Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the girl approaches him for the third time, calling out his name in earnest, Hunter’s ready for this nightmare to end. 

He turns to her. Omega runs down the clinically bright hall towards the dim hangar bay, panting as she catches up to his faster strides. She’s comically out of place here, in this border of Kaminoan fallacy and Imperial might. And yet, her eyes shine with immovable, youthful determination—and suddenly, Hunter wants nothing more but to get away from this place. 

“I told you to keep your distance,” he snaps. He hopes the edge to his words will hide the tremble in them. 

Omega’s eyes flicker at his tone. She looks down at her hands—they’re unusually large for a child her age. For a brief moment, Hunter considers apologizing—but it’s only a moment.

The girl balls up her hands into tight fists and fixes the much taller man with a stare. “I know. But I need to talk to you.”

He’s not sure what emotion fills him—respect, perhaps, or empathy. Grief, if he dares. (He doesn’t.) Whatever it is, it’s enough for Hunter to kneel down in front of the girl, tamping back an exasperated sigh as he asks her to continue. 

She meets him eye to eye, now. Hunter’s not the kind of person who shies away from eye contact—that description would befit Tech far more—but as he stares at Omega’s big eyes, glassy with worry, he wants to tear his gaze to the floor. 

Trembling, Omega leans in to his ear. A clinical scent clings to her—like soap and the one Kaminoan disinfectant that kinda smells like hyper-sterilized form of rain puddles. “That Imperial officer—I think he has it out for you,” she whispers, so quiet his enhanced senses struggle to filter the words out from the lively sounds of the hangar bay. “I overheard him talking to Lama Su. He doesn’t like clones.”

Hunter bites back a laugh, the type that catches in the throat and seizes his voice from him. Echo’s shared this piece of intel, and Tarkin’s tactics in the battle simulation has made this sentiment clear. But hearing it again from Omega, in whispers filled with naïveté, his throat tightens. He doesn’t know if it’s the high-pitched terror freely expressed in Omega’s warning, or the flash of terror in her bright brown eyes—but none of that matters, because he knows he can’t do this. 

He looks the girl in the eye, adding as much steel as he dares. “A mission’s a mission. There’s nothing to worry about.” He stands. Fuck, his legs are so shaky.

Suddenly, there are hands grabbing onto him. Hunter turns to see Omega looking up at him, eyes bright. He’s not a Jedi, he doesn’t have their foresight—but he knows with a bone-deep certainty that her next words are going to break his heart.

“Then let me come with you!”

Hunter closes his eyes. He breathes in, out, doing his best to settle his heartbeat. He feels far away when he tells Omega she isn’t a soldier, she cannot come with them, it is dangerous. Omega’s voice feels far away too, the sounds of her arguments drowned out by the sudden acrid scent of blaster fire overwhelming Hunter’s senses. 

The sound of Wrecker yelling across the hangar bay pulls Hunter out of the battlefield.

“I—I need to go.” Hunter swallows. “Wrecker might end up blowing up our ship if he gets too impatient.”

“Oh. Okay.” Omega’s hands don’t let go. “Hunter, I—”

He really doesn’t want to know what she’s going to say.

She seems to get the memo. “Never mind.” Her hands release his knee guard. 

Hunter gives her a curt smile and heads towards the Havoc Marauder. He feels unbalanced, as if he was relying on Omega’s grip as a crutch. The click of his boots against the glassy floor echoes in his ears, and he can taste blood on his tongue.

Crosshair’s waiting for him at the ramp, eyes boring into Hunter—the “reg” treatment, as dubbed by Wrecker. He balls his fists up, preparing himself to answer the weird-ass accusations that’s filled all of Crosshair’s recent interactions with Hunter. 

Crosshair’s expression wavers. “Problem?” he asks, and it’s the first familiar thing Hunter’s heard from him since Order 66 was issued. 

“Something about her I can’t figure out.” He looks back at the girl. Her clean Kaminoan garb stands out against the cold grey durasteel walls. Without the determination on her face, she looks smaller than ever.

There’s a hand placed on his pauldron. Hunter looks back to see Crosshair, head tilted and eyes warm. “Well. Kids aren’t your area of expertise.”

For a second, Hunter freezes. It’s a cheap shot, but it hurts all the same. But when he looks at Crosshair, there’s no anger on his face, just—understanding. 

Crosshair gives him one last pat on the back and boards the ship. 

Hunter looks back at the kid. Crosshair’s right. They all realized that then, when he made the right choice. Whatever shit Crosshair might’ve been trying to pull since Order 66, Hunter knows that the observant soldier’s got his best interests in heart. That’s why Crosshair questions him, and Hunter listens. 

Looking at Omega, shivering behind the rush of clones walking back and forth armed with giant looming crates of weapons, Hunter feels unease curling in his stomach. He tells himself—as he does every time he thinks of the incident—if he had the chance to go back to that day on the glass planet, make a different choice, he’d turn it down. 

It doesn’t stop the regret from creeping up his spine.

Chapter Text

Something is wrong. 

It’s not the planet, although Concord Dawn is definitively the strangest planet Crosshair’s been on—and the Bad Batch have been to Wild Space. Glass that shouldn’t be there crunches beneath his boots as he pushes forward, rifle ready to fire. In the atmosphere, a behemoth rock wall looms, formed by one end of the asteroid-blasted hole in the planet. It casts a permanent shadow over the region, and still there’s light blinding Crosshair’s sensitive eyes from the war-blasted glass reflecting a distant fire. A planet of hypocrisies, things that shouldn’t be.

And yet, it’s not what’s wrong.

“Up ahead,” he calls. Squinting past the agonizing brightness, he points his rifle in the general direction of the fire and searches for the source. He hears the tinkling of the glass distantly behind him as the rest of the squadron rush to meet him. When he tilts the scope towards the brightest area, white assaults over his eyes, sending a burning current through the veins of his eyeballs. 

“Osik.” Crosshair drops his rifle, trying to blink away the flash. There’s still a bright blue blob obscuring his vision. “Hunter, you up for this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be,” he snaps, and pushes Crosshair out of the way. 

Hunter’s the one that’s wrong. Ever since they received the Concordian distress call on the Marauder, the sarge’s gotten snappier—to the point that Tech grumbled under his breath that he was worse than Crosshair. It wasn’t just his attitude; he was wrong down to the way he stood. Crosshair saw it all: his slumped shoulders, hands hanging aimlessly by his side, and a permanent crease between his eyebrows.

Most worryingly, he’d skipped one of his sleep cycles. Crosshair’s the oldest; he’s been with his squad throughout their entire lives. He saw how their “desirable” mutations took a toll on his squadmates—Wrecker’s ribs had to be rebuilt with durasteel fibres because they couldn’t support his mass, Tech came out of the tube with a faulty lung that had to be replaced, and Crosshair himself still used an inhaler. Hunter’s curse was insomnia, caused from nights interrupted by the sounds and sensations of everything, everywhere. Crosshair used to accompany him to the Kaminoan’s therapy wing once a week and he still reminds him to take his medication every day.

A relapse, however small, is very bad. But Hunter leaves the cockpit every time Crosshair brings it up. 

All he can do is keep an eye on Hunter. Hunter falls to his knees, picking up shards of glass and letting them fall against the ground. Crosshair sticks close to Hunter as he follows the trail, his eyes still bleary from the blinding light. Tech follows, nervously gripping his datapad. He’s been quiet since Hunter decided on becoming Crosshair 2.0. He’d normally be talking their ears off about the properties of the glass. Instead, he’s flitting wide eyes from Hunter to the fire and back. Wrecker gently bumps his vambrace against Crosshair’s pauldron—his way of asking if Crosshair’s alright. He nods, warmed by Wrecker’s constant nature. At least Wrecker is his brash, kind self, no matter what.

When they’re a couple paces from the source, blaster fire shatters the glass before their feet. Wrecker throws the lot of them behind a jetty of rock, and Tech starts laying out some cover fire. Crosshair blinks out the last of the bleariness and raises his rifle to the source of the blaster bolts. Beskar flashing against light, red jai’galaar on black paint.

“Mandos,” he calls back. “Death Watch.”

Hunter swears. “Cross, Wrecker, you two handle them. Tech, you’re with me.”

Tech looks very much like he’d rather die by the hands of a Viszla. Crosshair decides to give him a break.

“Tech’s better with Mandos.” It’s true—Tech once engineered an altered deactivator that somehow targets beskar. “I’ll go in with you.”

Hunter stares at Crosshair. His eyes are cold behind the dark visor.

Crosshair sighs. He doesn’t want to fight right now.

For once, Hunter’s on the same page. “Fine. Stick close.”

Crosshair obeys, slinking away from the rock jetty with the sergeant as Wrecker distracts the Mandalorians. Once Crosshair checks that the skies are clear of further Death Watch, he turns his gaze to the source of the fire. 

It’s a village. Ornate, dirt-baked houses burn in shambles. There isn’t a wall without a hole through it. The acrid scent of blaster fire fills the air, enough for Crosshair to want to reach for his inhaler. Fresh red fruits lay scattered across the road, bruised from the harsh treatment. Bodies, strewn across the village, lay limp, covered in ash. Some have died next to more, smaller bodies, and others grip blasters in their cold, swollen grips. Every one of the corpses have eye coverings, whether it be a colourful silk fabric or a sturdy metal band. 

Crosshair’s only met one other Miraluka. A Mandalorian Protector who’d rescued the Batch from a Separatist planet when they’d crashed their old transport—the one with Senator Amidala painted on the nose. He remembers his long white hair, blinding grin, and the blue fabric tied over his eyes. He’d gotten along with Hunter; the Mando had made the stoic sergeant laugh as they worked on ship repairs. Crosshair imagines it would be nice if someone made him laugh.

Oh. 

Crosshair lays a hand on Hunter’s pauldron. Even through the thick duraplast, he can feel Hunter shaking. “Where is he?” 

Hunter lets out a trembling exhale. “I don’t know,” he whispers.

They perform a routine inspection, searching from left to right, then back to left. Hunter’s holding his blaster like a lifeline. Crosshair tries his best to ignore the itch in his throat from all the smoke he’s inhaling. He wonders what the Miraluka remnants had done to earn a wipeout by Death Watch, then decides he’s better off not knowing. 

“Crosshair.” The distortion of the comms highlight the tremble in Hunter’s voice. Crosshair turns to see Hunter standing in front of the ruins of a small hut. The building’s so thrashed by ammunition, it’s barely recognizable as one anymore. Death Watch clearly had a vendetta against the resident. 

Crosshair surveys the hut from corner to corner. It’s difficult to find anything, since everything’s covered by a thick layer of ash. All that said, there’s no silhouette of a body, nor charred beskar. 

But Hunter doesn’t move. “Can—can you hear it?” 

Crosshair tightens his grip on his rifle. If Hunter hears something, it means they’re in trouble.

For a long minute, all Crosshair hears is the distant crackling of fire and wind whistling against glass. Then, Hunter makes a hurt noise. “Fuck, Cross, it’s—it’s a karking baby.”

Alarm flashes through Crosshair’s body. “Where? Here?”

Hunter doesn’t respond, but the way he falls to his knees and starts brushing off the ash on the floor is telling enough. Crosshair picks up a synthfiber broom that miraculously survived the firefight to help Hunter’s crusade. At first, it’s futile, just glass and threads of a carpet long gone. As Crosshair gets to the corner of the hut, he sees a tiny crack in the flooring—far too even to be a fault in the ground. He follows that line, sweeping out a rectangular panel. 

“Here?” he asks Hunter. The sergeant places his hand on the panel, taking off his helmet to get a more direct feedback. 

Hunter’s eyes fly open. “Yes—fuck, we gotta open this.” Pulling out his knife, he works on prying open the panel. Crosshair runs his fingers across the rim of the panel, searching for a grip, a handle, or—

A button. The panel springs up upon pressing it, not jumping fully out of the way but lifting enough for them to get a grip. Crosshair can hear the wailing now, faint under the thick glass but still ear-piercing. They work together to get the panel lifted, a slow process of one-two-three-pull interrupted by the gradually loud screams of the infant underneath. Crosshair wants to clap his hands over his ears. He imagines it will be worse for the sergeant.

With a final heave, they pull the panel up from its slot. They set it down to the side and hurry back to the pit they uncovered. Crosshair hopes Hunter will be ready for what he sees. 

The Mandalorian lies at the bottom. White hair stained copper, head slumped over to the floor, helmet scattered to side. For a moment, Crosshair thinks he’s dead—then he sees the minute shifting of his shoulders, indicating breath.

Crosshair looks up to Hunter: eyes shaking, abnormal breath speed. So Crosshair does what he’s done for his brothers ever since they were children—he grips the sergeant’s arm tight and presses their foreheads together. “He’s alive, okay? He’s breathing.”

“He—the baby—” Throat constricting, legs twitching—

Crosshair tightens his grip, fingers certainly digging a bruise into Hunter’s arm now. Out of his own fear upon seeing his sergeant so unravelled, or for Hunter’s sake, he’s not sure. “Hunter. Help me pull him out of there.”

Hunter’s eyes flicker for a moment more. Then, his eyes harden. “Okay.”

They debate a bit on how to get down, ultimately deciding that the foundation can handle two grown men hanging off a grappling hook without shattering. Hunter lands at the bottom clumsily (legs toppling under him, hand shooting out to stabilize himself, eyes widening in panic) and scrambles his way to the Protector’s side. By the time Crosshair’s hit the ground, Hunter’s got the Miraluka’s head resting on his lap.

The Miraluka lifts his face. His eye covering is long gone, exposing the eerily empty heat pits that sit in place of his eyes. He draws a shuddering gasp. 

“Shh, don’t push yourself,” Hunter whispers, carding his hand through the blood-caked hair. His eyes are glassy at the corners. 

“Hunter,” the Mando breathes, Core accent highlighted in the rasp of his breath. He coughs, splattering blood on Hunter’s chestplate. “Ni…enteyo ven jorhaa’ir…”

I must speak with you. Crosshair drops to his knees, placing a hand on Hunter’s shivering back. He’s tempted to reach out and comfort the Miraluka as well, but he feels like he’ll burst their moment if he interferes. 

“You can tell me when we get you out of here,” Hunter says, and it sounds like law out of his mouth. He looks at Crosshair, and it’s years of working together that lets Crosshair know what he wants. He reaches for the Miraluka, wrapping his arm around the Mandalorian’s torso. Hunter supports the Protector’s other side. 

“No, no, nayc—” The Miraluka tries to struggle against their grip, but he’s so weak Crosshair can barely feel his squirming. He’s covered in wounds; Crosshair counts at least three capital injuries along what he can see of his torso. “Hunter, gedet’ye, ni kar’tayl—”

The sunlight decides to enter the pit then, shining a light onto the stained dirt under the Mandalorian’s body. Where a child wails. 

Crosshair’s seen a lot of babies, but it’s the first he’s seen one that doesn’t share his face. He’s entranced by them—by the way the child’s nose sits wide on their chubby face, by the way white, fuzzy hair sticks haphazardly out from their round head, by the way the silk eye covering sits against soft skin. 

For a moment, everything fades in the face of this child. Crosshair feels a smile tugging at the corner of his lips—almost.

Then he notices the way the child’s cheeks round, their familiar brown skin, their pouty lips. Crosshair’s seen the same in thousands, millions of babies. It’s…impossible. Clones are sterile. The Kaminoans never documented fertility as one of Clone Force 99’s mutations.

But when Crosshair turns to look at Hunter, his face is turgid with the same fear blinding Crosshair—the fire, once again. 

The Miraluka suddenly groans, slipping out of Hunter and Crosshair’s grip and tumbling to the floor. Before Crosshair can reach for him again, the Mandalorian curls into himself, gasping and coughing. All the grace, ease, confidence of the man who saved their lives long ago is gone. The Protector’s arm stutters as he reaches for the sergeant. 

Hunter takes it, clasps it with both hands. Presses a kiss against the bruised knuckles. “Onnik…”

“Ni kar’tayl, Hunter,” the Mandalorian says, so hoarse Crosshair can barely hear him, “gar kaysh buir.”

Buir. Crosshair feels dizzy. 

Hunter shakes his head. Eyes wide. Hammering pulse. “I can’t—”

“Hunter.” All of a sudden, the power is back in the Mandalorian’s voice. “Swear it.”

This is crazy. Hunter is in no position to do what the Protector demands.Crosshair looks to Hunter. He looks as lost as Crosshair feels.

And yet, he says the words. “Haat, Ijaa, Haa’it.”

The Miraluka’s grip relaxes. A smile spreads across his face. “Vor entye, cyare.”

Crosshair sits back on his legs, tips his head to the sky and rubs his hands over his face. His heart’s hammering in his throat. He replays the words that have been spoken in front of him. 

I know you as this child’s father. 

I swear it, on truth, honour, and vision.

Thank you, beloved.

Fuck, he’s so dizzy he can barely think. He pushes through, though, despite the way his head throbs and his eyes burn, because he hates the haze, how the reflected glass blurs the truth. 

He focuses on Clone Force 99, forces himself to breathe. Would they be on the run, from the Republic that was their home since their birth? Would it be worth it, however blindingly bright the small chubby-cheeked baby was?

Somehow, despite everything, Crosshair hopes it will.

Chapter Text

Hunter’s ears are ringing. 

The baby hasn’t stopped crying since the moment that he first heard her, muffled under the glass cover. She cried as Crosshair pulled her out from the pit, cried as Hunter brought her back to the Marauder, and cries now as Hunter struggles to swaddle her. 

He knows how to deal with loud noises; they’re an occupational hazard. Usually, he just focuses on something quieter, like rain splashing against a puddle, until the sound currently shaking his eardrums eases. But there’s nothing else to focus on now, except the memory of Onnik going cold in his embrace, and he can’t think about that, he can’t think about that ever.

“Hunter, the top has to be folded down to the centre of the blanket.” Tech yells, despite being right next to Hunter. 

“I did that,” he shouts back.

“What?”

Hunter winces. “I did it already.”

Tech gives him a look. “No, you didn’t. You put the blanket over her poor head.”

Hunter blinks. Apparently the crying took away his capacity for logic. He lifts the blanket corner from the baby’s face, tries his best to ignore how her hair looks as soft as Onnik’s is—was, kark—and tucks the corner under her head. 

She smells like Onnik. Metal and smoke. A hint of sweetcake. Onnik liked sweetcake.

“Good, now take the right corner to the left,” Tech hollers.

Hunter’s one second from snatching that datapad straight out of Tech’s hands. “What right to what left?”

“The karking blanket, Hunter! And stop shaking. your. hands; you’re making me nauseous.” Tech slams his hands onto the cot, startling a louder wail out of the baby.

“Hey, that’s a kid!” Wrecker hollers from where he’s finishing the hyperdrive repairs. Hunter rushes to follow Tech’s instructions, because clearly, getting angry at an already riled Tech is not going to be productive.

“Well, if the kid’s going to give me a migraine—”

Hunter bumps Tech’s pauldron, making him spin around. He cuts off the insult forming at Tech’s lips by gesturing at the half-wrapped blanket.

Tech sighs—which is the most obnoxious sound any of them can make, and Hunter’s including everything Crosshair’s ever said—and shoves the datapad in Hunter’s face. “You figure it out on your own, then, if you don’t want to follow my instructions.”

The baby chooses this moment to let out an ear-piercing shriek, shaking apart Hunter’s hard work in a fury of stubby limbs. Hunter throws his hands over his ears, tired of the screaming and the ghost of Onnik’s haggard breaths against his neck and the fucking blanket. His legs can’t hold the weight of him anymore, so he falls to his knees.

He doesn’t want any of this. He’s just a soldier—he commands, he fights, he serves. Ethereal Miraluka who like sweetcake and paradoxical children don’t fit in a soldier’s life. And yet he’s here, and he has no idea where to go. 

Through bleary eyes, he sees dark grey armour blur in front of him. The sound of Tech’s concerned voice—which only comes to Hunter’s awareness now—dims as the rustling of a blanket takes over. 

And with it, miraculously, the crying stops. The ringing dissipates. Everything comes back into crisp focus. 

Crosshair stands in front of him, holding a perfectly swaddled baby in his arms. She tilts her head up at him, entranced at the sound of the trooper blowing raspberries at her. When he makes a particularly loud mouth-fart, she giggles. 

It’s incredulous to see the scrunched up, angry face of the baby in such peace. It’s stranger still to see Crosshair’s smile as he plays with the child. 

Hunter leans back until his ass hits the ground. The logical side of his brain reminds him that Crosshair used to take care of the baby clones on Kamino before he was old enough for duty—and Hunter should find that comforting, because Crosshair just solved this crisis. Instead, the irrational side of him screams at Hunter, berating him for not being worthy of fathering this child. How had Onnik trusted him to take care of a baby, when even swaddling her was a challenge? 

He closes his eyes and lets the world swirl. The image of Crosshair smiling down at his daughter is burned on the back of his eyelids.

Chapter Text

Painting isn’t Hunter’s strong suit, but this is bad—even for him. 

It’s Hunter’s sleep cycle—which is the first red flag in Crosshair’s eyes—and he’s up repainting the Protector’s armour in the middle of the Marauder’s brig. The intricate gold lines over navy blue get washed out with crude grey. Crosshair can already see flicks of paint bleeding out onto the visor.

The girl’s sleeping in a pile of blankets, which prop her between the arms of the crash seat. She’s still swaddled in the ratty red blanket—Crosshair’s, from the four Hunter embroidered on their first mission. Her chubby little hands poke out, gripping a red band tight between her fingers. She’s sucking on it in her sleep, her lips slightly obscuring the skull decal on the band.

Stars. Hunter gave her his headband. 

It explains the way he keeps pushing his bangs out of his face as he squints at the paint job. Crosshair can’t see too well from this vantage point, but he’s sure there’s a glob of grey on Hunter’s forehead. 

“What the fuck am I doing wrong, Cross?”

Crosshair saunters over to Hunter’s side and picks up the paint jar. Acrylic, it reads in bright yellow font, one credit. “I don’t think cheap acrylic’s strong enough to stick on beskar.”

“Oh shit.” Hunter sits back on his feet. His hair comes swinging back into his eyes. There is grey on his forehead. “Can’t do a damn thing.”

Crosshair would roll his eyes if he didn’t think the crassness would break the sergeant. “Who would know what kind of paint works on beskar?”

Hunter’s quiet. “Onnik would.” 

Crosshair takes a seat next to Hunter. He doesn’t know what to say. Grief isn’t a stranger to them, but it’s usually for a brother who’s fallen heroically in battle. Not a clandestine partner who was so loved, he bore a child. 

Crosshair likes familiarity. So he presses his forehead against Hunter’s.

Immediately, the sergeant begins shaking against his skin. “Cross—I can’t do this.”

He hears the unspoken words. You know we can’t. 

Hunter’s right. The baby shouldn’t exist. There’s no protocol for a child of a clone. If they reported this, who knows where the kid would go? And if they kept her, somehow managed to hide her from their superiors, what then? Keep her on the grimy ship while they shoot down clankers? Lose her when the Separatists impound the Marauder? 

It doesn’t stop Crosshair’s eyes from burning when he looks at the sleeping baby. Her cheeks are so puffy, and her mouth lies open just like the clone babies do in their sleep. He can hear his pulse thrumming clan clan clan clan against the skin of his throat. 

If it’s this hard for him, it’ll be worse for Hunter. 

“There’s a Mandalorian clan on Krownest,” the sergeant says. He sounds distant, like he’s saying the words for himself. “I’ll ask them to take her in.”

Crosshair fixes him with a stare. “You swore. Haat, Ijaa, Haa’it.”

“I know.” Hunter stares at him right back. His eyes are red, nose swollen from rubbing. “I know.” 

Crosshair doesn’t have Hunter’s senses, nor a Jedi’s intuition. But he can see the regret that’ll haunt Hunter for this choice, threading their roots in the strands of loose hair around his eyes. The same strands of hair he’ll tuck away behind his headband, fruitlessly attempting to keep them out of the way.

He breathes out, slow. Picks up the brush, fills in the spots Hunter missed.“What’s her name?” 

In Crosshair’s periphery, Hunter smiles. “Jhali Feng.”

It sounds so right in Hunter’s voice. Like it belongs with him, just like the black skull engulfing half his face. 

Crosshair reaches back for the crate of paint resting precariously on Gonky’s head. He picks out the finishing spray, a spare brush, and a canister of red. 

“Stripe of this.” Crosshair shakes the canister. “Down the left side.”

A small smile curls on Hunter’s face. He takes the spare brush. “I like that.”

They work throughout the night. It’s tough, getting the paint to stay, but with enough layers of finishing spray, it sticks. There’s no finesse or grace to the beskar once they’re done, intricate gold replaced with harsh greys and reds. 

But it makes her clan, this old clone ritual. And that’s good enough for Crosshair.

Chapter Text

In Hunter’s experience, crises and children go hand in hand. That should’ve been enough reason for Hunter to gather his resolve and tell Omega to stay on Kamino.

Instead, she’s on the run with the entire squad, and she’s already puked up the dinner ration. Tech blames the preservative. Wrecker blames himself—they’d apparently played a game of who can eat their ration the fastest (“I won,” Omega says). 

Crosshair wouldn’t have let this happen in the first place. 

Fuck, Hunter can’t think about Crosshair. Or Omega. But he’s got no choice but to, since Crosshair’s chasing after them, controlled by the insidious inhibitor chip buried in his brain, and Omega is currently on board the ship, struggling to welcome sleep against Gonky’s uncomfortable plast exterior.

Hunter’s no stranger to tough decisions—and, more importantly, committing to them. If Hunter’s not certain, the entire squadron suffers. 

He wants to be certain of the two choices he’s made today. Hunter knows he won’t be for any decisions in the near future—he knows nothing of making a life outside of the army, and any attempt at learning would be obstructed by the Empire’s rapid rate of galactic change. 

But it’s not like he can hand over his squad to someone who’ll take care of them. They’ve come this far because they depend on each other. 

(Fuck, Crosshair’s alone.)

He’s so tired.

It’s in this state of scattered thoughts that Echo, mid-arm maintenance, finds him in the cockpit. 

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Echo asks. He’s not bothered to hide his concern.

“Can’t.” Another responsibility for the list: Hunter’s got to figure out where to procure meds. “I fucked up.”

Echo sighs, rolling his eyes. “You didn’t.”

Hunter glares at the ARC. He’s too tired for this attitude.

Echo’s a part of their squad now, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a reg through and through; by the book, protocol-driven. And protocol dictates he trusts his commanding officer to always make the right move.

(Crosshair doubts, all the time. He still listens, but Hunter has endure Crosshair’s side-eye until he gives in. As much as Hunter rolls his eyes when Crosshair points out all the problems with his plan, he likes having another set of eyes that watches out for him.)

(Now that’s gone. And Hunter’s stuck with a kid. One he knows he can’t take care of.)

His throat itches for a drink. “Echo, come on. We’re soldiers, not…child care workers.”

“Mm, Tech’s probably reading the child care worker manual right now.” Echo frowns, trying to get the oil into the bend of his robotic elbow. When he twists his arm, it makes a squeak slicing through Hunter’s ears. 

Suddenly Hunter’s hearing everything, the rhythmic sizzle of electricity running into the lights of the cockpit console, the clicks of something under the floorboards, the quiet breaths of a sleeping Omega in the deck.

Hunter takes the oil from Echo’s hand, hoping the task will help distract him from the barrage of sensory feedback. “And if we fail? We don’t have anything to fall back on.” He steps back.

Echo squints, testing his arm. No more awful creaking. Hunter can still hear Omega snoring lightly. 

“We clones tend to be good at fixing each other up.” Echo smiles. “I think the same should go to Omega.”

Onnik, grasping Hunter’s hand tight, spilling blood over their gloves. Leaning forward until Hunter can feel the whisper of the Mandalorian’s voice vibrate against the shell of his ear. Saying the words that made the child his clan.

Invisible hands clamp around Hunter’s shoulders, pushing hard until he slumps against a seat. He suddenly can’t breathe. The lights won’t stop humming their incessant tune. Omega’s breathing right on his neck..

“Hey.” Echo breaks through the cacophony by simply placing his hand around Hunter’s arm. He’s really good at this—Hunter’s wondered if deescalation is part of ARC training. 

It’s different from Crosshair’s heavy grip on his pauldron. That’s a grounding sensation, bringing Hunter enough calm to direct their squad through the next crisis. Echo’s hand makes Hunter shake, and suddenly the words spill out. 

“I left Crosshair behind.” He laughs, muffling the sound into his hands. “What a fucking vod I am.”

Echo rolls his eyes. For all his gentleness, he’s got zero tolerance for self-pity. “You made a decision, like a sergeant should.”

“Well, I keep fucking those up.” His eyes are burning, all of a sudden. “I decided to take in a child we don’t know how to take care of. I decided to leave Crosshair behind instead of trying to pull him out. And I decided to give—”

The words catch in the swollen bulge of his throat. Even Echo can’t draw out the shameful truth. 

Echo’s looking at him wide-eyed and earnest, rubbing his thumb over Hunter’s arm. It makes Hunter sick in the stomach. 

“I don’t know how you can keep trusting me,” he whispers. “If I were you, I would have committed mutiny.”

The ARC lifts an eyebrow. “Are you saying I trust too blindly?”

So this is how a womp-rat cornered by a tooka feels. “No, I—well…”

He snorts, dropping his forehead to Hunter’s quickly to take the sting out of the accusation. “I haven’t committed mutiny because there isn’t reason to. And no, it’s not blind trust—it’s faith.”

They’re nice words. But the way Jhali cried red when Hunter handed her over to the Saxons won’t let them settle in. 

“You’re attentive, and you won’t stop hitting at things until they give in. It’s a very 501st quality.” Echo grins and salutes Hunter, mimicking the campy holopics of the battalion. “The same goes to all of you. Tech can’t stand not being on top of things. Wrecker’s—well.”

Hunter laughs. Echo smiles, eyes shining. He thinks if hope could be personified, it would look like him.

“I promise you that Crosshair’s fighting, too.” Echo drums his fingers against Hunter’s arm. “He cornered me on my first day with you guys and promised to drop me off a cliff into an avalanche if I ever thought about turning my back on you.”

“Oh yeah. Threats are his love language.” They share a laugh. 

“I’m not going to say you’re incapable of fucking up, because that’s bullshit.” Echo tilts his head, eyes warm. “But I have faith that when we do fuck up, we’ll fight for a solution.”

This time, the words seep into his bones. Echo’s right. They’ll figure out what to do, together. They’re clan—even if they mess up, they’ll have each other’s backs. 

They’ll figure out how to get out of this mess.

Hunter presses his forehead against Echo’s. “Thank you.” And skin to skin with his vod, the feedback fades away.

Chapter Text

“If we can’t work as a team,” the Inquisitor snarls, “you will all be killed.”

CT-9904 straightens up. The Inquisitor’s tone is tough, but it’s undercut by the fact that she’s barely five feet tall. The modulator of her mask doesn’t hide her reedy voice, either, and her Core accent definitely doesn’t help. He’s almost certain she’s a child. 

(It doesn’t matter, at the end. She’s his superior—through an absurd series of events he can’t imagine. And good soldiers follow orders.)

She paces in the prep room, running over the rules. Her Imperial boots click sharp against the floor. “One: do not, under any circumstance, get in close quarters with the Grand Inquisitor. It might just be a training simulation, but he has no reservations about killing all of us.” 

“Crazy Pauan,” ES-02 grumbles. Oh-Three snorts.

The Inquisitor doesn’t pause. “Rule number two: we see someone being throttled by Grandie, we draw his attention away from them.” She pauses there, resting her hands behind the small of her back. She looks like a child playing at being an authority figure. 

“I saw this squadron’s clearance record. I’d like to keep you all.” She tips her visor. “So no one gets left behind, got it?”

CT-9904 can see Oh-Four staring at him in his periphery. Raised shoulders. Held breath. He shifts, annoyed. The ES-01 incident was nine fucking years ago.

The Inquisitor, again, doesn’t acknowledge this. “Once the timer starts, stick close to me. I’ll track down the Grand Inquisitor and once you get a visual, the commander can take over battle strategy. If things go to shit, we split into pairs. Sound good?”

“Yessir,” CT-9904 replies. He hears the others echo his words. 

They all turn when they hear the sharp hiss of the training room doors opening. An Inquisitor—the Second Sister, if CT-9904 recalls correctly—storms out in, followed by three out of four death troopers. It’s the least casualties out of all the Inquisitors yet; the Sixth Brother finished with only half a death trooper. 

CT-9904 puts the casualties out of his mind; getting nervous won’t help them. He turns his eyes to the holo in the prep room, waiting for the numbers to be published. 

Evaluation Report - Second Sister. Time: 11:36 minutes. Casualties: 1. Rank: 1

ES-03 whistles low. Oh-Two glances at CT-9904. Hands tightening around her helmet. Flickering eyes. Raised pulse. Even Oh-Four’s rattled—unsteady gaze—and she’s the second sturdiest person Crosshair’s met after Wrecker. 

(Don’t think about Wrecker.)

He can feel the Inquisitor’s attention on him. It’s an uneasy feeling, like she’s hiding thirty eyes under that helmet of hers. He doesn’t know if it’s her powers or the mask, but he can’t read anything from her. The only thing he can see is her youth—and that does little to assuage his fears.

He shakes it off, focuses on the numbers. Thinks of the words his life has been defined by for the past eleven years, the ones that fill him with nausea and purpose at the same time. Glass both half full and empty.

Good soldiers follow orders. 

He stands, grips his rifle. “We can do it in ten,” he says.

The Inquisitor raises her chin. He feels he’s just passed the hardest evaluation today.

§

The objective is simple: track down the Grand Inquisitor and take him down. 

The terrain is less so. In reality, the training room is an augmented holo system with environmental feedback. But Crosshair has always trusted his eyes, and they tell him that while, yes, he can see the trademark ripple of holo flicker sometimes, this is a damn convincing swamp. 

His boots are getting clogged with the mucky water as they trek their way through the foggy forest. There’s a Jubba bird singing in the trees. The mud under his boots grip tight at his feet, threatening to pull him down if he doesn’t lose focus.

None of this seems to deter the Inquisitor. Her feet move so efficiently CT-9904’s convinced she doesn’t feel the mud. She’s short enough that the vines above her head don’t hit her helmet as they assault his own. 

The Inquisitor runs her fingers along the water, as if she’s a skimmer bird waiting for her catch. When she doesn’t get the result she wants, she digs another hand in the water.

Hunter, sitting on the ground, letting sand through his fingers.

CT-9904 shakes his head. He grips his rifle tighter.

The Inquisitor snatches a piece of driftwood out of the water. She grips it tight in her hand and stops, tilting her head as if she’s listening for a voice buried in the lines of the wood. 

Crosshair has seen this, once. He’d worked with a Jedi named Quinlan Vos who could track things down by seeing flashes of history buried in objects.

(Hunter got along with him. “He’s like me,” he said, voice slurred with drink. “And he’s better company than you.” Crosshair allowed himself a snort—because Hunter was right—and he was tipsy.)

He breathes out—slow. Focus on the mission.  

The Inquisitor taps his pauldron with the driftwood. “Let’s go.”

They rush forward, stopping twice for the Inquisitor to check they’re on track. As per protocol, ES-04 follows her close, flamethrower held tight against her chest. Next is Oh-Two and Oh-Three, the former resting a hand on the detonators on her belt and the latter gripping his knife. CT-9904 brings up the back, checking their surroundings. It’s one of the only things they’ve been good at in terms of teamwork—following protocol. 

When they approach a clearing, the Inquisitor raises her fist. The squadron steps aside for CT-9904 to stand next to the Inquisitor. Through the mess of vines and fog, he can see dark red stripes against chalky white skin. The Grand Inquisitor’s eyes are closed, but the memory of his sulphurous eyes is enough to send a shiver running down Crosshair’s back. 

He doesn’t know what he feels about the Empire. Mostly because he hasn’t been given the choice. The Inquisitors threaten to make Crosshair come to a decision that goes against the chip. 

CT-9904 turns to the squad. Since they have the strategic advantage, he gestures a paired split—Oh-Four with Oh-Two, Oh-Three with him. The Inquisitor doesn’t ask for a slot, so Crosshair doesn’t give one to her. She’s got the Force with her—she’s fine. 

He checks that everyone is in position. “Phalanx one, go.”

Oh-Two releases a gas bomb—not that the swamp needed more of that. ES-04 follows up with her flamethrower, setting the hazy smoke aflame. At the centre of the clearing, bright yellow eyes fly open—then boom. 

He flinches back. Explosions make his eyesight blur to the point of pain. The Inquisitor doesn’t even move. 

“Move in,” CT-9904 orders, “and set to stun.”

ES-02 and ES-04 begin laying out cover fire. He can see the silhouette of the Pauan’s body in thermal vision, hunched over in the middle of the clearing. The blaster bolts curve away from him, bright red bolts repelled from orange. He’s colder than humans, but not cool enough that the Grand Inquisitor blends in with the heated environment. 

Crosshair raises his rifle. Lines up his shot. Fires.

The Pauan ignites his lightsaber and extends his hand. 

The bolt freezes in place. Crosshair moves to fire an additional bolt, but he can’t move his fingers. An unnatural cold washes over him. 

Fuck. This might as well be how he dies. 

Before the Pauan can lunge, there’s another explosion behind his back. It staggers the Grand Inquisitor enough to break his cool hold on Crosshair. He squeezes out a bolt before he falls face flat into the mud, but it’s a wide miss. 

There’s someone pulling him up to his feet. It’s the Inquisitor, lifting him with one arm while hauling a fallen tree in the other—osi’kyr, is that a Force ability? Once she’s sure Crosshair’s stable, she lifts the tree—which is two fucking times taller than her—and launches it at the Pauan, lance-style. 

The Grand Inquisitor shreds it easily, spinning his lightsaber through the wreckage. The kid Inquisitor hasn’t even gotten her lightsaber out yet. 

Focus. He lifts his rifle and fires repeatedly. The Grand Inquisitor easily deflects the bolts, looking like the picture of grace as he smiles, teeth glinting even in this dark. He reaches his hand out again, and Crosshair braces himself—

—but the Pauan screams in agony instead, because there’s a fucking knife into his shoulder.

Oh-Three stands shell-shocked, hand still extended towards the Pauan. If Crosshair were him, he’d be frazzled, too. Does this count as treason? 

Instead of leaving the knife in his body like a normal fucking person, the Grand Inquisitor pulls it out and lets it fall to the ground. He closes his eyes, opening his mouth as if he’s relishing in the pain. Then he slams his hand down on the ground. 

Everything goes flying. A vine hits Crosshair on his way down, dampening the impact of the fall. Oh-Four’s less lucky and slams against a rock. Oh-Two’s struggling to get up. Somewhere behind him, ES-03 groans. 

The Inquisitor’s up before the rest of them. Maybe she really is some superhuman species and the tree-throwing isn’t the Force. He can hear her shaky inhale crunch through the modulator. 

She ignites her lightsaber, red bleeding through the fog. And promptly breaks rule one. 

Dragging her blade into the mud, she flicks grime at the Pauan’s face as she leaps up, slamming her blade down against the Pauan’s. He throws her off with a deft flick of his wrist. She’s expecting it, seen from the way she lands on her hands and kicks at his legs. 

She fights like a Mandalorian. Enters battle with a surprise. Has contingency after contingency. Falls only to scream back.

It’s Oh-Two’s nudge against his shoulder that tears Crosshair’s attention away from the flurry of red blades in front of him. Crosshair calls for everyone to surround them, and they begin raining down a flurry of stun bolts on the dueling pair. The Pauan forms some sort of spherical Force barrier that deflects the bolts, moving to wherever the Grand Inquisitor is every time he takes a step. The kid Inquisitor barely dodges a stun bolt before being thrown to the mud by the Pauan.

Crosshair’s about to order a ceasefire when he notices it. The barrier lags behind. 

Crosshair hopes he was right about the Inquisitor. 

“Gotal’u kaysh nari!” he shouts. Make him move. He falls to his knees, leaning his rifle on a rock. He has a silver of a window. 

The Inquisitor doesn’t move. For a moment, he’s afraid he read the Inquisitor wrong. But then, she scrambles back and throws her hands out. The Pauan goes flying, far too fast for the barrier to protect his entire body.

He sees his window. 

The bolt sizzles through the fog as it hits the Pauan. The Grand Inquisitor hits the mud, falling limp. 

The swamp fades. Mud pulls back to reveal durasteel tile. The Jubba bird is replaced by the viewing deck. The feeling of water in his boots disappears. 

CT-9904 leans on his rifle, exhausted. ES-04 is clutching the side of her head and leaning on Oh-Two. She hands the bloody knife back to ES-03. 

The Inquisitor sheathes her blade and raises her chin towards the viewing deck. She reminds him of a belligerent teenager, saying to her parents see? I could do it! 

Of course, the parents in this scenario are nowhere near parental figures: Tarkin, some blue-skinned general and his commander, and Lord Vader. The Lord Vader. 

He’s as cold as the stories say. Crosshair can feel it from this distance. He wonders how hurt a person has to be to become that monster. 

(He thinks of what he’s already become. He decides he’s better off not thinking about it.)

The Inquisitor shakes the Pauan awake and exits the room. She’s nowhere near as cold as Vader—maybe because of her youth, maybe because she is vod.

CT-9904 calls his squadron to follow, mind filled with questions. 

§

“Last?” The Inquisitor slams the holoprojector on the console.

CT-9904 is so relieved he didn’t follow the Inquisitor into the viewing deck. The squadron’s currently standing at attention at the entrance, glancing at each other nervously as the Inquisitor unleashes hell onto the officers. 

He wouldn’t be shocked if they’ll witness her death today. 

“Inquisitor, please.” Tarkin doesn’t seem ruffled by her anger, nor does the blue general. “The rankings are final.”

The Inquisitor ignores Tarkin, turning instead to appeal directly to the Grand Inquisitor and Lord Vader. “I’m the best tracker you have.”

“Granted, but your Force abilities require a considerable amount of work.” The Pauan rubs his shoulder, bandaged with a bacta pad since the training session. 

Oh-Three swallows. “Kark. Is this my fault?” Oh-Four shushes him.

“Without a considerable increase in power and finesse, you’ll easily be evaded by the Jedi you’ll hunt down,” the Grand Inquisitor continues. “You are not ready for field work.”

The Inquisitor puts her hands on her hips—which doesn’t help her cause at all. “I got you down in record time. I think that makes my team pretty damn effective.”

“What will happen when you are without your team, then?” Tarkin asks, raising an eyebrow. 

The blue general speaks up. “Given their efficiency, I don’t believe that will be a problem.” His voice is low and smooth, out of place in the rigidity of the Empire. It spawns an uneasiness in Crosshair’s stomach. “I think the Twelfth Sister is right in demanding a revision of results.”

CT-9904 tenses. He doesn’t need Hunter’s enhanced senses to realize the general has ulterior motives. From the way the Inquisitor tilts her helmet, she’s figured it out, too. 

“Thank you, General Thrawn,” the Twelfth Sister says. Her voice is clipped.

The general nods to her. He fixes his eerie red eyes on the Grand Inquisitor. “I suggest the squadron be tested out on the field. The Twelfth Sister’s psychometry is a unique skill I believe can be massively beneficial to the Empire.”

The Pauan narrows his eyes. He looks to the Twelfth Sister, then at the general. “What are you up to, Thrawn?”

The commander next to Thrawn steps forward, fists curled as if he’s ready to defend the much taller general, despite the fact he’s far outranked by everyone in the room. Before the commander can say anything, Lord Vader speaks. 

“General Thrawn makes a strong argument,” he says. Thrawn’s eerie voice pales in comparison to Lord Vader’s. It booms, sending cold vibrations up Crosshair’s arms. All he suddenly wants is to leave. “The Grand Inquisitor will grant the Twelfth Sister an assignment by the end of the cycle.”

ES-02 lets out a whoop. She claps her hand over her mouth. The general quirks his lips. 

The Twelfth Sister pushes the holoprojector in the Grand Inquisitor’s arms. “Thank you, sir,” she says. There’s anger simmering beneath her words. 

She exits the viewing deck and closes the door behind her. Once it’s closed, she throws a thumbs up at ES-02. The trooper’s tense face melts into a smile. 

“Congratulations, squad,” she says. “And thank you.”

§

“A word, Commander?”

CT-9904 steps aside to let ES-02 enter the barracks. It’s been a couple hours since the Inquisitor stormed into the viewing deck. She’d disappeared afterwards, following the brazen commander down a service corridor. Given that her badge now bears the blue of an officer, not a cadet, CT-9904 assumes the encounter wasn’t destructive. 

He hopes this one won’t become destructive. From the way the Inquisitor’s tapping her fingers against her lightsaber hilt, there’s a fair chance. His teeth itch for a toothpick—he can’t risk that, if she decides her idea of taking out her frustration is choking him to death.

“I…” The Inquisitor’s modulator cracks the vowel. “Um.”

CT-9904 shifts. He glances back at her fingers again, suddenly realizing it’s a sign of anxiety. The unease in his stomach worsens. Having a murderous superior is familiar ground. A nervous commanding officer is new.

“You know what, it’ll be easier if I just…” The Inquisitor’s hands fly off the hilt. CT-9904 tenses, barely stopping himself from reaching for his blaster. 

The Inquisitor places her hands on the sides of her helmet. Slowly, she lifts it up. 

White hair. Tan skin. Hint of freckles—obscured by a familiar red headband. 

Crosshair feels like he’s been punched in the throat. 

Hunter’s daughter rubs her thumbs over her helmet. Thin threads hanging from the red fabric over her eyes sit on her still-round baby cheeks. The crudely painted skull’s almost faded away from where it rests on her temple. He can’t reconcile the large-headed, soft-faced baby sleeping in the Maurader to the girl standing in front of him, hair cut long enough for strands to rest against her furrowed eyebrows. 

But it’s Jhali. He knows it, deep in his chest.  

“I don’t know if you remember me or not, but—”

“I gave you a blanket.” He can’t control the tremble in his voice.

The too-familiar crease between her brows smoothens. “Yeah, you did,” she breathes. “It’s how I remembered you.”

There’s heat prickling in the corners of his eyes. He can’t stop staring at Jhali, even as his eyes start to water. Her hair has the same unnatural softness as the Mandalorian Protector. The freckles are new—Crosshair doesn’t remember seeing them on the Miraluka. But her nose—it bends inward at the middle, just like Hunter’s, just like the clones. 

She grew up. While they were gone. 

“Hunter—” The name chokes in his throat. He hasn’t said it aloud in years. “He’s gone.”

Jhali’s face crumples. “Oh.”

“Shit—not dead, I don’t think he’s dead.” 

“Oh, that’s—that’s good.”

His mind’s racing. His clan is here. He thinks of all the things he’s missed in the past eleven years—hugs, comforting touches on pauldrons, laughing with his brothers. Stories about clankers and repairs on the Marauder. Putting away weapons after a harrowing battle. The possibility of being able to share that with her makes his heart warm.

Jhali takes a deep breath. “Look. I know we’re not aliit just because you share the same genetics as my father and gave me a blanket once—” She breaks off into nervous laughter. Crosshair feels his throat tighten. 

“But—I’m Mandalorian, and family means a lot to me.” Jhali looks down, lip trembling. Crosshair can’t stand this. “So—I don’t know. I don’t expect you to treat me as clan, but—just, understand—”

He pulls her in a hug. It’s uncomfortable, thanks to his chest plate digging into her shoulders and the hilt of her lightsaber prodding into his stomach, but it makes his mind go clan clan clan clan and that’s enough for him. 

From the way she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer, it’s enough for her, too.

Chapter Text

It takes seven days for Hunter to realize he almost died. 

It shouldn’t have taken that long, given how the blaster bolt that hit him was millimetres from puncturing his lung. Whatever rounds Bane loaded his blasters with packed a hell of a punch; Tech noted a broken rib and bruised tissue on top of the half-cauterized scar Hunter’ll sport for the rest of his life. 

(He wonders how Crosshair’s dealing with his burn injury. Probably pushing away the medics to continue his witch hunt for them. He’s always been single-minded.) 

It’s a trait they all share: narrow-minded focus. Inherited from the original and imbued into the mind of every clone. It’s how the most difficult regs managed to get along with his difficult squad when shit hit the fan, and it’s how Hunter forgets the magnitude of his injury for a week. 

He almost died. He almost lost Omega—no, he did lose Omega, and only got her back thanks to a series of incredibly lucky events. 

(Given their lack of luck post-Empire, he’s pretty sure they’ve exhausted their luck for the foreseeable future.) 

Which means he’ll fail her again. 

He doesn’t want to think about how he almost died, or about Omega’s terrified pleas distorted over the comlink, or how Crosshair, the other vod he lost, will take Omega from him in due time—so Hunter busies himself with cleanup. 

Since the Marauder is basically a flying trash compactor, it’s a good task to throw himself into. He collects ration wrappers from the ground. He sweeps up leftover components from Tech’s projects. He puts Echo’s bin of backup prosthetics back on their shelf. Hunter wants to run the vacc, but Tech’s snoring on top of Wrecker on one of the bunks—and they’re both monsters when they’re woken up mid-beauty sleep. 

(He doesn’t touch Crosshair’s corner of the ship. He doesn’t want to think about him.) 

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” 

He looks up. Omega’s eyelids are half closed from sleep. She holds Lula tight in her arms, squishing the fabric until it wrinkles.

Hunter picks up the dustpan. “Someone’s got to clean up around here.”

Omega shuffles her feet. “Can I help?”

He wants to say no. But he can never get that word out where Omega’s concerned. 

So they work together on the overhead shelves. Omega quietly passes spare datapads up to Hunter. He gets the sense that she’s got something to say. (He’s grateful she’s holding it back.) 

His hands brush over something fuzzy. Praying it’s not a dead womp rat, he pulls it out. 

It’s a red blanket, with a skull embroidered in the corner. Identical to the one Crosshair swaddled Jhali with. 

“Is that Crosshair’s?” Omega asks.

“He gave his away.” He swallows. “This one’s mine.” 

“Can I?” Omega extends her hands. 

Hunter hands the blanket to her. She wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, it’s not supposed to feel wet, is it?”

“On second thought—“ lines of sanitation protocol run through Hunter’s head “—it’s probably better if you don’t touch that.”

Omega happily drops it on a crash seat. “Hope Crosshair gave his to someone who’ll take better care of their fabrics.”

He suddenly can’t breathe. (Hunter’s really not in the mood to think about Jhali.) “I don’t know.”

It comes out more curt than he intended; Omega shrinks at the tone. (Hunter wonders if there’ll come a day when he can face Omega without a side of guilt.) She blinks down at her icky hands. 

Absurdly, she says, “I hope Crosshair’s okay.”

“He did try to kill you,” Hunter interjects. He agrees with her—but he’s got reason to wish it. Omega doesn’t. 

She stares up at him, eyes hard with resolve. “It’s not really his fault.” 

Hunter’s chest warms. Omega’s empathy never fails to impress him. War knocks the trait out of a person; seeing it in Omega is like witnessing a rare aurora.

He’s suddenly reminded of a question he should have asked a long time ago—so he asks it. “How did you know about the chips?” He didn’t think Nala Se would ever let a kid join her in her lab. She didn’t even allow assistance droids—just longnecks with fancy scrubs. 

Omega stares at him. The way her lip trembles tells him he won’t like her answer. 

She fiddles with the end of the blanket with the toe of her boot until she gathers the courage to speak. “She needed me to make them.”

Hunter doesn’t want to make her talk. (He understands that feeling. He still hasn’t told Echo about Jhali.) So he climbs off the crash seat, sits next to her on the floor, and takes her hand.

(It is icky. Tech probably spilled meiloorun juice on the blanket.)

Omega smiles, making warmth bloom in Hunter’s chest. She exhales, closing her eyes, and steadies her words.

“They hooked me up to a bunch of wires and monitored my responses to things. Words, images, sounds.” Omega fiddles with her fingers. “I think they thought it would be better to study me, since I’m—one of those exact copies.”

Hunter remembers the Kaminoans’ tests. They had him listen for clicks, the volume lowering after each click like an eye exam. Tech always left the lab with red eyes; he refused to talk for the rest of the night. His throat would seize up at the sight of his normally talkative brother so mum.

(Those nights, they threw all their blankets on Tech and piled on him, falling asleep against each other’s uncomfortable limbs. Tech wouldn’t say anything the next morning, but he laughed a little harder at Wrecker’s antics and rested his head on Crosshair’s shoulder, and the tightness in Hunter’s throat would disappear.)

Hunter had it easier, but being hooked up to wires like a science experiment did a number on his sense of humanity.

He can’t imagine spending days in that room. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and squeezes her hand. He hopes it’s enough, because he can’t find the right words to sum up the foul taste on his tongue.

“It’s fine, now.” Omega flashes him a brilliant smile. “As long as I’m here with you guys, I’m happy.”

“Are you?” Being hooked up to a machine all day can’t be fun, of course. But that’s better than being dead.

Omega’s come closer to that than she’s ever been thanks to Hunter.

“Of course I am,” she says, like Hunter’s just asked if Kamino’s flat. 

“When you decided to leave—you couldn’t have known what you were getting into.” Hunter sure didn’t. 

Omega rolls her eyes. (Damn that Echo.) “You’re right, I didn’t expect this.”

Her eyes glaze over, and she smiles the way people do at a distant memory. “When the other clones came back, they all had these amazing stories on how they took down an AAT by themselves. Or how Commander Cody punched a B2 in the face.”

Karking shinies. “One of those clones were lying to you.”

“Probably.” She laughs, pulling Lula closer. “They never talked about how scary it is to have someone pointing a blaster at your face.”

Hunter snorts at the idea. A shiny, risking their fragile egos? “They’d be laughed out of the caf.” 

Omega looks back at Hunter. Her eyes shine, even in the dark of the ship. “But it’s better, than being stuck on Kamino.” 

Hunter pointedly kicks at the blanket. “Even though the ship stinks?”

She giggles. (Hunter’s heart thrums a rhythm he hasn’t heard in years—ever since Jhali.) “I like the stink.”

His eyes sting—he blinks it back, hoping his face hasn’t gone red. “Even though you’ll have to stay on the run with us for a long while?”

She’s silent for a while, studying her shoes. Then—a quiet “yeah”.

Hunter stares at her bright eyes. They could be muddied one day, lifeless—all because of Hunter. “Even though we can’t guarantee your safety?”

Omega turns to Hunter, eyebrow raised. She smiles like she’s about to tell him the secrets to the universe. 

“If I get to wake up every day to Wrecker’s yelling, and Tech’s lessons, and Echo’s lectures, and your secret knife-twirling tricks?” She grins. “Yeah, it’s worth it.”

Hunter realizes—for the first time, there’s no guilty stone in his stomach as he sees her.

He pulls Omega into a hug. He forgets about right or wrong—in this moment torn out of time, it’s just Omega warm against him, the rest of his squadron snoring gently far away. 

Hunter decides he’ll give Omega the blanket—after he disinfects it, of course. She’s not his second chance. Kids don’t give second chances. But she’s what he has right now, and he’ll give up everything before he lets her go.

Chapter Text

Jhali Feng is not her fathers’ daughter, not in the way she swears like a Corellian smuggler and definitely not in the way she can lift things with her mind. She’s more impatient than an angry rancor. She doesn’t wear the armour the Protector forged and Hunter and Crosshair painted, opting instead to wear her Saxon vambraces and pauldron. 

(She says she’s not ready for her armour, yet. He doesn’t know what she means.)

Jhali Feng is her fathers’ daughter, in her white hair and red blindfold. She’s got the Mandalorian’s quick wit. He’s disappointed she inherited Hunter’s insomnia, but he can’t be too disheartened when she squeezes herself next to Crosshair in the tiny bunk those sleepless nights and tells him the wild life of a rock she picked up. 

(For all Hunter’s gruff exterior, he could tell a heck of a story.)

She’s even more trustworthy in the field than his old squad. CT-9904 hates sparring with her; she fights like a squirrel, trying out every weakness in his stance persistently until something cracks. But when that clone-blooded, Saxon-trained, Imperial-honed fight is on his side, he feels like he can take on the world. 

(She’s not invincible. She always comes back from Inquisitorial training with sallowed skin and dark circles. She won’t tell him about them.)

With the chip in his head, it hurts to think about morality. It’s easier on the Chimaera, with a non-human admiral. Officers who hold back their xenophobia tend to have some moral backbone. Granted, it’s weak—CT-9904’s chip doesn’t force delusions of Imperial patriotism on him, only loyalty. He’s seen enough war to scoff at the propaganda. Thankfully, the Chimaera sticks to pirates and smugglers.

“The admiral needs me to confirm his assumptions,” Jhali says the first night on the ship, peeling a jogan fruit. (Crosshair’s tempted to take the knife from her hands, given how close the beskad comes to shaving the skin off her fingers.) “And he keeps us safe, here.”

He takes the jogan fruit and the knife. “Do Inquisitors usually make deals with admirals?”

“Not really.” Jhali leans back against the cot. “Remember the first time we met Thrawn?”

Crosshair puts the slices on the plate. “When Oh-Three almost committed treason?”

She laughs. “Trust me, it gets crazier.” The knife levitates away from him and buries its tip in a slice. “So Thrawn knew—“

“Don’t even think about it.” 

Jhali sighs. The knife clatters to the ground. “Thrawn knew about my parentage, and because he’s a dramatic-ass bitch—”

“Insubordination.” Crosshair picks up the knife. The handle’s sticky.

“Barely.” Jhali takes a slice. “Thrawn thought it was a good idea to—quote unquote—test my skills, so he had his commander slip Grand Moff Tarkin’s comlink.”

Crosshair pauses from rolling his toothpick side to side. He doesn’t like where this is heading. 

“Turns out, he got a call from Grandie,” Jhali continues. “He wanted Tarkin to sink me.”

The back of his neck goes cold. “The admiral wanted to play hero.”

Jhali huffs, leaning forward. Her eyebrows furrow until there’s a too-familiar crease between them. “You can imagine how pissed I was. Scared the bantha shit out of Vanto.” 

Crosshair doesn’t have to imagine. He’s seen Jhali angry.

“So I set up a deal with Thrawn.” Jhali picks up her lightsaber. “I don’t expose his secrets, and he keeps us safe. Bonus, his compliance means I’ll help him out with his projects without question.”

Crosshair snorts, sound distorted by the toothpick in his mouth. “You do like having insurance.” She keeps pieces of information about everyone she meets. She’s stolen two blue kyber crystals from Vader—surprisingly without repercussion. 

Jhali grins, taking a bite of fruit. “Ugh, it’s mushy.” 

He thinks through the information Jhali’s shared. He keeps us safe. “What did you mean, ‘safe’?”

Jhali’s knuckles go white where they’re gripping her saber. 

He bites down on the toothpick a little too hard. “What’s wrong?”

She exhales. “You might get angry at me.”

The corner of his mouth twitches involuntarily. “That would be insubordination.”

She laughs, knuckles returning to their original colour. “Um. I had him do a couple things.” Jhali scratches the back of her head. “Alter my medical files, so there’s no record of Hun—my clone heritage.”

Risky, but an admiral could pull that off without leaving a trace. “What for?” 

Jhali lifts her head up. She holds the silence long enough to unnerve Crosshair. “So we won’t be assigned to find Clone Force 99,” she finally says. 

Everything swirls in his head. He lets the force of the statement close his eyelids. He allows himself to remember—how he tracked the squad down until his eyes threatened to burst. How terrified he was of the lack of control he had over his own actions. How he’d wanted, despite everything, to have his brothers back; wanting this even more than his own agency returned to him.

Even from the beginning, the chip was forever. 

His burn scar throbs at the memory of watching the Marauder escape to hyperspace. His chest aches at the realization of years past—he got Hunter back, with the rest of the squad following suit, but it wasn’t enough for him. His vod weren’t enough for him. 

Such a selfish thought—totally unbidden by the chip. Purely his own, greedy self. 

“We’re superior,” he’d said to them. He was a fool to believe that. 

Crosshair opens his eyes. Jhali tilts her head, waiting on a response. Shoulders tense. Eyelids twitching, under the blindfold.

Crosshair faintly remembers a holostar speaking about the value in taking steps to fix their faults. (He won’t believe their words, yet.) So he asks, “Don’t you want to see him?”

Jhali laughs. It’s an ugly, guttural sound pulled out of her stomach. “What good will that do?”

§

CT-9904 knows the pain of missing people. 

It’s been fifteen years since he’s seen his vods. Nine, since he saw another clone—and that was barely a passing glance at a clone commando on Daro. Fuck, he even misses Republic rations, sometimes—he can taste the priority Imperials placed on cheap grub when he eats the dusty Imperial shit.

He misses Oh-Two and Oh-Three—or Lyn and Ejwi, as he’s later come to know. (Jhali wanted everyone to get to know each other more personally for “optimal teamwork”—although CT-9904’s sure she just wanted an excuse to play a drinking game.) He shouldn’t—they’re traitors who kidnapped a force-sensitive child. But the barracks are too quiet without their flirty back-and forth at night. 

He misses Oh-Four—Nyla—too, but it hurts less than the others. He can still visit her in the Chimaera’s medbay whenever they get a break between missions. It aches, seeing the once-sturdy soldier live from bacta tank to bacta tank, but she holds firm to the truth that she’s lucky to have survived the explosion. 

“Take care of my flamethrower,” she says, every time before he leaves. He’s tempted to snap back—he’s her commander, he damn well won’t perform maintenance on her weapons—but he sees how dull Nyla’s eyes have become and he can’t come up with the courage to share his thoughts. 

He’s missed Jhali for a year. She went off on an Inquisitorial retreat, ended abruptly when Lyn and Ejwi snatched Jhali’s charge and committed mutiny. She’s different since then. Quieter. Tense. She gets strange stomach pains and sometimes, her left thigh gives out without reason. But she still whoops when she slams him against the training mats and sits next to him when she can’t sleep, so he takes it as a win. 

(It’s better than the emptiness he felt without her.)

Some nights, curled up on his bunk in the squad’s Lambda-class shuttle, he’s tempted to cry. In those nights, the Republic, the Empire, the rising Rebellion doesn’t exist—it’s just him and the scraping cavity of loneliness, burrowing into his bones until he burns from the pain. Then Jhali rolls over on the bunk above him, kicking her red blanket until the corner falls off the side into Crosshair’s periphery, and he remembers he’s not alone. 

He has his clan with him. And he’ll make it enough, this time.

§

The other commander on board bursts into their barracks one night. 

“Vercopa gar ash’amu osik’la,” Jhali groans, muffled by the sheets. May you die miserably.

Vanto taps her shoulder with a datapad, unfazed. “This is important.”

He prods her with the datapad until she takes it. “Ow, udesii—fuck, okay…”

With a final groan, she sits up, hair floating haphazard above her head. CT-9904 rubs his eyes and walks up to her cot.  

Vanto straightens, subtly placing his body between him and Jhali. His eyes steel. 

It’s cute, watching the skinny commander do his best to protect the Inquisitor. (Especially given that Jhali could string his guts out faster than he could pull out a blaster.) Despite the humorous sight, CT-9904 doesn’t like the idea that he needs to be distanced from Jhali. “Problem?” CT-9904 asks. 

Vanto wavers at the hard tone. “I’d prefer we had this conversation alone.”

Jhali rubs the crust off her eye slits. “Whatever you want to share with me, I’ll share with the commander.”

Vanto’s gaze flits back to CT-9904. He does his best to remain impassive as the commander assesses him. Finally, Vanto steps back.

CT-9904 hands Jhali her blindfold and presses dictate. 

“Target: Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger,” the datapad says.

Jhali scrunches her nose. “The Lothal cell. They killed Grandie, right?”

Vanto doesn’t respond, expression grim. CT-9904 doesn’t have a good feeling about this.

Once the datapad notes their silence, it continues.“Associates: Hera Syndulla, Garazeb Orrelios, Sabine Wren.”

Jhali’s face pales. CT-9904 wracks his head for the name. He knows of Clan Wren; what clone doesn’t? Sabine—if he remembers right—may have been Jhali’s cadetmate at the Imperial Academy on Mandalore. Or her aide. 

“That’s not even the worst bit.” Before CT-9904 can wonder how Vanto knows Jhali’s history, the commander presses play.

“Last known location: Kaller.” The datapad chirps helpfully and goes quiet. 

Kaller. Where the chip first kicked in, with a simple order from the Emperor. Where Crosshair began to lose his batchmates.

“I thought,” Jhali growls, “Thrawn ensured our safety.”

“Trust me, he wants to keep you happy—and I’ll make sure he continues to feel that way.” The commander’s words are hasty—Vanto clearly doesn’t want a repeat of what happened the first day he met the Inquisitor. “This came straight from the Emperor.”

“Why is this a problem?” CT-9904 asks. “It’s our job to hunt Jedi.” At the end, Kaller’s just a location. He can keep his ghosts at bay.

“This isn’t any Jedi.” Jhali squeezes her hands until her fingers go white. “Kanan Jarrus’ real name is Caleb Dume.”

The Padawan he almost killed, that same day on Kaller. 

(The ghosts might be a little insistent.)

“First Nyla, now Crosshair.” Jhali shakes her head. “Isn’t he tired of this?”

Cold sweat breaks out. (He’s not sure if it’s from hearing his chosen name, or from the implication.) “The explosion was caused by pirates.”

“On paper, yeah.” Vanto pulls a chair to the cot and sits down. “Thrawn believes the attack followed Imperial procedure far too much to be a coincidence. And my numbers support that theory.”

“The Empire wouldn’t try to undermine their own officers,” CT-9904 rebuts. It’s weak to him—but he has to try.

“You’d think so, huh?” Vanto scratches the back of his neck. “Didn’t stop High Command from keeping me as an Ensign for three years.”

CT-9904 closes his eyes. His teeth itch.

“Thrawn thinks they want Feng isolated, so she’ll get desperate and mess up—enough to arrest her.” Vanto looks down at his feet. “He’s not entirely sure of himself, heh; he seemed pretty embarrassed about that.”

CT-9904 narrows his eyes. He has no idea how he didn’t notice this before. “You’re chummy with the General.”

Vanto stammers. “I’m his aide—”

“We don’t have time for this.” Jhali summons her uniform and armour. “What did Thrawn recommend?”

Vanto looks at her, apprehensive. “Follow through with the assignment. Stay on your toes.”

Jhali scowls. “Ingenious tactic. I’m sure that got him out of countless court-marshallings.”

“Yeah, he knows it’s krayt spit.” Vanto sighs. 

Jhali taps her fingers against the datapad. CT-9904 can see her thinking through the options. Hacking away at the wall, looking for a weakness—one that may not be there.

Vanto bites his lip. “He could provide a better recommendation if he knew what High Command wanted from you—”

“I can’t give them what they want,” Jhali snaps. It’s a tone CT-9904 can’t recognize—the anger isn’t new, but detachment is.

Vanto stares at Jhali. CT-9904 wishes he could hear the unsaid words. He wonders, once again, what he missed the year Jhali left.

(It’s when everything started spiralling.)

“Okay, then.” Vanto smiles, apologetic. “I’m really sorry, but you guys are on your own.”

§

Kaller hasn’t changed much since the last time CT-9904 was here. Snow covers the landscape, weighing down pine branches until they creak. He tries not to look at the remains of crashed AATs at the base of a cliff. 

He lands the ship in the middle of a cove. Patches of grass are interrupted by blasted craters. Even the most stubborn weeds don’t grow there. 

The plan goes smoothly, at first. Jhali starts a fuel leak on the Rebels’ ship. Predictably, Syndulla sends the Padawan out to secure tools for repair—“the—zhrihza, Commander?—yes, the street rat is key to their stealth,” Thrawn said. Once Syndulla and the Lasat warrior return to the ship to finish repairs, CT-9904 traps them in and disables their comms.

The complication begins in the market. CT-9904 watches the Jedi and the Mandalorian nose around the stalls, both sporting ratty ponchos in a laughable attempt at disguise. He shifts to prevent his arm from falling asleep; rooftop surveillance wreaks the most havoc on his body. “What do we do?”

“Give me a moment.” Jhali’s breath is magnified under her helmet. “Okay. Stick to the plan, I’ll handle Wren. Can I borrow your reflectors?”

CT-9904 adjusts so she can reach for the disks in his pack. Once she skitters off, he positions his Firepuncher and waits for Jhali’s signal—whatever it’ll be. Maybe she’ll flash the reflector disks at CT-9904. Or blind Wren with them.

He’s not expecting her to lob them at the Mandalorian’s head like a vengeful cadet playing dodgeball. It gives him a split second window to stun Bridger. He turns to fire at Wren, but she’s already down. 

Jhali tilts her head up and flicks her thumb up. Easy. 

They haul their prisoners through the sewers. The city had an incident years prior where a cult residing in the sewers illegally mined government data. (Upon consideration, they may have been local rebels.) Since then, the sewers have been reinforced with an alloy that scrambled transmissions to prevent a repeat of the incident. It’s convenient for them.

They reach the cove quickly. Jhali does something to Wren’s armour to shut it down. After they lock Bridger and Wren in respective cells, they sit down in the seating area to recollect. 

“So.” Jhali paces the length of the room. “Things got messy.”

“Barely.” He takes a puff of his inhaler. “We can handle a Mandalorian.”

“Two Jedi—one who’s going to bring the wrath of Bogan onto you—and a Mandalorian aren’t my idea of a ‘handleable’ mission,” Jhali snarls. “And Sabine and I were picked for the Imperial Academy because we were the best of our class—she’s probably figuring out what scraps in the cell are fucking inflammable so she can blow up the whole damn thing!” 

Her thigh chooses to give out now, shuddering until she slumps down against the bench. She drops her head in her hands.

He kneels down in front of her. When he places his hand on her pauldron, she shudders like she knows what ghost haunts that motion. So he moves his hand to her arm, rubbing up and down until her breath evens. 

“I’ll be fine,” Crosshair promises, because this isn’t about Jedi or Mandalorians. He has the same worry burning deep in his chest. The chip forces his loyalty, which includes his superior officer—Jhali. And she’s the current target of the Empire—which he’s loyal to.

(He can’t imagine a happy ending for them.)

Jhali makes a wet noise that gurgles in the back of her throat. (It’s endearing, he realizes, and his heart thrums clan clan clan clan anew again.) “I can’t promise that.”

You don’t have to, he wants to say—but she’s right. She’s his commanding officer. Despite her youth, despite her being his charge, she is responsible for their safety in the Empire. Which shouldn’t be. He should be the one to take care of her. 

He wants to scream. He deserves this torture, he knows he does—but Jhali doesn’t. The rain pours down on her, and he’s got the broken frame of an umbrella in his hands.

Crosshair takes her lightsaber and places it on her lap. He closes her hand around it. “Let’s fight for it, then.”

She laughs, mirthless. And he understands; how far can that take them? But her grip tightens around her saber and she bumps her forehead against Crosshair’s. “Okay, then.” 

It takes a minute to finish preparations. Once the mouse droid—Jhali, thirteen and a day, picked it up and proclaimed its name Missie—finally understands that it must send a comm once the prisoners do anything out of the ordinary (includes: waking up, abnormal heart rate, sabotage; doesn’t include: snoring), they set off for the top of the cove. CT-9904 settles on a tree while Jhali hides herself behind a rock jetty. If things go according to plan, Caleb Dume will show up soon, searching for his Padawan.

His comm beeps. It’s Missie. 

Suddenly, he’s pulled off his perch. Packed snow slams against his shoulders, knocking his breath out. He scrambles to his feet. 

Caleb Dume stands before him. He’s much taller than the boy who haunts CT-9904, and he’s grown a goatee. But his eyes are the same piercing blue that haunts Crosshair—today, they’re hardened with retribution.

Surrounding Dume are a dozen rebels, blasters aimed at CT-9904. 

Anger burns up his throat—or panic, he can’t tell. Was the mouse droid infected with malware? Did someone tip them off? How did he not see this coming?

He should have. It was all far too easy. 

“Surrender,” Dume says. He points his lightsaber, brilliant blue, at CT-9904. He’s much calmer than the last time they encountered each other.

CT-9904 makes sure to keep his gaze on Dume as he checks his periphery. Jhali’s still hidden behind the jetty, but there’s half a dozen more insurgents rushing towards them from the east. They’re outmatched, even with Jhali as a hidden card.

CT-9904 puts down his rifle, slowly. (He doesn’t pull the mag out—just in case.) At Dume’s insistence, he drops his hand blaster, too.

Dume’s eyes flicker behind CT-9904. “Anyone else?”

“An Inquisitor. Haven’t seen her before, but she knew how to deactivate my armour,” a woman behind him replies. The Mandalorian—presumably with the Padawan, if Crosshair’s not imagining the hum of an additional lightsaber.

(Hunter would have been sure. No, no, not him, not now.)

The Jedi nods to the right flank. They rush off, scattering all across the cove.

“Do you remember who I am?” Dume asks, tone carefully even. 

CT-9904’s impressed; Dume’s holding together better than he is. “Yes.” 

“That’s it?” Dume’s veneer of control wavers. “Nothing else to remember?”

A small amount of snow drops to the ground behind Dume. “I tried to hunt you down when Order 66 was given.” 

Dume blinks. He doesn’t look pleased with the results of this reunion. (CT-9904 knows the feeling.) “Where’s your CO? What was his name—Hunter?”

“I don’t know.” A tremble escapes him. Another clump of snow falls to the ground.

The Jedi laughs, and it chills CT-9904 to the core. “How’s being alone feel?” 

The comm in his helmet flickers to life. There’s no words said, but it’s enough. “I’m not.”

Jhali drops from the trees above, knocking Dume to the ground. CT-9904 ducks, barely avoiding a blaster bolt from behind him. He grabs his rifle and blaster and spins around. Before he can stun the two, Jhali pushes them back with the Force.

Blaster fire begins to rain down on them. Jhali grips Crosshair’s arm. “Come on, we have to go—”

“The mission isn’t complete—”

A flurry of green enters his periphery. Jhali parries the Padawan’s blade, stopping it just before it digs into CT-9904’s helmet. He, in turn, stuns the approaching flank of rebels with his blaster before they reach Jhali. 

They fight back to back, circling around so CT-9904 can stun the incoming soldiers as Jhali fends off the Padawan and the Mandalorian. It’s good, fighting in tandem. For a moment, he thinks they have a way out of this. 

Then, Caleb Dume starts getting up. CT-9904 realizes he made up his mind too soon. 

Most of the other insurgents are down, so he turns his attention to the Mandalorian. He switches the Firepuncher on stun and fires at point blank range. Her vambrace holoshield holds for the first few bolts, but the firepower’s too strong. At the tenth bolt, it shorts out, sending sparks down her vambrace. She tears it off, yelling an old Mando’a expletive CT-9904 can’t place. 

Before she can launch a counterattack, Jhali throws the Padawan into the Mandalorian. They slump against a tree, the Padawan’s lightsaber clattering near the Mandalorian’s unconscious hand.

One more blaster bolt knocks out the final rebel. They turn to face Caleb Dume. 

He stands, snow slowly settling around his feet. His saber dutifully lights his side, setting the dust around him on blue fire. When he looks up, his eyes glint—and Crosshair realizes the Jedi knows what he’s doing. 

Fine. Two can play at this game. 

He raises the rifle and fires, stun bolt after stun bolt. He’s quicker than he was all those years ago, but so’s the Jedi. He evades the blaster fire like he’s dancing, stepping smoothly past a bolt and deflecting another. Before he can process it, the Jedi’s right in front of him, saber ready to thrust into his stomach (and fuck, if this is what’s different this time)—

Sparks blur his vision. He staggers back, blinking out the white. 

With a shout, Jhali twists her beskar vambrace from where it’s supporting the weight of the Jedi’s saber and fires a grappling hook. It takes moments for her to fix the Jedi against a tree. Before he can slice through the cord, she takes his lightsaber and snaps it in half. 

Then, she stumbles. Her left leg shakes violently—CT-9904’s about to run up and support her when she drops the halved hilt, tremors easing at the loss. 

“You—” Her voice thins with panic. “He sent you a vision—”

Someone slams into CT-9904, knocking him face-first into the snow. There’s the sound of a lightsaber igniting—the screech of blade against metal—a scream so loud his ears threaten to bleed. 

He hurries back to his feet. (Always back to his feet.) 

Jhali’s crumpled against the snow. 

He rushes forward, senses sparking out, body lurching—but there’s an insistent, dull metal pressing against his stomach. It’s his own Firepuncher, now set to fire, held by the Padawan. 

Behind him, the Mandalorian points the Padawan’s saber at Jhali. The Jedi’s out of his predicament—the way the split cord glows red at the end suggests the Mandalorian cut him out of it. He collects the pieces of his lightsaber, then puts it back together—as if nothing ever happened.

Crosshair drops his blaster. “Let me go.” 

The Padawan tilts his head condescendingly. “Buddy. Why would I ever do that?”

He doesn’t need prepubescent attitude right now. “Let me go, she’s hurt—”

“Osi’kyr.” The Mandalorian drops her helmet to the snow. Her hair’s a ridiculous blue. “Osi’kyr, Kanan, that’s Feng.”

The Padawan keeps his eyes on CT-9904. “Who’s that?”

“She was one of the other cadets at the Academy.” Wren collects her breath. “She disappeared when Tetsu did, so I thought—I didn’t think…”

Jhali raises her head. Everyone tenses, hands going tight around their chosen weapons. 

Her helmet stays in the snow, split in half. A long cut stretches from her right cheek to her forehead. Hunter’s headband hangs in two useless strips, held in place only by her ears. 

She runs her hand through the blood covering her face. (It’s not crusted, yet, but it’s enough to remind Crosshair of Concord Dawn.) 

Her blood-soaked fingers tighten into a fist. Then, the world glows sickly green. 

§

Two weeks after the Elite Squad is assigned to the Twelfth Sister, Jhali places the red blanket on Crosshair’s lap. There’s a tear, right next to the skull Hunter embroidered in.  

“I ripped it.” She shies away, apologetic. 

Crosshair takes the fabric. “We can fix it.”

§

CT-9904 strings the thread through the head of the needle. It’s black—he would have preferred red. 

“We didn’t finish the mission.” 

Jhali groans. “Fuck, we’re going to do this now?”

He focuses on tying the two halves of the string together. (If he looks at the bacta pads taped to Jhali’s face, he might break.) “What else do you want to discuss, then?”

“I don’t want to discuss anything.” 

He drops the needle. It doesn’t stab him in the leg, thankfully. 

(Jhali’s leg isn’t working. After the green fire dissipated, CT-9904 draped her arm over his shoulders and helped her stagger to the shuttle.)

“How did you—”

The room turns cold. “I said I don’t want to talk.” 

He’s tempted to take her offer. He doesn’t want this discussion, any more than she does. They’ve both faced too many ghosts today. 

But the room’s cold. And the last time that happened, she left for a year. 

“The green fire. What was that?”

Jhali’s quiet, long enough CT-9904 considers giving up on conversation. Finally, she makes a coughing sound. 

CT-9904 pauses. “Pardon?”

She makes the sound again. It’s a word, apparently. “It’s the source of Nightsister magick.”

“Magic,” he repeats.

“It’s a corrupted extension of the Force.” Jhali shifts, followed by the crinkle of the wet wipe pack. “Ichor’s all over Dathomir. The air, the water, the Nightsisters blood.”

“Guessing you had a vial of ic—ich—that, up your sleeve.” He positions the patch, aligning it with the pieces of Jhali’s blindfold. At least the patch is red. 

“Not exactly.” In his periphery, Jhali wipes her hands of grime. He remembers the blood on them, hours ago. “Nightsisters used to have a ritual where they transmutated endothermic species’ blood into usable ichor. I applied the theory on my own blood.”

That startles CT-9904 enough to raise his head. 

Jhali looks like shit. There’s a bruise forming over her eyebrow. Her eye pits are covered in grime. The gauze tape holding the bacta pads together is stained red-brown—not green. 

“I didn’t transmutate all of it—just enough to spark the fire.” She uses the wipe to dab at her eye pits. “Fuck, now I have to include that in the report.”

CT-9904 returns to his work. He was right—he doesn’t want to look at Jhali right now. “Was that ‘insurance’?”

Jhali sighs. The sound echoes through the room. “Yeah.”

(The fire felt like the precipice between life and death, both sides stubbornly pulling at his body. He doesn’t want to know what she was saving this “insurance” for.)

In the cockpit, the console beeps. CT-9904 puts down his work in progress and checks the alert. It’s just a warning to wake up before they arrive at the Chimaera’s coordinates—as if they could sleep. 

“How much time until we land?” Jhali asks. 

He checks the display. “An hour or so.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s—that’s good.” There’s something behind those words that CT-9904 has to unpack. 

He returns to the seating area. It’s returned to room temperature. Jhali’s done wiping all the grime from her face. She busies herself now with Missie, checking for crossed wires. 

“Gar shabii, Sabine,” she mutters. “Had to mess one last thing up for me, huh?”

It breaks, then. “We didn’t finish the mission.”

Jhali drops the wires. (The blue ones are textured, and the red smooth. Crosshair appreciates it; it makes repairs possible for Jhali and eases situations where wires are buried in the dark.) “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t—still can’t—walk.”

“We could have taken the ship to the top of the cove and picked up the Jedi—”

“Then what?” Jhali turns. “Try to outmanoeuvre Hera Syndulla and a ship literally named the Ghost while we’re both incapacitated?”

Crosshair wilts. He hates fighting with his clan. He tries a more negotiable route. “We could have tried harder.”

“Tried harder to serve an Empire that wants us dead?” Jhali shakes her head. “Come on, Crosshair, you’re so observant. Can’t you see they don’t want us?” 

“We don’t know that for certain—“

“You think that because you have to believe that!” 

She recoils as soon as the words leave her mouth. It softens the hit, a little, to know she regrets it. It still stings like hell. 

Jhali pats the bench. He sits down—it’s easy to follow orders. It’s harder to take the kiss she presses to his cheek. 

“Ni ceta,” she whispers. I’m sorry.

The clones didn’t hold back these words, not like the Mandalorians did. (Given how often cafeteria brawls occurred.) The weight of it doesn’t evade his understanding. 

“I don’t have to believe that,” he admits. He hasn’t shared this with anyone. It’s hard to explain how a mind without total agency works—he doesn’t even know exactly how much control he has. “I have to follow orders. I can’t commit treason. But I don’t have to believe in the Empire.” 

Jhali nods. She tries to rest her head on Crosshair’s pauldron. “Ow. Not doing that.”

They laugh. It hurts his ribs, but it’s a good burn. 

Jhali takes her lightsaber hilt, rolling it around her hands. Crosshair likes the way the circular guards look when the hilt’s folded over, the two strips fitting against each other perfectly. He’s biased, of course, given that it’s saved his life countless times.

He remembers Caleb Dume’s lightsaber, broken in half in Jhali’s hands.

He sent you a vision, Jhali said.

“What did you see in Dume’s lightsaber?” he asks. 

She tenses. For a second, he’s afraid she won’t tell him. But then—“Kanan received a vision. About our attack.”

That doesn’t begin to explain things. “Anything else?”

Jhali presses another kiss—this time on his temple. “Ni ceta,” she says again—and it’s filled with regret. 

He knows how hard the words are, for her. And still, she chooses them over trusting him.

Crosshair knows the pain of missing people. So he recognizes the scraping pain in his chest for what it is. 

He misses Jhali, even with her right next to him. Because the Empire has taken her away from him.

Chapter Text

The night after the mission, CT-9904 wakes to the cool metal of a blaster in his face. 

“Sorry,” Jhali whispers. The world goes dark. 

§

Cassian Andor has never been to Ord Mantell, before, despite working for the Rebellion for ten years. (He’s been on far too many missions for a sixteen year old. He doesn’t mind—he’ll get those lost years back once the Rebellion wins. There is no childhood under Imperial rule.)

And yet, as soon as he steps off his ship into the gas-scented metal monstrosity of a city, he feels at home. 

(General Draven thinks Cassian’s quick mind and flexibility makes him such a good spy—enough to be considered for the Fulcrum program. He’s right, but Cassian knows his familiarity with scum worlds is truly his key to success. He feels uncomfortable in prissy, established Rebel bases—not here, in Ord Mantell’s seedy underworld.)

Cassian’s picked out an inconspicuous outfit for this mission. (It’s his favourite part of assignments—figuring out the character.) Not so ratty he’ll stand out as a beggar, but not so shiny muggers will think him rich. He’s done only the minimal research on the social scene on Ord Mantell—no time—but he slips right into the crowd unnoticed. 

(Like he said—at home.)

His comm beeps. After checking his surroundings to ensure no one’s tracking him, he ducks into an alcove.

“We got a problem, Kay-Tu?”

“I do,” the droid snarks. There’s a squeal in the background. “The cargo is not cooperating.”

Cassian gathers his patience. “Figure it out, okay?”

“Cassian—”

“Figure. It. Out.” He looks around the corner: there’s the sign for Cid’s Parlour. “I’m almost at the rendezvous.”

“Please hurry back.” There’s an uncharacteristic anxiety in the droid’s voice. “There’s a forty percent that the cargo may fry my circuits in the next ten minu—”

Cassian disconnects the comm before he has to endure more of Kay-Tu’s melodrama. 

Despite his age, Cassian’s never been on a cargo shipment mission since he was twelve. He’s beyond shipment; he’d thought Fulcrums were, too. And yet, this is the mission that’ll prove him worthy of membership in the exclusive program. 

His briefing hadn’t disclosed the…live nature of the cargo, either. 

He hopes Kay-Tu can hold base five more minutes. Cassian’ll get his contact back to Kay-Tu and the U-Wing by then. 

Cid’s Parlour, it turns out, is largely defunct. The only staff he sees are an Ithorian and Weequay buried in an intense game of sabacc—neither named Cid. There’s no customers. The liquor rack’s near-empty, save a few decorative bottles of original Whyren’s Reserve. 

He takes a seat in the back, next to a blast-marked dart board. The proper thing to do would be to buy a drink, but it might raise further suspicion, since his facial hair hasn’t started growing yet. One of the disadvantages of his age. 

A minute passes. The Ithorian loses, or the Weequay does—Cassian hasn’t paid enough attention to their board to figure out who cheated. 

Someone walks in the cantina. He’s a little short six feet, but the old clone commando armour he’s wearing might be giving him a height boost. He’s thrown a hooded jacket over the armour, making him look as big as a Trandoshan. Cassian would laugh—if he were six and didn’t know better. 

He looks around, for a moment. Cassian wishes he wasn’t wearing his helmet so he could get a look at his expression. 

He walks up to Cassian. “Willix?” 

“That’s me.” Cassian tamps down his shock. He didn’t expect the fashion faux-pas to actually be a clone. “Will the starbird rise?”

“With valiant hope,” replies the clone. 

He takes the seat next to Cassian and takes off his helmet. He’s younger than the other clones Cassian’s met. The black half-skull tattooed over his face is certainly a bold choice, but it makes him almost unrecognizable. Which is a good thing; it dampens Cassian’s urge to launch a rock at his face. 

(He’s barely gotten over his childhood hate for the Republic. The simple reasoning that he’d be a hypocrite if he denounced the Republic’s rampant militarism aided plenty in the process..)

“You’re younger than I expected,” the clone says. He extends his hand. “Hunter.”

Cassian shakes it. “Same to you. Let’s finish this conversation at my ship.”

After ducking through the crowded streets, they reach the landing pad. “Did you know about…” Cassian searches for the right words. “The nature of the cargo?”

Hunter narrows his eyes. “All I know is that it’s high priority.”

Cassian huffs a laugh. “Would it kill command to share intel with their operatives?” Cassian does carry suicide pills for a reason. 

The clone—smiles, only not quite. “Truth be told, I was surprised Wren sent my squad on this assignment. We’re…beyond cargo extraction.”

“I was surprised, too.” Cassian taps his key on the entrance. “I specialize in intelligence and espionage. Not—”

The U-Wing’s entrance unfolds into a landing pad, revealing Kay-Tu holding the infant cargo by the foot. 

“Babysitting,” Kay-Tu finishes. 

Before he can explain, there’s a blaster touching Cassian’s head. He almost lets out a panicked laugh—guess there’s a reason why clones were so sought after by command. 

“Kay-Tu’s not Imperial anymore.” Cassian raises his hands. “He’s reprogrammed; his wires are a bit crossed from that operation.”

Kay-Tu straightens. “And who’s fault is that?”

Cassian turns to the clone. “You’re welcome to blast him when he gets intolerable.”

Hunter lowers his blaster, but not without a glare at the security droid. “I’ll hold you to that. Where’s the cargo?”

Cassian gestures at the wailing infant. 

“You’re kidding,” the clone says. 

“I bought a pram if you need it,” Cassian says. 

The clone doesn’t seem to hear him. He places his helmet down next to the pram and takes the baby from Kay-Tu. 

Miraculously, the kid shuts up. 

“The eyes,” Hunter says. His voice is strained. Are his cheeks—red? “Are they an injury?”

“Not according to the bounty hunter who handed the kid to me,” Cassian responds. “He was Mandalorian, so I would take his words with a grain of salt.” Probably haggling for a higher price.

The kid’s eyes are truly strange—in that he only seems to have one. There’s a tiny hole where the other should be; Cassian guesses it’s a heat pit, although the baby’s not near reptilian enough for one.

“You know any Miraluka?” Cassian asks, half joking. 

The clone looks up at him, eyes heavy. 

§

Crosshair wakes up to blinding white lights. 

He tries to close his eyes, but a searing ache in his temple  stops him from moving his face. He reaches up to touch the wound—but there’s already a bacta pad on it. 

He clenches his fist until his nails bite into his skin. It’s not as good as a good cup of caf, but it’s enough to ease the bleariness in his vision. 

He’s in a medbay. It’s not the central one; that’s the one Nyla’s in, and it’s much grander than this tiny excuse of a room. He guesses it’s one of the extra medical wings on the Chimaera that aren’t used due to its distance from the bridge or the landing bays.

There’s a giant cylinder lying horizontal next to him. He’s only received rudimentary first aid training, so he has no idea what it is. Some kind of scanner, he guesses; at least, that’s what medical scanners on holofilms look like. 

On the bench next to the scanner, there’s Jhali, sleeping. She’s still sitting, head tilted slightly to her left and body slouched forward. In one hand is her her lightsaber; in the other, a blaster, set on stun. 

So what’s this searing pain in his temple?

He tries to stand and immediately regrets it. His legs are still shaky from the stun bolt and his head’s swirling. Up becomes down—he crashes against the floor.

“Osi’kyr!” There’s hands helping Crosshair up until he’s facing Jhali, brows furrowed. Her wound’s scarred up, now, leaving a jagged stripe of white stretching diagonally across her face. 

“What—” His throat’s too dry for words. “What did you do?”

Jhali places her hand to Crosshair’s cheek. “We got the chip out of your head.”

The chip. Out of his head. 

The ache in his temple—the kiss Jhali placed on it, hours ago.

His first non-garbled thought: that’s got to be bending a rule. 

His second thought: it doesn’t matter, anymore. He can choose to stay or leave. He can choose to obey every letter or run amok protocol like the Admiral. He can join the Rebellion if he wants, or become a fucking farmer like Cut Lawquane did. 

(He’s not going to be a farmer.)

His third thought: We?

“Your burn injury meant a medical droid had to supervise,” says Commander Vanto behind him. Crosshair suddenly realizes it’s Vanto’s hands holding him up. “I brought one here.”

“So.” He tries to connect a to b. “You’re a secret rebel empathizer?”

“You kidding?” Vanto’s accent’s more pronounced—from exhaustion, Crosshair assumes. “Matter of efficiency.”

Jhali curls her lip. “Cut the crap, Vanto. Your half-assed sense of morality bothered you into doing this.” 

The two continue their argument as they help Crosshair back down onto the bed. He can’t make out their words. 

He’s free. And his first thought was to check with Imperial protocol.

(Currently, the only difference between freedom and normal is this nauseating dizziness.)

“How are you doing?” Jhali asks. She doesn’t bother to hide the hope in her voice.

Crosshair looks at her. He thinks of the marks his vods carried on their skin; the half-skull on Hunter’s face, the dotted outline of Captain Rex’s handprint on Echo’s chest, his own crosshair tattoo. All chosen and earned, in rituals seeking self-identity. Meaning a variety of things, all earned through battle: dedication, loyalty, drive.

The jarring cut stretching across Jhali’s face scream this is your fault.

He puts on a smile. (How could he not? How could he let her down, again?) “I’m good.”

§

Omega hates waiting. Which is ridiculous—she’s almost thirty. 

“Stop tapping your foot.” Tech doesn’t even look up from his datapad. 

Omega rolls her eyes—but acquiesces. “You’ll have to buy new eyeballs at this rate.”

That gets Tech’s attention. “My sight is fine, thank you. These are the finest blue light-filtering goggles there are on the market.”

“Sure, Gramps.” It’s the best way to get any member of the squad to shut up. (It hurts her, too, just a little. She thanks the Force that at least Hunter and Wrecker’s accelerated aging wore off.)

There’s a ping at the comm deck. “Hunter’s coming back,” Echo calls.

Omega launches out of her seat and races to the boarding ramp. Sure enough, it’s him walking towards the ship, with his ridiculous jacket. 

Following him is a baby pram.

“That’s the cargo?” Omega shares a look with Wrecker. 

Hunter takes off his helmet. There’s shadows in his eyes. “I need to talk to you and Echo.”

§

There’s a knock on Commander Faro’s office. She immediately rules out Thrawn as an option; the Chiss never knocks, the bugger. Besides, the Chimaera’s on the ground this week; Vanto’s responsible for handling repairs and manifests. 

She checks her holoscreens to make sure there isn’t any classified intel displayed. “Come in,” she calls. 

The clone commander steps in. CT…nine nine…something. Faro’s always found the numbering system for troopers ridiculous; Vanto disagrees, since it helps with his databases.

Faro frowns. “I already received your mission report from the Inquisitor yesterday.” She thought it strange; usually the clone commander hands in the reports. There’s apparently some sort of bureaucratic roadblocks with a member of the Inquisitorius submitting reports to the Navy, Army, or ISB—since they’re not a registered organization. (Which is ridiculous, in Faro’s opinion.)

The clone commander stands there, for a moment, uncertain. Faro’s never seen anything but certainty on his face before.

“Commander?” she prompts. 

He snaps out of it. “I would like to report the disappearance of my commanding officer.”

It’s Faro’s turn to stare at him. She’s heard the story about chips forcing the clones’ loyalty placed in their brains, but she’d always dismissed them as trooper gossip. 

The Twelfth Sister takes care of her squad. Faro’s liked enough to the point where she’s welcome to drinks with the crew after her shift, and the ES troopers would gush about the kid (once sufficiently drunk, of course). She herself has noticed how close the Inquisitor and the clone commander are; they chat quietly in some Mando language, like the Admiral and Vanto do with Sy Bisti.

A disappearance is bad. It could be a kidnapping—but if the commander really thought that, he would have gone to Thrawn. If he’s filing a report the old-fashioned way, it means an investigation—resulting in a target on the Inquisitor’s head. 

Faro doesn’t know whether to feel disgusted at the clone, or horrified at the Republic. 

“Um.” She blinks, tries to focus on the task at hand. “I can start a file for you. It’s likely you’ll be redirected to ISB.” If they even did investigations on the Inquisitorius. 

The clone commander doesn’t respond, too lost in his own thoughts. 

(Not for the first time, Faro wishes she had Admiral Thrawn’s infrared vision. Ever since a drunk Vanto revealed its existence, she’s been jealous of the Chiss commander’s ability.)

She clears her throat. Opening an investigation request, she asks, “Your name?”

“Clone commander…” He swallows, closes his eyes. 

(It’s the most emotion Faro’s ever seen from him. She decides then, she’s horrified.) 

“CT nine-nine-oh-four, sir.” He says each number with a finality Faro doesn’t want to think about. 

§

Crosshair checks his surroundings again. No probe droids, no stormtroopers on patrol. Just him and the birds, roosting atop a tree.

He takes a slow breath in, then exhales. He hopes he’s ready for what lies ahead of him. 

He puts on his helmet and plays the recording. 

“Hey.” Jhali’s accented voice fills his ears. “Um, osik. I don’t know where to start…” 

(He closes his eyes, scolds himself for the tears that already threaten to spill.)

“I guess I’ll say sorry, first.” Jhali chuckles, a self-conscious thing. “It was shitty of me to run away after removing your inhibitor ship. Shittier even to leave a note and that blanket, like I couldn’t just make a clean break.” 

(He’s so relieved she couldn’t. When he woke up alone in the barracks, the first thing he did was hug the blanket tight against his chest, until he noticed the datachip had tumbled out of the fabric.)

For a few moments, Jhali breathes into the mic. “I’m not—defecting for the Rebellion, or anything. Heh, like I’d join that lost cause.”

(It’s not funny—it’s barely even a joke. He laughs, still, because he aches to.)

“I—” The silence grows heavier, as if waterlogged. “I had to leave. For my safety. For yours. And—”

She sobs, then. Crosshair—her second-in-command, her clan—has never seen Jhali cry. He’s shaken by the newness of it, by the discovery of something totally new of a loved one—but only after they’re gone. 

(He wonders, again, how he could have ever thought he could take care of Jhali.)

She corrals her emotions, evens her breath. 

“A kid.”

§

Name (Subject of Investigation Request).

Faro eyes the question. She wonders if she should ask it to the clone commander, or fill it out herself. 

(He’s always been quiet, stoic. But this…rigidity, it’s new.)

“And what’s the name of the subject in question?” she blurts.

The clone’s eyes flicker. “Her title, or her name?”

Faro opens her mouth, about to say of course, her name, when she realizes she doesn’t even know the Inquisitor’s name. Nor does the Chimaera; her code cylinder identifies her as the Twelfth Sister. 

Numbers, numbers. She’s getting tired of this.

§

A kid. 

Crosshair’s mind races. What the fuck happened to Jhali? How did he not notice? What kind of clone is he, unable to protect his clan from these atrocities?

The psychosomatic pains in her thigh. Her stomach cramps. The way the room went cold, the night she left for the so-called “Inquisitorial retreat”, after Crosshair snapped at her for jokingly bringing up desertion. 

(He understood then, in some deep, hidden corner of his mind, she wasn’t joking. It’s why he panicked.)

“Not—not my kid.” Jhali swallows. “I didn’t have a kid, ha—I’m seventeen.”

Relief should be flooding his body, cooling the swirling panic with a calm wash of water. 

(It isn’t, because something’s not right.)

“Do you remember the super secret baby we had to kidnap a couple years ago?” she asks. “That’s the kid I’m talking about.”

He does. Jhali had to hide the baby’s face even from her squad. (She complained it was impractical. Orders are orders, he’d said.)

It makes sense. Crosshair’s served for two armies; he knows extra confidentiality means extra stakes. The kid’s probably powerful enough to threaten the Emperor. 

He wants to believe her. Gedet’ye, he wants to believe her. (It would mean he hadn’t failed so miserably.) But the pieces of the puzzle slide in a bit too perfectly for reality

“Turns out, that kid’s super powerful. Darth Vader powerful.” She sighs, breath shuddering like she’s shaking. “I can’t let the Emperor get his—his old-ass, withering hands on the kid.”

(Cross, I can’t do this, Hunter said, ages ago. Isn’t it cruel, Crosshair asks, to force this choice onto another member of his aliit?)

“Ni ceta,” Jhali says, a third time. (He wants to hear it again—and wishes he could purge the sound of those words from his memory.) “I wouldn’t choose to leave unless I had to.” 

He understands. Of course he does—he was at Hunter’s side when he made his choice. He understands what it’s like to be forced into an illusion of choice, yet feel the torture of a dilemma all the same—he’s lived that life.

And still, just like the other times someone has left his life, it hurts like hell.

§

“Was there anything left behind?” Faro reads aloud. “A note, a trinket, anything?”

The clone commander blinks. His fist tightens threateningly over the clump of red fabric in its grip. Alarmed, Faro prepares herself for a fight, if need be. Is he regretting his decision to report the Inquisitor? 

Instead of socking her in the face, the clone commander places the fabric on the table, expression harrow. 

It’s a ratty old blanket, folded into a military-neat square. In the corner, there’s an embroidered skull—and next to it, a repaired tear.

(Faro wonders what stories the threads hide.)

She bags the evidence. “Anything else?”

§

“Ni nu’ba’slana—su.” 

The sudden switch to Mando’a jars Crosshair, and it takes him a moment to translate. I haven’t left—yet. 

It’s the most dangerous thing she’s said in this recording. If he still had the chip, he would have been forced to order planetary sweeps. 

“I’m on the moon,” she says, voice hushed as if she doesn’t trust the Mando’a to hide her words. “I’ll be there for the next 24 hours.”

A timeline. Which means—

“There’s a transport on the west hangar bay. The Wild Spacer’s keeping people away from there.” 

She’s giving him a choice. 

(He hears the familiar thrum again: clan clan clan clan.)

“I can only stay for a day. I have a meeting tomorrow with a Mandalorian bounty hunter who might help me find my buir.”

His blood goes cold. He can’t see them again. (He can’t see his failure, again.)

“There’s reports of the Batch working with some Rebellion figures; I’m hoping they’ll get the kid to Wren.” She switches back to Basic—dangerous, again, but it’s easier for Crosshair. “I wish I could give you more time.”

(He wishes it, too.)

“Ret’urcye mhi, Crosshair.” Perhaps we’ll meet again. The recording crackles with white noise before cutting out to silence. 

A bird belts its morning song in the canopy.

“Gar mir’sheb, Jhali,” he whispers. “Couldn’t make it easy, could you?”

§

The clone commander’s quiet. His eyes meet Faro’s, but their focus is somewhere far away. 

“Commander?” Faro prompts. “Any other evidence?”

His attention shifts back to Faro. Resolve steels his face. “No.”

She’s not sure she believes him. She decides not to prod, and files the report. 

“Then we’re all done, here.” She stands. “You’re free to leave.”

He looks—gaunt, for the lack of a better word. Like he’s done fighting. 

“Yes, sir.” 

§

The Marauder, unlike most Clone Wars era ships nowadays, doesn’t clatter and rattle in hyperspace. Whether that’s a testament to the structure of Omicron-class attack shuttles or to Tech and Echo’s skills, Omega doesn’t know. 

The lack of sound means she has to take care to be silent moving around during sleeping cycles. She still calls the gunner’s nest her room, even at her age; it’s a decision she currently resents, since the ladder down is so damn creaky.

She holds her breath as she makes it past the cots on the ship. Tech’s snoring should cover her, but she’s not the tiny twelve-year old girl she was—and she knows better than to rely on her surroundings. 

For example: Hunter, her family, her vod, couldn’t trust her with the truth. 

(Okay, that’s her irritation speaking.)

Rephrase: Hunter, the man responsible for the safety of four whole other human beings, thought it swell to hide his daughter’s existence from some of them. 

(She misspoke. It’s raging anger. But seriously—what if someone tried to trap them by saying they have Hunter’s daughter? It’s a safety hazard.)

Echo took it better than her; all diplomat-like in his I-understand-it-was-a-difficult-situation speech. Still, Omega noticed the disappointment in his face when he pulled Hunter in for a hug. 

She reaches the cockpit. Hunter’s up, watching over the kid. Thankfully, it’s just his shift; he has less sleepless nights thanks to the new smuggled Imperial medication. (The Empire’s surprisingly better than the Republic with their welfare; although, Omega concedes, the Republic did have a war stretching out their resources.)

Hunter stares at the kid with a mixture of apprehension and fondness. The kid’s sleeping right now, lips parted slightly in an adorable little O-shape. Their white hair and freckles aren’t very clone-like, but she recognizes his wide-set nose and round cheeks from her days in Kamino, strolling through the shelves of pods. 

“Can we talk?” she asks. 

Hunter starts. (Omega tamps down a smile. She loves being able to sneak up on him.) He looks at her with eyes full of fear, then at the hallway behind her—like he wants to run away. 

Before she can say nu fucking draar, he turns his attention back to her and nods, slight. 

She slides into the copilot seat. It’s habit, now—rushing into this seat when they crash out of light speed into a skirmish, fitting her legs awkwardly between the arm rests while she embarrasses Hunter by talking about her crushes, copying Echo’s every move and pretending she’s not pranking him, no sir no way, when he calls her out on it. 

Today, it’s the location of this dreaded conversation. They’ll both struggle—Hunter’ll try not to run away, Omega’ll try to control her anger. 

She folds her hands in her lap, like she’s seen senators do on the holonews. She thinks it makes them look diplomatic and powerful. (Or maybe she’s just really into Senator Amidala’s old holos. Stars, what a woman…) 

“I’m hurt,” she begins, like she’s in a therapist’s office, “that you didn’t trust me to know about your daughter.” 

Hunter’s lip twitches at the tone. “Should I say ‘I acknowledge your hurt’?”

“Or’dinii, you should be prostrating yourself right now,” she counters, crossing her arms.

The irritation disappears from his face. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

They fall silent, replaced by the quiet beeps of the console. Hunter looks back at the kid, smiling when the baby puffs their face up right before they sneeze. Omega wonders how many of these moments he lost with his daughter. 

The anger fades—slightly. (She was only half joking about the prostrating. She’s real mad.)

“She would be eighteen, now.” Hunter’s voice breaks the silence. “Jhali.”

Omega’s heart skips a beat. The implications are vast—and she doesn’t like any of them. “You’re sure this is her kid?”

Hunter raises an eyebrow. “You know any Miraluka?”

No, she does not. She doesn’t like the dread filling up in her chest. 

She changes the subject. (Anger’s more familiar than disgust.) “Why didn’t you tell Echo and me about your daughter?”

Hunter closes his eyes. His grip goes tight around the edge of the pram. 

“She’s just about eighteen,” he repeats, eyes still closed. 

It clicks, then. 

She laughs, because it’s ridiculous. Hunter’s eyes fly open, shooting her a scandalized look. 

“You seriously were worried what we’d think about you?” Omega laughs again. 

“Stop laughing—”

“No! Oh stars, you’re such an idiot—”

“You’ll wake the baby,” he says, firm. That gets through to her. (Smart tactics.)

“Hunter,” she says, mirroring the listen-to-me-you-di’kut tone Echo’s perfected, “we’re your family. We’ve seen you at your worst, and you’ve seen the same of us. We literally cannot judge you for a decision you made when you were young, brash, and saddled with an impossible choice.”

He stares at her for a moment, emotions swirling in his eyes. Then, he pulls her into a hug. 

“Oh, you big baby,” she says, patting his back. Hunter makes a discontent noise from where he’s crying into her shoulder. She pulls him closer; she wonders if her love of hugs is a Jango thing or an Omega thing. 

(Given they all love it, she bets it’s a Jango thing.)

There’s a ping at the comm table. She reaches over and clears it for transmission. 

“Hey, I’ve got—” Sabine Wren cuts off. “Uh. Are you okay?”

Hunter snaps his head off Omega’s shoulder. He somehow manages to throw a withering glare at her while he wipes his eyes. “I’m all good.”

Sabine raises an eyebrow. “Sure. Do you have the cargo?”

“Would it kill you to call them a baby?” Omega gently brings the floating pram over to the comm’s range. 

Sabine stares at the sleeping kid. “I didn’t know,” she says honestly. 

Omega shares a glance with Hunter. “I thought you sent us to pick-up because it was a critical mission.”

“I did.” Sabine scratches the back of her neck. “Rebel intelligence told me a third party agent snatched important cargo from an Inquisitor’s ship. I didn’t realize the cargo was…”

The baby gurgles. Out of the corner of Omega’s eye, she sees Hunter’s expression warm.

“Never mind. Seems like you’re prepared, at least.” Sabine smiles. “Hope you’re not too excited to stretch out your legs and rest once you’re back to base, though.”

Hunter turns to the holo. “You got another mission for us?”

Sabine disappears from the holo’s range for a moment, then falls back into frame holding a datapad. “It’s an extraction for a Fulcrum. Imperial defector.”

Omega whistles. “You like giving us the fun ones, huh?”

Sabine doesn’t laugh. “The target’s a clone. Designation CT-9904.”

Omega has to appreciate Fate’s work. A double hit in the crotch of the heart. 

“Um.” Hunter rubs his face. “I’m going to have to discuss with my team.” 

“No pressure,” Sabine adds, smile resurfacing. “Let me know what you choose once you’re on base.” The holo flickers out. 

In the ensuring darkness, they stare at each other. 

“Fulcrum,” Omega pronounces. She tries to connect the word with the image of the cold, distraught man she remembers—but fails. 

“Guess he wasn’t lying about his chip.” Hunter looks back at the baby, then the ship’s barracks. 

Omega kicks at his shin, ignoring the glare she earns from the action. “We have to go get him.”

“He tried to kill you,” Hunter tries, like they didn’t do this years ago. 

Omega places her hand over Hunter’s, where it rests on the pram, and fixes him with a hard stare. “No more running away, Hunter.”

He closes his eyes, rubs at them more. Then, he nods. 

“No more running away.”