The Bad Batch Season 1 - Blog Posts

Our Own Choices

Chapter 15

Warnings: Violence, swearing, possibly blood

When we all return to the Marauder, Tech takes a look at the lightsaber wound on my arm, applying some cooling burn cream and injecting some sort of medicine into the wound, before bandaging it up.

"Thanks," I sigh as the cream numbs the burning feeling.

"You do not need to thank me. It is standard protocol that wounds are tended to after a mission," Tech replies without even looking at me, typing away at his datapad, before heading to the pilot's seat.

I sit at the back seat with Echo, Tech and Wrecker had them installed when we went for a quick supply run shortly after I joined them. 

Gonky waddles over to me from the back, making some "gonk" sounds, which I understand as "Is your arm okay?" I smile and pat Gonky on the head. "I'm fine."

He seems to enjoy the gesture as he nudges me a little with his metal body. I take off my helmet and pat Gonky on the head again, breathing in the scent of the ship as I lean back in my chair. I can never get sick of the smell. The familiarity of Echo's scent, that minty one from Crosshair, the dirt from Hunter because he always sniffs it like it's cocaine, gunpowder for Wrecker, and Tech smells like the 501st barracks if the air was sour. Hunter says I smell like chlorine. I love the smell, it feels so welcoming, almost like the 501st, but in a different way.

I put my helmet back on as I remember that I'm supposed to act like a "good soldier" who "follows orders" to gain Crosshair's trust and maybe help him remove his chip like how Fives did.

I sigh as we take off for Kamino. If order 66 was issued, most Jedi would be dead by now.

Even General Skywalker.

At least Commander Tano left the order, so she should be safe.

How's Rex? Will he be back on Kamino? Is he okay? Should I comm him?

Echo puts a hand on my shoulder, noticing my worry. As much as I try to hide it, he's known me long enough to notice the little habits I do when I'm worried.

"Ad'ika, everything's going to okay," he says, looking at me with a slight smile.

"I'm just worried about Rex. Maybe I should comm him-"

"You can do it when we get back to Kamino."

I sigh at the mention of our home planet. I never wanted to go back there. Never wanted to go back to the white, sterile prison I escaped from just before the war started. But hey, it's not like I have much of a choice.

I keep my helmet on throughout the journey. It's more comfortable, really. No one gets to see my face in case I commit a war crime or something. Crosshair and Hunter fall asleep on their seats while I turn on the music from my datapad and connect it to the earpiece in my helmet, listening to Avicii music.

After a few hours of finding a bunch of music to listen to, I hear Tech say, "We are coming up on Kamino." 

I switch off the music, still keeping my helmet on.

"It's good to be home. How long has it been?" Wrecker asks.

Not good to be home. And 180 rotations based on their schedule. 

"180 rotations in a standard cycle, but galactic zone changes but the adjusted figure at around 205."

Oh. Damn.

"Wut?" Wrecker asks.

Are you that stupid?

Echo sighs. "A long time." He sounds so fed up, rolling his eyes when Wrecker agrees.

I sit behind Hunter and Crosshair, listening in on every conversation. I notice Crosshair turning to look at Hunter, who responds, eyes closed, with a "What?"

"You sure that Padawan died when he fell?"

"Sure I'm sure. Why?" Hunter opens his eyes as he talks.

"Well, usually when someone falls you look down, not across."

"Well some of us don't like to watch," Hunter replies as he stands up and walks to where Echo, Tech and Wrecker are. Crosshair and I remain at the back, I silently observe as he crosses his arms. 

I hear thunder crashing from outside the ship, and it shakes me to my core. Only Kamino thunder sounds like that. I remember hiding in my bunk every night, trying to drown out the sounds of waves crashing against the supports. My squadmates laughing at me for being a coward, saying it was because I was defective.

One of the days the storms were much worse than usual. The thunder too loud for my liking, I could almost feel the waves reaching to the platform. I was sneaking out of my barracks, when I saw 99 carrying blasters to the weapon storage area.

"Hey Aris," he called out when he noticed me. "What're you doing still up?"

"I couldn't sleep," I admitted. "Thunder was too loud."

99 puts the blasters he was carrying to the side and puts his arm around my shoulder, guiding me into the barracks where the rest of my sleeping squadmates are.

"Cmon kid, let's get you to bed."

I climb into my bunk as another crash of thunder startles me, and I curl up into a ball in my bunk.

"Everything's going to be okay kid. Just relax and think of something else," 99 says as he puts the blanket over me, tucking me into bed. I smile up at him. "Thanks 99."

He gives me a short nod, his half-smile making the wrinkles on his face even more pronounced as he walks out.

That night I had the best sleep of my life.

And now 99's dead. And I'm all grown up. I sigh as I push the urge to cry down and focus on the present.

"Unidentified transport, transmit your clearance code," A voice from the front of the ship says.

"Clearance code? Don't they know who we are?" Echo asks.

"Must be a protocol drill," Tech replies. "Transmitting clearance code."

"Authorization confirmed. Proceed to landing bay one-tac-one."

Tech pilots the ship into the landing bay. The door of the ship opens and Hunter and Tech walk out first, with me following behind them. If I'm in the middle, hopefully no one will notice the new addition to the squad. Echo, Wrecker and Crosshair walk out behind me, all of their helmets off except me and Crosshair's.

Clones patrol the landing bay, and I spot the familiar crimson armor of the Coruscant Guard troopers. I scoff at the sight.

Fucking Coruscant Guard. Murdered a good soldier who just tried to do his duty. I would kill them any day.

"Shock troopers? What's the Coruscant Guard doing here?" Hunter's voice interrupts my silent trash talking of the Coruscant Guard. 

Oh. Right. Forgot they were supposed to be on Coruscant.

"Level five lockdown remains in effect. Security teams, report to the command center." A voice on the speakers says.

Lockdown? For what? Kamino doesn't look like it's in any danger.

"This isn't a drill," Tech observes.

How perceptive.

"Aw man. What did we miss now?" Wrecker sounds disappointed.

"The end of the war," a random shock trooper answers. 

"Say that again, trooper?" Hunter asks.

"General Grievous was defeated on Utapau. The separatist leadership has collapsed. The war is over."

"Just like I said," Tech says. 

Of course. He's usually right.

Wrecker gasps dramatically. "It is just like you said."

I roll my eyes at Wrecker's comment as I watch troopers carry a body laid out on a stretcher covered by a piece of cloth.

A body? On Kamino? No battles happened recently...

A lightsaber falls out from under the cloth and onto the floor.

A Jedi.

So I was right. Most of the Jedi are dead.

The shock trooper picks the lightsaber up from the floor as the rest of the batch look at each other with a look that says, "something's not right".

"Is there a problem?" The shock trooper asks.

"No...problem. We'll just head to our barracks then," Hunter says, looking back at the rest of us for a moment before walking off, with the rest of us following.

"Best hurry. There's a mandatory general assembly at 1500," the shock trooper says.

We walk through the sterile, almost blinding white hallways of Kamino. I instinctively stay close to Echo, not to the point of looking like a clingy child, but still within half a meter radius of him.

Echo looks back at me. "You okay?"

I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. "Yeah. I just...never thought I'd find myself back here. Again." It's my way of saying, "I don't want to be back here. I'm so scared." 

Echo gives me a short nod, which is his way of saying, "Everything's going to be okay" in public. We pass rows of troopers marching towards somewhere, in an almost robotic way.

"It's not just the clones on Kaller," Hunter says. "All the regs are acting strange." Tech looks around. "Let's test that theory." He proceeds to walk up to a random clone and asks, "Excuse me, trooper. What division are you from?"

Obviously annoyed, the clone elbows him in the side with his blaster. "Step aside."

"Oh, well they seem the same to me."

"I'm not surprised. I'd be annoyed too," I speak up, trying to lighten the mood. No one replies.

We reach their barracks and the moment the door opens, I'm greeted with the scent of oil, rotting food, and sweat. I scrunch up my nose under my helmet.

Tech walks in first, then Wrecker, who exclaims how it's good to be back while setting his helmet on a crate.

"The smell's getting worse," Echo comments.

"You're still new. You'll get used to it," Hunter reassures him, patting him on the shoulder. Crosshair pushes past the both of them. "Speak for yourself."

I hesitantly walk into the barracks, the smell gets stronger when I enter. I look around, observing my surroundings. It's quite messy, Tech has a bunch of random parts scattered on the table, Echo has a hammock at the side, and Crosshair's bunk has crates in front of it to block people from entering it.

This is the first time I'm entering their barracks. The last time they went back to Kamino I refused to go, and they went to pick me up in a few days. Those few days were the best of my life.

Crosshair goes to sit on the crates blocking his bunk while the rest of them go to sit at the table in the middle of the room. Wrecker marks the board for the number of missions we completed.

Still keeping my helmet on by instinct, I walk over to Crosshair, who's currently chewing on a toothpick, helmet off.

"Um. Can I have one?" I awkwardly gesture to the toothpick in his mouth.

"No," he replies. "Go away."

"Look we need to get you to the medbay right now or as soon as possible."

"Why?"

"Because there's an inhibitor chip in your head which basically makes you follow orders blindly and it's working for all the other clones except us but it's working for you and-"

"I'm fine."

"No you're not you carried out Order 66 and-"

"Shut up," he says in a dangerously low tone. My temper starts to flare up.

"Make me."

Crosshair stands up from the crates and cracks his knuckles, ready to draw his knife if things escalate. I draw my knife and get into a fighting stance.

"Woah woah woah. Easy," Hunter says as he pushes us apart. I glare at Crosshair, and he glares back. Not breaking eye contact, I sheathe my knife and shove Crosshair over just for good measure before heading over to sit next to Echo. 

"11 more successful missions," Wrecker says with a grin. "Like there was any doubt." He goes to sit on his bunk, picking up his tooka doll.

"Kaller wasn't a win," Echo says. 

"Says who? We completed our objective."

"Not every objective," Crosshair speaks up, picking up his rifle and examining it. I draw my sword from my back and start sharpening it absentmindedly, just needing something to do with my hands. 

"Hunter let that Jedi kid escape. Or do you want to keep lying to us?"

Hunter stands up and looks out the window. "I don't like to think of executing our commanders as a mission objective."

Crosshair stands up from his position on the crates. 

"An order is an order."

"Since when?"

They glare at each other for a moment before Echo breaks the tension. "None of this makes sense. Those clones served alongside General Bilaba for years. How could they turn on her like that?!"

"Because of the regs' programming," Tech speaks up.

"What programming?" Hunter breaks his death stare at Crosshair to ask.

"It's been well documented that the Kaminoans inhibited the cognitive functions of clones-"

"To engineer them to follow orders without question," I finish. Tech glares at me like I just committed a horrible war crime.

"Ha! We sure don't!" Wrecker shouts, assaulting Crosshair with his tooka doll.

"Obviously we are different. They manipulated pre-existing aberrations in our DNA resulting in your brute strength, Crosshair's sharpshooting skills..." Lucky son of a bitch. "...Hunter's enhanced senses and my exceptional mind. My guess is we are immune to the effects of the programming. Though I can't be 100% certain of it.

"Well Crosshair isn't and he's in fucking denial," I say with a sarcastic smile underneath my helmet. Crosshair is walking over to probably punch me in the face when Echo gives him a glare which makes him back off. He knows how protective my ori'vod can be. 

"What about Echo? He was a reg before he joined us. And Aris," Hunter asks.

"Well see guys Echo was probably damaged on Skako Minor because look at him right now no offence ori'vod, and since I'm an actual defect they probably didn't even bother I mean they were gonna terminate me anyways," I laugh under my helmet. Echo pats my shoulder. "Good thing they didn't then."

"All personnel report to the staging area for a briefing on the state of the Republic," a voice says over the speakers.

"This is one meeting I don't want to miss," Hunter says, walking to the door.

"First time for everything," Tech comments as we all head to the staging area. Troopers stand in neat rows, helmets on as they stare up at the holotransmission of a hooded figure, they look almost robotic. The thought of their individuality...Fives and Echo's chaotic nature, Hardcase's constant urge to shoot something, Uncle Wolffe's sarcasm, Rex's parental instincts, all gone...it gives me chills. I'm hardly paying attention until I hear the word "Jedi".

"...And the Jedi rebellion has been foiled. The remaining Jedi will be hunted down and defeated!" The hooded figure says. "The attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed."

"You can say that again," Wrecker says. I almost burst out laughing.  

"But I assure you, my resolve has never been stronger! In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE! For a safe and secure society."

Galactic Empire????? Man the Republic sounded so much better though-

Everyone starts cheering, except me and the batch. What's so exciting about Jedi getting killed? Right. Must be the inhibitor chip.

I look around to try and find any 501st members. None here. I'll comm Rex later. Right now, I need to focus on getting Crosshair's chip out.

I sigh as I glance at Echo, who looks equally confused as me.

"Ori'vod?" I turn to Echo.

"Yeah?"

"I need to talk to you in the barracks later. It's about Fives."

He lets out a sigh. "Okay vod'ika." 

a/n: IM BACK IN THE HOUSE BOISSSSSSS

How about a crosshair fic? Comforting him after he runs from the empire and starts regreting what happened.

Maybe him and reader didn't like each other, I dunno.. i love truth or truth btw!

Can be fluff or smut or both?

First of all, thank you so much love!

Crosshair deserves all the love and comfort he needs! So here you go

You had no choice

Crosshair x reader (no y/n this time)

(SWF, sadboy cross, comfort, mentions of order 66, fluff)

1.1k Words (:

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"How is it that you, of all the people you could have run to, choose to come to me?"

You asked, looking at him with skeptical eyes.

You had never gotten along well, his snide remarks and the way he held himself in front of everyone was nerve-wracking. But one was his brothers and the other was you, but he seemed to despise you even more than all the other things.

"Have you ever seen us have friends?"

He asked, the toothpick in his mouth rolled from side to side. He looked horrible, his beard was stubbly and not clean shaven as usual, his hair was a little longer than usual, his eyes were surrounded by deep dark circles and above his right ear was an nasty looking scar.

"Why are you here anyway? What's going on and what do you want from me Crosshair?"

You asked, stepping aside to let him into your apartment. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked around in silence, he had never been here before, he had gotten a lot of offers from the others to come and have dinner and party with them one night, but he turned them down every time.

"Did you notice what happened in the last few months?"

He asked and followed you into your kitchen, you silently used the coffee machine and sighed.

"The Jedi were executed for treason and all the clones killed the people they fought side by side with for years without hesitation? You mean this crazy game?"

You replied, taking a deep breath before turning to look at him with tired eyes. Sighing, he sat down on one of the chairs at the counter, rubbed his eyes and then accepted the cup you gave him with a grateful nod.

"It's not quite like that.  It seems the Kaminoans put a chip in us, a so-called inhibitor chip, none of us knew anything about it.... I mean how could we?

After we were ordered to execute 'Order 66', the chips activated and almost all clones executed what seems to have been planned for ages. All the orders that were assigned to us afterwards, everyone did it without even thinking what we were doing, the damage we were causing."

He said and lowered his head, his fingers tapping sporadically against the cup and a dull look entering his eyes.

You had never seen him like this before, he looked like he was regretting what he had done for the first time. His shoulders slumped in defeat and his eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if he were trying to hold his emotions together.

"Crosshair, where are the others? Are they still out there with the empire?"

You asked, and his shoulders tensed. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at you with a bitter look.

"No, their chip never activated."

Answered the silver haired man and he took the toothpick out of his mouth before snorting in frustration.

"We were on Kaller when the order came, General Bilaba was executed by her men when we were about to run to the other location. Her padawan was with us and when he saw what happened he ran into the forest. I wanted to kill him and if he hadn't knocked me out I would have done it.

Hunter let him go. When we returned to Kamino we were given a mission to neutralize a group of insurgents on Onderon, but it was just a group of Republican fighters who didn't want to be part of the Empire."

A tear ran down his cheek and he looked out the window. The city was so alive, yet it looked so quiet.

"Hunter gave us the order to let them be and we let them go, but a probe droid had recorded everything and when we got back to Kamino we got arrested. We were warned by a little girl not to go back to Kamino, but Hunter wanted to get her and leave, that didn't work out so well."

He continued and snorted ironically. More tears ran down his cheeks and you looked at him sympathetically, in all the time you had known each other he had never talked so much, let alone shown so much emotion.

"I was taken out of the cell after a while and my chip activity was increased. They put me in new armor afterwards and made me a commander, maker I felt so good.. So powerful and so meaningful. But it was all for nothing, the others fled with the girl and left me on Kamino and the times I saw them after that, again. But who can blame them, I tried to kill them".

He said and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, more tears running freely down his cheeks and his arms wrapped tightly around him.

You straightened up and walked with gentle steps around the counter to him to put a hand on his shoulder. Your head tilted slightly to the side and you looked at him more closely, his eyes were still tightly closed, his cheeks were moist and his lip wobbled slightly.

"Crosshair. I don't know what else happened. But please know that what happened there over time was not you, you had no choice."

He whimpered when he heard your words.

"But I did it regardless."

He replied and his voice cracked before he looked at you with a broken look. You took his hand in yours and rubbed soothingly over his fingers.

You gently put your arms around him, his tense body relaxed after a short time in your grasp and he gently rested his forehead against your collarbone as more tears ran down his cheeks.

It was incredibly quiet in your apartment for quite a while, apart from the occasional sobs. The dim lights of the passing ships briefly illuminated the dark room you were in.

Crosshair sighed and looked up sheepishly.

"I should go."

"Crosshair, stay here. I can't just let you run around outside when I know you're wanted, please."

You said, looking at him pleadingly, his gaze softening as he looked at you.

"I need to find the others."

He replied and looked at you with a torn look. You went to him and took his hand in yours to intertwine your fingers.

"And I'll help you find them again, but please stay Cross."

You whispered and looked up at him with pleading eyes. He looked at you silently and nodded firmly after a while, his grip on your fingers tightened and he looked deep into your eyes.

"Okay, I'll stay."

Thank you so much for reading love!

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