Summary: "Something slams into his side, a foot kicks his helmet right off, and he's on the ground, staring up at the blue beam of a lightsaber through the dirt on the lenses of his goggles with wide eyes." The Batch meets their first lightsaber user since the events of Kaller, and Echo has to face a part of the past he thought long behind him. One-shot.
A/N: I have no idea why it's from Tech's POV if the focus is on Echo finally getting over what happened to Fives, but I do what I do.
Making Peace With The Past
Rex gives them a contact he wants them to meet. He doesn't say why, just says where to find the contact.
It's suspicious, but they've always trusted Rex and that isn't going to change now.
Tech pilots the Marauder to the planet Shili.
Omega's in awe over the wildgrass that covers the land.
The plains are quiet, calm. Peaceful. There's a warm, soothing mid-afternoon breeze in the air that gently rustles the red and white turu-grass, carries the planet's natural scents. Tech thinks that he would like a planet like this one if they ever have to settle somewhere.
He can't help but to collect a few biological samples that he can study later on. Hunter's more than happy to lend him his vibroblade to cut down stalks of the colorful tall grass.
Omega's barely tall enough to see over the grass, and she keeps rising to the tips of her toes and craning her neck to look around.
Hunter catches sight of some nomadic-looking tents in the near distance, almost beneath one of the few rare trees that sit in the endless fields of turu-grass. They head off in that direction in hopes that their contact will be there. The coordinates Rex had given them were only relative to the area in which the contact is expected to be.
They don't expect the contact to find them first.
It begins with Hunter warning them of something moving in the grass.
"Tech, look out!"
Something slams into his side, a foot kicks his helmet right off, and he's on the ground, staring up at the blue beam of a lightsaber through the dirt on the lenses of his goggles with wide eyes.
Their contact is a young female Togruta- the species native to the planet, Tech did his research- with an unforgettable tone of orange skin. The white markings on her face are what blends her blue-striped white montrals with the rest of her, the blue matching with the color of her eyes.
She's a Jedi. Of course, she found them before they could her.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, put that away." Hunter eases forward, holding a hand out to her. "We don't mean you any harm."
She takes a step back, moving her weapon so that it no longer points at Tech's face. But she doesn't put it away. "You're clones. What are you doing here?"
"Commander Tano?" Echo gasps suddenly. "You're our contact?"
"Echo?" Hunter's frown is in his voice. "You know her?"
That much is obvious, Tech thinks, making a side-note at how tall the grass appears from down on the ground.
"She was General Skywalker's padawan." The former reg explains. "Rex told me that she left the Jedi Order sometime before Fives died."
Fives, the others had learned, had been the only surviving brother from Echo's original training batch. The others had fallen on the Rishi outpost early on in the war. He'd been there, at the Citadel, when Echo had been lost to the Separatists for most of the second half of the war- until Rex, Skywalker, and the Batch had rescued him, of course.
According to Rex, it was Fives who discovered the inhibitor chips first, and it is because of him that none of them are loyal to the Empire now- other than Crosshair, but he was already long gone by the time they came across Rex again. It wasn't long after Fives's discovery that Chancellor Palpatine had the Coruscant Guard take him out.
"You can do that?" Omega wonders, as surprised as the rest of them.
"Yes." The former Jedi says, deactivating her lightsaber as she seems to realize that she's safe. "I did. I spent some time in the Coruscant underworld before the Mandalorians enlisted my help to defeat Maul. Rex and some of the others helped, but the order was declared on the way back to Coruscant..."
None of them need to ask what order she's speaking of. Order 66 changed everything.
There's a brief moment of silence in the aftermath of her words.
"I'm sorry. Are you alright?" She asks, after shaking herself.
Tech blinks, realizes he's still on the ground. "I am fine."
Wrecker grabs him by the back of his chestplate and heaves him up to his feet before he can protest. The turu-grass is suddenly not as tall as it was a few moments ago. He rolls his eyes and wipes the dirt from his goggles, tucks his helmet under his arm once he retrieves it.
"Have you removed your inhibitor chips?" The Jedi questions.
"Yes. We have." Echo responds almost immediately, taking off his helmet to reveal his pale skin to the sunlight, tilting his head slightly to point at the scar that the surgery had left behind. "Rex saw to it himself."
"So, it really is you." She murmurs almost nostalgically. "Echo, what happened to you?"
He smiles a little, shrugs. "I blew up. The clankers pulled me out, turned me into a weapon. Rex and the general grabbed these guys,"he points his thumb over his shoulder at the others,"and they saved me."
"Clone Force...99?" She guesses.
Wrecker's in awe. "Even she knows who we are."
Tech gives a little sideways nod. "So it would seem."
Hunter huffs fondly at the giant's childish pride at acknowledgement. "Don't let it get to your head, Wrecker."
"My name is Ahsoka Tano." The Jedi finally introduces herself. "And I'd be in your debt if you agreed to help me."
Hunter nods to Echo.
"What's the job, Commander?"
Aiding Ahsoka in defending a village from an akul turns out to be a difficult task.
"Fives would have loved it here!" Echo laughs out during the chaos.
It's good to see him truly happy as he speaks of his past.