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Crosshair couldn’t say he burned a bridge when he tried to kill that padawan kid the day the Emperor issued Order 66.
But he definitely did when he turned against Hunter and the rest of his brothers when they returned to Kamino to pick up the kid. Cross thought he was right, and Hunter was wrong. Period. Maybe the chip was in play. He had no way of knowing. He had no idea about that until later. All he knew for sure was that every instinct he had told him he should have killed the Jedi, and he shouldn’t be in that cell with traitors. So he walked away.
That led him to the Empire…good soldiers follow orders. His new mantra.
Mayday on Barton IV. For whatever reason, that man changed Crosshair’s mind about following orders. He began to see that following blindly could lead to paths no one should take. So he burned another bridge. Picked up a blaster after Mayday died at his feet and killed an officer who didn’t give a kark about clones.
That led him to a cell and more experimentation. He thought the long necks on Kamino had testing down to a fine art. They did, but Hemlock conducted testing on a whole new level. Pain wracked Cross’ body day in and day out. Despair set in. A ray of sunshine lit his cell each day when the kid—Omega—showed up. Which wasn’t a good thing. She was a prisoner like he was. She told him about Tech’s death. What word describes pain beyond despair? Tech died because he thought his brother was worth saving. Sacrifice. Cross knew he wasn’t worth anyone’s life. He belonged in that cell.
But the kid kept coming, sharing her day. Watching him. Watching his hand twitch. And she made it known that she was going to escape, and he was coming with her. Blind faith in her ability and his worth.
When the hour came that she showed up to rescue him in one of her less-well-thought-out plans, he burned yet another bridge. He threw in with her crazy scheme. Doing exactly what he accused Hunter of so long ago, letting a kid lead the way.
Once he decided to follow Omega, life wasn’t all fun and games from his point of view. The kid’s? Probably. Games yes. Omega was a natural gambler and won enough credits to get them going. Fun? She might have thought letting all those animals loose in order to create chaos was fun, but he certainly didn’t. However, the plan worked. He chuckled when she saw that her way wasn’t going to get them to a ship, and she sighed and told him, “Let’s try it your way.”
“About time,” was all he could say, but it felt good to take down men doing the wrong thing. Standing in the way of their escape was doing the wrong thing in his mind.
Burning bridges means many things—leaving behind something beautiful that you thought you needed to survive. Leaving behind that which gave you nightmares.
In the end, Cross burned that final bridge and accepted the fact that his brothers and this little sister were where he wanted to be. With them. Not with a Republic or an Empire or any other group that would separate them.
As he followed Hunter, both of them severely injured from Hemlock’s machines, he accepted that fact—family first. A calmness settled over his heart. He’d made up his mind. He was walking away from a version of himself he didn’t like or want. He started over the minute he and Hunter—a team of brothers—knelt on that bridge to rescue the little sister by killing Hemlock.
And when the body fell over the railing and Omega held them close to her heart, he knew he’d done the right thing. No more bridges to burn. No more deciding which was the right thing to do.
He’d made a decision and changed. And this was who he was now.