Published: 2024-10-27
The aft medical bay was closer, but they needed to get as far away from the bridge as possible, so Ahsoka took Rex to the midship medical bay. She and the droids moved Rex onto an operating table. "Are-Seven, run a scan. See if you can find the inhibitor chip the report talked about."
R7 pluged in and got to work. The scan failed to find any chip. "But the chip has to be there. Check again!" Ahsoka ordered.
CH-33P beeped a warning to Ahsoka. "How close are they?" Right outside the door, according to CH-33P. "Geegee, if they override the door controls, you have to reseal it fast." GG got to work. "Are-Seven, anything?" Nothing yet. Ahsoka put her hands on the sides of Rex's head. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me." Rex unconciously began to repeat the phrase with her.
They repeated the phrase three times before the computer found the chip. "You found it?" Ahsoka looked at the scan results. "Are-Seven, get him under and remove that thing." R7 asked if she was certain if it would work. "I don't know if it will work. But if it doesn't, we're dead anyway." R7 set the surgical machine to work removing the chip.
The door suddenly started sparking. "Get ready on the door!" Ahsoka commanded GG. She ignited her lightsabers. The door opened halfway, and the clones pushed it the rest of the way up. Blasterfire erupted. Ahsoka deflected their shots and pushed some of the clones back with the Force. One clone landed a lucky shot on her shoulder and she dropped one of her lightsabers. She braced against the operating table to keep her balance. "The door, Geegee, the door!" She continued to barely hold them off when suddenly blasterfire came from behind her, killing two clones before GG shut the door and began welding it.
Ahsoka turned around to see Rex holding his pistols. "Rex? Are you okay?"
Yeah. Yeah, kid. I'm okay. Sorry for what happened earlier. I almost killed you."
"How widespread is this?" Ahsoka asked.
"Ahsoka... it's all of us. The entire Grand Army of the Republic has been ordered to hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights," Rex responded, a pained look on his face.
The clones began to break through the welded door.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" Rex asked.
"We aren't," Ahsoka told him.
"What?!"
"I have an idea."
"Which is?"
"Set your blasters to stun. We're not trying to kill anyone."
"Yeah, well, tell that to them."
"We're going to remove the inhibitor chips of everyone on this ship," she explained.
"Are you crazy?"
"Don't worry. We have an entire week before we arrive at Coruscant."
"And nine and a half thousand troopers!" She seemed dead-set on this plan, but he tried to talk her out of it anyway.
It didn't work. "We can do it. There's enough time."
And so they did. GG opened the door long enough for them to stun several clones and pull them into the medical bay before closing the door and effectively resetting the progress the clones were at getting in. The clnoes they captured then had their inhibitor chips removed. They discovered that all clones had their inhibitor chips in exactly the same place, which meant Ahsoka wouldn't need to be present for any further surgeries, unlike the first one.
Two hours and thirty clones later, they had run out of room in the medical bay. They needed to expand their territory. They opened the door to the rest of the medical wing and stunned every clone that was waiting, before closing the bulkhead at the next intersection. They now had another hallway and all the rooms that branched off of it, including five more operating rooms.
Ahsoka and Rex stayed awake for another six hours helping with the process, but everyone needs to sleep. By the time they went to sleep, two hundred clones had been operated on. Ahsoka and Rex left the process to the clones while they slept on emergency sleeping cots that were stored in the medical bay. When they awoke five hours later, they found that, at the command of the next-highest-ranking officer, Captain Geno, their territory had expanded by five corridors and seven hundred clone troopers and officers had joined their ranks. Among other rooms, they had gained access to the rest of the midship medical wing, and had also turned over thirty medical officeres to their side. The use of trained medical professionals would allow them to speed up the process considerably.
But there was still no sign of Captain Vert or Lieutenant Jesse.
—
Clone Captain CC-5908 stood on the bridge. His next-in-command, CT-5597, stood beside him. CC-5908 was now the highest-ranking officer on the Tribunal. The highest-ranking loyalist officer, anyway. There was now a civil war on his ship, and a security recording showed that Commander CT-7567 was part of the rebellion. The traitors continued to capture clones and somehow convice them to join their cause. It had only been a day, and he had already lost more than a thousand soldiers and crew to Padawan Tano and Commander CT-7567.
They would defeat the traitors, whatever it took.