Our Poor, Dear Sergeant

Our poor, dear Sergeant 😢

Hunter hasn’t gotten a proper break since the squad left Kamino the first time… I feel like he takes care of everyone but forgets about himself, typical eldest sibling in crisis mode :((

This is so heartbreaking but so amazing! Could not love it more!

Radio Silence

@summer-of-bad-batch prompts week 12 Radio Silence & week 10 Hugs

Fandom: The Bad Batch Characters: Hunter, Tech (mentioned), Echo, Omega (mentioned), Crosshair (mentioned) Set from after S2 Episode 'Plan 99' & throughout S3 Word Count: ~4090 Read Here on AO3

Synopsis: After Eriadu, Hunter tunes the com to a familiar frequency and sends a message out into the void, hoping beyond hope for an answer.

Partly inspired by @indigofyrebird's request earlier in the event for 'Hunter breaking down, and being comforted by one of his brothers'

Hunter eased himself gingerly into the pilot’s seat of the Marauder, movements stifled by injuries still swathed in bandages.

The pain in his body was nothing compared to the yawning chasm of emptiness in his soul, a dark vortex that threatened to suck him down into suffocating despair without end.

Omega was gone. Taken by Hemlock and his men.

The brave, teary, defiant look on her face as she had given herself up to ensure he and Wrecker were spared was seared into his ragged heart like a brand. It was too much. He couldn’t take it.

After all he’d tried, he couldn’t protect his little sister when she needed him too.

Achingly slowly, he typed out a com code and opened a radio channel. Stiff and uncooperative, his fingers closed clumsily around the commlink and lifted it to his lips.

He was silent for a long time, listening to the crackle of the empty channel. He didn’t know what to say.

Eventually he started, in a voice so thick he barely recognised it as his own.

“Hey, Tech. Thought I’d update you on what happened after…”

The words tangled in his larynx, choking him off.

“After we got separated.”

The sentence was grit out, guttural with a pain that was so much more than his broken ribs.

“We went back to Ord Mantell. Didn’t know where else to go, after…

“Went back to Ord Mantell. Just to regroup. Wrecker and I, we were ready to stop. Said we’d take the kid to Pabu, keep her safe there.

“Couldn’t keep doing it. Trying to fight.

“Couldn’t risk losing anyone else.”

Some aching shudder of grief spasmed against his injured body. With a stubborn growl he dismissed it, forcing himself to continue.

“I let you down, Tech. Cid sold us out.

“Hemlock caught us. All that work to find him and…

“He found us, and he… Hemlock, he…

“He took Omega.”

It was a broken confession, a whispered sin begging for absolution.

“She’s probably in the same place as Crosshair now.”

Another catch to his voice, words choking past sorrow.

“I don’t know…

“I don’t know how to find them.

“Don’t know where to look.

“Tech…”

Hunter bowed his head, fist holding the com pressed to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut against the tears which beaded on his lashes.

“I really wish you were here.”

*

“Hey Tech.”

Hunter ached with missing his brother, but his voice was steady enough, all things considered.

“Just checking in. Updating you on…

“Yeah.”

Hunter chewed on his thoughts for a while, com held loosely in the cage of his hand. His gaze was unfocused, staring at the Marauder’s nav computer without registering the readout as more than flickering light.

“Echo left.”

The words were heavy with finality.

“Not surprised. It’s… best for all of us.

“Can do more this way. Cover more ground.”

His voice rang with hollowness. He wondered how many times he’d have to repeat this same sentiment before he started believing it.

“He went with Rex. Said Rex’s network would have a better chance of finding the intel we need to find Tantiss.

“To find… Omega.”

He kept his head carefully turned straight ahead, rigid above his shoulders. Text danced across the screen, meaningless to him.

Better than looking… there. Omega’s space in the gunner’s mount remained like a shrine, and every time he looked at it he felt nauseous.

“Wish we had you to help us.” Hunter shuddered in a deep sigh, fighting down the wave of emotion that threatened. Better to stay numb.

Easier to stay numb.

“We’d probably have found them by now if we had you.” It was a whisper, Hunter’s voice coarse with damning self-criticism. “Sorry. I keep letting you down.”

He dropped his forehead to his hand, fingers clawing anxiously at his hair, spilling loose over his bandana.

“I got a lead. A crime syndicate.

“Echo and I fought. He said it was too dangerous.

“I… I think we can handle it.

“Wrecker’s asleep. The ship’s on autopilot to the rendezvous.

“I’m… supposed to be sleeping too.

“I… wanted to talk to you.

“Ask your advice.”

He let his gaze drift away from the screen. On top of the console, Tech’s goggles winked back at him, blue-light of the screens gleaming softly in the cracked and dirty lenses.

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, hissing a breath in through bared teeth as tears beaded on his scrunched-closed lashes.

“I’m sorry, Tech. For all the times I didn’t listen.

“I’m… trying to remember your lessons now.

“Trying to remember your voice.

“I… I’ll let you know how it goes.

“Goodnight… Tech.”

*

Hunter waited until Wrecker had settled the clone cadets in the racks at the back of the Marauder, and he could detect three peaceful heartbeats settled into the steady rhythm of sleep. Wrecker himself was moving quietly round the ship’s tiny galley, cleaning up after the meagre meal they had prepared for the boys. Then he sank into the chair by the com, opening up the silent radio channel.

“Hey Tech. Got some… got some good news, I guess?

“Remember I told you we had a lead on a facility linked to Hemlock? It… wasn’t Tantiss. Was bombed out by the time we got there. Like Kamino.”

A quick glance to the back of the ship. Lula slumped against the edge of the gunner’s mount, her felt face staring mournfully down the ship. The emptiness inside Hunter resonated as achingly as ever, but now he could hear three sets of peaceful teenage breathing, and that filled him with wild, dangerous hope.

“We found three boys. Cadets. Clones. Survived the bombardment.

“They… hadn’t seen Omega. Had seen Hemlock though. Said he transferred his experiments before the base was bombed. So that means…

“Means even if Omega was here, she should have been gone by the time the strikes took out the facility.”

Unbidden, a small, soft smile played across Hunter’s lips as he huffed a laugh into the com.

“You’d have loved the creatures we fought. Sorry you had to miss it. Don’t know anyone else who would have been as interested in the Empire’s experiments as you…”

He sniffed, startled to find dampness on his cheeks, but the tightness in his chest somehow felt good. Relaxing back in the chair, he continued to speak.

“We got the co-ordinates for another sector of space. Haven’t searched there yet. Echo and Rex couldn’t meet us here in time, but hopefully between us we’ll scour that sector and find…

“Find our girl.

“Bring her home.”

*

“Hey Tech.”

Hunter leaned against the side of the Marauder, sheltering under the folded wing. He tapped the com against the thin seam of his lips, pressed tight in consternation. His brows knitted in a deeply furrowed frown, the tension and bright-light flashes of a developing migraine constricting, vice-like, at his temples.

“Mission success.”

He paused again, fighting to untangle the words from where they cloyed to the roof of his mouth.

“We got Omega back.”

It was an understatement. They didn’t get her back. She got herself back, and Hunter was still struggling to wrap his head around how.

“She’s alright. Shaken, maybe.”

He swore softly. He had spent hours hovering near Omega, constantly reaching out to touch, a hand to her shoulder, brushing her elbow, anything to ground himself and prove that she really was there with them.

They had checked her over. She had let them, with an affectionate, long-suffering eye-roll, even though she assured them she was uninjured.

He had left her in the ship now, with Wrecker and…

With Wrecker.

“Shaken, definitely,” he amended his commentary.

He hadn’t thought his heart could break any further than the shattered pieces it had been in since they lost Omega. Having her back was meant to heal him, surely.

But he saw the hollow, hunted look in her, the way her smile stayed painted on her lips and didn’t reach her eyes. His girl had been changed, irrevocably, by six months of something Hunter couldn’t begin to understand.

“And…”

He choked on the words.

“…And…”

Gritting his teeth in a bitter scowl, he hunched over the com and forced them out.

“…Crosshair. We got Crosshair back too.”

He took his thumb off the transmit button, breathed heavily as he listened to the hiss and snap of the unresponsive radio channel. His gaze was long and unfocused, staring off into the distance at nothing whilst he tried to corral his thoughts. All the while, his tongue lay thick and heavy in his mouth; daring him to speak further, unwilling to co-operate.

“Kriff, Tech, I wish you were here. I don’t know what to do.”

His voice was the lowest murmur, lips pressed so close to the com that the metal began to warm from it.

“I can’t…

“Can’t face him.

“Don’t know what to say.”

Something that might have been a laugh bubbled up in his throat, harsh and abrasive, sandpaper inside his throat. He gasped the sound out, braying his displeasure to the dark, empty expanse beyond the Marauder. Then he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, pressing the com to his forehead as his knuckles massaged the headache there.

“It’s not fair. I don’t…

“Don’t want him back. Should have been you.

“Wish it had been you…

“Who made it back to us.”

Slowly, he slid down the side of the Marauder, fabric of his jacket ruching up uncomfortably at how much weight he leaned there. How much support he needed. Eventually he sat on his heels, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed and hanging between his shoulders.

With a deep breath, and he activated the com again.

“Tech.

“How am I supposed…

“How am I supposed to do this without you?”

His voice was twisted with guilt and grief.

“I don’t know how to handle Crosshair. Not any more.

“I thought…

“Thought when we got him back, I’d have you to help.

“I want to go back inside and see Omega. But I don’t want…

“…Don’t want to see him.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Another deep breath.

“But you’re not here. So I can’t ask you for help. I just…

“…I’ll handle it, Tech. Don’t worry about me.

“Gonna go inside and check on the others.

“………I……………...

“Gonna try and learn to do this stuff myself. Try not to bother you for advice so much.

“Hope…….

“Hope things are going well, wherever you are.”

*

Hunter slouched in the miniscule hold of the unfamiliar ship, unease gnawing in his gut. The bounty hunter was shut in the cockpit, taking them stars knew where for a contract he was sure would be more dangerous than she implied, and he had no recourse to push back against her manipulation. Their position was desperate, and he had nothing to bargain with.

Nothing except himself, and his brother, and their skills.

Wrecker sat opposite him, head lolling as he drowsed on their way to the mark. Better to get some rest now, whilst they could.

Hunter’s vision felt hazy, tiredness prickling at the edges of his consciousness, but the low-grade rush of adrenaline combined with the hollow pit in his stomach kept him from resting.

He needed something, anything, to distract him. A way to sound out his concerns.

He couldn’t help but feel like they were walking into the maw of a trap.

Eventually he raised his wrist-com, tapping in the code he knew by heart. His voice was barely a murmur, words blurred to indistinctness, but it didn’t matter.

“Hey Tech. It’s me again.

“I know it’s been a while.

“A lot has happened.”

He blinked tiredly, looking his slumbering brother. Even in sleep, lines of strain were etched deeply into Wrecker’s broad, tired face. Hunter ached to see his easy-going brother looking so drawn.

“Trying to find out why the Empire is still hunting Omega.

“Feels like…

“Like more than just retrieving an escaped asset.

“Feels different to when we first left Kamino.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he tilted his head back, closing his eyes.

“We know they were experimenting on her.

“Different to how…

“Different to how they experimented on Crosshair.”

His voice was a rough whisper, barely able to voice the thought out loud.

“We’re doing better. Him and me. Since Barton IV.

“He still won’t tell me much.

“Wish you were here to help him. He’d open up to you.”

It felt dangerously vulnerable to be whispering these thoughts out loud, knowing that the bounty hunter was just the other side of the locked cockpit door. Hunter wished he was alone.

Completely alone.

Just for a short time.

To hide from the responsibility of trying to take care of them all, in the face of everything.

“Once we’re done with this mission, we’ve been promised the intel on m-count bounties. That’s… that’s why the Empire are after Omega.

“Don’t know what it means yet. But the last hunter who came after us…

“He wasn’t playing games.

“Took out Rex’s base.

“Nearly took out…”

Hunter took a deep breath, surprised to find himself so affected as he forced the words out, breathed past barely-moving lips.

“Nearly killed Crosshair.”

For a time, he simply breathed into the silence of the humming ship. When he felt his eyes prickle, he crawled across the tiny cargo space, settling himself against Wrecker’s side and leaning back against his shoulder.

Wrecker shifted with a snort, but quickly dropped back to sleep again.

Hunter took a deep breath, raising the com to his lips again.

“They’re not messing around. They want Omega alive, but the rest of us are collateral damage. I don’t think they even need her co-operation this time. Not like when Hemlock took her the first time… when he promised her our safety.”

Hunter choked with the memory of Hemlock tossing the shattered pair of goggles so carelessly to the floor. The last remnant of his brother, casually discarded, like he had never mattered.

Presenting them with the goggles had just been a bargaining chip to manipulate them into handing over Omega.

Tech fell. Just fell, fell into endless cloud cover.

The image rose unbidden, his brother’s body lying broken on the ground, defiled by Imperial scavengers who stripped him of the goggles to taunt them, to destroy them–

It was a long span before he was ready to activate the com again, the quiet hiss of the channel like a baseline of finality piercing his soul.

“I’m doing my best. Trying to keep them safe.

“Feels harder every day. They want… Omega wants… for us to be together. All the time.

“I understand. I do.

“We…

“We’ve already lost so much.

“But I don’t want to drag her into danger.

“Got her to stay behind this time. Asked her to keep an eye on Cross.

“Don’t know what I’ll do the next time.”

Another sigh, this one accompanied by a coarse, humourless laugh.

“Wish you were here. I always end up saying that, don’t I?

“It’s true.

“You’d help me think things through.

“Come up with a plan.

“It’s what you always did. What… what we always did.”

He cuts the thought off abruptly, dropping the commlink to his lap and instead burrowing his face into his arms. At his back, his brother’s warm, living, vital presence was a small comfort.

Him and Wrecker are a team. They only had each other for so long. They’ve seen each other through so much.

And Crosshair is back. Whilst it might be tentative for now, he was learning how to trust his brother again.

Echo is out there, only ever a call away. Calm, collected Echo, who Hunter can fall back on when the danger they face is more than he can handle alone.

But none of them are Tech.

*

"Thought I'd find you here."

Echo picked his way through the debris surrounding the burned skeleton of the Marauder, carefully balancing along the remains of a wing strut to approach his former Sergeant.

Hunter sat cross-legged on the floor of what was once the cockpit, gaze empty and desolate as he stared out across the expanse of Pabu's ocean. Flotsam bobbed against the stone docks, oil and chemical slicks dirtying the surface of the water in the troughs of unsettled waves.

"Hunter?" called Echo softly, when he didn't receive a response.

"Yeah," came the reply, little more than a grunt. Hunter's always rough voice sounded even scratchier from tiredness and smoke inhalation. "I'm here."

Now he was closer, Echo could see Hunter's hands folded palms-up in his lap. They cradled a familiar set of goggles, broken amber glass of the lenses glinting in the hazy light.

Echo crouched carefully next to Hunter, at right angles to him, in his peripheral vision but not his direct eyeline.

With his scomp he reached out and nudged the goggles, a flash of sorrow painting his face with a pained grimace. Hunter’s hands tightened round the fragile item, an instinctive convulsion, before relaxing again.

“I thought Omega put these in the Archivum,” said Echo gently. It was neither a question, nor an accusation. Simply an invitation for Hunter to expand.

“She did,” said the Sergeant thickly, the words catching in his throat. “I went and got them. I just…”

He trailed off, looking around him with a despairing gaze.

“Just wanted to sit here with him for a while, you know?”

Echo blinked in surprise to see the usually stoic clone sergeant’s eyes filling with tears. Hunter’s lip wobbled but he resolutely clamped down on the reaction, sniffing hard, dashing his damp eyes against his forearm to sit and stare straight ahead again, stony-faced once more.

“You came.”

“Yeah, I did,” said Echo, still careful to use a gentle tone. “We’re going to have to move quickly to stand the best chance of finding Omega again.”

“Was the intel Crosshair gave us any good?”

“It checks out,” Echo nodded. “Rampart is being held in an Imperial mining prison. If we can get to him, we stand a chance of finally finding Tantiss.”

“That’s good.”

Hunter’s voice was distant and flat. Brows knitting in concern, Echo eased himself down to settle beside Hunter, mimicking his cross-legged position.

“The Remora is too large to evade the detection systems around the planet,” he said, watching Hunter’s face carefully for a reaction as he spoke. “Phee is going to take you in The Providence.”

Hunter nodded. “That makes sense.”

His hand coming to rest on Hunter’s shoulder, Echo’s question was gentle.

“Did you ever really stop to grieve him?”

For a moment Hunter looked nonplussed, before the meaning of the question sunk in and he dropped his head, long hair swinging forwards to hide his expression as his hands tightened round the goggles once more.

“I’ve had too much to do,” he growled, but there was something broken in his voice. “Besides…” He trailed off, blinking hard, mouth twisting into a miserable grimace. “It’s not like it would bring him back.”

“Oh, Hunter…” Echo breathed a sympathetic sigh, fingers going tight over Hunter’s tense muscles. “That’s not the point of it.”

He rubbed a hand along Hunter’s shoulders, feeling the way the Sergeant trembled under his touch. Hunter’s breath hitched erratically, gulping air to try and subsume the tears which threatened.

When he spoke, Hunter’s voice was thick with fought-back emotion.

“Stopping to think about it… wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere. Tech sacrificed himself so we could escape, and the first thing I did was let Omega get captured.” The words rankled with self-loathing, accompanied by a violent shake of his head. “Had to keep going. Get her back. It’s…” He trailed off, lifting his face to gaze desolately at the horizon again. “It’s what Tech would have wanted.”

“Tech wouldn’t have wanted you to beat yourself up like this,” countered Echo softly.

“And now I’ve lost her again,” continued Hunter as though he hadn’t heard him. Unbidden, tears began to track down his cheeks again. Although he rubbed at them, they didn’t stop. “Tech wouldn’t have lost her. If he’d been here, things would have been different–”

“You don’t know that.” Echo’s voice was heavy with sorrow, but the words were spoken with conviction. “Omega gave herself up to save the people of Pabu. Because she learned from Tech. Because she knew what it meant to sacrifice herself to save others. To protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

He leaned into Hunter, nudging their shoulders together.

“Tech wouldn’t have wanted you to live with this guilt for the rest of your life. That’s not why he did what he did,” he said, his voice a murmur.

The first audible sob escaped Hunter, a sound he tried to swallow and couldn’t. He curled in on himself, knees coming up to his chest, head dropping to the cage of his arms. The goggles swung uselessly from one hand.

“I let him down. Let you all down. Wrecker doesn’t smile any more. You left. Crosshair was tortured because I left him behind, and Omega has been captured.”  The words were half-lost, burbled past tears he still fought, into the hollow space he hid his face in. Then his voice dropped to a miserable whisper, wracked with guilt. “Tech died. For nothing. I couldn’t keep the squad together.”

“Hunter.”

Echo draped his arm fully round Hunter’s back now, pulling the unresisting younger clone into a hug. Hunter’s head came to rest on his collar-bone, heavy with grief, and now a howl of despair ripped from him. He didn’t return Echo’s embrace, arms still locked too tightly round his own body as he coiled tight around his sorrow, protecting the jagged edges of it in a way that would only cut him deeper.

Humming a soothing noise, Echo merely rubbed his shoulders, holding him close, letting him break down. His own gaze was distant, past the charred pillars of the harbour and scattered ship debris to watch the waves bob on the horizon.

He was used to this. He had mourned brothers before.

Had mourned Tech, after Eriadu.

Hunter hadn’t.

After a time Hunter’s sobs subsided to hiccoughs, and his weight went heavy against Echo’s side. He still cradled himself, his hand wrapped so tight around the strap of Tech’s goggles that the edges bit into his skin, but inch by inch he uncurled, relaxing into Echo as his breathing became more regular.

“I radioed him,” murmured Hunter unexpectedly, another guilt-wracked confession. “All this time. Kept… kept him updated. Kept hoping that if I sent something out on his frequency, one day I might hear back.”

Echo merely rested his cheek on Hunter’s hair, grimy with sweat and battle smoke, and held him tighter.

“I never did. Never… never heard anything back.”

“I know,” said Echo softly. “It’s not wrong to hope, though.”

Hunter shuddered a sigh, and now his thumb moved absently along the strap of the goggles, feeling the texture beneath his grip.

“How do you move on, Echo?” His voice was thick and anguished. “I feel like… like my life stopped. I don’t know how to go on without him.”

Rubbing between his shoulder-blades, Echo murmured, “There’s no easy way. You just keep going. Like you have been.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I don’t have any better advice than that. You just keep living for them. On their behalf.”

“I wanted us to be safe on Pabu,” Hunter whispered brokenly.

Echo smiled, wan but hopeful.

“I think that sounds like the best way to honour Tech.”

Hunter sniffed as another few tears trickled down his cheeks.

“But they took Omega. Again.”

“We got her back last time,” Echo reminded him, injecting confidence into his voice. “We’ll do it again.”

“She got herself back last time,” Hunter corrected, and now the hint of a grin showed through his sorrow.

Echo chuckled. “That’s right. We should feel sorry for the Empire.”

With a deep breath, Hunter straightened, pulling away from Echo’s embrace. Echo let him go, watchful as Hunter smoothed the glass of the goggles, then tucked them into his jacket.

“We should put these back,” he said carefully, rocking forwards and easing to his feet. He turned and offered a hand to Echo, helping the ARC trooper up too. “Then find Crosshair and Wrecker.”

Although his cheeks were still stained with clear tracks where his tears had cut through the grime, Hunter smiled grimly.

“We have a job to do.”

Oh the feels!

CROSSHAIR vs. CX-2'S SHIP // With + without Hunter "I'm doing this alone. It's what I deserve."

In "Point of No Return," Crosshair is isolated from the others when he tries to shoot the homing beacon onto CX-2's ship in order to save Omega—and misses it entirely.

In "The Cavalry Has Arrived," Crosshair is able to nail the shot to take down this exact same ship—and thereby save Omega—despite his fresh injury and the torture he's just undergone.

The difference? He has Hunter at his side this time.

Heartbreaking but so well done!

“Omega’s been waiting for us a long time.”

A culmination of everything they’ve lost.

Better quality on X

So true!

I know 😔💔

It’s so funny to me that when Echo convinces Hunter and Tech to try and free Gregor on Daro and says ‘you did that on Skako Minor when you rescued me” neither of them points out the obvious, that they had a full team, Rex and Anakin freakin’ Skywalker to help!

They’d do anything for Echo, even if tactically it makes no sense! Love those crazy brothers!