A/N: It's only taken forever and a day, but I think I have finally decided on a posting schedule. I found that a chapter a week is a little much for me, but a chapter every other week is a lot more manageable and doesn't stress me out as much. So, hopefully, this will be a steadier schedule.
Also! How are we doing, Bad Batch fans? Still emotionally devastated by last week's episode? Yeah. Me too. This weeks was okay, but it felt a little underwhelming after last week. Was I the only one who thought that? I don't know. Anyways, enough rambling. Go! Read the chapter!
Only once they were inside the facility did Ezra realize just how big it was. As the team followed Tech through the winding corridors and towering rooms filled with steaming, hissing machinery, Ezra vaguely wondered if he would be able to find his way out on his own. He doubted it. Finally, after what felt like hundreds of twists and turns through the facility, Tech slowed to a halt at a corner.
"The control room is just around this corner," he informed them, hardly looking up from the datapad in his hands as he did so. "We must proceed with caution, as it is sure to be protected in some way."
Ezra snuck forward and poked his head around the corner. Sure enough, ahead of them was a large set of doors, slightly different in appearance from the others, which was guarded by two lone stormtroopers. Retreating back to the others, Ezra whispered, "two stormtroopers. How are we going to get in?"
Adjusting his ill-fitting armor, Hunter gestured to Crosshair. "I think I have an idea."
Ezra, Sabine, and Tech watched Hunter and Crosshair round the corner, gait imitating the stiff, uniform march of a stormtrooper. Over the comms, Ezra listened intently as the two approached the guards.
"We're here to relieve you of your post," Hunter informed the guards. "The lieutenant wants to speak with you two."
Ezra could practically hear the stormtroopers' confusion as one replied, "we weren't aware of any immediate shift changes."
"Well, we're here now, aren't we?" Crosshair demanded, voice dripping acid. Ezra was completely certain that the sniper, at least, wasn't acting.
Evidently, Hunter's excuse had not been convincing enough, because then came the words they had all been dreading. "What is your identification number?"
"We don't have time for this," Hunter huffed, attempting to evade the question. "Do you want to explain to the lieutenant why we weren't at our posts in time, and why you didn't report to him immediately?"
"Uhh…" The stormtrooper trailed off, unsure of how to respond. Ezra heard a clack of armor, as well as a low whispering from who he assumed to be the other stormtrooper.
"Alright," the first guard finally relented, "but I'm blaming you two if we get in trouble for a breach of protocol."
"A wise decision," Hunter muttered into their private comms as the two stormtroopers left their posts and walked down the hall to find the lieutenant, who had no idea he had ordered them to his office. After a few moments, Hunter gave them the all-clear, and Sabine and Ezra cautiously joined them in front of the doors.
Ezra eyed the dull, closed doors skeptically, before asking, "so, what now?"
"We split up," Hunter responded, pulling out a projector showing a holomap of the facility. With a finger, he traced one of the hallways to a large room, central to the entire facility. "Tech and Crosshair will stay here and wipe the data. Meanwhile, we'll set the charges in the main reactor core. Then, we head to the rendezvous point." As Hunter finished, he pointed to a remote maintenance room, located at the edge of the facility. The schematics didn't show it, but it was connected by hatch to a drainage pipe large enough for all of them to escape out of, unseen.
Taking one last look at the map, Ezra nodded to himself. "Sounds good." At least, it would be, as long as none of them got caught.
Hunter turned to Tech and Crosshair. "And you two will be alright on your own?"
"When have we ever not been?" Tech replied, straight-faced.
Ezra held back a chuckle as Hunter sighed in exasperation, and saw, out of the corner of his visor, Sabine's shoulders shaking slightly. They had only known the Bad Batch for a few days, but their destructive tendencies were already clear enough.
"You know what. Never mind."
With that, Hunter gestured for Ezra and Sabine to follow him down the corridor. But, as they walked away from the control room, Ezra noted Hunter's glance over his shoulder at Tech entering the room, and Crosshair posted outside the door. Vaguely, he could sense Hunter's worry for his squadmates. And he didn't blame him. The mission was risky enough, even without being forced to split up like this.
Still, they were experienced soldiers, like Rex. He was sure they could handle themselves in almost any situation. Anyways, it was faster this way, he figured.
It was only a matter of time before the Empire realized something was up.
"The primary generator should be up that way," Hunter said to Ezra and Sabine, nodding his head to the hallway coming to a T just ahead of them. "You two ready? We have to act fast and get out of there even faster."
Shrugging his shoulders, Ezra casually replied, "ready as I'll ever be."
And oh, how he wished that were true. Instead, his stomach rolled uneasily as Hunter led them to the end of the hallway, turning left towards the power generator. The feeling settled like lead at the pit of his stomach. This was how he always felt when something was about to go wrong. I have a bad feeling about this.
The doors to the generator room were completely unguarded, unsurprising considering it was in the very center of the facility. No one expected them to get this far. When Hunter tapped in the security codes Tech had given them, the doors hissed open without any resistance. No shouts, no blasterfire, no alarms. So far so good.
"Alright, you two lay the charges," Hunter ordered, jerking his head to the wide-open doorway. "I'll keep watch."
"Got it," Sabine replied, playfully bumping shoulders with Ezra as she passed on her way into the generator room.
Following Sabine into the room, Ezra strode through the doorway onto a catwalk, footsteps clanging hollowly on the metal. And his jaw dropped. The room was massing, soaring upwards so far that it seemingly disappeared into nothing above them. Below the catwalks they now stood on, the floor descended into darkness, illuminated only by dim, blinking lights. And then, in the center of it all, a glowing power conduit pulsed vaguely, bathing the entire scene in an unearthly, blue glow. Their catwalk, a narrow, precarious walkway, led them to a ring of around the generator.
Immediately, Sabine crouched with her bag open, and set to work placing charges on the bottom of the control center, so that anyone just passing through wouldn't notice unless they were actively searching for them.
Ezra followed the catwalk to the other side of the generator, gazing absentmindedly at the various buttons, screens, and switches that dominated the control panel. He could only assume what all the controls did, but one thing he did know was the it would be a little difficult to fix once they blew the place.
Stopping about halfway around to let Sabine catch up, he again peered off the edge of the walkway, and into the abyss below. He was squinting into the darkness, searching unsuccessfully for the bottom, when Hunter patched in on the comms.
"…Just checking in the generator room, sir. I thought I saw something."
At Hunter's stiff tone, Ezra and Sabine froze; he wasn't talking to them. It was a warning. Backing up as silently as he could on the echoing catwalk, Ezra crouched next to Sabine, who was pressed up against the console, blasters already in hand. A glance to his right, and he saw Sabine put a finger up to her mouth.
"Well, was there anything there?" A curt voice demanded.
"No, sir. It's all clear."
A pause. Sabine and Ezra winced as footsteps reverberated off the catwalk and nestled themselves even further underneath the console. A pair of shiny, black boots appeared from around the corner. Ezra squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed to the Force that the Imperial officer didn't look down. Please turn around, please turn around, please turn around…
Then, after several tense moments, the officer turned on his heels, and marched back the way he had come.
"Anything, sir?" Hunter's voice inquired over the comms.
"No," the officer responded curtly, before ordering, "Get back to your shift, trooper. The admiral ordered double the patrols."
"Yes, sir."
Once the footsteps had receded, Ezra and Sabine let out a relieved sigh. They were still cutting it close. What would have happened if we had been discovered? Ezra wondered as he crawled out from under the console. Would the officer have sounded the alarm, or would him, Sabine, and Hunter have managed to stop him first? He wasn't sure he really wanted to know the answer.
"Thanks for the help!" Sabine said to Hunter accusingly when they rounded the curve and found him standing on the catwalk to the generator.
"I knew you two had it under control," the sergeant said evenly. "Can't you Jedi do that magic mind-trick thing anyways?" As he spoke, he jerked his head at Ezra to accentuate the "magic" part.
Ezra huffed. "Yeah, but that's not how the Force works!"
With a chuckle, Hunter turned towards the exit once more, effectively ending the conversation as he walked back down the catwalk. "As long as you got the charges placed."
Trailing behind Hunter, Ezra wondered how many Jedi the Bad Batch had actually met during the Clone Wars. Rex, Gregor, and Wolffe seemed to have a basic understanding of a Jedi's abilities, but Hunter and his squad? They knew Jedi did "magic stuff."
Not that it really mattered. They'd be out of here as soon as they met up with the others at the rendezvous point.
Before long, they had left the generator room behind them, and were hurrying to the rendezvous point. Striding quickly down the hall while keeping his senses sharp for hostiles, Hunter lifted his vambrace up to his helmet and activated their comm channel.
"Tech, Crosshair, do you copy?"
Silence.
"Tech? Crosshair? Do you read me?" Hunter stopped walking, shoulders stiffening and fear suddenly grabbing his stomach in a vise-like grip against his will. No, no, no, no. Why weren't they responding? Despite his best attempts to hide it, his voice sounded almost frantic as he tried again. "Tech?"
When the comm remained silent, Hunter's armor beeped, alerting him to his skyrocketing pulse. Unbidden images of what could have gone wrong bubbled to the surface of his mind. Tech and Crosshair captured, shot without warning, or worse. He was just moments from dashing back down the corridor to the control center when the other side finally crackled to life.
"Yes, Hunter. We read you," Tech responded neutrally.
Hunter's shoulders sagged in relief. Don't scare me like that, Tech, Hunter scolded his brother inwardly. It certainly wasn't the first time Tech had almost given him a heart attack by not responding to his comms, especially if he were focused on a certain task. I'll give him a talking to later, he reassured himself, and then said,
"Good. We just finished up on our side. Are you done wiping the data?"
"Affirmative. Crosshair and I will meet you at the rendezvous point in the waste processing area."
Hunter's shoulders tensed again. The waste processing area? Wasn't that in the North wing? They were already halfway to the maintenance tunnel where they had planned to meet. Ezra and Sabine seemed to have noticed the slip-up as well, because Ezra's head had shot up immediately, and Sabine's gaze was darting between the him and the commlink, head tilted to one side.
Something was wrong. Tech was meticulous, and he never forgot something as critical to the mission as the evac point, especially not after they had gone over it so many times. Something was most definitely wrong.
But just as Hunter was bringing the commlink back up to his helmet to ask what Tech was talking about, Ezra lunged forward and caught his wrist in a firm grip. Startled, Hunter turned to the padawan inquiringly, but Ezra only shook his head. No.
In the tense moment that followed, the realization dawned on Hunter. No, Tech never made critical errors such as this one. At least, not on accident. It's a warning.
Ezra released his arm as soon as he seemed sure he understood, and slowly, Hunter lifted his comm up to his helmet again. He took a steadying breath. It was even more of a struggle this time to keep his voice even, but he had no doubt that the Empire would be listening.
"Copy that. And Tech?"
"Yes, Hunter?"
Hunter paused, trying to think of something to say to reassure his brother. He searched fruitlessly for the right words, but in the end, he settled with, "you two be careful."
"Of course," Tech replied, voice strained in only a way those closest to him could recognize, and the comm went dead. When Hunter finally lowered his arm, thoughts racing frantically, the group stood in silence.
"They've got them, don't they? Tech and Crosshair?" Ezra asked in a hushed tone. "I felt something was wrong."
Taking a deep breath in, Hunter nodded stiffly, head still spinning. "Yeah. Tech was trying to warn us. He never would have told us to meet at the wrong rendezvous point. Not without an explanation."
"What are we going to do?" Sabine demanded, her stubborn determination dragging Hunter out of his whirlwind of thoughts. Both young faces turned to him.
Kriff. Now what? Hunter couldn't admit to these kids that he didn't know. After all, they might be experienced, but they were no seasoned warriors. They needed to know someone had everything under control, that they weren't just flying blind.
"The Empire knows we're in the facility," Hunter said deliberately, the fist of his uninjured arm clenching and unclenching, "we need to get out of here before we blow the generator."
As much as it pained him to say, in this case, the mission really did come first. He thought back to Hera, explaining just how much was balanced on this mission. But that didn't mean he wouldn't fight with tooth and claw to get his brothers– and Omega, he reminded himself– back. Shaking his head to clear it as best he could, he pulled up the map again, and Ezra and Sabine stepped forward to examine it.
"So why don't we take care of both at the same time. We don't know where the Empire might have taken Tech and Crosshair, but we know there's only one major way out of the facility." He pointed to the hanger, not far from the transport lane on which they had arrived. "I'd say that's the most likely place they could be. This is a factory, not a military base. It doesn't have any containment cells. Their next objective will probably be to bring them onto the cruiser out in orbit."
Sabine nodded in agreement. "That officer said patrols have been doubled. That definitely means they're looking for us. I bet they won't expect us to waltz right in."
Unless it's a trap, the voice of reason echoed in Hunter's head, but he buried it immediately. Trap or not, it was their only chance to get Tech and Crosshair back before they were too late. He'd been forced to abandon Crosshair; he hadn't been there to protect Omega; he refused to just stand by and watch as he lost his brothers now.
"Kid?" Hunter turned to Ezra, waiting for his input. This was Hunter's idea, and these were his brothers. During the war, him and his brothers had been sent on missions without their input, and without regard to their safety. Granted, it was all a part of war, but he wouldn't – no, couldn't– intentionally force someone to join him in what might very well be a suicide mission. That would make him as bad as any irresponsible dictator or heartless Kaminoan.
With a shrug, Ezra replied, "I think it's worth a shot."
Hunter never would have admitted it, but he found himself feeling relieved that the Jedi had agreed to come. Either way, he would have gone, but there was something about fighting alongside a Jedi that reassured him, even if him and his squad hadn't interacted with the mysterious Force-sensitives very often. Maybe it was just the shadows of the past that brought him that sense of security.
"Then let's go." With that, Hunter turned on his heel, not willing to waste any more time that could be spent freeing his brothers, and led Ezra and Sabine down the hall as he retraced their path towards the hanger bay.
He wouldn't be losing any more of his family today.
A/N: Sooooo yeah. Not my favorite chapter, but I still think it turned out pretty well. Did anyone catch a reference? If you haven't noticed, I tend to make references fairly often.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! The other one is already in the works, so it'll definitely be out on time. As usual, your reviews are the proverbial wind in my sails! I have a paddle, yes, but your comments really motivate me. Thanks for all the support.