Chapter Text
The five men sat silent, staring blankly at the blinking light of the scanner.
It was a miserable thing, a mismatched amalgam of broken parts held together by tape and force of will.
It was Stone’s men that had first found it. Someone on prison detail had caught a young Twi’lek trying to smuggle it in. They’d been apprehended, of course; smuggling illicit contraband in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center was a grave offense.
Fox didn’t know what happened to the culprit and, quite frankly, didn’t care. The system had ingested them, probably ground them up, and spat them back out in another prison out of his jurisdiction.
It had nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Nothing to do with the blinking, damning message in front of him.
Implant detected – level 5, biological.
At first, they’d suspected the device of being a hand-made weapon. It was growing increasingly usual in these parts nowadays. As the war dragged on, security grew tighter in Coruscant, laws became stricter, and arms regulations increased. It wasn’t rare for enterprising young people to craft their own firearms and try their hand at bounty hunting.
The gun, for it, was what it had been labeled as before being filled in the evidence locker, was just one in a dozen, remarkable only because it looked so close to falling apart.
And then, Cray, back from his weekly check-up with Grizzer, stopped to ask the two shinies manning the counter. “What are you doing with that poor CA-8 scanner?”
And the world had held its breath.
Across the universe, a general had stopped and stuttered an excuse to his troop when unable to explain why he had frozen in his tracks.
Everywhere in the galaxy's far reaches, the Force, like rubber, had tensed and relaxed and continued to flow.
Very few had paid it any heed, and even among those who did, their attention was soon diverted. People were dying, after all. There was a war to win and soldiers to lead, and no time to be spared analyzing slight fluctuation in the force, like a butterfly’s wings echoing through the void of space.
But for the Guard on Coruscant, it might as well have been a bombshell.
Implant detected – level 5, biological.
Fox glared and the message glared back, refusing to change. He distinctly remembered the call from Cray. How his medic’s voice had sounded, colder than the senate parlor, his clipped tone so formal Fox had been worried they were talking under duress.
They might’ve been, he thought hysterically. If this was true, they all were.
The two shinies had been dismissed almost immediately, sworn to secrecy and threatened with silence, and Fox almost felt guilt at the reminder of their frightened voices. Then his eyes refocused and reread the little letters scrolling innocently on the old scanner’s screen. There was no place for guilt if the alternative to fear was death.
They’d requisitioned the scanner – although was it really requisition if it was already in your custody? – and brought it back to the Command headquarters. He’d had no inkling that anything bigger than smuggling was afoot, only Cray’s stiff bucket and stiffer words.
"Scan yourself the medic had said." So, Fox, teasing about proper risk management and you really want me to shoot myself with an unknown weapon? had taken the gun – no, scanner – and had scanned himself under his medic’s watchful eye. Something akin to self consciousness had risen up as he’d slowly moved the scanner over his limbs.
Then, he’d set down the scanner and waited, half amused, for the result.
Implant detected – level 5, biological.
He’d nearly laughed when it turned up, that small, innocuous message, barely five words long. He’d turned to Cray, a joke on his tongue that didn’t make it past his lips at the other clone’s ashen face.
"That’s what it said for me too." Cray’d murmured. "That’s what it said for the shinies, and for me, and for you, and…" He’d looked up at Fox, and his eyes were wide and panicked.
"Why does it say we have slave-chips?"
And it was like a bucket of cold water had been tipped over Fox’s head. Fox had called in Stone – it was his men, after all – then Thire and then Thorn when the scan turned up positive for the third time.
What was that natborns said? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times enemy action?
Fox looked up, and his eyes met Thorn’s, then Cray’s.
“Do you have another scanner capable of doing a level 5 scan?” He asked, “We can’t afford to trust that piece of junk with the life of the Guard.”
Fox pointedly ignored the fact that he trusted it enough to take it seriously.
Fox had known that the clones were slaves. Everyone with common sense knew: clones were sentient beings manufactured en masse, property of a government that dutifully denied their right to exist. If one would simply look at a dictionary, at historical precedent, they would see the truth.
Fox knew that he was a slave, owned by the Senate and the Jedi. He’d just not realised how deep it ran.
“Running the risk of sounding stupid,” Thire piped up, “but wouldn’t the implant be the inhibitor chip the Kaminoan said were necessary after the Nulls and Alphas?”
“No.” Cray answered instantly, already typing something on his com “the mastiffs also have those. They’re not in the same place, and don’t show up on the same scans.”
“It’s the first thing I did after Coronary’s incident,” Cray added after some time, gaze to the side, “I wanted to know why we would need reconditioning if we already had the chips to act as safeguards. Turned out we didn’t have the inhibitor chips. I thought it was just the long necks cutting corners, but…” but now no one knows.
“Kriff…”
That was the consensus, yes. Fox pinched the bridge of his nose, and imagined all the way he could kill a Kaminoan. It was less cathartic than usual.
“Let’s get this show on the road boys.” Fox ordered, “Cray, you get your hands on another scanner, I don’t care how, I want that scanner. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Stone, make sure your troopers keep their mouth shut. If this gets out to the natborns…” They shared a loaded look. “The rest of you, back to your posts.”
“Commander…” Thorn didn’t chide, but his voice held all the words he didn’t say.
“We can’t afford to slack off.” Fox reminded, “We aren’t even sure there are implants. Right now, our main priority is keeping the Guard working like the well-oiled machine it is. We can’t crack now. So you go back to your posts, and you act like nothing has changed, because nothing has changed. Either we’re not chipped, and panicking is useless, or we are chipped, always have been, and panicking is useless.”
The last words were snarled in a way Fox usually reserved for arrogant new transfers, and Thorn made clear how unimpressed he was.
“Sir, yes, sir.” He saluted, somehow making it mocking.
Fox flipped him off.
**
The rest of the day passed like molasse, sticky, bitter and cloying in a way that made Fox want to throw up.
The worst part was that it wasn’t in any way different from the previous day. A set routine of paperwork, supervising drills and CorSec joint operations.
For all that Fox didn’t know if the implant was real, it felt like there was an itch in his head. A nest of ants burying under his skin and crawling in his skull, their little legs digging in his brain like parasites. He caught himself several times, reaching to scratch his neck between the cracks of his helmet and armor.
Every time he met a senator in the halls, he kept waiting for them to say something, to arrest him and kill him.
By the time his shift was over, and he headed back to the barracks, he couldn’t take it anymore. Fox headed straight to the med-bay, and stormed in. He cornered Cray and without preamble asked if he’d found anything.
Or rather, that had been the plan, for the instant he saw the medic, the words died in his throat, their dried-out corpses choking him.
Cray looked manic, his eyes wide and wild, his mouth tugging up in a smile that was more nerves than anything. If it were any other trooper, in any other circumstance, Fox would’ve appointed for an informal psych eval.
Thankfully, the bay was empty, and so the marshal commander was alone to witness, struck, as his medic and friend broke down. Horror washed over him, and it was all he could do to not join him with hysterical giggles.
“We should call another commander meeting.” Cray said softly, strained. “I… There has been a new development.”
They decided to hold the meeting in one of the disused staff rooms behind the Guard barracks. At first, Fox had suggested his office but had quickly thought better of it. People could call him paranoid, but after all the confidential information he’d gathered simply because senators weren’t aware of surveillance devices…
He didn’t want to risk it.
The room was sparse – most of the furniture having moved with the original, natborn, staff – but a few clunky chairs remained. Fox didn’t sit down and began pacing, keeping his heat-sensor filter on and regularly checking to see if anyone was coming their way.
“What did you find?” Thorn asked Cray, and the concerned trooper let a small breath, half laugh, half sigh, escape. He collapsed on a seat.
“What didn’t I find?” He whispered, before clearing his throat.
His eyes took on a blank look that every clone remembered from Kamino. It was the look of a brother that had seen too much and fell back on reg training. It was the look of the shell shocked, reconditioned trooper.
In the privacy of his own mind, Fox admitted they did rather look like meat droids like that.
“It took me approximately two hours to acquire another AC-8 scanner. I took the liberty of obtaining an MLI-8977 reader, to cover all our bases. I performed the test on several troopers from each corps and generation. You will be happy to know that they all have a level 5 biological implant in their prefrontal cortex.” Cray paused, and his face twisted violently.
Fox had stopped pacing, and neither Thire nor Thorn were moving. If anyone were to come in the room, they might think of it as a piece of art: four clone troopers frozen, like plastroid statues; the fifth one, a rictus of hate and disgust carved on his face with a scalpel.
“You all know my… previous detachment.” Cray continued. The implicit question helped ground Fox, if only superficially. It was true Cray hadn’t been dispatched to the 000th battalion as a medic, but as a mortician.
“I got my hands on a brother’s body, Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum Galli, and extracted the chip.”
Somewhere in the distance, Thire gagged.
“Thankfully, it wasn’t damaged by the lack of recent cerebral activity.” Cray dug in his pouch, retrieving an empty glass vial.
“Is this a joke?” Fox ground out, and something must have bled through because the other men glanced sharply at him with a hint of alarm and wariness.
Fox breathed out slowly.
“What, is your point here?” He asked quietly, darkly proud when Cray swallowed hard. Fortunately, he got the message.
“The chip is invisible to the naked eye,” he explained, “but regular slicer probes can easily detect it when it isn’t obstructed by active biological matter. Let’s just say it definitely isn’t the behavioural implant the long necks talked about.”
He took a fortifying breath and his com out, holding it out to Fox, who took it cautiously. As his fingers closed on the device, Cray stared at him, hard. There was a warning in his eyes, but underneath that, it looked like a man drowning.
Fox took the com.
His eyes scanned the contents. It was a list. For a moment, Fox couldn’t comprehend what he was reading.
Order 1: Execute all witnesses
Order 2: Protect the Chancellor
Order 3: Evacuate the Senate
Order 4: Execute all senators …
It went on and on, and after a while, Fox stopped understanding the words before him. He could only scroll down and down and down and…
…
Order 32: execute the 21st Nova Corps
Order 33: execute the 104th battalion
Order 34: execute the 187th battalion
Order 35: execute the 501st clone battalion …
Fox nearly dropped the device. He felt sick down to his very bones, cold heat speared through him.
Brothers. They were programmed to kill brothers.
He couldn’t stop reading.
…
Order 64: capture all Jedi
Order 65: execute the Jedi High Council
Order 66: execute all Jedi
The list ended there.
If Fox were anymore cognisant, he would find it darkly funny, that the ultimate order, the worst of the worst, was the execution of the Jedi.
The Jedi, who were an order of peace-seeking monks, who loathed the war but fought because the alternative was to let others die in their stead.
He might not trust them, might not even like them, but Fox respected them.
Wordlessly, he passed the com to Thorn.
Processed air had never been so oppressive, and he wrenched his bucket from his head. The stale air was a fresh reminder of Fox’s body.
He couldn’t feel himself, or he could, like floating above his body and staring at it, simultaneously feeling numb and trapped, breathless and choking.
He was brought back to reality by a loud crash. Thorn had thrown the com tablet away from him, like the distance would make it any less real.
He’d dropped to the ground, clutching at his forehead and repeating something under his breath. Thorn’s shaky hands rose up to undo the latch of his own helmet. Once it was off, he began scratching at his face, scraping at his skulls with his nails, dragging dark red gouges at his face like he’d be able to dig the chip out with his bare hands.
“Take it out, take it out, take it out!” He snarled, like a mantra.
A prayer.
Then, as suddenly then he’d started, he stopped, falling to the ground, unconscious.
Cray tucked a still-warm stun blaster back in its holster.
“Anyone else going to freak out?” He asked warningly, but he looked more pitying than anything.
Fox woke up from his nightmare to a reality that was far worse.
When Stone and Thire were caught up to speed, they weren’t faring much better, but at least none of them freaked out quite as bad as Thorn.
Out of all the commanders, Thorn, as the one in charge of diplomatic services, had had the most contact with Jedi. Thire might’ve had one or two joint missions, same as Stone, but Thorn was the one regularly called to the Temple.
He always came back lighter, with a small smile and an invisible pep in his step. He brought with him stories of fountains and forests and baby natborns playing pranks.
“We need to do something about this.” Stone stated. It was obvious, and not what he was asking.
Cray scoffed. “Do you think the Guard has the kind of resources necessary to do brain surgery? That’s not the type of injury we were designed to survive. It’s cheaper to order new clones than to do such a difficult operation.”
His statement was greeted by grim silence. They all knew it was the truth.
“Ideally, we should do a battalion wide surgical procedure.” Fox pointed out, “We can’t ignore the fact that probably everyone has a chip, not just the Guard. Ideally, we’d be able to com them, tell them, and start immediately.”
Ideally being the key words.
The paranoia that lurked in his shadow since his first step out of his pod came back full force. Communication would surely be monitored, and everyone was suspect. Well…
“We should tell the Jedi, then.” Thire suggested. “They’d help, you know that. Since general Ti took over Kamino…”
Fox couldn’t help but sigh, bitterness welling in his gut. The new troopers only had this word in their mouth ‘Jedi.’ The last generation held on the childish belief that the Jedi would protect them. And, while Fox wouldn’t deny it was true for the frontline battalion, the Guard didn’t have the same luxury.
Homefront didn’t need its Jedi; it already had the Chancellor. The senate.
“We can’t.”
Both Stone and Thire shot Fox a look that showed they were well aware of his resentment. He bit his tongue. As if he would let a thing like jealousy get in the way of protecting his men.
“We can’t,” he reiterated, “First, because what if they don’t believe us? We cannot jeopardize our lives because we decided to trust the wrong natborns. Oh, don’t look at me like that Thire,” Fox snapped, “Jedi are people like the best of us. They were the ones who commissioned us, don’t forget. And don’t give me that kark about it being a rogue Jedi: that would be proving my point. We can’t discount that one of them is involved with the Kaminoan. And, even if they aren’t, the more people we involve, the more we run the risk of it getting back to someone involved. Do you really think the likes of Skywalker are capable of keeping their mouth shut?”
They all winced in unison, having guarded some of the more low-key ‘chats’ between the Chancellor and the young general, they all knew more than they wanted to about his sex life and moral dilemmas.
“Jedi would have the necessary facilities and expertise necessary for the surgery though.” Thire pointed out. He held up his hands at Fox’s glare, “Hey, you know I’m right.”
“The moment one of us is taken to a Jedi med bay – or if a Jedi medic is dispatched here – the secret will be out and they’ll just… kill us all.” Fox reminded them forcefully.
Order 47: execute all clone troopers
“Going to the Jedi Temple is suicide. They might help, but we’d be discovered instantly. It’s not worth the risk. We will handle this internally.”
Cray breathed sharply through his nose but tellingly didn’t argue. He’d probably arrived at the same conclusion by himself.
Of the two others, Thire still looked conflicted. Finally, he sighed, falling back in the chair like a puppet with cut strings.
“This would be so much easier if we just had a Jedi general.”
Fox, loathe as he was to admit it, was inclined to agree. But that wouldn’t be possible because the Jedi didn’t care for the Guard, for the brothers stuck far from the war. They helped those in need, sacrificed themselves on the battlefield to protect the real clone troopers, those who did real work against the seppies. Not ‘flimsy-pushing, cushy posting’ Guard troopers.
On his right, Stone jerked up. His entire face was alight, with a glee that plunged like lead in Fox’s stomach.
“We do have a Jedi medic, though.”