One Step at a Time

One Step at a Time - Part 2

Two sets of eyes stared back at the clone pilot, one pair an earthy brown, the other a honey gold. The two younglings sat in the pilot and co-pilot's seat, swinging their feet and watching Chuckles as he stood before them, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Their looks were expectant, waiting for him to tell them what the next step was.

As if I have any kriffing idea.

Chuckles hadn't told them how he'd known about this place, hovering in a random point in space within view of a massive pink nebula. He'd found this spot early on in the war by complete accident. His squadron, the 28th Combat Wing, had gotten bad intel and jumped right into a Separatist trap. They had been overwhelmed instantly and torn apart before they could process what was happening, ship after ship exploding in a fireball as radar blips and lives blinked out of existence. Crater, his captain, had screamed at them to jump out, and as Chuckles watched his commanding officer's ship rip apart, his scorched body floating away, he'd punched in a random set of coordinates into his Z-95's computer, fighting the bile rising in his stomach, and made the jump to hyperspace.

He had been lucky that he'd jumped somewhere empty rather than crashing into some planet's surface or being sucked into the middle of a black hole. In fact, it almost seemed fated that he found this spot, gazing at a dark pink nebula that almost matched his armor. He wasn't sure how long he'd sat in the cockpit of his fighter that time, hyperventilating at first and then shifting to angry sobbing. He'd scuffed the inside of his cockpit punching the paneling until his knuckles bruised and started to crack and bleed under his gloves. Finally, he'd just ripped his helmet off and screamed until his lungs had burned, tears streaming down his cheeks. When he'd worn himself out, he'd ground the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to clear the memories of his squad mates' screams and Crater's final words.

"Run, Chuckles. Get your ass out of here. Carry on the fight."

He'd leaned back in his seat with red eyes and a bad case of the hiccups.

"Why would I want to carry on after that?" he'd rasped to no one in particular, wiping at his cheeks and runny nose. When the silence had no answer, he'd continued. "What's even the point? We're just cannon fodder, meant to be expendable. Fighting an entire war for a side that hardly sees us as human." His general was stuffy and not necessarily cruel to the clones, but hardly one to treat them with the empathy and compassion Chuckles felt they deserved. They were soldiers and were expected to behave with decorum and unwavering bravery.

"What if I'm broken? What if I'm not brave enough?" Chuckles had asked the nebula again.

The stars had no answer for him, and he'd eventually limped back to base, finding solace in the bottom of a bottle at 79s until Howzer and a few others had carried him back to the barracks.

After that, he'd returned to the nebula after battles, talking with his brothers that were lost. In his mind, finding it by accident had been the galaxy giving him a place to talk with them, updating them on the war, asking their advice, or telling them any of the new jokes he'd come up with. The stars in the nebula had been the inspiration for the stars on his helmet, markers for each of those that had fallen. Now, he wished for nothing more than to sit in the pilot's seat and talk to his brothers again, but he knew they definitely wouldn't have answers this time.

None of us were trained to deal with this. Turning on those we fought alongside? Stealing shitty ships? Taking care of two kids? Yeah, none of that was in the training manuals.

He sighed, scratching at the back of his neck again as he looked back at the two younglings sitting in front of him. "Alright, first thing's first. You two hungry?"

Arni's stomach grumbled in reply, and he huffed a laugh. "I'll take that as a 'yes'. Let's see what this greasy freighter pilot has to eat. And then we inventory. See what we've got around this rust bucket. Also, gonna need to figure out how to scramble this ship's signature. Arni, think you can manage that?"