Promise
Clone Trooper Fives stared at the small, golden medal he held in his hand. It shone lightly in the penumbra of the barracks like a small star in the middle of space, spreading a warm, golden light from all over his hands, giving the tan skin a beautiful tonality. A warmth that, for some reason, didn't seem to reach his heart.
His gaze cast down to his armour, neatly packed just next to his bunk as his commanders in Kamino had taught him to do. He contemplated his surface, pensive. Just hours ago, it had been white and smooth. Shiny, as Captain Rex would say. Just like himself. Just like his heart had been. Now, even after hours of scrubbing and cleaning, the marks of blood, blaster and burns were still visible in its once spotless surface. It was, as his soul, not shiny anymore. It had, like his heart, the signatures of battle and death craved on fire all over its surface.
He had spent all his life in the cloning facilities of Tipoca City. Each second of his short existence had been destined to training. Hard, rigorous and extenuating mental and physical training, designed to transform them in the best warriors the Galaxy had ever seen. Designed to transform them into living killing machines.
He had thought about death many times, just as he knew every single clone had had. He had thought about what it really was, what it really meant, was it really felt like. Would it hurt? Would it be painful? Was dead a travel to another physical realm? Or would his conscience just extinguish like a candle in the middle of a hurricane? Would their deaths be meaningful? Would they be grieved, or would they just be left forgotten on a battlefield when their time came?
He had tried to accept that a clone's life is a short one, and one full of pain, duty and death. He had tried to accept that the mission always came first, and that because of that, it would come a day when his brothers wouldn't be fighting besides him anymore, that it would come a day were the Domino Squad would exist no more, that their names wouldn't pass into history. Domino Squad would be forgotten, just like them. Because they were clones. They were meant to be expendable. They were just another few more pieces in a Galaxy-wide puzzle.
He had told to himself a thousand times that nothing of that was important, as long as he died for the Republic, to allow his brothers live to fight another day.
But nothing of that could have prepared him for the moment when he looked Death in the eyes, when he first felt sheer and pure terror burning through his veins like acid, when he felt the cold tentacles of destiny tightly around him. Sergeant O'Niner's scream of pain when the first plasma bolt burned his stomach. Droidbait's and Nub's shrieks of pain and terror when the droids had shot them down, their heartbreaking cries of desperation before they died. Cutup's scream of terror when that giant eel had taken him away, his disbelief when he realised that, even with all his training, he was going to die like that. All of them echoed in his mind each time he closed his eyes. They were craved in fire in the depths of his heart.
He looked again at the golden piece of metal in his hand, and closed his fist around it until it started to shake. Hot tears fell from his eyes, wetting his cheeks and his clothes as his fallen brother's screams echoed in his mind over and over. The wave of sheer pain ripping tearing his heart apart was much more painful than any blaster shot could have been.
Where is the honour in this?, had he said cried into Echo's shoulder as they sat together on their new bunks, hugging each other tightly as if they were clinging to life itself, pain, shock and disbelief consuming their souls, where is the pride? Should I feel honoured of being one of the two remaining members of the Domino Squad? Should I feel proud of not being good enough to save my brothers? How can I feel honoured when I know that, because I wasn't good enough, Hevy, Cutup and Droidbait would be never with us again?
And Echo hadn't had an answer for that.
Captain Rex had visited them later to greet them as new members of the Torrent Company. Fives knew he should be honoured. After all, Torrent Company was the elite within the elite, the best company in the 501st, the best Legion in the GAR. Not every clone received a petition to join their lines. They had accepted, even if he didn't see a pair of shinnies who had almost failed his final exam on Kamino under the command of the mythic Captain Rex. It didn't make sense. They were not that good. They simply didn't deserve it.
Oh, but they would deserve it, a fierce voice had said that night in his mind as he laid quietly on his bunk, with Echo sleeping above him. They would train hard, work hard, become the best soldiers in the GAR. They would become legends, they would make their Captain proud. They would laugh, and love, and celebrate, and scream, and cry, just to honour those brothers who didn't have the chance to do so. They would run across the battlefields, destroying thousands and thousands of droids, making hundreds of tanks explode, reducing them to a scrap pile. Just for their brothers. Just to save their brothers.
And each time they saved a brother, they would be saving Cutup, and Nub, and Droidbait, and the Sergeant, and Hevy. They would be saving them over and over again. And when their time came, they would look at death in the eye with a wild smile on their faces, they would hold their heads high and they will make sure their last battle cry was well heard: for the Republic, for our brothers!
He would die, yes, but his death would allow other brother to survive, to live to fight another day. As Hevy did. As every now dead clone of that Army had done. Oh, they would, he thought as he laughed softly. He knew they would.
For Hevy.