Mild body horror! Depictions of unwanted cybernetics, typical star wars violence, all animals are fine n unharmed
Completely Gender neutral, no use of y/n, no depiction of appearance outside of cybernetic implant thingy !
Summary:
Set pre Echo Clone Wars. Reader stole a cybernetic implant from separatist father to try and hinder his inhumane plans. The ship has crashed on an uninhabited planet. Now its a matter of repairing the ship before anyone shows up to take their prisoner.
Word Count 5k~
Previous Chapter-
Ch 1.
Ch 2.
The landing itself was a flurry of back and forth snippy comments between the brothers. Mostly a lot of “ I have it under control. “ and variations of “it doesn’t look like you have it under control.” Your head pounded at the very back. The lack of sleep, lack of food, and having to constantly be on edge all the time was starting to get to you. Everyone was disoriented, the larger clone especially. You saw him lay down on the pretty grimy floor of the ship relieved. The sniper stood up next to him to tease him and almost lost his balance, and you tried to stifle a snicker. Even though you barely made a noise your expression and mannerism was enough to get to him. The gray haired one snapped his head towards you, and it looks like you might regret your stifled noise. He took one step towards you but was interrupted by the one with the bandana again.
“All in all. That was not one of my worst landings.”
“ Yeah well I beg to differ.” The larger clone grumbled from the floor.
There was a tense spark between the clone with longer hair and his taller brother before they spoke. In the back of your mind you wondered if there was any way to exploit that to escape. “Tech, how's the long range communicator.”
“It is functional.” You could see some relief in those around you. “ However.” That quickly snuffed any hope. “Our current position is blocked by the two larger moons in orbit. They are preventing us from sending out long range communication.”
“We can’t sit here and wait. We don’t know if the seppies or the bounty hunters are hot on our trail.” He steps closer towards his brother with the goggles and you feel slightly less safe without your human shield from the clone with the crosshair tattoo.
He is looking at his datapad, and adjusts his goggles before speaking. “According to my data, we are here during a rare occurrence of their orbital path. We should be able to send out communication within three days.”
The clone with the bandana seems to hate that news and immediately barks back, “three days!”
“ Yes. That is precisely what I said.” You have to stifle another snicker at his nonchalant answer. And you see not only the lanky clone glare at you this time but the leader throws you one too.
The clone with the bandana stops looking at you and pinches the bridge of his nose. He lets out a heavy burdened sigh. “Alright. We need to find materials to get our ship as close to functional as possible. We can’t afford to wait. Our prisoner could somehow be tracked.”
“I already scanned for trackers and found no outgoing signals.” He stops looking at his datapad to correct him.
“We can’t count on that, we don’t know enough about what we’re dealing with.” His tone is heavy and serious. And his gaze on you feels like he is aware of every inhuman ability you could possess that you don’t even know about. Swallowing dryly does not help, but you can’t help but fidget.
“ The planet is mostly uninhabited. So we do not have to worry about someone leaking information of our crash.” You don’t know if this is an attempt to lighten the mood. But it definitely does not help, no town means no city you can slip away or escape to. You’ll be out of supplies and in the middle of nowhere if you try to escape now.
“Mostly?” You hear the snake-like tone come from over your shoulder. You take a half step away from it desperate for space.
“The Republic files don’t list anything of note. And there is no civilized population for us to run into. There is an abandoned mining facility about 2 and a half klicks away.” He looks up from his data pad and the larger clone is now standing and he groans hearing the distance.
“We need to strip it to make our ship as functional as possible.” The leader puts on his helmet, with a hard to read expression but something about his demeanor is putting you on edge. The others start to do the same, gathering up their gear. You recognize the larger one has his gun back after you had pulled it out of his hands.
You stand unsure what to do, mostly just assessing your surroundings. Are they really going to make you walk almost three clicks with them? You’re in no shape to do that, you don’t have armor and your clothes wouldn’t be enough to protect you from any fauna constantly brushing against you. The four clones have their gear situated and head for the gangplank door. But it's malfunctioning. It shudders open for a good few seconds but immediately closes again, only to open half a second later. The one with goggles messes with the control panel trying to fix the manic door.
“ It would appear someone may have tampered with our door when we captured the prisoner“ He says while not looking behind, still nose deep in fixing. After a moment he had a breakthrough and the door opened revealing a green and thick unfamiliar jungle around you. There’s a small clearing where you are but the ground was clearly disturbed by the crash. Half split trees, and large rocks pushed out of the ship’s way.
You don’t dare to move without instruction. You can see the sniper’s hand just barely grazing over his smaller blaster. He’s waiting for you to just make one wrong move. The leader speaks up again, “Crosshair you stay behind with the prisoner -“
You see him unmistakably tense and he’s about to form a rebuttal but is cut off. “ You stay here. We need a lookout, the rest of us will strip the mines for parts.We need someone to stay with the ship.” Even though the one named Crosshair is irritated it doesn’t seem like there’s anything he can say to win the other over.
They started to file out of the ship, you think this is Tech stopped to make one more comment. “ Oh to shut the door again you will have to rewire these three separate components and reverse this fluxator, but it is not advised. We may have to pry the door open if you close it.”
And with that you saw the other three clones disappear into the jungle. You did not envy them, it was humid, and you’re sure they were due to encounter something.
You sat back down in the same chair. It’s not like your warden seemed up for small talk or anything other than you being still and doing nothing. Part of you felt like you could relax a bit more now. It didn’t seem like the tall one to talk - who you heard the leader call Crossedhair? Maybe your focus is drifting from exhaustion. One look over at him and you can see he has pulled out his long sniper rifle to clean. Maybe that’s a subtle warning, but he seemed to like more directly threatening you. Slumping down in the same seat you end up closing your eyes. This may be the only chance you get to rest for a while. It’s worth it, it might mean you can outrun your captors for just a few seconds more.
Your dreams are tense. The feeling of being watched, hunted. Repetitions of that past week blurring in front of your face. It’s hot, you can’t tell if it’s the dream or the open ship door to the jungle. Something knocks your seat and it stirs you a little. But not enough to pull you out of your stupor. But a harsh kick to your foot rips you from sleep. A sharp small hiss escapes your mouth and your binders chafe your wrists as you wake. You expect something to have hit you by mistake, but you see harsh amber eyes staring at you. It’s the sniper staring directly at you. So much for a good while of rest.
He’s holding something in his hand, in your drowsy state it takes a second before you realize it’s a few ration bars. “Eat.” He hisses out.
Your brow furrows but you're not quick enough to catch the ration bar he throws at you being handcuffed. The thanks under your breath is low, unsure if you're actually grateful. But upsetting him more now while alone doesn’t seem wise. But you hear a huff in response. Part of you is jokingly thinking it’s poisoned, but seeing him undo the wrapper on his bar and start to eat proves it’s probably safe. Looking at the bar feels heavy. It’s food, good food, well not good but something that isn’t gruel. You should feel ecstatic however it feels like an overwhelming task. Eating it is sluggish, it feels like it drags on. But this is probably the most you ate in one sitting for quite a while.
You hear the clicks of his rifle being disassembled again. Is he really taking it apart again to clean it? Looking over the ship again the light is filtered in from the open doorway. It’s still around midday, but you hope the day cycles are long. The thought of having to sleep with an open doorway into the wild is unnerving. The ship is rather still with only one other occupant. It’s all rather quiet except for the hum of life coming from the dense tree line. To disturb the small semblance of peace would probably just upset your roommate even more. It’s a nice moment of quiet in a flurry of being chased, shot at, and hiding.
Leaning back in the seat it doesn't have much give but it could be worse. It’s more comfortable than the barren floors you've been lying on to get by. You turn the chair slightly to watch the outside, just for something to do. Maybe you’ll see something small and flying that can interest you, rather than the durasteel wall. If you watch the sniper clean his rifle for more than two seconds you’re worried he’ll shoot you with it. Especially when there’s no guy in the bandana to stop him.
The jungle is dense, but in this clearing it gives you some space. And the grass is rather long outside the ship, the thought crosses your mind. Something could hide in it. Brushing that off you just keep looking through the doorway. It’s green, and the thick vines weave between the trees. You can see under the canopy of leaves it’s so layered very little light filters through the bottom.
“What.” His voice is annoyed and laced with venom directed straight at you, but he is confused.
You turn in your chair to face him confused, even just looking at nothing you manage to upset him. “What?” It’s a dumb response. You scold yourself a little but you don’t understand why he is bothering you.
“What are you looking at.” His voice is the same annoyed tone. But it feels like he is trying to make it clear he doesn’t trust you. Crosshair’s gun is clean and it’s sitting in its case. It seems he doesn’t have anything else to do other than watch the prisoner. He must really think you're dangerous.
After blinking in surprise a few times, “ literally nothing. There’s nothing to do.” You clarify, looking him over but he still regards you with suspicion. Is that because he knows there is something out there and is keeping watch? You shake that thought from your head, there’s nothing you reassure yourself. Although that comfort is a dangerous thing, to lull yourself into a false security.
Crosshair sighs in annoyance, and drops the topic for now. But his keen eyes look over you as if to discover something new this time that he hadn’t for the past three hours. You take this time to look him over, since he is not currently alarmed right now by you. He’s just sitting around the same as you but he has the entertainment of a datapad, lucky. He is still wearing armor even in this downtime, bucket off and to the side. The design of his helmet is different than you had ever seen in the documentation of clone troopers. His armor is clearly specialized and not that pristine white you had come to familiarize yourself with in holos.
It’s not like you had seen many clones after you moved back home to your newly separatist planet to take care of your father. Well then things escalated, and you weren’t able to leave until you did. Clearing the memory from your mind you try to think of the present moment.
“What.” He says again and his body shifts tenser than before.
Not this again. “ Your armor.. it’s different.” You admit what you were thinking because he might neutralize you if you're not honest.
“Because we’re better.” He seems pleased that you noticed the difference, and it eases some of the tension between you two. But it’s not really enough to make either of you two comfortable.
You have nothing better to do and this is as close as small talk or any conversation you can make with this guy. “Better..?” Your tone is hesitant, if you're too insistent Crosshair might think you’re trying to interrogate him.
“Better than the regs.” His tone is flat, but it’s missing some of the very harsh irritation that was laced in before. Is that short for regulars or something else? You nod as if you understand but the partial confusion in your brow shows you do not. But he doesn’t care to clarify. Part of you is relieved to have had a small fragment of a conversation. You want to prove you’re not the gutless weapon thief he had made you out to be. Silence falls over the ship again, but this time you feel a little better having somewhat talked.
Staring out into the luscious mess of greens and browns outside the ship is enough to occupy you again. The day cycle is definitely not going to last too much longer, as the light is starting to turn into vivid oranges. It’s almost relaxing like watching paint dry. Your peace is interrupted when something stirs far back in the tree line. Part of you thinks it’s a threat, while you try to brush it off. However you don’t take your eyes off it. You try to relax your posture so Crosshair doesn’t scold you for being scared over nothing. Or perhaps he’ll jump into action leaving you behind. There’s a few moments of silence, but you let the breath you were holding ease into your natural rhythm again. Maybe it really was nothing. But a blinking light interrupts your focused gaze. The sniper gets up and heads to the controls of the cockpit. You can tell he doesn’t like whatever alarm went off as he moves with a purpose to grab his helmet.
“Something’s out there.” Is all he spares you before pulling his rifle out. He looks through the open door way through his rifle scope trying to spot whatever caused the disturbance of the ship’s proximity sensor. Your breath tightens and you stand up in an anxious rush to see what’s out there. The sniper flinches looking back at your sudden movement before sending out the gangplank and peering around. Crosshair’s steps are very precise and measured, you can barely hear his steps. The only sound is when a breeze blows through the clearing. Everything feels still for a moment, and you cross your fingers that whatever it was moved on. That it was some small womp rat that was just causing a ruckus.
As closer to the end of the durasteel gangplank Crosshair gets, you want to tell him to stop. There is something churning in your gut that is telling you to be on edge.
A few minutes pass.
Another couple more pass.
Nothing stirs. You’re not sure if you’re remembering to breathe.
He lowers his rifle and pulls down the range finder on his helmet. As he stands there the last of daylights slithers away from the world in front you.
It’s starting to get dark. The massive canopy of trees makes it looks like the world stops at the edge of the pasture.
You hear a modulated sigh. There’s nothing and you feel relief. He starts to head up the gangplank of the ship and you move to sit back down.
All you do is blink, but somehow you miss it. Crosshair is no longer on the gangplank. It's a blur of gray, white, and brown. You hear a grunt and struggle before seeing two blaster bolts fly off randomly. You’re about to run down to see what the hell is going on. You’re about to step down to assist but you see two more sets of eyes. You want to help but you can see one of the creatures in the brush crawl into view. It’s leaning back and it looks like it’s ready to pounce. Something clicks in the back of your head, it’s a Choku. The four legs, distinct brown and white striping pattern. Its jaws form into a beak, and you can hear one snapping at the clone to the side. Backing up slowly you still hear the struggle of blaster fire. Crosshair is clearly still fighting but he is out of view. But you're about to have your hands just as full.
Stepping back into the ship, carefully you don’t take your eyes off the predators. Your foot catches on something , and you feel yourself go backwards onto the harsh steel floor. You hear the claws scraping as it runs towards you and there’s little time to do anything but throw your arms up. The beak comes clashing down on you. It’s thrashing, desperate and hungry. The clack of the jawis deafening. It’s all you can see as it comes down on you. Holding your hands up, the binders, now seemingly weak, are what’s able to hold this beast back. It’s clacking its beak like maws on the heavy durasteel and it’s starting to weaken with every thrash. You don’t have much else to defend yourself trying to pull it together, a sharp snap pulls you out of your thoughts.
The binders break in its jaws. And in less than breath a strong electrical current pulses through your flesh, bone and skull. It’s bright and it’s tingling through every inch of your body in sharp needles. As well as the creature. You smell the burning flesh and your head is very heavy. Fighting the urge to fall asleep you lull over to the side. You hear the whining of the animal before it stumbles off you, scurrying away. Its claws clack against the floor as it runs off into the brush. Shaking your head you try to clear your consciousness. It’s heavy and you might pass out if you don’t stop moving, but you can’t leave the clone outside to die.
Pushing yourself up the cold metal surfaces are soothing, but a temporary comfort. You’ve heard only three blaster shots outside right now in the past minute. You just hope it’s not too late. There’s a half open crate farther back in the ship. Taking a wild chance you slide the top open, it’s mostly survival supplies but you see a flare gun. Hopefully it’s good enough you don’t have time to sit and look for more. Grabbing the flare gun you feel light headed rushing to the gangplank.
You don’t see the Choku that nearly clamped your head off. But there’s two circling Crosshair. He’s fucked.
His helmet is off to the side with his armor dirty and more scuffed than you remembered. He’s still got his rifle in hand at least, thank the maker. You make sure nothing is about to attack you from behind before you line the flare gun directly at the Choku behind him. You’re close enough to where it should do some damage to scare it off if it’s a direct hit.
Pulling the trigger it’s bright in the evening. It hits the Choku in the face, you think. It reels and scatters into the grass, scampering off.
You go to reload the flare capsule but it’s too late. Crosshair shoots the second one but it’s not deterred enough, and it's able to get the jump on him. It pounces fighting for control over his rifle. Before it rips it out of his grasp with its strong jaws. It goes clattering to the side in the grass. He’s on the ground being pinned down barely holding it back with his bare hands. The flare gun is practically useless in your hands, something is jammed or maybe it’s a dumb user error but you can’t keep failing. You make a quick sprint to where you thought the long blaster was discarded pushing around long blades of grass that are making your job more difficult. You can’t see where it was thrown but a whisper in your ear tells you to reach. Closing your eyes, you do.
The metal makes contact with your hand and you open your eyes. Maybe there’s a magnet hidden in the cybernetic. You’ve never held a rifle this large or military grade. Flying by the seat of your pants you rush to the sight line of the two fighting. It looks like he is about to lose. Pulling the trigger four times you hit two direct shots and one near miss. You could’ve sworn all four should’ve made it+.
The creature lets out a cry, whether it’s pain or anger you can’t tell. It steps off its prey and gets lost in the overgrown pasture. There’s no time to waste. After a beat your run to his side, Crosshair looks like shit for sure. You offer a hand and he takes his rifle to stand on like a crutch. Trying to avoid your help, primarily using the rifle but he’s unsteady. He’s forced to take your assistance into the ship but he clearly doesn’t like it. After the sniper is on the ship you grab the helmet that was thrown to the side by the gangplank. Everything is on the ship and accounted for.
He had moved to sit down in the seats along the wall. “Hunter….” No answer. “ Hunter… Tech.” No Answer. He growls in response, either there is something wrong with his comms or something wrong on the other end. Which might be rather concerning.
The sniper stands up to do something, and honestly you’re surprised he’s still standing. You can easily imagine what fighting off two of the creatures would’ve felt like. He starts pushing crates to the door, but he looks lightheaded. You decide to help him. It’s better for your own survival that way anyways. He seems adamant about not wanting to rewire the door shut, he could end up locking his own brothers out. But at least this is something for now. Once finished you slump back down in your seat. Exhaustion is pulling you closer to the bottom of this chair. It feels good to just sit down for a moment after the whole ordeal. You could go to sleep, but the way your head pounds as if it's trying to fight its way out suggests otherwise.
Something metallic scrapes on the floor behind you.
And your chair spins with so much force causing you to see stars. It’s an extremely pissed looking Crosshair.
“How did you get these off.”
Between the spin and the adrenaline wearing off you stammer lost and confused. Until you realize he’s holding the heavy now mangled binders. Holding your hands up defense and partly panic, “the choku broke it off.” Your voice has to find itself in the beginning caught so off guard. It isn’t till half a second later you see his smaller blaster pistol pointed at you. So much for a thank you.
“ Choku?” He repeats back, but it’s more accusatory than curious. Your heart is in your throat. You’re not sure if you’re going to make it back to Coruscant for your formal interrogation alive at this point.
Pointing a hand to the doorway, “ th- that’s what those creatures were.” Stumbling over your own words you figure out what you mean to say halfway through.
Crosshair’s brow furrows deeper in thought. It looks like he’s deciding what to do with you. He’s alone, without back up, with someone who has control of an experimental Separatist weapon that they have no idea how to use.
Something wet is on your left forearm, your gaze flits to it. It takes a second glance to figure out what has dripped itself onto you. It’s unmistakably a few splatters of blood. Looking back up at the clone ready to put a blaster bolt between your eyes you realize there is the same red liquid dribbling down the back of his neck.
“You’re bleeding.” You cut him off with certainty.
He gives you just a little bit more space to check, not a lot. And a gloved hand goes to the back of his neck to check. Low and behold, it comes back crimson. A huff of annoyance comes from him. Crosshair turns his focus back to you, “ Don’t think you’re getting out of this.”
“You need that cleaned.”
“I’ll clean it.”
“Can you even reach it? How could you clean that properly?”
“My brothers will handle it, Seppie.”
“And how long will that be? It could be infected before they come back - you’re kriffed if you get sick here.”
He’s irritated and he wants to have something better to say than “ Shut it.” Emphasizing the blaster in his hand.
“Be reasonable. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve let the Choku get you. You can keep your blaster on me the whole time, but let me clean it.” You didn’t have much care for your captor, but the sniper hasn’t killed you yet. He’s still a sentient being. Maybe it is the Separatist propaganda in the back of your mind. The one that pities the clones, and spits on the Republic. You remember your father’s talking points that the Republic enslaves them with no promise of a normal life at the end of the tunnel.
At this point Crosshair has no better rebuttal. He made something akin to a slight growl of disapproval before speaking. “ Fine.” He spits out and with that he heads deeper into the ship. He comes back with weaker binders. Enough to partially restrain you, but not nearly as technologically advanced as the first ones. “These go back on when you’re done.”
Something flashes in your mind, he’s scared. You can’t tell if it’s something the force is telling you, or you feel that way just looking at him. “Fine.” You have to give him something. And as soon as his brothers come back you’re sure there will be a tighter lock down.
He grabs a medkit from the fresher and opens it up for you. Crosshair is still brandishing his blaster at you, clearly still bothered by the fact you have to help.
The stoic clone sits down in the cockpit, his back facing you. His blaster is angled in a way that shows he could end this in a blink, or one single misstep of yours.
You’re no medical professional, but that doesn’t mean you won’t try to give him the best care until he can see someone properly trained. You clean your hands with the disinfectant wipe provided. Before carefully beginning to wash out the wound with another bacta based wipe. If this part hurts him you can barely tell.
The slash is on the nape of his neck going into the base of his skull, it's almost the length of your hand. It’s not super deep, but it needs to be cleaned. And if it’s from the creatures, the bacteria it carries is a bigger threat. It’s not bleeding profusely which is a good sign so far. It’s between the spot his helmet and armor doesn’t cover. Taking steady breaths you dry off most of the blood cleaning the whole area. You’re silently replaying the memory of almost becoming some creature’s lunch. And the way Crosshair is silent and deathly still, there’s a good chance he might be thinking the same. For facing off against two predators alone, he did pretty good.
You get into the groove of gently cleaning it, but now you apply anti septic and this part will certainly hurt more. You give him a verbal warning that it may sting but he brushes you off. Occasionally while cleaning you see his grip on the blaster tighten. It makes you pause, wondering how much it actually hurts him. Finally you moved on to applying the soothing bacta, and his grip isn’t white knuckles anymore.
It’s been silent for the whole time except for a few words. You’re feeling bold, maybe it’s because you did save his life.
“I’m not a Separatist you know.” Your voice is calm and carries a focus showing you're still working.
His brow furrows for a second, not expecting you to speak like this. But Crosshair recovers. “Born to a Separatist. Lived off of a Separatist. You’re a Separatist.” His tone is snarky and distasteful.
You puff air slightly annoyed at his black and white view. “That doesn’t actually make me a Separatist, that just makes me someone surrounded by Separatists.” You keep up the banter, but your tone has a slight bitter edge, you’re more upset about it than he is.
Crosshair seems to relish in the fact he is getting under your skin. “So what does that make you then? A coward?” His tone is just teasing you now, it seems like it’s trying to get you more irritated at this point. It’s insane to be antagonized after you had gone out your way to save him and lick his wounds.
“A coward?” Your blood is starting to simmer, but taking a breath you’re trying to get it under control. You snap, reaching your limit. “A coward doesn’t steal a Separatist weapon and almost dies trying to pry it out of their hands.”
Your opinion of yourself isn’t really that high, but you can’t stand the name calling. Smoothing over the bacta patch you finish and step away. But before you can Crosshair grabs your forearm and slaps on the binders. He's extremely nimble for someone so tall, and for some reason that irks you. But this was the deal. You’re hoping maybe, just maybe Crosshair had the slightest bit of empathy for you after everything. The silence is broken when the comm crackles to life before either of you can make the situation worse.
“Crosshair? Come in.” The voice is unmistakably the leader, but the signal doesn’t sound all that great. But they must be on the way back through better reception then.
“Hunter. We ran into some trouble earlier.”
“What kind of trouble..?” Even though he’s asking, something in your gut knows that you and his brother went through a struggle.
“There was a pack of creatures but we drove them off.” He doesn't make eye contact at all with you looking at the comm, and really preferred they had some kind of makeshift prison to stick you in. His focus is solely on his brothers.
You can’t help but think that he said we. And it seems his other brother caught on as well.
“We?... Doesn’t matter are either of you are injured?” The signal sounds like it's getting stronger but they have a long trek to make it back from the abandoned mine. Not to mention they would be slower with anything they stripped from it on their backs.
“We’re fine.” You probably would both have bruises in the morning, but nothing lasting at least.
There's a pause on the other end, as if there is some disbelief. “Alright. We’re less than one klick out. We’ll be there soon. Our mission was successful.” You hear a cheer of agreeance from someone else in the background and you can only assume it's the larger clone. He really seems like the only one that knows how to smile. Even though Crosshair should be relieved, something thick in the air tells you it's gonna be a long wait.
You sit in the third chair in the cockpit, because if you wander too far you the clone might just lock you in the fresher. You know if both of you had the choice neither of you would want to be in the same room as the other. Both you have to make do for now as uncomfortable as it is. The ship had never felt so small.
A/n: really genuine thanks to everyone who has been so kind I typically do not post what I write so it means a lot :)
Mild body horror! Depictions of unwanted cybernetics, typical star wars violence, all animals are fine n unharmed
Completely Gender neutral, no use of y/n, no depiction of appearance outside of cybernetic implant thingy !
Summary:
Set pre Echo Clone Wars. Reader stole a cybernetic implant from separatist father to try and hinder his inhumane plans. The ship has crashed on an uninhabited planet. Now its a matter of repairing the ship before anyone shows up to take their prisoner.
Word Count 5k~
Previous Chapter-
Ch 1.
Ch 2.
The landing itself was a flurry of back and forth snippy comments between the brothers. Mostly a lot of “ I have it under control. “ and variations of “it doesn’t look like you have it under control.” Your head pounded at the very back. The lack of sleep, lack of food, and having to constantly be on edge all the time was starting to get to you. Everyone was disoriented, the larger clone especially. You saw him lay down on the pretty grimy floor of the ship relieved. The sniper stood up next to him to tease him and almost lost his balance, and you tried to stifle a snicker. Even though you barely made a noise your expression and mannerism was enough to get to him. The gray haired one snapped his head towards you, and it looks like you might regret your stifled noise. He took one step towards you but was interrupted by the one with the bandana again.
“All in all. That was not one of my worst landings.”
“ Yeah well I beg to differ.” The larger clone grumbled from the floor.
There was a tense spark between the clone with longer hair and his taller brother before they spoke. In the back of your mind you wondered if there was any way to exploit that to escape. “Tech, how's the long range communicator.”
“It is functional.” You could see some relief in those around you. “ However.” That quickly snuffed any hope. “Our current position is blocked by the two larger moons in orbit. They are preventing us from sending out long range communication.”
“We can’t sit here and wait. We don’t know if the seppies or the bounty hunters are hot on our trail.” He steps closer towards his brother with the goggles and you feel slightly less safe without your human shield from the clone with the crosshair tattoo.
He is looking at his datapad, and adjusts his goggles before speaking. “According to my data, we are here during a rare occurrence of their orbital path. We should be able to send out communication within three days.”
The clone with the bandana seems to hate that news and immediately barks back, “three days!”
“ Yes. That is precisely what I said.” You have to stifle another snicker at his nonchalant answer. And you see not only the lanky clone glare at you this time but the leader throws you one too.
The clone with the bandana stops looking at you and pinches the bridge of his nose. He lets out a heavy burdened sigh. “Alright. We need to find materials to get our ship as close to functional as possible. We can’t afford to wait. Our prisoner could somehow be tracked.”
“I already scanned for trackers and found no outgoing signals.” He stops looking at his datapad to correct him.
“We can’t count on that, we don’t know enough about what we’re dealing with.” His tone is heavy and serious. And his gaze on you feels like he is aware of every inhuman ability you could possess that you don’t even know about. Swallowing dryly does not help, but you can’t help but fidget.
“ The planet is mostly uninhabited. So we do not have to worry about someone leaking information of our crash.” You don’t know if this is an attempt to lighten the mood. But it definitely does not help, no town means no city you can slip away or escape to. You’ll be out of supplies and in the middle of nowhere if you try to escape now.
“Mostly?” You hear the snake-like tone come from over your shoulder. You take a half step away from it desperate for space.
“The Republic files don’t list anything of note. And there is no civilized population for us to run into. There is an abandoned mining facility about 2 and a half klicks away.” He looks up from his data pad and the larger clone is now standing and he groans hearing the distance.
“We need to strip it to make our ship as functional as possible.” The leader puts on his helmet, with a hard to read expression but something about his demeanor is putting you on edge. The others start to do the same, gathering up their gear. You recognize the larger one has his gun back after you had pulled it out of his hands.
You stand unsure what to do, mostly just assessing your surroundings. Are they really going to make you walk almost three clicks with them? You’re in no shape to do that, you don’t have armor and your clothes wouldn’t be enough to protect you from any fauna constantly brushing against you. The four clones have their gear situated and head for the gangplank door. But it's malfunctioning. It shudders open for a good few seconds but immediately closes again, only to open half a second later. The one with goggles messes with the control panel trying to fix the manic door.
“ It would appear someone may have tampered with our door when we captured the prisoner“ He says while not looking behind, still nose deep in fixing. After a moment he had a breakthrough and the door opened revealing a green and thick unfamiliar jungle around you. There’s a small clearing where you are but the ground was clearly disturbed by the crash. Half split trees, and large rocks pushed out of the ship’s way.
You don’t dare to move without instruction. You can see the sniper’s hand just barely grazing over his smaller blaster. He’s waiting for you to just make one wrong move. The leader speaks up again, “Crosshair you stay behind with the prisoner -“
You see him unmistakably tense and he’s about to form a rebuttal but is cut off. “ You stay here. We need a lookout, the rest of us will strip the mines for parts.We need someone to stay with the ship.” Even though the one named Crosshair is irritated it doesn’t seem like there’s anything he can say to win the other over.
They started to file out of the ship, you think this is Tech stopped to make one more comment. “ Oh to shut the door again you will have to rewire these three separate components and reverse this fluxator, but it is not advised. We may have to pry the door open if you close it.”
And with that you saw the other three clones disappear into the jungle. You did not envy them, it was humid, and you’re sure they were due to encounter something.
You sat back down in the same chair. It’s not like your warden seemed up for small talk or anything other than you being still and doing nothing. Part of you felt like you could relax a bit more now. It didn’t seem like the tall one to talk - who you heard the leader call Crossedhair? Maybe your focus is drifting from exhaustion. One look over at him and you can see he has pulled out his long sniper rifle to clean. Maybe that’s a subtle warning, but he seemed to like more directly threatening you. Slumping down in the same seat you end up closing your eyes. This may be the only chance you get to rest for a while. It’s worth it, it might mean you can outrun your captors for just a few seconds more.
Your dreams are tense. The feeling of being watched, hunted. Repetitions of that past week blurring in front of your face. It’s hot, you can’t tell if it’s the dream or the open ship door to the jungle. Something knocks your seat and it stirs you a little. But not enough to pull you out of your stupor. But a harsh kick to your foot rips you from sleep. A sharp small hiss escapes your mouth and your binders chafe your wrists as you wake. You expect something to have hit you by mistake, but you see harsh amber eyes staring at you. It’s the sniper staring directly at you. So much for a good while of rest.
He’s holding something in his hand, in your drowsy state it takes a second before you realize it’s a few ration bars. “Eat.” He hisses out.
Your brow furrows but you're not quick enough to catch the ration bar he throws at you being handcuffed. The thanks under your breath is low, unsure if you're actually grateful. But upsetting him more now while alone doesn’t seem wise. But you hear a huff in response. Part of you is jokingly thinking it’s poisoned, but seeing him undo the wrapper on his bar and start to eat proves it’s probably safe. Looking at the bar feels heavy. It’s food, good food, well not good but something that isn’t gruel. You should feel ecstatic however it feels like an overwhelming task. Eating it is sluggish, it feels like it drags on. But this is probably the most you ate in one sitting for quite a while.
You hear the clicks of his rifle being disassembled again. Is he really taking it apart again to clean it? Looking over the ship again the light is filtered in from the open doorway. It’s still around midday, but you hope the day cycles are long. The thought of having to sleep with an open doorway into the wild is unnerving. The ship is rather still with only one other occupant. It’s all rather quiet except for the hum of life coming from the dense tree line. To disturb the small semblance of peace would probably just upset your roommate even more. It’s a nice moment of quiet in a flurry of being chased, shot at, and hiding.
Leaning back in the seat it doesn't have much give but it could be worse. It’s more comfortable than the barren floors you've been lying on to get by. You turn the chair slightly to watch the outside, just for something to do. Maybe you’ll see something small and flying that can interest you, rather than the durasteel wall. If you watch the sniper clean his rifle for more than two seconds you’re worried he’ll shoot you with it. Especially when there’s no guy in the bandana to stop him.
The jungle is dense, but in this clearing it gives you some space. And the grass is rather long outside the ship, the thought crosses your mind. Something could hide in it. Brushing that off you just keep looking through the doorway. It’s green, and the thick vines weave between the trees. You can see under the canopy of leaves it’s so layered very little light filters through the bottom.
“What.” His voice is annoyed and laced with venom directed straight at you, but he is confused.
You turn in your chair to face him confused, even just looking at nothing you manage to upset him. “What?” It’s a dumb response. You scold yourself a little but you don’t understand why he is bothering you.
“What are you looking at.” His voice is the same annoyed tone. But it feels like he is trying to make it clear he doesn’t trust you. Crosshair’s gun is clean and it’s sitting in its case. It seems he doesn’t have anything else to do other than watch the prisoner. He must really think you're dangerous.
After blinking in surprise a few times, “ literally nothing. There’s nothing to do.” You clarify, looking him over but he still regards you with suspicion. Is that because he knows there is something out there and is keeping watch? You shake that thought from your head, there’s nothing you reassure yourself. Although that comfort is a dangerous thing, to lull yourself into a false security.
Crosshair sighs in annoyance, and drops the topic for now. But his keen eyes look over you as if to discover something new this time that he hadn’t for the past three hours. You take this time to look him over, since he is not currently alarmed right now by you. He’s just sitting around the same as you but he has the entertainment of a datapad, lucky. He is still wearing armor even in this downtime, bucket off and to the side. The design of his helmet is different than you had ever seen in the documentation of clone troopers. His armor is clearly specialized and not that pristine white you had come to familiarize yourself with in holos.
It’s not like you had seen many clones after you moved back home to your newly separatist planet to take care of your father. Well then things escalated, and you weren’t able to leave until you did. Clearing the memory from your mind you try to think of the present moment.
“What.” He says again and his body shifts tenser than before.
Not this again. “ Your armor.. it’s different.” You admit what you were thinking because he might neutralize you if you're not honest.
“Because we’re better.” He seems pleased that you noticed the difference, and it eases some of the tension between you two. But it’s not really enough to make either of you two comfortable.
You have nothing better to do and this is as close as small talk or any conversation you can make with this guy. “Better..?” Your tone is hesitant, if you're too insistent Crosshair might think you’re trying to interrogate him.
“Better than the regs.” His tone is flat, but it’s missing some of the very harsh irritation that was laced in before. Is that short for regulars or something else? You nod as if you understand but the partial confusion in your brow shows you do not. But he doesn’t care to clarify. Part of you is relieved to have had a small fragment of a conversation. You want to prove you’re not the gutless weapon thief he had made you out to be. Silence falls over the ship again, but this time you feel a little better having somewhat talked.
Staring out into the luscious mess of greens and browns outside the ship is enough to occupy you again. The day cycle is definitely not going to last too much longer, as the light is starting to turn into vivid oranges. It’s almost relaxing like watching paint dry. Your peace is interrupted when something stirs far back in the tree line. Part of you thinks it’s a threat, while you try to brush it off. However you don’t take your eyes off it. You try to relax your posture so Crosshair doesn’t scold you for being scared over nothing. Or perhaps he’ll jump into action leaving you behind. There’s a few moments of silence, but you let the breath you were holding ease into your natural rhythm again. Maybe it really was nothing. But a blinking light interrupts your focused gaze. The sniper gets up and heads to the controls of the cockpit. You can tell he doesn’t like whatever alarm went off as he moves with a purpose to grab his helmet.
“Something’s out there.” Is all he spares you before pulling his rifle out. He looks through the open door way through his rifle scope trying to spot whatever caused the disturbance of the ship’s proximity sensor. Your breath tightens and you stand up in an anxious rush to see what’s out there. The sniper flinches looking back at your sudden movement before sending out the gangplank and peering around. Crosshair’s steps are very precise and measured, you can barely hear his steps. The only sound is when a breeze blows through the clearing. Everything feels still for a moment, and you cross your fingers that whatever it was moved on. That it was some small womp rat that was just causing a ruckus.
As closer to the end of the durasteel gangplank Crosshair gets, you want to tell him to stop. There is something churning in your gut that is telling you to be on edge.
A few minutes pass.
Another couple more pass.
Nothing stirs. You’re not sure if you’re remembering to breathe.
He lowers his rifle and pulls down the range finder on his helmet. As he stands there the last of daylights slithers away from the world in front you.
It’s starting to get dark. The massive canopy of trees makes it looks like the world stops at the edge of the pasture.
You hear a modulated sigh. There’s nothing and you feel relief. He starts to head up the gangplank of the ship and you move to sit back down.
All you do is blink, but somehow you miss it. Crosshair is no longer on the gangplank. It's a blur of gray, white, and brown. You hear a grunt and struggle before seeing two blaster bolts fly off randomly. You’re about to run down to see what the hell is going on. You’re about to step down to assist but you see two more sets of eyes. You want to help but you can see one of the creatures in the brush crawl into view. It’s leaning back and it looks like it’s ready to pounce. Something clicks in the back of your head, it’s a Choku. The four legs, distinct brown and white striping pattern. Its jaws form into a beak, and you can hear one snapping at the clone to the side. Backing up slowly you still hear the struggle of blaster fire. Crosshair is clearly still fighting but he is out of view. But you're about to have your hands just as full.
Stepping back into the ship, carefully you don’t take your eyes off the predators. Your foot catches on something , and you feel yourself go backwards onto the harsh steel floor. You hear the claws scraping as it runs towards you and there’s little time to do anything but throw your arms up. The beak comes clashing down on you. It’s thrashing, desperate and hungry. The clack of the jawis deafening. It’s all you can see as it comes down on you. Holding your hands up, the binders, now seemingly weak, are what’s able to hold this beast back. It’s clacking its beak like maws on the heavy durasteel and it’s starting to weaken with every thrash. You don’t have much else to defend yourself trying to pull it together, a sharp snap pulls you out of your thoughts.
The binders break in its jaws. And in less than breath a strong electrical current pulses through your flesh, bone and skull. It’s bright and it’s tingling through every inch of your body in sharp needles. As well as the creature. You smell the burning flesh and your head is very heavy. Fighting the urge to fall asleep you lull over to the side. You hear the whining of the animal before it stumbles off you, scurrying away. Its claws clack against the floor as it runs off into the brush. Shaking your head you try to clear your consciousness. It’s heavy and you might pass out if you don’t stop moving, but you can’t leave the clone outside to die.
Pushing yourself up the cold metal surfaces are soothing, but a temporary comfort. You’ve heard only three blaster shots outside right now in the past minute. You just hope it’s not too late. There’s a half open crate farther back in the ship. Taking a wild chance you slide the top open, it’s mostly survival supplies but you see a flare gun. Hopefully it’s good enough you don’t have time to sit and look for more. Grabbing the flare gun you feel light headed rushing to the gangplank.
You don’t see the Choku that nearly clamped your head off. But there’s two circling Crosshair. He’s fucked.
His helmet is off to the side with his armor dirty and more scuffed than you remembered. He’s still got his rifle in hand at least, thank the maker. You make sure nothing is about to attack you from behind before you line the flare gun directly at the Choku behind him. You’re close enough to where it should do some damage to scare it off if it’s a direct hit.
Pulling the trigger it’s bright in the evening. It hits the Choku in the face, you think. It reels and scatters into the grass, scampering off.
You go to reload the flare capsule but it’s too late. Crosshair shoots the second one but it’s not deterred enough, and it's able to get the jump on him. It pounces fighting for control over his rifle. Before it rips it out of his grasp with its strong jaws. It goes clattering to the side in the grass. He’s on the ground being pinned down barely holding it back with his bare hands. The flare gun is practically useless in your hands, something is jammed or maybe it’s a dumb user error but you can’t keep failing. You make a quick sprint to where you thought the long blaster was discarded pushing around long blades of grass that are making your job more difficult. You can’t see where it was thrown but a whisper in your ear tells you to reach. Closing your eyes, you do.
The metal makes contact with your hand and you open your eyes. Maybe there’s a magnet hidden in the cybernetic. You’ve never held a rifle this large or military grade. Flying by the seat of your pants you rush to the sight line of the two fighting. It looks like he is about to lose. Pulling the trigger four times you hit two direct shots and one near miss. You could’ve sworn all four should’ve made it.
The creature lets out a cry, whether it’s pain or anger you can’t tell. It steps off its prey and gets lost in the overgrown pasture. There’s no time to waste. After a beat your run to his side, Crosshair looks like shit for sure. You offer a hand and he takes his rifle to stand on like a crutch. Trying to avoid your help, primarily using the rifle but he’s unsteady. He’s forced to take your assistance into the ship but he clearly doesn’t like it. After the sniper is on the ship you grab the helmet that was thrown to the side by the gangplank. Everything is on the ship and accounted for.
He had moved to sit down in the seats along the wall. “Hunter….” No answer. “ Hunter… Tech.” No Answer. He growls in response, either there is something wrong with his comms or something wrong on the other end. Which might be rather concerning.
The sniper stands up to do something, and honestly you’re surprised he’s still standing. You can easily imagine what fighting off two of the creatures would’ve felt like. He starts pushing crates to the door, but he looks lightheaded. You decide to help him. It’s better for your own survival that way anyways. He seems adamant about not wanting to rewire the door shut, he could end up locking his own brothers out. But at least this is something for now. Once finished you slump back down in your seat. Exhaustion is pulling you closer to the bottom of this chair. It feels good to just sit down for a moment after the whole ordeal. You could go to sleep, but the way your head pounds as if it's trying to fight its way out suggests otherwise.
Something metallic scrapes on the floor behind you.
And your chair spins with so much force causing you to see stars. It’s an extremely pissed looking Crosshair.
“How did you get these off.”
Between the spin and the adrenaline wearing off you stammer lost and confused. Until you realize he’s holding the heavy now mangled binders. Holding your hands up defense and partly panic, “the choku broke it off.” Your voice has to find itself in the beginning caught so off guard. It isn’t till half a second later you see his smaller blaster pistol pointed at you. So much for a thank you.
“ Choku?” He repeats back, but it’s more accusatory than curious. Your heart is in your throat. You’re not sure if you’re going to make it back to Coruscant for your formal interrogation alive at this point.
Pointing a hand to the doorway, “ th- that’s what those creatures were.” Stumbling over your own words you figure out what you mean to say halfway through.
Crosshair’s brow furrows deeper in thought. It looks like he’s deciding what to do with you. He’s alone, without back up, with someone who has control of an experimental Separatist weapon that they have no idea how to use.
Something wet is on your left forearm, your gaze flits to it. It takes a second glance to figure out what has dripped itself onto you. It’s unmistakably a few splatters of blood. Looking back up at the clone ready to put a blaster bolt between your eyes you realize there is the same red liquid dribbling down the back of his neck.
“You’re bleeding.” You cut him off with certainty.
He gives you just a little bit more space to check, not a lot. And a gloved hand goes to the back of his neck to check. Low and behold, it comes back crimson. A huff of annoyance comes from him. Crosshair turns his focus back to you, “ Don’t think you’re getting out of this.”
“You need that cleaned.”
“I’ll clean it.”
“Can you even reach it? How could you clean that properly?”
“My brothers will handle it, Seppie.”
“And how long will that be? It could be infected before they come back - you’re kriffed if you get sick here.”
He’s irritated and he wants to have something better to say than “ Shut it.” Emphasizing the blaster in his hand.
“Be reasonable. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve let the Choku get you. You can keep your blaster on me the whole time, but let me clean it.” You didn’t have much care for your captor, but the sniper hasn’t killed you yet. He’s still a sentient being. Maybe it is the Separatist propaganda in the back of your mind. The one that pities the clones, and spits on the Republic. You remember your father’s talking points that the Republic enslaves them with no promise of a normal life at the end of the tunnel.
At this point Crosshair has no better rebuttal. He made something akin to a slight growl of disapproval before speaking. “ Fine.” He spits out and with that he heads deeper into the ship. He comes back with weaker binders. Enough to partially restrain you, but not nearly as technologically advanced as the first ones. “These go back on when you’re done.”
Something flashes in your mind, he’s scared. You can’t tell if it’s something the force is telling you, or you feel that way just looking at him. “Fine.” You have to give him something. And as soon as his brothers come back you’re sure there will be a tighter lock down.
He grabs a medkit from the fresher and opens it up for you. Crosshair is still brandishing his blaster at you, clearly still bothered by the fact you have to help.
The stoic clone sits down in the cockpit, his back facing you. His blaster is angled in a way that shows he could end this in a blink, or one single misstep of yours.
You’re no medical professional, but that doesn’t mean you won’t try to give him the best care until he can see someone properly trained. You clean your hands with the disinfectant wipe provided. Before carefully beginning to wash out the wound with another bacta based wipe. If this part hurts him you can barely tell.
The slash is on the nape of his neck going into the base of his skull, it's almost the length of your hand. It’s not super deep, but it needs to be cleaned. And if it’s from the creatures, the bacteria it carries is a bigger threat. It’s not bleeding profusely which is a good sign so far. It’s between the spot his helmet and armor doesn’t cover. Taking steady breaths you dry off most of the blood cleaning the whole area. You’re silently replaying the memory of almost becoming some creature’s lunch. And the way Crosshair is silent and deathly still, there’s a good chance he might be thinking the same. For facing off against two predators alone, he did pretty good.
You get into the groove of gently cleaning it, but now you apply anti septic and this part will certainly hurt more. You give him a verbal warning that it may sting but he brushes you off. Occasionally while cleaning you see his grip on the blaster tighten. It makes you pause, wondering how much it actually hurts him. Finally you moved on to applying the soothing bacta, and his grip isn’t white knuckles anymore.
It’s been silent for the whole time except for a few words. You’re feeling bold, maybe it’s because you did save his life.
“I’m not a Separatist you know.” Your voice is calm and carries a focus showing you're still working.
His brow furrows for a second, not expecting you to speak like this. But Crosshair recovers. “Born to a Separatist. Lived off of a Separatist. You’re a Separatist.” His tone is snarky and distasteful.
You puff air slightly annoyed at his black and white view. “That doesn’t actually make me a Separatist, that just makes me someone surrounded by Separatists.” You keep up the banter, but your tone has a slight bitter edge, you’re more upset about it than he is.
Crosshair seems to relish in the fact he is getting under your skin. “So what does that make you then? A coward?” His tone is just teasing you now, it seems like it’s trying to get you more irritated at this point. It’s insane to be antagonized after you had gone out your way to save him and lick his wounds.
“A coward?” Your blood is starting to simmer, but taking a breath you’re trying to get it under control. You snap, reaching your limit. “A coward doesn’t steal a Separatist weapon and almost dies trying to pry it out of their hands.”
Your opinion of yourself isn’t really that high, but you can’t stand the name calling. Smoothing over the bacta patch you finish and step away. But before you can Crosshair grabs your forearm and slaps on the binders. He's extremely nimble for someone so tall, and for some reason that irks you. But this was the deal. You’re hoping maybe, just maybe Crosshair had the slightest bit of empathy for you after everything. The silence is broken when the comm crackles to life before either of you can make the situation worse.
“Crosshair? Come in.” The voice is unmistakably the leader, but the signal doesn’t sound all that great. But they must be on the way back through better reception then.
“Hunter. We ran into some trouble earlier.”
“What kind of trouble..?” Even though he’s asking, something in your gut knows that you and his brother went through a struggle.
“There was a pack of creatures but we drove them off.” He doesn't make eye contact at all with you looking at the comm, and really preferred they had some kind of makeshift prison to stick you in. His focus is solely on his brothers.
You can’t help but think that he said we. And it seems his other brother caught on as well.
“We?... Doesn’t matter are either of you are injured?” The signal sounds like it's getting stronger but they have a long trek to make it back from the abandoned mine. Not to mention they would be slower with anything they stripped from it on their backs.
“We’re fine.” You probably would both have bruises in the morning, but nothing lasting at least.
There's a pause on the other end, as if there is some disbelief. “Alright. We’re less than one klick out. We’ll be there soon. Our mission was successful.” You hear a cheer of agreeance from someone else in the background and you can only assume it's the larger clone. He really seems like the only one that knows how to smile. Even though Crosshair should be relieved, something thick in the air tells you it's gonna be a long wait.
You sit in the third chair in the cockpit, because if you wander too far you the clone might just lock you in the fresher. You know if both of you had the choice neither of you would want to be in the same room as the other. Both you have to make do for now as uncomfortable as it is. The ship had never felt so small.
A/n: really genuine thanks to everyone who has been so kind I typically do not post what I write so it means a lot :)
Mild body horror! Depictions of unwanted cybernetics, Im not too graphic with it but i love talking about the discomfort oooo, typical star wars violence, fights with bounty hunter etc
Completely Gender neutral, no use of y/n, no depiction of appearance outside of cybernetic implant thingy !
Summary:
Set pre Echo Clone Wars. Reader stole a cybernetic implant from separatist father to try and hinder his inhumane plans. But in the midst of escaping, reader crashes and the implant keeps them alive. Branded as a criminal by the Republic, they can either try and clear their name and work for the Republic or stay hiding from both sides for who knows how long. The Bad Batch is sent to bring you in to the Republic.
Ch 1.
It’s digging into your arm. It feels like it’s still pinching into your flesh. You’re trying to keep from pulling at the mechanics making a home in your forearm. You can’t help but fidget with the bandage you wrapped over it to conceal your new cybernetics. It’s hard to relax, looking over your shoulder no one is paying attention but that’s hard to believe. You step forward in line as everyone shuffles forward. It's been 9 days since this ridiculous device has nestled its way to your bone. The stress of hiding out is eating you away slowly and the itching and random oozing does not help.
Nine days since the crash. You’ve been shoving it to the farthest reaches of your mind. It’s painful to think about. Your arm twitches at the brief flashes of memories.
Your heart stopped. You were sure of it.
Your arm twitches again. You pull your bandages a little tighter. The crash was something you wouldn’t be able to forget. Crashing was already stressful enough, but the transparent durasteel had shattered on impact and vegetation had impaled you. It was a blur, fading in and out and starting to feel your blood run cold.
The sound of humming was distinct from the cybernetic machinery. Reaching for where it came from, it moved. And the package you stole caged your right forearm and pried its way through the bones and nerves and then you felt life flow through you again. You have no idea how. The technology itself was lost on you. The only thing you did understand is that this was powered by the same material Jedi use in their lightsabers.
You only swiped this stupid cybernetic because the plans you overheard were atrocious. It made your stomach turn when you were listening in. It was by pure chance you crossed at the exact time they were discussing the plans. Your father was talking to a hologram you couldn’t make out. Something about “ turning the tide of the war.” Something about “ruthless efficiency” and “ inability to disobey orders.” You shuffle forward in line again and it's almost your turn. Your heart is heavy and everything has been a whirlwind. It’s exhausting to keep moving, to hide from both the Separatists and the Republic. You’re worried what the Separatists would do if they caught you. If they pulled out the enhancement now, would you die? You’re worried the Republic would just imprison you because the Senate thinks you're a liability. Or worse become a tool of the Republic, lost in its never ending bureaucracy.
You feel like you could collapse and just stay there forever. It’s finally your turn in line and you step forward. It’s dirt cheap food. It doesn't smell good but you’ll take anything at this point. In exchange for a few credits you're handed a bowl of grayish brown something. The vendor looks you up and down first, and you pull the cloak tighter. Your heartbeat races a little wondering if he had seen your bounty poster your father personally posted. But you grab the bowl out of his hand before he can get a better look. You're trying not to think about it as you find a quiet corner to sit in. The shadows offer some cover but this is a Republic planet you crashed on, it be better to find somewhere neutral. As you're spooning through the food you’re worried who the Separatist will send to find you. You’ve met one of the bounty hunters they’ve contracted once. She came by for your father, sharp, efficient, undeniably good at her job. You can barely remember her name but you think her last name is Sing. It makes your stomach twist thinking about her.
You’re throwing away your bowl but something catches your eye. The vendor you just got food from is now pointing to the area you’re in while talking to someone. They're wearing a large metallic hat, and you can see they’re armed to the teeth. Your stomach drops. You try not to run too fast to garner attention, but you make a dash for deeper into the alleyway. You hear womp rats scuttle away at the sudden movement. You come to a gate and start climbing looking to put some distance between you and the person the vendor was talking to. The partially healed wounds from the crash aches as it stretches itself to climb over. But you manage to keep heading down the city streets. It’s not that busy, vendors are mostly closed and some are still open. Passing by the occasional bar assaults your ears with the loud thumping music. A few blocks away is the small abandoned storehouse that had made a good shelter for now. You’re turning a street corner and you see a drunken patron go wide eyed and scramble the opposite way. Something deep in your gut tells you to move, and unsure why you listened, you did and step forward.
A stun blast hits where you were just standing. The impact sizzles with electricity next to you. You look behind you to see that man with a large circular hat, deep set yellow eyes, and bowcaster leveled right at you. Looking him up and down you can feel you’re screwed.
You scramble to get away, almost tripping over yourself in panic. And you hear the clicking of his blaster as he aims another shot towards you. This one is a miss but you know your luck is running out. He calmly strides towards you, not seemingly threatened by your attempts to get away. That makes you more unnerved. Running down the street a few more stun blasts graze your hair. You feel the electricity tickle your skin. It’s not going to be enough to keep running, between sleep deprivation and borderline starvation it won’t be enough against a trained bounty hunter. You see a club coming up ahead, and taking a huge risk you push your way through the entrance. This one had loud music, its shoulder to shoulder, the blinding lights are disorienting and you can feel other people’s sweat on you. You're pushing as far as you can through the crowd. The exhaustion is starting to kick in but you refuse to give up. You head to what looks like the back, but every side is packed it’s hard to tell. Among the sea of different species it’s now almost impossible to spot you. You find cover against an outcropping of the wall and take a second to catch your breath. You're searching the crowd but it’s a wall of people moving to music but nothing you’ve ever liked. The mass is constantly moving, and people pushing past you to get to the fresher. For the moment it feels safe. Your body slumps slightly against the wall letting out an exhale.
In the heart of the congregation you see the bowcaster points above the sea of heads and fires two blaster shots. You hear intoxicated screams of panic. Your cover is disappearing. There is a mass exodus of people scrambling and pushing over each other to exit the building as if it were on fire. You turned around slamming the buttons of the fresher, it’s locked. You look to the sides scrambling to cover trying to move to behind the bar. A stun shot hits your leg this time. And you collapse. Your strength is weaning and it’s taking everything in you to not give in. The bounty hunter is readying his next shot and steps closer to you, the bowcaster only a foot away from your eyes. You see the finger tighten around the trigger, but like a cornered rat you continue to fight. A surge of energy riles itself up in your right forearm. Intuitively you send the energy out and the bounty hunter goes flying into the wall without laying a finger on him. You’re shocked. You’ve never had this much energy flow through you before. You can only stay stunned for a second. Standing up the stunned leg is tingling like hell but you can’t waste any time. Limping to the back exit, the cold night air is a relief. Your chest heaves but you need to get as far ahead as you can.
Back in the storeroom this hay sack had never felt so comfortable and good. You took the long way back just in case. Every sane thought you have tells you not to rest, that it’s dangerous to stay in one place for this long. But the stun shot to your leg and exhaustion begs otherwise. As much as you need to keep moving you also need to rest. Your body wins out and you can’t even remember when you ended up closing your eyes.
The morning light wakes you up. It couldn’t have been long anyways, probably just a few hours. You scavenge the dingy store room for more supplies. It’s cramped and you’ve searched through everything before but you remain hopeful, anything is better than nothing. The entire flimsy structure moves as you rustle everything around. You find a small multitool this time something akin to a knife but it seems dull. Your first thought is if it can pry out the cybernetics but you push that to the back of your mind. You find some cloth that can be tied into a new cloak. It’s at least more covering, it smells worse than what you had before and had made a good blanket the past few nights. You change your outfit slightly just hoping it can buy you a second more of time if the bounty hunter doesn’t recognize you immediately.
Heading to the spaceport feels like it’s taking forever. And you’re not quite sure how you’re going to get on a ship with three credits but you need to try or else you’ll end up captured. There’s a fairly sized crowd bustling through getting from one shuttle to another. From a distance you eye the counter seeing flights and the cost. It makes you wince. Standing by the gate you pull your cloak a little more as security passes by. You’re caught off guard when passing a wall with people’s holos on it. Staring back at you is your own face. It makes you stop for a few seconds. The text underneath it in basic reads “ Wanted Separatist criminal, 50, 000 credit reward for capture.” Seeing the word criminal causes a slight recoil in you. The Republic sees you as a criminal for stealing this technology, looking to make a quick buck rather than preventing a super soldier being made. You huff in annoyance, seeing such a skewed perspective of your actions. You’re focused on the bounty board, until you see the reflection of the same wide brim durasteel hat.
Your stomach drops and you move quickly out of the way, the stun shot grazing you again. You can’t see where he is but can tell the shot came from the top of a building somewhere behind you trying to snipe you. The security droids react and quickly pull out blasters firing in the general direction but they look clueless. In the clamber of the spaceport, civilians push past you and quickly to board the first ship they see. The same bounty hunter doesn’t even look like he’s breaking a sweat picking off the security droids. The blaster fire exchange is slowing down as the bounty hunter keeps managing to pick off each incoming security droid. It makes you nervous thinking if the security droids can’t do anything you’re screwed. You’re trying to make your way to any ship but a stun bolt in your path makes you stop short.
You find cover behind some crates. Peering over the side to try and get a good look. You wonder if you could tap into the power of the cybernetics again but it’s dangerous, you don’t know how to use or control it. Peering over the crate a stun blast splinters the edge of it. You look around trying to see if there is a piece of metal or anything. The click of the bowcaster behind makes you stop. You’re too late and he’s on top of you. You try to pull the same trick again and you thrust your arm out. The bounty hunter’s gun slightly tips away and his hat falls askew. He laughs a bit at your inability to do anything useful. A stark difference from the target he hunted the night before. He shifts his hat back in place as you helplessly try again but all you do is make his hat wobble.
“ Kriff really?” You mutter to yourself under your breath and you look around again for something to save yourself but you’re backed against a wall of cargo. The bounty hunter aims his blaster at you again and says something in a language that you can’t make one syllable out. But quickly his focus is redirected and he grabs his hat using it as a shield to block an incoming flurry of blaster shots. Much more precise and deadly than that of the security droids. You pull yourself over the cargo, making another run for it as the bounty hunter is distracted. But a big arm knocks you in the head as you turn a sharp corner.
The wind is knocked out of you as you’re lying on your back. Something big or someone is towering over you, “ Oh no you don’t.” He says in almost a jovial and taunting manner. This armored man- no this armored clone is huge. Nothing like the white armor you’ve seen in holos. You blink in surprise, completely caught off guard, but you see he pulls out heavy duty handcuffs and you quickly roll to the side before he can grab you. He’s a little thrown off by how quick you are but this large clone is not to be underestimated. You’re still hearing blaster fire in the background meaning the bounty hunter is still distracted. The clone reaches for his back to pull out his blaster. You outreach your arm again, but this time you have more luck. Like a magnet the blaster lands into your arm wrapped with gauze. He’s shocked under his helmet, and you’re just as shocked as he is. You double check the blaster is on stun as fast you can before you fire some warning blasts at him. He takes half a hit but manages to run to cover. You take the opportunity to keep going and you make a quick climb over luggage to keep running deeper in the spaceport. It’s a long shot but maybe there is something for you to commandeer- a smoke bomb is thrown out in front of you. It clacks on the hard ground before dispersing a grayish haze. Still holding the gun you quickly whip it around disoriented and unsure where to be looking. You step carefully, clearly whoever threw this can see you but you can’t seem them through this thick fog. You move behind cover but know it can’t really be safe if you can’t see your enemy. You hold the blaster tighter but your eyes are failing you. You listen deeper to your surroundings and you only hear the blaster fire and occasional landing of punches in the distance. But it suddenly stops.
You slow down your breathing so you can hear better but it doesn’t help. You’re getting that nagging sensation in the back of your brain again. It feels like whispers telling you what to do. It makes the air feel electric on your skin. Everything feels like it’s slowing down, and this time you listen more intently to what the whispers are trying to tell you. It guides your movements and you play along since you don’t have any better options. You could run into that big armored clone again if you're not careful. With a few quick steps you move behind a decommissioned freighter. As if on cue where you were standing half a second ago was scorched with a blaster shot. The fog is starting to clear but it’s not enough. Another two shots are fired and now you pick up the pace moving farther around the ship. You’re hoping this angle of the ship will shield you enough.
The shots stop, and you look around, your heart is in your throat. The person who was firing at you will be moving to a different angle to get a clean shot soon. You hear something stir in the shadows and you raise the blaster to it. You carefully step back your eyes darting to every inch of your surroundings. Someone, no it’s another clone. He has the same black and red motif of the larger clone earlier. Your blaster is raised but his isn’t. His hands are up, you don’t lower your blaster or your guard, all you can feel is confusion and determination. The whispers are no longer at your back. You feel like you’re suddenly flying blind.
He takes off his helmet and you can see he has longer hair with a bandana that matches his armor tied around his forehead. “ Easy. We don’t need to do this the hard way.” His voice is definitely husky and trying not to scare you off. Your brow flinches.
You move to pull the trigger only to realize this is a diversion too late. The stun blast hits you square in the back and you can’t even see who did it. Your forearm burns like hell with the charge of electricity flowing through it, but it's short lived.
Everything is dark and hazy. Your skin tingles, you're unsure if it’s the cybernetics or the stun wearing off. But your senses are waking up.
“ Are you sure those handcuffs will be enough?”
“ I designed them myself, of course they will be. Do you underestimate my ability?
“We don’t know everything they can do. And it doesn’t seem like they know either. “
“ Ha! You got that right! You should’ve seen their face when they grabbed my gun! They were just as -“
“Shut it” You blink your eyes adjusting to the light. The blurry mix of red, blues, and whites come into focus and you recognize it as the buttons that line the walls of this ship. Shaking your head you finally come too. A slight wince escapes your lips as the handcuffs chafe your sensitive right forearm.
“ Well look who finally decided to join us.” It takes you a second but you realize it’s the one with a skull tattoo over half of his face talking to you.
“ Maybe if you didn’t shoot me I could’ve joined you sooner.” You don’t even realize what you’re saying until it’s left your mouth. It sounded snarkier than you intended. You hear one let out an amused huff but can’t tell which. This lack of sleep and food has made your filter go out the door. Taking a closer look at the handcuffs you can see there are not some flimsy durasteel pieces put together. It’s heavy, tight, something unusual about it that you don’t quite understand. It irks you slightly that the gauze you wrapped around your arm is missing. Even though it was used just to hide the mechanical apparatus, it makes your skin crawl to look at the bare flesh intertwined with steel. Parts of the arm are still bruised where the metal pierces the skin. It looks like a ribcage of durasteel keeping your arm hostage. It’s unsettling to look at and it’s hard to gauge how deep it is under the skin.
“Don’t try anything. You’re already weak enough as it is. Cooperation is your best bet.” The one with the bandana speaks again. You meet his gaze looking over him. He looks more like an average clone than the rest of them save for the hair and the tattoo. You look at them all and you feel outmatched. “ Why did you steal the weapon? To take it for yourself?” The same clone asserts, his tone is almost threatening but you can feel the curiosity in his tone.
Part of you can’t help but be offended. You stole this weapon to try and avoid a worse fate for the war. But it being embedded in your arm, made you look slightly guilty. But that was never the plan. “That ..was an accident.” Your voice is strained but it’s the truth. “ I stole it because I overheard his plans. I couldn’t just.. do nothing.” Your stomach is in knots being so truthful. You’re not sure if the clones would even empathize with your situation. You had stolen it from your father, but it was the right thing to do.
Looking up gauging their reactions, it’s a mixed bag. The lanky one in the back is unimpressed and unmoved by your confession. While the leader’s expression hasn’t changed much you can tell he is thinking it over. His eyes look like they see more than they let on.
“You steal some kind of experimental cybernetic enhancement and you expect me to believe it ending up in your arm is some kind of accident?” He stands up straighter getting off the chair he was leaning on.
“ It wasn’t like that.” Your voice has a slight edge to it. Bitter at the accusation but try to cool your temperature. You feel the cybernetics buzz with your emotions. Instinctively you move to grab it but the reach with the handcuffs is limited. Your arm slightly aches and tingles uncomfortably.
The one with goggles looks up from his datapad suddenly interested in the very subtle move. “ How interesting. The cybernetics aren’t just a physical enhancement, the connection between the host is physiological as well.” He adjusts his goggles moving in to inspect it closer. Instinctively you move back in your seat wildly uncomfortable at being inspected like a specimen. “ This is more advanced than I had previously hypothesized. And more than what the original intel had suggested.” His tone is analytical but he seems excited?
“ If it really was an accident then what happened.” The one with the bandana spoke up again, cutting the more excited one off. He seems set on finding the truth.
Part of you feels your stomach tighten at the feeling of being interrogated. Your right arm twitches again and you uncomfortably shift in your cuffs. But you do not miss the way the one with the datapad immediately writes a note after that. With a slight exhale you compose yourself trying to think of the right words to explain the chain of events that started this mess. “ It’s.. It was an accident, I crashed and I don’t know…it was all a blur.” You look at your arm for the moment avoiding their gaze. You can feel something pulse and writhing within your hand but it’s unfamiliar. “ It attached itself to me.”
The four clones exchange looks of confusion, and something else with the heaviness of your tone. The way it sounded… unwilling. The one with the datapad speaks up again before anyone else could ask a question, “ Your statement implies the device has autonomy.. I find that hard to believe“
“ It’s a piece of metal. Just admit you wanted to use it.” The tallest one holds the toothpick in his mouth to spit out his words to you. There’s not an ounce of trust between you.
The one with bandana shoots him a glare, he doesn’t feel his brother’s jabs are useful in coaxing you to speak. “ What do you mean?” He cuts straight to the point. There's a mixture of sternness in his gaze, and something else that has softened seeing your current state. Based on the intel given to them, you’re not at all what the clones have expected.
“ Well.. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel lifeless. And I don't actually remember putting it on.” There’s a brief pause as the clones feels conflicted, unsure what to do with this new information.
“ Hmm.. if our intel was correct the kyber crystal powering it… “ He pauses thinking it over for a second. “In some of the Jedi archives they believe that the force within the kyber holds some kind of life force. That theoretically could be what you are experiencing.” He begins pouring through whatever data he has, stepping to the side of you looking over your arm before slipping deeper into his analysis. “ The cybernetics might only connect to those it has a connection with, akin to the process of a Jedi attaining a kyber for their lightsaber.”
“ Sounds like a load of bantha shit. “ The tall lanky one stands up from the copilot seat. Lolling a toothpick in his mouth eyeing you up and down for any hint of a lie or tell. You shift under his gaze but not out of intimidation, mostly annoyance. “ Who steals a weapon without wanting to use it for themselves. Or make a quick buck.”
The one with the bandana glances at him, almost silently telling him to knock it off. He turns back to face you, his face stern and serious trying to cut through the bullshit. “ We saw that crash site. There was no way anyone could’ve survived. What happened.” He reasserts himself, unsatisfied with the answers you have given so far.
Your arm twitches again, this time much more noticeably. The mention of the crash site, made your heart rate spike a little. It looked like the man with the skull tattoo face changed slightly when you did that. Instinctively, you went to grab your wrist to shake the feeling out of your hand but the handcuff kept you too restricted. It had been happening since it attached itself to you. Anxiety always had physical symptoms, but this device heightened it.
It’s hard to think straight when in handcuffs, and everyone is staring daggers at you like you're a ticking time bomb. Part of you feels like you are. “ I didn’t survive the crash. “ You feel everyone tense in the room, and even the one nose deep in his datapad stops for a moment. “ I.. It was rough. I remember that I wasn’t going to make it.. and when I woke up.. this had attached itself in my arm. And I felt like shit but I was breathing again.” You knew your explanation was not what they wanted to hear but it’s not like you were coherent during the crash.
The clones exchange glances with each other. From what you can tell the leader seems to think you're not lying but can tell information is missing. But you can’t think about it any further as the one with goggles brings out a medical device for another quick scan. “Hm.”
“ What is it Tech.” The one with the bandana looks over to him sensing he is in the midst of figuring something out.
“Your injuries consistent with the shuttle crash as severe as yours.. are almost healed. But that is impossible given the current timeline”
“ What are you saying..?”
“ Hypothetically.. because of the kyber crystal within the cybernetic augmentations or other elements we are unaware of, it may have adverse side effects such as an accelerated healing possibly under times of duress.”
It falls silent for a moment, and the larger one looks confused. You see him glance to his brother with the toothpick in his mouth for clarification but he just shakes his head in response.
Avoiding eye contact you look over your forearm again for the thousandth time. You’re almost sure this Tech guy is right. It makes sense. You remember taking your last breath during that crash, and you certainly have the scars to prove it. You pause thinking it over again. You remember the sudden jolt of electricity waking up, it was like someone had kickstarted your heart.
“However, I lack the proper tools to be able to understand more. Currently my scans are still inconclusive. ”
“When we get to Coruscant we can let them handle it.” The one with the bandana seems to end his brother’s endless analysis. You try to lean back more into the chair, really starting to look around. Avoiding the lanky one’s piercing gaze, the ship is not as neat as you thought it was. The one with goggles left your side to fret with something at the main control panel. There is an annoying beeping, but he doesn’t seem worried about it, but part of you is nagging that something doesn’t seem to be right. There’s nothing you can do about it in handcuffs anyways.
“You’re lucky I didn’t put a bullet between those eyes.” His voice is sharp and laced with venom and you see which clone is talking to you. He’s flipping the toothpick in his hand. Clearly deeply bothered by your presence in their ship. Part of you thinks he’s considering doing that right now. His eyes narrow to a point at you, his brow deeply creased in annoyance. He scans you over, trying to gauge how you could’ve done it but the only explanation he has is your cybernetic. He stands up from his seat, the way he holds his toothpick feels like a threat. “Your luck will run out soon Seppie.”
Your arm twitches in response and you want to respond and you begin to move to stand. You even see his demeanor shift, and his hand moves to a holster. He has a gross misunderstanding of your political views, and you want to set him straight with a good knock to his head. But you're thrown back into your seat as the ship lurches and the tall clone grabs a wall to steady himself before settling back down. You can see he’s irritated to have to hold his tongue for the moment. You see the blue streaks start to come to a sudden and unexpected halt. And a larger planet with two almost equally as large moons come into view. The pilot would have to dodge his way through the moon’s gravitational field to make a safe landing. You were crossing your fingers that these clones could handle the job.
“ Tech I thought you said the damage was minor.”
“ Yes, well while performing minor calibrations on the diagnostics system it would appear that the initial report was inaccurate. The bounty hunter did more damage than we originally suspected." Something was clearly wrong with the stabilizers. And probably much more than that.
“Uh, does that mean we’re going to crash?” The larger clone came out from the back scrambling into the seat as the ship started to shake randomly.
“ Yes Wrecker it does.” The one glaring at you paused to answer his brother watching him struggle to get into a seat. But the larger clone actually pointed out your seat fastener to you before fully sitting down. Part of you was surprised he was concerned but maybe it was about saving the intel.
Your hands clench in the handcuffs seeing the three celestial bodies get ever closer. Knowing you’re going to have to survive another crash makes your stomach sink through the bottom of your seat. Your arm twitches and the binders rattles but no one is paying attention this time. Leaning deeper back in the seat all you can hope is that this pilot will be good enough.
A/n : Aaaaa Thank you so much for all the love my first fic received :), I do already have parts of ch 2 written I just literally cut this ch short because it was gonna be so long lmao. Also I guess I have a tag list? Do ppl just submit in the ask box if they wanna be tagged i literally do not know
After months of tedious collections of information on your Separatist Admiral father, you take a bigger risk than usual and send out your information to the Republic. But you get caught. Story starts after having been in space prison for a bit. And a specialized clone squad is sent to recover you from a high security prison.
Pairings:
Platonic Bad Batch x reader (Not meant to be read as romantic but could be super slow burn lol, platonic, as if you were just a plot in an episode)
Warnings:
Use of needles ( nothing graphic just a prick), isolation, typical canon violence.
Okay well here is my silly lil 5000 word fic that I wrote for fun :)
Reader is gender neutral, no use of y/n, almost no description of reader
Word count - 5000~
The cell door closed again and you finally had some peace and quiet. Not Peace, but certainly
quiet. As the last lock of the mechanic door clicked into place sitting down on the cot you see the small belongings you had were rifled through when you were at the mess hall for the first meal of the day.
It had been a long twenty three days. The separatist prison hadn’t been kind to you, being the offspring of a well known separatist admiral had made you a target. Most of the people in the prison knew exactly who you were, one brave prisoner even took as far to shiv you in your side. You were in the infirmary for almost two weeks because of that but luckily the wound itself wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Now you were under such strict protection with guard droids always an arm length away. You knew without looking there were two assassin droids waiting on the other side guarding your door.
Sitting down on the hard cot you felt a dull ache in your right side where the bacta patch felt like it did little to help the healing process. Laying down you could feel how much your back and side were truly aching from the poor sleeping conditions weighing heavily on the healing wound. A slow breath in is a feeble attempt to still yourself. The prison was stripping you of your emotional peace but it did bring you comfort to think the information that you leaked would be useful in stopping the ever expanding destruction of the separatists. An unintentional deep exhale slipped your lips and the ache grew slightly being disturbed.
Laying against the pillow that was probably nothing more than a few layers of fabric, it was better smelling than the one in the med bay and that brought something akin to comfort. Although you would’ve killed to be laying back in your old bed. Your father’s recent recruitment as an admiral had thrust you into a higher tax bracket that you thought was untouchable. But that wealth brought guilt, knowing it was from the spoils of war and despair. It was so different than the life you led before, being self-sufficient and working hard to sustain yourself financially. The life before being thrown in the cell was comfortable and enjoyable at times. Worming your way into various meetings posing as an intern offering coffee runs and as a person to bounce ideas off of for your father’s associates. They found it hard to believe you had been collecting tabs on all of them. All the times you sat quietly in the command room you were recording anything vital they said to pass off to the republic. You had hidden your disgust of all the wealthy separatists and military officials well, with polite smiles and quiet nods. Your father was the most disappointed. The smile he had when you first asked to attend a meeting, he was beaming. eager to involve you. It was months of collecting intel, it took a while before the intel started to become more alarming. You had taken the chance to send out intel, knowing how dire the latest plans you had learned about needed to be immediately shared. But it had been your downfall, as far you could tell the intel had gotten out and you were successful. Your father being grossly upset with you also suggested your attempts to help the republic had worked.
The weight of your body felt heavy against the durasteel and the pathetic sheets. Shifting did nothing, the cold metal prickling against your skin was startling in sensitive spots. With a deep inhale and exhale you were letting your mind drift to the past few months of being a spy. Your heartbeat slowed, and you let your mind start to seep out into the cold energy of the cell. The walls were thick, but the minds inside some of the nearby cells were loud if you stopped and steadied yourself. The energy from beyond your walls was erratic , tense, high strung. It was relaxing to tap into the prison, and the life force of those in it, even if they other prisoners weren’t good company. You couldn’t pull exact words or coherent thoughts beyond vague feelings and shifting of energy. Letting yourself sink deeper, your body feels heavier in a more relaxed state. The ache is dull now falling to the edge of your mind. Time is blurry, falling between half sleep and listening to the conversations of the ever present force.
Its sudden and sharp, but you hear it echo in your mind , They’re in this cell block.
It juts you out of your peaceful stupor, and your body comes back in needle-like waves. The lights are suddenly very bright, the metal feels too chilling, and the prison jumpsuit is scratchy. But you were certain you heard, not hear physically, but the impression of it keeps echoing in your mind. And you’re almost certain someone here is searching for you. Your heartbeat quickens, unsure of what this means, and caught off guard. Sets of droid footsteps grab your focus. Something heavy in your stomach is telling you to look, that’ll be relevant.
Stepping on the stiff durasteel floor is bracing, and the pain medication you have been on is starting to fade into nothingness in your system. It takes a few seconds but you step to the door of your cell. Part of the heavy metallic door has a portion you can peer out that’s ray shielded. Through the blurry redness you see two prisoners who you’ve never seen before. They must be new, and the guard droids are escorting them to their new cell. It’s hard to make out details leaning dangerously close to the ray shield but some features jump out. As far as you can tell the fresh meat both have facial tattoos. You can’t see major detail but the one with longer hair has a long stretch of ink across their face. They seem quiet and stiff, and carry themselves with deliberateness. One of them looks at your small slit in the cell door, meeting your eyes without hesitation. Instinctively it makes you take a step back. You’re not looking to get stabbed for a second time. Their gaze is brief, but feels like a wave of intense energy drowns you for a second. The line is blurred between the force and anxiety.
The two rather tall and sturdy men pass, silently, and you can tell their cell isn’t that close to yours. Almost no one’s is. Your father, while distancing himself from you, had gone extra lengths to ensure your safety at the prison. Despite the lack of visits. Honestly it was surprising you hadn’t been executed for your treason against the separatist alliance. Your father must’ve been fighting tooth and nail against whatever capitol punishment was supposed to be headed your way. However no news of anything that horrendous had reached you. The thought had crossed your mind that something worse had to be happening behind the scenes. There must’ve been a trade off, a lack of execution meant you had a new role to fill in Dooku’s death march against the republic. The thought made your stomach sink but you just had to sit back down and let the feeling pass. There was nothing to do anyways except drift somewhere between sleep and the force.
It must’ve been hours, but your body forces you awake as the high pitched affirmation beeps on the other side of the cell. Trying to sit up but your side is protesting against your efforts. Your feet swing around. It’s second meal time. The heavy locks undo themselves and the ray shield drops. Two assassin droids are armed and ready to escort you to the mess hall. While it was suffocating to be under such an oppressive watch it offered your a bubble of
protection that you were immensely grateful for walking around the prison.
The mess hall is busy. There’s not many people still grabbing their portions as you step into line, still flanked from two guard droids as you do. Your rest didn’t feel like enough and your movements are sluggish as you shuffle through the line. The guard droids make sure no one in front or in back of you is too close. You can’t stand too close to the food the droids serve because you think it might make you sick. The smell is disturbing, but your stomach is twisting anxiously as you move through the line offering your tray towards the droid. After the food is unceremoniously plopped on, you realize why your body is acting so on edge. Out of the corner of your eye you see one of the new prisoners. Staring back at you with no hesitation, holding their utensil very still in their hand. It irks you, it feels like the same way the one who stabbed you stared at you. Some of the prisoners have a tendency to look, that’s a given, but the new prisoner with silver hair feels like he’s dissecting you with his eyes.
It takes a second to break away, not realizing your staring back as the droid makes a noise forcing you out of your daze. You take a hesitant first step but find your footing again as your followed by the ever present guards to the empty table that was always cleared for you. You sit down, you can still feel your stomach slightly churn. You’re trying not to stare back, unsure what the gaze could mean. In the back of your mind you're trying to think of what landed them in this prison, worried that the silver haired prisoner could have a grudge against your father he’s looking to level. You risk another look, but he’s not even staring back. But you get a good look this time, you’re able to take in the fact he is well built and could probably take you out in a fight if it came down to it. Not to mention the glaring facial tattoo that covers one his familiar brown eyes. The droids shift around slightly and it breaks your focus.
You turn back to what you’re supposed to be eating and you just have to not think about it and distract yourself to get through it. Mindlessly you eat but you’re watching the crowd. You can see some of the prisoners in hushed tones talking to each other, mostly likely about the new meat. The prison isn’t very big, anyone who lands themselves in this high security prison is usually a somebody. Not many war criminals, your father was particularly careful to not put you in arm’s reach of the republic.You’re a dangerous loose end for him. You wouldn’t even be surprised if Count Dooku himself orchestrated the stabbing himself. It makes you on edge to think about it, if the Count was to go behind your father’s back and have you killed in an ‘accident’.
You're ripped away from your mental ramblings by the clattering of a food tray. It almost startles you and you suppress the urge to jump. Looking up you’re confused, someone has sat down with you. It takes you a second but recognition flashes across your features , it’s the second new prisoner. The one with the longer dark and you get a good look at the tattoo on the side of his face now. You can see the way it supports the contours of his face, and you realize he must be a clone. You’ve only ever met one other clone after living so deep in separatist space far from the republic, and he doesn’t quite look the way the one sitting in front of you does. It makes you pause. You realize you’re staring a bit, and the clone infront of you is looking just as intensely back at you trying to figure you out.
His gaze flits quickly to the two droids flanking you before speaking. “ You seem lonely.” His tone is a slight dig, toying with you.
Your brow creases in annoyance and you let your gaze drop to the food when you realize this conservation most likely wouldn’t be fruitful. You're more so playing with your food than eating it. It was annoying when prisoners would come around trying to antagonize you, it’s not like anyone could do anything with two armed assassin droids clipped at your heel. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the silver haired clone has turned to watch the two of you. You're about to turn your whole head towards him but the one in front you speaks up again.
“ Rex sends his regards.” His voice is flat, and gravely almost, but there is an obvious undercurrent to his tone. It makes your head snap towards him in realization and you open your mouth to speak but you're at a slight loss for words. Rex was the one who gave you an encrypted military channel so you could leak the intel you had found safely. The tattoo on his face twitching into a slight smirk knowing he’s got your full attention now.
“ You know Rex?” The words spill out of your mouth in confusion before you can think twice about it. You looked over the clone again with new eyes trying to decipher more about the man in front of you.
“ He got your message.” He says very carefully, aware of anything he says around the droids could be used against him. Relief floods you for a moment, your intel to the republic made it. You feel triumphant for a moment. All your effort, the near death experience of sending out the intel, betraying your father, throwing your cushy life away, had been eating you away. Maybe your time in this suffocating hell hole has been worth it.
The clone sitting in front of shifts and he continues , “ Most of it.. there’s a few parts we need your clarification on.” He continues and looks at you, watching your expression partially falter as you realize not all the intel had gone through. It makes you wince internally and you stuff it down. After your initial disappointment, you realize the use of ‘we’
Your brow creases deeper, and you carefully eye the guard droids out of the corner of your eye before speaking again. “ We ..?” You repeat hesitantly, worried the guard droids would just snatch you away and lock you back into your cell again. The clone nods up and you follow his gaze. And he’s gesturing to the silver haired man sitting down, still dissecting you with his gaze. Raking over his face again you can see the similarities in their facial structure, and it hits you they might both be clones. But they certainly looked different from Rex, and the holos of other clones you had seen in the war room and it throws you off. You turn back around your head slightly cocked trying to put the pieces together of why these men were here in the first place. Your mind is starting to race, his words echoing in your mind that they might be here for you.
“ Rex vouched for you” He says in a serious tone, but is anxious about setting off your two guard droids. “ He says you can get us what we need.” He pauses his toying with his food to meet your gaze. His body is stiffer and he leans in a bit more, lowering his voice , “ And I need to know if my squad and I can trust you.” His tone is sharp and leaves no room for second guessing.
It takes you a second to process it, because it sounds like Rex had maybe sent a squad to come and rescue you. Unfortunately the first response you can think of is slightly sarcastic, “ I didn’t get thrown in here for my loyalty to the separatists.” You state back a little bitter that this man assumed you still had loyalties to the separatists, or maybe just your father. But the state of worlds you had seen after your father’s forces wreaked havoc on planet after planet was enough to radicalize you.
The clone lets out a slight huff of amusement, but there is some annoyance simmering. He’s taking this deadly serious. But it’s hard to tell what the soldier is thinking, leaving you in the dark. His eyes began taking in your form as much as he can as if he sees something you can’t. It’s silent for a moment and you feel a little concerned how hard he and the other clone are staring you down contemplating this. And he sighs, and shakes his head , “ well we didn’t come all this way for nothing.” He looks over to his compatriot, and they share a look of acknowledgement and they seem to be thinking something they’re not sharing. The silver hair one stands, and you can see how tall and slender he is, he smoothly walks closer to your guard droids but keeping a practical distance. The Clone with the skull tattoo then looks to the guard droid no longer focused on you as they look at the two guard droids waiting for a cue. Your brow is creased as you can feel the tense energy rolling off of the two clones in waves.
You blink and you miss it. All the lights go dark, and half a second later alarms start blaring. Red light vaguely bathing all the shapes in front of you. The power is out and in a few seconds you see the two clones go for the guard droids. You hear the fight more than see it. Only emergency lights illuminating their silhouettes and you hear two concise blaster shots, and the smoke hits your nostrils. You’re standing now, heart racing as it’s clear these two are your ticket out of here. You can barely breathe and you can hear the sounds of the clones checking over the blasters. The soft halo of red light illuminates the clone with long hair, he places a firm hand on your shoulder . “ Stay close. Stay low. And do not second guess our orders.” He’s looking at you but in the low light you can’t even see his eyes. You give a quick nod back, but your body feels shaky with the suddenness of the situation.
There’s no time to dwell on the feeling, his hand is a strong grip, similar to that of holding a blaster. But he’s pushing you towards a doorway. The other clone is following up the rear, it’s hard to see exactly what they are both doing. But in the chaos you’re impressed by the blaster shots the taller clone begins landing on the guard droids intent to disrupt your path. You get jerked to the exit of the mess hall to avoid being in the line of fire. There’s a quick blaster shot at the control panel, there’s little time for courtesy as he keeps shuffling you with determination to an exit. You're stumbling over your feet at first but you're finding the rhythm of walking in line with the soldiers. Part of you can sense the way they are walking is slowed down for you, and you make an effort to keep up but your side is straining every time you do.
You haven’t seen this part of the prison before everything is unfamiliar and you’re realizing how big this facility truly is. The shorter clone suddenly flattens you against the wall as you’re about to round a corner. The red lights are hindering your vision, but the silver haired clone moves ahead of the two of you landing three precise blaster shots on the guard droids ahead before they even look your way. Your breath is getting shaky as you’re forced to keep moving. Your wound is starting to get the best of you, as it aggravates with every step and quick movement to hide against cover. They stop again at another junction. The taller one keeps firing making sure no droid can get too close. But the one with the skull facial tattoo turns to face you , brow deeply furrowed. He finally speaks to you “ How you holding up?” You don’t even have to respond as he’s seeing your current state, you feel woozy and hope that you can just make it just enough to escape.
With a sharp inhale between your teeth you nod determined, there’s not much you can do except hold out. “ I can make it.” Your tone is almost brave and firm and it does reassure the clone just a little to hear you want to escape this badly. He nods in acknowledgment.
“ For kriff’s sake Hunter use the stim shot.” The taller clone retorts with a challenging tone. The tall one doesn’t even look back at you to know what shitty shape you're in. He keeps firing his stolen blaster, head on a constant swivel taking down the incoming droids like fish in a barrel.
“ I didn’t think it would be that bad. “ The longer hair clone stops firing around the corner, and he pulls something from a pocket of his prison jumpsuit. It’s a blur , but he says without hesitating “hold still.” And with the same firm grips pulls you in closer, finding a patch of bare skin. You don’t see it but you feel the pinch of the needle.
You don’t mean to be so shocked but it’s quick and the pinch is sharp. “ Ow” you instinctively slip out, recoiling as soon as he lets go. It stings but you know there’ll be relief in a minute. He gives you a slight remorseful look but he can’t dwell on it getting you out of here is more important. He gives your shoulder a gentle reassuring squeeze before he lets go. And he turns back to the action, his demeanor suddenly switching back into a soldier. Their blasters both raised down the hallway, “We’re almost to the extraction point. “ He gruffly states as he looks back at you seeing your starting to recover slightly.
You shake off the sting in your neck, the stim shot was needed but it still was a sting nonetheless. The clones press forward, you can see the one with longer hair glance out of the corner of his eye at you in the low light. You can’t tell how much is concern and how much is suspicion. But you're hoping the concern weighs out more. He pulls you to cover but not as harshly this time. You flatten your body against the wall and you can hear the exchange of blaster fire at the back of you seeing the lanky clone take down the droids. The other one is over the control panel, and he’s practically smashing the key codes now. “ Tech’s codes aren’t working.” He says in his frustration. You look over to see his apparent frustration. Your brow creases seeing your chance of escape start to slip through your fingers and it makes your stomach sink. Your hand twitches you could unlock it. You’ve done it before, you unlocked a hundred doors without the key code. If he stepped aside, you would just need a few seconds of quiet.“ They must’ve - “
He’s cut off by a close blaster shot, precisely hitting the keypad. The silver haired one had shot the panel and the sliding doors sputter slightly open functioning on emergency energy. You can see the longer hair clone furrowed his brow annoyed but the other speaks up with a slight smirk “ you were taking too long.” You're slightly amused by the interaction but there’s no time to even chuckle , as the one with the skull tattoos quickly leads you through the crack of the door. It’s dark but the room it leads to is big. But it looks like this must be a transport hangar. The end of the room has a ray shield and you can see the dark stretches of space dotted by the stars. Seeing something other than durasteel walls again makes your breath hitch, but you snap out of it following the two clones near the terminal. One is punching in codes, while the other one keeps landing difficult shots in the darkness on droids you can barely see.
But the door that led you in here, now is being pried open by the mechanic hands of droids. Innately you can feel it must be a whole squad coming this way that would overwhelm all three of you. The two clones exchange a quick glance worried for their circumstance, it feels like things are not going to plan clearly. “ Tech should’ve been here by now.” He stops fiddling with the terminal as some of the droids start to slip through the door that now has a wider crack. They are both firing at the onslaught of droids now coming in. To take cover you’re all forced back into a small alcove of storage supplies, as soon as all the droids fill the room you’ll be trapped. You’re looking around for something or anything to help your circumstance. The soldiers’ gazes are trained ahead on the growing threat you're now facing as you try to look for something that would be useful. You look into one of the crates, nothing but prison jumpsuits. You quickly peek in another, and another. Hearing the slight commotion you’re making, the silver haired clone throws a sharp glance your way, and he’s about to say something sharp. But you open a holy grail of supplies, it’s portable fuel canisters.
“ Here.” You pull as many as your hands can hold out , and he stops shooting for a second slightly impressed with your find. The long hair one shares this sentiment but can’t spend long on it.
“ Good work.” The shorter one gruffly says and you can tell he didn’t expect you to be proactive, and grabs two out of your hands. “ I’ll throw .” He says turning back formulating a plan with his brother. The silver hair clone nods, his focus becoming pointed again. You see him give you a sidelong glance before lining up his blaster anticipating the arc of his brother’s throw. With a firm throw the two fuel canisters are tossed within range of the hangar’s entrance. The tall one lands shot on one of the canisters before it can even hit the ground. You see it blow, of mixture of reds, oranges and some blues of whatever was in the fuel burns. The wave of heat hits your senses and you instinctively push yourself against what little cover you have. The blaster fire lessens for just a few moments.
“ Finally.” The roar of a ship can be heard, and you dare to peek from your cover. And coming through the ray shield comes a ship that’s nothing like some of the republic ships you knew of. The piloting is erratic but precise it moves into the hangar harshly. “ About time, “ The longer hair clone continues and turns to face you and there’s a sense of pride in his voice “ Our rides here.”
The gangplank to the ship opens, and it sounds almost like a hearty battle cry, a very large armored soldier begins firing into the mess of droids still marching in. You’re jerked from behind cover , “ Let’s move” and you followed the skull tattooed clone with a sense of urgency. Freedom actually is right in front of you now, and even if your side is burning up, there’s no chance you're hesitating. Running towards the gangplank the larger clone is firing, and he doesn’t seem to have the same brooding disposition as your two rescuers. But as soon as you get within arms length the bigger clone stops pulling his helmet to look at you with his one good eye.
“ They look nothing like the holo !” He quickly exclaims as if you all had time to talk in the middle of escaping.
You see the lanky one roll his eyes as he follows you aboard but your two rescuers say at the same time , “ We know.” It catches you off guard , and you’re wondering what the hell holo they had of you. You hear the controls getting punched in the ship “ Get us the hell out of here Tech.” The one with the skull tattoo barks his order as if it’s second nature.
The ship lurches forward, and you're thrown off balance a bit and your side makes you wince. And a new clone you haven’t seen supports you. His metallic scomp for an arm keeps you steady and gently helps you to a seat. “ You alright civ?”
“ Civ?” You repeat hesitantly, not a nickname you had been called before. Traitor and backstabber was the most recent in a long list of nicknames you weren’t fond to repeat. Your side hurts but you're ignoring it and just feel relief to sit on something that wasn’t a durasteel bench or shitty prison cot. You don’t know how much longer the stim shot in your system can hold you over now. Your blood is still rushing in your ear and you’re realizing how out of breath you are.
“ like civilian -“ The paler clone quickly clarifies for you nicely, and his more gentleman- like demeanor relieves some of your anxiety.
“ More like spy.” The silver hair clone cuts through sharply, still in the same prison jumpsuit as you but now somehow with a toothpick lulling in his mouth. He’s sat down across from you and there’s a fair amount of distance, but not enough. His piercing gaze is enough to make your stomach turn. But it makes your blood boil for him to insinuate that you could still be loyal to the separatists. It’s enough to make you want to snap a harsh rebuttal, opening your mouth you’re cut off.
The paler one turns back to you sensing the tension about to come to head. “ How’s your side?” He’s trying to redirect you, and you break your stare to gaze back at him.
You blink and exhale, you’re still feeling the anxiety and urgency of escaping the prison. There’s a sense of relief but not yet. You don’t even know these clone’s names. “ It’s sore .. but it’s fine.” You’re kinda masking how much it really hurts, but it’s a blurred sensation between the stim shot and out running guards you can’t tell how much it’ll hurt later or how bad it is. You’re trying not to let your heart race, but you’re on a strange ship. A Republic ship. You have no idea where you’re going, you know you were only rescued only for your valued intel. Your stomach clenches a little at the thought. Just because you didn’t like the separatists didn’t make you a blind patriot to the republic.
“ I’m Echo, by the way. “ He pulls you out of your thoughts, and it makes you self conscious wondering how long you must’ve stared off for. “ That’s Crosshair “ he points back to the silver haired clone still glaring daggers at you. “ Wrecker , Tech , and Hunter.” He gestures to the largest clone, maybe the largest man you have ever seen. Remembering how he said you look much different than the holo they had of you. And the one called Tech quickly turns around with the ship being in hyperspace. He’s holding his datapad as he makes his way towards you and your intuition is telling you he has a thousand questions. He’s about to speak but Hunter , you’re partially relieved to finally be formally introduced, holds up a hand stopping Tech in his path.
“ You should get some rest Civ.” He says more like an order than a suggestion. Your first instinct is to brush it off. You’re too uncomfortable in a strange setting you don’t want to let your guard down. Especially around the silver hair- Crosshair, who seems to think you have something up your sleeve. You want to protest and your brow flinches but it’s no use seeing the look Hunter gives you.
And is quickly cut off by the bigger clone butting in, “ You can take my bunk!” He quickly exclaims. Wrecker stands leading you to the back. You can see the scatters of toothpicks , random wires, spare parts, and a knife sharpener just laying around that you have to step over. And you’re realizing how dank it smells in there , the stale air of traveling through hyperspace for days. Wrecker stops you at a bunk and your lips twitches upwards when you see a stuffed tooka settled on the pillow. “ Oh “ He realizes your reaction and has a warm smile “ That’s Lula! You can hold onto her if that helps you sleep better “ He steps to the side so you could actually sit on the bunk now. “ It helps Crosshair “ He teases with a smirk on his face, and you can’t help a small laugh leave your expression. It’s nice to have him break the ice a little because you’re dreading when you need to face the clones again. You’ll have to recall every small piece of information you had ever come across even if it seemed insignificant.
“ Thanks Wrecker “ You're realizing how little energy your voice is carrying but you made an effort to make your voice sound warmer. You’re grateful one of them offered a bunk so you could rest on something that wasn’t a durasteel cot. The pillow looked real too, something that wasn’t just a pathetic excuse to rest your head on.
“ No problem Civ! I’ll let ya’ rest” His voice is kind of louder than you would like at this moment but his energy is contagious to say the least. It’s funny to hear that nickname again but you ignore it.
Laying down your entire weight settles into the bunk. It feels so much better than what you have grown used to. A heavy exhale leaves your body with some sense of relief. But it’s still strange, and you have no idea where they are even taking you, or what the Republic expects of you. You squeeze your eyes shut irritated at the line of thinking you're dwelling on. You have to stop yourself and just focus on resting, you don’t know the next time you could have a bed as nice as this. You feel Lula in the bed and you’re tempted to pull it closer, but you leave it, it’s not yours. But you make sure she’s settled safe on your pillow and out of the way. Shifting in the blankets you don’t know how long it takes but you finally drift off again
kianamaiart
annaxmalina
discoholicmusic
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
romaincrisis
stormborns