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Star Wars: Cold Vengeance

Chapter 3

When there were so many with the same face, all in the same armor in an army that wanted them all to act the same, it was hard to remember those who were no longer there. The dead were just another number, another tick on some datapad that would used for archiving records for future historians and propaganda. Hoth would be no different, there would be casualties, heavy ones, just like any assault of a heavily fortified position.

The Rebels knew the Empire was coming and were prepared. The orbital images showed that there was a complex lattice of defenses meant to repel anything in the air and ground. It was ultimately futile, it would fall as all other defenses did when faced with the military might of the Empire, but it would exact its toll, just like how every other attack against fortified positions had taken their toll in the past.

While historians would forget any names of the soldiers who died, only caring about how many had died, how many were captured, always numbers, never names unless they were part of the command. The soldier's didn't matter, they were pawns and like any game, pawns were sacrificed. No one ever thought about what the pawns thought though, what if the pawn didn't want to fight. What if the pawn had an actual life, friends and even those he would consider a family? No, history remembered numbers for a reason. Giving names would put a face on war and no one wanted that or no one would fight wars anymore. The Empire thrived on conflict, it's what kept it in power, a power that was fueled by the sacrifice of its brave and loyal soldiers, those of the 501st.

Corporal Talon or officially known by his Imperial overlords, D4-328, Scorch company, 501st. Talon as he was called due to an officer's remark on his talon shaped scar on his cheek, was one the company medics. He had one duty in the field, to save the lives of his brothers and he took his job seriously. In battle, he didn't carry a weapon, his bandolier wasn't filled with energy charges and his belt wasn't lined with thermal detonators. The medic carried bacta, bandages, coagulants and other medical supplies in his pouches, he carried as much as he could because he knew that by the end of the day, he would have used all of it.

War was terrible, it cut down men by the dozens as heavy repeating blaster fire carves down ranks of soldiers who fought forward ferociously. Talon moved from one fallen figure to the next, checking for vitals and hooking up a slow drip bacta to those who were still alive. He begrudgingly left those too far gone behind, occasionally giving them pain meds, but no more than that to smooth along their last moments. He didn't have the supplies or the ability to save everyone, years of experience had taught him that.

Talon remembered his first failure, one of many, hundreds, maybe even thousands as he ran across the blasted hill side of Yavin 4. It had been on Mygeeto during the last days of the Clone Wars. He was was of a rare breed, a veteran of both the Galactic Civil War and the Clone Wars. His numbers were few, very few as most had died on the field or had been too wounded to continue the good fight. He knew that every one of them would still fight if they could, the army was their life, their sole existence it was the only reason why they existed.

Mygeeto wasn't like Yavin 4. Yavin 4 was humid, hot and there was too much organic matter for the medic. The dirt was soft and held the potential for infection, his worst enemy that killed behind his back when he had thought he had saved his brothers. It pained him to see the dead piled up in front of the infirmary, not from blasters, but from some new bacta resistant organism. Each body mocked him.

Mygeeto was cold and metal. The battlefield didn't take place on a hillside full of trees, it was on platforms of durasteel that was so far above the ground, there appeared to be no ground. It was better there in Talon's opinion, less infection and the ground was flat, it didn't give way under his boot like here on Yavin. He could see where he was going and the enemy was mindless droids, not these people, aliens who hid from view. Why couldn't they just stand up and march forward to be shot down like during the Clone Wars, the war was simpler then.

On Mygeeto, Talon wasn't the old hearty man that he was now. He didn't have a pain in his back that caused him to run with a gait, there was no slurry of meds that he needed to take every day or threat from some faceless figure to discharge him because he was biologically sixty-three years old. He was an old man now who had somehow managed to stay in the good fight, saving lives where he belonged. Back then, he was young, bright and naive. All clones were like that back then when they came out of the simulators, all full of piss and plasma, ready to fight. How much they didn't know.

Talon remembered stepping off of that transport in his shiny new armor, Republic red and Clone white of the Galactic Marines. He carried a weapon then, a slugthrower fashioned to look like the DC-15 blaster rifle. Back then, the Grand Army of the Republic had been more lenient towards individuality, even encouraging under the command of the traitorous Jedi who at the time were kind and caring, only if they had known the truth earlier.

The air of the planet was cold and dry, it bit at him even though his insulated armor and clothes underneath. He shook it off easily, he was excited for some action, to get onto the battlefield. Mygeeto one of the longest ongoing battles of the Clone Wars. It had started two years prior at the start of the outer rim sieges and was still going strong as the Separatists did what they could to hold onto one of the InterGalactic Banking Clan's major holdings. It was a source of funds for their war effort, even under siege, it was producing a profit.

Such a long battle created a high demand for replacements to fill the gaps in the line as soldiers fell or were pulled back for some much needed R&R. It was no real surprise to Talon or the others which he had come with that they were to be put right on the front lines with Ki-Adi-Mundi, the Jedi General who hadn't left the planet in months. At the time, he was a legend among the men despite his strict and often overbearing standards. He was often at odds with his commander, but the men held a respect for him. He was there with them, leading from the front. Clone respected that.

Talon had landed in the relative safety of the staging platforms near the rear where the Separatists rarely attacked. It was calm there. Clones sat around mess halls and chatted and enjoyed the rare hot food which was many times better than the cold battle rations that was created to only supply nutrition to keep a person fighting while sacrificing taste and much of its edibility.

Talon was organized into a makeshift battalion with no real designation since the long battle had dissolved much of the order of battle. Men simply went where they were needed most and that was at the front. Always the front.

Brand new TX-130 Saber Class Repulsor Tanks and AT-RTs were also added. Their paint might as well still have been drying. The Republic had invested too much into this planet to send it anything but the newest and latest technology.

The unit wasn't even put into a column, a captain, wearing a bright red command pauldron took the front and marched them forward. Once the staging point was lost, the sound of the battle could be heard. The distant booms of artillery was constant and non stop, blaster fire became more prominent as they got closer and fighters were always over head going and returning from attacks runs. There was also a long line of walking wounded. So many transports were being used across the field that anyone who could, had to walk back to get medical attention. They limped and used each other or battle debris as crutches. The walking wounded weren't that bad and the sight only fanned the flames in the new clone's hearts, feeding their desire to fight just as they were bred to do.

The pair tri-fighters came screaming out of the fog that hovered above the battalion that slowly marched across the ruined remains of the city. The streets were barren and open, they were vulnerable to the attack.

Green arcs carved through the air into the ranks of clones. Many fell without even seeing what killed them, they hadn't even experience war and yet it had killed them. War was unbiased in who it killed, it cared not for experience of youth, it killed whomever it pleased.

One of the repulsor tanks fired a salvo of torpedoes upward. The unguided missiles were easily dodged as the ball shaped fighters with three fins and two glowering red sensors on its front spun to the side, firing into the ranks of men who screamed and ran for cover. They fired wildly, not even aiming, the ground was saturated with targets.

Someone fell off of their AT-RT, a smoking hole in their chest and the walked fell on top of his body. Talon ran past the crushed figure, looking for a place to hide. His training hadn't kicked in yet. The simulations were nothing like this. People didn't melt in the simulations or cry and scream for the mothers they never had in the simulations. Nothing could have prepared him for this.

Then it was over. Just like that. The droid fighters were gone, having only come for a single attack run and left before Republic fighters could chase them off. It was the coward's way of fighting, but droids didn't have any such notion, they were made to kill just as the clone had been bred to kill. The only difference was that clone could fear, they hid and ran, droids did not.

They say that clones are superior to droids on the battlefield. Droids were incapable of adapting to the rapidly changing field and often suffered when a new variable was introduced. Clones on the other hand were self guiding and could achieve their objectives through any number of ways. They were supposed to be better and yet the mess that laid at the feet of Talon said otherwise.

Talon stepped out from the cover he had hid behind, a smoldering wreckage of a droid battle tank that had taken a series of missile hits. He gazed out and saw the dead. They were numerous, littering the ground. There was also the wounded who writhed on the ground, begging for help. Talon could hear them on the comms, they filled the air, all asking for him.

That was when his training kicked in. He ran to the first and closest figure he could see. The clone reached up to him with broken hands. He had used his hands and arms to shield himself from the droid blasters as they exploded on the ground in front of him. His armor had been melted, his fingers stuck together, fused through the heat of the plasma. Other than that, he was fine.

Talon quickly pulled out a small knife. He needed to cut away the glove and get a look at the wound. He carefully cut away as much of the clone's glove as he could. Some of it was fused with the skin below so he couldn't remove all of it. What he did remove revealed the badly burnt tissue. The clone cried out when the cold air touched the tender skin. He gripped his rifle tightly and gritted his teeth, but didn't faint. He was a clone, it may hurt, but it was bearable.

A quick application of bacta and a stim along with a wrapping of bandage and the clone was good to go.

"Thanks, doc." The clone nodded and slowly got to his feet. "I think I can go on."

Talon shook his head. "Not like that, trooper." He pointed at how his hand was now just a ball of bandages. "Can't shoot anything like that."

The clone looked down at his hand. Even with his faceless mask on, Talon could see the disappointment on his face. The clone shuffled away.

It was Talon's first success, his first true test of his ability even if it was a simple one. This would also be the location of his first failure as well.

The clone was dying. Talon could tell before he got within ten meters. His legs were gone, completely blown away along with part of his torso. All of it was cauterized and there was very little blood, but he was in shock.

Talon quickly went to work. He believed that he could save the clone. There was no risk of dying from blood loss and back on Kamino, he had been shown much worse wounds that had been survivable.

Talon began by injecting bacta right into the wounds. The clone didn't move as the needle was jabbed into his stumps and his side. It would do its work to help heal any minor internal injuries that couldn't be seen, but it wouldn't be able to stop anything serious, no without some external attention.

Next was the vitals monitor. The small device was attached to the clone's chest where it would send signals on the trooper's vitals directly to Talon's hud. He could see that blood pressure was dropping and the heartbeat was dangerously high. Talon guessed that there was internal bleeding that the bacta couldn't fix. In order to save the trooper, Talon needed to cut him open.

As the rest of the battalion got itself together, Talon pulled off the trooper's armor, revealing his pale chest that was bloated with the blood that was pooling inside.

Talon pulled out a laser scalpel and made a quick incision on the trooper's gut. A geyser of blood gushed out and block much of Talon's view. He couldn't see where the major bleed was coming from and each time the trooper's heart beated, more blood pooled out. Talon wiped away as much blood as he could and even took a canister of bio foam and shot some into the chest cavity, hoping that it would seal something up. No such luck, the blood kept coming and the blood pressure was dropping.

Alarms started blaring in Talon's helm as the trooper began to go into cardiac arrest. Talon shoved his hands into the clone's chest and tried to feel around for the wound. His fingers swam through the hot mess of organs that all felt shredded. He took the biofoam and applied more and more and more. He kept looking and by the time he backed up to catch his breath. The alarms were silent. The trooper had died. Another death, the first failure, the first of many.

Talon came away from that scene crushed. He had to leave the body behind, there was no time to bury the dead when there was nowhere to bury them. Eventually a team would be sent out and collect the body which would be sent to some far off planet where all the dead, millions were put to rest. He also came away hardened and determined. He didn't ever want to lose anyone like that. He never wanted to come across a scenario where he was too inexperienced to save anyone ever again and even though it was a promise that was impossible to keep, he did his best. He save countless lives during the final months of the Clone Wars.

He tended to the wounded as much as he could and even discarded his weapon, finding it unwieldy. He never fired a shot during the entire war. When he was there when they learned of the Jedi's treachery and took down their deceitful Jedi generals, he tended to those who were hit and fallen. He was the one that confirmed that Ki-Adi-Mundi was dead. He did it all without ever killing, only saving lives at every turn.

When the war was over and the Empire was formed, Talon's achievements were noted and he was moved to the 501st where he remained. He continued his work on the field as a savior and not a killer.

He gained a reputation as the best field medic in the Empire and was often at the front of the heaviest assaults where his skill would be needed. Even as he aged well beyond that of a normal clone's maximum service age, he convinced his superiors to let him stay. As much as Imperial officers loved rules and regulations, they loved him more. He got them the numbers they needed for their climb up to the ranks. Talon didn't mind that he was used not to save lives, but to lower numbers because it allowed him to do what he loved.

Every clone was his brother in his eyes, someone worth saving even at the cost of his life. He would always put himself in harm's way to rescue a fellow clone or really anyone who needed it. He was often berated for fixing up enemy combatants on the field. Command didn't like him keeping the enemy alive, but unless they took him off the battlefield where he was also doing lot's of good, they couldn't do anything about him.

While Talon was often surrounded by death and the dying, he found comfort in the living. He became quick friends with Lieutenant Forzo who cared for his men as if they were his children and brothers, just like how Talon viewed them. Forzo looked up to Talon almost as a father, a wise figure with valuable wisdom. Talon didn't view himself as that at all, he mostly considered himself simply as lucky for he had never been wounded on the field. He had gone through decades of service without a scratch. The scar on his cheek was from a training accident that occurred when he tripped on a disposed blaster cartridge and hit his face on the wall. It was an embarrassing story to tell, but it lifted the old clone's heart to see that it brought joy to those around him.

The company would often come to Talon for stories even though they had exhausted him of all his tales. The kept coming back and so he kept telling them. He recounted his time on Kamino before the Clone Uprising. He told them of the more in depth training that took years there. Now clones were flash trained in weeks and he had heard rumors that some other clone divisions were made of clones that were grown in less than a month. He ignored the rumors, he knew that the 501st was made from the original recipe, the best.

Downtime was mostly spent like this, in the barracks, the young faces would look to his older and wrinkled one, though they knew better than to think they could take him on. He had taught a good amount of them a fair lesson in the ring that he could still fight like the rest of them, though he did hide the fact that he only just barely managed. He did really feel like a father to them during these moments so when he was there on Yavin 4, watching the men he had laughed with shared his time with, it hurt even more.

He moved quickly through the underbrush from one fallen soldier to the next. He stitched what he could, cut away what was dead and applied bacta, always bacta. Bacta was his most important tool, it healed, fought infection and brought down the pain. He applied it liberally to all wounds.

He looked away at those he couldn't save. He didn't want to see those that laid in the dirt, unmoving, instead focusing on the ones that could still moved. Movement meant life, it meant that there was hope.

A stormtrooper was sitting upright against a tree that was dwindling under rebel fire. He held onto his shoulder where he had been shot. The man waved over at Talon the second he saw him. Even when they wore the same white armor, they could tell each other apart. Talon moved as if more burdened, both by age and experienced.

Talon immediately veered towards the trooper. He looked at the wound silently. He analyzed it, calling upon his decades of experience to come up with a treatment plan. The wound was cauterized and deep. The charred wound went straight to the bone, but was not lethal, not even close.

Talon applied a bacta salve to the wound. The trooper sucked in a breath as the blue gel flowed into the hole and seeped into the flesh down to the nerve endings that were still alive. A bandage was wrapped around the shoulder and that was it.

"Stay put." The medic told the man, looking at the sheer amount of blaster fire coming from the top of the hill. If the stormtrooper tried to move, he would most definitely be hit. Staying put until the fire went down was his best chance at survival. "Hold the bandage on place and apply pressure." Talon took the man's good arm and rest his hand on the bandage where it remained and applied pressure just as directed.

"Thanks, doc." The trooper said in the same voice as the trooper back on Mygeeto. They all sounded the same, all of them and each time one of them talked, cried out in pain of said their last breaths, he remembered them all. It was a mess in his head, hearing the same voice over and over again, but he remembered each and everyone of them. He knew where everyone he treated had been injured. He knew how they acted when he saved their lives and how they looked at him when they slipped away.

"Keep your head down." Talon smiled at another success and moved on. He continued to race back and forth across the battlefield, dodging blaster fire as he did what he did best. He followed the coms to the wounded. There were always more that needed to be saved and he was glad to be there to save him.

Talon fixed up four more stormtroopers who had been caught at the edge of a blast from a rocket. Those things, originally meant to destroy armored targets were now being turned on individuals and were at times modified to explode before hitting something to fill the air with shrapnel. It did horrible things to the body and he didn't look down when he ran over bodies that were missing parts, torn away from them in the blasts. He wished someone would do something about that, how could he save anyone if there was nothing left to save.

"I need a medic at my location." A voice called out over all the others on the emergency channel reserved for medics. It was Lieutenant Forzo and Talon was afraid that he had been hit. He had been there with the lieutenant since the first day he had arrived to the 501st. He was so full of spunk just like he had been when he first arrived and even though he kept his weapon and fought, Talon saw much of him in the young trooper. He took the time to tutor the clone as much as he could. Even as a medic, Talon picked up some battlefield tactics from being on so many himself. He abhorred the thought of losing him.

"This is D4-328, medic en-route." Talon replied and quickly began to run towards the origin of the call. He ducked under several blaster bolts from above. Someone above had seen him moving through the open terrain and was trying very hard to kill him. Talon kept moving, the person above wasn't leading him at all and the bolts were going just shy or too far in front of him.

It was a relief to see that it had not been Forzo that had been hit. It was still bad that anyone had been hit, but as much as he hated the idea of favoring one person over another, he knew that he would give preferential treatment to the young clone officer.

The reason he was called over wasn't that urgent. The clone that Forzo was leaning over had been shot in the thigh. There was a clean groove through the armor and flesh. Nothing that bacta couldn't fix. "I have this, sir." He told Forzo as he jabbed a needle into the stormtrooper's open thigh. It hurt him to hurt the wounded, but it was a necessity. He was reaching for a bandage from his diminishing supplies when he heard it.

"MOVE!" It didn't come from the com, instead, Talon heard it from outside his helmet. He looked up at Forzo who was several meters away. There was something in his voice, but for once, age had caught up to Talon and he had failed to even realize that this was his final moment. He died believing that he had just performed first aid on a brother. He died doing what he loved.