In a fairly small room sat three biological waste decontamination units, top-loading washers really, just monstrous looking, fed with some kind of liquid that worked as both detergent and water at once.
A steady mechanical rattle and hum filled the room.
In one of them, scorch marks now streaking the loading hatch, a cleaning droid spun upside down, thrashing its manipulator arms with every kick landing squarely where any self-respecting vacuum unit keeps its dust collector, and where most sentient beings keep their common sense.
Rattle, hum, thump, thump, thump.
Dench stood on the second washer, methodically kicking it with one foot while it apparently ground away in spin cycle, growling and vibrating in place.
So that explained the noise.
Well, he clearly didn’t need rescuing; the fire suppression hadn’t even triggered, so everything was technically fine here.
Not that I had words for it.
“Dench?
What in the world.” “Ugh, that di’kutla piece of scrap tried to take my backpack, can you believe it?
I just wanted to get it washed!” Dench waves the bag indignantly in my face.
“Listen.
Do you have a vocoder?” “No,” I say, easing back a step from this maniac, “why would you need one?” “I’ll shove it somewhere it doesn’t belong!
Do you understand, I’ve got a three kilogram sodium based thermite charge in there, and this thing tried to wash it!” That’s when things got bad.
Everything this walking demolitions specialist carries on him, in a room like this, and we’d have all had a very rough afternoon.
Fine, no time to deal with any of that, or the chaos that’s been building for the last day straight.
Even the hunger’s stopped registering at this point.
“Okay.
Vocoder stays where it is.
Grab five sets of undersuit lining and let’s move before the noise draws attention.” “Cap, wait, there’s—” “Grab those,” I point at the rack in the self-drying cabinet, “five sets of armor lining, and let’s go.
Clear?” I almost didn’t recognize the crispness in his answering, “Sir, yes, sir.” Even his voice had changed.
“Sir, permission to note that several fully intact sets of external armor plating and body kits are currently going through decontamination in this room.
Permission to carry out an alternate order?” I felt like an idiot.
Or maybe I’d just gotten hit on the head one too many times in the last six months.
Nothing was clicking into place right.
“Denny, grab whatever you can, get into the nearest vent, find the others, and hold until things quiet down.
If nobody’s raised an alarm by then, we come back for the armor.
Understood?” “Yes, sir!” A completely different person now.
“Then move, move, move!” We managed to snag two sets, Dench, and three, me, undersuit lining with the armor pieces hung on them, and bolted out past the still spinning droid without stopping to shut it down.
I’d barely tapped the panel controls when something beeped inside the machine.
Hoping that wasn’t a distress call to the maintenance section.
I got distracted, turned toward the sound, stupid mistake, took a step, and didn’t react in time.
Fifty-One and I collide and go flying back into the corridor together, the food container in his hands bursting open in the process and dumping a wave of food straight over me.
My ribs screamed in protest, though thankfully didn’t crack.
Unpleasant, still.
And weirdly, the food tasted almost like chocolate milk, I notice distantly, if chocolate milk were the color of sewage.
At least something tasted decent today.
We get back up, and I’m just about to start swearing when I notice Fifty-One is alone, his helmet dented, a bruise forming under one cheekbone and eye.
I wipe the food off my face with my free hand, checking whether it hit the floor too, and glance over to see him already sealing the container and grabbing one of Dench’s grimy backpacks, already tossing it out through the open laundry door.
I spot Nest and Drill sprinting toward us from down the corridor, and I realize we’re not out of this yet.
“Who was it?” “Alphas.” “Tell me later.
Anything critical?” “Combat ready.” The others catch up to us fast.
Nice thing about not commanding a bunch of green recruits, they just get to work without being told twice, grabbing packs, stripping lining, shoving containers shut.
Denny even wipes up the spilled food from the corridor with some grimy rag.
Good instincts.
I wave off the rag when he offers it to me, not touching that thing.
“Denny, lead the way.” “I’m Dench,” he mutters, frowning slightly.
Fine.
We ran.
Half an hour of quiet sitting inside the ventilation shaft later, I’d more or less clawed back some mental stability, mostly by methodically cleaning my own face.
Well, gnawing at it, really.
Scoop a palmful, peel off the chocolate-flavored slop, lick the palm clean, repeat until the skin’s scrubbed raw.
At least my hands are small.
Counted as lunch too, technically.
I’d been stuck in the infirmary during Fett’s sparring inspection, and a vitamin drip from the med droids doesn’t count as an actual meal.
And you know what they say, a hungry man is a stupid, dangerous man.
A fed man is the opposite of both.
Licking the last of it off my fingers, I break the bad news to the group.
“Guys.
The lining’s a bust.” “Called it,” Nest says.
“Batteries in the decontamination unit?” “The only one we grabbed got washed.” I catch the guilty look on Dench’s face, staring at the floor along with everyone else.
“Not that it would’ve mattered anyway,” I add.
“He was standing on top of a cleaning droid the whole time.” “Confirmed,” Drill chimes in, muffled through his helmet, fiddling with something.
“Wrong battery type entirely.
Fifty-One, catch.” Fifty-One leaned away from the vent grille overlooking the corridor and snagged the tossed helmet neatly out of the air.
“Anything down there?” I asked.
“Quiet.
Nobody around.” “Alright then.
Back to the laundry, grab the armor sets, bring them here.
Then we regroup.
I think the training suit batteries should be compatible.
Drill, Fifty-One, you’re on recon.
Nest, cover from up here.
Dench and I follow behind.
Nest, give us five minutes, flag any movement.
Comms open.” “Actually, sorry, Cap, couldn’t patch into the shared line, didn’t have the right tools,” Nest admits, sounding sheepish.
“Fine.
We’ll manage without it for now.
Anyone runs into trouble, stun them, restrain them, and disengage.
Ready?
Stunners primed.
Let’s move.” We climb down out of the shaft, ease into the corridor, hatches sealing silently above us.
Nest’s sharp, nobody makes a sound.
This kind of quiet movement’s practically reflex by now.
Still nobody in the corridors, not surprising given how automated everything is here, which works in our favor right now.
Half an hour left on the clock.
Alright.
Here goes nothing.
I signal Fifty-One forward, he nods and slips into the corridor like a shadow, moving loose and quiet.
The Mandalorians’ training clearly isn’t some inferior knockoff, honestly looks close to how our own specialists moved back home, though there’s no time to really compare, just some differences here and there.
This galaxy’s clearly further along in personal infantry protection design, plus a few other advantages.
Drill follows behind, and while Fifty-One stays low, almost crawling, Drill moves upright, covering the opposite angle.
Dench takes position near my feet, aiming the opposite direction.
I raise the stunner in my left hand and scan the corridor, checking both directions in turn.
The others leapfrog forward, covering each other, until they reach the laundry door.
“Clear,” Nest confirms.
“Clear,” I echo, then Dench.
“Going in,” Fifty-One says.
Drill follows a second later.
“Clear,” Fifty-One reports.
Dench and I move up fast behind them.
Drill covers our backs from the doorway.
“Huh,” from Fifty-One.
He’d apparently found the droid.
Good news, the washer hadn’t wrung it out completely, it just shut down, flashing an error code.
Droid’s dead.
Guess that beeping earlier had been its last gasp.
Rest easy, vacuum cleaner.
“Drill,” I say, “check the droid for anything salvageable.
Cutting tool, whatever, anything useful.
Four minutes.” They scattered to work.
Three minutes later, we had five complete sets of clone armor collected.
Something else caught my attention, though.
Not phase one designs.
Slightly different, clearly a different model.
We’d figure that out later.
“Drill, what’ve you got?” “Junk.” “Fine, let’s move.” Grabbing what we could, some sets cleaner than others, we head back out into the corridor in reverse formation.
Nest stays sharp.
One direction, all clear.
The other…
I crack the panel open, then snap it shut immediately, signaling quiet.
We scatter and take cover, stunners ready.
Good call.
Six security officers jog past down the corridor.
Half a minute later Nest confirms it’s clear, I check around, and we bolt for the corridor.
We make it back to the vent access.
One climbs up first, we pass the gear up, then climb ourselves.
One upside, after eating, and licking my lips, my ribs actually hurt less now.
I’d love to relax, but putting on armor is easy.
Calibrating it, less so.
The lining straps are automated, powered by battery cells that mount, of course, right on the belt.
Meaning first you connect the power cells, then put on the lining, secure it, dock the plating, put on the helmet, calibrate the lining, take the helmet back off, attach the body kit, put the helmet back on, recalibrate again, and only then does the armor actually power on.
Without batteries, it’s just twenty kilograms of overengineered scrap.
Perfect.
Can’t exactly sprint in gear two sizes too big either.
So, what now?
The batteries built into our own helmets are sealed in, no tools to pop them open.
“Cap, what are you doing?” Hm.
Hadn’t noticed I’d grabbed my own head.
“We need power cells for this armor.” “So, easy fix, there’s a training ground right above us.
Just head up to the Citadel and pull the cells from the student gear,” Nest offers.
“You sure nobody’s up there?” Drill asks.
“Oh, yeah,” Dench says, smiling.
“Who?” I ask, matching his smile.
“Brothers,” he declares, still grinning, this strange, sweet disaster of a person.
Right, obviously all clones are brothers technically, but…
hang on…
I’m an idiot.
“Denny, do you mean specifically your brothers?” Of course, the DW series had to get transferred in from somewhere too, why hadn’t that occurred to me.
“Yep,” and he beams.
“Oh.
Okay, careful now, don’t want to spook them.
Could you ask them to…” “Yes, Cap.
Stay put, I’ll handle it.
Back in an hour.” “Don’t get caught,” I call after him as he climbs up and out of sight.
“Nest, you mentioned two vent access points on every floor?” I ask, highlighting the section on my visor again.
“Copy, Cap.
Let me grab Drill and check it out.” “Check it, quietly.” “We’ll take the technical shafts.
You and Fifty-One should get some sleep.
We’ll be back in about ninety minutes, sooner if things go smoothly.” “Copy.
Go.” “I’ll take watch,” Fifty-One says.
I toss the lining onto the floor and just collapse onto it.
Insane day.
They’re right, honestly, me and Fifty-One are both worked over pretty badly.
Easier for them to move fast without us right now.
Exhaustion hit me only once I actually stopped moving.
Not so much physical, more mental.
I’m just not built for handling missions this open-ended under pressure like this.
Obviously this is some kind of test, just not clear what exactly it’s testing.
What am I even doing here, fundamentally?
None of this feels like a real galaxy some days, the fact that I’m even here at all still feels absurd.
Half expecting to wake up and find out this whole thing was some anesthesia dream, that our old surgeon’s going to lean over me, smile like he always did, and ask, “Well, look who’s still kicking, champ, how are you feeling?” And I’d answer him.
No, I wouldn’t, actually, I’d just be relieved to finally wake up somewhere familiar.
I still can’t fully process this as real.
Clones, Mandalorians, a coming war where I’m destined to be slightly better trained cannon fodder than average, followed by whatever local power struggles no ordinary soldier below general rank ever gets to weigh in on.
And me?
What can I actually do here.
Survive.
That’s it.
Didn’t manage that once already…
“Cap.
Cap, wake up.” I jolt upright, kick out reflexively, and level the stunner at Fifty-One.
Must have dozed off.
Nerves, probably.
Fifty-One rubs the bruise on his head and stands back up.
“Drill found the way out to the landing platform,” he says quietly.
“Nest says the corridor,” a marker drops onto my visor map, “leads through the incubator section.
They’re heading back.
Dench’s back too.” Looking around, I spot Dench curled up asleep in the corner, backpack tucked against him.
Wait, no, not asleep anymore.
He sits up, yawning.
Guess since he made it back fine, no issues on his end.
“Cap!
I handed off my gear and helmet to my brothers over there.
Figured a little sabotage wouldn’t hurt, draw some attention elsewhere,” and at the word sabotage, that unsettling grin of his gets even wider.
“Yeah, you’re all completely out of your minds, I know.” “Well,” he grins, “as you say, they’ll wreck something worthless just to spite someone full of themselves.” “Who exactly do you have over there?” Fifty-One asks.
“There’s a few…” Honestly, I still don’t fully understand the connection.
“Alright then, let’s wait for the others, run a quick sabotage op, and get out of here.” Still haven’t figured out where, exactly.
Need a prisoner first.
“Remind me, guys, whose brilliant idea was it to try exiting through the landing platform directly?” I duck behind the wreckage of some blown apart crates.
“Yours, Cap,” Nest notes dryly, firing back from cover near the jammed door.
Right, yes, scope out the area, figure out our position from the architecture, move without getting spotted, that plan.
And our opponents are pinned down behind their own cover now.
How many left?
Two?
Three?
Rain’s coming down hard, visibility’s garbage without visors on these helmets.
“Alright, on my mark we push up, keep firing!
And…
quiet…
hold…” I wait for the return fire to stutter as they reload, catch the lull, “Go!” We close in fast.
One of them pokes out and catches a stunner blast from both sides at once.
Drops instantly.
I vault the barrier, confirm the kill, er, the stun, turn around and see Fifty-One handling the second target.
Finally.
How’d we end up in a firefight in the first place?
Simple.
Got mistaken for deserters when the Security detail unloading a supply shuttle asked to see our IDs.
Might’ve talked our way out of it too, except a) more security was already boxing us in from behind, and b) the second I actually handed over my legitimate ID, someone yelled “that’s not their armor!” and opened fire.
Live rounds.
Real blaster bolts.
At point-blank range.
That’s exactly where the Alpha training showed its worth.
We’re just faster than everyone else, plain and simple.
The others reoriented instantly, no chatter needed, split up sectors, and got to work.
Would’ve gone smoother without the security team’s grenades, but.
Shrapnel caught Drill’s armor, Dench took a mild concussion, don’t play catch with a live grenade, genius.
But he’s alive, so nobody’s going to complain about the method.
We pile into the shuttle, and for a second everyone just freezes.
Drill cracks the control console in seconds flat, and I drop into the pilot’s seat since it’s obvious nobody else here can actually fly.
Guess all those hours on the simulators finally paid off.
The shuttle breaks free of the platform and drops hard, engines roaring, straight toward the waves below.
And they’re tall out here, easily ten meters.
Bouncing between swells, someone below apparently got an auto turret active under the platform.
Good luck, that thing’s never going to land a hit at this range.
Another seven kilometers of frantic, wave-skimming evasive maneuvers, overload alarms and turbulence screaming through the dampers of an atmospheric shuttle clearly not built for this kind of abuse, and we’re clear.
I run a couple of extra loops, burning time but making sure nothing’s tracking us from the ground.
These shuttles don’t run any kind of AI tracking system by default, so there’s genuinely nothing following us.
Like stealing a scooter back home and trying to trace it through GPS, except this thing doesn’t even have basic navigation sensors installed.
Lucky break.
Rear ramp’s busted, but that’s a minor problem.
We’re not planning on going anywhere near open space.
I finally let go of the controls.
The tension starts to drain out.
I level the shuttle off, not an easy task given how rough things still are.
“Cap…
should we maybe switch to autopilot?” Nest’s noticed something, probably smart.
“Drill’s hit, might want to check the armor, just in case.” “Nest, take the controls.
I’m out.” I pull my helmet off and drop onto the fold-down bench near the entrance, the whole shuttle still shaking around us.
Retreat, finally.
Smells like burnt metal and salt air in here.
Dench, meanwhile, sits frozen like a statue.
Fifty-One pulls his own helmet off, pale as anything.
“We’re actually alive!
Made it through, didn’t lose a single one of us.” “Drill’s hurt,” Nest cuts in.
“On it.” I trade places with Nest at the controls.
At least his hands have finally stopped shaking.
Dench is already digging out a medkit.
Between him and Fifty-One, they get Drill out of his seat.
I catch the thin trickle of blood leaking from a gap in his lining.
Guess he took a real hit.
Hopefully not a bad one.
“I’m fine, guys, barely even hurts,” Drill insists, though he lets them work on him anyway.
“Please enter your destination,” the autopilot chimes in gently, in Basic.
“Ramu-A 411 platform.” “Destination confirmed.
Estimated arrival, eight hours.” Damn.
Where did that platform actually end up?
The shuttle climbs above the waves and streaks off toward parts unknown.
Made it, with room to spare, looks like.
Alright.
Now, what’s going on with Drill.
“And you call yourselves special forces?
A bunch of defective washouts?” Jango Fett towered over the Alphas kneeling face first against the wall.
“If it were up to me, I’d have you—” “Jango!” A Kaminoan woman’s voice cut clean through the mercenary’s rant as she stormed into the storage room.
“Explain this to me!” “Explain what?” Fett looked genuinely thrown.
The Mandalorians standing nearby exchanged uncertain glances.
“This!” The Kaminoan shoved a datapad into his hands.
Fett stared at whatever was on the screen for a long moment, then turned toward Skirata.
“Kal.
All your zeroes accounted for?” “Yes, vod’ika.” “Check again!!” His shout tore through the helmet’s speakers hard enough that even the Alphas lined up against the wall flinched.
After a long, tense minute of silence, Skirata went still, apparently in contact with someone over comms.
“Everyone’s accounted for.” “Then we’ve got a problem.
Get me the head of Security.
Now.”
com/Hezzario