FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

Bonus Chapter Three: Echo, Hunter, and Wrecker "Aftermath"

THIRD PERSON POV

Finally...Fern faded into a deep sleep, her body tucked into a fetal position up in the gunner's mount. She'd wrapped her bomber jacket around her right arm and pressed her temple into the crook. The stringed lights glowed orange and yellow, cascading a warm setting upon the distressed clone. It also highlighted her tear-stained cheeks... Hunter feared if he reached over and attempted to clean her face, she'd wake up.

After draping a thin blanket over her, he stepped down the few ladder rungs and silently walked away. He trudged his way through each cabin of the Marauder, the ship that had been not only their mode of transportation during and after the Clone Wars, but their residence by default before they arrived on Pabu.

And yet...the sergeant did not recognize it. He felt like a stranger in this ship. He could not recall how to operate the computer system, nor where each of their supplies and belongings were stored. There were brief blips in which he did not know how to pilot—not in general, just this one. There was only one memory that lingered on everything his intense, dark eyes gazed upon...

Tech's gone...and yet, he's everywhere...

And Omega...her carefree spirit that once filled the entire ship had diminished...

"I once told her we can't save everyone..." Fern had sighed as she had climbed sluggishly up into the gunner's mount. "I never imagined...I'd be referring to our own..."

As he'd watch her situate herself on her side, grasping and cradling Omega's Lula doll to her chest, Hunter's eyes creased in pain. As much as he wanted to comfort her, at this point it seemed redundant...not to mention the sentiment was blinded by the fact she'd kept such an unthinkable and incomprehendible secret for months...

Safa Toma. He deduced that was when Athena revealed herself to Fern, for afterwards, that was when the nightmares began. Where all Fern's anxiety boiled up from and has been simmering inside her ever since. There had been recurring spikes—particularly the time Cid had contacted them after escaping Ipsidon and spoke to Fern privately... By the Force, did that mean Cid already knew about Athena Quinn?...

Fern really did trust their former employer more than he bargained for... All that persistence to cut ties, and yet, she still confided to the Trandoshan over him.

Hunter did not know whether to feel offended, angry, or hurt.

He joined Echo and Wrecker in the darkened cockpit and seated himself across the former in the co-pilot's chair. The splendor of hyperspace flooded through the viewport.

"Is she asleep?"

"Yeah, Wrecker," the sergeant nodded. "hopefully she'll stay that way for at least a few hours...but knowing her, she is contemplating a lot in her mind right now. All that has happened...and what is to come."

"If Life can remove someone you never dreamed of losing," Echo murmured, his eyes fixated on the console. "it can replace them with someone you never dreamt of having."

"Why do you think Fern never told us?" Wrecker inquired in a serious tone.

"Whatever her reason was, it was to protect us." Hunter sighed.

"Or," Echo grimaced. "she didn't trust us we could handle it."

"I don't know," Wrecker frowned. "we did have a lot going on. I think Hunter is right."

"All this time," The sergeant shook his head, propping up his elbow on his knee and resting his chin in his cupped palm. "I never pushed her to tell me. But I could have never predicted this..."