Chapter Text
My Beloved Enemy 1 - Crash Landing
Things had changed a lot. After Kamino fell and his brothers left him behind again, a small Imperial troop transport had picked him up and taken him to the Star Destroyer Black Wolf. Crosshair was stationed there, working under Commander Payne. He continued his life as a soldier in the service of the Empire, trying to forget that his brothers had turned their backs on him again. Or had he turned his back on them? Sometimes he wasn’t so sure anymore. As with many other things. It had all seemed so simple in the beginning, he was a soldier and he fulfilled his duties. But his brothers had resisted and turned against him. In retrospect, he didn’t really feel remorse or anything like that, but he sometimes silently questioned one or the other decision of his superiors. Nevertheless, he continued to carry out orders, fulfilled his duty, he was a good soldier, one of the absolute best the empire had, he did not want to be more, he was born for it, he found fulfillment in it, was satisfied with it. However, he had no idea how much his life would soon change.
It was colder on the Star Destroyer than you were used to. The imperial uniform you had taken from the female sergeant didn’t fit you properly; it was a little too loose at the thighs and too tight at the chest. But the uniform would serve its purpose. You didn’t have to hold out long, just long enough for your droid to download the necessary data from the main computer. You had reprogrammed one of the Imperial protocol droids to collect data unobtrusively before quietly running off with reams of tactical data for the Rebel movement, preferably in a T-Fighter without a transponder. That was the plan.
You stood in the hallway outside the server room and looked out. So far, only two soldiers had passed by. None of them had been particularly interested in your presence. Still, you weren’t comfortable; some instinct told you that something was going to go wrong here and now.
Nervously, you shifted your weight from one foot to the other.
A moment later, a figure turned into the hallway. A tall, slender man with broad shoulders. He wore the uniform of a trooper, but it was black, not white. You couldn’t tell where he was looking because of his helmet, but it seemed like he was just looking straight ahead, at his holo pad, so you hoped he wouldn’t even notice your presence.
Your heart was pounding up to your throat. What the hell was taking that damn droid so damn long!!!
Just as you were about to take a deep breath, since the trooper had already passed you, the man suddenly stopped, looked up from his datapad, and turned to face you. Suddenly, panic rose in you. The trooper came back and stopped right in front of you.
He checked your uniform and finally said in a slightly raspy, deep voice, “May I ask what you are doing here, Sergeant?”
You tried to sound neutral as you replied, “Waiting for my superior officer, sir.”
Wait, was he higher in rank than you? Should you have called him sir? Should he have asked you questions? You didn’t know.
It was frustrating that you couldn’t see his face, so it was much harder to figure out what he was thinking or planning…. His gaze lingered on your pretty face for a while, then on the blouse of your uniform.
“You should get the measurements for your uniform taken. It’s too tight,” he said dryly.
You look down at yourself, finally just nodding mutely in agreement, hoping he would just keep walking.
Finally, he turned around and went on his way. You caught a glimpse of his figure, slim but well-toned, obvious, broad shoulders, his back showing a respectable V-line all the way to his hips.
“Damn,”you thought, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an attractive imperial before.” Even though you hadn’t seen his face yet.
The Trooper was only three steps away when an alarm sounded and echoed through the corridors of the Star Destroyer. The trooper stopped short. In the next moment, the communication device cracked and the droid’s tin can voice blared, “I’m sorry Mistress, we’re having some problems, I haven’t managed to download the information without the alarm to…”
Hastily, you turned off the communication device.
Of course, the trooper heard that. You had forgotten to switch your communicator from the wrist unit to the earpiece. He had turned back around and was looking at you. The datapad fell to the floor as the trooper clenched his hands into fists.
“Oh damn,” you cursed in a hushed voice.
“Rebel scum!” he growled.
You weren’t a fighter, you’d never been trained, you were a pilot, a damn good one even, and an even better cook, but firefights or hand-to-hand combat were far from your strengths. Now you were facing a high-ranking trooper against whom, as you well knew, you didn’t stand the slightest chance of winning.
“I can explain that,” you stammered out sheepishly.
Almost amused, the Trooper raised his head and replied cockily, “Well, I’m looking forward to that explanation.”
You opened your mouth as if to reply, but then quickly turned on your heel and ran off. You didn’t have to turn around to know the Trooper was following you because you heard his quick, heavy footsteps on the metal floor behind you.
Adrenaline gave you a good boost. Fortunately, you were able to avoid meeting other troopers until you reached the escape pods. You didn’t know how far you were from the pursuing trooper, and didn’t dare turn around. You hastily swung into one of the pods, hurriedly started the launch sequence, and literally hit the switch to close the pod when you sensed you weren’t alone, just as the pod fell out of the Star Destroyer.
At first, you didn’t dare turn around. You stood there frozen. With fingers now trembling, you entered the destination and hastily scrambled the access so that your guest could not change the trajectory. Finally, you slowly turned around.
There he was, the trooper in his black armor. He had no weapons with him; neither did you. But unlike you, he didn’t need weapons to deal with you.
In that small, confined space, so close together, you only realized how tall the man really was. As he came at you, you flinched, but bumped into the console, there was no way out.
You stared at his helmet.
Automatically, you pleaded in a soft voice: “Please don’t hurt me”.
He seemed to pause in surprise. Probably he was used to more aggressive behavior from rebels. He looked at you intently and finally said, “I won’t unless you give me a reason to”.
Now you were a little surprised yourself, because normally Imperials were not very sociable or forgiving with people like you. But you guessed that a soldier of his rank probably had enough experience to realize that you weren’t exactly a fighter. He didn’t exactly see you as a threat.
He made a gesture with his hand that meant you should step aside and let him go to the console.
Somewhat hesitantly, you complied with his request. The escape pod was so tight that the two of you almost bumped into each other, although you stepped so far to the side that your back touched one of the walls.
You were so close that you could smell him, the soap he had used.
The closeness, the smell, his presence, were intimidating and attractive at the same time. Your mind wavered between fear and a certain excitement that you didn’t yet comprehend.
He glanced at the console, tried a few inputs, and finally sighed.
“You’re not a fighter, but you’re obviously gifted in other ways,” he said quietly in his deep, raspy voice that sounded a bit like what you’d imagine a coiled snake would sound like.
He turned his head in your direction, which automatically made you even more nervous.
“Decrypt the console,” he asked you sternly but calmly.
Unable to raise your voice, you shook your head in denial.
He took a deep breath and said with a slightly somber undertone, “Decrypt the console or I’ll have to change my mind about hurting you.
Your eyes widened, but you shook your head again. When he tried to reach for you, you jerked to the side, just a hair’s breadth away from his fingers. But where would you go? You fled back to the far corner of the pod. He straightened up and came at you, slowly, but with tense muscles, as you could see. He was braced for resistance.
When he was almost there, you tried to escape in panic. In the process, you somehow managed to knock off his helmet. The surprised look in his golden brown eyes was almost amusing if the situation hadn’t been so serious.
You charged at him, ramming the surprised soldier off his feet and into the console. A high-pitched chirping alarm told you that this must have been a fatal mistake. You had damaged something; in any case, the escape pod was trundling wildly, leaving its normal course.
So instead of heading for the desert planet Geonosis, where you should have met the others, the escape pod was now heading for the moon beyond.The capsule entered the atmosphere and crashed onto a white surface that gave way, the capsule plunged into a cavern below, finally coming to an abrupt stop and throwing the two passengers to the ground. You both lost consciousness.
Wrecker paced nervously, even Tech was a little nervous by now and kept looking up from his data pad.
"She should be back by now,” Wrecker grumbled in his deep voice, running his hand over his scarred bald head.
“I know, Wrecker,” Tech replied in a calm voice, pushing his goggles up the bridge of his nose.
Hunter had sent those two to pick you up here. Every single one of them had been against this stupid idea of sneaking you onto a Star Destroyer, but you had insisted, and the fact that The Bad Batch shouldn’t show their faces on an Imperial Star Destroyer played a significant role.
“What do we do if she doesn’t come? If she’s captured?” asked Wrecker nervously, looking anxiously at his brother.
Tech sighed softly. He really preferred not to answer that. He wouldn’t know how they were going to get you out of a Star Destroyer.
“She wasn’t captured,” he simply said instead.
Wrecker leaned against the shuttle and grumbled, “How can you be so sure?”
“I’m not, but anything else would be fatal. Y/N has a knack for wriggling out of dangerous situations, you know that,” Tech replied, glancing at his holo pad again.
“Oh,” he said suddenly.
“What?” asked Wrecker, lurking.
“There was an unforeseen Escape pod launch, but the transponder signal dropped out. Could have landed anywhere,” he muttered.
“Oh great. That’s Y/N for sure! How do we find her now?”
Crosshair woke up from his unconsciousness with a mild headache and a sore shoulder. His grey hair was all messed up from wearing his helmet all day. He growled a low curse, slowly straightened himself into a sitting position, and looked around.
The pod was damaged but the shell was intact. However, he saw at first glance that the transponder was useless. You lay to his left. In the crash you had lost your uniform cap, Your lips were slightly parted. You lay on the hard metal floor of the pod, the too tight blouse had opened a little and he could see a little of your tasteful cleavage. All in all, he thought you were exceptionally pretty, he’d noticed that before. And if he wasn’t so angry about the crash and the fact that you were one of the rebels, he could even enjoy the sight and imagine asking you to go out with him.
But of course, fate had brought the two of you together under very inopportune circumstances. When he reached for your neck to feel for your pulse, you jumped at his touch and slapped his hand away. You looked confused and a little panicked when you tried to straighten up but lost your balance and fell with your back against the wall of the pod.
“Get your hands off me!” you demanded with a rough undertone in your voice.
He glared at you with his golden brown eyes, one of wich encircled with a Crosshairs tatoo. “I just wanted to take your pulse. Look what you did! We ended up in damn nowhere and the transponder is gone! Outside the pod there are freezing temperatures and no one will come looking for us.”
You snorted: “They won’t be looking for you, but my people will definitely come to pick me up”
As you spoke, you did a few taps on the communication device on you wrist.
He laughed humorlessly “Clever, a com with a long-range transponder function. Could be one of my brohter’s ideas”
You smiled smugly. But the smile froze when you saw that he was smiling too and cast a strange look at the device on your wrist.
“Don’t even think about it,” you pressed out warningly.
Your eyes met.
“I bet I can reprogram the transponder to an imperial frequency. Then my people and not yours would pick us up”
You rolled your sleeve back over the device, hugging your arm protectively.
“You won’t!” You hissed at him.
“What is your name?” he asked in a calm voice.
“What?!” it came from your lips in disbelief.
“Your name, Kitten? I’m assuming you have one,” he repeated.
“That does not concern you!”
Crosshair sighed.
“My name is Crosshair”
He noticed that you were going pale.
Could it be, could it really be him? How are the chances? The tatoo on his face should have already told you who he was, but in your panicked state you hadn’t really noticed before.
“I’ve heard that name before. You are one of the clones, of clone force 99.”
Crosshairs face became a stone mask.
“I see, you met my brothers I guess. Did they sent you? Did Hunter sent you?”
“You betrayed them”
Crosshair looked downright hurt when he replied defiantly: “I did what was necessary, what the Empire asked of me”
You shook your head in disbelief.
“I’m not sure if you are looking for excuses for your actions or if you are really that blind and simple-minded,” you said in a low, serious voice.
“The Empire is bringing order to the chaos that you rebels have created, you wretched remnants of a failed republic. We bring law and order to the galaxy” he spoke harshly “Good soldiers follow orders!”
You laughed out loud and without humor.
“You are really serious, you really are that stupid. You call genocide law and order ?! Tyranny, persecution, disenfranchisement … that is your idea of law and order?! You are either much more stupid than you look or abnormal fanatical. How can you be so blind to the injustices of the Empire? ”
Your words gnawed at him, you could see that clearly, but he decided not to go into it. Instead he reached out a big strong, gloved hand in your direction and said: “Give me the transponder”
You shook your head once more.
“Your moral compass has obviously suffered a total loss at some point in your life and no, I will not give you the transponder voluntarily. I am aware that I have no chance against you in a fight. But you can be sure that I will give everything to defend the device ”
Crosshair clenched his fists, then relaxed them again.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ll do it if I have to, don’t make it harder for you than it has to be. If the Empire picks us up here, you’ll get a fair trial.”
You snorted again.
“A fair trial? They will torture me until I have told them everything I know about the rebel movement, then I will be executed. If you are honest with yourself, you will know that too,” you said in a calm, almost resigned tone.
From one second to the next, he came up to you resolutely. You knew what he was up to, still holding the arm with the transponder on your wrist protectively.