Star Wars Ficlets

Brothers

            Rex launched himself over the edge of the trench, landing on his feet next to Ahsoka. Feet slipping on the ice of Rhen Var, his back slammed into the wall of the trench. Rex accepted his fate, placing one of his pistols on the ground and freeing a hand to disengage the vacuum seal of his helmet and remove it.

            “Seriously, they’re still firing?” Ahsoka commented, pointing up at the blaster bolts racing over them. Rex took a moment to glance up before nodding, still attempting to get his breath back so he could speak.

            “Used to be we could actually hit a target,” he stated quietly. A rocket screamed overhead and fell just on the other side of the trench, shaking the pair through the ice. “And not waste plasma. Are we sure these guys are even clones?”

            “They’re in Phase II armor, so I’ll take a wild guess and say yes.” Rex quickly risked a peek over the edge of the trench. A bolt nearly grazed the top of his head, making him jerk and slip on the ice again, unceremoniously dropped back down to sit. “Well?”

            “I can smell ozone and I have a strange feeling my hair is singed,” Rex reported with a joking smile. During the slight reprieve they had gained, the former captain checked the energy level on his pistols and found them nearly depleted. “Is there a weapons cache anywhere near us?”

            Ahsoka shook her head. “Couldn’t tell you. We’re the furthest out, so I’m assuming no.”

            “Great, ‘cause I’m almost out.” Ahsoka just smirked and held up her lightsabers. “Shut up, you’re technically not even supposed to have those.”

            “Don’t care.”

            Neither of them spoke for what must have been seconds, but felt like a lifetime.

            “I’m still wondering if these men are my brothers,” Rex finally said. Before he even finished the sentence, Ahsoka let out a loud sigh and leaned over onto him, letting her bodyweight push him down sideways on the ice.

            “If you wanna frickin’ know who they are then get your stupid head up there and take a shot at a helmet,” she mumbled.

            “Then get off me,” Rex replied. Without giving her the chance to move, he wiggled out from underneath her and scrambled to his feet, pulling his DC-15 rifle from his back.

            If these men were his brothers, he didn’t want to take the shot. But he wouldn’t know until one a helmet came off. Even five years after the end of the Clone War, and five years after his brothers became storm troopers and Vader’s Fist, he couldn’t bear the thought of killing one of them. After the one battle in which he’d shot down fellow troopers, it made him sick.

            As Rex took aim on one of his brothers—for neither the first or last time—he had to swallow the bile gathering in the back of his mouth. Before he pulled the trigger, he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the helmet come flying off and reveal someone he knew.

            He hadn’t remembered he was fighting the 501st, Vader’s Fist.

            He hadn’t even paid attention to the markings on the armor.

            He hadn’t taken the time to notice the red cross on the shoulder bell.

            Before Ahsoka’s sharp intake of air broke through his thoughts, he didn’t really care who he hit.

            But when Rex looked up, he only saw the intricately tattooed head, Aurebesh symbols on the left temple reading “A good droid is a dead one.”

            The medic who had saved his life on more than one occasion fell to the ice, helmet flying behind him with the hole in the plastoid still glowing with embers.

            “Kix,” was all Rex could say before Ahsoka was pulling him down into the trench, holding his head in her hands and trying to break through the cloud of grief that settled over him. His ears rang, tears streamed down his cheeks, a wordless scream escaped his lips. The only thing keeping him grounded was Ahsoka’s whispered words as she held him.

            He was fighting his brothers.

            He had killed his brothers.

        And it hurt more than the fall of the Republic.