58

Someone was stroking her head.

The darkness ebbed, though Saedii clung to it as desperately as she could. She didn't want to wake up. Didn't want to see what waited for her outside of the velvety darkness that embraced her. There was no pain here. No death. Nothing.

That was all she wanted. Nothing – to feel nothing, see nothing. Be nothing. It was better than what waited for her, she knew.

But not matter how hard she tried, her body woke.

Faint pain began to bloom in her side, where her ribs were. It wasn't sharp – really only a minor inconvenience – but it was still enough that she was very aware of it.

Her throat hurt, too. This was much worse, like someone had sliced her open beneath her chin. When she swallowed, it felt like a brand had been lodged between her tonsils. Her eyes watered.

When she blinked her eyes open, she winced. Her head felt like it was on fire. Like her brain was melting. She wished she could return to the dark, but it wouldn't claim her. Leaving her instead to feel every burrow of pain down the back of her head.

A body sat beside her head. One warm hand gently brushed across her forehead and down the curve of her head. It was a soothing gesture. A fatherly touch. She recognized it at once.

Hunter's expression was glazed as he sat above her. He'd removed his armor, stripped down to only his thermo-layer. Several thick bandages wound around one arm and the back of his right knee, which was propped on an ammunition crate.

Saedii blinked and her vision came into clearer focus. The rest of the Batch were gathered as well. Wrecker was closest, sitting on the edge of the bunk across from them. Omega was tucked into his side, head on his shoulder. Silent tears ran down her face as he ran a hand up and down her arm.

They were all injured. Dark bruises peppered Omega's face and one of her arms was in a sling. At her side, Wrecker's nose had been reset but both eyes had grown blackened and swollen. An inflatable cast secured his right leg from thigh to ankle, keeping it straight.

Further down, Echo sat stony faced as Tech fixed his scomp. Like Hunter and Wrecker, they too had removed their armor and Saedii could see the injuries along their bodies. A line of stitches crossed over Echo's face from temple to chin. Tech's bare chest had an even longer line, crossing from his right shoulder down to his left hip. Thick adhesive bandages held the stitches in place.

Crosshair was by the medical bed. Without his shirt, the blaster wound could be tracked through its entry and exit wound – right at the junction of his right shoulder. More smaller wounds peppered across his face, held together with gauze and what appeared to be staples.

Getting his own row of stitches, Kalth sat at the edge of the medical bed. Staring into space. His eyes held the same sort of dead emptiness that Saedii felt in her own chest while Cross tightened a stitch on his forearm. When he pulled, Kalth didn't even wince.

Absolute silence blanketed the Marauder. Only the faint hum of the hyperdrive and the click of Tech's tools made any sound at all. The Force was heavy around them, weighed down with grief and pain.

Teth. The Rebellion.

Unconsciousness had not curbed Saedii's memory. She remembered all of it – every awful detail. Her stomach churned at the memory of the massive weapon that had incinerated the planet with a single shot. An ungodly show of power. Unnatural.

The hand on her head stilled. When her eyes turned up, she found Hunter watching.

"How do you feel?"

At the sound of Hunter's voice in the silence, both Omega and Wrecker jumped. Crosshair's hands stilled along Kalth's jaw.

As loathe as Saedii was to talk, she answered, "Hurts to breathe."

Her voice sounded awful. Rough and faint, like her throat had been introduced to a cheese grater. Pain flared at the front of her neck.

"Your larynx suffered minor damage," Tech reported softly. "You are lucky it wasn't crushed."

"Lucky. Right." Crosshair's face pinched at the comment.

Lucky wasn't how Saedii would have described it, either. Not with how much they'd lost. All the lives that had been snuffed.

So much death. Too much.

"I'm merely pointing out that, had her larynx been crushed, she likely would have bled out –"

"That's enough, Tech." Hunter's voice sounded tired.

Echo's expression was glazed as Tech resumed his tinkering. A few of the wires looked fried – blackened and sliced clean through. He winced as Tech sliced through the remainder of a red one with a soldering blade, sending up a spindly plume of purple smoke.

From the medical bed, Kalth stared straight ahead, but based on the far-away look in his eye, he wasn't seeing the flight seats in front of him.

In the bright light from the medical station, an angry red line was visible across the expanse of Kalth's chest. Shiny and raw, it glistened in the light, winding in a jagged line across his pale skin. It looked almost like a lightning bolt.

Sweat slickened his brow. As Crosshair took a step to his left, Saedii saw the thick, clear paste that covered his scar and knew what it was for.

Bacta paste. For burns.

My fault.

All of this was Saedii's fault – the injuries, Cere's death, Teth's demise. Krell hadn't know about the Rebellion's secret base until Saedii had told him. It was all because of her.

With a final snip, Crosshair nodded to Kalth to let him know he was finished.

Kalth jumped down from the medical bed, swatting at Crosshair's hands as he tried to help. Not meeting any of their eyes, he slipped into the front of the ship, towards the cockpit. One of the pilot chairs groaned as he collapsed into it.

"You're welcome," Crosshair hissed in his direction.

There was no response.

Moving with exaggerated slowness, Saedii pushed her hands beneath her and tried to sit up. A grimace worked across her face as the dull pain in her chest suddenly sharpened, and a little sound escaped before she could help it.

"You should not try to sit," Tech said, but she ignored him.

Sensing her determination, Hunter's hands helped her, supporting most of her weight as she came to a seated position, legs dangling off the side of the bed. She was in his bunk, she realized. Not hers up in the gunner's mount. As if that short distance was too much for him after the terrible events on Teth.

The walls and floor spun around her. One of Hunter's hands settled along her upper back as she bent over, sucking in a breath. Her face came to rest in one shaking hand as she closed her eyes.

"You have four broken ribs and a fractured skull. As I have already said –"

"Just give her a minute."

Hunter's hand resumed its gentle path along the top of her head as she breathed, trying to get the dizziness to fade. Saedii leaned heavily into his side as her head grew heavy.

The sound of Crosshair aggressively wiping down the medical bed was obtrusively loud in the following silence. She focused on it as the dizziness subsided. Until she was sure that she was no longer going to fall over.

When she opened her eyes, she kept them firmly on the floor at her feet. Partly because she couldn't bear to make eye contact with any of them, but also partly because the lights were shimmering uncomfortably above her. Even looking up brought back that earlier rush of spinning.

Questions burned in Saedii's throat. A morbid curiosity tinged in fear. She had to know.

"How many?" she asked.

The hand on her head paused. "How many what?"

"How many did we lose on Teth?"

"We don't need to –"

"I need to know."

How many had she sentenced to death because of her failure? How many friends had fallen because she wasn't strong enough to withstand Krell?

She sensed as Hunter hesitated beside her. As he exchanged a weighted glance with someone. "We don't know. We haven't been able to contact anyone."

Saedii glanced up, first at Hunter, who was staring hard at his feet, then to Echo, whose jaw worked. There was a trace of fear in his pale eyes – a sense of vulnerability. Across from her, Omega buried her face into Wrecker's shoulder and he began to stroke comfortingly down her back.

"Did anyone survive?" Saedii asked quietly. Her hoarse voice cracked – part pain and part fear.

Padme and the twins had been on Teth. Rex. Wolffe and the rest of the 104th. All that had remained of the Jedi order.

What if they'd all died? What if the Batch, Saedii and Kalth were all that remained of the Rebellion? All that remained to stand in the way of the Empire.

Something prickled behind her eyes before she could help it.

"Hey." Hunter's thumb stroked across the top of her cheek. Wiping a tear before it had a chance to fall. "There's no need to panic yet. It's only been a few hours. We'll keep trying them."

None of that would do a damn thing if they were already dead.

Breath shivered in Saedii's throat. More tears traced down the sides of her face, too fast for Hunter to catch them. "It's my fault."

"It's not –"

"I told Krell about Teth weeks ago. On Nur."

Silence settled around them. Heavy sadness swelled against her senses, tinged in guilt. She waited for the rush of anger – of betrayal. For any of them to say the words that Saedii deserved.

Her fault.

All of it was her fault.

"Stop it," Crosshair suddenly hissed.

Surprised at the edge in his tone, Saedii glanced up – and squinted as the too-bright lights made her head swim. But that glance had revealed that his features were screwed into a tight scowl.

"Cross," Hunter warned, but Crosshair ignored him.

"You don't get to blame yourself for this," Crosshair snarled. "You always find a way to blame yourself for everything, Saedii, but not this time. What happened on Teth wasn't your fault."

Saedii curled in on herself. "If I hadn't told him –"

"Then he would have found it anyways. Between all the Clones and the Jedi running half-cocked around the galaxy, he would have found out. This is not on you."

Her mouth parted.

He cut her off. "I won't let you take the blame for this. If it's the last fucking thing I do, I won't let you blame yourself."

"Lay off, Cross," Wrecker mumbled.

Crosshair didn't look away. Instead, he knelt in front of her and took Saedii's face between his hands. He looked so incredibly serious as he pleaded, "Don't add onto your trauma. I can't watch you tear yourself apart anymore."

It felt like a balloon popped somewhere deep in Saedii's chest. All the guilt and fight she had in her deflated, leaving her just feeling empty. She didn't have enough energy to argue with him.

When she gave a defeated little nod, he pushed a stray strand of hair that had fallen loose from her braid behind an ear. Then, with his own defeated sort of sigh, he sat down on the bed beside her. As if that outburst had taken the very last of his strength.

"The Rebellion was doomed from the start," he said quietly. "We were all just too blind to see it."

Maybe he was right. Maybe the Empire was just too powerful. Maybe there was no point fighting back anymore.

Omega's head whipped up. "It's not doomed!"

Wrecker was quick to assure her, "Cross didn't mean it like that. He just –"

"Saving our brothers from prisons wasn't pointless," Omega snapped, more angry than Saedii had ever seen her. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks. "Their lives, our lives – we matter. The Empire doesn't get to decide whose life has value and whose doesn't."

"We shouldn't have gotten involved," Crosshair insisted. "If we'd just stayed away, you and Saedii would have never –"

"Sitting back and letting the Empire do what they want is wrong. And if you can't see that, then you're not the soldiers I thought you were."

Shoving Wrecker's arm off her shoulder, Omega marched up the stairs and into the gunner's mount. A shrill scrape of metal filled the silence as she yanked the curtain behind her.

"Way to go, Cross," Wrecker growled.

The look Crosshair gave him was tinged with heat.

Hunter held up his hands. "Stop. Now isn't a time to argue."

"Cross shouldn't have –"

"Everyone is exhausted and upset. There's no point discussing the Rebellion or Teth until we've all had a chance to rest."

Both Wrecker and Crosshair turned away from one another. Next to her, Saedii felt the tension that still held Crosshair's shoulders.

There was a tiny little snap as Tech slid the final piece of Echo's scomp into place. His usually haughtiness was lacking as Tech announced, "That should complete repairs for now."

Echo tipped his head back. His good hand ran over the expanse of his forehead and he closed his eyes for a moment. The pale skin of his face looked even whiter than usual.

Hunter stood, running one last gentle hand along Saedii's shoulder. "Everyone get some rest. I'll keep an eye on things up front."

Saedii was too tired to argue. She let her head tip onto Crosshair's shoulder and closed her eyes, tears burning silent tracks down her cheeks.

Months ago, trapped in her cell on Nur, Saedii had thought she'd had nothing left to fight for. Had felt empty and void – a blackhole. That feeling had only grown worse once she'd been freed and realized just how deep her trauma ran. How broken she truly was.

She'd been convinced that was the lowest she could fall. That she'd finally hit her floor.

How very wrong she'd been.

All the faint hope she'd felt for the Jedi, the Clones, the galaxy – it had been destroyed along with Teth. Turned to ash and smoke in an infinite galaxy that swallowed it whole. The black hole that had threatened within her finally sucked her in and shoved her down. Taking that last small piece of herself that had always remained.

Now, she knew what it truly felt like to be empty.