"Get away from him." Kanan's voice was dark and threatening in a way that Ezra had never heard from his master before. Raising his glowing lightsaber, Kanan took a menacing step forward, but the man's finger tightened on the trigger.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the figure drawled with a voice like a slithering snake. Ezra was forced to lay his head back on the ground as the rifle loomed closer to his face. Reluctantly, his master brought his lightsaber back to a defensive position, eyes darting around, searching for more hostiles.

Craning his neck slightly, Ezra was able to get a better look at the person holding the weapon to his head. Like the other, he wore dark gray armor vaguely resembling a clone trooper's, but that was where the similarities ended. While the first man had a lean, muscular build, wielded a single vibroblade, and had rather simple armor, the other was taller, more slender, and had an attachment sticking out of his left shoulder plate.

Ezra got a glimpse of a helmet with a narrow, slitted visor before his head tilted toward the first man. It seemed like an understanding passed between the two, because the man with the vibroblade nodded, then turned back to Kanan.

"Where's Omega?"

Kanan stared at the expressionless helmet, emotions simmering behind his eyes. Even with his limited skills in the Force, Ezra could feel a great disturbance surrounding his master. The air around him seemed to writhe with anger and… fear. Buried deep in the center of it all was a fear that Ezra had never sensed before. What about these people shook Kanan so deeply?

"Where is Omega?" the man repeated, pointing his vibroblade at Kanan. Ezra detected a hint of impatience or… something else showing from behind that anonymous helmet.

Again, Ezra swore he had heard that voice before. With a gasp, he finally recognized it, recognized everything. The eyes, the voice, he had seen it before, he had seen it before in Rex. They were all clones. He didn't know how that applied to Omega, but he was sure of it. Even their mere presence had a similar feel to it. (Although, he didn't understand what that meant, either.)

"Omega sent us here," Ezra blurted out, and they all turned their attention to him. He continued cautiously, pinned under the gaze of the strangers, "She stole a set of plans from the Empire. She gave us your coordinates and told us that you would help us decode them."

A silence descended on the group, as if they already suspected the truth. "She… she didn't make it out." After a moment he added, with true sincerity, "I'm sorry."

The first man's shoulder's slumped, and the other's rifle came away from Ezra's head. Finally, he was able to stand up again. Zeb came back out from behind the tree, although he eyed the man with the sniper rifle suspiciously.

Kanan watched, muscles tensed, as the man sheathed his vibroblade in a case on his left forearm, then removed his helmet. He had graying, shoulder-length hair, which was held back with a red bandana. A black skull tattoo covered the left half of his face, and he had a pale scar that went from his mouth to his right ear. Grief weighed on his shoulders, making every line on his face more pronounced. With a deep breath, he asked bleakly,

"Did… did she say anything else?"

All Ezra could do was shake his head, regret settling in the pit of his stomach again.

The man lowered his head, and Ezra was unable to see his face. When he raised it again, his expression was neutral. Inside, however, was another story.

Turning to Kanan, he said with an apologetic smile, "I'm sorry if we surprised you, but it's not often that you see a Jedi anymore."

"Yeah," agreed Kanan. A strange, almost hostile, tone had crept into his words, "not very often."

Ezra didn't seem to be the only one to pick up on this.

"Who are you?" the second man drawled in that snake-like voice, head tilting slightly. Through the Force, Ezra could sense that he was almost as cautious as Kanan about the entire situation.

Kanan's face twitched subtly. If you hadn't known him for a long time, it would have been totally imperceptible. "Kanan, Kanan Jarrus," he replied evenly.

"Hmm," The sniper continued to eye Kanan suspiciously. There was something going on here, Ezra was sure of it, and it had something to do with Kanan's past. He would try to bring it up later when they were on their own.

"This is my padawan, Ezra Bridger, and the big guy is Zeb," said Kanan, and they nodded in turn.

The man with the tattoo opened his mouth to say something, but a crashing noise and the crunching of leaves from just off the path interrupted him. After a moment, bickering came into earshot, and a rather bizarre trio pushed their way through the foliage.

The first one through the bush towered over Ezra and seemed to have a voice just as large.

"Could you be any louder?" asked another irritably, following the first. The closest Ezra could come to describing his armor was that it reminded him vaguely of a scout trooper. He also carried a datapad in his left hand.

"Oh, yeah," replied the bulky one, lifting his helmet off of his head to reveal a terrible scar covering the entire left side of his face, "A lot."

"That was a rhetorical question."

"What's a…" the guy seemed to grapple with the word for a moment, "what's a thoracal question?"

The last one to push their way out of the bush truly perplexed Ezra. His first assumption was that it was a droid. Then it spoke, and Ezra was proven wrong. The man had mechanical legs, and a scomp link instead of a right arm.

"Rhetorical, Wrecker." He said with a sigh. "Means he didn't really want you to answer."

The trio glanced around at those gathered on the path, met eyes with the tattooed man, and gradually went silent. Almost imperceptibly, the man shook his head. He gave them a look that said "we'll talk later" before turning back to Kanan.

"Sir, this is my squad, the Bad Batch. I'm Hunter, the sergeant." He gestured to the others, and they removed their helmets, "That's Wrecker, Tech, Echo, and Crosshair."

As Hunter spoke, Ezra again felt a tumult in the Force. Although Kanan's expression was even, his thoughts were anything but.

"You're clones?" Ezra couldn't help but ask. None of them looked anything like Rex, or Gregor, or Wolffe.

Hunter chuckled in amusement, "Yeah, we get that a lot. We're—"

Without pretense, Tech pushed past his sergeant, "we are genetically modified by the Kaminoans to carry out specialized tasks."

"And Tech is short for technology? Because you're the smart one?" Ezra guessed.

"Well—"

"No. It's short for 'technically,' because that's how he starts all of his sentences," their sergeant said, a small grin on his face. Tech rolled his eyes.

"But… what about the inhibitor chips?" Ezra asked, and Kanan twitched again. That, at least, Ezra understood. He remembered both Rex and his master telling him about these inhibitor chips, how they controlled the clones and forced them to turn on the jedi, their friends. When they activated, it didn't matter how close they had been, or how much the clones tried to fight it. They had killed Kanan's master and would have killed him.

The squad's faces went grim.

"We didn't carry out order 66. After the Empire rose to power, we escaped and removed our inhibitor chips," Hunter replied.

Ezra wasn't fully trained yet, but even he could sense that Hunter wasn't telling the truth. At least, not the whole truth.

"It's getting dark," Kanan interrupted curtly. "We need to get back to the ship." Turning away without an acknowledgement to their new allies, he began to stroll back down the path.

Again, Ezra met Zeb's eyes. There was certainly something strange about Kanan's reaction. He knew that his master didn't like clones, but he had thought he had recovered at least marginally once he got to know Rex. The two were fast friends now.

Waving goodbye to the confused Bad Batch, Ezra jogged to catch up with his master. Once they got back to the Ghost, he would ask Kanan about the topic. If his master knew something important, then they all needed to know as soon as possible.

But if Kanan knew something that they didn't, and it put the mission at stake, he would tell them about it. Wouldn't he?

Hiss. The sound of a door sliding open roused Omega from a light sleep. Footsteps. Omega tried valiantly to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt like lead, and she found herself unable to feel her limbs. With great effort, she managed to twitch her fingers, and tingling sensations gradually climbed up her arms. The numbness slowly began to wear off.

Finally, Omega forced her eyes open. Looking around her, she found herself in a blank, gray room. A holding cell? Her hands and feet were restrained with cold, metal clamps. She let out a quiet groan as her head spun from the shockingly bright, white lights.

"So… she's awake."

Omega lifted her head, although her vision tilted nauseatingly. "So I am," she croaked, wincing at the hoarseness of her own voice. "Admiral."

The woman looked down her nose condescendingly at Omega, a small, triumphant smirk on her face "You thought you could escape us."

Omega almost laughed but thought better of it. There was no use in provoking the Admiral, not while she was in this position. That, and her throat felt about as rough as a bantha's backside.

"No, I didn't."

The Admiral's eyebrows knit together, and her thin lips pressed together until they were little more than a line. "What do you mean, rebel?" She spat the word rebel as if it were poison in her mouth.

She had outsmarted Admiral Correk. Reveling to herself over this small victory, Omega thanked Tech and her brothers for all that she knew. After a moment, she met Correk's eyes, her own triumphant smile spreading across her face.

"I still did what I came here to do. The rebels have the plans now. They'll be onto you soon."

Admiral Correk laughed. It was a cold, humorless sound that sent a shiver down her bones. "You think the rebellion can stop us?"

"You'd be surprised what they can do."

"I doubt it."

At the wave of Admiral Correk's hand, two stormtroopers entered the room. A low whirring came to Omega's attention just before a round, floating droid entered the room.

Her stomach dropped.

"You are going to tell us who you gave the plans to and where the rebels are now," Admiral Correk said, her eyes as cold and as pitiless as ice. The interrogation droid came closer and closer to Omega, brandishing dozens of needles, clamps, and a myriad of other devices.

"If I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

The droid now hovered only inches from Omega's face, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the first sharp pinch of a needle into her skin. Only seconds later, an intense burning spread from the injection site that spread to the rest of her body. Omega bit back a scream.

A merciless smile crept back onto Correk's face. "Oh, I'm sure you will."

A/N: Hooray! They're back! It feels way too long since I last did anything with the Batch, and way too long since we've gotten any new episodes. Who else is looking forward to season two this summer? I know I am.

Sorry if this chapter seemed short. I'm really trying to stay on a schedule. Anyways, thanks for the continuous support, and hope you enjoyed reading. Things are really going to pick up next chapter, so stay tuned! ;)