Teraan and Rynn ran for their lives, occasionally firing wildly over their shoulder at the horde of aliens running behind them. One of them dropped dead from a lucky shot, but there were still too many to fight. They didn't know where to go, hopefully through the bulkhead and up the stairwell, but chances were high the aliens were on that side as well.

The thought crossed Teraan's mind that they were well and truly kriffed. Aliens on one side, a closed heavy bulkhead on the other, and going down side tunnels would only delay the inevitable. Teraan's strength started to ebb, and she saw that Rynn was on the brink of complete exhaustion.

The Twi'lek stumbled, falling into Teraan and knocking her into the wall, both women falling to the ground. Teraan groped her hand along the wall, trying to pull herself up to her feet, but her hand passed through shadow into a thin, narrow passage.

Another one of the weird silica tunnels dug into the rock. Hidden by shadow, they would have run past it completely had Rynn not tripped.

Strength filled Teraan once more as her adrenaline spiked into overdrive. She turned her head, just in time to hear Rynn scream. An alien had pounced and wrapped chitinous black arms around the helpless Twi'lek. Rynn thrashed wildly from side to side, trying to free herself, but it was useless.

The alien began to retreat, taking it's unwilling prey with it. Chances were high that it was taking her to one of those breeding chambers they had stumbled upon in the ancient city. Or maybe the beast just wanted to turn her into food for itself and the other aliens.

Whatever the reason, Teraan raised her sidearm. She fired once, and Rynn's screams cut off with the whine of the blaster. Her body fell limp in the alien's hands, smoke rising from a charred hole in her head, and it dropped her corpse.

If you go into space, you'll die there. The words of Teraan's mother again surfaced in her brain, but she shook them off with a single, sad glance at Rynn's lifeless body. Better to be dead than captured by these things.

Teraan launched herself up the alien tunnel, clambering over the silica hand over hand, foot over foot, in a mad scramble to escape the bugs. No grenades left to seal it behind her, she fired a couple times behind her. Maybe the aliens would pause from the fire? Maybe she'd get lucky and collapse the tunnel with a stray blast?

Up above her, she saw a pinprick of light. Escape!

She quickened her pace, scuttling up the steep slope like a crab hoping that she'd be faster than the aliens below.

No such luck.

A black, chitinous claw wrapped around her ankle and pulled. She screamed, firing blindly behind her, the blaster bolts hitting nothing except the silica roof of the tunnel, leaving cracks and fractures in the material. As the eyeless oblong head pulled itself out of the darkness to loom over her in the small tunnel, she kicked wildly, trying to keep it away, but her efforts were futile.

She stared into the face of the void, knowing her time had finally come. Tears glistened in her eyes as she raised her blaster to her temple. "I'm sorry…"

There was the boom of an explosion. The tunnel shook violently, and rock and fractured silica rained down on both human and alien.


The first oblong head that came out of the rent turbolift flooring was drilled with precise blasterfire from Crespi. The old clone was still as much a marksman as ever. It fell down, only to be replaced with more of the obsidian demons. Crespi picked off the ones he could, but there were too many targets flooding out of the turbolift shaft.

Tano had picked up Wilcox's blaster, the dead pilot obviously wouldn't be using it anymore. She, Hooper, and Offee all opened fire at the turbolift they had just come out of, some of the aliens fell dead, but more and more kept charging over the shattered corpses of their fellow creatures.

Crespi stood out in the open. Cover wouldn't do any good against the aliens, all they could hope to do was cut them down before they got within striking range. Tano and Offee grabbed some of the mining crates and recovered stone scattered around the loading dock and used them as ranged clubs, throwing them into some of the aliens and crushing others.

But there were just too many for the four of them.

Tano shouted a warning to Crespi, and he whirled to see several aliens emerging from the second turbolift shaft, the one whose turbolift had malfunctioned and crashed to the bottom of the mine. He opened fire, downing one of them. Tano smashed a second with a flurry of stone thrown with the Force, crushing the creature against the wall in a spray of acid blood that melted the crate and part of the durasteel wall.

But one of them made it through and launched itself at Crespi. He backpedalled away, and the beast slammed into him. They fell back to the ground and Crespi looked up through his visor at the demon. Reflected in that eyeless, expressionless face was his helmet. Not his stormtrooper helmet though, he saw a Phase II clone helmet, and the firewalls around his mind came crashing down as the memory flooded his vision.


Crespi recognized his surroundings. A forward operating base that he and Mylar had set up just outside of striking range of the Separatists. Some nameless jungle world in the Outer Rim that had been used by the Separatists as a supply and repair depot for the sector. His and Mylar's legion had made landfall on the planet under a hail of anti-aircraft fire, and they had decided to split their forces.

While the main legion would assault the Separatist base from the front, Crespi and Mylar's detachment had covertly maneuvered into a flanking position to hit the droids' rear, hopefully ending the battle quickly and. The attack was due to launch at first light, so most of the troops spent their evening checking weapons and armor.

Mylar was in an exceptionally good mood. News had come in from Coruscant that Count Dooku, the leader of the Separatists, had been killed in the attack on Coruscant by the Hero with No Fear, Anakin Skywalker. Without Dooku, they both knew that the Confederacy was doomed. He was to the CIS what Palpatine was to the Republic. The cornerstone that kept them together. Grievous may have been a great military commander, but he would never be able to control the squabbling of the other powers behind the CIS.

Plus, Mylar had just learned that Grievous had been located and that General Kenobi had been sent to defeat him. Soon the Clone Wars would be over, and they could live in peace once more.

Crespi had never known peace. Being a clone, he was bred for one thing: war. But he knew Mylar had lived in peace, and they were excited to live in that peace together. Jedi were not supposed to form attachments, but the bond the two had formed in battle had blossomed into something more.

Mylar had gone to check the sensors. Crespi was alone in the mobile command center with Deadshot, one of the platoon commanders. The comm station pinged with a message. Crespi looked at it and his eyes widened in surprise. It had come straight from the top, the Office of the Supreme Chancellor.

"Commander Crespi," Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself appeared in holo, his face shrivelled, scarred, and deformed. "The Jedi have betrayed the Republic and attempted to assassinate me. Execute Order 66."

With that, Palpatine's visage disappeared, leaving nothing but a shocked and confused Crespi. The Jedi had betrayed the Republic?

It didn't make sense. Mylar had struggled, bled, and nearly given her life for his fellow clones multiple times. He voiced his concerns to Deadshot.

"It was a lawful order, sir," was Deadshot's reply. "We have to trust that what the Supreme Chancellor says is correct."

He made a point. Crespi and all clones had been instilled from their creation with the discipline to follow any lawful order made by a superior officer. And in this case, it had come from the Commander-in-Chief himself. In this case, Order 66, the contingency order for the clones to kill their Jedi leaders should they go rogue or fall to the dark side.

"Deadshot," Crespi asked hesitantly. The other clone was one of the most competent soldiers Crespi had ever worked with. Crespi valued his input almost as much as he did Mylar's. "Do you believe it's possible that this might be a Separatist trick?"

Deadshot was silent for a moment as he scanned over the comm data. "I doubt it, Commander. The message came from Coruscant with the correct encryption codes."

Crespi's hope deflated. What in the name of the Force had gone on back on Coruscant? Had the Jedi really betrayed the Republic? Did Mylar know of a conspiracy? And why would the Jedi try such a thing at the end of the Clone Wars?

"Sir," Deadshot asked, "your orders?"

"Right," Crespi said, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "We detain the General until we can verify the Supreme Chancellor's orders. Let's move."

Crespi and Deadshot's squad moved through the camp, headed for the perimeter sensors where Mylar had said she would be standing watch. As they got close, blaster fire rang through the air and they broke into a run.

Reaching the perimeter sensors, Mylar stood surrounded by clones, blue lightsaber flashing through the air deflecting blaster bolts away from her. Her eyes were wild, locked into a scared, but determined look. Clones fell, victims of their redirected blasters or off the arcing blue blade.

Crespi didn't know what to think. He wanted to believe that Mylar was innocent, but here she was killing her own men. His brothers.

Blaster fire was redirected towards them and Deadshot took a shot to the gut. Something inside Crespi snapped.

Mylar turned and locked eyes with Crespi through his helmet visor. She faltered momentarily, and Crespi shot once. One shot. One was all it took. The plasma burned into her chest, and she looked down at the wound, then up at him in shock before falling onto her back.

As Crespi approached, she looked up at him in the silence, shock, remorse, and betrayal in her eyes. "Crespi… why?" was all she said as she breathed her last.

And in those haunted, shocked eyes, his own helmet stared back at him.


Ahsoka ran towards Crespi, when suddenly a scream of pure anger, rage, and, as she felt through the Force, self-hatred tore out of his mouth. The old clone brought his fist up, smashing it into the side of the alien's head, stunning it momentarily. He followed it up with a kick out, throwing the creature off of him completely. The old clone then brought up his blaster and fired repeatedly into the alien's head, reducing it to a bleeding stump.

Ahsoka didn't know what to make of the clone's outburst. She had heard of moments where humans would display extraordinary strength when faced with certain death, but she doubted that based on the self-hate Crespi's presence was giving off through the Force.

Regardless, that was a question to be answered later. Her, Crespi, Barriss, and Hoop were cutting down as many aliens as they could, but there were just too many that were coming, and likely dozens more still making the several thousand foot climb up the shafts.

Wait… where was Kaeden?

Ahsoka's heart leaped into her throat as she quickly and frantically scanned for Kaeden's presence through the Force. There!

Kaeden was still alive at least, and still on this level. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kaeden walk out of some closet with what looked like mining charges in hand and slung over her shoulder.

But what happened next filled Ahsoka with shock and alarm.

Kaeden walked calmly, straight towards the horde of aliens coming from the near turbolift shaft. One of them spotted her and charged, claws raised high, ready to slash and kill.


Kaeden had recognized immediately that the only way they would ever survive would be to seal of the turbolift shafts. Otherwise the aliens would just keep coming until they were overwhelmed. Being a medic, Kaeden was almost useless with a blaster. Sure she had managed to shoot one of the aliens down in the alien ship, but that was all luck. She doubted she'd be much help there.

And then there was the matter of the alien growing inside her. Kaeden didn't know how long she had until it burst its way out from her chest, but she decided that she was dead no matter what. And if she had to die, Kaeden would go out on her terms, doing what she could to help her friends survive.

And the only way for them to survive was to seal off the mine shafts.

Kaeden had spotted a storage closet full of mining charges before the excursion into the mines. While the others had opened up with blasters, she had run for the storage, grabbing as many of the charges that she could carry before exiting and turning towards the turbolifts.

She saw too many aliens to count, but she had to cut them off, whatever the cost. There wasn't any hope of sneaking past them, Kaeden would have to march straight through the horde. Chances of survival were close to zero, but it would be her choice. However…

A thought struck Kaeden and she looked down at her chest, then back up at the aliens. Would they…?

Only one way to find out.

Kaeden set off towards the near turbolift, walking at a brisk, but steady and confident pace. She passed the others, who seemed shocked at her actions. Kaeden kept on going straight towards her target as an alien approached her, rearing up in preparation for an attack.

Kaeden stopped and held her ground, staring down the alien in defiance, hoping that her hunch would be proven correct.

The alien skidded to a stop before Kaeden, as if it was confused. It almost seemed to sniff her… as if it was analyzing her. Kaeden held her breath, awaiting the alien's next action.

It backed off.

Kaeden resumed her march, a smile appearing on her face. She had guessed correctly! The aliens would not harm someone carrying one of their own.

None of the other aliens paid her any attention whatsoever as she made it to the first turbolift. Kaeden guessed they had some form of non-vocal communication, perhaps through pheromones. Regardless, she began laying the mining charges in the turbolift shaft. The smell of the aliens wafted up from below, and she saw shapes moving in the dark up towards her. A second wave, so to say.

Retreating to a safe distance, Kaeden hit the detonator and the shaft exploded. Ferrocrete and durasteel tumbled down the shaft, raining down against the upcoming aliens, knocking them loose into freefall and crushing them all under several tons of stone.

One shaft had been sealed. One down, one to go.


Teraan shot back to consciousness with a cough, trying to expel the dust that coated the inside of her mouth. She tried to push herself up, feeling rock sliding off her armored chest. It was then that the pain hit her.

As she tried to push herself up off her back, she finally got a good look at her ankle. It had been crushed and pinned under a falling rock. Right next to it lay the shattered corpse of the alien. Somehow, the alien's blood hadn't fallen on her or else she would have suffered far worse than a busted ankle.

She managed to pry the rock off her ankle with her other foot. How that was her only injury, besides a busted, bloody nose, was impossible to comprehend. By all logic, she should have been crushed alongside the alien.

Not that Teraan was complaining. Now she could finally continue her climb without having to worry about the aliens behind her.

However, the half-collapse of the tunnel had narrowed it considerably. Even with her lithe form, her armor prevented her from getting far. She would have to leave it behind. Precious minutes passed as she squirmed out of her plastoid chestplate.

The rest of the climb was slow going, squeezing in between rocks, dragging her useless ankle behind her. But she had to escape before the power cells below her detonated. Time dragged on and on as she got closer and closer to the opening above.

Finally, Teraan broke free of the narrow tunnel, finding herself in one of the turbolift shafts. There was nothing above her but the ceiling of the loading dock. She was close. So close!

There was no way up but a ladder that clung precariously to the cracked ferrocrete. Somehow it had been blown apart above her. It was her only chance, so gritting her teeth, the crippled stormtrooper grabbed hold and began pulling herself up hand over hand along the swaying emergency ladder.


Kowalski clung to the side of the shuttle as it neared the desolate ruins of Charon Station, passing through the maw of a shuttle bay. As the shuttle settled in to land, Kowalski readied his blaster. The Lambda-class shuttle didn't have a side airlock, meaning that Massey would have to exit the boarding ramp along the underside and run and climb up to the airlock leading to the rest of the station.

All Kowalski needed was a lucky shot to disable Massey, secure him, and then find a working comm array to contact the Captain for evac. Simple.

For a long minute, nothing happened. Kowalski didn't see Massey emerge from underneath the nose of the shuttle. The only thing he could hear was the hiss of pressure slowly bleeding out of the shuttle to equalize it with the vacuum of the shuttle bay. Suddenly an object floated up in the zero-G. Flashbang!

Kowalski turned his head away sharply from the blinding light. Blaster bolts flew up at him, one glancing off his chestplate and sending the stormtrooper flying off the top of the shuttle in a spin. Regaining his bearings, and shaking off the daze the blaster shot had caused, Kowalski hit the far wall and pushed off, flying back towards the running Massey.

The rogue stormtrooper opened the outer door of the airlock, and turned to find Kowalski flying towards him. He raised a hand, which held what appeared to be a detonator. Kowalski fired his blaster as Massey pressed the button.

Massey collapsed backwards from the blaster shot as the airlock door slide closed. Moments later, Kowalski found himself flung forward by the shockwave of the silent explosion of the shuttle.

The wall of the shuttle bay sped towards him. He slammed into it face first, and everything went dark.


The scene that unfolded before Ahsoka was almost surreal. One one hand, Crespi had gone beserk, while on the other, one of the aliens had backed off from killing Kaeden, and she had simply walked past them all, sealing up the turbolift shafts with mining charges.

With a second explosion, the second turbolift was blocked. The mangled wreckage of the turbolift car, which had at one time bottlenecked the aliens and was likely the only reason they were alive, fell down the shaft with a screech and a hail of rubble. Any aliens still climbing the shaft would be knocked off the walls and broken to bits on the floor several thousand feet below.

While it was a pain to do so without her lightsabers functioning, Ahsoka, Barriss, Hoop, and the enraged Crespi managed to pick off the remaining aliens in the loading dock through combined use of blasters and Force-assisted crates and mining samples.

When all was said and done, about maybe a dozen alien corpses lay shattered and sizzling under broken crates or riddled with blaster holes.

They waited, blasters held tensely at the ready for a minute, waiting to see if there were any stragglers. Aliens they might have missed that lurked in the shadows, but Ahsoka could sense nothing moving.

Finally, Hoop ran over to the dropship, resuming the repairs on the second power cell. Ahsoka started running over to help out, when she heard Barriss yell "Crespi, no!"

A blaster shot rang out and Kaeden yelped in surprise.

Ahsoka whirled to see Kaeden ducking behind the cover of a small crate, clutching a graze on her shoulder, and Barriss holding the old clone in the air with the Force.

Crespi's voice was wild as he struggled against the bonds of the Force. "Don't you understand? She's a threat to us all! If we take her on the dropship, we're all dead!"


Not much to say other than I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! We are approaching the endgame now, probably only about four more chapters and the epilogue left for Shadows of Doubt. As always though, feel free to comment on anything you saw in this chapter.

Next Chapter: The race for survival turns into a race against time to prevent Massey from escaping with alien specimens. But will anyone get left behind?