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Crosshair hating how reassuring it was to hear another clone questioning what he’d been too afraid to… wishing Wrecker had been there to disarm the mine… Mayday studying him, curious but not judgmental, so observant… my heart, this is good :_;

Welcome To The Outpost: Part 2.2 - Broken

Fandom: The Bad Batch Characters: CT-9904 Crosshair, Clone Commander Mayday, Lieutenant Nolan Word Count: ~3230 Read Here on AO3

Synopsis: Mayday might have lost his squad, but a new mission – and a new companion – gives him focus. After all, Crosshair doesn’t know how to survive out here.

Read Part 1.1 - Frozen Read Part 1.2 - Rise From The Ashes Read Part 1.3 - Lost Battle Read Part 1.4 - No Way Out Read Part 1.5 - Rock And A Hard Place Read Part 2.1 - Last Chance

Mayday’s fingers ghosted over Hexx’s empty helmet, lips twisting in a grimace. He bit the expression back to neutrality, forcing his face into an impassive mask. Wouldn’t do to break down now.

Reverently he placed his friend’s helmet onto the crate beside Veetch’s, turning it to face in. He took a few moments to adjust it until, satisfied with the alignment, he brushed his hand over Veetch’s helmet too and stepped back to survey his work.

Eleven helmets. Eleven blank visors, staring unseeing up at him. Eleven empty buckets, holding nothing but ghosts and bad memories, each bearing the scars of their owner’s deaths.

Some leader he was, without a squad left to command.

Crosshair had stayed quiet throughout the ritual, unobtrusive yet watchful. Mayday felt the other’s eyes on him, but the sniper wasn’t his focus.

The funereal silence was broken by the lieutenant storming in.

“What are you doing just standing around?” he demanded, pushing past Crosshair to immediately crowd into Mayday’s space. “Those raiders stole two crates of cargo in that attack,” he accused, jabbing an angry finger at the clone commander. “Send your troops to retrieve it.”

Mayday took a deep breath, closing his eyes just for a moment. When he sighed the breath out, his voice was gravel.

“Hexx, and Veetch, were killed in the ambush.” He said their names slowly, rolling them round his tongue like keeping the sound of their names in his mouth might keep their memories alive a little longer. Just as slowly, he turned from the memorial, lifting his bowed head to glare at the lieutenant.

“We don’t have the manpower, or gear, for a mission beyond the perimeter,” he said flatly. “Especially just to recover a few crates.”

The hollow pit of loss gnawed at his stomach as he remembered the last time they ventured beyond the base to retrieve stolen cargo. Back then, he’d had men to lose.

Nolan was having none of it.

“It’s not up to you to determine what is of value to the Empire,” he pouted, puffing himself up to glare at the clone commander.

Mayday grit his teeth and returned the look with his own uncompromising glower.

“Then I need all your men for this mission,” he said, calculating the likelihood of success as he spoke.

“And leave this outpost vulnerable to another attack?” trilled Nolan in disbelief. “I think not.” He turned, and now his pointing finger encompassed both the clone troopers. “This task falls to you two, and you two alone. Recover the cargo. Is that clear?”

Mayday’s eyes flicked up, and he found himself meeting the gaze of the defective clone who had, as before, remained silent through the lieutenant’s tirade.

Crosshair’s jaw worked around a toothpick, and his eyes slid away.

Mayday swallowed his bitter pride and returned his glare to the Imperial officer. “Yes, Lieutenant,” he ground out, watching as the man retreated.

Behind him the sniper turned the toothpick over in his mouth as he chewed anxiously.

Taking a deep breath, Mayday rolled his neck to ease the tension and came to join Crosshair, seating himself on a crate and leaning forwards to warm his hands and face in the meagre glow of the heater. He glanced at the still-standing sniper, offering him a hollow smile.

“A special mission, just for us clones,” he said, not bothering to mask the resentment in his voice. “So what did you do to get on his bad side?”

Crosshair shrugged his thin shoulders, not meeting Mayday’s eyes.

Mayday sighed, letting his gaze drop, before sneaking a glance up at the other clone again. At least Crosshair’s reluctance to look at him gave him chance to study the man. He had tried not to stare when the CT-99 first removed his helmet, but it was hard not to want to.

He'd expected some slight variance from the standard template, but Crosshair's narrow face and sharp jaw were a far cry from the mirror he was used to seeing when he looked at his clone brothers. His skin was paler too, and his shorn-back hair hugged his scalp with stubble that showed shades of grey despite his youth.

Mayday had politely averted his attention from the pitted scar at the other clone's temple - it was bad grace to ask about these things.

Looking closely, he noticed the characteristics they did share. Narrowed though they were in constant suspicion, Crosshair had the same shrewd brown eyes that Mayday was so familiar with, restlessly darting and framed by the tattoo around his right orbit. Mayday briefly wondered if the clone had picked his name first, or if it was the tattoo which had earned him the moniker.

And the gauntness of his face was also familiar. Enhanced by his jutting cheekbones, Mayday recognised the look of someone gone too long with too little food, the hollow hardness that came with dire situations. He would never ask what Crosshair had been through, but he'd bet his meagre credit balance that it wasn't so different to what Mayday and his own squad had suffered.

His gaze drifted back to the line of empty buckets, to the two most newly added to the end of the row.

“That man is going to be the death of me,” he muttered, reluctantly pushing back to his feet. “Come on. I’ll grab my gear and we’ll head out.”

“I’ll say this about the tunnels,” said Mayday with false levity, “at least they’re warm. Well, relatively speaking. We’re out of the wind… that’s something.”

There was a lingering silence before Crosshair asked, “Do you always talk this much?”

Mayday huffed a laugh at the acerbic comment. “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said without remorse. "Why, remind you of someone?"

If anything, Crosshair's silence got colder. Mayday glanced at his recalcitrant companion before turning to face ahead once more.

"Not much of a talker, are you."

"Better than people who talk when they've got nothing to say."

Mayday’s grim smile was hidden inside his helmet. "Not gonna give an inch, are you? I was hoping you'd lighten up once we were away from the Imperials."

Crosshair swung to face him, torchlight bright in his face and the muzzle of the firepuncher just above it.

"We're all Imperials now," he said, in a voice which warred between conviction and reticence. "Or did you miss the memo?"

"Oh I got it," said Mayday darkly, tapping his temple. "I just chose to hang onto my own faculties despite it."

He moved past the sniper, one hand casually pushing the firepuncher down and away. Crosshair lingered for a moment before falling back into step behind the commander.

"They say loyalty is bred into us clones," continued Mayday softly, sounding out his thoughts slowly to his unwilling audience. "Under the Republic, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. I was proud to do my duty."

He let the thought trail off, chasing the indistinct feeling of discomfiture that had lodged inside his chest after Order 66 and hardened into something immoveable during the long months on Barton IV.

"The Empire is different," he said at length. "I don't know. I'm still loyal. Always have been. It's just..."

"You've been questioning," supplied Crosshair unexpectedly.

Mayday pulled up short, regarding the sniper with a shrewd look.

"Perhaps you've thought about this after all."

"Perhaps," said the younger clone non-committally. Then he gestured with his rifle. "Keep walking, or we'll never catch them."

Mayday rolled his eyes and breathed a shallow, sarcastic, "Sir, yes sir."

They had been following the tunnels for an hour before their torches lighted on a pair of boots sticking out from round a slight bend.

When they reached the man, Mayday crouched down and checked for vitals. The raider’s thickly padded clothes were stained dark from the gunshot wound Crosshair had inflicted; the sniper didn’t react to that, surveying the corpse dispassionately.

“He didn’t get far.”

Mayday rocked back onto his heels, shaking his head. “Not sure what bothers me more,” he said, voice soft with introspection. “That he’s wearing armour stolen off my men, or that his cohorts just left him here.”

He remembered the lengths he and his men had gone to in recovering each of their fallen brethren’s bodies. The final chance for a farewell. Looking at the dead raider, abandoned by his comrades, filled him with a hollow kind of sorrow.

Crosshair merely scoffed.

“No point carrying dead weight.”

There was a fine line between arrogance and insecurity, and Mayday was an experienced enough commander to recognise when one was masking the other. He glanced up at Crosshair, wondered again about the scars and the gauntness of his underweight frame.

Wondered who had left the Imperial sniper behind, that he was now so callous about the fate of others.

With a grunt, he pushed to his feet.

“Remind me not to die on your watch,” he muttered, and they left the fallen raider behind.

Mayday stiffened instantly at the familiar click, stomach dropping into a pit of dread.

To his credit, Crosshair didn’t panic. He froze, going stock still as Mayday turned to face him.

“Pressure mine,” supplied the commander helpfully.

Crosshair hummed an irate acknowledgement of the obvious statement.

Mayday knelt on the ground before Crosshair, laying down his blaster and positioning his torch to light the other clone’s feet. Ignoring the chill of the snow through his gloves, he carefully brushed the powdery stuff away until he revealed the edges of the innocuous, deadly metal plate.

Unable to resist, he huffed a laugh. “What were you saying about dead weight?”

“Do you know how to disarm it?” bit Crosshair, his annoyed tone not quite masking the anxious undercurrent of tension that thrummed from him.

With a shrug, Mayday rocked back to his heels. “I’m not an explosives expert,” he said bluntly. “But since I don’t feel like carrying your body back to the outpost…” He left a deliberate pause, glancing up at Crosshair to find the other clone’s visor turned towards him, gaze riveted on his position. “Guess I’ll give a shit.”

Mayday had an unexpectedly intense longing to know what Crosshair’s expression was behind the featureless black helmet. Was he glaring at Mayday in disdain… or was he moved by his assertion that, even if he died, Mayday would show him the same care he had the rest of his brothers in recovering his body?

He hoped it was the latter. Eleven empty helmets crowded his memories. He didn’t want to add a twelfth, but if he had to, he wanted Crosshair to know that someone would care about his death.

Breaking the long stare, Mayday turned back to the pressure mine. “This one’s a little different to the ones I’ve seen before,” he said, leaning to inspect it from all sides. Crosshair’s shin trembled, with cold or with tension, but he kept his foot carefully weighted on the pad. Then, with another injection of feigned casualness, “I’m pretty sure they’re all the same. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

His cold-numbed fingers didn’t want to co-operate as he withdrew the set of small metal pegs and hammer from his belt. He took a moment to inspect them, checking that the ends were sharp enough to bite into the frozen ground, before leaning in and beginning to tap the first peg into place.

“Wish I had the proper equipment for this,” he said as he worked, talking through the thudding of his heart whilst Crosshair remained completely silent. Sweat beaded on his brow inside his helmet, despite the ambient temperature. “But the Empire’s ignored all my requests. I’ve learned to improvise, though.”

As the first peg came to rest on the mine he opened his hand, displaying the remaining tools to Crosshair. Thought of all the times this home-made kit had worked.

Tried not to think of Telmer.

“I guess all clones have had to learn to improvise since the war,” he continued softly, shuffling to the side as he positioned the second peg. He kept his gaze trained on the mine, carefully measuring the gap as the peg closed on the pressure plate.

Crosshair’s silence was beginning to unnerve him. Anxiety roiled in his stomach, wishing the other clone would say something – encouragement, scathing remarks, anything.

“Can’t say I ever thought much about the war ending,” he said, hoping it would prompt the other to speak. “Until it did.”

When that failed to elicit a response, he switched to a direct question.

“What unit were you with?”

He heard the intake of breath as Crosshair hesitated. It was hard to avoid such a straight query from a commander, but the sniper made a valiant effort.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Humour me,” said Mayday. His hands moved past Crosshair’s foot again, reaching to position the final peg. “I could use the distraction.”

There was still a long moment when the only sound was the delicate tap of the hammer on the improvised disarming peg. When Crosshair finally spoke his voice was soft, missing the acid edge of his earlier snark.

“Clone Force 99.”

Mayday nodded slowly as he worked. He recognised the name, although he had never worked with the unit.

“What happened to them?” he asked, hoping his gentle tone would invite elaboration.

“They’re… gone.”

The sniper’s choice of words was more telling than he realised. Mayday wasn’t about to pry, but it was easy to see there was something complex going on there.

He thought of his brothers, his men who had been with him through the unrelenting hardship of Barton IV. Geo and Dene, Krake, Recon and Axis, Ferox, Atlas, Telmer and Helix. Veetch. Hexx.

They weren't ‘gone’. They were dead.

Gone… gone implied something else.

He also sensed that Crosshair wasn’t going to open up any further, no matter how carefully he angled his question. Instead, he turned his thoughts outwards to what remained.

“And here we are, the survivors.” The derision in his tone drew a hum of agreement from Crosshair, and he couldn’t keep the bitterness from his next words. “Combat troopers, stuck babysitting cargo shipments.”

Now Crosshair shifted his frame ever so slightly, the first movement since he triggered the mine, as his shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“Mission’s a mission,” he said, his voice thin with disinterest.

“Yeah.” Mayday pondered the other clone’s words, trying to remember a version of himself that had arrived on Barton IV over fourteen months ago. “I used to say the same thing.”

Crosshair employed every ounce of his training to keep deathly still as the reg commander worked to disarm the pressure mine under his foot. Endless hours cramped in one place, waiting for his target to come into position, was nothing compared to the strain that this put on his body. Every muscle ached, screaming against the cold to be allowed to shiver, to move, to warm him. He clamped down with iron willpower to supress the urge to twitch even the slightest amount. He daren’t move, or the pressure mine would send them both to an early grave.

A lacklustre thought at the back of his mind wondered if that might be better. He quickly quashed that too, with a growl of annoyance. Thoughts like that weren’t helpful.

He had survived so much. He would survive this too. He’d be damned if he failed this mission; he wanted his success to wipe the smirk off Lieutenant Nolan’s face when the clones came through.

If only the damn reg would stop talking. The susurrus of his conversation was stopping Crosshair from concentrating on remaining perfectly still.

Especially when he asked about Clone Force 99.

Crosshair had let the name escape from behind clenched teeth, unwilling but seemingly unavoidable. Now memories he didn’t want flooded his mind, after all his hard work to put aside everything that had ever tied him to the clones he had once called brothers.

Not that the mindless babble Mayday had provided the rest of the day had been any easier to bear.

Loyalty. He’d talked about it, how loyalty was bred into the clones.

Crosshair had always thought he was different. He was enhanced.

Defective, whispered the poisonous voice in his mind.

But listening to Mayday talk, all he could hear was Rampart’s gently mocking voice.

“How long were you left stranded on that Kaminoan platform before being recovered?”

“Thirty-two rotations.”

“Hmm. All that time. Left for dead and yet you still came back. Why?”

He came back because he was loyal. He was a soldier of the Empire, proud to be one of the clones chosen to support the new regime instead of being sidelined by it.

Had to be proud of that, to balance the loss.

And his loyalty was his. He’d been so sure of that. It wasn’t bred into him. It wasn’t, like the kid had said, some chip in his brain controlling his actions. After all, he’d had his chip removed after Bracca, and had still worked for the Empire.

Only now it felt like that faith was fracturing, breaking as readily as the cracks in the cavernous ice around him.

He hated the reg commander. Hated his compelling, measured voice. Hated the uncertainty he planted in his mind.

Hated how reassuring it was to hear another clone voice the same doubts he’d been afraid to turn over in the dark privacy of his thoughts.

Mayday couldn’t be right. The Empire had to be worth defending.

Otherwise he’d lost his brothers for nothing.

“There. That should do it.”

The hint of triumph in Mayday’s tone pierced Crosshair’s thoughts and instantly his body was ready to move, the words the signal he needed to relax his cramped position.

“Woah, woah, woah!” warned Mayday in alarm, backing up and holding his hands up cautiously. “Don’t pick up your foot yet. Wait until I tell you.” He turned his bucket up to face Crosshair, the cloth-wrapped helmet dusted with snow. “Then lift your foot, but real slow like. I’ll wait around the bend.”

The commander began to back away, turning his back to Crosshair.

“If I don’t hear a boom, then I’ll know it worked,” he called back, almost casually, over his shoulder.

Crosshair grit his teeth, scrunching his eyes shut behind his helmet. How he wished it had been Wrecker attending the mine.

“Glad you’re confident in your work,” he spat icily.

“Oh, I’m confident,” Mayday’s voice drifted to him. “I’m just not stupid.”

Crosshair wriggled his fingers round his rifle, testing his balance on his numb legs. A shiver of cold made its way down his leg to the foot still atop the pressure plate.

“Remember, nice and slow. On the count of three. One.”

He steadied himself.

“Two.”

Took his weight on his back leg.

“Three.”

Lifted his foot.

The pegs held the pressure plate in place. Crosshair couldn’t control how his breath whooshed out in relief and he staggered back against the tunnel wall, sagging his aching body against it.

Mayday reappeared, surveying the pressure mine before clapping a hand to Crosshair’s shoulder.

“You did good, lad.”

Crosshair snarled. “Get off me.”

Mayday’s casual laugh was infuriating.

“Don’t say thank you, then,” he said, releasing him and turning to continue down the tunnel. “Keep up. Wouldn’t want you to get left behind down here.”

Welcome to Angstpril!

This writing project is a collaboration between myself, @the-little-moment and @kybercrystals94 to bring you a fabulous series of angst-based Bad Batch fanfiction. We've shared the prompts between us so don't forget to check all of our blogs to catch the whole month's worth of stories!

We're over half way through Mayday's story now, and there's hardship yet to come for him to face alongside Crosshair. Stay tuned to follow their journey to the bitter end...

will do my level best to get the next chapter finished on time but it's been A Few Days so we'll see

#angstpril2024 #thebadbatch #fanfiction #day20 #the bad batch #the bad batch fanfic #tbb fanfic #clone commander mayday #commander mayday #barton iv #shrieking and gnawing at the drywall here #fic rec

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