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Soldiers didn’t get consistency or predictability in their lives. War would pull them from anywhere, their meals, their beds, the fresher. Victory required accepting it, and being able to mobilize in moments by training’s end. No exceptions.
The kaminoans used that to justify a schedule that was apparently spit out from an algorithm each morning, because if it existed in any solid state Tech would have dug it up by now. Crosshair suspected it was more to keep them off balance than anything. Couldn’t let them adapt - it might ruin one of their precious datapoints.
Most days, at least they were together, whatever they had to face. Today, though, was the third in a row where they called Crosshair out, alone. His guts twisted, especially when Hunter almost looked like he planned to argue, or worse, volunteer himself in his place, but he stood and followed all the same. He knew better than to hesitate when called on.
Hesitation was as good as refusal. Refusal was as good as failure. Failure would get all four of them decommissioned in a second.
At least they were steering him towards the training grounds instead of the medical wing. Solo modules left their scars, but none as deep as the tests.
Nala Se waited in the training room. Her eyes only drifted to him momentarily when he entered, then returned to her datapad. Crosshair tried to catch a glimpse of it, but she swiftly angled the screen away before he could catch more than a couple CT numbers. One his own, the other… a control test most likely. Some reg to contrast his results to.
Seemed pointless to him. But all of it did, most days. If it weren’t for his brothers, he probably would have dared refusal by now.
“You will be operating from the northeastern tower for this exercise.” She actually looked up at him then, brown eyes meeting ghostly white. He didn’t let himself blink. “Live rounds will be engaged for the duration.”
Crosshair’s mouth sealed into a stern line, eyes narrowing. Live rounds meant live targets. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d used animals for his training, but the kaminoans didn’t like targets that cost them money.
Curious as he was, he didn’t bother asking any questions. He’d learned a long time ago that they wouldn’t be answered.
Soon enough, Nala Se had turned away from him without a word. He had until she was in the overhead lab to set up - once she was ready the simulation would start, and if he got shot or eaten by whatever they planned to send out because he wasn’t in his tower on time, so be it.
The climb was almost rote by this point, though, so it took him only seconds to ascend, and the solid weight of his rifle in his hands helped to drive out any questions that might have lingered. Target practice was target practice, and shooting was what he was bred for. Nothing easier than disappearing into it.
Droids were his first targets. The big, slow, and stupid kind that marched forward and relied on size to clear the path, agile as a damned tank. Might as well have been holding still for all the challenge they presented.
Nala Se’s amplified voice read off a time with each fallen target, recording his speed into the log. Every shot brought a kick of recoil against his shoulder, and with easy work like this it fell into a beat he knew as well as his own heart. As much as these droids might be an insult to his skills, at least they provided their own kind of familiar comfort.
Eventually the droids with a death wish petered out, their place taken by smaller, flying drones, quick and programmed for evasion. Crosshair’s pace only slowed by a fraction, the kickback falling into a new rhythm. The target droids weren’t made to withstand live fire, and each one exploded into a shower of circuitry when hit, crashing to the ground with the sharp scrape of metal on metal.
There had to be a reason they were wasting this much product. Crosshair bit his lip to keep his mind from wandering down that path. It’d only piss him off if anything, to have questions he knew would go nowhere.
A toothpick would be nice right now, he thought idly between shots. But the kaminoans didn’t like to see them, liked it even less when he got careless and flicked them onto the floor. He’d left them in their quarters, so if the only alternative was to bite down on himself until he tasted blood then that was just what he’d have to do.
The first live target was a trio of massiffs. A year ago he might have winced at the thought of taking them down, but a target was a target, whether it sparked or bled. Pity wasn’t an acceptable quality in a sniper. The kaminoans had made sure that particular lesson was carved into his very bones.
Still, he hated the sound their bodies made when they fell, lives ended in an instant with one well placed shot.
The animals blended together after a while as he let himself fall further into the simple repetition of it. He bothered identifying them only to remember their weak points, what would kill them the fastest. Aim, shoot, feel the kick against him and the metal warm under his hands. Listen to Nala Se’s placid voice reading off an endless series of times. It made it easy to ignore the mess, the gore left behind and the smell of blood that was starting to tinge the air.
He had to be close to done.
Another door opened, another body stumbling into view. Crosshair locked on in an instant, but his finger froze before he could pull the trigger. With an exasperated growl, he lifted his head.
Leave it to a damned reg to somehow wander into a live training.
A dozen insults sprang to mind and immediately were crushed beneath the wave of awareness that came from losing the simple repetition of shooting. The whole room came into sharp focus, too much to take in all at once, and Crosshair winced, shut his eyes against the onslaught of visual information. Too many details too fast, it all made his head hurt, which only made him angrier at the interruption.
Bad enough when it was just the infuriatingly bright-lit white of Kamino’s walls, worse when his instincts drove him to note every fallen body in a room full of his own kills.
He almost managed to shout then, thoughts finally organizing back into understandable words instead of just raw input. Before any of them could slip free, though, Nala Se cut him off.
“Continue the exercise, CT-9904.”
One simple sentence was all it took to punch the words back out of his mind all over again. Continue with what? There were no targets other than-
His mouth went dry.
The reg looked confused, lost, and now that Crosshair watched him closer he could tell that his gait was off. Slow and irregular, like someone had drugged him before tossing him in here. Evasive skills weren’t supposed to be the challenge here.
There was a tattoo on the reg’s neck. Something twisting, snake-like, that ran from beneath his blacks - only blacks, not even granted the dignity of armor - and up the side of his intimately familiar face. There were words in the design. Crosshair didn’t let himself read them.
Nala Se still held the damn timer, he knew that without looking up. They'd never told him how long he had to take the shot before he failed. He'd never worried about it before.
Crosshair swallowed around the lump that had developed in his throat. Lined up his sights with the reg’s head. One shot to the forehead was all it would take. Fast, as painless as possible. He breathed in, thought of his vode, waiting back in their quarters for him to return.
Hesitation was as good as refusal. Refusal was as good as failure. And failure…
He pulled the trigger.
"Twelve seconds," Nala Se announced placidly while his hands started to shake. "That will be all for today, CT-9904. You may return to your quarters."
Twenty minutes later he’d made it back to his room with no memory of the journey and the taste of vomit stuck in the back of his throat. No one asked what he’d done - it was an unspoken rule, never to ask - but Wrecker opened his arms and let Crosshair disappear into them without a word.
His fingers curled into Wrecker's blacks, and he tried not to think of the same fabric stained with blood. He’d bought their lives for another day. They didn’t need to know the price.