Chapter 11: Risk
The couple of days of leave without Doryn seemed to drag on forever for Wolffe. He'd known her for a little over a week and already couldn't get her off of his mind. When the 104th's ships were patched up and they'd been given another mission, Wolffe was the most eager to get back out there. At least with a goal to actively think about, he'd hopefully distract himself from his thoughts of the General's Padawan. Distract himself from the memory of her purring, or how her fur felt against his skin. He wanted to forget how heavenly her hips looked in jeans and how perfect her figure felt in his arms. It'd certainly given him enough to think about in his limited alone time, but it was the daydreaming of her whilst with his brothers that was the problem. He'd been so ready to get annoyed at the fact that his brothers would be smitten that he hadn't accounted for the possibility that he might want her as well. He was a lovesick pup over some cat girl and he just wanted to slap himself out of it. He hoped that Foerost would slap it out of him. He didn't care what the Techno Union was doing or that the objective of the raid was to impose restrictions. He just wanted to go in there and destroy some clankers and stop thinking about Doryn. As he got onto the ship bound for the core world, or rather junkyard, he felt relief. Relief to be getting off of Coruscant. Relief to be able to work through his emotions with a blaster in the place of a healthy method. Despite normally relieving himself of stress from missions by finding a pretty girl to fuck, he was suddenly forced to reverse the process.
Doryn was under the impression that the 104th would be waiting for her intel. Instead, as soon as the council knew she was soon to return, they sent the boys out without her. It was only as her report to the council began that she noticed that her Master was not present. She figured that he was preparing the boys because she was so sure she'd be leaving with the others. Then she was told that there would be a delay before she was shipped out and she tried to imagine how annoyed everyone in the hangar would be with the pack howling for longer than they usually would. It was a practice that had shocked Doryn at first but she understood. Even if she didn't remember what it was like to live amongst her own people, it was like there was a proper Cathar inside her that told her what she was meant to be and do. Being around so many humans, who as a collective had very few of their natural instincts intact, she'd not known what to do with her nature but to repress it. It'd been something she'd inferred from the teachings she received as a youngling and her previous Master had greatly encouraged it, only reinforcing those teachings. It was how she knew she was broken. It was how she knew there was something wrong with her. In her. She was innately evil and her task as a Jedi was to keep it under control. Master Tassu would've told her that not only giving into her nature was a failure but wanting it, wanting to go against the order was as great if not a greater failure. She knew that Master Tassu would've found every action, surrounding her learning that the pack had left without her, a failure. Her taking so long to get the intel that they'd had no choice but to leave without it and without her. Her initial panic at them leaving without her and that she had to wait before her transport would be leaving. Her threatening her escort into departing earlier than scheduled. Everything she did and was could be summed up with the word failure. She'd failed to keep her last Master alive and she didn't care how many more failures she made as long as she never made that one again. The nausea and struggle to breath made her believe for a second that she had vomited in her mouth a little and inhaled it. She didn't care, as long as she could stand and fight she would. She would right the wrong she felt.
"Fall back!" The General shouted out to his men. His voice sounded as it normally did when he increased his volume. All of the hallmarks of a shout could be heard through his voice but the modulator on his mask tried to correct the volume, making it sound odd. He stood ahead of his men, deflecting shots to shield them. "How long until reinforcements?" Wolffe shouted back, directing his men back but himself staying next to his general. He knew it would be a while but the reply was shocking in the worst way possible. "Another hour, minimum." Another 10 minutes and they'd be screwed. They already were screwed but hadn't taken too many losses by that point but any minute that could've changed. Wolffe was not ready to have his men decimated like they had been during the incident with the Malevolence. He had no intention of allowing that to happen again. He had no plan outside of keeping his brothers alive, no matter the sacrifice.
The estimated hour ended up being a couple of minutes. "Coming in hot." He hadn't expected to be so relieved to hear her voice when he wanted to keep his mind off of her. He was less relieved to hear his brother's voice. "You can say that again." Even minutes away from death, Boost had to be inappropriate. Wolffe wasn't sure if she realised that the request wasn't genuine as she began to repeat herself. "Ignore Boost, sir. He's a bit too excited." It was as if he hadn't been choked by her. Wolffe was unsure of whether it was 'by her with the Force' or 'by the Force by her'. The Kaminoans, understandably, never taught them how to talk about the Force and it felt almost too intimate to ask the General about. "Copy that, Commander." It was as if a couple of days apart had made it even more maddening to hear her use his title. He'd thought about it a few times when he was alone and was only in that moment realising what he'd condemned himself to. He'd already accidentally trained himself and felt the warmth and swelling begin already. He just hoped that she wouldn't call him by his title again. Well, she didn't need to. As she had in their first battle together, she came falling from the sky. Only a Jedi would make a habit out of jumping from gunships without a jetpack. She landed a little in front of him and the General, letting out a little breathy moan as she landed. It was a sound he'd imagined too many times and would make sure to remember for later. He'd also take care to remember how he'd been flashed by her in her Jedi robes. The robes being a reminder of her devotion to the order made it even harder. He knew that in a minute he was going to start feeling a little pain from his swelling being restricted. He tried to distract himself with the very real fact that they were being shot at but it didn't really help him much. She started deflecting shots. "I assume the plan fell through." She called back to him and the General. The General caught her up on how wrong the plan had gone and Wolffe just tried to distract himself from the part of his brain that lusted after Ryn. More of his brothers came back to the front and his head was close to being back in the battle. It almost worked. "Are you ready, Commander?" Her voice was intoxicating and exactly how he imagined she'd ask permission to lower herself onto him. The way she looked back to him over her shoulder did nothing to help either.
"Yes, sir." Wolffe's voice was so gruff. Even in battle, she managed to appreciate his roughness. She appreciated it both out of it filling her fantasies and because it highlighted how gentle and caring he'd been for her when she was drunk. Doryn and Master Plo started to push forward. She pretended to herself that Wolffe would be her reward almost as an extra incentive to win. For that to work, she needed her reward to keep himself alive. She'd felt him, in the Force, concentrating as she'd talked to him and Master Plo so had assumed he was listening. She learnt that he wasn't when he asked Sinker to catch him up. A silly, fleeting thought ran through her head. She wasn't sure why it'd come or why she'd invited it to stay. It was the idea that maybe Wolffe had been focused on her, just not the specific words she'd said. She knew it would never happen but the little lie she told herself made her work harder. She put everything she had into deflecting every shot as if he was watching. She wasn't sure if she wanted to impress him out of showing him that she didn't need his protection and if ever she accepted it, it would be from want and not need; or if it was out of wanting to show off what she had to offer. From how she understood her people, it was normally the men that had to impress the women, so she had no idea what part of her nature was making her think she needed to show off her own worth.
Although she'd almost been hit once or twice when doing it before, she reached out to the Force again. It may've stolen her concentration for some moments, but it allowed her to feel Wolffe. It let her check he was safe and the plan was still going forward. She also let the real Cathar inside of her enjoy his warmth. Though, she became dissatisfied as Wolffe got further away and the warmth faded a little each time. She truly hoped that he couldn't feel her in the Force each time she reached out. Maybe once or twice she could explain, but her almost obsessive repetition of the act would be too embarrassing. She wasn't sure what caused hate, but was sure him feeling her check in on him so often would cause him to feel it for her. Though, it wouldn't be the only reason. After she'd lost control. A Jedi wasn't meant to regret or let herself be consumed by the past or future but since her inability to control herself, it'd been on her mind constantly.
So she hadn't been truly paying attention. Not enough attention at least. She'd almost failed again. She'd almost been useless again. Her time collecting intel had been to prepare them for what the Techno Union had invented and produced in that sector. At least, she'd caught it before she'd become completely useless. Before she'd truly failed. She pushed her Master away with the Force before squaring her shoulders in the direction of where the weapon had been fired from. She crossed her blades to help in the limited amount of blocking she would be able to do. She tilted the crossed blades up and down as the weapon swayed and almost finished without hurting her. Unfortunately, the last second of blocking was the one second to go wrong. She got hit. She was knocked out almost instantly.
"Medic! Man down." The General called. Wolffe looked back and could only make out a single blue lightsaber. His blood ran cold. He didn't care about what they were there to do or about fighting the Techno Union. "Plo, is she okay?" He pretty much shouted down his comm link. If asked directly, he would never've admitted it, but he was scared. He realised that the willingness to sacrifice anything wasn't quite true. He'd lose a couple of brothers to keep her. "She's going to be okay." The General eventually commed back. It was often difficult to tell much detail of his feelings from his voice alone, but it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself of his own words. "Should we regroup, General?" Wolffe hoped that the answer would be yes and he could make sure she was okay but he had no medical training. "Negative, Commander. Stick to my Padawan's plan." Wolffe realised very quickly that the General was using a mind trick. He knew that his General knew that he would find completing her plan, instead of sitting uselessly next to her, to be the most respectful and caring action he could do at that point. Even if he had seen through it, it still worked. He would rock her plan and when she came back he would impress her with how well he'd done. That was his motivation. Pleasing her was his incentive. It was the only incentive he needed in life.
