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“Not sure what's got you all twisted up in knots,” Cid states flatly.
Tech watches her disbelievingly, arms crossed over his chest, sharing a glance with Hunter, whose scowl shares the same annoyance, his dark hair thrown messily over his face. Omega’s watching the same, standing between the two of them. The twins are seated in the back of the cockpit, scowling equally hard.
It’s a good thing they’re not personally on Ord Mantell – Tech rather things Crosshair would try to tear her to shreds, scale by scale.
“We were stranded on that planet, Cid,” Omega answers shortly, “We needed you, and you left us.”
“You're fine now, aren't you? And you got your ship back,” Cid throws back.
“Yeah, and no help from you,” Wrecker grumbles, glaring. He looks hurt.
“Do you wanna mope or make money?” Cid asks, “Because I got a tip on a downed ship, which means cargo ripe for the taking. I'll even give you 30% of the cut.”
As though that were enough compensation for what she pulled? “That is our standard percentage,” Tech points out flatly.
“All right. This one time, let's say 35%.” No one budges. “Okay, 40. Fine, 50% as a token of my goodwill, that you seem to have forgotten. I'm sending you the intel now. Don't come back unless you scavenge something valuable.”
“Why do you think we’d come back at all?” Hunter snarks back.
Crosshair scoffs to add to it.
“Don’t test me!” she snaps back, “Just get it done.”
She cuts the connection, watching disbelievingly. Tech is not all that surprised, honestly, though he is still angry. But he also knows they’ll have to be careful. If the Empire came after them, they have nowhere to go, and Cid has enough information. They’ve never been a target, but presently, the Empire still believes them dead. And they are not in a situation to fight. Daro proved that. They do not have many options, and need to pick carefully from what path they walked down.
Echo would say to fight, but Echo made his choice, and they are not him.
“Severing ties with Cid could be problematic, considering what she knows about us,” Tech warns.
“I agree,” Omega sighs, sitting on the edge of the controls. “I think it’d be best to do this one last mission before parting ways, just to… try ending on good terms. I don’t know.” She sighs, turning away and rubbing her forehead. She’s lost without Echo. Tech feels the same.
Hunter reaches out to squeeze her wrist. “We’re gonna figure this out,” he offers, “She sent the coordinates for the shuttle, though… nothing about how it crashed.”
Tech takes the datapad, scanning over the information. “Yes,” he agrees, “There is no information about the shuttle’s shape or safety.”
“There’s a surprise,” Wrecker grumbles. He looks miserable. Tech throws him a sympathetic look.
“Scaveging cargo couldn’t be that hard, could it?” Crosshair asks.
“Yes,” Hunter and Omega chorus.
This… is not going to go well.
***
The ship is near a village, which Omega guesses is why it was found. Tech ins inclined to agree.
But its placement and outside appearance says nothing about what made it crash. There are no exterior hull markings and nothing to give away its origin.
“Is anyone else getting a weird vibe from this?” Crosshair asks, shining his flashlight at the ship.
“You are not,” Tech replies, “Whatever occurred, I believe the crew inside most likely perished in the crash.”
“We’ll find out,” Omega replies at the entrance. “They could be trapped inside. Come on.”
“If they are, that’s gonna make our work harder,” Hunter replies, frowning a little as he looks around. “I don’t like this. Something’s wrong.”
Omega pauses up ahead. “Do you think we should keep going?”
“I don’t know.”
“We will not know unless we do,” Tech points out unhappily. He’s wary as well, but they are on a mission, and they’ll have a problem with Cid if they bail this.
Omega gets the door open, and the five of them creep inside. A clank has Tech looking back.
“Oooh,” Wrecker coos, lifting a long electrostaff that he can safely say is as long as Wrecker is tall, “High volt electrostaff. Nice.”
“Only if it hits you in the face,” Crosshair snips back, though Tech’s attention is drawn… elsewhere.
“Something… unfortunate happened here,” he says flatly, light shining on a claw mark on the wall that’s close to as long as he is tall. It looks… deadly. Some sort of creature, and if the ship is contained, whatever creature that is must still be inside.
“I don’t think whatever crashed this ship was human,” Hunter offers warily.
“Hunter, Tech, go to the brig and restore power. If something happens, head out or contact me. We’ll try to figure out what caused this.”
“Do I need to remind you that it took out an entire crew?” Crosshair asks, “And probably ate them, too?”
“That means I doubt it is currently hungry,” Tech volunteers.
“I’m hungry,” Wrecker offers.
“You’re always hungry,” Hunter grumbles.
“Boys,” Omega chides, steering the twins away, “We have a job to do. Let’s head out of here.” She indeed has a valid point.
Tech draws his blaster, just in case the creature – whatever it is – decides to surface, and him and Hunter head for the brig. Once he gets there, actually restoring power is fast. Not as though that is enough to calm him – there is definitely something deadly aboard this ship.
“I really don’t have a good feeling about this,” Hunter murmurs, watching the doorway.
“The faster we move, the faster we can be away from this planet,” Tech answers simply, though he cannot deny his own worry. Whatever did this killed an entire crew somehow, and despite their skill, they are only six. There is a lot they don’t know and are still presently incapable of. He tries not to think about how, if Echo were here, his brother would no doubt be the one here with him, and Hunter would be safely with the twins as he should be. But Echo’s not here, and Tech needs to stop thinking about what if he was? He made his choice. It is not fair to force him to walk any other path.
“I know, but something about this, it…” A sudden noise has Hunter jolting.
“Is that the creature?” Tech asks warily.
“I don’t think so. It feels more like a droid. Stay here. I’ll check it out.” The power is finally on again, which means there’s finally a small amount of light, no matter how dim it might be. It’s still better than nothing. Hunter creeps into the hall. Tech watches from a distance to where his brother approaches what turns out only to be a droid that powers down before he has a chance to get answers from it.
Hunter stands, frowning and warily looking up and down the halls. “Something’s wrong.”
“I am fully aware,” Tech replies flatly, “There is a creature of unknown species aboard this ship which we have no knowledge of, and possibly little ability to combat.”
“Yeah, you didn’t have to spell it out,” he grumbles.
“Hunter, Tech,” Omega’s voice coms over comms. “We’ve got a problem.” She sounds shaken. “Whatever’s being researched here just got loose.”
Ah. He suspected it may be a research vessel. The droid looked like the type used on Kamino, and the markings were obviously carefully hidden for a reason. It was no simple cargo transport like Cid believed it to be.
“You need to get off the ship!” Wrecker adds panickily.
He and Hunter exchange somewhat panicked looks, and they make a break for the exit. Tech doesn’t see anything even while they’re leaving – not until Hunter yanks him to a stop right in the doorway to hear distant snarling.
“Unless you want to get eaten,” Crosshair adds.
“No one wants to get eaten,” Tech replies flatly. He thought that were obvious.
A giant, scaled creature is feeding on part of the engine, it’s electric field crackling across its body, but instead of being hurt or deterred as most creatures are, it’s just… eating. It’s drawn to electricity. That’s what it eats.
“Fascinating,” Tech breathes, awed.
“That’s really what you’re going to say right now?” Hunter asks, loosely appalled.
“Oh, does that thing look different to you?” Wrecker asks worriedly, cowering beside Crosshair.
His twin gives him an equally panicked look. “I have eyes, Wrecker, yes, I know it’s bigger.”
The creature hisses in Tech and Hunter’s direction, maybe angered by the sound. Omega fires her energy bow, and it swivels around to grown at the tree of them. This is not going to work. Somehow, its scales are immune to blaster fire. That is amazing. They will have to use fire stronger than that of blasters. Which is easy.
“Take cover,” Tech calls to the others.
Omega ‘s helmet lifts to him, but he draws the twins back, shielding them from the explosion. Tech fires past the creature at the engine. Hunter pulls him back around the corner for cover. The explosion is violent, shuddering the ship, and he stays crouched around the corner for a moment.
Normally, it would be Echo who pulled him back, and Tech has to try not to think too hard of how deeply he misses his older brother. The missions are the same, but it still feels inexplicably different without Echo.
The air is thick with smoke, but he didn’t hear a roar. When he looks, he doesn’t see any sign of the creature’s body. Tech pushes himself up, waving the smoke aside and sprinting out towards the ship exit. The flames, expectedly, have spread a good distance away from the ship.
There is also no sign of the body.
Tech lifts his datapad, scanning.
It beeps, indicating the creature heading through the forest. He sees lights in the distance. “I believe it is headed for the village,” he tells Omega when she arrives behind him.
“We let it out,” Hunter points out, “We should do something to stop it.”
“How?” Wrecker asks. Of all of them, he looks the most terrified. “Our blasters are useless on it.”
“Tech can check the data files,” Hunter offers, “They should have some information about the creature. It has to have a weak point.”
“Wrecker, Hunter, with me,” Omega decides, “We’ll get to the ship and go after that thing. Wrecker, you’re on the guns. Maybe we can’t hurt it, but we can distract it. Crosshair, Tech, see what you can find in the ship, but be careful.”
“It’s Kaminoan tech,” Omega adds, “You should know your way around it pretty well. Good luck.”
Tech watches them break for the ship before turning and climbing back into the shuttle’s smoking remains himself. They have the hard part.
***
It, quite honestly, hurts to see Kaminoan tech again. He hasn’t seen it since they left Kamino in the first place, and the last time he did was before they freed Omega and ran away with her. Since before he and his squad deserted. But Kamino, their home, is nothing more than rubble at the bottom of an ocean now, an entire civilization destroyed. It’s been wiped from the maps as though it had never existed from the start.
It hurts to think about, and it makes him angry, too, to see this. He has suspicions about the Empire’s involvement in this as well. There are not many who could have found this technology, could afford and transport it. Or who would gain from it.
Behind him, Crosshair sighs.
“Is something wrong?” Tech asks, working over the data.
Echo used to do this with him. He should be here. Instead, he’s… not.
“The last time I saw labs like this was on Kamino. Before the Empire destroyed everything. That was our home.”
Tech looks up to see his little brother wrapping his arms around himself, eyes downward, face miserable. “That is what the Empire does,” he replies.
“You could at least say you care,” Crosshair mutters.
“Of course I care,” Tech snaps, then sighs, instantly reg retting that decision. Not the first one today, though at least they escaped the thing. “That was our home, but we have more with each other than we ever could on Kamino. This is the life we wanted. Even if the Empire still has taken a lot from us.”
His datapad beeps, drawing Tech’s attention back to it. “Look at this,” he muses, awed, “I believe these are designs to sue the creature’s genetic material to creature armor plating.”
“Blaster proof armor,” Crosshair realizes, shoulders slumping. “How do we stop it, then?”
“Uncertain. However, this confirms that the species feeds on raw energy, which propels its rapid growth.”
Crosshair facepalms, drawing his comm with his other hand. “Greaaat. Omega? You’re about to have a really big size problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“It it’s a species that feeds on raw energy,” Tech replies, “Keep it away from the power grid, or it will get larger.”
“H – how much larger?” Wrecker asks, panicking.
“Much larger!” Omega yells, “Too late!”
Oh, that is not good. “Perhaps it would be best if we were to fall back,” Tech offers.
“No, we have to stop this thing,” Omega answers firmly.
That leaves them pretty short on options.
He tries to keep downloading. Even if only for a few minutes before Omega comms again with the firm warning that Imperials are inbound.
“Come on, let’s go,” Crosshair re quests, motioning at the doorway.
“Not yet,” he argues with a small shake of his head. “I have not finished transferring the data.”
The ground shudders, and he looks up.
Crosshair yanks out the power cord, plunging the screen into darkness. “We have to go,” he hisses, sprinting for the doorway. Tech reluctantly runs after.
***
It turns out, in the end, Omega’s warning was none too soon. The Imperial gunships inbound blow up the shuttle. Crosshair and Tech barely make it out of the ship before the entire thing blows, the force of the explosion throwing them a good distance f further away from it.
Tech is fairly certain he himself is at least mostly uninjured from the fire, though definitely shaken. He thinks the same holds true for Crosshair – they managed to roll behind Some sort of debris safely before they could get incinerated. Either way, he’s impressed.
That was close.
Omega’s been casting them both wary glances ever since. She was waiting for them at the ramp when they’d arrived, pulled them both aboard, and hovered while Hunter flew them out.
Now, he sits at the computer, hacking through the remainder of the information he’d managed to download before Crosshair cut the power. He wishes he’d been able to get all of it, but they did escape in the nick of time. That’s what Tech has his brothers to watch out for him for.
“It appears the crashed vessel was indeed Imperial,” Tech tells them, “Part of a large-scale cloning operation.”
“The Empire cloned the Zillo beast?” Wrecker asks, freaked out.
“Yes and no,” Tech answers, “The order actually came from the Supreme Chancellor, before the Empire’s formation.”
“Well, what does he want with it?” Hunter asks. All of them are crowding around, watching the screen with varying levels of fear and worry.
“The Zillo beast’s genetic material has the potential to be weaponized if handed to the right scientist,” Tech replies.
Omega’s frown deepens. “Where was it being taken too?”
That is the most confusing part. “Unknown. There was no destination logged.”
“That is unusual,” Crosshair adds, “You can’t make a hyperspace jump without going somewhere.”
“Whatever’s going on here, it sounds like the Empire’s doing really well at covering it up,” Hunter says flatly.
“What’re we gonna do?” Wrecker asks worriedly. For all his fear of monsters, and his general fear of everything, he’s still willing to care for others besides his own. That is a sense of compassion Tech has always admired but never been able to share himself. It is that sort of endless softness he loves Wrecker for the most.
“There’s not much we can do,” Omega murmurs, “I’ve heard of… other cloning operations. I know there was some happening off-world, even when I was young and when Nala Se was still there, but… I’ve never heard of this. She kept it hidden from me, and then…”
She died. Tech knows. He never knew the Kaminoan, but Omega talks about her a lot. Years later, she’s still attached to her.
And aside from the Zillo beast and his concerns about that, he has come to an even deadlier conclusion. “I do not believe the Empire destroyed Kamino to end cloning,” he relates, “I think they merely wanted to control it. This is more than we realized.”
Omega looks down, face pinched into a worried from. Hunter looks up at her. He’s good at hiding concern, but he’s still scared. “We need to send the data to Echo,” she decides, “And Rex. They should have the means to look into it more.”
“Good, ‘cuz if the Empire actually gets this stuff working, we’re gonna have a problem,” Crosshair agrees.
“I think we already do,” Hunter points out, “If the Empire’s got this going, who knows what else they’ve got?”
“I hate to ask this,” Omega adds, “But where do we go from here? We can’t go back to Cid. There’s nothing to go back to her with.”
That is the other problem. “It seems as though we will have to take the… unpreferred option of simply leaving,” Tech replies, “She will never believe what we found.”
Crosshair huffs. “Nope.”
“Yeah,” Wrecker agrees, hugging Lula again as Gonky sits beside him. He looks… abnormally concerned for his averagely carefree appearance. “We’re gonna need new employment. Where do we look?”
Tech, personally, has no idea. Echo is the one who pointed them to Cid in the first place. Other than her, he knows of no options.
“Well, there is one,” Omega ventures, “But I don’t think any of us like that option. Phee.”
“Are you certain that is a n avoidable choice?” Tech asks.
“She’s a pirate, but she’s… a friend,” Omega sewers.
“I don’t like it, either,” Hunter replies, “But… she has shown herself to be more trustworthy than Cid. And more reliable. I would definitely pick her over Cid.”
Tech still has his objections, but if that is the choice they have to make, well, he will do anything for his brothers. He always has. It’s really not like they have any other option.
***
Tantiss is… different than where she was before. Not better, just… different.
Emerie watches the Zillo locked safely away before Hemlock leads her back out into the secure part of the facility. He tells her to get back to the lab.
She obliges.
As always.
Stares blankly at the screen in front of her, dreaming, wondering again why it feels like something’s… missing. Something’s always missing.