#echo bay

Being the assigned medic for The Bad Batch was exhausting. Not only were they reckless, always getting themselves into trouble and causing more work for you, but they bickered all the time. And it is always over little things, even this morning.

“Tech I told you to not turn the power on until I was done with these repairs!” Echo shouted from under the main console, head buried deep in the hardware.

“And I told you we would need to leave by 0800, Hunter and Wrecker overstayed their welcome again and we need to go.” Tech retaliated.

A grunt later and Echo was sitting up and closing the maintenance panel. “Go ahead, but the next time all the lights on the controls go out, you get to check all the wiring,” Echo grumbled as he left the flight deck.

All you could do was stand there and sigh whenever they bickered. You could swear it was like listening to an old married couple… that consisted of five grown man-children.

“Heads up,” Hunter called, “landing in 10.”

Today you were headed to a lesser known planet to provide relief to a local group working against their local government that was rounding up citizens, tagging them and sending them to slaving camps. The Secondary Minister of the planet, a human named Kail Dugan, called in the assistance of the Republic to help his people, saying that the Prime Minister was using his position of power to abuse the people and refused to step down when a vote of non-confidence was passed.

Since then, the Prime Minister has doubled his security measures and increased the brutality so much that before long, most of the citizens had been captured and enslaved after seven rotations.

Due to the planet’s neutrality, the Republic could not get involved directly, so Clone Force 99 was sent to ‘do what they do.’

Before long the team was touching down and exiting the Marauder on the outskirts of the capital. The majority of the planet was desert coated in gold sand with sandstone buildings littering the outer parts of the main city. The city itself was a little more modern with paved streets and concrete buildings.

“Secondary Minister”, Hunter greeted the man as the group made their way over.

“Sergeant Hunter was it?” The man responded.

“Yes, and this is the rest of my team, Clone Force 99.” Hunter said as he gestured to the rest of the squad.

“Perfect, I see you have a medic, we could really use their help with some of our wounded. There is a medical tent right behind our housing tents, my assistant Layla will guide you there.”

“Of course sir,” you said as you quickly made to follow Layla, waving at Tech as you left. As you walked away you could hear the rest of the team discussing their next move.

Making your way to the medical tent you noticed the people around the campsite. Some were wearing the local military garb that Tech had shown you a picture of on the way to the planet. Unlike in the photo, here you noticed that the government's emblem had been ripped off, as well as the name and rank tabs on everyone’s uniform. They obviously didn’t agree with the Prime Minister's ideaIs, you thought to yourself. It was a good thing really, it meant that your team wasn't going in with a bunch of civvies who didn’t know how to fight, they had some training behind them.

Once you had arrived at the medical tent you started noting patients and any visible injuries they may have. Some had blaster wounds, but in non-critical places. Some were nursing one of their limbs, likely sprains or breaks. But there was one patient there that caught your attention, a little girl, no older than 10 standard. Cropped brown hair, green eyes, and a beauty mark on her left cheek. She was very dirty, covered in mud and dust, and had small scrapes all over her body, but other than that no obvious injuries. She sat on the edge of the cot facing your direction, swinging her legs that didn’t quite meet the floor.

Something about her peaked your interest so you made your way over to her first. “Hello dear,” you said as her eyes came to meet yours. “I’m a medic, would it be okay if I took a look at your injuries?”

She nodded slightly and turned around on the cot, now you could see the tear in her clothing and the fairly large road rash on her back, she must have fallen. As you made your way to clean the wound, you decided to make conversation with the girl. “So sweetheart, what happened? Playing a little too hard with your friends?”

What she said shattered your heart. “No, I was running from papa. He got mean and started taking people. I don’t know why, but ever since mama died he’s gotten meaner. I didn’t like how mean he was being and he started yelling and had his guards chase me. I was running and tripped, scratched my back. I was scared so I hid. Mr. Dugan found me soon after and got me out of the city.”

By the time the little girl was done telling her story you had applied bacta and a proper bandage to her back. The little girl turned around, “thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure. You can stay here if you would like.” Figuring she would need something to do you encourage her to visit the other patients and say hi. That way you could keep an eye on her. Something about her continued to peak your interest and you felt it would be best if she stayed close by.

After an hour's time you had treated four patients and you were right, two sprained wrists, a blaster shot to the shoulder and surprisingly, a soldier with a nasty rash, poor guy fell into a poisonous bush while jumping for cover.

During that time you could hear chatter on the team's comms. By now they were making their way through the city to locate the civilians and capture the Prime Minister. They had met a couple of small enforcement groups along the way, but nothing the boys couldn’t handle. Hunter gave the command to split up so Tech, Echo and Wrecker went to go look for the citizens, while Crosshair and Hunter continued to look for the Prime Minister. You were treating a woman who had a blaster shot to the leg when Tech’s voice came through the comms, “Hunter, we have found the civilians, they are working in an underground mine under the palace. All of them seem to be accounted for.”

“Good news Tech, we haven’t found the Prime Minister yet. Things are too quiet for my liking.”

Suddenly, a man shouting outside caught your attention, “where is she? Give me my daughter!”

Blaster fire rang through the camp and you peaked your head out of the tent to see a tall man dressed in official looking clothing with five guards in tow. You could see several people on the ground, some unmoving, some with minor blaster wounds.

“Tell me, NOW!” He shouted as you ducked behind the cover of the tent.