It had been a long time since Echo had last been on Coruscant . . . a very long time, now that he thought about it. As a matter of fact, the last time he'd been here had been only a couple weeks before the Citadel mission, when the 501st had been given an extended shore leave. He remembered it clearly because he'd gone to the cantina with half of Torrent Company.

While there, Jesse, goaded on by Fives, had taken an intoxicated Chandrillan's dare to try a Goldpepper Slingshot. Kix warned against it. The Chandrillan bet ten credits Jesse couldn't do it. Kix said the Goldpepper Slingshot probably wasn't great for human stomachs. Despite this, Jesse proceeded to order the drink, and then knock back the entire thing in three gulps.

After the Chandrillan reluctantly paid up and left, Fives had ordered the same drink for himself and downed it in two gulps. And then, despite the fact that both Fives and Jesse were red-faced, coughing, and speaking in higher voices than usual, both of them had tried to convince Kix and Echo that they simply had to try it.

Neither Kix nor Echo were at all impressed, or interested in scorching their tonsils out with alcohol. That ended up being just as well, because Kix had only just finished pulling a dismissive expression at Fives' insistence when Jesse suddenly clapped a hand to his mouth and lurched to his feet, then rushed for the refresher. He was followed closely by Fives.

Echo and Kix had waited at their table for almost twenty minutes before deciding to go search for them. They weren't in the refresher, or the main room, or on the sidewalk outside.

Eventually, they found Fives and Jesse on the wide porch outside, staring at the practically nonexistent stars and having a deeply philosophical debate that had something to do with the meaning of the universe and what the word 'good' actually meant. Also, neither of them could walk straight.

So, Echo and Kix had been forced to escort them back to barracks. They'd given their squad mates some water and dumped them in their respective bunks. Then, ignoring Jesse's murmured comment about 'good doesn't mean better' and Fives' half-asleep response of 'better doesn't mean best' , Echo and Kix had gone off to play a few hands of sabacc with the more responsible and therefore more sober among the 501st clones.

As Echo shook his head fondly at the memory, he thought it was fortunate that he and the Batch weren't officially on shore leave. In fact, given the kind of chaotic stupidity they got up to on a normal day, Echo really hoped that none of his squad mates were interested in trying to grab even a quick drink. He didn't even want to start imagining what would happen if, say, Wrecker or Crosshair went drinking – or if Tech did. . .

Yeah, Echo thought. How about – no.

Question was, had the Bad Batch ever randomly decided to go cantina-hopping before? Echo wondered if he should ask about past incidents. "Hmmm. . ."

Hunter, who was currently piloting, glanced up at him. "What?"

"What?" repeated Echo, coming out of his reverie.

"I thought you said something."

"No, just thinking," Echo said. He found himself staring out the viewport with an odd sense of trepidation as Hunter landed the Marauder on a landing pad some ten kilometers from the Senate district. This wasn't a normal GAR resupply point. "Hey, Hunter. . ." he said warily. "We're not planning to hit the town, are we?"

The sergeant blinked, nonplussed. "No, why?"

"Eh." Echo shrugged. "It just occurred to me, Seventy-Nine's is nearby."

"Well, if you want a drink, go right ahead," Hunter told him. "We've got more than enough time. But the rest of us won't be going."

Echo eyed him, cautiously optimistic. "Oh?"

"Yeah." The sergeant shut off the engine and stood up. "We've been permanently banned from Seventy-Nine's."

Considering the scope and size of the spirited fights and cheerful brawls that broke out at 79's every week or so, Echo decided he did not want to know what his current squad had done to warrant such a ban. "Go out drinking by myself?" he said lightly. "Nah, there's no point in that. I'm not much of a drinker now, anyway."

"Yeah. . ." Hunter eyed him with a sympathetic smirk. "I guess you wouldn't be, would you?"

"Like this?" Echo gestured at himself. "No way."

He went into the cargo hold to collect his gear and put on the rest of his armor, because he didn't like the idea of wandering around good old law-abiding Coruscant without it. It took him a few minutes, as it always did, but at last he slung his pack onto his shoulders and went to join his squad mates at the door of the Marauder.

He'd half-expected everyone to be waiting impatiently for him, since that was what usually happened when he held them up, but when he reached the door, only three of his four teammates were there. Hunter was missing, and the other three were dressed in black clothes.

At the sight, Echo paused, observing them. Crosshair was slouched against the wall, gazing idly over Tech's shoulder at the shorter clone's datapad, while Wrecker tossed and caught his vibroblade in one hand.

"What's with the civvies?" Echo asked.

"Standard procedure," said Wrecker with a shrug. "On city-planets, anyway."

Tech sighed. "Standard procedure on ecumenopoli."

"That's what I said. City-planets."

"Since when is it standard procedure?" Echo wanted to know.

"Standard procedure for us," said Crosshair, as if that cleared up everything.

To Echo's surprise, even Tech did not bother elaborating on this. Giving up, he decided to ask something else. "Where's Hunter?"

"Hunter?" Wrecker adjusted the heavy black jacket he was wearing and slipped a couple of smoke grenades in one pocket. "Uh, I think he went back in the cockpit."

"Okay." Echo checked that his blaster was on stun – he always made sure to double-check when the team was in civilian territory, just like he always made sure to carry a blaster in the first place when he was in civilian territory. "What kind of resupply are we looking at, Tech? Will we be able to carry it all?"

"Of course," said Tech, tapping and poking away at his datapad. "Tomorrow is when we will pick up our food supply from the Coruscant quartermaster. Tonight, however, we simply have to purchase a few items required for maintaining the shuttle. And one or two parts for some weaponry upgrades."

"Ah," said Echo, while Wrecker smacked Crosshair in the face with a black scarf for no apparent reason. "And we're buying these things legally, right?"

"Of course we are." Tech frowned at him, his expression a little too obviously offended. "I have to ensure that any ship modifications are legal, or the inspection team will not let the Havoc Marauder leave Coruscant."

"Uh-huh . . ." Echo tilted his head, his 'trouble' sensor on high alert. "And what about the parts for weaponry? Are those legally obtainable?"

Crosshair, who had been about to throw his toothpick at the back of Wrecker's head, suddenly seemed to be very interested in the starmap on the wall.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Tech gave a disdainful sniff. "Echo, I understand that we are not the most by-the-book squad ever, but surely you do not think –"

"I do think, actually," said Echo dryly. "I think you're avoiding the question."

"That would imply that I am attempting not to answer the question."

"Yes." Echo watched him. "Yes it would."

"Hm." Tech slipped his datapad into one of the many pockets in his black vest, then took out a black cap and tugged it down over his ears.

Crosshair reached over and yanked the front of it over his goggles. Tech fixed it, with a blind kick in Crosshair's direction, which the sniper avoided. By the time Tech straightened up, Crosshair was back near the map, busy examining something – probably a speck or scratch invisible to anyone else. Echo watched him, curious all over again about the entirely black getup his team had suddenly decided to wear, then eyed Tech thoughtfully.

Tech cleared his throat, took his datapad out again, and began skimming through what seemed to be a long list.

"So," said Echo. "About that question concerning legally obtainable weapons."

"What question?" said Crosshair and Tech at the same time.

Echo stared.

". . . Huh!" said Wrecker loudly, into the silence. "Hunter's sure taking a long time!"

Seizing his opportunity, Echo slipped past Wrecker. "I'll get him."

He sometimes turned a blind eye when his squad did less-than-legal things, like skipping their comm checks, but at the same time he really didn't want to start the evening by being arrested for something he didn't even know about.

It had happened before, after all. This time, maybe he'd ask what was up, so he could decide whether or not to hang out in the ship for awhile instead of going on the supply run.

Echo entered the cockpit just in time to see the sergeant mutter something into his comm and click it off.

"Just coming," Hunter said, before Echo could make any kind of comment. "The others waiting?"

"Yeah," said Echo, raising an eyebrow at Hunter's completely black attire. Even his bandana had been swapped out for a black one, and the ARC trooper began to suspect that Hunter was already in on whatever deal the Bad Batch were trying to close.

Before he could decide whether it was worth it to ask, rather than just hoping for the best, the sergeant had hurried out of the cockpit and was opening the boarding ramp.

Echo followed the rest of the team down the boarding ramp and onto the cracked duracrete of the landing pad. He shifted to take weight off his left prosthetic, where the joint was aching, and grumpily thought that it wouldn't surprise him at all to learn that the Bad Batch ran black market deals all the time. This was his first time on Coruscant with them. . .

"Ready to go?" Hunter asked, and everyone else replied in the affirmative.

"Pretty sure we're ready," said Echo, making sure his helmet was latched on properly. "What, exactly, are we going to do?"

"I already told you," Tech answered, blinking. "To pick up some parts for the ship, and for some weaponry."

"Yeah," said Hunter. "Now let's go."

They set off, Echo bringing up the rear. Hopefully, the evening wouldn't end with the entire squad being tossed in the brig, but somehow he didn't feel very optimistic about his odds.

Despite Echo's worries, nothing untoward happened while the squad picked up the ship parts they needed. As a matter of fact, things went surprisingly well. Tech didn't quibble with the storeowners over which manufacturer was best. Wrecker didn't accidentally bump into something and break it. Hunter didn't silently wander off to scout the store for no good reason, thus making everyone wonder where he was. Crosshair didn't glare at anyone – not even the annoying Twi'lek who asked, three times, if they were actually clones even after Hunter showed him the squad's ID. (Echo did make sure to sigh loudly after the third time and give his scomp link an idle spin, which must have gotten his point across to the Twi'lek quite nicely, because he went back to stocking shelves without further comment.)

There were more than just a few parts, so everyone's arms were full by the time they finished with the last store.

"All right," Hunter said, peering over the armload of stabilizers he held. "Let's dump this stuff at the ship and head out again."

"Oh, yeah!" Wrecker cheered, walking faster than anyone else even though he was carrying an entire backup generator on one shoulder. "Hey, Crosshair, remember we've gotta check out that flamethrower attachment."

Echo missed a step. "The flamethrower – no," he said hastily. "Wrecker, you can't, those are illegal."

"Yeah." Crosshair sighed at the injustice of it all. "But it's not illegal to look at them."

Echo nodded reluctantly – he did have a point – then shook his head. "Wait," he said. "How do you even know where they're sold?"

"Uhhh," said Wrecker. "Y'know, people just sell stuff and sometimes you come across it."

Flamethrower attachments for anything were highly regulated, and if Echo's teammates had 'just come across' a store that carried them, well, that store couldn't possibly be on this level of Coruscant, or any nearby. . . could it?

"How far down do we have to go?" he asked.

"Just a moment." Tech obligingly looked it up on his datapad. "The store in question is on Level Twelve-Eighty-Four."

"Long way down," Echo translated, and looked down at his chrono. His joints were already twinging from the runaround he'd done today, on a moon he couldn't remember the number of that was just an hour's flight from Coruscant. "It's late," he said. "Twenty-one-thirty already."

"Yeah," said Crosshair. "What about it?"

"For one thing, I think someone should stay with the ship," said Echo. "We're in a pretty sketchy area of the city."

"Eh, it's not too bad," Hunter said, even though there was a knife-wielding Rodian glaring at them from an alleyway not five meters away. "Not like Nar Shaddaa."

The Rodian snarled, for no obvious reason, and took a sudden step towards the commandos. Without even looking, Hunter whipped out his pistol and sent a stun round into his face.

Echo froze and looked around, fully expecting a follow-up attack or interference from someone nearby, but nothing happened. In fact, nobody on the landing pad seemed to be concerned with hearing a pistol fired.

Tech glanced up from his datapad, which he was somehow still using despite the fact that he was holding three bags in the other hand. "He is intoxicated. I am uncertain as to whether he perceived us as potential victims, or as threats."

"Hm," said Hunter. "Well, when he wakes up maybe he'll think twice about attacking people unprovoked."

"Maybe." Wrecker set down the generator with a loud clunk. "Eh, just a second, I'll put him somewhere safe."

Echo turned to watch as Wrecker dragged the limp Rodian to his feet with one hand. Hunter, Tech, and Crosshair continued on their way, calmly discussing something, while Wrecker glanced around, opened the nearest trash bin, and set the unconscious alien carefully inside.

"There," he said, tossing the lid aside. "Now he won't get kidnapped or run over or anything."

"True," said Echo dryly. "But he might get tossed into a garbage disposal truck."

"He'll be awake in a minute," said Wrecker, hoisting the generator to his shoulder again. "Plenty of time. So, you're gonna stay with the ship?"

"I'd better," Echo said. "Coruscant might not be as bad as Nar Shaddaa, up here at least, but it's bad enough. General Skywalker told me he once left his Delta-Seven unattended for an hour, and when he came back, some guys had drained the fuel."

Wrecker grinned, elbowing Echo lightly and still making him stagger a couple of steps to one side. "Tech's got precautions in place for something like that, if you want to come with us, I'm sure the Marauder will be fine."

Echo recovered his balance. "No, thanks all the same," he said. "I'm sure it would be fine, but I'll be more comfortable keeping an eye on things."

"Aw, okay," said Wrecker, sounding disappointed. "The place we're going to has some awesome weapons, though."

"I'll bet it does." When he heard the tone of disapproval in his own voice, Echo huffed and elbowed Wrecker apologetically. "Hey, just have Tech take some pictures for me, then," he said, as they reached the shuttle. "And you can talk me through all the modifications you'd want to make."

Instantly, Wrecker brightened. "Good idea! We'll do that."

"Do what?" asked Hunter, stepping off the boarding ramp.

"Take pictures, so I can show Echo the weapons an' stuff," explained Wrecker cheerfully, and vanished into the cargo hold.

"What," said Crosshair, slinging his Firepuncher over one shoulder. "You're not coming?"

"I'd rather stay here." Echo set down his armload of bags so Tech could sort them as he pleased. "I want to keep an eye on the ship, and –"

Seeing the questioning look Crosshair and Hunter exchanged, Echo interrupted himself to add, "I know Tech has precautions, I'd rather stay here anyway."

"Why?" asked Hunter, with the slight frown that meant he wondered if something was wrong. "We won't be doing anything that'll get us arrested tonight."

Echo snorted a laugh. "It occurred to me that I might stay here because of that," he admitted. "But as a matter of fact, it's mostly because my joints will be a lot less problematic if I don't have to travel a thousand levels down and up again this time at night, lifts or no lifts."

With a relieved nod, Hunter folded his arms. "Well, then. Be sure to keep your comm with you at all times," he said. "In case something comes up and you need help."

Echo took off his helmet and gave the sergeant a patient look. "Hunter," he said. "If anything comes up, I have a feeling it's you lot that'll be the ones needing help."

"I guess," admitted Hunter. "But we shouldn't run into trouble."

"Heh. . ." Crosshair stuffed another ammo clip into one pocket. "Famous last words."

"We haven't the last few times," Hunter argued.

"Not for lack of trying."

"Well, good," said Echo over Crosshair's comment. "Because it would be nice to avoid any situations. I'll keep my comms on. How long you planning to be gone?"

"Three, four hours?" guessed Hunter, looking at Tech as the shorter commando stumbled down the ramp.

"Somewhere in that vicinity, yes," said Tech, and turned to frown at the ramp as though it had tripped him on purpose.

"Right," said Echo. He reminded himself that the Bad Batch had done this several times already, without getting into anything they couldn't handle. "Have fun, then."

"We'll be back," Wrecker said cheerfully. Jamming his hands into his coat pockets, he headed straight for a rickety-looking lift at the far end of the landing pad.

"Call if you need anything," Hunter warned again, before following the rest of his teammates.

Echo rolled his eyes with a tolerant smile at the sergeant's occasionally overprotective attitude. "Yeah, I will," he called after him, and then headed back into the Havoc Marauder.

After getting himself a fresh mug of caf, he sat down in the cockpit and took out the kit Tech had put together for him. He was definitely feeling the change in atmospheric pressure, and as long as he was sitting here, he might as well put some work into cleaning and maintaining his prosthetics.