Healer's Hands

The Kaminoans

Althea sat patiently as Tech unwrapped her bandage. It had been a week of constant limping, and now she could find out if she was finally healed. There had been no luck in finding the Separatist ship, but Althea and the Bad Batch weren't giving up. They would get the information and Thao, no matter what.

"Well, Althea," said Tech. "It seems your leg has fully healed. Though it will most definitely scar."

The girl looked down at it. "I coulda told you that."

Tech scowled. Not too long ago, Althea had corrected Tech on a bandaging technique, and the others wouldn't let him live it down. Crosshair and Wrecker especially.

Althea stood, testing the weight on her leg. "It feels good as new. Thanks, Tech." She gave him a small smile, and he returned it.

She walked into the cockpit where everyone else sat. Wrecker grinned as she walked by. "Hey, you're barely limping at all! How's the leg feel, kid?"

Althea smiled and sat in the seat next to him behind Crosshair. "It feels a lot better. It doesn't even hurt."

"That's good." Hunter said from the pilot's seat. Over the past week, Althea had gotten to know them pretty well. Hunter was usually soft-spoken, and he was very kind. Wrecker was basically the older brother she never had, always happy to see her and always ready to blow something up. Tech was very precise with everything. His words, work, calculations, it made him come off as a little callous, but Althea knew he meant well. Crosshair barely spoke at all, but he was very observant. It was probably from his sniper skills, always watching and noticing tiny details from far away.

"So," Althea started. "Have you found the Separatist ship yet?"

"So far, it seems to be in hyperspace. Just like the past week." Hunter said.

"Or they found the tracker and destroyed it." Crosshair suggested.

Tech leaned over his seat and pressed a few buttons, bringing up a hologram of the ship. "Impossible, the tracker is still right here."

"We can't find it if it's in hyperspace. Sorry, kid." Hunter seemed genuinely sorry, but Althea wasn't going to give up. She looked out at the swirling blue of their own hyperspace lane.

"If we can't get to the ship, where are we going?" She asked.

"We've been ordered to return to Kamino." Said Hunter. "Standard protocol."

Crosshair rolled his eyes. "Is it? They made us different than the regs, yet they still expect us to act like them."

Wrecker nodded. "Crosshair's right. Why do we have to go? We never follow orders."

Hunter turned his chair to look at them. "Well, unless you wanna explain that to the Prime Minister, and we all know you don't, you're going to follow orders."

Wrecker and Crosshair stopped arguing about it, leaving Althea to wonder who the Prime Minister was. "What's wrong with the Prime Minister?" She asked.

"He doesn't take to kindly to defective clones," Crosshair explained. "The only reason he keeps us around is we've never failed a mission."

Hunter nodded. "We don't follow orders, but they don't know that...for the most part."

"For the most part?" Althea asked.

"Kaminoan scientists have deemed us 'defective' for a reason." Said Tech. "As cadets, we showed a concerning amount of deviation from the other clones."

"Wrecker once set our barracks on fire." Crosshair added.

Wrecker laughed. "Yeah."

Tech rolled his eyes before continuing. "When we were given our first mission, we we're told to follow orders to the 'T', but we did not."