Chapter Text
ECHO
ECHO KNEW THE briefing was headed downhill for him before the commanding officer even said his name.
It started with the look.
Commander Denhig Bralor was giving him that damned look.
Echo was no stranger to it. He had gotten used to it in the same way a Shiny gets familiar with being shot at. You learned the sound. You learned the timing. And you learned how to keep moving even though some part of you always flinches first.
Whenever Echo walked into a room of strangers, he was ogled. Most Regs looked askance at his scomp arm before anything else. Prosthetic limbs were almost commonplace at this stage in the war, and they were always anatomical emulations of the original.
So… why would a trooper have an astromech’s scomp link in place of a functioning hand? Was the new hand just damaged? Was it unfinished?
They’d look closer to find out. They always did.
They’d see that Echo’s prosthetic arm intentionally did not end in a hand. Instead, it ended in a tool that could connect him to systems in ways that made GAR engineers either deeply impressed or visibly uncomfortable.
Then people noticed the cyborg construct grafted around the back of his head. And they’d wonder who Echo had pissed off enough to approve of such a procedure being done on him.
Then they’d see the access ports in his scalp. The ports had thankfully been diminished and smoothed with flexible, more natural looking material. Still, it was a feature that caught the eye.
Then they’d notice his Kama, and be suspicious about how a clone so altered had earned the right to wear it. They’d contemplate how he could have possibly gotten through ARC selection with his body in such a state.
Commander Bralor noticed all of it.
He noticed it in the first minute after Clone Force 99 entered the briefing room. By the second minute, he was openly, rudely staring at Echo.
The briefing room at the GAR Forward Operating Base on Voolka moon was tiered, overlit, and packed well beyond comfort. Clone officers stood along the walls. Intelligence analysts sat behind holotables. Several naval tacticians conferred near the rear display. A squad of troopers—backup for the operation Clone Force 99 had been summoned to perform—filled the far row.
No one had expected the Bad Batch to fit neatly into the room with the rest of the personnel. They never did.
Wrecker took up too much space, as usual, and looked vaguely amused by the pitifully narrow chairs. Crosshair found a corner that looked more like a threat than a place to stand. Tech had already opened his datapad, reviewed the displayed terrain data, and donned an expression that meant he’d already found several errors. Hunter stood with calm professionalism near the front, arms folded, superhuman senses stretched over the room.
Echo stood with them, back straight, chin level, scomp held low at his side, exactly where it belonged.
He was new enough to Clone Force 99 that some Regs still looked surprised to see him there. He was new enough that he was still learning where to stand in their odd little formation. New enough that Hunter still checked on him in small, almost invisible ways.
But, new or not, Echo was doing pretty damn well.
He had survived the last fours missions—helped win them, actually. On the one they’d just finished, he had sliced into a collapsing comm tower long enough to send extraction coordinates. It ended up saving two companies of Regs pinned in a canyon under enemy fire.
Echo had earned his rightful place, standing proudly in this room with Clone Force 99, several times over.
Bralor’s expression suggested he had skipped or ignored those aspects of Echo and Clone Force 99’s record.
The commander was a broad, square-jawed human with silver at his temples and a voice made for giving orders. He had been explaining the operation: a dangerous insertion beneath a shielded Separatist relay complex. Republic backup forces would hold the upper ridge line while Clone Force 99 breached the underground command core.
The mission was ugly, time-sensitive, and had high casualty projections if they failed. And it alone should have remained the focus of everyone’s undivided attention.
Instead, Bralor stopped mid-sentence to gawk directly at Echo.
“You,” he said.
Echo’s stomach sank, but he kept his voice neutral.
“Yes, sir?”
“Step forward,” Bralor said, pointing toward the center of the compartment.
The room shifted around him. Not physically—no one moved much. But Echo felt the silent, collective convergence of attention on him.
He stepped forward.
Bralor circled the holotable, gaze dragging over Echo’s armor, his cranial graft, the visible scomp-link replacing his right hand.
“What is your designation?” he demanded.
“Corporal Echo, sir,” Echo answered readily and with confidence. “CT-1409.”
Bralor’s brows drew together.
“You’re listed on the deployment manifest as active clone personnel,” he said dubiously. “And an ARC Trooper.”
“I am an active duty ARC Trooper, sir.”
A few troopers in the rear row looked at one another.
Bralor’s eyes returned to Echo’s scomp.
“Explain the droid arm,” he said. “That’s not ARC issue.”
Echo didn’t look down.
“My right arm is a prosthetic, sir,” he said evenly. “Integrated mid-humerus. It terminates in a retractable scomp interface I can use in the field.”
Someone in the back inhaled too sharply. Echo heard it, and so did Hunter. Tech lifted his eyes from his datapad, expression already gone from curious to cold.
Bralor’s mouth tightened.
“And that…hardware around your ears?” he asked with exaggerated disdain for it. “Explain that.”
“Cranial and occipital cybernetic interface housing,” Echo said.
“For what purpose?” Bralor said, sounding increasingly suspicious.
Echo’s throat constricted and he couldn’t answer this question as readily.
Luckily, Tech responded for him.
“The hardware stabilizes and coordinates multiple integrated prosthetic and cybernetic systems,” Tech said crisply. “It also permits secure interface between Echo’s neural architecture and approved external systems under controlled conditions. It is custom-built, encrypted, and not relevant to the current tactical overview. Oh, except in the sense that it makes him exceptionally well-suited for this operation.”
Bralor’s eyes left Echo, only to glare with hostility at Tech.
“I didn’t ask you, Specialist,” he warned. “You will not speak out of turn.”
Tech’s blinked at him with large, inquisitive eyes.
“Commander—” Hunter tried.
Bralor raised a hand to silence him.
“I am speaking to Corporal Echo. Not his engineer. Not his sergeant,” he snarled. “Just the corporal.”
Echo felt the word engineer land wrong. And judging from the way he needlessly adjusted his goggles, Tech did too.
“Tech’s not my engineer,” Echo said before he could stop himself and straightened further. “He’s my squadmate.”
The silence that followed was not comfortable.
Bralor smiled without warmth, creating the effect of a sneer.
“Then your squadmate will know it’s better to remain silent and let you answer my questions for yourself.”
Wrecker shifted behind Echo, his massive pieces of armor creaking. Crosshair stepped up behind Tech, treading softly and dangerously.
The commander ignored them both.
“How many systems in your body are synthetic?” Bralor asked, solely focused on Echo again.
That particular question punched the air out of the room.
Echo stood very still and hesitated. Not because he didn’t know the answer. But because he did.
He could tell the entire assembly was awaiting his answer with bated breath. A young ensign near the tactical pit looked down at his own hands. One of the troopers in the back audibly swallowed. An intelligence analyst glanced toward the door as if he suddenly remembered a more important briefing he needed to attend elsewhere.
“That's private medical data, Commander,” Hunter said, stepping forward.
Bralor didn’t even look at him.
“It’s data pertinent to operational risk,” he countered, eyes still locked hungrily on Echo.
“It’s not relevant to this mission brief,” Hunter insisted.
“I decide what is relevant in all briefings given at my command.”
“You asked us here to assist in a dangerous operation,” Hunter said. “Not to put one of my men on display.”
Bralor’s gaze darkened.
“Sergeant, one of your men is an unknown cybernetic variable about to be deployed within proximity of a Separatist cyberwarfare facility,” he said. “The backup forces in this room have a right to be apprised of the dangers and circumstances surrounding the assets being used.”
Echo felt heat climb up the back of his neck.
Assets.
“Corporal Echo is not an unknown variable,” Tech said after taking one controlled breath. “He is a decorated ARC trooper and a former member of the 501st Legion with an extensive and diverse mission history. His cybernetics have been evaluated, stabilized, and secured. He is not a danger to Republic personnel.”
Bralor rounded on him.
“Specialist, if you interrupt me again,” he warned. “I will have you forcefully removed.”
“According to base protocol, my actions have not yet warranted force,” Tech pointed out.
“Tech…” Hunter said, voice low and drawing out the vowel. “Don’t.”
Tech stopped talking, but only because Hunter essentially begged him to.
Bralor chose to ignore Tech’s statement entirely. He looked back at Echo.
“Answer the question, Corporal,” he persisted. “How much of you is synthetic?”
Echo’s mouth was dry. He could feel the entire room watching him now. Not just looking at him—but watching, weighing and estimating. They were all trying not to react but reacting anyway.
Echo could refuse to answer. He could stand there and… simply not disclose the information. He could force Bralor to decide whether he wanted to make it a formal order, and then a formal act of reprimand in front of all these witnesses.
But Echo remembered that the mission clock was ticking. The line troopers in the room were about to go into danger with them. The civilians in the valley below the relay complex would be shelled if the operation failed. Echo knew what it meant when one person’s dignity got weighed against tactical necessity. The Republic had been doing that math with clones since before he was decanted.
He looked at Hunter.
Hunter’s expression was controlled fury, but beneath it was an understanding, should Echo decide to defy Bralor.
Echo lifted his chin a fraction.
I’ll answer him.
Hunter’s jaw clenched.
Echo looked back at Bralor.
“Just over sixty percent,” Echo said.
The room reacted. Not loudly—that might have been easier. Instead, people reacted in little, awful ways. A trooper in the back flinched. One of the naval tacticians whispered something under his breath and immediately looked ashamed. A command staff medic stared at Echo with naked clinical interest before catching himself and turning away. The intelligence analyst who had been staring at the door, contemplating egress, closed his eyes and grimaced.
Echo wished he had not noticed any of it.
Bralor, unfortunately, looked vindicated. And for some inexplicable reason, even hungrier.
“Over sixty percent,” he repeated.
Echo’s face burned.
“Yes, sir.”
“Synthetic limbs?”
“Entirety of both legs,” Echo said, voice level by force. “Right arm from above the elbow through the scomp terminal.”
“Internal systems?”
“Sir,” Hunter answered instead. “Isn’t that enough?”
Bralor cast a sharp look at him. “No, Sergeant. It’s not enough.”
He turned toward the tactical officer at the main console.
“Pull up the corporal’s anatomical file.”
Suddenly, Echo felt numb. Next to him, Tech was uneasy.
“That file should not be pulled up,” Tech insisted to the younger officer. “It is in violation of—”
“Do it,” Bralor barked before Tech could finish.
To his credit, the tactical officer hesitated. Everyone saw him hesitate.
“Commander,” the young officer said carefully, “that file is restricted medical—”
“It has been attached to my operational security review,” Bralor said. “Project it. Now.”
Echo couldn’t move. He heard Hunter say his name, low and urgent. But the holotable shimmered before Echo could answer.
The canyon map vanished. In its place, a blue-white medical diagram unfolded in the center of the room.
Echo’s body appeared in light. Not wearing his Bad Batch armor. Not pictured with a likeness of his face as people knew him. Not the lean, agile hybrid physique he traversed the galaxy and won battles with.
It was just a simplified diagram of him and all the things that made him non-human. It was labeled, layered, and brutally clinical.
It rotated slowly above the briefing table and all personnel in the room became privy to it. They could all see organic tissue in pale blue and synthetic architecture in bright amber. They saw reinforced spinal supports, neural relay pathways, and internal augmentations.
Echo’s body was over sixty percent synthetic. And now the circumstances of that figure were on display for everyone.
Echo stopped hearing the room correctly. His ears rang as the holo turned. His own unusual, unprecedented anatomy laid bare in front of officers, analysts, troopers, strangers.
“Holy shit,” someone muttered, horrified.
“That’s Techno Union work?” whispered someone else.
Bralor turned his head sharply at the mention of the Techno Union.
Tech apparently couldn’t stand it anymore. He stepped up in front of Echo and loudly cleared his throat.
“Remove that projection!” his voice resonated through the compartment like a whip.
Bralor did no such thing.
“This is necessary to prevent threat escalation and keep all involved forces fully apprised of the operational circumstances,” he claimed.
“No,” Tech said. “It is unnecessary, invasive, and medically unethical.”
Bralor rounded on him again.
“You are out of line, Specialist!” Bralor spat.
“On the contrary,” Tech informed him, brandishing an index finger. “I am being remarkably restrained.”
“Tech,” Hunter warned yet again, but his own voice was gravelly with anger now.
Echo stared at the projection.
His own body was a horror, even abstracted and simplified. It was ports and pathways, and hardware and vulnerability. It showed every place he had been cut into and all the things Tambor had grafted into him. It showed everything Tech had later redesigned with hands that shook only when no one else was looking.
The room saw amber and blue while Echo remembered pain and desolation.
He remembered the stasis chamber. He remembered waking incomplete—without enough of himself. He remembered Tech explaining what had been changed, what could be made better, and what Echo would still get to decide.
He remembered finally deciding that his body was a new reality he would adapt to, and that his mind belonged solely to him.
The holo rotated.
Bralor pointed toward the occipital assembly.
“This system here,” he said, disdain and suspicion obvious. “Can it be overridden remotely?”
“No,” Tech snapped. “It cannot.”
“I asked Corporal Echo.”
Echo swallowed.
“No, sir,” he finally said.
“How can you be certain?” Bralor challenged.
“Because I know my own systems,” Echo said with more composure than he actually had.
“Do you?”
The commander’s question was quiet, but it landed like a slap.
Crosshair took half a step forward, narrowed eyes fixed on Bralor with a look that made two troopers check their own weapons.
Hunter caught his arm.
“Crosshair,” Hunter said softly. “Stand down.”
Crosshair did not look away from Bralor as he scowled, gnashed his teeth, and bit his toothpick in half.
Bralor’s shifted uneasily at the sight of him.
“Sergeant,” he ordered Hunter, too uncomfortable to take his eyes off Crosshair. “Control your man.”
Hunter’s grip tightened on Crosshair’s arm, but Crosshair’s gaze remained dangerously affixed on Bralor.
The room held its breath.
Echo could feel Wrecker behind him, huge and tense and heartbroken. He could feel Tech next to him, vibrating with the need to dismantle the holotable . He could feel Hunter standing on the edge of a choice that could derail the operation, jeopardize his status as their leader, and have them all confined to the base brig.
All because of me, Echo thought. Because I walked into the room, aberrant and unwelcome.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them.
“Commander Bralor,” Echo said. His own voice sounded distant but it was steadier now. “The cybernetic systems integrated into my body were originally installed by the Techno Union without my consent. They were later modified and fortified by Republic medical personnel and Specialist CT-9902, Tech, of Clone Force Ninety-Nine. They cannot be remotely overridden by Separatist systems under any ordinary operating conditions. I retain independent command and control over my entire body and cybernetic interfaces.”
The room had gone so quiet he could hear the holoprojector hum.
“I am not a threat to Republic forces,” Echo continued. “I am a clone trooper, loyal to my brothers and the Republic we protect.”
Bralor gazed at him.
Something uncomfortable passed through the room. It moved through the Regs first, then the analysts, then the officers. It was shame. Or the closest thing the GAR had time for.
The young tactical officer reached for his console and killed the projection without being told.
The images blinked out of sight and disappeared.
Echo could breathe again, but only barely.
Bralor’s jaw flexed. For one second, Echo thought the man might back down.
Instead, Bralor had other plans.
“That statement will need to be confirmed by medical evaluation,” he told Echo, dispassionately.
Hunter’s head turned slowly.
“Commander, please,” Hunter interjected, alarm evident. “Respectfully, sir, that won’t be needed.”
Bralor looked at him.
“The evaluation is mandatory.”
“Echo’s already has been cleared,” Hunter insisted. “Several times over!”
“Not by this command.”
“This isn’t our parent command,” Hunter reasoned.
“But you’ve been temporarily assigned here,” Bralor said. “And I have authority over all personnel participating in this operation.”
“Then I request we be withdrawn from the operation,” Hunter said, stepping closer.
That finally changed Bralor’s expression.
The room shifted again as the tension became more palpable. Wrecker, Crosshair, and Tech all looked ready to back Hunter’s play, but Echo’s stomach twisted at the idea.
The mission. The civilians. The backup forces. Echo knew the Bad Batch was needed.
Bralor knew it too.
“If Clone Force Ninety-Nine refuses deployment,” he said. “The valley settlements will remain exposed to Separatist bombardment.”
There it was. The dagger. The reason none of them would ever genuinely back out.
“I’ll go for testing,” Echo said.
“Echo, no,” Hunter said at once.
“I’ll do the evaluation.”
“Echo,” Hunter objected. “Don’t.”
“The mission has to happen, Hunter.”
“Not like this,” Hunter said. “You’ve given enough—been tested enough—already.”
“Then this one should be a breeze,” Echo said. “Don’t let it be for nothing.”
Hunter looked stricken.
“Echo, I strongly advise against submitting to evaluation without my presence,” Tech insisted, stepping in to invade their personal space.
“I know.”
“They have already demonstrated disregard for your privacy and autonomy,” he continued.
“Yeah, Tech. I know.”
“The probability of further harm is significant.”
Echo looked at him with an expression that finally made Tech pause.
“I know,” Echo said, his voice softer now. “I know, Tech.”
Wrecker shook his head. “Echo, this ain’t right Are you sure you gotta—”
“Yeah,” said Echo. “I do.”
“You don’t,” Crosshair said, his mouth twisting. His eyes were hard, but his voice had gone quieter.
“You really don’t,” he repeated.
For a moment, Echo almost relented.
“Maybe I shouldn’t officially have to,” he said. “But there’s no time to argue this right now. So I’m going to.”
Hunter’s hand closed around his shoulder. Firm. Warm. Furious.
“You comm us the second you need out.”
“Communications equipment will remain with the deployed squad,” Bralor said. “Medical evaluation will occur under controlled conditions.”
Hunter’s grip tightened to the point it nearly hurt.
Echo looked at the aide waiting by the door, hand already extended to relieve him of his comlink.
Of course.
Of course they would want to isolate him too. Better he not be a distraction to his squadmates while they launch a difficult operation.
He removed the comlink himself and placed it in Hunter’s palm. Not the aide’s.
As Hunter closed his fingers around it, his expression said what he didn’t need to put to words.
This isn’t over.
Echo hoped that was true.
Tech leaned in, voice low and rapid.
“Do not permit cranial access. Do not permit spinal port access. Do not permit detachment of prosthetics unless they can provide a valid immediate medical justification. Do not permit them to run current through any neural relay. Do not permit—”
“Tech,” Echo said gently.
Tech paused.
Echo tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. “I get it.”
Tech’s face was pale with frustration and wariness.
“I will be filing formal objections.”
“Yeah,” Echo said. “Figured.”
“Several of them.”
“Good.”
Echo nudged him lightly with his left shoulder as he passed.
“Give those clankers hell.”
Wrecker swallowed hard and cracked a devious grin. “Always.”
He pushed past Crosshair, who was regarding him silently with piercing eyes, and folded arms.
“Watch over these idiots while I’m stuck here, will you?”
Crosshair’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. He nodded once and shifted aside to let Echo through.
Echo fought the urge to glance back at them as he walked out of the briefing room.
The door sealed behind him with a hiss, and all at once, he was on his own. The holomap, the battle, his squad, and their allies were sealed away behind him, as he embarked on his own, treacherous solo mission.
THE MEDICAL SUITE awaited three corridors away. It was too bright, too clean, and far too interested in him as he drew near.
Echo stopped in the doorway and knew immediately that the word ‘evaluation’ had been a lie.
The room had an examination table, yes. It also had articulated scanner arms, restraint points, and an advanced cranial interface array. Diagnostic cables were laid out by size and a prosthetic suspension rig loomed on the far wall. A tray of fine instruments waited next to the table, too specialized for standard procedures.
A clone medic stood near the table, garbed in surgical garments and visibly uneasy. A medical droid waited beside him.
This isn’t right, Echo knew as alarm bells screamed in his head. Every fiber of his intuition was telling him to flee.
Just as he was turning to leave, he felt the sting of a hypo at his neck.
Commander Bralor’s aide had closed in behind him and injected him with something. Drowsiness blunted his thoughts and all tension in his body fled as his muscles relaxed en masse.
“That will help take the edge off, said the aide by way of greeting. “At least until we get you…settled in.”
The senior medical officer appeared behind him. He looked absolutely fascinated.
“CT-1409,” he said, pocketing his data pad and grabbing Echo by the shoulder. He guided Echo back toward the exam table as the sedative took hold. “Let’s begin.”
Echo was lead forward.