The demand came through the system again.

CC-2224 TRANSFER TO KAMINO. MEDICAL EVAL. CODE RED. HIGHEST SECURITY.

Fives scowled as another ping came through, searching for Cody's chip. "Run a locator trace on these pings."

"Already on it…running the trace. I see a pattern..." Echo muttered, deep into his task.

Fives knew that look, utter focus like a massiff sinking its teeth into a Nerf steak, that got Echo when he was onto something, so he left him to it. There was only one console between them the two of them, but Fives had connected his datapad to the system. He might not be a medic, but he knew how to hack systems like a fine surgeon.

If he could send enough conflicting orders into the system, he could keep whomever it was off their shebs for a bit. He removed his helmet, set it aside on the console, and focused intently on the screen. Outside of being in the field and blowing up tinnies, this was the work he found the most satisfying. He dove into the binary options of the system, scanning and looking for weaknesses. They needed to stay ahead of their pursuers and convince them Commander Cody was somewhere other than ArmyMed.

He needed a backdoor into the upper levels of the system so he could hack the comms. He slipped some of his custom-written subroutines into the ArmyMed system and waited. Ah, there it was, a backdoor into the 'secure' comms system.

Fives quickly typed a counter-command.

CC-2224 CURRENTLY EN-ROUTE TO KAMINO. CANCEL REQUEST FOR SECURITY DETAIL.

The constant pings for Cody's location went silent for a moment.

Fives rose and crossed the room to where the medics were working on the Commander. Something had changed in their energy levels and there was a franticness to their movements that hadn't been there before. He waited for an opening and reached in to snag a piece of the Commander's discarded armor stashed in a cubby underneath the stretcher. None of the medics paid him any attention.

Fives' returned to his seat, and pulled a plasma cutter from his utility belt. He started dissecting the vambrace. The commander would have to requisition a new one. He'd apologize to the commander later.

Echo glanced over curiously but didn't comment. Fives bent his head over the task, aware that the chatter of the medics had reached a new urgency behind him.

They have their job and I have mine.

He focused only on completing the job he'd set for himself in the fastest time possible. A minute later, he grunted with satisfaction, holding up a tiny tracker chip and carefully sliding it into the smallest pouch on his belt.

Echo cast him a curious glance and then his head nodded in approval as he figured out what Fives was planning. "Clever."

Fives snorted. "That's us. The clever brothers. You find anything?"

"Yes, but you're not going to like it. This pattern of trace and hide is unusually sophisticated; beyond what is usually used in the Republic. I've never quite seen anything like it."

Fives studied it for a moment. He glanced back at Commander Cody, wondering who he'd angered to warrant this kind of unusual treatment.

Knowing the Commander, he did it to protect his brothers. And, he somehow crossed paths with someone who took offense to his methods...

Fives had been known to offend people himself. He admired that quality in a clone. "It's different, but it's still giving a distinct repeater signal. I think that's our opening."

"Yes, I noticed that, too. I think it's coming from-"

A new ping bleeped out from the data console, demanding an update on CC-2224's location.

Fives hissed with annoyance. "Fek, they're persistent! Keep on that Echo, I'll handle this one." He typed a rapid-fire set of commands into his datapad.

CC-2224 RE-ROUTED TO ORD CESTUS. HIGH PRIORITY.

Echo leaned over and read off Fives' datapad. "Ord Cestus? Isn't that a bit out of the way?"

"Point taken." He quickly retyped on his screen. CODE RED. CODE RED. RE-ROUTING TO KALIIDA SHOALS.

"Nicely done. They'll be confused, alright. I like the bit of drama there."

"Krek, we almost forgot something important..." He wrote a furious series of subroutines on his datapad. "We're going to need transfer orders so we can get past the guards on the landing platform."

"Timing will be critical, though. You transmit those too early and they'll figure out he's actually still here."

"I'll transmit them right before we get to the landing pad."

Content that the conflicting subroutines would keep the hunt for the Commander in chaos for a short while, he pivoted in his chair to check on the medics. "Echo and I got them off our shebs, but-" The words stuck in his throat as he took in the scene before him.

Commander Cody was dying. Fives didn't have to be a medic to know that much. The Commander's chest was covered in blood and it was still bubbling up.

Sly was reprogramming the robotic arms with frenetic intensity.

Fives stood up to have a clearer view.

Oh, krek, whatever it was they were doing, they needed to do it faster. No clone could lose that much blood and live for long. Blood had flecked everywhere, even onto his scarred face.

The chatter from the medics had reached a new intensity.

"The positive pressure ventilation failed."

"We can't inflate his collapsed lung without making the bleeding worse."

"None of that will matter if his heart stops from blood loss."

"We'll have to consider an anterolateral thoracotomy-"

"No! He won't survive that procedure."

"At this point, the gains are worth the risk. He has a persistent air leak. You can see it here in the visceral pleura-"

The Wolfpack medic, Iron, pointed in frustration at the swinging mechanical arms. "But, we can't do anything about it with this mechanical menace doing all the work. We need to turn this fekkin' thing off if we have any chance of saving him ourselves."

"Wait- what?!" Sly gave them a startled look up over his control panel. "No one does surgery without the mechanical assist..." His words trailed off as he looked down at the dying Commander.

"Do it," Kix said, his voice low and commanding, no hesitation in his tone. He stared directly at Sly. "Turn the machine off now. It's his only chance."

Fives gave Kix a long-considering look. He'd always admired the quiet confidence of the medic, but this side of Kix was new. He had the mannerisms, voice, and tone of a command clone.

When had that happened? I don't remember Kix ever having command responsibilities.

Sly's hand hovered over uncertainty over the controls of the surgical tools. But, then his gaze swept over the field medics around him, and he shut off the panel with a resounding slap of his hand. He had to believe in his brothers. The mechanical whirl of robotic surgical devices went silent and immediately withdrew back into the ceiling, sterilizing itself as it went.

The medics were already on the move, flipping open their field packs and digging for supplies.

"Work with me," Iron said to Glitch, "we have to steady out his breathing. Understood?"

Glitch nodded. "Copy that."

Kix motioned to Sly and Digger. "You're with me. We are going to focus on his chest, and stop the bleeding."

Sly hesitated. Freezing up and staring at Kix. He wanted to help. But, he wasn't like these other medics, who'd been out battling in the field. He'd only gone through training at Kamino and then been stationed at ArmyMed. His usefulness didn't extend beyond the knowledge of a medsuite.

Kix elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. All the air went out of him. "You've got this," the senior medic muttered under his breath, "you have all the instincts of a good medic. Now, gear up and assist me. Now."

Sly nodded, and Kix's quiet confidence in him took away his fears. He stared up at the scans. He allowed himself to get immersed in the data, like he'd done during sims at Kamino. The images of the organs overlapped in his mind with everything he'd learned.

Trace the route of organ failure.

"The Commander is at imminent risk of hemopericardium," he said quietly to Kix,"we need to focus on the heart, or he risks pericardial tamponade."

Kix stared into the scan a moment, and then nodded, slapping a micro-cauterizer into Sly's hand. "Get started, then."

Sly's jaw dropped. He'd been planning on assisting, not performing actual field surgery himself. He sucked in a hard breath, temporarily frozen, the cauterizer in his hand. He sensed a hard gaze locked on him.

Fives was staring at him a few paces away. All these clones believed in him. He couldn't let them down.

Sly flicked on the micro-cauterizer. "Have the vibro scalpel ready. This is going to happen very quickly." He stared down into the commander's chest and suddenly the bloody mess transformed before him.

No one had been better during his training pod at Kamino. When his pod mates were complaining during meals about the complexity of the course material, Sly tuned them out. All he could dream about was ways to make the sims more challenging. He always wanted more, more and more out of the training. Now, laid out before him was a challenge. Finally.

His pulse quickened as if this was the moment he'd been waiting for his entire life. Time seemed to slow to a crawl and he couldn't hear anything around him. Nothing existed for him anymore other than the damaged organ and his role in repairing it as a medic. He knew exactly what he had to do and what tools he needed to repair it.

Kix slapped the vibro scalpel into his palm. Sly passed back the bloodied cauterizer.

He was aware of the other medics working around him and their soft voices as they spoke back and forth passing tools and quietly consulting. Kix passed him the right tools before he'd even asked for them. He didn't speak, and he didn't think he could at this moment. His entire focus was on the chest wound before him and setting it right again and making the commander whole.

"Hey, Sly. that's it, you're done. You did it."

He sucked in a deep breath and slowly became aware Kix was speaking to him. He blinked hard at Kix, trying to get his brain to focus back on the here and now.

Kix gave him a deep nod. "I've not seen surgery like that before, certainly not from a junior medic. Well done, Sly."

The other three medics nodded in agreement, and Iron looked up from where he was applying a field wrap to the commander's chest. "If you ever tire of running with the boys in blue, the Wolfpack is always looking for good medics."

Sly stared at him, not sure he'd heard him correctly.

Kix snorted lightly in disagreement, lifting the commander slightly so Iron could get the bandage behind his back. "He belongs with the 501st."

Sly did a double-take coming out of his stupor. Wait. What? This morning he was a nobody junior medic at ArmyMed, and now the 104th and 501st were both talking about him? Even if they did get caught and he was sent to Kamino to be mind-wiped or worse, it would be worth it. He'd finally proven what he could do.

Kix ran a scan over to the Commander's chest. "The sooner we get him back to his ship, the better. He's looking at a very long road to recovery."

Iron ran his own scanner over him and shook his head. It was unspoken, but they both knew. Cody might not make it back to the field. Ever. Not with these injuries. It would take a miracle for him to recover from injuries this extensive. He might be able to do light training or flimsiwork, but he wouldn't be the same as before someone put a blaster to his gut. He shook his head. It was a sad end for a clone such as Cody.

"How are we getting out here?" Sly looked toward the locked door and calculated the distance to the landing pad.

"Fives, come here, we need help on our exit strategy," Kix called over his shoulder, his hands still working with the other to get the field wrap perfectly in place. They would need it to hold the Commander's insides together.

The door bleeped alarmingly, signaling it was opening. "You said that door was locked!" Iron growled, dropping the bandage in his hand, and dropping to his knee and grabbing his blaster.

"It is!" Fives said as both he and Echo dropped down to take cover behind the console and drew their DC-17s. "Get down!"

All the medics complied except for Sly, who stood defensively in front of the Commander.

Kix, Iron, Digger and Glitch had all pulled their blasters, bloodied hands gripping the hilts tightly.

The door swished open and the clones stared in disbelief.

Kix recovered first. "Put your blasters away, boys. She's a friendly." He turned to the figure at the door. "Commander Offee, sir, we weren't expecting you."

The Jedi ignored Kix and his explanation, her singular focus only on the injured clone in the center of the room. Cody was still held half-propped up against both Sly and Glitch, the field dressing not quite fully in place yet. He was laying in a bloodied pool on the hover stretcher.

The Jedi crossed the room, her gaze fixed on the injured Commander. It was obvious the rest of them had ceased to exist.

"I don't know what she's doing here, but we have to get out of here," Fives held up his datapad. "Some shab'buir keeps trying to transfer him to Kamino. I've got the system in a loop for now, but we need to get him back up to his ship."

Kix made a split-second command decision. "I hear you, Fives, but let the Jedi do her work."

"I don't understand," objected Iron, "We need to get out of here. We have orders to get the Commander back to his ship."

They were out of time. The surgery had taken too long. But, all Kix had to go on was instinct. It was something he had learned from Rex. And, Commander Cody needed some Jedi interference right about now. "Sly, Glitch, put the Commander down. And, back away."

Reluctantly, the two medics eased the Commander down and backed away to give the Jedi some room.

The Jedi healer never touched him. She held her hands slightly over his damaged chest, breathing deeply. Kix stared, trying to figure out what she was doing.

Iron slipped off his gloves and tugged on his helmet. He gestured to the others to do the same. "Who is she?" the Wolfpack medic objected over a private channel. "And, how did she find us?"

"She's a healer," Kix responded, looping in the rest of the clones in the room on their conversation. "One of the best, from what I understand, and she's worked with the Commander before." Admittedly, he didn't know a lot about how these Jedi healers operated. The 501st never had such a luxury. All of their injured were treated by B-1s, or evaluated and shipped off to one of the medstations.

The team of medics stood around staring at both the Jedi and the commander. And, waited. Next to him, Sly started to fidget. Kix wanted to tell him to hold still, but he understood Sly's impatience. This was taking too long. He also wanted her to hurry up and finish whatever Jedi thing she was doing. Nothing seemed to be happening.

They hadn't covered anything about Jedi healing during their medic training. The only things they'd learned were Jedi were all-powerful. (He later found out this was not the case. He'd seen some dead ones out in the field and they bled red like everyone else.)

Jedi were human and fallible, just like clones. And, he'd seen many of them make mistakes, costly ones, which cost clones and fellow Jedi their lives. But, through his friendship with Commander Tano and serving under General Skywalker, he'd seen first-hand Jedi who cared as much about clones as their own brothers. Instinct told him to give this Jedi some time, even as rushed as they were to get Commander Cody back to his ship.

Although, he was starting to think he'd made a mistake.

She was still just standing there, breathing deeply, hands over his chest. Perhaps his faith in the Jedi was misplaced. Maybe this was a waste of time. Could he interrupt the Jedi? Did he have that power as a senior medic?

Commander Cody lifted slightly into the air and the field wrapping dropped away. He inhaled sharply, staring in shock at the commander's battered chest. Underneath the Jedi's slightly trembling hands, the damaged flesh was knitting back together. Not perfectly, he'd still scar, but he was healing and doing so very rapidly. She shifted her hands slightly, focusing on the area over his lungs.

All of the medics crowded around Sly's monitoring station. The Jedi were modifying damaged structures internally before changes could be seen on a surface level. Commander Cody's coloring improved and his breathing steadied into a deep regular pattern.

The Jedi opened her eyes and stepped back, stumbling slightly.

Kix and Glitch both rushed in and grabbed her elbows, supporting her.

Deep lines of fatigue encircled her eyes now which hadn't been there before. Kix had never realized healing took such a toll on Jedi. These healing gifts came with a price.

"Are you alright, Commander?"

She blinked up at Kix. "Yes. I'm... alright. I can stand now." The medics ensured she was stable on her feet before letting her go. "Tell Cody that…" she stopped, and looked down at him sadly. "Tell him… that…." she stopped, put a hand over her mouth, and shook her head, not finishing her sentence. With a hurried Jedi bow and a swirl of robes, she left the room.

Iron stared after her as the door closed again, a thoughtful look on his face. He returned his attention to t he commander. "Come on, let's get that field dressing back on. You- junior medics- lift him." He glanced over at Kix. That... was interesting."

Kix snorted quietly with amusement under his breath, reaching to give the bandage a final expert tuck.

Fives stood over them with crossed arms, impatiently waiting for them to finish. "You two can discuss the mysterious ways of the Jedi later. Let's get out of here."

Kix nodded. "We're done here."

Sly tossed a field blanket over the bloodied mess of the hover stretcher.

Fives looked over at Echo, who gave a final glance down at his monitoring screen.

"No indications they are onto us," Echo said, rising up from his seat and grabbing his DC-15s and rifle.

The Wolfpack medic holstered his blaster so he could guide the hoverstretcher. "New shiny. Get up here with me. Find us the quickest route to the rooftop."

Fives and Echo slipped out into the corridor to make sure it was clear, before slipping back in a moment later and waving the medics onward.

Sly suddenly noticed it was too quiet. There should be more activity in the corridor at this time of day.

They hurried around the corner and spotted... a whole group of black-uniformed men who were not clones. Military men, yes, but not clones. Who were these men? Natborns took officer jobs or clerical jobs. But, they didn't operate in squads armed to the teeth.

Fives spotted them at the same time. "Fek!" He quickly reversed course and took them down an adjacent corridor.

Sly glanced back over his shoulder. Too late. They'd been spotted. "Faster!" They ducked down another corridor, trying to dodge their pursuers. "What's our exit strategy?"

Fives reached into his smallest utility pouch, palming the small chip he'd dug out of the commander's armor. Another hoverstretcher rushed by them with an injured clone headed who looked as if he was headed for a surgical suite. Fives stretched out his arm and flicked the chip onto the unconscious trooper's chest, muttering a quiet apology to the unconscious trooper.

There was an open lift up ahead, and they barreled for it, ushering aside a group of droids slowly making their way to the lift. "Code Red! Coming through!" Fives shouted, seeming to enjoy all of it, a bit too much.

The lift opened onto the rooftop landing pad. And, they ran straight into the waiting security detail on the rooftop.

"About time you boys get here."

Sly froze. It was the same black uniforms that had been pursuing them, but now worn by clones.

"Fek," hissed Fives, taking up a defensive position in front of Commander Cody. Echo fell into place beside him, and Kix, Digger and Glitch followed suit. Sly awkwardly looked for a place to stand, not sure of his role in this formation. Gah. He was not great at clone things. He shuffled into place next to Echo.

But, Iron walked straight up to lead trooper in the black uniform and grinned. "Right on time, Sinker."

A clone with red-striped hair stepped forward to talk with Sinker and Iron. "I hate to break up this party, but my scans show another squad closing in on our location. We have to move, brothers."

"Comet, call our ride," Sinker ordered.

"Already incoming."

Seconds later, a LAAT dropped out of the thick lane of commuter traffic flowing overhead.

At the same moment, another squad of black-uniformed men, definitely natborns this time, burst out of the hover lift and ran toward them. Wolfpack troopers on jetpacks dove out of the LAAT, and grabbed the hoverstretcher of Commander Cody. They took off in the air with the hoverstretcher floating it into the safety of the waiting LAAT.

It was a seamless extraction, and Sly stared in slack-jawed awe, never having seen anything like it. He probably would have continued to stand there and stare, acting like the shiny they continually excused him of being, if someone hadn't dropped a smoke grenade, creating chaos and confusion on the rooftop.

Sly had no difficulties breathing with the filters on his helmet, but he could hear coughing behind him and knew their pursuers were close.

Iron pressed a cable into Sly's hands, and it took him a moment to release it was attached to the LAAT.

"Grab a cable if you want to get out of here!" Iron yelled, and the immediate sharp tug made him realize the ship was already ascending.

Sly held onto the cable with his gloved hands. He looked down below as the uniformed officers, one of whom had already discovered the pile of unconscious clones. They stared up at them, but did not open fire. They could not. They were surrounded by civilian vessels. As they were lifted, they were quickly pulled into the interior of the gunship.

"Nice uniform," Iron said in a teasing tone to the tattooed trooper.

"There was a squad of boys waiting for you on the rooftop. We decided they needed a nap."

It took him a moment to become aware of his surroundings and realize he was sitting on the floor of the gunship next to the commander's hoverstretcher. He tugged off his helmet and quickly went to check on Commander Cody. Still a bit stunned as to what had just happened. That was about the most amazing thing he'd ever done in his short clone life. He was so winded he could barely breathe, but he wanted to do it all over again. Would all his days be like that from now on?

Someone pressed a flask of water in his hand.

"Drink something," Fives slapped a pouch of water into his hand, "you like you're going to pass out."

He nodded his thanks and drained the flask in several greedy gulps. A second pouch was pressed into his hand, and Sly nodded his thanks. He wasn't used this way clones watched out for each other. It wasn't like this on Coruscant, and ArmyMed, where it was every clone out for themselves.

He turned his attention back to Commander Cody, running his scanner over the injured clone's chest.

That can't be right.

He quickly recalibrated his scanner and ran the readings again. He passed the scanner over to Kix. The senior medic leaned in to take his own readings. He was silent for a long moment as he analyzed the findings. He shook his head slightly, meaning now was not the time to discuss the strange happenings in the surgi-suite.

Sly shook his head, trying to take it all in.

He ran his scanner again, staring down at the results on his own, and studying the sleeping commander.

What had happened to the commander, in the last few minutes in the surgi-suite had changed everything. His prognosis had gone from a severely injured clone permanently off combat duty to a normal recovery from a blast wound. The wound was already well on its way to healing and didn't look like he'd been in surgery only minutes before.

Who was that Jedi and why had she intervened on behalf of Commander Cody?

He hadn't seen many Jedi in his lifetime, but all of them seemed aloof. This Jedi had gone out of her way to save the Commander.

He tucked his scanner away and grabbed his helmet and slid it back on, welcoming the cool air of the fans and filters as it sealed into place. He added this to the list of things he knew about, but shouldn't talk about it. They'd accomplished their mission and gotten the commander out of their alive. He grinned inside his helmet as they broke atmo.

I'm finally leaving Coruscant and I'm part of the 501st.

He felt like the luckiest clone alive.

Sly glanced down at the commander and checked his vitals again.

No, Commander Cody is the luckiest clone alive. Against all odds, he was going to live.