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2025-03-26
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Eyes in the Sky

Summary:

Bacara pulled off his helmet, turned his neck to stretch it, and put his helmet back on.

“So,” he said through his communicator, voice carefully neutral. “I’m going to guess that that didn’t go according to plan.”

“There may have been a slight miscalculation,” Neyo said, cool as a chill breeze. “Due to the intervention of unfortunate and unforeseeable circumstances.”

Work Text:

Bacara pulled off his helmet, turned his neck to stretch it, and put his helmet back on.

“So,” he said through his communicator, voice carefully neutral. “I’m going to guess that that didn’t go according to plan.”

The quality of the connection was not great: full of crackling static and interference.

Despite that, Bacara imagined that he was still able to perceive the distinctive sound of plastoid against plastoid, the gauntlets on the arms skittering against the cuirass on the chest – the sound of Neyo crossing his arms over his chest.

Or maybe he just knew him too well.

“There may have been a slight miscalculation,” Neyo said, cool as a chill breeze. “Due to the intervention of unfortunate and unforeseeable circumstances.”

It’s not my fault, he meant. Or rather: Yes, it’s my fault, but don’t call me out on it.

Bacara felt his lips curving up despite himself, the tiny motion hidden by his helmet. If it had been anyone else, or any other circumstance, he might have objected more. He might have lost his temper, raged in his usual icy fashion, lashed out. But it wasn’t, and it wasn’t; it was Neyo, and Bacara knew him well enough to know what might have motivated the “slight miscalculation” that had led him to his present location.

“Copy that,” he said. “Can confirm that sending a soldier on a solo mission to an unsecured location where they might encounter unexpected enemy presence and an avalanche resulting in a cave-in that traps them in total darkness is, in fact, a deviation from typical GAR protocol. Even for the recon track.”

Oh fuck you, Neyo’s silence said in return.

“Out of curiosity,” Bacara said, now deliberately needling, “do you also consider the faked intel you used to trick the Generals into ordering the mission part of the miscalculation? Or do you stand behind that?”

Neyo’s silence was now seething.

Bacara grinned behind his helmet and waited.

Eventually, begrudgingly, Neyo gave in to the silence and answered: “You said you missed spending time together.”

Got you, Bacara crowed to himself.

“That’s true,” he said, not giving anything away.

“And the intel wasn’t fake. I only messed with the timing.”

“Of course.”

“The Separatists weren’t supposed to get here for another week.”

“True.”

“It’s not a bad thing that we beat them to the target, for once.”

“Not bad at all.”

“Especially since they don’t know you’re there.”

“That helps.”

“Our maps suggest that the cave system you’re in leads straight under the temporary base they were building, which will make sabotaging it much easier.”

“Convenient.”

“The avalanche was completely unexpected for this time of year. The Seppies must’ve destabilized the rock when they set up their base.”

“Makes sense.”

A long pause.

“Fine,” Neyo said, sounding aggravated. “I concede that your date idea might have been better than mine.”

Bacara wasn’t a man much given to laughter, but for Neyo, he made an exception: a short, sharp bark of intense amusement. Quickly over, but notable for having existed at all.

“Copy that,” he said, letting the neutral tone convey his smugness. “Now tell me where to go, recon bastard. I meant it when I said total darkness: my helmet’s lights are non-functional due to the crash, and I’m not picking up any visuals on any frequency, bucket or eyes.”

Neyo muttered a curse – he even picked one in Concordian, which Bacara appreciated as a more personalized form of fuck you too, bastard Marine – but, with an audible crackle of static, did something on his end that strengthened the connection, signifying his agreement.

“Forward thirteen paces,” he said grumpily. “Watch out for stalagmites on the ground, I can’t help you with those.”

Bacara had figured. The inferior quality of the connection suggested that something in the mineral composition of the rocks of this planet messed with their comms, and if it messed with their comms it probably messed with their tracking systems. He was pretty close to the bound of rocks where the cave wall had come down, so Neyo had eyes on him for the moment, a moving spot on a radar tracker, but once he went deeper, that would cut out. Assuming their comms stayed functional, Neyo would be forced to guide him manually, using old-style maps.

Served him right.

“What was the original plan, anyway?” Bacara asked, following Neyo’s tersely communicated directions – forward, hang left 25 degrees, forward, watch out for a possible ledge, and so on. “You’re still back on the ship. Not much of a date.”

“I had a plan,” Neyo grumbled. “It was a good plan. Ridge in front of you, stay close by the wall. Very close.”

Bacara felt his way along the wall, cautious about where he stepped – as far as he could tell, the ridge jutting out from the wall was only wide enough to take a single man walking straight, and even that just barely. Beyond that, the faint air movements suggested a vast gaping openness, probably a pit. The sort that was perfect for falling to one’s death in. “Tell me about it.”

“The wall?”

“Your plan. For our date.”

He just got a grunt in return.

“We’re not doing anything else,” Bacara pointed out.

“You’re trying not to die, and I’m trying to keep you from dying. Focus on that instead.”

“I’m giving it as much attention as it deserves. I’d rather hear from you instead.”

Neyo snorted. “Not enough that I’m your eyes?”

“You’re always my eyes,” Bacara said. “Just as I am your hands. Tell me to turn, and I will. Tell me to strike, and I will.”

Tell me to die, and I will.

Neyo was silent. Bacara continued moving forward steadily on the cliff face. It was narrow, yes, but wider than the ledges of Tipoca City, which Bacara had braved many times before, and for far more foolish purpose. The trick, there as here, was to not be afraid.

Bacara might be blind, but he had Neyo for his eyes. Why would he be afraid?

“This part of the planet is all but deserted,” Neyo finally said. “I was going to get you alone out there. Really alone, the way no one ever is. Not a single other sentient as far as your eyes or HUD could track.”

Bacara hummed encouragingly. He’d encountered a rock in his path and was very gingerly making his way over it, hoping that there would be more flat ground beyond.

“You wouldn’t be able to see me, but I’d see you,” Neyo continued. “It’s just me here, you know. I’m not on the main ship, just a fighter I’ve locked into low orbit. There’d be no one to see you but me. You’d be all mine.”

“I already am,” Bacara said. “Whether or not anyone else can see.”

“I know. But at the same time…” A brief pause, probably a shrug. “I wanted it.”

Bacara thought about it: just him on that desolate hillside, the way it had been before the avalanche came. Just him, him and the cold air and the muted green and purple of the hills, the icy blue of the sky, the silver streams. The sounds of strange herd animals in the distance: thick-voiced groans from some, bellowing lowly as they trudged through the river plain; the trampling clipping sound of hooves from others as they darted between the high cliffs. Avians in the air, with sixteen different types that he’d been able to snap a picture of with his helmcam and at least a dozen more that he’d heard but hadn’t laid eyes on.

All of that, and Neyo.

Neyo, alone.

Neyo, looking at him.

“I can see the appeal,” Bacara allowed.

Neyo’s responding sound could only be called a chuckle if you already knew that that was what it was, the way Bacara did. Other people might have mistaken it for a scoff.

“You like that?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer. As if he hadn’t already worked it into his calculations when he’d maneuvered them into this situation – through falsified intel, manipulated timestamps, and everything short of actually lying to their Generals, because Neyo knew that it drove Bacara absolutely insane when he did things like that. With rage or lust, Bacara had difficulty discerning: there was something about the notion of being so important to someone that they would do crazy things for you that did things to Bacara that he didn’t necessarily like, but couldn’t deny his reaction to. “You like the idea of being the center of my focus? The thing I put first above it all, and let the rest of the world burn for all I care?”

Yeah, that was it.

“Don’t say that,” Bacara said, a little half-heartedly. “You know –”

“You’re not going to arrest me for treason,” Neyo said confidently. “You know I would never do anything that would harm the war effort or put anyone else in danger to get what I want.”

And that was the other part of it. Bacara could trust Neyo to know his limits, to test but never to break them – to know that for him, his principles were as important if not more than his body.

He liked that.

“You like that,” Neyo said, and he was right, damn him. “You like this, too. Maybe it’s not quite what I originally planned, but what’s life but identifying new terrain and figuring out how to conquer it?”

Recon track bastards. Bacara rolled his eyes. He’d swear that they put something in the water in that part of Kamino, something that made everyone in that track absolutely insufferable with the overpowering need to know everything.

“You planning on conquering me?” he asked, joking.

Mostly joking.

“Haven’t I already? Don’t I have you all to myself, alone, in the dark, with only the whisper of my voice to guide you?”

Bacara’s throat worked. He hadn’t thought of it like that.

“You know, we’re not on a deadline right now,” Neyo mused. “The Seppies didn’t see you out there, before the avalanche hit. Comm chatter suggests they think it was a normal tectonic movement, part of planetary weather. When you get to their base, we’re going to take them completely by surprise…tell me, what would you do if I told you to get your kit off?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. Right now. All alone for me, in the dark. No one looking at you but me.”

“You wouldn’t be able to see.”

“Can’t I? You sure about that?”

No, Bacara wasn’t sure. There was new tech churning out every day, coming out of Coruscant or the shipyards or the vampirish tech conglomerates that charged the Republic more than a clone’s life was worth for the opportunity to field-test their newest crap. Who was to say that Neyo didn’t have something new on board, something that would let him see Bacara now?

Something that’d let him see if Bacara did as he asked. If Bacara stripped off his armor and his blacks, left himself bare. If Bacara let Neyo tell him to do that, and let him tell him to do other things, too. Things like touching himself, out here, all alone, sightless and blind, with no guardrails, nothing to hold onto but Neyo’s voice whispering in his ear –

“I’m not going to take my kit off so that a bat can bite my dick off,” Bacara said.

Neyo barked out a laugh.

“Copy that,” he said. “Not worth the risk. I like your dick.”

“It’s the same as yours.”

“It doesn’t have to be innovative for me to like it. Going to note down that you like a bit of sensory dep in your play, though.”

Bacara rolled his eyes. “It’s not the deprivation. It’s…”

He trailed off. He wasn’t sure what it was.

“All clear, Bacara,” Neyo said, and his voice was as fond as it got for anything. “I’ve got you.”

Yeah.

That was it.

Bacara took another step, then noticed that the wind next to him had faded. He felt around with his foot, confirming that he’d passed the cliff face and was back on solid ground.

Moreover, it wasn’t as dark anymore. Still dark, but something a little less implacable, a little distant flicker of light trickling down from somewhere higher up.

“Where did you say the Seppies’ base was again?” he asked, flicking his HUD reading to infrared.

Everything abruptly lit up all around him, the whole world around him painted in scarlet and crimson and maroon. The cavern walls glittered with heat, hot water and hot rock – and, incongruously straight, hot metal rods burrowed straight into the earth, just like the ones you’d need if you wanted to pin down

“Near the isothermal vents. You should be right next to them. You getting any readings?”

Bacara hefted up his grenade launcher and clicked the safety off, making sure the sound was audible from his helmet comms. He didn’t think he needed to elaborate any more than that.

“Copy that.” Neyo’s tone shifted back to the professional – with that slight edge of semi-sadistic glee that had gotten him called morbid along with grim back on his Kamino evals. “Locking on target now. I’m your eyes in the sky, Bacara. Proceed with the mission at will.”

And so Bacara went.