Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Marshal Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard was a great many things. Harsh, cutting, reg-tied, and cold were the adjectives of choice whispered between shinies awaiting marching orders. CC-1010’s file marked him as diplomatic, resourceful, and rule-abiding. A great leader. Alpha-17’s first draft of his charge’s file swapped diplomatic with silver-tongued, resourceful with clever, and rule-abiding with loophole hound. Wolffe simply referred to Two-Tens as an all-around bastard. Which was marginally better than Ponds’ dead-eyed stare and utterance of “challenging,” to a harried and datawork swamped General Windu. That gave the jedi pause, fingers hovering over the formwork that would finalize Ponds’ batch assignments post-Geonosis. Kote was also awarded that description, but Fox didn’t wasn’t the one with a shoulder laden with scarred-over bitemarks to show for it. Bly, the sweetheart, was earnestly confounded by his batchmate. At least Bly didn’t treat Fox like a riddle to be solved, like Kote’s little follower. 67 with bleach-blonde fuzz and bruised knuckles. Captain Rex with familiar dual DC-17s and blue jaig eyes. Rex’ika with a gap-tooth smile stretched wide and his heart on his sleeve.

 Fox’s brothers had the luxury of time, the hurry up and wait suspended in weeks of galactic travel. Marshal Commander CC-1010 of the Coruscant Guard did not live with the same luxury. If something needed to be done, it was done. A course of action set, and Fox would be damn sure he followed it through. Hesitation on the battlefield got people killed. He’d been bred for battle, ready for war, prepared for heartache. Coruscant, the Commander found, was an entirely different beast.

And so, a different beast he became as well.

Gone were the vestiges of brotherly command, replaced in the early months with tones of durasteel, punitive—but never too punishing—measures, and adherence to the Rules. Not following the regs got you reprimanded, or even court marshaled. The youngest Corries always learned the lesson that not following the Rules got siblings killed. Or worse.

Fox hated the Rules, but he’d held firm for this long. If it saved the lives of his siblings, he’d let them hate him in equal turn. Give them a common enemy and all that. It was probably what he deserved, anyway. But still, he’d always do his best to protect them.

If a trooper’s conduct was unsafe, he’d immediately tell them, heedless of their shiny tears and soft around the edge jawlines. Nothing bound people together like a good old bitching session. If Stone’s turn making caf resulted in a biohazard worse than the regular engine-fuel sludge, he’d dump the pot’s contents onto Sheryl’s plastic leaves and remake the Guard’s steady source of caffeine. Fox preferred war crimes contained and managed, not left about in the Guard headquarters for CMO Eddie to hunt the perpetrator down for sport. If a senator overstepped their bounds, Commander Fox would inform them of the penalties they would incur if public charges were filed against them, bad press an unsurprising motivator for the lawmaking peacocks. If a shiny was too far gone at 79’s and had accidentally stumbled into the depths of Coruscant’s night cycle scene, he’d search with numb feet and a heaving chest until they were found, put somewhere safe, and sufficiently scolded. If Thorn broke another focus aid, half the datawork shifted to Fox’s inbox until a new one could be sourced for the other commander.

Rule Two: If you see a problem, immediately report it to your CO. If they are unavailable, contact Commander Fox. If the Marshal Commander is not answering, comm CMO Eddie or Commander Stone.

Alas, Fox couldn’t outsource his agitation, especially on days filled with meetings and datawork. As with all his siblings, even Prime’s payment, the longnecks had tinkered around with stimuli and various triggers. Blaster cleaning, repetitive and necessary, was one; the more fidgety siblings had competitions as to who could assemble and disassemble their sidearms the fastest. That was all well and good in an active warzone, in the barracks or in transport.

But appropriate behaviors of guards in a political arena was never covered at Kamino, learned quickly after Thorn’s near decommission. A fate only stopped by the unfortunate luck of Senator Taa, whose rant was stopped with a timely intervention by Skywalker’s hurricane of a padawan traipsing through the Senate on the heels of Senator Amidala. The soft smile had sharpened when the senator from Naboo approached Senator Taa, her grace beautiful and dangerous. Like all wise men, Senator Taa fled at the approach of a predator.

Fox added Rule Three.

Rule Three: We are not sentient, so we only move when it is our duty or when commanded. Do not appear threatening to nat-borns. Do not speak unless spoken to by a nat-born. Do not be caught deviating from these directives when on shift.

Decommission demands reduced, senators having less to leeway with their paperwork. They needed a documented incident after all. Fox had found a way to protect them. Six months after Thorn’s incident, the requests started being approved anyways. And Fox’s troops were paying for his cleverness.

The fighting started soon after. Smaller injuries went unnoticed, until Eddie saw too many Corries dragged by their squad for broken bones the injured party claimed to be accidental. Some were dragged out of the drunk tank. Some were separated in the barracks. Forced into window dressing, spit on and treated like droids, the anger and energy needed to go somewhere.

It turned out that took an immense amount of pain to fell a trooper, it turned out. Or death. So, Rule Four.

Rule Four: We don’t talk about spar club.

Grudgingly approving Rule Four, Eddie concluded that the common denominator was the need for some sort of physical release, something that eased the soldiering part of a trooper’s brain. A good run, boots clattering along catwalks and sweat-gathered armor let sweat-dripping, heart racing, muscles burning, could help ease his siblings into sleep. Most of the vode needed some PT to even entertain the thought of it, exhausting their bodies before the mind ran amok. There was another solution, time honored and divorced from years of marching in time and training to die: sex. Apparently, even the Kaminoans couldn’t excise the experience of relentless horniness from the twenty-something-year-old sentients they’d released into the galaxy writ large. With long-term relationships a potential violation of OPSEC, Fox found that casual hook-ups at 79’s sufficed when he couldn’t bear to wrap his hands and wail on a punching bag.

After all, the longnecks hadn’t sent the clones out equipped to love. They weren’t engineered that way. (The truth is that they loved anyway.)

The routine was simple: Fox would get a confirmation that his partner for the night agreed to the casual hook-up, nothing more, nothing less. He liked his fuck quick and heavy, interchangeable with other vod upon review. Just a rote experience sought in the comfort of planes sculptured from the same sketch but tempered by the riptides of the galaxy. Finding release with another vod was predictable. Sure, every sibling was unique, their lifelines all parallel until abrupt departures after deployment. Then time and grit and blood and the ripples of fate twisted the line into a labyrinth. And, like all things in the Commander’s life, the quick exchanges in the dark added an asset to the Guard’s arsenal. Troopers were often pliable and willing to discuss GAR-wide updates that somehow routinely missed the Guard’s rota in post-nut haze.

Upon questioning CC-1010 about this habit, Eddie, though referred to as ‘CMO’ at the time, dragged Fox in for STD testing, muttering about waystations and dental dams and mandatory sex ed. After indulging the vampiric tendencies that seemed built into Medics via hypo-injection, Eddie, the furrow of his brow sterner than the Commander had ever seen it, declared that Fox was not allowed to punish himself under the guise of improving the Guard’s intelligence.

Mostly perturbed that Eddie had even caught wind of his fucking around, Fox had responded with a mean leer, almost on the wrong side of snide. “You wanna provide a permanent solution, sweetie?” It was a miracle, really, that he’d even been assigned to this cesspit of a planet with a trash compactor of a senate, hard to be silver tongued with your boots in your mouth.

 Fox submitted to every deserved round of STD testing and bi-weekly bloodwork for that stunt. Eddie cared, a little too much in Fox’s opinion, and it was sweet. But Fox wasn’t repenting for his multitude of sins via anonymous, safe sex. And if he wanted to be punished, he find Cody during the 212^th’s shore leave; the two of them had always been good at flaying and remaking each other in equal measure. Probably too good at the first part.

By virtue of being assigned to the Guard, Fox disliked the vast majority of bars. 79’s being the notable exception. The owners Layla and Jek, two Rhylothian transplants, had immediately opened their doors the troopers of the GAR when Coruscanti Upper-Level citizens discovered that their meat-droid army had shore leave on their pristine planet away from the horrors of the war. Anti-clone protests had erupted throughout the Senate and Temple districts at the announcement. Fox’s men stood firm, even as the insults hurled became bottles lobbed and bricks thrown. The only men they’d lost were the troops who’d called in med-droids for a speeder crash, only to find out that the accident was to get the clones in place to detonate the bomb hidden in the engine well. No civilians had been injured in the violence, even with throngs of senators complaining about the lockdown and protestors seemingly leaning towards the possibility of hurtling themselves at Fox’s troops. The Chancellor had suggested setting their blasters to stun to clear the crowd. Instead of telling the Chancellor to shove his suggestions into the folds of his Nabooian robes, Fox had told his line to stand firm.

            The owners of 79’s went to the Guard quarters the next morning. Their formwork sanctioning 79's as a leisure space for the GAR troopers was approved by Jedi Generals Yoda and Plo Koon. Equipped with datapads, flimsi, and years of operation on Coruscant, their official meeting with the Commander produced new leave regulations which were then passed around the greater army. Three days later, they had brought Fox real Corellian brandy in their unofficial meeting and provided the Guard an offer to use their cellars for storage. The bottle remained unopened. And, ostensibly, the cellars were normal, a bit low-tech for Mid-Level, but they served Layla and Jek well over the years. Fox had taken them up on their offer over a glass of spotchka after a particularly nasty mishap with the Lower-Level power grids. The Guard had run out of bacta months before, and five of his troopers needed to be submerged. He had no other choice.

            And luckily, Layla and Jek were good. So the Guard continued to eke out survival with too-cold barracks, bottom of the trash compactor medical supplies, and a burgeoning illegal income that Stone, Thire, and Thorn knew nothing about.

            Fox had wanted to keep it that way, but little siblings could never be accounted for in a plan.

            People other than vode frequented 79’s, giving the troopers a relatively safe taste of life outside of the war. It was an excellent place to drink and forget. A time away from prying eyes of COs and the GAR-employed natborns, to relax with siblings. It was also, at least on Thorn’s authority and that of Jek’s nephew Sa’avi, a wonderful place to go dancing.  

            The throng of troopers clumsily swaying did not give Fox much confidence. A beer later, and two of the six passionately engrossed in one another’s eyes, continued to reaffirm his belief that what festered in the center of a dancefloor was just socially accepted heavy petting. Amidst the ever-changing lights, most of the group the Commander absently watched petered off the dance floor, stumbling their way towards the bartender. Sidling up near where Fox was perched at the corner of the bar, the chaotic group were content to abandon their lovesick friends to the dancefloor. Fox couldn’t blame them.

            “No fucking way,” one of the troopers’ voices boomed, disbelieving. Ah, all volume control was lost with this one at this juncture of the evening. The long-haired sibling shuffled to see where the loud one was looking. They proceeded to order another beer, frantically waving at Layla.

            “Excuse me, do you know what Captain Rex likes to drink?” A shakiness shot through their speech, unsure of their question. Shiny.

The Corrie Commander surreptitiously eyed the bar’s entrance. And indeed, one Captain Rex of the 501^st Legion had walked through the doors of 79’s, the bright blonde of his hair just long enough to appear blue underneath the lights. Rex’ika would probably buzz it soon. It was one of the only regulations Fox’s vod’ika actually cared about.  In a more surprising turn of events, behind the captain who has simply met his troops with an easy smile, loomed Commanders Ponds and Cody.

            Fox needed to leave. His strategic retreat through the dancers was unfortunately interrupted by a change in music and a rush of the bar’s occupants to floor. Bodies pressed against one another, faces familiar, unfamiliar, and alien in the rainbowed haze of shifting lights. Deep booms rattled the bar, softer than the heavy artillery of X-wing fighters and more akin to the thunder that loomed above Kamino. Neon liquors sloshed dangerously close to glass rims to the time of the music. He pushed through the swaying crowd, all bizarre shadows, lekku and hands and smiles and shoulders outlined like horizons by vibrant strobes. He was adrift in the noise and color.

            Someone gently took ahold of his hands, drawing him into an upbeat sway in time with the reverberating shudders of bass out from 79’s speakers. A familiar face grinned back at him, all Fett-outlined. The vod had good rhythm, to keep time for two people, one far more bewildered than the other. Underneath piercing green and swirling purpled lights, Fox could make out dark trails of glitter that swept from the middle of their eyelid and down flushed cheeks. A glance lower saw the vod’s collarbones similarly adorned; the buttons of the trooper’s civvies only fastened to cover half their chest. Pretty.

But anybody could paint on some glitter and let a bit of nipple show. Absconding with Marshal Commander Fox on the dancefloor was something new. Bold, even. Granted, unlike Kote and A’den[i], Fox wasn’t known to the wider GAR by his scars, only by his uniform.

And so, the thrum of the music slipped into the background as Fox drew the glimmering figure forward. Rough, calloused hands slid along the planes of the other trooper’s lightly scarred forearms, thumbs finding a firm hold along worn belt loops. The Commander splayed his remaining fingers across his companion’s hips, gentle enough for the vod to move away if desired. Fox quirked an eyebrow. The trooper laughed, an ugly and bubbling thing that had no place in a room full of people dizzyingly downing shots and dancing the night away in a feeble attempt to escape the call of war.

“Awfully bold there, cop’īkla.”[ii] Fox warned, not unkindly. It was a mix of chastising and open, an offer of fun with no strings attached. Warm hands skittered lightly, nervous around Fox’s shoulders; fingers shyly curled into his shoulder blades.

 “Dance with me? Nothing more, nothing less.” The wink accompanying the comment sprinkled more glitter on to the vod’s chest, their smile wide and cheeks flushed. Oh, requirements. And normally, Fox would detach his wandering hands and walk away, hit some PT before trying to sleep through the night. Or he could always try to find someone a bit more his speed, even with the lurking annoyance and danger by the bar.

But Fox decided to lean into the swaying of the other trooper’s body, sweaty and strong. He knocked together their foreheads, a short keldabe, careful to keep space for negotiation. Those eyes went wide at the quick, but intimate touch. The glittering vod had pretty eyes, flecks of gold intensified in the dim light but still laced within a familiar brown.

Maybe it was the buzz from the beer. Or the curious gazes of the glimmering trooper’s friends from the bar. Or the trooper’s clear glee at finding someone under the ever-shifting strobes of 79’s.

Fox could do with a bit of mindless happiness, if only for the night.

He grinned, moving his head back from the keldabe. “I can try dancing.”

The other vod beamed; their grin crooked on a second pass. “Just follow me.” And Fox was swept into the rhythm of the music, the slow slide of the body against his, and the teeth-rattling joy at being so, so alive.

[i] Glory and Wrath; Cody and Wolffe.

[ii] Modified version of cute; meant to be diminutive and warn Echo in this case about power structure, etc. Casual thing with rank in mind ya know.

Chapter Text

Echo lost the bet. He had to suffer for it, like all the shinies before him.

More accurately, Fives had lost The Bet, dragging Echo along in his misery.

Hardcase had been the one to propose The Bet in the first place: Would Captain Rex completely modify General Skywalker’s plan for the campaign and turn it into, to quote esteemed CMO Kix, “less of an incomprehensible cadet’s drawing and into an actionable plan?” Or would the captain simply click his heels together, yessir, and be on his merry way?

The mere existence of The Bet inspired side-eyes from the more suspicious shinies that the 501^st had picked up. Regrettably, one of the now-scuffed armor-clad Domino twins did not harbor the same doubts. O’Niner had been a firm, but fair, CO before he’d marched on. A jedi, and a storied one at that, should at least have been able to plan a campaign.

 Fives’ outbursts also tended to air more on the side of incredulous than inquisitive. He had abruptly interrupted Hardcase’s proposal, verbally steamrolling over the new recruits, loudly declaring that General Skywalker’s plans couldn’t be that bad if he oversaw the 501^st. Unfortunately for Echo, trotting behind his batchmate was, in hindsight, a misguided show of support.

Kix and Hardcase’s loth-wolf grins meant that the Bet was on. Well, at least the shinies were exempt from that hazing. And the loudmouth had summarily introduced them to the gaggle of wide-eyed siblings. Some pointed out the eel snaking down across Fives’ helmet. Others mostly took stock of the Dominos, gazes always traveling to the thick tattoo along the loud trooper’s forehead. They all whispered about Rishi. One, hair already long past regulation, approached Echo’s brother, softly asking a question, awkward limbs gesturing towards the animal that had Cutup joining the long march too early.

No one asked about the handprint. It was too familiar, after all, a kind of unmistakable mark that had halted the hulking mass of an Alpha class in the aftermath of Kamino. Echo’s shoulder still hadn’t recovered from the show of solidarity, durasteel-strong fingers had gripped lightly, a squeeze of acknowledgement. That one, Captain Rex had snorted, Commander Cody peeling the broad sibling away, had broken the mold.

Echo had herded young batches, not quite earning their reds, in the aftermath of the attack. A group that tagged along with his assigned cadets who didn’t look like they came from the mold at all. Well, until one of them scowled. Their rambunctious, and tallest member, would give that Alpha a run for his credits one day.

REG COM-240:

            To set up the success of your forces, an informative briefing could make the difference between victory and defeat. Preparations are to be presented to troops t-minus one standard day before undertaking a campaign. Generals are tasked with generating and implementing their strategic planning as they see fit, as long as all proper paperwork is completed.

Like all the other times when Echo was judged as an accomplice culprit Fives’ antics, he was roped into the punishment as well despite his silence. Jesse proudly claimed the loudmouth’s forfeit. Hardcase had simply looked over and pointed to Echo, the younger trying his best to become one with the mess table. Sadly, his blacks stood out like a sore thumb against the sickly grey tabletops.

And really, there had been no reason why Echo shouldn’t have agreed with Fives. General Skywalker had been promoted during the war, given his own company of soldiers, and was therefore fit to lead the 501^st according to all regulations. In addition, he had been apprenticed to General Kenobi while also apparently managing a jedi cadet on the battlefield. The Generals wouldn’t have trusted him with a cadet if he couldn’t manage a squadron.

Unfortunately, Echo’s assumption was shattered five minutes into General Skywalker’s briefing, though it was less of a tactical plan and more akin to the concepts of a plan. Steely eyed and confident, the General had laid out a basic outline of the campaign, not even taking a tenth of the time allotted for Torrent’s briefing. A shiny, the one faced bisected by a tattoo and who’d refused to partake in the rumor-mongering, scratched notes religiously onto a beat up flimsipad. But even the most dedicated soldier in the room couldn’t elaborate on the objectives. The gist of the excitable ramble could be broken down as such:

1. Attack the Separatist bases
2. Take the capital city
3. Trust in the Force

The Bet, it seemed, was a trap after all. But Echo had, at least, anticipated elaboration by the 501^st’s commanding officer on the objectives. The assumption was soon squashed, like a hovercraft against the Kaminoan waves, with a flourish of General Skywalker’s dark robes.

“The finer details can be explained by your capable Commander and Captain.”

Commander Tano and Captain Rex patiently stood next to their General, the former rocking a bit on her heels, unable and unabashed in concealing excess energy. Energy that matched that of the Generals but her clear, practiced explanations provided the needed information. The Commander was being trained well, to run a war at least.

The trooper next to her never breathed even a hair’s breadth away from parade rest. As soon as the briefing room had been cleared of jedi, post-Commander Tano’s excellent presentation of what was clearly Captain Rex’s plan, a squawk, veractyl-like, erupted from Fives as Jesse ambushed the Domino twin. Their captain simply offered them a wry grin, now helmetless, eying the newest recruits to Torrent.

“Who lost the Bet?”

Echo sighed, Fives and Jesse quickly turning their squabbling into wrestling. Standing up and atoning for their misstep, he gestured to his batcher, “We did, sir.” The shinies who’d narrowly escaped punishment begin to gossip in hushed voices and not so hushed exclamations.  

His Captain just smiled wider, an amused thing that found its way to his eyes. He wore the grin different than most other siblings.

“Who has your forfeit?”

“Hardcase.” And Captain Rex snorted, clapping Echo on the shoulder good-naturedly.

“Don’t worry. You’re in good hands, vod.” Turning to the loitering shinies, the Captain stepped forward and address the gaggle.

“Dismissed soldiers. Report to your assigned company at first shift tomorrow. You have the remaining time to familiarize yourself with our lady. Enjoy this time.” As the new siblings slowly trickled out of the room, Captain Rex when to separate the still-squabbling Fives and Jesse.

“PT,” was all that needed to be said for them to separate, salute, and haul ass down to the mats before their CO decided that the kitchen meal-heaters looked a bit dirty. At least it wasn’t Commander Cody, whose form of light punishment was ship wide fresher scrubbing.

Echo survived the campaign, armor swamp stained, feet calloused, and a tender bruise purpling along his hairline. But he’d lived to complete whatever hazing their vode of the 501^st came up with. Which, in coming face to face with his new look in the mirror, seemed a lot tamer than the reckless stunts they’d been goaded into to pulling on Kamino.

And it was the safer option than whatever Jesse had cooked up for Fives. The twins were dragged awake by the veterans of their squad after the post-campaign crash and informed that they had t-minus five hours until The Resolute landed on Coruscant.

“Just enough time to prepare you for your first trip to 79s,” Kix smiled warmly. Echo had learned not to immediately trust the expression. Sure, a medic’s grin appeared sincere only for as long as it took them to stick you with something pointy. After that, every smile was taken as a warning. Though, Echo was at least 84% sure that this one was genuine. Kix was the CMO for a reason. “And you,” Kix locked in on Echo, “are with me and ‘Case, pretty boy.”

Fives snickered into his bowl of greige mush, “Who’d think a face like that was pretty?”  The resulting shriek was ignored by the rest of the squad. He deserved the smashing of Echo’s boots into his toes. It wasn’t Echo’s fault that Fives didn’t bother to put on his boots. His toes were very stompable, after all.

“Alright, I’m in your care.” Echo smiled, ignoring Fives’ whining. “Do your worst.”

Their worst, as it turned out, was a makeover.

“Don’t touch!” Hardcase wheeled over to slap Echo’s hands away. “You will not undo my work before you even get the chance to dance, Ek’ika.”

Echo tried to resist the furrowing of brows at the nickname, folding distracted hands quickly into his lap. Hardcase, always perceptive when he ought not to be, just nodded after checking over his work. “No nicknames just yet, then.” The bristles of one of the brushes lightly feathered against Echo’s forehead. Cool liquid gently patted along the bruised area, Hardcase slightly hunched over the top of his canvas, tattoo a shadowed indigo disappearing under the collar of well-worn blacks. Echo appreciated the carefulness that his squadmate took. Given time, it seemed like the gunner could work for hours, all laser focus. Not tentative but exact. It also helped that the bright patchwork apron contained a mysterious and seemingly infinite number of tools every time Hardcase scrounged about for a specific brush or powder.

It was nice, though, to be cared for out of desire and not obligation.

“Close your eyes, Echo,” Hardcase instructed. “I don’t want to get any powder in them.” The older clone plopped back in the chair, reassessing his masterpiece. Wielding one of the brushes akin to a lightsaber, flecks of iridescent glitter dispersing into the air with the flourish, he added, “No touching your face again soldier, or we’ll have to reconsider your terms of surrender.”

“Sir yes sir,” Echo responded with a sloppy salute, dutifully avoiding any actual contact with his face. Second chances, even from another vod, were rare. Kamino had made sure of that.

“Good work soldier!” Hardcase grinned back, feet kicking out and wheels squeaking as he backpedaled his way to Kix’s bunk. The CMO of the 501^st sat cross-legged atop too-thin sheets, gaze focused on Hardcase’s approaching back. Steady hands caught the bulk of the wheeling trooper, body still swaying ever so slightly with the soft music floating out from Echo’s old communications array. The medic lazily dropped their chin atop Hardcase’s forehead, comfortable and casually loose-limbed against the other vod.

“Oh, did you finally remember me, honey?”

Huffing and twisting around, the heavy-class trooper lightly grasped the other’s chin, swapping to a smaller brush and gently applying a pigment to the medic’s left eye. “Sorry dearest, but I unfortunately couldn’t forget you even if I tried.” The medic made a noise, muffled by the hand near their mouth. “Your first attempts at eyeliner haunt me to this day.”

Kix simply stuck a tongue out but obediently kept their eyes closed as Hardcase continued to work. Echo fiddled with the volume output on the array, filling the empty barracks with sound. It was nice, this little bit of peace where he didn’t have to do anything besides sip his portion of the rotgut and listen to the alluring wail of a horn and the deep plucks of a stringed instrument.

“Hope they tell us the band name this time,” he muttered, attentive to the increasing static as he adjusted the frequency. “Instead of gushing over holostars.”

“Do you know many bands?” A voice asked from somewhere behind Echo but easily wafted into the static that had drawn the owner of the array’s attention.

The barracks had a way of letting sound bounce about and away from the original speaker. While it meant that most others learned to filter out the excess noise, it trapped Echo in a waterfall of voices. A chubby-cheeked Heavy had swiped a datapad fit for audio from one of the trainers’ lockers, crawled into his sibling’s pod and unceremoniously squished into the free space with the silent offering. Kamino didn’t have access to many stations, a lone dot of blue sequestered away from prying eyes, so Heavy’s dreams of listening to battles across the galaxy were quickly dashed. But uploaded on to the pad were books, some in Basic and some in other languages, read in a clear and steady voice, lilt familiar but not quite right. It was strange, but steady. On Rishi, all they really had were the Reg manuals to see them through a boring day. O’Niner hadn’t seemed the type to let contraband slide. 

Humming, Echo pulled open the back panel to see if the issue was with the makeshift connection ports between the wires and the receiver. Older models always had some rattling parts that could be fixed with a good soldering kit or extra scrap wire. Maybe he could convince Piston to look at the junk he’d cobbled together, but the engineers were always busy. Or he could just smack it a few times.

“Oi, motor-mouth mode again.”

“Extra PT for you tomorrow morning Hardcase.”

Echo froze in his rummaging, the noises of the makeup artist now distant sounds of protest.

“Sir!” He went to salute, one hand still deep in the innards of a communications relay model that was definitely not supposed to be in the barracks. Or in the hands of Echo. Or even on the ship really.

“At ease Echo,” Captain Rex offered calmly, unarmored in a soft civvie long-sleeves a bit big around his frame. “Just Rex, now that we’re on leave.”

Uh, no thank you, Captain works just fine. Hardcase snickered.

“That’s another hour you’ve added to PT tomorrow morning, galad’ika.”[1] The Captain moved to sit by Echo, whose hand remained in the guts of the makeshift radio. Rex lightly tapped the other trooper’s arm, “You make this yourself?”

Echo nodded. A bit of fiddling and the static abated.

“It’s impressive.” The smell of uncorked rotgut wafted to his left, an acrid sharpness that immediately caused Echo’s eyes to water.

“Thanks.” If he could do one-word answers, this would be fine. Hardcase snorted, wheels clicking as he backed up to admire his handiwork.

“Ori’vod stop scaring Echo and help me with Kix’s face.”

“Not sure you can do anything to fix a mug that ugly.” Rex fully leaned back into his seat, not even making an attempt to move.

“It’s your face too,” chorused throughout the berth. As if summoned, the other off shift vode resting in the darkened corner of the room awoke to chime in, all tired rumblings. Unrelatedly, a shoe, a helmet, and a beat up flimsinovel were also tossed in the general direction of Rex. Seeing a built-in exit, Echo gingerly removed his fingers from the mess of wiring, avoided a wayward sock, and trotted up to Kix’s bunk to see the results.

Fett had been aesthetically pleasing to most sentients, as the holonet’s reception of the GAR’s main soldiers had verified. While handsome, Prime was all sharp glass edges, corded muscle, hands blaster-calloused and scarred. Though designed to be soldiers, most vode didn’t seek out that level of lethality, not at first. Shinies had the luxury of arriving equipped but not prepared. Despite the conditioning regime of the Kaminoans and the various members of the Cuy Daval, sims could never compare to a real battle. Not to mention a campaign. Unless selected for ARC training, siblings made do, PT no longer an annoyance but a necessity to up the chances of survival. A stray blaster bolt might cause lasting damage, but a scar was always better than the alternative. Scars meant you lived, even if they were gained through burst, bloodied callouses and tendered bruises.

The Vode weren’t pretty, that wasn’t what they were made for. They were soldiers, able to function on little sleep, little water, and little food. All ration bars were designed to meet their needs, not to exceed them, supposedly to temper their appetites. The stomach aches and groans during rougher campaigns were easy to ignore. They’d had a lifetime of practice.  Everyone tended to return from the front with armor a bit less snug. Echo sure did, even with the dark bruises along his hairline covered by Hardcase’s gentle hands, the extra room in his armor clacked loudly together in his stumble onto the gunship. Even now, with some mess food in his belly, he felt knobbier kneed than when his joints ached and knocked together as cadet. While he wasn’t a copy of his 6-year-old self, he’d lost 9 kilos from his pre-campaign medical checkup.

And Kix had been even worse than Echo because they’d given away the holdout rations to all the injured, sibling and local. Lines of worry crinkled permanently by Kix’s eyes; cheeks gaunt enough to be on the wrong side of hungry. They’d stormed about their medical tent, a vicious specter, shoving food at the waterlogged and desperately hungry troopers. Socks, too, were confiscated and dry ones distributed. Everyone knew not to mention trench foot around the medics. Only gentle corralling by Jesse and Hardcase got them to rest (Coric’s hypo-injection threats the most desperate resort).

Despite the hell they’d walked away from, they were beautiful.

Where Hardcase had given Echo a costume, something shiny and fun, Kix’s natural features were enhanced. Deep eyeshadow provided a contrast to the light brown of their eyes, a full face highlighting high cheekbones and sharp jawline. It was bizarre and alluring, to see an outline of someone so familiar be completely transformed.

Something must have shone on his face, the medic’s smile flashed kind and glossy. “What are you staring at Ey—"

“We’ve brought contraband!” Jesse bellowed, strolling into the barracks with a beleaguered Fives and a shiny hot on his tail, arms laden with bulging duffle bags.

“It better not be anything I have to write you up for.” Rex threw sharply towards the newcomers, his good humor undercut by the casual steel of his authority. The captain never yelled, unless on the battlefield, his even-keeled nature able to quickly win not just the attention but respect of the unruliest troopers.

Like Jesse, for example.

The smuggler of the aforementioned contraband laughed, loose limbed without any care for the fact that he was in the room with his commanding officer. Jesse gently brought a hand to his chest, like those overly dramatic stars in the holodramas that some of the vode had viewing parties for, “I would never besmirch the honor of the 501^st sir.”

Kix snorted, “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“You wound me Kixystix, truly and—” Jesse’s retort trailed off. Echo followed the trooper’s sightline back to Kix. And back to the hilariously contorted expression on Jesse’s face. Then to Hardcase and Rex, who were eyeing the medic and the lieutenant with growing exasperation. Hardcase stole Echo’s vacated seat, promptly reaching for Rex’s alcohol.

Oh. A brief thought catapulted at lightspeed through Echo’s mind. Jesse, why?

If there was one thing that a medic couldn’t stand, it was baseless idiocy.

“Close your mouth or you’ll catch flies,” Kix snapped, brows furrowing in familiar sternness. Their disapproving frown looked more disappointed than anything.

“Kix, you know I didn’t mean-” the other trooper started but trailed off, as if unsure of how to end the thought. Or he knew how to end it but didn’t want the prying eyes and ears of at minimum five other troopers.

“It’s fine Jesse,” the medic assured, clipped. Rex had conveniently stolen Fives and the shiny, setting them to sort through the rumpled mess inside the duffle bags. Hardcase nurtured his cup of rotgut, the blankest expression the Domino had ever seen the heavy-class wear. Which left Echo awkwardly hovering at Kix’s side. And Echo did not want to be in the middle of the Jesse/Kix (and potentially Hardcase) situation today. No thank you.

Alas, proximity assured that Echo would be directly in the middle of his squadmates’ spat. Kix, had curtly and abruptly decided to gift Echo their civvies for the Dominoes’ first excursion to 79’s. Which necessitated a trip down to medbay, with a trailing Echo and powerwalking Kix stomping through the far too-quiet hallways of The Resolute. Echo had never been to the mystical “medic’s footlocker,” but it looked like he would be graced with the opportunity.

It was just the overflow medical supply closet.

“It’s very nicely organized Kix,” Echo politely commented as the CMO grabbed something from the top shelf, balanced atop a creaky wooden stepladder with bizarre stickers that had seen better days. The shelf was nice. Everything was labeled in Basic and vode shorthand, scrawled in looping big handwriting and put in clear bins. Echo had seen the bins before, usually when helping load them into the med tent or, in this last miraculous case, back onto the ship after a campaign. Containers tended to be the second casualty of war. The medics, this time, were largely exempt from wading through the swamp water with supplies. Supply recovery and retention was essential, especially anything that had a medical application. The clones bled, after all. Droids didn’t.

The first casualties never left heaps of scrap metal and wires, only the putrid and inescapable smell of rot.

“It’s because someone didn’t sleep last night!” A voice called from the workbench in the front of the medbay, probably Rosie. “Apparently every sock we handed out had to be counted and assessed!”

“I slept, Ri’ika! Don’t just repeat Coric’s lies! I taught you how to sniff out osik better than that.” Kix hollered, waving Echo into the storeroom. “Strip.”

“Excuse me?” The woosh of the automatic door closing cut off Rosie’s cackling.

A bundle of fabric was roughly shoved to his chest in response. He suspected that it would have been tossed in his face, but Kix was at least kind enough to spare Hardcase’s work. The CMO helped Echo stretch the neck of his blacks to avoid smearing the makeup, then worked to pull on their own outfit.

“Do you ever get overwhelmed, Echo?”

“Do I ever get overwhelmed?” Growing up with no real privacy meant that Echo was at least desensitized to conversations while stripping, but Kix really didn’t expect him to answer that question while his fly was down, right?

Apparently, yes.

One surprise consultation later, Echo was not only equipped with civilian clothes for his first true shore leave but also with some breathing techniques, new dadita that Kix and Rosie—later invited into the closet as an extra set of hands to not disrupt Hardcase’s work—would know meant that he needed help, and a weekly, confidential check-in with Kix. While wily bastards, no trooper ever said that medics weren’t efficient.

Shore leave arrived with a slog and various hours of clearance, unloading, and flimsiwork before their first ever break from action begun. Jesse had stolen away with Kix, who snuck a quick arm around Hardcase’s waist, for dinner somewhere, leaving Captain Rex to herd the new siblings around the planetside barracks. Rings of industrial warehouses had been retrofitted from various land holdings previously in preservation. Wartime status allowed the Chancellor to claim those regions for housing a standing army. Once treaties were reached, the land would be returned to the main holders. And though they weren’t something to keep, each battalion had set themselves upon their assigned building. Curling about the historic apartments housing General Fitsto’s squadron were vibrant plants from about the galaxy. A flimsipaper calendar scrawled out dates and times for watering, each group on leave meant to contribute siblings to the upkeep.

Though they were all brought about and tempered on the same planet, the Vode had each found something for themselves. No longer tucked away, assorted, contagious, and cramped cacophonies of personality decorated each barrack. It was disorganized, unsoldierly like. And it was the first time Echo had ever seen something so chaotic be so beautiful.

The levels beneath were nothing like the controlled but sprawling area the GAR had set up. Coruscanti night life was a different flavour of war, fast-paced, unpredictable, and prone to sudden eruptions of noise. Their group’s descent into the lower parts of the city confused Echo, a durasteel beast’s innards that twisted and turned. 79s, their destination, laid at the intersection of the Middle and Lower parts of Coruscant, the dregs an trends of the surface party scene trickling down and conglomerating into alleys of buzzing neons, open stands with plentiful food, various people selling their wares, their bodies, and their time.

Anything you wanted, you could find. If you had credits or something to barter with. It was foreign the cut of a silhouette that Echo knew by heart abruptly stopped making sense, scars and memories changing the shape of familiarity.

He wondered if his batches would recognize him or if he’d become something else even in the short time they’d been gone.

79s offered home and escape, a barter of safety and isolation. It was a controlled leap, a rite of passage for surviving long enough. So Echo stepped across the threshold, cheeks alight with fingerprints of stars, and spent the night swallowed by the swells of the music, rocking in time and in tune to the body of a known stranger.

[1] Little hawk: diminutive nickname of aspiring sharpshooters in a battalion.

Chapter Text

It was scheduled sunny day in Coruscant, normal for the topside of the urban planet. Except it was looking less and less like Fox would get to enjoy the sun as the bounty hunter he tailed ducked into yet another dingy bar, systematically heading deeper down in Coruscant’s underbelly. Thorn never had to deal with this shit during his shift lead, his most recent cases involved coordinating a rescue of a lost lothcat in the sprawling Senate Gardens and the return of at least fifteen lost children to their guardians. Thorn had bizarrely become a mainstay figure of the Guard for the residents of the Upper Levels. With increasing regularity, concerned parties, ears and throats adorned with galactic fineries, would flag the commander down for the smallest of grievances once off Senate duty. Granted, this phenomenon of topside work was most likely the unfortunate result of another passage of duties from the lazy offices of the Coruscant Security Forces to the GAR forces.

Regardless, the Marshall Commander of the Guard had a mission, so he blinked the afterimages of pervasive humming lights out of his eyes and trekked deeper into the twisting mass that composed the beginnings of Lower Coruscant. People normally parted for the Guard, identical in their red painted armor and lockstep. They marched like the droids their galaxy-faring brothers put down with gusto in the propos that rattled the shopping district holo-boards and rang from richly decorated Upper-Level apartments. Deeper, just beyond the glimmering skin of the planet-city, the War was but a whisper. Young students scurried to classes clad in hand-me downs and armed with jerry-rigged datapads, some toting around dogeared flimsi books littered with neon tabs. Fox had tracked down a bright orange set of the colored stationary, now probably tucked deeply underneath unimportant flimsi, for Kote. The bastard would finally be able to match his color coordinated flimsi to his obnoxious armor color. Even only stationed on the urban hellscape for a few years, every shiny in the Guard learned that these dreamers—with their shoes a little too big and eyes a little too wide—who lived on this level would probably never leave it, not in any way that mattered.

There was a university on this level, once, Fox was unsure what happened to it in the aftermath the Zilo Beast’s attack. It had been months of cleanup on the surface before the Guard was tasked with even assessing the damage to the Middle Levels. In fact, Fox should send a memo to Bathtub to get an update on repairs. It had been a while since he followed up with the transfer from the 501^st. They could probably use more hands. Or funds. Probably both. At least there were ways to acquire both.

But today, he was on the hunt, strolling through patchwork shadows created by fluorescents, Fox wouldn’t forget the face of his target. The mediocre but memorable Rali Adaro. A Nautolan bounty hunter who slipped away from custody when the Guard had sprung the trap on the members of his group. Bounty hunting in Coruscant was perfectly legal and the hunters were protected so long as they were under contract, even if unaffiliated with a particular guild. However, Rali Adaro and his team were neither under contract nor affiliated with any guild, so the bust of their honestly pathetic smuggling ring went smoothly. Except for the part where Adaro had swapped the crates with boddice-ripper flimsy novellas and left his quick-hire crew out to dry.

Thire plastered Thorn’s bunk with the covers in celebration of their fellow Commander’s failure to secure the smuggled items. Stone had apparently aided in the securing of the illicit literature for the prank.

Which was why Fox apparently had to take point in cracking the case, neutrality and all that jazz.

This bust shouldn’t even have been the Coruscant Guard’s jurisdiction but apparently the actual functioning and government-mandated investigation services decided to go on mass holiday at the beginning of the war. Perks of not being tied to a jetti to smooth talk the press, take tea with or even fuck the senators to get the established government officials to fulfill their duties. Sometimes, their rebellion paid off.

Fox had been so proud when Kote had announced that the 212th refused to unlawfully occupy Ryloth which would have nulled the agreement negotiated between Cham Syndulla and Senator Orn Fre Taa. The hijacking of the public broadcast system to gain control of the propaganda machine was a particular kind of devious that he couldn’t help but enjoy. The Senate was beholden to honor their agreements with their slave army seemingly now well-informed of their legal roles in the war.

From various siblings who’d been retired to the Guard, news of occupied planets coming to renegotiate with the Republic trickled in, the weight of the demonstration on Ryloth as their bargaining chip. The Senate came face to face with the problem that their meat-droids could make choices. Duckie hadn’t been able to get his hands on any Separatist opinions on the broadcast. But the Seppies were always unusually quiet, when it came to the army that facilitated the War’s inciting incident.  And nobody liked to be reminded of Geonosis anyway.

 Residents of the Core Worlds, Fox knew, believed a very different story than what Kote’s crew had managed to air. More work arrived in the form of arrest quotas for the Guard, new flimsi—suspiciously similar to senatorial datawork—and a sharp decline of the restocking of medical supplies. It seemed that more bacta was needed for the soldiers at the front. The weapons budget, at least, had been doubled.

And so, apparently, had the criminal underworld of Coruscant’s, military grade tech in their hands even before sent out for field use. The constantly lagging supplies of the Guard never came up in any budget meetings.

Fox’s jaunt in civvies and a faux rebreather through a minimum of eight different saloons that day at least gave him time to reprioritize which supply runs would be necessary. And let him listen in onto some gossip in the bounty hunter circles. And let him lift a few items when unnoticed. He had always excelled at multitasking. Still, the Commander needed to find out what the crates were actually transporting and where they had been moved. So, following Adaro it was. And then he could send that memo to Bathtub. Then organize schedules. Maybe even sleep. Then reassess other operations during his off-shift hours.

But first, drag Rali Adaro’s ass to holding. Maybe offer him a water since he’d been in bars since 0800 standard. Fox would offer painkillers, but those had been delayed. He was already wary that Stitch could never get the stench of liquor out of his civvies. DAD didn’t matter in the artificial daylight or else the Guard’s holding would have needed to increase occupant capacity to most of the spacefaring workers who wandered aimlessly about the planet-city’s nightlife nexus. It wasn’t Fox’s role to dictate what people could spend their credits on, and the slashing of non-GAR transport unions during wartime had left most of them without an option. Another thing that the clones had apparently stolen in addition to the Republic’s peacetime.

Fox knew nothing but preparing for war and the War. People could cling onto the concept of peace all they wanted. As long as they weren’t a danger to the Guard, and to a lesser degree themselves, they could go on and run up a tab. After all, credits were only the most expedient option to pay off debts.

The bar that Adaro had holed up in for his next drink was clean, the light of the orange sign outside traveled through and into the shade of the building. A soft lilt of that Twi’lek singer Hound loved played in the background as muted replays of the past Pod Racing competitions zoomed across one of the walls from a holoprojector. Nothing like the Boonta Eve reruns, boosted out and across the Upper Levels. Skywalker had made a good hero then, as well.

It was not a swanky bar, by any means, but it was comfortable. Oddly charming for somewhere a bit low down, Fox mused. A nice place to take the boys sometime. Or that trooper from the other night. Maybe after the War.

“Hello,” A deep voice ground out, the accent at first a wrenching memory but not quite placeable to the Commander of the Guard. The bartender appeared in front of Fox a few moments after he slid onto a barstool. A broad humanoid man with salt and pepper hair, a plethora of split-lip scars, and a crooked nose stood before him. A patchwork apron, definitely two sizes too small featured a crooked name patch that read P’aî’ah (he/him).

“What would you like?”

“Water,” Fox replied, his own accent tilted more towards those of Bail Organa’s Alderaanian pilots. “Gotta’ get to work soon.” Adaro had scurried back to a corner booth, far from the exits. Isolated. A glass slid in front of him. Huh. That drink was alarmingly red to just be water.

“Drink it.” The gruff man intoned; eyes cast downward to a delicate glass with droplet on the rim. The bartender smoothly ran a towel along the inside. “It’s on the house.” He nodded to Fox’s holster for his blasters; a reliable but ancient thing who was covered by the civvies save for a well-worn corner. “We treat working folk well here.” Fox snuck a disinterested glance back at the humanoid, holding a few credit chits out to the barkeep only to have his hand gently pushed back. “Oya.” The man intoned quietly.

The Commander willed his fingers not to stutter at the contact. He nodded, pocketing his credits and rose to seal the door to the bar. Adaro didn’t look up from his comm, intently scrolling through messages on a datapad.

Quietly, he approached the sitting Nautolan. “Rali Adaro.” His target jerked up from his seat, paling at the figure in the patchwork civvie armor. Fox rested his hands on the grip of his weapons. “I’m here to take you in.”

He didn’t add, for questioning. The gambit wouldn’t work if Adaro didn’t think he was a bounty hunter, the bartender’s actions at least helped to sell the story.

“No, I told the Pykes that I had the bounty secured!” Adaro harshly assured, a twinge of a non-Core accent dotting his speech. “I simply needed more time. Transporting goods of this weight are too noticeable when trying to break through the blockade.”

Oh perfect, evidence picked up for Fox’s audio monitoring. That made this easier.

He rocked back, casual stance shifting into something dangerous. Predatory. Like Wolffe. Or Cody. Or Seventeen. He titled his head down, the little nonhuman that seeped through in the genetic soup of Prime’s DNA sharpening the gaze directed at the bounty hunter. Adaro stiffened, fear overtaking his indignation and desperation. Instead of a Pyke enforcer, something more harrowing lurked behind Fox’s eyes. An older, ancient thing that refused to die stared back at Adaro. Watching, waiting.

“Timetable’s changed. Where’re the goods located?” Little gods he hated this stupid accent.

Like any person who’d spent most of their life down on their luck but ultimately dissatisfied that society had only left them with the meager scraps of unwanted ambition and no way to realize his dreams, Adaro gave him the location of the stolen goods. Stunning the man and wrangling him into binders allowed the bartender to silently emerge and clasp Fox’s free hand.

“Take care.” The Commander nodded, moving to release the other man’s grip.

“Ret'urcye mihi.” The man intoned, squeezing his forearm. It wasn’t the first time a transplant thanked a disguised Guard for mopping up messes on the lower levels. Fox gripped the bartender’s forearm in reply, avoiding eye contact. The man released his grip and Fox promptly marched out of the saloon with a new resident of holding for Nines to bitch about.

At least he’d now have time to send that memo.

Fox knew that promoting Hound had been a good idea. The Sargent was kind, good at what he did, and an easygoing leader. Ka’ra knows they needed at least one of those.

“What in Prime’s left nut did you just say?”

But thank all the little gods Hound arrived immediately with a note that blacklisted him from Senate duty. Fox, or more likely Thire, would have had to take drastic measures to curb the mouth on their resident animal handler.

“I need you and Eddie to come down to LS2039, warehouse district 08.” Fox sighed into his comm, “No joy with recovery. Pests took up residence.”

A poorly stifled laugh and a clattering immediately sounded from his comm post-sitrep.

"84-01, sir?" The sharp voice of Eddie cut. "Medial Trainee Pips will report to your location with Sergeant Hound."

"Roger roger." Fox shifted his exposed leg, the skin torn from a run-in with giant rat teeth. "Please provide a CR-1089 for Commander Thorn on our resident womp rat problem. They haven't run into any yet."

"Try not to bleed out before Pip gets there, sir. You can die in our medbay but not in those Sith-forsaken sewers." Eddie muttered, leaving a miffed Fox with the minimal working lighting flickering above his head. Blessed silence meant that the Commander could lean back and against the wetted wall of the sewers, rebreather not quite enough to filter out the stench of rot, and try to keep his open wound out of as much sewage as possible. The carcasses of rabid womp rats did little to improve the state of the literal cesspit he’d hauled ass down to after handing off an incensed Adaro to Daisy for adequate reprimand and a fine. The reprimand wouldn’t do much, just register Adaro in the CIS system the Guard had been given to manage. The fine would be recycled into the War machine, Fox supposed, seeing as funding continued to be cut as more and more directives came through for the Guard to add to their SOP.

            The entrance the time-wasting karkhead pointed the Commander to, however, was not what he had anticipated. Pushing onward through the unfortunately familiar Coruscant sewage, the entrance to Adaro’s hold had been overtaken by a large family of vermin. Specifically, the industrial sized womp rats that had been accidentally released into the maze of trash in an unfortunate incident with the Republic School for Bright Minds’ science fair during Chancellor Valorum’s first term. From what Thorn dug up, CIS and planetary defense forces had concentrated their efforts on forcing the animals into the Lower Levels after reports of their inhabiting a few too-many important donor’s homes. The Guard, however, had not been informed of this supersized and oftentimes violent health and safety hazard. They soon found out, Squeaker not only earning his name but also becoming the first to have a permanent transfer to Green One as soon as it was up and running.

            Rule Five: Never venture into LC sewers without a DC-15A.

Fox, built and quite literally bred for battle, equipped with only a DC-17 and a Rot-16, knew when to regroup and approach a target with backup. Quite literally turning on a dime, he started to quietly retrace his path. Facing him, in the dim light of the tunnel system, were two eyes and a mound of dark fluff, a creature smaller than the youngest of the womp rat litter.

It tilted its head at Fox, one purplish eye catching the flickering maintenance light.

“Mrow,“ a small sound rumbled from the small thing, bouncing off the enclosed walls and right towards the horde of potentially vicious rats. Behind Fox a snuffling and scampering erupted.

He'd unholstered his blasters and got to work before the pain of the bite had even registered.

“Fucking—” The Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard was abruptly hushed by his medical team. Someone in the hallway gasped, too loud to not have been accompanied by a shit-eating grin.

“Shush. This is a medbay, not 79s Commander.” Pip chided enthusiastically, jabbing another hypo into the meat of Fox’s thigh. The pincushion being shushed glared at the medic.

“That’s a lot of hypos, Pipsqueak.” The newest addition to the Corrie med team nodded solemnly, red-hatched tattoos along Pip’s neck stretching up and down.

“You have a lot of problems, sir.”

“You tell em’ tiny!” Hound’s raucous bellowing boomed down the corridor to the medbay. Fox sighed. At least he wasn’t hiding from the wrath of Eddie, Fox had learned to report in the hard way.

“One moment.” Pip carefully placed the next hypo down and calmly marched out towards the offending party. No time like the present to escape the wrath of an annoyed medic. If he got his armor on in time, there would be fewer access points for stabbing.

He barely eyed his stack of armor when another sharp burst of pain irradiated from the meat of his shoulder. Eddie had chosen to attack from behind. Fox knew better than to swear, instead settling on a noise between a yelp and a groan. It was, at least, drowned out by the vicious and slightly manic laughter of a scruffed Hound deposited on to a cot by Pip.

“Only one more Commander!” The CMO cheerfully brandished another hypo and promptly stabbed Fox’s other thigh. He was vaguely sure that he had less blood than whatever wild cocktail of drugs the medical team thought were reasonable after a run-in with the pests who infested the Lower-Level waste system.

“You—”

“Me?” A not-so innocent Hound parroted. Eddie let out a soft noise of approval at Fox’s clear bloodwork, waving at the Commander’s armor, unceremoniously stacked in his haste to put on civvies and follow the tip about Adaro.

Sharply rounding on Hound, the CMO smiled, serrated edged. “Hound, are you up to date on your vaccinations?”

Fox politely hauled ass out of the medbay, helmet tucked upright under his arm, armor stacked neatly in a bag that normally housed his civvies. He had paperwork to do and the dulcet tones of Hound’s distinct disdain for mandatory medical procedures only added to the pounding edges of his creeping headache. The bright and sterile air of the Medbay halls trailed past the on-shift barracks, creaky durasteel sleeping pods stacked four high currently used by Daisy to provide regular unhoused call-ins with a place to stay. The only members, a Wookie with greying and matted hair sat vigil while their companion, a small crest of their back visible, rested in one of the pods. He’d check with Daisy to see how long they’d been in for, maybe scrounge around for some rations in his office and send the with their booking officer before contacting Senators Organa and Amidala.

The Commander of the Coruscant Guard was meant to have a base of operations, like any good leader, and should have been provided as such as an integral member of the Grand Army of the Republic. The nervous senatorial intern seemed ready to burst into tears, the edges of his lekku curling after seeing the wreck that Red Zero—formerly a nearly abandoned branch of CSF— had been upon introducing the Commanders to their station. But the Vode had made do with much worse and with prying eyes all around; in fact, the space to themselves was a novelty. Thorn hadn’t received the reaction from the intern when they pointed the latter out. And Fox hadn’t seen the Togrutan teen since.

His office was cozy, as Senator Amidala had noted, her voluminous outfit taking up a third of the standing space. Most importantly, it had a window, a table for various flimsi and datawork to be sorted, and the ability to lock the door. A setting of his helmet on the table was accompanied by the slow lowering of aching joints and synth-bacta-patched skin protesting the movement. The chair was uncomfortable, a straight-backed thing that poked and prodded no matter how often Fox adjusted his position. Discomfort was an old and familiar friend. Soft things tended to make his skin crawl, the great lie of gentleness steering him away from many of the comforts other siblings sought out.

Sighing, he grabbed a datapad, messages glimmering a sharp blue as the reports from Thire on the clearing of the sewer beasties from the smugglers hold.

1500 CST

CC-TR: Infestation cleared. Approaching objective.

1520 CST

CC-TR: Objective secured.

1534 CST

CC-TR: If these are more of that shitty flimsi, I will take over as MC and no one will ever find your body.

1540

CC-TR: Cargo on way to Z-19 for assessment.

1555

CC-TH: Please reassure my worse half that you aren’t dead.

MC-1010: 1900.

            Setting his datapad facedown was precautionary. It was far too easy to get into the bickering and quibbling over on-shift, off-shift duties and Fox truly needed the time before shift change to finish the flimsi reports and coordinate briefings for his fellow Commanders. A brain bred for battle did not take well to idle time, Fox’s was no exception. Though sometimes the world felt a little too big, himself still too small. Geonosis had been a testament to that. That’s why he’d been stationed to this shitstain of a planet after all, he’d frozen. Cody wouldn’t have.

Rex wore his jaig eyes well.

Fox had long tucked away his daydreams of being recognized for honors in combat, he was more focused on the continued survival of the Guard. Maybe Seventeen would be proud if he could finally see Fox think outside of himself. After all, maybe he wasn’t just a selfish brat.

His introspection was cut short by an abrupt wobbling of his bucket, a small, glistening nose poking out of the opening. Following the nose, soft, pointed ears emerged, and gleaming eyes stared at the bewildered Commander of the Guard. The creature, it seemed, had taken the time to curl into his bucket, which had been strewn about the Medbay with his armor.  Which also meant Eddie would soon discover that the small creature that had been found mewling and hissing at anyone who tried to touch Fox, would not be leaving any time soon. The nose contacted the hand hovering over the datapad, then the ball of bluff pressed its cheek against the line running from pinky to wrist.

Fox didn’t tust himself to be gentle, at first. The creature, potentially seeking warmth, adventured into the folds of his jacket, finding a small hood to squish it’s alarmingly thin body into. He remained frozen, until the little thing found purchase up and over his shoulder, disproportionately large head nearly toppling the curious floof bucket over boots had Fox not gingerly caught it. Big eyes stared up at him.

He stared back.

It was going to be a longer night than he had thought.

Chapter Text

Rumors were common throughout the GAR. Teasing was just a prerequisite of being accepted by the battalion. Still, Echo had pleaded with Kix to quit mentioning the trooper at the bar; as it was everyone ragged on him during their whole week of leave until the shinies’ latest misadventures and bemoaning the Captain’s grueling PT grabbed their attention. But Kix, during their weekly sessions, remembered. The medic always lovingly stuck their nose in everyone else’s business, while staunchly avoiding their own.

(Kix had started taking their meals in medbay. Jesse had yet to figure this out and continued to look forlornly at the empty seat across from him in the mess.)

It wasn’t that Echo couldn’t take his siblings’ ribbing, far from it actually. The 501^st respected him, he knew that. Torrent tolerated him. And Fives loved him. So, he knew that the pokes at his repetition of orders under his breath were done out of affection, not annoyance. Just like Rex’s fond sigh when Hardcase asked for orders to be repeated when the trooper had his head in the clouds and not quite in his bucket. Or Tup’s days where his hands flew in quick dadita and nothing else, Dogma—and did Echo know what it was like to wear a name in protest—the only one able to keep up. Five’s brutal PT days in the lull of transports, pushing his siblings to be faster, more aware, ready for anything, were only met with grace and extra rest. He shared everything with his battalion, from his face to his paint color and his quirks that made him uniquely Echo. As the 501^st marched further out and into the known galaxy, there was less and less that Echo could call his own.

Experience and memory differentiated the clones, in battalions and across the GAR. Some memories Echo wished he could purge: the first time he'd smelled decaying flesh, merciless firefights where nobody truly won, slogs through treacherous alien terrain. Some memories kept him alive, kept him fighting like Rishi and Kamino, like the first time he’d pulled a child from the wreckage of their home and delivered them to their sobbing grandparent. But the memory of the Corrie Guard trooper was solely his, the way his nose scrunched and pulled at his split lip when he stepped on Echo’s toes, the gentle press of blaster-calloused hands against his sides, the low grumble of laughter that was barked out at an offhand comment about fire safety regulations.  

Some memories he carried so others would hopefully never have to. And there were those he’d keep close to his chest, like the night a trooper had called him pretty, stumbled over his feet, and looked at Echo like he was an inconceivable thing.

It wasn’t a fight. Because Echo and Fives didn’t ever fight. Not them, the twins, the Dominoes, survivors from Rishi, those boys who’d finally worn in their 501^st blue. Joined at the hip, a band of two marching in perfect time. Well, maybe one was just a step behind the other, a lagging holovid, a distorted mirror. Just an Echo.

“Come on Echo!” Fives had called, dragging him to 79s just after debrief. And so he followed, despite the mounting pressure behind his forehead.

It didn't take long for instinct to kick in, to try and find somewhere safe, away from the noise and the lights and the bodies. They were alive, yes, but Echo had been trained that clusters of people assured a quick death. Experience a brutal teacher and all that.

Truly, Echo couldn’t remember what his brother exactly said. Only that it sobered him in an instant, a rush from toes to the fuzz on his scalp, dunked hard and fast beneath churning waves of buzzing bar static. The lights were too bright. The music too loud. The people grieving and chasing joy at the bottom of a bottle. 79’s was just a slow and brilliant mockery of cheer. A prop for the vode to just play pretend and forget about the war.

“You’d think we’d know better,” Fives had half-whispered, careening into drunkenness by the bitterness of his tone. He took another shaky drag of his beer, “than to get all dressed up for them.” The statement was punctuated with a slosh of liquor on the floor, in the vague direction of some troopers dancing with nat-borns. They glimmered under the flashing lights—lightening on the dance floor—cheap and shiny things moving through space to collide with another body swaying in similar time to a similar tune.

“They’re just asking to have their heart broken. All dancing like that gets you is your ugly mug kicked back to the barracks once they’re done with you.” Fives took another gulp. Echo savored the silence, but he knew better that the tirade usually continued. The song tapered off, high synth whining to a close. The group kept moving with one another, anticipating the next rhythm with slow grinds, quick smiles, and raucous laughter. They swayed into the arms of new partners and “­–just look at them. Asking to be used. No better than a fucking clanker.”

This was familiar territory, Fives’ maudlin drunkenness. Just because the tirade held an air of familiarity, it didn't make it any less painful. For all that he was a friendly face and a good soldier, his brother’s cunning mind always crept back to the gaping wound, infected and insipid, that Rishi had left. Powerless against overwhelming odds, grinding metal, and giants with gnashing teeth, that moon taught them the truth of their birth: they were not designed to live.

They were purchased to suffer. A job, nothing more, nothing less.

It didn’t make them any less human. Echo had to believe that.

But after scrubbing enough of your siblings’ blood of your chest plate and frantically crushing their ribs while ducking blasterfire, Echo’s brother chose to temper his rage at the galaxy via a drink or several. It loosened his tongue, letting him rattle off grievances and vitriol where shinies and their squadmates couldn’t see. Echo was just a body, like one of those brothers who acted as doubles in the propo reels, familiar shadow dimly lit in the bar’s light.

He never really knew who Fives saw when he drank.

Echo left the table when the beat of the song picked up. The loud arrival of Hardcase and company had nothing to do with the sudden departure, Kix’s inquisitive eyebrow notwithstanding. Jesse’s arm was slung around their shoulder.

Echo smiled, hoping it reached his eyes. The heat of 79s booth leeched out from beneath his blacks, sweat sticking the garment to the small of his back. It was claustraphobic that little piece, glomed onto a place where no one would think could cause panic. Echo frantically stamped down that instinct, focusing on signing to his concerned friend.

Status good.

The other eyebrow raised, and his friend seemed ready to extract themselves from the hold when Jesse leaned closer and said something into their ear, grinning dopily. Kix’s gaze flicked back to Echo, even as a flush wound around their neck. Ever the caretaker, that one.

Air, Echo told them, gesturing to the doors leading to the balcony. Then, mostly because he was tired of the sighing at mealtime, he added. Engage soldier. Ask him to check your blaster.

The response was interrupted Five’s hollering, “Grab me ‘nother one Ey’ika!” He grinned, dazzling and confident, at his new and boisterous company. It was Fives' true talent, Echo supposed, to be able to pull on a shell of yourself so others couldn't see you fall apart.

Hardcase squished himself onto the free side, Jesse and Kix next to him, while Tup, Wooley, and Ringo tentatively sat on the other side of Fives. Echo’s brother said something to make the youngest of the group stutter. Looks like poor Tup was in the hot seat for the night. But Fives cut the normal misery short and just pulled Tup closer to his side, arm slung gently around the sibling’s shoulders. They would entertain him, at least. Fives had always been one to put on a brave face.

Echo pushed through bodies, clearing an inefficient path, their movements now erratic and senseless in a way he’d never felt when out on the floor. Passing through and against the tide, the chill air of Coruscant alleyways stung at his cheeks, pinpricking his lungs. Drawing a shuddering breath, like the ones Kix made him practice, he leaned over the barely up-to-code railing. Echo had gotten lucky, the pungent stench of smoke hadn’t delighted his nostrils, which meant the smokers hadn’t camped out on the balcony yet. Granted, their earlier arrival at 79’s probably had more to do with that than any actual decline in Coruscant’s population of smokers. Most people didn’t use recycled cold of the night to try and realign themselves with reality.

At least the neons of this level had yet to come out in full force so Echo could watch all the lights slowly hum to life. A green above. Magentas along a whole block. Purple and yellows flashed for the late-night shops. And there was blue everywhere he turned.

The entrance sharply slid open behind him. A huff, another clone, did little to ease the sharp tension in his shoulders. Just because it was a sibling didn’t mean that the member of the 501^st wanted them there. But Echo could share. He’d done it his whole life. 

“Got a light?” the sibling inquired; voice laced with interchangeable weariness. For all intents and purposes, Echo shouldn’t have a lighter. According to the regs, no trooper was allowed to remove potential weaponry from their ships during shore leave. Lighters, in theory, counted as weaponry. However, those were GAR-issued models, more akin to a weak welder really. Echo’s lighter, however, was a lovely, tarnished thing that required fuel sweet-talked from Cam in Engineering and produced a flame with a satisfying flick of the ignition. It was junk, by military classification. It was his, not even Fives was allowed to touch the thing. Echo rolled the flint wheel, a small flame coming to life between him and the other trooper. His heart hitched when the familiar bulk of the clone who stepped on his feet half the night leaned down, sliding one arm along the railing so his knuckles bumped Echo’s, lighting the deathstick between his lips. The trooper took a long drag, all that lingered of the flame ate away at the end of the stick, burnishing it black, then gray.

“Thank you.” Echo nodded, quickly pocketing the lighter. He could wait out the trooper who probably didn’t remember him. The one who swayed with him, let themselves be swayed in time with the rhythm instead of against it. “That’s two I owe you now.” The other trooper commented mildly between drags, blowing the smoke away from Echo and into the haze of neon. They turned to face him.   

“Not at all,” Echo tried to draw up the shy smile he usually gave Rex to stop the captain’s fretting. “I enjoy helping. And I had a good time with you. A good time, dancing, with you. I mean.”

“Me too.” The other clone returned to their smoke. Warmly, they added, tone neutral but open, “I could be convinced of dancing again.” Echo’s world swelled in odd ways at the statement. Warmth in his core filled him to the top of his crown but the night air was so, so cold. The lights warped and world started to get hazy again. The metal bar bit into his callouses sharply. Echo tried to breath, steadily, without alarming the new arrival.

The two troopers stood, side by side, one with a white-knuckle grip on the railing and the other blowing the smoke from his deathstick away from the other man. A muted crash of drums thrummed out past the threshold of 79’s, muffled voices drunkenly hollering. Wrestling his nerves down was a skill acquired with practice, so Echo spared a glance at the trooper beside him. A neon orange curled around their profile, darkening the brow set in a permanent furrow and casting odd shadows that almost hid a small scar cut through their lip. The vod  turned and the shadows shifted, peeling back and casting a warm glow on the planes of a strong and slightly bruised neck. A puff of smoke wafted out towards the sign. A sigh broke through the easy quiet. Echo watched the stub of the deathstick pitter down until the Coruscant’s gaping maw swallowed the object whole.

He met the other trooper’s gaze and promptly blurted, “Littering is a Grade Four offense.” The other man looked taken aback at the outburst and Echo really wished he could spare himself (and the trooper) the tirade to come. “Grade Four offenses are fairly high priority for CSF to follow up on, as they indicate a potential threat that could destabilize the bio-support of the city as a whole.” And the habit that had earned him his name kept on rolling, even as the trooper next to him looked increasingly confused at Echo’s proclamations. The member of the 501^st was going to find a nice quiet corner to cry once he got to the barracks.

 “But Grade Four offenses result in the offender participating in community service or paying a fine for damages done. Grade Fours largely go unreported, especially as the offenses range from littering to intentional sabotage of life-support systems. Probably an oversight in the grading system.”

The once peaceful silence interrupted, Echo’s ears burned. It had been so long since he’d had an outburst; his time spent conniving with Rex allowed him to put his habit of unprompted repetition and exhaustive recall towards building rock-solid and GAR-approved battled plans. Apparently, channeling the habit in a professional setting wasn’t enough to eliminate the possibility of Echo making himself look like a reg-obsessed fool in front of a normal trooper.

Echo opened his mouth to apologize.

“Grade Four offenses cannot be issued within the confines of the Upper Levels,” interrupted instead. His balcony lurking partner threw his brain for a loop. The other trooper peered at Echo, as if sizing him up, “You’re not a shiny.” The vod’s eyes were calculating, like all Fett clones, but a razor-sharp intellect crept forward. “And you’re certainly not one of my Guard.” 

Marshal Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard stared at Echo, body deceptively open but guarded, different from the night under hazy lights where he offered an easy smile. Fuck.

"I read, Commander." Echo flatly responded. A barking laugh erupted from the man facing him, the shadows less harsh in the face of his crooked grin.

This was a man that he was told under threat of pain to stay away from while on Coruscant by Jesse and Kix? He'd been imagining, well imagining was maybe giving too much credit—he'd assumed that the Marshal Commander would be like Commander Cody or Commander Ponds. Stern and professional, even during leave. To be fair, Bly and Commander Wolffe did skew that impression, their sabacc pit something of rumor and intrigue. (Echo had been banned from competition).

He should know better to judge a vod by their batchers but Fox, the Commander, seemed normal. To be fair, Echo had only danced with the man during his first short leave. It was a good memory, of warmth and laughter and everything that the War wasn't. He'd add it to the running list of things tainted by service.

There was no reason for Commander Fox to talk to him. Nerves alight with the curveball in the form of his captain’s ori’vod, Echo careened once again over his hard-fought calm and into the edges of panic. A nice quiet panic.

“Want to get out of here?” Echo’s brain stuttered. Apparently, the short-circuit was evident on his face because the question was followed up by a quickly assured, “in that we can go somewhere that’s not as loud. And you can be escorted by a member of the Guard to make sure nothing happens to a stray trooper roaming about Coruscant.”

Was the Commander worried? A shaky laugh rattled loose from somewhere in Echo’s ribcage. He tried to breath in and found there wasn’t quite enough oxygen. “That would be good, Commander.”

“Just Fox. I’ve stepped on your toes too many times for you to call me that.” The distance between them had gotten quite small, Echo thought, as numb hiccups shook his body. Why was he numb? The lights had gotten brighter, sharper and everything was shaking. A warm arm circled his waist, strong. A hand gently uncurled Echo’s cold fingers from the balcony, sensation long gone with a tense grip.

“Did you drink anything?” Fox’s voice rumbled in his ear. Echo shook his head slightly and immediately regretted the decision. The world was a bit too blurried for any vigorous nodding. Words would have to do.

“Didn’t drink anything.” He grit out between gasps for air.

“Liar,” the Commander of the Coruscant Guard tutted.

For a moment Echo resurfaced, incredulity demanding to be known, “You were watching me?” He started to pull away from the warm body keeping him upright.

Commander Fox loosened his grip, still within grabbing distance if Echo were to fall. “I was hoping for another dance.” A huff, a wry grin, "But you were with your loudmouth and didn't look much like chatting."

A dull thud and sinking grief speared Echo's head. "Oh, Fives." He slumped back against something smooth.

Blinking, the Commander knelt across from him, eyes searching. "Do you want me to comm them?"

Echo thought back to the circle Fives had surrounded himself with, Tup curled intimately into his side. Kix and Jesse probably tangled up in eachother, trapping Hardcase as they often did. Ringo and Wooley would be doing shots or playing sabacc or went off to be the exact people Fives had called fools. Ka'ra the club distract had too many signs, he dug the heels of his palms to stop the throbbing that had progressed to a piercing sensation.

"Do you want me to call your CO?" The instinctive shake 'no' only served to shake his battered brain even more. Rex needed shore leave more than any of them. It wasn't his fault that Echo hadn't shaken off the worst of battle fatigue, even with the help of Kix.

"Just let me be nobody?" Echo sighed out, a bit bitter. "You're not good enough of a dancer for me to consider shagging even if I didn't feel like taking a swan dive off the Domes, sir." Pain had always helped to loosen his temper. Or he'd been thrown in Guard holding for sniping at a superior. 

"Well, since your leaning against my speeder, the offer to take you somewhere less, uh, boisterous—"

"Oh fancy word there—"

"stands." A hazy glance at the Commander reflected a vod whose eyes were etched with concern. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Clambering onto the speeder took a bit of adjustment, Echo gripping the Commander’s shoulders, until the trooper moved them to encircle his waist.

“It will only take a few minutes, keep breathing steady alright?” Numbly, the other man nodded into the collar of Fox’s jacket, the low hum of the speeder’s engine and the steady press of a warm body helping to ease his racing heart and gasping lungs.

The streets of Coruscant messed with Echo’s senses on a good day. Every few meters of the Upper-Level speeder lanes had large, blaring holoprojections for movies, goods, and war propos. The walkable streets were worse, pumped in air and artificial breezes always set him on edge, droids or poorly disguised CSF security monitors traced every move. The city-planet was stale and overwhelming, too manicured to be genuine and too loud to be honest. Pressed up against another body, though, gently looping through the Mid-Levels, was a different city altogether. Corridors, warmly lit and filled with the aromas of spices paired well with the quiet bustle of beings moving through their late-night routines. A group of children clustered around cobbled together droids, sharing parts and tools. A streak of paint caught one of the togruta’s lekku, adding a bright green stripe amongst the blue and white. A humanoid with a mechanical leg offered up a cloth to their friend.

He hoped Commander Tano was enjoying her leave.

The streets blurred together, and Echo’s stomach lurched. Everywhere they passed was so warm. And light but not too bright. Safe, a small thought hammered against his heart, this is what safety feels like.

He’d forgotten that feeling.

Once at their destination—a large warehouse, abandoned but not in immense disrepair—Commander Fox left Echo to hover in between what looked to be a kitchen and an entryway. The guard returned with a set of looser fabric, probably like the sleep clothes he’d seen Kix shove some troopers in, and a mountain of blankets.

“The fresher is the second door. Thire left his makeup bag so there should be wipes in that.” Echo nodded, the surprisingly settling drive helped the immediate panic abate. But he worried that currently opening his mouth would have it arrive again in full force. It was like an incredibly irate tooka nestled atop his heart, squeezing it between its teeth and choking his lungs with its tail. It was playing with his equilibrium, waiting for the moment that its prey was tipped over the edge.

Echo’s jitters had mostly subsided once Fox, the Commander, had gotten him settled on a surprisingly comfy couch. Fox kept his distance, puttering around in the small kitchen and doing something. Abruptly shoved into his arms was a surprisingly soft, though horribly mishappen tooka to hold. An incredibly warm impression of a tooka.

“Digit made her.” Echo nodded, only halfway checked into reality enough to accept the pseudo-explanation. The other trooper stood, hovering. It was a bit endearing, the hesitation in Fox’s care. He seemed a bit unpracticed.

“How’s she warm?” Echo gathered the tooka closer, feeling tiny grains of sand shift atop his chest, “and heavy?”

“A shipment of grain was confiscated. It was deemed unusable by CSF and Agriculture, so we made use of it.” The Echo blinked. The Commander of the Coruscant Guard’s hesitation could apparently be overcome, if methodically unfolded and draped blankets were an indicator.

“Too warm?” Commander Fox asked, pausing in wrapping Echo in every available scrap of fabric in the room.

The other clone shrugged, “I run cold.” Fox nodded, wrapping another blanket around his guest’s shoulders and scurrying off into another room.

Alone, and what a foreignness that was, Echo surveyed the room. Medium-sized windows, standard security bars installed to limit the probability of entry. A kitchen, almost a replica of the public-use one aboard a venator-class ship. Though, each piece of equipment was damaged, well-used in different ways. The sparse cabinetry ranged from sickly yellow to hazy greys. Sat atop the notable checkerboard patterned countertop was not only a patchwork caf-machine but a small creature had curled around the Commander’s helmet, dozing.

It was cozy. Alarmingly warm in the way that the barracks could never be. His anger seeped out of him, the aches of campaign finally catching up. The Commander padded back into the room with an unopened hydropack and a patchwork monstrosity of a blanket.

“Here,” the man offered, blacks a bit too loose on his frame, like the man’s body wasn’t a good copy. Tiredness mounting behind his forehead, Echo carefully gathered up the heavy object.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, fingers tracing over familiar patches of black. Reaching out, he gingerly tugged at the Commander’s sleeve. “Thank you, Commander.”

“Goodnight, trooper.” The man, hair shot through with grey expertly vacated the space he been moments before, a slow creep of red flush along his ears.

It was sweet, a small grin hooked the corner of Echo’s mouth, to see them have something other than just the war. The man lightly scooped up the sleeping ball of fluff, scarred fingers, forearms, and broad chest a little haven for the tiny creature curled against him.

“Goodnight, Fox.” Echo murmured, pressing his face into the warmth of the Commander’s blanket. He’d never drifted off so fast.

Echo awoke to sunlight and a muffled curse ringing throughout the room. In an instant, the trooper shot up from the nest of blankets, neck sweaty and eyes darting about the unfamiliar space. Goosebumps danced across his forearms, the chill air biting away at the haze of the morning. In front of him, hovering in the kitchen, stood a Commander of the Coruscant Guard, bleached blonde and shaved at the sides with the remaining length squished into a truly hideous topknot.

The Commander blinked.

Echo blinked back. The tooka he was holding stared accusingly at the Guard member.

Two dumbfounded animals stared at one another in a Coruscant apartment. Echo waved, hoisting the tooka under one arm. The Commander squinted back at him and then promptly opened every cabinet in the kitchen, muttering something under their breath.

Was, was the Commander supposed to be here?

Truly, was Echo still supposed to be here?

The guard’s search had not born fruit as the vod began to rummage around other corners of the room, either dutifully ignoring Echo are too engrossed in their task to care about the random trooper in Marshal Commander Fox’s home. Lodgings?

In hindsight, Echo could have died in a ditch with no one the wiser. At least Rex might have come for him, never truly willing to part with any of his troops unless there was no other option.

A soft mrow came from behind the closed door. Click. The telltale sound of a safety removed from a blaster had Echo snapping towards the intruder until a low “Thorn,” was muttered.

The Coruscant Guard Commander—Thorn, apparently—froze.

“Morning Marshal Commander sir, lovely weather we’re having.”

Fox sighed, “It’s the same weather every day.” Oh, Commander Wolffe’s temperament made a lot more sense now.

Commander Thorn tutted, inclining their head towards Echo, the horrible topknot also bobbing towards the wayward trooper, “Oh I think it’ll be a sunny one; something nice and warm to keep our troopers outside.”

Fox glare, it seemed, could deepen, “No, you are not authorized to hack into the weather controls for the planet for the safety and security of all residents of Coruscant.”

Either this was some bizarre code or Echo’s head had been rattled too hard during his violent run in with an AT-AT wall during the last campaign.

The other commander, however, just nodded at this utter nonsense and held out a gloved hand.

“No.”

“Twelve hours of prison coverage.” Thorn quirked their fingers, “And keeping quiet about your sunny day over there.” The winked, acknowledging the 501^st trooper still swaddled in blankets.

Echo had the sudden desire to melt into the floor. It was definitely a code with him of all things as its subject. What in the nine hells would the Guard need to hide from a random trooper? A vod?

Well, you did ask to be nobody, a small part of Echo’s brain whispered, recalling the little too sunken in cheeks of Sunnie and Hardcase’s worried mutterings about his batchmate during deployment. You’re just a clone.

He hadn’t even told Commander Fox his name. Or battalion. Or anything.

Well, their hesitance made sense at least, Echo mused, observing the exchange of a bag of instant caf, a holopad, and the surrender of the blaster to Thorn. The blonde Commander flitted out the door, shoving their helmet on unceremoniously while balancing their pilfered goods. The little creature darted from the Marshal Commander’s room and trailed behind Thorn.

“Bye Sunshine!” They singsonged, crackled by the vocoder of their helmet.

A moment of silence passed between Commander Fox and Echo.

“Tea or caf?”

“Tea of caf?”

“Great,” the remaining guard ran a scarred hand through knotted curls. The Commander’s hair toed height regulations, dark coils, a similar texture to Rex’s, tightly sprang back to attention with every run through. In the daylight, Echo could see a line of grey clipped closer to the curve of Fox’s ears. Even short it inched its way a bit up from the temples, like an extension of the weary lines on the other vod’’s relaxed face.

“Great, caf it is,” assured the Commander, stalking towards the caf machine with a coiled annoyance that only young siblings could provoke.

“Caf it is, then,” Echo muttered, bringing the softest blanket further up his chest, a ratty thing of patchworked reds and blacks in the artificial day of the planet-city. Fox seemed supremely unbothered by Echo’s lingering so the blanket would remain in the nest until he was forced to surrender the item.

Most siblings had refrained from giving opinions on the Guard, the time spent on leave meant for burying one’s terrors, holding batchmates close, and passing out in the barracks until mandatory formwork came for the officers (usually violently in the case of Jesse). They were a closed off bunch, spread thin, from what Rex had shared. It was odd, to know that those who you might have slept next to throughout training would have completely different experiences from you. The War seemed constant, a thing that every trooper shared. Together, even when apart. But for the Guard, Echo had no clue how they were touched by it. It was discomforting.

Against his better judgement, it was interesting to see where they differed when they were built for a singular purpose.

And, it was a bit reassuring, Echo'd could admit, to know that some of them weren't only built for the War.

The Commander leaned next to the machine, half-lidded gaze almost always on Echo. For better or worse, it was recognized that the Guard compulsively watched other GAR members, even their original batchmates. But there was no reason to feel unsafe in their home.

Shrugging the blanket closer, Echo silently slid off the couch, socked feet contacting the cool duracrete of the floor. Ka’ra he couldn’t stand the cold.

Commander Fox’s mouth curled, a shadow of a smile.

“It’ll warm you.”  A chipped mug of piping hot caf was gently slid between Echo’s chilled hands. He took a sip, expecting GAR-grade sludge. Surprised, he held the taste of the second cup against his tongue. Bitter, acidic, but not biting like the last dregs of a pot. It was odd. The third sip had Echo coming around to the bitterness, the tradeoff of the warmth and energy filling his body more than worth putting up with the taste.

He really, really hated the cold.

“Thank you, Commander,” Echo managed with brain cells back online. The guard was in the process of dumping what looked like purpleish milk into his own mug, only half-filled with actual caf. The 501^st creamer was instant, a neon blue powder that never quite dissolved and left clumps at the bottom of many a mug.

“I see you take your creamer with a splash of caf, sir,” Echo poked. Abruptly, he reconsidered his tone and buried his attention in the dark recesses of his caf. This wasn’t Rex after all.

“No one would believe you,” was the lazy response to Echo’s ill-thought out blab.

“Even Commander Cody?” Skirata’s dirty socks, really Echo?

Commander Fox simply sipped his caf, leaning back against the small counter. “So, you’re one of the good ole’ boys in gold?” Ah, now there was that serrated smile Rex warned him about. Unlike the Wolf Pack Commander, who tended to drag opponents kicking and screaming, both verbally and physically, Commander Fox waited until Echo volunteered his own familiarity. It was respectful of his request mid-panic the night before. It was also sneaky. And Echo had always liked cleverness.

He blinked, slow enough to buy some time to tamp down the tumbling responses to the other vod's question. “Oh, well—” a comm loudy pinged from the couch, atop his neatly folded civvies. “Sorry,” Echo muttered sheepishly moving to silence the dreadful, piercing chime.

It was from Rex. And Echo also apparently had several unanswered messages from various siblings.

• > Briefing at 1300. New intel on PR01-RHO.
• > i hope you had a good time last night. :)

>> Will be there, Sir!

Echo ignored the second message. And deliberately evicted the image of Captain Rex typing up a smiley face. He suspected Tup had something to do with their increasing frequency in Rex's personal communications. Maybe if he subtly ratted to Commander Cody...

“You’re awfully expressive.” And Prime’s hairy ballsack, really? Fox’s gruff voice should not have startled Echo. The bastard was quiet.

“I thought you liked me that way,” Echo deadpanned, a bit miffed at himself and the commander. Being stuck in his head for too long would only annoy the other trooper. “I’ll be sure to get on that Marshal Commander.” The 501^st trooper silenced the comm with prejudice, now surely pinging with messages from erstwhile battalion mates.

“Fuck rank cop’īkla.” And Echo still had no clue what is was with his superior's trying to immediately name him. This, at least, the sharp grin tinged with exasperation, was familiar enough, “I told you to just call me Fox.” The other trooper was suddenly much closer. The commander, Fox, remained a respectful distance away, but those eyes were unreadable. Different, measured when compared to the snapshots of Echo's memories. “I need you to do something essential for the safety of the Guard. And really for all your siblings on Coruscant.” His mouth twisted into a grim line, sharp, tired, and worn.

Echo nodded, having noted the sharp breaks in protocol that he had identified. It was better, he'd learned, to try and keep a running list in his head. Not only did it make him bearable to work with, according to Bait and Fives, but he'd found that ammunition was sometimes best kept stored until you needed it. “I don’t know anything about that empty warehouse the Guard go into. Marshal Commander Fox definitely doesn’t have additional accommodations other than the officers’ quarters presumably assigned to him as per SEC 1.5A of the GAR housing regulations.” The vod paused, “Him?”

Fox nodded.

“And he definitely takes his caf black.”

For a moment, Echo was sure in his speech. Coruscant was a minefield dressed up to look like a functioning seat of power. He knew enough to not simply trust the decisions of nat-born senators who hadn’t been within cruising distance of a battlefield. Every sibling been a part, and waded through the aftermath, of battles. Distance only exacerbated the potential for cruelty. And some found that being its administrator took little but a signature and an assurance that credit would flow into their poorly hidden coffers.

Reg-bound, Reg-following, Reg-righteous Echo knew when orders were shit. And he also knew that sometimes you couldn’t escape them. The fires on Geonosis. It was their duty, more ball and chain than anything, that sent clone-only battalions in battles of flesh against flesh. Only jedi had the privilege of choosing metal and circuitry over blood and blaster burns.

“Why?”

Echo blinked, looking anywhere but the Commander’s face. “Why?”

Fox's hands twitched, curling around his mug. Inanely, Echo wondered how Fox had gotten those scars, even lines of scars tracing his fingers, drawn from the bottom of the nail to the base of the hand. Echo had the urge to trace his palms, see if the scars were mirrored. He didn’t know if he wanted his assumption to be true.

“You should report me.” It was like looking at a holophoto, the stillness and weight of Fox's observations.

Echo nodded, considering, “I should.”

“Then,” Fox huffed, a small thing, more sigh than anything else. It broke a bit of the hardass facade. “Why?”

“There is no regulation or law against non-sentients occupying abandoned properties.” Echo pointed out; gaze still fixed away from the Commander. “There’s also no specific GAR regulation that states where we must sleep, what we must eat, or what we can drink.”

There were some things, the clones had found, that they could choose.

Fox laughed. It was full bellied, lower than other Fett-tinged laughs. Once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Echo took the mug from the now shuddering grip and lead the Commander to sit on the couch. A replay of last night, in the Coruscant white-gold sun. Echo went to remove his light touch, but the other man snaked a hand to grip his wrist. Not tight, just solid. Seemingly coming down from his hysteria, the grip loosened, and Fox hesitantly slid his fingers between Echo’s.

There were mirrored scars along his palms, their indentations raised where normal blaster callouses should have met.

Desperate to not further embarrass himself, Echo kept quiet. But Fox's hands were warm.

Marshal Commander Fox was quite plain in the morning light. Nose a bit crooked, the square jawline of the vode, and a face build for war. He also seemed softer, like the sharpness of the night eased off his shoulders. The scar on his lip was worried at the edges, poorly healed. His smile pulled at the seams. His front teeth were crooked.

Echo wondered if Fox knew that he had flecks of green in his eyes.

The Commander’s pulse was steady where their wrists touched. The pressure against his palm increased. A squeeze.

“Thank you.”

And, that smile was one Echo had never seen before. Off-kilter, all Echo could do was nod and slowly untangle their hands. Packing up was efficient, quick, and practiced. It wasn’t until the train back to the leave barracks that Echo even had time to consider if Fox noticed his sweaty palms and too-fast heart.

He’d probably never see the Marshal Commander Fox again.

Chapter Text

CC-1010 loved to dance in the rain. CC-1010 saw the casual strength of Seventeen and clawed tooth and nail to reach the top slot. Split knuckles and histories of bloodied lips were tended to by worried and calloused hands, shaking. Now, Fox was unfortunately intimate with that peculiar sort of grief. CC-1010 had hugged Seventeen, curling into his lethal frame, just a few days shy of four because the steadfast man began to cry. CC-1010 learned how to snatch a Trainer’s least treasured Offworld belongings and distribute the goods through the barracks. Not that anyone would ever know it was him. When CC-1010 lost his baby teeth quickly, in a series of coincidences and natural speeding up of tooth loss, his clear cut and prim tone was accompanied by a lisp. Seventeen snuck in smashed Muja fruit, sweetness a quick balm, a hidden treasure for his bravery.

Rule One: Don’t get caught.

CC-1010 knew he was clever. Intelligence was a prized commodity of the Command Track, but cleverness was rewarded with solitary confinement or Citadel suicides. Learn to make the right decisions but not the best ones to ensure success. Learn to dismantle a droid in class and teach oneself slicing outside of it to create optimal OPSEC. Sit and wait, gathering intelligence, to be ready to make the first strike.

Cleverness was a knife. A tool used to survive in the duracrete wildernesses of Coruscant. When a raid seized an old warehouse in the mid-Industrial levels of Coruscant, growbeds of imported (illegally grown) Nabooian gourds were substituted for chubby orange tubers and a host of various fruit trees. The trees were somehow lost in transit to disposal, uprooted by the installation of a fallen warrior monument to the nat-borns lost during the war in the Senate Gardens. They were perfectly healthy, planted in the early years of the Green Up Coruscant campaign. Now they were considered an invasive species, up to Coruscant’s public servants to dispose of.

Fox was no botanist, but he was pretty sure that Coruscant’s constructed climate systems made invasive species a bit of a moot point. After all, the wastes beyond the city were scorched so thoroughly that nothing would grow without artificial climate control. Regardless, the throwaway piece of legislation that legally allowed the Guard to seize the trees was a greater step towards securing consistent food for his growing number of siblings.

A collection of words made a law, but it was the interpretation that made illegality stick. Semantics, after all, were the currency of senators. Fox was nothing if not a quick study.

Hence, the warehouse. And the tubers. And the trees. Medicine, well, that was still a struggle.

Fox had already too many responsibilities, before the acquisition of the lodging for the Guard. With Thorn clad in his armor covering his prison shift, he at least had an entire day to sift through a portion of the flimsiwork for the week.

There, at least, his vod was outside of the convenient range of a comm from the Chancellor to attend to some random need or another. It wasn’t like the cells were stationed far away for any practical reason, Fox had learned that quickly with the bi-monthly riots and attempted (sometimes successful) breakouts. The Upper-Level residents liked to feel safe. So, their criminals were sequestered nearer to the planetary port than to any of the central security forces. Strange, how the new Planetary Security Forces headquarters construction with CSF funds had finished just eight weeks shy of the installment of the Guard into the old buildings. The offices somehow built far enough away from every tactical point that Stone had removed himself from their second briefing to scream in an alleyway about poor city planning.

Of all of them, Stone hated Coruscant the most. The prison duties included joint coordination with Planetary Entry teams and Space Craft Control, which allowed the Commander to be as far away as they could from the politicking and monotonous paperwork of inner-city law enforcement. Stone wasn’t meant for the city, ARF trooper track all the way until Geonosis, when those who had been trained were sent in first, waves of plastoid dyed crimson in a sickening tide. He’d survived. He was the one to pull Fox out of the wreckage because shuddering gasps against cracked ribs meant a vod’s time wasn’t up. If they could breathe, it wasn’t their time, regardless of orders.

Fox had yet to repay that debt.

            The prison’s distance meant that Thorn was as safe as they could be when on duty. Which wasn’t truly safe enough, for Fox’s liking. He’d preferred that his troopers were only ever exposed to dangers he’d assessed. That, however, was an impossible task, no matter how much he yearned to know the schematics of the battleground he fought in. Knowledge and its control often meant the difference between survival and death.

            The everyday work to be completed: shinies to brief, supplies to coordinate and check, rotations to be made, forms to be filed, rotations to re-make. There were also safehouses to maintain, various goods to recirculate amongst the population and GAR, meetings with community leaders to arrange, and evidence to be gathered.

            Fox had thought that clawing his way through Seventeen’s ARC program meant that he was destined for the battlefields, for the sleek hum of a general’s saber at his side, for the lullaby of the ship’s hull that some of the less brutal trainers mused about. Geonosis was a proving ground. The iron-rich sand had never really come off his armor. In the end, all his competency got him was datawork. And the occasional crime. But really, the paper trails were endless.

It was during the height of a mindless slog through GAR forms, the chattering of a pilfered 212^th frequency rattling out from a confiscated communicator, that a duffle-laden Thire tromped into Fox’s workspace, head on a swivel. Creature’s oversized ears poked out of the unzipped quarter of the bag. Her attempt at subterfuge was noted. It could be improved upon but hey were working on it.

“Ready for relocation sir, give me that place and the word.” At the hefty thunk of the bag on Fox’s desk, the dark ball of malice and energy lept from her hidey-hole and skittered to curl around the sitting trooper’s neck. The claws left teeny, pinked imprints along the commander’s arms. Thire waited, vibrating with enough energy to power a few levels.

“Don’t sir me,” Fox snarked, automatic. He awarded the menace for her violence with scritches. A contented warble rumbled loudly in his ear. “I also gave no relocation order. The next one is Spark and Cal to Alderaan.” Fox didn’t even need to pull out the fimsi.

Thire knew the schedule. Fox made the schedule.

The younger Commander brought up his comm, helmet dumped on the table after some lazy scrolling. “Thank fuck.” He plopped down atop the table, armor clattering annoyingly, still fixed on whatever was on the comm. “I really didn’t want to have a heart to heart with you about being boots over bucket for some civvie. Hound was already bad enough but reprimanding my boss about using Guard resources to move his fuckbuddy off-planet was not my top priority today.” Fox sighed. He must have been volunteered by Thorn. Or Stone, the quiet ones were always wily.

Thire chanced a glance up from his wrist, “You did get them sorted, right?” Thorn would soon find themselves on kennel cleanup for the foreseeable future. Hound would agree since it was free labor. And the sergeant would get to spend time with his batcher under the guise of punishment. Fox pulled up the schedule to reorganize it for a fourth time. The datapad was then set down on the table with a quiet clink. Late afternoon sun seeped into the main room, warming the spots the rays crept along. They hadn’t yet figured out how to exactly mimic the feeling of sunshine with heaters, but all warmth was cherished in the drafty base. Fox preferred the real thing anyway, the heat a small, pleasant warmth at his back. Steadying but intangible.

“I thought that who I have here during my day off was specifically,” the commander griped,” meant to stay private.” It was true, plausible deniability and all that for the other Commanders. Used to the Marshal Commander’s imitation of Alpha-17’s glare, Thire simply narrowed his eyes.

“You know that’s not why Thorn sent me.” Oh, so the shit twin did decide to brief the nice one. The crux was that both Thorn and Fox were cagey bastards of great magnitude. Stone simply refused to partake in any of their bullshit. Which left Thire as the sacrificial sibling to pry honesty out of Fox with his unassuming kindness. It worked, usually and much to the other vod’s chagrin, especially on days like today. The hardest ones, where Fox saw shadows and imprints of siblings he let go off to the stars. He lost them to those systems, to battles across the galaxy and to troops they were meant to guide. He was trapped. Locked away in the city-planet central to the growing farce of the War.

He missed Bly, endlessly talkative and enthralled with any story. Ponds felt distant, even when on the same planet. He was the right hand to one of the generals. So was Wolffe, his lost squad still a gaping wound, a toxic maw for their batchmates stuck in the Guard.   

Cody wouldn’t talk to him. Hadn’t talked to Fox after they’d gotten their assignments. It was fair, Fox had been angry, seething at his batchmate’s apparent luck. He would finally have the chance to live up to his name: Kote. The scar never quite healed as Fox tore through the 212^th’s after-action reports, pulling and opening the wound in the first weeks on this Ka’ra damned planet.

Seventeen was supposed to wake up, Kote went in his stead. Fox had waited for as long as he was allowed but Command came knocking.

When he looked at Thire, smothered snickers at Thorn’s easy humor, Fox could only see the softness that clung to Rex’s cheeks when they’d stood side by side in a rattling dropship down to the brilliant surface of Geonosis. It was the first time any of them had seen a true sun. Fox would never regret taking the shots aimed for his little brother’s back in his stead. He would always regret swapping Cody’s number with Rex’s when the first orders went out. The part of him that hadn’t wanted to die, a bloodied and pathetic thing trapped under the carcasses of droids, had wished that he had swapped his number with Rex’s instead.

“Did something go wrong with the Mando kiddos?”

“They got to Little Keldabe safe at 1900.” Fox reassured. Thire had always liked cadets. “I went to see Layla and brought a sibling back with me.” Through the Guard entrance, went unsaid. If Thire was here to make a fuss, then the other commander had clearly seen the cam footage. He continued to stare at Fox like he suddenly sprouted lekku.

“That majorly violates opsec.” Thire pointed out, swiping Fox’s mug and grimacing at the cold caf. “You literally hate nothing more.”

Fox nodded, aware of his momentous fuck up. But the trooper from that night wouldn’t be a problem. They’d be off to the front soon and forget all about one night of shore leave. Maybe that’s why Fox had found a tiny kernel of kindness to offer. And besides, the trooper hadn’t been particularly lucid the night before, so it was important to remove them from a potentially hostile environment before any harm befell them or any citizens.

It was easier, sometimes, to convince himself that his choices fulfilled to his duties as a trooper; conditioning was hard to shake, after all.

Thire continued, incredulously puttering about the kitchen.  “Did you seriously not just go to Lanayah’s? You always bring your hookups there.”

Fox ignored Thire’s detailed knowledge of his sex life. It was unfortunately expected. “You know that Digit and I see all. I gotta be able to have my CO’s back, even when you’re getting a good dicking down.” Thire grinned, shit-eating.

“We didn’t fuck.” At least admitting that might end the misery. Instead, the grin fell into a worried line, almost a frown but still tinged with Thire’s trademark curiosity.

“Why’d you bring em’ back then?” Fox glared, sharply. It was tempered by Creature’s swivel of her head towards Thire, bobbing her attention between the two troopers. Her ear twitched and smacked the irate commander. “I trust you Fox. You wouldn’t bring someone here if you thought they were a danger to us.”

“Of course,” the Commander assured his fellow soldier, smothering the lie with typical sternness. “There’s too much to lose when something goes wrong.”

Not if something went wrong. It was always better to be prepared for the worst, expecting and having a plan for when everything went sideways. They’d been lucky, so far, that natborns were more self-absorbed than the sharp-eyed trainers and ever watching longnecks had been.

The truth was, Fox hadn’t really been thinking all that much. He’d seen a trooper head for some air and decided to try his luck, only to be greeted with the sight of civvies seen a few weeks earlier. Helping Eddie and being sent on Lower-Level recovery meant that the vacant eyes and the death-grip on the balcony rail were familiar to Fox. He should have just grabbed the trooper’s more-sober friends off the dance floor, the one cuddled up to Obnoxious Tattoo seemed steady enough. Or he could have gotten their battalion, forced the issue a bit more. Fox would always put up with seeing his batchmates if it meant a vod could feel safe. A CO, anyway, could understand and help with the intricacies of the trooper’s battle fatigue better than he could guess. A designation, a name would have been harder to match to a battalion, but not impossible.   

But the trooper, who’d glittered and twirled and grinned under the lights of the bar, drawing all the light towards them asked Fox if they could be nobody for a night. He’d obliged. It was the least he could do, for all that they were one in a million, that didn’t make the expectations of their existence any less daunting.

“Shit, alor.” A new mug was settled into Fox’s hands. Aromatic spices wafted up and the scent of tea hit the distracted man’s senses. “You like them.” Thire gave him distance, fiddling and reorganizing the assortment of blends in Fox’s yellow cabinet. The teas carefully stored and now aggressively being resorted were gifted. Fox’s first ever thing, in fact.

An older Trandoshan working in the Mid-Level green spaces sent him an assortment of clippings from various locations previously unattended to by CSF. Left unprotected, the small-scale farm industries often fell prey to opportunistic, smaller gangs. They’d break windows, smash pipelines, and accost most of the less physically imposing workers on their way to and from the various plant nurseries. It wasn’t deemed a high-priority or high-profile enough for CSF to review the situation and offer more permanent security.

The commander had discovered the vandalism and assault by accident, running down teens from the Upper Levels who’ been causing enough of a ruckus for a senator to forward a request to the Guard. Fox mostly had been fed up with chasing them down, depositing them back home, only to find them harassing other citizens in the Mid-Levels. By Prime’s left nut, he was a commander of a battalion in charge of the defense of the heart of the Republic; instead, his troops were treated like exchangeable workfolk between the Senate, the Prison, and CSF’s Law Enforcement. At least workfolks legally had to be paid, being considered real people and all.

Finding the teens setting up what looked to be small explosives gave him reasonable enough cause for arrest. The dismissal of his authority was normal, especially coming from the children of the leeches who parroted the same non-sentient clone rhetoric from warmongering senators. Coincidentally, those leeches tended to not only donate to but also endorse those senators’ reelection campaigns. And many of them, it turned out, held an interest in various industries, more droid operated than anything else, that churned out parts for military spacecrafts, nutritionally dense ration bars, and had a firm hand in the “proper” distribution of bacta.

“Besides meat-droid,” one of the young humanoids sneered, uniform perfectly pressed with gold trim accenting the cream, “they’re barely even worthy of the jobs we give them.” As far as Fox knew, the green spaces had been managed by the Agriculture department, which had previously consisted of majority Argi-Corps members, distributers, and some elected positions. All of whom could not turn over the Equal Sentient Employment Laws.

He'd known that the claim of non-sentience by the Kaminoans is what sold the senators on the full armament of the convenient army at their disposal. And though the continual anti-clone rhetoric had a previously unidentified source, it seemed that the apparent highlighted feature of their soldiers had unceremoniously spilled amongst Coruscant’s upper echelon and into the not-yet venomous but definitely foul mouths of their children.

“This is your last chance to cooperate, please put down that device and we can discuss your options with your guardians present or with a CSF official.” Fox paused, cataloguing the expressions of the teens before him. Disgusted, irritated, and bored. A silhouetted figure passed through the upper window.

A popping sound, electric blue gum bubbled from the glossy lips of bored-looking humanoid with sharp cheekbones and stringy brown hair. “Look, we know if you actually had feelings that you wouldn’t give a shit about these disgusting aliens. It’s your job anyway, to lock them up when they get too feral, right?”

Ah, option two it is.

Fox shrugged, “Or you can resist and I’ll have to explain how awful it was that I didn’t get here in time to prevent your tragic accident with an illegal incendiary.” He shifted, stance moving from forced casualness into something stern and lethal. “Even if one of you managed to get away, who’s to say that you were even attacked. We meat droids were made for war and you’re just small fry compared to assassin droids.”

Silence wafted, carried on an artificial breeze.

“Of course, if you reported me, a feat since none of you know my designation, you’d soon find this and all other footage we have of you breaking the law posted on every public forum.” Fox finished, hands never straying close to his blasters. He needed them worried about their image, in the end, not frightened.

People were stupid and reckless, even when they weren’t afraid.

The tallest one cracked first, tugging at their braids. “Shit, fine. I’ll go, it’s not worth it anyway.” They eyed their friends. “Really, we’ll lose any chance at admission with even a report made by a clone.”

“We’re not hurting anyone who doesn’t deserve it!” The uniformed one blurted, whiny and pouting with an expression more appropriate on a fresh tubie.

The audio echoed back at the gaggle. Their eyes widened.

Fox made do. “Names, Names of Guardians, and your schools; lying means this recording goes out.” Bubblegum opened their mouth. Fox continued, “You will not go to any level below 110 without an adult escort, as per the Tier Six Terrorism Standard Rulings applied to the case of youth.”
            “Terrorism!” Gold-trim squawked, Braids stomped on their foot.

“Tier Six is intent to harm living beings,” Bubbglegum snarked, “there are no living beings here besides us.” They smiled, teeth stylishly serrated in a that spoke to trend more than a species trait. “I know my rights, clone.”  

“Except you would have been a Tier Four if the workers hadn’t evacuated as soon as you stomped down here.” Fox pointed out, calmly walking to Braids and taking the unarmed explosive. GAR-issue, most likely, by the ease with which he slipped the device into ammo storage. He’d ask Pipedream to take it apart later. “And there is still someone in the building.”

The three at least looked a bit remorseful. Braids was the most outwardly horrified, clearly still unsure of where to direct their hands. Bubblegum hadn’t connected the pieces together, it seemed. Or they truly didn’t care. Uniform, however, went silent, apparently the ground seemed a whole lot more interesting.

Fox didn’t have time for their crises, he was supposed to be on break before this whole debacle. “Names, Guardians, Schools. CSF is en route with an additional Guard who will explain the circumstances and charges, along with relevant footage.”

“Sorry.” Braids dipped their head.

“Don’t apologize to me, kid.” Fox snorted, “It’s not my life that your cruelty would have ruined.”

The tea had shown up a week later, brought into the Guard’s run-down headquarters by Aahk’shaak, a large orange and blue Trandoshan with fading yellow spots along his neck. It had been a coincidence that Fox had peeled himself out of the deeply uncomfortable office chair to scrounge around for caf. The excited chatter of Lily quickly derailed his search.

“Commander Fox,” his sibling chirped happily, hoops in her eyebrows glinting under the fluorescents. “Aahk’shaak works down on 354M and wanted to thank us for our work.” The imposing figure nodded, then let out a syllabic hiss that drew the other guard’s attention. “He also wanted to give the trooper who dealt with the situation a gift from the other workers as well.”

Technically, anything received by the Guard should have been sent to the Acquisitions department of CSF. But Fox had gotten incredibly tired of carting up the good shit they seized only to have to stand as plastoid window dressing while the Chancellor effectively sold off the goods to the highest bidder. Crates of bacta, shipments of grains clearly over wartime rationing, and blaster packs were just a few of the items that slipped through the Guard’s fingers before Fox had gotten wise to the unspoken rules of Coruscant.

Luckily, for him, it was easy enough to follow: Don’t get caught, you’ll pay if you do.

And so began Fox’s search for loopholes.

“I don’t even know their name Thire,” he ground out. “Any trooper who needs help is welcome here, you know that just as well as I do.” Creature nuzzled the mug of tea, nearly knocking over the misshapen thing with her nose. Thire reached out to grab the menace who quickly evaded the grab. Good, she was learning.

A sigh, longsuffering puffed across the stagnant air of Fox’s workspace. “Yes sir, I know.”

“Don’t-“

“Call you sir, I know.” A crooked grin, teeth slightly off-center where Fox had knocked Thire’s tooth while sparing. “You know it’s okay to want something for yourself alor.”

“Vod’ika, I swear–“

“Think about it.” Thire barreled forward, undeterred by Fox’s increasingly furrowed brows. A loud chime erupted from both of their comms.

1413 CST

CT-8690: Commanders, sorry to directly contact you. A Marshall Commander Cody is currently here.

1414 CST

CC-ST: For how long?

1414 CST

CC-ST: We know how to make him leave.

            “Of all the things unholy,” Thire muttered. “Now?” Which, didn’t really cover the spectrum of emotions Fox squished into a neat little rack at reading Daisy’s thinly veiled cry for help.

            “He never understood the importance of timing, vod’ika.” Fox commented, as neutrally as he could. Judging by the concern on Thire’s face, a truly tragic sabaac one at that, the Marshal Commander needed an escape, lest the conversation return to unproductive feelings once more.

1416 CST

MC-FX: Commander Stone, stand down. CT, ETA is 8 minutes. Feel free to practice stalling maneuvers at will.

1416 CST

CT-8690: Yes sir.

            "Well," Thire nodded to Fox's helmet, still discarded on the counter. "The War waits for no one." And so the only way to fight it, was to meet it head on.

Chapter Text

The barracks of the 501st were soaked in engine grease, the shiny tang of gun oil, and the stench of sweat. Familiar, even if the bedding was a bit too soft. The timing of the automated lights reminded everyone a bit too much of rollcall on Kamino. But it was theirs. Strewn about the space were imprints of every vod’s personality. Little trinkets, precariously decorated the sills of the bunks, wobbling whenever an enthusiastic trooper collapsed into bed after a long day of adventuring. They only had what they could carry, a lesson that not all of them were lucky enough to learn.
Open bunks, novel to the soldiers who’d been raised in communal isolation, were always dotted with vode sprawled out in big piles. Some curled into one another, leeching warmth while they could. Some passed out, alone in the corners kept dim for those needing rest. At a moment’s notice, they could kit up and ship out for war—their safety a temporary thing.
In less than a tick, curious siblings could cause a ruckus. Echo had never experienced the trailing gaze of others when returning to the barracks after a tumble in someone else’s bed. He liked to think that he was a bit more subtle than that. For this venture, however, someone had talked.
Wolf whistles and hooting greeted him. The familiar heat of embarrassment gnawed its away up from Echo’s stomach. He hurried past them, marching at a quick clip. Forward, and past the warm but not unkind heckling, was the only way through, his bunk a haven in the chattering sea of vode. Fives cheered the loudest as his brother passed, perched precariously on the ladder leading up to Tup’s rack. The long-haired trooper waved at Echo, smile wide and warm, then promptly flicked Fives’ ear, ceasing the obnoxious catcall.
He knew that shiny was a reliable one.
Echo’s armor had been neatly piled in one corner, a hydropack and red ration cube perched precariously atop his bucket. Kix was too good to him. Too good for any of them, really.
1240 CST
Echo: Not dead; thanks for the food.
1240 CST
Echo: Debrief later?
1245
Kix: lek. off shift 1700.
Kix: jate, vod.
It was always Kix who dropped bits and pieces of Fett’s tongue in their conversations or else it was too easy to forget that they were an agemate with the CCs. They did seem weary enough. It was hard, though, to know if it was just the natural progression of time or the War collecting dues. At least Echo would always be in the medic’s good graces, folded into the sacred confines of the 501st’s betting pool.

“Nice outfit, Echo.” Rex commented without looking up from the commandeered holotable.
“Don’t you know regulation is all the rage, Captain?” Marshal Commander Cody drawled from the Rex’s side, standing tall and a careful distance away from the other man. Too careful.
Rex snorted, “I wouldn’t know anything about that, sir.” The captain fiddled with the controls to change the view of the terrain before turning his full attention to Echo. “I was worried for a moment that I hadn’t given you enough time with your sweetheart.” The commander’s brow twitched, a small thing. The embarrassment that had been churning since his rush through the barracks was tempered by Rex’s genuine comment. And it was always satisfying to surprise Commander Cody.
“Captain,” Echo plodded to one of the uncomfortable stools nestled in front of the table’s additional controls. “I appreciate your consideration, but the meeting, sir?”
The expression Rex settled on was muddied and the other trooper hastily focused his attention on the topographic map displayed on the holotable. The planet displayed was full of jagged canyons, rapid elevation changes meant that any entry point was a disadvantage. Atop one of the buttes was the only truly flat terrain, a structure already marked. It was familiar.
“It’s 1300 Rex,” the Commander commented, mildly. Echo’s hands trailed over the privacy controls, fiddling with the additions Crys had installed to ensure total communications blackout. Booting up his datapad encoded to the Ka’ra and beyond, he had one eye monitering communications systems and the other, plus his two hands, recording the reports collected from troopers across the galaxy. Echo’s position as scribe was simple. His presence ensured that the information was protected in one copy with the 501st. He didn’t know how many others there were like him, but they’d been tasked with protecting the information regarding the Vode’s network at all costs. If he fell, someone else would receive the reports in his stead, but the quiet dispersal meant that there was always one of them on leave.
In this way, his defect let him serve his siblings.
A nod to his commanding officers. In standard fashion, Rex rattled off their designations, dates, and randomized identification codes. Even when committing treason, it was worth being organized. The Republic had paid handsomely for their intelligence management training after all. Debriefs on Coruscant were common, but the captain pulling Echo into the meeting room one afternoon with disorganized mutterings regarding electronics and a bugged holotable was the first time Echo had been invited to one. It had taken all his finely trained willpower to not scream at the sudden reintroduction to Commander Cody. And if a few deep, calming breathes had to be taken to not cry at the state of the mess of wires in the commander’s hands, then Kix could finally celebrate that Echo was putting their practice to work. A cobbled together table and some swearing that had earned apologies from Rex and approval from Commander Cody turned into Echo’s off books assignment as intel manager for the 501st’s information network.
“One of Bacara’s slicers managed to copy over the databank of one of Grevious’ ships before the thermals went off.” Rex sighed, “The scramblers got to some but he has confidence that something important to the Seps was on them.”
Echo frowned, pulling up the systems map for that battalion’s last engagement. The Azure sector had constant traffic by the Republic fleet so the erratic push by the small company of droids was odd, even with Bacara’s forces thinned from time out on the front. The trade route streaking through the sector was an objective that would need a larger force to strike out at, let alone hold. Tactics weren’t adding up.
Granted, they hadn’t been for a while. Which was why Echo sat hunched over the meeting notes in the first place.
“Echo.” And the underside of the table made rapid contact with the startled trooper’s unarmored knee.
“Yessir?”
“Care to share with the class?” That annoying amused smirk pulled across Commander Cody’s lips. It was a wonder General Skywalker hadn’t strangled the man when he served with the 212th.
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“I’ll leave you and the old boy then to finish up.” A quick securing of a vambrace, the underside decorated, and a downright lazy salute saw the commanding officer off. Huh. Rex’s gaze trailed after the other man, a quiet hum of the cobble electronics the only sound filling the room.
Sighing, the captain turned to face Echo, a bit incredulity and joy pulling at his tired eyes and weary mouth. “I don’t know if you’d believe me when I tell you he’s the not the most dramatic of his batch. That would be Ponds, the big mother nexu.”
The remaining trooper let out a snort, the breath he’d been holding shaken out. Stone-faced General Windu with an overly protective clone.
“Who’s the least, then?”
For an instant a sprinkle of bitter hurt leapt across Rex’s face. “Fox.” Echo prayed to all the little gods, whoever was watching, that his sabaac face had improved since Kix fleeced him of his first ever stims. “He’s a good one.”
“I’ll take your word for it, sir.”
“I should hope so, since Cody,” and oh how comfortably the name had slipped out, “is currently en route to enlist his help. And I would like yours as well, vod’ika.”

The night Echo decided to slice into the GAR databanks, he been bruised and wheezing, reinflated lung doing its best. A pileup of vode had latched to his side, to prop the trooper up given the lack of stretchers. Commander Tano had insisted on taking first watch before they’d hopefully meet up with the other half of their split company. General Skywalker had been focused on the aerial assault, the bombardment preventing med-evac. Rain pattered against the entrance where the padawan sat in her vigil, predator keen eyes searching the thickly wooded darkness for threats. It was cold, and Echo ached. The rains were never calm on Kamino. They always brought the wind and the sea.
“It’s always bothered me,” Fives commented into Echo’s side, a warm body against the chill of injury and nature. Hardcase smushed his body against the other, curling too-cold toes underneath Echo’s calves. At least the gunner’s socks would dry, much to Kix’s delight. His twin continued, feeling the small nod of acknowledgement. “How Rishi played out.”
“Fives,” the name clawed itself out of Echo’s throat, hoarse and tired.
“Echo. Just listen to me.” A squeeze to the elbow, light and practiced. “Please.”
“We should have died. And Kamino would have easily been under siege without any warning. But we were visited early.” Pain blooming in his chest as his lung protested the sharp and shocked inhale. Coric was up immediately, moving Fives and Hardcase to maneuver his patient. It was a bit hazy, given the fatigue of the march, of nearly dying, and of barely keeping his mind afloat. Someone muttered against Echo’s temple, blaster calloused hands so gently cradling his head.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Who’s sorry?
“Please don’t leave me.” I won’t.
Echo could have been dead, left in that cave to rot in freshly painted blues. Coric didn’t let him, bloodied hands working tirelessly in the dim light. Fives against his back, Hardcase at his side. Echo swallowed down the metallic urge to call out for Kix, for Rex. They were marching on the opposite side of the humid planet. Murmurs cascaded around him in waves. Echo could breathe, thickly, briefly. The pain ebbed, numb after the familiar jagged end of a hypo. The warmth behind him shifted, Five’s body his bunk with foreign hands lightly touching his temples.
Peace. Patters of rain rose to a soft and insistent melody. The breathes of sleeping and resting vode melding along with them. It was easy for the warmth to return to his chest, panic subsiding in the tide of calm.
“Rest, Echo,” the high voice of Commander Tano intoned. She knew his name. “We’ve got the watch.”
After being released days later from under the stern gaze of Coric, Echo sliced into the mission databanks as soon as he had access to The Endurance’s terminals. He’d relentlessly studied Cody and Rex’s reports. Previous inspection cycles had seen two more bases visited before Rishi. Sergeant Niner’s signature had accompanied the inspection form for the last cycle alongside the previous Captain’s as well. There was no reason to change the route to redirect two Commanders, effectively, of the most action-oriented battalions on a detour that would cost them an additional week minimum of hyperspace travel. Pulling up the assignment schedule revealed a swap, a week standard before Rishi’s inspection. There was no reason to change the inspection times. Unless somebody knew Rishi would be compromised.
All it took was a glance at the jagged canyons on the holotable for Echo to know that Rex had brought up the map of the moon.
“Help with what, sir?” Echo inquired, if only to stave off the inevitable punishment from his commanding officer. There was no way Rex didn’t know about his less than regulation behavior.
Rex paused through Echo was certain he’d tamped down his nerves enough in his response. “Information retrieval.” Okay, maybe he’d gotten away with it. “Something you apparently have more experience in than was evident from your background.” Or not.
It was easy to feel ashamed. Shame had clung to Echo like a particularly weighty shadow ever since cadethood. The tests were excruciating, packed shoulder to shoulder, every other vod would eye another’s pad, breathing down one another’s neck. Fives simply hooked their ankles together any time his eyes began to glaze over or the mumbling began. Echo learned early on to squash the urge during combat sims. Split knuckles and bruised ribs were too familiar before earning his reds. But Echo who was always repeating, loud Echo, reg-obsessed Echo, slow CT-1409, useless niner, knew he was the one dragging the squad behind.
Fives only lied to him about that, never anything else.
Echo wished he could’ve been better. And that he hadn’t gotten to hug Fives one last time before marching on.
“Breath, vod’ika,” a gentle hand settled on the trooper’s shoulder. Another slowly curled around to fold the smaller of the two and smushed Echo’s face into the captain’s chest. Rex was warm and sturdy. And alive. Like Fives and Kix, and Jessie, and Cody, and Tup, and Coric, and Hardcase. The Commander. Skywalker. Denal. That CT who trailed after Tup in their new unit. Commander Fox.
Echo let out a shuddery breath, catching the remnants in his throat. For the first time since they’d shipped out, he wept.

“While I’m thrilled you two are getting along, I can help but feel hurt that you didn’t invite me to the party old buddy.” The drawling sneer of Cody graced Echo’s previously deaf ears. Rex’s overlarge civvie was piled under Echo’s head, slightly damp cheeks and wild curls hooking on to the material. It was soft, warm unlike anything Echo had felt. In fact, he was quite warm, something pleasantly heavy resting on the center of his back. Rex’s calloused hand doodled calming swirls, little trails of heat, absentmindedly.
“I assume—” the snappy reply abruptly cut off, the soothing hand stilling. Echo slowly peeled himself off the makeshift pillow, sore muscles aching from hunching over the table for too long. Sleep was a thing quickly blinked from his eyes and standing in the doorway was not one but two Marshal Commanders of the GAR.
Uneasy silence, save for a curious mouse droid beeping angrily between Commander Cody’s feet, crept over the room. The cause of the tension Echo was not privy to. Depending on who spoke first then he’d need to report to his commanding officers who he literally couldn’t lie to. But he’d made a promise to Fox, to siblings on Coruscant who were fighting a very different sort of war. At least the tightness in the air blessedly pinged between the Commanders and Captain, Echo a mere afterthought behind the shield of Rex.
“Commander Fox,” he blurted, verbally throwing that shield away, “pleased to meet you, sir.” Three pairs of sharp eyes snapped to attention. Echo wished he hadn’t said anything. His legs were moving, shoulders pulled back, chin at attention, as his body marched without the brain’s immediate consent. Fox stood a little in front of Cody, the bulkier of the two propped up in the room’s only escape, an inscrutable expression on his face, mouse droid still thudding against plastoid.
“CT-1409,” Echo reported, arm outstretched as if meeting a new squad member not addressing a commanding officer, “sir.”
The scarred hand firmly clasped his forearm, thumb pressing into the crook of Echo’s elbow. “Kote tells me Captain Rex briefed you.”
A spluttering, two different tones of protest rose up at the reply.
“You know that’s not my name Two-tens.”
“Fox.”
Echo had never heard his captain whine before, but older brothers always brought out something different amongst the throng of siblings. He went to release the handshake but the other man stood firm. Shooting a look over Echo’s shoulder and at Rex, Fox simply dismissed the incredulous ire rising from the soldiers who’d entrapped them.
“You’ve got my comm code to organize pick-ups and drops. What’s your secure phrase?” Mission parameters, Echo could focus on those instead of all the other lovely distractions.
“At te Ka'ra.” Eyebrows shot up at the response, Fox graciously giving Echo his arm back. “Commander.”
“At te Kyr'nakil.” The Marshal Commander of the Guard intoned, a frayed smile pulling at the corners of his eyes. It was a nice thing, to make someone smile. The frantic dadita between Cody and Rex was a cause for concern though. “I look forward to working with you trooper.” Judging by the amused glint in the other man’s eyes, he was enjoying making his brother’s squirm.
Fleetingly, Echo wondered what it would be like to have the Marshal Commander’s eyes on him, again.
“Thank you, sir.” Fox passed by the trooper, moving to join a shellshocked Rex at the table.
“Don’t call me sir,” was muttered in response. Cody immediately took Fox’s place, sudden and silent. Echo had heard enough about Seventeen to know where he got it from. He hoped to never have to experience the man who Commander Cody was the replacement for.
“Hm.” Echo was getting tired of CC bullshit. “Kix told me to find you.”
A quick salute, “Thank you sir.”
“Hn.”
Echo scurried once free of the 212th Commander’s sightline.
“Kix, I may have miscalculated.”
“You know,” they sighed, eyes glued to a specimen under their microscope, “it’s always ‘Kix I fucked up and got an STI, Kix I broke three people’s noses, Kix I’m actively bleeding out but it’s no big deal, and Kix why are you so stabby?’ It’s never ‘Hi Kix how are you, did you see the new shipments of supplies from the Guard or wow, you’ve cleaned up the medbay so well and everything is reorganized.” Echo judiciously held out his offering, his last kaf ration, like a shield.
“Hi Kix, I come bearing gifts?” Mumbling and grumbling came from the laser-focused medic.
“Did you break anything?”
“No.”
“Is anyone broken?”
“No.”
“Damn, either would have legally allowed me to stab you.” While all medics were inclined to use sharp objects to demonstrate their ire, Kix preferred scalpels to hypos. Coric was silent and deadly with a sedative, though. Sighing loudly, once again just to punctuate their exhaustion, they pried their eyes away from the slide. “You look like shit.”
Coming from Kix, Echo either gave off the aura of freshly deceased or just looked a bit tired. “Thank you, I did, in fact, subject myself to new horrors.”
The medic grabbed a datapad, unmoved by Echo’s snark and offering, assumedly pulling up the trooper’s records. “I guess this has something to do with Rex requesting I STI test you?”
Bastard. Rex’s growth tube probably needed a good scrubbing. “And with that face—”
“It’s your face too,” rang in different tones throughout the medbay.
“I’ll talk to Coric about setting up your sessions on leave.” They tapped away at the ‘pad, incoming messages a warbling ding from Echo’s comm. The daytime overheads of the medbay were the least flattering things in the galaxy but their harshness only exacerbated the puffiness and redness of Kix’s eyes.
“Okay.” Echo answered simply. It did more harm than good to object to Kix’s demands. And it would be nice to be put back on even footing. The break, however, in the medic’s avoidance routine needed to be taken advantage of. “So we can talk about what in the nine hells is going on with Jessie and Hardcase?”
They groaned and stood up from where they had been perched in the medbay’s spinning chair. A loud pop of their back echoed throughout the mostly empty halls. “That,” Kix punctuated, gathering up their things, “is a question that requires a bed and a drink.”
“Are you sleeping in the storage space again?”
“Shhhhh, what Rex’ika doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Chapter Text

C            reature had claimed Fox’s datapad, curling about the heinous thing while chimes beeped cheerily against her body. It muffled the noise, at least. She’d been curious when he’d first brought her back to the Garden, swiping at the notification lights as if she could entrap them. But once some Senate techs had the brilliant idea to send a universal update to all GAR equipment, the noise alerts began, shrill and obtrusive. Creature had changed her tune, quickly learning that the constant influx of messages meant less time for menacing Fox. Preventing him from filling out forms through thievery was her most recent tactic, the slight vibrations of the pad an added bonus, her purrs responding in kind. He’d learned that surrendering to her will was easier than trying to tempt her away or pluck her off the datapad. She’d clawed the everloving nine hells out of Fox’s arm when he’d tried before, leaving curling gashes winding about his forearm. They’d healed since, pinkish dust dotted around an assortment of deeper scars.

            Creature and Fox had come to an understanding. She hated the clatter of civvie boots and the revving of a speeder, the enthusiasm of a loud wayward child and all things with long, sinewy tails. On nights where the screech of engine failure drowned out reality, she’d nuzzle her wet nose right against his fingertips and slowly burrow her way onto his chest, providing warmth in an unfamiliar shape. The rhythm of the datapad’s vibrations proved a surefire method of calming her, the steady rumbling like tiny waves crashing about Fox’s living quarters.

            And she was so terrifyingly small. He’d reluctantly hoped that someone misplaced her, since she’d approached him in the sewers. The Commander pestered Hound for inquiries into missing animals after the Seargant’s antics landed him back in Medbay, a willing—if particularly loud—participant in Eddie’s testing of bacta batches. They hadn’t had one fail yet, though the convenient scrapes around the new harvest cycle had been explained away this time with Hound’s gushing over Irenka’s litter. Eddie’s charts were immaculate and Fox kept a catalogue of every place where faint scar tissue might dot the Seargant’s body. Eddie likely did as well.

            Hound had given in to Fox’s pestering easily enough, all smiles and graceless chatter when checking the tiny creature for any identification. Gentle hands coaxed the slumbeing beast from the confines of the Commander’s helmet—her favorite place to nap before the discovery of the datapad.

            “She’s a bit underweight,” Hound had murmured, extricating her onto an exam table made soft with patchwork blacks and reds. “Likely a stray but our chip registration is no longer on the fritz.” One hand cradled her as Hound absentmindedly opened an intake form on his pad. He’d correct the ball of fluff’s movements efficiently but softly, her permanently downturned eyes closing as she settled into the warmth.

            “Please check to see if she’s lost.” At his voice a small ear twitched, almost like she could tell their lilts apart. A small part of Fox envied the ease that Hound ran a soothing finger along her knobby spine. All he’d managed was to wrangle the creature into his helmet, lest he grip her too hard.

            “Can do, Fox.” Without pause, Hound seized the Commander’s hand and settled one of Fox’s fingers next to his. It was easy to fall into rhythm, to mimic Hound’s consistent pressure, slow and steady. A small rumbling twitted out from her chest.

            “She’s a stray.” Hound confirmed, Fox apparently too distracted to notice the scan. “Tookas tend to end up that way with or without dumping so no need to worry about theft.”

            “Would you need her for your unit?” It never hurt to check. A snort and a whine echoed from beside Hound, Grizzer curious but well-behaved at the new friend under her human’s attention.

          “She’d be a good deterrent for larger pests in the Garden, but she’s small enough that I’d wait a bit.” Well, no more womp rats for her at least. Maybe Tooka would want a new companion.

          “Anyway, Fox she’s not going to let you go any time soon.” Hound had pointed out. Hand absentmindedly stroking Grizzer’s flank, her bulk pressed steadying against the Seargent’s side lovingly. Tilting the hand back towards the black floof now tucked comfortably around Fox’s surrendered finger, “she chose you, a curious little creature.”

In the grand scheme of Fox’s service, recovering a tooka kit from the sewers wouldn’t have warranted a mention on an official report. But the long march always felt less tedious with someone by your side. Seventeen was rarely wrong, after all. Neither was Hound.

            1900 Coruscant Standard Time marked the fall of the sun. No earlier and no later, the rhythm of day/night cycles an eerie constant. It was the time when slivers of sunset crept into the crevices beneath the Upper Levels, the beaten metal exterior of the Garden painted in an impossible mix of the Mid-Level’s dusky shadows and the crimson that marred Guard armor. Pinks and yellows accompanied festivals, vibrant colors were carefully selected for the entertainment of Upper Level citizens. The entire industry of light management and weather system controls had been overhauled during the Chancellor’s second official term, the Senate voting on how to paint opulent night skies each month. Even in war, they’d set aside an entire day to dictate how to best frame the rise of the moon and the falling of the sun.

            It never rained on Coruscant, or at least not a true rain like back on Kamino.

            Surrounding the Guard’s actual base of operations were an assortment of residences and shops that had been built at least four generations previous. Buildings of various materials, sizes and shaped cluttered together and atop one another—almost impossible in their construction. The moments before true night fell swaddled the streets, Fox liked to watch as mismatched streetlamps and aging signs slowly blinked into existence as the light of the day winked out. In waves, residences would flick on overheads or raindrops of light strung up outside, painting new shadows onto the city streets; sharpening the corners of buildings, the din of alleyways, and lighting beacons of warmth to give the darkness a form to wrap around. Arrivals home after long days of work across the planet city brought in a hum, adding to the shudders of electricity units booting up for the night. There was always some sort of noise, which was fine with Fox. Silence itself was violent. While Kamino roared in the night, the sea roiling as if it was going to swallow Tipoca City whole, the longnecks soundproofed their labs. Fox relished the hum of ever-present electricity on Triple Zero, the neon signs, speeder backfire, and fire kissed barrels that lit up the lower levels, lifelines in the dark.  

            Soldier was closer to identity than profession and the War’s grinding march meant little to no rest for those fighting it. Making the most of one’s—inevitably shortened—leave was essential, siblings exploring or drinking on Coruscant, or taking a day to catch up on sleep. Natborns apparently had weekends off, vode had shore leave—courtesy of Layla and Jek. Even with the meddling of jedi and bar owners alike, just like their original headquarters, supply requisitioning, and medical team, the Guard hadn’t been considered when leave petitions were finalized for the GAR. Upon discovering its existence, Fox had both an explanation for the rise in DIDs related to GAR personnel and an irate Eddie slamming into his shoebox of an office, full of frightening competence and determination only summoned by medics. They managed to finagle the schedule so each Guard trooper had four full shifts off to themselves. It barely amounted to a standard day off, truncated and pale in comparison to what the other vode enjoyed, but it was something.

A            nd all the paperwork was worth it when the first group had come back from their day off, speaking in excited tones, sharing their discoveries with their siblings. Fox learned that even Eddie’s assuredness could be tempered by wonder as Daisy recounted, new flowers woven carefully into her tight braids, how people who were not at war lived; conversations in marketplaces, people milling about streets and shouting out to friends from fifth floor flats, the rattle of the hovertrains and speeders crisscrossing dizzyingly through urban mazes, laughter amongst friends, businesses whose occupants were from all around the galaxy, their stories—and sometimes their wares—from far off places.

            Snippets of after, maybe.

            It was easier, Fox found, to keep moving forward than to linger on the what ifs of the future. Easier, even still, to portion away his off hours to ensure that his siblings had a better chance of meeting tomorrow head on. The Garden was tended to daily, in careful hands. Fox’s days off were dedicated to ensuring its continued strength and growth, to a degree.

            Adaro had been processed, transferred into the custody of CSF meaning her was likely to pop up again in a few months. The report had cleared through both GAR and CSF systems so the cargo they’d lifted from the smuggling hold could finally be processed. Stone could process the shipment, after the most recent riot it was the break Fox could afford to give him. The Guard Commanders hadn’t intended to build a space for themselves when they’d moved to seize a random warehouse on the Mid-Level. But the property belonged to no one, technically, forever trapped in a bizarre legal tangle that Thorn and Thire had yet to unweave.

            The warehouse was a kindred spirit, levels deeper than they looked with facilities dated but retrofitted to feed several squads. Having a place to finally use their slowly acquired goods, and to transition them out of the cellar of 79s, became a pastime and then a hobby. Curling vines with fruits from Naboo needed more intensive care than the other foodstuffs; the Guard added the to work to their shifts, informal times eventually becoming regular. It was theirs, by their hands and their work. The first harvest was full of joy, undamped and free under the practically ancient grow lights of the deep greenhouse, the bitter sweet fruits bursting all along Fox’s tongue. Spectra was one of the best seekers, she had an eye for the plumpest of fruits and an unmatched ability to scamper up branches. Time chasing after a jedi padawan tended to sharpen one’s ability to navigate unexpected terrain.

            She’d let them know about the prison break in the first place, rushing across rooftops, legs whirring and whining without friction modulators working, to outrun the aftereffects of an unaffiliated EMP. She’d gotten to quarters faster than their receiver stopped getting all clear. They’d lost fifty in the half hour gap—they would have lost more if she hadn’t burned out her legs to get to the Garden in time, Fox’s hands plunged into the earth while his troops were beaten bloody.

            The prison was secure for now. Fox had added himself back to the rotation, just in case. They needed the extra hands when they could get them and the Commander did not relish assigning their incoming siblings to a hot zone without proper preparation. The Guard needed them, though. The siblings would trickle in being folded one by one into the maze of Corsucant’s levels—new troopers always arrived with the rounds of shore leave. Fox could split the extra prison shifts with Hound and Stone could take the reallocated troops under his care.

            Bathtub had notified them that the Mid and Lower Level recovery plans remained in the hellish bowels of the Senate sub-committee. The damage done by the Zilo Beast would not be repaired out of the coffers of the Chancellor of the Republic. The man had been the one to demand the creature was captured, according to one of the 212^th lads who liked to talk after Fox took him for a ride, but he was only liable for replacing what was lost in his office. The GAR— therefore the Republic and therefore the taxpayers as Fox had learned—was liable for the damage done as the military force who released the creature.

            General Windu had been noticeably absent from the meetings, Bathtub had informed. General Kolar, however, was due to attend the next session in two standard weeks. The Senate dragging their heels at spending any money was unsurprising. A jedi might be good incentive. 

            Fox would have to touch base to see who could be spared to survey those levels. The main Mid-Level districts weren’t hit as hard but reports of slowly crumbling foundations coupled with sudden foreclosures in residential areas meant trouble. The Lower Levels were harder to gauge but most of the fallout had been debris from flattened ships and speeders, hurtling down into the depths and scarring the streets of unsuspecting residents. It was the long-term damage, the stuff that built up because it was unreported, that concerned Fox.

            Pins had also sent forward the official KIA list from the 212^th and 501^st’s most recent campaign. Only five bodies were marked for transport to Coruscant. A drop in the sea of vode deployed. The rest marched on, never by choice and always by necessity. It was alarmingly easy to siphon troops away from the GAR’s main forces. It was hard to give someone a sibling’s name. The Gift Network wasn’t so much a gift but rather an exchange. The Guard secured more supplies where they could. Medics would send the list of those KIA to Coruscant and the Guard would handle the rest. Defects were not death sentences, not when the longnecks were far far away.

            The jedi were shoddy taskmasters, Seventeen’s report affirming their roles as mythical figureheads and emphasizing their poor military training. They weren’t soldiers, which worked to Fox’s advantage. But they were still space wizards, always a wildcard.

            If the Gift Network had to be secreted away from the sightlines of natborns, then the day-to-day operations of the Guard were concealed under mountains of formwork from the eyes of others. Granted, the shift in the Guard’s operating procedures was never meant to be hidden from the greater vode forces. But over time it grew into something coveted, a secret first born out of survival morphing into selfishness. The Garden was proof that even though their hands were made for violence, those same hands could be gentle instead.

            Slowly looping in Fox’s batchmates—and maybe other vode Commanders—to the greater politics and currencies at play in Coruscant was the original plan. But the lives of those deployed had meandered so far from those stationed planetside. Expectations and sims went out the window when clean white boots were stained with the bloody sands of a battlefield. Orders went by the wayside when brown-robed bodies hit the dirt alongside unpainted plastoid. The start of the War erupted across the galaxy so most were sent across the stars to fight in it. Alpha molded troopers to survive the bloodshed and battles. By their sim scores Kote was heralded as the best to send off to war. By the booming propo reels littered throughout the Upper levels, it seemed all the offworld battalions enjoyed the glory of battle, the thrum in their souls that bound the soldiers together when blood was spilled. The boys in white venturing off to the fringes of the galaxy while those in the heart of the Republic nestled themselves in a veneer of peace.

            Fox’s sim scores demonstrated an efficiency and fluency in the mechanics of warfare. Scores didn’t matter after the Arena, all that mattered was that he survived, ribs a cacophony of break lines and lungs too inflamed for immediate deployment. He was allowed to live past decomissionable offenses, siphoned away at the behest of a contentious Senate vote to protect them during wartime. No one had planned for the Coruscant Guard and instruction was lacking. The Chancellor soon found work for them, replacing the work of CSF droids with the warm bodies of a clone. An easy posting, most Commanders thought, good for the injured.

            Geonosis was a battle, the festering wound that eventually scarred. Coruscant was the war.

            The hardest lesson was to learn that peace was a quieter, drawn out version of all out war. It was a different kind of violence, one that a blaster couldn’t protect you against. The foundations of Coruscant were stained by the promise of prosperity, by the fiction of security. It was a cesspool of hypocrisy built on the backs and necks of people who fled what destruction the Republic had caused. Their blood stained the streets just as the vode’s fed the hungry ground on planets lightyears away.

            Despite the propaganda, despite the best efforts of the vode, the

            War waged and the Republic continued to bleed. Ryloth was probably why his batchmate eventually came around asking for Fox’s help. Cody did have a brain buried far beneath his other unfortunate shortcomings. But it was far more likely that Rex convinced him to remove the stick from his ass just enough to take a speeder to Guard Headquarters. Daisy deserved something nice for her excellent implementation of protocol.

            “Marshal Commander, a moment?” It was good to see Kote’s scowl in the flesh, untainted by the flattening of holocalls.

            “Is it urgent?” Of course it was. Fox liked to see Cody’s ire, the other commander’s eyes slightly narrowing and scowl minutely deepening. Daisy dutifully ignored the scene in front of the intake desk and motioned another trooper forward. A frankly horrendous haircut that spoke the shiny’s rank louder than the lack of paint bobbed nervously in time with the trooper’s march. They wisely gave Kote a wide berth.

            “Yes,” Fox’s batchmate stated, professional tone direct and sharp. The scar tissue bracketing Kote’s eye was thicker and more jagged in person, pulling at the rest of his brother’s face. A quick survey of the other Marshal Commander’s sightline revealed an assessment of Thire, who remained a warm and steady presence watching Fox’s six.

            “In my office, then.”

            On Fox’s vambrace Thire tapped loudly, Need support?

            At ease, the commander signed back.

            Fox herded Kote into the closet meant more for housing mouse droids than masquerading as the on-duty commander’s office. A malformed table acted as a desk with one of the durasteel and plastoid chairs from the waiting room shoved against the back wall. The other chair, ostensibly for guests but largely for the Chancellor’s flimsiwork recently pawned off on to Fox, was a hideous thing. The set had been rescued from the Senate incinerator by one of Senator Amidala’s aides. Apparently, their roommates worked in the greenhouses.

            Part of the set lived in Fox’s quarters, the trooper from 79’s had curled into the plush sofa, the ugly yellow color worn softer with the puttering of Creature around the space. The matching chair had been brought down to one of the Garden’s medical facilities. The other chair, a leather, purple patterned monstrosity was shoved into Fox’s office for the rare guests they entertained, once cleared of datawork. Flaring of the nostrils meant that Cody did indeed find the facility faulty.

            Leaning back against the desk, the Guard Commander kicked the offensive seat, more for show than to actually move the thing, towards the silently fuming vod.

            “Sit and we can chat.” Kote’s hackles immediately raised at the command. He’d never liked them. Just as quick as Fox pinpointed the protest it was wiped clean off Cody’s face. The Commander sat down, leather sticking uncomfortably to plastoid armor.

            “I’ve come to request your help with GAR intel.” A pause. Fox knew he was staring and the waning light of through the window didn’t help him get a read on Cody’s actual expression. The quiet between them buzzed, exhausted and tense. Muffled sounds of marching boots, chiming datapads, and people surrounded and filled the Guard headquarters, background noise enveloping the Commanders in a muffled cocoon. Whatever submission Kote was playing at was unknown territory, cooperation was not what the second C stood for after all.

            “We regularly report out intel through proper GAR channels, Commander.” I have no say in what gets to you. Desperate to fill his hands, Fox grabbed ahold of whatever flimsi was closest—a file form for the Chancellor’s tax exemption for his attendance of opera performance as a form of cultural engagement. “The Guard is also under beauracratic stress just like you in the GAR.”

            Fox bet Kote didn’t know what a CTC-721 was anyway. He’d never have to know. Looking at the incredulous stare of the warrior seated before him, Fox realized he’d missteped somewhere along the line in this interaction.

            “Outside the loop Fox.” The slight unsticking of plastoid as the other trooper shifted was uncomfortably loud, the chair attempting to hold Kote in place through sheer malice and terrible construction choices.

            “You don’t get to ask me that anymore.” Pity danced across Cody’s irises, too much like Prime’s. Fox sorted the Chancellor’s flimsi into the pile for processing, further away from prying eyes. It was already an embarrassment that the Marshal Commander of the Guard knew how much the Supreme Leader of the Republic spent on exorbitant opera tickets. And that he would get reimbursed for it.

            “I didn’t think it would land you here,” was said so surely, like Kote had finally figured out the contours of his batchmate’s anger. Always so sure of his solution Commander Cody. Rage, bitter and familiar was easy to latch on to. More tangible was the sting of the table indenting Fox’s palms, even past the padding of gloves.

            “I don’t need to be anywhere else, Kote.” He shouldn’t be entertaining the prospect of a fight. But it had been almost a year standard since he’d talked to his batchmate, since Geonosis had embroiled the galaxy into pockets of conflict. “I know my duty.”

            Chasing targets down the streets of Coruscant was a hunt of course but Fox’s appetite could only be sated with the promise of bloodshed. It was easier to let barbs bleed when they were on Kamino. Now Cody didn’t have enough blood to lose. Neither did Fox, really, but he ached for the rush all the same. “I’ve got my men.”

            “And some of mine.”

            “Don’t accuse me of poaching.” Kote sighed, thumbing at his scar roughly. “You’ll open that again.” Fox snapped, unthinking.

            The commander went still as the day he’d been dragged out from under the rubble of one of Kamino’s towers. Then he stood, the bulk of his armor adding little to man’s actual physique, hardened by planet long treks and days of hauling equipment. They’d been the same height when they’d parted and they still were. Kote just filled the space more.

            “Information for information. We combine our networks. Drops between GAR and Guard only to be made in person.” It was as secure as a plan like this could when one of the informants would be subjected to leave cycles. Though recognizable, two clones wandering about Coruscant wouldn’t be remarkable. “We need to know as much as we can if we want to survive the War.” Cody tacked on, not an afterthought and more of a new angle of attack. No doubt picked up from the rambling General he routinely hauled out of the fire. “We need the Guard.”

            Sabacc had been always been Fox’s game.

            “And?”

            “Rex wants you to be our contact.”

            It would be hard but doable to funnel along information that had been shoveled aside for more immediate operations. A GAR contact would be helpful, depending on the battalion. Rex’s contingent would be preferred, Skywalker and his trailing cadet always in the thick of things.  

            “Why didn’t he ask me himself?” Fox knew why, it was just easier to act like his crime wasn’t the greater of the two.

            Kote barreled onward, reciting mission parameters, fingers twitching in agitation. “You’d meet with one of his men, the 501^st’s leave schedule is the most consistent.”

            The Skywalker privilege was a double-edged sword. More time planetside than any other battalion with a high likelihood of WIA or KIA. Like their general, the boys in blue were scrappy and reckless. Loudmouths in holding the lot of them. More took after Rex, steadfast in their faith in the vode. Bathtub made sure that Garden was finally operational. Kix, the crooked bastard, was the only reason many vod even ended up making it to the Guard’s sanctuary. They were clever like Rex, too—Fox liked to think he’d had a hand in nurturing that.

            “I don’t need your apologies.” Fox cut the other man off from careening deeper into the pitch no doubt crafted to explain the benefits of engaging in the information exchange. He’d been through enough training with Kote to know that the spreadsheets would be pulled out if Fox continued his non-answers. The Commander of the 212^th was also relentless when pursuing a hunt, just a bit more married to statistics as convincing evidence than feelings. They were both unsteady in the realm of asking for help.

            “Fox,” Cody drew out, careful and weary and worried all in the single syllable. How long had it been since his brother called him by his name?

            Cody’s comm chimed, a custom tone.

            “If that’s Rex,” Fox unclipped his bucket, shoving in on to hide whatever expression had caused Kote to call out to him like a feral animal. “Tell him our ETA is fifteen minutes.”

            “It takes twenty to get to the barracks.” Cody sniped, falling into step with his batchmate and shoving on his own bucket. Fox held up the keys, a softly clattering with the 212^th fleet number chip.

            “Not if I’m driving Sunshine.”           

            Fox knew the worth of his intel was justifiable enough in Cody’s grand calculations to win the war for him to burn a trooper if it meant saving the rest. His brother had always been good at making those calls. The fact that they had offered up one of Rex’s men meant that Fox would never have to make that choice. Rex’ika would do anything to save his men, even if it meant jeopardizing his own life in the process. Fox would ensure that Rex would never have to.

            Where Fox’s brothers won battles with guts, guile, and grit, the Commander of the Guard scrambled to survive the war with whispers in the streets, drinks across the bar, and venturing down into the bowels of Coruscant. Over the past year, Fox crept into the planet-city’s nooks and crannies, disrupting but not overturning every stone out of place. It was too easy to distance the GAR from the Guard. They had been taught that isolation meant death. Instead it shielded them from all the hubbub and glory of the Galactic Army of the Republic generated. They were the Senate’s soldiers, and the Guard were the cast offs. The watchdogs in the center of peace. The bastards of Jango Fett. Replacements worse than droids.

            They weren’t assured a life because they were designed to die. Fox chose to survive, not out of duty, but out of spite.

            He’d do anything to ensure that his vode would live long enough to see more of the galaxy than this shithole. The rest of the troopers—with their stories of blaster fire and droid armies and raucous joy—couldn’t know, loyal to the Republic and loyal to their vode. The privilege they were afforded was that their orders allowed those to be one and the same. Fox didn’t have that luxury.

            All logic pointed to the fact that he didn’t have time for indulgence. Musing over a random trooper and abandoning an inconspicuous exit to chase after them wasn’t in the interest of the Guard. He’d disrupted the quiet piece of their sanctuary, not to mention jeopardized OPSEC by bringing the trooper back to his quarters. At least he was lucky enough to meet the one vod who looked at the bizarre picture of the Guard and chose the safety of their siblings over standard operating procedures. After a year hiding from the GAR troopers, it was a good reprieve to be proven wrong.

            It was easy enough to assume, that with the galaxy promised to the trooper, that their paths wouldn’t cross again. The commander should have guessed that CT-1409 was one of Rex’s boys. In regulation blacks, he looked like every other trooper but Fox recognized him even before introductions were made. There was nothing special about him, intentionally it seemed when stood next to Cody and Rex.

            “CT-1409, sir.” The vod had sharp eyes, nervous but steady. And it looked like he’d kept the promise after all.

            “You’ve got my comm code to organize pick-ups and drops. What’s your secure phrase?”

            The vod liked to dance. They’d curled up against Fox’s back, warmth emanating from where their muffled, deep breathes puffed from their mouth. He’d been used to offering lifelines without any return service, but this trooper would make him spoiled.

            “At te Ka'ra.” Fox couldn’t help but react to the phrase, warm satisfaction seeping into his bones and a thrum that this was the right choice hummed in his sternum. “Commander.”

            “At te Kyr'nakil.” They both were in for whatever end the mission would bring. Watching Rex’s trooper scurry out of the room was a sharp departure from the man at 79s, battle-fatigued but still beautiful in the neon shine of night lights. This man was a soldier, in the gait of his quick strides and in the countenance of his stance. He’d held the lumpy tooka with such reverence and danced roughened hands over the folds of Fox’s quilt.

            The plan had been to forget the trooper from the morning and assume the promise was good. The plan had been to keep the Garden away from those not a part of the Guard. The plan had been to follow the rules he’d set for their protection. The plan had never been to get involved with the poster boys of the GAR, brothers abandoned and abandoners. The plan was useless, tossed liked Kote’s poor stomach after their speedy jaunt through the Coruscant speeder lanes.

            Fox was adaptable, Kamino had taught him to weather storms.