Hunter silently cursed himself as he crouched in the trench and fired at the advancing Umbaran's.

They should never have gotten comfortable. This was a battlefield, after all, and they'd all stupidly let their guards down long enough for the enemy to regroup and flank them from behind.

A kriffing textbook error. If this had been a training sim on Kamino, they would have failed dismally. But, here and now, failure didn't just mean a dressing down and a black mark against their records. It could very well mean getting their heads blown off.

Stupid. He was kriffing stupid. He should have heard them coming. If he'd been concentrating on anything but the pounding in his head, he would have done. Thanks to his error, Wrecker had gotten shot. The bolt had hit him high on his left shoulder, a superficial wound, and the giant claimed he was fine, but it could still have been avoided.

And where the Hell was Crosshair?

Hunter should never have let him wander off on his own. It would have been far better to face the wrath of an irritated Crosshair (the man hated being smothered at the best of times) than to let his squad become separated. They needed to stick together. He needed to keep everybody together and whole until this kriffing mission was over. He tried not to think about what happened then, or about how awful the next mission might be.

Another man fell to one of his shots, but two more took his place. They seemed to be multiplying like kriffing stray tookas, threatening to overrun the trench by their sheer numbers alone.

"It would appear that the Umbaran's have the advantage," Tech stated as he peered from behind cover to squeeze off a couple of bolts.

"Yeah, well, we're worth a hundred of 'em!" yelled Wrecker with his customary level of enthusiasm.

Hunter grunted in grim agreement to both opinions. He could feel the pressure behind his eyes beginning to build once more and started to panic. He could not afford to lose it again, not now, not when his squad was separated and in serious danger of being overwhelmed.

"We need to find Crosshair," he shouted to nobody in particular over the din. At least if they were all together in one place, it would be easier for him to keep everybody safe.

Hunter hastily ducked as a burst of plasma rounds came dangerously close to his head, hitting the top of the trench and showering them all with dirt. Scrubbing a hand across the visor of his helmet to clear the debris, he cast his gaze up and down the dug out and quickly decided that they needed to move right now, because every reg within fifty yards was either dead or dying, and he expected that it wouldn't be very long before they all met a similar fate themselves.

Hefting his blaster, Hunter took a deep breath.

"Fellas, we gotta regroup with the rest of the battalion," he said, voice straining to be heard over the blaster fire.

"I agree," replied Tech. "We are in imminent danger of being overwhelmed."

"We can take 'em!" Wrecker added with conviction.

Whilst Hunter trusted his brothers and knew each of their respective capabilities - and he certainly didn't doubt Wrecker's ability to cause wanton destruction if the occasion called for it - realistically their chances of all surviving if they stayed put were slim at best.

"We're moving," he barked in his best Sergeant voice, which, admittedly, he hadn't yet perfected, but which he hoped was stern enough to suggest that the order was not up for discussion. "Tech, Wrecker, fall back into that adjoining trench while I provide cover fire."

The pair nodded agreement, the larger albeit reluctantly. Holding up a fist, which was trembling from the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Hunter counted down until he reached zero, at which point he stood and twisted to aim his blaster over the top of the bank. Behind him, he heard the sound of boots on the ground as both Tech and Wrecker bolted deeper into the trench network. Keeping an ear cocked for signs of trouble behind him, Hunter brought his attention to the advancing enemy, who were now close enough that he could see their pale faces through the gloom. Gritting his teeth against the monumental headache swelling inside his skull, he held his finger on the trigger and swept his weapon from side to side in an effort to keep the Umbaran's at bay. It worked to a degree, or at the very least affected the rate at which the men advanced. A few stumbled and fell while the remainder attempted to remove themselves from the line of fire by hitting the deck or hiding behind cover.

Hunter gave it a few more seconds before deeming the Umbaran's sufficiently distracted. He took his finger off the trigger of his blaster, straightened fully, and started running without a backwards glance. He could see Wrecker's helmet peering around the junction of the neighbouring channel, his brother covering his retreat as best he could.

Hunter felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as plasma rounds began flying past him, some close enough to scald his armour. He didn't slow his pace, and if he was hit he certainly didn't feel anything. Diving around the corner, he almost collided with Tech, who was hovering worriedly.

"Go!" Hunter snapped, grabbing Tech's chest plate and shoving. "Keep moving!"

Neither of his brothers needed telling twice as they fled deeper into the trench network, hurdling over fallen troopers and debris without breaking stride. Hunter kept his ears pricked for sounds of fighting in the hopes that might lead them to the rest of the battalion. But the darkness was eerily quiet, and the only other clones they encountered were already dead.

Something felt wrong.

Where the Hell were the rest of the regs? Or Crosshair, for that matter? A sickening thought occurred to Hunter, and his throat tightened in panic.

Were they the only ones left?

As if to answer his question, he heard the vague sound of voices drifting on the breeze, faint but familiar. There were regs somewhere nearby. He just needed to pinpoint exactly where.

Skidding to a halt, he took a deep breath and listened. Wrecker and Tech, realising Hunter was no longer behind them, also stumbled to a stand still.

"Hunter-?" asked Wrecker, before Tech silenced him with an elbow to the ribs.

Straining his senses, Hunter closed his eyes to ward off any visual distractions. He could hear the sound of his brothers' hearts pounding in their chests and smell the adrenaline coursing through them. In the distance was the sound of boots on the dirt as the Umbaran's advanced, though they were no longer close enough to pose an imminent threat. Even further out and in the opposite direction were the unmistakable voices of clones.

And there was something else. Something that changed the air pressure and caused goosebumps to errupt over Hunter's arms and legs. It took him a second to realise what it was, and when he did his eyes flew open in panic.

"Out of the trench!" he all put screamed as a pair of bombers broke the horizon.

The urgency in his voice must have been clear because neither Wrecker nor Tech hesitated in the slightest. The three of them launched themselves out of the dug out and began half running, half falling down the slope that they had been advancing up less than an hour ago.

Hunter felt rather than heard the impact of the bombs dropping behind them. The ground shook beneath his boots, and there was a split second of stillness before he was abruptly hurled through the air, and everything went black.

...

Crosshair watched the shells drop with a numb kind of detachment.

The horizon lit up in flashes of white and gold and orange, sparks and debris and columns of fire shooting skywards in a graceful display of destruction that lasted for almost a full minute. After the initial blasts, the flames eventually died down, leaving glowing veins of embers which scarred the hillside.

It would have been beautiful if it wasn't for the fact that Crosshair's brothers were still in those trenches.

After the fighting had started, he and the reg had paused their scuffle, met each other's gaze with similar wide eyed expressions of alarm, and promptly disentangled themselves. Crosshair had managed to down a handful of Umbaran's before the order to fall back had been heard. Chaos was something he'd become accustomed to (his batch were hardly well organised by any means, and anarchy just seemed like a normal aspect of their daily lives) but during the bug out everything had become so disorientating that he'd allowed himself to be swept along with the rest of the regs as they abandoned the ridge. He'd left his brothers behind without consciously meaning to and now, for all he knew, they were dead in those kriffing trenches.

The thought made Crosshair hate himself with such ferocity that his blood boiled in his veins.

And the regs, those kriffing unremarkable bastards, had cheered as the bombs fell. He felt almost as much loathing for them as he did himself. They celebrated the destruction as if it was some hard earned victory and not a death sentence for any poor sod trapped in the dug out. Crosshair grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. The regs might have been expendable, but his brothers certainly weren't.

Swallowing down a wave of nausea at the memory of his actions, he strode towards the ridge. If the others were alive, he had to help them. And if they were dead, he needed to see it with his own eyes.

He'd made it perhaps a dozen strides before an arm wrapped around his waist, halting him in his tracks. Instinctively, he twisted to free himself, but only succeeded in throwing himself off balance. Staggering, he almost fell, hissing through his teeth, swivelling his head and ready to spit venom at whoever had hold of him.

It was that damned ARC trooper again.

"Get off me!" he snapped, his voice sounding far off to his own ears.

The reg loosened his grip, but only a little.

"You can't go up there," he said with a weary defeatism that was both surprising and not at the same time.

Crosshair growled like an angry massiff and rolled his shoulders in a feeble attempt at dislodging the clone. It didn't work, and if anything the guy held on tighter.

"Kriff off, reg!"

The ARC trooper's other arm joined the first, squeezing him from behind in a bear hug that would have rivalled one of Wrecker's.

"Easy. You can't go up there."

"Says who?!"

The pair continued to struggle, Crosshair's desperation to reach the ridge becoming more acute with every passing second. He needed to get up there. He had to get up there.

Eventually, a combination of exhaustion and excess adrenaline finally got the better of Crosshair. His legs gave out and he fell to his knees in the dirt, pulling the reg down behind him. He took a deep shuddering breath, his rifle slipping from his fingers to land with a hollow thud beside him.

"There's no point going up there," said the reg. His voice was soft and full of pity, uncomfortably so. "They're already gone. Trust me. There's nothing you can do but let them go."

Crosshair's heart was somewhere near his adams apple. His face was wet beneath his helmet, and it took him a moment to register that he was crying. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd let his emotions get the better of him like this, but he suspected he'd not long been out of diapers at the time. Thank the Force that he still had his bucket on because he didn't think he could live with himself if a reg saw him sobbing like a child.

"You don't know my brothers," he said hoarsely, though his tone lacked conviction.

They couldn't be dead. They just couldn't. Because Crosshair wasn't sure he knew how to survive on his own.

They'd been a squad long before being officially sanctioned. Through the endless tests and bullying and pain and utter misery that came from growing up on Kamino, the four of them had developed a co-dependant relationship that ran so deep that they almost couldn't function as individuals. It was unhealthy, Crosshair knew it was unhealthy, but it was a bond forged of necessity that had become ingrained in them, a sort of odd symbiosis that tied them closer than most other batches. If Tech fell in training, Wrecker would always be there to pick him up, in the same way that Hunter sought out Crosshair's quiet companionship when his overstimulated senses became too much to bear. They complimented each other, both in personality and skill, knew each other better than they knew themselves.

They were more than a unit: they were a family.

And in the blink of an eye, all that was gone.

Crosshair took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity before slowly exhaling through his nose. The technique always worked in grounding him whenever he was trying to lock on to a particularly difficult target, and he hoped it would do the same now. He couldn't lose himself, not yet, not before he knew for certain what fate had befallen Hunter, Tech and Wrecker.

Surging to his feet with enough force and speed to dislodge the reg, Crosshair once again aimed for the hilltop. And, once again, the kriffing trooper stopped him in his tracks.

This time, though, Crosshair didn't let him get a grip. As soon as he felt the pressure of a limb on his torso, he twisted, drawing back his fist in one movement, and punched the reg hard in his helmeted face.

It hurt. Kriffing Hells it hurt, the force of the blow enough to send a sharp, white hot pulse of pain up his arm all the way to his elbow. He bit down on his tongue to stop himself from making a noise because dammit, he'd already cried today and he wasn't now about to kriffing whimper like a kicked hound just because he'd broken his knuckles.

The impact seemed to hurt Crosshair a lot more than it did the ARC trooper because he barely flinched at the jab, instead taking another step towards Crosshair and grabbing him by the shoulders. Crosshair once again jerked away from the contact, stumbling backwards and almost falling. The reg used his momentum to get a better hold, twisting him so that his back was flush against the clone's chest.

Anger, almost as sharp as the pain in his hand, pulsed through Crosshair like a persistent heartbeat of rage. He needed to get to that ridge, get to his brothers, and this kriffing reg was stopping him.

With a grunt, he rolled his shoulders and bent his knees in one fluid motion, using his height to his advantage and flipping the trooper. The man flew over the top of him with a surprising amount of speed, landing hard on his back and huffing as the air was driven from his lungs. With a savage grin to himself, Crosshair was just about to step over the guy when someone else tackled him from behind, driving him to the ground.

The impact jostled his helmet free and his cheek connected with the dirt. He spat out a mouthful and growled, teeth bared in a rictus snarl. Around him were the sounds of boots thundering and concerned voices, though he wasn't able to hear what they said. Someone had a knee wedged between his shoulder blades, and a vambrace was pressed to the back of his neck, pinning him to the floor.

"Stay down," growled a voice in his ear, the voice of just another kriffing reg that didn't understand why he needed to get back to the trenches.

Crosshair struggled with all his might for several minutes, though his attempts at freeing himself were in vain. Eventually, he conceded defeat, slumping down into the dirt, chest heaving and eyes stinging.

If his brothers really were dead, then he supposed he would just have to take the ARC trooper's word for it.