Author's Note: This is not a happy chapter.
Remorse
Gaff had been trained in combat for a variety of terrains and had concluded that space and water were the most hostile environments to conduct a battle in.
He'd been wrong.
Space could suffocate a trooper in a cold embrace.
Water crushed bones and organs beneath its immense weight.
But neither was as cruel a terrain as the mountains were. Mountains were the true killer, for they destroyed a body and mind with pure indifference.
They didn't care if you died on their tops from your wounds, the cold, the lack of oxygen or other deprivations. They just watched as you collapsed and remained unmoved. Standing aloof from a trooper's misery, craggy peaks watched the scene unfold.
"We've run out of options, Jakk."
Gaff was trying to do this as gently as possible, but the ugly truth was that all he wanted to do was beat some sense into the trooper. Or collapse and do nothing at all. Given his current state, either was likely.
"Sir." After almost two weeks of the strictest rationing and three days of nothing but melted snow for nourishment, Jakk was as gaunt as the rest of them. Deep hollows were carved into his wind-burned cheeks, dark circles rimmed his eyes and the plastoid plates of his armor hung loosely from his body.
It was like looking in a mirror and Gaff didn't like at all what he was seeing. He should have done this much earlier, but Gaff had been dreading just this kind of confrontation.
"Please." The word was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, almost drowned out by the shrieking wind. That eerie keen never stopped - night or die - and it was beginning to drive Gaff insane. The plateau they were trapped on wasn't large and there was nowhere Gaff could go to escape the sound of the wind slicing past the precipitous mountain face. Even in his dreams, it haunted him.
"Jakk..." His stomach was so empty it felt bloated. He was lightheaded from hunger, with a steady headache pounding just behind his eyes and his patience was about to snap. He didn't want to do it that way, but wasn't sure anymore if he could prevent the inevitable. "Jakk," he tried again, "it's him or us."
Unaware that its very life was in the balance, the nerf calf playfully butted Jakk's backside, lowing softly.
It was a ratty, scrawny beast that had somehow managed to survive the razing of its mountaintop village. Upon hearing the troopers move through the ruins in a futile search for survivors, it had shambled out of the burned-out remains of a barn, greeting them with enthusiastic and desperate bleating. The calf hadn't been much more than skin and bones and didn't look much better now, despite all of Jakk's loving efforts.
"Please, sir," Jakk tried again. His eyes were feverish with desperation and the onset of starvation. "Just one more day. Reinforcements could arrive any day now."
"We won't last another day," Gaff finally snapped. His finger stabbed out, down the mountainside. "The clankers won't wait another day."
Despite their growing weakness, Gaff still sent out scouts to probe the no-man's land of icy fields and treacherous escarpments. Each time the scouts had had to retreat under the barrage of plasma fire the Seps sent their way. It was bitterly obvious that unlike the clones, the droids weren't suffering from supply shortages. Of course, technically speaking, neither did the clones.
They'd been sent into the mountain range with everything needed for a week-long engagement. But one week had turned into three and logistics had not counted on their supply lines to be cut off, or for most of their food stores to be lost to a late-night aerial bombardment. Gaff's men, kitted out in snowtroopers' armor for the assault, weren't likely to suffer from hypothermia anytime soon and they had enough plastents to shelter against the cutting snowstorms that raged at this altitude. But they were running low on ammo and dry rations were nothing but a fever-dream. Worse, the men were beginning to crack under the strain.
The droids had forced them to retreat onto this inhospitable plateau. There was enough cover, but no means to escape except through the Sep lines. They were caught like gooberfish in a barrel and the clones knew it. The droids knew it as well and were deliberately delaying the attack, until the clones were either dead of starvation or at least too weak to put up a fight.
It wouldn't be long now until his men collapsed beneath their E-Webs.
Jakk put his arm around the nerf calf's neck, scratching the tangled, filthy pelt. The calf nudged Jakk's side, smearing his armor with its dark saliva. Its four horns were still too immature to gouge the trooper from neck to navel.
The two made such a pathetic image.
Gaff closed his eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning. Despite the sharp bite of the wind and the cold against his face, Gaff had decided to dispense with the helmet. There was nothing he wanted more than to drown out the howling wind, but he also felt that if he spent another second locked up in his suit, breathing recycled air, he would go mad. He had never before felt claustrophobic in the confines of his armor, but amongst the unending vista of hard snow and grey sky, the armor felt too much like a restraint, rather than protection. Gaff hadn't taken the armor off for a single hour in three weeks.
"Jakk, don't make me order you to step aside."
Jakk swallowed. He too had removed his helmet and now his eyes darted to the rest of the men.
Gaff had ordered the men to give him and Jakk privacy. Which meant they had a corner of the plateau and about a meter of empty space to themselves. But Gaff was no fool. He knew his troops were listening to every word, watching their every move.
Watching hungrily.
It was an uncharitable thought. Before the situation with thier food supplies had become critical, Gaff had seen almost every man in his party sneak food to the nerf calf. Gaff himself had shared half a ration bar with the slobbering little beast. No doubt that was one reason why the little calf had insisted on following them. Of course Jakk, completely besotted with the animal, had encouraged it every step of the way.
Ultimately, it was Jakk's nerf calf. Which was why Gaff felt it necessary to explain to the trooper what the rest of the team already knew.
"If we don't eat something soon," he said, striving for a softer tone, "we'll die. We'll die, Jakk and how long do you think he will last in the mountains alone?"
Jakk's arm tightened around the nerf's thin neck, his chin dropping to his chest.
"Sir," he mumbled, but Gaff continued, gently but resolute.
"It's for the best."
Jakk heaved in a hitching breath. In a far tent, one of the wounded set off in a long series of hacking coughs that sounded wet and which made Gaff's empty stomach churn. Hoarsely, the man asked for something - anything - to eat; the words carried clearly to them by that hellish wind.
Hearing his brothers in pain broke Jakk's resistance. Gaff knew it from the way the fire support trooper's face crumpled; how his eyes grew dull. Jakk sank to his knees and pressed his face into the calf's matted fur, hugging the animal hard. "Goodbye, boy."
The calf tried to nibble on his ear, but Jakk was already up and running. Gaff didn't think even Jakk knew where he was running to.
And then Gaff and the calf were alone.
He looked down at the animal and, unnervingly, it looked back up at him, peering through a fringe of tangled fur. Even though each of the beast's ribs were visible, its round black eyes were still bright and curious.
Filled with remorse, Gaff drew his blaster and pressed the muzzle against the vulnerable spot of the nerf's skull; right between those bright button eyes. The calf's nostrils flared and its tongue darted out, as if trying to taste the Deece.
"I'm sorry," he said and pulled the trigger.
The next day, the howl of the wind was drowned out by the whine of larty engines.
Reinforcements had finally arrived.
