🐺 ~PROJECT SAC-1~ ⚔️

Chapter 21 - The Price We Pay 💔

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Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression.

The severity of these emotions is overwhelming for Talla to experience on her own after being deployed and freed from the clutches of Nala Se, but now she is faced with feeling responsible for leading her squadron on the path to acceptance of 99's sacrifice, when she cannot even accept what has happened to her. 

Crosshair is taking out his anger on the three regs he holds responsible.

Wrecker is weighed down by depression.

Tech is paralyzed with bargaining in the form of reading the mission report and coming up with various scenarios in which, perhaps, things could have been done differently.

As the hours turn into days, Agent Talla receives very good advice from Captain Rex, gleans helpful tips on the holonet, and discovers that their next mission is not time sensitive. Wrecker, Tech, and Crosshair receive her carefully tailored aids into their healing process with varying degrees of unsettlement, but in time have grown to feel reluctantly thankful.

But their leader, Sergeant Hunter, continues to be numb with denial and poses a danger to himself in the form of neglecting his mental and physical health. He has rejected any form of aid from Agent Talla, and his position of being the strong one for the squadron being jeopardized by his own doing, only making his numb turn to ire...

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(DAY 18 w/ THE BAD BATCH)

The Bad Batch were supposed to head back to Coruscant right after things wrapped up here on Kamino, but Wrecker didn't want his new girlfriend to see him this way. So sad. So broken.

Those weren't his words exactly, but Talla got that vibe when Wrecker dodged Skylar's comm this morning at breakfast, two days after he told her they'd be back after the Battle for Kamino. It was remarkable his girlfriend had enough restraint to wait this long before calling, because Skylar knew her boyfriend's squadron was on the front lines and could have very well died if there was a second attack after the first.

On the other hand, if Wrecker did happen to be alive, Skylar didn't want to appear clingy. It was not a good two days for Skylar, to say the least.

When she explained this reasoning after getting a hold of Talla soon after that first call, and Wrecker gave his friend permission to explain what happened because he didn't want her to worry, the Agent couldn't quite understand it. From Talla's point of view, if someone she cared about was scheduled to arrive at a certain time, but they didn't, and they didn't establish contact to explain why they were twelve hours, twenty-four hours, FORTY-EIGHT HOURS LATE, and she knew that they were in the midst of a potential battleground... a comm would be warranted for her peace of mind much sooner than what Skylar settled on.

Either way, Wrecker's girlfriend was really relieved she hadn't become a widow... or whatever the technical term was for a woman losing her boyfriend of less than three days. Was there even a technical term? Probably not.

Anyway, you get the idea!

Talla kept her word and completed most of Tech's tedious work around the ship, she tried to make sure the boys ate by taking them to the mess hall, and generally was always ready to be there for her friends when they needed it.