The story begins at night on a planet with outcroppings of rock and forests, a helmet-less clone trooper is on the run. There are glowrods cutting through the forest, the scene reminds me of E.T.’s chase. The trooper runs chased by reptiles, massifs, they have long snouts and spines along their backs, first seen in Attack of the Clones (2002) in the arena. He reaches a cliff edge, it is a trooper with the Jango Fett features, and then hears the massifs. They are set free from their leashes held by troopers to lope after the hunted clone. He sets a device, a transmitter, against a rock and is surrounded by the beasts. The hunted trooper starts to run, a stun blast strikes his legs, still he struggles on! Another blasts knocks him down next to the creatures. He is dragged away by clone troopers.
In transit through hyperspace, the Havoc Marauder is traveling, and inside, Hunter flips his vibro knife. Omega with her tool working on Gonky tries to spin it like Hunter. Echo gets a transmission from Captain Rex. His hologram appears with Rex in a hooded cloak. This seems to be an old recording, Rex says he recieved a distress call from a clone trooper, an “old friend.” He needs their help to rescue the trooper. Tech notes the signal came from Daro, a new planet for Star Wars, in the Outer Rim. He reminds everyone that they are in the middle of a job for Cid. Wrecker agrees with him when he says they won’t eat without being paid. Echo has loyalty to Rex. Omega wants to help Rex’s friend. Wrecker agrees with her, funny. Kamino, a Venator-class Star Destroyer hovers next to the city, Admiral Rampart is watching the clone troopers prepare for an operation. Crosshair says they are ahead of schedule. Rampart wants Crosshair to watch over the Kaminoans.
Young clones are being escorted by Nala Se. She sends them ahead to talk to Prime Minister Lama Su. He tells her that the contracts were cancelled by the Empire. She says there be other clients, but Lama Su says the Empire will eliminate them so they should evacuate. The Marauder heads to Daro, the landing of the shuttle into the forest has some impressive visuals. Tech tracks the signal, Omega finds the transmitter, with the trooper missing, Hunter goes into tracking mode. He knows that he was hunted. Hunter suspects that there is something in the mountain. He sends Wrecker and Omega back to the ship. This breaks their agreement, but it must be something serious. Hunter sees signs of a shuttle that landed. They run up the base of the mountain. The Bad Batch sees a base, boring into the mountain, they duck as a shuttle descends into the base. Echo checks out the hangar with macrobinoculars and reports that he sees a squad of troopers with upgraded armor. Tech and Hunter want to leave, but Echo doesn’t want to give up on the trooper, CC-5576, like they had done for him.
Hunter reports about the base to Omega. They jump onto a turbolift, Echo plugs in his scomp link, Hunter sees the squad of troopers, their armor look like the early Ralph McQuarrie stormtrooper designs! Hunter watches them and Echo notes that there are a thousand TK troopers. He finds the prisoner at Cell Block 25. Very reminiscent of Princess Leia’s Death Star escape. In his cell, the captive trooper wants food from a TK trooper who calls him a traitor. Hunter checks on the prisoner who introduces himself as Gregor. He is the trooper we later see in “The Lost Commanders” (2015) episode of Star Wars Rebels. They make their way through the corridors, but find their way blocked by the TK troopers. Gregor asks if they are CCs and Hunter replies that they are CTs. His voice sounds broken, he was a bit crazy in Rebels. He says that the TKs are defective and that he was an instructor. Does this explain the random accuracy of stormtroopers?
Tech tries to divert the TKs, but an alert has sounded, Gregor points out that clone codes don’t work there. They run into TKs and hit them with stun blasts and choking them out. A helmet is removed and they are surprised that these are not clones, Gregor says they are replacements for the clone troopers. It is the old veteran soldiers versus the new recruits! It is a mystery why they keep using stun blasts when the troopers are not clones, are they pacifist soldiers? Hunter remarks about Gregor’s training, but Gregor says their training is incomplete. I wonder why the clone trooper training was not recorded on Kamino by the Empire and replicated by droids or others. There are too many TK troopers so they will need help which is of course Wrecker and Omega. Gregor is wounded and notes that he survived an explosion, this refers to the Clone Wars episode where he was thought to be dead, “Missing in Action” (2013). Gonky saves the day, but we have some incredibly dark moments at the end of the episode! We see the Empire’s plan with the troopers in this Bad Batch episode, it’s great to see Gregor was part of it and how he got free of the control chip, with great nods to Star Wars and Clone Wars!
Five Vibro Knives out of Five!
#StarWarsBadBatch, #WarMantle, #CaptainRex, #Gregor, #TKTroopers
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