"You better fekking come back to me, vode!" she objected, screaming in Roger's face as he tried to get a clear shot of the sniper in the higher balcony. "Find him and take him OUT!"

"You say every mission is a ba'slan shev'la?" Roger asked, his face a mask of frustration. "Fek that! You set this one up as jekai and I'm not jareor! This template doesn't allow the luxury of a ba'slam shev'a!"

"Every campaign is a ba'slan shev'la," she told him. "Every time you go out you're subject to faulty intel and human variance. A mark isn't where you expect, the weather changes, a fekking bantha parks it in your face! Make a plan, make a back-up plan, then keep going right on down the alphabet until you find a plan that works under an ever-changing op-tempo! Every time you leave here you kriffing well plan on getting back in, even if they give up on you!"

Roger grunted. Sighted up again and tried to figure out where the incoming rounds were originating.

"How are you to exit the AO if you can't even get in the back door without getting caught!?"

"I can get us to the fekking door!" Olan growled over at Roger.

He glanced down. Rolled his lips between his teeth.

Nodded at her.

Grabbed her by the back of the hair and used her as a human shield to get past the incoming rounds.

She was laughing when he dropped her upon gaining the safe zone.

"Helllll yeahhh!" she cheered. "Mandokarla!"

"MANDOKARLA!" her entire company screamed as one. Then there was a strange, guttural bark that went up. Started out low and deep and rose to an simian-like bellow.

It was unnerving. Obviously distressing to the cloners unfortunate enough to be observing.

When Fett asked her what the hell they'd been working on that afternoon Ad'ra laughed until she snorted—then that choked her up and she ended up coughing until she nearly passed out. Fett never did find out what had so freaked out the complement of grey freaks who'd been party to the exercise.

She sure did like when her boys thought outside the box and got the job done, though. She might be right. For all the rigid aptness that he instilled in the ARCs, she was teaching her Rangers exactly the opposite, with spectacular results. Between the two of them they'd probably win any war they found themselves in.

.

.o0o.

.

As soon as the 4th met one challenge she issued another… boots on the ground right beside them.

"You okay, ma'am?"

Ad'ra glanced over, lifted her brows and decided on an answer.

She limped over to the resting vod. Accepted the litre of water he'd ben sucking down.

"Well. I tell you. What I'm thinking is that I'll feel better with some bacta on. And the only thing I can think of to reach all the places on me that hurt is to smear it on an impermeable membrane, then strip off and roll up in it. Hope it kills me so I don't have to do this again tomorrow."

That made him laugh.

"Marshal? We adore you."

"Private? I adore you," she promised.

"We could steal you a sharp from med bay. Nobody would know."

She rolled her shoulder. Wondered if it was torn or dislocated. Made a face.

"Somebody would know."

"Nuh-uh. We would take care of the cameras. Dump the chips. We could make it work."

"And whoever was in on all that would know. Which means if somebody who outranked me asked, they'd be obliged to tattle."

"Who outranks you, ma'am? Just the Mand'Alor. He's cool."

"He's not cool."

"Well, the original is. The replicas?"

He made a face.

There was blood crusting around the shell of his ear. It had gushed from his nose, from the busted lips. He'd taken a pretty bad hit, led with the precious face.

"You should take better care of yourself."

"Eh," he told her. "I'm looking for a way to distinguish myself. So I know who's who in the mirror. This morning I was so tired I couldn't figure out why I was shaving with my left hand."

That made her laugh.

"Fallon. I just… Jesu."

He grinned at her. "When I get done here, when we're both grown up? Marry me, Sergeant. Don't marry One."

"I'm not going to marry One."

"I wonder how many guys here are going by that now."

He looked out over the training ground.

Thousands of Commandos. Millions of CTs. Only one company of ARCs for now. Alpha Company. One of the Rangers left. They were the Fourth.

"Any of your teeth loose?"

"I can't tell if I even have teeth left."

"Dinner time is going to suck for you. You'll have to get your partner there to chew your food for you, then share it."

"Gross, ma'am." They watched One on the ropes. Watched Lathlo's static lasso whip out, catch him around the ankle. YANK! That challenge was over for One. He was dangling upside down, screaming threats at his vode. It had been an unanticipated move on Lathlo's part.

Ad'ra gasped as the cord was released and the boy plummeted toward the ground.

"Welp. There go his teeth, too," Fallon observed.

She made a face at him.

"Rog. Get another line on One! And get somebody who isn't laughing so hard on the one in Lathlo's hand!"

"Roger that, ma'am. WILCO."

Fallon laughed. Spit out another mouthful of blood when his cracked lips split back open.

"One's gonna kill 'im."

"I kind of don't blame him."

Lathlo had relinquished his liquid-static cable and approached the swinging cadet. One made a grab for him, sending himself swinging even harder. Lathlo dodged it, reaching out for his groping hands and sending him spinning.

One's roar of frustration was formidable.

There was a pretty tight group angling for first place on the board in their room. Most of the time the competition stayed friendly. Every once in a while Lathlo's twisted humor or Fallon's bitchiness soured it.

"Do not make me get back up!" Ad'ra roared on external.

She was exhausted. Felt like shit. Had for days. Ever since they got back from Fett's latest little quest.

Her guys, too, were showing signs of burnout. Pale. Sweaty. Whiny and ineffective. Demoralized, she'd say. Listless and-

"Cuir! Ko'lar! Tome! Iviin'yc!"

[Fourth, form up! Together! Now!]

They scrambled, hands now reaching for an unresisting One, untethering him and righting him to pound into formation.

"Baar'ur din'kartay."

[Medic, sit-rep!]

"All present and accounted for, Sergeant!" he responded sharply. "Superficial casualties only. Approximately fifty percent have completed the current aka."

"I don't care about the shabla mission rating. Are you sick?"

A completely blank expression crossed his face. He forgot himself so much as to glance at the guy next to him.

"Um. Sergeant Ad'ra, ma'am, this corporal has no frame of reference for the question."

"Do you feel 100%? Speak freely. Anyone."

"100% osik," one of them muttered.

She nodded. "We need to get into our kamas. Something's not right. Internal air. Vitals monitoring. Hustle!"

They chugged off at double time. Not their usual perky selves by any means. As she watched they barely moved, feet barely clearing obstacles and shoulders sloping. No enthusiastic song rang out from B, who loved the cadences and marching tunes. With him as acting CC there should have been a clear voice leading her vode.

Shab.

She wanted to sink down and just let the threatening rain melt her into the tarmac. Made herself hustle, avoiding lifts and using her hip to open doorways so as to avoid contaminating the entire military training compound.

'Are you okay?' she commed Fett.

'Of course. Did you read something about my demise?'

'Negative. Something else.'

'Still alive and ticking. You need me?'

'Negative. Ignore.'

He didn't bother responding. She'd gotten odder and odder as she moved through her teenaged years.

Didn't think his jokes were funny anymore for one thing.

And that article they'd stumbled upon on Alterion and brought back to be reproduced, now to be found hanging everywhere, that declared Skip dead? That was some funny shit.

Ad'ra changed the filters in her suit. Checked her air. She never used internal air. Wouldn't have been surprised to find the tanks empty.

She swallowed a handful of meds and pulled her buy'ce on. Sprayed everything in her quarters with disinfectant. Went to check on Boba.

Nothing. No elevated fever, no erratic respirations. She set the care droid to check him every two hours and ran up four flights of stairs, hovering out of sight near med bay. Slotted a programming rod into the med droid there. Requisitioned him for private use. Loaded him up with stims, sharps, and bacta lozenges. Decided to come back for more.

Her vode were waiting for her, each perched nervously either at the side of his bunk or on the footlocker.

"Sergeant?"

"Fevers, ma'am. All of us. Ranging 99 to 102. Waiting for droplet test results…" Roger paused and read the results.

"Shab, Ad'ra," Olan hissed. Popped his seal and jerked her to him, wheeling her around by the elbow. "You have to get out of here. They'll find out and slot us. You need to go. Don't be in here when they get here!"

"Wait! I have a plan. Plus I'm already sick, too. I may be the problem."

"Well then damned sure move!" Roger agreed with Olan.

She tilted her head in a way that let him know she was frowning at him.

"I feel like absolute crap. Please don't make me stun you and move to your second in command."

"Stun him and move on, ma'am," Lathlo called.

Roger didn't appreciate the levity. He knew. He knew they destroyed substandard clones. Knew that there were batches that had to be scrapped because their bodies didn't develop correctly. Now he had a hundred vode and a feverish training sergeant to keep together. B should be doing this. But B sucked at this type of thing.

"Huddle up, vode. Each of you swallow two of these. Hit each other with a stim. We've got to secure this barracks, complete seals, and lay-in supplies and rats for a self-siege."

"We're going to wait them out? How?"

"Trust me. We're going to get well. It says so in the book. Right now it's just a fever, lethargy, right? Right!?" There were murmurs of assent. "So I thought Viral and the blood test proved me out. We can treat this. I have the right meds. If there's no improvement in 72 hours we go the next step."

"I'm not going to medbay," Roger told her. Looked her right in the eyes despite the helmet she wore. "I won't go out that way."

A couple of the others shook their heads and muttered darkly.

"We don't want them to find out… We…"

"I've got you covered," Ad'ra said. "I have a plan. Help me, vode. We're going to beat this. Udessii! Tayli'bac?!"

They rose, clanked elbows without much enthusiasm. Went to work.

Climbed into vents, rerouted and sealed. Crawled through accesses for the utilitites. Helped themselves to the things she demanded. Boxes and boxes of them. Extra rats. Pirpaak pouches, yai'yai pouches and chews, heat-in-bag shiig, snap-and-chill jahaal onidir compresses. An additional blanket for each of them. Boxes of freshly sewn kutes. Disinfectant cleaner and laundry soap.

Some of the items on her list made sense to the boys infiltrating and requisitioning. Some didn't. Not yet. The meds and fluid bags and all that rot they went below decks to steal. Sure. Of course. Logical. The socks? Why did she want three hundred pairs of winter socks? This made no sense.

Not yet anyway.

Shortly, when it took everything in them to complete the assignments and duties and coursework ascribed them? Yeah… they appreciated not having to rinse their body suits. When they lay in their racks and shivered and suffered? That box of extra socks and the spare blanket was a primo idea. The stim shots kept them going all day while the fever reducer kept their temps down. She insisted they down a pouch of tea when they came in for a break midday. Told them to eat as much of the salted broth soup mixes as they could. Dumped sweat-soaked kutes in their big industrial laundry pods at the end of the barracks' refreshers. Hydrated with IV fluids to replenish what it was costing them to keep going. Slid into new under gloves and piled all their kit back on to hustle to the next scheduled project.

Lathlo was the one to put one foot on the rung, ready to launch up into his upper level bunk, then just seem to get stuck there.

"Just sleep with me, vod," Cin offered. Scooted over and held up his blanket.

"I shouldn't. I can do it."

He just couldn't seem to gather himself to make the leap. Grabbed his own blanket, rolled into it, and collapsed beside his friend.

"Please, gods, let me crawl in your bunk?" One asked Fallon.

Fallon just grunted and scooted over.

The next night most of them didn't bother getting into top racks.

Then Sah fell off the bunk.

It wasn't even rack time. He just wanted to stretch out during study hour. Ad'ra's squeak of dismay was louder than the sound the boy made. They rushed him, afraid. Who fell off their bed and just curled up in the floor!?

"I'm fine. Let me sleep."

"You're insane. Get on your bed! You can't sleep in the floor!"

Ad'ra looked around.

"Help me, Rog," she called.

He was probably the strongest. Under normal circumstances and judged on pure strength, absolutely. In cases like this? No doubt. He was a rock.

"Roger that, ma'am." He paused, tapped her shoulder. "Couldn't we pull him a mattress down here? Where we're doubling up?"

"Fek yeah," Harrod agreed. "Watch. Two. Four. Six…" He paced off space. "We could all be on bottoms. We just need to rearrange some stuff."

There was groaning.

"Work til you can't, vode, then we'll hit it again."

His encouragement and coaching got them through it. It wasn't like they hadn't dismantled these bunks before, he cheered. Old hands at it. That was it, stack and drag. That was the easy way.

They used sheets to pile up pieces. Just dumped them in empty shower stalls for now. At this point most of them hoped there was an inspection, they failed, and somebody ended them.

.

Rav Braylor noticed their lack of enthusiasm at ordnance training.

And usually this group was especially keen in her AO. Even the bookish ones. The Ranger Company was the one she'd have pegged to each grab a handful, run some line, and blow every tower off of Tipoca City.

Probably giggling about it.

They'd gotten drearier and drearier as the week progressed and finally she had enough.

"Buy'ce off, lads!" she shouted. "Let's see some fear in your eyes while he sets this up!"

"We need to keep our buckets on, ma'am," Mya said politely.

She always chose him when it needed to be said politely.

"I'm not under your dikut training officer's whims today, soldier. Buckets off!"

"No ma'am. It's that we're… we've got something and nobody else has it… and…"

"AD'RA!" Rav turned ready to ream the girl.

"I can't, Rav," she said over the internal comms. "We're trying to isolate. I can't take mine off either."

"What the kriff?"

"We have Gil scheduled later. We just need to get through morning drills…"

They made it through morning drills. Did not make it to lunch, nor to Gilamar's lesson later that day.

Skirata popped a little bit of a nutty. For which Ad'ra would forever be grateful.