CT-1552 – Alderaan's Crest
The vessel was little more than a corvette, a strange choice to travel as far as Kamino. Dreamer supposed that with the fleets pressing the final attack on General Grievous and repelling a renewed wave of Separatists, transport was a secondary concern for the Republic Navy.
That was what he thought, anyways, then he met the senator they were carrying with them in the hangar.
She was tall, a gaze that could be withering, warm, or shrewd traversing the dozen guards she'd brought with her. The robes she wore spoke well enough of her station, the kind that would set him back a few months had he tried to purchase it.
"Good evening, Sergeant," she said when he approached. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing, Senator Mothma. The captain was wondering if you need anything."
"I'm well, thank you, I—"
"Senator Mothma, a call for you."
"I'll take it in my room, thank you."
As she started to leave, Dreamer got a call on his own transmitter. He held it up, hit the button to receive, and was met by yet another robed figure. This one was unknown to him, a sinister-looking man whose very presence turned his stomach.
"Execute Order Sixty-Six."
It was as if recalling a memory that had laid dormant for years. He'd never heard the words before, but he just knew what they were. The Jedi and any traitors to the Republic were to be executed immediately. Senator Amidala, Senator Organa, Senator Mothma, all who'd been marked as targets to be eliminated before they could return to the public eye.
All at once it happened. Some strange sensation in his head, then an explosion of stars as the pain came back.
The clone doubled over, hands on his temples and crying out as the agony hit him like it never had before. He heard blaster fire, saw the senator's guards fall around her, then the remnants fell into position.
A hand grabbed onto him, pulled him to safety behind some crates.
"Brother?!"
It was the same word, the same voice, but it all sounded wrong. It was an affectation uttered by murderers, not the heroic and driven comrades he'd spent all his life alongside. Even the agonized throes that roiled him couldn't mask the notes of their treachery, couldn't begin to explain away their lack of honor.
They may have had the same voice, but they had suddenly become an enemy.
Dreamer wanted to hate them, but it hadn't slipped past him that their orders had provoked the most vicious pain yet from his brain. He didn't know what had been done to him—What had been done to all of them—but he had to wonder if they had any choice in their action, if some part of their minds would be forced to watch from the sidelines as they gunned down comrades they'd spent years protecting or fighting alongside with.
Thoughts came to his mind of Coruscant, of the Jedi he'd left behind. Even past the pain, he could see their faces. They'd need help. They'd need him.
The agony was a throbbing constant threatening to overwhelm his higher cognitive functions. Yet he managed to will it away—if temporarily. The comrades he'd left behind in the Republic's capital, friends, those that they'd always trusted would take a shot at them.
And no matter how strong they were, few were ever prepared for betrayal of that magnitude.
He made his choice, disquieting as it was.
A half-dozen clones, not normally enough to take on a senator's guards, but they had the element of surprise working in their favor. Similarly, none of them were paying attention to Dreamer, who sat behind their lines.
Three were dispatched with ease, Dreamer given a clear shot with his dual pistols. Another was winged before they returned fire, as shocked as he was that one of their own had turned on them. He was able to lurch behind cover in time. None of them were ARC Troopers, and he'd had as much experience as the average elite clone.
His actions had served to flush the remaining three out, though, allowing the senator's guard to do the rest.
"Barricade the door!" one of them cried. "Someone attend to that clone!"
Dreamer heard the rushing of feet around him, demands to put down his weapons, but he was still steeped in a pained haze.
"Sergeant!" The severe voice cut through it all. "Sergeant, listen to me! What's happening?"
He looked up at the senator, her eyes filled with panic and trepidation.
"Order Sixty-Six," Dreamer said, forcing the words out between his teeth. "They're going to destroy the temple. They're going to kill enemies of the Republic." He looked up at her. "You."
That declaration did little to calm her guard, all of whom raised their weapons toward him.
"Stop," she ordered them. "Why didn't you turn?"
"Some trigger," he told her. "It was supposed to take me. I never thought the pain would be a good thing. Whatever is in there misfired."
"We need to take the ship," she said. "Sergeant, will you fight with us?"
"I...I'll go to the cockpit. The rest of your guard should punch down to the engines, barricade themselves inside..."
"And cause a distraction," one of the guards said. "From the cockpit, you should be able to space everything."
"Yes."
The disgust with which he answered didn't go unnoticed by anyone, especially the senator. Her piercing eyes turned sympathetic, her head cocked in curiosity.
"Alright," she replied. "It's a good plan." The senator turned to her guard. "Men, we're going to move fast! We must break out of here and take the engine room. Hurry now, with me!"
She said no more to Dreamer. They wouldn't have a lot of time, his brothers would know there was something wrong in moments, then they'd mass around the hangar and make escape impossible.
Playing dead was easy enough for him, listening to the boots stomp past the hangar. He knew operating procedure, his brothers wouldn't be concerning themselves with downed clones when there was still an active mission running away from them.
Once they were past, he lumbered out into the hallway. Listening to the sounds of distant battle as he jogged to the cockpit, the agony in his head fading from the forefront as adrenaline took over.
Little resistance was present on his quick journey to the cockpit, and none of the three clones he passed tried to stop him. He didn't know what kind of excuse he could come up with to explain why he was running away from the fight, but they all seemed too preoccupied to care.
"Sergeant."
Dreamer backed up against a corner upon hearing the senator speak. He glanced out to find the corridors clear, and he set his transmitter to send.
"This is Dreamer," he replied. "Senator, are you safe?"
"Not exactly." Blaster fire was audible in the background of her transmission, making her predicament clear enough. "We're here, though. We've managed to barricade the engine room, we're just waiting on your end. Are you almost there?"
"I am," he told her. "Three up front, guarding the bridge. I should be able to get close, and that'll be all I need."
"Understood. Thank you, Sergeant."
He didn't respond, dropping the transmitter from his helmet and instead gazing out at the small barricade ahead, meant to stymie the senator and her guards.
He swung out from the corner, jogging in their direction and waving an arm. The frantic movement attracted their attention, but thankfully, nobody reached for their weapons.
"Brothers!" He noticed one of them was the young clone he'd been on the landing pad with before departing. "Brothers, a few are coming this way!"
"Understood," the oldest of their number said. "We could use your help, Ser—"
A bolt to the head, and he said no more. Dreamer turned to the other side to find the pair scrambling for their weapons. He managed to shoot the first one, then the youngest of them abandoned the attempt to get to his carbine and threw himself at Dreamer.
The sergeant swung across, catching the clone in the side of his helmet, but he wasn't giving up that easily. Recently out of the tank and training, he was still younger and stronger than Dreamer.
What he didn't have was experience. He hadn't fought hand to hand with a wide array of sympathetic Separatist factions, he hadn't been forced to wrestle down a battle droid, he hadn't trained with Jedi who had an uncanny knack for martial arts.
Dreamer had.
So when the young clone artlessly tried to force him down with sheer muscle, Dreamer twisted at the hips, a leg planted forward in order to trip the young clone. He tumbled forward, but he got lucky and managed to snag Dreamer's calf, sending the sergeant to the ground with him.
A blow to his head only served to amplify the ache in his head, but he managed to pull back from the following swing. He jumped on the clone, pulling his head into a lock. He couldn't properly leverage the hold into anything effective from his angle, but he managed to fall backward, stretching the young man out and robbing him of any proper stance.
His eyes moved to a pistol that had landed nearby. He snagged it from the ground, pressed it to his fellow clone's stomach, and pulled the trigger three times. The young man jumped with each pull, and he went limp by the time the third bolt had cut into his innards.
Dreamer was left to recover on his own, breathing heavily in the aftermath of a struggle brief but fierce. The pain in his head was joined by an aching at his ribs. Something had probably broken I n the fight, but he told himself that it was alright. All he needed to do now was invade the bridge, and that was likely to be run with a skeleton crew of clones who hadn't been trained in combat.
He opened the door to find that he was correct. Two clones at the controls at the very end, dressed in the mild uniform of pilots and engineers. They were watching the door, waiting for some sign of what had gone on in the corridor beyond, and relief relaxed them as they saw a fellow clone walk in.
That relief dissipated when he aimed one of his pistols at the first pilot. The clone didn't even get a moment to speak, the bolt cutting into his chest and the superheated gas killing him instantly. Dreamer turned his weapon on the second, who had backed up against the controls.
"Brother, what—"
A single shot was all it took. Simple, quick, and painless.
Yet when the final clone dropped from the pilot's seat, Dreamer felt dirty. A disquieting sickness was coursing through him, and it wasn't just the omnipresent throb of his head.
He'd killed his brothers. He was a murderer, a traitor, and all the self-justification in the galaxy wasn't helping to square his guilt. Through pain and hatred of self, Dreamer kept his thoughts fixated on the war-tested Zabrak, his fiery padawan, and the mild pilot who was but centimeters from finding himself in the darkest reaches of the galaxy.
Dreamer couldn't bring back the clones he'd so uneasily disposed of, but he could at least pull those he'd left behind out of the fire.
It was a quick cycling of the corvette, spacing every area but the engine room and the cockpit. He tried not to think of how many of his brothers he'd just doomed, instead going through the motions of restoring the atmosphere to the ship.
Then he turned the vessel around, putting it right back into hyperspace. Minutes later, he was interrupted from his flight.
"What is going on in here?"
He turned to the glare of the senator whom he'd forgotten about in the guilty haze of battle and the pain.
"S—Sorry, Senator," Dreamer said. "I...There are some friends I left on Coruscant. Jedi and Force-users. They'll be dead without help."
The senator stared at him overlong, her piercing gaze weighing, perhaps wondering if the only clone who hadn't turned against them had gone mad anyways. Then she turned to the corridor beyond.
"Then go about your business, Sergeant. I'll be in my room, I have some calls to make."
"Thank you, Senator."