Star Wars: The Bad Batch

In Secret

by Gabrielle Lawson

Chapter Twelve

Phee sat on the door of the shuttle. She watched the doctor and AZI as they worked on Tech. She kept hoping he would survive. He survived the fall. He wasn't dead. She wanted to cheer, to go to him and tell him her feelings, because flirting obviously went over his head. But she also felt such fear that the grief would win and she'd lose him again. The doctor said he was stable, but he didn't look stable from where she was sitting.

"Phee?"

Phee didn't expect a woman's voice behind her. But she turned to look and found the senator there. "He's alive," she replied. "But he's hurt."

There was a man beside her, also Pantoran. "I'll see what aid I can offer." He stepped past them and spoke to the doctor inside.

The senator sat beside her and put her arm around her shoulder. She smiled. "He's alive. Hold on to that."


Emerie thanked the new doctor, but told him Tech was stable now. They'd done what they could for him at this point. Unless he had access to a bacta tank.

"Alas, I do not, here," the doctor replied. "May I see the data? Another set of eyes can't hurt."

Emerie agreed. She was exhausted and quite hungry. She'd missed breakfast. Which was apparently intentional, because breakfast was poisoned. "He sustained many of his injuries in a fall two cycles ago. Dr. Hemlock declined to heal his limbs. He had a skull fracture, a punctured lung, and perforated stomach. Those wounds were corrected. There was also a spinal compression. I had stabilized it, but Hemlock must have removed it. During our escape, Dr. Hemlock attacked him. He had an energy staff. He used on the equipment providing life support. Then he slammed the staff into the patient's chest. Fractured ribs, cracked sternum. He was then thrown from the table into other equipment in the infirmary. He hit his head, and the compression worsened. His spinal cord was severed. He's unconscious. We've treated everything but his spine. There's nothing more we can do."

"Hmmm," the doctor said, looking over the scans. "It was cleanly sliced. I may have a treatment. But it can't be done now. His health is too precarious for the procedure."

Emerie was intrigued now. "What procedure?"

"It's experimental," the doctor stated. "But we've had a fifty percent success rate in our trials." He took out a datapad of his own and pulled up a file. "We replace one or more vertebra and discs with an electronic substitute. It connects both ends of the spinal cord and adds a small electrical charge. The device passes information between the two segments. This should allow for renewed communication between both segments. I've seen a paraplegic walk again years after her injury. But we'd have to do it in a clandestine environment, given the patient's status as a clone deserter. I can arrange this on my homeworld. Our people are not sympathetic to the Empire."

"Fifty percent," Emerie repeated. "What happens to the other fifty percent?"

The doctor sighed. "Sadly, they remain paralyzed. But they are not harmed by the procedure."

Emerie thought it could work. CT-1409 had had many droid replacements attached to his remaining body. This would be one or bones and it might allow Tech to walk again. Her stomach growled.

"Have you not eaten today?" the doctor asked. "By all means, go eat something. I'll keep watch on the patient."

Emerie was satisfied that Tech would remain stable, so she left the shuttle and found a clone who told her where she could find some rations. Rations were better than nothing.


Hunter watched as the Pantoran doctor stepped into the sterile field. He lifted the datapad and found it very much the same. No decrease, no increase. Tech was alive. AZI left the field and approached him.

"CT-9902 is stable. His prognosis is good except for a spinal cord injury. I regret to inform you that he will be paralyzed from the waist down. He will have no use of his legs."

Hunter had already guessed that when Emerie, the doctor, had told him the spinal cord was severed. "Thank you, AZI."

"I will now see if there are other injuries among these clones."

"Omega didn't get breakfast," Crosshair told him. "Perhaps you should take her to get something."

"No," she said. "Just bring me some rations. I'm staying until he wakes up."

"It could be a very long time," the Pantoran doctor said from Tech's side. "It is possible he's comatose. You should not neglect your own health."

"Let's get something to eat, Omega." He looked to Crosshair. "Besides, I want to know how it all went down. And you and Crosshair know different parts of the story."

"Tech documented a lot of it," Echo said. "We should all go."

"I'll stay with him," Wrecker said. He picked up the datapad. "He's hooked up to this now?"

"It's showing his brain activity," Omega told him. "If it increases, he's waking up."

Wrecker sat down with it.

Hunter then saw Phee sitting with Senator Chuchi on the shuttle door. "Wanna join us." He held out a hand to Phee.

Phee took it and stood. "I guess I wanna know the story, too." She helped the senator up.

Echo was looking in the crate of Tech's armor. He took a piece of equipment off the scraps and brought it with him as they went looking for Rex.


Omega sat between Crosshair and Hunter with a couple ration bars and a flask of water. Echo had the computer Tech wore on his arm. He was hooking it up to a computer in the office of the garage. She had started to eat a ration bar, but then an image appeared on the screen. It was Tech's point of view while he looking at the railcar as it was falling with him.

"This is the start of the story," Echo said. "This is how he survived."

The image came to life and Tech spun around so that they were all looking at the ground far below him. They could hear the wind roaring as it whipped by. The railcar slowly passed him on the way down. Tech turned and moved quickly toward it. They could see his arms climbing it. "What's he doing?"

"Putting something between himself and the ground," Rex said. "Increases his chances."

The imaged moved this way and that until they could see the tops of trees. Then Tech's arm reached out with his blaster. He fired his grappler but it failed to hold the trees. Then he must have jumped because it was just a blur of brown and green and Tech's arms. They could hear branches breaking and Tech grunting. But the blur began to slow and turn into individual branches and needles.

"He slowed his fall with the trees," Echo said.

And then the image stopped. It was as if Tech was lying on a bunch of branches. He'd come to a stop. "I didn't expect that," Echo remarked.

"Then how he was all broken up?" Omega asked. Tech's hand pulled his visor down but it was cracked and split. He then took his helmet off and let it fall. It took nearly a minute to hear it clatter on something. Tech looked to the left and they saw his shoulder but not his arm. He rolled and the camera showed his arm was stuck behind him. But then they heard cracking, and he started to fall again. The branches cracked and snapped and he tried covering his head, but it was back to being more of a blur as he fell through the trees. It seemed to go on for a long time. Then there was a second of quiet followed by the sound of armor hitting something hard. The blur was now light gray and blue in color as he tumbled. The image began to break up. It winked in and out. The blur stopped and there was just a sideways image of the ground and sky. He was on the ground. He gasped and coughed.

"It was just like you said," Rex stated. "He went for the trees. Except he stopped falling and fell again. From trees to rocks. The rocks were likely the worst of it."

"Phee and I looked through the data the camera hadn't transferred yet," Echo said. He looked toward Hunter. "The images were a lot like this. Lots of static, going in and out. But we saw Hemlock. And then just white armored legs. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But if it turned out he was dead, I didn't want to give you false hope."

Hunter nodded. "We should have gone back for him."

"Then we'd all have died," Echo argued. "We barely made it out and Omega was injured. And maybe we couldn't have kept him alive long enough to get him help."

Omega set her water on the floor. She took Hunter's hand and held it.

Echo put a data rod into the computer. He scomped in and brought up a file. "This is Tech's log of everything he did to bring that base down." He turned to Omega and Crosshair. "I know you each had your parts, but this covers it pretty well. In summary, once Hemlock hooked him up, he spent a few days getting used to it, finding out what all he could get into. He watched Hemlock offer Crosshair a work detail, and that gave him the idea."

"I was to help the kitchen with the food and then deliver it to the galleys and prisoners," Crosshair added. "Better food for me, and I figured not being a cell would help Tech with whatever he planned."

Omega began to eat again. She knew a lot of this part of the story.

"He asked Nala Se for a slow-acting poison that would build up in the Imperials' bodies."

"Methysergide," Omega informed them. "He added it to requisitions. I had to slip it to Crosshair when he delivered our food to the infirmary. Then he could it in the food."

"Nala Se also reformulated the rations for the prisoners to be healthier," Echo went on. "Over the span of two cycles, he ordered many things over those requisitions. He stocked a storeroom off the hangar with all that medical equipment that went into that shuttle. He knew his armor was in that room. He thought Crosshair should have his back."

"Then he didn't do it to leak the location?" Rex asked.

"There's no mention of him hoping it would be intercepted by your contacts," Echo told him. "He had no way of knowing the Martez sisters would plant a beacon in it."

"If he hadn't wanted you to have your gear, we wouldn't have found you at all," Rex told Crosshair.

Omega was glad Tech had. She wanted her whole squad back. And now she had them.

"Then as the plan neared the end," Echo continued, "he forged an addendum just a few hours after a requisition went out. It was made to look like Hemlock ordered it. It told Communications to call it in live. And while the officer was speaking, Tech decrypted the quantity and when it was needed."

"1409 CCs in two days," Hunter repeated.

"That time he did hope one of Rex's contacts intercepted it," Echo added.

Hunter squeezed her hand. "We would have come for you anyway."

"He could have sent any number, but he needed one that would make us know it was him. My number, because Hemlock had done to him what the Techno Union did to me."

"Send that to Howser," Rex said. "A lot of boys want to know how it happened that they are now free. I'll share it with the boys here."

Echo finished sending it then pulled the data rod out. "The rest of this is for Tech. Once he's safe to travel, I think we should take him home."

Omega looked to Hunter and he met her gaze. He nodded. "Like we talked about."

Pabu. They were going home to Pabu.

"Where's 'home?'" Crosshair asked.

"We keep that confidential," Hunter told him. "It's a safe place with limited resources. Come with us."

"If Tech is going," Crosshair replied, "I'm going." He looked at Rex, "Though I might come back. I want to shoot a few more commanding officers."

Rex chuckled. "Happy to have ya."

"Have you had contact with Commander Cody?" Crosshair asked him.

"No, why?"

"Word is he went AWOL after Desix." He sighed. "Not my finest hour."

"Better late than never," Rex told him. "I'll see if we can't find him. Thanks for the tip."

"How did you know what Tech wanted you to do," Hunter asked Omega.

"He contacted me through my datapad. I used it in the infirmary with the patients."

"And you?" he asked Crosshair. "Surely you didn't have a datapad."

"Sixteen little notes on a cut up bandage with words burned into them," Crosshair said. "Practice for slipping me the poison."

"I got pretty good at it," Omega told them. "Benni was right. It can be a skill."

Hunter laughed at that.

"I'll pilot the shuttle," Echo volunteered. "Is the doctor coming with us?"

"I don't know," Hunter replied. "She fought to save him from Hemlock, but she was rather disturbed by the fact that Tech had poisoned the whole base for two cycles."

Omega hoped she would. AZI might be able to take care of Tech, but Emerie had been doing it the whole time. Everyone stood. Omega finished her rations and washed them down with the water. She wanted to get back to Tech.

"If there's anything we do for him," Rex offered Echo.

"His armor needs repair," Echo replied. "We have money but it might raise some suspicion."

"I'll see if I can find someone to do it discreetly," Rex said.

Omega wondered what money they had. They weren't working for Cid anymore. Then she remembered. "What about Cid" she asked.

"I'll be happy to shoot her for your," Crosshair offered.

"No need," Phee said. "We marooned where we found Skara Nal."

"There's nothing there but a monster and dead robot," Omega said.

Hunter smirked. "Exactly."

Rex followed them out. He took the crate of Tech's gear out.

Omega saw Emerie eating with a couple clones. She wanted her to come. She wanted her to take care of Tech.


Hunter returned to where Wrecker was standing and looking in through the plastic curtain. The Pantoran doctor stepped out. "He's quite stable now," he told them. "I've let your doctor know of a possible treatment for his spine. But he needs to be fully healed before we risk that."

A possible treatment? That was good news. "Can we see him?"

"Just for a moment," the doctor responded. "He's still unconscious. He won't know your there."

"But we will," Wrecker told him.

The doctor opened the curtain and he and Wrecker stepped in on either side of Tech. He was covered in a blanket, but Hunter could tell he was thinner than he had been, even with all those stabilizing wraps.

Wrecker wiped a tear away. "He's real. How?"

"He's Tech," Hunter told him. "He had time to think while he fell. He used some trees to slow his fall, but he fell again through the trees, onto rocks. The rocks did the most damage."

Hunter traced the plate that held the port to Tech's temple. It didn't look as horrible as Echo's ordeal had back on Skako Minor. Still, he was sure it wasn't something Tech would have wanted.

Crosshair stood at the foot of the bed. "Hemlock brought us in to see him, for a 'reunion.' He told Tech what he was going to do, then he gave us five minutes with him. I told him to use it, that he was smarter than Echo, smarter than Hemlock. I think I even underestimated him right then."

"All right, gentlemen," Emerie stated. "Let me tend my patient."

"We want to take him home," Hunter told her. "You're welcome to come."

"Omega told me it was far from the Empire," she said. "I think I'd like that."

Hunter backed away and motioned for Wrecker and Crosshair to leave as well. Omega was right there and she took the datapad from Wrecker. "I'll stay here with Tech."

Crosshair found the crate with his armor and rifle. "No helmet, but I'm not surprised. There was an avalanche. Lost it in the snow."

"We'll find you a new one," Wrecker said. And then he picked up Crosshair and hugged him.

"I missed you, too," Crosshair said. "Now put me down."

Hunter turned back to Emerie. "Is he safe to travel?"

"I should think so," she replied. "We traveled here."

"Echo is going to pilot this shuttle. I'll take the Marauder. We'll go together."

Crosshair and Wrecker followed him out. Wrecker was carrying Crosshair's crate. Echo was just handing Rex some credits from the box they took from Cid. "Is he ready to go?" he asked.

"Doc says he's okay," Hunter answered. He picked up his commlink. "AZI? We're ready to go. Bring Phee."

"I'll be right there," the droid replied. "There were very few serious injuries."

"Not many survived the lab," Crosshair told him. "Or the torture."

Echo passed him the box as he went to the shuttle. Hunter put his arm around his brother as they stepped about the Maraurder. "So what made you want to shoot your commanding officer?"

Crosshair answered with just one word. "Mayday."

Phee went to the shuttle with AZI. Hunter sat down at the helm with Wrecker. He waited for the shuttle to lift off then followed it out of the garage. Once they were clear of the planet, he set the navicomputer to Pabu's coordinates and pushed it into hyperpace. He smiled when he realized that hole in his chest had shrunk quite a bit. Tech wasn't out of the woods but he was alive. Omega and Crosshair were both safe and back with them. And they were all going home.