Chapter Text
KANDRIA
“I want you to stay home today,” her father says the moment Kandria comes into the common room, her daypack already slung over one shoulder.
Kandria stares at him, shocked. “What? Why?”
Her father is at the kitchen table, bent over his data pad, worry pinching at the spot between his eyebrows. “There’s been some reports. Separatist forces have been sighted.”
“I’ll be with Jaunt,” Kandria says patiently. “I’ll be safe.”
“This isn’t up for discussion, Kandria. You’re staying home.”
A hot mixture of anger and disappointment bubbles up. It isn’t fair. There’s always chatter, always little snippets in the news. Siren drills, and bomb shelters. She’s not naive. Kandria knows there is always a risk of a Separatist attack, even on a little planet like Nogero. But Nogero doesn’t have any natural resources anyone would want for the war effort on either side. The only reason the planet has a military presence at all is because of the Hydian Way hyperspace route on their doorstep. So, yes, they’re not invulnerable, but they’re not a target.
“But, Dad,” Kandria pleads, “This is the first time in weeks I’ve gotten to go with Jaunt on his patrol. You said I could go last night–”
“Things have changed, and Jaunt will understand,” her father interrupts evenly, oh-so-reasonably.
Kandria drops her bag at her feet. “But I don’t ! Why is today different from any other day of this stupid war?”
“Kandria, I am not arguing with you about this.” Her father stands up and takes his breakfast dishes to the sink, starts rinsing out his bowl and cup, his back to her. “I want you to keep the door locked. The only reason you should leave this apartment is if the siren goes off. Then go straight to the shelter. Do you understand?”
Kandria glares at the rug, refusing to acknowledge the pressure of tears behind her eyes. She won’t cry. “Yes,” she mutters.
“Good.” Her father approaches her, but she only stares at his gleaming, black shoes when they step into view. She doesn’t want to look at him. He rests a hand on the crown of her head, a soothing, heavy touch. “Listen, Kandria. I know you were excited for today. I didn’t make this decision lightly. I’ll come home straight after my shift.”
Kandria keeps her jaw tight, mouth shut, teeth on edge.
“I love you, sweetheart,” her father continues.“I won’t get caught up in conversation with Mister Roolek today, I promise.”
Kandria steps back, out of her father’s reach, and glances up at his face. Hurt flickers across his expression. But she’s too angry to care. He’d hurt her too, hadn’t he?
“Alright then,” her father says, clearing his throat. “I’ll see you in a few hours. I love you.”
She loves him too. She knows she shouldn’t be so petty, so childish.
And yet, she doesn’t say it back.
**
Kandria is reading on the couch when the sirens begin to scream. Long, shrieking wails that drive fear and panic into her heart, winding around her lungs. Stumbling to her feet, she clutches the data pad to her chest. Someone pounds on the door, a voice ordering, “Get to the shelter!”
She’s prepared for this. She’s practiced this. She knows this. But never on her own, never without her father taking her hand and holding it in his strong, guiding grip. Kandria nearly trips over herself as she scrambles to the door, shoves her feet into her shoes, ties the laces up with trembling fingers.
Don’t want to trip on the staircase , her father had said to her once, long ago, during one of the first drills of the war. The sirens had made her cry, even though she’d been warned they were coming.
The twist of the lock, the pull of the door, and Kandria steps into the river of souls flowing to the stairwell. She is swept along by the current, bumping against arms and shoulders and elbows. She grips the hem of her sweater, if only to hold onto something. She realizes she left her data pad behind, the screen still open to the page of her book she’d stopped on, mid sentence. A sentence she may never know the ending to. How did the sentence end?
How will this end?
Crying, sobbing, whimpering, shouting, and the relentless, howling sirens collide against her eardrums. It’s overwhelming, it’s terrifying. She’s all alone in a stream of beings. Kandria doesn’t want to go to the shelter in the depths beneath the building. She wants to go to her father. She imagines sprinting out of the building, feet taking her down familiar sidewalks and sidestreets to the clinic. She just wants him, his voice, to tell her it's going to be okay. That they are going to be okay. But he can’t. He won’t.
And what if he never can again?
She has been at the clinic for a drill before, seen the organized chaos of getting the patients to safety, her father moving effortlessly through it all, helping where he’s needed, giving direction, stability. He’ll be okay. All the patients in his care will be okay, the nurses will be okay. That can be the only answer. The only answer she’ll accept.
Jaunt too. He’s a soldier, trained his whole life. He knows what to do. He’ll be okay, too.
Besides, this all might be a false alarm, an extreme precaution. An unscheduled drill meant to drive home the importance of preparedness.
In the stairwell, Kandria moves her grip to the railing, clinging to its surety. It’s damp and warm from the hands that have moved along it before her. The air is thick and humid with panting, frightened breaths and bodies drenched in nervous sweat. She feels the stuff trickling down her own neck and back, beading across her brow under the chop of hair across her forehead. She concentrates on planting each foot on each stairstep, one after the other, keeping a steady pace, not tripping on the heels of shoes in front of her. Her eyes fixate on a sweater further ahead, bright colors a beacon to follow in the mayhem.
She is only one floor away from the shelter when an explosion rattles the building. The world sways dangerously beneath her. Screams and cries ricochet and echo around her. Kandria clutches, white-knuckled, to the railing. Someone’s hand catches her arm, clinging, almost pulling her down.
“Keep going! We have to keep moving!” a voice shouts behind her, and the stream begins to flow again, but now it’s a torrent. Faster, more desperate, more frantic.
The hand doesn’t release Kandria’s arm, bruising fingertips gouging into her flesh and muscle. But Kandria doesn’t have the heart or energy to pull away.
“We’re almost there!” the voice calls out, encouraging.
And they are. The heavy doorway to the shelter is in sight. Kandria hasn’t cried yet, but the sight of safety makes the tears come readily, blurring her vision. She moves with hopeful purpose.
Almost there, almost there…
**
It’s been three weeks since Tech confessed his plan to take Kandria with him.
And while he has not mentioned their escape again, the promise of it propels Kandria’s every breath and action. She thought she’d forgotten what hope feels like, warm and blooming in her chest, curling around her heart. She tries to remember what he said, tries to dampen her desperate excitement: It will not be easy and there are risks. But she doesn’t care. Her life hasn’t been easy since her father died, since Jaunt was taken away, since Garo claimed her. It has been nothing but risk, nothing but fear and hopelessness with no end in sight.
And then Tech came, and with him another chance at hope, another chance at purpose.
A companion, a friend, a brother.
I know it is a lot to ask, but I hope you will trust me, Tech had said.
Kandria trusts him wholly. She can’t quite explain it, the unshakable trust that she’s placed in him. There is no room for doubt in her mind. Maybe it’s the way he speaks to her, transparently and honestly. Maybe it’s the way he talks about his brothers and sister, the way his stoicism softens when he says their chosen names. Maybe it's the way he doesn’t make her feel isolated or alone, even when silence stretches for long hours.
He is nothing like Jaunt in so many ways, but exactly like him at the same time. And she trusted Jaunt to the very, very end. So she can trust Tech too.
And she is determined to have him trust her too. Every instruction he gives, every lesson he teaches, every factoid he offers, Kandria will follow and learn and tuck away. She will prove that she is dependable. She will try to be worthy of his rescue. She will not let him down.
Not like she did to her father, or Jaunt.
She has learned from her mistakes.
“The spanner if you please,” Tech says, putting out a hand without looking up from his work.
Kandria places the tool in his palm.
“Thank you,” Tech says, squinting down at the box he has been methodically filling with scavenged parts.
The incessant squinting had not escaped Kandria’s notice. At first she’d thought it was because of his concussion and other injuries. But eventually, she also noticed Tech had the habit of pushing at the bridge of his nose every little while. Sometimes he caught himself in the act and clenched his fist. His expression would flicker into something between annoyance and misery before smoothing back out.
“You used to wear glasses, didn’t you?” Kandria asks now, finally voicing the observation.
Tech blinks, eyes coming up to meet hers briefly. “Of a sort,” he says. “They were goggles. Much more functionally adequate for a soldier.”
“Ah,” Kandria says. She doesn’t have to ask where they went, images of Tech, armor cracked and broken, being dragged to her cot clamoring to the front of her memories.
Tech continues his work without further comment about his missing eyewear.
Kandria sits quietly, tries not to be distracting by fidgeting, and patiently waits to be told what part or tool Tech needs next. He doesn’t talk much while he’s busy on a task. But the silence between them never feels lonely. It reminds Kandria of when she’d sit in her father’s office at the clinic while he did paperwork, or when she’d trail alongside Jaunt on his patrol.
But that was all before the first attack on Negero.
After that, everything had changed.
Kandria doesn’t want to think about that day, and, all at once, the silence is oppressive with memories tainted by death and loss.
“Will you tell me a story about one of your missions during the war?” she asks, trying to tamp the desperation from her voice.
Tech sits up, rolling his shoulders back stiffly, and looks at her. “Right now?” He sounds surprised.
Kandria nods. “If that’s alright?”
“I suppose a break would be beneficial,” Tech sighs, but before guilt can settle in her stomach, the man grins at her, a simple twitch of his lips that she’s learned to interpret during their long days together. “What sort of story did you have in mind?”
“A funny one?” Kandria asks, slipping down from her perch on the table as Tech pulls himself gingerly to his feet. He braces himself on her shoulder without having to ask as they begin to make their way across the room to the cot.
Tech hums thoughtfully as they settle on the cot’s edge, side by side, Kandria’s shoulder pressed into his arm, sheathed in her father’s sweater. One of few things she’d been able to keep from her past life, of her first protector’s.
“Have I told you about the mission we had to retrieve truth serum?” Tech asks.
Kandria shakes her head and smiles.
“Then I will start at the beginning.”
**
TECH
As a rule, the Batch avoids medbays.
However, there are exceptions to every rule, and some circumstances make visits unavoidable. Such is the case for Tech now, confined to a medical cot, unable to sleep even though the area is washed in the eerie blue glow of an artificial night cycle. He is also scheduled for a bacta tank in a few hours, another occurrence typically avoided at all costs.
He hates this. He hates all of it.
But most of all, he hates that he is alone.
His brothers had stayed as long as they could, until the CMO threatened to file a complaint for breaching visiting hours. Tech had waved his brothers away, assuring them that he was entirely fine to be on his own.
But he was entirely a liar.
Even though his kit had been put away and out of reach, Crosshair had dug out Tech’s comm and slipped it under the thin blanket, hidden from the watchful medics. A sharp look and a tip of his head conveyed the wordless message: If you need anything, anything, you comm us immediately.
Tech holds the comm in his hand, thumb brushing over the send button in obsessive, frustrated circles. He feels weak, wanting to call them, this late in the cycle. And for no reason other than he doesn’t want to be alone in the medbay and just wants to hear one of their voices. Is he really willing to drag his brothers out of precious sleep just because he can’t?
No.
Tech isn’t a little cadet anymore. He’s a fullgrown clone trooper - a commando! - for kriff’s sake. He’s been alone plenty of times before. He should enjoy the solitude, the quiet. What is wrong with him? The concussion? Perhaps the pain meds. Both could account for his emotions being difficult to regulate? Ridiculous nonetheless…
“Can’t sleep?”
Tech startles and glares when Crosshair steps into view. “You are not supposed to be here.”
Crosshair smiles wryly. “What? You think I’m scared of some pompous CMO?”
“No,” Tech returns, voice flat. “But am I right in assuming Hunter doesn’t know you are here?”
“So you think I’m scared of Hunter?” Crosshair walks over and drops into the chair next to the cot. “Wrong again. That must be a record for you.”
“I just do not want to be lectured because you decided to go against orders,” Tech grumbles halfheartedly, trying to ignore the warmth of desperate relief.
Crosshair rolls his eyes, pulling out a toothpick and examining it with bored interest. “Oh, please, Tech. When have we ever followed orders?”
**
The warehouse is dark and quiet, but Tech can hear Kandria’s soft breathing from her pallet in the corner. She had refused to take back the cot when he realized it was hers. Kandria had only smiled, planting herself on her nest of tattered blankets as though it were the most comfortable thing in the galaxy. “I’m not the one who’s injured, Tech,” she’d told him. That had been weeks ago, and still the guilt remains firmly rooted as he lays here, staring at the hazy ceiling.
Weeks.
Weeks had gone by, his body slowly, painstakingly stitching itself back together under Kandria’s attentive care and Tech’s knowledge. The girl had made a rudimentary med scanner; although, even the most advanced med scanner does little more than alert its user to issues that need to be addressed. Somehow, he had been spared any fatal injuries to his internal organs thus far. He had felt no worsening effects or symptoms. Most of his care had been basic pain relievers, antibiotics, sedatives, and time.
Time he does not have to spare.
Time slipping away, in which his fractured body heals, he pieces together a transmitter, and his siblings think he is dead. That is, if they are even alive to think that. For all he knows, after his unfortunate descent, they’ve been captured or injured or killed. And Crosshair, his lost brother, alone for so long…has their further delay of rescue led to his demise as well?
Do you ever cry, Tech?
Tech inhales a shuddering breath, exhales it, and fills his lungs again. He can’t afford to think like this. He has to assume that his attempted sacrifice was not in vain, that his capable siblings have been successful. That the grueling time he spends working under Garo’s despicable watch will be fruitful. He won’t be able to bear the insurmountable weight of hopelessness, otherwise.
And he can’t do that to Kandria.
She needs him to succeed, on all fronts.
It is the only choice he has.
“Tech?” a voice whispers.
A voice that has become so comforting and familiar.
“Is something the matter?” he asks the shadowed figure now standing in the middle of the room. His ribs protest bitterly, but he pushes himself up on his elbows.
Kandria steps closer. “Are you alright?”
“I am fine,” Tech tells her.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” Kandria says. A statement, not a question. Ever observant.
The girl leans down and clicks on the lamp next to the cot, bathing the corner of the large room in soft, warm light.
Tech blinks against the sudden assault to his vision, horrified when a suppressed tear escapes. He brushes it away, but he knows Kandria must have seen it.
But the girl does not say so, sitting down on the edge of the thin mattress. “Do you…” she begins, tentatively, not looking at him, “...want to talk about it? About them?”
His siblings. His family. His home. His past.
So far out of his reach, and maybe unattainable ever again.
A long silence follows the question. Tech swallows, concentrates on keeping his breathing even. “I am just concerned for their safety in my absence,” he finally admits, only a portion of the whole, terrible truth.
He will not burden her with more. She has her own worries and grief she carries on her too young heart. He catches glimpses of them sometimes, but she keeps them close and protected. She does not want to be a burden either, he supposes.
Kandria nods slowly, still staring into the dark room. “We will find them,” she tells him firmly, sounding all too much like an optimistic little clone sister.
The similarity causes a pulsing ache in his chest, and Tech returns his eyes to the ceiling above him, tracing the outlines of shadows to distract himself.
We will find them.
The plural pronoun does not escape his notice, how easily and readily Kandria inserts herself into the equation. How trusting and sure. A quiet strength he did not realize he needed, now does not know what he would ever do without.
They need to succeed. It is the only option. For himself also. He needs his family back.
He misses them desperately.
Small fingers wrap around his hand, and hold tight.
He returns the gesture.