Tech rushes into the cockpit and, without bothering to take his helmet off, goes through what the others call the fudge-the-safety-checks-we're-getting-shot-at flight sequence. Omega comes through next and hops into the co-pilot seat. She's been learning anything and everything they will teach her. She is starting to know the ins and outs of the Marauder. She fires up the warm-up sequence on the hyperspace engine.
"Thanks, kid," Tech mutters.
"Take off, Tech, now!" Echo yells from behind them, just at the top of the ramp. He holds one side of an injured Wrecker while Hunter holds the other. It's like carrying a small mountain. Echo grunts under the weight. Hunter kicks the panel on the inside of the door with his left foot, and the ramp lifts, sheltering them from the incoming blaster fire.
"What exactly do you think I am doing?" Tech calls back from the pilot seat.
"Well, whatever it is, try doing it faster!"
"You yelling at me will not make me faster!" Tech retorts. "In fact, your yelling only increases the probability of my making an error in the sequence, frying the engines and getting blown up by blaster fire."
"For crying out loud," Echo murmurs. "Do we really need that image right now?"
The engines roar to life and the Marauder jerks suddenly into the air, throwing Echo, Wrecker and Hunter to the floor. Wrecker groans.
"At least he's alive," Hunter says, pulling him through the corridor to lay him on one of the two storage shelves. This is where they would normally keep the ration boxes. Since they don't have much left, they use the shelf as a makeshift bunk.
"Why does Wrecker weigh three tons?" Echo complains. "How can he weigh so much on the meagre rations that we eat?" Echo was always on the trimmer side than his clone brothers, but he thinks he is truly becoming a walking droid now.
Hunter rummages through the cabinet for the med kit when a blaster shot hits the Marauder. He's thrown across the narrow corridor into the bulkhead. Wrecker falls off the no-rations-turned-bunk-shelf and his limp body pins Echo beneath him.
"Ugh," Echo groans. "Tech!" he yells towards the front. "Hyperspace anytime! Anytime at all!"
"I am trying!" Tech yells back.
As they put Wrecker back on the bunk, they feel the Marauder jump to hyperspace. The very next moment Omega appears beside them, her face pale.
"Will he be alright?" she asks, taking Wrecker's hand. Her voice is much too subdued, and Echo puts his hand on her shoulder.
"He'll be alright, kid," he tells her.
Hunter finishes the scan and nods at her. "He's stunned, that's all." He ruffles her hair gently. "Come, he needs to rest."
"That was closer than I'd like," Hunter admits as they join Tech up at the front. "Crosshair shouldn't have found us that easily."
Omega curls up in the co-pilot chair, with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. Echo goes into the back and brings her a ration portion. She nibbles on it slowly, making it last as long as possible.
"We are low again," Echo admits. "Low on credits, low on rations, low on fuel … and, dare I say it, morale."
"Aren't you a bunch of cheer today," Tech comments.
"I just got shot at," Echo says pointedly, "on an empty stomach."
"We need to research that job," Hunter finally says. He's rejected it before, because he doesn't want to put his squad at risk. But these days, he doesn't think there are any options left for them that are without risk.
Omega looks up at him, her eyes wide.
"I though you said it was too dangerous," she reminds him. "And too close to the Empire."
"I know, but our options are slim," Hunter says shaking his head. "And Crosshair is on our trail. Back towards the Empire stronghold planets is not somewhere he'll be looking. We just need another stop to get enough credits and fuel to make it happen."
"And a bit of research for the job," Echo reminds him. "It has to be an Empire hub." His socket-arm and cybernetic implants are handy for getting information, but he needs to be in the right place. Getting to the right place these days is proving to be difficult.
Tech scans the system, flipping through the various planet options nearby.
"Here," he says. "Lothal." The others look at the map over his shoulder. "Shouldn't have too much Empire presence, but marked with an Empire hub already."
"Are you sure?" Echo asks skeptically.
"Of course I am not sure," Tech grumbles. "Everything is changing faster than we can keep up, and Empire transmissions and data are harder than ever to decrypt." He swivels his chair around to face them. "It could be as expected, or it could be ten times more difficult than I anticipate. It's all about the amount of risk we're willing to take."
"I'd say we don't have much choice at the moment," Hunter says. "Let's get on it. Echo, we need to sell a droid."
"Ah, seriously?" Echo sighs. "Again? I hope you get a better price than last time. It's demeaning, you know, selling me for almost nothing."
Echo walks to the back of the Marauder to pull out the droid suit. He hates wearing it, but strategically he knows it's useful. He knows the others don't see him as a droid, but sometime, when he is wearing it, it is easy to see how with all his metal legs and arm and cybernetic implants, others may see him as something less than human. It's already hard enough not to see himself that way.
Hunter walks by with a sleeping Omega in his arms. He lays her down in her "room" and pulls the curtain closed. He leans against the bulkhead and sighs.
"What do we do about the problem of Crosshair?" he asks Echo.
"What we usually do about problems…" Echo says as he strips down to his under armour and starts putting on the droid.
"Eliminate them?" Hunter wonders, staring at the floor, his eyes sweeping back and forth over invisible options, all of them unpleasant. Their squad's Republic days mottos have always applied to fighting droids, not old comrades. Never to one of their own.
Echo looks at him, as if trying to read his mind. "Well," he finally says, fitting the tight helmet over his head so that only his face is visible with the visor up, "A new motto for a new world. How about, 'solve' them?"
"And how exactly do we solve it?" Hunter tries again.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be giving you cryptic answers," Echo admits and pulls the face shield down.
