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weyrwolfen · 4 months ago

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Eidola: Chapter 22 - CT-39-7667 Malk

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd and the Bad Batch

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

“Points for creativity, but I don’t have a mother, Hutt or otherwise,” Malk said, struggling to keep his tone flat and maybe even a little stern when all he wanted to do was break down laughing.

Buckler didn’t have his comm at the moment – he’d driven the transport from the base and was therefore wearing a civilian disguise instead of his armor – so that comment earned a very odd, questioning look.

Malk flashed Buckler the sign for ‘Hold your position,’ which worked well enough in non-combat situations as slang for, ‘Wait a second.’

There was a brief, telling silence on the comms, but finally Vesk said, “Uh, sorry, sir.” Credit where credit was due, the kid didn’t mumble. “Didn’t realize the comms were live.”

“See the little green circle in the lower left corner of your HUD?” Malk asked, knowing perfectly karking well that the kids’ armor had been uploaded with the standard programming package.

“Yes, sir,” came the slightly sullen response.

“And what does that circle mean?” Malk asked dryly. He didn’t need to be able to see the kid to know he was probably hunching his shoulders sheepishly. Malk just knew.

“That the comms are open, sir.”

“Right, so maybe keep an eye on that,” Malk replied, and then added, “And cut the ‘sirs.’ My ego can survive only hearing one every three sentences or so.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

What a little osik.

“Just get that crate to the kitchen, and then de-kit and report to Ris,” Malk said and then cut the comm line before he had to listen to any more smart answers.

Their trainers back on Kamino would have handed out stiff, usually painful punishments for mouthing off like that.

The trainers back on Kamino had been shabuire, and Malk wasn’t about to emulate anything they had done to his brothers with these kids. Ever.

“Vesk giving you grief?” Buckler guessed, sounding amused.

“Always,” Malk grumbled, mostly for show.

“Typical shiny osik, or do I need to talk to them?” Buckler asked, like the worrier that he was.

Malk waved him off. “They’re just grumbling about lugging crates after I had them run laps all afternoon, typical shiny osik.”

Not that Malk actually thought of them as shinies. They were parsecs away from combat ready, even compared to the most accelerated troopers Kamino had started shoving off planet by the end of the war.

Truthfully, he’d been thinking of the twins more like cadets, but even cadets didn’t come pre-packaged with some weird-shebs concepts of how real combat worked. Just the thought of sending these two into a firefight any time soon, or maybe ever, made him want to punch things, or maybe hurl.

“Will you be sticking around, or are you all headed back to base with Ori?” Malk asked, changing the topic and reaching for the next crate on the lift.

“Staying,” Buckler said, grabbing the opposite handle. “Might as well. It’s going to take most of the day tomorrow to get the new shutters installed.”

The crate wasn’t that heavy, the twins were just spindly twigs. The most annoying part was getting it up and over the mismatch between the lift platform and the hallway floor, but maybe they could talk Buckler into working on that tomorrow too.

Most of the remaining crates contained Buckler’s shutters, but one of them was marked as containing animal skins, and another just said ‘Buckler: equipment orders’ on the lid.

They moved everything else into the spare sleeping quarters they’d set aside for temporary storage. Once they got everything else out of the hallway, Malk gestured towards the crate with Buckler’s name on it and said, “Come on. Let’s get that to your room so I can get out of my gear.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Buckler said, grabbing the grips on one side of the crate while Malk got the other. It was smaller than the others, and much lighter too. One of them could have handled the weight with ease, but it was a little too wide to pick up easily alone.

“What all’s in here?” Malk asked as they started down the hallway in the direction of their assigned quarters. Bedrooms. Whatever the natborns said they should call them.

“Some replacement armor for Spark, fifteen meters of flexi-tubing for Lena, some datapads. Speaking of which, I want to float some bucket designs past you.”

“Oh yeah?” Malk asked, curious.

“The boys have been giving me feedback on their helmets, but I could use your take too.”

“Already working on an updated design for them?” Malk asked, as if he was even surprised.

“Yes, but I’m also trying to figure out how to adapt the original idea for lekku,” Buckler admitted readily.

Lekku, huh? “Shaeeah’s still following Wisp around?” Malk said, mostly joking. She was awfully young for it, at least if they were using the twins’ age as their arbitrary benchmark for training. And Malk bet that Buckler was, if only to avoid dealing with the boys’ griping if he kitted out anybody younger than them.

Buckler snorted at that. “Yes, and Cut’s still clinging to the hope she’ll grow out of it, but I actually meant the Commander.”

Oh, well that was�� Huh. “Think she’ll actually wear it?” Malk asked.

“Not my problem,” Buckler said. “Tenor’s the one working up the prototype with one of the Mandalorians back on base.”

Well, wasn’t that interesting? Malk wondered how Tenor had pulled that off. “It rattles,” he finally said.

Buckler frowned for a moment and then said, “I kind of figured. How badly?”

“Enough that I wouldn’t want to send them out on stealth mission in it,” Malk replied with blunt honesty.

Buckler grimaced. “I’ve been working on ideas for different linings,” he said. “But that would add a lot of weight. Maybe gaskets?”

Malk shrugged. Armor design wasn’t exactly his specialty.

They’d reached the room Buckler shared with the twins, whenever he didn’t just stay on base. Buckler bumped the keypad with his elbow to get the door to open, and they lugged the crate inside.

The twins weren’t in there, and given the two open, empty footlockers at the foot of the far two bunks, Malk assumed they hadn’t yet returned from delivering their crate to the kitchens. If he had to guess, they were probably mooching food off of whoever was on mess detail for the day. Maybe they didn’t eat quite as much as a clone cadet of the same developmental age, but they weren’t too far behind, even without the metabolic requirements of accelerated growth. Nautolans apparently required a shockingly high daily fluid intake just to remain at baseline.

They set the crate down at the foot of the remaining cot, and Buckler immediately opened it to start rummaging around in the contents. Oddly-shaped bundles, wrapped in some kind of coarse fabric, were packed in and around his own armor.

“If I don’t get these delivered first thing, everyone’s going to be up my shebs,” he said, pulling out two of the smaller packages and laying them out on his bunk. “But after I take care of that, we could go over the designs?”

It was for the kids and the Commander, so Malk didn’t exactly have to consider long before answering, “I’ll be in the common room.”

“Is there a way to pin it down without compromising mobility?” Malk asked, flipping back and forth between the cowl-like design and the fitted, sheath-like one.

“Maybe?” Buckler said, but he didn’t sound very confident. “We’d need to test it.”

The cowl-like design was clearly the most adjustable, but it also tended to flip up and expose the back of the neck during spars and other quick maneuvers, which was pretty kriffing far from ideal in a combat situation.

“How do Togrutan vacuum-suits work?” Malk asked, reaching for the canteen at his elbow. “They’ve got to have them.”

“They’re all custom jobs,” Buckler answered, rubbing at his forehead. “Too much natural variation in the species to standardize fits.”

Well, that sounded kriffing expensive and inconvenient. Of course, maybe that was just a thing natborns had to deal with all of the time. Malk was accustomed to being part of a mass-produced army with mass-produced gear, which was almost certainly skewing his concept of what was ‘normal.’

“How do the Mandos do it?” Malk asked. Most of the ones they’d interacted with had been human or near enough, anatomically speaking, but hadn’t they historically taken in all sorts of species? That armorer Tenor was working with probably had some ideas.

“Sometimes mail,” Buckler said distractedly. “Sometimes synthleather or armorweave with plates on top. There’s a lot of variation.”

“That’d get heavy as kriff.”

“That’s one reason why a lot of designs only protect the base of the lekku. That and fully encasing Togrutan montrals can kriff with their hearing.”

“So would getting part of one chopped off,” Malk said darkly.

Buckler just tipped his head with a half-grimace and a vague gesture towards the datapads, as if to say, ‘That’s why we’re here.’

Which yeah, okay. Fair.

The sound of multiple chairs dragging across the floor drew both Buckler’s and Malk’s attention up and away from the designs. On the far side of the common room, the meeting between Ori and the Bad Batch seemed to be breaking up.

Buckler tapped his finger against the datapad once, then twice in obvious thought, and then handed it back to Malk. “Echo, Tech, can I have a minute?”

Malk couldn’t help it. He tensed up, instinctively bracing for a fight before he even looked up at the Batch. But when he did, he found exactly the cautious suspicion he’d been expecting.

Dealing with the Bad Batch was challenging, at the best of times. Other than Omega, who seemed endlessly willing to make friends with every single sentient she encountered, interacting with the others felt remarkably like navigating a minefield.

For as friendly as Wrecker was with natborns, he still eyed most of the other clones as if sizing up a potential threat. Of all the members of his team, he was most willing to follow Omega’s lead though, and since their little sister seemed to be enjoying her training with the various clones in the safehouse, Wrecker was slowly warming up to at least a few of them, Malk included. The brothers still stationed on the Wadj base, Buckler included, hadn’t been extended the same leeway.

Tech clearly thought the rest of them were idiots, and volatile ones at that. He was also the most prone to saying the most casually offensive osik, without ever seeming to realize how it came across. Malk generally gave him a wide berth, whenever he could manage it. Alt though, who had been teaching the cadets’ math and science modules, wasn’t quite so lucky. Apparently Tech had some rather pointed opinions on how those subjects should be taught, not that he’d ever actually volunteered to take over a class.

Hunter usually made some effort to interact with the rest of them, taking point for his team, but he still approached every single one of them with enough obvious distrust that everyone was set on edge. It had the same feel of being the subject of a scouting mission whenever he spoke to Malk, especially whenever it involved Omega.

Echo didn’t have the same issues as the rest of his squad, and he had some kriffing hilarious stories about the Captain and Commander he could share when the rare mood took him, but he was clearly getting tired of everyone using him as a go-between whenever one group needed to talk to the other. It was making the already grumpy ARC even more sour.

Which was probably fair. Malk was pretty tired of the situation himself, if he was being completely honest. They were all trying, obviously, but it just wasn’t working. He’d had brothers he didn’t get along with before, and brothers who didn’t like him much in return, but there had always been some kind of trust there. The knowledge that in a firefight, they would have each other’s backs.

Whatever mission Ori was here to discuss with the Bad Batch, it’d make a welcome reprieve around the safehouse. Maybe that was an osik’la thing to think about his own brothers, but other than Echo and Omega, the Batch clearly didn’t see themselves as brothers to anyone except each other.

That was the real issue here. The Batch treated the other clones like potentially hostile natborns, and they clearly expected to be treated the same way in return.

And Malk didn’t have the first idea what to do with that.

“I have most of the parts you requested,” Buckler said to Echo, who had split off from his team and walked over. Buckler leaned over and tugged open the knot that kept the fabric-wrapped bundle closed and revealed a whole array of plates, gears, rods, and less easily defined parts, all ordered and arranged in little bags to keep the smaller ones from getting lost in the mix.

That finally got Tech’s attention, and he walked over to join Echo in inspecting the parts.

Echo picked up one of the pieces, a curved band of some kind of dark gray alloy. Malk couldn’t begin to translate the conflicted expression on the ARC’s unnaturally pale face.

“We’re running low on tungsten,” Buckler said, sounding a little apologetic. “I’m going to be looking for salvage in the markets to restock, but in the meantime, I sent the schematics for the remaining parts off to Tenor. They should be in on the next ship.”

Echo set the piece down and glanced over to Tech, who was inspecting the parts very closely.

“This will be enough for me to get started,” Tech finally said, in a tone that strongly suggested a curt dismissal.

Buckler nodded, but then added a little cautiously, “There is one more thing.”

Tech looked up, expression pinched and more than a little suspicious.

Buckler picked up one of the datapads from his small stack. It looked like it’d been through haran, dented and scratched enough that Malk was a little surprised it hadn’t been scrapped yet.

“Quad asked me to look at this design, but none of us on base have been able to make heads or tails of it,” Buckler said, extending the ‘pad towards Tech, who hesitated only a moment before accepting it. “We were hoping you might be willing to take a look.”

Tech turned the ‘pad around to better see the screen. Whatever it was seemed to spark at least a little interest in him, but after a moment, he glanced over his shoulder to where Hunter and Wrecker were still hovering, clearly providing some very unsubtle backup.

“Wrecker, I believe you should look at this,” Tech said, sounding clipped and clinical, but at least not actively hostile.

Even Wrecker looked a little surprised at Tech’s suggestion, but the huge clone edged forward and took the datapad.

“Huh,” he said after a second, brightening considerably. “Looks like a reusable flash grenade. Sounds fun.”

Even Malk perked up a little at that, because kriff, those would be handy to have in their arsenal. It’d sure make rationing them less of an issue, without running the risk of the clones skimming too much off of the base’s supplies and risking attracting some Imp bean counter’s notice.

“Where’s this design from?” Wrecker asked, scrunching up his nose in a small grimace and squinting down at the screen. “The notes don’t make sense.”

Something about the question made Buckler’s expression abruptly shutter. “One of the Raiders came up with it,” he said tersely.

Tech adjusted his goggles, focusing on the ‘pad rather than Buckler when he spoke. “I am sure I can translate the shorthand, given time, but a key would greatly accelerate the troubleshooting process,” he said.

Buckler twitched, which made Malk’s unease about whatever the kriff was going on here grow, but it was actually Ori, who’d seemed thoroughly occupied with entering something into his comm unit on the far side of the room, who answered the question.

“Kibble was killed taking the base,” the Guard said quietly, in a practiced, even tone Malk recognized as coming out only when the Corries were trying to defuse a tense situation.

That earned a long, awkward silence. Wrecker’s expression in particular fell, and he looked down at the datapad in his hands. Tech just went stiff and blank.

“We’re sorry about your brother,” Hunter said quietly, but as usual, his expression was guarded, like he was expecting trouble.

Malk hadn’t known Kibble well, but they’d overlapped enough on Draboon VIII to at least be friendly with one another. The Raider had always been tinkering with something, keeping his hands and mind busy between missions. Malk hadn’t known about anything like a new grenade design, but in retrospect, it made sense. He was about one poor choice away from saying something pointed about Kibble being the Batch’s brother too, but Echo leaned a little to the side, letting his spaulder bump discretely against Tech’s. When his squad mate turned to look at him, Echo nodded slightly in Buckler’s direction.

Tech just looked back briefly, turned to take in Buckler’s stiff expression, and finally said, “We will put forth our best effort.”

Buckler nodded with a stilted, “Thank you.”

When Tech leaned forward to re-bundle up the miscellaneous parts, Echo edged in front of him.

“You go ahead,” he said, turning to include Hunter and Wrecker as well. “I’ll catch up.”

“Don’t be too long,” Hunter said dryly. “Apparently we’ve got a bank robbery to plan.”

Ori watched the Bad Batch leave, but was quick to sink his attention back into his comms once they reached the door with no further incidents.

“A bank robbery, huh?” Malk asked Echo, figuring it couldn’t be too terribly need-to-know, if Hunter was just going to announce details in the middle of the common room like that.

“Something like that,” Echo answered, wrapping up the parts one handed and then hesitating when he got to the ties.

“Here, let me,” Buckler said, leaning forward again to retie the package, this time with a quick-release hitch which could be easily untied one-handed. “Sorry, I just grabbed whatever was laying around the base. Didn’t really think this through.”

Echo waved off the apology. “It might not be an issue for much longer,” he said, gesturing towards the package with his scomp. “I just wanted to say thank you for this.”

Buckler shook his head slightly. “It’s my job,” he said, which was almost laughably self-deprecating, given how seriously he took ‘his job.’

Echo seemed to know that too, because he just replied very dryly, “And it’s my arm. So, thanks.”

Oh! So that was what those parts and plates had been. Malk hadn’t realized Echo was getting an upgrade. He’d assumed the ARC’s existing prosthetics were pretty top notch, if more than a little non-standard.

Buckler nodded and asked, “Has Mel got you set up with the new connections?”

“Not yet, keeping the scomp is making designing the interface complicated,” Echo said with a glance towards the door through which his team had disappeared. “And with this mission, it’ll probably have to wait a little longer.” He shrugged, but he looked more conflicted than truly upset by that fact.

“They’ll get you set up,” Malk said, glancing sideways at Buckler. “You were saying Mel’s been working with Truss too?”

Buckler nodded. “They’ve got him on a waitlist for synthskin,” he added, which was kriffing nuts to consider. That osik was expensive, and even the Republic would have balked about coughing up the credits to outfit a clone with any.

Echo snorted. “At this point, I’m just holding out for a functional trigger finger which doesn’t short out my neural implants.” He hefted the bundle of parts, the components for his new prosthetic. “I think Tech’s getting a little over-ambitious.”

“If there are any issues or updated parts you need, just let me know,” Buckler said. “Between here and Draboon, we should have you covered.”

With another nod of thanks, Echo excused himself, presumably to go join his team. Just when he reached the door, it opened in front of him, forcing the ARC to step back quickly to get out of the way.

“Lena,” Echo said in greeting with a small smile.

“Hey Echo,” she said, scrubbing at a dirty smear of something greasy on her cheek with a rag. Malk could have sworn she’d been wearing shapeless coveralls earlier when she and Spark had disappeared back into the building’s commercial space to keep fighting with the faulty wiring in there. Her current get up was a lot more form fitting and a lot less practical. “Have you seen… Oh, Ori!” She brightened considerably when she spotted their guest on the far side of the room. The rag abruptly disappeared into her back pocket.

It was kind of like watching a speeder wreck.

Ori, who was one of the most articulate, level-headed brothers Malk knew, just froze up like a shiny and stuttered, “Uh, hello ma’am.”

If the rumors were true, Ori had been one of the Coruscant Guard’s investigators. Which meant that one of the brothers who’d been sent to Mandalore to take over interrogating a literal kriffing Sith Lord couldn’t keep his osik together in front of a pretty natborn. And that was just embarrassing.

“You said you needed to talk about something?” Lena asked, waving at Malk and Buckler as she passed them before trying to discretely tug at the hem of her sleeveless shirt. It looked like a small nervous tic, like she was trying to make herself look presentable, if Malk was reading the situation correctly. And he was pretty sure that he was.

“I, yes ma’am,” Ori said, falling back on stilted formality like it was his last line of defense. “Could you provide a report on the procedures for opening a Wadj banking account?”

Lena’s shoulders dropped in apparent disappointment, but she rallied well. “Sure, it’s been pretty straightforward so far, even with the extra flimsiwork the hospital wanted to set up Mel’s automatic payments. Whatever Tech’s doing to whip up those fake documents, it’s clearing all their background checks. Do you mind if I…?” she gestured towards one of the chairs.

“Yes, of course,” Ori said, awkwardly sitting down himself, posture rigidly precise.

A speeder wreck. A twenty speeder pile up with no survivors.

“I can’t watch this,” Malk muttered to Buckler, who had put a hand over his mouth in some combination of amusement and horror. “If I stay, I’m going to go over there and shake him.”

“How is he so bad at this?” Buckler mumbled from behind his hand.

“No idea. You coming?”

“Yeah. Kriffing Force, this is painful.”

“See how this lines up those two knuckles with the bones in your arms?” Malk asked, carefully repositioning Aiva’s forward punch position. “If your wrist it bent, you’re going to hurt yourself when you throw a punch.”

Aiva nodded, expression very serious. None of these lessons came easy for her, she didn’t have the instincts or the desire to hurt anyone, but all any of them needed her to be able to do was survive and escape a bad situation.

Omega, on the other hand…

“Show me your forward punch,” he said to Omega, letting go of Aiva and shifting to watch the other girl’s form.

Omega moved through the form and stopped at the full extension of her arm.

“Good body rotation,” Malk said. “And return to ready.”

She did, almost dropping her guard too low, but then correcting at the last second.

“What am I about to say?” he asked.

“Remember to keep my guard up,” Omega said with a small sigh.

Malk nodded. “Remember to keep your guard up. Right. So you both know what you need to work on between now and next class.” When both girls nodded in understanding, he continued, “Do your stretches, Ris is expecting you both in ten minutes.”

Aiva immediately widened her stance and started into her cool down routine, bending forward to touch her fingertips to the battered rugs they were using in place of real sparring mats, but Omega hesitated, obviously wanting to ask him something.

“Something you need, cadet?” Malk asked.

She looked over at Hunter, who’d been watching the workout from the corner of the roof, as usual. Whatever message she did or didn’t get from that short glance, she turned back to Malk and said, “I won’t be here for your next class.”

“You’re deploying with your team?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if he agreed with that – Omega had plenty of potential, but she was still awfully young – but not his kid, not his call.

She just nodded very seriously in response.

Malk considered for a second. He could feel Hunter watching him, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Finally he said, “You should see if Tech can practice with you. It’ll make the hyperspace jumps a little less boring.”

“Why Tech? Why not…?” and now her eyes started to creep back towards Hunter again, before she caught herself and locked her eyes back on Malk.

Malk raised one teasing eyebrow at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you’re ever going to have Wrecker’s muscle mass.” That earned the smallest huff of a laugh, which had been the goal. “And honestly, same for Hunter and Echo. Tech’s got the smallest frame on your team, and when it comes to fighting styles, build and center of mass matter. He’ll have the most useful tips for you.”

Malk could all but see the gears spinning behind her eyes, but that was apparently answer enough for her to start working through her own stretches.

Usually, this would be the time Malk would gather up the twins and head to the base for more training, but Buckler had recruited both of them into helping with the shutter installation. So Malk found himself lingering on the roof without much of a plan for what he should do next.

They were under the awning which shaded one end of the safehouse’s roof. Between that cover, and the high walls around them, they could be reasonably certain that none of their neighbors could easily see what they got up to here, during these workouts. He might just stay for a little bit, maybe help out Rue, who was on the other end of the roof tending to the rows of the raised garden they’d set up there. It was nice out. There was even a slight breeze coming in off the ocean.

Too bad Hunter was lingering up here too, even after Omega and Aiva finished up their stretches and scampered off for their next lesson of the morning.

“Tech thinks he’s worked out the notations on that grenade design,” Hunter finally said, breaking the awkward silence. “He and Wrecker are trying to finish up some prototype schematics before we ship out.”

Oh. Huh. Malk hadn’t expected they’d put much effort into that project, not with a mission coming up. “I’m sure Quad’s team will be happy to hear that,” he finally said.

“It’s just a slicing run,” Hunter added, which was such a total non-sequitur that Malk couldn’t quite keep the ‘What the kriff?’ expression off of his face. “We’ve pretty much stopped taking Omega on any of our riskier missions, now that we have somewhere safe to leave her.”

Malk blinked, trying to parse out that statement, blinked again and then just stared. That was a pretty kriffing significant vote of confidence, coming from one of the Batch. A pretty kriffing unexpected vote of confidence.

Malk was pretty good at training cadets and pretty bad at whatever-the-kriff this kind of heartfelt peace offering was supposed to be, but he finally settled on saying, “We’ll hold the fort down while you’re away.”

Given the way Hunter just nodded in acknowledgement before heading off for the stairs, that was probably the right thing to say.

“Kenner swears that soaking them in some kind of acidic fruit juice will make them taste better,” Malk said, glancing over the table of metal salvage before locking eyes back on the haggling natborns. His voice modulator gave his voice an odd, metallic burr.

“Uh huh,” Alt said, the distortion in his modified tone doing little to cover how dubious he sounded. He scanned the crowd, keeping an eye on the other sentients who were milling around the same section of street, negotiating deals of their own. The casual way he was leaning on the handle of the hand cart they’d used to lug the crate of skins halfway across the mercantile district actually put his hand in a pretty good position to reach into his robes and pull out his concealed blaster, if the situation required it. “And where do we get acidic fruit juice?”

Malk shrugged, watching the huge Lasat pull skin after skin out of Trip’s crate. Ieyas was pointing out something on one of the larger ones, talking animatedly with the shopkeeper. “No idea,” Malk finally admitted. “Maybe Lena knows.”

‘Maybe Lena knows’ was becoming a common refrain around the safehouse, whenever any clone ran into something they just didn’t understand about day-to-day, civilian life. In all fairness, usually Lena did know, but constantly having to ask about stuff natborns clearly grew up learning was more than a little humbling.

Why couldn’t you use the soap for dishes on laundry too, and why couldn’t you use fresher soap on either?

Which kinds of fresh food had to go in their small stasis unit, which kinds could stay out, and for how long?

Why were they always supposed to haggle with some kinds of merchants, but never with others? Also, what should all of the supplies and equipment they needed cost?

It really didn’t help that Lena, who was just about the least judgmental natborn Malk had ever met, still had to stop and process sometimes at the questions he and his brothers asked.

Of course, it did go both ways. There were times when their resident natborns did and said things that were just so utterly flooring that Malk and his siblings were left gaping, especially with regards to proper protocols for discretely securing and defending a fixed location.

At least no one had argued about the shutter installations, even if the natborns seemed far more concerned with keeping out unwelcome weather rather than thieves, Imps, or bounty hunters.

It looked like credits were starting to change hands. The Lasat was rubbing his neck for some reason, but neither he nor the human woman looked upset by the transaction. Lena and Ieyas looked equally pleased with this turn of events, so Malk let himself relax. Just a little. Not enough to actually uncross his arms and move his hands away from the blasters he’d concealed in shoulder holsters under the robes, but still.

Lena and Ieyas exchanged a few final pleasantries, shook hands with the two shopkeepers, and then finally walked back towards the clones’ position.

“So, how did it go?” Alt asked, when they’d made it well out of visual and hearing distance.

Lena glanced over and smiled reassuringly. “They’re not familiar with any of the species, so they’re going to see how each one tans up. After that, we’ll be able to negotiate better prices based on the type and size of each skin.”

That sounded promising.

“And the other intel?” Malk asked quietly. The streets were empty enough that asking seemed safe enough, and if the answer was anything too sensitive, Lena was sensible enough to put him off until they reached the safehouse.

“The Pikes,” she said, reaching up to touch a faint scar on the side of her own neck. She didn’t talk about it much, but the Raiders had found her chained together with three other sentients in the cargo hold of a Pyke spice runner. “I didn’t ask, but they’ve got the SLF’s star decorating their doorframe.”

Something else to pass along to Clip.

They had a little bit of a walk ahead of them, to get back to the safehouse. Their building was situated on the edges of the mercantile district, where the smaller residences and shops started to transition over to larger processing plants and factories which serviced the port.

They also kept getting sidetracked. Malk eventually remembered to ask Lena about Kenner’s fruit juice tip, and they made a slight detour to pick up a basket of round, orange fruits that she seemed to think might do the trick.

Ieyas stopped to chat with three different groups of sentients, which never failed to make Malk’s hackles rise, but nothing ever happened. It was just that the Theelin had taken a position at one of the local cantinas, and between his brilliantly flame-colored hair and markings, as well as his easy charisma, Ieyas was becoming awfully recognizable. That was great for drumming up more business for the bar and getting better tips while bartending, but bad for the clones’ peace of mind, who would have preferred that everyone keep a much lower profile.

They were in sight of the safehouse when Malk finally decided to say something to Lena about one last thing which had been bothering him. Ieyas was cheerfully chatting with two wispy Fazhians, whom Alt had more than covered. Malk didn’t take his eyes off of the two unfamiliar sentients, but he and Lena were far enough back that he was fairly confident they wouldn’t be overheard.

“He’s never going to ask,” he said quietly.

Lena turned and looked up at him quizzically. “What?”

“Ori,” Malk clarified. “He’s never going to ask you. He wants to, but…” he shrugged, trying to spare his brother’s dignity as much as he could.

Lena looked basically human standard, with pale skin and curly black hair, but when she flushed like that, a pattern of pale spots around her hairline made it pretty clear that she was at least a little off baseline. That reaction pretty much confirmed all of Malk’s suspicions about her own feelings for the Guardsman. Ori was one lucky shabuire, or at least he would be if he could tear his head out of his shebs for half a second.

When she didn’t actually answer, Malk continued, “The other battalions could swoop into Coruscant on leave, get into a little trouble, flirt with the locals, and then disappear back off-planet if anyone took too much offense. The Coruscant Guard was stuck there.”

“I… see,” Lena finally answered.

“So, you should ask him,” Malk said, knowing that he was being blunter than natborns seemed to think was appropriate, but if these two were going to keep being di’kute, then he was going to use small words.

“I…” Lena paused, blushed even harder, and then gathered her composure enough to continue, “It’s usually the guy who asks.”

“Why?”

Of all the questions the clones had asked her so far, why the kriff was that one the one that seemed to stump her?

Ieyas was waving goodbye to his two acquaintances. It was time to wrap up this little side mission.

“It’s your call,” Malk said. “But either way, maybe don’t mention to Ori I said anything?”

That earned him a choked sort of embarrassed laugh, but at least it also broke a little of the tension.

Lena was pretty distracted, the rest of the walk back to the safehouse. When they finally arrived, she split off from the rest of them, saying something about getting the fruits to the kitchen.

Malk and Alt just went back to their shared quarters to strip out of the environmental suits. The kriffing things might be excellent disguises, but Malk wasn’t much of a fan beyond that. Even their vacuum suits back in the G.A.R. had come with a wicking layer for comfort. These things didn’t breathe at all.

It looked like Buckler and the twins had already been through; there were heavy shutters bolted over the inside of the room’s one window, shut and latched against the world. Maybe they weren’t blast doors, but they were far better than the flimsy wooden ones which were decorating the building’s exterior.

Once they’d swapped out their suits for blacks and tossed their robes back on over top of that, they both made their way back out into the safehouse. It was just about time for late meal, and it wasn’t like either one of them had any duties to see to between now and then. Malk headed for the common room while Alt disappeared upstairs, probably looking for Ris and the cadets.

Ieyas was already in there, taking up one of the low couches with Zora. Several of the Bad Batch were present – Tech was at one table with an assortment of electronics spread out in front of him, and Hunter and Wrecker had taken over the neighboring one, where they were having some kind of conversation with Mel.

Spark was already camped out at one of the remaining tables near the Batch, and he waved Malk over as soon as he appeared.

“Cards?” Alt asked, to which Malk readily agreed, especially since they weren’t in the habit of gambling with anything. Sabacc was more Malk’s speed, but Spark had a thing for balaans, so that was what they ended up playing.

About halfway through their second hand (which Malk was already losing miserably), they were interrupted by a loud, “Tech!”

Omega burst through the door of the common room with bubbling excitement. “Did you know that Cereans have binary brains, and that’s why their poetry–” She stopped abruptly, looking around with wide eyes. It looked like she hadn’t been expecting this much of an audience for her enthusiasm.

Behind Alt, Tech cleared his throat and said, “While I was aware of that feature of Cerean anatomy, I will confess that I do not know how it affects their poetry.” He carefully shifted aside an odd contraption which seemed to be slowly scanning a large chunk of crystal, clearly making room for the girl to join him. The move revealed a second half-assembled device amongst the scattered tools and miscellaneous parts. Given its vaguely forearm-shaped design, it was probably Echo’s new prosthetic.

“Um, their poems are mostly written in couplets,” Omega said, starting off cautiously, but warming back up to the subject as she hurried across the room to join her brother. “So you can read the halves of each pair in isolation, but also as a conversation back and forth.”

The conversation continued from there, blending into the background chatter. A minute later, Aiva came in with Ris and Alt. Buckler and the twins came in last. The two Nautolans in particular were dragging almost as badly as if they’d been running sprints all day, even though Malk knew they’d been with Ris for the last several hours, learning about the exact same poetry that had Omega so excited.

In the shuffle to accommodate all of the new arrivals, Mel wrapped up whatever business she’d had with the Batch and retreated to the couch, looking oddly relieved for it. The natborn surgeon was quiet and reserved, but usually friendly enough with most everyone in the safehouse. Malk wondered what had happened to make her so relieved to be away from the Batch. He wasn’t about to ask though, not and jeopardize the awkward, tentative truce the Batch had apparently called with the rest of them.

Wrecker and Hunter seemed oblivious to whatever was going on with Mel as they joined Tech and Omega at their table. Aiva, Alt, and Ris took the freshly vacated spot, and Buckler dragged the last empty table over so they could join Malk and Spark. Balaans was a two person game, so they did switch over to sabacc then, much to the amusement of the twins. Apparently Silver had been teaching them how to play, or more correctly, how to cheat. Buckler was not amused.

Malk was. Malk found the whole situation hilarious.

Echo, Lena, and Rue appeared a little later to announce that the late meal was ready.

The enthusiasm for Rue’s latest culinary experiment – some kind of baked fish in a brown sauce – was as loud as any Malk had heard back on the Unity. The safehouse wasn’t home, not yet, but Malk could see how it might get there eventually.

“Charge packs out, safeties on!” Cinder called across the base’s small practice range.

Vesk and Vait pulled their charge packs and set them on the bench, then set their unloaded blasters to safe, just as a second layer of range safety.

“Blasters down!” Cinder barked, hands behind his back.

Malk was trying not to grin under his bucket, because his brother was doing an excellent impression of Havoc, back on Kamino. He even had the growl thing down, which was especially hilarious because that wasn’t how he spoke regularly. Malk would have to give Cinder grief about it later, somewhere the cadets couldn’t hear.

Once both of the boys had placed their blaster rifles down on the bench and stepped back into something that at least vaguely resembled a proper parade rest, Cinder paced in front of them, making a little show of checking over each one. Then he hit the target return buttons, which whisked the practice targets back to the front of the range and then resumed his previous position, behind the two cadets.

“Weapons are cold, range is clear!” he finally called, and the twins’ shoulders drooped in relief. This was only their second live fire exercise, and after their first attempt, Cinder had (very correctly) burned their tendrils back for not following range safety protocols precisely and busted them back down to stun practice only for several days.

Malk could see the clusters of burns on the reactive flimsi. The grouping was pretty sorry, but the boys were improving. Vait was still sticking half of his kriffing first joint through the trigger guard, which pulled most of his shots down and to the left. Vesk was trying to power through the recoil, which only resulted in most of his shots falling well below the target.

All of that was Cinder’s problem though, not Malk’s.

Not that Cinder was apparently in the mood to make things easy for them. Instead he just pulled down the two targets, handed each one to the twins, and told them to study their groupings and come prepared tomorrow to report on what they had done wrong to make them shoot like ‘droids with dying processors.’

The twins barked out a semi-respectable set of salutes and a loud, matched, “Sir, yes sir!”

So Cinder dismissed them both into Malk’s care with a disgruntled-sounding growl and a badly concealed fond smile once their backs were turned.

Malk had to strangle down a snort of laughter as he pushed himself off the wall and walked towards the twins.

“Laps next?” Vesk asked.

“Not today,” Malk said. “You’ve been working your shebs off the last couple days, we thought you could use a break.”

Vait clearly wanted to ask from the angle of his bucket, but as usual, it was Vesk who blurted out, “So… what’re we doing instead?” He sounded suspicious, like he was expecting a trap. Ha! Smart kid. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d sprung some mildly unpleasant surprises on the twins as a part of their training.

But not this time, at least Malk didn’t think so. “Lain’s been working on an introduction to the G.A.R.’s dialect of sign language,” he said.

Both kids perked right up at that, Vait in particular. That was interesting.

“Can you teach us how to swear in sign?” Vesk asked, because of course he did.

“Once you get the basics down, maybe,” Malk answered. “But if you rat me out to Buckler, I’ll deny everything.”

Later that evening, when all three of them were riding back to the safehouse along with Buckler and Mel, the boys were enthusiastically running through the high points of their day, especially the sign lessons. Mel, despite their reserve, seemed to be quite interested.

“I had no idea you had developed a unique dialect of sign,” they said, replicating the gesture for ‘yes’ the boys had just demonstrated.

“It started as a mix of Galactic Standard and Mandalorian battlesign, a little Tusken, but it evolved pretty rapidly among the G.A.R.,” Malk explained.

“Like names,” Vesk blurted out. “So many troopers pick names that have another meaning, that we needed a modifier to make it clear when you meant the name or the regular word.” Vait and Vesk both, sitting on either side of Buckler, demonstrated the subtle, chestward hook of the hands that signified a name.

Vesk had used ‘we’ when he mentioned troopers. Malk wasn’t sure the kid had noticed. Buckler certainly had, given the way he looked like he was about to melt into the floor of the transport. Malk grinned.

They’d mostly outlined some of the most useful, simple signs today. Yes; no; forward; back; left; right, stop; go. But because Lain and Malk were both the exact same flavor of osik stirrers, they’d added a couple of very specific words just to mix things up a little.

So now they had a side-bet going on how long it would take for the twins to refer to Buckler with the sign for ‘parent/guardian.’ Malk just hoped he was on hand with a holorecorder when it finally happened.

“Are Tech and Echo around?” Buckler asked, pulling back his hood as he stepped down out of the transport.

“You just missed them,” Malk said, leaning against the door frame in the back of the garage. “They shipped out maybe an hour ago.”

“The bank robbery thing?”

“That’s the rumor.”

Buckler swore quietly under his breath. “The last of the parts for Echo’s arm came in today,” he admitted. “I was trying to catch them before they left.”

“Tech and Wrecker left you some notes on Kibble’s project,” Malk said, which succeeded in distracting Buckler from his grumbling.

“They’d mentioned they might,” Buckler said.

“Let me run the parts up to their rooms, and I’ll grab the ‘pad they left,” Malk offered. “You go say hello to the others and grab some food. Alt’s figured out how to make some kind of puffy bread thing that’s pretty good.”

The lift was working a lot better since Buckler’s last visit. It hardly rattled at all when they stepped onto the platform and punched the buttons for the second and third floors.

“So Lena and Ori seem to have worked their osik out,” Buckler said blandly as the platform started up the lift shaft.

Good, at least someone on this rock other than Cut and Alt was. “Oh?” Malk asked, trying to match Buckler’s casual tone and mostly failing.

“There are holos,” Buckler said, not even bothering to conceal the way he was watching Malk out of the corner of his eyes. “Very tame, borderline innocent holos, stripped off a security cam in the officers’ lounge. Don’t let Ori catch you with a copy.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Malk said with as much dignity as he could currently fake.

“Uh huh,” Buckler said, as the lift shuddered to a stop. He stepped off onto the second floor with a very serious parting shot of, “Your funeral.”

As if Malk was stupid enough to keep such valuable blackmail material on a personal datapad.

Malk rode up to the third floor alone, grinning like a feral nexu now that he was safely away from any witnesses.

The hallway was eerily quiet when he finally exited the lift. The Bad Batch had taken over two of the larger connected rooms on the top floor, but with them gone this section of the safehouse almost felt abandoned. As their newest addition, Mel was the only other person assigned to the top floor of the building, and they were probably downstairs with the others, eating midmeal.

The quiet of the hall prompted Malk to instinctively soften his own footsteps. Just in and out: drop off the bag of parts, grab the datapad, maybe shoot off a comm to Eggs about the going price for minimally compromising holos of certain Corries. Then he could head downstairs for a bite to eat with the others.

Except when Malk got a little closer to the Bad Batch’s empty rooms, he heard someone talking from across the hall.

“… need a signal booster,” someone was saying, a woman from the sound of it. “I can barely hear you.”

“The enhanced clones have gone, but I still have to be careful to not be overheard,” came the answer, muffled by the door, but still audible enough.

Malk recognized that voice immediately, it was Mel.

What?

“Are they still treating you well?” asked the unknown woman urgently.

Malk’s hand crept down to his wrist, to the civilian comm unit strapped there. He fumbled over the unfamiliar buttons, but he did manage to shoot off an alert to the others before setting down the bag of parts against the wall, slowly and carefully so as to not make any sound. Then he drew his blaster.

“Yes,” Mel relied softly, with a gentleness that had no place in the conversation Malk was overhearing. “They seem to trust me. I’ve learned quite a bit about their organization.”

He had. All the clones had. Mel had fixed up Truss’s hand and Primer’s ear. They were working on Echo’s arm and Curl’s kriffed-up lungs. Karking Sith-damned hells, they were supposed to do some kind of brain surgery on one of the troopers in the 332nd just as soon as their licenses with the hospital was finalized and approved. All of the clones had trusted them.

All the natborns knew, they knew what would happen if anyone outside of their group learned what the freed clones were doing.

Malk could hear booted feet storming up the stairs, but he couldn’t wait. He stepped back to give himself enough space and kicked the door right at the latch. The wood splintered under the impact of his tread, sending the door flying open. He was through it in an instant, blaster sweeping the space to identify the intruder.

Except Mel was the only sentient in the room. They’d been talking to a small holoprojection of a human woman, dressed in an expensive-looking gown and crowned with an elaborately coiled braid.

Mel’s dark eyes widened impossibly, and they reached for the comm unit.

“Don’t touch it,” Malk said in an icy tone, quiet with rage and a rising tide of betrayal and fear. “Don’t move at all.”

“Mel, what–” the woman started to stay, sounding panicked, but she stopped mid-sentence and the projection abruptly flickered out.

“Please, I can explain,” Mel said with obvious tension, slowly raising all four of their hands in surrender.

Spark was the first one in the door behind Malk, blaster low and at the ready. Malk didn’t dare turn to look, but he assumed the other sets of boot treads had to be Alt and probably Buckler.

“Malk?” Spark asked, after taking a second to assess the space himself and clearly recognizing that he was missing something.

“Get the comm unit off of the table,” Malk said, carefully sidestepping to clear a path for his brother while keeping his blaster leveled at the natborn’s head. “Raise Ori on the line. We’ve been compromised.”

AN: Previous chapters are available here.

Dividers by @freesia-writes using helmets by @lornaka. More designs available here.

#eidola tcw fanfic #star wars #tcw #clone wars #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #clone troopers #original clone troopers #clone trooper oc #oc clone trooper #star wars fanfic #tcw fanfic #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic

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kotemf · 2 months ago

Text

If soldier, why so buir shaped?

Fox was never particularly fond of cadets.

During their training on Kamino, they were sometimes assigned to watch younger troopers and train with them. Fox hated those training sessions. Cadets were... they were tiny. Fragile. Fox always spend the session in fear of breaking their little bones. The cadets for their part were usually afraid of Fox. Fox didn't really know why. It certainly wasn't his face, the cadets liked the rest of his batchmates just fine and they loved Cody and Wolffe.

Nat-born children tended to fear the clones, even if the Coruscant guard was there to help them, to protect them. They all learned not to take it personally, the armor probably did look rather intimidating to normal people and there were also loads of anti-war propaganda that usually antagonized clones because they were the ones who were fighting, it didn't matter to them that they only fought because they had to.

So yes, Fox was quite surprised when a random Zabrak child ran up to him, hugged him and refused to let go. He looked around. There were no anxious parents looking for a lost kid.

"Hey, what are you doing here all alone?" Fox tried his best to not look like a big, scary clone commander. He could tell his efforts weren't successful. In his defense, appear non-threatening in a full set of armor and a blaster strapped to your thigh was a pretty difficult task. The child didn't look scared of him, though. Quite the opposite.

They didn't answer.

"What's your name?" Fox tried instead. He wasn't good at guessing people's age but this child was at least five standard years old. Five years old nat-borns were old enough to know their name, right?

The child muttered something Fox didn't quite catch.

"Can you say it louder?"

"I don't have a name."

"You don't?" Now that was a situation Fox wasn't prepared for. As far as he knew, nat-borns were supposed to have names. According to everything he's ever read about nat-borns, parents usually named their child whie they were still a baby. They weren't like clones, who had to wait for when their batchmates picked them a name, usually based on something they did or something they liked.

The little Zabrak nodded. After taking a closer look, Fox guessed they were most likely male but he wasn't certain.

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't know."

"Alright. I will take you to my office now and we will find them."

"No! I'm not supposed to find them."

"What do you mean?" Nat-born children were supposed to love their parents, or at least Fox has always thought that. Because why wouldn't they? Nat-born parents weren't like the Kaminoans, emotionless and only caring about perfection. They weren't like the trainers, only trying to get the best results out of their trainees no matter what it cost. They weren't a genetic template who only wanted one son and money and didn't care about anyone else. No, parents were an entirely different thing. They loved their children, they protected their children and they provided for them. So why exactly wouldn't this nameless kid be supposed to find their parents?

The child shrugged. "They left me here and told me not to follow them."

Alright, that was weird. It almost sounded as if these parents wanted to get rid of their kid so they just left him alone on a random place on Coruscant? "Do you like your parents?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"They are mean."

So apparently parents could be mean. Fox supposed he was going to have to work with that. "And why did you come to me?"

"Because you feel kind."

"What?"

"You feel kind," the kid repeated themselves. Fox had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"Okay. Now we will go to my office and get you something to eat, what do you say?" Fox hoped he was doing this right. He had no idea how to talk to children.

"Okay."

Bringing a child into the Coruscant Guard's headquarters was a big deal, apparently. Fox didn't do anything more than sit the kid in his office and give him a glass of water and some of the priced treats Fox sometimes got from the nicer senators that he liked to give shinies and his comrades in particularly bad situations. The only other food available were ration bars and that was no food for a child.

Not that the kid was in need. Ever since Fox brought him in, troopers have been coming into his office, bringing the child treats that Fox didn't really know where they got from, makeshift toys or just to take a look.

"Aww, he's so tiny!" Thire cooed upon seeing the kid.

"Told you he's a cute little thing."

"Shut up, Thorn. It's not my fault I had senate duty and couldn't come to look at him sooner."

Fox made a show of covering the kids ears. 'Shut up' wasn't by far the worst thing that the troopers said and Fox usually didn't mind but there was a child in the room!

"I never would have guessed that marshal commander I have a stick up my ass Fox would become such a buir." Thorn grinned at him. He seriously had to stop swearing around the child or else. And Fox shouls also probably get rightfully offended to save his reputation of having, as Thorn put it, a stick up his ass.

"So that's how you address your commanding officers?"

"Apparently."

"You know, senator Clovis requested a bodyguard to accompany him to a meeting with banking clan..."

"No. Not Clovis. Please. I beg you." Thorn seemed terrified. Any trooper would. Senator Clovis was always rather awful to clones and he was so suspicious the Corries had a betting pool on when he openly defected to the Seppies.

"Maybe if you will kindly stop swearing in front of a child, I might consider looking further, even if you certainly have all the required skills."

"Yeah, sure. Anything. Just not Clovis."

Fox decided to take that as a promise. The kid didn't seem to get what was going on but he wasn't complaining. A darling really.

It was a few hours later that the boy started to get bored. Fox tried entertaining him with a holo movie but that didn't work, the child felt the need to share what was going on the screen every minute or so. So Fox downloaded him a video game. That seemed to work. Until now.

"Do you really have to work?"

"Yes."

"Why do you have to work so much?"

"Because I have things that need to be done and I have a certain amount of time for each of them. Like this form that I'm filling right now, this one needs to be done today," Fox did his best to explain. In his humble opinion, he was getting pretty good at answering the kid's curious questions.

"Oh... Okay. And will you play with me when you're done?"

"I will have some more work then but we can play when I'm done, okay?"

"Okay."

The kid was clearly trying to be quiet. He wasn't very good at it. He was either kicking into Fox's desk, opening random drawers and then always sighing in disappointment when there was nothing but stacks of paper work, or quietly humming to himself. It was distracting but Fox let it slide. He remembered how difficult it was for him and his batchmates to stay silent when they were cadets. The only thing keeping them quiet was their fear of the Kaminoans and the trainers and he didn't want this sweet little thing to ever experience something like that.

"Fox?"

"Yes, kiddo?"

"Will you get angry if I make things float?"

"What?"

"If I make things float," the boy repeated himself.

Fox wondered for a bit if floating had any other meaning than, well, floating. He didn't think of anything so he just assumed it was some kind of a game. "Of course I won't get angry."

The child beamed at him. Then the boy reached out with his hand and made the data pad Fox borrowed him float.

And that's how the Coruscant Guard got their Jedi.

#corrieweek #corrieweek2024 #coruscant guard #commander fox #cc 1010 #commander thire #commander thorn #original child character #star wars #clone wars #clone troopers #accidental child acquisition #fan fiction

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