The Things That Stay, Ch. 1 - Shipments and Shadows
OC Clone Commander Drift x Fem!OC Cal Malore
Summary: On the Corellian docks, everything is gray: the sky, the water, the faces of those just getting by. But between the rote checklists and night shift audits, a weary clerk and a worn-down soldier stumble into something that feels almost impossible: a spark of warmth in a world that taught them not to hope.
Play this in the background for the fully immersive experience. 😜
Content: jaded people who should have gone to therapy, PG-13 passion, canon-typical violence (brawls, raids), mild medical injury, and wildly satisfying angst.
@dystopicjumpsuit here's your request! Gonna post the ask with a link to the master list when it's all done and posted. 😘
Chapter 1 of 4 - 4.8k Words
*blip*
Another shipment, another time stamp.
Cargo reviewed. Dock report confirmed. Departure approved.
*blip*
The rote repetition of night shift tedium.
The endless hum of machinery was the rumbling bass note to a constant chorus of repulsorlift cranes creaking, cargo loaders clanking, and klaxons announcing yet another arrival. The caf was stale, the dock food was as greasy as the carts it came from, and the skies were always marred by the smoke and fog that belched from factories without ceasing.
It wasn’t any better during the day.
She’d chosen the night shift after a while, finding that it required less “personality”, and there seemed to be a suppression of social interaction in general while the rest of the planet slept. Not that the Corellian dockyards were known for their effervescent charm, but the grim determination of its workers had more of a muffled despondency in the early hours of the morning as opposed to sharper, more reactive tussles in the daylight.
*blip*
Her comm flashed, shortly followed by a pert voice. “There is a discrepancy between the actual arrival weight of shipment 04-14-A and the anticipated cargo volume on the manifest report filed by Security Officer Drift. I am currently in the cargo hold of Freighter 19-Blue. Please withhold the clearance code until I am able to investigate its contents in their entirety.”
She sighed, rubbing her forehead with a warm and mildly sweaty palm. Her office was always either muggy or freezing, and either way, her hands never seemed quite happy. The Drall dock clerk was a huge pain in her ass, but his meticulous nature also spared them a lot of Imperial audits, so he was as necessary as he was aggravating. She could already see his almond-shaped black eyes staring back into her own, tufted brows furrowed low as his claw tapped a parsec a minute on his datapad.
“I mean… it’s close enough, Brannic. The ship has to leave on time,” she ventured.
“Close enough is not enough. The primary crate of the shipment was logged as 500 kilos, but it is registering here as 502. Do you want us both executed, or shall I rectify the matter?”
“You know, sometimes execution doesn’t sound so bad…”
“You’re wasting my time, Cal. Please withhold departure clearance. It shouldn’t take longer than 13 minutes.”
“Alrighty, boss. Go wild.”
“I am not your boss.”
“Mmm.”
Cal sighed, moving to the clearance terminal to notify the ship of its delayed departure, then paused. Maybe the pilots wouldn’t notice if it was a few minutes late. It’d be easier to feign ignorance than to go back and forth between grumpy freighter captains and the implacably fussy Brennic… She’d take her chances.
Her chair creaked as she leaned back, rolling toward a dusty window and peering down at the yard below. A few Selonians were huddled around a screen that illuminated their weasel-like faces with its blue glow, and they jostled one another, their laughter silent on the other side of her office glass as one of them broke into a mocking dance, immediately earning himself a swift punch to the gut.
The ghost of a wistful smile threatened her cheeks for a moment.
—
“I’m telling you, it’s a turning point! You heard what happened on Geonosis, right? My brother was in the second battle – the droid foundries were destroyed! Not gonna be much more fighting without clankers to fight, so we’re just gonna wipe them out piece by piece til we’re rid of em entirely!”
She laughed as he twirled her on the dance floor, his movements as clunky as his armor as they jostled around other clones and civilians at 79s. “You’re pretty optimistic, Toby!”
“There’s no way they can come back from this! So just you wait, baby… I’ll buy you that shiny speeder and we’ll see how fast we can get it to go.”
“Gonna ride it into the sunset, eh?” She grinned as he spun her around again, nestling her close to his chest and wrapping his arms around her.
“And get you your art gallery and orange tooka and live happily ever after,” he finished, his breath warm and his embrace solid.
—
Crackling static and a string of expletives startled her back to the present, and Cal lurched toward her desk to turn the volume down on the comm station, but it did little to quell the squawking voice.
“We were supposed to get out of here at 0200, lady! What’s the holdup?”
“Cargo discrepancy. Almost done. Chill out,” she replied evenly.
“You’re makin all kinds of trouble with this garbage, you know!”
“If the auditors get their teeth into this, it’s gonna be trouble for both of us, so unless you want to sit through an entire Imperial inspection, just shut up and wait. Go get yourself a fried nuna leg at the corner–”
“Nuna leg? I’ll kriffing–”
She clicked off the transmission. She’d heard it all before.
* * *
The machine spluttered into a dingy old cup as Cal watched it heave with all its might to wring out a pathetic amount of caf, ground from beans of inestimable age. It was a muggy night, which felt disproportionately oppressive compared to the refreshing cool it offered when it was amenable. She sprinkled some dried creamer into the cup, gave it a swirl after seeing the stir stick can was empty, and returned to her desk.
She leaned against it for a moment, gazing across the seaport and the rows upon rows of cranes, ships, smokestacks, and lights. A glance down at her own docks revealed more activity than usual – a crew of Ithorians looked like they were up to no good, and the guards seemed too distracted to be of any real use. It had been weeks since she had to clean up a scuffle and file reports to all parties involved, and she really wasn’t feeling another round.
She clicked her comm. “Security Officer Drift, come in.” While he had the same basic authority as any of the other guards, he was one that she could at least count on to have good sense, and she wanted a second set of eyes on them. He was a clone, having made his way to Corellia after the war ended, and had been working there ever since. Keeping to himself most of the time, he did sometimes surprise her with how quickly he would defend any of the other dockworkers at any hint of accusation... Or turn to fists at the drop of a hat. He seemed simultaneously noble yet deflated. He left his helmet on, kept his head down, and did his job. Yet his voice always struck a tender place in her somewhere.
“Drift here.”
“The bulk freighter that just arrived… Something’s fishy about the crew. They’re waiting too long to start unloading.”
“I’m sure the guards have it covered, ma’am. They’re good men.”
The words rooted and expanded in her brain until they crowded out every other thought.
–
She grabbed his shoulders in desperation, turning him toward her tear-stained face. “Toby! His name was Toby!”
“Do you know his CT number?”
“CT…?” she drifted off, mouth staying open for a moment before she snapped it shut. “He wasn’t a number! He was… He was leaving for… um… Ryloth! Who came back from Ryloth?”
“Ma’am, there are thousands that came back and thousands that didn’t. Do you know his squad? His company, perhaps?”
“Some of his friends were Pepper, Fuse… Kicker…”
“Any general he serves under? His legion, even?”
“I…” she stuttered, a cascade of realizations washing over her at once.
“501st? 212th? 41st? Blue? Orange? Green? I’m giving you everything I can...”
“No… Never mind.”
“Sorry ma’am. I’m sure you’ll find him. They’re good men, clones. They’re good men.”
She walked home slowly, as hunched as the streetlamps beneath the weight of disillusionment. An entire future had been planned, joked about, debated, and delighted in. She couldn’t believe what a fool she’d been. There had been a feeling of elation, like life was finally falling into place, and things were really going to take off from there. She’d felt grounded, clear-headed, ecstatic. The path forward seemed so clear; she’d been ready to dance right into the rest of her life.
And she didn’t even know his squad.
And now it didn’t matter.
–
Cal reviewed the incoming shipment manifests in Bay Three. They were all fairly uniform. The crate numbers were cross-checked against the datapad logs and the freighter Triton Star received its clearance. Another cup of caf was stirred with a few rotations of her wrist. The bustling hum of the shipyard and factories had become background noise after all the years, but tonight there was an Imperial supply ship whose external bay door alarms were jammed, resulting in a constant, echoing honk that repeated. And repeated. And repeated.
She confirmed the loader signatures on the import forms. Squabbled with the Selonian foreman over some delayed pallets, skeptical of the “broken repulsor lift” excuse yet again. Then it was her turn to be under the microscope as Brannic interrogated her about the discrepancy between their local transfer rates compared to the next dock over. She logged Drift’s notes from Bay Four, finalized the end of shift tallies, and stamped a few outgoing manifests.
Her crumpled cup hit the top of the pile in the dented durasteel cylinder in the corner, already halfway full of crumpled ration wrappers, and she scanned her key card as she departed.
* * *
“They’re listed as medical supplies.”
“They can be used for medicals!” the Selonian insisted, moving his neck in a slither of distrust. The otter-faced loader was nearly off for the night, having started at the swing shift, and she knew he’d say anything to avoid staying a minute longer.
“And this crate was mislabeled; its destination is Imperial Courier 23. Bay two.”
“Listen,” he hissed, lips curling around his teeth, “You come down here from your little tower to point out any and every tiny mistake we make–”
“I’m on the docks as much as I’m in my offi–”
“Well you should ssstay in your office and mind your own–”
“That’s not how you speak to a lady,” came a gruff voice from behind, silencing them both as she turned to see. Drift was stalking toward the pair, steps slow but deliberate.
“A lady!” the Selonian laughed, slapping a hand on his belly. “You’re pretty free with that label! I mean, look–”
“That is absolutely–” the clone dove in.
“IRRELEVANT,” Cal interrupted, raising her voice and glaring at both of them. “Thank you for your concern, Officer Drift, but I can take care of my own karking stuff, alright? As for you…” She rounded on the loader, eyes flashing, and even if his helmet had been off, she would have missed the thin-lipped smirk on Drift’s face.
* * *
“Commander Drift.”
The blue hologram flickered to life before them, reporting the status in garbled Basic. The supply depot was under heavy Separatist fire and the systems were at a critical level, yet they’d been ordered to hold it at all costs. He could hear the edge in the hologrammed clone’s voice as he did his best to maintain his composure despite the explosions and yelling in the background. He was ordered to send more reinforcements.
He knew they’d never make it.
The dream shifted.
He was bent over a comm station, leaning heavily on his elbow and nodding despite the fact that no one could see him. “If the lines could be run at different times, I wouldn’t have to split my companies and each one would be fully secure each time.”
Pirates ambushed one convoy. Separatists confiscated the other. He couldn’t reinforce both.
Half the regiment burned with their transports while he listened to their last calls from his command center.
Staggering losses yet unwavering hope. Impossible odds yet optimistic naivete. The faces of his brothers melting into statistics in war room debriefings. He grit his teeth and vowed to do better.
* * *
There must have been something in the air or the moons or the tilt of the godforsaken planet, because not only was it a “night” of little sleep, but Drift’s hours off of work were fraught with restlessness that seemed to be mirrored in everyone on the docks as the sun was firmly tucked below the horizon and the moon stared down with nosy judgment.
He’d already intervened in a heated dispute between two dockhands, some nonsense about pallet routing and efficiency. He knew they didn’t care a womp rat’s ass about efficiency, having made a habit of sneaking around the corner to watch dirty holovids when the cranes were backed up, so there was no real explanation for their outbursts other than the general bad mood that seemed to pervade the atmosphere that night.
“Officer Drift?” her voice tapped his ear, somehow grim and gentle at the same time.
“Drift here.”
“We need to do a comms check; can you make sure everyone is on hand… or at least awake?”
He almost chuckled. “Can’t promise that.”
“What if I get you a little eopie prod and you can give em a nice shock when they’re not looking?”
This time he did chuckle. She really was in a good mood. Quite the contrast from everyone else. “Sounds like a very prudent and responsible thing to do. To maintain order, of course.”
“Order from chaos,” she said, scorn tinging her voice now. “For the Empire.”
He remained silent.
* * *
The dull ache in Cal’s chest was a taunting reminder that she’d never be free, it seemed. She turned the mug around in her hands, tracing a finger along the thick, uneven glaze that covered its curves and handle. The pale cream background color had almost completely replaced the now-faded design in the middle – a blue hyperspace map with a star-studded path leading to a cartoon house silhouette, surrounded by flourishing script: Home is where the hyperlane ends. There was a chip at the base of the handle, cracking the glaze around it into a starburst of tiny fracture lines, and the inside had multiple stain rings from many shared cafs.
It looked like she felt.
He’d bought it for her as an engagement gift, the first piece of many in the “household starter set” that he carried in his marketplace stall full of textiles and home goods. His charm had delighted her from the start, but his stable, respectable job and warm, outgoing connection with the community spoke volumes of his maturity. She wasn’t some naive youth anymore with her head in the stars – she was responsible and discerning. They made an adorable life together; she happily played wife while he was the dutiful husband.
But she’d mistaken public confidence for private depth.
The persona in his shop was about as far as it went, and while there was a cozy illusion of married joy for a while, over time, it was more routine than real. Meals eaten in silence. Marketplace news more engaging than meaningful discussion. She thought it was just how “real” relationships went, what adulthood looked like, but it was just a slow and steady drain.
When he left, she was as indignant as she was relieved. She’d done her best to be loyal and play the part, but apparently it wasn’t enough. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.
The dockyard was the perfect transition; she needed steady work and appreciated the anonymity. It wasn’t a place concerned with image and ambition, it offered long hours, guaranteed pay, and the kind of noise that drowned out memory.
Almost.
She dipped her thumb nail in the chip at the base of the handle, a familiar spot she’d picked on many times, then headed for the front door. There was a small pile in the bin that she’d empty in the trash chute outside, and she set the mug down on the shelf above it. It could go out with the rest.
She never had gotten the rest of that set.
* * *
Dockhands were chased down for signatures. The Dawnfire was cleared for departure. The dockside caf stand had a fresh roast and a long line, but it was worth it. Drift lifted his cup to her across the steel walkway, tipping his helmeted head as he headed back to his post.
She conducted a spot inspection, ignoring the cacophony of indignation from the Rodian and Devaronian crew members who insisted their paperwork was all in order. Manually deleted duplicate weight entries with another Drall clerk so dry that she actually missed Brannic.
A situation was escalating on Dock 9 between the loading crew who was expecting a small freighter within the next hour and a shady-looking group of Devaronians with smiles as sharp as their horns who insisted they had docking permits. Cal trudged across the durasteel gangway, stuffing her scanner into a pocket of her coveralls with a sigh.
“Here she is. Okay, Cal–”
“Listen, lady, there’s a simple mix-up with the dock assignments.”
“You can’t be on Dock 9 with this size a ship!”
“We’re just doing what we’re told.”
“Let me see your docking permit ID,” Cal interjected, holding out her hand impatiently. She was surprised at how promptly it was produced.
“There! You’ll see, it’s all there.”
She studied it, thumb brushing against the crumpled edges of the flimsiplast. The station stamp was crisp enough… perhaps a bit too crisp. She tilted it toward the overhead lights, hunting for the embedded microseal. It was too grimy, so she tapped the code into her hand scanner, and the screen quickly chirped back: Not Found.
“Permit ID doesn’t match the bay schedule,” she muttered.
The Devaronian shifted on his feet. “Look, we got the info, we’re told what to do, we do it, here we are. We’re just trying to make our delivery.”
“Mmhmm,” she continued, moving to run her scanner over the crate nearest the ramp. The readout was 612 kilos. Manifest claimed 550. “Odd. Your cargo has gained some weight since you left the port.”
A couple of them crowded closer, straining to see her scanner but getting a bit too much in her space for comfort.
“The gravity’s different here,” one of them attempted, snatching the permit from her hand a bit too roughly. She stiffened slightly.
“Dock’s sealed until you give me some legit records or a contact. Sorry.”
The pilot leaned closer, resting a hand on his hip, near a barely-concealed holster. “It would be a shame if anything happened to you or your workers,” he said quietly. His companion knocked over the crate at the bottom of the ramp, toppling it across the path behind her.
Her eyes darted from one to the other, assessing their intimidation tactics. Nothing she hadn’t seen before. She pushed past the pilot to the station terminal, smacking a round button labeled HOLD. The ramp receded, tipping one last crate off the end as it pulled away from their ship. It cracked open upon impact, revealing a pile of produce… with some small, unlabeled bags throughout.
One of the smugglers grabbed her by the elbow, voice growing louder now. “Clear it or you’ll regret it,” he growled.
She jerked her arm free, backing up, but the four of them had closed in, and she could barely hear the dockhands’ attempts to intervene over the Devaronians’ growls and threats.
“The KRIFF is going on here?” came a loud voice, and suddenly one of the crew members was yanked back, another one punched in the face in a flash. It was an immediate uproar – blasters drawn, bodies vying for dominance. Drift charged in, pushing Cal aside, and jammed himself between her and the smugglers, blaster drawn and stance solid.
“Get out of here before you get yourself killed, buckethead” the pilot snarked, leveling his own blaster at Drift’s chest.
“Go ahead,” came the reply, low and deadly through his helmet. Then he stood taller, almost leaning into the blaster as though daring him to hit center mass. “GO AHEAD!” he yelled. “You want to do it this way? DO IT, you kriffing coward!”
The Devaronian hesitated, taken aback by the utter recklessness and intensity.
“I’ve sent battalions to die! You think I give a kriff about me?” Drift continued, throwing a punch at the co-pilot to his right, who dodged it in time but raised his blaster as well. “Let’s see it, karking bastards! Make me bleed. I’ll choke the last breath out of you with my bare hands!” He moved in a flash, pistol-whipping one while swiping the legs out from another. Cal opened her mouth to intervene, but he was on another level.
Within a minute, the four of them were laid out flat, and the clone stood over the pilot, kicking his blaster out of his loose hand.
“Goddamned coward.”
The bay fell silent, the useless dockhands standing shocked at the entrance, Cal braced against the durasteel beams at the base of a crane. Drift turned toward her, unreadable in his armor, and seemed to droop a little.
* * *
The room he’d rented was bare: a bunk, a crate for a table, and a wall mirror haphazardly hung by the door by the last tenant. He woke early, eyes scanning corners as though inspecting barracks, but there was nothing to check. Armor fitted, boots on, sidearm secured. He pulled on his helmet and walked out to his first shift. Not a soldier anymore. Not a commander. Just a guard. Another cog in the machine. Again.
Industrial streets were damp in the night air as he passed the vendors closing up for the day. Nobody saluted. Or noticed. He reported to the foreman, got waved aside with barely a glance. “Stand there. Make sure nobody messes with the cargo.”
He avoided responsibility or recognition. He was good at his job but refused any kind of leadership role. He deserved to be on the front lines for once, as pathetic a “front” as this was. Any sentient being with a blaster could do this. He’d been trained to command battalions, and now he was guarding boxes. It was a fitting assignment.
He came home in the early hours of the morning, sunlight breaking through the clouds to expose him for a moment until his door slid shut. Armor removed, boots off, sidearm wiped and stored. He paused for a moment to stare at his reflection beside the door.
He took the mirror down and put it in a closet, where it stayed.
* * *
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cal groaned, gritting her teeth to avoid saying more.
“It’s a simple task,” the Imperial officer condescended. “Shouldn’t take you long at all.”
“It’s redundant!” she countered, gesturing to the copious flimsiplast records scattered across her desk. “It’s all been entered, categorized, and reported as required.”
“There have been small discrepancies, resulting in this audit,” the man continued. “You and this guard supervisor here,” a careless gesture, “will go through all of the current inventory manually to ensure that everything is accounted for. If you want to keep your pathetic jobs, that is.”
“I was just here to replace the comm battery–” Drift began from the corner he’d been standing in when the auditor had entered without invitation or warning.
“It doesn’t matter,” the officer began, but Drift interrupted.
“And I’m not a supervisor,” he emphasized, an edge to his words.
“Am I not making myself clear?” the Imperial snapped, glaring back and forth between them. “I don’t care what you are. You are here, you are coherent, at least somewhat so, and you will do what your Empire requires of you.”
A million retorts fought for release on Drift’s lips, but as he caught Cal’s eye and subtle shake of her head, he closed his mouth tightly and gave a curt nod.
“Good. Submit your report by 0700.” And with that, he marched out of her office. Their eyes found the chrono simultaneously. 23:42. They had a single shift to do a complete inventory.
“Kriff,” Cal muttered, looking back at him with a dismal resignation.
“Yeah,” he answered, tilting his helmet in a way that tugged at something within her.
They got to work, moving from bay to bay as he scanned the crates and she double-checked them against their arrival data, ship manifests, and original station departure records. They chatted some but not much – a dry remark here and there, idle questions about procedures, the occasional insult to the auditor. Cal was relieved at the lack of small talk – she’d had enough of that for a lifetime – and yet the quiet, rote repetition shoulder to shoulder offered some kind of comfort. Periodically, there would be some comment about their pasts, their perspectives… just enough to encourage a growing sense of knowing… and being known.
“Married, huh?” he mused, reaching up to scan the last crate on a stack.
“Yeah,” she said, completely baffled as to how they’d gotten to this topic. She traced their conversation backward… living accommodations, solitary life, previous jobs, ideas of what they’d be as adults when they were young. Damn, they’d shared more than she’d realized.
“Sounds lovely.” His lilting tone on the last word glazed it with sarcasm. “I mean, based on your tone.”
“I thought it would be,” she admitted. “Just… no depth.”
“And what does depth look like?”
She regarded him for a moment, frustrated that she couldn’t see his expressions beneath his armor. He was able to keep his voice so even that it was difficult to read him, and in such topics that required her to bare more of herself than she had in a long time, there was a deeply-carved mistrust. And yet somehow he seemed to be simply steady. Curious but indifferent. Not pressing, manipulating. Just… there. She inhaled deeply, choosing her words with intention.
“I don’t know…” Well, she thought she’d chosen with intention. “Someone who’s… grounded. Or has thoughts worth exploring… get lost in.” She stopped, cringing at the ignorantly dreamy sound of the last phrase.
“On the ground and able to think. Got it,” he poked, fumbling when her eyes flew back to him in a flash. “Sorry,” he said, lifting a hand in half a shrug but dropping it to his side as though disappointed in himself.
Torn between affront and humor, she sniffed, moving on. “Look, I had my days of youthful naivete. Big dreams and zero reality, talking about anything and everything as though it were within reach. And I had my days of stark reality and zero dreams, convinced I was being mature and down to earth. I never did find the balance. So now I keep it simple. Got my own thoughts, I guess.”
“Mm,” he mused, deep in his own.
“Yeah,” she finished lamely, feeling resentfully exposed. “What about you?” she turned it around on him, unsure of what even she was looking for. He’d shared the basics, and his details and phrasing had belied more, but she wanted him to feel equally thrown off, she supposed.
“What about me?”
“What… uhh…” Her scanner beeped disapprovingly, momentarily sparing her from finishing the thought. “Kriff, we skipped one at some point,” she said, glancing back at the last tall stack with a glare so sharp it could have melted them.
“Guess the conversation was too deep,” he deadpanned, trudging back to scan the bottom crate again.
Her words died on her lips.
After hours of physical inspection, she returned to her office to upload everything, and the only remaining task was for him to reset each dock terminal manually while she monitored their status from the central station. There was an odd sensation in her stomach that she couldn’t identify. They hadn’t eaten, so probably just hunger. But she was simultaneously light and unsettled, distracted from her work by a need to figure out what the hell had happened. When his voice crackled over the comm, doubly distorted by his helmet, she was shocked at the way her face relaxed and her chest lifted.
She liked that voice.
Guilt came crashing down immediately as she realized that his voice reminded her of Toby. What was she doing, trying to relive those days through some other clone as though they were interchangeable? How selfish and awful could she be? He wasn’t Toby, he was some regular worker like herself, trying to make a living without being toyed with or projected into someone else’s life.
Her tone resumed its flat, businesslike nature.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Next Chapter
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Nala: H-Hello there Evil Pepperman um Nala made this drawing for um Evil Pepperman. Nala did N-Nala’s best on this drawing and well it’s n-not perfect but Nala hopes Evil Pepperman likes it.
(This Evil Pepperman is made by @alextydaisuda123
One of the bravest of her batchmates and friend groups. Is always the first to risk deviancy and speaking up.
No one truly knows how she gets her hands on the natborn clothes and makeup she uses. She always seems to have yellow lipstick somehow...
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I realized I hadn't posted this old drawing I made of one of my clone OCs, which is a shame as she is so so pretty. She's a favorite of mine, one of the first I ever created, and I have all sorts of stories about her but very few drawings-- which always seems to be the case with my favorites.
I originally made her to be in the 501st but over time that's been put to workshop and now she's in the 771st (an original battalion of my creation.) The details are still muddy but that's where she is for now (unless I decide to change her placement again.)
