The ones that aren't dead…
And the ones that will be…
Scorp shot at the droid, and he prepared to fire at another, when he hear a message come through the comm system:
"Sir! Sir! Can you read me?"
"What?"
"Sir? Why'd you leave without me?"
Time stopped.
"Jay?"
He turned around as lasers filled the air around him. Explosions all around them lit up the area, and screams filled the air. A clone stood before Scorp, and the clone was scarred: the armour was black in most places, and the voice sounded a lot like Jay's.
"Is that you?"
"Yes sir,"
Bang!
Scorp's shoulder plate exploded as it was hit by a high speed projectile, and he screamed as blood poured out of the wound that it created. He sunk to the ground, and then Jay bent down to help him.
"I'll get you some help sir!"
He picked him up and placed him on his shoulders, running into the cloning facility.
Inside his helmet, Jay smiled.
Xan fired at the droids, while Jay told him the whole story over the comm.
"I just did what my instincts told me to," he said, finishing.
"Nice,"
Xan fired his sniper rifle again, and more droids fell to his gunfire and the gunfire of the other clones.
Something doesn't add up…
Something came through the comm, and only Xan heard it.
"What is it, Hawkins?"
He heard Hawkins say something else, then he stopped completely.
"No way,"
Bang!
Hawkins limped down the white hallway, wincing at the pain that he was going through.
After 'Jay' had met him in one of the hallways, he heard a click, and then he dived to the right, pushing the other clone out of the way. The sound that he heard was a sniper rifle being loaded, and then it fired at them, the bullet passing straight through the other clone's head, spraying him with blood, then the bullet went through Hawkins' leg, as he was in mid-dive. He stopped in the hallway, long enough to switch to a private channel with Xan, and then he kept on running, knowing that the other soldier with the sniper rifle wasn't far behind.
"Xan! This is Hawkins,"
"What is it, Hawkins?"
"Dive to your right, now!"
He heard a sniper rifle shot ring out among the rest of the noise, and he swore.
He had seen Xan a few seconds earlier, recognizing him instantly, as he was standing still, facing another clone that had most likely called himself Jay.
Bang!
Another shot rang out from the same rifle – an assassin's rifle – that had tried to shoot him earlier.
Hawkins fell.
Glass shattered.
Rain poured through the broken window.
"Pathetic," said the clone that stood over Hawkins non-moving body in disappointment, and then he ran off to report his success to Commander Neyo.
Xan moved fast.
Very fast.
His feet hit Jay's feet, and he tripped. A bullet swam amongst the chaos, and it slammed into a clone's back. The clone pitched forward, falling to the ground. Another clone popped up in the place that the other clone stood in, and gave a thumb's-up sign to the direction of a particular sniper.
Three targets have been taken down.
Three targets that had to be taken down are now dead, or very close to it.
The work went unnoticed by everyone else.
Good.
Hawkins coughed.
Then he got up.
"Son of a bitch," he breathed.
He ran down the corridor towards Xan's platform, when he bumped into a clone, who also had blood on him.
Hawkins kept on running, when he noticed something on the shoulder of the clone, something that no one else would notice.
A lightning bolt, inside a square that had been diagonally sliced.
"Xan?"
The clone turned around, and said:
"I'll be damned to fucking hell when someone manages to take me down. Follow me."
"You do realise, 'Scorp', that your friend 'Jay' is dead?"
"Liar!" spat Scorp in the interrogation room.
"He brought me here! LET HIM GO!"
The clone across the table laughed.
"Why don't you just accept the fact that he has moved on, and you haven't? We knew that he was special, along with you, and the other two. What we don't know, however, is why you won't cooperate!"
He slammed his fist on the table, and then he said:
"Right now, their dead bodies are being brought to me, and then you will see that they have taken their own lives to be rid of you,"
He walked out of the room, and then he asked a clone:
"Is it done?"
"Yes, commander Neyo: it is done,"
"Good, but bring me their bodies: I want to convince this… special soldier to be on our side: the Emperor has ordered commands to all the commanders. He thinks that the Jedi are plotting to overthrow the Republic, and he needs more time to complete the 'weapon'. And he also said to make sure that any of the special troops should be taken care of."
"But, doesn't that mean the complex will go up? I witnessed the destruction, first-hand, of Demonicor city."
"That was us. We had to plant the bomb: they were breeding too many of the soldiers for the Emperor's liking."
"You are dismissed, soldier."
"Y…yes sir."
Two clones one limping, ran down the hallway, covered in blood, some that is their own, some that isn't, but there is no difference.
"This way!" panted Xan.
They kept on running, down countless halls that looked the same as each other.
"Here,"
They came to a door, and Xan punched in the code. The door slid open, and it revealed Commander Cody, standing in the centre of the room.
"Sir!"
They saluted.
"Why aren't you fighting, sir?"
"Had orders to pull out and defend another platform,"
"Sir: someone is trying to kill us," Hawkins said, cutting straight to the point.
Cody hesitated, and then he said:
"I was afraid it would come to this: you two are failed experiments, and the chancellor wants you dead: he will do anything to stop anyone threatening the empire."
"What!"
"I'm sorry," he said, putting his hands down by his side.
He pulled a pistol, as quick as a flash.
But Hawkins was quicker.
Bang!
His right leg lashed out and caught the commander in the helmet, throwing him off.
"Run!" Xan shouted, grabbing Hawkins and pushing him through the door. They ran down the hall, and lasers streamed past their heads. They ran faster than the commander, and they had soon lost him in the maze of hallways.
"Damn it," Cody muttered.
"Neyo: this is Cody; I've found them: they are still alive!"
Two bodies fell to the floor, and Scorp looked down at them.
"This is them?" he asked.
"That's them,"
Scorp didn't believe them.
"I'm afraid I don't bel-"
"Why not?" Commander Neyo cut in.
"Because Xan and Hawkins are too good, just like me: they wouldn't be captured,"
"Yet you were, and they died, because you weren't there for them,"
Neyo could feel it: the clone was nearing completion.
"Want me to prove it?"
"Xan had a scar,"
"What?"
"A scar, on his right cheek: show it to me,"
Neyo took off the helmet of one clone, then the other, and he said:
"There it is."
On the right cheek of one clone, there was a scar.
The scar started at the bottom of the cheek, and then it travelled up and across his eye, then stopped at his eyebrow.
Scorp slowly looked up at them.
"What do you want me to do?"
Commander Neyo placed the energy knife back into it's holster on his belt.
"That wasn't them!" he said angrily. "I had to cut his cheek because Commander Cody knew that there was a scar there! That was pure luck,"
"There is no luck, sir,"
Commander Neyo slammed his fist onto the table, then said quietly:
"There is one more, he goes by the name of Blay:
Take care of him yourself..."
They ran down the countless hallways, and finally came to the hangar.
"There it is," said Xan, gesturing to two brand new ARC-170 fighters sitting in the middle of the hangar.
"Wow,"
"Come on,"
"But they don't have hyper drives!"
"No, but I know a few ships that do."
He ran off to one of the fighters, jumped in, and strapped himself down. Hawkins did the same.
"Where's Scorp?"
"He's with them,"
"How do you know?"
"I don't,"
"What the hell's that supposed to mean!"
They went through the necessary flight checkups, and then they lifted off, flying high into the sky. The destruction of Tropica city faded into the distance, as did the CIS ships attacking it.
Xan knew the Republic would win: it was what they were designed to do.
Blay fired at the droids, and then he reloaded, and fired again. The droid numbers started to diminish, and then he heard a message over the comm, a private channel:
"Blay! I need some cover!"
"Jay!"