Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The stars were beautiful.

But then, they always had been. From the moment he, as a small cadet, had first glimpsed the night sky, Hunter had loved the stars. Their different colors and pinpricks of light in the black expanse had made his young mind whirl in wonder as it had tried to grasp the reality of a world—of worlds—beyond Kamino’s dreary gray shores and blinding white halls.

So many stars, shining quietly.

Until they fell.

And even then, falling was when they shone the brightest. Falling was when someone might notice them, witness their final and best glory. But no one would notice where the empty place in the sky was afterwards, where the fallen star had lived quietly long before its last act.

Hunter swallowed back the churning in his chest and set his jaw harder as he kept his gaze on the empty space outside the viewport, unsure if he would prefer a similar emptiness inside himself, instead of the roiling pain and grief that had taken hold of his aching soul.

Ninety-Nine was dead.

Part of him was still in denial of the news Cody had broken to them now nearly two weeks before—Kamino had been attacked, and their older brother had given his life in the battle, trying to save the lives of others.

Hunter felt tears—he thought he’d run out of those days ago—spring to his eyes again. He shuddered, shaking himself lightly to shove them down again before looking back at the stars.

It was too much like them. Like his brothers. Like all of the clones. So many of them that you maybe wouldn’t notice when one was gone. But he knew that his ori’vod’s death was like a star falling from a constellation—there would forever be a gap, a loss, among the rest.

He breathed out slowly, trying to control the pain in his chest, closing his eyes to shut out the stars. He had to try and stop thinking about them—stop thinking about all of it. He had his three little brothers still to concern himself with. Tech, Wrecker, and Crosshair needed him. Needed him to be focused—to be the leader. Needed him to be fully mentally present for them.

And right now, they needed to find water.

Their small, almost tiny Omicron shuttle—Tech and Wrecker were wanting to name it the Havoc Marauder—was cramped as a four soldier living space, especially when one of those soldiers was Wrecker, though his size was no fault of his own. Add to that all their required gear and weapons, and there was precious little space left for the vital necessity of potable water.

Hunter rubbed his temples with a sigh. Only six missions into their first deployment, they were still figuring things out. So when their water stores had first been low, they had planned on refilling after this last objective. Then, no sooner had they stepped back on the ship’s ramp than new orders had come through to the young sergeant, informing them that his squad was to arrive at their next coordinates with all haste. The flight path accompanying the orders had put them nowhere close to any resupply stations or bases, so they were on their own. Which led them to now—one rotation of water left, only a small ration for each of them, and searching desperately for the nearest planet with drinkable water.

“Saleucami.”

Tech’s voice from the copilot’s seat made him start a little. He blinked and swiveled over to his brother in the neighboring chair.

“Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “What, uh, what was that?”

“Saleucami. The nearest agriworld to our current coordinates.” Tech appeared to have no irritation at repeating himself for his sibling’s benefit. The engineer had three tabs open on his datapad, obviously researching the planet. “It also does not require any major deviation from our prescribed flight path. We should be able to find suitable water there without much trouble.”

“What about Seps?”

Crosshair’s rasping voice preceded the sniper’s appearance from the back of the ship. As his white haired little brother rubbed a quick hand across his narrow face, Hunter decided not to mention the redness of his eyes, or the tearstain on his cheek that his hand had missed. He knew Crosshair had been having a hard time, too, maybe even worse than Hunter, coming to grips with 99’s death. He hadn’t said much at all about it, but Hunter could feel the torment rolling off his little brother, and at night he had heard him crying almost silently. It broke his heart all over again.

“Yeah,” Wrecker came up behind the sniper and laid a big arm over his baby brother’s shoulder. Crosshair huffed but didn’t move—probably because he couldn’t. Wrecker didn’t even notice. “Won’t do us no good to look for water and end up in a firefight.”

Tech nodded as he straightened his goggles. “Which is precisely why it is an added benefit that Saleucami is a neutral planet,” he said. “Or as close to neutral as one could be, given our galactic circumstances. There is thus far no recorded Separatist movement on the planet save for a crash landing made by General Grievous a few months ago, during which General Kenobi gave chase. However, both generals left the planet with their troops, and there seems to have been no further engagements.”

Hunter considered the information, mulling over it for a few moments.

“Can you land us away from any civvies?” he asked. None of Clone Force 99 was particularly well-versed in interaction with even other clones—dubbed “regs” by Crosshair—let alone civilians. And Hunter just didn’t want to add another mental stress on any of them right now.

Tech consulted his datapad again, then nodded. “Aside from scattered farms and various smallholdings, there does not appear to be a heavy civilian population on this side of the planet.” He looked up at his brother and straightened his goggles again. “It should by all expectations be a quick in and out.”

Hunter looked over at Wrecker and Crosshair. “Well?”

Crosshair huffed. “You’re the sergeant.”

Wrecker shrugged. “We gotta get water someplace.”

Hunter swiveled in his seat again. “Tech?”

Tech nodded. “I am in favor of the plan.”

Hunter let out a breath. “All right.” He faced the viewport again. “Set course.”

Chapter Text

Saleucami smelled green. At least, it did to Hunter. As he and Crosshair stalked quietly through the native brush and trees, his senses were being filled with the almost tangible scents of so many different flowers, fertile earth, and clean water.

That last scent was what was guiding his footsteps as he and his youngest brother made their way through the forest, Crosshair a little behind him, letting Hunter and his enhanced senses lead. Tech had his scanner to follow as he and Wrecker were going in the opposite direction, hoping to find a stream that the smaller of the two engineers had detected on his datapad. Supposedly, it was closer to the ship than the spring Hunter was sniffing out. However, Hunter had a feeling that even if that was so, he and Crosshair would still beat their brothers back. Tech’s insatiable curiosity would force him to stop every few feet to snap a picture of a plant or record the call of a bird, and Wrecker would most likely get distracted by whatever distracted Tech.

Not that Hunter could or would blame them. It was only natural that they would be curious about a new place—especially since they weren’t currently in the middle of an operation or getting shot at. He himself was enjoying the ability to breathe easily and take in some of the beauty of the new planet. It wasn’t something they were often able to experience. The 99s had rarely ever left Kamino—before their deployment only a few months before, they had only left the ocean planet for a small number of specialized training exercises. And they were lucky. As far as Hunter knew, he and his three younger brothers were the only defective clones to ever leave Tipoca City.

His heart clenched at the thought. 99 had lived his entire life in that place—that planet that was both home and hell. His older brother had never known a world like this—sun and dirt and flowers and trees.

Another thought came without warning. Maybe he does now.

He shook the grief off again. This wasn’t helping anybody. He had to focus.

He yanked his helmet off on impulse, squeezing his eyes shut as he breathed deeply of the humid air. It was heavy against his skin, thick in his nose. But it distracted him from the brunt of his melancholy thoughts. He let the breath out as a sigh as he leaned his head back, a slight breeze ruffling his hair that was sweaty from being trapped beneath the helmet.

 “You alright?”

Hunter breathed in again before answering Crosshair’s question.

“Yeah.” He opened his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just getting the scent.”

“Liar.”

Hunter cut his eyes at his youngest brother. “What?”

“I said liar.” Crosshair shifted his rifle to a more comfortable low ready position. “You’re not paying attention. And you know it.”

Hunter huffed and put his helmet back on, walking forward again almost defiantly as he locked in on the spring’s scent once more.

“I am,” he lied. Great, he mentally grumbled.  Prove his point. “I just lost it for a second. All the humidity.”

Crosshair huffed back as he followed the sergeant again. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that and you’re going to lose it.”

Hunter felt a tingling apprehension. His brother was seeing right through his façade. But he forced out a steady growl anyway. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You let it eat at you and you’re going to slip up. Maybe slip up real good.” The sniper’s voice came raspy as usual but also honest from his helmet’s filter. “Maybe slip up for all of us.”

Hunter stopped in his tracks. “Just say what you mean already.”

Crosshair walked a step further and turned to face him. “I mean that you’re letting it get to you. But you won’t deal with it.” He motioned toward the sergeant. “Keep shoving it down. It’ll go off like one of Wrecker’s powder charges—just with a little less to clean up afterwards.”

Hunter just stood there and breathed for a minute. Then he sighed and walked forward again.

“I’m fine.” He tried to say it with feeling, but Crosshair’s scoff told him it didn’t take.

“Well, I’m not.”

Hunter stopped again, making Crosshair almost run into the back of him. The sergeant could almost see his brother’s scowl, even with the sniper’s helmet hiding his face.

“Are you trying to give me whiplash?” he grumbled.

Hunter ignored it. “You said you’re not fine?” he asked, a little gentler.

“You know if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hard of hearing as many times as I’ve had to repeat myself in the last two minutes.” Crosshair shifted his rifle again, seeming to need to do something with his hands. His helmet still being on meant he didn’t have to make eye contact with his older brother, but Hunter could sense his dislike of the vulnerable moment. “But yeah. I’m not. But if I can face up to that, why won’t you?”

“I’m—” Hunter searched his HUD like the words he needed would appear on the screen. “I just—I don’t—”

“Don’t want to? Join the club.” His younger brother looked down at his boots. “He’s gone. There’s nothing we could have done. There’s nothing that will fix it. If you’re supposed to be our sergeant you have to act like it—and that means moving on.”

Some defensiveness started to rise up in Hunter’s chest, but the memory of Crosshair’s bleary red eyes from just a few hours before dampened it. He swallowed it down, and nodded minutely. Crosshair did the same, and both brothers started walking again.

After a few moments Cross spoke again. “It’s not like I’m saying we have to forget him, you know,” he said softly.

Hunter huffed. “Like we ever could. He was our brother.”

Cross nodded. “Mmhmm.”

They walked some more, and Hunter wasn’t surprised when Crosshair again broke the silence.

“I’ll miss him forever.”

“Yeah.” Hunter nodded. “Me, too.”

...

After about five more minutes of walking, Hunter still following his nose, they came finally to the spring—clear water bubbling up from beneath the gnarled roots of a large long-ago fallen tree, the water creating a pool in the small crater left where the tree had once stood proud and tall.

“Told you it was a spring,” Hunter felt the need to say as both brothers stepped from the brush, surveying their surroundings even more cautiously.

He could literally hear Crosshair’s patented eye roll. “Spring, creek—” he huffed. “As long as it’s drinkable.”

The sniper set his FirePuncher rifle down with extreme care as he knelt by the water and took off his helmet. Hunter handed him the small test strip Tech had told them to use, and Crosshair dipped it in. His little brother glared at the paperish strip until it finally turned all the way blue, then crumbled it and shoved it in his pack with a grunt.  

“Well, it shouldn’t kill us,” he conceded, unclipping the two water containers from his pack frame and starting to fill them.

Hunter followed suit, kneeling and taking his helmet off, setting it beside him and uncapping the first of his two containers.

Then the air changed.

The sergeant froze, all his senses reaching out, trying to feel what was disturbed, sifting through the feedback for the problem. In a moment he found it. There was a breath on the breeze, a smell of something musky, camouflaged. Something…waiting.

He swallowed as his heart sped up, breathing slowly out through his nose before he whispered to Crosshair.

“Freeze, Cross,” he murmured without turning his head.

Crosshair obeyed, canteen still under the water and bubbling softly as it filled. He didn’t look up from the water.

“What is it?” he asked lowly.

Hunter made himself breath evenly. “Something big.”

“Sentient?”

It was all Hunter could do to keep from shaking his head. “No.”

Crosshair’s canteen stopped bubbling but he didn’t move to cap it. He breathed out slowly. “Can’t reach my rifle.”

With great effort and gratefulness for his years of training, Hunter kept his muscles relaxed. He couldn’t take too long to think of something, so he made a quick decision.

 “I’ma draw on it,” he whispered back. “On three…two—”

His words were drowned out by the crash of brush and the deafening roar.