Another multi-part fic, with five chapters already written. One upload per day for the next few days! :)
Echo had just thrown himself behind a boulder when the stun grenade exploded. His ears rang, and a blast of rock bits and dust rushed past him. With a growl of irritation, the ARC trooper fired a few blind shots from cover, then glared at his wrist comm before ducking to avoid a piece of shrapnel. His teammates weren't answering his calls. Again.
"Blast it," Echo muttered, crawling to the other side of the boulder. "Where'd those kids get to?"
Kids. Echo thought that Rex would have scoffed at that term, since the ARC trooper was only a year older than the Batchers. Then Echo ignored the thought in favor of smacking a new energy pack into his pistol.
"Hunter!" he barked, dodging around the rock to shoot down the nearest battle droids. "Tech, Wrecker! Cross, answer already!"
His comm buzzed and fizzed in response, and Echo frowned even more. It didn't sound like interference from a jamming device; it sounded like someone was transmitting, but not saying anything. Most likely, that was because whoever was transmitting couldn't speak, but if that was the case then how was there a transmission at all? Maybe one of his teammates was trying to answer without speaking, because the droids were so close to him –
Right, Echo thought. And all four of them are having the same problem?
Gritting his teeth, he popped up for half a second, just long enough to recognize that there were fewer droids to his right than to his left. As he threw himself down again to avoid the resultant hail of blasterfire, he heard another grenade explode somewhere ahead. It sounded like a flashbang, and Echo's worry grew. If these droids were, for whatever reason, trying to capture his squad mates –
"Hunter," he said again, despite already being sure that it was useless. "Cross, Wrecker, I'm pinned down. What's happening? Tech, come in!"
There was no answer, and for nearly thirty seconds, all Echo could do was huddle against the large boulder, the shots landing all around him too frequent and erratic for him to even attempt shooting back. He knew the droids weren't close yet. He wouldn't have to worry about them marching around the boulder. . . yet. Maybe they'd settle into a firing pattern. If they did, he'd be able to take out at least a few more.
While he waited, Echo took a moment to breathe, and to think about what his next movements should be. He knew where he was in relation to the others' positions, but had no idea how they were faring. Their lifesigns glowed red on his datapad, when he checked it, but it didn't look like Hunter's and Wrecker's were moving at all. Neither was Crosshair's, but that made sense because he was on overwatch. . . . Except that Echo hadn't heard his Firepuncher in a good three minutes.
Then, from the other side of the rocky field, he heard someone shout. It sounded like Tech was trying to say something, and Echo tensed, ready to spring up again. But he couldn't – the laser fire was too intense.
Jabbing at his comm, Echo yelled, "Tech! Come in, what's your situation?"
For an instant, Tech's voice sounded tinnily through the speaker. "-cho . . . overrun . . . ers are down! . . . Echo! . . . eave! You have to lea –!"
There was a sharp fizz of electricity over the comm, and at the same time, from across the field, Echo heard a muted yell from Tech.
The ARC trooper jerked forward in response, but stopped himself. Sticking his head in the path of a blaster bolt wouldn't do his teammates any favors. Knowing that didn't make it easy for him to keep his head down and wait, though.
If he'd heard Tech correctly, amidst the static, the others were down, but their lifesigns were still visible on Echo's datapad. So they were unconscious. Which meant that, for whatever reason, the Separatists were definitely trying to capture them.
"Not good," he said obviously.
The hail of lasers around him intensified, and for several seconds, all Echo could do was crouch there and wait, hoping that the droids would get closer – or, in some strange and amazing twist of fate, that their weapons would run out of power.
Then the loud roar of an accelerating ship echoed off the low mountains, and Echo stared upward as the shuttle flew directly over him and out of the valley. "The Seps are leaving?" he muttered, and a laser ricocheted off the edge of the rock, just above his head.
Except for the battle droids they'd left behind to deal with him, apparently. And he still couldn't do anything about that, unless he was willing to take a blaster bolt or ten, which he definitely was not.
A slow rumble of thunder made him glance at the lowering clouds. It had been hot and humid for hours, with a bit of thunder here and there. As Echo looked up at the darkened sky, a large drop of rain slapped into his visor.
Of course. Now, on top of everything else, it was going to rain.
Echo muttered under his breath, watching as several lasers slammed into the ground near his right ankle, melting and hardening the sand.
"Kriffing tweezers," he mumbled. "What, you can't aim? Can't wait until you can see your target to shoot? Of course not. You're not worth the credits they pay for –"
Without notice, the laserfire stopped abruptly, and a ringing silence fell. Gripping his pistol, Echo crawled towards the edge of the boulder.
"What do you mean, we have to stop?" asked a battle droid in its programmed, nasally voice. "The clone's not dead!"
"Don't be stupid," said another droid. "We're not supposed to kill any of 'em, remember?"
Echo, who had been on the verge of jumping the droids, hesitated. As he listened, the slow fall of rain increased to a steady mist.
"Why not?" complained the droid. "If we don't kill the clone, he'll kill us. And besides, we already killed the others!"
Echo felt himself go still, but before his mind could really catch up with what had just been said, there was a metallic clang as one droid apparently hit the other.
"We didn't kill them, blockhead!" the droid snipped.
Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Echo crept forward a little more.
"Oh," the droid said. "So, what about the one who's hiding? There's only twelve of us! How are we supposed to capture him!"
That was all Echo needed to hear. Twelve, he could handle. Straightening, he snapped off a few shots that took out twenty-five percent of the droids; then he vaulted the boulder and rushed them, his scomp link and pistol at the ready.
"Wait, he's gonna destroy us!" yelled a droid, one hand up near its head as it transmitted its panicked words to – the shuttle, probably. "What? What do you mean, that was the plan?! I can't hear you, he's destroying the – ahhhhh!"
Breathing hard, Echo looked down at the sparking heap of metal. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, going back to pick up his datapad from where he'd dropped it behind the boulder. "But I have a few teammates to rescue, and you were holding me up."
He located the blinking red dots on his screen and headed towards the nearest one, which was Tech's. It made no sense that the Separatist shuttle would have left without the injured or unconscious commandos, and Echo ran as fast as he dared over the rock-strewn ground. If the Seps hadn't taken his teammates, it meant that they were going to return, and Echo was none too confident in his ability to beat them.
He was also none too confident in his ability to drag his squad back to the Marauder. He could go get the shuttle. . . but no, he couldn't land it near them, not in this terrain.
The rain fell faster now, causing a white vapor to rise from the damp, hot sand, and Echo was forced to slow a little. He was so focused on climbing the steep incline towards Tech's location, glancing between the ground at his feet and his datapad's screen, that when he reached his destination and found no one, he didn't comprehend it for nearly two seconds.
Then, with a sharp inhale, he scrambled fully to the top of the rise and turned in a circle, looking around. The red dot on the screen was blinking, right at his location, but no one was there.
Slowly, Echo walked forward, and on the fourth step his foot brushed something small and metallic. Bending, he ran his fingers through the fog until he located Tech's commlink, which had been dropped on the ground and was still transmitting.
Without thinking, Echo slipped it into one of his belt pouches and started for Crosshair's previous location.
He already had a feeling that he knew exactly what he'd find: nothing but a commlink. And he was right, almost. He also found a piece of a flashbang detonator, which meant he now knew what had taken the sniper out.
"Great," he muttered to himself, wiping rain off his visor. "I know how he was captured. Yeah, a fat lot of good that's gonna do him . . ."
Just in case, he checked Wrecker's position – and added another commlink to his collection.
Gritting his teeth, he got to his feet again and trudged uphill as the storm grew worse. The rain pelted down all around him, bouncing off the rocks and his armor and making it even harder to see as he made his way to Hunter's last location. When he found the commlink, it was barely transmitting, having been damaged by a power surge.
"Kriffing clankers," said Echo, sitting back on his heels as he stared around the small outcropping where Hunter had been stationed.
The tactical droid the Batch had been waiting to take out had never showed up at its scheduled meeting with the Separatist warlord Nu'osa. . . who had also never shown up. Instead, the Batch had been surrounded by a couple hundred B-1s and a few commando droids.
"We walked into a trap," Echo said aloud, clenching his fist. He should never have agreed to this plan, but the others had all been casually, cheerfully sure that it would be best to have all five of them on the ground.
Well . . . it was pointless to blame the plan now. He had some squad mates to rescue. However he was supposed to do that.
Echo got stiffly to his feet as the last of the adrenaline from the battle faded away, leaving him sore from the earlier battering he'd gotten at the metal fists of a now-scrapped commando.
Turning west, he trudged through the rain and gritty sand, making his way back towards the Marauder. He didn't know where his squad mates had been taken, or why, but he had a pretty good idea of where to start looking.
An hour later, exhausted and irritable, Echo finally limped up the boarding ramp of the Havoc Marauder. For a moment, he stood in the narrow hall, dripping water from every joint as he caught his breath.
Then, taking off his helmet, he shut the ramp and headed into the cockpit. If he flew south, while running scans for that Separatist shuttle, he might pick up some trace that would give him an idea on what to do next.
"I always hated solo missions," he announced to the empty room.
Usually, his unprovoked complaints were met with a response from one of his teammates – a scoff from Crosshair, a mild huff of amusement from Tech or Hunter, or a full laugh from Wrecker – but not this time.
Echo flung himself down in the pilot's seat, flipping switches and pressing buttons as he fired up the Marauder's engines. Only ten seconds later, he was in the air, rotating the shuttle to face south.
He'd just starting keying in scan settings when the comm light flashed red, and Echo stared at it, hesitating. He knew the transmission wasn't from one of his teammates – they all used the secondary code, not the main one.
But who else could it be from, unless. . .
Coming to a sudden decision, Echo jabbed the button to answer the call. "Who is this?" he demanded.
The voice that answered carried a distinct Rylothian accent. "This is Nu'osa, clone. What is your name?"
"What kind of a question is that?" Echo said, taken aback.
Nu'osa sighed loudly. "I prefer to address people by their names. It is so much more easy to do business when one can differentiate between people, don't you think?"
"No," said Echo bad-temperedly.
"For example," the Twi'lek went on. "I can refer to your friends by their names, so you know specifically who I am talking about. The ones named Wrecker and Hunter insist on trying to escape their captors. Droid! Deal with them."
There was a sharp snap of electricity, clearly audible over the comms, and Wrecker growled something unintelligible.
"Your friends come up with very imaginative insults," said Nu'osa. "But otherwise, I have no use for them."
"Where are they?" demanded Echo.
"Where do you think?" the warlord replied. "In the room with me."
"All four of them?"
"Yes, of course. Now. . . shall we talk business, or must I give my droids more practice at interrogation?"
Echo had just opened his mouth to give his name, when, on the other end of the comm, he heard Tech say, "Well, your droids could certainly use more practice at interrogation. I have never seen such inefficiently programmed –"
"He's right," interrupted Crosshair. "They're so ineffective that I almost feel bad for them. They can't even –"
He cut off abruptly with a choking sound, Tech gasped, and Echo barked, "Shut up, both of you!"
Silence fell, and Echo said, "Nu'osa. What is it you want?"
"Your name."
Echo had a sinking feeling that he knew why. His name was only important for one reason. "The name's Echo," he said firmly, and activated the switch that would allow him to transmit via the holotable.
The blue form of the Twi'lek warlord appeared. "Ah," he said, his tone polite and almost pleasantly surprised. "Thank you."
"Well?" Echo asked dangerously, as he turned fully to face the holotable. "Am I the clone you were looking for?"
". . . Yes," said the Twi'lek, glancing down at a datapad as though comparing Echo with an image on it. He probably was. "And now we can discuss terms of your surrender."
"Echo!" Hunter's voice shouted, and the sergeant appeared in the transmission, jerking forward against two commando droids. He'd had his armor removed, and was fighting like a caged nexu despite the harsh grip on his elbows and shoulders. "Echo, don't!"
Nu'osa gave a world-weary sigh. "Subdue him," he said, with a laconic wave of his hand.
"Echo!" Hunter jerked against the droids, almost breaking free. "Don't surrender, he's with the Techno Union, he wants –"
The ARC trooper watched, jaw aching from how hard he was clenching his teeth, as Hunter was forced to his knees.
"Echo, do not surrender!" yelled Hunter, still fighting. "That's an ORDER!"
One of the droids jammed a stun baton into his back, and Hunter jerked all over, then collapsed.
"So unnecessary," lamented Nu'osa, shaking his head as the unconscious sergeant was dragged away. A sharp thud sounded, and the Twi'lek sighed, raising his eyes skyward. "Now, really, Crosshair – stop provoking the droids."
Echo slammed his fist down on the desk. "ENOUGH!" he roared. "Crosshair, Tech, Wrecker – enough."
Nu'osa rubbed his forehead delicately, as if he had a sudden headache from all the noise. Sitting back in his chair, Echo glared at the Twi'lek and hoped the headache would severely inconvenience him.
"Nu'osa," he said. "You said you had terms of surrender."
"Very simple ones," the Twi'lek assured him. "You surrender, and I will allow your friends to go free – once we reach our destination."
Echo thought that over for about half a second. "No," he said. "I have no assurance that you won't kill them once I'm captured."
He tried to ignore the increased sounds of struggling from outside the range of the hologram's visual transmitter, and carefully did not flinch at the sound of a metal fist striking flesh. He wished heartily, though, that for once in their lives, his squad mates would listen to him.
Nu'osa rubbed his jaw. "That is a conundrum," he said. "Because I do not trust you to surrender, if I let your friends go now. . . Hmmm."
"Take your time," said Echo dryly, slipping a hand under the edge of the holotable to start a trace on the transmission source. "I'm sure you'll come up with some other options."
"Yes," said the Twi'lek. "I have two. But first, do you have any suggestions?"
"Yeah, I've got a suggestion." Sitting upright, Echo glared at him. "You let my team go, and I don't hunt you down."
Nu'osa smiled, as if Echo had just said something amusing. "Sadly, I have already invested in the droids required to trap you," he said apologetically. "Most of which, I might add, you and your team destroyed. Now, here are the two options I am giving to you. First, you can surrender to me, after I drop off three of your teammates some miles from here. I will keep the fourth – the sergeant, I believe – until we have reached our rendezvous with the Techno Union, at which point I will let him go."
Echo could only stare at him for several long seconds. Now that the shock of knowing his squad mates were being used for hostages to catch him had worn off, he was struggling to keep his features disinterested.
The idea of being anywhere near the Techno Union, let alone turned over to them again for their experiments, made him go numb with terror.
But he knew how to fight the numbness. He just needed a few moments, and to focus on the problem at hand. . . "And the second option," he managed to say.
"The second option is that I use your teammates as more immediate leverage to encourage you to comply."
A hot surge of anger melted away the rest of the buzzing in Echo's limbs, and he leaned forward. "Trust me, Nu'osa. You do not want to kill them."
"No," agreed the warlord, eyeing him warily. "I certainly do not. Then again, I don't need to kill them, do I? For example . . ."
Before Echo could say anything to stop him, Nu'osa signaled, and Tech was shoved into view and thrown to the floor. He scrambled upright immediately, looking as mad as a Prelo hornet, and a commando droid punched him in the stomach. Two more grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him face-first into the nearest wall.
"Stop," said Echo. "Stop."
Nu'osa turned to the droids. "That's enough."
They tossed Tech onto the floor again, and he pushed himself dizzily to his hands and knees, coughing. When he looked up, his goggles were cracked, and blood was running from his nose to spatter the floor.
Nu'osa shook his head in a mockery of sorrow. "I dislike using such methods," he said apologetically. "But . . . that is the only other option I can give you."
"I understand," said Echo, the words forcing their way out of his throat.
"Then I trust you will arrive shortly." The Twi'lek stood, waving the droids and their stumbling prisoner away. "Oh, and Echo? Every hour that you delay, their treatment will get worse."
Echo jolted to his feet and smashed the end-transmission button so hard that it cracked.