66 and Counting
66 AND COUNTING
PART 1
He lay dazed in the scant shelter of a dead Battledroid. He knew his helmet got hit but couldn't remember when or how. All around him his brothers were firing at the Jedi ground carrier, with enough success that it had groaned to a halt in the middle of an intersection, practically inviting destruction. Every few minutes the area around the carrier would explode silently, shoving dust and dead droids and even troopers back a quarter klick or more, but both the dust and troopers returned quickly while the Jedi were silently regaining strength. Every return gave the troopers a little more ground, every blast took the Jedi longer to recuperate from.
It was hard to see and breathe with the sparkling quartzite sand and dust nearly saturating the air. He was sure at least part of his confusion was due to concussion and lack of oxygen, but that did not explain why the troopers were massacreing the Jedi. Perhaps the Jedi had turned to the Dark side? But he distinctly remembered laughing up at Fory Jenowen when the young padawan accidentally fell off the carrier. The poor girl got a laugh and a good-natured cuff on the back for her clumsiness from Jedi Master Diliwa Sanceer. But now both Fory and Master Sanceer lay dead 20 yards behind him, shot in the back by his best friend Twist.
"... AXB239! AXB239! Hey, 239, are you alive over there?"
It took him a moment to realize that AXB239 was his own designation. He hadn't been called that since Kamino! He raised an arm and tried to stand, then collapsed into unconsciousness again.
"... not sure if he's worth taking to the med carrier. Waste of time, if you ask me."
"Yeah. Orders are walking wounded only. Shoot the rest."
If anything he felt worse than before this last blackout, but he managed to raise an arm again. He took his time standing up but the dead droid gave him some support and he only swayed a little when he reached a standing position. The two troopers waited until he took a step toward them, then the one he had known as Twist left without a word. The other trooper -- Trip? yeah, definitely Trip -- was about to leave when Jammer stopped him.
"I've got a concussion, no radio, can't remember a thing. What are our orders, AXB237?"
Trip turned and examined him for long enough that he wondered if he had gotten the number wrong. "You'd better hope it's temporary or you'll find yourself in the recycle vat before too long!" The short laugh that followed was so lacking in humor, so callous, that Jammer had trouble holding back from hitting him. "The med shuttle's at the landing site, better get there fast!" Another callous laugh as Trip walked away.
What the hell is going on? Jammer wondered as he trudged down to the landing site. Every few meters brought him fresh evidence of the world turned upside down, with troopers bickering over plunder, shooting their own wounded squad mates, rounding up citizens for transport to -- well, somewhere, hopefully! If they've started murdering citizens... A wave of nausea assured him his personality hadn't changed at all, but every single clone brother had gone mad and embraced the Dark side.
The med shuttle was nowhere near the hive of activity he was expecting. No tents for the wounded, no lines of troops for triage, not even a morgue. Inside the shuttle there was lots going on, but it looked more like decommissioning than medical treatment. He pushed his way past droids dismantling imaging machines, dumping medicines, even ripping out data storage, before he found the one doctor remaining.
"You don't look so good, doc."
The woman spun towards him with a snarl but before he could even get his arms up in defense she slumped into the only chair. "What are you doing here? Troopers were told to triage in the field."
"Is that what they're calling it now? Triage?" He shook his head, still trying to clear his fuzziness. "I call that murder. But apparently I'm the only clone who does!"
She looked up at him, startled. "Take your helmet off, now
"I don't know if I can, that's where I got hit and the fastener's stuck."
She jumped up and pushed his gloved hands out of the way. "I think you're right. We'll have to cut through the under-layer and peel away the shielding panels..."
She continued to mutter to herself while carefully dissecting away his armor, mostly inaudibly but he grew to appreciate the breadth of her medical invectives. At a pause he turned his head to find her gazing at him with tears in her eyes.
"Doctor?"
She frowned and shook the tears away. "You may be the last good man in the clone army." A sob nearly escaped and she bit her lip. "Or you may be just the most recent in a very large number of identical traitors! Fingers crossed!"
She pulled his helmet open and then over his head. A gasp from her had him striding to the nearest reflective surface and he stopped in shock. The lower part of his scalp from his right ear to the nape of his neck was black with char. Where the char had cracked from the swelling and his movements, blood and serous fluid had trickled through. One bit of skull looked dented though he couldn't figure out from what. He lifted his hand to touch it --
"Don't!" the doctor barked at him. Years of training took over and he froze. "Once you start fiddling with it, the pain will begin. This is going to give you a LOT of pain. And of course most of the painkillers have been destroyed!"
She pushed him down into her chair and started rummaging through the storage containers. He felt vaguely dizzy again. It was worse when he closed his eyes so he pulled a viewer over and tried to find out more about the disaster that was today. All he could find were Separatist feeds trumpeting their victories over Jedi clone armies. Well, yeah, considering all the clones in the armies were working for the Separatists now! His disgust for the trick and sadness for the loss of his brothers combined to get him seriously hoping one of his brothers would 'triage' him.
"Don't watch that." The doctor shook her head and pulled the screen away from him. "It's nothing more than propaganda, though with a bit more truth than usual. Ironic, that." She leaned against the bulkhead and examined him. "I've been thinking, and I've got a proposition for you. It may not work, or even worse it may work the way the Separatists intended it to, but if it does work I may be able to get you out of here in one piece, and with a good cover for the future."
He shrugged. "Why should I bother when all my friends are either dead or traitors?"
"You still support the Republic ideals, don't you?"
He twitched away from her gaze, only to be caught by the viewer again. Mass graves of Jedi and padawan and Republic defenders were shown being filled as clone trooper firing squads blasted line after line of unarmed citizens. He shuddered. She gripped his shoulder and turned him back to face her.
"If what I'm planning works, we can work to protect some of the citizens, maybe even some of the Jedi. As I said, there is a chance it won't work, or it may backfire and work too well and you kill me, but I think it's worth the chance."
This time he didn't hesitate. "Whatever you need, I'll be there."