Star Wars : Arise In The Future

Boots thudded along the hallways as more clones rushed to reinforce the squads Maul had bloodied. Rex himself was heading down to deal with the Sith since Ahsoka hadn't reappeared and Maul was the clear and present danger.

As he was bringing up the rear of the formation, one of Ahsoka's droids shot out from the shadows to collide into him. "Hey. Hey! Out of the way!"

Another one of the droids dashed past them to interface with the ship and seal off the blast doors there, cutting Rex off from the rest of his unit. One by one they sealed until he was locked into an impromptu holding cell.

"Are you crosswired!?" Rex yelled at the droids for their sudden interference.

"Even the order removed the compassion that clones have...", Plo Koon muttered, wondering if this too applied to the 104th.

The droids simply beeped several times before one of them displayed a recording of Ahsoka. "Rex. I think I know what's happening. I saw your report on Fives. It isn't your fault. You were programmed, your mind was altered to do this when you were very young. I can help you."

"Programmed? Like droids?", Caleb asked, resulting of him earning a reluctant nod from Depa.

"We are being forced- No, programmed to follow certain orders. Like droids..." Rex grimaced, burying his head into his hands.

Rex drew his pistol and pointed it straight at the droid once the recording finished. "Where is she?"

"I'm right here."

Rex's skin crawled as Ahsoka announced her presence from right behind him. As he spun to face her, he inadvertently exposed his back to the droid. A mistake he paid for in full when the droid unsheathed a stun prod and electrocuted him.

"Arrrggghh!" Rex screamed in pain as the sudden surge of electricity was strong enough to bypass his armour's shielding and zap him directly. Shocked into unconsciousness, Rex sank to his knees and toppled forwards where Ahsoka caught him.

"Careful! We're trying not to hurt him?" Ahsoka chided her droid, reminding them they were trying to fix her friend not fry him from the inside.

She gently lay the comatose clone commander on top of two of the droids and began walking towards the medical bay. Her droids had locked down all the doors leading there but already the clones were starting to cut their way through the barricades.

"Okay, they got Rex. So now they just need to get that chip out of him and he can tell everyone to stop?" Padme asked in a hopeful tone.

"Unlikely. Except he gave the order that anyone who disobeyed that Order 66 will be executed too. The rest of the ship will still be trying to kill them both." Mace's reply shot her hopes down immediately.

"So what can they do?" Caleb asked.

"R7, run a scan, see if you can find the inhibitor chip the report talked about." Ahsoka instructed as she continued keying commands into a console panel. The still comatose Rex lay on an examination table in the med bay as the scanner warmed up.

As the scans progress and her astromech processed the data, sad beeping came from it as it couldn't detect the chip even with the med bay's most advanced scanners. Ahsoka frowned but refused to give up. "But the chip has to be there. Check again."

She bit her lip as the scans continued to come up negative. Time was running out for them, already the clones had found the med bay and were trying to breach the doors. Her droids had done their best to lock it down, but it would not hold forever.

Drawing upon her Jedi training once more, she pushed down the rising panic and moved to Rex's side. If technology could not help her here...

"Trust in the Force, Ahsoka...", Anakin encouraged her.

Placing her palms on either side of Rex's head, Ahsoka closed her eyes and tapped into the force, willing it to work with her to reveal the truth. "I am one with the force and the force is with me. I am one with the force and the force is with me…"

As the force did its thing, the unconscious Rex began to mumble the mantra as well. The strain showed on his face as Ahsoka's intervention began messing with the inhibitor chip's functions. A small beeping sound came from the monitor as the scanner suddenly picked up a spike of unusual activity inside his brain, signalling the location of the inhibitor chip.

"She's found it!", Kit Fisto exclaimed in relief.

"The answers to our questions...", Mundi added.

"You found it!?" Ahsoka's eyes snapped open and turned towards a viewscreen displaying the results of the scan.

"R7! Get him under and remove that thing!" Ahsoka instructed and began working on the console again.

When her droid beeped its uncertainty, Ahsoka shook her head. "I don't know if it'll work, but if it doesn't, we're dead anyways."

Once more she pushed her uncertainty down as the med bay prepared for an emergency operation. Sparks flared as the clones outside were almost through the doors. Ahsoka grit her teeth and drew her sabers again while her droids worked on Rex.

"They have to get the chip off his head and fast", Saesee Tiin exclaimed. "She would not last long against groups of the 501st"

Rex and Anakin's heads sank at the thought of them trying to shoot down the former Jedi.

Finally, the worst came to pass as the doors started unsealing slowly. A clone ducked under the door to push it up the rest of the way, while his compatriots began filling the air with blaster bolts.

Ahsoka's sabers flashed as she deflected the bolts away, not allowing a single one to touch her or hit Rex by accident. Thrusting her hands forwards, she delivered a powerful force push that sent some of the clones tumbling backwards.

Alternating between force abilities and using her blades to deflect incoming fire, she held her ground as best she could but more troopers continued pouring.

Behind her, Rex was starting to stir. As he came to, his hands began reaching for his blasters immediately.

"No...", Rex worried for the Commander, not wanting to see himself shoot her in the back unsuspectedly.

"They got the chip? Tell me they got the chip in time." Caleb muttered.

A blaster bolt made it past Ahsoka's defence, striking her and causing her to drop one of her lightsabers. As the volume of fire headed her way intensified, she was forced backwards, doing her best to hold off the clones with just her one good arm.

"Ahsoka...hold firm!", urged Plo Koon, praying for the Force to protect her when he could not.

Just when she thought it was over, several blaster bolts shot by her head from behind her, nailing the attacking clones and downing them instantly, including the one holding the door open. Without his interference, the door sealed shut under the guidance of her droids, one of which began welding it down tight.

Ahsoka swung around to find Rex fully awake, twin pistols in hand and shaking. The clone commander was breathing hard and continuing to point his guns in her direction.

"Rex? Are you okay?" Ahsoka asked.

"Y-yeah. I'm okay." Rex took another deep breath before lowering his pistols.

"They finally did it...", Anakin spoke out in relief.

"Sorry for what happened earlier." Rex apologised and gripped the side of his head where the chip had been removed. His mind was his own again but he was still reeling from the aftereffects of the biochip's activation.

"I almost killed you…" Rex muttered softly, barely able to believe the events that transpired despite living them.

"How widespread is this?" Ahsoka asked, partly to get his mind off it and partly to get answers on how deep the conspiracy went.

Rex's face fell and he took another shuddering breath before answering. "Commander… it's all of us. The entire grand army of the Republic has been ordered to hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights."

The two of them lapsed into silence as the implications weighed upon them. Only the sound of clones beginning to cut through the doors reminded them that they were both deep behind enemy lines and the situation was only going to get worse.

"We...we were only tools to dispose of the Jedi we had fought alongside with for years?", Rex grimaced in realization. "By the Kaminoans?"

"But how could we have missed this?", Mundi asked in disbelief. "All we could surmise is that-"

"Don't you get it? The Kaminoans have worked with Dooku after Sifo Dyas was dead!", Obi-Wan told his fellow Jedi, while trying to deny how much they have been blinded by both the war and the Sith to no avail. "By using a known Jedi killer and Senator Amidala's would-be assassin as the perfect specimen for the army, Dooku and Sidious have supplied the Republic an army to wipe the Jedi without our knowledge!"

"And that we did not try to look further in the matter only gave time for Sidious to manipulate everything in his favor", Shaak Ti realized this as well. "Fives...I shouldn't have stopped him..."

"The Kaminoans could have done something to Fives that have him act erratically for him to be labelled as a threat", Obi-Wan theorized, recalling what Anakin and Rex told him during that day. "Essentially a cover-up by both the Sith and the Kaminoans, when he could have told all of us what he knew..., but we were too blind to see it"

Shaak Ti shook her head, her sorrow replaced my both anger and dismay as she realized what the Kaminoans have done to the Clones. "I will speak to Consular Nema regarding the matter of the inhibitor chips. And we will question Lama Su and Nala Se of all of this once we have known the truth"

"Master Ti, if I may, I wish to join you in your venture at Kamino", Plo Koon spoke up to the surprise of everyone. But his one dictated both flared anger and dismay. All this time, the Clones were essentially expendables to the Sith and were no different than droids.

And this was too much for the Kel'Dor master to bear, and whatever indifference he had to the Kaminoans became slight hostility, especially when they merely saw them as property sent out to die in the front lines. "I also would like to have a word with them. Personally"

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