Chapter Text
Part 5:
Crosshair’s hand shake as he’s put on the shuttle. He grips his fingers hard, trying to get them to stop, but he can’t. “I just killed my commanding officer.” He thinks numbly. “What am I going to tell Luca.”
Crosshair eyes the trooper next to him. He wasn’t going to escape, he knew that. No matter how crazy he was, he knew when he was outnumbered. He closes his eyes, spots of fluorescent residue creating spots on the inside of his eyelids. The image of Mayday’s cooling body, limb and shivering, almost blue from the cold, rebounds at him at the speed of light. He clenches his jaw, and tries to focus on something else. Luca’s bright and happy face comes to mind, her giggles resounding through his head, and he shuts it down. He’s poked at from the back of his mind, Luca probably, and he attempts to hide his distress from the child.
“I just-“ Crosshair sighs, opening his eyes back up to slightly too bright red fluorescents gleaming off of white armor. He bundles his emotions tight to his chest and mentally shies away from Luca’s curious poking. He’s not very good at it, but they really don’t need to see what he did. Luca pokes harder, sharp this time, as if they’d lost patience with him, which didn’t make since because they were a one year old-oh.
Crosshair mentally slaps at the Luca-impersonator and grits his teeth. Constructing walls around his mind is harder then it sounds, especially with little stabbing motions from whatever- force-sensitive-decided-his-head-was-a-good-place-to-be, but he does it. Walls made of durasteel and beskar and his rioting emotions rise high around his mind. The Luca-Impersonator slows their assult, sharp anger tipped claws wrapping around the stones until they’ve practically merged themselves around Crosshair’s shields foundations. A thin wall of tiny angry needles.
The shuttle lands, and Crosshair is shoved off it. His durasteel walls turn to plastoid in an instant, but the needles don’t dive in past the cracks, they just fill them with a vibrating rage. Crosshair blinks in the new light, eyes adjusting quickly, as they always do. The troopers behind him take a few seconds longer. He can feel a headache building as the pressure at his temples and from behind his eyes combine.
The needles soften slightly as the man in-charge takes a step forward. Crosshair glares at him,
and the Luca-Impersonater raises an eyebrow at him.
“My name is Doctor Royce Hemlock.” He smiles at Crosshair, mocking and comforting at the same time. Hemlock’s smile reminds Crosshair of spoiled milk. Hemlock blinks politely as Crosshair sways slightly on his feet. “I don’t usually greet the incoming clones, but you have information I need.”
“Like what?” Crosshair snarls at Hemlock, shoving at the simmering needles surrounding his consciousness. Hemlock opens his mouth to respond and is interrupted by a com chime. The sound resonates in Crosshair’s ears, his headache tilting dangerously over the drop into migraine territory. He sways, he falls. Crosshair hits the ground, unconscious as Hemlock angrily answers the call.
“I will be visiting your facility to check up on the training of the TK’s.”
Hemlock wipes the annoyance off his face. “Of course. Lord Vader, correct?”
“
Yes
.”
-
Vader was very good at lying. He was. He’d been practicing since he was born. Lying to Depur was a practiced art that Vader hadn’t quite perfected, but it was perfected enough. He’d acted impulsively when he felt his child’s chosen-Crosshair, he remembered now, he’d met the defective clone during the battle of Anaxes-in distress. He’d tried to pry subtly, but the man had noticed and shrunk away from him, sending a small scolding and a “Not now, Luca.” his way.
As amazing as knowing his child’s name was-his child’s name was Luca!-he had refused to just leave the man alone. Crosshair was his only connection to his child, his own interaction with his child had been fleeting, and had not left a stable bond behind. The only thing Vader had caught was their riotous force signature, and the fragmented thought projection of “Parent!”
His child’s force signature had calmed since, but the signature that clung to Crosshair was undeniably theirs. His child had claimed Crosshair. That made Crosshair one of Vader’s Own. And varp it all, the Emperor was not allowed to so much as touch one of Vader’s Own.
Vader touches down on Tantiss, familiar with the storms in the sky and the beasts on the ground. Tantiss was where he was put after Mustafar, it was where his suit had been constructed and molded onto his burnt and dying body. He’d destroyed many of the walls, and had plotted and planned the Emperors downfall here. (Though that had yet to come to pass.) He’d been moved out months ago when Hemlock had moved his labs here. But this was Vader’s home-base.
He had the power here. Hemlock did not.