Chapter Text
They alternate meeting spots. Keep eyes on them in between and cycle back ‘round when they feel confident as they can no Imperial forces are going to come in an attempt to sweep the lot of them up.
It’s sensible, in a galaxy gone mad. Safe as possible, in dark and dangerous times.
But Cody does wish he hadn’t had the bad luck of drawing the Tolyu Moon rotation. Miserable place; good for hiding. Hot enough they can only rendezvous on the dark side, and have to clear out or at least be shipboard before sunlight hits. Stable ground, but not quite solid, and it takes several minutes to grow accustomed to the sense of sinking a few centimeters with each step. Devoid of any native life they’ve found, save the stinking fungus that thrives in the dark crevices and craters. Breathable atmosphere, but why would you want to?
He could hand it off, swap it out, but the moment Det said, “It’s Lynx; he’s coming home,” he knew he’d be along for the meet.
Wolffe’s steadfast commitment to the Empire had been more surprising than most, considering his years-long devotion to Master Plo. A bitter surrender, when Cody decided he would not be lured into questioning the Empire’s methods before deploying to head up his new strike force.
When Crosshair doubled down, Cody finally conceded it was useless. They were bred and trained too well – orders were orders. Following them and having purpose was a hell of a lot easier on the psyche than wondering why they hadn’t paused and wondered before. But he found others, once he finally gave up and ran. Formed a tight-knit network with a handful still inside.
And now he waits to see if Lynx has finally managed to coax Wolffe into opening his eyes.
Once the shuttle touches down, he doesn’t need to wait long. Wolffe is first down the ramp, bucket under his arm and Lynx close behind. Det straightens from where he’s leaning with affected nonchalance against one of the hydraulic ramp supports as Cody steps forward to meet him.
Wolffe clasps his arm, grasps his shoulder like they’ve just returned from any other hairy mission at their generals’ sides, and a piece of Cody’s shredded heart mends. One tiny little piece of wrong in the galaxy righted; more than one, he amends inwardly when he turns to greet Lynx and sees two additional troopers hovering at the top of the ramp. “You brought friends.”
“Five more, Commander Cody, sir,” Lynx informs him, and that is a habit that’ll need breaking sooner than later. “And, um.”
Cody tracks his uncertain look at Wolffe, exchanging introductions with Det, and prompts, “Sounds like there’s a story.” There always is, when they manage to pull a brother out. And not usually a good one. “We’ll ditch your ship for now as a precaution, take everyone in on the –”
But Wolffe grimaces and confesses: “We have a hostile on board. And… I think you might know him.”
Wolffe says hostile and then Clone Force Ninety-Nine and Cody can only, naturally, think of Crosshair.
The dread that rises in him as the wrongness of that assumption is made clear is all-encompassing, nauseating, numbing. “Tech,” he breathes, kneeling down by the bound figure who’s pressed himself into the closest thing to a corner he can find aboard the shuttle. He takes in the black armor, the leg that’s resting a little funny. The way his chest is heaving far too quickly, and it could be pain or fear or panic.
The way he’ll only look at Cody sidelong, his face tipped away, contorted in a miserable scowl. The absent goggles make his face look smaller, Cody thinks at first, before deciding that no, he’s drawn and a little gaunt under the unfamiliar scars, the newer cuts and bruises.
“He was – he called in an assist on a mission. A… target retrieval,” Wolffe says delicately, and a glance upwards shows some shame in the eyes of the medic standing watch over Tech who Lynx introduced as Holdup. “He went rogue; jeopardized the mission, killed most of the rebel cell before we even arrived. Rebel… clones.”
That catches Cody’s attention, and he hears Det murmur something behind him. But he just shakes his head, he doesn’t understand, “They deserted. Clone Force Ninety-Nine deserted straight away, except for Crosshair.” Tech twitches; Cody risks laying a hand on his arm and moves it again when he shrinks away as best he’s able.
“Cody, they were the ones he was after.”
A harsh breath explodes out of him and he shoves up, leans in close, and asks Wolffe, “He killed them?”
“I… the only bodies we recovered were… they were all regular clones. When we caught up to them, I recognized the big guy, and their sniper. Maybe another. They’ve got a girl with them, a kid – a clone, she was the target we were sent to retrieve. And…” Cody’s still trying to process the claim that Crosshair might’ve made it back to his brothers after all when Wolffe drops an unfathomable bombshell into the center of everything he thought he knew about this terrible and unmade galaxy.
“It’s Rex, Cody. He’s alive.” All he can do is stare and shake his head, mouth opening and closing and no words to be conjured forth. “Warned us about a base called Tantiss, and I think this,” he gestures down at Tech’s hunched figure, “is connected.”
Cody follows the gesture and starts to find Tech turned and staring at him wide and unblinking. Holdup steps around and kneels down, starts to ask him some questions now that he’s showing signs of responsiveness and gets headbutted for his trouble.
Holdup falls back on his rear and swears viciously, touching a hand gingerly to his nose. Det steps up and starts laying out ideas for securing their prisoner, their unwilling and hostile recruit, but Tech shakes off the disorientation from the blow and looks back up and gasps out a ragged, “Cody.”
He thinks about donning his bucket, decides it’ll backfire, and kneels back down. “Talk to me, Tech.”
“Go.”
“We… we’ll go, Tech, we’ll figure this out.”
He starts fighting the restraints, tries to push up from his awkward position and bites back a groan when he moves his injured leg. “They’re coming,” he grits, pained, thumping his head back against the bulkhead and then doing it again, and again, until Cody risks reaching for him, staying him.
“Tech.”
“There’s no escape, they’re coming, you have to…” he sucks in a ragged breath and lets it out closer to a sob.
“Who, Tech? Who’s coming?” No response. “Tantiss?” The fight leaves him all in a rush and he slumps back in his corner, eyes closed and chest heaving. “Trackers?” he asks blankly into the somber silence of the hold.
“He’s clean,” someone replies from somewhere over his shoulder.
Tech bashes his head backwards again – smashes Cody’s hand against the wall – and moans, “Inside. Cody, it – go.” And softer, so low he has to lean in and strain to hear: “Nowhere to run.”
Inside.
“We’re leaving,” Cody declares to the whole of the ship. “Right now.” Tech’s breath hitches and there’s dampness on his lashes. “Holdup, give him… give him something.” He doesn’t even know, something for the pain, something to calm him, something to sedate him, just something to get him from one vessel to the other. “Det, go start plotting the longest jump you can think up.”
Tech tries to reach for him, he thinks, by the jolting of his shoulder. “It’s no good,” he begs, “Go.”
“They’re tracking you?” He blinks up at him, eyes wide and red and fearful, and then recoils when Holdup leans around to jam a hypo into his neck; Cody can’t really fault him for abandoning all pretense of beside manner. “Then we stay on the move until we figure it out.”
But he’s already slipping – apparently Holdup opted for the easiest choice. Slumps forward until Cody catches his shoulders, holds him up while his eyes go wild and heavy all at once as he fights the sedative.
The last intelligible thing that comes out of Tech’s mouth is the slurred suggestion, “Have t’kill me, Cody,” before he surrenders to unconsciousness.
Cody doesn’t even realize his own cheeks are wet until he blinks up at Wolffe and Lynx and finds them blurred through tears.
Moments before the retrieval ship makes the jump to lightspeed, Det starts and swears, staring at the sensors for a long minute before reporting, “Sirs, something just hit the vessel on the surface, it’s… gone. But I don’t… I’ve got nothing on scanners, there’s -”
“Get us out of here,” Cody barks, and a second later they’re lurching into the safety of hyperspace.
Somewhere in the background as he mulls the situation, Tech separated from the Batch, hunting the Batch – Rex out there alive and fighting –
Somewhere in the back of his mind he concedes that he won’t be sad to scratch Tolyu Moon off the rendezvous list.
It’s not exactly a fully-kitted infirmary, but the shipboard medpod serves its purpose in securing and scanning Tech. All it confirms are the same injuries Holdup already mentioned from their botched mission on Teth, of all places. Plus some new scrapes and gashes where he’s been trying to yank himself free of the restraints.
Some of the dread starts to fade back and fade away, but only because it’s being steadily replaced with a cold fury as he reads the report and listens to Wolffe’s fuller recounting of the events leading to their defection. As he slots into place some of the pieces that confused them, from Teth to Tech to here and now.
“Rex managed to capture one, but I’m guessing it’s not the first one he’s encountered. Must’ve known they were rigged with the tooth implant. Took it out, thought he was safe, took him to his operating base.” Wolffe hums a steady agreement – has apparently already made these same deductions. “He wasn’t there for your target at all, he followed the other operative. He was there to stop intel from falling into enemy hands.”
The pod finishes its scans but there’s nothing there, no beacon, no signal. “Nothing, sirs,” Holdup reports with a grimace.
“We need a higher level scan.”
“Not gonna get one without bringing more of… him… down on our heads,” Lynx concludes grimly from the background where he’s leaned against the doorway watching the goings-on with a scowl on his face. Cody swears and runs a hand through his hair. “He knew you, Commander – the first he’s done anything besides lash out and sulk was when he recognized you. Maybe…”
But he doesn’t finish the thought, prompting Cody to tear his eyes away from where the pod is shifting to position its charge in anticipation of the bone-knitter injection. “Lynx?”
Reluctantly, he straightens up. But he glowers down at the ground, mouth twisting unhappily, before squaring himself and meeting Cody’s eyes when he bluntly explains, “Maybe he’s starting to break through a little – whatever friend he once was. But maybe the brother in him knows… it’s a lost cause. He told you to kill him, sir – he’s trying to save you.”
“No one’s killing him. Everything the Empire’s done and all the brothers they’ve gotten killed tightening their fist around the galaxy, and Tech is alive, his squad is still out there, he’s the smartest clone – the smartest being I’ve ever known, and I’m not going to be the one to…”
A horrible thought dawns and he trails off as he chases it, works it over, works it through. “Cody?” Wolffe nudges.
Inside.
“Wake him up,” he breathes. Holdup grimaces, but toggles a setting on the pod. It should be gentle, in theory, a gradual adrenaline boost to bring the patient back to consciousness, but Tech goes from out to frantic in the blink of an eye, arching against the restraints, gasping and terrified. “Tech,” Cody leans in, rests his hands on his shoulders and tries to urge him down, still, before he hurts himself. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
“No…” he moans, pressing his eyes closed tight like he can make it all go away if only he can’t see it, if only he can return to the bliss of unconscious unawareness.
“Tech, you need to tell me how it works. How they’re tracking you. How to make it stop.” No response, save the ragged breathing and straining muscles. “You said I should kill you.” Tech relaxes back, opens his eyes, and looks frantically every which way around the room before he finally rests his wild gaze on Cody’s face. “If you die… it stops.”
There’s fear in Tech’s eyes, fear he cannot reconcile with the cocksure squad he once knew and grudgingly admired.
There’s longing there, and the fury rises. “Tell me,” Cody begs.
“Parasite,” Tech rasps. “Bio-electrical parasite.”
“How do we stop it?”
Something in his inflection, under the ragged and rasping voice, sounds like an echo of Tech’s old self when he bites, “Kill the host.”
Holdup’s already pulling up the heart monitor readout, bio-electrical, and Cody understands, but… “For how long?” he demands doggedly, and only earns a pained groan from their patient. “They’re out there, Tech, and I’ll be damned if I have to chase them down just to tell them you died on my watch.”
The sob that tears from Tech’s throat has his own tightening up and he refuses, after all the brothers he couldn’t help, couldn’t save, he refuses to lose this one. “M’already dead, Cody. Don’t…” his voice catches and he presses his head back against the soft mat, tears slipping past his lids and sliding down the sides of his face into his hair. “Don’t tell them… what he made of me…”
After a moment’s deliberation, Cody takes a risk and unlatches the closer restraint. By the way Holdup takes an instinctive step back, by the whisper of movement he knows without even looking is Wolffe resting his hand on the grip of his blaster, they’re expecting another vicious retaliatory explosion.
But he lets Cody take his hand, clasp it firm in his own, and even grips back a little despite the fresh surge of fear in his eyes when Cody gestures for Holdup to put him back under.
When the tension bleeds back out of his body and he drifts back into unconsciousness, Cody lays his hand back down by his side, takes a long moment to steady himself, to steel himself, before speaking into the heavy, oppressive silence –
“Holdup – what do we do?”