Chapter Text
Hintivan II is, after the death of the Supreme Chancellor, an unequivocal walkover.
“The clankers are in a rout,” Hunter reports, flipping through the various comm frequencies, catching piecemeal snippets of other squads’ sitreps in an attempt to assess the ongoing situation. “The orbital defenses have been neutralised by the 91st, and the 212th have retaken the capital.”
“Aw,” Wrecker groans, disappointed.
“That’s good, right?” Fives says. “We win.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to declare it a victory just yet,” Tech says. “Things never usually go that well for us.”
“What did they even need us for,” Wrecker grumbles, kicking a small rock off in the direction of the frozen lake.
“Our job isn’t done yet, boys,” Hunter reminds them, checking his comm. “I haven’t received countermanding orders from Cody, which means we’re still in business. There are Sep droids hiding in the forest, and we’ve got to flush them out.”
“B1s and B2s?” Wrecker asks, bored.
“Destroyers,” Hunter says, and Wrecker’s face lights up instantly. “Clone intelligence promises me a couple of octuptarras, as well.”
The coniferous forests to the south of Hintivan II’s capital are a gelid landscape swathed with colossal snow-capped trees, stretching twelve kilometers at its widest. Long-range surveyance done of the planet from orbit had identified a concealed warren of ravines, a marker of early tectonic activity from the planet’s formative epoch — and a strategically ideal location for keeping droids in reserve. Tech had performed the calculations aboard the Negotiator: conjecturally, these chasms could provide enough cover to obscure a number of droids that could turn the tide of war in the enemy’s favour.
“Why couldn’t the Seps have chosen to invade a nice tropical planet?” Fives grouses, hugging himself tight as a gale of icy wind cuts right in their direction.
Echo tosses him a couple of heat packs. “They would, if all the nice tropical planets had strategic value.”
“Didn’t Fox have you do espionage legwork for months on, like, ten different planets?” Crosshair asks.
“Yeah,” Fives shrugs, stuffing the heat packs down his blacks, and — as much as he is a capable, valiant trooper, whose virtues would clear ARC qualifications many times over again, Tech will admit it’s also hard to believe, some days, that this is the man who outed Palpatine as the Sith Lord after faking his own death and going deep undercover for nearly a year. “That was fine. Fox never sent me to a cold planet.”
“Your after-action report says you got chased by a pack of acklays.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t too bad, actually. Did you know acklays can only run in a straight line?”
“Boys,” Hunter says, exasperated. “Fives, quit whining. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we get off this frozen rock.”
“Finally,” Wrecker declares, cracking his knuckles. “We ‘aven’t seen any action since Christophsis, we’re gettin’ rusty.”
“Speak for yourself,” Crosshair says, sticking a toothpick in his mouth.
“We’ll work in two teams to draw them out,” Hunter interjects quickly, before the two of them can devolve into further argument, or start making ridiculous bets about their kill tallies. “Tech with Wrecker; Echo with me. Crosshair and Fives will do lookout and cover.”
Crosshair smirks at Fives. “You good at climbing trees, reg?”
They disperse at Hunter’s orders. Fourteen droidekas are found within the first klick of the sweep. Tech and Wrecker locate a cache of octuptarras within the next mile and make short work of them with some thermal detonators. On two separate occasions Fives spots groups of commando droids waiting to ambush Hunter and Echo and provides ample warning; Crosshair despatches at least four camouflaged probe droids before they can get any alerts out.
“Twenty-one, twenty-four, twenty-seven…” Wrecker steps over the charred chassis of a collapsed tri-droid. “That’s twenty-seven so far.”
“I’m pretty sure there were only three octuptarras.”
“Yeah, but one o’ those gotta be worth at least three destroyers, right?”
The wind picks up, strong enough to cut off speakers for a split-second before his helmet’s damper settings kick in. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“Oh, c’mon, these gotta be at least three times the size of a destroyer. They’re magna tri-droids, not the lame smaller ones.”
“What do we think, Crosshair?”
Hintivan II’s climate is cold enough that Tech can feel the polar elements even through his armor’s thermoregulative systems, and if he’s uncomfortable, Tech can only imagine what Fives is putting Crosshair through, given that Fives already whines like a youngling when the temperature drops a single standard degree on the Marauder, so it’s not entirely unexpected when Crosshair’s reply over the comms is curt and irascible. “Are you trying to cheat, Wrecker?”
“No,” Wrecker splutters. “C’mon, it’s fair, these things are much harder to take down than destroyers—”
“We didn’t agree before that one octuptarra equals three destroyers—”
“Did you see how hard they were to take down?”
“You took four minutes.”
“And I could take down a destroyer in one.”
“That’s…” the speaker crackles, distorting Crosshair’s voice. “…-levant…playing…”
The comm cuts off with a strident peal of static, and Tech frowns, calling up the controls on his HUD. Sinusoidal wave graphs and other information feeds stream along the inner screen of his visor as external sensors affixed to his armor supplement additional data beyond the capabilities of his perception. “Our signals are jammed.”
“Yeah, duh,” Wrecker says. “And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
Tech chooses to ignore that remark for now. Payback will be for when they’re back on the Marauder. “I…cannot distinguish the source of the interruption.”
“Hunter would’ve said somethin’ if there was a grid nearby.”
“He would, but not if the grid was deactivated before and only just became operational.” Tech switches between displays, studying various infographics as he attempts to determine the source of the interruption. “I don’t understand. Something so disruptive should have been picked up by the long-range scanners when we did the orbital survey.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Wrecker grunts, ducking beneath a low branch. “Focus on the job.”
He’s right, as much as it rankles Tech not to be able to immediately dedicate his attention into finding out the cause of the problem. The primary mission comes first; it just means they’ll have to be more careful, now that Crosshair isn’t able to reach them.
The tree line ends abruptly at the fringe of another ravine, part of the network that delineates the patchwork orthomosiac of the Hintivanian forest. The clough is seventy-feet deep and nearly thirty across; far too wide for any of their gear to allow them to cross safely or expediently. The only consolation their current situation affords them, Tech reflects, peering over the lip of the ravine, is that at least there aren’t a bunch of clankers lurking in ambush at the bottom. Even nimble commando droids would have trouble scaling that sheer of an escarpment.
“Great,” Wrecker mutters.
“I’m picking up EM flares,” Tech says. “Large numbers. There are more droids across.”
“Got any ideas how to get over first, smart guy?”
“…I’m thinking.”
Wrecker exhales, looks around. Stalks back toward the tree line, and Tech leaves him to it in favour of mentally computing distances and trajectories. The length of the ravine stretches as far as line of sight goes; trying to go around would take too long. Rappelling down the sides might be a better alternative, but the grapples are with Crosshair. The next possible option might be constructing a bricolage catapult or slackline —
Something cracks, sharp and loud, and Tech turns just in time to see a massive fir come tumbling down toward him.
“Timber!” Wrecker yells.
Tech hurls himself backward, just as the enormous tree lands not half a foot from where he was previously standing, throwing up young fronds and layers of shattered bark into the air. The impact scares nesting raptors from their perches, sends sheets of snow cascading in all directions, temporarily whiting out his vision for split seconds before his visor imaging auto-corrects to compensate for the poor visibility.
When the snow settles, the trunk has collapsed diagonally across the chasm.
“Wrecker!”
“What? I gave you a warnin’.”
It is (exceedingly annoyingly, Tech must preface) a very impressive feat that Wrecker has managed, punching through a tree with a diameter nearly equivalent to his height. “You nearly killed me!”
“It wasn’t gonna hit you.”
“What — how would you know whether it was going to hit me or not?”
Wrecker makes a sound that means he’s rolling his eyes in his bucket. “I calculated. If I wanted it to hit ‘ya, I would have angled it 2 centimeters off to the right.” He digs his fingers in the friable integument for purchase, hauls himself up the snag.
“You just gave away our position.”
“It’s a forest.” Wrecker leans down, extends a hand. “Blowdowns probably happen all the time here.”
“I’m telling Hunter,” Tech huffs, but he takes the proffered hand anyway, lets Wrecker pull him up. Hintivan II’s megaflora tend to have brittle epidermises but strong cores to support the height they can grow up to, and their improvised bridge feels solid beneath his boots when he takes a tentative step, strong enough to take both their weights simultaneously.
“Forgot how much I hate heights,” Wrecker groans, as they start across the length of the trunk.
“Just don’t look down.” In direct contravention with what he’s just said, Tech risks a look over the side. At least this time he can actually see the bottom, unlike their previous tightrope-walking experience on Skako Minor which required subsequent extraction by Keeradak, but — a fall now is still likely going to be equally fatal as it would have been back then. “It’s just a little bit to the other side.”
Each footfall sends snow shedding off the sides of the narrow path, and Tech keeps low, mindful of his centre of gravity to avoid overbalancing. Ahead of him, Wrecker keeps his steps steady, his gaze forward, and the distance to the other side gradually closes —
A blaster bolt scores the passage two meters to the end, and Tech stumbles.
“Kark,” Wrecker says, as the log beneath them starts to tremble, and when Tech peers around his bulk there’s a swarm of commando droids at the other end, clambering up the trunk.
The closest droid opens fire, and Wrecker ducks, unholsters his own pistol and begins returning shots. Tech clings on, arms around the circumference of the tree — or as much of it as he can manage — as it bucks with the weight of more droids climbing up top, and the impact as some of them are immediately gunned down by Wrecker, smashing backward onto the trunk and limply tumbling off the sides. Some of the shots find their mark on Wrecker’s armour, but they barely ablate the reinforced plastoid plates; Katarn-class armour is sturdy enough that the damage they leave is largely cosmetic.
“Got any giant birds to call to help us, this time?” Wrecker bellows, over the cacophony of discharging carbines.
“Keeradaks are reptiles,” Tech shouts back, and he has absolutely no idea how Wrecker is still managing to keep his balance while fighting so many droids on a shaking log.
It’s like disturbing a nest of Elphronian chromants. The commando droids are relentless; for every one destroyed two more appear, and soon enough they’ve gained enough distance that Wrecker abandons his blaster and just goes for grabbing the nearest ones, ripping them apart with brute force. Tech forces himself upright just as the first ones start overtaking Wrecker’s position and advancing toward him, and nearly fumbles his blaster twice before finally bringing it up to bear, decapitating the closest droid right at the last second before it can reach for him.
In the rush of battle, it’s hard to think, easier to let years of trained instinct take control. Tech lets his muscle memory guide his actions; dodging, ducking, aiming and firing without even the slightest room for contemplation. Commando droids are agile and dexterous, aren’t as subject to the laws of inertia as other categories of droid, but Clone Force 99 are close-combat specialists, and every single member — the new intakes included — are superlatively proficient at it. Once Tech gets over the initial blunder, however, the tide of battle quickly turns in their favour; the droids stand little chance.
Of course, because the universe conspires to keep things interesting, luck also plays a critical factor in the denouement of a fight.
Appraising the imperviousness of their opponents’ armour against plasma bolts, three of the commandos decide to eschew their blasters in favour of hurling themselves straight for Wrecker, in a bid to overwhelm by combined force. At the same time, two more decide to leapfrog Wrecker completely, going right for Tech.
The first droid gets taken out with a point-blank shot to the chest casing. The second one comes in so close there isn’t time at all to pivot, and its bulk collides squarely into Tech’s chest plastron, ninety kilograms of reinforced steel smashing into his torso at full speed, expelling the air from his lungs. Something cracks, and the area around his solar plexus flares up like a row of squibs, and for an instant Tech teeters —
His foot shifts in an attempt to counter, skids much too close to the side of the trunk.
And then he’s falling, arms pinwheeling in a futile endeavour to grab onto something, anything to arrest his descent but coming up short, and he’s moving fast, too fast, and there isn’t time to think —
Something catches Tech right before he smashes into the ground.
Or — well. In hindsight, someone.
Genetically enhanced or not, Tech’s still a soldier. Isn’t afraid of dying, because that’s kind of foreordained for a clone trooper fighting in this war, and in the quiet moments of the night he always wonders how he’ll go. Anything can happen, especially when they’re always being deployed to different planets with multifold terrains and situations; if he’s honest with himself, Tech’s always thought he’d die at the hand of a Separatist general, looking straight at his killer, grimly accepting his fate with eyes wide open.
At some point during his descent, though, with the ground rushing up to meet him with the promise of a gristly, excruciating death, his eyes have shut. He blinks them open now, bemused, because not only is he still…himself, for lack of information on how the post-mortem experience feels like; he appears to be levitating ten feet off the ground, completely weightless.
The low, almost imperceptible hum of latent power surrounds him, prickling at his skin through his armor, and Tech knows with absolute certainty that this is the Force.
Jedi.
Above him, the sounds of fighting have ceased, and a second later he’s wrenched upward by the same invisible power that’s arrested his fall. The ground falls farther away from him — and the sight is peculiarly nauseating, re-creating his descent in reverse — and then he’s gently deposited on the opposite bank of the ravine, amid a pile of destroyed commando droids.
“Are you all right?” someone says, and when Tech looks up the largest Zabrak he’s ever seen is looking back at him.
His saviour towers over him, nearly seven feet tall. His aureate skin glimmers in the late afternoon sun, overlaid with intricate, traditional tattoos; his cranial horns are nacreous, keen enough to rend, and even through the loose drape of his Jedi robes it’s evident enough that he’s got the bulk to evenly match a Dowutin in a bare-handed fight.
Tech’s seen Zabraks before. Obviously, because Wrecker’s involved with one, but there are also other Zabrak generals serving with the GAR. They all carry themselves with the same grace that Jedi tend to do, and this one is no different, but —
There’s a quiescent power behind those muscles; raw violence coiled tight, waiting to burst forth from carefully guarded barriers to level the entire forest on a whim. It’s a storm raging beneath the serene veneer, and it’s not something Tech’s ever noticed in other Jedi before.
The Zabrak gazes expectantly down at Tech with intense aureate irises, in a way that’s reminiscent of nexu tracking their prey, and abruptly Tech remembers he’s waiting for an answer.
“Yes, sir,” he manages eventually.
The Jedi frowns, like he doesn’t believe Tech, but before he can protest there’s a warning shout from Wrecker. Stripes of collimated light streak past them, punctuated by the discharge staccato of blaster carbines, and despite his colossal size the Jedi blurs, moving to shield Tech with his own body, lightsaber coming up to deflect the incoming fusillade.
There are more commando droids emerging from behind the tree line; remnants of the group Tech and Wrecker had nearly destroyed before their position had been overrun. This time, though, it isn’t a scramble like it was previously; the Jedi’s movements are controlled, precise, almost lazy. Each twist of his weapon is intentional, efficient; minimizing energy expended, and Tech watches, riveted, as he draws their fire away from Wrecker, standing a few feet away, and redirects every shot back into the oncoming clankers.
It isn’t a fair fight, not with a Jedi on their side. The entire skirmish lasts minutes; when the last droid falls, the Separatist contingent gradually ablated by their own fire, the Jedi deactivates his lightsaber, exhales long and slow as he assesses the horizon for any more hostiles.
“Tech,” Wrecker says, eminently relieved, and picks him up in a bear hug, lifting him right off the ground. “I thought you were gone.”
“Thought I was, too,” Tech wheezes. “Wrecker — can’t breathe—”
“Right, sorry.”
He sets Tech back down on his feet, and it’s only by a bare margin that Tech’s legs don’t buckle and send him collapsing back onto the ground. The Force-lift was disorienting, nearly as much as the fall itself, and Tech can now completely commiserate with Captain Rex’s aversion to heights following the second battle of Geonosis.
“Thanks for the save, sir,” he croaks, throat dry.
The Jedi dismisses it with a shake of his head, clasps his hands together and bows low. “No thanks are required,” he says. His accent is distinctly Coruscanti, specific to the Jedi who grew up in the main Temple. “Jedi Master Savage Opress.”
That’s not a name Tech’s familiar with, so — it’s unlikely this Master Opress sits on the Council. “Tech, sir, Clone Force 99.”
“Wrecker, sir.”
The Jedi accepts their names with a nod, and rises back to full height. “You are in pain,” he observes. “What is wrong?”
Tech blinks. As if summoned by verbal acknowledgement, the twinges around his midriff assert their presence now, and instantly he’s aware of the soreness around his ribs, how each slight twist of his upper body sends pangs stabbing through his sides.
“Collided with a droid back there,” he says, and his voice is weak, thin to his ears. It’s not the worst injury he’s sustained. “Likely just bruised ribs, sir.”
Savage frowns. “Healing is not my specialty,” he admits, drawing close. He has to duck low to shift one of Tech’s arms over his shoulders to take his weight, and automatically Wrecker comes up to support his other side. “I can take the worst of it away, until you are able to be safely relocated to the nearest med facility.”
Not needing to take his full weight on his feet is a relief, more so than Tech has anticipated. “I’m fine, sir,” he protests weakly.
“You shut up,” Wrecker says.
“Lay him down,” Savage instructs; there’s an edge of authority in his inflection makes Tech go limp. Wrecker trips the quick-release switches on his cuirass, dragging the damaged plate off and inspecting for hairline cracks beneath while Savage gets close, pressing a palm gently against his blacks, palpating his torso for serious damage. Normally, this is the kind of thing Tech can do himself, especially since he has a medpac sensor, but —
There isn’t a shred of him that wants to move in Savage’s proximity, for some reason, and idly he wonders if some atavistic instinct has been triggered, freezing in the presence of something his animal hindbrain recognizes as a threat.
It isn’t wholly fear. That’s the thing; Tech recognizes fear, has been trained to compartmentalise it. Only the barest filigree of this emotion is fear; the rest of it is something entirely unfamiliar, and not…unpleasant.
“Pardon the vague diagnosis,” Savage says, dry. “This process is much less precise than a medisensor. Something is certainly broken, but I cannot detect any harm to your vital organs.”
Cool relief spreads through his torso, outward from where Savage has placed his palm. It pares the sharpest edges of pain down to a dull ache; effaces the twinges to a more comfortable soreness, as the Jedi wills his body to heal itself. Subconsciously he relaxes, muscles slackening as the worst of the pain subsides, and then disappears completely.
“I have ameliorated as much of the pain as I can,” Savage declares, removing his palm. Tech instantly mourns the loss of warmth of this contact. “Everything should be in order, but you should still have it checked as soon as we are back onboard the Negotiator.”
He helps Tech sit up. Tech should thank him, should say something to express his gratitude, but this dugar-dugar-in-headlights feeling is unshakeable, and his recalcitrant body refuses to vocalise anything remotely reasonable.
…what’s happening to him?
The Jedi must register that Tech looks uncomfortable, and he shifts away, just the slightest bit to give him more space. He looks faintly concerned as he gives Tech a final once-over, and Tech wants to tell him it isn’t his fault, his stupid body is just reacting to this Zabrak in a way he cannot understand, but —
“Armor’s fine, too,” Wrecker announces, ostensibly done with his inspection, and without ceremony jams it back in its place, cutting off line-of-sight between Tech and Savage. “Like nothin’ even happened.”
“Katarn-class armor is engineered to be more durable than plastoid,” Tech rasps, and with what tattered shreds of dignity he has left, staggers back upright by himself. “Thank you, sir.”
“Forgive me if I have caused you discomfort in any way,” Savage says, and steps back. “Your teammates are safe, as well. My brothers are with them now.”
It’s like a jar of cold water upended on his head, to be reminded of their situation. “The comms,” Tech curses, and reaches for his datapad. “They’re jammed —”
“You crossed a tripline,” Savage tells them. “The Separatists set it up when they garrisoned their reserve forces here.” He slants his gaze upward to where faint specks of silver hover in the sky; the entire complement of star destroyers and their auxiliary vessels that make up the battle group tasked to secure the Hintivan system. Scowling in that direction, he adds, “The sector admiral sent six clones to sweep seventeen acres of forests infested with known droid threats.”
Wrecker bristles, a little. “We’re specialists, sir—”
“I do not question your competency on the battlefield,” Savage says, evenly. “And it would be damaging to overlook the fact that one of your number took down the Sith Lord in the Senate. But even a bantha can be taken down by a large enough nest of chromants.”
He directs his gaze into the depths of the forest; Tech will privately admit he does feel much better navigating this terrain now that they have a Jedi with them. “I will accompany you for the rest of your mission.”
The rest of the job is uneventful, or as uneventful as these kinds of things tend to be; at least fourteen more droid ambushes are uncovered and destroyed. Wrecker racks up a score of two hundred and fourteen; the Jedi a thousand and seven, and Tech isn’t counting for Savage on purpose, but since he’s already promised Crosshair he’d help testify for Wrecker’s final tally, aggregating the Jedi’s kills isn’t much of an additional task.
Two more Zabraks are waiting with the rest of the squad when they get back. Comm frequencies are still jammed; they make their way back to the rendezvous point relying wholly on Savage’s sense of the Force. Both Jedi are slighter than Savage, if only by a small margin, and carry resemblances to him in different ways: one has an identical shade of skin and bears the mark of the Healer on his left pauldron; the other is crimson red with the same threat of tightly-constrained violence hidden beneath the surface. All three of them are patterned in involuted traditional tattoos, and possess the same firm set of their jaw that assures Tech of their consanguinity.
“Tech,” Hunter exclaims, evidently relieved when he catches sight of them. “We heard you were hurt.”
Tech blinks, bemused for the barest of seconds before he remembers — Jedi can communicate with each other, through the Force.
“Forgive me,” Savage says, when Tech’s glance flicks up to him. “Your teammates were worried, and requested updates. I relayed our situation to them through my brother.”
“There is nothing to worry about, Sergeant,” the healer reassures Hunter. “The injury was not critical, and what has been damaged is already mended.”
“I got two hundred fourteen,” Wrecker tells Crosshair, proud. “Tell ‘im, Tech.”
“It’s true.”
“Come on,” Crosshair protests. “I was up in a tree the whole time. There wasn’t much to shoot at.”
“He’s right, it wasn’t a fair competition,” Fives says.
“Hunter and I got three hundred and four,” Echo adds.
“Three hundred and four collectively, or three hundred and four per person —”
“Collectively.”
“That doesn’t qualify, the numbers should be on an individual basis. And since when were the two of you participating?”
“Boys,” Hunter says. Tech catches sight of the Zabraks exchanging amused glances; the healer has to fake a cough to hide his smile in the sleeve of his robe. “We can argue about the rules later. The 212th are waiting for us back at the capital.”
“Still in the lead,” Wrecker grumbles, petulant, and Tech rolls his eyes and makes to follow Hunter as they start the trek back to the drop-off point, where a larty is hopefully waiting for them.
It could have ended much worse today, he knows, and what is presently an easy victory could have been a tragedy; one team member down. The Batch have seen their fair share of close shaves before, certainly, but the incident today feels…more vivid, somehow, like if he closes his eyes he’ll see himself plummeting again, feel the rustle of the wind past him as gravity pulls him down to his death, and if it weren’t for the Jedi this possibility would have been realised. Tech glances sideways, gaze following his thoughts, and —
Savage is looking right back at him.