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CT-0292 couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes, rounds of blue plasma bolts flashed through the darkness behind his lids. Hands, his own hands, held a DC-15 carbine aloft, and one single finger under his control pressed on the trigger, mowing down the Umbarans in their disguises.
But they hadn't been Umbarans. They'd been his brothers.
A strangled sound escaped him, somewhere between a gasp and a sob that he caught in his throat. His chest ached with the effort to hold it, the urge to release it. And it ached as if his brothers had occupied a place there, the loss of them leaving the muscles of his heart to constrict around empty space.
He blinked away sharp tears, then pushed off the weighted blanket – its presence more suffocating than soothing – and climbed out of his rack. He gathered up the armour stacked in a neat pile from the foot of the bunk's frame and applied it, piece by piece, from foot to neck.
If he couldn't sleep, he might as well be useful. He'd never been very good at keeping still.
Around him, his brothers lay in their cots; some slept, restless, while others remained painfully conscious. From his own squad, only himself, Wil (Private), and Ridge (Private) remained. The others, along with their sergeant, had fallen to General Krell's lightsaber.
All was quiet. And Ridge was nowhere to be seen.
0292 shook his head, lightheaded, the back of his neck prickling. After checking his blaster was fastened to his belt, he tucked his helmet under one arm and crept through the rows of bunks like a ghost, leaving the sterile barracks behind.
For a moment, he stopped outside the blast doors as they sshhed to a close behind him, and took a deep breath. Had he caught the scent of rain and salt water in the air, it might have grounded him; but this planet was as unfamiliar to his nose as it was to his eyes and ears. With the tang of metal in his nostrils and on the tip of his tongue, he set off across the floodlit compound.
Beyond the sensor wall, he spotted the warm glow of a natural fire flickering in the perpetual dusk, its light peeking through the mist and the dense formation of local flora. He frowned. Patrol taking a break, perhaps?
CT-0292 made his way to the airbase's entrance. As he approached the gate, he passed skeletons of Umbaran machinery looming out of the fog, and squads of troopers pacing as silent as wraiths.
The planet was reclaimed, but no one had come out of the campaign unscathed.
At the gate, two troopers bearing the colours of the 212th stood guard, blasters held across their bodies, and faced the darkness beyond. With the sight of their armour came a fresh wave of guilt, at once hot and cold, that settled in the pit of his stomach. He cleared his throat upon approach; one started as if he'd been shot, and the other patted him on the shoulder.
"Easy, trooper," said 0292, holding out a placating hand. "Just passing through, lending a hand to patrol. That them over there?"
They followed the direction of his pointer finger, to the small fire burning gold in the gloom. The one coiled as tightly as he himself nodded, and turned back to him. "They're taking it in turns to sweep the perimeter."
"Thanks." He inclined his head, and stepped over the threshold of the airbase.
As his footsteps tapped a muffled rhythm into the damp earth, the chill air cooled the sheen of sweat on his forehead, and pressed cold fingers to the nape of his neck. With a shiver, he donned his helmet and activated its spot-lamp, before succumbing to Umbara's gloaming.
*
CT-0292 walked through the forest of Zabrak Spines, their bioluminescent ridges reaching towards the sky and cutting through the umbra like angry wounds. The glow of giant red thorns shrouded the woodland in an unsettling pallor.
Every small noise was amplified in the stillness around him: the snapping of twigs beneath the feet of tiny creatures, the whooshing of spectral wings overhead, and what seemed like footsteps somewhere behind him, approaching – but when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there. Each sound sent a spike of cortisol through his body, and he tried not to hyperventilate to the beat of his pulse.
The immediate threat from the Umbarans had been neutralised. But he and his brothers had found out the hard way that this shadowy world kept its secrets close.
You're out of the woods when you're out of the woods, his instructor back on Kamino used to say. It had seemed redundant to him then.
"What's that you're humming, trooper?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin. He looked back and came face-to-face – or helmet-to-helmet – with Captain Rex materialising out of the fog, easy to identify by the jaig eyes and the modified armour.
The captain removed his bucket, brow furrowed in concern, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Relax. I didn't mean to startle you," he said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "It sounded familiar, the song you were humming."
"I didn't realise I was humming it aloud," the trooper admitted, face heating as Captain Rex fell into step beside him. "I was thinking of my instructor, back at the facility: she smuggled her own radio into Tipoca, and she'd play it for us during downtime. That one was her favourite, I think. I don't know the words, though. Just the tune."
"Ah."
They walked for a way in companionable silence, each lost to their own thoughts. Confronted once more with the familiar face of his brothers, CT-0292 replayed the moment of terrible realisation, and the skirmish with Krell. The Jedi – if one could even call him that – might have been dealt with on a permanent basis, but his reach would extend far beyond his death.
"Couldn't sleep, either?" asked the captain, dragging him out of his own memories.
He shook his head.
Rex sighed. "It's a brutal world out there."
CT-0292 couldn't be sure if he was referring to Umbara, or the entire galaxy.
"I admit," he began, "I wasn't expecting to kill other people. I've been training to take down and disable battle droids for nearly ten years, and I thought I was ready, but this …"
It didn't even begin to cover the atrocity of slaughtering his own, knowingly or not.
They heard the voices of their brothers before they saw them, hushed and sombre. Upon stepping out of the forest, they found themselves in a small clearing, lit from above by towering plants, incandescent with pink and purple and blue light, and lit from within by a humble campfire. At least ten troopers were gathered around it, talking in lowered voices amongst themselves.
Rex came to a halt on the edge of the clearing, and stopped 0292 with a hand on his arm.
"If it's of any comfort," he said, "every one of us here is feeling the same right now. No campaign is easy, no life lost is worth less. But this mission has taken its toll more than any other. You say you're not ready, but I recognise the blue bird painted on your bucket. I saw you take charge of your squad when Sergeant Jax was killed, and you kept the rest of them alive. There might well be a promotion coming your way."
A promotion. He'd always harboured the hope of making his way up the ranks, proving his worth and ability along the way. Seeing the captain in action, the way he was respected and admired, had only solidified that desire. But he hadn't entered the GAR as a sergeant, or a captain. It had never really occurred to him before now that someone would have to die for him to take their place.
But he nodded, and said, "Thank you, Captain."
"What's your name, trooper?"
"CT-zero-two-ni—"
"Your name, trooper," Rex clarified. The smile on his lips belied the sadness in his eyes.
CT-0292 removed his helmet. "It's Vaughn, sir. My batchmates called me Vaughn."
"Then welcome to the five-oh-first, Private Vaughn. Over there are your brothers. It won't always be easy, but whatever happens, we look out for each other. And I know you barely got to see General Skywalker in action, but I can promise you that he – and Commander Tano – are nothing like Krell. You'll see."
"Thank you, sir."
Captain Rex clapped him on the arm, then strode off across the clearing, towards the campfire. Vaughn followed, kicking up the smell of damp earth and decaying foliage, sickly sweet in his nostrils. He was pleased to see Ridge among the ranks of troopers around the flames, and another he recognised as Sterling.
"Room for two more, boys?"