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“Oh, so you’re playing errand boy again?”
“Shut up, Crosshair.”
Hunter snorts at how smoothly Echo says one of the… very, very familiar, most relatable phrases ever spoken on the Havoc Marauder.
Batcher is grumbling, and Emerie finally, slowly reaches out to pet the hound. It seems to get her to calm just a bit. “Where exactly are we heading?” she queries.
“A base… of sorts,” Echo replies over his shoulder. “The general sent message. It’s top priority, or he wouldn’t have called us in.”
“Sounds good to me!” Wrecker shrugs, stretching. “I could use some adventure.”
Emerie makes a worried little uh at that.
“I am not sure all of us here are suited for combat,” Tech interrupts loudly.
“That’s why it’s our job to keep an eye on her,” Hunter points out, but he’s mostly worried about the message. Anakin has never once called them some place, and he respects their decision to go sit out the chaos as per Omega’s orders… even if his brothers really want some of the fun.
Hunter… does. Sort of? Even if he’s worried about the fallout. They just got Omega back – he wants to spend time together before somebody goes in weapons’ blazing and… someone could get hurt.
Emerie is entirely wracked with nerves, and Hunter feels her heart beating at an insanely rapid speed. Poor girl. Hemlock really messed her up. She’s terrified to be anywhere, to do literally anything.
“Everyone needs to stay alert,” Omega calls from the front, and whoa, Hunter has missed her. “Anakin wouldn’t have called us if it weren’t something urgent, which means dangerous. We aren’t here on a vacation.”
“I’m here on a vacation,” Crosshair answers moodily.
Wrecker elbows him. Crosshair kicks him back.
“Just stay close to me,” Hunter tells Emerie, catching on that clearly, none of his brothers are willing to help out with that. She nods, hovering at his side as the ramp lowers, and everyone gets off at… a purple planet. The sky is lavender, rocks a strange, pinkish purple that would be… pretty under other circumstances.
The assembled regs don’t look overly happy.
Wrecker laughs. “Just like old times, huh?”
“Tell me about it,” Crosshair grumbles, and Batcher nearly runs him over.
“Echo, Omega.” That’s the General’s voice, Jedi robes replaced with a more civilian attire that it’s entirely jarring to see him in, pushing his way to the front of the group. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you got back safely. And…” He looks past them to Hunter and his siblings. “All of you younglings, too.”
“I’m not a –” Tech elbows Crosshair. Seriously, why do people keep hitting him?
Wait, did Crosshair just bite him?
“And this is, uh.” The general steps up to Emerie, who’s half shrunk into Hunter’s side in wariness.
“Emerie,” he answers for her, “She’s Tech’s twin. Omega found and rescued her from the lab.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, little one,” he murmurs, holding his hand out. “I promise I’m going to end that place, and no one else will be hurt there again.”
Emerie blinks at his outstretched hand for a confused moment before finally accepting the handshake. She’s so awkward with people.
But again, Hunter’s never actually seen another kid locked away from the world. He doesn’t know what’s normal or what separation does to people – he’s had his brothers from a few minutes after being let out of his tube.
Anakin nods to her, and gets up, turning back to Omega and kicking up a conversation that Hunter is mostly following, but for reasons he can’t begin to explain, his entire being is wracked with nerves. He can’t say what it is at first. Hunter tells himself, maybe it’s just nerves, maybe it’s just his own paranoia, and he’s got good reason for it. But something in his gut says, they shouldn’t be here.
“There’s something I wanted to tell you,” the general reports to them, his face grim. “Mostly you, Omega. We – we found a list if Imperial targets. You’re on it. The Empire is after you.”
And Hunter's entire being seizes with raw panic, because they lost her once already and he doesn’t ever want to go through that again. Omega's their sister, and they spent so long terrified they lost her for good, that they'd never find a lead and she was just gone.
Omega twitches. “Me?”
“Yes. You,” he repeats. “We don’t know why, but we expected it has something to do with whatever happened on Tantiss.”
Her face goes dark, and Emerie flinches at the name.
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of her,” Echo promises immediately.
And Hunter thinks it’s from there that his spiraling edginess just grows worse.
This is a military operation, and he’s been trying to keep his brothers as far from that as possible. “Omega,” he calls, and goes up to tap her wrist. “Are you sure we should be here?”
“We’ll be fine,” she promises. “It’s the most secured base in the galaxy. I mean, we’ve got Anakin.”
Hunter wants to believe her. But something still feels wrong.
“Don’t let yourself get worried, kid,” Echo assures, briefly patting his shoulder. “We need to help out the general here, and when we’re done, it’ll be back home for all of you kids.”
Hunter paces off again, antsy. He can’t say what it is, but there’s something… something nagging.
It’s not that the general called them here to see a brainwashed clone that the Empire’s been using as an assassin, though that certainly is adding to it. What if he was tracked? What if – okay, there are a thousand ways this could go wrong.
“Is… something amiss?” Emerie inquires, her worried eyes tracking his agitated pacing more than Hunter would like. He’d prefer if she didn’t know, but that’s not gonna hide her from the truth either. And the question now has all his siblings’ eyes on him.
“I don’t know. Something just doesn’t… feel right.” He feels his siblings’ worried gazes as they exchange glances, sighs and tries to stop thinking so he can just feel.
And when he feels, he can pick up a long array of things, many… many things. He can feel every heartbeat, every blaster, every machine and the pulse of every wire when he really, really tries, but something feels wrong amidst it all in a way he can’t quite place, and none of it makes sense, until –
“Something’s wrong,” the general says, and his lightsaber ignites just a second before the power flickers and the whole room goes dark.
Hunter has his blaster out, and on instinct, he’s grabbing Emerie by the wrist and pulling her down behind the nearest cover object, not that he entirely needs his eyes to know where everything is – he can feel it well enough.
Wrecker is yelping, and Echo tackles him down as a blaster goes off. The Jedi is in the front of the room, trying to cover for them, and that’s when the explosions start. They’re loud, deafening, and Hunter feels the… flicker and the quiet as weapons are taken down, their electricity fields leaking away into nothing, and then he swears some of the heartbeats went out, too.
People died.
Clones died.
The only people in the resistance, organized to fight the Empire, the only real rebellion, the only one that Hunter believes might, someday, stand a fighting chance.
All lives gone in a second.
And the blaster shots keep on coming rapidly.
Echo is shooting back now. He’s not the only one.
“If someone damaged the Marauder, I will personally find and eliminate them,” Tech says fiercely. “With all the time I spent on that ship, I refuse to allow anyone to lay a hand on it.”
“You know it already happened, right?” Emerie asks over Hunter’s “Tech, there’s no time for that!” and Wrecker’s “You don’t really mean that… right?”
“We have to fall back!” That’s Omega. “He’s too fast.”
Something clanks. Hunter senses an explosive, and someone’s turned on their helmet lights enough he can get the idea the assassin – there’s another one – threw it their way.
Anakin Force-shoves it back. “Everyone fall back!” he calls. “I’ll go back for the others. Omega, get your squad out of here.”
“On it!” she calls back, breathless, but wastes no time in sprinting towards the back room.
“What about you, sir?” Echo asks, alarm high in his voice.
“Don’t worry about me. Just get yourselves out of here. I’ll be fine. Go.”
Hunter wouldn’t trust that from anyone else, but this is Anakin Skywalker, who seems uncapable at going down from anything, so he gives a nod and grabs his sister’s wrist to pull her after his brothers. It’s not letting anything happen to his siblings again.
Crosshair lifts his rifle to fire a shot off that ricochets around the room, most likely that was directed at the assassin – who is probably trying to get back up. Good thing his little brother can see so wildly off walls and everything – or someone might actually have been killed.
Echo throws a final reluctant look back before the others scramble into the back. Omega shoots out the door to lock them inside, and Echo takes them down through an underground escape route. “I saw this thing here when I was with the general for a while,” is all he says.
Batcher leaps down it with a happy bark.
“Yeah,” Wrecker grumbles, carefully lowering himself in after, “Are we sure the Empire didn’t find this place, too?”
“That’s my line!” Crosshair whines.
“You are both ridiculous,” Tech grumbles and shoves them both down before jumping after.
Emerie hesitates just a moment longer, turning a worried look to Hunter. She’s afraid. Because she wasn’t trained for combat, she wasn’t trained for any of this, and the girl has no idea what her brothers are walking her into. She’s trusting them alone to keep her safe, and even with the crossbow Echo gave her hanging at her hip, Hunter has his doubts the girl knows how to use it.
“Come on,” he urges, motioning her down.
Emerie clenches her jaw and jumps down into the dark.
Hunter follows, then Echo, and Omega pulls something partly over the hole as she slides down last.
“There’s an evac ship was can take,” Echo says. “We better get it fired up and swing back around for the general. Come on, let’s move.”
He doesn’t have to say it twice.
***
Hunter’s assumption was right. That’s what he was afraid of from the start – that the assassin somehow was tracked, and the Empire isn’t too far behind.
Crosshair is the first to spot the moving lights down below. “We’ve been breached,” he says lowly, and the entire group scrambles to a halt.
“We can’t stop here,” Omega protests. There’s the slightest hitch of fear in her voice, something caused by the last months of uncertainty. Of nearly losing herself.
And – it’s on Hunter to keep them moving. “You’re right. Crosshair, keep watch,” he replies, “We’ll just have to keep moving. Quickly, and quiet. You know the way around here Echo, right?”
“I’ll go in front,” he replies, moving down the staircase to the front and taking up the lead.
Emerie does stay close, right behind Hunter as they make it down the endless track of stairs.
Blaster shots sound from somewhere. He immediately thinks about the general, but he’s a Jedi. He’ll be fine. Or at least Hunter has to hope he’ll be fine.
“We’re almost there,” Echo says.
“Wait!” Crosshair hisses, “There’s shadows moving up ahead.”
“Is there another exit?” Omega asks.
After a pause, Echo nods. “This way. But we’ll have to cover more distance.”
“That may be better than being caught in a shoot-out,” Tech interjects, and they go for it.
The door opens out into the hot, moist air of Teth’s atmosphere, the dark purple night sky above and the rocky ground and towering trees of the jungle right beyond.
“Tech, how much do you know about this place?” Hunter queries, just to check.
Tech casts a glance in their sister’s direction. “Shall I just say, the less time we spend here, the better?”
“Why?” Emerie asks, alarmed. “What’s out here?”
“Nothin’ we haven’t fought worse of, I’m sure,” Wrecker soothes, giving her shoulder a firm pat. “We’re gonna be fine!”
Hunter wants to tell him please don’t speak so fast, because that usually means disaster, but he’ll admit it’s best if Emerie doesn’t know. Even being here has her looking more and more edgy. Hemlock talked to her so much about the ‘dangers in nature’ that she’s come to fear it, preferring closed, ‘sterile’ spaces.
Hunter can’t fathom living a life like that.
“The ship’s down here,” Echo says, pointing to a docking area alongside the tower.
“I still do not like the idea of leaving the Marauder,” Tech grumbles loudly.
“I don’t wanna leave Gonky!” Wrecker wails.
“Guys, please, we can go back for our ship,” Omega calls. “Right now, we gotta get ourselves in the air so we can pick up the others, remember? We have to go back for Anakin, anyway.”
Hunter keeps a firm grip on Emerie’s wrist, and they scramble onto the ship. Omega makes a beeline for the pilot’s seat, firing up the engine, and Echo slides in next to her, plugging into the wall to do whatever he can with his scomp and the computer system.
The sinking feeling in his gut isn’t retreating.
Yes, the ship is in the air, but…
And, right on cue, the ship jolts, and Omega gasps. “Someone took a shot to the engine!”
“We’re going down. Everybody, hold on,” Echo warns over his shoulder.
Yeah. Hunter’s been on crashing ships before, even if the Marauder has always been salvageable. It’s probably for the best they didn’t take their own ship, because if they don’t immediately abandon the crash sight, they’ll have a far bigger problem.
“We’re gonna be fine!” Wrecker yells out, voice hitching with panic.
Emerie’s face is pale, but she says nothing.
The ship crashes. Hunter’s thrown hard against his seat from the force they strike the ground with, head spinning. The ship’s systems are shorting out now, cracking and sparking from the sheer force they struck the ground with. Omega had been pulling them up the best she could, but it wasn’t enough.
“Come on, we've got to move!”
Echo is already waving them to their feet, and Hunter rips the seatbelt strap off and goes to get Emerie from her own.
His sister is panicking, and Hunter mentally curses at Hemlock again for turning Emerie into this. She’s Tech’s twin, and she could’ve been a second him, always calm and level-headed – okay, usually calm and level-headed. But Emerie has no idea how to handle things like this. She hasn't even been trained, and the chances of that becoming a risk down the line is too high for Hunter's liking. He says nothing though - it's not her fault.
“We have to move,” Hunter repeats firmly, tugging her wrist and pulling Emerie after him as they scramble to their feet and from the sparking ship. Wrecker gleefully grabs a bag full of explosives, smoke grenades or whatever supplies he can get ahold of, and they run.
“There's an extraction point we can get to," Echo tells them. “We can hope either the general's gotten a ship, or someone's gonna come back to pick us up.”
Yep. They can hope.
“I’ll send a transmission,” Omega replies. “The ship's still somewhat operational.”
“We have to be fast," Echo replies, but nods to her, and Omega disappears back into the cockpit.
"We're clear," Crosshair calls from the front, rifle raised towards the ship's opening. Hunter nods to him, one hand on his blaster, the other keeping a firm, tight grip on Emerie’s wrist.
Omega jumps out of the hull last, pulling her helmet back on. “Anakin’s got the Marauder. He was able to pull a few people out, and he’s coming around to pick us up.”
Oh, good. So it wasn’t destroyed in the blasts, which is a literal miracle, though knowing the general, the chances are he might be flying a badly damaged ship already. And either way, Tech won’t lose it, because he most definitely would if their ship was destroyed – it is not Tech’s ship, contrary to what he might say.
“Where’s the extraction point?” Hunter asks.
“About five klicks north,” Echo replies. “We’ll have to walk.”
“In the jungle?” Emerie asks worriedly.
“Don’t worry,” Wrecker promises cheerfully. “You’ve got me!”
“Then we better hurry,” Omega replies, and they take off.
Emerie stumbles a few times, and Wrecker quickly grabs her arm to keep the girl upright.
Tech shares a worried glance with Hunter. “I am afraid she is slowing us down,” he says quietly.
“I know. But she’s one of us. We have to keep her safe.”
Tech nods, but still looks… unhappy.
Batcher is running along in the very back, growling lowly. Crosshair grumpily tries to shush her, but the hound is as spooked as Emerie.
The jungle’s terrain might be a bit rough, but from the things he and his brothers have gone through, this is nothing. It’s still rough enough that covering ground is hard, though.
And, here they are again. Running from the Empire, something Hunter really hoped they’d never have to do again. He tries not to think though – to just feel and track any approaching electric currents. There are animals in the forest, but none of them come near. What worries him worst is the one in the sky.
“Everyone, get down,” Hunter hisses at them, ducking against a cliff side and pressing back. The rest of the squad scrambles back as spotlights sweep out through the forest. The Empire is searching for them, and this is going to drastically slow down their approach.
Echo grumbles under his breath, and he has his blaster out now.
Hunter’s grip tightens on his own.
“Uh,” Wrecker supplies. “That might be a problem.”
“That… will be a problem,” Hunter grumbles as the ships in question start lowering towards the ground. They must’ve seen something, and now they’re landing.
“Not for much longer,” Crosshair replies with glee and lifts his rifle, shooting straight through the front of the ship. It careens sideways, and he shoots out the engine. The ship hits the ground a good distance off, but still close enough Hunter sees the fire going up through the trees.
“Stay close,” Omega tells Emerie, squeezing her sister's shoulder and pulling her around behind her.
"That just gave away our position," Hunter snaps, annoyed.
"Oh, get over it," Crosshair huffs. "They were gonna find us, anyway."
"Don't worry!" Wrecker grins brightly as he plucks a couple smoke bombs from his bag. "We got these!"
“That is extremely reassuring,” Tech replies with a level of dryness that's almost frightening. It entirely loses Wrecker, though.
Luckily, just this once, they actually make quick, and good work of their attackers, breaking through the lines and moving – until Hunter feels something else, another charge, and tackles Tech just a millisecond before a blaster bolt would’ve taken him through the chest.
Everyone gets down, and Batcher jumps sideways with a yelp.
Wrecker tackles Emerie, and they roll against the nearest rock for cover.
A sniper? It’s the attacker who started all this, isn’t it? A clone. But it doesn’t matter if they’re being hunted by a clone when it’s him, or Hunter’s entire squad. There’s no question who he’d chose.
“Smoke grenade,” Hunter calls – they blind their attacker, he can’t pick them off.
“Uh… we’re out,” Wrecker informs, plucking another explosive out instead. “But we still have a few boom-ers!”
“We don’t need any booms. I already have you,” Crosshair growls.
“Yes, I highly recommend we blow out the cliffside, and bring the entire rock wall down onto our heads,” Tech says dryly.
Seriously, what is going on with that sarcasm? This is not usually Tech.
“Do they ever stop fighting?” Emerie asks him miserably.
“Not really,” Hunter replies with equal sulkiness.
“Someone needs to draw his fire,” Echo says, starting forwards.
“I’ll go,” Omega interrupts. “This entire thing is my fault.”
“Not a chance,” Echo replies fiercely. “I’m going. Get the kids to safety.”
Echo’s leaving. Again. And Hunter knows just as well as he does, that the chances are, he’s not making it back. He’s not counting on it, and he hates how terrified that makes him. Echo left before, but he's always been one of them, a part of them. He and Omega were the ones who started Clone Force 99, and Hunter can't imagine a life without either of them.
But, strategically, it does make sense, for all he hates it, and he knows Omega will fight it even if it makes sense, so he has to be the calm, level-headed one again, the one who just gets back up when no one else can. “Echo's right. We need to move.”
And they do not have time to fight about it.
Omega follows with a final worried, longing look backwards, but they do run.
Blaster shots echo from behind them, and Hunter stops to look back, just to see the flash of two idiots going over a waterfall.
And Echo can’t swim.
“Echo!” Omega yells, voice laced with panic.
Hunter pushes Emerie towards Wrecker and Tech, who nod to him, silently promising whatever happens, they’ll be sure to take care of her. He laces his grappling hook onto his blaster and runs. It clicks a nice shot off down onto the rocks below, where he sees – and feels – the duo fighting, links the other point to the ground, and slides down the thing.
Echo’s attacker, distracted enough as he is, doesn’t look up.
Their weapons are gone, and they’re just fighting hands-on now, right in the middle of the water.
Echo goes down, but not before he’s managed a hit on the other clone’s helmet, and the front of it came up. Echo stops and stares. “Fives?” he breathes, strangled.
But the other clone is moving, either about to draw another weapon or to shove Echo over the waterfall’s side, which he won’t be making it up from, and Hunter moves first. He flicks his blaster out and fires a stunshot at the other clone, which is enough to knock him over the side.
Echo is standing there, chest heaving from how fast he’s breathing, and entirely motionless.
Fives, he said. Fives, who was on Tantiss, and still alive, and… they’d been trying so hard to get there, which is how they lost Omega, and…
And they did find him, could have found him, but they were too late.
Hunter has to drag Echo away from the cliffside where he’s standing frozen. Echo has never frozen, not to the best of Hunter's recollection, but this time, he doesn't move at all. They don't really talk, either, not about what happened or who they found, not until they're safely back aboard the definitely damaged but still flyable Marauder, and Anakin is flying them out.
“This is my fault," Omega says from the co-pilot's seat, voice small.
“All of you nearly died, and that was my fault.”
Hunter is… tired. He’s just tired, enough he thinks he could sleep for a week, and it’s not just from lack of sleep. His brothers are exhausting, and everyone needs him to be the one who stays calm and focused, and… he doesn’t remember how that happened. Not that it matters. If that’s what his family needs, it’s what he’ll give them.
“This wasn’t your fault, Omega,” the Jedi promises firmly from beside her. “It’s the Empire’s.”
“I came here, all these people…”
Because, yes, most of the clone rebellion was killed right here on Teth. But that wasn’t Omega’s fault. “He’s right,” Hunter tells her firmly. “And even if it was, we’d still rather stay with you.”
“Yeah,” Wrecker agrees earnestly. “We’re not goin’ anywhere.”
“The Empire will keep coming after us,” Tech deduces. “We need a way to eliminate Tantiss entirely.”
“How would we do that?” Emerie queries. “The defenses there are impermeable, not to mention we cannot even locate the base.”
“There’s gotta be a way to find everything,” Anakin replies. “If nothing else, maybe the Force will give me some answers.”
Yeah. Jedi stuff.
“Echo?” Omega finally tentatively prods. “Are you okay?”
“That was Fives,” he breathes out, voice faint, still dazed. That single statement has the room collectively seized with shock.
“What?!” Omega whisper-hisses.
“It was Fives,” Echo repeats fiercely. “That’s my brother.”
Who Hunter stunned and knocked down a waterfall. He could’ve killed him… oops? Echo’s alive, and that’s what matters to him, but what’s important for Echo? He didn't really have time to stop and think about it.
“Hemlock turned Fives into one of those…” Echo trains off, vibrating with untamed fury.
The mood in the room plummets instantly. They’ve all heard stories about Fives, the clone rogue enough he could’ve been one of them had he even got the chance. And Hemlock, somehow, was able to take his freewill away?
“Perhaps,” Tech says slowly. “There is something we can do to help him.”
Doubtful, not that Hunter will say so. But it’s still better if no one holds onto a likely fruitless hope.
Emerie says nothing for a while, until they’re safely in hyperspace and back on the way to Pabu, and she’s leaning against Batcher who’s curled up sleeping. “I… was not expecting it to be so… dangerous out here.”
“Having second thoughts?” Hunter guesses, seating himself beside her.
Emerie shakes her head. “No. For as crazy as it sounds, I am grateful to be where I am.”
Hunter offers her a small, but genuine smile, for all it feels everything is falling apart around them. “Welcome to the squad.”