Author's Note: Chapter Two already. That was quick. Thank you for the response to the first chapter, and I will respond to some of them. One of you asked about the 104th. Don't worry. I have an idea for certain members. As is probably expected you wondered about the inhibitor chips. I promise I will flesh them out in the future. Maybe not in this story, but in a side-story possibly involving Rex and a bunch of other clones, but that is still some time away
Anyway, read on and enjoy!
Chapter Two: The Order
When Plo Koon entered his starfighter he had not felt anything change in the force, though he kept getting the feeling that something would. Thinking back to that, he probably should have paid more attention to the force considering the seemingly unstoppable shift towards the dark side minutes earlier. However, he quickly refocused to the task at hand as the target came into view on his visual scanners.
/This is Wolf Leader to Wolfpack. The target is 15 clicks out. Accelerate to attack speed, and keep an eye out for enemy fighters./
In response, he got confirmation from all 11 pilots.
/Good. Here is the plan. Warthog, take Wolves eight through twelve and take care of enemy air support./
Warthog quickly replies over the comms saying, /Copy that General, the boys are ready for some fun!/
/Fun will have to wait I'm afraid./ Plo Koon responds. /Captain Jag, you and the rest are with me. We will swoop in low and take out any enemy turbolasers we find, and then I will call in the gunships for the ground assault./
In the cockpit of his ARC-170, Captain Jag had just acknowledged Plo Koon's orders, when he began to receive a transmission. Activating it, he was met with a dark figure in a black cloak, and for a moment he felt cold. He was about to ask who he was speaking to when the hologram answered first.
/Captain Jag. The time has come. Execute Order 66./
Jag's eyes widened for a brief moment but replied nonetheless.
/It will be done my Lord./
Jag watched as the hologram ended, then looked onwards towards Plo Koon's fighter. For that brief, instantaneous moment of hearing those words, he tried to fight the programming, but it proved futile. After hesitating for that brief moment he fell victim to the programming along with every clone in the army, and like every clone, he would follow that order to the letter. After all, good soldiers, follow orders.
Relaying the command to the other pilots in the squadron, he lined up the crosshairs with the back of Plo Koon's, no, the Traitor's ship, and opened fire…
When the first blaster bolt shot past his ship, Plo Koon was shocked. The target was still 10 clicks away, and there were no enemy fighters on scanners. However, when every other ship proceeded to open fire on him, he realised that for some reason, he was the new target, and immediately opened the comms channel.
/Captain Jag, what are you doing? Ceasefire!/
The only response he got was a cold one, filled with venom.
/I'm sorry Sir, but you are no longer in command. You have been classed as a traitor and will such be executed for treason against the both the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Supreme Chancellor./
As soon as the word 'traitor' was spoken, Plo Koon knew that if he didn't escape, then he would die, and he would not allow that to happen. But as he banked away from the squadron and boosted away, the clones were on him again and firing. He tried to corkscrew one way, and then back the other way, but the clones remained on his tail. I f they hadn't been shooting at him, Plo would have thought this would be a 'lock-on' training session. But as a blaster bolt skimmed his right-wing, leaving an elongated scorch mark, Plo realised that he would not be able to escape his own fighter squadron, having flown with them for so long for them to know his techniques, and considering the fact that he gave several of the pilots extra training outside of their Kamino simulations. All this led to the decision that if he was to lose them he would have to shoot them down.
Coming to this conclusion, he asked R4, his trusty Astromech, to cut the engines, allowing Plo to pull off the same tactic he had used on the Zygerrians at Kadavo. As his fighter spun uncontrollably but surprisingly smoothly in between the ARC-170s of the Wolfpack, Lieutenant Warthog pulled up knowing what would happen, having been at Kadavo when Plo Koon performed the move. He was moving his hand to activate the comms channel, when Plo Koon's fighter restarted and proceeded to tear through seven of the ARC-170s in a matter of minutes, some exploding mid-air, while others spiralled down into the clouds below, only to be replaced by a ball of fire. Among those caught unawares was Captain Jag, who despite being the highest-ranking pilot in the squadron after Plo Koon, and good pilot alongside that, he had only been flying with the Wolfpack for a few months like many others who arrived to replace the losses from previous battles, whereas Warthog had flown with Plo Koon for the best part of two years.
And as Plo Koon finished off the remaining three fighters, Warthog angled his ship back into the fray, dive-bombing Plo Koon, catching him off-guard, and proceeded to fire everything he had left, peppering Plo Koon's fighter with holes and scorch marks, and got a direct hit on his starboard engine with a missile. And as Plo Koon's fighter spun down to the city below in flames, Warthog returned to the Venator Class Cruiser to refuel, re-arm, and to relay the information to Commander Wolffe, thinking that no-one could survive that crash.
Waking up an hour and a half later, Plo Koon struggled to get to his feet after his near-fatal crash and quickly remembered what happened: that his own troopers fired on him, and the damage inflicted to his ship by Warthog had cost him his Astromech and nearly his own life. After Warthog's attempt, which destroyed his starboard engine and other vital systems to keep the ship flying, as well as destroying his Astromech which took a blaster bolt to the dome, his fighter collided with a nearby tower, however, Plo had managed to jump out of the fighter before the fighter had smashed head-on into another tower, and ended up on a platform somewhere below.
Collecting his lightsaber from the floor, he made his way to the city floor below, where he overheard the clones rounding up the locals. He had never told his men to do this. The orders must have come from the Chancellor himself, which possibly made him the Sith Lord the Jedi had been searching for. As he turned the corner though he, found himself face-to-face with a squad from the 104th, led by Comet, Sinker and Boost, who all immediately raised their blasters at him.
"Comet, do not do this," Plo demanded, but Comet immediately replied.
"I'm sorry Sir, but we have our orders," and the squad of clones proceeded to fire. Instinctively pulling out his sapphire saber, the blade humming with energy, he tried his best to deflect the bolts away from him towards the sky, though some ended up hitting the clones. Unlike with the pilots, Plo was a lot closer with the men before him, Comet, Sinker and Boost in particular, and was not willing to kill them. But he needed to escape. Drawing on the force he stretched his hand out, and let out a powerful force-push, knocking the clones to the ground. As he turned to run, he heard one of the clones, Sinker, pull out an Impact Detonator and threw it towards the Kel-Dor Jedi, who attempted to push the detonator out of the way, but could only succeed to push it into the wall next to him, flinging him into the wall, and dislocating his left shoulder, which caused Plo to let out a grunt of pain. Dazed and stunned from the impact, Plo Koon ran down the alleyway and made a left turn and jump over a low wall. Checking himself over for other injuries and finding nothing major, he turned to the wall and slammed his shoulder into the wall, knocking his shoulder back into position, causing tremendous pain which soon turned into a dull throb. However, he couldn't rest for even a moment as more clones turned the corner, which caused Plo Koon to run further and further into the city.
After being chased for twenty-five minutes, incapacitating any clones he found, as well as trying to communicate with any other Jedi who might have survived but failing, he soon ended up on the edge of the city platform in a small open area, when he felt the vivid emotions of Ahsoka through the force, and attempted to connect with her. After a while, Ahsoka picked up on the message and answered.
'Ahsoka'
'Master Plo.'
'Thank Goodness you heard me Little 'Soka. I do not know what is happening. My clone wingmen turned on me. My clone troopers have been hunting me down ever since they turned on me.'
As if hearing him, a large group of clones led by Comet, Sinker and Boost entered the open area and opened fire on him, forcing him to unsheathe his saber and desperately deflect the bolts. Despite him being a Jedi Master he wasn't invincible in combat, and to prove that point, a bolt of blue plasma forced its way through his defence and hit his leg, forcing him to wince and stumble.
'Yeah, the same happened to me. Rex told me that the entire clone army has been affected. All Jedi are being targeted.'
After hearing that the entire army was affected, Plo felt a slight sense of unease and even despair at the words, but otherwise continued to put up a brave but struggling defence, even having to resort to desperately using Force Judgement to incapacitate the ever-increasing numbers of clones.
'I sensed something earlier, something terrible must have happened for this to occur, but why are the clones doing this? And why were you targeted; you left the order months ago?'
As all this was happening, over on one of the towers a trio of troopers ran up the staircase and out onto one of the balconies. Two of them stood guard while the third loaded up a rocket launcher and took aim at the open area where Plo Koon stood. After a moment to focus, the trooper fired, and a missile was sent screaming to the battle below.
'That doesn't matter right now, what matters is telling me where you are so me and Rex can help.'
'I am on Cato Neimoidia, I was shot down out of my fighter, my Astromech is gone. I've been running on foot. But do not come and find me. Keeping yourself safe is what matters most.'
Through his force sense, Plo looks up to find a missile careening down, directly towards him, and in those last few seconds, he pulls up a force shield and manages to quickly communicate with Ahsoka before the missile arrived.
'Get away from the Republic, trust in the force, and stay ali…'
The missile blasted into his position, reducing the surrounding area to a crater, and sending Plo Koon of the edge of the city, plunging to the depths below. None of the clones saw what happened to him as they took cover.
Sometime later, Plo Koon awoke to the sound of engines. He didn't know how long he had bee out, and he didn't know how the clones had found him in the cloudy depths of Cato Neimoidia. It was then that he saw fog lights shine through the fog and cloud, and Plo Koon gave a small sigh of relief at seeing what appeared to be a Correllian Freighter, but how did it find him in this cloud cover. The only people who could possibly navigate down here is Jed…
He soon realised who was on the ship as he heard Ahsoka racing towards him, however, his vision grew spotty and he began to slip in and out of consciousness but was able to make out parts of Ahsoka and Rex's conversation as Ahsoka dragged him towards the ship.
"I've… him Rex… He's… needs medi… attention… Get… to… the…"
And with those last few words, Plo Koon drifted into unconsciousness.
Back On The Venator…
"What's the status of the Jedi Fugitive?" Commander Wolffe asked.
"It's-It's unknown sir. My platoon along with Sinker and Boost managed to corner him in a small open area on the edge of the city where he had no cover. I gave the order for three troopers to scale a nearby tower and launch a missile at the target. Once the smoke from the explosion cleared there was no sign of his lightsaber or his body." Comet replied.
"Could he have survived the fall?" Wolffe queried.
"Unknown sir but quite unlikely. The drop is over one kilometre in that area. However, considering that he is a Jedi, there is the slim possibility that he did survive the fall, but would most likely die of his injuries whatever they could be." Comet answered.
"This is troubling," Wolffe said but continued. "We'll have to list him as presumed dead with the slim possibility of survival."
At the sound of footsteps approaching, Wolffe turned around to be met by an officer.
"Commander, the droid army has been shut down, what are your orders?"
Wolffe replied, saying "Send two more detachments to the Northern Cities. The main objective is to round up the locals, with a secondary objective of clearing the area of any droids that didn't receive the shutdown."
The officer nodded before seeing to it that the orders were enacted, and with that Commander Wolffe returned to his quarters to ponder on the actions of the day. He had followed the order, yes, but that didn't mean that he was distraught. And as he pulled out an image of himself, Plo, Rex and Ahsoka, he couldn't help but shed one single tear, before removing his armour and changing into a new set of blacks (the black bodysuit under the armour) before settling down onto the small bed in his room.
Authors Note: There's chapter 2 done. You were probably wanting me to go straight into Ahsoka and Rex saving him, but I thought it best to show my representation of Plo's perspective during the order. The actual saving of Plo Koon by Ahsoka will be either the next chapter or the one after, I'm not sure. And the section at the end with Wolffe. No, he hasn't removed his chip. But think of it as a similar situation to Commander Bly after he executed Aayla Secura, and became a little depressed about it because I believe the two had feelings for each other and acknowledged it.
Also, there is a little hint as to where we go next in the galaxy! Does anyone want a guess as to where? Well, you will have to wait and see.
Anyways, it's That Star Wars Guy, signing out.