Chapter Text
The doors slid shut behind them and he had to bite back his comment on the smell, he was not one to talk with the state he was in after the back to back missions. Showering, especially outside of the safety of the Kamino medical wing, was all too much and their tiny stall on the Marauder with no bars or seating seemed too daunting. A damp cloth in the evening was the best he could manage while on deployment. The deepening crinkle in Hunter's nose as the days stacked up expressed that wasn’t enough, but his sergeant had never brought it up. Behind him he could hear Wrecker carving another four lines into the wall, his laughed remark lost on him as he discarded his helmet on the central table and rubbed his temples with his remaining hand. Tech joined him at the table, clearing some space to empty out his satchel of the internal workings of a probe droid he had scooped up from one of their perimeter checks, his goggles reflecting the collection of wires. Opposite them, Crosshair had unfolded his case over his cot, carefully dismantling his rifle and examining it for any damage in a laughable contrast to his chest plate and helmet which had been discarded carelessly on the floor beside him. Hunter had also made swift work of removing his armour, standing in his blacks with his hands on his hips as he examined his teammates.
“Well,” He was the first to break the tired silence that had lapsed in the room, “Let’s try to catch the end of dinner, if we aren’t too late. I could really go for anything other than ration bars.” From where he was disconnecting his vambraces, Wrecker agreed wholeheartedly, not bothering to remove the bottom half of his armour before joining Cross and Hunter where they had grouped at the door. “Tech?” Still engrossed in his meticulous disassembly of the droid, Tech waved a dismissive hand, his signal for “I’m busy”.
“Echo?”
“Go ahead, I have some data to process. I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.” His scomp resting in the crook of his good elbow and his fingers still rubbing his temples, he tried for a smile through the throbbing pain that was seeping in behind his eyes. The other two passed into the hall, but Hunter hung back for a second, eyeing him up and Echo realised that he could probably hear the grinding of his teeth as he bit back a wince of pain.
“You sure that data has to be handled now?”
“Yeah, yeah, I need to go through it while it’s fresh. Just… save me a seat. I won’t be long.” Not wanting to push it, he accepted the decision and joined his batch mates in the hall, the bright light of the corridor being cut off as the door slid shut once again.
Snatching up one of the data pads from the table, he rummaged through one of the boxes that had been stacked underneath it and located the connection cord. Wrecker's bed was the closest and he slumped onto it, plugging one end of the cable into the device and blindly fumbling to connect the other to the receptor into the processing unit that wrapped across his head. Half turning away from the room as if Tech would be distracted from his work, he closed his eyes and focused on mentally scrolling through the overwhelming logs of the Separatist base they had been sneaking into. While he had only needed to retrieve one for their mission, it had meant he had skimmed through hundreds to find the one he was locating and those had automatically backed up into his brain. Unlike a droid, he didn’t get the luxury of being able to delete all unnecessary data or have it initially saved to an external drive, he had to do that himself. Some days he wrestled with whether he wanted to be more or less like a droid when it came to these missions. He had always been good at holding onto information—that had been the only reason the Techno Union had used him, all those plans were stored in his brain—and now more than ever he wished he Wreckers proficiency for forgetting things as soon as they were mentioned. It took him several seconds to realise that Tech had started talking to him, too focused on the last few files to process outside noise, his eyes snapped open once he zoned into the room. His brother no longer leant over the workbench, but now stood against the side of his cot, watching him with a calculating gaze as if waiting for an answer to a question.
“Huh?”
“If you connected the data pad directly into your second sub port in your left temporal region you would be able to process that faster.”
“I know.” Pausing his upload, he shifted back to look at him better. The technician surveyed him, raising an eyebrow behind his goggles at the lack of relocation of the cable. “Are you going to join the others?”
“Yes, I am intending to. If you speed up your processing, we can leave together.”
“I would prefer to continue with this method. I’m almost finished, but you can head off without me if you are in that much of a rush.” Echo forced himself to not roll his eyes at his not-so-subtle insinuation to change to connection point again. Tech had a habit of presuming the others only ever ignored his suggestions because they were stupid, not because of their own opinions or decisions. He spoke back in the same tone he had been greeted with, the pain in his skull getting worse the longer he ignored finishing clearing out the files. Without waiting for a reply, he closed his eyes again and resumed the download. Feeling the familiar breathless sensation that came with the sudden change from the last log to an empty pocket of his mind as the last bit of data was transferred, he sighed and his eyes flickered back open. With his attention on his own data pad, Tech had finished removing his armour and had returned to leaning against his bunk, but his face tilted up at the sound of Echo getting to his feet. “Good to go?”
The canteen was mostly empty by the time they arrived, the majority of the clones having cleared out from dinner and making their way back to their barracks. A few stragglers scattered across the tables, consisting most of those returning from missions like them or those who had recently changed guard shifts. Their table was the busiest, the other three teammates already most of their way through their meals. Echo preferred being the last in the communal spaces, having not yet gotten used to the stares and comments from the others squads. Taking their seats—Tech besides Crosshair and Echo beside Wrecker—they dug into their meals; Hunter had been right, everything tasted better than ration bars. Across from him, Cross’s brow twitched slightly as his eyes flicked him up and down and he suddenly became aware that he was the only one at the table in full armour, having only removed his helmet in comparison to the other four who were stripped back to mostly just their blacks.
“I can confirm the droid that I brought back belongs to the assassin Asajj Ventress, although it seems that she had evacuated the planet prior to our arrival. She has a very particular addition she uses on the droids she deploys.” Tech attempted to steer the conversation to his interests, trying to bait one of the others to ask about what the ‘addition’ he had mentioned was. With no one taking it, he pushed on. “Records show that she does not often use the assistance of droids, preferring her own intelligence to relying on them. A correct assumption on her behalf, droids can be detrimental to a mission, this one did end up in our hands. I believe-”
“Shut it.” Crosshair hissed, a new toothpick being selected as he finished his last bite.
“I agree with Cross. Tech, can we get a break from the mission's details? Just for the evening, I think we all need to regroup before tackling all of that and the mission report.” The sergeant’s words were soft and worn through, his eyes heavy as he forced himself to put a boundary in place before his tired and irritated batchmates could whip an argument out of nothing. “I suggest we all retire for the night and we can go through the report and restock in the morning before we assess any further actions. Does anyone need anything off the Marauder before we head back?” He was met with a resounding ‘no’ as they cleared their trays and filed out of the mess hall.
The dim lights of their barracks were a comfort against the harsh Kaminoin halls, and Echo wondered if Hunter had modified it to help ease his over sensitive eyes. It was just Crosshair and him who lounged around the table, the others having nipped back to take a quick shower before bed. Finding a small slither of free space on the tabletop, he propped his data pad up against one of the small crates of parts and skimmed through an update alert they had received about a new type of explosive that the Separatists had started using on the front. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Cross staring at him; his squad mates had a tendency to do that.
“Yes?”
“Is it a Reg thing to not get out of your gear after a mission?” He gestured to his still fully armoured body, and Echo grimaced at the word ‘reg’, still not used to it even with it being the only way Crosshair ever referred to him.
“I was busy, I just forgot.” Forgot to take off what felt like tons of restrictive, complicated armour? Not likely. “If it was up to me, we wouldn’t take it off until we knew we weren’t going to be hailed out for another emergency extraction.”
“If it was up to you, you would sleep in your kit.” He wasn’t wrong there. He hated the vulnerability of not wearing it almost as much as he hated how he looked in his blacks. If it was up to him, he wouldn’t ever take it off. This wasn’t the first time Cross had brought this particular habit up, he had been on his ass about it since he had joined. On missions, he was more lax about it, but every time they regrouped on Kamino, he made off-handed comments about it every chance he got. Knowing Crosshair, he wouldn’t cut it out until Echo either dropped the habit or gave him a frustrated confession to the real reason why. Trying to turn his attention back to the manual, he tried to ignore the drilling eyes watching him. The awkward silence was broken by the others returning. Hunter shook his long hair like an animal to get the last of the dampness out before entering, Tech followed with his goggles clutched tight in one hand, and Wrecker rounded them out, falling onto his bunk with a content sigh.
“Nothin’ like being off work.” Wrecker folded his arms behind his head, stretching out and closing his eyes, listening to the others prep for bed.
Retreating to their own bunks, Tech, Hunter and Crosshair started their nightly rituals. The sniper pulled his boots off, gently reassembling his weapon and laying its case down beside his bed, stripping the sheets back on his cot and flicking off the light that illuminated his bunk. Across the room, their sergeant patted his hair dry with his towel, inserting earbuds and pulling down the blanket he had fastened to the frame of his bunk to create a black out shade from him and the rest of the room. Tech did less to prepare for actual sleep. He neatly folded down his sheets, cleaned his goggles before putting them back on and brought up whatever his latest favourite research project was on his data pad before following suit and turning his light off, his face glowing blue in the reflection of his device. Even though he had been with the crew for almost two months at this point, Echo did not have his own bunk. Hunter had done his best to try to source something, but with the increase of troops being created, there was none to spare. They had strung up a hammock from a supply kit which spanned from the ceiling at the end of Tech’s bunk to the top of a support pillar that severed one of the walls, using boxes from Tech’s old projects to create a frame like structure at the far end to try mimic the pod bunks of his brothers. The hammock did have its benefits, whatever sad way they came, in the fact that he was able to thread charging cables through the fabric to plug himself into. Once the others had finished their routines and the room fell into relative darkness, he started to remove his armour, stacking it tidily up against the boxes. Taking a leaf out of Hunter's book, he had strung up a makeshift curtain that cut him, his bunk and a small section of floor off from the rest of the room. With a bit more privacy, he stripped off all of his blacks and sat back in his hammock, gently releasing the suction of his prosthetic legs. All the Techno Union had left him with was the very top of his thighs, not dipping more than a few inches below his hips, and he eased his legs off his stumps with the grateful rush of relief at the removal of pressure. Securing the locks on his knees, he stood them up beside his bed, connected them to charge, and moved onto the other mechanical elements of his body. His right arm was not a prosthetic, the machinery was screwed into his body and had been inserted for the primary purpose of doing a job, not giving him functionality. He plugged one of the charging cables into the connection port just above the scomp, relaxing it at his side as his good hand found the release point on his headgear, slipping it from around his ears. Sounds rushed him for a few seconds as his ears adjusted and he wondered if that is what Hunter heard constantly, then everything fell back to the easy silence of the room with the exception of Wrecker’s snoring. The skin of his head was slick with sweat and the touch of air made his stomach roll over. Another charging cable into the headset, another into the panel across his back and the final one in one of the main port in his stomach. These would reboot the organs of his that had been replaced with droid parts, they could go days without recharging but he much preferred to keep them working at full capacity while he slept, he never knew when the next time he would get the opportunity would be. Pulling his blanket over his shivering body, he curled up tight around his cables and tried his best to get some sleep.