Chapter 12 - No Wonder It's Missin'

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"I'm on it," Tech promises, already turning away to the Marauder. Crosshair gives him an inscrutable look as he shifts to scan the area for any possible attackers. With him on guard, they'll be fine. Still, that doesn't make it any easier for Hunter to walk away from his younger siblings, his squad. It's almost physically painful, in fact, and he has to force himself to keep moving, to not keep glancing back at them.

They'll be fine. They won't disappear on him.

Still, that doesn't stop the sinking feeling in his gut that something is about to go horribly, and Hunter has learned to always listen to that instinct. And yet, what can he even do? It's not as though they can leave. They need to get their chips out, and if they don't do it here on Bracca, he doesn't know where they even can.

He holds a blaster in one hand, flashlight in the other as he and Echo slowly creep further into the interior of the cruiser. As he walks, he gets a sense of déjà vu. This is the same cruiser they went to last time, and he knows how many memories will be evoked from merely being here. It'll be hard, but at least he's prepared for it.

They go through the halls, but there's nothing to see except rats running around. No intruders or scrappers. So far so good. It doesn't last when they reach a destroyed hall. ... That happened last time, too, and the only way across to the other side is via a cable or some such device. A grappling hook might work. Wrecker fell into the water down below and was nearly eaten by a dianoga. They can't have that happening again.

"Now what?" asks Omega, carefully peering over the edge at the very long drop below.

"The cable could work," Hunter says, gesturing to it, "But we could also use a grappling hook." Belatedly, he remembers that Omega has no training whatsoever unlike in the past when she came here. She doesn't even have her bow, which is all kinds of weird; he's so used to her carrying it everywhere.

He slides his blaster back in its holster, reaching for the cable. His foot slips, and he sucks in a startled breath as he teeters too close to the edge for comfort, jerking back instinctively, heart hammering. Kriff. He really, really does not like heights.

"You got a problem with heights now?" Echo questions, almost teasing.

He huffs out a breath. "I fell over a thousand feet off a mountain, got captured by the Empire, saw Kamino burn, lost Crosshair, and..." He cuts himself off, shaking his head. "Never mind. No, I don't like heights."

His fall on Daro wouldn't have been so bad if not for what happened after. And after Eriadu, heights are... even harder to deal with.

But he'll cope as he always has.

He secures the cable, and though he can feel Echo's and Omega's eyes on him, they don't say anything. It's not until after its secure that he realizes Omega probably won't be able to climb across. So, either they'll have to find a different route entirely, or they'll have to find a different way to get her over.

In the end, they settle for tying a rope around her waist and connecting it to the cable, so she won't fall all the way down if she loses her grip. She manages it surprisingly well, though she's obviously quite scared, and soon, they're creeping down the halls again towards the medbay.

"What did you mean about Kamino burning?" Omega asks, looking up at him.

He shouldn't have said that. Not right now. He should have waited until after this was all over to bring it up. "The Empire... destroyed Kamino," he answers, "And we were on it. I was captured, and all of you came after me." If he had been more careful in the first place, that never would have happened. Not then. But then, they would have run into Crosshair again eventually. That much was pretty much unavoidable, unfortunately, with him hunting them.

          

He'd been so afraid that Crosshair would torture him when he was first taken from Daro, and he genuinely had no idea how he would be able to cope with such a thing. Torture he could handle. Seeing Crosshair's impassive gaze on him while he screamed... not so much.

But it didn't happen, and – they lost him instead, just differently. That doesn't make it a whole lot better.

"You offered us a chance, Crosshair. This is yours."

"I made my decision."

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

"Tech isn't going to like this," Echo states dryly, shining the flashlight around the rat-infested room, "But it'll have to do. I'll get the surgical pod calibrated and make sure everything is in order."

"I'll check on the others," Hunter replies, nodding, while Echo scomps in and gets to work. "Tech, what's the status?" he calls into his comm.

"Still working on it," comes the reply.

"How much longer?"

"A couple hours at most," he answers. "Hopefully shorter if – no, Wrecker, that one."

"We've reached the medbay," Hunter tells him, "And we'll come back shortly. Everything is clear." So why does he have such a bad feeling?

With the pod fully calibrated and ready for the first of them to go through, the three of them – Hunter, Echo, and Omega – turn back to retrace their steps back to the Marauder to pick up the others. He estimates that it'll probably take them a good hour to get back – that's around how long it took them to get here in the first place.

Until they leave, Hunter won't be able to relax.

Everything is going fine as they walk down the hall right after passing the chasm – until his senses pick up an electrical vibration too big to be an animal. He ducks back around the corner he was circling, shoving Echo back with him – Omega is behind them – right as a blaster bolt hits the wall where his head would have been.

Kriff.

Scrappers? Already? How could they have gotten past Crosshair, Tech, and Wrecker?

His worry for the rest of his squad instantly rises, and he fights the urge to check on them. He'll do that once he deals with the intruder here. He draws his blaster, holding it close as he checks around the corner, pulling back as another volley of blaster bolts flies down the hall towards him. Omega's eyes are wide and terrified, and Hunter touches her shoulder for a moment, reassuringly. "Stay here," he orders, exchanging a look with Echo, before the two of them duck around the corner together, shooting.

A far too familiar figure ducks around the end of the hall, evading their shots, and Hunter's heart drops. No. No, this shouldn't be possible. How the kriff did Fennec Shand end up here on Bracca?! She ran into them on Pantora last time. What... changed?

(He knows the answer. It's everything. He's been changing things from the moment he arrived.)

They have to deal with her and fast, so they can get back to the others, get their chips out, and get out before anyone picks up traces of the disturbance and reports it to the Empire. They cannot afford to get tangled up in an Imperial firefight until they're all free from the chips. He cannot lose any of them, not again.

It's with that in mind, desperation burning through his veins, a furious need to protect his squad rising up to override common sense, that Hunter unsheathes his vibroblade. With Echo shooting, he races down the hall towards where Shand is hiding. She tries to shoot him, but he ducks, bodily tackling her into the wall. She grunts as she hits the durasteel, already wrestling against his grip, trying to get away from him. He shoves her back, hard, down a corridor that goes sideways, away from the direction that Echo and Omega need to go to rejoin the others.

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