Steadfast: The Nightmare
@clonexocweek Day 5 Future
Word Count: 1482
Content: nightmares, force visions, order 66, sith artifacts, bacta tanks, explosions, canon-typical violence
Mando'a Guide: sarad - flower osik - shit ner jetii - my jedi
Kresta
When she woke, it was dark, almost foggy, and filled with the kind of energy that sucked the air from her lungs. It was cloaked in that sort of familiar that makes one suspicious.
There was a knock on the door to her quarters.
“Come in,” she said, already certain who was behind the door. She could feel her heart beating against her chest in excitement. Or was it fear?
The door slid open to reveal Fluke in his armor, the sea green the 763rd had chosen to paint their armor with shining in the soft light of her room.
“Hello, dear,” she hummed, walking towards him, but was stopped short as he leveled his DC-17 at her. “Fluke, what are you doing?”
“You are in violation of Order 66, and you will be executed for your crimes against the Republic,” he said. His voice sounded almost robotic with none of its usual charm or sarcasm. Something in the back of her mind screamed wrong, wrong, WRONG!
“Crimes?” she sputtered. “What are you–”
She could feel the moment he pulled the trigger, her hand reaching out to pull her lightsaber but not making it in time.
She fell to the ground, two holes burning through her chest.
He stood over her, the emotionless expression of his helmet staring down as she felt her body dying.
This time, she awoke, heaving air into her lungs like she was resurfacing from a nearly too-long stint underwater.
She found herself surrounded by a medic and a couple of guards, a machine beeping rapidly nearby. Someone must have found her in her quarters and brought her to the medbay. But Fluke has excellent aim, and he wasn’t too far away. How did she survive?
The medic, Rowdy, held his hands up. “It’s alright, General,” he said, his voice trying to be soothing. “You’re disoriented from the bacta, but you’re safe. You’re in the medbay on the Steadfast–”
“Where’s… where’s Fluke?” she demanded, starting to remove the IV from her arm.
“I’m sure the Captain will be back shortly,” Rowdy said, tapping her hand away from the IV to remove it himself. “He’s barely left your side the past week.”
Kresta felt like her chest was hollow. “Waiting to finish the job?” she sneered under her breath.
Rowdy finally finished removing the needle from her arm. “Waiting to what?”
“General,” Fluke said. He sounded normal again. How could he sound so casual, like he hadn’t just attempted to execute her? “Glad to see you… awake. What’s wrong?”
She’d jumped out of the bed, putting distance between herself and the captain, snatching a blaster off the side of one of the troopers standing guard nearby.
“You stay back,” she warned him, raising the blaster against him like he’d done to her. “You know what you did.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Fluke breathed, his hands raised. His face was pure concern that radiated around him in the Force. Why didn’t he feel wrong like he had before? Why didn’t he feel like he was lying to her? Why did it feel like his heart was shattering?
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Fluke
“General,” Rowdy said, keeping his voice even. “Please put the blaster down.”
Wilde rushed into the room, his eyes widening at the sight before him. One of the guards must have commed him. He could see his twin’s hand twitching at his side. He silently begged him not to pull his blaster.
“He tried to kill me,” the General growled. “Take him to the brig.”
Fluke felt like his world was collapsing around him. He’d never hurt her. Never. She knew that, didn’t she?
“General, I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Wilde said, his voice carefully calm. “We can talk it all out, but can we please do it without weaponry.”
Kresta’s eyes left his face for the first time since he’d walked in, nervously glancing at Wilde.
“Please, General. Let’s talk.”
Her hands shook slightly as she lowered the blaster and passed it back to Blare. She apologized quietly to him and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist.
“Thank you for trusting me, General,” Wilde said. “Will you try to explain to us why you’re–”
“H-he came to my quarters,” she explained, her voice shaky and unsure. “When he pointed his blaster at me, I asked what he was doing, and he said the Jedi committed treason and… and shot me.”
Fluke felt like he’d been shot as she painfully forced the last few words out.
“Kresta, sarad,” Fluke nearly sobbed, everything in his body itching to step closer to her. He thought better of it; he wouldn’t risk frightening her. “I could never hurt you. Never.”
In his periphery, he could see Rowdy’s confused expression as he turned to Wilde, who just shook his head minutely. Small mercies.
“General, you’ve been in a bacta tank for a week,” Rowdy explained. “You were on a mission with Generals Kenobi and Skywalker and Commander Tano. There was an explosion. Do you remember?”
Kresta scowled at him. “Wh- no, I-I remember him…” she mumbled, though she sounded uncertain. “No, th-the… the Sith crypt. Oh, stars,” she gasped. “Obi-Wan–”
“Is alright,” Wilde stepped in. “The Generals and Commanders are alright. They’re just out of bacta today as well. Actually, they want to talk to you as soon as you’re well enough to–”
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Kresta
She glanced down at herself. She could still feel the tacky residue of the bacta across her newly repaired skin beneath the scuffed-up undersuit she wore beneath her dress. She could feel her saber in a nearby drawer and called upon the force to bring it to her while she slipped into her boots that had kindly been left next to the bed. She could hear the protests and insistence that she stay, but she needed to get to Obi-Wan now.
How could she forget that awful place? Was that horrible memory of betrayal just a nightmare? No. Not if Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan needed to see her. A vision, then? That seemed more likely at this point, but why would her beloved captain ever execute her without even talking to her? She needed to sort this out. The memories of the mission were slowly trickling back in: brief flashes of fire, someone jumping in front of her, the darkness clouding her vision.
She could hear Fluke and Wilde bickering as they trailed after her through the ship to her quarters, but only Fluke followed her in.
She ignored him, stripping out of her clothes and stepping into the refresher. She didn’t like ignoring him, but there were pressing matters at hand that needed to be addressed. This could wait.
“Sarad, please,” he half-shouted over the thrum of the sonic shower as it blasted the residue from her skin. “Can we talk about what just happened?”
She unbraided her hair, realizing that someone else must have done it for her before they put her in the bacta tank, given how neat it still was. The strands of it were woven in on one another tightly. It was almost difficult to undo.
“Did you braid my hair?” she called.
He paused. “What?”
“I asked if you–”
“No, I heard you,” Fluke cut in. She turned the sonic off. “Kresta, you almost died in some ancient Sith osik, and when you finally wake up a week later, you point a blaster at me, saying that I tried to kill you, and you’re asking me if I braided your hair?”
She poked her head around the door frame, hiding the rest of her body behind it. She tried not to enjoy the way Fluke’s cheeks flushed as he averted his gaze, walking to the small trunk of her belongings. He dug around until he found a robe, bringing it over to her.
Fluke sighed. “Of course, I braided your hair. I figured you wouldn’t want it in your face, even if– even though you weren’t conscious in the tank.”
“Thank you,” she said, adding quickly, “For the braid and the robe.”
Fluke nodded.
She wrapped the robe around herself and stepped into the room.
“And for putting up with my… everything,” she added, pressing a kiss to his cheek, which heated beneath the soft touch.
She slid her boots back on and continued to the door, but he caught up with her, grabbing her wrist just before she could open it.
“We’re not done talking about this,” he said, seriously. It wasn’t a question; it was an acknowledgment that he knew getting to the others was the priority but that this discussion was important.
“I know what the vision showed me,” she nodded. “But despite how… real it felt, I know you would never hurt me on purpose.”
The tension in his shoulders seemed to ease slightly. He nodded with a quiet scoff. “Alright, go save the galaxy, ner jetii.”
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To be continued…
⪡ Previous Day Next Day ⪢
Thanks for reading! - River
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