Live Through This

Chapter Eight: Approaching Storm

Back in the sterile environment of Kamino, Eyes had never imagined anything like this for his life. An environment of glowing green trees. A massive, spotted corpse. The taste of revnog on his tongue. It was all so loud. So overwhelming. They'd supposedly been trained for every eventuality but here he was, not knowing what to do with the chaos that encircled them now. He'd started his life as one of many identical boys in a stark-white controlled environment where he was to learn how to be a simple cog in the machine. Now he was a goddamned Commander, and he was stranded in a jungle helping a teenage mystic tan the hide of a deadly cat with cauterants appropriated from their medical kit. What the fuck.

It was early morning. The glow of the trees was just beginning to dim and what they could see of the sky was a pale violet. Eyes and Starlight had already been up three hours. No one had bothered to lay out bedrolls and take off armor; they had all dozed off around the fire, sharing stories about the troopers who had died that day. The conversation flowed in and out of sorrow and joy. Happy stories about pranks pulled as cadets, regrets about never telling each other how important they were, disbelief, remembrance, pain. Eyes finally drifted off with with Starlight's head on his shoulder as Blitz told a sad story about Hawkbat's dream of being a speederbike racer after the war, his voice slow and exhausted. Eyes didn't want to hear about the futility of their existence anymore.

He'd woken to Starlight shaking him by the shoulder and asking for his help with something. Boots, who'd been stimmed up enough to stay awake through his concussion, was standing behind her. Boots was kind of an asshole, and reveled in chaos in a way that could combine dangerously with Starlight's odd disposition. He figured that whatever this was, it would get him into trouble. However, he had been dreaming, and the dreams weren't good. So he decided whatever it was these two psychopaths wanted was probably better than going back to sleep.

That was debatable, now. Starlight's clothes had been destroyed when she was attacked by the tails of the Long Cat, and she'd been wearing Konni's cloak since. Konni was almost six feet tall, and the cloak dragged on the jungle floor behind Starlight. She'd had the bright idea to skin part of the cat and flash-tan it's hide with medical supplies to make herself a new cloak. Good gods. This was never something that Eyes had pictured himself doing. Starlight inspected each leg of the beast until she located the one that she thought had the prettiest coat. Then, she asked him and Boots to skin it for her.

He guessed he'd signed up for this, so he got out his vibroknife and cut. It was more difficult than it looked, and the smell of the wet flesh was enough to turn his stomach. Starlight helped peel as they cut, directing them as they went. She had some kind of vision in mind, but he couldn't really guess as to what it was. He knew nothing about tanning furs and was pretty sure Boots didn't either. If this was something that she had learned at Jedi school, he wouldn't have been very surprised, though. Their areas of study were diverse and strange. It made him wonder why they automatically outranked them. Konni was a great General, but she had worked as a covert operative before the war. That translated, while garment-making didn't.

Konni came and found them just as they'd finished removing the skin from the cat and were stretching it between some branches. She didn't object, but looked as skeptical as he felt.

"Doesn't it take, like, weeks to tan a hide?" She asked, observing with her arms crossed, as the three of them clipped their project into place.

"Not with these!" Starlight excitedly told her as she pulled the cauterant bottles from the pocket of her too-big cloak.

Konni took a step forward to get a better look at the bottles in the dim light. "Are those from the medical kit?"

"Yes, but, we'll never use them all. There's tons, and—"

Konni waved it away. "Whatever. It's fine," she turned towards him, "Eyes, congratulations. You're a Commander now."

He had wondered how she would do this. He wasn't stupid, he knew he was the highest rank left, including the detachment left behind in Stanoi. He didn't want to be a Commander, but he didn't really see a way around it. Field promotions were rare, but this was exactly the type of situation where they were permitted. Eventually, they'd have to do something. Head towards the monastery, or back to Stanoi. They'd need to have an actual chain of command when they were through fucking around with revnog and cat hides.

Still. Commander Eyes. Ridiculous.

"Understood, Sir." He said, and not knowing what else to do, he went back to clipping the hide into place. The only other action that made sense to him in this moment was putting his blaster in his mouth, and he'd long ago decided that wasn't the way he wanted to do it.

Konni smirked and waved a dismissive hand, turning away from them and walking back toward camp. "I'm cooking breakfast. When you're done with all that, come get some. You'll never guess what we're having!"

Eyes thought that maybe he should follow her, talk about their plans, or lack there of. That's what Hops would have done. Was Hops a good model for how to be a Commander? He didn't really know. Eyes never intended to rise though ranks like this. He never intended to live this long. He figured he should probably start taking things more seriously, but then again, Konni didn't. He trusted her, and figured that maybe she was the right model for leadership. Maybe that's where Hops had gotten it wrong. He was always challenging her, trying to get her to play by the rules. Eyes didn't see how any of the guidelines for how to be a soldier applied anymore. They were in the jungle eating cat meat. Whatever crazy scheme Konni dreamt up was probably better than some GAR operational plan. He'd help her implement whatever she thought was right.

Still, the weight of it all was beginning to catch up to him. When Starlight and Boots began dousing the hide with chemicals he stepped back and found a place to sit on the ground. He had the impulse to put his helmet back on and load up one of his holonovels, but realized with a sinking feeling that he'd never again have time for himself. He was running low on his appropriated stims and hadn't had a cigarra since they'd left the cruiser. He was feeling prickly and exhausted. He had to go do something before he started to panic.

When he approached the camp he could hear Konni laughing. It was such a nice sound. He walked into the circle around the campfire just as Konni was getting to the exciting part of a story he'd heard before. This one was about pirates in the Western Reaches and a stolen shipment of medicine bound for an impoverished orbital station. The two troopers from the other battalion listened with rapt attention as they ate grilled meat from sharpened sticks. Blitz was whittling more sticks and smiling to himself as Konni told the tale he was also surely familiar with. Kyramla sat beside Sawbones, still unconscious, and stared into the fire like he could will it to die out.

Sawbones was at least breathing on his own now. The horrible little tube Konni had stuck into his throat was gone, and in it's place was a long line of stitches that looked red and painful. They were out of gauze, and out of bacta. The situation was dire, and Eyes couldn't really see a good solution anywhere. Sleen passed him a stick with bits of meat on it, and he accepted it with a nod. He was supposed to come up with plans now. Maybe he'd think of something by the time Konni finished her story.

"There's caf, too," Konni said to him, pointing towards her heated thermos and the packets of instant caf sitting on a stump between her and Iggy. "Anyways—"

She launched back into her story as Eyes got up to fix himself some caf. He'd been trying not to go through all the stims he had on him too quickly, because he didn't have any idea how long they'd be out here. Caf wasn't going to be a substitute for long, but it was something. He poured himself a cup and took a sip that burned his tongue. He grimaced and pressed the tip to the roof of his mouth in a futile attempt to soothe it. As far as meals went, this was pretty sorry. They had bigger problems, but that felt like just another detail to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

He found his spot on the ground and finished up the tough meat just as Konni's story ended. She did have a way with words, he had to admit. Even if he'd heard the story before, it was nice listening to her talk so passionately. He wondered if someday she'd be telling stories about her adventures in the war to Jedi initiates, when she finally got back to her real life. It was a depressing thought. Where would he be, then? Would he be a named character, or just an anonymous clone in the background? He sighed as he realized his anonymity was running thin, what with his new role. He'd wanted to be in her orbit, and now he was. He vowed to never wish for anything again.

Eyes was on the verge of really beginning to wallow when ever-quiet Kyramla sat up straighter, eyes locked on Sawbones. "General Nafai—"

"He's waking up," Konni said, standing, skirting the edge of the fire and kneeling near Sawbones' head. Sawbones was moving, just a bit, eyes fluttering and hands reaching for something to grab onto. It was hard to watch, this raw vulnerability. Sawbones had to be so scared, so pained. Konni pulled his head into her lap and held his hand. "Hey," she whispered, "don't talk, don't talk."

Everyone was suddenly gathering around Sawbones, not knowing what else to do, waiting for instruction. Konni tilted his head back, presumably to keep his neck straight. His eyes focused on her and she wiped sweat from his brow. Eyes watched from a few steps back, and had an odd wave of jealousy wash over him. He'd never been held in his life, never been whispered to. Was this what had to happen for a clone trooper to experience those things? He wondered what it had been like when he was bleeding out, when Konni and Tex were trying to save him. What was it like watching that scene? Was it like this? Or was there nothing tender about it, no sympathy to be given—because he'd done it to himself.

Sawbones was gripping Konni's fingers so tight it had to hurt, but Konni didn't react. His free hand went to his throat and she guided it away before he could touch the exposed stitches. "Whats happening?" Kyramla asked, panic in his voice.

"Nothing bad," Konni said quietly, soothingly. "Get some water and whatever painkillers we have left."

Kyramla immediately got up to rifle through the medical kit and returned with a hypo and a water packet. Konni injected the hypo at the base of Sawbones neck, and after he winced against the needle he began to relax. He loosened his grip on Konni's hand and moved his mouth like he wanted to speak but it was taking him some time to work up the strength. Konni helped him drink, and then he weakly managed, "cricothyroidotomy?"

Konni laughed a little, "yeah,"

Sawbones blew out an uneasy breath, "always wondered what that would feel like."

Kyramla groaned and collapsed backwards on the ground. "Gods, man. I thought you were going to die. Always wondered…"

The tension broke. Everyone was laughing. Kyramla and Konni were helping Sawbones sit up and Iggy was getting him some caf. Starlight and Boots were running over, having heard all the noise. "Sawbones!" Starlight shrieked when she saw saw him, and rushed to his side. "You missed everything, we had a cannula in your neck. I didn't get to place it, but I did get to remove it."

Sawbones had run out of his capacity for speech, and just smiled up at her. Eyes' urge to panic had subsided into a sick kind of relief. It almost verged on happiness, he was just so glad that Sawbones was pulling through. Their medic's fate had nothing to do with him, but he felt that if they lost anyone on his first day as Commander it would doom him to a short and bloody command. He was smiling despite himself, until he noticed Konni. She was transferring the weight of Sawbones leaning against her to Kyramla and wiggling out from under him. She looked pale. She stood and stumbled away from the campfire. No one else seemed to notice in all the excitement. She was walking out into the the jungle now at a fast pace. Weaving. Eyes followed.

He was catching up with her in a small clearing just far enough away from camp to be out of earshot when she doubled over and threw up.

"Kriff, Konni," he rushed over to her knelt on the ground beside her. She turned her head away from him, breathing hard. "Are you alright?" It was a stupid question.

She groaned and wiped at her mouth. "Could this possibly be going worse?"

Eyes wanted to say something like, yes, we could all be dead. But he knew what she meant. It was a little unnerving, to see the General looking at bad as he felt. At least one of them had to have a good head on their shoulders, and he'd hoped it was going to be her. Maybe that was a naive thought, though. Maybe no one was exactly cut out for this kind of work, even Jedi and born-and-bred soldiers. He wanted to do whatever he could to get her back to her usual, confident self. But that wasn't going to help anyone. Least of all her. Instead he nodded and said, "not really."

"Well," she swallowed and settled herself into a more comfortable sitting position, "I'm glad we're on the same page at least."

He situated himself next to her and sighed, "yeah."

"If you have any ideas about what we should do next, I'm all ears."

Eyes shrugged. "Back to Stanoi?"

She shook her head. "I don't think Sawbones will make it."

Eyes' stomach dropped. He had next to zero medical training, and had taken Sawbones waking up as a sign that he would be fine. It hadn't crossed his mind that it was still touch-and-go. "The monastery is closer, but we don't know what we're walking into."

"the direction the patrol we ran into yesterday came from would suggest that they originated at the monastery. There's likely more there. Nine of us can't dead with that."

"Eight, if you exclude Sawbones, which you should."

"Right."

"So, what? We just wait for reinforcements to hopefully show up?"

Konni buried her face in her hands. "I guess?"

"We can work on repairing the comms. Get them here faster."

"That's probably our best bet. And look," she pointed up through the canopy of the trees, "another storm is rolling in."

"Can't you like, stop that with your force powers, or something?" Eyes said, wiggling his fingers in front of him.

"That's not really how it works, actually—" she noticed his stupid smile. "You're fucking with me."

"Yeah, a bit."

She smacked him on she shoulder, her dire mood lightening. "I'm going to have to get used to this, aren't I?"

"I'm not Hops,"

"I know. And…" she huffed. "I miss him. But I think we'll be a good match."

"Really?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry you go thrown into this. Kriff, I'm sorry it's your life at all. I'll try not to fuck up so much anymore. I've been doing a lot of that. And, shit, I'm sorry I just walked up all, 'by the way, you're promoted!' That was kind of weird and cruel. But I do think you have the stuff." She hooked her arm around his turned to smile at him, and there was something different there. It wasn't the glittering General Nafai smile. It was just Konni. Maybe the first time he'd ever really seen her.

"I'll also try not to fuck up, for what it's worth."

"So. We've both got a pretty valiant goal."

"For the long term," he nodded. "What were you going to say about that storm?"

"We gotta build a shelter of some kind and dig gutters around the camp, or we're gonna be flooded just like Stanoi."

"I can take the boys and work on gutters. We've studied battlefield scenarios where flooding may be an issue. Can you and Star handle the shelter and safely moving Sawbones?"

"Sounds like a plan." Konni stood on shaky legs and helped him up. "Lets get back to work."