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Kix had heard a hand full of rumors while running through the various cantinas and bars that the Crimson Corsair had made their way in. He was no small part of the local gossip, to be sure, but there was also some people saying that there were sightings of another clone out there.
They’d always describe this clone with vivid blonde hair and a younger disposition than you’d expect. Some estimated that they would be within the range of his sixy’s by now, but not nearly as war torn as the other clone Kix had heard about.
Boba Fett certainly knew how to make an impression, but he wasn’t as much interest to Kix now. Boba had taken his stance on his father’s clones long ago. The 501st trooper doubted that age would have helped him be more charitable.
Besides, it was hard to pin down what had happened to him after taking over Jabba’s former empire. Some said he’d attempted to help Tattoone on some level, but eventually he had to give up his peaceful ways. Though that wasn’t tricky at all considering a silver mandalorian and the infamous bounty hunter Fennick Shande seemed to always be around the mando.
Still, Kix had tried to find any information on what may have happened to Jango’s son. Nothing had come up beyond recountings of how he’d taken over the same drug empire that had once hired him. That was all anyone seemed interested in anyways.
It was annoying for Kix’s purposes, but still enlightened him on other matters. Such as the fact that clones could do something beyond fighting. It was a contentious topic back during the wars that he’d often had vods fight over. They just didn’t know what would become of them after their duty was finished. So they argued about it instead of trying to do anything meaningful. It was mildly amusing back then, not so much now.
Despite all of that, the idea that there could be another clone out there was surprising. As far as Kix knew Boba should have been the only one to make it past at least 9 or 10 BBY.
The Kaminoians had been so careful about so many other parts of his aliit’s construction, so how could they have the oversight to leave one more clone without the two-times-speed affliction?
Even if there was another, there was the complication of it being a she in all accounts. He’d heard so many jokes about female clones being created in secret, or what it would be like to have a sister. Knowing that there might actually be one out there though? It was strange, but reassuring in it’s own way.
She was able to persist where all others could not. She was one of the remaining fragments of their aliit and she was a testament to the fact that they had been there. No history book could truly erase them until all of them were six feet under, and her and her brother Boba made sure that it would take far longer for that inevitable fate to befall them.
Beyond that generally sentiment, though, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information.
He’d known about Boba for ages. Nearly all clones were aware of their regular vod out there. The special son of Jango Fett that was lost at the same time as his father. The few appearances he had made around them only solidified that whatever brotherly relationship any of them could have had had long since been lost. Boba saw them as the shambling husks of his father, and that was all he ever seemed to want to see from them.
Though, that was when he was young an spiteful. Surely there had been changes in his life since Kix went under. He may have been frozen in time but Boba certainly wasn’t.
Still, a small part of him wanted to leave him be.
Boba had already gone through so much around them. He’d done so much and Kix’s aliit had done just as much. They each had been on a different side of history, and now that history had long since pasted.
He doubted, even with time, that it would be easy for Boba to see someone like him again. If he had been able to distance himself enough from the clone blood he originated from, his sudden appearance could throw a lot off for him.
Kix knew this, and instead made a different choice.
Based on the rumors he heard, and other information he was able to obtain through old Imperial documents, he decided to reach out into the void.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. He needed to first obtain reliable coordinates for where he should request a meet up. Once he was able to get that though, by opening up old Imperial reports that made no sense to any of his colleagues, he then sent a message out into space.
He sent it in the general direction he’d calculated reports matching to where his ori’vod might be staying. Though, for all he knew, the reports were actually decades old and she had long since moved on. But they seemed to frequent and consistent for him to totally give up hope however.
If there was a chance he was willing to take it.
All he had left were chances, after all. He had been given a chance by the Crimson Corsair when he woke up, he’d been given a chance when he was allowed time to prove his worth, he’d been given a chance when they helped him more forward in life, and now he was taking one last chance in an attempt to find a fragment of his family.
He’d been trained to take chances when he could see them, and his training was always going to be a part of him. Just like any member of his aliit.
He turned up on the moon early.
He told his colleagues that he’d done it because he was concerned about burning good daylight. No one really knew another about the moon since the Empire was so focused on the graveyard itself than what the atmosphere was like. So he wasn't sure how long the light would last or what issues would present itself when it was gone.
Really, though, he feared that she wouldn’t show up. If he was going to be left waiting around somewhere it was better to wait on the very moon he wanted to see, even if she didn’t end up joining him in the end.
However, as he landed his ship and existed onto the moon’s surface, he was surprised to find a blonde woman already there. Her own ship close by, she stood there already smiling as he existed his.
“I was beginning to worry that I got the date wrong.”
“And I was worried that you wouldn’t be here.”
That got a laugh out of her as she began her approach. She was taller than he anticipated, or maybe he had just started to get short as time presented itself in his life again. Her blonde hair was just as striking as he’d heard though. It reminded him immediately of his captain and his throat tightened with an onslaught of memories he hadn’t anticipated.
She had so much life in her and yet he’d invited her to the one place where their aliit was allowed to rot.
“I thought about worrying about that too, but I know you all too well. You hate being late and you hate when you can’t be punctual.” She held out her hand to him, “I’m getting ahead of myself though. I’m Omega.”
Kix took a moment to respond as he breathed in the moon’s gritty air to ground himself once more. It was moving so fast. It felt too fast. It felt like so much more than he’d been anticipating. No amount of preparation could have gotten him ready for her. She really was like they said, the last bastion of clone life. Though, he doubted she would have enjoyed hearing those stories.
“Kix, it’s nice to finally be meeting you.”
He watched her face react slightly to hearing his name, “Kix? Like the medic from the 501st?”
“Yes, yes, actually I am or was. How did you–”
“Echo mentioned you. He used to tell me stories about his time with the 501st when nights on the Marauder were too long. Hunter and Wrecker also said you helped while they were on the trail to finding Echo. It was pretty brief, all things considered, but I would never forget any of the troopers they talked about in their tales. Especially ones that were prepared to help a vod fight Wrecker.”
Echo.
Oh force.
Echo.
He’d seen him after his rescue. He’d looked so distorted. It was a miracle there was any clone left in him with how much machine had been augmented into his form. He knew if the Techno Union had been able to figure out how to only extract his brain and leave nothing else they would have. So he’d always thought that it was lucky that they’d been able to rescue Echo at all. If only Fives had been there with them. Then it really would have felt like a full victory.
He immediately felt guilty for how little he’d thought about him after waking. Often when his thoughts were prone to reflection they would always get stuck on Jesse, Fives, Hardcase, Rex, or even Dogma. He’d known Echo but in the grand scheme it felt like more of a blip than the others. Though, that was a hard point to argue since Echo was just as much of a vital part of the 501st as him. Maybe it was because he’d missed Umbara unlike his batchmate, but that was an entirely other topic for him to try and break down later.
What mattered then was that she knew of him. That was more than he ever could have asked for, really. At the same time, though, he did somewhat wonder what Echo would have had to say about him.
“Echo.” He eventually whispered, another wave of memories crashed into him and threatened to make him collapse on the spot. He’d put in so much effort to try and emotionally foresee the kind of pain he would feel from this little excursion, but nothing like this was in the cards as far as he was concerned. And he hadn’t even seen the helmets yet.
He hated how weak the status had made him.
He was a soldier of the Republic. He had been created to ignore these kinds of overwhelming emotions. Yet at every waking moment he seemed to find himself discovering a new thing to struggle against. A new pain to feel deep in his heart and send him spiraling for weeks.
He could barely get out of bed some days. What use was he to the Crimson Corsairs like that?
He needed to be useful. It was the one thing he could still offer in this world and he was somehow even failing at that.
He felt a hand get placed on his shoulder and his breath shuddered with the touch. Even through the armor he felt to run through his body.
He needed it.
“Hey, if you need a minute we can take it. I don’t want you doing too much after everything. You mentioned in your message that you would try and explain everything here, but this place is going to be a lot.”
“You’ve been here?”
“Yeah, once, a long time ago, with Echo and Rex. They had mentioned it a few times when I was around and eventually they decided to see it again, and I joined. I didn’t know any of the troopers personally but I could still feel the pain this place held. It’s not exactly an easy place to swallow for most people, and that’s not even taking into account if you knew the troopers.”
The way she listed off their names looked so easy. The more Kix got to look at her, the more he was able to notice the age that was clear on her face. There were lines at the edges of her smile and on her forehead. Her smile and eyes looked worn down in place, but there was still a very clear show of light coming from them.
She was aged, most likely older than how he felt inside even, but it didn’t feel like it had an impact on this interaction at all. Her grip on his shoulder tightened when she finished. Her eyes held so much worry in them but her face never lost that smile.
She really was his ori’vod.
“I’ll be fine.” He attempted to assure her, though he saw no change in her face and knew it was pointless. She was going to worry no matter what.
He couldn’t blame her though. What else was she gonna do now that another vod just appeared in her life.
She clearly had lost the ones that had made up her aliit long before he came into the picture. And now that he was here, what more could she do but see him as another vod in that group.
Sure, there was room that they still needed to fill with actual information about one another. There were so many stories they needed to swap and so much time they needed to take up, but at least they had a start.
They’d met each other.
That had to count for something, right?
“Are you sure?” She asked again
He shook his head lightly to try and center himself once again. There was so much to think about now that she was here, but that could wait. It had to wait, really, there was one more thing he needed to do.
“Yeah, yeah, I need to do this.”
“You don’t need to do anything. You should just do this if you want to.”
“I do. I have since I heard it might exist. I need to see it with my own eyes. I need to know where my vods were laid to rest.”
Omega’s brow stay furrowed, but she released her grip on his shoulder, “Then let’s go.”
They started to walk forward after that. Kix let Omega lead since she seemed to know where she was going, but increasingly there was a hesitance to her step.
A weight appeared in his chest when he noticed it, but it was easy to guess why. She knew what was coming. She knew what was waiting for them down below, and she’d seen the reactions of previous clones to it as well. She didn’t specify how Echo had reacted to the graves, but he could imagine that it wasn’t pretty. Especially for someone who knew and cared about Echo, it must have brought back rough memories for her. Yet, she kept moving forward.
He began to consider if he should ask to turn back. That he might be pushing her too far after only just meeting her. It was such a big ask, and she was doing it anyways.
As he opened his mouth to ask though, he saw it.
His stomach dropped from inside him and his heart immediately begin to beat faster. Time proved itself to have also caught up to this space. There were no clear indication where the graves were meant to be, but there were helmets.
So many helmets.
Some were clearly shattered with time. Whether it be from weather or outside forces they had slowly cracked and chipped until they couldn’t hold their shape. There was still indication of what they once were, though. The paint spoke volumes of what they used to be, and so many were orange.
Amongst the fix of faded orange and white, there was blue.
The deep kind of blue that made Kix’s chest tighten and tears well up into his eyes. He didn’t mean to be impacted so much by one color, but it had seeped it’s way into his bones. He’d used that color on his own armor a long time ago, and it had woven it’s way into his blood just like any other training he had.
As he approached this particular helmet, leaving Omega behind as he did, he recognized the symbol on it’s forehead the most. It was an insignia that had been relegated to old text books long before he’d woken up. It was a reminder of the world he’d known, and it was distinctively familiar to him.
As he picked it up, lightly dusting off the dirt from some areas, a sob escaped his throat. A single word came out with it, “Jesse.”
His vod lay underneath him now. His armor most likely being all that remained of him after all this time. If he was lucky his bones were there as well but it was all mixed together. The identical bodies creating identical bones, and there was no way for Kix to even begin putting his vod back together again.
Slowly dirt dripped down the helmet as it got caught in the tears. He didn’t know how long he was sat there on his knees holding his vod. He couldn’t think of anything other than expressing the pain that had been lodged in his chest.
It was one thing to cry in the fresher of the Meson Martinet, or even the small room they let him have, but it was an entirely different one being there in the dirt and surrounded by his aliit’s bones. The fragments of the war that he missed were all around him.
The Venator protruding from the ground and stabbing into the sky was a monolith to the time. The bits and pieces of the helmets he’d once helped paint scattered around him. There was so much of the dead. So many remainders there. It was crushing.
Eventually he felt a hand on his back. His body shuddered at the touch, but it only caused him to pull Jesse’s helmet closer.
“I know, I know, it’s gonna be okay.” Omega whispered as she began to rub his back.
Slowly she moved closer until she had her hands around his shoulder and her head against his. He let his body lean into the touch as he started to scream in between the sobs and gasp for breath.
He could feel the pain of all that had fallen there. He could see it would have been like to finally have the nightmare ended in this disastrous crash site. He knew it all immediately, and he couldn’t keep it inside him anymore.
He could hear them.
He hated bringing it up, but he could.
They were trying to guide him from the beyond. He knew they were. And sitting there amongst the rubble of his former life, they were just screaming at him now.
“I’m here, Kix. I’m here.”
She was right about that.
So much was lost and buried now.
He’d missed the end of the very war he was created to fight in. He’d lost the chance to stop all the carnage and destruction that Fives had been able to see. It had all been taken from him in one fell swoop.
Omega was still there though.
She was there with him. She was sat there with him and comforting him through his cries. She was reminding him that there was still time. That there were parts of their aliit left.
She’d lost her’s just as much as he’d lost his.
Maybe, just maybe, they could fill the parts of themselves that had been lost with death claimed their vods.
It was a large ask, but there was a start now.
This was a start.
A good, solid, start that Kix needed.
That they both needed.