SWRC: OC-49 (Part 2)(Book 2.75)

Epilogue

Captain Tye hated their new prison.

None of the unit liked their predicament, especially claustrophobic Hawkeye, but they were thankful to still have each other and to not have been separated like before.

Hawkeye was constantly having to live out his worst nightmare over and over again from being consistently placed and kept in small confined spaces over the last several weeks. Trapper and B.J were trying their best to help him but there was only so much that they could do.

The man had obliviously had an incident early on in his life involving a tight space and it had left him traumatised.

His only relief came when they were allowed out into the prisons yard for an hour or two, depending on how the superiors felt that day.
The next mission was getting him back into the cells.

But the company relaxed during those brief moments of respite where they were free, if only for a short time.

Somehow, the Imperials hadn't cottened onto the fact that the 149 new detainees were fugitive defective clone troopers from when the Republic reigned supreme. While Tye was grateful for that, as hardly any of them looked completely the same after their years in exile, something was nagging him that they were waiting for the right chance to blow their cover and expose the defects to the galaxy.

They'd probably be promptly executed for what happened in the Clone Wars, but because the clones had retained an extremely youthful look for clones, no one seemed to have realised yet.

Tye himself only looked about 22-24 years old. He'd felt like he hadn't really aged correctly for the last 12 years, feeling as though he was alternating between ages. He should have been about 30-34 years old but had somehow kept his youth.

All of Orange Company 49 mysteriously had.

That had never been explained to him and it remained a mystery which annoyed Tye and the rest of the Mission Readys to no end.

"Is something the matter?" asked one of the other inmates stuck with the company. Tye looked down from his perch atop a mismatched jumble of boulders that served as his seat.
"Why do you ask?" questioned Tye, eyeing the pair suspiciously.

"You seem distracted," said the man. Tye notes his dark curly hair and orange garb that marked him as a small Outer Rim planet citizen.
"Do you want someone to speak to?" asked the woman. She too had black hair and a lilac purple coloured garb that made Tye assume she was the man's partner, like C.T was his.

"Why would I need someone to talk to?" asked Tye. "I have 148 brothers to-"

Too late, Tye realised his mistake. One would have though a childlike like Wash or Colours would have given them away, but it had been their commander instead.

But the pair didn't react the way Tye would have thought most would have in that situation.

The man chuckled and said, "Sometimes it's good to talk to someone else."
"If you're meaning a partner, I already have one," said Tye, trying to control his mouth to match his thoughts of 'shut up before you give us all away!'
"C.T is around here somewhere. Probably trying not to be sick."

He couldn't understand why he felt so comfortable around the strangers that he didn't even know the names of. He'd never even felt this comfortable around clone troopers who were of his own flesh and blood from their creator.

"May we ask your name, Soldier?" asked the man.
"My name is Captain Tye, commander of the mercenary group OC-49,"replied Tye, growing fonder of the pair more and more as the minutes ticked by. "Who are you two?"
"Ephraim Bridger," said the man.
"And this is my wife, Mira Bridger."