Shuffling Numbers
Also on AO3 [500 words] For Whumptober 2022 - day 29: Defiance
Everyone in the GAR knows that the Coruscant Guard is a cushy posting. Everyone in the Guard knows this is a lie; Coruscant has its own dangers. Most of these, Fox can’t do anything about. He sets up procedures and precautions and specialised training, but the risks are all part and parcel of the job. Not quite what they were trained for, but close enough.
Requests for decommissioning are a different matter. They can come at any time for any reason, lives resting on the whim of Senators who see them as less than droids. There is nothing Fox can do to prevent the properly filed requests (and only the properly filed ones, the others he has an excuse to ignore)… but he does have discretion over how the request is carried out. It’s not even that hard; all it takes is shuffling paperwork.
The Senators who give the order are hardly going to take the time to personally ensure the relevant clone gets on the shuttle back to Kamino, or do more than a cursory follow-up. So he marks the clone as decommissioned on the official roster, assigns them different duties, and the Guard continues on with one more member than officially registered (two more, twenty more, fifty more) with the natborns none the wiser. Some weeks, it honestly feels like those extra bodies are the only reason they are even vaguely able to keep up with the workload anyway.
Of course, there is a downside to this scheme. Supplies – food, equipment, medicine, space – are allocated according to the official garrison size. And because the Senate is cheap, the Guard are allocated the bare minimum they can get away with supplying. They don’t begrudge sharing their bunks and their meals with their rescued brothers, but the shortages are just one more thing wearing them down.
The solution, of course, is to juggle the paperwork back the other way. Decomissioning is hardly the only – or even the most common – way for Guards to die. It should be easy enough to just not record a trooper’s death, allow a ‘decommissioned’ brother to take their place on the active roster.
The only problem is where to change these records. Fox refuses to allow them to change mission reports, particularly with alterations of this magnitude. You never know when a case might become relevant again, or who was watching and what they noticed. Fox has fought hard for the minimal protections that come with running perfectly according to procedure; as soon as the Guard are caught using a loophole, a dozen others will leap to exploit it.
So that means the lie needs to come from within the barracks, the medbay. A critically injured trooper entering, and a healed one walking away.
Their medical casualty rates decrease.
Clearly their problems aren’t so bad. Clearly the needs of the frontline troops are more urgent.
Their medical supply allocation is cut.
More brothers die.
But at least they had a chance.