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sisterofleatherfrog · 2 years ago

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How the Last Domino Falls (Same as the First)

Description: Why do dominoes fall? To keep pushing the others forward. Or: How Echo Base got its name.

Tags: Major character death, hurt but there is hope, allusion to a heart attack, star wars is like poetry- it’s supposed to rhyme

Word Count: 1545

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Notes: So I had a terrible, evil, awful idea that made me cry writing it down and I decided to be a good little socialist and share. Inspired by that one person on here who pointed out that Echo Base had to have gotten its name from somewhere.

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Echo choked on his pain, momentarily losing the fine-tuned control he’d developed over his years of training and war to ignore such things and keep moving. It ached though, and not in the usual way things hurt: it was in his marrow, all encompassing. The machinery that allowed him to move and kept him alive after all these years was clicking in and out of rhythm, something important was broken, something was very wrong. Though with the heavy stomping of booted feet behind him he knew better than to try and rise and fight it, instead laying his cheek to the perpetually sub-zero durasteel beneath him and gathering his scattered senses.

Hoth, he decided, was right up there on his kark-it list with Rishi and Skako-Minor.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, and wasn’t it always? Hoth had the honour of being simultaneously located along the Corellian Trade Spine, but was also considered out of the way with its environment and outer-rim locality. It had been a minor outpost during the Clone Wars, and despite the ice-rot that had taken hold all the bones were there to build from, and if they could secure it, it would go a long way for the budding rebellion.

The Rebellion, still just an idea maybe, but now it was more than just clones fighting for the rights and freedom of their brothers. Others were starting to take up their call for the sake of their own people. The spark was small, but it didn’t need much to catch into a blaze.

Simple missions being what they were though, Echo and his squad had been tracked and followed by a small detachment of Storm Troopers (what a bantha-shit name for a bunch of half trained nat-borns with aim worse than a cadet). While the others had been scouting and exploring, Echo was seeing if he could reactivate and pull anything of use from an ancient terminal. By some miracle of the force it had (glitchily) booted up, and Echo had begun to take note of the base’s specs when it all went sideways.

The trap was good, but Echo had been an ARC longer than these troops had been in any sort of training. He’d had to recalibrate his tactics a few times due to perma-frozen shut blast doors, but he made do. At one point a group of Storm Troopers were caught between Echo on one side of a hall, and Rex and Howzer on the other. He saw Howzer take a hit and Rex grab him to drag him behind cover, looking up briefly to Echo as he did so. Echo signalled him to move, he’d lead as many as he could away. From his vantage he could see Rex nod an affirmative at him, Jaig eyes watching him. Echo kept up his assault as he retreated down another hallway.

That was how he found himself in a medium sized storage room, desperately wiring some old canisters of fuel as explosives. He could hear a large number of troops as they worked on the outside of the doors. Echo bared his teeth in a grin, by the time they got in here he would have the explosives hooked up to a remote, be down the vent, and gone. He toggled the switch to connect.

It flashed red.

He cursed, diving into the wiring and set up, but nothing seemed amis. He tried again.

Red.

The shouting outside the door grew more determined. He tried once more.

Red.

Without a remote this would have to be set off manually with the detonator connected directly to the tanks. The fuel was a little degraded, but the blast would still be enough to swallow the room and outside corridor at least. A clunking of old mechanisms in the wall informed him he was running out of time. He commed Rex.

“Echo, we took care of the Imps’ on our end and got out, where are you?”

He allowed himself one steadying breath before answering, knowing what he was about to ask his brother to do. “Rex, we don’t know if these guys informed anyone of where they are, you have to get out of here before anyone else shows up.”

“Echo?” Rex demanded, a rising note in his voice that made his gut clench. “What do you mean? We won’t evac without you here now come on where are y-”

“I don’t have a way out Rex and you can’t make one in time, I’ll make sure the Imps’ on me can’t send anything out, but you have to make sure their ship can’t be traced here either just in case.” A quicker breath, a luxury he shouldn’t be giving himself but one he found he needed. “Do it now, you need to get out of the blast radius.”

“Echo no-!” His brother’s voice was loaded with dread that Echo loathed to be the cause of. The door groaned as it haltingly began to open. Out of time.

“I’m sorry Rex.” He jammed his comm off and drew his blaster. There were too many to kill them all, so he just needed to draw as many as he could into the immediate blast zone and give his brothers enough time to escape before more trouble showed up. Training as sure as hyperspace was blue kicked in, and the first two fell before they even registered Echo as the target in the room. More came, using the cover of their own shots to dive behind detritus near the entrance. Echo rose and ducked with the ebbs and flows of fire, instinct acting faster than anything rational. But just as the cold ate away at the machinery of the base, it too worked against Echo, slowing him down by a fraction.

A lucky shot (a Storm Trooper couldn't have made that shot by skill) tore through one of the more delicate points of connection between man and machinery in his torso. He went down next to the tanks of fuel, electrical impulses and nerves simultaneously misfiring throughout his body. The Imps’ raced towards him, one kicking the gun out of his slack hand while he was surrounded from all sides with blasters raised. There were quite a few of them. Others performed a quick sweep of the room before frustratedly declaring that they’d only caught one rebel.

The troops nearest him hesitated, clear in the body language their armour projected, even if it was different from a Brothers’. One near his head spoke: “Uh Captain, do we take prisoners?”

If his brothers were captured here it would be a blow to the Rebellion. They needed everyone they had right now, and despite the Kaminoans’ work beginning to catch up to them, they were still Clone Troopers. They had everything from their training, the war, and the time after. Their military expertise, leadership, and the various connections they had across the galaxy were needed now more than ever. Their fight for their lives, their brothers, the Republic: it wasn’t over yet.

A million and more brothers had come and gone before Echo. He thought of his time aboard the Marauder with the Bad Batch. Times that were all at once cramped and aggravating, but almost home. He thought of Torrent Company and all the brothers he’d fought alongside, who still shared seats around a campfire on some far-off campaign in his dreams. Ghost Company and Commander Cody. Fives and him on ARC missions and the downtime between them. The rest of Domino Squad who didn’t make it as far as them: Heavy, Cutup, and Droidbait. He remembered those early days as children growing far too fast, whispering together in bunkrooms. Scared of the trainers and Kaminoans, dreaming of tomorrows so different from the ones that came, but knowing that home and safety could be found with each other.

All of that was gone and carried away in the eddies of the past, and at the precipice of the future Echo did not know what would come of it. He didn’t know if Rex and the rest would make it, here or later. He worried about Omega, his little sister still as bright as a newborn star despite everything. He didn’t know if the Rebellion would ever be able to rise enough to challenge the Empire. But if there was to ever be a chance, he had to give it to them now. He would give them that, even if he couldn’t be there beside them to see it to its final end.

The clicking and grinding of his interior prosthetics were slowing and growing more asynchronous. The pain within drew up into his chest cavity and squeezed. His thoughts returned once more to the past, to a distant and hazy place. The nurseries on Kamino that toddler sized cadets would be placed into for quality control purposes before being returned to their growth tubes. The earliest memory of every brother. He thought of those small, quiet rooms where brothers instinctively clung together in groups and knots for the warmth and comfort they needed. Only the sounds of breathing and each other's heartbeats to otherwise sooth.

The pain sunk deeper. One more time: Same heart, same blood.

Out of time.

“I. Don’t.”

…

I am sorry, grief counselling is available at your nearest craft store in the yarn section. Specifically around the soft and snuggly yarn where cups of hot ponyo will be provided.

In all seriousness after the end of TBB S2 and seeing how the Clones were organising and seemingly being the first group to act against the Empire with some official power backing them (Riyo Chuchi for the win), while it is romantic to imagine the memory of Padme being a main spark of the Rebellion or the last few good senators rallying for their people, I’m just thinking about men who loved their family and wanted to protect each other from a machine that wouldn’t stop chewing them up being a cause that eventually unites the galaxy in something bigger.

They’re just clones, but they’re also brothers, and no Empire, Sith, or control chip will destroy that.

Also, I do realize that Echo base was only built during the Rebellion, but let me stretch the truth a little bit.

Masterlist

#sisterofleatherfrogwrites #star wars #the clone wars #echo #rex #ct-1409 #arc-1409 #the bad batch #the inherent tragedy of the clones #I made myself cry #so y'all better enjoy this

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