The Bad Batch Aftermath{TechxOC}

The Truth

The sun had set and the starry night lit up the sky on Raxus. Valerie opened her eyes and Tech was kneeling in front of her, he was studying her face. "Oh Tech!" Valerie said, he didn't say anything. "Tech? Are-are you okay?"

"You've been ignoring me, are you mad or something?" Tech asked.

Valerie looked at the dirt, "I'm not mad Tech, I-I've just been trying to figure everything out between us." She sighed. "I got caught up with my own feelings, I didn't even stop to think about yours. I'm really sorry, that's not fair to you."

"Did you figure anything out?"

Valerie still couldn't look at him. "I care about everyone here a lot, but I care about you in a different way. A way that was frowned upon by the jedi and I am just trying to process these new feelings and I don't think I'm doing a good job at figuring them out." She rubbed her neck. Tech just nodded, the two of them just sat there unsure of what to say next. Valerie could feel her cheeks get warm. She just admitted her feelings and Tech wasn't responding.

"You mentioned part of what happened on Corellia. What else happened?" Tech said after the awkward silence.

Valerie looked up at Tech. The question caught her off guard and she felt the tears stinging in her eyes, but she held them back. "I made a mistake. A bad plan."

"Well plans don't always don't go according to plan."

"I know but," She paused and looked up at the night sky. Tech kept his focus on her and was still looking at her. "I got over 500 clones killed with one mission."

"I know, but that's the price of war. We clones were designed for that."

She took a deep breath and looked back at Tech, "but if I had listened to my master they still would've been alive." She whispered.

"You can't blame yourself Val"

"I do Tech. I do." She sighed. "I had just earned my knight status and I was back on Corellia with Drake and the 671st. The separatist had launched an attack, it caught us off guard, we were severely outnumbered and Drake, my master, wanted to hold off on a counter attack. To wait for reinforcements, he had plans for a more of a sneak attack kinda plan, but I thought Corellia couldn't wait that long. So I came up with a plan a different plan, a head on attack with our AT-TE's and Captain Rickshaw thought it was a great plan. He got his men ready and when we thought we had the droids pinned we launched our attack." She looked back down at the ground, still ashamed of her failed plans, "but they were waiting for us, and-and they just gunned us down. Rickshaw was shot and when he was down he wasn't moving. In that moment I was so afraid. I didn't know what to do, I jumped over to him, the droids were surrounding me but I stood over him, trying to protect him. I ended up getting shot in the shoulder but I kept pushing myself. I don't know what happened but in my panic I screamed and used the force and pushed the droids that surrounded me back, but they still kept coming. I was weak. Then Drake and the rest of the 671st arrived and took down enough of the droids for us to retreat. I was able to get Rickshaw out of there, still alive, but he was badly wounded. My master was so furious with me and I don't even blame him. Even when he chose to get rid of me."

Tech had thought back to Cantonica, to when Valerie was so blinded by her fear and had used the force to push everyone back. Tech realized that even she didn't know how much power she actually had, she was holding herself back without realizing it. "Hey." He whispered soft enough and Valerie looked up at him. "It was a good plan and you were confident enough to think so too. If those clones didn't think so they wouldn't have gone along with those plans. If the batch and I were there we would have joined you right on the front lines."

Valerie just stared at him, it still shocked her how good he could be with words sometimes. "Where is everyone else?"

Tech noticed the change in subject but left it alone. "Everyone else is resting on the Marauder, when we returned we saw you out here meditating. Omega said you had some stuff to figure out. They all boarded but I decided to sit out here with you so you weren't alone."