Chapter Text
“She didn’t give a specific location on the planet, right?” The aging man with the black face tattoo turned to his copilot for confirmation. She was a Pantoran with blue skin and yellow eyes, wearing civilian clothes in contrast to the others’ clone armor. She looked somewhat out of place in the warm light of the starship – just mismatched enough to make her feel like some sort of temporary substitute for a missing squad member.
“No, unless there’s another hidden meaning that I don’t understand. I’ll play the message again.”
A young woman’s voice came through the speaker, compressed into oblivion, yet still recognizable by her sweet-sounding accent that was so rare now in the galaxy. “Plan 68. I’m sorry. The space here isn’t safe, so I have to do it this way. 9904, worms and vultures. Don’t worry, I’m alright for now. Just take your time and be careful.”
“There are no more secret meanings,” a snake-like voice seethed from the back. “Stop replaying it.”
“Sorry, Crosshair. I was just making sure.” Hunter peered ahead as he brought the ship into the planet’s atmosphere. Lifeless icy plains stretched below them into infinity. Soon, he could make out a black smoke trail in the distance, marking the location they wanted without any need for coded messages.
As the ship eased into a smooth landing next to a crashed shuttle in the snow, a powerful voice, rough but good-natured, piped up from the back with a laugh. “Been a while since Hunter last flew a ship, but you can barely tell the difference!”
By the time the muscle man finished his sentence, Crosshair had disappeared through the still-opening exit, somehow already with helmet on head and rifle in hand.
“...What’s got him all worked up? Omega’s fine. She always is.” Wrecker tipped his own helmet down into its place and trudged out.
Their kid sister was always fine. Always. That was what they told themselves.
Hunter left the pilot’s seat. “Lin, keep the ship prepped. We’ll try to make this short.”
“Is Crosshair alright?” the Pantoran wondered.
“Yeah. This planet holds some bad memories for him, though I’m not so clear on the details. He’ll be fine once we’re off this rock.”
The wrecked shuttle was jammed into the ground on a diagonal, its entrance hidden in the snow layer. At least the main body of the ship looked intact.
“Hurry up, Wrecker. Start digging,” Crosshair grumbled.
“Why aren’t you digging?”
“I’m watching for danger. The sensors the Empire set up are long since dead; a giant wyrm could show up any minute.”
Wrecker grunted in response and tore away at the snow layer. Hunter arrived and assessed the situation. Trusting Hunter’s heightened senses to forewarn any wyrm-shaped interruptions, Crosshair joined the dig, and they eventually made enough space for the ship door to at least partially open.
Right on cue, the door slowly unfolded into the new opening. The pilot inside had noticed them and was all too eager to be released. Crawling out was their beloved kid sister, her utility vest and pale blue uniform signifying that she was now serving as a pilot for the yet unofficial, but gradually formalizing Alliance to Restore the Republic.
“Wrecker! Crosshair! I knew you’d come.” She hugged her brothers. Wrecker’s guffawing vibrated through his great chest as he returned the hug, and Crosshair’s stiff slender frame appeared impervious to gestures of affection, just like old times.
“Hope we didn’t keep you waiting for too long,” came Hunter’s voice from behind them.
Omega went to give him a hug as well. “Nope. Right on time as always.” She’d been trapped on the ship for a full day, but she wasn’t about to worry them with the details.
She turned back to Wrecker with a request. “Can you help me grab Gonky? He broke during the crash.”
“You got it, kid. What happened here, anyway? Why’d you crash?”
“Long story. It’s too cold out here; let’s go inside.”
With her misfit brothers gathered here, the interior of the shuttle was cozy, but not completely comfortable. The passage of time only increased the dissonance of the fact that these three old men who appeared to be in their sixties were actually technically younger than herself, a young woman in her prime. She’d only left them for less than a year, but felt like they looked even older than when she last saw them. Such was the somber reality of almost all Fett clones, bred at unnatural speeds to serve as soldiers, then cast aside to fend for themselves in their accelerated old age.
Even if Omega was technically also a Fett clone, perhaps it was a bit weird that she considered herself to be one of them. She grew up at the normal rate of the human species, and that fact alone almost gave her more in common with her new rebel friends than her fellow lab-grown brothers. Yet she always felt a kinship to her elderly younger brothers that couldn’t be explained by words, and of course, they felt the same about her.
“You shouldn’t be fighting out here.” Crosshair wasn’t lying when he said he was worse than Hunter about being overprotective. This was exactly why she snuck out instead of saying a proper goodbye.
“Why not? There are people who need me. Right now, more than anything, the galaxy needs people who can and will fight.”
“You shouldn’t be a soldier. It’s not a good path to walk down.”
“You’re lucky I noticed your signal,” Lin chimed in. Omega had known Lin for a while, but her being here for this personal moment added to her frustration. “I mean, look at this log. It was buried under all this…”
She trailed off, studying the small display with a puzzled frown.
“What is it?” Hunter asked.
“There’s another public signal here. It’s almost like the one Omega sent.” She played the recording, and what seemed to be the voice of a protocol droid came through.
“Plan 68. Secrets of Se, beasts and brothers. I am very curious. Try not to get spotted.”
The clones shared an incredulous stare.
“What the hell does that mean?” said Wrecker.
“Did someone pick up my transmission and decide to copy it?” Omega speculated. “Why would they do that, though?”
Hunter lowered his gaze in thought. “Clone Force 99 were the only ones who ever knew what the numbered plans mean. It’s… unlikely that this person knows what they’re saying. ‘I am very curious’ doesn’t exactly give the sense that they need to be found and rescued.”
“But ‘secrets of Se, beasts and brothers’ clearly refers to the cloning experiments,” Omega pointed out.
“So is that Kamino or Tantiss?” Wrecker guessed.
“We don’t know where Tantiss is,” Crosshair said pointedly. Today was proving to be lots of fun for him and his buried memories. He just wanted it to be over.
“Do you think it might be an Imperial trick?” Lin offered.
Omega shook her head with some hesitation. “I’m assuming this is about Tantiss, since there weren’t really any ‘beasts’ involved on Kamino. Even among Imperials, almost no one knows about Tantiss. It would be a crazy string of coincidences if an Imperial higher-up knew about Tantiss and knew about us as well, recognized us through my transmission, decided to copy it, and we also happened to notice their transmission.”
Wrecker was trying his best to follow along. “So it’s probably not a coincidence?”
Hunter continued the train of thought. “Then our mystery person knows a great deal about us and what happened in that top-secret lab, and we have zero guesses as to who it might be.”
“I think we should check it out,” said Omega.
“I don’t know the context for all this, but it sounds potentially dangerous,” said Lin.
“That’s never stopped us before.”
Crosshair scowled in the corner.
Hunter nodded, agreeing with the need to investigate. “I remember the sector from when we tried to find it. When we get closer, we can come up with some sort of riddle to send back to them.”
Omega smiled, wondering what strange and interesting directions this telephone game of riddles might derail in. This was the sort of brain twister she liked.
“We’re blind to secrets. It’s been 15 years. All we have is our memories. Help a brother out.”
They debated having Lin record it to avoid any unfriendly parties recognizing the Bad Batch, but ultimately decided to have Hunter record it so that the recipient, assuming they knew them, could recognize that it was them responding.
The reply came almost immediately. “879.71E 589.68S 1.65D”
“What? Relative to what?” Omega blurted.
“Huh?” Reading the automatic transcript on the log helped Lin realize what was going on. “Oh, east, south, and down. What are the units? Is it relative to the corner of the sector? The middle? Nobody says coordinates like that.”
“That’s what makes it a coded message for our ears only,” said Hunter.
Omega pondered the message with an amused smile. “We can guess the units based on how close we think we are. As for what it’s relative to… what if it’s relative to our position?”
“How would they know our position?”
“It’s theoretically possible by triangulation. The margin of error would be crazy, though.”
Lin sighed. She didn’t like this guesswork and all the hints of danger it came with, but she’d been helping the squad out and wasn’t about to stop now. “Well, we have a finite number of places to check. Might as well get started.”
Omega was a pretty lucky individual. Her intuition paid off, as it so often did, and they soon found a familiar uncharted star system. Hunter and Crosshair keenly remembered the sight from when they arrived hanging precariously on the underside of their enemy’s ship.
“I can’t believe we’re here again,” Crosshair muttered, sullen and exasperated.
“Do I want to ask?” said Lin.
“No,” came Crosshair’s immediate deadpan.
“As far as we know, the base here is abandoned. There should just be a half-destroyed lab… and a Zillo beast wandering about,” said Omega.
“A what?” Lin was starting to regret coming along with the crazies.
“A giant monster that’s immune to all of the weapons we have with us,” Hunter sighed.
“Oh! Excellent.”
“The Empire probably captured it and took it away, though,” Wrecker supplied hopefully. “They’ve done it before.”
Omega wasn’t too discouraged. “We won’t know what the situation is until we go and look. We can fly low and be on the lookout for the beast. If we see it, we avoid it.”
Dipping below the cloud layer, they were encouraged to find no Imperial ships or troops active. However, they couldn’t tell from the air whether the base where the cloning experiments were conducted was as abandoned as Omega thought.
Hunter quickly devised a course of action. “We don’t know what the state of the base is, but we can see that the surface of the dock is empty. We’ll land there and take a look around. Lin, Wrecker, stay on the ship. If we find someone here, we’ll contact you to hide the ship somewhere else. We were told not to get spotted.”
“And what if you’re in danger and need help?”
“We do what we always do. Improvise.”
The plan became obsolete in record time. They landed on the dock, and as soon as Hunter, Crosshair, and Omega reached the shuttered entrance to the base, Hunter felt an odd rumbling and stopped short. Soon, they all began to feel and hear it, and doubled back toward the dock. They were still quite a distance away from the ship when something crashed through the trees and stopped right behind the ship.
It was the very beast they wanted to avoid. Slender and dark with brilliant green reptilian eyes. Its head bowed close to the ground; if it stood to its full height, it would tower over their ship’s folded wings. And… something was sitting on top of its head?
Hunter and Crosshair instinctively backed up and pointed their blasters. Omega backed up with them in fear, but paused, sensing something odd. The ship engines started up, but Omega called into her communication device for Wrecker and Lin to hold still for the time being.
The Zillo beast was strangely quiet and still, a far cry from the rampaging terror it was when they last saw it tear through this facility. Its head moved slowly, almost gracefully, inching closer to the ground and toward the three humans in a standoff.
The blasters slowly aimed further up, targeting the thing on top of the beast’s head. It appeared vaguely humanoid in shape, but extended haphazardly in all dimensions with what seemed to be a chaotic assortment of mechanical junk. It had the front half of a clone commando helmet covering what they could only assume was meant to be a head. Two hands, one humanoid and one not at all, held lines connected to the Zillo beast’s head like reins. It was hard to tell at a glance what was going on with the disaster that sat where the legs should be. Trails of mechanical nonsense extended out from it like tentacles.
Most bizarrely and perhaps most distressingly of all, a decapitated protocol droid head that sat on the thing’s right shoulder lit up and started to speak.
“You actually came!” the droid head said with a stilted tone of voice that could be interpreted as joy.
“What… who… what are you?” Omega squinted and slowly approached the creatures. Hunter and Crosshair nervously guarded her with their weapons ready.
“I think I am a cyborg.”
“You think?”
“I am not completely certain, but I believe that is what a being composed of organic and mechanical parts is referred to as.”
The ship engines turned off, and Wrecker came bounding out with ample confusion. “What’s going on?” Seeing the cyborg abomination made him double take. “What the-?”
“And you’ve… tamed the Zillo beast?” Omega continued.
“Technically, no. It is hostile to humans, but not hostile to me, even though I used to be a human. I think.”
“You think, again?” It seemed like the cyborg didn’t quite have all its data in order. She wasn’t surprised, considering the state of chaos the rest of its body was in. “You’re not here to attack us… right? And the Zillo won’t attack us either?”
“I will make sure of it. Please lower your weapons as well.” The light of the protocol droid head shut off, and after a moment, the beast lowered its head fully to the ground, as if it somehow knew its rider’s intent. The cyborg glided down the side of the head with its many lower appendages, almost like a Parwan, and approached the clones while the beast slid backward with half-lidded eyes.
Hunter and Crosshair hesitantly lowered their weapons, but stared suspiciously at the abomination, which turned out to be fairly tall when standing up. Lin peeked out from the ship’s doorway, unsure whether she should be there for this odd exchange.
The clone commando visor turned toward Lin, and the droid eyes lit up again. “Oh, wonderful! I haven’t seen a member of a near-human species since I got here.” Lin balked, unsure how to respond.
“Hey, don’t bother our copilot,” said Hunter, stepping to the front of the group. “Who are you? Are you the one who signaled for us to come here?”
“Bother? My intention was simply to-” the droid cut itself off. “Yes, I sent those signals.”
“Why? What do you know about us and this place?”
“About you, I know nothing. I was inspired to send a message when I heard something interesting in the ambient chatter. I believe it was recorded by the woman with the blond hair.”
“The name’s Omega.”
“Omega…” The cyborg’s head tilted slowly askew as the protocol droid’s voice dragged down in pitch and speed. It appeared like the abomination was either deep in thought or starting to shut down. Then, it perked back up and continued as normal.
“When I heard that message, I realized that my memory associated the words ‘Plan 68’ with a course of action, which is to promptly and covertly extract a teammate from a situation. I found this odd, as I have no teammates, so I hoped that by sending out a similar message, I might uncover more information about this rogue memory of mine in the unlikely scenario that someone actually responds.”
“Wait wait wait. You know about the plans?” Wrecker barged in, tipping up his visor to reveal an invested wide-eyed expression.
“Pop quiz. What’s Plan 72?” said Omega.
“Distract and slip past the enemy to acquire an advantage,” said the cyborg.
“Plan 82?” said Wrecker.
“Use area-of-effect weapons in a forward assault to clear a large area of enemies.”
“Plan double zero?”
“Go radio silent. Cease all ranged communications with teammates.”
Wrecker was amazed and confused. “What’s going on? This thing knows the plans better than I do!”
Omega didn’t share her brother’s sense of levity. An unexpected sense of dread was setting in. “Plan 99?”
“Sacrifice one’s life for the greater good…” the cyborg trailed off, thinking.
The dread weighed heavier. Omega exchanged nervous glances with the others, then approached the abomination. “...Do you have a face?”
“Yes, I have an organic human face.” Somehow, through the protocol droid’s inscrutable cadence, she could sense discomfort and caution. She slowly reached a hand forward, and the cyborg slowly backed away.
As if trying to distract from the topic of its face, it continued, “Since you all know about the numbered plans, will you tell me the context of what they are? This information may be highly useful to me.”
“Codes for military field tactics, developed and understood exclusively by Experimental Unit Clone Force 99,” said Crosshair, his words slow and deliberate as he stared incisively at the cyborg.
The abomination’s posture seemed to cower. “Clone Force 99… I will need to process this information thoroughly. Thank you for your assistance. Goodbye.”
“Wait!” Omega grabbed the thing’s shoulder as it turned as if to flee. It looked back to see the brothers closing in behind Omega, each looking more suspicious than the last. Very faintly, Omega could feel the metallic shell slightly quivering.
She spoke quietly, trying to sound comforting. “It seems like you’re struggling with some pretty bad memory issues. We understand, and we can try and help you. I’m sorry if we’re scaring you, but we’re just as confused as you are, and we’d really like to figure this out. Let’s do it together, okay?”
The expressionless visor contemplated her for a long moment, then lowered.
“May I see your face? It might help me understand more.”
The cyborg shrank away slightly.
“What’s wrong?”
“...I am not certain.”
“Please, will you trust me?”
“Trust… I am not certain how I should do such a thing.”
Hunter put his weapon away and took off his helmet. “We’re not going to do anything to you. Promise.”
“Yeah, we’re all in this together,” Wrecker assented.
“As long as you don’t try to kill us.” Crosshair wasn’t as forthcoming.
“We’re trusting you not to kill us. See? This is what trust is like.” Omega sounded rather like an amiable big sister as she spread her arms before the cyborg.
It didn’t say anything, but shifted slightly forward, seeming a bit less afraid. Omega approached it with a very gentle slowness and placed her hands on the clone visor. When the cyborg didn’t cower away, she proceeded to move the visor up to reveal the face beneath.
A yelp escaped her before she covered her mouth and stumbled backward. The other clones simultaneously started with various sounds of shock. The cyborg’s eyes were still hidden behind some apparatus, but there was no mistaking the narrow, angular cheek bones and chin, proud straight nose, and stoic lips, a bottom half of a face that they all instantly recognized.
Everyone was silent for a pregnant moment. The human face, its mouth still unmoving, faced Omega as the protocol droid head spoke.
“Why are you crying?”
“T-Tech…”
Though shaky and barely audible, Omega’s voice seemed to break a spell. Everyone else’s voices soon piled over each other.
“TECH?”
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Is… is that really you?”
“I almost wish he stayed dead.”
“What? This is your… brother?”
“He doesn’t look a day older…?”
“This- it’s a dream. It’s a trick of the light!”
The cyborg nervously glanced from one anguished face to another, waving his mechanical appendages in confusion. Whereas Tech’s facial expressions had been reserved in the past, what appeared to be his face now looked completely blank and emotionless despite his apparent agitation. “Explain. Do you recognize me? Is there a definition of that word that I am not aware of?”
Omega was sobbing. Hunter had a hand on her shoulder, to comfort both her and himself, as she pelted the abomination with questions.
“Why… what happened to you? How did you survive? Who did this to you? Are you in pain? I’m so sorry… Do you really not remember your own name? Why are you acting like…”
“Too many questions. One at a time.”
“Why are you talking out of that thing? What happened to your voice?”
The cyborg paused. “My… voice? I do not recall using my own vocal folds. I have not confirmed whether I have a voice.” After another contemplative pause, he explained, “There are not many reasons to converse in these ruins. I am devoting considerable cognitive effort to be able to participate in this discussion.”
“I… I’m so sorry… Tech, we…”
“I do not understand. Please brief me on your memory of me.”
“Your name is Tech. You were a member of our squad. Our brother,” Hunter explained in a low voice. “You… you must have felt something when Omega mentioned Plan 99. You… executed Plan 99. Wrecker, Omega, Echo, and I were there. You gave up your life for ours. We thought… we thought there was no way you survived.”
Tech’s unemotive face panned slowly from Wrecker to Crosshair. “Wrecker… Echo…”
“My name is Crosshair.”
The cyborg studied the crosshair tattooed on the sniper’s severe face, then returned his focus to Hunter. “I do not have the resources available to process this information. I wish to end this discussion.”
Though the cyborg’s torso was partially encased in metal, hiding the rise and fall of his chest, Hunter’s heightened hearing noticed his tense breathing. “If you’ve got a more comfortable place to rest in, we can take it slow and process things quietly together.”
The protocol droid’s lights turned off. The cyborg drifted off past them, and everyone followed behind him with some apprehension. He led them to a panel in the side of the building, apparently custom-installed and clearly not part of the original building plan. One of his various droid tentacles activated the contraption and revealed an entrance.
“Did… did you make a custom door for this building?” asked Lin.
“I made many. I have salvaged and modified the entire upper ring of the base,” the droid head said matter-of-factly.
As the clones entered the custom door, they could see the truth of that statement. There were several scars in the interior where walls used to be. Machines of every description were strewn about, some recognizable as everyday tools, some intact creations of the Empire, some appearing original. There were many other unexpected objects, including various homemade imitations of cultural items from across the galaxy, and even some plants in pots made from scrap metal.
It was hard to fathom how much time and effort was poured into all of it. It was a workshop and a home, seemingly the work of one man’s lifetime.
Taking in the dizzying sight helped Omega shelve her turbulent feelings for the time being and dry her tears. “This place is amazing…”
“No kidding,” Lin concurred. “You did all this by yourself?”
The blank face stared at Lin for a second, then turned away. “You may all rest where you please.”
Wrecker lifted one end of a strangely lightweight mound with a cloth exterior. “What’s this? Can we sit on it?”
“That is a moss bag. It contains dry moss collected from the forest. You may sit on it.”
“Whoa, never would’ve thought of that one.” Wrecker chuckled and plopped down on the cushion.
“It seems like you’ve led a pretty rich life here,” Hunter commented.
The cyborg drifted down a hallway. “...I am tired. I do not wish to see or hear you.”
Hunter stared after the cyborg for a moment, then pensively took in the status of the room and the others. Lin was contemplating her surroundings. Omega was staring sadly after Tech. Crosshair was brooding with the most dour expression they’d seen on him for ages. Even Wrecker was visibly troubled and unusually silent.
Some of them had half a mind to go after the cyborg, but this was just too much to happen at once. They all needed these few minutes of silence.
