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They arrived on Coruscant just minutes too late. The science vessel headed to Tantiss had already jumped to lightspeed. Echo was able to tell there would be another one leaving at the same time the next day, which gave them almost 24 hours to sit around and wait. They couldn’t just hang around on the orbital station, that would be too suspicious, so they quickly made the decision to spend the wait on-planet and departed before anyone could look too closely at them, their shuttle, or their falsified orders.
As soon as they touched down, Echo immediately suggested reaching out to some of Rex’s local contacts. Wrecker cut in to start whining about being hungry, and Hunter was eyeing all of them and Rampart wearily.
“Fine, we’ll split up. Reconvene at this landing bay by 1000 hours tomorrow,” Hunter said. He took Rampart by the arm. “Echo, we’ll go with you.”
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Rampart complained.
“Yeah, well, I don’t trust you enough to let you out of my sight.”
In less than a minute, Crosshair was left on his own. Their shuttle was parked on one of the lower levels of Coruscant, their spot on the landing pad paid for and the ship locked down tight to prevent theft. If Tech was there, he would undoubtedly have been organizing the refueling and preparing to do routine maintenance and check for urgently needed repairs.
Crosshair decided to step up in his absence. He took himself to the cockpit and started running several diagnostic scans. While he waited on those, he set about cleaning the rest of the ship. Shuttles didn’t have a lot of bunks as they were meant to be short-term transports, but there were still enough for everyone to have their own. Echo’s bunk was regulation-perfect as usual, and surprisingly so was Rampart’s. Crosshair’s own was not far behind them, but Wrecker and Hunter’s were a mess. How they had gotten so bad in just a few days, Crosshair had no idea. He began with tossing out Wrecker’s collection of empty food wrappers, then moved on to washing the bedsheets, which were full of crumbs. Hunter’s was covered in spare bits of armor, weaponry, and his extra bandanas, which could all do with a wash.
The work was mindless and left Crosshair with plenty of time to think. If Tech had a bunk, it would undoubtedly be covered in tools and small fiddly bits of equipment from one project or another. Remembering his lost brother had Crosshair biting down hard on his toothpick, absentmindedly reaching for the spot where he had the Batch’s skull-and-99 symbol tattooed on his right arm. Each one of the Bad Batch had it tattooed on them somewhere, excepting Omega, if she was to be included. Their brothers had apparently decided she couldn’t get any tattoos until she had passed a test each of them set, as well as grew a little more. Hunter had muttered a worry about a tattoo becoming stretched and distorted as she grew if she got one too early, the one time the subject had come up in Crosshair’s presence.
They all had more than that, of course. Crosshair’s crosshair and Hunter’s half-skull were rather obvious, being on their faces, but they had others that no one but their brothers saw regularly. Hunter’s continued down the entire left side of his body, getting a half-skeleton to go with his half-skull. Their symbol sat in the middle of the ribcage, directly over his heart. His vibroblade went down his forearm. Echo had come to them already having several. In addition to the Batch symbol he’d gotten on his left hip, he had a handprint in blue on his right pectoral that he had gotten just after joining the Batch, apparently an homage to Captain Rex and his original set of armor. Under his left arm he had 5555 down his ribs, and “MADE IN KAMINO” stretched across his lower back. A collapsing set of dominoes cascaded down what was left of his right arm.
Wrecker’s were both surprising and unsurprising. His favorite knife echoed its armor placement on his leg, and there was a small explosion tattooed right over the scarring on his left shoulder. That one had been painful for him as it crossed over both deadened nerves and highly sensitive ones. The Batch symbol was underneath that on his bicep, and his right bicep held a picture of Gonky, just about the only droid any of them had liked at that point. The surprising ones were the flowers blooming from his ankle and vines climbing to his knee, and the Lula-colored tooka curled up on the same thigh. He also had a flying B-1 droid head trailing wires in front of an explosion on his ribs, and a large full-color spread of the Batch walking away from an explosion on his back. The number of explosion-focused tattoos weren’t really surprising for the demolitions expert. Crosshair was only surprised he hadn’t added a proton torpedo across his ass, since he loved them so much.
Tech had technically had the least of them. Hunter’s was basically one long tattoo but it had had to be done in several stages. Tech had only had three. Their symbol on his right shoulderblade, a series of cybernetics crawling down his arm, and a small mousedroid bearing the number 99 rolling along the outside of his left foot. He had never been able to make up his mind about adding others with the same ease as the rest of them, and had just been considering a fourth when Order 66 came down the line. Crosshair didn’t know if he had ever gotten it, but considering they were on the run for deserting, probably not.
Crosshair himself had five. Their symbol on his right shoulder, a blaster pistol on his right forearm with a blast extending over the back of his hand, his favored rifle down his ribs, and of course the crosshair over his eye. He also had the Republic cog design, split by crosshairs and with a splash of red through the middle. It was on his chest instead of smacked onto his face like that one reg, but even having a similar tattoo to a reg had made him uncomfortable. And then the Republic had fallen and it had become painfully ironic, the cog looking like it was bleeding.
Those were all they had before the Empire had replaced the Republic. Crosshair hadn’t gotten any since then, unlike the rest of the Batch. He didn’t know where they had found the time while being on the run as deserters, or where they had found the money as they had to scrape their meager earnings together for food and fuel, but they had each added on.
Little cadet Omega had been added to Wrecker’s back tattoo. Wrecker, Hunter, and Echo had all gotten something for Tech: Echo had Tech’s name under a crossed screwdriver and welder, because Tech had been the one who built most of their specialized equipment and they kind of fell apart without him, and Hunter and Wrecker both had one lens of his goggles. When they pressed their arms together, the two sides matched up, showing that the two of them had been alone together in their grief when Omega had been captured and Echo was off with Rex.
Which, combined with Tech’s 99 tattoo, made Crosshair the only one of his squad without a memory carried on his skin.
He had more than one to choose from, now.
Tech’s death…didn’t seem real to Crosshair, not yet. He hadn’t been there to see his brother fall, hadn’t been around the Batch long enough to really feel his absence. There were times one or two were sent off on specialty missions or pulled for extra training or tests, and that’s what it felt like now. The rest of the squad had gotten used to it, come to terms with it, and so the grief didn’t hang heavy on them like he was sure it had at first. That added to the unreal feeling. He had been alone for so long, even just the continued presence of Hunter, Wrecker, and Omega sometimes got overwhelming.
Mayday, on the other hand. That was a loss Crosshair still felt keenly. He didn’t know a lot of regs by name, and there were even fewer he liked and trusted. Somehow Mayday had become one of those in a remarkably short time. Perhaps there was something about having someone else neutralize a bomb under your feet that connected people. Echo would probably have something more poetic to say about it, but he hadn’t been there. Mayday had been…special. Bitter and jaded from losing first his command position and then all of his men, he had shown Crosshair that they deserved to be more than numbers.
Crosshair was reluctant to admit it, even to himself, but he had maybe, possibly, been falling in love. He had never been that close with anyone outside of the Batch, and he was irritated by his brothers just as much as he loved them. With Mayday it was…different. It wasn’t sweet or pure like the holonovels liked to say, it was rough and angry and grief-stricken and hard.
Perhaps it was time to go see Click.
Click was one of the few regs that Crosshair trusted, and he was also one of the first clones to become a tattoo artist. As an intelligence clone tapped to work for Cody before they had even left Kamino, his training was different than a standard soldier’s, and as such he had lots of time to practice making art with his hands. When he offered his first five tattoos free to clones who were willing to be his test subjects, Crosshair had volunteered to scope him out. Hunter had been talking about getting a tattoo for a while by then, inspired by some of the trainers, and Crosshair didn’t like to let any of his brothers walk into situations he hadn’t gotten an eye on first.
It had been difficult to lie still while a stranger’s hands were in his face, drawing lines of ink around his eye, but he had done it and he had never regretted the tattoo. He had then led his brothers one by one to Click’s chair, keeping watch as their newly created Batch symbol was drawn on their skin.
Even after the war began, the Bad Batch always sought out Click for their tattoos. Often they had to arrange a brief assignment to the 212th to get it done. Crosshair wasn’t willing to have anyone else do his tattoos, which had, one time, during the scant few hours they had between action and reassignment, resulted in him lying under Click while he took intelligence reports with one hand and held the tattoo gun with the other. He had given Click artistic freedom and ended up with the Republic cog. To willingly lie still and bleed beneath someone else’s hands took trust and a certain level of vulnerability.
Click knew things about him that no one else did. He could be trusted with Crosshair’s secrets.
After Order 66, Click and his fellow tattoo artists had faked their deaths and opened a tattoo parlor on Coruscant. Their work was good enough that no one who recognized them as clone deserters were willing to turn them in.
Crosshair went back to the cockpit to check the scans he’d run and realized his hands were trembling. That settled it. He was going to see Click.
~~
“Click, got someone here who wants your work,” Stencil said.
“They can make an appointment like everyone else,” he said, not looking up from the sketch he was working on. “You know I don’t do walk-ins.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked up as he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in years, one that was distinctive for being different from the average clone voice. “Crosshair.”
Crosshair smirked at him around his toothpick, helmet held under one arm. “Got time for me?”
“Always. Stencil, clear my schedule for the next couple hours.”
“Yes, boss.” Stencil stepped out of the doorway and left the two of them alone in the room.
He gestured to a stool as he started clearing up his work station, pulling up a new sheet of the transfer flimsi and a sketchpad. “I assume you have something in mind for this one?” he asked.
“Of course.” Crosshair pulled a datapad from his belt and tapped at it for a few seconds before handing it over. “Think you can do that?”
Click took the pad and studied the image, which showed some kind of spiky-looking blue bird. “What is it?”
“An ice vulture. Native to the planet of Barton 4. Can you do it?” Crosshair asked, toothpick moving to the other corner of his mouth. Click had known him long enough to know it was a sign of nervousness.
“For you? I can figure something out. Any preference for style or positioning?” he asked, turning to start sketching.
“As long as it’s facing out.” Crosshair shrugged. “I want it watching my back.”
“I sense a story,” he said, glancing up at Crosshair and briefly focusing on the crosshair on his right eye, one of the first tattoos he had ever done. Crosshair grimaced. “You don’t have to tell me, but if you feel like sharing, you know I don’t tat and tell.” Crosshair fidgeted with his toothpick.
“His name was Mayday,” he said after a moment. “He was a commander, stationed on Barton 4 with his squad. They were guarding a warehouse of supplies. Raiders had been picking them off until there were only three of them left. A natborn lieutenant and a full squad were sent with me to secure the base for the supplies to be retrieved. There was…another attack just an hour after we arrived. The other two squad members were killed, and a crate of supplies was stolen. The lieutenant said it was mine and Mayday’s responsibility to go get it back. We took down the raiders but we were caught in an avalanche. I lost my helmet and Mayday was injured. We had to make it back on foot through a snowstorm. By the time we got back, two natborn squads had arrived and were loading the supplies. I begged the lieutenant for medical care for Mayday but he refused, said we were…expendable. Mayday died right there on the tarmac. And I…shot the lieutenant. And all of that for stormtrooper armor.” He looked up and saw Crosshair glaring at the wall, teeth clenched tight on his toothpick. After a moment, he sighed and dropped his gaze. “The ice vultures were hovering when I collapsed. I revisited the planet recently and there was one on the base. It stared right at me. Inside the warehouse I found Mayday and his squads’ helmets tossed in a pile like garbage.” He shook his head. “Mayday respected them. Said they were vicious but admirable.”
“What did his helmet look like?” he asked.
“It was a standard phase two helmet, but with scraps of fabric tied around it. Here,” Crosshair tugged over a spare scrap of flimsi and a pen and sketched it out. “Like that.”
“Hmm.” He studied it and then turned back to his sketch, adjusting it. After a few minutes, he turned and held it out to Crosshair. “What do you think?” Crosshair took the sketch and his breath caught. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, wordless. “Where do you want it?”
“My left shoulder blade.”
“Alright. Armor off, this should only take about an hour.” He turned to prepare the transfer flimsi and his colors. Within a few minutes he was ready and Crosshair was stripped to the waist, his armor set aside on the rack Click had for that purpose and his blacks peeled off to pool around his waist. He approached and transferred the stencil to the skin of Crosshair’s left shoulder blade, careful with the positioning and making sure it didn’t smear.
“Is that good?” he asked, holding up a hand mirror so Crosshair could see the stencil in the full length mirror across the room. Crosshair studied it briefly.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“Okay. Straddle the chair and get comfortable.” He cleaned his hands and put on a fresh pair of gloves, picking up his tools. When he turned back, Crosshair was ready for him. “Here we go.” He leaned in and touched his needle to skin to begin the tattoo. He quickly fell into the almost meditative state he used when he did tattoos, barely looking up from his work. He glanced up in the middle of it to check on Crosshair and saw his reflection in the mirror. Crosshair was holding his toothpick firmly in his mouth, his eyes closed tightly. Silent tears were running down his face. He brushed a hand over Crosshair’s other shoulder in a soft gesture of comfort and went back to his work. When he was satisfied, he sat back and sighed, rolling his neck and shoulders to work out the tension of being hunched over for nearly an hour. Crosshair gave a matching sigh and let his shoulders slump, opening his eyes for the first time to glance down at what little he could see of the tattoo.
“Let me clean it up and I’ll let you get a good look before I wrap it,” he said. Crosshair nodded and rested his head on his crossed arms. He wiped away the excess ink and blood, making sure he hadn’t missed any spots, and then retrieved the mirror for Crosshair again, getting him to stand up in front of the full length mirror before handing the small one over. Crosshair stared at it for a long minute, eyes flicking all over to study it.
“It’s perfect,” he murmured.
“Good. I know it’s been a while since your last, so I’ve got a standard care package I’ll send with you. You just take it easy for a moment and I’ll settle things.” He left Crosshair cradling the mirror in his hands and cleaned up his workstation, gathering the supplies he wanted to send with Crosshair. He popped out to the front desk and found Stencil checking the books.
“All done?” he asked.
“Yep, just gotta wrap it and send him on his way.”
“How much for this one?”
“No charge.”
“What?”
“No charge,” he repeated. “Crosshair was one of the first five brothers I ever tattooed. He’s also the last one of those five still living. He never has to make an appointment and he never has to pay. That was the agreement.”
“Alright, boss.” Stencil made a few notes and he went back to the room. Crosshair had set down the mirror and had mostly pulled his blacks back on, leaving his left shoulder bare.
“My squad is waiting for me,” Crosshair said.
“Alright. I’ll finish you up and you can go.” He retrieved the special cream that would help heal the skin without ruining the ink and applied it carefully, then wrapped it so it would stay protected for the next day and not dry out while it healed. “Come back anytime, Cross. You know I’m always open for you.” Crosshair hesitated and then finished putting on his blacks, starting to settle his armor back on overtop of it.
“You should think about relocating,” Crosshair said, fixing his pauldrons in place. “The galaxy…isn’t a friendly place for clones. Especially not here in the heart of the empire.”
“I know,” he said with a twist to his mouth. “But I don’t have the means to get all my boys and my equipment offworld, or a safe place to go.”
“Hmm.” Crosshair finished putting his armor on and picked up his helmet. “If I’m still alive in a week, I’ll reach out to you. We can figure something out.”
He frowned, knowing that meant Crosshair likely had a dangerous mission he was about to head out on. He was slightly concerned this was the last time he would ever see this particular brother again.
“You’ll survive,” he said. “You’ve got my ink and Mayday watching your back.” Crosshair dipped his head in acknowledgement, slipped his helmet on, took the care packet, and quietly left the shop. He watched him go, thinking back on the past hour. He remembered all of the original work he had ever done, but he knew that this last tattoo, an ice vulture with a brother’s helmet cradled in its claws, would linger with him for a long time. He sighed and headed back out to the front, knowing Crosshair was long gone.
“What have I got next?”