Alternate Start (ARCHIVE)

Chapter Sixty: Time's... not up?

-1 Day until War End
Wait what—

Yesterday, General Sunna was more tense than a feral tooka cornered by trappers.

Today, he's pacing a hold in the floor of the bridge, and Sparkler was sure that if he could sweat, he would be.

"Sir is something wrong?"

"The war was supposed to end yesterday." Kaar said hurriedly, in a low whisper. "The war was supposed to end yesterday, I've fucked everything up! It wasn't supposed to carry on this long! Order 66 was supposed to be issued yesterday but it wasn't."

Oh. That would certainly explain it.

"Well, I mean isn't that a good thing?"

"No, it's not! I have no idea what to expect from here on out and we can't do anything to Sidious until he fucking gives us some evidence! The best we have right now is Dooku's vague words from right before the war kriffing started, that were only told to Obi-wan! So yes, Sparkler, I'm a little stressed, why aren't you?!"

"I'm just better at hiding it sir." Sparkler shrugged. He grabbed Kaar's tail on the next pass. It was slowly returning to it's original length. The General stopped in his tracks and let out a resigned sigh. "Go see DB, sir." Sparkler ordered softly.

He watched as the distraught Kaleesh slowly exited the bridge. "Ladybird, you're in charge for the moment. I need to go check on the ade."

"You got it sir."

Walking along the halls of the venator, Sparkler briefly wondered how he'd find the wayward cadets. He ambled into his room, debating swapping into his beskar'gam. He sighed, settling on keeping his ARC attachments — His pauldron and his kama, namely — but swapping out most of his plastoid for his beskar'gam.

He couldn't wait for the specialty team to get here.

—
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—

Boba smirked to himself as he watched the five year old chase the laser dot. Domino squad — not all of Krayt, just Domino — were watching the little womp rat, so they were here too. Desnuri dropped to all fours and pounced on the dot, eyes tracking it as he trailed it up some crates. To his shock, she physically started to scale the large crate, digging in her claws.

"Impressive little womp rat, huh Din'ika?" Boba asked, glancing at his vod'ika. Din nodded, taking a bite of his ration bar. Din was quiet, but Boba didn't mind. He liked his little brother.

(Boba tried not to think about how every clone was his little brother literal age wise — so he effectively had millions of them — very often. It was confusing even to him on occasion.)

They looked up as the bay doors opened, and a ship came in. Boba led Desnuri back up next to him and passed her the soft stick of jerky he had in his bag. She bit into it cheerfully after taking in some deep breaths. Four clones stepped out, all looked rather abnormal.

Droidbait slowly approached, as the lead clone removed his helmet. "I see we have an audience." He hummed, gesturing to Boba, Din, and Desnuri. He extended a hand. "I'm Hunter. This is Wrecker, Tech, and Crosshair."

Droidbait nodded. "We're Domino Squad. This is Echo, Hevy, and Cutup. I'm their Sargent, Droidbait."

A laugh cut through the introductions. The sniper, Crosshair, removed his helmet and flicked a toothpick at Droidbait with a condescending sneer on his face. "We don't usually work with regs. Especially ones with a name as unfortunate as yours."

Hunter raised an eyebrow, then turned to face Droidbait. "So, where's the Jetii for the operation?"

Boba nudged Desnuri forward and she set down her jerky. The youngling hopped down and wandered over, hiding slightly behind Droidbait's leg. "Right here. Cade— I mean, Youngling Sheelal is the only connection we've got to the lost troopers."

Crosshair crouched down, once again saying something rude in the form of this gem, "Seems like this'll be a lost cause then."
Unluckily for Crosshair, he had decided to pat Desnuri's head at the same moment he said it. In a split second her hackles raised, the flexible plates separating as they stood up. He yelled out some choice curse words as she lunged, sinking her teeth and claws deep into his hand, kicking up a foot and leaving deep scores along his vambrace as Echo started to try and pry the pissed off youngling from Crosshair's hand.

Crosshair's hand was dripping blood by the time they'd pried Desnuri off. The youngling too had blood running down her chin and staining her clothes. Echo was thankful that Tehyfa had the foresight to make Desnuri a little kute to wear under her Jetii robes. Boba snapped back to attention as he realized he had missed Droidbait giving Hunter and the rest a sitrep.

Crosshair, hand dripping with blood and armor scored, had apparently decided it was a good idea to make another ill-advised comment. "Sounds to me like your batchmate's beyond saving. He's probably already killed a hundred brothers without remorse. What makes you so special Droidbait?"

In moments Crosshair was flat on his back, nose bleeding that same crimson shade as his hand. Cutup and Hevy were holding Droidbait back as he sucked in deep, enraged breaths. His lips were twisted in a snarl and his nose was scrunched. "Don't you ever talk about my batchmate like that!" Droidbait hissed, voice full of venom.

"What is going on here?!"

They all looked over at an exasperated, booming voice. In storms the General. Boba snickered to himself, leaning closer to Din. "This oughta be good."

"Sargent Hunter, thank you for joining us. Now, I'd like to know why one of your men is dripping with blood and why the youngling's chin is stained crimson."

Droidbait immediately softened. He sighed, "I'm sorry, cyare, I just... I let my emotions get to me."

Kaar lightly ruffled Droidbait's hair, and Boba feigned gagging at the sappy display, which got a giggle out of Din.

"It's fine, just don't let it happen again. Sargent, you're welcome to take one of the quarters for yourself." His eyes flicked to Crosshair as Tech helped him up, "And have a talk with your men. I don't need him hitting a nerve with one of the Mandalorians. Echo? Get the youngling cleaned up."

He looked over at Boba. "Boba! Din! Bring Crosshair to medbay, have Guilttrip take a look at him."

"Aw man..." Boba mumbled.

•—END OF CHAPTER—•