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He’d gotten the name “Charm” for his uncanny ability to make it out of tight spots, a streak of fortune with which he had escaped by the skin of his teeth time after time. But now, trapped in a plummeting fireball, unable to stabilize his craft or open the cockpit to eject, it seemed his luck was finally about to run out.
“I’m not making it to the ground in one piece, boys.” His voice trembled, barely able to give them the condemning statement.
Peshka swore loudly over the comms at the sight of smoke trailing from his wingman’s fighter. Ten kriffing minutes. Ten minutes longer and they could have made it into Republic airspace. Ten minutes longer, and anti-aircraft cannons would’ve shot down those vulture droids before they got a hit. “Sithspit! Why couldn’t we have made it?” he hissed, blinking back tears uncharacteristic of a seasoned pilot. This wasn’t his first dogfight, and, horribly, Charm was not the first wingman he’d lost. But still the injustice of it blurred his sight.
Charm listened to Peshka cursing everything, his own heart racing with fear and adrenaline. He felt so alone in his cockpit, rapidly losing altitude as the inevitable fiery death approached him through the clouds. All the courage that marked him as an exceptional fighter pilot bled out of him as flames and smoke sealed his fate.
Peshka. Whipper. I don’t want to die. I know I'm a soldier, I know I was born for this, but I’m terrified. I can’t go alone. I can’t.
He felt panic rising up his throat like bile, black spots flickering on the edge of his vision, but a voice over the comms drew him back.
It was Whipper.
And he was singing.
With a billion stars in the galaxy
When I’m floating with them
It’s hard for me to breathe
I’m holding onto this dear world
As it spins around me
Charm knew the song. “Concord Dawn” was a battalion favorite, especially among the pilots, and Whipper, with his infectious love for music, had once gotten an entire LAAT full of troops to sing along over the comms with him. They’d all laughed that day. But now, as Whipper sang slowly, each note infused with a richness that no other clone’s voice could give it, Charm wondered how he’d never grasped how beautiful the song was.
Whipper was singing for him, singing so that he wouldn’t be alone. On the next line, Peshka joined in, trying desperately to school his shaking voice. It had none of Whipper’s perfect pitch, but it carried all his grief, lending it a beauty all its own. And Charm choked up at the sound.
With a million miles of odometry
And the moons like goons
Staring back at me
I’m holding onto this dear world
With love and gravity
With the planet’s surface closing in, Charm knew he had only a few moments left. He had to let them know he would be alright. And so he forced down the lump in his throat and started to sing, his voice weak and wobbly, but letting Whipper’s strong lead guide him to the correct notes. And even as he spiraled through the clouds to his death, he let the fragile harmony of their three voices lift his soul high above it all.
Sixty thousand feet up in the air
I can’t wait to come down
Drop down
I’ve been that fool
I’ve let my fuel
Run low
Let my brothers know
I’m on the drop down
It seemed too perfect that they approached the chorus as Charm’s clock ticked to its end. The lyrics that he’d never paid attention to before now carried a bittersweet meaning: he wasn’t alone.
Slicing through the stratosphere
At twice the speed of sound
You are the life that’s moving under me
Before I touch the ground
The last thing Charm heard was his brothers’ voices guiding him home.