letitrainathousandflames:

Yes, but have you seen his casualties?

– Fives, Umbara Arc

“You’ve been promoted, sergeant. You’re this battalion’s commander now, and I’ll give you a briefing on the development of our situation.”

Former sergeant Drop has many pressing questions, but the first to leave his lips unprompted is:

“W-what happened with commander Kite, General?”

General Pong Krell turns his yellow eyes down to the clone standing in front of him, taking a menacing step closer and leaning down to be at his eye level.

“Follow me.”

A bit farther ahead from their camp, the expectation that made Drop’s stomach churn is confirmed: their former commander lies crumpled down on the dirt, legs split from his torso with a clean, cauterized cut of what could only have been a lightsaber.

Krell flips the clone’s upper body on his back with a kick, showing Kite’s face caked in dirt and his eyes wide open and glassy. The general let a slow smile spread over his face as he turned to the clone that did his best to seem collected.

“He refused to comply to my orders, so I terminated him. I suppose you do not wish to share his fate.”

Drop swallows down as his knees feel surprisingly weak for a man so used to facing death more often than not. It wasn’t entirely unexpected though – most men from Krell’s battalion feared their own general more than an entire platoon of commando droids.

“I don’t, sir. Tell me your orders, and I’ll carry them out.”

Even if it’s the last thing I do.

“Good. I want you to gather that platoon of younger clones and have them advance to the capital undetected while the men provide them with a distraction to the enemy.”

Stealth mission. Sounds easy enough.

“So they might take those blaster turrets off from the inside? Sir, “ he hesitated, only hoping he wasn’t one insubordination away from being cut in half as well “for that I would recommend sending one of our more experienced men, they’ll know how to assess the situation better then those shinies. I know a couple of our men that are specialized in—“

“That is unnecessary, clone. We can afford to lose a few younger ones and it’s less risky than sending in our very best. You will arm them with as many thermal detonators as you can, and they’ll explode the main buildings from the inside.”

Drop tries to follow the idea. No way Krell is suggesting that…?

“As in, they should plant the explosives and return to cover, sir?”

And that… that is when Krell kriffing grins.

“No. They must detonate them manually so there are no failures, no risk of the explosives being disarmed by the enemy.”

Drop has never felt outrage so raw in his guts. And he has to fight to keep it from showing in his face, or in his shaking voice:

“Sir, with all -all – due respect, am certain that there are other solutions to this assault, solutions that will decrease the body count of what you are proposing right now.”

Krell is still smiling, raising his eyebrows in mock surprise at Drop’s words:

“Oh, I’m sure there are. But I don’t care.” And his voice becomes soft, like he is just asking him a small favor “don’t overthink it, now. After all, you’re all just clones, meat droids with human faces. It doesn’t matter. None of you do.”

Drop can feel the sweat beading on his forehead, trailing down over his eyebrows. The sheer anger in his heart that races, pulse pounding in his eardrums. He looked at his former commander’s face, dirt on his cheeks and a terrified look still lingering in his eyes. He had been trained to fight and die for the republic, and he would gladly do so, but he had never been prepared for sending nine-year old shinies to be blown to bits to aid an unnecessary, purposely cruel plan of attack.

Drop’s hand slowly goes up to his holster, casually resting over his blaster. Krell gives him a feral grin.

“Yes, he thought about that too. He had the same raw, untamed anger you’re oozing out of your whole being now. You are really just like droids. Always the same thing. It’s even…boring.” he crosses two of his four arms over his chest, stil grinning “see, now you have two choices: try to make a grab for that blaster and end up like your former commander… or you can obey my orders and send those men to do their job.”

Drop’s jaw is tensed so tight he can feel his teeth grinding in his skull, his breath shallow, his legs shaky. He hesitates, once, twice, and then bites his lip so hard it bleeds, his hand slowly letting go off his blaster.

“Good.” Krell praises with velvet in his voice as Drop salutes and turns his back on the General “now head back to the camp, issue my orders. And don’t look so upset, now. Isn’t this all you clones want, to die gloriously in battle? Isn’t this your heritage, your culture?”

Drop doesn’t turn back to face Krell. He can’t stand to. Their culture is about protecting their family. Is about fighting and dying so the younger can thrive.

“Y-yessir. Excuse me, sir.”

Tonight, Drop will fill up a backpack with as many detonators as he can manage to, and he will sneak into the capital alone. A platoon of shinies will never understand why one of their best men sacrificed his life to destroy the enemy’s stronghold. Krell will laugh about the whole deal, and wait for a new opportunity to hurt the men in his charge.

Why would you destroy my heart in this way?