Saga Nature (Order 66 Challenge Vignette)

Title: Nature
Author: _JM_
Timeframe: RotS
Characters: A Jedi, a Clone.
Genre: Angst
Keywords:
Summary: Another Order 66 Challenge Response
Notes: Hopefully this semi-experiment will come off, hopefully it will be more popular than the first one.

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We move through the forest, sunlight reaching us only through gaps in the leaves. Green surrounds us, green so unlike the sea-green of Kamino or the blasted battlefields of a dozen worlds I have seen. I am alone with my General, I am the only trooper in the company who can come close to matching a Jedi?s stealth. The only trooper who would not be a liability on this reconnaissance. My gun moves from side to side to cover different directions and, as the muzzle comes into line, my finger squeezes.

[b]I shoot.
[/b]
My General falls forward, smoke rising from the charred hole in his back. The thud of his body on the leaves is soft but seems loud to me as all the grace with which he had been moving is ended suddenly. We had separated to scout up and down stream of a small creek we had found. I had found a crossing with stones that would not take footprints and betray our passage but then, while alone, I had received my new order. Order 66. It will be done my lord.

Now I look down at my General, my comrade, and my target. Unbidden memories strain through the mesh of programming in my mind. One becomes crystal clear, I had been shot and my General had saved me and sustained me with the Force. Gratitude tries to make itself known, but is buried again as Training realises the threat. He sustained me through a fatal wound, he could sustain himself and recover as I had done.

[b]I shoot.
[/b]
A second hole a few centimetres higher joins the first and my General convulses as my Blaster bolt eats more of his flesh. He is twitching and dying before me. A day, an hour, before I would be screaming for a medic and swearing revenge but now I am simply watching. The temptation grows to finish him painlessly. We all carry drugs to treat our wounds and we have all been warned with double purpose about certain combinations. I know that I can simply reach down to my belt and to my General to press the injectors against his shock-cooled flesh. I know that if I touch him he will know exactly where I am.

[b]I shoot.
[/b]
My nose twitches as the scent of burned meat becomes stronger and the General stops moving. I risk taking my eyes off him to search the leaf litter for where his Lightsaber has fallen, the Lightsaber I had feared would be plunged into me in a telekinetic grip, the Lightsaber I had feared would be the last thing I would see. A stray breeze waves a branch and the shifting light glints off the handle, revealing it. That stray breeze brings the smell of death even more strongly to me. My stomach turns, fighting Droids has not given me experience of this.

[b]I shoot.
[/b]
My revulsion at the smell and the sight of the ruined body is replaced by disgust with myself. To shoot my General, my friend, to follow orders was the only action possible. To shoot him as my stomach clenched and took my trigger finger with it was unworthy of the discipline of a soldier of the Grand Army of the Republic. I feel the call of the Lightsaber, it would be so easy to rest its emitter against my chest, let it burn my flesh and doubts away, and let my brothers think our General had avenged himself.

[b]I shoot.
[/b]
The Lightsaber explodes under the Blaster bolt and the soggy leaves it had rested on begin to burn with a thick smouldering smoke. I watch this small fire and feel a new temptation to use a thermal detonator. To incinerate my General and deny the flies that are already setting on his corpse and the carrion birds watching with alien eyes from the trees.

But to deny the flies and birds would be to deny nature, and if nature could be denied then my General would still be alive, still be leading me towards the Separatists, still be giving me confident smiles as we face each new obstacle and danger together. If the Jedi were correct then already his spir

 

VERY NICE WORK MY FRIEND

 

THANK YOU.

 

yer welcome, you have always read my fics,

 

Wow, this one, I think, is one of my favorites of the Order 66 challenge. You really captured the ambivalence within the droid, yet showing just how callous he might seem on the outside. The memory of the General saving the clone was a great add-in... I love how you used Nature at the end there, really chilling!

 

Wonderfully written. I loved the introspection the trooper had and the conflict between his loyalty to the Jedi and the orders of his Emperor. Again, wonderful piece.

 

Wow, I loved the repetition of, "And he shot." I liked this a lot!

 

bobill: The Jedi having saved the Clone was a last minute thing, as originally thought through it was just going to be the Clone having seen the Jedi healing his brothers.

DCWiz00: Also conflict between his human feelings and his training and programming which prevents him reacting in a more normal way, that makes him able to calmly shoot someone he owes his life to in the back.

JediCallista_1_6_e54: Glad that you enjoyed the story as the train of thought, of thinking from a Clone?s perspecive why he was shooting a Jedi multiple times, was started by your story It Only Takes One.

 

Ooh wow, very nicely done, _JM_. So sad...I love the turmoil there.

Excellent work.

 

This is a nice piece. Though conflicted, his training continues to take over with each bit of rationalizing.

If the Jedi were correct then already his spirit would have become one with the Force, perhaps it would be fitting for his body to become one with the forest? For it to sustain life so that life could sustain the Force?

I like this line. Nice ending. Good job, bud.

 

That was powerful. A very good read. I loved the structure.

 

padawan lunetta: Glad you enjoyed it.

SkalenFehl: Thanks, part of the experiment was to try to be a little more poetic than my usual style so I am glad it came off.

BigE: It just seemed right to punctuate the thoughts with the shots and structure the story around them. Pleased this worked.

 

This particular challenge seems to have brought out some great stories and powerful emotions.
I really liked the perspective and the idea of the Jedi's body returning to nature.

 

I really liked the circle of life and the Force reference. It was stuctured nicely to convey his thoughts after each shot.

Good work.

 

Jennifer_Lyn: The present tense / first-person perspective seemed the best way to try to convey the sense of a frozen moment.
Hopefully it came across that it all took only several seconds, without the introspection it would have been more like ?The Clonetrooper fired and the Jedi fell, only for the Clone to fire again and again and again into his sprawled body. One final shot destroyed the Jedi?s lightsaber before the Clonetrooper, his mission accomplished, turned and vanished back into the forest.?

Zane-Marit: Letting the Jedi provide food for the forest was inspired in part by the chant the Clonetroopers are taken through by their Kamino counsellors before a mission (as seen in The Cestus Deception). ?From Water you are born. In Fire you die. Your bodies seed the stars.?