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dystopicjumpsuit · 11 months ago

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Oh man, I love the Foxiyo ship so much, but obviously I also love Riyecho/Riycho/Echiyo, and I couldn't resist the urge to make both of them canon in this fic. And of course, once I'd made that decision, it definitely shaped how the story in general and her relationship with Cerra in particular would unfold.

Maybe someday I'll dip my toe into a Foxiyo fic. Perhaps a one-shot that takes place in this universe? Honestly, I just really love Riyo, and I love writing her.

Stars Beyond Number - Chapter 3

Rating: T (rating varies by chapter; mature content will be tagged; regardless of rating, minors DNI)

Pairings: Echo x Riyo Chuchi; Gregor x OFC Cerra Kilian

Wordcount: 2.5k

Warnings: angst; grief; nightmares; use of stimulants as a coping mechanism; Fox girlies don't come for me

Suggested Listening:

Summary: Riyo visits the repair shop and shares some surprising intel.

A/N: This story shares continuity with Martyrs and Kings and "Do It Again," but all three fics can be read as stand-alones.

There are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars.

—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

“You know, the last time I piloted a ship, I crashed and lost my memory,” Gregor said with an infectious laugh.

“Which is why I’m having you fly this time,” Rex said. “For practice.”

Cerra met Rex’s eyes in silent acknowledgment and thanks. She handed him a travel mug, then took a long drink of her own bitter caf. Rex clasped her shoulder briefly, and she knew that he’d already forgiven her for her harsh outburst the night before.

“Do I even want to know where you got that freighter?” she asked, gesturing at the ship that had materialized overnight. “We could have used it yesterday. Would have cut the Karthon travel time in half.”

“Trust me, you’re better off not knowing. If everything goes to plan, we should be back by nightfall,” Rex said.

“I should have the surgical pod up and running by then,” Cerra replied.

Echo observed their interaction closely, and Cerra wondered what was on his mind. She was grateful he’d agreed to Rex’s last-minute change of plan without question, but she still found herself awkward and tongue-tied around him. Regardless of her personal reservations about meeting Fives’s twin, she knew the ARC trooper was more than capable, and he would have Rex and Gregor’s backs through anything.

The three men boarded the freighter, and the ramp began to close.

“Fly casual, boys,” she called with a wave.

Rex sent her a cocky salute, and she raised her mug in response. Gregor lifted off and turned the ship so the viewport faced the garage entrance. He held up two fingers in a crude gesture, and she laughed as she shot him a finger of her own. And then they were gone.

She hated letting them go without her, but she wasn’t so delusional that she considered herself indispensable to the mission; she was fully aware she was nowhere nearly as qualified as the clones. They would be fine without her there to back them up. Besides, the damned surgical pod wasn’t going to set itself up. She sighed, refilled her empty cup with another round of lukewarm caf, and picked up her toolkit. It hadn’t taken long to pull the unit out of the Venator med bay, but getting it to run in their jury-rigged home base was going to take significantly more work.

She was dead on her feet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night. Even without the nightmares, there was simply too much work to do to allow for a normal sleep schedule, and the prior day had been particularly grueling. Thank the Force and all the stars above for Gregor. When she jerked awake in the middle of the night, too terrified to go back to sleep, he always knew exactly what to do to bring her back to herself.

Some mornings when she woke up curled in his arms, she didn’t even remember what she had dreamed the night before. Not today, though. She remembered it clearly. The wrenching twist of durasteel and the deafening roar of explosive decompression echoed in her mind. She pressed her knuckles to her eyes to clear the grisly images of pooling blood and countless mangled bodies. Her leg throbbed, and she couldn’t tell whether the pain was real or merely a haunting specter from her memory.

She needed to be on her game if she wanted to get the surgical pod set up without frying the circuitry, and seeing double from exhaustion was not helping. By the time she finished her third cup of caf, she knew she needed something stronger, so she dug through the medkit in the kitchenette until she found a stim pack. She injected it quickly and put the medkit away, noting that it was running low on a few important supplies. She would need to venture into Coruscant’s black market to restock within a few days.

Cerra had been working on the pod for nearly an hour when the proximity sensor Rex had installed triggered a system alert. She slid out from beneath the machine and wiped her hands on a rag as she walked to the front of the garage to investigate. A familiar speeder docked next to the landing platform, and Senator Riyo Chuchi disembarked. She was alone, and Cerra wondered how she’d managed to shake her usual bodyguard escort.

“Good morning,” the senator called, smiling warmly.

“Good morning, Senator,” Cerra replied.

“I wish you would call me Riyo,” she said. “We are quite literally partners in crime, after all.”

“Fair enough,” Cerra replied. “What brings you to our little hotbed of sedition?”

“I’ve brought some supplies and food. Are you alone today?”

Cerra nodded. “Rex and the boys are on an extraction mission.”

“I see,” Riyo said. “Rex told me your ranks were growing, and I wanted to be sure you had enough to cover the new clones who are joining you.”

Cerra respected Riyo immensely. The senator had painted a very visible target on herself with her public support for the clones and her outspoken opposition to the Empire’s treatment of them. She seemed to be driven only by a sense of her own duty and ethics, which made her all the more admirable. Cerra’s own work with Rex, though dangerous, was at least covert, and her motivations were far less clear-cut than Senator Chuchi’s.

Cerra helped unload and stash the supplies, gritting her teeth against the ache in her cracked ribs, and when they finished, Riyo stood, looking around the deserted garage a little uncertainly. Cerra needed to get back to work if she hoped to finish the pod before the team returned, but something about Riyo seemed forlorn, and Cerra hated to send her away.

On a whim, she asked, “Would you mind helping me with a project? I need to get this surgical pod set up before Rex gets back, and a second set of hands would make it easier.”

Senator Chuchi’s golden eyes lit up at Cerra’s bald-faced lie. “I would love to! I have to admit I don’t know anything about machinery, though. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.”

“That’s all right,” Cerra said, sliding back underneath the pod. “You can keep me company. There’s caf in the kitchen, if you want some.”

“That sounds lovely,” Riyo said, heading for the kitchen. When she returned, Riyo set a cup of caf on the floor next to Cerra, then settled onto a crate next to the pod.

Cerra took a grateful sip. “I knew I liked you.”

Riyo laughed softly in acknowledgment, then asked, “Where did you learn how to work on machinery like this?”

“My mother was a ship’s mechanic in our planet’s military defense force,” Cerra said. “My father claims that I learned how to wire before I learned how to speak.”

“Did you follow in her footsteps?” Riyo asked.

“Nope. Her knees were wrecked by the time she was forty. She told me to become an officer with a nice, cushy desk job, so that’s what I did.”

“Did you ever see combat?”

“Anyone ever tell you you ask a lot of questions, Senator?”

“Sorry,” Riyo said, abashed. “I was just curious how you came to be involved with Rex.”

“It’s all right,” Cerra said. “I didn’t see real combat until the Clone Wars. Our defense force was folded into the GAR, and my desk job got a lot less cushy. And I’m not involved with Rex.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume,” Riyo stammered. “You two just seem… close.”

“We are close,” Cerra said. “But not like that. Hand me those hypersheers.”

Riyo handed her the tool silently. Cerra felt a pang of guilt at the senator’s mortified expression, but she was not prepared to explain the intricacies of her bond with Rex. It was not romantic, and it never would be. She wasn’t even sure she was capable of having that kind of relationship again—not after Fives. But even if she were, she and Rex had too much history, too much baggage, to even consider such a possibility.

Cerra didn’t know what to say, but luckily, Riyo had plenty of practice in diplomacy. She changed the subject. “Are you nervous about the extraction?”

“Rex can handle it,” Cerra replied, tamping down her anxiety. He can handle it. He can. Gregor will be fine. They have Echo backing them up. Gregor will stay with the ship. He’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.

Fine, fine, fine. The word echoed in her mind like a bell. Perhaps if she repeated it often enough, she would start to believe it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more competent than Captain Rex,” Riyo said. She hesitated, then asked, “What do you think of Echo?”

“I’ve only run one mission with him so far, but he knows how to handle himself,” Cerra said. “No surprise there. He was one of Rex’s, back in the war.”

“Did you know him? In the war, I mean.”

“No, we never met,” Cerra said. She didn’t elaborate. No need to drag the senator into her own tangled past.

“I think he must be very brave to keep fighting after everything he’s been through.” The admiration was evident in Riyo’s voice.

“I agree. He’s committed to his brothers, and he’s a very capable warrior. I’m relieved he’s joined the team. It’s good to know he has Rex’s back. Lubricant gun, please.”

Riyo handed her the tool.

“I hope we can help even more clones get out and start new lives for themselves,” Riyo said. “My colleague, Senator Thulo, is working to build a clone sanctuary on her home planet.”

“That’s very generous of her,” Cerra grunted as she struggled with a stubborn fastener. The lubricant hadn’t worked to loosen it as she’d hoped. Perhaps a little percussive maintenance was in order. “Can I have that vibrohammer?”

“Isn’t that a bit of an aggressive tool for the job?” Riyo asked.

“Sometimes you need a blunt instrument,” Cerra said. “What inspired Senator Thulo to undertake such a risky enterprise?”

Riyo hesitated a moment. “Can I trust you not to let this information fall into the wrong hands?”

Cerra nearly laughed. “I think you know you can.”

“I’m serious,” Riyo said. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Don’t tell me, then,” Cerra said with a shrug that Riyo couldn’t see. “Hydrospanner.”

Riyo passed her a laser-caliper. Cerra gestured at the spanner. “That one.”

Riyo took back the caliper and handed Cerra the spanner.

“She’s married to a clone,” Riyo blurted out.

Huh. I did not see that coming.

“A senator and a clone,” Cerra commented circumspectly. “What are the odds?”

“Greater than you might think,” Riyo said.

Something in her voice gave Cerra pause. “Oh?”

“Yes,” Riyo said. “I—I was also… involved with a clone. Before. During the war.”

Cerra felt a sinking in her gut. “What happened?”

“He died,” Riyo said. “Not long after the rise of the Empire. That’s why I started fighting for clone rights. For him.”

“I’m sorry,” Cerra said in a low voice. “What was his name?”

“Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard,” Riyo said.

All the air punched from Cerra’s lungs. She dropped her hydrospanner, the tool clattering to the floor.

“Are you all right?” Riyo asked, startled.

Cerra was glad she was hidden safely beneath the surgical pod so Riyo couldn’t see her appalled expression.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just got a little shock. From the circuit.”

She felt sick. Her voice sounded unsteady to her own ears, but Riyo evidently believed her. She groped around until she found the spanner and went back to work, fumbling with the wires as her mind raced and her hands shook.

Fox. Cerra shuddered as she wrestled her emotions under control. Riyo had been in love with Fox, of all people. Out of all the millions of clones, she had fallen for the man who had murdered Fives. Riyo didn’t know. She would never have confided in Cerra if she had known.

“Did you know him?” Riyo asked hopefully.

“No,” Cerra said hollowly. “I never met him.”

Cerra tasted bile at the back of her throat. How could she tell this kind, gentle senator that she had felt nothing but a fierce sense of satisfaction when she’d heard that Fox had been killed while hunting down a rogue Jedi? How could she confess that she had celebrated the commander’s death? A wave of shame swamped her. She knew now that Fox had been just as susceptible to the inhibitor chip’s influence as the rest of the clones. Rex had told her that when his chip activated, he had been fully conscious of his actions even as he was powerless to stop them. She could not imagine the agony Fox would have endured as he watched himself pull the trigger and take his own brother’s life.

Riyo was talking again, and Cerra forced herself to focus on the senator’s words.

“... providing security at a senate function. I’d met other clones before. Actually, Rex was the first clone I ever befriended. But Fox was wonderful. He was so kind, and so tired.” Riyo laughed softly. “Commander Thire used to say Fox’s body was fifty percent caf. He reminds me of you in that way.”

Cerra forced a chuckle. It was strange to hear Riyo speak so fondly of a man Cerra had dedicated years of her life to hating.

“We used to talk about running away together, hiding out on some remote planet. But I knew Fox would never abandon his men. They were the reason he worked so hard. He cared so much about them. When he died, it seemed only right for me to take up the fight for his brothers since he wasn’t here to do it any longer.”

Cerra set down the spanner and took a few deep breaths. Schooling her face into a careful mask of neutrality, she slid out from under the surgical pod and took Riyo’s hand in a comforting grip. The senator’s small hand was soft and warm and perfectly manicured, but she didn’t seem to mind that Cerra’s was rough and calloused from work. Riyo clutched it tightly.

“Wherever he is,” Cerra said, “I know he’s very proud of you.”

Riyo blinked back tears. Cerra couldn’t remember the last time she had wept. The complicated morass of grief, bitterness, and inexorable rage that she felt about Fives’s death refused to be expressed in anything as straightforward as tears.

“Thank you,” Riyo said in a trembling voice.

Cerra gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, then slid back under the pod to connect the last few wires.

“Done!” she announced. “Want to hop in and take it for a test drive?”

“But I don’t have a chip,” Riyo protested.

“I just need to turn it on and make sure everything’s working,” Cerra said. “I promise not to perform brain surgery on you.”

---

Next chapter

#comment reblog #thank you for reading!#echo x riyo chuchi #Captain Gregor x OC

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