The door opens, and Domino squad files in silently, snapping to attention once the door slides shut behind them. Echo glance at his squadmates and frowns at the nervous looks flashing across his teammates' faces.
The jedi hasn't yet moved, still facing the opposite way. Echo takes a deep breath to steady himself, and clears his throat.
"You, uh, wanted to see us, general?" he asks. Next to him, Hevy shifts uncertainly, breaking regulation, but Echo feels like it's a little justified because they'll all about two seconds from bolting.
"I did," Shaak Ti says calmly. She finally turns around, and her gaze falls squarely on Echo. "I wanted to commend you for your actions during the final test. Remaining behind to defend a fallen comrade and instructing your fellows to continue onward shows a kind of battle awareness we rarely see in new recruits."
Echo swallows as her gaze bores into him. Her expression is kind as always, but he feels like she can see right through him.
"Thank you, ma'am," he forces out. She smiles, shifting her gaze to the rest of the squad.
"You should be proud. You worked hard to get to this point. Some had doubts about your worthiness, but you have finally proved ready to serve the Republic."
Echo has to fight to avoid shifting anxiously in place. What does Shaak Ti want? Why has she truly called them here? Does she know? And if she does know… what is she going to do about it?
Her eyes fall on Droidbait.
"Have you fully recovered from your fall, soldier?"
Droidbait looks surprised to be addressed. He nods quickly.
"Yessir," he answers. Shaak Ti smiles again.
"Excellent," she says. Then she looks at Fives, who stiffens when she meets his gaze. Shaak Ti's smile fades.
"As impressive as your actions today were, I did not call you here today to praise you," she informs them grimly. Echo braces himself for the worst as she continues. "You are not the same men you were yesterday. Something has changed."
She pauses there, as if expecting them to speak. None of them do.
"You carry a darkness in you," Shaak Ti continues. "Sorrow and loss hangs heavy across your minds. The Force ripples around you uncertainly, almost as if you do not belong. You are anomalies, Domino squad. I have never before seen anything like it."
They exchange nervous glances as the General closes her eyes, and the air seems to ripple around them before it settles. Shaak Ti nods, as if the whole mystery has just been solved.
"I wanted to ask you to explain yourselves. I was troubled by your grief, but now that you stand in before me… I am not so sure I want to know."
Echo blinks.
"Sir?" he blurts out, confused. Shaak Ti taps her fingers on the railing next to her gently, a pensive expression on her face.
"Though the Force claims you do not belong, it does not reject you, either," she explains, except Echo still doesn't understand, so it's not much of an explanation. "The darkness is swayed by determination, and potential." She smiles. "I believe the burdens that ail you are difficult to carry, but the Force is rarely wrong. It seems to think you five are capable of great things. I admit, I am curious, but I am not one to argue with the Force."
"Soooo…." Hevy drawls carefully, "You're not going to report us and have us reprogrammed."
Shaak Ti frowns.
"I would never have done so. You are individual beings, just as I am. The Force has chosen you."
"Uhhh… does that mean we get to be Jedi?" Cutup asks, and he sounds just a bit too hopeful. Echo pictures his squad armed with lightsabers and can't hold back a shudder of horror. The sheer amount of destruction from such a thing would be monstrous.
Shaak Ti actually chuckles. "No, my friend. You cannot wield the force as the Jedi can. But the Force is watching you. It senses your good intentions. It seeks to help you. I don't know what for, but perhaps you do."
"Creepy," Fives mutters. Droidbait elbows him.
"It is with this in mind that I will send you off with a word of advice," Shaak Ti says. "Listen to your hearts and your minds, soldiers. You are strong-willed and brave. With the Force guiding your path, you can do many great things. Although you cannot sense it, it is there—and if you trust in it, the Force will protect you. Do you understand these things?"
The urge to respond with a loud "Yes, sir!" is strong, but Echo resists it. He gets the feeling Shaak Ti won't take such a conditioned response to be sincere.
"Ma'am, I'll admit I don't understand, not completely," Droidbait replies before Echo can speak. "I won't pretend to know how the Force works. You said it yourself—we're not Jedi. But if it's trust and belief you want… I can do that. We can all do that."
Echo nods along with the rest of his squad, because Droidbait has summed up all of their feelings in one.
"That is all I ask," Shaak Ti tells them, and she looks proud. "You are dismissed, soldiers. I wish you luck on your deployment."
They salute her, and begin to file out. Echo is the last one, but just before he steps out the door he pauses.
"Sir…" he begins hesitantly. "Are you… are you sure you don't want us to tell you what's going on?" He knows they haven't discussed telling anyone else about their other lives, but Shaak Ti is a jedi. She knows the ways of the Force, and has enough connections that she could help them spread their knowledge of every battle that will happen up until Fives' death. "I know you could help, sir."
Shaak Ti shakes her head.
"I am not to know," she tells him sadly. "Can you not feel it? The Force does not wish you to tell me."
Echo frowns and tries to concentrate. He's not feeling much at the moment, a little stiff from standing at attention, perhaps, but he doesn't feel anything that could be the Force—
Oh.
There's a deep tug at his gut that's just strong enough to be noticeable. It pushes at him, and it feels wrong. Like he's making a bad choice.
He takes a deep breath. "I won't tell you," he says, and the feeling of wrongness disappears. He shakes his head in shock and confusion.
"Why can't I tell you?" he asks. She sighs.
"I do not know," she answers. "But you must trust in the Force, Echo. It knows all the mysteries of the galaxy. If it advises you against something, you would do well to heed it's advice."
"I'll try, ma'am," he says uncertainly. Shaak Ti's lips quirk upward.
"Do, or do not. There is no try," she tells him with the air of someone quoting another. Then she waves her hand in a clear dismissal, and Echo realizes he's overstayed his welcome. She doesn't appear angry about it, however, tolerance and compassion still evident in her gaze.
He salutes and turns on his heel, leaving her to her next appointment. Her eyes bore into his back as he exits, and he knows, he knows that she's still curious. But she obeys the Force, and will let them leave without answers.
He doesn't yet know if that's a good or bad thing.
"I don't understand why we can't tell anyone," Fives grumbles, wiping down his gun angrily. The rest of them are seated around him in the barracks, similarly scrubbing down weapons. "It's ridiculous. The kriffin' Force can't expect us to do everything ourselves! There's only five of us, and the war spans across entire solar systems! There's no way—!"
"Hang on, hang on," Cutup interrupts. "We know we can't tell General Ti. She felt… wrong, according to Echo, correct?"
"Yes," Echo confirms when Cutup glances at him. "It felt like a stomachache, sort of? But… deeper? It was hard to describe. But I knew I shouldn't tell her. Don't know why."
"Well, maybe there are others who can know," Droidbait suggests. "Not the General here, but perhaps someone else. Maybe… Sergeant O'Niner, or someone else."
Echo almost snorts, and has to remind himself that the old Sergeant had been the only commanding officer Cutup and Droidbait had known before they…
Well. Before.
Hevy had known Cody and Rex, but only for a few hours. Regardless, Echo is pretty certain the Sergeant who will soon command them doesn't need to know. He'd been a good soldier, but very by-the-book.
Echo has the feeling saving the galaxy will take breaking more than just a few rules. He remembers a time, way back at the beginning of his first life, where he had thrived underneath orders.
ARC training had beaten that out of him—to Fives' delight. ARC troopers had to lead, not follow. Echo is grateful for it now.
"Maybe the Force knows we can handle it," Hevy says proudly, wiping the grease away from the barrels of his Z-6. "I mean, we're pretty good now, especially with two ARC troopers watching our backs."
"Don't get a swelled head, Hevy," Fives says darkly. "You don't even know a quarter of what went on after you died. It gets pretty rough."
Echo nods in silent agreement, and then eyes Hevy carefully. "Listen, we can't just rush in guns blazing and expect the galaxy's problems to be solved." He gives Hevy a meaningful look, but shifts it to Cutup and Droidbait as well. "We need to be careful about some things, otherwise we could make it much worse."
Hevy frowns, but inclines his head in disappointed agreement. Echo sighs. It's easy to forget that he'd fought battles as an ARC trooper for longer than they'd been alive. They're still shinies. That's going to have to change. None of them are dying this time around. Echo will make sure it.
Droidbait has finished cleaning his DC-15S and is fiddling around on a datapad. It beeps loudly as Cutup is opening his mouth to speak, and their heads swing toward the sound almost as one. Droidbait is frozen, staring at the screen, and his eyes are wide.
"Droidbait…?" Echo says, feeling a surge of worry, but then Droidbait clenches his jaw and lifts the datapad, spinning it around so they can all look.
It's a set of orders, addressed to Droidbait, but Echo knows the rest of them will all have it, as well. He skims over the memo, ignoring the pompous flowery speech. The information he wants is at the very bottom, and his eyes lock onto the words.
Assignment location: Rishi Moon Outpost.
His blood runs cold.
Rishi had left deep scars on all of them. Droidbait and Cutup seem to have stopped breathing. Hevy looks sick. Fives' fists are clenched so hard his hands are shaking.
Echo lets out a shaky exhale.
They'd known it was coming. If it had been different, then their dreams wouldn't be relevant—but it's the same.
But this time, they know what's going to happen.
"The 501st is waiting for us when we survive this, you know," Fives says gently. Hevy, at least, jerks in excitement at that, but their other two teammates are falling deeper into panic. Hevy had volunteered his life. He's messed up, but not as messed up as Droidbait and Cutup, whose lives had been forcibly taken without warning.
Echo exchanges a worried look with Fives. Neither of them are PTSD-free, but at least they've been trained to handle it better. The others have no such training.
"Alright, listen, boys," Fives says. "It's tough. No one said it was going to be easy. We're carrying a lot on our shoulders—all of us are." He pauses as their gazes drift towards him. "We can't let it get to us. We have a job to do, soldiers. Look around you. See all those brothers? I've seen a world where they die in waves. We've got a chance to fix this. There's…" he swallows nervously, "there's a lot of things wrong in this war. There's a lot of things wrong with us. But that doesn't matter. I'm going to fight. Whatever I can do to ease the suffering of my brothers, I'm going to do. That includes us. We've got to push through our fears. I know we can do it."
Echo can't help it—he smiles. His mind flashes back to the assault on Kamino, where Fives had stood up in a hallway very much like this one and inspired courage and determination in a group of terrified cadets.
Fives does love his dramatic speeches. This one is particularly meaningful. Echo knows his fellow ARC still doubts their dreams, despite his words earlier—but he's willing to cast aside his own worries to ease those of his comrades.
"Alright," Droidbait says shakily. "Alright. We can do this."
Cutup shudders, but then he takes a deep breath.
"We can do this," he repeats. He closes his eyes and opens them, as if taking a moment to fortify himself against the coming storm. When Echo meets his gaze a moment later, his eyes are bright and defiant—Cutup is back to normal, for now. "So, what do we need to know? Us three still don't know hardly anything that happens after Rishi."
Echo sighs. "You know we were taken in by the 501st," he begins slowly. "Captain Rex decided, since the Rishi base was destroyed and all, that we needed reassignment. Somewhere we could do some actual damage, instead of another defensive base. There were only two of us, so it was easy for him to fold us into a company who had recently lost a lot of men—"
"Uh, Echo," Hevy interrupts. "Sorry, I know this is stuff we need to hear, but… we're due on the landing deck in seven minutes."
Echo blinks. "What?" he says. Hevy points to a line on the datapad.
They're being shipped out. In seven minutes. Echo swears, and suddenly they're scrambling for their belongings. It's pure chaos for three solid minutes, and then Domino is running, sprinting through the hallways at top speed.
Echo cannot believe he'd lost track of the time.
His helmet is a little tight—he thinks it's Droidbait's, who's just a hair slimmer than the rest of them. In the confusion no one had cared who's helmet they were scooping up.
The story will have to wait just a little longer, as much as Echo's dying to share—but that's alright.
They'll have plenty of free time to plan on Rishi's moon.
A/N: This chapter is more explanation than action, apologies. Hopefully it wasn't too dull. Next chapter Domino squad will be stationed at the Rishi Moon Outpost, so prepare yourselves. More action and angst to arrive soon. Thank you for the kind comments!