Happy last day of summer guys (if it's already September for you, then happy first day of fall)!

This update is my gift to all you! I hope you like it! :D

Captured (Clone Force 99 pt6)

Sometimes it takes extreme situations to make you realize what's obvious

The first thing Steele remembered feeling as hitting the starship's floor was how much the impact hurt. The next thing he remembered was the female Gossam, 'Senator Fonti' he heard the pilot call her, stick a syringe into his neck.

He responded to that by grabbing Fonti, putting her in a headlock, and holding her at blasterpoint. He directed his attention to the panicking pilot.

"Turn this ship around!" Steele demanded while pressing his blaster to Fonti's temple. "Turn it around now! Or she dies—ugh!"

The effects of the injected drug kicked in.

"Blast it…no…"

Steele slowly lost his grip on Fonti and his own body. He collapsed to the floor. Fonti backed up a little, catching her breath.

"Milady, are you alright?" The pilot asked.

She nodded. "J—just a little shaken. Anyways, the injection should keep him out of it until we arrive…"

What was this drug? Steele felt like he just finished a hundred shots in a single sitting. This was drunk on a whole new level. He couldn't even speak now.

Fonti pulled Steele onto a flattened seat and tied him in. Then she rejoined her pilot at the front. "Notify Kerch. Tell him, Plan B was a success. We have got ourselves a clone."

Steele struggled to not slip into unconsciousness. He suddenly remembered something Wolffe shouted to him before falling.

"Locator! Your locator!"

Right. He still had his locator on him. These people forgot to erase their security recordings. Chances are, they won't search him for a locator either. At least not until he arrived at wherever they're taking him to.

Steele strained himself to reach for his locator without being noticed by his two captors. He successfully turned it on before blacking out.

~ O O O ~

Wolffe mentally rehearsed what he was going to say to Aliyah for about the 100th time. The ruins of their base came into sight. And he and the Bad Batch soon landed.

Plo, Aliyah, and a couple other clones greeted them upon landing. As soon as they all stepped out. Aliyah asked the dreaded question.

"Where's Steele?"

Wolffe reluctantly said what he rehearsed. "Place was deserted. Separatists left behind some commandos to stop us from pursuing them. And during our escape, we met with some…complications." He prepared himself for this part. "He got captured."

Aliyah froze in place. Overhearing 304th clones stopped what they were doing. They erupted.

"It's a bad joke. Tell me it's a bad joke!"

"How did this happen?"

"I cannot believe this! Why? Just—why?"

Above all the shouting, Aliyah suddenly turned around and walked down to the communications tent at at rapid pace. Kal was already inside. She called out to him.

"Kal! Turn the map on and conduct a search of the adjacent worlds."

Kal however, was more concerned by the tone of urgency in his general's voice. "What's going on?"

"Steele's been captured."

"WHAT!?"

"His locator might still be on, so do a search of the area! Now!"

"Yeah yeah, ok!"

Kal turned the map on and focused on the immediate adjacent worlds. No signal detected. Aliyah zoomed the radius out a little, her fingers trembling.

A pulsing signal appeared over one of the planets on the map. Steele's signal.

Both Aliyah and Kal huffed in relief. Plo entered the tent. Wolffe and the batch followed behind.

"We found his location." Aliyah pointed at the signal on the map. "Now comes the hard part."

"Aliyah…first, you need to clear your head," Plo advised.

"I'm not leaving him behind."

"I didn't say that. I'm just saying that you need to consider our current situation. If this were any other mission, I'd be helping you put together his rescue. But this isn't."

"So what your saying is: focus on the datachip first, then on his rescue."

"I'm saying whatever option we go with, we risk jeopardizing the other one. We can't do both at the same time."

"Actually, we might!" Tech suddenly said. He was examining the map. "The planet where the commander's signal is coming from, isn't too far from us. And from what we found out at the deserted facility, the Separatists returned to their previous base and they don't have a lot of mobility left. This signalled planet could very well be where their base is."

Everyone couldn't believe it. They had just taken two birds with one stone.

"You're certain?" Plo asked Tech.

"Absolutely. Senator Kushi said so himself in a security recording, they don't have a lot of ship fuel to waste. It'd be contradictory if they took the commander elsewhere instead of their current base of operations."

"Then we can launch our attack," Plo concluded. "Retrieve the datachip, subdue Kushi and his allies, and rescue Steele."

"We'd need to do it fast," Wolffe quickly added. "I don't know why they took Steele alive, but if it's for something sinister or related to the datachip, it won't end well for any of us."

Aliyah pushed all thoughts of interrogation chairs and torture out of her mind. She needed to clear her head.

"'Liyah. We need to see how many of our men are able-bodied by now. And work—"

"—work on our plan of attack, I know." Aliyah finished. She repeated softly, "I know…"

Crosshair nudged Hunter, hoping he'd get what he want to say—but can't due to his jaw. Hunter didn't need to be nudged. He was already going to say what Crosshair was hoping for.

"Let us be the ones to rescue him, general," Hunter said to Aliyah. "It's the least we can do."

Aliyah looked at him and the batch unblinkingly. They were sincere.

"If your success rate is truly what's stated in the records, I trust you'll bring him back to me."

Hunter nodded. "We will."

~ O O O ~

Just like Tech said, the ship carrying Steele really did take him to the Separatists' base of operations.

The second they landed, the pilot, Senator Fonti, and a couple of guards dragged a still heavily drugged Steele out. They presented him to the line of Separatists before them. Kushi included.

"Here is the clone we captured, Kerch," Fonti said.

The guards held Steele on his knees and made him look up at the politicians before him. Some of them made a few comments.

"Look at the armour."

"He's definitely highly-ranked. Wonder how much we can get out of him."

"Hey hey, shut up. I think he can hear us."

That was both true and false. Steele could hear garbles of their talking. But he could definitely make out the image of Senator Kerch Kushi standing before him. Mastermind of this whole datachip fiasco.

Kushi bent down towards Steele and removed one of his gloves and armguard. He rolled up his sleeve enough to expose his wrist, then hovered an identifier over it. The results spilled before his eyes.

"CC-3484. Commander of the 304th," Kushi read aloud.

Everyone became ecstatic upon hearing that. They just made a huge catch.

Kushi removed Steele's helmet and was about to reach for his goggles when Steele instinctively jerked back. The guards violently retaliated but Kushi told them to stop.

"It's fine, it's fine!" Kushi insisted as he stood up. "Take him inside and remove his gear. But don't touch his goggles. The man's suffered enough as it is."

"Yes, sir." The guards replied.

They administered another dose of the same drug Fonti gave Steele earlier. Then dragged him away.

~ O O O ~

The response to the news of discovering the Separatist's final hideout and Steele's capture was strong. Neither Plo nor Aliyah saw so many wounded men insist they're 'fine'.

Everyone was working hard to prepare for departure off this planet and their upcoming invasion/rescue. Compass was helping with loading some equipment onto the ships.

Suddenly someone took the top crate off of the crates two he was carrying.

"Huh?" He was surprised to see Crosshair holding the crate.

"Oh, you don't need to do that," Compass insisted.

But Crosshair shook his head. That surprised Compass, so he let him follow him to the ship. "How's your jaw? Still can't speak?"

"I can speak. Just hurts a bit," Crosshair managed.

"Wow, that's fast recovery."

They walked in silence for a while. Then Crosshair spoke again. "I take back what I said after the ambush."

"Oh, what's with the change of heart?" Compass asked.

"Just realized that not having a filter ain't an excuse—ow."

"That's not true!" Wrecker entered the scene. "He's just shaken that your commander still saved his butt after jeering him last night."

"Oh really?" Compass inquired as he passed the crate to the ship loaders.

"Yep. I speak on Crosshair's behalf while his jaw continues to heal."

"I'm gonna shoot you over and over again…" Crosshair painfully said as he gave away his crate as well.

Compass snickered at the comment before turning serious. "All jokes aside, you're telling me that Steele saved your butt, and then consequently wound up captured?"

Crosshair nodded only once.

Compass sighed. He stared hard at the two clones. "You're gonna rescue him?"

"Yeah. We're gonna rescue him during the attack." Wrecker confirmed. "Your general agreed to it."

"Well you'd better." Compass crossed his arms. "'Cause that's her treasured one you're retrieving."

"'Treasured one?'" Wrecker and Crosshair repeated.

"Compass!" Dogma approached him from behind. "You can't go around telling folks outside our legion our nicknames!"

"Why not?" Compass challenged. "I told Commander Wolffe about it and nothing happened."

"You told him about it!? How do you know he didn't tell anyone else about it!?"

"'Cause brothers look out for each other?"

Dogma pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are unbelievable. I don't understand how you survived so long."

"General Korentayer refuses to let me die."

Wrecker runs off to tell Hunter of this newest revelation.

~ O O O ~

After an entire day of stripping the base down to its bare essentials and loading up the ships, the clones finally retired for the night, as reluctant as some of them were.

Aliyah stood over the map, reviewing the planet of the renegade Separatists' base. Just like her men, she was reluctant to sleep. But her stubbornness was sky-high severe.

"General, seriously." Wolffe appeared next to her, clearly tired. "We're flying out early tomorrow. You need sleep."

"I will."

"That's what you said 20 minutes ago."

"That's what you told yourself 20 minutes ago. Yet here we are. Still awake."

Wolffe sighed. It was true. Neither of them could erase Steele's predicament from their heads. Wolffe still felt some responsibility for that. "I'm sorry for not holding onto him tighter."

"I don't blame you."

"Look…if you turn off the map, I'll go to sleep."

"If you give me 2 more minutes, I'll go to sleep."

"Both of you need to sleep." Plo suddenly boomed. "No more excuses. Wolffe, I could very well order you to get some shut-eye but I trust you'll make that wise decision on your own."

That was enough for Wolffe to let up. "Fine. Guess I'll be the role model again."

Aliyah silently chortled at that throwback to her Padawan days, when the 3 of them went through similar dilemmas. But things became depressing again as soon as Wolffe left.

Plo turned the map off for Aliyah. "You too."

Before Aliyah could say something, Plo cut her off. "I understand how you feel. I felt similar fear during my experience with the Malevolence. It hurts, being powerless to protect those under your leadership."

"Have you ever lost Wolffe like this?"

Plo slowly shook his head. "I can't say I have."

That added to Aliyah's distress. She put both hands on the table to steady herself. "I have never lost him like this before. Ne-ver."

Plo was grateful he was assigned here with her, and not some other…less understanding Jedi. One who'd probably be giving her a lecture about attachment and clouded judgement and all that stuff right about now.

"It's time to rest. Come on," Plo insisted. He turned around and walked out.

Reluctantly, Aliyah followed. It's not like she could do anything fruitful right now. Not until they fly out tomorrow at least.

"Sleep it is, I guess."

~ O O O ~

Steele finally woke after what felt like hours. Stripped of his armour. Arms, legs, and torso cuffed to a chair. The effects of the drug had worn off enough for him to see Kushi standing across the dimly-lit room.

"Hey…Senator…" Steele struggled to speak. Kushi glanced at the black-clad clone. "...why'd you leave the CIS?"

"I didn't like the way Dooku led us," Kushi's voice was hard and clear. "I didn't like the way he did things either. That man seemed like he was intentionally letting the Republic win."

Steele was surprised to hear that. This entire time, he assumed the Republic had the upper hand because of the Jedi. Kushi paced around.

"At first, I tried to talk to him, reason with him. But he just shut me down with the threat of death. That's when I knew I had to get out. The Confederacy was no longer what I envisioned it to be. So I gathered everyone who shared my views and we left to fight the Republic our own way."

"By stealing confidential Republic info."

Kushi nodded and poured himself a drink. "Best way to bring down a corrupted government is by revealing their secrets to their own people."

"So why haven't you yet?"

"We need a strong foundation. No one would believe a couple of renegade Separatists, you know that. However it's difficult establishing that foundation while being on the run. But now…"

Kushi walked towards Steele. Steele kept his composure.

"...now we might not need a foundation after all. You will be our solid evidence. Just imagine: the faces of the Republic citizens and the Jedi, when they see a clone commit mindless mutiny."

Steele's mind turned to shambles.

"What are you gonna do to me?" His voice shook.

"Nothing yet. We're still missing a couple key players for our demonstration. Don't feel too bad though, commander. It's not like the Republic will miss you."

"You say that as if it'd bother me."

"Oh?" Kushi looked confused. "It doesn't bother you that you're nothing but a means to an end? Don't tell me you think it's honourable to die for a deceitful government like the Republic. Or that the Jedi are truly your allies."

Steele took his time in answering. "I believe in what I've been through. That's all."

"Then I must commend you for your strength," Kushi praised. "It must not be easy, remaining loyal after serving someone like Pong Krell. Yes, I know about you and him. It's become common knowledge after the infamous Umbara operation, and I have to say, it's disgusting how nobody did a thing to help you or your men during his time of 'leadership' over you."

Steele looked at Kushi in disbelief. But Kushi paid no mind.

"That's just how the Republic and Jedi are these days. Arrogant pricks who lay the rules hard on everyone but themselves. After all, they let Krell get away with his abuse, while letting the clone who killed him almost get sentenced to death."

The drug was wearing off even more. To the point where Steele was able to see and hear Kushi as he normally would.

"Hypocrites: the lot of them! And yet, here you are. Still fighting for them. And serving yet another Jedi general."

"And why do you think I'm doing that?" Steele challenged.

Kushi was taken aback by how clear his voice sounded. The drug was wearing off even more. With every decrease in its effect, causing an increase in Steele's emotions.

"Huh? Why, Senator? If everyone's as corrupt as you say, then I would've killed myself the day Krell was finally removed…"

Kushi looked at Steele with a mix of pity and indifference. It was clear to him that he struck a sensitive chord in this clone. Given by the subtle shaking in Steele's restrained body.

"You believe all Jedi are hypocrites. You think I'm blindly serving another general. But maybe you'd think differently if you were actually there at that time! Someone was there for us! During that time, with Krell…she was afraid of him too…she was only recently Knighted, her authority was incomparable to his…but still…despite that…she was the one who freed us from his leadership!"

Kushi hardened his voice. "Jedi like Korentayer are a minority."

"Jedi like Krell are the minority! It's thanks to her I was finally able to see that!"

Kushi's eyes filled with alarm upon seeing the rattling of Steele's restraints. "My goodness! Calm down!"

"Every time we step into battle…"

"Calm down, or I'll have you sedated!"

"...I make sure she comes out alive—!"

Steele suddenly went quiet. The weight of the words he just said, hit him hard on the head.

The room became dead-silent, much to Kushi's relief. He recomposed himself and looked down at Steele, now sitting like a limp statue in his chair.

"You 'make sure she comes out alive?' What is this? Something she made you do in exchange for getting rid of Krell?"

No. Something that I promised to her, in exchange for saving my life. Steele mentally answered.

"Hey, I said 'calm down' not 'shut up,'" Kushi reminded him.

But now, it's more than that. I don't need to think twice anymore when it comes to her well-being.

Kushi rubbed his forehead and sighed due to the lack of response. "Do you actually think that the Jedi and the so-called people of the Republic, care for you? Don't tell me you're this ignorant."

Steele didn't answer. He continued to sit in silence. Lost in the pits of his mind.

How'd this happen? How did keeping you safe become second-nature to me? We're work-partners. Once this war is over, we'll probably never see each other again. And I don't want that.

Kushi's voice penetrated through Steele's thoughts. "If push comes to shove, they won't hesitate to throw you aside. It doesn't matter how strongly you feel for them, they'll never truly value you."

If it made you smile, I'd do it a thousand times over. You saved me from Krell. You saved me from my self-doubt. You give me so much reason to live. Such acts that define you so radiantly get discouraged by the leading figures of our pledged entities.

"You'll see what I mean, if you make it to the end of this war."

A memory of a question Hunter asked from the previous night, came back to Steele. "Tell me, commander. What do you want out of this war?"

Steele felt his eyes almost well-up. A fragmented thought from the depths of his subconscious, pieced itself together.

I love you. I love you so damn much…and I don't want to ever stop. Even once this war's over.

Kushi watched in intrigue as the clone commander lifted his head. Eager to hear what he was going to say after staying quiet for so long.

"I'm an idiot."

Next time on the Clone's Hero, the 2 battalions and the Bad Batch prepare to storm the hideout…

Review responses~

Starpottergeek: Not exactly. This is what'll spark his suspicion, which is a driving force behind the next arc. :)

KarajeJinsta: Well, here's the follow-up of his capture. What do you think? :) And thanks for saying that this story is getting better! Any writer's worst fear is losing their audience's interest over time.

RyanSquad: Thank you, good sir. I'm sorry about these cliffhangers, but sometimes they must be done otherwise chapters will go on forever. :)

Lau-SR: He'll be saved, don't worry. Everyone's on their way right now. Again, sorry about these cliffhangers but they must be done sometimes! Best of luck in your online classes! :)

Akira-Hayama: Kushi doesn't want to harm him, but that doesn't apply to all his allies. However for now, nothing borderlining torture is happening to him. More cooperation will be down the line. Get ready. :)

Guest: She lost her shit internally. Can't let it show too much though. :)

MisterStarWarsFans: Don't worry. Krell set the standards of pain-inflicting VERY HIGH. And everyone sorta flipped out but they had to quickly resume their focus if they want both him and the datachip back. :)

Femke-the-lotus: Taking Steele caused him to realize his feelings, so I guess it's not all that bad? Hehe...;) Anyways, I will definitely be taking a semester-long hiatus once my courses begin. But don't worry, I WILL be back for the next arc by around winter break! :)

A/N. By the way, I updated this story while at my cottage! I went kayaking for the first time yesterday and I'm happy to say I didn't tip over! XD

Anyways, I hope you guys had a great summer break and I wish you all the best of luck in your upcoming school year!

Please remember to favourite, follow, or review!

See you all next time! :)

- MiraLake