around vision, she saw another clone, CT-4217—Coric, enter. His armour was bloodied and he had one arm in a sling. Coric stood there for a long moment, looking at Rex, before he slid his helmet off.
"Come on, Rex, head up. Let's hit the showers."
Rex heaved a sigh. "Okay." He tugged Sunny off, and set her on the nearest bunk. As she watched, he began stripping off his armour, dropping the pieces haphazardly onto the blanket, not even bothering to stack them. Now she could see him, Sunny realised that her Rex looked almost as bad as Coric, red smears all over the white plates.
The two men, now clad only in their body gloves, left the room. Sunny watched them go, wondering why her Rex seemed so dejected.
When he came back from the shower, he was alone. Sunny waited patiently as Rex took out his cleaning gear from the locker and painstakingly removed the dirt and blood from each piece of armour. There were also fresh gouges marring the shiny plastoid, but oddly, he made no attempt to get rid of them.
Then finally it was her turn. He carefully wiped away the grit of Atraken, got rid of the dust on her visor. Then he started cleaning the carbon scoring from where a plasma bolt had hit just above the left hand side of her visor.
"Sorry, Sunny," he murmured as he dabbed at the mark, "but I think that scorch is there to stay."
Oh no… She wasn't standard, wasn't plain black and white anymore. She had bits of grey on her—would he trade her in for a standard helmet now? But if he was going to trade her and the other scratched and dented pieces of armour in for new gear, why was he bothering to clean her?
Rex checked the chrono on his gauntlet, then swiped the polishing cloth over her. The door chimed.
"Right on time," he said, going over to unlock the door.
Sunny watched from her perch on the bed as a crowd of clones filed through the door. All of them had armfuls of dented and scratched armour. She read their armour tallies and realised that they were all being transferred to Torrent Company along with her Rex.
"All present and correct, Captain!"
Rex was smiling, but it didn't quite go to his eyes. "You've got the right shade of paint?"
"Yes, sir. Torrent blue."
"Good work, Attie."
Paint? Blue? Weren't they all supposed to be black and white? All the same? Sunny watched as the men spread out through the room and began daubing their armour with swatches of deep blue. Rex coated his poleyns, trying them on and flexing his newly-blue knees. Next to be painted were his arm pieces, a thick stripe of blue marching from his gauntlet all the way up to the pauldron.
Sunny watched the other men surreptitiously; each had a slightly different pattern of paint. It was as if they were deliberately trying not to look the same; as if being different was good.
Then Rex reached for her. It looked like she was going to be different too. She watched as the brush came towards her. It moved around her visor, in a straight line down her chin. Rex held her up, tilting her from side to side as he inspected his work. It was then that she saw that the other men had crowded around, watching as Rex marked her with his design.
"Looking good, sir."
Sunny didn't know who said that—she couldn't tell the men apart when they didn't wear armour—but she felt a frisson of pride. Even with that scorch mark she was still…how had Coric put it… sex on a stick.
"You're not going to paint them on?" It was Coric, dressed in his armour. He didn't seem to have any blue on him.
Rex noticed the same thing. "No blue?"
Coric shrugged. "I've got my medic's star, that's good enough for me."
"What are they?" asked another clone. "The jade eyes, I mean."
"Jaig," Rex corrected. "For acts of bravery," he added bitterly.
"Oh. Acts of bravery like trekking across a poisoned planet to take water to beleaguered civvies, then casually taking out a whole company of battle droids on your way back with only twelve men?" Coric teased.
Rex set Sunny down. "If you've finished painting, you should probably head back to your billets. It's lights out soon."
The others left one by one, but Coric stayed.
"Something I can help you with, Sergeant?" Rex asked pointedly.
"It wasn't your fault."
That seemed to touch something in Rex and he turned on the other man. "Not my fault! Half the platoon injured and ten men killed. I was their platoon leader. How is that not my fault?"
Coric crossed his arms. "You got water to that village saving how many lives? And you neutralised those droids before they could attack the aid station."
"Ten men—almost a third of the platoon. I've never lost that many men before."
So that was why her Rex was acting out of sorts. Sunny remembered when one of Rex's platoon was killed in a training exercise. Her Rex had made a decent dent in one of the barrack room walls that day.
"Then wear the jaig eyes for them."
"Fine. Now will you go?"
The door hissed shut. Sunny was alone with her Rex. He began painting something over her visor, biting his lip as he carefully moved the brush to and fro. He set down the brush and crossed over to the mirror, sliding her over his ears.
Jaig eyes turned out to be two half-drawn triangles, with two flecks of blue between them.
"What do you think, Sunny?" he asked.
She was unrecognisable. Gone was the plain black and white. Instead, she had patches of contoured grey, stripes of blue, and a small line of yellow on the left temple. Sunny liked the symmetry, but more than that, she liked that she was now clearly his. Her Rex looked like no one else, and neither did she.
He brushed a finger over the yellow line. "That's for the headshot. You saved my skin, old girl."
She gazed at her reflection, drinking it in.
"What do you reckon, Sunny?" he asked. "Keep the jaig eyes like Coric said?"
She couldn't speak. She never had, but he paused, then kept talking as though she were actually participating in the conversation.
"Good point, Sunny. For the boys then," he said. "A reminder to be brave no matter what."
I hope you're enjoying my somewhat-outlandish story :) If you've time, I'd love to hear from you.
Next time: Sunny and Buddy clash some more.
