#wounded knee 1973

[emma-dennehy-presents]

Just realized that the 50th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Occupation started like a week ago. (Feb 27 - May 8, 1973) For 71 days, 200 Oglala Sioux and AIM activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in opposition to the corruption of tribal chairman Richard Wilson and centuries of failure by the US Government to honor treaties with native peoples. The town would be besieged by federal forces (US Marshals, FBI, SD National Guard) and GOON (a paramilitary force run by Richard Wilson). 5 people were killed, and 16 wounded during the siege. On May 5, an agreement was reached between leaders of the occupiers and the feds. By May 8, the town had been evacuated, and the US Government seized control. The occupation saw significant public support and helped bring light to issues facing indigenous peoples within the US. Issues they continue to face and fight to this day, 50 years later. (For example, there are around 4200 to 5700 unsolved cases involving murdered or missing indigenous women, as of 2021)

[guerillas-of-history]

American Indian Movement (AIM) Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

An open letter to President Joe Biden: Free Leonard Peltier

By Stephen Millies

Mr. President, If you can pardon your son, why can’t you free the Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier?

The 80-year-old man, a leader of the American Indian Movement, has been imprisoned for 48 years. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition.

The FBI framed Leonard Peltier in retaliation for the historic 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee. Three years of violence followed this courageous stand for Indigenous rights, with over 60 AIM members and supporters murdered. Despite a large FBI presence, nothing was done to stop these murders and even more numerous assaults. 

[oh-alicent]

write the angsty post-2x08 loustat bath scene you want to see in the world

preview below, no idea when it'll get finished but hopefully in the next week or so? (tw: mentions of self harm)

As he ran the washcloth over his pale arms, Louis was struck by the littering of indentations against the pearly white skin— nail marks, he thought faintly— and thought of Lestat's nails, the beds caked with blood. Without a doubt, Louis knew he'd been hurting himself. He'd thought he'd seen it when he'd mentioned 1973, Lestat's hands curling into his arms as he tried to ground his thoughts. The scent of blood in the air— he'd mistaken it for tears— as Lestat had asked him if he'd hurt himself. And all the while...

He half expected the man to shift under his gaze, pull back the signs of self carnage, make a scathing quip or some sort of poorly timed joke. None of those things happened. Lestat's eyes were unfocused, trained on a spot just above Louis' head.

Words bubbled up at his throat. Honey, what've you done to yourself? Burdening syllables, suggestions of a life before. A name he couldn't use, because it meant something more than he was sure he could give. More than Lestat might even want, anyway. Instead, he chose, "We should heal these," and nicked his thumb to bring it to the wound.

Lestat moved like a viper, grabbing his wrist and shoving it away from him. "No," he muttered pointedly, his eyes wild as they peered up from under his lashes. "They'll heal on their own in time."

Not with the way he was feeding, Louis thought dejectedly. It could take weeks.

Shifting on his knees, he knelt closer to the clawfoot tub, a gentle hand on Lestat's shoulder, tucking the clean strands behind his ear. "Please?" he asked gently. "I want to see you well again."

He scoffed, an indignant sound. "I am well."

"Les." Louis moved to massage the point behind his ear where he'd always melted in his embrace— maybe it was cheating, getting him to acquiesce like this— and a term of endearment escaped him without him noticing. "Please, honey?"

Despite being almost completely submerged under the water, Louis still felt him tense at the word, and he thought he might have lost Lestat then. "Lou," he mimicked, his tone callous. But there was a quiet grumble of acceptance, and he didn't fight Louis when his fledgling's blood met his lips.

Lestat's fangs breached the wound on Louis' wrist, that familiar pain a strange kind of relief. He took him in, cautiously at first, then all at once— strong, greedy pulls, like a man starved, because he was— and a gentle moan left Louis' lips at the lightheadedness of it all. He was adrift, floating a raft on a rippling sea of iridescent blue, and it was all Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. His maker never once stopped consuming his every thought, dancing behind his eyes. And still, all his recollections were nothingness, were child's play. How could he have remembered it so dully?

Because here Lestat was, a shell of who he'd been decades prior, and yet his presence filled up every corner of the room, like the lights had been dimmed for the past seventy years, and Louis had been merely existing in the dark.

[beifong-brainrot]

I will also say that zutara fans talking about Katara being "drawn more maturely in her scenes with Zuko" and even focusing on her breasts and hips is WILD when one of the most famous stories concerning Native American women is the rape of a like 10 year old by a man colonising her land.

Btw, Irene Bedard, the actress who voice acted for Pocahontas also starred in Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee which is about the life of Mary Brave Bird, activist and member of the American Indian Movement, and about her participation in the Siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. You can find the whole movie on YouTube.

It a very fun and thought provoking watch and Irene Bedard did a wonderful job playing the lead, despite this being her first acting role! She even became the first Native American woman nominated for the Golden Globe Award for this role (Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television)!

So if you're looking for a really good movie starring a Native American woman, I recommend this one! It breaks the mold for a lot of tropes and streotypes around Native American women in media and you get to learn about a cool activist too.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 27 February 1973, armed Native American activists occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in protest against tribal corruption and the continuing failure of the US government to fulfil treaties they signed with Indigenous peoples. Around 200 Oglala Lakota people, alongside activists in the American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the site of the 1890 massacre of Native Americans by US troops. National guard troops, FBI agents and federal marshals swarmed the area, shooting at occupiers with machine guns and tracer fire. Len Foster, a Diné (Navajo) man who took part in the occupation, recounted to Alysa Landry of Indian Country Today taking part in 11 firefights with federal officers: “Each one was very intense, very life-threatening… It was an intense, very serious engagement.” Despite suffering casualties, some fatal, the occupiers held out for 71 days until eventually surrendering. Though not successful in achieving its stated goals, the occupation galvanised huge support for AIM, famously including Marlon Brando’s boycott of that year’s Oscars, instead sending Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache actor in his place to collect his best actor award, who delivered a speech about Wounded Knee to reporters backstage after she was threatened with arrest for speaking on the podium. For Len Foster, “In a way, it was a very beautiful experience… Wounded Knee opened a lot of hearts and minds to what oppression we were suffering. We were downtrodden, oppressed, made to feel ashamed. We were told to cut our long hair, not to participate in ceremonies, to become Christian and burn our medicine bundles. All the decisions we made at Wounded Knee affect our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” Learn more about Indigenous resistance in the Americas in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2219663954885409/?type=3

[kaijuno]

🌟⚡In 1973, Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage to reject an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. She was given 60 seconds on stage to provide the following speech:

“Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech, which I cannot share with you presently because of time but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry – excuse me – and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando"

She kept her full composure despite the boos and jeers coming from the audience. John Wayne had to be restrained by security because he wanted to physically assault her as she left the stage. Clint Eastwood mocked her by saying that he was presenting the award on behalf of “all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford Westerns.” Subsequently, Littlefeather was blacklisted by Hollywood and never worked again.

Nearly half a century later, Littlefeather has returned to the Academy as a guest of honor on September 17, 2022

[is-on-its-way]

WIP for Emily

I uh... I needed him to be there for her

and I needed her to grieve like a mother would

﹏﹏﹏﹏⏅﹏﹏⏅﹏⏅﹏﹏﹏﹏⏅﹏﹏﹏﹏

He sat outside in the hall on the floor without a plan. Without expectation. He just knew when she was done, he wanted to be there. He wanted to make sure someone was there. 

After three hours a nurse who had walked back and forth past him a hundred times took pity on him and offered to find him a chair. He looked up at her as if she had appeared out of thin air. 

“No that’s okay, Im just waiting for my partner.”

She nodded at him smiling sadly “Yes, we know thats why we haven’t kicked you out, you’re one of the few good men left in this world. A pity you’re already taken.” He gave her a noncommittal empty smile, not caring to correct her.  She said it in what she obviously thought was a lighthearted attempt to… He couldn’t say, couldn’t form coherent thoughts at the moment. 

He was not lighthearted, and this woman could not help him. A little girl was dying in there and Scully was… that little girls mother was having to comfort her as she did.

“You sure you don’t want a chair? Or I could bring you a blanket, or jello?” 

He rubbed his aching knees with his hands and said “No” again, then “Thank you”

Another four hours and there was a flurry of activity as nurses and Emily’s doctor went in toher room. His heart sinking, he looked up and watched for her but eventually they all left and she still had not appeared. He waited another hour, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his body now sideways against the wall. 

At 4:30 in the morning the door opened slowly and she was there. Letting the door close behind her, looking like a lost soul in Hade’s river of the damned. She stood for a moment and he watched her wondering if he should let her find him when she turned to leave, but then her knees buckled and she was crashing to the floor and gasping a scream he had only ever heard come out of his mother in the early hours of a cold night in 1973.

It pierced him the same way his mothers had, there was his life before this scream and his life after, nothing would be the same, feel the same. It sent a dagger through his heart, as if its purpose was to force everyone who heard it to feel the bearers pain.  

It was a harsh wounded animalistic cry for the unfairness of the universe. For its thoughtlessness at the inconsequential lives of living breathing beating specks on a rock in the middle of a black heartless infinitum. 

He was on his aching legs in an instant, walking to her, anger coursing through him at watching a nurse try to pull her up and shushing her. 

Her hands grabbing at the tile floor desperately trying to cling onto anything, something. 

He pulled the nurse off of her and said softly “Come on, Dana”

If she heard him he could not tell but she allowed him to put a hand under her shoulders and then under her legs and lift her into his arms carrying her as if she were a child, and the screams changed into helpless sobs into his neck. 

He carried her to the elevator and he carried her as they rode the four flights to the street level and he carried her out of the ER doors and he carried her to his car and he opened the back door and placed her in the back and she curled up face against the back seats like a feral animal intent on staying safe against the threat of harm. And he drove her to his motel because he knew she would try to be alright for her mother and her brother and for that new baby inhabiting the house she was meant to grieve in, and he took her out of the car and into his arms again when she didn’t move when they stopped and he carried her into his motel room and laid her down on his bed and tucked her in and closed the shades and waited. He waited all day and he waited into the night as she slept and slept and slept.

@today-in-fic

[phobic-human]

Kalle Banaille - Indian Country Today

Legacy of Wounded Knee occupation lives on 50 years later The occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, began 50 years ago and was one in a string of protests from 1969 to 1973 that pushed the American Indian Movement to the forefront of Native activism

WOUNDED KNEE, S.D. (AP) — Madonna Thunder Hawk remembers the firefights.

As a medic during the occupation of Wounded Knee in early 1973, Thunder Hawk was stationed nightly in a frontline bunker in the combat zone between Native American activists and U.S. government agents in South Dakota.

“I would crawl out there every night, and we’d just be out there in case anybody got hit,” said Thunder Hawk, of the Oohenumpa band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, one of four women assigned to the bunkers.

Memories of the Wounded Knee occupation — one in a string of protests from 1969 to 1973 that pushed the American Indian Movement to the forefront of Native activism — still run deep within people like Thunder Hawk who were there.

Thunder Hawk, now 83, is careful about what she says today about AIM and the occupation, but she can’t forget that tribal elders in 1973 had been raised by grandparents who still remembered the 1890 slaughter of hundreds of Lakota people at Wounded Knee by U.S. soldiers.

“That’s how close we are to our history,” she told ICT recently. “So anything that goes on, anything we do, even today with the land-back issue, all of that is just a continuation. It’s nothing new.”

Other feelings linger, too, over the tensions that emerged in Lakota communities after Wounded Knee and the virtual destruction of the small community. Many still don’t want to talk about it.

But the legacy of activism lives on among those who have followed in their footsteps, including the new generations of Native people who turned out at Standing Rock beginning in 2016 for the pipeline protests.

“For me, it’s important to acknowledge the generation before us — to acknowledge their risk,” said Nick Tilsen, founder of NDN Collective and a leader in the Standing Rock protests, whose parents were AIM activists. “It’s important for us to honor them. It’s important for us to thank them.”

Akim D. Reinhardt, who wrote the book, “Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee,” said the AIM protests had powerful social and cultural impacts.

“Collectively, they helped establish a sense of the permanence of Red Power in much the way that Black Power had for African Americans, a permanent legacy,” said Reinhardt, a history professor at Towson University in Towson, Maryland.

“It was the cultural legacy that racism isn’t OK and people don’t need to be quiet and accept it anymore,” he said. “That it’s OK to be proud of who you are.”

A series of events in South Dakota in recent days recognized the 50th anniversary of the occupation, including powwows, a documentary film showing and a special honor for the women of Wounded Knee.

‘‘THUNDERBOLT’ OF PROTEST

The occupation began on the night of Feb. 27, 1973, when a group of warriors led by Oklahoma AIM leader Carter Camp, who was Ponca, moved into the small town of Wounded Knee. The group took over the trading post and established a base of operations along with AIM leaders Russell Means, of the Oglala Sioux Tribe; Dennis Banks, who was Ojibwe; and Clyde Bellecourt, of the White Earth Nation.

Within days, hundreds of activists had joined them for what became a 71-day standoff with the U.S. government and other law enforcement.

It was the fourth protest in as many years for AIM. The organization formed in the late 1960s and drew international attention with the occupation of Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay from 1969-1971. In 1972, the Trail of Broken Treaties brought a cross-country caravan of hundreds of Indigenous activists to Washington, D.C., where they occupied the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters for six days.

Then, on Feb. 6, 1973, AIM members and others gathered at the courthouse in Custer County, South Dakota, to protest the killing of Wesley Bad Heart Bull, who was Oglala Lakota, and the lenient sentences given to some perpetrators of violence against Native Americans. When they were denied access into the courthouse, the protest turned violent, with the burning of the local chamber of commerce and other buildings.

Three weeks later, AIM leaders took over Wounded Knee.

“It had been waiting to happen for generations,” said Kevin McKiernan, who covered the Wounded Knee occupation as a journalist in his late 20s and who later directed the 2019 documentary film, “From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock.”

“If you look at it as a storm, the storm had been building through abuse, land theft, genocide, religious intoleration, for generations and generations,” he said. “The storm built up, and built up and built up. The American Indian Movement was simply the thunderbolt.”

The takeover at Wounded Knee grew out of a dispute with Oglala Sioux tribal leader Richard Wilson but also put a spotlight on demands that the U.S. government uphold its treaty obligations to the Lakota people.

By March 8, the occupation leaders had declared the Wounded Knee territory to be the Independent Oglala Nation, granting citizenship papers to those who wanted them and demanding recognition as a sovereign nation.

The standoff was often violent, and supplies became scarce within the occupied territory as the U.S. government worked to cut off support for those behind the lines. Discussions were ongoing throughout much of the occupation, with several government officials working with AIM leaders to try and resolve the issues.

The siege finally ended on May 8 with an agreement to disarm and to further discuss the treaty obligations. By then, at least three people had been killed and more than a dozen wounded, according to reports.

Two Native men died. Frank Clearwater, identified as Cherokee and Apache, was shot on April 17, 1973, and died eight days later. Lawrence “Buddy” Lamont, who was Oglala Lakota, was shot and killed on April 26, 1973.

Another man, Black activist Ray Robinson, who had been working with the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization, went missing during the siege. The FBI confirmed in 2014 that he had died at Wounded Knee, but his body was never recovered. A U.S. marshal who was shot and paralyzed died many years later.

Camp was later convicted of abducting and beating four postal inspectors during the occupation and served three years in federal prison. Banks and Means were indicted on charges related to the events, but their cases were dismissed by a federal court for prosecutorial misconduct.

Today, the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark identifies the site of the 1890 massacre, most of which is now under joint ownership of the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes.

The tribes agreed in 2022 to purchase 40 acres that included the area where most of the carnage took place in 1890, the ravine where victims fled and the area where the trading post was located.

The purchase, from a descendant of the original owners of the trading post, included a covenant requiring the land to be preserved as a sacred site and memorial without commercial development.

And though internal tensions emerged in the AIM organization in the years after the Wounded Knee occupation, AIM continues to operate throughout the U.S. in tribal communities and urban areas.

In recent years, members participated in the Standing Rock protests and have persisted in pushing for the release from prison of former AIM leader Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder despite inconsistencies in the evidence in the deaths of two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

A NEW GENERATION

Tilsen, now president and chief executive of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization centered around building Indigenous power, traces the roots of his activism to Wounded Knee.

His parents, JoAnn Tall and Mark Tilsen, met at Wounded Knee, and he praises the women of the movement who sustained the traditional matriarchal system during the occupation.

“I grew up in the American Indian Movement,” said Tilsen, a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. “It wasn’t a question about what you were fighting for. You were raised up in it. In fact, if you didn’t fight, you weren’t going to live.”

Tilsen credits AIM and others for most of the rights Native Americans have today, including the ability to operate casinos and tribal colleges, enter into contracts with the federal government to oversee schools and other services, and religious freedom.

He said the movement showed the world that tribes were sovereign nations and their treaties were being violated. And when AIM and spiritual leaders such as Henry Crow Dog, Leonard Crow Dog and Matthew King joined the fight, it became intergenerational.

“It became a spiritual revolution,” he said. “It also became a fight that was about human rights. It became a fight that was about where Indigenous people aren’t just within the political system of America, but within the broader context of the system; of the world.”

Tilsen appreciates that his parents were willing to participate in an armed revolution to achieve one of their dreams of establishing KILI radio station, known as the “Voice of the Lakota Nation,” which began operating in 1983 as the first Indigenous-owned radio station in the United States.

The Dakota Access Pipeline protest in 2016 became a defining moment for him and his brother. They had wondered, he said, what would be their Wounded Knee?

“What made it so powerful and what made it different was that you actually had grassroots organizers and revolutionaries and official tribal governments coming together, too,” Tilsen said. “I think that Standing Rock in particular actually reached way further than Wounded Knee because of how the issue was framed around ‘water is life.’”

Alex Fire Thunder, deputy director of the Lakota Language Consortium, said the occupation of Wounded Knee and other activism helped revitalize Indigenous languages and cultures. His mother was too young to have participated in the occupation but he said she remembered visits from AIM members in the community.

“The whole point of AIM, the American Indian Movement, was to bring back a sense of pride in our culture,” Fire Thunder, Oglala Lakota, told ICT.

FUTURE GENERATIONS

For Thunder Hawk, the issues became her lifelong work rather than momentary activism.

She joined AIM in 1968 and participated in the occupation at Alcatraz, the BIA headquarters, the Custer County Courthouse and Wounded Knee, as well as the Standing Rock pipeline protest in 2016.

She said work being done today by a new generation is a continuation of the work her ancestors did.

“That’s why we were successful in Indian Country, because we were a movement of families,” she said. “It wasn’t just an age group, a bunch of young people carrying on.”

She hopes her legacy will live on, that her great-great-grandchildren will see not just a photo of her but know what she sounded like and the person she seemed to be.

It’s something that she can’t have when she looks at a photo of her paternal great-grandparents.

“Hopefully that’s what my descendants will see, you know?” she said. “And with the technology nowadays, they can press a button, maybe, and it’ll come up.”

Frank Star Comes Out, the current president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, also believes it’s time for the previous generation’s work to be recognized.

Some of his family members strongly supported AIM, including his mother and father. He said it’s important to fight for his people, who survived genocide.

“That’s why I support AIM, not only on a family level,” he said. “I have a lot of pride in who I am as a Lakota. … Times (have) changed. Now I’m using my leadership to help our people rise, to give them a voice. And I believe that’s important for Indian Country.”

Kalle Benallie - Indian Country Today, February 27th 2023

[heronstill]

American Indian Movement (AIM) Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973

[nawhstudiesadams]

Anna Mae Pictou Aquash is one of the most prolific Indigenous activists in history. In the left picture she is seen digging bunkers at Wounded Knee. Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was murdered in 1975 by members of AIM (American Indian Movement), the same organization she was a part of. Although it has been almost 48 years since her death she will always be remembered for her strength and bravery she showed throughout her life.

Mihesuah, Devon Abbot. Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780803232273/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater.

Left Picture Source:

"Anna Mae digs bunker at 1973 armed liberation of Wounded Knee (Lakota Nation)." Photograph. Wordpress.com, 1973, https://mgouldhawke.wordpress.com/anna-mae-words/.

Right Picture Source:

"Anna Mae Aquash." Photograph in Article. Native Sun News Today, https://www.nativesunnews.today/articles/anna-mae-pictou-aquash-one-of-the-murdered-and-missing/.

[edhoppers]

February 27, 1973 Wounded Knee, South Dakota Following a failed attempt to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson on the grounds of corruption and abuse of opponents, approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee. For 71 days, activists traded shots with the FBI and US Marshals Service before ultimately reaching a truce following the deaths of Frank Clearwater (Apache/Cherokee) and Buddy Lamont (Oglala). A US Marshal was also shot and left paralysed. The occupation received wide media attention, inciting many Native Americans to travel to Wounded Knee to support the protest. Public sympathy was also widespread as the event illuminated much of the longstanding injustice experienced by Natives.

[guerillas-of-history]

American Indian Movement (AIM) Wounded Knee, South Dakota,1973

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Stephen Millies

On Sept. 12, Leonard Peltier turned 79 years old in a maximum security federal prison in Coleman, Florida. He has spent over 47 years being locked up for being a leader of AIM — the American Indian Movement.

That’s 20 years longer than the time the old apartheid regime in South Africa imprisoned Nelson Mandela. The late President Mandela sought Leonard Peltier’s freedom.

So have people around the world. Thirty-five people were arrested at the White House on Sept. 12, demanding the Indigenous political prisoner’s release.  

Leonard Peltier is being kept locked up in revenge for the historic 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, by AIM members and supporters in 1973. That’s where 300 children, women, and men from the Lakota Nation were slaughtered by the U.S. army in 1890.

[dangraccoon]

Jari'eyc - Chapter 11

Read on AO3

Word Count: 1973

Warnings: fugue state kinda?, war and fight flashbacks, injuries, homocide (justified), Wrecker is dyslexic, misunderstanding feelings, intense pain from injury, medical procedures (administering pain stim), implied spiciness

« Previous Chapter Next Chapter »

“Jaine.”

The ground was a very uncomfortable place to be, Jaine discovered. Her head was spinning. 

“Jaine?” a voice called, just ahead of her. “Jaine, you have to get up!”

“I- I’m up,” she mumbled as she pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Waves of ache rolled through her body.

“We have to move,” the voice hissed. She knew that voice, didn’t she?

Vaguely, she could feel someone pulling her up by her arm. Her eyes wouldn’t focus.

“What-”

“We’re getting out of this shithole,” he spat, eyes shifting around the landscape. Slowly, she could hear the sound of blaster fire and explosions in the distance. 

“My side,” she whimpered, pressing her hand to it. 

“That one’s just a graze,” he confirmed, slinging her arm over his shoulders, effortlessly supporting her weight despite his own limp. “Your real trouble is in your leg.”

“We have to- to get out of here.”

He nodded. “We’re about a klick from the rendezvous point. The rest of Ghost Company is waiting for us just over that ridge.”

“C-Cody,” she said. 

“Don’t even think about it, Jaine,” he grunted as he pulled her along. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“Cody-”

“No.”

“Jaine.”

“Commander!”

“What?” she muttered, the feeling of her old friend at her side flickering like a holo with a spotty signal. 

“Commander, are you alright?” 

Jaine blinked and she was on the ground again. She wasn’t on that stars-forsaken desert moon she couldn’t remember the name of. Cody wasn’t the clone kneeling in front of her.

“Sig, get the medpack,” Fluke called. He pushed her gently back into a sitting position as she attempted to get up. “Easy, Commander. Need you to stay put. It didn’t knick anything too important, but I can’t have you passing out on my watch.”

“Fluke, I-I’m alright,” she lied. The pain in her side was growing stronger. Oh right, she thought. That insurgent with the knife.

Fluke scoffed. “Sure, Commander, and I’m the Queen of Naboo.”

Sig arrived with the medpack and Fluke set to work, irrigating the wound. It stung like hell. 

“I can patch you up here, Commander, but you’re gonna need stitches.”

“Fluke, I thought I told you to just call me Jaine,” she huffed out.

“You did, Commander,” he retorted with a smirk.

“You’re a pain in the ass.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wake up, Jaine.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her power suppressing cuffs.

“Commander Jaine Vale, you have been tried for the murder of an Imperial officer and found guilty. ” the Admiral stated, his voice even.

Jaine could feel her blood boiling and bile rising in her throat. “He deserved worse,” she spat.

“Sir, the subject is unresponsive.”

Jaine kept her head down as she was repeatedly ordered.

“Commander?” a voice said next to her as she boarded the prison transport. She recognized his mess of curls and the scar that crossed the bridge of his nose and tops of his cheeks, as well as the buzzed red hair of the clone next to him.

She hazarded a glance. “Fluke? Sig? Why are you here?”

“Guess the higher ups don’t take too kindly to those trying to wake up their vode,” Fluke chuckled.

“Quiet, clone,” hissed one of the stormtroopers as he jabbed Fluke with the end of his rifle.

The three prisoners shared a look of annoyance, all finding comfort in being together.

“Did she die again?” Hemlock asked, his voice seeming disinterested.

Karr shook her head, turning her datapad for him to see. “No, sir. Her vitals and brain activity are normal.”

“Have her eyes been open the whole time?”

“No, that began about two minutes ago.”

Hemlock shone a bright light in her eyes. “Her pupils are reacting normally. Heart rate?” 

“Normal,” Karr answered.

“Perhaps Miss Vale is simply ignoring us,” Hemlock concluded. “Start the droid again, don’t stop until she begins responding.”

“Doctor Hemlock, the subject has repeatedly stated she does not know who Clone Force 99 is,” Karr said. “I’m not sure if-”

“I would not recommend taking the word of prisoners.”

–

Crosshair woke with a start, nearly smacking his head against the ceiling.

“You alright?” Wrecker asked from his bunk.

“Fine,” Crosshair mumbled as he swung his legs over the side. He could practically feel Wrecker’s hesitation. “What?”

“Was it a nightmare? Or did you see-”

“Jaine, yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his head, absentmindedly noting how often the spot of Jaine’s scar bothered him as well. 

“Is she okay?” Wrecker asked anxiously.

Crosshair felt his stomach twist into knots. “Wrecker, she’s in a prison where she is tortured all day by some sadistic fuck.”

His words were harsh and hit Wrecker like a tsunami, but his tone was hollow and haunted. 

“I’m sorry,” Crosshair started. “The dreams are getting… less vivid. It’s like- it’s like I’m out of range to pick up the comm chatter.”

“And you’re worried about her,” Wrecker finished. Crosshair nodded, running his hands over his eyes. “Do you-” He fidgeted a little. “Do you still like her?”

Crosshair eyed his brother, who seemed to be looking anywhere but directly at him. “Yeah.”

“Even after everything she did?”

Crosshair sighed. “Yes, I still love her.”

He watched the bigger man shifting uncomfortably in his bunk.

“Cross?”

“Yeah?”

“I gotta tell you something,” he practically whispered as he sat up in the bunk.

Crosshair nodded as the man’s leg started to bounce. He only did that when he was really nervous. 

“Cross, I… I really like Jainey,” he breathed, his shoulders dropping like a weight was pulled from them. “I really like her. Even after all this time and everything she said and did.”

Crosshair simply nodded. He didn’t want to discourage this- he couldn’t.

“And I know that you and her were– are-” he chuckled nervously. “A-a-and I don’t want to get in the way of that, but I don’t like holding it in; doesn’t feel right.”

“I know, Wreck,” Crosshair said.

Wrecker’s eyes shot up to his younger brother. “You do?”

“I saw the way all of you looked at her,” he shrugged, taking her datapad in his hands. “I can’t blame you; I look at her the same way.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Crosshair scoffed as he jumped down from his bunk. “Wreck, I’d be more surprised if you weren’t in love with her.” He offered the datapad in his hands. “She wrote me a letter in her language. Tech translated it. I think it might be good for you to read it, too.”

Wrecker’s eyes searched his brother’s face for even the tiniest hint of a joke. Finding nothing he just nodded, taking the datapad in his hands. He watched his little brother stretch, the action vaguely reminding him of a loth cat, and walk away to another part of the ship, leaving him alone on his bunk.

Wrecker’s hands were shaking a little. He hadn’t been so nervous to read since he was a cadet. He shuddered at the unpleasant memories of the Kaminoans’ “tests”.

Take a deep breath, he heard Movri's voice in his head. This is just a moment. For better or worse, it will be gone soon.

He could feel his pulse quicken at the thought of the kind togruta man. He pushed it away- his burgeoning feelings for his new friend weren’t important now; finding and rescuing Jainey was his current mission.

As he looked down at the screen, the words and letters seemed to bond together into an impenetrable wall. He shifted the screen back and forth, growling a little as he tried to decipher the translated text.

With a groan, he gave up on the first paragraph, opting instead to try and search through until he found his own name.

Wrecker has been more touchy lately. He picks me up and holds me close. He is so sweet and kind, it almost makes my heart ache. I play along like I want him to put me down, but that is far from the truth. I see how he steals glances at you when I am in his arms. I know he is nervous, but I would be glad to let him hold me as long as he sees fit.

Wrecker sighed once he got through the paragraph, relief washing over him as the headache he’d quickly started to develop waned. He’d been worried that she didn’t like the physicality of his affection. But this put it to rest: she didn’t mind it and they were friends.

We have to find her.

Realization struck through his chest like a spear. She doesn’t remember you, some cruel voice echoed through his brain. 

“Wrecker?”

His head snapped up to meet Omega’s concerned look.

“Oh, hey, ‘Mega,” he tried to smile.

“Crosshair gave you the letter, didn’t he?”

Wrecker heaved a sigh and nodded. “I-I know she…did a lot of really bad stuff, but-”

“You miss her,” Omega finished for him. “It wasn’t her fault. It’s the chip.”

“I know,” he frowned. 

Omega placed a gentle hand in his. “We’re going to get her back.”

-

“Tech, are you alright?” Runi called, knocking lightly on the fresher door.

“I am fine,” came the muffled response. Even through the door she could hear the strain in his voice. “Your medical assistance is not necessary.

Runi scowled. “You ran in there pretty fast,” she argued.

“Your concern is-” his voice wavered. “Is unwarranted.”

“Tech-”

“What’s wrong with him?” Echo asked, sidling up to press a kiss to her temple. She smiled at the soft touch.

“Don’t know,” she sighed. “He just ran in there.”

“Give him a few minutes,” he advised, his hand cupping her cheek. “He’ll let someone know what’s wrong when he’s ready.”

Runi raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sure,” she snarked.

“Runi!”

Both of their heads snapped towards the medbay and they ran.

“What’s going on?” Runi asked as she took in the scene before her.

Sinya was curled in on herself, cradling her left hand against her chest, pained whimpers falling from her lips.

“She was fine but then she started-” Hunter explained, shirtless Runi noted in the back of her brain. “It’s- it’s the burn.”

She spoke soothingly to Sinya, gently coaxing her to release the clutch on her hand as she stuck a monitor patch to her chest. “Can I look at your hand?”

“I-I can’t,” she sobbed. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” Runi shushed. “I’m going to give you a pain-stim to help you relax a little, then we’re gonna look at your hand, alright?”

Sinya nodded tearfully and Runi looked over her shoulder.

“Echo, grab the-”

“Here,” he interrupted, the stim already in the autoinjector he was handing to her.

“Alright, Sinya, deep breaths, hun,” she whispered, pressing the injector against the twi'lek’s forearm, who whimpered a little at the sharp poke.

Runi looked at the med scanner, watching as Sinya’s heart rate began to ease back down to a normal pace. 

“S-sorry,” the woman whispered between pants. Runi looked up to answer, but found that her patient’s eyes were on the man sitting next to her. His eyes were filled with concern, but his lips were pulled up in a gentle smile.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, sarad,” he assured her, taking her uninjured hand in his. “We’ll have time.”

Runi fought to suppress a smile, exchanging an amused look with Echo as she unwrapped Sinya’s hand.

Once she pulled the bandage away, she nearly gasped. The burn had gotten worse. The center had expanded, faint red wisps still emanating from the ruined skin.

“That bad?” Sinya quipped.

“Honestly?” Runi hummed, releasing Sinya’s wrist. “I don’t know if it’s bad, and I don’t know how to treat it.”

Sinya nodded. If she were honest with herself, she probably expected that. “Do you think it’ll spread?” 

Runi scowled. “I hope not.”

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Thanks for reading! - River

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[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 27 March 1945, First Nations activist Annie Mae Aquash (Naguset Eask in Mi'kmaq) was born in Nova Scotia, Canada (Miꞌkmaꞌki). Moving to the US in the 1960s, she became heavily involved in Native American activism. She once wrote to her sister: “The whole country changed with only a handful of raggedy-ass pilgrims that came over here in the 1500s. And it can take a handful of raggedy-ass Indians to do the same, and I intend to be one of those raggedy-ass Indians.” She joined the American Indian Movement (AIM) and took part in the armed occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. On her first night there she was told by a male AIM leader that she was needed on kitchen duty. She replied “I didn’t come here to wash dishes. I came here to fight.” Aquash was found dead in early 1976. The first autopsy stated she "died from frost", then her hands were cut off and sent to the FBI for fingerprinting while her body was buried anonymously as a "Jane Doe". Soon after, however, AIM and her family arranged for a second autopsy which found a bullet in the back of her head. Decades later, a couple of AIM members admitted that she had been killed after being falsely labelled an FBI informant. The FBI had heavily infiltrated AIM as part of its COINTELPRO operation, and had sowed discontent and murder within radical organisations. More information and sources: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9932/annie-mae-aquash-born https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2238924509626020/?type=3