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CHAPTER Forty Four
"So Ner Vod," Gregor had followed Wolffe, back into his office from the reconnaissance mission carrying something that wasn't a blaster or a datapad. He joined him in the office and slumped on a chair, lifting his feet to rest, crossed on the desk.
He made himself totally at home and looked over the item that was out of place.
"Spoils of war?"
Wolffe pushed his feet off his desk, as he walked past him, gently carrying the item.
"Its for Ana."
Gregor put his feet back up.
"Ana?"
"She misses the greenery on Seelos."
"I don't remember much greenery there. Only prairie, and desert with miles of sand, and huge kriffin' worms that tasted great."
"Harrumph," Wolffe made his irritated noise. "You remember where she lived, surrounded by green trees, plants and flowers and the like. She also grew things herself and where she lived wasn't a desert. She wasn't hiding, in the desert, and avoiding people like we were."
"Wasn't she?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"From what Rex said about her, she had lived alone for a long time, avoiding people, even her own family, at times, almost like us."
"She is nothing like us."
"Isn't she?"
"No!"
Wolffe busied himself sorting his almost empty desk, while Gregor smirked.
"You sure." Gregor was pushing it.
"Well she isn't now."
"And you should know."
Wolffe took a deep breath; sometimes his brother pushed him too far, just like that shiny gold droid did years ago.
"I will not justify that comment with a response ...Ner Vod." He ground out.
Gregor grinned and muttered "You just did." And watched, as Wolffe completed an about turn, with the precious plant in hand and headed out to give it to its intended recipient.
Shaking his head, Gregor muttered."Or'dini, or'dini di'kut." and returned to the contemplation of his feet propped up on Wolfe's desk.
.
"Wolffe it's beautiful."
"It isn't much."
"Yes, it is. It's green, it's living and growing. Thank You, thank you." Ana raised herself on tip toes and planted a soft kiss, that lingered on his cheek. "That's so thoughtful. How did you guess I would like it? How did you get it?" She turned the little pot around in her hands, examining each leaf on the vivid green multi-leaved plant.
Ana did miss the greenery of the area where she had lived on Seelos, Atollon was a moon covered in coral outcrops and was fairly desolate; she had been used to working outdoors for the last few years with her animals and crops, and living within sight of the forest.
Now she was working indoors with lots of different, new people coming and going all the time; it was a challenge. She was comfortable with people that she knew but strangers she was not naturally garrulous and sometimes found it difficult to interact with them comfortably. Occasionally, she had to force herself to speak to some people. When she had been on maintenance there were days when she had only spoken to the droids and most of those didn't reply or had a limited vocabulary. She had never felt so lonely, as she had then; then the Doctor, Wolffe and Gregor came back into her life.
"I haven't managed to cook anything for you, I didn't know when you were coming back."
"It's okay. I'll have a ration pack soon." He pulled her to him and buried his nose in her hair. It was always soft and smelled of fruit; he remembered the smell, when he was away from her, alone. "I've missed you."
"You mean, you've missed the food." She had a smile on her face as she said that.
"That as well." He pulled away, accepting the joke and stared at her, seriously, for several seconds, "You need to go now, you're on shift soon."
"How do you know?"
He tapped the side of his nose; she giggled, kissed him on the cheek again and turned. "I'll see you later?" She asked, looking back at him.
"You can bet on it."
"Good."
He leaned against the wall after she left, suddenly feeling deflated; he knew he wanted more from her but he wasn't sure what. Shaking his head he left her room and headed back to his office.
"Debriefs to make, Reports to file, a rebel's work is never done." He muttered, as he strode along the corridor.
.
General Pitt Oneran had finished outlining what was required from the newly formed Special Forces Brigade and what he needed Rex to do. This meeting had been arranged at Rex's request, as he didn't want a repeat of Geonosis where specially trained soldiers were used in the wrong situations.
He needed, for his own piece of mind, to minimise his losses.
"It's a big task, General, starting special ops teams from scratch." Advised Rex "but it can be done."
"I know Captain, and I know you and your…..brothers, are the ones to do it. I was a great admirer of your work during the Clone Wars, until Order 66, or course."
"Of course, sir. Not our finest hour, in my view."
A small smile flicked across the general's face; he thought the Captain was hiding his sense of humour. They would get on well.
"Wolffe and Gregor will make up their own minds, sir. I can't order them."
"Understood Captain."
"The recruits will need at least four months training and we won't take shinys….sorry, raw recruits; they will need to already have either a military or experienced fighting background, Sir."
"Agreed, Captain."
"We will of course need to set up some training areas."
Oneran pulled out a data pad and handed it over to Rex; "We've shortlisted these planets and areas. In the other file is a list of the first intake. We are expecting an attrition rate of 20 to 25% because we need to get the intake right. We can't afford to spend time training failures."
Rex nodded; he agreed he did not want to waste his time, he couldn't afford to.
"Taul looks good, Sir." Rex had skimmed over the information held on the datapad and Taul had some punishing environmental conditions that they could use in training.
"Thought you'd say that." Another small smile threatened his face. "Let me know what else you need. Can't promise everything but this is high priority. We need to move on, build up to a force to be reckoned with. It may take years but we have to keep trying. There are people who have already been working on this since the Emperor took power. A lifetime."
Rex was beginning to understand his new commanding officer; he had done some checking himself. Oneran was one of those he checked on. He had been a logistics officer in the GAR and then moved onto the rebellion working in secret with Organa, until it was too dangerous, then he had to go underground. His wife had not been supportive of his affiliations. He had lost his family.
It was at times like this that Rex felt shame that he had not come forward and stood up sooner; but he was here now.
"Sir?" Rex realised there had been silence between them.
"Let's get to Taul, review the what's there and get our first recruits tested. Contact Wolffe and Gregor, for their imput."
"Yes sir." Saluted Rex.
.
Ana made it to the Med Bay just in time to see Dr Niemens berating a cleaning droid; the Doctor really didn't like droids and this one seemed to be going around in circles. Finally she threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Ana. Can you do something with this…..this thing?" She gestured towards the droid.
Ana reached over and pressed the cut off button, on its dome and it danced to a halt.
"It may need some downtime to reboot."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, Doctor."
"Call me Sasha."
"Sorry?"
"Sasha, my name's Sasha."
"Oh."
The doctor had never been so informal before and Ana's face showed surprise, for a split second before she hid it. Neither woman had previously given any inclination to want to make this working relationship any more friendly.
"You already know mine." She replied not knowing what else to say.
The doctor laughed "Yes. Now let's get you up to speed on the latest gadget they have procured for me."
She gestured for Ana to follow her; "Two items actually, a Bacta tank but not enough Bacta yet to fill it and an atomic level scanner." They reached the other room and the empty tank stood ready and then her hand brushed over the silver coloured device, that was the scanner, attached to a table, almost a caress.
"Let's see what we can do with them."
The whole morning was spent examining, doing baseline checks, calibrating until Sasha was happy with both their level of expertise and their comfort in using the instruments.
"Okay, I'm happy we're both competent to use these now. I hadn't used the Atomic Level Scanner before. Read about them yes, used them no. Let's complete a baseline scan on ourselves then we can catch everyone else to do one; some people just avoid coming to Medbay for anything, and I include Commander Sato in that list, he's as bad as the rest. Some officers seem to think they're exempt."
Ana was still getting used to this new level of intimacy, this chattiness, from the Doctor who had previously held herself aloof from the general population, but I suppose everyone needs friends. The only other person she had ever seen her speak to, on a regular basis, who was not a patient was Commander Sato. Ana felt a little uncomfortable with it at first but then she knew, she always took a while to get used to new people, that was who she was. Except with Rex, Wolffe and Gregor, they had been different. People probably thought she was being aloof herself but once she was comfortable with you that was it.
"Sato really came up with the goods this time then didn't he?" Commented Ana as she adjusted the grip on the scanner for her height and hands; Sasha was a good six inches taller than her and with slimmer frame.
"Oh, it wasn't Jun, it was your Commander Wolffe."
"Wolffe?" Ana caught the insinuation, when Sasha called him, 'your Commander Wolffe.'
"Yes, on his last trip, he remembered some old clone wars era medical centres, did a quick reconnaissance on one and brought these back. Apparently there's lots more out there but we have to wait until we can mount an operation to get them. Priorities, apparently and saving lives isn't one."
"I'm sure Wolffe will do his best."
"Oh no, it's not Commander Wolffe; it's Sato. I've argued with him but to no avail."
"If there was one I'd go, to help."
Sasha looked at her, curiously; "Thank you, it would be good to have a medically trained person to identify the items to be certain. I'd go myself but Sato won't allow that."
Ana's stomach rumbled, "Sorry, it's been a while since breakfast."
"Come on, then." Ana's new friend urged, "let's hit the mess hall; learning is a hungry business."
They quickly became regulars in the mess hall at lunchtime, unless there were emergencies or the Doctor was in the middle of surgery but it was quiet at the moment. Sasha was good company and it seemed to Ana that she had her Doctor persona, strict and following protocols and then her Sasha persona, more carefree and wanting to laugh, to let go.
Lunchtimes were relaxing.
Later they dragged some unsuspecting pilots into medbay, to be scanned; Dr Niemens had decreed that they should have baseline scans for everyone on the base and they had already done their own.
"This." Dr Niemens declared, rolling her eyes, "is akin to getting blood out of a stone." After finally ordering them to sit down, be still and be checked.
.
Taul was a planet with all the attributes of the Nine Hells of Corellia; this was going to test all the recruits, irrespective of their experience.
Rex strode into the barracks, he had an old style Sergeant with him, wearing an eyepatch and with a cybernetic left arm. One of the first things he noticed about Sergeant Yrask was his upright military bearing. He had been a soldier for a long time. The second thing he noticed was the blue trousers sporting Corellian red stripes; they didn't hand those out to just anyone.
Rex faced the recruits, his new Sergeant standing a respectful step to his rear and to the side; he was at parade rest.
"You call me captain, or Sir." He put the full force of his voice into his instructions; arms behind his back, he paced backwards and forwards, along the line of recruits. Taking their measure with his stare. How they reacted to his gaze would tell him a lot.
They were good, more than good. He stopped abruptly and turned to face the man next to him. He came to attention, back straight as a rod; his handle bar moustache well groomed.
We'll see how long that lasts, thought Rex.
"Sir?"
"Why are you here?"
"To fight sir."
"Name!" He barked.
"Jom Barrell, Sir."
"Where have you fought?" Rex already knew this he had reviewed all his recruits records before even allowing them there."Battle of Onderon, Sir."
Rex stared him down and the man did not flinch.
"This is going to be harder than you have ever fought before; the training will test you to the limits of your endurance and beyond."
He gave the recruit the ten second stare.
"Do you know why?"
"To make us better soldiers , Sir."
"To make you better soldiers that can fight anywhere, survive, anywhere." He paused waiting for a reaction. All he had was the occasional flicking of the eyes between each other. "Survive to fight again. We leave no one behind. We need everyone of you."
