A/N: Hey guys! Been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about the slowness. School and spring break have both been busy! You've made it to the final segment of "Burdens." Congratulations! I honestly had to rush the crap out of this chapter. Some things didn't work out like I wanted them too. Oh, well, that's life. I'm thinking there will be one big one or two small chapters to finish this part off in the very near future.

After some deliberation, I've decided to take my characters through Order 66. That will be done in a sequel story so that this one doesn't get too long. :) Anyway, enjoy! I really appreciate all of your reviews and in-depth feedback!

Particles

En Route to Saleucami, Outer Rim

Sprocket looked around at his new squad, his helmet visor stopping on Gev. "I'm a slow trooper. So recap the mission for me, fearless leader."

"We're doing a recce on a Sep planet."

"A recce? Don't we have intel to do that kind of stuff?"

"Yep. They already went."

"And?"

"They found out it was a Sep planet."

"Shab, what do we even pay them for?"

Gev snorted and tried to stifle his laughter. "Oh, Sprock. If only we had met earlier."

"I would prefer if you had never met," Morj grumbled.

Jatne sat with his helmet in his lap, running his gloved fingers along the surface. It was scratched, dented, and dirty. He remembered crawling through the catacomb tunnels of the droid factory on Geonosis, when his first squad had been alive. The rest was shaky in his mind. But he remembered painting his armor with Dem, Reg, and Sev--three black horizontal lines crossing halfway across his chest plates, and two vertically over his helmet.

Looking over to his left where Morj was sitting, he saw shiny, new armor. Morj had painted the helmet with purplish-red accents, the color of fresh blood. Sprocket's new gear was blank, and he cited "artistic difficulties." Gev kept the diagonal, red sash of Sigma on his plastoid plates.

"Way to kill the buzz." Gev fidgeted in the straps holding him in the transport's seats.

"We're not buzzed."

"Yes we are. It's called adrenaline and it comes out of your brain."

"It's from the adrenal glands, di'kut." Morj reached over and flicked Jatne in the temple, hard. One side of his mouth curled up in a half-grin. "Put your bucket on, or else Gev might see what a brain looks like when it leaks out of your ears."

Jatne chuckled and put his helmet back on and loaded the heads-up display. A blinking icon indicated a new message, which he checked. It was from Amiel--no, Commander Kurr. She was Commander Kurr.

GOOD LUCK, JATNE!

Jatne opened a private com channel with Gev. "Did Commander Kurr send you a message?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Jatne let out a sigh of relief. "No reason."

"So, that's it?" Sprocket asked. "We recce, party, and leave?"

"Hold on, getting another transmission." Gev put his hand to his ear and turned his head away from the squad to listen. Jatne wondered who was calling him that didn't want to show himself on the hologram.

Gev turned back to the squad and let out a long breath. "He forgot all the data."

"Who?"

"The mongrel intel guy." Gev shook his head. There were some non-clone soldiers entering the ranks where troop numbers were lacking. Some of them weren't very good. "New direct orders are in from General Zey. This is sabotage now. Disarmament of some anti-aircraft, scrambling some communications posts. There's some sort of cloning facility there, and GAR's going to invade."

"I left my sabotage pants in my locker!" Sprocket said, trying to snap his fingers but failing with the gloves.

"Cloning facility? For the Seps?" Jatne asked.

Gev tapped a finger on his helmet where his mouth would be. "That's what the man said."

"What a brilliant idea," Morj said, deadpan.

Republic Lines, end of the battle, Outer Rim

A round object hit the ground, making the thud of something dense. It was a head. It was easier to kill with a lightsaber that wasn't hers--there was no guilt involved, no thought of "What would Master Dagen think?" The green reverse-hand lightsaber belonged to a dead man. He wouldn't care if she enjoyed using it.

"Master!" Amiel called out. She was breathless.

Signe turned around and saw her Padawan standing above her on the bulwarks. Deactivating the lightsaber, Signe put it back on her belt and stepped over one of the half a dozen corpses that had fallen around her. She picked up a pouch from the remains of the Separatist and put the ammunition in a compartment on her belt.

"You--really were okay, weren't you?" Amiel's hazel eyes could have been the headlights on a larty.

"Yes, Amiel." Signe let out a breath. She could have visualized the figurative fire escaping her mouth. Amiel sensed what she was feeling--the sheer iawe/i of how simple it was for a lightsaber to cleave a neck. A wrist. A torso.

"You're worrying me, Master."

"I'm okay." Signe used a Force-assisted jump to reach her Padawan and began walking with her. Two Republic transports flew over them and artillery boomed in the distance. The battle was waning, but Signe hadn't brought herself down from the battle high.

"I think you're 'carrying a burden that you don't have to,'" Amiel said, not looking at Signe.

"I'm just doing my job." Signe clenched her jaw and continued walking with her silent Padawan, the Republic camp coming into sight.

"Did you have fun helping the General, Midget?" Naro asked as they approached the camp. Platoons were returning from battle and forming up while others were taking their brothers to the triage units.

"She had it under control."

Naro's helmet tilted in the typical "What?" fashion. "That was a lot of bad guys you slotted, General. Were our numbers off?"

"No, Naro. Spot on. I got them." Signe sat down on an empty supply crate and ran her hand down her face. Amiel looked at Naro with a crinkle between her eyes.

"Why the long face, General? Did Commander Law ignore your sexual advances in order to study tactics again?"

Signe looked at him with a thin smile. "No." Her com rang, and she answered it. A male human Jedi was on the other end. It looked as if the pixels on his head had missed a spot, but Signe knew that he had a genetic pigment glitch in his dark hair that made a white patch. He had it since she knew him at the Temple.

"General Ramseur here."

"General Amrun here. We're almost done. What's your ETA?"

"Forty-five minutes." General Guy Ramseur looked off-screen for a moment. "Lyda says 'hello' to Amiel."

Amiel stood near her Master and waved. "I say 'hello' back."

Guy Ramseur smiled and nodded. "Good to see you're alive, Sig. And you've finally gotten involved in a Republic victory. How does it feel?"

Signe wanted to tell him it felt cold. Like space. "It's an accomplishment, Guy."

"They'll be mailing you a plaque soon. It's got your name on it."

The laugh Signe forced was about as unbelievable as she expected. "Thanks."

"See you on board, Sig."

Signe put her com away and stood up. She could feel Naro and Amiel's eyes on her as she walked away and found Commander Law sitting with a datapad in one hand and his other arm being tended to by a medic. "General," he greeted her. His helmet was off and Signe noticed for the first time that his clean crew cut had really grown out. Had she not given him a chance to get it cut again?

"Picked up some trouble, Law?"

"Sure did. Just a scratch. Good to see you're well." Law smiled but didn't show any teeth. His face looked weathered as if he was much older than Signe, and the dimming light of dusk didn't contribute to any sign of his youth.

"Commander Law!" came a voice from several paces away. Sergeant Rem Meshkad, helmet bobbing on his belt, came jogging toward them. "When I tell you to get down, would you just do it instead of watching the battle with your mouth open?"

Law shrugged as the medic gave him a pat on the shoulder and walked off to tend to the other wounded. "I don't take orders from Sergeants."

"That was a joke, right?" Rem asked. He had bushy dark eyebrows that looked rather menacing when lowered. His black hair was gray around the edges, and Signe felt a little strange thinking he appeared handsome. Maybe it was the silver and green armor that attracted her.

"Yes. My mistake, Sergeant."

Rem rolled his eyes. "I really despise your formalities. Would you just call me 'Rem' or 'shabuir' like everybody else?"

"Sure, Sergeant."

Signe covered her mouth as she felt a smile creeping up on her. "Law sticks to the book, Sergeant. I've tried to loosen him up, but it hasn't worked."

Rem's brow lifted. She could see the gears turning in his head as he thought about every mode of loosening a man up. Law wasn't paying attention when he asked, "Would you like to hear the numbers, General?"

Signe wrapped her arms around herself as a cold breeze whisked past them. She hated the numbers. "Go on."

"1,249 casualties, 682 injured, 567 dead. Reports indicate this was a Republic victory. Not terrible statistics, are they, General?"

Signe's eyes were on the toes of her boots. 567 dead. She wondered if each of them were as brilliant as Sprocket, as funny as Naro, or as strict as Law.

"General?"

"I suppose not, Law."

CIS Armaments, Saleucami, Outer Rim

"Are you aiming that gun at us?" Morj asked over the com.

"No!" Sprocket insisted. "What gave you that idea?"

"I'm looking up at the barrel right now!"

Sprocket switched to a private com with Jatne and turned his head toward him. "They caught me."

Jatne gave Sprocket a thump on the back. "Just deactivate it, vod."

"You commandos are all work and no play," Sprocket said as he yanked a panel off of the anti-aircraft turret. It seemed as if the CIS compound was unoccupied--or at least not patrolled--so the squad decided it would split up to take out the dozen turrets in that particular compound. Two other squads were working simultaneously at other locations to prep for the invasion in this sector.

"That's because we actually work," Gev said. He was the only person Jatne knew who could relate the snarky grin he had through the sound of his voice.

"Aren't you cute," Sprocket muttered, bitter. A couple of sparks leaped out of the panel as Sprocket fiddled with the wires with a small cutting tool.

Jatne gripped his deece with a little more force than was necessary. The arid climate of Saleucami made him uneasy. He had never been in a place that was so uninhabitable, and it seemed strange to him that the Republic or the Separatists would care either way about occupying it.

"Done!" Gev announced proudly. "I beat you."

Sprocket scoffed. "At least I know how to rewire these suckers. You only know how to deactivate. My talent still surpasses yours!"

Jatne flinched. He didn't know why, but then he saw it--the trail of a rocket, and the high-pitched crescendo of an incoming missile. He hit the dirt and Sprocket landed beside him. The explosion was somewhere else.

"Man down!" came Morj's voice on the com. He sounded as if something was stepping on his chest. "Man down!" he repeated. "It's Gev!"

Jatne got up to a crouch and half-ran, half-crawled up a dusty slope that led to the adjacent turret. It had been hit about two meters too short to obliterate his brothers, but the impact had certainly reached them. Morj, with new scrapes and dirt on his armor, was struggling to get to his feet, and Gev was nowhere in sight. The turret had sustained most of the damage, and Jatne deduced that the pieces flying off of it must have been nearly as deadly as the explosion itself.

"I got you!" Sprocket said. He shot passed Jatne and got Morj's arm around him. "Can you walk?"

Jatne skirted around a piece of debris that was half his height and twice as long. He found Gev under it on the other side.

"I can walk," Morj replied.

"We need to run before they try again with the right trajectory. Jatne? Did you find Gev--"

Jatne dropped his deece and stopped listening to his com. Gev was in pieces. Literally. The sharp piece of debris had severed his left leg below the hip, and it was covering his right leg near the knee. He couldn't tell if it was still attached, and he didn't have time--there was a femoral artery shooting blood out his left hip.

Jatne froze.

Remember your training, di'kut!

Nonmaleficence, Outer Rim

Guy Ramseur was waiting at the bottom of the ramp when Signe stepped off of the transport ship, Amiel, Naro, Slon, and Law in tow. His Padawan Lyda stood beside him. When Signe approached him, he opened up his arms, and didn't let her escape a hug. He smelled clean and he was warm.

"We're never too old for a hug," Ramseur said with a chuckle as he let go of Signe. He started walking with her, and Amiel and Lyda trailed behind them speaking in whispers while the clones dispersed. "Kaden and I still know our secret handshake."

"Isn't the part where you pick up Avan a little awkward without Vannevar?" Signe asked.

"Well, we deleted that." Guy glared down his long nose at her. "You're not supposed to know any part of the secret handshake."

"It's hard not to know it when you guys have reenacted it so many times over the years. Maybe you should do the secret handshake in a more secret place."

"No! Then what's the point of having a secret handshake if nobody sees it?"

"You'd better stop calling it a secret handshake, then." Signe hadn't found herself smiling for this long since Oni was killed.

Signe, Ramseur, Amiel, and Lyda all stopped in front of Signe and Amiel's room in the dormitory quarters. The door had been left open, and a green-clad Mandalorian was standing looking at something in a datapad in her hand. Her helmet was seated on the bed next to her daughter. The muscles in Signe's shoulders went rigid. "Amyr?"

"General," Sigma Squad's training sergeant said, her gaze stony and serious. "I'd like a word with you. In private."

Signe looked up at Ramseur, who shrugged and put his hands on Amiel's and Lyda's heads. "I've got the Padawans, Sig. In you go."