Dear Reader, time to wrap up all the loose ends from Umbara. There will actually be several chapters dealing with the aftermath. I know a lot of readers want to see how Rex and Cody get along after the "carnage", as well as the broader question as to how the 501st and 212th get along. Plus, how did Umbara change the way the clones, and Rex in particular, see the Jedi. All that's coming. But a few things to get the ball rolling . . .

Peace, CS

Chapter 106 Broken Branches

"Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even death by violence."

A Separate Peace
John Knowles

There were moments when time seemed to stand still.

This was one them.

Rex felt as if everything and everyone around him were locked in that brief instance – the instance of recognizing that Krell was, indeed, dead. Executed at their hands.

And it was their hands.

Dogma may have pulled the trigger, but he was merely completing an action set in motion by Rex, Fives and Jesse. It was a horrible example to have set for a young trooper, and Rex derided his own weakness in not rejecting the idea of the execution from the moment it was brought up.

But what was done was done. There could be no undoing it.

Fives' voice broke across the frozen time.

"How are we going to explain this?"

Rex's jaw tightened. It was a damned foolish question to be asking now. And the answer would be no different than if Rex himself had committed the act.

There was only the truth. He would not weave some fabulous deception to get them out of this. He'd seen enough lies in the past few days and concocted several of his own. He did not want to see or be a part of any more.

With Krell dead, Rex was solely in charge. And he chose to jettison the emotion and turn to pragmatic matters. The enemy was retreating from the capital and heading for the airbase. That fact could not be lost in the aftermath of what had just transpired.

"Jesse, Fives, go check our defensive positions," he ordered. "I'll be up shortly. And keep this to yourselves. Don't tell anyone. Not a soul."

"Rex—" Fives began, but the captain cut him off with a look.

"Yes, Sir," Fives concluded, and he and Jesse took the smaller hover platform back to the main entrance.

Once they were gone, Rex undid the binders on Dogma's wrists. "With the Umbarans approaching, I need every man available."

Dogma looked bewildered.

Rex went on. "And when this is over, I will take full responsibility for what happened in here. I approved the idea. I was the one in command. Your actions were in keeping with what I was going to do anyway."

Dogma shook his head slowly. "No, Sir. You would never have done it." A pause. "That's why I had to."

"We can discuss that later. Right now, I need you on the defense of this airbase."

There was doubt in Dogma's eyes. "You trust me?"

"Yes, I do."

"I wouldn't," Dogma admitted with a troubled frown. "I've betrayed you twice already. I don't deserve your trust anymore."

"We're all going to face justice, Dogma," Rex replied. "But we have to survive the enemy first. I trust you to fight the way you've been fighting. We'll figure out what comes next when this is over." He looked the Shinie in the eye. "I'm telling you the same thing I told Jesse and Fives. Keep this to yourself. No one needs to know what's happened down here. I'll take care of who to tell and when."

Dogma nodded slowly. "I'll do whatever you think is best, Captain."

"You're going to have to do more than that if we're going to survive this," Rex stated firmly. "Krell might be dead, but the battle isn't over yet. I need you to show me the expertise you've been showing on the battlefield." He paused, uncertain of how far he should go, but his conscience prodded him a bit further. "You're one of the most promising troops to come to the 501st in a long time. What happened here doesn't change that."

It was a bold thing to say, given the circumstances.

But Rex was no stranger to bold words and bolder actions.

"Waves told us about General Krell's betrayal and that you removed him from command and arrested him. Good work, Captain." General Kenobi's holocom flickered in and out. "It's hard to believe, but I'm glad you did what needed to be done. He'll stand justice before the Jedi Council back on Coruscant."

Rex was carefully silent. He dared not reveal his terrible secret. Not yet.

General Kenobi went on. "I've put Commander Cody in charge of the forces pursuing the fleeing Umbarans. We'll patch you through to him. Hold that airbase at all costs, Rex. We can't let the Umbarans re-establish a foothold."

"Yes, General Kenobi. They won't get it back from us. Not after all the blood it cost to take it."

Kenobi nodded, and at the moment his image vanished, the audio from Cody's comm picked up.

"Rex, do you read?"

"Five-by," Rex replied, meaning he could hear him loud and clear.

Cody did not bother with any expressions of relief but instead went straight to the point. "As far as we can estimate, there are two brigade-sized elements headed your way, Rex."

It was incredibly calming to hear Cody's voice on the other end of the transmission. And as the commander went on, Rex felt a certain confidence reinvigorating his battered soul. Cody was all business, no emotion. Whatever he and the 212th had been through, he was coming across as his usual unflappable self, and that was both a comfort and a relief. "There were three divisions guarding the capital, but they took a lot of casualties. I'd say you've got between fifteen and twenty thousand Umbarans coming towards the airbase. General Kenobi dispatched me to lead the pursuit. I've got four companies, with two from other augmenting units."

"Even at full strength, our combined forces would give us less than three thousand men, Commander," Rex replied. "And with our losses, we're well below even that number."

"Maybe it's time to send your pilots up again," Cody suggested. "Only be careful. We're not far behind them. We don't want to hit our own troops."

Rex felt his innards recoil and he winced at those words. The wound was still too fresh, and Cody's statement only served as a reminder of the horror that had transpired. There briefly flashed across his mind, the question of how Cody had taken the news of the scheme to send clone against clone. But there would time for such a discussion later. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it was better left unspoken.

"Do you copy, Rex?"

"Yes, I copy," Rex replied. "I can send the fighters up, but I only have two who can fly them." He paused. "I think I'd rather stick with a ground battle. Did you see if the Umbarans had any of their heavy artillery or tanks when they left the city?"

"They have a number of heavy weapons," Cody replied. "Weapons that we haven't had much success taking out with just ground troops."

Rex sighed. "So, it sounds like the fighters are a must."

"I think so."

"What about our own forces? Is the space battle won? Maybe they can send some air support down here to help us. I'd just feel a lot better knowing we had trained pilots in our own ships doing the fighting," Rex replied. "I can't guarantee that Fives and Jesse won't take out everything and everyone."

"Fives and Jesse?" Cody sounded humorously stunned. "Those are your pilots?"

"There's a lot I have to tell you, Commander," Rex replied. "A lot has happened since our last comm."

"And I'll be anxious to hear it when this is over," Cody said. "As for our own air support, I wouldn't count on it yet. The space battle is still going on."

Rex nodded, only to himself. "Okay. I'll get these two airborne. But I can't vouch for their accuracy. It may be better for you and your men to fall back until the heavies are taken out."

"Copy that."

When the conversation ended, Rex switched to his battalion frequency. "Fives, Jesse, report to the command post . . . and make it fast."

Twelve hours later, it was over.

For all intents and purposes, the battle for Umbara was over.

The capital had fallen. The remnants of the Umbaran military that had been defending the capital and fled upon its fall had been defeated, in no small part due to the use of the two Umbaran fighters. But even more so, by the blood of more clones – not only clones of the 501st and 212th, but of two other units that had converged upon the capital and joined in the pursuit.

Elements of the 212th and the other units were entering the airbase. It would be used as the primary staging area for bringing in supplies, evacuating the wounded, incinerating the dead, and supporting the incoming forces as the capital reawakened under Republic leadership.

"This will do," Cody said to himself as he began his assessment. "There's not too much damage to the landing pads. Some structural damage, some perimeter damage, but definitely a usable installation." He raised his wrist comm and reported as much back to General Kenobi who was still back in the capital.

"And the 501st? What do their numbers look like?" came the general's inquiry.

"It's hard to tell—everyone is spread out—but I'd say . . . judging from what Rex had told us earlier, they may be down as much as seventy percent," Cody answered, his voice grim but well-regulated.

There was a pause, and Cody could almost see the expression on General Kenobi's face – the pain and futility. At length, the general spoke again. "Make sure that airbase is ready to start receiving our ships within the next hour, Cody."

"Yes, Sir." With that, the comm ended, and Cody set about fulfilling his orders.

One of the first men he happened upon was his own communications guru, Moog, who had been with the 501st since the Krell-orchestrated friendly fire incident.

"Moog, give me a run-down," the commander ordered.

Moog, knowing his commander well enough, understood what was being requested. "The command post is in the tower. In that wing right below it is the detention center. Med Center is over in that building. We're using that relay station as a comm hub."

Cody nodded. "Have you established communications with the fleet yet?"

"Intermittent, but . . . we can get through about eighty percent of the time now. It had been fully blocked before," Moog replied.

"See if you can get it up to ninety percent," Cody said. "They're going to start using this base as a staging area. General Kenobi wants us ready to receive incoming ships within the hour."

"Will do, Commander."

Cody resumed his evaluation of the situation, but he was not going to do it alone.

"Rex? Do you copy?"

"I copy, Commander."

"I've just entered the airbase."

"Where are you?"

"Transmitting coordinates," Cody replied.

"I'm on my way."

Cody removed his helmet and walked slowly across the ruined tarmac, taking in the unfiltered surroundings. A lot of fighting had occurred here. A lot of death. The battle had only just ended, and there still lingered the murky uncertainty of a post-defeat attack, a resurgence of pockets of enemy forces . . . and the gruesome aftermath of a prolonged confrontation.

Among such dark and foreboding truths, Cody could take comfort in one anticipation.

It would be good to see Rex again. Good to see that he was alright, still in once piece; that despite the unfathomable wickedness of General Krell, Rex had survived the fight and would soon again be at Cody's side for the next battle.

Few were the circumstances when the commander would permit himself to allow his own emotions to creep into and color his view; but he readily and willingly admitted that where Rex was concerned, there was too strong a bond, too deep a connection to be denied. And why should he ever want to deny it? Their friendship fortified him, presented him with an easy and comfortable camaraderie, opened up possibilities never before considered by his staid adherence to the rules.

And he knew that Rex relied upon him to be the voice of reason, the attentive ear, the judgment when necessary, and the acquitter, no matter how rare.

At the moment, he was keenly aware that, while it would be a relief to lay eyes on Rex again, there also stood a good chance that, given what the 501st had just been through, its captain might not be able to rally his usual strong-willed nature. But then again, perhaps these trials had galvanized that nature.

He would soon find out which direction had prevailed.

"Commander."

Cody looked up to see Rex approaching over the rubble of the crumpled hardscape, picking his way between mounds of debris, stepping over clumps of shattered, upturned stone.

The captain removed his helmet.

This would the first indicator.

And from what Cody could see, he was looking at Rex as he had always been. Confident, in control, somewhat impatient. Perhaps a bit sullen and repressed, but that was to be expected after such a fierce battle.

"Rex," Cody greeted him. "Looks like you've got everything in hand here."

"More or less," Rex replied. "But, uh, since you're the senior officer on scene, I'd be more than happy to hand over control to you."

"I've got it," Cody replied. "General Kenobi wants this airbase ready to start receiving our incoming ships within the hour."

"I can put my men on it," Rex replied. "There aren't many of us left, but we can get it done."

"We've got almost two companies of the 212th here, at least one company of the 224th—"

"You've brought Mud Jumpers with you?" Rex grinned in a quirky manner. "How did you manage to pry them away from Sector escort duty?"

Cody recognized the swipe as a feeble attempt at humor, but it was not out of place for Rex to take such jabs at fellow units. Accordingly, Cody ignored the barb and continued with his original thought. "And one company of the 808th. The 501st doesn't have to go it alone. You've got plenty of help." He gave a crooked grin. "And since I'm taking over this airbase, I'll take care of assigning the taskings."

"Well, while you're figuring out who's going to do what, come with me," Rex stated. "I've got something you need to see."

They began walking towards the tower.

"How many company commanders do you still have left?" Cody asked.

"Uh . . . last count, five, far as I know," Rex replied. "I haven't had time to do a headcount." A pause. "Jesse. Sixer. Fin. I think Brak is still alive. I don't know. The fighting had literally just stopped when you comm'd me."

"Find out how many company commanders you have left first, and then we'll get teams working on getting this place ready to receive," Cody said.

Over the course of the next ten minutes, Rex discovered that he still had six company commanders. Once again, he assigned Sixer to get a headcount. Then, he and Cody divvied up the remaining officers from all four units to handle the tasks associated with the aftermath of battle and the prepping of the airbase for the influx of Republic personnel and equipment.

They entered the tower.

Now that the immediate action requirements were assigned and set in motion, Rex turned to something that had piqued his attention earlier. "You mentioned the 808th."

Cody knew immediately what Rex was asking. "Top wasn't with them," he replied.

Both men let this lie. It might not mean anything that Top had not accompanied the 808th company. There were, after all, eleven other companies in the 808th; and Top was a first-in-command, just like Rex and Cody. It was perfectly feasible that General Shyfa had decided Top could not be spared.

"Probably just as well," Rex frowned.

"Why do you say that?" Cody inquired. He was now sensing a shift in Rex's indominatable spirit from self-possessed and in control to something foreboding and morose.

Rex was silent several seconds before speaking. "We haven't had any outgoing communications since the supply ship was blown up. Do you know how it was destroyed?"

"We assumed the fleet got a lucky shot," Cody replied.

Rex shook his head. "Do you remember how we took this airbase?"

"General Kenobi said you stole some Umbaran fighters and . . . " Cody raised an eyebrow. "Are you telling me your men used the fighters to destroy the supply ship?"

"That's exactly what they did," Rex replied. "Three went up. Only two came back. Hardcase died destroying that thing."

Cody, for once, appeared surprised, sadly stunned. "Hardcase? I can't believe it."

"One disaster among many during this battle," Rex replied. "One among many mistakes I made."

"It's the fog of war, Rex," Cody pointed out. "We do the best we can."

"But it wasn't my best, Cody," Rex persisted. "It wasn't anywhere near my best. For fek's sake, it might have been my worst."

To hear Rex swear and express culpability for as yet unknown offenses, Cody wondered what could have happened that would make his friend so berate himself.

They stepped onto a rotating platform and began going downward.

And Cody got his answer.

When the platform stopped, the two men were facing a cell. And in that cell was a body.

The body of General Krell.

The protective barrier was still in place—Rex had made sure to re-engage it earlier, not fully convinced that Krell, with his Jedi powers, might somehow rise from the semblance of death. Now, the captain waved his hand and the barrier disappeared.

Cody stepped inside.

It was obvious Krell had been killed with a single blaster shot to the back – straight through the heart, most likely.

And suddenly, Cody began to feel a sense of dread.

"What happened here, Rex?" he asked, still kneeling down beside the dead Jedi.

"My worst."

The words seemed to hang in mid-air with no further explanation coming.

Cody stood up and faced him with a look of consternation. "The last report I got was he'd been taken prisoner. How did this happen?"

"I told you . . . I made a lot of mistakes."

For Cody, this was no answer. "If you're going to try and tell me you did this, I can tell you now, I don't believe it."

"It wasn't me, but I wish it had been," Rex said slowly, as if each word were causing him pain.

"Explain that statement." Cody the friend was now Cody the commander. This was no small matter, and Cody could not afford to treat it as such.

"One of those mistakes . . . " Rex said in a level voice, " . . . was convincing myself that the only way to stop Krell from betraying us to the enemy again was to execute him."

Cody's face was like stone. "Go on."

"So I . . . I came down here for that purpose, but . . . I couldn't do it," Rex said, his voice trembling as he spoke. "I couldn't pull the trigger." He drew in a deep breath. "So Dogma did it."

Again, Cody felt the shock of surprise. "Dogma? That seems as unlikely as you doing it. Are you telling me the truth?"

"It's the truth, but . . . there's a lot more to it," Rex replied uncomfortably. "It wasn't that Dogma had planned to kill him. He just—when he saw that I wasn't going to do it, he lost control."

Cody shook his head wearily and rubbed his temples. "This isn't good, Rex."

"I know."

"What made you think you had the authority to execute a prisoner? A Jedi?" Cody demanded.

"I was trying to protect my men . . . and the Republic's interests," Rex replied. "If the Umbarans had retaken this base, Krell would have been free—"

"So you devised an assassination plot," Cody said, mildly accusative. "Tell me, Rex . . . the men I sent out here, the men Waxer was leading. None of them came back, but now I see some of them here. Were they in on this scheme?"

"It wasn't an assassination, Commander," Rex corrected. "It was an execution. And no, your men weren't in on it." He moved up to stand beside him. "Those of the 212th that were left after Krell's carnage couldn't report back to you. Comm's were being jammed. They helped arrest him, but they had no part in the plan to kill him. They knew nothing about it." He paused. "But I did take command of them. And you should know . . . Waxer is dead."

Cody was silent for a little longer than would have been expected, and Rex knew this announcement had hit hard.

The captain went on, feeling he had to find a way to explain his actions. "Krell tricked us. He tricked you. And a lot of men died at the hands of their brothers because of that," Rex explained. "When I took command and made a plan to arrest General Krell, all of your men agreed they wanted to take part."

"And?"

"And we arrested him, but not without a fight and a lot more deaths," Rex went on.

"How did he go from being arrested to being dead?" Cody asked bluntly.

"After we arrested him, we put him in the brig, and . . . that's when communications were restored," Rex said, then following a lengthy hesitation, "That's when General Kenobi told us the capital had fallen and the remaining Umbarans were headed here." A pause. "General Krell told us that he was an agent of Count Dooku, that he was no longer a Jedi, and that when the Umbarans reached here, they would set him free. He had all our intel. He would have given it to the enemy."

"So, you decided he needed to be executed," Cody completed the progression.

Leaving out Fives, Jesse and Tup, Rex replied with a simple, "Yes."

Cody could hardly believe his ears, was reluctant to ask what happened next, but he needed to know, both as a friend and a ranking officer. "But you said that Dogma killed him, so what happened?"

"Dogma was in one of the cells already—"

"What?"

"He was trying to protect General Krell as we went to arrest him, and we couldn't risk him interfering, so I had him put in the brig," Rex explained. "But we took him out when we went to execute General Krell. When I couldn't do it, he got hold of a weapon and did it himself."

Cody narrowed his eyes. "You're leaving out some fairly important details, Rex. But, you keep saying 'we'. Who's we?"

"Cody, it doesn't matter—"

"It damned well does matter," Cody snapped. "You're the fekking first-in-command. You were in charge. You're responsible for everything that happens in this battalion. Who else was involved in this?"

"I'm the one in charge, like you said," Rex countered. "Anything that anyone else did, it's still my responsibility." A sign. "The only one I let down was Dogma. And if I thought I could convince him not to say anything, I would have told you that I'm the one who killed Krell. I was the one who was supposed to kill him."

Cody exhaled heavily. "This is . . . a huge mess."

"It shouldn't be," Rex pushed back. "Krell was an enemy agent. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of clones. He would have been charged and probably executed anyway—"

"Yes, but after proper procedures," Cody pointed out. "Not at the hands of some vigilante justice that you felt free to mete out." He took a moment to settle his voice. "Where is Dogma now?"

"He was out on the front line fighting. He knows to report back when the fighting is over." Seeing Cody's burgeoning expression of disbelief, he went on quickly. "And because he's an honorable trooper, he will."

Cody shook his head. "This is not going to go away so easily, Rex. How could you let something like this happen?"

And for the first time, Rex felt a twinge of anger at Cody. "Because I was furious to find out that Krell been working against us the whole time, that he took joy in seeing us die." He grit his teeth. "And after all the embleer decisions I made, I wanted revenge. I won't say I didn't. I just didn't have the guts to do it." He faced Cody squarely. "Don't forget, Commander . . . you lost men, too. Krell set up the 212th just like he set up the 501st."

Cody was unmoved. "You're trying to justify a bad decision." He took a step closer. "Who was in on this with you? That's all I want to know. You can't hide this, Rex—"

"I'm not trying to hide it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have shown you—"

"I can understand why you might have felt the way you did—"

Rex set his jaw. This was not what he had been hoping for from his closest friend, his mentor. And he wasn't sure how to respond other than to express the mounting anger he was feeling. "No, you can't. You weren't forced to serve under that bastard, that lying piece of osik. You have no idea, Cody. And I'm not going to apologize for what happened here. You know who deserve apologies? All those dead men out there—all the wounded—damn it, everyone who followed my orders when they knew I was being used!"

"Rex—"

"I knew his plans were flawed. I knew the men wouldn't follow him, but they would follow me," Rex said in a fevered rush. "I knew it the whole time. But I didn't want to disobey orders. I didn't want to show my men a bad example. The battalion was already coming apart. The only way to hold it together was for me to show them that I was with Krell. I knew if they saw that, they would follow my lead."

"Your troops have never questioned you, Rex," Cody reminded him with narrowed, questioning eyes. "Why would question you now?"

"Because they could see, just like I could, that Krell's strategies were terrible," Rex replied.

Cody was like a dog with a bone. "Were they starting to turn against you?"

Rex chose his words carefully. "I had some . . . push back."

"From whom?"

"Cody, I'm not going to implicate anyone else in this," Rex said tiredly. "Me and Dogma. We're the only two people who need to be involved."

"You might want that, but this is going to turn into an investigation, Rex," Cody persisted. "A Jedi is dead . . . at the hands of his own troops, after he'd been taken prisoner." A pause. "I know you, Rex; and this isn't you. You would never have thought of doing something like this on your own."

Rex shook his head. "Umbara . . . has a way of changing a man. We all became something . . . less than human."

Cody sighed and walked back to the console. "Take us back up. I have to report this to General Kenobi. In the meantime, get a detail in here to secure the area. And you'd better make damned sure Dogma is back in one of these cells within the next ten minutes."

"Yes, Commander."

As the platform finished rotating, Cody stepped into the corridor. He turned to look back at his friend, knowing there was going to be a tough road ahead. "I've still got your back, Rex. I know why you wanted to see him dead. I just can't believe it was your idea."

"Are you sure you shouldn't be locking me up, too?" Rex inquired, and he was not joking.

Cody's answer was also serious. "The time may come for that. But not yet."

"I'm losing him. There's no way to stop it now . . . "

But he could help ease the pain in a dying man's last moments. A shot of denkenar would suffice.

"Blackie? Blackie, does that help?"

Within seconds, the man's stricken expression lessened. "Fine . . . Kix," came the bleary response.

"Just try to go to sleep," Kix said in a comforting voice, a voice that well hid the finality of the moment.

Blackie had come into the 501st just around the time Kix had; and they had been on many missions together. They had survived the debacle of Kettrun and Commander Ki'weya. Blackie had been wounded in that misadventure, but he'd come back from that injury. He would not come back from this one.

Always quiet, unassuming . . . a brother who had never wanted to be a standout. He had his group of friends, and he was happy to just pass time with them. He was, simply put, a nice person to be around.

Kix pressed the palm of his hand against the blood-drained cheek. He'd always felt that, to the degree it was possible, even the smallest physical connection with a man in his last seconds of life was one of the greatest comforts he could offer, one of the last strands of humanity he could hold out as the breathe slipped away.

No one should die alone.

And yet, they did. All the time.

One more rising of his chest.

"Good-bye, brother."

That was all. There was no time to grieve, and for the moment, Kix was fine with the necessity of holding the emotions at bay. He got to his feet and moved to the next injured man. The next dying man. The next dead man. This one was . . . a Mudjumper. It struck Kix as somewhat peculiar, but it wasn't enough to hold his curiosity. There were too many wounded awaiting his attention. After this last battle to hold the airbase, the med center was overflowing. A dead Mudjumper could be spared only a moment's pondering.

"Mortuary team just arrived." This from Scree, who was busy making his own rounds. He added, somewhat callously, "That'll empty out half this room."

Kix did not say anything. With the battle over, he was throwing himself with full intensity into his job as medic. It was the only way to keep his mind occupied and away from the encroaching thoughts of what he himself had already lost. Hardcase. Pitch. For all intents and purposes, he had lost Jesse. Umbara had proven costly for the members of Saber Squad.

His wrist-comm beeped.

"This is Major Hypes. All medics, I need two volunteers to work with the mortuary team," came the announcement. "Report to my station to volunteer. If I don't get two, I'll choose two."

Kix turned to Scree. "Sorry to leave you with this, but I'm going to help out."

Scree looked somewhat taken aback. "I thought you hated mortuary detail."

"I do." Kix offered no further explanation. He left to report to Major Hypes.

But things did not go as planned. Kix approached the major, who was facing away from him, poring over the prioritization roster for medical evacuations.

"I'm volunteering for mortuary duty," he announced.

When Major Hypes turned and saw who it was, he immediately dismissed the idea. "No, Corporal, I need you here on the floor. You're the best medic this battalion has, and I want you here saving lives instead of feeding corpses into an incinerator."

"There are plenty of medics out on the floor, Major," Kix resisted. "I . . . I could use a break."

Now, Hypes stopped what he was doing and eyed his top medic with a probing scrutiny. "Why would you want to go help out the MTs? You've always hated that stuff, and I've seen what impact it has on you. And there are wounded – you've seen how many – who still have a chance at survival, if we can get to them fast enough. Kix, I can't spare you. It would be a mistake to let you go to the MTs."

Kix was on the verge of claiming to be burned out, that the dead made no demands, whereas the wounded were in constant need. Bodies needed only to be catalogued and disposed of. Injured men needed care and patience . . .

The injured took a lot out of a man. The dead took nothing.

Fek and all, but he could concoct a lie to deceive himself.

And yet, the lie fell flat. Even to Kix, it fell flat. Caring for the wounded was the thing that energized him, gave him purpose.

But somehow, that purpose now felt hollow. The loss of Hardcase and Pitch had wrought a strange and terrible malaise in Kix's conscience – a sickness that cast a pall over the good work he did in saving lives that were within his ability, while opening wide the wound of not being able to save the lives of two men who had meant everything to him but who had been taken from him without him even having a chance to save them.

"We are the dead. Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, watched sunset glow, loved and were loved . . . "

Some stupid poem Hardcase had stumbled across and shown to Kix, thinking it was the sort of thing Kix would like.

And he had liked it. He'd liked it very much.

"Take up our battle with the foe. To you, from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours, to hold it high. If you lose faith with we who die, we shall not rest . . . "

It had a way of making the fallen still seem present. The dead had not abandoned the battle. They had not forgotten the cause for which they had died. They were still there in spirit—sometimes, even more than in spirit. Kix had not forgotten the lessons of Bertegad and the Monastica. And if animal souls were eternal and preserved against destruction, it had to be that the human soul of a clone merited at least the same consideration.

These souls of the dead were quickly becoming all Kix had left. And in a bizarre twist of reason, he could not help but feel—at that moment—that the dead deserved his attention. If he could not join them through his own sacrifice on the battlefield, he could show his final respects.

"Yes, Major." He conceded, but it was a false concession. He returned to the floor, but when the bodies of dead troopers started being removed, he took the opportunity and escorted several to the mortuary team's setup, which was in an adjacent building – one large enough to stack bodies, or parts thereof, until an identification could be made—if one could be made. The identification process was really no more than scanning the ID chip in each clone's forearm and blacking out that number in a database. If there was no forearm, no chip to scan . . . reconciliations would come later with the unit's manpower officers. Between the mortuary teams and the units themselves, the numbers of dead usually came within a single percentage point of accuracy.

The captain in charge of this particular operation was well-known to the 501st medics. His team was among several assigned to the sector, but this team most often followed on behind the 501st and 212th, almost as a trailing appendage.

The captain's name was Binga, a purposefully bright moniker for a dark profession. And he was good at it. He attempted to retain some semblance of dignity in the handling of remains, even if it was a nearly impossible task, given the casualty numbers and the GAR's insistence that all remains be incinerated – and the sooner, the better. Burials were not an option for clone troopers, and MTs could not afford to linger in any one place for too long. There were other battles with more dead that needed to be disposed of.

Captain Binga managed to strike the perfect balance between all demands and expectations. From his perspective, it was miracle enough that the Republic at least took some action to attend to the dead, as opposed to leaving them to rot on the battlefield. True, there had been occasions when fallen Republic soldiers could not be retrieved right away – or at all. Those had been the exception. But as the war dragged on, they were becoming the rule.

Umbara presented an increasingly rare opportunity to show the dead some respect.

Or what passed as respect . . .

It was the best Captain Binga and his men could do.

Now, as Kix entered the staging area, he felt as if, by passing through that door, he'd left one world for another. Inside these walls, time no longer existed. For the majority of brothers present within these confines, time no longer existed.

Captain Binga saw him arrive and greeted him. "Corporal Kix."

Kix nodded his deference to Binga's superior rank. "Captain Binga. I'm here to help out."

Binga appeared mildly surprised but not unwilling to accept the assistance. "Major Hypes already sent me the men I needed."

"I volunteered," Kix said, carefully omitting that he was going against Major Hype's express orders.

"I can always use another hand," Binga replied. "Though I'm surprised to see you here. I know how much you hate pulling MT detail."

"We all have to do things we hate sometimes."

"Dogma!"

Dogma winced at the sound of his name.

He'd managed to avoid being anywhere near Tup during the final battle for the airbase. Now, all he wanted to do was get back to the prison cell that awaited him before he could be further accused of betraying and letting down his captain and his battalion. He had no idea if Tup knew what had happened to Krell. The captain had made it clear to Jesse and Fives that they weren't to breathe a word of it. But they had been dishonest and disobedient the entire mission. There was a good chance the captain's admonition had met a similar fate as his previous edicts.

Dogma kept walking, but when he felt the hand on his shoulder, he couldn't ignore it.

"Dogma? Didn't you hear me?" Tup demanded.

"I heard you," came the reply. "I was just . . . I'm in a hurry."

"What are you doing out here? I thought the captain put you in the brig?"

Dogma continued walking, didn't even break his stride. "He did. He let me out just to fight this battle. He said he needed every man."

"So, where are you . . . are you going back to the brig?"

Dogma nodded.

"But why? The battle is over, and—and what happened earlier wasn't anything to justify keeping you locked up," Tup insisted. "You were just doing what you thought was right. The captain won't keep you locked up for that."

There was no way Dogma was going to tell him what he'd done. It would come out soon enough anyway.

"The captain told me to report back to the prison cell when the fighting was over, and that's what I'm doing," Dogma said evenly.

"But this is crazy—"

"Tup, just let me do what I've been told to do," Dogma insisted wearily. "For fek's sake, it doesn't always have to be about arguing and pushing back and . . . "

Tup could immediately sense that something was amiss, more than could be explained away by the circumstances of Tup's earlier incarceration.

"Dogma, what's wrong?" He forcefully stopped him and faced him squarely. "What's happened?"

Dogma could detect, in Tup's voice, a probing search. It was as if Tup knew what was supposed to have happened in the prison cell. But Dogma wasn't going to give up that information. Let Tup hear it from someone else.

"Nothing's happened," Dogma replied. "The captain let me out to fight. Now, I'm reporting back, and if you hold me up much longer, he's going to think that I'm trying to skip out."

"Captain Rex would never think that of you—"

"He will if you keep holding me up."

"Dogma, something's happened. I can tell—"

At last, Dogma's patience gave out. "Stop asking, Tup. Just stop asking. If you want to know what happened, ask your friends. They were there. They can tell you."

Tup watched as his squad mate walked away, and he began to think that what he was witnessing was Dogma's reaction to Krell's execution. So, it appeared Captain Rex had gone through with it, and Dogma had been there to witness it.

"They were supposed to get him out of there first," Tup groused silently. "He wasn't supposed to see any of that." He felt the flicker of ire simmering inside him when he thought of the carelessness of his captain, Jesse and Fives. They had all agreed that Dogma should not be witness to the execution. But apparently, once Tup had no longer been party to the conversation, plans had changed. Captain Rex had insisted that, as a Shinie, Tup should be removed from the goings-on. Yet, it appeared that Dogma did not fall into that protected category.

"If that's what they decided, then that's fekking osik," Tup boiled. "Well, Shinie or not, I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

Jesse looked over the equipment listing.

Damn, they'd lost a lot of hardware.

But he knew it would be nothing in comparison with the numbers of dead and wounded when those figures were finalized.

He could not help but feel a stinging rebuke of his own conscience. Many of the fallen were men he'd known since the day they'd come into the 501st. For all intents and purposes, he'd abandoned them here on Umbara. He hadn't been the leader they'd wanted and needed. He'd put his own selfish whims and petulance ahead of the welfare of the men. He'd not been the lieutenant that the captain had needed. The reasoned sounding board had turned into a smart-talking thorn in his captain's side.

He'd been a crappy second-in-command.

Plain and simple.

And now, he wasn't sure if it was something he could make up for.

He'd followed Fives' lead, and this was where it had gotten him: alienated from his men—what was left of them, his squad in tatters, and his frustration and disappointment with his own lack of clarity making him despise himself for his shortcomings.

This was the most hollow victory in battle he'd ever known.

"Jesse?"

And now his mind was playing tricks on him.

Only it wasn't.

Looking up, he felt his breath catch in his chest. But he would not—could not—show it. He had no reason to be grateful for this unexpected visit.

He got to his feet and offered a neutral greeting.

"Top."

So, another little homage to the In Flanders Fields poem.

And Top is dropping in . . . the osik is going to hit the fan.