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Though they were raised in the same nursery, Crosshair doesn't remember talking to Hunter before the day they all turned five. Physically they're closer to a human's ten, and somehow that makes a difference to some of their instructors. Enough of one to throw a party, which means free juice, a wrestling tournament, and a whole afternoon in the training grounds, just playing.
It's their entire age group, so the rooms are packed. Even old 99 is here, lost in a crowd of cheerful regs. They don't usually pay him much attention, but today seems to be an exception to all the rules. Crosshair sits next to Wrecker, who is pulling on a training rubber belt like he can't rest for a single afternoon.
'Stop it,' Cross groans, 'we're supposed to be having fun.'
Wrecker gives him a smile, almost smug. 'This is fun. Are you having fun?'
'Tch.'
Crosshair sips on his juice and observes his agemates. He'd say his brothers but they wouldn't all agree, so why should he? His only brother is Wrecker, who sleeps in the pod next to him and knocks anyone who dares to badmouth him. Insults to himself, Wrecker often ignores. He just grins and tells them 'see you on the training mat.' No one bothers them much these days.
In the loud and lively maelstrom of bodies, he spots Tech, another defect. He's in a different unit, so they don't see much of him. Maybe he'd be worth calling a brother. Crosshair has never talked to him, so he isn't sure.
He scans the room looking for the other one. The only other.
Crosshair's sight is his best asset and he's well aware of it. He's sharp, he sees more than most and much further. Still, it takes him a while to spot Hunter, and it's only as he slinks out of the room.
'What's with him?'
'What's that?' Wrecker asks.
Crosshair shakes his head and gets up to go after Hunter. He'd been pale and had his hands at his temples. Not normal.
'Just checking on something,' he says to his brother. 'Keep an eye on my spot.'
Wrecker nods solemnly, shifting to get one of his meaty legs up across the cushy mat they'd claimed as theirs.
Tipoca city is white and blank, and the corridors of the cloning facility are no exception. The most boring thing in the galaxy, Crosshair is sure, even if he only has holos and simulations to base himself on for what the rest of the galaxy looks like. And so much glare! He winces and runs after the figure ahead of him, towards the barracks.
But when he turns the same corner there's no trace of Hunter. Crosshair frowns. He can't have made it to the barracks yet, they're too far away. And all the doors here are for labs and medbays, locked off to clones. He walks slowly, scanning the floor, the walls—and hah! Here, a panel cracked open. He slides his fingers under it and yanks.
'What the—'
Hunter is there, rolled in a ball between pipes. This is a space made for a repair droid, and he barely fits. He gives a darting glance to see who's discovered him and quickly covers his eyes again, folding himself even tighter.
'Close the door, please...'
'What are you doing?!'
Hunter winces. A pained whistle escapes him and suddenly Crosshair understands.
'Are you hurting?' He asks in a softer voice.
The constant glare of the ultra-white corridors and UV spectrum lights has often sparked ocular migraines for him in the past. He's not sure what makes Hunter a defect (he looks so much like a little reg, you can barely tell) but he knows he's different. He has to be.
'Yeah...' Hunter whispers. 'It's my head...'
'Well, come on then!' Cross says, offering a hand.
'I... I can't.'
'What? Of course you can, just come on out, I'll walk you to a medbay.'
'No!' Hunter gasps.
He squirms in deeper, as if fearing Cross might try to pry him out. He stares down at him instead, at this whimpering creature, refusing help, tears oozing from between his fingers, and he... He pities him.
No. That's not right. He despises him. Contempt. That's the word. It'd been in Mas. Kausten's novel they'd had to read for the literacy course. Cross hadn't really gotten it, but now...
That's what a real defect looks like, he thinks. That's how the regs see us, why they bully us. A hot flash of confused feelings courses through him and Cross stands still, shaking under the rush of emotions.
'Why don't you go tell a medic?' He asks again when he's gotten himself back under control, cool and calm, as he likes to be.
Contemptible or not, Hunter's a 99. He's a brother, even if they don't really know each other.
Hunter takes one of his hands away and gives Cross a proper look through a pained squint. 'Oh. You're... You're like me,' he says, like that's an answer at all.
'So?'
Cross isn't sure how he feels about that statement. Yes, he's another 99, but he's not hiding-in-the-vents-to-cry levels of 99.
'I'm always in the medbay,' Hunter elaborates. 'There's... so much here. And the sim consoles... They buzz so bad. My head's always hurting and you know...' He gives Cross a frightened look. 'What if I go so often that...'
He doesn't say any more. He doesn't have to.
Crosshair is CT-9904, but Wrecker is CT-9928, and Tech's unit had had CT-9914, Flick, until last quarter. And 16, 20 and 31 had all disappeared before they could even earn a name. The gaps in the numbers tell a story of their own, and the regs whisper more between them. There's what happened to CT-4202, coming back to his barrack one day with an empty gaze and drool on his chin, not remembering anyone's name or his own. And then all the clones who were "reassigned" and never seen again.
'Kamino's a big place,' Lance had said once in the showers, anxious eyes on Crosshair, seeking any reassurance he could get after his closest brother had failed to return from a summon to Nala Se's office. 'Tipoca isn't the only base.'
'Yeah,' Cross had agreed. 'Maybe he's been put in Commando track?'
Lance had smiled at that, but the sadness lingered. Put in Commando or decommissioned atom by atom, it's the same in the end. They're gone and they don't come back.
No one really knows where the lines are drawn either. They don't know their own overall scores. The only certainty is that being sickly is the shortest of shortcuts to decommission, and that 99s all get started on the wrong foot.
Crosshair sighs. Yeah. He knows.
'What's your thing then?'
'Electromagnetic fields,' Hunter answers, and with a sniffle he points to his nose. 'Smell too.'
Cross closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Even he can pick up the astringent scent of the cleaning product used in Tipoca's corridors. That seems like a lot to deal with, alright.
He offers Hunter a hand again. 'Come on then,' he says. 'I've got an idea.'
'What for?' Hunter asks, suspicious.
'For a free infirmary trip.'
He hesitates a moment before taking the proffered hand. Cross yanks him out of the vent and up—and down comes his own head, smacking Hunter right in the face.
He yowls, free hand coming to staunch the blood coming out of his nose. Not broken though. Crosshair's aim is always precise and well calibrated.
'Why—ah.' Hunter freezes, thinking things through. 'Okay, I get it.' And he gives Cross a bloody grin.
'I slammed you in the mats pretty hard. Your head is ringing, right?'
'Like the dinner bell,' Hunter groans, not faking it.
Cross nudges him down the hall, towards the medbay closest to the training rooms.
'Let's go then.'
Contempt or not, Crosshair won't let another 99 brother get decommissioned for a headache.
They train a while together as a team, so Crosshair becomes familiar with his three surviving 99 brothers, Wrecker, Tech and Hunter. But just as he has to add a razor to his grooming kit, he's shipped on his first placement—alone. He goes through two battalions before finding a long term post in the 110th of the 12th Army, under Jedi Master Taron Malicos.
Cross isn't big on the comm, but Wrecker doesn't care and stays in touch. He's pretty happy with his lot, being a medic on a demolition team. From his regular updates, it's clear he does more tearing down than patching up.
Crosshair gets almost comfortable in his new position. He's a captain, a rank just high enough to make him his own man on most missions, while leading the 2nd Legion's three other snipers on others. They do a lot of recon. Their Jedi is the shadowy sort, used to undercover work and back stabbings. There's plenty of opportunities for sniping, working under him. Cross thinks he's doing well, although he suspects he could do even better, if he were given more freedom. Still, the missive comes as a shock.
'But why?' He asks Artsy, his commander. 'Why Kamino? Why now?'
Artsy tries to wipe the bloody clay splattered over his white and teal helmet—he was in the thick of it today—and only manages to spread more across his visor. He takes his bucket off with a sigh and hiss of breaking seals.
'Crosshair, I was in the command track, shipped out as commander. Eight straight months in this job and I've never received orders with explanations from Kamino. Not once. Rarely ever from GAR high command. Jedi led missions are about the only times we get a why besides the when and where.'
'But—' Crosshair struggles with his words. They stick in his throat like miela bonbons, just not nearly as sweet. 'Is it... Is it decommissioning?' He manages at last.
Artsy scoffs. 'Kriff no, I wouldn't let them do that to you. See for yourself.'
He hands him his scuffed and muddied personal datapad. Several official order files are on the screen, but a recorded conversation pops into holo over it and Cross finds himself staring at a small Taun We.
'Clone CT-9904 is to be returned to Kamino as soon as transport is available. We have established an optimal orbital window and hyperspace route to be followed, which you'll find attached to your orders.'
Crosshair feels the hair at the back of his neck rise up and his stomach drop, despite the Commander's assurances.
'When can I expect him back?' Artsy's voice pipes from the holo transmission.
Taun We blinks slowly and bobs her head. 'There are no plans for him to return to your corps, Commander.'
'Might I ask why? He's worked very well in our team. General Malicos is pleased with him and—'
'You have your orders,' the Kaminoan interrupts him with uncharacteristic impatience. 'Follow them. Your satisfaction with CT-9904 will not change his reassignment.'
The holo goes out. The orders on the datapad screen are as promised. He has to leave within the hour if he wants to make the launch Taun We requested.
Reassignment. Not a word any clone likes to hear, especially without a new corps name attached to it.
'It's not decommission, that's all I can tell you.' Artsy says, and there's no joy in his voice.
Because reassignment or decommission, he still loses his lead sniper.
'What do they want with me now?' Cross wonders.
Though the question is rhetorical, Artsy still answers him. 'Who's to say what Kaminoans want with any of us? You're a 99 though, so they probably want to prod you, see how you've been doing.'
'I've been doing fine,' Crosshair grinds.
'I know. I told her so. Doesn't change your orders or mine. Maybe you've been doing too well.'
'I've been doing the same for the past eight months.'
'Yeah, and maybe they've decided you're too good for the likes of us.'
Crosshair finds no reassurance in the fact this aligns with his own self-evaluation. When do Kaminoans ever notice performance in the field? Or even GAR high command?
'Just in case though, I'm still the sole inheritor of that sweet modded rifle of yours, right?' Artsy asks, deadpan, offering him a bloody hand to get back on his feet.
'With all due respect sir, kriff off.'
'Yeah yeah, away with you, and comm me with details of that transfer or I'll find a blacklist or two to put your name on!'
Crosshair rolls his eyes and hurries to find his pack. He wants to be gone before he can realise how much he'll miss the 2nd legion and all the useless regs who made it feel like home.
Crosshair arrives on Kamino on time and is ushered to unfamiliar quarters and told to present himself in one of the official suites on base in an hour.
A single hour is both too little and far too long: he needs to clean up, try to rest, and go harass someone at the CIF—the quartermaster's office or whatever it’s called here—until they issue him a dress uniform that fits his tall and lanky frame. Though he might have to sit and kick his heels a while, he knows he won't have time to go look for the cadet barrack in which 99 died during the siege of Kamino, as it's on the other side of Tipoca.
Crosshair has heard everything about the attack. Everyone in the GAR has, second or third hand; news gets passed around, and 99 meant a lot to many of his generation. It grates him that he wasn't there for the attack. He's sure, in his heart, that he could have made a difference. And that's all fate needs, isn't it? Maybe if he'd been here, 99 would have lived. Cross owed him as much.
But no one gets to pick their assignment, and the entire System Army Zeta had been locked in the Thanium Sector, dealing with a Separatist strike on Felucia and the Perlemian trade route that Cross assumes was meant as a distraction, and obviously had done its job.
Kamino, of course, doesn't have any tradition to honour or remember dead clones. There's no cemetery Cross can go to to pay his respects, no open air Salua Abode, no Ancestor Tree. Nobody within the GAR does anything like that for clones, besides other clones—when and if allowed—and grateful natborns, sometimes, offering their own rites to their fallen saviours.
Cross has seen many natborn traditions over his travels, and with each new one his resentment at Kamino's recycling policy grows stronger.
He's seen people inter their dead and raise monuments over them, or lay them to rest under the roots of great sacred trees. He's walked Mirialan halls filled with ghostly holos of the departed, playing in loops short or long, celebrating a natural birth, wrestling a pet tooka, playing a musical instrument, or tying a knot over someone else's wrist... Memorable moments of lives that were completely alien to him.
He has witnessed an isolated Togruta mountain tribe pare down corpses—draining blood, stripping them of their flesh and rending it with careful, loving hands—before offering it all to great predators, completing some sort of ritualistic circle of life. Another alien concept to a clone, whose life starts on Kamino and is best ended far from it.
He's seen Twi'leks burn their loved ones in solar furnaces and mix the hot ashes to ink, their tear-streaked faces contorted in silent pain as they tattooed new lines with it into their lekku, in remembrance.
And Artsy, he knows, keeps a "peruli" for the entire 110th, after a small unknown alien encountered during a mission on Saleucami had gifted him one and explained how to use it. They had shown them their own, a waxed and braided cord looped through segments of hollowed finger bones like so many ivory beads on a necklace.
'I keep record of the dead,' they had explained in broken basic, their whiskers shivering with each word. 'If one of us dies, I keep, and all can remember. Sometimes friend, family, ek'yu, they come to touch the peruli, speak to the dead. The dead always listen.' They'd barked a laugh then, dry and husky. 'The dead have nothing else to do but listen.'
Artsy had accepted the rope and thanked the alien, promising to put it to good use, and he has. Now Artsy even has a second one, tied to the first like chainlinks. They cut chips of plastoid armour instead of bone, and etch the fallen clone's name in it, pierce a hole, and on the peruli it goes. It's in the sim room on the Nebulous, Cross knows. A quiet place anyone can access at any time, add to it, or talk to its growing list of Dead.
99 never wore armour though, and Kamino isn't run by sentimental commanders and lenient Jedi, but by their uncaring makers, who create and unravel on a whim, while the Republic cannot care. Contractually.
Crosshair suspects 99's room has already been converted to storage, his meagre belongings incinerated. Maybe some regs might have saved something? He'll have to ask.
Anyway, it's time for him to go.
Cross stares, dumbfounded, for once incapable of trusting his flawless eyes and unwilling to trust his ears. He knows Taun We enough to be sure she isn't joking. Not like she's the type to pull four clones out of active duty to have a laugh, anyway. No Kaminoan is.
'Hunter will lead your squad,' is what Taun We seemed to have just said, waving at the clone beside her, in deep grey and red armour, non-standard helmet under his arm.
Wrecker rumbles on Crosshair's right, slamming his fists together with a loud thunk and a grunt of approval. On his left Tech inclines his head in silent agreement. It leaves Cross in the middle, still reeling with the news.
The defects, brought together in a squad without Jedi? Sent on high risk missions without supervision, doing the jobs the Commandos couldn't or wouldn't do? Undercover, covert missions? With Hunter leading them?
Hunter... Shy, semi-feral, special case boy Hunter, who used to hide in vents to cry his migraines out?
Sure they've trained together since, but they haven't worked together, and Crosshair has never seen the qualities of a leader in him. Even CCs aren't the best suited to lead, he thinks, and working under a charismatic Jedi such as Malicos has made this painfully obvious.
'You will be assigned a modified Omicron-class attack shuttle,' Taun We goes on, 'and new armour has been readied for you. I will let Hunter explain everything else. He has the orders for your first mission together.'
She leaves the room, apparently confident Hunter can handle the rest.
They all look at each other in silence. Wrecker is the same as in his holocalls. Tech... Well, his hairline receded some more. Hunter is perhaps the most changed, with a skull tattoo covering half his face, and too long hair kept in check by a bandana. Maybe it's a reaction, Cross thinks, bemused, to stand out from the regs he resembles so much.
'You don't look happy,' he says, looking back at Cross with a knowing air.
'How can you tell? Don't think you know what I look like when I'm happy.' Cross retorts.
'Hah!' Wrecker guffaws, slaps him on the back. 'He looks the same as always when he's happy! And if he smiles too much, you gotta start to worry.'
'Yeah, thanks Wrecker...'
'I know we haven't seen each other in eight months and twenty two standards, but can we go on with the briefing?' Tech asks, pulling a datapad out. 'I'm curious as to what our first orders are.'
'Yeah, let's,' Hunter agrees. 'I think it's a fun mission, and we've got a day before we need to leave, so we can get used to our new gear, and to working together.'
'Isn't that going to be great?' Cross sneers. 'What are we going to be called, do you think? The Bad Batch?'
Wrecker gives him a startled look. 'They wouldn't dare? Come on.'
'Feh. Don't underestimate the regs. Got one in my first squad who thought it'd be funny renaming me Potshot.'
One public humiliation later everyone was calling him Crosshair again, to his face at least. But there are millions of regs, and it's not a hill worth dying on a million times over.
'No actually, I suggested a name already and it was accepted,' Hunter says. He lets out a nervous sigh, shuffles on his feet and declares: 'we're Clone Force 99. In 99's honour.'
Again Crosshair finds himself staring, bemused, at the clone he never quite thought of as a brother, never tried to understand, and certainly never respected. He's talking logistics, projecting a holo of the Dantooine system, and his words are going right over Crosshair's head, buzzing as it is.
'Hey.'
Crosshair glances up at his new Sergeant, and nods a silent acknowledgement. The debrief is over and Wrecker has dragged Tech away to the mess, leaving Cross to brood. He's still adjusting to this new situation and in no mood for chit chat, which Hunter either hasn’t picked up on or doesn't care about.
He jerks his chin towards the exit and turns around, fully expecting Crosshair to follow.
'Where are we going?' he demands as they weave through the corridors, the dullest in the galaxy, Cross now knows for sure.
Hunter glances at him over his shoulder. 'You'll see.'
They’re headed towards the cadet barracks and training grounds, Cross can tell, but he stops dead in his tracks. He'll have none of this.
'I asked you a question. I expect a clear answer. That's not how you lead people.'
He feels his anger rise on a steady tide. His uniform is chafing, he's been up for over twenty hours, had no time to digest things and now this—
'I'm taking you to the cadet barracks,' Hunter says, not reacting to his outburst.
'Why?'
'There's something I want you to see there.'
'Hunter—'
'Stars, Crosshair, I want it to be a surprise, alright? Just relax. I thought you'd appreciate it.'
'Appreciate what?'
'I'm not telling you.'
'Feh.'
'What, are you a plucked pecor or something?'
'I've been up for a very long time,' Crosshair admits with a long suffering sigh. 'Too long for pleasure promenades.'
'Yeah but you see—' Hunter taps a barrack door and it hisses open. It's empty. It's dinner time, and meals are compulsory, so all the cadets are out to the mess. 'This one is special, because Echo and Fives—they're regs in the 501st—had an idea and... Well, they were here during the attack. 99 was helping them when he died, defending cadets.'
He leads Crosshair to a shining golden plaque on the wall.
In sweet memory of 99, the most inspiring of our vode, and the bravest of us all, it said, etched in bold letters.
Crosshair frowns and glares at Hunter, who is looking way too smug.
'How did you know I'd like it?'
'Oh? So is this your face when you're happy?'
Despite himself, Crosshair laughs. He brushes his fingers over the plaque, wondering how it was ever allowed, and what sort of strings had to be pulled to make it happen.
'I observed you, when we were kids,' Hunter explains, crossing his arms over his chest. 'You were almost always with Wrecker or 99, often both. It was strange to me how you were usually so serious and would just beam at the old vod like you kept all your smiles just for him. I noticed it more after that one time, remember? When you found me and—'
'Yeah, I've only headbutted you once,' Cross says, hoping the prickling at his neck isn't showing as a blush. 'So I remember.'
Hunter isn't looking at him anyway but at the plaque, and beyond it to the past.
'I guess I hadn’t really noticed before, and after that I was sort of jealous? I’d been busy worrying about myself, and 99 was so kind to me too. Always telling me the headaches were to be expected and that my abilities were too valuable, that I was safe... But I kept wondering if he'd said the same to all the others he got to meet who didn't make it.'
'Only our generation had intentional 99s,' Crosshair retorts, 'and most didn't make it out of the nurseries.'
'Must have been lonely for him then.'
'Yeah...' Crosshair looks to the plaque again. He does like it. He is glad Hunter showed it to him. So he gives the man a little truth. 'He was kind to everyone, but he was the kindest to us. I think this place was only bearable because he was here. The only adult who got our back a hundred percent. I still feel guilty I wasn't there for him when it mattered.'
Hunter chuckles, pats Cross on the shoulder.
'The moment that mattered to him was when you made it out to your first assignment, alive and in one piece, with honours and everything. The best sniper in the GAR.'
Crosshair huffs (not a sniffle at all, just a huff). 'And now we get to trash Seppies under his name? I can work with that.'
Yes, he thinks, looking at Hunter, smiling back at him—maybe he can reconcile himself with this new squad and its leader.