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vyingeyes · 10 months ago

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Project Crown - 2 - Recovery

Myth’s favorite place in Tipoca City had to be their barracks. The stark white tiles might freeze bare feet and blind unsuspecting eyes from time to time, but they were consistent. Quiet peace compensated for the lack of privacy that came from being bunked with other squads, and a sleep pod was about the closest thing any of them had to a personal space.

Myth’s least favorite place had to be the hangar. The only experience he had with it was during storms, so he had only ever seen the metal floor slick and hazardous. Freezing sheets of rain blew in from the open bay doors, and the chaos of everyone running around trying to get sorted sent him into a tizzy of his own. It probably didn’t help that every time ended up in the hangar, it was due to a situation that did nothing except cause him stress. It didn’t matter that there were other, less-severe places in Tipoca that he was subjected to more frequently—the hangar was just worse.

“When we touch down, I want 48 and 8ball to help Course to medical. Myth, with me.”

The transport ship rocked ominously in the gale of the storm as Kyr gave them their instructions. Myth found himself relaxing despite it. If he was with Kyr, that meant he’d probably be doing something administrative. Helping with the combat report, maybe, or recounting inventory and expended supplies. No matter what, it would almost certainly be better than a trip to the medical bay.

8ball seemed to think the same. “I’m sure 48 could take Course alone,” the scout implored. “Or, hell, Course could probably get to the medbay on his own?” He inched a bit closer to Myth.

Kyr fixed a tired glare on 8ball. “No. You were both there when Course got hurt, you’re responsible for making sure he gets helped.”

8ball bristled immediately. “He was supposed to be the one watching for bugs! I was shooting an SBD—and so was 48! You can’t just put us on babysitting duty because you’re mad you didn’t do anything to stop Course from—”

“He can.” Course’s voice cut in flatly, immediately shutting 8ball up. “He is squad lead, and he tells you what you do, where, and when.”

Blood buzzed in Myth’s ears at the undercurrent of anger in Course’s voice. Course was… not frightening. None of his brothers were frightening. But Myth hated conflict on a good day, and today… hadn’t been a good day. And Course was never the one to start a conflict. He was the closest thing they had to a mediator—the only one that could ever hope to redirect Kyr—and hearing him with that barely concealed hint of something boiling under the surface did frighten Myth.

“—miserable existence! Ooh, wow, he’s got a fancy title! He’s still got the same brain as any of us!”

Uh oh. Myth missed the first half of that, but it didn’t take an information analyst to see that 8ball wasn’t responding well to Course’s attempt at grace. His mouth opened uncertainly, but he quickly shut it as 48 began to speak.

“Shut up, man.” Myth could hear the rolling eyes, even if his brother still wore his helmet—48 was not impressed. “It’s been a long day already. Do you have to do this right now?”

It was as close to defending Kyr as 48 would get right now. Probably more for Course than anyone else, but Myth doubted any of them were enjoying this argument. Green Squad, silent backdrops in the dim transport, made no attempt to intrude on this display. Pull and Push shared a look, and Myth’s stomach dropped.

“It won’t take too long,” Myth blurted. “If you just get out of the ship as quickly as you can and go directly to the medical bay—you probably wouldn’t even have to stay to explain the situation to the medical droids, Course is awake, and it isn’t like there’ll be any trainers looking to cause problems right now with everything going on—”

“You’re stressing Myth out,” 48 interjected, annoyance growing. “Just suck it up.”

8ball elbowed 48 in retort, but he turned to glance at Myth, eyes searching for a moment. “… Fine. I’ll do the thing that nobody involved thinks is necessary to satisfy Kyr’s ego—but I’m not doing it because you told me to,” he directed at Kyr, an accusing finger tapping the squad leader on the chest.

Kyr did not respond. Probably for the best. He was probably seething—he had a temper just as bad as 8ball, but he was usually a little better at handling it. Plus, it was typically reserved for just 8ball and 48. Myth and Course got a little more lenience from him—except for when one of them had two broken limbs and tried to argue against being helped, apparently? That was a new development, and he’d have to take it into account. Myth couldn’t remember Kyr ever blatantly disregarding protocol like that before, and it concerned him, but Myth hoped that they could convince Course to at least be a little kinder to Kyr in the medical report than he’d been in the canyon.

The transport shuddered as it landed in the hangar, jolting Myth out of his thoughts. Kyr put a hand on his back while Punch and Punt slid the transport door open. All ten troopers immediately poured out of the cramped space, more than eager to get away from the stifling air they’d been stuck in.

Kyr set a steady hand on Myth’s shoulder to both ground him and guide him through the cacophonous hangar. Myth glued himself to Kyr’s side, not eager to get nudged or shoved by any clone that didn’t put much stock in the idea of personal space. One of the best parts about being placed with Kyr was that he had a certain way of walking that made other people move out of his path. Even when he had full kit, just the set of his shoulders and the weight with which he stepped had even the brothers that didn’t know him scrambling to make space. In another life, he would have been a CC. Maybe even an RC. Myth didn’t like to think in “could-have-been”s, but that was one thought he couldn’t help but sit with sometimes.

People steered clear of Kyr because he was intimidating, in-control, and good at what he did. People avoided Myth because he talked too much and never gave a straight answer.

… It wasn’t quite the same.

“I want you to help me with this report,” Kyr said in the quiet of the sterile white halls, voice as steady and confident as always. Only the barely perceptible swivel of his head (searching for eavesdroppers?) told Myth why he wanted help.

“Do you think Course will really put your protocol breach in his report?” Myth couldn’t help but ask. He wanted to backtrack immediately, nervous about speaking it into being. “I mean, he wouldn’t, right? That would hurt all our chances at a decent placement. He was bluffing to get you to back off.”

Kyr didn’t answer immediately, steering Myth into the cafeteria. Not many troopers had found it in them to eat yet, so the usual chatter was a pleasant murmur. They got in line, Kyr ahead of Myth. Myth didn’t comment on Kyr filling his tray for him.

Kyr took him toward the far wall, leaving a couple tables of buffer for any incoming troopers who preferred to hug the wall outright, and they sat together at a round table. It was only once Myth took the first bite of his meal that Kyr answered his question.

“He said he would, so he will. He might let 48 talk him into being a little forgiving about it, but he won’t go back on the threat.”

Anxiety burst through Myth’s chest, freezing tendrils wrapping around his heart. He tapped his foot on the metal leg of the table. If one of the biggest outliers of their performance in their reports was that Kyr had ignored protocol, they would be lucky to get a placement at all. The idea of the Kaminoans reading that, deciding they wouldn’t get deployed after all, and putting them back in training popped into his head and refused to leave. They could hold them back. Use them as an example to any of the ninth-cycle cadets getting too big for their helmets. Or they could recondition Kyr and send them all to a moon where he'd never get the opportunity to break protocol ever again, even if he wanted to.

“Myth. Myth! Hey.” The warmth of Kyr’s hand between his arm plates snapped Myth out of his thoughts and reminded him painfully that he had been shot earlier. “We can make it work. That’s why I want your help. There’s a reason they use us instead of droids.” His voice dropped a bit, careful not to be overheard in the relative quiet of the mess. “If I can give a really good reason why I didn’t listen to Course, we’ll be fine.”

He wanted to wave it away. If they could justify the decision effectively enough, Kyr’s hardheaded decision could prove the benefit of using clones, not the drawbacks. It could work. It could at least keep them away from the attention of the wrong people.

“Okay. Okay. You—have you started the report? I can help.”

Kyr exhaled, and Myth watched the crease between his eyebrows relax as he removed his hand from Myth’s arm to take another bite of his food. “I did inventory and expended resources on the transport. Finished everything up to the… attack, on the way into atmo. Once you’ve eaten, we can head to the barracks and finish it. I need to submit this—soon. I got an alert when we landed that they’re reviewing and assigning us ASAP.”

Another quick bolt of anxiety raced through Myth. “Already?” He set his spoon down. “I don’t—we don’t have to eat. We can work on it now.”

“No. Eat your food.” Kyr nodded at Myth’s tray. “You’ve had a long day, and you barely ate before we left.”

Myth stared at his nutrient mush, mouth suddenly dry. “… It’s really fine. I’d rather get the report out of the way.”

Kyr sighed, and Myth shrank back a bit. “How about this. You eat, and I’ll start working on it. I’ll ask you for your help as I need it.”

“… Okay.”

The mush did not grow any more appetizing as Kyr put on his helmet and started tapping at his bracer. Myth knew he was looking at the report draft, but between the emotionless visor and the rapid typing, he exuded an aura of annoyance that did nothing to ease Myth’s discomfort.

He began poking at the mush. Really, it wasn’t appetizing on a good day—not since they’d changed its consistency. Where before you could at least pretend to chew it, the new mush was almost slimy. It made the exact same taste seem vastly less appealing.

When they’d originally made the change, Myth hadn’t been able to stomach it. He’d tried—really, really tried, but he couldn’t manage to eat more than a bite at each meal before his rolling stomach stopped him. He’d given his portions to 8ball for a week before his body started to get too weak for their squad training. Despite the physical issues, the real catalyst that had forced him to start eating again had been his specialty track scores. The brain fog that came over him had resulted in him getting the worst scores he’s pretty sure any information analyst had ever gotten. He never scored great—he could never settle on a single strategy, and the trainers never let him forget it—but the threat of detracking looming over him was more than enough to make him push through the nausea.

He'd gotten used to it. Eventually. Staring at the goop now brought him memories of the way he threw up the entire meal the first time he’d managed to make himself eat all of it. Not fun memories. He’d gotten odd stares from all the other squads in the mess, and more than a couple cadets had laughed at him. He’d been dragged off to the medbay by a droid and poked and prodded for an hour before it declared that he must have eaten too quickly and sent him back on his way with a ration bar, since he didn’t have time to go back for a new meal before his squad training.

Myth took a deep breath, studying the glint of the overhead lights on the mush. “You sent Course with 48, 8ball, and Punt because Course has the highest scores in close-range fighting and the position of the SBDs at the intersection of the passes meant he’d be best positioned on the frontlines.”

Kyr didn’t have the audacity to pretend he’d originally had a good reason to send Course with the smaller group, so he nodded and tapped away accordingly.

Slowly, Myth lifted a small glob of nutrient mush to his mouth, swallowing it quickly. “… Course was ambushed by a Geonosian warrior. He was disarmed and lifted while the others were in the middle of eliminating the SBDs, leaving them unable to help quickly enough to prevent him from being taken. They split their focus between the remaining SBDs and the Geonosian—Punt and Eighty finished off the supers while 48, who was sent as backup, began to shoot at the Geonosian. When the last super went down, they focused all fire on the Geonosian. The increased fire provided enough distraction for Course to extract himself from the hold, and he fell.” Myth paused for a moment.

Kyr didn’t push him, continuing to tap away with increased speed following Myth’s massive information outburst.

Myth breathed in slowly, then out, then took another small bite of his food. In, out, bite. After a third repetition, he spoke again, slowly, but as firmly as he knew how. “Course hit his head against the rocks on the way down. Although he was verbal and cognizant, you did not think him fully aware at the time of his landing.” He paused again, air stalling in his chest until he remembered to breathe. “You expressed concern of Course’s ability to walk quickly enough to the rendezvous point. He only repeated the protocol for broken limbs. Believing him to be concussed and not fully understanding of the extent of the damage to his legs, you followed protocol to deliver stim shots to the affected limbs, as well as to his spinal cord in case of spinal injury and to hopefully alleviate the suspected concussion.”

Kyr nodded slowly, tapping with deliberate intent.

“Following the injections, you carried him through the majority of the mountain pass until you were certain we would make the rendezvous on time with his impeded pace.”

“So, we’re playing up the urgency aspect of it?” Kyr took off his helmet to take a bite of his own food.

“Course likely won’t include the exact timeline in his own report,” Myth reasoned, slowly growing more confident in his words. “His reports are very short. It’ll be something like ‘advised squad lead of protocol but was dismissed’.”

“I almost feel bad for implying he isn’t a reliable source of medical advice,” Kyr muttered dryly.

“For good reason,” Myth said mindlessly. “He’s never given us any reason not to listen to him before.”

Kyr went quiet, picking at his food for another minute before putting his helmet back on and continuing to fill out his report.

Myth made slow work of his mush. With his job fully completed, he wasn’t as anxious, but his hunger had already been spoiled. Not much any of them could do to fix that.

The rest of their squad would have long since made it to the medical wing by then. Myth wondered if he and Kyr would pass 8ball and 48 on the way to their barracks. He was pretty sure both of them had eaten all of their food pre-deployment, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be hungry. But if neither Kyr nor Course hounded them to go get food, would they…?

“Are you not going to finish your food?”

Kyr’s unmodulated voice snapped Myth out of his mind abruptly, and Myth stared as the goop dripped from his spoon back down to his tray. “… I’m really not hungry,” he mumbled.

Kyr sighed, and Myth shrank back a bit. Kyr shook his head. “It’s fine. You ate something, at least…”

Myth pushed the tray away from himself at the—not quite permission, but acceptance. He watched Kyr finish his own food in a couple bites, then stand.

“Well, we may as well go to our barracks,” Kyr said with another sigh. “Our training is cancelled for at least the next day cycle. I’m sure the trainers are trying to figure out what happens now.”

Myth stood with him, wringing his hands a bit as Kyr took both of their trays to disposal. “You submitted your report?” he verified.

“Yeah. It’s getting processed now.”

Shoulders relaxing, Myth found it easier to breathe. If their report was turned in, that meant it would be reviewed shortly. He wondered if Course would even have time to submit his medical report. He hadn’t been looking during the flight; had Course submitted it while they were still on the shuttle? Surely, they wouldn’t make judgements on placement before both reports were in.

Despite himself, Myth’s anxiety began to blossom into anticipation. If their generous take on the events of the day were taken at face value… Well, it wouldn’t look half bad. Only one major injury, 100% survival rate, and they followed instructions to a T.

“Myth.”

Myth startled guiltily, quickly turning to Kyr, who stood waiting for him. To his credit, he didn’t seem like he was actually annoyed with Myth’s spaciness, but the tired look in his eye and the tenseness in his back made Myth still feel like he was only adding on to his squad lead’s stress.

Kyr’s expression softened after a moment, and his next sigh was not nearly as severe as the last several had been. “Let’s go back to our barracks,” he said, voice gentler. “We’ve done our jobs. Now we get to shower and rest.”

Myth faltered for just a moment, then nodded. That nervous anticipation remained, but if Kyr deemed there to be nothing more they could do, then that was that. He stepped in beside Kyr and let himself be herded toward the promising chill of their sleep pods.

The walk itself held no surprises for them, but upon reaching the door to their wing, a small droid sat stationary. As they approached, its eyes lit up—eerie, opaque white windows—and its head swiveled toward them.

“CT-0105-203-0918-01.”

Myth’s eyes widened, and his attention snapped directly to Kyr, who looked as stricken as Myth felt to hear his full identification code spoken at him.

It took Kyr only a moment to recover from the surprise. “That would be me.”

The rest of the droid’s mechanics began to start up. Its boosters activated with a high whir, and it lifted itself a few feet to bring itself level with the clones’ eyes. “CT-0918, you are summoned to briefing room 27-8 to await orders. The rest of your squad may continue their designated recovery period.”

Myth couldn’t help but stare. Kyr’s expression schooled itself in a matter of seconds to something more confident, like he wouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Alright. Are you here to escort me?”

“Affirmative. Follow me.”

Kyr put a warm hand on Myth’s shoulder as the droid began to drift down the hall. “I’ll be back,” he said, promptly following his escort.

Myth stood in the hall for a few seconds after he lost sight of Kyr. Even though Kyr had told him that they would be placed as soon as possible, pulling squad leads to wait for results sounded like a sudden decision. How long before they were given their placement? How closely would the details of their reports be examined, really?

He wandered into the barracks in a daze, oblivious to the bemused glances he received from the other squads as he made his way to the Crown Squad bunks.

48 was the one to jar him out of his muddled state. “Did you hear? We’re going to be placed! Pull heard a nattie saying that the CCs were all reviewing the reports ASAP.”

Myth started to regret eating the caf food, given how much his stomach began to roll. The thought of a CC—a future officer—reviewing their messily spun report made him want to throw up again. What if they realized it was intentionally skewed? What if they pulled the security footage of the caf and realized Kyr asked Myth for help? Myth’s earlier paranoia of reconditioning sprung back to the forefront of his mind. Falsifying official reports wasn’t a light crime. Did this count?

“… hope we go somewhere busy,” he heard 8ball telling 48 from his place in his extended pod.

“Like Coruscant?” 48 asked, dubious. “You wouldn’t find me dead there. If I’m gonna get deployed, I’m gonna be somewhere I can show the clankers who’s the superior soldier. Can’t do that so close to the core.”

“I was thinking more like big warzones. Somewhere I can run around, y’know? Lots of fun angles to catch ‘em off guard.”

48 rolled his eyes. “So you wanna give Course a heart attack? Poor guy spent the whole time on Geonosis hovering over Myth’s graze. He wouldn’t survive somewhere busier.”

Myth realized then that Course wasn’t present. His pod was closed, and the panel suggested it wasn’t occupied. He glanced between 8ball and 48. “Is Course still in medical?” he asked.

48 turned back to him. “Oh. Yeah, apparently his legs are super fucked up. The droid said it wasn’t that big of a deal, but they held him to make sure the injections didn’t get screwed by him walking around.”

Frowning, Myth nodded. That made sense.

“Did you get your graze checked out?” 8ball asked. It wasn’t said accusingly, but it didn’t need to be for Myth’s expression to turn guilty.

“I forgot,” he said. He really had. He hadn’t thought about it at all since Kyr put pressure on it earlier—he’d been quickly distracted by the borderline insubordination they committed.

48 shook his head. “It’s just a graze, and Course treated it anyway. Probably better to wait until the medbay isn’t so busy with the guys who really got injured.”

“Hope you’re ready for Kyr and Course to accept that answer,” 8ball warned. “They’ll be fussing the minute they figure you out.”

Myth moved to their storage bins and started methodically removing his armor. “I’ll go when it isn’t so busy,” he echoed 48. “They’re probably oversaturated with injured by now.”

A passing clone laughed, and Myth froze mid doffing.

“Don’t suppose they could fix your head while you’re there?” Myth did not turn his head, but the unknown brother kept teasing anyway. “Or is your condition terminal?”

“Fuck off, Hud,” 48 ground out. “You’re not any funnier today than you were yesterday. Or the day before that.”

“Just a joke, bud. I know you clowns are delicate, but you gotta lighten up.”

Myth saw 8ball jumping down from his pod from the corner of his eye.

“Yeah? We aren’t the ones that threw up in the dropships. Unless Bingo was misremembering when they told me about that?”

The passing brother—Hud—went quiet for a few seconds before hotly going, “It was motion sickness. We’ve never been in actual ships before, I couldn’t exactly help it.”

48 spoke again, evidently gleeful to learn this piece of gossip. “Delicate stomach, Hud? I didn’t expect that out of you.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Hud’s voice grew fainter, and Myth relaxed as he realized the other clone was walking away. “You guys’re gonna regret that in a year when I’m an officer.”

A hysterical laugh broke out of 48, and he collapsed onto his bunk in sporadic giggles as they were left alone again. “That dumbass? An officer? Over my dead body.”

8ball scoffed in response, walking over and beginning to help Myth remove his armor. “If he can’t even handle a little turbulence, you won’t have to worry about it.”

Myth bit the inside of his cheek, slowly continuing to doff his armor with 8ball’s help.

“I mean,” continued 48, “seriously, good on him for having plans, but really? He’s gotta find some more attainable life goals. Like surviving.”

8ball floated into Myth’s peripheral in the process of unlatching his rerebrace, and Myth watched him raise an eyebrow. “What, like you? Sir ‘I Can Become A Commando, No Really, It’s Entirely Feasible’—”

“It is!” 48 insisted. “Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it won’t.”

Their voices faded out while Myth focused on removing his armor. He couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t upset by the teasing. He never could—he just didn’t know how. 48 always did it without problem. Course and Kyr hardly seemed to blink whenever cruel words ended up being thrown in their direction. 8ball could give it back better than he got it. Why was Myth the only one that always shut down?

The teasing wasn’t even that big of a deal. It wasn’t malicious. Like Hud said, it was a joke.

8ball put a hand around Myth’s wrist, drawing his eyes up.

His brother wasn’t making a deal about it, but Myth could see the concern creased in his brow. “What about you?” 8ball asked, those creases easing a little while he spoke. “What’s your plan? Where would you want us to get sent?”

Myth took a moment to find his words, and when he did any energy from earlier was gone. “… Somewhere with an interesting ecosystem,” he mumbled.

8ball nodded, pulling him toward the ladder to the bunks. “That sounds good. I’d probably have good cover, too.”

“… I want to see different plants and animals.” Myth remembered his modules; he’d always gotten more modules and more in-depth modules than the rest of his squad, as an information analyst, and he remembered how many times he’d come back fawning over the flora and fauna of different planets. He understood more about the different lifeforms of Felucia than he understood about natborns as a whole.

“So definitely not Coruscant,” 48 laughed. “Unless stray tookas and criminal lowlifes count?”

Myth climbed up to his own bunk while 8ball responded.

“I think Course’s the only one who’d actually like us to end up there. Although, Kyr…” 8ball got a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe.”

“It would be them,” 48 complained.

8ball did not climb back up to his bunk, instead sitting cross-legged on the cold metal flooring. “Well, wherever we end up it’s gonna be with Green Squad. I’m pretty sure they’re legally not allowed to separate us, what with Punch being Kyr’s handler.”

48 sighed. “Truly, a masterclass of a soldier. Able to lead without leading… What would we do without him?”

“Get chewed out. Constantly. And maybe killed,” 8ball deadpanned.

Myth weighed the merit of closing his pod. It wasn’t that he disliked his brothers bantering, but his nerves had been fried throughout the course of the past twenty-four hours, and the thought of them talking poorly about their squad lead in the middle of the crowded barracks made him want to smother them with his thin pillow. Best to just not hear it at all.

Despite his misgivings, Myth did not close the pod. Hearing his brothers joke like their world wasn’t changing irrevocably put Myth a little bit more at ease than he would be with his own thoughts, even if the jokes added to his overall stress. The lesser of two evils.

His compromise for this was to zone out. He didn’t have a datapad, which had been left behind in the rush of the first call to Geonosis, so he couldn’t study his modules—which, he hadn’t considered before then, likely would not be continued. If they were deployed, they would have no more time for educational modules. Would they just have to get by with briefings? Would the information analysts have time before engagements to study the terrain and wildlife modules for the planets they were being sent to? They wouldn’t always have time for that.

There were too many unknown variables. Myth couldn’t finish drafting a single plan without it being countered with a potential roadblock he hadn’t ever dreamed of two moments prior.

Myth wasn’t sure how much time had passed between climbing into his bunk and the door to the barracks opening again. The Crown bunks weren’t terribly close, but it didn’t take proximity to figure out that the flood of clones entering were the squad leads. Within moments Kyr approached, fully absorbed in a datapad. A quick glance to Green Squad across the room confirmed that Punch had a matching one. Our orders.

All three present Crowns dropped down to the floor without hesitation.

“Well?” 8ball pressed. “Where are we going? What’s the verdict?”

48 clasped his hands together pleadingly. “Don’t say Coruscant.” he muttered. “Don’t say Coruscant, don’t say Coruscant, don’t say—”

“It isn’t Coruscant!” Kyr snapped, physically swatting at 48 without looking up from the datapad. Then, reading directly from the screen, he said, “Following the Green-Crown Unit’s performance at Geonosis, CTs—well, all of us, I’m not reading that—have been selected for deployment with the 212th Attack Battalion—”

“Led by who?” 8ball pressed.

“Do we get a Jedi?” 48 cut in.

Kyr finally broke eye contact with the datapad to glare at them both. “If you two would shut up for twenty seconds, I would answer those exact questions!”

Both of their mouths snapped shut, too excited at hearing about where they’d ended up to bother being nuisances.

“As I was saying,” Kyr muttered. “Let’s see… deployment with the 212th Attack Battalion of the 7th Sky Corps, led by High Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Commander Anakin Skywalker, alongside Marshal Commander CC-2224—”

48 interrupted again immediately. “2224?”

“Wrong focus,” 8ball shook a hand in 48’s face. “Hello? Who are the Jedi? We get two?”

“Jedi Commanders are Jedi apprentices,” Myth found himself saying. “The High General would be his mentor.”

“Second priority focus,” 8ball said pleasantly, physically covering 48’s mouth when it opened again. “High General? That’s for the corps, obviously. What about the battalion?”

“That is for the battalion.” Myth did a double take, but Kyr’s face stayed deathly serious. “The 212th Battalion’s only listed commanders and general are the same as that for the corps.”

“Surely that must be an error,” Myth muttered.

48 did not seem nearly as bothered as Myth was to learn this. “Oh, Hud is about to hate me.”

Kyr raised an eyebrow, but rather than question it, he said, “Only if he got deployed to the same battalion as us. We ship out first thing in the morning.”

Every new piece of information made Myth’s heart palpitate more sporadically. “First—? But—Course…?”

“The wounded will be transferred to the medical bay of the Star Destroyers,” Kyr said emotionlessly. “From my understanding, we’re being transferred to Coruscant, where our home ships will be designated, and the Jedi briefed.”

48 sighed bodily, but 8ball’s eyes lit up. “This really is just starting, huh?”

“Very suddenly.” Myth’s mouth felt dry.

They’d had ten years and yet no time at all to prepare. Course’s legs were broken. 48 had just barely reached the final stage growth requirements last cycle, and Myth wasn’t any of them had ever passed their exams with anything more than a “Permissible” score. How had they ended up in a High General’s battalion? A Marshal Commander’s battalion?

Something had gone wrong. He couldn’t be more certain, but none of his brothers seemed to be nearly as concerned. The Kaminoans are using us as fodder, his mind whispered traitorously. We’ll all be dead in a month.

An attack battalion of this calibre had to have sandbags to throw at the front lines. That would be the Crowns—and Green Squad, unwitting but unavoidable casualties in the crashing dropship that was the Crown track record.

Myth felt ill.

But looking at his brothers, 48 and 8ball excitedly scheming and dreaming up all of the crazy battles they’d surely see and even Kyr cracking a smile in their beaming presence, Myth couldn’t find it in himself to say any of his thoughts aloud. Instead, silently, he returned to his bunk. He would skip his shower for now.

His brothers noticed his movement, quieting down a bit as he moved, but Myth didn’t bother sitting in his extended pod. Instead, he climbed directly in and closed it, flimsy pillow over his head as though he could still make out any of the words in the barracks beyond. He didn’t think about their odds—or the disaster that had followed them from decanting to deployment. Instead, he recalled the way Course had twisted out of the grasp of that Geonosian. He remembered the excited sound 48 had made when he got his first confirmed kill, and the way 8ball had clapped him and 48 both on the shoulder when the mission was complete, when it was time to move to the rendezvous.

He and his brothers weren’t fodder. They weren’t meat droids, and they weren’t going to die easy. Not after they’d made it as far as they had. In a way, the hard part was over. They’d never had a simple day in their lives, on Kamino. Geonosis… hadn’t ended well. But up until Course got picked up, it was the closest Myth had ever come to feeling like they were doing something really right.

Remembering Green Squad truly put Myth’s racing heart to rest. As long as they had the Greens, they would be fine. Maybe he didn’t have quite enough faith in his own batchmates, but their brothers from Green Squad were needed to temper some of the worse habits of the Crowns. The thought of being deployed without Punch to temper Kyr or Pull to make sense of Myth’s own nonsensical plans was just a bit nauseating.

He remembered Course pulling him aside to repatch his arm, and the way Kyr had insisted on carrying Course out of that canyon. He remembered 8ball’s adrenaline-filled hurtling back to their unit, pursued by a squad of B1s who weren’t prepared for what Green Squad and Crown Squad had in store for them.

They would stick together, and they would survive. They always looked out for one another.

They would be fine.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I still hate web tumblr. Why can't I just insert a line? Why have the gods forsaken us?

Chapter 3 is in an interesting purgatory atm but the accompanying ficlet has been written for literally like 6 months, so there's that.

Chapter 1 (Tumblr)

Chapter 2 Spotify Playlist Here (Spoiler Free, I believe)

AO3 Chapter 2

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