Miles Away From Yesterday

Chapter 6 - Will They Ever Go

Author's Note: Kinda curious about how many people are even reading this fic? I'll probably keep posting anyway though. I'm writing this for me after all. ^-^

Writing Hunter's second person POV was SO much fun.

Also! Warning for seizures. 

~ Amina Gila

You are CT-9901.

You awaken in the medbay, the harsh bright lights above you momentarily blinding you, sending a stab of pain through your skull. The world is spinning around you – or at least it feels as though it is. Slowly, awareness seeps back in, and you sit up. Your head hurts. It's been hurting since you sustained the concussion a week ago, but it's worse now. Sharper. More agonizing. It is hard to even keep your eyes open, and the sterile chemicals in the room assault your sense of smell.

You want to lie back down and rest, but you know that is not a luxury you have. You cannot show such weaknesses in front of the Kaminoans.

You stand, even though the movement makes the room spin wildly and sends a violent wave of nausea washing through you. Something is wrong. You know that. You feel ­wrong. Different. You feel cold, but it is not a physical cold. It is something else entirely. You feel... empty in a way that you cannot explain.

Admiral Tarkin enters the room, and you straighten, falling into parade rest, even as your head swims and you think you might fall. But you cannot fall. You cannot give him – anyone – a reason to think you are defective, at least any more than you already are.

"Sergeant," he says, "I have a mission for you."

The last thing you want right now is a mission, but you cannot protest. You have never been able to. Instead, you nod and wait for your orders.

Good soldiers follow orders.

"Gear up," comes the order, "And bring your squad here, by any means necessary. They will resist, but you cannot let them escape."

They won't, you want to say, because they are your brothers, and they follow your orders – they always have – but then you remember how you and Echo have been arguing, how Tech talked you down from carrying out your orders on Onderon, and you cannot argue. "Yes, sir," you answer because orders are orders. Your brothers have put themselves at risk with their disobedience and their defiance, and you cannot let that continue. You know the punishment for treason, and death is not something you will let your squad face. If they will not follow orders, then you will make them follow orders.

They do not understand what you go through to keep them safe, and you will not tell them either. This is your burden, and your burden alone. You will stop them. You will keep them from making a mistake that will land them the death penalty, no matter what it takes. You will accept their anger, and yes, their hate, if it means you will keep them alive. It is your burden, as their sergeant, as their brother.

You leave the room as instructed to gear up in the armor provided to you. It is dark, impersonal, and it feels wrong to you, but orders are orders. You cannot resist them because good soldiers follow orders, and disobedience means defectiveness. It means death.

Your head throbs, painfully, and you try to hide the way your hands are trembling from the stimuli bombarding you. It's too much – too much toomuchtoomuch –

But with each beat of your heart, the refrain of good soldiers follow orders echoes in your mind. You cannot stop fighting. You do not even know what that means. You were trained to be the best of the best, and you cannot stop fighting unless you die. That is the only escape. It is the only escape there has ever been.