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I’ve been thinking a lot about the future lately. Not the tomorrow or next week or month type of future either. Long term. Hasn’t really happened since I was a kid, simpler times before war found my planet and divided it in two, turned us against each other. Back when everything was still good, when the worst fate that could befall me and my comrades was a scraped knee. When it would rain I’d sit by the window, always the one in the kitchen where the transparisteel was especially thin, listening to the silence between raindrops and imagining adventures I’d have one day with my friends, somewhere beyond the dark clouds on some distant planet. We never ended up having those adventures, of course.
Every now and then when it rains I like to sit with the silence and imaginary memories from a more hopeful time. Once, not long after being assigned to the 99, I was hiding back on the Marauder after a mission while the others gathered under a canopy outside, taking advantage of the fresh air. Echo found me spaced out in the co-pilot's seat, I didn’t even notice he sat down next to me until he asked what I was thinking about and I gave a summarized report. He seemed sympathetic. I didn’t really know much about his past at the time – anyone’s past, really, it was strictly business those first couple of weeks – but I knew he was an ARC trooper, I knew he knew where my mind was, and he knew I knew he knew it’s not a great place for a mind to be.
“There’s a word for that feeling, actually,” His voice was so calm, both of us stared out the viewport at the raindrops slowly sliding down, picking up others along their way. “in Mando’a.”
Echo paused, waiting for me to ask. Eyes still trained straight ahead, long past the point of looking out the window, now zoned out with my gaze pointed in the general direction of ahead . “What is it?”
“Aay’han.”
“ Aay’han .” I parrot him. He made a quiet sort of hum in affirmation. I mouth the word to myself again. “What does it mean?”
He was quiet for a minute, the kind of quiet where you can tell the words are there but you’re not sure if they’ll quantify the weight of what you mean. After a moment he said, “Loving something and knowing it’ll never come back.” My attention turned to him then and his to me, misty eyes meeting misty eyes. “Somewhere between nostalgia and mourning.”
Perhaps it was the force of my sharp inhale that made the first tear fall from my eye, running down my cheek like a raindrop on the viewport. The teardrop, however, is much different from the raindrop when you think about it: the teardrop is lonely, no others in its path will join in on its way down; the teardrop makes this journey alone. I turned my gaze back to the viewport. “Good word for it.” I saw him nod from the hazy corner of my teary eye so I nodded, too. “Aay’han.” And then we sat in silence for a long while. A comfortable silence that was only broken when Wrecker barrelled onto the ship shouting about a ‘fresher emergency. We both laughed through our tears as the giant clone called for us to clear out . I wiped my eyes and turned to Echo, still laughing, “It’s fully open, there is no one in the ‘fresher.”
Echo’s laughter slowed a bit in realization, hastily wiping his eyes as he stood from the pilot's seat. “I think he means the ship.”
My own laughter subsided when it finally dawned on me, I quickly followed Echo down the ramp and under the canopy where we promptly laughed ourselves to tears once more.
These days I mostly think about this future, not the future I thought of as a kid. This future is not nearly as fun to imagine. I’ve only had the mental fortitude to think about a future where we win the war. Now when I think about the future I can only picture it with these guys. I tried thinking about a future away from the Batch and it just seems so boring, so lonely; I’ve filed it away with the future where we don’t win, I don’t like either of those futures very much. I love the quiet, I do, but I don’t think I was meant for a whole life of it. Maybe they aren’t either. I haven’t really asked them, when I do it comes out wrong and I don’t bother clarifying.
Like last week when we were having lunch, I think I asked something like, “What are you guys doing after this?”
To which a very confused Hunter replied, “Prepping for tomorrow’s mission? Remember?”
I just nodded.
We got back from that mission last night. It was raining when we landed. I slept like shit, woke up at three and couldn’t get back to sleep. I wandered over to the couch by the window but I could barely hear the patter of the rain through the thick transparisteel window so I decided to join the Marauder in the hangar. I came in through the people entrance but sat down by the ship entrance looking over the crashing waves of the ocean below, the only thing separating me from the deafening rainfall was the droning hum of the glowing blue shield. I didn’t put my chrono on before leaving, but by the gentle glow gradually growing behind the storm clouds I’d say it was around 0500 when Tech made his way into the hangar. He’s an early riser. And a night owl. Not a great combination. All this to say I wasn’t exactly surprised when I heard him call my name, just barely audible over the sound of the pouring rain.
“Hey,” I called as I rose to my feet to meet him by the ship, “Maintenance or repairs?”
He’s staring at his datapad scrolling through files rapidly and I can’t help but wonder how he reads so damn fast. “Maintenance for now. Though, I haven’t run the diagnostics scan on the hyperdrive yet, so that is subject to change.”
A laugh escaped me, briefly pulling his attention from the datapad with just the hint of a smile. “Can I help?” I’ve always liked helping Tech work on the Marauder. I’m definitely not an expert but I like asking questions and Tech likes answering them. Symbiotic.
“Certainly.” And, naturally, we got to work. I got the easy job of checking wiring while Tech calibrated some complicated mechanism under the control panel. An acceleration compensator thing, I think? Anyway, I know my limits. His detailed explanation sort of helped, but I only caught about half of it and we both gave up after about 15 minutes. “You were up early.”
“Oh, yeah,” I paused, I wasn’t expecting concern about my sleep schedule from Tech of all people. I mean, the guy sleeps about three hours a night. Four, tops. “Just woke up, couldn’t fall back asleep.”
“May I ask why you chose to come here?”
“What, to the hangar?”
“Yes, where else?” Fair point. I abandon the wires for a moment, pondering Tech’s question.
“Dunno,” I hum, glancing over to where he lay, cramped beneath the control panel, “I like the rain. It helps me think about stuff.”
Without missing a beat, Tech poses the question of the hour, “What did you need to think about this morning?” And now the wires are the furthest thing from my mind while I process that loaded question. “You do not have to answer that, forgive my curiosity.”
“No, no, it’s cool, just thinking.”
“Is the rain no longer helpful?”
I gotta give it to him, that was good. “Guess not,” I laugh. Tech makes one final adjustment to the acceleration compensator and pulls himself out of the little crawl space while I slide down the adjacent wall, sitting with my knees pulled to my chest. “I’ve been thinking about after a lot.”
“After?” I hum, which doesn’t really clear things up, come to think of it. “After what?”
“The war.” I say it flat out and instantly regret it, expecting him to jump in with some pragmatic explanation as to why putting too much thought into the future is futile. He doesn’t. No, he’s got that look he gets when he’s stuck in a thought loop and misses the solution that seems so obvious in hindsight. “Sorry, I know it’s stupid, I just- I dunno, am I just supposed to go home? I don’t think I have one of those anymore, really. And this sense of purpose I’ve got now, is that just gonna go away once it’s all over, force-willing I see the end of it? Right now is a lot, yeah, but up next is forever, and that’s been scaring the shit out of me lately.” We both fall into this tentative silence for a few moments. Long moments, where we’re physically together, but mentally we are parsecs away looking for answers. I was the one to break the silence, trying to avoid that mental loop, but all I had was, “Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” his brows are furrowed, still clearly deep in thought, but he can multitask, “To be completely honest, I have not put any thought into our future beyond the war until now.”
“Also sorry because it’s probably a lot more complicated for you than it is for me and that is a hell of a bomb to drop at,” I glance at the center of the control panel, “0547.” Time out, our ?
“Indeed. However, it is certainly something that must be thought about at some point.” I nod, I can always count on Tech to think about the practicality of it all. “I have surmised several possible outcomes, if you’ll allow me to share one.”
“Yeah, I only like the good ones, though,” I am allowed to be impractical with Tech, we balance each other out that way.
“In that case, I have surmised one possible outcome.” With wide eyes and mouth agape, I whip my head up, tearing my focus from a scuff mark on the durasteel floor I’d been staring at to meet his gaze and find him smiling proudly at his joke, yet again. “In the positive outcome, I presume clones will be effectively discharged from the military as the GAR would no longer require our service. And, seeing as your planet,” He pauses for just a second, and if I were to look really close I could probably see the high-speed scrolling of the datapad in his head as he finds a more gentle phrasing than is our enemy in this war , before he settles on a simple, “no longer suits you, we will have to find a new planet in which we can reside.”
Oh. Our . I feel my eyes just beginning to well so I sniffle a little first, then clear my throat before I can finally say, with a steady voice, “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be nice,” I clear my throat once more, “got any ideas yet? Planet-wise?”
“That,” He brings an inquisitive hand to his chin, deep in thought, “is a good question.” That does the trick, coaxing smiles from both of us even in the face of uncertainty and the vastness of possibilities both wonderful and terrible.
“Brainstorm while we run diagnostics?”
“Indeed,” Tech stands first, offering me a hand that I graciously accept, “you, however, still have wiring to check.”
“Ah, they seem fine to me,” I tease, already returning to the panel I’d abandoned with an exaggerated, dramatic huff of mock annoyance. “What about someplace warm?”
“I will search my records,” He says, already removing the datapad from his belt and scrolling rapidly, “How warm were you thinking?”
Our next assignment was given that afternoon. Some too-hot desert in the middle of nowhere on a planet that I’d never even heard of, and definitely not my idea of someplace warm . The heat was oppressive, the air dry. Absolutely zero chance of rain. My temperature regulator wasn’t cutting it, Tech said we can only run the most basic life-support on the Marauder lest we risk the Separatist base tracing our power levels, and, again, no karking rain. At this point I don’t even need it for introspection, it’s just too damn hot. We landed early in the morning, long before the afternoon heat would wash over the barren desert like a suffocating blanket. And it was suffocating, at least enough to slow me and Wrecker down as we stomped through miles of sand. The others are further ahead, clearly not as affected by the heat as us.
“How are they just, like, fine?” I huffed through my helmet’s speakers.
“I dunno, but I’m dyin’,” Wrecker’s speech slurred from exhaustion. I pass him my canteen and he pulls his helmet up to rest atop his head, visibly disappointed at the lack of relief given by removing it. I can’t talk, I had the exact same reaction only seconds later, peeling the helmet from my sweat-soaked head only for my eyes and lungs to be assaulted by the sun and sand.
“Just once, can’t we get a mission on some tropical beach planet?” I say after taking a sip of water, now warm despite the canteen’s insulation, “It doesn’t even need to be a tropical beach, really. Breathable air, a little warm, sunny – but I think I’d prefer a bit overcast if possible. Oh, and lots of trees would be nice,” the thought comes to me verbally and with an involuntarily dreamy sigh, “for shade.”
“I miss shade.” Wrecker lets out a sigh of his own. We fall into a silence, both of us daydreaming of being – just anywhere that isn’t here.
“Where would you go?” The ambiguity of my question hit me as the words fell from my mouth. I correct myself before he even has a chance to think about it, “After all this is over, where do you wanna be?”
His weary eyes widen a bit as the question registers and I can see the gears turning. “I wanna go to one of those fancy restaurants back on Coruscant. Bet they have some pretty good food.”
Despite my exhaustion, a smile I didn’t think I had in me at the moment appears at the thought of it. Me and the guys dressed in our Benduday best, dining at a certified Cygnus Star Restaurant, drinking Chandrilan Squigs. “Yeah?”
“Yeah! And then maybe we can go find even better food on other planets, too!” Wrecker lets out a sleepy laugh. It’s much less exuberant than normal – like it wanted to be a belly laugh, it just didn’t have the energy to send it that far – but a classic Wrecker laugh nonetheless.
We spent the rest of that treacherous walk discussing where we would get our big celebratory meal one day. Hopefully soon, though, spend two and a half hours straight talking about food and tell me you wouldn’t be starving, not ten minutes in. A nice meal and decent weather and the best company. What more could I ask for.
It slipped out with Hunter. I really didn’t even think about it. We were re-organizing the supplies on the way back to Kamino, the ship was quiet, we were both over-tired and unable to sleep. We were just shooting the shit to pass the time, then I went and said, “What do you think you’ll do after the war?”
“Where’d that come from?” Hunter’s brows furrowed, not in anger but in genuine confused surprise. I just shrug. He takes a breath, churning the question for a moment, “I try not to think about it.”
“ Try not to?” I tilt my head to the side inquisitively. He sighs, but that smile of his is hard to hide. “C’mon.”
His laugh is nearly silent, barely more just a shake in his shoulders before they sag in defeat. “I’d like to keep the squad together. Not sure what we’d do, but I think we’d figure it out.”
“You guys can do anything, I think.” A light chuckle escapes me as I imagine the Sergeant and his squadmates running a farmstand or managing some fancy restaurant near the top-side of Coruscant.
“Well,” Hunter sighs and when he turns to face me, I’m met with a look I haven’t seen in ages. A smile that can warm a home through a freezing winter, eyes soft and familial. It was long before joining the GAR that I’d last seen a smile so kind, and for just a moment, I swear I saw my family in his eyes. “You’ll have to help us narrow it down, then. If you’d like.”
“Yeah,” I lean over just enough to bump my shoulder into his arm with a wide smile, “I’d like.”
I asked Crosshair last. I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer, but I still wanted to include him in my questioning. We were sitting opposite each other at our messy table back on Kamino. He was cleaning his rifle, a task I just love trying to interrupt but always to no avail, while I was tossing around some spherical tool or part or whatever Tech had left laying around. Finders keepers. “Hey, what are you gonna do when the war’s over?”
“No.” He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t look up from his task. Laser focus.
“Okay, so first you’re going to make it official and marry your gun, yeah, but what next?” He’s completely unamused. I suck my teeth. “I know you’ve thought about it, Crosshair, you gotta tell me. Like if you’re a cop. It’s illegal if you don’t tell me, I think. If you don’t, you’ll-”
“Only if you’ll shut up after.” His movement stops but his gaze remains fixed on the rifle.
“Deal.” I lean forward, bored jitters now stilled in anticipation, I put the ball thing on the table and put my hands in my lap. Active listening.
“I’d serve the Republic.”
My eyes narrow, I wait for him to say more, explain his answer in some way. He’s still just staring at the disassembled gun on the table. “Nope, I don’t buy that. Deal’s off. Hey, did you know there’s a planet with this weird vegetable that’s, like, incomprehensibly sweet? And it doesn’t- it can’t grow anywhere else in the galaxy. I asked Tech about it and he was like-”
“Stop." I did it. I finally interrupted his cleaning routine. “I don’t care. As long as we’re still helping the Republic, helping people, I don’t care.” My wild grin softens at the use of we. Maybe it’s a me we , which would be nice, but a him and his brothers we is just as sweet. Crosshair, of course, instantly sees my shift in expression. “Don’t.” My smile remains soft in the face of his annoyance, and I think he’s just seen the question I don’t dare ask aloud. “You’re there, too.” His face is almost too flat, like there’s a smile hiding there somewhere, only it’s not that great at hiding. My smile grows, somehow, and my eyes crinkle and my nose scrunches and my boot taps against his armored shin under the table. “I said don’t.”
“I’m not!” I put my hands up, pleading innocent. I’m just happy, is all – giggly, even, “I literally said nothing.” His focus returns to the gun but he’s yet to get back to work. “We’re best friends,” there’s a giddy little tune to it. The shout of my name, I was later told, was heard as far as the ‘fresher around the corner at the end of the hallway.