No Regrets

There was no one else currently in the barracks; the others sparring in the gym but Punch had wanted to compare the scores of the troopers. Resh was coming along nicely; his new name had given him a much-needed confidence. Thirty-one had also improved substantially and was considered a good, seasoned trooper. There was some discussion of him transferring to Flame's squad of near-rookies though Punch thought Card might be a better addition as a temporary second for Flame. However, he wanted to talk with Sergeant Tuur about the possibilities of what might happen now that Sergeant Heft had made it clear to Captain Top that his troopers came first.

Tenaut had come in from over-duty watching over the bacta tanks, grabbed his towel and showered then returned to the barracks for sleep.

Wistfully, Punch watched Tenaut recite remembrance for his fallen vode as he did last thing every night.

"Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum." Tenaut spoke with quiet reverence touched with joy. Punch could see that when he spoke, he was actually talking to his brothers - perhaps not in the flesh - but the words were to his brothers. Again, he watched Tenaut's lips, moving in memory.

"He was almost as fast as you, Runner." Tenaut paused, as if listening to Runner say something. "Shuk, I'm glad to say I have no more names to add today." Tenaut nodded to unspoken words. "As I promised, Shuk."

Runner and Shuk must have been close vode; Tenaut spoke with them every day and usually several sentences in some imaginary conversation and always ending with that unknown promise to Shuk.

Punch found it relaxing to watch Tenaut remember his fallen brothers; there was a calm to it that he had never imagined might be found in battlefield conditions. Yet, Tenaut had recited remembrance in the cave as the fires shrank into orange glow covered by white ash and calm had prevailed in that cavern overhang.

This time, Tenaut didn't immediately curl into the pillow and blanket to fall asleep. Instead, he came over to Punch, sitting cross-legged on his bunk.

"Is it time, Punch," he asked softly, "that you'd like to tell me about your first squad."

"There isn't much to tell." Punch shook his head. "We lost Zev before our first battle; he was snipered as we landed. The rest," he paused, his lips open in a wordless breath, then shrugged. "They were all alive when I was reassigned to the 224."

Tenaut tilted his head to one side. "There's more to your story than that, Punch."

"I had a vod, a brother-by-choice. Sketch, CT-93-0287, and I think he was better than Art in his talent. Command separated us." Punch licked his lower lip and set aside the squad statistics. "I don't think anyone told them we were brothers. I certainly didn't. I was angry at Sketch and, maybe I thought we'd have some time together after the inquiry. But we didn't, we were all shipped out immediately."

"Inquiry?"

Punch shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's all classified but in the end, the squad was separated because we couldn't work together."

"Kamino tests for that before sending out a squad."

"Before, yeah, we were good. Me and Sketch were both good at leading." He chuckled but the amusement didn't reach his eyes. "It was playful competition between us who was the squad's best. Jester was great at coming up with new ideas and angles from previous training, at keeping the squad mentally prepared for unexpected changes. Chopper was solid, quietly battle-brilliant. He'd been at Geonosis and was incorporated into the squad after medical signed off on him. Zev was our best slicer and mechanical tech; could made a deece sit up and beg to be fired - center-target every time. Gus followed; understanding not just the orders but where they fit in the battle plan, the entire thing fitting seamlessly together. He was able to extrapolate what end result and intermediate steps command wanted from a single order."

Punch paused, biting his lip, seeing in his memory the squad as they'd been before Christophsis and Sergeant Slick. The eager anticipation, the desire to be the best squad, the hopes and fire of fulfilling one's destiny.

"Before?" Tenaut's question was quietly calm with almost no inquisitive tones and Punch knew it was some medical technique for traumatic debrief. He supposed what had happened was traumatic. It had been for the others, particularly Gus and Chopper, but he thought himself relatively untouched by Sergeant Slick's maliciousness.

That had been proven wrong. He thought of Slick almost as much as Sketch; making sure he wasn't doing what Slick might have ordered or condoned.

"Afterwards, we were a hateful, pitiful, useless mess of antagonistic troopers that stuttered, collected battlefield artifacts, and wouldn't admit to abuse. I still don't understand how or why because I had my brains so far up my shebs I didn't even notice what was happening."

Punch bowed his head in shame. "Chopper once said we had the potential to be the best squad in the GAR and now, I think he was right but afterwards we were probably the worst with no one else in contention for last place."

"Who was the sergeant? You or Sketch?" Again, Tenaut's voice was soft with no emotional overtones, eliciting information as medicinal as puncturing a wound to let the infection drain.

"Neither. We were given to a sergeant who had lost his Kamino squad and everything about him is classified as well."

Tenaut tilted his head, his eyes sweeping up and down Punch's body. "Were you abused, Punch?"

Punch supposed he expected that question nor did he react with the violence he had shown when Commander Cody had asked. Instead, he sighed. He'd been angrily emotional then, hurt by what he perceived as Sketch's betrayal in drawing that obscenity even though he knew his vod was trying to protect him.

"Not sexually, Tenaut, though at least one other in the squad was, but I feel abused. I feel dirty and covered in some invisible slime that no one else can see. I feel like once it's gone, everyone will see me as deficient or defective in some way." Punched shifted, stood and paced the small area in front of his bunk, his arms moving in agitation. "I feel like I've failed my vod. Sketch and I should have caught what was happening to the squad. We should have prevented it."

Punch paused, looking into Tenaut's face for any emotion but saw only open sympathy. "I feel like if I ever see Gus or Chopper or Jester again, they'll spit in my face. And that's if they don't take their blaster to me. I feel like Sketch, my own vod, would do so as well." Punch swallowed, staring down at the dark coverlet of the bunk, his forehead on the bar of the upper rack. "There's some part of me that knows I deserve it."

"Do you really deserve derision, Punch?" Again Tenaut asked with that therapeutic tone in his voice.

Punch bowed his head, his jaws tightening. "For what I did, possibly not. For what I didn't do, yes."

Tenaut nodded sadly. "Is that why you're so careful to watch over your vode now?"

Punch chewed at his lower lip, sucking it in as he thought. "Yes and no. I watch over them because we're brothers, because we have responsibility for each other. I've learned that. But I do so with double-checks because I've seen this responsibility neglected."

He turned, sitting next to Tenaut on the bunk. For a while there was only silence. "Captain Top was wrong to call back Heft but I understand why he did, Tenaut. Does that mean that if I'm with Sketch, I'll neglect the troopers in favor of my own vod? How do you treat the troopers, Tenaut? How do you ignore the fact that this is one of your squad?"

"I don't treat troopers, Punch," answer Tenaut as if he'd been expecting the question. "I treat wounds. If I had to treat troopers, I'd be frozen." He paused, looking down at his hands with a sad smile. "It's how I lost Shuk. He'd been caught in crossfire of so much shrapnel that his armor could have been used as a sieve. There were three other troopers caught in the same explosive crossfire. I looked at the wounds and saw I could save no more than three of them. At best, or I could treat the most wounded and save only one. And that was not certain. It was only later, in medical, that I realized it was Shuk, my own vod, that I could have saved rather than Tuur, Heft, and Tap."

Punch saw tears in Tenaut's eyes and put his hand on the medic's shoulder.

"I miss him, Punch. I miss Shuk so ferociously that some days I consider walking point with my eyes closed."

Both Punch and Tenaut were still in that confession then Tenaut continued speaking. "Except, he'd be ashamed of me for taking my skills away from our other vode. I miss him, but I don't regret what I did that day. I don't think he would regret it either."