Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

96:

Astera:

"You've got a bounty on your head," Echo confirmed. "And it's a live one too. Information is limited, but as far as I can tell, you're wanted for questioning by someone high up in the Empire."

Dank farrik. That wasn't good. But precisely why I'd asked Echo to look into it for me alone - the others wouldn't react well to finding this out, Hunter especially. He was worried enough about Omega and figuring out what 'M-Count' was. I didn't want to burden him with this as well.

"I more or less expected that." I grimaced. "Not surprising that I'd be a high profile target."

"That's not all, either," he continued. "You remember that data puck we recovered from the shadow? I got a chance to comb through it a little more thoroughly and found something Fireball missed in his first search. It looks like Omega's not the only one that needs to lay low anymore."

If the bounty had been bad, the still that replaced Echo's blue silhouette meant something even worse. I inhaled sharply at the sight of it - it was almost exactly like the one of Omega that had appeared when Rex first showed us the data puck. Only this one wasn't of Omega.

"Any idea why I'm on that list?" I stared at the grainy image of myself flickering on the hologram. It was an old one - the paint job on my armour was still wholly intact - and probably adapted from a holorecording, but it was me. There was no mistaking the patterns of my helmet, or the hilts of the lightsabers on the still's belt.

"The shadows are the Empire's top agents." Echo reappeared on the comm with a grim expression. "You're also labelled as 'retrieve alive and unharmed.' Whatever information they think you have must be valuable."

If I had to make my best guess, whoever wanted me alive wanted information on any other surviving Jedi. One Jedi living through the massacre would be enough to make the Empire paranoid there were more. It was the only thing I could think of, at least. "And you're sure no one else is on it?"

He shook his head. "Only you and Omega."

Again, I'd thought as much after Fireball had told Crosshair he wasn't on it, but I had to ask. Just to be sure. "Alright. Thanks, Echo. And uh... don't mention it to Hunter or the others yet, will you? I'll tell them myself."

"You have my word." He saluted and ended the call, hologram fizzling out and leaving me alone in the darkened cockpit. I leaned back in the pilot's seat, rubbing a hand along Hunter's headband on my wrist with a heavy sigh. I'd known the risks of using my lightsabers in front of so many Imperials. On Tarkin's home planet, no less. But I'd done it anyway, and here we were. We were stressed enough trying to figure out Omega's relation to these M-Count experiments, but now that I had a target on my back wherever we went? That was just another weight on top of something that was doing our heads in trying to unravel.

Tech would have figured it out by now. I jumped to my feet as soon as the familiar sting of guilt speared through my chest, nearly stumbling in my haste to get to the entrance before the memories could join it. I'd been alone with my thoughts too long again.

Cleex had already disappeared by the time I emerged from the ship, but the plethora of increasingly bigger items we'd been moving around with the Force all morning had finally been arranged in a neat stack next to the landing ramp, like I'd asked him to do when Echo's comm had come through. Omega also wasn't here - we'd doubled down on her combat training after Teth and it was supposed to be my lesson today - but she'd insisted on giving Batcher a walk first. That had been more than an hour ago.

"I'm going to go look for the kid." I activated my wrist comm, opening the channel to Hunter and the others on the other side of the island. "She's been gone a while."