#ct boost

You didn’t remember much from the first few days.

Just smoke. Fire. The blaster shots echoing so loud in your skull it made you want to curl into the smallest thing possible.

Your village had been nothing more than a dot on a backwater moon—a place the war had always passed over. Until it didn’t.

You remembered clutching your stuffed loth-cat so tightly your fingers ached. Remembered the way your guardian pushed you under the collapsed roof beams, told you to stay quiet. To breathe slowly. To wait.

They never came back.

You did as you were told. You waited. Hours passed. The sky turned black. And then—

Boots.

Voices.

Not droids. Not the hard, scratchy crackle of modulated comms. But deeper. Familiar. Human.

And then—

“Sir. I got something.”

Someone dragged debris away, piece by piece, until the light hurt your eyes. You blinked up at a silhouette wearing battered white armor and a cracked helmet painted with gray markings. There was blood on his chestplate. He had a mechanical eye that glowed faintly red.

He crouched.

“…You’re a little too small to be a threat.”

You flinched.

He tilted his head.

“Hey. It’s alright. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

A pause. “…You can let go of the loth-cat, though.”

You didn’t.

That was the first time you met Commander Wolffe.

⸻

They didn’t mean to keep you. Not really. You were supposed to be handed off to Republic evac, or a Jedi transport. But there was no transport. No Jedi.

So, you stayed. First for a day. Then a week. Then longer.

They tried not to let you see too much.

Wolffe barked orders for you to stay on the ship when they dropped into combat zones. Boost and Sinker took turns walking you around the base perimeter and drawing silly faces on their helmets to make you laugh. Comet built a whole story about the scars on his arm being from a giant tooka-monster.

You didn’t talk much at first. But you followed Wolffe like a shadow.

Even when he grunted. Even when he said “Don’t you have anything better to do, kid?” and “I’m not a babysitter.”

You stayed close.

You weren’t sure why.

Only that—when he was around—you didn’t feel afraid.

⸻

Braid Duty

You hadn’t even meant to ask him.

You’d just been sitting near the crates in the hangar, legs swinging, hair in tangled knots because you hadn’t let anyone near you with a brush in days. You were tired of the weight of it. But when Boost offered to braid it—cheerfully saying he’d give you the “best battle braid in the galaxy”—you said no. Too loud. Too sharp.

And then Wolffe passed by.

You looked up.

Your hand went to your hair.

The words slipped out before you could stop them:

“Commander Wolffe. Will you braid it?”

Boost blinked. Comet snorted. Sinker raised an eyebrow like you’d just asked Wolffe to wear a tutu.

But the Commander paused.

He looked at you. Really looked.

Then gave a low sigh.

“Fine. But if you squirm, I’m giving you to the 212th.”

You smiled.

You didn’t squirm.

He sat behind you on a supply crate, armor stripped to his blacks, hands surprisingly gentle as he brushed through the knots. It wasn’t perfect—he tugged once or twice, and muttered under his breath—but you stayed still. Safe. Warm.

“You could’ve asked one of the others,” he said quietly.

“I wanted you.”

“Why?”

You looked down at your loth-cat plush. Picked at the ear that was starting to unravel.

“Because you don’t laugh when I cry.”

There was a long silence. His hands paused, then slowly began braiding again.

“…Yeah,” he muttered. “Well. You don’t laugh when I yell. So we’re even.”

You giggled.

⸻

Wolffe didn’t notice it at first.

You’d been doodling. Stickers were your new favorite thing. Plo Koon had brought a datapad full of them for you—little sparkly tookas, clone helmet faces, stars and moons and rainbow squiggles.

You pressed one gently to Wolffe’s pauldron while he was leaning over a holomap. A shiny tooka with glittery eyes.

Boost saw it first. And laughed.

Wolffe narrowed his eyes. “What.”

Comet snorted. “You’ve been… decorated, Commander.”

He looked at the sticker. Scowled.

You flinched, thinking he’d rip it off.

But he didn’t. He just left it. Glanced at you. Gave a gruff huff of breath that almost sounded like a laugh. Then turned back to the holomap.

The sticker stayed.

⸻

Some nights you still cried. Quietly. After lights out. When no one could hear.

But Wolffe always did.

Even if he didn’t say anything. Even if he didn’t turn on the light. He’d just sit nearby. Silent. Solid. A safe weight in the dark.

One night, you found the courage to whisper:

“…Did you cry? After your first battle?”

There was a pause. A long one.

Then:

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I did.”

You reached for his hand. He let you hold it.

You fell asleep like that.

⸻

You had a home now.

Not made of stone and hearth, but of armor and noise and callused hands that always caught you when you stumbled.

Wolffe wasn’t your father.

But he braided your hair and kept the nightmares away.

That was close enough.

Sinker taught you how to whistle. Boost taught you how to cheat at sabacc. Comet gave you his spare helmet and let you draw on it with chalk.

They were loud. Tired. Rude sometimes.

And they loved you like you were the most precious thing they’d ever been ordered to protect.

Somewhere in the galaxy, a battle ends.

And you wait.

Your braid neat. Your loth-cat in hand.

Because they’ll come back.

They always do.

Your newest article had gone live thirty-six hours ago.

And it had exactly two comments.

One was from your mother. The other was some rando saying “LMAO shut up kid.”

That was it.

You groaned and thunked your head down onto the datapad. The mess hall table rattled, drawing a look from Boost, who was quietly dismantling his blaster next to you.

“You okay, Eyeball?” he asked.

“No,” you mumbled into the plastoid surface. “I just poured my soul into a five-thousand-word exposé about the human cost of war and the intersection of clone identity and individuality, and literally no one cares.”

Boost cocked his head. “That sentence was way too long.”

You threw your arms up. “Exactly! Nobody cares! Nobody even reads it! I might as well scream into hyperspace. At least the stars would echo back.”

Comet sat down across from you, tray clattering. “So what? You want fame?”

“I want people to listen!” you snapped, then immediately wilted. “Sorry. That was… loud.”

The clones exchanged looks over your head.

⸻

Later, in the barracks, you tried to vent into your recorder.

“Maybe I’m just… too opinionated. Too much. Who wants to hear some teenager go on about war crimes and propaganda? Nobody! Not even the clones I’m trying to help.”

You didn’t realize Wolffe had walked in until he said, flat and unimpressed:

“You done yet?”

You jumped so hard you nearly dropped the recorder. “Commander! I—uh—I was just…”

“Complaining into a microphone?” His eyebrow arched. “Very professional.”

You flushed hot. “You don’t get it. My work doesn’t matter. I’m not a Jedi, I’m not a soldier, I’m just—” Your throat tightened. “Just a loudmouth kid with a datapad.”

There was silence. Then heavy footsteps as Wolffe came closer.

He crouched so you had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Listen to me,” he said. “We’ve had spies. Auditors. Inspectors. All of them treated us like numbers. You don’t. You write what you see. That matters. Even if some civvie on Coruscant doesn’t think so.”

Your eyes burned. “But what if it’s not enough?”

“Kid,” Wolffe said bluntly, “you could write the truth of the galaxy itself and some di’kut would still tell you to shut up.”

You blinked. Then—despite yourself—snorted.

Sinker, from his bunk, called: “Yeah, welcome to our lives. We save people and half the Senate still hates us.”

“Exactly,” Boost added. “If you’ve got critics, it means you’re doing something right.”

Comet tossed a ration bar at you. “Eat something. Ranting burns calories.”

You stared at them, all casual and gruff and weirdly sincere.

And for the first time since you started your little war-journalist career, you didn’t feel small. Or loud. Or pointless.

You felt like maybe your words—your voice—mattered.

Not because of the comments. Not because of the views.

But because the Wolfpack listened.

⸻

Later that night, you found your recorder where Wolffe had set it on the table. A new file blinked at the top of the list.

You hit play.

“This is Commander Wolffe of the 104th. For the record: the kid’s annoying, opinionated, and doesn’t know when to shut up. But their words keep us human. That’s worth more than any headline. End log.”