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Good soldiers follow orders.
Knifelike pain lanced through Tech’s skull. He squeezed his eyes shut, clamping down on a cry. The electric buzzing and whirring of the medical pod surrounded him, a storm of noise and light through his eyelids.
Good soldiers follow orders.
The words drowned out the panic, the lingering fear of… of…
What was I afraid of?
Through the pain, Tech forced his scrambled mind to focus, to remember why he was here, inside a medical pod. He found a memory, sharp and recent: the Coruscant Guardsmen dragging him away, their hands tight around his wrists. A trooper slamming the butt of a rifle into Crosshair’s ribs when he tried to fight them. The panic of the troopers manhandling him into a medical pod.
Good soldiers follow orders.
The pain climbed impossibly higher. Something descended over his mind, weighing him down, crushing him—
And then the pain was gone. The crushing weight settled into his bones and stole into his skull, but he felt no need to fight, no panic. It was… calm. Like lying under a perfectly heavy weighted blanket. Everything felt deeply right. Correct. The clamoring questions and endless stimulation of the outside world fell away. The deep certainty was peaceful, like swimming deep beneath the surface of a roiling ocean and lingering in the blissfully silent, cool depths while the world raged above him.
Good soldiers follow orders. I’m a good soldier. I will follow orders.
As the calm settled in his chest, it almost felt alive, like another person inside his skull, like a separation between “Tech” and “CT-9909,” but Tech shook his head, throwing off the thought. That instinctual response was clearly incorrect. He was still the clone his batchmates had referred to as “Tech,” just as Tech was also CT-9909. Labels for the same product, nothing more.
Tech sat up and slid out of the medical pod. The pain had gone, and his recent fear felt foolish. Tech traced his fingers over the right side of his scalp. The chip must have been terribly miscalibrated before, and Nala Se had simply realigned it so that it was working properly.
Admiral Rampart moved into the room, and Tech stood at attention.
“I assume your orders are to retrieve the other members of my squad for recalibration of their inhibitor chips?” Tech asked.
“Indeed. Will that be a problem, CT-9909?” Rampart asked, his eyes narrowing just slightly, as though the question was a test.
Problem? What a ridiculous question. If the orders had not been given, Tech would have requested them. The others were wrong, and he could make them right. He could share this deep peace with them. Why would he fight that?
“No problem at all, sir.”
The plan hadn’t gone… well, according to plan. As far as Clone Force 99 was concerned, however, this was far from unusual.
Rampart’s orders had been for Tech and the troopers to return to the brig and collect each member of his squad for recalibration of their inhibitor chips. However, upon Tech’s return to the brig, they found a pile of unconscious Coruscant Guardsmen and an empty cell. In the chaos, Tech had been forced to adapt. Rather than simply collecting them, he would have to recapture them. Despite the change of plans, Tech had no concerns about his mission. The chaotic aftermath of a shattered plan was where Tech did some of his best work. This would be no different.
It had been easy to shed his new Imperial armor and slip back into his squad’s ranks. With any other troops, Tech would have advocated for simply subduing them by force, but he knew his squad. The risk of them damaging either themselves, the facility, or the other clones was too high. He also knew that simply talking to them would be fruitless—the others wouldn’t trust the inhibitor chips, not yet. They were suspicious and fearful, still embroiled in the uncertainty that came with the misprogrammed chips. So, feigning a panicked escape, Tech slipped back in their ranks, where they welcomed him back without hesitation or suspicion. Hunter pulled him aboard the Havoc Marauder while Echo flew them away.
After they were underway, it had been a simple matter of triggering a false hyperdrive failure, thus forcing Echo to land the Marauder .
Capturing them undamaged would require precision and skill. Tech possessed both in abundance.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wrecker asked again, his giant hand landing on Tech’s shoulder.
“I am unharmed,” Tech said.
“I thought they were gonna reprogram you,” Wrecker said, his voice as quiet as it usually went. “Y’know, because we didn’t follow their banthashit orders.”
Tech understood now that the Empire’s orders were not “banthashit,” as Wrecker described them. They made so much sense. Soon, Wrecker would understand, too.
“As I said, I am unharmed,” Tech said.
Tech turned back to the hyperdrive he was pretending to fix while Wrecker continued to linger at his shoulder. As cadets, Wrecker cowered at the threat of reprogramming. Tech used to reassure him, late in the sleep cycle, when Wrecker’s nightmares of being dragged to the medical wing drove him into Tech or Hunter’s bunks. Tech always promised Wrecker that he would do everything in his power to keep Wrecker safe. Those promises and fears seemed foolish now, unimportant beside the solid monolith of his orders.
Tech turned to rummage in his toolbox, using the action to surreptitiously scan his surroundings. Wrecker was still loitering with Tech in the main body of the Marauder . Hunter and Omega were still in the cockpit. Crosshair was outside, having readily accepted Tech’s suggestion to establish a perimeter, and Tech had dispatched Echo to the Marauder ’s rear to find a problem with the thrusters that didn’t exist.
Hunter would be Tech’s first target. Had Hunter been an ordinary clone, disabling Wrecker and his enhanced strength would have been Tech’s first priority, but Hunter’s superhuman senses meant that he would know the moment Tech turned against a member of the squad. Thus, Hunter and his enhanced senses were Tech’s first target, with Wrecker as a close second. Tech had shelved Crosshair and Echo for last, taking them off the board until he could deal with them. By the time they returned, Tech would be ready for them.
Tech straightened his goggles and allowed his hand to stray to the blaster at his side. His finger tapped a silent beat against the holster as he listened to Hunter and Omega talking in the cockpit, as he listened to Wrecker shuffling behind him. He hailed Echo on the comms.
“Echo.”
“Still haven’t found the problem yet, Tech,” came Echo’s gruff response. “I’ll be a while.”
“Take your time,” Tech replied. He switched to Crosshair’s comm channel. “Crosshair. Status report.”
“It’s still a desolate hunk of rock. But I saw a bird, so we’ve got that going for us. How’s the ship?”
“We are working on it. I will keep you apprised.”
“Copy.”
Tech closed the connection with Crosshair, sealed up the panel he had been pretending to work on, and stood.
“Wrecker, perhaps you could go and help Echo with the thrusters.”
“Naw, I don’t know anything about those,” Wrecker declined cheerfully. “He’s the one with the Marauder downloaded into his brain. I’ll stay with you.”
“Very well,” Tech said. He knew from experience that pushing Wrecker to do something he didn’t see the purpose of would only make him dig his heels in more.
Tech stood and walked toward the cockpit, keeping his movements loose and relaxed. Wrecker followed him. The cockpit doors opened, and Tech waved Wrecker in first. Once his back was turned, he drew his blaster and double-checked that it was set to stun. Wrecker and Hunter were valuable assets, and he could not risk damaging them without cause.
The first stun-ring hit Hunter before he could even turn around. As Hunter began to drop, he stunned the girl before she could scream.
Tech spun around to target Wrecker. Wrecker’s mismatched eyes were still wide, his posture open and his defenses lowered. As Tech had known, Wrecker’s emotional attachment to him prevented him from defending himself. Despite the weapon at Wrecker’s hip, Tech was able to stun Wrecker without contest, sending his bulk toppling to the ground. Wrecker landed with a floor-shaking thud. Tech fired an additional stun ring into each prone body.
Three down, two to go.
“Echo, I require your assistance. Return to the main cabin as quickly as is feasible,” Tech said.
Through the comm channel, Echo huffed out an affirmative.
Tech looked over the computer console and the interior of the ship, triple-checking that nothing was out of place while he waited for Echo. Hunter, Wrecker, and Omega’s unconscious bodies were hidden and restrained in the cockpit. He’d removed Wrecker and Hunter’s armor and retrained them, as well as restraining the girl. While the bindings would hold Hunter and Omega, no bindings available to him would hold Wrecker’s strength in check, so he would have to keep him stunned until they returned to the Empire. Tech checked his vambrace. One hour and twelve minutes until the next stun round would need to be administered. Plenty of time to disable Echo and then turn his attention to Crosshair.
Echo’s metal footsteps announced his presence as he entered the main cabin of the ship.
“What’s the problem, Tech?” he asked without preamble, his voice clipped, the way it was when he was particularly annoyed. Truthfully, Tech could have used more time to prepare, but Echo was clearly becoming irritated with himself for not being able to find the nonexistent problem with the ship. Tech couldn’t risk Echo’s hair-trigger for suspicious activity to be tripped. He had to take him off the board quickly.
“Would you mind plugging into the computer and running a diagnostic?” Tech asked, gesturing at the scomp socket.
Echo approached the socket, but he didn’t plug in. His eyes narrowed.
“You said you already ran two diagnostics.”
“I did. However, despite the problem with the thrusters, nothing is showing up on my diagnostics. I am hoping that you will be able to pick up a problem I am not seeing.”
“Okay, okay, fine.”
Echo rolled his shoulder and plugged his scomp arm into the computer. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as he searched.
“Tech, I’m not seeing any probl—”
Echo’s voice cut off with a barely-audible gasp. His eyes flew open, and his body went rigid.
“Remain calm, Echo,” Tech said.
“T-Tech—” Echo choked out through frozen lips. “Can’t m-move.”
“I am aware.”
Tech took a cable from his toolkit and plugged one end into his datapad. He plugged the other end into the back of Echo’s headpiece and got to work. Echo’s muscles twitched as he tried to fight, to break free, but it was useless. Cybernetics wound their way through his entire body, even his biological left arm. He couldn’t do much more than twitch his fingers or speak in this state. The paralyzing command was one of Tambor’s, a part of Echo’s programming. Something Tech had sworn to never use.
That promise seemed so inconsequential now.
“Remain calm. I will not damage you. I am overriding your internal defenses and shutting down your mobility-related systems.”
Through his gritted teeth, a low, almost inhuman sound came from Echo’s throat.
“I know it hurts.” Tech looked up from the screen just long enough to rest his hand against Echo’s shaking arm before returning to his work. “It will be over soon.”
With a few final keystrokes, Tech was ready. He moved behind Echo, wrapping one arm around Echo’s middle. Echo’s armored sides rapidly contracted and expanded with shallow, panicked breaths. He was making little, frightened noises as he tried to move. Tech wanted to tell him not to fight, that it was only making the pain worse, but he knew he would be wasting his breath.
“When I enter this final command, your legs will be disconnected from your neural implants. You will fall, but I will catch you.”
Tech entered the command, and Echo’s cybernetics went as limp as a ragdoll. He fell back into Tech’s arms, metal-heavy, and Tech caught his weight, their armor clacking together as he dragged Echo back to his bunk. Cradling his head to protect his valuable neural implants, Tech lowered Echo down into the bunk and arranged his unresponsive body so that he was lying on his back. Tech began to strip Echo’s armor off his limp body and stack it beside his bunk. As he worked, Echo tried to speak to him. Tech ignored the pleas for him to “wake up” and “snap out of it.” There was nothing to wake up from, only the calm certainty of his orders.
“Don’t do this,” Echo said. “Please, Tech—”
“Desist, Echo. There is nothing to fear,” Tech said, pausing in the act of unclipping Echo’s pauldron. “I will return you all to the Empire. They will fix your inhibitor chips. I will be with you each step of the way. No harm will come to you.”
Echo fell silent then, just watching Tech remove the rest of his armor and carefully check over his cybernetics, making sure none of them had been damaged. Some of the Imperials had expressed special interest in Echo’s abilities, and Tech didn’t want to disappoint them.
Despite Tech’s reassurances, Echo’s breathing remained erratic. His back teeth chattered together. Tech paused to listen to the sound. Shivering? Was there a problem with Echo’s systems, or something wrong with his respiratory implants? Tech pulled Echo’s shirt open, checking his synthetic lungs, but they were perfectly functional. Frowning, Tech listened again. Repeating clicks and silences, not chattering.
Three short clicks. Three longer. Three short clicks again.
SOS
He was trying to warn Crosshair.
Tech wrenched Echo’s head to the side and pressed his fingers underneath the edges of Echo’s headpiece. The headpiece released and deactivated, and with it, Echo’s built-in comms.
Tech gripped Echo’s chin and forced him to look at him.
“Were you able to make contact?”
Echo didn’t answer, just stared back at him, his lips pressed together. Under Tech’s thumb, pressed against Echo’s neck, his pulse beat out a fear-quickened rhythm.
“Echo. Did you make contact with Crosshair? Answer me.”
Again, Echo said nothing. Tech released him and sat back. He could force the answer from Echo, given time, but, whether or not he had successfully made contact, there was nothing Tech could do about it. Even if he did know, Crosshair would come back for them. It was in his nature.
And Tech would be waiting for him.
Tech locked Echo’s wrist into a binder cuff and looped the other cuff around the frame of his bunk. While the paralytic command was still in effect, he didn’t want to take chances.
“Crosshair, what is your position?” Tech asked again over the comms. Again, he received no reply. With Echo out of the way, only Crosshair needed collecting, but, after Echo’s warning, Crosshair had gone radio-silent.
Tech’s trigger finger tapped out a measured beat against his blaster’s holster. Echo’s eyes followed him, but he’d long since stopped trying to speak through the gag. Tech had considered stunning him, but, if Crosshair continued to maintain his distance, using Echo as bait or forcing him to comm Crosshair could become necessary. He needed to keep his options open to catch an opponent as wily as Crosshair.
Tech tried one last time.
“Crosshair, what is your position?”
Again, there was no answer. Either Crosshair had run into unexpected trouble on the planet’s surface, which was unlikely given its even terrain and minimal animal life, or Echo’s warning had gone through. In either case, he had been gone for too long, and the time had come to head out and find him. Tech drew his blaster and double-checked that it remained set to stun. Rampart had expressed particular interest in Crosshair, and Tech would have to take special care not to damage him once he found him.
Tech lowered the Marauder ’s ramp. The cold, gritty air blasted through the opening. He began to move down the ramp, but he hadn’t made it two steps down before a low voice spoke from behind him.
“Don’t move.”
Tech raised his hands over his head. He forgot how quiet Crosshair could be.
Crosshair emerged from his hiding spot beneath the ship, the barrel of his blaster aimed at Tech’s head.
“Crosshair?” he asked, feigning an appropriate mixture of confusion and measured fear. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing.” Crosshair advanced up the ramp, forcing Tech back, into the ship. His eyes flicked around the interior of the ship, finding Echo’s prone form. “You want to explain to me why you have the reg cuffed to a bunk?”
“Stand down, Crosshair. This isn’t what it looks like. Echo’s chip activated. I was forced to subdue him before he hurt himself or us.”
With a muffled growl, Echo tried to stand, his paralyzed muscles shaking. His head jerked back and forth. Crosshair scowled, making the reticule tattooed around his eye narrow.
“Chip? What are you talking about? Where are Hunter and Wrecker?”
“When you failed to answer over comms, they went to look for you.”
“You’ve never been a good liar, Tech.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Tech cocked his head, his eyes flicking from Crosshair’s eyes to his hands, to his tight grip on his blaster. If Crosshair planned on firing, he would have done so already. Just like Wrecker, Crosshair couldn’t look past his emotional attachments to prioritize what needed to be done.
Tech lunged at Crosshair, knocking the blaster aside. Crosshair didn't fire. They crashed together, a mess of swinging limbs and Crosshair’s growled curses. Tech blocked Crosshair’s wild blows, searching for an opening. Crosshair’s primary strategic uses were in his enhanced vision and his sharpshooting abilities. Tech could not risk damaging his eyes or his hands.
Tech’s opportunity came when Crosshair overextended himself on a blow aimed at Tech’s head. Tech dodged the unbalanced punch and spun behind Crosshair. He locked his arms around Crosshair’s throat and pulled him over backward. They crashed down to the floor together. Crosshair thrashed, clawing at Tech’s armored forearms. If he continued to fight so hard, he would damage his hands. Tech swung one leg up and wrapped it around Crosshair’s right arm, pinning it. Crosshair snarled as Tech caught his left arm and similarly trapped it.
Crosshair strained against Tech’s hold, cursing colorfully.
“Surrender, and no further harm will come to you,” Tech said. “You will be returned to Kamino for reprogramming.”
“Fuck off,” Crosshair said, straining against Tech’s hold on his arms. He kicked ineffectually, trying to loosen Tech, and only managed to send Echo’s discarded helmet rolling across the floor.
Tech tightened his chokehold just enough to cut off Crosshair’s air. The delicate cartilage of Crosshair’s throat bent inward, not quite to the point of breaking. Crosshair let out a strangled gasp that almost sounded like Tech’s name. Tech waited. The only sound in the Marauder was Crosshair’s desperate, ineffective gasping and Echo’s strangled voice coming through the gag. Tech ignored both as Crosshair’s struggles grew weaker.
Tech eased off once Crosshair was on the brink of unconsciousness. Crosshair sucked in a gasping breath, his chest shaking with rattling coughs. Tech took advantage of Crosshair’s temporary weakness to draw his secondary blaster from his hip. He pressed the barrel against Crosshair’s neck.
“You will stay down.”
“Or what?" Crosshair wheezed. "You need me alive, or you would have killed me already. What are you going to do, shoot me?”
“No, but accidents happen,” Tech said, tightening his hold on Crosshair’s throat and turning his blaster toward Echo. “Perhaps to Echo?”
“No!” Crosshair went limp in Tech’s arms. “No. I’ll—I’ll stay down.”
Tech released his grip and slid out from under Crosshair, keeping his blaster trained on his head. Crosshair watched him the whole time.
“They did something to you,” Crosshair rasped, his teeth stained pink by blood. His dark eyes were as hard as flint. “Tech, you have to—”
Tech fired a blue stun ring, cutting off Crosshair’s sentence.
Tech lingered in the middle of the bright white Kaminoan lab. Around him, four gurneys waited, ready to be wheeled into surgery. He’d accomplished his mission. He’d followed orders. Rampart had instructed him to return to his quarters and rest.
Tech’s feet had led him here instead.
He walked to Hunter’s side. The droids had already dressed each of his squad members in loose red clothes, sedated them, and restrained them. Something twisted in Tech’s chest. His hand twitched toward the restraints, and he had to force himself to leave them fastened.
The intense, illogical feeling of wrongness returned, dragging him out of the peaceful clarity of his orders. For a moment of blinding panic, he breached the waters, and his mind snapped in two. Red-hot pain stabbed into his right temple. He pitched forward and only just caught himself on the edge of Hunter’s gurney. In that moment, he was CT-9909 , and Tech was something Other, something incoherent and frightened, something clawing at the inside of his mind, screaming with blaring insistence that he had to take his brothers and run, that this was wrong.
Good soldiers follow orders.
CT-9909—Tech—shook himself, and the voice dissipated as quickly as it had come. He was Tech, and there was nothing to fear. His squadmates were perfectly safe, and they would be made right again once Nala Se recalibrated their chips. It had been a long, taxing mission, and his fatigued mind was clearly playing tricks on him. Rampart had been right to tell him to rest. Resolving to return to his quarters and sleep, he turned away from Hunter’s prone body and moved toward the door.
A hand hooked around his wrist. He looked down and found Echo looking up at him, his hand gripping Tech’s wrist like a lifeline.
Tech sighed. He had warned the medical droids that Echo would need a higher dose— he metabolized the sedatives much faster than unaltered clones. They clearly hadn’t listened.
“Tech.”
Echo’s eyes were bleary and unfocused, and his hand, still wrapped around Tech’s wrist, trembled.
“Tech. Please.”
His grip tightened. Echo looked up at Tech with wide eyes, the same panicked look Tech saw each time Echo woke from nightmares and called him the wrong names. Don’t let me go, Fives. Don’t let them turn me into a monster. Don’t let them take me away, Rex. Please.
“Tech,” Echo said again, his voice breaking.
This is wrong, Tech insisted, his insidious voice creeping in again, pulling at CT-9909’s insides. I need to get them out of here. I need to protect them.
Tech squeezed his eyes shut.
This is wrong— the Empire will hurt them and—
Good soldiers follow orders.
My brothers are in danger I need to—
Good soldiers follow orders.
“Tech—”
Good soldiers follow orders.
He wrenched his hand away from Echo.
“Your programming is faulty, CT-1409,” he said. He beat Tech back, until he couldn’t hear him screaming over the blissful, silent ocean of his orders. “You will be reprogrammed. You will follow orders.”
Knowing it would be useless to try to reason with him, Tech forced Echo’s wrist back into the restraints, overpowering his drug-weakened resistance. Tech grit his teeth, shutting out the way Echo’s voice broke, the way his pleading broke down into frightened sounds. You’re safe, Echo. You’re all safe, and Nala Se will make you right again.
Very soon, everything would be right again. Echo would understand why this was necessary. He would understand their orders. They all would.
The door opened, and medical staff in white clothes streamed into the room. Echo threw himself up against his restraints. Tech looked away. They’re safe, Tech told himself. They’ll understand.
Tech turned away, leaving his squad to the Imperials, ignoring the way Echo called out for him, ignoring Tech’s voice in his head. He had his orders, and good soldiers followed orders.