It was raining as Rex stood above the carnage, barely able to distinguish the difference between whatever had been living beings, and what had been and always would be dead, metal droids.
There were others out there; he could hear them moving around over the sounds of hundreds and thousands of drops of water pounding into the ground in some crazy synchronization, some imperceptible pattern.
Part of him wanted to think that it was random, all of it; the slaughter of his brothers, the amounts of men and Jedi that they lost in each battle decided because some geezer who lived in the sky had tossed the die, and gotten the numbers.
That wasn't what he had been brought up to think, though; not what he was supposed to think, and so he let it wander only briefly through his mind before chasing it away with more logical ideas.
His men. He'd get a tally, one better than the one he had taken during his walk, of who he had lost, and how many of the clankers they had brought down before getting lord-knew-what part of their bodies blown open.
The camp. That was where the intel officers were, the one that he should have contacted now -but what was the point? He could have a short walk to himself, just his mind and his broken up armour and his somehow intact body that had survived, and the rain. The rain was always there, ever since they'd hit this god-forsaken mudhole.
And besides, Rex didn't even know if his com-link was working or not. Probably not -if the constant rain hadn't gotten to it (waterproof -damned comedians in high places, damn the ones who wrote out the Republic's budget, damn the ones who couldn't get them the proper equipment, damn them, damn them, damn them) then the shrapnel probably would have hit it in some key place, made it unusable.
He could see a multitude of lights ahead, the flashing ones of vehicles –left with the bodies of the ones they'd promised to save hours ago; they had offered him a lift, but he had wanted to, no, needed to walk, to be alone—and the steady ones of the temporary dwellings that they had set up, just for however long it took them to leave this damned place.
He paused, leaned against a tree –his knees hurt; he was getting too old for this job. Soon this old sack of meat he was stuck in wouldn't be working right.
The thought almost made him laugh, since he was technically twelve years old, and had only been fighting for three years. Three long, dark years, which seemed to have taken a century, but still. The Jedi had fought more, and they weren't giving up. If they didn't…
No. He was looking to the Jedi for hope? The ones that weren't openly slaveholders were cowards, too afraid to speak up against the Republic's use of he and his brothers. No amount of kindness could make up for that; no amount of paperwork that she'd be getting done would change the fact that Ahsoka wasn't out here like she should be, the fact that she had moved on from their loss and behaved in a more official manner, doing what had to be done instead of mourning. Doing what he had to do, while he spent hours out on that graveyard, just walking.
His com-link buzzed, startling himself out of the revelry. It worked. How fortunate; the only bit of luck he'd had since getting here.
Clumsy, armoured fingers pulled it out from its place at his side, pressed a small button to bring up a holographic image. "Clone Commander 7567 reporting…"
"Commander Rex, the time has come." It was unmistakably Palpatine's voice, but lower and guttural. "Execute Order 66."
And with that, the world irrevocably changed.