Astera:
The crag was further than I'd expected - night had fallen by the time the lights from the cave that formed the cadet's shelter finally became visible. It couldn't have come sooner. If the jungle had been ominous before, the darkness made it downright terrifying, each creak of branches and rustle of wind sounding like the slither vines returning to attack us. My hands now felt permanently glued to my lightsabers, Force-enhanced senses on high alert the whole trek up and reacting to every little noise in the distance.
Only one other clone cadet was in the cave, stoking a low burning fire. It was just the three of them here. I couldn't help but wonder again how long they'd been here for, and how exactly they'd managed to survive with no supplies and sharpened sticks as their only defence against the slither vines.
"Mox." The third cadet looked up as Deke and Stak entered the cave, only to jerk backwards in shock and surge to his feet when he registered us following in after them. He was slightly older than the other two - closer to the age clones were normally deployed at, and I couldn't help but wonder how close he'd been to preparing to ship out for his first battle before the war had ended.
"Who are they?" He demanded, brandishing the broken pike he'd used to stir the fire.
"Clones. And a Jedi," Stak added as an afterthought. "We found them by the overlook."
We took off our helmets to prove it, Wrecker's eyes sweeping the cave appraisingly. "It's quite a place you got here," he whistled in approval. Even I had to admit, they'd done pretty well for themselves, considering their circumstances. Their cave was well sheltered, away from the elements - and the slither vines - and most importantly, close to a water source we passed by on our way up. I couldn't remember if clone training on Kamino had involved wilderness survival with nothing to rely on but your own wits, but either way, it was impressive.
"What do you want?" Mox didn't seem as inclined to pleasantries as we were, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"We're looking for a young girl." Hunter told him as the boy took a seat again. "She was taken by an Imperial named Hemlock. Her name's Omega."
"Never saw a girl around the lab." Mox's brow furrowed in thought, stabbing his pike into the fire again. "But I know Hemlock. He was in charge... until things changed."
"What happened?" I was almost afraid to ask - we'd seen the aftermath, but there was always more when it came to the Empire.
"One day the Imperials started packing up and shipped out. So we made our move and escaped."
"We were the only ones who made it out before the orbital bombardment." Deke said mournfully.
Stak's fists clenched on his knees at the memories. "Even the clone troopers left us to die. Said they were following orders."
It was the look of betrayal on all their faces that really hit hard. The clones had always considered each other family and treated every clone they met as such. So for the cadets to be left to certain death by those they called brother... that had to hurt them in a way I couldn't even imagine. Not to mention all the others they'd surely been forced to leave behind.
"We get it." Wrecker's face darkened too. "We've lost people too."
'When have we ever followed orders?' I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat and pushed past Hunter and Wrecker, needing to say something to distract myself from the memories. "We can take you someplace safe. But we need to find out if Omega was here or where Hemlock took her." And just hope that it was the latter option. I wouldn't let myself think about the first one. "There has to be some intel in that base."
Deke hesitated as though debating whether or not he should answer before just going for it. "One of the control room panels was still intact during our last scout. I tried to use it to send a signal, but there was no power."
"Can you take us there?" Hunter asked immediately, prompting Stak to shoot him a look that clearly said he thought he was crazy.
"No way! That area's covered in slither vines. It's toxic."
"We've got that part handled." I tapped the lightsabers at my belt - Mox's eyes widened a fraction of an inch when he took them in, and he almost seemed to rethink his response, only for caution to win out and he stood again, shaking his head.
"Stak's right. Going near those ruins is a suicide mission. You're on your own."
"They need help, Mox," Deke cut in with a disapproving look directed at his brother. "I'll go with them."
All either of them could do was stare in open shock as Deke opened their only crate of belongings, retrieving a torch before picking up his weapon and moving for the cave's entrance. Though I couldn't blame them. After surviving so long by avoiding all danger, running headlong into it was a move nothing short of crazy.
"You know the risks of going down there!" Stak shouted in a last ditch effort to talk some sense into Deke while I jammed my helmet back on and started out the cave after him. Deke paused only for a second before continuing on without a word, his expression grimly determined.
"I can get you inside the ruins," he told us when the lights of the cave had disappeared from sight and we were swallowed by the jungle canopy again with only our flashlights and my lightsaber blade to cut through the darkness. "But you won't be able to get anything from the console without a power source."
"We got that part covered. Just need to grab something from our ship." Wrecker could only mean Gonky, but carrying him in was going to be a chore. Not to mention the droid was defective, so we'd only have minutes to find what we were looking for.
"This clone you're looking for..." Deke began hesitantly.
"Omega." I corrected without looking back, eyes trained on the forest around me. I could still feel the presence of the slither vines around me, almost like they were watching us, and they weren't friendly at all. It didn't help that I couldn't see them at all - despite Obi-Wan's extensive training, I still liked to be able to see my enemy. The apprehensive feeling alone was enough to have me power on one of my lightsabers before we'd descended the mountain, the yellow glow dimly illuminating our surroundings and easing my worries slightly.
"How long has she been gone?"
"Too long," Hunter sighed. "But we're not giving up."
"I wish the other clones felt that way about us." The young clone's head fell forward dejectedly. "You may be defective CTs, but at least you're loyal."
"It's not their fault." I paused and lowered the lightsaber I held, feeling some strange compulsion to reassure him. "Their behaviour's been programmed by inhibitor chips. If it was their choice, they wouldn't have left you behind."
"Maybe." He didn't sound so convinced, and I fell quiet and started moving again, the silence broken only by the humming of my blade and occasional rustling of leaves as we brushed past them.
Before long, the Marauder was in view again, the ramp lowering by courtesy of Gonky. Deke was immediately drawn to the ship's severely beaten up hull, passing his torch over the several scorch marks, scratches and dents with a look of awe on his face while Wrecker disappeared into the ship to grab the defective power droid.
"Woah! Your ship has seen some action."
"Mostly during the war," Hunter affirmed with a shrug. "And some after."
"Some would be an understatement." The action we'd seen in the past year was probably nothing compared to what the Batch had faced in the Clone Wars - and subsequently the ship - but most of the damage looked more than recent. "We've been through a lot."
"I thought, one day, I'd be flying these on a mission." Deke gave no indication he'd heard us at all, reaching up to brush his fingers against the carbon scoring and inspecting the black soot it left behind with a sober expression. "A lot's changed."
Hunter stared at the boy's back, datapad forgotten in his hands and looking almost like he wanted to say something, but before he could, Wrecker re-emerged from the Marauder's entrance with a heavily protesting Gonky strapped upside down to his back and holding up a breathing mask. "Well, I've got the gear and the power!" The droid gonked again and flailed his stubby little legs in an attempt to break free from his uncomfortable confines, nearly hitting Wrecker in the head as he did so. The clone seemed entirely unbothered by Gonky's struggles however, tossing Deke the breathing mask and making his way down the steps. "Lead the way, kid."
******
The slither vines covering the base formed a blanket so thick it was nearly impossible to pick our way through them without stepping on them. We were forced to slow our pace to a crawl to ensure we wouldn't aggravate any of them before we'd even made it inside. Every so often, one of them would twitch, prompting a barely suppressed noise of surprise from Wrecker.
"There's slither vines everywhere in there," Deke warned us when we finally made it to the entrance of the base. "Be careful where you step."
No sooner than he'd said the words, Wrecker slipped on a particularly damp spot and nearly fell on top of a vine. "Woah!"
"He just said be careful." I turned to pin him with an exasperated look, Wrecker cringing away from the puddle that had almost resulted in a nasty wake up for the slither vines.
"Sorry."
At the very least they didn't cover the entire floor inside the base - as long as we watched where we stepped, we could walk normally enough. They had completely overrun the walls though, twisting and slithering on top of each other like a nest of snakes just waiting to be disturbed.
Metal creaked loudly behind us and Wrecker whirled, his flashlight darting over each corner in search of the source of the noise. Finding none, he let out a distressed moan and reluctantly turned back to keep walking. "How much further is the console?"
"Hard to tell," Deke answered without looking back. "More vines have spread down here. We had to stop scavenging the site because of it."
"What other experiments were going on in this place?" Hunter finally asked the question that had been on my mind for a while now. The intel Echo had recovered before we'd left for Eriadu had told us he was using clones for experimentation, and the cadets' presence here only proved that. But we still didn't know why he wanted clones so badly, and what it had to do with Omega.
"Nothing good. They didn't exactly tell us what was going on." Deke's hands tightened around his weapon and flashlight respectively ;;;;
"You never saw anything either?" I skirted around a particularly thick looking vine, the end of it twitching from side to side like a Tooka's tail.
"No. They hid everything from us. It was all in code too. Their experiments had names like Project Harvester or Project Stardust."
It sounded a lot like the Empire to keep their operations so tightly under wraps not even those being used for their experiments knew about it. Whatever they were doing was probably more than unethical. I opened my mouth to say something else, only to shut it again when the slither vines began to warble, the slippery sounds of them sliding over each other soon joining the strange noises. Hunter immediately tensed, his hand going to the knife sheathed at his forearm and retreating several steps while I activated a lightsaber again, the yellow glow lighting up the area around us and revealing the trembling slither vines.
Deke hit the ground with a loud thud and began to scream, the slither vine wrapped around his ankles dragging him away and into the air. We dashed after him, Wrecker catching hold of the boy's arms and pulling him back as more vines cocooned around his body, his shrieks becoming muffled as they knocked the mask from his mouth and covered it. Hunter and I both leaped up to slash at the vines, severed ends falling to the ground and hurriedly kicked away with screeches of pain.
Without the vines' hold, Deke fell back to the floor and scrabbled for the breathing mask immediately, Wrecker hurling the last slashed vine further down the tunnel. By now, the entire horde had been woken, the gurgling of the vines now pressing in on us from all directions. The slashed stumps of the vines twitched and began to thrash on the ground, and to everyone's horror, sprouted sets of three legs lined with razor sharp teeth and hauled themselves to their feet, spasming uncontrollably.
"Go! Hunter pushed me and Deke further down the opposite way of the hallways, unhooking a blaster and forcing us into a stumbling run as two of the vine creatures screeched at us and turned tail down the rusted corridors, scuttling into its depths and promptly disappearing. "Keep moving!"
"What the hell are those things?" Sparks snapped down my spine and I twisted just in time to avoid another three legged vine creature sailing through the air, its slavering mouth narrowly missing my head. Hunter blasted it in midair and it fell back, only to pop right back up again and shriek at us before leaping into the vents, completely unharmed.
We didn't stick around to see if they would come back, breaking into another run down the corridors and disappearing around the corner with the vines still screeching behind us.