She was ok. She would be ok. Jubali hated space. It was cold and deadly and dark and full of stars. She hated it even when planetside. The night sky was not her friend. Being suspended in it, packed into a little metal coffin, hurtling towards another death box, filled with Imps, while hot, lethal light scythed all around...didn't do much to improve her opinion. Jubali's eyes and lips pressed tight in her skull. She gripped her blaster with bloodless hands. It was ok. She would be ok. She kept telling herself this. She wasn't sure if it was helping. It was hot in the shuttle compartment, hot and smelling of animal sweat and refined Tibanna. She was sweating in her armor, it pooled in the flak of her sleeves where it bunched up at the wrists and ankles. The ceramic apron was tight around her chest and dug into her collar and waist while she sat, digging in painfully each time the shuttle shuttered. Jubali tried to swallow. Her throat was dry. She was ok. She would be ok.
She shouldn't be so afraid. She was medical now. They had made it official. She was medic. They would protect her. The other sweating, stinking soldiers around her. They wouldn't send her first. She wasn't a scout anymore. She was medic. They would try to kill her though. The scum sucking Imps would try to kill her because she was medic. They always tried to shoot the medic first. She could see their glossy black eyes staring at her, like spirits of death. She was ok. She would be ok.
Jubali yelped inaudibly and cringed visibly as the shuttle collided with the corvette. She twitched in time with the humming of the torches as they bored into the hull of the target vessel. Here it was. Here was the sound and the fury. The short, sharp shock. Plating blew inwards, bodied surged forwards, the strangely distant sounding thump of the sonics, the spitting whine of blaster fire. Light. Smoke. Death.
In spite of her fear, or rather, because of it, Jubali sprinted to the front of the fighting, surging at each Imperial that was presented in front of her, rushing at them, firing as she dead, splattering their bodies and the decking around them in blaster bolts. Something like tears welled in Jubali's eyes. She hoped it was the smoke.
She followed after Corporal Vannin, close on his heels as he advanced, vanguard.
"The frag's going on out there?"
"What? They start shooting at our ships, our ships're gonna have to shoot back, right?"
Jubali looked at her superiors confused, another laser impact shuttered through the ship. They were shooting at the ship! The ship she was on! She hadn't even noticed the impacts until now, her blood screaming in her veins. She was going to be killed by her own side! It wasn't that much of a surprise, really. She didn't think much better of the rebels than she did the Imps, they were as ugly and brutal as their foes. She was proof enough of that. But she didn't want to die like that. She didn't need more ways to die.
"Let's get the lead out," She was ok. She would be ok. Taking just a moment, Jubali humped it after the point man coming abreast of him as they came to a space where the corridor widened out, into a maintenance walk beneath some large tubular ship component. Jubali didn't know what it was. Probably important. She would probably die if she so much as nicked it. Staring at the device, she saw the men first. A quintet of men, grey suits, grey faces, stared down at her from where they were crouching on the tube. Two of them had blaster pistols pointed down at the rebels. Barking half in warning, half in fear Jubali shoved Vannin sideways against the decking. She hadn't meant to, she had been trying to get him between her and the grey men. Her carbine flicked upwards, the grey faced man looked surprised. He didn't fire. Jubali didn't give him time. Full auto blaster fire scythed up into the space between the deck ceiling and the tube they hid on, many bolts burning holes into the the grey suits, one burned a hole into a grey face. Many more blaster bolts struck the grey tubing, leaving gaping, glowing holes. There was nothing but darkness behind the holes. What the hell was the stupid tube for? The grey men fell onto the tube. Three of them slide off the side, falling to the decking a few few from Jubali with unpleasant, wet thuds. On draped precariously on the tube. Jubali's stance was still fixed on the decking, her carbine still fixed on the motionless grey men. She stared at one of them. He had fallen with his face towards Jubali. He almost looked like he was staring straight at her. His eyes were glassy, filled with nothing but something like surprise. Maintenance. He was a maintenance man. His grey suit. Imperial. But not security. He was not a soldier. None of them were. She couldn't see their blasters. They had had blasters. They had pointed them at her. They weren't now.
"Clear." Jubali said sharply. That wasn't what she was supposed to say right now. It was all she could think to say. She was ok. She would be ok.