CHAPTER 22: CT-7567 "REX"

CoCo Town Undercity, Coruscant

Rex let out the breath he'd been holding in. Overhead, a pair of saucer-shaped Prowler 1000 seeker probes finished sweeping the area and moved on. He turned to the other Clones behind him, six 501st troopers bolstered by a pair of Coruscant Guards and three members of other units, and nodded. "Alright, it's clear. Let's move."

The group kept low, crouching as they crossed an intersection. Even through their filters, they could smell a hint of the smoke in the air. Here and there, large chunks of permacrete rubble, wrecked droids, and chunks of ships and vehicles were strewn about. Most of the debris was wreckage from the brief Separatist assault on the world, some was junk thrown out by the local populace, but a bit of it was newer—left over from the skirmish that resulted in the capture of Anakin and Mace Windu.

Rex briefly looked up. For a moment he contemplated the insanity induced upon the Clone Army, his brothers, by these chips that Fives had tried to warn them about before someone blew his shab'la head off.

Rex had only discovered that he and about thirty of his men had their chips removed, mostly because when Order 66 had been enacted they'd all refused to follow it and been branded traitors summarily once discovered.

Fleeing the Center for Military Operations had not been their best moment, but thankfully Hawk had managed to 'land' the shuttle softly enough that nobody had been killed. From that point, it had been gathering other Clones who'd refused to follow the Order, until they had a substantial following around the locus of a platoon of 501st Troopers.

Drawing one of his DC-17 pistols, Rex ushered them forward past a twisted and mauled AAT wreck that had fallen from the surface, still keeping low as sirens echoed in the distance and gunships droned distantly overhead.

"Captain, we're about a hundred meters from the rendezvous point Jesse marked," Kilo, one of the 501st Troopers, reported as the squad moved forwards, sweeping their corners and keeping an eye on the buildings.

"Copy that." He turned to Ridge, who was directly behind him in the formation and gave him a short series of hand signals.

The long-time Torrent Company veteran nodded and split off with two other Clones while Rex gestured for the rest to continue following.

Soon enough, they rounded a corner and filtered into the tighter confines of an abandoned warehouse. Ostensibly, Jesse was here with his men, Appo, and Appo's men as well.

Rex held a hand up in a 'hold' gesture as he pressed against the wall and glanced around the corner, the other clones readying their weapons in anticipation of local thugs, or worse, a larger syndicate's enforcers.

A shootout with the Pykes or Black Sun really would be just what we need right now… Rex thought darkly.

Carefully, he took another step.

The barrel of a DC-15 Carbine greeted him from around the corner, then lowered as a 501st painted helmet peered out.

"Morning Captain," the Clone greeted with a jovial hint to his tone.

"Nax," Rex nodded at the veteran 501st Trooper, the CT number appearing on his HUD. "How's the leg brace treating you?"

Nax's pauldrons lifted as he shrugged, limping back along the wall he'd been using as cover and out of the way of Rex's squad. "Better, but my wounds from Teth are acting up again… Where's Ridge?"

Rex glanced over his shoulder, the other Teth survivors were tight-knit in ways Rex couldn't afford to be, so it was only natural Nax would be wondering where Ridge was. "He's on overwatch. Where are Jesse and Appo?"

Nax gestured to his left. "Waiting in the interior. Jesse's just gotten back down from the surface. It's bad up there. Supposedly our boys were rotated out by the Chancellor and put in charge of sweeping CoCo Town for any sign of supporters of the 'resistance.' On the plus side it sounds like they've pulled the 501st away from the Temple."

Rex winced. The 501st had been through meat-grinders before, usually because of some unanticipated factor, but losing thousands of men, failing to capture the Jedi Temple, was a tragedy on the same level of Teth, requiring the unit to be rebuilt. There was only one explanation Rex could think of for pulling the 501st out, and that was that they'd taken so many casualties and their assault had been such a failure that the Chancellor grew impatient.

They entered the warehouse. All around, at least two dozen Clones could be seen fiddling with their gear or standing watch. Out of the corner of his eye, Rex saw Hawk. The pilot was working with Chatter, one of the 501st's Comms Troopers, listening to comms intercepts and logging down anything of note.

Up ahead, he spotted Jesse talking to Appo at a crate being used as a makeshift table while surrounded by other members of their renegade platoon, the former's heavily custom-painted Phase II ARC Trooper armor and the massive Republic roundel painted on the helmet's forehead making him as distinct as Rex's own custom armor. Certainly more so than Appo, whose only claim to individual armor customization aside from his command pauldron and kama was the white downwards arrow painted on his own helmet's forehead.

"Jesse, Appo. What's the situation?" Rex asked as he strode up to them.

Jesse shook his head. "It's bad Rex, General Skywalker and General Windu have been captured. AT-XTs hit them with net launchers after they fought the Chancellor, who had two shab'la lightsabers of all things. Gregor found Dex's body, surrounded by dead Clones. They were a mix of Clone Commandos and members of a special unit we didn't recognize. Looks like General Monn killed most of them before escaping with the Senators."

Rex visibly doubletaked at mention of the Chancellor engaging in lightsaber combat with two Jedi. But he quickly recovered, focusing on the fact that Anakin and Windu had been captured. "Where were they taken?"

Appo glanced off to the side. "Gunships went in the direction of the ChanPal SuRecon Center, according to Gregor."

Rex looked in the same direction. "Gregor?"

The Clone Commando from Foxtrot Company glanced over at them from where he was picking at something on the wall with his wrist vibroblade and waved. "Yep, everything's the truth Rex, saw it with my own eyes. They took off with 'em in nets underneath the Larties! Oh, also, it's a shame Dex died, General Kenobi was such good friends with him… and he also made good food."

Rex looked at him for a few moments then shook his head. Gregor hadn't been all there since blowing up on Abafar from what he'd been told. "Is there anything else we need to worry about?"

Appo pulled out a datapad and scanned through it. "Comms intercepts courtesy of Chatter tell us a bit more than we knew a few hours ago. I'm not sure if there's some laxness or if Cody really is on our side like you think Rex. Either way, per intel from our little friend hidden among them, the Senators are trapped underground, a few clicks from where they escaped." He put the pad down, showing Rex a top-down map, with a red dot marked on a corridor that terminated in a dead end. "Service corridor for a water pump, over four and half meters of permacrete encasing a reservoir on the far end from the door, two hundred meters down from the surface and filled with water for this chunk of the district. No way out but the way they came, with the only exit leading directly into the atrium that's likely a fortified killing zone by now."

"And the rest?" Rex asked, furrowing his brow.

Jesse nodded and took over from there. "We've also seen large-scale movements heading to the ChanPal SuRecon center," he added, popping up a holodisplay of the spindly structure on the small disc projector sitting on the crate. Around it, dozens of transports could be seen flying, some clearly landing on the spokelike landing platforms jutting out of the base of the specialist treatment facility perched atop the skyscraper. "Aside from redeployment of security forces it's mostly been high priority government-ordered medical transfer flights from the long-term recovery wards of various hospitals if Hawk's understanding of the comms chatter is any indication."

Kriff. Under ordinary circumstances Rex wouldn't have paid the transfers much mind, but the sheer randomness of the government suddenly moving massive amounts of civvies and wounded to the very same hospital his men had seen Skywalker and Windu being taken to left one reasonable assumption in his mind.

They were filling the place with hostages. It stank of the same 'tactics' he'd seen used by the Seps, Zygerrians, and others throughout the war.

"The Jedi will be walking into a trap if they go there… And so will we if we try to rescue the Generals," Rex muttered as he glanced down at the map for a moment, "what's it look like in the underlevels?"

"Fewer patrols," Jesse answered. "Mostly a mix of our boys and the Corries walking around, but they've largely pulled back to assist in the counter-insurgent sweeps elsewhere against renegade CSF officers and rogue volunteer army units. In their place we've more of those grey and tan troopers. Gregor thinks they're hunting for Jedi or the Clone Commandos who went rogue during the riot at Arca Barracks, but nothing concrete."

Rex was silent for a few moments, then nodded, pointing at Jesse. "Alright then Jesse, you come with me and we'll go scout it out."

"By yourselves?" Appo asked incredulously.

"I need to see the situation for myself. Ridge and Coric will be handling the rest of our squads," Rex explained to him, walking over to Appo and putting a hand on his shoulder. "If something goes wrong, pull them back and create a proper plan of attack to free the Senators or draw heat off them and allow them to escape."

Appo tilted his head questioningly.

"We need to show them that not all of us are affected by the chips that Fives gave his life trying to warn us all about," Rex smiled behind his helmet as he turned to depart, "That, and Anakin will kill me if anything happens to Senator Amidala."

o.o.o.o.o

Rex and Jesse's footfalls echoed softly through the underlevels as they advanced closer to the site where the Senators were holed up. The streets were eerily deserted beyond rodents and other vermin thanks to the curfew in place. He had one pistol drawn and his low-light vision equipment active, comlink buzzing as he picked up activity relayed through various repeaters installed by the chipped troopers to maintain contact with their command post on the surface.
Not wanting to risk being seen, rather than walking directly to their objective, they took a turbolift up into an apartment complex. It was directly across the dark valley of cityscape from the access hatch behind which the Senators had disappeared. On the eighth floor, with a solid view of the situation, they stood behind the window and took out their electrobinoculars. Things on the ground below were worse than Appo had described.

There were three LAATs parked at street level at the bottom of a descent shaft from the surface, with perhaps thirty Clones guarding a corridor leading to the atrium outside the maintenance shaft. They were a mixed group of Coruscant Guardsmen in their typical red and white, 41st in gray and white, and a handful of 501st Arc Troopers.

"They must've sent reinforcements to secure the exterior after Appo's recon sweep," Rex muttered as he watched the Corries and 41st Elite boys patrol around. He counted them as they moved in groups of four or six, each with three or five riflemen and carbineers flanking a Heavy Trooper with a DC-15LE repeating rifle or Z-6 rotary cannon. The ARCs seemed to be armed with DP-23 scatterblasters and some kind of DC-15 variant he was unfamiliar with, a halfway thing between the Carbine and Rifle.

"Way too many for us to handle alone," Jesse muttered.
Rex lowered his electrobinoculars, then reached up to comm Appo and tell him the situation—

"Huh. Clone Commandos are supposed to operate in squads of four… Right?"

"RCs?! Where?" Rex gasped.

"Right behind you," a gruff voice said in a wildspace accent.

Before Rex could respond, a blast from the PEP stun laser attachment on the Commando's DC-17m nailed him in the center of the back. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the transparisteel window, growing nearer and nearer as the blast hurled him into it.

o.o.o.o.o

Rex awoke coughing, sputtering, and soaked in water.

"You're awake, Captain." The voice was from a trooper wearing purple and brown armor with grey camo patterns, with a captain insignia on his chest next to a blotchy painted trident. "Good." He stepped two paces to the right, picked up another bucket of water, and dumped it on Jesse, who was no longer wearing a helmet.

Frantically, Rex looked around. Over his shoulder, he could see two Clone Commandos, both wearing gray, white, and brown urban dazzle camo. He was in a tent, with the overhead light so bright he could not see the tent's roof. Rex looked back to the mysterious trooper in mostly purple armor, and realized those were the patterns of a Covert Ops trooper. Rumors were that these troopers were specifically tasked with eliminating Clone deserters.

Rex had long suspected that these men had killed Fives. Today he was certain they had.

"Well, well," the Covert Ops trooper said, his accent oddly Coruscanti-sounding for a Clone, "Captain CT-7657, Lieutenant ARC-5597… What are two of Coruscant's most prominent deserters doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" Jesse snarled back. "With a civil war going on and all, shouldn't you be a little too busy to be waiting down here?"

To Rex's astonishment, the Covert Ops trooper answered.

"I am here for the Senators, but with you two so graciously falling into my clutches, I think I might start my interrogations ahead of time." He pulled out a syringe, looked at Jesse, then looked at Rex.

"You have to stop this!" Rex yelled, looking over his shoulder to face the Commandos standing guard. "If they take the Senators, Palpatine's going to take—ARGH!" Rex cringed in pain as the syringe plunged into the base of his neck. He tugged in vain at the ropes binding his arms to the seat behind his back. "What the kriff was in that?!"

"A truth serum."

"You don't need that! I want to tell you everything. I want to tell every Clone everything!"

The Covert Ops trooper stared at Rex ponderously, as if surprised by his outburst. He ignored Rex, and turned to Jesse. "That's a pretty well done tattoo," he said, rubbing his gloved hand over the black Republic Sigil plastered on the man's head. Without warning, he closed his fist, extending a knife, and the center of Jesse's tattoo was running with blood.

Jesse yelled out, his tan skin flushed red with fury as crimson blood dripped to the tarp on the tent floor.

"YOU CHAKAAR!" Rex screamed, bouncing in his chair as he struggled to break from his bindings. He nearly fell over, and the two Commandos behind him each gripped one of his shoulders to hold him still. "YOU DIDN'T EVEN ASK A QUESTION!"

"Both of you are traitors to the Galactic Republic. If—"

"YOU'RE A TRAITOR!"

"We know you were in communication with Boil earlier today," the Covert Ops trooper said. "And rather than following Order 66, which has been lawfully enacted by the Supreme Chancellor, Boil has defected to the Jedi!"

At the back of the tent, on a vidscreen Rex hadn't noticed yet, a still photo appeared of him speaking with Boil and Jesse with the Jedi Temple in the background. It was right after Order 66 began, about fifteen minutes after Rex and his core group had fled the Republic Center for Military Operations and they'd crashed the shuttle.

"Boil isn't a traitor either," Jesse grunted.

"Anyone who fails to execute Order 66 is a traitor! Both of you will die, but if you tell me the truth, I promise I will not harm Jesse any further. Your deaths will be relatively painless."

Rex started to feel a bit foggy, but he was still as furious as ever.

"I'm sure Rex is fine with that," Jesse said with a mock yawn of boredom. "Aren't you, sir?"

"Yes, the truth works for me."

"Let's start with what you are doing here."

Rex looked directly at the Covert Ops trooper and decided to start where he thought the clues for this massive conspiracy began. "I guess it all started with Pong Krell."

"The Jedi traitor of Umbara?"

"Yeah," Rex said, his voice noticeably groggier than before. "It was something he said back when we managed to capture him on Umbara. He said he foresaw the Republic would be torn apart from the inside, that a 'new power' was rising, and that the Jedi would lose the war. He was talking about this: Order 66. This isn't some spur of the moment decision by Palpatine in a fit of anger that the Jedi aren't falling in line. He's been planning this all along. I wouldn't even be surprised if this entire war has been a sham for his benefit at this point. The Jedi—"

"If you do not stop this incessant rambling, I will start cutting of piece after—"

"YOU WANTED THE TRUTH!" Rex yelled, angry again in spite of how cloudy-headed he felt. "THE TRUTH IS ALMOST EVERY CLONE HAS BEEN IMPLANTED WITH A MIND-ALTERING CHIP THAT SUPPRESSES OUR FREE WILL—"

"ENOUGH!"

"I only wish I had listened to Fives," Rex slurred, speaking faster now as the truth serum really started to kick in. "He was right. He told me the Chancellor did it. He told me that every Clone was programmed to kill the Jedi. That's why most of the Clones are acting so funny. Don't you notice? Don't you notice the changes?"

Behind the Rex, he heard the Commandos shift slightly.

The Covert Ops trooper let off an exasperated sigh and pointed his wrist knife at Jesse's face. "You're lucky that I am in a charitable mood today."

"So you accept it's the truth, but you're still going to kill us and keep blindly killing Jedi?" Jesse scoffed.

"No. That may be the truth as Rex sees it, but Rex is clearly a delusional madman."

Rex spat on the floor. "You're one sick piece of work!"

The thought that this Clone's chip might not be active filtered across Rex's increasingly foggy mind. Mercifully, it was getting harder to think in general, so it didn't linger long.

"How about we discuss something more productive? What do you know of the secret weapon the Jedi deployed?"

"There's lotsa weapons," Rex mumbled, his words now so slurred they would have been incomprehensible if he was wearing a helmet. "Lightsabers?"

"No."

The image of Rex and Jesse meeting with Boil was replaced by a birds eye view of the Temple Precinct, this time video footage. Between the wisps of smoke from burning wreckage, thousands of bodies could be seen, their shiny armor reflecting the gleaming moonlight of Centax III.

Rex's eyes opened wide. "You'd know more than me…"

"That's a lie!" yelled the Covert Ops trooper, his voice rising dangerously. "Are you telling me you just happened to leave the scene mere hours before the Jedi did this?!"

"How do you know it was the Jedi?" Jesse asked. "Palpatine is clearly capable—"

"REX IS ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS!"

"That's a dumb way to run an interrogation."

"Jesse…" Rex slurred warningly.

"If you don't give me the truth right now, I am going to cut Jesse to ribbons."

"I am telling the truth," Rex said, fighting to sound as sober as possible. He had trouble holding his head still without swaying. "The truth is, we are all being set up. Think about all the times we almost got Grievous. Think about how, just yesterday, Palpatine put himself in danger, allowed Grievous to capture him, but then miraculously got rescued. All of the times the Separatists were winning, and then they stopped their offensive or withdrew the moment the Senate voted to give Palpatine more power," his voice lowered to a mumble, then he fought the urge to sleep and raised it again, and forgot what he had been talking about. A moment went by, before he changed the topic to something else that had been bothering him. "Look at yourself! We're not shab'la machines, but you're all acting like machines now. Never reflecting. Never questioning. Even the conditioning couldn't get us to act like this, so why? Why? It's because there are chips. Biological machines in our brains that… Wait! NO WAIT!"

The Covert Ops trooper grabbed Jesse's tattooed head and began scalping him, from the top of his head down.

Jesse's eyes went wide, and he screamed, shaking furiously in his chair while the Covert Ops trooper just kept slicing.

"NO! I AM TELLING YOU THE TRUTH!"

"You're both Jedi-loving traitors who would sacrifice thousands of your own mens' lives just to help some religious fanatics take over the Galaxy," the Covert Ops trooper said. His knife had now passed down Jesse's head a good three centimeters. "You deserve everything that—"

A stun shot crossed the tent from over Rex's head and hit the Covert Ops Trooper in the back, sending his body crumpling. Stepping forward, one of the two commandos, who had a technician's kit mounted to his back, aimed down and fired two more stun shots into him as he laid on the ground.

"We'll deal with you later, Vod killer," he spat before kicking the body.

Before Rex knew what was going on, the other Commando, who had a demolition pack, was intentionally pulling his chair over to knock Rex to the floor. He held a finger in front of his Katarn respirator in a shush gesture, and spoke quietly. "You're going to want to stay down 'til we've sorted all them out, sir."

Rex turned to look at Jesse, who was still tied to his chair, which was now also flipped onto its back on the floor. The Commando nearest to him applied a bacta patch to his head, which was already turning blood red as it soaked with blood. He then quickly added a coagulant salve before pulling out gauze, wrapping it around the wound to keep the patch in place.

The Commando gently patted Jesse on the shoulder and unholstered his DC-17m from his backpack. "We'll get a combat surgeon on you once it's safe, just stay put ner vod."

In the background, stun shots and screams could be heard all around the tent.

"You're sure about the chips?" asked the Commando with the Technical kit, standing directly over Rex.

"One hundred percent," Rex slurred.

The Commando seemed to deflate and then mumbled something to his squadmate in Mando'a. With his limited vocabulary of the language, Rex was unable to understand.

In the background, some stun shots could continue to be heard, but they were now being muffled by the prevalent sound of lethal blasterfire.

"Shab, sounds like we're going lethal Dev," the Commando with the technical gear muttered with a grunt. "Got the gunships if they're still a factor?"

Dev, the one with the demolition gear, sighed in resignation and swapped out his DC-17's attachment to the anti-armor module. "Hate this entire shab'la day, Yover… And yeah, I've got it."

"No, wait… They can't help it…" Rex started, but his voice trailed off as both Commandos left the tent. Dev's silhouette was cast brightly on the tent's canvas as he fired a launcher grenade at a target out of sight, and an explosion shook the area

Streaks of blue and red blasterfire came into the tent from all sides, punching smoking holes in the fabric. Within a second, the terminal displaying the Temple Precinct was hit three times, sending shards of plastoid, metal, and bits of transparisteel all over the canvas floor.

Rex stared up at the tent roof in horror, the side effects of the truth serum amplifying the screams of pain and death. It was everything he wanted to avoid. When the blasterfire finally calmed down to just a shot or two every ten seconds or so, he looked back to Jesse and found that his companion had broken himself out of his restraints and was now standing, holding a blaster pistol.

"Jesse," Rex slurred, "What are you—"

With a squeeze of the trigger, Jesse fired a lethal shot into the head of the unconscious Covert Ops trooper. He squeezed the trigger again, blasting a pockmark into the trooper's chestplate, then again into his neck joint.

"Jesse, he didn't—"

"You weren't the one who got your head sliced up, Rex," Jesse spat, tears in his eyes as he holstered his sidearm. "Besides, you heard them. He's a brother killer. Bastard didn't need the chip activated."

The tent flap opened up as an ARC Trooper, an Alpha if Rex was gauging his armor and build correctly, rushed in, followed by Dev and Yover, if Rex correctly recognized the Commandos behind him equally correctly. Dev lowered his WESTAR-M5 rifle after seeing Jesse standing over the dead Covert Ops Trooper.

Rex stared off into space helplessly.

Yover shoved Jesse out of the way and briefly examined the Covert Ops Trooper's body. He looked back at Dev and shook his head.

"Lovely…" The ARC sighed, then glanced over his shoulder, "General, we just lost our intel source."

A voice Rex didn't recognize spoke up, somewhat baritone and deep, "it's alright, Maze. He'd have probably killed himself anyways the moment I tried to probe his mind."

A third figure strode into the tent, a strongly-built bearded human male with carefully close trimmed hair and tanned skin. Conspicuously, he wore armored Jedi robes with a lightsaber at his belt.

Rex resisted the urge to salute, then realized his hands were still tied.

The Jedi looked at the corpse on the ground, then to Jesse's head and sighed in exasperation, raising his wristcom. "We need a medic in the command tent."

"General, what's the situation at the Temple?" Rex asked, now feeling worried about what the Covert Ops trooper had insinuated. "Is it true?"

"You know as much as I do at this point, Captain," the Jedi said. "I haven't been in the Jedi Temple in over a week. I live in Arca Barracks. Well, lived in Arca Barracks I should say."

"What—how is that," Rex started, then felt so confused he finally added, "I don't understand. Are you a real Jedi?"

"Yes I am. The name's Arligan Zey. Director of Special Forces."

o.o.o.o.o

A slightly addled Rex groaned as he sat in the same chair he'd been interrogated in, now upright, with Jedi Master Arligan Zey sitting across from him. Yayax Squad's two present members had left the tent not long after getting Rex situated.

Nearby, a Clone Shadow Trooper in his special stealth coated black armor with a medic's pack tended to Jesse, who was reclining against a burnt out console nearby. His soaked bandages had been replaced and the wound was being stitched and cauterized by the medic.

The Shadow Trooper nodded, blood-red visor glowing slightly as he spoke, "There… Good to go Jesse, just stay out of combat until you get cleared."

"Thanks… Urgh… Chakaar really had it out for the roundel, didn't he?"

Zey sighed. "Covert Ops Troopers hunt deserters… Almost fanatically I might add.."

"I think we got that part down, General," Rex groaned as he rolled his shoulders, "My brothers and I have all heard the rumors."

"Right, business then… How many of your boys aren't affected by the chips?"

Rex raised an eyebrow, "You know about them sir?"

Zey shook his head, a perturbed look on his face. "Only in passing. The Jedi Council issued a warning to me and Master Camas to be on the lookout for Clones with defective ones. Based on what they relayed I've had a running theory since Order 66 was issued that they were at the least partly responsible for what was going on. Good to have it confirmed so we can begin dealing with that issue our way."

Rex frowned. "Did anyone else? I noticed a lot of your boys should have them."

Zey rubbed his chin and smiled coyly. "Maybe… My section of Special Operations did have a few Mandalorians who tended to do their own thing. It's possible one of them had something to do with it, though perhaps this is speculation better for another time and place."

Rex nodded in agreement. "Understood, sir. Is anything being done about the Senators?"

Zey nodded. "We opened the maintenance shaft they had been hiding in. They're being extracted as we speak. Do you know anything about what happened last night leading to the Senators being down that hole in the first place?"

Rex nodded, his head pounding as he tried to focus. The damn truth serum made it hard to think. "Yes sir… General Skywalker and General Windu attempted to buy time for General Monn and the Senators to escape down a tunnel Dexter Jettster provided…"

Jesse sat up straighter, his scalp now held together under stitching covered with a bacta patch. "Sir, I was present there. The Generals engaged the Chancellor in a Lightsaber duel while he was wearing some kind of… Spacesuit? Maybe cybernetic battle Armor? Whatever it was, it had rocket boots."

Zey scrutinized Jesse. "A Lightsaber duel with the Chancellor? You're certain?"

Jesse nodded. "Clear as my throbbing headache and the adrenaline pumping in my system, sir. He pulled two red-bladed sabers and engaged them in close combat for a brief period before some AT-XTs hit them with nets. Got a good recording of it too if you want to see."

Maze and Zey exchanged a glance as the former turned back to them.

"General, something's not adding up here, from what you've told me about the Sith, at least," the ARC said bluntly.

Zey nodded in agreement. "I agree. If you're done talking to Appo, contact Aven, Obrim, and Fordo, have their cells form up with us. Between them we should be able to pull something off. Maybe we can rope Skirata's people into it if they're willing to work with us"

Maze nodded and tapped his helmet again.

"What do we do now?" Rex asked wearily.

Maze tilted his head at Rex. "Stay put."

"Right…"

Zey answered a call on his wrist comm. Rex couldn't hear all of the details, but it sounded like the Senators and their Jedi guardian were refusing to open the door.

"Sir, Skywalker's astromech should be with the Senators," Rex said. "You can send them a message on Appo's frequency using encryption key N1-D7."

Maze began dialling the encryption key into his datapad, which he mated with Zey's wristcom.

"Hello Senators," Zey said. "You are safe now. Please open the door."

For a moment there was no sound, then a clearly non-human voice snarled a question in response. "Who is this? How did you get this encryption?"

"Is that you Voolvif?" Zey asked.

"Who are you?" the voice asked again without answering the question.

"This is Master Arligan Zey. We have… Well, I suppose it'd be best if I walk up to the door myself. Do you have a camera feed on the outside?" The Jedi Master exited the tent, and the conversation between him and whoever was on the other side quickly became inaudible.

o.o.o.o.o

By the time the first of the Senators arrived in Rex and Jesse's tent, about a hundred of Rex's men had joined the Commandos and other Special Forces Troops outside. The Senators seemed generally jumpy, with one letting off a stream of apologies after she accidentally bumped into an armored trooper.

When Padmé arrived, she was accompanied by Bail Organa and two Bothans. The female, wearing a tight yellow tunic, had fur so black it was difficult for Rex to make out the contours on her face, or distinguish the fleshy black skin of her nose from the dark forest of fur. The male, wearing elegant robes with a golden pin on the front of his chest, had very short tan fur on most of his body, and a mess of gray fur atop his head. The first thing he said was, "I still think this is a trap."

"No, Polo, this is not a trap," Bail said tiredly.

Padmé looked around the tent in wonderment, then suddenly recognized them and began her approach. "Rex? Jesse?"

"Glad to see you're alright, Senator," Rex said, sitting up straighter on his bed. "I am sorry I—oof!" He groaned as, rather unexpectedly, Padmé stooped down and squeezed him. Awkwardly, he hugged her back with one arm, and could not help but notice her very pregnant belly bulge rubbing against his side.

I wonder how General Skywalker would react if he saw this…

For a wild moment, Anakin's face screwing up in a jealous scowl flashed into his imagination, then Rex pushed the thought aside.

Anakin would probably just be happy they were all safe, Rex knew his Jedi General well enough to understand that would be the real reaction.

"...I am sorry we couldn't rescue General Skywalker," Rex groaned, still feeling squeezed.

"Sir, you weren't even there. If anything I—" Jesse stopped talking when, without warning, Padmé changed targets. He twisted his head away from her chest, putting a hand to his bandages. "Ouch, sorry, Senator. Watch the head!"

"Sorry, Jesse," Padmé gasped. "I am just glad to see some of Anakin's men are alright."

"Be careful," growled the tan furred Bothan disapprovingly as he kept his distance towards the front of the tent. "For all we know, they could just be having a temporary lapse in their… In their Clone Madness."

"They're no danger to us, Senator Se'lab," Zey said, emerging into the tent alongside Riyo Chuchi and Jar Jar Binks. "All of the Clones who attacked you, or most at least, did so under the influence of what we are tentatively calling an 'inhibitor chip.' It's an organic device in their brain meant to enforce compliance with orders, likely planted there as part of Palpatine's plot against the Jedi and the Republic. Once removed, the men revert to their usual behavior."

"Like a droid's restraining bolt…" Bail mused softly as he looked at Zey.

Jar Jar groaned audibly as he ambled after them. "Meesa made a bombad mistake, given da Chancellor da emergency powers."

The female Bothan, who had taken a seat in front of the tent flap and began eating a ration pack, looked up. "Nokiz your fault, Jar Jar. Palpatine's better at manipulating than most Bothans. You only wanted to help."

Completely flummoxed, Rex hardly paid attention to any of them, but stared at Padmé. He had only shaken her hand once or twice, aside from the one time she held his arm during the incident involving the Blue Shadow Virus. He had not realized she cared enough about him to worry that much. After five seconds or so, Padmé seemed to notice she was being stared at and looked down at him, and he looked away, averting her gaze til his eyes locked with Jesse's.

The expression on Jesse's face was just as shocked as his, which, Rex had to admit was an improvement to the foul mood Jesse had been in ever since the attempted scalping.

"What happened to your head?" Padmé asked, finally noticing the damage dealt to Jesse's scalp.

A dark look crossed Jesse's face before he became stony again. "I'd rather not talk about it, Senator, if that's alright."

Padmé's brows furrowed in concern, but she said, "Of course."

Soon, the tent was bustling with Senators and aides, many of whom were opening the spare ration packs and eating, some quite voraciously. Others shared small morsels here and there, until two of Rex's 501st Troopers entered, a hoverpallet levitating between them covered in stacks of canteens and ration packs.

Rex never thought he'd witness dozens of Republic Senators chowing down on military field rations. Maybe it would make for a good political advertisement, but around the time C-3PO and R2-D2 entered, Rex's mood had soured again.

General Zey had rescued the Senators with more success than Rex and his men would have had, and this small part of Palpatine's machinations had been undone. But now, couldn't help but think what next? The goal of removing Palpatine from power was obvious enough, but how they get from a couple hundred rescued Republic Senators, a few battalions of troopers, and maybe a battalion of Special Forces to that point, Rex had no idea.