《A Glitch In The Matrix》3: Rishi Moon Outpost
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Evie climbed with the other clones up the side of the cliff until they reached the landing platform of the outpost. There was a bit of conversation along the way, but Evie didn't participate in any of it, instead focusing on the task at hand.
As she and the other clones snuck around to the doorway, Rex walked directly up to the camera droid. She nearly groaned as he pretended to be a commando droid. Cody shook his head, sighing softly.
"This is never gonna work."
When the camera droid finally disappeared into the wall, Rex stood up and stood directly in front of the door, guns in hand. As soon as they opened, he spoke.
"Roger, roger", he said, shooting one of the three droids that stood at the doorway. Cody and Hevy took the other two down and Echo, Fives and Evie followed behind them.
They paused at the long hallway before the door where the sergeant and Droidbait died. Evie almost didn't continued running when the rest did, but a nudge from Fives kept her going. I can grieve later.
They approached the control room, and started taking down droids. Evie couldn't really get a shot in until Fives fell backward, having taken a shot to the arm. She shot past him, blasting the droid that had shot him. She whipped around, shooting without looking. When she did look, she had shot a droid that had a sword and had been in the midst of charging toward Rex.
"How did you shoot that without looking?" Rex asked. Evie shrugged, not answering, so Echo answered for her.
"She's got this sixth sense that tells her where attacks are gonna be, though sometimes it comes to late."
Evie winced as she thought about the last time it came too late... they lost Cutup with that one. When the last of the commando droids were destroyed, Evie took off her helmet, holding it under arm.
She didn't follow when they all ran to the window, instead closing her eyes and listening to what her sense was telling her. She frowned when she realized what needed to happen.
"You're not going to be able to get a message out", she said to Echo, who had run past her to look at the control panel. "The only way to remove the all clear signal is by blowing up the base."
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She opened her eyes, and Echo confirmed what she said. Rex gathered everyone around Evie and started speaking.
"Alright, listen up. There's only one target of interest in this sector. Kamino. It's the closest thing we clones have to a home", Rex said. "Today we fight for more than the Republic. Today we fight for all our brothers back home. Understood?"
Evie heard the boys reply in the affirmative but she found that she could not reply just yet. She was drawn into her mind and she saw Hevy getting shot down before he pressed a button that blew up the base. She was snapped out of her mind by someone bumping gently against her.
"Evie?" Hevy asked, his eyes filled with worry. "What happened?"
Evie let out a shaky breath and it was then that she realized her eyes were watering. A tear slipped down her cheek and she shook her head.
"I don't know... but I think... I think I saw a vision of the future..."
Hevy sucked in a deep breath. "How is that possible?"
"I don't know", she whispered. "I don't know how it's possible. For all I know, it's possible it might not even happen..."
Hevy nodded, and he looked away from her, toward the others. "She'll be okay, commander. Just had something shake her up a bit."
"She's strong enough to fight?" Rex asked, though it wasn't derogatory like Evie was used to.
"I am", she said, her voice not as strong as she wanted to be, but strong enough. They all nodded, and pulled on their helmets.
While Evie helped Rex and Echo bring a couple liquid tibanna tanks to the main room, whilst Hevy and the others fend the droids off for a little bit. As they tried to set up the detonator, they kept running into problems.
"Hevy", Rex called as he came back into the control room. The clone walked over to him, and Rex explained what was happening.
"I'll take care of it", Hevy said. "You guys get out of here."
Evie was the last to leave through the vent they escaped from last time. She looked over at Hevy as he worked on the detonator, and with teary eyes, whispered a final goodbye.
She quickly followed the others, hearing the clang of the vent being put back in place. She met up with the others, where they were talking to Hevy.
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"I'll have to detonate it manually", she heard him say over the com-link. She tried to protest, but didn't get a chance to as they all started running toward the outpost to try and get Hevy out of there.
As they ran, Evie could hear Rex trying to get a hold of Hevy, but the rookie clone wasn't responding. When the finally reached sight of the outpost, it blew up, taking Hevy and the droids with it. Evie stared at the explosion, a tear trickling down her face.
"I know we bred for this", she whispered. "We were made for battle. But I never expected to lose three of my brothers on our first mission."
Fives and Echo each placed a hand on one of her shoulders, and she reached up and touched them. All three of them stared at the fire from the explosion for a bit before Evie spoke once more.
"Tonight we lost three good men who served valiantly. Droidbait, who died as we all joked he would. Cutup, who I guess you could say was cut up when he was eaten by that giant eel. And now Hevy, who died how he would've wanted to... with the heaviest kind of fire. An explosion." A wry smile appeared on her face as she took off her helmet, bracing it against her hip as she used her other hand to salute to the explosion. Echo and Fives copied her movement and after a couple minutes, so did Rex and Cody.
When she moved her hand down, she looked at Echo and Fives. She smiled sadly at them.
"Our first assignment, and we lost half the domino squad."
Fives spoke next. "We lost them one by one, just like in training."
Rex and Cody shared a glance. "Since we have a while before any help will come to rescue us, would you like to tell us about your squad?" Rex asked. Evie shared an amused smile with her brothers.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Captain", she said, looking over at him. "You might lose all faith in us."
Rex raised an eyebrow at them, and Evie chuckled. "Nah, we'll tell you. Besides... we were doing much better by the time we graduated."
Fives and Echo snorted, and Evie sent a playful glare at them. She turned back to Rex and slowly began telling him and Cody about how the domino squad was originally and how they came to be brothers, whether it be genetically or brothers in arms. However, no one was expecting for Cody to ask how they all got their names.
Evie smiled at the question, but it was Echo who responded first.
"Fives got his because his number is mostly fives. Hevy got his from another brother. 99 will be sad to hear that Hevy is dead."
Evie spoke up next. "Echo got his because he was always repeating orders to us that we had already heard. He kept echoing our commanding officers. He doesn't do it as much anymore. And then Droidbait got his name because during training, he was always running out there, not thinking, and almost always getting shot by a droid."
Fives spoke next. "Cutup got his name because he always got so cut up when we didn't follow orders. Evie's got the most boring name of all of us though... her name literally is just what it looks like her numbers spell out. Though, I gotta admit, Glitch seems like a good nickname that would match with the rest of the squad's."
Evie rolled her eyes. "No one is calling me Glitch. You know that if anyone else no in our squad heard you calling me that would then use that but they'd use it as an insult."
Rex and Cody share a confused glance and Evie sighed softly. She looked over at them, and looked both of them in the eye before speaking. "Back on Kamino, no one liked the fact that I was different. I'm female. They would get mad for no apparent reason and call me Glitch because that's all I was to them. It's probably all I'll ever be. Just the glitch in the matrix."
Everyone was silent and Evie looked away. "Sorry for ranting about that."
They all made noises that sounds vaguely similar to okay. They all sat and talked for a while until they were finally rescued by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. As they returned back to the ship, Evie could feel a connection to the two, like there was something they shared in common. Evie just had no idea what.
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