Trigger warnings: blood, implied torture
Fox is compromised, Ventress is missing in action, and Echo's not answering his comm.
This is shaping up to be a great day.
The promenade is crowded; clone or not, it makes it the perfect place to blend it. Fives settles himself on a bench and keeps his eyes trained on the datapad in his lap. So far, no one's gaze has lingered on him too long.
He's been doing this off and on for two days since he left the Havoc Marauder. Echo finished his op and sent Fives the full update, but since then, he's been unreachable. He should be available on the secured comm channel.
But he's not.
"A clone relaxing in a market. How inconspicuous."
Fives jumps. Ventress blinks, unimpressed. She has her helmet under her arm and one hand propped on her hip.
"Don't do that," Fives grumbles, getting to his feet. "You know I hate it when you do that."
"Maybe you should learn to be more aware of your surroundings," she suggests mildly. "That might be why you got shot the first time around."
"Who have you been talking to?" Fives asks, tightening the straps on his pack.
"When a clone goes rogue and gets executed in the sublevels of Coruscant, people hear about it." Ventress says. There's an air of faux innocence to her bewildered smile. It's not a good look. Fives rolls his eyes.
"The intel," he reminds. "What did you find out?"
"It's funny, though," Ventress says, frowning and tilting her head at him. "You still breathe a lot for a man who took a blaster bolt to the chest."
"I bounce back quick," he says, deadpan. "You never contacted me. How'd you even find me?"
She scoffs at that. "Comm traffic is being heavily monitored right now," she says. "It seems a group of clones has been caught conspiring against the Chancellor. Commandos."
Echo. Fives' heart is pounding. "Relax," Ventress says. "There's an active warrant for their arrest. They're much better at evading capture than you were."
He contacted Rex and Skywalker; they didn't just find him. That's not her business, though. Fives sets his jaw. "The intel," he says again.
Ventress rolls her eyes and motions for him to follow. He falls in step beside her. "They didn't have much," she says. There's an undercurrent of annoyance to her tone, like the last few days have been a complete and utter waste of her time. "What did your contacts have?"
"We have to go to the Grand Republic Medical Facility," Fives says.
"Why?"
"Because that's where I think the failsafe for the chip activation is kept," he says. "I have a program that's designed to counteract the command, but we have to update every trooper's chip with it and that means beaming the program to all the command center relays across the galaxy. Palpatine has that transmission method somewhere and, based on his movements around Coruscant, we think it's there."
"How are you so sure it's not kept in the Senate building?"
"I think you know the answer to that," Fives says. She shrugs.
"It's interesting," she says. "The one piece of useful information my contacts were able to give me also involves the Facility."
Fives raises an eyebrow.
"Almost immediately after your not-so-untimely demise, the Facility received a large transfer shipment from a storehouse in The Works district," she says. "The manifest lists the contents of the shipment as medical supplies."
The Works is a rundown, abandoned industrial sector of Coruscant. Mostly it houses people that don't want to be found. "There's no way it was actually medical supplies," Fives says.
"Exactly." There's an eager gleam in Ventress' eyes.
"I can draw up an infiltration plan," Fives says. "My contacts gave me the schematics for the building."
"That won't be necessary," she says. "I already have one."
"This is never gonna work."
"Shut up and try to be a convincing corpse." Ventress' face is a blur through the frosted glass. Fives shifts uncomfortably. The transportation coffin is made to house the dead; the comfort of the living wasn't exactly a design consideration. The tube is painfully narrow. He has to pinch his shoulders together to fit.
You get the easy part: you just have to pretend to be dead. It shouldn't be too hard: you've already tried it once.
"Funny," Fives mumbles. Ventress slaps her hand over the glass. Fives snaps his mouth shut and closes his eyes. Just channel Rex when he first gets up in the morning: that should be a good enough approximation of a corpse to fool anyone.
"Found this one in an alley," he hears Ventress say, then something unintelligible from the security guard. "No, I don't care if clones are usually brought here. The base's medical facilities are overflowing. They don't have the space. Do I look like I've scanned his identification chip yet? I'm just here to drop him off for an autopsy. The medical examiner will take care of the ID. That's not my job."
The guard says something else. Ventress slams her hand down on the coffin. She must have hit some of the keys on the control pad because the pod's vents start hissing coolant and the temperature starts to drop. Fives does his best not to shiver. Just breathe. Just breathe.
Shab, that's cold.
He's two seconds from pounding on the lid when the coffin starts moving: down a corridor, around a corner, two, stop.
The lid slides back.
"That took longer than I expected," Ventress says. She looks him up and down. "What happened to you?"
"You hit the temperature controls when you were throwing your tantrum," Fives growls, shaking out his limbs. Cold. Cold. Shab. Cold.
"Oh. Unfortunate." She tugs on the zipper of her jumpsuit and rolls her shoulders uncomfortably. The getup is a simple gray, but so baggy and ill-fitting it's garish. Fives chokes a laugh.
"What's funny?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.
"That's a good look for you," he says. "You should wear it the next time you see Kenobi."
"My contacts supplied me with it," Ventress grits out, low and measured. "This and the credentials are the only reason we got in the door."
"I'm sure you could've convinced them without it," Fives says. "You have such a winning personality."
"I have a new plan," Ventress says. "I leave you in the pod to work on your jokes and I complete the mission myself."
She says it so seriously Fives isn't completely convinced she's being sarcastic. He clears his throat. "Tel Daneb's office is on the highest level," he says. "If your credentials are good, we can just take the turbolift."
"Because you'll blend in so well."
"Then we better move fast."
No one stops them when they board the turbolift. The corridor it opens into has low lighting; it's silent and empty. The director has the entire floor to himself, so the list of people with the authorization to interrupt their incursion is relatively small.
Those are better odds than they had on Raxus.
Ventress waves a hand over the access panel and steps through. Fives follows her. She motions to the chair. "After you."
Fives scowls.
"Don't," he says, stabbing his finger at her as he sits down. "I can turn the shabla chair around myself."
"I would never."
The chair whips around, and not because he moved it on his own. At least he braced for it this time. Fives shoots her a glare and plugs in the drive. Echo said Tech coded it to hack the system and seek out the appropriate program: if the failsafe is here, it'll find it.
"You do know what you're looking for?" Ventress asks dryly.
"I had a little help this time," Fives shoots back.
"I helped you last time."
"No, you threatened my life. There's a difference."
"I didn't threaten you. I encouraged you to explain." She makes a face. "There's a difference."
Fives rolls his eyes. Tech's drive must have found the access key to the system; the data terminal boots up and logs on.
No sense wasting an opportunity. Fives moves to tap a file. Ventress' hand closes around his wrist just before he contacts the screen.
"No surprises this time," she says coolly. "Look. Don't copy."
Fives yanks his arm away and cuts her a glare. The files have finished populating. There are thousands; he whips through them. Most are medical documents for Coruscant's upper echelon, the Senators and politicians that have the credits to afford care in a place like this.
Tech's program hasn't found anything yet.
Fives pauses, then pulls up the search function. "What are you doing?" Ventress asks warily.
"He did something to Fox," Fives says. "I want to find out what it was."
"Fox?"
Fives doesn't answer her. CC-1010. There shouldn't be any results; he's hoping there aren't any results; he and Tup were the only clones technically treated here, and neither of them received anything close to top-quality care. Tup got another autopsy. Fives got a death sentence.
CC-1010: one result found.
Fives throat tightens. He taps the folder. The first document is labeled Reconditioning notes, the next Outprocessing. He curls his hand into a fist. It hurts to breathe. He doesn't want to read it. He has to.
Fives opens the first file.
"A friend of yours?" Ventress asks. Her voice is quiet.
"Yeah," Fives croaks. He can only make himself skim the material. Only required one cycle: no iteration necessary. Displays loyal and compliant behavior. Meets required standards for service.
The reconditioning rumors that circulated around Kamino said that you went in as one person and came out as another, like a blank slate, but the reality was that you went in as one person and came out a traumatized version of the same. They pulled you to pieces and took out the parts they didn't like as many times as it took to destroy whatever memory or behavioral pattern was causing the defiance. Fives knew a trainee in his batch that couldn't keep his mouth shut. They sent him to reconditioning and when he came back from all the neural editing and memory manipulation, he didn't know who his brothers were, didn't know what his favorite ration was, didn't know his name was Zeke and panicked when someone called him by it. He went by his CT number until he was killed in a training exercise.
He had such a vacant smile.
Fives glances at Ventress, and even through the choking rage he's too aware that there are tears in his eyes. She has the decency not to comment on it.
And she doesn't say anything else.
The drive blips. The files close. The screen is suddenly full of lines of scrolling code. Then it starts listing transmission logistics, faster and faster until he can't read them anymore.
It's sending out the messages. It's transmitting the program.
It's disabling the chips.
"We found it," Fives says, hoarse for his disbelief. He chokes a laugh. "It's actually transmitting."
"How long until it's finished?" Ventress asks. "This isn't our only objective."
Right. The shipment of 'medical supplies.' "Not long," Fives says. "I hope."
"With the number of communications it's sending, they're not going to miss it," Ventress hisses. "We won't have a lot of time."
"We have to stay until it finishes."
"I'm aware."
Fives shoots to his feet and waits – waits – strains to hear. The hall is silent. No pounding footsteps. No thunderous rush. They're safe.
For now.
"Done," Fives says, as soon as the screen goes blank. He pulls the drive and tucks it into his utility belt. "We can go."
The terminal shuts down. Fives follows Ventress back to the turbolift. She slams the button for the lowest level.
It's supposed to be storage, so he expects a warehouse or a large room stacked with boxes, but when the door opens, it opens into a complex. Fives is hit by a shockwave so potent and overpowering he almost stumbles for its force. There's a weight on his chest, pressing down on him, crushing him.
The air tastes like death.
Ventress looks less affected. That gleam is back in her eyes, but it's more subdued, intrigued instead of eager. "It will pass," she says, and steps off the lift. Fives doesn't ask what she means.
It's the shabla Force again.
"You knew," he says, following after her. She hmms thoughtfully. "You knew I could – sense things."
"Before you did, yes," Ventress says. She stops in front of a door and palms it open. Fives takes a shuddery breath. He can't breathe right. Creeping tendrils. Sickness. Disease. A rasp in the back of his mind, laughing at his screams.
"Breathe," Ventress says. "It will pass."
"You keep saying that," Fives chokes. "Doesn't feel like it's passing."
"That's because you're panicking," she says. "Feel it and let it go."
He takes a measured breath. Two. Again. "What is it?" he asks, when some of the oppressive weight has lifted.
"The dark side," she says, like that explains everything, and steps through the door. The lights detect her motion and snap on, one at a time. The room is wider and deeper than it looks from the outside; the durasteel that makes up the walls is covered over by an obsidian stone that gleams beneath the dim beams. There are various pedestals placed around the space; all of them display old Sith artifacts and weapons.
Almost all of them.
"That's my ARC kit," Fives hisses. It's been repaired and restored to perfect condition – and it's propped up like a trophy. He crosses the distance and snatches the helmet off the mount.
"Hut'uun," Five snarls. Rex gave him this armor, all smiles and bursting pride. He first painted it with Echo. After the Citadel, he redid parts of it with Tup and Jesse and Kix and Hardcase.
Palpatine has no right to it.
Ventress is enraptured by a different display. Fives sheds his civilian gear, shoves it in his pack, and secures the armor over the GAR-issue bodysuit he's taken to wearing under everything. It's a rote process, after so many years and repetitions. It takes him less than three minutes.
"Inconspicuous," Ventress says, when he strides over to stand beside her. She tosses him something pyramidal.
The second he touches it, he hears the voice. It's not a distant whisper, like before; it's harsh, slithering, and insistent, a cacophony of chaos given physical form.
He drops it immediately.
"It's a holocron," Fives says, shaking his hand like he's been burned. The skin beneath his glove feels blistered, angry and red, but he knows if he peels the armor away he'll find his hand is perfectly fine.
Shabla Force.
"A Sith holocron," Ventress agrees, and picks it up. She closes her eyes.
"I really don't think we should open that," Fives says.
Ventress pays him no heed. The holocron separates with a hiss like a scream and Fives rips his helmet off as if the screech is physical feedback he can somehow stop at the source. The pieces swirl in her hand, a shattered symphony, and settle back together. The scream fades slowly, roiling into a death knell that makes him flinch.
It sounds too much like Tup's last breath.
"Was that necessary?" Fives hisses.
"Quiet," Ventress says. A hologram flickers to life and begins to speak; it's a hooded figure droning on to some apprentice about the end of the Jedi being nigh and about the dawn of a new and glorious age being all but upon them.
He knows that voice.
The Jedi will fall. And in the end, I, Lord Sidious, will rule over it all. I will be Emperor.
The figure throws his hood back and Fives feels a shiver run down his spine.
Palpatine twists his mouth into a wide and chilling smile. The hologram disappears. Ventress reassembles the holocron and holds it out.
"You wanted evidence," she says, and Fives takes it and quickly tucks it into a pouch on his utility belt.
"Now we just have to live long enough to get it to someone that can use it," he says, but Ventress has already turned away. Fives follows her gaze.
It's the Mandalorian helmet from the Jedi holocron. Below it rests a chestplate, gauntlets, and shoulder pauldrons. "Revan's armor," Fives says. "What's it doing here?"
"Revan was a powerful Jedi and Sith," Ventress says. "She wore this mask for acts of heroism and acts of atrocity. Sidious is drawing strength from the death it has witnessed."
"We need to go."
Ventress doesn't seem to have heard him. She lifts Revan's helmet with something like reverence and sets it aside. Then she shrugs out of the jumpsuit and tugs the armor on over her bounty hunting garb.
"Inconspicuous," Fives says.
Ventress raises her eyebrows. "You'd prefer I left it here for Sidious?" she asks.
"Not if he's drawing power from it."
Ventress stares at the helmet in her hands. Then, slowly, she lowers it over her head.
"Your sense of style is improving," Fives says. "Beskar'gam's always a classic."
She snorts. "We're running out of time."
That's what he's been saying, not that she's been listening. Fives leads them out. The card from Ventress' contacts still grants them passage to the turbolift. He keys in the main floor; the turbolift will bring them back to the hallway by the morgue: if they're lucky, the place will be just as quiet and they'll be able to sneak out without being seen.
Almost the instant they step onto the floor, an alarm blares.
"Shab," Fives says. "They must have discovered the communications."
Ventress holds out a hand to stop him. "No," she says. "They wouldn't sound an alarm for that. They'd quietly put the building into lockdown. They haven't done that. It's not us."
"Then who the hell is it for?"
There's a sudden blast of weapons fire in the distance. Either someone got their hands on a heavy repeater or there are a lot of people with a lot of guns chasing whoever else was brave or stupid enough to infiltrate this facility.
"You are not reconditioning me!" It's a hoarse and ragged scream, bleeding desperation. "I told you, I don't know anything!"
Fives' blood runs cold.
It's another clone.
He's off and sprinting before he can think twice. If Ventress says anything by way of protest, he doesn't hear her. It's another clone. A brother.
There's no other choice.
The weapons fire is louder, close. He's almost on top of it. There haven't been any more cries. He's close. He's close. He's close.
The firing stops. His heart drops. Too close. Too late.
He can't be too late. Not again.
Fives whips around the corner. Time slows to a stop. There's a firing squad of Senate guards lined up. The clone is leaning against the wall, heaving. His bodysuit is scarred, slashed and sticking and charred. There's a gash on the back of his head, weeping blood. He's holding his hands up in front of him like somehow, through sheer force of will, he'll be able to stop the oncoming onslaught.
"I'm sorry, Fives," he says. "I tried."
The squad raises their blasters. In the space of a second, Fives knows. Terror wells in his chest, suffocating. Not enough time. Not enough time. He remembers the Havoc Marauder, remembers the pain.
And he remembers the shattering rage.
"Kix!" Fives roars, "get down!"
Kix drops. Fives sets his feet and throws his hands forward and wills the raw and screaming fear into a surging tide. It feels like blistering flame, it burns like scathing fire, swelling from his palms until it fills the space – and detonates.
It slams into the Senate Guards like a shockwave, ripping their blasters from their hands and throwing them down the corridor. The guards hit the floor in a shower of sickening cracks – and stay still.
Kix eases himself up on his elbows. Fives drops to his knees beside him and tugs his helmet off. Not much time. Have to get out. Have to get out. "Kix," Fives says, taking hold of his shoulders. "Kix."
Kix stares blankly at him for a long moment. Then it hits him. He yelps a shrill scream and flails against Fives' grip, scrambling to put a few feet of space between them. Fives holds tight.
"Kix," he snaps, "it's me. It's Fives!"
"I know!" Kix yells, wide-eyed and heaving to breathe. "But in case you didn't notice, you died!"
Rex and Cody and Echo didn't tell anyone else, then. It makes sense, even if it makes Fives' chest ache to think about it. "I know," Fives says, squeezing his shoulders. "I know. You thought I died. But I didn't. Okay? It's me, Kix. It's Fives."
Kix chokes a breath that's dangerously close to a sob. His gaze is wild and unfocused. For the first time, Fives can see the dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes and the blood dripping down his chin.
He was in a hell of a fight.
"Fives," Kix says, and Fives nods. Kix takes a deep breath. Another. "Fives."
"If you two could bear to wrap up the reunion, we need to leave," Ventress hisses, suddenly behind him.
Kix's eyes blow wide. He struggles again. "No," Five says, pulling him back. "No, no, no. She's – she's with me. She's working with me."
"You're working with Ventress?" Kix explodes. His head snaps to Ventress, to Fives, back to Ventress, back to Fives. "Fives, you can't work with Ventress."
"I – I know, Kix," Fives manages. Ventress snorts.
"I took out the guards moving in to flank you," she says. She looks disdainfully at the groaning heap further down the hall. "I see you left yours alive as well."
"Look," Fives says, tugging his helmet back on. "I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?"
Kix doesn't give him an answer, but he doesn't resist Fives pulling his arm around his shoulders and helping him to his feet. "Does Rex know?" Kix asks. "That you're alive. And working with Ventress."
"Yeah," Fives says, and immediately regrets it.
"Rex knew and he didn't tell me?" Kix snaps. "Why?"
"Long story. I promise I'll explain later. For now, come on."
The alarms are still blaring as they make their way down the hall, but they don't encounter any more patrols. There should be more guards; there should be more resistance.
Their path to the exit is clear.
"Wait, Ventress says, when Fives reaches for the door controls. "Let me go first."
She ignites her sabers – no, not her sabers, Revan's sabers – and keys the controls. For a beat before the door slides open, their way is lit only by the blades: crackling crimson and amaranthine.
"Clear," Ventress says, and Fives follows her out onto the landing platform. Kix is heavy against his side.
"You still with me, Kix?"
"Yeah," Kix coughs. "Yeah. I'm okay. I'm okay."
They're halfway to the medical transport when the sky opens up.
"Get down!" Ventress barks, and Fives drops Kix and throws himself over him. Ventress is in front of them, deflecting bolts back at the guards, back at the security skiffs, back at the forces Palpatine has sent to apprehend them, because between the explosions of the starfighters Ventress has downed and the adrenaline ringing in his ears, he has to be hearing things. He has to be wrong.
There are no Separatist ships on Coruscant.
"Get to cover!" Ventress orders. Fives grabs Kix under the arms and drags him behind the transport.
"Are those droids?" Kix demands. His eyes are too wide, too bright. Fives clutches one of his hands between both of his own.
"Looks like it," he says.
"Rex," Kix says. "We have to contact Rex. We have to warn him."
And tell him Kix is safe and alive. "Yeah," Fives says. He doesn't like the way Kix's gaze unfocuses. "Hey," he says, patting a hand against Kix's cheek. "Hey. You're okay, right? Where are you hurt?"
"I got hit in the head," Kix snorts, batting him away. "I have a mild concussion but I'll be all right. I'm a medic."
Fives doesn't waste his breath explaining that medics are not immune to injuries just because they happen to know how to properly treat them. He pulls up the communicator in his helmet and codes it to the proper frequency. This bucket hasn't been turned on in a while but it's still in functional condition.
"Rex," Fives says. "Tell me you can hear me."
"Fives!" There's a battle behind him, yelling, someone screaming, Rex firing back. "The Separatists are launching an assault on Coruscant. They have an invasion force."
"Yeah, I got that. I've also got Kix."
"Kix?"
"Long story. Explain later," Fives says. "He's gonna be okay. The chips are down."
Rex gives a disbelieving laugh. "You found the failsafe?"
"Yeah," Fives says. "Protocol Sixty-Six is through."
"That still leaves us with a problem," Rex snaps. "The main Separatist force is making its way to the Senate building. Generals Skywalker and Windu are convinced that the Chancellor is the primary target. If they get to him—"
Rex cuts himself off with a grunt. There's a scuffle, a growl, and three blaster bolts. "If he wants them to get to him, then he has to have a plan to get back. He'll blame Clone Force Ninety-Nine for the security breach."
Palpatine getting kidnapped gets him sympathy, gives him sway, and weakens any accusations leveled at him in the aftermath. Calling out his treason would get them shouted down. At best, they'd be labeled conspiracy theorists – at worst, traitors. And Echo and the Bad Batch get caught in the crossfire. Fives sets his jaw.
"We can't let the Separatists get to him," he says.
"I know," Rex says. "Meet me at the Senate building."
"Why?"
"Because," Rex says, "we're going to get there first."