Archive of Our Own

“Marching orders! Marching orders are out!”

The call echoed down the long row of vertically stacked sleeping pods, stirring up the crowd of newly graduated troopers who’d spent yet another evening cooped up in their barracks and twiddling their thumbs. For most of them, the wait had already gone on longer than a standard sleep-and-wake cycle—but so it was with assignments, and if anything was worth the anticipation, it was being told in which position and under which commander one would serve.

At least Goldie thought so. And if he thought so, it was likely that Ray and Slider would think so also, and what mattered more than the three of them being in agreement, in perfect alignment? Just about nothing—not their training scores, not even their trainers’ snide remarks about ‘clinginess’, and certainly not anyone else’s opinion.

By the time Goldie managed to untangle his and Ray’s limbs, a crowd had formed by the data console in the corner, and Slider was already standing next to Goldie’s bottom-most bunk and fidgeting, looking like he was anxious to join them. Under Goldie, Ray grunted, “Get off.” Goldie obeyed, rolling off his friend and landing on his feet on the floor. He offered Ray a hand which, with a look of quiet disdain, was ignored.

Slider had no such qualms. In an instant, he’d snatched Goldie’s other hand from his side and squeezed it until Goldie’s knuckles cracked audibly as he dragged him over to the console. “Hurry up,” he called over his shoulder to Ray.

Ray hurried up, sliding off Goldie’s bunk—their preferred spot to sit and talk, to hug and tease each other before lights-out, seeing as it was closest to the floor—and trudged after them.

Before they could catch even a glimpse of the console’s screen and the battalion assignments scrolling past on it, they came up against a wall of backs the same height as them. Slider’s shoulder knocked into Goldie’s as he pulled him close, like he feared to lose him in the crush even though it hadn’t enveloped them yet. Goldie just smiled and laid his head on Slider’s shoulder, and waited.

Ray came to flank Slider on his other side, grumbling about impatient idiots and stupid airheads. Out of the corner of his eye, Goldie watched his vertically challenged friend teeter on the tips of his toes without managing to clear the sea of chattering heads in front of them. He bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing back a comment about letting Ray sit on his shoulders if he really wanted to get a look before anyone else so badly. His flanks still ached from this morning, when he’d remarked on the alterations that had to be made to Ray’s armor so he wouldn’t be swimming in it, and Ray had ambushed him afterwards in an empty hallway, tickling him until Goldie’s vision had gone black and grainy at the edges.

As the crowd around the console grew smaller and squads skipped on back to their row of sleeping pods, exhilaration like after a successful training run written all over their faces, battalions were called out.

“41st!”

“501st!”

“The pack! We’re joining the kriffing Wolfpack!”

“501st! We’re going to meet the captain. Bet Echo squad will have made ARCs before the paint’s even dried on Fox squad’s armor!”

“212th!”

“501st!”

“212th!”

“Commander Cody put in a special request to get us!”

“91st!”

“We’re gonna be boys in blue!”

“I don’t like this,” Ray muttered under his breath.

“You don’t like anything,” Goldie replied airily, “except for Slider, the pink protein cubes, and sometimes me.”

He didn’t see Ray’s hand sneaking around Slider’s back to jab him in the side, but he sure felt it. He yelped, and Slider groaned and took a step back to shield him. “Cut it out, you two. What’s wrong, Ray?”

Ray sounded like he was scowling—nothing unusual there—as he answered, “Too many transfers to the 501st and 212th.”

Goldie perked up from Slider’s shoulder. Now that Ray said it, he noticed it, too.

“Unit expansion?” he proposed.

Slider shook his head, his blond curls bouncing with the motion. “Casualties more like. Heavy casualties.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Ray mimicked Goldie, but his voice lacked its usual bite. “Think they’re requesting reinforcements while the campaign’s still ongoing? Maybe we’re being sent straight into the slaughterhouse.”

Something in Goldie’s stomach twisted in an ugly way, and he turned to pout at Ray, but Slider was faster.

“Even if we are,” their medic hissed, spat almost, “we talked about this—stay close to me. If you get wounded…”

He trailed off into silence. Goldie’s heartbeat suddenly hammered in his ears, but even so, he could hear that neither Slider nor Ray were continuing, unwilling to continue discussing the possibility that one of them could get hurt—could, perhaps, even die and join the endlessly long list of casualties they were replacing.

Letting go of Slider’s hand, reaching around Slider’s back, he grasped for Ray, for his wrist or elbow, any part of him really. And just this once, Ray didn’t pull away. He reached back and threaded their fingers together, resting them against the small of Slider’s back.

Goldie smiled and squeezed Ray’s hand. “Don’t worry, Slider. As long as we all stay together, we’ll be alright.”

“Yeah,” Slider rasped, “I guess so.” Even Ray nodded.

After that, they stayed silent and let the crowd carry them towards the data console. Even though Ray’s hand grew sweaty and slippery in Goldie’s—or Goldie’s in Ray’s—neither of them let go.

When they finally stood in front of the screen blinking expectantly at them, Goldie looked at Slider, who looked at Ray, who looked at Goldie.

“So…” Goldie fluttered his lashes at Ray and grinned when it made Ray blush even as he hurried to lower his eyes. “Who’s going first?”

After a brief pause in which Ray slipped his hand from Goldie’s to pinch one of his buttocks instead, and Goldie screeched and slapped at it, Slider sighed. “Guess I am.”

He offered his wrist to the machine, and a ray of pure blue light swept across his lower arm and the identification barcode embedded in it. Data coalesced on the screen, and both Ray and Goldie leaned their heads in beside Slider’s—or beside his shoulder, in Ray’s case.

“Ah,” Goldie said as Slider breathed out noisily, and Ray clicked his teeth. “Think the captain requested you specifically so he wouldn’t be the only blondie in the battalion?”

“Shut your kriffing—” Ray began, and this time it was Slider who turned to Goldie and poked him in the ribs.

“The first thing I’m gonna do once we’ve shipped out,” he groaned, “is trade for some black dye so stupid idiots like you will stop teasing me!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Goldie protested, knowing full well he’d done it all. He even got ready to run, knowing Ray’s wrath didn’t stop at the fact that they were—occasional—friends, but just this once, Ray seemed a little distracted.

“Me next,” he said, firmly and curtly, as he pushed both Slider and Goldie aside to stand in front of the console.

Goldie wrapped an apology around Slider by way of a hug while the console scanned Ray’s barcode and drew up his marching order—501st as well.

Goldie jumped in glee, still with Slider in his arms into whose head he nearly knocked his own. “Maybe we’ll make ARCs before anyone else, and under Captain Rex no less!”

Slider squirmed out of his hold, grabbed him by the waist and physically hauled him in front of the screen while Ray snorted. “Get your own marching orders first,” he needled. “Who’s to say you’ll even end up in the same battalion as us hot shots?”

Goldie laughed and let Slider offer his wrist to the machine for the scan. Sometimes, even Ray could make a joke. Obviously they were going to end up in the same battalion, all three of them. They were a squad. They always had been, since the day they’d been decanted. Nothing was going to pull them apart.

His assignment blinked into existence on the glaringly bright screen. One on either side of him, both Slider and Ray leaned in to read it.

For a good full minute, not one of them said a word.

“Move,” another cadet, queuing behind them with his squad, finally groused. “It’s only ten minutes ‘til lights-out, and we wanna know our assignments until then.”

It was Slider who took Goldie’s elbow and steered him out of the way of everyone else waiting, herding him and Ray back towards the sleeping pod at the very bottom of their squad’s vertical row, which had been their favorite place to meet and talk or just sit with each other’s heads on their shoulders. It was Slider who made Goldie sit down and arranged it so that there was enough space on either side of him, for Ray to settle down to his left and Slider to his right.

It was Ray who finally said, his voice all but inaudible among the evening din of the barracks, “I didn’t actually mean it. I didn’t want you to get sent to a different battalion than ours. You know that, yeah?”

Goldie was having trouble focusing his eyes on anything—the scowl lines that framed Ray’s mouth, Slider’s hands fidgeting in his lap, his own legs clad in the red cadet uniform and looking so far, far away, like he was already not here anymore. He knew. It didn’t stop his vision from going all blurry, though.

And anyway, before he could even nod, Slider was talking, in that steadily measured stream of words he always got into when he was harried, or frightened, or upset. His eyes were looking suspiciously shiny, too. “They can’t do that,” he declared, his hand still bunching up Goldie’s sleeve where he’d grabbed his elbow. “They can’t separate us. Not after we already lost—after they took—it’s in all the medical manuals I had to learn by heart, you’re not supposed to keep a group of people apart after they’ve bonded, especially not a squad of soldiers like us. It’s like—it’s like taking an organism with limbs and cutting one off, or two, or more—”

He kept on rambling, then, about damage and squad bonding, about consequences—but never about challenging their marching orders. Marching orders were never challenged. They were like any other order. They were received and followed. Goldie’s, or Ray’s or Slider’s set of orders was going to be no different.

Goldie hadn’t realized he was taking deep breaths—like Slider had shown him once after another squad of cadets had hounded him down a corridor, calling him stupid names, pretty boy and trainer’s pet—until his heart stopped beating so hard and fast against the inside of his rib cage, and his cheeks stopped feeling like he’d run twenty rounds in full armor without the cooling system turned on. He swallowed salt, blinked until he could see clearly again.

Sometime during Slider’s rambling, Ray had leaned in and slumped into Goldie’s side, locking his arms around Goldie’s chest. Goldie looked down at Ray’s messy mop of black curls and attempted a smile.

After another few deep breaths, it stopped shaking and stuck like it always had before.

“Don’t worry.” Goldie turned his head to look at Slider, too, who promptly snapped his mouth shut with an audible clack. “Who knows, maybe I’ll make some new friends who are almost as nice as you two. Maybe I’ll be alright on my own, too. Or Commander Cody might recommend me for ARC training at the same—at the same time as Captain Rex recommends you both, and we’ll graduate ARCs together, we’ll see each other again and train together and be together and—and—”

He was glad that Slider leaned in then, too, and wrapped his arms around him and Ray so Goldie didn’t have to continue. His throat felt hot and narrow. His eyes and nose burned, and his cheeks were wet, and the tears and snot were running down his chin and dripping off it and onto his neat red cadet uniform. His chest was heaving, like only Ray pressing his head painfully against his arm and Slider squeezing the breath out of him were keeping him from falling apart.

Goldie brought his hands up and clung to his friends’ uniform sleeves, bent and hid his hot, wet face in Slider’s curls, closed his eyes and wished he could stay in this moment forever.

By the time the lights went out in the shinies’ bunkroom aboard the Negotiator, Goldie had already pulled the thin covers past his ears and pressed his face into his new pillow.

The GAR didn’t use the same detergent to clean the bedding as the training facilities on Kamino had done. The sweet, sharp scent stung in Goldie’s eyes, no matter how hard he squeezed them shut. His head was buzzing, processing everything that had happened since he’d waved Slider and Ray goodbye as they boarded a different transport than him. Sure, he’d broken formation to do it, and at a distance, he wasn’t even sure if he’d waved at the correct medic or heavy gunner—but none of their trainers had come to see them off and could’ve shouted at Goldie’s lack of discipline, and General Ti hadn’t been looking his way, not that she was likely to pull up his file and input this brief moment of rebellion, anyway, not like she’d allowed him to put in his name when she’d heard him being called by it repeatedly.

Now, Kamino felt as far away as a whole different galaxy, and as long ago as a lifetime. The transfer flight to the 212th had been quick and uneventful. Once aboard the Negotiator, they’d been lined up in the hangar, and they’d murmured among themselves until a small door in one of the walls had opened and a single trooper had walked out. Then, the chatter had been cut quickly and without any single one of them needing to be told.

Marshal Commander Cody, resplendent in full armor and with his helmet tucked under his right arm, had leveled at them a mild, steady gaze before he’d begun to speak.

Goldie kicked his feet as he relived the memory. Marshal Commander Cody had talked to him! Well, not only to him—he’d also addressed himself to the other hundreds of newly minted troopers assembled in the hangar, had called them shinies and encouraged them to earn their paint in service of the Republic. And when he’d finished, a trooper who’d been standing off to the side had hurried over to him and whispered something in his ear.

The commander had smiled, then, and turned back to Goldie and the others. “Thank you, Waxer. As some of you may already have heard, many of our squads sustained heavy casualties on Umbara. Tonight, these incomplete squads will get the opportunity to fill their ranks back in—with you. Welcome to the 212th.”

The door had barely closed behind him before the murmuring started up again, louder this time as everyone speculated over what the commander might’ve been implying. It was still going on now in some corners of the bunkroom, despite lights-out. Cadet squads were whispering among each other, getting hushed by some and joined by others.

Goldie didn’t hush or join anybody. He lay in the bunk he’d been assigned, his hands clenched in his pillow, and listened to his heartbeat so he wouldn’t have to think of Ray and Slider lying in bunks that were just like his own—or maybe they were sharing a bunk, pressed close on the narrow mattress like they’d sometimes done as cadets, except Goldie wasn’t there. Goldie was here, in his own bunk, with a cold mattress and a thin pillow and covers that weren’t nearly as heavy as Ray’s short, compact body, or Slider’s warm, soft one.

Goldie was alone. For the first time since he’d been decanted from his solitary tube on Kamino and had been placed in a crib with his squadmates, he was all alone. Not even Commander Cody’s handsome face and rousing words could change that.

Goldie squeezed his eyes shut until he saw stars, held his breath until his lungs ached, and bit back his tears. He would not sleep that night. But he also would not cry.

Time passed differently in darkness. Goldie didn’t know what hour it was when the first startled screech sounded from across the bunkroom.

He sat up and opened his eyes wide, staring into the gloom. Others shuffled in their bunks around him, whispered again. Faintly, someone called a name, or maybe a number, and received no answer.

Slowly, silence descended once more.

Minutes later, it got broken by another shout, the murmur of voices and muffled laughter. This one sounded closer. Goldie, torn between pressing back into the darkness of his bunk and poking his head out to try and see something, anything, stayed right where he was, his pillow gripped tightly to his chest.

The pitter-patter of multiple footsteps receded, while a collective murmur like a wave came closer along the rows upon rows of bunks.

“They’re picking us off,” was the first thing Goldie heard from a bunk to his left, “one by one.” Shocked gasps cut through the darkness, until the trooper in the bunk above his joined in with a snort. “You’re all acting like frightened tubies. He’s talking about the squads the commander mentioned in his welcome speech. They’re just extracting some of us.”

Goldie joined into the collective ooh- and aah-ing, breathing a little easier around his clenching heart. Nothing horrible was happening. It was just a battalion tradition, or maybe a stupid one-time game to boost morale after the heavy losses on Umbara. The best of them would disappear in the night, and during the next few days or so, Goldie would pass them in the hallways of the Negotiator, would watch as they laughed and talked with their new squads, whole and at home.

He knew he was nowhere near close to the best. He’d wake up still in his bunk come morning—if he managed to sleep at all—and perhaps after earlymeal, he’d get assigned to a shiny squad. Maybe there were others like him lying in the bunks all around him—troopers whose batchmates had been assigned to other battalions. Maybe they’d become his new squad.

His bottom lip started to tremble. Strangers. He’d be put in a squad with all strangers.

It wasn’t fair. At least Slider and Ray had each other. At least they could sneak into each other’s bunk at night, hold each other. At least that.

He lay back down, then, pummeling the stupid, soft, strange-smelling pillow until it fitted under his head and he could comfortably close his eyes.

From time to time, other commotions arose in this or that corner of the bunkroom, and were silenced just as quickly. Goldie ignored them and didn’t imagine the empty bunks in the light that would rouse them during the wake-up call, the wrinkled sheets and bunched-up covers.

He’d only just begun drifting off to sleep when a whisper cut through the darkness right next to him.

“Goldie?”

He sat up so quickly his head spun, wide awake again. His heart drummed in his throat.

“Ray?” It had sounded like Ray, just a little. The same rumbling grumble, the slightly sharp note at the end.

“No, we’re looking for Goldie.” Annoyance crept into the voice, colder and lighter than Ray’s. “Is that you? Yes or no, kid.”

It wasn’t Ray. But it was someone, someone who seemed to want to talk to him. Even as Goldie’s heart sank, he nodded.

Silence. Then, a sigh. “Either you just fell asleep on me, or you nodded. They created us to be stronger and more durable than regular humans, but you do know that we still can’t see in the dark, yeah?”

Goldie’s face felt suddenly very, very hot all over.

“Yeah,” he stuttered, words stumbling over his tongue, “I know. It’s—I’m Goldie, yes–um, sir?”

“Sergeant.” Whoever was crouched in front of his bunk breathed out noisily. “Thank you, Goldie. Now, you just sit tight while we get you out of here, yes? Be a good boy, lie back, and relax.”

“O-okay.” His flimsy pillow clutched to his chest, Goldie obeyed the orders.

At first, nothing happened.

Then, his entire mattress began to rock, and Goldie squeaked as it was pulled out from under him—no, not under him, he was being pulled off the bunk with it, pillow and covers and sheets and all. More than one person had to be holding onto it, because even so, it didn’t flip over and was instead gently placed on the floor.

“You alright, kid?” That was a different voice, mellower than the first.

Goldie started to nod, before he caught himself and choked out, “Yes, sir!”

“Good,” the first voice cut in. “Pack him up. Come on now, squad, let’s speed things up.”

“Pack—?” Goldie began, but he never got to finish. The mattress curved under him, and then it closed around him, tube-shaped like his sleeping pod back on Kamino, only warmer and softer and much, much tighter. Goldie’s arms were pressed to his sides until he couldn’t even wiggle his fingers, and when he tried to kick out, he found he couldn’t move his legs either. Outside, something made a snapping noise, and someone laughed. Right after, two rings of pressure closed around Goldie, one around his upper body and one around his legs—restraints of a sort.

Trapped in darkness, wrapped up all around by warmth, unable to move even his head, Goldie whimpered.

“Mattress secured,” a third voice reported outside, steadier than the others. “Hey, shiny. Can you breathe?”

Goldie had to check for himself before he could answer, fighting to keep his voice even. “Yes. Um, I mean yes, sir.”

“Did he just call you sir, Q?” the second voice chimed in, but the first cut in before anybody could answer.

“He’s alright? Good. Q, Peb, you carry him, Cop, you bring up the rear. I’ll take point. Let’s go.”

Goldie yelped as he felt two pairs of arms wrap around him through the mattress. They hoisted him up bodily, and for just a moment, it felt like whenever he and Ray and Slider had trained in the anti-grav simulator, his stomach swooping in the weightlessness—until he collided with two hard edges, Q and Peb’s shoulders most likely. They started bobbing up and down below him, jostling him, one a little faster than the other as they began to march.

Awkwardly caught on his side, with his head held a little lower than his feet, Goldie could only focus on keeping his breathing steady and his head quiet. He blinked when they suddenly passed from darkness into light—the hallway outside the shinies’ bunkroom, brightly illuminated even during the ship’s artificial night cycle. He failed to catch a glimpse of anything outside his mattress tube, though, and the squad who’d gone in to get him had entirely stopped talking. Only one of them was humming softly under his breath, and Goldie held on to that, the muffled vibrations of a voice he wasn’t even sure he’d heard yet.

Up ahead, the squad sergeant’s measured steps rang out, leading them around corner after corner. Goldie tried to memorize the turns and the stretches between them in case he somehow needed to get back. But it was warm inside the mattress roll, warm and tight and comfortable even though he couldn’t scratch himself when he got an itch, and Goldie’s head was drooping, his eyes slipping closed.

He gave up after the fifth turn. He fell asleep somewhere between the ninth and the last.

“I don’t believe it. He’s actually snoozing.”

Someone was patting his cheek, gently yet insistently.

“Like you were any better on your first night with us. ‘S not every day you get shipped out from Kamino first time and join the 212th, ey?”

Goldie groaned and tried to turn over and away from the touch, but was stopped by a pair of knees digging into his back. His eyelids peeled open with difficulty—how long had he been asleep? His blacks stuck to his skin with sweat, and his cheeks were hot, like they’d been pressed into his pillow for too long. Overhead, a warm, faint glow parted the darkness.

The hand returned to poke him, in the ribs this time. He batted at it. “Hhngh. Sliderrr. Leave it.”

“Oh, kriff. He’s adorable.”

Before Goldie got the chance to preen at the compliment—whoever had said that sounded nice—a voice he remembered cut through his sleepiness, swiftly severing it from his mind. “Enough. Private, sit up.”

Goldie sat up. How, with his body still sleep-soft and slack, he didn’t know—until he felt a pressure fall away around his shoulders, a pair of strong hands which had undoubtedly helped him regain verticality at such an improbable speed.

He barely kept himself from swaying as he crossed his legs and blinked his eyes against the light of a single glowtube illuminating him and a small patch of the surrounding area. The knees he’d come up against before were now pressing into his butt, until he shuffled away and bumped shoulders with someone else instead. He grimaced. “Sorry.” Then, he remembered where—or rather with whom—he was. “Um, I mean, sorry, sir?”

A face emerged from the gloom right in front of him—a clone’s face. Still, Goldie jumped a little. There was something off about this trooper, and it wasn’t the shaved sides of his head or the long hair curling around the nape of his neck—he’d heard most troopers cut their hair or let it grow out of the standard cut after first deployment, it was normal—or the metal bar stuck through one of his eyebrows, or the missing corner of the top of his scarred ear.

Before Goldie could figure it out, the clone’s lips pulled back to reveal perfectly even teeth, safe for a chipped incisor, and the voice that had first spoken to him out of the bunkroom’s gloom said, “I’m your sergeant, and therefore sir to you. Everyone else isn’t.”

Head buzzing, Goldie nodded and took a hold of his ankles. He knew now what had tipped him off balance. It was the sergeant’s right eye, piercing him to his core with a silvery gray ring wrapped around the pupil and bordered by standard brown.

Suddenly, his cheeks felt even hotter than before.

“Aww, look at ‘im,” someone crooned from the side, and then a hand shot out of the darkness and pinched his cheek. “All red ‘n dazed, poor thing. Sergeant, can we keep him, please please please?”

“Leave him, Cop,” another trooper with hair shot through with gray grunted as he sat down next to the sergeant, but Cop didn’t leave Goldie. His hand disappeared, but then there was an arm wrapping around Goldie’s shoulder and pulling him into Cop’s side, warm and soft despite the stringy muscles Goldie could feel pressing up against him.

“His cheek’s still so soft,” Cop mused, stroking his knuckles down the side of Goldie’s face before he took hold of Goldie’s chin with two fingers and turned his head so they were facing each other. “But don’t worry, shiny. We’ll rough you up yet.”

Goldie said nothing, only stared. Cop looked like any other clone, no scars, no special hair cut or color, no metal stuck in his face, just maybe an inch or two shorter. Except for a smattering of darker dots on the bridge of his nose and top of his cheekbones, he looked like Ray. He looked like home.

Ever so slowly, Goldie let his body relax into Cop’s hold, who let go of his chin to ruffle his hair and coo some more.

“Think he likes me already.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re forcing yourself on him, you animal,” the trooper with silver streaks sighed but didn’t make another attempt to interfere. When Goldie looked back to the sergeant, he was watching them with his chin propped up in one of his hands.

“Introductions are in order,” he said when he caught Goldie’s gaze. “You’re CT-3-37-2648, fully trained infantry with a micro-specialization in field medicine, assigned to the 212th to bolster our ranks after our deployment to Umbara. Your file lists your taken name as Goldie, which is why we chose you from the list of new shipments. We are Albedo squad.”

Goldie nodded and pretended like he wasn’t mutely shaping the squad’s designation around his tongue. Albedo. The fraction of natural light that was reflected off of any object, usually particularly high in metals.

If Slider had been here, he probably would’ve remarked on getting to see the wheels start to turn in Goldie’s head.

“I’m Silver,” the squad sergeant continued, and something else fell into place instead.

“Like your ocular malformation!” Goldie blurted out, voice just a little breathy as Cop ran his fingers through his hair.

Silver paused. His mismatched eyes narrowed. “Apt observation, private. Don’t interrupt me again.”

His throat running dry, Goldie hurried to nod. Cop chuckled in his ear while the trooper with the gray streaks simply shook his head.

“Good. You’re obedient.” Silver blinked slowly at him. “I like it when my troopers can follow orders. It helps me keep them safe. Be a good boy and help me keep you safe, Goldie.”

“Sarge, stop. You’re going to make him faint,” Cop whined as Goldie sagged in his arms, his limbs suddenly weak.

The chipped incisor flashed in the light of the glowtube overhead as Silver grinned. “One more thing, kid. I’m a sister. You’ll call me she and her, like general Ti—understood?”

Goldie’s head spun with information, but he nodded regardless. A sister, not a brother—like general Ti? He wasn’t sure he understood. However, he also wasn’t sure if he had to. Maybe it was one of those things that would make sense in time, like Slider being, well, Slider.

“Now—” Silver sat back on her haunches and loosely crossed her wrists on her knees, and now that Goldie’s eyes had adjusted to the lighting he could see that she was leaning against the frame of a bunk— “the others may introduce themselves.”

The trooper with gray streaks in his hair opened his mouth, but Cop got the drop on him. “Name’s Copper,” he drawled and let go of Goldie only to grab his hand and shake it exaggeratedly, like some natborns did as a greeting. “Resident vent rat and scout. You want something, I can get it for you. You want to pay me back, my bunk’s always open.”

“He means cuddles,” the trooper with gray streaks interjected hurriedly. “Not the…the other thing. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to in this squad—”

“Except die for our glorious Republic,” Copper muttered under his breath.

“—and we won’t make you. I’m Quicksilver and—”

“We call him Quickie for short.”

“—I’m the squad medic. Shut up, Copper, you don’t—you call me Q, but you don’t call me that!”

Copper laughed. Quicksilver flushed darkly. Even the corners of Silver’s mouth twitched.

Goldie just felt stupid. “I don’t get it,” he whined at a pitch he knew would’ve driven Ray up the walls but elicited no reaction from the members of Albedo squad. “Why is Quickie a funny name?”

“Cop, don’t you dare—”

Copper did in fact dare. Cupping a hand around Goldie’s ear, he leaned in conspiratorially and whispered so loudly Quicksilver probably couldn’t help but overhear, “Means Q shoots his load early. Not on the battlefield, y’know—in the bunk.”

“Oh,” Goldie said. And then, as the meaning of Copper’s words sank in, he repeated, “Oh.”

“It’s not true,” Quicksilver hissed, his face about as flushed as Goldie’s felt. “I don’t—I don’t even do that stuff, Q, you know I don’t like it.”

When Copper opened his mouth once again, probably to drive his point home once and for all, Silver shook her head. Copper’s mouth snapped shut just as quickly.

“Stop teasing poor Q,” the sergeant sighed, staring Copper down until he lowered his gaze, too. “You’re overdoing it again. And you’re not leaving any time for Pebble to introduce himself.”

Goldie perked up. In the commotion of meeting so many new faces, getting teased and getting introduced, he’d completely forgotten that it had been four troopers who’d picked him up at the shiny barracks.

The bunk at Silver’s back creaked. First emerged two legs, bare and furred and—Goldie could’ve sworn—easily the circumference of his own waist. Next followed the rest of the trooper, no more hairless than his legs, in a set of blacks that had been cut off at the shoulders and thighs—perhaps to better accommodate the wearer’s frame, standard for a clone except that it was far more well-padded with muscle and fat than anyone Goldie had ever met in the training barracks or anywhere on Kamino.

Pebble said nothing, just flashed Goldie a shy smile from under his well-groomed beard as he gave a little wave. It was Copper who took his hand and dragged him out of the bunk to sit on Goldie’s mattress with the rest of them, and it was Silver who clapped her hand on Pebble’s broad shoulder and said to Goldie, “He’s our heavy gunner. One of the most reliable troopers I’ve ever had to have my back, and one of my batchers.”

“The resemblance truly is uncanny,” Copper muttered, and promptly received a light cuff to the back of the head from Pebble.

With the introduction round over, Goldie watched as Albedo squad descended into easy banter—mostly led by Copper and Quicksilver, Silver contributing the occasional remark and Pebble staying silent—while they pulled out their footlockers from under their bunks, rustled through the contents and came up with a pack of what had to be playing cards, a small floating glowglobe that provided better illumination than the glowtube overhead, sweetly flavored bars of some kind of protein and a flask containing a clear, biting liquid that wasn’t water and made Goldie splutter and hack with every sip he tried.

They appeared to have no plans of going to sleep anytime soon. They didn’t appear afraid of anyone barging into their barracks and writing them up for their transgressions either. Instead, when Goldie asked about lights-out, they laughed, wedged a couple of playing cards between his fingers and set out to teach him as many different variations of the same game as they seemed to know.

After a heartbeat’s hesitation, Goldie obliged. Whatever they would make him do, it would be better than lying in a dark bunk trying to keep the thoughts of Slider and Ray at bay while sleep remained elusive.

Worrying his lips between his lower teeth, his shoulder knocking into Pebble’s and Copper’s thigh pressed against his own, he selected a card from his line-up and set it down on top of everyone else’s.

“By General Kenobi’s luscious beard, I don’t believe it! The shiny wins again!”

“Beginner’s luck,” Copper growled at Quicksilver as he watched Goldie collect his winnings—three protein bars and a lone dusty blaster charge Copper had found crawling under a bunk—but his hand was rubbing circles into Goldie’s back, and there was a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. If he’d reminded Goldie of Ray the first time they’d been face to face, he couldn’t have been further from Goldie’s batchmate now. Where Ray would’ve kept his distance, Copper kept falling into Goldie, wrapping his arms around him, petting his hair, once even taking Pebble’s hand and making him feel “our pretty boy’s incredibly soft cheek”.

And Goldie liked it.

He liked Copper. He liked all of them.

He liked Silver, who was not at all like Slider even though they shared that certain something Goldie did not and probably would never understand. He liked Quicksilver, the way the medic was keeping an eye on Copper’s hands and batting them away from Goldie when he thought Goldie was starting to look uncomfortable, his soft, sweet smile when he thought none of them were looking. And he liked Pebble, too, even though the heavy gunner had barely said a word so far, except to request more cards for his hand. The solid presence by his side didn’t remind him of anybody he’d known, and that felt good.

Goldie liked Albedo squad. And yet, as the night wore on, as Copper’s prophecy rang true and he began losing rather than winning at the game of cards, as his head fogged over with the need to sleep and the faces blurred around him, he kept starting at glimpses of the familiar. Slider’s laugh in Copper’s. Ray’s nagging in Quicksilver’s. The hands of his batchmates holding him, squeezing him close like when they’d all been little.

But Slider and Ray were lightyears away, in an entirely different battalion, on an entirely different Venator-class cruiser, in a different bunkroom surrounded by different squads, perhaps sleeping, perhaps being kept awake like he was. Maybe they’d already been assigned to a squad—the same squad. Goldie hoped that they, at least, would be allowed to stick together.

His bottom lip was trembling. He didn’t know when it had started, and he didn’t know how to make it stop. He blinked his eyes. They, and his throat and nose too, felt hot and raw.

When Copper passed the flask with the biting clear liquid inside it—engine room brew, they called it—to him once more, he waved it off. Quicksilver saw and snatched the metallic container from Copper’s hand, ignoring Copper’s protests as he stuffed it back into his footlocker. “Enough for tonight. Drills tomorrow, remember?”

Pebble nodded enthusiastically, his grin wider than Goldie had ever seen it so far. Silver silenced Copper’s whines with a single glance.

“Drills tomorrow,” she repeated before she reached out and began plucking the playing cards from everyone’s hands. “And our shiny’s looking a little pale around his cute nose, too. We’re going to pick up your footlocker and kit tomorrow after earlymeal, don’t worry, kid. And then we’ll start you off training with us right away.”

Goldie nodded a mute thanks. Getting to know his new squad in the field was good. Training after earlymeal was good. If he was running and sweating and fighting not to regurgitate what he’d eaten half an hour ago, he wouldn’t have to think.

You never think, anyway, Ray grumbled in his ear.

Goldie ignored him and got up to help put things away. There wasn’t much to do, though, to keep his hands or his mind occupied. His chest squeezed, almost painfully, as the others retreated to their bunks and left him to straighten out his mattress and pillow on the cold hard floor.

Somewhere far off, he could’ve sworn he heard Slider whisper, Keep your socks on. You won’t catch a cold that way.

Goldie didn’t toe off his socks like he usually would as he slipped under the covers and drew them tight about his shoulders. He’d stuffed what remained of his cardgame winnings—one meagre protein bar—into his pillow case. Now he tossed and turned, trying to find a position to lie in where the blasted thing wouldn’t poke his eye out. Maybe he should’ve jammed it under his mattress after all, even though he had doubts about the cleanness of the floor.

As he fought to get comfortable, Copper scaled his top bunk with startling speed and leaned out over the abyss, fumbling for the glowtube that was still faintly illuminating the bunkroom with its flickering pale light. He plucked at something, a wire perhaps, and everything went dark.

In the sudden absence of light, Goldie’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears. He stopped shuffling around and just lay there, staring up at a ceiling he couldn’t see while he willed his breaths not to echo so loudly around the room. He hadn’t even noticed before that he was gasping.

Through the air moving noisily in and out of his lungs, he almost didn’t hear a bunk creak, and Quicksilver asking, “Hey, shiny. You leave anyone behind on Kamino?”

Goldie paused before he answered, “No.”

He hadn’t left anyone behind on Kamino. They’d gone, too—just not with him.

Before he knew it, his pillow was warm and wet under his cheek, and his breaths were coming even louder now, short little bursts of noise in his chest. He dug his nails into the heels of his hands until it smarted. Stupid. Stupid. Ray had been right all along. He’d finally been picked up by a squad that wanted him, and now he was about to blow it all by bawling like a freshly decanted tubie in full earshot of them. He could even hear one of them whisper, “I’ve got it, sarge.”

Still, the warm body that slipped under his covers out of nowhere startled him. As he started hiccuping uncontrollably, a hand came to rest on his shoulder—gently, almost shyly.

“I’m sorry,” Quicksilver whispered, his thumb rubbing slow, shaky circles into Goldie’s skin. “I shouldn’t have asked just now. There’s a reason you didn’t come in with a full squad, and I—we’ve all lost people. Brothers. Sisters. Others.”

“I—” Goldie just wished his chest would stop heaving for just one heartbeat, so he could speak without snot running everywhere. “I miss them.”

“I know. Shh, Goldie, I know.” Quicksilver’s hand grew heavier, grew firmer. “I used to miss my batch too.” Then, still shushing him, he grabbed onto Goldie’s shoulder real tight and rolled him, until Goldie had to fold up his arms in front of his body so Quicksilver could pull him against his chest and slot Goldie’s head under his chin.

Goldie blinked and pulled up his nose, loath to soak the front of Quicksilver’s blacks with his tears and snot. The medic’s heartbeat came slow and steady against his hands, drowning out Goldie’s own harried pulse while his even breath stirred the hairs at the top of Goldie’s head.

Goldie breathed out shakily. When he inhaled, he never wanted to stop again. Quicksilver smelled familiar, of clean sheets and rubber gloves and disinfectant.

He’d just set his hands flat against Quicksilver’s chest to squirm even closer, pressing his forehead to the hollow of Quicksilver’s throat, when a bunk creaked and someone landed with a light thud next to them on the ground.

“What do we have here, then? You two better not be cuddling without me,” Copper hissed and didn’t wait for an invitation before he lifted up Goldie’s covers and shuffled onto the narrow mattress with them, slotting his front neatly against Goldie’s back.

Now, Goldie took the liberty to ignore Slider’s advice and toed his socks off. Boxed in by two warm, firm bodies, he didn’t need them anymore. His breathing was evening out, and his head was starting to swim, too, his thoughts slipping farther out of his reach even as he tried to form them. His nose and eyes still felt wet and hot and swollen, but at least they’d stopped leaking.

Someone was playing with his hair, carding their fingers through it. He let them. It felt nice. Like home.

“Your old squad,” Quicksilver murmured just when Goldie thought he’d fallen asleep. “You can tell us about them in the morning if you want, yeah?”

Goldie made a noise in the back of his throat which he hoped sounded like agreement.

Quicksilver’s chuckle rumbled through him, warm and all-encompassing, eclipsing any thoughts Goldie still might’ve held in reserve and making the last bit of tension leak from his spine.

“Good,” the medic whispered, and his lips were dry and soft when they came to brush a feathery-light kiss against Goldie’s forehead. “Now sleep, little brother.”

Held safely between his two brothers, no other order would’ve been easier to obey.

Feeling a smile slip onto his lips, Goldie closed his eyes and slept.