A Different Type of Soldier

Chapter Six

The Captain and last surviving member of Green Lion Company didn't know how long he was stuck there. He couldn't sleep even in the pure darkness of the storage closet. Every time he closed his eyes the images of his unit falling one by one to the ground flashed behind his eye lids. There were some points that he had thought it was all in his imagination. Without seeing the result of the man slaughter, his foolish imagination could dream that they were still alive down on Resembool. Hurt, but alive and quickly picking up the pieces of their defeat. He knew in his heart that this was wrong. He remembered the cold lifeless form of his Lieutenant as he laid on the cobblestones. However, it seemed that his heart was already too full of scars to keep track of one more. He decided to let himself be naïve.

The Captain felt the ship rumble as it lowered through the atmosphere of what he could hope was their destination. It shuttered and lurched as the ship landed and the whirl of the engines began to wind down. Shouts and orders picked up beyond the door and the Captain heard the rebel troops on the other side begin to stir and dismount. They had arrived. It took what he thought was hours after the ship had landed before the door of the closet suddenly slid opened. The Captain flinched away and closed his eyes as the light that poured in from the hallway was blindingly bright. Hours in the darkness did nothing to help him. He felt a hand grab the front of his chest plate and yank him harshly up and out of the closet. He stumbled to catch himself but with his hands tied and his vision gone, the Captain only found himself on the hard metal floors of the smuggling ship. A horrible yelp escaped his throat as his shoulder rammed into the ground. Laughter echoed around the small group of guards around him.

"Look, the mighty empire has fallen," he heard the one taunt.

"Shut up, Johnny," another huffed as a hand grabbed the Captain by the armor and lifted him back up to his feet. "Get going, sir," the man said tiredly and the tip of a blaster nudged him forward. The Captain was lead down the short hall of the ship as some of the guards jeered and mocked him all of the way. It aggravated the Captain till no end, but he did his best to keep his mouth shut and his head down. He didn't think he had enough energy in him to fight anymore. He closed his eyes and took a deep tired breath as another image of the massacre of white armor flashed through them. He quickly opened his eyes back up and focused on the ramp before him. Maybe, for them, he could find a bit more.

The cots and injured soldiers were long since removed from the ship as the Captain realized they must have landed some time ago. All the rebel forces were gone from the ship aside from the guards who were moving him. Where did they go? He was lead to the entrance of the craft and saw a rather horribly familiar figure standing there waiting for him.

"Hello, Captain, how are you doing today?" the slimy voice of Kimblee asked with a false smile on his face. His nose was a horrible purple and blue mess, but it did nothing to fix the crude smile the Major was giving him.

"Disappointed," he replied with a huff. "It looks like I have only managed to make you look more ugly with that hit to the face. Maybe I should try again later." The butt of a blaster rammed roughly into the back of his head and he staggered forward. He cursed and shook out his head, ever grateful for his helmet. There was a sharp nasally laugh from Kimblee as he took ever the most joy in his pain.

"Well, it doesn't seem we can compare all that much as you hide behind that bucket on your head," he said crudely. "Ah well, it just seems to allow me to imagine more. People's faces are all the more expressive when they confront death. Tell me, Captain, what do you think your lieutenant's face looked like when he hit the ground?"

"Imagine this," the Captain huffed as Kimblee suddenly doubled over as his knee was driven into his stomach. The guards behind him pulled him back as he tried to kick the man again, his foot just missing the Major's head. He struggled to land another hit but Kimblee only set out a winded laugh at his feeble attempts.

"If you keep this up you will be joining your company a lot sooner than we had anticipated. That would not be good for all the questions we still need answered," his smooth voice chucked. The Commander paused as he realized that the man was just taunting him farther. He wanted him to get angry about his unit. The man took copious amounts of joy out of it. It was like death was a joke to him and ED-0001 would not let him make a joke out of his company. He forced himself to choke down his anger and chose to ignore the Major and looked away. He was not going to him the reaction he wanted. The man frowned and hummed to himself as he pressed a button on the wall, seeing that his game was done.

The door of the ship opened, and the Commander had to blink his eyes to keep from being blinded by the sudden light that was entering the ship. He felt a sticky warm breeze race through the doorway and fresh air entered his helmet making him realize that they had landed on a planet instead of a space station like he had thought. He was shoved forward before he could even make sense of what laid beyond the doorway and he staggered down the ramp and onto the malleable ground that gave way under his clumsy false left foot. He stumbled but caught his balance before he could make a fool of himself again. He didn't think that his shoulder could take another jarring fall. He looked around to see himself at what seemed to be a port. Several fighter ships and carriers were docked in the motor pool with mechanics huddled over the engines and people mulling about for one task or another. The sun beat down on the base and the Captain already felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he stared into the distant haze. This was a desert planet with nothing but dirt and sand through its entire plane. It was very different from the hot pleasant environment he was used to on Resembool.

Suddenly he heard a clank on his helmet as something hit off of it. He looked around curiously and then something else hit his hand, stinging it from the force. A booing and jeering started to arise and soon filled the air around the port. Some of the rebels were picking up stones from the ground and tossing them at him. One smacked him right in his shoulder and he growled as a roaring pain rushed through him. The Victors cheered at the hit. The guards around him tried to get the people to stop but Kimblee was paying no mind to them at all.

"You're the one who destroyed our home!" someone yelled.

"You killed my son!"

"Murderer!"

"What do you have to say for yourself?" a man yelled at him. The Commander knew that they were blaming him for the actions of the entire Empire. It was silly and irrational to think that a single insignificant clone would have any choice in the matter of war. The Captain himself did not even see battle until that day on Resembool as he was still young and not even of age. The rebels there were desperate for answers that he couldn't give. If this was what the interrogations were going to be like, the Captain did not foresee a good ending for himself. What information could he possibly have on the inner secrets of the Empire?

Rocks continued to pelt his armor and unfortunately the guards leading him through the port. They were not very happy about getting in the line of fire and roughly shoved him forward to quicken his pace across the malleable sand. They pushed his head down and kicked him through the small doorway of the base. Cool air hit him as it seemed to be air conditioned. The walls were clay and the hallways were thin, barely even being able to hold two people across without hassle. Kimblee lead him through the corridors until they entered yet another confinement block. He saw some strange people occupying the cells, which had clear laser field doors. He spotted a few of the occupants and none seemed to be happy to be there but they were few and far in between. As they walked deeper into the block the cells became smaller and empty. They were barely any larger than the broom closet he was shoved in before, but the Captain had to admit that at least he wasn't going to be sharing it with cleaning ware. Kimblee typed a number code on one of the cells as he was trying to open the door but a sudden loud buzz went off and the man groaned in annoyance.

"What is it now?" he growled as he tried again just to get the same result. The Captain smiled a bit as did the other guards and the man's expense.

"Technical difficulties?" he smirked smartly. The man glared at him before he pressed the center button. A blue light erupted out of the system and a hologram suddenly took form of a young black-haired rebel soldier with glasses skewed on his face. The digital man quickly pushed up his glasses and jumped a little bit when he caught sight of the Major, making the Captain snicker a little bit at the reaction. Anyone seeing Kimblee would probably have the same reaction. The Captain was a bit ashamed to admit that the terrifying joy that the man took in pain and murder scared him as well. No one knew what Kimblee would do just to get a bit of blood on his hands.

"Sir!" the soldier exclaimed as he saluted quickly.

"What, Sergeant?" Kimblee hissed annoyed with his sudden appearance. The hologram flustered around with some papers in its hands and the Sergeant read over them quickly, scanning for some purpose as to interrupt this man's job.

"Um, sir, all prisoners are supposed to be taken to medical and inprocessing before they are put in their cells," the Sergeant told him.

"Open the door, Sergeant, this one is fine," Kimblee ordered.

"The Colonel needs to see him."

"Then he can come down and see him himself. Open the door Sergeant," he hissed. With the glare he was giving him the Sergeant quickly signed off before the Captain had any room for protest. The door opened and Kimblee took him by the chest plate and threw him into yet another cell before storming out. He stumbled and fell to the ground jarring his shoulder even more, making him curse to the high heavens. His arm was still numb but the shoulder was on fire even more than it was when he actually got hit. He heard a humm start up behind him and he turned to see that they had reactivated the field to lock him in. He scrambled up and scurried towards the door but one of the Guards stopped him before he got to it.

"Whoa, hey, don't touch that. It's set to stun and you will knock yourself out before you're able to do anything," he warned. The Captain froze as he stared at it, the light blue haze buzzing its current from one side of the wall to the other. Kimblee approached it and smirked at him, the evil eyes bearing through his helmet.

"Just sit tight there, sir," he spat the last word, "someone will be here to talk to you."

….

The Captain stared mindlessly at the clay earthen ceiling of the cell he was crammed into. It felt like ages since he was put in there but he didn't feel like he had enough energy to care at that moment. He didn't feel much anymore. He tried to use his time there to sleep however his body couldn't even seem to do that right. His mind kept jumping back to Liore and the corpses that now scattered its lawn. He couldn't sleep, not with that. So, he used his time lying down on the hard bench in the cell and staring at the ceiling as it seemed the only thing he could do at that moment.

His arm itched. Not the actual arm, but the wound. He couldn't scratch it, he couldn't ease the feeling as his hands were still restrained behind him. He at first tried his best even in his condition to soothe it but he only managed to taunt it more. Laying there on his cot and suffering the pain was the only thing he could do. The itch was horribly annoying, but the Captain was marginally grateful for the distraction from his wandering mind. It gave him something to focus on. However, an injury like that, without medical treatment, was not going to end well. He couldn't see it. His armor was blocking where the bullet hit and his arms were still tied as he could not move to give it aid, but he didn't think he wanted to. He knew it was starting to get infected. It had to have been several hours then since he was hit, maybe days. If the rebels didn't come in soon and decide to take care of him, he would undoubtedly get sick.

The sound of footsteps outside the door made the Captain turn his gaze from the clay ceiling towards the barrier that blocked the way. A single rebel soldier stood outside of it staring in at him. He appeared to be high ranking as ribbons were delicately pinned on his blue uniform jacket but from where the Captain laid he couldn't tell his exact rank. Unlike where the Imperial troops were graded in pauldrons and color for differentiation, the rebels only had tiny pins. It was smart to make them less of a target in combat but it was also difficult to tell who was who. The Captain guessed that since they weren't wearing helmets such as his, their unique facial features were good enough to tell the difference in person.

The soldier glared at him from outside the doorway and didn't make an attempt to enter the cell. The Captain didn't attempt to invite him in. With the way the man's black eyes boiled in hatred and disgust towards him, he didn't think that becoming friends was on that man's agenda.

"So, you were the clone that didn't do us all a favor and die with the rest of them," the man spat coldly. "I guess the saying 'the captain goes down with his ship' doesn't apply to imperial soldiers."

"The last of my men surrendered and I had with them to spare the lives of the few soldiers who were left of my unit. I am sure you would have done the same," the Captain growled his defense as he pushed himself up on the cot he was laying on. His shoulder hissed and growled but he bit through it for the fight. He was not going to be showed up by a pompous ass such as him. The man scoffed at him, not liking the fact that he was being compared to a clone.

"If my soldiers had captured surrendered troops they would have brought them back here as ordered by the intergalactic codes for war," the man huffed. "We don't murder people relentlessly like you. The reason why we went to Resembool was because we got distress calls from the Villages about them getting ransacked and pillaged by imperial soldiers."

"Murder relentlessly? We never murdered innocent civilians under my command, unlike you. Your men were ordered to shoot unarmed troops!" the Captain yelled, standing up to his feet. "The only reason why my unit isn't with me right now is because your troops shot them unprovoked!" The soldier, a Colonel he could see now that he stood directly on the other side of the barrier beam as him, seemed completely taken aback by his statement. It seemed that he was unaware of what had really occurred on the planet and now the Captain's accusations were bringing those events to light.

The Colonel's eyes slowly started to scan him, getting a better picture of his prisoner than before. It was difficult for someone to use facial clues when he was wearing a helmet, but the man didn't need them to know he was spinning some form of the truth as his eyes locked onto his still bloodied and injured shoulder. The Colonel seemed to grow angry but strangely at someone other than him. He thought he heard a curse escape the man's lips as he typed a few codes into the panel near his door. A hologram quickly popped up of the same little Sergeant as before. The little man was a little startled at the Colonel's rather furious expression.

"Fuery, get every soldier who just returned from the trip into the conference room. Bring some guards down to cellblock five to escort the prisoner to medical, and send Kimblee to the general's office immediately," the man ordered. The Sergeant quickly signed off with a yes sir. As soon as the hologram disappeared the Colonel let out an aggravated breath.

"If looks like your interrogation will just have to wait," he huffed.

"Change of heart?" the Captain teased and the Colonel growled at him. It looked like he was going to retort with something nasty but he was quickly distracted by the guards entering the hallway.

"Take him to the medical ward and have his arm checked out then send him to in processing," the Colonel ordered. He pressed the button to open the cell as the guards gave their yessirs and they rushed in. The Captain felt a shove as the men guided him out of his cell and down the hall. The Colonel glared at him as he passed and he just returned it though it was quite halfheartedly. He was confused beyond belief. He didn't know what was going on, if this was a trick of some sort, but he didn't trust the man at all. The guards behind him gave him a little push as they realized he was slowing down and they turned the corner. The Captain took one last glance back to where the Colonel was standing before to find it vacant of life. A pit grew in his stomach that made him imagine that something wasn't right about his perspective on things, he just couldn't place what it could be.

…..

The Colonel stared out across the table at his blond-haired subordinate. She was straight faced as ever, which did not give him any clue that she was wondering why they were there. She probably already knew.

He had spent the last few hours interrogating his own troops rather than the filthy imperial soldier they just captured. They didn't even have a name for the Commander let alone the chipped files in his wrist. The Captain was furious as any prisoner would be after such an embarrassing defeat. He blamed the rebels for murder when Mustang was sure that he had his soldiers follow the rules of war. However, seeing the Captain's mutilated shoulder, he knew that something was wrong. Kimblee was ordered to take him to the medical ward if he was injured and even send him through in processing so that they could get any information they needed from the clone before starting an actual interrogation. Those obviously were not followed which made the Colonel wonder what else the Major had done without his supervision. He needed to get to the bottom of it.

All the other people he questioned had a mixture of answers on the matter. Some of them replied saying that Kimblee did order them to shoot the remainder of soldiers after they were peacefully rounded up, and others had a mixture of stories as they didn't do such a thing. He didn't know who to believe at this point and the last person he could trust was probably the one who killed the most in that firefight.

The rebels all had mixed feelings about the Central Empire, more importantly the storm and clone troopers they used. Their anger raged from a trickle of competition and anger to a burning disgust for their creation at all. Unfortunately, the Colonel had to admit that he was on the latter of the group. He was disgusted by the idea of cloning men and even more so about what they had become. He understood why many people would have sided with Kimblee if he really did order them to shoot the prisoners. However, in the matter of humane warfare, the rebel forces had no room for this conduct in their military even against clones and storm troopers, mere minions on the Central's behalf. A prisoner of war was a prisoner of war no matter what they were which meant fair treatment and aid under their confinement. If the rebel forces didn't uphold the Intergalactic Codes of War, it just gave the Empire new propaganda to hold against them in the long run.

"Lieutenant," the Colonel sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, tired of all of the people he had to question that day. He hoped that she would be able to give him something to set his suspicions to rest.

"Sir," she answered stiffly, seeing that he was taking his time in. Mustang looked up at her, knowing her attitude was anything but impatient.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, tell me everything that happened in Liore as how you remember it exactly," he ordered her. She nodded her head in acceptance. His most trusted subordinate told him exactly what happened that day. She told him about her position up in one of the farmer's barn windows and how she watched the Imperial soldiers walk through the vacated village with crates full of seed.

"Seed?" the Colonel questioned her.

"Yes sir. They took them to the previous towns. Even the other companies had them. I believe they were trading them for some reason, but I am not sure, sir," she answered. The Colonel frowned and made a little note on the pad he was writing on. The Avarice Battalion usually raided the villages that they took their food from. That was one reason why the rebels took interest in the planet of Resembool to begin with and also that if they cut off the legion's food supply it would be that much harder on the Empire. He wondered why they would suddenly change tactics at all. He made a note and then motioned for the Lieutenant to continue.

She told him about how the mortars dropped, and the fire fight started. She cornered a few numbers of troops down a dead-end alley and she shot the Imperial Lieutenant in the side and the Commander in the shoulder. Finally, she got to the point she knew he was asking the entire time.

"We had captured a total number of 8 soldiers including the Captain. The rest of them were killed in the fire fight."

"I would have expected a harder fight," the Colonel commented. The Lieutenant glared at him for his assumptions.

"Sir, don't underestimate them. They were all very well trained. Out of the three hundred people we sent on this mission, they had only forty soldiers. They did not stand a chance, but they injured just under half of our men though we sustained no deaths," she corrected him. Roy frowned and leaned back in his chair. He did not imagine that the companies stationed on Resembool would be that small. He had sent in three hundred soldiers to Liore alone thinking that there would have been a bigger fight. However, instead of over estimating them, the Colonel actually underestimated the soldiers. The Imperial Commander only had forty men at his disposal and managed to injure nearly half of the Rebel forces. Luckily they sustained no casualties but he knew many soldiers might not make it back on the battle fields due to the magnitude of their injuries. One of those soldiers was his own. The Colonel felt an over powering burst of anger and rage towards their newly obtained prisoner.

"What happened next?" the Colonel asked his subordinate after taking a few deep breaths to cool his temper. He knew that getting mad now would not solve anything. He still needed to get to the bottom of this dilemma. Hawkeye narrowed her eyes as she watched him wrangle in his temper. She knew about his hatred for clones and stormtroopers a little too personally. His subordinate waited for him to calm down before he continued. It appeared that even she did not want to push his buttons too far that evening.

"We had them guarded at the end of town near our own ships. Then Major Kimblee addressed the Commander and ordered us to shoot and kill the rest of the wounded Imperial soldiers."

"Did you?"

"No. I did not fire," she said and therefore willingly admitted the fact that she had denied an order given to her by a superior officer. She was accepting any consequences that it took for disobeying an order on the behalf of some enemy soldier she did not know. She made no excuses and made no heroic stories. She only stated the facts. That was why the Colonel believed her.

The Colonel nodded his head numbly as he disregarded the previous accounts that all the enemy soldiers were killed in direct fire. They did take at least a few of them captive which meant that his previous thought was wrong. The Commander was not the only survivor of the battle in Liore. His troops were surrendered and unarmed upon being killed by Kimblee's order and therefore it was murder. The Colonel did not know how far the Intergalactic code of war went for clones, but there were at least some true Storm troopers amongst the Company that also were killed. No matter what, Kimblee had still gone against Roy's own order and broke the law of war. The Captain was in the clear.

Roy groaned and dropped his face into his hands as he massaged it tiredly. This only meant a whole new pile of paperwork and pains for him.

"How did the other men react to this order?" he asked his subordinate through his hands, knowing that he might as well figure out who else was guilty of pulling the trigger.

"They carried it out and did not question it, sir," she answered truthfully. "The only person who tried to stop it was the Imperial Captain himself."

"He tried to stop them?" Roy asked in disbelief. There were many reasons why the rebels and citizens called the Storm troopers monsters but one of them was because they didn't even care to save their own kind. They regarded themselves as expendable and left their wounded for dead. He saw it too many times in his battles against the Empire to think it false. The Clones were an expendable force but for even the clones themselves to call them that, that level of self-dehumanization was a bit much for the Colonel to handle. He hated clones with a burning passion, but what the Empire trained them to do just disgusted him entirely.

"Not all clones are monsters, sir," his lieutenant stated flatly with a warning look in her eye. "Before that the Commander had gone back out from his cover to retrieve his Lieutenant after I had shot him." Roy frowned and sat back in his chair, covering his mouth with his hand as he thought. This clone was different. Could it have been a programming error? Or could it just be him? The Commander of Green Lion Company did not sit there and watch his troops get murdered. He did not simply leave his men on the battlefield injured or dead. He went back to help them and fought all the way till the end. He was not like any other clone Roy ever had the burden to meet. Something was different with him and the Colonel didn't know if he wanted to figure out what. Either way, he knew he would be spending a lot more time in the future with the Imperial Commander.

"Very well. Lieutenant," he grumbled, neither accepting nor denying his subordinate's previous statement. He stood from his seat and picked up his extensive collection of notes. "Get some rest. On your way back to your room can you get Sergeant Fuery to go down to medical to watch after the clone and to make sure all is done for him there? I have some more people I need to talk to before bringing this load up to the generals' office."

"Yes, sir," she said as she stood up from where she sat. "Make sure to pay a visit to Havoc in the infirmary. He is getting to acquainted with sitting down."

"He's next on the list actually. Even though he's injured I still have to ask him questions."

"He will be very annoyed with you for disturbing him while he's recovering. He will probably try to kick you out," she said with a small chuckle in her voice but as Roy watched it come it immediately left as if she remembered something. Roy understood that with war as an occupation, there were many things that soldiers did not want to think about. Their most recent engagement was lingering over all of their minds and he knew it would be a very long time till they forgot about it, if they forgot at all. With what had happened with his own subordinates, he doubted his unit would ever be the same after Liore.

"Rest well, Lieutenant," he mumbled trying to dismiss her. She looked up at him as she snapped out of her thought and then nodded her head slowly. She reassembled herself quickly before she turned her heel and walked out the door. The Colonel watched her go with a frown. He sighed as he shook his head and tapped his paperwork on the table to straighten it out. This was not Hawkeye's first battle and it surely was not going to be her last. He knew that she would make it through. Then again, it probably wasn't herself that she was worried about at that moment. Roy had to go talk to Lieutenant Havoc. He made it his top priority.

….

The Commander felt anxiety crawl into him as he was rushed immediately into the emergency room care. He still had the shackles on around his hands but the nurses seemed more flustered with getting him care rather than if he was going to strangle them or not. They were asking him too many questions at once he didn't know what they were saying. The guards who had lead him into the medical ward were ordered to wait outside for him instead of following him in. He didn't really know what was going on. Many of the eyes that were laid upon him, trying to get his diagnosis written down looked rather disgusted by his presence there but they were still furiously trying to get everyone around him to do their jobs right. He was being pushed and pulled in so many directions he didn't know where he was anymore. The Commander felt someone grab his helmet and lift it off of his head.

"H-Hey!" he exclaimed as he tried to grab it back but someone else yanked on the cuffs which bound his hands and were fumbling for the lock.

"You can't move your arm can you?" the little grey haired woman asked him straight in the eyes. Her face was stern, but she looked more worried than the other doctors who were just doing their jobs. He numbly shook his head as she opened the restraints and tossed them to the side. Like he said his right arm fell limply to his side unmoving. She picked it up and looked at it. She poked it in many places and asked if he could feel it but he couldn't. With a hum she let it go and it fell useless again.

"How long has it been like this?" she asked him as she and other nurses started to try and remove his armor from his shoulders and his arms. There was a sudden searing pain in his left wrist as someone took a chip reader to it to scan the files encoded there. The Captain pulled his wrist away quickly and rubbed it against his side to ease the hurt as the offender walked away with the data reader along with his personal records and data. As the nurses buzzed around him, he tried to keep track of all they were doing but it was to much at once for him to handle. One nurse went to remove his shoulder plate but brushed his shoulder the wrong way. He hissed at the pain and gripped his shoulder. The nurse carried on without an apology.

"S-since it was hit," the Commander said as he watched the nurses carry his dirty and bloody armor away. He felt tugging on his legs and he looked down to see that they were already starting to take his shin guards off. He saw one of the nurses start for his bottom plates and he felt himself turn red as he quickly tried to stop her. He fumbled and jumped out of the ring of medics, his face heated.

"N-no… I-I can do it-"

"Stop being a baby," the old lady scolded him. "You are eighteen years old for god sakes. My granddaughter can put up with more than you."

"I am not even eight!" he defended as he tried to take his own thigh plates off however the straps were too difficult for only one hand and with his other one useless he couldn't do it. He kept backing away from the nurses who were very aggravated with him. "I-I think I am fine… We could just bandage it and-"

"You need surgery," the old woman retorted. The Commander shook his head as he was backed up into the glass wall that surrounded the examination room. Many people were observing the procedure from the other side to make sure everything was going alright or whether their prisoner was going rogue. He felt his head race. It was all too overwhelming being in there. The bright lights made his vision spin and he felt exposed. He wished he were back in his cell or even better, back on Resembool.

The nurses started to carefully approach him. Their muscles were tense and ready to pounce just as the Captain's was ready to flee. Suddenly, there was a shimmer in the corner of his eye and turned to see one of the doctors trying to prepare a needle. His eyes widened with the sight and he bolted through the crowd to the other side of the room, his right arm flopping beside him.

"No-No needles! I don't need a shot-" he begged as the man got closer to him. The doctor lunged and he jumped, leaping over the examination table and knocking over a few sterile trays that were set up. A roar of complaints picked up as the nurses looked at the mess of their work.

"It's just anesthetic! It won't hurt you," the short woman barked at him as the other doctor rounded the table again towards him. The Captain backed away again, his breath was tight in his chest. He could already feel the thousands of needles piercing his skin and the white coated doctors hovering over him. He didn't want to go through that again. His mind and heart were racing a mile a minute making it hard for him to breathe.

When the doctor lunged at him again, the Captain leaped out of the way but he felt someone run into his side and he fell to the floor. The Commander tried to scramble out from underneath the man that had tackled him but he was pinned to the ground.

"No, no, no, no," he panicked and kicked as he tried to break free. He felt like thousands of needles were coming at him. He needed to get out of there. There was yelling of orders from the other medics in the room and he couldn't make sense of it all. It was too chaotic and bright. Suddenly he felt the unwanted prick in his arm and the serum that was in the syringe emptied out into his bloodstream. He screamed, or tried to, but his mind went dizzy and dumb instantly.

"Come on, we need to get him on the table," he heard the strange old lady order. His limp body was tugged upwards and he was laid down on the cool surface of the metal table. He blinked dazedly around and he tried to sit up just to find that he was too tired to move. A hand rested on his face and he saw the warm eyes of the old lady stare into his. He felt scared as his vision started to grow fuzzy. He didn't know what was going on and all he could imagine was pain. Pain and mocking scientists. However, a small smile formed on the old woman's face which suddenly made his heart calm down from his racing state. It seemed gentle, not like anything else before.

"It will be alright. Calm down," he heard he whisper to him as she held his face gently in her hands to keep him focused. Suddenly, he felt the forced slumber come over him as her words rang in his head. For some reason he trusted her as his eyes slowly drew close.

…..

Lieutenant Hawkeye watched the procedure through the clear glass that surrounded the examination room. She had to ask if she was in the right place as she saw a blond-haired child on the table instead of a clone like she was expecting. However, under several people's' answers she had to conclude that this was him, the commander of Green Lion Company. The child laid motionless on the table as medics buzzed around with syringes and gauze to soak up the blood that was pooling over the side of the table. She couldn't believe that that was the person she had shot in Liore. Her kills never felt personal, it just felt like something that happened, they never felt real, but seeing the Captain lay there on the table right in front of her, she couldn't seem to comprehend what had happened. Through the scope of her rifle she knew that the commander was short in comparison with the man he was running with, but to find out he wasn't even fully matured yet seemed to give her a kick in the stomach. He couldn't have been more than eight years old at that point. It was a little unbearable for her to watch as he went through surgery unknowing of whatever went on around him. She wasn't giving the kid pity, she wasn't upset that she had shot him. It was what she had to do and she did it. But looking back at what she was like at only eight years old, she knew that he must have been frightened beyond belief.

They had set him of all people in charge of an entire company on Resembool. Clones were tougher than their age let on. They were highly skilled soldiers bred and created for just that reason. The Commander couldn't have been an exception to this, but Hawkeye could tell that there was something different in him than all the other clones. It wasn't just the hair or the age that had surprised her, but rather what she remembered of the day in Liore. There was something about the Captain that interested nearly everyone that met him however she couldn't understand it, and neither could they.

Lieutenant Hawkeye let out a small yawn as she leaned back in her chair. Sergeant Fuery was asleep in the chair next to her with the Captain's files pulled up on a data pad that was currently falling off his lap. One of the nurses had retrieved the information from the chip imbedded in the clone's wrist and they were supposed to scan through it and take it to the Colonel when the time came. Fuery was supposed to be the only one on guard duty until the surgery was over. As she and the rest of the unit were out in the field for the last few days, they were supposed to be getting some rest to recover, but Hawkeye did not think sleep was going to come to her easily that night. She was only starting to feel the wave of tiredness come over her yet it had been hours since she had come down to the observation deck to keep the Sergeant company. Fuery had fallen asleep beside her in no time, leaving her yet again to her wandering thoughts.

The Lieutenant picked up the data pad from the Sergeants lap and began to flip through the Captain's files, wanting to know more about the clone that they had captured. She didn't get far beyond the clone's name before the doors of the operation room opened. The short lady, Pinako Rockbell, scuttled out of it, wiping her washed hands on her apron, a clipboard tucked underneath her arm. She spotted her from across the way and walked over to take the chair next to her. She looked almost as tired as she was but she still wore a dull smile on her face as she handed her a clean dampened cloth.

"Lieutenant, you got some dirt on your face," she told her and the Lieutenant quickly thanked her and started to wipe her face, putting the data pad down for a later time. She realised just how filthy she was from her fight on Resembool as she saw the cloth dirtied from only a few wipes on her face.

"What's going on in there?" she asked as she continued to try and clean herself up a bit. The old woman sighed as she crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair.

"Well, we had to amputate his arm. He couldn't feel it at all, movement was all impossible and the bolt just went straight through his shoulder girdle. Even if we wanted to fix it, there was nothing we could do. We even had to repair some of his bones with metal just to keep him together," she said. "Strange enough, he already has a prosthetic leg."

"A leg?" Hawkeye asked curiously. "They should have thrown him out if he lost a leg or got injured. The Empire doesn't keep defective clones." Pinako just shrugged, not knowing the answer at all. The Lieutenant frowned and set her hand down in her lap and fingered the cloth lightly as she stared into the operating room. Looking more closely, she could see the silver of a metal limb poke out from beneath the blue surgery cloth.

"How old is he?" Riza asked the old woman calmly. Pinako chuckled a little bit as if she was remembering something funny in the back of her mind.

"You know he's only eight years old? I didn't know he was a clone until he told me that and still I couldn't believe it until we knocked him out and removed his shirt to find those burns on his back," she said. "He still does act like a child as you could believe. We were chasing him around the room because he was scared of the needles. Could you believe that? A Commander of a military company, from the Empire no less, afraid of tiny needles."

"The process of becoming a clone is rather painful one, Dr. Rockbell," Hawkeye said calmly. "Their immune systems aren't fully developed when they are born and have to get many injections right when they open their eyes. I could imagine that only at age eight he would still be a bit off put by them."

"Yes, you would know all about that wouldn't you, Lieutenant?" Pinako replied softly. There was a string of silence between them as they both watched the operation room tiredly. It looked like the arm had been removed successfully and all that there was left was to stitch up the shoulder. The golden haired boy looked so small now just laying there on the table. The whole scene sent shivers up Hawkeye's back and she felt herself pull her jacket around herself tighter.

"I know it was the Central Empire that ravaged our home planet of Resembool and killed my son and daughter in their fire fight to conquer it. It was because of those monsters that I had to flee from there with only my granddaughter in my hands. Isn't it silly that I look at that clone and just imagine him as something different? I don't know, maybe it is because he looks like someone I used to know that I say this, but it is still a gut feeling that I can't shake," Pinako whispered. Her eyes were still locked on the room and Riza couldn't tell what she was thinking. Riza knew that he was the enemy, yet she did know that there was something different about Captain ED-0001 that even Pinako could feel. Riza didn't think that he was friendly, there was nothing that he would do to label him as such. But sure enough, Riza was questioning just what type of clone this boy could be. A hand patted her leg lightly as Pinako stood up with a calm and gently smile back at her.

"You look tired, let me get you a blanket," she offered. The lieutenant caught the old woman's eyes before she turned away. They were wet and shiny. She sighed as she watched Pinako walk away and out of sight. She and her granddaughter had a hard life because of the Empire's stormtroopers. They lost everything because of them. However, it seemed even Pinako was conflicted with her thoughts on the new stranger. The Lieutenant was getting curious as to what exactly they were getting into with Captain ED-0001.