Kamino

"This is Gregor, all clear on this end" came the reply on Rex's Commlink. Rex breathed a sigh of relief. They had done it. Just the two of them had taken over the largest ship currently in the Imperial fleet.

"We've got a choice. I have already blocked the other ships communications so the ground forces on Kamino will have no way of knowing we're on our way. But, there's nothing to stop the ships up here from sending reinforcements down to Kamino the second that they see us leave this ship. Right now, they have no idea that this ship has been hijacked. So, I propose that either we take our chances and hope we don't get spotted leaving this ship, or we use the Long Night of Solace to destroy the rest of the blockade, and risk being killed before we even make it onto the planet." There was a brief pause before Gregor's reply came back over the commlink

"Well I don't know about you, but I've always wanted to pilot a Praedor"

Rex knew Gregor was just trying to look on the bright side of the task that they were about to undergo, but the idea of destroying whole ships filled with his brethren did unnerve the 501st commander. However, he knew that Gregor was right, there was no way that they could risk leaving the rest of the blockade up here. For all they knew, their orders were to start an orbital bombardment if anyone got through. With a blockade this large, Rex wouldn't be surprised. If that were to happen, that would mean the death of even more clones.

Rex gave the go ahead and sat down on the captain's chair. For now, there was nothing he could do. The broken windows were still covered by the blast doors, the bridge was cut off from the rest of the ship, and there was no way for him to help from the communications bridge, except jam the other ships' communications.

Meanwhile, in the control bridge, Gregor was familiarising himself with the dashboard of switches, levers and buttons splayed out in front of him. During his time as a commando in the Grand Army of the Republic, he had piloted a Venator on a couple of occasions, and these controls seemed to be similar. He assessed his situation. The shield strength of the Long Night of Solace was unprecedented, but he was not sure how long they would last against six fully armed Venator ships. However, he estimated that they would last a good ten minutes before his opponents' firepower broke through. As he scanned over the diagnostics for the ships own armaments a smile crept over his face. With guns like these, there was no way he would need all ten of those minutes. The Long Night of Solace contained state of the art weaponry that Gregor had only ever dreamed about. He had heard rumours that the Republic had experimented with using Kyber crystals to fuel some of their strarships' weapons, but had always thought they were just that; rumours. But this ship said otherwise.

One large canon was mounted at the base of each bridge, their design was reminiscent of the ion cannons that defended many major Republic outposts in the outer rim. With a crack of his knuckles and a grit of his teeth, Gregor initiated his assault on the blockade, not liking what he was doing. The sheer power of these cannons surprised Gregor. He had expected them to be powerful, but was not prepared for their full potential.

The whole ship rocked as the cannons fired, each in opposite directions, tearing through their respective targets in a single salvo. Gregor watched out the window as one Venator on either side was torn in half, and pieces of debris were pushed from the explosions and fires that ensued on the two halves of the ship. As the remaining Venators turned to position themselves against the Night of Solace, two to the right, one to the left, and one in front, they were met by a wave of blaster bolts from the hundreds of ordinary cannons that were mounted on the Praedor. The entire space around Gregor was filled with green shots, the sheer number of which made short work of the Venators' which were left shields. The never-ending onslaught of the Praedor continued. There seemed to be an endless supply of turrets for Gregor to unleash upon the blockade, punching holes in the decks of his opposing ships. Any attacks made by the Venators on the Night of Solace seemed futile. The ship lit up as shimmers flickered all over the Praedor's hull, but the shield showed no signs of weakness, easily absorbing the attacks. Before long, all that was left of the blockade was debris floating through space, and one enormous flagship.

From within the communications bridge, Rex hadn't been able to see a thing, but he had felt what was going on. The shaking of the ship had given Rex a clear indication of what was going on, and the sudden calmness that had now descended over the ship signalled to him that the fighting was over.

"Time to get onto our home world brother" the voice came over Rex's commlink loud and clear.

"Yeah… you wouldn't happen to have some spare Kamino guard armour I could wear on the surface lying around do you?" Rex asked.

"There might be one or two sets on this bridge for you, what happened to the troops on your bridge?"

"I might have caused them all to be sucked into space." Rex's reply was met with laughter from the other bridge.

"I'll make sure that this ship is inoperable before I leave the bridge. Sit tight where you are, I'll make my way to you."

Gregor quickly got changed and shoved his commando armour into his nearly empty duffle bag, along with a change of armour for Rex, and set a charge on the command console. Gregor had been a bit more strategic than Rex at disabling his elevator, merely leaving it stuck at the top, so that when he got in, he could simply unjam it, and ride it down the shaft. As he rode down he detonated the charge, sending the control bridge into a thousand pieces of debris, now strewn across space.

The doors slid open to reveal four officers all with their blasters aimed straight at Gregor's chest.

"Don't shoot!"

Gregor was already on his knees, arms extended out towards his welcoming party in a sign of mercy, dressed in his Kamino guard uniform.

"What happened up there" barked one of the officers holding Gregor at gunpoint.

Gregor rose to his feet and dropped his arms.

"The captain went mad. He disabled the elevators and started attacking the other ships. I think he was working for the Jedi. He was saying that the Emperor was evil and had deceived us all. The other clones and I tried to stop him, but as you know, very few of us on the bridge were armed. There was nothing we could do, so I did what I had to, and blew up the bridge. Who knows what he could've done with access to a ship this powerful." Throughout his entire story, Gregor had been shaking. He had been trained well in the art of espionage and deception, and knew how to sell his lies. Despite this, the clone officers still had their suspicions.

"Alright, trooper, come with us for a quick debrief" ordered the same officer as before.

"Y-yes sir" Gregor's reply stuttered out of his mouth.

The three guards took Gregor's weapons and kept him at gunpoint as they began marching him towards the other bridge, unaware that it too was jeopardised. As they continued on their journey, the guards' cautiousness began to wane. Their guns dropped to their side, and their silence was broken by light chatter between each other. The entourage rounded a corner, into a corridor devoid of any life. Gregor took this opportunity to break free of his captors. One trooper was leading the way, whilst there was one trooper trailing slightly behind him on each side. Gregor leapt forward and wrapped his beefy arm around the lead guard's neck and spun him around, using his body as a meat shield to prevent the other two from shooting at him. He unclipped a pistol from the guard's holster and quickly dispatched the other two guards, their bodies crashing to the ground with a thud. Gregor maintained his grip on the clone that he already had in his clutches, shutting off the oxygen supply to his body before violently jerking his arm, as to break the clone's neck, and as he released, the third body hit the ground. Gregor made a quick stop to hide the bodies in a maintenance cupboard before continuing towards Rex.

By the time Gregor arrived at the bottom of the communications bridge, Rex had managed to get the elevators working again. Gregor had expected the bottom of the elevators to be bustling with guards, making sure that whoever had hijacked the command bridge wasn't going to attempt the same thing here, but to his surprise, it was empty. Gregor stepped inside the lift, and seconds later was standing on the second bridge of the Night of Solace.

"I'm assuming the lack of guards down there had something to do with you?" Gregor asked as he embraced his brother, happy to see him still in one piece.

"Yeah. I sent out a code red in the hangar bay. Apparently, there was a Jedi spotted there" laughed Rex in reply. He wasn't really sure why he was laughing. He guessed it was probably just out of relief. Relief that against all odds; they had made it. They had taken on an entire blockade, and the two of them had come out on top. But he knew that was the easy part. Now they had to figure out what was going on down on the planet. Through Gregor's destruction of the command bridge, the Night of Solace had been rendered useless, cutting off any chance of orbital backup to the cloning facility, and cut off the only way of opening the hangar bay doors, ensuring that the only way onto the planet was either the single man drop pods, or the escape pods. Gregor handed Rex his Kamino Guard outfit and he quickly got changed into it, but made sure he took his 501st armour with him.

Together, the two rebellious clones walked the hallways of the behemoth. They were heading for the drop pods, as they were the subtlest mode of orbit to surface transport, but they made sure that they ejected all the escape pods and other drop pods along the way, as to avoid being followed. Once there were only two drop pods left on the entire ship, they stepped in and ejected, hurtling towards the planet at speeds that would make most people nauseous, but not hardened veterans such as these two.

The two drop pods slammed into the cloning facility at the clones' home world of Kamino, kicking up pieces of rubble, as a large dent formed under each pod on the pristine bridge of the facility. The inclement weather was a perfect mask for their arrival, as even as they landed, very little could be heard over the crashing of the waves down below, and the thunder up above. Rex and Gregor stepped out of their pods and onto the bridge that they had landed on, sea water crashing up onto their feet. They had both spent a lot of time in this facility, and got their bearings quickly.

"The best place to start would be the cloning centre, where the chips are put in. We can grab a chip from there and examine it fully." Rex said as he began making his way towards the cloning centre.

The pair walked through three different buildings on their way to the clone centre, passing many clones and Kaminoans alike. However, their disguises held strong, and no one suspected that they were not part of the Kamino guard, and they made it to the cloning room with no interruption.

Once inside, the two clones got to work, examining the various pods and capsules containing the perfect replications of the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett. They were alone in the room, that was full of large cylinders with rows of clones attached to them. Each cylinder represented a different stage in the cloning process, and contained about 500 pods. Rex brought up the earliest sector, and gave each capsule a scan. At this stage in the cloning process, the clones were merely foetuses, being supplied with the augmentations and supplements that gave the clones their accelerated growth rate and military prowess on the battlefield. The scan showed that there were no inhibition chips inside the clone foetuses. Rex moved onto the next stage in the process. As he initiated his next scan he was startled by the noise of the doors sliding open behind him. A tall, slender Kaminoan walked into the room. She walked over to the first cylinder that Rex had just left and began tapping away on the panel before looking up and noticing the two clones, who were unsure what to do, and stood still about ten meters away from her.

"Good evening." The soft words that left the Kaminoan's mouth, followed by a delicate bow before she returned to the routine system checks she was performing, were a relief to the clone troopers. The Kaminoan had unsettled the two clones, and they waited a couple of minutes until she left before returning to what they were doing.

In that time, the scan that Rex had initiated had finished, and the results showed exactly what he had hoped for. By the time the clones reached the second phase of their growth, the chips had been implanted. This meant that all the chips that were implanted, and the devices used to activate and implement said chips must be stored in a room adjacent to where they stood. All clones were processed in a separate room, known as a 'transition room', before they entered the next phase of their growth. The room for the transition between phase one and two was the closest room to the one they were in now. They headed outside onto a bridge which split off in two different directions, to the right was one of the training facilities, this one focused on small unit tactics, and straight ahead was the transition room they were looking for. Back outside, the storm raged on, and the rain pounding on the bridge and the clones' helmets was making it hard to see, but the guards that stood outside the transition room were unmistakeable. Not a single room they had been to so far in the facility had been actively guarded, let alone guarded outside in this weather. The two troopers decided to wing it and began walking towards the transition room.

As they drew closer they realised that the guards stationed at the entrance to this room were not clones. They wore black armour that bore much resemblance to the standard clone ARC trooper armour, but instead of the Kaminoan helmets that all clone troopers were equipped with, the guards wore black peaked caps. There was one officer on each side of the door, and once the two clones got within firing range, the guards moved into a firing position and raised their blasters to take aim at the advancing clone troopers.

"Halt! You are not authorised to proceed beyond this point. Turn around now or you will be shot." Ordered the guard on the left, firing a shot over the clones' heads as a warning.

"Follow my lead, if it doesn't work then we can always resort to slightly more aggressive negotiations." Rex whispered to Gregor, before elevating his voice and directing himself towards the two guards. "I am CT-7567, also known as Captain Rex. I am the commanding officer in charge of the 501st legion, under command of Lord Vader. If you do not allow me through then I will personally see to it that you have a meeting with Vader himself and explain why you shot his commanding officer."

With that Rex continued striding towards the two guards. The officers were clearly uneasy, but neither of them wanted to be on the wrong side of Darth Vader.

Rex walked through the doors and Gregor followed closely behind. Staring them in the face as soon as they were inside was a large computer, hooked up to a series of complicated relays and devices that neither of the clones had ever seen before. Gregor got to work hacking into the computer, eager to see what it was used for, whilst Rex set about exploring the rest of the room. All along the side wall of the room were various operating theatres, equipped with pieces of advanced medical equipment, and medical droids in power saving mode. Other than the operating theatres, and the computer, the only objects in the room were shiploads of crates.

Rex walked over to one and tried to pry it open. It was locked. He pressed the muzzle up against the sealing between the case and its lid, and wrapped his hand over it, in order to muffle any sound that the blaster produced. A searing pain shot into his hand as he squeezed the trigger and the muzzle burned red hot for a second. However, his armour had taken most of the heat, and he knew his burns would not be serious. He glanced over to the door to make sure the guards hadn't heard, and then continued to open the box.

The box was filled with the chips that Rex recognised from when the Jedi council had discovered their existence a few months earlier. Rex reached in and retrieved one of the chips, turning it over in his hand. It was odd. For all his life, up until mere months ago, he had had one of these sitting in his brain, dormant, waiting for him to betray his closest friends. His thoughts were interrupted by Gregor, who was quietly calling out for him to come and look at something he had found. Rex put down the chip and walked over to see what his brother had found.

Meanwhile the guards outside were getting sceptical. They had heard nothing about a visit sanctioned by Vader, and couldn't contact Night of Solace for any more information. The clones had been in there for longer than the guards were comfortable with and they were growing nervous. If they weren't out soon they would have to check what they were doing.

Back inside, Rex couldn't believe what he was seeing on the screen. Finally, some good news. Not only was it possible to deactivate the chips inside his brothers' brains, but they could do it from here. All it took was a simple code, transmitted from a device set to the right frequency, and just as easily as they were turned on, they could be turned off.

"What are we waiting for?" Rex smiled, and Gregor began the process of transmitting the code. IT would take a couple of minutes before the transmitter was ready, and the two clones decided to spend this time seeing if there was anything else to be found in the room. But their search was cut short.

In through the door came the two guards, who instantly noticed the display on the computer monitor. The clones were on the far side of the room, too far away to stop the guards from first destroying the relay, and with it, any chance of sending out the deactivation codes. The guards then turned their attention to the clones, but in the time that it had taken them to disrupt the broadcast, Rex had drawn his weapons and the guards didn't have time to get any shots off in the clones' direction before their skulls were drilled through by the blaster bolts from Rex's weapons.

But the clone didn't care about winning their duel, because they had lost their last hope. They both raced over to the monitor. Gregor beat Rex to it and quickly analysed the situation.

"Thank god. The computer isn't damaged, do you have anything we can transfer these codes onto?" Gregor asked Rex.

"Take this." Rex handed his partner a small data pad, slightly bigger than his hand.

Gregor hooked it up and began transferring the codes over, while Rex got to work surveying the transmitter. From what he could tell, the main relay was completely ruined, the guards' blasters had completely torn a hole through the middle of it, and left it well beyond repair. But, from what Rex could see, the local relays were still intact, meaning that short ranged transmissions could still be made.

"Is there any way you could hook that data pad up to this?" Rex asked, holding up the local relay. These smaller transmitters were designed to be portable, and therefore were light and no bigger than a suitcase.

"I'll give it a go."

A few minutes later the transmitter was ready to go. The relay was designed to be able to encapsulate an entire planet, therefore, if everything worked, the chips inside all of the clones both on Kamino and the orbiting ships, would be switched off.

"Here goes nothing" said Gregor as he pressed transmit on Rex's data pad.