Chapter 24
…
The air was heavy even through helmet filters. Jesse and the rest of the first contingent had guzzled some water before moving ahead of the AT-TEs, but his personal supply was gone. The company plodded between thick tree trunks and roots choked by stiff knee-high grass and brush. Rounded leaves dripped moisture that hung grey in the air, the AT-RTs footfalls jarring between the company's murmuring gait. It had been so dry where they'd started, but now they were well into a forest warmed and watered by thermal springs. The sun burned dully silver in the foggy sky.
All quiet for more than six hours. So far, they had only found two small squads of B1s, not the dense net of droids that had been making the siege so slow-going for other battalions. Instead, animal eyes glinted at them when they shone their helmet lamps into the shadows.
Even from near the front, Jesse would have lost Appo if the commander hadn't been a pace or so ahead of everyone else. Everyone was in camo gear, and Jesse's eyes were still trying to memorize the slight variation in the color blotches to know who was who.
Their tight ranks fell into a more natural formation of small groups on alert, cycling their outer members so that no one spent too long on the periphery. Appo stopped up ahead and Jesse's squad came close beside; their feet between the grass kicked up water.
"Could be a river," Appo said quietly, pulling out his holo-map. "Or a pond. And it's running right across our path."
The river—if it was a river—barely moved, and fog made its width difficult to judge. Jesse thought he could see faint silhouettes of trees on the other side. Appo's map showed a large greyed area: the rainforest. The only helpful part right now was the directional pointers—north, south, east, west—and the little dot that represented Appo's position relative to their goal. No landmarks, Jesse thought. There was nothing in this forest for him to orient himself by. The trees were as indistinguishable as he and his brothers were in their armor.
"We'll march straight across!" Appo called back. "Singer, your platoon is with me. Single file and slowly. Watch for sinkholes."
They fell into line silently, and Jesse thought the slosh of their legs through the water was too loud in the humid silence. With how sweaty he was, it was easy to imagine the tepid water seeping through his undersuit, but he knew that was unlikely. The mud beneath them was clingy, and after a dozen steps everyone was panting a little.
"It's too bad Kix couldn't come," the trooper just ahead of Jesse said breathlessly, as they hit brush and could half-crawl and elbow their way out of the waist-high water. "We'll just have to make sure he's not missing much."
"Lieutenant?" Jesse guessed.
"Yes. How's he doing, Jesse?"
"Oh, he's… fine," Jesse said, wincing at the stilted reply, and gave an even worse laugh. Appo was calling to the other squads—"follow our path exactly!" "Just, you know, a medic's work is never done."
"Mm." Singer nodded. "It's a good call for Commander Appo to put him in the second contingent. Coming up behind us, he can triage more efficiently, right?"
"Yeah… maybe. The walkers can carry the wounded, at least." Their primary objective for the next few days was to assist the other battalions on Saleucami in creating a perimeter around the port city before they reached the edges of its sensor grid. But with the trees so close it was harder for the AT-TEs to get through.
A trooper sighed on Jesse's other side and vaulted over a tall root.
"What?" Jesse asked.
"There's no room to run in this place!"
Singer laughed softly. "It's going to be a long march, brother. Save your energy."
Jesse nudged the restless trooper with his elbow. "Rabbit, aren't you supposed to be with your squad?"
"Eh." Rabbit shrugged, but fell back a few paces and disappeared into the re-thickening crowd.
"You think you should just trade Rabbit into our platoon, Lieutenant?" asked another trooper. "I bet Mark wouldn't mind shifting squads. And I'd love the chance to pull rank on Rabbit."
"I'm sure you would, Sergeant Kriko," Singer said in that overly formal tone that meant he was playing off the first impression many troopers had of him. "I'm sure you would." Jesse could hear the smile in his voice.
Blaster fire jumped electricity through his arms.
"AMBUSH!"
"Sting's down!"
"Droids at nine o'clock! Look up!"
The screams came from behind Jesse. Through his rifle sights the men still crossing the river fell by the half-dozen and were swallowed by grey water. Jesse's feet stumbled between the moss-dripping arms of the nearest fallen tree as if they had a mind of their own. Voices surrounded him, no telling who they belonged to.
"Hurry up and find cov—"
"Ciro! Get up!"
"Help! Help me pick him u-gAHH—"
"Behind you!"
"Everyone!" a voice yelled across the comm. "Find cover! They're in the trees!"
Must be Commander Appo. With a feeling of hyper-clarity, Jesse crouched and scanned the treetops where the blaster bolts were coming from. He couldn't see anything.
"How did they get up there?" Jesse muttered "Sergeant Copper, where are you?"
"Out of commission, Jesse. This is Singer, regrouping with Commander Appo!" Jesse saw a trooper wave an arm out of the corner of his eye; Singer and a few other troops were gathering with Appo behind the roots of the tree whose branches hid Jesse.
No sooner had he mapped his route, he burst from behind the branch and pelted across the opening, running as low as he could in the tall grass, knees going hot and feet sliding on the mud, not bothering to shoot before he reached cover—no point marking himself as a target just yet.
"Help!"
Jesse stumbled to slow himself and blindly grabbed the outstretched hand that invaded the edge of his visor's view. Yanking the trooper's arm roughly over his shoulders, he stumbled forward and dropped the trooper as soon as they'd made it to Appo's group. "Need a medic?"
"I-it's not serious," panted the trooper. "Just can't walk. It's Bones, by the way."
"Broken bones?"
"No, my name. Well, the bone is probably—"
"Oh! Bones!" Jesse laughed shakily. "Jesse." He turned to Singer and Appo. "So what's the plan?"
"Commander?" Singer asked, turning toward the clone studying a holo-map. Jesse sighted a few grey blots over the edge of the roots and, after nearly ten blasts, finally brought one droid tumbling from the treetop.
"This map isn't detailed enough." Appo's voice rose above the battalion's screams as he jerked the view back and forth from their current position to points in the surrounding area. "Can't see better cover ahead. But if we stay here we're canned targets!"
" Sir," Jesse observed with a sinking feeling. "Those things can fly."
Five droids were headed right for them. Like B1-s but raptorlike, with segmented wings. The blaster fire came directly from their barrel-like heads and Jesse yanked Singer down onto his knees as the things swooped past. Appo ducked, fired—a miss.
"We have to keep moving," Appo said, crouched and looking up. "All squads, keep moving forward! We have to break through!"
Jesse turned back to grab Bones, and Singer was on the wounded trooper's other side a moment later, sharing the load. Through the chaos of blaster fire Appo led the way between roots and bushes—minimal cover, but better than nothing.
As they hobbled to keep up, it was hard to resist the urge to stop and look up at the droids every few steps. Jesse strained against Bones' weight suddenly and the trooper screamed right into his ear—Bones' arm was wrenched from Jesse's grip and Jesse lost his balance.
As he stumbled and fell back, he rolled onto hands and knees and his visor was a blur of leathery skin and feathers. A sharp beak dug between the torso plates of Bones' armor and Jesse, finding his rifle ready, shot at it without thinking
The creature flinched and spread huge mottled wings as it wrapped talons around Bones' chest. Its head drew sharply back, open beak pointed toward the sky. There was a sharp crest made of bone on top of its head. For a moment Jesse could hear nothing but blasterfire and screams, until a vibration in his jaw clarified into the deepest shriek he'd ever heard.
He shuddered and aimed at it again before another trooper's body slammed into his, but the creature didn't pounce. It took flight, Bones dangling limply by one arm; blood shone all down the front of his armor.
"Bones!" Jesse yelled, scrambling to get out from under his brother.
"Jesse, there's more of them coming!"
The trooper who'd tackled him—Singer—grabbed his arm and kept Jesse on his knees. Between the trees and across the water, more of the leathery birds were landing, their bodies and tails trailing fine dark feathers like hair. As Jesse watched, they swooped down on troopers that had fallen—some screamed and squirmed as the birds speared them or dug their talons in. Others were unresponsive.
A squad fired on one of them as it tried to drag their injured brother away, too far away for Jesse to help. The bird tumbled and found its feet, staggered, and rammed one trooper up against the nearest tree with its head. The trooper went limp and the monster whirled on another, driving him to the ground with its talons before the others took it out. It dropped in a mess of feathers and scaled legs and for a moment the rest of the birds turned to look at it.
It was almost quiet, but the droids kept firing from above; another brother nearby yelped and went down. Two of the creatures leapt on his body and Jesse forced his focus toward the treetops as the grasses around his feet sizzled.
Singer fired with him; the faint silhouettes shifted like a swarm, reshaping or disappearing altogether to let the blaster bolts pass through. The screams of fellow troopers continued.
"How many have we hit?" Jesse panted, shifting around the tree's massive roots for a better angle.
"Only four. We've already lost four squads worth." Singer dropped to his knees again for a moment, hand to his helmet. "Yes, sir. Understood. Everyone, change of plan! Dig in and find cover! Don't move! We'll make them come to us."
Jesse heard the order echoed from Appo over his comm.
"Where's Copper?" he asked, sighting another avian about to fly off with a struggling trooper.
"Focus on the droids, Jesse." Singer's voice was a little higher than normal.
"He's still alive!" Jesse hissed.
"You'll draw attention," another trooper hissed back, grabbing Jesse's rifle. "We have to come up with a plan or none of us are going to make it through."
"We can't leave the wounded, sir," Singer was saying quietly into his comm. "Not when they're still alive."
"Who's leaving the wounded?" Jesse demanded, and squeezed the trigger. The other trooper let go of Jesse's rifle before the second shot, but the bolt still went wild and hit a tree.
"Sir," Singer was saying, "if we can just—"
"Incoming!"
The battlefield, what Jesse could see of it from behind the fallen tree, had gone relatively still, all troopers holding ground wherever they'd found cover. Just the criss-cross of blaster bolts lit the swarm of droids descending toward them—Jesse grabbed the nearest kneeling trooper around the middle and dragged him backward into a watery gap beneath the fallen tree that hid them. It was barely large enough for them to crawl under, their heads pressed against the log above to leave room for their helmets and rifles above water. Muck slid slowly off his visor and he fired wildly at the droids as they swooped overhead. He could see other troopers' boots stumbling over the roots and grasses, and a few more bodies fell in his sightline.
Singer splashed down into the shadow of the tree beside Jesse a moment later, breathing heavily and still speaking into his comm. His voice sounded flat even though Jesse could hear it twice over. "Singer here. We've been ordered to leave any wounded who can't move in the open. The scavengers are too aggressive to fight off, and the bodies will distract them while we fight the droids."
"Lieutenant!" hissed Jesse.
"I'm sorry, Jesse." Singer's voice was blunt. "I don't like it either. But the Commander's right: we have to keep our number of active men as high as we can if we're going to complete the mission."
"There has to be another way!" There was another bird in Jesse's sights, swooping down toward an injured brother and the friend who checked his vitals. They both screamed and Jesse looked away, sucking air through his teeth. "There can't be that many of those things!"
"They just… keep coming," the trooper on Jesse's other side whispered.
Through the trailing moss beneath the log Jesse saw at least six more of the avian beasts touch down, crowding a group of corpses. The ones who had been there first snapped their beaks at them; they fluffed their black neck feathers for a moment before scattering to find other corpses. The troopers who could still move scrambled to get away from them. One bird began stalking one of the walking troops, who had lost his rifle.
"No you don't," Jesse heard Singer mutter and a moment later the Lieutenant was gone. Jesse heard shots and quick footsteps coming from above him as Singer ran along the log.
"Run, trooper! Get cov—!"
Singer's voice died into the noise and Jesse saw a splash in the corner of his visor's view.
"No no no no no!" Jesse yelled, crawling through the muck under the log toward where Singer had fallen. The Lieutenant flailed to his feet, gasping, and Jesse fired on another swarm of droids as they made a pass.
"I'm okay! I'm fine, get back under cover!" Singer smacked his free hand blindly at Jesse and the other trooper who had grabbed him to steady him. "I just slipped!"
"Your ammo's leaking," the other trooper pointed out, between shots at the approaching droids.
"Get down!" Singer shoved them both back behind a branch as the swarm swooped over them. Jesse tried to focus through the new fog rising from the rain of fire and shoot a few of them, but no droids dropped from the sky, only more scavengers. He crawled backward under the log again.
"Agh," Singer sighed once they were out of blast range, and flipped his blaster over in his hands. "Great." Liquid Tibanna was dripping from the cartridge in Singer's rifle, leaving a bright residue on the water they crouched in. A blaster bolt had broken the seal. Jesse noticed, a moment later, a darker drop of liquid on the water.
"You're bleeding."
Singer shook his head, chest rising and falling visibly. Jesse heard himself panting, hot in the face. Angry. "Clankers just nicked my hand," said Singer. "Doesn't matter. I'm not going to get far without a weapon." The tibanna cartridges were made to last for nearly a thousand shots. One could easily replace the energy packs that charged the blasts, but refilling the LT was too time-consuming for an active battle zone.
"It's all over us; it's in the water," the other trooper said, arms raised as he looked down at his own chest. His voice wavered slightly, almost a laugh. "We get hit, we could go up in flames."
"I am not going to wait around for that," Singer yelled briskly over the noise. "I'm going to find another weapon. And if I do blow up… I'll take some clankers down with me!"
Before either of them could say anything, Singer was gone again, running through the red flashes toward a prone suit of armor slumped at the base of another tree.
"Keep firing at the droids," Jesse said tightly. He could smell the volatile LT on himself now, the sharp, chemical odor that every trooper dreaded because it meant a deadly malfunction in any number of weapons or equipment. Even as he tried to sight toward the treetops he knew it was hopeless. The droids were too shielded by the fog to shoot at accurately. They probably had heat vision to guide their aim, but the droids gave off too little heat for Jesse or any other trooper to spot with thermal imaging in turn. No scent of blood to attract predators. Every odd was stacked against the 501st.
He and the trooper beside him stood in a puddle of watered-down LT now—the minute returning fire hit this spot they would get burned at the very least. "Let's get out of the water."
"Copy that," the trooper said with shaky relief, and they crawled and rolled out onto solid ground.
"You, go give Singer some back up," Jesse said. The pool behind them burst into flame as the droids made another pass.
"It's Afterthought!" the trooper yelled, but saluted between shots. "Where are you gonna go?"
"Oh! AT!" Jesse said. "Look, he's—!"
AT whipped around to fire at the beast that was approaching Singer and the body he'd been running for. The shot missed but the bird stopped to stare back at them, and Singer kept running. The creature lunged and recoiled, flapping its wings, though Singer had done nothing Jesse could see to frighten it. Singer skidded and stopped, arms stretched out as if to keep his balance or ward the beast off from the body.
"What's he doing?" AT said, but Jesse forced himself to look away, toward the trees, thinking as he shot and scurried between cover. Could he pour more LT into the water, lure the droids into range and ignite? They never flew quite low enough for that to be effective. It would probably kill more men than droids. Was there a way to make droids easier to spot?
Another scream yanked Jesse's gaze over to Singer, but it wasn't him. The bird still hadn't struck, just staring at Singer, and Singer edged slowly toward the gun the dead trooper had dropped beside the tree. The screaming trooper was further to the right, silent now, being torn up by another beast. Jesse had always had a strong stomach but he shot before he could stop himself, screaming at the animal as it flinched and flew away. Its deep shriek was a painful pressure inside his skull.
"—droids. Repeat, do not engage the avians, focus on the droids!"
He knew the trooper was already dead. Or if he wasn't, death would be a mercy. Jesse steeled himself and set up the cable attachment on his rifle, veering aside to pick up a pack of explosives from another body. There were so many dead already. He didn't want to pull off the helmet of the one he took the pack from—No. He did want to, but couldn't. The trooper wasn't a medic. That at least he knew.
"Sorry brother," Jesse panted as he attached the explosives to the body. This trooper, shot by blaster, was not blood-soaked yet, not like the one that lay just meters away. This was just a suit of armor, he told himself.
He could smell the blood. Blood and fuel. Blaster bolts blurred the edges of his vision. The pools around him were turning red; maybe the light was tricking him. His stomach churned.
When he was done, Jesse ran to the tree where Singer and AT held the avian at bay. At the sight of a third trooper approaching it shook its head furiously, scrabbled backward on its scaly feet and flew away.
"A little more cowardly than I thought," Singer huffed, and began shooting at the treetops again. "Jesse, what are you doing?"
"Don't worry, I have a plan! Just try to cover me!" Jesse aimed and shot his cable gun at the highest sturdy branch he could see.
"I didn't authorize anything!" Singer called.
"I know!" Jesse said. "I just have to try this! I have to try something!"
"The Commander said to find cover, not make yourself a target! Jesse!"
"Sorry, Lieutenant!" Jesse flipped the switch and he flew upward toward the branch, aware that at any moment a bolt could hit him and, if that didn't kill him, the fall surely would. There was no Jedi around to catch him. "If I survive this you can lecture me all you want!"
"Jesse…." He sounded worried. "I'm coming with you!"
"No!" Jesse grunted as the cable reeled him in the final length and he slammed into the branch. He wrapped all four limbs around it and hauled himself toward the trunk, elbow of his rifle-arm hooked awkwardly around the branch. A few droids passed his way; he fired wildly and felt his other hand lose its grip—for a moment he dangled upside-down with his legs wrapped around the branch, wet armor quickly losing traction. For a sickening moment he felt it slip from between his feet. Falling, he raised his gun to try and fire another cable but something snagged his armor, he flipped around and felt his shoulder wrench out of place, struck from behind. The rifle left his fingers.
His breath left him. As soon as he could force his lungs to inhale, Jesse screamed—the pain went through him like a blaster bolt, and for a moment he wondered if he'd been shot, but then his arm wrenched around again and he was falling, he slammed into the trunk, he couldn't breathe out, there was no air left. His other hand found purchase on a branch just as someone grabbed him around the middle.
"What were you doing?" a voice demanded.
Jesse sucked air, dizzy and waiting for his vision to clear. He could see the ground far below, between where his feet rested on a branch. He didn't remember putting his feet down on anything. One tiny trooper looked up and waved from behind a stump.
"What… h-happened?" Jesse finally managed.
"You slipped, I grabbed you, but the branch my cable was attached to broke, and you hit another branch on the way down before I could reattach. I think your shoulder might be dislocated. Sorry. I had to wrench it again to get you up."
"Singer?" Jesse breathed. The trooper's arm was still around his waist.
"Yes. What were you thinking?" Singer asked. His calm sounded forced. "We can't hit them any better up here, and there's no cover. I'm surprised they haven't shot us yet."
"Look… I… I need to get that body up here." Jesse pointed toward the one he'd rigged with explosives. He couldn't see Singer; the lieutenant was behind him.
"What? The body? Why?"
Jesse didn't say anything, aware that his plan would sound crazy. But from here he could see even better how few troops there were remaining. The forest floor was soaked red and littered with bodies, some whole, some in pieces.
He could hear Singer's helmet comm going off. "Lieutenant Singer, regroup at point one-zero-six by four-seven on map E-5. We have to concentrate our forces and come up with a plan. What's your position?"
"AT," Jesse panted into his comm. "I'm running out of time. If we shoot this cable at your stump, can you reattach it to the body I rigged with explosives?"
"Yes sir, I'll—what?" Singer gasped, distracted from his comm with Appo. "Jesse!"
"Droids incoming!" Jesse reached for another branch with his good hand and yanked himself around to the other side of the tree while Singer re-balanced and shot at a few as they passed. He managed to hit one before he joined Jesse on the other side.
"Singer! Singer, report! Are you still there? Singer! Blast…."
"Singer here, still here, Commander," Singer panted. "My position is—I'll check coordinates once I'm on the ground, sir. Just a moment."
"What?!"
"I hope you know what you're doing," Singer said to Jesse, and shot his cable toward the stump where AT hid.
"I got it, sir," AT said a moment later, to both Jesse and Singer's comms. "Reattaching in a moment."
"Go go go," Jesse urged under his breath as AT darted out toward the body. In a moment AT signaled the go-ahead with his arm and ran back toward cover. A bolt flashed near him and he skidded face-first through the mud, his armor in flames.
Jesse swallowed the trooper's name and took a deep breath instead.
"Now what?" Singer asked. "I can't pull it back without losing balance."
"We've got to get above the droids." Jesse motioned slightly with his head to where the droids where flitting between high branches, about level with their position. "Then pull the cable over the branch and stand on a lower one," Jesse said, "So we have more leverage. And detonate the explosives after enough droids drift this way."
"It's not going to blow the droids up. Not more than one or two anyway" Singer said. "It's just going to get a lot of blood everywhere."
"I know," Jesse said grimly.
Singer looked down. "Alright. If I help you, can you climb?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do this. Hang on to me for a second."
With Singer's arm around his waist, Jesse was able to twist where he stood against the trunk and reach for another branch with his good arm. Carefully, he shifted his weight and grip. "Okay, let go."
Slowly, painstakingly, they moved from branch to branch. Jesse's shoulders already ached after the first meter or so, but he kept going, Singer bracing him each time he had to reach for the next handhold.
At last Singer stopped and threaded the cable gun over a higher branch. Jesse braced himself in a fork against the trunk, teeth clenched. He couldn't see the forest floor anymore, just mist and the grey outlines of droids in the branches around them. A moment later, Singer followed and settled onto the branch beside him, clipping Jesse's belt to his own before also clipping the rifle to them.
"Now we can focus on hanging on."
"Right." Jesse found a handhold. "Pull it up."
Singer flipped the switch to begin reeling the body up. Jesse hung onto the tree, feeling the resistance against his waist. The body slowly came into view, limp on the end of the cable. The droids, which had so far ignored Jesse and Singer, ignored the body too.
"Now we wait, I guess," Jesse muttered to himself, watching a squad of droids swoop down into the fog again. He could see in his mind how they scattered his brothers like twigs in the wind, all still out of range of the body swinging slowly on the line. "Can't even take potshots from up here now that I dropped my blaster."
"I don't get it, Jesse," Singer sighed. "But until we get that body up here I don't have another way for us to get down."
"We can't fight the droids and those huge bird…things!" Jesse hissed against the pain as he tried to shift his arm. "The scavengers are attracted to the smell of our blood. We get enough of that on the clankers, maybe the scavengers will go for them instead of us."
"At least for a while," Singer said, his voice a little lighter. "Yeah. I see… heh. Maybe you're not crazy after all. But it's still a long shot."
"Thanks," Jesse sighed. "I just figured some of us might want to live through this battle, not dig in until the droids dig us out one by one."
"Can't argue with that," Singer said. "Look… the clankers are coming this way. But Jesse, we got a problem."
"What problem?"
"I can't aim my blaster at the body while the cable's reeling up."
"Oh. I've got a detonator. Hang on to me."
"Got it!"
Jesse let go of the tree and reached for it on his belt. He twisted off the safety and waited as the swarm of droids slowly, indecisively, shifted toward where they perched.
"They don't seem to have noticed us," Singer whispered. Up here, the sounds of battle were already a bit quieter.
"I hope this branch holds," Jesse whispered back.
Together they fell silent. The droids' heads were pointed downward. The body was above the clankers now and Singer flipped the switch to halt the cable. But the droids were drifting so slowly, lazily across the branches, circling the battlefield. Still, their pattern seemed to be shifting this way. At any moment, the droids could notice them or the body and it would all be over.
Screams still came from below. Jesse swallowed, his stomach aching now too. He heard himself breathing, and Singer too, their commlines held open. They sat as still as they could. The droid swarm flitted into the branches of their own tree, balancing lightly further away from the trunk and below.
"Jesse," Singer breathed, when nearly a hundred had gathered below them and begun firing.
Jesse pressed the button.
There was a flash of light, then its afterimage on his eyelids. The explosion itself blessedly blocked the gruesome sounds Jesse had imagined. A moment later he opened his eyes and saw the droids wheeling apart, their ranks broken, easy to see now in bright shining red. A few crashed into the ground, while others managed to stay afloat like drunken bees.
The freed cable whipped toward them, spraying a small residue of blood into the air. It was mostly clear by the time it clanked into place on the end of Singer's blaster. Jesse's head pulsed, and he realized a moment later, when a phalanx of scavengers began grabbing droids out of the air, that the avians were all calling to each other.
"I think it worked." Singer sounded impressed, checking his armor for blood spatters. "Maybe we should try it again."
…
Kix yanked Jacky by the edge of his armor back behind the enormous tree. Unbalanced, they both fell as the blast shook them, carrying screams on the rumbling shockwave. Kix scrambled to his feet and ran out into the thick sheets of rain, his mind tracking the most likely places each trooper had been flung from where he'd last marked their positions by the smoking AT-RT. He had seconds before the blaster fire would begin again in earnest. Seconds that could mean the difference between reaching an injured trooper and having to leave him to his death.
Someone groaned near his right foot, and he skidded and fell to his knees beside him, looking and feeling him over—no fractures that he could detect, likely some internal blast wave damage—before lunging forward to grab his outstretched arm and half carry him back toward better cover. Through the jagged distortions of the rain he thought he saw Jacky dragging another clone before the injured one he was hauling lurched awkwardly to his feet.
"I-I can walk, go back for—" the trooper gasped, lurching toward the rocks, and Kix ran.
Blaster fire sizzled with the rain again. He ducked around another large branch and pulled his rifle from off his back, taking out the three droids he could see clearest before running. The droids were flying lower now.
A trooper moved about three meters away, halfway on his side, his arm at an odd angle under him. Dislocated shoulder at the very least. Kix's boots sent mud flying. A wide red streak filled his visor and for a moment he thought he was dead, but his feet kept going, snagged by brush. A moment later he blinked past a warped line where his visor's surface had melted.
The man he was running for clawed at the mud with his good hand. When Kix was less than four strides away, a bolt jerked through the figure once. Kix heard a choked-off scream.
"I got you!" Kix yelled, sending repeated shots at the mass of droids where the bolt had come from before dropping his rifle and hauling the trooper out of the line of fire, then propping his torso on his knees to take pressure off the injured shoulder. He checked the trooper's throat: a faint pulse quickly dying, no breathing. He pulled the helmet off, bracing himself for who he might find. It could be anybody. It could be—
Kix exhaled. He didn't know who it was: standard haircut; no tattoos or scars; young. The head lolled back, face going slack. The shot had gone through his heart. Other troopers needed his help.
"Kix?" a voice came over his comm. "Kix, come in. It's Jesse."
"Jesse?" Kix called back.
"We figured out a way to keep scavengers away from the wounded. Pour liquid tibanna on them. The avians hate it!"
"I'll tell the other medics," Kix said gratefully. "Thanks, Jesse."
He laid the body down and put the dead rookie's helmet on himself, discarding his damaged one just in time to grab his rifle and join the line driving the B1s back. Kix's next target was cradling an arm and shoving himself backward with his legs, toward the shelter of two fallen trees.
A sprint later, Kix crouched by his side, firing to cover the last push to get behind under cover. "Alright, trooper?"
The trooper shook his head and knocked on his helmet with his good hand.
Deafened by the blast. Hopefully temporary—Kix's head was still ringing, too. The droids had no visible rocket launchers. He still didn't know where that missile had come from.
Kix checked him over—no serious bleeding, but when Index shakily took his helmet off Kix recognized him and heard the raw sound in his breath. One compound fracture in the arm, one sprained ankle. He gave him a shot of painkillers and checked his circulation.
"Kix, this is Shadow," panted a voice over comm, "I need some help over here! We've got serious blast wounds, open fractures!" Shadow recited some coordinates relative to their drop site. Much closer to the rendezvous than Kix was, now the fighting had spread out so much.
"Copy that! On my way! Listen: LT repels the predators! The smell repels them!" When there was no response, Kix relayed orders to the rest of the medics, pulled Index a bit further aside and signed for him to stay put. Then he picked up Index's blaster, pulled out the LT cartridge and poured a fourth of it over Index's feet and the ground around him.
"Appo, this is Index," Index coughed raggedly. "I've been incapacitated. I'll advise what's left of my squad to fall in with Linn's platoon."
Kix didn't stay to hear Appo's instruction. The spaces between the trees were slowly being filled with straggling squads of droids, and if more were coming he might be cut off from the coordinates where Shadow was.
Darting from cover to cover, he shot his way through the lower-flying droids with the help of brothers he couldn't name or distinguish, falling one by one around him. It was a comfort and a stress not to know who was who between the upright and the down. Two, then three troops fell behind him, but a quick check confirmed them dead. Kix replaced the feeling of their dying pulses and breathless throats with the feeling of the rifle's trigger.
As they broke into another small clearing, piles of inert metal behind them, Kix saw a trooper nearby and to the left, yelling and shooting into the trees, but he had squad mates behind him. Kix headed right, toward Shadow's coordinates.
"WATCH IT!" The trooper screamed. "Mines! They dropped mines here! Sergeant Levi already stepped on one!"
Kix stopped and followed the yelling trooper's gestures toward the Sergeant, one leg gone below the knee, the other a mangled mess, a shard of bone protruding—there was a smear of red in the mud leading to where he'd been dragged that the yelling trooper was now kicking water over.
"Scavengers!" the trooper said like a curse as Kix ran past him and knelt. "I don't even know what those things are."
Booms and clatters came from the south, the battle moving away from their position. One bird, easily a head taller than Kix if it were standing, lay dead over a gnarled root, its neck and beak stained red, viciously clawed feet curled close to its black body and one grey wing awkwardly outstretched.
"Did anyone give him painkillers already?" Kix asked as he dropped his pack. He took off Levi's leg armor and applied a tourniquet to the worse leg, a pressure wrap to the other. Levi grunted in muffled screams, his upper body squirming a little.
"Too busy holding the scavengers off. And the droids!" Avenger crouched by them and took off his helmet, his face blotchy, teeth bared. "Couldn't let them get away with this!"
Kix pulled Levi's helmet off and gave him an injection, then another of antibiotics. The Sergeant's face was screwed up against the hammering rain, teeth grinding as uneven breaths shuddered through his chest.
"Hang on, Levi," Kix urged, checking him more thoroughly. "Okay, we've got some pelvic wounds, but no serious organ damage. You can pull through." Once done checking that his blood loss wasn't deadly, he grabbed Levi's bloody hand, gripped into a fist near his leg's stump, and squeezed it tight. "You're going to pull through, got it? That's an order."
"G… ot it." The words tore from Levi's throat. Kix poured some of the LT out onto Levi's armor.
"WHAT are you DOING?" Avenger yelled. "You're NOT going to blow him up like—"
"Shut up, Avenger!" said another trooper standing by.
"The scent keeps the scavengers away," Kix said.
"I told you," the other trooper said.
"Rrgh," Avenger growled. "I SAW—"
"I've got to move on, unless anyone else is alive." Kix pulled his pack back on and looked at the other bodies around the clearing for signs of life. "If the way is clear behind us, one of you can carry Levi to walker ten—not you." Kix shoved Avenger away from Levi as he lunged forward.
Avenger took a step back. "Oh. Right… Kix." His determined look wavered, and Kix realized Avenger hadn't known who he was, despite the symbol on his shoulder now marking him as chief medic.
"I think Slots is still alive," said a second trooper from a few feet away, crouching over the other body. "Barely. Birds took a good chunk out of him too."
Kix hurried over. Slots' lower right side was a mess of useless tissue and armor fragments. The predator had gotten him, alright—Kix stared dully at the innards that had been pulled free. They seemed too clean, alien, sprayed by heavy rain as they were. No movement but a twitch in his empty left hand.
"Nothing I can do," Kix said, but it came out under his breath. He took off Slots' helmet. The trooper's eyelids fluttered, his lips already blue—no oxygen from his shredded lung. "Slots, can you hear me?"
He was barely breathing. An awful gurgling cough came from his throat.
"It'll be over soon, Slots." Kix put a hand gently on the trooper's forehead and took a deep breath as he injected the lethal drug into the trooper's neck. "Time to rest. You fought well. You did your duty. You saved your brothers."
More shots came from nearby, and curses from Avenger. Kix kept his hand resting lightly on Slots' head until he felt the trooper's trembling subside.
He stood up. Avenger's face was pale and pinched, but he put his helmet back on and nodded.
"You two, take your sergeant to walker ten." Kix pointed at them and gave them the coordinates. "The rest of you should keep moving toward the rendezvous point."
"Yes, sir." The remaining troopers moved out.
Shadow's comm silence was more worrisome than reassuring. Kix set off, sweeping the area for mines, sloshing quietly through the growing puddles in an uneven scurry that slowed before each gap in the trees.
"Shadow, this is Kix," Kix called over the comm. "I'm heading toward you now."
"Copy that!" Shadow yelled. "I can't reach most of the casualties yet. The other battalion's been pushing the enemy ground troops this way. Approach from the northeast if you can manage it."
"Understood."
It was a quick, quiet march in the deafening rainfall. For the first time since they'd left the ship, Kix was alone in the trees. The flying droids seemed to have moved on. Distant explosions came louder, rippling large puddles between the tangled roots. He kept the LT cartridge open in one hand.
What was exploding ahead? He hoped the AT-TEs had made it through whatever waited for them.
He clawed his way through a thicket, paused at the top to look at the battlefield—the trees opening a bit, possibly a small foggy meadow—and slid down a steep bank in a spray of mud to join a platoon of troops who kept up steady fire from their sparse cover.
"Shadow's over—over that way," one of them yelled, straining to be heard over a round of rockets that Kix still couldn't place as their own or the enemy's. He pointed with his rifle toward another dense group of troopers, and Kix could already see a few of the wounded laid out some meters behind the firing line. He ran, jumping over tree limbs. There it was again—the smell of blood and burnt flesh, everywhere.
Panting, he arrived on the scene just in time to see Shadow join a charge into the open to retrieve the wounded—a blaster bolt jerked through the medic and he went down.
"SHADOW!" Kix broke from cover, but the other medic was already moving again, staggering forward and pulling the nearest casualty back with his arms looped around his chest. "Shadow, I've got him!" Kix knelt and reached for the soldier.
"The other one, Kix!" Shadow's voice was strangled. "I can do it!"
A noise came from Kix that he didn't mean to make, a wordless yell. Somehow he still ran for the smoldering AT-TE—Shadow's wounded man must have got caught in the blast wave when the rocket hit it. There were a few more troopers down around it, and Kix knew from experience there was likely no one left living inside.
"—rek Besh Cresh Dorn," A breathy mutter came from the first trooper Kix knelt by, whose helmet was blown halfway off. "Once a baby bith… was…born."
"Oh, you're alive, Quotes," Kix sighed, looking him over. Quotes wasn't the only trooper who used odd methods to distract from the pain. Shrapnel wounds covered his torso, and Kix carefully eased his helmet the rest of the way off and saw bloody cuts covering his face from where metal shards had pierced the faceplate. He tore open Quotes' armor to analyze the discoloration and feel along the edges of the torso wounds. "Ahh… not good. You've got internal bleeding…."
"Am I dead?" Quotes sputtered and licked rain off his lips. "Just do it if, if I'm dead."
"Hang on. I'm getting you out of here. Your legs are still good." Kix hauled Quotes' good arm over his shoulder and helped him to his feet, but the trooper's shaking legs couldn't hold for more than two steps. Another soldier ran to Kix's side.
"Alright, Kix?" he asked. "It's Brick."
"Oh," Kix said, as Brick helped him haul Quotes back through the smattering of blaster fire. "Good to see you, Sergeant."
"Glad you're here. Duster's platoon's been hit pretty hard this time."
Together they laid Quotes down by two other critically injured patients.
"Zip's spine's broken." Shadow swayed as another soldier helped him sit beside Kix and Quotes. Brick ran off, calling for more men to help the wounded. "Not sure if we should call it. Can't move any more troops—"
"That's right!" Kix snapped. "You're a casualty now!" He stopped himself; he was shaking. Shadow was still alive. "Did they hit anything?"
"Nothing vital," Shadow panted. "Just my hip."
"You shouldn't be able to walk."
"Adrenaline," Shadow laughed shakily. "Can only go so far. So, Quotes…."
"Is Zip stable?"
"Yeah."
"Leave him for the evacuation team, then." Kix gave Quotes a heavy dose of painkillers, and his muttering subsided into a whisper. "Quotes, we're gonna try to get you out of here in an hour or so. Just hang on a little longer."
"Kay," Quotes forced out, lips quivering. His breath started coming choppy.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's gonna be alright, brother," Shadow said in a firm, soft voice. He took Quotes' less injured hand while Kix did what he could to slow the external bleeding. "Just hold on."
Kix left them like that and ran out to retrieve the others by the walker. Kix checked two bodies on the ground, put a third trooper with an open brain injury out of his misery, and rushed up to the machine's side as two troopers passed the lone survivor of the AT-TE's interior into his arms.
"Ugh," said Bridges hazily a few moments later, as they carried him on a stretcher between them. "I'm not sure I'll walk again, sir."
"That's your concussion talking," Kix said stubbornly. "I've seen troopers recover from worse." Not many, Kix thought, looking at the exposed bone jutting out from his crushed legs, but some. Amputation might be more merciful. Bridges was good at operating machinery. Maybe the army would want him even without legs. Maybe.
"Yeah! You'll be running and jumping around in no time!" said the trooper holding the other side of the stretcher. Kix wondered if it was Rabbit.
Bridges tried to laugh. Kix hoped that was a laugh. "Uhh, I'm gonna be sick…."
"Almost there, Bridges," Kix said.
The battle was over for now, Kix realized. The clank of droid legs and the ping of blasters was replaced with the yells and squelching boots of his brothers reorganizing themselves and salvaging water and other supplies from the vehicles. The 501st wasn't moving any further today.
"Shadow," he said over comm. "You're primary contact for this CCP. Calling all medics: focus on retrieval to these coordinates. Shadow will triage from there. I'll arrange pickup for Immediates. Commander Appo. Commander, this is Kix."
Kix jogged to check the vitals of bodies he passed. It took several calls before the Commander responded.
"Appo here." It was a harsh bark.
"We need to request an evacuation for the worst of the wounded." Ignoring the shiver in his stomach at Appo's reply, Kix cut open an unconscious trooper's undersuit to get a look at the shrapnel wounds, and began winding a pressure wrap. "There are at least a dozen who won't survive unless we get them off the surface in the next three hours." He grunted as he pulled the limp trooper's shoulders up to reach his back. He'd lost a lot of blood. "We'll probably need a couple of larties."
"Copy that… I'll…." The line went quiet. "I'll get to it." Kix heard Appo yelling muffled, unrelated instructions to someone.
Kix swallowed and cinched the wraps. "Sir, I can contact the fleet myself with your authorization."
"Oh. Of course." Appo sounded distracted. "Go ahead, trooper."
"Thank you, sir. I'll take a few troops and proceed with retrieval. Kix out."
Relieved that Appo hadn't argued, Kix heaved the trooper over his shoulders and hurried back toward Shadow. A group of troopers ran up to him with two at their head, one with his arm held at an odd angle.
"Kix! You're alright! We can help. Where's he going?" The other one transferred the wounded soldier to his shoulders.
"Just over there, behind those trees," Kix sighed. "Thanks."
"It's Singer," said the trooper who was holding the wounded now. He sounded like he was grinning.
"And Jesse," Jesse took off his helmet and smiled, strained and blinking rapidly against the rain. "We just got here and haven't been assigned any other duties."
Relief made Kix weak for a second. He took his medpack off and opened it. "What happened to your shoulder?"
"It's dislocated. Dash gave me some painkillers and a relaxant, so maybe it's ready to pop back in now…."
Kix felt along it and grimaced. "There's a lot of swelling. Can you move your arm?"
"Yeah. I can still feel everything too."
"That's good… that means your nerves weren't damaged. Ready?"
Kix braced his hands in place and felt Jesse take a deep breath. "Ready," he said softly.
It was over quickly, and Jesse let out his breath all at once.
Kix laughed weakly. "You always hold your breath. It's better to breathe, it lets the pain out."
"Sorry," Jesse grinned sheepishly, feeling his own shoulder before Kix started binding it to brace it. Water dripped in a stream from his chin. "Thanks."
"I'll see you when I get back. Gotta pick up the wounded that couldn't be moved during the fight. If we leave them out there they might get eaten alive, even with the LT. These heavy rains could wash it out."
"Yeah? I'm coming with you," Jesse said readily, even though his breath hitched a bit.
"Lead the way." Singer shifted the trooper's weight on his shoulders and passed Kix a water pack. "I'll drop him off, get some more of these and a few more men. We'll meet up with you and Jesse over there."
Ten minutes later, with a fresh batch of coordinates from the other medics, Jesse and Kix had just finished their water. Singer came back with seven troopers. Silently they fell into formation and moved away from the relative safety of camp, trying to quiet the breathing that echoed in their damp helmets, rain warm on their faces like sweat.
The clearing where Kix had found Avenger was silent, and Kix and Singer swept the way for mines.
"That's funny… there aren't as many here as when I came through," Kix murmured to himself.
A mud clod crumbled off the side of the ravine and everyone froze. But then they saw a large reptile scurry out of sight. The rain was easing off.
Someone started laughing and quickly hushed himself.
"Wait a minute." Kix raised hand, creeping ahead of them. They were almost to the spot where he'd left Slots' body, now. "Hear that?"
They all listened. It was faint.
"Blaster fire?" Jesse asked.
"Just one rifle, though." Singer stepped closer to Kix, head tilted visibly. "One of ours, I think."
The sound paused for a moment after a small explosion, and carried on.
They all looked at each other's identical, expressionless helmets, their confusion showing in their posture instead.
"Maybe someone got pinned down," Kix said, and hurried forward. He rounded the corner, expecting to see Slots' body. Instead he saw a pile of rocks and yet another dead scavenger lying nearby.
"What the…."
"Keep moving," Kix commanded. "He might need our help."
At a junction Kix sent Mark and Shift to go retrieve a few troopers Jacky had left hidden, and the rest of them pressed toward the blaster fire that was getting louder all the time.
"Definitely sounds like a DC-15," Jesse said. "But it sounded more like a chain gun earlier. I'm surprised he hasn't attracted the enemy's attention by now."
"I left Index over there." Kix motioned toward a clump of trees. "But let's make contact with this trooper first…."
They saw him as they came around a large boulder, a 501st trooper shooting the sodden ground in front of him methodically as he paced forward. No enemy in sight.
"Trooper!" Singer yelled, and the trooper jumped visibly. "What are you doing?"
"Checking for mines!" The trooper's voice was hoarse.
Something in his voice made Kix suspicious. He hurried toward him. "Take off your helmet! Who authorized you to be out here on your own?"
Reluctantly, Avenger took off his helmet, eyes straying to Kix's shoulder bell again as he approached. "Sir, I—"
"You're not a scout or a medic!" Kix shoved him. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"
Avenger slid and lost balance, dropping his helmet in the mud. He caught himself with one hand and stood, clamped his mouth shut, took a deep breath and averted his eyes.
Kix tried to get control of his voice. "Well? Are you?"
"Sir, I was trying to make sure nobody got—."
"That's not your job!" Kix snarled before he could stop himself. He took Avenger by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Your job is to stay alive so I don't have one more person to patch up or add to the casualty list! What do you think is going to happen if you come out here alone and start making noise?! There's no excuse for this, Avenger!" Kix shoved him again, slamming his fists forward into Avenger's upper chestplate. "If you want to be injured so badly then maybe I—"
"Kix," Singer said quietly; Kix barely heard him.
"I just—!" Avenger dropped the gun and stepped back out of Kix's reach.
"I told you not to do this! I'm doing my best to keep you alive and you keep acting like you're invincible!"
"Sir, I—" Avenger's face was blotchy. He took a quick breath. "I was just trying to make sure nothing else got to the wounded before you did."
"I should tell Appo," Kix growled, breathing heavily. He knew he wouldn't. Was suddenly aware of the other troopers at his back, listening… his fists ached.
"Avenger," Singer broke in quietly. "Were you the one who piled those rocks back there?"
Avenger's face was caught between defiance and fear, mouth open. After a moment of glancing between them he swallowed. "It was… eating Slots, sir. I couldn't just—" His voice cracked and he stopped, clamping his mouth shut.
"He's not alive, Avenger," Kix sighed roughly, trying to get back under control. "Trying to keep his body safe isn't going to do any good."
"You think it's a waste of time," Avenger said, as if he disagreed. But his shoulders sagged and he looked down. "Maybe it was. I should have focused on the living. That's what I was…first trying to do—"
"I understand why you did it," Jesse muttered. Everybody looked at him and he lifted his rifle in a helpless gesture. "Well, I do. That doesn't mean it was right, I guess." He looked at Kix.
"Look," Kix said. "Let's just… go get Index. You wanna save lives, you follow orders! There aren't any more mines in this passage anyway."
"Yes, sir!" Avenger snapped to attention.
"And you're still under orders not to lift anything heavy," Kix reminded him with one last growl. "So you just watch for enemies while we're checking him, got it?"
"Got it, sir."
Index was sitting as tightly as his armor would allow when Kix found him, injured arm cradled, rifle resting on his knees with one finger on the trigger. He was so rigid and unresponsive at first that Kix almost feared rigor mortis, but it hadn't been long enough.
"Index. Index!" He waved a hand in front of the trooper's helmet and took it off when there was no response.
Index gasped and tried to push backwards into the tree before he relaxed, blinking blearily, pupils contracting. Maybe he'd fallen asleep once the painkillers kicked in.
"Index, can you hear me?" Kix asked slowly, after he'd taken off his own helmet.
"Can't hear you," Index said gruffly, squinting at Kix's lips.
Kix grabbed his head gently and looked in his ears. There was some dried blood. He ran a hand over the thin parallel lines of Index's short hair, trying to reassure him nonverbally before digging in his pack for the datapad. Some distant part of him realized how at odds the gentle gesture was with how angry he felt.
"Anything we can do to help?" Jesse asked.
"Keep watch," Kix barked, typing out a message to hold out to Index: Your eardrums are ruptured but they will probably heal. Don't worry. We'll take you to camp.
Index's face fell as he read the message. He nodded, regained his composure, and handed it back.
"Now let's see your arm," Kix sighed, and carefully began to feel along it. It was shaking.
"Never occurred to me to keep a pad like that in your medpack," Singer said. "Is it just medical regs?"
"Yeah," Kix said automatically. "Mostly," he added after a minute.
"I uh…." Jesse cleared his throat but didn't say any more.
"Singer, I want you to take Index back to camp. Take Avenger with you."
"Yes, sir," Singer said. "I'd be glad to."
"Kix," said Avenger, coming close. "Sir. Are you going to tell the Commander?"
Not if he was trying to keep Avenger alive. "I don't know." The anger began to settle in his stomach and he swallowed against the bile. Would Appo throw out a trooper for something like this? Skywalker would. He would follow regulation, even against his own captain. Kix finished wrapping the splint and stood back.
"I'll tell him myself, sir," Avenger said quietly. "When we get back to camp."
"What?" Kix stared, and only just held back from ordering Avenger not to. If it had only been Jesse and Singer watching….
Avenger's voice was suddenly calm. "I've broken regulation and made things harder for you when I should be making them easier. I've got to face the consequences of that."
"If that's really what you want." Kix wanted to ask why he was doing this, but he'd already said more than he'd meant to.
"I'm not dragging anyone else into this," Avenger muttered, just where Kix could hear, before putting his helmet back on. "Lieutenant. Ready when you are."
Singer looked briefly between them before he nodded. He knelt and Kix helped him lift Index over his shoulders.
"Good luck," Kix said impulsively. "Don't get shot on the way back. Or eaten."
Singer stood and saluted awkwardly. Avenger nodded once to Kix and fell in behind Singer.
"We'd better keep moving," Kix said to Jesse, and motioned to the others to scout ahead. Something seemed off about the way Jesse was holding himself. "Are you hiding another injury?" he snapped. "I shouldn't have let you come."
"What?" Jesse stepped away from Kix abruptly. "No. Kix…."
"Well something's wrong, and don't lie to me!"
"I wouldn't," Jesse said, sounding hurt. He dropped his voice, glancing at the others, and stopped. "Let's take a break for a second. I thought you were going to punch Avenger. Are you feeling…uh…."
Kix realized his sweat was turning a little clammy. He stopped and took a few deep breaths. Jesse was just trying to help. Of course he was… good, faithful Jesse. Maybe, Kix realized with shame, Jesse's posture had more to do with the outburst toward Avenger than with any physical injury.
"So," Kix said awkwardly, "how'd you injure your arm, anyway?"
"Oh." Jesse paused. "I was, uh… Singer and I went climbing on our own mission." He gave a nervous laugh. "I fell, Singer grabbed me—"
"Your own mission? Did the Commander…."
"He hasn't said anything. Yet." Jesse fell silent for a minute. "I guess I'm worried. Singer said he'd talk to Appo about it being my idea… but on second thought, I'm not sure I want him to."
"Singer's a good friend. He wouldn't say anything that would make the Commander think less of you."
"We're supposed to tell the Commander anything he needs to know about the status of the men," Jesse muttered. "Isn't that what he said to you?"
"Yeah…." Kix reminded himself to breathe and check coordinates. There were avian tracks all over the ground. He needed to get to the other wounded soon.
"And Singer was the one encouraging us to bring Appo in on everything, so he'll trust us."
"Jesse, don't worry," Kix said softly, wishing he'd spoken privately with Singer before sending him off. "The LT was a good idea. Whatever else Singer's going to tell him will be fine. I trust the Lieutenant." He tried to sound confident, for Jesse and himself. "And the Commander." He could feel his body tense against the lie.
"The LT was Afterthought's idea, actually. I'm doing exactly the same thing Avenger is doing," Jesse muttered. "Thinking I know anything better than what I was ordered to do. I could have made things worse!"
"But you didn't." Kix put a hand on Jesse's shoulder.
"Well," Jesse sighed, "it worked out this time. But what if I'm just… pushing my limits, like him?" Jesse was nearly whispering. "Maybe I'm still angry."
Kix felt his ears and neck still burning and could barely imagine Jesse feeling any more anger or dread than he did. But his voice was cool and almost weak when he listened to himself say, "Whatever you did gave the rest of us a better shot, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then it was the right thing to do. Trust me, Jesse. That's the only way I know for sure if I'm doing things right. Singer and Appo will be smart enough to see it, too."
Kix picked up the pace. Jesse didn't say anything, but his posture shifted a little as he walked, more toward what Kix knew was normal. It felt wrong to see him wearing the generic camo armor.
"Yeah," Jesse said softly, when they were approaching another wounded trooper. "Thanks, Kix. You're probably right."
Kix heard the warmth in Jesse's voice, felt him touch his shoulder in turn, and thought of Avenger, wondered what he would say and how Appo would respond. Maybe Singer would put in a good word for him. Maybe fearing for Avenger's life was paranoid. But he remembered General Skywalker's anger. Kix didn't know what he would do anymore.
…