Rewinding just a little to the start of that same morning for another point of view. Omega and the boys' arrival on the planet and a little flashback of the one who's not with them. Did y'all know that Wookiepedia says that Tech is 6'4"? so let's see how tall boy handles his next mission in plain clothes. and please comment! i love the comments!
Remain Seated Please.
Disillusioned as they enter
They're unaware what's behind castle walls
Tech stood before the fresher mirror. No, amend that. He leaned down to properly view his reflection. He had never really been concerned with his appearance other than those several months when he and the squad were six cycles in chronological age and he had shot up in height ahead of the rest of his brothers, requiring a trip to the quartermaster every other week to obtain a larger size fatigues and shoes.
Wrecker had surpassed them all, of course, but at the time Tech had been afraid it would never stop and he would just continue to grow. It had been such a relief when he reached his full height and then Crosshair caught him up.
Crosshair.
Tech bowed his head, gripped the edges of the sink, and let the sense of loss wash over him. Most of the time he could keep his mind on other things, on the mission at hand. But then at odd moments thoughts of his brother would creep in and attempt to consume him. He was glad this time he was alone without the others watching, aware of his every emotion. Or maybe they weren't. It was Crosshair who had always been good at that.
"Tech! Tech! Wake up! It's only a dream!" Crosshair hissed in a whisper so as not to wake the others, still shut up in their sleeping pods.
Tech sat up with a gasp and looked around. He scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands before reaching for his goggles and strapping them on. He took a shaky breath. "Did I wake you?"
"Nah, I couldn't sleep anyway. Come on." Crosshair didn't wait to see if he would follow.
It gave Tech a moment to collect himself before he hopped out of his bed and joined his brother in the gleaming white corridor. "Where are we going?" he whispered.
Crosshair laid a finger to his lips, "You'll see. Gotta make a stop first." He continued a little further down the hallway before he stopped in front of a door and knocked one knuckle next to the appropriate key pad. Then he moved out of the way.
Tech smiled, knowing what he was being asked to do even if he wasn't sure exactly why. He tapped a few commands into the pad and the door swooshed open. Then he stepped aside gesturing for Crosshair to enter. He silently observed as his brother slipped across the room to a chest of drawers, opened one, and extricated something from its contents. Then he rejoined Tech with a grin and reclosed the door.
"What was that all about?" Tech asked.
Crosshair opened his hand to reveal several jewel-like hard candies on sticks in individual flimsiplast wrappers. "Want one?"
Tech shook his head. He had read somewhere that eating sucrose close to bedtime could give one nightmares. He didn't need any help in that department. "So you brought me all this way just to help you steal candy from our training sergeant?"
"I should think Gillimar'd be rather proud considering his last lecture to us was about obtaining sustenance when your supplies run low." He unwrapped one of the candies, popped it into his mouth, and let the stick dangle from his lips with a smug grin. "Come on."
It was obvious to Tech after another couple of turns that they were headed for the firing range. It was odd to be there when it was so quiet but no one had ever told them they couldn't practice at any hour of the night. Not that Crosshair needed practice. He was already brilliant. Of course maybe this was how he had become so.
He handed Tech a weapon from the rack and got off a dozen perfect shots before he looked back and asked, "so what are you afraid of?"
It was a sincere question. This was Crosshair trying to help. So Tech gave him an honest answer. "It's this latest series of flash learning. They want me to witness every possible worst case scenario."
They were cramming his head with every natural disaster, every devouring beast, every plague and every possible consequence of the greed and cruelty of beings across the galaxy. Maybe they were trying to desensitize him, but he was only human, stronger, faster, smarter, maybe, but still human. "I know there's a point to it and that I'm supposed to be able to formulate a solution under pressure to any situation but…"
Crosshair chewed on the lollipop stick and shifted it to the opposite corner of his mouth before he nodded toward the other end of the firing range. "Take what you're most scared of," he said, "and imagine it in the middle of that target." He lifted his weapon again as if he were following his own advice. "Get it in your sights, and blast it to Haran." He squeezed the trigger.
Tech tried it. He would try just about anything at this point if it would make the nightmares go away, and he found that it did help a little, to have that modicum of control over the things that scared him. He thought he understood his brother a little better, as well. Still he couldn't help but turn the question back after the reverberation of the blasts had faded. "Crosshair, what are you scared of?"
It took a moment for him to answer as he rolled the tension out of his shoulders. "There's so many of us. In all your studying have you seen any possible reason for a force this large to be necessary?"
Currently? There were small conflicts between systems, disagreements in the Republic senate but Crosshair was right, nothing that warranted an army the size of the one being built on Kamino. He shook his head.
"I'm afraid of not having a purpose." Crosshair admitted. "Even if something did appear suddenly out of Wildspace and they had to deploy every one of us, surely with all this training we'd be able to squash it in no time and then what? What would they do with us after it's all over?"
It wasn't only the chip that was to blame. Crosshair had figured it out before any of the rest of them and now he considered them all to be traitors for deviating from that purpose.
Not that Tech agreed with him. He just… he just missed his brother and wished they could all be together for this mission that wasn't really a mission.
They wouldn't be going in as an elite band of highly trained soldiers. Without the skin tight blaster resistant fatigues and armor plating and helmet with its heads up display, streaming with comforting columns of data, not to mention their usual array of weapons, Tech felt practically naked.
He took off his goggles and set them on the counter. Then he squinted at his fuzzy reflection once again. No, those would be necessary unless he wanted to have corrective vision surgery before they took to the streets of Iziz. He'd had enough of surgery for a lifetime when Rex removed the chip from his head.
There wasn't much else he could do to alter his appearance other than… Tech picked up the hair brush from the counter and instead of brushing his hair flat back against his scalp, he tried brushing it forward. He replaced the goggles and studied the result. The fringe over his brow was likely to drive him to distraction but he supposed it looked alright.
He stepped from the fresher checking the comm unit strapped to his arm and didn't notice at first that the others had gone quiet. When he looked up they were all staring at him.
"What?" He gave the hem of his casual green tunic a tug to straighten it and glanced down to make sure that the pleated tan slacks were still in proper order.
"I thought the whole point was to blend in," Hunter said dubiously. He seemed to have adopted the persona of a starcraft mechanic in a dirty gray coverall but still with his token red bandana tied around his head.
Tech went on the defensive. "Civies wear this sort of thing. I saw it on a holozine." He lifted his hand to his hair and very nearly combed it back with his fingers into its regular configuration before he remembered it was supposed to be this way so he just ruffled the fringe a bit.
"I think you look very nice, Tech." Omega grinned. She and Wrecker were wearing matching limmie jerseys that they must have found at that sports shop down the road from Cid's parlor. He recognized the team colors but thankfully they were devoid of the team's logo or mascot so they shouldn't give away their patron's planet of origin.
"Thank you. Now should we be going?" He picked up his data pad and ignored the fact that they had all been waiting on him.
A chuckle came from underneath the hooded, long-sleeved jacket that Echo had donned to cover his pallor and cybernetic modifications. "You lead the way, Holostar."
And so he did. Ignoring further comment on his wardrobe selection, Tech plotted a course towards the city's marketplace and university quarter. It was there that Cid's intel suggested her competition may be putting together their operation. The area was near a museum where artifacts of the sort that potential clients may be interested in acquiring or disposing of might be found. And not too far away from the river harbor where honest to Force sailing ships rested at anchor ready to carry goods all the way up to the northern sea.
The squad may eventually have to spread out and check each individual location for suspect activity but for now they would all stick together and set up a central rendezvous point. He didn't think any of them had suspected that it would be quite so busy.
It wasn't Coruscant by any means but it was a thriving metropolis. Pedestrians of several species jostled for space with nonsentient beasts of burden pulling hovercarts and mechanical vehicles of every description.
Probably it was just the morning rush and once most of them got where they were going the traffic would thin. Perhaps they should have waited till a little later in the day when it would be easier to make out individuals among the chaos, but then this made concealing themselves easier as well.
Tech checked his datapad and then made a hand sign to the others to let them know the direction in which they would be continuing. Dividing his attention between the device in his hand and the stimuli around him was becoming an annoyance.
How did civilians do this every day without the comfort of a helmet with a heads up display and settings to hone in on specific sights and sounds? Not to mention climate controls. He curbed the instinct once again to sweep the hair off his forehead.
Perhaps he was the one who had become too reliant on the technology. If he was in a battle and an EMP took out his systems he would have to be ready to do all of the necessary tasks with his own senses. This was as good a chance as any to practice in a non- live-fire situation.
As such, he heard the careening speeder before it rounded the corner, weaving in and out of the slower traffic. Tech managed to reach out and pull Omega back up onto the curb beside him before she wandered into its path but he saw the other blonde girl riding her curious bike a few meters away who was nearly not so lucky.
He heard her swear as she swerved just in time and slammed on her vehicle's break. Then his training for responding to situations such as this kicked into gear. Without a second thought, he rushed to her side to assess her condition.
"Miss, are you injured?"
She just gazed up at him in shock. It could have been more serious than he thought or perhaps she didn't speak Basic. Then she removed something from her ears and he could hear the pulsing rhythm of the music she'd been listening to, to the distraction of all else.
"Are you hurt, Miss?" Tech asked again.
"Y-yes. I'm fine." She took a breath and a flush of color rose in her pale cheeks.
Could this be a symptom of her shock? He didn't think so. If he'd been wearing his helmet he could have scanned her vitals with a glance and suggested some sort of treatment.
Finally she blinked and cleared her throat. "Really, I'm fine. Thank you for your concern."
If that was true then he really had no reason to detain her further. He nodded and took a step back, allowing her to shift her vehicle back into gear so she could be on her way. He wished he could think of something else to say but words failed him. It would have been easier to face an enemy just then than the pretty girl with the blue eyes who stared so intently at him for their brief interaction.
Tech smiled slightly at the thought while he watched her drive away and walked back to join the others.
"She was pretty," Omega whispered a little too loudly as they continued on their way towards the market place.
"What?" Tech had heard exactly what she said but he was loathed to admit that she was reading his mind.
Hunter pressed forward and took the lead. "We don't have time for that sort of thing. We've got a job to do."
Now that their tracker was setting the pace, Wrecker had to lift Omega onto his shoulders so that she wouldn't fall behind. She whooped from her new vantage point, "but maybe Tech will be able to track her down after we're finished. Or you never know, maybe she knows something about what we're looking for."
"Hunter's right. We should be focusing on the mission," Tech hated to burst her bubble or maybe he just didn't want to get his own hopes up. What were the odds that the one girl he had spoken to on the entire planet would have any knowledge about the organization they had come to investigate?
He might have entered that possibility into his datapad to figure the exact odds but just then the square plaza opened up before them and they got their first look at the famous Malgan Market. This was the place where not that long ago the planetary rebels, insurgents, announced their intention to liberate their world from Separatist oppression. And they had managed it with the training they received from a handful of Jedi and clones.
Tech had viewed all the holos and docs of the events in preparation for their first visit to Onderon, but it was fascinating to now stand in the place where it had all happened. He could see the scars left from the battles fought here, the scaffolding still climbing some of the walls from the rebuilding.
The Empire was also beginning to make its mark here. Tech ducked his head to study his datapad while a random patrol walked by a few meters away and noticed his brothers assume similar postures. After they passed he turned and addressed the others, referring to the map he projected above the unit.
"The first thing we've got to do is find the best place for surveillance here in the market place. We will need a line of sight on the entrances to the market that offer access to the space dock." He pointed in the direction they had just come. "And to the river harbor." He looked up towards another alleyway on the opposite side of the marketplace. "Our targets will need to move goods in either of those directions so we need a vantage point that will allow us to catch them in the act."
They split up, going in four different directions only to hear Omega's voice sound over their comm units, " we'll let you know what we find. Over ." Followed by her giggle.
Tech saw her still perched on Wrecker's shoulders over the heads of the crowd. Maybe her point of view above everything was exactly what they needed.
Even at his own 1.93 meters, visibility was a challenge among all this chaos. Unless that's not where they needed to be looking. Tech looked down as he nearly barreled into a rather short young woman.
"Excuse me," he offered politely as she attempted to bustle past him mumbling about mujas not being in season.
She glared up at him for being in her way and he couldn't help but compare her to the other girl. This one had dark hair and a crooked nose and frankly looked more Onderonian than the other girl had. Easy to blend into the crowd.
"I'm sorry…" he began but just then his comm chimed.
" I think I might have a decent spot over here ," Echo's voice drew the woman's attention to the unit on Tech's arm. " I'm sending a visual. "
The woman's eyes widened and she hurried on her way, thankfully, before the image that Echo transferred appeared over the device.
" Nah ," Hunter's voice chimed in. " You can't see the road to the harbor. It's blocked by that statue ."
"He's right," Tech quickly got his mind back onto the matter at hand. "Maybe try a little further north of your current location."
" Wrecker and I want to check out the area by the university. Over ." Omega added.
Tech raised his datapad to get a holo of the POV at his location before he answered, "I suppose what Cid thinks is a competitive operation could just be some students…"
" Well, that, " Wrecker spoke up. " And they have a limmie team! So Omega and I thought if we're supposed to look like regs, maybe we could catch a live match as long as we're here ."
Tech chuckled and left Hunter to the task of keeping the two of them, well, on task.
…
It was a long hot morning circulating among the shoppers but Tech was sure the crowd had to thin out by mid day when the sun would be directly over the market and baking them all like a pot of stew. He noticed Wrecker and Omega stopping to get something to eat at one of the stalls and thought he might grab something too. That fresh fruit that the Togrutan male was delivering looked like it might fit the bill.
He turned with his back to the counter to give the merchant a little time to arrange the newest stock and that's when he noticed that the view from this spot was perfect for their surveillance purposes. He was just about to contact the others to tell them the good news when a voice behind him said, "excuse me, Mister…."
He turned and there she was, the girl from that morning seated behind the counter. He gave her what hoped was a respectful nod and a smile.
"It's you!" So she recognized him as well.
He had thought the event might not have been as memorable to her as it had been to himself but before he spoke to her he had to communicate his findings to the rest of the squad. "I think I've found the right place," he said into his comlink.
Hunter's voice responded. " Good. Maybe we can get this over with and get out of …"
Tech quickly keyed off the rest of the message with an apologetic shrug. He paused for a moment to take in her surroundings, the fruit, her position seated behind the counter, and the datapad in her hand filled with calculations of her most recent transactions. Then he took a step closer. "It's good to see that your near mishap this morning didn't prohibit you from your work."
"No, it was nothing." Her voice had just a hint of breathiness to it that he found charming. "Just the regular Iziz morning rush. I should have been paying more attention."
He wasn't quite sure where his next words came from, "I would have thought more beings would have been paying attention to you."
Her breath caught. And then they were just staring at each other until his brothers arrived in answer to his summons.
"This is it?" Hunter didn't even seem to notice the girl. He was too busy surveying the vantage point that her location offered.
Wrecker and Omega on the other hand both grinned and Echo… who could tell what Echo was looking at under that hood. If he'd noticed that it was the same girl, he didn't say anything.
Maybe they were waiting for Tech to introduce them but Tech had hardly had a chance to introduce himself.
He opened his mouth to do just that when she beat him to the punch, "Ord Mantell?"
All five of them froze. It was impossible. She couldn't know about Cid and the mission and… His brain ran through all the scenarios he could imagine. He noticed Hunter's hand move reflexively for a weapon.
The merchant girl shrunk back a little and hurried to explain, "Your jerseys." She gestured toward the shirts that Wrecker and Omega were wearing. "You must be supporters of their team?"
As one, all of their faces registered identical expressions of relief. He had wondered about the advisability of wearing those particular team colors; surely they weren't the only ones in the galaxy who followed the sport.
Again Tech started to say something but that's when he noticed the pallor that had fallen over the girl's features.
"I don't want any trouble!" she whispered sharply, now keeping her eyes lowered, focused on the fruit before her. "I have no idea where Saw Gerrera…"
Hunter lifted a hand to stop her. "We're not here for Gerrera."
She lifted her eyes and regarded him first and then Tech as if she trusted his word more than the others. "Then you're not with… the Empire?"
"They're after us, too," Omega said helpfully with a smile.
Just then a patrol passed by, not too far away. Echo whistled a warning and all of them turned their faces away from the white plastoid suits that may have been concealing regs or some of the newer civilian recruits.
The fruit merchant could have ended it all for them right there. A loyal citizen of the Empire should have revealed their location and identity to the authorities. But instead she only held her breath until the troopers were out of ear shot and then her gaze returned to Omega and something softened in her expression.
"I should have known they were disguises," she gave a nervous laugh. "Nobody really goes for team Ord Mantell. They're awful."
Tech remembered what he noticed about the team stats and the wagers that had been placed at Cid's. He smiled more warmly at the girl. "Sometimes loyalty to one's team is more important than who is likely to win the game."
She looked into his eyes and seemed to know he was not just talking about the beautiful game. She nodded and Tech couldn't help but think they had just earned an ally.