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Crosshair cradled his stump of a wrist in the crook of his elbow and fought the urge to pass out. Adrenaline had worn off, his missing hand ached like someone was stabbing it, and the wrist throbbed. He bit his lip and leaned back. His hand was gone. His shooting hand was gone. The realization rolled over him in waves. He could technically pass out. He wasn’t mission-critical for this part, but it felt wrong to pass out in front of Omega. Not to mention the rescued regs. They’d been through far more than he had in the past 48 hours, and they were all still moving. Echo moved through the hold, quietly talking with them or clapping their shoulders the way regs tended to do. That was good. Echo knew what it meant to be a reg in a way the rest of them didn’t. A few of them sent Crosshair a friendly wave or nodded at him. He could vaguely remember them from his time in the cells on Tantiss but those memories felt painful to hold. He hoped they understood, and he was fairly certain it was the same for them.
“Let me see your wrist.” Omega softly ordered. She had a hypospray and something else. They had raided a med bay on the way out. It wasn’t one of the ones Crosshair remembered. He wasn’t sure if he would have been able to go into one of those. The regs had given him a knowing look, and Echo had too. He shook his head at Omega.
“Do I have to?” He asked. He hated how weak he sounded, like a sniveling cadet about to get their first round of vaccines.
“Unless you want it go get infected.” She replied. “And that would be even more needles.”
Echo slid into a chair next to him. He glanced at Omega holding the spray and Crosshair cradling his arm. He nodded.
“I know it’s awful, but it’s a must.” He said softly. “If the tendons don’t realize they’re severed, they’ll never calm down. That’s what General Skywalker told me anyway.”
“Skywalker?”
“Yeah, General Dooku chopped off his hand at the first battle of Geonosis. He used to throw the prosthetic one at Commander Tano or Rex whenever they asked for a hand. It was hysterical.” The ghost of a smile broke over Echo’s face. Crosshair exhaled. He extended the stump of his wrist slowly. Echo nodded again. Omega took the wrist silently and gave it two hits of the spray. Crosshair winced and looked away.
“It’s a clean cut.” She offered. “And they cauterized it well.”
“Lucky me,” Crosshair replied. Echo chuckled.
“I can walk you throw relearning how to shoot. It was actually easier than I thought it would be.” He whispered. Crosshair scoffed.
“No offense, but even with my other hand I’ll still be a better shot than you.” He glanced at Echo. The reg had leaned forward with a grin on his face. A challenge had been issued.
“Well, I move quicker than you.” He retorted. Echo smirked at Crosshair. Crosshair grinned back. He needed this. One-upmanship was the shared pass time of the entire clone army. They swapped horror stories of missions gone wrong and terror COs like it was some kind of competition. He figured it had begun on Kamino with their constant rankings and competition, and through the war, it had developed a certain catharsis. Even in the cells on Tantiss, the regs had made survival a competition. Who could stay conscious with their blood being drained the longest, who could vomit on the scientists the most, who could roll their eyes the biggest? Crosshair had never participated, but he did feel entitled to some renown for washing out of Hemlock’s training in such spectacular fashion. That was probably why the regs were waving at him.
“You have robot legs. Doesn’t count.” Crosshair replied. Echo rolled his eyes.
“Fine, I lost more limbs than you.” Echo finished. Echo had lost both legs and an arm, and was still the most effective ARC trooper Crosshair had ever known, the least annoying too. This was why they played the competition game. It was a shared promise that everything would be fine. They were still soldiers. Well, maybe they weren’t soldiers anymore but they were still brothers.
“I can get a scalpel if you want to win that one!” Omega suggested helpfully.
“No.” Echo and Crosshair replied at the same time.
“How’s the phantom pain?” Echo asked. His tone was serious again.
“Bad. Will it stop?” Crosshair fought to keep his voice level. If the pain stopped or if it didn’t, there was nothing he could do about it. Echo had been managing for years, he’d just have to do the same.
“Sometimes. Mine only really comes back when my mind has nothing else to focus on. I used to play a lot of number games with Tech, and that always helped. Ok if I look?” Crosshair appreciated him asking. He extended the stump towards Echo and tried to look anywhere else.
“Usually massaging it or squeezing it can help too.” Omega offered. Echo nodded.
“It’s cauterized, but it would be good to stick some bacta on it and wrap it up while the scab heals.” He suggested. Omega nodded.
“Good thoughts.” She replied. She began digging through the medical kits and pulling out supplies.
“The rain wasn’t helpful, but you’ll be fine.” Echo finished. He gave Crosshair’s wrist a friendly squeeze and gently set it down for Omega.
“I’m sure that’s why Hemlock went out into the rain,” Crosshair muttered. Echo looked confused, and so did Omega. For a moment he was worried the joke had gone over the kid’s head.
“Yeah. That’s what he told me anyway.” Omega finished riffling through the kits and lifted the stump. “He also may have mentioned something about Hunter’s hair and wondering if he would risk it in the rain.” Crosshair did a double take over Omega. Clone humor, dry wit, and biting sarcasm said in full earnest, was a genetic trait the Kaminoans had forgotten to screen out of them. Echo bit back a laugh and made eye contact with Crosshair. Crosshair held eye contact with his brother. He reached out with his good hand and grabbed Echo’s, thankfully the reg didn’t comment on it. He just squeezed Crosshair’s fingers. Echo held his gaze as Omega worked. Crosshair wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t watch as Omega applied bacta and wrapped layers of gauze around the stump that used to be his shooting hand.
“How are the regs?” He asked softly. Echo gave him a knowing glance. Crosshair tilted his head. Echo shrugged.
“Fine. All things considered. A little shell shock but that’s normal.”
“You weren’t shell-shocked,” Crosshair replied. “The Techno Union had you for longer.”
“I was unconscious for most of it though, and I was at least a little shell-shocked. Just not in front of you all. I waited until it was just Rex and the medics I knew before I let it show.”
“Smart,” Crosshair replied. He glanced down at Omega. She was still working, he quickly looked away
“Yeah well. ARC training and all that.” A wicked grin crossed Echo’s face. “Anyway, we need to figure out who gets to claim what hand jokes. I was here first so I get all of the original material.” Echo decided. Crosshair glared at him. He almost didn’t notice Omega wrapping another layer of gauze, but years of sitting with his brothers in med bays while they got patched up had taught him the script for this little exercise. Echo was the distraction, Omega was the medicine. Bastards, the both of them. But he could let them get away with it.
“Have you checked on Wrecker yet?” Crosshair asked.
“Yep. He’s fine. Passed out the second we were clear.” Omega replied. “How did he get hurt anyway?”
“You remember the giant monsters roaming around the jungle on Tantiss?”
“Sure.” Omega was still wrapping gauze. Crosshair tried to ignore it.
“He tried to fight one.”
“Why?”
“Not sure,” Crosshair replied. In reality, he understood perfectly well why his larger brother had charged into the monster head-on. It seemed like their only option at the time. It was their only option at the time. The cockpit doors opened and Hunter emerged.
“I love the regs. One of them is a pilot.” He explained. He slipped into a chair on the other side of Crosshair, and Crosshair immediately recognized it as a check-in from his brother. “How’s the hand.”
“Gone,” Crosshair replied. He smirked and glanced at Echo.
“Good. You’re learning.” Echo offered. Crosshair shrugged. Hunter glanced between the two of them. Crosshair watched his brother run the mental calculus on how this would change the team dynamic and their abilities.
“We need to regroup and figure out where the next threat is coming from.” Hunter decided. “What are the loose ends?”
“Hemlock’s dead. Crosshair shot him.” Omega replied. Her tone was clinical and professional. Like she was a battle-tested soldier giving a mission report to her superior and not a kid who had been through more than anyone ever should be. Shinies usually did that after their first mission before realizing the entire system they had been taught to die for was a lie. Hunter, Crosshair, and Echo exchanged looks. Someone would need to check on her as soon as they had the chance.
“Rampart?” Echo asked. His body language was relaxed, but his tone was calculated.
“Hopefully the same,” Hunter replied. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him again.” Echo shrugged in agreement. Crosshair hoped he was dead. A snake in the grass was a threat, a dead snake wasn’t.
“Nala Se said she was going to destroy all of the data she took. So the empire won’t get it.” Omega added. She nodded slowly along with the group. Crosshair paused. This might be the most formal of a debriefing their squad had ever done. Usually, there was more leaning back in chairs, yelling, and arguing about who had shot the most droids.
“I’ll warn Rex to tell his contacts to keep their ears open just in case,” Echo suggested. Hunter nodded.
“Maybe Emerie will know something too.” Omega offered. Crosshair felt his blood run cold for a minute.
“Emerie?” Crosshair asked. “You mean Karr?” His eyes flickered around the group. He felt something twist in his stomach. Echo immediately pressed their shoulders together in a comforting motion. Crosshair didn’t acknowledge him, but he appreciated the move.
“She helped us escape.” Omega explained. “We wouldn’t have made it without her.”
“We sent her back to Pabu with the other kids before going back in for you,” Echo explained. Crosshair made a face and glanced at Echo.
“She’s on Pabu?” He thought back to Karr strapping him and hundreds of other clones down for the blood draws and the brain reconditioning and-
“Yeah,” Echo answered. Crosshair pressed his shoulder back into Echo’s.
“Damn.” Crosshair breathed. Echo nodded, another shoulder press steadied him and reminded him he was with his brothers. Everything was workable if he was with his brothers.
“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to. And she’s aware she has a lot of things to atone for.” He added. Crosshair didn’t acknowledge. He glanced down at his hand and tried to ignore the way the wrist felt under the wrappings. It wasn’t painful at the movement, but it felt like he had spent too long in a sniper’s nest and his hand had fallen asleep. Normally he could shake that off, but now that was impossible.
“And, she’s a clone, like us. So technically, she’s our sister.” Omega chimed in.
“She’s what?” Hunter asked. Crosshair hid his grin at Hunter’s bafflement. Every time they thought the Kamioans couldn’t have any more secrets, they always found a new aspect the cloners had just never told the Republic about. It would have been funny, were it not his existence. There was a part of him that wondered if the Kaminoans ever stopped to think about the consequences of their actions or if they had only ever thought about the money they could make. Nala Se had at least thought about the consequences of the kid’s suffering, but it’s not like the rest of them were any older. Echo nodded.
“Yeah. I’m not really sure how it works either.” He muttered.
“Nala Se.” Omega answered. Crosshair nodded.
“You think she made it out?” Hunter asked the group. Echo glanced towards Omega. Crosshair doubted that any of them would shed tears at the loss of Nala Se, but she was part of Omega’s family regardless of whether they acknowledged that or not.
“I’m part of the team, I need to know.” She answered. Her fingers pulled on each other uncertainly.
“Sensors reported an explosion in her lab just as we were leaving.” Echo’s tone was so gentle. If Crosshair were alone, he would have hummed the old song about ding, dong, the witch is dead but he couldn’t do that in front of Omega.
“Oh.” Something passed across Omega’s face
“Doesn’t mean anything, just means that her lab blew up. She might not have been in there, or she could have uploaded data somewhere beforehand, or any number of things could have happened.” Omega shook her head.
“She’s gone.” Omega’s voice didn’t waiver. “But if the lab went up, she did it on her terms.” Crosshair shrugged. Echo kept his face impassive. Omega rested her head on Hunter’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Hunter put his arm around her. “You’ve had a really long day. How about you go get some sleep.” He tussled her hair.
“No one else is sleeping.” She replied. “And don’t say Wrecker because he’s hurt.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Hunter replied. “But I know Echo and Crosshair were probably going to turn in soon.” The two clones glanced at each other.
“It’s a handless clone thing.” Echo deadpanned.
“Yeah, we’re all hopped up on adrenaline.” Crosshair agreed. Even though he could feel exhaustion wrapping around his body like a snake. Hunter glared at them, and Crosshair let an actual smile cross his face.
“They’re going to team up on us now.” Omega directed her comment at Hunter and then yawned.
“It’s ok, they’ve only got four limbs between the two of them, I think we can take them,” Hunter replied. Echo whistled.
“I’ll scomp your face.”
“Too soon,” Crosshair replied. But it wasn’t really too soon. The second their squad established they were all still alive, the tragedy became comedy. It was an occupational hazard of growing up together and enduring war and its aftermath.
“How are the regs?” Hunter asked Echo quietly. Echo shrugged.
“They’ve been through a lot, but they’ll pull through. They just need time. We all do.” Omega nodded, but her eyes were beginning to drop.
“We have a few hours until we’re back on Pabu. You all need sleep.” Hunter decided. “I’m pulling rank. Get some rest. We’ve more than earned it.”
Crosshair tried to sleep. He really did, but every time he tried to curl onto his side or back, all he could feel was the empty space where his hand used to be. He tried to imagine what Tech would have said. Probably some quip about the tremors being gone. He realized sleep wasn’t going to happen after that. He needed to wander.
He crept through the makeshift sleeping hall that the regs had constructed and back into the ship’s central area. Echo wasn’t sleeping either, he sat cross-legged against the wall, while one of the regs sat sobbing next to him.
Echo sent him a friendly wave without taking away his attention from the reg. The old Crosshair would have dismissed this as reg nonsense and kept moving. But Kamino was beneath the ocean now, and the old labels didn’t seem to matter as much. And Mayday... He needed to step in. Crosshair slid down on the other side of the crying reg. He barely looked old enough to be off Kamino, but Crosshair recognized the faraway look in the reg's eyes as someone who had seen some horrors. His prison jumpsuit was stained with grease and blood, and his hair had a scraggly look to it. Echo shot him an appreciative look.
“Everyone breaks in long-term interrogation. Everyone.” Echo was saying. The reg was still shaking. “That doesn’t make you less of a brother or a trooper. It just means you’re human.”
“My squadmates wouldn’t have broken. It should have been me instead.” The reg's eyes were locked onto something invisible in space, and his voice was shaky. He didn’t acknowledge Crosshair’s arrival.
“Hey. I remember you from the lab. Were we in the same block?” Crosshair asked. He didn’t wait for a reply. “I broke too. All the interrogation training in the world means nothing after long enough. ”
“Yeah, but you survived multiple rounds of reconditing.” The reg replied. “I broke after interrogation.”
“The name’s Crosshair, by the way. What’s yours?”
“My squad called me Tripper.”
“You the last of your squad?” Echo asked. Crosshair could see deep understanding and sympathy written on Echo’s face. That was something Crosshair would always be grateful for. He had never had to face the war without his original squad by his side. Even now, they had lost Tech but they still have the majority of the group breathing. Echo would always be the last Domino, and a few of the other men he had known would always be the last ones standing from their original squads. It was the cruelest fate that could be given to a clone.
“We had our first mission the cycle before Order 66. We lost Longshot then. Then we lost Clipper and Zag hunting a rouge Jedi, and then Jag and I were sent to Tantiss. Then it was just me.” Echo nodded. He pressed his legs up against the regs so there would be some friendly pressure. Crosshair was grateful Echo seemed to always know what to do in these situations. His batch had their way of dealing with these moments, but the regs clearly had their own methods.
“That’s really hard.” Echo offered. Crosshair nodded.
“Yeah. Surviving Tantiss as a rookie is something to be proud of. I wouldn’t have lasted at your age.” Crosshair explained. And he wouldn’t have. Crosshair had been a sullen and dark trooper with no real sense of self beyond his squad when he first left Kamino. Tantiss would have eaten him alive. The reconditioning would have been successful on its first or second attempt. There was no question about it. He would have become one of the nameless and faceless operatives stalking his squad.
“But I just got lucky.” Tipper blurted out. “Hemlock and the bastards just never chose me to dissect, and they only tried to recondition me once, and -”
“By that logic, I got lucky because the Techno Union decided to turn me into a living computer instead of killing me, but you would never say that to me, would you?”
“Of course not! You’re Echo, the ARC Trooper who prevented the loss of Anaxes!” Tripper looked up with an expression of horror on his face. Crosshair fought the urge to smile at Echo. He may no longer be a reg, but it was clear this was a conversation he had been on both sides of many times.
“If you wouldn’t say it about your brother,” Echo began the age-old clone refrain.
“Then don’t say it about yourself.” Crosshair finished. “Look I never knew your squad, I didn’t really talk to the others on Tantiss, but as someone who was there, they would be so happy you made it out.”
“I’m happy you made it out too.” Echo added. He grabbed Tripper’s hand. “And I know that both of our squads are somewhere together, and they’re happy we made it too.” The emotional weight of the moment was lost with Tipper’s reply.
“Oh. So you’re not a defective clone too?” Tripper looked confused, but at least he had stopped crying. Crosshair threw his head back and laughed at the thought of Echo being an original member of Clone Force 99. Even now, Echo still had respect for authority and could recite passages of the reg manuals if asked. Crosshair wasn't sure if Wrecker had ever opened the reg manual. Echo feigned an exasperated sigh.
“No! I’m a reg.” He laughed and then glanced at Crosshair. “I blame you all for this. I used to be a happy little ARC trooper. I never got grouped in with the genetic mutation crowd.” Crosshair smirked and shrugged.
“Well your captain is a natural blonde so you’ve been running around with the genetic mutation crowd longer than you think.” Echo shrugged at the mention of Rex. “And if you didn’t want to get slotted in with us, you should have dodged that rocket at the Citadel.”
“You got blown up by a rocket at the Citadel?” Disbelief was etched into Tripper’s face. Crosshair fought the urge to laugh. Rookies were so easy to impress.
“It’s fine. We laugh about it now.” Echo replied. “I could say the same thing about you surviving a year plus on Tantiss. I never would have made it. I would have seen one needle for a blood draw and called it quits.”
“It’s true. We have to sedate him anytime he needs to see a medic.” Crosshair added. Echo kicked him and then turned his attention back to their younger brother between them. Tripper’s tears had stopped flowing, and his breathing had returned to a normal rate.
“You should try and get some sleep before we get to Pabu. We can stay with you if you want?” Echo offered. Tripper nodded. He yawned, and Crosshair was reminded of Omega earlier. Idiot, he chided himself. We’re all related.
“I need to fix my hair,” Tripper muttered as he rested his head on Echo’s shoulder. “I never wore it like this.”
“I think that’s first on everyone’s to-do lists.” Replied Echo. Crosshair cuddled up on Tripper’s other side. He wasn’t a cuddler by nature, but he knew how isolating the cells on Tantiss had been. The rookie needed physical contact.
Tripper fell asleep almost instantly, and Crosshair leaned on his side. Strangely enough, the tingling that had been haunting his stump seemed to be gone.
“You ok?” Echo asked gently.
“Yeah,” Crosshair replied. And for the first time, he meant it.