A/N: Woah, I know right. Three parts? Well, it's the 21st, which is the day the Bad Batch drops, so in honour of a three episode premiere, I posted three chapters. Hope you enjoyed!
Astera:
"What the hell's a Zillo Beast?"
"Very big, very tough. Even lightsabers can't cut through that hide!" The Zillo Beast in question roared at the sky again and Hunter yanked the Marauder's controls back before we could collide with it, only for the creature to swing its spiked tail into the side of the ship.
The Marauder jarred violently, scraping against the tops of the trees before Hunter was able to regain control and send it soaring after the Zillo Beast again. "Stop it before it gets any larger!" He yelled at Wrecker, still firing on the beast from the gunner's mount.
"I'm trying!"
Memories flashed in my mind, the Zillo Beast on Coruscant squealing in pain as blaster fire found purchase in the chinks of its impenetrable armour, the capsules of poison gas distilled from Malastarian fuel to finally subdue it. "Aim for the gaps in its armour! Those are its weak spots!"
"How do we take it down?" Hunter demanded, forcing the ship to swerve around another swipe from the Zillo Beast, the creature enraged at having its meal interrupted yet again.
"We used stun tanks to put the last one to sleep on Malastare." I hadn't been there personally, but Anakin had told me all about it after its tragic death on Coruscant. But I had seen the gas they had used to take down the Zillo Beast in the end. "And poison gas made from Malastarian fuel to kill it on Coruscant. But we don't have either of those right now!" Not that it would matter anyway - several more blips appeared on Hunter's radar, ships by the look of it, and closing in fast.
"We've got ships on our tail!" Hunter was forced to pull the ship up abruptly as cannon fire exploded around us, the Imperials' ships focused entirely on driving us away from the Zillo Beast rather than containing it themselves. Gonky was knocked off his feet, the droid honking in agitation and his stumpy legs wiggling uselessly in the air.
"Where did they come from?" Wrecker shouted wildly, too stunned to return fire on the Imperials chasing us. Only four of them had broken off to engage us - half the rest had gone for the Zillo Beast, the other half in the direction of the crashed ship. Where Tech and Omega were still investigating.
I fumbled for the comm button at my vambrace, half yelling in my panic as Hunter threw the ship's lever forward, accelerating it even further. "Tech, Omega, you've got Imperials inbound. Get out of there!"
"On our way!" Omega replied immediately. By now Wrecker had recovered enough to start blasting back at the Imperials, clipping the wing of a ship and sending it spiralling into the squadron of V-wing starfighters attempting to intercept us from the front as Hunter hauled the ship upwards again to dodge them. The damaged ship and the V-wing it crashed into both hurtled into the mountainside above the village, briefly illuminating the people below, running in panic and hurriedly searching for safe cover from the firefight in the air above them. A twinge of regret shot through me at the sight - the last thing these villagers had been expecting was a battle right above their home, which was now being destroyed, by the Zillo Beast and us.
"We need to get away from the village." Hunter nodded briefly at my words and directed the ship towards the forest again, circling around to dodge the next round of cannon fire from the gunships still on us. Below, a ship nearly identical to the one that had crashed loomed over the Zillo Beast, firing some kind of ray that clearly seemed to affect it - the Beast screeched in pain and whipped its head around, only to be met with a second blast that knocked it off the now destroyed power generator.
The Zillo Beast was dragging itself to its feet the instant it hit the ground, its movements now laboured and heavy. The weapon was some kind of stun ray, I realised. Designed to do exactly what the stun tanks had done on Malastare, only this ray didn't need to use the Zillo Beast's only weakness.
The ray fired for a third time, hitting the Zillo Beast squarely in the back and sending it crashing to the ground again. Only this time, it didn't get up, the ray exhausting it to the point where it couldn't push itself back up anymore. The unidentifiable ship swooped low over the unmoving Zillo Beast, a grappling claw deploying from underneath and extending towards it.
"They're not killing it." Wrecker's voice was filled with dread, watching the claw snatch the Zillo Beast up and draw it into the ship. "They're taking it!"
"Let's not be next." Hunter sent the Marauder into another spiral as another onslaught of bolts peppered the rear shields, jerking it away from the village and sending it in the direction of the first crashed ship and the remaining V-wings still in pursuit.
Smoke and a distinct orange glow had replaced the darkness where the crashed ship had been, Imperial ships still circling around it with spotlights. It was more than likely they'd bombed it, destroying the secrets of the vessel rather than risk letting them fall into hands other than their own. Which begged the question, what was it for, and why - how - did they have a Zillo Beast? The last one had died on Coruscant, or so I'd thought.
"Astera, we are clear of the vessel and heading to the landing zone," Tech reported, prompting Hunter to swerve again, towards the place where we'd first landed the ship. Three more V-wings were still on our tail, but they were quickly dispatched with a few well placed shots from Wrecker. We'd gained ourselves some precious time to grab Tech and Omega, but they were seconds at best.
Hunter didn't even bother to land the ship, bringing it as close to the ground as he dared while I went for the ramp, jabbing the button and helping Omega into the ship as Tech pulled her onto the steps. No sooner than they were safely inside and strapped in, Hunter pulled away from the planet's surface, and shot for the clouds, three more V-wings having discovered our location and giving chase.
The Empire's efforts to take us down were almost half-hearted, I noticed, only the minimal amount of V-wings staying on us until we shot into hyperspace and left them behind. Almost like they were trying to chase us off rather than actually take us down. We hadn't been their priority this time around. Retaking the Zillo Beast had. And I needed to know why. But until Tech could decode the encryption of the files he'd downloaded, I was stuck waiting for answers, like the rest of us.
"What's wrong?" Hunter reached a hand out and settled it on my thigh, gently but insistently stilling the bouncing of my leg. Normally I would have made some silly little reaction like a blush, but right now, I was too invested in figuring out why the hell the Empire had another Zillo Beast.
"I- How-," The ability to form words had eluded me, and I threw up my hands with a frustrated noise. "The Zillo Beast is supposed to be extinct. The last one wrecked half of Coruscant when Palpatine decided to bring it back for experimentation. But it died on Coruscant. I watched it happen. There's no way there could be others-" My face dropped as the thought occurred to me. "He cloned it. Palpatine cloned the Zillo Beast."
"That does appear to be the case," Tech interjected from his seat in front of the screens. "The crashed vessel was part of an Imperial cloning operation."
"The Empire cloned the Zillo Beast?" Hunter repeated my words in disbelief, staring at the decrypted files Tech had pulled up.
"Yes, and no." Tech switched files, showing what I assumed was detailed information on the Zillo Beast's genetic information. I couldn't understand half the words in the report, but it was easy enough to read the phrase "impenetrable armoured scales, capable of resisting lightsaber attacks.' "The directive came straight from the Supreme Chancellor before he became Emperor."
"What's he want with it?" Wrecker leaned against the table, nearly flinching in surprise when I shoved away from my seat in disgust, only to begin pacing up and down the ship.
"Palpatine wanted it brought back as soon as he learned how tough its armour was. The scientists on Coruscant were trying to take samples of it before it broke free and went berserk. He probably wanted to use it as a weapon."
"The creature's genetic material does have the potential to be weaponized," Tech confirmed again, staring intently at the Zillo Beast's information, "in the hands of the right scientist."
Hunter leaned over his shoulder, scanning the report as well. "Where were they taking the creature?"
"Unknown. The ship did not have a destination logged." Something in Tech's eyes sparked, and he looked up at Hunter, his mouth set in a thin, serious line. "Hunter, there is far more to this than we realised. From what I have gathered, I suspect the Empire did not destroy the cities on Kamino to end cloning-"
"They wanted to take control of it," I finished grimly for him.
Bleak, thick silence fell over the ship at that. As usual, all eyes had gone to Hunter, who had stalked for the opposite end of the ship, shoulders tense. All I could see was the back of his head, yet somehow I could easily visualise his pinched expression, torn between leaving this problem to someone else or bringing us all into this fight. He was done with fighting in someone's war, I knew that much. But this was his home, all of their home, that we were talking about. If it had been Mandalore destroyed instead, I was sure I would have felt similarly.
"Send the data to Echo and Rex," he said eventually. "See what they can find out."
The implication behind those words was clear. As long as we could help it, we weren't getting involved. There might be a bigger conspiracy at hand here, but Hunter wanted no part in it. Judging from the wide eyed, anxious gaze of the young clone in the gun pod, it was very clear why. And I couldn't find it in myself to blame him.