TIGHTROPE

And so Crosshair's number had finally come up. It was inevitable really. Hemlock had only really wanted him around for the information that would lead to the acquisition of Omega. And now that he had her for, well, it had been a couple of months as near as he could figure, any information that he could provide was unnecessary.

Crosshair figured he had only lasted this long out of some long twisted chain of manipulation. Nala Se cooperated because of Omega and Omega cooperated because of him. Maybe it would be better when he was gone, maybe Omega would find the will to break out of this place and get back to the others. That kid really was something. If anyone could survive this place it was her.

He wasn't really completely sure how much time had passed. It was impossible to tell day from night in the windowless halls inside the mountain. He only knew that Omega had shot up several centimeters since she had been apprehended and brought to the lab facility and she was developing in other ways too.

Crosshair supposed this was normal since her age had not been accelerated but he had no idea whatsoever about the stages of female maturation. The idea actually made him smile. Hunter would be completely clueless about the process as well. He was really going to be in for a shock when they found their way back to each other and he realized that he no longer had a kid on his hands but a half grown woman.

For what Omega might eventually become, Crosshair couldn't help but look to Doctor Karr. Omega had told him all about the way Emerie had revealed that she was a sister, something none of them had ever known was a possibility. But then Emerie had also undergone changes since Crosshair had first met her in the interrogation chamber.

She wasn't aging noticeably but then her growth had been accelerated far more rapidly than other clones, so she was probably older than any of them in the physical sense. No, it was rather a change in her manner and how she treated her… brothers and sister.

When Crosshair looked up at her now as she strode beside the hover gurney that was taking him to the laboratory operating theater, her face was quite serious but also pensive. He decided to take the chance and ask. "Will the kid be alright after I'm gone?"

He didn't hold out any hope that he would return from this procedure back to the dormitory where the other subjects were kept to recuperate between experiments. He had observed other clones make this journey.

Emerie started at the sound of his voice and then fought to compose herself before she answered. "Boil is with her now." She didn't make any pretense that Crosshair would be going back either.

"Boil." Crosshair considered. "He's the one who's been cleaning and doing maintenance."

"That is correct."

Crosshair nodded as much as he was able. Boil was a good sort. He had been a part of Commander Cody's two hundred twelfth. "There's no shame in doing that sort of job behind the scenes."

"I never said there was." Emerie checked her datapad. Maybe they were running behind schedule but what did time matter now.

"There was a clone on Kamino called ninety-nine," he told her. "He was defective like our squad but they couldn't find anything beneficial in his mutations so they put him to work cleaning and doing odd jobs."

"That sounds like demeaning existence." Maybe she was just answering to humor him.

"Ninety-nine didn't see it that way. He was proud to do his part for the Republic and for his brothers. He died defending our home."

She sighed. "It was never my home. I was decanted off world."

"And yet you have come to view the rest of us as brothers?" He didn't really believe he could change her mind enough to cause her to let him up off this table and go back to the kid who needed him.

She did look him in the eye and he saw something there that he couldn't quite decipher. "I believe we are all in the same ship so to speak."

They had reached the operating theater and his gurney was hovered inside.

Doctor Karr prepared a hypo spray and then with a kindness that she had not displayed when he had first arrived she informed him, "I'm going to give you something to make you go to sleep. I don't know if we will see each other again but if we do not, it has been an honor to know you, Crosshair."

It was such an odd thing to say. He really didn't know how to respond. And then the promised unconsciousness took him under.

…

Hunter finished examining his knife and sheathed it. "Alright, we have the team and we've set a course for the extraction point. Your defector is ready?"

"Ready as she'll ever be," Dalla confirmed.

"And we have the codes?"

"Most definitely." She flashed her comlink as proof.

"And a backup plan?"

"We have one of those too."

"A good one?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

…

Doctor Karr looked at the chrono and recorded the time of death. Then she removed her mask and goggles and pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging away the beginnings of a tension headache.

"Very good, Emerie." Doctor Royce Hemlock's voice played over the speaker in the operating theater. "You can dispose of the body in the regular manner."

She gave a wave to where she knew the cam was positioned in the corner of the ceiling. "Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

He didn't like to get his hands dirty with the actual operating. Perhaps that came from whatever had given him cause to always wear that black glove on his left hand. Nala Se might know. She had been present at his trial during the war when he had been stripped of his license and expelled from the Republic Science Corps.

He was always watching though. That was why Emerie had to make this look convincing.

She put her goggles back on and pulled a sheet over the subject's face.

"Sir," again she addressed the cam. "Would it be alright if I let Omega come and pay her respects?"

There was a moment in which she didn't know if he would agree or not. Perhaps he was on a comm with someone else or maybe he just enjoyed making her wait. "Yes, alright, I suppose we'll never hear the end of it if she isn't allowed a chance to say goodbye. Just make sure to bring her back to her room after she's done."

"Of course, Sir." Emerie concealed a smile of relief. Everything was going according to plan.

She hovered the gurney with the supposedly dead Crosshair out of the operating theater and down the hallway toward the morgue. She attempted to keep her pace steady, not too slow, not too fast, and she opened the comm channel to the room where she knew Boil was waiting with Omega.

"Boil, please bring Omega to room eleven twenty."

"Right away, Ma'am," came the swift reply.

…

"Where are we going?" Omega asked with trepidation. She didn't know if today was the day that Crosshair's number would be called for him to be taken into the experimentation chamber. She knew that there were others who had gone who had never come back and she knew that Crosshair's name had to be on the list to be taken some time. And she hadn't seen him all morning.

When Boil had come to keep her company in Crosshair's place she was even more concerned. He usually kept her apprised of what was going on. But this time it was Boil who led her out of the room and down the hallway.

He stopped about halfway to wherever they were going and knelt before her. "Now, Omega, what you're about to see, it might not… that is… he wouldn't want you to make a big scene."

"What? Who wouldn't want?" Now she was more than just concerned.

"Crosshair," he said gently. "He was called down by the doctor this morning…"

"What? No! Not Crosshair." She broke away from him and ran down the hallway.

Boil hurried after her and caught her just before she burst into the morgue. Again he knelt and held her tightly. "Omega," he said softly but urgently. "It's going to be okay. Just do what Doctor Karr tells you and everything is going to be okay." He said each word deliberately as if he was trying to get across some kind of message that she didn't understand.

Omega took a deep, shaky breath even as tears began to leak from her eyes and she nodded at him.

Boil stood and turned to open the door to the morgue and Omega rushed in before he could stop her.

On the gurney lay a body, as cold and unmoving as a block of ice.

"Crosshair?" Omega ran and pulled off the sheet. She didn't even notice anyone else in the room. She just threw her arms around her brother and wept.

"Thank you for bringing her," Emerie was saying from what seemed like very far away.

"Do you need me to do anything else?" Boil asked.

"No, go back to your room. I've already subdued the guards and I'll take it from here."

Subdued the guards? Omega looked down at Crosshair's body and then back at her sister and then she noticed that the guards who should have been running the transit tube from the morgue to the incinerator were slumped, lifeless in their seats.

"Are you sure you don't need someone to run the transit tube?" Boil asked.

Emerie went pale. "Oh blast. I had completely forgotten."

"That's alright, ma'am." Boil laid a hand on her shoulder with a smile. "I'll take care of it but there's something you can do for me."

He drew something out of a fold in his tunic; it looked like an old trooper armor shoulder plate with an orange stripe painted down the center. "I know it's a long shot but there's a twi'lek kid named Numa. Could you get this to her and tell her it's from her Nerra?"

"For all you've done to help us, I will certainly try." Emerie tucked the shoulder plate into her own lab coat and then turned to Omega. "You will need to climb into the transit tube with Crosshair."

Omega wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stared at the doctor incredulously. "But it just goes down to the incinerator, doesn't it?"

"Not today. Do you trust me?"

Omega looked at Crosshair's lifeless body and then back at her sister and she nodded and did as she was bidden.

As the hatch was closed over the two of them, Omega saw Emerie climbing into the next tube. Then Boil did something on the control panel and she let out a little scream as they were all three whisked away through the tube system and into the unknown.

…

"Hey kid, glad you could make it." The voice was calm but there were tears of relief in the eyes of the man who helped her to climb out of the tube.

"Hunter!" She exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him, determined to never let go.

He also embraced her tightly regardless of the immediacy of the situation.

She didn't look to see that Emerie's tube had deposited her a second later. Echo reached into that tube to assist the doctor to stand. And Wrecker was there, too, lifting Crosshair's body gently in his strong arms.

"Are you sure he's not dead?"

"The drug I gave him will not wear off for some time. It was necessary for the ruse to appear authentic."

Hunter drew back from Omega enough to give Emerie a grateful nod. "You're Doctor Karr?"

"I am and you are Hunter, Echo, and Wrecker," she addressed each of them with a measure of awe for the lengths they had gone to in order to make this rescue happen.

"We can continue the introductions on the Marauder." Echo attempted to get them back on schedule. "Let's get out of here before they raise the alarm."

Omega would have raced alongside them but Hunter refused to put her down. He was smiling as he ran and he even joked, "you've grown, Kid."

"You didn't expect them to test their experimental reverse for aging on me, did you?" She just held on to him tighter.

"Do you have one of those worked out?" Echo asked.

Emerie was breathing harder than the others as she was not as used to the physical exertion, but she managed to play along with a quip of her own. "I wasn't able to fit it in my luggage on such short notice."

"I like her!" Wrecker laughed. He grabbed Emerie around the waist with the arm he was not using to hold Crosshair and sped up towards their exit.

Emerie yelped a giggle of her own.

…

Riyo didn't know where Dalla got this intel, nor did she want to know, but it had better be good. She hovered her pod onto the Senate floor and waited to be recognized, which didn't take long. Ever since she took down Rampart, the assembly knew that when she moved to speak, the osik went down.

"Members of the senate!" She announced. "I have disturbing information regarding Dr. Royce Hemlock and the Advanced Sciences Division."

Some of the more jaded senators rolled their eyes, but Riyo wasn't going for the bleeding heart angle. She forged ahead: "Two of Dr. Hemlock's subjects and a member of staff have disappeared from the facility. This supposedly secure facility is sorely lacking; what is Dr. Hemlock doing with his generous Imperial funding?"

She punctuated that with a holo of Dr. Hemlock addressing the Senate while wearing a designer suit and shoes which cost more than Riyo's monthly rent. Goddess bless the soul who took it.

Bail Organa reeled in shock and levitated his own pod to speak. "This program receives millions of credits, and yet it can't keep its subjects contained?"

"Senator Organa —." Someone tried to rein in the outrage but Riyo didn't let them.

"If this facility isn't secure, then all of its research is contaminated. Millions of credits, wasted. This empire can't afford to pour credits down the drain while separatist holdouts and insurgents threaten us from all sides. Therefore, I move that the funding previously reserved for Dr. Hemlock's project be redirected to our core law enforcement agency —." Don't cringe, Chuchi, "— the Imperial Security Bureau."

Senator Organa blinked and Riyo didn't blame him. She'd done the same when Dalla said to give the money to ISB.

"I second!" A pod came to rest behind her and Senator Nadea Tural of Thrad added her voice to the debate. "The people of the galaxy need security and order, not mad science. And to those of you opposed —." She leveled her gaze on a representative shooting Riyo a dirty look. "I would remind you all that it is an election year."

The motion passed by a landslide. Riyo made a mental note to buy Tural lunch some day.

…

As the Marauder left, an ISB transport entered Weyland space with a grinning Yularen at the helm.

"Beginning landing sequence now, sir." Officer Kallus reported.

"Thank you, Officer." Yularen addressed the rest of the agents. "The facility has already been ordered to suspend all operations. Your mission is to ensure the staff complies with the shutdown order, and release any victims from the facility."

"Yes sir!"

The agents and helmeted troopers lining the transport formed up. It was go time.

…

Boil thought that he had done the right thing. He had helped to save that little girl and he had given up the last of his armor. But as those troopers came marching down the corridor it all came rushing back.

The darkness. The cold. The planet literally trying to reach out and strangle and swallow them.

"The enemy has our gear and armor!"

"Waxer!"

Then one of the troopers knelt in front of him and removed his helmet and Boil saw the face of his brother. He reached up to carefully trace the scar above the man's left eye.

"Commander?" he croaked out in disbelief.

Cody smiled. "That's correct, Boil."

"Is he alright?"

The commander looked back over his shoulder towards a man who Boil also recognized.

"Admiral, you're here, too?"

Yularen also knelt. "Yes, Boil. You're free."

…

Emerie couldn't take her eyes off the pregnant woman talking to Phee. Even though she'd spent her short life working with zygotes and reproduction, she had never seen a pregnant woman with her own eyes. This one didn't look like the figures Emerie had studied, with their perfectly rounded bellies and serene smiles. Her belly poked out more, probably because she was shorter than average, and her expression was grimly focused.

Would Emerie herself look like that in a few months? There was no way to tell if her and Nala Se's little experiment had taken root. But for the first time, she hoped with all her soul that it had.

"Dr. Karr?" the woman said. "We're ready for you."

Emerie approached them, careful not to stare at the woman's belly.

She thrust out the shoulder plate before they could say anything. "Boil asked me to give this to a little girl on Ryloth. Numa was her name."

"He can take it to her himself," the pregnant woman replied and accepted the plate presumably to pass on. "ISB freed all the clones imprisoned at Mt. Tantiss, so he's free to do so."

Emerie nodded, glad of the news and then took a breath before she asked, "And you have a rebel cell that will take me on? Isn't that how this usually works?"

"Usually. Given the special circumstances of your case, we're taking a different approach."

Emerie turned to focus on Phee, who had spoken. That made it easier not to stare at the other woman.

"Some of our contacts were… er… hesitant to take on someone who had worked so closely with Doctor Hemlock."

Emerie nodded. She wished she could say she had only done what she had to do to survive, but there was a time when she felt that she was better than the other clones and she had not been as considerate of their well-being. "I just want a chance to start over."

"And that's what we want to give you." The woman's hand was on her belly again and Emerie glanced down before looking her in the eye to see her sincerity.

"We have come into contact with a gentleman who lost his wife and children during the war. He was a medical doctor for the Republic but has since then made his home on a quiet outer rim world."

"And he's looking for a laboratory assistant?" Emerie wasn't sure if she wanted to be that anymore.

"No," Phee sensed her hesitation and patted her shoulder, reassuringly. "He wants a daughter to pass on his practice to."

"He wants…" Emerie swallowed. Was it actually possible that she might have a family?

"His name is Doctor Aaron Pershing and he will be awaiting your transport at the space dock."

…

Yularen watched the pulsing vein in Tarkin's neck with smug satisfaction while the Grand Moff glared over his desk.

"What are you playing at?" Tarkin demanded.

"I don't have time to play at anything. In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to build a law enforcement agency." Yularen went back to his computer, where the funding was displayed on the screen. "And this will help nicely. I'm not going to look a gift equus in the mouth."

"Colonel," Tarkin sniped, as if Yularen hadn't taken the demotion willingly, "Dr. Hemlock's work is important to the long-term success of the Empire."

"It certainly doesn't appear that way. Just a bunch of poking at defective clones with no conclusive results. The experiments at Mount Tantiss were nothing more than a smoke screen carried out by a charlatan spending Imperial credits on anything except Imperial interest, and Mr. Hemlock will face consequences for his deception."

"Mister Hemlock?"

"The medical board revoked his license. Again."

Tarkin's lips seemed to disappear as his mouth pulled into a single hard line, and Yularen committed every detail of his expression to memory. What a great day to work with a fence. What a great day to be alive.

…

Genna knew that the mission hadn't just been about recovering Meg. She was thrilled that they had her back and that she could introduce the girl to her nieces but Meg had plenty of other people she would want to see on Pabu. And now the reality of the rest of the success of the rescue was lying on her couch.

He was alive. That doctor who had defected along with them, she was a clone too, or so they said. She had made sure that though he had appeared dead enough for them to be able to make the escape. He was breathing now and his heart was beating. It would still be a while before he woke.

He was bound to be disoriented, confused. So Genna had offered to be the one to stay with him while the others were off celebrating. The twins were napping in their room down the hall so it only made sense. She didn't know what she would do if he woke up before they came back.

Maybe it would have been better if someone else had stayed. After all, he wouldn't know her from the queen of Naboo. They had never met. And there was the fact that if he hadn't done it himself he had at least given the order to kill her brother.

Genna took a deep breath and paced across her living room and back again, keeping her comm unit in her hand in case anything should happen here or they tried to contact her. She could comm them now and tell them she wasn't as up to the challenge as she thought.

No, no she wouldn't. She could handle this. He was Tech's brother and she had forgiven him for his part in Ret's death months ago.

Besides he had shown no signs of… and then he moaned.

She stepped closer, more curious than concerned as his eyes slid slowly open.

He stared at her with a kind of bleary recognition. "You."

"You know me?" She was too caught off guard to comm the others.

"I guess it figures you would be the first." He came to a seated position, cradling his head in his hands. "Am I to spend eternity apologizing to those I hurt during my lifetime?"

He thought he was dead? Genna stood there not knowing what to say.

"I never put any credence into the idea of an afterlife, who knew if clones even possessed a soul, but then after Tech… I hoped that his sacrifice might have earned him something better."

He opened his eyes and looked up at her and then what color was there drained from his face. "But then, if you're here…"

Before she could even try to explain, he fell at her feet.

"I tried to warn them to stay away! I wanted them to keep Omega safe but I also wanted him to have the chance to get back to his…" he looked up at her with pleading eyes. "Did the child at least survive?"

"Twins," she said softly. "I had twins and they're fine and I'm fine and, Crosshair, you're alive. Hunter and Wrecker and Echo, they got you and Omega out. You're free."

He stood slowly, blinking and taking in his surroundings.

That was when Genna reached again for her comm unit to inform the others but as she did another sound emitted from the device. She had set it to monitor the twins while they slept and now it seemed that they were quietly babbling to each other in what she had come to believe was their own made up language.

She smiled. It reminded her of all those languages their dad had spoken and in that instant she knew exactly what Tech would have wanted.

"Crosshair?"

He spun back around to face her in the midst of his survey of the room.

"Come with me." She beckoned for him to follow her and he did so, down the hallway and through the door into the pink painted bedroom where two little girls each stood in her crib and shrieked with delight when they saw their mother enter.

"You two are supposed to be sleeping!" Genna growled teasingly and both girls giggled until one and then the other noticed the newcomer.

Kebiin reached for her mother, opening and closing her little fists. "Bu Bu."

"It's alright, Kebi," Genna lifted her from the crib to make the introductions. "This is your Uncle Crosshair."

But as Crosshair stepped into the room for a closer look, the other twin studied him with her golden brown eyes.

Then to the great surprise of her mother the little girl reached out to her uncle and he instinctively took her into his arms.

"That's Saviin. She never goes to strangers."

Saviin popped her thumb into her mouth and grinned around it.

"She must know that we are not strangers." The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. "They really are Tech's, aren't they?"

"Mmm-hmm." Genna didn't trust herself to speak as tears pricked in her eyes.

They both jumped at the sound of the door to the apartment opening and both adopted a more defensive hold on the twin in their arms. That is until they heard the voices of the rest of clone force ninety-nine frantically wondering what could have become of the brother they had left unconscious on the couch.

Crosshair relaxed and the toddler in his arms contentedly laid her head against his chest.

That was how his brothers and sister found them.

"Problem, Hunter?" Crosshair drawled.

He sheathed his knife before answering. "Not if Genna's okay with it."

"Hut-ah!" Kebiin squirmed in her mother's arms reaching out for her other uncle.

Genna passed the baby over but she also gave Omega a wink. "I'm never going to get to hold them again, am I?"

…

Emerie stepped off the transport and looked around. Her gaze fell upon an older human male who smiled at her and waved.

"Welcome home, Emmy girl!"

She was about to correct him when she was suddenly engulfed in a warm embrace.

The man set her back at arms length again to get a look at her. "Let's get you back to the house. You must be exhausted after your trip."

"I am rather tired," she murmured.

As they walked a few of the locals looked on, interested in the new arrival.

Doctor Pershing beamed at them and pointed at the young woman who walked beside him. "My daughter, Emmy. Come to give me a hand with the practice."

"Of course I will assist you with whatever is necessary," Emerie asserted, though quietly. "I am so thankful for you agreeing to take me and I am more than willing to make myself useful."

He stopped and really looked at her. "You think that's why I invited you here, for some free labor?"

"Well, I don't know. I thought…"

"Not a bit of it." He smiled kindly again. "You're here for what I can do for you, Emmy girl, not the other way around."

Emerie felt a wetness on her cheek and she reached up to wipe it away. "Doctor Pershing, I…"

"Now, none of that," he scolded gently, taking her into his embrace again. "You'll call me Dad from here on out." Then he whispered in her ear. "And the little one can call me Pop."

"The…" she startled and took a step back and her hand went unconsciously to her stomach.

"I'm not mistaken, am I? You'll have to forgive me, but you've got the look."

"I- I was unable to test to see if the implantation procedure had been successful."

The old gentleman's smile grew, if possible, even wider. "Well, I may not have all of the lab equipment you're accustomed to but I think we can test for that." He shook his head. "It's my lucky day, not only a daughter but a grandbaby too in the bargain."