Chapter 22
When the group returned to the others at the outpost they found Captain Rex waiting for them, he didn't look happy.
"I thought I said no one leaves this base without my say so," Rex told them; the irritation could be heard in his voice.
"You did captain, and you did give me permission to seek out the help of the Felucians" Florarmoa replied "Commander Shadow and Shade were just kind enough to escort me to them,"
Rex shook his head as he pitched the bridge of his nose. "I said you could leave in the, oh never mind it doesn't matter anymore,"
"Excellent, would you like me to fill you in on the information we received from the Felucians?"
Rex was about to make a reply when a clone trooper came running up to him.
"Captain Rex, sir," The trooper said
"Yes, what is it?" Rex asked
"Commander Tech has disappeared, sir" The trooper answered.
"What! How long has he been gone?" Rex asked
"One of the troopers on guard said he saw him walk into the jungle late last night. He managed to catch up to the commander and told him he couldn't leave but the commander told him he had permission from you to scout out a hunch he had on where the base might be" The trooper told him "He hasn't returned yet,"
"And the trooper didn't think to check with me? Blast it, it's bad enough I had you three sneak off on me, now I've lost another one" Rex said, the anger rising in his voice, "Your debrief is going to have to wait, right now we got find out where Tech is,"
With that Rex and the clone trooper moved towards the main building to see if they could pick up commander Tech's signal.
"Weird, Tech doesn't seem like the one to disobey orders," Shadow said.
"Yes, most peculiar indeed" Florarmoa said, mostly to herself. "Commander with the information we have do you think you could gather the equipment we will need to deal with these Death Creatures?"
Shadow pondered on it for a while before saying "We don't have a clue on how hard to kill these things are but judging from the ordnance Pyro brought along I should be able to find something that could do the trick,"
"Excellent make sure all the equipment you will need is there and ready, I will help the captain with finding Commander Tech,"
With that, Shadow and Shade departed to check out commander Pyro's supply of weaponry and explosives while the Jedi left to go help captain Rex.
Florarmoa entered the control room to find captain Rex and another clone trooper hovering over a computer screen.
"Any luck captain?" the Jedi asked as she joined them.
"Nothing, there is no sign of this son of a Bantha anywhere," Rex answered clearly irritated.
"You don't think he could be a spy do you?" Floraroma asked in a whisper.
"A little too soon to be jumping to conclusion don't you think, general?" Said a voice from behind them.
The group turned to see Commander Tech standing there with his arms behind his back.
"Tech what is the meaning of…," Rex said before begin interrupted by Tech.
"That is all classified information, Captain Rex; I have my own special set of orders from Chancellor Palpatine himself" Tech told him "Now then I take General Florarmoa's talk with the natives provided for some much needed intel,"
The Jedi nodded.
"Good, then what are we waiting for?" Tech asked as he left the room.
"Great, just when I thought things couldn't get even more complicated," Rex said, namely to himself before he left the room.
Rex had assembled the men at that the landing zone of the base before giving the new orders.
"Alright, thanks to Master Florarmoa's talk with the Felucians we know where the base is and we are going to move out for it soon, before I do though I'm going to make a few changes. Commander Tech is now a part of Alpha Squad so Commander Jester will be leading Charlie Squad" Rex told everyone. "Now let's load up and move out, today's the day we take Emotion and his base down,"
Rex and the others quickly boarded their designated gunships and left the remnants of the Republic outpost behind.
As the gunships flew over the surface of the planet, Florarmoa showed where Death Valley was on a holoprojected map of the planet's surface.
"Death Valley is located about ten miles from the outpost. There are only two access ways into it, Death Passage and from above. Since it would take too long for all of use to make it through the passage hauling the equipment Sergeant Pyro brought along we should come in from above," Floraroma told the group.
"Sounds like a good plan, if we come in from above it'll give us easier access to the base and it allow us to get a layout of what the base will be like" Rex said in agreement. "Pilot, when we get to the coordinates, open the bay doors so we can take a look at the base,"
"Copy that, captain, ETA to the base about ten standard minutes," The pilot replied back.
The rest of trip was made in silence as the group prepared themselves for the mission they were about to embark on. Although the flight was only about ten minutes the silence made it seem like an eternity.
"Captain, I've got eyes on the base," The pilot told them.
"Good, open the doors and circle the base," Rex ordered.
The side doors of the gunship slid open as they began to circle the base. Rex, Florarmoa, Tech and Shadow moved forward and leaned out of the gunship, using the handle bars attached to the roof and sides of the gunship for support, so they could get a better look at the base.
The pentagonal base looked to be untouched as the gunships circled it. Nothing seemed out of placed and it showed no signs of battle. The durasteel of the base looked to be only slightly weathered by nature, other than that the base looked to be in prime condition.
"Well the base looks to be operational," Rex stated.
"Yes, from the outside, who knows what the inside looks like," Shadow commented.
"Good point, it also like the place went into lock down mode, none of the hangers appear to be open," Rex pointed out.
"We should land," Tech suggested
"Not yet, the place may look abandoned, but we don't know what kind of defense it still may have operational," Rex said
"The area is secure, I checked it myself last night, there are now defenses operational right now," Tech told him.
"What!" Rex asked in surprised "You knew where the base was this whole time and didn't inform me,"
Before Tech could answer they were silenced when Master Florarmoa nearly fell out of the gunship, Shadow was quick enough to catch here.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" Shadow asked
The Jedi shook her head, as she gently rubbed her forehead.
"I've never felt such sorrow, pain and hatred before" She told them "Whatever happened inside that base, it has greatly upset the balance of the Force in this area,"
"Even more of a reason for us to land and see what the hell happened here," Tech said.
"Fine, pilot, take us down, and tell the others to continue to circle until we can get those hangers open," Rex ordered
The pilot nodded and landed the gunship in front of the base. Tech and Rex jumped out of the gunship.
"Shadow, I want you to come with us, General Florarmoa, I want you to stay with the ship and try to get back on your feet. We're going to need you when we can get you and the others inside," Rex told them.
Shadow reluctantly left the side of the Jedi and joined the others on the ground.
"Keep a close eye on her," Shadow told Shade.
The shadow trooper nodded and moved to help the Jedi stand up, allowing for her to lean on him for support.
"We'll let you know when we get the hangers open, until then stay close, depending on how things are in there we might have to pull out and just have the Merciless destroy it," Rex informed them.
Floraroma managed asmall nod before the gunship lifted off and resumed its circle of the base.
"There looks to be an entry point towards the base of the facility," Tech observed, pointing to a cylindrical structure under the base.
Tech ran ahead of the group towards the structure. Shadow moved to follow but Rex stopped him.
"There's something strange about Commander Tech, I'm going to keep a close eye on him, I want you to do the same," Rex told him in a barely audible whisper.
Shadow nodded and the two moved to join Tech. When the two reached Tech he appeared to be tampering with the wiring for the controls of the door. Shadow and Rex waited patiently as Tech sliced the door's control, finally, the door slid open and the body of a super battle droid fell out.
The droids body was covered in claw marks and had two holes that went clean through its body. Rex knelt down to examine the droid.
"I've never seen claw marks like this before," Rex said, running a finger down one of the claw marks.
"What do you think did this?" Tech asked.
"I don't know, but I got a bad feeling about this," Rex replied.
With their examination of the dead B2 battle droid done, the three moved through the open door to find themselves inside an elevator. Inside the elevator were two battle droid that looked to have been ferociously dismantled by some unknown monster. Along with the pieces of the battle droids, the inside of the elevator was covered in blaster markings and the controls for the elevator seemed slightly damaged.
The door to the outside suddenly closed, enveloping the troopers in complete darkness. Rex and Tech both activated their spot lamps, supply the dark elevator with some light. Tech moved to the control panel and quickly began to remove the protective covering around it.
"It doesn't look to be damaged badly, I should be able to get us moving in a matter of minutes," Tech told them.
"Make it quick, I don't like the look of things in here," Rex said.
While Tech worked on getting the elevator to move, Rex looked around the elevator to find Shadow staring up at the ceiling of the elevator, his blaster aimed at something. Rex quickly withdrew his dual DC-17 hand blasters and moved to see what the trooper was aiming at.
Shadow had his DC-15S blaster aimed at a hole in the ceiling. The edges of the hole were bent inward, suggesting that something came through the ceiling of the elevator. Hanging at the edge of the hole was the arm of a B1 battle droid, inside the hand of the droid was its E-5 blaster rifle.
Rex pointed up to the hole and moved under it, back facing Shadow. Rex then got into a crouched position, Shadow tapped his right shoulder and Rex jumped upward, grabbing the edges of the hole. He then pulled himself up so that most of his lower half was still in the elevator. One of his blaster pistols ready, Rex slowly scanned the dark elevator shaft. As he scanned the elevator shaft he managed to spot what looked like the upper half of a battle droid hanging out of what looked like a ventilation shaft, the droid appeared to be missing an arm.
Rex was about to drop down when something grabbed his arm. He quickly look down to see the remains of a battle droid, it's lower half seemed to be completely missing and its torso seemed badly damaged, it was a miracle the droid was still active.
The droid reached out to him, as if to tell him something but before it could the hand dropped and the droid went offline, dead. Rex stared at the droid for awhile before the sound of the elevator moving caused him to drop down.
When Rex landed both Tech and Shadow were looking at him, waiting for a report of what he saw up there.
"I found the rest of the droid sticking out of a ventilation shaft," Rex told them.
"Anything else?" Tech asked.
"No," Rex answered, deciding not to tell him about the droid.
"Oh well, I managed to get the elevator working, as you can tell. It's taking us to the control tower. Once there we should be able to restore power to the base and open the hangers," Tech informed him.
Rex just nodded his head. He found himself thinking about that droid he found up there that acted like it had something to tell him. Normally, Rex would think nothing of it, but he had this increasing feeling to pull out now and just have the entire base destroyed, even if it meant leaving the secrets of what Emotion was doing here to be destroyed with it.
They rode the rest of the way to the control room in silence, the sounds the elevator made, echoed throughout the base. Finally the elevator came to halt at the top floor and the door slid open. Rex and Shadow were the first to step out of the elevator, their weapons at the ready. Rex went to the left while Shadow went to the right; together they swept the room while Tech made his way to the control console in the middle of the room.
Scattered about the control room where the bodies of several battle droids, some of them had the red markings of a security battle droid while most of them were the usual tan color. Some of the droids were dead in their chairs in front of the computers they sat at or were lying on the computers. Most of the droids however were scattered about the room in pieces, only a few droids were still in one piece. Burns from blaster fire could be seen across the wall, ceiling and floor of the room along with marks on the blast shield that covered the window overlooking the valley. As Rex and Shadow swept the individual sides of the room, they made sure to step over the occasional hole that jutted out of the floor.
"Clear," Rex said
"Clear" Shadow replied.
Rex surveyed the room, "Looks more like a massacre then a last stand," He commented
"Yeah, the question is who or what caused the massacre and where are they now?" Shadow asked
"Isn't that the question of the day" Tech commented from the main console "It's going to take me awhile to get everything back online, most of the power has gone offline and the entire base is locked down. The main computer console should have enough power in its reserves to allow me to restore the power. Once I do that I can unlock the hangers and anything else you want opened,"
"Get to work then" Rex ordered "Shadow I want you to stay here with Tech while I check out that room in the back. Remember to stay frosty you two,"
"Acknowledged" Shadow said, kneeling next to one of the holes. "Whatever it was that attacked this room they came in through the maintenance tunnels and ventilation shafts,"
"Right, do you think you could seal them?" Rex asked
"It'd be tough without any welding equipment, I'm sure Pyro has that with him," Shadow answered.
"Figures, until we can get that equipment in here figure out a way to cover those then. Notify me if you find anything strange," Rex told him as he approached the door to the other room.
"Like what, this whole situation seems strange," Shadow stated.
"I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about if you see it, until then, stay frosty and watch each other's backs," Rex told them.
With that, Rex left the two to their work and entered the room behind the door. The room Rex entered was small, probably an office or someone's personal quarters. Thanks to the spot lamps attached to his helmet, Rex was able to make out most of the objects within the room.
In the center of the room was a holoprojector and a couple feet behind it was a large desk. Rex slowly moved through the room to the desk; keeping a constant guard just in case anything jumped out of the shadows. Rex reached the desk to find a camouflaged painted helmet on the desk, a rag and some cans of armor cleaner. When Rex saw that helmet he knew he was in Emotions private quarters.
Rex took a quick look behind him to make sure no one was there, before moving behind the desk. There he began to open drawers. Surprising a lot of the drawers were unlocked, most of the drawers contained several datapads, alphabetized according to the information contained in the datapads, one drawer had a small blaster and a smaller version of Emotions personal zap pistol, while the very bottom drawer contained more cleaning supplies.
After checking the contents of each drawer, Rex began searching through the datapads to see if he could find anything of use on them. Each one of the datapads seemed to contain some kind of classified Separatist plans, battle reports, and projects that Emotion had worked on. Of the datapads in the drawers, the ones that Rex pulled out and laid out on the desk were ones marked, "Project Cyborg" "2.0 Program" "Xenomorph Autopsy" "X 2.0" and "Felucian Base Blueprints".
Rex was studying the bases blueprints when he heard the flicker of lights as the power was restored. A wall of light began to show on Rex from behind so he turned and came face to face with a monster. Rex was so startled by the sudden appearance of the creature that he fell backwards onto the desk, knocking several of the datapads he had pulled out onto the floor. Using the desk for support, Rex got up to take a close look at the creature.
The skull of the creature was behind a glass display and was completely terrifying. The front of skull was strangely human with the indistinguishable holes to where the eyes and nose would be, but that was where the similarities ended. The jaw seemed more animalistic and connected with the extending upper portion of the human half, making the skull elongated. Along the sides of the skull, were what looked liked tubing while there was brief, almost vertebrae like ridge along the top of the skull. Despite the one human like feature of the skull, it was clear that the creature this belonged to was not human and nothing like anything he had ever seen before.
Rex continued to look at the glass display case and saw several clone trooper helmets along with the strange, alien skull. He counted the helmets and found out the number of helmets there matched the number of cloner troopers that were supposed to be at the outpost. Despite the discovery of the clone helmets, Rex found that strange skull the focus of his attention. Emotion rarely took animal heads as trophies so what made this one so special?
As Rex observed the skull he found himself asking "What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time, James?"
"Captain Rex," Came a voice from behind him.
Rex turned to find Commander Shadow standing there at the door way.
"Tech managed to restore the bases power; we are ready to open the hangers whenever you are,"
"Right I'll be out there shortly," Rex told him.
Shadow nodded and left the room. As Rex was about to leave he noticed a holopad on the desk, something he hadn't noticed when he was searching the desk earlier. Rex picked it up and turned it on.
A rotating symbol of the CIS appeared as the holopad started up. A screen then appeared before him, listing what looked like several audio and video recordings along with several files. Of the files listed the one named "Xenomorph Reflection" caught the clone captain's attention the most. Rex tapped it and a holographic image of Captain Emotion appeared.
The captain was sitting in a chair and in his hand he had the strange alien skull that had frightened Rex earlier.
"Beautiful isn't?" The projection asked "In all my years of exploring this vast galaxy not once have I encountered a creature as beautiful and as deadly as them. They are the very thing that could secure my kind as the dominate species of this galaxy, but at what cost? These creatures, they can't be controlled; they have no master, no creator, no creature that is more powerful than them that can force them to submit. It's clear to me now that these creature do not occur naturally in nature, because nature in all of her beauty and wonder would never in the right mind create a species of beings that could lay waste to her other creations in a mere day. Sure she has created humans and the other intelligent creatures that inhabit this galaxy, but they, they have reason enough to know that if they wipe something out from existence it could have some kind of catastrophic effect on them or something that they need in order to survive. These creatures, they don't have that reason. From what I've been able to study from them is that the only reason they are capable of understanding is that their kind has to be the one that survives no matter what the cost, even if means exterminating all life on the world they inhabit. So it begs the question why did the beings that created these creatures create them? Did they realize the effect these creatures could have if left unchecked or was it some kind of last ditch effort? Were they at war with an enemy that forced them to create these creatures in order to ensure their survival, only to bring about both their enemies and their own end? Whatever their reason for creating them was, they managed to create an organism so perfect, so independent, so uncontrollable that even nature herself cannot stop this creature. I doubt that even the strongest Force-user would be able to compel these creatures to obey their will. As beautiful and as perfect as these creatures are I can't help but wonder, is it right for me to continue my experiments here? I've come close to finding a way to at least gain some sort of control over one of them, but how long will this control last? Will my efforts for succeeding be rewarded, or will it only lead to a more painful demise? As I reflect on the discovers I've made about these perfectly beautiful and deadly creatures I've come to the conclusion that I must continue with my research for deciding not to would only delay the inevitable. I fear that despite all the precautions I've made, despite the fail safes, no matter what I do I will not be able to stop these creature from enacting their revenge on me and the droids I employ for what I have done to them. I can only hope that I'll live long enough to correct the errors of my way and purge the galaxy of these creatures, no matter how painful it will be to destroy such perfect organisms. On that note I must conclude this recording and resume my research,"
The holographic projection then disappeared, leaving Captain Rex with a feeling of despair and confusion. Were these creatures Emotion spoke about the same creatures that massacred the droids in the control room and in the elevator? Was that what the droid was trying to warn him about before it died from its injuries? As Rex left the room the answer came to him.
Yes, those perfect, beautiful creatures Emotion spoke of are the ones responsible for the destruction of the droids here and if you don't abort the mission now you and your men will end up just like them.
Captain Rex entered the control room to find Commander Shadow and Commander Tech there waiting for him.
"Is everything alright captain?" Shadow asked
"We…We have to get of here now, abort the mission," Rex said, half dazed.
"What! Have you gone mad captain? We have a mission to fulfill here and it is to extract the information from these computers, destroy the base and make sure the information gets back to Coruscant," Tech told him.
"The information, the research, it won't matter anymore if we all die here!" Rex shouted back.
"Captain, calm down you need to calm down," Tech said slowly.
"I'm the commanding officer of this mission and if I say we abort the mission we abort the mission. I don't care if you have special orders from Palpatine or not, if we don't leave now we'll all be dead!" Rex said, angrily as he took a threatening step towards Tech.
Tech didn't back down. "You're talking crazy, what could you have possibly seen that makes you think we are all going to die,"
"Wake the kriff up, Tech, and take a look around. Ever since we've stepped into the hell hole all we've seen is death. If Emotion and his droids couldn't survive against these things, what kind of chance do you think we have?" Rex asked, angrily as he got closer to Tech.
"We don't know what we're dealing with yet and we don't know if the captain is dead or not yet. So, the logical course of action is to call everyone in, search the base, confirm that Captain Emotion is alive or not, grab the intel and then we can leave,"
"I'm getting sick and tired of you insubordination, Commander Tech,"
"Then I have no choice but to do this then,"
Tech then suddenly with drew his blaster and shot Captain Rex. Rex fell to the floor with a thud. Shadow, surprised by Tech's action, turned to see that Tech had his blaster pointed at him.
"Relax the captain isn't dead, it was only a stun round. Now then, unless you want to end up like the good captain you'll put him in Captain Emotion's private quarters and continue do to as I say until we find Captain Emotion and I'm able to get a copy of his research, do you understand?" Tech ordered.
Shadow, clenching his fists, nodded his head.
"Good, now that we have an understanding we can start this mission. The sooner we get done the quicker we can get out of here and have the base destroyed,"
Tech turned back to the control console and opened two of the hangers, while Commander Shadow gently picked up the unconscious clone captain and carried him back into the room where he had just walked out of. Once inside he knocked all of the contents atop the desk onto the floor and laid Rex gently down onto the surface of the desk.
"You were right, captain, there is something wrong with, Tech, but don't worry I'll do my best to insure the safety of our brothers and of Master Floraroma," Shadow told him quietly.
Shadow did a quick check of the room to make sure it was secure before leaving Captain Rex there to rest.