Live Through This

Chapter Seven: Fractures

Konni had plunged her saber into the temple of the great beast and felt it's rage shift into despair before it flickered out altogether. Then it fell, and took Konni and Starlight with it. It hit the ground with a sound so loud that Konni's ear cones rang and the forest echoed all around them. It was over, but this was no victory.

Hops was dead, she knew that even before she was able to push herself off the ground on shaky elbows. There had probably been fifteen minutes between the cat crashing into the clearing and it's death. The whole thing went so fast, but it altered the course of everything. Hops was dead. Hops was dead.

Still she searched for him in the force, unable yet to accept it. Praying it was a mistake. There had to be a chance he was alright, that she could save him. There wasn't though. All her searching turned up a horrible, empty spot that made her want to throw up. She knew, rationally, that there was no death. Only the force. But such slogans were hard to grapple with when someone so real and alive was just suddenly snuffed out. Gone.

Her one arm was still broken from the B-2 crushing it days before, and now she was pretty sure the slightly accelerated healing she'd been able to access via bacta injections was all for naught. Putting pressure on it caused pain so bad she wanted to cry. There was also something wrong with her neck, something pinched or strained that made looking around and assessing the scene near impossible. She could taste blood. Still, she didn't care much about any of that. Where the hell was Starlight?

She could feel her still, but couldn't see her. She tried to crawl on the jungle floor but her arm hurt too badly. She felt a lot of emptiness all around, bodies without hosts, a lot of despair from the people that had loved them. She couldn't center herself enough right now get a head count of how many of them were left standing, all she knew was that many had died today.

Starlight found her. Stumbling on shaky legs and collapsing into her arms. Konni could feel wet, black blood on Starlight's back. Her cloak had been torn and shredded. Her hard exoskeleton cracked and beaten in. "Let me see, let me see," Konni said, trying to extricate herself from Starlight so she could assess her injuries, but Starlight didn't want to let go of her. Konni relented, and allowed Starlight to burrow against her. Where the hell was the medic?

One of General Kash's troopers stumbled out of the ferns and knelt beside them. Konni wasn't listening to what he was saying. She interrupted him with "Wheres Sawbones?" and saw the trooper shaking his head. There was no way he was dead, too. She could still feel him, sort of. She managed to get Starlight to cling to the trooper instead of her and stood on wobbly legs. Walking was hard, but she staggered away from Starlight's cries of protest and was able to circle around to the other side of the massive cat's corpse.

There was a group of troopers there, two standing and two on the ground. When they saw her approach, one rushed towards her. Eyes. He ushered her toward the two on the ground. She recognized both. Sawbones, who was unconscious, splayed out with his helmet and chest armor off. The other was Boots, who she didn't know well. Neither looked good. Sawbones in particular. His breathing was interrupted, she could tell that much. She shuffled on her knees towards him and could immediately tell he had minutes left. She pulled his head into her lap and checked his airways. His mouth was full of blood.

"Where's his medical kit?"

"We're trying to locate it, sir."

"Locate it faster!" She shouted as she held his jaw open and stuck her fingers in. She felt swelling in his throat. She couldn't clear the blood, it filled up his mouth and spilled out around her fingers. She needed to intubate him, that much was clear.

"It's over here!" a trooper shouted, and Eyes ran to go help him drag it over.

"Come on Sawbones, come on," She whispered to him as she gently lowered his head to the ground. Eyes and the other trooper—she wasn't sure of his name—dragged the heavy bag over and knelt on the ground next to her. "Get me an intubation tray," she hissed, tilting Sawbones head back.

"What does that look like?"

Kriffing hells. "It's going to say intubation tray on it, kriff!" she hissed, "it will have a balloon sort of thing with it."

Eyes rifled through the bag. "Here, here! This is it."

Konni took the kit from him and teared it open, realizing that she didn't have gloves on and quickly deciding that didn't matter right now. The time it would take to put them on could cost Sawbones his life. She unfolded the laryngoscope and pressed the blade against his tongue. The slide wasn't easy. The swelling seemed more serious than she had originally thought. "Kriff,"

"What?"

"I can't visualize anything," She pressed deeper, "theres too much blood. And swelling," she couldn't see his epiglottis, and the blood just kept coming. "Fuck, okay." This was worse than she thought.

"Okay, what?" Eyes asked.

"Is there a cricothyroidotomy tray in there?"

"Um—" Eyes and the other trooper began digging, "Here!"

She pulled it from Eyes' hands and tore the packaging. She'd never done one of these before. She'd seen Master Lani do one, years ago, and she'd done it in simulation at the temple, but—this was pretty different. There was a pair of sterile garment scissors in the tray, and she cut through the thick fabric of Sawbones neck seal. It was difficult, and she ended up tossing the scissors and just tearing with all her strength until she had his full neck on display.

Konni palpated Sawbones neck. She could see now where the trauma was, just under where his helmet would sit. The skin was dark red and puffy, but it didn't extend too far down. She located the thyroid and cricoid cartilage, stabilized his airway with her left hand, and reached for the scalpel. She heard the trooper who's name she didn't know mutter, oh, nine hells, and she spat "shut the fuck up," as she cut Sawbones from laryngeal prominence to the hollow between his collar bones. Blood spilled freely as she set down her scalpel and fingered the incision. She could feel the cartilage much easier now, and the space between the two structures.

She pressed a finger into that spot as she retrieved her scalpel again. Sawbones was bleeding so badly, and she worried if she moved her hand she'd lose visualization. She lowered the blade just over her finger and slowly dragged it away as she made the incision. No blood sprang free, which meant she did indeed have the right spot. She dropped the blade onto his chest and fumbled for the spring forceps and cannula. If she could place this correctly, Sawbones had a chance. If she couldn't she'd just hastened his death. This would all be so much easier if she didn't also have to concentrate on not throwing up.

She inserted the forceps into the slit she'd cut, and let them dilate it into a hole big enough to slide the tube into. "There!" she panted as she pulled out the forceps. It was in, and as she caught her breath she began to see Sawbones' chest rising and falling again.

"Holy shit," the trooper next to Eyes said.

"Yeah," Konni agreed, packing the wound with gauze in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Look around in that bag and find me any muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory drugs we have. This is a temporary fix, we want to get his real airway up and running as soon as we can. Oh, and sedatives."

"For him or for you?" Eyes asked. A minute ago she would have chewed him out for that kind of sass, but the terror and adrenaline has subsided now into a sort of bliss. Everyone here that was alive and breathing was someone she loved fiercely in this moment, she couldn't afford not to. They'd lost so many today. Life was kriffing precious, and wasting any of it being miserable felt so wrong right now.

Konni scoffed and wiped sweat from her brow, forgetting that her bare hands were covered in Sawbones' sticky blood. "For him, he doesn't want to wake up into this mess. Plus, he'd kill me for criking him without gloves on."

After Konni got Sawbones' bleeding under control and took a look at the other unconscious trooper (who turned out to only have a concussion), all remaining survivors gathered and established a perimeter. There was no way they were moving tonight. Not with the injured. Plus, the body of the massive car provided food for them, which was important considering all their ration packs were buried somewhere beneath fallen trees. It had been a truly horrible day. They could get back to work in the morning.

They built a campfire and Konni saw to the wounds on Starlight's back as the troopers buried the bodies of their brothers. There were only seven left alive—Eyes, Sawbones, Kyramla, Blitz, Boots, Sleen, and Iggy. She knew Eyes, Boots, and Sawbones—but the rest were relative strangers to her. Sleen and Iggy were from Kash's battalion, and were on their first deployment. The highest ranking among them was Eyes, who she'd have to give a field promotion to now. He wouldn't like that. She decided she'd wait until morning to break the news.

Starlight sat in front of Konni facing away, shirt off, hugging her destroyed cloaks to her chest as Konni attempted to set the fractures in her chitinous back. The damage wasn't extensive, and the flesh below wasn't to badly damaged, but it still required attention. The cat had gotten her good.

"I still can't believe you did a crike without me," Starlight complained, shaking her head, making the string of beads dangling from the piercing behind her auditory cavity clack against her shoulder.

"Wasn't exactly a teaching moment," Konni sighed, "hold still,"

"I'm kind of sad I missed it, too," Boots said from the other side of the campfire, glancing at Sawbones unconscious next to him. "I would have asked you to slip and cut his vocal cords while you were in there."

Konni couldn't help but laugh. "Enough, both of you!"

"I'm just saying!" Boots put his hands up defensively, "you don't have to share a bunk with him. Guy never shuts up." He was on enough stimulants to kill a kybuck. She could feel his elation in the force and was jealous. They no longer had any stims to spare.

"Make yourself useful and brew me some caf."

"I'm injured,"

"You need to stay awake. Make yourself some caf, too. It's in my bag."

Boots shrugged and got up to make them their caf, and Starlight sighed. "I just can't believe I missed it,"

"Give me a break," Konni said. "If everything keeps going on like this, you'll get a change to do it yourself,"

"Oh, I hope so."

"Do you hear yourself right now?" Konni asked, but she wasn't really mad.

"How do you mean?"

"Do you want more people to die? More of your friends? Just so you can, what, cut on them?"

"Of course not!"

Konni sighed, "I know. It's just—when you say things like that, it makes people think you don't care."

"Why?"

"Most people typically don't wish for bad things to happen."

"I'm not wishing. bad things are going to happen anyways."

"Well, yeah," Konni said, as she pulled one of Starlight's wounds together with an adhesive suture, "but it's typically considered—" Konni stopped. There were more important things. "You know what? never mind. I hope you get to do a crike, too."

"Thank you." Starlight said, like she'd won an argument. It drove Konni crazy, but there were more important things in the galaxy than Starlight being offensive.

"Hey, I'm sorry about this morning, by the way."

"Why?" Starlight asked, and Konni couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"I could have been nicer about it all, I was just frustrated."

"I think you may be right, though."

"Of course I'm right," Konni finished repairing the last fracture and wiped down Starlight's back with alcohol. "But I didn't have to yell."

"It's okay," Starlight shifted as the alcohol stung her wounds, "Are you done?"

"Yep," Konni pulled off her gloves, followed by her cloak, which she passed to Starlight. "You can wear this. Probably a little big on you, but at least it's not shredded to bits.

Starlight wrapped herself in Konni's brown cloak and immediately pulled the hood up. Konni stood from her spot behind her Padawan and situated herself beside her so that they both had their faces to the fire. The night was chilly, and the fire felt nice on Konni's skin. She was still a little wired, and guessed she wouldn't be able to sleep very well. Her arm still pained her, but she'd located a loose painkiller injectable in the bottom of Sawbones' medical kit and helped herself to it. It helped, a little bit.

Still, none of this was sustainable. They needed to get out of here. They'd lost most of their equipment. Long-range comms were out. Sleen and Blitz were working on repairing that, but were operating with less than ideal materials. There was no food but for the dead cat. The medical supplies were running out. They were still days from the monastery, and too far in to head back. They'd effectively failed the mission already, and their only goal now was survival.

Boots sat down next to Konni and passed a cup of caf just as the rest of the boys appeared from out of the dark. They looked worse than they had when they'd left. She smelled the blood of the fallen on them saw as they entered the glow of the fire that most of their eyes were red-rimmed. What a horrible task they'd had to take to alone. She wished she could have helped, but with her arm the way it was and the injured to look after she'd had to let them go on their own. They settled down around the fire and everyone was silent. It dragged on. Konni wanted to say that there was cooked meat and supplies for caf, but it felt flippant. She just let the silence hang, until Starlight broke it.

"Do we have any more alcohol?" Starlight asked.

"What?" Konni turned to look at her Padawan.

Starlight shrugged, "the campfire is usually more fun when you're all drunk."

Everyone exchanged glances, unsure of how to react to that, and then Blitz began laughing. Then everyone else followed, and soon they were all losing it. There was nothing funny about their current situation, but wasn't there? Nine soldiers in the woods, under the shadow of a massive dead cat, and the teenager they'd brought along is suggesting they get drunk. What a world.

Konni shook her head and reached for her bag. "Against my better judgment," she tossed her flask to Starlight, "give it a try."

"Me?"

"Why not. I just sutured you back together without any pain management. I can think of worse reasons to start drinking."

Starlight unscrewed the lid, sniffed at the revnog, and took a cautious sip. She grimaced and shuddered, "I hate it,"

"Then pass it here, kid," Eyes said, and Starlight jerked away from him.

"No, let me try one more time." She steeled herself, and took another sip. This time she didn't react so much.

"Alright, that's enough," Konni said, "let Eyes have it."

Eyes took a sip and passed it off to Blitz. Konni could feel everyone relaxing, just a little bit. There was still a tight thread of terror through all present, but they were momentarily safe. They wouldn't be moving from this spot until achievable goals began to materialize. That could wait until morning.

Morning. The day they were supposed to be arriving at the monastery, investigating what happened there, and why. There were so many blanks in this mission. Konni wrote it all off in her mind. She didn't care about it anymore. Her new mission was keeping the nine of them alive. Eventually, they'd get comms reestablished or reinforcements wound find them on their own. They would just have to keep whatever horrors lurked in the jungle at bay until then.

When the flask made it's way back to her, she took a deep gulp and enjoyed the burn as it went down. She skipped Starlight and passed it on to Eyes, then tilted her head back to look at the glow of the trees and the sparks of the fire floating up towards them. "Whats our next move, General?" Eyes asked, and Konni remembered that he'd just inherited the title of Commander. She wondered if he'd parsed that one out for himself yet.

"No moves tonight," she said, eyes still on the green glow above. "We'll regroup in the morning. Right now; tell me about the troopers who died."