"I told you, I'm fine."

"And I told you, I don't care what you think. I'm not having you back out in the field until I'm sure you're fine," Rigil insisted. "Now hold still." Yuo sighed, but stopped fidgeting.

"How's the commander?" Yuo asked tentatively. While Iscom couldn't see her face, he could hear the concern in her voice.

"Fine," he said tersely. Then, less abrasively, he added, "His injuries weren't as bad as yours, really. He knows how to position himself to take the least damage," by charging in cybernetics-first, Iscom added silently. "It comes with more combat experience," he said aloud, "which you and Brash haven't had as much of yet. Not that I ever recommend charging into a fire-bomb."

"Yeah, I think I'll be avoiding those in the future," Yuo agreed. She flinched as Iscom tested one of the bruises running across her back. "Do you really have to do this?" she asked again.

Iscom felt his temperature rise suddenly, flashbacks of screams echoing in his ears. He forced a sigh, if only to keep Yuo from noticing. "Private," he said seriously, "I'm not letting you back on field missions until I am sure you are healed—or, at least, well on the way to healing properly. If you just jump out there half-assed, still wounded, that's going to make life harder for me, which will in turn jeopardize the safety of Brash and Emras."

"I—But the commander—" Yuo started. Iscom could read her guilt, and interrupted.

"It's not your fault," he said, "and trust me, you would have been injured a lot worse if it hadn't been for Emras's timing. In the heat of battle, every second counts, and sometimes things go wrong. You just have to improvise, figure out what happens next, and make it happen the way you want it to. That's something that takes time to learn, and it's not something you can learn in a classroom. But you and Brash are quick studies. I have no doubt that you can handle yourself in an emergency. I'd just like to keep that from happening, if at all possible."

"I understand," Yuo said sullenly. For all her stubbornness, Iscom thought, she's still just a kid. Barely out of the academy. Why they put her on a team with someone like Badri... and someone like me. I don't understand the set-up of this team at all!

"You're good to go," Iscom said, smiling, still pondering the team formation. It really made no sense, now that he was thinking about it. A new CO, but an old soldier. An old medic, orphaned from the collapse of his team. Two fresh recruits who had never seen field action. Where was the sense? It was almost as if they were missing something, or someone. Like the team had a hole where another member should have been.

"Oh good," said Yuo, standing back up. "You had me worried for a minute there!"

"The medics on Coruscant seem to know how to do their jobs," Iscom said absentmindedly. There was something to that idea. Maybe that was why they were stuck here on Coruscant, doing oddball cleanup jobs and quick hit-and-run missions. Maybe they were missing a team member, and the higher-ups were trying to fill the void. It was something to consider, at least.

Three months later

Iscom's holocom was ringing. It was still ringing. It probably wasn't going to stop ringing until he picked it up, as much as he might hope otherwise. It was much too soon to be awake. It was... early, that was the word. He stood up unsteadily, walking over to where he had left his com last night, and switched it on.

"Brash?" Iscom said, bleary-eyed, and probably bleary-voiced, although that may just have been his hearing playing tricks on his ears. "Why the hell are you calling me at—" he leaned over to check the chrono, "oh-three-bloody-hundred?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Brash said meekly, "but you were the only person I could think of."

"Call the Sergeant," Iscom dismissed. "I thought calls-too-damn-early were supposed to be part of the CO's job."

"That's just it, sir," said Brash. The 'sirs' were beginning to ring an alarm for Iscom. Brash, while a good guy, was the type for whom 'sir' came out naturally in the same tone that most people reserved for a good I-told-you-so. He continued, "It's the sergeant that I'm worried about. He's been down in the cantina for hours, since twenty-two-hundred, and he, um, he's been drinking the whole time. He's in a bad state, and I couldn't get him out. I was hoping that you would have better luck," he admitted. His failure had obviously irked him, but Brash must think that Badri was in some sort of trouble if he was willing to admit his failure and wake Iscom up at this god-awful hour. "He doesn't exactly sound drunk, but it's like every sentence is completely coherent and utter gibberish. He keeps talking to himself, or to someone who isn't there. Keeps mentioning being unconscious, and... a lot of death."

Iscom had already stopped listening. Doesn't sound drunk. Did his cybernetics interfere with how the alcohol affected his brain? Well, obviously they did somewhat, seeing as his brain was part cybernetic itself, but it might be that the cybernetics kept him from getting drunk in the first place. "I'm sure Emras can handle his drink," Iscom reassured him, leaning to turn the com off.

"Wait, and he mentioned it being a year since something," Brash added quickly.

Iscom froze, his finger hovering above the button. He felt his stomach drop in realization. "Eight or nine months."

"You know what it is?" Brash asked.

"Private," Iscom started seriously, "how long has this team been together?"

"About three months," Brash replied, confused. "So that's not what he's talking about."

The private was continuing to speak, but Iscom had it figured out. Three months. Nine months. That made a year, oh damn, one year since…

He swore violently enough that Brash widened his eyes. "You know what's going on?" he asked.

"Keep him down there until I get there," Iscom commanded, ignoring his question. "Don't let him leave. Try to keep him off the drinks, but don't let him out of your sight, whatever you do."

"Alright, sir," Brash said curiously, but didn't protest or question the order. Iscom clicked the com off and pulled the first shirt out of the drawer.

Shit. One year. Who knows what he'll try to do? he cursed, putting the pieces together. Badri was a lot of things, but stable was not one of the words that Iscom would use to describe him. And anniversaries... anniversaries were tricky. They had a way of making people do really unbelievably stupid things.

Hopefully, trying to drink himself to death was the worst idea that Badri had tonight.