Rex shifted in his chair. It was taking the Mrlssi what felt like ages to come up with… well… anything, and the tension Rex felt in his chest was impossible to will away. Twenty-Two was resting against one wall of the room, which relieved Rex to some degree. It was nice to see him be a little human. He had sent the other two commandos out to search for the real virus terminal some time ago. The four Mrlssi themselves were still crowded around Echo and the holo terminal, chirping softly to themselves. It was strange to watch. They were much more animated than the Kaminoan doctors had ever been.
"Any progress?" Rex said, rubbing his head. They were coming up on the fifth hour in Drann.
"Verry interes-ting! This cyber-netic enhhancement!" the green Mrlssi stated.
"Yes, but what about the chip?" Rex said, desperately hoping they hadn't just been cawing about the headset the whole time. But at that moment, the two commandos shuffled through the door.
"Captain, I must speak with you," RC-7723 said.
Rex glanced at the Mrlssi, then at Twenty-Two, and followed RC-7723 out into the hallway.
"What is it?" Rex said, desperately hoping for some good news.
"We examined three terminals that appeared to be transmitting the virus. Others, we were unable to take a look at due to their positions behind secured areas. We decided not to force entry without your order, especially without knowing the biosafety status of any given area."
"More decoys?"
"Perhaps. We didn't attempt to decrypt the programs without your presence in case one of us were to malfunction, as unlikely as that seems to be."
"You don't think they are all transmitting the virus?"
"That could also be. We'll need to destroy or disable each terminal, including those in the secured areas."
"And Echo?"
RC-7723 hesitated a moment. "He's the most proficient at decrypting and analyzing computer programs. We're all capable, but ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight has outperformed us on every test. Given the aggressive nature of this virus, it would be best to have him lead us on disabling it."
"You might not have a choice."
"We understand, Captain. Would you like us to continue with the mission?"
"No," Rex said. "Not yet. We'll need the Mrlssi to help us with the terminals in the secure areas. We don't want to release… whatever it is that they're working on here."
"If you say so, Captain, but it shouldn't matter. Our armor is effective against biochemical agents, and if this weapon, if that's what it is, were to be released, it couldn't spread farther than Drann."
Rex sighed and shook his head. "I'm not going to disregard the safety of the civilians. Not if I can help it. Maybe we'll have to force our way in, but maybe not."
"The Mrlssi may be helping us now, but they are not our allies."
"I know. We don't know anything about them or who they're working for. But right now, they are being helpful enough, and it would be much easier to finish this mission with their assistance. I'd rather not cross them at this point." Rex glanced at the door to the lab. He didn't dare risk upsetting them, not now that they were investigating the chip. Rex wasn't sure how long he could keep them interested.
"Captain, it's possible that these Mrlssi are meant to distract us while others in the facility sabotage our efforts to destroy the virus."
"Right now, we have to trust them. Please return to the medical lab and follow my orders."
"Yes, sir."
Rex turned back into the lab, and RC-7723 followed. Rex sighed quietly, telling himself he was doing right by listening to his instincts to trust the Mrlssi. He walked to Echo's side, the strange leggy device still grasping his head and implant in a threatening way.
"Have you found out anything about the chip?" Rex asked.
A Mrlssi shook its head. "Weee can't de-tect any chip."
"Oh, it's there," Rex said, internally groaning at the lack of progress.
"It's designed to be undetectable," Twenty-Two said, getting up. "That much is clear."
The commando took his helmet off and went to Echo's side. He looked at the screen that controlled the scanning device. "It's here in this area," he said, pointing to a spot on Echo's head. "The frequency and pace you're scanning with isn't invasive enough to detect it. Concentrate your scan in this area. These settings should be sufficient."
"This hhmay dis-rupt brain activity."
"It's already been disrupted," Rex said. "It won't cause any long term damage, will it?"
"We re-servve this for post-mortem hhhexaminat-tions of the brain."
"He'll be fine," Twenty-Two said. "Many of his mental processes have long been transferred to his cybernetic implant."
Rex sighed. "Continue, then." He hoped the young commando knew what he was talking about. He wasn't keen on sacrificing Echo's life for this when he didn't seem to be in any particular danger as he was, even if it was a sort of coma. But the truth was worth the risk, he told himself. Echo would agree.
The Mrlssi's chirping turned low and uncertain but they continued anyway.
Rex folded his arms and prepared to wait once more. It was so uncomfortable. His conscience was prodding him to get on with the mission, but in a way that's what he was doing. They needed Echo to tackle the virus. He was doing what was necessary. It just happened to have the benefit of learning more about the chips.
He wondered how General Skywalker was faring learning more about the functions and goals of the lab here. Rex could ask the Mrlssi, but again, he didn't want to risk upsetting them now that they had an uneasy alliance. They probably could get away with destroying the computer virus openly now without much backlash, especially if the Mrlssi really didn't know it was there, but poking into their scientific work could be a very different story.
One of the Mrlssi, a large crested male, cawed shrilly. "We hhhave found it, this chip! It is not, a, a small thing!"
"Not small?" Rex stood up, uncrossing his arms. "Why's it so hard to detect?"
Twenty-Two was not looking at the readout. He probably had it all in his head already. "It's completely organic… if it wasn't currently activated, I doubt we could have sensed it at all."
"Wait," Rex said. "If you only found it because it's been activated, how do you know you don't also have it? You and the rest of Diode Squad?"
"It's possible we have been designed to be unable to sense it," he said. "But we are meant to be self monitoring. It would be a serious flaw in our design as a collective unit if we couldn't monitor every function of our brains. Echo's chip has been activated through contact with the virus and the conflict with his cybernetic enhancement, while I remained unaffected by the same process."
Rex sighed. It didn't matter one way or the other.
"You can't tell what the chip is for? What it does? I was told it was meant to inhibit the aggressive independent nature of our genetic template. Make us… domesticated." Rex put his head into his hand and laughed humorlessly. He must have been a fool to ever have believed for even a moment that this made sense. Jango Fett was selected because he was already the perfect template, psychologically, physically, for an army. They would never have chosen someone whose basic genetic psychology made an inhibitor chip necessary. Not to mention that aggression was a necessary trait for any soldier to have—he had seen great men cut down on the battlefield for not having enough.
The Mrlssi were analyzing the read out, but it was RC-7723 who spoke. "It's not an inhibitor chip."
Rex and the Mrlssi turned to him.
"If it were something that was constantly active, adjusting Echo's basic thought patterns, we would have certainly detected it long ago. This chip has never been active in the time we have been connected to Echo."
"Well," Rex said darkly, "that's one part of the mystery answered."
Twenty-Two continued with his analysis. "As far as its purpose, we can't determine it for certain. As I said before, his brain waves resemble a form of hypnosis. He is alert to his surroundings, but not consciously responsive to them. He may be waiting for something, but what is impossible to say. It's a strange piece of hardware to install into a soldier. If these should be triggered in this way in the middle of a battle, the army would be laid to waste."
"I only know of the chip because this has happened to at least one of my men before, but he didn't respond to it like this. He… he became overtaken by a need to kill… the Jedi. Any Jedi." He swallowed, remembering how Tup seemed barely aware of what he had done in his moment of madness; how he seized back into that state at the sight of General Tiplee. Rex could feel the grim reality of the function of the chips encroaching into his heart. It really had been just as Fives had said. The chips were meant to control them, and the behavior of Tup indicated Jedi were the intended target. The only piece of the conspiracy that remained was who was responsible, who hoped to trigger it, and whether they were still in a position to do so. Rex still didn't know who had commissioned the army, especially given that it was done at a time of peace. Obi-Wan's evasive answers implied that it was someone the Jedi trusted enough to feel safe using the army, so it had to have been an ally to the Jedi who was once in a position of enough power to order the army's creation. It made no sense for it to be the chancellor as Fives had believed, as he was no one of significant importance back then. But given that Fives was right about the nature of the chips, why would he accuse someone as unlikely as the chancellor unless it were true?
The fear in Rex's heart tightened his chest. No… it just couldn't be true. There had to be some other explanation! Something they had missed!
The commandos were quiet, and the Mrlssi were talking low to each other. RC-7723 was watching him. He had no perceptible expression, and it made Rex even more anxious. He knew nothing about these commandos. How could he trust them with such sensitive information?
"This is highly confidential," Rex murmured, putting a hand to his own chest. "Do not speak of any of this to anyone, even under direct orders to talk. There is a traitor in the Republic. Someone… with the power to demand you speak. But whatever you do, you can't let them know you know anything about these chips. We… we have to stop this, somehow. This conspiracy. And the only way we can do that is if the enemy remains unaware that we know what's really going on here."
The commandos stared at him, the tiniest furrow of the brow visible of RC-7723's face.
"Well? That's an order!"
"Yes, sir," the three said in unison.
"You understand, don't you? You understand what's at stake here."
"We don't," RC-7723 said, and Rex sighed shakily. "But we always function according to the orders of our commanding officer. If you would prefer it, we can erase our memories of this knowledge."
Rex's kneejerk reaction was of disgust, that erasing a man's memory was a gross violation of his basic personhood… but Rex suspected that if there was any chance of stopping this nightmare from coming true, transgressions such as these were only the beginning of what he would have to allow.
"I will keep that in mind," he said, and turned to the Mrlssi. "Is there any way to remove the chip? Can you stop it?"
"Ehh!" the green Mrlssi said. "I do not thhhink so. Thhis would re-quire a surgery for which we are cer-tainly unprepared."
"There is a hhhway," the crested one said. "Something dif-ferent."
"What is it?" Rex asked, feeling helpless. "Anything… anything you could suggest."
"We can perhhhaps inter-rupt this, ffvia elec-trrric-k-k pulse to the source."
"Is that safe?" Rex asked.
"I don't recommend it, Captain," Twenty-Two said. "Not unless one of us administers the shock. We may have the necessary precision, but I would not trust these Mrlssi."
The crested one squawked in offense. "If you know hhhow to do it, then do it yourself!"
"I would not have thought of it," Twenty-Two said pointedly. "But it's possible that it could work."
"But that doesn't solve anything," Rex said. "That stops it this time, but it just leaves it there to act up again later. This shock won't destroy it, will it?"
"Errr, no." The Mrlssi's crest slackened a bit.
"What we need is a method to completely neutralize it, make sure it can't be activated again. Something fast that can be administered to millions of soldiers, 'cause it's not just Echo who has this. Every clone does. Every clone is a threat to the very system we are fighting to protect!" Rex felt a wave of revulsion for himself, knowing that he too carried this manufactured flaw in his brain. The idea that someone could simply say the word or whatever it was and make him shoot General Skywalker in the back was enough to make him want to shoot himself… but he couldn't, he realized. Now, he was too important to die, because he knew. He could only hope his luck of staying alive on the battlefield would stay with him long enough to figure out how to stop this.
"A fffvirus," one of the Mrlssi suddenly said, its voice high-pitched but quiet. This one hadn't spoken to them yet. Its feathers were a sunny yellow.
"What?" Rex said.
"You could ma-nu-fffacture a con-tagion to target and neu-trah-lize thhis."
"I… you could maybe but… I don't know how I would begin to…. I'm no scientist."
"Perhhaps, an agreement?" the crested one said. "A fur-ther exchhange?"
Rex took a deep breath. "I don't have anything. I'm just a soldier, I… I don't have any property or money or influence. Look, I don't know whose side you're on, if you're on the side of the Republic or the Separatists or something else… but there are millions of clones out there, thinking people with a mind and a conscience, and this chip turns them into…" he swallowed, "into something less than human. Machines. Machines designed to kill whatever somebody wants without concern or remorse, and unless you know who's responsible and what their ultimate goal is, no one is safe. Not even you, out here in the middle of nowhere. Because whoever's powerful enough to create a conspiracy of this magnitude, and actually manage to execute it, is both patient and powerful enough to do anything they want. And that would be the end of democracy and everything the Republic stands for. You live on a planet that would surely be targeted given its long history as allies to the Republic cause, regardless of what you yourselves believe."
The Mrlssi stirred and fluffed their feathers, seeming unmoved. Rex exhaled. There was nothing he could do to convince them they should help when he didn't know anything about them or who the enemy even was.
"Please," he breathed. "I don't have anything to give you. I'm just trying to protect my brothers. All my brothers. And my friends. We know no life but service to the Republic… and I have watched many good men die to protect it. I don't want to see that all be in vain… to have all those sacrifices invalidated by turning us into something mindless and evil. Please…." Rex put his hands on the bed Echo sat on and bowed his head. What could he do now but beg? He had no one else to go to, no other hope he could think of.
"I will hhhelp you," the yellow one chirped. The others murmured in agitation and started what Rex could only understand to be arguing. The yellow one remained at Echo's side as the other three backed away slightly, and all the while the four of them made a cacophony of noises that barely seemed like words. But all of the sudden the three dissenters went quiet and stood in an aggravated and tense silence on the edge of the room, watching the yellow Mrlssi with beady eyes.
The yellow one turned back to Rex and began. "Thhis hhvirus, it must be spe-cially de-signed to target-t thhis chip! It will take time, perhhhaps weeks or months."
"I understand," Rex said quickly. "I don't have any other option."
"I must hhhave a chip for an-alysssis, we must-t re-move it from thhis one." The Mrlssi began digging through a drawer of instruments.
"You said you couldn't safely remove it," Rex said in a low voice.
The Mrlssi straightened and stared into his eyes. "Thhis one must-t be sa-cri-ficed. I must hhhave a chip to hhelp you."
Rex stared at the floor, then looked at Echo. His face was still blank. Then Rex looked at the commandos.
"Sir," RC-7723 said. "We must not forget our original mission. We must destroy the computer virus. This is secondary."
"This isn't secondary. Not anymore. I don't think there is any way Echo can help you… even if they revive him now, he'll just fall into this again when you reach the terminal. You can do this. I know you can… especially if the Mrlssi are willing to help."
"Captain, you were sent on this mission to lead us. You are abandoning your responsibilities by focusing on this instead of assisting us with the removal of the virus, especially now that ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight is unable to lead. We still don't know which terminal the virus is transmitting from."
The tension in Rex's muscles was making it hard to remain calm. "I don't know how to help you. I don't! This mission is beyond my training. I'm not sure why Echo even asked me to be on it." Rex shook his head. "I know you don't understand and you're just following orders, but there is no mission more important than destroying these chips. Now I order you to get on with the mission without me!"
"You will not allow Echo to be revived at all?" Twenty-Two sounded almost hurt, but Rex was not sure if he was only imagining it. It wasn't hard, given how Rex was feeling.
"That… would only make this harder." Rex gritted his teeth. He didn't want to think about what he had to do. The yellow Mrlssi was waiting for him to give the go ahead to euthanize Echo, a hypo lifted in its strange clawed hand.
RC-7723 looked at him reproachfully. "Respectfully, Captain, our function as a special ops commando unit, the only one of its kind, is made possible by ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight as our commanding officer, and is of greater value to the Republic than your life. If a chip must be donated, it is you who—"
"That's enough, soldier!" Rex growled. "Do you think this is an easy choice for me? It's never easy to send men to their deaths. Not just that, but friends. I have put my own life on the line for my men time and again. I have not suddenly become selfish about the preservation of my own life over another's. Since you don't understand the seriousness of the situation we are in, I can only insist that you trust me as your captain to be making the best tactical decision."
A quick blip from the communicator let Rex know a call was coming in on the holoprojector. Rex pulled it out and turned it on.
"General."
"Rex, are you alright?" Skywalker asked.
Rex struggled to unclench his jaw. "Everything is fine."
"I've contacted the Anaxsi Navy and they claim to have no knowledge of this—"
"General," Rex interrupted. "Perhaps… discretion…" he flicked his eyes toward the listening Mrlssi, "would be best at the moment."
Anakin looked taken aback. "Captaiiin," he said, a warning tone in his voice. "What's going on?"
"Just trust me, sir. We're doing everything we can on our end."
Anakin frowned then sighed. "Well… I haven't been able to learn anything about… what we talked about before. The Navy claims to know nothing about it, and the government itself hasn't responded to my request for an audience."
"And… the chancellor?"
Anakin shook his head. "I tried to ask him about it but he immediately turned things back to this mission. He's extremely concerned about its success, and I can't say I blame him. Every time we check in with the fronts, there's a longer list of casualties. Our navy has backed off but we're sitting targets and the enemy knows it."
"We're about to move onto the target. With any luck, we'll—"
"Luck isn't good enough. You have to destroy that virus, and you have to do it now. The chancellor himself recorded a message for you. He's worried. Please don't fail me, Rex. I'm counting on you. We all are." Skywalker vanished, his hologram replaced with one of Chancellor Palpatine.
"Captain Rex." The chancellor looked very worried, his voice grave. Rex straightened to attention by reflex. "I'm sending this message to impress upon you the urgency of our situation. I understand you've become entangled in a bit of a political mess on Anaxes. But whatever problems the local government may be having will soon be irrelevant if this virus is not stopped! Nearly half of our navy is disabled or damaged and forbidden from docking for repairs. We have had to call off the majority of our current assault plans. This is a direct order to give the destruction of this virus the highest priority. These Mrlssi must not be allowed to stand in your way. You must clear them from the area and destroy the virus by any possible means."
"It will be done." said a voice behind him.
Rex turned, startled to see Echo hefting his rifle, eyes fixed on the projection of Palpatine until it disappeared. A shot exploded loudly and a flurry of yellow feathers scattered next to Rex as the Mrlssi crumpled to the floor.
"No!" Rex cried, as the other three Mrlssi erupted into a chorus of terrified squawks that turned into piercing inhuman cries as Echo shot them down in quick succession. Rex's hands shook on his pistols as he ripped them from the holsters, but Echo had already torn the device from his head and charged from the room, RC-7723's stun bolt hitting the closing door.
"Echo, NO!" Rex chased after him, with RC-7723 and their scout commando on his heels. Rex couldn't see Echo, but the scout was leading the way, presumably able to keep tabs on his position through their mental link.
"Can you stop him?!" Rex cried.
"No," RC-7723 said. "He's heading for a section of the facility that has returned to activity."
"We have to reach him before he kills anyone else! That's an order!"
They increased their pace, practically sliding on the tiled floor as they turned corners. Rex was barely aware of where they were going, simply following the commandos as they led him forward.
"There he is!" RC-7723 said as they hooked around another corner only to catch a glimpse of Echo as he disappeared through a doorway to the right. Blaster fire erupted and Rex and the commandos charged into the scene, spraying stun beams as rapidly as they could into a cluttered work room filled with Mrlssi. Echo was still standing, and now as the Mrlssi in front of him wobbled and fell, he shot two of them right between the eyes at close range. Like an execution.
"NO, ECHO!" Rex slammed into his side, his horrified momentum from charging in carrying him too far, too fast when he'd meant to fire. Echo thrust the length of the rifle against Rex's chest to throw him off. As Rex staggered backward, he caught half a second's look at the end of Echo's rifle before the light flashed in his eyes and lanced through his chest, the heat and pain blasting out his vision for a moment, all his sense of direction and balance lost. All he knew was that he was falling and he couldn't breathe.
He thought of Fives and the hole in his chest, and a second deafening blast of pain pushed a scream from him that choked off in a strangled gurgle as a convulsion radiated from his right side. He panted shallowly between the sounds of pain and choked on his own breath, a heaving cough wrenching at the wound inside his chest as if someone were raking hooks through his ribs.
"Captain!" A commando helmet hovered over him and Rex realized he was on his back. "ARC-Zero-Four-Zero-Eight has been neutralized. The Mrlssi within firing range are all unconscious or dead."
"D—" Rex heaved a ragged breath and another wave of pain choked him and made his jaw seize up. He struggled to wrench it apart. "Don—t kill. Don't kill him!" The world was shaking, still spinning. Nothing stayed still—the lights were too bright, and everything was blurry except the spear of light glinting off the commando's helmet.
"He's stunned, sir. What are your orders?"
Rex panted in agony, feeling the weight of their loss and the identity of the enemy grip his heart in terror. Their one hope to stopping this madness was gone as soon as it arrived, extinguished unwittingly by none other than the master behind this entire conspiracy. In his pain, everything suddenly felt pointless; his entire life, this entire war, was a lie.
"C…carry—" Rex wheezed, shuddering, "back… to the medical lab. Echo too."
He tried to lift his arm as RC-7723 reached for him and stabbed a hypo into his neck, but his body seized again at the explosion of pain in his shoulder, a firework of needles radiating back into his chest, down his arm, and up into his head. A gasp of air burst from his throat and through his teeth, turning into a sharp groan.
"Hurry," he cried, struggling to control the gulping breaths he was taking—each cough felt like a knife. "Bef—fore they wake u-AGH!"
It was all Rex could manage to keep the scream quiet this time as the commando pulled him up in a fireman carry. Dazed, he tried to catch his breath and take stock once RC-7723 was back on his feet, but lifting his head even a fraction felt impossible—his neck and head shook wildly with the attempt, and the shaking spread to his whole body as the commando hurried down the hall.
He was going to die, Rex realized. Just like Fives. This must have been what it felt like. He was going to die knowing that he was the only one who knew the truth, knowing his brothers would continue to fight and spill blood in a war that was nothing but a game… that his general, and all the other Jedi he had been honored to serve with, were surely going to be shot in the back by their allies, and in their last moments feel nothing but betrayal from those they had counted as friends. And beyond, the future of the Republic felt like a black smear. There was nothing anyone could do. With truth would die with him.
The trip back to the lab was uninterrupted, but it passed in interminable increments, measured by each of the commando's steps jarring through Rex's body like an electric shock. He struggled to think ahead, hazy from the drug, but his mind could only focus on the same thoughts over and over. I have to stop the chip. I have to live. I have to tell someone.
The darkness of the last hallway gave way to piercing brightness again, and with one last nauseating movement, Rex was on a bed, staring up at the ceiling again, and he suddenly couldn't catch even a tiny breath.
"I—" he wheezed faintly, struggling to prop an elbow behind him. "I can't—br—"
RC-7723 adjusted the bed's tilt and set about removing his armor. Rex struggled back from the edge of unconsciousness with short, violent gasps and realized he probably had seconds left.
"Echo?" Black specks were swarming his vision. Each breath caught on the way in, and he gulped against a wave of nausea.
"He's here, sir. Should we keep him sedated?"
"Listen to me!" Rex struggled to stay focused on the commando as he cut Rex's top open and sealed the hole in his chest with a bacta patch from his supplies. "No matter what… you have to tell Echo! You have to tell him everything and—you have to stop this."
"Echo may not return to himself after he awakes," said the commando, pulling him forward to get at the exit wound.
"You have—to make him!" Rex coughed and tried to speak quickly between breaths. "After that—you must tell him. Everything. He'll know—what to do!"
Rex struggled to keep his eyes open, his voice weakening. "That chip is a threat. To the Republic. The Jedi. Everyone. Chancellor Palpatine… he's the one behind this… he's going to kill the Jedi…."
He still didn't know if the squad understood how important this was, or if they believed the facts at all despite witnessing everything they had. Maybe seeing Echo go ballistic like that changed their mind. He had no choice but to hope they would take this as seriously as him. Echo… would know… he'd know.
"He's the one who controls us," Rex choked out, fighting off the blackness. "With the chip. He's a traitor. Don't let anyone else hear about this. Especially not anyone connected to the chancellor!"
"Yes, sir."
Rex shut his eyes, unable to say more, his conscience dimming. The last thing he felt was the icy fear of the inevitable as the quiet darkness seeped into him with a strength that was impossible to fight.