revivalproject | All the World in Front of Me

Entry tags:

All the World in Front of Me

WHO: Omega, you!
WHERE: A young clone's dwelling place
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: Duration of event
WARNINGS: N/A

Waiting Room

It's a narrow space you find yourself in, flanked by a large console and screen on one side with a pair of chairs bolted into the floor, and some kind of hatch on the opposite side. The floorspace is cluttered with large storage crates and random detritus, the area dimly lit, save for the rear where a narrow, short flight of steps leads up to a smaller section with a single chair. The space is warmly lit by a string of lights, and in spite of the fact that it looks like the gunner's mount of some sort of ship once the rest of the place is pieced together, someone's made the effort to make it homey by adding a curtain across the opening and padding on the exposed bars along the sides of the entryway. Down at the base amongst trash and mechanical parts is a well-worn ball with seams that look handstitched. Atop one of the longer crates is a cylindrical item that a more technical-minded person might identify as some sort of capacitor. There's also some kind of flat, metal-like rectangular object that might not readily be identified as part of a lock where it lies. Sprawled out like it had been thrown or knocked to the floor is a wooden clone trooper doll, although this one's yet in its pristine white's rather than the modified version Omega's painted.

Strangely enough, when one looks towards the opposite end of the ship, it seems out of focus. But if one were to try approaching the cockpit, they'd find themselves in a very different space altogether. One of the crates overlap the two spaces, and against it rests a large blaster rifle about one-third Omega's size. Large windows take up most of the wall on one side, opening up to a dark, deep green-blue seascape as fish of some kind swim by. Taking up one of the benches against the window is a perhaps familiar-looking beefy tooka plush. On the opposite side of the room are a series of large, cylindrical tubes, pods of various sizes, with narrow computer pedestal in front of them. It looks to be some sort of lab.

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Immediately the others take cover behind crates. It's Wrecker who speaks up first in disbelief. "...is that Crosshair?"

There's something colder to the usual indifferent expression the sniper normally wears. His rifle is propped upwards, his helmet under an arm. His armor's different, no longer sporting the dashes of red and the skull insignias that would identify him with their squad. Hunter rises from his cover, stepping out into the open, and Crosshair smirks.

"Best step down, sergeant. Make it easy on yourself," he suggests, almost casually.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Hunter shouts back. Crosshair ignores him, continuing. "You should have killed that Jedi. You disobeyed orders." His smirk is gone, twisting into a sneer. Omega remains ducked where she is, looking back towards Hunter, worried as he retorts, "I did what I thought was right."

"You never could see the bigger picture. Now surrender."

Hunter glances back at Wrecker and Echo, the former finally settling his helmet on properly as they both ready their weapons. The sergeant looks back at Crosshair. "Is that an order?"

Crosshair scoffs. "Heh. I guess it is."

"Well, I guess I'm disobeying that one too."

Omega watches Hunter anxiously as the quiet settles between the two parties, broken only by a flash outside as the storm continues on. The tension builds, both sides waiting for whoever will dare to make the first move. Crosshair finally acts, quickly shifting his rifle into a shooting position before taking fire. Hunter ducks as the bolt flies where his head had been but a second ago, striking the ramp of the Marauder. The rest of the Shock Troopers open fire after their commander as Hunter takes cover by Omega, Wrecker and Echo returning fire. Smoke suddenly erupts as the Shock Troopers deploy a smokescreen.

"Tech, we need to move, now," Hunter growls into his comlink. "Wrecker, clear the smoke on three. Omega, stay low." He begins the countdown, Omega bringing her hands (and Lula) up over her head as she hunkers against the crate. "One...

"...two..."

"Three!" Wrecker finishes, rising up with a pair of heavy covers from the crates. He smashes them together, the displaced air pushing the smoke away before he follows up hurling one, then the other at the troopers. Crosshair isn't so easily daunted, immediately firing a shot that strikes the big clone in the shoulder with enough force to knock his helmet off as he goes crashing down.

A battle. A battle around a child. Lauri-Ell follows the child, wanting to hunker down over her, wishing she had the power to step into the past to shield Omega with her own body. It would be so much easier to accept this if she could shield the child.

"Please be safe, my little friend."

Omega seems hardly concerned about her own safety in that moment as she darts out of cover for Wrecker the moment she sees him fall. "Omega, no!" She's just as quickly yanked back behind cover by Hunter, another shot from Crosshair's rifle sizzling through the air just a split-second after. "He's using Wrecker as bait!"

"But he needs help!" Omega looks at him desperately. Hunter looks back where Wrecker is as he addresses Tech aboard the shuttle. "Tech, we're out of time!" She can't hear if he answers Hunter, but the thrusters of the ship blaze to life in response then. Both of them look then to the bay doors as the metal groans and begins to shudder, but refrains from lowering. No time to question that now when it's in their favor. Hunter sets a hand on Omega's shoulder.

"When I say go, you head for that ramp and don't stop, got it?" When Omega nods at him, he lets her go, turning to the other trooper across the way. "Echo, we go for Wrecker." Getting a nod, they all prepare. "Go!" Hunter shouts, dashing from behind the crates. Both he and Echo move as one, laying down some cover fire and immediately met with retaliation. Omega runs, still clutching the tooka plush as she looks anxiously back, stray blaster bolts flying past her as she makes for the shuttle's ramp. She ducks behind another crate, looking back at the firefight before her eyes alight upon the blaster rifle lying there atop the crate in front of her. With Echo and Hunter struggling to haul their larger brother aboard, they're left quite open. She grabs the blaster, so large in her hands, and she can see Crosshair across the way, taking aim. She'd only watched the others do it before, but she does her best to mimic, taking aim...

Crosshair's rifle flies out of his hands, and for a moment everyone pauses, turning to see where the shot had come from. They see Omega with the blaster in her hands, tense, scared, but determined to help protect her brothers. Crosshair moves again first, whipping out his sidearm, but she doesn't give him the chance to fire, shooting off several more blasts to cover for Hunter, Echo and Wrecker as they hustle up the ramp, forcing Crosshair into cover himself. It's enough time for them all to get aboard before he's out again and shooting, but by then the ship is moving, and in no time they're off and away. Free...for now.

Omega sits by the window when the imagery fades. Her hair's the way it usually is, bangs loose and left down than how it had been in the memory, pulled back and held in place by an ornament. Her eyes look out at the deep waters beyond.

"That's when we escaped Kamino," she says softly.

"You were so very brave," Lauri-Ell tells her, voice soft. For a Kree youth that firing would have been second nature. But she is not Kree. She is... She is a sad child who deserved better.

"Was Wrecker okay?"

The girl smiles faintly. "I was just doing what I had to. I wanted to protect my brothers." She nods then. "Wrecker's tough. But Crosshair's a good shot. Tech said he was lucky to survive."

Oh but to embrace the young girl. But that wouldn't be welcome, would it?

"You are still brave for doing it. To protect another, especially when fearful, is no small thing. You deserve lauding for the way you fought for them.

"I'd like to think I can do a better job of it now, helping at least. That's why I practice with my bow," Omega says. "My brothers have fought and protected others far longer. I'm still learning. But...thank you."

"Why did they attack? The other soldiers?"

She doesn't think that it's okay. Not at all.

Omega looks back out the window. "Orders. The Empire took over, and that's when everything changed. My brothers didn't like what was happening, so they didn't want to follow orders. Well...most of them." She thinks of Crosshair, of when they'd been in the brig.

"...we're clones. This is a Kaminoan facility," she says, gesturing to the room around them. "When the rest of them were created, the Kaminoans put chips in their heads- inhibitor chips that would make them obey without question. It was only recently put into effect. My brothers...they weren't affected- except for Crosshair." She looks down, sadly.

Someone took over, orders were bad? Well, she supposed she could understand that.

"I am a clone as well, more or less. And I understand bad orders. To be controlled by chip, that is not acceptable. I am sorry for this. And I am sorry you lost your brother."

That was about the gist of it. Even put so simply, the matter itself was hardly such.

"Hopefully we can get him back. The others...well, before I came to Temba- we'd just managed to remove their chips. One of their old friends, a reg captain, he told them to do it since they hadn't yet. They're enhanced clones, so the chip didn't work like it was supposed to in most of them." Omega grimaces. "...we didn't know it'd trigger in Wrecker."

Wrecker... What?

"The one that was injured?"

That was heartbreaking.

Omega nods, pointing at the large gun propped up on the crate just at the boundary of where the two very different rooms melded. She can guess which memory that might hold.

"He's okay now." And that's what matters the most right now. She hugs her knees as she thinks about how close it had been.

Omega hugs her knees and Lauri goes down to her own by the girl and opens her arms.

"Please, let me hug you."

The girl lifts her head, her arms loosening from around her legs. "...I'd like that," she says softly. Lauri dwarfs her easily, but then she's not unlike Wrecker for height and build. Omega slips down from her seat and steps over into Lauri's awaiting arms.

Well, she's absolutely moving forward to embrace Omega the best she could. Holds her close and tight.

"We are alike, myself and your brothers. Clones you said they were, as I am. Made for war, like I am. Which means that I think I understand them and can say they must miss you."

Omega likes hugs. Some of her brothers are still a little awkward about them and at least try, but Wrecker's always been easy to connect with in these ways. She squeezes Lauri-El back as much as her little arms can, burying her face into her shoulder.

"You're a clone?" She supposes it shouldn't be so surprising, but she's had limited exposure to them that the term might have gotten a little one-sided from her perspective. Her arms loosen a little as she lifts her head again. "I really miss them. At least Echo is here... Are you close with anyone like you?"

"Yes. In a different way. Your brothers look very similar, and I was specifically designed," she admits. "And it is okay to miss your family. I miss my sister Carol too. I am not as close to her yet,but I wished to be."

"They're enhanced clones," Omega explains. "They actually look a bit different from the standard troopers the Kaminoans created, but there is that overall similarity." She's not aware that in a way she's also specifically designed, or at least not about the details outside of being different like her brothers.

"There's always time to be closer," she says, smiling a little at Lauri-El. "Maybe once you get back."

Ah, then they are more like her she supposed.

"There will be, for us both. When we return. And for now, we let ourselves be stronger for the memories of them.'

Omega nods. That makes sense enough to her.

"We shall find each other, outside of the dream, and talk of this," Lauri-Ell suggests. "Because we understand this in each other. And so we can be stronger together."

Or so she hoped.

"All right," Omega says with another nod. She's not exactly sure how this all works but she'd much prefer being back outside again. Even in a familiar-looking surrounding like this, it's just not the same.

She steps back from Lauri-El, hearing the hatch on the ship-side of her strange room open up. "Outside of the dream, then."

"Outside," she agrees before heading to the hatch. That is something that Lauri-Ell knows how to use. "If nothing else, we can talk about life among the stars. I fear many of the others don't know that like we do."

If felt strange, not to sleep every night in the embrace of velvety darkness. EVen if she had been stationed planetside for a while, Kree heritage at this point was the stars themselves.

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All the World in Front of Me

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