Chapter Text
Crosshair’s eating alone, and late. Not because he’s hungry - he’s been standing behind Rampart for a full day, ‘guarding’, if he wants anything it’s sleep. But he knows about minimum caloric requirements. Late enough that the room’s nearly empty, until the prisoners get marched in. All clones, in work coveralls instead of armor, one trooper escorting them. The last one is scarred - that captain from Ryloth. He counts, automatically: the traitors have been kept together. Not what he’d recommend, but not his problem.
Not a surprise, either, when the former captain makes for his table. He doesn’t bother looking at the man. “Something you wanted?”
“Just conversation,” Howzer says, sits. His keeper hasn’t noticed the loss just yet.
“You’ll have better luck anywhere else.” Howzer’s men are two tables away, and none of them are armed. The trooper’s a recruit. Worthless to either side in a fight.
“Potch won’t mind. How much trouble can you get into in a cafeteria?”
“Is that a threat?” Crosshair asks, soft - and Howzer’s face falls, and that’s when the guard looks up from his meal and notices he’s short one traitor. Turns his momentary panic into stomping over to retrieve his lost man.
“Get back in your place -”
“Is that an order, Trooper,” Crosshair asks, leaning back slightly.
“Sir,” the anger turning back towards fear as he registers the rank. “This clone - he’s -”
“The situation is under control. Finish your meal, Potch.” The nat-born reads the order correctly, snaps a salute, and retreats as his other charges pretend they weren’t watching. Leaving him stuck with the reg.
“I did not intend any threat, or insult,” the man says. “Cafeteria could be rowdy, but never anything serious. In my time.”
Crosshair thinks of a half-dozen incidents at meals or the surrounding halls that ended with one of them in the infirmary. Of sneaking food at night instead. Says, “Times changed.”
“That’s for sure.” Howzer turns his attention to his food. Which isn’t objectively bad, if the prisoners are any indication. Crosshair looks at his own tray again, but it’s no more interesting than before. “We were that close to being shot, after you left. Got shipped here instead.” The Empire is building. And some places - planets with adequate air, water, organic matter - beings are cheaper than droids.
“If you could get out of here. Where would you go?” Howzer’s eyes go wide, but he doesn’t startle the way he clearly wants to, doesn’t telegraph to the room that Crosshair has said anything unusual. Which he has. Skirting treason to ask, but he doesn’t understand how traitors think. If he did, he wouldn’t have miscalculated so badly with his brothers.
It’s silent for long enough that he almost thinks the disgraced captain is smart enough not to answer. “First I need to get these boys out of what I got them into. But if I could - home,” Howzer says. “To Ryloth.”
“Not Kamino.” Howzer’s a clone, a reg. They all think Kamino is some kind of homeworld.
“Ryloth’s been home a long time now. Never was much of a swimmer.”
Crosshair can’t see that a desert planet is much better. He would rather not think about an ocean again, but he was finding sand in his gear until he lost it. “And do what, farm sand?”
“Make amends. Try to talk to my vode again, try to...” He trails off, with a twist of a smile. “I used to be good at talking to people.” It was his vode who’d wanted to shoot him, of course.
Crosshair feels even more tired, suddenly. “They didn’t explain anything to you, did they. Just ran, and left you for a distraction.”
Howzer doesn’t pretend not to know who he’s talking about. “It wasn’t a distraction, it was my command. My men, I’d have left with that jumped-up out-system toy soldier’s shit orders. I’m not a deserter.”
So the Bad Batch had offered an escape to this reg, someone they’d barely met. Crosshair waits to feel something about that, but he’s not even surprised. All that comes is that headache he always gets from thinking about his brothers. And then he’s been quiet long enough that the reg is going to start talking again. Time to get rid of him.
“Nice speech,” Crosshair sneers. “But the Kaminoans put an override chip in every clone they sold to the Republic.” He watches the room behind Howzer, everyone pretending they aren’t watching back. Crosshair doesn’t care enough for his expression to give anything away. “That’s why your mutiny failed. Good soldiers follow orders. You could talk - but here you are too, not deserting. You never had a chance, Captain.”
“That’s not - that can’t be real. It’s a punishment detail, sure. But I’m going to appeal it. We’re not - we’re not droids, nothing’s making us.” The reg’s trying to think of anything he’s done that isn’t consistent with being programmed to be docile and compliant. Coming up short.
Crosshair cuts off his sputtering. “Your ‘toy soldier’ isn’t going anywhere. Neither is your appeal. You think you could jump that idiot and steal a ship, you just haven’t. Because you can’t.”
The reg shuts up, finally, eyes on his tray. He doesn’t go back to eating again. Crosshair tries the food again. He needs to be functional. The alternatives are less pleasant.
He realizes, eventually, that the reg is looking at him again. “What.”
“Is that why you’re still here? A chip?”
“No, I can think for myself.” Nowhere else to go, Crosshair doesn’t say. Takes a bite of food that tastes like nothing, instead. “And I can see the Empire is going to win.”
“Is that why you tried to kill Senator Taa?”
Crosshair doesn’t understand the change in subject, but none of this matters to him. Except the one thing that’s always mattered. “I don’t miss.”
“But you are wrong. About me. About my men.”
There’s no doubt that Howzer’s chip has malfunctioned somehow. Maybe he just hates Admiral Rampart enough to override it. Whatever it is, Howzer’s certainty is back. Jaw set like a doomed Republic hero. Like - nothing Crosshair wants to think about. “Then don’t let me keep you.”
The reg still doesn’t leave. Might be glaring at him; he doesn’t look. “If that’s what you want. Let’s make it a bet, though. We get a chance and don’t take it, I owe you a favor. I get us out of this - you owe me one.”
“A bet.” Maybe insanity interferes with the chips. That would explain his brothers. Crosshair doesn’t want favors from any reg. Or any traitor. He doesn’t want this conversation to keep going, either. “Whatever. Your funeral, Howzer.” Not that clones get ceremonies for dying.
“Thanks.” Howzer reaches across, grips his wrist for a second - barely long enough to register the touch, not enough to pull away. “Take care of yourself, Crosshair.” He gets up and retreats to his own table before Crosshair can order him gone.