Chapter Text
“STAY BACK!”
The words rang out clear across the ravine, and Hunter could practically feel the fear emanating from the young padawan several feet away from him. Caleb clutched his lightsaber, trying to look at Hunter with a defiant look, but . . . failing.
Failing miserably.
“I don’t want you anywhere near me!” Caleb yelled.
Even though it was useless, Hunter took a step forward. “Caleb . . .”
And even though that one tiny step didn’t do much, Caleb backed away a step. “Don’t!” he cried. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Just - just stay back and -”
“Caleb, listen to me.”
The padawan’s eyes flew open.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Hunter said slowly.
“How do I know I can trust you?” Caleb shot back. “You - you killed her!” His voice broke in the next sentence. “You killed my master!”
For a split-second, Hunter hesitated.
“No,” he said softly. “The clone legion she was in charge of - they were the ones who killed her.”
Tears started to form in the corner of Caleb’s eyes. The sight of them made Hunter’s heart squirm uncomfortably.
“But me and the rest of Clone Force 99 . . . we didn’t. And we are not going to hurt you.”
A tear rolled down the padawan’s cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.
“I promise,” Hunter added, and he stretched out his hand.
In the beat of silence, Caleb’s eyes went everywhere - at Hunter’s hand, at Crosshair right beside Hunter, at the trees behind him, and then his lightsaber. His hands started to shake. The saber shook, too.
Finally, he turned off the lightsaber with a click.
The next time he spoke, it was so very quiet, but even so it managed to float over to the two clones.
“Okay.”
~
“I can’t believe you,” Crosshair hissed.
In the aftermath of Kaller, Hunter, Crosshair, and now Caleb had shown up at the Maurader to reconvene with the rest of the Bad Batch. The other three had looked at Caleb - who avoided their gaze completely - in wonder, but Hunter shook his head. Later, his expression seemed to say, and the others understood at once.
Except for Crosshair.
“We’re not supposed to save any of them,” he snapped.
“Not save who?” Hunter said, his voice low. “A kid who doesn’t have anyone left?”
Crosshair struggled to come up with an answer. Hunter set his jaw and pushed past him.
Caleb sat on one of the Maurader’s chairs, hugging his knees close to his chest. His eyes flickered up to Hunter when the clone approached him, but other than that he didn’t move.
Hunter sat next to the padawan, then hesitated. What was he supposed to say? But before he could think about it anymore, Caleb interrupted his thoughts.
“Did you mean it?”
Surprised, Hunter looked at him. “Mean what?”
“Your promise,” Caleb mumbled. “About not hurting me.”
“Of course I did. None of us are going to harm you.”
Caleb didn’t say anything. Instead, he lifted his head to look briefly at Crosshair, then quickly turned away to nod at Hunter.
~
They managed to smuggle Caleb to their dorm room on Kamino without being interrogated too much - aside one regular clone trooper stopped them and asked who in the galaxy was that boy and where he had come from. This was against regulation!
“A survivor from Kaller,” Hunter quickly lied.
“He’s wearing Jedi robes,” the trooper pointed out, narrowing his eyes. “Didn’t you hear the orders from Order 66? Besides, he looks an awful lot like Depa Billaba’s -”
Hunter’s heartbeat sped up. “No, he doesn’t. He’s -”
His eyes darted over to Caleb, who was frozen to the spot. They couldn’t use “Caleb Dume” anymore, could they?
Unfortunately for Caleb and Hunter and just about everyone standing still in that hallway, Wrecker spoke up. “He’s Cal -”
“- yes, he’s Kallerin,” Tech quickly interjected, pushing to the front of the group. “As in he’s from Kaller. Obviously he is human and not actually the species known as Kallerin; he looks nothing like them. Did you know that Kallerins evolved from a semi-amphibious species native to the planet? It’s extremely fascinating -”
As he kept talking, his gaze shifted over to Hunter, who caught the slightly frantic look in his younger brother’s eyes. He’s stalling, Hunter realized - Tech was trying to give him enough time to think of an answer. Thinking quickly, he glanced at a very rigid Caleb beside him.
Hm. Kaller.
“Ka . . . nnnaaan,” Hunter said slowly. He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Kanan. Slipped from my mind for a moment.”
The trooper regarded him with a suspicious look. “Kanan what?”
“Jarrus,” Tech said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
There was a beat of silence. Echo raised an eyebrow, Wrecker looked confused, and Crosshair, who still had his helmet on, didn’t say anything.
“Kanan Jarrus,” Hunter confirmed, putting a hand on Caleb’s - Kanan’s? - shoulder.
To everyone’s immense surprise, the regular trooper just snorted and shook his head. “Took you long enough to say it,” he said. “No wonder they call you the Defect Squad.”
Thankfully there were no other close calls after that, although Caleb did attract a few strange gazes from other regs. Once they were all safely inside the dorm room, Echo turned to the others.
“Kanan Jarrus?” he said, sounding amused.
Tech shrugged. “Jarrus is the name of a canyon on Ryloth.”
“We were on Kaller, not Ryloth.”
“Well, obviously. But Caleb’s master was the padawan of Mace Windu, who helped liberate the planet of Ryloth back in the Clone Wars.” Tech took a moment to adjust his goggles. “It was better than Kanan.”
“In my defense, we were running short on both time and excuses,” Hunter said lightly. “If you can use a canyon at least a few people probably know about, I can use ‘Kaller’ as a base.”
“Short on excuses,” Crosshair murmured. “Like the reason you’re keeping this Jedi kid around.”
Caleb’s eyes darted to the floor.
“Would you rather we execute our commanders?” Hunter demanded, but then unfortunately noticed Caleb flinching at the word execute and inwardly grimaced.
(We’re not going to hurt you . . . I promise.)
“An order is an order,” Crosshair demanded, slamming a fist on the table. Caleb jumped at the sound.
“Since when?”
Echo spoke up, but Caleb didn’t hear him. How . . . how could this have happened? The clones that had worked so faithfully alongside him and Master Billaba - why had they turned on her? Why the sudden, cruel, and terrible change of heart?
A voice over the intercom jerked him out of his thoughts; an announcement of some kind, telling all troopers - yes, all of them - to come to the main hangar for an important meeting. Most of the Bad Batch didn’t move, but Hunter surprised everyone by heading for the door.
“This is one meeting I don’t want to miss,” Hunter said firmly. Before he left, though, he glanced back at Caleb.
“Stay here,” he told him. “We’ll figure out what to do afterwards.”
Caleb could barely nod.
“We should probably find some of the cadet clothes for him as well,” Tech supplied. “Since I don’t think Caleb wearing Jedi clothes would get us very far anywhere now.”
“Good point,” Hunter mused.
And then they were gone, and Caleb was left alone.
~
Hunter was still thinking about Caleb when the blond girl from the Emperor’s galaxy-wide speech found them in the hallway.
She grinned brightly as she introduced herself as Omega, and then proceeded to name each of them when Hunter asked how she knew all of them. “You’re Clone Force 99!” she chirped, sticking her hands behind her back.
“What are you doing on Kamino, kid?” Hunter asked, crouching down to be eye level with her.
Omega opened her mouth to respond - but then Nala Se appeared. She apologized for not keeping a better eye on Omega, but she was her ward and apparently she had a curious mind that tended to wander, so she wandered away quite a bit.
“I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience,” Nala Se said in the same cool tone that all Kaminoans used. “Come along, Omega.”
And she ushered the girl away, but not before Omega got a chance to wave goodbye.
Hunter stared at them as they went away, a strange feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.
“This day keeps getting weirder and weirder,” he muttered, turning back to the squad.
“Yes, it certainly seems to.” Tech glanced at Hunter. “Shall we . . . return to our barracks?”
Caleb. Right. He was still in their barracks. “Yes,” Hunter said, distractedly trying to think. “We need to split up. Tech and Echo - find some of the cadet clothing for -” He caught himself with a quick glance around the hallway. “- for, erm, Kanan.”
“Kanan,” Echo repeated, nodding.
“Wrecker and Crosshair, you can head off to lunch. I’ll go wait with him until Tech and Echo come back.”
“Naw, I want to wait with you and Caleb,” Wrecker said excitedly.
“Kanan,” Tech and Hunter corrected in unison.
Wrecker nodded again and lowered his voice in a not-quite whisper. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“He’ll need to eat, though,” Echo pointed out. “And we don’t want to attract . . . attention.”
“Yeah,” Hunter murmured, folding his arms. “We already attracted enough attention from that one reg . . . but we shouldn’t leave him alone for that long, either.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “Okay, squad, new plan.”
~
Omega couldn’t stop smiling.
She’d done it. After months of convincing herself she would, she finally introduced herself to Clone Force 99. To - as she heard some of the other troopers call them - the Bad Batch.
They knew she existed! To make matters even better, she had talked to them!! The way her heart had leapt for joy when she searched the big hangar full of rows and rows of clones, and there - smack-dab in the middle - there they were. Hunter, Crosshair, Tech, Wrecker, and their newest member Echo.
Even though Nala Se had ushered her away from them in the hallway, Omega didn’t really mind, because she was already envisioning plans to sit with them at lunch. So when Nala Se let her go for her lunch break, Omega ran as fast as she could over to the cafeteria.
She filled up her tray with the Kaminoan food, then searched the cafeteria for her favorite clones. She spotted them sitting at a table by themselves.
Except, she noticed as she got closer, for Hunter. Her heart faltered a bit. Where was Hunter?
“Hi!” Omega said breezily, putting her tray down on the table.
She was met with four blank stares.
. . . oh. Did they not remember her?
“You know,” she said uncertainly, as she sat down in the empty space next to Tech. “Omega? From - from the corridor?”
“We know,” Echo said.
Oh, thank goodness. Omega let out a deep breath and smiled up at him. “I thought for a moment you forgot,” she said, picking up her spoon.
Wrecker shared a glance with Echo, baffled, but luckily Crosshair cut in for them. “This is our table.”
“He means we don’t get other people here,” Echo said quickly.
“Yeah,” Wrecker said. “Ever.”
Omega beamed up at them with a dazzling smile. “Then I’ll be the first one!”
“You mean . . . you want to sit with us?” Tech’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s never happened before.”
Omega smiled as she sipped on her broth, swinging her legs underneath the table. There were a few moments of silence - pleasant for Omega, evidently confused for the Bad Batch - until another tray was set down on the table, and Omega found herself looking up at . . .
“Hunter!” she said gleefully.
And it was. Hunter didn’t try to conceal his surprise at the sight of the girl from the hallway sitting at their table.
“Uh . . . hey, kid.” He cast a glance at his squad. “What are you doing at our table?”
“She wants to sit with us,” Crosshair muttered.
Hunter looked back at Omega, looking like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. Instead he sat down next to her at the end of the table and asked the others if they’d been successful.
Omega didn’t ask what they had been successful in, but she watched as everyone nodded or gave Hunter a thumbs-up, and they all glanced at her once or twice without really meaning to, but she didn’t mind. After that strange exchange, Hunter finally started eating.
Well . . . that’s what Omega thought he was doing, anyway. As she reached for one of her rolls, she realized Hunter wasn’t eating at all; she leaned forward to see him occasionally taking a roll or a ration stick from his plate and placing it on a napkin on the bench beside him.
“What are you doing?” she said, puzzled.
Hunter’s gaze flickered up at the Bad Batch before meeting Omega’s.
“Saving,” he said, adding another roll to his pile.
“For . . . what?”
“For later.”
Omega furrowed her brow, suddenly concerned. “Do you not get enough to eat?”
“No, we do,” Hunter said, and she thought he would add more. But he didn’t.
A pair of regular troopers walking by pulled Omega out of her confusion. They wore identical white armor and buzzed haircuts, each holding a tray of food with the same things on it, and they looked at Omega with a funny expression.
“Hey.” The first clone nudged his friend. “Check it out - the Defect Squad has a new member.”
The second clone chuckled. “Another member of the Sad Batch, ey?” he joked.
A flame of fury unfurled inside of Omega, and she automatically clenched her fists, narrowing at the clones as they walked away. Without meaning to, she threw whatever was in her hand at them.
It turned out to be her roll.
It hit the back of the second clone with a smack. He let out a cry of outrage, whirling around with a scowl to see who had decided to wake up and choose violence that day. Almost everyone in the cafeteria craned their necks to see what had happened.
Omega grabbed another roll, stood up on the bench, and scowled right back.
“Apologize,” she growled, “to my friends.”
The clone trooper opened his mouth to say something most likely very rude and snarky back - but then his eyes widened and he and his friend quickly turned around. Omega folded her arms, satisfied, and unaware of Wrecker towering behind her.
Until he picked up and threw an entire tray of food at the clone troopers.
That broke out into a free-for-all food fight that everyone got involved in. Wrecker picked up three more trays and threw them at various people. Tech threw whatever was on his plate. Echo muttered “not again” before joining the fray. Crosshair, bless his soul, tried to keep eating, but a plate got thrown onto his food and then he was tossing his tray at someone like a space frisbee.
Omega threw herself into the fight, too. In all the chaos, she missed Hunter wrapping up the food he’d set aside in the napkin and discreetly grabbing the bundle of clothes that had been sitting next to Wrecker. She didn’t notice him leaving the cafeteria at all.
By the time Echo got knocked unconscious, Omega finally realized Hunter wasn’t there.
~
She didn’t catch him until they were about to leave, and even then, there was an uneasiness in her stomach.
She didn’t like General Tarkin. She’d overheard him say concerning things about the Bad Batch, and she just had to try and warn them, even if it meant they left for good. But, still . . . she was worried.
“Where are we going again, Omega?” AZ prodded.
Omega blinked her thoughts away and set her focus on the hall in front of them. “To Clone Force 99’s bedroom,” she replied. “It’s for . . . a research project.”
That did the trick. “Oh, I do love research projects!” AZ said, clasping his metal hands together.
Omega nodded. “But make sure to be quiet.”
They stopped before a doorway. She punched in the code - not to her surprise, it worked - and the door slid open with a hiss. Omega glanced around the hallway, then slipped in with as much stealth as she could muster.
“We’ll be very quick,” Omega promised, but she didn’t know if she was assuring herself or AZ. “And very quiet. No one will know that we’re - oh!”
She stopped on her tracks.
AZ gently bumped into her shoulder. “What is it?”
There was a boy in the corner.
He looked at her with wide eyes, his knees up to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around his legs. He looked like someone had stuck him in carbonite and left him there.
He also looked absolutely terrified.
They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Omega slowly crouched down to look at him better.
“Hi,” she said, her eyes searching him for familiarity. He was wearing clone cadet clothing . . . but he didn’t look anything like a clone. Not with the crooked nose and those bright teal eyes.
He didn’t answer. In fact, as Omega crawled closer to him, he scooted farther away.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, coming to a stop. She sat down with her legs criss-cross to show that she meant it. “Neither will AZ.”
AZ hovered over to them, his bright glowing eyes staring at the boy.
“That,” he said, “is against protocol.”
She had to admit, she was very curious about what the Bad Batch was doing with this boy. Did they know why he was hiding in their room?
She suddenly remembered Hunter packing food away in a napkin at lunch. Of course. That was why he’d left early - he’d been trying to sneak food to the boy across from her.
“I’m Omega,” Omega said. “What’s your name?”
There was a long, long silence.
“Kanan,” the boy mumbled.
Omega beamed at him. “Kanan,” she said happily, scooting a little closer. She noted that he didn’t move farther away. He didn’t move at all, actually, but it was a start. “I like that name. I think it suits you.”
Kanan didn’t say anything, but Omega didn’t expect him to.
“What are you doing here?” she pressed.
Kanan’s eyes flickered to her. She could see the mounting hesitation in them.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “Clone Force 99 won’t tell anyone either.”
“I know,” he muttered, staring at his knees.
There was a pause.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Omega deflated a little, but she straightened her shoulders and plastered a smile on her face before he had a chance to notice. “Okay,” she said quietly.”
“Omega.” AZ gently bumped into her to get her attention. “We should leave. We’ve been here long enough -”
The door slid open.
Omega jumped up to her feet and whirled around, but it wasn’t the Bad Batch.
“What are you doing here?” a helmeted clone trooper said, the confusion and irritation evident in his voice. “And who’s that?”
Before either of the kids could respond, the clone trooper grabbed Omega’s wrist and held her tightly. Another trooper went over to Kanan and yanked him to his feet. Kanan’s eyes were wide with panic; his gaze slid over to Omega with a silent plea for help.
“Who are you?” the trooper demanded, snapping Kanan’s attention back to him.
“None of your business,” Omega shot.
The other trooper holding onto her gave her a good shake. “He wasn’t talking to you,” he said, then gestured to his friend. “C’mon. We’ll throw them into a cell until we know what to do with them.”
The kids were pushed and shoved out of the room while more troopers filed in. Omega tried to see what they were doing, and caught a glimpse of several empty crates that they started to fill with stuff in the room.
Omega looked at the trooper gripping her with wide eyes. “What are you doing? That’s their room!”
“Not anymore,” the trooper said. “They’re traitors to the Empire. Now move along.” He turned back to yell another order at them. “Take it to the hangar when you’re done!”
He was met with a chorus of “sir yes sir”s as they started escorting the two children down the hallway. Omega spared a glance at Kanan - he looked scared out of his mind. His arms were wrapped tightly around his middle and he looked like he was about to be led to his death.
Maybe they were. Omega swallowed and put a brave face on for her new friend.
~
The prison’s energy shield crackled to life before the Bad Batch’s eyes.
Wrecker sniffed the air and frowned. “Smells weird,” he boomed.
“That’s because it’s clean,” Echo shot.
Hunter folded his arms, but worry was already gnawing at him from the inside. Their plan on Onderon had been to come back to Kamino, find Kanan and Omega, and get out of there before anyone noticed, but the Empire - and General Tarkin - had had other plans. Now they were stuck in one of their own prison cells. Imprisoned by their own brothers.
Tech’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Well,” he said, “the plan wasn’t a total failure.”
And it wasn’t. Hunter had been so distracted by his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed that there were already two other people in their cell.
Kanan and Omega.
“Actually,” Tech mused, rubbing his chin, “this is rather convenient.”
Omega was sitting with her legs criss-cross and had been looking sullen up until this point, when she attempted a nervous smile at them. Beside her, Kanan leaned against the wall and kept his arms crossed, but he seemed more anxious than he was trying to let on.
Relief flooded through Hunter. He crouched down in front of the kids.
“What are you two doing here?” he said, putting a hand on Kanan’s shoulder. Thankfully, Kanan didn’t flinch. He seemed more at ease with them there, if anything.
“We got caught,” Omega informed him. She was frowning. “I told you not to come back.”
“We had to,” Hunter told her. “We didn’t want to leave you two.”
Kanan looked relieved. Omega, however, glanced at him with wide eyes.
“You came back for both of us?” she whispered.
“Can’t go off into the galaxy leaving two kids behind in a prison cell,” Hunter said lightly. “Of course, we don’t have to take you - you can stay here if you like -”
“No!” Omega interrupted, scrambling to her feet. Kanan awkwardly picked himself up, his arms still folded. “I mean - yes, I want to go with you!”
Hunter stood up, too. “Well,” he said, “then everything seems to be in order. We just need to find a way out of here and find our stuff.”
~
That was, of course, easier said than done.
There should have been seven of them on the ship by the end of it - Clone Force 99, Kanan, and Omega. Five clone soldiers, one padawan, and one . . . well, no one was sure what Omega was yet. But there should have been seven of them.
Instead, there were only six. Both of the kids were there. Almost all of the adults were.
Everyone except Crosshair.
Hunter leaned against the doorway, eyeing Omega and Kanan from several feet away. They were sitting on the chairs bolted to one wall of the ship; Kanan was still trying to withdraw from everyone, but Omega seemed determined to stick with him and make him feel more comfortable. She had no idea what the boy had gone through.
And yet she still wanted to help.
Omega was talking in a quiet voice, whereas Kanan seemed content to just sit there and listen. Hunter’s eyes flickered to Kanan’s arms. He’d kept them tightly wrapped around his middle ever since they were in the prison cell, and Hunter thought he knew why - he must be trying to conceal his lightsaber. No wonder he had seemed so anxious in the prison cell.
What were they going to do with two kids? They were already trying to run from the Empire so they wouldn’t end up in the same fate as Crosshair. They didn’t have a clue on raising children.
They were meant to be soldiers, not . . . babysitters.
Not parents.
Hunter straightened and went back into the cockpit. He went over to where Tech was sitting in the pilot’s seat.
“Set course for Cut and Suu,” he said.
Tech leaned over to put the coordinates into the nav reader. “Done,” he reported two seconds later.
Hunter nodded and folded his arms. He glanced back at the kids in the next room over.
He had no idea how they were supposed to evade the Empire and take care of two kids - one of whom was force-sensitive - but they would try. They might need help, but Kanan and Omega deserved as much protection and defense as they could get.
And he’d try to give it to them.