MINDSPRING- Whoever you are, Star Wars/Earth Fan, I am sending you trillions of virtual cookies and flowers. Thank you so much for that AWESOME review!!!! I keep coming back to it to read it, slightly giddy. I am still sooooo happy about what you said. It made my day. More like my week, actually! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you to the millionth power!!!!
*shrieks and faints about a million times*
Anyway, a few side notes first:
I know this might be a little OOC for Captain Rex, but hey, it's my story.
I have no idea how old Rex is, but I'm making him a little younger than he probably is.
Enjoy, and as always for ANY story- please please review! :D
-Captain Rex-
My pounding head and searing dry throat woke me. It was early in the morning, according to my watch. At first, I thought it was from a late-night training exercise, but then I remembered everything. The ambush, this new system, and then another ambush. It always happens to me, the bad things always do.
I sat up slowly, and winced when the blood returned to the slight wound. It really wasn't that bad; I had seen and survived far worse. Taking in my surroundings, I noticed with slight disdain how primitive everything seemed to me. Everything was simple; the furniture, the decorations, even the flooring, windows and walls.
As I slowly became more alert, I could remember more and more details. Three Human females appear to have rescued us: one with dark hair and dark skin, another with dark hair and pale skin, and the last one had bright hair and pale skin, like General Kenobi. All three are very young, in their mid-to-late teens. And they seem very ignorant of the situation that brought us here. They appear to speak Basic. And, I thought, touching the table in front of me, they seemed to have carried all of us inside this house. Although I didn't want to admit it, it was pretty impressive.
I was seated on a couch, and surrounded by the men who had survived both attacks. Six in all, including myself, in this one room. And all still had their helmets on. They were on chairs, sofas, and a large mattress on the ground, not unlike our army-grade mattresses. The room we were in was dark, and I could barely make out any other details. However, a thin stream of light was coming from the doorway that could only lead to the other rooms of this house. And I could hear a slight noise, of someone walking around, and opening and closing something.
I stood and cringed when the material of the couch groaned loudly. I waited until the noise had stopped, and walked quietly over to the edge of the wall. Peering around the corner, I saw that it was the same girl who I had woken up to, the one with pale skin and dark hair. She had her back to me, and was facing the counters and windows. Her hair was spilling over her shoulders, reaching the middle of her back. She seemed to be wearing a sleeping outfit, although it was like none I had ever seen. And she was wearing tall boots that reached her knees.
I walked into the small hallway that connected the two rooms. I looked around, and saw that on my left a narrow staircase lead to the upstairs, and on my right was small bathroom. I faced forward again and saw that she had turned around and noticed me. She was clutching a water glass in her hand and watching me with wide eyes.
I stepped into the light that was coming from the kitchen, as I now knew it was, and said quietly, "I am sorry; I did not mean to scare you."
She nodded and said, "That's alright. I take it you are more than a little thirsty?" Without waiting for an answer, she opened a cabinet and pulled out another glass, and then filled it with water. She handed it to me, and I took it, although I couldn't care less about the water now.
"Yes, thank-" We both started when a sudden noise from above echoed in the house. I put a hand on my gun, which was still attached to the holster, and stepped in front of her, to protect her. It was, after all, my duty to protect the innocent.
She put a hand on mine, and when I looked at her, said, "It's probably just one of your men. We put some upstairs," she added hastily, catching my expression. I looked up again, frowning. "How did you manage that?"
She grinned shyly, and said, "We probably should go outside, because I have a few questions for you as well."
I was struck by her attitude, how calmly she was taking all of this. I followed her through the dark rooms until we went through a door and onto a small patio, overlooking all of the land. It overhung the garage, and was made of all wood. A bench ran along the far edge, and that was where we sat.
And then, all of a sudden, I was stricken. By her.
While she answered my question, I stared at her, trying to take her all in with just my eyes. Although, of course I knew it would never be enough. Pale ivory skin. A delicate heart-shaped face, huge dark blue eyes, full pale pink lips, long eyelashes, and waves of thick brown hair framing her face. Without meaning to, I began to see my hands moving in that hair, caressing that neck…
We were alone, I realized. All the men were either in the house asleep or dead, as awful as that sounds. I remembered what I thought of when I saw that face, biting her lower lip, full of concern and worry for me, a complete stranger dressed in outlandish attire with a gun and surrounded by destroyed droids. I thought I had been rescued, somehow, by the mythical beauties of the moons of Iego, the Angels. Or that I had died.
She must have realized that we were alone as well, because she pulled her legs underneath her, a small sign she was uncomfortable. I still didn't know her name. When I asked, she blushed, and I grinned a little.
"Caitlin. My name is Caitlin." She whispered softly, making my stomach drop. At once, I realized the power that this young woman had over me. Without meaning to, and indeed without permission, I had actually… what was it, I had read something on it when I was still in training… I had actually begun to like this Caitlin, like her beyond any reason and logic. Everytime she moved, I committed it to my memory, so that when I was fighting a war thousands of worlds away, far away from this peaceful little planet, I could pull them out and remember this.
We sat in silence for a few more minutes, looking at the vast hills of this world, when she said, "I don't know your name."
"Rex."
She smiled, and I noticed when she did so her eyes sparkled and dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth. She turned towards me, and said in a louder voice, "That's an interesting name… Is it a nickname?"
"I suppose so. My real name is CC-7567."
She looked immensely surprised when I said this. Finally, she said, "That's not a name, that's a number. A number can't be a name..." She trailed off, frowning into the distance as she turned it over in her head.
I realized that, being here, on this isolated little system, she had no idea what my brothers and I were. I stood, and she looked up at me, confused. Without a word I held out my hand to help her up, and after thinking it over, she gently placed her small hand into my large gloved one. Not taking my eyes off of her, I said, "Where did you put the dead?"
She pointed over to the large gray building, and said softly, "In that field. We wanted to bury them."
I was shocked; this would be the first time some of my brothers had gotten a real funeral when they were struck down. I felt relieved, and struck by her and her friends' kindness towards strangers.
I continued, still staring, trying to figure this mystery out. "So you didn't see their faces?"
She shook her head more vigorously than before. When we had been talking, I had led her down the wooden steps that led from the porch to the ground. I pulled her in the direction of the field, where she had put the dead troopers.
As soon as she realized where I was taking her, she became a little more resistant to my efforts, pulling back on my hand. I stopped, turned to face her, and said, "You need to see this to understand what I am about to say."
She bit her lip again, and she looked downwards. After a moment she looked up, her eyes hardened and determined. "All right," she said, albeit somewhat slowly. We climbed the fence; I was still holding her hand as we walked slowly to the little cluster.
When I saw the rows of my brothers, lined up neatly, with their hands clasped together on their chests in a last gesture of peace, I felt as if my body had suddenly lost all feeling. My shoulders stooped, and I let go of her hand. My eyes kept scanning their motionless bodies, over and over. Which brothers would we have to mourn today? She must have realized at once what had happened, and she said, "Sir? Sir, are you all right?" I felt her arm go around me, to support me.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to look up at her. I said quietly, "On the back of our helmets there is a latch. You press down on it for a few seconds, it will release it. Take it off, and look at his face."
If I had hit her, she couldn't have looked more horrified. She had taken her arm off of my shoulders. Her hand flew to where her heart was, and her eyes had expanded into the size of plates. "I can't!"
"You must." On the last word, I knelt beside the body of one of my brothers and looked up at her. Without a word she got onto her knees and reached for his helmet. She faltered only once, and I took her hand and put it on the latch. Looking sideways at her, I noticed she took a deep breath and when she did that, she seemed to be filled with courage. She pressed the latch, and when the sound of air rushing out stopped, she removed it.
My stomach fell. Ash's face was looking up at us, his eyes wide open. His tattoo glinted from the light of the moon on the side of his face. I heard her quiet cry and felt her body go rigid. I reached across her and gently closed his eyes. I looked at her. Her blue eyes had filled with tears, for this man she didn't know, who had died such an awful death. My heart pounded, but I kept my voice still when I said, "Look at his face, Caitlin." Saying her name held a rich pleasure for me, one that might be matched with Matchbox's obsession with Twi'lek girls or Jazz's for weapons.
She leaned back, so she was resting on the balls of her feet. When she took his face in, she looked at me. Her eyes widened again and her mouth opened as she realized it, realized what was going on. She looked back and forth, until her stunned voice said, "You share the same face."
When she looked at me again, I nodded and held her eyes with mine. "We all share the same face."
Her eyes flicked to the dead next to us, before she came back to me. "Brothers?"
I smiled, because I knew she thought I was showing her an actual sibling, as if Ash and I had the same parents. She still didn't understand, or maybe if she did, she couldn't wrap her mind around such a thought. I laughed a little, "No. Not brothers. Clones. All of these men here are clones. Including me."
She stood so still that at first I had no idea what just happened. She was breathing quickly, and she murmured, "I don't understand…"
I slowly stood and we started to walk back to the porch. I clasped my hands together behind my back and said, "There's not really much to get. The Republic needed an army; the Kaminoins knew how to genetically clone someone hundreds of times, plus take out any unnecessary habits. We were cloned from the bounty hunter named Jango Fett, and our lives, up until this point, have been sped up. The Kamino have programmed our genes to resume the normal rate of growth once we finished training. I finished two years ago."
She looked at me, curiosity burning in her eyes. She said, a small smile on her lips, "So in actuality you are…"
"Twenty-two standard years old."
She bit her lip and looked down at the ground again. By this time we had gotten onto the porch again and we sat down next to each other on the long bench that ran the entire length of the porch. To my surprise, she sat so close to me that our knees were touching. I am positive she did not notice it, because of all the information I had just thrown at her. Certainly I wasn't complaining.
She tucked one knee under her chin and asked, "I have several questions for you, sir. I hope you don't mind, but I'm just about burning up with curiosity."
I smiled at her, a wide grin I usually only gave when something went really well for us in battle. This wasn't nearly the same, but it had the same feeling of adventure, excitement, and even a small bit of danger to it. When she smiled back, it wasn't the shy smile she had given me just a few minutes ago; it was a large, bright smile. She already trusted me, and I her.
I said, "Call me Rex. You're not under my command, or even in the army."
She smiled again and warned, "We might be here a long time."
I smirked and said, "I've been through worse. Shoot."
She probably asked me hundreds of questions, ranging from obvious ones (how many worlds, ships, droids, etcetera) to the extremely deep ones that required a good five minutes to explain briefly (the war, different species of aliens, how the systems were governed, etcetera). She seemed to have no end to them, and no matter what answer I gave, it couldn't quench her curiosity. I told her about Jedi, the Separatists, what life for a clone was like, and even how we came into her world. In return, she tried to answer all of my questions about this curious new system: the name, stories, history, how one small planet wasn't ruled by one government… the list went on and on for both of us.
The sun had fully risen by the time the troopers started to wake up. I could hear them talking loudly, cursing and wondering where they were. I realized at once that while we had been talking, Caitlin had huddled in close, probably because of her lack of warm clothes. My arm was around her shoulders, and she had pulled her knees up underneath her and was resting her head on my arm.
She smiled up at me and said, "You should probably go take care of your troops. We'll be right there; we just have to get a few things ready first." Her eyes were locked with mine. She bit her lip and looked away.
I nodded and, not taking my eyes away, stood. She stood as well, and then smiled again and turned to leave. I opened the door and tried to relax before I met my troops, and inform them of what I had just learned.
