Fives drifted in the murky depths between wakefulness and sleep. He'd been sleeping in only fits and starts since they left the jungle planet, and the sleep he did get was filled with bizarre dreams. This one was no exception. Echo was healed and the two of them were off on a mission. Somewhere. Someplace. Mission objective unclear. Rain was hammering done around them and they were slogging their way through an endless marsh. Echo was rambling on about something he'd read on his datapad during the long ride over. He kept going on about contingency orders- of all fekkin' things. Fives let his brother keep talking as they kept slogging on through the mire.

"Fives."

"I'm listening, Echo," Fives muttered. "Con... orders..."

"Fives!"

He startled awake, almost toppling over from where he'd fallen asleep leaning up against the bacta tank.

Kix grabbed a shoulder to steady him. He somehow managed to scowl fiercely and express brotherly compassion at the same time. "Vod-you can't keep sleeping here."

Fives shook his head stubbornly, and then regretted it. Sleeping up against the bacta tank was fekkin' awful and giving him a stiff back and neck. He was still all out of sorts from the battle. But, what if Echo woke up? He'd only left a few times to shave and see to the Captain. His place was here by Echo.

"I won't leave him," Kix promised. "You need to sleep in your rack. Go on."

"But, what if he-"

"He's not waking up anytime soon."

Fives pushed out a long weary sigh. He knew Kix was right on all counts. It still hurt, though, to be reminded Echo was so badly messed up. "Alright."

"He's going to need you when he wakes up. So, get some rest so you can be there for him."

OK, that sounded more hopeful. It wasn't a promise Echo would fully recover, but Fives would take it. As he woke up more fully, he gave Kix a critical once over. "What about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you slept?"

Kix's lips twisted with amusement. "Now you're hounding me?" He shrugged. "I have to take a break whether I want to or not." He tapped the datapad at his belt. "Orders from Commander Cody. All medics are now on a set schedule and ordered to take regular rest breaks." He shook his head again. "I suspect Rex had a hand in that somewhere." He wasn't quite able to suppress a yawn.

"Alright," Fives turned to Cody and paused at the entrance of the medbay. "Kix? Thanks."

Kix waved off his thanks, but after the door closed, he smiled to himself. "Nice to be appreciated." He glanced up at the bacta tank and returned to monitoring Echo.

# # #

Two days. They had just two days until they reached Coruscant. The chrono was counting too quickly now. Maybe they should come out of hyperspace someplace else. Hide out for a while.

No, that wasn't an option.

They had seriously wounded who needed the top medical facilities on Coruscant. Echo. General Skywalker. General Kenobi. General Unduli. OK- at this point, basically anyone with General in their name desperately needed the med facilities on Coruscant. As battered as the clones had been during their captivity on Darkknell, the Jedi had it even worse. Their plan had to work.

Rex activated his comm. "Engineering team. Status update."

"Jamie here, Captain. Wish we had better news. Still stuck in the same spot. Your idea is solid. Not sure we'll be able to execute on it."

Rex pinched his nose and breathed out slowly. "Alright." He paused. Rex had a dozen other things which needed his attention. He didn't need to be hounding the engineering team. But, he couldn't focus on anything past the concern of making sure they didn't get blown up as soon they emerged from hyperspace. He needed his engineers to pull off a miracle. But, unfortunately, they couldn't seem to adapt the Kazzie technology. Had he rescued all of these men so they could die when they were so close to finally getting home? "Where is your team working?"

"Eh... " There was a pause as if Jamie was leaning over to read the symbols on the doorway. There was a hurried conversation with the other engineers as they quickly translated the Kaz'harian. Leon had updated all of their datapads and HUDs with enough Kaz'harian they all could at least function around the ship without scalding themselves or walking the wrong way into a boiler room. "D-Level- 3263827. We found a workroom off of the main engineering bay."

"On my way."

Rex allowed himself the luxury of losing himself in his thoughts for a few minutes as he worked his way down to D-Level. The Kazzie ship was enormous. But, there was something about the layout and design which had grown on him. There was an organic flow to the ship and as time passed, he found he almost preferred it to the standard Rothana Engineering fare ordered by the Kaz'harians. As soon as he entered the room, the team of combat engineers scrambled to get to their feet. Rex snapped up a hand to stay their movement. "At ease." The room showed evidence the engineers had been working on the problem for many hours and trying to consider every angle. Flimsis were tacked up to walls datapads littered the tables like fallen leaves. The workroom was enormous, (of course it was), but even so, it was crowded with troopers. He and Cody had pulled every spare engineer from the 7th fleet to work on this project.

Jamie approached and was about to give a status update when Trapper entered the room carrying an overloaded tray of caf and fruit. "Alright ya' bucketheads. I'm back! I brought food and such. Don't get used to this treatment. I'm only here because Commander Cody made me-" He halted as he nearly ran into Rex. "Oh, Captain, I didn't realize you were-" He was about to make a hasty retreat when one of the flimsis tacked to the wall caught his attention. He unceremoniously shoved the tray into Rex's hands and stared in awe at the drawing. His eyes darted back and forth and his face lit up with joy. He tapped the flimsi. "A cloaking device," he muttered in wonder.

"Yes," Rex said, impressed. Trapper was a scout, how the fek did he immediately recognize a cloaking device?

His gaze flicked back to Rex. "Oh- sorry, Captain." He took the tray back and shoved it into the hands of the nearest trooper. "Do someone with that, will ya'?" He started to work his way around the room, staring at every diagram and chart tacked up on the wall.

Some of the engineers cast him a curious look, but the rest were more interested in the tray of snacks.

Rex kept his gaze fixed on Trapper. He knew that look.

Trapper yanked a flimsi off the wall and traced his finger up a Carnot cycle diagram. "Where's the rest of the data that goes with this one?" Trapper demanded, not speaking to anyone specifically.

Winder, one of the engineers, raised up an eyebrow at him and gave him a calculating look.

Trapper focused in on Winder. "This thermodynamic cycle- have you resolved it?"

Winder tilted his head to the side in a move Rex immediately recognized as a trooper who was intrigued. "No. We've tried different variations of the temperature-entropy diagram and the pressure-volume diagram, but we can't resolve the isothermic processes."

"So, you're having phase shift issues," Trapper said it as a statement, not a question.

"Yes,"Winder moved closer to Trapper and held up his datapad so they could both see it at the same time. "Constant phase shift issues."

"Can you show me how you got this number?" Trapper tapped the pad, staring at it so closely, his face was lit up blue.

A blossom of hope sparked in Rex's chest.

"You need to redo these numbers," Trapped stated firmly.

"Those calculations came from me," Jamie protested, a steaming cup of caf in hand. "We double and tripled checked those numbers."

"You didn't adjust for differential mass analysis," Trapper insisted, holding up the datapad so Jamie could see what he was seeing.

The room went silent before it erupted into the noise of engineers talking all at once. Trapper joined in, enthusiastically arguing and pointing at flimsis with one hand and correcting data on the pad with the other hand.

Rex quietly backed out on the room. He tapped a status update to Cody on his wrist comm, glad to relay a bit of good news for once. - Engineers have made a breakthrough. Don't expect Trapper back anytime soon. -

Cody's reply back was immediate. - Great news. And, what the fek? What did you 501st boys do to Trapper?

But, Rex was already submitting his request for Trapper to be reassigned to the Engineering project for the duration of the journey. - Seems your ARF Trooper has more talents than just getting himself into trouble. -

- You can have him. -

A pause, and then a second text from Cody before Rex could reply to the first one. - Tell him it's a permanent transfer and he's a boy in blue now. -Rex laughed out loud, startling a trooper walking in the opposite direction. But, it felt good to laugh. Maybe, just maybe, they would be alright.

The clone capacity to adapt to new situations seemed to be infinite. He didn't know if they had their progenitor, Jango Fett, to thank for this ability, or the tinkering in their genes from the Kaminoans. He had a hunch they would need this every bit of this ability now they were trying to integrate back into their old lives.

And, as soon as this project was over, Trapper was going right back to Cody. Rex had Fives and Hardcase. That was more chaos than any Captain should have to handle.

He entered the lift, studied the hastily labeled controls and selected the bridge. He allowed himself a moment to lean back against the wall and close his eyes. Maybe. Just maybe. They would be alright.

# # #

Revised: 8/16/22- Made a few revisions before crossposting over to A03. Added a bit more humor and more dialogue.
Revised: 7/17/19
Revision notes:

6/19/2019

A/N: Revisions in this chapter reflect the new Rex II/Echo storyline. Originally, Echo comes up with the solution to the problem for the cloaking device. But, in the new storyline, Echo is left in bacta for the duration of the journey. There are different plans for Echo in the new storyline. Trapper is also upgraded from barista to hero.