fic: Schlepping It
for the prompt "slow, vibrant, anxious + Clone Wars" from Alula
The platoon's moving at an absolute crawl, bad enough to make the back of Cody's neck itch like someone's staring at it. But the ground's entirely mud, and there's no helping it: sheer rock on one side and half a mile of recently-flooded river on the other--hence the mud. Theoretically Cody's body glove can keep him alive (briefly) in a vacuum, but he's pretty sure the mud's managed to seep through and is now slowly filling his left boot.
"Scouts say we're almost in sight of the break in the cliff, sir." Brick's dropped back in the column to keep pace with him. "Though given that Waxer's a hopeless optimist, I'm thinking we have another half hour, easy." One of his legs is completely coated in mud halfway up his thigh plate, while the other is pristine aside from a smudge on his greave. It's been a long and bloody campaign, and Cody's brain keeps seeing the muddy leg and thinking that it's an amputation.
"We'll lose daylight before then." He's careful to keep it from sounding like an accusation--the platoon's moving steadily, despite the hazardous footing, and they've had only a single fall so far, which probably qualifies as a minor miracle. Maybe some of General Kenobi's force-luck has rubbed off on them, but it's going to be impossible to keep everyone on their feet once they lose the light. "I want to tell you to pick up the pace, but I suspect that would be counterproductive."
Brick gives a full-body grimace. "Yes sir. Boil and Waxer made good speed on their scouting run, but they're also now completelycovered in mud except for their helmets and weapons."
Cody envisions a full platoon of that and grimaces back at Brick. "Not ideal, no." At least they don't have any walkers or crawlers to deal with, though Cody would be tempted to give his left little finger for any kind of vehicle with repulsers. "How's Highwire doing with getting a signal through to camp?" Whatever kind of rock the cliffs are formed out of has been playing merry electro-magnetic hell with their radio equipment. Highwire's got even more antennae than Cody, though, so there's a chance--
Brick shakes his head. "No joy, sir. I have him trying every 5 minutes, and so far the best he's managed is a few seconds of verbal fuzz--enough to be pretty sure it's GAR on the other end, but nothing more than that."
"Better than nothing." Cody sighs, forcing himself to keep moving forward, even though his legs feel like they have weights strapped to them. "Well, we'll just have to hold our course and speed and hope things don't get too messy once it's dark."
"Yes sir." Brick nods to him and then drops back in the column, presumably to make sure no one's gotten stuck in the mud and left behind. From what Cody's seen of him during this campaign, the man's a good lieutenant. But his departure leaves Cody with nothing to distract him from how his knees and hips ache, or the increasingly oozy mess in his boot.
He keeps on keeping on, because it's not like staying still will improve matters at all--that's something drilled into all of them as cadets: when you're going through hell, don't stop. So he keeps his feet moving, keeps his head up and looking out towards the horizon as much as possible, to remind himself that there's a (presumably) better place they'll get to sooner or later.
It's a dramatic scene--the dark red mud stretching out along the river down to where it curls back around into the cliffs; the cliffs themselves, a massive light-eating slab of rock for as far as the eye can see; the river like a broad and lazy silver knife, reflecting the sky and the cliffs, and the little black and white specks tromping along through the mud. The reflected sky is very blue, but rapidly shading darker. They all have night vision filters on their HUDs, but that will be little help against the low-contrast mud.
The river looks pretty tempting, and even though Cody knows it's only knee-deep, and full of silt, and probably freezing cold, he can't help but cast a longing eye on it. Give how things have been going, washing on it would probably just make the mud solidify like ferrocrete or something, so he denies his own private request as well as several publicly-placed ones by some of the shinies in the platoon. Well, former shinies. Nothing much is shiny at this point except their visors, and even most of those are flecked with mud and other liquid debris.
Brick reappears beside him, now with several streaky glove-prints down his previously-pristine side. It helps balance all the mud on the opposite side. "Highwire says he heard something, sir."
Cody cast a dubious eye at Brick, though it goes unseen behind his bucket. "What kind of something, lieutenant?" Brick makes an apologetic gesture.
"Unclear with all the static, sir, but he says it sounded like clone chatter." And Cody's been with this platoon long enough to know that Highwire is a pessimist down to his bones--he's not one to assume something's true because he wishes it was.
"Let me know if that changes from 'sounds like' to 'definitely is'. Maybe we can call for pick-up." Though they'll have to hose down the vehicles afterwards--or perhaps pickaxe it, given how the mud dries onto their armor like glue.
"Yes sir--" Brick starts and then breaks off, head cocked like he's listening to another channel. "Look up ahead, sir--Highwire says they're in visual range."
Which would be potentially disastrous under other circumstances, but in this case has the soldiers around him shouting in celebration and derision, over it having taken so long for the camp to send someone out for them. But there, dropping down into grabbing range, are a pair of LAAT/i, and it's possibly the most beautiful sight Cody's seen since setting foot on this sith-spawn of a planet.
"I'll bet you double rations I can get onboard before you, lieutenant," Cody says, and breaks into the closest the mud allows to a sprint. It's a morale thing, he tells himself, and pushes a little harder as he hears the rapid squelch of Brick coming up behind him. A quick side-step rewards him with a full-body splat, followed by a sudden explosion of cursing from Brick, and he finds himself grinning like a fool inside the safety of his bucket.
He'll pay for it later somehow, but at the moment it's definitely a morale thing.
The platoon's moving at an absolute crawl, bad enough to make the back of Cody's neck itch like someone's staring at it. But the ground's entirely mud, and there's no helping it: sheer rock on one side and half a mile of recently-flooded river on the other--hence the mud. Theoretically Cody's body glove can keep him alive (briefly) in a vacuum, but he's pretty sure the mud's managed to seep through and is now slowly filling his left boot.
"Scouts say we're almost in sight of the break in the cliff, sir." Brick's dropped back in the column to keep pace with him. "Though given that Waxer's a hopeless optimist, I'm thinking we have another half hour, easy." One of his legs is completely coated in mud halfway up his thigh plate, while the other is pristine aside from a smudge on his greave. It's been a long and bloody campaign, and Cody's brain keeps seeing the muddy leg and thinking that it's an amputation.
"We'll lose daylight before then." He's careful to keep it from sounding like an accusation--the platoon's moving steadily, despite the hazardous footing, and they've had only a single fall so far, which probably qualifies as a minor miracle. Maybe some of General Kenobi's force-luck has rubbed off on them, but it's going to be impossible to keep everyone on their feet once they lose the light. "I want to tell you to pick up the pace, but I suspect that would be counterproductive."
Brick gives a full-body grimace. "Yes sir. Boil and Waxer made good speed on their scouting run, but they're also now completelycovered in mud except for their helmets and weapons."
Cody envisions a full platoon of that and grimaces back at Brick. "Not ideal, no." At least they don't have any walkers or crawlers to deal with, though Cody would be tempted to give his left little finger for any kind of vehicle with repulsers. "How's Highwire doing with getting a signal through to camp?" Whatever kind of rock the cliffs are formed out of has been playing merry electro-magnetic hell with their radio equipment. Highwire's got even more antennae than Cody, though, so there's a chance--
Brick shakes his head. "No joy, sir. I have him trying every 5 minutes, and so far the best he's managed is a few seconds of verbal fuzz--enough to be pretty sure it's GAR on the other end, but nothing more than that."
"Better than nothing." Cody sighs, forcing himself to keep moving forward, even though his legs feel like they have weights strapped to them. "Well, we'll just have to hold our course and speed and hope things don't get too messy once it's dark."
"Yes sir." Brick nods to him and then drops back in the column, presumably to make sure no one's gotten stuck in the mud and left behind. From what Cody's seen of him during this campaign, the man's a good lieutenant. But his departure leaves Cody with nothing to distract him from how his knees and hips ache, or the increasingly oozy mess in his boot.
He keeps on keeping on, because it's not like staying still will improve matters at all--that's something drilled into all of them as cadets: when you're going through hell, don't stop. So he keeps his feet moving, keeps his head up and looking out towards the horizon as much as possible, to remind himself that there's a (presumably) better place they'll get to sooner or later.
It's a dramatic scene--the dark red mud stretching out along the river down to where it curls back around into the cliffs; the cliffs themselves, a massive light-eating slab of rock for as far as the eye can see; the river like a broad and lazy silver knife, reflecting the sky and the cliffs, and the little black and white specks tromping along through the mud. The reflected sky is very blue, but rapidly shading darker. They all have night vision filters on their HUDs, but that will be little help against the low-contrast mud.
The river looks pretty tempting, and even though Cody knows it's only knee-deep, and full of silt, and probably freezing cold, he can't help but cast a longing eye on it. Give how things have been going, washing on it would probably just make the mud solidify like ferrocrete or something, so he denies his own private request as well as several publicly-placed ones by some of the shinies in the platoon. Well, former shinies. Nothing much is shiny at this point except their visors, and even most of those are flecked with mud and other liquid debris.
Brick reappears beside him, now with several streaky glove-prints down his previously-pristine side. It helps balance all the mud on the opposite side. "Highwire says he heard something, sir."
Cody cast a dubious eye at Brick, though it goes unseen behind his bucket. "What kind of something, lieutenant?" Brick makes an apologetic gesture.
"Unclear with all the static, sir, but he says it sounded like clone chatter." And Cody's been with this platoon long enough to know that Highwire is a pessimist down to his bones--he's not one to assume something's true because he wishes it was.
"Let me know if that changes from 'sounds like' to 'definitely is'. Maybe we can call for pick-up." Though they'll have to hose down the vehicles afterwards--or perhaps pickaxe it, given how the mud dries onto their armor like glue.
"Yes sir--" Brick starts and then breaks off, head cocked like he's listening to another channel. "Look up ahead, sir--Highwire says they're in visual range."
Which would be potentially disastrous under other circumstances, but in this case has the soldiers around him shouting in celebration and derision, over it having taken so long for the camp to send someone out for them. But there, dropping down into grabbing range, are a pair of LAAT/i, and it's possibly the most beautiful sight Cody's seen since setting foot on this sith-spawn of a planet.
"I'll bet you double rations I can get onboard before you, lieutenant," Cody says, and breaks into the closest the mud allows to a sprint. It's a morale thing, he tells himself, and pushes a little harder as he hears the rapid squelch of Brick coming up behind him. A quick side-step rewards him with a full-body splat, followed by a sudden explosion of cursing from Brick, and he finds himself grinning like a fool inside the safety of his bucket.
He'll pay for it later somehow, but at the moment it's definitely a morale thing.