Invincible
"Good soldiers follow orders…"
The same four words replay themselves repeatedly in Crosshair's mind as he watches the battered attack shuttle take off, and disappear into the unforgivable grey skies of Kamino, carrying the soldiers he used to call his brothers, now traitors, along with it. Nothing changes in his expression, except for a flickering deep in his eyes, ice-cold with the faintest trace of brown.
He turns around, disregarding the remaining shock troopers in their entirety as he puts his helmet back on, and picks up his damaged sniper rifle from the floor. The wretched girl hit a lucky shot. He doubts it will happen again. Beginner's luck is what he likes to call it.
The soldier, dressed in his sleek new black armor, makes his way through the pristine white halls of Tipoca City, this time however seeing them in a new light. This isn't a home. At least, not his. No, this is just a place. A place where he is ordered to be in. That is all. Nothing more.
He finds Admiral Tarkin standing in one of the many observatory towers, watching some clones dig into their second meal of the day. Crosshair admires the way Tarkin's face refuses to show emotion. There's something sinister about the Imperial admiral that he respects. After all, that is his superior.
"Have the remaining members of Clone Force 99 been dealt with?" Tarkin asks with a finger tapping against the bottom of his chin.
"They managed to escape." Crosshair reports. "The bay doors were unable to be sealed."
Tarkin crosses his arms and broods his brow. "A matter that we must deal with another day. As for the bay doors, I'll have some of the technicians look into it. I suspect that it was more than a simple malfunction."
"Is there anything else you need done?" Crosshair asks.
Tarkin turns towards him, and gives him a slight shake of the head. "For the time being, no. You may report back to your quarters."
And with that, Crosshair leaves Tarkin and heads back to his room. If there's one thing he likes about the Empire, it's that they don't waste his time. They are cold and calculating, unlike their predecessors that preferred to do things without much thought. They are prepared to accomplish their goals by any means necessary, something the Republic was unwilling to do, undoubtedly the reason for their precipitous downfall.
When he opens the door to the room, he finds that everything is gone, save for the handful of his personal belongings. It smells a lot better than it used to, now that all the useless piles of junk are no longer present. The scratches strewn across the wall are a constant reminder of his time spent in the field.
Crosshair removes his helmet, and spends a couple minutes mending his sniper rifle, before leaning it against the wall and sitting down on his made bed. He stares across the circular room at the vacant cot that was once Tech's, and then Echo's, Wrecker's, and finally Hunter's.
Hunter. Why couldn't he have just followed the damn order. He truly never could see the bigger picture, always relying on his gut, rather than his brain. Funny how that is, thousands of missions, across countless star systems, thrown away because they refused to do one simple thing. Follow orders.
All the thoughts swirling through Crosshair's mind piss him off, and he stands back up, grabbing his sniper rifle as he heads to the target range.
When he gets there, he has the entire place to himself, which is exactly what he wanted. Nothing pains him more than having to watch and listen to regular clones miss their shots. He selects his custom exercise, moving all of the sliders to their maximum setting, and assumes the ready position.
This is the only time that he is truly happy. When he is lying flat on his belly, with his eye behind a scope, and a finger resting on the trigger.
The targets show up one at a time at first, and Crosshair dispatches them in quick succession with perfect accuracy. With the warmup complete, the exercise ramps up, and soon Crosshair is swiveling the barrel of his rifle around nonstop.
He centers his sight on the last target, and pulls the trigger, but nothing comes out. He's out of ammunition. Crosshair reaches behind his back, and expertly reloads the rifle in a fraction of a second. But when he lines up the target again, what he sees isn't a droid. It's… the face of Hunter, staring right back at him.
For a brief moment, Crosshair hesitates, and then quickly curses himself for getting distracted. He re-stabilizes his arm, and pulls the trigger, unleashing the round into the forehead of Hunter. Crosshair blinks, and Hunter is no longer there, just the droid, lying flat on the ground with a smoking hole in it's head.
"Good soldiers follow orders." Crosshair mutters to himself. "I am a good soldier."
Author's Note:
A little something that I wrote after watching episode three. Might add more chapters if I get inspired. Thanks for reading.