Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

80:

The faint sounds of branches rustling had both Hunter and I stopping, the clone raising his fist to stop Wrecker behind us. "We're not alone."

We spoke at the same, my hands creeping for my holsters and resting on the handles of my guns. His enhancements and my Force sensitivity had always meant we were able to sense things coming before the others, but as of late we'd been weirdly in sync, our warnings to Wrecker coming in tandem.

"You guys have to stop doing that. It's getting creepy." Nevertheless, Wrecker raised his blaster, barrel pointing into the trees in search of a target. I cast my senses out once again, feeling for the presences I knew were around now. All I could tell was that they were distinctly human, and they were very close by.

"Freeze!" A heavy accent and a makeshift weapon were all I registered before the first boy leaped down from above. The second one dropped down on our other side, boxing us in against the trees. They were young, close to Omega's age, and familiar. I'd seen their faces before.

"Drop your weapons!" His own was nothing more than a sharpened stick, and Wrecker only laughed, holding up his blaster a little higher.

Blaster beats stick, kid."

"Wrecker." Hunter admonished the other clone, lowering his blaster and throwing a hand out to stop him before he did anything reckless. "They're regs."

"Cadets?" I dropped my own arms, straightening in surprise. That would explain why they looked identical, and how I knew their faces. I'd seen the same face on Kamino several times before. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

"And who are you?" The first boy ignored my question and jabbed his sharpened stick towards us a little more insistently, prompting both clones to put away their own blasters and take off their helmets.

"We're clones," Hunter told him. "Same as you."

"You don't look like clones," the first boy said suspiciously, refusing to drop his stick. The other one, however, seemed to recognise them - his eyes widened and the makeshift weapon dipped, the cadet's defensive stance relaxing only slightly.

"They must be 99s. Defective."

"Defective and effective!" Wrecker announced proudly. I rolled my eyes at his grin, holstering my blasters and folding my arms, which drew the cadets' attention to me again.

"What about her?" The one in front of Wrecker jerked his stick towards me, still unconvinced. I kept my hands flat and open as I slowly raised them to my helmet, lifting it off my head and tucking it under my arm.

"Not a clone, but I'm no threat either."

"What are you two doing out here?" Hunter repeated my earlier question, both boys sharing a look instantly with a scowl.

"What's it look like?" The first cadet snorted. "Surviving. Or trying to. No thanks to the Empire."

"They send you to finish us off?" The second one brandished his stick again at the thought,

"Do we look like we're with the Empire?" Wrecker gestured almost incredulously down to his coloured and thoroughly abused armour. With the Empire indeed. We looked more like a bunch of pirates than soldiers at this point.

"What do you want?"

"We're looking for a young girl," I answered, shifting my helmet under my arm. "She's a clone. We think she was sent to the lab there."

Their defensive stances finally relaxed fully at the news we weren't here for them, the blades of their makeshift weapons moving away from us. "Never saw anyone like that," one of the cadets said truthfully. "But Mox might know about her."