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Kix isn't sure what he expected for his first day out of medic training, but it wasn't going straight into an active war zone. It's not that he isn't excited— of course he's excited to finally get to see some real action outside of the sims.
But... he's admittedly a little nervous as well. The patients he cared for in training had already been triaged and mostly stabilized by the time they hit the clinical floor. It was really more of Kix having to study what the other field medics had done, and try to replicate as he changed dressings and monitored their vitals. He was lucky if someone crashed on his watch and he got to practice administering care under an adrenaline rush— at the same time, Kix never wanted any of his patients to code because of course he wouldn't want to see his brothers like that.
Battle medicine is different. There is no chart already started, no list of instructions from a supervising physician that actually practices medicine and isn't just trained in the quick and dirty side of things. As Kix stares down at the dustball of Geonosis, he privately wonders if his training was enough.
"First time outa Kamino?" a hand clamps down on his shoulder and he turns to find his supervising trainer, Arty, has emerged from the cockpit where he was giving instructions to their pilots.
"Yes sir," Kix replies, eyeing the intricate paint job on the clone medic's armor with envy. A thick red stripe runs down the length of Arty's chest plate, and a horizontal one across his visor. Smaller geometric patterns jet out across the side of his helmet and in the center of his chest— a giant representation of the medic cross painted across his entire armor instead of just a patch on his shoulder pauldron. Arty also has some yellow accents— he mentioned he would be transferring to the 212th as their lead medic after this battle. He must've gotten a head start on the personalization.
The patch is all Kix has decorating his stark white armor. He is the physical embodiment of a shiny, which is another reason he's thrilled to be getting into battle so soon— even if it's just a cut-and-run trade for supplies and the wounded. A little bit of Geonosian dirt on his shin guards wouldn't hurt, though. Maybe he'll even find a reason to get a few blasts off.
"Lucky you— I hear Geonosis is lovely this time of year," Arty scoffs sardonically. He reaches up and pulls off his bucket, revealing a mess of curly black hair pulled back from his face with a black bandana. He stares out the viewport, grimacing as the ground grows closer. "This dustball was my first outing, too."
Kix raises his eyebrow. "You were at Geonosis one?"
Arty looks at Kix and grins. "Now that's the correct answer, shiny. Had a kid last week who looked me up and down and said 'makes sense, ya look like a first gen'. He got latrine duty for a week for that one."
Arty does look like a first-gen now that Kix takes a good look at him. All the clones are only a few years apart, but the first gen'ers just have this... thing about them. Someone once told Kix it's all about the eyes. The first battles of the war were some of the toughest. Geonosis especially was a particular type of bloodbath. When Kix looks Arty in the eye, he thinks he sees that glimpse of hollowness that everyone talks about.
"Noted, sir," he replies with a short laugh.
"Relax, Kix," Arty smiles at him again, "You've been training for this since you were born."
The shuttle touches down a few meters away from where the field hospital is set up. Arty is quick to throw his helmet on and jump out into the cloud of dust before the engines have even turned off. Kix follows close behind with the giant med-pack he was put in charge of.
Geonosis is hot and dry and dusty. It takes seconds for the purity of Kix's armor to get covered in a film of muddy orange. As the dust from their landing settles, the clone medic stares in awe at his first glimpse of battle.
The frontline itself is many klicks away, but he can see the flashes of red, green, and blue illuminating the cloud of sediment that has been kicked up by tanks and ships. Sharp blasts echo across the rocky terrain, and Kix is surprised by how loud everything is. He figured being on an entire planet instead of the enclosed spaces of simulation exercises would make a difference, but he failed to account for the fact that though the scale has been increased, so have the number of forces on the ground.
It's loud and overwhelming and distracting— Kix nearly slams into Arty's back, but luckily looks forward in time to catch himself. Apparently, it was a close enough call for his trainer to notice.
"Welcome to war, shiny!"
Welcome isn't exactly the word Kix would use, but he sure feels invigorated. They get right to work letting the field hospital staff know they've arrived and unloading supplies. That part is easy enough but then comes the patient transfer.
There are six men stable enough to make the trip back to the med center. Stable is a loose interpretation of their status— three have at least one limb missing, two are fighting off sleep before their concussions are evaluated, and one isn't even conscious yet, but his vitals have been hanging in there well enough. Most have yellow, blue, or maroon accents on their armor, but two of them look to be as fresh out of Kamino as Kix.
As they finish loading up their transfers, Kix pauses as he looks back at the hospital. From the open tent flap, he can see many other men still milling about, lying in cots, or even watching longingly as their shuttle engines fire up.
"Why can't we take more?" Kix asks Arty as he goes to close the shuttle doors.
"I hope I don't gotta teach you about triage, rookie," he scoffs, shaking his head. The doors start to slide shut and Kix keeps his eyes on the men watching until the door obscures his view. "I swear, they keep rushing you boys through medic training and they'll be doing more harm than good."
"No, no, I understand triage, I just mean... we have room for more. There were others stable enough to fly, why aren't we taking them?"
Arty pauses and Kix has a feeling this is something he is not going to like.
"Well... I wasn't the doc so I can't tell you for sure, but I would guess it's 'cause they're too stable."
It takes a moment for the understanding to settle in. The ship lurches beneath them as they lift from the ground. Kix feels his own stomach turn, but not from the movement.
"Those men... they had blaster wounds and concussions and— and they're going to send them back out there?"
Arty suddenly takes Kix by the upper arm and drags him from the cargo bay into the galley outside the cockpit. When the medic releases him, he reaches up and pulls his bucket off. His face is stern, but his eyes are soft.
"First of all, as medics, we do not let the other boys hear stuff like that. Our duty is to their health, and letting them stress about their brothers is not going to help.
"Second of all, I need you to understand that this is going to be hard, Kix. This isn't Kamino and this isn't training. We're fighting a war, and sometimes that means when a trooper has a blaster burn but isn't bleeding out, he has to take a stim, put his bucket back on, and work through it."
Kix feels brave all of the sudden. "Those are contradictory, sir. If our duty is to their health, then how can we justify throwing them back on the front line?"
"This isn't the latest episode of Coruscant Med. The rules are different. It's our job to make the hard decision of who to send for treatment and who to stay."
"You mean who lives and dies," Kix says bitterly before he can stop himself. Arty's face grows stern.
"Careful, trooper," his voice is low, almost as though he's afraid anyone will hear them, "don't give up before you've even begun. This bitterness of yours isn't gonna save lives. It's just gonna get you in trouble, and the last thing you want as a medic is your CO's keeping a tight leash on—"
Arty is cut off by a loud bang, and the ship dipping suddenly. Kix slams into the wall of the galley, thankfully still having his helmet on to protect his head as it bounces off the door. Somehow the other medic manages to stay upright and throws his bucket back on his head.
"We've been hit! Cargo, trooper, go!" he orders, and Kix has to fight against the jostling of the ship to make his way down the hall to where the patients are. Arty disappears into the cockpit.
Thick smoke is billowing into the bay when he arrives. Some of the troopers with more wear and tear to the paint of their armor have taken up the responsibility of moving the others away from the rear breach. Kix swears, running to one of the men missing the bottom half of his left leg and helping him into the hallway.
"Shell to the rear engines!" a trooper with yellow paint covering the entire right breast of his chest plate yells. The smoke continues to flow in, filling the ship with the sound of coughing.
We gotta air this thing out.
"Are we... still in the atmo...sphere?" he manages, and the trooper in yellow chokes, but it sounds close enough to yes.
"Stand... back... hold on," he tells them, and Kix pushes past them and hits the emergency door open button with his fist. The shuttle door springs open revealing the orange and brown blur of Geonosis beneath them.
The only problem is, it's growing closer, not further away.
Arty emerges from the slowly thinning smoke, grabbing Kix by the collar for support.
"Pilots 're fine, but we've lost all directional control along with the rear engines. We're going down and at this speed..."
Kix stares at the medic incredulously. "What? Are you trying to tell me this is it?"
"Kix—"
He's cut off again by the shuttle starting to tip to the side. Had Arty not been holding onto Kix, he would have flown straight out the open door. Instead, his back is pulled into Arty's chest and they slam into the wall of the shuttle. The only thing he can look at is the rapidly approaching range of mountains. Maybe if they were landing on flat ground they could make it work but—
Unless...
"Do you trust me?" Kix yells over his shoulder. He can't see the clone medic but he can feel his grip tighten.
"What are you thinking, trooper?"
"That I'd like to get a second chance to fix my attitude, sir,"
The sound of laughter feels out of place in the midst of a ship crash, but it makes Kix relax ever so slightly.
"I trust you, kid."
"Good. Then your job is to get the pilots to eject."
As Kix is free-falling through the air, he wonders if anyone is watching. There were plenty of ships flying overhead when they dropped in. Gunships, fighters, shuttles. If there is anyone watching, he tries to imagine what they're seeing.
A burning shuttle for one, its black smoke leaving a trail to the eventual disaster zone. Two white parachutes fluttering through the air— pilots that saved themselves and abandoned ship. Two men that will live to fly another day.
Maybe, if they're paying enough attention, they'll see the eight troopers falling from the ruined shuttle. A cluster without the failsafe of a parachute, or even the promise of a soft landing. They probably think they fell out— who in their right mind would jump while still hundreds of meters above the ground? Especially when the chances of surviving while remaining in the shuttle are so much greater?
Well, Kix never claimed to be in his right mind, but as a cadet he was pretty good at physics. When the medic was staring out the door, Geonosis rushing toward him, he realized they had a single-window— a ledge along a cliffside that if they lost enough weight in the front of the ship, it would tip them into the perfect position to only have to endure a few meter fall. When Kix said go, they leaped— not one of them hesitating, though Kix was prepared to push if needed.
He's the last to hit the ledge, rolling uncontrollably across the ground. The rocky terrain slices into the spaces where his armor doesn't quite protect him. The world is spinning, pain from the impact making his vision swim, but he doesn't care because he is alive enough that a world exists to be spinning.
"Kix," a pinched voice says nearby. He turns his head to the side to find a clone with the Medical Corp insignia painted across his armor. Kix tries to push himself up, but his adrenaline is falling and he just collapses back into the dirt.
"Arty? Arty are... you... okay?" he says between winces.
A choked laugh. "You crazy son of a bitch."
The fall certainly didn't help the men that were already injured, but when Kix, Arty, the pilots, and the six troopers fly over the wreckage, it becomes eerily obvious that had they never would have survived that sort of impact. The shuttle was fully on fire and strewn across the mountainous area.
Some cuts and bruises and a few worsened concussions are manageable. Spirits are high the moment they emerge from Geonosis' atmosphere without any hiccups.
Kix pulls his helmet off and falls in across from Arty who has stationed himself near the cockpit. The first gen'er glances at him, a smirk spreading across his face as his eyes travel down Kix's beat up kit.
"Not so shiny anymore."
The rookie rolls his eyes. "It'll wash I'm sure."
"I wasn't talking 'bout the armor, Kix," He looks up at Arty in surprise. "You got guts. And a smart mouth that will probably get you in trouble one day."
Right. Right before the crash, they were arguing about duty and triage and— well, none of that really seems to matter anymore.
"I'm sorry, sir," and Kix genuinely is. He didn't mean to get snippy with anyone, especially not the CO that has been exceedingly patient with him and trusted him to save them. "I, uh, I've been told I can be a bit intense and stubborn."
Arty smiles. "Well, you're a medic. You gotta be. The fact you started ordering me, your officer, around is a good thing."
"A good thing?"
"The third lesson I was gonna tell you before we went for a little skydive was that when it comes to the health of the men— our brothers— we as medics give the orders. Don't care if your patient is a shiny or a damn Jedi, you are the highest-ranking member the moment someone hits the floor. Not every clone that comes outa Kamino can handle that sort of thing but you— Kix, you're gonna be a great medic. The 501st will be lucky to have you."
The clone's eyes nearly pop out of his head. The 501st? General Skywalker's unit? Kix's jaw literally drops and he is far too shocked to be embarrassed about his reaction.
"Are you... are you messing with me, sir?"
Arty crosses his arms casually over his chest.
"Well, I was talkin' with Rex after the crash—"
"Rex... Captain Rex?"
"Well yeah, he was checkin' up on me as a good batchmate should. And I happened to know they're in need of a new medic. A good one that can keep up with their... antics."
"Sir, I—" Kix is trying to keep his composure but it's hard when he's involuntarily grinning. Cadets literally talk about the 501st, Captain Rex, and General Skywalker as though they're legends. Some have even been caught trying to hack into the draft algorithms to get assigned there, but Rex is notoriously picky about the rookies they take on. "I don't know what to say."
"Well can't say it was entirely selfless," the older clone shrugs. "I like you, kid, and the 212th and the 501st work together a lot. I feel much more comfortable knowing I can count on whoever's manning the Resolute."
Kix feels like he's floating— it could be the concussion still settling in, but more likely it's the confidence his trainer has instilled in him.
"I appreciate it, sir. It'll be an honor to continue to serve under your guidance."
Arty chuckles, pushing off the wall. "You say that now. We haven't even started treating people yet. I hope you're ready for the rush, Kix."
Kix is ready. Readier than he felt this morning before his ship down in a fiery crash. When Arty slips back into the cockpit, the rookie medic can see the med center growing closer and closer in the viewfinder.
He smiles, anticipation bubbling in his chest. Then goes to the hull to prep the patients for transport.