Chapter 1 - Confined
Plot: After a failed attempt at killing Sidious, Anakin is sent to Tantiss, so his midi-chlorians can be used in Hemlock's experiments. He's not expecting a female clone to be in charge of the procedures on him. Emerie wasn't quite expecting Hemlock to be outright torturing one of his experimental subjects, either. But neither of them have a way out, not without help.
Author's Note: A much more extended version of this would be cool so if anyone ever wants to do one I'd be happy to see it. But here's this and hopefully it's not too fast-paced to be interesting. X_X
I also changed Tantiss' canon layout and a few other 3rd season writing choices but really canon what canon 😈
~ Tirana Sorki
"There is one other subject who you will have charge of, now that you are the chief scientist," Hemlock is saying as he leads Emerie back out of the main part of the vault. She still does not know what to think of the children they are keeping there. She doesn't fully understand why there would not be adults who could serve the same purpose as the children here, either.
At least they are being fairly well-treated, and she is certain there must have been some kind of volunteering procedure behind how they ended up here but... That does little to stop the quiet whisper in her mind of how none of them seemed happy there.
"Nala Se said she would find out for me."
"Find out what?"
"When I can go home."
So... yes, she is unsure what to think.
Emerie follows Hemlock back into the hallway, noting again another door off to the side that she doesn't know the purpose of yet.
Hemlock stops, leading her over to it. "The subject contained here is dangerous," he warns.
"Dangerous?" Emerie echoes. Like Zillo beast kind of dangerous or - ?
"He has the highest known M-count ever found and will be very useful in our experiments. But he will use any chance to attempt another escape that he is given so you must be conscious of security at all times."
Her mind instantly jumps to Omega. Is she alright, wherever she is? The ship was damaged in their escape. Did she even make it?
Hemlock unlocks the door, leading her inside. The first thing that greets her is the high-pitched screeching sound filling the air. It's not deafening but it's enough to entirely jumble her thoughts. It's also making her head hurt.
"What is that?" Emerie asks, as she steps inside startling slightly as she takes in the room.
Someone is suspended in an energy field in the center of the room – something usually used when holding people prisoner, from what she has seen in the past. The man is dressed in dark robes, and his hair is a sandy blonde. Blue eyes lock with hers as she stares at him, though his gaze looks half-distant like he's half-fazed out of his surroundings and how is the noise not driving him out of his mind?
When Hemlock said dangerous, she thought he meant an animal not another person? At least he is not a child but he looks only to be around her age, even if that means double the number of years in natborn standards.
"He was once a Jedi but he betrayed the Empire. His Force abilities are deadly," Hemlock replies, reaching over to a control panel and flipping some buttons. The noise finally turns off and Emerie nearly breathes a sigh of relief. She sees the way something in the... prisoner relaxes the slightest bit, though he's looking at them tensely, warily. Scared. Even if it's hidden. She still knows that look.
Because he is being tortured here. There is nothing else she can call this and she does not understand the purpose. "There is no other way to keep him contained?"
"He tried to escape multiple times and caused serious damage," Hemlock responds evenly, "We cannot take any more changes. The noise leaves him mentally incapacitated so he cannot reach the Force. And legally, he would have been executed were he not of use here."
She can understand the need to try containing him then, but it still does not sit any more well with her than what's happening to those children. (She can understand more and more of why Omega made the choice she did, even if she knows she shouldn't.)
Hemlock gives her a brief summary of what she needs to do here, with a final reminder that she has to remember to turn the noise back on when she's finished, before he leaves.
Emerie turns her attention back to the man who's staring at her now. His gaze is almost unnervingly intense.
"Are you a clone?"
She stills at the unexpectedness of the question. She didn't really expect him to start talking period. He doesn't sound dangerous – his voice is weirdly gentle, actually. Not that that means too much.
"I am," she replies curtly.
"Didn't know there were any... female clones." He blinks a few times, like he's trying to stay focused on the present.
Two actually, not that that's something he needs to know about.
She should stop talking and get on with her work, as Hemlock is expecting of her. Picking up what she needs to take his blood from her tray of supplies, she approaches him cautiously.
"What's your name?" he asks, when she doesn't reply.
Eva had asked her that too and Hemlock hadn't been happy.
"You may refer to me as Dr. Karr."
"That's not the name you choose for yourself, is it? That's the name... he gave to you."
Why is this a concern to him? "I never chose a name for myself," she replies evenly. She knows many of her brothers did but Nala Se named her and Hemlock gave her an additional name and after how much he did for her that no one else did, it felt like he had the right too. Even if the use of "Karr' always feels so... distant. But it is meant to be professional, as is needed if she's going to be of use to him.
"This... won't hurt," she tells him awkwardly, reaching for his left arm. His right is an uncovered, golden prosthetic.
"It's alright. I know you do not have another choice."
She does not let herself think about all the things the comment immediately brings up, instead drawing his blood like she was instructed to. It's red – somehow, with what Hemlock was saying she almost anticipated it to look far more exotic instead of like a perfectly normal human's. Once she has enough of it, she turns to go, pausing when she reaches the control panel.
She needs to turn this back on and just – leave him here with that going. It's not as if she hasn't done worse.
Crosshair's screams echo through her mind.
That does not make her any more desirous of doing this. Emerie slowly turns to look back at him, after a long pause. He's holding himself tensely again, even if he looks almost resigned. Too tired to resist anymore. (She understands that feeling.)
She should not ask. She should not. "What is your name?"
He blinks, startled. "Anakin Skywalker."
The name is vaguely familiar for a reason she can't identify. She doesn't stop to ask. She already crossed a line she should not have, even if Hemlock will never know.
Emerie turns the noise back on, forcing herself to leave without looking back.
**w**
"Anakin!" Ahsoka calls, panic bleeding into her voice.
Anakin – or should that be Vader? He's no longer sure which name fits him best anymore – stumbles, his limbs twitching uncontrollably from the lightning. He knew trying to go after Sidious wasn't a good idea but now it's too late. Failure burns deep in his gut. He always fails. That's the only thing he's ever been good at, at the end of the day.
Failing.
Sidious is coming. He can hear the footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Ahsoka, go!" he yells. She's not injured, she can make it. He's injured already and someone has to slow Sidious down.
"I'm not leaving you!" she yells back, glaring, "Not this time."
The words would mean the world in any other situation. Right now it only terrifies him.
Sidious' cackle rings through the room.
"Go! I'll be right behind you." It's a lie. They both know it and Ahsoka doesn't move.
Anakin looks back, heart lurching to his throat as the robed figure makes it to the bottom of the stairs. Anakin doesn't think, just lashes out with the Force, flinging Ahsoka down the nearby shaft in the former-Jedi-Temple-now-Imperial-palace. Ahsoka yelps as she falls down out of sight and Anakin winces internally but it was the only way. She won't be stupid enough to try to come back. Hopefully.
He turns back to face Sidious, right as a blast of lightning catches him before he can move his lightsaber to block it. His limbs are moving too uncoordinatedly.
Everything whites out from agony. He can't hear anything over his own screams, over the agony burning through him. Doesn't know how long it is when it finally lets up, but everything is burning and burning and burning and he can't move he can't breathe –
The snap-hiss of a lightsaber is enough to make him pry his eyes open, the red glow of Sidious' lightsaber nearly blinding him as the blade levels at his neck. He's going to die here, isn't he? He just feels numb, mostly. He can't believe this was once Palpatine, the one person who always stood with him when no one else did.
"I gave you everything. I was loyal to you when no one else was and yet you repay it with betrayal," Sidious hisses, blade burning closer. It's burning his neck and he presses against the floor desperately but Sidious isn't stopping.
"You tried to kill Ahsoka," Anakin hisses back, glowering. And she didn't commit treason, unlike the rest of the Jedi. Nothing can quite compare to the rage he felt when he heard what Sidious did – ordering Rex to shoot Ahsoka down. And it wasn't something the clones could control. He didn't realize about the chips until he'd fine Ahsoka again and she'd explained it to him. They've been mind-controlled.
"She would have stood with the Jedi and chosen to die with them. As you have now," he hisses, blade burning closer.
Anakin jerks out of his half-lucid, half-sleeping state back to consciousness as the memory fades to the back of his mind. His heart is still hammering from the memory, but what instantly takes over all his senses is the noise.
He thought Sidious was going to kill him in that moment, but in the end, he hadn't. He'd decided he would be more useful alive.
But his mind can hardly concoct a coherent through beyond that with all the noise. He knows how to slip into the back of his mind, to try to tune out when he's being but it's so constant and it's not stopping and – He doesn't know a way out anymore and continuing to cling onto something is increasingly difficult.
Especially when he doesn't even know if Ahsoka is still alive. He'd know if she died or he ought to and he didn't sense anything but he's barely been coherent enough to sense anything for so long anymore and – there's no way out.
Maybe there shouldn't be.
At least the constant noise and inability to find any measure of relief means he doesn't have to keep seeing Operation Knightfall replaying through his mind either. Seeing his clones dying as he fails to save them, seeing the Jedi falling by his own hand, seeing – everything that went wrong that night.
He didn't see another choice that night. He was desperate and then it was too late and – it doesn't change how all of that sound like excuses anyway. Doesn't change how Sidious was lying to him because he never intended to help the galaxy like promised, which is the only reason Anakin agreed to turn on him in the first place, but it still made it feel even more like everything he did that night was for nothing.
Ugh.
This noise.
He squeezes his eyes shot, willing anything to make it stop, to just end. He's tried so many times to reach out and crush the controls, crush the device holding him but he can't get the noise in his own head to stop screaming
Turning on Sidious was a stupid choice. He also didn't know what else to do. Sidious failed to keep his promise to save Padme's life but at least his children were alive and with him but that also meant having them near Sidious. Just because he has to have the life as Sidious' new... slave didn't mean he's going to let his children grow up the same way he did.
And then he'd found Ahsoka and she stubbornly stupidly refused to leave him. So he hadn't had much choice when he'd turned on Sidious after sneaking his children out to safety – or so he can hope because he doesn't know.
He still can't believe sometimes that Padme is gone. He failed her. Failed everything – failed his promise to his mother, failed to give his children a chance to grow up with their mother or probably with either of their parents now, failed to be anything Obi-Wan taught him.
Padme had gone into labor when Anakin was away on Mustafar. He didn't know it was going to be so soon. Doesn't know how it changed so fast. He never got the chance to talk to her again after coming back. All she'd said, in her half coherent state, was that Obi-Wan was looking for him.
Anakin doesn't think anything had terrified him quite so much as that. If Obi-Wan was looking for him, he knew what that meant. The only thing it could mean. He also couldn't deny the desperate, wild relief inside of him that his former master was still alive. Even if he knows how dangerous that could be for the galaxy... and for him.
Assuming Anakin ever sees anything outside of these walls again.
The mere thought brings up another surge of overwhelming, overpowering guilt.
"Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy."
"You joined the Empire? Why would you ever – "
He squeezes his eyes hut, willing his mind to block it out, but the noise blares it over instead and then all he can hear is that instead. And he can't focus enough to free himself. He tried and tried and there's no point when he knows he'll fail if he tries again.
At least it's better than the Force suppressants. Being cut off from it was slowly killing him, leaving him feeling like his every cell was being rewritten over and over again and ripped to pieces and it was agonizing but Hemlock stopped it because it was starting to affect his blood and it was going to kill him soon.
But this isn't much more tolerable when there's no end in sight.
He hardly hears the sound of the door opening over the noise.
It's Dr. Karr again.
The clone.
One look at how Hemlock was acting, at the submissive way she acted and how she felt in the Force, and Anakin knew she was to Hemlock what Anakin was to Sidious. And one look at her face, at the uncanny similarity, he'd had to know if she was really a clone.
She's also hurting him.
But she doesn't have a choice. He knows that.
Not that he could blame anyone for wanting to hurt him at this point.
The noise finally, finally stops but he barely dares to breathe a sigh of relief. It's only going to be for a few minutes, not nearly long enough to orient himself enough to get himself free.
Dr. Karr doesn't say anything this time when she approaches, at least not until she's mid-drawing his blood. "Do they ever... allow you to sleep?" she asks. There's a veiled uncertainty or perhaps something close to concern there. He can't quite tell.
"Occasionally," he mutters, trying to get the ringing in his head to stop. "They let me down sometimes to eat but not – often." And unfortunately, his eating breaks and 'fresher breaks and rare sleeping breaks are never long enough for him to clear his mind from the noise. He's only let to sleep when he's literally half unconscious from exhaustion.
Her face tightens a little, but she doesn't say anything more.
**w**
The lack of human contact is driving Anakin insane. And the only human touch he ever gets anymore, no matter how fleeting it is, is... the clone. He makes a couple more efforts to talk to her. None of them go very far because she doesn't talk very much but it's better than nothing.
He only has a few minutes a day to initiate a conversation with her and he finds himself looking forward to the times she comes in here already. At least for her it's better than when it was Nala Se. She wasn't unkind but he didn't appreciate her or Hemlock poking at him like this. At least for the clone, he understands it's not her choice.
"How did you end up with Hemlock?" he asks, right off when she comes in this time. Mostly he just wants to stall her a bit – doesn't want the device turned back on yet. He just wants his head to stop hurting.
"He met me when he was working with Nala Se on a project. He took me under his wing and gave me a purpose here," she answers.
"You were... with Nala Se?" Makes sense. If she was female, they probably wouldn't have trained her as a soldier.
"I was her medical assistant," she replies, looking away. The topic is upsetting her. He can sense it clearly.
Most of all, he can feel her loneliness, something he mirrors so much himself. "You never knew your brothers, did you?"
She stills, hand tightening a little on the blood vial. Anakin tries not to think about just how much blood they've taken from him, to do Force knows what with.
"No," she replies evenly, "I didn't." She doesn't elaborate which he isn't surprised about, but the fact that she answered still... means something.
"I knew a lot of your brothers. I never knew they had a sister. If I'd known, I would have... liked to do something about it." Not that any of the clones deserve to be forced to fight but it's not fair that she never got to know her own family because she was kept separate, probably considered a failed experiment.
She looks up at him, uncertainly. "How would you have done that?"
"I was a Jedi. I... can't say individual Jedi had much power to do anything but I would have tried. If they're your family, you... deserve the chance to get to know them."
She's not really making eye contact but she's still looking at him, an unnamed emotion flickering in her brown eyes. "Why would that concern you?"
"I led some of your brothers in the war." It sends a sharp, gutting pain through him, just remembering.
Remembering the clone's bodies falling at the Temple. Remembering the moment he'd send so many of his boys with Ahsoka, never realizing it would be the last time he ever saw from and now they're all gone except Rex who is... somewhere out there with the Rebellion, from what Ahsoka had said. But he's still gone. Nothing can quite compare to the sheer loneliness that's been tearing Anakin apart since this all started and maybe that's half of why he gave in to Ahsoka's pressure without even thinking it through.
But after what he's seeing on Tantiss, after knowing even a little of the horrors Sidious is doing here – he knows there's clone prisoners here though he has no idea what's happening to them – he doesn't think he can believe in the Empire at all anymore. The idea, he still believes in, but not the – what it's become. What Sidious is choosing to make it as. And it floods him with a desperate, helpless rage because he helped make this and now it's – it's destroying everything he believed in.
He helped destroy everything he believed in, if it any of it was ever real to begin with, considering how far the Jedi had already fallen.
Maybe he does deserve to be trapped here forever. Not that it matters if he does or not because he doesn't know if – if he truly believe there's a way out. If someone knew where to look, they would have already.
"I led a battalion of your brothers during the war. The captain – his name was Rex. He was like – like my brother." Anakin swallows past the desperate urge to cry. Saying Rex was like his brother is simplifying it but... They were always there, side by side, when the other needed them but Rex also looked up to him to take care of him. And yet they also raised Ahsoka together. But their relationship was also full of duty and a certain distance because of rank, so he can't even name what it was they had.
"There were others too. Cody, and Echo – " He doesn't dare mention Fives,
Fives, his best friend who is now dead.
Fives, who tried to warn him about what was going to happen and he ignored him
Fives, who died to save all his brothers and all Anakin has done is absolutely nothing for them no matter how much he's tried.
"Echo?" Dr. Karr blurts, stilling.
What?
Anakin's heart sores, and then flares with panic. "You know of him? Is he here?"
"No, he – he's not here. I... do know of him. If it's the same one."
"He left my battalion after we rescued him from the Separatists. He was... a cyborg. He joined a different squad. The Bad Batch."
Her gaze flickers in shocked recognition, her lips parting slightly though she doesn't say anything.
"How do you know him?" Anakin presses, because he has to know if Echo's alright. But Force, he's alive. He's alive. He must be if she knows about him and Anakin can't begin to say how relieved he is.
"One of their members used to be here. Her name was Omega. She told me about the rest of them," Dr. Karr replies, very slowly.
Wait – "She? I met the squad. I never knew an Omega." He could never forget the Bad Batch, even if he never knew them long. Their brand of chaos could have fit perfectly with the 501st. They were the exact kind of chaotic and stupid that he always loved.
"She's my sister," Dr. Karr responds looking away. There is so much emotion behind that word, a history that Anakin is missing entirely.
"Another sister?" he repeats, "Someone else the Kaminoans hid from everyone? Well... I suppose now their failure is complete. Unless there's a third sister out there they're still hiding." This probably isn't something to joke about but seriously.
She looks at him oddly. "Not that I am aware of."
"You said this... Omega was here? She's not anymore?"
"She's gone," is all Dr. Karr says.
Gone but not dead or there would be grief. His eyes narrow and a hope starts to build in his chest. "Escaped?"
"I believe so." She turns away abruptly, moving for the door.
Escaped.
Someone escaped from here. Does that mean that someone might be coming? He wants to hope but he can't deny that there's a tiny part of him that really just doesn't. It's been so long. He has no idea how long but it doesn't feel like there's any hope of him ever getting out of here. It doesn't feel possible.
Once, he would never have given up but that was back when he actually had a family, not just the broken pieces of people he still loves more than anything in the galaxy but are long gone. And he hopes Ahsoka doesn't come because he wants her to stay safe and someone needs to protect Luke and Leia. And most of all, maybe he'd hope more if it actually felt like he deserved something more than what he's getting.
Doesn't feel possible that anything could get him away from Sidious ever since the moment he kneeled to him in the Chancellor's office. But hope is all Anakin's had most of his life and he can't quite squash the tiny whisper.
The clone pauses by the control panel again, looking back. "Emerie," she says.
He blinks. "What?"
"You asked my name."
Oh.
Oh.
"Emerie," he repeats, "That's... a nice name."
She eyes him a moment, face unreadable before turning away, flipping on the noise very slowly – before she leaves the room.
He winces, squeezing his eyes shut against it instinctively again. The walls feel like they're closing in on him, swallowing him whole. There's no way out – not for him, but hopefully there's still some – some way the clones can get out, even if he never does.
**w**
"You said... Omega told you about the rest of her squad?" Anakin has so many questions about it. He looked them up after everything fell – apparently the only one left was Crosshair. The rest had deserted, and he had no idea what happened to them, especially Echo, but if there's a chance to get answers...
"She did," Emerie replies, studying the blood vial in her hands like it holds the secrets of the universe. She's obviously lost in thought.
"I have wanted to know what happened to Echo for a long time. We... were close. I was never able to find out," Anakin prompts.
"She told me her squad picked her up from Kamino right after the Empire formed. Crosshair..." Why does her guilt flare so strongly at the name? "Stayed behind with the Empire. They escaped and tried to adjust to civilian life together. They were mercenaries for a while until they found some planet to settle down on."
"So they're alright?" Anakin asks, the tiniest bit of hope burning in his chest.
"Now... I do not know. Echo left them eventually to fight in the clone rebellion."
Oh. He shouldn't be surprised really but it hurts to know that Echo left his new squad again. He'd seemed so happy with them, the one time Anakin saw him after his rescue. "Couldn't stay out of the fight?"
"No. He didn't want to settle down. The rest of the squad was attempting to get to Tantiss and... Tech was lost in the operation."
What –
"He's dead?" Anakin demands, a chill running through him. The clones die all the time but that never makes it easier to hear. And the four of them were so close.
"He fell off a rail car. The body was never... recovered."
So that means there's a small chance that he's not dead. But Anakin knows it could be a foolish hope. More than likely, he is gone.
"She didn't know what happened to Hunter and Wrecker after she was captured and brought here. Crosshair was fine when he... escaped with her. That's all I know."
"Wait, Crosshair was here?"
She stiffens imperceptibly. "Yes. He was a prisoner."
Has she been forced to hurt him too?
"Did he turn on the Empire, then?"
"He... must have. I never heard the details," Emerie replies quietly. "I do not know what happened to them after their escape, either."
"They were the best squad I ever met," Anakin offers, "I... expect that they're alright." As alright as they could be without Tech, that is. "I met the Batch once," he adds, "They went with me on the mission where we rescued Echo."
She perks up ever so slightly. It's only visible because he can feel it in the Force and in her body language.
"Do you want me to tell you about it?" he asks carefully.
"If... this is not a long story," she concedes.
He can try to keep it from being too long. Either way, he launches into the story, recounting all the details of it that he remembers and Emerie listens with rapt attention, even if it's taking a while.
He can tell how much they mean to her. Not just Omega. All of them. She cares about them deeply even if she's never known them. She... really is one of the clones, no matter what she's been forced to do, and he wishes there was something he could do to help her find her way home.
Even if that's basically a joke. He can't help anyone with anything. If he's ever been able to.
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