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Echo didn't know what to make of Clone Force 99.
The other troopers had plenty to say, though.
“They're a special breed of crazy,” Blink laughed, shaking his head.
“I hear they're more difficult to get along with than a temperamental rancor,” Jexxis said, leaning conspiratorially over his meal tray.
“And snootier than natborn officers to boot,” Reflex added, scowling.
Echo raised his eyebrows, skeptical. “Really?”
Jexxis nodded, scooping up another spoonful of the tepid nutrient broth. “Everyone on Kamino certainly thinks so. The Bad Batch started a lot of fights when they were getting trained up. Most of the second generation brothers have stories about them.”
The three troopers before him had been remanded back to Kamino from their battalions for emergency medical treatment. Thanks to the efforts of the Jedi generals, loss of limb was no longer a decommissioning sentence for the clones. Many soldiers with permanent disabilities had found a new calling in the intelligence and administration corps scattered throughout the GAR. Blink, Jexxis, and Reflex were currently undergoing physical therapy to adjust to their new cybernetic limbs, which, due to military manufacturing contracts, were far more affordable to the Republic than ordering entirely new soldiers from the Kaminoans.
Echo, though the circumstances of his acquisition of prosthetics were somewhat different, was undergoing basic re-evaluation tests before he was medically cleared for active duty.
It was formality only, Rex had assured him, the day before he departed for Tipoca City. The rest of Clone Force 99 had been notably reluctant to return to their home world, but had sequestered themselves agreeably enough in their quarters (or the shooting range, in the case of Crosshair). So Echo was largely left to his own devices during the five-day the required tests would take.
And he decided to use the time to find out exactly what he was getting himself into.
“I mean, they're not all bad,” Blink said, rather graciously.
Reflex scoffed. “They've got a real chip on their shoulders, that's for sure. They worked with the Wolfpack once while I was stationed with them, and they started a brawl that left three of our shinies in medbay.”
Echo winced, recalling the ferocious protectiveness the 501st had had over their youngest troopers. “Ouch. I can see how that would leave a bad impression.”
“They're absolutely wizard on the field, though,” Blink insisted. “100% success rate.”
“No way that's true,” Reflex refuted, crossing his arms.
“It is!” Blink said. He lowered his voice slightly. “I'm training on the personnel databases. They're putting me in deployment evaluations. I've seen Clone Force 99’s record. Funny thing is, most of their mission reports are locked behind level 4 security clearance.”
“For real? I wonder what High Command has them doing,” Jexxis said, wide-eyed at the revelation of such juicy gossip fodder.
Echo laughed, picking up his own spoon. “I guess I'll have to wait and see.”
“Best of luck, vod,” Reflex said darkly. “You'll need it.”
Echo realized it after about a week of living with them: the Bad Batch worked because they all fit together.
Like the interlocking pieces of a Cerean puzzle cube, manufactured with zero tolerance, perfect matches for each other.
Echo observed it in pieces. Small moments that were unremarkable independently, but pivotal when taken as a whole.
Tech, for example, came across as a timid yes-man to those who didn't know him well. Upon further acquaintance, Echo discovered he was as stubborn as an eopie, with a tongue sharp enough to cut durasteel if he wanted it to.
His sarcasm rivaled Crosshair’s, with a biting edge of wit that put even the most vitriolic comments to shame. In verbal sparring, Tech could dish it out with the best of them. Crosshair and Tech rarely argued, but when they did, everyone was sure to get out of their way or else risk getting caught in the crossfire.
Tech kept his secrets close to the chest, but Echo noticed that he never spent more than a minute after waking without his goggles on, and only ever took them off to clean them or sleep. After one mission left minute scratches on the lens, Tech had grumbled for three days straight until they were able to purchase the supplies to repair them. Echo was certain that Tech couldn’t see very well without them.
People underestimated Hunter all the time. They saw the bandana, and the skull tattoo, and the vibroblades, and failed to realize that Hunter's most dangerous tool was his cunning. He understood people, knew how they worked and how best to manipulate them. It's what made him such a good leader.
Hunter, too, kept his weaknesses hidden behind closed doors. There were some days when he would close his eyes and put in earplugs, curled up on his bunk away from the light. Tech would offer a hypospray, and Hunter would take it, extending his arm for Tech to inject the painkiller into. Echo had asked once, and Tech had readily informed him that Hunter suffered chronic migraines as a result of his overclocked senses. Echo hadn’t asked again. It felt too intrusive, somehow.
Crosshair was even more protective of his squad than Hunter. As grumpy as he could be to each of them, especially Echo, it was only towards outside threats that he ever truly turned nasty.
Echo had all sorts of nicknames thrown at him during his first months on the Marauder: reg, metalhead, droidkriffer. Echo had endured far worse in his short life than an osik’la teammate, so he mostly ignored the jabs. But they were crawling in the gutter of some smuggler-infested waypoint the first time Echo really understood how Crosshair felt about him.
The station didn’t have an official name, but was commonly known among less reputable circles as Dorn-Nineteen. It was attached to a large asteroid a good ways from any settled planet. Echo and Crosshair were sent out to acquire supplies, restock their explosives, and look for specialized weapon components. Hunter and Wrecker went to meet with a supposed informant, and Tech stayed behind to guard the ship and repair the gyrocomputer, which he described as “slightly miscalibrated”. Whatever that meant.
Echo wore his mask, and Crosshair fit right in with the inhabitants with the rifle on his back and the unpleasant snarl glued to his face, so they didn’t attract much attention as they wandered the chaotic, filthy streets of the market. They didn’t encounter any trouble until they finally found a seller offering a wide array of illegal detonators. Crosshair cast a doubtful, evaluating eye over the Besalisk’s assembled wares. He hadn’t even opened his mouth to ask the price of anything before a glob of spit hit the side of Echo’s mask and slid slowly down, leaving behind a trail of slimy mucus.
There was stunned silence. “We don’t serve droids here,” the owner croaked, putting a threatening hand on his holster. “Get out.” He nodded his massive head towards the doorway. Crosshair didn’t move, face expressionless.
Then his own blaster was out and smoke was rising from the wall behind the proprietor. The Besalisk cried out, cupping his ever-so-slightly singed ear. Crosshair’s leveled blaster didn’t waver from his face.
“Take that as a warning,” he hissed, threat obvious in his voice. “Don’t speak to my partner that way.”
Wisely, the Besalisk put up his hands, and Crosshair snidely commented that he was taking his business elsewhere.
The tension in Echo’s chest didn’t abate until they were once again safely aboard the Marauder, and the wonder lasted far longer.
Wrecker was… it took Echo the longest to figure Wrecker out. Wrecker was the glue that held the Bad Batch together. He was the backbone, the basis, the foundation.
Wrecker acted as the buffer of the group. Whenever Hunter and Crosshair got particularly snippy at each other, Wrecker would place himself between them and Tech, and let them sort themselves out. More than once he saved Tech from a flying limb or stray punch, and Tech didn’t even glance up from his work, content in the knowledge that Wrecker was there.
If Hunter was having a rough day, Wrecker would offer to spar with him to work out some of his frustration. Hunter always looked more at ease after wearing himself out on the mats.
Wrecker even started doing it for Echo, too, bringing him the heated compresses Tech had made for Echo’s sore muscles after a mission, and cheerfully scooping him up when they were planetside as if he didn’t even notice the extra weight of Echo’s mechanical limbs.
Echo was now taller than the regs, something he had discovered with no small amount of discomfort after his rehabilitation. But on the Marauder, where Tech, Crosshair, and Wrecker were all taller than him, it was easy to forget about.