Feat. Howler the LAAt pilot and his copilot and boyfriend Detritus.
Howler deals with extreme overwhelming phantom pains, cramps in muscles that no longer exists, in addition to the extensive mental toll it took on him to lose his arm and get a 'droid' replacement that only has synthskin and sensation in the fingertips.
Detritus will always be by his side, though all he can do is massage his shoulder and hold him through the worst of it. The love is there, and it matters.
Detritus and LAAt Pilot Howler in "Don't close your eyes, cmon, stay with me a little longer, Howler please! Please open your fucking eyes!"
Or the Alternative working title "Howler's no good, very bad day,"
Getting shot down is pretty much every clone pilots retirement plan, and they all knew it from the start. It's a miracle if their wreck of a ship makes it to the ground in identifiable pieces, much less with any survivors on board. Detritus never liked those odds, but desertion is not an option for them, they'd never get very far at all. Their only choice is to survive until the war is over to be able to fly away free and together.
Howler had accepted those terrible odds from the beginning. Though, and as it started to get harder and harder to stay awake, he found himself thinking that at least he gets to have someone to miss him. Most pilots in his position never even got that.
don't worry, he gets better. "Biggest godsdamned miracle of our time" The Medical Officers call him
LAAt Pilot Howler and former Construct Detritus, who would really prefer if he would stop getting them shot out of the skies
"As if it is my fault we have to fly directly into artillery fire!" Howler would reply
Wooo I love this peace and these two who managed to find their way to eachother in a universe that has predestined them to die in the name of others since the dawn of their creation. They refuse to be the shadows of others they were always meant to be, and will instead forge their own path forwards as individuals, as people, with their own hopes and dreams and ambitions.
And they're going to do it together.
May your death serve to do something you never did in life.
Something Good.
“Another wave!” Howler shouted as he pulled the sith behind cover again, shots reflecting off him as Howler shot back several of his own past him.
Howler hoped the sith wouldn’t remember just how many times he used the guy as a shield if they got out of here alive and he got the disruptor off. He had to admit though it was… pretty effective. Real Mandalorian Iron really was everything the legends said. And the siths aim with a blaster was decent, even under fire, but Howler really did have to tell him who to shoot at pretty much every time. And where to walk, and when to run, and when to duck. Like the world's shittiest yet invincible protocol droid.
Terrain data show them as still being nine klicks from the citadel, and the droids knew they were here. But occasionally, strangely, packs of the drones flew right past them. Did… did the Jedi actually come back for them? That was a suicide mission.
“You think we should hold tight and see if they catch up?” Howler asked the sith, who had just finished shooting down the last of this wave of drones, Howler pulling him back into the deep cover of an overhang’s wall.
“Quid est?” [what?]
Yea, he also got that a lot anytime he tried to ask the guy anything that wasn’t a direct and pointed question.
“You’re a lucky son of a bitch if someone actually came back for you. Cause they sure aren’t coming back for a single pilot. Although with the shit you just pulled I guess the Jedi wouldn’t want to leave you to the separatists. I don’t know how the hell you pulled us from space in an instant from systems away”
The sith shrugged the motherfucker, “divinitas excludit distantiam” [divinity excludes distance]
Howler had to scoff, “You’re far from a god now”
“noluerunt me esse deum” [they did not want me to be a god]
And Howler did wonder about this guy. He had actually met him before, back on Bothawui. He had watched him haul a trooper, a medic maybe, if he remembered right, to Howler's ship, picking up wounded that had managed to gather for extraction. He had come back and picked up many other groups of survivors that night, although he hadn’t caught any more glimpses of the man. And he had heard that he had been assigned to a squad on the Resolute, although he hadn’t run across the sith again since. But he had heard plenty of rumors.
“Is it true you’ll do whatever your clone captain says and that's it? You don't even listen to the generals?”
“mei sunt, ego illorum sum” [they are mine, I am theirs]
“And your squad… didn’t want you to be a god?”
“Sic” [yes]
“And you just stopped trying to be a god because your squad didn’t want you to?” Howler asked, puzzled.
“Sic” [yes]
“Why?” Why would someone give up apparent godhood, and Howler wasn’t going to count out the fact that it could have worked because he was here. And potentially the Resolute was still here, and that shouldn't have been possible given they had been three systems away. He didn’t know if that's the kind of power a god wielded, but it was certainly more than he could ever imagine being able to.
“quid vis?” [what do you mean?]
Howler shook his head as he checked his scanner. No droids on the pop-up currently, but no help either. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to take a short break. Especially since he was actually fairly certain that the siths ankle was broken instead of sprained given the way his knee had also started giving out as they ran/climbed/dodged. And his arm hadn’t really stopped bleeding either, although it had slowed some, he hoped from clotting and not lack-there-of to bleed. He wondered if it was the scrambler or just the siths personality that kept him from verbalizing what must be a decent amount of pain. He just really didn’t get this guy.
“Why would you give up godhood for some clones, if you thought you could actually do it?”
The sith tilted his head at him, “quia amo eos, et quaesiverunt” [because I love them, and they asked]
He scoffed at the sith as he drew his blaster, scanner picking up more drones incoming. Of course, love.
“Drones, over there”
“Euge.” [Yay.]
-
“We are going back for them, aren’t we Master?”
“Unfortunately, Brek’s squad still has Tarkin, who still has the other half of what we need.”
“Aww you like Brek, skyguy. Admit it.”
“Okay, Maybe I want to see him try to talk his way out of his squad's mutiny charges when they actually find him, or try to talk his way out of whatever the council is going to say about bringing the Resolute here with the force. But, for now, let's just focus on defending the cruiser until we get the call to Captain Jet back up or until reinforcements arrive and we can go looking ourselves”
Ahsoka grinned as their LAAt landed in the Resolutes Hangar, directly next to their starfighters. Defend the cruiser, indeed.
-
Nihlus had been sitting in nothingness for a while, staring into the abyss of the sky occasionally interrupted by red and blue blaster fire, when he suddenly snapped back to himself like a cold glass of water being poured down his back, and he had to bite his fist to muffle the scream he made at the agony in his arm and his leg at the moment. He was… he was sitting in the wreck of a crashed LAAt, and Margo was shaking his shoulder, face pale.
Something was very wrong.
“Save us, save him” She whispered at him quietly, obviously injured, but not the worst of them. The screaming was actually coming from
“Sprig” He said, searching for the munitions expert
There, next to the barricade Jet, Cynic, Lake and Torch were firing from. He crawled his way over the best he could, Sprig's breath coming out in short bursts now, in between his shouts and moans. Charred hole in his armor, on his side, right next to his heart. The only reason he was not already dead of blood loss right now was the sheer intense heat of the shot that had hit him had cauterized multiple blood vessels.
And there was nothing Nihlus could do. He looked up and back to Margo, and there was an intensity in her gaze he had never seen before.
Save us.
Nihlus felt agony in his heart. He couldn’t. The disruptor had sapped everything from him and he couldn’t. He could do a transfer but then Nihlus might die, and he still had the rest of the squad to protect
“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of Jedi? Get up and help us!” Captain Tarkin shouted at him, firing off a volley of rounds into the oncoming droids
And it was like time crawled to a halt as Nihlus realized what he had to do to save Sprig. To save all of them. But… he looked to Margo, who nodded once, and the grin Nihlus gave her was all teeth, because…
“No, I’m a Sith” And then he raised his hand, and ripped out the soul of the one guy here he just could not fucking stand since the moment he had met him
-
Holy shit, holy shit. The second the sith had gotten the disruptor off he had murdered that Captain! Why wasn’t the squad doing anything?
Howler watched as the sith turned to the wounded soldier on the ground. No. no, he was not going to let him take more lives, he was insane. Howler got maybe three steps towards the sith before he was yanked to the ground by his belt.
“Stop, let him work” The trooper who had grabbed him said
“Let me go, he’s going to kill him”
“Is that what you think is happening?” The trooper asked rhetorically, pinning Howler to the ground as he struggled to get an eyeline of the sith.
“What?”
He watched him reach his hand to the wound and… hover there for several seconds before the trooper gasped deep breaths, grabbing at… where the hole in his chest had been moments before. The previously dying trooper grabbed his blaster and began to fire with the rest of them once more. Oh yea, the guy was a healer.
The siths head snapped towards him and Howler would have scrambled backwards if he could except… no he wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at the soldier holding him. And then suddenly he was next to them, and Howler could move again. So… he scrambled the fuck backwards.
“Margo?” The sith said softly, brushing his hand over the soldier's side. The trooper almost seemed to relax, “Pelvis fracture? That must have fucking hurt, but thanks for holding him”
“What the hell is happening” Howler asked
“Howler… Thank you for keeping me safe.” Brek said, turning to look at him, before kneeling at his eye level, those strange glowing eyes feeling like they were boring into his own, even from behind his visor, “I can… absorb the life force of a person and use it to heal another. Or kill another, or several of either. I would do anything for my squad, you understand?”
“Yea, I can see that” Howler replied, glancing at the charred lump of what used to be Captain Wilhuff Tarkin, and thinking back to the siths proclamations of godhood
“Howler, my squad committed treason to come and get us, you know.”
“Nihlus-” the one he had called Margo hissed at him, but he just continued
“They committed treason, because otherwise that Captain wouldn’t have allowed them to come back, and we would have been left to die, because he had the other half of the information they needed for a hyperspace route, and I think he would have been able to talk Skywalker into leaving us. I actually already have both halves of it. But they don't know that one yet. Anyways, I killed Tarkin, because I needed his life force for healing or I would lose members of my squad. But you’re still alive, even though you aren’t part of my squad”
“Because I kept you safe?”
“No, because you’re not an asshole, even if you used me as a meat shield.” The sith paused, tilting his head in that same manner he had before with the disruptor. Must just be his thinking face. Then he met his eyes and gave him a lopsided grin, “You admire the forms my loyalty takes to my squad, you admire their loyalty for me”
“So what?” Howler asked defiantly, crossing his arms
“You’re on the precipice of a choice. You see, Margo can either repair the ship, or repair the distress beacon. Only so many power cells, after all, and there are only enough parts to fix one. Can cycle the engine, or we can call for help. But a ship isn’t much used to us if we can't fly it, and no offense to Cynic, he did do his best, but he is the reason we crashed here, after the pilot was shot. And he is the best pilot of us.”
“So either I join you, and fly your ship, and keep my mouth shut about Tarkin, or you kill me and use the beacon to call in another ship?”
The sith rolled his eyes at Howler, “Of course not, I don’t kill clones. You’ll just pass out with a concussion and no memory of the past week. Or, you join us, lie a little, and you gain a favor from me, and I’ll be a little more fond of you. And you understand exactly the sort of lengths I would go to for those I care about.”
Brek stretched his hand out, helmet flying into it, “Look, you have a little while to make your choice, it’s going to take Margo a minute to finish the power cell. I hope you’ll make the fun one.”
Before he put his helmet on, stood, and for the first time since Howler had met him, Ignited his lightsabers, placing himself between them and the enemy, and throwing their blaster bolts right back at them.
Howler gripped his holdout blaster tightly, before he stood and moved to the barricade. Maybe a slice of some deranged fucking loyalty like that wouldn’t be half-bad.
-
“Well that could have gone worse” Jet said as the onslaught of droids began to peter out, piles and piles of scrap lining the grounds around them
“It would be nice if we had not crashed a second time” Nihlus replied dryly from the other side of the barricade, occasionally lazily batting off bolts
Jet laughed, “Hey! Second time for you. This is the first time we crashed, so I think it’s going pretty well.”
“What’s with all this ‘we’ shit, Cynics the one that crashed” Torch complained
“Why don’t you take the reigns next time hot shot, see how well you can keep us in the air and dodge seps” Cynic said
“Actually, I think that’s my job” The pilot from LAAt three interrupted, “Or at least, I’ve heard you need a new pilot. Corporal Howler, Sir” He said, saluting Jet
“We’re picking up strays now?” Cynic asked Nihlus who just shrugged and said, “I picked up a whole squad of them, what’s new?”
“I think we picked you up, actually. Now and originally. There was a whole jedi council meeting over it and everything?” Lake replied, “We have pictures.”
“That seems to have completely slipped my memory” Nihlus replied, “Must have been the scrambler”
“Oh don't start that again.” Margo said from the ship, “You can’t blame everything on the scrambler. I’m not buying it this time”
Nihlus laughed, “I can do whatever I want, that doesn't mean it’ll work”
“It won’t! I’m not carrying you to bed again because the ‘scrambler's residual effects gave you an unbearable headache’ the next time you’re feeling lazy.”
“But Margooo,” Nihlus whined, “Margo my ankle is broken, Margo!”
“Go bitch to Heron about it,”
Heron chimed in, “Because I’m a medic or because I’m missing a leg?”
“Yes” Margo said simply, before returning back to her work, Nihlus muttering, “She does got me there”
