#arc trooper sevenset

[jgvfhl]

Sevenset: Thanks for making me run laps, sir! I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight.

Colt: Babies don't sleep well. They wake up and cry constantly.

Sevenset: So do I! 👉👉

Colt:

Sevenset: 😁

Colt: Are you okay?

[fandom-friday]

NEXT from Owlie's Gallery is this wonderful piece I drew of two of my Number Lads, Sevenset and Do-si-do 🥺 I love them so much I just want more people to see this....

Sevens' tattoos were so much fun to draw!!!

I think I remember seeing this one come through the recs before, and I loved it then, and I still love it now! The colors are SO VIBRANT and cool, and I adore the tattoos and designs of both of them! Thanks so much for the rec!

Participate in Fandom Friday to show your favorite creators from this week some love! :)

[jgvfhl]

The Number Lads Go Snooping

Here we are folks... Sevenset is tasked with keeping Fives entertained while Tup is examined after the tragic and mysterious execution of General Tiplar on Ringo Vinda. Unfortunately for them, and Echo's blood pressure, Sevenset and Fives have strange ideas of what constitutes entertainment. BEHOLD, THE ORDERS ARC BEGINS!!

Words: not quite 8K (longest chapter to date oop) Warnings: Canon typical suspense with canon atypical swearing :) Link to Master List of Chapters on Tumblr Link to the full story on Ao3 Happy reading!

CrispyDomino: hey sevenset, need a favor

RedBoiiiii: o7 reporting for orders

CrispyDomino: Fives is bringing one of our boys to Kamino for a med eval

RedBoiiiii: yikes that’s not fun

CrispyDomino: Yeah, you mind making sure he’s not worrying himself sick over the kid?

RedBoiiiii: I will do my best! When are they arriving?

CrispyDomino: Should get there in a few hours

RedBoiiiii: You got it, buddy! I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid

DEATH: That’s not particularly promising

RedBoiiiii: oh COME ON

d0nut man: lkdjafkd

Double Trouble: oh my gods XD

CrispyDomino: Don’t worry, Sevens, I have faith in you

RedBoiiiii: THANK you echo

Leafs: We really can’t go ten seconds without something huh?

RedBoiiiii: THE COMMANDER STARTED IT

CrispyDomino: Anyway, thanks Sevens, means a lot

CrispyDomino: I’m on campaign, but feel free to send updates if you want

-scene break-

Sevenset had gotten a message from Fives as soon as he’d touched down, it had appeared. He’d grumbled a little at his batchmate’s mothering, but he’d conceded it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get out of his own head while his friend was in medical. But, first Fives had to be assessed as well, so Sevenset had been left to his own devices for a bit, waiting for Fives to comm him after he was cleared.

He had chosen to use this time to be, as most people called it, a menace. He called it practicing his environmental awareness and stealth skills, although no one else seemed too keen to agree with him. After successfully pranking Colt on the Venator after their last mission, he’d doubled-down on finding some way to get at Alpha-17. A death sentence? Possibly.

But he would be legendary if he pulled it off.

It did leave him with the slight problem of finding where the grumpy captain spent most of his time. He was a very private man, and most of the time he wasn’t in his rooms anyway (which would be great news once Sevenset found them). His search had brought him almost back around to the main medical wing of Kamino. No, not the medical wing for the tubies, or the medical wing for the scientists, or the other medical wing for surgery and … whatever else they did over there. This was mainly for soldiers who came in with injuries too mysterious or serious to treat on the field, so it was undoubtedly where Fives and his friend were now.

His plan so far was based solely on lying, and hoping someone was fooled into giving him Alpha’s room number, or at least which wing he lived in. So far, however, he’d only encountered clone officers who knew better than to talk to him outside of necessity, Kaminoans who really didn’t know what to do with him half the time he approached them, and some of the nattie trainers. He didn’t feel like talking to many of them. They were fine, for the most part, but… eh. Not his thing.

An alarm went off, harsh against his ears without his bucket. He flinched, looking around and waiting for an announcement.

“Security breach. All nonessential personnel report to a safe room for lockdown.”

The round door at the end of the hallway slid open suddenly, making him pivot in that direction. The hall flooded with red emergency lighting. A pantoran woman strode out, followed by the sounds of hustle and bustle a bit too bustling for normal medical procedure.

“This place is about to be locked down,” she told him. “Better get a move on, ARC.”

He fell into step beside her as she walked, seeing no point in sticking around if that was indeed the case. He glanced over her person, trying to remember if he’d seen her around for long. He definitely recognized parts of her armor. She was one of the few Mandos left on Kamino, her armor mostly a deep blue, with pink and yellow clouds rolling along the bottom of her chestplate. Her pink hair was cropped close to her head on the sides and flopped over loosely on top. She was only about as tall as his shoulder, probably approaching forty years old, but this woman had two gold jaig eyes tattooed on her forehead.

There was no messing with her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Undisclosed. Someone’s up to no good in the medical wing.”

The alarm continued to blare.

Sevenset glanced behind him at the closed door. Fives hadn’t contacted him yet… did that mean he was in lockdown without his armor? They had to remove their kit for med evals, so maybe with the security, he hadn’t been able to get his comm back yet. That had to be it. Fives was ARC. He hadn’t survived this long by doing rash things like… whatever this trooper was doing.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked, choosing to collect whatever information he could about this Mando.

She glanced over at him. “Maral Tumun.”

He nodded. “I’m Sevenset. I’ve seen you around once or twice.”

“I would hope so. I’ve been training you lot for ages. I trained some of the command batches up from tykes.”

Oh, had she now? That was worth poking into a little bit. “Which batches?”

Before she had an opportunity to answer, his comm went off. He glanced at the frequency and frowned. He didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t anyone in his squadron, or any of the Numbers. Weird.

“Sorry, I gotta take this,” he mumbled, answering the voice transmission. “This is ARC seven seven seven seven.”

“Hey, Sevens, it’s Fives. Listen–I uh… I might’ve done something.”

Oh no.

He hastily muted the comm, but didn't disconnect it, staring at Trainer Tumun, whose gold eyes had locked on him as soon as she'd heard Fives' name. "Wrong number?" he tried.

Her brow rose. "You often get wrong numbers who know your name?"

"Uh, yeah, all the time. Pretty common name among the newer batches, actually," he rambled on.

"Let me hear him," she said.

"Why? No. Ma'am."

“If you don’t, I am still under obligation to report any incidents related to what that trooper has done in medical to my superiors,” she said. “And I believe you would prefer this knowledge remain out of the Kaminoans’ hands for as long as possible, yes?”

He blinked at her. She was… helping? Was she helping? Obviously, whatever Fives had done, he wanted to know as much as he could before making decisions on how to help. She did have reasonable authority to march him down to one of the commanders or one of the doctors and make him sing, and he did not want to do that.

“You won’t get him in trouble?”

She crossed her arms, her beskar clinking. “Any more trouble, you mean?”

“Yeah…”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I know well enough to hear him out.”

Okay. It was as good as he was gonna get. He unmuted the comm.

“Heyyy…. Fives, sorry about that–”

“What the hell was that?” his friend demanded. “What happened?”

“I ran into a trainer, okay?” he shot back, trying to keep his voice down. “I–she heard you, I had to explain some things–”

“Who? What? I thought you were gonna help, Sevens!”

That hurt. He put a hand on his hip even though Fives couldn’t see him. “I’m trying, okay? This is the first time someone’s commed me after putting a whole wing of medical into lockdown, Fives! That was you, right?”

Trainer Tumun stepped closer. “What happened, trooper?”

“It’s–-there’s—something’s wrong with Tup. Yeah, Nala se was gonna cover up all the data, she switched the cases and everything.”

Sevenset exchanged a quizzical glance with the trainer. “This is the guy you were escorting here?”

“Yeah, yeah, he—kark, I dunno, mate, he got all kinds of messed up on Ringo Vinda.” Fives didn’t sound like himself. Far too agitated to be the collected, quick-witted soldier Sevenset knew. “He… he killed a Jedi, Sevens. And the Kaminoans aren’t doing enough to figure out why. All they want to do is kill him and take him apart afterwards.”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively glancing up and around for witnesses. Without warning, Trainer Tumun grabbed his arm and pulled them both into a storage room toward the end of the corridor. It was dark, except for the white light from his comm, giving both their faces an eerie glow.

“Explain,” she ordered once they were both inside. At least the alarm was quieter here.

“He lost it! He was—he was—agitated, he was violent, he wasn’t responding to his name at all. He tried takin’ a swipe at General Skywalker too! Tied down to a gurney.”

“So what are you doing, Fives?” Sevenset wanted to know. “Why don’t you have your armor?”

“Armor? Armor—no, no, no, no, armor was too recognizable. Grabbed a plain set. He’ll be fine, barely a concussion—”

“You stole armor?”

“Well, no one’s giving it away, are they?” Fives replied sharply. “I may have… I kind of convinced a droid to perform a medical procedure on Tup, and when Nala Se found out, she freaked out. Said they had to do more extensive testing, still says it might be a virus, or a–a parasite—”

“Extensive testing?” Sevenset asked, his brows furrowing. Initial testing was usually pretty thorough. Why the need to go extensive? “Not the hyper testing, I hope. That will kill him.”

“But I found something!” Fives said. “I found something in his brain with the scan I did, right? But Nala Se said it was nothing, said the machine was calibrated wrong.”

Trainer Tumun tilted her head. “Those machines are never calibrated wrong.”

“Exactly! There was something in his head—maybe not just him, maybe there’s more—”

Sevenset held up a hand. “Okay, hold up, where are you?”

There was a heavy pause. Then, quietly, “Storage room, near the genetics wing.”

Another pause landed. “How? Why?” Sevenset demanded.

“I’m in disguise, aren’t I? They were gonna kriffin’ wipe me, Sevens! Now are you gonna help make sure Tup’s okay, or not?”

Sevenset sucked in a sharp breath almost without thinking. Reconditioning was more of a rumor than anything concrete on Kamino. Hearing his friend say it out loud like that…. Kark. This was worse than he’d thought.

“Yeah, and how am I supposed to keep Tup safe and you out of harm’s way at the same time, huh?”

“I’ll look after Tup,” Trainer Tumun said, cutting into their conversation suddenly.

“What?”

“What?”

“I am Trainer Maral Tumun,” she said for Fives’ sake. “I don’t trust these Kaminoans when they’re this excited to dispose of a soldier. If they are so keen to find you, then they are keen to cover up what’s happening to Tup. I will find out, and I will make sure he gets to a doctor who knows the value of sentient life.”

There was another long pause as they both took in the information. Finally, Fives said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Sevenset asked. So he was a little skeptical. He had reason to be.

She smiled. “I am of Clan Ves. We do not disappoint.”

“Yeah, that’s great, I was talking more logistics?” he said. “Where are there doctors to treat him? How is he getting off Kamino? How are you even getting him off the medical table?”

Trainer Tumun sniffed, lifting her chin. “I know a guy.”

“It’s not Commander Nero, is it?” Fives asked with much sarcasm.

She looked down at the comm, shifting her stance slightly. “I do not have to answer that.”

“Nero?” Sevenset repeated. “Wait, he’s Commander Sixes’ batcher, right?” He recalled her remark about training command batches. “Holy kark, you trained those grumpy bastards, didn’t you?”

Once again, she lifted her chin and shuffled her feet slightly. “They were my best.”

“They’re kriffing sociopaths, ma’am,” Fives blurted.

“No, they are not, I had them tested.”

Comforting. But not important right now. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “You’ll find Tup and use Commander Nero’s infinite source of strings to pull to get him off-world. Fives, I’m gonna find you and make sure you don’t do anything stupid by yourself.”

Trainer Tumun gave him a look. “Not the usual phrasing of that expression.”

“Story of my life, ma’am,” he told her.

“Sounds good. My locator should still be on, Sevenset should be able to track me with that. I’m heading to the Genetic Records Hall.”

He sighed, rubbing his head. “Copy that, I’ll find you.”

“Stay outside until I come out. And thanks… again…”

The comm disconnected, leaving them in almost total darkness. Almost, because of the tiny dots of light on their vambrace controls.

“Okay.”

She nodded. Probably. “Let’s go.”

He followed her out into the hall, selecting the frequency Fives had used to comm him and tracking the corresponding locator signal. He turned this way and that a couple times, never the best at directionality.

“Okay, Genetic Records Hall,” he said. “No clue where that is.”

“I know it,” Tumun nodded. “I’ll need access to a different part of the medical wing, so I’ll send you the coordinates while we walk.” Without leaving room for debate, she turned and began walking, leaving him to catch up at a slight jog.

This was a bad situation, obviously. Sevenset wasn’t that tone-deaf not to realize that. But he also knew the value in taking the opportunities presented to him, and right now, he had direct access to a woman who had known Commander Sixes since he had been able to walk. There was no way in any of the nine hells he was letting this chance pass by without using it to find out something.

“So… Chaos Batch, huh?” he said by way of introduction. “You uh… you made ‘em like that?”

“I trained them,” she replied. “They were already like that.”

He gave a low whistle. “Okay, so Commander Nero has always been two degrees away from being a serial killer?”

“Well, he did try to kill a Kaminoan when he was five standard.”

He gaped at her. “He did what? And he’s alive?”

“That’s when he was transferred to the Chaos Batch,” she answered easily. “And also when he was tested for sociopathy. He just has a very rigid view of right and wrong, and a penchant for finding the simplest solution to his problems. But his emotional depth is perfectly normal.”

Sevenset could only nod. So the weird vibes he’d gotten from Commander Nero were well deserved. Granted, he’d never felt actively threatened by the man. He just had understood that if Nero had wanted it, Sevenset would have been dead faster than he could say his own name.

“Uh…huh,” he answered. “And Commander Sixes… has he always been that prickly? Grumpy, as some would say.”

She shook her head. “No, Bacara’s the one they call Grumpy. Sixes was… well. Geonosis One changed a lot of your older brothers. He’s a sweetheart to his core.”

A what? A sweetheart? The guy in all-black armor whose callsign was Death was a sweetheart? Sevenset’s mind reeled.

“Not that he’d ever admit it,” Tumun continued as they turned the corner to the neighboring corridor. “They’re all stubborn as hell, but they had determination and ingenuity like I’d never seen in a squad of cadets before. Bacara once stayed up all night putting together what he called a ‘flawless battle strategy’ for the four of them, and it was. He took into account each of their strengths and weaknesses, and they absolutely demolished the squad they were facing the next day.”

“No kidding,” he said. Small wonder the Marines were some of the most efficient soldiers in the GAR. With a commander like that… well.

“But they also invented Knife Monopoly while drunk for the first time,” she mused, a fond smile on her face. “And Sixes and Nero once shot each other during a concocted ‘duel,’ and they both have scars from it.” She shook her head. “Even genetic manipulation can’t stop teenagers from being teenagers.”

Sevenset was honestly approaching speechlessness. All that came out in reply to those world-shattering revelations was, “Oh.” His mind felt like a speeder without altitude stabilizers.

“We’re here,” Tumun said, stopping near an arched door back into the medical wing. She raised her vambrace, tapping a message. “These are the coordinates to the Genetics Hall. It’s near the incubation wings. I’ll go find Tup.”

“Got it,” he nodded, his brain struggling a little to recover from the previous conversation.

“What is Tup’s designation?” she asked.

“Uh…” He commed Fives.

“Are you here?”

“Starting there now. What’s Tup’s designation?”

“CT fifty-three eighty-five.”

Tumun nodded. “I’ll go find him. I promise,” she added, pressing a closed fist across her chest. A Mandalorian salute.

He nodded back, then took off at a jog toward where he knew the incubators were. He didn’t know what kind of time frame Fives was on, but he had to assume it wasn’t a long one. He offered passing excuses and thank yous as he dodged around doctors and troopers in the hallways, but honestly, Colt had made him run enough laps through the city that even if someone asked him what he was doing, he’d just say tell them that. No one would even blink.

Ten minutes. It took him almost ten minutes to get there. Something closer to seven, probably, but still. It felt too long. When the door was in sight, he opened his comm again.

“Fives, I’m near the main doors, what’s your status?”

“This shit just gets worse and worse, I’m telling you–” he replied angrily.

The door opened, making Sevenset look up hopefully. But no. Kaminoans were filing out of the room. Quietly, seemingly unbothered, but… no. Too quickly. Too orderly.

“Buddy, they know you’re in there,” he said, keeping his voice down.

“Yeah, I see it.”

Well. Sevenset was nothing if not recklessly impulsive at his core. “I’m coming with you,” he said, disconnecting the comm before Fives could argue, then darting towards the door.

The Kaminoans didn’t stop him. They moved out of his way, if anything. As he passed the threshold, he heard more hurried footsteps approaching from the opposite corridor from which he’d come.

“Time go, pal!” he called, now out-right sprinting to Fives. Force, he looked weird in shiny armor.

“You’re a kriffing moron, Sevens!” he shouted, following an AZ medical droid towards… oh, an emergency hatch in the ceiling. Smart.

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” he shot back.

“There!” someone shouted behind them. Then stun rings began blazing past them as they ran.

Maker’s sake, they really wanted this guy! Sevenset would have been impressed, if he weren’t running away from them too. He practically flung himself up the yellow rungs of the ladder behind Fives, pulling himself into the emergency hatch after him and stepping back so the AZ could weld it shut.

Then he turned to Fives.

“Okay, so you’re in a stupendous amount of shit.”

“You didn’t have to follow me!” he shot back.

“Too bad! You’re my friend, and I have reckless tendencies,” he replied, tossing his hands in the air.

“I do not meant to interrupt,” said the droid, holding up one of its metal fingers, “but we have research to finish.”

“Finish?” Fives repeated, looking at it. “You didn’t get everything you needed?”

“Hey, I’ve an idea,” Sevenset cut in. “How about we walk and talk, yeah? Where the hell are you going?”

“What information do you still need, AZ?” Fives asked the droid.

“Well,” the droid began, sounding, as many droids did, way too calm for the amount of pressure riding on the current situation, “we know it is an organic chip, created and implanted into clone Tup’s brain.”

Sevenset put his hands on his hips and looked at Fives.

“We found a thing in Tup’s brain, it’s not from the original genetic material from Prime, so someone had to put it there,” he supplied.

“What I am not sure of,” AZ went on, turning his body around and rummaging in his storage compartment, “is at what stage of development the chip is implanted, and its purpose.”

“And we don’t know if it’s in my brain too,” Fives added, which made Sevenset’s gaze snap back to him.

“Excuse me?” Fives had reason to believe that whatever made Tup execute a Jedi General was also in his head?

The droid spoke up, now holding a glass slide containing something suspiciously flesh-colored. “Your scans did not indicate—”

“Neither did Tup’s, until we looked deeper,” Fives insisted. “If they missed it in Tup, they can miss it in me. We have to check.”

A horrible thought came unbidden to Sevenset’s mind. If this thing was in Fives and Tup… then it could be in his head too, right?

“And if it is?” he heard himself ask.

His friend looked at him.

“If it is in your head too?”

“Then he takes it out,” Fives said firmly, tilting his bucket towards AZ.

The droid rose in the air slightly, his visual receptors shining a bit brighter in shock. “That is a dangerous surgery. When I removed clone Tup’s chip, his overall health greatly worsened.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Hey–wait, what?” Sevenset held up his hands. “‘Greatly worsened?’ What does that mean?”

“He’s still alive,” Fives said, then turned back to AZ. “Are you gonna help, or not?”

“We will need to return to a medical facility,” the droid said, drifting slightly towards Sevenset, intending to pass him.

“Fives, mate,” he said, stepping in front of the droid. “This is a lot. Are you sure you’re—”

Fives stepped over the round hole in the floor where the hatch was. “Tup is one of my best friends. He’s hurting because someone put this thing in his head. Maybe they put this thing into all of our heads. Now, the Kaminoans know something they’re not willing to let me find out.”

“And that might be a good thing,” Sevenset argued. “Listen, I’m not one to trust the long-necks, but we’re not scientists, Fives.”

“This thing made Tup kill a Jedi!” his friend exclaimed. “You want that? You wanna wake up one day a prisoner in your own head, watching your body hunt down General Ti and shoot her?”

“Don’t do that,” he told him, his voice dropping to a dark pitch.

“It’s the truth,” Fives told him. “I need to know how far this goes. You should too.”

Truthfully, Sevenset was curious. Inherently so, some would say. But he wasn’t an idiot, like the others would also say. What Fives was doing was dangerous. A medical procedure like brain surgery wasn’t without risk, even when performed by a droid designed like AZ. But something nagged at the back of his mind, like a child very softly tugging at a parent’s clothing for attention. He couldn’t ignore it forever.

The truth was, Fives wasn’t an idiot either. Hell, he was one of the most caring brothers he’d met, and that included himself.

He sighed, rubbing his face roughly. “Gods, Echo’s gonna kill me for helping you.”

“Yeah.” His friend’s voice sounded hollow at the mention of his batchmate. Probably not the kindest thing Sevenset could have brought up. “AZ, lead the way,” he said.

The droid whirred as he rose higher up the ladder, and Sevenset let Fives follow him before bringing up the rear. They climbed about three levels before the droid cut left. They followed doggedly, turning a few times before dropping back down two more levels. Finally, AZ paused, hovering over a hatch.

“Is this it?” Fives asked, squatting down.

The droid appeared to nod. “Yes. This is a hatch to the D-wing of the medical building. As of now, I can detect no noise on the other side of this hatch.”

Fives hesitated briefly, then took a breath, handing off his stolen blaster to Sevenset so he could hop down to open the hatch. He twisted the yellow wheel slowly, trying to minimize the noise. When it was finally open, he let it down as slowly as he could, and Sevenset reached out to grab the back of his utility belt to steady him as he leaned down.

“All clear,” he reported. He sat back up, then lowered himself down.

AZ followed him, and Sevenset tossed down the blaster so he could have his hands free to follow them. AZ let them into one of the medical examination rooms. It all went so smoothly, Sevenset found himself momentarily baffled. Wouldn’t the Kamino Guard have troopers posted at every emergency tunnel entrance in the whole medical wing? Weird.

“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Fives said, removing his helmet and setting both it and his blaster on a tray beside the bed. Bed was a generous term. Table was better. He lifted himself onto it.

“And you’re sure this is the thing to do?” he asked again. He already knew the answer, he just couldn’t help it.

“It’s just gonna be a scan and maybe some surgery.”

“Yeah, it’s the maybe I’m worried about, Fives,” he said, watching AZ pull up the scanning machine and begin to program it.

“Knowing what I know now about these chips,” the droid said, poking buttons on the touchscreen, “I do not need to scan at the atomic level. Due to the inorganic compounds present in these chips, a molecular examination should suffice.”

“Is that good?” Sevenset asked as Fives lay down.

“A molecular scan does not put as much strain on the subject.”

He nodded vaguely. So it was good.

AZ brought the ring-shaped scanner around to position it around Fives’ head. “Please remain still and do not speak during the examination,” he said, sounding routine. “Close your eyes and keep them closed until told to open them.”

Fives did as instructed, and Sevenset stood at the foot of the table to watch. AZ tapped a button to begin the examination, and the ring-shaped machine whirred into action, a slow green-ish blue light beginning to travel around the inner circumference.

The exam was probably pretty short, considering the number of actions AZ completed during the time, but the seconds felt like they were moving like drying mud to Sevenset. The droid hovered next to a screen on the side of the room, where a diagram or image of Fives’ brain was slowly developing. After what was probably a minute or so, a red dot appeared on the screen.

AZ hummed a short note of… what, surprise? Acknowledgement? Droids… so hard to parse. Then he flew back over to the scanning device and tapped a few buttons to power it down. When the interior light had fully faded out, he moved the device away.

“You may open your eyes,” he said cheerfully.

Fives blinked his eyes open slowly, looking groggy all of a sudden. Sevenset moved to his side.

“You alright, mate?” he asked, holding out a hand.

“Bit of a headache,” Fives admitted. “But it’s fading.” He took his hand and hauled himself up into a sitting position. Sevenset eyed him carefully. “What’s the word, AZ?”

“By ‘the word,’ I assume you mean the results of the scan?”

“Yes.”

“They are identical to clone Tup,” the droid chirped, moving to the side so Fives and Sevenset could see the screen. “The same tumor appears in the same location in your brain.”

“Sithspit,” Fives hissed, rubbing his head. “Can you take it out?”

“Of course.”

“Then do it,” he said, resuming his previous position on the table.

As AZ began preparing, Sevenset’s comm went off, so he stepped away to answer it. It was Trainer Tumun.

“I have Tup secure,” she reported. “Someone is in transit to collect him and get him to safety.”

He looked up to Fives, who had turned his head to listen. “Hear that?”

Fives nodded, a brief wave of relief washing over his features before he settled back to let AZ begin.

Sevenset turned away. He was fine with blood, but he had no desire to see the inside of Fives’ skull. “Thank you, ma’am. We know the one-eighteenth can be trusted with this.”

There was a pause, since Tumun hadn’t known of their affiliations with Nero’s battalion. But, time was waning, and she must have thought better than to waste any by starting down that winding path. “If I can, I’ll let you know when they have him secure.”

“Much appreciated, ma’am.”

“Hopefully, the ruckus I caused can help you and Fives get the information you need.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. We’re working on it.”

“I wish you the best. Good hunting, ARCs.”

The comm disconnected. He could still hear AZ working, so he kept his attention firmly on the set of window controls below the oval window separating this room from the next. Currently, it was opaque, but the buttons underneath could turn it transparent or translucent if so desired. He was impressed by his own ability to not mess with them.

Mainly because his mind was too busy reeling over the information he’d learned in such a short time.

Somehow, both Fives and Tup had little semi-organic chips in their brains that had been implanted by… someone, who knew whom that had been, and that was uncomfortable enough. But Tup’s had looked… sick. He’d lost his mind, almost as literally as a sentient being could, and that alone sent chills down his spine. If more clones had these chips… then way more of them than just Tup were capable of outright murdering Jedi.

Or anyone.

“The operation is complete.”

He jolted. How much time had passed? He hadn’t checked the time before. Shit. How long had they stayed in one place? That was dangerous. Fives was waking up. AZ held a second glass compartment, examining the contents.

“Well?” he asked, walking over to put hands on Fives to remind himself he was okay.

“This is new,” AZ said. “The chip removed from clone trooper Tup was severely degraded in function and structure, but this one is entirely healthy.”

Fives groaned quietly, his hand rising to his head, only to bump into the metal device still implanted there. His hair had been shorn around it, making for a rather unsightly haircut. Maybe he could pass it off as a fade if he shaved the other side to match?

“Okay, so… Tup was an accident?” he said. “He didn’t mean it. He was sick.”

“That is the most likely scenario,” AZ replied, his body rotating around so he could place Fives’ chip in his storage compartment with Tup’s.

“What are the chances this thing’s in my head too?” Sevenset dared to ask.

“Given you are from the same generation of clones,” the droid said, tapping his fingers together with something resembling nervousness, “the chances are not exactly… low.”

He’d already suspected as much. Judging by the look on Fives’ face, he felt the same. Nice of him to not share it until Sevenset was ready. Alright, well, if he was ever going to have brain surgery, having it on his own terms seemed like a great time for it.

Holding out a hand to Fives again, he helped him off the table, giving a look that asked if he was alright, and receiving a nod in return. “Might as well mark brain surgery off my bucket list,” he said, hoisting himself onto the table.

“You haven’t been scanned,” Fives said, gesturing to the machine. “You don’t know if you even have this thing.”

Sevenset rolled his eyes, desperate to cover up the anxiety rising in his system. “Yeah, I think we all kinda know it’s gonna be there. Better to just save myself the headache, right? We’ve been here too long as it is.”

Fives couldn’t argue with the last point. The longer they stayed in one place, the more likely it was someone would find them. They needed to move, and if this got it done faster, then so be it. His friend looked a little helpless for a split second before nodding and stepping back.

“Are you sure?” AZ asked. “Without a scan, I will have to estimate where the cells are located—”

“And you’re a smart droid,” Sevenset cut in, lying back on the table. “You’ll do fine. It’s probably exactly where Fives’ was. We are clones, after all, right?”

After a second or two of processing, the droid nodded. “Very well.” He flew over to a barely visible cabinet underneath the display screens at the back wall, and retrieved what supplies he would need. Normally, they would have been laid out, but he’d used them on Fives already. He held up a large syringe which Sevenset was not thrilled about. “This will not hurt—”

“Yes, it will,” Fives cut him off.

“It will only hurt a bit,” the droid corrected, and Sevenset braced himself.

It did hurt. Quite a bit, actually, like injecting fire under the skin of his neck. But, after only a few seconds, the pain had faded, and the rest of the world faded out as well.

-scene break-

He woke up to his comm blinking at him, telling him a new message had arrived. As he had suspected, AZ held a sample identical to the one that had come out of Fives' head. Holy Force. Once AZ gave him the all-clear, he opened his comm, scanning it quickly as he and Fives readied themselves for whatever came next. There wasn't time to process what had just happened.

“Where are we going next?” he asked,his eyes fixed on the thing AZ had taken out of his head. Gross. It made his skin crawl like an itchy sweater he couldn’t take off.

“The incubation rooms,” AZ answered, flying over to the door. “We must find out how many clones have these implanted chips, and when they are implanted into your cell structure.”

Sevenset nodded. “Alright. Let’s visit some tubies.” He paused to open his comm. “Uh… I take it we’re keeping our activities unknown to your batcher?” he asked.

“Please,” Fives said, looking terribly guilty.

He started typing a reply as they hurried out of the room.

CrispyDomino: Rex says he’s on his way back, how’s Fives?

RedBoiiiii: peachy!

CrispyDomino: oh good

CrispyDomino: do you know how Tup’s doing?

RedBoiiiii: uhh more tests?

d0nut man: aw that’s too bad :(

d0nut man: might it have anything to do with the 118th’s unplanned visit to Kamino right now?

CrispyDomino: What.

RedBoiiii: I’m sure it’s nothing Zero

Double Trouble: guys he just used capitalization correctly…

RedBoiiii: dosido i do no t need this right now

DEATH: And where is Fives in this conversation?

RedBoiiiii: he doesnt have his comm

RedBoiiiii: they had to clear him had to get his kit off

CrispyDomino: Do you know he’s okay?

RedBoiiiii: like i said, peachy

d0nut man: uh yeah, i wasn’t joking about an unplanned stop in the Kamino system.

d0nut man: what are we doing here

DEATH: I have a terrible feeling about this

DressedtotheNines: Please don’t say that, every time Kenobi says that, bad stuff happens

Leafs: Wait, Echo left Sevenset in charge of Fives?

CrispyDomino: Yes

Loopy: wait why

CrispyDomino: Bc I assume he got to ARC trooper SOMEHOW

RedBoiiiii: look hes’ fine!!! I’m still with him!!

DEATH: Nero’s hiding something. The 118th is definitely going to Kamino for crimes.

CrispyDomino: CRIMES???

d0nut man: oooohh yay I hope it’s kidnapping :)

d0nut man: that’s my favorite crime

d0nut man: been in a high crimes and misdemeanors kinda mood lately

Leafs: I have so many questions I do not want answers for.

CrispyDomino: Okay okay, since I’m about to go into another firefight

CrispyDomino: I am choosing to believe the crimes and my batcher are unrelated.

RedBoiiiii: good choice

Double Trouble: they are so related

Loopy: yeah, definitely

Submarine: Hey… probably a bad time to ask, but is anyone else going on leave soon?

d0nut man: well we were suPPOSED TO

Loopy: not official leave, just stopping by 000 for a restock n stuff, but yeah

Leafs: I do have leave soon, yes

DressedtotheNines: Yeah, we’re here already, set for a couple weeks

DEATH: Get some noodles. I’m sure Mira and Saleha will be overjoyed to see you.

RedBoiiiii: aw that’s actually sweet!

DEATH: They haven’t met you yet, don’t get your hopes up.

RedBoiiiii: :/

RedBoiiiii: Hey sir

RedBoiiiii: Is it true you and cmdr bacara invented Knife Monopoly when drunk the first time?

Double Trouble: THEY DID WHAT NOW???

Submarine: Oh is that why so many Novas play that game?

Leafs: Wait it’s an actual game?? With knives??

Loopy: it better have knives, i’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t

CrispyDomino: Sevenset you are supposed to be watching my brother

CrispyDomino: not tempting Death himself

DressedtotheNines: I … I’m not sure what to think

d0nut man: I think Seven’s about to vanish under mysterious circumstances

Submarine: Yes, it does involve knives. I’ve never played though.

DEATH: Echo, I have it on good authority that the kid you sent to Kamino is in good hands

CrispyDomino: WHOSE AUTHORITY

DEATH: My old trainer

RedBoiiiii: she didn’t mention anything else…?

DEATH: She told me everything.

DEATH: But for now, all these laser brains need to know is it is being handled.

CrispyDomino: There’s an EVERYTHING???

RedBoiiiii: an Everything that is fine, yes!

-scene break-

All of them.

Every single clone.

Sevenset looked from the glowing green lights on the display screen to the tower of growth tubes before them.

All of them had these things in their heads, waiting for activation. Activation for what? AZ hadn’t been able to figure out what these bioengineered things could be used for. The only data point they had was Tup, and he had been whisked off somewhere by Trainer Tumun. Hopefully.

“So that means…” Fives said, pulling off his helmet, “we’re all part of this. Whatever reason these things exist, it… it affects all of us.”

“It would appear so, yes.” Even AZ looked as surprised as he could.

The sudden sound of a door hissing as it slid open made them all spin around, Fives automatically raising his blaster.

Kark.

It was Nala Se, one of the head doctors on Kamino, and a distinctly unpleasant person. She approached with raised hands.

“Stay where you are,” Fives told her sharply. Sevenset wanted to edge closer to him, just in case he did something really stupid, but he didn’t move.

“Why are you doing this?” the doctor asked.

“Take a guess,” he shot back before Fives could. “You thought you could cover up putting bioengineered hardware into our brains, and no one would notice? No one would get curious?”

The doctor ignored or otherwise dismissed the blatant threat Fives posed, and continued to approach them with her hands visible. “Curious about what?” she asked peaceably.

Sevenset moved to the side, revealing the display screen and gesturing at it. “This?” he demanded. Fives flanked the doctor and corralled her towards the screen. “What is it?”

“That is a structural inhibitor chip,” she explained, her voice never changing. It always freaked him out that Kaminoans had little to no inflection. Like somehow, their scientific findings had placed them above emotions. “It is supposed to prevent you from being aggressive,” she went on, looking over her shoulder at Fives, who still had a blaster on her. “Like your source, Jango Fett.”

Sevenset laughed. Dry and cynical. “Less aggressive?” he said. “I’m sorry, have you met some of the Alphas? And who thinks of putting an inhibitor on aggression in soldiers, eh?”

“Jedi Master Sypho Dias instructed us to introduce these structures during the growth cycle,” Nala Se replied evenly.

Fives blinked, casting a glance at Sevenset. “The Jedi did this?”

“No way.” Sevenset shook his head. “If the Jedi wanted this done—if they were the ones to blueprint this thing—then why did General Ti have no idea about it? She’s been here for ages.”

Nala Se’s enormous eyes narrowed. “I do not pretend to know the workings of the Jedi.”

“The Jedi wouldn’t do this,” he repeated, pointing to the tower of tubies next to them.

“It is not uncommon to put inhibitors in clones.”

AZ had spun his body around and dug out Tup’s chip. “I have analyzed clone Tup’s inhibitor chip. Apparently, it has failed.”

“Until this point,” Nala Se said, glaring at Fives, “there has never been a problem.”

“Well, I specialize in making my own problems,” Sevenset told her, taking a step toward her.

“And you’ve got a big one right now,” Fives growled, nudging the nose of his blaster into the small of the doctor’s back for emphasis.

Sevenset saw the door open this time, allowing General Ti and a few Kamino Guards into the room. Fives darted around Nala Se, keeping her between them and the new threats.

“Don’t move!” one of the guards ordered as they ran.

They came to a stop upon realizing the doctor was between them and their targets. General Ti ignited her lightsaber. “Drop your weapon,” she demanded.

“Did you know about this?” Fives replied, jerking his head to indicate the display screen. “The inhibitor chips the Jedi ordered them to put in our brains?”

She surveyed them, calculating. “I have no recollection of any one of my Order informing me of such things. Do you have evidence?”

AZ whirred forward, still holding Tup’s chip. “Right here,” he said. “This is the chip taken from clone trooper Tup. As you can see, it appears blackened and rotten. This sickness caused the malfunction.”

“But what caused the sickness?” the Jedi wanted to know.

“We don’t know,” Sevenset admitted.

“It doesn’t matter!” Fives argued. “What matters is it happened. And it could happen again. More clones could turn against their Jedi, or their brothers. The entire Republic Army could be compromised if someone figured out a way to activate these chips on purpose!”

That was something Sevenset had not considered yet. It hadn’t occurred to him that these chips might have a purpose outside of… well, they didn’t know yet. What if there was a manual activation? Or a secret code?

“There is no proof of any of this!” Nala Se interjected, finally showing some of the frustration she must have been feeling for a while. “This is an isolated incident. Besides, when you removed Tup’s chip, his health deteriorated immensely.”

Rude.

“We’re fine, aren’t we?” Fives said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What does that matter?”

“We removed our chips as well,” Sevenset said, pointing to the bandage over the incision on his skull.

AZ held up the chips. “Here they are, very healthy.”

“Then you are both threats and should be considered dangerous,” Nala Se said sharply. “Master Jedi, they should be terminated immediately.”

“I am not a piece of kriffing hardware!” Fives exclaimed, and Sevenset had to agree with him on his anger.

“We’re ARC troopers,” he added. “We’ve laid our lives on the line for the Republic countless times, and you want to terminate us because we found out about your chips?”

“Because you have removed your chips,” Nala Se hissed at him. “And technically, you are both property of the Kaminoan government.”

Sevenset blinked, honestly shocked. He knew the Kaminoans weren’t to be trusted, nor did they place any real value in a trooper’s life, but to hear it like that? To actually be labeled property? He’d have gotten no better on Nal Hutta. Or Zyggeria! Were these chips… they couldn’t be slave chips, could they?

“Correction.” General Ti’s strong voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. She extinguished her blade and lowered the hilt to her side. “Technically, they are ‘property’ of the Republic.”

“They are a danger to themselves and to others,” Nala Se argued, her small head swaying on her long neck as she struggled to remain civilized. “They must be terminated.”

“Oh, for Maker’s sake,” Sevenset spat. “Just say killed. It’s what you mean, right? You wanna kill us? Don’t hide behind words as long as your neck.”

“I believe,” said General Ti, cutting off the doctor’s reply, “their fates are for me to decide.” She lifted her chin. “Fives, you are coming with me to Coruscant. Sevenset will accompany him. You will tell your story to the Chancellor.”

The Chancellor? He was going to see the Chancellor himself? Not an aide, not Mas Amedda, but the actual, real-live Chancellor, who got his robe unravelled by Commander Thire that one time?

Nala Se finally moved, harshly pushing away the blaster Fives had been holding half-heartedly at her chest. “Master Jedi—”

“Sounds great, when do we leave?” Sevenset interrupted, hurrying to get ahead of her.

He could feel Nala Se’s enormous grey eyes boring into the back of his head.

“The chancellor wanted all the data on Tup, correct?” General Ti continued, a confident light in her eyes as she typed something into her comm unit. “We’re sending the data, Tup’s tumor, and the two other samples, and Fives and Sevenset will go with them.”

The Kaminoan doctor drew herself up to her full, impressive height. “Then I am going with them.”

Oh, please no. Sevenset had exactly zero desire to spend several hours in hyperspace with her anywhere near him. He saw Fives felt similarly, and he turned his gaze to the general, hoping to communicate just how much he didn’t want this to happen.

But her hands must have been tied. She narrowed her eyes slightly, but agreed. “As you wish, Doctor.”

The door opened yet again, admitting a small team of Kamino Guards bearing two stretchers between them. Sevenset watched Fives sit down on one before doing the same on the other.

“Thank you, General,” Fives said as the Jedi began to turn away. “For believing us.”

“It’s not a matter of belief, Fives,” she told him, her face impassible. “It is simply the right thing to do.”

…Jedi.

In watching her leave, Sevenset was caught off guard by one of the guards approaching him with a syringe in his hand. He instantly shied away from it, holding a hand up. “Whoa, hold on. What is that?” He looked over to Fives, seeing him rub his neck as another guard walked away from him.

“A weak sedative.”

“I don’t want a sedative,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s weaker than a day-old porg.”

“It’s preventative.”

“Against?” he asked, a little flummoxed. “What, you think I’m gonna jump up and escape? Escape where?”

“It’s not my call,” the guard replied, sounding a little apologetic.

He glanced up at Nala Se, whose back was to him as she followed the general out of the room. Probably standard procedure. Probably. He still didn’t want it.

“Don’t give it to me, or I will jump up and do something about it,” he said, then lay back on the stretcher. “Now get going.”

The guard looked confused, standing there without purpose. But eventually, the guard manning the stretcher just shook his head and turned him toward the doors. Good. His method of wasting people’s time until they gave him what he wanted was still effective. Now… on to Coruscant.

What will happen on Coruscant?? What will the chancellor do?? Will Nala Se finally hit her head on a doorframe?? All that and MORE next month ;) Unless I can't help myself and I post it for the Number Lads 1 year anniversary this month In addition: Maral Tumun is another OC by my friend 23-bears and me. I drew her during OC-tober last year, here.

@23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @persimminwrites @beskarmermaid @darth-void @rndmpeep

[jgvfhl]

The Number Lad Is A Menace

And of course by Thee Number Lad, I mean my darling Sevenset :) This is one more chapter of silliness for everyone to enjoy! I'll be honest, the next chapter might come a little later than April 1st because of my chock-a-block full schedule right now, but it will happen in April!!! We gotta start the next arc!!! I'm so excited!! Thank you to everyone who's been reading these chapters, I really appreciate it.

Words: ~4100 Warnings: None Link to the Masterlist of Chapters Link to the story on Ao3 if that's easier for folks (it's still 1 chapter behind, but it'll be up to date by the next installment)

Sevenset looked up from his little sketchbook, finally noticing the bunks around him in the temporary barracks on Rancor’s Venator cruiser were filling up. He checked the time on his vambrace.

Huh.

Okay, well, he hadn’t meant to spend almost two hours designing his next tattoo, but these things happened. He added the last few lines and snapped the book shut around his pencil, wrapping the elastic band around the book and tucking it under his pillow.

Upon attempting to stand, his body informed him he had been sitting in a horrible position for almost two hours, and standing so quickly was not possible right now.

“Ow,” he muttered, stretching his legs out and leaning down to touch the toes of his boots.

“Yeah, it looked like you were doing your best impression of an ithorian down there.”

Sevenset looked up, finding his squadmate Buster lying in his bunk, prepped for sleep cycle, which was due to start for them in a few minutes.

“Was it any good?” he asked, finally standing up slowly to stretch his back.

Buster frowned. “Dunno, you don’t quite have the face for it.”

A lump in the bunk underneath Buster grumbled. “Would you shut up ‘n sleep?”

Buster smiled, leaning over the side to look down. His field partner Sketch valued his sleep like a dragon did its hoard, and right now, only the man’s mohawk and little strips of the pink-dyed buzzed hair either side were visible over the edge of the blanket pulled up over his face.

“Sorry, Sketch,” Sevenset said, a little quieter. “I’ll leave you to your beauty rest.”

Sketch grumbled again and Buster gave a small smile before settling back on his mattress. “Have fun on the night shift,” he said.

“Oh, I always do,” Sevenset replied, finding his kit and putting it on. He wasn’t being sarcastic, for once. He really did enjoy the night shift. He’d always been a bit… off as far as circadian rhythm (his squad on Kamino had hated it), so it made perfect sense to him to take the later shifts while he was at his best, and rest when the weirdo “morning people” were up and functional.

He was by the door when Buster called his name–quietly still, so he didn’t wake anyone.

“What?”

Buster held up a datapad. “I forgot to drop this off with the commanders,” he said, handing it down to him. “Do you think you can do that?”

Sevenset considered it. “Well, as long as I know which room I’m going to, shouldn’t be a problem.”

The other ARC rubbed his head, squinting in efforts to recall. “I think Colt is in one-eighteen C? It’s near the bridge, one level up from us.”

He stared at Buster, knowing very well he had no idea the gift he had just given him. He nodded solemnly. “Consider it done, vod,” he said as seriously as he could muster, adding a sharp salute as well.

Buster just rolled his eyes and lay down, shuffling his blanket around as he got comfortable. “Maker help us, you’re somethin’ else, Sevens,” he smiled.

Sevenset grinned back, turning off the lights as he left the room and headed to the briefing room for his shift assignments. Nothing too dramatic, considering they were hurtling through hyperspace, and the truly important people—the engineers, the navigators, the bridge officers—were all taking shifts as well, keeping them on track towards Kamino. But, his light duties did mean he had plenty of time to get them done in a timely fashion, then go see about room 118C and hope its occupant was out of the room…

As was often the case, Sevenset was given inspection duties. He had notable attention to detail and a quick eye for making sure everything was ship-shape in no time, so the COs had no issues handing it off to him time and time again, and he had no issues completing it time and time again. Tonight, it was weapons lock-up with Tracer, one of many ARF troopers that had accompanied this most recent mission.

It was good to have company, given the sheer number of weapons on the cruiser. They divided the work between them and went to it. There was something incredibly satisfying about checking all the boxes off as he went down the racks of blasters and ammunition lining the room. He was done before he’d even had time to properly enjoy the mindlessness of it all.

Tracer glanced over at him when he’d been standing still for too long. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything’s accounted for.”

Tracer blinked. He was almost done, maybe a few racks away from completion. “You’re done?”

“Yeah, I like this kinda gig,” he explained as simply as he could. “Figure it’s why I keep getting the same assignments,” he added with a grin. “Listen, I gotta go drop something with Commander Colt, do you mind if I head out?”

Tracer shook his head. “Nah, go for it.”

So he did. He dropped off the datapad with the inventory with one of the lieutenants, then made his way to a lift and went up the level and towards the bridge in hopes of finding his commander’s room empty and unguarded.

Hopefully.

Force, if he managed to pull this off… He grinned to himself wickedly.

Would it undoubtedly result in disciplinary actions? Yes.

Would pranking Colt be worth it?

Oh hells yeah.

He found room 118C right where Buster had told him. Now, it was normal for a commander’s door to be locked or otherwise secured from the outside, and Sevenset respected this and knew why it was the case. It hadn’t stopped him from creating a device capable of slicing a simple door panel as a one-time-only deal in case of emergency urges to start some shit.

Colt might kill him.

It was a worthy sacrifice.

He knocked on the door and waited, listening intently for a response. Just to be sure, he knocked again, louder, throwing glances down the corridor in either direction to take stock of how many people were around. Not many. When no one answered the door the second time, he tried pushing the button to open it, on the off chance the door was unlocked. It wasn’t.

Time for plan B.

He reached into one of the compartments in his utility belt and found a small electronic device which he stuck to the door control panel. He did his best to be quick, not wanting to attract undue attention while messing with the commander’s door. He pressed the device’s singular button and knocked a third time, waiting for the device to do its work.

In a few seconds, the door slid open, and he snatched the device from the panel and stepped inside.

This ship wasn’t often used, so most of the living and sleeping quarters onboard were sparsely decorated if at all. Troopers were much more likely to leave anything of real sentimental value on Kamino; it was considerably safer. Commander Colt was no exception, and might have had even less stuff in his room than some of his subordinates.

Sevenset set the datapad from Buster down on the desk. He wasn’t a complete asshole: he wasn’t going to get Buster in trouble by making his report hard to find. Surveying the desk, he found a couple stacks of similar datapads, a few crumpled pieces of flimsi, a few loose pencils and styluses, and a mug of stone-cold caff from the mess. Hm…

Looking over to the bed in the same room, he saw it was impeccably made to regulation, the corners tucked in just so, the blanket pulled up and over the pillow. Oh, now that was an idea….

Without waiting to think (because the commander could be back any second), he went to the bed and picked up the entire mattress, awkwardly maneuvering it until he could put it back down 180 degrees from its original position. He tucked the blanket and sheet back in, making the bed up fit to make any CO proud.

Any CO but Colt, actually.

Next, he went to the desk, knowing it would be bad on a few levels to rearrange the datapads and paper on the desk, so he settled for moving the entire piece of furniture two or three inches farther away from the wall. It was a little tricky, because the desk had to be secured to the floor for safety’s sake. But, it was easy enough to unhitch it and slide it down the tracks in the floor a little bit, then fasten it back down. He pushed the chair to the same relative position he’d found it in, and then quickly rearranged the writing utensils and the mug on the desk, leaving the datapads and filmsi untouched.

Stepping back, he took in his handiwork, his mind whirring as he sought out anything else he might be able to do in the precious few seconds he was allowing himself.

His eye fell on the doorway leading to the refresher. Lucky bastards with their own showers, commanders. Well…. He hurried over, his eyes flicking around the room in a heartbeat until they landed on the bar of soap in the shower, and the mirror over the sink.

Perfect.

-scene break-

Sevenset was still buzzing with happy anticipation as he grabbed his “midnight meal” from the mess and found a table to sit down. The night shift was light, as usual, and truthfully, among those present, he wasn’t sure how many would really appreciate his company. He was an acquired taste. So, he found a table along one wall and sat there people-watching while he ate, his eyes always drifting back to the doors, waiting for the inevitable storm his latest prank would bring down.

He finished his meal in peace, dropping the tray and utensils off to be cleaned before heading out again. Until his shift was officially over, he didn’t have much to do except to stay awake and make sure the others not on shift got their rest. Maybe he’d go find a viewport and draw…. Changing trajectory, he started off down the hall back to his barracks room to get his sketchbook and pencils, already planning to take his clunkiest armor pieces off outside the room so he wouldn’t make too much noise. Stealth training could only do so much with all this plastoid clattering around. No one else seemed to notice how loud it was, though. Maybe it was just in his head.

When he turned the corner into the corridor with his room in it, he just as quickly slammed his body back around the corner out of sight upon seeing Commander Colt at his barracks door.

He heard the door slide open, and stuck his head around the corner to see Colt march into the room, switch the lights on, and yell, “Buster! Get up! On your feet, double time, trooper, let’s go!”

Sevenset winced slightly. The commander wouldn’t have known Buster had told him to deliver his report. In reality, he would have walked in, seen the upset, seen a report that had not been there before the upset, and would have immediately sought out the author of said report.

So much for not getting him in trouble.

He crept around the corner and quickly and quietly made his way down the hall until he was just outside the room. He could hear grumbling and creaking bunks from inside, as well as Colt demanding Buster’s explanation as to why his room had been tampered with around the same time his report had appeared on his desk.

Buster, Maker bless him, was not a morning person, and was having considerable difficulty processing the situation.

“I didn’ do anything, sir! I did the report, it’s there–”

“The report is not the karking problem, ARC!”

Plastering an easy smile on his face, he slipped into the room as quietly as he could. Buster was standing at rigid attention looking completely baffled at the commander, who was standing with his fists on his hips, looming over him. Other disgruntled faces poked out from blankets in the other bunks. Sketch looked positively murderous.

“The problem is in fact everything other than the report!” the commander went on, his attention undivided.

Sevenset saw his sketchbook sticking out from under his pillow just to Buster’s left, so he feigned innocent ignorance and went to step around the commander, watching his arms in case his tirade grew more animated all of a sudden.

“You had the audacity–the utter stupidity–to think that was funny–” Commander Colt froze, his helmet turning slowly as he registered Sevenset’s sudden presence at his right shoulder.

“Evening, Commander,” Sevenset chirped, giving a small salute. “Just here for my sketchbook.” He crept closer to it. “Oh, Buster,” he added, “I got that report on his desk just like you asked, don’t worry about it.”

Buster’s rigid stance relaxed out of pure shock for an instant, before jolting back when the commander opened his mouth.

“You.” His hand shot out and grabbed the collar of Sevenset's chestplate. “You did this?”

“Uh… I have been known to do a lot of things, sir,” Sevenset replied. “Some specificity would be greatly appreci–”

“Did you rearrange my kriffing room, Sevenset?” the commander growled, pulling him even closer.

Sevenset made a great show of scrunching his face up as he seemed to think about his answer. “Eh… I’m not sure what I did truly constitutes rearranging, sir. Maybe a little redecoration, a little–auck!”

His response was cut off by the commander turning and dragging him bodily out of the room. He managed to hit the lights on the way out, apologizing to his squadmates as best as he could with the commander’s knuckles pressing into his throat.

When they were outside and half-way down the hall, Commander Colt finally released him. Sevenset had just reached up to adjust his armor back to where it sat most comfortably when he found the commander’s gloved hands grabbing either side of his face.

“What the ever-loving kriff is wrong with you?”

“That’s a loaded question, sir,” he grinned, a little thrown by the odd method of restraint. “You didn’t appreciate the little affirmation I left you?”

The commander’s helmet tilted to one side. “You wrote, ‘Hey there, handsome,’ on the mirror with my bar of soap.”

“It’s always good to start your day with a compliment, sir!”

Commander Colt let go of his face, then flicked his nose, and he yelped.

“Laps,” he said. “Five of them. Now.”

Five wasn’t so bad. He’d be done in no time. He saluted sharply. “Can do, sir!”

As he started to jog down the corridor, he heard the commander call, “This is supposed to be a punishment! Don’t look so kriffing happy about it!”

-scene break-

Rancor Battalion was back on Kamino in another rotation or so, most of the troopers returning immediately to the barracks or to requisition replacement gear for the damage suffered on the mission. Standard practice, at this point. Sevenset was used to the routine, and he liked that it never changed too much, a bit like the Guard back on Coruscant. He went with his squad back to their barracks to put his things away, give Beskar a pat on the dome for taking care of their space in their absence, and maybe grab a snack. Everyone else was settling in for the night, hoping to readjust their internal clocks as fast as possible, and Sevenset reasoned he could do the same, but he had more pressing matters to deal with.

He’d told Do-si-do he’d have to host the Numbers meeting this time around, because he’d had no idea if he would have been back in time, and he hadn’t been. Not quite. He could still catch the tail-end of the meeting, if he was lucky. He got to his usual hidey-hole in a rarely-used conference room and lit up the holotable, tuning it to the correct frequency with barely a thought.

Various holograms appeared at once as he connected to the transmission. It appeared the 212th and the Wolfies were on duty, because the meeting was missing Nines and Loops, but everyone else was there, including the commander.

“Sevenset!” Do-si-do beamed. “Dude, you’re just in time. Elevens was gonna tell us about Commander Thire messing with the Chancellor!”

Oh well, this he had to hear. “I am all ears, little bro,” he grinned, leaning on the table in front of him.

Elevensies smiled back. “Okay, so, I heard this from one of my squadmates, who heard it from Captain Iode when he was talking to Commander Stone,” he began. “So it might not be quite what happened.”

“Does it seem like we’ll care if it’s true?” Fives asked. He and Echo were smushed together at one end of a bunk, presumably so Echo could rest his leg on the mattress. “We just care if it’s funny.”

“Okay, yeah.” Elevensies went on. “So, Commander Thire was leading the Chancellor’s escort this morning–like his security detail, right?”

Sevenset nodded, remembering serving exactly one day on that detail before Fox promptly moved him elsewhere. He never did find out if that was because the Chancellor had asked, or if Fox had gotten pissed off…

“So, it’s a lot of standing still while people talk to the Chancellor, and following him around the Senate building and his office–not very exciting.”

He vividly remembered that.

“Commander Thire was standing right next to the Chancellor at some point,” Elevensies continued. “I dunno, maybe the hallway was small, but that doesn’t matter. What matters,” he said with a grin, “is the Chancellor’s robe had a thread loose on the hem.”

Sevenset’s mouth dropped open. “He didn’t.”

Commander Sixes shook his head, rubbing his face. “He absolutely did.”

“He totally did!” Elevensies laughed, throwing his hands up and leaning back against the wall behind him. “He stepped on the thread and unraveled the Chancellor’s robe half-way to his knees!”

Sevenset and most of the others there joined him in cackling at the mental image of the ever-cool and collected Chancellor Palpatine suddenly finding himself bare-legged from the calves down. Oh, he would have paid to have been on that escort. Actual credits. The man probably hadn’t even blinked! He probably had just been politely shocked and been swept off to a room to wait for a new robe to be delivered, but holy Force, that was hilarious.

When the group had largely collected themselves again, wiping damp eyes and suppressing the remaining giggles, Do-si-do raised a hand. “So what kind of shoes does the Chancellor wear?”

That set Sevenset off again–Maker only knew why. “Why do you wanna know?” he asked through the new fit of laughter.

“So I can judge him!” his friend shot back. “Please tell me he wears old person shoes.”

Elevensies was giggling again too, and he shook his head and shrugged. “I dunno, I didn’t hear that part.”

“What if he wears sandals?” Fives asked. “Like sandals with socks?”

Do-si-do snorted, slumping further in his pilot’s seat. “No! No one should do that! I will call the fashion police!”

“No, no, no,” Sevenset cut in, “hear him out. I think he’s onto something.”

“No!”

Echo smirked. “What if he wears sandals without socks and just had his wrinkly old toes sticking out for everyone to see?”

A chorus of groans erupted after that remark, Sevenset not hesitating to join them. No one needed that image haunting their nightmares. Not even Fox!

“What if it’s boots?” Trees hazarded.

Sevenset might have been more tired than he’d originally thought, but it was okay, because Do-si-do was apparently right there with him on a lack of verbal filter and a severe lack of situational awareness.

“Like stripper boots?” they both said in unison.

While everyone else (except the commander) started wheezing with laughter again, Trees just stared at them like they were the most concerning specimens he’d seen to date. Sevenset caught Do-si-do’s eye, and they both lost it again, laughing until tears came and Sevenset found it difficult to stand upright.

“No, not like stripper boots!” Trees replied indignantly once the noise had died down a little. “That was kriffing creepy, you two!”

It only made them laugh harder, and Sevenset found he could no longer keep himself upright. Finally, he managed to pull himself back up and steady himself against the table, wiping tears from his face and feeling his face start to ache from smiling. This group had been his best idea ever. Where else was he going to get a debate about the Chancellor’s footwear? With a commander in the room not stopping them? It was a miracle.

Speaking of…. “Hey, Commander,” he said, his voice a little raw from laughing.

“What?”

“How–how is it,” he said around a hiccup of laughter, “we’re all dying, and you haven’t broken a sweat, sir? You gotta admit, the Chancellor in stripper boots is funny.”

“Try harder next time,” the commander replied, with a faint but distinct upward curve to his mouth.

Oh it was like that, was it?

“Alright I will,” he said, pointing at the hologram. “I will find something to crack that prickly ol’ shell you’ve set up, mark my words.”

“I’m shaking in my boots.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Should I start a tally?” Zero offered. “Keep track of what he doesn’t laugh at, see if we can narrow it down?”

“Absolutely, Zero,” he said. “We’re gonna science the kark outta this.”

The commander raised an eyebrow at them, one of his scars buckling on his forehead. “You’ll fail.”

“Why?” Sevenset challenged. Was the commander worried they’d actually find something? Was he truly that confident they wouldn’t?

Before he got an answer, someone else appeared behind Commander Sixes.

Zero waved. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Zero,” Commander Nero said like nothing had happened. That would be a fun joke for Colt…

“Something wrong?” Commander Sixes asked, looking up at him.

The other commander knelt down next to his chair, placing a datapad on the surface out of frame. “Yeah, nothing big. Got the new recon intel, we might have to shimmy up the positions a bit for the first assault.”

“Wait, really?” Zero asked, and was ignored.

“Okay.” The commander blinked at him.

Commander Nero stared back, completely serious. “I’d suggest banana.”

Sevenset looked around, glancing over the other faces present. Most of the other Numbers wore similar expressions of vague confusion, with the odd flicker of mirth because who the hell called battle strategies banana?

But then he saw it. It was faint, but he saw Commander Sixes’ mustache twitch like he was trying to fight back a smile. The muscles in his neck flexed almost imperceptibly. Commander Nero remained stony, staring him down, like he was daring him to break.

That couldn’t be it… Commander Death’s weakness couldn’t be…

After what felt like an eon of strained silence, Commander Sixes spoke. “You little bastard.” His voice cracked on the last word, an unmistakable grin fighting its way onto his face as he tried to hold himself together.

“You don’t wanna use banana?” Commander Nero said innocently, his eyes flicking towards the holoprojector beside them.

The dam broke. Commander Sixes leaned his elbow on the desk beside him, putting his face in his hand, his shoulders shaking as he laughed. It was quiet and rough, like the rest of his personality, but no one could deny that was laughter.

“Oh, Maker help you,” he breathed, looking to the other commander, who was grinning like a loth cat who’d found the fish. Sevenset found himself riveted to the hologram in front of him, drinking in the biggest smile he’d ever seen on the commander’s face since he’d met the man.

“Help me?” Commander Nero said.

“Yeah. ‘Cause I’m gonna get a banana and shove it so far down your throat, you’ll be seeing yellow for weeks.” The threat lost a bit of an edge due to the huge grin still stuck on Commander Sixes’ face and the repressed bursts of laughter that had almost cut him off, and the fact that the other commander burst out laughing as soon as he said it, disappearing from view as he collapsed to the floor. “Karking hell,” Commander Sixes muttered, reaching over and turning off his holoprojector, disappearing from the meeting.

There was silence for a moment, even from Zero.

Finally, after a generous moment to process what they had all witnessed, Sevenset addressed the main point.

“Banana jokes?” he said, putting his hands on his hips in mock severity. “That’s all it would have taken? Bananas?”

“Well, they are very a-peel-ing to some people,” Echo replied without hesitation.

Fives shoved him off the bunk gracelessly.

Ta-da!! Sevenset being a menace! I hope you enjoyed! @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @rndmpeep @beskarmermaid @persimminwrites @darth-void @soclonely

[jgvfhl]

THE BOYS or at least two of them BUT I LOVE THEM SO HERE Happy Star Wars Day. I'm celebrating by being annoying about my OCs lol. Sevenset's full tattoos (even just from the waist up!) ARE SUCH AN ADVENTURE TO COLOR but I hope y'all like them. Also Do-si-do got hit with my nonbinary ray, so uh yeah. Flat colors under the cut so you can see the tats in all their glory!

@23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @soclonely @thechaoticfanartist @rndmpeep

[jgvfhl]

The Number Lads Make Powerful Enemies

Now we're getting into some deep shit! So... Sevenset and Fives are off to see the chancellor of the Republic to explain why they broke So Many Rules on Kamino. This will surely go very well, with zero consequences ever.

Words: around 5500 Warnings: Canon typical violence, I think? Some shooting, some unsolicited drug use, yknow. Suspense. Link to Master List of Chapters Link to the full story on Ao3

Long flights in hyperspace came with the territory of being a soldier in the GAR. The galaxy was a big place, and they were always traveling from one battlefield to the next. Almost every clone eventually got used to the rumble of a ship’s hyperdrive and the blue whorls and streaks flashing past the viewports as they hurtled through space. To most, it was soothing, like the constant roar of the waves on Kamino had been. It was hardly uncommon for the constant noise and subtle vibrations to lull a trooper to sleep on those long flights.

But for once, Fives really did not want to sleep.

He fought it for what felt like hours. But he was strapped down on his back, technically in custody, and was only let up to be escorted to the head. Whatever the Kamino Guard had injected into his neck certainly wasn’t helping, either. Ugh… why had he let them do that?

Mercifully, Sevenset was across from him on the other side of the main cabin, so they still could see each other and talk occasionally. His friend was clearly more alert than he was, his dark eyes sharp and bright as they roamed the cabin interior. He must have refused whatever injection Fives hadn’t. Smart man. He was even more grateful for Sevenset’s knowledge of ARC sign, meaning they could still communicate even when Nala Se was standing too close for comfort.

But he was still exhausted. He’d been fighting a battle on Ringo Vinda for a couple rotations before landing on Kamino, and he hadn’t slept or eaten much in something approaching eleven or twelve hours. He just didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t feel safe enough.

He might not have much choice in the matter.

Motion caught his eye as his head started to loll to one side. Sevenset’s hand was moving again. Signing was a little difficult without the ability to move their hands around to different reference points on their bodies, and frankly, it was a mainly utilitarian language with few words outside of what they needed on the field. But they had managed.

Fives squinted, his brain sluggishly interpreting the signals.

“I've got night shift. Sleep.”

He smiled a little at the joke. He was right, this wasn’t a night shift, and he had no obligation to be on watch right now.

Sevenset added, “You’ll need energy.”

Fives nodded in reply, looking at the ceiling again. Right again. If something happened on Coruscant, he’d prefer the edge a few hours of sleep would give him. He looked over again and signed back. “Hostiles in the area.” His eyes flicked down past his boots to where Nala Se and General Ti stood and sat respectively.

Sevenset chuckled quietly, following his gaze. When the expression faded, he returned his attention to Fives. “I repeat my last. Sleep.”

He sighed. Then he nodded, giving a slurred, “Affirm,” back as he readjusted himself into something resembling a comfortable sleeping position.

It wasn’t an easy task, strapped down to a hover gurney not built with comfort in mind, and being in someone else’s armor. His he had carefully customized with bits of padding, or by sanding down sharp edges. This kit was fresh off the presses, and it showed. But, his brain was still tugging him toward sleep, the noise of the ship growing farther and farther away to his ears as he forced himself to relax.

At least he wasn’t alone in this, he kept reminding himself. He had a friend in his corner. They’d figure something out. They had to.

-scene break-

The jolt out of hyperspace must have woken Fives, because nothing around him seemed too different. Still, as soon as his consciousness returned, his senses kicked into high alert. Or… they tried to. Whatever sedative he’d gotten on Kamino was still making him a bit groggy, although he could tell the effects were fading.

He blinked, trying desperately to clear the fog of sleep. General Ti stood with her back to them both, waiting at the main cabin doors for when they touched down. The Kamino Guards who had accompanied the transport stood near her, and he assumed the two manning the two gurneys stood behind them where they’d been the whole flight.

A shadow fell over his face, and he jolted weakly against his restraints as Nala Se’s head loomed over him, swaying almost imperceptibly on her long neck.

“Wh–are we here?” he asked, his voice a bit rough from sleep.

The doctor didn’t answer. She reached over to something behind him, out of his view, and he craned his neck to try to see Sevenset, but her body was blocking his line of sight.

He had a bad feeling about this.

“What are you doing?” he asked, still fighting for every second of coherency while the sedative worked through his system.

He caught a glimpse of an automated syringe in her hand, but it was a second too late to say anything about it. It hurt, probably more so because his whole body was rigid with anxious tension. Whatever was in the syringe was cool and smooth, and felt far to gentle for whatever insidious plan the doctor was trying to enact with it.

Fives shook his head, his vision suddenly appearing like a slow-motion replay of the world around him. “What… wha’d you do?” he tried to say. His tongue lay heavy in his mouth, inarticulate and mostly useless.

Of kriffing course.

She’d drugged him up, just for the Chancellor.

When the doctor moved, he finally pulled his head over to the side to look at Sevenset. He didn’t look much better than Fives felt. His friend’s eyes were half-lidded and glazed, his lips forming soundless words, and his brow furrowing as he tried to comprehend the new reality his brain had discovered.

“Sev’ns,” Fives said. When his friend didn’t immediately respond, he tried again, hopefully louder. It was hard to tell, when his ears felt three kliks away from the rest of his brain.

Finally, Sevenset’s head fell to the side, and his unfocused gaze found Fives. After a moment of thought, he said, “I prefer uppies, I think.” Just like Fives, his words were slow and clumped together.

Fives rolled his eyes. Jokes at a time like this. At least Sevenset’s personality was intact. Now they just needed to get through this meeting with the Chancellor while hopped up on whatever depressants Nala Se had given them—and would no doubt deny having given them, the kriffing stick of poodoo.

The ship rattled quietly as they touched down, and the main cabin door opened with a hiss as they ramp began to descend. The bright light flooding the cabin made Fives squint, and he was only vaguely aware of motion as he and Sevenset were escorted out of the ship behind the Jedi and the doctor.

Okay, they were going to see the Chancellor. He needed to know about Tup. Tup hadn’t meant to kill General Tiplar, he’d just… he had… The chips! That was why. It was the chips. The chips were bad, that was why Tup’s had malfunctioned. No… the chips… Tup’s had malfunctioned, but his hadn’t. That was dangerous. That was dangerous… because… if something like Tup happened again, that would be bad.

He looked back over at Sevenset, whose brows were creased in thought again. Maybe he was doing the same thing. Going over the story.

The sound of voices pulled his attention to the front of their procession. A blue guy… the Chancellor’s aide… but he couldn’t remember his name. Whatever. The blue guy with the stick met them, then turned around to lead them inside. Fives was pushed in first, ahead of Sevenset.

The halls were dark grey, with bright overhead lighting that hurt his eyes. He had a vague feeling they shouldn’t hurt that much, but there was already so much going on that wasn’t right. His limbs felt heavy, his fingers felt three feet long, his head was filled with thoughts like wet blankets, and the noises around him were muffled and far away.

But eventually, he caught sight of a flash of red to one side. Slowly, his brain supplied the recognition of a Coruscant Guard member flanking one side of a doorway as he was pushed in. More red filled his field of view as he had turned his head to look at the Corrie. More red?

Oh, shit. The… what were they called…? Red Guard? The Chancellor’s personal body guards, the ones dressed all in red. A pair of them flanked the inside of the doorway.

The room into which he and Sevenset were pushed was round and dark. Fives glanced around as he approached the center, seeing a trio of Corries standing equidistant around the perimeter. He swore he saw one of them startle slightly upon seeing them. He might have imagined it. The details of the room were quickly lost, however, when the two of them were put under the harsh white lights directed at the center of the room.

Their gurneys were attached to a pair of rotating tables, and slowly, they were brought to an upright position. Thank the Maker they went slowly, because Fives was pretty sure his head would have spun off his neck if they’d gone any faster. Fortunately, whatever Nala Se had given him didn’t appear to be as long-lasting as the other drugs, but his head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

“These are the troopers who caused so much alarm?”

Fives blinked rapidly, refocusing on the old man in front of him. He’d never seen Chancellor Palpatine before—not in real life, anyway. Holograms and pictures, sure. But never in person. He really was just an old… guy. But Fives would be blind to miss the glint of intelligence and something sharper in his light eyes. He wasn’t sure he liked the look of that something sharper.

General Ti and Nala Se stood to one side. The Jedi nodded. “They are, Chancellor. This is ARC trooper Fives, and ARC trooper Sevenset.”

Sevenset shook his head. He looked a little worse-off, now Fives had a better look at him. “She drugged us,” he grumbled, screwing his eyes shut and then blinking several times. “Kriffin’ stick walker stuck me—”

“There, there, trooper,” the Chancellor soothed, an easy smile coming to his face. “Don’t strain yourself, please.”

His voice seemed to draw Sevenset’s attention more fully, and the ARC straightened up almost without thought upon recognizing a higher-ranking person. But his dark expression lingered. Fives recalled the story he’d told the Numbers about his last time on Coruscant.

“Guards.” The three Corries flanking the two tables went to attention. “Let them down.”

The restraints on his chest and legs retracted into the gurneys, and Fives took an unsteady step down to the floor, instinctively holding a hand out toward Sevenset, even though he was too far away to help if his friend fell. Luckily, the Corrie on the far side of Sevenset caught his elbow as he stumbled, and Sevenset brushed it off gently once his feet were under him.

Once a Guardsman, always a Guardsman.

“Now, troopers,” the Chancellor began, pressing his palms together. “What brings you before me?” An open smile graced his face, but now Fives’ head was clear enough to see the expression didn’t quite make it to his keen eyes.

Right. Their mission. He had to get this right. “The chips, Chancellor,” Fives answered, standing straight at attention to speak.

“Chips?” The old man’s face read with genuine curiosity.

“Inhibitor chips, implanted before we even fully develop in our tubes” Sevenset added as General Ti stepped forward with a case.

She withdrew the three sample slides from the case and held them up for the Chancellor to see. “These were removed from all three troopers. Fives believes they are what caused the tragic incident on Ringo Vinda with clone trooper Tup.”

The Chancellor took the slides from her hand, his chin dipping as he studied them closely. The curiosity was gone from his expression, and Fives almost wondered if he had ever truly seen it in the first place.

Nala Se spoke up, and the curiosity was suddenly back in the Chancellor’s face as he looked up to her, like it had always been there. “Inhibitor chips are used to make clones less aggressive and more receptive to following orders,” the doctor explained. Because of course she was still going with that argument. “I tried to explain this to these clones,” she went on, turning to them both. “They are there for their own good, but they removed their chips nonetheless.”

Sevenset scoffed. “Our own good? Where’s the good in Tup’s malfunctioning and making him kill a Jedi?”

“When I analyzed Tup’s chip,” Fives said, hoping to maintain a shred of credibility, “there were signs of rapid decay in function and structure. It was sick.”

Chancellor Palpatine took it all in. “And we’re sure this sickness had nothing to do with a virus?” he asked, stepping closer to General Ti and the doctor.

No! Not the stupid virus idea again! A virus was the least likely answer to this whole thing. If Tup had caught a virus, then how had Fives not caught it? Or Rex? Or literally any of his brothers when they had been eating, sleeping, and fighting together for the past two rotations before Tup lost it.

“No,” Nala Se answered with a tiny shake of her head. “We still do not know definitively what caused trooper Tup to kill. We only know that his chip failed, and now these two clones have removed theirs as well.”

“And we’re fine, thank you so much for asking,” Sevenset cut in. As much as Fives could respect his lack of trust in authority, now was not the best time to be pushing it. Then again. Drugs.

The doctor’s round eyes narrowed slightly. “And that makes them a risk to themselves and to others,” she finished tersely.

“A risk of what?” Sevenset challenged. “A risk of being right? A risk of you being wrong?”

“Sevens,” Fives hissed. Even if he was saying what they both wanted to, he was far removed from Fives’ attempt at decorum, given the current audience.

“They are covering something up, sir,” his friend went on, turning to the Chancellor. “We are ARC troopers, we are trained to be careful, we are trained to be thorough, and we are trained to trust our instincts. My instinct doesn’t like anything about these chips. We still have no proof of their efficacy outside of what the good doctor here claims.”

Well, maybe Fives had judged his friend’s lack of poise too quickly. He had forgotten Sevenset’s uncanny ability to morph to suit the situation.

“And what makes you think the Kaminoans are behind all of this?” the Chancellor asked.

Fives answered. “If it’s not them, it has to be a Separatist plot. Why else would the chips cause a trooper to lash out at the Jedi? Make him lose his senses? Perhaps the true nature of these chips makes us more violent, not less. I know Tup, he’s not like that. That chip completely changed him.”

Chancellor Palpatine’s thin eyebrows rose, deepening the lines on his forehead. “A Separatist plot put into action before the wars even started?” he asked, a ghost of an infuriating smile haunting his mouth and eyes, and so faint, Fives thought he’d imagined it.

When put like that, it did sound lightly ridiculous. But, from what Fives had learned from Generals Skywalker and Kenobi, there was still no real consensus on how the clones had come to be in the first place. Jedi Master Sypho Dias? That was the name Nala Se had given, but Fives had never heard of such a Jedi.

Maybe being an ARC for the Galaxy’s Hero wasn’t so bad, huh?

“That seems highly unlikely, does it not?” Chancellor Palpatine said, turning to General Ti and Nala Se for their reaction.

The Jedi dipped her head just enough to constitute a nod. “It does, Chancellor. Very unlikely.” Her face was unreadable, but grim.

Nala Se was much more passionate in her reply. “It is patently impossible. This was an isolated malfunction of one clone’s inhibitor chip caused by a virus, Separatist origin notwithstanding.”

“And where is clone trooper Tup?” the Chancellor asked. “I was informed he had been… mislocated?”

Oh boy. This could get ugly. Time to hope his acting skills were better than his lying skills.

Nala Se finally looked out of her depth. She blinked a few times, her long fingers fiddling in front of her body. General Ti spoke up. “Unfortunately, yes, Chancellor. Clone trooper Tup disappeared from his room in the medical wing before further testing could be completed.”

“What?” Sevenset cut in, and his surprise was so genuine, Fives almost believed he had forgotten the plan they’d made with Trainer Tumun.

“Rest assured,” General Ti went on, “I have tasked one of our Mandalorian trainers to track him down. Her record is perfect, and I have grown to trust her over the years she has served the Republic in training new soldiers.”

A shadow flitted over the chancellor’s face. “That is troubling. These troopers had nothing to do with his disappearance?”

“No!” they both told him immediately.

The Jedi shook her head. “No. They were in custody when Tup was reported missing.”

“What if the Separatists are trying to get him back?” Fives blurted, trying the first thing that came to mind. “They captured him once, what if they found a way into Kamino?”

“Impossible,” Nala Se insisted. “Our security was redoubled after the attack by Asajj Ventress and General Grievous.”

The Chancellor stroked his chin, studying the glass slides still in his hand. “But the prospect is troubling. Master Ti, I trust I will remain abreast of the search efforts.”

“Of course, Chancellor. You will know as soon as I do.”

“You have to find him!” Sevenset demanded. Shit, that guy could make a theater career if he had half a mind to do it. If it were allowed.

“Perhaps,” the Chancellor said, his attention back on them, “it would be possible for me to speak with Fives and Sevenset without the two of you present?”

Fives found he preferred the Chancellor’s attention anywhere other than on himself. There was a twisting familiarity in the intensity of the gaze, and in the razor-sharp intelligence, boring into him. He couldn’t place it, though….

General Ti took a step toward him. “Chancellor, I must object—”

“Please, Master Jedi, trust me,” he replied, placing his free hand on his chest. “I am not alone, after all.” He gestured to the Coruscant Guards and his personal escort around the room. “I have my security.”

Fives glanced around at the security as it was pointed out. Three Corries in standard gear with standard DC-17 blasters in their hands. The two red guards… he didn’t want to know what kind of weapons they had. Best not to get them involved.

Chancellor Palpatine went on. “I want these soldiers to feel they are getting the proper chance to explain their side of the story. Let us not be unreasonable to them.”

After a tense few seconds, General Ti nodded, and she and Nala Se were escorted out of the room. Fives looked over his shoulder as they left, and as he turned back to the Chancellor, he caught Sevenset’s hand signaling at his side.

“One hostile in the area.”

One hostile? Nala Se had left, who—

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Chancellor Palpaine’s voice appeared at his right side, much closer than he had been seconds ago. “Now, where were we?”

Fives finally found the match to that niggling thrum of unpleasant energy he got whenever the Chancellor looked at him for too long: Krell. That was not a promising match.

One hostile in the area.

The man moved on, circling the upright table behind Fives until he stood between the pair of them. “This is quite an impressive amount of information you two have collected on these chips,” he said. “All to help a fellow soldier? A bit odd, isn’t that?”

“Not in the slightest, sir,” Sevenset answered evenly, despite the flare of suspicion and distrust clear in his gaze. “We help our own.”

“Tup is my friend,” Fives added. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“A friend? I see. Yes, I had heard from some of the other officers that the Jedi often encourage such things,” the Chancellor said, taking one last glance at the glass slides in his hand, then closing his fist firmly around them.

Other officers was just politician for nat-borns. Fives suppressed a sneer at the insinuation that having friends was some anomaly in his genetic code. Maybe the Chancellor was no better than the politicians scrambling to make it harder and harder for clones to do… well, pretty much everything. Always advocating for budget cuts this, or cheaper materials that, not caring that it meant thinner blankets, worse food, and more cramped sleeping quarters for the men on the front lines.

Not that those people would ever call them men.

Fives could feel a steady build of adrenaline seeping into his bloodstream. He was surprised he still had plenty to put out, considering how much stress he’d been under recently.

“What does my friendship have to do with the fact that the entire Grand Army of the Republic have chips implanted in our brains that can make us do things we don’t want to do?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice level.

Chancellor Palpatine nodded, stepping between them to his previous position. “Oh, yes, that is quite a serious matter. Can’t help but be curious, though, don’t you think?”

“Curious about?” Sevenset said through gritted teeth. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides.

“How they work, of course,” the man smiled, facing them fully, the slides still invisible in his hand. “Must be fascinatingly clever to have gone undetected and without error for so long.”

Fives’ brain was working overtime to combat the drugs and figure out what the hell he was saying. He wanted to know how the chips worked? Okay, fine, so did Fives, but not like this. This guy was talking about it like he wanted to perform a dissection on a frog to see how it croaked.

And Fives had the distinct impression he’d have a hollow smile on his face the whole time doing it, too.

“Honestly? Yeah, whatever these things are, they’re genius,” Sevenset said, out of kriffing nowhere. Fives’ head snapped over to stare at him. Some of the tension had bled out of his frame, his hands resting on his belt instead of clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I mean, they’re a testament to science, if you wanna overlook the tragedy they caused.”

Even the Chancellor looked… vaguely surprised. “Oh, yes. Tragic indeed.” There was a brief pause where he seemed to hold an inner debate, his sharp gaze hovering on the Coruscant Guard standing between the two tables.

Fives’ heart rate ticked higher.

Eventually, he nodded to himself. “You both have been an interesting encounter,” he said with finality, and it was certainly the bad kind of interesting. “Guards. These clones are dangerous and must be considered traitors to their station.” Before either Fives or Sevenset could finish processing the statement in order to rally the indignation it deserved, Chancellor Palpatine said, “Execute Order Sixty-Two.”

Instantly, the Guards raised their blasters, aiming directly at him and Sevenset. Fives felt his heart drop to his boots.

As his mind reeled with the new information it had just gained, Fives’ body was quite done with thinking things through, and he leapt out of the way as blue bolts streaked by. He happened to leap at the Chancellor. He didn’t know if he was aiming to get the slides back, punch his face in, or use him as a meat shield, or what, but he tackled him, pinning him to one of the podium control panels bordering the center of the room.

Probably not his proudest moment, tackling an old, defenseless man, but that was all over for now.

The first cry of pain made him slow down and truly inspect the situation, like he'd been trained. One of the Guards was still aiming at Fives, but the other two were both on Sevenset.

Sevenset lunged at the closest trooper with a snarl, expertly grabbing the guard’s blaster arm as he ducked underneath and twisted around. A sharp tug made the guard drop the weapon, and Sevenset’s elbow came up, catching the clone under the helmet. As he fell to the ground, his bucket clattered down separately, and Sevenset fell to his knees, wheezing, one hand on his gut.

Oh kark, he was hit. He was hit, when had he—he was—

No time. Fives flung the Chancellor to the ground as he dropped to the floor to avoid the blaster shots whizzing over his head from the guard trailing him. He rolled and shot up inside their range, kneeing him in the gut and slamming his head into the table Fives had arrived on earlier. He crumpled, his weapon skittering away. A second guard fired, barely missing Fives’ ear as he flinched away and surged toward him. He put one hand on his wrist and jabbed his fist into the clone’s exposed throat.

As his opponent gagged and fell to his knees, Fives wrenched the weapon from his hands and rounded on the Chancellor. “You!”

He was still on the floor, but Fives realized too late when he’d thrown him down, he’d thrown him toward Sevenset.

“What did you do?” he demanded, circling behind the table that had held Sevenset to get closer to his friend. Sevenset followed his lead, dragging himself across the floor, away from the Chancellor.

“You wanted to know how they work,” the man said, a sinister grin settling on his features far more easily than any of the pleasant smiles had previously. “And you will be the only ones.”

Fives bent down slightly, offering a hand to Sevenset to get him over faster. As he did, the Chancellor moved with a speed unexpected of a man of his age, his hand disappearing into a fold in his sleeve. Sevenset’s hand landed in his own at the same instant something silver and blazing red flashed across his vision, then disappeared as fast as Fives had registered.

Sevenset screamed, his hand clenching down on Fives’ wrist like a vice. Fives didn’t even stop to think before hauling his friend up with as much strength as his body could muster in its state of complete shock.

The Chancellor backed off, a glint of silver disappearing back into his robe as he started yelling. “Guards! Help!”

What was—oh, that little huttspawn demagolka poodoo-stain—

“Elevens,” Sevenset said, his breath ragged as he leaned heavily on Fives’ shoulder.

“What?” he managed, pulling him closer to support him better and heading for the door.

Sevenset pointed, wincing, at the guard he’d knocked down. The soldier’s helmet lay on the floor, and his face was turned to them, four red lines on his face clear as day in the harsh lighting. Elevensies.

“Can’t leave 'im,” Sevenset urged, trying to tug Fives closer to the kid.

Fives pulled him back as the doors across the room opened and General Ti stormed in, lightsaber flaring blue in a heartbeat as she took in the commotion. “No choice, mate, we gotta go.”

“He tried to kill me!” the Chancellor wailed, pointing a shaking finger at them both.

“Lying piece of shit,” Sevenset growled.

Fives nodded, slamming his fist into the door controls. The door slid open, and Fives was suddenly thrown off balance by Sevenset taking a hit to the cheek from another Corrie Guard posted outside. Fives turned them both, lashing out with a kick to the trooper’s hip. Sevenset grabbed his arm and dragged him into the doorway as an obstacle.

“You good to run?” Fives asked.

“We’ll find out,” Sevenset nodded, lifting his arm from around Fives’ shoulders.

They took off down the corridor, a steady stream of quiet curses falling from Sevenset’s lips as they ran like hell. The first thing they encountered was a staircase. A long, spiraling staircase that led down at least five levels. Fives swore and started downward.

“Fives! Follow my lead!” Sevenset called from behind him.

He paused briefly, turning to watch with horror as Sevenset swung himself over the banister, catching under his arms as he began to slide down the sloped rail.

“Are you outta your bucket?” Fives yelled at him, taking the stairs down two at a time. Thing was, Sevenset was faster. Faster meant better right now. Oh, Echo would never let him hear the end of this if he found out.

Please, let him stay alive for Echo to find out about this.

He copied Sevenset, gripping the rail tightly and avoiding the uprights underneath. He still had the blaster, and held it just as tightly. Looking ahead from his new position behind Sevenset, his breath hitched in his throat. A long black line of singed plastoid scored the back of his plate, from his left shoulder down and across, disappearing near his waist. The Chancellor really had used a lightsaber.

They reached the bottom as they heard a door open above them, and that meant General Ti, no doubt. While she was a Jedi, and probably their best shot at not dying immediately, he was in no hurry to find out for sure.

“Down here,” Sevenset told him, and they ran down a corridor to their right.

It ended in a door that slid open at their approach. A massive antechamber greeted them, packed with people and medical personnel. Fives groaned internally, and just kept running, shouting at people to get out of the way. Frustratingly, he found his balance and perception had still not recovered from whatever drugs Nala Se had pumped into him.

The floor would seem to tilt at bad times, he couldn’t turn or stop as sharply as he knew he could. Kriffing hells. Sevenset was still keeping up with him, somehow, his face maybe a shade paler than it should be. But they kept running, knocking over the odd droid or cart to make some obstacles.

They were just over half-way through the room when the massive doors ahead began to slowly… close.

“No!” Fives yelled, willing his legs faster. Sevenset gave a wordless cry of similar sentiment and kept his pace.

The doors were half-closed now, the triangular opening shrinking by the second. They could make this, they could do this. They had to, there wasn’t another option.

Finally, they were close enough, and Fives hurled himself hands and head first through the opening into the night air of Coruscant. He landed inelegantly, rolling clumsily to distribute the force. Sevenset landed partially on top of him with a bit-off cry of pain.

Fives scrambled to his feet as the door closed with a clunk. He dragged Sevenset up with him, ignoring but not unheeding of his friend’s grunt of pain or his sharp breathing through his nose.

“We got this, yeah?” he said, putting a hand at the back of his neck. “We gotta move, so stay with me, Sevens.”

Sevenset nodded firmly, grasping at Fives’ elbow. His eyes were a little misty from the pain and his skin was definitely paler than a healthy complexion, but otherwise, he was as determined as Fives had always known him to be.

“Okay, good,” he said with a small smile, risking the seconds it took to lean in to bump their foreheads together lightly. “Let’s move, ARC,” he said, stepping away and falling into a jog as they fled the medical center.

-scene break-

Double Trouble: ngl i am craving noodles, anyone else?

Leafs: I feel there is an obligation to go have noodles

DressedtotheNines: there is no obligation

Loopy: there is an obligation bc i’m making you go, trees

DressedtotheNines: I stand corrected

d0nut man: Aw :( you guys are making me hungry

Submarine: I would like noodles

Double Trouble: YAY it’ll be a party!!

DEATH: I’ll tell Saleha and Mira to be prepared

Double Trouble: thaaanks :3

DEATH: Never use that face in my presence again

Loopy: uh oh

Double Trouble: ,o_o,

Leafs: Noodles it is, I guess… Echo?

CrispyDomino: Uhhh we just landed, might be there might not

Double Trouble: oh hey has anyone heard from my son lately?

Loopy: ur what

DressedtotheNines: aren’t you gay?

d0nut man: …… do you mean ELEVENSIES???

DEATH: I’m muting this conversation

RedBoiiiii: DONT DO NOT HELP

Leafs: Oh Maker no

Loopy: okay now what’s happening over in crime town

RedBoiiiii: BAD THIGS HELP

Double Trouble: SEVENS WHAT HAPPENED????

CrispyDomino: WHAT HAPPENED???

RedBoiiiii: AT 000. PALPY EVIL. 1111 DOWN. FIVES W ME. OW.

CrispyDomino: WHAT THE KARK

DEATH: What did you do

Double Trouble: ARE YOU OKAY????

Loopy: uhhhhhhhhhh anything to do with the sudden increase in security around here??

Leafs: Is that what this is? I suppose the security probe droids have gotten more frequent

CrispyDomino: I AM GOING TO KILL MY BROTHER

DEATH: Everyone shut up and let me deal with this

ohhhhh they're in troubllleeeee.... anyway, I hope you all enjoyed my version of what happened behind closed doors during that episode. It haunts me to this day :) Also, I might start posting chapters twice a month? I have a lot written, and I am impatient!! And I don't wanna bombard you guys with 10k word chapters. @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @rndmpeep @mercurydancer @gaeasun (anyone can let me know if they want to be tagged or not, I'm just flailing at this point)

[jgvfhl]

The Number Lads Run towards Death

Fives and Sevenset are having a distinctly un-fun time running away from every security force on Coruscant. They can only hope that help arrives before any other unsavory company does...

Words: ~5700 Warnings: So…. this chapter has slightly more violence than usual, but it's nothing too dramatic. Link to Master List of Chapters on Tumblr Link to full story on Ao3

“So on a scale of running laps to cleaning the freshers with our toothbrushes, how screwed are we?”

Fives looked over his shoulder at Sevenset. His friend was sitting on the ground, leaning carefully against a dumpster in the alleyway. Fives shook his head, leaving his lookout position near the mouth of the alley to sit next to him.

“Half the planet’s security forces is on our tails,” he said, setting the blaster in the crook of his hips. “So. Not looking great. What’s the word from the commander?”

Sevenset lifted his comm and scrolled back through the conversation. “Said he’s on Coruscant, coming to get us. But he said he couldn’t leave immediately.”

“How long?” There was only so long they could hunker down in one place. They had been moving from alley to back street for an hour now, working their way toward Little Sriluur. The commander had agreed with that move.

“Didn’t say.” Sevenset clicked the comm off and leaned his head back against the wall of the building.

He looked terrible. A thin sheen of sweat was forming on his forehead and scalp. His breathing had evened out, but each breath was clearly a painful effort as the muscles tugged at the fresh wounds. Fives had taken time to examine the blaster shot and the saber wound for him, and the nasty bruise forming on his right cheek. None would kill him in the next few hours, but they were slowing him down considerably. After the initial adrenaline had worn off, he’d nearly collapsed, and Fives had to keep checking back to keep him awake. Whatever drugs were in his system still had a hold on him, although he was working through them slowly. He needed water. They both did.

Sevenset’s comm went off again. He peered at it, then answered after recognizing it. “Tumun?”

“Sevenset, I heard you and Fives were headed to Coruscant. What happened?”

How had she heard that? What was she going to do all the way on Kamino?

“A lot,” Sevenset answered, rubbing his face carefully. “Uh… Tup’s all good?”

“Tup is fine. Nero will take care of him.”

Fives let himself relax a bit upon hearing that. Good. Tup would fine, and Dogma would have his friend back. Dharma. Not Dogma anymore.

“I’m on Coruscant now, is there anything I can do?” Tumun added, and that made both of them exchange a confused look.

“Uh, what are you doing here?” Sevenset asked.

“I trust Nala Se about as much as I can kick her,” she replied. “And I just commed Sixes, and he told me you were asking for help.”

Fair points on both accounts. He leaned over. “Fives here. Any chance you could get your hands on a speeder for us, ma’am?”

“Of course. I can take you wherever is safest.”

“The Noodle Bar,” they said in accidental unison.

“In Little Sriluur,” Fives added.

“I believe my brothers have told me about this place, yes,” Tumun replied. “Where are you now?”

Fives got up and poked his head out of the alley, looking for signs or landmarks. He could see one street sign, and he knew they were on Level 10. Hopefully, that would suffice. He returned to Sevenset’s side and told Tumun as much.

“I’ll find you,” she said with certainty. “Stay on that level and near that street. I’ll contact you again when I get close.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Sevenset said, and the comm disconnected.

“Sevens,” Fives said, standing up and offering his hand. “I think tracking down Commander Death was the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

His friend breathed a weak laugh as the motion of getting to his feet pulled at his injuries. “Yeah, something like that. Don’t think he’ll be too happy to see me tonight, though.”

“He can complain all he wants once we’re safe.” Fives pulled his arm around his own shoulders as they moved down the alley away from the main thoroughfare. Fewer people back here meant it was safer for them, moving at the speed they were.

They made slow progress, dodging or destroying the occasional security probe droid. Fives was eternally grateful he’d kept hold of the blaster, or they would have been reported ages ago. Fortunately, as Sevenset had explained, those droids were so easy to destroy, it wasn’t uncommon to have to replace half of the force every week. Kids would scrap them for fun, that kind of thing. The ones Fives shot down wouldn’t be missed, and that was all that mattered.

He was still pissed they’d managed to find themselves exactly nowhere near any markets or restaurant quarter of any kind. His stomach had given up on growling hours ago, but he still felt hollow for lack of food and water. Sevenset had checked his entire kit for a spare ration bar, but had come up empty. Hopefully, they could get some food at the Noodle Bar, at the very least. Fives’ mouth started to water at the very memory of the shaak and vegetable ramen he’d had last visit.

“So,” Sevenset said. “Palpatine, huh?”

Right. They still hadn’t addressed the most alarming discovery of the most recent crisis.

“Yeah,” Fives replied, checking around the corner of the next alley before moving them along. “Not so much pal in Palpatine, I guess.”

Sevenset’s laugh tapered into a hiss of pain. “Yeah, no kidding. The lightsaber, though? You’re sure?”

Fives nodded. “I know what I saw, and I know saber wounds. Saw enough of ‘em after Umbara to recognize what you’ve got.”

His friend hummed. “So… is he a collector, or…” He trailed off, but his point was made.

Why did Chancellor Palpatine have a red lightsaber? Where could he have possibly gotten one? Perhaps with enough money, you really could buy anything? But that left the question of why unanswered still. He was the leader of the Republic, the face of the home front for the war.

“Never did trust politicians,” Sevenset mused after a spell. “He had the look about him.”

Fives frowned. “Really? A look?”

“You learn the type. You learn which ones look at you like dressed up sandwich meat holding a blaster, and which ones actually recognize your sentiency.”

He dipped his chin. “And he was the first option?”

His friend nodded. “As soon as he saw the chips, I saw something wrong.”

Fives remembered the curiosity vanishing from the chancellor’s face like smoke from a strong breeze as he’d stared at the chips. It had unsettled him, deeply, how quickly his expression had shifted. And the transitions had been flawless, too.

“Yeah, that caught my eye too,” he admitted. “Didn’t know what it meant.”

“Lucky us.”

“Reckon it’s his saber, then?” he asked, wondering how far his friend’s intuition went.

Sevenset sighed, making a vague gesture with his free hand. They paused momentarily, sheltered by a broken-down speeder until the noise of sirens faded. When they were back on the move, he said, “Part of me hopes it is.”

“Why?” Fives asked, his curiosity genuine.

“Because if he’s Sith, the Jedi are gonna kill him,” he answered. “If he’s just some politician with a saber collection…” He scoffed, holding back a grimace. “Yeah, let’s say money gets rich dickbags out of a lotta shit. Especially since the guy he attacked isn’t even classified as a person.” He gave a half-hearted smirk that faded quickly.

Fives nodded, trying to ignore the lump of dread settling in his gut. They trudged along in silence for a while longer, his mind working over the past hours’ events as best as it could. “Huh,” he said aloud when something occurred to him.

“Hm?”

“If he is Sith,” Fives said, “then I was right.” He looked at Sevenset, seeing his confusion. “No, ‘cos I said it could have been a Separatist plot. We know Dooku is Sith, and if Palpatine is working with Dooku, then it really could have been a plot all along. From before the war.”

His friend’s eyebrows rose, his tattoos stretching as they did. “Which means… the Seppies have their finger on a kill switch for the whole GAR.” There was a heavy silence. “That’s a terrifying thought.”

Fives nodded, adjusting his hold on Sevenset’s arm and torso. His head hurt, and all this heavy thinking wasn’t making it better. “Yeah, let’s leave it for later.” Sevenset’s comm offered immediate closure for the chilling conversation. Fives answered it, still holding that arm around his shoulders. “Fives here.”

“It’s Maral Tumun. I have an update.”

“Hit us with it.”

“Sixes is coming to get you. I’m working to keep the security forces distracted for a spell until you’re all at the Clubhouse.”

“Roger that, ma’am,” he replied, setting Sevenset down beside a large stack of empty crates in their current alley hideaway, then crouching next to him. “Should we stay put?”

“He’ll contact you. Stay low.”

The comm disconnected suddenly. As soon as Fives had opened his mouth to say something else, it was off again, blinking white with another incoming connection. He answered. “Commander?” he tried, hopeful.

“You two are some real Class A kark-ups sometimes," came the familiar gruff voice, utterly pissed off.

Sevenset’s face broke in a huge grin. “Commander, you flatter me. Class A?”

“Class A for Are You Karking Stupid?"

That just made Sevenset laugh, and then curl up in pain.

The commander went on. "I’m nearly at your location, stay kriffing put and be on lookout.”

“Copy that, sir,” Fives answered, and the call ended. He shook his head at Sevenset’s lingering grin. “The two of you, I swear. Oil and water.”

Sevenset tried to lean forward, then ended up beckoning Fives closer when his stomach wound protested. “Twenty credits says I’m his favorite.”

“Uh-uh,” he said. “Nope.”

“Thirty!”

“You’re not beating Elevensies in that bracket, and you know it.”

Sevenset smiled, but the expression faded as they both remembered where they’d left Elevensies. Poor kid. He’d recognized both of them when they had arrived in that room to see the chancellor. Who knew what would happen to those guards now? Their chips had been activated, and at least in Tup, once the chip had control, he hadn’t been himself until the thing was out of his head.

“We’ll figure it out,” Sevenset said, nudging Fives with his boot.

He nodded. “Yeah. Somehow.”

“You might wanna go check the street,” his friend said. “I’ll stay put, but the commander will need a visual.”

“You sure?” Fives knew Sevenset was a capable soldier, but he was also a very injured one at the moment.

“I’m fine. Go.” He wasn’t fine, and they both knew it, but there was no point in arguing.

He hesitated briefly, then stood up. As a precaution to make himself feel better, he handed Sevenset the blaster. “Yell if you need something, yeah?”

“I’m good at making noise,” Sevenset smiled crookedly, settling the blaster in his lap ready to go.

He sure was that. Fives nodded his head, then took off at a creeping jog down the alley, keeping his footsteps as quiet as he could with all the glass and trash littering the ground. His legs burned from running half the night, but he pushed the discomfort away. He propped himself up against the corner of the building to his left and crouched down, keeping himself out of the typical line of sight.

Rows of speeders and other work vehicles whizzed by along the street, the bright lights blurring slightly in his exhausted vision. Be on the look out, the commander had said. Lookout for what? He hadn’t given a color, or a model, or anything that might help him identify which of the myriad of vehicles would be his. Fives also noticed, with undisguised frustration, the number of little red dots lining the walkways, floating just over the faces in the crowds. Probes. Way too many of them.

He saw a few police speeders fly by, and a few suspiciously armed people with what definitely looked like bounty tabs in their hands. They weren’t that desperate yet, right? Please? He’d rather not deal with every lowlife in Coruscant with a blaster and half a hope for hard cash.

A new set of noises drew his weary attention down the street to his left, and he peered out around the building. Down the block, invisible down one of the side streets so far, a cloud of flashing lights approached the main drag in front of him. A black speeder—a fairly nice one, too, after a split-second once-over—hurtled around the corner, executing stunts Fives had only ever seen Skywalker attempt and pull off. He swore it looped over a stream of traffic just to land back on top of the flight lane. Whoever was flying that thing had some serious skills in the air, and the police speeders behind them had no chances in any of the hells that might exist of ever catching up.

Shit, that was probably the commander.

All-black speeder. Ridiculous piloting ability. Clear disregard for traffic regulations.

Yep.

As the black speeder tore down the street, earning a cacophony of honks and shouts and screams from everyone around it, Fives took the distraction for what it was. He burst from his hiding place and ran to the railing at the edge of the walkway. He stood there as long as he dared, one hand raised in the GAR-wide signal for help, and he hoped it was enough.

The front lights on the black speeder blinked twice.

Then, in a rush of air, it blew past him, and he stumbled back from the force with the smell of fumes in his nose. The commotion was dying down now, and so was his cover. He left the rail, heading back toward the alley where he’d left Sevenset at a clip. He hadn’t felt good about leaving his injured friend back there in the first place.

The light from the street reached almost all the way down the alley, but not quite. The buildings on either side were largely dark as well, and Fives was still blinking away phantom lights from staring down that speeder. Still. He should have seen it.

“Sevens,” he called, not all too loud, as he approached. “I think—”

His words died on his tongue at the familiar whir of a blaster powering up, priming to shoot.

He looked down slightly to find a mid-size blaster aimed at his chest. An unsettlingly muscular lurmen woman was holding it like a rifle, her tail fluffed up and her gold eyes narrowed at him.

“And that’s two for the effort of none,” came a voice from the shadows.

Fives glanced up to see a group of four people, all of them three feet tall or under, and all of them armed to the teeth. Despite the comical appearances, small weapons were just as deadly as big ones, he knew. Sevenset was pinned where he’d left him, held in place by a pistol belonging to a lannik with half his face covered in a black flame tattoo, and a surprisingly advanced metal spear held by the angriest ewok Fives had ever seen. Finally, a dug stood atop the crate that had been Sevenset’s cover, and a zilkin stood nearby holding two wicked looking vibroblades.

The dug strode over to stand beside the lurmen, grasping the blaster Fives had left with Sevenset. “You’re an awful long way from a base, clone,” he said. “Shouldn’t go wandering around where you’re not wanted. Especially with a warrant on your heads.”

“You can skip the monologue, I’m barely coherent enough to understand what you are,” Fives told him, and it was largely true.

The dug didn’t seem too pleased with that, but he did stop talking. “Fine. You’re coming with us, so get a move on.” Turning to the ewok and the lennik, he barked, “Get him on his feet!”

“Oh, just kill me now,” Sevenset grumbled as the pistol was jabbed under his jaw without care. “This is actually happening.” He struggled to his feet, wincing, but holding back any noise he might have made from pain.

In a heartbeat, the zilkin hopped on top of the ewok’s shoulders, bringing the two of them closer to Sevenset’s height to maintain the threat. The dug leveled the DC-17 blaster at Fives.

“Zari, hop on,” he ordered.

The lurmen, Zari, stowed her rifle quickly, then leapt up the wall of the building and landed heavily on Fives’ shoulders. He stumbled, but found his footing. He also found a cool blade against his throat. Noted.

“Walk with us,” the dug ordered. “Thatch, Yuan, let’s move.”

The ewok and the lannik prodded Sevenset forward. So they walked. This was utterly humiliating. He’d honestly prefer getting run over by an old lady in her speeder at this point, and he had a suspicion Sevenset felt the same way.

“So what are you guys?” Sevenset asked. “The Pipsqueaks? The Shortstacks?”

“Shut it!” Yuan barked, jabbing his pistol into the gap above his thigh plate.

“Oh, oh, oh, I got it,” Sevenset went on. “The Little Leaguers?”

Fives suppressed his snicker, but not well enough, it seemed. Zari’s blade dug into his throat and it twinged. His humor faded when the ewok Thatch jabbed his spear at the blackened stripe cut into Sevenset’s armor, and Sevenset gave a muffled yelp of pain.

Any time the commander wanted to show up would be fantastic.

They were poked and prodded back down the alley, then slowly through the winding back streets between building blocks. He wanted to talk to Sevenset, to check in or something, but they were far enough apart that hand signs wouldn’t be effective, and they clearly weren’t allowed to speak to each other.

“Alright, get ‘em inside.” The dug hopped up a set of ledges on the side of a building. There was a door in the wall about half the normal height, and the zilkin hopped down from the ewok’s shoulders to unlock the door.

A red blaster bolt tore through the grey night and hit the dug full in the chest, and he toppled off his perch to the ground. Instantly, there was a scramble for cover.

Zari’s tail wrapped around his throat as she dropped from his shoulders to cling to his back, using her momentum to turn them both toward the threat to use him as a meat shield. Great. Her rifle reappeared at his right shoulder, and she returned fire. Fives still hadn’t gotten a look at who was attacking them, and he wasn’t getting one any time soon.

This was stupid. He was a kriffing ARC trooper, and a three-foot lady with a tail was holding him hostage? Not if he could help it.

He dropped to the ground, landing heavily on his back and hearing Zari yelp as her breath was pushed out of her. Quickly unwrapping her long tail from around his neck, he rolled off of her and shot his leg out, kicking her away from him. She was smart enough to read the situation and high-tailed it (literally) up the side of the building across the alley, disappearing into the night.

Fives crawled to the doorway the zilkin had been standing in, grabbing his blaster back from the dead dug nearby.

Sevenset had managed to flatten himself against the opposite wall, also sitting, and now holding the pistol Fives had last seen in the lannik’s hands. The lennik wasn’t using it where he lay sprawled out on the ground between them.

With two members down and a third nowhere to be seen, the zilkin didn’t stick around long enough to find out his own fate. He turned and ran as fast as his legs could go, vanishing around the corner of yet another sidestreet. Coruscant was a kriffing maze sometimes.

Now he could hear voices. They weren’t speaking Basic, and Fives didn’t recognize the language. Probably more hunters. Just his luck. Where in hell was the commander?

A quiet clink made him look to the open ground between himself and Sevenset. A small, round device with one blinking red dot rolled in a small circle. Fives’ brain knew it was bad, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what the damn thing was.

“Cover!” he yelled.

At the same time, Sevenset yelled, “Flash!”

Too late, both of them.

A loud pop was accompanied by a massive flash of white light that seared through Fives’ vision in less than a second, long before his body remembered to close his eyes. The world in front of his eyes was bright red and pink, with white shapes swimming and morphing between the colors. He heard a clatter of boots or running footsteps, and he tried curling himself up in a ball while his vision recovered, but it was no use.

Hands grabbed at him, wrenching the blaster away. He swung out where he hoped a body would be attached to a pair of hands on his arm, and he made someone grunt, but nothing else. All he got was an explosion of pain across his jaw for his efforts. Great, now his head was pounding and he still could barely see. And he could taste blood inside his mouth. A cry of pain made him turn.

“Sevens!” He strained against the hands at his shoulders and arms. He could see blurry shapes now, and Sevenset’s patches of white armor were helping him reorient himself in the alley. “Let us go! Get your hands–” A gut punch from a figure he hadn’t seen coming halted his protests. Even with the flexible armor around his middle, it still forced the breath from his lungs and made him wheeze.

At least these attackers were average sized…

Whoever was holding him made him walk forward, shoving him together with Sevenset. A sharp prod from the muzzle of a pistol at the back of his neck kept him from making any sudden moves.

Fives could finally see well enough to know their newest kidnappers were bith, and about six strong. They wore typical rag-tag armor and gear of cheap bounty hunters and low-life criminals. Two of them were having a conversation in front of them, their gear slightly nicer quality, and the rest were either holding onto him and Sevenset, or training blasters on them. Fantastic.

“S’th’ commander coming?” Sevenset breathed. He was swaying slightly on his feet and had a new growing bruise around his nose. One of his piercings there was bleeding sluggishly where someone must have hit him during the struggle.

“He saw me,” Fives said, bumping their elbows together. His arm was jerked back painfully for it.

The two conversing appeared to agree on something, and ordered the four others. Fives and Sevenset were pushed forward into walking, Sevenset biting his lip to stifle a gasp as he lurched forward. Kriffing hell, he must be in a world of pain. Why the hell was he doing this? He could have stayed on Kamino—he should have stayed on Kamino—and now here he was.

At least the guilt made Fives’ headache feel less important.

Their march was cut short by a series of binary blips and chirps coming from around the corner ahead of them. The pair holding onto the two of them pulled them up short, and the other four, the two leaders and the two gunners, crept forward to investigate.

A droid rolled around the corner, and Sevenset and Fives grinned.

It was Remy, Commander Sixes’ all-black R-series astromech piloting droid, and they were no doubt about to make these bith regret several decisions they’d made in their lives. Mainly, the decision to live them.

Remy spun their dome almost casually. One of the leaders walked over and kicked Remy’s leg, saying something to them that wouldn’t sound polite in any language. Remy’s dome stopped spinning, their green visual receptor light focused on that man.

What looked like water began leaking out of Remy’s undercarriage to pool around the leader’s feet, but Fives had lived with R2 long enough to know jet fuel when he saw it. A flamethrower erupted from Remy’s midsection, hitting the bith’s knees, and then Remy rose into the air on their jets, lighting the puddle of fuel and dragging the flames up the man’s entire body. Holy shit. The man screamed in agony, dropping to his knees from the pain, desperately trying to pat the flames out, but it wouldn’t work. Fuel fires would only go out with water or anti-flame foam, and neither was available here.

The three bith not holding their prisoners opened fire on the droid, now flying directly at the gunner on the right side of the alley. They rammed into him, a spark of electricity arcing as they backed away, leaving the gunner a twitching wreck, barely able to stand, let alone hold his gun. Just when Fives was content to continue watching Remy absolutely demolish these idiots, a flash of steel in the firelight brought his gaze back to the burning man in mouth of the alley before them. The agonized screaming had stopped abruptly, and the reason was clear.

Commander Death’s black armor shone in the fire at his boots, the polished beskar alloy of his scythe Reaper glinting as it moved. His green visor looked unreal in the orange glow and among the red flashes as the gunners fired at Remy. He wrenched his scythe blade out of the man’s back, then stepped over him as he fell to slam the butt of the shaft into the other leader’s midsection, then whipped it up into his chin with a crack. He stepped again, swinging his weapon around fluidly to bury the blade in the bith’s back with a sick crunch of ribs. The motion didn’t stop there.

The commander kept moving, kept the momentum of the swing going to carry enough leverage to pivot and hurl the body at the end of the scythe at the gunner Remy hadn’t shocked into uselessness yet. The man went down under the weight of the body, and Remy was more than happy (probably) to fly over to finish them off. Fives couldn’t see how the droid accomplished this, but he did hear the gunner’s protests quickly cut off.

Commander Death paused about six feet from them, sizing up the two bith left, each with a pistol jammed at the backs of Fives and Sevenset’s necks. Sevenset had the biggest smile on his face, despite the imminent threat of death, and Fives couldn’t fault him for enjoying the show.

The man holding Fives said something sharply in his own language. Remy chirped what must have been a translation to their commander.

The commander tilted his helmet slightly to one side. “You don’t seem to understand that you’re not getting out of here alive,” he said in reply, his voice as steady and gruff as it always was, now used in an undisguised threat. He tipped his chin ever so slightly, some signal to his droid.

Remy whirred, rising into the air over the two dead gang members. They tried hauling the two of them back, desperate not to get flanked by a murderous droid. Sevenset collapsed at the knees, and for a split second, Fives thought he’d missed a blaster shot that had hit him again. But no. Same smile. For the second time that evening, Fives followed his lead, letting himself go limp while the men tried dragging them away.

It worked. As the two bith struggled to drag them a way, Remy flew up and over their heads, landing behind them with an ominous tone. Fives chanced a look over his shoulder and saw a knife glinting in one of their mechanical arms. Where had they gotten a knife?

In the second of panic this caused, Commander Death, who had been creeping closer as they had been falling back, lunged forward. “Stay down!” he ordered, and Fives and Sevenset needed no further instruction.

They hit the ground, slipping from their captors’ hands. Fives saw the commander’s boots braced in a wide stance between them, then there was a sick sort of crunch sound, and two thuds following it. Then there was quiet.

The flames still crackled a bit where the fire ate away at the corpse it had created. The noises from the main drag filtered through the smaller alleyways toward them. Fives’ heart thudded in his chest and ears.

The end of Reaper’s shaft struck the deck, breaking the calm. Fives uncurled and hauled himself to his feet, still a little unsteady from whatever drugs were left in his system. The commander nodded at him, already collapsing Reaper’s shaft into its more portable size, then he tossed it to Remy, who caught it in a pair of pincers. Fives instinctively took a step back when one of the bith’s heads rolled toward him slightly.

“That was the coolest thing I have ever seen,” Sevenset said, still on the ground. He looked paler, the shine of sweat was more pronounced on his face, and his voice shook slightly. But he couldn’t keep a grin off his face, even if it was a little lopsided and bloody.

“Kriffing hells,” the commander growled, crouching down to him. “No one said anything about one of you being injured,” he said harshly, glancing over his shoulder at Fives.

“S’not that bad,” Sevenset insisted. He tried sitting up and literally squeaked, shutting his mouth so fast to cover a whine of pain, his teeth actually clacked together. He collapsed back to the deck.

“Shut up,” the commander barked at him, grabbing him under his arms to pull him upright, then wrapping an arm around under his shoulder to haul him to his feet. “Maker’s hands, what the hell happened to you?”

“Look, we said Palpatine was evil, okay?” Sevenset reminded him, his voice and legs still shaky. “Also drugs.”

“We’ll explain everything once we’re not dodging bounties left and right, sir,” Fives said when the commander’s green visor fixed on him for an explanation. He brushed fingers over his jaw and flinching when it hurt. “Ow.”

“Follow me,” came the blunt order. “Quickly.”

They followed Remy back through the small streets for a few minutes. At some point, when Sevenset couldn’t keep up with the commander’s long strides, he ended up laid across his shoulders instead. It was faster, true, but Fives grimaced each time he saw his friend’s face contort when his stomach wound was jostled.

Finally, they arrived on a side street a little ways up the block from where Fives had first seen the black speeder. It waited for them on the walkway, and Fives was honestly impressed it wasn’t swarming with probe droids right now. Clearly, he'd thought too soon when one whirred into proximity, its red visual receptor scanning over the speeder. But as soon as it got within a foot of the vehicle, a bright wave of crackling electricity ran over its shape, frying the probe in seconds. The droid fell out of the sky.

Huh.

“Remy, start her up,” the commander ordered like nothing had happened, bending down to let Sevenset back on his feet. He kept a hand wrapped tightly around his upper arm, however, balancing Sevenset as best as he could. “Fives, get in the back, help me get him inside.”

Fives did. He crawled to the far side of the speeder and helped his friend inside while the commander rounded the nose of the vehicle to the driver’s seat. Remy’s dome was visible  in the nose of the speeder, and the craft was already humming and ready to go.

“Buckle in,” the commander told them. “I mean it.”

Fives had no trouble believing he did. After clicking Sevenset’s seatbelt in place, he fastened his own as the speeder rose off the ground and flew into the flight lane beside it.

“How did you get that injured?” the commander demanded. Force, he sounded pissed.

“Got shot,” Sevenset answered, only a bit impudent. His eyes suddenly flew open from where they had been squinted in pain. “Wait! Elevensies! We gotta–he’s not–what if they do something to those guys?”

Commander Death looked over his shoulder at them briefly before turning back to the flight lane. “What happened to Elevensies?”

Fives held up a hand to stop Sevenset from spilling everything out of order. “Long story short,” he said, “we were brought to the Chancellor to explain what we did on Kamino—which we will also explain later—and then he ordered some Guards to kill us, and one of them was Elevensies.”

“Also he has a lightsaber!” Sevenset added, throwing his hands up. “Because why not! A red kriffing lightsaber!”

“Where’s Elevens?”

Sevenset rubbed his face—or started to, then remembered he’d gotten punched there and stopped. “I knocked him out, he’s still in that room where we met the Chancellor. Or he was. I dunno what happened to him!”

They all lurched to one side as the commander took a corner particularly viciously. “Worry about not dying, Sevens,” he said gruffly. “I can tell Thire to look out for the kid.”

That seemed to take the fight out of Sevenset. He leaned back in the seat, winced, then leaned to one side instead. “Copy that, sir.”

Fives reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it firmly. “We made it out, though,” he said, trying to smile, and finding it still hurt. “Nala Se can’t make us disappear out here, can she?”

His friend smiled back, exhausted. “Hope she chokes on a toothpick,” he said, squeezing his hand in return.

“Her and Palpatine,” Fives added, catching a glimpse of the Senate Dome out the window as they sped by.

He could see Sevenset’s eyes drooping. They were both dead tired—had been for ages now, but once again, Fives couldn’t find it in himself to sleep. He knew the commander would get them safely to the Clubhouse, and he knew Sevenset wouldn’t keel over in the few minutes the flight would take. But still. His empty stomach felt like two undersuits left in the laundry that had twisted together during the spin cycle.

The Chancellor of the Republic might be working for the Separatists.

Who would even believe them?

And now.... the big brain time begins... Special shout out to @23-bears for coming up with the idea of a gang of criminals all measuring under 4ft tall, that was hilarious. See y'all in June! @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer @rndmpeep @gaeasun @soclonely bc i think you'll enjoy the Shortstacks lol

[jgvfhl]

From list 2 for all the Lads!

🍩: What's a crime your OC is most likely to commit? What's a crime they're most likely to get arrested for?

Commit a crime? Uh... I get jokes that I'm illegally cute. I also think petty theft is definitely a crime. But I'm in the Guard so no one's gonna tell :) -Elevensies

Crime? Girlbossing too close to the sun. Arrested for? Being fabulous 💅 -Do-si-do

..... jaywalking????? -Trees

I worry I'll accidentally put something in my pocket in a store and walk out with it 🥺 But I know I can't get arrested for that... I'd probably get wrongfully arrested at someone else's burglary attempt -Fours

Uhhhh what have we been arrested for? Drunk and disorderly, a few noise complaints? Property damage. Oh yes property damages... But most likely to commit? Lying under oath. Assaulting an officer -Fives and Echo

Most likely to commit? Aggravated assault. Arrested for? Nothing they can prove -Sixes

I commit crimes daily according to Commander Colt. But! Probably tresspassing... Definitely getting arrested for being a public nuisance tho -Sevenset

Tax fraud on both accounts -Loops

Tax fraud but they wouldn't catch me -Nines

Number-versary Ask Game!

[jgvfhl]

A little out of order, but here are days 24, 25, and 26 😌🌟 @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @mercurydancer

Bacara sucks at remembering his Marines' names, but he does remember everyone's skill levels to a slightly unnerving accuracy.

Maral is doing her duty as a Big Sis I mean Trainer to make sure Sixes and Nero's skills are up to par (not quite yet).

And uhh.... Fives should not have fallen asleep around Sevens and Do-si-do 😋

[jgvfhl]

Okay I technically finished this on time for the prompt list but it was very late at night and I didn't want to post it then. Anyway. This was hilariously fun for no good reason lol.

Sevenset forgot to specify which 70s was the theme for his "70s Halloween Party," and Loops and Sixes are not amused by this miscommunication. Do-si-do thinks it's hilarious, tho 😋 @23-bears @theultimatesandwich @darth-void @nintendolover13 @mercurydancer @bazingabacca @darth-mendax

[jgvfhl]

Listen I am gonna do all the OC-tober prompts. I will!!! But like. Probably not day by day. ANYWAY here's Sixes and Nero sparring, @23-bears I tried my best to make it look right, but you're the expert here lol. And then of course the beginning of the Number Lads was Do-si-do and Sevenset meeting at 79s one night on Coruscant.

[jgvfhl]

🍟: What does your OC admit to be their guilty pleasure? What actually is their guilty pleasure? for Sixes from OC questions 2!

This is a loaded question -Sixes

HE ONLY LAUGHS AT BANANA JOKES -Sevenset

I admitted to that

BARELY

Does survivor's guilt count as a guilty pleasure?

COMMANDER

Number-versary Ask Game!

[jgvfhl]

*arrives late with the past two days of OC-tober but not today's prompt* Life has been busy lol. Anyway. Uhhhh Elevensies has never seen a butterfly (or SW equivalent) and it is his dream to hold one 🦋

[jgvfhl]

I promise I'm still doing OC-tober I just have a sucky motivational system called Exec Dysfunction ANYWAYSSSS

Fours is bein sneaky sneaky and Sevenset is being ~traumatized~ by the zillo beast attack :)

[jgvfhl]

Sevenset is perfectly fine idk what you're talking about he doesn't have any lasting issues from the zillo beast attack not at all--

[jgvfhl]

Sevenset's favorite parts of ARC training were making new friends and obstacle courses.