Fixing Our Broken Pieces || The Bad Batch

Chapter 4: Suspicions Rise

On the way back to the ship, Hunter's mind raced around his mysterious new friend. Her words sparked back to him, such as "most of the Jedi" and "helped people like me" she knew his name, what was strange object on her belt, where did she go when she went into the forest? Nothing about her made sense. He remembered looking for a split second at the small golden glow from her blade. Did it look so much like a lightsaber? He was so in his head he almost tripped over a large branch that had been chopped down from a tree.

"Hunter!" Tech grabbed Hunter's shoulder, freezing him over a .

"That wasn't there before?" He distinctly remembered tredding through a clear path, it was a pretty sizeable branch not to miss the first time. Tech watched Hunter kneel down to observe the ends of the deadly bough. Burnt marks sizzled around the edges, marks not caused by fire.

"Alright, Hunter what is it with you, you should have seen that from 10 klicks away, it isn't like you to be this distracted."

Ignoring Tech, Hunter gazed back up at the bough's original position. It was cut down from a tree that was tightly packed by others around it. If anyone were to climb up there, they would need to cut their way through to get across.

"Look at how perfectly this branch had been cut off from its tree."

The other members caught up to Tech and Hunter.

"So what?" Wrecker joined in.

"So, Tech, did you see what was on that girl's belt? The one with Saw? Did you see how defensive she got when we mentioned the Jedi? Or what about that crystal around her neck?"

After a few clicks, Tech quickly pulled out a hologram image of the crystal with his datapad,

"I must admit I was curious about that crystal too. What I do know is that the crystal she possesses is most definitely a kyber crystal. A kyber memory crystal to be exact, one used by the Jedi to unlock Holocrons. A Holocron is a cube object that has information regarding the Jedi such as lightsaber training, force techniques and general knowledge regarding their training. The information was usually recovered by another Jedi but the owner can also upload whatever they wish onto it."

Hunter watched the small image of the crystal circle in place, "who else had possession of these crystals?"

"I can imagine only the Jedi were given access to that. It doesn't necessarily tell us that this person is a Jedi as a Holocron has been stolen by a bounty hunter before but a Holocron can only be opened by a Jedi, so it's a possibility. But I do know that it was a responsibility for a Jedi to protect the memory crystal as well as its Holocron, and they would do that by keeping the crystal on them. Like a necklace."

"I've never seen her before," Echo cut in, "if she was good enough to beat a surprise attack from a squaran a clones, I would have seen her with other masters I'm sure I would have. It seems like she has been working for these people for a while and it's barely been a few days since... you know." 

Hunter watched Crosshair finish daydreming around the forest and started walking back up to them. Hunter pushed tech's arm down to turn off the holocron. Once he turned around he understood and everyone went silent. 

"What's going on," Crosshair caught on to the silence.

"Nothing, just waiting for you. Lets go," Huner smoothly answered and they all moved on down the forest. Crosshair was forced to leave his thoughts and follow along. With every tree, they passed Crosshair was getting more and more irritated, sighing and huffing every now and again.

"We needed to complete the mission," Crosshair finally cracked. Hunter stopped to turn around who was also starting to crack.

"When will you wake up Crosshair? They sent us to eliminate innocent civilians."

"What about that girl you kept staring at? She didn't even give you her name, that
doesn't seem so innocent."

"What's wrong with you!" Hunter shouted back, pushing Crosshair back.

"Me? I'm following orders. Those insurgents are plotting against the Emperor. If you don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done, then you're not fit to lead this squad." Crosshair bit into a toothpick, while Hunter stared back intensely. He felt a small probe droid coming their way while Crosshair was too busy trying to win their staring competition. A snap of a branch signalled the droid was a little too close, he brought out his blaster and shot past Cosshair's neck where the droid fell from above.

"We're being followed." 

☆☆☆

Orla's stare followed the Havoc Marauder off into the stars while keeping a wondering eye on the homing beacon which was thankfully still intact. They hadn't caught her yet. Saw stayed close behind her, waiting to hear her plan.

"I gonna wait until they make a jump off Kamino, for now, I guess I'll stay here a bit longer." Orla went to stroll back to her ship but was caught by Saw's arm.

"Stay? You know we're leaving, if you come with us you won't be able to follow them, it's not safe here anymore."

"I'll figure something out," she reassured, retreating to her ship. She sat on her bed in her quarters, conflicting on what she should do. Saw was right, it was't safe to stay with a group that's already being hunted by the Empire. She closed her eyes, expecting nothing to happen, but her radio received a transmission from a familiar voice. 

"Orla, I hope this code is still valid, I need your help. Hopefully you may already know that the clones are being controlled by an inhibitor chip to hunt down and kill the Jedi. If no then our next conversation won' be a fun one. These chips were put into us by the Kaminoans at birth. Fives discovered them but we were only told they were behavioral chips; be was killed because of his conspirices. I hope your still out these, and I hope our contact doesn't put you at risk. But the Jedi are gone and I don't know what else to do. Right now I'm on Saleucami with a friend, he's a clone but you don't have to worry about his chip. Find me at these coordinates." As the transmission ended and Rex's hologram figure disappeared and a patch of coordinates popped up in the navigation system.