Hello to all you readers! I owe you a major apology for the ridiculous amount of time it took me to update this story. . . I'm sorry to say, I got rather distracted by reading Sherlock Holmes. . . :] And I found it impossible to write CW while reading SH. Not my fault. At all.

Actually, yes it is. BUT I am now pretty sure I've got a workable outline for the rest of this story, and besides. I watched a couple of clips from Season 7, which helped with inspiration. :) Because this is a filler chapter, it might be a little rough. Just bear with me as I get back into the feel of Clone Wars.


Rex led the others down the hallway, their boots clacking against the polished wood. As he had expected, the castle was almost completely abandoned. A few Twi'leks and humans, presumably servants, remained, but the clones had been able to avoid detection without effort. They were nearing the last room on the upper floor of the castle when Rex paused. The wooden door ahead of them was ajar.

Jesse slipped by him, kicked it open and stepped in before the door could bounce closed. "No one here."

"Well, look at this," Snap said, gesturing at the computer station in the corner of the large room. "Everything's up and running. We can probably do some damage from here."

"Yeah," said Rex. "But first we're doing some reconnaissance."

Their careful search turned up only one camera, which Gadget promptly dropped on the floor and crushed. Rex checked the hallway one more time and shut the door.

"As long as we're quiet, we should be fine," he said, taking off his helmet. "Jesse, what've we got?"

Jesse, who was tapping away at the computer station, looked up. "Not much. This seems to be for the servants' use. Supply orders, duty roster . . . And it looks like Ventress sends a notification to the servants whenever she plans on staying at the castle."

"Well, that's useless," Snap said, nudging him aside and pulling up a different screen. "Hmm, no outward communications enabled through this terminal. We can change that. . . Captain, do you want us to try contacting General Kenobi?"

"Not through there. Ventress might have lousy security, but she's probably got some way of tracing system usage."

"Yeah." Snap smirked. "Though she'll be out cold for at least another hour, thanks to your medic."

Kix, on the other side of the room, gingerly removed his vambrace and dropped it beside his gauntlet. "Don't count on it. I've seen Jedi burn through sedatives before."

He glanced up at Rex, a glint of humor entering his eyes. Rex gave him a pointed look. Yes, General Skywalker had tried sneaking out of med bay once too often. Yes, he had been shocked to discover that Kix had figured out his little Force-trick and given him a double dosage.

Rex felt his lips twitch. General Skywalker had shouted in disbelief, horrified. "All that time wasted sleeping! We have missions to plan, Kix!" Kix, confident in his authority as company medic, had been respectfully unrepentant. General Kenobi had stood smugly on the sidelines, quietly approving – at least, until he saw the 212th medic standing by, his expression interested as he filed away what he'd just learned about Force-users.

Snap and Gadget were glancing between Kix and Jesse, probably hoping for the story behind their grins, so Rex cleared his throat purposefully. "Better see to that wrist, Kix. Snap, you're on lookout duty."

He moved to the computer and stared at the screen for a long moment. "Any way we can secure this?"

"Not without setting off an alert," Snap replied, and Gadget nodded.

Jesse tapped his fingers thoughtfully against his gun. "Couldn't the Twilight safely access the local network?"

"Good idea." After a moment's consideration, Rex switched his commlink's scramble set and ordered the others to do the same. It was a safe bet that the captive clones no longer had their commlinks, which meant the pirates would be listening in. He waited until the indicator blinked green. "Twilight, come in. This is Captain Rex."

A few seconds of silence passed before a distinctive voice replied. "Oddball here, Captain."

"We're in the castle. What's your position?"

"Three clicks east of the city. The spaceport officials contacted us. We had to leave the atmosphere or land. Airspace hazard."

Well, that at least made some amount of sense. Not enough, though. "Keep your eyes open," Rex said. "They know the Republic's here, now."

"Will do, sir. Have you located the others?"

"I'm not sure." Rex waved Gadget over. The younger clone had already opened the city schematics and zoomed in on the large building near the castle.

"Want me to patch it through, sir?" he asked.

Rex nodded and turned back to his commlink. "We need to know what this building is used for."

"One moment." The transmission cut off.

Kix had finished strapping his wrist up and was returning his supplies to his medic's pack. Rex ordered everyone to see to their blasters – the sand might not harm them, but then again, there was no point in taking chances.

He was reassembling his first pistol when the commlink beeped, and he answered immediately. "What'd you find out, Oddball?"

"Captain, that building is known as the Cauldron. It's a public arena. Wooley's been sweeping the channels for –"

Someone interrupted him. There was a hurried conversation, then Wooley's voice broke in. "Captain Rex. Better listen to this, sir. An announcement from some Twi'lek named Tar Saresh. He's listed as owner of the Cauldron."

The other four clones stilled abruptly, looking up. The commlink fizzled with static for a moment, and then a voice spoke. "My fellow citizens! I am pleased to announce that a special event will take place tonight at eleven hours. The Cauldron has never had such dangerous guests before! Two Jedi were captured today by Asajj Ventress. These Jedi were leading Republic troops – Republic troops! – into Heela, invading our territory despite their promises of neutrality!"

Gadget, looking confused, glanced from Snap to Rex. Jesse leaned forward, fully focused on the accented voice.

"Count Dooku has generously agreed that they will be dealt with according to Rattatakian tradition. The Jedi and their men have been condemned!"

The voice cut off in a wild burst of cheering – obviously prerecorded, and rather sloppily – and then that sound vanished, to be replaced with Wooley's voice. "That was aired not five minutes ago, sir."

Jesse stood up. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Rex replied after a moment. "Wooley, we need all the information you can get. Find out what's going to happen tonight and give me a timeframe."

"Copy that, sir."

Again the transmission cut off.

Rex dismantled his second pistol and began meticulously cleaning each piece. He was aware that the others were waiting for some sort of direction, but he wasn't sure what the best course of action would be.

He frowned. He wasn't even sure what the options were. They couldn't get to the Cauldron until dark. They couldn't try to contact the prisoners. Even if they could, getting past Ventress, Grievous, and Dooku was a little much. Sending the Twilight out of atmosphere to contact General Kenobi's cruiser might be an option, but what could the men on the Negotiator do?

Well . . . besides storming the Cauldron. But pulling more Republic troops into a city where the indigenous population seemed fully able and willing to attack – no.

Rex got to his feet, holstering his gun, and glanced over the men. Jesse and Snap were arguing about something involving security codes, Gadget was fidgeting with his datapad, and Kix was watching Rex, who raised an eyebrow at him.

Kix got up and joined him, speaking in a low voice. "Rex, we've pulled off some pretty crazy things before, but this. . . What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Yet. But whatever we do, we're on our own."

Gadget had heard them. "There are only five of us."

"Five of us, five men on a shuttle," corrected Jesse, suddenly breaking off his argument with Snap in favor of the new conversation. "And however many men we can get out of that prison."

Snap gave him an unimpressed look. "Come on. I know you guys jump in headfirst, but this is a little much."

"He's right," Rex said, interrupting Jesse's retort. "We don't have enough intel."

The silence stretched out for several minutes. Rex was about to order Gadget to take up guard position, just to give the kid something to do, when the commlink beeped again. The clones gathered in the center of the room as Rex answered the call.

"Wooley?"

"It's Boomer this time," his sergeant answered. "Wooley's running scans. I've got a preliminary report, though."

"Let's hear it."

"It looks like 'Rattatakian tradition' is that the citizens kill the condemned in combat, with weapons of their choice. The holovid we found – it wasn't really a fight, more of an execution."

"And the citizens want to go up against two Jedi?"

"Guess they're mad enough to," Boomer answered. "You should see the betting odds right now."

Jesse shook his head. "Money or not, I wouldn't want to get smashed through a wall by an angry Jedi. That doesn't make any sense."

"It does when two people with lightsabers will be present," Wooley's voice cut in. "I just found out that both Dooku and Ventress will be present at tonight's games."

"No mention of Grievous?"

"None. I've been looking for his ship – it's not registered in any of the spaceports."

"Doesn't mean he's not here," mused Rex. "But at least he doesn't seem to be an immediate problem."

Force knew, they had more than enough 'immediate problems' as it was. But, for the moment, there was nothing to do but wait. Judging from previous experiences, Rex knew that it was going to be a long and tiresome wait. He gestured to the men. "At ease. Tonight won't be any picnic. Get some rest while you can."

Rex sat back against the wall, staring at Gadget's datapad as reports came in from Wooley. The data confirmed his thought that they needed help. And he knew of only one team nearby who might, possibly, get to Rattatak in time to save the generals.

"Wooley," he said, with a mental sigh. "Get ready to send an encrypted message to Vassek III."

I'd love to hear any guesses you might have on what the heck is going to happen next. ;) Again, thanks to all of you - especially to those who were kind enough to nudge me along by sending, shall we say, pointed reviews. So pointed, in fact, that they were on the verge of being downright sharp. ;)