0600.
We stood outside of the canteen. The yelling and laughter of our brothers could be heard from outside of the still closed doors. No one of us moved. Kara just looked at the doors with her best killer look on her face. Euphoria squared her shoulders and looked determined towards the door and what laid behind it a smile on her lips. If anybody could see them now they would think they were going to a war. Naz looked uncertain towards the door and then to me. I said toward her. "Relax, they will see that you are uneasy." She looked at me and smiled. " I wish I had your confidence or Karas potty mouth or Euphorias optimism. I just ...." she sighed. From all of us she was the youngest. We protected her no matter what. Whatever she did like eat Kara's candy or hiding my blasters it was all forgotten when she needed us. I would go to the ends of the galaxy for her. Like right now. She felt like she didn't belong. She never spoke it out aloud but we knew, she felt like all of us did. Outcast and not wanted.
"You are you and that is enough. We are nothing without you because you are enough. Every single one of us is enough and if they can't see that, then they lost some damn good soldiers!" I laid my arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. Kara and Euphoria joined in. After a while we let go of each other and looked at the doors again. I sighed. "Well here goes nothing!"
I opened the door and was the first to enter. We made our way trough the canteen. Slowly all noise stopped. Everybody in the room stopped what they were doing and just stared. A few started whispering again as we passed them. They all wore their blacks, because of the training we had to do at 0700. We wore the same.
I made my way towards the serving counter. Naz, Euphoria and Kara were right behind me like always. We always had each others backs. I grabbed a tray. Naz nervously eyed right back at the boys but quickly followed behind me. She always was very intimidated very fast. Kara growled. I smirked at her and Euphoria chuckled softly.
It seemed to encourage her to say what was on her mind and then she suddenly turned and spoke up. "Oh bloody hell, have you wankers never seen girls before for kriffing sake?" I didn't have to look at her to know that she rolled her eyes in a dramatic fashion. I knew she did it because I taught her how to do a dramatic eyeroll.
I laughed and Naz tried to make herself a little smaller. I winked at her and she relaxed. The faces changed from disbelief into shock in a matter of seconds and then it happened. Euphoria laughed. It started with a small coughed laugh and then she just lost it. She had one of her most rare flashes of pure laughter where she couldn't contain herself. In this state she could laugh for hours and now was a very bad timing for those. They where usually triggered by Kara but I didn't thought she had one right after yesterday. After Hardcase had left us she had begun to snicker and then she laughed for almost a hour. She recalled sequences of our conversation with the Jedi and then another hit of laughter hit her. I think it was some kind of disease. Even the Kaminoans tried to stop her at one point in time when we were cadets but they failed.
I ignored her and Kara and simply pulled Naz with me to get our food. Kara followed dragging a laughing Euphoria behind her. We collected our food and found a table which wasn't occupied and started eating. Euphoria's laughter resonated from the walls.
Suddenly a chair was pushed back and none other than Hardcase slumped himself next to Naz. "Morning. Ready for training?" He acted like nothing was wrong. That there weren't all those eyes on us and a still laughing Euphoria who looked a little bit blue because of the lack of oxygen she received. But she was fine. She had a thousand of those as cadets so this one wouldn't be any different. Naz smiled at him. They had an extra long conversation about the consistency of some candy of some kind yesterday. I was pretty sure they would get along dangerously. "Care if some of my brothers join? Hey, Jesse come on over here and bring the rest of the boys." He didn't even wait on our answer.
Kara rolled her eyes again and I smiled at her then again she rolled her eyes. Euphoria snickered still in her own world but she wasn't going to respond very soon.
Four clones made their way towards their waving brother. One was a medic and the rest were normal clones. Finally they approached us and sat down, next to me was the medic. He looked tired but still smiled at me and introduced himself. "Hey, I'm CT- 6116. But they call me Kix." "CT-W-0101, the name is Leal. Next to me is CT-W-0103 aka Kara, next to Hardcase is CT-W-0104 called Naz and the laughing mess is CT-W-0102 also called Euphoria." Kara gave a lazy salute as I introduced her and Naz just nodded shyly. "I'm Jesse" The other clone said with the huge tattoo across his face and head. "Fives and Echo!" The ARC-trooper pointed at him and then at his brother. I nodded and smiled.
"Will she die on me or does that happen regularly?" Kix asked very worried and points at Euphoria. "Oh she is fine just one of her regular episodes of I- laugh- at- something- Kara- says- and- find- it- so- funny- I- could- die- of- cutting- myself- out- of- oxygen. Nothing to be worried about it's not the first time."Naz replied confident. "Yeah because I'm the funny one." Kara replied. " You just know a lot of curse words that is all." I join into the conversation.
"Yeah know them all from 99. He taught me." Kara glares at me proudly. I roll my eyes at that.
"He taught all of us. Remember?" I say. "99? Damn .. Echo, we are getting old. How is he?" Fives laughs at his brother and rams his elbow into his side.
"You now him?" Kara replies. "Probably glad he doesn't have to bear with you anymore!" I smirk at her. "Oh not as glad as he is to never have to see your ugly face!" Kara tries to argue. "We share the same face but clearly not the same intellect!" I laugh and wink at her. Naz and Hardcase are deep in conversation and I don't actually want to know what these two are up about.
"Yeah Kara that was a low blow!" Euphoria joins in on the conversation. "I'm Euphoria by the way. " Kara just smacked her forehead.
0700.
Blue and Orange. That wasn't just the 501st. Between the 501st were a few clones who had the markings of the 212th. Cody and Rex stood in the center both in their uniforms. Blue and Orange. "Why is Cody and some of the rest of the 212th here?" Echo exclaimed. He was a nice guy. I learnt very soon that he was inseparable with his brother Fives. Where he went Fives followed and reverse. Fives broke the rules Echo followed them, together they made sense Echo kept Fives on his feet whereas Fives lifted Echo up.
Kix was a little bit like me, always looking out for his brothers. But he was like a mother every time in sheer worry when something happened to them. And Jesse he was like Kara he had some pretty curse words up his sleeve and I'm sure he and her will get into a lot of trouble like Hardcase and Naz would. The two clearly conspired something.
"Probably because of us. We had an interesting first meeting with Rex and Cody yesterday." Naz sighed. "You mean when you crash landed in the hangar without a scratch and then yelled at each other for almost 10 minutes without noticing Skywalker nor Kenobi right behind you?" Hardcase said.
"Ugh don't remind me it was so embarrassing!" Naz's cheeks redden in embarrassment . "You what?" Echo gasps. "The landing wasn't our fault. I'm the best pilot from all of us, I don't know what happened." Kara exclaimed. "Yeah she got special training and everything. Something is fishy about this whole incident." I say deep in thought. I couldn't sleep the whole night and recalled the past day in my mind.
How we were originally supposed to be on the cruiser like the rest and then got deployed to go to a different hangar. Bric who gave us the shuttle. - "Don't think you're better than anybody you scum. Fly your asses to your platoon yourselves." - Bric's words stuck in my mind. He wouldn't, would he? No, he was certainly a coward but tampering with our shuttle was nothing he would do, that wasn't his style. If he wanted to kill us he would want to look us in the eyes.
"I think we are complete!" Rex had turned and looked at his men. "Before we start I have to address something. So listen up, I say that one time and one time only. We have a new batch of shinys in our middle. It is certainly new to all of us so Cody and I have constructed some tests for them. After that the training will start as always. So boys take a seat." The men started to walk towards the blocks and sat down we remained standing." Rex and I will test you four on various things a good soldier should be able to do. Shooting, group effort and self defense!" Cody continued to speak.
"So basically we have to do all the tests again we already did on Kamino!" Kara exclaimed.
"Sir!" Cody simply said. "What?" was Kara's intelligent response . Cody stepped closer. "So basically we have to do all the tests again we already did on Kamino, Sir!" He said. Karas eyes narrowed a little bit daringly but to my surprise she just said. "Yes, Sir!"
"Good! Your first test will be shooting. Aim at the wall and shoot. Your time will be tracked. Since you volunteered first you will start, CT-W- 0103. Followed by CT-W-0104, CT-W-0102 and at last CT-W-0101. Got it?" He didn't wait for an answer I looked at Kix and the rest of the boys and they just nodded and Hardcase even gave us a thumbs up. "The names are Kara, Euphoria, Naz and Leal, Sir!" Kara growled. " Kara it's okay!" Naz raised her voice. As a response Kara and Euphoria just panted in rage.
First Kara, then Naz and Euphoria shot the targets in precision very fast. Naz was the fastest with one minute and 47 seconds but closely followed by Kara and Euphoria. Naz was always the best shooter from all of us. Some of the boys looked a little bit shocked but Cody and Rex didn't say a word. They just swiftly wrote something on their data pads. Now it was my turn. I took the blaster, checked for the magazine and got into position. Then I shot the first target and then the next. I needed to be perfect with every hit right into the bull's eye of every target. I got angrier every time I hit a target. What were we doing. We were soldiers. We already had to take these damn tests. I hit another target. What were they thinking this stupid Cody. That we were a joke? Why wouldn't they just take us as we were. Nothing more nothing less.
A flood of anger and fury hit me and all I could do was to shoot at another target. Finally my time appeared where previous the targets were. Someone gasped and I felt a sudden pride. I was slower than Naz but still faster than Euphoria and Kara. "Haar'chak!" Kara exclaimed. I smirked. "Beat you!" "Don't rub it in!" Euphoria laughed.
"Next, hold off these clankers as long as you can." Cody's voice interrupted us. "Sir, yes, Sir!" Kara saluted in mock. Cody just rolled his eyes.
We got in position. The floor before us parted and around 50 clankers like Cody called them approached. We ducked behind the blocks and waited for the start signal.
The droids started shooting at us und we fired right back. We were outmatched. That was the whole point of it. We fired like hell back but there wasn't an end to all of it there were still 40 of them left and they came nearer by the second of each breath we took. "Hey, Kara, Euphoria how about we do 'beast 47'?" Naz called out. I smiled. " I got ya backs!" Kara and Euphoria laughed and nodded in agreement. I popped my head from my hiding spot and shouted. " Is that all you pathetic tin cans got. Even a gungan is faster than you. Sooran, shab!" I grabbed Karas rotary blaster cannon which she held out to me and jumped on top of one of the blocks and started firing.
I laughed and blasted a few droids away. Blaster bolts where fired at me but that didn't effect me. They were only training bolts and nevertheless they missed a lot. "Nearly there!" Euphoria breathed out. I needed to stand a little longer. 'Beast 47' was a code name where someone of us had to hold back enemy fire so that the rest of the team would find a higher ground and could take out the clankers from a different position. We called it 'beast 47' because Kara's rotary blaster cannon was called B- 47. Usually it was Kara who did us the honor of holding back the clankers but today it was me. And as a worthy replacement I swore like Kara would if she were in my shoes.
"You wanna retreat you osik'la piece of metal." "Hey, Leal fun's over, we got it from here." Naz replied and I jumped down of the block and saw as my sisters defeated the rest of the clankers.
We gave each other high fives and turned to look at the rest of the boys. Some mouths were wide open. Hardcase, Jesse, Fives and Echo smiled at us and Kix looked like he had a heart attack. Probably worried sick about the stunt I did earlier.
"What ya think, Sir? Speechless eh?" Kara smiled and petted B-47.
"Last test! Each of you gets paired up with one of Rex's or my men. You will fight till someone gives up or I deem them to have enough." He simply says still looking on his data pad.
"CT-W-0103..." "It's Kara!" Kara interrupts him. Finally he looks up. His eyes narrow by Karas remark. " Kara, how about you get to fight with Boil. Boil, come on up." " Sir!" A clone in orange markings and a mustache comes walking up to us. He has a stern look on his face. "Wash her mouth, will ya!" Cody simply replies with a smirk on his face. "It will be my pleasure, Sir!" The clone named Boil said. He undressed from his armor.
They got into a fighting stance and Boil was the first to approach Kara. They started a heated exchange of fists. Kara was smaller than his usual sparring partners and quite faster but he quickly adapted to her smaller appearance. Kara never was the best at sparring. She had always her potty mouth and her flying skills. But she wasn't bad, she made it hard on him. Time was her only help and it also worked against her. She needed to be faster than him. After five minutes she didn't saw Boil's right fist coming. He punched her in the stomach and grabbed her.
She tapped herself out. Boil let go of herself and said a little out of breath. "Nice fist combination you had going!" Kara replied completely out of breath." Yeah, I call them 'fists of fury'. Now bugger off before ni cetar' narir kay' shebs! " With that said he pulled her around and sent her down to the floor. "Uff..!" Kara sighed. "Hey that was totally unnecessary!" Euphoria exclaimed. "Was it though?" was Boils answer as he walked past us. Cody just nodded.
"Next... CT-... Naz, you will fight against... " Rex interrupts Cody "Hardcase." Naz looked confused at Rex and gets into a sparring position. I know how this will end. She hated sparring. That's why I always sparred with her. I made it easy on her. The Kaminoans didn't care enough to notice that she had no clue on how to sent someone to the floor. She was the best shot out of every one of us. But she lacked on confidence when it came to defending herself in hand-to-hand combat. That was my expertise. Hardcase certainly didn't know he would expect that she at least like Kara knew how to defend herself for at least a period of time. Naz looked in panic towards me and as I couldn't help her it made my stomach tighten.
Hardcase whispered a sorry towards the very shaken Naz. She was our baby and I just could watch and it made me angry. I shot an glare at the captain's and commander's backs. Euphoria and Kara stiffened and I crossed my arms before my body.
They circled each other and also this time Hardcase was the first to approach. His fist came rushing in and Naz ducked away but he managed to grab her wrist. He pulled her back. Naz started slipping away and made the acquaintance with the floor. Her face was a deep red when Hardcase gave her one hand to help her up.
"That was fast." Someone said laughing from the crowd behind us. Euphoria turned all tensed and looked for the person who's said the comment. "Nar'sheb!" She hissed.
"Cut it out!" Rex comes to Nazs' defense. He lays his hand on her shoulder.
Cody furrows his brows and looks in disapproval towards the men.
"Euphoria you're up against Denal." One of Rex's men stood up.
He started circling Euphoria. She just looked unimpressed.
"Hey, we haven't met yet. I'm Euphoria." That wasn't hardly the time to play around but she wanted to distract him. She held her hand out to him. "You can take it, besides I'm just a girl. What can I do to a big strong man like yourself." She continued and winked at him. That made him accept her hand. The mistake Euphoria needed to pull him towards her. She let herself fall back and took him with her. But he managed to stabilize himself. Euphoria was faster and pulled the rug from under him. She landed on top of him and looked triumphant towards us but didn't notice the sudden movement Denal made.
Now he laid on top of her. " I like my ladies on bottom not on top." He said. It made Euphoria blush bright red and the rest of the boys roared behind us. She tried to move her hands but she couldn't, so she gave up.
Denal smirked at her and held his hand out to help her up. But she refused still embarrassed about the comment.
"Okay, last Leal. Your next." Cody said when Euphoria stood next to us.
I go to the mats where Naz, Kara and Euphoria stood before me and I waited for my partner to emerge from the group of man who were sitting on the other side.
Cody and Rex argued quietly. It seemed like Rex wasn't so keen about Cody's decision on who should fight me. Yesterday I parted Euphoria and Kara. They had seen that I wasn't unable to fight but it only was a duck and turn nothing to suspicious that they would now that I knew how to spar. Hand-to-hand combat was something I stuck out from my sisters. Kara was the best pilot, Naz our best shooter and Euphoria was our go-to-guy whenever heavy weapons were needed like bombs or rocket launchers, she never missed.
Rex gave up to argue with his brother and sighed. That wasn't a good sign. Cody turned towards me and began to get rid of his armor.
"You will spar against... me!"
-------
Sooran, shab! - suck on that, fucker!
osik'la- shitty
ni cetar' narir kay' shebs- I will shove my boot up your ass!
nar'sheb- Shove it up your ass!"