Chapter Text
They’re in the cadets’ mess when the order comes in. They’ve all been more or less expecting it—every group in a cohort goes out on a solo training mission straight after moving up from Juniors to become cadets, and Zillo Group got theirs yesterday, which had prompted an outbreak of whooping and boasting that had lasted from late mess right through to taps—but it’s not always a given that orders will be the same for Experimental Group 99. But at just about the same time as Zillo Group had got their order, 9901 lifts his head from where he’s inhaling his food and says “Comms,” and then their comms blip and there it is: Report to Docking Bay 15 at 0600 for Group Training Mission 1.
“Yeah!” crows 9903, thumping the table with both fists and making all their cups jump. His light voice is at odds with his bulky frame. “Let’s do this!” Then he looks around at their faces: 9901 already thinking about logistics and plans, 9902 still half absorbed by whatever gadget he’s tinkering with this time, and 9904 breathing out irritably through his nose at the noise. “Come on, aren’t you excited? We’ll show ’em who’s the best batch!”
“We have to say group now,” says 9905, tiredly—9903 needs a lot of reminding when things change, and it can get wearing—and reaches down surreptitiously to rub at aching shins, hoping it’s just from too much time at the track again. Not now, not now…
“Group, batch, whatever. The point is, we’re the best and this is our chance to prove it! Start like we mean to go on!”
“Yeah, well.” 9901 pushes up from the table and glances down at the rest of them. “We’d better go get ready.” Not that they have to prep kit or anything—cadet groups are always issued with full away kit for this first mission—but there are always things that need to be done before Experimental Group 99 goes off-world.
9905 sighs and goes to stand up, and stops with a stifled gasp as a stitch stabs up from hip to ribs. So it’s happening. But Stitches aren’t real, they’re your body playing tricks on your mind, run through them, says the voice of the retired athlete who’s supervised track sessions for as long as any of them can remember, so 9905 plants both hands on the tabletop and pushes up slowly. Deep breath into the ribcage. Slow breath out through the mouth. Again. Let the pain fade, and stand up straight.
9904 shoots a glance sideways as he finishes the last bite of his food and stands. “What’s the matter?”
9905 grimaces. “Growth spurt coming on, I think.”
9904 wrinkles his nose sympathetically; he’s just finished a growth spurt himself, and they’re all still getting used to him having a deeper, raspier voice and being half a head taller than most of their cohort. “Sucky timing.”
“Could be worse. Could be a test—a proper one, I mean.” Group Training Mission 1 isn’t a test, at least not officially. It’s supposed to establish each group’s baseline so future training can be targeted for best results. But unofficially, everything’s a test, and they don’t need one clone’s growing pains slowing them down.
“You should request a painkiller while we’re in the lab,” says 9902 as they file out of the mess.
“You should mind your business,” retorts 9905, without heat. Painkillers are for injuries, not growth spurts that haven’t even properly kicked in yet. Growth spurts are like stitches; you run through them. 9902 knows that.
*
They report to the lab every morning, first thing. There’s a routine to it. Strip, weigh in, get measured. Blood test, urine test, lung function test. Body fat scan, bone density scan, brain scan, then get dressed again and head to mess. When they’re in the field, though, the lab droids can’t collect their daily data, so they have to use other methods.
At the corner of 9905’s eye, 9904 peels off his uniform tunic and hunches his thin shoulders for a moment before falling into parade rest, fists clenched behind his back. Ever since his last growth spurt he’s hated this part. The others don’t seem to mind, but 9905, standing in line with a familiar, hot pins-and-needles prickling starting to stab at already aching shins, is starting to hate it too.
A lab droid approaches with sensors, then stops and hovers uncertainly. “Are you ill?” it asks in its emotionless electronic monotone.
“No.”
“Then why are you shivering?”
“I’m starting a growth spurt.” There’s no point hiding it now, but 9901 and 9903 both groan when they hear the words. 9905 thinks about adding It hurts, but that isn’t the kind of data the lab droids are interested in, so there’s not really any point.
The droid whirrs a little. A growth spurt now is off-schedule, but that’s not unusual for Experimental Group 99. “The sensors will record any bodily changes you experience while off-planet. Please stop shivering so I can attach them.”
9905 takes a deep breath and lets it flow out, like they do on the training mats, trying to be still. But the prickling hurts like fire.
“Please comply with instructions.”
Another breath. “I’m trying to.”
“If you do not comply with instructions voluntarily I will be required to make you do so.”
9905’s breath catches. They’ve all been made to comply with instructions by lab droids before. “I can’t. I’m trying!”
“Are you trying to get us in trouble right before we ship out?” hisses 9903.
“Oh, scrag you—”
Then, from down the line, 9902 pipes up. “I believe that 9905’s shivering is an involuntary response to the pain caused by our accelerated growth process, that cannot be consciously controlled. If you’re willing to wait, it should subside soon.”
The droid whirrs again as it consults its database. It bounces briefly in midair, and then pronounces, “This is an acceptable option.”
Thank you, 9902.
It feels like it takes forever for the shivers to ease off, but eventually they do, and then all the sensors get attached and checked and they’re dismissed to head back to barracks. They’ve missed evening inspection, but it’s not taps yet, and when they get back 99 is there, pretending to clean up after the rest as usual but actually waiting for them. His face lights up when he sees them come in.
“Hey, it’s my own special lads! Don’t worry, I told the sergeant you were in the lab. So, you’re shipping out at reveille?”
They’re not actually named after 99. It’s just that there had been ninety-eight experimental clone batches before them, all of which had failed. But the coincidence pleases them all. To the other cadets 99 is just the cleaner, a failed clone, never mind that he knows every creche baby, every Tiny, every Junior and cadet and Clone Trooper and Kaminoan and client in Tipoca City by face and number and name and takes care of them all. To Experimental Group 99, he’s a constant.
9903 nods proudly. “Group Training Mission 1!”
“That’s right! You show them my boys are the best, now.”
“We will!”
He looks them all over proudly, but when he gets to 9905 slumping against a ladder, he frowns. “You look like you’re running a fever,” he says, and fumbles a pill out from one of his many pockets. 99 always has what everybody needs on hand. “We can’t have that. Take this.”
“I’m just growing,” says 9905 apologetically, yet again, but swallows the pill anyway. It’s only an antipyretic, and the sensors won’t start recording their data till reveille so it won’t mess things up and bring Nala Se down on their backs—or worse, 99’s.
“That’s better. Now, off to bed with you all. You’re going to need your sleep! I’ll see you when you get back.” He shoos them up the ladders fondly, and 9905 curls into the tube that’s supposed to be assigned to 9904—they swapped, because he likes being up high, same as 9901 swapped with 9903 who hates climbing—and tries to ignore the hot sharp pain that’s started crawling under overheated skin and sleep, and mostly fails.
*
By the time the pips sound for reveille the crawling pains have at least subsided a bit, settling into a deep, dull ache. That helps; they all know how to run through this kind of pain. 9905 breathes out slowly, letting it flow away, then fumbles for the tube latch and drops down the ladder carefully to wash up and get ready.
9904 is already halfway into his training armour when 9905 arrives at their lockers, swearing under his breath as he wrestles his greaves into place. “This fit when it was issued,” he growls without looking up, and 9905 winces sympathetically. Armour that doesn’t fit is a nightmare.
A shared nightmare, it turns out. Suddenly 9905’s greaves and vambraces are just a fraction too short, the shoulders need adjusting and the breastplate sits all wrong. As the others shuffle in and start getting ready, 9905 looks at the thin strip of skin and knobbly wrist bone visible between vambrace and gauntlet and groans. “This is gonna suck.”
9903 looks puzzled. 9904 sighs and shoves him to get him moving quicker. “You’ll understand. Someday. Hopefully.”
9901 gets ready quickly and neatly, and straightens his shoulders and looks around at them all. “Ready? Got your gear?” Because there are some things Experimental Group 99 never goes anywhere without, these days: 9901’s small, filched vibro-knife and 9902’s increasingly modded datapad, 9903’s tiny box of hoarded tools, 9904’s rifle scope. Contraband, all of it, hidden carefully inside their armour.
Only 9905 doesn’t have anything to bring yet—anything to contribute to their field effectiveness. 9901 stares heavily, waiting, in case that’s about to change, but it doesn’t, and eventually he sighs and forms them up to march for the docking bay. There’s no time to hit the mess, and even if there were, cadets are traditionally sent out on this first mission hungry. Because Hunger is a gift, as the training sergeants have been telling them since they were Tinies. Embrace it. Let it make you sharp!
9905 wants to be sharp, but the pain is making it hard.
Their new training sergeant is waiting for them in the docking bay, next to the boarding ramp of their shuttle. Now that they’re cadets they have bounty hunters as training sergeants full-time: this one is a tiny Pantoran woman with a big burn scar streaked across half her face and her hair cropped close to her scalp, and she’s terrifying. She stares at them dourly as they fall in for inspection, and sniffs, and logs demerits for 9905 and 9904 for uniform violations, and then another for 9901 whose hair has apparently grown enough to be visibly past regulation length overnight. “Not a good start,” she says scathingly, and launches straight into the mission briefing.
Drop at these co-ordinates. Locate this item at these co-ordinates “behind enemy lines” and capture it. Make your way to these co-ordinates and locate the signal flare to call for extraction. You have five local planetary rotations.
“Any questions?”
“No, ma’am,” says 9901 levelly, and the rest of them echo him, even though 9905, toes wriggling in an effort not to sway in place, is sure that every single one of them actually has several.
“Glad to hear it. Now. Your kit’s in the shuttle. The mission starts the second you set foot on that boarding ramp. It ends when you get back here. So let’s see what you’re made of, Experimental Group 99. Move out.”
They snap off their salutes and head up the boarding ramp at a jog to snap into their seats for takeoff, and—this is it. This is real. Scrag the pain, they’re on a mission, on their own, and as the boarding ramp starts to close and the shuttle starts to lift, 9905 grins at 9904 and gets a jittery-sharp smile in return.
“Let’s do this.”