As she entered the hangar Ahsoka's eyes immediately singled out Skoran's V-Wing parked alongside the line of V-19's near the back wall, it's burnt orange and black paint scheme easily made it stand out against the dusty grey and clay red livery of the standard Republic fighters that the clones used. The Togruta suddenly became aware of how quiet said hangar was, uncharacteristically so considering, not to mention the fact that there was no reason for the clones that worked here to-

A noise caught her attention and Ahsoka glanced round the vast space trying to locate where it had come from whilst doing likewise with her ears. Once again the sound reached her and the Padawan was able to this time follow it to its source which was... Skoran's fighter. Her earlier and present feelings of sorrow and curiosity quickly passed away as she heard the sound for a third time. It was coming from the cockpit of the V-Wing.

Needless to say she immediately became suspicious, it wasn't the first time that the Separatists had had someone onboard a Republic vessel or in the Clone Army's ranks after all. Doing her best to keep as quiet as possible, and with her hands poised to either grab her lightsabers or use the Force, Ahsoka slowly made her way up to Skoran's star fighter. As she did so the noise became more pronounced along with a voice muttering to whoever it belonged to.

Cautiously, the young Togruta pulled herself up to where she could stand on the starboard wing and leaned forward to look into the cockpit whilst being ready to- A shape at the bottom of the space suddenly came into view as someone or something sat bolt upright with a start. And for a moment Ahsoka felt her heart jump out of her chest as she lost her grip and began to topple backwards only for something to grab her right hand and pull the Padawan back towards the fighter which enabled her to reclaim her balance as well as as taking in deep breaths to calm her rapidly beating heart.

"Ahsoka? Are you alright?" There was no mistaking the voice she heard and, looking over, the Togruta saw a lime green hand holding her own in a firm grip. Turning to look back at the V-Wing she found herself, though without any surprise this time, face to face with a certain Mirialan Padawan. "Barriss?" Ahsoka said, as the other girl let go of her hand, and seeing that she had regained her balance, and immediately turned her attention back to what she had, no doubt in Ahsoka's mind, been doing when and possibly even before the former had entered the hangar.

"Can I ask exactly what it is that you're doing?" the Togruta asked as Barriss continued to rummage about the cockpit once again before replying without looking up at her. "Ahsoka, you know as well as I do that Skoran's not the kind of person to be taken down let alone on such a thing as a scouting mission." "I know," Ahsoka replied. "But that doesn't change the fact that he was shot down-"

"-And we both know that he's survived equally if not more dangerous situations with only a few bumps and bruises, not to mention falling from a great height is nothing new to him." "I'll buy that," said the other, "but what I want to know, more than anything else, is why you are searching around in Skoran's personal starfighter?" This time Barriss did look up at her to reply, pausing briefly in her search. "Exactly. Skoran's starfighter," the Mirialan stressed.

"We both know that he would never fly one of the "standards", as he calls them, unless he had no choice. He left his V-Wing here on purpose. It's like he knew that there were Separatist forces already on Ralmao, and that means-" Here she went back to searching the cockpit whilst speaking, "-Skoran must have left something to tell us what his backup plan is." "Like a holo recording or something?" Ahsoka suggested, leaning forwards to see if she could see anything herself from where she was.

"Exactly," Barriss replied, reaching down once again. "And given that he trusts us as much as he trusts Hilde or Ghost, he's no doubt put it... Here!" She gave a cry of triumph as, after running her fingers along the underside of the instrument panel where the left side foot control was for the wing angler on that side, she felt a small panel slide away and something dropped into her waiting hand. Sliding the panel back again Barriss held up the object in question.

It was a holo communicator, but unlike any model that they had ever seen. True, it was circular in shape like normal holocomms, but this one was made out of a dulled metal. In the Padawans' minds it had no doubt once been shiny and had been decorated with various viking symbols carved into the surface along with more than a few dragons, not that they were surprised at all in the least.

What they did know, however, was that they had found Skoran's personal holocommunicator, something he was almost never seen without. "Well," said Ahsoka, after a long pause during which they had both gazed at their finding, and not without trepidation mark you. "I think we found what we're looking for. Real question is, is there anything on it?" "We're about to find out," Barriss replied, and she pressed the button on the left of the main one that played the last message recorded.

The icy blue light from the projector within flickered for a moment (as was the case with such devices) before a projected figure of Skoran himself appeared with his helmet tucked under his right arm. There was a moment's silence before he spoke. "To whoever has found this, then something has no doubt happened to me. Fortunately this isn't the first time I've been caught in an apparently dead-end situation and as such, I took the added precaution of leaving the bridge controller behind.

'You'll find it in the compartment on the right-hand side of the seat." Barriss quickly spotted what the message was talking about and her nimble fingers flipped open the lid of a rectangular box near the backrest of the seat and took out what both girls knew to be one of Skoran's most prized possessions. It should go without saying that the two Padawans were in awe as they beheld the remote, even though they had seen it before, actually holding it in their hands (Barriss's) was quite another experience entirely.

Returning their attention back to the holo recording, Barriss pressed the button to resume the message. "While I can't give an exact position of my flight path, search the area around which I crashed. That's where you'll find me. Good luck." The image faded in and out of existence for a few moments before disappearing.

(2)

"So what did you find?" Anakin asked. "This," replied Skoran as he held up the glass slide that contained the strange object that the medical droid had found. Needless to say the others also stared at it in wonder as Skoran had done only a few moments before. "What even is it anyway?" Barriss asked, speaking the question that they were all thinking. "According to the medical droid, it's some kind of biomechanical chip, planted just here."

The Ragnarokian placed a finger on the spot just above and to the left of his right temple. The others all glanced at one another. "And this "chip" was inside Bullpup's head the entire time that we've known him?" asked Ahsoka. "Actually, I would say it's been in there from even before he was assigned to the 501st," Skoran replied. He looked at the object of their conversation. "One thing is clear to me, however. We weren't meant to find this," the Warrior continued.

"This was hidden the way it was for a reason. A reason known only to whoever had the Kaminoans do so." "Dex did tell me that they are all too familiar with accepting money-backed requests with no questions asked, or to that effect anyway," agreed Obi-wan. "So the question that we need to answer," said Anakin, "is who had the Kaminoans do this in the first place and what these chips are for." "Too right," agreed Rex, Cody and Tomahawk together.

Fives, however, looked a bit more concerned than his brothers. "And how do we know that these chips won't do anything to us in the meantime?" he asked, frowning. "For all we know, all of us clones could be ticking time bombs." "There's only one way to know that for sure," said Skoran. "Until then," the young warrior glanced about to make sure that the nine of them were alone before continuing, "we keep this squarely between ourselves, understood?"

The others all nodded in silent agreement, the clones that were present looked especially serious, both from the fact that their brothers in arms could suffer a potentially horrible fate, and the fact that their supposed "free will" hadn't even existed at all since their creation.