Parental Duties
By Rey

Chapter summary: It's familiar, and it's not, and FN-2187 loves it.

Warnings for: brainwashing of kidnapped children, brutal training of unwilling child soldiers

9. Finn: The Juxtaposition

FN-2187 should be proud to serve the Empire, should be proud of his designation, should be proud of his status as squad leader, should be proud of his achievements. FN-2187 should do his best to train to serve the Empire, should do his best to manage and discipline his squad. FN-2187 shouldn't pay much attention to his squadmates except for training purposes, and definitely shouldn't cover his squadmates' mistakes and weaknesses. FN-2187 shouldn't wonder about life before this training, life during this training, life after this training, or any other what-ifs or might-have-beens.

But, however much the training is drilled or beaten into him, FN-2187 can't do those. Not fully. Not when there's no trainer looking. Not when his squadmates are in danger of death by training accidents or decommissioning.

Now, for example: He and his squadmates are doing yet another survival-and-combat training on yet another planet, this time a jungle planet, and local wildlife have been harrying them nonstop since shortly after their arrival on planet, despite the info given by the trainers that there's nothing harmful in this but the combat simulation at the end of the jungle trekking they must do without previous provisions. And four out of eight of his squadmates are already down with concerning injuries, even though they're still half-way to the designated "ambush" zone, even though he does his best to use his "freaky instinct" to predict if a territorial or hungry animal or plantlife is about to ambush them from among the strange, almost-mobile trees and giant flowers and even-more-giant mushrooms.

They can't go on like this. They haven't managed to rest sufficiently, let alone hunt or gather things to eat and drink to replenish their energy and supplement healing, as it is. But they must, or they might be left for dead and die in truth as the consequence, and it's somehow more horrible than facing the prospect of coming out of the jungle just to be fired upon by the trainers.

So they plod on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

FN-2187's head swims and spins and throbs, the longer he has to use his freaky instinct, but he can't stop. He is the only defence the squad has, since they've wasted half of their blaster ammo when they firstly encountered the giant insectoids and the thickly leathery beasts with serrated tusks and the barbed tentacle trees with spiky armoured trunks. But how desperately he yearns for it to just stop!

None in the squad talks to each other but for warnings and shared whimpers and groans and tired curses, by now. They're simply too exhausted. But it doesn't mean that FN-2187's head, even horrible as it feels, is free from inner chatter.

It becomes an inner dialogue without him realising it, somehow, after some time. But is it bad? He needs the companionship. He needs the support. He needs the reassurance. He needs the hope. Even though it's offered by what sounds like a clever toddler. Even though it's happening just in his head. Nobody needs to know. Not his squadmates who don't need more evidence of his freakiness. Not the trainers who might do more horrible things to him for something he can't help having and for his squadmates for having concealed it from them.

As blankly exhausted as he is, FN-2187 doesn't really know when the environment has somehow changed, when his squadmates have somehow been replaced with those of mixed ages and weapons and no armour his bleary eyes can see, when he somehow accepted the little cadet's offer of sanctuary and family in the first place. But here he is: still with other children with weapons, still outdoors and wary and weary and instinctively running away from the sound of starfighter engine, still running somewhere, still boarding a small ship with those children just like the cargo that they are, still fed a single ration bar for all the exercise, still deployed elsewhere most likely for more jungle exercise of some kind.

And they do land in a clearing that is surrounded by trees and trees and trees and more trees.

But, upon deploying, they just… stand around. Not in parade rest, at that. Not at all.

In fact, one of the senior cadets – the one who broke down on a weirdly, fully, shinily armoured trainer in the ship and even fainted on the trainer for a while – is leaning so very heavily into the aforementioned trainer's side, and the trainer lets him, even puts an arm round him to hold him up, even has a tiny green something that does nothing but snuggle perched in the other arm. And the other trainers standing in front of the other ship let this one be, too!

It's oddly relieving when FN-2187 spies the pilots of the three starfighters that followed them here standing neatly and quietly in front of their crafts after some time of being absent without leave. They'll get punished, no doubt, but them following protocol now might make the trainers – `Or are they fellow trainers? But they don't look big enough yet, body-wise, despite the full armour they wear. Perhaps senior cadets like the crybaby one?` – soften up a little. And, in any case, it's protocol and FN-2187 can hold on to it – to their example of it – without standing out.

Standing out in the training camp is so very bad. Always. And he doesn't think it'll be different here.

Well, he sadly has to rethink this, has to find something else to cling to, as soon as the littlest cadet notices the three pilots and warmly, excitedly, relievedly squeals out a name – "Tarre," the name is – and leads a charge towards them. not to enact an ambush scenario, not to start an unsanctioned spar, but to hug them and lead them and their fellows back to the huddle of cadets and one trainer.

And none of the trainers bother to even speak up about it, let alone scolding any of them, forget assigning any punishment.

Standing mostly behind the four oldest, unarmoured cadets who haven't participated in the stupid, baffling, shocking, pointless, reckless charge, FN-2187 exchanges looks with a younger cadet – curly black hair, brown skin, brown eyes, rather like poor, injured LN-2081 whom FN-2187 abandoned two worlds behind, if without his conscious consent – who has also chosen this place to stand on, hasn't participated in that, and has kept a good posture throughout this odd progression of events.

`Yeah, they're all stupid. This is all stupid.`

Before FN-2187 can whisperingly commiserate with the younger cadet or at least get the cadet's designation, though, Tarre – who is now parked at the weirdly, fully, shinily armoured trainer's other side along with the snuggly little green thing – suddenly speaks, detailing a report on a place they can camp in until a solar flare that apparently prevents the ships from leaving this planet has passed. Apparently, too, there will be a heavy rainstorm soon and that place is good to hunker down without much fear of getting flooded or being blown away in the wind.

And, to FN-2187's further confusion, this method of reporting – just offering it without being asked or even without being asked to scout in the first place – is all right. None of the trainers objects to that, at any rate.

In fact, after more details come out – this time from the other two pilots – all three trainers immediately discuss on where to stash the ships so they don't look clustered together but are still reachable for a quick escape, what to bring with them to the campsite, how to do it, and who will do it.

`They're all trainers, then? But, no, the older cadets now jump in, too! Without being invited or commanded! Oooh this doesn't make sense!`

Still, FN-2187 dutifully obeys when he is tasked to watch the younger cadets and the crybaby older cadet that still seems rather shivery and weak, while the adults and most of the older cadets cart the things that they will and may need out of the five crafts. It's not easy, since the younger cadets are unruly and don't heed him as squad leader and don't believe him when he says the trainers will punish them for disobedience – well, most of them don't, though the one he stood beside does – but he does his best.

He's used to doing his best, whether it makes a difference or not.

It's familiar… but not.

Well, it's a comfort, anyway.

He does his best to obey the older cadets, too, when they – or rather, the cadet with the rifle among them – instruct the younger cadets – including him, of course – to sort the provisions according to categories, while the transports are flown to different directions and supposedly hidden for the duration of the solar flare and rainstorm.

The not-so-hidden booing that the two littlest cadets aside from the proper one pelt him when the older cadets aren't near hurts. He hates being called boot-licker, arse-kisser, pet, brainless goon, everything. But he hates being punished even more, and seeing those brats punished, likewise. And, shockingly tolerant and kind as the trainers were with things like this, he doubts they will be so now that they must get all these crates and bags and sacks and all to the shelter that Tarre and their friends said are deeper in the forest before it's all a moot point. So he keeps his mouth shut and just drags the proper younger cadet to one of the pilots when they return to the clearing, for relative safety from such words.

They got a relay system going once everyone is in place, lining the way to the new shelter every hundred metres or so, passing the provisions along from person to person. It's a tideum that doesn't allow for chatter, and FN-2187 is grateful for it, because he and the younger cadet – designation CT-100-4141 – can no longer seek sanctuary with the silent but tolerant pilot.

Well, it's familiar, too, from when the whole company that his old squad belongs to must move to a new base.

But this time the trainers help. The trainers even take the harder parts of the route for the provisions to travel, namely deep in the forest.

It's like a dream! A good dream, too, despite him leaving his old squad and all the booing he got here.

He doesn't know if he'd like to ever wake up again, if so.

And he decides to not be awake again if he got a choice when, in the new base that everyone helps make out of surrounding trees and branches and leaves and cliff-wall, mostly using their own respective freaky abilities, he takes a gamble on his own life and CT-100-4141's and gets them situated on the shiny trainer's lap alongside the snuggly little green thing, once they're all seated on the not-so-even wooden planks of the base's floor, and the trainer lets them be.

It's familiar, and it's not, and he cherishes it.