FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R S I X T Y-T W O

Her dark eyes bored into the elite clone. He stood his ground, though, knotting his arms across his chest. "A mission's a mission, Athena. I'm just following orders."

"Oh, how original." The bounty hunter rolled her eyes as she dryly laughed. Her blood began to boil as her tone thickened acutely with agitation. "Just-just—mmm—Enlighten me, Crosshair," She clenched her jaw as she pinched the air in between them with her index finger and thumb. "what good is being a 'good soldier' if you are discarded on a suicide mission, huh? What good does it serve you if you are dead? For the sake of the Force, Crosshair, you derived from the one squad who was critically acclaimed during the war for deviating from standard procedures such as 'following orders'... Is your pride really that important to you?"

"What can I say?" Crosshair shrugged, ignoring the blatant reminder of his former squad. "It's in my nature to be severe and unyielding. Can't change what I am."

Athena fell silent. Her jaw relaxed. Her eyes broadened while her lips parted. Crosshair found her suddenly altered disposition eerily calming. She approached him slowly, and he remained unmoved when she parked herself toe to toe with him. Placing her hand on his knotted forearms, Athena's neck arched back at a ninety-degree angle to gaze into his toasted-amber eyes. Their close proximity fabricated an inner aura that surged in his chest, fueling his accelerated heartbeat. Her cheeks glowed almost as red as her lips. They were only mere inches from his; if he leaned down anymore... Her breath brushed over his chin as she sighed solumnly, "Who told you that?"

The elite clone swallowed the lump forming in his throat as his mind rewound to when he last saw his brothers, escaping Kamino through the underwater tunnel...

"Crosshair has always been severe and unyielding. It is his nature. You cannot change that. He cannot change that." Tech had said.

"Why are you defending me?" Crosshair recalled asking the spectacled clone.

"I am not. Understanding you does not mean that I agree with you."

"It doesn't matter." he said.

"Crosshair," Athena called to him. "If you and I are truly going by what our nature is..." The soldier's chest swelled as she backed away slowly. Her eye contact never wavered. The euphoric aura dispersed and was replaced with one that radiated acumenity. "then does that make me a merciless killer driven by bloodlust?"

"That doesn't count." Crosshair defended. "That side of you...is a trigger. It is not your nature."

"Regardless, I don't think we should allow our natures to define us. We clones have already lost too much of our identity as it is...I know I am not the same woman I was before I met you—dank ferrik, I am not the same woman because of you! But there are things I've clung onto: one being I am not obligated to listen to anyone nor do I tolerate anyone telling me who I am supposed to be just because of my origins.

"That uniform," Athena jabbed a finger at Crosshair's armor. "does not define you anymore than whatever 'nature' was bestowed upon us in creation. Every time you put that bloody helmet on, you lose yourself to that factitious imperial ideology the Empire has brainwashed you with. You willingly accept the audacious neglect of clones to the point you are numb. A droid is more sentient than you when you succumb to th-this side of you. This uniform has trapped you, and I'm telling you...if you just—What is it going to take to break you? What has to snap in order for you to decide when enough is enough? This," She pointed to the floor, referring to the situation they both stood in at that moment. "is mine."

Crosshair stared at her intensely. Her words reached him. He was pondering over his own. Athena recognized this, and waited patiently. For both of the defective clones, the silence in their ears was drowned by their inner turmoil to speak freely to one another...