Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Planet: Armenest
Region: Core
Planet Designation: Fortress World
Rotation Period: 10  Standard Hours
Class: Terrestrial
Atmosphere: Type I

Hunter hadn’t been to a fortress world since the War, and this… felt like the opposite of familiar. Almost every base they’d passed so far was getting an Imperial upgrade. Sleek, neat, unimaginative, and mind-numbingly dull. They’d made some changes to the regular Imperial designs because of the wind and snow, but that was it. Not all the old Republic bases were even fully manned, some not even operating.

“Which base are we heading to again?” Echo asked.

“Delta One,” Hunter responded. “It should be just another klick north of here.”

Crosshair sighed, but kept following along behind Hunter.

The section they were walking on now was more snow than ice. Some drifts were nearly above their heads. Wrecker was up front, helping to clear the way, but there was still work for Echo and Hunter to do behind him. At first Hunter had assumed Crosshair was behind him to miss out on the hard work, but he was helping Omega, making the ground even for her, feeling out for ice, taking her hand with what was probably a forced sour look on his face so he made sure she didn’t fall.

They’d gotten Omega proper gear for this mission, not wanting her to get frostbitten within five seconds of stepping off the Marauder. Even with his armor helping somewhat to regulate his body temperature, Hunter was cold. He hoped Omega wasn’t as cold as him—a cold that left him tense instead of shivering. He kept beginning to ask, only to get interrupted by either her or Crosshair.

Her currently sparsely-decorated helmet they’d gotten her had a comm in it and despite the seriousness of the mission she couldn’t stop using it. At least none of them had to yell over the wind.

There was a dull thud up ahead as Wrecker banged into something.

“Ow!”

Hunter was up front immediately to check out the problem, putting a hand on Wrecker’s arm.

Before them was a smooth wall of ice even taller than Wrecker. There was no telling how thick it was, but he guessed it was too much for them to tackle.

Wrecker tried punching it, which only yielded in him complaining again.

“Wait, stop!” Hunter called as Wrecker tried to punch it once more.

He grabbed Wrecker’s fist, pushing it away so the big guy couldn’t hurt himself.

“What’s the problem?” Omega asked.

“There’s a wall of ice up ahead,” Hunter responded as Echo squeezed in to check it out.

“A wall, or just another layer on this stars-forsaken glacier?” Crosshair asked.

He gestured for Omega to stay back and shoved through everyone, putting down his scope, looking for any sign that this was actually a wall or something impassable.

After a few seconds he flipped his scope up, and bemoaned, “We’re stuck.”

An idea came to Hunter, one he thought Omega might even enjoy, but… he didn’t want her out here this long. It was a good idea, at least.

“You know when we were cadets and talked about planets like this?” he started.

“Yeah,” Wrecker responded.

“Well, looks like we finally have a chance to play in the snow.”

“Oh, goody,” Crosshair bemoaned. “We can have a snowball fight.”

Echo chuckled. “Don’t tempt me.”

Hunter cut in, “We’re making steps. Wrecker, get started on it. Crosshair, I need you to take Omega back to the ship. This could take some time, and we don’t need her getting too cold.”

Wrecker motioned them back to give him some space, and then he got started, using his big arms to pull the snow to him, where he began to shape it, starting high.

Omega stepped forward, asserting, “I’m staying.”

“Look, we don’t know how long this will take, and we still have to get to Delta One. We have less than an hour of sunlight left. These conditions just aren’t ideal—”

“You’re saying it’s too dangerous for me.”

“It’s dangerous for all of us,” Hunter said, “but we have to look after you, all right?”

“I’m older—”

“Please don’t pull that card right now. Besides, last we heard the Empire is still looking for you. Do you really want to be weakened from cold and fatigue if they show up?”

She sighed, head dropping down. “No.”

Hunter gestured with his head towards the direction they’d come from. “Cross, take her back.”

“Are you keeping me safe too?” he joked, voice as dry as ever.

Despite the hard situation, the cold seeming to invade his armor, he smiled, and shook his head.

Crosshair, pleased at Hunter liking his joke, turned and put a hand on Omega’s shoulder.

“Just please let us have one snowball fight,” she begged as they walked away.

Crosshair sighed, and Hunter was too deep in thought about this mission to hear if he ever answered.

He was starting to not like this. They could miss the rendezvous with the supposed informant they’d found. He hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t wanted Omega out here with them to begin with in case this was some kind of trap. For over an hour he’d been looking for an excuse to send her back, and this was the perfect one.

Before this mission, while Omega was still sleeping, Hunter had had a rushed, and whispered meeting with his brothers, letting them know Omega was supposed to be kept safe at all costs. They all knew there was no stopping her sometimes though, so it was just luck that nature had decided to interfere.

Echo was watching them depart, and for a second Hunter was wondering if he should’ve had him go instead of Crosshair (him only having one good arm came to mind), but as they got to work Hunter soon learned that Echo could still scoop snow just about as efficiently as he could. Sure he’d lose a few inches with his snow piles, but he made up for it, by using his feet to kick and pack the snow.

The sun was down by the time they finished with their improvised steps.

Once they climbed to the top of the ice shelf Hunter looked back, hoping the last hundred feet of their journey hadn’t been made obvious by all the digging they’d done. Already the wind had covered most of their progress. The only way to know which way they’d come from now was to home in on the ship’s sensor beacon.

Hunter thought perhaps he could feel the ship, and all the frequencies on it, but there were so many fortresses on this particular glacier that his senses were getting a bit confused. It was like he was a broken compass that thought everywhere was north. Now they didn’t have the sun to help them either. If Tech were here he’d have a highly detailed map, surely, and he’d be telling them all about the history of the different bases, and maybe even the animals armies had killed off to have their bases here.

And just like that it felt like Hunter had been punched in the chest. He stumbled, his breath catching. Wrecker steadied him, and Echo asked if he was okay. Wrecker didn’t need to ask. He knew what would make Hunter make a mistake like that.

Hunter waved off Echo’s concern and they headed off into the long night.

When they’d started out there were only two hours of sunlight left, and now, without that sun the bitter cold turned into something worse, something sharp, and deadly. They hadn’t had time to wait for their small chance at sunlight—they were on a deadline. They needed to meet this informant who supposedly knew which planet Mount Tantiss was on.

Now, on top of the shelf, they were exposed to the wind, and even with lights they could barely see.

They struggled on for almost an hour, fighting against the wind with every step. Occasionally they checked in on Crosshair and Omega’s progress. They made it back to the Marauder safely before the wind interfered with their signals too much to say anything else. 

Wrecker led them across the ice, and now Hunter and Echo clung to him, hoping his bulk would lessen the wind’s fierce touch. Thankfully, he grabbed them if any of them slipped. At one point Wrecker slipped when they were at an incline, and Hunter had had to use a grappling gun to make sure they didn’t all go down. A searing pain had arrested his arms then, holding onto the grappling wire, Echo with his good arm around him, and Wrecker holding Echo’s waist. Wrecker had panicked and nearly sent them over, kicking too hard and making them bounce against the ice. Once Hunter had calmed him down they’d clambered back up.

Because of that incline they’d had to change their route, making it circuitous instead of straight on.

Now, their sweat freezing to them, they had made it.

Crosshair was checking his weapons, making sure the cold hadn’t damaged them. Omega lounged in one of the pilot chairs, throwing Lula and catching her on what seemed like an endless cycle.

“Why didn’t they want me to go with them?” she asked, hurt deepening her voice.

Crosshair almost felt inclined to sigh, but he held it in, and responded, “They didn’t want you getting hurt.”

“So? I’ve gotten hurt before.”

Crosshair remembered her telling him about the rail car crash, and he winced internally, right before a cold horror began to leak into him, straight down his spine. He wouldn’t let Omega get hurt that badly, not on his watch, not when Hunter had told him to keep her safe.

Looking at her, so childish, yet so… mature, it was hard to imagine she’d ever been hurt like that, that she’d been imprisoned with him. Yes, he’d had to hear her annoying ramblings day in and day out, but sometimes it all seemed like a horrible nightmare he was still trying to wake up from. It just wasn’t real.

“And they don’t want it to happen again.”

Now Omega turned, gripping Lula hard.

“You can’t keep all the bad things away for forever.”

It was hard not to notice that they had turned into you.

“And we’re not trying to. I’m… not trying to,” he explained haltingly, holding his trembling hand tight. “We all protect each other. That’s what makes us a squad.”

A family.

Omega forsook Lula for her new helmet, studying the “99” on the front.

“But—”

Crosshair didn’t hear what she said next because he finally noticed a light blinking at the controls, the red a silent plea. How long had it been pleading? His stomach dropped to his feet as he went over to check it out. Omega was right behind him, helmet under one arm.

That sensor. It meant—

Fear gripped him, holding him in place save for his trembling hand.

The tremors suddenly grew worse.

“Crosshair,” Omega began, her urgent tone telling him to do something, but he couldn’t move. “Isn’t that—”

He swallowed, making his body do at least a single thing at his urging so it could escape that hard grip. It worked somewhat, and he was able to get out, voice rough, “I know.”

He pressed the button that turned off the alarm, and Omega was already trying to reach Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo.

“Hunter? Come in. Please come in. A sensor went off—we—we don’t know how long ago—but the Empire. They’re here. Wrecker? Echo?”

Crosshair checked his comm channel, and there was just static.

“Comms are jammed,” he said.

His eyes met Omega’s, and her fear seemed to dampen his, to tell him that he had to get it together, for her. She’d do the same for him.

“What do we do?” she asked. “Do we go after them?”

Crosshair looked out the viewport, and he could barely see with the snow being blown horizontally across his vision in the dark night.

“Visibility’s bad,” he said, a vast understatement.

“So we’re just stuck here?”

For a second fear tried to paralyze him again, to freeze him as surely as the cold outside would. He was stuck between two frigid forces that ultimately craved his death. And then there was Omega, her warmth, and when he thought about it, the warmth of his brothers.

“No. Strap in. We’re flying to them.”

“In this weather? Maybe Tech could—”

“I know.”

And there it was, yet again. He wasn’t Tech. They had lost Tech, and Omega had come home with Crosshair—surely a poor replacement, just another thing to hurt them.

“We’ll use the EMF readings, and the old map.” he explained as he strapped into the pilot’s seat. “Hold on.”

The take off was rough, the wind buffeting the Marauder so it was almost blown right into the side of the glacial shelf to their west. Crosshair fought the wind; he fought all of it. The Empire was at Delta One.

Barely any lights were on at the base—most of them centered around what was probably the main control room, and Hunter couldn’t see any sign of patrols or guards while he popped up over a snowbank to have a look.

“So what’s this informant’s name again?” Hunter asked Echo.

“Rik. Used to work under Commander Cody as a sharpshooter. Rex got me confirmation that he was in Mount Tantiss, but couldn’t get anything else out of him before he fled. No one knows exactly where he’s holed up, but I was surprised when he told us to meet him here.

“Maybe he thought the Empire wouldn’t look to their own worlds for a missing clone,” Hunter suggested.

“Well, either way, we’re here,” Echo said. “Do we go in?”

Hunter took another look around the perimeter.

Something felt wrong here. The snow was displaced in an odd way that was getting covered up fast, as if a ship had recently come in. Wouldn’t Rik have been here before now, waiting for them?

“No guards,” Wrecker observed. “Let’s go for it!”

Hunter grabbed him just as he started clearing the top of the snowbank.

“Hey!”

“I didn’t give you an order to go in.”

“Why do you have to be all fussy about it?”

“There’s something wrong here!” he hissed, praying Wrecker heard the same insistence he knew he was putting into his voice.

“Oh.” Abashed, Wrecker took his place again, crouching with him and Echo. “What’s wrong?”

Usually Hunter knew, but this time he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Reluctantly, he admitted, “I don’t know. But let’s take it slow. We go in quietly.” He and Echo stared hard at Wrecker.

His shoulders slumped.

“Fine,” he relented.

“Front gate?” Echo asked.

Hunter looked around, and spotted a side entrance where cargo would have been taken through to avoid the foot traffic of soldiers and officers.

“West side cargo entrance. Let’s go.”

Hunter took point, something curling his stomach once they were inside. It worsened the further they walked.

It was dark inside, still cold, but at least they were safe from the biting wind. The halls were cluttered with various carts and crates, as if those abandoning this base hadn’t been bothered to clear it out.

Hunter could tell there was someone else in here, and this person didn’t feel like a friendly.

Then, he heard someone shuffle, breathing.

It wasn’t from any of his squad.  The noise was coming from the main control room, all right.

“Lights off,” he whispered.

Now it was completely dark, but Hunter didn’t want to give himself away to a potential enemy. Somehow there had to be an enemy here. He didn’t know how he knew, but there was a tingling along the front of his spine, a strong frisson that almost made it hard to breathe, and was trying to squeeze out the contents of his stomach. His diaphragm could barely expand.

Hunter tried to take a deep breath, feeling his belly expand with it, and letting it out again.

The feeling remained.

“Echo, grab the back of my belt,” he whispered. “Wrecker, grab Echo’s. Follow me.”

Hunter didn’t need light to know where he was. There were little things that told him the approximate shape of the halls, and he had been on enough Republic bases (as this one still was, untouched by the Empire) to find his way to the main control room from inside.

Agonizingly tense minutes passed in which Hunter started to feel that their breathing was too loud, their steps too ponderous. There were even moments where they bumped into abandoned supply crates. Echo had entirely knocked one over and Wrecker had had to catch it one-handed, only a few inches from the floor.  Eventually, towards a right-leaning branch in the hall they saw light.

Hunter turned to his two squad members. “Echo, you know more about Rik than I do, do you want to go in first?”

Echo looked from the light filtering out into the hall to Hunter.

He nodded.

“Echo, heavy steps. Let him know you’re coming. Wrecker, uh, pretend gravity doesn’t affect you.”

“But it does.”

“Just do it.”

Echo made it to the doorway, and Hunter rolled, coming up on the other side, blaster at the ready despite the pain in his arms. He flexed, resisting the shaking that wanted to take hold. Wrecker secured the way across from him.

“Hey, Rik, is that you? It’s Echo. Captain Rex sent me?”

There was no answer, but Hunter could see the shadow in the doorway, could hear someone else breathing and moving.

What happened next took place within almost the same second.

More movement, the sound and shadow confirming a hand was at hip height; an almost hard sound following, that hand grabbing something.

Hunter inhaled.

He rushed at Echo, shouting his name as he grabbed his shoulders and twirled hard, getting Echo out of danger. He shoved, both of them going down, a blaster bolt firing where Echo’s head had been.

Hunter wrapped an arm around Echo’s waist and hauled, fire running from his shoulders to his wrists and back, as he got to his feet, helping him up. In seconds they were running, the enemy in pursuit. Hunter covered their retreat, trading blasts with him as they traversed through hard corners and the abandoned crates and clutter of the base.

“Who is this guy?” Wrecker exclaimed.

Hunter’s gut said Empire, but he wasn’t sure. The other man’s black armor was unmarked.

A blast almost got Wrecker, and Echo gave him a shove back.

“Pay attention!” he pleaded.

“You pay attention.”

“Enough, ” Hunter snapped.

They were now in a main hallway, about to pass through a door when a well-aimed blast hit the mechanism and it slid shut.

Kark!

“Smoke bomb,” Hunter hissed.

Echo grabbed one from his belt and launched it at the halfway point between them and their combatant. The bomb twirled, smoke filling the space.

This gave the three of them time to take up strategic positions by some crates. But soon, relentless shots went off, fired by both pistols, leaving trailblazing lines of light in Hunter’s vision. In seconds they faded, only to be replaced with actual particle beams.

He wasn’t cold anymore, save for the tips of his fingers and toes. The fight was heating him up.

“He’s one fighter. Why don’t we just rush him?” Echo suggested.

Hunter wasn’t sure if they should, but he knew Tech would have suggested the same.

Focus! You’re in a fight. Tech’s dead!

Hunter’s hesitation cost him.

Wrecker had decided Echo’s idea was solid and charged out first. Hunter saw the blast go right through his upper right trapezius through a chink in his armor, heard his choked gasp. Wrecker was suddenly shaking all over, collapsing to his knees like a mountain falling, head lolling to the left. Hunter and Echo rushed over, dragging him back amidst his screams, telling him everything would be okay.

To get some space between them, Hunter kicked at a cart, even as he pulled Wrecker away. The cart careered down the hall, and knocked over their enemy.

He and Echo got Wrecker by the door behind some crates, one with its contents of blasters spilled.

“Echo, get that door open, and get him out of here! Call Crosshair!”

Their enemy had already regained his feet. Hunter aimed for his chest, and fired. The enemy dropped, somersaulting, coming up right near Hunter, who charged him.

Behind him Echo was still struggling with the door, and a screaming Wrecker. He was vainly calling Crosshair for help, and receiving only static.

Hunter and the enemy grappled, Hunter doing everything he could to stay alive just a little longer so his brothers could get out. He tried not to think about the frozen death trap of a planet they’d have to face once outside.

Just buy them time. Cover their retreat. That’s all you can do.

Hunter still had his blaster, had knocked it against the other man’s helmet a few times. Now, body stinging from the pressure of repeated blows that would turn into bruises (but nothing grievous, thanks to his armor) he tackled their enemy to the ground. He tried to fire at him point blank, but his blaster was knocked aside.

The man headbutted him, knocking Hunter back, even as Hunter had a hold on him. The impact left him a bit stunned, but his grip didn’t weaken.

Echo got the door open behind him, and got Wrecker to his feet, struggling as the big guy leaned on him.

A quick punch to the throat left Hunter gasping for breath, and next thing he knew he was on his back, scrabbling on the cold, hard floor.

His enemy was on top of him, and ripped his helmet off. The cold blasted him instantly, and his face stung, eyes watering. He felt like his very skin would be frozen off of him.

A punch came, bloodying him, then more, and more, and strangely he was overcome by thoughts of Tech. The Fall. The surety in his movements.

And he wondered… Did… did this man smell like him under all that armor?

Was it even possible?

Held by the throat, blood streaking down his swollen face, Hunter was pinned, but he still had a good angle to scrabble with at least one leg.

“Tell me,” his enemy spoke, the sound almost inhuman through a voice modulator, “where—is—Omega?”

Letting out a choked growl, Hunter somehow got a leg up, knee pressing into his gut, and awkwardly threw his enemy aside. He shoved, and then he raced for a blaster, not caring about whose he ended up with. Hot blood dripped into his eyes, stinging them.

His leg was grabbed. Hunter’s fingers snagged a pistol right as he was dragged and turned over.

Hunter took a guess through all the blood, and squeezed the trigger. The recoil shot through his hand.

Even half-blinded he could see a particle beam hit the enemy’s helmet. There was a metallic crunch, and he fell back, dazed.

Hunter wished he still had his scarf, if only to wipe the blood from his eyes. The best he had now was his glove.

When the blood and smoke cleared, a single, brown eye was revealed through that broken helmet.

Hunter knew that eye, even dazed as it was. That deep brown that matched his own, that shape that would squint inquisitively so often Hunter had joked he’d age faster than him. The way it would brighten at the mention of languages, or any of his recordings, or at someone posing him a problem that seemingly couldn’t be solved. The eye that could be filled with warmth while relaxed and with his family.

No. No. This had to be some trick of the Empire’s. It just wasn’t possible, but…

Hunter couldn’t breathe, and not just from the swelling in his throat. It was as if a hand had reached into him and grabbed all the air in his lungs in a tight fist, and yanked it out.

Another hand had punched him solidly in the diaphragm.

He struggled to get to his feet.

Could it be?

Before Hunter could draw close and take the other man’s helmet off, he came to, and with a harsh battle cry, rushed at him, shoulder digging into him to take him down to the floor again. He was strong, but the angle was off, and Hunter only fell to his knees. He was struggling to his feet as his combatant found a blaster.

Heart divided, Hunter grabbed his helmet and ran, no longer returning fire.

As he made his way out of the building he sensed a ship drawing near. Too stunned to think about safety, he ran towards it. He made it out to the landing zone, and somehow the Marauder was there. Echo and Crosshair were struggling to get Wrecker onboard while Crosshair all but begged Omega to stay back.

Mind in pieces, Hunter went to his squad. He didn’t remember much of their exit, but he did remember screaming at Echo and Crosshair not to fire at the first ship that eventually followed them. More ships came, this section of the planet alerted to their presence now, but it was as if destroying them summoned more and more.

By the time they jumped to hyperspace, the Marauder was jolting, a stabilizer on fire. Hunter was on the deck, shaking, muttering, blood dried on his face, “No, no, no, can’t be. Can’t be. No, no…”

Crosshair was shaking him, even slapped him in the face. It still felt like such a raw, stinging touch, skin perhaps damaged from exposure.

“What can’t be?” Crosshair asked, frustration filling his voice as if he’d asked the question of him a million times.

Hunter mostly saw the ship, Crosshair up in his face like he was pissed off, Echo and Omega tending to Wrecker, who was dry-sobbing now. There was so much blood.

And he saw a brown eye looking back at him.

“Tech. Tech’s alive.”

Chapter Text

Wrecker figured this might be his second most painful injury ever. Nothing—nothing—beat the bomb going off a few feet from his head, but now he was wondering how he’d coped because he couldn’t cope with this. Not with the way his head couldn’t get positioned correctly, lolling about like a broken doll’s. Not with the fire and the aching of it. He was shaking so badly and kept forgetting it was him. He must’ve asked Echo and Omega at least twice if the ship was vibrating. Or… tried to ask them. He wasn’t exactly sure if he’d gotten the words out correctly, or in the right order. Or at all. Whenever he tried to string a sentence together he just got lost in the pain again.

Someone was sobbing.

Someone had their armor partially removed, two people tending to him.

Someone was lying on the deck, and two people grabbed him—

Wrecker was forced into an upright position, leaning against the bulkhead. Gonky was placed under his knees (he only complained a little bit), and a supply crate was shoved under his feet. As if being handled like this wasn’t awful enough (though there was no level of gentleness that wouldn’t hurt), Echo was pressing hard against the wound from behind, Omega pressing hard against his front. With her other hand she was rifling through their med kit for supplies.

Belatedly, Omega gave him a leather strip to bite down on. Wrecker did his best, though parts of his body were going numb now, his vision getting fuzzy. He was almost fully weightless. His eyes rolled back—

He was jabbed in the neck with an injector, a sensation that was too real. It was a shock amongst the numbness taking over his body. Except for the pain. The agony. It felt like a crucial part of him had been completely obliterated, and what was left was raw, writhing and screaming in its agony.

Suddenly, he felt warm. Almost too warm, and then numbness was replaced with fuzziness. The pain faded somewhat—not as much as he would like, but enough to think a little, to realize he was the one sobbing; though, there were no tears.

With a massive sigh, eyes regaining some focus, he leaned his head back against Echo.

“Is that better?” Omega asked, even while she reached for disinfectant.

“Mm hmm.”

Wrecker wanted to ask if he could have more, but he was bathed in warmth, and he couldn’t figure out how to spit the leather out of his mouth. Maybe in a bit he could do it.

He did manage to turn his head to the left, and saw Crosshair up in Hunter’s face. Hunter didn’t look so good. There was a whitish-blue tinge to his bloodied and swollen face that would’ve worried Wrecker if he’d even had the sense to worry. He knew something was wrong with that color. He was sweating, lips going bloodless. Dark color was blossoming along his swelling throat.

“What do you mean he’s alive?” Crosshair asked.

“He’s the Imperial that attacked us!” Hunter responded, a strange fire in his ragged voice.

The ship jolted. Wrecker cried out.

“That doesn’t even make sense! Omega told me how he died.”

Crosshair glanced their way, at Omega, even as she started wiping and dabbing at Wrecker’s wound.

Wrecker bit down, holding in a scream. He failed somewhat, a growl leaving him. He tried to smother it as fast as he could, wanting to hear what was said next. He thought maybe he knew what they were talking about but the idea of any of them even existing was lost in a haze that carried him up and away.

Nausea curled in his stomach—his usual reaction to strong pain meds.

“No one could survive that,” Crosshair hissed.

“I know,” Hunter responded. “But somehow he did. I saw one of his eyes.”

Hunter had seen beneath their attacker’s helmet? But… was an eye good enough evidence? Wrecker wasn’t sure he knew.

He spat out the leather strip, and tried his best to ask, “Are you… hearing this?” he asked Echo, and Omega.

“Yeah,” Omega said, voice soft, weak. She didn’t want to be hearing this.

Echo gave him a pat with his bad arm, which was as good of a yes as he was going to get because Crosshair suddenly yelled, “You’re basing this off of an eye? Are you serious?”

“I know what I saw!” Hunter yelled, getting to his feet, and trying to shove Crosshair with trembling arms. Instead, Crosshair had to hold him up, especially as the ship jolted again.

Wrecker groaned.

Omega started rolling a white bundle together, but eyed Hunter and Crosshair, features pinched.

“Hunter, you have to admit, it sounds crazy,” Echo put in. “It can’t be him. We all saw—”

“I know what we saw, but it is. I can’t explain it, but it’s him.”

“Sit down,” Crosshair ordered, annoyed. “I’m going to take care of your face.”

Omega gently put the bit of leather back into Wrecker’s mouth. He obliged, floating and unsure.

The white bundle Omega had was soaked in bacta now.

Crosshair started coming over to them, and that was the last thing Wrecker was aware of for a bit because suddenly Omega shoved that white bundle right into the wound. The pain took over, it ran up his neck, straight into his face, into his head. It went down his shoulder, across his chest, down his back, almost like an electric current. Fire and acid were in him, flaring and spilling across his nerves. A soreness that made him feel like he’d gotten crushed, and obliterated joined it, the two dancing hand in hand. The whole weight of the Marauder itself must have fallen on him for him to feel this way. The floating and the fuzziness wasn’t enough because outside of the pain he went numb again. He couldn’t breathe. Did he need to breathe? Was his heart even beating? Sweat was on his forehead and upper lip. How did he know that when he could barely feel? Kark, he was going to throw up.

“Whoa!”

Wrecker came to with a cold pac on his forehead, held by Echo. Hunter, though injured, was helping, holding him up. Crosshair and Omega were bandaging his injury.

“Is he… going to be okay?” Crosshair asked, like Wrecker wasn’t there.

His family’s faces seemed to almost dissolve to mist in his vision, and then they were too large, too close, yet hovering just out of reach of the rest of their own bodies.

“Best we can tell,” Echo began, “is that the shot damaged muscle and took out a lot of his nerves. And he needs to recover from the blood loss.”

“Will he—” Hunter started.

“He’ll live,” Omega said, rolling and rolling the bandages around the massive amounts of gauze and cloth that Crosshair held in place.

“And what about his head?” Crosshair asked.

Wrecker frowned. Or tried to. The nausea was leaving him and he almost felt like his head was hovering just out of reach of his own body too. His limbs were heavy, fuzzy.

“What about my head?” he got out. Or maybe he hadn’t spoken at all, lips almost too numb to move.

“His head’s fine,” Omega said.

Crosshair continued his questioning: “Then why was it dangling like that?”

Omega shot him an annoyed look, features drawn down and together. “Didn’t you get any medical training?” she asked.

“Field medicine,” Hunter responded, words a bit slurred from his puffy face. “We don’t know as much about the human body as you. You worked with Nala Se, and…”

She sighed, and Wrecker had the urge to wash the blood off her hands, to give her Lula, and hug her. To play with her until all the bad things had gone away.

“So what’s wrong?” Hunter questioned.

“Do you have… have to talk about me… like… like I’m not… even here?”

“Well you weren’t for a bit,” Crosshair responded, voice drier than the air of Tatooine.

Wrecker smirked. Just like old times then. Ha!

“Part of your upper right trapezius muscle has been destroyed,” Omega said to him, laying a hand gently against his heavily bandaged shoulder. “It partially pulls against your head, keeping it in the right position, so… without it…”

Even high, Wrecker summed up, “My head is pulled too far in the other direction.”

“Yes. I’ve done what I can for now. I’m sorry.” There were tears in her eyes, and Wrecker pulled her into a hug with his left arm. His hand cradled the back of her head, the ponytail he still hadn’t gotten used to between his fingers.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He would never tell a soul, but Wrecker thought he heard a sob.

Hunter cradled Wrecker’s head for a moment, and then Echo pat him on the arm.

Crosshair touched his thigh, a subtle brush that almost no one else would notice. He pulled his hand away, acting as if the touch had been a mere accident.

Omega started to pull back, and Wrecker let her go.

She tried to wipe some tears away, then looked at her red hands. They began to shake. “Oh.”

Hunter was shaking, almost as bad as Wrecker had been, maybe worse than Omega was now. Yet he began to pull Omega aside. He brushed the tears from her face and tried to take her hands. Crosshair took them instead, seemingly ignoring Hunter, and not caring at all about the blood.

“Go. Sit,” he told Hunter. “I’ll tend to your face; just let me get Omega settled first.”

Wrecker closed his eyes, sinking now rather than floating, falling through the layers of fuzziness that went on and on like an endless cloud. And for now he didn’t worry about when he would hit the bottom.

“So…” he forced out through lips that hardly wanted to work. “Tech’s alive, huh? Wonder how he did it.”

He was too high to wonder why Tech would have shot him.

Omega was in her bunk, cuddling Lula, hands probably cleaner than they’d ever been. Wrecker was sleeping off the pain meds. Now Crosshair, Echo, and Hunter sat in the bow of the ship, as far away from the others as possible so they could rest. And they needed to keep an eye on the Marauder’s stability in hyperspace, anyway. Echo had closed off a vent to the fire burning at the stern, robbing it of oxygen so it died out. The ship jolted again, but Crosshair glanced at the readings, and for now they were safe. Mostly. If… If only Tech were here.

That was the point, the problem. Crosshair pulled his gaze from the various readings and panels, and focused on Hunter. His injuries were easier to take care of than Wrecker’s, though he was concerned about the swelling in his throat. Still, he had to talk. Echo sat with them, willing to help, and needing to hear this.

As Crosshair started cleaning the blood from Hunter’s face, he said, “Tell me what happened. In detail.”

Hunter, voice hoarse and speech halting, told them about the fight, about blasting the Imperial’s helmet, about seeing an eye. The way he described it, it wasn’t just any clone’s eye, but possibly… possibly Tech’s. Crosshair wasn’t sure he believed it though.

“I think he even smelled like him too,” Hunter added.

Crosshair thought back to all the times as cadets he’d teased Hunter about his heightened senses, even coming up with elaborate tests to see if they actually worked. They did. And now he was living with the realization that Hunter probably smelled everything, even the blood on his own face. So how far-fetched would it be for Hunter to recognize the scent of one of their brothers?

Still…

By the time Hunter was done with his story, Crosshair was applying a thin layer of bacta to his face, hoping it would help against the mild frostbite.

He leaned back, inspecting his work, seeing if Hunter was still bleeding from anywhere.

Blood defiantly dripped down almost into his left eye again. Of course. Just what they needed.

With a sigh Crosshair pressed an already-bloodied bandage against Hunter’s brow. He winced. What he probably needed was mechnosutures, but where in the galaxy would they find those? Maybe Pabu with AZI… Still, they were prepared for this.

“Echo, do we have any staples left?”

“I’ll check.”

The ship jolted.

“Just like old times,” Hunter mused. “Almost.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think I forgot all those late nights where you helped patch me up after a mission? You’re always so severe, so aloof, but I know—”

“What do you know?”

“You’re still you.”

Thankfully, another unstable jolt covered Crosshair’s pause.

“There was doubt,” he said, knowing it was true. Oh, he was so, so tired.

“Of course.”

“Well, how about you get locked up in Tantiss and tell me you’re still you afterwards?”

“What… What did they do in there? I know there were experiments, and all that, but… was there more? How bad did they—”

“They didn’t hurt me,” Crosshair snapped, lying, having anticipated the end of Hunter’s question.

Now he looked away, a bruise blossoming across his scarred heart. The bruise darkened to black, burning, and a spark flickered, anger building like a slow fire.

“Now is not the time.”

“When is?”

“Forget it.”

The only reason he didn’t tell Hunter to patch himself up alone was because, well… wasn’t he supposed to be loyal to his brothers now? What else did he have? Who else did he have?

“Got the staples,” Echo said, coming back over with the small black container they were in, along with the staple gun.

Without needing to talk, he and Echo traded, Echo holding the bandage against Hunter’s face while Crosshair got the gun ready.

“All right,” Crosshair said, signaling he was ready.

Echo pulled back.

“What, no pain meds for me?”

“Don’t be a baby.”

As Crosshair got to work, trying to time his squeezes of the trigger against the jolting of the ship, Hunter stiffened, wincing with the corners of his mouth.

Echo ventured, “So… do you think it’s really possible?”

“It has to be,” Hunter said. “What else would make any sense?”

Crosshair’s mind unwillingly dragged him back to Tantiss, to the screams, the blood, the bruises, the strange tests, the strange injections. Hemlock wasn’t sane. He had seen it in his startling blue eyes as he lay on that torture table with his face hovering right over him. He had seen the bright light, like he was off, far away in a different galaxy.

And yet he’d seen his inhumane and vile experiments work. Maybe that was the terrifying part. He’d seen clones, good men, lose themselves entirely, be ripped apart and built back up into what Hemlock wanted.

Once he’d even witnessed Hemlock’s scientists amputate a clone’s arm just to see if they could literally put him back together.

The results had been… undesirable. The clone had died. But not after his arm, reattached in blood and screams, had functioned for at least a minute.

Crosshair had been next in line. That clone’s death had saved him from the same torment.

If… If anyone could bring someone back to life, it was Hemlock. If… Tech had even died.

That was when he realized he had stopped fixing up Hunter’s wound. Echo was shaking him. Hunter had a hand against his chest.

“Crosshair.”

“Crosshair?”

“It… might be possible,” Crosshair conceded, head lowered, not able to look at either of them. And all the while he did his best not to throw up, to hold back the saliva building in his mouth. He had to keep swallowing, his esophagus starting to contract near his stomach…

Maybe one of them had noticed his face turning green because soon the sharp scent of alcohol was being held beneath his nose.

He breathed it in, the nausea drawing back it’s slimy, groping fingers.

Echo. It was Echo holding the gauze soaked in disinfectant.

Crosshair breathed it in again, and then got back to work on Hunter’s face. Hunter—more focused on Crosshair’s health—apparently hadn’t expected it because he let out a sudden yell. “Ow!”

Omega moaned in her sleep.

“Shh!” Crosshair admonished.

Hunter glared.

“Do you know anything about this?” Hunter asked. “Anything at all?”

Crosshair felt his gaze drawn to Hunter’s, felt Hunter’s natural leadership burying his qualms, while holding up the rest of him, and drawing him in, keeping their eyes locked.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell us?”

The strength holding Crosshair began to crumble with his own sharp will interjecting. Then the darkness of Tantiss lashed out like black and red paint splattered across a damp page, spreading, spreading, questing blades and needles encroaching on everything, sucking in any good, and eating it, destroying it. And it would draw back, taking everything into that dark mountain with it, the screams held within its firm, and unyielding embrace. It wrapped around Crosshair like an unwanted touch.

“No.”

Before things could escalate, Crosshair tried to ignore that touch, and put in the final staple. Hunter almost drew back from the pain. Crosshair was rough as he wiped up the rest of the blood, smeared bacta on the wound again, and put an adhesive bandage over it.

“His goggles!” Echo suddenly exclaimed breathlessly, the words spilling out of him, bursting like the idea was too great to contain and would break him even as he let it loose. “Tech’s goggles. They—they were on when he… when he… Maybe there’s something we can see.”

A wild light grew in Hunter’s eyes, and Crosshair couldn’t help but lean away from it.

“If we plug them in, charge them, we could see—”

Hunter shoved Crosshair aside and was up and rushing to the shattered goggles Hemlock had given them.

As if pulled by a string, body almost weightless, Crosshair was up, following him, Echo just ahead of him.

Hunter’s hands fumbled grabbing the goggles, but he plugged in the recorder to the Marauder ’s computer. Crosshair leaned in, a hand on Hunter’s shoulder as he saw the recorder turn on, the red light slowly blinking, booting up. The screen showed the bars going up into the green.

And then, for the first time in months, Crosshair heard Tech’s voice.

Chapter Text

The ship was quiet, dense. Hunter feared that if he even looked at any of his squad the darkness writhing in his chest would overwhelm him, and take over his entire body. If he or the others spoke even a single word, something would shatter, irrevocably. Never to be fixed.

Perhaps everything was already broken. Their family, their lives.

Hunter sat in the pilot’s seat, looking out at the streaks of blue and white of hyperspace as the Marauder shot through it.

The ship shuddered again.

By the light, they were going to have to set down somewhere to fix that.

Would fixing the ship fix them? Would the safety of their home envelop them like it once had?

Instead of safety, the black writhed in Hunter’s chest, out to his shoulders, up into his throat, down into his stomach.

He could barely breathe. Could barely move.

My fault. It’s all my fault.

Oh, Tech.

Hunter waited, and waited. The black just spread, like a puddle of oil seeping out of some broken engine line. There was enough oil to drown in, yet the well wasn’t endless. Soon, it would be empty. Empty, yet covered in this horrific darkness.

Sparks whirled in Hunter’s tunneling vision, and he realized he wasn’t breathing.

He tried to inhale.

It didn’t work.

Or maybe it had, but perhaps he’d forgotten how to breathe. Or perhaps the oil had taken over, had clogged his lungs, filling them up with its poison.

An ache spread from the center of his chest, as if he’d been kicked there, and that kick had broken bone, had opened him up. Hunter was surprised he didn’t feel the darkness coming out of him: his mouth, his nose, his eyes, ears. If someone were in his presence the exposure to the poison would surely kill them.

It was killing Hunter.

Breathe. Breathe. Come on, just breathe.

He inhaled. He was sure of it this time, and yet it still felt like he hadn’t. He couldn’t get enough air.

Vaguely, he wondered if he was having his first ever panic attack. He’d seen some soldiers from the frontlines have them. But how could he be having one? He was the sergeant of Clone Force 99. He didn’t get panic attacks. Ever.

And yet he found himself inhaling and exhaling rapidly, his hands and feet going numb, his world becoming lost to him. He no longer sensed Echo in his rack, back to the rest of the ship, or Crosshair sitting outside the gunner’s seat, head bowed. He couldn’t sense Wrecker and Omega as they slept. The galaxy did not exist.

The pain in Hunter’s face and throat faded. Numbness was taking over.

Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

Tech!

Hunter saw it. He saw all of it. The blood, the broken bones, the tree branches lodged where they shouldn’t be. Twisted metal. Broken armor.

Screams.

Tech’s screams surrounded him in the silence.

They echoed inside his head.

It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.

You should have looked for him!

Of course he was alive. How else had Hemlock gotten his goggles?  Why had he even searched in the first place?

Help, please help!

Hunter felt like he was dying, and he was dying all alone.

Cold. Space was so cold. So… empty despite the star systems, despite the thousands of species that inhabited their galaxy.

The space between stars was frozen and barren, devoid of all.

And here they were, in the Marauder. Cold. Empty.

The silence outside of Hunter’s frantic breathing was crushing him.

The weight of it had him leaning forward, forward…

He collapsed to the frigid deck, split brow bone hitting the deck harder than he’d like. Yet the ache was almost invisible, non-existent.

Blood began to seep from the wound, racing across his forehead to seep under, into his hair, near his ear, and finally, to drip onto the floor.

Soon even Hunter’s own blood was gone. There was only the numbness, the not being able to breathe.

Tech’s screams.

Tech’s blood.

Hunter was responsible for all of it.

All of it. All of it. It’s all your fault. Your fault. It’s all your fault.

Alone.

He was alone.

Tech’s alone.

Alone. Alone.

They’d—they’d left him.

Like they’d left Crosshair.

Like Hunter had left Omega, failed her. Watched her get captured by the Empire. A child, a captive of the Empire.

Wrecker. He was hurt because of him.

Echo was lost to him, fighting a war he couldn’t fight. Hunter wasn’t ready for another war. Yet here it was. Here it was as the oil pouring out of him, the very thing that crushed his chest, caving it in, bones breaking, piercing lungs.

The poison seemed to fill Hunter’s stomach, leaving emptiness behind it in a barren place that Hunter had not known existed before, deep inside him.

Failed. I failed him. I failed them all.

Hunter wanted to slam his fists against the floor till they were bloody.

The thought had barely crossed his mind before he realized he’d already been doing it.

There was no pain.

Just black, empty, cold silence.

By the time Hunter’s panic attack was over perhaps twenty minutes had passed. He  was collapsed on the deck, hands bruised, and throbbing,  listening to the blood pumping hard through him, rushing through his ears. Hearing his harsh breaths through his swollen throat. Blood no longer dripped down across his forehead.

And beyond that, beyond everything… the darkness lay. The nothingness.

The weight of his horror and shame was beyond what he could carry. He wasn’t even sure if he could get up off the deck.

Arms aching, trembling, Hunter struggled to sit up. The ship shuddered.

Right.

Right, there was a problem right here, in this moment.

Yet his mind couldn’t be torn away from the horrors he’d seen. The shame was already putting dirt over his grave. Tech’s blood was on his hands, in his mouth, killing him as surely as a blaster bolt to the heart.

Somehow, with the mountainous burden on his shoulders, the black oil drowning him, the shame burying him, the blood on him, Hunter stood. His balance was off, and he had to hold himself up against the yoke as the ship shuddered.

That. The shuddering. That was a real problem.

He wondered if he could get Echo and Crosshair back in here to discuss a plan.

But… breaking the silence. They’d surely drown. They’d perish in the cold, uncaring arms of space, without their brother. The shame would dig Hunter a deeper grave, and laugh as it smothered him with rotten dirt.

You’re their sergeant, he all but reprimanded. So lead.

Hunter sat in the pilot’s chair, and pulled up a map.

Pabu wasn’t close enough, and besides. Tech knew about Pabu.

Wait… did the Empire know then?

No, one problem at a time.

And yet the vast enormity of all his problems was overwhelming him again, swirling and swirling, blood splattering, until he felt he was going to be sick.

He was.

Somehow Hunter had made it to the refresher before getting sick. And somehow he hadn’t had to wait in line for either Echo or Crosshair to empty up their guts too.

When he left, shaky, head hurting, barely able to understand what his senses were telling him, he all but bumped into Crosshair.

Crosshair averted his gaze, lowered his head. He didn’t say a word.

Hunter didn’t need him to. Accidentally holding his breath, he stepped aside, watching Crosshair stumble to the refresher.

Hunter hung his head.

The war he’d never wanted to join was already lost. Perhaps not to all, but to them.

Hunter made his way back to the cockpit, trying to think about just the map in front of him. Nothing else.

Nothing at all.

He plunged into the emptiness the oil left behind, and found himself trapped. Trapped but somehow still a slave to his own will, to the forces of the galaxy.

Hunter found a planet that was along their hyperspace lane, something close. He set the coordinates.

The others could find out later.

If they were alive later.

Yet, somehow they were now.

Their hearts beat, oxygen filled their lungs. They could see, and feel.

And they had seen.

They’d seen what had happened to Tech.

Planet: Weyland
Region: Mid Rim
Planet Designation: Unknown
Rotation Period: Unknown
Class: Terrestrial
Atmosphere: Type I

CX-2’s last injections were coincidentally timed with his entry into the atmosphere. The aching shock of pain in multiple areas startled him enough for his heart to slow and his pacer-droid to kick in. He didn’t quite feel the electrical pulses the little thing put inside his heart, but he had the sensation of his throat closing up for a second, telling him he couldn’t breathe, when he felt his heart beat a bit faster outside of his control.

CX-2 let out a small grunt, but did his best to keep his ship level. As the pain faded he breathed a sigh of relief. Aches that had begun to make themselves known were being erased. He had made it just on time. After this there were only eight more hours till he would need to be back at Tantiss. Besides, Hemlock was expecting him.

Escorts arrived once CX-2 was close enough to Tantiss, and once clearing his access codes, they followed him as he landed in the hangar.

CX-2 started shutting his ship’s systems down right as he saw through his viewport that Hemlock was approaching, cradling his left hand. CX-2 felt his throat close up just a tiny bit, for reasons he didn’t understand, and then prepared to leave his ship.

His left knee creaked when he stood, and he paused to test it out a bit. Hmm… probably just needed some tweaking.

Not wanting to keep Hemlock waiting, he left his ship, and in a few long strides was soon standing at attention in front of him.

He was a bit nervous. He had failed his mission, after all, and Hemlock didn’t abide by failure.

CX-2 didn’t have Omega; not even a clone captive!

He hoped that CT-9903 was dead, but the shot he’d delivered wasn’t exactly a killing blow (especially for him), just incapacitating.

Hemlock looked at his eye that was exposed through his helmet, but didn’t signal him to take it off yet. CX-2 didn’t mind, knowing he was supposed to remain a secret.

“Come with me,” Hemlock ordered.

CX-2 easily fell into step beside him.

“I see that you’re alone,” he murmured.

“Yes,” CX-2 answered, trying to hide the slight unease he felt.

CX-2’s left knee creaked again as they walked into the facility, using hallways accessed by codes in order to avoid passing the clone prisoners. Hemlock had learned early on that they got agitated when CX-2 walked by them. Or they thought that he was back to experiment on them.

“And you’re… damaged,” Hemlock said, a slight curl to his lip.

“My apologies.”

They reached a lift to go down into the bowels of the mountain.

Once stepping inside, Hemlock asked, “Did your helmet come off?”

“No.”

“They didn’t recognize you?”

CT-9901’s bloodied face flashed in his mind. He had been staring at him. But what for? Had he recognized him?

“No,” CX-2 said, unsure if he was lying or not. 

Now that they were in a lift, he took his broken helmet off. Naturally, his left eye searched, its targeting system still adjusting to being in a place of safety here. He glanced at Hemlock, saw his heat signature, his height, weak points along the body. But it ultimately ruled him out as a target.

Hemlock hadn’t quite explained why CX-2 was not allowed to take his helmet off unless he was with him and his doctors and assistants, or in private. He was just told that the clones would be agitated like they were early on when he passed their cells.

Hemlock glanced at him, maybe picking up on what he wasn’t saying. He ignored it.

“We’ll take you for debrief, and then… interrogation.”

CX-2 held in a sigh. The debrief was fine, but he was sick of being interrogated. What were they trying to find? That he was going to defect from the Empire? Why would he? They gave him a place to stay, gave him a purpose, and helped him with his injuries and enhancements.

CX-2 was told to take his armor off once he entered the room for debrief and interrogation. He did so, ignoring the problem in his knee, and then sat in the recliner they provided. This seat was only comfortable to a point. Once he fully leaned back in it the usual cuffs snapped around his wrists and his ankles.

Hemlock grabbed a datapad, and CX-2 was sure he was looking at the information the chip at the base of his skull provided. Electrodes were placed along his skull. One of the doctors must have been newer because she tried to place them under his shirt. Hemlock’s lips turned down a bit on the left side. He waved her off. “No, he doesn’t need them there. He’s the one with the pacer-droid.”

She removed the wires, and stepped back. She lowered her head as she said, “My apologies, doctor.”

Once all the electrodes were in place, Hemlock did something on his datapad that turned off CX-2’s left eye.

He tensed—though he was used to the temporary blindness—from the gift of sight (however distorted) being taken from him.

And without a certain medicine he was never personally supplied with, the sight in his right eye was waning, everything growing blurry. The lights above him blurred together, the dark walls and floors, the people looking like colored blotches.

He tensed, trying to find Hemlock, wanting to stay aware of his situation.

Hemlock seemed to hand his datapad over to someone, and came forward, getting in CX-2’s space. He grabbed metal attached to wires from under the chair, and began to roll up CX-2’s sleeves, attaching the metal to his forearms with an adhesive on the bottom of them. He tensed, not sure why this was being done to him. This was new, something that hadn’t happened before.

As he attached the last one, Hemlock leaned in and said, “Just in case you consider lying.”

CX-2 frowned. Why would he lie? What was the point? They knew everything about him. Hemlock had operated on him himself, had seen every part of him, even his brain, and he had made him who he was. There were no secrets, and if there were Hemlock would pry them out of him. Still, before that happened, CX-2 would be happy to offer up any and all secrets he had. Despite what Hemlock had told him, that his surgeries weren’t a kindness, they weren’t saving him, he really had saved him. He would have died in so many dreadful ways without him.

Hemlock began the debrief. This part at least was simple, though the metal on his arms stayed in the back of his mind, like an ominous presence that hovered just over his shoulder. CX-2 explained he’d gone to Armenest as instructed. He had met with CT-1409; and CT-9901, and CT-9903 had been with him. Omega hadn’t been present. He had figured she would be seeing as CT-9901 took all kinds of risks with her, but perhaps CT-9904’s protectiveness they’d learned of had kept her safe.

CX-2 didn’t like describing how he had almost lost the fight, how his target and adversaries had gotten away from him, but he told Hemlock everything, as he was supposed to.

“Now, I asked this question in the lift, but I would like to ask again. Were your recognized by anyone?”

CX-2 paused, heart beating harder than before, and he shifted the fingers of his left hand, tapping them against the arm of the chair.

“No.”

Hemlock looked at his datapad.

“Hmm.”

He turned, possibly, colors shifting in CX-2’s vision.

“Emerie, perhaps it is time we begin interrogation. Just be ready.”

A blur that CX-2 knew as Emerie stepped over to his side, and she strapped his head down. Even while his heart beat faster and he began to sweat, CX-2 remained still. Now Emerie stood by him, holding… something. He couldn’t see what it was. It was just a tiny smudge in his vision. He tried turning his head to look, but it wouldn’t move.

“Focus,” Hemlock snapped, sensing his distraction.

“Whom do you serve?” he asked.

“The Empire,” CX-2 said automatically before he’d even thought about it.

“Do you believe in the work we are doing?”

“Yes.” Of course he did!

“Whom do you take direct orders from?”

“You, sir.”

“What is your name?”

CX-2 paused for some reason. He couldn’t breathe, his heart beating so hard for reasons he couldn’t understand. Did those reasons even exist? The air felt heavy. Hemlock was waiting, and CX-2 was hyper aware of the metal on his arms, the strap on his head.

He licked his dry lips, and choked out through a mouth devoid of all moisture, “I don’t have a name, sir.”

CX-2 wished he could see because he was sure Hemlock was frowning. Not a good sign.

“How do you know the targets you were assigned to for this mission?”

CX-2 knew what he was supposed to say, but… something was stopping him.

Hemlock sighed. “Emerie.”

CX-2 tensed as something was suddenly shoved into his mouth. It was small, and in a few seconds he realized it was a bit.

His stomach dropped.

Oh no.

The electric pulses hit him hard, feeling like needles stabbing into his arms, and burning, burning. His muscles went completely rigid as electricity traveled up and up, till it was almost into his shoulders. His arms hurt. It felt like they were being used by someone else.

Without meaning to he bit down, and he almost screamed.

A rough, throaty noise left him, dug up out of his body as the electrical pulses kept going.

The pulsing ended, finally. The burning remained. He wanted to relax his arms, but his forearms felt like they’d been shoved over a fire. They were shaking.

He almost fought Emerie as she took the bit out.

“Let’s try that again.”

CX-2 had the strange urge to growl at Hemlock, but he held it in.

“How do you know Clone Force 99? Feel free to elaborate.”

CX-2 answered with, “You told me about them, for my mission.”

“Good.”

“I— Why are you asking this?”

“Oh, it’s just a test.”

CX-2 wasn’t quite sure what they were testing. He had some early memories of being asked these questions, standing alone in a cold room and talking to the questioner through a one-way mirror. Even then he hadn’t fully understood them.

“Do you have a name?”

CX-2 wasn’t sure why this was being asked again.

Confused, he began to stutter. Before he could get anything out, Hemlock said, “Emerie.”

The bit was placed in his mouth again, CX-2 wanted to plead with them.

But he knew he couldn’t.

He knew they could do far worse than this.

He accepted them for their worst, knowing it was for his own good, and the good of the Empire.

These people had saved him.

This was the right thing to do.

When the electricity hit him CX-2 let out a high, breathy sound. The voltage was higher this time. Had to be. It traveled up his arms, into his neck, across his upper back, his chest. CX-2 tried to breathe as his body felt like it was getting stabbed with trillions of needles—or perhaps the sensation was more akin to scalpels. The electricity forced his body to jolt, and it was sickening feeling that jolt pass through him. It felt as if someone else had control of his brain and the electrical pulses that ruled him. His upper back bowed up off the chair, head pushing back hard, the chip at the base of his skull somehow seeming so much bigger now, and digging in.

CX-2 couldn’t comprehend how long he suffered this. He all but spit out the bit with strong pants before Emerie could take it out when Hemlock turned off the machine. He was sweating, drool dripping down his chin. He gasped, just staring up at the too-bright lights on the ceiling, on the one right above him.

“Do you have a name?”

“No,” he panted.

“Did you fight in the Clone Wars?”

What kind of question was that? Of course he hadn’t!

“No.”

But, if he thought about it, what had he been doing? CX-2 had to have existed before Hemlock if Hemlock had had to take drastic measures to save his life.

He remembered The Fall.

He couldn’t remember much else.

Thinking about any of this made his head hurt, especially where a plate replaced part of his skull.

He almost whimpered.

But he was an operative of Hemlock’s. He did not whimper.

After all, this was not the worst he’d been through.

“Do you know CT-9901?”

“N—”

“I’m—waiting.”

“No.”

“Emerie.”

It went on like that, more questions being added in, others being repeated over and over again till his head was swimming, and he wasn’t sure he knew right from wrong. CX-2 might have passed out, the electrocution too much for his body to take.

CX-2 came to with a needle in his eye.

He immediately tensed, and grit his teeth, but recognized the feeling, so did nothing to fight. Besides, wasn’t he restrained? If he was still in that chair…

A groan left him as his eye started burning, but when the needle withdrew he could see.

He started as his left eye was turned back on.

CX-2 took in everything. The room that was empty save for Hemlock, the metal was off his burnt arms. His skin was red and shiny, and some of it had bubbled. And the injuries were hot, feeling like he was still burning.

Hemlock didn’t apologize, and CX-2 didn’t want him to. Surely the measures taken had been necessary.

“Now, let’s fix that knee of yours.”

CX-2 was let out of the chair, and, flanked by guards, he followed Hemlock to a lab where he could work on him.

“How… how did I do?” he asked.

“We need to test you again tomorrow.”

CX-2’s stomach that still hadn’t made its way back to his upper abdomen seemed to drop again. Both his knees buckled, mechanical, and biological.

A guard grabbed his upper arm. “Keep moving,” he ordered.

CX-2 rolled his eyes. Didn’t he outrank them? Why was he being treated like this?

Once CX-2 was sitting down on a lab table, his pants rolled up on his left leg, he ventured, “What of my failure, sir?”

Hemlock started moving CX-2’s leg forward and back, trying to see where the problem was. He focused on it for so long that CX-2 thought he’d forgotten about his question.

Then he looked up at him, spanner in his right hand. The insanity was in his sharp, blue eyes was unreadable. His gloved hand stayed on CX-2’s knee.

“Did I make you into who you are so you could ask pointless questions?”

“No.”

“You will find out.”

After many long minutes of Hemlock working on his knee, he ordered, “Now get up and walk. We have to test your knee.”

CX-2 stood, almost expecting his left knee to buckle. For a moment the pressure of his mechno-leg against his hip ached, but then he was fine, and he was walking like normal. His knee had stopped glitching.

“Good, good.”

A chill ran through CX-2 for some reason.

Hemlock stood, massaging his left hand. “Now come with me.”

CX-2 was turned around deep within the mountain by the time he came to an open lab, clones strapped down to tables. They yelled curses at the guards, they tried to wriggle free of their restraints when they saw or heard that Hemlock had entered.

“I’ve ordered that a new helmet be made for you,” Hemlock said to CX-2. “In the meantime… how would you feel about resuming our work?”

That work consisted of nothing but torture, and it hadn’t been required of him in a few months.

“Sir?”

“Do as I say.”

“Yes, sir.”

So CX-2 aided Hemlock in his experiments. This was nothing like taking blood samples—something he’d done once. Here he took biopsies of skin, muscle, tendons, ligaments, anything they could get. The clones had been drugged, but still screamed, still tensed, still hurt.

By the time they were finishing up their work with the last clone (the previous one had bled out before they could stitch him up), CX-2 was shaking, and sweating. He couldn’t get a good grip on the scalpel, and Hemlock didn’t bother to help. He watched. Just watched, and CX-2 could feel the cold, unsettling smile that graced his face.

Once, CX-2 had asked why they were doing this.

The answer: “All in the name of science.”

And he knew the cruelty of such sciences. They were in his body, part of his body. He had lost so much, and he was grateful for what Hemlock had been able to save, but sometimes he missed his left leg, and missed his middle and ring fingers on his left hand. He missed his left eye. He wanted to have his entire skull. He missed not having loss of sensation due to part of his spine having been replaced. CX-2 was a scientific majesty in Hemlock’s eyes, a pure work of art.

And he was alive because of it.

So CX-2 did what he was told, he used the brain Hemlock had worked so hard to save.

He listened to each clone beg and plead, and try to say he was one of them.

They all fell under his knife.

And yet, he wasn’t sure he could finish with this last subject. He was supposed to be taking a sample from the outer part of his left lungs. And he was making such animalistic noises, that CX-2 felt horror creeping through him.

“Go on,” Hemlock urged.

CX-2 thought of all Hemlock could do, both great and evil, and he continued cutting.

The clone begged to die.

CX-2 made sure he didn’t get his wish.

By the time he was done, blood all over the lab, all over him, Hemlock grabbed the back of his neck. He shoved him down, till his face was in the blood, getting in his good eye. The smell was overwhelming. Despite being used to it, he felt like he was going to throw up, his head spinning.

“Lose Omega again,” he hissed, “and I’ll make sure you’re one of them. And you know I know all the ways to keep you alive. Do I make myself clear?”

CX-2 wasn’t sure how he could speak with his face against the bloodied lab table, but he slurred out, “Yes sir,” blood getting in his mouth.

Hemlock released him. “Get up. Clean up, return to your barracks. Training starts tomorrow at oh-six-hundred hours. You’ll be with the others. Don’t be late.”

CX-2 was shaking as he straightened up. He tried to wipe some of the blood from his face, but he remembered his hands were equally bloody. His arms were no good because…

He held them out.

“What about the burns?”

Hemlock had been leaving, and then turned, just the hint of a sneer on his face. “What about them?”

CX-2 straightened, and clasped his hands behind his back, wincing as the raw, hot skin of his arms brushed against fabric.

“Nothing, sir.”

“That’s what I thought. Now go.”

Despite his tone, Hemlock massaged his hand hard, and had a gleam in his eyes that was brighter than usual as CX-2 passed him.

CX-2 couldn’t help but think about how much of his own body was Hemlock’s work. He lived and breathed at this man’s command, and he would die by it too. As he left, guards flanking him, he realized that room had been his punishment.

CX-2 died a thousand times before he was allowed to see Hemlock.

He was asleep, images getting implanted into his brain. Images of Clone Force 99, where each time CX-2 looked at them or took a step forward he was shot, or burned, or electrocuted, or sliced, or even blown up. Each image of their faces brought forth pain he’d already been through, pain he would rather die than experience again. Unthinkable, horrible pain no one else would ever truly understand.

And that was when Hemlock entered his brain, the Empire. And they brought sweet, sweet relief. They brought life to him.

They hurt him, but all with brilliant light behind them, with a drive for a greater purpose.

He was given orders in his dreams, orders that would not be real upon waking. But when he followed them he was relieved from the pain. He was given food; a nice pillow; warmth; brilliant, cold water;  promises of even better things, of a galaxy remade.

When he woke to an alarm blaring in his barracks he remembered the pain. And he remembered the good.

And he realized no one had come in overnight to give him his injections.

CX-2 could do nothing but lie there, wracked with pain: at his hip, in his head, his fingers, his back. He was so dizzy from his eyes he thought he was going to throw up. He hurt so badly that he couldn’t make a sound, could do nothing but stay there, immobile, useless, at the mercy of the Empire.

A thought crawled into his currently-shattered mind:

He was still being punished.

Chapter Text

Crosshair was surprised when he didn’t have anything left to throw up. Eventually there was just bile, and that ended too. It ended too soon. He felt scarred, like every moment he had seen from the recorder on Tech’s goggles had been tattooed on his eyelids. Or branded there, burning deep into his brain.

After throwing his helmet, and startling a sleeping Omega, Crosshair collapsed onto the deck. He buried his head in his hands.

Oh stars… Tech!

Omega, still fighting off her sleep, suddenly appeared, putting a hand on Crosshair’s shoulder.

Wrecker shifted in his bunk, and groaned, but didn’t wake.

“What’s wrong?” Omega asked.

Crosshair somehow lifted his head despite the scarring inside him, and looked at her.

She wiped his face under his eyes, and he was surprised to find that he was crying.

“Tell me?”

“I… can’t.”

“Is it about…”

“Yeah.”

“Then I have to know.”

Crosshair shook his head. “No. Not like this.”

He knew the kid had seen violence, that she’d been imprisoned, but this was different . It was seeing every single gory detail that their brother had suffered. And seeing him get taken away by the Empire.

“So… is he… alive?”

Crosshair tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.

He found he couldn’t speak.

He tried: “I…”

“Wait here, I’ll get you some water.”

Crosshair wanted to object. He didn’t want Omega taking care of him. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

He pulled his trembling hand in close to his body, and bowed his head.

Tears he didn’t remember crying fell onto his thighs.

He looked to Echo in his rack, back turned to the rest of the galaxy. Echo, who was fighting the war none of them had wanted to join. Echo, a soldier that was perhaps braver than all of them. And there he was, his back turned, body rigid, and still.

Perhaps he was lost in his own nightmares. He could see how Tech’s injuries and thinking of how he had stood before them could trigger this. Echo had been through so much. Maybe this was… too much.

It was too much for Crosshair.

Omega searched through their crate of rations, and then came back over with a water bottle. She handed it to him as she sat beside him again. “Drink.”

For once, Crosshair didn’t argue. He took a sip, and swished the cold water around in his mouth, trying to wet it.

After he swallowed, Omega ventured, “So…”

“He’s alive.” Crosshair’s voice was hoarser than usual. “He’s alive.”

“Is that… good?”

“He wants to capture you, Omega,” Crosshair snarled.

“So? You wanted to kill me at one time because of the Empire. And here you are.”

He couldn’t look at her. Not when he thought of what he’d done wrong, of all she’d done for him. The regret tugged at his stomach, and his diaphragm pulled in till his breathing was shallow.

His hand trembled even more, and he tried to hide it from her.

Omega leaned against him, and reached across, taking that hand in hers.

Crosshair managed to look at her, and he took in the kindness in her face, the adoration. The hope she still had. Behind it there was something darker, a door she didn’t want to open, but was cracked, letting the black smoke through.

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

A look around the Marauder showed the desolation his brothers had been left in. Echo hadn’t even budged at Omega’s question.

Crosshair couldn’t blame him. After all, he was still seeing it. All of it.

He sunk into himself, into the scarring, the Marauder pulling away as his vision lost focus.

Tech hadn’t screamed when he fell. Not at first. He was sure in what he had done. He saw the railcar start moving again without all the extra weight. And besides, why let his family hear his screams?

He tried to stop thinking, to slow his breathing, to focus on what he had done and why, and not that he was still falling to his death. Would he ever stop falling?

The clouds he passed through covered him in moisture, and the railcar was still above him. He’d die as soon as he hit the ground, the fall much too high. And then the railcar would crush his body.

Yet Tech couldn’t accept that. He was still thinking. There had to be a way. There had to!

He painstakingly turned in the air, feeling the wind and the force of gravity pulling at him inexorably. The peak of a mountain slid by in his vision, and he saw the swell of it as it went down, down to the ground far away. And yet it was close, and was drawing closer.

Tech still had one blaster on him, and it had some grappling wire.

Quickly, he took it out, and aimed for the closing mountain. Wind whistled in his ears. He could still breathe thanks to his helmet, but the forces against him threatened to flip him and take it off. Even with being able to breathe he was sure his eyesight was fading, that he was going to black out. The air resistance against his chest and abdomen were brutal.

Perhaps blacking out would be better; to not be around for his last moments. To sleep, and then die.

He fought it, even as each blink of his eyes lasted longer than the one before it.

Tech  fired.

And nearly had his arm ripped right off.

He felt his right shoulder dislocate, and he grunted at the pain, the ache that ran down his arm, and up to his neck. He could barely move.

Pressing a button on the blaster, he was getting pulled off his original course towards death, and was closing in on the mountain.

He released right before he crashed into it, but then saw the green, brown, and gray blurs of land below him and had a fleeting thought that he had just made his death worse for himself.

Tech’s helmet came off as he smashed into a rocky cliffside. Then his head hit against rock. It happened so fast that he couldn’t tell if he was bleeding or not. He was blinded by the pain for a moment, his brain screaming that something was wrong.

He opened his eyes. His vision doubled as the pain in his head grew worse, filling with too much pressure, the back and right part of it growing heavy, heavy.

Tech’s body tried to throw up, but the forces against it left him aspirating, perhaps choking to death.

He kept falling, now at an angle, smashing into a boulder, his lower back shattering.

Tech got out a mangled scream, even as his body wanted to just black out.

But he’d had training against that. He would stay awake.

But for what? To be tormented?

Before Tech could decide if he wanted to stop fighting it or not, he came in contact with the trees. The intense forces against him drove the branch right through his shattered spine, bursting his armor apart. It came out the other side, and Tech’s head dangled at an odd angle when he saw something almost tube-like, fleshy, and pink sticking out on the end that had gone through him. Blood was everywhere. Tech slowly realized that part of his small intestine had come out, and was dangling before him. The wind was too fierce for him to catch the smell of his injuries.

Maybe he was screaming, sobbing, but he couldn’t be sure. It was now like he was watching from far away, the pain too much for any human being to comprehend.

He kept falling, the branch breaking off, smashing against the inside of him.

Another branch, this one smaller, shattered his goggles, and plunged into his left eye. The glass joined the branch in ruining him. His left eye went dark, and something warm and thicker than blood splattered on him. Viscera. The remnants of his left eye.

Tech’s left leg broke along the weak point in his femur as he tumbled and collided with stone. Before he could scream, another branch was driven right through it, breaking off, and slowing his descent.

Two of his fingers ripped clean off with another impact as he tried to get the branches out of him in a mad desperation. They had to get out. They had to!

There was blood everywhere, and Tech wondered, in his addled brain, which injury would kill him first.

Nausea swirled through him, and his head swam. Blood poured from where his left eye had been and had somehow even splattered onto his right eye through a break in his goggles he didn’t remember getting: there were too many impacts to count.

A sound against the wind was whistling in his ears, and something made of metal raced towards him.

Tech barely remembered landing on the ship (was it a ship?). Rough hands pulled him in as he choked and screamed.

Finally, body wholly defeated, Tech blacked out with an Imperial standing over him. He was sure death had taken him.

“Crosshair? Crosshair!”

Crosshair realized Omega had been shaking his arm, and he glanced at her, taking in her worried expression.

He didn’t know what to say.

What was there to say?

Then it felt like the ship dropped out from under him, his body falling forever and ever, lost in hyperspace.

KARK!

Tech was a prisoner of the Empire.

And they’d just left him. They’d karking left him!

And now they were just sitting around, too lost to do anything about it.

Crosshair thought of the re-education program, of the things they had tried to desperately put into his head, all the agonizing and confusing “interrogation sessions” used to weaken his mind, to crawl inside and place what they wanted in there. Hemlock was inside Tech.

They had to save him.

Crosshair stumbled to his feet, Omega still holding his arm.

He tried to give Echo a tap to get his attention, but in his mad rush just brushed a hand against his upper back.

“Echo, get up! Hunter! Where are you?”

He rushed to the bow of the ship, and found Hunter hunched in on himself in the pilot’s seat.

The Marauder shuddered, almost knocking Crosshair into a seat. Omega was right behind him.

“Hunter, we have to find Tech. We have to get him out of there. Please, we have to.”

Crosshair fell to his knees, unbalanced by his need and the damage to the ship.

“Please. Please.”

Crosshair didn’t think there’d ever been a time in his life where he’d begged. But he’d beg for this, even if his knees died, and his body withered. He’d keep on begging, begging as the galaxy burned around him.

Finally, Hunter spoke: “How? Look what he’s done to Wrecker. He wants Omega. We can’t risk that.”

Crosshair shoved Hunter, who almost fell out of his seat.

“Shut up.”

“I—”

Crosshair slapped him and grabbed his shoulders, “Snap out of it! He’s our brother. You left him, and we can’t just leave him now!”

“I didn’t leave him!” Hunter yelled. “Tech sacrificed himself for the greater mission.”

“And look what it did to him,” he hissed.

“I know. I know.”

Crosshair held in a sob, shocked by what he was feeling, and realizing deep in his core that he had been left with the Empire, too. Though his story was different, he had still been abandoned.

It all came up out of his chest now, and he wanted to roar at Hunter, wanted to slap him till he did something!

Crosshair fell against Hunter, and put his head against his shoulder, trying to hide the tears on his face. Then he shoved him away, coming to his feet unbalanced.

Omega helped him into a seat.

Echo stood in the doorway.

“You’re right. So…. where do we start?” Hunter asked. When he raised his head there was a determined light in his eyes, hardened and tempered by what he’d seen from the recorder.

Omega made a sound, and they all turned to her. “Well, if it’s Tech, does he still know about Pabu? Are they in trouble?”

Echo put a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps he’d have no reason to go to Pabu if we’re not there. We should stay away.”

“We can’t even check on Phee?” she asked.

Hunter said, “If the Empire’s looking for you, and they… they have Tech… we—we can’t risk it.”

“Then how do we find him?” Crosshair asked, still barely able to breathe.

No one said what they were all thinking.

“What if we try looking for Tantiss again?” Hunter suggested.

“Are you kidding?” Crosshair asked. “Tantiss? Didn’t you search the galaxy five times for it?”

“And we’ll search again.”

“No, it’s inefficient,” Crosshair argued. “We need to help him now.”

“And what happens when we do find him? He’s not going to come willingly,” Hunter argued.

“I don’t care. We take him down with non-lethal force, we… we capture him. There’s no other way.”

“I think we’re all forgetting we can’t do any of that with Wrecker down, and with the ship the way it is,” Echo argued.

“You’re right. I set a course for us already. There’s a small planet in the outer rim where we can try and fix the ship, maybe get Wrecker some help.”

The ship shuddered, and an alert showed up on the piloting interface.

“We’re about to drop out of hyperspace,” Hunter informed them, turning to face the forward viewport.

Crosshair hung on to his seat. He knew he should face forward, but he looked back at Omega, making sure she’d be safe. Echo had thankfully gotten her secure.

Hunter did the drop sequence, and space filled in around them as the blue and white streaks faded away.

Before them was a planet of green, a small, red desert on its southernmost tip. Wide rivers of blue intersected the land at every turn. The points with the most elevation were at the desert. Seven moons were locked in orbit around it, and in the distance lay its blazing sun. Other planets were closer to the sun, and they looked like scorching worlds of hot rock and gas and sand. 

They flew in close, avoiding the planet’s gravitational pull and atmosphere so they could come in on the dark side, where the lights of cities blazed out into the night.

Crosshair didn’t recognize the planet, but he assumed that where there were cities and light, there would be a way to fix the ship, and help Wrecker.

He sighed, grabbing a toothpick and all but jamming it in his mouth.

He… wanted to stay with his brothers, but this would slow everything down.

Tech was still with the Empire, and whether he wanted to be there or not, he was still a prisoner, still being used, still being tortured.

Crosshair glanced at Omega, and he realized that with the hard set of her face, her trembling lips, she was thinking the same thing. Their family was slowing them down.

Chapter Text

“You never showed for training, CX-2.”

CX-2 glanced at Hemlock as he stood outside the ray shield to his barrack. It opened for the appropriate moments—such as training—giving him a few minutes to leave. The shield had gone up again, the timer running out.

CX-2 had hardly heard what Hemlock had said, but he knew they were words that perhaps spoke of further punishment.

Pain dulled all his other senses, left him weak, lost, mired in its sharp and bruising embrace.

Perhaps he was shaking. Perhaps he wasn’t breathing well. But he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t know anything else.

If someone had asked him to choose the worst area of pain he didn’t know if he’d have an answer.

Perhaps his spine? Or his hip? His fingers and leg that weren’t there anymore? His abdomen? His chest? His head?

As he seemed to float above his body, separating from it, he noticed his legs were shaking (even the mechanical one), but besides that he knew he couldn’t move them. He felt like blades were cutting into him, going deeper and deeper, his nerves screaming for it all to stop, to end.

Was this him? Was he that scarred, mechanical creature he looked down upon?

CX-2 was outside of himself, not a part of this body anymore.

His one thought he could recognize as he fully separated from himself was, Someone kill this body. If someone killed the body, his pain would end. He’d find sweet relief.

Hemlock put in a code, and the ray shield went down. He came in carrying a large medical kit. The ray shield went back up, locking CX-2 in once again, this time with Hemlock.

Hemlock placed the black kit down on the bare bedside table built into the floor, and let out a loud breath.

He knelt, and took up CX-2’s hand, fingers beneath his thumb, feeling his pulse.

“Disappointing,” he sighed. 

Then he leaned in close, the scent of warm spice and a sharp sweetness crowding CX-2’s nose. He hoped more than ever that Hemlock would just kill this body, let him end. Put a hand around the body’s throat, and give it relief.

“You know, you’re supposed to be the best agent I have. But this is… sad, for lack of a better word. You can’t even fight through the pain.”

CX-2 almost wanted to scream that the pain in this body was unimaginable. This was the pain, the fear, it felt when it looked at images of Clone Force 99, when it remembered them. This wasn’t the pain the Empire was supposed to make it feel. Had CX-2 done something wrong? Was this still part of his failure?

“As much as I love this”—he bent over him and brushed a hand across CX-2’s forehead, palm warm and almost soothing amidst the pain that left this body trembling and letting out choked growls like a deeply wounded animal—”I do need you back in commission. However, I feel tempted to… let you earn your salvation.” His hand went to the medical kit, tapping it for emphasis. He shook his head a bit, a thought coming to him, and he went on, “Your interrogation will just have to come later.” A small smile crept up onto his face.

He took CX-2’s left hand in his gloved one, while his other hand played across the scars on his face. This had him placing his weight against his side.

“Have I ever told you how much I enjoyed working on you?”

CX-2 could barely even flinch back from his touch, body not wanting to do anything but tremble, and almost twitch, from the pain.

Hemlock leaned against him even more, reaching across. He put a hand on his cybernetic leg, holding it down to stop the involuntary twitching. It bucked against his hand.

“You presented… a challenge. How to keep you alive, but make you my own? Oh, I spent weeks upon weeks on you. I even lost sleep at first, spending hours saving your body. Learning it.”

He ran his hand down his face, his throat, placing his palm over his heart. CX-2’s pacer-droid must have been working on overtime.

Somehow these touches brought him back into his body, made him realize that the thing writhing on his bed was himself.

“I personally designed your eye, the plate in your head, the nerves in your spine.” His voice took on a tight, greedy note towards the end. The hand holding his leg down now caressed it. “Even your leg,” he breathed.

“What does it feel like, I wonder. To be made of all… this. What is the pain like?” Hemlock leaned in more, inhaling through his nose.

“I almost want to ask—no. I can’t. But— oh, how you would chafe at this if you knew who you really were.”

CX-2’s leg bucked harder, brain reliving the pain of the tree shooting through his thigh after it had broken again. Hemlock had no trouble holding it down.

And who he really was?

CX-2 only knew this, right here, only knew Hemlock as his master. Nothing else existed. It wasn’t supposed to exist.

And now, all he knew was this grueling agony, the way his heart hammered, the hands on him. Something told him to be afraid, to be bothered by this. But Hemlock had already done so much more than put his hands on him. He had had them in him, his eyes had seen his insides. He had saved him.

CX-2 lay there, immobilized by the sheer torment.

Hemlock ran a hand up his leg now, resting it against his hip. Many times he had seen Hemlock marveling him, his very own creation, but not like this. This was different. And yet… It was right, too. CX-2 was supposed to be eternally grateful to him, no matter what Hemlock claimed as the truth. And he was. He would be even more grateful if he would just give him his pain meds. But, he had to earn those. He wasn’t sure in what way, couldn’t comprehend anything but the knives and the fire and the aching in him.

A choked, gurgling growl left him as it felt like someone was crushing his spine.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Hemlock chided, caressing his cheek with his gloved hand before drawing his chin up to close his mouth. A finger drifted over his lips. When he leaned in, hardly an inch from his face, his eyes gleamed. “Shh… It’s all right. Everything’s okay,” he murmured.

His other hand was drifting up, ghosting over his pelvis, now sliding under his tunic, and caressing the mass of scars that marred his lower abdomen. Hemlock’s fingers dug in slightly, curling against his skin. His breath was on him as he said, “I’ve seen all of you, been inside you, and yet… there’s so much more I could do. That I will do. And do you know—the best—part?” he murmured, words slowing down, begging CX-2 to listen.

He couldn’t respond, not even sure he knew how to use his mouth to form words anymore.

Hemlock’s hand ran up, up, resting on the scars over his heart, fingers running along the incision lines he’d put there himself. His gloved hand ran through his hair, and caressed the back of his head, feeling the plate there, just beneath the skin.

His voice left him in a breathy moan: “You’re going to enjoy it.”

Planet: Gionimroth
Region: Outer Rim
Planet Designation: Exoplanet
Rotation Period: 42 hours
Class: Terrestrial
Atmosphere: Type I

“Gionimroth? What kind of a name is that?” Crosshair hissed.

They had landed in one of the vast forests, beside a river, to mask the sound of their engines just to be safe. White moons hung over them in the night sky before they disappeared under the trees. Creatures of the night sang, and spoke to each other. Everything had the sweet smell of grass, the freshness of running water. As they walked on the springy ground, the grass covered in a soft layer of leaves, an almost-fruity scent hit them.

The roaring of the river also worked to mask Wrecker’s cries as they painstakingly made their way down to the valley the closest city was in.

Hunter and Crosshair helped Wrecker walk. They basically had to carry him. Omega was in front, scouting their path ahead through the dark. She turned back, wincing, every time she heard a sound from Wrecker.

Echo was at the ship, trying to figure out what parts they would need to fix it, and Hunter had also instructed him to contact Rex, but not to tell him about Tech. Not yet.

Omega and Hunter had changed Wrecker’s bandages before bringing him out. She’d checked his packing, making sure it was still in place. He wasn’t bleeding as badly as before, but it still didn’t look good. Omega had more pain medicine in her pack, in case he needed it.

She was glad for the sound of the river so no one could hear her whimpers.

“We’re getting… help,” Wrecker started, “and you’re criticizing the planet’s name?”

“What else am I supposed to do while carrying you?” Crosshair spat.

Omega darted ahead, using her flashlight to pick out any spots that might be difficult for Wrecker, or a path that might be easier.

The darkness amongst the trees seemed to swallow her up, like the moons and the stars no longer existed. Silence engulfed her.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and for a moment she was back. Back in Tantiss.

She was in her room—her cell—shivering at night as she desperately tried to sleep. But how could sleep take her while she was wrapped in black despair?

In a way, Omega had grown used to her routine, to what she wasn’t allowed. But every day and every night she hurt, and she hoped.

Omega almost cried out, finding herself in the dark forest once more. Alone.

The Empire—they’d find her, they’d take her away again, they’d—

Wrecker’s groan sounded through the forest.

A shiver ran through her, and she raced back to her family.

“Is everything all right?”

Hunter gave her a discerning look. “Are you all right?”

She looked at her family, and realized Crosshair and Hunter shared the same expression.

She nodded. “Mm hmm.”

Maybe she was wrong, but she thought she heard Crosshair mutter, “Sure.”

Omega wanted to place a hand on Wrecker, wanted to help him through his pain, but that would slow them down. The best they could do was to keep going, and get him some help.

As they trudged through the forest, the river widened, its current slowing, and trees began to thin.

The city was just ahead, the rounded buildings close together, and taller in the center, rising up like a bud about to open and blossom. Lights shone through the trees, glistening on deep blue waters that intersected the streets.

Omega felt a sharp tension writhing beneath her skin, just beginning to simmer in her blood. She shifted from foot to foot.

When she glanced back, Crosshair gave her a knowing look.

As Omega was about to say something, Wrecker let out a pained noise, and Hunter and Crosshair grunted as they had to take more of his weight.

“We’re almost there,” Crosshair assured him.

Hunter said, “I don’t think we’re close enough. He’s exhausted. Here, let’s set him down. Omega, get the medicine out.”

As they helped Wrecker to lie back against a tree, Omega took the medicine from her pack and rushed over. When she shined her light on him, she saw that he was already bleeding through his new bandages. Perhaps they’d moved him too much.

Hunter had his hand out for the medicine, while Crosshair kept a hand on Wrecker’s shoulder. That was his version of saying, You’ll be fine.

Wrecker winced and groaned when Hunter injected the med, but then his body started to relax, muscles that had been tense from pain uncoiling.

“What’s the plan now?” Crosshair asked.

Hunter looked around, and Omega caught him studying the lights through the trees. “I’ll get help. You stay with Wrecker. Omega, you’re with me.”

“But—”

“Crosshair can take care of himself and Wrecker. It’ll be fine.”

Omega rushed over to Wrecker and wrapped her arms around his torso, being careful to avoid his wound.

“We’ll be back soon,” she promised. “We’ll get help.”

Wrecker patted her back; it was the only response he could make for now.

She pulled away and followed Hunter, glancing back now and again with worry.

“They’ll be all right,” Hunter told her. “The best we can do is move fast, and get help.” 

He picked up the pace, Omega able to keep up with him. Soon, they made it through the thinning trees. The outskirts of the town were just a click away, across a field, and over an arched bridge hung with lamps. To their right was an overgrown path. They headed towards it, not wanting to happen across a tributary in the tall grass.

“Echo, any idea what parts we need?” Hunter asked into his comm.

“Looks like our sublight engine took a hit. We need some durasteel to patch up the engine block, probably need to replace a piston, and we need to replace the entire cylinder head. One shot hit the air scrubbers. Not bad though, I don’t think—the air didn’t get too stale in there, thankfully.”

“All right, we’ll see what we can find.”

“This is a mess,” Echo admitted. “I know some of what to do, but without Tech—”

“I know.”

Once all was quiet for a bit, Omega asked, “How did… How did Tech survive Plan 99?”

“Tech’s smart. He changed the trajectory of his fall.”

She felt dumb asking this question since in a way she already knew the answer, but: “Is he… okay?”

Hunter stilled at that, shoulders rising slightly, muscles along his back tensing.

She tugged at his arm, desperate now that it was just the two of them, “Please, I have to know.”

Hunter turned to her, and got on his knees. Holding her, tears in his eyes, he said, “There are some things that a child isn’t supposed to know.”

‘I’m older than you,” she argued.

“But your body isn’t. Your mind isn’t. You know that.” She bowed her head, turning it away from him. His grip was almost insistent now, but not hard, just caring. “We’re trying to protect you, Omega.”

Her bottom lip trembled, but she clenched her jaw. She would not cry. She absolutely refused to, but…

“And you couldn’t,” she told him, meeting his eyes in the dark. “You couldn’t.”

He pulled her in close as she started to sob, her emotions seeming to spring up on her, like someone had broken a pipeline and water was gushing forth.

It was a relief to be enfolded in his arms, even with his armor on. Hunter had always been sturdy to her, the one with the plan, the one who led them to safety.

“I know,” he told her, voice sounding like he was crying as well. “I know. I’m so sorry for what’s happened to you. If I could I would never have let it happen.”

“I know I got out,” she breathed, “and I know I’m… I’m s-safe, but I’m so scared. I’m scared all the time, Hunter, and I don’t know why.”

“Believe me, I understand. It’s okay. I’m still scared, too.”

She clung to him hard, wishing being in his arms could save her, that it’d make all the bad things go away, that he wouldn’t be afraid any longer, either. And he held her close, perhaps hoping, as she did, that they could stay like that until all the stars had died.

“I missed you so much,” she admitted, her emotions still washing over her hard enough to keep her under. “I miss Tech so much.” 

She almost told him that she felt like she had to keep everyone safe, keep everyone going, and she just couldn’t. Omega knew how to be brave. Of course she did, but something inside her hurt so badly. There was so much… darkness now, and it enshrouded so much of the good things in her life. It was as if it was behind a door that she had to fight hard to keep closed. She smiled, she enjoyed Pabu. But there was still Tantiss. And all the clones she’d left behind. And to know Tech had been there just like her, suffering worse than she had, maybe even suffering more than Crosshair—it was more than she could handle right now.

And sometimes, like now, she felt like she had left herself behind, like she was still in Tantiss.

“I missed you every day,” Hunter intoned, “so much that I didn’t even know how to breathe. And I miss him, too.”

“I just want our family to all be together.”

Hunter pulled back, a hand to the back of her head, caressing her. “And we will be.”

“How do you know?” she asked, rubbing at her swollen eyes, sniffling.

“Sometimes it’s not about what we know, but what we hope for, what we believe. Just like you believed you and Crosshair could escape Tantiss, I believe we can all be together. I believe we can help Wrecker, and fix the ship, and save Tech.”

Omega studied his eyes, looking for that hopelessness she’d seen in him earlier. For now it was gone, but she wasn’t sure this conviction would stay. How could it?

“You didn’t earlier,” she argued.

Now it was his turn to look away. He nodded his head. “I’m sorry you had to see that. But Crosshair—he helped me. I am determined now. We can do this, Omega, together. And I know you want to rush out there and save Tech, but please, let us help, okay?

She nodded, lowering her gaze, ashamed that he had known where her head was.

“Come on, let’s keep moving.”

He stood, and held her hand, walking her towards the city.

Wrecker wasn’t sure he quite understood where he was, or why Crosshair was the only one there. His shoulder hurt so badly he could barely think. Or was the medicine doing that? It had dulled the pain somewhat, but it left him feeling too far away from his body. And he was nauseous.

He vaguely remembered everyone talking about Tech. That he was…

“So,” he got out, “Tech’s alive.”

Crosshair, who sat by him, constantly scanning the trees like he thought they were going to be attacked, just answered with: “And he shot you.”

“Is there proof it was…”

“We checked his recorder.”

“And?” he prompted. “Did you see anything?“

The only sounds Wrecker heard were the soft murmuring of the river against its banks, and some kind of bird and insects chirping in the cool night air.

Finally, Crosshair responded, “Too much.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Yeah.”

Sometimes conversing with Crosshair was like pulling teeth, and it’d been worse since he’d gotten back. Wrecker didn’t blame him. He was just glad to have Crosshair around again.

“Bad?”

“I don’t even know how they saved him.”

“Oh. That bad.”

“Yeah.”

Wrecker’s eyes floated upwards, looking at the dark canopies above him, trying to make out the shape of the leaves.

He thought of his injury, his pain, and he couldn’t help but increase it tenfold, to think of it all over his body, to hear Tech’s screams, to picture the blood.

His vision went blurry, sinuses stinging.

A tear rolled down his cheek.

“We have to save him.”

“We will,” Crosshair assured. Or perhaps he’d said it like a challenge.

Wrecker tried facing Crosshair, but his head just wouldn’t move in the right direction. It just hung to the left. He grunted as he tried again. No luck. He was missing too much of the proper muscles for this.

“And I’m… slowing you down,” he realized.

“Wrecker—”

“No. Be honest.”

“Maybe you are, but it’s not your fault you got hurt.”

“You didn’t see how the fight went down.”

“Yes, but you’re good in a fight.”

“And I went in before I thought about it.”

Crosshair sighed. “You do have a tendency to do that.”

Now Wrecker sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For slowing you down. I… I can’t imagine what it was like in Tantiss, but I don’t want Tech there. I want him home, with us. And… and here we are on some random planet with a stupid name—”

Crosshair huffed. “Oh, so you think it’s stupid too.”

Wrecker tried to roll his eyes, but that made the nausea worse. He wished he could give Crosshair a friendly shove.

“Whatever. My point is, we’re here. How… how are we supposed to find him if the focus is on me?” 

Crosshair didn’t have an answer. Wrecker felt more wetness on his face. He sniffled. The meds? No. Tech. He squeezed his eyes shut, and realized he had to hold back a sob. He raised his good arm to wipe his nose, but with the medicine in his system it didn’t want to listen to him all the way. While his arm shook, his strength depleted (something he hated), he clenched his fist. His hand dropped back down by his side.

“He’s still in there. We need to bring him home.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Crosshair hissed, sounding like he hated Wrecker’s guts. But that was just Crosshair. If he actually hated his guts he’d never speak to him, and might try to kill him… again.

“I don’t know. Maybe find a place where I can stay, get help. Leave me.”

Now to Wrecker’s surprise, Crosshair was on his feet.

“You’re not making this easy for me!” Crosshair cried.

“What?”

“I’m finally back. I’m here, with all of you, and I know you’re slowing us down. I know it’d be better to leave you, but I don’t know if I can do it. And I can’t leave Tech there either. That mountain is evil. It’s like… It’s like… It’s—”

“Like you’re getting torn in two.”

Crosshair growled at him, and then plopped back down onto the leaves and grass. He jammed his weapon into the ground, holding it straight, and rested his head against it. His shoulders heaved.

“Stop being so perceptive while you’re high. Can’t you just start groaning in pain again, or something?”

Ah, so he didn’t want to talk about it. “Got it.”

As a joke Wrecker let out a fake pained noise, and Crosshair lightly hit him with his rifle.

That one really did make him let out a pained noise. Crosshair apologized in the form of laying his weapon down, and giving Wrecker a brief, awkward pat on his elbow.

“So what do you want to talk about?” Wrecker asked once he could see straight again, the pain receding back to the wound.

“You know I hate talking.”

Chapter Text

CX-2 tried to hide his limp as he made his way over to interrogation. His regular pain meds were helping somewhat, but this was… different for him. He wasn’t sure what had made Hemlock do what he’d done. Yes, he’d talked about him being his creation, but what about his other projects? He didn’t always seem so… hungry.

And Hemlock had been right—he had enjoyed some parts of it; even though he was mostly confused. But he had given him his pain meds, and relief from that was better than breathing. Despite the rough treatment he really was nearly pain free. Perhaps this could be a good thing.

Yet CX-2 remembered the pain and the confusion from the day before, and he worried this would be the same, even if Hemlock was treating him differently now.

Once the various doctors and scientists strapped CX-2 down they actually put bacta patches on his arms. He hissed at the initial pain of contact, but then sighed as he felt the burning subside somewhat, a coolness setting in. 

Because of the bacta, the metal for the interrogation was attached to his right leg this time, along his thigh, his pant leg rolled up.

CX-2 tensed to keep the limb from shaking. Cold air bit at his exposed skin.

“What information do you need from me?” he asked Hemlock, who stood in front of him now, datapad in hand. He knew he wasn’t really supposed to ask questions, but he wanted to move on. If they wanted this Omega so badly, why not let him continue his mission?

CX-2 did a quick scan of the room. Only two scientists now present counting Dr. Karr and Hemlock, at least four more in the adjacent room, one camera in the far corner, another directly in front of him, one entrance—ray-shielded.

He held in a sigh. So, he’d have to weather this once again. No escape.

“Hmm, the usual.”

“But we’ve done the debrief already,” he argued.

Hemlock glared. “And I didn’t find myself impressed,” he snapped.

Hemlock shared a look with Dr. Karr that CX-2 couldn’t read.

He licked his dry lips. “Is this about losing Omega?” he asked, not sure why he was allowed this conversation, and surprised by his willingness to ask questions.

Another look that CX-2 couldn’t understand. As if they were talking about him like he wasn’t even in the room. He tried to settle in, tried to tell himself he wanted to please Hemlock, that he would follow orders.

Besides, if he pleased him, then maybe… CX-2 didn’t let the thought continue, a bit too befuddled by what had taken place earlier.

“Oh, it’s something like that.”

“Please, just let me know what you need from me. I’ll cooperate.”

Why did that almost feel like a lie?

Hemlock gave him a secretive smile, and CX-2 swallowed back the somewhat bitter taste in his mouth.

“I know you will.”

“Then—”

“Enough.” Hemlock looked around to see if everyone else was ready, and Emerie had her place beside CX-2. “Let’s begin.”

This time when the electricity hit, CX-2 remembered how Hemlock had made him feel. He endured it, body shaking as he held back a scream.

Hemlock watched with a small smile on his face, and a light in his eyes.

CX-2 soon forgot himself, forgot anything that wasn’t the Empire and what they needed from him. He didn’t even remember why he was so sore, or what this whole process even was, or why they were doing it.

He was a blank slate, ready to be a good operative.

Hemlock gazed at CX-2 as he lay limp, and unconscious in the chair. He approached as Emerie took the bit out of his mouth with a distasteful look.

“Do you think he’ll remember this?” Emerie asked, as Hemlock started taking the metal plates off of CX-2’s leg and inspecting the burns.

He ran his hand over the exposed skin. Most would writhe inside from the waxy feeling, the heat, but Hemlock quite enjoyed it.

“He hasn’t remembered the other times when we do this properly,” Hemlock said. He motioned to the other scientists. “Get a bacta patch on his leg.”

Multiple yes, sirs answered, and they set into motion.

Hemlock leaned in, datapad tucked under one arm, and grabbed CX-2’s jaw, twisting his head to him.

“If our methods are still effective, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“Should we send him after Omega?”

“Let’s wait. Test him out. I want to know he’ll follow any instruction to the letter.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Hemlock inhaled through his nose, enjoying the sterile scent of the room, the sweat on CX-2, the slight hint of burnt flesh.

He tightened his grip on his jaw, listened to the slight murmur he let out in his unconsciousness.

“Is our next clone ready for training?” Hemlock asked.

“We can get him ready now,” Emerie responded, already busy on her datapad.

CX-2 whimpered, just a small noise only for Hemlock, as he ran his fingers down the jagged scars on his face.

“Good.”

Midnight, formerly of Delta Squad of the 05 Commando Battalion, stood before one of Hemlock’s operatives. He was a bit taller than the others, leaner. Midnight had heard of Clone Force 99, and wondered if this was a former member of that squad. He didn’t want to know his story, didn’t need to (it hurt less that way). He just had to stay alive.

Midnight wasn’t the first who had been put into this so-called training facility. He’d been on the other side of the mats, where this operative now stood, and had been tested just the same. When he had refused to kill one of his brothers, he’d ended up here, like some kind of bait animal.

Weapons weren’t allowed for this “training session,” it would seem, which was too bad because it meant that his death would take longer, and it’d be more painful, surely.

A part of Midnight didn’t want to even try. After being here so long, being used for so long, he just wanted to give up.

But he knew that if he did that someone he cared about would be put in here next. The scientists and trainers already had his former squad lined up outside the sparring area, just in case he caved. He had to give it his all, even though this was against everything he wanted.

Oh, when had his life come to this? He had refused to kill civilians at the Empire’s orders, had put his blasters down, his entire squad following suit. And now they were here, nothing but bodies to experiment on, and use for whatever sick purposes entered their minds.

Midnight wanted to argue with the clone that stood on the other side of the mats, wanted to tell him that this was wrong, that he was his brother.

“I don’t want to do this,” Midnight ended up saying, almost pleading. He knew it wouldn’t work.

“I do,” the operative said, voice different from his own, his brothers’. It was a bit higher, more clipped.

Midnight hung his head and gave a dark, humorless laugh.

Yep.

Just the way of Tantiss.

As he raised his head he saw the operative’s cybernetic eye tracking his movement.

The clock started counting down, and Midnight readied himself: feet shoulder-width apart, fists raised, one up to protect his face, another lower to protect his chest, shoulders low and loose, gaze focusing on the operative. He did the same, and Midnight noticed what almost looked like a limp: his left hip had dropped a tad lower. Was that leg… heavier?

His stomach dropped.

Oh, so he was dealing with someone with a cybernetic leg as well. One well-aimed kick could probably take him out.

Midnight made sure his breaths were even. The timer blared.

He rushed at the operative.

Hemlock watched from above as CX-2 put his arms up to take the weight of CT-05-0598’s grab, and to keep him away from his torso. He tried pulling his arms sideways to throw off his opponent, but CT-05-0598 held on hard.

CX-2 kicked with his left leg, hitting CT-05-0598 in the shin. A choked grunt left him, and Hemlock couldn’t help but grin, hands clasped behind his back.

CT-05-0598 had grabbed onto CX-2 for sudden support, and he shoved him away, letting him roll across the mats.

Good. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to.

Midnight had heard the crack of his shin breaking, had felt it travel up his body and into his hip. Even before the pain had hit he knew what that sound meant. This wasn’t just about the tight, aching agony now gripping his leg. This was about how he would die, at the Empire’s hands, at a brother’s hands.

The operative barely gave him time to pause, and Midnight dragged himself to his feet, letting out a scream through gritted teeth.

He stood, weight on his left leg, stance and balance all off. He’d fought with an injured leg before, but he’d had his brothers beside him. Now they waited outside to be killed one by one.

He let out a roar as the operative came at him; he swung for his head.

The operative ducked, and twirled in a way that opened him up to Midnight’s chest. An elbow jammed right into his breastbone. He drove him to the ground like that, landing on him.

CRACK.

Midnight couldn’t breathe, and his eyes blurred with unshed tears.

The operative straddled him, and Midnight did what he could to try and knock him off.

A thumb jabbed right into the hollow of his throat.

He grabbed at that hand, trying to break his thumb, and that was when the palm of the operative’s other hand jammed into his nose.

It wasn’t just the breaking of his nose that hurt, that made his eyes water, but the pain getting driven up into his head. The headache spread through his forehead, nausea built in his stomach, and he had the strange sensation of his head rolling even while motionless, like he was being lifted up from the mat and swirled around. His heart beat frantically, blood pumping so hard he wasn’t sure he could actually hear anything. All the pain had happened so fast, and his body was trying to go into shock, limbs starting to shake, lungs constricting, believing that with this danger in his body that he couldn’t breathe at all.

He pushed through it, like he’d pushed through it the night his squad had been ambushed on his first mission and he’d gotten shot in the arm.

It was just pain. That was it. He could still move other parts of his body, could still do something .

With a yell he shoved at the operative, grabbed him with his thighs, and rolled.

The exchange that happened next was so fast that Midnight couldn’t fully comprehend what happened.

They traded blows, they grappled with each other.

He looked right into this operative’s cybernetic eye as he said, not even sure if it was true, but knowing it had to be said, “You’re my brother.”

Some kind of detached coldness made the emotions slough right off the operative’s face. The operative became completely blank.

Midnight saw his doom.

“I have no brothers.”

Next thing he knew he was shoved against his chest, his already broken breastbone, and then he was kicked right in the diaphragm with the cybernetic leg. The metal drove in hard, it broke ribs, it pushed them in.

Midnight was thrown across the room. He slid, and he collapsed.

He choked.

When he coughed the familiar taste of blood welled up in his mouth.

Everything in him told him he was going to die, and this operative didn’t even care.

Midnight cared. That was his thing. He hadn’t cared at first, hadn’t wanted to, had been more afraid of the war than the rest of his squad. But when the time had come, when some of his brothers had lain dead at his feet, killed by droids, he knew he did care. And that was when he took action.

He couldn’t take action now, he supposed. He couldn’t sit up, couldn’t stand, could hardly breathe. He kept coughing up blood from the agony in his chest. Maybe his lungs had been punctured; he wouldn’t be surprised.

And yet, when the operative stalked over, when he raised his leg, ready to end it all, Midnight met his eyes unflinchingly, the brown he knew so well, the brown he saw when he looked in a mirror, the brown he saw in his family. He had never known this clone, had never gotten to work with Clone Force 99. But he knew one thing: this was a tragedy.

A tear fell as he choked, not for himself, but for this operative. Here he was, in the bowels of an Imperial base, stripped of his name, made into something he wasn’t, wiped clean of his memories, of even the love he must have felt for his squad, that they had felt for him. He was all alone.

Midnight couldn’t save him.

But he could do one thing for him, and he would do it.

“I… love you,” he choked out.

The operative’s heavy foot slammed down on his ruined chest.

Omega and Hunter were met with desolate streets. They hadn’t exactly gotten a read on what time it was on this planet, but clearly most people were asleep.

There were hardly any alleys, many roads bisected by tributaries of the river, but they saw some people huddled up against buildings, trying to stay warm in the cool air.

Omega had seen worse. The streets were almost entirely free of litter, no one was walking around like they wanted to harm someone else. She looked around at the rounded buildings, past the lanterns hung like flowers through the streets and in the windows, trying to see if she could spot a hospital, anything.

Hunter was questioning the locals, asking if there were doctors, healers. They were close-lipped, and even shook slightly in his presence, the beads on their diaphanous robes and shawls clinking.

Omega tried, which made them a bit more open, but they still seemed wary of outsiders. She couldn’t blame them, but that didn’t stop the way her heart beat frantically like she was in a race, or running from something, running to something. Her body didn’t understand that there was no physical danger around.

They rounded onto another empty street, an empty bridge.

Omega crossed her arms and kicked a smoothened stone into the river rushing near her feet.

Her heart sunk at the low, heavy plop it made, feeling too much like the stone. Falling, drowning. Frozen.

“What do we do?” she asked Hunter.

“Keep trying. Maybe if we head toward the center of the city.”

They tried that, and in a few minutes Omega spotted something. She grabbed Hunter’s arm, pointing at the symbol she saw painted on one of the buildings.

“Is that—”

“—a Republic medical symbol?”

They rushed for it as one. The place was too small to be a hospital, and perhaps the red, cross-like symbol meant something else here, but it was all they had.

A light was on, and someone was shuffling about in a small gated garden off to the side.

“Excuse me?” Omega called, trying to get the attention of the being they saw.

They lifted their head, or… two heads? Long hair swayed with the motion.

“We’re looking for a healer, or a doctor,” Hunter said as he rushed over, hands on the garden fence.

The being took in both of them. They did have two heads, and as they moved from their work Omega realized they had four arms too. Their skin was gray, but not in a sickly sort of way. It reminded Omega more of the rocks they had seen here, like clay and stone molded by water, the long dark hair almost like the water itself.

“Is one of you hurt?” one head asked, the other leaning in to pay particular attention to Omega. Then their gaze settled on Hunter, and perhaps saw his bruising and swelling, the staples in his brow. “Oh, dear.”

The voice was high, and sounded like bells and chimes, like wind through the trees. Omega was hesitant to think of this alien as either feminine or masculine.

“A friend of ours,” Omega said, though she glanced at Hunter too, wondering if he could receive care. “He’s hurt bad. He’s out in the woods. Please, he’s too weak to make it here. We don’t know what to do.”

“Tell me what happened.” And they scrutinized Hunter, as well. He waved off their attention.

As the being cleaned up from their gardening, Omega pitching in to make the job faster, she and Hunter explained Wrecker’s injury.

That sped the being into motion, and they were grabbing a bag, their four arms with three fingers each (reminding Omega a little of a Kaminoan) packed quickly. Herbs were tossed in that Omega had never seen before, vials of medicines, syringes, bandages, tape…

“Let’s go.”

Hunter offered to carry their bag of medical supplies for them, but they refused.

“What’s your name?” Omega asked, realizing they hadn’t been able to do proper introductions. “I’m Omega.”

“Zalani,” both heads answered at once.

“This is Hunter,” Omega introduced, holding onto his arm.

“We can’t thank you enough for doing this,” Hunter said as they walked with Zalani through the city.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t even begun my work.”

One head pursed its lips, and looked off, as if Zalani was trying to hide a frown.

“How long are they supposed to take with this?” Wrecker groaned.

Crosshair sighed. Wrecker was impatient, which he couldn’t exactly blame him for, but he had asked this question three times already in the last half hour.

“They’ll be here,” he said.

“I  know that, but when?”

Crosshair grit his teeth, and decided not answering would probably be best.

He wanted to yell at Wrecker, yell at him for getting hurt, tell him this was all a waste of time, wanted to tell him how much he hated seeing him be in this much pain.

It reminded Crosshair of when Wrecker had had his worst injury in a battlefield accident.

He remembered lying at his perch, staring in horror, as that bomb went off near Wrecker’s head, one of Wrecker’s own bombs. He remembered the fire, and the blood, and how Crosshair had felt helpless, so high up, so far away where a good sniper was supposed to be. And unable to help.

Wrecker… hadn’t been the same since, but Crosshair had gotten used to that, had almost forgotten how Wrecker had been before. He liked who Wrecker was now, if he really admitted to liking anyone.

Wrecker had been in a bacta tank for so long, Kaminoans working to try and repair brain tissue, to save his eye. It was a miracle he still had his left ear.

Wrecker had eventually had a new eye put in like Commander Wolffe (part of Wrecker’s inspiration for undergoing the surgery).

Crosshair had hated it, hated feeling so lost, so helpless. He had hated seeing Wrecker almost reduced to a child.

Crosshair had never been good with words, so in secret, while Wrecker was in one of his surgeries, he’d gotten Lula for him. He’d placed Lula on the bed with him so he’d wake up with her beside him, and know that someone was thinking of him, even if he didn’t know who.

He wished Wrecker could have Lula now, or that there was something like that that Crosshair could do for him.

As Wrecker groaned again, making Crosshair nervous that any possible predators would hear, he considered holding his hand. What a stupid idea! Wrecker would crush it, and then they’d have more problems.

He settled for a hand on his arm, trying to get him to breathe with him, telling him for maybe the hundredth time that Hunter and Omega were coming with help.

Crosshair clambered to his feet, rifle at his shoulder, and aimed as he heard shuffling through the woods, the crack of leaves, of twigs.

He checked his scope, the night vision letting him see that two humans approached, one almost early adolescent, the other an adult. They had a creature with them whose body temperature was lower than theirs. But he recognized the first two heat signatures.

Crosshair lowered his rifle.

“They’re here.”

“Finally,” Wrecker got out, jaw so tight from pain he almost couldn’t talk.

Omega rushed over to Wrecker, and grabbed onto his good arm. Her worried gaze met Crosshair’s.

“Is he worse? How is he?”

Omega was gently brushed aside by the being.

Wrecker took them in, and Crosshair couldn’t help his smirk as Wrecker bluntly said, “You have two heads.”

“This is Zalani,” Hunter supplied, holding Omega back so she wouldn’t get in the way. Zalani even shuffled by Crosshair, and motioned him back with two of their four wiry arms. “They’re a healer.”

“You’re Wrecker, I take it?” one head asked Wrecker. The other head was looking through the bag they had with them.

“Uh huh.”

“Do you mind if I help?”

“Please,” Wrecker murmured in a voice so tight, so pain-filled that Crosshair squeezed his eyes shut, and turned away.

After providing a lantern for Zalani, Hunter said he’d set off again, back to the city to search for supplies for the Marauder. Crosshair waved him off, and took over the duty of watching Omega and Wrecker. He shifted his right hand, trying to shake out the tremors.

Zalani set to work on Wrecker fast, their four arms, and two heads more efficient than even most droids.

Poultices had been applied, Wrecker had been made to drink strange draughts (but really, he would just do that anyway).

Zalani seemed to like his enthusiasm as a patient, his willingness to try new things.

Crosshair saw the pain clear from his right eye, noticed when he became more talkative, noticed blood had stopped flowing.

Zalani had applied some kind of tape with proper bandages that held Wrecker’s head in place. Crosshair had crouched down at some parts, finding himself intensely curious. Omega kept biting her thumbnail or chewing on her bottom lip. And when she wasn’t doing that she was asking questions.

Zalani answered them, telling her about the plants of this world, their healing properties. Their other head dutifully kept an eye on their work.

Crosshair scanned the perimeter.

Eventually, Zalani sat back on their heels. The last bandage had been set.

Wrecker was grinning, sighing with relief.

Zalani turned to Crosshair, and beckoned him over.

“I’ve done what I can for him. I’ve helped with the pain, and bleeding, and he’ll need reapplications with the tape in a few days to keep his head up, but there’s not much more I can do.”

“Will he… heal… anytime soon?” Crosshair asked, finding the words haltingly, ready to trip on his once-so-sharp tongue.

Zalani shook one head.

“I’m sorry, but to really heal and make sure there’s less permanent damage, he needs a medical facility. One that can engineer tissue replication. I’d say the Empire, but—”

Crosshair’s hand shook on his rifle.

“No. No, not the Empire.”

“I’m sorry.”

Zalani gave instructions to both of them for Wrecker’s care, one head able to answer Omega’s questions while dealing with Crosshair. They had handed Omega a bundle of plants, and murmured, “For your other friend.”

Zalani was about to leave, and Crosshair looked at Omega, who nodded. She had this under control.

“At least let me escort you back,” he said, coming up to their side.

Zalani smirked, a bit more of a bitter character in them than Crosshair had realized. But they seemed so ancient with that smirk, so knowing.

They patted Crosshair’s face with one hand.

“I know these woods, this planet, better than most of the people here.”

“What are you?” Crosshair asked, the notion of this being rude not even crossing his mind.

“Something almost forgotten.”

Zalani took a glowing plant from their bag, shedding blue light, and they walked off into the forest alone.

Crosshair went back to Wrecker and Omega, feeling just a bit stunned.

“How do you feel?” Omega asked Wrecker.

Wrecker got to his feet all on his own, and was moving his arm more.

“I feel great! Ready for anything.”

“Let’s… maybe start slow,” Omega suggested. “How about we just get you back to the ship?”

Crosshair could tell Wrecker wanted to say something against this, saw the light in his eyes, and saw it fade like a dimming fire amongst cold shadows as he relented, perhaps feeling weaker than he’d ever wanted to.

“Yeah. I think I can do that.”

Echo waited to hear if any parts of the ship had been found.

He paced, feeling a bit lost in his body, almost delirious.

When he had seen those branches impale Tech he had felt flashes of his own pain. The burst of fire and heat and pressure that had torn him in two.

Echo could barely remember it, having passed out soon afterwards. He hadn’t even had time to think that maybe that was the end.

Sometimes he couldn’t remember the surgeries, the torture, the “enhancements.” It was a bit of a blur. A blur of realizing his legs were gone, that his right arm was gone, that he was a machine, his brain and spine dug into and hooked up to work at the will of the Separatists.

He remembered Rex finding him, and how Tech had been there, helping to detach him from his frozen tomb, to close of all the links in his spine and his head.

Tech hadn’t even been fazed, and meanwhile, Echo hadn’t even felt like a person.

Some days he didn’t, and all alone in the woods, with only the Marauder and Tech’s shattered goggles for company, he didn’t feel like a person. He felt like he was falling too, like his own body was getting destroyed all over again.

And he felt helpless. So helpless.

He wasn’t a prisoner anymore, and yet here he was, a prisoner in his own body: a body that was barely there, barely his sometimes.

Being part of the Bad Batch had made him feel more at home. They were different too. They got funny looks just like Echo did. They were supposed to be his home, and all he saw was Hunter not wanting to join this fight, Hunter trying to keep Omega safe.

Echo wanted her safe, wanted her far away from this, and he wanted to be off, helping Rex and Howzer, saving Tech.

Yet here he was, stuck with a broken engine he barely knew how to repair, and stuck with a family that felt like it had been cut away and haphazardly glued back together.

It was impossible to know what Omega had been through at Tantiss base, impossible to know what Crosshair had been through. They barely spoke about it, they almost secluded themselves from the others sometimes, their dark past a secret they were trying to bury.

Echo didn’t blame them. And he had seen them as his home.

Now he wondered if he even belonged here.

But he had to. He had to belong here because they needed him.

Tech needed him.

And yet Echo paced in a body hardly his own, and he heard Tech’s screams, and he wondered.

He’d contacted Rex, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to reach him. He’d keep trying.

When Hunter commed that he had found some supplies Echo jumped, almost only hearing a request for another strategy, another betrayal to the GAR, to his brothers.

He fell into his body, suddenly feeling heavy, too heavy. Could he carry the weight of this horror, this shame, that Tech had been alive this whole time? That he was hurt?

He told himself that it wasn’t his fault, that Tech would understand. Right? After all, Echo had understood why he hadn’t been looked for. He had been dead to everyone who had cared about him.

But he also remembered the loneliness, the horror while in that cold, those white rooms, made into something he wasn’t.

“No one’s coming,” he murmured to himself, remembering the thought playing in his head over and over. “No one’s coming to save you.”

Did Tech think the same thing?

“I… love you.”

CX-2 killed the clone, watched the blood gush from his mouth, the life leave his eyes. He stepped back, and straightened his shoulders, clasping his hands behind his back, waiting for this body to be taken away. Hemlock was on his way down from the observation platform.

Why had the clone said that?

What did it mean?

“CX-2.”

CX-2 stared at the blood on the floor, the body getting dragged away.

“CX-2, I am talking to you.”

“Who—who was he?” he asked.

Hemlock grabbed his jaw, making him turn to him.

“ He is dead, unimportant even before his last breath.”

“Why would he say that?” CX-2 asked, feeling a bit like he was wandering through a dream. Did he dream anymore? Mostly, he saw the dreams of the Empire, not this detachment he felt.

Hemlock ground his teeth together, and huffed out through his nose.

“What did he say?”

“He… he said… He said he loved me.”

Hemlock’s grip fell from him as he scoffed, and CX-2 almost leaned in, searching for it.

“Don’t be silly. Love is unimportant. No one loves you.”

CX-2 shrugged off his confusion, not even understanding what the word love truly meant.

Though, he couldn’t help glancing back at the blood on the mats as he followed Hemlock out.

Chapter Text

“Where does this piece go again?” Echo asked Crosshair.

Crosshair sighed, and pointed at a part of the engine.

“Are you sure?”

Omega glanced over at them, leaning back to assess what they were doing. She knew since Crosshair’s job was to watch everyone and everything that he knew a bit of what they all did, so that meant he’d paid attention to Tech. And so had Omega.

She leaned back more, studying the problem.

“That looks fine!” she supplied.

Crosshair did a gesture of “you see?”

Omega went back to dabbing herbs onto Hunter’s throat. Later he’d have to drink a mixture of them as well to help internal damage.

“I can do this part, you know,” he said.

She shrugged. “I know.” And then she grinned at him. “But I can do it better.”

He laughed a bit, but she could see it hurt his throat with the way he gasped a little and his neck and shoulders stiffened.

The four of them were outside the Marauder, still on Gionimroth, while Wrecker was getting some rest. The white moons illuminated their work, along with lights from the ship. Sparks flashed into the night occasionally as Crosshair helped Echo with a welding job. Hunter was sitting on the steps leading into the Marauder. He was hunched over a bit, eyes a tad bloodshot and sunken.

Omega wondered if she looked like that, too. Tired. So tired.

But she wanted to do things for her family. She liked doing them. And after having been separated for so long, she’d take any opportunity to help them, even if they could do it just fine on their own.

As Omega started applying some herbs to the staples in his brow, he winced (and she hoped she hid hers). She almost wanted to stop, but she knew that sometimes pain was part of the medical process. She’d had to tell herself that while helping Wrecker, over and over again. Even while his blood was all over her hands.

Her hands were clean now, but still a bit shaky as she helped Hunter.

“So… where are we off to next?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hmm.”

“You have an idea?”

Omega wanted to mention her plan, but Hunter wouldn’t like it. She hated it, feared it, but…

No.

“Mm mm.”

“Maybe into hiding?” She froze at that, not trusting him as much as she wanted to, remembering the bleak look in his eyes only hours ago. Was the despair coming back to claim him? He saw her face, and his eyes widened. He held out a hand to her. “No, not for all of us,” he told her. “And just for a bit until we actually get a good night’s sleep, maybe something to eat.”

“Not all of us,” she said, dabbing at the glowing poultice that was dripping into his eyebrow. “So you mean me.”

“And Wrecker.”

Omega turned away, clenching her jaw.

She knew she was a child. But what had happened to her wasn’t meant to happen to a child, and she was older now. She’d grown up in Tantiss, away from her family. She could do it. She could fight. She wouldn’t just stand there, watching them fall like she had with Tech. And now…

Tech.

A first clenched around her heart, nearly imploding it, and it dragged it down into her stomach like a heavy stone. Grief, and pain pulled at her, an inexorable weight that she had to accept.

She… hadn’t really had time to accept it. She’d been forced to just move on. And here they were now, knowing Tech was alive.

It didn’t make sense. It just didn’t. Her heart was so confused.

Omega realized she had wholly turned her body from Hunter, and was clenching leaves in one palm, and the slightly bloodied cloth in the other. Her breathing hitched, a bit ragged.

Crosshair and Echo looked over.

Fists shaking, diaphragm feeling like it could barely expand and like she had to hunch over, she ground out, “I can fight.”

Hunter’s hand was on her shoulder, and she tried to hide the tears that had started falling. When had they even begun to fall? Her nose was getting stuffy, and she sniffled.

“I know you can,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I want you to.”

“Why not?” she argued, throwing her arms out. “I have training, I’m good at fighting. Shouldn’t I actually have a chance to use the crossbow Echo got for me?”

“That was in case of emergencies.”

“And our family being torn apart isn’t an emergency?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You’re saying I’m too young.”

“You are!”

“I can protect myself. I survived Tantiss, didn’t I? Doesn’t that make me more than qualified? You’re not asking Crosshair to stay behind.”

Omega realized she had been shouting as silence swallowed her words. And she hadn’t wanted to shout, especially not at Hunter. He was her father, her brother.

The fist around her heart released, but that only led to the pain in her heart feeling like it bloomed across her ribcage, as if she were bleeding everywhere.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay to be angry,” Hunter told her, reaching out to her. He took her hands, swinging them lightly. “I just… I can’t imagine losing you again. It nearly broke me, Omega.”

She met his eyes, and she saw the truth there.

“So yes, I feel a bit overprotective.”

“I… It wasn’t your fault,” she told him. And then she faced what she had been worried about for months, what had been hanging over her head, what tried to drown her in shame every day. “It was mine.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Crosshair hissed, adamant.

“You weren’t even there,” she argued.

“And he didn’t have to be,” Echo said. “Bad things happening to you does not make them your fault.” He eyed Crosshair, who seemed to be pointedly ignoring him now, tightening something with a spanner.

“Look, Omega, the Empire chose to capture you,” Hunter told her as he drew her closer. “They didn’t need to do that, but they did. That’s not on you. And look at you! I’m so proud of you. You got yourself out, you got Crosshair out. That’s incredible. You’ve done enough.”

She imagined Tech, somewhere deep inside Tantiss, his screams swallowed by the mountain.

“But what if I haven’t? We’re not all together,” she whispered, worried that if she raised her voice again she would sob.

“You’re right. We’re not. And we will keep fighting for that. But to do that, to focus, I need to know that you’re safe. We’ve taken too many risks in the past, and things are becoming more and more dangerous for us.”

“But if I’m left behind, what if that’s it?” she argued. “What if you don’t come back? What if Echo doesn’t come back? Or Crosshair? It’ll just be me and Wrecker—and who even knows what’s happening to Tech! That’s not us being together. We’ll just be torn apart again. If I’m with you, then we’ll all be together.”

“But you won’t be safe.”

“I don’t care!” Omega cried, even while she craved safety like any human being craved hot food, a warm bed, a nice shower, cool water. She craved such an intangible thing that it was a stranger to her at this point. What even was safe? She recognized it as some distant friend when she woke up in the mornings on the Marauder, when she heard her family aboard the ship, even just hearing them breathe deeply or snore in their sleep. Yet it wasn’t enough. It was as if someone kept trying to put a blanket over her that slipped off again and again. A blanket that couldn’t touch her. “I wasn’t safe,” she cried. “I wasn’t safe for five months, and it’s made me realize maybe I haven’t been.”

Hunter’s face fell. “Omega.”

“You… you all made me feel safe, like I have a home. And I do, I know that. I do, but is it safety if the Empire can just rip it all away from you? They’ve devastated us. They’ve—they’ve…”

“I know what they’ve done,” Hunter said, pulling her close, even while Omega weakly beat her fists against him. “I know they took you from us, I know they made you see terrible things.”

“They made me help in their experiments,” she sobbed. “Nothing—nothing intense, but I still had to see all those prisoners. They’re still stuck there. Tech’s still stuck there. I can’t feel safe knowing they’re not. I can’t feel like I’m out when they’re not.”

She relaxed into Hunter’s hug.

“And I’m not used to being back,” she admitted. “I… I… I got used to Tantiss. Every morning I expect to wake up in that cell, that I have to try and come up with a plan for escape.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. When you’ve been through something like that, it takes time to adjust. That’s all this is, Omega. Just an adjustment period. You’ve done so well with change, you even look for it, hope for it. I admire that so much about you.”

She nodded against him.

“I don’t want to see you die,” he murmured.

“What if I promise I won’t?”

“That’s a big promise.”

Omega wrapped her arms around him, still holding the medical supplies. “I know.”

“Here, why don’t you go get a snack, something to drink. We can finish up here just fine.”

Omega pulled away, and wiped her face with her arm.

She blushed straight to her ears when she looked at Crosshair and Echo, who didn’t seem to know what to do with the situation. They were pretending they had been working on the ship the whole time.

Then she shook her head.

She couldn’t be idle. And worse, she was curious.

“I’ll help with the ship.”

“Okay.”

Omega handed Hunter the supplies, and started telling him what to do, and he waved her off. “Stop parenting me,” he joked. “That’s my job.”

“Older than you,” she teased before heading over to Crosshair and Echo.

“So, what’s next?” she asked.

As she helped with the ship, and ran into problems that the three of them had to talk out, Omega started to ask questions.

When something scared her, that’s what she did.

And she was afraid for Tech.

“So, how did he live?” she asked, even though she’d already asked Hunter earlier. But any information here was good information.

“Changed the trajectory of his fall,” Echo answered as he twisted a wrench. Crosshair held a small pipe-like piece of metal in place for him.

Okay, so not the right question. She knew that already.

“And he’s hurt.”

“Yes,” Crosshair answered.

“How… bad?”

Echo and Crosshair both gave her a look that warned her she was in dangerous territory.

“What?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light, as if this wasn’t important to her.

Echo ended up hanging his head, looking away.

“Well, when we find him, it’s possible he might look a bit more like me than himself.”

Omega looked at Echo’s prosthetic legs.

“Oh.

“So… why is he working for them?” she went on.

Crosshair’s hand trembled, and she felt bad about doing this to them. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. She couldn’t swallow.

“Well, Rex has run into operatives, um, like him before. Some kind of… training program.”

“They tried it with me,” Crosshair admitted.

Omega almost dropped her can of animated metal sealant.

“I was too… defective.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Some days.”

“What made it work on Tech?”

“I don’t know,” Echo said too quickly.

Omega pulled her lips to one side, unconvinced.

Echo might have been an ARC trooper, but that did not make him an expert liar.

They worked in silence, save for asking questions about the job, or telling each other what to do.

And Omega asked herself, again and again, fear trying to overload her brain:

What if Tech doesn’t even remember us?

CX-2 stood before Hemlock, back straight despite the slight ache in his lower back, hands behind his back.

Hemlock pressed a button on his desk, and a holo of a portly Trandoshan woman appeared above, rotating slowly.

“This is your next target,” he said, voice soft. “Cid. She’s had dealings with Clone Force 99 in the past, and has proved… helpful to the Empire before. She might do so again. Use whatever you have to—money, torture. I don’t care if you leave a body behind.” Hemlock leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands together. “We’ll provide everything you need for this mission. She’s on Ord Mantell, probably not too hard to find if you follow the trail of cheap drinks, and bad gambling decisions.”

There was a light behind Hemlock’s eyes that CX-2 wanted to ask about, but he knew his superior was filled with secrets, all for the safety and wellbeing of the Empire.

For some reason CX-2 had a memory of looking at recordings of human beings. It hit him so hard in the chest, he almost gasped. He didn’t know where it had come from, or why. There was nothing before the Empire, other than that pain they had saved him from.

But what the flash of whatever-it-was had shown him proved Hemlock was keeping something vital from him. He could see it on his face as he had maybe seen and studied it on others.

“Problem, CX-2?” Hemlock asked.

CX-2 didn’t have a response, but a question: “Have I met Clone Force 99 before?”

“Why would you have?” he asked, something sharp underlying his words. 

CX-2 had to admit that he wanted to stand there and study him all day just to understand what was going on.

“I… don’t know.”

“This is why I do the thinking,” he bit out. He waved a hand at him. “You’re dismissed.”

With a nod, CX-2 left, wondering if he was something more than what Hemlock said.

Chapter Text

Planet: M-16
Region: Outer Rim
Planet Designation: Unoccupied Moon
Rotation Period: 30 Standard Rotations
Class: Terrestrial
Atmosphere: Type III

Tech was shooting Omega, and his aim was near-perfect. Another shot, a blue plasma bolt headed right toward her. 

Omega staggered as the bolt went through her chest. 

Huh. It felt different than she had imagined. It burned, yes, but it felt like she was missing a vital part of herself. She fell to her knees in the railcar, looking at the wound that went right through her chest and out her back.

Oh, her heart was gone.

Tech was still firing, blue plasma bolts nearly hitting their mark. But there was no need. She was dying.

But how could Tech be shooting her? He was hanging from the railcar. The terror of it was in Omega’s entire body, limbs nearly trembling, mind feeling lost and floating and out of control from the adrenaline.

She looked into his eyes, and she knew: she couldn’t save him.

What was left of Omega’s body after Tech’s blasterfire was starting to give out.

Stormtroopers were firing at Hunter and Echo behind her. Ships were trying to shoot them down.

Tech dangled, above the clouds, above the mountains. Above the immense drop below.

“When have we ever followed orders?”

Omega remembered this, but now she couldn’t even scream his name, the world fading around her, pain pulsing through her so strongly she couldn’t move, could hardly think.

Tech.

He fired. The railcar disconnected. He fell. Omega fell—beside him, in him, taking his place—but no, he was still falling. They were falling, falling… The clouds were cold, and not at all the fluffy, welcoming things she had expected.

Their family’s screams were lost to them. Omega heard herself screaming, but couldn’t even force a sound from her mouth that was going numb like the rest of her.

She was dying.

Tech was dead.

Dead.

Omega’s body jolted in her sleep, truly having the sensation of falling, but she didn’t wake.

“So what does this button do?” Omega asked, pointing to one of the blue keys of the Marauder’s computer.

Tech started to explain…

Omega stood across from him while he sat on an exam table, dressed in Tantiss prison gray. She started upon realizing she was taking his blood. When had she started doing that? What was he doing here?

Wasn’t he…

Tech smiled at her. No one smiled in Tantiss. No one. But he wasn’t here, he couldn’t be.

And yet, here was here, absentmindedly kicking his legs, and—

No. He was dead.

He wasn’t dead now. He was here, and he seemed pleased about it.

Before Omega could ask him what was wrong with him, why he was in such a good mood, or ask him how he wasn’t dead, they were talking computers again.

“Does that make sense?”

“Erm.”

What had they been talking about again? 

Tech sighed, but not in an annoyed way. Concern pinched at his features.

“Omega, are you feeling all right?” he asked, getting his blood drawn.

“I’m… fine.”

She was falling again, shot through the heart.

Tech shot her in the Marauder.

He shot her in Tantiss.

Omega wanted to ask him about the blue button again, but she couldn’t because she was kneeling beside his hopelessly broken body, shaking him, and begging him to wake up.

Her pants were soaked with his blood, her hands red with it, her sleeves. And perhaps her face as well that she’d tried to wipe free of tears.

Through those tears, her sobs, she hadn’t noticed someone approaching.

A startled gasp left her as a gloved hand grabbed her face. A shudder ran through her at the touch.

Omega froze, face to face with Hemlock, his blue eyes brighter than usual. He knelt beside her, sharing in Tech’s blood. 

Her bottom lip trembled. A scream tried to build in her lungs, her diaphragm. It got stuck in her upper chest, and died, bleeding out into her tense limbs.

She reached for Tech’s blaster, but it was shot out of her hands by a soldier in black armor who stood behind Hemlock.

Hemlock reached out for her wrist so she couldn’t cause more problems, and took her face in his other hand, grip hard and bruising.

A whimper left her.

“He’s dead,” he told her. “Well, in a way. He doesn’t even remember you. CT-9902—oh, excuse me— CX-2 has no idea you ever meant anything to him. You’re nothing but a target.”

“He’ll remember me.”

Her words felt like lies burning her tongue.

Still, she went on, “He’ll remember all of us.”

Hemlock sighed. “Ah, it’s cute you think I’d ever allow that. I could fix that, like I fixed him. I could wipe his mind. Again.” A sound passed his lips that might have almost been a laugh. “Or, I could kill him.” He leaned in close, too close, and Omega almost gagged from the familiar scent of warm spice. Hemlock’s words came out slowly now, excitement palpable with every breath: “I could even make him kill himself.”

“What do you want?” she demanded, trying to pull away, eyes still full of tears as she saw Tech’s bloodied, broken body out of the corner of her eye.

The soldier in black took aim. At her. At her burned and ruined heart, at the smoking hole in her. He fired. Tech fired.

Hemlock opened his mouth to answer, Tech opened his mouth to answer her about the button, opened his mouth to say hello while she took his blood. Everyone morphed into white clouds, like bodies turning to smoke, and she fell.

A scream tried to build in Omega when she woke up, a plea for her family, that she needed help. But she didn’t scream. She couldn’t do that. If she did They’d find her, They’d get her.

She lay in her little room aboard the ship completely frozen.

Outside her viewport was a craggy, gray landscape, full of craters. The light of a small star reached the surface, allowing a little light.

She tried to drag her eyes down, to her chest, to check, to see.

Of course I have my heart. Of course I do. I have to.

What else could send blood rushing through her ears, and pounding through her chest till it nearly hurt?

She was under a blanket, and couldn’t tell.

I don’t have a heart. Oh stars, I don’t have a heart. I don’t—

Then she tried to tell herself it was a dream. It was all a dream.

She could move. She could scream.

But no, They were going to get her. If she moved her predators would be alerted to her surroundings. If she made a sound They’d find her, and harm her. They’d harm her in ways she couldn’t even imagine.

She lay there, frozen, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

Omega wanted more light, but again… They would find her.

She hid under her blanket—it was the only thing she seemed to be allowed to do.

But in her curled up position her back was completely exposed.

No.

All of her was exposed. They’d get through the bulkheads of the Marauder, through the viewport, through her blanket…

…into her skin.

Omega wanted to cry out for Tech.

And then she remembered he wasn’t here.

She started crying then, and when They didn’t get her, she allowed herself to sob.

She didn’t know when she started screaming.

Time didn’t exist within this fear that ate into her bones, this pain that radiated deep within her body like a virulent poison, moving through her veins with every beat of her heart.

A hand rested on her shoulder, and immediately Omega turned, grabbing the offending wrist, pulling the assailant closer in a move they wouldn’t expect, and punched them right in the face.

Something cracked in her body, and she pulled her hand back with a surprised cry, holding her fingers, not sure which one was hurt because after the initial pressure, the pain was so intense.

Her assailant cried out, and she wiped at her swollen eyes to see who it was.

Crosshair.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Omega gasped, putting her good hand to her mouth.

Crosshair had a hand to his jaw.

Ah, so that’s what she’d injured herself on.

“Crosshair, I’m so sorry!”

A low, pained noise left him for just a second, but then he asked, “Are you all right?”

Trembling, Omega shook her head, and started to sob again. Her crying was so uncontrollable that she couldn’t breathe. She felt so tainted, so hurt.

I’m going to die.

Her chest hurt immensely, and she wanted to feel at it to make sure the hole from the blaster bolt wasn’t there, but she couldn’t because Crosshair climbed up the steps and enfolded her in his arms.

She cried against his chest, and she shook so badly she thought she would come apart.

Omega tried to tell him about her dream, but she couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t breathe. She was dizzy, and put more of her weight against him. Her hands and feet started to tingle, her aching chest heaved.

Crosshair rubbed her back, and still Omega didn’t feel safe.

“I need to look at your hand.”

She hated pulling away from him, skin crawling as she did so, but she held out her right hand. She tried to see through her tears, and wiped them away with her good hand. Already the middle knuckle of her ring finger was swelling and turning a dark purple. Each move of her hand, even if her fingers were still, made it hurt even more.

The pain was so bad (aching and throbbing) that she wanted to whimper, but she was already busy sobbing.

Crosshair gently took her hand in his, examining her fingers.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” she got out. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’ve been hit harder,” he said. “I need to scan this, but I think you have a broken finger.”

Even that made Omega want to cry more.

A broken finger? When Tech needed her?

At least it’s not worse, she thought.

Omega was hyperventilating, and she didn’t even realize yet that the rest of her family had woken up. She did notice that Crosshair held out a hand, like he was asking someone to stay back.

He rubbed her back, her arms, and she was shocked; Crosshair usually wasn’t that big on physical touch.

As her breathing started to slow, he pulled her head back to his chest, and rocked her.

He never told her it was going to be okay.

Because he knew the truth: nothing felt okay now, and it was hard to envision a future where things were okay. Omega tried to see that future with every day, but right now it was lost to the darkness. And maybe the darkness was the truth.

They had still suffered through Tantiss. They had still thought they’d lost Tech. They had still learned he was alive and that he was left behind because of their ignorance. And nightmares dogged their every step.

Eventually, when she could breathe, when her tears dried, he took her to the central part of the ship to take care of her hand.

Omega blushed at realizing Hunter and Echo had seen a lot of this, even Wrecker from where he had been trying to get some much-needed sleep.

She sniffled, and wiped at her face again.

“I’m sorry.”

Immediately she was met with understanding, and for some reason it irked her, dug under her skin. But why? These were people she loved, people she’d do anything for.

Yet it irritated her all the same.

Crosshair told the others to go back to bed, that he could handle it, and they pretended to for both their sakes.

Crosshair helped Omega take some pain meds, and then scanned her hand, finding contusions, which she could already see as a blue-black across her skin. There was only one break. Thankfully, nothing seemed to need resetting, so he placed her hand at one of the computers (Omega tried not to shudder from the scattered shreds of her dream that still clung to her mind, their hooks dug in), and wedged it between two chill pacs.

He didn’t ask her what she had dreamt of, and she appreciated it.

“Thanks,” she eventually said.

“It’s no problem.”

“Really? Because I think you just hugged me,” she tried to tease, wanting to feel lighter, and not like this heavy, ponderous thing that could barely move.

“Don’t mention it.”

She surprised herself by smiling, his tone amusing her. Crosshair being Crosshair, he sounded like he had been threatening her, that he would do something terrible if she did mention it. Outsiders would certainly think that’s what was going on, but that was just him.

“Do you… ever dream of it?” she asked, voice barely leaving her.

He grabbed a toothpick, and started to fiddle with it a bit.

“Of course,” he ended up answering.

“I… dreamed about Tech. And He—” 

Her breath hitched as she tried to speak, dream still too fresh in her mind. Shudders drilled their way inside her body, and she wished she could crawl inside herself to escape the feeling of his phantom hands on her face.

Crosshair’s hand trembled, and Omega looked down, biting her lip.

Guilt struck her.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I want you to say these things,” he eventually said, surprising her.

She lifted her head up, meeting his inquisitive gaze, trying to see if he was lying somehow.

“You do?”

Now it was his turn to look away, and he grasped at his right hand.

“I… don’t say anything about… And I can’t. I— There aren’t words. My… My tremors seem to get worse when I don’t speak.”

Omega just nodded, waiting for him to go on, showing she cared, she understood.

“Sometimes I almost want to, I think. Perhaps. To you, to Hunter, even Echo, and Wrecker. And yet… there is no way to describe what happened to me. It’s like it wants to stay locked inside forever. I worry that if I let it out, if I let the part of me that was in Tantiss out that I won’t be me anymore. Ever since Order 66, I haven’t really known who I am.”

Omega placed her good hand on his trembling one. He gave a soft gasp, but brought his gaze to meet hers.

“I know who you are,” Omega said. To her, it was as plain as day. There was no puzzle to knowing who Crosshair was, even if he saw himself that way. Perhaps it was the same with her. Maybe he could see her when she couldn’t see herself, too. “You’re my brother.”

“Omega—”

“Crosshair, I chose you. I chose you when you were chipped. I chose you inside Tantiss, and I choose you now. You—are—my—brother. My family.” She playfully poked at his arm. “Don’t you forget it.”

The corners of his mouth turned up just a smidge, an expression so tiny most would have missed it, an expression so rare most would think it’d been some sort of hallucination.

His tremors relaxed a little.

“How’s your hand?” he asked.

The medicine, and ice had greatly diminished the pain. With the way it hurt now she would have thought she had banged it against the Marauder’s bulkhead, and nothing more.

“Feels a lot better. Thank you.”

“I’m not done yet.”

Omega reached out for his bruised jaw, but Crosshair pulled back.

“I’m fine,” bit out.

She pulled her lips to one side, not entirely convinced.

“Come on, I have to splint your finger.”

Anxiety curled in Omega’s gut, but she started taking the chill pacs from her hand.

Her finger was jostled, and she bit her lip against a cry.

“Tell me about one of your good dreams,” Crosshair demanded, as he grabbed the proper materials for the splint.

Omega’s mind went blank. Good dreams? It had been awhile since she’d had those.

Then it came to her. It wasn’t really a dream she’d had, but a wish.

“Pabu,” she started. “We’re all on the beach at Pabu.”

“Uh huh.”

Omega almost grinned at her thought just because she could imagine Crosshair’s griping with actually having fun in the sand and the water.

“And we’re building a sandcastle—me and you.”

She sensed him holding back a retort, and raised an eyebrow, a small grin alighting her face.

Omega decided she wanted to make this difficult for him. It’d be fun!

When he took her finger in his hand, positioning the splint underneath, she gave a small cry at the sudden wash of pain.

“Keep talking,” he told her.

“R-right. Um… Wrecker’s building a sandcastle next to ours. He’s trying to build a bigger one.”

“Is he succeeding?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Sounds just like him.”

“The waves are beautiful, the water’s so blue. I’m sitting in the surf, letting the waves rock me. The water’s warm, but not too warm. Um… Ow!”

The splint had brushed directly against her knuckle, and was now under it. Crosshair’s hands were firm as he started wrapping tape around it, securing it directly to her finger.

“Almost done.”

The fingers of her other hand dug into her thigh.

She tried to think up something absolutely ridiculous that would maybe get Crosshair to break from his caring and attentive mood.

“You’re drinking a fruity alcoholic beverage with a mini umbrella in it.”

“I’m what?”

“A super tiny, pink umbrella,” she elaborated.

“Where are we going to find a mini umbrella?” he asked.

“Phee.”

“Who?”

A small whine left Omega as he finished with the tape.

“She’s—she’s a liberator of ancient wonders.”

Crosshair bit down on his toothpick, making it point up, and he gave her the blandest look she’d ever seen. He wasn’t falling for it.

“Fine, she’s a pirate,” she relented. “She’s a pirate.”

“You’re friends with a pirate?” he asked, as if his parental side didn’t approve at all. Hmm… Phee could be reckless, so she supposed she might see his point. Maybe one percent of his point.

“As if she’s the worst friend to have.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t even know her.”

He crossed his arms, and announced, “All done,” which seemed to also indicate this part of the conversation was over.

Omega’s finger throbbed, but as she observed her splint she decided it really would be a good way to keep her finger immobilized. She’d have to learn this technique. She’d learned other splinting techniques, just not this particular one.

She cradled her hand to her body again, the instinctual part of her brain telling her to protect the injury.

“Will you be able to go back to sleep?” he asked.

Omega shrugged.

“I think I’ll just sit here awhile.”

“Don’t stay up too late.”

She nodded, and he squeezed her shoulder as he passed, off to get more sleep, or to perhaps lie there awake, trying to hold the nightmares at bay.

Another nightmare haunted Omega’s waking moments.

The nightmare of Tech, of how he’d survived his fall on Eriadu.

Omega looked at his broken and bloodied goggles, heart in her throat. She looked at the recorder.

And she waited, waited until she was sure everyone was asleep.

When she closed the doors to give herself privacy, she waited a minute or two for one of her brothers to get up and ask what she was doing.

No one came to her.

Omega, heart pounding so hard and fast she could scarcely breathe, hands shaking, plugged in the recorder.

Her eyes welled up with tears she hadn’t known were even there. She’d cried so much, and she was so tired.

But she had to know.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, and set her jaw, determined; she would not cry. She would see.

And she did.

Chapter Text

Echo thought he would wake from his nightmares in near-silence, his family sleeping, the ship's systems humming. He hadn’t expected to hear sniffling, and held back sobs.

Oh no.

They’d checked in with Crosshair after he’d helped Omega, and he’d said she was fine now.

Apparently things had changed. What time was it? He was too disoriented from his nightmares and this long night to check his chrono.

Echo used to be able to sleep eight hours straight through with no trouble at all, even able to fall asleep in any place he could.

Since his imprisonment by the Separatists, he’d had nightmares, insomnia… And sometimes traveling so much could get a little confusing.

His body told him it was still tired, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Some days being tired was all he felt.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and rolled out of his rack, dropping down to the deck as quietly as he could. And he followed the sound of sniffling to the cockpit.

The glow from the console and the tiny bit of light from outside showed Omega curled up in the pilot’s seat, hugging her knees to her chest. Her ring finger on her right hand was purple and swollen, but had been neatly splinted. Her other hand was hidden close against her body.

She didn’t react to the door opening, or Echo entering. He took a seat beside her.

Omega wiped at her eyes, and looked up at him, but then lowered her head.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Another nightmare?” he ventured, at least wanting to understand why she was hurting.

She shook her head again.

Hmm… Something else then.

That was when he took a closer look at her left hand. Tech’s goggles dangled from her fingers which she held by the strap. The recorder was still on them.

Echo suddenly felt like he’d been punched in the gut, hard, and his heart had literally fallen right out of his body.

Oh no.

“Oh, Omega.”

In an instant he was kneeling before her, his hand on her knee.

Her crying this time was quieter than it had been from the nightmare. That had been explosive, this was something that seemed to bury itself in her.

“You saw it,” he said.

She nodded, a small whimper leaving her.

Echo was still horrified by what he’d seen, still lost in it, almost lost in his own pain. He would never have wanted a child to see what he’d seen, to know what had happened to Tech, to hear his pained sounds, his choked screams. To see the blood, some of the injuries, the Imperials that had taken him, Hemlock’s face being the last thing they’d seen.

He couldn’t tell her everything was okay because that was exactly the problem here. Things weren’t okay. Tech wasn’t okay. And now she really knew he wasn’t, even though he had survived. Echo was still processing his own feelings over it, the shame of Tech having been alive this entire time and he had had no idea, the shame of struggling to go on with his life while Tech was surely tortured, the horror of knowing Tech had known unimaginable pain just like he had, the grief that still existed because he wasn’t with them, and somehow, he thought he was their enemy.

Omega was brave. Of course she was. She’d gotten herself out of so many bad situations, she’d rescued herself and Crosshair even when they couldn’t.

Yet she was still just a kid.

Sometimes when Echo looked at her, it broke his heart to see she’d aged and he hadn’t gotten to see it, and other times he thought of how beautiful she looked, how strong she was, how proud he was.

He’d always heard kids were resilient, but her life was asking too much of her.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “I never wanted you to see that.”

“Am—am I in trouble?” she asked.

He brushed away some of her tears, and ran his hand through her sleep-mussed  hair.

“No. No, of course you’re not in trouble.”

“But I wasn’t supposed to look.”

Echo took her hand, the one holding the goggles. He didn’t try to take them from her though.

“And you’re in pain. You were curious. We can’t get mad at you for that. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? I failed you, not the other way around.”

“But—”

“I should have thought of your curiosity, I should have hidden the recorder. We all should have thought of that. But we didn’t. This our mistake, not yours.”

“I just wanted to know,” she said, words riding on a sob.

“I know.”

“What are we gonna do?” she asked, more tears spilling free. “He’s hurt. Tech’s hurt. He needs our help.”

“We’ll think of something.”

She turned her head away from his touch, and he rested his hand on one of her heaving shoulders instead. She took a deep breath, and then held it, as if worried more sobs would escape her. She sniffled. Echo wanted to wipe her nose for her, but he figured that’d be too overbearing.

“I… might know a way,” she said.

“Wha—”

Then it hit him.

He gripped her shoulder insistently. “No. No, you hear me? I will not allow you to give yourself up.”

“Any of you would do it if you could. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Omega, you escaped, you got out. And—and you can barely even talk about it. You can’t go back there. I can’t lose you.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?” she asked. She met his gaze, her brown eyes softer than they had been of late, so open, so hurt.

“I’ll talk with the others. I’ll—”

Something beeped on the console, and Echo glanced over to check it out.

Omega did as well.

She turned in her seat, mind redirected to the present.

“We have an incoming message. It’s Rex!”

“Finally,” Echo sighed.

He stood and turned, resting back against the console as Omega put him through. She twisted in her seat as Rex’s hologram showed up before them.

“Echo, good to see you,” he said. He nodded over at Omega. “You too, Omega.”

She hid Tech’s goggles against her chest, and wiped at her face. Then she gave a small wave.

Echo, of course, couldn’t see Rex’s surroundings, but he noticed there were smudges on his armor, and maybe new scratches.

“What took so long?” he asked, not in accusation, but genuinely wanting to know.

“We got attacked. Another one of those shadow operatives.”

Omega swallowed hard, and Echo found it difficult to breathe.

“Is everyone all right?”

“We’re fine.”

“And the operative?”

“Died during interrogation.”

“I thought you found out how to take out those chips.”

“Oh, we did. He—” Rex cut himself off, glancing at Omega.

Echo looked at her as well.

“I can handle it,” she told both of them.

Rex seemed skeptical, but went on, “He threw himself against one of our vibroblades.”

Omega gasped, and Echo frowned. Kriff, they could have used him, if—

“He was a reg, right?” Echo asked, needing to qualify. Omega put a hand to her lips, holding her breath, eyes widening.

Rex frowned, giving them a curious look. “Of course he was. Unless...”

“Right, right. Yeah, of course.”

Omega gave a relieved sigh beside him.

Echo tried to change the topic, but he could tell Rex was still thinking hard: “So… about the info I sent you about Wrecker— Can you help him?”

Rex shook his head. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have access to an advanced enough medical facility. He’d need one on a star destroyer, or perhaps an Imperial base of some sort, which is the last place any of us want to go.”

Echo squeezed his hand into a fist, and had to resist the urge to slam it against the console.

Their efforts were getting them nowhere, it seemed.

There had to be another way, another way that didn’t involve Omega’s impulsive and dangerous idea.

“Well, thanks for letting us know,” Echo said.

Rex nodded. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Stay safe out there. Try to lay low.”

Echo nodded, and saw Omega’s sour expression out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t told Rex about Tech, and since they had no idea what to do about this there really wasn’t anything to tell.

“Wait, Rex, do you have any intel on Tantiss base?”

“I’d say you have the guy with the best intel.”

Echo was confused for a second, and then realized whom he was speaking of.

Crosshair.

“Right.”

“Keep me posted. We have other fronts to fight on, but I will not leave our brothers in that mountain.”

“We’ll find a way to save them,” Omega said, face suddenly stern, and so serious. She didn’t look like a child now, and Echo wanted to hold her, wanted to find a way to let her be a child. But the horrors in their lives…

“Yes, we will.”

With that, Rex signed off.

Echo gave a world-weary sigh, and put his face in his hand.

“Are you okay?” Omega asked, putting a hand on his scomp, completely comfortable with him and his enhancements.

He looked at her. “I should be asking you that.” He glanced at the goggles she still held. “Here, let me take that.”

Her hand shook fiercely as she handed them over. Echo put them on the console for now, and he held her hand. He knelt by her again.

“If you want to talk about what you saw,” he told her, “I’m here.”

She nodded and then rushed at him, getting off the chair, and pulling him into a hug.

Echo hugged her back, gently rocking her.

A whine, as if she were trying to hold back a sob, sounded right into his ear. He held her tighter, and he wished they could stay that way. She was here, and relatively speaking, she was safe. Echo wished he could keep her safe for forever, wished that he could love her so fiercely all her pain would wash away.

If love could fix trauma and scars, Omega would never suffer again.

But life didn’t work that way. She’d been in Tantiss, a captive, and Echo had felt so helpless, so lost.

He felt lost now, but maybe for her he could find his moorings.

Echo stayed up, talking with Omega, telling her of the 501st until she finally managed to nod off. It was a bit difficult with one arm, and how she’d grown, but he picked her up, and put her back to bed. He made sure Lula was tucked against her side in case of another nightmare.

For now, he couldn’t sleep, mind buzzing, trying to find solutions, and he was running from nightmares too.

Wrecker had heard Omega crying. Of course, he’d heard her louder sobs and screams, but he’d heard the quieter crying, too. Guilt took him as he lay there, feeling too sleepy and too pained to help her. Getting in and out of his rack was difficult with his injury. He had drifted in a light doze once he’d heard Echo get up, probably to help her.

Echo’s on it. Good. That’s good.

He drifted in and out of sleep, a bit jealous that the others were mostly sleeping soundly. Even Crosshair was managing to get some sleep!

His clouded brain put together pieces of a plan, things that he wasn’t sure even connected together. But as the chrono in his wrist comm slowly showed it’d be morning for them, he felt invigorated, or perhaps anxious. There was a drive in him, the will to do something.

And in a way, he’d be doing it for himself as well.

Omega was still sleeping when everyone else got up, and he wanted to keep it that way for now, let her have at least a few extra minutes. Wrecker managed to clamber into the cockpit and into a seat. Already he was gritting his teeth from the pain in his neck and shoulder. There was a deep, unsettling soreness, and it spread through his shoulder blade, into his jaw, down his arm. He was sweating too, and a bit unsure as to if his plan was even one that made sense.

Yet as he forced down a ration bar, he decided to announce he had something to tell them all.

Omega woke to Hunter gently shaking her.

“Hmm?” She had been in the cockpit, with— “Echo?”

“No, it’s me.”

She opened her eyes, and realized she was back in her little room.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Hunter murmured. “I know you had a rough night. But we need to talk.”

Fear gripped her for a moment. Was she actually going to get in trouble despite what Echo had said?

No, she sensed this was something else.

“What is it?” she asked, squeezing Lula, and holding in an exhausted groan.

“Wrecker says he has a plan.”

Chapter Text

Hunter rested against the sink, staring into the mirror in the fresher. Over their meal of ration bars Crosshair and Echo had explained what had happened with Omega. Hunter had sat there in shock for a couple minutes, horrified that his kid had seen something so awful, something that felt like a fresh wound on his heart. This just added another.

“And she’s… coping?” he’d asked Echo.

“I don’t know. She seems to be in that stage where she doesn’t want to talk about it. I’m not sure she has the words for it yet.”

Crosshair had lowered his head at that.

Wrecker had wiped a tear away. The Wrecker he’d grown up with would have said it was the injury, but he had grown, and changed since they’d met Omega, since they had lost her, and she had found them again.

They’d all changed so much.

Echo had also filled them in on a talk he’d had with Rex, which left them all feeling a bit dejected.

Now, when Hunter looked at himself he didn’t see who he was supposed to be. He didn’t see a leader. He saw a man whose determination had been crushed. He was a bit leaner, maybe a bit scruffier, and the circles under his eyes were dark despite sleeping better than everyone else, it had seemed. Hunter tried not to feel guilty about that.

He ran a hand through his hair, and retied his bandana. His bangs were longer than he usually let them get, but he decided he’d keep them that way, not having the energy for much upkeep.

He’d cleaned up a bit, and threw cold water on his face, hoping it’d wake him up from this nightmare.

When he lifted up his head, saw the water dripping from his face in the mirror, the nightmare lived on.

He dried up, and went to the cockpit with the others. While he waited for Omega to freshen up he started sharpening his knife.

Omega had told herself she wouldn’t cry, not again. She told herself that she could do this, that she could keep it together. But she was so tired, and her finger hurt, and now she really felt like her heart had been blasted right out of her.

Oh, Tech.

She held onto the sink, shaking, tears falling.

She gasped, hardly able to breathe as the recording flashing through her mind. Hearing Tech’s screams when something in his body must have broken, seeing the tree branch go right through his leg. All the blood.

Omega was ready to scream.

Instead she wiped her tears away, wanting to focus on cleaning her face, fixing her hair.

A branch went through Tech’s body from the back, and she swore what could have been intestines dangled out in front of him as he continued to fall. Still falling even after all the torment.

Omega gripped the sink in a white-knuckled grip, gritting her teeth to hold in a moan as the tendons in her injured finger tried to move it against the splint. She felt like she was falling, just like Tech, just like in her nightmare.

She could barely breathe.

Come on, Omega. Get it together. You can do this.

Yet when she looked in the mirror she didn’t even see the strong person she had thought she was, the person who had saved Crosshair, the person who had survived Tantiss. She didn’t even see the person who had been in Tantiss. Wasn’t she strong then?

The Imperials had wanted her to always look put together, everything neat and tidy, and she really did like the way she wore her hair then.

Now she saw dark circles under swollen, bloodshot eyes, tears streaking across her face, hair a mess she didn’t even have the energy or will to fix.

Omega felt sobs coming on, and she began to take deep breaths. And failed.

Why was she acting like this? Couldn’t she be that person that had saved herself?

But it felt like even that pain was bleeding out.

Perhaps in Tantiss her mind had simply detached itself in order to cope, even if the hope really had been real. She wanted that now. She didn’t want to feel. All she wanted to do was save Tech. Crying wouldn’t save him. And she was too sickened by what had happened to him to even hope.

She berated herself for crying, she wondered who she was now, what Hunter would think if he saw her like this. He’d judge her.

Omega didn’t know where the thought had come from. There was no basis for it in reality, but suddenly, she didn’t feel strong enough to stay with her family. They needed her to be strong.

Tech needed her to be strong.

Omega was so tired of it.

She was so, so tired.

Omega, you can do this.

By this, she meant get ready for the day.

Just start simple.

One thing at a time.

She washed her face, and she tried to do her hair. She had managed to brush it with one hand, but when it came to putting it up it was difficult with a pained, and splinted finger.

After the fourth attempt failed she decided she’d just wear her hair down.

She sighed.

Time to hear Wrecker’s plan, and hope she didn’t break in front of her family.

“I’m sorry, you want to do what?” Hunter asked, completely stunned. He’d almost thrown his knife (he didn’t know where he’d be aiming though). He sheathed it harder than usual.

“Wow, you really are crazy,” Crosshair said, putting a toothpick in his mouth, and putting a foot up on his knee, as if he didn’t care. His hand trembled.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Echo said.

“No,” Omega told him, going up to where he was somehow standing, and taking his hand. “No. Absolutely not.”

Echo eyed her, his mouth open, and— Was that surprise on his face?

Hunter would have to keep an eye on that. He knew something about Omega, something involving… this.

“It’s the only plan we have,” Wrecker argued.

Omega led him back to his seat, and he basically collapsed into it. He was gasping, face tight with pain.

Omega put a hand on his face, features drawn down. “Just slow down, all right? I’ll change your bandages.”

As she went to get the medkit, Hunter eyed him, “I will not allow any of us to go to Tantiss alone. I don’t care if you think it’ll work.”

“But Tech’s there, and he’s alone,” Wrecker argued. “And besides, Zalani said the Empire could help me.”

“You’re so stupid,” Crosshair said.

Wrecker made a fist and growled at him.

“How about we just calm down?” Hunter suggested, hands out at both of them.

Crosshair bit down hard on his toothpick, jaw clenched. Then he sighed.

Hunter met his gaze, and he saw shadows there, like they were creeping out of something locked away.

“Wrecker, we’ve already lost one member of our team. We are not losing another.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Hunter stood, and said, “Of course it’s my fault! I let us go to Eriadu. I asked Tech to fix the railcars.”

“We would’ve died if he hadn’t,” Echo said.

“And look what happened to him! We saw his injuries. He should have died! But Hemlock saved him, and he did something to him. Tech thinks we’re the enemy. And it’s my fault.”

“It’s not,” Wrecker argued, as Omega started working on his bandages with trembling fingers.

Crosshair took over, telling her to have his seat.

She did so, hugging her knees to her chest.

Hunter wanted to argue back, but Wrecker was wincing.

Echo came over, and put a hand in Hunter’s hair, thumb against his cheekbone by his ear. He almost shook him with his grip.

“It was not your fault,” Echo said. “Tech wanted to try. He wanted to go to Eriadu.” For a second he brought their foreheads together, and Hunter was wondering how he was still standing.

He couldn’t believe what was happening to him, what was happening to all of them, what had happened to Tech.

Nothing felt real.

Not even his forehead against Echo’s, which usually soothed him so much. He closed his eyes, jaw clenched.

Echo pulled back, and then said to Crosshair, “And he wanted to save you.”

“Well look where that got all of us,” he hissed.

“Hey,” Omega said, voice shakier than usual, “you’re being unfair.”

Another sigh from Crosshair. After growing up with him, and despite how he’d changed so much, Hunter could still read his sighs like the back of his hand. This was his sigh of agreement, the sigh that meant he gave in, and conceded the point.

“I want to do this,” Wrecker said. “Please.”

Omega started crying, and Hunter just about lost it then. He wanted to put his helmet on, and walk outside onto the moon, and flee. He knew that wasn’t who he was, that that was a reaction of shock, of everything being too much.

Instead, he clenched his fist for a second, and then went over to Omega.

He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, gently rubbing at them.

She reached up with her right hand, perhaps forgetting her finger was splinted, and gripped his hand as tightly as she could.

Wrecker glanced at her. He pushed Crosshair aside, which got him an “I’m not finished yet,” but he ignored it.

He went over and knelt before Omega. With his good arm, he raised it, and ran it through her hair. Then he cupped her cheek.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, all right?”

“But it’s not okay,” she argued. A whimper left her, and Hunter’s already wounded heart seemed to shatter, like he’d been stabbed not just once, but repeatedly. “Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want you to go”

She held onto Wrecker’s hand, his wrist, and buried her face against his touch.

Wrecker looked at Hunter, looking for guidance from his leader, but Hunter wasn’t even sure what guidance to give. He felt like he needed guidance.

Echo sat nearby. “If you do go to Tantiss, what’s the plan?” he asked.

“What?” Crosshair said. “You can’t seriously be entertaining this crazy, kriff—”

“Look, something needs to happen. We need to do something, and why not now? I don’t want any of us to go to Tantiss, but look at the facts. That’s where Tech is, and we need to get him out. You all got me out of Skako Minor, and Tech was one of the first people I saw. I am not leaving him to be tortured like I was, or worse. So, Wrecker, what’s your plan?”

Omega sobbed into his hand, and Crosshair couldn’t even look at Wrecker. Hunter held in a sigh, knowing Echo was right, and he was glad he was somehow more clear-headed than him with all of this. Perhaps he had a drive he didn’t because he knew what it was like to be ripped apart and used.

It wasn’t that Hunter didn’t miss Tech.

He missed him every day. Missed saying his name, missed hearing his voice, missed seeing him on his datapad, missed making plans that involved him and his specialized skills.

There were multiple times each day where he’d turn to tell him something… only to receive a blow, realizing he wasn’t there.

And he could be again.

He could be.

Hunter straightened, refusing to be that man he had seen in the mirror. He held onto Omega, grip firm, knowing that’s what she needed.

And he nodded at Wrecker to go on.

“We hide a tracker on me, and we use that to locate Tantiss.”

Crosshair scoffed. “They’ll scan you for devices.”

“Then shoot one onto the ship they take me on.”

“I… I don’t know if I can make the shot,” Crosshair admitted, head down.

“I’ll try it,” Hunter said.

Omega was shaking her head. “No, it won’t work.”

“We have to try. I have to try.”

“They’re going to hurt you,” Omega said. “Whatever they do to help, it—it might not be worth it.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I know the risks.”

Now Crosshair had fully turned his seat away from them, looking towards the stern of the ship.

“No, you don’t.”

“Do you… have more intel to give us?” Echo asked.

“I—I can’t.”

Now Omega sniffled, and pushed Wrecker back so she could go over to Crosshair. She took his hand.

“I’m right here,” she said. “I’m with you. You can do this. I believe in you.”

“You don’t know—”

“No, I don’t.” Her voice was gentle the whole time, and Hunter felt his pride, his love, swell. She was so caring, so wonderful, that just looking at her seemed to put some of the hurt pieces of his heart back together. “I don’t know, but you can tell us. Tell me. I was there too.”

Crosshair’s voice shook as he said to her, “I don’t—I don’t want you to know these things. You’ve already seen too much.”

Omega’s face seemed to crumple then, and she rested her head against Crosshair’s chest. She didn’t cry, she just stayed there, against him. He held a hand to the back of her head, and then started running his fingers through her hair.

To Hunter’s surprise, Crosshair kissed the top of her head.

“I know you saw what happened to Tech,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry you did.”

“It’s my fault,” she mumbled against his chest.

“No,” he said, gentle, “it’s the Empire’s fault. They hurt him. They hurt all of us.”

She pulled back, and caressed his cheek. “Then tell us. Please. Anything that might help, let us know. For Wrecker. For Tech.” She paused, and then added, “For me.”

The next sigh Crosshair let out was one he’d never heard before. He wasn’t conceding a point, he wasn’t giving in. And it wasn’t just agreement. It was love, a deep love that he himself knew. It was a love he felt whenever he looked at Omega, a love that had ripped him to pieces as he searched the galaxy over and over for her. A love that Crosshair seemed to need.

“Okay,” he murmured.

“Okay?” Omega asked.

He nodded.

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then squeezed his trembling hand.

He ran his other hand through her hair one more time, and then turned to the rest of them. Omega stayed standing, leaning against him.

“Wrecker, it won’t be easy,” Crosshair said in a surprisingly clear voice. But it was hard, detached. “You will not be a normal prisoner, you are not just another random body for his experiments even if Hemlock may say that to you to make you think he’s going to kill you, to crush your resolve. He will want to get control of you, turn you into Tech. He tried with me. Every day. You’ll be electrocuted, you’ll be injected with something that lets the Empire right into your brain while you sleep. He will hurt you there too. He will not stop hurting you. The Empire will tell you it’ll stop if you do what they want. They’ll make you want to do it. Not just with fear, not just with pain, but by giving you that lack of pain with their orders. They’ll relieve you of it if you concede. And you’ll want to. Hemlock will think up new ways to hurt you, to scare you. And it will work. But you can’t give in. You can’t give up. I gave up, and eventually Hemlock did give up on me. His methods weren’t working. He may have changed them, perfected them since his failure with me. At one time, he… he injected me with—something. I’m not entirely sure what it was. But it hurts, and not just that, you will hallucinate, and it will make you afraid, more afraid than you’ve ever been in your whole life. And he will try to break you, try to get information on Omega. He wants her for something, and I don’t know why. He’ll use the probe droids on you, and that’s… not easy either, though perhaps milder compared to everything else. But he’s always thinking one step ahead. He’s not just a scientist. He’s a strategist. And you’ll be at his beck and call. He will do whatever he can to break you, even if you’re not… whole afterwards.”

Wrecker was shaking by now, and he sat on the deck, right where he was.

Hunter was regretting standing, his knees weak, hands gripping the seat Omega had vacated hard.

His vision swam with unshed tears.

“And they did this to me because I betrayed the Empire. But I think… I think they would have done it anyway. They knew who I was, they knew the information inside my head, and I think Hemlock wanted me all along. I think he might want all of us, maybe not for his most important projects, but for something. I think if he can turn another of us it’ll be a win for him, and he won’t stop. I’ve seen his eyes; there is something fundamentally wrong with him. I think if he turns you he won’t stop with you. He’ll want all of us. He’ll get addicted.”

“But he won’t turn me,” Wrecker argued.

Crosshair seemed like he wanted to argue too, but he bit back whatever he was originally going to say.

Then he went to Wrecker, kneeling by him. He put a hand on his good shoulder.

“Good. Don’t let him.”

“I… can’t believe what I just heard,” Echo said, putting his face in his hand.

“Well, believe it.”

“Crosshair, I’m so sorry,” Hunter said.

Crosshair, another one of his failures. He knew there hadn’t been any choice with leaving Crosshair with the Empire, and he’d even gone back to them willingly without the chip, had believed in their ideology. But perhaps that was Hunter’s doing, too. Or… maybe Crosshair saw it that way, but that didn’t mean it was true. And yet, Hunter hadn’t been able to save him either.

Crosshair seemed to be thinking the same thing, looking at Hunter, but there wasn’t any anger in his face. Just an openness he’d hardly seen before, his features soft, eyes almost welling with tears.

“We’ll make this worth it,” Hunter said. “We’ll save Tech.”

“Wrecker, can you really do this?” Echo asked.

“I have to. I can.”

“So about the tracker,” Echo said, “is that really a sound plan?”

“Maybe I can escape long enough to send out a beacon you can track. I mean, you did something like that, Crosshair.”

“Yes, but I was telling all of you to stay away. And look what happened. Tech’s a prisoner there now. Tech’s mind might not even come back!”

“We respected Tech’s decision,” Hunter said. “He wanted to save you.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have. I—I’m not worth more torture.”

“This is why I need to go,” Wrecker said. “Look, we’ll try the plan with the tracking devices, and just in case it doesn’t work, I’ll escape my cell long enough to send a signal.”

“What if they jam it before it even gets to the Marauder?” Hunter asked. “They could easily let a destroyer or something that’s in range know before the signal gets through.”

Omega responded with, “Easy. We just have to be on one of those ships.”

Everyone paused, going dead silent.

Then, Echo said, “Oh, I like your thinking.”

Hunter couldn’t help but agree, yet the thought of Omega being on one of those ships as well, didn’t sit right with him.

“Crosshair and I weren’t able to get the coordinates for Tantiss, but I saved the data from the ship we stole from the planet we crashed on. If we use that and the location we met at we can find the location of that planet, which is clearly near Tantiss Base. If we scan for ships nearby I’m sure we’ll find something we can infiltrate.”

Hunter almost smiled, even while he felt the drive to move kicking in. She had learned so much from Tech. To see him in her, it did so many painful and yet wonderful things to his heart, and for a second he wasn’t sure he was breathing with all he felt in his chest.

“I can do this,” Wrecker said, looking deep into Crosshair’s wounded eyes, and then standing with Omega’s help. 

Echo helped, too, letting Wrecker put an arm around his shoulders.  

His gaze locked with Wrecker’s.

“I can do this, Hunter.”

Hunter almost smiled. “And you know what? We can do our part too.”

“Hell yeah, let’s do this!” Wrecker cried, getting a bit too excited and trying to lift his right arm.

He shouted, and dropped it. Before Hunter could go over to check on him and offer comfort, Crosshair was already doing it. Omega looked like she wanted to, but she was cradling her injured hand to her chest.

“At least let us finish changing your bandages,” Crosshair sighed.

“Okay. Sounds… sounds good. So, uh… what’s a good place for me to turn myself in?”

“How about Coruscant?” Echo suggested.

They all looked at Hunter.

He assessed all of them, one by one (even Omega), and he saw nothing but determination, a determination he now felt.

“Well then, let’s set a course for Coruscant.”

Chapter Text

“Hmm… that one!” Omega decided, pointing at the can of light blue paint.

Wrecker cheered at her decision. Omega smiled at him as he shuffled through their pile of stencils for the right one, though some of his motions were stiff. She tried to keep that smile up, but it fell. All she could think was that she wouldn’t have moments like this anymore. Not for quite some time.

And it wasn’t like Wrecker was going to his death. In a way, he was going to something far worse. Her lips trembled, a sharp feeling pinching her sinuses and stabbing at the corners of her eyes. Her throat ached.

“Ah, it’s this one,” Wrecker said, holding up a stencil.

He looked at her then, and she felt so weak for almost breaking. His face softened, eyes watering.

“I know, kid. I know.”

Omega sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Then she reached over to grab her helmet so they could paint it, not leave it bare with just a 99 on it.

As they worked, Omega glanced over to the cockpit, where Hunter, Crosshair, and Echo were talking.

Currently, they were on their way to Coruscant, but it was so far away that they’d have to stop a few times to get to a different hyperspace lane. Supposedly they were over there planning, but words traveled over to her and Wrecker. They were talking about Crosshair’s… torture.

Wrecker put a hand on her shoulder.

“I can’t stop thinking about it, Wrecker,” she admitted. “I knew they hurt him—of course they did—but I didn’t know how bad. I know… I know he gave up in there; he told me he did, but—”

“It’s different hearing about it.”

She nodded.

“And I wonder if that’s what they’re doing to Tech. I… wonder how they saved him and how much it hurt. I—I wonder how much they’re going to hurt you.”

Her gaze drifted to the injury Tech had left him with. Tech, who had fallen, whose body had broken.

A sob built in Omega’s chest, her throat, her mouth. She held the back of her hand to her lips to try and hold it in, but it was like holding in pressure on something that needed to blow.

A whine left her, pain begging to be let out.

When she squeezed her eyes shut tears fell, rolling down her cheeks. Omega was biting her hand now, hard, harder, as Tech’s fall stabbed through her mind, as she imagined what he’d been through in… in Tantiss, of what Crosshair had been through, what Wrecker would go through… So much of it was jumbled images of violence she could hardly make out, blood splashing everywhere, Hemlock with his hands inside her brothers, playing with their org—

She found herself biting her hand till it felt like bones ground together, nausea crashing up like a violent wave from her stomach, coating the back of her throat. Her head lowered, and she moaned, rocking back and forth gently.

A large hand touched her knee. Wrecker. She was with Wrecker.

“I’ll be okay,” Wrecker said, voice breaking through the violent, bloody images in her mind, breaking through the screams.

Her inhale was a ragged, mangled thing. Shaking, needing to speak, she pulled her hand away. Her skin was already littered with purple splotches.

“No!” she insisted. “You don’t! You’ve never been there, not like I have. Not like—”

“Crosshair told me what I’m in for. I can handle it, for all of us, for Tech.” 

Omega couldn’t breathe.

Oh, Tech. Tech, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Wrecker gestured at his eye, the scars, “How do you think I got through this?”

Somehow talk of his old injuries brought her back to the present, to the Marauder, to her family. Though for a brief moment she had the urge to run to Echo, the only one of them to have been damaged so badly, and hug him, and ask him how he was okay, and ask him if any of them would be okay.

She glanced over and saw he was busy talking to Rex with the others. She was busy too; she couldn’t waste her time with Wrecker like this.

After wiping away her tears Omega put a hand on Wrecker’s arm, and ended up clenching hard despite her splint and the pain pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Her nausea died down.

“Come on, let’s finish up your armor, huh? Can’t have you working the Coruscant mission without it.”

“So I will be fighting?” she asked, perking up.

“Who else would I want by my side?” Wrecker asked. “I’ll talk to Hunter, okay?”

Omega nodded, and they got back to work. He held the stencil in place while she started to spray the paint.

Hunter switched off their communications, the hologram of Rex disappearing.

“All right, he knows we’re coming,” Echo said. “I think… Well, Hunter, I think maybe we should give Rex all our intel. Maybe he’ll help us out with this.”

“We’re just staging an attack that’ll get Wrecker captured. We don’t need more men. Not yet.”

“Well, at least let us prepare for when we do.”

Crosshair sighed, holding his hand close. After what he’d shared his body seemed unable to handle it. The tremors in his hand were almost violent, and he couldn’t stop shaking. It was just as bad as when he had survived the avalanche on Barton IV and was trying to save…

Mayday, lying dead beside him flashed through his brain. Tech falling to try to save him. Hemlock’s face right in his as he injected him with a toxin.

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would make the images go away. They followed him, living deep inside his brain. For a few brutal moments he wondered if he could dig through the scarring on his head, get under his skull, rip through his brain, and take the memories out. But, no. He cared about Mayday. He wanted to remember him, even with all the pain that came with it. The other things though…

Echo and Hunter had stopped talking, and he realized they were both looking at him. He bristled at Hunter’s attention.

“What?” he bit out.

“Are you ok—” Hunter started.

Echo interrupted him, “You opened up about a lot. I—we—just want to know if there’s anything we can do to help. We have plenty of time for planning anyway.”

Crosshair almost told them to leave him alone, but he was far past that now. He knew he could trust Hunter, and he knew Echo could relate to what he’d been through. And yet…

He turned his head down. “I—I don’t know what would help,” he admitted.

Tears burned his eyes, and he tried to swallow back the sore lump in his throat.

“Crosshair,” Hunter began, “maybe you should sit this one out.”

“Why? Because I’m too fragile?” he asked, glaring.

“No,” Hunter asserted. “What you told all of us—that proves you are anything but fragile. When I look at you I see a strong soldier, I see my brother. And what I can also see is that your mind and body need time to process the fact that we all know now what you went through—and so soon after finding out what happened to Tech. My job is to know my brothers, and that includes knowing what they can handle. I don’t think you’re ready for another mission right now, and I think you’re thinking the same thing.”

Crosshair inhaled sharply, and he leaned back in his seat, putting a leg up to make himself smaller and feel more protected. He put a hand to his eyes.

He couldn’t stop shaking. Kark it all!

“You’re not weak,” Echo told him. “Maybe you feel like you are, but that’s not what I see in you. You made it back to us, and I’m so glad you’re here. When I… When I joined you didn’t treat me any different than anyone else. I actually thought you hated my guts at first.” Echo laughed, and Crosshair joined. Well, it could have been a sob. “I’m not gonna treat you any differently for what you went through.”

“I’m only here because of Omega,” Crosshair admitted, blinking tears away, and looking towards the stern, where she and Wrecker were painting the armor they’d had made for her. “I wouldn’t… I’d still be in there.”

I belong there.

“But you’re here,” Hunter said.

Crosshair wiped his face and sighed. “I don’t want to do another mission. But… you need me. If—if anything I think— Hunter, you and I should each try to plant a tracker on the ship. Redundancies could help us here.”

Hunter nodded. “Good thinking.”

They still looked at him with imploring eyes.

“Look, I already said what happened to me,” Crosshair snapped. “I already answered some of your questions. I don’t remember you all treating Echo like this.”

“We were at war,” Echo said.

“And we’re not now?”

“You’re right. We are. That’s what I’ve been doing with Rex, and it’s why I’m here now. But that war… it wasn’t about the clones no matter what they want to call it. Our job was to get through, to just deal with whatever happened to us as impersonally as possible. This isn’t that. This is personal now.”

Crosshair scoffed. “Don’t kid yourself, Echo. It’s always been personal to us.”

“You certainly never treated it that way before,” Hunter said.

“Get tortured. It’ll do wonders for changing you. Right, Echo?”

Echo sighed, looking down at feet that weren’t flesh and blood.

“You could’ve just told us to leave you alone,” Echo said, not sounding quite as hurt as Crosshair would have imagined. 

He almost wanted to apologize, but he held that in too.

“Fine. Leave me alone. We’ll strategize later.”

He stood, and went to join Omega and Wrecker. Crosshair wanted to punch something, or shoot something. He was angry at himself, angry that he’d ruined a perfectly good conversation that he needed. In truth, he was thankful for Hunter’s words, for Echo standing by him because he could relate. He wanted to talk to Hunter without causing problems, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

He settled in by Omega, placing his face in his hand, not caring for the slight ache from the bruise on his jaw. He sighed.

Omega took a break from painting to place a hand on his knee.

Crosshair almost started crying again.

Then he actually looked at her right hand. Gently, he picked it up. The splint was still in place, her finger still swollen, a bit black and blue now rather than just purple. The bruises on her knuckles were the same. But he noticed small, purple marks littering the skin close to her thumb.

“What happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask if you were fine. I asked what happened.”

She pulled her hand away. “I bit myself holding in a sob, okay?”

Crosshair started rubbing her back, not sure what else he could do. It seemed they were all struggling. Though, he expected it from Omega after seeing that recording. If anything he just wished she hadn’t been alone while watching it.

Omega picked up a can of paint, working on a pauldron now. Her helmet was already drying. Crosshair liked the colors she’d chosen: a light blue, and a pale mint green.

Then she looked at Crosshair, scrutinizing his armor.

“Do you want to repaint your armor?” she asked. “Make it more… you? Everyone else did it. Tech, he… he painted his with orange stripes.”

And now that personalized armor was ruined and probably thrown away by Hemlock.

Crosshair looked down at his own armor. He’d never really thought about it. This was the original armor for Clone Force 99. But that was with the Republic, which was gone now. And with the Empire his armor had been pure black. He, as an individual, had been completely unimportant. Just another body to be used for the glory of the Empire, another body for him.

Crosshair wasn’t sure who he was in any armor. Was he part of Clone Force 99 Was that even who he was?

“You don’t have to decide now,” Omega said, squeezing his forearm.

“Yeah, it took us some time too,” Wrecker added.

“Yours is boring,” Crosshair joked, words trembling as he continued to shake.

Wrecker grinned and gave a one-shouldered shrug. But when he met Crosshair’s eyes his eyes seemed to get bigger, the inner corners of his brows raising slightly. Were those tears glistening over the deep brown?

Crosshair’s breath caught.

All he’d gone through, and Wrecker would experience it too.

“M-maybe take your armor off before the mission,” he suggested, worried Wrecker would lose something he had worked to personalize and make his own.

“Nah, they’ll know something’s up.”

The pain stayed painted across his face as he continued working with Omega.

Crosshair realized he never wanted them to arrive at Coruscant. A rebellious, childish part of his brain told him to sabotage the ship. The thought faded quickly, but not the pain in his heart.

Omega kept glancing at him, and Crosshair tried to show nothing was bothering him even though she’d already seen him at his lowest and had helped him anyway.

Eventually she said, “Wrecker, can I talk to Crosshair alone for a second?”

He looked at her unfinished armor. “You sure?”

“You need rest, anyway,” Crosshair said.

It was true. The pain he was in was drawn in a tightness around his eyes, a furrow in his brow, and the stiffness of his mouth.

Usually Wrecker was stubborn about this sort of thing, but he met Crosshair’s eyes again, fear widening his pupils, and Crosshair knew he’d relent.

He looked around the small space of the ship.

“Guess I’ll go nap in the gunner’s mount.”

Crosshair stood so he could help Wrecker to his feet. Wrecker leaned into him hard, and Crosshair grunted, putting his back into it.

When Omega was relatively out of earshot, Crosshair whispered, “Wrecker, you can back out of this.”

“Why would you even say that?” he whispered back.

Crosshair was slightly startled Wrecker could even communicate in a whisper.

“Because I know what it’s like.”

“No, don’t give me that.”

“Give you what?”

“A way out. Don’t you dare give that to me.”

Wrecker shook against him.

Oh, shab. He’s just as afraid as I was when I woke up there.

Saliva built in Crosshair’s mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep it down.

Kriffing sithspit.

He was a monster, no better than an Imperial, for helping Wrecker to get locked inside that mountain. He might as well be one again, and maybe he was worse because he cared. He realized he cared so much he’d rip apart the stars if it could stop this from happening.

No, this is Wrecker’s decision.

Crosshair didn’t want to take his agency away from him, not now, not after everything.

He let out a sob he hoped Omega didn’t hear.

“I’ll miss you,” Crosshair got out, not sure he’d ever said those words before in his entire life, words he wished he could have said to Tech. Here, it was also a way to let Wrecker know he’d dropped the line he was dangling in front of him.

“Heh, not gone yet.”

He looked at Wrecker, who was already watching him.

A tear fell across his scars, and he lowered his head.

“I’m just trying to be brave like Tech,” he admitted in a low murmur.

Crosshair’s voice trembled as he said, “I think he’d be proud of you.”

Wrecker smiled. He smiled. He patted Crosshair on the shoulder. “He’d be proud of you too.” Crosshair didn’t know how to respond to something that pierced him so deeply. “It’s good to have you back, Cross.” 

He tried to give him a noogie of all things, and Crosshair shoved away from it like he always had. Somehow this made him laugh. It came out as a quiet, shaky wheeze, but it was still a laugh.

“Go take a nap,” he hissed, pretending he was annoyed enough to destroy everything Wrecker loved.

He almost expected Wrecker to stick his tongue out at him. But he waved him off and ascended the gunner’s mount.

Crosshair went to take his spot across from Omega. He studied what she’d done so far. He pointed at a blue wave motif on the chest plate. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Pabu. Even though I need this armor, it’s still a home to me, still somewhere safe.”

“Hmph.”

“So, do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

Omega’s breath shuddered on its way in. “Tantiss.”

Crosshair sighed. “You already heard everything.”

“But how are you feeling?”

“Awful. How else am I supposed to feel?”

Omega leaned against him.

“Subtle,” he commented.

When she looked up at him he felt at home. But the shaking wouldn’t subside, the living nightmares wouldn’t stop stabbing through his brain.

“You want to talk to Hunter, don’t you?”

“How—”

“I heard you being mean. I know you do that when people get a little too close to what’s bothering you.”

“I think we all know what’s bothering me.”

“Still.”

“Omega—”

“Fine,” she relented (for now). “What do we do to stop the shaking? Do you want to meditate?”

“Not really.”

“Talking to Hunter it is then!”

“What?”

Omega leaned towards the cockpit now, and called out, “Hunter!”

“Omega!” Crosshair got out, not sure what he even wanted anymore.

“I’m moving things along,” she told him when he grabbed her arm.

Hunter came over.

“What is it? Are you all right?”

She rolled her eyes as she stood, gently leaving Crosshair’s grip. “I’m fine. Crosshair wants to talk to you.”

Crosshair resisted growling, and buried his face in his hands.

“I’ll break into our tea rations,” she said.

“You know that stuff is disgusting,” Crosshair claimed.

“Well, let’s pretend it’s not.”

Crosshair pretended to be keenly interested in Omega’s armor as she went to their crate of rations being guarded by Gonky.

“I’ve always hated that stuff,” Hunter admitted as he crossed his arms, leaning against a console. “So, is this about…” He dragged out the last word, as if wasn’t allowed to say the next one.

“Tantiss, yes,” Crosshair admitted.

Omega came back over holding a small black container she was balancing three mugs on.

“What flavors do you want?” she asked as she set everything down and started going through the little container.

“Doesn’t it all taste the same?” Crosshair asked.

“No. Well, maybe a bit,” she admitted.

“You can pick for us,” Hunter said.

Crosshair watched her do so, wondering just how complicated things would get when she was an older teenager. He hoped they all lived long enough to see it. But, oh, the joys of having a sister/daughter. He realized being forced to sit through tea time was probably a normal thing with normal families who weren’t bred to be soldiers, and that realization made him a little more keen to try this.

Omega snapped the outer coverings of the packages and shook them, heating up the water mixed with the herbs and dried fruit on the inner pouch. She started pouring them into the mugs. Two were dark blue, joguns, probably, and the other was a golden color. She handed out mugs, Hunter thanking her. Crosshair sneered at his.

“Why do you two get the fruit, and I have”—he swirled the tea in his mug, herbal steam wafting up into his face—“this?” His words sounded bitter enough to be insults.

Hunter and Omega took seats next to each other, and Crosshair remained on the deck by Omega’s half-painted armor.

“It’s got herbs that are supposed to calm you. And there’s zero caffeine in it.”

“You’re mothering me.”

Omega giggled, and took a sip of her tea, Hunter also taking a sip of his. Despite how raw and open he felt Crosshair almost laughed at the look of disgust on Hunter’s face. Hunter took another sip.

“Okay, Dad,” Omega said.

With a sigh Crosshair tried a sip. Well, the heat felt nice, soothing. Maybe he could get used to the slightly bitter flavor.

Hunter broke the ice once more, saying, “About what you told us, what you went through—it’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Crosshair bit out. “Stop telling me how I’m feeling.”

Omega raised an eyebrow, face deep in her mug.

“Fine,” Crosshair admitted. “I am scared, and I was then. I think… I think the worst of it sometimes was being forced to walk to my torture. I was with other prisoners for some of it. I felt… I don’t know—ashamed, I suppose. I don’t feel like a soldier, Hunter. Not anymore. Not after losing so badly. It’s—it’s not just my hand. It’s all of it. Sometimes I forget I’m not in Tantiss.”

“Me too,” Omega admitted.

“I’m so sorry to both of you,” Hunter said. He glanced towards the gunner’s mount. “And I’m sorry you both know how Wrecker will feel.”

Omega sniffled, and had another sip of tea. Crosshair forced another sip down, the liquid heat a soothing feeling in his chest, his stomach. His shaking was slowly subsiding. He wasn’t going to shatter. Or maybe he already had shattered, and his family was slowly putting him back together.

Yet he balked at the idea of feeling okay. How could he?

He had the urge to throw his tea everywhere and storm off, but then he worried the shaking would never stop.

His head hurt. His scars burned and ached.

The shocks of electricity he’d taken to his head once a day in Tantiss had hurt more on the left, and it burned and jolted through him now.

Hemlock was by his side, watching with the smallest of smiles on his face.

“Turn up the voltage,” he ordered to a trooper in black who had some kind of device on his arm.

He pressed a button on the machine Crosshair was being held in, and the electricity—

Crosshair gasped, realizing he was on the Marauder. Tea. He was supposed to be drinking tea.

He gripped the warm mug hard as he lifted it up to take a sip.

Hunter’s brows were drawn down.

“Flashback?” he asked.

“Uh huh.”

Wait.

Wait.

“Hunter, did T-Tech have a band on his right arm when you fought him? It would have had a lot of buttons, like the device he used to wear on his wrist.”

Hunter paused mid-sip. Omega was looking back and forth between the two of them.

“How in the galaxy would you know that?”

Crosshair felt a sob building up in his chest, built from grief, and horror, and shame. And guilt.

Kriff the Light.

He had been right there.

Crosshair’s shaking worsened, hot tea spilling on him that he could hardly feel.

Crosshair tried to inhale, but it was the beginning of a sob.

Hunter moved so fast Crosshair didn’t have time to process. One moment he was alone, and the next he was in Hunter’s arms, his tea set aside. Crosshair held onto him; he held onto him like he never had before.

“H-he was right there,” Crosshair sobbed. “He—he helped Hemlock torture me.”

All he could think was how he had hurt, how Crosshair hadn’t saved him, what Tech would have to go through when he remembered all this.

He just wanted his brother back, and he felt like he’d ultimately failed him. Maybe Crosshair should be the one to go, not Wrecker.

“Crosshair, I’m so sorry.”

Hunter’s usual smoky voice was thick with guilt and sorrow. Maybe he was crying too.

Crosshair let Omega wiggle her way in when she came over.

In his family’s arms, his shaking subsided.

Crosshair felt all tired and wrung out when he pulled back from them, but he knew one thing: he was determined to not let Tech suffer any longer than he had to.

He picked up his abandoned mug, and took a sip.

“Bleh.” The tea had cooled. “So gross,” he commented as he set it aside.

“Yeah, it does kind of suck, doesn’t it?” Omega admitted.

They wiped tears from their faces as they laughed.

“I need to talk to Echo,” Crosshair said, getting to his feet.

“Why?” Omega asked.

“We need to move faster.”

“Well, don’t count me out of this,” Hunter said. “Let’s go.”

Planet: Ord Mantell
Region: Mid Rim/New Territory
Planet Designation: Mining Planet
Rotation Period: 26 Standard Hours
Class: Terrestrial
Atmosphere: Type I

The Trandoshan’s body slumped heavily against the chair it was bound to, almost knocking it over. CX-2 kicked it, letting the chair and the body fall to the grimy, bloody floor. The clattering and thump that ensued seemed too loud in this quiet office. The body had sustained multiple injuries, but it was the blaster bolt to the chest that had finished the job.

The timing of the Trandoshan’s demise was perfect it would seem because CX-2’s comm was pinging. He patched it through from his ship, and was soon faced with Hemlock.

“Tell me you have an update,” Hemlock said.

“The Trandoshan did not have information as to the whereabouts of Clone Force 99, but she mentioned a pirate they have done mercenary work for.”

“Track that pirate down,” Hemlock ordered.

“As you wish, Doctor.”

The connection ended. CX-2 took one last look at the office he was in, his stomach clenching for some unknown reason.

He marched off through to the lounge. Music was still playing, and something about it seemed to tickle the edge of his brain. Annoyed, he pulled out his pistol and shot the jukebox, the red bolt of energy burning through the machine. The music slowed and glitched, blue sparks of electricity issuing from the dying machine.

Then finally—silence.

CX-2 left, off to locate this pirate.

Chapter Text

Crosshair took a seat beside Echo. “Are there any faster hyperspace lanes? Maybe a way to cut through them?”

“Hello to you too.”

Crosshair sighed, and started searching their maps on the Marauder’s database.

Hunter was behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m… sorry about earlier,” Crosshair admitted. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Echo shook his head, and then gave him a soft smile. “I knew you didn’t. Are you okay?”

“I’ve been worse.”

Omega was by Echo, standing on her tiptoes and occasionally giving little hops to try and see.

“How’s the armor coming along?” he asked her as Crosshair continued to search.

“I’m halfway done.”

“You’ll have to show us.”

“Got it!” Crosshair said. “The lanes are going around something in sector sixteen. If we cut through it—”

“But we don’t even know what it is,” 

Omega gasped, and they all turned to her. “I do!” she exclaimed. “Tech made me memorize it. A star went supernova, and asteroids were caught in the blasts.”

“Is it… safe, generally speaking?” Echo asked.

Omega gave a worried laugh. “I’m not sure small planets forming that haven’t been charted yet would be counted as safe. And there are radioactive winds from the supernova still present.”

“Sounds… lovely,” Crosshair commented.

“Could we fly through it?” Echo asked.

Hunter let out a galaxy-weary sigh. “Tech could.”

The air on the ship suddenly felt too warm, too heavy, like it was pressing right against Crosshair’s skin, begging him to understand how small he was in such a large galaxy. 

“Well, I can’t do statistics,” Crosshair admitted, “but I think we should try it. I want him home.”

“Let’s do it,” Hunter decided.

Echo let Hunter take the first pilot’s seat, and Crosshair stayed where he was. Omega tried to stand in between them, but Echo said “uh-uh” and steered her into the seat behind Crosshair.

“I’ll go tell Wrecker,” Echo said.

The heavy tread of his feet grew quieter behind Crosshair, and then he heard him informing Wrecker.

Wrecker’s voice shook when he responded, “That’s a good plan.”

Echo came back, putting a hand out in front of Omega who looked a little too thrilled about all of this. It… It reminded Crosshair of Tech, of the way his eyes would light up at the craziest things, the way he would talk and talk. Seeing Omega carry part of him with her only strengthened his resolve. They could do this.

“All right, Wrecker’s on board,” Echo said about the plan. “Omega, you’re absolutely certain this cuts through to get us to Coruscant faster?”

“It does.”

“Dropping out of hyperspace,” Hunter said as he and Crosshair began the sequence. “Everyone get ready. Hold onto to something.”

They dropped…

…and were met with vast winds buffeting against the Marauder, slowly trying to turn the ship about. Space was alive with color, with reds and blues, and oranges, and everything in between.

“Wow,” Omega said behind Crosshair.

He didn’t have time to smile about it, as he and Hunter added more power to the thrusters.

“We need our pitch at ninety,” Hunter said.

“I’m trying.”

The ship wobbled in the radioactive winds.

“What if we diverted power from the hyperdrive?” Hunter asked.

“On it,” Crosshair said, keying in the sequence. “On three. One, two… three.”

He and Hunter punched it, power from the engines righting the Marauder and shooting them forward. Now that they were moving it was easier to keep doing so.

A blast of blue gas shot across the viewport, temporarily blinding them to all else that was out there.

Crosshair was breathing hard despite sitting down, though he did have to constantly shift and clench his muscles to remain in his seat.

The blinding wind violently rolled them, and while Hunter tried to right them Crosshair busied himself with the artificial gravity, making the keel their center of gravity. The last thing they needed was getting turned upside down in this.

“Omega, how are you holding up?” Crosshair called.

“You know, just fine.”

“I’m fine too, by the way,” Wrecker called.

Crosshair ignored the playful passive-aggression, suddenly overwhelmed by the proximity sensor.

“Hunter, I think—”

Something smashed into the Marauder from their port side. There was a loud grinding of metal. Hunter rolled the ship with the motion to distribute the pressure rather than fight it. Crosshair gritted his teeth, holding on tightly.

Dark rock filled the viewport, grinding and crunching, and then it was gone, thrown by the violent winds. Crosshair knew a bit about flying in bad weather, had even had some rudimentary pilot’s training during hurricanes. He wasn’t prepared.

This was worse.

What if we can’t do this?

Crosshair tried to slap away the traitorous thought. This had to work.

As he and Hunter pulled the Marauder out of the roll, Crosshair checked the map.

“We’re way off course,” he observed.

Hunter changed the pitch, bringing them in low, avoiding another asteroid chunk.

As a bit of good luck, a flash of wind took them from abaft, and they went with it, shooting forward. This gave the engines a bit of a break from the brutal task they were asking of them.

“Whose brilliant idea was this again?” Hunter asked through gritted teeth.

“Oh, shut up.”

To Crosshair’s surprise Hunter laughed.

He hadn’t heard that in a long time.

It distracted Crosshair, piercing deeply into his chest. For a moment he wasn’t sure where he was anymore, and yet he felt all the time he’d been away from his family stretching out between them. And he was a cadet again, joking around with Hunter, being his usual stoic self to get him to laugh.

“Crosshair, I need you!”

What?

Everything came back to him.

They were getting pushed right into another asteroid chunk.

Oh, kark.

Crosshair tried to judge the strength and direction of the orange winds buffeting them, but he wasn’t a natural at it like Tech was. He didn’t feel the ship the same way. And maybe they needed Tech now.

“If we swoop up—” Crosshair started to suggest.

Instead Hunter started firing their forward guns at it.

“It’ll never break up in time,” he cried.

“With all that wind pushing on it?” Hunter said. “Of course it will.”

Crosshair steeled himself, doing his best to keep the ship steady.

The asteroid started to break up, chunks flying away from it.

“Put power to the forward shields,” Echo recommended.

Crosshair did as he said.

The asteroid wasn’t completely broken up when they smashed into it, but its weakness and their momentum had them crashing through it, Crosshair’s teeth rattling in his skull, feeling like his whole body was vibrating.

“How much further?” Omega asked.

Crosshair checked the map.

“You’re not going to like the answer.”

For a while the winds carried them along, and then a powerful blast hit them from the starboard side, twisting them about, yaw reaching into the negatives. Crosshair thanked himself for working on the artificial gravity earlier as they lurched about. Even then he was still nearly tossed out of his seat and into Hunter.

Wrecker cried out from the stern.

“Wrecker?”

“Omega, no,” Echo cried out.

Crosshair’s neck twinged as he yanked his head about to check on Omega.

She was out of her seat, finding different handholds on the ship as she went to Wrecker. Gonky was nearly hopping and out of control, clearly complaining about the whole ordeal, but he was making his way over to Wrecker too.

Echo tried to reach out for her. She dodged his grip.

The forces against the ship pushed hard against Crosshair, his sinuses aching, diaphragm pressed flat within him, the vacuum it created forcing his body to inhale and inhale. His lungs ached.

Omega somehow made it to Wrecker.

Crosshair had a hell of a time turning his head back around, trying to stay focused on the problem of the ship.

“Is Wrecker okay?” Hunter called.

“I’m fine!” Wrecker responded.

“No, you’re not,” they heard Omega say.

“I’ll get back there,” Echo said.

“Bring the tape from the bag Zalani gave us,” Crosshair suggested. If he was in a relatively healthy body and the push and shove of these winds was too much he could only imagine how hard it was on Wrecker’s neck.

“On it.”

Hunter fought with the ship, trying to get them back on course.

“Tech would love this,” he muttered, voice strained as he was pushed back into his seat, hard.

That strengthened Crosshair’s resolve, and he helped pull the ship out of their uncontrolled spin. But it was almost no use getting them back on track.

“We’re trying to fight too much force,” Crosshair said.

The ship creaked around them.

Oh, that wasn’t good.

“Got it,” Hunter said, suddenly taking them into a dive, going with the winds, green flashing blindingly against the viewport.

It was difficult, but Hunter and Crosshair started to partially get a feel for which way the winds were taking them, though at one point they were stuck spinning in an upward loop, their pitch out of control.

The ship was heating up from the radiation, even through the shields. Crosshair was surprised the shields were still working with all the interference they must be getting.

That was when the map went dead.

“Uh…” was all Hunter got out.

He and Crosshair worked to level the Marauder, trying to keep it as still as possible.

“Kark. Do you remember our relative position?” Crosshair asked.

Hunter shook his head, sweat beading on his face, wetting his hair. “I don’t know. Possibly.”

“That’s better than nothing.”

Crosshair tried to remember which part of the ship the map got power through. The Marauder was still like a strange home to him, and his memories of its workings hadn’t all come back to him.

“Echo!” he called. “We have a problem. Get over here.”

Echo rushed over, mechno-legs keeping him steadier than everyone else.

“What’s the problem?”

“Map’s dead. We need it fixed.”

Echo called to Gonky, asking him where the tools were.

He grabbed the toolkit and came back over, diving under the console.

An alarm went off.

“Engines are overheating,” Hunter said. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep us here.”

Echo busied himself with unscrewing a panel, making Crosshair hold the tools. He tried to keep them in his lap, one hand still on the yoke. And all the while it felt like vibrations from the ship were being sent directly through his bones.

“How’s Wrecker?” Crosshair forced out, fighting against the pressure in his lungs.

“Needed more tape,” Echo said. “But I think he wrenched his neck.”

A shudder that had nothing to do with the massive forces against him went through his body. He couldn’t even imagine the pain.

“Omega’s keeping him steady.”

“Did you tell her to be careful?”

“Wow, you are worse than Hunter.”

Crosshair scoffed.

“But yes, I did.”

“All right, I’m rolling us,” Hunter said.

Echo pressed a button near his hip, and there was a slight zhing as his legs magnetized to the deck.

“Why can’t I have that?” Crosshair wondered.

“You have to get blown up first,” Echo said.

“Never mind.”

Echo laughed, somehow. He handed Crosshair the loose screws so they wouldn’t go flying at anyone as the ship rolled (the last thing they needed was an impaled eye). The panel was resting beneath one of his knees.

Crosshair’s legs knocked into Echo as the ship rolled.

Omega gave a short cry, as did Wrecker.

Crosshair gritted his teeth, probably injuring his neck more as he wrenched his head around to get a look at Omega.

Omega wasn’t sure she’d ever held onto something harder in her life than she did right then. Pain flared in her right hand from her broken finger, traveling into her wrist, but she didn’t let go.

She tensed her core, trying to keep close to Wrecker. She’d managed to add more tape to support his head better, but it had been wrenched with all the forces against them.

“Some… plan,” he said, sweating hard, panting.

“Hang in there,” she told him. “Just hang in there.”

She wished she could reach out for his face, but with how they were getting thrown around she worried she’d accidentally smack him. Helping him with the tape had been hard enough.

“Breathe with me,” Omega said.

With the way Wrecker was positioned he unfortunately had the problem of exhaling too much.

Omega leaned into the gunner’s mount, resting her head against him, trying with all her might to keep it there.

She started breathing, fighting the way forces pulled at her lungs and diaphragm. With her head resting against Wrecker he started doing his best to breathe in time with her.

Omega hoped he didn’t feel her tears.

Crosshair saw Echo’s left arm work hard to hold himself in place more as he turned his head back around. He wished there was room in all this craziness to help him rather than just hold tools for him.

Wiring hung down above him, and Echo yelped as he touched one, pulling his hand back.

“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked.

“The wires are burning hot. I don’t know if I can get the map back. Everything seems to be overloaded.”

“What’s going on?” Omega called to them.

“Map’s dead,” Echo answered.

Crosshair didn’t want Omega traversing the ship during all of this, and he watched her crash into a seat, probably bruising her ribs, but she righted herself and kept going.

“Maybe we don’t need the map.”

“Of course we do,” Hunter said.

Omega pointed starboard and what was currently “up” to them. “We have to go that way.”

Crosshair started helping Echo put the panel back over the heated wiring.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Tech wanted me to remember the layout of the galaxy. Plus, it’s… a feeling.”

“Beats destroying the engines by staying here,” Hunter said. He glanced over his shoulder at Omega who was hovering. “Sit down.”

“Yes, sir.” She mock saluted him.

“You’re lucky you’re not trying that lip with Crosshair.”

Echo got up, taking the tools, and sat beside Omega.

Hunter followed her directions, a rainbow of colors blasting around them. It would have been beautiful if they weren’t constantly two seconds away from dying.

A glance back while the wind carried them showed Omega looking out with intense concentration, ignoring everything else.

“Stop!” she suddenly called.

Hunter and Crosshair wrenched up on their yokes in surprise, the job so sloppy that they were almost thrown in a backwards spin. Crosshair was drenched in sweat at this point. The Marauder seemed close to its breaking point. And then, carried by an almost gentle wind, they came out of the chaos.

Everything in the ship seemed too still save for their heavy breathing. Smoke curled off the sides of the Marauder which soon turned into crystals of ice that covered the whole viewport. The Marauder creaked as the vacuum of space rapidly cooled it.

The map came back online, and the engines stopped beeping a red warning light.

“We actually made it,” Hunter said. “Good job, Omega.”

“Yeah, good job!” Wrecker called.

Crosshair leaned back in his seat, panting.

“We are a go to make the jump to hyperspace.”

The familiar jolt as space stretched around them twinged in Crosshair’s neck. He started rubbing it, taking in the state of the ship on the monitors. By now the ice had melted away, and everything was reaching its regular temperature and operating levels.

Still, the Marauder had gone through quite the ordeal.

Echo groaned. “Tech’s gonna kill us.”

Everyone laughed until the joke truly hit them.

Fatigue took over every one of Omega’s muscles. She hadn’t felt this tired since she’d started her training. And her mind felt tired too, probably from trying to remember the way out of the ruins of the star. She still wasn’t exactly sure how she had done it, but it was like when she’d had perfect aim the first time she’d ever fired a blaster.

“Did the shortcut work, at least?” she asked, wiping her sweaty hair back from her face.

“You did good, kid,” Hunter said. “We’re now one rotation out from Coruscant.”

No one cheered now. The four of them looked back towards Wrecker, already seemingly so alone.

Omega went straight to the cockpit after she was done with her turn in the sonic. She’d managed to wrangle her hair into a messy ponytail this time, sans splint, but knowing Hunter and Crosshair would bug her about it, she’d put it back on first. She wasn’t going to tell them about the black and blue bruises coloring her left side either. Besides, they were all quite literally shaken up.

Hunter, Crosshair, and Echo were still checking over the ship to see if everything was back to normal.

“And the engine?” Hunter asked as Omega sat herself down near him, wincing as her bruises were pulled on. She shifted in her seat.

“Looks like it checks out,” Echo said.

A snore from Wrecker broke through, and after checking him over, Crosshair closed the cockpit door, clearly not wanting to wake him.

Omega had been banished to her room earlier while Hunter and Crosshair had helped clean Wrecker up after their ordeal. Now he was resting somewhat comfortably.

She wanted to go to him, stay by his side… say goodbye.

But she stayed where she was, knowing there was nothing she could do with him right now, that while he slept there was no way to show she cared (well, she had tucked Lula into his arms for him as a surprise).

“Wait, wait, wait,” Hunter said, taking her in.

“What?”

“Let me fix your hair. Come on, turn around.”

Omega did as he said, sitting cross-legged as she faced the back of the seat. Hunter took the cord out and started brushing his fingers through her hair.

She relaxed into it, and could almost pretend this was a normal moment for all of them, that they weren’t rushing towards Wrecker’s doom on some wild chance to save Tech.

Omega held her gut, remembering the branch sticking out of Tech.

All was silent for a bit, and Crosshair spoke haltingly, raspy voice barely over a whisper, “I… want to go with Wrecker.”

Omega twirled around so fast that she accidently made Hunter yank on her hair.

He released her quickly.

“Excuse me?” Omega asked.

Crosshair had his head down, and he was shaking again. “I know what he’ll be subjected to, and I… I can’t let him do it alone.”

Omega started to feel too hot, cheeks reddening. To her surprise she brushed past Hunter and grabbed Crosshair by the collar of his borrowed tunic he’d changed into.

All those lonely, dark months came back to her, those months of sitting outside Crosshair’s cell, seeing him more broken and hopeless with each passing day, listening to him say he belonged in Tantiss when she tried to get him out.

 She had gotten him out! She’d worked so hard for him, and now he wanted to throw it all away?

“No!” she cried, shaking him. “I can’t let you do that. You got out, I got you out. Please, why would you want to go back!”

“For Wrecker! For Tech!”

“What, so you can just lose hope again? Is that it? I watched you lose yourself,” she cried. “I worked so hard for both of us, and you’re going to shove it all down a trash compactor? You’ll just break again, and who’s gonna be there to get you out? Who? Because it’s not going to be me!”

Suddenly, Omega realized what she was doing, who she was screaming at.

Crosshair’s eyes were big, and hurt seemed to grow in them.

She released him, stumbling back.

“Oh stars, I’m sorry,” she said between gasps. “Crosshair, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t—”

“No, you’re right,” he sighed, looking away, rubbing at the left side of his neck. “I did… break in there.”

“Then don’t. Go,” she pleaded, reaching out to him, but pulling back, feeling like she couldn’t even touch him in this moment. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Crosshair, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Omega hoped if she said sorry enough that it would stop this, stop him from going. Blast, what if she’d ruined it all by screaming at him? And that wasn’t her, that wasn’t the kind of person she was, or wanted to be.

Still, anger burned in her. At him, at herself, at everything.

Omega grabbed her cord from Hunter, muttering, “I’ll take care of it myself.”

“Omega!” Echo called, quickly followed by Hunter’s, and Crosshair’s voices.

As she left, cockpit door sliding closed behind her she heard Hunter very strictly telling Crosshair that under no circumstances was he allowing more of his squad to enter Tantiss.

Omega wrenched her hair back into a messy ponytail as she passed by Wrecker, and her anger fueled into a fine point.

We’ll see about that.

Chapter Text

“Crosshair, you know your plan is crazy,” Hunter said, wiping a hand over his face and all but collapsing into the seat next to his brother. His whole body ached from being shaken about during their trip, but the plan had worked. That’s what mattered.

Yet now… it was almost time to say goodbye to Wrecker.

“We don’t need anyone else going to Tantiss, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.”

“I’m gonna go check on Omega,” Echo said.

As he passed by Crosshair he put a hand on his shoulder, and Hunter was a tad surprised when Crosshair didn’t pull away or shoot him an annoyed look.

They sat in silence after Echo left.

Finally, Hunter said, “I’m sorry she said those things to you.”

Crosshair shook his head, and fished out a toothpick from wherever he kept them.

“Don’t be. That was her choice. And she’s right, too.”

“But—”

“Stop. You weren’t there, Hunter. She’s right. I just sat in my cell, day after day, losing… losing everything. Omega saved me. She… she saved parts of me I didn’t know could be saved.”

“She’s really scared, isn’t she?” Hunter surmised.

“Yep.”

Hunter was afraid, feeling like he was watching his family slip through his fingers.

“You still want to go, don’t you?” Hunter asked. “Even though I’m ordering you not to.”

“Wrecker’s terrified,” Crosshair argued. “I feel like a… I feel like… I feel like an Imperial again,” he spat. “This plan, it could work, but it’s… it’s evil.”

“Crosshair, look at me.”

Crosshair dug his head in his hands, shoulders shaking with hitched, dry sobs. Hunter got on his knees before him, holding his wrists.

“Look at me,” he demanded, giving him a gentle shake.

Crosshair did so, eyes dark and haunted.

“You are not that person anymore. You’re not fighting for the Empire, you’re not taking their orders. You’re with us, your family, like you always wanted.”

“Tech’s not here.”

“That’s the point. That’s what we’re fighting for. It’s what Wrecker’s fighting for. It’s up to us to all do this, to help him with this mission. He’s making the sacrifice. You don’t have to. You’ve already done enough.”

Crosshair nodded, but was trembling slightly.

“I can’t in good conscience let you go back there,” Hunter told him. “I don’t even want Wrecker to go, but we have to respect that he’s doing this for all of us. What we’re doing does not make us like them. We are not Imperials. It’s their fault that we have to make these sacrifices. It’s them who took our brother away from us, who tortured him. And now it’s up to us to save him. That’s what we’re doing.”

Crosshair laughed quietly, surprising Hunter somewhat. He sat back on his heels.

“I forgot how good you are at inspirational speeches,” Crosshair said. “Remind me, did you take training courses for those?”

Hunter laughed, and patted him on the arm.

“Oh, it’s good to have you around.”

Crosshair let out a huge breath, and he straightened, resuming chewing on his toothpick.

He leaned back, and Hunter took a seat again.

“Do you… have any holopics of Tech?” Crosshair eventually asked. “I never got to see how he painted his armor. Omega was telling me about it.”

Tears pricked at Hunter’s sinuses.

Well, he hadn’t expected that.

He tried to speak, but his voice got caught. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, yes. Of course. I’ll go get them.”

Hunter left the cockpit to search his belongings. Wrecker was still snoring, and he heard soft conversation coming from Omega’s room. He wanted to check on her, and still wanted to offer help with her hair, but if Echo was getting through to her he didn’t want to interrupt. And he trusted everyone on this ship to take care of Omega, trusted that they all cared for her equally.

Hunter stood there for a bit once he found the holopics. They were mostly group shots, though there was one of Tech by himself, hands out to present himself in his new clothes and armor design. He could tell by looking at his eyes that there had been a smile on his face.

Hunter… hadn’t looked at these in a long time. He’d buried them in his bag, hoping he wouldn’t look at them. Funny how he kept the goggles with Tech’s blood on them, but a holopic was too much.

Even now, he grasped the holopics tightly, fighting to get his breathing under control.

Tech looked happy.

He had been happy.

Could he… ever be happy again? What would he be like once they saved him? Was Tech even still Tech in there? Had the Empire killed his brother twice, leaving them with nothing but a tortured, perverted facsimile? Would Tech truly ever exist again?

Hunter wondered if in a way it would have been easier for him to have stayed dead to all of them.

The thought was selfish, and he did his best to brush it aside.

Tech needed them, even if he didn’t know it.

That’s what this was all for. All their suffering was for their brother.

Hunter composed himself, wiping at his face, and went back into the cockpit to hand the holopics to Crosshair.

Crosshair’s right hand trembled as he took them.

“He looks… happy,” Crosshair observed in a tight, quiet voice, thoughts probably similar to Hunter’s own.

“Yeah.”

“I would say he has good taste in clothes, but not like clones have ever been allowed a fashion sense.”

Hunter laughed at that, and suddenly missed his scarf, touching at his collarbones, remembering the feel of it.

Crosshair huffed, and Hunter leaned in to see which holopic he was looking at.

“You wore a scarf,” Crosshair said, voice flat, and low-key condescending.

Hunter crossed his arms, and smiled. “Yeah.”

“Wow, we really don’t know anything about fashion.”

Hunter laughed, but it died quickly. He shouldn’t be allowed to laugh, not now, not till all of his family was safe. They were racing towards Wrecker’s torture, and he was laughing.

Guilt struck him, wrapping around his stomach and squeezing like some vile, slimy disease invading his body.

Crosshair held up the holopic of Tech showing off his new look.

“I… have something I need to work on,” Crosshair said.

Hunter leaned in, raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Crosshair huffed at him. “You’ll see.” 

“You know I can hear almost everything on this ship, right?” he asked, unable to help the small, amused smile on his face.

“Well, then turn your ears off, or something.” He got up to leave, but then turned back slightly, holding the holopics close. “Thanks for these. They… mean a lot.”

“Yeah, they do.”

Crosshair left to work on his secret project—whatever it was—cockpit door sliding closed.

Hunter turned back to the map, looking at how much time they had left with Wrecker.

Despite his words to Crosshair being true he couldn’t help but understand where he was coming from. Hunter, too, felt like an Imperial. They infected everything.

“You know you’re gonna have to apologize to Crosshair at some point,” Echo said, fiddling with Omega’s trooper doll.

She sighed, shoulders sloping down. “I know. I want to. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

“Echo, what if this plan doesn’t work?” Omega asked. “There are a lot of uncontrolled variables, a lot of what ifs. What if…” She paused, and then tried again, “What if… Never mind.”

Echo frowned, looking Omega over. She hadn’t explained why she’d blown up at Crosshair, though her fear of losing any of them was palpable, practically coming off of her in waves. Omega wasn’t a bad kid. She didn’t hurt people. There was a reason for her words.

Though something didn’t quite sit right with Echo about her. Maybe it was his training, or maybe his parenting he’d learned for her. He kept it on his mind, deciding he’d be paying close attention.

Omega wasn’t one to give up on the people she loved, which could get dangerous. She was planning something. He just didn’t know what.

Echo sighed, and leaned his head back against the bulkhead. Back to the plan—their crazy plan.

As a former ARC trooper he didn’t like a plan that was so loose, but as a member of Clone Force 99 he had adapted his thinking to theirs. Their plans were often full of improvisation and unknown variables. He had gotten used to it, fallen into their routine, but ever since Tech…

There was a lot Echo was uncomfortable with, but they had to start somewhere.

“It is a risky plan,” he admitted after a slow wince.

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t really think of anything else. I think what we need to focus on now is how we get Wrecker arrested. It’ll be hard to be convincing with… with the state he’s in.”

Echo looked towards the side, imagining he could see through the curtain, see through to Wrecker, see his brother’s pain.

Echo would take his place if he could, especially if Wrecker truly didn’t need the medical help the Empire could provide. But he did. This was on him, not Echo, or anyone else.

Yet Echo knew all too well what it was like to be a victim of all this—used by others, body nothing more than a tool, pain not mattering to anyone no matter how much you screamed.

White flashed in Echo’s mind, memories of seeing his ruined body be turned into something else. Oddly, he couldn’t quite remember all the pain. It had been so intense that it was like a hole in his mind. 

Still, he remembered enough.

“Echo?”

Omega was lightly tapping his knee.

He turned back to her.

“Hmm?”

She shuffled closer to him. “Are you okay?”

He pulled her in against his side, and draped his arm over her shoulders.

“I’ll be all right.”

He shifted a bit as he got an itch in his right side, and in a spot he knew very well that he couldn’t reach without at least a few stretches first. Omega noticed, and simply asked, “Where?”

He told her, and she casually scratched the itch for him.

“Do you need any tune-ups?” she asked. “Before we go into the fight.”

Echo ran through his various “enhancements” and his scomp and legs. The scomp itself was directly connected to his nervous system, so that was easy to keep track of. He whirred it as a test, and it seemed fine. His head brace hadn’t presented any problems recently, and it was keeping some of his pain to a minimum. Small shifts of his legs let him test their functionality. There was some delay in motion where his tailbone was supposed to be. Hmm… Could he ignore that?

Probably not, especially with everything they had on the line.

Doing any kinds of tune-ups or repairs there was incredibly difficult, and he had usually had Tech help him with it, but he knew Omega had learned a lot.

“Yeah. You mind helping?”

Omega leaned in, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

“Not at all.”

This way he could also keep a close eye on  her.

Wrecker woke to way too much noise, and he was alarmed at first. Crosshair was in front of him spraying something, the aerosolized container hissing like a Caskan wolf-snake, there was whirring from Omega’s room while Echo sat on the steps (he was probably getting a tune-up), and Gonky was gonking indignantly, and pressing repeatedly into Wrecker’s rack, timing the thumps with his gonks.

Wrecker put a hand to his head, and closed his eyes.

Too much. It’s too much.

Finally, he said to Gonky: “I’m sorry, but I can’t lift you right now.”

Then he eyed Crosshair, who wasn’t exactly succeeding at keeping what he was doing a secret, but he certainly was hunched over his project, armor strewn about.

“What’s that?” Wrecker asked.

“None of your business.”

Wrecker groaned, and rolled out of his rack, feet unsteady on the floor from pain. There had hardly been any relief in his sleep, and he was so tired it was hard to think.

“How far out are we?” he asked after blinking slowly, trying to bring the galaxy into focus.

“I’m busy.”

“You don’t have to be rude,” Wrecker complained.

A toothpick went flying at him over Crosshair’s head, and bounced harmlessly off of his shoulder.

“Hey, was that in your mouth?” he asked, complaint evident in his voice.

“Maybe.”

Wrecker growled at him, and then went over to the cockpit to talk with Hunter about Coruscant.

Hunter was eyeing the many buttons and systems in the cockpit when he came in. Wrecker collapsed into the closest seat he could, shaking from just the few steps he’d had to take.

“How long till…” he started to ask, but found his eyes tearing up, and he couldn’t say the words.

“Twenty-two standard hours.”

“So that gives us time to plan.”

“It does.” Hunter wasn’t looking at him.

Why was no one looking at him?

They’re already trying to process my… eventual absence.

“I’m still right here, you know,” Wrecker said, anger injected into his voice.

That got Hunter to look.

Wrecker had seen a lot of suffering from Hunter in the recent year, had seen it from all of them, but the guilt on Hunter’s face now was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It drew his features down, and tightened them, had his eyes trying to dart away. He was hunched in on himself, holding his hands together tightly, and pressing against his knuckles.

“This is my choice,” Wrecker affirmed.

Hunter nodded, swallowing roughly. “I know. I know. And we all respect that, and…”

Before Wrecker knew it Hunter was coming towards him, and holding him close, careful to not touch his injury or move his head too much.

“I never got to hold Tech enough,” Hunter explained. “I never got to tell him how much he mattered to all of us. I had thought that— I don’t know, I guess I expected we would die, but I never imagined saying goodbye. I need you to know that I love you.”

Wrecker wanted to bury his head against Hunter’s shoulder, but it refused to move in the right way, and he hissed in a pained breath.

Hunter immediately withdrew, but stayed in the circle of Wrecker’s raised arm he had been about to hold against his back.

“I know you love me,” Wrecker said. Then he joked, “Who wouldn’t love this?”

Hunter laughed a little.

“An idiot,” he responded. “An idiot who has no idea just how wonderful you are, in every way. Things are going to be too quiet without you.”

Things were already too quiet without Tech.

That’s why I’m doing this.

“Th-thanks, Hunter. I really appreciate it.”

Hunter sat next to him, and Wrecker tried to find the right words for what he wanted to say next.

Hunter, knowing him so well, started, “What’s on your mind?”

“Omega. She wants to help with this mission. I told her I’d talk to you about it for her.”

Hunter was nodding. “How about we plan first? Then decide.”

“You know that’s a stupid idea. Omega could add a lot to our plan. You can’t just throw her in as an afterthought.”

“She is not an afterthought!”

Hunter’s dark eyes smoldered. Wrecker held his gaze.

“Then stop treating her like one. I was there too,” Wrecker said. “I lost Omega too. She’s good in a fight, she’s smart, she’s had training from almost all of us.”

“We are not losing her again.”

“Hunter, we’re gonna lose her if we don’t let her fight. Maybe not today, but she might choose to fight without us. She needs to know we believe in her.”

“I do!”

“Good, then put her on the mission.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is simple.”

Hunter swirled his chair away. Over the last months he had changed. They all had. But this was Wrecker’s leader, a man who was usually the one to de-escalate situations, not start them. Hunter didn’t push against walls; he hardly put them up. He moved them aside and kept going.

Wrecker just wanted him to keep going.

“You’re not being fair,” Wrecker told him.

What was fair about him making decisions that would rob Omega of agency, that would rob her of her confidence? What was fair about Wrecker shouldering these burdens when he had lost Omega too?

“Then what do I do?”

Wrecker crossed his arms. “You know what to do. I’m not doing this without her.”

Hunter whirled around in his seat. “You’d stop the whole mission—getting Tech back—for this?”

“You would have a few months ago.”

“A few months ago? A few months ago? Tech died! Omega got hurt. Omega was captured.”

“I. Was. There! Or do you not remember I was on my knees surrounded by troopers when Hemlock gave you Tech’s goggles?”

Hunter flinched, turning his head away. “Wrecker, I know— I didn’t mean.”

“We need Omega,” Wrecker insisted. “Don’t be the reason we lose her again.”

“It was my fault to begin with.”

Oh.

Oh. Was that the heart of the problem?

Wrecker lowered his voice. “You know that’s not true, and if any of us thought something similar you’d say the same thing. You know it’s the Empire’s fault,” Wrecker told him. “They do a lot of evil. Don’t go making their job easier for them.”

Hunter lowered his head, fingering the hilt of his knife, squeezing it.

“I’m…” He swallowed roughly, and when he lifted up his head, Wrecker saw a change come over him, his shoulders down and back, spine straight, face hard, but open and willing.

Here was the determined leader he knew, here was the strength he needed. Hunter had shown this side of himself when he had approved the plan, but this was something different, something stronger.

“You’re right. Wrecker, I am so sorry. All this time, and you’ve been shouldering my burden.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. 

Wrecker could be quick to anger. but he was also quick to cool off; he wasn’t one to hold grudges.

“I promise to do better.”

“Good. They’re gonna need you when I’m… gone.” 

Wrecker felt a shudder deep in his abdomen at the truth of his words, at his admittance. Tech’s and Crosshair’s screams sounded in his head.

“Omega’s on the mission,” Hunter said, drawing Wrecker back to the here and now, to the present in which he was hurtling towards his own demise. “We—we can’t do it without her.”

Wrecker almost tried to nod, but enough time with this pain gave him pause.

“I’ll go tell her,” Hunter said, standing.

“You sure? Crosshair has all his shab in the way.”

Hunter grinned. “He’ll just have to deal with it.”

As he passed he put a hand on Wrecker’s good shoulder, and nodded. “Thank you.”

“Aw, any time, Sarge.”

As Hunter opened the door to the rest of the ship, Crosshair scoffed. “What did I tell you?”

“You’re being a child.”

“You’re a child.”

“I’m… actually the child?” Omega chimed in, sounding a bit hesitant to speak since Crosshair would hear her. Yet it was easy to imagine she was raising her hand.

Wrecker laughed as the door closed, his pain very nearly lessening for a second or two.

Hours later they were all jammed into the cockpit, Omega in her half-painted armor, Gonky in the middle of them, showing them a holomap of the planet. It slowly rotated between them, lighting their faces in blue.

“I think the way we want to do this is to make it look like we’re there to steal something: cargo, information, anything,” Hunter said.

“Hmm… What if we do steal something?” Echo asked. “Rex has been wanting information about clone assignments. He’s keeping track of decommissioning.”

Crosshair shook his head. “No, we’ll be stretching ourselves too thin.”

“You’re probably right,” Echo agreed, but he crossed his arms, showing his discontent.

“We could get inside the Senate Building again, make it seem like we’re there for political information,” Omega suggested.

“Too risky,” Wrecker added.

They all sat around, trying to think.

“Whatever we do we need to keep it simple,” Hunter said. “Remember, this is not the mission. This is only the beginning. We’re starting a marathon here, and we all have to make it to the end.”

Wrecker suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. He swallowed it down, but fear had him in a cold sweat. There wasn’t much time left. He’d have to say goodbye to his family, and now he wasn’t sure he could even do that.

“What if we just plant one of our crates of supplies somewhere with some Imperial traffic?” Wrecker asked, trying to think of only this plan, and not what would be past it, not to… Hemlock. “We make a big deal about trying to run away with it, and we accidentally get caught.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Echo commented, which made Wrecker glow with pride, and for a bit it cut through the nausea.

Hunter put a hand on his chin, peering at the map.

Omega was doing the same thing.

“Let’s hit the former Grand Republic Medical Facility,” Hunter suggested. “We don’t have to get inside—which is good because it could withstand a siege. It’s heavily guarded, and has defensive shields. Get close enough and we’re bound to draw someone’s attention. We can set down a klick away. Omega, Wrecker, and I can plant the crate.”

“I want to go with Wrecker in your stead,” Crosshair interjected.

Omega crossed her arms, and Crosshair rolled his eyes at her.

“I don’t mean to go with him, just to help. I can probably scale part of the tower and keep an eye out.”

Hunter was shaking his head. “No, Wrecker still needs someone else to watch his six, and I was thinking—Wrecker, how do you feel about faking your injury?”

“Not like it’ll be hard,” he said.

“You can run for a bit, and pretend to go down. That way they’ll take this seriously. But we’ll need to remove your bandages and tape for it.”

Wrecker thought of how his head listed, the pain he was in.

“Oh.”

“If you can’t—”

“I’ll do it,” Wrecker said.

“Good. After you pretend to get hurt, Omega can signal Crosshair and Echo to move in.”

“I don’t like this idea,” Crosshair said. “Why not put me where I’m actually useful? They’ll expect me to be the eye in the sky. Let’s play into that expectation.”

“No, I don’t—”

“Hunter,” Omega said, “let him do it. It’s what he’s good at.”

Hunter straightened. “Yes, ma’am.”

Crosshair’s right hand trembled, and everyone pretended to not look at it, though Wrecker had a harder time turning away.

“So we fight our way out. Echo, can you fly the Marauder, just until Crosshair and I have planted the trackers?”

He shrugged. “I’ve figured it out one-handed.”

“Good. You’ll fly us in. We might have to give chase to the ship they take Wrecker on, just to give them the impression that this is for real.”

Hammering out the details of this was not making Wrecker feel good. At all.

He was shaking, and he wanted it to stop because the vibrations went right to his damaged muscle, burning, tingling like electricity, aching.

He groaned, and put a hand over the wound, touch light, his brain telling him he needed to protect himself.

Was it too hot and crowded in here?

Wrecker tried to look at the map, then noticed Omega was in his face. When had that happened?

“Wrecker? Wrecker, what’s wrong?”

“Sick,” was all he managed to get out, voice rough and strangled.

He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenched tight, stomach roiling.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up.

In his current state that would hurt quite a lot, and he was exhausted enough as it was.

A hand was on him, and he was too out of it to realize whose, too out of it to care.

“Hey, it’s okay.” A lie. “Look at me.”

“Cross?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

Wrecker groaned, and opened his eyes a crack. He was met with Crosshair’s worried face—an emotion that had been a rarity before Omega had saved him from Tantiss.

“You can do this,” Crosshair said. “I believe in you.”

The words felt hollow, but there was no other way out.

There was only through.

He exhaled, and realized Omega was holding his hand.

Gonky was rudely bumping up against Crosshair, telling him to get out of the way.

Tech, Wrecker thought. You’re doing this for Tech.

He remembered his failure on Eriadu. That was the thing—Tech’s fall wasn’t on Hunter. It was on him. He remembered Hunter’s very specific order of, “Wrecker, get him on board!” And he’d failed. He’d watched him shoot the rail line, watching him fall, unable to reach him, unable to even say goodbye.

Wrecker had never stopped seeing that, wracked with guilt every time he closed his eyes. Here, he could fix it. No one else had to fall. No one else.

No one else.

Wrecker took a shuddering inhale, then let the air out slowly.

He opened his eyes, and said to all the worried faces, “I’m good. Let’s run through the plan again.”

Crosshair was back to working on his secret project. Wrecker had forced down a ration bar at Omega’s insistence. They were spending their time pacing now, checking weapons and gear, not talking, some of them running over their parts of the plan out loud, and none of them could sleep.

Wrecker was sick of doing nothing, of sitting around. He went over the plan till he knew it front and back, despite his part in it being small, and he had a tracker on him, just in case.

At least with the plan Omega would have his back—something that made him feel safe. He was glad she would be doing something. She was a talented kid, and he wouldn’t want anyone else by his side.

Eventually, Hunter said, “Thirty minutes out.”

They all tensed.

Wrecker worked his tongue over his teeth, gut clenching.

And now, he just had to figure out when the right time to say his goodbyes were.

He pressed a hand against Gonky’s head, murmuring to him, “You’re gonna have to be okay without me, all right?”

Gonk.

“I know, I know. But I’ll be back.” I hope. “You’ll just have to go without being lifted for awhile. It’s gonna be okay.”

Gonky pressed against him.

“I’m sorry, but I have to,” Wrecker insisted. “Tech… Tech needs me. If things go right, we’ll all be together again soon, okay?”

GONK.

Wrecker sighed, not surprised Gonky wasn’t taking this well.

“Wrecker, I need you,” Hunter said, drawing Wrecker away from this very important conversation. Well, if Gonky didn’t want to listen right now, then there wasn’t a point anyway.

Wrecker painstakingly made his way to Hunter.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I just want to go over your part of the plan again,” he said. “For when you’re on Tantiss.”

Wrecker had to stop himself from nodding.

“You escape your cell as fast as you can, however you can. You find a communications array, a control center—anything. And all you have to do is beam out the coordinates. Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got this.”

“Okay, good.”

Hunter’s face turned hard and cold, and Wrecker knew what this was now.

He came forward and wrapped Hunter in an awkward one-arm hug. He never wanted to let go.

Planet: Coruscant
Region: Core
Planet Designation: Throneworld
Rotation Period: 24 Standard Hours
Class: Ecumenopolis
Atmosphere: Type I

Echo put a steadying hand on Wrecker’s shoulder as they dropped out of hyperspace and Coruscant filled their view, the vast planet lit in beautiful designs like blazing connecting constellations, the orange and gold lights a testament to the wonder of the lifeforms living on it. They all knew the ugly side to Coruscant, but for now it just looked, well… beautiful.

Wrecker swallowed roughly.

This was it.

Thanks to Tech having given them a scrambled signature over a year ago they were able to pass a cursory inspection, and were on their way.

Hunter set the Marauder down a klick south of the former Grand Republic Medical Facility, enough levels down from it that they wouldn’t look suspicious. Besides, the lower levels were easy to hide in.

They all waited, no one moving to lower the ramp.

“Well, here we are,” Hunter said.

Wrecker stood, prompting the others to stand—though Crosshair still wasn’t present, and Wrecker felt his stomach clench at not being able to say goodbye to him.

Wrecker didn’t even know where to start.

Making this a real goodbye would be too difficult, he decided.

“So,” he began, “I guess this is it. I promise I’ll see all of you again soon. Even you, Gonky.” 

The droid shuffled in place, awkwardly turning. Aw, man, he’s still mad? That didn’t stop Wrecker from putting a hand on his head.

Gonk.

He sighed.

Omega rushed him in a hug despite the fact they’d be together on the mission. Her armor looked good, even half-painted as it was.

She stepped back, shifting her hold of her helmet under her arm, and she looked so serious. Maybe too serious for a thirteen year old, but there was no turning back now, not after all they’d been through.

Wrecker ended up hugging everyone he could, but glanced to where Crosshair was still working.

“Will he be ready in time?” Wrecker whispered to everyone in the cockpit.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Hunter said.

Hunter took his forearm, giving it a squeeze.

“Wrecker, you’re one of the bravest men I know. We’ll see you soon. Get better, okay?”

“Yes, Sarge.”

Echo clasped his forearm next despite the hug they’d already shared.

“You can do this, Wrecker. I’m gonna miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

Omega held his hand.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Hunter said.

As they were about to leave, the cockpit door opened, and Crosshair stepped out, saying, “Were you going to leave without me?”

Everyone gasped upon seeing him.

Gone was the black and red of his armor. Standing before them was…

His armor was white, orange stripes placed with care where Tech’s orange stripes had been on his own armor. It looked different with Crosshair’s specially designed sniper armor, and he’d added some orange to the legs, but he was… He was Tech.

Wrecker’s vision blurred with unshed tears, and he gasped. Or perhaps he had just swallowed back a sob.

Crosshair hefted his rifle.

“You look…” Hunter started before trailing off.

He gave a sad smile, hanging his head.

“Your armor looks wonderful, Cross.”

“Good. Do you know how hard it is to paint with a hand tremor?” he asked, trying to be casual about the heartbreaking tribute he had created.

Everyone laughed a little, pretending they weren’t sobs they shared.

Wrecker put a hand on Crosshair’s shoulder, lips pulled tight and trembling as he tried to hold back tears.

One fell from his left eye, rolling down his cheek.

“Oh, don’t cry on me, Wrecker,” Crosshair said.

“I’m not… crying,” he argued.

Omega squeezed her way past Wrecker, hands running over the armor.

Crosshair leaned against her.

Sniffling sounded from behind Wrecker, and he closed his eyes, trying to keep it together.

“Come on,” Echo said. “Let’s get going.”

Wrecker nodded, looking at each member of his family, and the member that wasn’t there. He studied them, their faces sad, grim, determined.

“For Tech,” Wrecker said.

“For Tech,” they all responded.

Hunter was the first off the ship, putting his helmet on as he stepped out onto the planet.

Omega was following in the back when Echo grabbed her arm. She bristled, but otherwise didn’t fight it. Yet something told her something was off, an instinct of some sort, or maybe her training.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Echo asked.

Now?

“Sure.”

He knows, he knows, he knows.

But how could he know?

Omega was glad Hunter had assigned her to keep an eye on Wrecker. After all she had to be close by to sneak onto the ship they’d be taking him on.

Her part of the plan was easy, and really, they didn’t need her for anything past the beginning. She could do it. She could sneak on board.

Echo drew her aside, and next thing she knew a binder was on her right wrist. She dropped her helmet in surprise. It clattered to the deck, the 99 face up.

“What?”

Before she knew it he had manhandled her towards the safety seats by the computers, and the other end of the binder was closing around the handle.

“Echo!” she cried. She tugged at the binders, the tried to kick him, she reached out for him. “Echo, wait! Wait!”

“I’m sorry, Omega. I can’t let you go with Wrecker.”

Omega screamed as Echo began to leave the Marauder.

The others didn’t seem to hear her screaming, or they had known of Echo’s plan.

No, no, NO!

Oh stars, no. No. Please, please, please, please, please…

Omega pulled at the binders till her wrist hurt, till pain went up into her broken finger.

“Echo, let me go! Let me go!”

He ignored her. The ramp closed behind him.

“What’s going on?” she heard through the comms on her helmet, where it sat on the floor, the 99 looking like nothing but betrayal. Hunter.

Echo explained the situation, and Omega kept screaming.

No one came for her.

“I’m sorry, Omega,” Hunter said.

“I’m sorry, too.” Crosshair.

She didn’t want their karking apologies! She wanted to go with Wrecker. He needed her. She didn’t want him to do this alone. She couldn’t let him do this alone.

Omega collapsed to the deck, arm held at an awkward angle, and she sobbed.

“Let me out,” she begged. “Let me go. Please.”

No answer.

Omega pleaded in every way she knew how, but it wasn’t enough. The world grew blurry from her tears, her sobs hurting her chest. She nearly dislocated her arm with how hard she pulled at the binders.

It was no use.

Omega was left all alone in the Marauder, her world shattering to pieces, and Wrecker would be on his way to Tantiss.

Chapter Text

Omega’s shrieked pleas dogged Wrecker like a clinging shadow as he turned his back on her and walked into the night. He couldn’t breathe, he could hardly swallow. That was his sister, and… When will I see her again? Will I?

For Tech.

Yet was this going too far?

Wrecker was assisted with walking by Echo, and Crosshair and Hunter carried the crate he’d left a surprise in.

“We need to rethink the plan,” Hunter said.

“Yeah, we need Omega,” Wrecker found himself arguing.

“You heard what she was going to do,” Hunter said. “She can’t.”

“But maybe—”

Crosshair shook his head. “She’s too determined. This… this has to be the right thing.”

How was leaving Omega cuffed to their ship, all alone, the right thing?

But Wrecker understood that she had guts, and resolve. Sneaking onto the ship sounded exactly like something she’d do. His family was right: they couldn’t allow her to put herself in danger like that. Not for him. Not for Tech. She was needed elsewhere. Besides, they had no idea what Hemlock needed her for so badly. No matter what, they couldn’t play into his hands.

“Crosshair and I can plant this crate,” Hunter said. “Then, Crosshair, scale the tower, be our eye in the sky. Find a good time for us to move in. Once we do, Wrecker, a blast gets close enough, you go down.”

“And what about escape?” Echo asked.

Wrecker swallowed past the lump in his throat. No escape for him.

“And what if a ship doesn’t leave when we expect it to? We have a lot up against us,” Echo continued.

“You and I can hide,” Hunter said, “stay ahead of any enemies after us, and keep watch. When the ship goes out—”

“What if it doesn’t?” Wrecker asked.

Crosshair bit out, “It will.”

Right. Hemlock wanted all of them.

“But still.”

“I can go undercover easily enough,” Echo said. “Keep an eye on things. If Wrecker gets transported to the prison here first, I’ll know.”

“And the ship?” Crosshair asked.

“Kark,” Echo swore.

“How thoroughly will they search me for comms?” Wrecker asked.

“Well… they might miss one for a bit,” Echo said.

“Fine, but this doesn’t matter,” Crosshair said. “It’s him. Regular protocols aren’t followed when it comes to him.”

For a second Wrecker blanked and almost asked who he was speaking of.

Then it hit him, and it felt like stones had been dropped into his stomach.

“We’ll stick to the expectation of you being sent out immediately, Wrecker. If not, we can improvise. I’ll have Echo hide a comm on you. Who knows, maybe they’ll miss it.”

They stuck to alleys and empty streets, seeing mostly drunks, addicts, or the sick and unfortunate homeless. A few times they passed regs in battered armor, helmets out to collect a few credits. They were in rough shape: dirty, unshaven.

Despite all the regs had said and done to them, Wrecker’s heart was torn. He wanted to stop and help each one, but he knew they couldn’t.

“Echo?” Hunter asked, after seeing their fifth reg of the night.

“I’ll report it to Rex.”

And they moved on.

A few times they had to stop and hide amongst the many shadows to avoid partygoers, or go a different route to keep out of the eyes of various sex workers.

They made their way up a few levels, and that was when the patrols started, no more than two stormtroopers circling a route, but there were more and more the closer they got.

The tower with its many sharp spires rose before them, and Crosshair hissed in a breath.

They all stopped, taking in the dark structure that climbed up and up, lights and cameras littering the outer walls and surveilling the area before it. Up at the top there were landing pads, probably for medical transports, but Wrecker had to assume that a few were there to keep sight of enemies on the ground, to give chase.

Echo helped Wrecker to the side of a building, and had him rest against it.

Crosshair and Hunter put the crate down, and Crosshair crouched, flicking his antenna down to get a good look through his rangefinder.

There were walkways along the tower’s height that looked newer. Wrecker thought maybe he could almost see the entrance, but something was in the way.

“This isn’t good,” Crosshair said.

“Care to fill us in?” Echo asked.

“I’m counting multiple patrols with overlapping routes for redundancy, tens of lights and cameras, and what might be multiple turrets capable of laserfire, and at least two manned RTTs*.”

Wrecker inhaled, breath sharp, enough to jostle his shoulder, and he clenched his teeth, trying to hold in a groan. It came out anyway.

“What the hell are they doing in there?” Hunter asked.

“I don’t know,” Crosshair said, still studying the terrain. “But I don’t think they’re the Advanced Science Division. I don’t see any TK troopers.”

“Just lots, and lots of stormtroopers,” Echo said, dragging out the words.

“Uh huh,” Hunter agreed.

Wrecker felt faint, maybe from standing up so long. He started to sit, but it was more like collapsing. Echo tried to catch him, but was only able to slow his fall.

“Ow!” Wrecker cried as his neck and shoulder moved.

He was then shushed by everyone.

“It hurts,” he complained.

Hunter was over to him now, a hand on his arm. “I know, but we have to try and be quiet. I’m sorry.”

Wrecker had to stop himself from nodding.

“Crosshair, you see a way through that? I was thinking we plant the crate halfway so it looks like we’re almost escaping with something.”

He shook his head, still studying. “Perhaps. I… I’m not sure I can scale the tower.”

Hunter stood from his crouch, looking around at the tall buildings that hid them for now. They seemed to be mostly abandoned and boarded up, like the Empire didn’t want anyone nearby.

“How about one of these?” Hunter asked.

“Then you’ll have to plant the crate yourself.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve carried heavier.”

“It’s your funeral,” Crosshair said.

It was too easy for all of them to turn back to the way they were before the Empire, before loss, before Tantiss. They could banter, say dark things like they didn’t mean anything, but they knew too well now that it could. This could be a funeral or capture for all of them. There was a chance Omega would never see them again, and that she would…

Wrecker’s vision blurred as he got all choked up.

The ensuing silence was too heavy.

Crosshair didn’t apologize.

He pointed to a building just near the one Wrecker was against. It had at least a few balconies, and possible handholds. “That one,” he said.

“All right, you know the plan,” Hunter said, turning to all of them. “We do this right, we do all the steps right, and we get closer to helping Tech. He is trapped behind enemy lines, and we need to bring him home. We will bring him home. So, let’s get to it.”

Everyone looked to Wrecker, and he nodded.

Crosshair gave him a two-fingered salute, before making a run for the building he was to scale, and Wrecker stared, knowing he had little time left with him. And at a quick glance, he looked so much like Tech.

Wrecker’s gut tried to tell him this was it, this was for good. He’d never escape Tantiss once inside, or he’d die. But he would not let that happen. He just couldn’t.

Hunter came over to Wrecker, putting a hand on his arm, one last time. Even though their helmets were on, he could imagine the devastation on his face.

“See you soon,” he said.

“Yeah,” Wrecker lied.

“Echo, get his tape and bandages off.”

“Wait,” Wrecker said as Hunter headed off. “Check the crate,” he said.

He could imagine a raised eyebrow.

“There’s a surprise,” Wrecker added.

Hunter unlocked it and pushed the lid aside.

As he pulled out thermal detonators, Wrecker explained, “I thought we might use them to cause some chaos.”

“It could be too risky,” Echo said.

“No, let’s do it,” Hunter argued. “We need to make this look like a real threat.”

“And what if one of us gets caught in the crossfire?” Echo asked pointedly.

“We won’t. Catch.”

He tossed a bandolier of the small detonators to Echo, and then donned his own.

“Hey, Cross, you want in on this?” Hunter asked.

“Hm. I don’t need detonators.”

All the times Crosshair had beaten Wrecker’s kill count in mere seconds with just a single shot raced through his mind. But he wasn’t like that anymore, not with his hand the way it was.

Hunter nodded to Wrecker, then headed out with the detonators and the crate.

“This is stupid,” Echo muttered, but not through comms so only Wrecker would hear.

“We need the stormtroopers to take the bait. A nice, pretty explosion or two should do that.”

Echo shook his head, but started undoing Wrecker’s tape, making sure he had the wall for some support for his head.

Wrecker gripped his knee hard with his left hand, and meant to do the same with his right, but suddenly pain twanged from his shoulder down to his fingers, and all they did instead was shake.

“I’m sorry,” Echo said.

“Uh huh,” Wrecker forced out, tears welling up in his eyes, fogging his helmet for a bit.

The bandages were next, and Wrecker’s body was drawing in on itself from the pain.

“All right, I’m sorry about this,” Echo said, fingers reaching far too close to his wound.

Oh, shab.

Echo tore the packing out.

“Come on!” Omega cried, tugging at the binders for the millionth time. Her wrists were swollen, and already turning purple, but she didn’t care. She had to get out, she had to.

Blood was beginning to dampen her wrists.

“No, no, no!”

She kicked at the seats.

Tears blurred her vision, wet almost her entire face, and even her neck.

“Wrecker…” she moaned.

Omega looked around again, searching for something, anything , that could get her out of this!

“Please, please, please…”

Then it hit her, and she felt so stupid for not thinking of it earlier. But a dark mountain plagued her mind instead of her normal, rational thinking.

“Gonky!” she gasped out. She swiveled her head, looking for the droid.

He was in a corner by the computers, dejected, but still powered on.

“Gonky, I need your help. Please.”

Gonk, gonk.

“I’m serious! This could help Wrecker.”

Gonk!

He started shuffling over, and she shook her head.

“No, get to the the toolkit.”

Gonk?

“Can you just get it for me?”

Gonk.

She sighed, exasperated. She loved Gonky, but she didn’t have time for this!

“Please, just shove it over to me,” she said, trying to keep the frantic whine from her voice. She only half-succeeded.

Gonky started slowly making his way to the toolkit, softly saying gonk, gonk as he went about it.

It was still open from when they’d traveled through the ruined star, and it started tipping.

Gonk!

“No, no, try the other side.”

Omega couldn’t help trying to pull at her binders again, the pain in her wrists hardly registering. She felt numb and cold, yet like a hot frisson of power was running through her core, along her spine, almost making her sick to her stomach.

A groan of pain left her closed mouth.

Each second felt too long, and she was sweating in her armor. She wasn’t going to make it. She couldn’t go with Wrecker.

But maybe I can still help.

Please, I have to be able to help.

Gonky eventually got the toolkit over to her, and she studied it. Wrench, spanner, laser caliper, adhesive… No, no…

An idea came to her.

Where is it, where is it?

Tech’s solder.

She finally saw it amongst the tools, and now the trick would be getting it.

She used her foot to bring the toolkit closer.

At first she tried reaching it with her hands, her mouth, but it was no use.

Another idea came to her, one that could potentially end badly, but she had to try it.

“Okay, Omega. You can do this.”

She lifted her foot, and placed it on the corner of the toolkit. She shoved down. Tools went flying, some hitting her, clanging off her armor, another somehow finding a chink in it, and whacking her pretty soundly, and her face throbbed as another one hit it. But all that mattered was—

Yes!

She managed to grab the solder, and—

No, no! It was slipping through her fingers.

“No, please.”

She managed to get a better hold of it, and the other tools clattered to the deck in a cacophony of metal clanks. She sighed in relief.

Gonk!

“Thanks, Gonky. Good job.”

Gonk.

Omega set to work on burning through the binders.

One, two, three, four. Then hold. One, two…

Crosshair probably should have done this breathing long before the mission started, but he was out of practice. Up here, tucked away while lying flat, rifle set in the sniper configuration, he had time.

Even as it felt like everything was ticking down.

Hunter was struggling through the shadows with the crate. Crosshair kept track of every single thermal detonator he placed, for everyone’s sake.

…six, seven.

Exhale.

Finally, halfway between the Grand Republic Medical Facility, Hunter stopped, making the crate obvious in its placement.

…two, three, four…

Crosshair swiveled back to check on Wrecker.

Good, Echo was placing the comm on him, hiding it in his armor.

Even as Wrecker bled, as he grimaced.

“The crate is placed. Echo, Wrecker, get into position.”

Here we go.

“Six, seven…”

Crosshair had to admit he was out of practice with this breathing, but his diaphragm seemed to still know exactly what to do, even with the building pressing against him.

He tracked their movement for a bit, Wrecker already practicing moving at a normal pace so he wouldn’t look injured at the start of this.

He hit the count of eight, and inhaled again.

One, two…

Check the tower.

Crosshair swiveled his rifle, looking through his scope at the base. Stormtroopers were still in position, some even looking bored or tired, slouching where they stood. Good, they hadn’t been spotted yet.

Four.

Hold.

He went up, counting the cameras, the turrets. The cameras were in play and surely were all the time, but for now the turrets hadn’t been activated.

…two, three, four…

Up, up the dark metal of the tower’s death-trapped height, and to the landing platforms, and the shuttles he saw there. Only two took up the platforms for now, though one certainly didn’t look like a medical frigate.

…six, seven.

The landing strips on the platforms weren’t lit up for the moment, and neither craft was manned.

Yet.

Hold.

Crosshair went back to check on his squad. Wrecker stumbled, and Crosshair shifted his position slightly, having the immediate urge to go to him. Years of training kept his shoulders, chest, and arms steady though.

If only his hand could stop trembling!

Suddenly, his breaths were coming too quickly.

What number was he on?

Was he supposed to be inhaling, exhaling, holding?

His muscles shook slightly now, too.

Nausea grew in him, and he was suddenly suffused with heat, his head all fuzzy.

What was he thinking? What was he doing? He wasn’t a soldier! Not anymore. He was nothing but a failed experiment, meant to rot to death in a cold, dark mountain where no one could hear the screams.

“Crosshair, you ready?”

It took him a moment to realize who was talking to him, what the words meant, what he was doing.

And then he almost thew up at the thought of putting Wrecker in that mountain, especially in his condition. He was sure Hemlock would have lots of fun with him.

Oh, kriff, oh, kriff, no…

“Crosshair!”

Hunter’s voice was a loud whisper.

Breathe!

Just breathe!

Suddenly, very quietly, Echo started counting numbers with him, an easier breathing technique.

One, two, three, four.

Hold.

One, two, three, four.

Exhale.

One, two, three, four.

Hold.

Hold!

One, two, three, four.

Inhale.

“Thanks,” he managed to breathe as his vision cleared, as surety steadied his muscles once more.

He was about to ask how Echo knew he’d needed help, but it was Echo. He probably had to do this all the time, his hell a different one than Crosshair’s.

And they were about to put Wrecker in hell.

“Everyone ready?” Hunter asked.

“Ready,” Wrecker responded, before anyone else could. He sounded the most determined out of all of them, and Crosshair felt like no goodbye would ever last long enough.

“Ready,” Echo said.

“Cross?” Hunter asked.

He checked his sights again, reorienting himself with the streets and abandoned building they were about to turn into a battlefield.

“Ready.”

“Here were go,” Hunter said, grabbing a detonator from his bandolier. He primed his arm to throw it.

His heart was in his throat, and pounding so fiercely he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He took a deep breath. This was it.

“Throwing the detonator… now!”

He threw it right into the ranks of the stormtroopers outside the Grand Republic Medical Facility. He almost lost sight of it arcing across the sky, but Crosshair didn’t seem to. He fired right as Hunter saw and heard it clank to the hard ground.

In preparation he moved his line of vision up, to the tower.

Fire roared into the night, blossoming in oranges and reds. Metal and bodies were blown apart, ripped to shreds, burned, and thrown through the air.

Hunter forced his eyes to quickly become accustomed to the light, right as the cries and moans of the survivors reached his ears.

Dark, thick smoke began to plume upwards, and he heard choking and coughing from the wounded.

Plink, plink.

Hunter held out his hand, raindrops pattering onto his gloves, darkening the light blue. Things were about to get a lot harder.

Rain misted the air as he looked back at his squad. Echo and Wrecker were in position with the crate, but they weren’t spotted just yet.

Lights turned on along the tower, and began to survey the area in a grid-like pattern. Stormtroopers burst into action, some helping the wounded, others mobilizing in the RTT that had survived the bombing, though a few were trying to get the other back into working condition, and fast.

“One RTT immobilized,” Crosshair reported.

“Or not,” Echo said.

What?

Hunter scanned it, and he saw a few troopers getting the panel operational again. Just as he thought they were absolutely screwed, the repulsor-lifts coming online, the panel fizzed out in arcing blue lights, and then the RTT crashed to the ground, knocking around the troopers inside.

Hunter’s instinct was to attack, to hide, to run, but they had to let Wrecker get captured.

“Steady,” he said to everyone. It wasn’t the right time yet.

“Looks like we missed over half the platoon,” Crosshair filled them in. “And, oh, the other RTT definitely works.”

They were loading up, and patrols were filing out.

“You’re about to have company,” Crosshair warned.

“Good, I’m lonely,” Wrecker joked.

“Looks like the laster turrets are coming online,” Echo said.

“Yep,” Crosshair confirmed.

“Great.”

Hunter ducked as a turret fired. It missed them by a few meters, but now the searching lights had found them. Hunter resisted raising his arm against the sudden light glaring down on them.

Wrecker waved one arm.

“Over here!”

“Ever heard of subtle?” Echo asked him.

“As if a bomb is subtle,” Wrecker pointed out.

“Stay focused,” Hunter growled. “Come on, get the crate. Move, move, move!”

As Hunter backed toward the crate, something in his gut told him they were in immediate danger.

“Hunter, you got a laser—”

Before Crosshair could finish speaking, a laser fired from the tower. It was like it burned through the air in slow motion, yet it was too fast all at once, Hunter hardly having the time to inhale.

It missed them by a meter, but the force of it threw him back, crashing into the crate. Wrecker fell, and Echo was shoved back a few feet, but managed to remain steady.

Winded, slightly disoriented, and body throbbing, Hunter got to his feet, blaster at the ready.

The RTT was on the move, shoving through metal and burned, bloodied bodies. Hunter’s stomach rumbled in an unsettling matter as he saw a detached foot get thrown by the repulsors. The vehicle came out of the smoke, heading right for them.

Rain was coming down hard now. Visibility was low.

Weapons started blazing.

Hunter found he had more up against him than he’d anticipated as the RTT, the tower, and patrols started firing upon them.

The night was lit up with blaster bolts, lasers, flames: as bright as a sunset from the battle. Hunter lost track of how many he fired upon, how many bolts he dodged, how many times he checked on his team as they raced through the streets. A headache was forming behind his eyes from all the light, and from the strain of sighting his enemies through the rain. The RTT got close to a few thermal detonators, but setting them off only took down patrols escorting the RTT.

Hunter ducked down behind a pile of refuse, breathing hard, adrenaline flooding his system so fiercely he felt he would either shatter to pieces or simply float away.

“Wrecker, how you doing?” he asked, looking across the street at his brother.

Wrecker was leaning against the building, moaning.

Hunter wished he could go to him, but he was pinned down.

There was too much enemy fire, and he didn’t think Echo could cover him from where he was.

Eventually Wrecker said, “Let’s… let’s give ‘em a good show.”

Hunter laughed. “I like your style.”

“Learned from the best.”

“Patrols coming from the west,” Crosshair suddenly informed them. “Watch your six!”

Hunter looked down the street behind them, and the white armor closing in on them was unmistakable. He sighed.

Great.

He peered out, risking getting his head blown off, to check his surroundings.

“Crosshair, you see any way out of this?”’

“There’s a door into the building by you, a few meters back.”

“That’ll take us closer to the patrol,” Hunter argued.

“Just go in, go left. And hurry. Another patrol’s coming from the south just ahead. They’ve been redirected to cut you off.”

Crosshair took out turrets as Hunter tried to find a way to get Wrecker, and Echo across the street and into the building.

“Wrecker, go, I’ll cover you!” Echo called.

Wrecker peered out at all the enemy fire. He dodged shots from the patrol coming behind them, hissing through his teeth.

“What—what about the crate?” he asked, trying to buy time.

The enemy fire was too heavy. Echo couldn’t do this alone.

“Forget the crate!” Hunter ordered. “Just get out of there.”

Echo made a dash to the middle of the street, drawing fire and taking out some of the platoon.

Hunter faced the other way, and drew fire from the stormtroopers coming up from behind.

“Wrecker, go!”

The large, dark form of Wrecker peeled off from the side of the building, large blaster held too low to the ground. His hulking form shuffled out into the street.

“Come on, you can make it!” Echo urged.

“Go, go, go.”

Wrecker lunged the last couple of meters, dodging red bolts that had made it past Hunter, and Echo.

“Echo, retreat,” Hunter ordered.

And in an orderly fashion—if you could call fighting for every second of breath  orderly—they made for the door.

“Crosshair, what about you?” Hunter asked, kicking in the dilapidated door, and taking up a guard position as Wrecker stumbled through.

“Come on, come on. Move, move,” Hunter called to Echo as he dashed in.

Hunter took down a trooper before joining his brothers in the dark. He flicked on his night vision.

Crosshair just answered, sounding a little winded, “Busy.”

Before Hunter could ask Crosshair to define busy, a shot hit the building, metal screeching. The walls held for now, but wouldn’t withstand another shot like that. They were most likely out of the tower’s range, so it had to be the RTT.

Kriff.

“Okay, everybody move,” Hunter ordered. “We’re gonna try and get across as straight as we can. Echo, take point. I’ll cover the rear.”

As soon as he finished speaking blasts blew in the windows, transparisteel breaking and crashing.

“Get down!”

The barrage didn’t let up. Clearly the troopers were trying to pin them in one place while others took strategic places by the windows and door.

Wrecker and Echo took cover behind crates, but all Hunter could find on short notice was the bulk of pipes connected to some sort of machine.

He wondered if the pipes were still operable.

The barrage let up, Hunter breathing hard. He closed his eyes, focusing on his hearing, searching for movement. He could practically feel and taste the sizzling, burnt end of the blasters closing in on them, could hear the shuffling of the soldiers.

“What if I pretend to get hurt now?” Wrecker asked.

“Quiet,” Hunter snapped, trying to listen.

Their position wasn’t ideal for their plan. They were too closed in, and without even the bit of help they were getting from Wrecker, Hunter could see himself and Echo getting hurt or captured as well.

Right as Hunter unsheathed his vibroblade and threw it into the neck of the first stormtrooper that came through the door, explosions rocked the night, roaring outside the building, getting closer, and closer, and building, shaking the ground.

“Crosshair, report,” Hunter ordered once he got his balance and grabbed his vibroblade.

Hot blood spurted from the dying trooper’s neck, getting on Hunter, and steadily marring the trooper’s white armor in gushing waves. A gurgling sound was leaving him, chest struggling. He died, and Hunter took up position beside the door.

“Crosshair?” Wrecker asked.

“It’s a shame you didn’t get to see the show,” he practically purred.

Hunter felt like he hadn’t been breathing till now, warm relief flooding him. A grin managed to make it onto his face. Classic Crosshair. But he didn’t have time for this.

“Just report,” he snapped.

“I took out the RTT, but there’s another patrol. Fifteen survivors are pursuing on foot. Do you read me? Pursuing on foot.”

“And the others?” Hunter panted.

“Idiots. They’re trying to get the RTT up and running. Hold on.”

There was a blast from Crosshair’s end.

“It’s been taken care of.”

A trooper entered the room, the fire outside lighting his silhouette.

Hunter lunged at him, grabbing his right hand that held the blaster, and slashed through his wrist. Not before shots fired.

Wrecker cried out. Echo ran to him.

The blaster fell, blood dripping out in a fierce torrent. The trooper was hard to grapple, his armor slippery from the rain. Hunter still had the element of surprise, but the doorway was getting crowded as another trooper entered.

He soundly jammed his vibroblade into the meat of the trooper’s shoulder where it met with the neck, and kicked him backwards. He was dead weight, and the trooper behind him toppled. Hunter kicked his blaster away before pouncing and slashing through his neck.

He began to retreat now, knowing it’d be the wise move as his element of surprise was gone. He sheathed his dripping vibroblade, taking out his blaster, steering clear of the broken windows.

“Echo, Wrecker, you okay? Are you injured?”

“Nothing new,” Wrecker confirmed. “Just fell on my shoulder, is all.”

Hunter winced in sympathy.

“We have a problem,” Crosshair said, as Hunter helped Wrecker stand.

“Yeah? Well, add it to the list,” Echo called, supporting Wrecker on his left, while Hunter got his right.

They were making it through the abandoned warehouse as quickly as they could… which wasn’t quick at all.

It was making the back of Hunter’s neck itch.

Troopers were behind them, boots pounding on duracrete. Hunter turned, and fired at one of the pipes. Steam began to fill the room, cutting off visibility behind them.

“A patrol just stationed themselves on the other side of the building.”

“Any other way out?” Hunter asked.

“Not that I can see.”

Not that I can see. Crosshair’s words rang through Echo’s head.

He searched. There had to be another way.

They were in a factory, so what about up?

Or… there was another way.

Echo was loth to use the thermal detonators, maybe from his past experience with being blown up, lower half of his body ripping right off of him, fire, agony… Maybe there was a way though.

“Hunter, take Wrecker,” he said, mind working fast. “I’m gonna cut across, and blow that other patrol to shreds so we don’t have to fight our way out.”

“Be careful.”

Echo, taking note of his surroundings, headed out through the dark, steam and smoke curling through the air. At the moment he wished he at least had two arms so he could have his blaster on him when he threw the detonator. It didn’t matter. He had to do this.

Just as Echo made it to the other exit, ducking behind a machine so he could have some cover while scoping out the situation, Crosshair said, “I’ve been spotted. I’m on the move.”

Echo’s heart was already racing, beating so hard it almost hurt, and he thought maybe then it did.

He breathed.

Focus.

He had to focus.

He peered out, making out at least three heat signatures beyond the door. The others were two crowded to count how many hostiles he was up against.

In the background, Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair were discussing Crosshair’s position, his level of danger.

Echo took a detonator from the bandolier slung across his body, primed, it, aimed, and threw.

It splashed into a puddle. Blasters trained through the entrance at his movement, and he ducked down again.

They were too slow to notice the real danger.

Echo hunched in on himself, trying to make himself a smaller target as the detonator blew.

It seemed like the world ripped apart, and Echo waited, waited, expecting to be torn apart, for shrapnel to hit him, for fire to burn and destroy him, for the force of it to damage his brain, his lungs.

But in a few seconds it ended, and he was no worse for wear.

Taking in deep breaths, fire, smoke, steam, and rain filling the air, he peered out. Troopers were down, but it was hard to determine how many were still alive, the flames taking over all the heat signatures in his helmet’s view. Next all he had to do was find something to shove through the fire, to get them out safely.

“Echo?” Hunter asked.

“Troopers are down. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“I’m not,” Crosshair said.

Crosshair had jumped to other buildings, climbing, and running faster than he thought he’d be capable of since Tantiss, his life depending on it.

But it wasn’t enough.

He was surrounded, a patrol from the air having chased him down, and deployed onto the rooftops.

“Hunter, I’m… I’m surrounded,” he managed to say, even as he desperately turned, looking for a way out. 

He was panting hard, muscles burning, so tired from the chase that it was difficult to hold himself up.

Orders were being screamed at him, for him to drop his weapon, get on his knees, hands behind his head.

His heart seemed to have burst in his chest, air freezing in his lungs.

Crosshair wasn’t just a traitor to the Empire. Oh no, he was much worse.

He was wanted by Hemlock.

They would identify him, take him back to that mountain, and—

Crosshair lowered his rifle, getting on his knees, and then drew his sidearm.

More shouting erupted, blasters trained on him, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t think about them.

“One way out,” he breathed. “One way out.”

Shaking, right hand trembling harder than ever, he placed the barrel of his blaster under his chin.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but it had come to it. Of course it had. This was real. The rain, the fire, the smoke, the troopers surrounding him. It was all real, and yet he felt lost in his own body, his own mind.

Hot tears tracked down his cheeks, as cold rain sluiced down his helmet and puddled at his knees.

“Crosshair, what’s happening?” Hunter called. “Crosshair?”

Blasterfire erupted around the building that Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo were in, last Crosshair checked.

“Crosshair, come in,” Echo said.

He swallowed roughly.

Omega. Think of Omega.

You can’t do this to her.

I’ll never see her again anyway.

“I can’t go back.”

He closed his eyes, thinking of Tech, of Hunter, and Wrecker, and Echo, and… her, Omega. His daughter.

He was going to miss her, but not as much as she’d miss him.

There was no way to win.

He couldn’t be put back in that mountain again.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Wrecker screamed, and suddenly Hunter was yelling at him.

There was commotion, attention being drawn away from Crosshair’s position.

What the—?

Wrecker had forced his way out of the building, and could see Crosshair, surrounded through the flames. As he’d suspected, he had his own blaster to his head.

No, no, no.

Wrecker didn’t know what he was doing. He had to do something. He had to!

As he’d raced out, he’d grabbed Hunter’s remaining detonators and the remote.

His body was on fire, but he had to save Crosshair, had to save all of them.

He tossed the detonators as far as he could, which wasn’t far, but thankfully the ruined street was decorated with the blinking red lights of the others. They were much too close, but that didn’t matter now.

“Wrecker, no, no, what are you doing?” Hunter yelled.

Crosshair’s blaster moved away from his head as he started yelling no into the comms, and Hunter was racing for him. He had to do this before Hunter got too close. He couldn’t let anyone else get hurt.

“I’ll finish the mission,” he said to them. “Just… just tell Omega… tell her I’m sorry.”

Wrecker closed his eyes, and pressed the button.

The whole world set on fire.

Chapter Text

Omega had attempted to contact her brothers, but right until she flew closer to the massive explosion that had lit up the night like death come alive, her comms had been jammed.

She wasn’t sure her heart was beating, that she was even breathing.

She tried the comms again, “This is Havoc 5, does anyone copy?”

Silence met her as she flew in.

“This is Havoc 5. Is anyone there? Wrecker? Hunter?” After a pause with no answer: “Crosshair? Echo?”

Her heart was in her throat, but she did as she was taught, and took everything in, not just what her mind begged her to linger on.

There was fire, explosions—and she had a horrible feeling about that last one. As she’d flown, it was like she knew it was going to happen. Yet there was nothing she could have done.

She wasn’t sure why that one bothered her so much compared to the rest of the destruction she saw: burned buildings, their guts ripped open, smoking RTTs, metal twisted and torn off, bodies she didn’t care to linger on. It just did.

There was more: two small manned aircraft on a building, lights centering on a sole individual, stormtroopers surrounding him. For a second she thought the man she saw was Tech before remembering Crosshair’s armor.

She scanned the sky for other aircraft, but it was empty. The two on the building were beginning to take off, probably to go after her. She had a clear shot, but now that they were already taking off she worried if they fell from her shots they could hit Crosshair.

For some reason he had been frozen, but was now fighting in a way that was more vicious than she’d ever seen from him before. He wasn’t just taking out the troopers neatly. There were shots with poor aim, but it was more than that. He was shooting them even after they were down, or taking them down with cruel aim, burning through hands, and legs, and arms. Even some troopers who got close to him were suffering being beaten with his rifle or sidearm. He was too  busy fighting to answer her.

“This is Hunter. I copy.”

His voice was like a yank in her gut.

“Hunter, is anyone hurt?” she asked, somehow knowing she did not want the answer to this question. It came out as if she had no control of her voice, like she needed to know. She had to, even while her entire existence willed for these next few seconds to not happen.

“Omega,” Hunter began, voice low, soft, yet… missing something. It was empty.

Before she heard more she felt the sting of tears, her vision blurring slightly.

“No,” she said. “No, no, no. What can I do? What—?”

“It’s Wrecker.”

“I-is he hurt?” she asked, knowing the answer already, all of her so close to being eviscerated, yet still holding together. She quivered as all of her fought that black thing about to destroy her.

“Omega,” Hunter said her name again, voice softer, lower.

“No.”

She wanted to protest more, but there was no strength left in her.

“He’s gone.”

Omega wasn’t there anymore. She was nowhere, just floating, floating, agony encasing the body she would have to return to. She knew soldiers had to compartmentalize, had to keep going even when their brothers were down, but…

Tech fell, and she reached for him. There was no hope.

Wrecker smiled at her, and that smile stayed with her, hearing his laugh in her head. In her heart.

How long would it be till that smile and laugh faded from her forever?

Agony filled her chest, her stomach.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was screaming, gunning down the Imperial ships with little difficulty, taking out troopers she saw, RTTs. She did it all while avoiding the laser turrets on the Grand Republic Medical Facility.

Yet her fight wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough.

Because Wrecker wasn’t there.

Echo, and Hunter ran from a smoking building beneath her, armor covered in soot, and Hunter’s splashed with blood. She didn’t know how, didn’t really remember doing it, but soon Crosshair was on the ship, and he took over, wresting her shaking hands from the controls. She sat in the gunner’s mount, her room, Wrecker’s place in battle, hugging Lula to her chest. She didn’t know how she got there. She didn’t know if she was still screaming, didn’t know if she was crying.

Wrecker!

“What’s the plan?” Crosshair asked, clearly through gritted teeth.

Once he had picked up Hunter, and Echo from the path Echo had cleared, Hunter took over the pilot’s seat. Crosshair’s hand was trembling too much to co-pilot, and hadn’t had training with using only one hand like Echo, so Echo was in the co-pilot’s. Crosshair stood by them. Omega’s keening wails stabbed the air, and it might as well have left his own blood leaking from him.

“We have to retreat,” Hunter said.

“But what do we do?” Crosshair asked. “What about Tech?”

Echo was completely silent, jaw locked, clenching so hard Crosshair could imagine the pain like it was his own.

“This mission failed!” Hunter said.

“So we—we—we regroup,” Crosshair stuttered out, mind racing, crying no, no, no on an endless loop. “We gather our strength, come up with something else.”

“Don’t you get it?” Hunter bit out. “He’s dead. Wrecker’s dead, and it’s all our fault. And don’t think I don’t know what stupid shab you almost pulled.”

Crosshair screamed, and slammed his fist against Hunter’s seat. He got the strange idea about punching Hunter. It was his fault, wasn’t it? He was their leader. This was on him!

Crosshair threw the punch.

Echo was suddenly there to catch his fist. He looked sick, pale face from skin ruined by chemicals slightly green, especially around his mouth.

“Don’t,” he ground out, voice gravelly, low, like a roar was building in him that he was holding back.

Crosshair growled as he pulled his fist back.

“Forget it.”

“We have incoming,” Hunter said.

“I’ll head to the gunner’s mount,” Echo informed them.

He gave Crosshair a warning look before descending into the agony that was Omega’s cries.

Crosshair’s only response was to fight. He hadn’t been there when Tech died, had been getting tortured and tortured, but he was here now, and all his body seemed to want to do was fight. He wanted to be at the gunner’s mount, but he didn’t trust his aim was good enough to keep his family safe.

He wasn’t good enough at all.

Crosshair slammed a hand against his seat before settling in beside Hunter.

His hands on the controls stopped shaking as he gripped them tight.

He grit his teeth, trying to hold back a slew of retorts, hating Hunter, hating himself, hating nearly everything.

Hunter was shaking slightly, and then Crosshair realized that Omega’s cries pierced him as deeply as they did himself.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, trying to breathe, trying to see a way out of this.

Without Wrecker…

Crosshair would never hear him laugh again.

Tears clouded his vision, and he snarled at his body’s reaction, wiping them away.

He scanned the dash, and noticed movement on the screen that was connected to Wrecker’s tracker.

It was moving.

He couldn’t breathe.

Was he…?

“Hunter,” he got out, voice hoarser than usual. “The tracker.”

“Forget it, we have three enemy fighters closing in.”

“The tracker’s moving.”

“They’re probably moving the body, trying to draw us in.”

Crosshair wanted to ask how Hunter didn’t care, but he realized he was holding it all back to keep the rest of them safe.

Since Tantiss Crosshair wasn’t the same person anymore. It was like that cold, calculating part had been ripped out of him, or burned away by Hemlock’s toxins and drugs, maybe even turned into something else within him, something vile that he wished he could spit out. It was a weakness in him, a poison. Ruination.

If you don’t get it together you could lose more of your family.

Omega…

She was screaming at Echo, words barely making sense.

Somehow Echo was keeping it together.

Guess that’s why he was an ARC trooper.

For a spare moment Crosshair was envious of him. How could someone who had been tortured in ways Crosshair couldn’t even imagine function? He was doing much better than Crosshair.

And now, without Wrecker…

He ignored the tracking beacon, and put power to the auxiliary guns, taking over.

The tracker was still moving, even as they twirled the ship to avoid fire, even as the shields took one too many hits.

They managed to get two fighters down, the ships careening to the surface, and exploding, one taking out part of a tower as it crashed.

The tracker was suddenly airborne.

It can’t be…

“Hunter, the tracker’s airborne!”

“What?”

Their sensor said there was ship leaving the tower they were retreating from. That could surely only mean—

“Echo, do you see a medical transport?” Crosshair asked.

“Was about to tell you about that.”

In a rush Crosshair grabbed his rifle.

“Get me in close,” Crosshair cried to Hunter.

He hooked himself up to the winch, so he wouldn’t fall or be completely sucked out by the force of the wind around them. And he attached the tracker to his rifle.

Omega rushed over to Crosshair. Her eyes were a swollen, red mess, her wrists were bleeding for some reason, and there were claw marks on her face, like she’d scratched her own skin. He swallowed hard.

“Sit down,” he told her. “This is too dangerous.”

“What can I do?”

“Omega, I need some help,” Hunter said.

Crosshair breathed a sigh of relief that Hunter gave her a job to do.

“If possible, take out the fighter,” he told her.

She nodded, and immediately went to her position.

Crosshair rooted himself, tensing his legs, his core, and then slammed the button for the hatch. Wind whistled as it began to open, and the whistling turned to a scream. It tugged at him so fiercely he had to lean back just to stay in place. Muscles burning from the exertion, he stepped out onto the steps, wavering for a bit and having to hold onto the ship. He lowered his rangefinder to search for the ship amongst the rain and darkness. The steps soon became slippery, but he held his ground.

He sighted the medical frigate. It was ascending quickly, trying to breach orbit.

Trying to control his breaths from his body’s natural fear of the heights, the forces against him, the slippery steps, Crosshair took another step out, and raised his rifle.

He tried to still his trigger hand, knowing he had to be sure of this shot.

Come on, you’ve made shots harder than this before. You’ve fired in worse storms, in worse conditions.

He had. He’d fired from atop droids, while in the air, upside-down, mid-explosion, even while tumbling once. He’d done it injured, with one arm, with broken fingers. He could do this.

Crosshair aimed, the medical transport wavering in his view, rain making him half-blind.

He had it, he had it—

A blast rushed through the ship, and Crosshair stumbled.

Hair rose on the back of his neck. He was being watched.

He turned, firing on instinct.

“Crosshair, watch out!” Hunter’s warning coming too late.

The fighter that had closed in fired at him, and he dodged back inside, unable to see if his shot had done anything.

“Are you okay?” Omega cried.

“Fine.”

With a growl, Crosshair steeled himself, grabbing the tracker and affixing it to his belt. He hoped he’d take care of this fighter fast enough, that he could reattach the tracker fast enough afterwards… Adrenaline took over, clearing his racing thoughts, and he twirled, getting into position so fast thanks to all the training and missions. (He could properly hold a rifle in his sleep.)

The fighter took aim, fired. The red bolts nearly hit Crosshair. One blasted through the edge of the steps. He’d faced worse. He didn’t curse, didn’t even waver.

He fired at the viewport, testing its conditions, and hoping a blast could get through. It didn’t. But the pilot veered off.

He glanced back at the medical transport, and a lump formed in his throat.

Crosshair fired without aiming precisely, figuring enough shots would keep the fighter away long enough for him to put the tracker back on his rifle, and fire it.

Then for some reason the fighter began to circle in a descent. There was no time to question it.

Rain coming down hard (of course the stupid Emperor picked the wrong time to make it rain), Crosshair swiveled, keeping the medical transport in his sights while he put the tracker back on his rifle.

“Crosshair, the fighter’s ascending beneath us,” Hunter said.

A thick, red plasma bolt shot past either side of him, making him freeze up.

Well, he knew what the fighter was doing now.

At least the pilot seemed untested in battle.

“I’ll lay down some cover,” Omega said.

Echo had arrived now, not having much work in the gunner’s mount. He grabbed her shoulder and gently moved her aside. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

Crosshair took aim, heart beating so hard he was sure his veins would burst.

Echo still had some of the detonators Wrecker had given them. He had a simple solution, simply setting a few of them to blow, and dropping them.

The force of the explosions and the fighter’s destruction rocked Crosshair.

Echo, who wasn’t safely anchored to the ship, ducked back inside after saying, “You can do this.”

Crosshair widened his stance, nearly slipped, but steadied himself.

He inhaled.

Exhale.

Fire!

Before the tracker even began to clear the distance between the two ships, Crosshair's gut plummeted.

It flew through the air, beginning its descending arc too soon, and it was too far to the portside.

It missed.

“Kriffing sithspit!” Crosshair cursed.

“Echo, take over,” Hunter said.

Before he knew it Hunter was taking Crosshair’s rifle from his shaking hands, and attaching another tracker.

“You’re not tied down!” Crosshair argued, watching as winds pulled at Hunter.

Crosshair tried taking the clip from his belt to put it on to Hunter’s. He fumbled.

Hunter aimed, and fired as Crosshair reached for him.

Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the angle, the recoil of the rifle, Hunter not having time to affix himself to his environment.

The maybes, the reasons—they didn’t matter. What happened next did.

Hunter fell.

And the tracker landed on the ship, sticking securely, soft red light blinking through the cold downpour.

Chapter Text

Crosshair immediately held out his rifle, stretching his arm out as far as he could, both thanking the Kaminoans for making his arms decently long, and cursing everything in the galaxy that they weren’t even longer. 

As quick as he acted, he still missed Hunter, even as Hunter reached for him too.

With a cry, his leader, his brother, went right over the edge, dropping into the rainy night of Coruscant. 

“Stop the ship!” Crosshair yelled.

He was listened to in a heartbeat.

“What’s going on?” Echo asked.

Crosshair blocked out Echo, and Omega, only able to focus on Hunter. They’d figure it out soon enough.

The highest surface of the planet was now many klicks away, and he didn’t even want to contemplate Hunter’s fall ending on some distant tower, body irreparably broken.

Without even having to stop to consider it, he lunged right over the side.

As Crosshair fell, stomach lurching, he realized he’d only given himself so much give on the winch, and now he hoped, and hoped. Hunter stretched out a hand while doing his best to remain parallel with the surface below, as Crosshair made sure his fall was a dive, rifle out in front of him like a lifeline.

Please, please, please.

Please.

Crosshair hadn’t been able to save Tech, and he wondered if his presence would have done so, but he was here now to save Hunter.

For a few heart-pounding seconds it looked like Hunter was going to remain out of reach, winds buffeting him hard. Their only hope after that would be to fly and catch him, but only Tech could fly that well.

I’m not gonna make it.

I have to.

How much more lead do I have on the winch?

Hunter fell, and Crosshair wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t ready for his death, wasn’t ready to lose him, wasn’t ready for his family to not be a family anymore, for its desperately thin pieces to crack apart without their leader. The Empire would win, having now utterly destroyed them.

Hunter grabbed onto Crosshair’s rifle.

The air left Crosshair as the winch pulled him back tight, a grunt forced out of him.

Hunter let out a cry as he hung now. Crosshair did all he could to hang on with both hands. He’d lost muscle mass while in Tantiss and hadn’t done all the work to build it back up. As he sweated, as his fingers started to slip on his rifle, he wished he had.

“Crosshair, Hunter?” Omega’s voice came over the comm. “I’ll pull you back up. Just—just hold on.”

“That’s… the idea,” Crosshair told her.

Omega must have pushed the button on the winch because he and Hunter started to rise.

“Climb,” Crosshair panted out to Hunter, voice tight, breaths coming in puffs now as he strained to hold on.

Hunter tried to do so, and Crosshair grunted from the force of holding him as Hunter’s fingers slipped down the barrel of the rifle.

Hunter cried out, and Crosshair tried to focus on nothing else but holding on, blocking out the long drop below.

They swung from Hunter’s hand slipping down, making the situation even more dizzying and precarious.

Hunter looked down.

“Don’t look down,” he told him. “Don’t. Please.”

Hunter’s head traveled back up, looking right at him.

“Crosshair—”

“No, no, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say goodbye. Just look at me. I have you. You’re… going to be okay.”

A strained laugh left Hunter as they continued to rise, the whir of the cable just barely audible over the rain plinking against their armor. They were racing against time; Hunter’s fingers were slipping.

“You hesitated.”

“You’re heavy!” Crosshair argued. Not like his rifle was light either.

They both let out what laughter they could at his words.

Crosshair glanced up, neck straining.

“Almost there,” he said.

“I have working eyes, you know.”

They laughed again, maybe from how horrible this situation was, from the few seconds they could have left together, the adrenaline fraying everything that would entail a normal human reaction.

A small arm grabbed Crosshair’s shins, pulling. He did his best to do the work for Omega, knowing she couldn’t heave them onboard, especially with a broken finger. Echo couldn’t really do much in this area either. It was up to himself.

With how hard Crosshair fought to get back onboard he knew he’d be feeling it in his legs for a few days. He came up, up, and so did his rifle, Omega tugging on it with him, and then Hunter was pulling himself up onto the steps.

His legs still dangled, and Crosshair couldn’t breathe. Not yet, not yet.

Soon, he told himself, focusing on only this.

He knelt, shaking, giving Hunter his hand. He could almost breathe as he took it, half-falling into Crosshair’s arms.

“Get back inside,” Crosshair ordered Omega, who was also very much not attached to the ship by a cable like he himself was.

She did so, and Crosshair helped Hunter the rest of the way in.

They kept their arms around each other once the hatch closed behind them, just trying to breathe, water running off their armor in rivulets that then turned into drips.

Crosshair gave him a light shove.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“I give the orders around here.”

“Sure.”

Crosshair leaned his head back, exhausted, when he let Hunter go, but Hunter did what a leader was supposed to do: he stood tall.

Omega and Echo were looking at them expectantly.

“We got the tracker on,” Hunter confirmed.

Echo cheered, and Omega nodded excitedly while tears glistened in her eyes. Crosshair slumped to the deck, disconnecting himself from the winch, taking his helmet off.

Hunter took the pilot’s seat again, getting them safely into hyperspace. Hunter and Echo took their helmets off then.

The medical transport’s tracker blinked on one of the computers that Crosshair still expected to find Tech sitting at.

And all Crosshair could think was that Hunter had said we .

There was no we. Crosshair had failed.

He’d failed at the most important shot he’d had to make since Tantiss, had somehow failed despite making his trick shot earlier that bounced off of his pucks, taking out the RTT and countless troopers, hitting bodies, and thermal detonators alike. He’d done that all right. But one shot with a tracker, and he hadn’t been able to do it?

If Hunter hadn’t been there…

And to think if Crosshair hadn’t caught him, if Hunter hadn’t grabbed onto his rifle, or he’d had less give on the winch…

Omega made to rush into Crosshair’s arms, but then she hesitated. She looked at them all like they were strangers, eyes wide and unsure. Her shoulders raised as she pulled in on herself, chest tightening.

Oh no.

As she went to step over Crosshair’s legs to leave the cockpit, he reached out for her.

She pulled back, turning her scratched face away and down, thick bangs doing well to hide her from him.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“So?” Her voice was hoarse from screaming, but it was sharp now, meant to hurt so she could get away.

Away from them.

Away from him.

“I can take care of myself.”

He couldn’t argue with her, realizing in more ways than one how terribly true that was. Omega had somehow gotten free of her binders, she’d flown in, and she’d saved them from what would have turned into a deadly manhunt in which there wouldn’t have been a chance to get a tracker onto the ship.

The ship that Wrecker was in, hopefully alive.

He had to be.

As Omega walked away, steps fast as if she couldn’t wait to be away from them, Crosshair’s eyes landed on the broken, bloodied binders that had been around her wrists.

His reality fell apart.

“Do you think he’s really alive?” Hunter asked Echo once they were safely in hyperspace. Crosshair hadn’t rejoined them, just sat near the cockpit, cradling the binders that had been around Omega’s wrists in his lap.

Echo found himself continually glancing back, staring at them, at the silhouette of Omega in the gunner’s mount.

He’d done that to her.

Each time he remembered it was like being stabbed.

But if he hadn’t… she’d possibly be on her way to Tantiss right now, and he didn’t know if he could survive that again.

“Echo.”

Echo turned back to Hunter.

“Hmm?”

Hunter’s voice was hoarse as he asked his next question, as if the words could carry too much hope: “Do you think Wrecker’s alive?”

Echo had to think about it. He’d seen the explosion, had felt the heat and pressure of it even from the other side of the building. But maybe it was a trap for them—the medical transport, Wrecker’s tracker moving at all. Was it possible for word to get back to Hemlock of their fight that quickly, for all of this to be set in motion if Wrecker was dead? He didn’t think so.

“Please, you’re the one who’s supposed to be telling me he’s alive,” Hunter said, voice just on this side of begging.

Echo looked down at himself, and legs that were of metal and wires.

He sighed, leaning over the dash.

“I know,” he admitted. “But, Hunter, I’m the exception, not the rule.”

“What about Tech?”

“Tech didn’t blow up, and Hemlock was right there to take him. Without Hemlock, Tech would be dead.”

“Well that’s some creepy insight,” Crosshair said, making Echo jump. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the deck, but apparently he’d been listening.

“The former Grand Republic Medical Facility was right there,” Hunter said. “If any place could save him, that one could.”

“He’s alive,” Crosshair said.

Echo didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“You sound so sure,” Echo said.

“Of course I am. Why send him offworld if he were dead? And clearly they know who he is, or else they wouldn’t have sent him offworld at all.”

“Either way,” Hunter began, “we have to continue the mission. We have to fight as if Wrecker can be on the other side, fighting too.”

“What state do you think he’s in?” Crosshair asked after a long stretch of silence, voice small like he was a child asking an inappropriate question.

Echo didn’t really want to know because he knew the possibilities all too well. He didn’t remember much about his initial injuries, but the daily aches were a shadow of the excruciating pain he’d been in, the destruction his body had faced.

“I…” He shook his head. “I can’t think about this.”

He stood.

“Where are you going?” Hunter asked.

Echo wanted to glare at him, but the real person who needed that cold, cutting glare was himself.

He looked at the binders in Crosshair’s hands.

“To do the right thing.”

He stepped over Crosshair’s legs, heading aftward, Omega’s blood on the binders like open wounds in his heart.

Omega pulled in on herself as the heavy clump of Echo’s steps drew closer and closer. She even scooted back towards the transparisteel.

For a second she questioned what she was doing because this was her family, the people she had fought so hard to get back to, the people she had made her family in the first place. She had chosen them.

And yet…

She felt like a prisoner.

Maybe she was a prisoner.

No, that’s stupid, she told herself, but after months of being imprisoned it was all too easy for those feelings to be dragged up.

Echo didn’t open the curtain, and just rapped his knuckles against the bulkhead.

“Go. Away,” she groaned.

Her wrists seemed to hurt more with him just standing there; aching, and stinging.

“I’m here to apologize.”

She knew in a horrible way that Echo had been right, that they had been right to leave her like that. She really would have gone with Wrecker to Tantiss. That had been her plan. She had been so determined, and now it had become nothing, becoming as dead inside as she was beginning to feel, as dead as Wrecker might be. He was alone. He was alone because she’d done something wrong somehow. She’d somehow given away her plan to Echo, enough for him to do something so drastic. She didn’t even know who to be angry with. Herself? Echo? All of them, even Wrecker? The Empire?

Hemlock?

She hated this stupid ship, and the stupid Empire, and all of these stupid people who wouldn’t just leave her alone!

She didn’t know when she’d started crying again, but Echo was holding her. She couldn’t pull away, not because of him holding too tight, but because of herself. This was familiar, this was home, and she really had been planning on doing something incredibly stupid.

He didn’t tell her it was okay, just let her cry, and cry, brushing his hand through her hair.

She hated how much she’d been crying since trying to get Tech back. It wasn’t like her. And hadn’t she proven how strong she was by saving all of them, by getting free of her binders to do so? Yet here she was, an absolute mess.

Maybe in Tantiss she’d been almost numb, and now the time for numbness had passed. Her walls had come down.

“I don’t know… I don’t know what to do, Echo,” she sobbed out. “I don’t know what to do. I’m losing—I’m losing… I’m losing every—everyone.”

“I know it feels that way,” he said. “You lost Tech, became a prisoner, and now that you’re free it seems like maybe the nightmare hasn’t ended.”

“I don’t want him to hurt,” Omega said, not knowing if she meant Tech, Wrecker, or both. “I want him to be o-okay.”

“He will be,” Echo told her. “He will be.”

She tried to breathe. In, and out, listening to the hum of the ship, feeling Echo’s heartbeat. 

Pain built in that silence, till it was leaving her mouth in one horrible breath: “I hate you.”

The words were out before she could even try to hold them in, and she pulled back.

Oh no, oh no…

She’d just broken something, broken something she wasn’t sure could be repaired.

Or maybe she hadn’t.

Maybe Echo had done that when he’d cuffed her to the ship, her home, and left her. They’d left her.

What was she thinking hugging him?

But she didn’t want this thing to be broken. Were their places reversed she was sure she’d have made the same decision.

Omega expected for something terrible to happen, and now she wasn’t crying because she couldn’t breathe, a fierce ache building in her chest, getting ready to explode and spread across her torso and limbs, down into her fingers and toes as sparks.

Instead, Echo just looked down.

“Yeah.”

She wanted to apologize, but it wasn’t her fault. Or was it? The more she sat with it, the more she realized how stupid her decision would have been for her own safety, but…

Wrecker was alone.

In her mind he was lying on a stretcher, body burnt and ruined, leaking fluids, bleeding, hurting , and he was so, so alone. And all that mountain did was make you feel alone, and it left that emptiness inside you. Even with Crosshair she’d felt that. It had lessened while talking to him, while trying to talk to Emerie, but sometimes it seemed stronger than all of them.

“At least let me take care of your wrists,” Echo said. “And check your face.”

Omega lifted hands with bloodied fingernails to touch her face. Her broken finger still ached from everything she’d done, not letting it rest.

And the blood. That was her blood, on—on… on her hands.

She couldn’t remember hurting herself, but the evidence was undeniable.

It had all just become too much, living in nothing but a world of agonizing grief at thinking Wrecker was dead, and then she had been in the moment again, except her face stung with fresh scratches.

Echo gently took her hand, and she let him.

“It’s okay,” he told her, voice incredibly soft. “You’re not the first clone I’ve seen hurt like that.”

“Have you…?” she asked, the very air feeling heavy.

He shook his head. “Maybe it’s a defense mechanism or something,” he said with a shrug. “My brain realizes there’s not much of me left.”

Her mind went back to Wrecker. Sometimes he was missing two limbs in her head, then one, in other images he was burned down to the bone, or his bones were even burned themselves, the damage so bad that he’d lose parts of himself. What if he died on his way to Tantiss?

A tear rolled down her bloodied cheek, and she angrily wiped it away.

“Come on, I’ll get you cleaned up.”

She nodded, letting Echo keep a gentle hold on her hand as she left the gunner’s mount after him.

For a bit they sat in silence as Echo retrieved the medkit, and then took off her bracers, and rolled up her sleeves.

Numbness took hold of her as she saw her swollen wrists, and the shallow cuts that perfectly encircled both of them. Echo winced at the sight.

Good.

No. No, that’s not who I am.

But who was she now after everything she’d been through?

No, I’m still Omega.

Still Omega.

I have to be.

She watched Crosshair finally get off the deck and join Hunter in the cockpit, and listened in to the low murmur of their voices.

She winced as disinfectant touched her wrists, but didn’t move away.

“Don’t be angry with them,” Echo said, wiping gently at her cuts.

She clenched her jaw, gaze locking back on him like he was prey. Her face started growing a bit hot, even, nostrils flaring.

“I said that wrong.”

She kept silent, waiting for him to go on.

He kept cleaning her wrists, the stinging burn growing in intensity, but she didn’t show it.

“Look, you can feel how you feel because all around it was a terrible situation. I regret it, but it was my idea, not theirs.”

“They went along with what you did,” Omega pointed out, hands clenching into fists, but otherwise remaining still.

Echo let out a long breath, but she could see the tightness still in his chest.

“You’re right. They did, and—”

“Don’t tell me it was out of love. I’m sick of hearing that. I know you love me, and then you go and make me question it? Make me feel like a prisoner in my own home ? Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“I—”

“Right, you think I wouldn’t have listened.”

Echo took one of her hands in his, and she trembled as she resisted the horrible urge to pull away from him.

She looked anywhere but at him, studying the medkit, realizing they’d need to stock up on bacta soon. It was much easier than looking at her brother, the one she’d chosen to love and make her family.

“Look at me.” His voice turned into a broken plea. “Omega, please.”

The words had gushed out like blood from a wound, and she had to look at him, had to see his pain, and share it because that’s what family did. She was hurting for him. And in his golden eyes she saw that he hurt for her, bled for her.

“I saw your determination,” he said. “I know how stubborn you are because we’re all that way, especially with how we all want to protect one another. I know you’ve seen that determination, that bravery, firsthand.”

Her bottom lip trembled, and she found tears stinging at the corners of her eyes again.

“Tech,” she found herself gasping, while in her mind she stood there, helpless, as he hung from a grappling wire far, far below her, dangling above clouds that were supposed to be beautiful, not the things that had swallowed him up and stolen him.

“You’re so brave, Omega,” Echo went on, “like he was, like he is . I have no doubt of your bravery, your love, and I know that… I know that bravery can get you hurt. Like it did to me.”

“So you thought of yourself?” she asked slowly, trying to understand his decision.

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think of myself at all, even though I feel the hurt of it now, and suspect I will for a long time. I just thought of you, and that I had to do what I could to protect you.” He brought her hand up and brushed a quick kiss against her knuckles. He was cold, and she had the sudden urge to wrap a blanket around him, around them both, and just talk, and talk, while hyperspace stretched on forever. “There would have been no stopping you,” he said. “You would do anything for us, and I… I needed to do the same.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but felt that if she did she would sob. She closed it again, silent tears falling, stinging the scratches on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, not able to make her voice come out louder.

Echo continued cleaning her cuts, as gentle as he’d always been.

“No, I’m sorry.”

She nodded, and then took in a deep breath, forcing it to be steady. Her long exhale was shaky.

“I want this to continue to be your home, and we want to continue to be your family,” Echo said. “If you’ll have us.”

For some reason his words sounded so absurd to her, not because she balked against them and wanted to run and hide, but because they made her realize how badly she still wanted to be part of this family. That’s what she had fought for—was still fighting for: to have her family, together and whole.

She laughed, and rushed him in a hug. He didn’t hug back at first, surely surprised, but then his hand patted the back of her head, before resting on her shoulder.

“I take it that’s a yes?” he asked.

She nodded against him.

Echo let out a huge sigh of relief, and that’s when she realized that he had been just as afraid.

“You’d have to kill me to get rid of me,” she said, knowing that if Tantiss couldn’t keep her away, then nothing short of death could. That turned into a hardening resolve. She would get Wrecker back. She would get Tech back. “We will be a family again,” she said. “Like how it’s supposed to be.”

“Like how it’s supposed to be,” he echoed.

For the first time in what felt like months, Omega relaxed, easing into the hug. For a moment, her pain seemed far away.

Chapter Text

Hemlock walked at a brisk pace through the cold halls of Tantiss, idly rubbing at a stinging pain in his left hand—it raced along his palm and up his thumb. Part of his mind fought against the idea that he'd had to leave his current work behind for an urgent message in his office, but an urgent message could be good news for him.

I wonder if CX-2 has completed his mission.

He certainly hoped so.

Exhaustion pulled at his every muscle as he walked, and it weighed heavily on his eyelids, each blink threatening to be the last, for him to fall asleep right in the hall. He probably hadn't slept in about twenty-four standard hours.

After this I'll need more stims.

In truth, they were hardly stims anymore. Hemlock had taken the chemical compound, and intertwined it with the parts of spice that could enhance the effects of the stim, turning it into a drug all its own. While it did leave him feeling wonderful, its most important effect was that it kept him on his feet, kept him working. Not only was his duty to the Emperor and the Empire urgent—and he wanted his place as the Empire's scientific minister—but this drive for knowledge, for power, was something he couldn't get enough of. Each second his scientists worked, each second he breathed, was another second closer to discovery, to achievements never before seen in the galaxy (especially for humans).

Besides, he did gain a certain pleasure in working with the clones, and he didn't plan on giving that up for sleep. He loved to use his words to twist everyone around till he held them all in the palm of his hand, able to crush them at will, from the tiniest whim, make them do what he wanted. In a way, he missed having Omega, and Crosshair. At least then he'd been thoroughly entertained. And now CX-2 was away, which… tended to leave him distracted, even with the drug. No matter. It had to be done. CX-2's work would prove more fruitful than anything he'd done before.

Hemlock's body thanked him as he made it to his office, and took a seat behind his desk, his muscles aching as they threatened to give out on him. He would have taken the stim then and there, except for the insistent pinging on his holo.

Blue light bathed him in a static glow as he switched on the comm. A woman in a captain's uniform was standing pin straight.

She saluted, and he held back a smile.

"Captain Yarbhem of the Coruscant Outpost reporting, sir."

Hmph. Hemlock wished he knew more about what was taking place on Coruscant, but it was probably under Tarkin's jurisdiction. Was this something to do with Tarkin? He certainly hoped not.

"Earlier tonight the former Grand Republic Medical Facility was attacked by several insurgents."

So how does this concern me?

"We have a captive, barely alive. We've been able to identify him."

With the exhaustion, the need for the stim, the urge to go back to his work, Hemlock nearly lost his composure.

His voice was hard as he said, "Get to the point."

"The captive has been identified as CT-9903 of Clone Force 99."

Sensation fled him, the material complaints and urges of his body disappearing, seeming far away. Hemlock was practically floating.

"You know what to do," he told the captain, voice breathy. "I require him. And the others?"

"Escaped."

Hemlock clenched a fist, grinding his teeth.

"Was a girl with them?"

"Unknown, sir."

"Switch ships. We need to throw off every possible way of CT-9903 being tracked. This group is… persistent."

The captain—what was her name again? No, it didn't matter. She was unimportant—nodded.

"As you wish. CT-9903 will arrive within one standard rotation."

"And what condition is he in?"

"He's suffering from burns, most are third or fourth degree—so the medical droid has told me. His right arm is… mostly gone, much of his right side burned. Head trauma with cranial pressure rising."

This presented a problem—well, many.

Hemlock wished he could be on that ship right at that moment, keeping him alive, doing whatever it took to get him to Tantiss in one piece.

I need him.

"Keep. Him. Alive."

"Yes, sir."

"Fail me, and…" Hemlock clasped his fingers together, laughing. "Demotion will be the least of your worries."

Somehow the captain managed to stiffen even more.

Her voice was tight as she addressed him again: "Yes, sir."

"Get to work," Hemlock growled.

The captain saluted, and Hemlock switched off his holocomm.

Plans he'd had to put away came to the forefront of his mind again as he accessed a locked drawer in his desk.

His hand was aching—usually he enjoyed it to some extent, but after being awake so long he knew simply massaging it wouldn't help. He needed that stim.

His vision doubled, the world growing foggy.

Kriff.

With shaking hands, he grabbed the pre-loaded syringe. Stabbing it into his biceps and pressing down on the plunger brought near-instant relief, a cloudy rush of warmth and clarity filling him.

His vision cleared, exhaustion faded from his muscles, washed away by a steady flow of energy. His shaking ceased, power thrumming through him.

Hemlock sat back, idly rubbing at his palm, trying to break up some newer scar tissue he'd recently inflicted on himself.

So… he would have another member of Clone Force 99 all to himself. He wondered if the re-education program would work on Wrecker, where it had failed in Crosshair. There had been too many variables with Tech to figure out why it had worked on him and he was now CX-2, his weapon. He'd hypothesized that it was Tech's significant head trauma, but with all the injuries he'd possessed, the surgeries and drugs he'd required, there were too many random variables, and not enough control.

Though if it had been the head trauma, then perhaps Wrecker could be CX-3.

No, he was getting ahead of himself.

First, he would have to keep him alive.

Oh, he was going to enjoy this. And Clone Force 99 would be down another member, weakened. And perhaps, Omega with her annoyingly big heart and her ridiculous idealism would choose to be a sacrifice and come to him willingly.

Hemlock inhaled deeply, feeling the stim in every fiber of his being, new plans coming into play and easily clicking and interlocking with the bigger picture.

Hemlock smiled.

"Hurry, we need to get him into bacta."

"I'm not done inserting his NPA. There'll be no point getting him in a bacta tube if he can't breathe."

Wrecker groaned, though the sound felt obstructed, like something was in the back of his throat.

"Kriff, he's waking up."

Wrecker tried coughing, and suddenly he was aware of his body: aware of the deadly hurts that had low, gravelly groans leaving him against his will, the restraints on him, the tubes in him, the pressure in his head. Yet he was distant from it all the same. Floating. Maybe from meds?

Or…

He could feel his body shutting down, could feel its fatigue, its struggles to breathe, its sheer exhaustion of being alive.

Something was pumped into his veins, and he suddenly had no cares, no wants, no thoughts.

"We have to switch ships," someone said in a crisp Coruscanti accent.

As the world faded from him, whether from his injuries, or from meds, a horrible, sickening ache burst in his gut at those words.

No, no, they couldn't.

He didn't know why he hated this idea, but he loathed it.

"N—" Wrecker tried to say before his strange mix of numbness and pain stole his voice from him.

No.

"Are you sure these coordinates are right?" Hunter asked, turning to Omega who'd just done a triangulation to find the planet she and Crosshair had landed on after escaping Tantiss.

She sat in the co-pilot's seat, hands and wrists cleaned and bandaged, courtesy of Echo. Her hair was still drying from the rain on Coruscant, as was his. It was hard to resist the urge to grab a towel and help her with it, but looking at her, she wasn't exactly his little girl anymore. Sure, she hadn't hit her growth spurts yet, but at that moment he really saw her, saw the maturity coming into her face, and he realized it was his duty to be by her side, not to smother her. Whatever she needed, he'd be there.

"Just 'cause you've never been there before doesn't mean I got them wrong," she answered, a small smile on her face to match her slightly teasing tone.

His heart ached looking at her, and he tentatively took one of her hands.

"You know, it… it wasn't easy when you were gone," he said.

Omega turned her seat to him, squeezing his fingers lightly, love warming his chest.

"What's this about?"

He shook his head. "Just me being silly, I guess."

Omega leaned in. "So… be silly."

Hunter cleared his throat, finding it hard to share what had been on his mind, what he felt every time he looked at her.

"It looks like you grew up without me," he finally got out. "I wish I could've been there, to see your hair grow, to see you lose some of the baby fat in your cheeks… for all of it."

Silence save for the thrum of hyperspace around them met him, but Omega grasped his hands harder, her splinted finger pressing against his.

"I guess the good news is… well, I'm not done growing up yet."

When she looked up at him her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Her lips trembled as she smiled.

Hunter reached out, caressing her face, feeling her damp hair through his fingers.

"Besides, I have to see you grow old."

Hunter's jaw dropped.

"That'll be fun," Omega added.

He found himself laughing, and knelt to pull her into a hug.

When their laughter died down, a shudder passed through her.

"Just keep being brave," he told her. "We'll get through this, and then you can see all of us grow old."

She nodded against his chest.

"Besides, I bet Crosshair'll be one ornery old man."

Omega laughed again, and it was like the stars coming out, like color filling Hunter's world, like emotion was in everything he saw, everything he experienced. Even without Tech, and now without Wrecker, Omega could somehow always make him feel better. And he cherished each moment with her, knowing too well now how easily his family could be torn apart, how it still was torn apart. He held her tighter, breathing her in, living in each second, in each of her breaths, in every beat of her heart. The fear and loneliness pushed back for a moment, and Hunter hoped he gave Omega those same gifts, let her see the light in the galaxy, felt sheltered and safe in his arms despite the turbulence and violence around them, the violence their family had yet to get through.

"Who'll be worse," Hunter eventually asked, "me or Crosshair?"

"You," Omega joked, her laughter a pleasant vibration against him.

Yeah, Crosshair'll be a piece of work, for sure.

For awhile Hunter hadn't known how to picture a future for his family. He only knew the immediate concerns, knew what to do to get them to survive to the next rotation. And then they'd found Pabu, and a future had built itself in his mind, a future of love, and comfort, and salty air and a warm sun. In less time than he'd had to build it it had all been snatched away, and now he found himself desperately reaching out and trying to grab each cracking piece, fractures forming anew in unanticipated ways, some of those fractures breaking into powdered fragments that clouded all. There were truths he knew: they needed Tech back, they needed Wrecker to survive and needed him by their side once they'd gotten through this, but even with their plan the future still seemed uncertain and obscured to him. But he had to try, didn't he? He had to grab every piece of that future he could get. And right now, with nothing to do but be a passenger on his way to a planet they knew little of for a plan that was flimsy at best and desperate at worst, he had to cling to what he had, even if all he had were moments, seconds, mere blinks of an eye compared to the vastness of the galaxy and all the reaches of time.

Hunter held tight to Omega, heart beating a little too hard, fear seeping through the cracks in their splintered future.

Droids beeped and hummed at Hemlock's side, keeping up with him as he made his way to the main hangar. Wrecker had arrived, and as of a few minutes ago was still breathing, but the vitals reported to Hemlock were discouraging: racing heart rate as his body struggled to survive, low blood pressure, and an oxygen saturation low enough to make his gut clench with anxiety.

He needed Wrecker, needed all of Clone Force 99. He'd saved Tech, but Wrecker's body was a completely different story. He figured he could do it, but time could already be against him. It could already be too late.

Warm rain met him as soon as the outer doors slid open to grant Hemlock access to the main hangar. The wind was in Hemlock's direction, buffeting the rain under the natural ceiling of the mountain, and soaking the hangar decks. He raised an arm to shield himself slightly from the wind and rain, ignoring the lack of decorum in doing so. Wrecker was more important than his image, at the moment.

Imperial Commandos marched in two lines off of the nearest shuttle, a captain, and one of Hemlock's scientists already with them, leading the way.

The escort met up with Hemlock.

"How is he?" Hemlock asked, purposefully splintering the formation of the Imperial Commandos to get a look at Wrecker.

Warm rain seeped down the back of his coat as he looked into the bacta tank in its horizontal position. Wrecker's life signs were dropping despite him being affixed to all the proper equipment. The wounds were deliciously ghastly to look at, all blackened and red tissue, blackened and brown fractured bone visible in what remained of his right side. Already plans of how to save him, of what needed most attention, were coming to mind, including an amputation at least up to his deltoid, though there seemed to be something wrong with his upper right trapezius, something that didn't fit in the reports of Wrecker trying to valiantly blow himself up for his team.

Hemlock couldn't fit all the pieces together just yet, but he would, if Wrecker's body gave him the time. Within the bacta tank it was difficult to get a reading on his intracranial pressure, but his labored breaths weren't encouraging.

As he left the hangar, he stopped the captain. "Check the ship for trackers."

"Yes, sir."

Wrecker was brought into his custody then, droids already assessing him as they made their way to the lab.

Hemlock grabbed a passing assistant, and ordered, "Locate Dr. Karr and send her to my main lab. Tell her it's of a most urgent matter… regarding CT-9903."

With a nod, the assistant hurried off.

A droid beeped after finishing a hurried, initial scan of Wrecker's brain.

ICP of 23 mmHG, the droid said.

They were losing him.

Not on his watch! Wrecker was needed for his plans.

Hemlock quickened his pace, trying not to break into an all out run in his own base, but it was like he couldn't get in a full breath of air till he and Wrecker both made it to his prepared lab, the clone thankfully alive.

Emerie showed up just as Wrecker had finished being taken from the bacta tube and was being prepped for surgery.

Her face blanched at the sight of CT-9903's body burned and blasted from the explosion, blood and fluids (other than bacta) dripping from him, a horrid smell like burnt flesh and death fighting with the scent of antiseptic in the room. Hemlock almost rolled his eyes at Emerie's hesitation. She'd seen enough violence, enacted plenty of it under his instructions, that this shouldn't faze her. Unless Omega had gotten too close to her.

Hemlock left a mental note that he'd be needing a talk of sorts with Emerie, something discreet so she didn't know it was actually an interrogation.

But after they saved Wrecker's life.

Emerie joined him in sliding a tube down Wrecker's throat, eyes scanning the information the droids were logging into screens around the room.

Once in that room, work ahead of him for as far as he could see, Hemlock's heart raced for another reason. He had purpose and power here, using his brain to this measure similar to injecting himself with one of his drugs. Sure, Wrecker wasn't as fascinating as Tech, but with another member of Clone Force 99 he could take apart more variables, cross-reference them with what the DNA of the other clones had to tell him, and possibly get closer to isolating just how the Kaminoans had done all their great work.

Ah yes, this was where Hemlock thrived—in a lab, blood on his hands, and a potential wealth of knowledge before him.

Planet: Fiftli
Region: Outer Rim
Planet Designation: Homeworld
Rotation Period: 70 Standard Hours
Class: Ice World
Atmosphere: Type II

"All right, MEL, you got that Lothal necklace squared away?" Phee asked as she settled into the pilot's seat aboard the Providence.

MEL gave her a snappy remark, and Phee sighed.

"Hey, that necklace is very important to some people."

The Necklace of Life she'd finally gotten from the hands of a rogue criminal (whose hands were probably now very cold and stiff) had been a family heirloom to some Lothal refugees for countless generations, possibly connecting all the way back to the Jedi. Pabu didn't get many refugees from Lothal, but for some, the Empire's slowly tightening grasp of the planet was already too much, as was their destruction of anything related to the Jedi. The necklace was lucky to have survived.

Phee had been throwing herself at job after job, finding moments to sleep and eat only in short bursts. She knew she was running herself ragged, was even running MEL ragged, but the alternative of sitting, alone, was too frightening.

Yes, she'd been alone many times, but she couldn't solve that loneliness because the one man she had found herself able to count on in the longest time… wasn't there.

A crimson sunset fell upon the world, silver clouds of ice turning blood red. The wind picked up outside, and the Providence was still properly warming up. Despite the way cold ached at her fingers and numbed her nose, and the lowering visibility, Phee wanted to leave ASAP, before someone discovered the dead body she'd left behind.

She made it into the air and out of orbit with some trouble from the thrusters, but then they were flying free in the blue-white embrace of hyperspace in one of the lesser known lanes.

The back of her neck tingled, her shoulders raising slightly.

Phee evened her breaths, put a hand on the hilt of her saber, and readied to rise.

She didn't know what danger she suddenly sensed, but she had only lived this long through trusting her gut on countless risky adventures.

She rose on silent, sturdy feet, hand firmly grasping her sword hilt.

MEL had been meandering over towards the stern last she checked, but now all was quiet… eerily so. The silence was something that seemed to crawl into Phee's mouth, settling on her tongue before quietly strangling her throat.

She thought she heard movement, a heavy boot against the durasteel deck.

Adrenaline burst in her in a near-painful shock as she was met with the sight of a tall man, all in black armor. She didn't have time to think or even move as a stun blast hit her.

Phee dropped to the deck, eyes sliding closed as the man who'd snuck onto her ship kept his blaster leveled at her.

This wasn't the first time Phee had woken in restraints, not by a long shot. Still, it was a startling, and uncomfortable experience. Fear had her fighting off the effects of the stun blast quickly, but she tried to control her breathing, and not lift her head. She hardly dared to move, just took in the near-darkness of the cargo hold, the binders around her wrists that kept her secured to the ladder behind hr back that led up to the rest of the ship.

There was breathing other than her own; she was sure of it.

Then, a terrifying voice that spoke slowly, voice modulated through its helmet, set her heart racing hard: "I know you're awake."

Phee gave up on her feigned unconsciousness, and raised her head, readying a hard look of defiance onto her face.

"Look, if this is about stealing from that casino then I can tell you it was a setup," she lied.

The armored man came close, just enough light on him for Phee to make out his lean build. In most situations that didn't involve her restrained in her ship (okay, well not all) then that was perhaps the kind of man she'd go for, just for a little fun. But right now, with a blaster in his hand, up close and personal, covered in armor and a helmet, it terrified her. He was clearly bigger than her, and not someone she could easily outmatch. And somewhere MEL had probably been incapacitated.

The man crouched down, Phee's breaths quickening in her tightening chest.

"There are some things I need to know, Phee Genoa, and you are going to tell me."

"You know, this is not how you get on my good side."

He tilted his head at her, leaning in. For some reason he grasped her face, Phee trying to pull away from him.

"What?" she spat.

"I…" He drew away. "I need Clone Force 99."

Phee forced herself to laugh, a lie already coming to mind. "And what would I know about losers like them?"

"I think you know a lot. Cid certainly knew enough."

Phee found herself a bit stunned by that sentence. Had this man found Cid, and Cid had led him to her? This wasn't her usual fight. She was used to outwitting pirates, mercenaries, bounty hunters, but this spoke of the Empire. Sure, while Phee certainly helped those affected by the Empire she knew she wasn't a match for them. And had they tortured Cid? Was she dead?

Phee wasn't too hurt at the thought of Cid being dead, but cold fear settled in her, an unsettling feeling raking down her spine telling her she was next.

Phee, usually used to chatting anyone's ear off to get what she wanted, kept silent. This was serious, and she figured someone working for the Empire would be able to use any word she used against her and against the Bad Batch.

She feared for them all, but Omega especially came up in her mind. She didn't know where they were, that was true. And her world had darkened without Tech, with knowing Omega had been a prisoner until recently, but there wasn't all darkness. And she would do what she could to let them escape it a little longer.

The man nearly touched her face again, hand shaking for some reason.

Phee glanced at it, then at him. His chest rose and fell heavily. Then, for reasons she couldn't understand, he reached to take off his helmet.

Phee gasped as her interrogator's helmet fell to the floor, his face revealed.

Tears filled her eyes.

Her heart seemed to stop, pure shock freezing her blood, before fear and confusion turned to a heated boil in her stomach, and aching wounds were ripped open anew in her chest.

Tech!