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Echo was the first to go. It had been sudden.
He’d lent forwards, clutched at the cybernetics in his chest, gasped, and died.
The others had rushed forwards, but there had been nothing that they could do. “The cybernetics failed,” muttered Tech, his eyes dimmed with grief. “Should have seen it coming.”
“He’s with his brothers now.” Hunter picked up Echo’s body and cradled it next to his chest.
They buried him in the backyard of the small planet they had settled on after the fall of the Empire.
“How long do you think we have left?” Tech asked
Hunter frowned.
“All the rest of the clones died with the fall of the Empire. We age quicker. How much longer do we have left?” Tech repeated.
“Does it matter?” Crosshair bit out.
“No. No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Tech looked down at Echo’s grave. “He wasn’t much older than us.”
Tech dropped down on the freshly dug dirt and the others sat down next to him. They stood vigil over Echo’s grave for the rest of the night.
Soon after, it had been Wrecker. He had died much the same way Echo had. Omega had been with them. She said that she'd sensed it in the Force, or rather, that she sensed that something had been wrong with them.
They'd thought that she'd just felt Echo die- they hadn't expected.
And despite Echo not being from their batch, they had viewed him as one of their Vode. It had hurt. His things had still sat, nobody having the heart to scrap his specialist armour or any of his belongings. They had buried a picture that Echo had kept of his original batch with him, an Echo they didn't recognise with identical clones.
Tech could remember, not long after Echo had joined, him pointing to each identical face and telling stories about his Vode, pausing when he got to Fives. That grief was like a fresh wound for him. Tech wasn't certain that he'd ever gotten over it.
Hunter had listened to the pair (after all, the walls were thin in the Havoc Marauder) and tried to imagine the loss that the Reg felt. He couldn't imagine losing all of his batch one by one. Couldn't imagine how Echo could get over it and be easygoing and smile. And now? Hunter had watched two of his batch die and knew, in the way he always did, that it wouldn't take long for the rest of them to follow.
As he looked at Omega, crying over Wrecker, he felt the same urge to protect her from all the world's hardships that he had since he'd met the young child on Kamino. She looked at them all after they buried Wrecker, one after one, grief heavy in eyes that Hunter would always see as young, and he knew it was written in the Force.
It wasn't going to be long.
How could he protect her from this? He couldn't. It was written in the force.
She'd wanted to stay, but Hunter had made her go. She had a life, a dedication to the newly refounded Jedi. He couldn't make her waste it for them.
A disease had come for Tech, dulling his brilliant mind until Hunter wasn't sure if he was looking at the same man anymore. He was the youngest, his littlest Vod'ika, but Hunter knew that he was going to be the next to go. He'd never believed much in the Force, even after he'd watched Omega train under Ahsoka, a Jedi that Echo vouched for. Even after he'd watched all that she could do. Hunter had never believed in Force ghosts, but now, for his brother's sake, he hoped they were real. It was the only way to deal with the grief.
On the morning that Tech had woken up blind, Hunter had cried. He’d run deep into the woods and cried, sinking into the floor. He just couldn’t look at Tech knowing that he’d never look back, never see Crosshair or himself again.
It wouldn't take long.
It wouldn’t be long until he rested in the ground with Echo and Wrecker.
He knew it deep in his mind. Felt it deep in his bones. It wouldn’t be long. It wouldn’t be long till Tech passed.
For more than the first time, Hunter wondered if he was Force-sensitive. It didn't matter. He couldn't do anything. He couldn’t save his brother. He couldn’t save Echo. He couldn’t save any of them. He could feel the way they got weaker up until they-
He choked. He didn’t want to say it.
Crosshair had found Hunter in the woods a few hours later. He'd sat down next to him, frowning at the leaf litter that clung to his legs. He'd held Hunter as he'd sobbed into Crosshair's arms.
"It's not fair." Hunter felt like a child again. He hadn't cried when they'd lost Echo, not even when they'd buried Wrecker, but Tech losing his sight was the straw that had broken him. He couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t fair.
Months of grief spilt out in an immature tantrum."He's our littlest Vod'ika. It's not fair." Hunter repeated himself. “It’s not fair. He should be the last. I don’t want-”
Crosshair hummed and ran his fingers through Hunter's greying hair. "I'm supposed to protect him, but I can't." Hunter wept. "That disease is going to take him."
"Tech said that him going blind wasn't related to that." Crosshair spoke slowly, rubbing circles on Hunter’s back, calming him. “His vision has never been the best. He was going to lose his sight eventually."
"I know. I know." Hunter wiped at his eyes furiously. "You shouldn't have left him alone."
"I shouldn't leave you alone." Crosshair rose to his feet. "You matter, too." He held out his arm to Hunter. Hunter smiled softly and took it. "If it's any consolation after he calmed down, he took it quite well. Better than you."
"I ran off." Hunter scowled. "I'm supposed to protect you all. What a great job I'm doing."
"You can't protect us from our biology," Crosshair answered.
"But I should. He's going to die." Hunter stood and lent into Crosshair's arms. "I'm supposed to protect you all from that. You’re not all supposed to die."
Crosshair tilted his brother's head up towards him. "Let's just be there for the time he has left. Tech says it's a brain disease, likely a result of his enhancement."
Hunter shook his head. Crosshair continued. "If there was something to be done, Tech would have told us.”
Pulling away from Crosshair, Hunter nodded. "I'm sorry." He wiped his eyes.
"No need. What are brothers for?" Crosshair dragged Hunter back to their little cottage in the woods where two graves sat, freshly dug. All that Hunter could see was the third, waiting for their youngest. It wouldn't take long, whispered that sick sense that he always had. Not long at all.
Over the next few months, Tech got sicker and sicker and more and more confused. He asked the same questions over and over.
“Why can’t I see?”
“You’ve lost your vision.”
“Where are the others?”
Telling him they were dead, Hunter and Crosshair had discovered quickly, led to a confused, desperate aggression that left Tech exhausted. They’d swapped to telling him that they were simply out of the room, joking that Echo and Wrecker had bonded over a fear of the med-bay, and were hiding far away. They were in a way. Hunter and Crosshair bottled their grief for their youngest brother. It was all that they could do for him
“Ah. Why haven't they disposed of me yet?”
“They can’t. We won’t let them.” Tech shot them a look when they said that, a pure look of disbelief. “Doesn’t sound like the Kaminoans.” he'd answer.
Then he’d drift off into silence, wait an hour or so, and repeat the same questions again.
But that was nothing compared to when he drifted off into silence, trapped somewhere between asleep and awake. He grew cold, almost like he was dead alive.
It was so quiet. There was nothing to listen to apart from their Vod’ika’s breath getting shallower and shallower, and sometimes pausing all together
Crosshair and Hunter dropped into an uneasy vigil, speaking about nothing to fill the silence.
They couldn’t remember a time when it had been this quiet. From when they had been young cadets, their environment had always been filled with noise, from Wrecker’s noisy boasts to Tech’s chatter, or later, Echo’s dry wit commenting on anything that made his lips turn into a soft smile. Omega had been a whirlwind of constant energy. However, she was alive and safe. They’d both agreed it wasn’t fair to drag her away, to watch them die one by one. It wouldn’t be fair for that to haunt her till the day she died. If something was wrong, if they needed her, Omega would feel it in the Force, Hunter had been sure.
Tech had taken his last breath in Hunter’s arms while Crosshair had been away. A tear had run down his eye and landed on Tech’s face. It was just Crosshair and himself now. All alone. Hunter cradled Tech’s body in his, and gently closed his eyes. It would be the last embrace he would share with his brother.
He ran his fingers across his face, memorising it, and clung to his Vod’ika until Crosshair walked in.
His sharp eyes darted from Hunter’s to the way that he held Tech against himself, and he knew without having to ask.
Hunter rose and passed Tech’s body to Crosshair gently. Crosshair sank to the floor with Tech in his arms and brushed his hair away from his eyes. He cradled him gently. “Nuhoy pirusti vod’ika.” He placed his lips to Tech’s forehead. “Akay mhi urcir tug’yc o’r haar Force.”
Hunter and Crosshair grew inseparable as the months passed on. They were the last two. All they had left was each other. They waited silently for an age-related ailment to snatch one of them away from the other. They clung to each other, feeling that all it would take was one look away, one glance, and the other would be gone.
They didn’t speak about the others, didn’t remove their things away from the cluttered sleeping area, almost trying to ignore it. Hunter’s advanced senses allowed him to smell as the scents of his family left the room, Crosshair’s and his own overpowering the others. Echo had gone long ago, his scent not even present in his clothing, and Wrecker’s hadn’t taken long to follow. Tech’s scent was everywhere, but it was fading, and if Hunter listened carefully, he could hear the bugs eating away at his body in the ground, eating him till there was nothing left. Nothing left but his bones and clothing. Nothing of Echo but rust. Nothing of Wrecker but bones and Lula.
He buried his head into Crosshair’s chest, trying to drown out the scents as they faded, trying to block out the sound of the maggots and worms and other countless insects eating his brothers. He wanted to scream. His senses were nothing but a curse. Nothing.
Crosshair simply brushed his fingers through his hair rather than pushing him away. Grief had mellowed Crosshair out until he could be content with his brother clinging to him. Hunter guessed that Crosshair was scared that if he pushed him away, he’d never pull him close again. Crosshair hadn’t been there when Tech had died and Hunter knew it played on his mind. They hadn’t been able to look at each other when they’d placed his body in the dirt. Their littlest Vod’ika and they’d failed him.
It was so quiet now. They were alone.
The seasons changed a full rotation, life letting them live. Hunter wanted the sick game of Russian Roulette to end. He just wanted to die and get it over with. He didn’t want Crosshair to be left alone.
The helmets had rusted in the cold winter months, not designed for sitting outside in all weathers. They sat as crude gravestones. They had nothing to make real ones with. Hunter tapped his fingers against his own. How long until he sat under his own helmet, he wondered. Or would he be the last one, body dragged away by predators, never laid to rest with his brothers?
When he wished that fate on Crosshair, he felt sick. Crosshair had been ripped away from his batch for long enough. He deserved to lie with them in death at least.
The worst thing he could imagine was if Omega came and found one of them rotting on the floor. It would traumatise her. As selfish as it seemed, he knew she could deal with Crosshair’s body, but he wasn’t sure about his own. She had always looked to him as invincible. He didn’t feel it anymore. He could feel weakness setting deep into his bones.
What would she think if she walked in and she saw what he could hear so clearly underground? He didn’t wish it on her. It was bad enough to just listen. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see.
Hunter startled from his sleep, eyes blown wide. Something was watching them. He woke Crosshair. Danger, his mind screamed. They were in danger. He slipped his armour on as quickly as his frail form would allow him. “There’s something watching us,” he mumbled. He spoke clearer, slipping into a role that he had thought long forgotten. "Something dangerous."
Crosshair grabbed his rifle. “What?”
“Not sure.” He sniffed the air. “Something familiar. Not animal.”
"What do you want us to do?"
"Can you see it?" Hunter inhaled, "human I think. Over there."
He pointed deep into the undergrowth.
Crosshair shook his head, "Hunt or defend."
"Defend. They have to come into the clearing."
Leaning against the porch, Crosshair stared to where Hunter had gestured, waiting for their stalker to make a move. Hunter kept his senses trained into the woods. He had a bad feeling. A really bad feeling.
Suddenly Crosshair fired. "Clipped him. He's making a move."
The figure moved out of the woods towards them, not seeming to notice the way that blood dripped down from his arm. Hunter fired round after round into the woods. He growled in frustration. His age was making his reflexes slower than they should be.
It was a clone. Old rusted armour clung to his frame. Hunter jumped at him with his knife, hoping that he would be fast enough to disarm him.
Crosshair shot as Hunter grappled on the floor with the clone, throwing the clone's gun across the clearing. A sharp elbow to the rib winded Hunter causing him to loosen his grip. The clone grabbed Hunter's helmet and bashed it against the floor as hard as he could. It was evident that this clone was younger than them. It had the upper hand.
Blacking out for a moment, Hunter lay against the dirt. His head tilted towards the other graves of his brothers. The dirt no longer looked disturbed on Tech's, wildlife building over it.
He couldn't. He had to get up.
Ignoring the ache in his bones he forced his body to his feet, the sick sense of foreboding growing. He knew. He knew that one of them wasn't getting out of this alive.
The younger clone grappled with Crosshair on the porch, Crosshair's long-range weapon useless to him now. His fighting was desperate, "Why are you doing this?" He heard Crosshair snap.
"Good Soldiers follow Orders." Answered the clone.
Crosshair had never been effective at hand to hand. Age dulled his reflexes. Hunter knew the deadly blow was going to land before it did. There had been no way to prevent it. He couldn't shoot the clone, his weapon had been kicked across the clearing.
He was running but it wouldn't be fast enough.
Hunter had thrown his knife, but it had landed in the rogue clone’s back a second too late. The wound had already been given.
The rogue clone dropped down dead as Hunter looked at his brother. “Cross.” He pulled the armour off Crosshair's chest to look at the stab wound.
“It’s no use. He got me good. Lungs ” Blood pooled into Crosshair’s hands as he held his chest. He curled in on himself. “Hurts.”
“Don’t leave me,” Hunter begged. He had no way to treat Crosshair on the field. All of their medical supplies were back home. It seemed a short walk but it would take too long. He clinged to Crosshair.
“Sorry,” Crosshair mumbled, his voice weak. “Don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t leave me alone.” Hunter sobbed, not caring to filter himself. “I don’t want to be the last one.”
He couldn’t be strong for Crosshair, not like he’d been for Tech. Crosshair was leaving him all alone, blood dripping from his body. “Don’t leave me.” He didn’t want to be the last. He didn’t want Crosshair to go.
Crosshair reached up and trailed blood down Hunter’s armour, too weak to speak anymore. He died in Hunter’s arms.
Crosshair was the only one of his brothers to be buried in his armour. His body was just another victim of war. A rogue clone trying to execute an order that hadn’t been relevant since the fall of the Empire. Crosshair had died. He was left all alone. He wasn’t supposed to be the last one left.
After Hunter buried his last brother in the ground, six feet under, positioned next to Tech, helmet removed and left to rust on the surface, he fell to the floor next to the freshly dug dirt. He stared at Crosshair’s helmet, blood still damp and sobbed. He would give anything to be six foot under with them. Anything.
Not caring if an animal found him, Hunter slept outside that night. He couldn't bring himself to go inside, not where he could smell, could feel Crosshair so strongly. The room was nothing but empty ghosts. The place was nothing but empty. He'd failed them all.
He'd buried the other clone the day afterwards, on the other side of their land. Far away from his batch. It hadn't been the clones' fault. It would have been disrespectful not to.
The words echoed in his head. "Good soldiers." That clone had been a prisoner in his mind for the past twenty years. The least he could do was lay him to rest.
Had that faceless, nameless reg had a family once? Hunter couldn't put a name to the grave. The Empire had taken everything.
It was so empty without his brothers.
How could he care anymore?
He just couldn’t bring himself to.
His mind dragged itself back to the graves outside. His chest ached. His body ached. He couldn’t look past the grief.
He’d never truly been alone before. Not like this.
He could feel the sands of time overtaking his home, overgrowing it until it returned to the woods, taking his brothers until they returned to the earth. They didn’t return. They had never been born of the earth in the first place. They had been taken. They’d never asked to be made. Never asked to die.
He didn’t know how long he lasted after Crosshair had been committed to the earth. He didn’t care. His sense told him that he was coming. He should care. He couldn’t bring himself to.
He slipped from this life and into the next alone, eyes open, looking at a place that had once been filled with the love of his brothers but now was empty.
The panic of death filled his body as he'd died, alone. There was no one there. No one to help. He was glad that he spared his brothers from that pain.
As soon as Omega landed, she knew that she had been too late. She had felt their sorrow in the Force, her attachment giving her a link that the Jedi had always discouraged. She had never made a good Jedi. She cared too much, loved too freely. She formed an attachment to every child she had ever trained, every animal she had ever helped. She couldn’t see how that attachment was wrong.
She had been meaning to visit for so long, but she’d been busy, and she knew, she’d known from the moment that they’d laid Wrecker into the dirt, that the others would die soon. She was only ten years younger than them, but comparatively in the peak of health. The Kaminoans had made her age normally, for reasons that she didn’t understand, while the normal clones aged twice as fast and died young. She’d felt the disease lurking in Tech’s brain, had known there had been nothing to do for it. The Kaminoans had made them that way. She begged to stay, but Hunter had made her go, hugging her one last time. She should have come back sooner.
Sorrow filled the place that she remembered being full of laughter and joy, a thick cloud that lay, disturbing the Force and making the air heavy.
She knew Hunter was dead before she walked in. He hadn’t been gone long, a tear running down her face. She couldn’t bring herself to look, her heart aching for someone who she might as well have called a buir. His blood-streaked armour lay in a pile in the corner of the room. Hastily removed. Not cleaned. The blood was old and dried. The Hunter she knew would never have disrespected his armour like that.
He wasn’t a peaceful corpse. He’d thinned out, a frown permanently frozen on his face, his eyes forever looking outside, focused on the neat row of graves. She couldn’t close his eyes to make him look peaceful, his body had already locked, stiff and cold with death.
Grabbing the shovel from where it had always rested by the back door, she dug out his grave. Six foot deep. She believed in the Force. She was basically a Jedi, but she couldn’t feel him. Couldn’t feel them. She hoped that they’d rest together. She couldn’t feel anything through the cloud of grief.
Anger motivated her as she dug. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.
Anger was the way to the dark side, but she couldn’t imagine not grieving for her friends. Couldn’t imagine not caring. The Jedi were arrogant. The Sith were unfeeling. She rested somewhere in the middle.
She lay Hunter’s body at the bottom of her pit, rain falling on his corpse. She covered him away from the world. Protecting him.
She was glad she had been here so that she could lay his body to rest. He wouldn’t have been happy separated from his Vode. She hoped she could put him to rest.
She looked over the row of graves as she placed Hunter’s helmet carefully on top of his.
It had been a long six years since Echo had died, his grave overgrown and rust eating the black away from his helmet.
Wrecker was next, and then Tech in the middle, protected by his brothers on either side.
Crosshair’s grave was fresh, the same blood on his armour that had lain on Hunter’s. She didn’t want to know how he’d died. Just knew it hadn’t been natural. She wasn’t sure that they were at peace.
She walked around the grounds. The house and property were dead and empty, the inhabitants being the only thing that had ever given it meaning. She took one possession from each clone and shut the door behind her, locking it away. This land held nothing for her anymore.
She climbed back into her ship and flew away.
One day she would meet them in the Force, and then they would be Aliit again.