Star Wars The Bad Batch: The Runaway

Chapter 7 - Going Over The Plan

About ten minutes later the ship landed and the four clones joined Callista in the cockpit, all wearing their helmets.

"You ready kid?" Hunter asked, his voice now slightly distorted by the mask.

"Will you stop calling me kid? How would you feel if I called you by your birth numbers?" Hunter sighed, probably for the fiftieth time since he'd met Callista.

"Alright Aria." He said with forced calmness, "You ready?" Callista nodded. "Good. Let's get going. We're late as it is."

Hunter descended the ramp first, followed by Crosshair and Tech while Wrecker and Callista brought up the rear.

There was a group of people on the landing pad and the Bad Batch plus Callista made their way over to them.

Callista would be lying if she said she didn't feel a tad nervous. It's not like she's never been in the presence of important people, heck the prime minister of Kamino was a regular visitor when she lived there. It was either him or Nala Se, who was the chief medical scientist of the entire clone operation.

Callista stopped her thoughts when that wretched Kaminoan entered it. Whenever Nala Se came to mind, so did all those hours spent in the medical facilities where Callista was poked and prodded for reasons she never knew about. It's the reason she had a strong aversion to needles and to this day the smell of antiseptic will make her hands start trembling.

Callista is brought back to the present when the group stopped and she nearly ran into Crosshair who sent a scowl over his shoulder to the girl.

Hunter stepped away from the group to salute the senator and her entourage.

"Senator Robb. I apologize for being late, we had some...complications getting here. I won't bore you with details." The Senator smiled kindly, which eased Hunter's nerves a little bit. At least she didn't seem upset.

"It's quite alright." Senator Robb assured the clone, before gesturing to the two cloaked figures on her right. Hunter had immediately noticed them when he exited the ship, and it didn't take a genius to know that they were Jedi. "The Senate was kind enough to send two Jedi who were close to our system in addition to your squadron." Callista couldn't stop her eyes from bulging out of their sockets when she heard the word jedi. She couldn't see them from her spot behind Crosshair, which is probably a good thing.

"This is Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ashoka Tano." If Hunter was surprised, he didn't show it as he saluted the pair.

"Good to meet you, General." Hunter said before introducing the rest of his squadron. "This is Tech," tech barely looked up from his datapad to wave, "-Crosshair," the sniper gave a respectful nod, "-and Wrecker." Hunter finished and Wrecker nodded as well.

"And it's just you four?" Anakin asked and Hunter was thankful he had his helmet on to conceal the nervous expression he grew upon being asked that.

"Well... not exactly..." Hunter said vaguely, unsure how to introduce Callista.

"I sense someone else is here. What's going on, Hunter?" Anakin asked, not suspicious of the clone but curious as to what the Sergeant was hiding that made him act so odd.

"We picked someone up on the way here. Figured we could use the back up, but we didn't know Jedi would be here."

"Who is he?"

"Uh. The he is a she." Hunter closed his eyes and sighed, already regretting this whole thing, before stepping to the side as Callista made her way to the front. Hunter wanted to give her a warning look but couldn't with his helmet on and so he could only watch and pray that Callista didn't do anything stupid.
Anakin and Ahsoka shared confused looks before Anakin asked the question everyone but the Bad Batch was thinking.