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Omega is a logic puzzle, and Tech has never been able to resist a puzzle. When she was younger, the other clones were rewarded for good behavior with toys and games, but she always picked the datapads with the mental challenges for her treat. "If Aron Soe owns a blue Corvette and has a tooka for a pet, who is the medic?" She always figured them out with ease, bringing her completed puzzles to her teachers for praise and a new datapad before it was time to return to their studies.
Solving conundrums is what she does for fun. Omega isn't the strangest she's sorted out, even if he is highly unusual.
The regs say all clones are sisters. Clone Force 99 has never seen things that way. They don't look like the regs. They don't think like the regs. They can each do things regs can't. Omega is one of them, not one of the regs, and therefore not a brother to the massive crowd. If anything, their diminutive companion is a brother to his fellow 99s, and even there the relationship falls apart. Hunter mothers him. Wrecker lifts him easily onto her broad shoulders, and she plays the same games with him she did with the rest when they were all children. Echo ignores him, aside from the occasional piece of advice, but Echo is still standoffish with all of them. Tech has calculated a fifteen percent chance she will have a mental breakdown within the year due to the cumulative effect of her personal losses and her modifications at the hands of the Separatists. Tech is working on her contingency plans should this happen on a mission or while they are in space. She has also begun reviewing psychological textbooks in case one offers insight into preventing Echo's trauma from becoming everyone's problem.
Tech watches her team, and she makes notes in the private shorthand she developed when she was four and didn't want her instructors to see she was arguing with them as she dutifully wrote down her lessons. She has files on each of them. Today she is studying their newest team member.
"Omega, come here," she says, handing him the soldering iron. "You need to fix the connections under this panel."
"Sure thing, Tech!" He has a sunny, eager-to-please disposition that's rare among clones. The regs are dedicated to the cause. The rest of them have never been the type to make friends for the sake of making friends. Tech remembers the one incident when she saw Crosshair smile. They were seven at the time, and she'd just beaten her own best time on the range by a full fifty seconds.
As it always does these days, her body undergoes an autonomic twitch when she thinks about Crosshair, remembering the cold expression on her sister's face as she came after them. Tech shuts down the thought process. No good can come of thinking about her.
Tech gives Omega his instructions, deliberately omitting steps. She's been testing the boy's mental processes. He's got a decent mind for strategy when he applies himself, but he's equally as happy playing with his doll.
"Ouch!" he says from under the panel.
Tech makes a note, then asks, "What happened?"
"Sparked myself. Sorry. Won't happen again."
Tech thinks about this. "Are you injured?"
"No."
Tech calculates a seventy percent chance he is lying. She responds with subterfuge of her own. "Hunter won't like it if you're injured. You should let me see."
"I'm fine, Tech. I'm almost done."
Omega remains under the panel as circuits come to life. He correctly identified the missing steps and accounted for the gaps. Excellent. He crawls out when he's finished. Tech activates the system, listening for the familiar hum. "Everything appears to be in order."
Omega stands there, waiting for something. Tech thinks what this might be. Ah yes. "You did well. Would you like to play with a small toy as a reward?"
This earns her a sideways look. "Thanks." He rubs his arm.
"May I?" Omega nods and Tech takes his arm. The burn is small. Tech uses a quick bacta spray to soothe the pain and encourage healing. "There."
The boy glances away. "I don't need a reward for helping. I'm a member of this crew, too."
For a moment, she nearly forgets, nearly corrects him and points out he is a child. Then her memory clicks in, along with her previous observations. Omega is older than the four of them, and he has taken on a role as a full part of the team. Regardless of his developmental age, he is as much a member of the crew as Wrecker is.
That sends her along another thought track. Omega and Wrecker are of similar developmental levels. Wrecker may be gifted with explosives, tall, broad, her face scarred and her head shaved bald after that same explosion destroyed half the hair follicles on her head, but in many ways, she's childlike. There is a reason she's the closest of them all to acting like Omega's sister. Tech doesn't consider the regs her sisters but she does consider Wrecker, Hunter, and even Crosshair her sisters, which makes Omega her brother by that transitive.
She keeps the twitch in check this time.
"So you are." She sits back in her seat, considering. "Rather than a reward, consider it a bonus in lieu of pay." Her words draw out a smile from the boy, although this isn't difficult. He smiles all the time. How peculiar.
"All right, a bonus," he says.
Tech pulls out one of her datapads, an older one she's been tinkering with. She makes some quick changes, adding a program she hasn't worked with in a while. "Here."
Omega looks at it, then at her. "What's this?"
"You may think of it as a game." She pointed out the text. "Balos is a shuttle pilot. Cal owns a green poncho. Stardancer has a gem necklace. Who is married to Fridd?"
"Oh." Omega frowns at the screen, and Tech recalls seeing the same expression on Hunter's face the only time she showed her sister what she was doing sitting there in the corner while the rest of them threw around a lightball. Omega looks so much like them. She can't comprehend how the others didn't see the connection immediately.
He touches the screen. "Sar is married to Fridd." He hands it back to Tech, who for once is speechless.
"That was very fast," she says when she can make her mouth work.
Omega shrugs. "It was the only possible option."
"Yes," says Tech. "I have more if you want them."
"Maybe later," he says and wanders into the back. Wrecker is playing with Gonky and soon Tech hears them both laughing.
This leaves her alone with her puzzle. She opens her datapad and examines her notes.
The Kaminoans chose Jango Fett as their genetic source due to many factors. Her genome held a rare combination of easily-replicated patterns. Mass cloning is a far harder science than the general layperson understands. No, they could not have chosen a random soul off some Coruscanti street. They needed someone special. Jango was a peak physical specimen, her muscle composition, pain tolerance, and mental capabilities well above average among humans. She was a bounty hunter, true, but Tech has noted she and her own sisters are willing to do unsavory things these days in exchange for credits, which fix and fuel the ship and buy them food. She can't judge Jango for making the same choices.
Clone Force 99 was built as a special project. The Kaminoans took the base DNA and made modifications. Jango Fett was bright, but Tech knows she's a genius. Fett was strong, but Wrecker is hugely powerful. And so on. (Her mind attempts to skip past thinking about Crosshair, and the flat look in her sister's eyes, and Tech sighs as the autonomic twitch happens again.)
Omega is another special project, a deviation like them. His gender has served to hide him right under the noses of the Republic and the Jedi, allowing the Kaminoans to tinker with him without oversight. Tech's previous observations already pointed to his sharp mind long before she handed him the puzzle. He's a fast learner, shooting almost as well as Crosshair the first time he held a blaster. He solved Tech's puzzle within seconds. He's nearly as good at strategy as Hunter, and Hunter had special training once their team was old enough. His genetic enhancements appear to be numerous, yet Tech can barely find a single unusual twist in his DNA.
She turns in her chair to look at Omega and Wrecker. They're having a great time together. Tech calculates a ninety-eight percent chance both of them will start laughing within the next two minutes.
She looks down at her notes. It can't be that simple, can it?
Omega's high laughter and Wrecker's loud guffaw echo through the ship. The thought reminds her that Echo and Hunter should be back soon, and they'll be off again.
In her private shorthand, Tech jots down another note. "Hypothesis: Omega's enhancement is not a direct genetic modification. He is an unaltered clone, and he was raised to be happy."
She nods and closes the file. She has a new theory to test but she has a good feeling about this one.
It is only logical.