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Choke hunched his shoulders and pulled his hood a little further over his forehead, trying to keep the light of the sodium yellow streetlight above him from reaching his face. The street was busy despite the late hour—from what little he’d seen of it, Choke guessed that the nightlife district of Ord Mantell City never slept. It was crowded, despite the damp and the chill, beings of all shapes and sizes barely looking up as they rushed past one another. Choke had ducked into a small alcove next to a dumpster to try and stay out of the constant stream while he waited, but he had still been bumped into a few times.
It felt strange to be out of his armor in public, and stranger still to realize he would never be wearing it again. There hadn’t been any civvies on the medical station where he had woken up, but the bleached, cut-up blacks the medic had given him had served well enough on the dim cargo ship Choke had hitched a ride on. After he landed on Ord Mantell he had swiped a hooded cloak that was draped over a seat in the spaceport terminal, ignoring the twinge of guilt in his gut as he limped away as quickly as he could.
He had the feeling that he would need to get comfortable with a lot more than petty theft if he expected to survive.
A break in the crowd revealed the shadowed door across the street, the one Choke had been nervously eyeing for the last half an hour. As he watched, a drunk-looking Neimoidian stumbled out of the door, arguing loudly with a tall Aqualish as they joined the stream of foot traffic and disappeared into the crowd. The sign above the door simply flashed BAR in neon green letters, with a small scrolling sign underneath that listed things like SELECT DROIDS SERVED and CALAMARI FLAN NOT ACCEPTED.
It was an unassuming place, one of a dozen similar-looking bars along this street, but it was the only information Choke had been given by the nameless medic that had smuggled him off of the Ord Cestus medical station. A location, a date, and a time; a time that he had been anxiously waiting for since he had landed fifteen hours ago. Choke had spent most of those hours navigating the warren of city streets while clumsily trying to remain inconspicuous—he had trained for urban combat, not undercover work.
With one last furtive look at the chrono he had found in the pocket of his stolen cloak, Choke inhaled deeply, relaxed his shoulders, and strode with confident steps across the street and through the door. Inside, the bar was dim, musty, and loud; an old-fashioned music player was blasting Falleen throat singing, the patrons all trying to talk over it. Most of the tables were occupied, full of groups of drunks laughing together or a handful of suspicious-looking types making what Choke guessed were underworld business dealings.
The only bar Choke had ever visited before was 79’s, but he figured a natborn bar couldn’t be all that different. Beings came here to drink, the same as everywhere in the galaxy; Choke knew how to order a drink, at least, he wasn’t some shiny on his first shore leave. He ordered a Thermal Detonator from the droid bartender and handed over some of the credits he had managed to bring with him; most of them pressed into his hands by the medic, plus a few he had palmed earlier that day from a tip left on an outdoor cafe table.
Drink in hand, Choke made a slow circuit of the bar before settling at a table that offered a good view of the door. Truthfully he had no idea what to look for, but his best guess was that he was meeting someone here; hopefully someone who planned to help him figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next. He hunched over his drink, holding the round bottle between both his hands, and waited. His thigh throbbed, a deep, pulsing pain that made him clench his teeth when he shifted his weight, but he resisted the urge to reach down and rub it, keeping both of his hands visible.
Choke sat there for a long while, long enough that he began to feel eyes on him from around the room—he was alone at his table, after all, with only one long-finished drink and no obvious business in the bar. Ord Mantell was home to the Black Sun crime syndicate, he knew, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself. Choke had no interest in the criminal underworld; though it was probably the fastest way to disappear, he didn’t think he could stomach what it would lead to. He had seen enough death for one lifetime.
Caught up in his musings, he didn’t notice when a pair of metallic legs stopped next to him. “Might have dropped your hood,” said a distorted, electronic-sounding voice. “It would have made it a lot easier to find you.”
Startled, Choke looked up to see a strange-looking protocol droid standing by his table. It was tall and shiny, copper-colored, with the stiff limbs and exposed wiring at its midriff that was typical of their design. But it was strangely broader across the shoulders than the handful of protocol droids Choke had seen in person, and its head was bigger than he would have expected.
Sitting up tall, Choke eyed the droid suspiciously. “Maybe I don’t want to be found,” he said neutrally.
“You do, though,” the droid argued, lifting its arms in a vague gesture. “Or you would not be here waiting for me.”
“Who says I’m waiting for you?” Choke asked, casting a quick glance around the bar. No one seemed to be paying attention to their conversation, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be listening.
“I do,” the droid replied primly. “As I arranged it. And now we have met, we had best be on our way.” It turned to go, but twisted awkwardly around when Choke didn’t move to follow.
“Why should I go with you?” Choke asked, trying to channel his late captain’s no-nonsense stare. “I have no reason to trust you.”
The droid turned back to him fully. Despite its unmoving face, it almost seemed to smile at him. “You are suspicious,” it said approvingly. “That’s good, you will need it.” It let out a digital sort of sigh and glanced around before leaning in. “When the aiwhas migrated, they sang,” the droid said quietly. “It was too low for human ears to hear, but if you modulated your helmet frequencies just right you could hear it when they flew over the dormitories.” The droid shrugged mechanically. “It was the first music most clones ever heard.”
Choke gaped at the droid. He could clearly remember wearing his training helmet inside his sleeping pod at 4 standard years; CT-8603 had gotten the frequency settings from someone in Squad Cresh and he swore it worked. The aiwhas’ song had been faint at first, barely even a hum, but soon it was so loud Choke had reluctantly turned down the helmet’s volume, overwhelmed by the soaring, undulating music that lasted for hours and hours. He hadn’t slept at all that night and had nearly failed an assessment the next day, but it was worth it.
No one who hadn’t grown up on Kamino could have known something like that.
“How the hell do you—” Choke began.
“I believe it is obvious how I might have obtained such information,” the droid interrupted. “It will have to suffice, as we are late for our next appointment.” It gave him a stiff beckoning motion. “Come along.” It turned away from the table again and didn’t wait to see if Choke followed.
This time he did, rising from the table and limping slowly behind the droid as it unhurriedly made its way across the bar and out a back door. What choice did Choke really have?
The droid confidently led him along the many confusing streets of the city, in and out of alleyways and across wide thoroughfares full of speeder traffic. It shuffled along, unhurried and a bit stiff; Choke was grateful that he was easily able to keep up, despite the limp that only became more pronounced the longer they walked. By the time they stopped, dozens of turns and probably a few clicks later, Choke’s leg was aching and he was even more turned around than he had been back at the bar.
Eventually they approached a run-down warehouse district near one of the lesser-used spaceports; compared to the rest of the city the streets here were relatively quiet, mostly droids and a handful of sentient dockworkers busy with their night shift tasks. The protocol droid led Choke to the rusting side door of a medium-sized warehouse, where it punched in a code and ushered him in.
Inside was a small, dusty office lit by a pair of flickering overhead lights; a badly dented durasteel desk took up most of the room, aside from a tall cabinet and a couple of shelves. An open doorway led into the darkened warehouse. Behind the desk sat a man with his legs propped up and a datapad in his lap, his dark-haired head still aimed down at it despite the door closing again.
“You’re late,” the man said without looking up.
Before Choke could even react to the man’s voice—the brother’s voice—the protocol droid let out a short little laugh. “My profuse apologies, master,” it said, bowing its head. “This one took some time to track down.”
The brother at the desk finally looked up at the droid and frowned. His hair was grown out beyond regulation, though not by much, and he had an impressive moustache. Choke didn’t recognize him, but that was hardly a surprise.
“Take that damn thing off,” the brother sneered at the droid. “You sound ridiculous.”
Choke glanced over his shoulder to see the droid lift its arms—suddenly moving much more smoothly and organically—and pull off its own head, revealing a grinning bald brother underneath.
“Oh, come on,” the man in the droid suit said as he walked around Choke to plunk the head—the helmet—down on the desk. “You have to admit it works.” He leaned over and nudged the other man with his metal-cased arm.
The brother at the desk snorted and shook his head, nudging back before looking back down at this datapad. “I’m almost done, just need to refine some details,” he muttered.
The bald brother finally looked back at Choke and smiled warmly. “Sorry about the disguise,” he said brightly. “Never can be too careful around here. You can call me Wesk and this,” he gestured at the sitting brother, “is Besh. What should we call you?”
Choke blinked. “Oh. I guess I’m… Cherek.”
Wesk nodded encouragingly. “It’s safer this way,” he explained. “You came from the med station at Ord Cestus, right? How much did they tell you, before they sent you to us?”
“Not much,” Choke replied with a shrug. After the disorientation of waking up from his dunk in the bacta—and the choking realization that his unit hadn’t survived alongside him—he hadn’t absorbed very much of what he was told. “It was very, uh, hurried. I was just told where to meet you and that you would—you could help me start over.” Choke bit his lip and looked around the little office, trying not to show too much doubt on his face. Was this what he had to look forward to?
“Don’t worry,” Wesk said, catching his eye. “This is just one of our meeting points. You won’t be staying here, or even on Ord Mantell. We have some options for you, but first we need to know a little more about you.” He made to cross his arms, then seemed to remember his costume and began removing the metal arm pieces instead. “So, tell me: any special training we should know about? Pilot, ARC, ARF, navigation, the like?”
Choke shook his head.
Wesk finished with his arm pieces and leaned against the corner of the desk with his newly-freed arms crossed over the shiny copper-colored breastplate. “Any background in ordnance? Surveillance or undercover work? Special combat training?”
Choke shook his head again. His thigh throbbed.
“How about officer or leadership training? Ever lead a squad?” Wesk asked.
Choke shook his head again and shrugged a little helplessly. He had never minded being regular infantry before, even if it wasn’t always the most exciting position. The flyboys and the ARCs get all the glory, Sarge used to say, but us grunts keep the whole GAR running. He would laugh, brash and loud, and slam his fist on the mess hall table. Can’t go to war without us!
But Choke wasn’t going to war anymore. The GAR didn’t need him at all.
Wesk raised his hands and waved them slowly. “It’s alright, no need for any of that. I’m just trying to narrow down your skill set. Still plenty of things you can do with standard Kamino training.” He tilted his head, quirking a little half smile. “We’re still the best of the best, after all. Any brother is.”
“Yes, sir,” Choke muttered. That earned him a loud snort from the other man—Besh—who himself earned a smack on the shoulder from Wesk.
“Will—” Choke stammered. “Will there be other brothers there?” he asked. “Where I’m going?”
Besh and Wesk exchanged a look. “Sorry,” Wesk said apologetically, “but it’s safer if we don’t send anyone to the same place. Harder to recognize just one of us.” He gestured back and forth between himself and Besh. “We run a big risk staying here together, but we make a good team. And he couldn’t get rid of me if he tried,” Wesk added with a grin. It earned him another snort from Besh.
Choke swallowed and nodded mutely. He really was on his own. Maybe he ought to have guessed, but it still hurt to hear.
“I have to ask about your leg,” Wesk continued, gesturing to how Choke was trying to keep his weight off his left. “You seem to get around okay, but can you stay on your feet for a full shift?”
Choke shrugged, shifting his weight a little to see how he was feeling. The leg ached more or less constantly, but all the walking today had definitely aggravated it, a deep pulsing pain radiating from his thigh as he put pressure on that side. The medic had only given him a hurried explanation of the problem; something about his femur not healing right in the bacta, a metal rod inserted into the break that should have had him back up and ready for combat in a matter of days. Instead he had woken up with a new, permanently-painful limp—unless he had access to medical resources the GAR was not about to spend—and a one-way ticket back to Kamino.
The medic who had snuck Choke off the med station didn’t say much, but he made it very clear that troopers who were sent back to Kamino with injuries like his didn’t leave again. If he had been shinier, maybe he wouldn’t have believed it, but Choke had seen enough of battlefield “triage” to know exactly how little value the GAR placed on the unhealable. Maybe if things had been different, if the battle had gone according to plan, Choke might have taken his chances on Kamino. Taken his chances on the hope that he’d get to see his squad again, after the war. But as it was, his entire squad was dead—hell, his entire unit was dead—and he’d lost the last of his batchmates in the second year of the war.
What did he have to lose by letting that nameless medic smuggle him onto a ship?
Wesk cleared his throat and Choke glanced up at him guiltily. “I’m not sure,” he said haltingly. “It’s still pretty new, I haven’t tested it much. But it… hurts.”
“Okay,” Wesk said gently, nodding. “We’ll try to find you something that doesn’t involve too much standing. Any other injuries?”
“No, sir,” Choke replied. He hesitated, then added, “I’m not afraid of hard work, sir. I can go wherever I’m needed. I won’t let the leg slow me down.”
Besh snorted again and tapped the datapad loudly before switching it off. “It’s not about being needed anymore, brother,” he said gruffly as he stood up. “Now you can go off and do what you like.” He shrugged and quirked a little half-smile over at Wesk. “So long as you can keep your head down.” Besh dropped the datapad on the desk and placed a hand low on Wesk’s back. “You should get changed, I’ll grab the supplies.”
Wesk smiled at him—soft, the same way Ridgeline and Sims used to smile at each other when they thought no one was looking—before he began shucking the rest of his droid costume. Besh not-so-gently nudged Choke out of the way so he could reach the cabinet; with the doors open Choke had to back awkwardly into a corner to fit. He watched as Besh pulled out a bag from the cabinet and began tossing things inside—he recognized civvies, boots, a sidearm and a few other things, but Besh ignored him as he packed.
Next to the desk, Wesk was free of the metal costume and pulled his shirt up over his head. Choke couldn’t help but stop and stare: he had assumed that the exposed wiring at Wesk’s midriff was part of the droid costume, but it was clear now that it wasn’t. Wesk’s natural skin stopped a few centimeters below his pecs, where it grew rough and scarred; below that was a mess of wires and circuitry until the skin resumed a little below where his navel once was.
Choke quickly looked away, blinking fast. He had never seen a trooper walk away from an injury that extensive, or with so many artificial modifications. The occasional replaced organ, sure, but half a torso?
Wesk made a soft noise of confusion, looking around the office as he dropped his shirt on the desk.
“You left the other outfit over by the droid charging port, near the back entrance,” Besh said without looking up. “Just like last time, and the time before that.”
“Then why didn’t you bring it in here?” Wesk sighed.
“How else are you gonna learn a lesson?” Besh asked as he continued to rummage around.
Wesk delivered a flat, unimpressed look to the back of Besh’s head. He rolled his eyes at Choke for a moment before disappearing into the darkness of the warehouse entrance.
Besh kept working. Uncertain what to do—or if he should even offer to help—Choke limped over toward the desk. Besh looked at him over his shoulder and nodded his head toward the now-empty chair before turning back to his work. Choke sank gratefully into the seat and rubbed his aching thigh.
“Do you, uh,” Choke began awkwardly, “do you like Ord Mantell?”
“It stinks,” Besh said shortly as he sorted something inside a bin. “Especially in the summer.”
“Oh,” Choke replied faintly.
It was another few minutes of silence before Choke cleared his throat. Besh just hummed in response, not looking up.
“Is—did Wesk—” Choke stammered.
Besh glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.
“The, um,” Choke gestured vaguely at his own midsection, “is that… why he left? The, uh, the injury? Like me?”
Besh snorted dismissively. He turned around, the bag now in his hands, and thunked it down on the surface of the desk as he continued to rummage inside. “No,” he finally answered. “It’s why I left.”
Choke furrowed his brow, confused. Besh didn’t look injured. “What do you mean?”
Mustache twitching, Besh kept his head down while he replied. “Wesk took a bad shot to the gut at our last engagement. They told me he’d died, bled right out in an officer’s arms. Gone long before I got there.” He began roughly zipping things inside the bag’s interior pockets. “I thought that was it, the end we’d always hoped wasn’t coming. Naive, probably, but I think every one of us clones always hoped we’d be one of the lucky ones to make it to the end of the war.” Besh scoffed and glanced up at Choke. “Whenever the hell that happens.”
Choke gave him a wane smile.
“So we began packing up, loading out,” Besh continued. “It was completely by chance that I found out—my lieutenant had me dealing with the logistics crews for extraction, just to keep me busy. I had to run an errand to the medbay and I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I accidentally ended up in a back storage room with a stasis pod in it.” He shook his head angrily as he began closing up the bag. “And there Wesk was, inside. Alive. I found the data file he was going to be shipped with, the—the notes about his organs and the life support.” He leaned on his hands and pressed his lips into a thin white line. “I thought maybe they were going to save him, you know? Something experimental or classified.”
Besh clenched his jaw and stood up straight, crossing his arms. “Until I got to the notes about dissection. The part about how they were going to cut him open and—” He looked down and shook his head. The office was painfully silent for a moment. “He was still alive,” Besh continued quietly. “So I made sure he stayed that way. Took me a couple of days to figure out how to sneak us both off the ship, and every credit I could borrow, but I managed to get us here.” He snorted. “Shithole that it is, Ord Mantell has a lot of doctors willing to treat major injuries without asking too many questions. Wesk’s modifications aren’t perfect, not by a long shot, but it’s a hell of a lot more than the GAR was offering.”
A little stunned, Choke nodded mutely. He couldn’t imagine the courage it must have taken to take that step, to decide and plan to run with so much on the line. Choke had left too, sure, but he had had his escape all but handed to him. Wesk was lucky to have Besh, lucky someone loved him enough to get him out.
“He seems like he’s doing well,” Choke offered softly.
Besh gave him his first sincere smile. “Today is a good day,” he said simply. He nodded at Choke’s leg. “You’ll learn to take advantage of the good days.” He slapped a hand on the bag and shoved it into Choke’s lap. “Everything you’re going to need should be in there, at least until you earn your first paycheck. Wesk will go over the basics with you while he gets you to a ship.”
As if on cue, Wesk reappeared through the interior door, now wearing an outfit that matched the way most people in Ord Mantell City dressed, his circuitry hidden under a shirt and a heavy canvas jacket. “Sure, we can walk and talk,” he added cheerfully. “We’ve got plenty of time before the next shuttle, no need to rush.”
“Shuttle?” Choke asked, gingerly putting weight onto his leg as he stood. He slung the heavy bag over his shoulder.
“To Iridonia,” Wesk explained. “From there you can get a ride to where you’re going.” He grinned and clapped a hand on Choke’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all on the way. Besh here will stay behind and start working on erasing all traces of your visit to Ord Mantell.”
Besh nodded. “Good luck out there, brother. You’ll be fine; there’s nothing the natborns can throw at you that could be worse than you’ve already seen.”
Wesk rolled his eyes. “So encouraging,” he teased. “Should be about an hour, I’ll see you at home?” he asked Besh.
“You sure you’re good to walk that much?” Besh replied doubtfully. “I can bring the speeder to pick you up.”
“It’s fine,” Wesk told him, smiling softly again. “Really. I’m enjoying it.”
Besh gave him a skeptical look but shrugged. “I’ll grab something for dinner from that Nautolan place you like,” he replied as he sat back down at the desk and picked up his datapad.
“My hero,” Wesk said happily. He leaned over and gave Besh an affectionate kiss on the cheek before he turned to Choke, tugging Choke’s hood back up and over his head. “Alright, brother, let’s head out.”
Choke nodded and stepped backward so Wesk could open the outer door. “Thank you,” he tossed over his shoulder. Besh waved a hand without looking up.
“Don’t mind Besh,” Wesk said with a little smile as they began walking, their pace slow enough for the both of them. “He tends to be very mission-focused, not so great with people.”
Choke shrugged. “It’s fine,” he replied. “He, um. He actually told me a little about what happened to you. I mean, how you both ended up here.”
Wesk’s eyebrows flew up. “Did he? Wow, he must have really liked you.” He shook his head a little. “You can imagine what a shock that was for me, waking up in some dingy med office only to find out what had happened.” He smiled wryly. “Probably easier than all the work Besh did, though.”
“I think it’s amazing,” Choke blurted out. “You—that you both had that. Have that.”
Wesk smiled widely. “Yeah. It’s not a very happy story, all told, but I like to think the ending is a good one. Or it will be, when we can finally leave.”
Choke shuffled to the side for a minute to dodge a group of rowdy bar-crawlers walking the other direction. “You’re leaving Ord Mantell?” he asked when he rejoined Wesk.
“Hopefully,” Wesk replied. “We’ve got plans, but the place we’re hoping to end up is pretty remote. I’m going to need a couple more surgeries before we can head out, and those aren’t cheap.”
Choke thought guiltily of the credits he had seen Besh place in the bag over his shoulder. “How—I mean, do you two have jobs or something?”
Wesk laughed over his shoulder as he led Choke down a narrow, trash-strewn alleyway. “You mean real jobs?” He teased. “Besh had one for a while, when I was still recovering. But when we started helping other brothers looking for a way out we discovered that there are plenty of people on Ord Mantell looking to pay good money if we help them disappear.” He shrugged. “It covers our costs and helps to fund this little operation. One day it’ll buy us a ship, too.”
Choke nodded to himself as he limped along. The spaceport came into view, a large freighter rising into the humid night air above the roofs of the buildings in front of them, its engines glowing hot. “You’re lucky to have each other,” Choke said sincerely. What he wouldn’t give to have another brother with him for this. Clones weren’t meant to be alone.
Wesk clapped him on the shoulder and shook it gently. “We are. But don’t lose hope. Maybe when this is all over we can all start finding each other again.”
Choke smiled wanly. “Yeah, maybe,” he mumbled.
They continued in silence to the gate of the busy spaceport, the noise of the engines and the crowd growing louder and louder. Wesk stopped and turned toward Choke, gesturing toward an older-looking shuttle near the entrance. “That’s your ride,” he explained, loudly enough to be heard over the hustle and bustle. “It’ll take you to Iridonia and from there you should be able to book passage to your final stop.” He handed Choke a datapad that had seen better days. “All the information you’ll need is on there, including the local contact when you arrive. They can set you up with housing and a job.” Wesk gave him an apologetic smile. “It won’t be glamorous, but you can consider it a starting point.”
Choke nodded dumbly, taking the datapad and hiking the strap of the bag further up his shoulder.
Wesk smiled, big and bright. “It was nice meeting you, Cherek. Good luck out there, brother.”
“I—I don’t know how to thank you,” Choke stammered. He shook his head, bewildered.
“Survive,” Wesk told him firmly, clasping him by the shoulders. “Show them what we’re made of. That’s all you have to do.” He gave Choke a little nudge toward the shuttle. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”
Choke nodded and turned away, staring up at the ship in front of him as he walked. When he had been smuggled onto the ship at the med station, half-hidden in a laundry cart with bacta still drying in his hair, all he had felt was confusion and pain. The medic who had helped him—Choke wished he had asked for his name—hadn’t told him much, just where and when to go and to stay hidden. Choke hadn’t even gotten a chance to thank him before he was gone and the hatch was closed.
Now, at least, he had something like a plan. Choke turned when he reached the bottom of the ramp and looked through the haze toward the spaceport gate. Wesk was still standing there, watching him; he raised an arm and waved when he saw Choke looking.
Choke shifted his bag and waved back. He had been on Ord Mantell for barely twenty hours but he already felt more grounded than when he had arrived. It was a relief to know that there were other brothers like him out in the galaxy, that Besh and Wesk were helping to keep them safe and alive far beyond the GAR. Maybe, Choke thought as he turned and made his slow way up the ramp, maybe when he got where he was going he could figure out a way to help too.
The GAR didn’t need him anymore. But his brothers always would.