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It’s with a heavy heart that Anakin walks up to the Rishi survivors his captain had quite obviously adopted. It should only take five minutes to confirm their admission to the 501st even if he does have to do a couple things in secret.
It’s not fair or right, how often his men lose their closest brothers.
Anakin thinks that he might have see one of them looking at him, but when he had turned his head in their direction, neither were.
And, well, seeing as they’re his men, now, he did have to introduce himself.
He always does.
He walks up just in time to hear the tail end of a conversation.
“Forget it, vod,” one of them says. “Like you said, it’s not even—”
“Troopers,” Anakin says, moving into the conversation. The one who’d been talking jumps far more to turn around and salute him. Ugh.
Has Anakin thought about how much he hates the Kaminoans, recently?
Probably not enough. Nothing he can do for his men save offer them a path to freedom, which few of them take, can be done.
And it’s not enough.
Anakin just raises his hand.
“At ease, men,” he says. The men hesitate, but they do so. Anakin smiles.
“Good,” he says. “Now that the ceremony is out of the way, I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Anakin Skywalker, and it seems that I’m your General now.”
And, with a quick check of where all the civie workers are.
“I want to let you know now, though, that I’m not like most,” he says quietly. “And, if you have a problem, even if the problem is with me or my actions, feel free to tell me, or Rex if you’re not comfortable. You’re people, not tools, and I want you to know you can act like it.”
One of them replies with a “yes, sir,” but the other just sort of… stares and nods.
Anakin makes a not to keep an eye on him because Rishi must have affected him far more, but, externally, he just smiles.
“What are you’re Names?” he asks. “Not your numbers, unless that’s all you have, for now.”
The odd-acting one opens his mouth.
“Uuuuh…”
The other one steps forwards, a bit.
“My name is Echo, General Skywalker,” he says. “This is Fives.”
Anakin nods.
“Nice to meet you both,” he says. “Thank you for your time… and welcome to the 501st.”
Fives stares at the Jedi’s retreating back. His new General’s retreating back.
Wow.
Dear Force. He’d known that the human was pretty, but caring, too?
Echo just smirks at him.
“Like I said; There’s nothing in the reg manuals about dating a Jetii,” he says. “Just a rule that makes no sense, and, you know, he’s a Jetii .”
Fives just glares.
“Not going to happen,” he says.
“But you want it too,” Echo says. “Never seen you flustered like that before. Not from what limited things we’ve seen.”
Fives waves his arm.
“Exactly,” he says. “Limited. I’m sure there are people as gorgeous or caring as him out in the Galaxy.”
“You’ve known him for five minutes,” Echo reminds him, which, true, but…
God. It feels like he’s lived through years in less than 24 hours. He’s a bit off.
Domino has always been a bit of a mess, but they were finally troopers , even if they were just on a Moon. And they’d all had so many different reasons to want to do more, to go farther.
Hevy had wanted to go further to fight. Cutup had wanted to go to feel like he was doing something important. Droidbait just wanted to see the Galaxy…
Dear god. They’re…
“They’re really dead,” Fives finds himself saying. Echo moves closer until they stand shoulder to shoulder. It was the closest they could get, when cameras had followed them everywhere on Kamino.
Probably here, too, judging by the look in General Skywalker’s gorgeous blue eyes and the quiet tone of his voice as he offered them any help he could give.
“We knew it could happen, vod,” he says. “That’s how it works.”
Fives nods, sighing and gaining control of himself again.
“I know,” he says. “Now, where’s the mess? I’m starving.”
Echo just shakes his head.
“We were taught the layout of a Star Destroyer, you know,” he says. Fives shrugs.
“Kind of forget when we were sent nowhere instead.”
Echo sighs.
“They’re this way,” he says. “…I think.”
Fives laughs.