Saachi caught Yulia sneaking an extra piece of pyiollian cake- reserved for the Kaminoans and the interns -onto her tray. She didn't say anything.

"Did you see where they're sitting?" Yulia asked as they stepped out of line.

Saachi couldn't see Echo, but she did notice Hunter, holding his head high as he marched past a pair of sniggering troopers. She groaned, but her eyes followed him across the mess hall to where Wrecker was yelling at Tech about something. It sounded as if they were debating the best types of explosives.

"Found 'em," She nodded Yulia in their direction. Typically, Saachi would let Yulia try to get some private time with Echo, but if they were with his squad, that was out of the question already. Not to mention that Rya was helping Rekly nurse his post-celebration hangover, and Darta was in the labs for some last-minute research, so if Saachi chose to sit with the interns, she was not going to be having a good time with Pershing crowing at her across the table about anything and everything. Honestly, sometimes Saachi couldn't tell if he hated her or had a crush on her. Maybe both. Not that it mattered, Saachi simply did not care for him.

Echo waved when he saw them approach. Hunter paused at Echo's sudden enthusiasm, and turned to see Saachi and Yulia right behind him.

"Sergeant," Saachi nodded. She would have saluted if she didn't have both hands on her tray.

"Doctor," He nodded.

Crosshair coughed loudly. "Are either of you going to sit?"

Saachi wanted to ask if there was room for her and Yulia, but Yulia had already slid into place on the bench between Echo and Wrecker, leaving the only space available for Hunter and Saachi to sit next to each other, on the bench with Tech and Crosshair.

Saachi ignored Hunter as he glanced at her, he faced his brothers, leaning in conspiratorily, as if that would keep Saachi and Yulia from hearing what he was saying.

"An Imperial's been sent to evaluate the clones," He said. Saachi pulled out her datapad to try and get some work done, only for Hunter to shove the breadbowl in her face. She sighed, and pulled out the first piece her fingers brushed against before nudging it across the table to Wrecker.

"What kind of evaluation?" Echo was all for protocol until it came to desserts. Of course, he had to finish eating his contraband slice of cake before anyone reported him.

"Hopefully not mental," Tech said, "Clearly, we'd never pass that."

Saachi snorted into her soup, ignoring the nasty look Crosshair shot her from down the table.

"Hello again!" Saachi had left a fair distance between herself and Hunter, enough for Omega to come up and plop her tray on the table in between theirs, and slide onto the bench.

Tech stopped abruptly, leaning around Hunter to squint at her. Wrecker had his wrap halfway to his mouth, and Crosshair looked like he might just start laughing.

"Omega. From earlier?" She asked, when no one said anything. "In the corridor?"

"Yeah, kid, we remember." Hunter sighed. "Don't you have...someplace to be?" He asked. Saachi instinctively scooted a little closer to Omega.

"No, I think I'll stay," Omega stirred her soup, and Saachi felt her legs swinging back and forth beneath the table.

"You want to sit with us?" Tech asked, "That's never happened before."

"Wow," Wrecker said. As if they hadn't looked desperate enough already.

Echo rolled his eyes, and scooched closer to Yulia. Saachi was pleased to see that in addition to the treat from his girlfriend, half of his meal had already been eaten.

"Get used to it. You may never have had partners before, but Yulia and I are a package deal." Saachi shoveled a spoonful of salad into her mouth, and glanced at her datapad. Something wasn't quite reading right with her thesis.

"And where Saachi and Yulia go, I go too!" Omega declared.

Saachi looked up, smiling over at Omega softly. If only she could snap her fingers and make these men become willing to be Omega's friend. She and Yulia wouldn't be able to stay on Kamino forever, though with how close Yulia and Echo were, there was no telling how many hoops Yulia would be willing to jump through in order to stay with him.

Except for the quiet ting of utensils against the servingware, silence hung over the table. Echo and Yulia seemed comfortable enough in their happy little bubble, but the other batchers looked between each other nervously. No wonder Jesse didn't like them, they hard;y knew how to get along with anyone outside their own little clique.

Saachi quickly glanced at her messages again. Her question to Jesse was still unreplied, and even worse, unread. What was up with him?

She put the datapad down and sighed. She couldn't take any more steps to figuring out the mystery of Order Sixty-Six until she got her answer from Jesse, but she could try and help Omega make a few more friends before the interns ditched her. But Saachi hadn't made friends with anyone she wasn't forced to hang out with for the last few years. How did you do this again?

It was sweet little Omega that broke the silence, in the blunt observations that children always made.

"I like you. You don't fit in around here either." That, at least, earned a tiny smile from Tech.

Hunter managed to chuckle softly. "What are you really doing on Kamino, kid?"

"What, you don't think a ten-year old can work in a medical lab?" Saachi asked, half-joking.

"With our enhanced aging, we were all undergoing similar training at that age, yes, but I understand that it's not normal for a natborn." Tech pointed out.

"But I'm not a natborn," Omega insisted. That surprised even Saachi and Yulia. But before anyone could question the girl further, a taunt rang out above the chatter of the mess hall.

"Check it out! The defect squad's got themselves a couple new recruits!"

Tech sighed, and everyone looked up at the clones passing by. It was three of them, Rooty, Stinger, and Gleam. They were quite frequent visitors to the medicenter. Saachi sighed, and tried to hide her face in her datapad. She stuck out like a sore thumb among clones.

"Well, well, well," Rooty leaned over her shoulder, "What'd the Sad Batch have to do to get you to sit with them, Nurse?"

"Hey Rooty," Saachi rolled her eyes, trying to stay calm, "How's your ankle?"

"Fine, thanks to you. Why don't you come sit with us?"

Saachi shook her head and wouldn't look up, "Nah, I'm fine here." She said, slinging her arm around Omega's shoulder.

"Aw, come on Gunder-"

"She said no." Hunter said firmly, scooting closer in his seat to Omega and Saachi. Wrecker leaned over the table imposingly.

"C'mon Rooty, let it go," Gleam said. He jerked his head in the direction of their squad's table.

Rooty sighed in defeat, "Oh well. See you later, Nurse!"

Saachi exhaled a deep breath as he finally walked away. Yulia reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

"Thanks," Saachi whispered to the table. She focused on her datapad and let her breathing calm down.

Next to her, Omega's hands shook as she held her soup bowl. "What was that about?" She demanded of Saachi.

Saachi shrugged, trying to play it off, "I didn't want to hang out with him, and he's too stubborn to know when to quit."

"Did he make you feel uncomfortable?" She asked.

Saachi briefly contemplated what to tell her. "Yes, he did." She admitted. She tried to eat the rest of her salad and move on from the topic, but she knew Omega was too stubborn to let it go.

"And he's going to try and see you later?"

Saachi looked down to try and calm her, but Omega was already standing on the table. She took her bowl of soup and flung it across the room, where the broth and vegetables made a striking pattern across the back of Rooty's clean white armor.

"Who threw that!?" He demanded. He really was dense if he didn't have a single clue.

Omega held her wrap as a warning. "I did! Now apologize to my friends! All of them!"

Wrecker chuckled, smacking Echo in the shoulder. "I like this kid!"

Rooty tossed aside his tray and marched back towards the table, "What did you say to me?" He demanded. Hunter quickly stood in between him and Omega.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back off. I suggest you keep moving." He warned. One by one, the members of Force 99 stood up, daring Rooty or his friends to make a move.

Rooty grunted, foiled again, and Saachi was confident that if he wasn't the center of attention in the cafeteria, he might have spat in Hunter's face. The Sergeant may have been a thorn in Saachi's side so far, but he didn't deserve that.

"Know your place, lab scrabber." Rooty warned.

Now he had insulted every single one of them. Saachi saw red. Rooty bugging her was one thing, but Omega was a sweetheart who could power the entire city with her pure optimism. Before Saachi could grab her half-finished salad, Wrecker's tray went flying through the air to smack Rooty in the back of the head.

"Oops." He didn't sound very sorry as he grabbed Echo and Hunter's trays too.

"That's it," Rooty snapped. Half the mess hall stood up, and the entire clone army swarmed towards their table.

Wrecker hopped up on the table with Omega, who was clearly enjoying the mess she had made. Saachi threw her salad at the nearest trooper, getting the dressing in his eyes. Hunter punched Rooty, while Tech took on Gleam and Stinger, and Omega followed Wrecker's lead, jumping on top of another trooper. Echo and Yulia defended their rear. Crosshair finally gave up on staying out of the fight when Tech got knocked down, and he threw his tray at a trooper. It bounced off the first one and took two more with it.

So this was how you made friends, Saachi decided. You defended each other in a food fight against an entire army of genetically engineered soldiers.

Saachi was no clone, but she knew how to defend herself and she knew the weak points in clone armor. Using her tray as a shield, she got a couple of them behind the knee, and another in the throat. Yulia always did say that her elbows were too sharp.

"Saachi, look out!" Omega warned. Rooty had recovered from Hunter's hit and threw a punch to her face. Saachi brought up the tray at the last second to deflect.

"I thought you'd at least been out of the pod long enough to know that no means no, Rooty," She threw a punch at him and went wide. Before Rooty could take another hit, Hunter came at him from the side, hitting him in the gut with his shoulder, and tossing him down the length of the table.

"Echo watch out!" Tech's shout rang out, and Saachi spun in time to see Echo shielding Yulia from a trooper who was about to hit her with a tray. Echo fell limp against the table, and yulia tried to hide her shriek.

Hunter shoved troopers to the side, making room for Saachi to run to Echo's side. He was unresponsive, but his pulse was steady as his head lay cradled in Yulia's lap.

"Tech, can you check his cybernetics? They might have been damaged with the fall." Saachi said.

"Not to worry, Doctor Gunder-"

"Not a doctor," Saachi and Yulia both muttered under their breath.

"Echo's cybernetics are just as durable as Wrecker's armor, if not more so," Tech assured them. But all the same, he took his datapad from his belt, gently examining the headpiece that wrapped around the back of Echo's head and covered his ears. It was an addition made after Saachi had given him a stomach transplant, and it allowed him to process and sort through the information accessed by the scomp link.

With a man down, the fight died off, and Crosshair was making Wrecker keep everyone back.

Saachi chuckled a little, and nodded to the others. "Good game, guys."

"It was quite interesting, wasn't it?" Crosshair muttered, pulling out another toothpick. Omega beamed at him, clearly proud of her handiwork.

"Is Echo alright?" Wrecker asked.

Saachi glanced around the room. The Kaminoan trainers were entering the room, dispatching cleaning droids and trying to get to the root of the problem. Gleam pointed in their direction, and Saachi sighed.

"Someone help me get him to the medbay. I'll monitor him there." She pulled Echo's droid arm over her shoulder, and Yulia went for the other one, only for Wrecker to pluck Echo from their arms.

"Lead the way, doc!"

Yulia's comm beeped loudly.

"It's my parents," She bit her lip, glancing between Saachi and her boyfriend.

"Go. I'll take care of him, don't worry," Saachi promised.

Yulia smiled gratefully, "I'll be there as soon as I can!" She ran for the exit so that she could talk with her beloved mother and father without the background of a disgruntled mess hall.

Saachi brought Wrecker and Echo to the medbay and checked them all in. AZI scanned the other members of the Batch, ensuring that Echo was the only injured party after the food fight. Omega sat on the cot across from Echo as Saachi scanned him.

"Is he going to be okay?" She asked.

"He'll have a nasty headache, but we won't know anything else until he wakes up and I can test him for a concussion." Saachi told her.

"How long could that take?" Hunter asked. Saachi jumped. She was not expecting him to be right behind her shoulder.

"Would you warn a girl before you sneak up on her like a bounty hunter?" She snapped.

"Forgive him, doc, it's just his nature," Crosshair drawled, the toothpick moving up and down between his teeth.

"He's a tracker. He was bred to be stealthy." Tech said, unable to take his eyes off his datapad. He seemed to be performing his own scans on his brothers.

Saachi shook her head, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Their enhancements!" Omega piped up. She hopped down from her cot to stand between Saachi and Hunter. "Nala Se told me all about them."

Hunter leaned back on his leg and folded his arms. "Oh really? What did she tell you?" He asked.

Omega kept smiling. "You have enhanced senses. The basic five, of course, but you can also sense electromagnetic pulses from anywhere on a single planet."

She looked over at Crosshair. "You're a sniper, enhanced eyesight, to see in almost any conditions."

He shrugged, neither confirming or denying her accusations.

"Tech, you're smarter than anyone in the universe," Tech nodded, with a gentle smile Saachi was beginning to associate with Omega.

"And Wrecker-"

"Is super strong!" to demonstrate, Wrecker seized Saachi and Omega each in one arm, lifting them up on his shoulders. Saachi's head nearly brushed against the ceiling as she tried to get air back into her lungs on the heels of that surprise. Omega squealed in delight at the sudden change in height.

"Alright, that's enough, Wrecker," Hunter was still as taut as a wire as Wrecker gently set Omega and Saachi back on solid ground.

"Impressive," Saachi breathed.

"We'll get out of your hair," Hunter carefully avoided looking at Saachi and Omega, herding his men out the door. "Comm us when Echo wakes up."

No sooner had the door closed behind them, then it opened again, and Yulia ran into the medbay. Her rosy-pink skin color was pale, and almost yellow. Her lekku twitched nervously as her eyes darted back and forth in the room.

"Is Echo- is he-"

"Echo's fine. Yulia, are you okay?" Saachi asked. Echo was still under, and she waved to Omega to monitor him for a few moments.

"It's nothing." She whispered, legs trembling. Saachi grasped her hands. They were icy-cold. She said nothing, but led Yulia to one of the cots so that she could sit and think for a moment.

Yulia gulped a breath of air, and wouldn't look Saachi in the eyes. "We- well, if the Jedi really are traitors to the galaxy like the chance- The Emperor said, then I guess it's a good thing, but-"

Her breathing quickened, and tears threatened to spill from Yulia's golden eyes. Echo's monitor started beeping faster, and Saachi could have torn her hair out. Echo never liked being hooked up to the monitors.

"I've got it!" Omega promised. She was already on top of it, and Saachi was grateful for Omega's level-headedness.

Yulia sobbed, and Saachi handed her a thin shock blanket.

"It- it's okay-"

"No, it's not, Yulia. Take a moment, take a breath, I'll be right back." Saachi promised. She activated the privacy filters to give Yulia a moment alone, and ran over to Echo's cot.

"Mistress Nala Se has summoned you to the sublevel medical wing. You must go." AZI told Omega as he scanned Echo's biometrics.

"No. I'm staying here until he wakes up."

"She's fine, AZI," Saachi said. Echo's heart rate was increasing rapidly as his eyes slowly opened. He blinked, trying to make sense of things, groaning as he tried to find his voice. The light from the scanner shone in his eyes, and he sat up quickly.

"No, get them off!" He demanded, not realizing that he wasn't attached to anything.

"But my tests are not yet complete-" AZI said, flying closer to Echo. Echo's eyes were wide, as he looked around, but took nothing in.

"Echo, Echo, it's okay!" Omega pushed AZI back before Saachi could, "It's me, Omega!" She smiled up at him, and Echo took deep breaths, taking another cursory glance around the medbay. Saachi pressed the button on her comm that would let Hunter and the others know he was awake.

"Echo," Saachi said in a calm, clear voice, "You are alright. You are in a safe place. Your squad should be here soon."

Echo nodded, but said nothing. He tried to focus on his breathing exercises. Some he had learned as a cadet, others Saachi had taught him. They were ones she'd researched to be able to help her patients with their PTSD and anxiety.

"I understand. I don't like being hooked up to their machines either." Omega said to Echo.

Echo looked down at her. How many times would such a small child surprise him and his friends today?

"Greetings CT-1409," AZI floated forward again, unaware of the concept of personal space.

"His name is Echo," Omega insisted.

AZI took the moment to introduce himself by his full designation, and Saachi shook her head. She never could keep up with long strings of numbers. She hopped up on the medical stool to look at the summary of the scans AZI had been able to complete, and the door opened. The Bad Batch walked again, Hunter at their head.

"Ha! Told you he's alive!" Wrecker greeted, "You owe me two credits!" He told Crosshair.

"Not even a concussion," Saachi assured them. Hunter briefly nodded his thanks as they circled up around their squad member.

"CT-1409's condition is stable, but I have some distressing news for the rest of you," AZI reported.

"According to your test results, you all appear to be genetically defective clones." He whispered it, as if it were some big secret.

"AZI!" Saachi was mortified at the droid's diagnosis, but AZI didn't seem to see what was wrong.

"I will leave you to process the shock of this revelation."

"I am so sorry," she apologized to the Bad Batch.

"It's fine!" Wrecker assured her, bored of the conversation already.

"We've got a problem." Echo interrupted.

"Not really," Tech pushed his goggles further up his nose, "We're more deviant than we are defective."

"Not that, Admiral Tarkin is here. He's the one evaluating the clones."

"The same Tarkin from the citadel rescue when you- ah, how shall I put this?" Tech asked

"Blew up?" Wrecker offered.

Crosshair indicated with his ever-present toothpick. "And turned into that?"

Saachi looked over at Echo, and he met her eyes for a brief moment. Echo didn't like to talk about what happened on his last mission to the Citadel, and even if he did want to talk about what the Techno Union had done to him, he claimed he still didn't understand a lot of it. Saachi's main source on the occurrence was Fives, who was gone, and Rex, who had told her as much as he could remember after Echo had been found.

Echo sighed, "Yes. And he's not a big supporter of clones."

"We'll soon find out. We've been summoned by the Prime Minister." Hunter said.

Wrecker chuckled. "Guess he didn't find that mess hall fight amusing. But I sure did!"

Hunter nodded to his squad. "Come on, let's get this over with."

Saachi helped Echo down from the cot so that he could follow his brothers, but Omega leaped out in front of them all.

"The fight was my fault. I'm going too."

"Omega, no." Saachi said firmly.

For once, Hunter agreed with her. "Not happening. We'll handle this." They walked around her to make it to the door.

"But-"

"Listen, kid," Hunter said sharply. "Our squad's nothing but trouble. For your sake, keep your distance. Got it?"

The question rang out in the polished medbay, and the way Hunter's eyes rested on her momentarily, Saachi knew that warning applied to her as well, though the big, brave Sergeant wouldn't dare scold a full-grown woman the way that he would a child.

When Omega wouldn't answer him, Hunter left the room with the rest of the Bad Batch. Omega watched the doors close behind them, a sheen in her eyes.

Saachi took a deep breath, like her lungs had been too constricted with everyone crowding the patient cot.

"You should probably go if Nala Se wants you," Saachi said. She didn't want to sound unkind, but Nala Se was already mad at Omega, and Saachi would hate for the little girl to be punished even more. Not to mention, she wanted the room empty so she could talk with Yulia.

"I can go with you, Omega," AZI offered. Omega didn't say anything, but walked out of the room, dejected and defeated. AZI followed behind like a guardian droid-angel.

Saachi took one more cursory scan of the medbay, and then lowered Yulia's privacy shields.

Yulia was taking deep breaths. Her eyes were red, and the blanket was wet where she'd pressed her face into it to muffle her sobs.

"Well, Echo's going to be okay," Saachi gave her a cup of the medbay's cheap caff and sat on the cot next to her best friend. "What are you feeling?"

Yulia stared down at the dark liquid, gathering her thoughts.

"Aayla's dead." She said quietly.

Saachi took a small sip of her own caff. "Aayla?"

"My cousin. The Jedi Knight."

Saachi nearly spit out her caff at the reminder. "Oh. That Aayla."

"I should have known, after what Chancellor- Emperor Palpatine said, about the Jedi being hunted and all. I just- she- she was-"

"She was invincible." Saachi murmured.

Yulia nodded. "My parents commed me to let me know they got the official report from the Clone Troopers on Ryloth. Aayla was a traitor to the Republic and gunned down by her own men."

"That's kriff," Saachi snarled. She glanced around for any spyware, confident that nothing could make it into the medicenter.

"I don't care what the Empire said. The Jedi were not traitors." She whispered to comfort her friend.

Yulia took a deep breath and slid off the edge of the cot. "I don't have anything that I need you to do, I just needed to tell you this."

Saachi squeezed her hand. "Do you want me to take your shift? Then you can rest and deal with all..." She waved at Yulia's rumpled uniform. "This."

Yulai smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I would love that, yeah." She glanced over at the cot Echo had been in. Where's-"

"Loverboy and his squad are being reprimanded by his mightiness Lama Su for everything that went down in the mess."

"Oh," Yulia flushed magenta, and hid a dainty giggle behind her hand. The wayward emotion allowed another single tear to escape down her cheek.

"It was kind of fun, until he got hurt, anyway."

"Yeah, well, it's all fun and games until someone shoots an eye out."

"You don't think they'll get decommissioned, will they?"

Saachi stopped. She hadn't considered that question. She swallowed the lump that had quickly built up in her throat.

"No. No, absolutely not. Not over something so ridiculous." She insisted, more for her sake than Yulia's.

Yulia left to go change into a fresh uniform, and Saachi took a deep breath, exhaling with it all the stress of the day. She'd have to go change too, or maybe go to bed. Or probably stay up until 0100 perfecting her thesis. But that would be after her shift, which had now become twelve hours long.

In the quiet of the medbay, she settled into an empty cot with her datapad and a fresh cup of caff to soothe her nerves. Though instead of pulling up her thesis immediately, Saachi began scrolling through the other documents on her datapad.

The first thing that appeared was the results of Echo's scans from AZI. All normal. At least, for someone in his condition. Saachi was happy to see that he was getting stronger. That boded well for his future, especially in trying to keep up with men like the Bad Batch.

She went to file them away with the rest of his medical information, but something caught her eye.

It was one of AZI's last scans, focusing on his head. At first glance, it all looked fine, but in the corner there was a small "UNRESPONSIVE" written out, just barely, in red.

What did that mean? Echo had been perfectly responsive when he awoke, and his scan was in stellar condition. Did it mean his headpiece?

The floor seemed to open up beneath her. Before she could stop herself, she closed out of Echo's scans. Her fingers flew across the datapad, pulling up two older scans.

The first was flagged with multiple alerts, a Trooper with hair grown out and pulled back into a tight bun. In the same spot as the alert on Echo's scan, red lettering spelled out "DETERIORATING"

The other scan results were perfectly normal, just like Echos. The trooper pictured with the results was shaved bald, but designated with a tattoo of the number five on his right temple. Saachi traced the digital image of his jawline with her finger, before focusing on that strange spot, seemingly blank on most scans, but like with the other two she had just observed, there was something written there. "UNRESPONSIVE".

Had Fives been right about the chips?

A lump in her throat temporarily blocked her airway, and she forced herself to breathe. She needed more data. Tup had been a regular trooper, Fives and Echo had been ARCs, and Echo had been through a lot of trauma. If she was going to find an answer, she needed more data from regular troopers.

After Fives' death, Nala Se had stressed the importance of the inhibitor chips to Saachi and her class. Yulia was rightfully enraged that the men of the GAR were thusly treated, and even tried to get Rex and Jesse to remove their chips just in case. Rex had argued against it, saying that removing Fives' chip had driven him to an enraged state, and he wouldn't risk that with his men. Kix had expressed interest in studying more about the chips, but he had disappeared shortly after that. Rex and Jesse were still looking for him, but there was only so much they could do with the war raging across the galaxy. Maybe now that the war was over, they could have more time to find their brothers that were captured as prisoners of war, like Echo.

Nala Se swore up and down that the purpose of the chips was to keep the clones from lashing out, nothing more. But something didn't quite ring true to Saachi about that anymore. Order Sixty-Six was completely out of character for too many of the men she had met for them to be executing something so cruel galaxy-wide.

It had to be the chips.

The doors whooshed open, and Saachi leaped up from the bed, quickly tossing her datapad to some corner where her borderline-treasonous research wouldn't be noticed.

After their hasty retreat earlier, Saachi was not expecting the Bad Batch to march back into her medbay so soon. Hunter was carrying Tech as best he could, one arm draped over his shoulders. Despite the tension between them, Saachi hurried to help. She saw why Wrecker wasn't doing the heavy lifting a moment later when he trooped in behind his brothers, cradling his arm to his chest.

"What happened? Did the Prime Minister have you beaten for that food fight?" Saachi gasped in horror. Tech winced as he was laid out on a cot, and Saachi quickly rolled him on his side to see what was bothering him. Burns and bruises covered the back of his legs.

"Don't be absurd, Lama Su would never resort to such a barbaric tactic. Admiral Tarkin simply wished to test our abilities," Tech tried to assure her.

Saachi summoned AZI to check Wrecker's arm while she scanned the back of Tech's legs. For the most part they were protected by his armor, from whatever had been hot enough to burn him.

"What kind of simulations did he put you through?" She gasped, her eyes flickering back and forth over the results from the scans. It was first degree, for the most part, with some areas that had second-degree. No third-degrees, thank goodness.

"It's nothing we haven't been through before," Hunter said firmly, "Tech hacked and gained control over a training droid. Unfortunately, he was sitting on its shoulders when another training droid blasted it, throwing him off."

"There's explosions in the training sims now?" Saachi asked, "Why?"

Hunter shrugged and folded his arms. He didn't like these questions, he didn't have answers for them, and Saachi could tell. "Like Tech said, the Admiral wanted to test us in action."

"So he used live fire," Saachi shot back, "In a training sim!?" She was boiling with rage. If Yulia had been here, she would have handled this with decorum and a clear mind. But Yulia was mourning her cousin, and Saachi didn't have a clear head about anything.

"AZI, Get Tech a med-patch and scan for any fractures. I'll be right back," She barked instructions. She didn't even wait for his "Certainly, Medic Gunder!" Before sprinting out of the medbay.

"Saachi, wait!" She ignored Hunter as she took the quickest route towards Lama Su's 'throne room'.

Hunter grabbed her arm and dug his heels into the floor to hold her back.

"We don't need you to fight our battles for us!" He growled.

Saachi turned her arm, twisting his wrist to make him let go before he got hurt.

"This isn't a battle, Sergeant, this is about basic human decency! The condition is that training sims are for training. You're not supposed to get hurt!"

"Yeah? Well welcome to the real world! We get hurt every day! We risk our lives for civvies like you and millions of our brothers have died for that."

Saachi snorted. "You don't think I know that? I've treated hundreds of your brothers that went on to die in my arms! Fighting for you now doesn't make their sacrifice any less valid. In fact, it's because of them that I know that all of you deserve better!"

"Quite a sentimental notion, Doctor."

The sound of that voice sent ice down Saachi's back. She'd seen Admiral Tarkin on the holonet and in the senate enough times to recognize his voice, but this time it was slow, deliberate, like poison slowly seeping into your veins.

She took a deep breath and faced him, standing at attention with Hunter.

"Admiral Tarkin." She whispered.

"I hope we weren't interrupting anything?" Tarkin glanced between Saachi and Hunter.

"Not at all, sir." Hunter said, keeping his gaze on the wall straight ahead.

Tarkin nodded, and focused on Saachi. "Medic Gunder, am I correct?" he mused, "Nala Se spoke quite highly of you as her star pupil. Frankly, I am not surprised by your compassion towards your clones."

Saachi bit her tongue. Was compassion something you were supposed to be surprised at?

"Thank you, sir."

Tarkin continued to stare at her, and Saachi avoided meeting his eyes. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Hunter's gaze flickering over to her nervously. What was it Omega said about him again? Enhanced senses? Could he hear her heart beating faster and faster the longer Tarkin studied her like a battle plan?

"I understand you are well acquainted with the clones of the 501st legion?"

Saachi jumped slightly. "Ah- um, yes sir?"

Tarkin nodded. "We received a transmission just a few moments ago. High Command lost contact with the Tribunal between Mandalore and Coruscant. It was later discovered to have crashed on a remote moon."

Saachi's blood ran cold. Hunter didn't even try to stay attention anymore.

"Wh-what?" she gasped. The anger sapped from her body, dripping out of her limbs and weighing them down like sap from a tree.

Tarkin folded his hands and gave Saachi a small bow. "My condolences, Miss Gunder, but after further inspection and repeated attempts at hailing them, there appear to have been no survivors."