It was an abrupt change: one moment, you were floating along, sleeping and unaware of your surroundings. You weren’t dreaming, but you could almost feel your body working to… to do something. You weren’t quite sure what it was, but it was something necessary, something it needed to do to keep going.
And then everything changed. You made some small motion - shifted your weight or twitched a toe - and the world came crashing back down. Everything hurt.
Everythinghurt.
For the first time in your life, you were horribly aware of the entire length of your throat leading down to your lungs. Letting out a breath stung - drawing one in was even worse. How badly had you been injured that it was painful to breathe?
You coughed lightly, more to counter the cold burning sensation in your lungs than out of any need to clear something from your throat, but that only made you aware of a dull ache in your abdomen and ribs.
You kicked your feet a bit, dissatisfied with the quality of everything at the moment. At that moment, speech was the last thing on your mind. You could only show how unhappy you were by moving your body. For an odd moment, you felt a kinship with infants, but all of those strange thoughts were knocked from your mind when your leg actually moved.
Despite what you tried, your ankle wouldn’t twist. Instead, your foot seemed locked in place. That was enough to send you into a panic for a reason you couldn’t explain, and you woke up all the way, launching yourself upward to stare down at your leg and foot.
The moment the comlink connection dropped, the lights in your room came to life - not the sterile, pale lights you were used to seeing, but a dim red glow matched by a loud, buzzing alarm. Kamino was under attack and everyone was aware.
You finished getting dressed with shaking fingers, choosing simple, dark-colored clothing. Changing seemed frivolous, a needless luxury, but in all reality, leaving your room and walking into a known combat situation wearing only your pajamas would be stupid in the extreme.
You were probably ready in under a minute, but the adrenaline stretched that time into an hour. The rushing fear made you want to fling yourself headlong into the hallway outside of your quarters, but you made yourself take a breath and think logically. Disabling the automatic doors would allow you to control how quickly they opened, as well as how far. It was the work of a moment and could prevent you from being caught, so it was worth doing.
Turning the door mode to manual mode took a button and two switches, then you paused inside the door. You had your ear pressed against the chilled durasteel of the door, trying to hear anything on the other side. There was nothing that you could hear, but that didn’t mean that nothing was there. Alpha seemed to think this was a Separatist attack - droid armies didn’t breathe or fidget or make any of the small noises common to living things. Leaving your quarters had never been quite this dangerous before.
Still self-reblogging! If you ever read more of my works, you probably already know this fun fact, but bear with me.
You know that post talking about oddly specific tropes that always show up in a writer’s works? One of mine is carbon monoxide poisoning. I know I’ve written about it at least twice. When I was very small, my next door neighbors almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning and my parents’ explanation of what had happened terrifiedme. Before I went to sleep at night, I would ask if the carbon monoxide detector was working.
It’s funny what minor incidents make a strong impact on you!
Alpha-17 and fem!reader trying to live life on Kamino
Word Count: 4,600
Warnings: Plot incoming, but nothing too intense yet.
—
The comlink that Alpha had graciously gifted you was versatile and useful. Not only did it transmit short-range audio, video, and holoprojections, it also transmitted long-range audio and boasted a chronometric display so the wearer could keep easy track of the time.
For a civilian, it would have been useful. For a soldier, it was downright indulgent. And Alpha had chosen to give it to you rather than keep it for himself, switching to a cheaper, less useful model. He didn’t know yet, but you had ordered him an exact replacement. Outside deliveries to Kamino were rare, but you had been assured that it was on the way.
In any case, the chrono was what was holding your attention then. You were engrossed in a series of mental calculations, trying to decipher the time difference between Kamino and Coruscant.
Beside you, Alpha heaved an irritated sigh, glaring at the pair of cadets across the table. “She’s. Not. Interested. Do me a favor: tell all of your little friends that being a nat-born female on Kamino doesn’t make her want to hear your pathetic attempts at flirting.”
How long would the rest of lunch take? And then how long would it take to get back to your office? Assuming Alpha came along and you were only stopped by two groups of cadets, it would take roughly the amount of time it usually did.
“But Captain, how are we supposed to get better at flirting if we don’t practice?” the cheeky cadet asked.
“You aren’t,” Alpha told him bluntly. “The Kaminiiwant you to learn to fight, not flirt. Focus on learning to protect yourselves and your brothers. From the way you act around one disinterested female, you’ll need the fighting skills when one of you says something you shouldn’t to someone you shouldn’t.”
This chapter’s fun fact was that it was supposed to just be setting up for the attack on Kamino, but then the attack itself ended up being so long (three chapters, I believe!) that I had to cut a chapter and write this ending. It’s okay though; most of the cut material was written into the attack itself or later chapters!
Continued adventures of Alpha-17 and the fem!reader
Word Count: 5,600-ish
Warnings: Emotions. So many of them.
—
The architecture was strange on Kamino, you reflected, eying the spot where the rounded wall met the gray-toned carpet. Everywhere else in the galaxy placed an emphasis on ease of building and practicality of cleaning, but Kaminoans seemed to place a premium on seamlessness. You couldn’t actually detect the point where whoever had built the room had welded the durasteel pieces together. All Kaminoan architecture was like that - ‘ perfection in all things’ seemed to be their motto.
The overall impression should have been one of smooth perfection, but it hit the eye as something eerie, too flawless to be real. It gave everything in Tipoca City a sense of being removed from reality. Living here felt like a dream, but not a particularly good one.
This is the chapter of Gar Cabur I know better than any other. Not because it took me longer to write or anything, but because (in response to multiple requests) I’m writing a version of these events from Alpha’s POV. I’m not sure when that version will be finished or posted, but I am working on it!
