An alarm blared, startling me into rolling off my bed and into a crouch, ready to fight. As my eyes cleared up fully, I realized nothing was wrong as my cellmates groaned and sat up, rubbing their eyes.

Jesse looked at me, still in my fighting stance, and chuckled. "Good morning. Enjoy the wake-up call?"

I relaxed and stood up straight, running my hands through my hair and then over my face. "Yeah. Nice way of them waking us."

Jagathi snorted. "They don't aim for 'nice' here, those scrogging sith-spawn." He scowled at the laser barrier as if they were standing there at the moment.

Jesse nodded. "Yeah. They prefer to get you out of bed quick and easy, have you out of your room, and get more 'rehabilitation' in than let you fiddle around."

I shook my head.

"I'm surprised they didn't catch me right away. I ran the first two weeks listening to every twig snap in the woods, thinking that they were right behind me, ready to kill me."

The others stared at me, as if I had said something in a completely foreign language.

I looked down, then turned to my bed, rearranging my blankets, straightening them until there wasn't a wrinkle in sight. Even then, I kept smoothing the blankets out, leaving it perfectly set as Jesse and the others got ready to go.

I heard footsteps, then the laser barrier deactivating.

"Time to go, boys."

I looked behind me, surprised to see Rex standing there, holding armor, as an armored Jesse, uniformed Jagathi, and rumpled Ranjit stepped past him, to a waiting Stormtrooper.

I took a step to go after them, but Rex held out a hand, stopping me.

"You need to wear your armor. I brought you some."

He held it out to me, and as I took it, I realized that it was the armor I had been wearing when I was captured.

My heart beat fast as Rex left me to stand outside and wait, and I turned away, setting my armor on my bed.

I put on my armor, now cleaned and shined, and, checking to make sure Rex wasn't watching, checked the space in my belt where I had tucked the holocron away.

The blood rushed through my veins, and it was all I could hear as my fingers made contact with the holocron. I let out a soft sigh of relief and moved my hand away, turning to face the laser barrier.

"I'm ready," I called out to Rex.

He turned and deactivated the barrier, waving me out, and took the lead. He was silent for a moment, then glanced at me.

"How are you settling in, kid?"

I snorted. "How am is supposed to be settling in? What do you want me to say? 'I love being here! My cellmates are so friendly, we stayed up all night talking about how we can't wait for this living nightmare to begin! I think today is going to be wonderful!' No. I don't want to be here. I'd rather be out of this Force-forbidden place and on my way."

Rex sighed. "I didn't expect you to be happy about being here, or about you beginning. I don't expect you to be happy about any of this... Especially when the re-education actually begins full-on."

He was silent for a moment before going on quietly.

"They'll start you off slow, with some evaluations, mostly physical. The mental stuff doesn't come until later, from what I've seen in their documents. They hold you back in the physical stuff if one or both of these things happen. One: In the physical re-education, if you're not physically up to date, they will hold you back until you are. Two: If you can't handle the mental challenges, they throw you right back into the physical, then test the waters again later. It's a long process for some."

I couldn't see Rex's expression because of his helmet, but his silence told me enough. He has at least one brother here that hasn't been making progress.

"Well, what happens if you don't make any progress for a long time?"

Rex took off his helmet, his expression fierce. "Don't try it, kid. They won't take kindly to you fighting them by holding yourself back. The beginning is acceptable, barely, but it is. After three weeks, it gets old. I've seen too many reports already of 'patients' being terminated because of the fact that they fought this every step of the way."

He looked straight ahead, then back at me as he pointed to a door. "That one."

Rex replaced his helmet and opened the door.

Inside, there were several tables, with bench seats, stretched across the room. This was the mess hall. I knew one when I saw it, having grown up with one. Serving stations were at the front, with a line snaking around the right side of the room.

Rex walked with me as I went to stand in line, drawing attention to myself and the captain.

"So now you tag along," I asked irritably.

"We still need to talk."

I snorted. "Yeah? What about?"

Rex turned his head to look at me. "About your lack of caring whether you get out of this 'Force-forbidden' place. You obviously have something to take care of, whether that be a lost item, the one Vox was talking about, or a person. Whatever it is, you seem to have forgotten about that, and it's important that you remember."

I shook my head. "What do you care? It's not like it's important to you. Even if it was an item or a person, I wouldn't go prancing right back to it and hand it to you when you reveal that you followed me to get it."

I stepped forward with the line, halfway to the serving station. Still too far away to get out of this conversation.

Rex shook his head. "I'm not interested in taking anything from you. Person or item. I don't care about that."

I looked at him, my curiosity peaking. "Why, then? Why do you care?"

He looked down that the ground, silent as the line steadily moved forward. I was almost sure he wasn't going to answer, when he answered before he took his place,to receive his food.

"Because there are things I need to make up for, even if I can't make up for all of them."

I was directed to a table full of clones, some talking in hushed voices, and some completely silent. I walked down the table, looking for a break, when someone moved aside.

"Sit here."

I stopped and set my tray down in the empty spot.

"Thanks."

He grunted in reply, picking at his food, his head down, avoiding the face of his helmet, which sat in the center of the table, as required.

I set my helmet in the same fashion, thinking to myself how this was like growing up in the Kamino cloning facility all over again, minus the helmets, armor, and impending-doom feel.

I took a bite of my food, which was surprisingly decent, considering it was a re-education center. My assumption was it was going to be a silent meal, but I was proven wrong.

"I heard you were given Order 66."

I stopped mid-bite, then set my utensil down.

"Yeah. What about it?"

He looked at me, the left side of his face covered in scars, and his eye clouded over. His other eye was full of hope.

"The Jedi. I heard you didn't kill him... Did he survive?"

I was silent as replies ran through my mind. I don't know... I don't know, I didn't stick around long enough to find out... Maybe, but the chances aren't good for him... I saw him run off, does that count?

I looked him in the eye. "I hope so. He wasn't killed that I saw, and I was their target after I took the false shot warning him away from the secondary trap. He ran off, so I assume that he is."

The trooper nodded, dropping his gaze, but hope still burned in his eye.

I took a bite of my food, thinking of the Jedi, Ansula Himanshu, and how his daughters were now alone, heading north, while I was stuck here, taken away from my duty to them.

"I'm Rider," the trooper next to me stated.

I stared at him for a moment, then nodded once. "I'm Smasher."

Rider nodded, looking back down at his plate.

I studied him as I ate, chewing slowly. He had his hair cut short, although everybody else here did, too. The next thing I noticed was a spot on his skin, on the side of his neck, that looked as if it had been carefully burned.

Rider looked at me then, as I was studying it.

"They removed the Republic tattoo I had there. I had been proud of being a soldier of the Republic, and they stripped me of my tattoo as they are trying to strip me of my pride of being a soldier of the Republic."

I shook my head. "This isn't right, what they're doing here."

"No, but what are we going to do about it? Rebel? That will only get you killed here. Believe me, you're better off keeping it in your mind than fighting them tooth and nail on everything."

I stared down at my plate, thinking this over.

"Why don't you guys put on their armor and sneak out of here?"

Rider snorted. "If only it were that easy. They tattoo a bar code on you, it'll identify you for them, they scan you into your appointed 'classes' and evaluations of the day. When the soldiers even go near the exits, they have to get checked-on their wrists, where they tattoo us- and prove they're not one of us." Rider showed his arm, showing his bar code.

It was a regular-looking bar code, the only difference was the new Imperial mark at the end, boasting their ownership of us.

"I haven't been marked yet," I stated quietly.

He shook his head. "No, not until after your physical examination and tests. They need to know how much work will need to be done, if you're even worth wasting ink on. Then they'll mark you as theirs."

I stared down at my half empty plate, no longer hungry.

"So now I become a piece of property again. I guess that's how it'll always be. There's no escaping that, is there?"

Rider looked away, pushing his own food around his plate.

It seemed neither of us had much of an appetite anymore.

I sat on a cold, hard examination table, waiting for the medic to come in.

I eyed the probes, the metal cabinets, all locked up, and various jars holding unknown items.

My gaze turned to the trooper standing by the door, out of the way, but able to catch me if I tried anything.

The medic came in, wearing armor, to my surprise. He didn't have his helmet on, showing his Imperial tattoo on the side of his near-bald head. In his hand was a datapad, and he was reading it as he leaned against the counter topped cabinets.

"Alright, so you are CT-9698, also known as 'Smasher', correct?"

"Yes."

"Alright, well, I'm Trell, I'll be taking care of any of your physical examinations, health problems, vaccinations and so on."

He studied the datapad in front of him, his forehead slightly creased in concentration.

It was a moment before he looked up, and he set the datapad on the counter.

"Alright, your record says you had an injury on the back of your neck, correct?"

I nodded.

"Does it cause you any pain? Throbbing occasionally? Sharp pain that comes and goes? Anything."

"It does tend to hurt occasionally. It's not bad, though," I lied.

He nodded, coming to my right side and lifting my hair to take a look.

I could feel his fingers beside the scar, then on it, pressing lightly and checking around it.

"Records say that you acquired this injury from an explosion, sheltering your brother from the shrapnel of the vehicle. Correct?"

"Yes."

Trell grunted in response, moving back to the counter and tapping something into the datapad.

"You seem to be clear of any shrapnel, but I would do a scan, to make sure. Your record doesn't indicate any scan being done after your injury, and even though the medic did remove shrapnel, he may have not seen a smaller piece, embedded deeper. We'll just have to find out."

I shook my head. "That's not necessary. Clip's a good medic, I trust him, that he got it all."

Trell raised an eyebrow at me.

"You may trust him, but considering you were taken care of in camp instead of a facility, there's a possibility that he wasn't aware of something deeper. Even the best medics can miss something like that without the proper equipment."

I frowned at him, but said nothing. I was sure that Clip removed everything, and I wasn't too happy about a rookie coming in and telling me otherwise.

"Alright, let's get your bloodwork and we can move on to the fun stuff."

I stood on a running track, being fitted with heart monitors and other items I can't even guess as to what they're for.

Trell patted me on the shoulder. "Alright, you're good to go. Just wait for the trooper to come out, and we'll get you started."

I watched him leave, into the observation room on my right. I looked down at my right arm, frowning at the black item wrapped around my arm and the wires climbing up to my neck, where something was strapped on the back of my neck. The heart monitor was a simple patch with the numbers being displayed, something only the medic understood, I assumed.

"CT-9698. You will be running around this track once. You will stop once you cross this line. You may not deviate from this track for any reason. This will simply test your physical capabilities simply running. We will be timing you. The goal is to get back across this line in good time, while we take records of your physical exertion. Do you understand?"

I nodded, watching as the trooper stood to my left, off the track.

"Get ready, then. I'll tell you when to start."

I set myself slightly low, setting one leg out behind me enough to give myself a good start.

"Begin."

I took off running, the motion coming easily to me.

I remembered the quiet days on base that Vox used to make any free troopers go running, keeping us in shape for battle. Sharp and I were some of the few that like to hear those orders. We'd race around the base walls, and the troopers on guard duty would cheer us on, shouting for either Sharp or I, some even making bets, as we ran, shoving each other and laughing.

My throat tightened and I ran faster. I could almost feel him next to me, challenging me the whole way, calling me slow even when we were both neck to neck.

I was surprised when the line loomed ahead of me, with the trooper standing beside it.

I slowed to a stop as I crossed the line.

Trell came out, looking impressed and surprised.

"You're barely acting as if you ran a Kilometer! I hardly see the rookies acting so nonchalant about it, and they're the ones that find it easier!"

I just shrugged, watching as he scanned the information into the datapad.

"How were you able to do that? You ran faster than even our Elite, and hardly exerted yourself!"

I just shrugged.

Trell worked quietly for a minute, then spoke again. "You've been out for a while that's why I can't quite understand this."

"I ran a lot, with a brother before I left. Then I became used to running. From the Empire, from predators, and to clear my mind. It's something familiar to me."

He nodded, releasing me from the last monitor. "You're good to go. I'll have a trooper escort you to your next assigned location."