Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

94:

Astera:

Night had fallen over the polluted swamp when the stream finally diverged, both paths snaking off into the trees in opposite directions. The flow of the river had slowed so much it was almost stagnant now, and we were still too far out for me to sense Sylar's presence in our vicinity. Hunter's frustration was building - even he couldn't find anything that would allow him to pick up Sylar's track again. We'd hit a dead end.

"Well, tracker?" Fennec demanded from the back of the skiff when he straightened from the edge of the boat, lifting his macrobinocs to his visor and scanning the river for anything useful. "Which direction?"

"The currents are too calm to tell."

She cast an eye in my direction, almost like she wanted to say something directly to me, but apparently thought better of it and addressed the clones again. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you guys aren't cut out for this job."

It was clearly meant to goad us into a reaction, but Wrecker took the bait anyway, twisting to pin her with a glare. "Oh? You think you could do better without us?"

"I wouldn't be doing any worse."

"Even Omega got away from you."

"Apparently she got away from you too." Well, she had him there. Wrecker looked away with a quiet grunt - something Fennec noticed immediately, her head cocking to the side slightly and her next words surprisingly softer. "So what happened with the kid?"

"What's it to you?"

"Just seems odd." She was deceptively casual despite my snappy retort, but I could still feel the curiosity emanating off her, along with the infuriating superiority underlying it. "You're all willing to work for me, considering our... past. That information must really be important to you. And just so you know," she added in Wrecker's direction. "I let her go when the bounty was called off."

"By who?" Hunter finally lowered the macrobinoculars, tossing a clearly suspicious look over his shoulder.

"The client. They thought Omega would be safer with you." She scoffed quietly. "Guess they were wrong about that."

And whatever mild sense of civility had overtaken her was gone as quickly as it had appeared. We needed her, I knew that, but it didn't mean she wasn't irritating to the point I was almost tempted to Force-push her off the boat to join the reptiles. See how she liked it.

"And I guess you'll work for anybody as long as you get paid." Wrecker jabbed his blaster towards her, the derisive scorn clear in every word. But she only shrugged, completely unperturbed by his judgemental remarks.

"Good guys, bad guys. Their money's all the same."

"Well, money's not everything," Hunter told her, turning back to scan the waters again through his binocs. He was just as done with her as Wrecker and I were, but out of all of us, he was probably the most willing to put up with her snark. Being that desperate to find out what 'M-Count' was.

"That's 'cause you don't have any."

I snorted from the side of the boat. "Figures a bounty hunter wouldn't care about anything else."

"And I suppose you'd know all about bounty hunters?"

"I've met enough to know you're all the same."

"You don't know a lot then."

"Someone came through here." Hunter cut across me before I could fire off another sarcastic comment I'd probably regret later, gesturing to some distant point down the river, just barely visible under the cover of darkness. "Veer starboard up ahead."