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He’s in the transport. Technically, one of the others should be up here with him, but Anomaly likes being able to say he can land a transport on his own.
No
. He knows this transport, he knows his brothers.
He knows what happens next.
He tries to open his mouth to tell them to jump - the ocean isn’t that far down, their armor will protect them - but he can’t. His throat tightens around the words, choking them back down, and he can’t breathe. Behind him, Cabur laughs when Jax cracks a joke about one of the Kaminoans, and Anomaly laughs with him.
“Coming up on the pad now, strap in,” he says, instead of anything he wants to say, even
I love you, I’m sorry, please jump-
“Shit-”
“Everything okay up there?” A’dan calls.
The LAAT dips as the whole transport shudders violently, and he curses, trying to wrench the yoke down to get them back in the air. He still doesn’t know what caused it. “Hold on to something!” Maybe, maybe this time, he can land it; he tries everything he knows, but the controls are useless in his hands. All he can do is grab the comm, desperately giving the code to clear the landing pad. It was never enough time, he knows the names of the brothers who died because they couldn’t get clear.
It feels like he watches from somewhere else as the cadet who looks like him keeps fighting with the controls, until the jolt of the transport hitting the landing pad yanks him back into his body. The fire blooms around him, and he hears someone scream. It might be him.
When he’s awake, he never remembers what comes next. In his dreams, he sees it over and over and over again.
Flames burst over him. He tries to shield himself; all he feels is fire and molten slag dripping down, burning through plastoid and neoprene. More screaming behind him, and he tries to get up, to reach his brothers, but his legs won’t respond. Someone calls his name, and he turns enough to see Jax reach out for him; half his face is burnt away, and his hand is barely more than skeleton with once-pristine armor melted on. Anomaly tries to reach back, but somehow, his arm isn’t there.
“Why
?”
He knows this part can’t be real. The rest of them are standing over him, watching as he burns in the cockpit, flames licking at his skin, and they all look like horror-holo monsters, twisted and eaten by flames. Cabur’s handsome face and easy smile are replaced by a death’s head grin, flesh burned away to show the teeth and bone beneath. Stick’s skull is caved in, his jaw hanging sideways, blood pouring from his scalp down his ruined face. A’dan looks almost normal, except for the way his throat is sliced. Somehow, seeing him hurts the most, his usual laughter replaced by pure hate. “Why did you do it?” he demands, “Why couldn’t you keep your fucking mouth shut for once? We’re dead because of you! We died because you couldn’t just
shut up
and take anything seriously! We loved you, that’s why we died. Because you thought you were too good, and too smart, and too untouchable. You couldn’t stop being stupid and selfish for once in your life, Anomaly, and
we
had to pay the price for it. Not even you. It should have been
you
that died.”
“I know,” he whispers, unable to escape the flames or accusations, “I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I wish it was me, it should have been me, I’m sorry, please- I’ll do anything, just- please forgive me-”
He wakes up, his throat torn from screaming and tasting of bile, his skin wet with sweat and tears, and he curls up under his blanket until the shaking stops.