Chapter Text
Test Subject
~2550
"What are they doing to him?"
Wrecker's usually strident voice wavered with concern. He was pressed against the toughened viewing pane, hands spread, as though the contact might give him some insight into what was happening in the room below.
Tech pushed his goggles up his nose, glancing up from the datapad he tapped at and quickly away again as though the scene before them could not be viewed too long. "They are testing the extent of his cybernetic enhancements. Using the results of the scans they have already completed, the Kaminoans are now stimulating his implants one by one to find out exactly how they link to his nervous system."
"Yeah, but-" said Wrecker, wincing, "does he have to be awake for it?"
No-one answered his question. They didn't need Hunter's enhanced senses to hear Echo's howls of pain reverberating through the supposedly soundproofed walls.
Medical droids hovered around the prone patient; no, more like a prone test subject. Echo's torso and head were held steady with tightened restraints, his left arm similarly bound – the rest of him, those parts that had been rebuilt from metal and wire after he fell into the hands of the Techno Union, were dismantled and spread about like some 3D representation of a blueprint – one with a suffering clone at its centre.
A Kaminoan scientist glided serenely around the room, seemingly unperturbed by the ragged screams that tore from Echo's throat with each new touch of the droids to the metal ports installed in his body. The Batch watched as blue electricity arced from the droid into Echo's body, causing him to convulse as it raced along the exposed, trailing wires that the Kaminoans had laid out to map. Occasionally one of his detached limbs would twitch. Other times the heart-rate monitor that would stutter, or Echo's chest would seize completely as his breathing failed. Then another signal would be sent, and the screaming would start again.
Wrecker peeled himself away from the glass, turning his worried expression on Hunter. "We gotta help him."
Hunter stood immobile, arms folded and shoulders tense, his expression fixed in a fierce frown as he followed the steps of the procedure being carried out in the lab. The only outward sign that he was affected was the way his pupils dilated with each arc of electricity – the way his nostrils flared as each fresh scream reached his ears.
Crosshair was the one who answered, briefly removing the toothpick from his mouth to gesture with it. "What can we do?" he asked acidly, turning a withering glare on his brother. "They won't clear him for duty until they've satisfied their curiosity."
"But... Echo helped us," protested Wrecker, turning to him with his hands outstretched in appeal. "We fought alongside each other. We took down the Separatist ship."
"Correct," said Tech, "and the Kaminoans have read our battle report, as have the senior generals. But Crosshair is right; until they have satisfied themselves that they understand the functioning of his altered body – and assured themselves that he does not pose a risk to the GAR – then these tests will continue."
"Hunter!" Wrecker invoked his brother’s name in a desperate appeal, and finally Hunter's eyes flicked away from the scene in the medical room to meet Wrecker’s.
"We've done all we can for now," he growled from behind gritted teeth. "We vouched for him in our mission report. We stated that we would welcome him as a member of Clone Force 99. Now we have to wait."
Wrecker turned to plaster himself back on the window, gaze roving over the altered clone on the med table. Echo's pallid skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths as he trembled and panted, adrenaline coursing through the human parts of his body. One of the medical droids was carefully unfurling more cables from his abdomen, and the Kaminoan scientist leaned over and peered at the work with interest.
Wrecker slammed a fist in futile protest against the hardened glass, unable to tear himself away from watching. Tech moved to stand beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder.
"We'll be there for him when it's over."
"How long will that be?"
For a moment Tech tapped at the datapad. "They sedated him to dismantle the cybernetics. Then woke him up for testing. They will probably sedate him again at the end of the process.” His voice shook just a little as he said, “It... may be some hours yet."
"Tech's right," came Hunter's low voice. "We'll be here for him. No matter what, he'll come out of this knowing there are people waiting who see him as more than a test subject."
Crosshair's shoulders twitched in an involuntary flinch. Tech glanced at Hunter and straightened his goggles unnecessarily before looking back at his datapad, anything to avoid looking at his brothers or at Echo.
If anyone was going to understand how it felt to be a Kaminoan test subject it was the four of them standing in the room right now, waiting to add a new brother in suffering to their ranks.
*
When Echo was sedated and the process of reassembling his cybernetic body begun the Batch finally ended their vigil, returning to their quarters. All four were subdued – few words were exchanged, even the usually energetic Wrecker sagging under the weight of the situation. Half-heartedly Hunter suggested they should take the time to rest, eat if they wanted. Nobody had to tell him they would not be taking him up on the offer. He hadn't expected them to. It was a command he gave of rote, falling back on routine when all else failed him.
It was a sombre atmosphere in their room, each one lost in his thoughts. Wrecker sat quietly in his bunk, toying with the plush tooka Lula, rocking it absent-mindedly. Crosshair dismantled his rifle, inspecting each piece – still spotless from when he had done the same thing this morning – then abandoned the task. Discarding his current toothpick and replacing it with a fresh one, he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling with a perpetual crease between his brows. Tech had found himself something to tinker with, tools laid out on the bench as he dismantled a scanner. Then, seeing the parts laid out before him, he quickly swept them into a box and rose to his feet, pacing the room with his datapad instead.
Hunter simply leaned against the glass viewing window, forearm raised and forehead resting against it, watching the fierce storm-lashed Kaminoan sea surge and flow. The tension radiating from him was palpable, and the others didn't try to approach him.
Night had fallen and the lights in the complex cycled to low before there was a beep of their room being unlocked. With a quiet hiss the metal door retracted and a medical table hovered into the room, guided by one of the Kaminoan droids that had been in Echo's operating room earlier. On the table was the unconscious clone trooper, pale and drawn and with a deep-etched frown that persisted even in his sleep.
Immediately the Batch were on their feet, and Wrecker was the first to the table. With a care belied by his size he tucked his hands under Echo's prone form, lifting him gently and cradling him to his chest. Hunter moved to stand in front of the droid, seeming to loom despite the droid's lack of response.
"How is he?"
"CT-1409's heart rate and respiratory function is normal. His neural activity is supressed by medical sedation. His recovery requires no further intervention or monitoring."
"Meaning he will wake up when the sedative wears off," translated Tech.
Hunter jerked his head towards his bunk in the corner, the tidiest of the four. "Put him in there, Wrecker." The medical droid was forgotten as the four enhanced clones clustered around the one they had adopted as one of their own.
Wrecker sank down to sit in Hunter's bunk, still holding Echo's unconscious form close. "He's so light," he said with an ache in his voice, looking up at Hunter with hurt in his eyes.
"He will improve," Tech reassured him, running a medscan over Echo as though he didn't trust the droid’s report. He didn't need to be told how delicate Echo's body was – he remembered carrying him during their escape from Skako Minor, the rescued clone's weight mostly due to his mechanical parts instead of muscle and bone.
"What he needs now is rest," Hunter said grimly. "The best thing is that he's been returned to us. That must mean the Kaminoans are satisfied that he isn't under the influence of the Separatists any longer." He reached out to Wrecker, resting a comforting hand on his upper arm near where Echo's head rested. "He'll be okay. Echo is tough – we've all seen that."
Crosshair's lip curled in a sneer. "He may be tough," he said, voice tight with bitterness, "but if I were him I'm not sure I'd want to be rescued, if that was what was waiting when I got back."
Hunter's jaw clenched tightly and he didn't reply. Whilst the clone troopers had been glad to see the return of one of their own they had thought lost, to the Kaminoans Echo was nothing more than a scientific and operational curiosity. He couldn't fault Crosshair's observation, even though he knew rescuing Echo had been the right thing to do.
"What if he wakes up and doesn't know where he is?" asked Wrecker with concern, looking down into Echo's troubled face. "He might think they're gonna start testing again."
Hunter glanced at the other two. Crosshair gave a short nod, and Tech a more emphatic one. "Don't worry, Wrecker," he said, gesturing to the bed. "We'll all pile in. The first thing he'll see when he wakes up is a friendly face."
Wrecker grinned and quickly shuffled to the middle of the bunk to make room for his brothers either side. Crosshair eased himself into the back of the bunk, resting his back against Wrecker's shoulder and tucking his long legs up, arms folded across his knees as he reclined his head and closed his eyes. Tech gestured for Hunter to take the other side, waiting for his older brother to settle himself before sitting down with his back to the side wall of the bunk and stretching his long legs across both Hunter and Wrecker's laps, forming a protective barrier across Echo's back.
Surrounded on all sides by his brothers, Wrecker squeezed Echo as tightly as he dared, arms gentle around the unconscious clone's fragile shoulders. "Don't worry, Echo," he whispered, his voice as soft and soothing as his brash vocal cords would allow. "We got you. You're safe now."
*
Dark… and cold. Two things Echo had known for so long, held prisoner within his own body as his mind was forced to compute battle plans for the Separatist army. But even that seemed preferable to the unrelenting agony of the Kaminoan testing procedures, every synapse in his body both natural and artificial lit up with pain over and over and for what? To see what wire went where? And no matter how he screamed and pleaded for it to stop they kept going, kept testing, and his throat was so raw that his voice gave out, and still he tried to scream only now no sound came out and the pain was so intense that his mind might tear in two-
Even the memory of it was enough to send hot lances of pain along his ragged, over-worked nerve endings and he convulsed, the involuntary shudder jerking him from the threshold of nightmare and into wakefulness and there was weight, he was restrained, he was still on the table-
The weight, a warm pressure against his body, shifted as he thrashed weakly. Long fingers gripped his upper arm and he tried to cry out, but his throat was so damaged that barely a croak escaped. He kept his eyes shut, afraid of what he might see if he opened them, but then the hand on his arm loosened and a scratchy voice spoke quietly.
"I wouldn't try and move if I were you, reg.”
He recognised that voice. Now Echo opened his eyes, turning his face towards the voice and meeting the steely gaze of the sniper it belonged to. Crosshair offered him a slow nod, the fine line of his tattoo creasing at the edge of his eye as his mouth twisted in a humourless smile.
“If you keep thrashing about like that they’ll realise you’re awake, and it’ll be back for round two.” Crosshair’s sharp eyes darted towards the ceiling, and Echo followed his gaze to see the security camera that monitored the Batch’s room. He looked back to Crosshair for a moment and nodded his understanding, then took a deep breath and focused his attention on the rest of his body.
Everything hurt – a sharp ache of remembered pain, too fresh to bear looking at closely. But the pressure he had thought a restraint was the weight of tangled limbs folded round his traumatised body. The hand on his arm was Crosshair’s, the sniper resting with his cheek on the top of Wrecker’s shoulder. Wrecker had his chin tucked to his chest, snoring gently in his sleep, his arms still folded round Echo’s waist. On the other side Hunter dozed against the crook of Wrecker’s shoulder, one arm draped over Echo’s folded knees, the other over Tech’s shoulders where the latter had slumped against him in the night. Tech’s body was turned in towards the rest of them, his head on Hunter’s chest and an arm and leg thrown across Wrecker’s lap and Echo’s back.
Echo glanced back at Crosshair, his gaze questioning. The sniper’s narrow face had fallen back to its usual stern lines but Echo still found it a comfort.
Crosshair gave him a small nod, then closed his eyes to feign sleep again.
“Like I said… don’t try and move. You won't know peace like this again for a while. Enjoy it while it lasts."
Echo took another deep breath, feeling pain in his ribs as his chest expanded and wincing slightly. On his upper arm Crosshair’s long fingers tightened reassuringly, and at that simple gesture Echo’s eyes prickled with the tears he hadn’t shed throughout his ordeal – or at any time since they had rescued him.
“Thank you,” he whispered, the words little more than a rasp but he forced them out, heard himself say them aloud despite the pain.
“Don’t mention it, vod.”
Just barely, the corners of Echo’s mouth turned up in a smile. He settled back, laying his head once more on Wrecker’s broad chest and listening to his steady heartbeat, to the gentle breathing of the four clones resting around him. He still trembled a little at the thought of what he might yet have to face at the hands of the Kaminoans; he was sure they weren’t done with him yet. But for now the soothing presence of his new brothers was enough to lull him back to sleep – and this time, the nightmares were kept at bay.