HOLY CRAP 👀👀🤯🤯

Green Path

I sort of stumbled into this but this is well done! Sergeant Friendly? 😆 He sounds fun!

Part Ten

Words: 2,362

Summary: Senna is forced to enlist the help of an old friend when Crosshair contacts her from Barton-IV.

(This chapter has been up on Ao3 for a while, but I didn't realize I never shared it here!)

Missing

Imperial City

Unfamiliar beeping woke Senna from a restless sleep. Groaning, she rolled over to hit her chrono, blinking blearily when the sound didn’t stop. What? Finally registering the location of the noise, the doctor opened the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out her private datapad, cursing when it blinded her in the dark room. 

A tap had her lamp on as she squinted down at the alert on the pad, uncomprehending. Then she understood. The message was telling her that a beacon connected to the network had been activated, a distress call beaming through space to wake her here on Coruscant. 

Senna stumbled to her closet, clumsy with adrenaline as she dressed. She needed to get back to base. She needed to talk to Swoop.

Clone Commander Swoop was an old friend of the doctor’s from Kamino. When his squad had been caught in a terrorist bombing on Corellia, she had been the one to save his best friend and lieutenant, Instinct. The rest of his men had perished, but Swoop had felt indebted to Senna, promising her his help if she ever needed it. Well, today she did.

Senna tried to steady her breathing as she boarded the train that would take her back to base. She’d need a good excuse for coming back this late on her day off. She’d need a good excuse for visiting Swoop down at his office in Intelligence, where a doctor had no reason to be. But the panic that jumped in every muscle wouldn’t let her think about anything but him. Please. Please be alright.

In her agitated state, Senna hadn’t even considered that the commander might be sleeping, but he answered the door to his office on the first knock. 

“Doctor?” Swoop raised a scarred eyebrow at her look of anxiety as he let her in. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m so sorry, Swoop. I know it’s the middle of the night, it’s just—” Senna cut herself off with a nervous look around the room. Swoop snorted.

“It’s safe.” He motioned for her to sit. “You look like you need caf.”

Senna nodded, surprised to see that the machine was already brewing. She looked at him quizzically when he handed her a mug. “I saw you coming,” the grizzled commander smirked, pointing to one of the many monitors on his desk. “Now tell me what’s got you so upset.”

“Do you remember Crosshair? CT—”

“Nine-Nine-Zero-Four. Of course.” He nodded for her to go on. 

Senna twisted the mug in her hands. “Something’s wrong. He’s activated a distress beacon. Do you know—can you find out what’s going on?”

“A distress beacon?” The commander sat down behind his desk with a frown and pulled up a file on his console. “Says here that he arrived at a supply depot on Barton-IV this afternoon with a squad to deal with a cargo transfer. They’ve been having problems with raiders. Nothing about a beacon though.”

“Because it’s one I gave him.” Senna cringed as the spy raised an eyebrow at her. “After Kamino…”

Swoop grunted. “I heard about that. I’m sorry about the others.”

“If he’s in danger—”

The commander snorted again. “That’s kind of his job.”

“I know, but he wouldn’t have used that beacon if it wasn’t something really bad. Please, can you find out what’s going on?”

Swoop softened a bit at the desperate look on the doctor’s face. “Let me make a call.”

It turned out to be many calls. As Swoop investigated the source of Crosshair’s distress, Senna sat in the hard chair on the other side of his desk and waited, legs clamped tightly together to force herself not to get up and pace. Not that there was really room for it. The spy’s office felt more like a lair, piled high with electronic equipment and monitors that linked him to parts of the planet Senna didn’t even recognize. Clone Intelligence had been absorbed into the Empire's new intelligence bureau, the IIS, but apparently Swoop had been too valuable, too good at his job, to replace. At least not yet. 

Unable to glean anything useful from Swoop’s side of the conversations, Senna sipped distractedly at her caf and let her eyes wander over the room, stopping to smile when they found a framed holopic propped on a low shelf in the corner. She didn’t notice the commander had ended his call and was watching her as she stood to retrieve it, setting down her mug so she could wipe away the dust and examine the small faces within. 

“You ever think about that day?”

The doctor turned to see her friend’s sad smile. “Yes, of course.”

“Lot’s happened since then. Having them would’ve made it easier.”

Senna looked down at the men in the holo. Swoop’s old squad, before he’d gotten those twisted scars on his face, before Instinct had lost his arms, before the rest of them had been taken. “You wish you were still out in the field?”

“At least it felt like I was doing something worthwhile back then. These days…”

“I know.” Senna set the picture back and returned to the desk. “Did you find anything?”

Her stomach plunged at the grim expression on the spy’s face. 

“Finally got in contact with someone who could talk to his CO. Apparently, Crosshair and the clone commander of the squad that was stationed there have gone missing.”

Senna gripped the edge of the desk, suddenly off balance. “Missing?”

Swoop nodded. “They went after some raiders, ordered to retrieve stolen cargo from the shipment he was escorting. That was twelve hours ago.”

No, no, no— “Why haven’t they sent anyone after them?”

“Apparently there’s a blizzard. No one’s leaving the base. They can’t get short range comms through either, although it doesn’t sound like they were really trying.”

Senna stared at Swoop in horror. “You mean they’re out there? In the storm?”

The commander grimaced. “Sounds like it.”

She fell into the chair, stunned. This couldn’t be how she lost him. Not after everything they’d survived. 

Swoop stood and came around his crowded desk to kneel beside the doctor. “I’m sorry, Doc. They could still make it.”

Senna felt like she couldn’t breathe. “Y-you don’t—he wouldn’t have activated the beacon if he didn’t need help. He’s so stubborn. I made him promise—” As Swoop took her hand, Senna lifted the other to cover her mouth, squeezing her eyes tight against the tears. “I can’t—”

She didn’t see the way her friend’s face shifted from sympathy to resolve, but when his hand came up to grip her arm, the doctor opened her eyes to his gruff smile.

“Three years ago, I told you I owed you. And all I’ve been doing since then is sitting around here rotting. You want to see if we can get Crosshair back?”

An hour and a half later, Senna slipped into the shuttle hangar she knew Swoop would be leaving from, off to Barton-IV to find Crosshair and the other missing trooper. For years, the intelligence officer had directed other agents in the field from the safety of his office. Now, there was no one he could send but himself. Senna had seen the spark in his eye when the decision had been made, unsurprised at his pleasure in seeing action again. She trusted Swoop with her life, but Crosshair’s… He had been her responsibility for too long. If Swoop couldn’t bring him home, Senna knew she would only blame herself. 

Sticking to the edge of the room, she followed the sound of voices until they led her to the right ship. When she rounded the Lambda’s wedge-shaped nose, Senna saw the commander had traded his Intelligence uniform for armor. She wondered when he’d last had a reason to wear it. 

At her movement, Swoop swung to face her, taking in the pack and bag she was carrying with a look of disbelief. “Doc, what are you—you shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” The doctor joined him and the two troopers with him, her smile serious as she set down her pack. “But I need to come too. This is all because of me. I can’t stay here while you risk everything for us.”

She watched the commander trade a look with the helmeted trooper to his right. “This isn’t the time to pull rank.”

“I’m not, I promise.” Senna unzipped her bag and began to remove a set of cold weather gear, shedding her uniform jacket to reveal a black, thermal layer underneath. “I’m begging you, Swoop. I have to go. I can’t stay here and wait again.”

“She thinks I’m not good enough at my job. I need supervision.”

The doctor turned to see the clone with the field medic patch lift his helmet to grin at her. 

“Notch!”

“C’mon, Doc. Don’t even have faith in your own training?” 

Senna shook her head at his teasing. Notch had been one of the medics she’d taught back on Kamino, easily recognizable by the tattoo of a scalpel blade over his carotid artery. “It’s not that…”

“Doc,” Swoop interrupted, voice low, “I understand how you feel, but it’s not safe, for multiple reasons. This mission is unsanctioned, off the record, if you get caught with us—”

“You think they couldn’t trace this back to me anyway?”

“At least if you’re not with us, you’ll have plausible deniability.”

“Plausible deniability is meaningless these days, you know that as well as I do.”

Swoop clenched his jaw, looking over to his second. Senna recognized Instinct by the metal hand prosthetics at the ends of his crossed arms and smiled tiredly into his visor, relieved when a sigh filtered through the lieutenant’s vocoder. She could tell that he, at least, was bending. “We’ll just have to worry about you too, Doc.”

“I know my survival training,” she insisted as she traded her uniform slacks for a set of insulated pants. “I’m good with a blaster, and I’ll do anything you tell me to.”

“Short of staying behind, huh?” Swoop watched the doctor pull on her parka and stuff her discarded uniform into the now empty bag, taking in the rugged boots she’d managed to cram in there as well, before he shook his head. “I see you came prepared. This means I’m gonna have to cover your tracks too, you know.”

“Can you do it?”

The commander rolled his eyes. “Don’t have a choice now, do I?” As she shouldered her med kit, he sighed and replaced his helmet. “Alright, everyone on the ship.”

When the squad was secured in their crash seats and the shuttle had entered hyperspace, Swoop turned to Senna in the seat beside him. “Doc, this is your squad for this mission. We’ve all worked together in some capacity before. You can trust ‘em.”

 Senna nodded as the commander pointed to each man in turn. 

"That’s Sergeant Friendly, Aadi, Koda, and Landslide, and Grav’s our pilot. You know Notch, our medic, and, of course, Instinct.”

The doctor leaned past Swoop to see the clone lieutenant had removed his white helmet and was smiling at her. “Good to see you again, Doc.”

“Let’s try to keep this simple,” the commander continued. “The mission objective is the rescue and extraction of two missing troopers, Commander Mayday and CT-Nine-Nine-Zero-Four Crosshair. Weather conditions are bad, visibility will be limited until the storm passes, and there are reports of raiders, dangerous animal activity, and avalanches. We’ll be splitting into two squads. The doctor, Grav, Notch, and Aadi are with me. Instinct will take Friendly, Koda, and Landslide.”

Senna and the men leaned in as Swoop activated a holo puck. “This is the best map we’ve got of the area surrounding the Imperial depot. The latest raid came from the northeast, so that’s where we’re checking first. Reports say there are caves in the mountains. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ve found one, but I wouldn’t count on it. More likely those caves are full of raiders.”

“Sounds fun,” Aadi offered.

Swoop ignored him. “Any tracks they’ve left will have been buried, but the commando’s in black armor, so keep an eye out for that.” He deactivated the puck. “Questions?”

“Where are we taking them after?” 

The commander looked past Senna to Notch. “Well, since the Lieutenant in command of this supply depot seems patently disinterested in rescuing his own men, we don’t have a way to bring them back to base without alerting him to our interference. The commander might be able to blend back in with a bit of adjustment to his records, but Crosshair is a ninety-nine.”

Senna saw the troopers trading glances beneath their buckets. When Swoop nodded to her, the doctor cleared her throat. “We’re taking them to a safe house on Coruscant. When they don’t return to base, their CO will mark them MIA.”

“This is all assuming we find them,” Sergeant Friendly muttered, accepting his commander’s glare with a shrug.

“We’ll find them. I didn’t go to all the trouble of digging you lot up for nothing.”

Notch prodded the doctor with his elbow. “We’d just better hope the commander isn’t too rusty after sitting behind a desk gathering dust for so long. I can smell the mothballs through my filters.” 

“How would you like to be left at the depot?” Swoop grumbled as the other men laughed. 

Senna smiled with them, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She knew Bern was working the late shift back at the hospital. Should she have said something to him when she’d gone to get her kit? No, it was better if he didn’t know. But if something happened… I’ll come back. Don’t worry. Senna could only imagine how it would hurt him if she disappeared, and what might happen to her friend without her limited ability to protect him, especially as Rampart’s replacement didn’t seem quite as amenable as his predecessor.  

The trip between Coruscant and Barton-IV took a little over two hours, and Senna was left to sit with her own thoughts as the clones caught up with each other. It was good to be surrounded by those voices again, a comfort she’d barely realized she’d been missing. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the rest of them there beside her. Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, and Echo. They would know what to do.

I'll bring him home. I promise I won't let you down. And I won't let go. 

Taglist: @lightwise, @kybercrystals94, @just-here-with-my-thoughts, @clonethirstingisreal, @freesia-writes

I’m literally such a dumbass. HUGE (mini?) CROSSHAIR INSIGHT (This is spoiler safe 💕)

I’ve always glazed over the extra little piece over Crosshair’s chest plate on his Bad Batch armor. Always just thought "oh, his armor design is cool and unique."

IT'S LITERALLY A CUSHION FOR THE STOCK OF HIS RIFLE FOR THE RECOIL.

I've shot some rifles here and there and GD your shoulder gets sore from getting punched with the recoil, no matter how good you are at compensating/bracing. Even with his katarn-class armor, I'm sure it wouldn't be comfy. Because Crosshair is the only clone we really see with something like this, I'm going to assume it's not standard-issue. Which then means he went to Space-JoAnn's or raided the GAR supply closet for some scraps and arts-and-crafts-ed it himself.

Then I noticed his Empire armor doesn’t have that cushion. Yes de-individualization, but it’s also an indication that the Empire doesn’t care about any discomfort/pain that Crosshair may suffer from his rifle recoil. I can’t with this 😭

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 😭🫠

also tagging some friends who witnessed this epiphany/may be interested since I added a few things lmao

@arctrooper69 @photogirl894 @probadbatch @moonstrider9904 @freesia-writes @totallyunidentified @starrylothcat @griffedeloup @nahoney22 @dragonrider9905 @starqueensthings @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius

wowowow its tech badbatch

Theyre having a good time!😊

Ms Fangirl & Friends: Vacation Time!

Nothing crazy. Just a vacation for our favorite clones and friends

@zaya-mo @the-sith-in-the-sky-with-diamond @ladykatakuri @marierg @thecoffeelorian @salubriousbean

She's the favorite sibling 😊

Hunter: Crosshair isn’t answering his comm

Omega: I’ll comm him

Hunter: Echo and I have both tried six times each, what makes you think he’ll-

Crosshair: Hello?

Cute!

I accidentally Disney-fied crosshair 😭

This isn’t even my style 😭 like what?!

He looks so cute 😭

I actually wanted to draw crosshair and Batcher like this 🥹 imagining crosshair as a musician is giving me butterflies. His long fingers are screaming to touch a piano 🎹

Buir be Ner - (Father of Mine)

Happy Father's day! Here's a little fic I wrote about the day Wrecker found out he's suddenly a father :)

Summary: Khea's been keeping her Foundling a secret from Wrecker for quite some time now. However, she can't keep her hidden forever so she decides that today is the day she'll finally introduce them to each other. She can only hope it goes well.

Word Count: 6.7K

Warnings: N/A

Khea didn’t know what the hell she was going to do. 

As she paced back and forth in the Jade Rabbit she thought of all the possible scenarios that could and might happen until her head hurt from the onslaught of overwhelming feelings and emotions that brewed inside of her like a storm. That drowning feeling–she despised it–feeling like she was sinking in her own thoughts, but she couldn’t help herself. 

What would he say? What would he do? Would he even want to be with her anymore? 

Every thought pulled her further and further in until it felt like she was suffocating inside her own ship. Until it felt like she was drowning underneath the waves of the Living Waters where the mythosaur was awaiting to bring her back home. Sinking…falling…frozen in place with no sign or hope for help as black dots took over her vision and the water filled her lungs as the light from the surface got dimmer and dimmer…

“Buir?”

Khea was snapped out of her dark thoughts when the soft sound of a little girl’s voice calling for her pulled her from the waves.

A voice that belonged to Itri, the young Zabrak she’d found on her travels several months ago, alone, abandoned, and afraid on Nar Shaddaa. A place no youngling should ever have to be in, especially not as young as her. Unable to leave her there, Khea decided that she would take Itri in. She would raise her as a Foundling. As her own.

And now that she was reunited with Wrecker once more on Pabu, she had no idea how to tell him about Itri. 

“Ad’ika,” Khea greeted softly, frowning at the worried look on Itri’s face as she slowly approached the young Zabrak. “Me’bana? What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head with a small, concerned frown as she knelt down to get to Itri’s height. 

Itri’s breath hitched a little when Khea got close and she shifted on her feet, lowering her head as she glanced down and fiddled with the end of her braid nervously. 

“W-why can’t I come out of the ship yet…?” she asked in a whisper, almost as if she was ashamed to ask such a question. 

At this, Khea’s heart sank and her frown deepened as a pang of guilt hit her square in the chest like a blaster bolt. They had landed on Pabu nearly three rotations ago, but Khea hadn’t let Itri off the ship to meet the others just yet. Instead, she had her long awaited reunion with Wrecker and his brothers, met Crosshair for the first time, and explored their new home of Pabu with them and Phee. All the while she kept Itri in her ship, staying with her at night and throughout the day with the excuse that she needed time to rest and recover from her travels while also adjusting to being back so nobody bothered her in the Jade Rabbit. 

She wasn’t going to let Itri out. Not until she figured out how to drop the news on them that she was suddenly a mother, more so specifically to Wrecker. It was a big reveal and she didn’t want to mess things up, but after hearing Itri’s soft and almost pleading voice, she feared that she’d already messed up. 

“I”m sorry, ad’ika,” Khea apologized as she slowly reached out to cup Itri’s cheek. At first the young girl flinched at her touch, but when she realized it was a comforting action over anything, she leaned into the touch and finally tilted her head up to meet Khea’s eyes.

“I…I needed to make sure it was safe for you,” she explained, gently caressing Itri’s cheek in a soothing manner, not entirely lying to her since Khea did in fact want to make sure that Pabu was a safe enough place for her. 

 “But…” she drew a breath, deciding to rip the bandage off and jump into it head first like she tended to do with things. “But you can come out now…” 

At this, Itri’s eyes lit up and a small smile tugged at her lips–a look and a reaction that made Khea’s heart swell with adoration.

“R-really?” She whispered, sounding eager now. 

Khea chuckled softly and nodded, pulling her hand away as she stood back up. “Yes, ner ad’ika, it’s safe and you can come out now,” she assured, holding her hand out for Itri to take it. 

Itri stared for a moment or two before she took Khea’s hand and looked up at her expectedly, the small smile still on her orange and black features. 

Khea nearly melted at the sight, at those big, wide brown eyes staring back at her with such hope and trust. She had to take a moment to compose herself, looking away and clearing her throat as she did her best not to let her mind race like before. 

She could do this. 

READ THE REST ON AO3!

I never thought of it like that🤣

The more that I think about the early episodes of TBB S3, the funnier they get to me. Like

First we have Crosshair, who is really getting to know Omega for the first time. His only real interactions with her in the past have involved his brothers being EXTRA protective of her, so in his head Omega is probably just this poor, scared, naive little kid. And then one day she just pulls up to his prison cell and is like “what’s up, loser, we’re getting out of here” and then proceeds to sneak him out of a high security government lab under the nose of the emperor himself (she knows our battle plans?? Of course she knows all of our battle plans, that’s a normal thing to teach a 12 year old…) Not to mention the fact that Omega gambled in a bar and won more credits than either of them had probably ever seen in their lives, so that they could bribe the space TSA into getting them off world (WHY does the kid know how to gamble). Not that Crosshair is in any position to judge someone’s parenting, but he has QUESTIONS.

Omega, meanwhile, is for the first time getting the full Crosshair Experience, complete with every bit of sarcasm, snark, and sass that the man has been bottling up on Tantiss, and she is not having it. No, Crosshair, I don’t really know how to fly this shuttle, why don’t you quit your backseat flying and get your butt up here and do this yourself? No, Crosshair, we cannot open fire on civilians in an airport, I thought that was just an inhibitor chip thing for you. No, Crosshair, we are NOT LEAVING OUR MAN-EATING HOUND ALONE AND UNSUPERVISED ON A RESIDENTIAL PLANET.

And then you have Hunter, who hasn’t been thinking clearly for five months and who probably is living off a diet of spiked lemonade and sour patch kids (to match the bitterness inside him), who went from thinking “oh yeah we’re gonna settle down on Space Greece” to “Wrecker, that one crime syndicate called us back, if we murder this one guy for them then they MIGHT give us some info on Omega, wheels up in 10”

And poor Wrecker finds himself as The Responsible Adult for the first time in his life, which is incredibly confusing and a little bit scary and Hunter, you are TOO CLOSE to the edge of that cliff!! He’s never really believed in vegetables before but Echo says they’re good for you so he spends every moment that he’s not trying to keep Hunter from starting a second interplanetary war over the disappearance of his kid attempting to convince Hunter to try an apple or something.

And then it all culminates in this very tense, dramatic moment where they’re all staring at each other and Omega is like “yay now we can all get therapy!” and Wrecker is like “Echo come back I can’t do this on my own anymore” and Hunter is like “you can’t commit fratricide in front of the kid, you can’t commit fratricide in front of the kid” and Crosshair is like “TAKE YOUR SCARY CHILD BACK” and if that’s not peak Bad Batch then I don’t know what is