Tech Week Day 3
[AO3]
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do this since I’ve had a really bad headache all day. But I persisted and I’m pleased with the end result!
“Locked onto the coordinates…” Tech muttered to himself, pain dripped from his voice as he knew what awaited the Batch on Kamino.
He’d hoped they wouldn’t have to see what the Empire had done to their home. He’d hoped that maybe they could avoid ever having to think about that place again, besides possibly having some idle conversation about what they each thought happened to it. But now they were going back home.
Though he also knew it wasn’t really home.
It never had been for them.
Maybe for the Regs, but not for Clone Force 99.
For them home had been the Marauder since the moment they’d gotten on board the customized ship.
So they’d only had a home for the three years the war had been happening, that was a small fraction of their lives compared to the time they spent on Kamino. They felt safer on the Marauder after all, it was a place to get away from the hostile world that saw them as nothing more than soldiers made to be thrown a line of droids and give their life.
And yet they still referred to Kamino as their home.
It was a conundrum Tech had never been able to understand.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with frustration.
They wouldn’t be having to go back if it wasn’t for him.
This all could have been avoided if it wasn’t for him.
This wouldn’t be happening if he’d been better.
If he’d mentioned Omega sooner.
If he’d mentioned the chips sooner.
If he’d done anything sooner!
“Hunter said I wouldn’t be going back.” Omega said, cutting through Tech’s self loathing spiral.
He hadn’t heard her come in leading to him quickly turning around to acknowledge her presence, something else to focus on rather than how he’d messed everything up.
“Yes well, none of us were planning to go back…” his voice lingered on the last few words, giving a brief view into how he saw the situation. How he’d failed and now they had to return back to their false home.
His face didn’t give this away though, and while she had the option to not bring it up Omega decided to confront the obvious issue Tech was struggling with.
“This isn’t your fault, you know. No one could have stopped what happened.”
“Perhaps, but while we couldn’t have stopped the chips I still could have mentioned that you were an altered clone. We could have taken you with us, Crosshair in toe, and never have gone back to Kamino to get you. Never have lost Crosshair…”
Omega placed her hand on Tech’s shoulder, attempting to comfort her ori’vod.
“You can think about all the ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’, but it won’t change what happened. You could have done that, but you didn’t. And right now we need you to focus on the now so that we can be ready to save Hunter and Crosshair.” She gave him her best hopeful smile, trying to be optimistic for the both of them.
“Did you learn all that from Nala Se?” He attempted to joke.
Her smile widened as levity was brought to the conversation. “I’ll be ready, and make sure this time we bring both of them home,” he assured her, determined to fix his mistakes this time and bring his vods back.
“We all will, we’ll make sure they come home!” she said, her tone exuding a maturity beyond her years.
He nodded, this self loathing dissipating for the time as he prepared himself mentally for the challenges they would soon face as they came up on Kamino.