Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

24

Astera:

Night had fallen when we put our plan into motion, Hera leading Omega and I to her vantage point above the Imperial refinery with the four defective clones on standby in their respective positions. The three of us were laid out on the floor now, macrobinoculars pressed to eyes in order to survey the layout below. Even late at night the grounds were busy, ships taking off and landing, workers busying over the grounds and troopers on patrol. A typicality I'd noticed of the Empire. Nothing Imperial ever shut down at any time of the day.

"Why are you with them?" Hera asked suddenly, lowering the binocs to direct the question at me. I raised my rangefinder, meeting her inquisitive eyes. "You're not a clone."

"I work with them."

"She's our friend," Omega said on the other side of Hera, completely straight faced and serious. "We trust her."

"You don't take the helmet off though," Hera pressed on, tone developing the suspicious edge lined in her eyes. "How can you trust someone whose face you've never seen?"

"Custom of my people." It wasn't entirely a lie, but no one, not even Death Watch, had observed the custom for decades, maybe even centuries. A half-truth, but it rolled as easily off my tongue as if I'd simply stated the weather. If Omega noticed the lie, she didn't show it, keeping her binocs firmly on the refinery.

The sound of Chopper's chatter on the comms distracted Hera, relaying his transport had landed.

"We are in position," Hera responded into her own, raising the binocs to her eyes again. The rangefinder snapped over my visor again, enhancing the sight of the landing transport, along with the Twi'leks and droids filing off into the refinery's main building. One droid with a distinctive orange top paused as the others kept moving, changing directions to hide himself next to the gates, positioned for infiltration. "They're approaching the checkpoint. Get ready, Chop."

I watched him boost himself over the gap in the gates, falling in line with the other droids that had just passed the inspection. He had made it in; now we just had to wait for his signal.

"Droid's inside." I pressed a button on my vambrace, opening the comm channel to begin relaying the information. "Should see the cannons go down any second now.

"Copy that," came Tech's brusque reply from the other side. I kept my attention on Chopper, tracking him with the rangefinder as he darted off into the shadows, disabling the other astromech at the console and beginning to work at it instead. It took only a couple seconds before the wild warnings in Binary exploded from the comm.

"What do you mean it won't work?" Hera demanded into her comm. "You said you could disable the cannons!"

More frantic chatter, followed by a distant, "Hey, you don't belong here!"

Even without the rangefinder I could see the distant white flash of clone armour, indistinct weapons pointed straight at the little droid with the orange head. Dank farrik. It had only been a few minutes. His arm-like appendages raised in surrender, both troopers escorting him away from the console, most likely to their supervisor.

"We have to help Chopper!" Hera hissed to me, putting down the binocs and already starting to get up.

"We will. But first, we need to take that console offline." Omega cut off my response, macrobinoculars focused directly on the large console generator, right in the centre of the refinery's grounds

"Uh, how are we going to do that?"

"I've got it." I rolled back onto my feet, already starting to make my way down the hill. It would be easy enough. Infiltrate the refinery, dodge the troopers on patrol, somehow make it to the console and disable the cannons. Exactly what Hunter wouldn't want me to do, but it's not like we had a whole lot of options anyway. "You two stay here."