Below are excerpts from Bravado, a Bad Batch fan fiction. It was written before the season 3 premier, serving as an alternate storyline at this point. It picks up directly after season 2, and features an original character.
STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH® IS PROPERTY OF LUCASFILM LTD. AND DISNEY. I DO NOT CLAIM OWNERSHIP OVER THE STAR WARS® AESTHETIC, UNIVERSE, EXTENDED UNIVERSE OR ITS CHARACTERS. ORIGINAL CHARACTERS WERE CREATED BY ME. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.
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Intro -
The sound of footsteps echo in the sterile hallway. Crosshair is lead by three TK stormtroopers toward a door at the end. With despair he thinks of Omega and a recent exchange they shared.
“Crosshair, we have to get out of here,” her determination could almost be inspiring. Just not to Crosshair.
“That’s not going to happen. Just – just do as you’re told and they won’t hurt you.” Did he honestly believe that? No, but he hoped there was some sort of impossible truth to it. Crosshair sighed. “Don’t be like me. And maybe –“ he looked down at his hands, “maybe they’ll come for you.”
"Who?"
"My brothers."
Omega’s eyes got very soft and wide. “Well, what about you?”
“I don’t know how much longer I have left.”
The door at the end of the hallway opens to reveal Emerie waiting inside. Crosshair is ushered into the small space and gets on the table. The cold metal is unwelcoming as he is strapped down once again.
Doctor Hemlock enters soon after, standing with his hands behind his back. Emerie speaks in a low voice, but Crosshair can still hear. “Doctor, he will likely not survive this.”
Hemlock doesn’t bother lowering his voice. “Oh, I’m counting on it.” He meets Crosshair’s eyes and holds his gaze momentarily, until casually moving on. “I will be off-world until tomorrow. I’ve collected our research for the briefing, and once I return, we’ll need to shift our work into high-gear. M.O. will take priority.”
“Yes, doctor.”
Hemlock turns and exits the room as Crosshair lays starring at the ceiling, almost not troubling to wonder what M.O. could stand for, since it soon will be irrelevant to him. He closes his eyes as Emerie loads a sedative into a syringe.
A small tear falls down his temple as Crosshair accepts his fate. It is, after all, a fate of his own making.
..::..
The air whirls violently with flames and embers. “Crosshair,.” An echo of a voice; a dream drifting by.
“Crosshair. Hey, wake up.” A sensation on his cheek. He inhales. It smells of smoke. His eyes open to a blurry figure standing over him.
“There you go.” The voice is familiar and getting clearer. He squeezes his eyes shut, and open again to correct his vision.
It’s her.
“Nahara.” Whispers Crosshair.
Her hair swirls above her in a burning glory against the sparks and flames and heat.
“Hi.” She says softly. Crosshair is untied; she must have broken the restraints already. He can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“Are you real?” He asks hoarsely.
She smiles. “Yes, this is real. I’m really here.” She brushes ash from his cheek. “We need to get out of here, now.”
“There are too many guards. The place is on lock down. I’ve already tried –“
“They’re dead.”
Crosshair blinks and looks around, his mouth parting in disbelief. As far as he can see, everything is burning. Fallen steel beams stick up from rubble, dented tables lay on their side.
“Who?” Is all he could muster, as he props himself up on an elbow. “Who did this?”
“I did.” Says Nahara. His wide-eyed gaze snaps over to her. “I'll explain later, Crosshair, we need to go.”
“Not without Omega.” He sits up and rubs his temple.
“Omega? Where is she?”
“They kept her on the upper level. Near the top.” Nahara helps Crosshair stand and hands him the blaster from her hip.
“Let’s go.”
Omega asks Nahara for a bedtime story -
Omega lays with her hands clasped across her abdomen, waiting. Nahara obliges, takes a seat down by her feet, and begins.
“Once there was a young girl who was kept locked away in a tower by two dragons. They kept her in chains, and often times, she was made to go hungry. They made sure she always knew that she was too small and too powerless to do anything about it. And she believed them. But one day, while the dragons were brawling each other, she found a cup of nectar so sweet that, when she tasted it on her lips, she had to have more. It was a nectar known as Freedom, and she craved it. So, she slayed the dragons and escaped the tower, taking the empty cup with her. She found a spring that flowed with the sweet nectar, only, whenever she tried to collect it into the cup, it turned to blood. For years she searched for that sweet nectar she had put on her lips in that terrible tower, but from that point on, all the cup could ever hold was blood.”
A moment of silence fills the night.
“Nahara? Um, I was hoping for a happy story.” Omega wonders if she’d have been better off not asking for a story after all.
Nahara frowns. “Oh. Sorry. Once upon a time there was a princess and a farmer who fell in love, saved the galaxy and everyone lived happily ever after. The end.” She flicks off the lantern. “‘Kay, goodnight.”
Dialogue between Nahara and Crosshair about his guilt -
Nahara ponders what Crosshair had said earlier about not feeling he deserves a second chance. Now that it’s just the two of them again, she decides to revisit the conversation.
“Crosshair, are you ever going to stop fighting yourself over the past? I know it isn’t easy, but maybe you ought to learn to be graceful with yourself.”
The crisp ocean breeze moves across the water and with it, carries the scent of salt air. Crosshair looks down at a shell in the sand.
“There are days when I feel like I may have the capacity for that. But then there are days when I want to burn myself to the ground for all the ways I failed.”
“What ways did you fail?”
“I chose to remain.” The aggravation strains at the edges of his voice. “Even after the chip was removed and I was free to do as i wished, I chose to remain. I stuck with what was familiar.” A moment passes like a breath. “And I hate myself for it.”
“Did you equate the familiarity with safety?”
Crosshair thinks about her question. “I equated it with a chance to belong. To be needed. And I had a roof over my head, I had food, equipment. And in return, I would prove my worth.” He shakes his head. “But nobody was interested.”
Nahara watches him, weighing each of his words in the palm of her mind. Crosshair thought if he could only prove his worth, the Empire would have a place for him. Something he felt his brothers did not give him. When Crosshair had found out about all the different people his brothers had saved from countless deadly situations during their renegade days, he wondered why they were all worth saving, but he was not.
_________
Onward,
SparrowBoy
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