Entry Twenty-Seven – Days after Geonosis, One Hundred Fifty-Eight
Fallout continues to emerge from the production facility raid. Unexpectedly, some of it has been positive. Officer Morne was promoted to Sergeant today during a brief ceremony. Apparently this sort of thing violates standard procedures for police promotions, but Clone Captain Eights pushed hard for it in order for Morne to have the ability to properly interface between me and his men. I am grateful for this, and not only because Morne surely deserves the recognition. Though it represents a personal weakness, I am simply more comfortable working alongside him than the clones. I cannot say exactly why, though perhaps it is their manufactured nature, given the foe that has emerged here in the Bucket.
The Kaminoans took a man and produced copies of him that became themselves individual persons, but the existence of the Yellows has fostered in me a terrible revelation. They need not have done so. Humanoid-shaped warriors lacking sapience could be generated in their vats, terrible warbeasts in the shape of people. An illogical move, of course, brainless soldiers are of little use, but it is hard not to see the clones as machines rather than people. It is unworthy, both of myself and doubly so for them, but that has not stopped me from keeping them at arm's length.
Morne's promotion has not resulted in a reassignment. I am glad of this, perhaps too much. The flutters I feel during his daily visits are wildly inappropriate, I am not so foolish as to miss that. At the same time, I depend upon his friendship. Without his support I would feel a veritable prisoner in my clinic, unable to take essential actions.
I have arranged for Lia to repair my lightsaber. That breaks certain rules, but I'd rather not let the Council know the true extent of the damage. I cannot shake the terrifying premonition that they might ask for it back. Logically I know this to be dreadfully unlikely, but I also know I shall never properly dispel that fear. How hard this is, the desperate desire to retain a precious possession I cannot truly claim as my own; cannot feel I rightly earned.
Lia will be discrete I am sure, and she has access to all the correct materials to rebuild it identical to the previous design. The crystal is undamaged. The rest is simply a mundane assembly job. A droid could do it. The task should not take more than a day. Hopefully when I get it back it will still feel the same. I fear that too.
Intellectually it seems so very strange that in less than half a year I have attached myself to this peculiar network of underworld residents. I never formed close bonds on work deployments before. Those jobs were all brief in nature, and tightly focused on a specific task, while my service here has been far more open-ended. I suspect that contributes heavily. Additionally, previous efforts were always sponsored. Some company or medical institution would pull together a team and supply its own infrastructure. It was all too easy to throw myself into work, whereas here I have had to build everything from the beginning.
Perhaps it is nothing more than that, or perhaps the war really has changed everything. News continues to drip down of great battles fought and massive sieges begun. Casualties mount daily, and while the majority of the fallen are clones recorded by their operating numbers, the list of allied officers grows alongside them. The roll of fallen Jedi also expands steadily.
The heart of the Order's losses are in my age cohort. Veteran knights and younger masters, many working on a second or third padawan, field the heaviest blows. They stand upon the frontlines in the Outer Rim, battling with the core forces of the droid armies day after day. Some have fallen to swarms of blaster fire or the overwhelming power of artillery, but the majority of the losses come in fleet combat. All too many Jedi have perished in the death throes of their command vessels, unable to reach escape pods in time. No amount of combat skill can spare a Jedi from such immense detonations. Already I have lost several comrades I knew as initiates. I mourn them, though the grief feels distant now, as if I was separated from their path long ago.
And of course I was. Perhaps that is for the best. May the Force be with them.
As yet the ranks of the Medical Corps have not been equally denuded. Grievous, horrifically, does not respect the sanctity of medical outposts or vessels as the laws war demand, but the Republic still places such facilities well back from the front and takes great care to protect them. So long as they are not swept up in major routs my colleagues should enjoy relative safety. I hope this remains true. Even the handful of names on that list hurt dreadfully.
I cannot help but wonder what will happen to the Order when the war ends. How many of us will be left? I hope the Council has increased recruitment efforts substantially. I suppose I should take the time to do my part on that front myself. Many of the species found here in the lower levels have not produced a Jedi in centuries, despite significant numbers. Maybe the inspirational efforts of wartime heroes will change that. We could use additional hands in the years to come.
Notes
Nema's speculation as to the nature of Jedi casualties is largely my own. Jedi are unlikely to die in combat with droids unless completely enveloped (as at Geonosis when they foolishly charged into the middle of a literal arena), and the clones are tactically adept enough that such massive failures should be rather rare on the battlefield. However, anyone can get blown up when their ship suffers a catastrophic detonation.
With regard to age cohort, for the purposes of this story Nema is forty years old (the same age that her voice actress, Catherine Taber was when I began this story), meaning that she's been active in the Medical Corps for just under twenty years. She failed the Jedi Trials at seventeen, but spent five years in university and medical school after that. As a result, her peers are mostly well-established in the Order in their various roles and on the front lines. For reference, she's five years older than Obi-Wan.