"I need more caf," Iron rubbed at his eyes, sure there was grit under there that was scratching at both his corneas. When had he last slept? It seemed he was now glued to this molecular microscope and he'd never done anything else in his short life.

Kix frowned at him and pulled out his scanner, running the device over him like a wand. Iron swatted it away irritably, but Kix ignored him. "Elevated heart rate. Increased ocular twitch response. You've had way too much already. I'm cutting you off."

Iron glared at him and defiantly reached for the nearest caf cup and swigged down the dregs at the bottom. He grimaced at the bitter taste. "Fek, I think you're right. I'm cutting myself off." He tossed the cup into the nearest flash bin.

Kix 'hmmped' and snapped his scanner back onto his belt. "You find anything new?"

"No, I'm just going in circles." He pushed out an exasperated breath. '"There are thousands of medics, but none of us discovered these chips when scanning our vode for injuries. Why go to such lengths to hide them?"

"Maybe they didn't," Sly gestured them over to where he'd been huddled over a medbay terminal next to Fives. "We stumbled across some interesting research."

"By stumbling, he means hacked," Kix said as they crossed the room. He fished in his belt pouch for a rations bar, split it in half, and handed a piece to Iron.

"Yes, I got that part," Iron said, rolling his eyes, but accepting the offering of food with a nod of thanks.

"I'm getting to that part," Fives said, unperturbed by the surly, sleep-deprived Wolfpack medic. "The earliest mention of the bio-chips is a transcript of a comm call between Chief Medical Scientist, Nala Se, and an unidentified party in the Republic."

Kix leaned over Fives' shoulder to look at his research. "That call was made ten years before the first battle of Geonosis."

Fives nodded. "Yes. They've been part of the clone template for a long time. However, interestingly enough, they were not part of the very early initial batches of clones, such as the NULL Arcs."

"All of these early clones were considered very experimental," Iron pointed out. "Most of them were discarded. They wanted to discard the NULLs, too, but Skirata stepped in."

"With good reason," Fives grumbled, "have you met them? They're flippin' crazy." Kix glared fiercely at both of them for their talk of discarding clones, but Fives continued as if this were an inevitable part of their existence. "But, all later generations of clones, from Gen1s onwards, had chips implanted. There's something else of interest. The point of contact in the Republic changed. While still unidentified, there's a note the initial contact was now deceased and someone new was giving the orders regarding the clone army. This party contacted the Kaminoans early on to ensure the inhibitor chips would work as promised."

Kix chewed his rations bar slowly, feeling the glucose hitting his brain. "What does that mean- work as promised? What behavior are they inhibiting?"

Fives shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. But, it wasn't all that hard to find information on the inhibitor chips. I don't think the Kaminoans were trying that hard to cover up the existence of these things. But, since we didn't know about them, not even you medics knew about them, there could be something more going on."

"That would be in character for the Kaminoans," Iron mused. He looked thoughtful for a long moment. "We're soldiers. We've been trained to take down any enemy. I don't remember much of our training telling us not to do things."

"Except disobey orders," Sly commented with an offhand shrug, noticing Iron and Kix had been eating. He started rooting around in his belt pouch for a rations bar.

The others stared at him, but he was oblivious as he searched for something to eat.

"But, we always obey orders… " Kix's voice trailed off even as he said the words.

Fives stared at him as they both mulled over the implication of what he'd just said. "Do we though? On the surface level, yes. We're the perfect soldiers doing exactly what we were designed to do. Go where we are told and do what we are told. But, we do all have a degree of autonomy."

Kix looked at Sly and Iron. "As medics, we outrank everyone, even command clones," Kix said. He thought of the times he'd overruled the Captain because Rex was injured and needed rest.

"Echo and I have gone around the system many times to get things done," Fives said proudly, puffing out his chest a bit. Echo looked away, as if not willing to fess up to some of their more nefarious deeds.

"It was the only way I could get things done at ArmyMed," Sly admitted. "I didn't pull the medic card very often, but I was always going around the system. There were just too many rules there."

"And, that's why we like you," Fives said with a fond grin.

Kix ignored their bonding moment and kept on point with the conversation. "But, you're not the only ones. The Captain and Commander Cody broke so many rules and regulations to rescue our vode they almost court-martialed both of them."

"We all did," Fives asserted. "We agreed to be part of the mission knowing the consequences. But, that's what distinguishes us from a droid army. We can process information and freely make decisions. I've argued with the Captain on more than one occasion when I think he's wrong. He overrules me sometimes, but I still have a say. We don't follow orders blindly."

Iron folded his arms across his chest. "If we were created in such a way that allows some degree of autonomy, why would we need something implanted in us that inhibits us?"

Kix paced the room as he worked through possibilities. "A behavioral control chip would stop a behavior that is undesirable…. or create a new behavior that is more desirable."

Echo spoke up after remaining silent for the conversation. "And, just why would you want to suddenly start or stop a behavior in millions of clones who have already received ten years of intensive training?"

Fives stared off in the distance, his gaze unfocused. "We need to figure out what these things do."

"And, just how do we do that?" Echo challenged.

Fives' gaze sharpened and he looked at his brother. "We trigger them."

# # #

A/N: Hello all! I'm trying to get back to the days where I uploaded "five-page" chapters, (or chapters of 1,200 words or less.) I have a lot of content written for Rex II and the upcoming siege at Anaxes. But, I'm finding large chapters to be unwieldy. So, I'm getting back to the way I did chapters in "Whatever to Captain Rex?" Nice short little nuggets of action. I have the follow-up chapter to this one ready to go and I'll upload it in a few days. I'm excited to bring you a lot of new content with this story. There's a lot of Cody in the next chapter coming up and some great Rex-Cody interactions.

Updated 9/16/21. Many thanks to the guest reviewer who pointed out the clones would not use "BBY" as a reference of time. (I took this out of the dialogue in this updated version.) They pointed out this would be the equivalent of saying World War I at the time before World War II happened. This is an outstanding point. (I'm always a bit saddened when someone logs in as a guest reviewer because I can't thank them personally for their outstanding comments. I always love savvy readers who pick up things I never considered or who look at things in a whole different light.)