#loopy fives

Chapter 15: Awake

It took Warthog another thirty minutes to wake up, nearly colliding with the bedframe when he jerked upwards in a panic, still only half-conscious. Dogma kept a steadying hand on his shoulder (like he’d seen Kix do so many times before) until the pilot had managed to get a grip on his surroundings.

“W-What happened?” He groaned, rubbing at his eyes blearily as he struggled into a half-sitting position.

“What do you remember?” Dogma’s brow furrowed even as he checked Warthog’s eyes for uneven dilation. Thankfully, his pupils seemed good, although it took the pilot another minute to focus his eyes and respond to the question.

“We… we were attacked by a Separatist shuttle. I was in the cockpit, and I turned because I heard a blast from the airlock, and… I’m not sure.” Warthog finally responded, making a concerted effort to keep his eyes open, and Dogma found himself grateful that he’d stopped trying to sit up.

Nodding in agreement at Warthog’s summary– being oriented to his surroundings was another good sign– Dogma began to fill in the gaps in the story.

“We were boarded. It was a covert attack shuttle, equipped with a small tractor beam, and typically holding between three and four squads of Commando Droids. You and Fives got hit with a knockout gas of some kind. We hid everyone in the smuggler’s hold until they left. I’ve been monitoring you and Fives for recovery.”

Warthog groaned, sighing in relief at the update. He opened his eyes again, the fogginess in his gaze starting to fade as he glanced back at Dogma quizzically like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “Anyone else injured? No offense, but I’m a little surprised to see you taking point with a senior medic on-board.”

Here, Dogma hesitated, pushing past the tightness in his chest and the choked feeling in his throat before continuing. “Kix… he knew the droids wouldn’t believe the ship was empty, especially not after we fired on them, and he knew what they were looking for. Once we’d all hidden in the smuggler’s hold, he… closed the door and surrendered himself. I-I don’t– the last thing we heard was a stun-bolt before they carried him back to their shuttle.” Dogma’s voice wavered, and he swallowed hard against the urge to start crying again.

Warthog let out a slow breath, exhaling as he took in the information. “Kriff.”

Dogma gave another hitched breath before responding with a thready agreement. “Yeah…”

Sure, he’d shed a few tears with Hardcase and Tup earlier, but it wasn’t his batchmate that had been taken (and he pushed down the guilty relief he felt at that thought). He was their only medic right now, and he couldn’t afford to stop and grieve, not right now.

He could never compare to Kix’s calm reliability in a crisis, but he’d try his best to care for their vode in his stead. So after taking another moment to steady himself as much as he could in a situation like this, he ran Warthog through a couple assessments to make sure he was recovering from the drug in his system.

Hardcase stopped by a little bit later, still a little red around the eyes and quieter than he should have been, but he’d kept the ship running well enough while Warthog had been out. After another 30 minutes, Dogma felt satisfied enough with Warthog’s recovery to let him make their next hyperspace jump, after Hardcase had double-checked his calculations.

There was still a faint hyperspace trail from the other ship’s departure that he didn’t stop Hardcase from taking note of, but given its trajectory towards some of the most heavily-trafficked Separatist hyperlanes, Dogma didn’t hold out much hope for getting Kix back anytime soon.

Tup, meanwhile, had been doing his best to make sure the blast shield would hold up after the beating it had taken during the attack. The repairs themselves didn’t take too long, and after that, he found himself tidying up the ship, finding Kix’s discarded blaster and trauma kit under a bulkhead, and doing whatever else he could to occupy himself. He’d taken off Fives’ helmet earlier, but he’d put it back on a little while ago. If Dogma suspected that he was using its cover to better hide his tears, he didn’t call him out on it.

They’d only been in hyperspace for another hour when Fives’ breathing changed. He swallowed reflexively a few times, eyelids fluttering, and Dogma had about two seconds warning before Fives rolled over on his side and promptly lost his rations in the durasteel waste bin.

He’d always been a bit of a lightweight, Dogma thought to himself wearily.

He repeated the same conversation he’d had with Warthog, checking his pupils and finding them responding slower than he’d like. Another sign that the ARC was still drugged up to his eyeballs, and probably fighting to stay awake.

“W-Where’s Kix?” Fives mumbled, words slurring together as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Dogma swallowed hard, but forced himself to respond. Fives deserved to know. “He– Kix let himself get captured so they’d stop looking for us. We got a general lock on their coordinates, but…” He trailed off, waiting anxiously for Fives’ response.

Fives’ breath hitched, and he squeezed his eyes shut for another long moment, and Dogma started to worry that he’d throw up again. Instead, the ARC trooper let out a slow breath and opened clear eyes, giving his hand a tight squeeze, quietly thanking Dogma for telling him. It made Dogma wonder just how many vode he’d had to lose before it’d got that easy to keep marching on.

Of course, he took that statement back a couple hours later after finding the fresher locked with near-silent sobs just barely audible through the durasteel door. They didn’t talk about it a lot, but Fives was pretty high up-there in the command structure of the 501st, and after Umbara, there’d been an emotional distance he’d kept from the rest of them, with only a few exceptions. He’d gotten better at reaching out within their little group, to Jesse, Kix, Tup even. But with Kix gone and Tup still recovering, well…

Dogma ignored the redness around the ARC’s eyes and the hoarseness of his voice. He kept giving Fives space even as the ARC mumbled disjointed responses to his check-ins, still very obviously under the influence.

If he’d been a better medic– like Kix, his subconscious supplied – he would’ve stopped Fives from pacing around the ship with a desperate look in his eyes, but Dogma could relate all-too-well with the desire to do something, anything, other than stare at the ceiling and grieve.

So he kept a close eye on him– making sure Warthog and Fives hydrated and that everyone ate something, keeping one eye on the chrono as they slowly, painstakingly made their approach to Coruscant.

It took Rex another half-hour to finally make his way to the landing pad Fives had landed at. Definitely one of the more disreputable Rex had seen to-date, and he couldn’t help the chill that ran down his spine at the eerie silence as he and Fox landed the small troop transport. There was only one other ship on the landing pad, but Rex’s trepidation turned to relief as he recognized 501st blue making its way down the landing pad, and he couldn’t stop himself from approaching the ship’s ramp faster than strictly necessary.

“R-Rex,” Fives stuttered, shoulders loosening in relief at the Captain’s appearance, but he flinched wildly at the footsteps following him, nearly raising his blaster at Commander Fox before Rex gave him the stand-down sign.

Rex stepped closer, now on the ship’s ramp where he could see the rest of the crew. He carefully placed a steady hand on Fives’ blaster hand, noticing that it was shaking. “Easy, Fives. This is Commander Fox, he’s here to help.”

Thankfully, that reassurance gave Fives what he needed to holster his hand-blaster. Rex gave him a long look before asking, “Report, Fives?”

“Can’t– not, not here. ‘S not safe. Too risky.” Fives stammered, a wild look in his eyes, pupils blown wide. Something was definitely wrong.

When Fives stumbled, Rex came alongside him and wrapped a supportive arm around his torso, eyes bright with concern. “Alright– alright, Fives. Steady, vod.”

Rex glanced around the group, scanning the others for injuries. Why hadn’t Kix stepped in yet– usually he’d be ordering Fives to sit down before he fell down, one hand resting reassuringly on an injured brother’s shoulder until they looked a little more stable. Sure, Dogma was there, giving the ARC a slightly exasperated look as he helped Rex finally settle him back onto a crate near them, but still–

“Where’s Kix?” Rex asked, and his heart dropped into his stomach when the entire group gave a collective flinch and Tup’s breath hitched with the beginnings of tears. Why did his men look like they were half a tic from falling apart?

Fives’ condition spoke for itself, and now that he was looking, Tup’s hair was more than a little disheveled, and the corrective lenses were definitely new; even Hardcase and Dogma were a little worse for the wear. All of them were still sporting a small bacta patch on their foreheads, including Warthog, and while the pilot wasn’t nearly as bad-off as Fives, Rex could easily spot the signs of a trooper in desperate need of a nap.

He opened his mouth to ask again what the kriff happened, but as his eyes scanned Fives again, seeing the agitation and honest-to-kriff fear in the ARC’s eyes, he relented, if only for now.

Rex glanced back at Fox, grateful that the Commander had thought to bring something larger than a speeder. “Is there somewhere secure we can talk?”

Commander Fox gave a long exhale– should’ve known better than to get bored on his only day off this rotation– before nodding and gesturing towards the transport. “My office, let’s go.”

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“Is this plant made out of flimsi?” Fives asked as he prodded at a pathetic-looking succulent sitting on the corner of Fox’s desk. The ARC was still slurring his words a little, and Rex suspected that his filter was still missing, but he was, as always, the observant shabuir.

“No.” Fox growled. He was very proud of his little succulent; Force knows it was hard enough to keep anything alive on Coruscant. Most of his collection hadn’t lasted longer than a couple weeks, but this one had kept hanging on.

“–One of the leaves says ‘Made in Corellia.’”

Dogma took a sharp intake of breath while Tup elbowed Fives in the shoulder, none too discreetly, trying and failing to get him to stop unintentionally antagonizing the Commander. Warthog hid his own laugh in a cough, fooling absolutely nobody.

Fox’s jaw set in anger and one of his eyelids twitched.

“Thire—!!!“

Commander Thire snickered, looking absolutely unapologetic as he addressed the others. “Got tired of him crying each time they died— it was scaring the shinies.”

Fox held his gaze for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. “ –And you’ve been letting me water it all this time.” He grumbled unintelligibly, sending Thire a death glare before finally turning back to the datapad Dogma had given him.

Scrolling through the data they’d collected, it didn’t take long for Fox’s mood to drop, breath catching in his throat and stomach turning to ice as he read through file after file of evidence.

“Is this real?” He demanded, looking to Captain Rex, who still had yet to learn the information on the datapad, outside of Fives’ earlier rambling.

“Is what real?” Rex countered, peering over Fox’s shoulder.

Hardcase was the one who answered– he’d never been one for giving reports, but with Fives still mesmerized by the fake plant on Fox’s desk, the responsibility fell on him.

“Control chips, implanted by the Kaminoans in every single clone– at least, from what we could find. Tech, a trooper from Clone Force 99, helped us decrypt the data, and Corporal Boost from the 104th and Fives found that list, with nearly 100 contingency orders that can make us do whatever they say. And we think the Separatists know about them.”

“What?!” Rex exclaimed, while Commander Fox’s expression went dark.

Dogma spoke up, remembering a little of what he’d heard from the 104th’s CMO and Fives’ initial explanation. “They’re implanted during a tubie’s gestational period, in the prefrontal cortex, which can affect someone’s mood, personality– everything that separates us from droids. Commander Wolffe’s was activated by the Kaminoans; they’d sent him after us, but we were able to remove it, and he’s back to being himself again. They can be removed– all of ours are out. Tup’s chip… activated on its own. It’s how we learned about them in the first place… We tricked the Kaminoans into thinking we’d been… dealt with, and we were able to get off Kamino without alerting them after that, but it’s…” He trailed off, looking back to Hardcase, who continued the disjointed debrief.

“After we’d left the 104th, we were attacked by a Separatist attack shuttle, with somewhere between three and four squads of Commando droids– still no idea how they tracked us, even if they knew our initial hyperlane vector, but they… they got the drop on us. Fives and Warthog were hit with a knockout gas, and Kix told us to hide in the smuggler’s hold, and–” He swallowed hard, fighting against the tears that threatened to emerge yet again. “We didn’t realize what he had planned until he’d shut the hold, and he was still outside.”

Hardcase clenched his fists, hating the way his left arm trembled at the movement– wishing he’d been strong enough to stop them from taking Kix– that Kix hadn’t felt like he needed to protect him from a fate he’d gladly accept.

Hardcase blinked in surprise when a shoulder bumped against his own, relaxing slightly when he saw it was Tup, and Dogma right next to him, giving him a look of solidarity. He took a slow breath, just a little steadier than his last one, and showed Rex the file containing the coordinates they’d been attacked at, the attack shuttle’s signature, and anything else he’d been able to gather at the time. According to Warthog, their hyperspace jumps had been calculated by a complex algorithm, one he’d picked up in ARC training, and if the Separatists knew about that, and the chips, who knew what else they’d picked up.

All of it, taken together, pointed towards a traitor in the Republic.

This was when Fives interjected, feeling more and more like himself as the debrief continued. “T-This goes to the highest levels of the Republic– only a few outside Kamino with the authority to use the chips. W-We can’t just tell anyone. We need to take this to the Chancellor–!!” Fives declared, drawing himself up, despite the way the world still spun at the edges.

Kix had sacrificed himself for their vode, and it was up to them to make sure that sacrifice was worth it.

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