Chapter Text
Training wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be. It sucked, don’t get it twisted, but it could have been worse. In all fairness, though, the only idea you had of what training could be was basic training, and then it was only something you saw on the holo-films you watched. What you did wasn't basic training, but
specific job training and prep work.
You already had experience with radio frequencies, and comm frequencies were not much different. Breezing through that part of training led to you being put up to learning another language so you could keep an ear out for chatter. Not having a choice in the matter, you got stuck learning Mando’a. While a month to learn a new language is not enough time to become fluent, you spent hours every day learning, becoming fairly well-versed. Only time will make you better. Your trainer said that you’ll be covering all known Mandalorian channels while you are on contract.
Learning a new language was fun; you always enjoyed learning, and at the end of the day, it could have been worse. The same could be said about the physical tests. It wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be. You passed some tests and failed others, and you had to take remedial courses to get you in shape to pass barely. It was less burpees and push-ups and more running and pull-ups. Command knew you wouldn’t be fighting, so they made sure you knew how to run away from danger and pull yourself up if needed.
That isn’t to say they didn’t teach you how to fight. You had to take a few classes on self-defense, with the expectation that fighting back was a last resort. It was the most fun you had in training. That was until you nearly lost a tooth when one of the other ladies swung too high and managed to hit you square in the jaw. It wasn’t a good time, feeling all your teeth move. But you got over it, even if sometimes you swear you still felt a tooth wiggle.
What surprised you was how close you grew with the others who joined you in the program. People from all over the galaxy were there to do the same job you were. There weren’t many of you, but you grew close together, sharing in the misery of learning new systems and languages so you could best do your job. Or cheering each other on during physical training and helping push each other to do your best. You understand now why, when people come out of basic training, they consider those they were with their family. You would do anything to make sure that they made it back home safe.
You teased each other, got on each other's nerves, and pushed each other as you’ve never been pushed before. As much as it sucked and as much as you’ve exerted yourself, it felt rewarding in a way you never knew it could. Coming back to barracks from PT had your body feeling like it was full of lead, but being with others who were going through the same thing made it feel less lonely and more like a team effort. And sleep had never come so easily until you were pushing your body to the brink every day.
While you were wrapped up in training, you never forgot why you were there. It kept you going even when you felt like giving up. Knowing that what you were going through was only a taste of what the clones had to do. You weren’t going to see combat, but they were. Trying to imagine having to do all this training from the moment you are born until you die makes you feel sick. It also makes you think about how deep their bonds with one another would be. You only trained with these women for a month, and you would die for them; you can't imagine what a lifetime of this would do.
After all is said and done, you feel ready to be shipped out, even if you just barely feel that way. You learned all you could and did all you could do. And you're proud of yourself for all of it.
You got your orders during the last week of training. You were being sent to the 501st to be the communications specialists for Torrent Company. They had a good track record, even if their methods were unorthodox. Your assignment is simple: keep communication operational while soldiers are deployed; get communication back up if it falls; keep an ear out on Mandalorian channels; and other duties as assigned. Easy peasy.
The last day of training was hard. You had to pass all your tests: the PTs, practical skills tests, fluency tests, and procedural knowledge exam. Needless to say, you passed, even if you scraped by on the PTs. You did it, and you could not be prouder of it. Excitement is in the air as everyone gets ready to go on their assignment. It’s bittersweet, saying goodbye to the people you’ve been through so much with. Even though you’ve only known them for a little while, it’s still hard to let them go. You promise to keep in touch, exchanging comm frequencies before you all leave to go to your respective shuttles to be transferred to your stations.
Smiling as you wait for takeoff, you can’t help but wonder what it’s going to be like with the 501st. Would they take you in as one of their own? Are they even going to like you? Would they even know you exist? All questions you won’t be able to answer until you are there and working with them.
The shuttle jerks, and this time you know what’s coming, so you don’t have to worry about flying forward and busting your face.
501st, here I come. You think as the planet grows smaller and the ship breaches the atmosphere. Sending you far far away from the planet you became a different person on.
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Actually working on the Resolute was not what you thought it was going to be like. The communications hub is full of chatter and life, as you and the clones work on maintaining communication lines. It's quite fun working with the clones. They banter with one another, pull little pranks on each other, and just laugh together. It’s so wonderful to see them so full of life.
Unfortunately, they never include you in any of it. You’ve tried to join in on all the fun and laugh along with them. But every time you try to join them, the conversation dies. The first time it happened, it didn’t hurt your feelings, but it did make you feel really awkward. Every time after that, it solidified the feeling that they didn’t want to talk to you. Or that they maybe don’t know how to talk to you.
“I was telling Watcher that he needs to get eye drops from the medics. I’m really worried about him.” Blip breaks the silence while there is a lull between campaigns. The troopers who fight on the front line currently have a break while they travel to their next battle.
“He’s just worried he’ll miss something. It's not his fault.” The clone across from Blip adds in.
“But it is his fault, Wave. He takes doubles when he should be resting his eyes.” Blip argues. He’s protective of his brothers. Always wanting to make sure that they take care of themselves. He’s a bit of a worry wort, but that’s what makes him such a good communication specialist. He doesn’t leave out details and is always on the lookout for oddities.
“You’re just overprotective of ‘em, vod.” Wave counters with a smile.
“He’s my batcher- of course I want to make sure he’s okay.” They start throwing balled-up pieces of paper at each other. Something they often do when bored. You asked why they did it once, and they said it was to keep them sharp.
You just watch as their conversation goes on about their brothers. It doesn’t help you feel like any less of an outsider. As the only non-clone and the only female on the communications deck, it certainly is a way for you to feel left out. But you smile to yourself despite the lack of fitting in. I’m glad they can have fun and that they have lives outside of work... Unlike me.
Your thoughts are cut short when a rogue paper ball hits your forehead in your mentally distracted state. The small station goes quiet. Wave is staring at you, wide-eyed, with his hand still in the air from where he threw the ball and clearly missed.
“I am so sor-.” You cut him off with a dismissive wave and a kind smile.
“It’s okay, I've had worse things hit me in the face.” You keep that smile on, not wanting him to feel guilty over what was clearly an accident. “The worst I’ve ever gotten was when my older sister threw a ceramic piggy bank at my face and made my nose bleed.”
Relief floods his face as you explain that it's no hard feelings. The air around the table shifts back to the same lax attitude as before. It feels like they just disarmed a bomb, with how they all sag with relief. It's unnerving that they would think you would be mad about what just happened. You’ve never displayed any hostility; sure, you’ve been awkward, but that’s fair given you’re the odd one out who’s trying to fit in.
“You’ve got siblings?” A clone at the end of the table pipes up. His name is Crash… maybe. It's hard to tell since they all follow regulations when it comes to their appearances. Same regulation haircut, no tattoos or piercings, and the same uniform. Not like you have much room to talk since you wear the same thing as them.
“Yeah,” a grin taking over your face at getting to talk about your siblings. “I’ve got an older sister, and we shared a room until she got married and moved out. And I’ve got a younger brother who just moved out to work in the capital city of my home planet.” You love your siblings and are so proud of them and all the hard work they’ve done to get where they are.
“Wow. Sounds like a lot- I’ve got just about 2 million.” A sardonic reply comes from a clone with a scar that bisects his eyebrow down to the corner of his eye on a slant, never actually passing through where his eye is. The only odd one out of your group because of this distinctive mark.
“Be nice to the natborn Karma.” Crash chastises his fellow clone. It’s not playful like you would expect between brothers, but a quick and harsh rebuke. Like he's saving him from getting in trouble.
“I don’t care, it was funny.” You laugh, trying to keep the calm little peace you’ve made. This was the first time they had actually talked to you, and you are not letting them ruin it for whatever reason they think they have.
“It’s not a lot, that’s true, but I’ve got lots of friends who are like siblings to me.” You smile at Karma, hoping that you can bridge the gap between the two of you.
“I’m sure you do.” It's dismissive at best, but not an outright rejection of talking with you.
“So you do anything for fun?” Wave asks. He’s trying to be cool about it, leaning back in his chair, feigning casualness. But you can see the way his shoulder stays tense as he talks to you. You’ll have to ask them why they are so on edge around you.
“I don’t do much now that I’m here. Mostly practicing my languages by reading books. But back home I worked at my local radio station; I even had my own little show.” Pride takes over as you talk about the radio. You had to fight tooth and nail to get airtime, taking all the bad slots so you could build up to the decent ones right before you left to join the war effort.
“You ran a radio?” Blip asks in awe. “What was that like?”
“I didn’t run the whole station-I helped make sure we could still broadcast.” You smile at Blip. It's refreshing to see them have wonder in their eyes, and not just the dead look you’ve associated with them. Which you really can't blame them for, since you all look at a screen all day, and you feel yourself becoming a husk of who you are outside of work.
“I most enjoyed being a host during the night. I gotta yap about what I wanted and play whatever music I wanted. It was great,” You continue.
“Sounds like fun.” Karma rolls his eyes. Someone isn’t very happy, and you can’t blame him.
“Don’t be an ass.” Crash smacks the back of Karma’s head. “She’s being nice; you can at least do the same.”
“Thank you, Crash.” You send a sincere smile his way.
That seems to throw him for a loop. Stammering, he replies, “J-just doing my job, ma’am.”
“I’m no CO, no need to ma’am me.” You roll your eyes at him. “I’m just a civilian working; just treat me normally.”
“This is normal.” Wave chuckles. You give him a look. Because while you were brought up with manners, the way the clones treat you is on a different level of politeness.
“You like this with every woman or just me?” It's mostly a joke, but you can't help the genuine question from slipping in there. Are they so awkward around you because you’re a woman, or because you're not a clone?
“It’s part of our training.” Blip adds in when Wave doesn’t reply. And quite frankly, Wave looks sick at the question. You’ll have to bring that up at some point later.
“Don’t mind him, he’s not used to women.” Karma deadpans, looking utterly unamused. “And his growth jar was cracked-made him special.” His lips quirk at the end, cueing you in that he’s hopefully teasing Wave, and not just being mean to that poor sweet clone.
“Hey-“ Wave is cut off by your laughter. It’s not a cute giggle, but more of a chortle and a honk. You're taken aback by how the clones that were so stoic with you for the past week are now showing their personalities. It’s so nice, but it catches you off guard enough to have a real laugh and not one of your polite ones.
They stare at you in shock. Not at the laughter, well, partly. But mostly because this is also their first time seeing your personality. Before this, you were stiff when talking to them, mostly because of the nerves. How can you not be nervous talking to a group of men who all have the same face, just staring at you? But seeing you be real changes something in them.
“It’s not that funny.” Wave laments when he sees that your laughter is not letting up.
“Sorry-sorry.” You fan your face with both hands to help cool it off from all the laughter. “That just reminded me of how my brother talks to me. He said I rode the short shuttle to school, like we both didn’t ride the same shuttle.”
They stare at you and your red face, then Blip grins like tooka who got the cream.
“Did you?” Blip asks with a Cheshire grin.
“Clearly I did to end up with you lot.” You smile back just as mischievously.
That got Karma to smile, Wave to almost fall out of his chair laughing, and Crash to hide a snort behind his hand.
“So you have some fight in you? Good, you’ll need it here.” Blip smiles, reaching over and patting you on the shoulder. The gesture could be considered casual, but you knew it was him, them, accepting you.
“You haven’t seen half the fight.” You return with a bright grin.
Relief washes over you at that. You were worried you would be in a weird in-between with the other non-clone personnel and clones. Not fitting in with either because you’re not a fighter, not military, and on the larger side. You know you’re different; looking at the sculpted clones every day makes you realize just how different you look. Even the non-combat clones are still made up of lean muscles waiting to pounce. Making you self-conscious, probably another reason why you were so awkward around them. Worried that they would judge you for how you look.
“So how did you end up here? You don’t seem the military type.” Crash asks, having calmed down sooner than the others. “No offence.”
That innocent question had you freezing. You can’t tell them that the majority of people thought they were just property of the government and expendable. They likely already knew that, or felt that way. That you knew that wasn’t right, and the thought of so many people thinking that made you sick to your stomach, so you joined to see if you could do something, anything. But that was a little heavy for your first real conversation. After a beat, you settle on.
“It didn’t seem fair that you all had to do this by yourselves. While I can’t fight on the front lines, or fight much at all really, I knew I could do this. Helping maintain comms, picking up chatter that might have good intel. It’s something I could do to help. So, I took my happy behind to the recruitment center and put my name down as a civilian employee. I just wanted to help.”
That seems to give them pause. Which you interpret as a negative reaction. So you keep going, unable to stop yourself from rambling.
“I-I mean, I know you are trained to do this from, like, birth, and I’m not saying you guys are incapable of doing this on your own. You’re all more skilled at this than me. But it didn’t seem fair to me that you had to do this when it’s my galaxy too, and I should also be helping-“
“Calm down, Radio.” Karma cuts you off once he sees that you’ll just keep spiraling. He hates it when people panic and just keep talking. It’s annoying.
“Radio?” You ask, raising an eyebrow in question. Pausing the nickname.
“Since you worked at the radio, Radio’s a good nickname.” He adds unabashedly, like he didn’t just rename you. “Besides, your name didn’t fit in with the rest of us.”
Did he just-he claimed me as one of them? Even giving me a nickname. Your heart warms at the gesture from the prickly clone.
“It's sweet that you wanted to help.” Wave adds from next to Karma. “You’re doing a lot more than most civilians we’ve met.”
“Which isn’t many.” Crash chimes in from right of him.
“You wanted to help, even if you didn’t know what you were signing up for, to help us. And I can speak for all the vode. It means a lot that you are willing to fight with us.” Wave continues. Bringing out an intensity you’ve never seen before in him. Normally he’s pretty quiet and a little awkward. But seeing his conviction leaves you speechless.
“What he said.” Blip adds, a wide smile creeping up his face.
“Wow. You guys really know how to make a lady feel special.” Blushing at all their attention and at your confession about why you’re here.
“I don’t see any ladies here.” Karam cuts in to be an ass.
“Ow, my womanly pride.” You clutch at your shoulder like you’ve been shot by a blaster bolt.
“Keep it up, and we’ll send you to the medbay.” He threatens playfully. Well, as playful as Karama can be. Which is just a twitch of the lips that lets you know he doesn’t really mean it.
You shudder at the thought of being seen by a medic. You knew seeing a doctor sucked, but seeing a medic was the worst. You remember that in training you only had to see the medic once, outside of your physical. Because you had lost your footing during a run, twisted your ankle, and scraped your leg up. You thought it would be nice and easy seeing the medic, much like seeing the school nurse. You could not have been further from the truth.
“Don’t even joke about that.” You throw the discarded paper ball that hit you earlier and started this whole conversation at Karma’s head. Not hard, but not soft either.
You miss completely. Throwing it late, so it ends up bouncing off his chest and back onto the shared table.
“Ha! Even Rad’ika is scared of the medics.” Karma laughs.
“Hey! I’m older than you. If anything, you're Kar’ika,” You throw back at Karma. Enjoying the look of shock on his face at being corrected.
“How do you know Mando’a?” Wave asks, eyes bright.
“Yeah.” You wring your fingers under the desk, a nervous tick of yours. “They had me learn Mando’a, so I can tap into the Mandalorian channels.”
“That’s so cool! We only know a little bit from our ori’vode and trainer who taught us some.”
“It’s something.” You laugh.
You were going to say more, but an alarm goes off at your station. It can only mean one thing. It’s time for midmeal. The clones and you clear your stations before you all head off to the mess halls.
It's different this time. Now that you all are talking to one another, the once dead and awkward walk is full of life and laughter. It was nice to walk with them after a week of either walking ahead of them or behind them so they didn’t feel like you were intruding. The mess comes quicker now that you aren’t walking in agonizing silence. The group splits as the brothers go to the clone mess hall that is a little further down. You tell them you’ll meet them back up at our station before you head into the civilian mess hall that was in between the officers' mess and the clones' mess hall.
It is by far the smallest, since there aren’t many civilian personnel on the Resolute. This meant that when you walk in, all of the tables are empty since meals are staggered to make sure that there is always someone on duty. Grabbing your sorry excuse for a meal, you sit by yourself at a table on the side of the room. It’s some kind of stew with bread, a hydropack, and a cup of chocolate pudding.
Putting the pudding aside since you don’t care much for chocolate pudding, you dig into the stew. It’s not bad, but not good either. It’s certainly better than some of the other “food” you’ve had to eat since becoming a civilian worker in the military. Stew days were the best since you never really knew what was in it, and it all just kind of…tasted.
You finish quickly since you have no one to distract you in conversation. Looking around, you see it’s only you in the mess; even the mouse droids don’t want to be in here. Not an unusual sight during midmeal. With a sigh, you pocket the pudding so you can see if anyone else wants it, get up, clear your tray by the trash, send your dishes to the back to be cleaned, and bid farewell to the cafeteria workers before heading back to your station early. It wouldn’t be too bad to get back early to try and get some work done.
As you make your way down the hall, your personal comm chimes on your wrist. You look down to see it's your mother asking you to call her later tonight. Smiling, you set out to type your reply that you can call in a few hours after your shift ends. So engrossed in getting back to Mom, you miss the rapid footsteps coming around the corner where you’re stopped, before you feel someone run into you.
As you grew up playing sports with your siblings and friends, you knew how to take a hit and not be the one ending up on the ground. Lower your center of gravity, and you’re good to go. It also helped that you were bigger than those you played with, so you were used to them bouncing off and falling when they tried to knock you down. But alas, you stood there, woefully unprepared, with your weight shifted to your back foot. So when this person ran into you, you were caught completely off guard and fell on your ass.
“Are you okay?” A concerned voice asks from beside you. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Only my pride is bruised.” You joke to distract yourself from the embarrassment of falling and having to pick yourself up off the ground as a bigger person.
“That’s good to hear.” You look up to see the prettiest brown eyes you have ever seen. But also the most fucked up haircut. Who gets lightning bolts shaved all down their head? You can’t help but stare as your brain processes that the stranger who just knocked you on your rear end is a clone. A really pretty one at that.
“You sure you’re okay? You look a little…” He gestures around his face with his hand when he sees you just staring, not saying anything.
“Yes-sorry, I’m just-sorry.” You apologize, feeling more awkward than you have since you’ve joined the 501st.
“It’s okay.” He smiles, and Maker does his smile warms your heart. You want to keep that smile on his face; it makes him look less tired and less about ready to collapse. “I’m Kix, by the way.”
He holds his hand out to help you get up. You take it and introduce yourself as well.
“Sorry I bumped into you. I was in a rush to get to the mess before they end midmeal.” Kix apologizes. He looks so guilty about it, which is sweet of him.
“It's no harm done.” You assure him with a smile. “Besides, I’ve had worse.”
He nods, doing a quick once-over, his eyes lingering as they check you over. He moves past you after a beat of hesitation so he can get something to eat from the mess hall before they start preparing for latemeal. It’s then that you see the medic symbol on his shoulder as he passes by.
“Wait, Kix.” You call out before he can get too far.
Turning, he replies, “Yeah?” He sounds worried.
“You want some pudding?” You ask, holding up the cup that somehow survived this whole ordeal. “It’s still kinda cold.”
“Sure.” He shrugs, holding out his hand ready to catch it.
You toss it to him gently, knowing you don’t have the greatest aim. Yet, somehow, it managed to connect perfectly with his waiting hand.
“Nice throw.” He smiles and thanks you before he speed-walks away to his mess hall.
You feel lighter walking back to your station. Both from making friends with your co-workers and from talking to someone new. It helped that Kix was pretty and that he seemed like he wanted to stay and talk with you. It was still embarrassing that he had accidentally knocked you to the ground, but life was too short to take anything so seriously. Especially yourself.
You were just about to get back to work when you realized you never got back to your Mom about calling her later.