The Bad Batch: One Shot Collection

Cadet Batch 99

Author's Note: I had soooo much fun with this. It was depressing and angsty in all the right ways, though it did... sort of go off on a tangent of how awful the clones' training on Kamino was. Which was fun to address. :) 

I wrote this for ProwlingThunder on ao3, and it's also for the square "depression" on the Bad Batch bingo. ^-^

PS. The art on the front cover was drawn by Shyranno on tumblr. 

~ Amina Gila

Crosshair expected the Empire to find him on Kamino. What he did not expect was to suddenly and inexplicably find himself years in the past, before the Clone Wars even began. What is he to do with himself now, if there's no Empire to serve? Well, perhaps he can train the clone cadets on Kamino, preparing them for the coming war. It's not what he wants, but it's still something.

The one thing Crosshair wanted most was to go home. Home. It's a distant, almost unfamiliar, concept to him now. Where is home? Once, home was with his brothers, but then, they left, abandoned him, and now, he's all alone. He doesn't have a home anymore. Maybe he never did. Maybe it was only ever a lie.

He thought he belonged with the Empire, but they never came back for him. It's been weeks, and still nothing. He doesn't want to die here, left and forgotten on Kamino. He was meant for more than that.

"You all are meant for more than drifting through the galaxy."

"All you'll ever be to them is a number."

And then, everything changes. He wakes up to a world that's still just as rainy and miserable as ever, but it's... different somehow. It takes him a moment to realize what, and even longer to determine that he's not hallucinating. Kamino. It's there. Tipoca City, which he watched burn, is there, as though it was never destroyed at all.

What the kriff is going on?

He moves from the landing platform, manages to sneak to the main facility without being seen – it is so useful that he knows of the underwater transport system – and then discovers that he's over six years in the past.

...

Stranger things have happened to them.

... Okay, maybe not, but he can – work with this. Somehow.

Maybe.

There's no Empire to serve anymore, and no Republic that needs his services in the Clone Wars. The war won't even break out for three more years. Following orders is something Crosshair knows. This – this, he doesn't. There's no one here to tell him what to do. No one who can give him orders that he can follow. It was easy when he only had to follow orders – that's what he was trained for. But this? What is he to do now?

He has no war to fight, no orders to follow, no home to go back to. He doesn't know if his brothers ended up here in the past through whatever sorcery brought him here, but he's not going to hope. Even if they're here, they're still traitors. Or they will be traitors? He's not sure how all that works, but it's too confusing to sort out and thinking about them hurts too much anyway. He has nowhere to go. No one would miss him if he died. No one would even care. It's a sobering thought, not one he cares to explore too deeply.

A Kaminoan finds him, and he blames his exhaustion on why – he hasn't eaten or slept properly in days. Weeks, even. For a heartbeat, Crosshair thinks he'll have to run, to try and escape even without his rifle. His brothers took it, like they took everything from him. They left him here to die. ... Maybe he is dead. Maybe this is just a screwed-up afterlife of some sort. Doesn't really feel like he's dead though.