For as long as Hunter could remember, the Kaminoans had been the ones to give himself and his squad mates medical checkups. Usually, the Bad Batch were stuck with the finheads doing all the poking and prodding and recording. But when the team exited the Havoc Marauder at about twenty hundred hours to find a team of reg medics waiting, it was different. Ignoring the Bad Batch's hesitance and half-mumbled mentions of having been ordered to always report to a Kaminoan doctor, the clones herded the squad and Cody into medbay and assigned them each a cot.
Cody's medic – a first-generation clone who was named Hypo and had his namesake tattooed on both cheeks – made the Commander lie down. Then he gave Cody pain meds and prepped him for a needle decompression, giving a running commentary the whole time: "I thought you swore you'd be careful, sir. Wait a moment, are you telling me you walked around with this injury after the battle was over? What were you thinking?!"
A loud sigh, followed by a hopeless shake of Hypo's head punctuated that statement before he reached for a long needle. "All right, I'm going to give you an IV, Commander, just let me see your left arm – thank you. . . Hm, that bruise on your face isn't helping your looks any, but there won't be lasting effects, far as I can tell. . ."
A young medic approached, and Hypo accepted the datapad, glancing down at the scan of Cody's lungs. "Seriously, Commander, do you have a death-wish? I warned you those stitches would come loose!"
He tossed the datapad aside and sat down next to Cody, pulling on a pair of disposable gloves. "Okay, sir, how's the pain level now? Any improvement?"
Impressively, Cody listened to the entire tirade without changing expression, except to roll his eyes once. Hunter wondered if the Commander heard this a lot; maybe all clone medics were similar. If so, he hoped even more than usual that his teammates wouldn't cause any trouble.
Unfortunately, some of the Kaminoan scientists had learned that the commandos hated being in medbay. After that, there were several times where a lack of cooperation got the Bad Batch stuck with extra tests and exams and overnight stays; eventually, the squad had figured it out and started to cooperate just to get out faster.
But there were no Kaminoans here . . .
As Hunter really noticed that for the first time, he glanced at his teammates, sure each of them would start to test the limits as soon as it was his turn for a checkup. And they did, in one way or another. But instead of responding with cold authority and silent threats, the clone medics simply gave as good as they got.
Overall, the whole post-mission checkup was chaotic, mostly silent, occasionally vicious, and all-in-all vastly preferable to the cold, impersonable Kaminoans and their clinical heartlessness. Kaminoans didn't care if their patients were in pain or not, since their only interest was to get them functional again, and they didn't care what their patients wanted. They simply injected and tested and sedated without ever mentioning what they were doing, or why.
Clone medics, though, seemed interested in the wellbeing of their patients apart from functionality, and even took care to make sure the Bad Batch were comfortable, but they were in no way pushovers. These medics did let their patients know what they were doing – even if they refused to take 'no' for an answer.
When Tech jerked away from a needle, eyes narrowing, the medic pointed at the ceiling and demanded excitedly, "Tech, what's that?!" Blinking, Tech looked up – and the medic jabbed him and jumped out of range of his retaliatory swing. It was the easiest and fastest blood test he'd ever been given.
When Crosshair folded his arms tightly and insisted he "hadn't been injured, now get your cold hands off!" the medic pulled a massive hypo out of his belt and said, "I'll show you cold. Give me your wrist now, or I'll sedate you and brace it anyway."
The sniper glowered at him, but the medic glared back impressively and readied the hypo, holding it in a reverse grip. It only took a few seconds for Crosshair to give in, even if he did keep grumbling about how a muscle sprain wasn't an injury, and everyone did have to listen to Tech's longwinded explanation about all the ways in which Crosshair was wrong.
Tech and Hunter carefully didn't watch when Hypo jabbed the needle between Cody's ribs, but the Commander got through the procedure without even catching his breath. Obviously, Hypo had given him the good stuff.
Wrecker was mostly cooperative, though to be fair, he usually was; at least, he was when he didn't need active treatment. He sat through the usual scans without glaring or snapping or threatening. In fact, the only trouble with him was that he asked three times if he would have to stay overnight, despite the rookie medic saying, "No" each time. The fourth time he asked, Hypo barked from his end of the room, "You will if you don't shut up!"
Wrecker shut his mouth with an audible clicking of teeth, which made the youngest medic cringe all over, which made Crosshair snicker, which made his medic sigh loudly and tell him to hold still and stop ruining the scans.
As for Hunter himself, he held still for most of the scans, idly listening to Hypo call out numbers and terms that meant absolutely nothing to him. He only jumped once, when a scanner buzzed unexpectedly next to his ear. The medic didn't say anything about it, though, or look at him in the reproving, threatening way the Kaminoans did with their fishlike eyes. He only grinned easily and said, "You're cleared, Sergeant."
Hunter got up, fidgeting with his knife as he joined his squad mates near the doorway. The four of them hovered until Hypo approached, removing his gloves as he smiled briefly at them. "Okay, troopers, you're cleared. Get out of here and make sure you get some food and – Cody!"
Immediately, everyone looked at the Commander, who was already half off the cot and blinking in confusion at the needle still between his ribs.
Hypo stomped back over, muttering imprecations under his breath, and made his patient lie down. "Sir," he said coolly. "Did I tell you to leave?"
"Yes," Cody answered, and he looked honestly perplexed.
"You have a needle in your side," Hypo pointed out.
"Yeah." Propping himself up on his elbows, the Commander glanced down at his side. "You can get it out, though, right?"
". . . One moment, sir, hold that thought." Hypo picked up a chart and scanned through it, then hummed. "It was two hundred milligrams, right?" he asked, whatever that was supposed to mean.
"Yes, sir." The medic who had treated Wrecker moved forward. "I double checked."
"Hm. Well, between that and the blood loss I wouldn't be surprised." Hypo raised an eyebrow, sighing as he turned back to his patient. "Cody, I want you staying here overnight. Now, get some rest. That's an order."
"Understood." Cody lay flat on his back, tugged the blanket carefully up to his chin, and shut his eyes.
The Bad Batch stared silently at the Commander, then at Hypo.
A few seconds later, Wrecker's medic shifted a little and cleared his throat. "You guys ready?"
The Bad Batch turned as one to look at him – and then back at Cody. None of them had ever left a teammate alone in medical, except when forced to. Hunter tilted his head, thinking. This was different. . .
Straightening, Hypo set down a chart he'd been glancing through and eyed the Bad Batch. "Well?" he asked. "What are you waiting for? You're cleared, go on, get out of here."
"Ah –" Hunter glanced at his teammates. Tech shrugged, Crosshair frowned, and Wrecker rubbed the back of his head. At last, the sergeant cleared his throat, hesitating for several seconds before asking, "Will the Commander be all right, sir?"
Hypo raised an eyebrow and folded his arms. "He's in my medbay, isn't he?"
When the commandos still didn't move, the chief medic crossed the room, keyed open the door, and gestured to the hallway outside. "Get some food and rest up. Go on, beat it."
After another long pause, the Bad Batch obeyed.
The next morning, Hunter woke to the sound of scuffling. He squinted at the chronometer, which read oh-six-twenty, before rolling onto his back. At the sudden creak-crash of two people falling to the ground, he sighed. Flinging an arm over his eyes, he tilted his head slightly until he could just see Crosshair and Wrecker wrestling on the floor over some small item or other.
"Wha's'it?" he slurred. His mattress shifted as Tech, who was dressed in his fatigues, sat down at the opposite end of the bed with a loud huff of displeasure.
"Ow!" Wrecker yelped, and then the thumping and crashing increased momentarily before cutting off with a thud and a yelp from Crosshair.
Reluctantly, Hunter dragged his arm down from his face and glanced at Tech. His youngest teammate only rolled his eyes, by way of explanation, and went back to reading.
With no other answer forthcoming, the sergeant finally turned his head. Wrecker was sitting on the floor, one arm wrapped around Crosshair's shoulders to hold him still while the other hand held a blaster cartridge as far as possible out of the sniper's reach.
"Really?" Hunter got up, stretching and biting back a yawn. "I thought you'd at least be fighting over something interesting."
Wrecker glanced at the cartridge, shrugged, and tossed it over one shoulder, which meant his and Crosshair's fight had once again been sudden, unplanned, and without an actual cause. Nothing new there.
As Hunter noticed that all three of his teammates were wearing their dark red fatigues, he tilted his head. "Not getting geared up?"
"No. Not much – Wrecker!" Crosshair broke off to wriggle free of Wrecker's hold, then scrambled to his feet and out of the older clone's range. "There's not much point when we aren't going to be training."
Hunter glanced at Tech, who nodded. "Our training schedules were cleared when we left Kamino, and Commander Cody is still in medical."
"And none of the arenas are free!" Wrecker added, slouching sorrowfully. "We're gonna have to wait around all day."
"I have told you before," Tech said. "If you would only find something to occupy yourself with that does not involve shooting or blowing things up, you would not have to deal with being so utterly bored."
Hunter opened his mouth, and Crosshair interrupted. "Before you ask, no, none of the shooting ranges are free, either. Not on this level, anyway . . ." A devious look crossed his face.
"No," Hunter said immediately. "You know we're not allowed to use the ranges on the other levels, Crosshair."
"Whatever." The sniper gave a lackadaisical shrug and turned to climb the bunk ladder. "It was worth a shot."
Wrecker chortled. "Heh – worth a shot . . . Get it, Tech?"
"Oh, I 'got it'." Still reading, Tech flopped backwards across Hunter's bunk. "I failed to find it particularly amusing, that is all."
Hunter opened his locker and pulled out his fatigues, trying to think up something to keep them all busy before they decided to scatter around Tipoca City for the day. Last time that had happened, Hunter had gone to practice with his knife in a corner of a mostly empty gym.
Not an hour in, he'd gotten six calls, one after the other: four from Kaminoan and clone instructors, because Tech had somehow managed to shut down an entire flash-learning class from across the hall; one from a clone captain who had broken up a fight between Crosshair and thirteen regs at the shooting range; and one from a clone pilot who couldn't land because Wrecker had accidentally knocked himself out in the middle of an obscure landing platform while testing a stun grenade and could-you-get-up-here-sergeant, flight-control-said-you're-somewhere-nearby.
So Hunter had dragged Wrecker off the platform, Tech away from the class he'd disrupted by testing out his new deactivation program ("I apologize, I forgot I was still in the system, Hunter!") and Crosshair out of the brig, in that order. Then he'd kept them in the barracks the rest of the day.
"Well," the sergeant said hesitantly. "I guess we could go check in on Cody."
"I thought we weren't allowed in medbay," Wrecker said, confused.
"Yeah." Crosshair, perched on the upper bunk, frowned down at him. "The reg medics threw us out, remember?"
"They did not throw us out." Tech paused. "Well. Not physically."
"No . . ." Hunter paused halfway through buttoning his shirt to glance at him. "But something tells me it would have gotten physical."
In fact, he had the feeling that if he and his squad mates had stood in the medbay door much longer, even if they hadn't actively started any trouble, the medics would have.
"Hypo told us to get some rest," Tech said. "We have done so. Besides . . . He is not currently on shift. There is only one medic logged in."
"Tech, get out of the medbay system before you get caught," Hunter ordered. Then he adjusted his bandana and glanced sidelong at his teammates. "We'll grab some food first, and then we can just . . . check in. For orders."
His three teammates followed without argument.
The medbay was dim and silent, except for a faint humming that came from a computer in one corner, when the commandos stepped through the door. The medic who stood beside the computer, tallying something on his manifest, looked up, and Hunter blinked.
"Hypo," he said, then shot a look at Tech's confused frown. "I . . . didn't think you'd be here, sir."
"I don't always log in." The CMO smiled blandly, then returned to his work. "Just got here about five minutes ago. Did you want something?"
"We thought we'd check in with the Commander. For orders."
"Cody's still asleep," Hypo said, jerking his chin at the cot. "It could be a while. Hang around if you want, but keep quiet or I'll throw you all out on your ears."
Hunter tilted his head in acknowledgement, almost smirking at the mental image of Hypo tossing Wrecker out on his ear, then crossed the room to the cot next to Cody's.
Crosshair perched next to him, and Wrecker and Tech sat on the opposite side, all of them hanging their legs over the edge like they were on some sort of infantry transport.
"Ahh . . . Listen, cadets." Hypo approached, one hand planted on his waist as he gestured with the datapad. "That's not really what I meant when I said, 'hang around'."
"Oh," Tech considered. "Then where do you want us?"
"You might consider using those chairs in the far corner." Hypo's voice couldn't have gotten any drier if he tried. "Because that's where visitors are supposed to wait. We medics prefer to keep our patients calm, and not have their blood pressure go off the chart because they wake up to a bunch of people staring at them."
Hunter, who hadn't even noticed the waiting area, got up hastily. "Yessir," he mumbled, and the four of them beat a hasty retreat.
It was only half an hour later that Cody woke up. A glare from Hypo kept the commandos from approaching until after the medic had taken the Commander's vitals and helped him sit up. Then Hypo headed back to the computer desk and sat down to work.
At that point, Hunter assumed it was safe to move in.
Cody looked up with a faint smile as the squad approached. "Hey, lads. Have you been here all night?'
"Nope!" Wrecker said cheerfully. "We got out right away. Uhh. . . how are you feeling, Commander?"
"Never better," Cody assured him.
A disbelieving snort from the computer desk made everyone glance over to where Hypo was apparently intent on his work. When the medic didn't look up, Cody exchanged cautious looks with the cadets, then said, "Did you hear from Commander Havoc yet?"
"No, sir," Hunter answered, then checked his comm to be sure.
"Hm." Cody glanced around and lowered his voice. "Where'd my datapad end up?"
"It's on Hypo's desk," Crosshair muttered back. "He's practically touching it."
"I see . . ." The Commander quirked his mouth, nonplussed. "What about my commlink?"
"Also on the desk."
Cody sent a narrow-eyed look at Hypo, who was occupied with filling out a form, then met Tech's gaze.
"Diversion?" Tech whispered.
A faintly amused gleam entered the Commander's eyes as he inclined his head, ever so slightly. Then he twitched his fingers to signal the squad back and turned, sitting on the edge of the cot. The instant he pretended he was about to stand, Hypo jumped to his feet, and came quickly around the desk.
"Hold it, Commander."
Crosshair and Wrecker moved closer to Cody as well, as though concerned he was about to collapse, while Tech hovered behind them. They were all being ridiculously obvious, but it didn't matter – it only took Hunter three seconds to reach the desk, pick up the commlink and datapad, and slip them into Tech's ready hands.
"You can leave soon," Hypo was saying, as Hunter ducked between Wrecker and the wall to stand beside Cody. "But there are several hours yet before you have to leave, sir; there's no rush."
"Fine," Cody relented. "I'll wait."
As Hypo went to his desk, Tech turned slowly, careful to stay facing him. Crosshair palmed the commlink from Tech's right hand and slipped it to Cody while Wrecker managed to get hold of the datapad. Cody had just activated the datapad, and everyone was exchanging congratulatory smirks when Hypo spoke again.
"Next time you want your datapad and commlink, sir, just ask."
The Commander didn't even blink at being caught, though Hunter and his teammates did.
Cody opened his communications and observed, "In my experience, medics always say 'no'."
Hypo smirked, and Hunter thought the expression was a shade on the unsettling side.
Sure enough, the next instant the medic took a sip of caf and said, too innocently, "I already sent the scans from last night to your CMO, Commander."
With that, he stood up and left the room at a brisk walk.