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Chapter Text

Dogma’s entire life changed on Umbara.

Honestly, his whole life changed the day he pushed Tup out of that airlock into the cold vacuum of space to save him while the rest of their platoon exploded with their transport. But if he counted that as a pivotal moment in his life, he had several others just like that one. It was as if every choice he ever made curved the trajectory of his life in tiny increments, spiraling down into the darkness and fog of Umbara. And Umbara was where his life truly changed.

His wrists itched. He’d been wearing restraining cuffs for days. Even when he was unceremoniously stuffed into a sonic shower, still wearing his blacks, guarded by two clone troopers, he wore the cuffs. He wasn’t planning to escape. Where would he go? But he knew his guards wouldn’t believe him if he said so out loud. No one was going to believe the things he had to say anymore, and he had better get used to it.

Captain Rex had assured him that he would be okay. He made it sound like he was going to try and get Dogma out of trouble. That he was going to keep Dogma from being punished. But Rex didn’t protest when Commander Cody ordered those troopers to put him back in the cuffs. He hadn’t even been there when Dogma gave his testimony to the commander and General Kenobi. Dogma saw the captain as he was being escorted away from the airbase onto the larty. Rex and Fives were talking, dark expressions on both of their faces. Dogma had caught the captain's eye, hoping he would tell the others that this was a mistake and that he shouldn’t be punished. But he had only nodded solemnly and let Dogma pass by without complaint.

And so, Dogma was pushed back into another cell. This time a GAR cell in a venator’s brig. And the restraining cuffs were still clamped around his wrists.

Dogma tried to blame Fives, while he was alone in his cell (presumably on his way back to Kamino to be executed and his DNA recycled), but the more he thought about the ARC trooper, the less blame he could pin on him.

He wanted to hate Fives. He was everything Dogma wasn’t: boisterous, offensive, lackadaisical about rules, and purposefully insubordinate. It angered Dogma that Fives could be all these things and still be Captain Rex’s favorite, his protégé, his vod'ika. His and Tup’s sergeant, Vince, had said that Captain Rex had another vod'ika, a perfect foil to Fives, a quiet and subordinate and reg-following type, but he had marched on before Tup and Dogma joined. Dogma wished, maybe a little cruelly, that it had been Fives who had marched on instead.

The ship lurched as they exited hyperspace. Dogma sat up, patiently waiting for someone to come and get him from his cell. When they opened the door, he followed their orders obediently. He had no reason to try and run or fight.

It was Fives who had spoken first and loudest against General Krell on Umbara. He barely gave the General any time to prove how effective his tactics were, so convinced as he was that the General did not have their best interests in mind. They were fighting a war, not debating politics. Soldiers would die. It was their duty to obey command, who had a better understanding of the larger objective, even if they couldn’t see it. Even if they had to sacrifice themselves to do it.

But Krell turned out to be a Sith. Dogma had listened as Krell told Captain Rex that he wanted them to die. He had forced them all to turn their blasters on each other. He had convinced Dogma to lead an execution squad against Fives and Lieutenant Jesse with the promise of power and command of his own. And Dogma was all too eager to take it, sure that he was doing the right thing.

So, Dogma couldn’t blame Fives.

He could only blame himself.

Two troopers escorted Dogma from the brig to the hangar. He didn’t know what unit this was. The troopers in the corridors and the hangar wore blue-green paint, and watched him curiously as he passed by. He looked down at his wrists, wishing he could scratch his itchy skin. He tried to rotate his wrists in the cuffs to get a little friction and relief, but the metal dug painfully into his wrist bones instead.

He stood in the center of the larty, hanging onto the hand grips with both hands, and rested his forehead on his bicep as they left the venator. His blacks stunk like ten-day-old sweat and unwashed ass, but he hadn’t been allowed another pair. What good would it do anyway? He was going to die soon.

As he settled into the swaying of the transport, he thought about his only friend in the galaxy: Tup. If he even could consider Tup a friend anymore. Dogma had been so mean to him at the Umbaran airbase. He was stressed and angry, and he’d said some horrible things about Tup’s relationship with Fives. And then he tried to force Tup to kill Fives, without even thinking about how that would affect Tup, or how his actions would affect their friendship. Tup had always been there for him. For as long as they had known each other Tup had been kind and patient with him. Dogma should have been more grateful to have such a good friend.

He at least hoped Tup was alright. He had seen his friend from across the airfield on Umbara as he was being escorted to the larty. Tup watched him, disappointment and sadness and anger etched on his exhausted face. Dogma wished they could have talked. But he wouldn’t have known what to say.

The larty shook as they entered the atmosphere. Dogma took a deep breath. It felt a little like a drop into battle. His heart was racing and his palms were sweating and his mouth felt dry and there was an almost 100% chance that he would die. He knew this would be the last time he felt the exhilaration of dropping on a planet. He thought it was fitting the last time would be to the place where he grew up. That his life’s spiral would take him back to the place that had made and shaped him.

He listened to his heart beating, loud in his ears. How amazing it was that he was created to function in this way. A series of muscles pumping life through his body. Exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. Proteins exchanging ions through the walls of his cells. The very code of his DNA designed to make his body efficient and strong. He hadn’t even fully grown yet. Hadn’t fully appreciated all the amazing things his body could do. He was still gaining new muscles, still earning new stretch marks, still learning new things, still breathing and bleeding and dreaming and growing. And soon it would all end.

He closed his eyes as the larty landed and resigned himself to the end.

Maybe in death he would see his batchmates, the ones he had lost to the sea monsters all those long years ago.

“Wait here while I get the commander,” one of Dogma’s escorts said. Dogma stood up straight, lowered his arms, and kept his eyes closed as he breathed. The air didn’t smell the same here as he remembered. He’d been on several planets, and they’d all smelled different. It had been over six months since he’d been on Kamino, but he would never forget the smell of the place he grew up. The smell of sea salt and glass cleaner and body sweat and burnt fuel. This smelled nothing like Kamino.

He opened his eyes and looked out the door of the larty into a massive hangar. There were shuttles and gunships and starfighters of every model, and milling around the ships were vode in several colors of paint. He could hear engines and the familiar laughter and voices of brothers. It felt like Kamino, but only in the way that the mess hall or the freshers on the Venators felt like Kamino. Familiar because of the similarity of the people and equipment and noise and procedure, but not the place itself, necessarily.

“Where are we?” Dogma asked. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

“Coruscant,” one of his guards replied.

Coruscant? “N—not Kamino?” Dogma asked.

Both guards looked at him, their faces unreadable under their buckets. Dogma felt exposed without his armor.

“No. Not Kamino.”

Dogma chewed on his tongue. If he was being sent to Coruscant, maybe he wouldn’t be executed. Maybe they meant to put him on trial or make him give his testimony to the Jedi Council. Maybe they would put him in prison, where he would be at the mercy of the Republic’s worst criminals and enemies. He deserved to be locked up with criminals and enemies. He was a murderer, after all.

Nerves shot through him as he recognized the blue-green paint of one of his guards walking across the hangar with a commander in red. Dogma had only heard of the Coruscant Guard from stories the others told. They acted as a defensive force against attacks, as well as police for the trillions of beings who lived on the city-planet. They were ruthless and mean, even to other vode, and they wore intricate blood-red paint on their armor.

The commander had a red helmet with a gray visor, kama with red embroidery, and his paint was, indeed, intricate with the stylized Coruscant Guard seal on his spaulders and white lines on his helmet filters and red rerebraces. The only other vod he’d seen with such intricate paint was Fives, who delicately painted some kind of creature on his bucket and diagonal lines on his greaves and kama. That already gave Dogma a sour taste in his mouth about the commander. If he was anything like Fives, Dogma didn’t want to know him. Not to mention the fact that he was probably going to escort Dogma to his death. But he couldn’t blame the commander for that. He could only blame himself.

“Time to go, kid,” one of his escorts said, nudging him in the shoulder. His voice was without heat and even sounded a little sad. This was it, then. The commander was going to take him to his execution. And that would be the end of Dogma. He hesitated, fear clutching at his gut. But the escort tapped his spine between his shoulder blades with the end of his blaster, and he clenched his jaw and stepped out into the hangar.

The commander paused to look at his face, his own face hidden behind his bucket. The paint around the filters was scuffed. His visor had a chip about three centimeters from the right corner. There was a hairline crack in the transparisteel of his left eye. Dogma wondered if that affected the visual on his HUD. A crack like that would bother him.

But he didn’t get much time to study the commander's bucket before the commander’s hand wrapped around Dogma’s upper arm and steered him away from the larty. The moment they stepped away, the blue-green unit’s larty lifted up and out of the hangar, taking Dogma's last chance of freedom with them.

The commander marched him across the hangar and sat him down on the back of a speeder bike. They left the hangar, which turned out to be just one single hangar bay in an enormous building made up of several identical hangar bays. Dogma gaped at the size. They passed close to another building, the permacrete walls reaching so high into the sky Dogma was afraid he would fall off the speeder bike if he tried to look at the top. Beyond, in the distance, he could see a massive stone statue of a trooper in phase I armor holding a blaster. He didn’t get a very good look before it was eclipsed by the permacrete.

All around him, he could see only sky-scraping buildings. He couldn’t see a horizon, or trees, or mountains or valleys or rivers. The tops of some of the buildings cut into the soft clouds hanging in the sky like dark knives. Others shined brightly, reflecting the sunlight. Dogma couldn’t help but gape at the city's skyline surrounding him. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. And even more impressive was the number of clones on the base, some running in formation wearing PT uniforms, others riding in larties, and some marching from building to building, talking and laughing. It had the same organized chaos as Kamino. He found he sort of liked the feeling of it all.

Dogma had never been to the surface of Coruscant, nor the GAR base. The last time he had been to Coruscant, he and Tup were transported from one venator to another, never leaving orbit to visit the surface. He never even got to look out a viewport to see the planet; they’d been delayed in their arrival and had a tight transfer window before being sent off again to battle.

The commander pulled the speeder bike into an open bay in a permacrete building at the edge of the GAR base, into an open spot among other speeder bikes, transports, and a larty, all painted the same blood red as the commander’s armor. The hangar was large enough to fit at least four times as many vehicles, but Dogma supposed they were being used.

The commander dismounted the speeder bike and Dogma followed him obediently, his heart pounding and his hands sweating and his wrists kriffing itchy. They marched across the hangar, turned right into a dim corridor, and then left through a locked door into a dark room. Dogma paused at the threshold, trying to let his eyes adjust. The commander shoved him into the room and shut the door behind them, plunging them into darkness.

It smelled stale. Like mildew and the remnants of smoke and unwashed blacks. But maybe the unwashed blacks were his own.

The commander lit a yellow lamp and the room was illuminated. It was little more than a closet, with an old durasteel desk crammed against one wall and shelves full of scuffed armor on the others. Dogma looked around curiously. There didn’t seem to be a reason for keeping any of the armor. It was scuffed and chipped and broken. All of it had carbon scoring. He saw one cuirass with several blaster holes in the chest plate. Who would keep armor in this state?

And why was he here?

He heard a click and the soft whisper of a flame, and he turned to see the commander using a little device to light something papery on fire as he held it between his lips. His hair was a regulation cut, and he had deep scars on his cheeks and nose. The papery cylinder gave off a harsh smell as it caught fire, and then the commander exhaled smoke. Dogma watched with wide eyes.

“Cigarette?” The commander asked, offering him a box of the papery cylinders. Dogma only stared. “I’m Commander Fox,” he said gruffly before bringing the “cigarette” to his lips. The tip lit red, and Dogma realized the commander was breathing in the smoke that it was emitting. It smelled terrible. It had to taste terrible, too. Commander Fox turned on a datapad—the screen was spider-webbed with cracks—and thumbed through the screens. “I was supposed to get a sergeant from the 501^st. Was gonna promote him to Lieutenant.”

Dogma could only stare as Commander Fox continued to inhale through the cigarette and exhale the smoke, making the room hazy and smelly, and wonder why Fox was telling him this. He tried hard not to cough.

“But Cod’ika said my new Lieutenant died,” Fox continued, “and you, a… corporal?”

Dogma nodded, unsure what to say. Fox looked him up and down, and Dogma curled into himself, feeling exposed. He knew he was small in stature; he was too young to be off Kamino, really. And without his armor, his youth was blatantly obvious.

“You need the good graces of the Guard for your… unique position.”

Dogma swallowed. “What position is that, sir?”

Fox took a deep breath through the cigarette, burning it almost all the way to his fingers as he appraised Dogma. His eyes were dark in the dim light, and the scars on his face looked deep and terrifying in the shadows.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Fox said bluntly, the smoke curling out of his mouth and nose as he talked. “They sentenced you to execution before your trial was even heard. For...” Fox whistled lowly as he read the datapad, “killing a Jedi? Not an offense taken lightly.”

Dogma looked down at his hands and frowned. He had to kill Krell. He wasn’t a Jedi anymore. He had manipulated them. Violated Dogma’s mind with his Sith powers. Forced them all to kill themselves and each other.

“Want to defend yourself?” Commander Fox asked. “Or should I let them execute you?”

“I had to protect my brothers,” Dogma said. “He betrayed us. Captain Rex couldn’t do it. So I did it for him.” He screwed up his face at the jumbled way the words came out. He heard the simmer of the cigarette as Commander Fox breathed through it again.

“So, you think you’re justified, killing the Jedi?” Fox asked, raising one eyebrow.

“That demagolka was no Jedi,” Dogma growled. “He wanted to hand Umbara to the Separatists and kill as many clones as he could. For fun. He ordered us to kill each other. He wanted the Republic to fall. He was going to hand Umbara to the Separatists. He had to die. I had to kill him. To save the Republic. To save—to save our brothers.”

Dogma had almost said “to save Tup,” but stopped himself. Commander Fox wouldn’t care about his friend specifically. He only wanted to know if Dogma was worth keeping alive. In what conditions Dogma had stooped so low as to defy the original order of their existence: protect the Republic, protect the Jedi.

“I never disobey orders, sir. I’m a good soldier. But following that monster’s orders cost us a lot of better soldiers—better men—than me.” Dogma choked on the admission. They had lost too many good men to Krell’s orders. “I saw my chance to make things right, and I took it. For my brothers. And for the Republic.”

Commander Fox continued to stare at Dogma, his harsh face unreadable and terrifying in the low light. He snuffed out the smoldering end of his cigarette onto the desk after an agonizingly long silence. Dogma watched and waited. He’d said all he wanted to say. All he needed to say. He hoped it was enough to spare his life, but if not, he hoped it was enough to at least spare his dignity.

“What’s your name, trooper?” Commander Fox asked, pulling another cigarette out of the box. He placed the end in his lips and lit it like the last one. He didn’t offer one to Dogma again.

“Dogma, sir.”

“Not anymore.”

Dogma blinked through the cloud of smoke that Commander Fox exhaled.

“S—sir?”

“Your name is now Sergeant Vince,” Commander Fox explained. Dogma gaped at him. Vince had been his sergeant in the 501^st. Dogma had no idea he'd applied for a transfer to the Coruscant Guard. Fox rummaged in a pocket on his belt as he talked and puffed on the cigarette. “If anyone asks, you have no idea who Dogma is, you have no idea what he’s done. Do you understand?”

“No, sir.”

Fox stood up and his kama partially blocked the light coming from the lamp on the desk, throwing dark shadows over his face. Dogma suddenly felt very small and vulnerable. He wished they’d let him keep his armor.

“I’m giving you a second chance here, trooper,” the commander said gruffly. “Officially, you are—” he checked the datapad again and frowned, “—CT-158-4046, and your name is Vince.”

Dogma blinked at Commander Fox. He was getting a second chance?

“Do you understand, trooper?” Commander Fox asked again. This time Dogma stood up straight, as close to attention as he could muster with his wrists bound by the restraints.

“Yes, sir.”

Fox stepped forward and released the cuffs using the key he had pulled out of his pocket. When the binders were gone, Dogma scratched at his wrists. They were red and irritated, and his dry skin flaked away as he scratched at it. He’d never felt such pleasant relief in all his eight and a half years.

He wasn't going to die. His decision to disobey orders in favor of loyalty to his brothers was not going to be his end. He was getting a second chance. A second chance to redeem himself. A second chance to right the wrongs he’d committed on Umbara. A second chance to become someone better. A second chance at life.

Chapter Text

Dogma’s new armor smelled terrible. But honestly, he didn’t smell like a field of flowers, either. The armor reeked of ozone and stale smoke and mildew and the sweat and blood of whichever vod had worn it last. He needed to clean it. But after he cleaned himself.

“You won’t be a real sergeant, of course,” Commander Fox had said as Dogma kitted up in that cramped closet. “And you’ll have to keep your bucket on outside of the Guard offices and barracks. Your tattoo is too recognizable. And if you had any paint that others would recognize, you'll have to change it. You can wear sergeant’s stripes, but don’t get a big head about it.”

Dogma tried to stand away from the members of his new squad so they wouldn’t smell him as Fox introduced him to them all. There were six others, and Fox said they were all “second-chance troopers,” like him. Two sat at a small table in the middle of the square bunkroom, reading through datapads. One of them had the medic crest on his spaulder. Another stood in the door to the refresher in only his lower blacks, looking Dogma over with exhausted eyes. Two more sat in a bunk playing cards, and the sixth lay down in his bunk, not bothering to even look at his commander, which Dogma thought was incredibly insubordinate and ungrateful.

Fox left Dogma alone with them after introducing him to them as Sergeant Vince, but with a sarcastic sort of emphasis on the name. The vod in the doorway gave a half smile and crossed his arms.

“I’m Coil, the squad leader,” said one of the vode at the table. He had a regulation haircut and a series of lines tattooed vertically above his left eyebrow. “But my name from before was Grey. You’ll call me Coil when we’re outside this room. I’m officially a corporal, but I used to be a Lieutenant. And I expect you to treat me with the same respect as a Lieutenant. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Dogma said automatically. He understood the chain of command, even if he was a little confused about the names.

“This is Gluco—” the medic, “Feedback—” the long-haired vod standing in the doorway to the refresher, “Happy and Drayl—” the two vode playing cards, “and Jag, in the bunk.”

Dogma nodded at all of them in greeting. Feedback smiled at him and Happy gave him a lazy salute, but Gluco and Drayl both looked Dogma over with scrutinizing gazes, and Jag didn’t look up at all.

“Now, the commander called you Vince, but that’s probably not what you were called before, right?”

“No, sir.”

“We’ll all call you Vince, here and on the beat—when we’re on duty—until you’re used to it, understand?” Coil said.

“Y—yes, sir.” He scratched at his wrists, which still itched even though the cuffs had been removed for almost half an hour. The motion did not go unnoticed by the medic sitting next to Coil, and he frowned at Dogma.

He felt more than uncomfortable taking Vince’s name. Vince had been a good sergeant, a good soldier, and supposedly a good friend. He was kind to Dogma and Tup when they joined. He’d said Dogma had leadership potential. No one had ever believed in Dogma the way Vince had, except maybe Tup. Taking his name felt a little like stealing his skin and wearing it around as his own, pretending to be a greater man than he was. But he needed this second chance. And that meant becoming Vince, if in name and number only.

“I bet you want to clean up and have some time to yourself?” Coil asked. Dogma hoped this question wasn’t prompted because of the way he smelled, and instead was just a general offering of kindness. He nodded, and Coil showed him where he could get clean blacks and an armor maintenance kit and which bunk was his.

“Listen,” Coil said quietly as he showed Dogma the controls on the shower (water showers allowed for ten minutes a week, and unlimited sonics every day), “we’re a close squad. And we all want you to feel close and comfortable with us, too. But we understand it might take some time to sort out all the shit that happened before you came here. You don’t ever have to tell us your old name if you don’t want. This is your chance to start new. No one will ask why you're here, and you shouldn’t ask anyone, either. Warm up to us when you’re ready and set your own boundaries until then. We’ll respect them. Okay?”

Dogma nodded, and Coil gave him a small smile before returning to the bunk room. Dogma pulled off his armor and stepped into the shower, suddenly glad to be alone. He felt disgusting. Coil was being too kind to him. Clearly, he didn’t know what Dogma had done. He didn’t know the kind of treason Dogma had committed. He didn’t want any of them to know. He just wanted to be a new person. He didn’t want to be Vince, necessarily, but someone like Vince. Kind and brave and loyal. But he had a lot of growing to do, figuratively and literally.

He sat halfway in the shower stall to clean his armor after rinsing it with the water from his shower. He was grateful that he was dressed in fresh blacks, and his skin was clean, and he no longer smelled like he'd sprinted through a sewage trough. But his armor stank and was covered in carbon scoring and dust and dried blood. It was therapeutic to clean the armor. He liked to clean. And it gave him an excuse to sit alone and listen to his new squad through the door of the refresher without them knowing he was listening. There was some light teasing, but they were generally a friendly group. Any little annoyances and arguments were quickly quashed by Coil, who had a distinct vocal fry that was easy to recognize.

Eventually, Dogma’s new armor was clean enough to pass an inspection, and he sat looking at the pieces and wondering how he would paint them. He could see his original paint in his mind’s eye: the yirt shape on his chest plate and bucket that matched his tattoo, the red triangle at the base of the fin for his lost batchmates, the perfect lines on each piece that connected his limbs in a line. Orderly. Precise. Obedient.

But he shouldn’t be that person anymore. He couldn’t call himself those things. He would have to be shiny for a while again. If he was going to become a new person, he needed to figure out who that new person was.

He traced the shape of the tattoo on his face with his fingers, the last reminder of The Incident that had shaped him. The tattoo was where General Ti had touched his face, after, and the warmth of the Force had swirled on his skin and calmed him. He’d made so many mistakes since then. If he was going to be someone new, he needed to scrub himself clean of all his past wrongs.

“Lights out in three minutes,” Coil said from the doorway to the refresher, speaking to the squad spread between both the refresher and the bunkroom. “Vince’s first shift tomorrow. Better be rested.”

Dogma was confused for a moment before remembering that he was now Vince. And in the morning, he would begin his life in the Guard as Vince. He lay in his bed and stared up at the bottom of the bunk above him. He had no idea what to expect from this life in the GAR. This morning he had been sure he was going to die, and now he had a new name, a new squad, and a new chance at life. He wasn’t sure he deserved any of those things.

He wished Tup was here. On nights like this, when Dogma's mind turned over and over in circles and kept him from settling long enough to rest, Tup was willing to curl up with him and hold him until he fell asleep. He realized that he would never again fall asleep next to his best friend. He would have to learn how to sleep on his own, even when his mind was swirling uncontrollably.

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his chest. Everything was different now. Sure, he was getting a second chance, and no one had been cruel or unkind to him yet, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if they found out who he was, and what he did, they wouldn’t be so kind and accepting any more. He'd struggled to fit in with other vode in the past. Tup was his only friend for a long time. He thought maybe he could have made friends in Leth squad, but Umbara took away that chance.

He tried, briefly, to blame Fives again for his plight. But he knew in his heart he couldn’t. It was his choice to kill Krell. He chose loyalty to his brothers over the consequences of his actions. He had only himself to blame.

As he turned over in the bunk, he heard the quiet sounds of crying coming from the other side of the room, and took a small comfort in the thought that at least he wasn’t the only one suffering.

- - -

“We do all the jobs no one else wants to do,” Happy explained as they rode in a speeder through the lanes of traffic. The long curls on the top of his head flopped over his forehead and ears in the wind. Behind him, the early morning sky glowed with soft pastels that reflected off the tall transparisteel buildings around them. “Since we’re Commander Fox's personal squad, and we're not technically supposed to be alive and all.”

“Other squads have patrols, sectors that they stick to,” Drayl elaborated. He kept his hair buzzed short, like Dogma, but he wore his helmet like they were supposed to as they flew over the city. “We’re on call all the time.”

Happy and Drayl were close friends. Happy was one of those vode who didn’t know how to shut up, but Drayl knew how to keep him from saying the wrong things at the wrong times. Happy reminded Dogma a lot of Fives. Rambunctious, loud, and a little disobedient. He had this smirk that he would flash before doing something against the rules. Drayl would just roll his eyes, and only step in if Happy’s rule-breaking might affect others, too. Dogma wondered if Rex's other vod’ika had been like Drayl: calm and sarcastic with just enough patience to put up with nonsense, but not quite enough to go along with it.

“Do we have a Jedi General?” Dogma asked. He hadn’t heard any of them talk about one, but if they did, he would need to be careful how much that Jedi knew about who he was and what he did. But, to his relief, Happy and Drayl both shook their heads.

“No Jedi,” Drayl said tersely. Then added under his breath, “Thank the Stars.” Dogma raised his eyebrows and looked at Happy, who snorted and smirked.

“None of us are particularly fond of Jedi,” Happy explained. “Especially Drayl.” Dogma was about to ask why, but remembered what Coil had said about not asking the other members about their pasts. He wondered silently why Drayl, or any of them, might not be fond of Jedi, but his thoughts were interrupted by the gunship pilot, who announced that they had arrived at their destination.

“C’mon, men,” Commander Fox called out to them before rappelling out of the gunship onto the platform below where there was a firefight between a Guard squad and a group of thugs working for the Hutts.

Feedback, who was the kindest to Dogma, patted him on the shoulder. He reminded Dogma of Tup a little. Kind and smart and funny. And as much as Dogma was glad to be treated kindly, the familiarity made his chest too tight. Feedback jumped out of the gunship with a mock salute, and Dogma peeked over the edge to survey the fight below.

This was it. Time for Dogma to prove himself. He was a good soldier. An efficient warrior. He could fight. He could follow orders. He followed Feedback over the edge, holding onto the rope Commander Fox had used, and started firing at the thugs before he even hit the ground. The thugs had personal ray shields and had barricaded themselves behind construction barriers. He managed to shoot one in the shoulder while he was still high enough to aim around their shields, but that only made him vulnerable to an attack as the thugs turned their blasters on him.

He dropped into the Guard barricade and kept shooting at the thugs. They had crates of stolen cargo in a ship behind them. The fight was mostly a distraction while Coil took Gluco, their medic and Coil’s second-in-command, and Jag, who could pilot, around behind the thugs to disable or destroy their ship so they could retake the cargo and arrest the thugs.

One of the other Guardsmen fell next to him, shot in the chest by the thugs’ blaster bolt. Fox growled through his vocoder. Dogma kept firing. Just a distraction. Just survive and distract.

“Vince and Feedback, go to the right and take down that one Vince shot,” Commander Fox said into their comm. Dogma looked around for Sergeant Vince, but Feedback patted him on the shoulder and reminded him that he was Vince now. He and Feedback crouched behind a barricade to the right of the main fight and looked out at the thugs. The one Dogma shot earlier was holding his left arm gingerly, but he noticed Dogma and Feedback peeking around the corner and aimed his blaster at them. The moment Dogma stepped around the barricade, blaster bolts whizzed past his helmet. Feedback pulled him back so forcefully Dogma landed flat on his ass.

“It's no good, Vince,” Feedback said, shaking his head.

“But the Commander said—"

“He'd rather you stay alive, vod,” Feedback said before touching his comm. “Commander, we can’t go to the right. He's injured but we're pinned down over here.”

“Can you make any shots?” Commander Fox asked. Dogma peeked around the corner, blaster first, but two bolts landed on the barricade centimeters from the barrel. He shook his head at Feedback, who responded in kind to the commander.

“What about a smoke bomb?” Feedback asked.

“They'll retreat into their ship,” Fox said.

“That won’t matter, Commander,” Coil's voice said over the comm. “We have control of the ship.”

Sure enough, Dogma heard the whirr of the engines starting, and before the thugs realized their ship was being commandeered, Jag had flown it away from the platform and Fox ordered their squads to move forward and arrest the thugs. The whole ordeal took less than ten minutes, and only two members of the responding squad were injured.

But they didn’t have time to celebrate. They had to jump back into the larty and respond to a fire in the lower levels. Fox scrubbed a hand over his face before pulling on his helmet again. Dogma recognized the exhaustion in his eyes.

It continued in that way for the entirety of their shift, and then some. They managed to sneak a twenty-minute break for ration bars and a short snooze while flying across the planet, but for the most part, it was nonstop responses to all the chaos the planet had to offer. More than once Dogma was held back from following orders because a situation was too dangerous. He didn’t understand. Why would an officer give him an order if he wasn't supposed to carry it out? Feedback kept telling him it was better to stay alive, but Dogma knew sometimes sacrifice was necessary. And besides, he was supposed to be dead.

“It’s not worth your life, vod,” Feedback said, leaning against the back wall of the refresher while Dogma took an irritated sonic shower, scrubbing at his skin furiously with his hands. He had hoped the sonicator would shake away the buzzing in his head telling him over and over that good soldiers follow orders, followed by Krell's insidious laughter.

“But—”

“No ‘but,’” Feedback said, cutting him off. “I know how it is out on the front. I was there. But we’re not on the front. Here, we aren’t expendable. There’s only one you, Vince.”

“That’s not my name,” Dogma grumbled, then sighed in frustration as he remembered it was his name now. “I mean, I keep forgetting that’s my name. And—and I keep getting confused.”

He stepped out of the sonic shower and pulled on his blacks. Feedback’s hair, which was long enough to hang in his eyes, was sweaty and matted from being in his helmet all day. It reminded Dogma of when Tup was still growing his hair out and it was too short to pull back into a tie, and too long not to become a disaster after training all day.

“It’ll take time to learn your new name,” Feedback said kindly. “But you’ll never learn it if you’re dead. And out here you’ve got to learn to think for yourself just as much as you need to follow orders if you want to stay alive.”

Dogma stared at Feedback, who patted him on the shoulder before occupying the sonic shower he had just vacated. Feedback reminded him too much of Tup. Even the speeches and lessons he tried to teach Dogma felt straight out of Tup’s mouth.

Dogma sat down on his bunk and tried not to listen to Gluco attempting to convince Jag to eat something. Anything. But Jag rolled over in his bunk and ignored the medic. Dogma climbed under his blanket, feeling very sore and tired, and wondered how long it would take him to get used to Vince’s name. And if he would ever learn the lesson Tup was trying to teach him. There’s a difference between loyalty and blind obedience, Tup had said. And Dogma had heard him. He’d pulled that blaster out of Fives’ holster and shot Krell in the back for loyalty to his brothers. For loyalty.

He could still hear Krell’s laughter in his head. He wanted it to stop but it grew in strength and with it, the horrible memories Krell had forced him to relive when he infiltrated Dogma’s mind in that cell on Umbara. He raised the blaster and fired without hesitation. Somewhere in the distance, Tup screamed. Krell’s body continued to laugh. Dogma tried to claw his way out of that prison, but his fingers slipped on the walls and he was stung by the ray shielding and Krell’s laughter continued to echo as the exit to the brig extended further and further above him and he couldn’t reach the top why couldn’t he just reach the top?

“Vince! Vince!”

Dogma’s limbs flailed, caught in something that had wrapped itself around him. Hands grabbed his arms and he tried to wrench himself free, but the strong grasp pushed him into his bunk, and when he opened his eyes, fear coursing through every vein in his body, he saw Gluco's concerned face looming over him in the dim emergency lights. He felt like he had just sprinted fifty klicks in full kit. His whole body was sweaty, and his chest heaved as he panted.

“You’re having a nightmare,” Gluco said calmly. “It’s only a nightmare.”

Dogma’s chest was too tight as the adrenaline crashed and fear and guilt washed over him. Everyone (except Jag, who was turned away with his blanket over his head) was staring at him from their bunk, concerned frowns on their faces. Gluco rubbed his upper arm soothingly.

“What do you usually do during a nightmare?” he asked Dogma softly. One by one the other squad members turned away to go back to sleep.

“Um, I, um,” Dogma’s breath hitched and he scratched at his wrists and Gluco led him through a counting exercise to take control of his breathing again. Gluco took his left hand in his and examined the skin of his wrist where he was scratching, his brow furrowed. Dogma thought about Gluco's question as he calmed down. He used to curl up with Tup. His friend would put his arms around Dogma's chest and Dogma would breathe in his familiar scent and fall asleep with no memory of the nightmare at all. But Tup wasn’t here, and he didn’t want anyone else to touch him.

“Do you want to go for a walk? Or take a sonic shower? Or maybe drink some water?” Gluco's voice was deep and smooth and soothing.

Dogma sniffled and wrapped his arms around his chest. He shook his head. He had to learn how to live without Tup. He had to learn how to be on his own. Gluco looked him over with a medic’s scrutiny.

“You tell me if you need anything, okay?” he said softly. Too softly. Dogma nodded and sort of wished he would just be left alone. Gluco gave him a worried smile before returning to his own bunk.

Dogma curled up with his arms wrapped tightly around his chest and listened to the soft sounds of his new squadmates falling back asleep. He didn’t think he'd be able to sleep again that night. He didn’t want to close his eyes and see those memories or hear that laugh. It felt like an eternity before everyone else had stopped shifting in their bunks and their breathing slowed as they fell asleep.

Across the room, someone cried quietly.

- - -

They sat in the Guard office (more a collection of badly repaired tables and chairs than an office) and filled out reports on cracked and half-broken (but still technically functional) datapads. They did this together, as often as possible, with Commander Fox. They were still on call, so Dogma kept his bucket at his feet while he worked, in case they needed to jump up at a moment’s notice. Their reports were different than he'd written as an infantry officer, and Feedback usually sat next to him to help him fill them out and proofread them. Dogma caught on quickly though, and now, two weeks after he joined the Guard, he was feeling like he had been part of the squad for a long time.

Happy and Drayl sat at a separate table so they could whisper and draw obscene images on their datapads and giggle without bothering anyone. Dogma sat between Feedback and Coil, frustrated that the leth key on his datapad had a crack across it, making typing a chore.

Commander Fox sat down heavily across from Feedback. His chair creaked under the weight of his armor. He pulled off his helmet and scrubbed his scarred face. He had that look that he always had after a meeting with the Chancellor, with dark, exhausted eyes and a deep crease between his brows.

No one said hello. No one saluted. No one did anything to acknowledge the commander’s presence, really. He had told them to treat him like he was part of their squad. As if he was the squad leader. On the beat it was strict protocol; he was to be treated as a commander, no more, no less. In the offices and the barracks, he was just Fox. Just another clone, resting his feet after another weary day. It made Dogma's skin itch a little as he reminded himself not to straighten to attention.

Fox put his feet up on the empty chair at the head of the table between him and Feedback with a little groan and pulled a box of cigarettes out of the ammo pouch on his chest with shaking fingers. Dogma watched as he lit one and took a deep inhale and smoky exhale, his eyes closed and his body loosening with every second.

“Those will kill you, you know,” Feedback teased. Fox opened one eye to look at him before taking another drag on the cigarette and blowing out the smoke into Feedback's face. The smoke smelled terrible and itched the back of Dogma's sinuses. Feedback made a face and swatted away the smoke.

“I'm trying to see what will kill me first,” Fox grumbled. “These, or this karking job.”

Feedback and the others laughed, but Dogma frowned. Why would the commander want to do something that hurt him? Especially something that smelled so bad?

“It's a joke, Vince,” Feedback said, nudging Dogma with his elbow.

“Yeah, I'll die naturally long before these catch up to me,” Fox said.

“But why smoke them at all?” Dogma asked. He could hear the argumentative tone of his voice, which he was trying not to let slip through anymore. He was beginning to notice people around him didn’t respond well to it.

“They’re relaxing,” Fox sighed, a billow of smoke unfurling from his lips as he spoke.

“So, they’re drugs,” Dogma said, crossing his arms. He could hear his voice growing more agitated, straying into unfriendly.

Fox shrugged. “Technically.”

Dogma felt himself bristle, even though a new part of his brain was shouting for him to stow it, to take a deep breath, to think a little before arguing with the kriffing Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard.

But he couldn’t help himself. Later, he would regret opening his mouth. But in that moment his gut reaction was to complain.

“But drugs are against regulation!” he said. “You're putting yourself and all of us at risk by altering your mind. And while we're on duty, too!”

Fox took a deep breath of the cigarette and fixed Dogma with a scrutinizing stare. Dogma crumpled in on himself. Oh no. He’d fucked up. He'd ruined his chance. Fox had helped him out of the kindness of his heart and given him a second chance, and here was Dogma, ungratefully arguing with him about something that he enjoyed.

“It's not that kind of drug, vod,” Gluco said calmly. “It's like caf, but instead of keeping you awake, it takes the edge off.”

Dogma looked between Gluco and Fox. He couldn’t argue with the medic. But he still didn’t like it. Fox blew another breath full of smoke at Dogma and smirked as he coughed and tried to wave it out of his face.

“See? Harmless,” Fox sneered.

“I didn’t say that,” Gluco scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“You want to try?” Fox asked, holding out his lit cigarette at Dogma.

“Absolutely not,” Dogma snapped. He sat straighter in his chair and tried to return his attention to his datapad. Fox chuckled and Feedback patted Dogma on the shoulder.

Movement caught Dogma's eye from his right, and he looked up to see Jag, thin and pale and eternally unhappy, slump further into his seat on the other side of Gluco, as if he were disappointed Dogma didn’t try the cigarette.

- - -

Feedback had a nightmare almost two months into Dogma's time with the second-chance squad. Not a normal nightmare; those were unremarkable enough to only ever be noticed by whoever was still lying awake in the middle of the night. This nightmare was one that had him crying out in the dark, thrashing in his bunk, unable to wake himself as the terror of his memories was twisted into something worse by the imaginations of his mind. Normally Gluco was the first one awake and quickly at the bedside of whoever needed him, offering whatever they needed. But Gluco was in the medbay with Coil, who was recovering from injuries he sustained when an unlucky blaster bolt caused his speeder bike to explode.

So, Dogma got up to help instead. He was physically closest (his bunk was beneath Feedback’s) and he supposed they were emotionally closest, too. Dogma felt sort of attached to Feedback, even though he reminded Dogma too much of Tup, and it bothered him to no end that Feedback couldn’t decide how he wanted his hair to look, constantly cutting parts and letting other parts grow out before cutting them again. Now, he only had hair on the top of his head, cut regulation-length. But the sides were shaved off, revealing little star tattoos on his scalp. From far away they looked like flecks of dirt. But up-close Dogma could see patterns and constellations mapped on his skin. It made him wonder what Feedback's former life was like. Who Feedback was before he came to the Coruscant Guard.

Dogma shook Feedback's shoulder to try and wake him up. He whispered his name. He tried squeezing his shoulder or the back of his sweaty neck.

“Feedback,” he said firmly, shaking his shoulder with more intensity. “You're dreaming, Feedback. Wake up.”

Feedback opened his eyes, gasping, saw Dogma leaning over him, and pulled him down into his chest in a bone-crushing embrace.

Panic shocked through Dogma’s body like an electric current. Only Tup had touched Dogma like this since The Incident, and for a very good reason. He had no idea what Feedback would do. He could do anything to Dogma in this moment. His arms were wrapped tightly around Dogma’s chest and arms and Dogma couldn’t break free without potentially hurting his new friend. He would hurt Feedback if he had to, though.

The longer Feedback held him, however, panic still surging through Dogma’s body, the more he felt Feedback relax. His breathing against the top of Dogma’s head slowed and his arms relaxed enough that Dogma didn’t feel like he was trapped.

“I'm sorry, vod'ika,” Feedback sobbed into Dogma's scalp. “I'm sorry.”

He realized that this was probably what Feedback needed after a nightmare. For someone to hold him and ground him while his mind raged. He understood the feeling. That was what he did with Tup after a nightmare. Tup’s warm and familiar body was enough to calm his mind and pull him out of his nightmare. Dogma put his arms around Feedback's waist and leaned into his embrace cautiously. He rubbed at Feedback’s back as he cried into Dogma's hair, and eventually Feedback's breathing evened out as he fell asleep.

Dogma thought about going back to his own bunk. He had gotten better at falling asleep alone, no matter how badly he missed falling asleep next to a friend. Tup was gone, and he didn’t want to be seen as just another poor vod'ika in need of pity by his new squad.

But Feedback had pulled him in. He wanted Dogma there for comfort. And Dogma liked the warm and safe feeling of Feedback next to him in the bunk, even if he didn’t quite feel or smell like Tup had. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to stay. If Feedback was upset about it in the morning, Dogma could apologize and never do it again. But for now, the warmth and the safety and the comfort were too soothing to leave, and Dogma let sleep take him, the best sleep he'd had since Umbara.

He almost didn’t hear the quiet crying from across the room.

Chapter Text

“Look.”

Feedback and Dogma both whipped their attention toward where Jag was pointing. It was rare Jag said anything at all, and while they were currently on patrol, filling in for a squad that had been hurt badly in the Jedi Temple bombing, his directive was alarming.

Dogma followed his gaze across the traffic lane to see clone troopers in familiar blue paint walking among the civilians.

“Isn’t that your old unit?” Jag asked.

Dogma recognized Lieutenant Jesse immediately. And, of course, walking with him was CMO Kix. Jesse gesticulated wildly as he talked, and Kix nodded occasionally, his arms folded over his chest. Dogma’s heart squeezed too tight. He didn’t realize how much he missed his old unit until they were there, just out of reach. Dogma scratched at his wrists and wished he could talk to them, even if it was just to see if Tup was alright.

His question was answered as two more troopers rounded the corner behind Jesse and Kix, shouting and causing civilians to jump out of their way. The unmistakable striped greaves and kama of Fives barreled through the crowd of pedestrians and riding on his back, his bun flopping dangerously to the side, was Tup. Dogma stopped breathing altogether.

Tup looked… fine. Better than fine, he looked great. He was smiling and laughing. He had all his limbs, both legs being held by Fives' arms and one of Tup's arms slung across Fives' chest while the other pointed them in the direction he wanted to go. Fives was grinning too; that shit-eating grin he wore when doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Yeah,” Dogma breathed. “That's them.”

They watched as Fives and Tup caught up with Jesse and Kix, almost bowling them over and laughing raucously.

“Do you know them?” Feedback asked softly.

Dogma sighed. He did know them, at one time. But would he still know them? Would they still recognize him? He was approaching nine years old, and his body was finally catching up with the other adult clones. He’d grown almost five centimeters since he left the 501^st, and finally filled in his armor the way he was supposed to. He had new stretch marks spanning his chest and his hips. The tattoo on his face was a little distorted, too, looking more like a leth than a yirt as he lost some of his tubie fat and replaced it with the strong features that he shared with his brothers. Maybe soon he’d be able to grow a full beard. Not that he would. But just knowing that he could made him irrationally excited.

And he felt different, too. The little things didn’t bother him as much. He found he was able to laugh or at least roll his eyes at Happy when he did ridiculous things for attention or simply because he could. He'd started to learn how to think for himself on the battlefield, recognize when an order would put himself or someone else in danger, and come up with a different plan on the fly. He was able to recognize the difference between disobedience and saving his skin, and because of it, he felt stronger, smarter, more capable. He could tell his squad was grateful for his ability to adapt. They were able to work as a cohesive team, rather than a handful of individuals struggling to stay alive.

“Yeah, I knew them,” Dogma replied. He turned away from Tup, who was laughing loudly with Fives and Jesse as Kix loudly threatened to ‘kick all their asses,’ and it felt a lot like turning away from his old life.

- - -

Feedback didn’t mention Dogma’s old unit again until they were back in their barracks, filling out reports while sitting on Dogma's bunk, which was a habit they had gotten into when they weren’t in the Guard offices. Dogma liked having Feedback close by. He was a calm presence against Dogma's otherwise tumultuous mind. Their patrol had been relatively uneventful. They had only been shot at a couple of times, and the arrests they’d made were routine. No one was hurt, and that was what mattered.

The rest of their squad hadn't returned yet from their patrols, so it was just Dogma, Feedback, and Jag in their bunk room. Jag was laying down on his own bunk while he filled out reports, ignoring them as usual.

“Was it nice seeing vode you knew today?” Feedback asked. Dogma looked up at him from his datapad. Feedback continued to type into his. “Or was it painful?”

Tup heard Jag shift in his bunk. He knew their quietest squadmate was listening. He was always listening.

“I was glad to see that they're alive,” Dogma shrugged.

“How did you know them?”

“The one with long hair was my batchmate,” Dogma said. “And the one with the Republic crest tattoo was my lieutenant.”

Feedback nodded and continued to stare at his datapad as he said, “Your batchmate looked happy.” There was a hint of something sad in his voice. Dogma scratched at his wrist and sighed.

“Yeah, that ARC trooper, Fives, makes him really happy,” Dogma chuckled. Feedback looked up at him at that, and they exchanged a knowing smirk before both returning to their datapads.

“I would love to see friends from my old unit,” Feedback said. He put down his datapad and wrapped his arms around his legs. “But I don’t think they would love to see me.”

“Why not?”

Feedback bit his lip as he looked at Dogma, and Dogma realized he’d just asked the question everyone in this squad danced around carefully. He started to apologize, to tell Feedback he didn’t need to answer, but Feedback held up his hand.

“It's okay,” he said softly. There was a slight tremor in his sad voice. “I… I feel comfortable enough to tell you. I feel like we're… we're friends, right?”

Dogma smiled. “Yeah, we're friends,” he answered truthfully. And, oh, how good it felt to recognize that he and Feedback were, indeed, friends. Feedback chuckled and fidgeted with the hem of his blacks before continuing.

“I, uhm, well, we were on a mission, trying to find Ventress… you know, Dooku's assassin? Well… she must have found me, and…”

Feedback paused. His breath hitched and Dogma saw the glimmer of tears forming in his eyes. He wanted to tell Feedback it was okay not to finish the story if he didn’t want to relive the pain. But he was also incredibly curious. Feedback wrapped his arms tighter around his legs and took a deep, shuddering breath before he pushed on.

“…And she tricked me with the Force or something. I don’t remember what happened, but the next thing I knew, I'd…” he took another deep breath as fat tears rolled down his cheeks, “… I'd attacked half our platoon. I… I shot my lieutenant, two of my squadmates, my best friend…”

Feedback wiped away the tears and sniffed. Dogma wasn't sure what to do or say. He could see the pain on his friend's face, but he wasn't sure if Feedback would want to be comforted while telling his story.

“When I came out of my… my blackout, I'd just thrown a grenade. I don’t remember any of it, but none of them believed me. If my Captain hadn't contacted Fox… I think my platoon—or what was left of them—would have executed me themselves.”

Dogma looked at where he was absently scratching his wrist as Feedback took several deep breaths and wiped his face. He could understand a little of what Feedback had gone through. He’d felt confusion and terror as Captain Rex revealed the enemies they had been fighting and killing in the Umbaran jungle were really brothers from the 212^th. But he couldn’t imagine if those brothers had been his own platoon. And he had no idea how it would feel to wake up from a blackout to find they were dead by his own hand. Dogma had turned his blaster on Tup out of desperation, but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to kill his best friend. And even if he had, it would have been his choice. His own actions to live or die with. What happened to Feedback wasn’t his fault. Everything Dogma had done had been by his own willpower.

Feedback ran a hand over his scalp as he took deep breaths to calm down. Dogma wasn’t sure what to do. Sometimes Feedback would touch him on the shoulder to comfort him, especially when reminding him that the rest of the squad's teasing was just good-natured fun. There was also the night Feedback pulled Dogma into his arms during a nightmare, and fell asleep once they were curled up together. In the morning, Feedback hadn’t been surprised to find Dogma still in his bunk and had even thanked him for helping calm him down. But Dogma still wasn’t sure whether or not Feedback would want to be touched when he wasn’t suffering from a nightmare.

“I'm sorry,” Dogma said when Feedback's crying slowed. “It's not your fault. I know you would never hurt anyone.” Feedback’s breath hitched and he released it in one long sigh before smiling at Dogma.

“Thanks, Vince.”

“My name is Dogma.”

He'd blurted out the name before he even thought about it. No one except Coil had given up their former names. And Feedback had told Dogma several times to start thinking of himself as Vince, so he could get used to the others calling him that. But Feedback had just told Dogma his deepest, darkest secret, and it only felt fair that Dogma exposed his past as well. Feedback’s face pulled up in surprise at the admission.

“And… and I killed a, uh, a Jedi,” Dogma said. Feedback's eyebrows raised up toward his hair, which was buzzed short now, like Dogma's. “He wasn't a Jedi anymore, not really. And… and he—he used our loyalty against us to trick us into killing each other. Then… then he tortured me, with the Force…” Dogma ran his hand over his scalp and let out a deep breath. He felt Feedback's fingers curl over his knee, and he looked up to see his friend smiling sadly at him.

“My name is Trill,” Feedback said softly.

“Nice to meet you, Trill,” Dogma smirked.

“Nice to meet you, too, Dogma.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, Dogma,” Jag snarled from much closer than Dogma had expected. Dogma looked up to see Jag standing next to his bunk, his shaking fists clenched and his chest heaving. He was wearing only his blacks, and they were loose on his thin frame. Dogma was always shocked at how thin Jag was. The bones of his ribs and hips and spine were always visible. His face was so thin and pale he could pass for a civilian, with hollow cheeks and dark, unrecognizable eyes.

Right now, his face was pulled into a vicious snarl, and he grabbed Dogma by the front of his blacks and pulled him with surprising strength off the bunk onto the floor. Dogma landed on the durasteel, not hurt, but surprised. He looked up at Jag again, about to ask him why he was attacking, but Jag kicked him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.

“Jag, what the kriff?” Feedback Trill asked, jumping off the bunk and reaching for Jag's shoulders. But Jag ducked out of Feedback's grasp, fell to his knees, and began to punch Dogma in the face.

“My—whole batch—was decommed—because of you,” Jag snarled between punches. “I'm like this—because of you.”

It wasn’t hard to overpower Jag, once Dogma got hold of his wrists. Dogma’s eyes watered and the skin of his face stung. He could tell his nose was bleeding, but it didn’t feel broken. Jag’s eyes were red and shining with the threat of tears, and he grunted through clenched teeth as Dogma held onto his wrists and pushed him away.

“What are you talking about?” Dogma asked, exasperated.

“You tell me!” Jag shouted, struggling against Dogma’s hold. “They went to the mess hall that night for a snack, and they never came back.”

“No,” Dogma gasped. He knew what Jag was talking about. He knew who Jag's batch was. He wished he could forget, but he could still hear their cruel laughter clearly in his head.

“Nobody ever told me why,” Jag continued. “Just that there was an incident with some tube-wet cadet named Dogma.”

Dogma squeezed Jag's wrists when Jag spat his name. His heart pounded and his mind raced. The Incident was something he tried very hard to forget. It was the reason he used to follow orders so blindly. It was the reason he kept people at arm's length. It was the reason he only let vode he trusted touch him, even just little comforting touches. And it was the reason he and Tup were so close, and he had hoped they could be close for the rest of his life.

Dogma swallowed and tried to push away the sound of laughter and the look on Tup's face and the feeling of that older cadet’s hands on him. Jag struggled in his grasp again, trying to squirm out of his hold, even as Feedback Trill pinned him down onto the floor.

“What could they have possibly done that they deserved to die, Dogma? Couldn’t handle a little teasing? Upset that they pushed you over? Huh?”

Dogma's lips trembled and he let go of Jag's wrists. He didn’t want to remember. But he could feel how his eyebrow had split open as his head was slammed onto the table. Could feel their hands tearing at his clothes. Could feel the pain as they violated him, one after the other, laughing as they pushed themselves on him, in him. He remembered screaming and crying until his throat was raw. He remembered clawing at the table and scratching at their skin as he tried so hard to get away. He could hear Tup screaming and fighting the other cadets as something warm dripped down his thigh. Tup punched a cadet so hard he passed out. His knuckles were bloodied as he picked Dogma up off his shaking knees and carried him to the medbay. The warm something dripping down his thigh had been blood. His blood.

“What was it, Dogma?” Jag snarled from Trill's hold. Dogma took a deep, shuddering breath and looked from Jag's dark eyes to Trill's, which were watching him with mingled concern and curiosity.

So, Dogma told them. He told them how he and Tup had just wanted something to eat. How they had disobeyed orders to sneak out to the mess hall and get a snack. He told them how they had tried to avoid Jag's squad, but had been pushed around instead. How the older clones had gotten violent, aggressive. How Dogma had been pushed into the table and violated. How they had threatened to do the same to Tup, but Tup, being bigger and older and stronger than Dogma, managed to fight them off and had saved them both.

Jag stopped struggling. Trill kept his hold on Jag but gaped, horrified, at Dogma. When Dogma finished, he wiped away the single tear defiant enough not to stay locked tightly behind his stubborn exterior.

“Fuck,” Jag breathed. He put his forehead on the ground and went limp under Trill.

“Oh, Dogma,” Trill sighed, aborting a motion to reach out and touch Dogma's knee.

“I didn't know they were decommissioned,” Dogma said softly to Jag. “I lost my original batch, too. I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer that kind of loss.”

Jag was quiet and still for a long time. Trill sat up and leaned his back against the edge of Dogma's bunk, staring into nothing. Dogma pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. He took several measured breaths, letting the memories pass through his mind and dissolve away, as General Ti had taught him.

“I think I could go for one of Commander Fox's cigarettes,” Trill said, breaking the heavy silence that had settled over them. He and Dogma made eye contact, and Dogma couldn’t help the smirk that pulled at his lips.

“That's a drug, Trill,” Dogma teased.

“Yeah, but I'm trying to see what will kill me first,” Trill said, doing an impression of Fox's gruff voice.

Jag snorted and began to laugh, the sound muffled by the durasteel. Dogma and Trill laughed with him. It wasn’t even that the joke was very funny, more that the adrenaline of the fight was finally falling away, and the relief of laughter was infectious and uplifting. Dogma hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time. He wondered how long it had been for Trill, or Jag. Trill wiped at tears as they escaped his eyes, and Jag clutched at his chest as he rolled over onto his back.

When Dogma lay down to sleep that night, he felt lighter than he had felt since The Incident. Trill whispered “Goodnight, Dogma,” with a smile and a wink as he climbed to his bunk, and Dogma whispered goodnight to Trill, not Feedback, as well.

He didn’t hear the normal soft crying from across the bunk room that night.

- - -

Dogma stood in the sonic shower, wishing he had saved his weekly water ration. He wished he had hot—scalding hot—water to scrub off with. He wished he could feel the lather of soap and the hard scrape of bristles and know he was clean. He wished he could peel away his skin and put on new like he could an old pair of blacks.

They had chased Commander Ahsoka Tano through the streets of Coruscant for three days. Her list of crimes included the murder of clones in the prison, and that was enough to keep his squad fueled for a chase for all three days. But Dogma couldn’t shake the nagging in the back of his head. He couldn’t tell where his obedience to orders should begin and end, and how to separate them from the fact that they were chasing down a Jedi with their blasters set to kill. All he could see sometimes when he stared into the dark depths of an alley was the hole burning in Krell’s back, his Jedi robes singed where the plasma scorched the coarse fabric. All he could smell as they sunk into the underworld was the stink of Krell's burning flesh and Dogma’s own filthy skin from days without a proper fresher.

Coil afforded him a pitying glance when Dogma timidly raised his concerns about hunting down a Jedi. But Coil probably thought it was because she was the 501^st’s Jedi. He probably thought Dogma was struggling with the idea of hunting down and possibly killing someone who had once led him into battle.

“I never met her,” Dogma admitted when Coil gave him the pitying look. “I’m just… she’s still a Jedi, isn’t she? Shouldn’t she get a fair trial? Won’t… won’t we get in trouble if we kill her?”

“She’s a convicted traitor, Vince. Captain Rex himself said she should be considered armed and dangerous,” Coil said calmly. “We will follow our orders, and if we find her, we will do what we must to bring her to justice.”

None of it sat right with Dogma, but he figured it was because his feelings about the whole situation were just a mass of confused memories and emotions rolled up into his chest and lodged somewhere between his heart and his lungs. He bit his tongue and blinked away the memory of the sadistic look in Krell’s eyes as he tortured Dogma from the cell next to his on Umbara.

There was no way Commander Tano could be like Krell. The men of the 501^st loved her. Even though she was a padawan, they respected her and followed her, and treated her like she was one of their own. And from the others’ stories of her, she deserved every bit of their love and respect. She would never murder so many people in cold blood. But it was difficult to argue with the evidence against her. And because of that Dogma justified their chase, and kept his blaster toggled to kill.

They were told she would be sentenced to execution. Dogma wondered briefly if they could bring her into their squad. But then he remembered that her Togrutan anatomy might make putting on a helmet difficult, and they would never be able to disguise her voice. He tried to tell himself it was for the best. She’d bombed the Jedi temple. She’d murdered clones. She deserved to be executed. Just like Krell had been executed. Just like Krell. Just like… Krell.

Dogma scratched at his skin as the sonicator buzzed away the dirt and dried sweat. She wasn’t like Krell. She was nothing like Krell. She killed those clones out of desperation. Not for fun. She’d never tortured anyone for power. She didn’t force the clones to kill each other while she sat back and watched, because the pain gave her strength. She was nothing like Krell.

And she didn’t deserve to die.

“Vince.” Drayl’s voice was sharp against the buzzing of the sonicator and Dogma jumped. “You’ve been in there for half an hour. I think you’re clean.”

Dogma disagreed, but he turned off the sonic shower and stepped out anyway, pulling on a clean set of blacks while Drayl stepped around him into the stall. He continued to scratch at his skin, feeling itchy and unsettled. He knew he would not likely be able to sleep, but he prepped himself for bed anyway, if only to be just that much cleaner when he curled up into his bunk.

Coil stopped him in the doorway to the fresher and praised him for his good work the last few days.

“But we didn’t catch her,” Dogma said, shaking his head.

“No, but you struggled with some inner demons,” Coil said carefully. “And I think as time goes on, you’ll be able to move on from them completely.”

Dogma wrapped his arms around his chest and scratched at his shoulders, frowning. He didn’t want to move on from these inner demons. His choice to kill Krell was the right choice. Even if it would have put him in front of the execution squad. Even if he would have had to pick his own execution squad. He’d killed Krell for loyalty to his brothers, for Tup, for the 501^st, and for himself. Krell deserved to die, and Dogma was proud to have done it.

So, it wasn’t his inner demons that were bothering him the last few days, it was the lesson he learned from them, and how everything in his body was screaming that executing Commander Tano was the wrong choice.

And he knew this was a lesson he didn't want to ignore.

Chapter Text

“You look good, vod,” Trill said, grinning at Dogma. They had finally gotten some red paint so Dogma could paint his second-hand armor. Over the last four months that he’d been part of this squad, he’d thought a lot about what he wanted his designs to look like.

He’d decided to merge some elements of Vince’s design and his own old design to create something new. He had four horizontal lines on each side of his helmet, similar to Vince’s three lines, but the number was far more significant to Dogma. One line for each batchmate lost. On his chest plate he painted four diagonal lines, two on each side meeting in the middle, with the apex pointing down toward his plackart, which he painted solid red, like the others in Fox’s Second Chance Squad. There were a lot of matching elements of paint in their squad, like the red and white lines on his helmet filters and rerebraces. He liked that he could adopt those details to his paint design. They made him feel like their squad was a cohesive team, and he was an integral part of it.

Dogma looked at himself in the mirror and grinned under his bucket, silently agreeing with Trill. He did look good. In this paint he wasn’t Dogma, the terrified kid on Umbara who followed orders so blindly he killed his own brothers. But he wasn’t Vince, either. He was someone new. Someone stronger. Someone better. He ran his hands over his chest plate and then traced the lines on the right side of his bucket. He touched each line and remembered each of his batchmates who he had lost to those thrashing sea monsters on that fateful day.

“Is that your new paint?” Jag asked quietly as he approached the sinks to wash his hands. Dogma turned toward him and held his arms aloft so Jag could see the design. Jag smirked fondly. “It suits you.”

Jag and Dogma had developed a timid friendship after their altercation almost a month prior. It was little things, like small smiles when their eyes met in passing, friendly banter when they sat near each other to write reports, and making exasperated eye contact with each other when Happy did something dramatically anti-regulation for the attention.

“Are these matching your tattoo?” Trill asked, tapping the apex of the higher two diagonal lines. Dogma touched the face plate of his helmet where he used to have the shape of his tattoo, but he didn’t think it was appropriate anymore. Diagonals were a common design. His tattoo was not.

“Yeah, sort of,” Dogma answered. He pulled off his helmet and looked at his face in the mirror. His features had matured, having lost all the tubie fat that gave away his young age. He and Trill, who was at least a year older, looked nearly identical except for their different hair (Trill had a regulation cut again) and Dogma’s tattoo. He didn’t look quite as old as the Gen Ones, whose faces were weathered with lines and scars and had, in Fox’s case, the barest sparkle of gray in their hair. But he didn’t look so much like a shiny anymore. He touched his tattoo, tracing the familiar swirls and lines with the tips of his fingers. It had grown and stretched with the skin on his face, and to his eye was different from when he had gotten it when he left Kamino.

“What is it?” Trill asked. “Your tattoo?”

“Oh, it’s, uh,” Dogma's eyes flicked to where Jag stood with his arms crossed over his chest as he waited for Dogma’s answer. “After… after The Incident—” he stole another glance at Jag, who frowned and looked down and away as he understood what incident Dogma was referring to. Trill looked at Jag as he, too, realized what Dogma was talking about. “—General Ti sat with me in the medbay and she… well, she calmed me down and took away the pain by using the Force. And when she did, I could… feel the Force pulsing through my skin in this pattern. So, when Tup and I were getting tattoos when we left Kamino, it was the only thing I could think of that was significant enough to have on my body forever.”

Jag fidgeted with the hem of his upper blacks, his shoulders stiff and his pale cheeks flushed. Dogma wanted to let him know he wasn’t angry at Jag, and he wasn’t still hurting anymore. But he wasn’t sure what inner demons Jag was dealing with, and, if he was honest with himself, he was still hurting after The Incident, even though it had happened almost a year and a half ago. It had scarred him in ways that weren’t physical, no matter how much he wanted to deny it.

“I like it, it’s meaningful,” Trill smiled, running his hand over his hair, where Dogma knew his scalp was tattooed with stars. He started to ask Trill what his tattoos meant to him, but Coil opened the fresher door and shouted that they were being called away by Commander Fox.

Dogma noticed Jag staring at him a few times as they kitted up and flew in the larty to their target, averting his eyes quickly whenever Dogma looked his way. He wore a puzzled expression, like he couldn’t quite figure Dogma out. Dogma wanted to ask what was on his mind, make sure Jag knew he wasn’t upset with him. He didn’t blame Jag for what his batchmates did. And he hoped Jag didn’t blame him for what happened to them.

He forgot about the tangle of conflicting friendships and enemies as they dropped onto the roof of a power generation center, where the local patrol had called in backup to pin down potential saboteurs. The Guard who had called for backup had a suspicion that the saboteurs were the former security officers who had been replaced by Coruscant Guard recently as security was increased by a new Senate bill. Of course, “increased” Guard really meant replacing healthy civilian security crews with clone squads half the size of the former crew that also had regular patrols. Longer working hours, fewer hours of rest, a smaller budget, and no additional clones all meant the Coruscant Guard was stretched thin across the planet with few resources and even less support.

Dogma crept along the walls of the center’s control room, trying to make sense of the readings on the monitors that lined it. There were temperatures for each of the generators and numbers that he supposed were power readings. The temperatures and power outputs were fluctuating, but Dogma had no idea if that was normal or not. He listened to the comm chatter of their squad as he watched the numbers, trying to find a pattern. There had been no signs of forced entry found by either Happy and Drayl at the South entrance, nor Coil and Gluco at the West entrance. Fox and Trill were headed to the security center, hoping to find the maintenance droid along the way.

Jag, who had been assigned to scout the control room with him, was following the mess of wires and cables that draped from the monitors to the computers and draped again from the computers to the servers. Dust covered every surface, and it fell away in thick clumps as Jag ran his gloved fingers over the cords. When they had first surveyed the room, it was obvious someone had recently been there, because the dust was unsettled and the wires had been moved, which prompted Jag and Dogma to take a closer look.

Dogma noted that the equipment wasn’t old—in fact, it had probably been relatively new just before the war—but since the Guard had taken over, it had fallen into disrepair, just like everything the Guard had control over. All their datapads were cracked or chipped. The chairs and tables in their warehouse-turned-office had been fixed several times as best as they could with tape and scrap metal and bits of loose permacrete. Even their armor was in disrepair since there was apparently no budget for them to replace broken pieces. The transparisteel of Fox’s faceplate was still cracked. Coil’s cuirass had a blaster hole in the breastplate. Happy was missing a cuisse.

“Found the maintenance droid,” Trill reported. “He's been dismantled in the security office. Along with all the security equipment.”

“Stay on high alert, men,” Fox said. “I don’t want anyone to be caught off our guard.”

“Dogma, I think these wires have been misplaced on purpose,” Jag said. “Do you see anything unusual on the screens?”

“I don’t know,” Dogma said truthfully. “Some of the temperatures and power readings are fluctuating, but I don’t know what’s normal.”

“There’s probably a maximum temperature,” Jag said slowly as he ran a wire through his fingers, tracing it from the server to a computer, “and a minimum power output.”

“Do you think it would throw an alarm?” Dogma asked.

“Yeah…” Jag paused, and Dogma pulled his eyes away from the screens. Jag was bent over the top of the computer stacks, looking at the connections.

“And then someone would have to come out and check the alarm, since the maintenance droid is dismantled,” Dogma said, the intent dawning in him.

“Fuck,” Jag hissed, snapping to full height. Dogma turned to look at him as something by the computers began to beep insistently.

“What?” Dogma asked, his heart rate skyrocketing. Jag took a step back, turned to Dogma, and then leapt at him, pushing him out the door of the control room just as the air around them was wrenched apart.

Jag’s helmet knocked hard into his, and their bodies crashed together as they hit the opposite wall. Behind Jag, the control room exploded, the durasteel walls expanding violently out into the corridor with a massive fireball. Dogma could feel the pieces of computers and monitors and servers smacking into Jag’s back as the shrapnel was thrown from the room, followed by waves of blazing heat and then the thick, acrid smell of burning plastisteel.

Jag’s body sagged. Dogma tried to shake him to wake him up. He couldn’t hear anything outside of his own heavy breathing and thundering heartbeat, loud inside his helmet. He pulled Jag up to drape him over his shoulder, easier than with any other clone because of how thin Jag was, and saw the destruction of the control room. Where there was once a doorway in plain durasteel walls, now was a gaping maw of flame and smoke. The beams that held up the building were broken and had been tossed into the corridor like twigs in the wind. Plastisteel and metal and wire shrapnel littered the ground, some of it still burning, some of it glowing red, ominously hot. Black smoke billowed from what once was the control room, quickly filling the corridor and obscuring Dogma’s vision.

His HUD wasn’t working; all he could see was the view through the transparisteel, which was cracked from being hit by Jag’s helmet. He couldn’t use the settings in his helmet to help him navigate through the quickly darkening corridor. He would have to just start moving and hope they made it out alive.

Jag shifted in Dogma’s arms, but if he said anything, Dogma couldn’t hear him. He did, however, see the shrapnel sticking out of Jag’s backplate, and the cracks in his skidplate, cuisses, and greaves. If Jag was awake, he was probably in terrible pain.

“C’mon, Jag, we’ve gotta get you out of here,” Dogma said, more to himself than to his semi-conscious friend. As he stepped away from the wall, the floor began to sag and Dogma slid toward the flames. Jag’s arm tightened around his shoulders, and Dogma squeezed his waist. With their combined effort, they regained their footing on the unstable floor and moved slowly away from the control room.

Dogma couldn’t believe Jag had thrown himself in front of him like that. Without thinking about it. Without hesitating. Dogma hadn’t been sure before if Jag liked him, much less would be willing to save him. Or if he deserved to be saved at all.

Dogma climbed slowly through the littered corridor with Jag slumped over his shoulder. The air was thick with smoke, making visibility low, but Dogma picked his way through carefully to avoid fallen beams and loose durasteel plates. One of Dogma’s helmet filters must have been broken because the smell and taste of the smoke filled his helmet, making him cough as it irritated his throat and lungs and coated his tongue. Jag began to shake as they cleared the blast radius, and Dogma resituated him in his arms and picked up his pace to get clear of the smoke. He saw Jag’s right arm reaching out in front of him, trying to grab his left arm, and he stopped. His bracer comm was flashing, but Dogma hadn’t heard it. Jag grabbed his arm and answered the comm, and Dogma kept moving down the corridor out of the smoke.

Trill and Fox met them at the stairs and helped carry Jag down to the exit and out to where the larty was waiting for them. Dogma saw the flashing lights of the alarms when they left the smoke-filled corridor, and as soon as they flew away from the power plant, the generators exploded in a brilliant flash of light. Dogma watched the explosion and knew that if Jag hadn't sacrificed himself to save Dogma, neither of them would have gotten out of that corridor, and they would both be dead.

Gluco had to perform minor surgery on Jag when he pulled the shrapnel from his back. He slept for two days, and Dogma sat by his bunk whenever he had time off. Trill sat with him sometimes, to write reports or talk quietly. But Trill wasn’t there when Jag finally woke up.

“Hey,” Dogma said quietly as Jag’s eyes opened a fraction. His thin face was even paler than usual, and in sleep he had looked calm and peaceful. But the moment he opened his eyes, his normal frown creased his brow.

“Dogma?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Where are we?”

“Back in the bunkroom,” Dogma replied. Jag sighed and closed his eyes again. Dogma wanted to ask why Jag pushed him out of the way. Why he felt it was necessary to try and save him. He was glad he had, neither one of them would have made it out if Dogma had been hurt as badly as Jag, but he still didn’t feel he deserved Jag's kindness. “You've been out for two days.”

“Did you get hurt?” Jag asked, his eyes still closed.

“No, I’m fine,” Dogma answered. His voice caught in his throat and he looked down at his knees. “Thanks to you.”

Jag took a deep breath, and Dogma saw his hand tighten on his blanket. He swallowed a few times and opened his mouth before letting out another long breath.

“We think the former security squad went in and rearranged the automation to throw an error in the generators,” Dogma began to explain, hoping to fill the awkward silence, “then, when whoever came to fix the problem investigated, the bomb would detonate when they started messing with the wire connections. It was a trap and we stepped right into it.”

“You could have been killed,” Jag said quietly.

“You could have been killed,” Dogma argued. “You threw yourself between me and that bomb.”

“I saw the detonator turn on.” Jag tried to shrug, but winced in pain as his shoulders moved.

“Jag.”

“You’re the one who should live, Dogma,” Jag argued back, frowning. “You’re the one who’s worth a damn. I’m not worth anything. I should be the one to die. I’ve been trying so hard to just die.”

Dogma stared at Jag as he closed his eyes and sighed again. Dogma noticed again how thin Jag was. The bones in his hands and wrists were visible, and although the blanket was pulled up over his chest, Dogma could see the lines of his clavicle and ribs under his pale skin.

“I blamed you for a long time,” Jag continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted someone to blame for why I was so alone. I was so… angry. All the time I was angry. No one else understood. I didn’t fit in with anyone, I had no one. Everyone I loved was dead, and there was nothing for me in this life anymore.”

Dogma sighed. He knew a little how Jag felt. When his own batchmates died, he felt very small and alone. He had no one, knew no one. His new squadmates were older, and they weren’t very nice to him. If Tup hadn’t taken pity on him and befriended him, he would have felt just as worthless.

“My performance suffered. I didn’t want to train. I was tired all the time,” Jag continued. “Everyone hated me, and I hated them in return. I started to become careless, reckless in battle. I didn’t care if I died, and I didn’t care if I got anyone else killed with me. I tried to just end it myself several times. But the medics kept finding me and pulling me back to life.”

Dogma figured it was CMO Kix’s suicide watch program that kept Jag alive for so long. Medics would watch troopers that were at risk, and keep them from harming themselves. Sergeant Vince had told Dogma that they were supposed to also provide the soldiers in the SWP with support, to help them get better and not feel so helpless. But it didn’t sound like Jag ever received that kind of support.

“Finally, they got tired of trying to keep me alive, I guess, and sent me here. Gluco’s been trying, but I figure the missions we do will kill me, and I won’t have to do it myself. And then I met… you.”

Jag turned his head to look at Dogma. His eyes were wide, and something burned in them that made Dogma's stomach twist uncomfortably.

“I wanted to hate you. I wanted you to be all the horrible things I’d made you up to be in my head. All I wanted since my batchmates were decommissioned was to find you and kill you with my bare hands.” Jag squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. “But then you told me what happened. And I knew I was the one you should hate. And you’ve been… you’ve been nothing but kind to me. This whole squad has been kind to me. And I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve this… this second chance. I don’t deserve to live.”

Jag had started to cry, tears dripping from the corners of his eyes into the curls by his ears. Dogma wanted to reach out to comfort him, but wasn’t sure if Jag would want Dogma to touch him.

“You do deserve to live, Jag,” Dogma said quietly. “If I deserve to live, after all the horrible shit I've done, you deserve to live.”

Jag sobbed and he winced at the motion of his chest. Dogma reached out, but stopped before he touched Jag’s arm. Tears ran tracks down Jag’s cheeks, into his hair and around his ear and dropping onto the sheets with soft thuds. He winced in pain as sobs wracked his chest, and Dogma couldn’t do anything but watch helplessly. He didn’t want Jag to feel this way. He realized, as he sat by Jag’s bedside, watching him cry, that Jag had become a friend, just as Trill had become his friend. It was a quiet friendship, different from his relationship with Trill, or even Tup. But it was still something he could lean on, and that made him feel lighter.

Jag grabbed onto Dogma’s arm, his fingers clutching at his forearm almost painfully as he tried to breathe through his sobs. Dogma wrapped his fingers around Jag’s arm as well, squeezing to let him know he was there, he wasn’t going anywhere, he wanted to be there. He sat at Jag’s side until his crying had slowed and his breath became even. And even then Dogma sat at Jag’s bunkside until Gluco came back and shooed him away to his own bunk.

- - -

Happy nudged at the Weequay prisoner sitting in the front of the larty with the toe of his boot. The prisoner’s head lolled onto his shoulder, unconscious. His accomplice, a green-skinned Abyssin, stared up at Happy with his one huge yellow eye and growled.

“Not very pretty, are they?” Happy said, sneering down at their prisoners, who had been smuggling spice. “Why can’t criminals be, like, beautiful twi’leks or togrutas or something?”

“Got a head-tail fetish, Happy?” Commander Fox asked as he lit up a cigarette.

“I like to tug on ‘em,” Happy said, imitating pulling on something as he smirked at Fox.

“I bet you’ve never been with a civvie, much less a ‘beautiful twi’lek,’” Drayl countered, rolling his eyes.

“How would you know? I had a life, before—” Happy cut himself off, biting his lip and scowling down at the Abyssin. “Just as well. Fucking criminals never got me anywhere good.”

“Sorry, vod,” Fox smirked. “We all make sacrifices.” He held out his lit cigarette toward Happy, who took it and smoked it without hesitation. He passed it to Drayl, who wrinkled his nose at it before handing it to Coil.

They passed it around the larty, Gluco also refusing as he passed it to Trill. When it reached Jag, he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and letting the corners of his mouth drift up as if he relished the taste. Fox commented that Jag was going to smoke the whole cigarette as he lit a new one for himself. Jag held his breath and handed it to Dogma, now almost burned down to the end, and smiled softly at him.

Dogma frowned, but took the simmering cigarette from Jag’s fingers. Jag had told Dogma that he used to smoke before, when he felt almost normal, but when his CMO found out, they were taken away from him. He’d missed the taste and the feeling and the comfort smoking brought him, even if he knew it was bad for him. He’d been waiting for Fox to offer one of his cigarettes since he was placed in the squad.

Dogma looked at it, considering. Jag found so much joy in the smelly thing. It couldn’t possibly be as bad as he thought. And Coil had smoked it, even with Gluco watching disapprovingly. He brought the unlit end to his lips and breathed in, letting the tainted air roll over his tongue and burn down his throat and swirl around his lungs. He couldn’t help the coughing fit as the smoke itched his airway and burned at the bottom of his chest, reminding him of the billowing smoke from the explosion at the power plant. He handed back the cigarette to Fox, coughing up puffs of smoke into his hand, his head already feeling buzzy. The others laughed as Fox took the cigarette back, and Jag patted Dogma on the back, a rare smile on his face as he slowly exhaled through his nose.

The Abyssin grunted something in Huttese that sounded very rude, and Fox responded with something just as rude. The look of mingled terror and shock on the Abyssin’s face made the squad burst into laughter, and Fox exhaled smoke into the prisoner’s huge yellow eye as they laughed. Dogma needed the laugh to lift his spirits. His muscles ached and he was dead tired. They’d been awake searching for the pair for two days and all he wanted was a sonic shower and a full night’s rest.

“You okay?” Jag asked, nudging Dogma with his elbow as the laughter made him cough more.

“I can’t believe you like that,” Dogma teased. “The taste was worse than the smell.”

Jag smirked as he replied, “When you’re addicted to the feeling, you start to crave the taste.”

“I don't think I'm going to get addicted to those anytime soon,” Dogma said, shaking his head and coughing. Jag chuckled and bumped their shoulders together.

“I’ll make sure you don’t, vod.”

- - -

“Okay, okay. It was… almost a year ago, I think,” Trill said amidst the laughs of Dogma, Jag, Happy, and Drayl.

Dogma held a hand of cards—not a very good hand—and chuckled as he took a drink of their watered-down liquor. Happy had managed to persuade an ARC trooper to part with the last half of a bottle of medic-made hooch, and he had poured some out for each of them and diluted it with water. The water helped with the burn, but not with the taste. Dogma would never have touched the stuff before, but Happy had been eager to share, Trill poured him some, and even Jag sat down at the table to partake. Now they were all pleasantly buzzed, playing cards and telling stories. Stories of memories in the SCS, memories of Kamino, memories of Before.

“I hadn't been off Kamino very long, and we had some leave here, on Coruscant,” Trill continued, running his hand over his head, which was shaved clean. He’d shaved it consistently for the last month, and Dogma had gotten used to seeing the constellations tattooed on his scalp.

“Ooh, 79’s?” Happy asked with a smirk, wiggling his eyebrows at Trill, who rolled his eyes.

“I think so, yeah,” Trill said. Dogma smiled as he took another drink. He kept expecting it to taste like water, and the sour bitterness of the alcohol always surprised him. But he was past the point of caring what the drink tasted like, his mind pleasantly fuzzy and his skin flushed from the waves of warmth each sip sent tingling over his skin. “I don’t know, one minute I was dancing and the next minute I had my tongue in some random Iktotchi’s mouth.”

The others all laughed and groaned in mock disgust as Trill put his face in his hands. Happy laughed the loudest, leaning back in his chair with pink-tinged cheeks and bright eyes. Drayl looked at Happy as he laughed, running a hand over his buzzed hair and chuckling.

“She kept head-butting me,” Trill laughed. “I don’t remember if it was because she was aroused or pissed, but I had a massive bruise on my forehead for days. My squad’s medic was concerned I had a concussion.”

Dogma laughed and met Jag’s eyes. Jag was laughing and smiling and drinking, and he had even managed to eat half a ration bar, more food than he’d been able to eat and keep down in one sitting in at least the five months Dogma had known him. Although, Dogma suspected Jag hadn’t had a full meal since The Incident, which was over two years ago. Ever since Jag had saved Dogma at the power center, they had become close friends. Dogma had convinced Jag to start eating more, gain a little weight, and get a little stronger. Jag had encouraged Dogma to loosen up, to enjoy the little moments in life, because—as Jag put it—they were too precious to let slip through his fingers. And seeing Jag happy made Dogma happy, too.

“What about you, Vince?” Happy asked Dogma, leaning forward in his chair again. “Any… encounters with civilians?”

Dogma snorted and shook his head. “I’ve never been on leave,” Dogma admitted. “The only civilian I’ve met—besides the Jedi—was Senator Amidala from Naboo.”

“You’ve never been on leave?” Drayl asked, surprised. The door to their bunkroom beeped as it was unlocked. “How long have you been off Kamino?”

“About a year,” Dogma replied. They all looked up as Coil and Gluco entered the bunkroom, Commander Fox following close behind.

“It’s official,” Fox said, stopping just inside the door with one hand on Coil’s shoulder. Gluco sat on his bunk behind Dogma. “Coil has been promoted to sergeant.”

There was a smattering of laughter and applause from the squad. Corporal—now Sergeant—Coil used to be Lieutenant Grey, a fact he was not afraid to remind them of when they became snarky or insubordinate. Coil rolled his eyes and smiled sheepishly at the applause.

“I wish I could promote you to Captain like you deserve,” Fox said.

“Thank you, sir,” Coil said thickly. “I appreciate the sentiment all the same.”

Fox squeezed Coil’s shoulder, and then did something Dogma had never seen him do: he smiled. Not the gruff smirk that accompanied a sarcastic quip or a dark joke. A real, genuine smile. Even though it wasn’t directed at him, Dogma’s heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. It had taken almost half a year, but Dogma finally felt like they were a cohesive team now. And, more than that, they were friends.

Happy poured the last of the alcohol into cups for Coil, Gluco, and Fox, and they all sat at the table and continued their game of cards, laughing at the shared memories and enjoying each other’s company.

When the larger game dissolved as the night went on, Dogma looked up from his one-on-one game of pazaak with Trill to see Fox and Jag smoking and talking by the freshers, Happy and Drayl sitting together and scrolling through a datapad, no doubt looking through holopictures uploaded onto the clone servers, and Coil and Gluco sitting on Coil’s top bunk, Coil’s arm around Gluco’s shoulders as they watched their squad like proud nuna hens overlooking their chicks.

“What is it?” Trill asked lowly as he dealt the cards.

“I dunno,” Dogma said slowly, turning to look at where Fox and Jag were sitting and chuckling as Jag finished eating his ration bar. “I think I feel… happy.”

“I’m not even close to you!” Happy shouted from across the bunkroom. Dogma rolled his eyes and Trill chuckled.

“I meant the emotion, you di’kut,” Dogma said, exasperated. Trill laughed and shook his head, running a hand over his starry scalp.

“I know what you mean, vod,” Trill said softly. “I feel that way, too.”

That night as he curled up in his bunk, feeling content and comfortable, Dogma realized it had been almost two months since he had heard the quiet crying from across the bunk room.

And he hoped he would never hear it again.

Chapter Text

“Vince. Have you seen this?”

Drayl's voice was serious and his expression flat except for the single crease between his brows. Dogma looked up at him from his bunk, where he, Jag, and Trill sat watching uploaded helmet holos from Guard squads on patrol. Drayl handed him a datapad, and Dogma recognized it instantly as an incident report without needing to read the text.

“What's this?” Dogma asked.

“It's your old unit. They were on Ringo Vinda,” Drayl began. Dogma frowned and skimmed the synopsis of the incident report. He saw Tup's number and name and his stomach dropped. He read the words at the same time that Drayl said them out loud. “He killed a Jedi.”

Dogma spent the rest of the evening pouring over reports from Ringo Vinda. General Skywalker and the 501^st had been called in to assist Generals Tiplee and Tiplar with their assault on the massive space station that encircled the planet. But just as victory was nigh, Tup pulled his blaster on General Tiplar and killed her. Murdered her in cold blood. Stood directly behind her and shot her in the head. Watched her fall with no expression.

The incident report had been written by CMO Kix. He had found nothing physically wrong with Tup, speculating psychological stress or potentially a new bio-weapon developed by the Separatists. He’d sent Tup to Kamino for further analysis, and the report was closed.

That was two days ago.

Dogma scoured GAR reports, the holonet, the clone servers, anything he could get his hands on to find more information on Tup. There was nothing. Nothing. Except for the one incident report, it was like it had never happened. The 501^st lost the campaign on Ringo Vinda and were headed back to Coruscant for a short leave. But there was no mention of Tup.

Four days after Drayl found Kix’s report, Commander Fox pulled them for a special mission: To escort the chancellor to the Grand Medical Facility, where he was meeting with General Ti, a Kaminoan medical scientist, and a clone.

“Which clone?” Dogma asked eagerly. If General Ti and a Kaminoan medical scientist were going to be present, it was likely the clone was a patient on Kamino. And there was a chance that the patient was Tup.

“I don’t know,” Fox said, crossing his arms. “But the chancellor has requested guards at the meeting, outside the room, and outside the facility.”

“When?” Coil asked, cutting off the question Dogma before he could ask another question.

“They’ll arrive in an hour. We’ll meet the chancellor at the Senate now, and escort him to the Grand Medical Facility.”

“Why there? Why not the GAR med center?” Dogma asked before Coil could cut him off again. “Why is the chancellor meeting with a clone, anyway?”

“I don’t know, and I didn’t ask,” Fox answered, his gruff voice edging on annoyance. He looked at Dogma sharply, and Dogma knew he’d overstepped. “This is a top-secret mission. I expect you all to keep it that way.”

They all agreed with a chorus of “yes, sir,” and kitted up before following Fox to the Guard hangar.

Dogma guarded one of the entrances to the Grand Medical Facility with Jag. He had hoped Fox would choose him to help guard the chancellor, but he had chosen Coil, Gluco, and Trill instead.

“I promise I’ll send you a message when I find out who it is,” Trill had said quietly to Dogma before hurrying after Fox. But he was suspiciously quiet, even though it was well past the time he should have seen who the clone trooper was.

“Do you think it’s your batchmate?” Jag asked over a private comm as they stood on either side of the massive entrance to Coruscant’s largest medical facility. Dogma watched the ebb and flow of civilians as they passed by, unaware that he and Jag were even there.

“Could be,” Dogma breathed, hardly daring to hope that it was, indeed Tup. And if it was… he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Tup meeting with the chancellor in secret after killing a Jedi. He wouldn’t want to meet with the chancellor after his encounter with Krell. How could he possibly explain what he had done to the leader of the Republic, who put his trust so wholly in them?

“What do you think happened?” Jag asked timidly after a long moment of silence between them. “I mean, why do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know,” Dogma replied. “But there’s got to be a reason. Tup’s not a traitor. He would never hurt a Jedi.” Then he remembered that Tup had killed General Tiplar, and he added, “Not without good reason, anyway.”

Jag was quiet again, and Dogma sunk deeper into his thoughts. Tup didn’t know Dogma was alive. He most likely saw a report that he had been executed. The whole GAR thought CT-508-6922, Dogma, was dead. He would think that the punishment for killing a Jedi, no matter the circumstances, was death. Kix’s report said that Tup’s face was blank when he killed her. Completely emotionless. Kix had suggested maybe it was an episode of stress-induced psychosis. The generals had considered maybe it was a Separatist bioweapon, something Tup had been infected with that caused him to turn traitor against his will. Dogma couldn’t discount either of those options from being true. Everything Dogma knew about Tup told him that he wouldn’t have done something so drastic, with such dire consequences, without either having a very good reason or not being able to control himself at all.

The more he thought about his old friend, the more his chest ached. Everything he knew about Tup was from a set of data eight months old. He himself had changed in that time. He could see the changes on his body, in his performance, in the friends he'd made and the way he approached them. He hoped Tup hadn't changed so much in those eight months that he would purposefully have turned traitor. The last time they had spoken, Tup was trying desperately to get Dogma to abandon his blind obedience. Of course, he understood now what Tup had meant. But he still couldn’t shake the fear that Tup had become someone other than the sweet, smart, loyal man Dogma used to know. He scratched at his wrists absentmindedly, and wondered if he would ever get to find out. If he would ever want to find out.

His attention was returned to the present when there was a commotion from inside the Grand Medical Facility behind him. Civilians screamed and shouted, and Dogma watched a shift in the crowd. Instead of walking purposefully in and out and around the Facility, the civilians stopped and turned toward the back of the lobby, toward the elevators and stairs that led to higher and lower floors.

Clarity of the situation came from a single order from Fox on their squad comm: “Do not let the clone trooper escape.”

Escape?

Dogma’s heart rate increased. So, the clone in question was in some sort of trouble. The chances that the clone was Tup skyrocketed with Dogma's pulse. Jag and Dogma moved into the lobby, clearing the entrance of civilians. They heard a familiar female voice, General Ti, shout across the foyer to close the blast doors, and the floor shuddered as the huge metal doors were slowly closed.

And then Dogma spotted the clone trooper. At first glance he was unrecognizable. His armor, sans helmet, was completely white and shiny. His hair was crudely shaved, but he had facial hair on his chin that Dogma had seen on other clones before. Trill had tried the goatee for a while, shaving it off when he kept getting food caught in it. His brown eyes were dark and wild, and his cheeks were flushed from exertion and probably the adrenaline of the chase.

Dogma raised his blaster, but realized that even on stun it would be impossible to ensure he didn’t hit a civilian in the crowded lobby. As Dogma lunged at the escaped trooper, he turned his head and Dogma saw an identifying feature that shocked him: a stylized 5 on his temple.

Fives.

Dogma missed Fives by millimeters. His hands brushed on the shiny plackart, and he slammed into the duratile of the lobby with a sharp crack. Fives spun out of the way of both Dogma and Jag, turning back to look behind him. His wild eyes were filled with fear. General Ti landed heavily on the floor between Fives and Jag from what must have been an impressive leap over the sea of civilians. Fives sprinted toward the rapidly closing blast doors, and even though General Ti was gaining on him, calling his name and reaching out, Fives sprinted, jumped, and slid through the last gap in the blast doors before they closed with a resounding thud.

General Ti growled and smacked her hand on the durasteel. Dogma had never seen her so upset. The way she clenched her fists and whirled on the spot, shouting for the doors to be reopened, was so different from the soft, reassuring way she had touched Dogma’s face almost two years ago in the Tipoca City medbay.

Dogma extended a hand to help Jag off the ground, and they followed General Ti through the reopened blast doors out onto the crowded platform in front of the Grand Medical Facility. The excitement of Fives' escape had drawn a stagnant crowd, their loud voices filling Dogma's helmet with cacophony.  General Ti stood completely still just outside the Facility's entrance, her eyes closed and one hand extended out toward the expanse of buildings, speeder lanes, and billions of people that made up Coruscant.

“Commander, Fives escaped,” Dogma reported into the squad comm. Jag looked at him as he said Fives' name. “He slid through the blast doors before we could catch him, and we lost him in the crowd. General Ti is here on the platform with us now.”

Fox swore under his breath, the mix of Huttese, Mando'a, and Basic barely audible over the swell of civilian voices. Jag tilted his head at Dogma, a silent helmeted question. Dogma gave Jag the hand sign for “hold,” to let him know he would answer his question once Fox gave them an order.

“Stay with the General,” Fox said. “We'll rendezvous with you once we've secured the chancellor.”

“What happened, sir?” Drayl asked. He and Happy had been guarding the secondary entrance to the facility, and had missed all the excitement. But Fox's answer made Dogma's skin crawl.

“Fives attacked the Chancellor.”

Dogma and Jag looked at each other through their helmets, frozen in place. In Dogma's peripheral he saw General Ti's head turn toward them and her arm lower back to her side.

“Troopers, we must initiate a search for ARC trooper Fives,” General Ti said, her smooth voice like a salve over the burning of Dogma's skin. “He is unwell and extremely dangerous. I must speak with the Jedi Council.”

“We'll come with you, General,” Jag said, only the slightest waver in his voice. General Ti shook her head, her wide purple eyes landing on Jag.

“Stay with your squad,” she said, her voice both commanding and soft. “Continue the search for Fives. Remember, he is a skilled ARC trooper and he is alone, afraid, and dangerously unbalanced.”

“Yes, sir,” Dogma and Jag both replied.

“May the Force be with you,” General Ti said before disappearing into the crowd. Dogma watched her go, dread sinking into his gut like a cold stone.

“I never know how to respond to that,” Jag sighed.

“I don't think you do respond,” Dogma shrugged. “Unless you're a Jedi.”

Jag shrugged and Dogma let the squad know what General Ti had said to them. Fox replied that they were on their way with a larty to pick them up.

“How did you know who that clone trooper was?” Jag asked as they stood guard by the entrance to the medical facility while they waited for Fox and their squad.

He didn’t want to go into the specifics of how he knew Fives. How close Tup had been with Fives, even when Dogma wasn't so sure friendship with the ARC trooper was advisable. How Fives' voice was the loudest in his dissent of General Krell. How Dogma had stood him in front of a line of his brothers and closest friends and hoped they would extinguish him so Dogma could gain power and notoriety from a Jedi who turned out to be a Sith. Jag didn’t need to know these things. And as Dogma thought about them, his skin itched and burned, and he wished he could wash it all away.

“He’s friends with Tup,” he decided to answer, carefully dancing around the truth, “and… he was there, when I… before I was transferred.”

Jag was quiet for a moment, and Dogma wondered if he was deciding how to reply, or if he was trying to figure out if Dogma was lying. He hadn’t lied. Fives had been there in the Umbaran prison. He had helped Dogma out of his cell, smiling encouragingly despite all the terrible things Dogma did to him. And it was Fives’ DC-17 that he had used to shoot Krell in the back. The final blaster bolt that landed him in the merciful hands of Commander Fox and the Coruscant Guard.

“Does this sound like something he would do? Attack the chancellor?” Jag asked slowly.

Dogma chewed on his tongue. His gut answer was yes, but when he thought about it, that answer was fueled by his lingering distaste for Fives' personality. But Fives, despite the vilification of him that Krell had placed into Dogma's mind on Umbara, was not a traitor. He was a loyal soldier. Loyal to the GAR, to the Jedi, to the Republic, and, above all, to his brothers.

“No,” Dogma answered definitively. “He wouldn’t. Not unless the chancellor threatened him, or another clone.”

“But if he’s unwell, like General Ti said?”

“I think we need to find him and ask him ourselves,” Dogma said. “I refuse to believe that any loyal soldier like Fives would willingly attack a superior officer, or the chancellor.”

“Tup did,” Jag reminded him quietly. “Maybe they were working together.”

Rage curdled Dogma's insides, burning at the back of his throat and churning his stomach. What did Jag know? He didn’t know Tup. He didn’t know Fives, or the 501^st, or anything that they had gone through. They had marched through all seven Hells and back on Umbara. No one goes through that unscathed, but that didn’t mean they were traitors.

“Impossible,” Dogma snarled. He crossed his arms and watched the larty drop on the platform in front of them. He could feel his hands shaking, with rage or confusion or doubt he wasn’t sure, so he balled them into fists and pushed past Jag to climb onto the larty. He heard Jag attempt to apologize and explain, but Dogma wasn’t listening. Tup was not a traitor. He refused to believe he and Fives would concoct some plan to join the separatists. It just wasn’t possible.

They needed to find him. Dogma needed to find him. Before anyone else did. Before anyone else could hurt him.

Dogma’s rage melted away, however, when his eyes landed on Trill, laying on the floor of the larty with half his armor removed while Gluco scanned his body. Fox was shouting orders into a holocomm at the front of the larty, the little blue images of the other Coruscant Guard Commanders standing at attention out of the disk in his palm. Coil looked distraught as he stood over Gluco and Trill.

“What happened up there?” Dogma asked, his voice coming out more forcefully than he intended. Coil shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, exactly,” he replied shakily. “Fox and Feedback were in the room with the Chancellor. Nala Se and General Ti arrived with a trooper on a hover gurney. He looked in bad shape when they arrived. Then Nala Se and General Ti came back out into the hallway and had an argument, and the next thing we knew the trooper had shot Feedback with his own blaster and was pointing it at the Chancellor. We tried to stun him, but he escaped. At least Fox managed to wrestle the blaster from him.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Dogma asked Gluco weakly.

“So long as I can get him to a medbay, he’ll be fine,” Gluco sighed.

Dogma knelt on the ground at Trill’s side and wrapped his fingers around his palm. He didn’t respond to Dogma’s touch, but Gluco had probably given him a pain killer and possibly a sedative to keep him unconscious. He saw the blaster burns in Trill’s gut and the gaping wound in his side, shiny with blood and flecked with burnt tissue from the plasma.

“It looks worse than it is, vod,” Gluco said softly. “I’ve healed wounds far worse than this.”

Dogma nodded and squeezed Trill’s hand before standing next to Jag and holding onto the overhead hand holds while Fox finally addressed them.

“As you’ve heard,” Fox began gravely, “We’re searching for a renegade clone. ARC Trooper Fives.” He pulled up a hologram image of Fives in his ARC kit with a full head of hair and the stylized tattoo on his temple. “He attempted to escape Kamino after being sentenced to reconditioning, attacked clone troopers of the Kaminoan Guard, killing two and injuring several others, threatened Kaminoan Senior Medical personnel including Director Nala Se, and attacked Chancellor Palpatine in the Grand Medical Facility before escaping custody.

“Although I managed to take Feedback’s blaster from Fives in the medbay, he is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. I don’t know all the specifics but he did something to himself on Kamino that has made him unstable and overly aggressive, even to other clones. Our orders are to find him and stop him before he hurts anyone else.”

“Commander,” Dogma spoke up after their chorus of ‘yes, sir!’ had echoed through the larty, “I know Fives. He wouldn’t just attack the chancellor.”

“I watched him do it, Vince,” Fox growled back at him. “So, unless you know where he is, I suggest you stow it.”

“He’s probably at 79’s, looking for someone he can trust,” Dogma said truthfully. Fives had looked terrified as he slipped through Dogma’s fingers. Not angry, not aggressive. Scared shitless. And if Dogma was that scared, he would want to find someone he could trust to help him. Preferably Tup.

Maybe he was meeting Tup. Maybe this was a coordinated escape. Kill Jedi, clones, the chancellor, anyone to desert the GAR. Dogma shook his head, banishing the thought. Tup would never. Not without good reason, at least.

Maybe Fives and Tup were being framed, like Commander Tano had been. Maybe the Jedi Tup had killed deserved it, and now he and Fives were running for their lives to escape the crimes they were never allowed to defend. Maybe, if Dogma could get to Fives first, he could get Fives to plead his case to Fox, and he and Tup could join their squad of second-chance troopers. But Dogma had to get to Fives before anyone else in the GAR could.

79’s was packed with clones and civilians. In the eight months he’d been on Coruscant, Dogma had never been in the bar. They weren’t exactly afforded leave, or time off. And besides, no one in their second-chance squad could risk being recognized for who they really were.

They questioned every clone on the platform outside the entrance, scanning wrist identification chips and asking everyone if they'd seen Fives. Most of the patrons were too inebriated to stand straight, much less see the hologram Dogma showed them. Coil ordered Jag to stay at the entrance and search anyone coming in or out, and took the rest into the bar.

Dogma instantly regretted his decision to suggest 79’s, and wished he had at least requested to stay outside. The inside of the bar was even more crowded than the platform, and—to Dogma's dismay—a lot of clones were wearing 501^st blue. If Fives was searching for friendly paint, he couldn’t have had better timing.

The squad sifted through the mob of clones in the bar. Dogma unintentionally scanned the same drunk trooper three times, a realization that set his teeth on edge. The third time was because some severely inebriated shiny wearing a Navy hat bowled into the group he was scanning and got them all confused again. It took all of Dogma’s willpower not to grab the shiny by his cuirass and yell at him before he disappeared back into the crowd.

The full challenge of interrogating every clone without arresting them all dawned on him as the group in front of him laughed as they fell over each other and started roughhousing rather than allow Dogma to scan and question them. He didn’t want to deal with a riot of drunk and angry clones. Their squad dealt with civilian riots often enough.

He and the others tried to be systematic in how they worked their way through the establishment, moving in a classic sweep from front to back. Dogma looked every clone full in the face, asked for their wrist identification, then asked if they'd seen Fives, or a clone with a face tattoo. There were several clones in the bar with face tattoos. One of them was Lieutenant Jesse. He was sitting at the bar, currently alone, but there was a half full glass in front of the empty chair next to him, and Dogma guessed it was probably CMO Kix’s.

Sure enough, as Dogma reached the mass of clones sitting and standing at the bar, Kix occupied the chair next to Jesse and they leaned into each other to talk in each other's ear over the pounding of the music. Dogma didn’t want them to recognize him. He had his bucket on and he'd changed his paint, but they might recognize his voice. Of course, in the eight months he'd been away from the 501^st, he'd changed a lot. His voice was deeper, he was taller and more muscular, he carried himself differently. He spoke less and listened more. Tup would probably say he'd grown up. And he had, honestly. He’d been forced to grow up on this planet.

But he still felt compelled to disguise his voice when talking to his former officers. So, he practiced his best imitation of Commander Fox as he drew closer and tried not to let the nerves shooting like electricity through his veins affect him. Every time he caught a glimpse of Jesse or Kix in the blue and purple flashing lights, he was reminded of that hellhole of a planet that was Umbara, of running helplessly through the jungle, of watching Vince die, of leading the execution squad. He took a deep breath and told himself he had to interrogate them, no matter what his fear was telling him. If anyone knew where Fives was, it would be those two.

“Excuse me,” Dogma said gruffly. Kix and Jesse both scowled at him. He tried not to lose his nerve. “I need to check your identifications.”

Jesse scoffed as he shoved his wrist out to be scanned. Dogma didn’t even check the results of their scans. He knew who they were. They both scowled at him as if he had interrupted a private moment between them. Why they were trying to have a private conversation in such a public bar was beyond Dogma's comprehension. They both had private bunkrooms at the GAR base, and Kix probably had an office for himself.

“What’s this all about, anyway?” Jesse asked as Kix’s wrist was scanned.

“Rogue clone on the loose,” Dogma answered, trying to mask the way he spoke by keeping his sentences short. “Trying to find him. He attempted to assassinate the Chancellor. Surprised you haven’t heard about it.” Jesse had to know why they were searching through the bar. He had to know that Fives was missing. But there was no reason for Dogma to know that Jesse and Kix knew who Fives was. He wasn’t Dogma to them. He wasn’t even Vince (though of the two, Kix and Jesse would have much preferred Vince over Dogma). To them he was just some Corrie brat interrogating them on their leave.

“Nah I heard about that,” Jesse scoffed. “Just figured you lot would have bagged him already. Coruscant’s finest, and all.”

Dogma stared at Jesse, and Jesse stared back. He couldn’t tell if Jesse was bluffing him or not. He knew Jesse had one of the best sabacc faces in the 501^st. Most clones couldn’t lie worth a damn; why would they have ever needed to lie? But there were some who had to learn how to lie because they were always finding themselves in trouble. Jesse was a troublemaker and a Gen One, which meant he had twelve and a half years to practice and hone his ability to lie to get out of trouble.

Dogma came to the conclusion that Jesse and Kix probably did know something about Fives' whereabouts, and were lying to cover it up. That was why they pretended like Dogma was interrupting a private moment. That was why Kix didn’t talk to Dogma, and instead took a drink. That was why they were scowling and being evasive with him.

For a moment he considered telling them who he was. He thought maybe if he told them the truth, he could get to Fives first so he could help him. Dogma had been given a second chance, why shouldn’t Fives? And, selfishly, he wanted to be the one to give Fives a second chance to make up for all the horrible things he did and said on Umbara. He wanted to make it up to Fives and Jesse and Kix and Tup.

And, more than anything, he wanted to know what happened to Tup.

But Dogma turned away from the pair, his heart pounding frantically in his chest. He needed to be careful. He commed his squad to tell them his theory, and asked Jag to keep an eye on where they went as they left their seats and made their way to the exit.

“They’re heading south,” Jag reported. Coil sent Happy to the front door while Jag trailed them. Dogma checked the identification of a wobbling trooper in a booth wearing only his blacks and lower armor.

“Have you seen this clone?” Dogma asked. The trooper looked at him, his eyes bloodshot and swollen, and a squeamish frown on his pallid face. Dogma reacted milliseconds too late, and the trooper bent over and vomited on Dogma’s boots. He swallowed down his own nausea and helped the man back into his seat.

“They turned down an alley,” Jag reported into the comm.

“Make sure they don’t leave the alley,” Fox growled, “but don’t let them know you’re following them. Drayl, go scout the other end of that alley in case they’re meeting someone.”

“’m sorry,” the drunk vod slurred, trying to grab onto Dogma’s arm. He sniffed, and Dogma realized he was crying.

“It’s okay,” Dogma said, a little more gruffly than he’d wanted. He squeezed the vod’s shoulder and waved Gluco over.

“Loss’a lotta brothers on Rin’ Vin—Vinda,” the drunk trooper continued, hiccupping, his grip slipping on Dogma’s vambrace.

“You were on Ringo Vinda?” Dogma asked. Hope lifted his chest for the first time since he pulled the blaster out of Fives’ holster on Umbara. “What happened there? What happened to Tup?”

The drunk vod hiccupped and his eyes rolled in his head. Dogma’s hope slid away with the consciousness of the trooper. Dogma shook his shoulders once, but he slumped in Dogma’s grasp. Gluco arrived and took the vod from his care, saying he’d call a medevac. Dogma sighed and thanked him.

“Well, they’re not running,” Jag reported breathily.

“What are they doing?” Coil asked.

“They're just talking,” Jag said. Dogma could see him shrugging in his mind.

Happy snorted through the comm. “Who just talks in the alley behind 79’s?”

Dogma frowned, but not at the lewd banter now being tossed between Happy and Drayl. He heard Gluco chuckle next to him as he gave the unconscious trooper a hyposhot. As brash as Happy's comment was, he was right. Why would Kix and Jesse leave the bar just to talk in an alleyway? They were talking just fine inside the bar. Unless they didn’t want their conversation to potentially be overheard by nosy Coruscant Guardsmen.

“They know something,” Dogma said into the comm. “They know where Fives is.”

“We can't do anything without proof,” Fox said. Dogma heard the sirens of the medevac, and Gluco took the sick trooper out of the club to the platform. Fox ordered another sweep of the bar, and said that if they didn’t find anyone who knew anything, they would have to leave to search elsewhere.

Dogma was sure Fives should have been there. It was a place he was familiar with, surrounded by brothers. There would have been a good chance he knew someone. Or he could somehow deliver a message. He still wasn’t convinced Jesse and Kix didn’t know anything. But there was no proof either of them had seen or talked to Fives. No one else in the bar had seen Fives either, which only made it more unlikely Jesse and Kix had seen him.

If Dogma was on the run, he would want to turn to someone he trusted. He would want to find Tup, or Captain Rex, or—before Umbara—a Jedi. Fives didn’t have anyone like Dogma had Tup. Not anymore. Fives' batchmate marched on almost a year ago. And Tup was, to Dogma’s knowledge, still on Kamino. But Fives trusted Captain Rex and General Skywalker with his life. And Dogma would bet all the dessert rations in the Galaxy he was trying to find one of them now.

Dogma ran through a list of all the places the commanding officers of the 501^st could be while on Coruscant. No one had requested Jedi interference in the search for Fives; it was strictly a GAR matter. But Captain Rex wouldn’t let one of his men run rogue through the streets of Coruscant to be chased by the Guard without also searching for him. Dogma remembered when Captain Rex and General Skywalker searched for several days with no breaks for Commander Tano.

“They’re on the move,” Jag said into the comm about Jesse and Kix. “They’re heading back toward the platform.”

Dogma continued his sweep through the bar and listened to the squad give updates on the location of Jesse and Kix, and any other suspicious troopers. None of their reports included anyone who might look like Fives. Jesse and Kix ended up getting onto a GAR transport, headed back to base. Disappointment flooded through Dogma. He was out of leads. He wished he could have talked to that drunk vod who’d been on Ringo Vinda. He wished he could talk to Tup.

“The renegade clone was spotted,” Fox said abruptly into the squad comm. Dogma almost dropped his wrist scanner. “A warehouse in sector nine-isk. Rendezvous at the larty.”

“Yes, sir!”

What the kark was he doing at a warehouse? Apprehension gnawed at the edge of Dogma’s mind as he made his way back through the tightly packed bar out to the platform. He had to convince Commander Fox and his squad to keep their blasters on stun. Fives was a lot of things: brash, uncouth, and reckless, but he wasn’t dangerous. And he wasn’t a traitor. Dogma just had to convince Fox to give Fives another chance, the same way he’d given Dogma another chance.

“Commander,” Dogma said the second he saw Fox when he jumped into the larty, “I think he may be meeting—”

“General Skywalker and Captain Rex?” Fox said, taking the words right out of Dogma’s mouth. “I think so, too. It only makes sense he’d try to get help from his COs, who he trusts.”

Fox’s gaze swept over their second-chance-squad, a member down and five clones short of an actual squad, frowning deeply. He looked exhausted. Dogma wondered when he’d slept last.

“Sir, why did Fives attack the chancellor in the Grand Medical Facility?” Dogma asked. “Why were they there at all?”

“Fives had an audience with the chancellor. He wanted to talk about what happened on Kamino. And then Fives attacked him,” Fox answered.

“But why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” Dogma pleaded. He stepped closer to Fox, grim determination on his face. “It mattered when I pulled a blaster on that demagolka.”

A dark look crossed Fox’s face. “What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing, just that we should hear him out,” Dogma said lowly. “He deserves at least that much. You gave all of us a second chance. Why shouldn’t he get one, too?”

Fox stared at him, his eyes calculating. Dogma met his gaze and took a deep breath to steady himself. This was the right thing to do. He knew it was the right thing to do. Fox sighed and looked away.

“You should know,” Fox said quietly enough only Dogma could hear him, “he stood up for that sergeant, Tup, who killed General Tiplar on Ringo Vinda. He was the one who insisted it was a medical emergency. Went with him to Kamino and everything. He might be infected with whatever caused Tup to kill that Jedi. He might not recognize you at all. He might even try to kill you.”

Dogma’s throat constricted when Fox said Tup’s name. “I have to try,” Dogma said quietly. Fox frowned and put on his helmet as he took a holocomm.

“What are you doing?” Jag asked in a private comm as they stood across from each other in the larty, and Dogma made sure his blaster was set to stun.

“I'm going to try and stun Fives before anyone else can hurt him. I want to know what really happened,” Dogma answered.

“Those aren’t our orders,” Jag said, shaking his head.

“I know, but there's got to be a reason Fives is acting this way. There's more to this story. I need to save him to find out.”

“There's nothing more to it,” Jag argued. “He attacked the chancellor. He shot Trill. Isn’t that enough?”

“The Fives I know wouldn’t do those things without a good reason,” Dogma replied.

“Dogma, it's been eight months,” Jag said, his voice edging on anger. “You’ve said yourself that we're all different people than we were eight months ago. Why would Fives be an exception?”

“You don’t know what you're talking about,” Dogma growled. Jag scoffed and shook his head.

“If you want to risk your neck for some traitor, go right the fuck ahead,” Jag said angrily. “I'm not going to go out of my way to help some asshole who tried to kill my friend.”

Dogma clenched his teeth. Jag didn’t know what he was talking about. Fives wasn't a traitor. Tup wasn’t a traitor, either. There had to be a reason. And Dogma was going to do everything he could to make sure Fives made it out of that warehouse alive so they could get to the bottom of what had really happened on Ringo Vinda and Kamino.

But everything went terribly wrong. At the sound of the squad’s footsteps thundering in the durasteel warehouse, and Commander Fox’s gruff voice ordering him to stand down, Fives panicked. Dogma saw Captain Rex and General Skywalker trapped in a ray shield. General Skywalker looked furious, but Captain Rex looked downright scared.

Fives scrambled, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. He lunged for a pistol resting on a nearby crate. Dogma wanted to scream, wanted to tell him to look out. Fox was already warning him not to grab the blaster. Dogma’s hands shook and he nearly fumbled his blaster as he checked to make sure it was on stun, but by the time his finger landed on the trigger, Fox had already fired.

One smoking blaster bolt punctured Fives’ chest.

Fives dropped the pistol, dropped his head, dropped to the ground.

Coil released the general and captain from the ray shield, and Dogma stood, frozen, as Captain Rex shook Fives’ shoulders and pleaded desperately with him to hang on. Fox pulled off his helmet. Behind him, Gluco called for a medevac.

“Fives. Fives!” Rex’s cries echoed in the warehouse.

Fox took a step back, putting his forehead in his hand.

No matter how much Rex shook him or pleaded with him, Fives died on that warehouse floor.

Dogma wanted to be sick. But he couldn’t take his helmet off. He couldn’t let Rex and General Skywalker see who he was. Not now that he’d failed them. There could be no absolution for him, no redemption for the things he'd done. Not anymore. Fives was dead, and with him his chance to do something good. To right the wrongs he’d committed on Umbara. He shifted uncomfortably where he stood, feeling sick and dirty and itchy all over.

- - -

Fox lit a cigarette and collapsed into the chair in his makeshift office. Dogma stood in the doorway, contemplating whether or not he should confront Fox, or if he should leave well enough alone. He was tired and frustrated and upset. He scratched furiously at his wrists, which itched under his gloves from hours of sweat and grime, and the lingering panic still buzzing through his skin. He could have saved Fives if he had been faster. If Fox hadn’t been so quick to shoot.

“You murdered him,” Dogma said quietly.

“I did what I had to.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“He was going to shoot me.”

“You could have stunned him!” Dogma was surprised at the heat in his own voice. Fox glowered at him as he took another drag of his cigarette.

“I did what I was ordered to do,” Fox said slowly, the smoke curling out of his mouth with every word. It swirled around his head and hands and gave Dogma the impression of something evil encircling him, overtaking him. Dogma had never seen his eyes so dark. He swallowed hard as the meaning of Fox’s words sunk into his heart like a slow stab from a dull knife. He heard the scuff of boots in the hallway, and turned to see Lieutenant Thire stop behind him, arms crossed. He turned on his heel and marched out of the Guard offices, still fuming.

He didn’t sleep well the next several nights. He hadn’t had a nightmare in weeks, but after Fives’ death he had vivid nightmares that were punctuated with images of Commander Fox. Fox on that firing squad, killing Fives and Jesse when no one else would. Fox ordering Dogma’s execution, aiming the blaster at his head and not hesitating to shoot. Fox in that cell on Umbara, his eyes glowing gold and red in the eerie blue light, the smoke curling around his face until it twisted into someone else, and his laugh became slick and sinister.

He was woken from his nightmares one night by Jag, who crawled into his bunk and held him as he sobbed and breathed through the fear. Jag had gained some weight, and rather than clutching at his back and feeling only skin and bone, Dogma’s hands found purchase on lean muscle. Jag combed through his hair with thin fingers and held Dogma against his chest, and even though in that moment he wished Tup was the one actually holding him, Jag’s warmth, steady heartbeat, and soft breathing were enough to ground him in the moment and calm him.

“Trill will be back tomorrow,” Jag whispered into Dogma’s hair.

“That’s great,” Dogma sighed. “Maybe he’ll know why Fives attacked the chancellor.”

Jag stiffened in his arms.

“What?”

“I think…” Jag began carefully. “I think maybe you should let it go. Fives is dead. And whatever happened doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Dogma sighed and pressed his face into Jag’s chest. He couldn’t let it go. He failed to save Fives, and any redemption he would have gained by saving him died with him. Besides, Dogma couldn’t shake the feeling that Tup had something to do with why Fives was meeting with the chancellor in the first place. Fox had even said Fives might have been infected by whatever had made Tup kill that Jedi. Gluco had already given them all inoculations against it, just in case.

When Trill returned from the medbay, Dogma tried to heed Jag’s advice and let it all go. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He scratched at his wrists as he and Jag sat in Trill’s bunk with him while he was awake, and only half-listened to whatever gossip Trill had overheard during his stint at the GAR medical facility. He was glad Trill was alive. Really, he was. But he couldn’t get Fives and Tup out of his head.

“What happened in that room?” Dogma asked quietly once it was just him and Trill. “With Fives and the chancellor?”

Trill frowned. “Honestly? I don’t really remember.”

Dogma’s shoulders sagged, and he sat back against the wall, feeling defeated.

“Everything about that meeting feels… fuzzy when I try to think about it. Like paint that’s been smudged with water before it could dry,” Trill continued. “And then everything is clear again after Fives shot me.”

“So, it was Fives who shot you,” Dogma said, dismayed. Trill nodded and closed his eyes. Dogma had wished Fox’s memory was also blurry, and it had not been Fives who shot Trill. But then that would mean that either Fox shot Trill, or the chancellor did. And Dogma doubted very much that the elderly leader of the Republic was skilled enough to hurt a clone trooper.

Trill’s fingers found Dogma’s hand, and wrapped around his palm. Dogma squeezed Trill’s hand, and Trill smiled.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Dogma,” Trill sighed. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.”

Dogma scratched at his wrist and pulled his knees to his chest as he replied, “I’m glad you’re going to be okay, too.”

In the days that followed, Dogma dove back into the reports on Tup and the 501^st. There weren’t many reports that he could access. One day, he flagged an alarm for too many failed attempts into a classified report, thinking at first the kriffing cracked leth key on his broken datapad was giving him trouble again. He panicked for an entire day, worried that he would get into trouble. He kept looking over his shoulder, feeling like there were eyes on him all the time. It was like a shadow was always just at the edge of his peripheral, but every time he turned to look it was gone, and in its place lingered persistent paranoia.

The only information he could find was that Tup had died on Kamino. His cause of death was redacted from the record. Dogma felt as though his chest had been hollowed out. He curled up in his bunk and cried, really cried, for the first time since his arrest on Umbara. He’d never gotten to apologize. He’d never gotten to explain to Tup how fucked up in the head he’d become when he led that execution squad, or when he’d turned his blaster on Tup outside the air base tower. He’d never gotten to tell Tup how grateful he was to have a friend like him, even when Dogma was an insufferable prick. And now, he never would.

“Did I ever tell you about my tattoos?” Trill asked softly as he sat with Dogma. Dogma sniffed and shook his head, staring numbly at the wall. Trill had one hand on his shoulder, and as much as his warmth was comforting, Dogma kind of wanted to be left alone. “They're the constellations that were in the sky the night after my first battle, when three of my batchmates had been killed. The locals claimed that when you died, your soul was hung into the stars and turned into constellations. You could always look into the stars and see your lost loved ones. So, my remaining batchmate and I had the constellations tattooed on our scalps so we could always remember our brothers.”

Dogma let out a shuddering breath. He wished he'd done something so beautifully symbolic when his original batchmates had died. Maybe he could tattoo Tup's teardrop on his body so he could always remember his best friend. But right now he wanted to curl up in the bunk and sleep.

“Come eat lastmeal with us,” Jag said, squeezing Dogma's shoulder. “You'll feel better after you eat. Trust me.”

“I'm not hungry,” Dogma whispered. “I want to sleep.”

They left him alone, curled up in his bunk, with only the lingering squeeze of Trill's hand on his shoulder.

He heard the door to the bunk room slide open sometime after everyone had left for the mess hall. He didn’t bother to see who it was that had entered. It didn’t really matter anyway. There was no one in this Galaxy that he wanted to see. Not anymore. He clutched the datapad to his chest and curled in on himself again, biting his lip to keep from sobbing. Whoever it was didn’t need to know the extent of his despair.

“You’ve been snooping in places you shouldn’t,” a gruff voice said behind Dogma. He turned and found Commander Fox looming over him. His eyes were dark again, but his expression was flat. It sent a shiver down his spine.

“I was just trying to find out what happened to my batchmate,” Dogma said defensively.

“That’s classified,” Fox snapped.

“What? Why?”

Fox didn’t answer. He continued to stare at Dogma with those dark eyes and flat expression. Dogma frowned at him. There was no reason why Tup’s death should be classified. If it was a medical reason, or a psychological one, the GAR should know so they could keep it from happening to other troopers. If the rumors were true and Fives did kill him, there was no reason why Tup’s records on Kamino should be so heavily guarded.

“I just want to know what happened to my brother,” Dogma said softly.

He lay back down, facing away from the commander, and curled around his datapad again. He didn’t want to argue. If Fox ordered him to stop his search, he would. But he didn’t think there was any reason his curiosity couldn’t be sated.

He froze when he heard the ever-familiar sound of a blaster pistol being pulled from a hip holster.

“Good soldiers follow orders, Dogma.”