"It's alright, sir. I've got you. Commander! We found them!"

There was noise and chaos around them, but Cody couldn't convince his eyes to open again. It was comfortable to lean back in the arms of… whomever it was holding him up.

"Take care of Commander Cody first. He's concussed. I've been trying to keep him awake." The General sounded stronger. Firm and commanding.

"Cody. Cody."

Cody forced his eyes open to see Wolffe and a member of his pack kneeling next to him. Sinker? Boost? He always mixed up those two maniacs in gray.

"You had us worried, di'kut." There was affection in Wolffe's deep timbre. "Rex was blowing up my comm asking for updates. My medic is going to look you over."

Cody stared groggily at his brother. "Wh– wh— Wolffe? R-rex?

"Yes, brother. Rex isn't here. He's leading the attack on the Fort." He signaled to someone out of Cody's line of sight. Wolffe's medic, Copper?, no, that wasn't right, Cobalt?, no-

Cody tuned out for a bit. He was rudely awakened by a bright light directed at his pupils. He attempted to swat it away, but his coordination could use some work.

"The General is correct. We need to keep him awake."

"Can you give him a stim or something?"

"You telling me how to do my job, Wolffe?" The medic lectured his commander, even as he was leaning in to do exactly as he'd requested. "Do I tell you how to run the Pack?"

"Sometimes, yeah, you do."

The medic huffed under his breath in amusement. "True," he conceded. "Alright, Commander, one more shot."

His head was gently tilted to the side and a second hypo expertly jammed into his neck. The stim was spreading warmth through his limbs, and the second shot brought him immediate relief. Maybe it was the drugs but he was enjoying the verbal sparring between Wolffe and his medic.

"Iron, is he stable enough to move?"

Iron. Right. Those other names were fekkin' awesome clone names though-

Cody tuned out for a bit as Wolffe and the metallurgically-named clone discussed medical blah-blah-blah. Wolffe leaned in over him again. "Your oxygen levels are way down. We need to get a breather on you."

Cody's eyes flew open. "No." He'd been in a breather for a long time when he'd had his neck injury and been kept tied down-

Wolffe leaned in anyway to strap the breather on, but the medic stayed his motion. He must have spotted the panic in Cody's eyes.

"You two can chat another minute, alright? Then you do need the breather, Commander. It doesn't have to stay on long. Just until we get your oxygen saturation levels back within the normal range."

Cody breathed a stay of relief at the temporary reprieve. "Wha' about General W-Win…?" He tried to see around Wolffe.

Gah. Why was it so hard to talk? And, when had his vision gone double?

"He's alive, and he was awake when we found the two of you. That's more than we can say about you. Krek, Codes, look at your eyes."

Wolffe didn't usually use Rex's shortened nickname for him. He was sorry he'd worried his brother so much, but at the moment, he was more concerned with the General. "You have… to help him."

"You think we won't? Hold still. A building came down on you."

"He… s-s-saved me."

"Funny. He said the same about you."

"He… he… was pinned… under debris…"

Wolffe raised up an eyebrow. "He's not pinned now."

Cody had no comment in that area. But, he did want to make sure the General got the help he needed. "He was pinned… by a wall… and… a durasteel-"

"Codes, I'm sure it's a great story. Save your breath, though, okay? Somehow he got himself out of there. Good thing, too. We could barely fit down here. Don't know how we'd get some heavy equipment through."

Iron was a little quicker on the uptake than Wolffe. He shouted to someone out of Cody's line of sight. "Rusty! Check the General for crush injuries– on the chest and…"

"Legs," Cody supplied, "his legs were pinned."

"Chest and legs."

"On it," came the chipper reply. "Yes… I'm seeing some signs of it, but he's already healing…" Cody heard the rumbling baritone of Windu but couldn't make out his words. "Ah! The General said he's been doing 'Force healing' on himself."

Iron looked thoughtful. "Make sure to-"

"Splint him and brace him. I know, Iron. Not my first extraction."

Iron glanced down at Cody. "Satisfied? If you're done telling us stories of your time here in the big jumbly blast hole, we need to get that breather on." He nodded toward Wolffe.

Wolffe lifted up Cody's head to slide the breather on. The claustrophobia set in immediately.

He was back at the medical center. The Kaminoans were coming for him-

Cody reached up to tug off the breather, but the pain of the movement snapped him back to reality.

"Hold still, Codes," Wolffe said firmly, but there was underlying worry in his voice. "You have a few fractures."

"A few is an understatement," his medic commented mildly. Commander-" Two pairs of eyes flickered over to him. "Right. Wooolffe," he dragged out the syllables, "give me a hand splinting his legs."

Cody smiled under the breather. This was a good distraction from the pain. Had Wolffe and his pack adopted this routine as a way of keeping people calm during extractions? It was working.

But, he still couldn't stop the inevitable barrage of questions hammering at the back of his head. How long had he been down here? What was the status of the 212th? Had anyone heard from Kenobi? Was he coming back? Well, of course, he was coming back. Was he coming back anytime soon? Had they taken the Fort? Had that battle even begun? What about the siege of the docks? The battle in the sky? Could they get their medical and supply ships through now without fekkin' Trench using them for target practice?

Boost, one of Wolffe's favorite crazies, crouched down in his line of sight. "Commander Cody, good to see you alive. Wolffe here was worried."

Wolffe rolled his eyes, although Cody suspected the gesture was more for his amusement. He appreciated it. No one did eye rolls better than Wolffe, and he only had one eye.

Boost leaned in. "To tell you the truth, Commander, we were all a little worried. Glad you're still in one piece." He gave Cody a critical once over. "More or less."

Iron glared at him. "Nice."

"What? He's a mess." Boost turned his attention to Wolffe. "We don't have much time."

"How long?"

"A few minutes, at most."

Cody cast both of them a questioning look.

He'd always liked Boost. He was straight-forward, sardonic and got the job done. He caught Cody's look and provided him with an immediate explanation. "When we dug in here, we made the place even more structurally unstable. We'll be alright if we can get one floor up and then over, but this section is coming down. And, soon." As if to lend credence to his words, the mangled ceiling above creaked ominously sending down a shower of duracrete particles.

Wolffe, Iron and Boost slid their helmets back, almost in perfect synchronicity. Cody wished his helmet was still functional. The breather was doing a decent job of keeping him from sucking in more of the powdered duracrete. But, it wouldn't provide any protection if the building came down on his head again.

As if reading his thoughts, Wolffe turned to him. "We're getting you out of here. Boost, are the engineers still working up there to give us a little more stability?"

"Negative. Comet reports the last of them just left. But, the engineers took the heavy equipment with them."

"HQ couldn't have given us one more fekkin' hour, Wolffe hissed under his breath. At Cody's questioning look, Wolffe continued on. It gave him something to focus on other than poking and prodding Iron was doing, and the various braces he was slipping on to parts of his body that really farkin' hurt. "Everyone has been sent to the assault on the docks, except for Rex and the boys. He's charging that Fort. Again." His brow furrowed. "Shouldn't be one Legion alone trying to take that Fort." He muttered under his breath. "Who the fek made that decision?"

Iron attached a stability brace over Cody's chest and then nodded with satisfaction. "He can be moved. Carefully. Let's try not to jostle these fractures more than necessary. Sinker, Boost, bring the stretcher."

"Yeah, this may hurt," Wolffe agreed. He was log-rolled onto a narrow durafoam battlefield stretcher. These stretchers could fit into a medic pack and be used in very tight spaces. They were also extremely uncomfortable.

Cody cried out at the movement. Everything hurt. He was strapped down, but Wolffe kept telling him not to move all the same. Maybe he needed something to do. Or, maybe he was trying to distract Cody. "Hey," Wolffe said brightly, "do you remember the time we re-programmed the target range droid so it stunned Alpha in the ass-"

He deserved it. He was being too hard on Rex in training-

He hissed in pain as he was passed through a small opening to more Wolfpack troopers waiting on the other side. He was placed inside of a basket stretcher and strapped down tightly. Thankfully, the durafoam stretcher had a small enough footprint so he didn't have to be moved again. It fit inside of the basket stretcher. Unfortunately, he still felt like he was strapped to a torture device and now he had bands holding him down everywhere. He tried to keep his breathing steady, but unwelcome memories of his time at Ord Cestus came flooding back.

"Get those straps off him! He's hyperventilating."

"Hey Codes, look at me. You're alright. We got you out of there, see?" Wolffe gripped his chin tightly and tilted his head from one side to the other so he could see his surroundings. This level was in better shape than the pit where Cody and Windu had been trapped. This had been part of the main level. Parts of it were still somewhat intact while others were open to the sky. "Breathe with me, alright? Slow and easy." Wolffe rubbed lazy circles around the acupressure points on Cody's forehead, the soothing touch he used to do when they were cadets. Wolffe had a surprisingly soft side, but he didn't allow many people to see it. He'd been the best kind of brother to have growing up. He switched to his touching to raking his nails gently across Cody's scalp. "Your hair is a mess, you know. You look as gray as Fox'ika, right now."

"Well done, Wolffe, His CO2 levels are returning to normal."

"I'm not gray," Cody protested. When had they removed the breather? He didn't remember.

Wolffe laughed. "You are now. You're gray from head to toe at the moment. I can't hardly tell you from a member of my pack."

"That's… insulting."

Wolffe 'hmmmped.' "Hey, listen, we're still trying to figure out where we're going to extract you to-" He looked over to Iron.

The medic shook his head, even as he typed into his datapad. "Still trying to get data on the active RIMSUs. A lot of equipment was repositioned today."

Sinker ran over and signaled to Wolffe. Cody didn't recognize the signal. Figures the pack had their own fekkin' hand signal. Whatever it was, though, it wasn't good. Wolffe signaled to his pack and they huddled several feet away, heads together in conversation.

Fek. What were they talking about? Iron was called over, clearing up Cody's view. They were projecting a map of… a canyon? Were there troopers in that canyon? Aerial surveillance footage?

The conference was done in under two minutes. Wolffe hurried to Cody's side. "I have to go. I'm leaving three of my men with you." With no further explanation, he took off at a run, his pack on his heels. Seconds later, he heard the sound of LAATs lifting off and headed away. Which direction were they going? The docks? The fort? What had happened?

Cody didn't remember passing out, but his body finally decided enough was enough. He slipped off into unconsciousness with almost all of his questions still unanswered. By the time he'd regained consciousness, everything had changed.

# # #

Mace closed his eyes, letting his mind drift. The Wolfpack medic had given him a generous dose of painkiller. Commander Wolffe and his team had departed to do another extraction, but left a half squad of clones to watch over them. One had introduced himself as being the leader of the small group and was also trained in field medicine. They'd been moved outside of the destroyed building and into a camouflaged tent in the woods. Mace assumed it was something that had been set up while they were coordinating the rescue efforts. They were other tents like it around, all sitting empty. The Republic left behind a great deal of equipment.

It was peaceful here, in this tent in the woods. It was deceiving. War was raging all over the planet. Men were dying. Windu could feel it.

If he could get himself deep into a meditative trance, he should heal fairly quickly. He might still need some time in bacta, but his body was telling him the damage could be undone.

But, meditation required focus, and his mind refused to settle.

Clones could be force sensitive?

He would not have thought it was possible.

But, that was flawed thinking on his part. The Force did not discriminate in whom it chose. What did it matter, then, how one was conceived? Once life was created, there was the Force.

He had been bothered for a long time about the morality of using an army of unpaid men bred to fight for the Republic. The Council had some variation on this morality debate almost every time they were in session. But, they either never came to a consensus, or when they did, the conclusion was "there was no other path." And, if there was no other path, then surely this must be the will of the Force.

But, that conclusion never sat well with him. There was something… wrong about using men in this manner.

This was a shatterpoint, and the clones were at the center of it.

# # #

A/N: My niece is an EMT as part of her required hours before medical school. Hearing her work stories got me interested in the nitty gritty of how patients are safely transported without injuring them further. I Googled a few EMT manuals online to get some ideas to incorporate into this story. With regards to hyperventilation and anxiety attacks, physical touch and use of the senses can help bring someone back to reality. I didn't think Cody necessarily wanted to smell Wolffe, but I supposed that could've worked, too.