273This turned out to be an extremely appropriate chapter for Mother's Day. I swear it wasn't planned that way.
Breathe
Aero
It happens at home.
He's in class, getting ready to start a training exercise with his brothers when the screaming starts. He and his brothers go down, their instructor too, all of them clutching at their heads.
Execute Order 66.
He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him, his breath leaving him in a rush. He can't breathe. He doesn't understand, this - this wasn't in their training. And he knows that he isn't anywhere near finished with his training, but this wasn't even hinted at and it goes against everything that he's been taught.
Good soldiers follow orders.
The first thing any clone ever learns is that they were made for the Jedi.
The Jedi are the reason they are alive, the reason that they draw breath.
So why is this thing in his head telling him to kill that reason?
Good soldiers follow orders.
No, no, no, this can't be right. This isn't right. He can't do this. He can't. He can't, he can't he can't, he won't.
GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.
He can't breathe.
He's at home. He's at home and for all that he understands logically that it's impossible given the state of the galaxy, home is supposed to be safe. Home is supposed to be safety and protection and family.
Not this. Never this.
GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.
"Aero, get up," Matchstick says, grabbing his arm and hauling him upright, "We need to move."
He feels himself nodding before he even realizes what he's doing and starts following the other cadets back to their barracks.
But why?
Why?
They can't do anything here. They're home, not on the front lines. There are no Jedi -
He stops.
That's wrong.
There is. There's always one Jedi on Kamino. He's seen her, he knows her, he's talked to her. He's sat with her while she meditated and listened as she taught his brothers about the shades of gray in galaxy. She's the one who found him curled in a corner after his first training exercise and talked him down from a panic attack.
She's the one who reminds him how to breathe.
GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.
General, he thinks, gripping the thought with both hands and shoves it straight back at the voice.
It shrieks at him. It claws and pulls and tears, but he's a clone trooper and he was taught never to take anything lying down so he shoves right back.
GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.
Mine, he screams back at it, shoving it away, Ours! You can't have her!
He pushes and pulls and tugs and beats the voice back until it's just a faint echo in the back of his head. He blinks and ignores the pounding at his temples. He may be a cadet, but he's still a clone trained for war. There's a time and a place for everything and there are more important things to worry about than a little headache.
He glances around at his brothers and sees nothing out of the ordinary.
Except their eyes.
Their eyes aren't right.
They're too cold, too blank, too distant.
He wonders if they're screaming back inside their heads too or if they're following orders.
He drifts to the back of the group, ducking around a corner as soon as he deems it safe and runs. It's about noon and General always meditates in the empty training room near the west side hanger bay before going to lunch.
He runs faster than he ever has in his six years of life. His lungs burn and his chest is heaving and it hurts to breathe but he has to. He has to.
He hears it before he sees it - the hum of a lightsaber, the sound of blaster fire.
And then General Ti is rounding the corner, armed and ready, lightsaber just barely missing his cheek. The heat still sears his skin and his breath catches in his throat at the sight of the wild look in his General's eyes.
It's wrong.
General Ti is always calm, always collected. Always, always, always. But she isn't right now and the look of betrayal and heartbreak on her face makes his lungs seize.
There are footsteps pounding down the hall and General Ti jerks to look over her shoulder. He's an unarmed cadet, not even fully grown and hardly a threat in this situation. And he has never been more grateful because that means that his General all but dismisses him to focus on his brothers.
It means that she's too slow to stop him when he darts in and grabs the hand holding her lightsaber and forcing the blade across his right forearm - close enough to sear and burn and damage, but not enough to cause irreversible harm. General Ti whips around to stare at him with wide eyes as he forces the blade through his right shoulder.
It burns.
It hurts more than anything he's ever experienced before in his life, but he shuts away the pain, shoves it aside in a neat little box and locks it away. Pain is for later. Right now the mission comes first.
His right arm is his dominate arm, as is the case with most clones. The damage, while not serious, will prevent him from fighting. However, he knows lightsabers and what they can do and knows that the wounds he's just given himself can be recovered from. But they look bad.
And that's the entire point.
His thumb flicks over the switch on the lightsaber, shutting it down, and while his General is still shocked, he shoves her into the training room and shuts the door. He collapses against the wall just as his older brothers round the corner.
"What are you doing out here, kid?" the lead asks, and Aero can feel his gaze lingering on the lightsaber burns in his arm.
"Sorry, sir," he gasps out, gritting his teeth as he shifts it arm into a more comfortable position, "She got past me."
He hears a few of them sigh and a mutter about upstart rookies, but the lead shakes his head and places a gentle hand on his uninjured shoulder.
"That's alright, kid," he says, "You leave the rest of it to us, yeah? You head over to medical and get that looked at."
Aero manages a nod, plastering a disappointed look on his face as he gestures down the hall he'd come from. "She ran that way, sir."
His older brother nods and feels a moment of guilt that he quickly squashes.
Not the time, he reminds himself.
A few minutes later, when the sound of footsteps has faded, he opens the door. General Ti is standing on the other side, lightsaber hilt in hand, watching him with unreadable eyes.
"Aero," she says after a moment and her voice his calm, but there's a strange undercurrent to it that's never been there before, "What is going on?"
He flinches and haltingly explains what happened, what is happening. His General doesn't make a sound, her expression blank.
"And why," she asks when he's finished, "are you not effected?"
"I am," he admits without hesitation, unable to keep his shame out of his voice at that simple fact, "But you're my General."
General Ti blinks, looking more bemused than anything, before her lips quirk up ever so slightly. "I suppose I am."
He nods firmly and grabs her free hand. "We need to get you out of here."
His General nods and allows him to lead her even though she knows these halls just as well as he does. He's glad of it because it means that he can feel the warmth beneath her skin, proof that she's alive despite the distant shrieking in his head.
They stick to the shadows, moving silently until they reach the hanger, General Ti heading straight for a standard fighter, ignoring hers entirely. As she goes to let go of his hand, he finds his tightening automatically.
He can't help it.
She's his General. She's everything. And she's leaving.
His eyes burn and his throat is tight and the pain in his chest makes his wounds seem insignificant.
"Aero," she says calmly, gently.
"Sorry," he chokes out even as he squeezes her hand tighter, "Sorry. Sorry, General. I'm - "
General Ti tugs him close, free hand curling around the back of his neck. "Hush," she says softly, "Breathe."
He sucks in a sharp breath, releasing it slowly.
"Again," his General instructs.
He does. In, hold, and then out.
Slowly, he feels the panic ebb even as the heartbreak remains.
"Sorry, Mom," he murmurs without thinking and then freezes.
His head jerks up, panic rushing back as he looks at his General's shocked expression. She wasn't supposed to find out. She wasn't ever supposed to know. She's a Jedi and that's not how they work, but it was different for clones. Clones were brothers, family. Jango Fett was their 'dad' in a way, but none of them had a mother - because test tubes didn't count no matter how many jokes they all made. But General Ti was kind and patient and while they were all pretty sure that she was not at all what a mother was supposed to be, that didn't stop them from whispering about it, from referring to her as such in the privacy of their own minds.
"Aero, breathe."
He doesn't. He can't.
He told her.
She knows.
She'll say no because she's a Jedi and he's just a clone and -
General Ti pulls him close, wraps her arms around him as best she can with his death grip on one of her hands.
"Breathe, youngling," she says against his ear, "It's alright."
Almost against his will, he sinks into her hold. She's warm and safe and his General-Mother.
"Sorry," he mumbles into her robe.
She chuckles. "It's alright, Aero. I'm not upset. You have nothing to apologize for."
"Still sorry."
She pulls away then and Aero lets her because as much as he might want to cling, it's not safe for her to linger here.
Home isn't safe.
Not anymore.
"Come on, Aero," General Ti says, opening the fighter's cockpit.
Aero blinks, noticing for the first time that the fighter is a double. "But - General! I - I can't!" he splutters, gesturing helplessly at his head. He can't; it's not safe for her to be around him right now.
His General-Mother somehow manages to look both serene and highly unimpressed. "Surely you didn't think I would leave you here alone after this, did you?"
"But - "
"In," she says, nodding pointedly at the seat behind her, her voice leaving no room for arguments.
He gulps, part of him screaming to disobey, to keep her safe, to run, to refuse, but the other, much larger part very much wants to listen.
"Yes, sir," he says, strapping himself in.
"Close your eyes," his General-Mother instructs as she starts the ship, "Focus inward, find your center."
Aero does as he's told, starting the meditation exercise that she has led him and his brothers through countless times.
"Forget the outside world," she says, calm and steady in the center of the storm, "Forget the things that hold you down. Let them go."
Aero feels himself sinking, deeper and deeper still. The voice from before is still echoing around him, tugging, enticing. He feels it pulling him in.
"Let it wash over you, Aero. It cannot control you if you do not let it."
That's right.
This is his body. His mind. His world. He's the one in control here, not the voice. He is the one in charge. He won't let the voice win - not when his reason for disobeying it is sitting right in front of him.
His General.
His Mother.
He's in control.
And no one can take that from him.
"Breathe."
He does.
Shaak Ti is badass clone mama. Aero will drop kick anyone who disagrees through a window.
Until next time,
~Elri