Chapter 24

Rex slowly opened his eyes and found himself in a dark room with only a few small beams of light coming through the ceiling. He slowly sat up straight and surveyed the room. The walls of the room were covered in some kind of strange, organic compound and a constant fog or mist covered the floor.

"Something isn't right here," Rex said to himself.

He looked around where he was sitting in hopes of finding his blasters and his missing helmet, which he didn't recall taking off. As Rex searched the room he began to hear something, it started off quietly at first but then rose to a point where Rex could make it out as a young voice.

"Help me, please, someone help me," The voice called

Rex followed the sound of the voice out into a large open room. Like the room he had just left the same organic compound could be found covering the walls and the ceiling of this room, but in greater quantity. As Rex wondered the room the voice he was falling became a sob and got louder as he approached his destination.

The clone captain rounded as strange organic pillar and saw a small child standing in the center of the room; the sobbing was coming from the child. As Rex slowing approached the child he made note of its long, black hair that nearly touched the floor and the strange, almost Jedi-like robes that it wore. When Rex reached the child he knelt down to be eye level with it and reached out to touch it. Rex turned the child around to find her, as Rex noticed when he finally got a closer look, crying into the palms of her hands.

"Hey, shh it's alright kiddo, there is no need to cry, nothing's going to hurt you," Rex told the girl in a reassuring voice.

The girl removed her hands from her face to reveal a human face with red, puffy eyes from crying. Her crying had stopped when she saw the face of the clone captain.

"There see all better? Now then what's your name?" Rex asked

"Felicia," The child said softly

"Nice to meet you, Felicia, my name is Captain Rex; I'm with the Grand Army of the Republic. Do you know what that means?"

"Yes" Felicia replied softly "It means you're going to help us,"

"That's right, now why don't you tell me what a little girl like you is doing here in a scary place like this?"

The girl was about to answer, but instead let out a shrieking scream and pointed to something behind Rex. Rex turned only to be pushed to the ground by some unknown creature. When he looked up to see what had attacked him, he came face to face with the skull of the creature he encountered before, however unlike the skull he saw before this one had a body and was even more terrifying. The creature let out a roar in, Rex's face a strange mixture of a human scream, the roar of a beast, the shriek of a bird and the hiss of a snake. Rex was stunned by fear as his eyes meet the empty sockets that met his gaze.

Suddenly there was another loud shriek as Felicia turned and ran deeper to the bowls of the strange environment. The creature looked up, saw the young girl running and gave chase.

"No!" Rex screamed "Keep running, Felicia, I will find you!"

Rex quickly got up and ran after the monster. The clone captain followed the sounds of the screaming girl and the pounding of the monsters feet as it chased the girl through the twisting maze of tunnels. Finally the chase came to end as Rex found himself in an even larger room. As he looked around he saw something familiar cocooned to the walls of the room.

Cocooned to the walls of the room were his clone brothers. Every last one of his clone brothers that he had brought with him were attached to the wall with large holes in their chests, suggesting something burst from their chest. Rex couldn't believe what he was seeing as he looked around the room, his men, his brothers all dead and displayed in such a horrifying manner.

"Rex!" came Felicia's cry.

The cry broke Rex from his horrified trance as he turned to find Felicia starring at one of the dead bodies. He rushed to her aid to find the body she was staring at to be the body of Jedi Master Floraroma. Like the clones she was cocooned to the walls with a hole in her chest. Rex quickly hugged the child and shielded her eyes.

"Don't look at the bodies, Felicia, just stay close to me and I'll get us out of here," Rex told her.

As the two were about leave the creature from before appeared in front of them, Rex moved in front of Felicia to protect her as the creature rose onto its hind legs and began to walk to them. The creature was taller than Rex on its hind legs and more intimidating that way, but the clone captain stayed in front of the small child, despite his urge to run in fear.

"Stay behind me, Felicia, I'll protect you," Rex said, trying to not let his fear show in his voice.

"How can you when you're already dead?" Felicia asked

Rex was about to ask what she meant when he felt a huge pain in his chest, it felt like something was going to burst out of it. Rex fell to his knees in pain as the pain in his chest intensified. Felicia appeared in front of the clone captain and backed up into the creature.

"Arg, Felicia get…get away from that thing," Rex told her, through clenched teeth.

Felicia remained unmoving as the creature wrapped its arms around the child.

"You can't beat it, Rex, you and your brothers are as good as dead if you don't wake up," Felicia said

Rex looked to see that Felicia no longer sounded like the child he had heard before, making the child seem much older.

"What…what do you mean?" Rex asked, gripping his chest in pain.

"You can still save me, Rex, you might even be able to save what remains of your brothers, but you have to wake up first," She answered.

"What…" Rex, barley got out before the pain became too much for the clone to handle.

"It's time for you to wake up, Rex. Wake Up!" Felicia shouted at the clone captain.

Rex let out a scream of pain and terror as his chest burst open.

Rex jerked up right, hand over his chest plate. He then removed his helmet, leaned over the edge of the desk and vomited. He wiped his mouth off with his right arm before slowly raising his head, only to come face to face with the monster from his nightmare again. Rex shot the creature a glare before the sound of the door opening caught his attention. He quickly spun around with his blaster to find Commander Jester standing there with his hands up. Rex lowered his weapon and sat up on the desk.

"You alright, captain?" Jester asked. "You don't look to good"

"I'm fine" Rex said stubbornly. "What happened?"

"Well from what Shadow told me, Tech shot you with a stun round," Jester explained.

Rex thought about it and remembered getting into an argument with Commander Tech about aborting the mission or not, the rest was a little foggy.

"Shadow and the others, are they alright? Is everyone still alive?" Rex asked.

"Yeah as far as I know everyone is still here. In fact we gained a person," Jester answered.

"Good we need to evacuate the base right now" Rex said. "Wait, what do you mean we've gained a person?"

Before Jester could answer the door opened and two people stepped into the room, one was Commander Shadow, the other was Captain Emotion. Rex's mouth dropped when he saw the droid captain.

"Unbelievable," Rex said

"I know right? We found him cowering in a corner in the weapons room. Once we managed to get him to his feet we brought him here," Jester explained

Shadow moved the droid over to another corner of the room.

"Has he talked yet?" Rex asked, standing up.

"Um," Jester said, scratching his helmet, "I uh, guess you could say that,"

Rex didn't reply as he moved to the corner where Shadow and Emotion were. Emotion had slumped down into the corner, clingy to what remained of his two droid commanders, his head displaying the dimming black of fear. Rex crouched down to where he could look Emotion eye to "eye" before speaking.

"Alright, Emotion I need answers, what happened here?" Rex asked

When the droid replied it came out in a quiet and shaken voice. "They…They killed them,"

"Who killed them?" Rex pressed

"They…they did…They killed them," Emotion stated.

"Who?" Rex pressed again.

"They…they killed them…they did…they killed them," Emotion repeated.

Rex was about to question the droid again, but the emotional droid just continued to repeat what he had said over and over again in a hushed, mad ramble.

Rex stood back up, looking down on the terrified droid.

"I don't think we'll be able to get anything out of Emotion while he's like this," Rex stated.

"So what are we going to do now?" Jester asked.

Rex thought about it before grabbing his helmet and putting it back on.

"I don't know, but I think I know someone who does," Rex stated.

Rex moved and pulled Emotion to his feet before dragging the droid out into the control room. When Rex stepped out into the control room he saw several of the clone troopers that were there all running to another side of the room. Jester and Shadow came of the room and were surprised by the sudden commotion as well.

"Whoa, what do you think the commotion is about?" Jester asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it is I bet it's not good" Rex answered. "Stay with Emotion, whatever happens don't let Tech near him,"

Rex and Shadow left Jester with Emotion as they moved to the crowd of clones. Once they got through the crowd they saw two clone troopers kneeling next to another clone trooper that was lying on the ground. Rex and Shadow moved forward more to see that clone trooper on the ground had something clingy to his face.

Rex knelt down next to one of the clones to get a closer look at the creature on his brother's face. The creature was skin colored and looked to be some kind of huge spider that looked to be hugging the clone's face, the spider's tail was wrapped around the clone's throat.

"What happened?" Rex asked the clone next to him.

"I don't know, sir, we were searching the research building when he contacted us, saying he found something. When we got to his position we found him on the floor, fighting this which was attached to his helmet. We moved quickly and tried to pull it off of the helmet, but it shot some kind of acid that began to melt the helmet allowing it to get closer to his face. We removed the helmet only to find out that we were too late, the creature had a grip on his face. We tried to pull it off but every time we did its tail just squeezed tighter around his throat. Since we couldn't remove it there and since the other clone we were with had disappeared we figured we'd bring him here to see if we could cut it off," The clone explained.

Rex was about to ask for a vibroblade when Shadow produced one from his boot and handed it to Rex. Rex nodded his thanks and moved the blade next to one of the spider's legs. He then began to cut the leg when suddenly a squirt of acid began to pour from the cut, melting the blade.

"Blast it!" Rex exclaimed, pulling his hand back.

"Now what?" the other clone asked.

Rex shook his head and began to think. As he starred at the creature clinging to his brothers face it became clear that there was no way they could remove the creature without killing his brother. Rex then got up and stormed over to where Jester was guarding Emotion.

When he got there he saw that Jester had his blaster aimed at Tech, the two were unmoving. Rex grabbed Emotion by the shoulder and punched the droid in the face.

"I've had it with you and your twisted experiments, Emotion," Rex said, ignoring the pain in his hand as he punched the droid again. "If you don't start talking soon I will blow you head off,"

Rex reared his arm back and was about to deliver another blow to the droid's head when the droid caught his fist. Rex was surprised by Emotion's action as the droid dropped the remains he was cling to and his head switched to the burning red of anger.

Emotion then tackled Rex to the floor and clasped his hands around the clone captain's throat as he attempted to strangle him. Rex struggled under the droid and tired to push the droid off while Jester tried to pull him off. The two managed to pull Emotion off Rex just in time to allow the droid to catch a glimpse of the clone with the creature on its face.

Emotion loosened his grip on Rex's throat as his head switch to the deep blue of sadness. The droid then crawled off of the clone captain and towards the clone trooper. When he reached the clone he placed his head towards the clone's chest as if listening for something. He then raised his head and turned his attention to the creature. He began to run his hands over the creature, feeling every feature of it as if he couldn't see. When he was done he turned and faced the clone closet to the body.

"Where were you when found him like this?" Emotion asked.

The clone didn't say anything, looking towards Captain Rex for any kind of sign to tell him what to do. A snap of the fingers from Captain Emotion brought the troopers attention back to him.

"Quickly now we don't have much time, where were you when you found him like this and how long has the creature been attached to his face?" Emotion asked again, this time in a much calmer voice.

"In the research building, about five or ten standard minutes ago," The clone answered.

"Oh dear, we're out of time," Emotion said quietly to himself.

Emotion flipped open the panel on his wrist gauntlet and typed in a command.

"Computer, reinitiate the lockdown" Emotion ordered the computer.

"Of course, James" Came the broken voice of the computer. "Reinitiating lockdown,"

Captain Rex and the others moved over to where Emotion was as he watched a timer go down. As the timer reached zero and went off the creature attached to the clone's face began to move. It started with unwrapping its tail from the clone's neck before slowly unclamping it legs. Emotion closed his wrist panel and began to slowly help the creature. When the creature was fully off of the clone's face it fell over to the side and curled up in a ball, dead.

The clone then took a grasp of breath as he woke up and tried to sit up, but Captain Emotion pushed him back down gently.

"Easy there, trooper, just lie back down, it'll all be over soon," Emotion told him.

Emotion then pulled out his zap cannon and placed it over the clone's chest, as soon as he did; several blasters were aimed at him.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you," Rex told the droid captain.

"He's dead either way, Rex, killing him now will save us a lot of trouble in the future," Emotion replied, unmoving.

"Why is that?" Rex asked.

"That thing that was attached to face, implanted an embryo inside of him. In about five standard minutes or so that embryo will mature to a nymph. That nymph will then burst through your brother's chest in an incredibly painful way. So unless, you want your brother to die a painful death, you'll let me kill both him and the chestburster growing inside him," Emotion stated, restraining his anger.

"Can't you remove it or something?" a clone asked.

"In theory I could yes, but I've never tried the procedure before. When I had the hosts implanted with the embryos my intention was to let the embryos gestate so I can have mature, adult xenomorphs. Now if I had more time to study the complete life cycle of the xenomorph in each of its steps I could have cut open one of my subjects so I could study the chestburster more closely, however I didn't have the time, so I have no idea if it's possible to remove it or not. Anyways we are wasting time having this discussion the creature could emerge at any second," Emotion explained.

A sudden groan of pain from the clone caused the droid to direct his focus back to him. The clone let another, much louder groan as his chest seemed to bulge.

"Oh dear," Emotion said. "We're too late,"

The clone let out a scream of pain as the chestburster erupted from the clone's chest spraying blood onto the white armor of the clones closest to the scene and onto Emotion. The chestburster surveyed the room and was about to make a break for it when suddenly, electricity enveloped its body, causing it to exploded.

Emotion lowered his zap cannon and stood up.

"I'm sorry for your lost, but we don't have time to grieve. They know you're here. They might have sensed your presence when you landed, but they know for sure now that you are here and they will stop at nothing until you are either all dead or impregnated," Emotion told them.

"You son of a Bantha," Rex said in anger.

Emotion raised his arms in surrender. "Yes yes, blah, blah, you already knew I was behind this Captain Rex so can we save all this useless fighting and rage for when we get out of here?" Emotion said blandly

"Not you, Emotion" Rex said walking past him. "You,"

Everyone turned to see Rex pointing his blaster at Commander Tech. Commander Tech was standing by the main control panel a surprised look on his face.

"Me? I had no idea about these creatures," Tech said in his defense.

"I don't care, you're the one that shot me when I wanted to abort the mission, and you're the one that took charge of the mission while I was out. You sent them to investigate that research building and now we have a missing trooper," Rex said, before being interrupted.

"Dead trooper actually, if he went missing in the research building he is dead, no question about it," Emotion corrected.

"Fine make that two dead troopers, two dead brothers and that blood is on your hands Commander Tech," Rex finished.

"Captain Rex, I'm sure if you'd let me explain I," Tech tried to say.

Commander Tech didn't get a chance to finish his sentence because Captain Rex shot him right between the eyes. Tech's body fell backwards to the floor on top of the remains of a security droid. Rex lowered his blaster and turned his attention back to Emotion.

"How do we stop these things and manage to get out of here alive," Rex asked.

Captain Emotion was about to suggest something when suddenly Jedi Floraroma woke up with a scream. She sat up clenching her chest while Shade wrapped an arm around her to help support her. Shadow quickly moved to her aid.

"I'm fine," She said, as she pushed the two shadow troopers away and stood up.

"Captain Rex we have to destroy the base right now," She said, as she marched over to where he stood.

"Yes, general we were about to discuss that" Rex told her. "Allow me to introduce Captain James Emotion of the Separatist Droid Army. Until we get out of this mess, he's officially an invaluable asset. Meaning no one gets to scrap him until we are done here is that clear?"

Emotion bowed to the Jedi before saying "Thank you Captain Rex, now then before I went into hiding I activated the bases failsafe,"

"Which means," Rex asked

Emotion didn't respond, he instead turned the clone captain around to show him that Commander Tech's body was moving. Rex withdrew both of his blasters as Shadow and Shade turned their blasters on the body as well.

"You know captain; the chancellor isn't going to be happy when he finds out you shot his special tech advisor," Tech said as he stood up.

"I don't know how you survived that, but I'll make sure you won't survive this time," Rex told him.

Tech smiled and opened his arms wide, but before Rex could pull the trigger he felt a hand pushing one of his arms down. He turned his head to see Emotion moving in front of him. Emotion took a step forward and inspected Tech.

"Identity?" Emotion asked Tech.

Tech's smile quickly turned into a smirk.

"I never could fool you, captain," Tech said, his voice changing to something more sinister and soft.

Tech then reached at the flesh under his chin and began to peel it off as if it was just a mask. Tech continued to do this until the flesh and muscle that lay underneath was completely gone, revealing a bloody, metallic skull. Tech then removed his eyes from their sockets and dropped them to the floor with his flesh and muscle mask. He then withdrew a white handkerchief and removed the blood that covered his head.

"Wait, Tech was an Imposter Droid this whole time?" Pyro stated as he joined the others.

"Makes perfect sense now" Rex stated. "How else would he know were a secret Separatist base was on this planet,"

"Or the codes to remove the bases lockdown," Shadow added.

The imposter droid smiled. "You organics always did have a tough time telling me apart from one of your brothers,"

"Identity, what are you doing here?" Emotion asked.

"When I heard we lost contact with you and the base I begged Count Dooku and the others to investigate what happened here, but they refused, stating that you could handle this yourself" Identity explained "So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I created Commander Tech so that I could make sure the Republic sent a team to investigate. It was difficult to convince them that there was trouble on Felucia, so I had to create a fake distress signal from a Republic cargo ship that could catch their attention and force them to investigate,"

"It makes me glad to hear that you were worried about me, Identity, but when the Republic cruiser entered Felucian space it should have picked up my distress signal," Emotion stated. "That would have warned them of the dangers here and hopefully would have gotten them to destroy the base,"

"I know captain, but I couldn't leave you, so I made sure no one else picked up the signal," Identity told him.

Emotion shook his head in disappointment.

"Well now that's out of the way let's get back to figuring out how to destroy this base and the monsters trapped in here with us," Pyro said.

"Agreed" Rex said, with a nod. "Now, Emotion you mentioned something about a failsafe?"

"Yes the failsafe, as I said I activated it before I went into hiding. In each of the bases I make I install a failsafe that if the base remains inactive for six standard months the base will self-destruct, typically incinerating everything within the area of a small moon, sometimes large depending on how many base I attach to the main. Take this base for example, since it is technically three bases the area affected by the explosion will be larger than typical" Emotion explained.

"Why such a large blast zone?" Pyro asked, intrigued.

"I wanted to make sure that everything or anything that might have had contact with the base is destroyed as well, that way I eliminate any trace of the facility or its existence," Emotion, elaborated.

"Wait; hasn't it already been six standard months?" Jester asked.

"Jester's right, it has been, so why is the base still here?" Shadow asked.

Emotion pondered this. "It's possible that when I activated the bases failsafe I activate the extended one, the one that allows a base to become inactive for at least one standard year, that why I could always come back to the base and continue my research or reuse it if needed," Emotion suggested.

"Great, well we don't have a year to wait, what's Plan B?" Rex asked.

"Well there's only one option." Emotion said as he moved to the main control console.

At the console, Emotion pulled up a holographic model of the base so that everyone could see it.

"Our only option is to place a high explosive charge here, next to the base's reactor" Emotion explained, placing an x to mark where the bomb would have to be placed. "Along with placing an explosive next to the reactor we need to place one at this location,"

Pyro examined the location

"Why there?" He asked.

"That is where X-Q is," Emotion answered.

"X-Q?" Rex asked.

"X-Q is the Xenomorph Queen. We need to place an explosive there to make sure that she and the eggs she has laid are destroyed. I don't doubt that she would be eliminated when the research facility exploded, but this way we can make sure she will be," Emotion explained.

"And how do we get to her?" Pyro asked.

"Through a mile long tunnel that connects the main base to the research facility. It won't be an easy journey since the queen will most likely be heavily protected, after all she is the heart and mind of the hive,"

"Of course it won't," Rex said, under his breath. "Pyro where did you stash the ordnance?"

The demolitions expert thought about it before cursing.

"What?" Rex asked.

"The boys never brought it over here from the north hanger," Pyro said grimly.

"You know" Identity said rubbing his chin. "We never heard anything from them either, not even a distress call or anything else that signals they might be in need of help,"

"As much as I would hate to make matters worse, it's safe to say that every clone you sent off by themselves is dead," Emotion stated. "The xenomorphs would have picked them off one by one, leading them into traps or killing them from the shadows,"

"This day just keeps getting better and better," Rex said to himself.

"So are you saying that the men we left down below are dead as well?" Shadow asked.

"Yes, if they were told to patrol the halls or keep a constant guard it's quite possible that they were killed while patrolling or at the least brought back to the hive where they were killed there,"

Shadow shook his head in disbelief.

"All right, Emotion, let's think logically hear, how could these xenomorphs or whatever you call them kill ten clone troopers without any of us hearing about it? I mean sure a clone could have disappeared, but someone would have reported that or any other strange activity," Jester pointed out.

"Good point, it is possible that the clones down below are still alive, but any that went off on their own are most likely dead,"

"See there is still some hope," Jester mentioned cheerfully.

Rex shook his head.

"Get everyone up here now, we need to regroup before we do anything," Rex ordered.

"What about the explosives?" Pyro asked.

"You heard, Emotion it's too dangerous to go out there alone. Until we can do a head count nobody leaves this room understood?" Rex ordered.

Everyone in the room nodded.

"Captain Rex, before things took a turn for the worse here, the computer had me manufacture some MagnaGaurds. They should still be in the droid factory section of the weapons room. I could activate them along with some of the other spare droids I have there and have them help us with the assault on the hive," Emotion told him.

"Good idea, Emotion, although I hate the idea of having to work with you we need all the hands we can get to help clean up your mess," Rex stated.

Emotion flipped open his wrist panel and typed in a few commands.

"There the droids I had in storage are active and on their way here. They also know not to attack any Republic personal," Emotion said, his head switching to the bright yellow of happiness.

"Look, Rex I know you want to wait until we know how many troopers we have left, but if we wait to get the supplies and put the bombs together until then these things could take us out before we are even ready for them. Let me, Emotion and a few of those magnagaurds go get the supplies and bring them back here," Pyro begged.

Rex thought it over. Pyro was the best demolitions trooper he had ever seen and he didn't want to risk losing him before they could get some kind of bomb made, plus if he took Emotion with him and something happened to the two of them he would lose two valuable assets at once and, given the situation they were in, he could afford to lose either of them, but Pyro had a point. It'd be good to have all the supplies and the bombs ready before the head count so they knew exactly what they had to work with and how to distribute it.

Rex let out a sigh before saying. "Fine you and Emotion can go get the supplies, but make it quick and be careful, I can't afford to lose either of you two,"

"Understood, captain" Pyro said with a salute. "Come on, Emotion, let's go shopping,"

Pyro ran for the elevator with Emotion following reluctantly behind.

"May the Force be with you two and may it protect you as well," Floraroma said to them.

"Thank you Master Floraroma, but it'll take more than the Force to stop these creatures. That's why it's important that we make it back here with the supplies," Emotion told her.

The Jedi only nodded in reply.

"Be careful out there and remember to watch each other's backs," Rex told them.

The two nodded as the doors of the elevator closed and began to take the two to the main floor. From their they would meet up with a few of the droids Emotion sent this way before beginning the hazardous trek to the north hanger.