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When he opens his eyes again, he’s momentarily blinded by a couple of warnings from his HUD. Scorch gasps when the sharp pain shoots up his whole body. He can barely breathe, likely because of four blaster wounds in his ribcage. That, and probably also the long fall from the bridge. Though the Katarn-class armour took most of the impact, Scorch can still feel that there are at least couple of broken bones in his body. Oh, and he’s bleeding. He’s on his stomach, dirt covers most of his vision, but when he raises his head, he can see the compound’s entry point nearby.
Great. Just when I had a chance at leaving this place, and finding other Deltas. He thinks bitterly, though the cause might not be lost yet. He could crawl back into the mountain and use the old comm signature to contact Delta-38…Boss. His ori’vod. Maybe Fixer’ll trust him too, it’s not like he had much choice but stay with the Empire after being transferred to guard Tantiss facility. I could’ve deserted with them, when I still had a chance. Sev…Sev would trust him too, Scorch knows it, but he’s gone, marched on, during the last days of the Clone War, when Deltas were on Kashyyyk. Maybe he’d find some medical supplies too, assuming he won’t bleed out first. That was quite a long fall, and he knows it. Scorch hears growling and a screech of some wild animal somewhere away, and he shudders. That, or something eats me. Fixer wouldn’t be glad to see me like that, but he’d patch me up. Fortunately, the bacta producing implants help a little, but they’re better for some minor injuries.
Scorch braces himself and starts crawling. He lets out a choked scream of pain when bones shift in his body and he hears a wet sound coming from inside his armour. Oh. That’s not something that should happen.
He continues crawling, choked yelps escaping his throat. Tears of pain fall from his eyes and he blinks to clear his vision. The jungle terrain doesn’t make it easier, the hard rocks hurt his palms and make his armour shake with each meter he crawls, irritating his wounds.
But Scorch now can feel something wet moving inside his torso, shifting to places where he’s certain it shouldn’t be. He doesn’t even want to imagine what’s going on inside his broken body. He’ll see it, once he removes his armour. Hopefully he’ll find a medical scanner, to know for what to prepare.
The creature screeches again, this time much closer, so Scorch tries to crawl faster, wincing with every move, until he reaches a ventilation shaft’s grate. By some miracle, it’s ripped out, so Scorch can squeeze himself inside. Better there, than outside. The shaft is narrow, but at least smooth, so Scorch can’t feel his injuries as much. He nearly can’t feel anything at all. It’s just cold. Scorch shivers. He doesn’t like it, the numbness, and freezing cold. His vision swirling. He’d much more prefer to feel pain again.
His HUD flashes a warning, and Scorch stops, focusing to read it. It shouldn’t be so hard, he read its messages many times before, while being shot at.
Finally, Scorch manages to decipher what it says.
"Low vitals detected. Finding a medic advised." Scorch scoffs internally. He’d like a medic, but it’s not like there are many. He has to get to the medbay, fast. He feels his eyelids heaving, and the scent of blood is getting stronger, clogging up his throat, flaring up Scorch’s nostrils. The stim he took earlier, he can feel it slowly wearing off. He blinks hard to wake himself, he…he has to at least say goodbye to his aliit. Besides, he doesn’t want to die. Scorch whimpers painfully, he’s tired. He wants nothing more than to just curl up somewhere warm and sleep.
His head falls against the metal duct with a thud and he snaps it back up, and shakes his head, starting to crawl again. If he remembers correctly, he soon should reach the medbay, where he can use his comms, and more importantly - bacta or more stims. His hands slip on blood as he reaches the second grate, using all his strength to push it out. It doesn’t even buckle. Scorch moans. In desperation, he ejects a vibroblade from his vambrace, and cuts the edges of the grate.
Scorch falls out of the vent with a strangled yelp, landing on the medbay’s floor. At least I landed in the medbay.
There are some supplies scattered on the floor, a cauteriser, bacta patches in slightly torn wrappings, even a cracked scanner. Yeah, I’m really lucky… Scorch laughs grimly, and coughs, blood spluttering on his visor from the inside. "K-kriff…" Scorch chokes out, and crawls to the wall. Steadying himself, he turns himself on his back, resting against the wall. He tries not to listen to the sounds his body is making. Propped against the wall, Scorch shakily unseals the helmet, removing it. He wheezes, the air supplied by the helmet filters was better. Most importantly, it dampened the heavy coppery scent of blood in the room. Or rather, coming from Scorch himself.
His hand trembles as he readies a hypo with a stim, jabbing it into his neck. He can’t afford to pass out now, or he’d never wake up. Though, how fitting that would be. Die here, alone, forgotten by my family, with no help. Reuniting with 07. Probably deserve it for leaving Sev like that, though he won’t want to see me…
But Scorch…he doesn’t really want to die. He turns on the scanner and allows the blue light to envelop his chest. For a short while, nothing happens. Then, the scanner starts wailing, lights and screen turning red.
Scorch blinks, trying to focus on its readings. According to the images, he’s got three pairs of broken ribs, four blaster wounds (that he already knew, thank you), he’s bleeding heavily and apparently, some of his organs chose to go for a little trip around his torso.
Yeah, I thought removing my chest plate was a bad idea…but I have to do it, eventually. Maybe I’ll comm Deltas first, just in case I…
Scorch takes a shallow breath and types in a long-unused comm frequency into his vambrace comm. They probably don’t use it anymore either way. He decides to leave a message, that’s safer.
"38…ori’vod. I’m sorry for…not leaving with you…I need help…you should probably ignore me, let me die, but…I kriffing miss you, Boss." Scorch chokes out, dropping the sentence to cough up more blood. He winces, and continues. "Gedet’ye, ori’vod. I…love you guys…gedet’ye, gaa’tayl…" Scorch ends his message.
Now, it’s the worst part. Scorch braces himself and unseals his armour. He gasps, his breathing turns more shallow and irregular. The armour plate clatters on the floor, falling from his numb fingers. He knew he was wounded, but this…
In his abdomen, there’s a long, wide, tattered cut, and something that looks like his intestines peeks out. He’s bleeding heavily, too, his chest is caved-in where the ribs broke, and the second he removed his chest plate, something slick and bloodied fell out from his abdomen, wet plop when it landed on the floor panels. Scorch gags, feeling nauseous. He’s been injured before, but never to this extent. "S-Sev…h-help me, vod…" Scorch sobs, curling up against the wall.
A memory comes to Scorch. Boss, kneeling over him. Scorch himself curled up on a cell’s floor, after Trandoshans interrogated him. "Are you ok, Scorch? Did they find the data?" Boss asked him, then. "No, I hid it pretty well." Scorch said after that, smiling.
Scorch blinks. He remembers Boss’s response, the 'understood' when he realised what Scorch meant. That was a good mission. He wants more moments like that. The stim’s still in his system, he still has a chance, despite heavy blood loss. Sitting in a large pool of his own blood, Scorch reaches for a bacta patch, his clumsy fingers fumbling with the wrapper for a few seconds. He puts it over the wound on his abdomen, it’s too small to cover it entirely, but the worst part is sealed. He can’t do anything about blaster wounds, or the heavy blood loss, so he settles to wait for any sign from his brothers. Scorch knows he wouldn’t manage to put his armor back on anyway. Scorch closes his eyes for a few seconds, just a few short seconds, but he slips into soothing darkness, despite desperately clinging to consciousness, to life, terrified if he’ll even wake up.
*****
Boss tiredly pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s been nearly a year since he and Fixer deserted from the Empire and found Sev under Wookiee’s protection. Broken and helpless, he was found by them and saved in thanks for helping them. But they had to leave Scorch behind. His little vod’ika was alone somewhere, if he was still alive.
"38, 07? Wanna come to the cockpit for a moment?" He hears Fixer’s voice and groans. He wants to take a little nap, but Fixer’s voice sounds tense, like something happened. That’s strange, since Fixer rarely lets his emotions seep into his voice.
"What is it, Fixer?" He asks, entering the cockpit with Sev. The ship isn’t big, but the three of them fit in. Fixer turns to him, looking grim. He brushes a hand over his hair, kept at regulation-length since their cadet days. "We’ve got a message." The slicer says simply, and presses the button. A little, blue holo-figure of a commando, propped against the wall, appears.
"38…ori’vod. I’m sorry for…not leaving with you…" Scorch’s voice says and Boss feels his knees buckle under him.
"I need help…you should probably ignore me, let me die, but…I kriffing miss you, Boss." Boss sinks to his knees, eyes wide open, staring at his little vod’ika, bleeding out somewhere, calling out for them. In the hologram, Scorch coughs violently, his whole body trembles. Even through hologram, it’s visible that he’s much paler than he should be.
"Gedet’ye, ori’vod. I…love you guys…I’ll greet Sev for you if…gedet’ye, gaa’tayl…" The message ends, and Boss feels his heart breaking at how broken Scorch sounded. Beside him, Sev lets out a strangled noise of disbelief. Boss looks at him, surprised. Sev’s mumbling something under his breath, eyes distant. "He’s…Scorch’s…he thinks I…" Sev whispers. Boss swallows hard and closes his eyes. "Fixer. Locate the source of the message. We’re going for him." He says sharply, snapping out of the shock. "Boss…he thinks I’m dead. Scorch thinks…" Sev repeats, staring at 38, who places a hand on 07’s shoulder. Sev flinches. "I know, 07. We’re getting him back and we’ll never part ways again." Boss says determinedly. A ping from console draws their attention. "I’ve located him. He’s on planet Wayland, it’ll take us five hours to reach him." Fixer reports.
*****
The signal from Scorch’s comm leads them to a smoking facility built inside a mountain. It’s eerily quiet as three clones walk through it. Boss sees many bodies, clones and natborns, but he doesn’t care. All he cares for is the one, lone vod somewhere here.
"We should split up and raise each other on comms when one of us finds him." He says and Fixer nods. “I’ll go right. Sev, go left."
Delta-40 confirms and Sev turns left. Boss heads forward, through dark corridors. The scent of blood is heavy here, so strong that Boss nearly throws up.
"Boss? Fixer?…I’ve found him. Hurry." Sev’s voice cuts through the silence and Boss runs back to where Sev left, nearly colliding with Fixer. Together, they trace Sev’s footsteps and reach a room that likely used to be a medbay. Boss stops when he sees the floor. Sev’s kneeling by a limp figure propped against the wall, a large pool of blood around the clone. His face is pale and still, eyes closed. The bleached blondish curls fall onto his forehead. His armour is covered in blood, but the too-familiar paint is still visible. The chest piece is removed, laying on the floor. Boss can see a wide wound on his vod’ika’s abdomen, a bacta patch does little to close it. There are a few blaster wounds on his torso too, hopefully they hadn’t hit anything vital.
Boss drops to his knees by Sev, and cradles Scorch in his arms. "Scorch…" Boss whispers, two fingers pressed against Scorch’s neck. He nearly faints from relief when he can feel the pulse, weak and fragile, but present.
However, he’s still too pale, too slack. "Scorch, come on, wake up, vod’ika." Boss says weakly, holding his brother slightly upright. Scorch doesn’t react any more than a dead man would, limp and unresponsive in Boss’s arms, his eyelids fluttering, but remaining closed. "We have to get him to the shuttle. Sev, help me carry him." 38 snaps, unwilling to let his vod’ika die now, when they have him again. He seals Scorch’s armour onto his brother, it can slow the blood loss, and gently picks him up, resting him against his own and Sev’s shoulder.
*****
Scorch opens his eyes with a gasp. He blinks, it’s much brighter than it should be. The place he’s in doesn’t look like Tantiss medbay either, besides, he doesn’t feel his armour on. The surface Scorch lays on is soft, makes him want to sleep. Though the light makes it difficult. He squints his eyes, trying to shield them with his hand.
"Hold on, Wiseguy, I’ll turn them down." A gruff, strangely familiar voice says. Scorch’s heart skips a beat. That’s impossible…
The light dims, and Scorch now sees a very familiar face, the one he hadn’t seen since Kashyyyk. A jagged scar on his face, seemingly cold, but truly warm dark eyes. Dark hair, just slightly longer than the regulation cut, but shorter than his own. Sev.
"Yep. I’m dead." Scorch mutters, and Sev snorts. "Nearly, but not yet, not if we have something to say." He answers, firmly touching Scorch’s shoulder. "Boss…Fixer…are they here too?" Scorch asks quietly, looking at Sev, at his older brother, who’s - it’s still hard to believe - very much alive.
"Yeah, Scorch’ika. We’re here. You’re safe." Boss says, entering his view, with Fixer a few steps behind.
None of them are wearing their blacks, but comfy-looking oversized shirts and knee-length pants, in the colours of their armours.
Scorch looks down at himself, he’s dressed in a similar clothing set, but grey without the yellow. Probably a spare set of theirs. He thinks briefly, before Boss flops himself on the mattress by his side. Sev follows, and Fixer just sits on the bed’s edge, looking at 62. Scorch curls himself into Sev’s side, head resting on his brother’s chest, listening to Sev’s strong heartbeat, reassuring himself that his older brother is alive and they are all reunited again.