#clone decommissioning

Yessss!

This exactly.

I’ve only written a very short fic here, but please enjoy.

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When Hound's plan succeeded, there was chaos. At first it was the end of the war, the complete shake up in the Senate, the recall of all the Battalions to Coruscant.

Even though most of the clones hadn't found the time to watch the videos, they knew enough about what had been happening on them, and with Palpatine gone, his control weakening, they rushed to connect with their vode.

Fox didn't know how he was supposed to manage it.

The whole time they'd been shuffling numbers, lying on death certificates, and even then, most of the GAR hadn't cared to look to see their status to know who was and wasn't alive. Now they were coming en mass for answers, to reconect, and Fox was going to have to be the one to tell them...

To tell them their vode had died months or even years before, for some, that the vod with their batch mates number, wasn't their batchmate.

For many, there was at least the relief of finding out their vod was alive with a different number, and for the ones who'd found out their vode had died, the relief of finding out they were still alive.

But only the lucky ones.

Fox and the commanders couldn’t save everyone, and now that was all too clear to those who were grieving and in pain.

That Fox hadn’t been able to save them all.

He rolled with the punches, literally.

He wasn't alone.

He'd seen Pup holding a vod who'd been attacked for using the number, though never the name, of one of their dead. He knew them, Lock, knew they were the only one left of their own batch. He also knew Nutsy had been fine with them using their number, most of the Guard had plans like that. Either with specific vode, or just a note to say their number was up for grabs if anything happened to them.

Nutsy's batchmates hadn't cared, Lock had stolen their vod's number, let them believe their sibling was alive, and that had been, in their grief, unforgivable.

They weren’t the only ones who’d reacted that way, though most hadn’t gone so far. It was grief, it was natural.

They'd come around, then they realised the extent of how hellish things had been, when they realised it had been the only way to keep vode alive, to protect them from decommissioning or reconditioning.

Some of the vode had already looked past it, especially the ones who’d had their vode saved by the system, they’d been grateful he’d kept them alive, even if his methods had been… undesirable.

A few, on meeting the vod with their batch mates number and realising what had happened, had understood, and been glad their batch mates number had been used to save a vod, even if their loss was personal and profound. Some of those vode had even been adopted into those batches.

But that was a rarer outcome. There was just too much hurt at the moment, the losses too fresh.

Even his own batch had distanced themselves when they’d realised the lengths he’d gone to in order to save shinies.

It would blow over. The hurt would fade and logic would help them understand. It had to.

If the hostility between the Guard and the rest of the GAR was wholly Palpatine's creation, it would fade, but Fox had to wonder…

Maybe Palpatine had forged it, but would they be able to fix what had been broken, or was the gap just too wide?

———

Thanks for reading.

I wholeheartedly adore the angst that comes with the idea of the CG swapping numbers to survive, not just to avoid reconditioning or decommissioning, but just for who was suited to what task. There’s so much potential with the Guard themselves, but also for the rest of the GAR.

As long as Palpatine was using his Sith manipulation to help discourage them meeting while on shore leave and things like that, it went unnoticed, but once the war was over and they wanted to see each other again, the world comes crashing down as truth after truth is revealed.

There would be a lot of grief and anger, and a fair amount of relief and joy too.

Thanks for the ask.

Ooohhh angsty.

Please enjoy.

———

The war was over, everything was different now, and if he was entirely honest, Toast had no idea how to handle it.

He and his vode in the Guard were already at odds with the rest of the GAR, because, well, if nothing else they still had shifts. The war was over, the prisons and Senate still needed guarding, Coruscant still had crime, so they still had to work.

And Toast had little interest in going anywhere but his station in the prison or the barracks. His batch had been gone for years, lost in battlefields on distant planets and it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go, he had enough people throwing things and insults at him when he was on shift anyway.

The biggest issue with their barracks at the moment was all the other vode coming in to try to reconnect, trying to find their batch mates after suddenly developing a conscience and realising they'd remorselessly cut the Guard out of their lives two years before. They were everywhere, and it was chaos.

Chaos because there were so many vode trying to find batchmates, and chaos because the Guard's safeguards against the murder of their vode often included, well, things the rest of the GAR would no doubt consider to be immoral and evil.

Still, some things stayed the same, the food was abysmal, Skillet still couldn't make toast properly, and Squash still couldn't dance.

He laughed with Bubblegum about it on the way back to the barracks, her impression of his movies as they walked bringing a much needed smile to both their faces, but he froze at the door.

There were three clones at his bunk, white armour with sage and beige and maroon. At his bunk, checking the number.

Looking for their batchmate.

Their batchmate, he was not.

He had no idea how he was supposed to approach the situation, Bubblegum had already joined a few other vode, regaining them with the tale of Squash's dancing, and with courage he wasn't sure he had, he walked over and stepped through them to put his cap in his footlocker and lie back on his bunk.

"Can I help you?"

"We're looking for our vod, his number is on this bunk. Do the Guard not care about that sort of thing, about the regulations, just lie in any bunk?"

"No, this is my bunk. And you know us in the Guard, the paper pushing meat droids, we follow every regulation. The bunk is mine."

Realisation crossed their faces, clearly they'd already heard at least rumours about what had been happening in the Guard, the way numbers had been switched, that vode like himself had taken the numbers of the dead.

“You’re not our brother!”

Toast flinched, because no, he was not, not the way they were thinking, because grief did weird things to people.

Because he wasn't their batchmate.

"You're Shudder's batch."

"We are, so, who the hells are you? In his bed, where... who...?"

He could see their resolve breaking, one by one, the understanding that Shudder was gone, that his number had been used, could see the grief overriding the confusion and anger.

He steeled himself, because part of him had been certain he wouldn't even survive to meet the batch of the vod who's number he'd been offered to save him from Decommissioning after the false accusations that would have condemned him. Remembered Shudder in medbay, dying, battered and bruised with too much blood lost from the wounds to his side, remembered being snuck out so Shudder could give his number over personally. Most vode simply added their numbers to the list, so should they die they'd be up for grabs, but he and Shudder had been close.

Shudder had found out about his predicament just before he'd gone on his last patrol. Shudder had held his hand and given his number over with wet rasping breaths.

It was a great honour in the Guard, to be given a new number personally, instead of randomly assigned one from the list. Most weren't lucky enough to experience the handover with both parties, to honour the loss of one life and the start of the other under a single number.

He'd held Shudder as he'd left them, marched away, and then started his new life in the Guard, honouring the brother that had left it behind.

Who was he?

There were so many answers to that, he was CT-8781, he was CT-7746, he was a Senatorial guard, he was a prison guard... he was a soldier of the Coruscant Guard.

"I'm Toast. If you'd like, I... I can tell you what happened to Shudder."

———

Thanks for the ask, and thanks for reading.

Echo and Fives are twins, they came out of the same tube, so their batch had 6 members. Of course, a squad only needs 5, and the Kaminoans believe one twin is inherently inferior and weaker from birth due to their being twins.

So one of them was going to be decommissioned, the one who scored lower and was the less efficient. Echo and Fives, as twins, did what they could to keep in balance so neither could be seen as the weaker, but one would have gone.

Except Armlock fell into the ocean on a training run. He fell and got sick and never caught up in training or academics, always too weak. He was decommissioned, and both Echo and Fives were saved. It broke up the squad, because it was abnormal and singled them out as weaker and caused them all sorts of issues.

They were at constant risk of decommissioning but thanks to 99, they pulled back together and made it through.

In the end for too long it was only the twins that shouldn’t have made it.

Then they lost each other.