#not gonna tag everyone who appears in the snippets but i'll tag uh.

[squirrelno2]

Author's Commentary I Guess?

The sheer amount of little notes and thoughts I had about today's chapter for In Every Possible Timeline means I decided to just make a tumblr post about it so people on ao3 don't have to contend with an end note that's as long as the chapter. This also means deleted versions of the chapter can be posted for your perusal! you're not allowed to judge me on them they're deleted for a reason. unless you like them. you can tell me that you like them.

Spoilers for the chapter below, lots of thoughts about Umbara as you may expect, and a few disjointed scenes that start and end in weird places. This post is very very long. You have been warned.

Fun fact: there is no way in hell "put the firing squad together or I do" wasn't viewed as the threat it is by both parties, it's just that Krell didn't think Rex could get people together who would all choose to defy him so utterly, especially seeing Dogma in charge of that squad. Rex is not usually someone I write as being underhanded, but he's smart and has to manage Anakin Skywalker. He knows how to be subtle when it really counts, so long as he doesn't have to explicitly lie. Fives' speech is also very important to the outcome, of course, though I do think this firing squad is significantly less in need of it than the one in canon. As things stand here, there's a lot more closeness happening between the characters - Fives and Jesse being in the same squad until Fives goes to be an ARC, Kano and Ridge being there, obviously Droidbait and Hevy - and having the extra dominoes around at all is like. Hevy is every clone's biggest fan. Droidbait is self appointed team therapist. Cutup, until now, was the guy you could always go to for a laugh and to forget your troubles. The canon firing squad was Tup, Kix, and for all we can tell some compassionate clones Fives and Jesse never really spoke to. Here, they have a lot of legitimately close friends, and while it's awful for everyone to have the buildup it makes it even less likely that the firing squad will actually do their job. Anyway. Ask me sometime about all the ultimatums Krell must give in order to make clone leaders into the bad guy in the eyes of the rank and file.

Echo's scene originally wasn't going to be in here, but it's been so long since we checked in with him and I know you're all chomping at the bit wondering if things have changed enough. You know the answer now! I figured showing that they hadn't would ramp up the tension, only for it to be eased but not really when you hit the friendly fire and Hevy can't possibly get hurt - but at great cost. I love a good bait and switch, and Echo's slips may not progress the main narrative much right now but they make for fun devices to build suspense. Sorry about the emotional manipulation there, but hey. it's my job as a writer

As for Kano's conspiracy theory, obviously we know he was on some level right, at least in that they weren't about to shoot any Umbarans. I don't know if Krell was responsible further than a bad call as far as mobilizing too quickly/with too little information, though. Like - I have come out of my many more casual rewatches of this episode fully convinced the friendly fire was all on him, which the narrative supports anyway as that's the turning point for the characters. Each discrepancy Kano notes is there in the episode. But at the same time it's like - how does he pull this off? Why so elaborate a plan? Is Krell just taking advantage of a situation to pit two groups of clones against each other? If so, where did the Umbaran armour thieves go? They're not questions I can easily answer when playing within the bounds of what canon gives us. In another fic I would dig into it, and I probably will (this is not the last time I'm writing an Umbara au, more fool me). But in this one, at the end, it doesn't matter what happened in the background, only the impact - Kano is dead. Waxer is not. Hevy is not. I don't know if that makes this one a fix-it, honestly. Sorry about that

(I will also add that Waxer saying they got a call from Krell is something I wrote without actually uhh watching that far in the episode, so I may have taken a liberty there, but I have no regrets about that one. Whether the call was originally legit or not, he did engineer the situation and I wanted that to be super clear)

Some deleted pieces of the chapter, and why they were deleted:

I wanted to skip straight to the firing squad bit and not deal with getting it together, so I didn't put Hevy or Droidbait on the squad. Then I realised that it was more important to me to show A) Rex's attempts at undermining Krell within the bounds of his authority and B) a little bit of the time between the arrest and the execution, because that was the only chance we had to acknowledge where the hell Cutup has gone (more on that next chapter). Also, although I do think Droidbait would panic in this particular situation, it feels jarring when he keeps it together so well as long as he's in the thick of things, which he's been this whole time. Better to keep him in the zone and find a different chance to expand into that side of him

Hevy didn’t know about the firing squad until Droidbait found him.

“They’re going to shoot Fives!” he choked out. Hevy stood, remembered he only had one boot on, and scrambled to put on the other.

“What are you talking about?”

“Krell. Krell, he – Dogma sold us out – Now Cutup’s fuck-knows-where and they’re forcing Kix and Tup to shoot Fives and Jesse – Hevy –“

It had been a long, long time since Hevy had seen Droidbait like this. He gripped his brother’s shoulders, trying to ignore the panic swirling in his own stomach.

“Where are they?” he asked.

Droidbait sucked in a shaky breath and told him.

“All right,” Hevy said. “All right, just – stay here.”

“I’m not going to –“

“Yes, you are! Or find Cutup. I don’t need you doing something stupid.”

“You think I’m the one –“

Hevy was out the door fast enough he didn’t hear the rest of Droidbait’s indignation. He deserved it. He was more likely to throw a punch at Krell than Droidbait, even if Droidbait did have a temper. The truth was, if Hevy couldn’t stop this, he didn’t want Droidbait to be there to see it.

Appo stopped him at the door.

“You can’t go in –“

“Kiss my ass, Appo,” Hevy said. “Or do you like standing out here like Krell’s little guard massiff?” He shoved past without waiting for an answer, but Appo didn’t put up a fight. Hevy would apologise – if he made it out of this.

This was the first version of Hevy telling Dogma the truth, and I was almost happy with it even if some of it veers a little far off the path of things Hevy would say. My main issues with it were that I needed to tweak some of the dialogue and then that there simply wasn't time to fit this in, since there's no downtime whatsoever between the execution and the call and there couldn't be since downtime gives Krell a chance to try and kill Jesse and Fives again. That said, some of the lines in here are really good and I enjoyed having Krell hear Hevy. Originally, he also ended up arresting Droidbait, saying that between Hevy saying this shit and Cutup running off their whole batch is like a rot in the squad. This prompted Kix to tell Kano and Ridge the truth.

Krell was going to kill him. Hevy didn’t know how. He didn’t know when. But it was a miracle he’d stayed alive this long, after Krell’s tactics and the near-execution. He didn’t know why the general didn’t kill Jesse and Fives himself, but he didn’t think it was out of the goodness of the so-called Jedi’s heart. He was no Droidbait with his sense for emotions, and no Cutup with his head for new information; he certainly wasn’t the tactician or strategist that Fives and Echo were, but Hevy wasn’t as stupid as he’d been as a cadet. He could see how badly Krell wanted them all dead. More than that, he could see Dogma turning against them; he knew what broken trust between vode looked like. Domino had never been this bad, but they’d never had Krell.

And Krell was doing his best to make sure Dogma had nobody but Krell.

Hevy found Dogma standing outside, fists clenched, staring at his feet. He rocked slightly on his feet, like his thoughts were pushing him around. Dogma snapped to attention as soon as he realised Hevy was there, obviously trying to hide whatever doubt was going through his mind.

“Come to yell at me like everyone else?” Dogma said. “I followed orders. You were supposed to fire.”

“I was under orders,” Hevy agreed. “But it wouldn’t have been right, and I think you know it. Come with me.”

“I don’t take orders from disobedient –“

“It’s not an order,” Hevy said. “I just thought you seemed like you need a walk.”

A frown flickered across Dogma’s face. Droidbait or Echo might have accused Hevy of getting him alone so Hevy could pick a fight, but Dogma had never been the kind of person to think of something he wouldn’t do himself. If Dogma was going to throw a punch, he wouldn’t lie to someone about it beforehand. It was one of the things Hevy liked about the kid.

“Fine,” he said. Hevy grinned at his own triumph and started to walk, leading Dogma away from the centre of the base. Apparently, Hevy’s initial silence was too much for the kid. He spoke a minute later.

“I don’t – want them dead.”

“I know,” Hevy said. Dogma scuffed his feet as he walked for a second before he remembered himself and stiffened up again.

“Tup doesn’t,” he said. “I don’t understand. It’s not my fault! Those regulations have been in place for a month now, that if we can’t get a traitor to court martial without putting a campaign at risk they have to be executed. I didn’t ask to lead that squad! The general chose me. Fives and Jesse already let him down. What was I supposed to do?”

“Some things matter more than orders,” Hevy said. “You didn’t fire, when you saw no one obeyed.”

“I wasn’t supposed to,” Dogma said. “I just led them. That wasn’t my role.”

“Some people would have decided it mattered to carry out the order,” Hevy said. “Even if someone else was supposed to do it, originally.”

“I don’t – look, just tell me what you want!” Dogma caught his breath, seeming to realise for the first time that he’d never said anything like this to Hevy before. “Uh. Sir.”

They both knew Hevy didn’t outrank Dogma. Hevy didn’t correct the kid.

“I have to tell you a secret,” he said. He sat down on a crate, his back to the base centre, and patted the space at his side. Dogma stayed standing. No surprise there, really.

“I’ve heard I’m not very good at keeping secrets,” Dogma said bitterly. Hevy snorted softly.

“You and half my batch, but somehow we manage all right. I’m probably going to die out here, Dogma.”

“Are you committing treason, too?” Dogma blurted. His horror sounded like anger, but then so did Droidbait’s half the time.

“It wasn’t treason,” Hevy said. “Trust me, Echo corrected us on our word choice enough times. It was insubordination. Either way, I’m not planning on it. Won’t say never, but it’s not my first choice.”

“You’re talking in circles again,” Dogma growled. “I’m going back –“

“Echo knew the future, Dogma,” Hevy said. “One of the last things he managed to tell us was that he was worried I would die here.”

He probably should have expected Dogma to turn and start marching back. Hevy scrambled to his feet, grabbing Dogma’s wrist. Dogma whirled, and Hevy had to duck under his brother’s fist.

“Would you stop?” Hevy demanded. “Yes. It’s crazy. This isn’t a joke! If I was going to do something like this, I’d make it something you’d believe, all right?” He seized both Dogma’s shoulders and shook him. Dogma wriggled furiously, but Hevy was too used to grappling his siblings.

“I wouldn’t tell you this if I wasn’t worried about you,” Hevy continued. “Krell –“

“You think you’re going to die and you’re worried about me?” Dogma snapped. “And General Krell is relying on me because everyone else in this company has gone insane!”

“He’s trying to pull you away from us!” Hevy snapped. “Echo used to hate us for the same reason you’re angry now, all right? We weren’t good soldiers. We weren’t obedient, we weren’t skilled, we fought every order or we fought each other. But at least with Echo, he figured out how to work with us. He didn’t have someone like Krell telling him he was the only person who could do anything right. The general is calling you special, and I won’t tell you you’re not. But not because you told vode to fire on other vode. That’s not what’s good about you, kid.”

Dogma stilled as Hevy spoke, staring blankly at him.

“Did Echo see that in the future, too?” Dogma said bitterly.

“I don’t know,” Hevy said. “I’ll ask him that, when he comes back.”

Dogma already figured Hevy was delusional, so he didn’t much care how he sounded now. Just as long as something got through the kid’s thick skull.

“You know Hardcase was learning to fly,” Hevy said. “Echo knew he’d have to fly a ship. He was trying to save him.”

“He should have told you to obey orders,” Dogma said.

“If he thought it would have made us any safer, he would have,” Hevy said. He didn’t know exactly what Echo knew about it all, not when he’d gotten it secondhand from Jesse in the future, but he couldn’t imagine any version of Jesse being proud enough not to tell them to follow Krell if he thought it would save Hardcase. Siblings first. Always. “Do you actually believe me?”

He let Dogma’s shoulders go slowly and carefully. Dogma clenched his jaw. He was still glaring at Hevy, but since his two favourite expressions were ‘completely blank’ and ‘utterly furious’ Hevy didn’t mind. Dogma wasn’t too good at faces.

“No,” he said stubbornly. Hevy narrowed his eyes, trying to tell what Dogma was really thinking. If he didn’t believe Hevy at all, wouldn’t he have walked away?

“What a curious story,” said a low, rumbling voice. Hevy turned, his heart sinking, to see General Krell approaching with a grim smile on his scaly face. “I must say, CT-782, you’ve created quite the dilemma. Are you attempting some kind of sedition, or merely a defective product?”

If Hevy was going to die because of Krell, he was going to do it under his own damn name. He took a step forward, tipping his chin up defiantly to meet the Besalisk’s eyes.

“The name’s Hevy, Krell,” he said. “And better a defective clone than a defective Jedi.”

Krell chuckled once, then backhanded Hevy so hard he skidded backward into the dirt. Dogma took a few paces back as Hevy rolled over, rubbing his face.

“Put him with the others,” Krell said to Dogma. “Thank you for your loyalty, trooper.”

Hevy didn’t resist as Dogma hauled him away. Partly, he would be glad to talk to Jesse and Fives. Mostly his head was still spinning.

Still, he had enough in his brain to ask, “Do you wish he’d call you by number, so you know he can tell you apart from the rest of us? Or are you glad you don’t have to pretend that number’s your name?”

Dogma’s grip on Hevy tightened.

“Shut up,” he snarled. “You’d better hope you die out here, because if they get you to a court martial the whole galaxy will know just how defective you really are.”

This last one was a briefer attempt at the same scene before I decided to have Krell come down and Hevy to just give up on playing nice. I got to the explanation part and was like "fuck it I'm not satisfied with this. Hevy's being too reasonable" like yes he's out here adopting shinies in the spirit of 99 and all but he's still Hevy about it, you know? So Hevy getting himself arrested was born. That's one way to avoid dying in friendly fire, I guess. On the bright side, you can see in here where I had the realisation that Hevy has in the published chapter, that he cares so much about Dogma in part because he sees himself in him, in a very weird and distorted way. It's all about those unwanted anchors, folks. (Also, please imagine the incredibly confused Umbarans watching all this go down.)

“CT-7567,” came Krell’s voice over the base intercom. Hevy glanced up at the window again. Krell had stepped away from it. “CT-6922. Report.”

“Rex,” Fives said, reaching out to him.

“It’s fine,” Rex said. “Figured this was coming. Since he wouldn’t let me take the blame before, maybe this time it’ll work.”

Hevy shifted, half-wanting to pursue them. Rex wouldn’t let him, and Dogma would only get more upset, but things were only going to get worse with Krell now. And the fact that he was calling up Dogma, instead of anyone who’d disobeyed –

“Hey,” Droidbait said. “You wanna look happy we didn’t lose Fives for a second?”

Hevy snorted.

“I never thought Fives’ ego was so fragile he needed me to boost it,” he said.

“Not his ego,” Droidbait said. Fives groaned and shoved them both.

“What now, do you think?” Jesse said. “He can’t just… try again.”

“It’d only go worse for Krell if he did,” Hevy growled. “I don’t like that he only wanted Dogma and Rex. He’s got something planned.”

“At least it gets Dogma out of our hair,” Jesse said. “I didn’t really want to hear the kid whine about how dead I should be.”

Hevy bit back a protest. Jesse had a point. Hevy had just spent too long trying to pull Dogma out of his shell, get him to a place where he had more friends than Tup, and now Krell was destroying all of that and using Dogma like a puppet.

“Fives,” Hevy said. “When did Echo start getting less… you know…”

“Of an echo?” Fives said. “Why do you ask?”

The doors of the control centre slid open. Rex and Dogma had returned, with Appo in tow. All three looked worried.

“You two! I’m taking you to the brig,” Dogma said.

“Sir!” Kix protested, turning to Rex. The captain nodded, putting his helmet on grimly.

“We have other concerns, Kix,” he said. “This isn’t over, I swear.”

“The general will ensure the execution goes through,” Dogma added. There was a strange tone to his voice – like he was trying to be gentle.

“Dogma, you could at least pretend to be upset about this!” Tup burst out. Dogma flinched.

“All right, enough! I need all of you ready to go out again. Dogma, as soon as Fives and Jesse are back in their cells, get back to me,” Rex ordered.

Hevy caught his breath. This might be the best chance he had to do something. What, he wasn’t sure, but a crazy idea was budding in his mind. Dogma liked how much Krell trusted him, and lashed out when his brothers didn’t. So Hevy just needed to trust him, too. Visibly.

“I’ll help,” he said. “Please. Let me have a minute with Fives, sir.”

“Hevy?” Droidbait said, as though he suspected Hevy had something bigger on his mind. Hevy just kept his eyes fixed on Rex’s.

“Fine,” Rex said. “Make it quick.”

“You’re not doing this because you want to keep going down memory lane,” Fives said as Hevy and Dogma walked him and Jesse back to the cells.

“We don’t have time to talk,” Dogma said.

“Yeah, we do, we’re waiting for this lift anyway,” Hevy said. “Dogma. How are you doing?”

“What the hell –“ Jesse yelped. Fives elbowed him sharply, turning around and eyeing Hevy thoughtfully.

“What?” Dogma asked, too surprised to even get mad at Fives.

“Well,” Hevy said. “You seemed pretty upset up there. You’re the kind of kid who’s always trying to hold things together all on his own.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Fives said, but he sounded amused. “Is this the time, Hevy?”

The lift stopped. Sullen Umbaran faces glared at them as Dogma rocked on the balls of his feet, looking nervous. He seemed to realise what he was doing and stiffened up.

“Sir, just tell me what you mean.”

Technically, Dogma didn’t owe Hevy a ‘sir.’ Hevy wasn’t about to hurt the kid worse by pointing that out.

“You didn’t shoot any more than we did,” Hevy said flatly. “Less. Actually.”

“I –“

Jesse let out a low whistle. Fives elbowed him again, and Hevy glared at them both.

“Can we stop with the audience?” he snapped. Fives shrugged at him.

“You came along,” he said.

“I wasn’t supposed to shoot!” Dogma said. “And would you all stop? I know what you’re trying to do. This is some ploy, to turn me against the general. To make me into a traitor like you! I won’t do it!”

“Who’s asking that? Look, I’ll put Fives and Jesse in a cell right now,” Hevy said. Jesse put up a token protest, but Fives seemed genuinely amused to watch the scene play out. Hevy wasn’t sure whether he wanted to smack Fives or buy him a drink. When the ray shield was up, he looked back at Dogma and folded his arms. “Dogma, I know you don’t want to have to choose.”

The kid’s mouth trembled slightly. His glare was too wide-eyed and watery to be believed. Hevy rubbed his face.

“If I had my way, I wouldn’t ask you to,” he said quietly. “The general is the one saying that you’re either with him or against him – that saving lives is the same as treason. Do you actually believe that?”

“We can’t go around disobeying orders because we don’t like them,” Dogma said. “We can’t – take all that power out of them. I know you bent rules before. I didn’t think you were… I thought you understood!”

Well, at least Hevy had gotten Dogma to like him. He started the lift up, giving Fives a solemn nod in goodbye. When they were out of earshot of the apprehended Umbarans, Hevy spoke again.

“We were a bunch of idiots as cadets, but we were pretty good about basic orders,” he said. “And I liked knowing I served the army. The Republic. I never minded dying for it.”

He stopped the lift before they reached the top. Dogma tensed.

“Calm down, kid, I’m not about to shoot you,” Hevy said. “I’m gonna tell you a secret.”

He sat. Dogma stared at him, his mouth hanging open.

“Are you insane?” Dogma ground out at last.

“Probably. But this is the absolutely true story of how my batch all figured out that the Republic is more than just the status quo, and I’m trusting you with it because Krell’s not the only person who ever depended on you. He’s just the one who deserves you the least.”

Dogma snarled, but Hevy barrelled on.