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gingermaybel · 2 days ago

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Clones, Cocktails, and Common Senses (or lack thereof)

Decided to post it here too since I spent like a thousand hours translating it into English.

中文版在这里（0人在意）：https://archiveofourown.org/works/63547516

Good news: you’re in Star Wars

Bad news: you’re in the Clone Wars

Worse news: you’re no Jedi, clones, or politicians, but a (graduated) social&humanities student. which means you get to work the most boring job in the lamest place stuck with the most annoying customers

(May works at a hopeless bar underground Coruscant, today’s customers are a lil different—or a lil too same?)

A group of men was laughing in the bar. May stared at them.

No, nothing like what it sounded like. Sure, they did look good, but they also looked like they couldn’t scrape a single credit for a tip out of pockets-not that they even had pockets to begin with. Their armours were made out of plastic, nothing like the Mandalorians in holomovies but more of a bunch of suck cosplayers. The total eight of them ordered five of the cheapest drinks on the menu to share, and had been sitting there chatting loudly for two hours. No extra orders, politely declining refills, not even asking her for the toilet code. May was a little sad. She needed tips-with the bar's base pay, she could only afford a plastic shack propped up by two wooden sticks 3600 levels below the surface of Coruscant. But she didn't need medical bills, and if she told these muscleheads to either tip or leave, that might be the only thing she'd walk away with.

The downsides of working in the lower levels.

(Not that there were any upsides.)

They were the only customers in the bar. It was midday cycle in this district, only these men and May’s business-illiterate boss would think this was the best time to grab a drink. Even the two Zabrak bouncers—whose salaries were slightly higher than hers—were nowhere to be seen. Have to be when they’d actually be useful for once! She sighed and remained sitting cross-legged on the bar counter, waiting for them to leave.

Seemed like they’ve started an argument at some point when she lost concentration. Then, a man with two odd yellow markings tattooed on his cheeks waved at her. “Sir—Ma’am, may I ask you something?”

May rolled her eyes internally but still put on her best work smile as she hopped down and walked over.

“This thing,” the next man to speak had a white eye and a scarlet scar running across it. There was a picture of a Corellian rose just as red in his datapad. “Is it a war declaration sign for you natborns?”

“Uh, no?” May blinked. “If you mean the Twi’leks, we usually see Corellian red roses as a symbol of romantic love. That’s pretty universal across most cultures.”

“…Which means?” The man with a jagged scar curling around his left eye asked.

“One of you received roses?” she asked. “Someone wants to bang you.”

All eight of them—whether had spoken before or not—burst into cheers all at once. Someone’s wolf-whistling when the rest of them took turns slamming the back of the guy in red armour, almost knocking him into the level below.

May’s lekku twitched nervously at the noise. The scene was oddly familiar, anyone who grew up in a big family could easily tell the resemblance-

“Are you brothers?” The intrusive thought left her mouth before her brain could stop it.

Silence. They turned to her in sync with the same strange look on their faces.

“I—I mean, uh—it’s just you guys look kinda alike. And my cousins act the same way when they—”

“We guys look kinda alike.” The man with a “58” tattooed on his left temple repeated flatly.

“I’m not good at telling human faces apart, sorry—”

“I don’t think she’s making fun of us, brothers.” The man with two red stripes of hairs murmured.

“Wh-why would I be?” May asked incredulously. “What else am I supposed to—”

“You don’t keep up with the news much, do you, ma’am?” The bald man with some stubble asked.

She was getting dizzy from looking back and forth figuring out who’s talking.

“Are you busy, ma’am?” The one closest to her scooted over, patting the spot next to him. “Wanna sit and chat for a bit? If we tell you what we are, could you tell us more about this Corellian red rose?”

Bly, Gree, Monnk, Fox—May didn’t even bother to list all their names. These guys multiplied like cockroaches, if she had to remember all of them, she might as well grow a third pair of lekku as a new brain. The clones met each other at the bar whenever they had the chance, but that classic eight-man group never gathered in full again. There always had to be someone not on Coruscant but on the latest battlefront being broadcast on the holonews. May was still having a hard time to believe that these clueless beans were what the senators on the surface called the fist of the Republic. In fact, when you think about it, putting all your hope of not getting kidnapped to serve gasolines in some droid bars in the hands of a bunch of idiots who thought grandpa was a genre of holomovies was a pretty idiotic thing to do itself.

They brought in new guys, and those guys brought in even more newer guys. That was when May realised that the same people who had spent hours pestering her about natborn courtship rituals were actually some sort of officers in their field. It felt weird watching one group of identical dorks following after another group of identical dorks calling them commanders. Unlike their COs, these captains, sergeants, and privates were stiff as hell, standing at attention like making mission reports when they ordered drinks. As long as they weren’t passed out drunk, they would even clean up the tables and take out their trash before leaving. May wanted to tell them to loosen up a little before they scared off the other customers, but there were no other customers left to be scared off before she could realise it. The Humans, Trandoshans, Ithorians, and all other sentients you’d expect in an underground bar had started avoiding this place entirely.

At least May’s boss was happy enough. The Republic didn’t pay its troopers, so they were still sharing drinks and never tipped. But they also had no sense of time, the bar was now always crowded with armoured men no matter time. Little money added up, and their revenue shot way higher than before. The boss had been advertising around to hire stuff for the early shifts, but just like the customers, there weren’t many bartenders eager to share their space with clones. May had been working crazy lately, slept for eight hours in the past three days. However, as the lucky one who had made the OG eight decide to stick around, she got a fat raise out of it. So she decided she could tolerate them.

“Ma’am.” Ponds grinned and flicked two fingers in greeting, Cody tilted his head at her. Four clones she’d never met sat down beside them, all wearing those lizard-like dumbass collars. It meant they were at least lieutenants? May hadn’t figured out the logic behind the troopers’ limited fashion choices yet.

“Evening.” She smiled back, tossing her lekku behind shoulders and pulling out the datapad from her apron. “Bakuran bitters and bloody rancor.” Ponds and Cody both nodded. “And for the new guys?”

“Uh.” Said the green trooper with slicked-back hair. His collar-buddies snickered.

“Get him the most expensive shit you have here, ma’am.” The trooper with ridiculously complex tattoos smirked widely. “Howzer’s getting promoted!”

Across from him, a clone with a blond buzz cut reached out to point at the price on top of the menu. Tattoo guy winced.

“I got this, you useless di’kute.” Sitting beside the blonde was a silver-haired trooper with the same shade of orange as Cody’s painted on her armour. Their heads were gleaming under the disco ball light like two credit ingots. “Made a killing selling titty pics on the holonet.”

“You what?”/“Thanks, Judith!”/“Cool, can I buy some?” Blonde, tattoo guy, and May spoke at the same time.

“I think your ears are working just fine, Rex. You’re welcome but I’ll make you pay me back someday, just wait for it, Keeli. If you stick one of those tiny paper umbrellas in my drink like they do in the holoshows, I’ll give you a discount, sweetheart.” Judith answered them one by one. Cody buried his face into his hands. She winked at him.

“Captain Howzer will take his first assignment on Ryloth.” Ponds flicked the green trooper-Howzer’s collar as May returned with a tray of drinks. He looked awkward. “Can’t say too much, but any dining etiquette we should learn about? Can’t have the kid embarrassing the GAR.”

“I wanna learn too,” said Keeli. “General Di always say Ryloth’s a good place. Should pay it a visit when the war’s over.”

“Oh, so you see a random Twi’lek on the street and just assume she’s from Ryloth?” May shifted her weight, setting a hand on her hip.

“Uh, no, it’s just that your accent—” Ponds spluttered.

“What about it?” She raised her eyebrows.

“I think what he means is—” Cody stepped in, but May burst out laughing before he could finish. The both of them looked thoroughly confused and disturbed.

“I am from Ryloth, trooper.” She grinned, revealing all her canines, Ponds curled up a bit. “This is payback for last time. I’m petty.”

“Gimme your frequency, I’m giving you a lifetime membership.” Judith suddenly declared in the stunned silence. Rex elbowed her in the armpit.

Keeli never came back. He and his General Di died defending May’s homeworld. One of May’s cousins said she had seen him fighting side by side with the Syndullas. Cody said Judith wouldn’t be returning either. She didn’t wake up after 18 hours in the bacta tank. The senators on the surface signed the Disposal Confirmation of Damaged Properties.

Cody was sitting alone in the corner, holding the last half-bottle of Chandrilan Blue ’439 that Judith had kindly paid for last time, when he told May that. His eyes bloodshot. Ponds had already headed to the next battle.

May cried the whole night in the shared bathroom of her broken-ass apartment 200 levels underground at the not-so-dignified videos Judith had sent her in the chat.

Four rookies sat stiffly in a row at the bar—May now knew that only troopers freshly off of Kamino would wear such shiny white armours. And they sure acted that way: eyes darting around fidgeting in their seats, looking like they might jump up and start saluting at any moment.

Across from them inside the bar was their own rookie, purple little thing with hoofs called Melina. May’s boss disappeared several weeks ago. Sitting in his office now were a smug Senate aide and a red-armoured clone. The former had barely stepped inside the bar before pinching his nose and barking orders for the staff to deep-clean it, muttering about the two billion allergens floating in the air; the latter awkwardly nodded at everyone who waved their mop at him asking him to move over. They’ve taken over the bar—clearly by order of the Senate. May didn’t ask where the boss had gone. He surely was alive and well somewhere in the galaxy—what kind of Weequay would he be without survival skills? Then arrived Melina, stepping in as the new bartender when Jakoian followed the boss away. Rumor had it she was from Kamino, homeworld of all clones, though she clearly wasn’t a trooper. She even had flapping furry ears. Some monk from the Jedi Temple had slipped her onto the payroll, which May found a little unfair—she and most of other staff had to go through an entire round and a half of interviews to get hired, and every drink made by Melina came with this weird shade of purple!

Good news was the troopers didn’t care about such details. There was nothing they wouldn’t drink. May suspected that even if it was massiff piss in the glass they’d just wonder why today’s stuff’s a bit stronger than usual. 79’s had officially become the lowest-barrier-to-entry workplace in the galaxy. Now, watching the rookie bartender and the rookie troopers yelling I don’t understand whatcha saying at each other with the same accents, she just wanted to sigh.

One of the troopers fished the celery stick out of his dragon juice and gave it an experimental lick. She actually sighed.

What was worse than the rookies were the rookies getting picked on. Other troopers kept kicking their stools as they passed by, snickering as the purple drinks spilled onto their chests.

“Who let the Wanker Squad in? Can’t escape their pathetic whines even here at the bar, it’s making me sick,” one of the other rookies pretentiously covering his nose as his friends smirked maliciously.

“Kriff off, ��32. We can go wherever we want,” one of the pathetic rookie squad members—even the lengths of their flat tops were identical, May honestly couldn’t tell any of them apart — flipped the bird.

“What did you say, weirdo?” ’32 bared his teeth. “I say you don’t even deserve to leave Kamino. General Ti must’ve been out of her mind. Who knows if you two weren’t—”

The four pathetic rookies and one Melina jumped up at the same time. May nervously turned to call for the bouncers, when two clones in blue armours squeezed past her.

“Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.” The trooper with a goatee grinned widely as he casually draped an arm over ’32’s shoulder. ’32 glanced at his lizard collar and his face paled instantly. “What should we do now? It’s our holy saviour that you’re disrespecting.”

The other trooper stood next to ’32. Same lizard collar, same skirt, a blue handprint emblazoned on his chest. The dark visor staring ominously at him.

“S-sirs!” ’32 snapped to attention and saluted. “I didn’t mean anything by it—”

“Oh I don’t think that’s didn’t mean anything by it,” the goateed clone patted his cheek. “What does the reg say about disrespecting superior officers, Echo?”

“3G.A.R.C.47, Article 89,” Echo recited, “Anyone who shows disrespect to superior officers shall be punished according to a military tribunal’s ruling.”

“Ha! That’s the one. But I was magnanimous enough to stop you from saying something irreparable.” Said the goatee guy. “I want you to run 79 laps around 79’s, and then, with all your gratitude to me, head back to the barracks and don’t let me see you here again for a week.”

“Yessir!” ’32 saluted again before starting walking away dejectedly.

“Double time!” Goatee guy shouted at his back. “You’re not taking a vacation!”

’32’s friends also saluted, scrambling to follow him.

“Wow, thanks, sirs,” said the brave rookie who flipped ’32 the bird.

“Buy us a drink and we’re even,” goatee guy waved dismissively, “I’m almost having flashbacks. Standing in the corner watching the Bravo Squad show off their balls feels like just yesterday, and now we’re sirs. Where did all the time go, Echo?”

Echo took off helmet, revealing his own standard-length flat top. His thick eyebrows furrowed in disapproval. “You should’ve written a report to his CO instead of punishing him on your own, Fives.”

“Who would’ve thought this ARC armour would be so intimidating?” Said Fives, “Who would’ve thought I’m not a saint who doesn’t abuse his power?”

His friend rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.

“I’m Titmouse,” the brave rookie said, taking the chance of the conversation. “This is Frank, Chamber, and Ranter. What can we get you, sirs?”

“Nice to meet you guys. Grumpy dude here’s Echo. I was going to say just call me Fives, but on second thought, I really enjoy being sir, so please, feel free to say it a few more times,” Fives said as he sat next to Ranter, who took an excited breath. “Get me a Captain’s Special. Who knows, maybe it will get me promoted again to captain and move into Rex’s en-suite.”

“Where should Rex sleep then?” Echo asked him.

“En-suites come with private freshers, what kind of monster you think I am?” Said Fives. “Now, which shiny wants to hear the story of the legendary Domino Squad and its saviour?”

Four troopers lined up in front of May like a wall, all wearing sweaters that were bright pink in an oddly familiar way she couldn’t quite place. She had to crane her neck to look up at them, the sequins on their sweaters sparkled blindingly in her peripheral vision. Never heard of social distancing, these clones.

“Ma’am,” said their leader, “do you have a booth that can accommodate a repulsorlift chair?”

Like a pair of doors swinging open, they stepped aside to reveal a fifth trooper behind them.

Sitting in the repulsorlift chair was another clone with two streaks of red hair, half his face covered in words tattooed in a language May didn’t recognise, his legs were missing from the knees down. He was in his armour, but over it was the same sweater as his friends, embroidered with “SURVIVOR” in Aurebesh. He gestured a few signs to May that she couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Survivor says he doesn’t want to… cause any inconvenience?” said the trooper with a faint scar under his left eye that was only visible from this distance. His sweater read “RANTER.” “If you have a foldable… bird… toilet—what?”

“If you have a spare storage room, he can park the chair there,” the trooper with three yellow stripes tattooed on his scalp (“CHAMBER”) translated quietly.

“Survivor’s trying to blend GAR tactical hand signals with basic sign language, Ranter hasn’t been paying attention,” their leader (FRANK was literally the most boring clone name) ruffled Chamber’s hair approvingly as he spoke.

“I missed ONE session because I was helping the general!” Ranter protested indignantly.

The names sounded familiar. May glanced at the “TITMOUSE” on the last trooper’s chest and things suddenly clicked. “Wait, you’re that rookie squad from last time! The ones almost got bullied!”

“Owie, that’s harsh,” Titmouse clutched his chest and the letters on it. “Rookies? We’re now the core members of the 29th Thunderbird Company!”

“More like the only members,” Frank rolled his eyes. “Ma’am, about the chair…?”

May looked at Survivor, whose brown eyes gazed back at her with heartbreaking innocence. A sudden unease crept up her spine.

She had never seen a clone this badly wounded before. Troopers like him usually just disappeared on Kamino, left behind them a number on the property disposal lists and the tears of their brothers after three bottles of Corellian Whiskey. That was how they had lost Judith. Maybe that explained his name: the unfortunate survivor of this massive slave exploitation operation.

Neither the previous owner nor the current management had ever considered installing accessible facilities, as it was never necessary. And now these troopers who were made to die for them were asking her for space for a wheelchair. The elegant professors on the surface would be clutching their pearls over this barbarity, she thought, and a flash of anger surged in her chest. Her classmates were scattered across the galaxy talking justice into people’s heads, while she remained in the same spot, doing nothing and completely helpless against the most urgent yet unspoken problems of the war.

She suddenly wanted to scream, to collapse onto the floor, to storm into the senate building and strangle every one of those high-and-mighty politicians. But the troopers were still waiting. Smiles growing stiff, the awkwardness deepening with every passing second.

She rubbed her face, turned around, and shoved a booth’s seating aside to clear the space without a word. The softie uni graduate version of herself from one year ago could never have done this, but an entire year of tray carrying had injected some strength into those noodle arms after all. She wiped the greasy feel off on her apron. “Please have a seat, honoured not-rookie-anymores.”

Titmouse let out a cheer and slid first into the booth, the others following in succession. Ranter carefully maneuvered Survivor’s repulsorlift chair up to the table before turning awkwardly to Maybel and handed her a card.

“Miss Mayia-zyondennurravayblex, General Bou gave me this. She said she’s covering our tab tonight.”

“Bou?” May yelled. “My great-aunt is buying you drinks?”

“What’s a great-aunt?” someone whispered.

Ranter shrugged, equally confused. “I asked the same question, she didn’t answer. But she did spend half an hour training me to pronounce your name correctly, hope I got it right.”

At least May solved one problem: she finally figured out why that pink of their sweaters looked so damn familiar.

A year into the war, May had met enough clones to confidently call herself a kinda-expert on the GAR. Sure, she didn’t know the difference between battalions and regiments and she still wasn’t sure if that deecee17 was just a curse or an actual weapon. But 365 standard days of seeing what was essentially the same man in slightly different variations over and over again had forced her to start noticing the patterns.

Wolffe’s boys were both fierce and artistic at the same time. You could find the most unhinged bastards that were best at pretending to be normal in the 212nd. The red-armoured Coruscant Guard looked more like clones of their commander than of Fett himself—same attitude, same perpetual scowl, only ever appeared in packs either early in the morning or late into the night as the other clones whispered behind them. For all their attempts at individuality, the lifelong barrack life had already shaped them into some kind of collective personalities—and nothing had ever truly separated clones from one another, after all. They bared the same numbers of teeth when laughing, curved their brows at the same angles when brooding; same slang spread across every legion, same batch of rookies always chose similar armour patterns. After 365 days of all this, May started staring at her reflection in the mirror, suspecting her own brows were growing into those square, thick shapes too.

That was why she immediately noticed something was off about the boy sitting in the corner—not just because he was a boy.

Judging by the clone growth rate, he couldn’t be older than six (why did she automatically calculate in clone standard? She really needed a vacation), tiny enough to be lifted by the armpits and shook for a few times. He would have been kicked out on Ryloth or any of the other thousands of planets, but he’s now in Coruscant’s underground levels, and the bouncers at the door would only think he was a particularly overgrown adult Anzellan.

May had heard that some outstanding clone cadets were selected to leave Kamino early and get a firsthand look at the galaxy they would defend with their lives one day. She didn’t think he was one of them. He had the face of a clone, but was wearing Mandalorian armour. He had been silently judging everything around him for hours, wary eyes flickered over every trooper that passed by and then snapped away; features twisted in a way that was just…wrong, something between smelling fart and sorrow. May had never seen such complicated emotions on a clone before. Other clones, they could only process about 1.03 kinds of emotions at a time, saying them out loud immediately unfiltered.

If she had to guess, May would say he wasn’t a clone at all. Thire’s second cousin, maybe, definitely not someone who grew up in a sterile lab. But he didn’t seem to have any bad intentions either. May didn’t get paid enough to make it her problem anyways.

“You did at least give him non-alcoholic stuff, right?” May asked as she passed by Melina.

A while back, under her oh-so-kind-it-was-almost-unsettling insistence, Melina had convinced May to move out of her tiny brokenass apartment and into the dorm she converted from a storage room behind the bar. It wasn’t much better—she had to fight hoofs for blankets, bargain early morning unisex ‘fresher use with seven Coruscant Guards who never seemed to leave, and stare at the Fives graffiti someone from the 501st had left on the door panel every time she took a piss. But at least she no longer had to deal with the lingering smell of death sticks in the turbolift or the corrosive liquid her idiot neighbours kept dumping into the pipes. Their relationship had progressed rapidly as a result. May would sometimes bring ice cream back to their now-shared little dorm, where they’d lounge on the bed watching Nar Shaddaa’s Ultimate Culinary Battle: Carnivore Edition while Melina complained about the first boyfriend of her goat life. It also meant they started to chat with each other during shifts, instead of May standing at a distance watching Melina make purple drink after purple drink

“Ah, that’s Boba Fett,” Melina said the name like it’s the answer to every mystery in the galaxy. “He could spit acid out from his mouth, alcohol’s nothing compared to that.”

“Fett?” May echoed. “As in Jango Fett?”

This wasn’t the first clone she had known with a last name—the Skiratas had been in the bar before, and the legend passed by word of mouth among troopers, some Cut Lawquane. But a clone named Fett felt as strange as a Wookiee named Scaleback.

“He’s basically Fett’s son,” Melina mused. “Followed Dad around everywhere, pressed up against the glass staring at us lab clones. Heard he disappeared after Fett died, guess he ended up on Coruscant. I knew it was him the second he opened his mouth.”

The clones’ Prime was beheaded in a desert arena by Ponds’ general. They spoke of it with awe as if it were ancient Tusken tribes taking down the great krayt dragon, even though according to Davijaan, the clone army arrived a full thirty minutes after Fett’s head hit the ground and none of them had actually witnessed it happen. However, if the man’s kid was there, May couldn’t think of a worse kind of childhood trauma.

That explained the way he looked at the other clones.

“Sounds like he needs a social worker, not a drink,” said May. “But I feel like if I said that out loud, he’d bite my nose off.”

Melina shrugged noncommittally. So May turned back to work, leaving Boba Fett behind her mind.

But the boy kept coming back. He always took the same spot in the corner, ordered the same drink, never spoke to May or the other servers, and glared at anyone who so much as glanced in his direction. The older clones had already recognised him and were dedicated to avoiding eye contact; but the younger ones who were freshly off of Kamino still believed he was some runaway cadet, and every once in a while some of them would come up and try to ruffle his hair, congratulating him on how well he had mastered the survival skills. That was when he’d freeze up before snapping, baring his teeth and snarling them off.

May was 95% sure he was trying to grieve his father by being around his clones, but it wasn’t working out. She had never met old Fett, but judging by the way clones talked about him, there wasn’t much in common between he and his three million carbon copies. Young Fett was clearly starting to realise that, too. He grew desperate and restless, more and more frustrated with each passing day; that rage, unmatched by his age, carved deeper lines into his face, weighing down his young shoulders.

May felt bad. She didn’t know why he looked like he was on his way to some death mission everyday, just like she had no idea where he went after leaving the bar each night. Monsters ready to swallow people whole hid in the shadows of Coruscant, she just hoped she wouldn’t see his dead body lying in syringes on the street. Finally, after five days in a row of Boba’s brooding presence, May made up her mind to ask if he needed help. She knew several good doctors, the kind who wouldn’t piss people off with candy-box psychology tests, and a few qualified social workers. Even if it meant getting her nose bitten off, she figured it was worth a shot.

But she was caught up by a group of troopers who suddenly started projectile vomiting after drinking something God knows what. By the time she finished dealing with the mess, she turned back just in time to catch the moment the boy switching off his comms. A flash of blue light flickered, he put on his hood and left in a hurry. That was the last time May saw Boba Fett.

Half a month later, one evening, May sleepily walked into the work area for her night shift. Her steps came to a halt after passing three groups of clones huddled together whispering to each other, hands still tying her apron as her numb brain finally processed what it had just heard.

They were all talking about the same thing: the death of Commander Ponds. He was killed by Prime’s son Boba.

Sometimes May felt like the universe was laughing at the clones.

A week after Ponds’ death, Judith was back.

Three rounds of drinks in—sponsored by May’s Jedi great-aunt—the core members of the 29th Thunderbird Company had poured their hearts out to May, lamenting their greatest fear in painful detail: their new CO and the rest of the company were set to arrive soon. As the last five survivors of the now-defunct 934th Attack Battalion, they had always thought that Survivor stuck around simply because he had no other choice. The moment new options became available, he would abandon them without hesitation, join the normal soldiers who weren’t weirdos like them and leave.

“A toast to our last moments together! May Survivor not roll his eyes too hard when he sees us outcasts in the mess hall in the future.”

By then, Survivor had already been fitted with metal legs and a vocal implant, yet he still instinctively talked through sign language, gesturing frantically on the side aggrieved. As the other poor bastard frequently slandered by Ranter for not being much of a talker, Chamber gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and slid the glass into his hand.

The next time they showed up, no one would have called them outcasts. Quite the opposite—Wanderer Squad entered into the bar right in the middle of a big crowd, their bright pink armour still stood out jarringly in the dim light. May glanced at them once. Then again. Then she realised the silver head leading them from the front looked familiar.

The new CO of the 29th Thunderbird Company was Judith. She had lost an eye, face now covered in tattoos. One half of her armour was blackened with scorch marks, as the other was also painted pink. One of her vambraces was missing, the uncovered right arm gleamed with the sheen of metal.

She looked like a scrapped battle droid crawled back straight from hell.

The pink clones pushed a few empty booths together and crowded into them shoulder to shoulder. Judith sat down on Frank’s lap. As May walked over with her datapad, she noticed that almost every one of them had at least one cybernetic part attached to their bodies. She could never figure out exactly what great-aunt Bou got up to in the temple upstairs—but this time, she thought she had a pretty good idea.

Judith looked up at May. Her once long silver hair had been shaved into a mohawk, burn scars faintly visible beneath her blue tattoos. May and Frank beneath her blushed at the same time.

“Wow,” said May. “No idea what happened, but happy rebirth.”

“Thanks.” Judith smiled. “Hope you didn’t change your frequency, I’ll start updating again next week.”

The Thunderbird Company’s party lasted all night. May glanced back one last time when she clocked out at dawn, just in time to see Rex and Howzer remove their helmets and sit down beside Judith.

A massive search happened on Coruscant.

Such thing happened frequently enough here that it should not have caused much of a stir, but dozens of fully armed shock troopers stormed into 79’s, holding stun guns and a wanted poster for a specific clone. Never had a clone committed a crime grave enough to be wanted, all the clones who weren’t on the poster were terrified.

All the staff was gathered together to identify whether they had seen the guy in the holopic that night. May froze at the tattoo on his temple and the goatee on his chin.

It was Fives.

She shook her head in denial, but out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a staggeringly similar goatee heading toward the ‘fresher, sneaking glances around nervously. She had no idea what Fives had done this time, but it must have been something much worse than public nudity. But he was also the one who knocked out the junkie who had been whistling at May in the alley. For some reason, May turned around and pointed to the other side of the bar, saying she knew he liked to dance over there. That part was true enough; she just hoped Fives wasn’t that crazy to slide into the dance floor with his posters all over the bar. The troopers thanked her and headed in that direction, not noticing her trembling lips and knotted lekku.

May hoped they didn’t catch Fives.

No one ever heard from Fives again. But no news is good news, right? May asked Melina as she stirred the drink she made her absently. Melina buried her face deeper into her red scarf without answering, so May shut up too. Selling a lie that even herself wouldn’t buy felt stupid.

She remembered Fives’ favourite drink was Naboo Sunset, because, well, the sunsets on Naboo are really beautiful, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. She remembered Fives’ brother, he died two years ago. So many had died. Keeli, Ponds, Echo, Thorn. Legends say that Twi’leks born on Ryloth become spirits after they die, wandering the sands of the Jixuan Desert. May wondered where would clone spirits go. They didn’t even have a place they were willing to call home. May chewed her straw gloomily.

Not that she was slacking off; it was just the bar had been much emptier lately. Clones were being recalled to the upper levels, Kamino, and all sorts of places, standing by for orders, because the war was over. Thousands of systems were celebrating on the holonews from millions of lightyears away; people cheering, fireworks bursting, music playing for the rise of the new government and the arrival of the promised peace. But Coruscant had never truly experienced the war. Kidnappings and terrorist attacks happened in daily basis, never decreasing in frequency or increasing in intensity because of the distant threat of the Separatists. The capital people had always been too busy with their own business to worry about anything else, so the latest development barely made a ripple. A few nearby shops hung up Imperial banners, and that was it — and even that was just to curry favour with those Senate aides who had recently started making sudden visits, rather than the newly crowned Emperor Palpatine himself sitting comfortably in the throne upstairs.

The new Empire wasn’t a fan of Jedi — that much, May knew. The Jedi Rebellion has been crushed, read the headlines, accompanied by images of the Temple billowing with thick smoke. Senate aides, flanked by the Coruscant security force and clone squads, swept the entire planet for any remaining insurgents, kicked into 79’s five times within a week, rounding up all the staff for questioning. It was because the Jedi brats used to love this place. The older Padawans would sneak down to the lower levels in packs, getting a taste of the worldly pleasures forbidden by the Jedi Code. And ever since the clones had taken over the bar, 79’s had become one of the few spots their masters were willing to turn a blind eye to. The bouncers threw their hands up in surrender at their braids, the bartenders happily accepted their meagre tips, and the clones crowded around them, competing to see whose little commander could down the most Calamari Xinphar in one go before forming volunteer escort squads to make sure they were safely back at the Temple by midnight. But those days were gone. May hadn’t seen Zett Jukassa in ages, or that always gloved Kestis. That’s exactly what she told them. She never could have imagined snot-nosed little nerds like them taking part in a rebellion. Nobody knew how deeply the Jedi had rotted. We were all deceived, said the aide.

As someone personally placed in the bar by the Jedi, Melina was taken to separate rooms for questioning every single time, scratches and anger all over her face when she came out. Then one day she just disappeared. No words, no notes, her luggage was still there, the only thing missing was the scarf she always wore. May had no idea if she had finally been arrested, and there was no one to ask. She tentatively sent a few messages to Bou but received no reply, nothing to do but nervously deleting the chat, couldn’t even let the thought of her being dead cross her mind. The clones she was familiar with stopped visiting either. All of May’s friends were gone.

Grey finally reappeared at the bar several weeks later. She hesitated for a while, but still asked him about his commander, that Dume kid who always followed him around. He sharply interrupted before she could even finish her sentence, “Discussing the Jedi is an act of treason, ma’am.”

The entire room fell silent at his words, dozens of identical eyes staring at May, silent and alert. She swallowed hard, for the first time in her life understanding why other natborns found that face creepy.

“Sorry, I didn’t know,” she replied awkwardly. “He also participated in the rebellion?”

No one answered, and she fled in panic. The newly formed Imperial Security Bureau knocked on her door just a few hours later. Suspected of maintaining contact with a fugitive, deliberately concealing the fugitive’s whereabouts, and openly discussing treasonous topics, with every word her eyes widened further. The absurdity of the accusations was almost hilarious, and just before she could start to argue, they slammed her against the wall, cuffed her, and shoved her into the enforcement shuttle.

“There must be a misunderstanding, Stone. Which one of your men is being dramatic? Should try their hand at the Galaxies Opera House when they retire,” she shook her head as she spoke to the clone in front of her, still trying to maintain her professional server smile. “You know me, I mess up everything, no one would trust me to join even if I actually wanted to rebel.”

“Are you admitting to having treasonous intentions, Miss Gin?” Stone’s tone was as flat as ever, the only constant in this entire shitshow, though it offered no comfort whatsoever.

“W-what?? That’s not what I said! What the kriff, Stone?”

Stone scoffed, turning his face toward the viewport without responding.

May hadn’t been on the surface in a long time and had forgotten how blinding natural sunlight could be. Her eyes watered the moment the shuttle ascended out of the tube, and then the tears just wouldn’t stop. The helplessness of losing contact with friends and the regret of not having resigned and gone home earlier flooded her heart. She sobbed pathetically, asking Stone for tissue to wipe her nose. But he simply stared at her without saying a word, so she started wailing.

She was thrown into a drunk tank in Coruscant Police Department, where she was felt up by two dizzy Zeltron women, followed by two whole days of enduring the annoying singing of a hyperactive Pa'lowick choir. Then she was isolated in a more heavily guarded cell in a neighboring building. No one came to interrogate her. And honestly, even if they had, she wouldn’t have been able to answer a single question. There was nothing in the cell but a surveillance camera and a toilet. The meals were delivered in trays by guards holding guns, and she could only track the passage of time based on this. They had no personal markings on their armours and never respond to anything she said, so she had no idea if it was the same two people every time. A week later, she had gone through the all five stages of grief, overcome her fear of having her nails pulled out during interrogation, and began shaking the bars of her cell, shouting for someone to bring her a magazine.

No one answered, naturally. But she realised the camera was turned off when she woke up on the cold floor on the tenth day.

May stood up and pressed her face between the bars, trying to get as close as possible for a better look, unsure if she had finally started to have hallucinations after being caged for so long. The gate in the distance opened with a clank. She jumped back to the corner, afraid that the guards who came to deliver food on schedule would interpret her weird action as not only treasonous but also an escape attempt.

But today, the guards didn’t have trays in their hands. Before May could start worrying if she was finally being taken to her execution, they removed their helmets, revealing silver hair and black tattoos.

“General Bou gave you 60 seconds to make a choice,” Judith said. “Do you want to squeeze into a ship packed with 127 rogue clones and 1 traitorous Jedi and leave Coruscant, or rot here until they catch her?”

“Stone’s holding me as bait to draw out my distant great-aunt? He might as well try Chamber instead,” was May’s instinctive answer.

“55 seconds left. Titmouse can only keep the surveillance access for this long,” Survivor reminded her.

“What? Okay, okay, I choose the first one. Get me out of here, I never want to eat that nutrient paste anymore.” She eagerly clung to the bars again.

“Tell me about it.” Judith smirked, skilfully taking off a familiar-looking silver cylinder out of her gunstock. “Bou lent me this. Move back a bit, I’m still getting the hang of it.”

May complied, running toward her future of a fugitive.

Melina belongs to @lepplum and Chamber belongs to @vale24601

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