Pairing: Boss x reader.
Word Count: 1592
Summary: You go to 79's with Delta Squad. You finally confess your feelings for Boss.
Warnings: I don't think any. They're drinking alcohol. It's not edited. Never edited.
79’s is busier than usual. Laughter and mingled conversations float through the air as you glance around looking for your friends outside the entrance, but in the throng of people, Delta Squad eludes you. Sev had said they’d be outside and waiting for you. You stand on the tip of your toes for a moment to look over a tall, green twi’lek. Near the door, you spot the distinctive red streaked armor of the sniper.
Scorch spots you first as you make your way through the crowd; he waves enthusiastically at you. You wave back, and stride up to them. You’ve grown closer to the two of them over the last few months and get almost as many transmissions from Scorch as you do Boss. It’s always light-hearted messages about what they’ve gotten into and what they’ve gotten to see. He has told you before that since you don’t travel often that he was going to let you live vicariously through him. Though, you can’t say that you’d want to live Scorch’s life or any of them if you’re being honest.
But it was Sev who you felt you could talk the most openly with. He always acted aloof, and when you thought he never actually listened, he’d bring up something you’d said in the past as if he’d recorded it to memory, and it was Sev who you’d poured your heart out to about your feelings for Boss. He’d already known, though. According to him, anyone with a fourth of a brain was able to tell. You’d gone on to ask him if he’d ever felt like he was in love, and he only laughed and deflected. ‘You’ve never gotten flutterbys in your stomach around someone?’ You had asked. He smirked. ‘If I start feeling pests inside me around someone, I’m comming an exterminator. Or, better yet, becoming an exterminator.’
Sev’s helmet is tucked under his arm, and his dark eyes give you a once over.
He nods to your outfit. “You clean up nicely. Trying to impress someone?”
You roll your eyes, but you can’t hide the smile creeping onto your face. You’ll never admit how you stressed for an hour over what to wear to meet them. And you know he knows who you’re trying to impress. You had almost cancelled last minute, but Scorch had already gotten the others in on asking you to come. ‘Don’t listen to me, listen to them! It’ll be fun.’ He had told you, and the others had all chimed in that they’d make sure you had a good time.
“Fixer and Boss are inside making sure we get our favorite table,” Scorch tells you as he leads the way through the sliding doors. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the music.
You follow closely behind him up a small flight of stairs to a balcony area overlooking the dance floor. The thud of the bass reverberates through the floor and melds with your heartbeat as you scan the crowd below. A droid with a tray of colorful drinks whizzes past you to a table of clones clad in grey armor.
Scorch slides into a booth next to Fixer who’s already halfway through a glass of amber liquid. Sev nudges you in the back to take the seat next to Boss, and you can’t help but wonder if he and Scorch had been making plans for you while they were gone. They wanted you to be with the brother maybe more than you did. The sniper sits on your other side, closing you in between him and his brother.
“Well, this is cozy,” he says with a smirk.
You chance a look at Boss, but his eyes are boring holes into his brother’s. You can tell they’re having some type of silent conversation. How much had Sev told him about what you’d told him before they’d gone on their mission?
“I’m glad you could join us,” Boss tells you, looking away from Sev.
“Thanks for inviting me. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this place, but this is the first time I’ve ever been,” you reply. “It’s nice to have a visual for all the stories I hear.”
Scorch flags down the waitress droid to order drinks and shoots you a grin. Conversation is light and easy most of the night, and despite your initial nervousness, you’re having a good time.
As the night progresses, the crowd begins to thin out. You watch as brothers from different battalions hug each other as if it’s the last time they will ever see each other…and sadly, there’s always the chance that this is their final goodbye to one another. Fixer has moved away from your table to talk to a member of Aiwha Squad, and Scorch is cheering on Sev who is currently in an arm wrestling competition with Jind from Yayax Squad. Or so that was who Boss had told you they were.
“You know, Sev told me something very interesting while we were gone,” Boss says conspicuously, leaning toward you like he’s about to spill confidential information.
You swallow past the lump in your throat at how close he is and how damn good he looks with that stupid smug look on his face.
“If it’s a new way to gut a Geonosian, I’d rather not have to sit through that again,” you tell him, crinkling your nose.
“No, nothing like that.” He lets out a breathy chuckle and looks over where Sev is demanding a rematch against Jind. He keeps his eyes on his brother as if looking at you may make him change his mind about what he wants to say to you. “He said you’re in love with me.”
He chances a quick look at your stiff form then averts his eyes back toward the arm wrestling competition like he just made a casual comment about the weather instead of calling you out for having feelings for him. You shoot a glare in Sev’s general direction.
“I never said that I was in love with you,” you say with more calm than you knew you had in you at the moment. Especially since you were sure he could hear how hard your heart was beating. A stampede of Rancors would have been more quiet.
He doesn’t move, but you could swear he may have stopped breathing. His smug grin has fallen, and he eyes the drink in front of him like he’s wishing he could drown in it.
“I told him that you make me nervous. You make me feel like a colony of flutterbys live in my organs, and I get stupidly sweaty when you get close to me,” you say just loud enough for him to hear. He finally looks up from his drink and to you with hopeful eyes.
You continue, holding his stare. “I dream about you most nights and what it would be like to be yours. What it would be like for you to hold me like I’m something special to you. I worry about you every single day, and when you go too long without comming me, it takes everything in me not to cry and assume the absolute worst. You make me-”
Your words are cut short by his hand cupping your jaw and his lips pressing to yours. His mouth is soft and warm and tastes of the lingering hints of the liquor he’s been nursing. The kiss is hesitant, but as your fingers find purchase in his hair, he lets himself sink into it more, and you think that this right here would be enough to send you to a place of euphoria that would last for weeks.
Wrapping your arms around him, you pull him closer and deepen the kiss. His hands grip the fabric of your shirt at your waist, pulling it tight against your skin. The tip of his tongue gently prods at your lips, asking to be let in.
It’s so much better than you’d imagined, and you had imagined something so amazing that you weren’t sure that it would live up to it if you finally did get it.
Someone cheers and whistles not far from you, and you think it may be Scorch, but you don’t look as Boss pulls away. You just breathe in the moment. The scent of him. The rush of finally getting to kiss him. He places his forehead to yours and caresses your cheek with his thumb.
“As happy as I am for you two, Scorch’s cheering over your little lovefest just cost me five credits,” Sev says, dropping down onto the booth’s seat next to you.
Boss scoffs. “You’re the one who threatened to shoot me if I didn’t ‘make a move’ tonight.”
Sev grimaces and crosses his arms. “I didn’t know it was going to cost me, though.”
You laugh and shove Sev’s shoulder with your own. “I’ll try to make it up to you. Next round of drinks is on me.”
“I guess that’s a start,” Sev says.
Boss slides his arm around your shoulder and pulls you against his side and whispers in your ear, “you don’t owe him anything.”
You smile and shake your head. “He got the two of us to confess how we feel. I’d say I owe him a lot.”
He returns your smile and presses a quick kiss to your cheek. The feeling warms you to your core. Yeah, you owe Sev. For now, another round of his favorite drink will have to do.
A/N - So, this was actually my idea for reader confessing to Fixer in chapter two of Heart on the Floor. It didn't feel right for Fixer, but I'm glad I got to explore it here with Boss!
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, swearing, English is not Basic, wrong terminology used on purpose
Summary: Lennox didn’t think that making headway in communicating would be this quick, but at least she didn’t have to play the world’s worst game of pictionary and charades to do it. And perhaps she could make a new friend too while she’s at it.
(Since Lennox is going to be learning Basic, starting this chapter and from now on:
English will be bold
Basic will be like normal.)
[Prev] // [Next]
Masterlist
The food in front of her was questionable at best, and reminded Lennox terribly of high school lunches. Except worse, somehow. She sniffed the piece of meat on her fork hesitantly, but her companions didn’t even pause before digging in. Which was good in that it was eatable, but that said nothing to taste, or lack thereof, when she finally took a bite.
She chewed slowly, all the while wondering how something that was covered in sauce could still be so bland. Not that she cared too much at the moment, seeing as how she hadn’t eaten since before all the bullshit yesterday. She didn’t even notice how hungry she was until she got out of bed and was practically assaulted by her growling stomach.
She could deal with a tasteless square meat patty if it meant getting something in her.
Her companions talked, but they were half drowned out by the rest of the chatter in the mess hall. They ignored her for the most part, which left ample time for her to get lost in her thoughts.
This morning was… Well, she was doing better than when she woke up. The embarrassment of Orange walking in on her crying yet again while standing in front of one of the sink mirrors was finally wearing off, at least.
Deep breath.
In retrospect, putting on her clean, but now heavily blood-stained, clothes from yesterday wasn’t her best idea. She had spent ages scrubbing them in the sink and left them out to dry last night, so she didn’t think about it when she changed out of the red pajamas. The trigger of it lingered in her mind as she absentmindedly rubbed at her collar. There was no forgetting it, but maybe she could move past it and be able to wear these clothes after today? Or would she have to find all new clothes wear?
She didn’t have a lot of options for the latter, though. It was either wearing the red pajamas she slept in or changing into the black underclothes that were also in her footlocker. Both of which were too big for her, and it felt wrong to assume she could use them. Not that anyone tried to stop her when she wore them last night, but still.
It was a complicated line of reasoning in her head that she knew didn’t quite make sense, but it was all she had. What she really needed to do was set aside some time to un-compartmentalize everything and sort it out for herself.
Her fork scraped the last of the mystery meat into her mouth as she thought. Bland it may have been, but it was surprisingly filling too. A quick glance over at everyone else had her relaxing. They were also just finishing up their food, so she didn’t feel weird about eating too fast and having to wait for them.
Which was just as well because they got up not long after, and she followed them like she had been since they found her, feeling remarkably like a duckling. She supposed that made them the mother ducks for the time being. It made her smile to herself behind all of them, and she decided it would never be spoken aloud for the sake of her person. Though to prove her point, once they dumped their trays, they lead her down hallway after twisting hallway, passing more people now and then. And just like before, she still had no hope of remembering her way around, even with a clearer head. She needed a map. Or they needed to put up signs.
They arrived at their destination a few minutes later, which was nothing more than a meeting room with a large table, and what looked like another one of those hologram tables. Green pointed at her and then to the table, so she sat at the end of it. Whether she chose that seat because it was the closest to her or the door remained to be seen. She expected them to follow, but they either leaned against the smaller table or the wall.
It was exceedingly normal, and she was thankful for it.
Her head snapped to the door when a new man came, and she watched as he spoke quietly to Orange before he, surprisingly, stepped over to her. She tiled her head in question, and he handed her a large, clunky looking tablet. When she glanced at the screen everything was written in the strange new alphabet she had seen everywhere.
Lennox handed it back to him while shaking her head, the only way she could convey that she couldn’t read it. She thought for a second and then used her hands to mime writing. Maybe they could get somewhere if they knew what her alphabet looked like too, but she didn’t hold out much hope. The two couldn’t have been more different.
The guy nodded at her poor miming skills and walked away to rifle through a cabinet before coming back with a clipboard, a few blank pieces of paper, and a pencil.
Lennox’s brain stalled once she had it in hand. What could she write that anyone would understand? The last time she learned a new language was in high school; there was no way she could remember how it started out. She went through half a dozen phrases before she decided on what really should have been her first idea. It was obvious as she wrote it out in her best handwriting.
“My name is Lennox Cahill.” She flipped the board around and moved her finger to each word as she spoke. She pointed at her name again and then at herself. “Lennox.”
A smile crept up the man’s face as he took the clipboard from her and started writing. There was a neat line of characters under hers when he flipped it back, and he guided his finger along while he talked the same way she had.
“My name is Besh.” He pointed to his face, grinning. “Besh.”
“Besh,” she sounded the word out carefully and perked up at his enthusiastic nod.
She took the clipboard back and tilted her head, flicking the pencil between her fingers while she thought. There were repeating characters in Besh’s line, in the same places that her line had in English, and there seemed to be the same number of letters per word. For the first three words at least, before their names. Maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe it wasn’t.
There was only one way to find out. She removed the first paper and started writing out her alphabet on a new sheet, making sure to do capital and lowercase letters, and added numbers down at the bottom to cover all her bases. Then she looked back to her greeting and started matching up her letters to theirs, the unfamiliar characters looking a little wonky in her handwriting. Seven letters didn’t give them much, but it was better than nothing as a starting point.
Besh made a sound in the back of his throat when she showed him. His eyes scanned the page, and he was quick to take the pencil from her and start scribbling, showing her what he had done.
Lennox made the same surprised sound. “There’s no way it’s that easy.”
Every single empty space had been filled in; new characters matched up to hers succinctly. Even his numbers looked like stylized versions of her own. She pulled the first paper back to her and wrote down her thought using the new alphabet.
Besh laughed when he read it. Lennox offered the pencil back to him with a small smile, happy that she could finally communicate in some form. She would have to work on memorizing their alphabet, and then figure out how to speak their language too.
“Evidentially it is,” Besh said jovially, showing a neat line of English.
Lennox was baffled. How the hell was his English handwriting better than hers? That wasn’t fair!
She glanced over to her companions, who had been waiting silently the whole time, but quickly looked back to her page when she managed to somehow make eye contact with every single one of them in what felt like half a second. It was a bit awkward.
She constructed her next two sentences carefully, copying the letters as neatly as she could.
When she was done she got up and walked over to the others. Orange stepped forward, and she was getting the feeling that he was the leader of their group; everyone always talked to him first.
She handed the clipboard to him. “Thank you for keeping me alive.” She glanced at Yellow. “And for giving me a gun.”
Orange tapped on “gun” and tilted his head.
Lennox was certain she hadn’t spelled anything wrong, so she pointed at the holster Yellow wore on his right thigh, which held the same gun he had shoved into her hands. “Gun?”
Orange nodded his head and proceeded to write a new word underneath hers. He didn’t translate it to English like Besh had, so it took her a second to figure out what it said.
“Blaster?”
“Blaster,” he said.
Interesting. They had what was essentially a one-to-one translation but different terminology for some words. And it wouldn’t be possible to anticipate what those words were until they came up. Great.
“Thank you for the blaster then.” It sounded clunky mixed with her English, though she suspected that was mostly due to just having learned the word. But she got her message across given how Orange and Yellow both nodded at her, so that was a plus.
“What are your names?” She said after she wrote it out.
There was a pause, and she glanced around when it dragged on long enough to make her nervous. Should she take it back? Maybe she wasn’t going to stick around, so it didn’t matter? She didn’t know where else she could go.
“Boss.”
Lennox couldn’t help the hopeful smile that spread when Orange spoke, and it only grew when the other followed his example.
“Fixer.” Green was the next to talk.
“Scorch.” Yellow gave her a thumbs up.
“Sev.” Red all but grunted after a much longer pause.
She committed them all to memory and tucked the clipboard under her arm, sticking her hand out to Orange - Boss - when it was freed. “Lennox.”
Okay, make a good impression: eye contact, firm handshake.
Except her grip still paled in comparison to his, and he could probably break her hand right now if he really wanted to. It was the same for Fixer, Scorch, and Sev, with only the slightest discrepancies.
She had to consciously stop herself from flexing her fingers when she stepped away, but they certainly ached like she needed to. Instead she went back to her clipboard and wrote:
‘So what happens to me now?’ She really wanted to know.
Boss looked over her shoulder and said something to Besh, who hadn’t moved from the table. He was frowning when Lennox glanced back at him, which didn’t exactly make her feel good about the answer to her question. When he saluted and turned to leave she waved at him uncertainly, and was glad when he waved back before walking out the door.
The clipboard was pushed back into her hands. This time, Boss wrote in English.
‘Now, we talk.’
That sounded ominous. But Lennox took a deep breath, nodded, and turned to sat back in her chair. She placed the clipboard and translated alphabets in the middle, and gestured for Boss to sit across from her, assuming she would be talking with him.
The atmosphere chilled in the next second as he took a seat. It was tense, and the others - Fixer, Scorch, Sev, she ran through their names again - stood around them.
‘Do you work for the Separatists’
There was a symbol she didn’t recognize at the end of the question, but it was definitely a question. Must’ve been their version of a question mark.
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean by Separatist.’ She stuck to using their alphabet. It might not have been easy for her to write, but they could both read faster if they were using each other’s language.
‘How did you end up in the droid factory on Geonosis’
Droid. So they called the robots something else too.
‘What’s Geonosis?’ That’s what she was stuck on.
If Boss thought she was being purposefully obtuse, because she knew that’s what it sounded like, then he didn’t show it. ‘You killed Geonosians, but you don’t know their planet?’
Lennox was surprised to see the English question mark at the end this time. So he noticed it too.
‘If Geonosians were those aliens, then yes.’ She paused. There was no harm, yet, in giving them extra information. ‘I didn’t know there was any life on other planets before yesterday.’
‘What planet are from?’
‘Earth.’
It baffled Lennox that that was a question she ever had to answer. Her eyes flicked over to Fixer when he walked over to the hologram table and turned it on. It lit up and he shifted through information so quickly she had no hope of deciphering it.
Boss didn’t write anything else until after Fixer spoke - the first time anyone had spoken since Besh left.
‘There’s no record of a planet Earth in the galaxy.’
Lennox stilled. She didn’t even notice Boss holding out the pencil for her until he tapped it on the table. She took it without looking.
‘And what galaxy would that be, exactly?’
She folded her hands in front of her mouth, trying not to shake in suspense of his answer.
Boss raised his eyebrow at her, and her heart sank.
‘Clouzon.’
Her head thunked against the table, and she tugged at the hair on the nape of her neck while she groaned. She heard Boss clear his throat, and she peeked up at him with a withering glare. Couldn’t she have her sudden mid-life crisis in peace for a few seconds?
She gestured for the pencil again while rubbing at her face.
‘My galaxy-‘ she grimaced as she wrote, ‘-is the Milky Way.’
‘There’s no such thing as extragalactic travel. Where are you from?’
‘Whether you think it’s possible or not doesn’t make it any less true; I’m from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. And I don’t know how I got here, in case you were planning on circling back to your previous question of how I ended up in that factory.’
Alright, that might have been a bit ranting, but she was frustrated and confused, as well as a slew of other things she didn’t care to find words for at the moment. Besides, she had no reason to hide anything from these people. Not that she thought they would believe her if she told them that. Despite having put a gun in her hands, they didn’t seem to be the trusting type.
‘What were you doing before we found you?’
‘Screaming.’
Scorch snorted from where he was reading over Boss’s shoulder, and Lennox couldn’t stop her lips from twitching up at the sound.
The tension in the air lessened, if only a little. They kept to the same vein of questioning, and she answered them truthfully to the best of her ability. She had questions of her own, of course, which Boss answered… most of the time. He said just enough to keep her placated and ran words around her the rest of the time. It was kind of fun if she were being honest. She didn’t get mental stimulation of that caliber often, and verbally sparing with Boss certainly made up for the lack of it.
He also absolutely knew that she knew what he was doing. So really, who was letting who do what here?
The conversation, or rather interrogation, tapered off after a while. Lennox wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been going on for, since there wasn’t a clock in the room, but they did go through two pieces of paper front and back if that said anything about it.
Besh came back just as they finished up, though whether that was planned or not Lennox didn’t know. He was carrying a few tablets with him, and she could hear the tell-tale sound of rustling notebook paper. Which was nice because she liked writing. That wasn’t to say that she didn’t like the tablets or technology in general, but she would have to wait until she learned how to use it. Couldn’t do that if she didn’t understand anything on it yet.
Learn the language - fuck shit up - figure out how to get home to another galaxy.
Simple three step plan.
Besh started teaching her immediately while the others left to go about whatever it was they did when she wasn’t following them. He said they’d be back to collect her later. She didn’t mind.
She and Besh used one notebook to talk, and she took notes, mostly in English, in another one. It was simpler than she thought it would be, but learning a new language was still never that easy. He also taught her how to use the tablets, even though she struggled to read everything. It was fairly intuitive once she got the hang of it. Plus the longer she wrote everything the easier it became to write without having to reference the translation paper for every letter.
Besh also said she had the strangest accent he had ever heard when she tried speaking Basic. Which she found out was the name of their language when she asked what that word meant in that context. She couldn’t imagine a whole galaxy using one language. That ultimately lead to him explaining all the other “galactic standards” they had, and she said how it compared it to Earth. Maybe they weren’t so different after all.
At the very least, part one of her plan - learn the language - was ongoing but seemingly in line for success.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens to delta squad after order 66. Legends said that they joined the 501st (which i think turned into Vader’s First? i don’t know shit i just read wookiepedia too much) in a special ops division. So I imagine that holds true.
They never get a replacement for Sev. The goal is to wait for them to die on one of the increasingly dangerous missions they’re sent on- hunting jedi escapees from O66 and enforcing the Emperor’s will. I don’t think much of their individuality would remain, once the chips take over. But parts of who they were remain, such as Fixer’s longer hair, his and Boss’s (who’s you cant see as they’re full sleeves hidden by the armor) tattoo’s, and Scorch’s insufferable smirk.
If Sev is alive, I imagine he’s out there trying to free his brothers.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, swearing, English is not Basic, wrong terminology used on purpose
Summary: Lennox can’t believe she made it out of that facility alive, but the uncertainty of her place in this strange new world now weighs down on her.
[Prev] // [Next]
Masterlist
Even though Lennox couldn’t understand the voice that came over the intercom, it was still foreboding. Especially when the explosion that followed was so violent it knocked her off balance and into the side of the elevator cage. Which ended up being a good thing, because as soon as it stopped and the door raised her… companions… and she were fired upon. She wasn’t hit, but she saw more scorch marks steadily collecting on their armor.
Between running to keep up with them and trying to hold her own in this hellhole, she worried about the integrity of their armor and if it would give out before they got out. If they got out.
The intercom went off again, and she finally noticed the blaring alarm over the sound of gunfire and now near constant explosions. The whole place was practically vibrating.
It was going to blow soon, wasn’t it?
No wonder they were running. They no longer took the time to make sure each way was clear, instead just plowed through as quickly as they could.
Pieces of the wall were turned into deadly projectiles in the narrow hallways. One panel nearly took out Lennox’s ankles but she managed to jump over it, stumbling on the landing before she righted herself. If they weren’t about to die she might’ve been embarrassed that Green, who was behind her, definitely saw that.
The mechanical voice sounded for the third time in just as many…
Oh, Lennox realized. So they had minutes left.
Couldn’t say she was a fan of that.
They picked off the last of the robots blocking the door at the end of the hall. Lennox acted on impulse. She tucked her gun into the back of her pants - bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, if she shoots herself in the ass these people better leave her behind to die in shame alone - and stooped down to swipe one of the bigger guns as she ran by.
She probably should’ve done that a while ago to be honest.
The next room was empty, and it made her paranoid. She shouldn’t complain, but it felt like a trap waiting to happen. And getting stuck could mean everything when she didn’t know how much time that impersonal voice was saying she had left. The others understood it. They didn’t waste any time. What if she did?
Yellow went up to the next door and Lennox focused on how he was planting one of his explosives on it.
They were going in hot it seemed. She could do that. Hopefully. She just had to wait for everyone else to go first, like she’d been doing so far. Which was probably a shitty thing to do but she didn’t have their armor or training or whatever else they had going for them. It’s not like they forced her go first anyhow. They could if they wanted to. They’d been yanking her around the whole time anyway. Though admittedly that was to get her out of harm’s way, so maybe they wouldn’t do that.
The door charge being set off shocked her out of her spiraling train of thought. Gunfire kept her alert as she followed them in and was met with what could only be described as pure chaos.
She immediately glued herself to the wall and shot at whatever robot she could - there were a lot of them to choose from. Though, that wasn’t counting the new addition of automated turrets mounted to the ceiling. There were two them she could see, but there might’ve been a third around the corner based on the laser bolts she saw coming from that direction. The others moved further into the room, but she knew if she tried that she would be dead in a second.
Green moved to the console on the platform to her right. Orange, Red, and Yellow covered him from the walkway while he did whatever he was doing. But she could see at least half a dozen robots going up the ramps from the other side of the bottom level. They would be surrounded.
There was no time to think, so what did she do?
She jumped off the landing to get behind the robots, of course. It was about an eight-foot drop so she did a clumsy roll to break her fall and ran over to the ramp before her brain could catch up with her. Being closer meant a higher chance of hitting her target, right? She fired into their backs, grateful that the gun she picked up was an automatic - she could do a lot more damage with that. It was grueling work, because after the first two were down the others noticed her and half of them turned around. The first one she managed to shoot, but she had to kick out the knee joint of the second, causing it to fall off the ramp. She might’ve spent too much time with Red if she was getting physical now, but she wasn’t about to question it. The last one still in front of her hesitated just for a moment, which allowed her to shoot it too before it could get its gun up.
If she wasn’t on the verge of collapse, a panic attack, and death, she might’ve taken the time to be impressed with herself. As it was, she still had shit to do.
She had to be more careful once she got on the platform, least she fall off or accidentally shoot one of the others when they came into view around the bend. Which meant she had to get even closer to the robots to make sure she didn’t miss. It was nerve wracking, but at least they were lined up nicely for her.
She stepped over their sparking bodies and dove for cover next to Orange, who was holding his own across from Yellow and Red. She took a deep, shuttering breath before popping up next to him and firing again. Unfortunately, it only took a few seconds for whatever ammo her gun used to finally run out.
“Shit, mother fucker,” Lennox hissed, tossing the gun over the guard wall and pulled the handgun out of her pants. It was still better than nothing.
She wasn’t sure how much time passed after that. She knew it couldn’t have been that long in reality, but in her mind it stretched on; seconds felt like minutes and minutes like hours.
At least until Orange yanked her up by the arm and pushed her in front of him, forcing her to run after Green and Yellow while he and Red brought up the rear. They went through a door by the ramp that she hadn’t notice before and started sprinting down the hall. It was harder than before with the foundation quaking under her feet, trying to dodge the pieces of wall and ceiling as they were actively being ripped apart.
It looked like a dead end to her until the wall ahead of them opened up in a fireball. When the dust cleared there was a ship hovering there, and her heart gave a valiant attempt at crawling into her throat when she saw the rear ramp was lowered.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she chanted under hear breath as she neared the opening. She leapt as far as she could after Yellow and Green, giving one last “FUCK” as her feet left the ground with nothing but a few thousand feet of open air below her.
She would be really pissed if she fell to her death now.
She hit the edge of the ramp, arms flailing as she stumbled forward straight into Yellow who grabbed her by the shoulders to stop her momentum. She gave him a weak, awkward smile in apology. She also belatedly remembered to slip the gun back into her pants now that she didn’t immediately need it.
Two more thuds sounded behind her before the ship jolted and Lennox once again had to flail to catch one of the hand holds that dangled just barely within her reach. The ship flew away quickly, and even with the distance it was putting between them and the facility, the resounding explosion still managed to make her ears ring, oversensitive as they were from everything else. Not to mention the building pressure from them needing to pop because of the altitude change. She tilted her head and clenching her jaw to try and dispel the feeling.
The ship touched down, and Lennox expected the others to start moving but they didn’t seem to pay it any mind. She looked around when the side doors opened and was taken aback when a large group of people also clad in armor got on too. Theirs was all white though, and shaped differently; it wasn’t as bulky. She swallowed when she noticed most of the helmets were turned towards her - or maybe they were looking at her companions. Either way, she tried to act as nonchalant as possible, gripping her handle tightly as the ship took off again.
She watched the red ground grow further away through the still open doors, and got even more tense when the view disappeared completely as they continued to climb higher.
Exactly where were they going now?
She got her answer a minute later when the open air turned into metal walls and the ship touched down again. Everyone started to jump off, taking their helmets off as they did so. She followed her companions into what was the largest, and only, hanger she had ever been in, packed full of hundreds, maybe thousands, of men dress identically in white armor, no other color that she could see except for Orange, Green, Yellow, and Red.
The most shocking thing though was everyone there, her companions included, when she turned to look at them and saw they had finally taken their helmets off too, looked exactly the same.
Exactly. The. Same.
She tugged on a lock of hair on the back of her neck, grimaced at how tangled and dirty it felt, and idly wondered what her life had become in the last… however long it had been.
“I really wish this was the weirdest thing I’d seen today,” she said, exasperated as a single tear tracked down her cheek.
No, no. She needed to hold that in a little bit longer. She couldn’t cry in front of all these people. That would be embarrassing.
A loud, familiar voice startled her out of her thoughts as her companions turned to address the newcomer. He held up a small device to Green’s chest, since he was closest, and went down the line until he saw her and paused before speaking directly to her this time.
“Sorry.” She cast a quick glance at the others. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The newcomer, who was probably some type of in-charge here, turned to Orange and spoke quickly with him. She tried not to fidget when he looked back at her briefly, though she couldn’t quite imagine what he was thinking when he saw her. She was growing increasingly more uncomfortable in her own skin as she began to notice how the layer of red dust she was covered in caused all the cuts on her to throb lightly. Not to mention how her freshly ruined clothes pulled on her skin because of dried blue and red blood.
Lennox wondered what would happen. She clearly wasn’t supposed to be a part of whatever was going on here, and she didn’t even know where “here” was! It sounded crazy, but she didn’t think she was on Earth anymore. Different language, literal aliens, robots with guns? It was absolutely insane, but there couldn’t have been many other explanations.
She wished she had a name for the newcomer. It would have at least been nice to call him something else in her head when he gestured at her, not waiting to see if she followed before walking off. She only hesitated for a second before doing so, and was thankful when she heard footsteps behind her.
It took a good few minutes just to walk through the hangar, large and filled with bodies as it was. She garnered more looks of confusion, surprise, and disbelief as she trekked on, thankful when they finally got past the bay doors and into a less crowded area. She tried to remember where they went after that, but there were too many turns and doorways. Not like she had the mental capacity to do so anyway at the moment. She was hurt, tired, and probably going through the worst adrenaline crash she’s ever had before.
Not a fun combination, in her opinion.
They got into an elevator eventually. This one was clearly not meant to fit five very large men and her at the same time, so she relegated herself to being squished into the corner. It was a tight fit, but still more spacious than when she was with Red in that facility, so that was a plus. A short ride later the door opened to yet another hallway, albeit a shorter one with. Finally, through one more door, Lennox saw where she had been led.
“Are we in fucking space?” It slipped out of her mouth before she could think to stop it, eyes glued to the wall of windows at the far end of the room.
Beyond the windows was an expanse of stars that might have convinced her it was simply nighttime if it weren’t for the entire red planet that was… well it was right there, floating. In space. She was in space.
Crazy.
She felt a light shove between her shoulder blades and looked back to see Orange still behind her, and realized the others were already gathered around a small circular table, looking at her.
She felt her face heat up. “Sorry.”
Orange guided her up to the table and put her between Green and himself. Her eyes widened slightly when the table lit up blue and a hologram of a man appeared in the gap between Red and the newcomer across from her. He was the first person she had seen who had a different face, along with shoulder-length hair and robes instead of armor. He couldn’t have been more different than anybody she’d seen so far. Aliens notwithstanding.
Everyone else started talking, and she could only assume it was about her, because why else would she be there. She was able to follow who was speaking because everyone had their own cadence of sorts, but she still didn’t have a clue what they were actually saying.
The hologram met her eyes and spoke, and when no one else answered she furrowed her eyebrows slightly. “I don’t suppose you speak English, do you?” She asked, skeptical.
The frown on his face gave her all the answer she needed. She sighed, resigned that she would have to figure out how to speak their language somehow. It would be easier that way. A body fizzled into the hologram next to the man, another robot, but it didn’t look like the one’s from before. This one appeared to be based off the basic human form. The man gestured to her again.
“How is the robot supposed to make a difference?” She asked with a sign. She was getting to the point where she just wanted to sleep for a week, not be constantly reminded how she couldn’t be understood.
It was quiet for a beat before the robot started talking in its own mechanical voice, but it wasn’t in English.
Lennox could feel her mouth twitch downward at the way the man looked at her now. There was something about it that set her teeth on edge, even through the hologram.
That was the last time anyone asked her to speak, and the meeting didn’t take that much longer before it concluded. Everyone spoke for a minute after the holograms fizzled out before they started to leave. Nobody looked particularly happy, though that could have been their normal expressions; it’s not like she would know.
She followed everyone back to the elevator in silence. Somehow, she was more nervous going down than she had been coming up. What would happen to her now?
As it turned out, there was a fairly simple answer to that. The newcomer broke off with a few words to her companions while ignoring her completely, and the others walked on. She continued to follow them, confident that if she wasn’t supposed to, they would push her off to go elsewhere.
Instead, much like they did on the planet below, they lead her through twisting halls until they came to what she assumed were the barracks on this ship. It was a smaller room than she thought it would be - three bunk beds were pushed to each wall, so there were only a dozen beds total. She couldn’t imagine all the rooms being this small, given the sea of people she saw before. Maybe the different armor meant they got more private rooms.
That begged the question, though, of was there supposed to be eight more people like them sleeping in this room, or were the extra beds there just in case?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it meant that the beds weren’t filled.
The others placed their packs on the trunk at the foot of their own bunk - one for each of them, then - so she gingerly sat on her own bottom bunk next to the one Yellow had chosen.
She absentmindedly started picking at the blue blood that was flaking off her cheek, but moved on to the more pressing matter of the chunks of hair that were glued together with that same blood. She grimaced at the sound it made as she pulled it apart with her fingers. She didn’t want to think about how bad it would be if it her hair was any longer. It was bad enough at her shoulders.
When Yellow started stripping his armor in front of her she didn’t pay it any mind. But when he also stripped off his black under suit, leaving him only in a pair of grey briefs, she nearly choked on her own spit, snapping her head down to stare resolutely at the floor.
Lennox became hyper aware of Orange, Red, and Green doing the same thing in her peripherals, but she wasn’t peaking! Nope, not at all.
She tugged her hair apart rougher than she needed to, trying to think of anything except them.
Which was going terribly, considering Yellow called out loudly and she jerked her head up in response. He said something and gestured to the door on the other side of the room as he walked towards it. She watched everyone else follow him, after they grabbed extra clothes from their footlocker.
She waited a beat, and heard the sound of water through the door. She sniffed herself and nearly reeled. Yeah, she definitely needed to shower too.
She got up hesitantly, and after removing the gun from her pants, grabbed the too big extra clothes from her footlocker. The door slid open when she got close enough and she paused.
‘Please have dividers, please have dividers, please have dividers,’ she chanted in her head.
She stepped through and immediately averted her eyes again.
Shit.
To the left were urinals, stalls, and sinks. But to the right was open as can be, with shower heads lining the wall in even intervals and benches in the middle of the tile floor.
She straightened her spine and braved the shower room, studiously ignoring the others while she stripped and chose a shower head on the opposite wall from them.
There was a good chance she just hit fuck it as she turned the handle to a nearly scalding temperature. She gave a shuttering breath and relished in watching all the bullshit from that day swirl down the drain.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, swearing, English is not Basic, wrong terminology used on purpose
Summary: There was a lot that could be glossed over in the wake of somehow ending up in the middle of a firefight, and Lennox hated everything about it. She needed this day to end, preferably before she and these four people she’d found herself with got blown up.
(Now we get a look into my OC’s pov. And just like when you play Republic Commando, it takes forever to get off Geonosis.)
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Masterlist
Lennox was of the opinion that this day could go fuck itself. She didn’t know how she got here, she didn’t want to know how she got here, she just wanted to leave. But it was looking more like she would die first, if the fact that she was fighting monsters and robots was anything to go by. She probably would have by now, if it hadn’t been for the four people that had found her. They didn’t speak English, and she didn’t recognize the language they had used the few times they actually spoke to her, so there was no chance of understanding anything they tried to say. She didn’t even know their names, but they hadn’t tried to communicate that anyway from what she could tell. Tone of voice and what little body language they showed still went a long way in this case.
Her ears were still ringing from the rockets that blew open the doorway, and she was once again yanked to the side by the one in orange she had been following. She found out why when more robots with weapons came out of the smoking entrance. She lifted her loaned gun and started shooting, hitting one or two of them while the rest were taken care of by the others like they were nothing.
Whose idea was it to have laser bullets instead of regular ones anyway? It was nice, sure, and her gun didn’t seem to need to be reloaded like she’d seen the others do, but still. Laser bullets? Really?
Regardless, she needed to focus. She could think on her radical acceptance of the situation later.
When they entered the new cavern, Orange gave a hand signal and the others fanned out. Red and Green had their guns pointed at the entrance and down the hall, and Yellow went to a control panel on the wall. Lennox was fairly certain those controlled the doors, from what she’d seen so far. There was always one they would type at when they needed to go somewhere else around here.
There was a thudding that came from behind her, and when she turned she cursed.
“Shit, fuck. Hey. Hey!” She whisper-yelled, waving gracelessly to get the attention of Orange, who was still hovering close to her.
When he looked over she pointed past the grated door to another four-legged robot with a big turret like the one they had seen outside. He nodded at her in acknowledgement. Lennox wanted to think that maybe he didn’t mind her being around quite as much anymore. It had been very tense between all of them when she first started following.
The next door opened, and it was lucky Lennox hadn’t been in view because there was a spray of laser bullets coming out of the room almost immediately. The others went in without pause, but it was easy for them; they had armor, helmets, and bigger guns than the one Yellow had given her. As the gunshots abated she took her chance to round the corner, hugging the wall as she moved to hide behind a pillar.
She peeked out when an explosion stopped the firefight completely. There was a large gap in the floor between them and the next part of the facility, but Yellow was already standing at another control panel.
A few seconds later she found out why.
Moving hallway, she marveled to herself. Who would’ve guessed?
Once they crossed it they were standing in an open area with what looked like a handful of circular vents lining the walls. They were called to a halt again and Lennox was questioning where they would go from here when it looked like a dead end. But the control panel Green was standing at said differently.
Those things really were everywhere. Lucky for them, she supposed.
It was quiet for a minute so Lennox took that time to lean against the wall, trying her best not to give into her tremoring body and collapse. She doubted this day would be over any time soon.
When she heard footsteps get closer to her she cracked open her eyes, watching as Red reached out and not-so-gently shoved her towards one of the now open grates. She gave him the most tired and disgruntled look she could muster up at the moment, very nearly sticking her tongue out at him. He didn’t even twitch.
He went in first, turning back and gesturing for her to follow before continuing ahead. She looked to the side and saw the other three entering their own vent. Guess they were splitting up. Wasn’t that usually a bad idea? Not that she could voice her opinion. Or rather she could, but they wouldn’t understand her so there wasn’t a point in doing so other than complaining to herself.
Lennox and Red got closer than either of them were wanting to when the shaft came to an end in a small, circular space. The floor lurched and shot upward and Lennox practically slammed into Red at the sudden movement. She clutched onto him with the hand that wasn’t holding her gun, ignoring for the moment his rigid posture and clear discomfort. She had more important things to focus on - like not getting smeared between the floor panel and dozens of floors worth of wall.
The elevator came to a stop on an open floor and Red’s gun was up immediately. Her own followed a few seconds later when her head stopped spinning enough to see.
They were alone, thankfully.
Red started walking, and Lennox had to wonder how he knew where to go considering how much of a maze this place was. But he moved with certainty and she was loath to be left behind to get lost by herself.
Remarkably, they didn’t run into any more robots, even when Red led them to a room with an expansive computer system. He went straight for the middle console and started typing. Lennox looked around at the other monitors that were closest to her and her brain did a soft reset before she sighed in defeat. Of course they would also have an entirely different alphabet. Couldn’t make it easy for her at all. Not one bit. Communicating was going to be just that much harder now. Assuming she doesn’t die before she gets the chance to figure it out.
Still a high probability of that happening.
Red was already finished with whatever he was doing when she looked back up. Really, he was only typing for a few seconds before the computer screens blinked green and an explosion rocked the facility. Lennox jumped, though she hated how she was almost becoming used to that sound. These people had certainly blown up a lot in the last half hour since she joined them.
An alarm sounded, loud and jarring compared to the relative silence there’d been after everyone split up. Red and Lennox got out of the control room quickly, and in the two minutes it took them to travel through the endless winding hallways, three more explosions rocked the foundation.
Lennox was expecting the elevator to lurch this time when they stepped on it and her stomach swooped again. She still had to hold onto Red so neither of them got too close to the wall. It was no less awkward than last time. They went up what felt like, and what very well could have been, hundreds of floors, and they weren’t lucky enough to stop on an empty one this time.
There were a dozen robots in this room alone, and Red threw himself at them with a particular… zeal that Lennox could pick out even through all his armor. He enjoyed this a bit too much, she decided. She also fired at the robots, aiming becoming easier and easier the more she did it, but her enthusiasm was basically nothing next to Red’s. She figured he and the others were soldiers, but even then they went on like they could never tire. She was basically running on fumes before they even got to this new facility, and as soon as her adrenaline stopped pumping she was going to sleep for a week.
Not yet though.
The robots were not particularly easy to take care of, but the only advantage they had were numbers. Not that it seemed to matter to Red. He destroyed most of them before she could take out the two closest to her. He didn’t even use is gun for some of them, just physically tore them apart. It was scarily efficient, if a little too hands on for her capabilities.
Red gave her another signal and she followed him out of the room and up the long hallway.
A whirring noise above them caused Lennox to glance up, though she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. There were metal containers that moved on rails that lined the ceiling; they were going back and forth, turning down seemingly random halls with no order. She knew enough by now that, whatever they were, she didn’t want anything to do with them.
They were almost at the end of the hall when Red paused, turned around, and pinned her against the wall with no preamble, tucking them both behind a pillar. Her head was spinning from the sudden and violent movement, but aside from her initial curse she managed to keep quiet.
Another explosion rocked the facility before Lennox discovered why she almost ate wall a second ago. Three robots rolled past them like giant pill bugs, and Red bodily threw himself at the last one, knocking it over and shooting it before it even had a chance to unroll like she saw the other two doing. It was also around that time that she noticed Orange in the adjoining hallway across from her. She moved up the wall so she had better cover and Red ended up behind her, all three of them opening fire on the last two rolling robots. Destroying them turned out to be harder than the others because all the shots seemed to be absorbed by some kind of blue forcefield that surrounded them.
Which was an issue.
Or it was an issue until grenades got involved. One of them went up in flames and the other sprouted arcs of electricity that shorted it out enough for its shield to go down - then their guns did some damage.
It got even more hectic the further down they went. Another squad of robots got in their way, not to mention the group of them at the end that were closing in on Green and Yellow. Lennox guessed they were supposed to meet up, then. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise. Fine by her, she felt less likely to be shot with all of them around to shoot first.
As if to prove her right, they finished off all of them much quicker than she and Red did when they were alone. There was a moment of calm that she savored, watching as the others reloaded their weapons and took turns at that weird (but definitely cool) healing machine that she kept seeing around. When they were done Yellow gestured her over, and she stood in front of it, waiting for it to do its thing. The aerosolized spray didn’t take away her bone-deep exhaustion, but it relieved the aching in her limbs and the burning in her lungs, which was the best she was going to get at the moment. She took a deep breath before turning around and joining the others.
Orange made a series of hand signs she had no hope of deciphering, but the others started moving on down the hall so she followed. Explosions were sounding more frequently than she was comfortable with, and Lennox really hoped that they wouldn’t still be inside when this place finally blew for good.
Unfortunately, there was no rest for the wicked because when they turned the corner at the end of the hall there were yet more robots. She was, however, equally entertained and perplexed when Orange shanked one using a knife that retracted into his gauntlet even though he could’ve just shot it. Actually, it would’ve been easier. He just knifed it because he could.
It was going as well as one would think until one of those hanging metal containers dropped from the ceiling and opened, dispensing more of the smaller robots onto the floor to block their way.
Well shit. If all of those containers were like this one they were screwed.
Yellow didn’t seem to waste any time and got up close and personal to it, and Lennox was able to get a glance at the rectangular bomb in his hands. The others covered him, as did she if she had an extremely clear shot. She had held a gun before she ended up wherever this place was, sure, but they never seemed to miss. The last thing she wanted to do was to hit Yellow because she had an inflated sense of confidence from surviving this long with them.
Luckily she didn’t have to think about it long because seconds later Yellow was hoofing it back to them before the thing exploded. They didn’t pause before moving past it to the door which Green was quick to unlock. Lennox once again stayed behind the wall, only peaking around the corner to fire at whatever she could before ducking back.
What she wouldn’t give to have some of that armor the others were wearing.
Especially when in the next room there was one of those alien monsters with a laser weapon flying around above them. It fired at them with a beam of energy unlike anything Lennox had seen before. Her ears rang in a way that not even the explosions in the facility could cause. And there was nothing she could do about it. It was too far away in the air and too agile for her to hit.
More unbidden tears streaked down her face before she could wipe them away, sniffing hard. She had to hold it together. Now was not the time to get overwhelmed again. She had to focus on the robots on the ground she could take care of.
Lennox had no choice but to stay behind the wall and fire at them from there when they were drawn down the ramp. The others focused on the flying thing, and with their combined effort it didn’t take as long as she thought it might before it fell to the ground with a final well-placed shot from Red. With the freedom to move around now, she went pillar to pillar for cover until all the robots had sparking holes in them. She might’ve only contributed a fraction of them, but it was better than nothing.
She saw Orange go up the ramp to one of the computers there and start typing. The only door in the room rose and it was blessedly clear further down, but the calm was short lived.
The sound of buzzing wings filled the room.
Lennox whipped around to see two more monsters with energy beam weapons fly up from the central area past the open wall. She dove under the overhanging level for cover. Try as she might, and boy did she try, she was useless when it came to these ones. The others were, of course, more than capable of taking care of them without her, no different than if she had never been there to begin with. Which by all rights she shouldn’t have been. She’d worry about that another time though, there were more pressing matters at hand.
Like the fact that as soon as the monsters were grounded permanently, the floor beyond the doorway opened up and started to rise, bringing with it the same big turret robot she saw when they first entered this place.
Everyone retreated for cover behind the processing units that were spaced around the floor. Lennox took a moment to recover from the shock of its appearance before she popped her head up to get her bearings and began firing at the thing wherever she could hit.
Though, it only took a few seconds to see a strange pattern emerge.
When they fought the first one outside the facility it had been too hard to notice. But now that she was, unfortunately, closer and a little more focused she could see that the others were clustering their fire on the red lenses on the front of it. They slowly gained more chips and cracks and she did her best to aim that way too.
It might not have been a button, but it was still big and red so what else was she to do except hit it?
The thing exploded in a violent burst of scrap metal not long after that. She ducked and covered her head to avoid the debris that would have killed her if it had hit her. Yet again she wanted to drop where she was to cry, scream, and give into passing out like her body was craving - not necessarily in that order. But apparently Green was having none of that. He came up from behind her and grabbed her forearm - all of them were so grabby - and pulled her up, shoving her shoulder as he went ahead.
Damn it, now she had to keep going.
To no one’s surprise. there were more robots waiting in the next room when Green got the door open. They didn’t take long to get through since it was only a small cluster of the small ones and two big ones scattered around.
The next door opened automatically when they got in proximity of it. It didn’t lead to another room like Lennox thought it would, but a small open space that the others didn’t waste time piling into. She followed them in.
Trepidation coursed through her as she watched the door slide close with a feeling of finality.
Recently played Republic Commando for the first time and now I’m doing a read through of the KT books, so I’m giving you Delta Squad and no one can stop me
