Star Wars The Bad Batch: The Runaway

Chapter 14 - Waking up on Kamino

Callista's eyes snapped open but closed just as quickly when her retinas were burned by the blinding white roof above her.

Wait, a white roof? No. She can't be...

Callista opened her eyes a second time and they were slanted until fully adjusting to the bright room. And when they did, what she saw made her heart sink down to her stomach.

Callista hoped that this was a dream. But when she turned to look out of the big window to the left of her and saw the familiar pouring rain from an unending storm it turned into more of a nightmare.
Panic began to settle in and Callista quickly tried to sit up only to groan and fall back down when her entire body exploded in pain. This only made Callista panic even more and the heart monitor started beeping rapidly.

Callista gasped when she finally noticed she was wearing a breathing mask and also hooked up to different machines. No. She was being experimented on. Not again.
Feeling herself beginning to hyperventilate, she scrambled to rip the contraption from her face and Callista took in a gulp full of the sterile air and threw the mask as far away as she could. Next the heart monitor and iv needle. The only downside to that was that the removal of the monitor set off an alarm and it was then that she realized there was another person in the room. Four in fact, but right now her focus was on Tech.

All of them had dozed off but were woken up by alarms going off and four sets of eyes landed on Callista. Tech was the first to rush to her side.

"It's alright, Callista. You're safe." Tech said but his words didn't seem to get through to Callista. She tried to sit up again, but Tech put his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from doing so, but she continued to thrash around regardless.

"No- no! Let me go!" Callista yelled and she went to shove Tech's hands off, only to see that her own right hand plus most of the lower part of her arm was missing! "Wha-"

"You lost part of your right arm and leg in the explosion." Callista immediately looked and saw that indeed the bottom part of her right leg was cut off just below the knee.

Now her panic was on a whole different level. What the heck happened that caused this?! Tech said there was an explosion... now she remembered. They'd blown up the base and were watching it, then a laser blast came from somewhere and hit the bike she and Crosshair were sharing-

"Crosshair!" Callista exclaimed and she looked at Tech with wide eyes, not yet aware of the other three. "Is he alright? What about Hunter and Wrecker?"

"We're fine, kid." The unmistakable voice of Wrecker assured, Callista looked around Tech and saw the other three, and she breathed a sigh of relief at seeing they were OK. But she immediately tensed once more upon remembering where she was.

"Why are we on Kamino?" She asked without thinking, and Tech glanced back at his brother's who all suddenly became nervous - except for Hunter. He was staring intensely at Callista and it made her extremely uncomfortable.

"How do you know we're on Kamino?" Hunter asked and Callista's heart skipped a beat when she realized her mistake.

"Uh..."

Before Callista could think of a believable excuse, the door opened to let in a droid and Clone Medic.

"We heard alarms going off - oh, you're awake." Seeing the clone only made Callista's heart sink even more and it took everything in her to not go into another panic as he replaced Tech in the chair by her bed, giving her a kind smile that did nothing to relax her. "How are you feeling?"

"Like crap, how else would I feel?" The Medic was taken aback by her blunt remark and looked at the other four clones who could only shrug - except Wrecker who laughed out loud Crosshair's lips twitched upwards for a brief second, equally amused like his brother.