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Freshly showered, Kix walks into the Torrent Company barracks from the freshers. The Resolute is currently returning to Coruscant after the successful siege of Lessu, effectively ending the six-month-long Ryloth campaign. Since the Defender had been evacuated during the breaking of the blockade over Ryloth, its troops were transferred to the Resolute for the journey back to Coruscant. Troopers fill up every empty space and corner of the room. Every bed that was once empty is now filled, and numerous sleeping pads cover the floor in between each of the triple-decker bunks. Dozens of Kix’s dirt-covered brothers stand in lines that trail out of the fresher doors, each waiting their turn to shower.
Maneuvering through the overcrowded room, Kix notices Echo and Fives back at their bunk. They’re sitting cross-legged on the floor with a trooper that Kix doesn’t recognize. He sits with his back to the room in full armor, still covered in orange Rylothian dirt. The blue markings on his armor are definitely 501st blue, albeit a slightly different shade than that of Kix and his Torrent brothers. Kix approaches the middle of the room, where Jesse sits on one of the overcrowded common area couches.
“Who’s that?” Kix asks, nodding towards the bunks as he folds his towel over his arm.
Jesse follows Kix’s gaze. “Some guy from the Harbinger Company. I think they’re usually on the Defender.”
“Hmm. Seems to be all alone,” Kix mulls, thinking out loud.
“Yeah…” Jesse exhales. “Apparently, his platoon didn’t make it out of the campaign.”
“Damn,” Kix says with a heavy breath. “Good on Fives and Echo to talk him through it.”
“Uh-huh. Rex says they’re just the guys for that kind of convo.”
“So I’ve heard…”
Over the past four months since Echo and Fives were inducted into the 501st, Kix has heard bits and pieces about what happened to their Kamino squad. He’s never asked them outright for the details, though, not out of disinterest but rather respect. ‘Fallen brothers’ isn’t a topic one casually brings up in everyday conversation, after all.
Across the room, Fives stands, pulling the dirty trooper up with him. Saying something, he pats the trooper on the shoulder and pulls himself onto his top bunk. Echo also stands and gives the trooper a quick one-armed hug, patting him on the back and turning him towards the freshers. Kix watches the interaction from across the room.
“Have they ever told you the full story?” he asks, turning back to Jesse.
“About what? Their batch mates from Kamino?” Jesse shakes his head. “No, they haven’t.”
Kix looks back over at the bunks. Fives lays on his top bunk over the covers, unmoving on his side. Echo sits on the bottom bed, hanging his head, his forearms resting on his knees.
“Hmm,” Kix mulls. “Well, no time like the present.”
“Really?” Jesse asks, a hint of incredulousness in his voice. “You want to go ask them about it right now?”
“Why not?” Kix insists. “It's been a long time coming, and they deserve a chance to talk it out if they want to.”
Jesse chuckles to himself. “Leave it to the company medic to want to take care of everyone’s physical and emotional health.”
Kix scoffs a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, guilty as charged. Now c’mon.”
Kix walks towards the bunks, and Jesse follows. As they approach, Echo looks up. He silently greets them with a small nod before hanging his head again, looking at the floor between his feet. Kix steps in between the bunks and sits on the bottom bunk across from Echo. Jesse remains standing at the foot of the bunk, folding his arms and leaning against the bedpost. He throws a quiet glance up at Fives on the top bunk.
Looking over at the wall behind the bunks, Kix briefly eyes the photos that hang there. He’s seen these photos many times before, considering that he sleeps in the next bunk over. In one of Echo’s largest photos, he and his squadmates stand side by side in gray and green training armor, each chest plate marked with a number, one through five. They smile proudly for the camera, sans helmets. Kix chuckles quietly to himself, remembering being in those same shoes not so long ago. He looks back at Echo. Well, here goes nothing.
“That was good of you to talk with that trooper,” Kix starts, decidedly breaking the silence.
Echo shrugs in acknowledgment, still not saying anything or looking up.
“Remind me their names?” Kix asks, nodding towards the photo wall.
Echo barely looks over at the photos. A small, sad smile creeps at his mouth. “Cutup, Droidbait, and Hevy,” he says, his voice cracking just slightly as he clears his throat.
“That’s right,” Kix nods, their names sounding familiar. “So… ‘Droidbait,’ huh?”
“Yeah,” Echo replies, managing a single chuckle. “Hevy would usually try to send him out into the line of fire to draw out enemies.”
“A fitting name then,” Jesse lightly chuckles.
Kix throws him a soft glance as if to say, ‘Easy does it,' not wanting to blow their chance at this conversation. “Was Hevy the squad sergeant?” Kix continues.
“We didn’t have a sergeant,” Fives suddenly says from his top bunk, rolling over to look down at the group. “Hevy just sorta took control most of the time.”
“How so?” Kix asks.
“Well… he was mostly just really terrible at following orders,” Echo says with a sad chuckle.
“Kriff, yeah, he was,” Fives scoffs in agreement. “Still can’t believe he almost went AWOL.”
Kix tries to keep his expression neutral as he and Jesse exchange a quick, side-eyed glance. “‘Almost went AWOL?’”
“Yeah. We didn’t find out about it until later, though,” Echo explains. “Apparently, it happened back on Kamino during our cadet days.”
“99 talked him out of it, though,” Fives adds. “You guys met 99, right?”
“Sure did,” Jesse says, the corner of his mouth turning up in a small smile.
Echo sighs to himself. “I wonder how he’s doing. If he’s still…”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s doing great,” Kix interjects, easing Echo’s worries.
“I hope so,” Echo replies. His expression falls slightly. “We were almost demoted to be maintenance clones, actually.”
Kix's brows barely go up in amusement. To be threatened with demotion to maintenance means something pretty substantial must have gone down. “Dang, what happened?” he asks, trying to play it cool.
“Let’s just say we Domino Squad boys didn’t exactly get along great for the first nine years of our lives together,” Fives comments, swinging his legs off the side of his bed and sitting on the edge.
“Well, no, I wouldn’t go that far,” Echo defends, looking up at Fives. “Things were usually fine off the sim floor.”
“Ehhh, I dunno, Echo,” Fives drawls in disagreement, hopping down from his bunk and moving to sit beside Echo. “You shoulda seen yourself goin’ up against Hevy sometimes. Even back when we were just Year Fours! Remember how you two roughhoused in the middle of the mess hall that one time?”
“Oh c’mon, we were literally only four years old!” Echo laughs. “Anyway, we failed our final battle sim test before graduation. That's why we were threatened to be reassigned to maintenance."
“Kriff, really?” Kix says surprisedly.
“Yep,” Echo replies shortly. “Did you ever meet Bric? The trainer?”
Kix shakes his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. We had a different head trainer. A Mandalorian.”
“Lucky,” grumbles Fives. “Bric was our head trainer, and he literally wanted to give up on us all the kriffing time. Threatened to send us down to the clean up and maintenance crew almost daily, I swear.”
“Yeesh,” Jesse scoffs. “Sounds like a piece of work.”
“Oh, he absolutely was,” Fives agrees.
“Well, we did get to take the final test again, though,” Echo says, continuing the story. “Shak Ti gave us another chance.”
“Oh, cool, I remember her,” Kix says. “You guys must have been pumped about getting a second chance.”
“Well… we didn’t really want a second chance at first,” Echo hesitantly admits, his voice trailing off.
“We requested to be transferred to another squad, Echo and I,” Fives adds, finishing Echo’s thought for him. He rubs a hand over his face. “I'm still so ashamed of that.”
Kix and Jesse exchange another quick glance. They have definitely not heard about that detail of the story before, either.
“Shak Ti ignored our request, though,” Echo says, finding his voice again. “Told us to solve our problems as a whole, and not as individuals.”
“Of course,” Jesse nods in agreement. “So, you took the test again. How’d it go?”
“Well, spoiler-alert: we passed,” Fives laughs, his regretful countenance brightening a bit.
“The retake was so different- I’ll never forget it,” Echo recalls. “We worked together, fought together, advanced on the simulation citadel together. It finally felt like we were a true team, a real squad.”
Fives lifts a pointed finger. “Like Commander Colt would always say, ‘Rule number one–”
“‘Fight together,’” all four of them recite in unison. They all chuckle at the shared memory.
“Well, thank the stars you passed. What was Cutup like?” Kix asks, keeping up the flow of the conversation.
“Oh, Maker,” Fives laughs, putting a hand to his head. “Cutup was stupidly hilarious.”
“Insanely witty,” Echo adds.
“He always had a way of finding something to joke about, even when things were real bleak,” Fives reminisces.
“Bric was especially hard on Cutup for some reason, though,” Echo comments, shaking his head in residual bewilderment. “He was always trying to push him over the edge and get him to snap.”
“Man, Cutup was sooo patient,” Fives recalls. “He managed to take every insult and rework it into some kind of positive spin. He even took on his name from an insult that Bric threw at him once - he called him a ‘real cutup.’ Guess he liked the sound of that.”
The two boys chuckle together before falling silent again. Kix smiles to himself, proud of how much Echo and Fives have been able to open up about their old squad. He knows there’s much more to the story, though. He furrows his brow slightly, considering how to proceed without pushing too hard.
“What was your guys’ first assignment or mission?” Jesse asks, taking his turn to break the silence. Kix looks to Echo, gauging his reaction.
Echo takes a breath. “Well, our first deployment was at a Republic outpost on the Rishi Moon. Way out in the Outer Rim. Near Kamino, actually.”
“Oh, what did you do there?” Kix asks, leaning forward on his elbows, ready to listen further.
“A whole lotta nothin',” Fives says with a scoffed laugh. “We literally just monitored military security transmissions day after day, for months.”
“C’mon,” Echo says, nudging Fives, “It wasn’t that bad. I honestly loved being stationed out there. There was so much time to read and just enjoy the peace and quiet.”
“Oh, what would you read?” Kix asks, being somewhat of a reader himself.
“The reg manual,” Echo replies matter-of-factly.
“Yawn,” Fives mocks, playfully nudging Echo.
Kix stifles a chuckle. “I guess we don’t exactly get many options when it comes to books, do we?”
“Wait, what other books are there?” Echo asks interestedly.
“Well, I imagine outside of the GAR there’s millions," Kix admits. "I just have some medical textbooks back from my AIMT days on Kamino, though.”
Echo arches a brow. “‘AIMT?’”
“Advanced Individual Medical Training,” Kix replies. “It’s what all clone medics go through.”
“Ah, got ya," Echo nods.
“Okay, wait,” Kix says, trying to get back to the main conversation. “So you guys were stationed out at this listening post. Tell me more about that. It sounds like a pretty chill first assignment.”
“Yeah, it really was,” Echo recalls. “Everything was so straightforward and easy under O’Niner’s command. We had a lot of free time.”
“O’Niner was our sergeant,” Fives explains. “And yeah, everything was easy…” His voice trails off. “Until that damn meteor shower.”
Jesse’s brow furrows slightly, still standing at the foot of the bunk. “Meteor shower?” Neither of the boys answers. Kix holds a breath, debating whether or not to prompt again.
After a moment, Echo exhales heavily. “It was the Separatists.”
“Shit…” Jesse breathes. He quietly joins Kix on the bunk, fully facing Fives and Echo now.
Kix takes a deep breath and realizes this is likely the story. The one he’s been subtly pressing for this whole time. The one that Echo and Fives relive in their heads as they fall asleep after a hard day. The one that they stew over time and time again, constantly wondering if they could have done something differently. The one that haunts them and makes them question themselves in their lowest, darkest moments.
“What happened?” Kix asks softly, gently cutting straight to the chase.
“Well... there was this meteor shower, and a droid pod used it as a cover to land on the moon. It was the first time we’d ever even seen a commando droid in real life, outside of a simulation,” Fives recalls, his expression blank despite the memories that are likely flashing behind his eyes.
“It was the first time we’d seen anything, ” Echo admits. “We were so shiny and new; literally zero real-world experience. We didn’t stand a chance.” He puts a hand to his head, rubbing his forehead.
“The droids overran the entire outpost in a matter of minutes,” Fives continues, still staring blankly ahead. “Droidbait, O’Niner, and a few others were at the main entrance, trying to hold them off…”
“They didn’t make it back up to control,” Echo finishes for him.
“Stupid Droidbait, living up to his stupid name,” Fives says with a choked laugh.
“Kriff… I’m sorry,” Kix says, his voice barely above a whisper. “How’d you guys get out?”
“We escaped through a ventilation shaft that led us out into the nearby gorge."
“That’s good, right?” Jesse asks, confused by their still-solemn expressions.
Fives gives a sad huff through his nose. “We quickly learned why it was against regulation to go outside the perimeter of the outpost.”
Kix purses his lips, already having an idea of what’s next.
“Basically, the second we stepped out into the night, this massive eel-monster thing came outta nowhere and… ate Cutup,” Echo continues, his words laced with remnants of disbelief.
“Swallowed him whole,” Fives deadpans.
"Jeez... poor Cutup..." Jesse breathes.
“At that point, it was just me, Fives, and Hevy,” Echo continues, almost going into autopilot with the story now. “We were trying to get back up to the outpost- hoping to take on the droids from a different angle- when we saw a Republic command transport approaching,” he recounts. “Comms were out, so we couldn’t contact them. They were gonna fall right into the commando droids’ hands."
"We tried signaling them with a droid attack flare," Fives says. "But their ship blew up seconds later. We thought we were too late.”
“Hevy insisted that we scout the wreckage to check for survivors," Echo continues."It was all a total mess, so we expected the worst. Imagine our surprise when the survivors found us- blasters armed and ready!”
Kix’s brow furrows. “Who was it? Why would they do that?”
“It was Captain Rex and Commander Cody. They thought we were commando droids dressed up in clone armor. Made us take off our buckets and everything.”
“No way,” Jesse chuckles.
“Yeah, and we weren’t in the 501st yet, so we had no idea who they were,” Echo adds.
“Of course, right after they found us, another eel exploded up from the ground. I thought we were goners for sure!” Fives exclaims. “But, Cap’ took the most perfect shot straight at the monster’s eye and killed it, literally in one shot! It was a big ‘holy kriff; this guy means business’ moment.”
“That’s when I got that, actually,” Echo says, pointing to the blue handprint on his chest plate at the foot of his bed near his footlocker, along with all his other armor. “It’s Rex’s.”
Kix eyes the hand-printed chestplate. “So its-”
“Eel blood?” Echo smiles. “Yep. I’ve since painted over it a bit. Gotta make sure it doesn’t fade.”
“Nice,” Jesse chuckles in admiration.
“How’d you get back into the station?” Kix asks, continuing the story. “It was still overrun by droids, right?”
“Yeah. Captain Rex, uh, had quite the unconventional idea for that,” Echo replies. “He pretended to be a commando droid, using one of the severed heads and saying things like ‘roger-roger’ and stuff.”
“Of course he did,” Kix laughs. “Gotta love his constant unconventionalism.”
“Oh yeah, Commander Cody was beside himself; didn’t think it was gonna work,” Fives chuckles, his countenance relaxing a bit.
“But, it worked,” Echo shrugs. “Much like all of the captain and general’s wild ideas."
“It was Rex’s idea to blow up the station, too, actually,” Fives adds.
Kix’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, woah. You guys blew up the station?”
“Yeah, we had to disrupt the all-clear signal,” Echo states matter-of-factly. “It was the only way the Republic would know that the Seps had taken over the station and were trying to invade Kamino.”
“Makes sense,” Kix says, following along. “So… how’d you blow up an entire station?”
Another question hangs in Kix’s mind, but he doesn’t want to ask it outright. They’ve mentioned how Droidbat and Cutup died, which now just leaves—
“Hevy."
Echo and Fives stare blankly down at their hands, not saying anything. Kix sits quietly, allowing them as much time as they need.
“We had this whole setup ready for detonation,” Fives starts again after a moment. “But the stupid, mother-kriffing detonator wasn’t working.” He shakes his head and looks back down at his lap. Kix already knows where this is going, and his heart starts to sink.
“The droids were forcing themselves into the control room where the bomb was rigged," Echo says, trying to keep his voice even. "Hevy sent us on without him, saying he’d catch up after he fixed the detonator.”
Fives swallows hard. “He never did…”
“He- he activated the bomb manually,” Echo finishes, his voice breaking as he sniffs back tears that have started to form. “He’s the reason Kamino wasn’t invaded. He’s the reason the station was destroyed.”
“He always did hate that place,” Fives chuckles sadly, rubbing his eyes which now glisten. "Why did they all have to go down with it, though..."
Kix eyes his two younger brothers with a sad, empathetic smile. Echo and Fives don’t say more as they quietly try to hold themselves together. Kix side-eyes Jesse beside him, who also watches with pained empathy. Kix gives a barely discernible nod of his head towards the boys and stands, moving to sit next to Echo. Jesse follows Kix’s lead, sitting next to Fives. The bunk sags with the weight, letting out a small creak.
Kix exhales heavily and puts an arm around Echo’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, vod. I had no idea. That's really, really rough.”
Echo swallows hard, desperately trying to keep his composure. “This is the first time we’ve really told anyone the full story,” he says quietly, his voice hoarse from the emotional ache in his throat.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Fives breathes, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s hard to think about, let alone talk about.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and hiding his face in his hands.
Jesse’s expression falls as he sees Fives’ pain, empathizing. He puts a hand on Fives’ back and looks over at Kix. “What do we do?” he mouths, his words inaudible.
Kix looks at Jesse, then back at Echo and Fives. He inhales deeply, then exhales slowly. “You know,” he starts, his voice kind and quiet, “You don’t have to hold it in like this.”
“Yeah,” Jesse says, clearing his throat and agreeing with Kix. “We get it. We’ve been there.”
“Really?” Echo asks, looking over at Jesse.
Jesse smiles sadly, hearing the tremor in Echo's voice. “More than you know, brother.”
Echo sniffles but doesn’t respond, instead just turning back to face forward. He closes his eyes and hangs his head again.
Kix gets up from his seat on the bed and kneels down in front of Echo, putting a hand on his knee. Echo looks up just barely, holding his breath. In Echo’s eyes, Kix recognizes something he’s seen in his own eyes and the eyes of his brothers many times before.
Grief.
He lets out a quiet sigh. “It’s not good to bottle it all up, Echo.”
Echo presses his mouth together again in a pained grimace, breaking Kix’s gaze and hanging his head again. Beside him, Fives’ breath betrays him as a quiet sob hitches in his chest.
At the sound of his best friend’s pain, Echo’s emotional dam finally breaks. He puts his head in his hands, and a flood of breathy, bottled-up cries finally escape his chest. Jesse has already put both arms around Fives, who clings to him like a lifeline through his own muffled sobs.
Kix stands, pulling Echo up as he goes and wrapping his arms around him. Echo’s chest hitches against his as he holds onto his ori'vod. His pain quietly and solemnly sounds out into the crowded room. No one judges. No one mocks. They’ve all been there before. They all know this pain.
Kix holds his breath, feeling his own grief resurface, threatening to mix with Echo’s. He closes his eyes, forcing himself to take a shaky breath.
“It’s okay, Echo. Let it out, let it out.”