Chapter Text
27 BBY
In the sterile halls of Kamino, a figure sneaks past patrols and avoids the cameras with clumsy ease.
CT-3234 walked back to the barracks with a datapad gripped in his hands, coming back from slicing his way past the restriction to the Holonet.
He had almost been caught when he was unplugging the datapad from the terminal after erasing any traces from its drive and backup drive.
Coming to a stop in front of the door, he knocked twice, paused, then three times.
It slid open with a quiet hiss, and before he could react, hands grabbed his shoulder and pulled him inside.
"What the kark were you thinking?! Why did you- wha- aaanndd your ignoring me." Gripped CT-3236 exasperated, '36 moving back to his bunk with the unsanctioned datapad, already looking around for a good spot to hide it in.
"I'm looking for a reason why we're defective and the others are not in the first place, what with the prime being a human." '36 stated, trying to ignore how the rest of his batch stiffened, powering on his datapad.
The rest of his batchmates defects, excepting him and '38 who's appearance is practically a red flag, were more behavioural and easier to hide with great effort.
CT-3235 always purred under batchpiles and affectionately nips them when their in a safe place, sometimes barely holding back hackles rising in front of their trainer.
CT-3237 sometimes went quiet, barely speaking for days, but somehow emoting quite effectively that the rest could have a full conversation with him not speaking a word. He gave barely there signals to warn them when a trainer was paying special attention to them.
They thought CT-3239 and 3240's defect were the same as '35 but it later showed they were only similar after a miscommunication between the three, with the twins being more in sync and territorial of their Batchmates, with emphasis on biting.
And there was '36 and '38, the unlucky more visual defect with mutation.
'38 had two different eye colours, which makes it easier for him to be overlook, if not for how much he was such a mothertooka to them.
'36, however, had somehow gotten bright blond hair and blue eyes, sometimes being called sunshine personified ironically, with him acting grumpy as self defense.
"We don't need more reasons to give them a chance to decommission us, '36, you know this." '38 whispered loudly, giving up and helping him find a hiding spot.
"No no, I learned something while listening to one of the trainers that gave me a hint to why the long necks are incompetent in their jobs!"
That gained the attention of the rest of their batch some of them stopped feigning sleep and sitting up, with three pairs of eyes glowing in the dark, '36 jumped when a warm body leaned from behind him, reaching for the datapad, snatched it, the put it inside a vent, leaving him no time to process '37 presence that he didn't notice behind him.
"Ok, but you can look into that later, we need to sleep and get ready for tomorrow. Don't think I can't see those eyebags in the dark, '37 hold him down till he passes out."
"Wha-"
He didn't get to finish his sentence when he was suddenly laying down on his front, head facing the wall of his bunk, a body lying on top of him with arms around his shoulders.
He scowled in the dark, blinking blearily to the quiet snickers from his Vode.
With the soft warmth from the back of his knees to his shoulders, covering him, he was out like a light.