Earthlings

34

19 BBY, Anaxes

"DROIDS INCOMING!" The next thing Eli knew, a blitz of blasterfire came at the 91st, striking down a dozen clones a second. Explosions took down double that amount, and Eli was deflecting lasers left and right, occasionally pulling a droid towards his blade to dismantle it.

"Fall back! Let's go!" Captain Slender barked, taking down a few droids with his blaster rifle. Seconds later Patcher caught a clone in his arms before dragging him behind the frontlines. 

"Someone help me with the wounded!" Patcher shouted, dropping the clone behind a rock.

"I'm coming!" Oreo ran over to help. 

Windu extended a hand to force push half of the droid forces back as Ace lobbed droid poppers in their midst. "The enemy has the upper hand. Captain, order a retreat in order to preserve the men."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Slender replied before relaying the order to the others. Up above, the 501st and 125th were combating Trench's fleet, and even they were no match as fighters came crashing down on the droids and clones. One nearly fell on Eli, but he caught it just in time before throwing it at a platoon of droids. Unfortunately, in doing so he didn't notice a burning slab of metal until it was too late.

"AGH!" He gasped as the debris nearly cleaved his shoulder, leaving searing hot pain in its wake. Oreo seemed to notice, because he immediately ran towards him. 

The last thing Eli heard was Oreo screaming for Patcher before all senses went numb.

--

He woke up to find himself on a hospital bed, with a giant bacta patch over his shoulder like an ice pack. They could have as well used a bacta tank, but apparently that was only for patients who sustained serious burns all over the body that could've killed them. 

"You'll be all right, Commander," Patcher said optimistically, walking over. "You just need to rest for a full week and you'll be good to go."

"How... long was I out for?" Eli asked.

"A day," Patcher replied. "More than enough time for the bacta to settle onto your wound and do its thing."

"The problem is that Trench's clankers are too powerful," Slender chimed in, sitting down on an empty hospital bed. "It's like they can predict our every move before we make it, then they find ways to combat it."

"Well, Trench is smart," Eli replied with a shrug. R5 beeped beside him.

"Too smart," Slender muttered. "And he just won't die."

"He's survived too many battles," Oreo added. "And in every one, we think he's finally gone, but he never is. It's like the underworld just won't let him in."

"Or he has some way to cheat death," Slender said with a shrug.

"Good point," Oreo acknowledged. "You think we'll ever take this planet?"

Slender began to reply before his comm beeped. He got up. "Sorry, boys. But I'll have to take this message. Keep an eye on the kid for me."

Eli chuckled softly at the fact that after all these years, Slender was the only one in the whole battalion who would still call him 'kid', even after all the others started calling him 'Commander'. It brought back old memories back from when... well, back from when Ponds was still alive.

"What am I gonna do for a whole week here?" He wondered, shifting a bit.

"Oh, I don't know," Oreo replied with a shrug. "Read old literature from Patcher's datapad?"