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Rex felt like something was… different, the moment he woke up. He wasn’t able to pinpoint it until he stepped into the sonic. He stared up, his mind scrabbling to make sense of the ceiling above him. He wouldn’t admit how long it took staring at the ceiling before he realized what was nagging at him so badly.
Had he… shrunk?
He hurried from the fresher, and picked up his breastplate from his neat stack of armor.
Tiny.
The breastplate covering him from his eyes down to his waist, clearly way too large for him. Mystified, he checked a few other pieces of armor before concluding that somebody was not, in fact, playing a gigantic hoax on him.
He heard feet pounding down the corridor before a frantic knocking on his door. He hesitated, noting the light footsteps had sounded like Ahsoka. “Come in,” he hollered, ducking into the fresher.
“Captain! Something-where are you?”
Rex frowned, hearing a high-pitched vod’s voice. He peeked out of the fresher, and his mouth dropped open. “Fives?”
Another baby clone shoved out from behind Fives, his scowl mimicking his twin.
“Echo?” Rex gaped.
A few more tiny clones poured in the door, and Rex felt a sudden headache coming on. “Jesse, sitrep.” He could see Dogma, Tup, Coric, and many others crowded in behind the Domino Twins and officers.
“It’s the whole company.” Jesse mournfully informed him, his voice too high-pitched to sound very mournful. “I checked it out when I woke up to Kix the size of a sixth-cycle cadet.”
“You’re the same kriffin’ size, dikut,” Kix snarled back. He addressed himself to Rex, words gushing out in a hurry, “I already checked Jesse, sir. There doesn’t appear to be any physical problems. We’re just… small.”
Rex blinked once. Twice, because the situation seemed to warrant it.
“Where’s the General? This feels like Jedi osik,” Fives grumbled. He had a large scrape across his nose, and petulant expression.
“Don’t involve them yet,” Rex hurried cautioned. He shuffled through his armor, getting ahold of his attached comm and dialing a familiar code. At his gesture, the little group bunched in his doorway split, most going back out. Only Echo, Fives, Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase were accepted in the room. They huddled near the edges.
“ Cody,” the comm snapped.
“Cody, vod, this is Rex. We have a situation.”
“ So do we. If you don’t mind, I’ll call later to see about your situation!”
“Cody, wait!” Rex desperately tried to keep him on the line. “You can call later, but until then mark Torrent Company as out of commision.”
A long silence came from over the comms. “ The whole company?”
“We have a little situation.”
This time the silence felt laden with something unspeakable. “A little situation?” Cody warily repeated.
Rex affirmed. Another long, pregnant pause.
Finally Cody said flatly, “You mean literally, don’t you.” It was not a question. Rex miserably agreed. A suffering sigh came over. “Well, so do we. It might be GAR-wide.”
Rex looked up to see Kix’s eyes widening. “Well, kriff.” He muttered.
*~*~*~*~*
Plo Koon stared in horror at his Commander, and the men grouped around him. Wolffe, still missing an eye, but obviously retaining his temperament, wore a look fierce enough to have everyone scuttling out of his way and he marched up to his Jedi.
“General,” he gritted out.
“Commander Wolffe…” Plo hesitantly returned the greeting. “May I enquire as to what happened?”
“Unknown as of yet, General.” Wolffe fell into parade rest before his leader, the others following suite. “The only information we have is that it is GAR-wide.”
Plo stares in consternation. “Child…”
*~*~*~*~*
“Ponds!” Mace shouts, careening through the halls of their ship. They were late. They needed to be in hyperspace right now, not drifting idly through space. To his mystification, not a clone was to be seen all the way down to the engineers’ space. He flung open the door, and froze, his mind struggling to comprehend.
Three dozen pairs of eyes turned upon him, varying from concerned to angry to world-weary. That was Ponds--a teeny, tiny Ponds--sporting the weary expression.
“General…” he groaned the word.
Mace blinked again, composing himself. “Commander, what is going on?”
“We’re tiny!” somebody in the crowd shouted, drawing an angry jostling from his neighbors.
“So I see.” He studied them. This needed remedied as soon as possible…. “Lay a course-” For the first time he noticed two little clones stacked, just able to reach the critical button to start the ship. It was placed high so nobody would accidentally bump it. The little clone pushed the button, and Mace gently force-lifted him back to solid ground. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Just get it running. Ponds, can you come? Have everyone mann their stations as well as possible considering the…circumstances.” He vaguely waved. Ponds saluted, turning to bark orders in an incredibly young-sounding voice. The clones scattered.
Mace groaned to himself, “They’re babies! Actual little children!”
*~*~*~*~*
“How…” Anakin Skywalker gaped comically at his command staff. Beside him, Ahsoka oggled the little clones with something bouncing between fiendish glee and sheer horror. “..what? I mean, how? When…”
Rex saved Anakin from his fruitless sputtering. “It’s GAR-wide, sir.” He primly set down a holopad, containing frantic reports from commanders all across space. Ahsoka sidled up to him, but he determinedly ignored her. His report, a hastily written thing, lay between him and Anakin, untouched. Anakin studied him.
“You’re not just…little, though.”
“Sir?” He swatted at Ahsoka as she reached out. She lithely jumped back.
“How old are you?”
Rex looked confused, “The same age, sir. Thirteen.” He switched a glare at Ahsoka again as she gently patted his blond head. Taking the hint, she backed off with a smirk.
“You’re shorter than I am!”
“Experience outranks everything,” Rex stiffly said.
It suddenly clicked with Anakin. He looked over the small group with dawning understanding. “You’ve all been changed to your chronological age. The accelerated aging is gone.” He looked as surprised as the clones, which made sense. Nobody expected to wake up and find themselves leading an army of ten-to-thirteen-year-olds.
Rex stared, struggling to process. It was Kix who broke the bewildered silence. “Our mentality is the same, sir. We all have the same memories, and-” here he paused to glower at Jesse and Hardcase, “- mostly the same maturity.”
“But physically!” Ahsoka was getting excited now. “Master is right, you look just like holos of thirteen-year olds.”
She was probably correct. Kix made a note to himself to let the other battalion medics know. If this was a change to match physical to chronological age, there likely wouldn’t be medical problems, or a magical reversing solution.
“We could play murderball with you guys jumping to me!” Ahsoka was ecstatic.
“With all due respect, sir, this isn’t a murderball sort of solution,” Rex said, tight-lipped.
*~*~*~*~*
“They’re all freaking children !” Aayla shouted over the comms. Obi-Wan winced, pulling away.
“Yes, so I see..” he murmurs. He still hasn’t quite gotten used to the sight of little clones hurrying about. It’s almost comical, the way they adapt to their new “problem”. Chairs to stand on, pillows to raise seats, hastily jury-rigged headsets to fit a child’s head. They’d gotten nearly everything to work. Obi-Wan still found himself occasionally drafted to assist with something that remained stubbornly out of reach. At the same time, it tore at his heart. He’d been a similar age during the Melida-Daan war, and knew how that had adversely affected him.
“What do I do?” Aayla practically wailed. “Quin told me to figure it out, and hung up on me! Said to call a different master!”
Smart man , Obi-Wan thought. He knew the Shadow was currently undercover, and figured whatever mess his former padawan had gotten into, another Jedi master would be able to help. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. As he deliberated his answer, one of the tiny clones looked up, calling across to him in a ridiculously-young voice,
“Sir! General Windu reports laying a course for Kamino to…” he hesitated, and Cody leaned over his shoulder, snorting in an undignified manner when he saw whatever it was that had been transmitted.
“That’s quite enough, Troy.”
Obi-Wan raised his comm, “Aayla? Lay course for Kamino. We’ll rendezvous there.”
Cody glanced up, startled. His boyish face took Obi-Wan aback every time he saw it. It was easy, too easy, to forget the clones were hardly even teenagers when they looked like twenty-year olds.
“Sir, is that a wise idea?”
Obi-Wan’s smile was grim as he tucked his comm away, “I believe so, Commander. I would very much like to knock some sense into those Kaminoans.”
He quickly turned away before Cody’s sly, thirteen-year old grin broke him.
*~*~*~*~*
“Why are they littler?”
Rex hardly glanced at the troopers, “They’re the shinies.” He offhandedly explained, his mind mulling over the variety of problems that had been brought to his attention. The clones were now lacking much of the strength and height needed to operate the huge, venator-class ship they were supposed to be manning. He’d have to double-up shifts where needed. Surely two clones would now equal one? He could-
“Rex, that doesn’t explain a lot.” Anakin sounded edgy. Rex tore his gaze from the datapad, actually looking at what Anakin seemed so aggrieved over. Coric hovered over some of the new shinies they’d gotten less than two months ago. Sure, the height difference was pronounced, but that was to be expected. Coric was a veteran, old as Rex himself. The shinies--being shipped out younger and younger as the war dragged on--were only nine.
“They’re nine, sir,” Rex offered, not quite sure what his General was after. Anakin drew a deep breath in through his teeth, letting it out slowly. The atmosphere in the area racked up a few notches. Rex frowned. He’d thought the Jedi knew what age shinies were shipped out now.
“If you’ll excuse me, Captain,” he muttered. Rex hardly had time to acknowledge it before the Jedi dashed away toward the training rooms. He frowned in bewilderment, eyes eventually drifting back to his datapad. Sure, it was a mess, but they were still the same age as they had been before.
*~*~*~*~*
“But you look younger!”
“So?” Fox remained unmoved. “I am still the same age. The only change is the inconvenient loss of strength and height, admittedly a critical loss. All our training, knowledge, and maturity are still present. ”
Senator Amidala breathed deeply, regaining emotional control. She changed tack. “People won’t be comfortable seeing children patrolling the streets. Your…men might be attacked. Their armour doesn’t fit them anymore, does it?”
Fox tilted his head in acknowledgement. “I have taken that into consideration. The Coruscant Guard has rescinded all city patrols until further notice. The senate, however, is still being patrolled. We are working to resolve the issue.”
Amidala groaned softly. “Stay safe, Commander. I will be representing you as best as I can before the senate.”
Fox startled minutely, not enough for a non-vod to even notice. “You have our sincerest thanks, Senator.” He gravely said.
Amidala shook her head wearily, stepping out of the Commander’s office. The entire Republic was shocked and on edge, but the best the clones could come up with was “inconvenient loss of strength and height”. They seemed genuinely puzzled by everyone’s sudden concern for their child-slave-army.
*~*~*~*~*
The Kaminoans weren’t expecting the sudden descent of the entire GAR onto their facility. Despite their protests, and angry rebuttals, they were herded up until somebody decided what to do with them. Echo and Fives waited on the ship with the youngest shinies, who all the Jedi had instantly deemed unfit for battle. Their protests that they could carry a gun just as well as the older clones fell on deaf ears.
“It’s really not their fault,” Fives commented, watching the chaos in Tipoca City below. Echo hummed. “I mean, they did a lot of awful, terrible things to us, but accelerated aging doesn’t count in those things.” He stole a glance at his twin. Echo’s cheeks were a little chubbier, his face a little rounder than Fives was used to. Baby face, he thought.
“They even told the Jedi….” Echo mused.
Fives scoffed. “The Jedi didn’t care until we looked our age. Then they suddenly jump on the pity train.”
Echo laid a calming hand on his hotter-tempered brother. “Better late than never,” he mildly said. “They are working to rectify. Remember how unfit for command they were? I do not believe we can blame everyone on them.”
Fives’ shoulders slumped a little. Echo offered him a grin, hurriedly closing the conversation as one of the tiny shinies approached. “Look forward, not back.”
“Sirs?” The shiny fidgeted nervously, plucking at the hem of their far-too-large blacks. Everyone wore pinned-up blacks and make-shift civvies, those going down to Tipoca City managing to cobble together a sort of armour for their much smaller bodies. Echo smiled gently at the shiny.
“What is it, Delta?”
A small contingency gathered at a safe distance behind their representative, watching eagerly. The shiny drew a deep breath, gathering his courage. He then reeled off his words with dizzying speed, “We wanted to ask, sirs, if this means that we’llallhavetogothroughgrowthspurtsagain.” He stopped expectantly. Echo blinked. He exchanged a side-glance with Fives. Fives shifted fully away from the viewport to face the shiny.
“Could you try that again? Perhaps slow down a little.”
“Please,” Echo added meaningfully.
The shiny gulped. “Will we go through our growth spurts again?” he muttered, slower this time. Fives paled.
“Kriff, I hope not.”
Echo rolled his eyes, “Yes, we will.” He confirmed. “Think about it,” he raised his voice, “all of you! We’re the same size as we were at six, well, four or five years old for you guys. We hit our main growth spurts between five and ten, which is ten and twenty in natborn years.” He paused as everyone considered that “natborn-years” now applied to them as well. “So in conclusion, yes. We will have that misery to look forward too.”
The shiny slumped a little, “Thank you, sir,” he sulked, dragging back over to his equally unenthused pals. Echo turned to Fives.
“I bet this means the Jedi let us go.”
“Huh?”
“Free. They’ll probably not let us fight anymore.”
“Oooooh….” Fives turned to peer out the viewport again. There wasn’t much to see anymore. Everyone had gone inside. He sighed, propping his chin in his hands. “We have a lot of changes to get used to.”
“That we do.” Echo nodded.