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CT-38-1221 is a good soldier who did well in training, and can still list off every point of concern when it comes to jungle traversal. He is only just now learning, however, that no amount of combat sims or holocam footage can prepare him from seeing such an environment in person.
Verdant green surrounds him and his squad, spotted with equally stunning splashes of every other colour sported by various creatures and flora. The jungle is very vividly alive, and every other minute he finds himself wanting to stop and just drink it all in.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an option.
Spoiling what would be an otherwise spectacular view is the sight of a bank of dark clouds rolling towards them. Flashes of lightning occasionally illuminate the landscape, making the armour of his squadmates stand out even more brightly amongst the trees. They can see the rain sheeting down ahead of them even from their current position deep in the jungle, and Thirty-Eight knows, falling back on the same calculations and flash-training as the rest of them, that it won’t take the storm long at all to reach their position.
“Come on, get moving,” the squad leader calls out from the front, and Thirty-Four snaps back to attention. “Staring at it isn’t going to slow it down - we need to make it to shelter, let’s go!”
It’s enough to motivate them all from a jog into a run, caution over the potential dangers of the jungle being pushed aside temporarily in the face of the very certain danger the lightning storm poses. They’re too high up, and their ultimate rendezvous point would certainly be too exposed. They need to wait this one out.
Intel tells them that there are various ancient ruins dotted around the landscape nearby, and it’s to one such ruin that they run now. The sight of it looms suddenly ahead of them, an incongruous stone structure amongst the trees, set into the side of a rocky cliff.
It doesn’t take them long to find an entrance to the place. As they all scramble up the steps and into the entrance hall, the first drops of rain start to fall outside. The low boom of thunder sounds overhead, followed shortly after by the lightning. Thirty-Eight - and everyone else in the squad, he suspects - lets out a quiet breath of relief. He’d always hated storm combat sims the most, at least.
They all fall back on training when it comes to establishing a perimeter and setting up camp a bit further into the structure. It’s only after they’ve determined that the place is safe from immediate collapse, and that there are no apparent resident hostiles, that anyone really relaxes - and, then, really starts to look around at their surroundings. A few of them spread out to search the area, curiosity and the desire to find a distraction from the storm spurring them on.
Thirty-Eight finds himself staring at the carvings on the walls nearby, depicting… well, he’s not entirely sure, but he thinks that it could be some kind of battle between two groups of swordsmen. There isn’t a blaster in sight. These ruins really must be as old as they look.
Moving on from them, he wanders out of the entrance hall and into another corridor. It’s just as run-down as the room they’d set up camp in, with similar statues overlooking the space. Even the statues are strange, often being unidentifiable entirely, or depicting ominous hooded figures that Thirty-Eight struggles to associate with anything good. He quickly shrugs the feeling off, moves into the next room looking for a distraction - and promptly finds one.
Where most of the rooms he had passed by before this point had been empty, this one has a plinth in the centre of it, and on that plinth is something that shines even in the dim light that his helmet torch provides. He can’t help his curiosity, stepping closer to take a look.
The base of the amulet is an iridescent metal like nothing he has seen before, and the jewel set within it is a green that he certainly has; it’s the same green as the jungle, vibrant and beautiful for it.
This is what he notices immediately - what he fails to notice is the ring of runes around it, carved into the stonework, and almost impossible to pick out from the carvings around them. The shine of the amulet hitting the light of his torch is enough of a distraction for him to overlook them entirely, even as he moves across them and they offer a faint glow themselves. Then a voice from outside the room calls his name, and he makes a snap decision, scooping up the trinket and quickly hiding it in one of his belt pouches.
This is his first time off of Kamino. He has never really had anything of his own. There’s obviously nobody left in this abandoned place that will miss this little treasure, so why can’t he call it his?
—
After returning to the group, they wait out the rest of the storm without incident, and soon it has passed them by. They’re close enough to the rendezvous point that setting off before nightfall is both feasible and sensible, and any fallen trees or debris from the storm can easily be spotted and routed around before setting off.
Thirty-Eight is eager to leave this place behind them. He knows that he is just imagining things, but the weight of the amulet in his pocket seems to have increased tenfold since he’d decided not to tell his squadmates about it (and since they had started making plans to leave).
As they exit the ruins, too, a strange sensation washes over Thirty-Eight, and he finds himself faltering in the face of what feels like some kind of phantom resistance. Still, he is a soldier first and foremost, and so he powers through it, disguising the effort it takes him to do so as him merely stumbling over some debris left by the storm. He sneaks a quick look behind him, and finds nothing there to explain the feeling, nor any of his squadmates experiencing the same thing - so promptly decides to keep his mouth shut about it. The eyes he feels on him must be the attention from his squadmates at his antics.
This mission has gone well so far. He doesn’t want to give anyone any reason to doubt his competence. It was probably just an effect of exhaustion, something he should be more than capable of shrugging off.
Shortly after, when he thinks for a moment that he sees a figure staring at him through the trees - gone between blinks and unnoticed by everyone else around him - he shrugs that off as exhaustion, too.
—
They reach the shuttle at the rendezvous point in good time, with Thirty-Eight only spotting flickers of movement in his peripherals a couple of times more. In both instances the existence of sentient life in the area is immediately disproved by his HUD’s scanning capabilities, and in both instances his squadmates send him concerned looks despite his best attempts to hide his jumpiness.
Still, better they think he’s jumping at jungle life than he is at shadows, and so again he makes no comment on it. He just needs sleep, he tells himself. A good night’s rest, away from stress of the battlefield and the ceaseless background noise of the jungle, and he’ll be fine.
—
As they leave the planet’s surface, he gets an overhead view of the jungle. His squadmates are considerate like that, making sure when they can that the shinies get the full experience of life outside of Kamino. It’s a wondrous sight, one that Thirty-Eight drinks in for as long as possible as they start their ascent - then finds himself startling away from, as he one again spots a figure staring back at him from atop a cliff. They’re familiar, and although he can’t place them exactly, they look not dissimilar to the figures he’d seen in statue form in the ruins not long before. The only difference is the stranger’s stance, hand outstretched, pointing back in the direction that their squad had travelled to the rendezvous point from.
They’re a great distance from each other, and that distance is only increasing, but Thirty-Eight can’t shake the feeling that the figure is staring right at him.
“What’ve you spotted, shiny?” one of his squadmates asks, shaking him away from the sight.
Thirty-Eight quickly gestures them over. “There! Do you see that?” he cries, pointing out of the viewport.
The brother goes to look out, but Thirty-Eight can see the negative on his face even before they confirm it. “What am I looking for?” they ask. Then, more gently, “are you doing okay?”
Thirty-Eight settles back in his seat, deliberately not looking back out at the jungle, and for the first time considers if he should be answering more honestly in the negative.
—
When they’re back on the main ship, Thirty-Eight is sent through to the med-bay to be cleared, and then off to the bunks to catch up on some rest. He is infinitely grateful to do so, even if the clean bill of health is more unnerving than comforting, leaving him with little explanation for why he might be seeing things that can’t possibly be there.
Surely sleep will cure him of his paranoia, he reasons to himself as he takes his kit off. The storm and the ruins must have just left him on edge. It was a whole new experience for him, after all, visiting anywhere that wasn’t Kamino.
Looking for a distraction, he quickly rummages through his belt pouches and retrieves the amulet within, turning it over in his palm. At least he had found some good in his time on the planet. He knows that none of his batchmates have found any souvenirs like this, yet. The thought of telling them puts a smile on his face, and he falls back on his last memory of spending time with them all to force away any lingering nerves.
A shiver runs down his spine, ruining the moment. He scowls.
Then the crystal set in the amulet catches the overhead light, and his gaze snaps back to it. He can see his reflection fairly clearly in it, he realises, and tries to angle it to get a better look.
All it gives, however, is a good angle for the reflection of another shadowed figure standing behind him.
He turns, and -
—
Darksider curses don’t discriminate between shades of grave robbers, innocent intentions or otherwise. Thirty-Eight is found by his brothers not too long later, and the medics are called to the bunk room shortly after that.
As they go to move him out of the communal space, one of the troopers stops to pick up something that falls from Thirty-Eight’s death grip to the ground. Turning it over, they realise that it’s a trinket of some kind, the crystal at its centre shining with a stunning shade of green.
It’s a beautiful thing, and they quietly pocket it. It’s not as if its previous owner is going to find any use for it anymore, and it would be a waste to throw it away with the body.
As they walk off, a shadow trails behind them that doesn’t match their own.