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xxi.
betrayals
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•••
"You said I could get off these machines in a few hours," Omega said, sighing. "It's been twelve hours."
"I said that you could if you were lucky," Tech replied. "It's safer if we keep you on the medication for a couple more days."
"But I'm tired of being bedridden," Omega said. "I just want to explore this new ship."
"You're not missing anything, trust me. It's just as boring as the last one."
"The last one wasn't boring."
"Right, I forgot you think everything is interesting," Tech muttered to himself. "Even dirt."
"If you were stuck on an ocean planet your entire life you'd also find dirt interesting," Omega said. "Now please, just let me go explore. I'm bored."
"It's better to be safe than sorry. I don't want you to get worse again. And I don't want Hunter to kill me."
"Do you really care that much? Or do you just not want Hunter to kill you because you know he'll actually go through with it now?" Omega snapped, knowing what Tech would say.
"Both, but mostly the latter," Tech replied.
"You know what?" Omega said, sitting up, clearly frustrated. "I'm a medic. And I say it's time I get off these machines." She undid the IV from her arm, and just as she was about to take the breathing tube out of her nose, Tech grabbed her arm, stopping her. He put the IV needle back in her arm, and sat down next to her.
"Omega, you're not thinking straight. You can't sacrifice your own health just because you want to explore. That's not how it work-"
Tech was interrupted by a static noise. At first he couldn't tell where it was coming from, then he realized it was coming from his comm link. He took his comm link out of his pocket and turned it on.
"Tech!" he heard Hunter yell. Since they were so far apart, he could barely hear Hunter.
"Aren't we only supposed to communicate under emergencies?" Tech asked, confused on why Hunter had decided to communicate, and with such urgency as well.
"They're coming for you guys. Make sure they don't report your post," Hunter replied through the comm link.
"You couldn't keep them away?" Tech asked back, angrily.
"Obviously not!" Hunter yelled. "Look, just keep Omega safe. That's all that matters."
"Not my own safety?" Tech responded sarcastically.
"You know what I meant, Tech."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Now just focus on not getting killed."
Tech put his comm link away, and turned to Omega. Her face was filled with worry.
"Kid," Tech said. "You got lucky." Tech removed both the IV and the breathing tube. "Go explore. When you explore, no one can find you anywhere. Let's use that to our advantage this time. Run. Hide. Stay safe."
"What about you?" Omega whispered, hopping off the bed.
"I can hold them off for a while. You just need to hide. Go, Omega. Don't come out until I come looking for you. Got it?"
Omega hesitated for a second, then nodded, understanding what she had to do. She took Lula, and ran out of the room. Tech stayed in the chair, and held his head with his hand. He knew it was going to be a while before any troopers arrived, so he decided that it would be best to take some time to think about a plan before they did come. But the plan was simple. He couldn't hide, that would just lead to the squadron the empire was sending to turn over the entire ship, searching every inch. He had to fight. Fend them off for as long as he could. That's the only way he could keep himself and Omega safe. So he waited.
And waited.
Until he heard the footsteps start coming down the halls.
Only getting louder as time went on.
As he heard the footsteps of the troopers coming closer, he held his breath, taking his gun out of its holster, holding it tight to his chest. Then suddenly, the footsteps stopped. He still kept his blaster where it was, in case they were close. But then he heard voices. He could tell they were clones, due to the light accents. It sounded like they were arguing. One voice he couldn't recognize. The other, however, he recognized almost immediately.
"We've searched the entire ship," Tech heard one of the voices say. "Let's just turn back. Report that Tech and the girl are actually dead."
"We still have yet to check the medical bay," he heard the other voice say. "Once we check there, then we can leave."
Tech knew the voice that was trying to reason with the other one.
It was Cody.
He knew Cody well, since he went on many missions with him during the war. He could try to reason with him. He put his gun back in his holster, and stood up from the chair, making his way towards the door of the hospital area of the medical bay. He opened the door that led to the general area, where he and the other members of the batch were mostly during the time that they were all together. Tech knew that the squadron that Crosshair sent was behind the door that led to the maze of hallways. He walked towards it, and put his finger on the button to open the door. He took a deep breath, and pressed the button. The door slid open, revealing the abnormally large squadron that laid right before his eyes.
"Cody?" Tech asked, trying to act surprised. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"We're here to get you and the girl," Wolffe said, before Cody had the chance to respond. "Crosshair said he only needs the girl alive. With you, however, he said can do whatever is necessary."
"So you came here to kill me?"
"Wolffe, maybe we should go," Cody said. "We'll just report back that we didn't see anything."
"I suggest you listen to Cody," Tech said. "Or else it won't end well for either of you. And your squadron."
"I'm going to execute orders, no matter how it's done," Wolffe replied, holding up his gun and pointing it at Tech. "It's what has to be done. Clone Force 99 betrayed the empire."
Tech took his gun out of his holster and pointed it towards Wolffe. "Don't test me."
"I don't want to be a part of this," Cody said, bending down and putting the gun on the floor. He stood up, and held his hands up above his head. "It's not right."
"Are you a traitor too, Cody?" Wolffe asked sternly, regripping the gun that was still pointed towards Tech.
"I'm just saying, is this really necessary?" Cody asked. "We don't need to kill them."
"That's true," Wolffe said, putting his gun away, turning to Tech. "If you surrender yourself and the girl now, no harm will be brought to either of you. Final offer."
"And I will not be taking that offer," Tech said, continuing to hold up his blaster towards Wolffe. Wolffe took his gun back out, and pointed it back at Tech.
"You'll regret that."
"Oh please, you won't do anything-"
Before Tech could finish his sentence, Wolffe opened fire, shooting Tech in the shoulder. Then everything was fair game. The other troopers started firing at Tech, while Tech started to retreat back into the medical bay to shield himself. One thing was for certain. He needed to tell Cody to leave. That was his only chance of survival.
"Leave, Cody. Report that you didn't see anything. Please," Tech begged. "Please."
"What about the dead troopers? Crosshair will ask about them."
"There's creatures inside these ships. Say you got lost and they were eaten. Go," Tech managed to say, struggling to keep the troopers off of him. It was twenty to one, and usually he'd be fine, if these were droids. But they weren't. They were his brothers. Normally, he'd just stun them, so the guilt wouldn't follow, however, this time they weren't on enemy territory. If he did stun them, they would wake up, and continue to chase after himself and Omega. And he had to keep Omega safe at all costs.
The only solution was to kill the troopers. To kill his own brothers.
Tech was a skilled fighter, having mastered almost every technique in the books. He was able to kill two of the troopers fairly quickly, cutting down the number of troopers he had to fight from twenty to eighteen. Each shot he fired caused more and more guilt to fill his heart. It was like the mission on Umbara that Rex had told them about. Brothers killing brothers. But, what made it worse was that he wasn't following the orders of a traitorous Jedi. He was doing this on his own accord. Did he have to? Yes. It doesn't mean it wouldn't stay with him forever though.
As the fighting went on, Tech saw that Cody and Wolffe's squadron had clearly come unprepared, causing more troopers to resort to hand to hand combat. Thankfully, it was only around five to one now, instead of twenty to one, so Tech had a chance to survive. When that started to happen, he felt one of the troopers jab something into his neck, what felt like to be a needle. His hand held the part of his neck where the needle had been. He winced in pain, trying not to fall to his knees.
That's when he realized what it was that the trooper had injected into him.
It was poison.
One that Tech himself had developed during the Clone War, however, it was so dangerous that the republic couldn't use it on the enemy. How it worked was quite simple. One person would inject the poison into another person's neck or arm. The latter person could feel the poison enter the bloodstream. It was that strong. After a few hours, the pain would be gone. However, the side effects were awful. Loss of all appetite, extreme fatigue, hallucinations, dizziness, amongst other things. What was puzzling was how the empire got ahold of the poison in the first place. If he had to guess, Crosshair had introduced Rampart to it, and knowing that the empire is much more cruel and ruthless than the republic, especially Rampart, they decided to mass produce it as a weapon against traitors.
Although the pain was becoming too much to bear, he had to continue fighting. He was so close to defeating them. But before any more fighting could ensue, Wolffe gave the troopers an order, one that gave Tech much relief.
"Retreat!" Wolffe commanded the three remaining troopers. Tech leaned against the wall, holding his neck with one arm and his side with the other. He could feel that he had broken at least one rib, if not two. Blood trickled down his nose, seeping into his mouth. And his arm. Amidst all the fighting, he forgot that his arm was shot. He knew that other areas of his face and body had injuries, but the ones mentioned above hurt so badly that he couldn't even feel the other ones.
"You got lucky, traitor," Wolffe hissed. "Next time I'll aim for your head."
"If there is a next time," Tech said, using any little bit of strength he had left.
Wolffe shook his head. "You're right. The poison will be enough to do you in." With that, he and his three troopers left, most likely to meet up with Cody.
Tech fell to his knees, grabbing the side of his neck. He could already feel the poison taking effect. He didn't know how to fix it. He didn't create an anecdote for it, since it was never put to use by the republic. His best idea at that moment was to just ignore it, and keep Omega safe if any more troopers came.
He ignored the very thing that would cause his downfall.
The straw that broke the camel's back.