118 Chapter 107

Spoon had been prepared for death, both for himself and for his brothers.

They were soldiers, they had been bred for war and in war people died.

But as he stood watching the last of his wounded brothers being loaded into the waiting LAAT/is he felt numb.

Geonosis had been bad, with tens of thousands of his clone brothers dying in its unforgiving deserts, but percentage wise Tula had been worse. A lot worse.

Of the two hundred and seventy-three clone troopers, two jedi, four ARF troopers and one ARC lieutenant who had landed on the planet barely thirty of them were still alive.

Only ten clone troopers were still combat ready, seven men from the 50th and three of the ARF troopers including their sergeant, with eighteen wounded clones in critical condition and whose chances for survival were very much in doubt.

Chalky and another of the 50th's medics who had managed to survive the battle where shouting commands at the newly arrived clones as they organised treatment for the wounded.

Spoon managed to supress a chuckle that probably would have sent pain shooting through his broken ribs as he watched the two medics, who despite being wounded themselves, refuse to leave the care of their dying brothers to anyone else.

They had even yelled at that jedi who had arrived with their reinforcements when she had tried to take over supervising the wounded but after a brief moment of hostility between Chalky and the captain of the new clones the two medics had grudgingly accepted her help, even if they forced her to follow their orders.

Just as Spoon had begun to think about the jedi general he heard someone hesitantly clear their throat behind him and slowly spun to face a concerned looking jedi.

Spoon idly wondered if he had managed to summon the space wizard just by thinking about her but quickly dismissed that thought, if any force user had that ability, it would be Renn but Spoon was pretty sure his friend just liked hiding in the shadows so he could pop out and surprise people.

"Uhm… are you o-okay?" Spoon was snapped out of his thoughts once again by the jedi and took a brief moment to consider whether or not that was a bad sign.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He muttered as he looked the general over.

She was fairly young to be a general maybe nineteen or twenty years old, not that Spoon was in any position to judge people based on age seeing as he was only ten years old, and he supposed she could be considered attractive, but Spoon didn't think that would have any effect on her military career.

Spoon hadn't met many girls before, in fact apart from aunty Arla, and Renn's girlfriends this jedi general was probably the only girl he'd ever talked to, and from his limited experience they were a lot scarier than his brothers.

The general, Trava he think he had heard one of her troopers call her, was now giving him a weird look as she shifted uncomfortably, and Spoon wondered if she was annoyed that he hadn't called her ma'am when he addressed her.

She was a senior officer and as a lowly lieutenant Spoon was supposed to show her respect when he spoke to her, but he wasn't going to.

The small amount of respect he had for jedi at the start of the war had already been shattered by their incompetence, although he guessed he should give general Trava some credit seeing as she had saved all their lives.

"Ummm… a-are you sure?" The general muttered looking like she wanted to disagree with Spoon but wasn't comfortable enough to openly do so.

"I-I can sense how much pain you're in… and… you know… see…" She said slowly and gestured towards the hole that had been burnt through Spoon's shoulder by a blaster bolt.

"Here… let me help you…" the jedi said gently and tried to get Spoon to sit down on a nearby rock.

Spoon was nearly a foot taller than the general and so to treat his shoulder comfortably she needed him to lower himself down.

He considered not moving, even wounded he could probably physically overpower most jedi, but found himself letting the woman lead him over to the rock and sit him down.

She then placed a hand over his wounded shoulder and closed her eyes in concentration. Spoon narrowed his eyes in confusion for a moment, he had been expecting her to produce a med pack or something but instead he could feel his flesh under her hand begin to heal by itself.

"Oh yeah, space magic," Spoon said absently as he remembered that all jedi had weird force powers that they relied on for most things.

The general stared at him in confusion for a moment and cocked her head slightly to one side.

"… Do you mean the force?" She asked and Spoon shrugged, before cursing under his breath as the movement sent a stab of fiery pain through his injured shoulder.

"Yeah, I've got a few mates who can do all that fancy magic stuff. It's cool I guess but it's a bit too flashy," he said surprising himself by how willing he was to talk to the woman in front of him and he was even more surprised when the jedi smiled up at him.

"You know most people are quite impressed by those… magic things" The jedi said almost playfully and Spoon tried to supress a smile.

He privately admitted that the force did make some things easier, but he wasn't that impressed by it.

As far as he was concerned if you were skilled enough with a blaster even if your enemy had spooky scary space magic powers you'd come out on top.

But being able to heal someone with your mind was definitely a handy ability, not that many jedi were very skilled in it as far as Spoon knew.

"Eh, people are weird," he said with a shrug and the general smiled again.

"Yeah…" She said giving Spoon a look that seemed to say that she thought that he was included in that, "I'm Lena by the way, I mean general Trava."

Spoon saw the way that her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she gave her military rank and smiled behind his helmet.

"I'm Alpha-42… but most people call me Spoon," he said and smile again at the general.

-

Spanners stood silently, his helmet off and in his hands, as he stared at the line of bodies.

His fallen brothers were lying in a neat line with their helmets on, where they still had them, and staring blankly at the sky.

It had been almost a day since general Trava had come to their rescue. They had spent that time recovering their wounded and wiping out the remains of the separatist army.

The general had offered to let the surviving clones stay on her ship while her men finished the droid army, but when Lieutenant Spoon had denied the offer the ten clones who were only lightly wounded decided to stay behind with him.

"I can't believe they're gone," Magnet muttered quietly from beside him and Spanners just nodded.

Glib was dead and so was sergeant Blade, there bodies lying still beside one of the ARF troopers called talker.

Error was still alive, for now at least. His leg had been blown off bellow the knee and Chalky had looked grimly away when Spanners had asked what his chances were.

A shadow fell across them, and Spanners looked up to see the belly of a massive republic venator dropping into low orbit.

"Perfect timing," he said dryly as he watched a group of gunships take off from the venators hangar and begin flying towards them.

The lieutenant had tried to keep it quiet, but not very hard, and Spanners and the others knew that general Trava hadn't been ordered to come to their aid. In fact, she had disobeyed orders to save them.

If she hadn't Spanners guessed they would have been waiting for this venator to come save them, which would have meant that he and the other survivors wouldn't be alive right now.

So, he wasn't feeling overly pleased to see the huge symbol of republic military might hanging above him.

Glib probably would have had something funny to say to lighten the mood but neither Spanners nor Magnet felt in the mood for jokes.

"Yeah, could of done with them earlier…" Chalky muttered darkly as he came to stand with his surviving squad mates to watch the LAAT/is come in for a landing.

Spanners pulled his helmet back on as the lead gunship landed and watched as an irritated looking jedi general stormed out, followed by an entourage of clone troopers who looked like they were trying to hang back and give the jedi some space.

The general ignored the lines of dead troopers, giving them only a single scornful glance that made Spanners blood boil.

He marched straight towards general Trava who was just walking back up towards the top of the ravine after the lieutenant and captain Flowers had called her over to discuss some tactical intel they had found.

"YOU!" The jedi snapped as he neared general Trava and Spanners saw the woman flinch back in surprise from the other jedi's aggressiveness.

"What are you doing here! You weren't ordered to this planet!" the jedi continued shouting.

General Trava took a step back in shock and opened and closed her mouth a few times trying to think of a response on the spot.

"Umm… our long-range communications were down so we couldn't call command for orders… and we heard the distress call… so we-" she stammered but was cut off when the new jedi started screaming again this time right in her face.

"NONSENSE! Are you suggesting that republic equipment could fail? Or are you merely too incompetent to keep your ship running properly? You obviously weren't deemed competent enough to command a proper warship like my own."

Spanners didn't no what he was supposed to do when two senior officers got in a fight. The two generals were so far above him in the chain of command that he wouldn't even appear on the same organisational chart as they did.

He was just wondering if he should at least do something to help general Trava, seeing as she had rescued them, when someone made the decision for him.

"OI! Who do you think your talking to!" Lieutenant Spoon growled as he seemed to appear from thin air to stand between the two generals.

Both jedi seemed momentarily stunned that a clone would dare to interrupt them, although Spanners thought that it was maybe for different reasons, and he joined them in being stunned when the lieutenant shoved the new jedi general in the chest, sending the man stumbling backwards.

"You want to talk about incompetence! Were where you yesterday then, or hell even a week ago when we first requested reinforcements?" The lieutenant snarled as he advanced on the general.

Spanners saw the general's clone escorts shifting uncomfortably and before he knew it he and the rest of the survivors of the 50th were advancing towards the altercation to support the ARC trooper.

He saw the three remaining ARF troopers, as well as captain Flowers and several of his trooper joining them, not that Spoon needed the help.

ARC troopers, especially the Alpha class, had a fearsome reputation that was well earned and all it took was a single glace from the lieutenant for the clone escort to suddenly become incredibly interested and distracted by their white armoured boots.

The jedi stared at the ARC Lieutenant for a moment, his face so red Spanners thought he might bust a vein.

"How dare you, clone," the jedi said making the term seem like an insult, "your negligence is responsible for the deaths of two jedi and the loss of an entire republic army battalion."

The lieutenant went still, and Spanners was just about to lunge forward to grab him before he got himself court marshalled for breaking a superior officers jaw when someone else got there first.

"That's enough!" General Trava shouted as she regained her confidence and stepped around the ARC trooper, and Spanners noticed that the lieutenant allowed himself to be guided back a few steps by the small woman.

"It doesn't matter what you think, general. If the council decides my being here is a problem that will be their decision.

Now, I'm going to finish evacuating my men from the planets surface before departing orbit, and I'll ask you to stop antagonising my men until then," General Trava said firmly before turning and giving the lieutenant a pointed look and walking away.

The ARC lieutenant stayed staring silently at the angry looking general and for a moment Spanners was worried that he would still throw a punch but after a moment he turned and followed general Trava.

Thirty minutes later they were onboard an LAAT/i headed towards general Trava's ship and to a war that was just beginning.