Chapter Text
.:Ω:.
O hadn’t seen anyone in hours. After they dragged her back to Tipoca City, she was briefly checked over, hooked up to four different monitors and an IV, then locked in the medbay. She was alone. She’d dropped Shun’ika when the Alpha grabbed her and didn’t know where she had left her.
My fierce girl. Do you like your name?
She knew the blood was gone. Even if she hadn't washed her hands countless times, the rain had washed her clean. But she still felt it under her nails. Smelled it. Saw it spreading in a pool beneath them, ribbons curling through the runoff.
Every few minutes, she got up and washed her hands again, dragging her infusion pole behind her like an anchor. She’d done it so many times that her nail polish was flaking off. Red, with little black dots like a ladybird—Tashi’s work, probably. When? It must have been while she was asleep. She stared at the chipped red and all she could see was blood again.
I’m sorry, my sweet girl. I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.
Logically—logically—she knew Vhonte had only said it to be kind. Words meant to comfort, not to record the truth. Because it was her fault. If she’d been strong enough, smart enough, she would’ve passed the test. She wouldn’t have failed. She wouldn’t have needed saving.
It’s his fault. Not yours.
Not yours. Not yours.
The phrase looped like a training mantra she couldn’t get rid of, like the greasy black spot in the center of her vision, even as her mind worked to disprove it.
Evidence: she had failed.
Evidence: she had been weak.
Evidence: Vhonte had died for her.
Not yours.
The door slid open while she was at the sink, scrubbing again. Jango Fett wasn't as tall as she had expected, nor was he as broad as his Alphas—right now, he seemed even smaller.
He closed the door behind him. It locked with a beep. “Are you injured?” he asked, voice low and gravelly.
“No,” she said without turning around. In truth, she wasn't sure. Everything hurt. There was a deep, empty aching pit in her chest that kept her from drawing a full breath, and she didn't know if that was from the Alpha who had crushed her—Vhonte would die for me. Do you think I won't kill for them?—or something else.
“That's good.” Jango stepped further into her room and cleared his throat. He put something down beside her bed with a small rustle. “And your eyes?”
O pumped out more soap and rubbed her hands together instead of answering. The pipes gulped and gurgled. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want him here. She wanted to close her eyes and wake up in her pod. Get up at first bell and fight Uma for a spot at the mirror. Let Lagertha braid her hair. Trade Kaerom a protein booster for her uj’a juice. Go to her chemistry sims and lose herself in the lab for hours until Vhonte showed up with a pouch of shilian curry-flavored nutripaste and that special, gentle smile they only wore for her and—
She didn't realize she was crying until Jango turned the water off, and the ugly gulping noises that filled the room were coming from her own chest, not the pipes.
“This wasn't supposed to happen.” His buc’ye was off, strapped to his belt. His eyes were swollen and red. “This was—Vhonte never should have—”
A high-pitched ringing drowned him out. Then Jango was clutching his cheek, stunned, and there was a white-hot pain in her knuckles.
“You don’t get to say their name.” She didn’t recognize her own voice. She didn’t even feel the words leave her lips—only heard them, hanging sharp in the air. “You killed them. You killed them!”
She swung again, but this time Jango caught her fist before it landed.
“Stop,” he said, quiet, ragged. He held her wrist, not twisting, not hurting—just holding. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Let go!” She yanked, clawing at him with her other hand, but he caught that too. In the next breath his arms were around her, pulling her tight against the beskar breastplate.
She screamed—hoarse, broken. She tried to bite the hands clutching her wrists and only hit metal. She thrashed like a trapped animal, kicking, pounding, until her hand found the line taped into her own arm, and ripped it free. The IV tore loose with a sting and a bead of blood, the tubing whipping like a tail.
She turned on him with the needle still in her grip. The black smear in her vision swallowed his face, but with a guttural cry she lunged, jabbing for his throat.
Jango seized her wrist mid-swing. The sharp little point quivered an inch from his skin, so close she could feel the heat of his breath. His voice cracked. “Ad’ika, don’t. Please.”
Her strength drained out all at once. The needle slipped from her grasp and clattered to the tiles. She tore free of his hands and collapsed against the floor, curled in on herself—palms sticky with Vhonte's blood, her blood, Vhonte's blood, not yours not yours not yours not yours—
Jango hovered, but didn’t touch. He just knelt there, helmet off, while the only sound left was her crying—ugly, heaving sobs that filled the sterile white medbay.
Will you be here when I wake up?
I'm always here, even when you can't see me.
She cried until nothing came out but hiccups and gasps, until her vision went spotty and smeared even worse than it already was, until every muscle in her body burned and ached. The whole time Jango watched her, just kneeling there, unmoving and staring at her with her own eyes.
Never take your eyes off the biggest threat.
For a moment, she savored the thought that he might be afraid of her.
“I hope it’s a clone that kills you,” she rasped, every word scraping her throat raw. Jango flinched. “I hope—with e-every part of me—that it’s one of us. I can’t think of anything…” She dragged in a shuddering breath. “…anything you deserve more.”
Jango didn't answer. He just stared at her, stone-faced, then brought up his wristcom. “Send a medic into O-43’s room to reinsert an IV,” he said, then he pushed up with a hard grunt.
She kicked weakly at the one that looked stiffer. He dodged it with a sigh. “Once you’re stable, you’re going to be transferred off Kamino.”
The air in her lungs froze solid. “What?” she whispered.
“I promised them I’d keep you safe.” He paused. “I can’t do that if you stay a soldier. You’re being reassigned as a lab assistant. It’s a civilian position. You won’t see combat, and you’ll be well equipped to protect yourself against any threats that do manage to come your way. You'll be safe.”
“But… My sisters…” O couldn’t stop shaking.
“Nala Se will be by soon to brief you.” He keyed open the door. “I’ll hold onto their beskar until you’re of age. Then I’ll bring it to you. They would have wanted their daughter to have it.” Then he disappeared and left them alone on the floor, slack-jawed and trembling.
Ni kar’tayl gai sa’ad, Emuur’ika.
I know your name as my child.
The medbay swam. She pressed her forehead to the cold tile, blinking through the greasy black smear at the center of her vision, and finally, belatedly, she saw what he’d set down: Shun’ika, perched neatly on the edge of her bed.
The medic came and went. They taped the IV back into her arm, checked her pupils, murmured something about “stabilizing agents” —O didn’t remember what she said in return, if she said anything at all—then she was alone again, with only Shun’ika’s stained face to keep her company.
She'll remind you of us. So you gotta keep taking good care of her, right?
When the door opened again, it wasn’t Jango.
Nala Se waited in the threshold, tall and larval pale, hands folded nearly in front of her. “Come with me,” she said.
O pushed herself upright on shaky legs. The world tilted sideways; she clung to the infusion pole until the Kaminoan reached over and unhooked it. “You no longer require that.”
The side corridor they took was quiet and empty, lit only by the pale stripes of emergency panels. The rain drummed above them, a constant hush like shrouds being drawn. No CTs. No Cuy'val Dar.
“Where am I going?” O asked.
“You will accompany Doctor Hemlock to his research installation,” Nala Se said, not looking at her. “Your duties will involve preparation of chemical solutions, sample processing, and data transcription.”
Hemlock’s a freak who did some sort of nasty experiments that are so horrible that Sarge won’t tell us about them.
O clutched Shun’ika to her chest, suddenly afraid. “Why?” She hated how weak her voice sounded. “Is he going to experiment on me?”
Nala Se glanced down at her briefly. “No. You are to serve as his lab assistant. Jango Fett has made it clear that he is forbidden from performing any experiments on you.”
Somehow, that didn't reassure her. O swallowed. “Can I—” her voice cracked, and she tried again. “Can I say goodbye to my sisters?”
They had reached a pressure door. The light above it blinked green. Nala Se paused, the briefest hesitation in her long stride. “They have been informed that you perished during the escape attempt,” she said at last. “Along with Sergeant Tervho.”
The words hit harder than any fist. O stumbled, breath catching sharp in her chest. “They think I’m dead?”
“Yes.” Nala Se said. “It was decided that, as you will not return to Kamino for the foreseeable future, that the news would provide closure to the remaining Omega units. Please do not take it personally.”
It’s just for now. We’ll see each other again.
O shook with the effort not to cry and squeezed Shun’ika tight against her chest.
We’ll be laughing about this when you come back.
Vhonte was dead. Vhonte was dead, and O was never going to see her sisters again.
You are not your brothers. You are not meant to fight as a unit. You will be alone. You must learn to be your own advantage.
O wasn't ready to be alone. She needed her sisters, she needed Vhonte—but she didn't have a choice anymore. She had to be brave, for Vhonte.
Nala Se hit the door key. O flinched as the rain smacked her in the face like a cold hand. A transport sat on the landing pad, engines running.
“Goodbye, O-43.” Nala Se pushed her forward, one spindly hand between her shoulder blades. “I wish you well.”
The wind almost knocked her over as she stumbled out into the storm. She clutched Shun'ika protectively to her chest so she wasn't sucked away. The transport’s ramp yawned open, a sterile white beacon inside the storm.
Inside, the air was warmer, drier—there was a lingering smell of decontaminant, and O spotted an astromech in the pilot’s station. She blinked the rain from her lashes and turned around.
Doctor Hemlock sat strapped into a jumpseat along the bulkhead, one leg crossed over another. His jaw was cinched tight in synthtape, faintly green-blue from the bacta infusion painted on the inside. A purple bruise stained his cheekbone. His right hand was sealed up from fingertip to elbow in a gleaming medcast with the same green-blue sheen as the tape on his jaw.
But still, he smiled at her like he was genuinely happy to see her.
“Ah, O-43. I'm grateful to see you survived Sergeant Tervho’s mutiny.”
O’s arms tightened around Shun’ika until water began to stream from the catbunny’s toes. “It wasn't mutiny,” she said softly. She eyed him up and down, turning her head to the side so the blind spot didn't interfere. “They were trying to save me, that's all.”
Hemlock’s eyes tightened briefly. He patted the seat beside him. “Strap in. It's time to go.”
O obeyed, even though what she really wanted was to punch him in the larynx and finished what Vhonte had started.
“Here.” Hemlock handed her a small box. “I have something for you.”
O pulled a pair of glasses from the box. They were black, thick rimmed with no lenses. She held them up, frowning. “I… I don't believe my vision can be corrected with an external aide,” she said after a few moments.
Hemlock chuckled. “These aren't just any old glasses.” He pulled out another device; a half-circle of black metal with a holographic display. He slipped it over the back of her head before she could stop him, right over her wound site. “Go ahead and put them on.”
The ship lurched as it began its ascent. O put the frames on. After a few moments, and a measure of soft beeps that came from the device on the back of her head, a grid of red lines crossed across her vision—and the blind spot disappeared.
O gasped. “It's—”
“I told you,” Hemlock said smugly. “These are state of the art. Not even out on the market yet. Jango Fett retrieved them from the Techno Union—at no small cost, from what I've been told. I inserted a basic implant during your surgery that communicates with your occipital lobe. Your lenses communicate with the processor, here” —he gingerly touched the device on the back of her head— “which then feeds that information directly to your brain, bypassing the damage entirely.”
“Why?” O turned her head every which way—no matter how quickly she turned, the blind spot remained elusive. She removed the glasses and it immediately returned. “Why would Jango go all the way to the Techno Union for me?”
“We both agreed that you are too valuable of an asset to be written off because of a training accident.” Hemlock's smile thinned. “And I believe he harbored a certain… sentiment for your training sergeant. From what I understand, they grew up together. It's a shame that Sergeant Tervho didn't simply communicate with us on your treatment plan. You were never in any danger.”
O put the glasses back on, numb. It didn't feel like the truth—not the entire truth, at least. Vhonte isn't—wasn’t—impulsive. If there was no danger, they never would have even considered leaving.
“I'm glad you like them.” Hemlock extracted a datapad from his satchel beside him. “Now, O-43, given your new, permanent role, I think it's appropriate that you pick a name. Think of it as a fresh start. You're not a soldier anymore, or an espionage unit—you're going to be a scientist. You need a nice, strong name that reflects that.”
Ni kar’tayl gai sa’ad, Emuur'ika.
“I have a name already,” she said coldly.
“Yes, I heard your sisters referring to you as ‘O.’ But I think—”
“Emuur'ika,” she cut in, squeezing Shun’ika to her chest. “That's what my name is. Emuur'ika.”
Hemlock's smile faltered. “I'm sorry, say again? Your accent is—well, it's—”
“Emuur'ika,” she said again, stressing the syllables.
“I, ah… alright. Interesting name. But if that's what you want.”
She watched silently as he typed it out in Aurebesh, gingerly sounding it out: Emerie Karr.
She opened her mouth, prepared to correct him; then stopped.
If he knew Vhonte had given her that name, he wouldn't let her keep it. Not for a so-called ‘fresh start.’ She would hold it in her heart like a secret where nobody could take it from her.
I will teach you to become anyone. Anything. But you must have someone to come back to.
He could have Emerie Karr. She would come back to her real name. Every time he said it, she would hear Vhonte—her buir—whispering it in her ear the way it was meant to be said.
I know your name as my child.
“Here you are, Miss Karr.” He handed her the datapad with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. “Welcome to the Republic Science Division.”
She hugged Shun’ika to her chest and let her head rest against the seat with a small clunk. “Oya.”