Chapters Chapter 1: Another Day, Another Fight
“What's the point of all this? I mean, why?"
"I don't know, sir. I don't think anybody knows. But I do know that someday this war is gonna end."
"Then what? We're soldiers. What happens to us then?”
-- CT-5555 and CT-7567, Season 4
Quiet. The eerie silence that was rarely around during these battles. It was so rare that it could send a man on the edge of paranoia and anxiety, as if they were anticipating something, waiting for danger to come around the corner and attack. And on the Venator class ship the Axiom , there was a complete reign of silence. For some, the silence was comforting and allowed them to enjoy some peace as they got some more sleep without worry, or catching up on less important matters in their free time. For others, not so much.
Onboard the Axiom , only a few crewmen were awake. Most were trying to wake up for the day as their ship was flying through hyperspace. The actual troopers were stumbling to get up as well, it was time for them to get up. After using the vac tubes and getting suited up, they walked their way to the mess hall to get breakfast, all sporting the Phase II armor that had been recently provided to every clone, catching up with the current times.
The clone commander had gotten dressed like the others, but there was someone he had to make sure was up as well. Not that she needed to be reminded, but he liked to check up on her every now and then, and that person was the Jedi Master who was leading the 197th Battalion.
The Jedi Master had already gotten up from her bed, and used the vac tubes, and gotten dressed. Gray skin and blond hair with a tan Jedi robe. Her legs were crossed, and her hands were sitting on her kneecaps. Her eyes remained closed, and the entirety of her room remained stone cold silent. Meditation was the key to clear her thoughts, her mind, she was told. This practice had proven effective as before every mission before they would set off for battle or on their next assignment, she would meditate...
The door to her quarters chimed.
"Come in."
The door slid open, with a man in shadows. But the shadows went away, and walking in was the commander of the clone battalion on board. With baby blue colored armor, a pauldron and kama strapped to his body, and his Phase II helmet blazed in blue and a pattern of bubbles, he marched inside, as quiet as he could be. He didn't say a word, but instead, he lowered himself and sat on the floor with her, sort of joining her in the mediation.
"Commander Bubbles," Derpy smiled, not opening her eyes.
"Good morning, General. How do you feel?"
The general's wall-eyes opened up, greeted with the smile of her clone commander. His eyes were mismatched like hers, only he had a cybernetic eye to replace the other after losing it in an accident. He had the same standard black haircut like all the clones, but the other detail that stood out, at least to Derpy was the soft little dotted tattoo on his other eye.
"Never better, Bubbles. What's up?"
"We have only an hour left until we arrive at Nevarro. Then after we're done with our mission, we should finally make our way to Arvala-7," Bubbles responded.
"Good to hear, Commander. Heading to the mess hall?"
"Just to get some coffee, then I'll come up to the bridge," Bubbles replied.
"Great! I'm coming with," Derpy said, getting up on her feet. "Come on."
The two walked down the mess hall, passing by some more clones who gave them soft waves and nods here and there. It had been a few years since Derpy was given the assignment to lead the clones. She started with a small group of thirteen, the Bakers Batch as they were called, consisting of thirteen troopers in total. Their first mission was a bit rocky, mostly with Derpy trying to learn how to be a good leader.
But now, she had more than thirteen troops to lead, and she was more than ready and confident to lead them. Now she was the leader of the 197th Battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic. All of their faces and suits may have looked the same, but she somehow never forgot a face, she just knew who was who. Her leading was a little more... casual, then most of the others. A bit casual with a mix of nervous and silly, but the troops were fine with that. She was still their ally, and she did her job.
"Morning Roadie, Vanders, Gozer. Annnd good morning Stripes!"
Bubbles chuckled. "I still don't understand how you're able to tell us all apart."
"I got to know all of you, silly," Derpy giggled.
The two walked into the mess hall, greeting a few other troopers who were getting their breakfast to start the day. Bubbles grabbed two cups and walked over to the coffee maker. But when he opened it up, Bubbles rolled his eyes. The filter needed to be changed for the cups they were going to have, and sadly no one else besides him or the Jedi knew how to change it. "Guess I'm the only person who knows how to change the coffee filter. Thanks, guys!" He snarked with some deadpan in his voice.
"I have more of the coffee beans," Derpy called out, reaching into one of the storage compartments. She pulled out a bag of coffee beans, waiting for Bubbles to change the filter. Once it was done, she poured in the beans and activated the machine to grind them up. After a moment or so, the coffee maker started to pour the fresh hot coffee into the mugs for the two leaders of the battalion.
Derpy pulled a mug out, passing it to Bubbles, and she took hers. In unison, the two drank from the mugs, enjoying the delicious flavor and burst of caffeine.
"Ah, that's a good cup of coffee," Derpy sighed.
"Good way to start another glorious day in the Grand Army," Bubbles said, looking at the troopers who were busy eating breakfast in the various tables.
The two of them sat silently, looking at the entire hall again. So many faces, so many clones that most citizens would find impossible to identify or figure out who was who. But not for Derpy.
"Oh, before I forget, some of the boys were kind of hoping after our mission is over, maybe we could have ourselves a celebration. I mean this mission could be our last one, right? Our last assignment should worthy of a celebration."
Derpy nodded. "It should be. And I would love to celebrate, but we have to win this battle," she took another sip of her coffee.
"That I know we can do," Bubbles finished the last of his coffee, sliding it over to the disposal system. "I'll be heading up to the bridge, see you there."
Derpy gave another nod, and just continued to sit quietly and enjoy the last bits of her caffeine. A lot had been on her mind recently. Some days, it felt like this war was never going to end. Both her side and the Storm Army kept winning and losing, and it never changed. She swore this war was going to go on until she was a frail old lady, and she would never get the chance to experience true freedom like the rest of those she called her family.
But more recently, her mind wandered to a more sad thought. More upset because she wasn't there to say or do anything. After the end of another mission, she had received word that one of her closest friends at the Jedi temple just... left. She wasn't told why she left, nor was she able to stop her from leaving, and it was pointless in the end because she couldn't do anything about it.
The last bits of her drink went down her throat, and she put her cup into the disposal. She thought some more, and without another thought, she left the mess hall. Time to go to the bridge. A few more clones passed on by, moving to where they needed to be, wherever they were ordered to go. Derpy's focus was just to get to the main command center and address her troops; the Baker's Batch.
Passing by some more doors which opened for her, she saw a clone standing guard and she waved to him politely.
"Morning General," the clone said.
Derpy smiled. "Morning ."
"Want to play sabacc later today?"
"Anytime," Derpy grinned.
"Sounds good. On your way to the bridge?"
"Mmmhmm. Once we arrive, you and the others can get yourselves prepared for the gunships," Derpy nodded.
"Alright then. Meet you down at the gunships," the trooper nodded, going off on his own way.
She smiled with a skip in her step as she walked down another hall, passing by some more clones and seeing two troops across from her, having a small conversation with each other.
"I heard we're arriving on Nevarro soon," the trooper said.
"I hope so. Beats another protection job at some boring Senate meeting," the other trooper replied.
Their attention was brought to the General who was walking around the corner. "Morning Tom, Crow. "
"Morning General," the two clones said in unison.
Derpy gave a small wave, stepping into an elevator with another clone trooper inside. The two of them were quiet, mainly because neither one had anything to say, but regardless Derpy still gave a warm smile that made the trooper smile back, and he saluted her as he got off the elevator to where he needed to be. The doors shut, and the Jedi stood quiet, humming to the sounds of the elevator music that was recently installed. Her feet rubbed against the floor, some small jitters escaping as she remembered who she was going to be talking to.
Once they were open, she walked out of the elevator with a confident pose and all eyes set on her.
"Attention, General on deck!"
All of the clones stood tall to give their respect, which Derpy acknowledged. "At ease men. Good morning everyone, glad to have you all here again. Now before we begin with the briefing, I want to give congratulations to troopers Mohawk and Patch for earning ARC trooper status, you two did really well during the Siege of Malastare, so great job you two."
The two promoted troops gave nods.
"Just doing our job, General," Patch acknowledged.
"You did much more than that, which is why I am proud of you both," Derpy smiled. "Now onto today's mission. This could be the biggest fight that we all have been waiting for. After three years of fighting and endless war, I think we have found the key Storm Army capital, located here in the Nevarro system."
A holoprojection of the planet appeared on the projector, which everyone looked gathered around to see.
"Surveillance indicates there are several transmissions coming from this sector, in a massive capital. Which is why all of us are going down to overtake the capital. We should expect the place to be armed to the teeth so watch out for every kind of mines, turrets, or battle droids."
"How will we be taking the capital?", trooper Tap asked.
Another projection appeared on the table. "We're going to land here, in these canyons for cover. We'll set up a camp here," Derpy pointed. "We need to take down most of their defenses before we can make the march. Take out the heavy weapons, shields, outer defenses. Once we have eliminated the outer protection, we can make our march inside and claim the capital. Everyone clear on the mission?"
"Sir yes sir!"
"Great," Derpy squeaked with an adorable smile. "Now come on, let's make ourselves ready to depart!"
With the meeting adjourned, the troopers left the briefing to go and make themselves ready. Only one trooper didn't leave--
"Um, General? May I speak with you?"
"Mmmhmm!" Derpy nodded. "Are you okay, Vargas?"
"I am, I just... are we really going to do this? I mean many have tried to do this mission, but no one has come even close to gaining victory over them," the trooper asked with some fear.
"I know it's an awful big risk, but we can't stop. This could be the key to victory for the Republic, and a chance to finally put the Storm King, Tempest, and all of the bad guys to stop," Derpy squeaked, eyes still looking in two opposite directions. "Also thanks to all of the reports from previous clone battalions, I believe we have just what we need to overcome it."
"I know, it's just... I'm sorry ma'am, I've just... I don't want this to be my last fight."
Derpy softly smiled. "It's okay Vargas. I understand. We're all in this together, okay? You got this." She raised her hand up for a high-five, and Vargas with a bit of a smile gave her a high-five in return. "We can do this!"
The Venator-class ship arrived at Nevarro, pulling right above the atmosphere of the planet. Slowly it would make it's descent down so the gunships could have better flight, and so the dropships could deploy their walkers and tanks.
In the locker hall, trooper Knight slid the ammunition round into one of the blasters, cocking it to make sure it worked and setting it to safety. He put the gun back on the rack with the other guns, walking past another trooper; Tap. He gripped his fingers on the rifle, sliding the ammo inside and cocking it so it was loaded. He stood in a few fighting stances, holding the gun up with two strong arms as if he was ready to fire. And over in another corner, Stinger was tuning the final adjustments onto his jetpack, while Knight was making sure his gatling gun was still working properly.
Within the hour, pilots started rushing to their ships, ready to take off and take their troops down below. Derpy made sure to get herself ready; her cloak was properly adjusted, she had some armor hidden as a backup to protect herself, her lightsaber was sturdy, she had everything. Though just in case, she did grab one thing out of her quarters, locked inside a trunk. She dragged it out of her room, amusing a few troopers who passed by, and even though they offered to help, Derpy just kept dragging it along.
She finally got it inside of the gunship she was gonna ride in, and awaited the arrival of the rest of her troopers. Most of them were already boarding the rest of the gunships, but she was eagerly waiting for her top troopers; The Baker's Batch.
The clones opened up their lockers, arming themselves to the teeth. Weapons were being locked and loaded, with plenty of ammunition at their hand. Grappling hooks, ration sticks, poppers, everything. A few troopers grabbed backpacks, filling them up with plenty of droid poppers and grenades to use on the battle droids.
"Alright troopers, we are a team, we fight as one, we are going to show these Stormies just what we're made of," Bubbles addressed, while the others were making final checks. "We win this battle, we could win this war. Now: Are you lean!?"
"YEAH!"
"Are you mean!?"
"YEAH!"
"What are you all!?"
"WE ARE LEAN AND MEAN!"
"Then let's get a move on! Double-time boys, come on!"
The Baker's Batch, now all equipped and ready to run, made a dash from the locker rooms and over to the main hangar bay. Derpy was seen waiting for them, and she smiled to see her brothers all prepped and ready to fight.
"You all look amazing! Now come on, let's win this battle!"
Everyone hopped onto the gunship, ready to take off. Noting they were ready, the pilot started the gunship and so it began to take flight. Everyone held onto the safety ropes hanging above, to keep them standing in case the ship kept rocking violently.
One by one , each of the gunships started to deploy out of the hangar, leaving as one massive group towards the surface. Alongside the gunships were several drop-ships, carrying walkers and tanks to be used for combat.
They flew in tight formation, keeping close together and never once breaking apart from the groups. Once they were deployed, the hangar doors on the Venator closed, and so the crews continued to get back to work.
"Welcome to Nevarro, everyone!" Derpy announced on the com systems. "Captain, make your way towards the surface!"
"Roger that, General!"
The gunships pushed through the clouds as they moved lower to the ground, all joined together as one massive force. But something undesirable was flying right towards them.
"Incoming Vultures!"
A squadron of Vulture droids opened fire, deploying several laser rounds towards the incoming gunships. Staying together, they moved out of the way to try and avoid the fire, but it was too late. One of the dropships was shot, sending it hurling towards the ground where it crashed straight into the ground with a massive explosion engulfing the ship.
Another dropship was shot as well, but in the nick of time, one of the gunships turned its blasters on the Vultures and managed to clean one of them out of the air.
"Nice shot!" The pilot shouted.
"We still got three more of those pests, we're not going to be able to land with them in the air!"
"Move us towards the canyon trenches, we can take cover there!"
And soon enough, another drop-ship was shot out of the sky, and was sent hurling to the ground and exploded upon impact. Quickly, everyone scrambled to make their way towards the canyon trenches to escape, but more fighters emerged from the skies to give chase.
"Ugh, hang on!" The pilot shouted, trying to keep Derpy and her crew safe.
The remaining gunships flew into the canyons with the Vultures still swooping after them. They opened fire, with unfortunately another gunship shot down and sent flying into the walls and exploding. The ships kept avoiding the fire, but one of them spun around, facing the vultures. Quickly, the captain helming the ship opened fire, and the two clones in the gunner seats opened fire as well. Two of them finally went down, but only one was left. The captain kept his fingers on the trigger buttons, praying that he'd finally take the last one out until
KABLAM!
A blast from another gunship took out the last Vulture droid, finally getting a break from attacks.
"No more of those Vultures are after us. We should be okay to land now," the pilot announced.
"Come on then, let's go!"
Once everyone was finally set down on the ground and had space from the battle, the troops started to set up camp within the canyons, taking some shelter under an edge of rock. It was big enough to take cover, and plenty of cover from any possible rain or hail-fire from above, at least temporarily.
It didn't help their situation since they had only two walkers still functioning, but they had to work with what they had left. Thankfully, they still had plenty of clone troopers at their disposal, more than enough to perform a siege on the capital. While troops were taking a quick moment to settle down and make their base prepared, Derpy sat on a little rock with a holoprojector in front of her to speak to the Jedi Council.
They had been informed of their rocky but successful landing, and now she was catching up on what everyone else had been up to. Their missions with the Storm Armies in other systems had been going smoothly, and they were doing alright for the most part. Right now, Rainbow Dash was going in excruciatingly long detail on how awesome she and her clone commander were for taking down an entire group of Stormtroopers by themselves. But something else had Derpy's attention. Sunset Shimmer sitting in the chair across from her, looking very anxious and concerned.
“Sunset?”
Her interruption got the rest of the Mane Council to look at her, even Sunset.
“Sunset, are you okay?”
“Hmm? Oh, I, uh. I uh…”
“Darling, you seem distracted. Are you alright?” Rarity asked.
“I dunno, it’s nothing really.”
“Sunset, what have we told you?” Applejack said, putting her hands on her hips.
“… To tell you all if something is wrong.”
“Exactly. So what’s buggin’ ya?”
Sunset, now having the attention of the entire Jedi Council, spoke. “I’m worried for Tw—I mean, Master Sparkle. She told me she was checking out a strange signal, and I haven’t seen her back in several days. This isn’t like her to just suddenly vanish without telling us.”
“Maybe she’s helping fight off an enemy and doesn’t have a way to call us back yet?”
“No, it can’t be. I don’t know why, but I’ve been having these… dreams, these visions. I feel like something bad is going to happen, and I don’t know what.”
The rest of the Mane Council looked concerned, exchanging various glances.
“Try calling her, see if you can get her to call you back. If not, we’ll try contacting her ourselves. I’m afraid I have an important assignment on Devaron.”
“And I still need to try and help deal with the Storm Army invasion back here on Ryloth.” Sunset agreed.
“Speaking of which, Derpy, how goes your siege?” Applejack asked.
“We’ve found their main base, and we’re getting ready for another attack.” Derpy tilted her head back, seeing Commander Bubbles and the rest of the Baker’s Batch waiting. “Oh, I got to go. See you all soon!”
Derpy closed the hologram, and saw that Commander Bubbles was waiting for her.
“Commander, you and the boys ready?”
“Yes we are, General,” Bubbles replied, waiting for Derpy to come and join him. She left the holoprojector, but her expression remained worried. “Are you alright?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m fine. Sorry, I’m a little worried right now. I was checking in with the council, and Master Sparkle hasn’t reported back in quite a while. She hasn’t been contacting the rest of the main Council for some time now, it’s completely unlike her.”
“Maybe she’s held up with a mission on her own? Or maybe she’s so far out that she has no communication, and is handling a situation on her own?”
“Maybe. I just hope she’s alright,” Derpy responded. "Anyways, do we have our divisions together?"
"Yes ma'am," Bubbles acknowledged. "Bolt is going to take a small squad to the west, patrolling for any energy foundries or any power plants, something to take out their power. We're hoping it will take out the shield protecting the capital, but if all else fails, we could always find a way to sneak in and just disarm it ourselves."
"Fair enough. And what about our division, how many are we taking with us?" Derpy asked.
"Mix, Coil, Roadie, Crow, Vargas, and Tap are coming with us. Mohawk and Patch are taking another division to the east, to search for any locals or possible slave camps."
"Good. If there are any innocents here, we don't want them hurt, we'll need to move them, if any," Derpy agreed.
"Just what I thought, ma'am."
One by one, the called clones got onto a set of bikes, ready to go. Once everyone was gathered, the clones sped off in the distance to search and patrol.
--
After a good while of driving, the gaggle of clones saw a small town just up ahead, and made their way towards it. With Derpy in the lead, she was the first to approach as she grinded her vehicle to a halt. She stepped off her bike, and made a few steps towards the town. Most of the townsfolk were minding their own business, just trucking along just fine. Although they didn't ignore the arrival of the woman in a cloak or the clone troopers.
Eventually, someone stepped forward to greet them; a man in blue skin and frost white hair with a curl up front.
"Welcome, visitor. My name is Royal Pin, welcome to our little village. How may we help you?"
"My name is Master Derpy Hooves, how are you?"
"I'm doing fine, thank you," the man said with a soft bow.
"Are there any Storm Army forces here, or battle droids of any kind?"
Royal let out a laugh. "Storm Army? Please. They never come around here..." and very disturbingly, he got up close and personal with her, and his face turned serious. "We're being held hostage. We cannot escape or leave the planet," Royal whispered.
"How many?" Derpy whispered back.
"Thousands of battle droids. They're in the capital, but they're monitoring all transmissions and sections of the atmosphere. They're watching us."
Derpy softly nodded and continued to whisper, "Tell your people to take shelter. We'll do our best to stop them."
Royal Pin nodded, and suavely walked away. He made a few hand signals to some of the villagers who immediately got the message, stopping whatever it was they were doing and moving straight inside their own individual homes, locking down the doors and windows.
"I guess we don't need to do anything then," Derpy said, rubbing the top of her head.
"General, come in," a voice said from the coms.
"Patch, what's wrong?" Derpy answered.
"We just received word from Bolt's scouting team; they've been ambushed, we're on our way!"
"Understood. Come on everyone!"
Derpy and her squad raced on the bikes throughout the valley, sending dust and rocks flying right behind them as they rode. Just up ahead, they could see some smoke billowing, but it wasn't smoke from any geyser or melting materials from the volcanic activity. This was more clearer and more gray than black. Grinding their bikes to a screeching halt, Derpy and the clones got off and stood in horror at the sight before them.
Destroyed bikes, scorch marks everywhere, and of course, dead clones. Dead soldiers scattered on the ground, hit in the arms, the chest, the back, the legs, everywhere. The only clones standing were Patch and his division of troopers, surveying the aftermath.
"Oh my God..." Bubbles gasped.
Derpy and the troops rushed over, looking at many of the downed clones.
"Jim is dead! So is Puck and Clash," Patch analyzed, looking at some of the bodies.
"General! There's one still alive!"
Derpy rushed over to where the trooper called, taking a knee down. The trooper was battered against the rock, holding into his wounds and trying not to pass out.
"Trooper, it's alright, we're here. Brawn, isn't it?" Derpy asked, getting a nod. Soon Patch came over and started to apply some bandages to his wounds. "What happened?"
The trooper coughed, trying not to choke on anything that went down the wrong pipe. "We found a power plant, shield generators, everything that's keeping the entire base protected," he coughed. "But the Stormies outflanked us. Storm Guards, the hairy beasts, they wiped us out. But they took Bolt!"
Derpy gasped. "Bolt? They took Bolt, why?"
"I don't know! I don't know why, but they just captured him and ran off with him!"
The wall-eyed Equestrian didn't understand what was going on. She diverted her eyes over to the main fortress, fearing the possibilities of what they could be doing.
"So... General. You said we were prepared for most contingencies. Did you have a scenario where one of us was intentionally captured?" Bubbles asked.
Derpy blanked with a terrified face. "I don't think I ever did."
Chapter 2: The Siege Of Nevarro
Author's Note
Whew! Finally this one's done. And if this one's taken care of, I think we might be able to get Chapter 3 posted as well.
Hope ya'll enjoy it
Chapter 2: The Siege Of Nevarro
The Storm Army capital was guarded and armed to the teeth as Brawn had said. Several cannons were spread, a few turrets on the towers, including masses of the armies themselves. Battle droids, Stormtroopers, even the hairy beasts that served under the Storm King himself. All of them had been tasked to keep an eye out for intruders, they didn't want anyone coming inside anytime soon, since they knew the Republic had sent an army here.
Inside the capital, Bolt had indeed been captured. Fortunately, he was alright, but he was strapped to an examination table in a prison cell, knocked out. He was currently sitting inside what looked like a mad scientist's laboratory, with guards posted at the doors, and a medic droid overseeing him. Soon enough, the head scientists of this laboratory came into the room, with the two battle droid guards moving out of the way.
Said scientists were a pair of brothers; with pear-like colored skin, both sharing similar builds and figures, only difference was that one had a mustache and the other had no facial hair of any kind. The two brothers were scientists, dedicated to the Storm Army so they could get a good cut of cash. They knew how to work the system without facing repercussions, and if the Storm King took over, it meant they could be completely untouchable.
Right now, their hands were typing on the main computer, sending a call to their boss. The two waited momentarily, hearing a dial-up tone coming from the screen which screeched an awful lot whenever they sent him a call. And soon on screen with his chest right in the middle of the screen, was the Storm King. And judging by the conversation, he was clearly not having the most wonderful day right now.
--My BIDDING!? How about I bid thee, to stop ramming the ship into blasted asteroid fields, can you handle that?"
"I'm trying--"
"--Yeah, well there is no try, there's do, and then there's fragged up royally, and you have fragged up royally! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting right now, and I'd appreciate it if you stop wrecking my ships, and my merchandise!" The Storm King yelled. He sighed momentarily, chest still close to the camera. "Sorry about that, agh... alright, wait. Can you see me?"
"Uhh, move a bit down, sir," the first brother asked.
"Like this?" He lowered himself a bit, capturing his jaw on camera, but it wasn't enough.
"No, a little bit more," the second brother asked.
Finally, the Storm King was in perfect view of the Flim Flam brothers, giving them both his attention.
"Oh, there you are," the Storm King deadpanned. "Alright, here's the deal, I'm in the middle of a shift in plans, I've got several bills and payments to make to produce more battle droids and enlist more Stormtroopers, but you know what, I really need to back up my power, know what I need to back it up with? A STORM! THAT WOULD BE GREAT!" He yelled, flashing his fangs. "I've been fighting in a long, tiring, and frankly boring war for over three years now, and I kind of want to step things up a notch, you know what I mean?"
"Of course, good King sir," Flim nodded.
"Absolutely, couldn't agree more," Flam added. "But uhhhh what are you going to do about it?"
The Storm King scrunched his face, making his eyes stretch with his jaw as he did so. "Look, I got a message from Shelia, she said something about you two ordered troops to capture one of the uh look-alike whatchamacallit things," The Storm King stuttered, trying not to slip on words.
"Clones, good king," the first brother said.
"Yes, yes, of course. Expendable, but easy to replace, just another face no one cares--alright, listen, I've got a big plan I want to unleash on the Equestrians, you know what I mean? These Jedi saps don't even know I got a little weapon I've wanted to spring on them for some time. I wanted to save it for a special occasion, but you know what, I'm getting BORED!" He slammed his fist down on the console. "Now, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell Shelia to send you a fax, a code, whatever it is, the instructions for what you're going to do to that copy of a man. I want you guys to run a little test. The Jedi will no doubt come back to rescue the expendable man, and when they do... let their brother come back with new orders."
The two brothers scratched their heads.
"But, King sir, what if the Jedi doesn't come back? I mean these clones, aren't they made to be expendable?"
The Storm King slowly glared at them, growling softly. "Who is the Jedi that your troops spotted?"
"Um, Ditzy, Clutzy, something uhhh--Derpy, Derpy Hooves, yes, that's her," Flim said, getting a nod from his brother.
"Then I know for a fact she will come," the Storm King grinned evilly. "I received multiple reports from some of our fellow officers and co-workers, it seems this Jedi values these lab rats as living beings. I know she will come to perform a rescue. Now, do your little test, I have a city bombing to join in a few," he said casually, shutting off the monitor.
The two brothers looked at each other with curiosity and shrugged. Flim tapped on the console, speaking to one of the guards. "Please bring the clone trooper down to our laboratory. We have some work to do."
All Flim got was a grunt for a response, but it was an acknowledgement either way. And on a holopad, a set of instructions and pictures were on display for them to analyze. Flam picked up the pad, looking at some of the various pictures that they had to study from.
"Hmm... ohhh, oh now this is interesting," Flam observed.
"What is, good brother?" Flim asked, adjusting his mustache.
"Look," Flam showed the pad in his hand, getting a mischievous grin off Flim's face.
"Ohohoho, I think the Storm King's going to make effective use with this."
Just then, the doors opened, with one of the Storm Guards pushing Bolt inside. The clone was strapped down to an examination table, and he couldn't move any of his limbs. Bolt tried to break himself free, but of course, none of his attempts worked. The Storm Guard didn't even pay any mind.
"Just leave him right over there," Flim pointed to the left of their lab, near some equipment.
The guard did just that, pushing the clone towards the equipment, then walking away and leaving. Once he was gone, the two brothers examined the notes and information that had been sent to them, looking with evil grins and curiosity. Knowing what they were going to do, they walked over to the clone with the holopad.
"Hello trooper," Flim greeted with a faux friendly greeting. "Are you excited? We're going to be doing some work today."
"Whatever it is you're after, you aren't going to get it out of me!" Bolt growled as he glared at him.
"Oh, don't worry trooper. We'll be getting it out of you, one way or another," Flam smirked. "Nothing too personal, it's all part of the business, you cannot get too attached!"
"I'd rather die," Bolt sneered.
"That can easily be arranged," Flim sneered back. "However, you're not going to. We have something much more fun planned. And since we know your master is going to come back to save you, we're going to get started. And don't worry, this will only hurt a little..."
None of the Storm Guards got a look inside the lab as the Flim Flam brothers got to work, but judging by the flashing lights and the sounds of electricity, they could only imagine what horrors went on in there. Only the battle droids posted inside could watch, and they barely had any reaction to the inhumane things they were doing. The screaming of the poor man in pain and terror only added further as they stood at their posts, ready to guard and defend...
With Brawn patched up, and the wounded brought back to their campsite, Derpy and the clones gathered around a table, looking over a holographic projection of the entire capital.
"Judging by how fortified this capital is, it's not going to be easy to just storm in and break through into the fortress. Those tanks aren't going to let us come through, and we only have two functional walkers. They'll wipe them out before we can even get there," trooper Bounce observed, looking at the map.
"We'll figure out how to deal with the tanks later. Right now, our priority should be finding a way inside to rescue Bolt," Derpy shook her head.
"General, what if they killed him? He's probably dead by now," one trooper asked out of concern. "Breaking into that place is going to be suicide!"
"I don't care how risky it will be, I'm not going to leave him," Derpy said, frowning. She looked at the rest of the troops with concern. "I know we've lost many of our brothers along the way. Not our platoon, but... everywhere. Fives. Waxer. Hardcase. Keeli. Axe. Thorn. And many others. But there's no reason they would just capture a clone unless they had some plan with him, and I for one do not want him experimented. If any of you want to come with me, please say so now. But I should note that if you don't want to, you don't have to. Volunteer only."
No one said a word, though frankly, no one was feeling much confidence in her lackluster plan to begin with. That is until Mohawk and Patch stepped up.
"If I may, General, I think we might have a possible solution that could benefit us all; taking out some of their defenses and getting Bolt out of there," Mohawk proposed.
"Yeah? What is it?" Derpy asked, curiously.
Another projection displayed on the holotable, showing a massive pipeline connected to areas of the capital.
"We send in two teams; one team to rescue Bolt, and the other to take out a few of their defenses," Patch began. "We can sneak past a few guards, security droids, and we can plant bombs on the tanks in a region they'll never think to look outside the main doors and walls."
"Then, once we're ready to fight, we'll blow them up, catching them by surprise. Thus letting our troops push forward and break into the capital," Mohawk finished. "Once we're finished, Tracks will come in with the gunship to pick us up and take us back to camp."
Derpy rubbed her chin, but that smile on her face was enough to confirm her agreement. "Okay, I'm in. Let's assemble our infiltration teams."
--
Much later, Mohawk and Patch started calling for a few troopers to come join their mission involving the tanks; Stinger, Ace, Knight, Bounce, Coil, Tom, Crow, and Spartan. Derpy looked over her troops, looking for the best soldiers to tag along for her mission to free Bolt.
"You can count on me, General," Commander Bubbles said, stepping forward.
"Me too, Bolt and I have been through a lot together," Mix added, joining Derpy and the commander.
"I'll lend a hand," another voice piped up. This time it was Vargas, stepping forward. "I want to give them a little reminder of what happens when you mess with our brothers."
The last call had been made, and so the infiltration team sped off on a series of speeder bikes, racing off to the capital, kicking rocks and dust behind them. Derpy felt stronger with all of her troopers together; just knowing they were by her side was enough to bring confidence back in her to make this mission a success. They were going to get Bolt free, and they were going to win this fight, no matter what.
Soon enough, the team arrived at a massive pipeline. Incredibly smelly inside, but it was the perfect way to sneak inside without being seen. One by one, everyone climbed inside and marched through. Everyone's guns were locked with the safety on for their own concern, no one wanted to be blown up before they got there. Derpy held a hand over her nose to try and block the smell, but it still made it through.
"Should have brought a mask like you guys," Derpy quipped, nearing the pinpointed spot to leave the pipe. Derpy climbed up the ladder and opened up the hatch with the circular valve. Slowly she pushed it up, peaking her eyes out to look for any guards or patrols. No one was in sight as she slowly got out, just making sure.
"See anyone, General?" Mohawk called out.
Derpy kept looking, even using the Force to try and feel for any guards.
"No one. Your team should be okay for now, but you should still take cover!"
One by one, Mohawk's group climbed out of the pipeline and back into the open, now standing on the grounds surrounding the capital. Only one way across without the pipeline; a bridge. A bridge that connected to a massive set of doors that led inside. And lined up against the capital's walls were series of cannons, ready to be used in the event of an attack.
"We'll be in and out, now let's move it boys," Mohawk ordered.
Mohawk's team got out and started to sneak along the walls, ready to get to work on planting the bombs. Derpy just pressed on with Bubbles, Mix, and Vargas right behind her. Together the group of four kept moving down the pipeline, leading further and further underground until Derpy raised her hand up to tell the group to freeze in their tracks.
"We should be right underneath one of the floors," Bubbles said, looking up at the ladder and valve hatch.
Derpy climbed up first and once again, opened up the valve and peaked out with her eyes to check for any possible threats. No one in sight, and she pushed it open all the way, slowly getting out and checking for any threats. Seeing no one around, the Jedi signaled for her clones to come out and join her.
"Okay, if I remember the holoplans, the laboratory should be down this way," Bubbles pointed to the hallway in front of them.
"Great. But first thing's first, shoot the cameras. We can't let them know we're here, not yet," Derpy advised.
"Roger that," Mix acknowledged, shooting a camera that stood out. And Vargas shot at another camera. Bubbles was the last to fire, shooting cameras like a gunslinger in a showdown. Derpy poked her head out, quietly squeeing at the fact no one was around. However she did not stop from looking around, no way this could have been so easy.
The team stood together, watching each other's backs as they made their way towards the main doors. Derpy's fingers pressed the buttons, and the doors slid open. Inside they could see the two Flim Flam brothers with Bolt still strapped to their examination table.
The two scientists nearly yelped when they saw Derpy barge in with Bubbles, Mix, and Vargas at her side. Their weapons were cocked to kill, and the clones fired at the battle droids that were guarding the room, destroying them instantly.
“Alright Stormies. Give us our brother back, now,” Mix warned, cocking his blaster again, just for good measure.
The two scientists did so, unstrapping the restraints that held Bolt's body to the table. But just as he was about to get back up, one of the brothers slowly moved in close to his ear and whispered something. Derpy, nor the other clones could hear it, but they knew it couldn’t have been good.
“Bolt, they didn’t do anything to you, right?” Bubbles asked, concerned.
Bolt slowly got back on his feet, finally getting the strength to stand back up again. Although the blank expression on his face said otherwise. Derpy didn’t need to be told a thing to learn something wasn’t right. Bolt wasn’t responding to any of his brother's concerns. But then they saw his arms shaking and he let go of his ARF helmet which dropped on the ground.
“Bolt? Are you okay buddy?” Derpy worried. “What’s wrong?”
She took one step forward, and without warning, Bolt quickly raised his weapon, pointed at her. He didn’t fire, and it was only more concerning thanks to his worried face. “Stay back! All of you!”
Derpy put her weapon away and raised her hands up, as if to silently protest ‘we’re not going to hurt you’. Bolt didn’t move his weapon away, he couldn’t. Something was forcing him to hold it up, but he couldn’t say what it was. But as he trembled in place, his brothers could see one small tear run down his face as he desperately tried not to shoot at them.
“Run… run… run…”
Derpy didn’t understand. Run? Run from what? From him? From the enemy? What was happening!?
“All of you, run !”
He pulled the trigger and Derpy deflected the blast at one of the walls. Seizing their chance, the Flim Flam brothers escaped the lab to leave their work with the Jedi and the clones. Bolt kept shooting, and Derpy kept blocking the blasts, trying to keep them away from her troopers and the man currently firing.
"Bolt, stop! Please!" Derpy begged as she deflected another shot.
Vargas took his chance while he was distracted, charging at Bolt and tackling him to the ground. Bolt however, with more experience in the war than the younger clone, got back up and pushed Vargas off his body. He gripped Vargas and kneed him in the groin and the gut, and finished by slamming him against some of the scientist equipment hard enough to knock him out.
Until finally Bubbles switched his blaster to stun and he fired a shot at Bolt, finally knocking him to the ground. The remaining three members standing looked at each other with worry.
"Wh... what happened?" Derpy quivered.
"I don't understand. Why would he just attack us?" Mix asked.
"I don't think he had any choice," Bubbles said, walking over and picking up Vargas.
"Is he still breathing?" Derpy asked, worried.
Bubbles sighed in relief. "He's still alive. But I recommend we get these two out of here as soon as possible." With all of his strength, he carried Vargas back to the hallway with Mix carrying Bolt with him. Derpy ran with them, keeping her lightsaber out to defend the troopers while they got their brothers out.
Derpy tapped on her comlink, calling the ARC troopers. "Mohawk, Patch, we have Bolt, we're on our way out! Where are you?"
"We just finished placing the bombs, we're heading down into the pipelines!"
"Wait for us, we're on our way out!" Derpy ordered.
"Roger that, General!"
Right at that very moment, a loud alarm system echoed throughout the entire capital. Realizing they had to run, the group booked it back to where they had entered before, sealing the doors behind them. Bubbles climbed down the hatch first, with Derpy carefully moving Bolt down to the commander so he could grab him. Mix was next to climb down, and he got ahold of Vargas as Derpy carefully moved him down as well. Derpy was the last to leave as she slammed the hatch behind her, running with the group down the pipeline to escape.
Everyone darted down the pipeline until they saw Mohawk and the rest of the clones who were there, waiting for them. Seeing that everyone was together, Bubbles led the clones out of the pipeline first, making sure that everyone made it out, one by one. Derpy was the last to leave, also making sure that no battle droids or Storm Guards were on their tail.
But the moment they were outside, they were seen. Battle droids fired their blasters at them to try and stop them, but like most of the battle droids and Stormtroopers of the Storm Army; their shots were incredibly lackluster and poor. Derpy blocked a few of their laserblasts right back at them, hitting a few in the process. Soon enough, a Republic gunship came hovering down for them to get on board, and everyone leapt onto the gunship to get themselves moving. Bolt and Vargas were held carefully by Mix and Mohawk once they got one, and Derpy kept deflecting their blasts the moment they got on.
"Tracks, punch it!" Bubbles ordered.
"Roger that," the pilot replied.
The gunship spun itself around and took off from the field, far away from the vicinity of the capital. Derpy glared back at the capital, and her walleyes turned into sorrow when she looked at her two brothers. She could only hope that they would be okay...
Once everyone was back at base, Patch put the two in a tent with some medical equipment nearby to monitor their vitals. Derpy could only pace back and forth out of fear, worrying that they came too late. And just then, Patch exited the tent.
"Are they going to be okay?" Derpy worried.
"They'll be right. Vargas got hit, but he'll manage. But he's not going to be combat ready, he has a concussion."
"What about Bolt? Is he going to be alright?"
"That I don't know. I don't think I've ever had a case like this before," Patch said, unsure. He led her inside the tent where Bolt was still laying. But the two could very audibly hear the trooper mumbling words.
"Good soldiers follow orders... good soldiers follow orders... good soldiers follow orders..."
Derpy and Patch looked at each other with fear. "What does he mean?"
"I don't know. This isn't any condition I've seen before. I think he might have snapped, possibly some form of combat stress," Patch hypothesized.
"But that doesn't add up, it can't. Before the two Flim Flam brothers left, they did something to make him attack. I don't know what it was, but it felt like Bolt didn't want to attack us. He kept telling us to run, and then he just... turned . It was like something was controlling him, but he couldn't fight it."
"Well either way, he is in no condition to fight," Patch summised.
"Understood. Just uh... give me a moment," Derpy said, walking off.
She walked over to her side of the campsite, with a big rock to use as a seat and her trunk set in front of it to use as a small table. Upset, her body collapsed onto her rock seat as she scrunched her face. She sighed in her hands as she looked across the canyons in front of her. Her head lightly turned back so she could look at the clones who were all busy doing their own things; chatting amongst themselves, studying plans, doing some quick exercises, the usual.
"General, are you okay?"
"Hmm?" Derpy raised her head. Commander Bubbles was standing next to her. The Jedi scooted so her commander could take a seat with her as well. "Oh, uh, please, sit."
Bubbles sat beside her. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I... I don't know. I just feel awful, Bubbles. I don't know what went wrong with Bolt, and now I don't know how to help him," Derpy whimpered. Reaching over on her left, she pulled out a small basket that she managed to bring with her on the trip. Naturally, of course, inside the basket were some muffins. "Muffin?" she offered.
"Yes please, thank you."
Bubbles accepted a muffin, taking a bite into the sweet cinnamon tasting pastry. Derpy had one herself, and the two sat in silence for a moment as they stared down the canyon. Hoping to ease her mind on the trooper's condition, Bubbles changed the subject.
"So General. If you don't mind me asking, did you have any plans for when the war's over? When all of this is done?"
Derpy took another bite of her muffin and thought for a second. "I don't know. I was honestly thinking of retiring when this is all over. Maybe settle down. Get married. Maybe find a nice house in a beautiful forest, maybe something like a jungle. Somewhere far from war, but still have nice people I can talk to. What about you?"
"I'll be honest, General. I haven't thought that far ahead. I mean, I thought I was going to die at one point during many of our battles. That's what we were made for, we're made to be expendable."
Derpy looked at Bubbles softly, patting his hand. "Not to me. None of you are expendable."
Another moment of silence passed as the two sat there. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Derpy jumped on her two feet like a man ready to hunt down a wild animal.
"You know what? I've had enough. I think it's time we finish this battle. We go out to random planets to fight more battles, only to lose more and more men, and I think enough is enough. We're ending this battle, once and for all."
"But we have two men down," Bubbles pointed out.
"It hasn't stopped us before. We rescued a Jedi with only 13 clones, and we still made it out okay." Derpy popped the lid of the trunk, pulling out some black spandex and white and blue armor.
And out of the trunk came a massive screen to hide herself. Bubbles couldn't see, but he did only see her shadow as she started to disrobe.
"Um, General, what are you doing?"
"I've waited for years to wear this outfit, and I don't think there's a better time. I want to mess with their heads," Derpy said, putting her hands on her hips behind the screen.
"How, uh, ma'am? I don't understand."
All he saw were clothes flying in the air as she got dressed. And eventually, he saw what looked like shapes of some kind of armor being put on, and spandex stretching around her body. Once she was done, the screen was pushed aside and Bubbles finally got a good look at what she was talking about.
"What do you think?" Derpy asked with a sheepish grin.
"General, I... I think it looks great," Bubbles smiled. "Did you make that?"
"I had some help from Master Rarity. I wanted to wear it since I made it, and I don't think there's any other time." Derpy grabbed two blaster pistols from the trunk as well, pushing them down in her holsters. Finally, she picked up a helmet from the trunk and placed it on top of her head. "Assemble the troops. We're winning this last battle."
Back at the capital, the battle droids and Storm Guards were standing in positions, ready for another attack. They weren't going to let them sneak past their defenses again, not this time. Now everyone had their cannons charged and ready to fire, blasters loaded, everyone was ready to fight. Just then, they felt the ground start to shake and rumble. Powerful thuds tremored underneath their feet, making small rocks jiggle.
One of the droids raised a set of binoculars, gazing off in the distance. "Republic troops are approaching, commander."
Off in the distance, two Republic walkers were marching across the grounds towards the capital, with a handful of clone troopers walking with them. Some soldiers stood on top of the walkers as well to provide additional fire from above. Two people led the troopers towards the capital. Commander Bubbles, naturally. And the other was Derpy Hooves.
Although Derpy no longer looked like a Jedi. She was now dressed like the clones; in a custom-made female clone trooper outfit, with colors to resemble the 197th Battalion. A kama with holsters reached down to her heeled boots, her bubbly graphic was blazed on her shoulders, and her helmet resembled a Phase I clone trooper helmet with bigger lenses in the eye region.
"As cool as the armor is, General, I'm not sure they'll fall for the trick," Mix piped up, marching behind her.
"It'll work for a few seconds. But this is our final battle, and I want to look like all of you," she said, looking back.
"Why? We all look the same," Mix frowned under the helmet.
"Not to me. And I want to be like all of you guys, that's why I made this armor," she squeaked.
"I'm happy with the Derpy Hooves we have," Bubbles said back. "And there's no other Derpy Hooves I'd fight beside."
Derpy squeaked with joy under the helmet, making the commander chuckle a bit. There was no way anyone could not smile at her innocent demeanor.
"Uh, sirs? The Republic troops are approaching. Do we attack them?" The battle droid commander asked.
"Destroy them all!" The Flim Flam brothers ordered in unison.
The tactical droid stood out the top of one of the armored assault tanks, and gave the order.
"Go. Go!"
The battle droids and Storm Guards immediately began firing towards the incoming clones, preparing for their incoming assault. And just like the Storm Army, the clones immediately stepped into action. Troopers started to fire at the droids, running and taking cover behind several rocks and other obstructions that were in the field.
Derpy, now equipped with her new suit started to make a mad dash through the battlefield. Some of the Storm Guards saw the running clone trooper and opened fire on her with their spear-blasters. But none of their shots hit her, and she kept on running. She was moving so fast, the clones swore she could have challenged Rainbow Dash in a leg race.
"How is that clone running so fast?" One of the droids asked.
"It's the Jedi, you fools! Open fire," the tactical droid ordered.
Derpy still charged towards them, and when the time was right she jumped into the air, landing on top of the tank and yanking the tactical droid out of the seat. The tactical droid was tossed to the ground, and Derpy quickly responded by firing a blaster bolt into the central processor with the small pistol clipped to her thigh. Taking her chance, she jumped further into the tank, sending a lot of screams from the droids inside. One of them opened the back door and tried to run, but Derpy Force-pulled him straight back into the tank and destroyed it.
Some of the Storm Guards turned around and started to shoot at her, but she didn't kill them. She blocked some of their shots, yes, but she didn't shank her lightsaber through their bodies. She Force-pushed them against other Storm Guards, knocking the wind out of some, and then shooting others with the stun function on the blaster gun.
With a few of the soldiers distracted, it gave the clones a chance to keep pushing forward. The walkers fired at the battle droids, destroying several battalions from the blast radius. Trooper Fuse who was clinging to one of the walkers held the detonator in his hand, ready to pull the trigger at the call. He still partook in the battle, shooting at a few battle droids that were in the distance; with the help of Ace of course, who held a sniper rifle on the other side of the walker.
Bubbles and a few of the Bakers Batch members ran into the field together, firing all at once as droids tried to stampede them. But more and more droids just dropped thanks to their combined numbers and effort. Knight whipped out a gatling gun and started unloading a hailstorm of blasts against the droids.
"Suck hot laser, clankers!" Knight cackled as he wiped the ground with the droids.
Coil and Tap took cover behind one of the massive rocks, nailing a few targets along the way.
"General, how much longer until we can storm the capital?" Tap asked in the coms.
"We can do it now! Tell Fuse to blow them up!" Derpy ordered, slicing and hacking away at more of the battle droids.
Fuse got the call, and so he held the detonator ready in his fingers. "Stuka u noleeya hell , clankers," Fuse grinned as he pressed the button.
Several powerful explosions went off around the edges of the capital, cannons being blown up to smithereens and sending parts and metal flying in the air. Battle droids got hit by the falling debris, and clones took cover from the explosions. So many of them went off, it was almost like a domino effect of explosions.
Only a few cannons remained, and it was enough for their walkers to demolish from their distance.
"Fire!"
The two walkers fired the heavy cannons towards the cannons. Two of the cannons got destroyed, and another was blasted into smithereens instantly. And as the turrets fired, more of the Storm Guards and battle droids got obliterated in the blasts. But as the battle continued, a straight path became much more clear for them to run straight inside.
Taking her chance, Derpy started to make a run across the bridge, slicing up battle droids along her run. Bubbles, seeing her lead the charge, hollered for a couple of troops to come along with them. Stinger flew in the air, shooting at some droids from the skies, avoiding them as lasers flew all over. But his aid, along with Knight's spinning of the gatling gun helped clear a path for the rest of the Baker's Batch to come with Commander Bubbles.
"Go, go, go!" Derpy shouted, leading her troopers with her lightsaber blade straight inside the capital. Troopers came running in behind her, shooting at more battle droids who stood in guard positions. The clones had come prepared for this fight, and barely any of them were getting taken out. Sure they were taking losses, but it wasn't heavy ones.
Even as they ran up the stairs, they still didn't slow down. This was scaring the two Flim Flam brothers as they tried to lock the doors with as much as they could. Flam's hands slammed against the keyboard controls, trying to contact any other Storm Army allies for help. Eventually, a transmission came through on screen; a woman with dark lavender skin and a magenta mohawk.
"Tempest, thank goodness, we need reinforcements! The clone troopers are overrunning the capital, we need help now!"
Tempest looked at the commander briefly, then closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. “Escape if you can, but right now I have much bigger priorities than this. I am afraid the rules of the war have changed.”
“Why?”
Tempest grimaced as she looked at the commander. “Because the Storm King is dead.”
The leaders swore they didn’t hear her words correctly, but Tempest’s facial reactions said otherwise. “How can that be?”
“If you find a way to escape, I will tell you everything on Saleucami. But right now, I have a murderer to find and--sev--lead--t--fi--" and the transmission cut itself right off.
"They're jamming our signals, brother!"
"Blasted clones!"
Their hearts dropped to the pits of their stomachs when they heard the tapping on the doors. There was no way of escape. Windows were too high, they had no alternative means of escape, they were trapped. And it only got worse when Derpy's lightsaber cut through the door, starting to slide it around to cut a hole for the clones to push through. Once her cut had been made, she slammed the metal with her foot down and jumped inside with the rest of her clones. All of them surrounded the two Flim Flam brothers, holding them all at gunpoint. The two held their hands up, and looked at the clone-armored woman in front of them.
“Surrender! Surrender now!” Derpy declared.
“Wait, you have to listen to us,” Flim begged. “You must listen to us!”
“Why would we listen to you, Stormie?” Mohawk questioned.
“We are all in grave danger! All of us!” Flam added.
“Why?” Derpy asked, raising a brow.
“The Storm King is dead!”
"I find that hard to believe," Bubbles glared.
"You aren't listening! He's dead! We're all--"
"--I've heard enough," Derpy snarled. "You did something to one of their brothers, what did you do?"
The two of them looked at each other and back at the Jedi who looked like she would have no regret killing them on the spot. But the two of them didn't say anything.
"They're not going to talk. We'll just have to take them to Equestria or Coruscant, maybe the Jedi can deal with them," Bubbles said, his arms dropping to his sides. "Take them away boys."
Derpy's eyes stared at the screens on the wall, showing radar scans of all the Republic forces. The entire radar was clouded with Republic dots on them, no longer minor. And then she heard a transmission come from Patch outside in the battle-zone.
"General, we've won! The Storm Army's been defeated out here, we won! We finally won!"
That sentence was enough to make Derpy's worried frown turn upside down. Derpy looked over at the control systems for one last time, and took another look at her troops who hauled away the Flim Flam Brothers. For one moment, she had a small smile on her face as she took in the situation. She won. Her brothers won. They finally won this battle. This was the turning point for the war.
If they won, then it would mean the rest of the Jedi would win. This war would finally be over. And it would only be a matter of time before she could deliver the good news.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. “Execute Order 66.”
"It will be done, milady."
The hologram shut itself off. Derpy was hoping he would soon talk to her, at the very least acknowledge the fact she was in the same room as him. But very uncharacteristically, Bubbles didn’t move from his current position.
“Commander? Who was that?”
He still didn’t move. But his arm holding his helmet started shaking intensely until he dropped his helmet on the ground with a clatter. Derpy watched the trooper’s helmet bounce until he heard some coms go off on the troopers next to her. One second they were answering coms… until they suddenly turned around and looked at her, and cocked their guns.
“No.” Bubbles sternly said, getting his troopers to stand down. “I’ll do it.”
“Bubbles, who was that? What's happening?”
He drew his pistols out at her, but he didn’t fire. His entire body was shaking, like he was trying not to break down in front of her. “Stay back!”
Derpy moved slightly back, watching as Bubbles was constantly shaking. She could see a tear leak down his one working eye as he desperately tried to control himself. What was happening to him?
“Run… run... save yourself… run. Derpy, run !”
His fingers pulled the trigger, and Derpy immediately blocked the lasershots, and Force-pushed the troopers behind her against the control panels in the walls, knocking them out. The doors opened up, and as fast as she could, she made a run past two more troopers who opened fire on her, but missed her as she jumped into the elevator.
The elevator doors closed behind her, and she felt her heart pounding against her chest as she descended down to another level of the ship. Her body clinged to the elevator as she gripped the sides tightly, she didn't want to let go. What was happening? What could have changed? Why did they just turn on her? Who was that hooded figure Bubbles was talking to? And what did Order 66 mean? And why was he hesitating to kill her? It felt as if he didn't want to shoot her, but yet he still did.
Something felt wrong. Whatever this was, she had to find out. But she needed to find a place to hide first. Expecting more clone troopers to come, she pulled out her lightsaber and ignited it, gripping it tightly.
"It'll be okay, it'll be okay, just stay calm..." she said to herself, trying not to hyperventilate.
The elevator doors opened, and as expected, there were some clone troopers in front of her. Not holding back, she ran out of the elevator like a marathon runner, blocking their blasts as she did so. She wasn't stopping now! She ran down the hallway, with a group of clone troopers running after her, chasing her, and shooting at her like crazy.
"Stop it! Hey!" Derpy tried to speak over their blasters.
She deflected another shot, striking one of them in the shoulder but knocking him down. Two more came out to attack; Bounce and Coil who fired like crazy.
"Guys, please! Don't you recognize me?"
They didn't give her any form of response other than continued fire. She ran like hell, trying to dodge as many as she could. Her fingers pressed the button on one of the doors, locking it right behind her as the clones continued to give chase. Knowing it wasn't going to hold for long, she got ready to move again--
THWACK!
A heavy gun smacked the back of her head, knocking the wind out of her temporarily. When she looked back, she saw Mohawk was swinging at her, rather up close. She kicked the gun out of his arms and roundhouse kicked him in the stomach to push him back. But it wasn't enough. Her lightsaber was drawn out again and she was ready to defend herself, but she wasn't about to hack her brother like sushi.
"Mohawk, please! It's me, Derpy!"
The lightsaber was knocked out of her hand and it turned itself off once it hit the ground. She was about to grab it until Mohawk grabbed her by the neck and slammed her against the wall, pinning her. Derpy tried to fight back, but it felt like Mohawk's grip was stronger. He was using much more strength than she had anticipated, and it made his hands feel like talons around her throat.
"M-Mo--" Derpy wheezed. "hawk! P-Please--ack, it'--Derpy! ha--ack, please!"
Mohawk didn't say anything as he kept her pinned against the wall, trying to choke the oxygen out of her lungs. Derpy's heart raced harder and she couldn't reach for her lightsaber, her hands were too busy trying to pull the ARC trooper's hands away. And it only got worse. It felt as if all lights around her were just leaving as her vision got darker, until she was suddenly dropped to the ground.
Derpy coughed and wheezed violently, trying to get oxygen back into her lungs. She felt her ears ringing as she tried to regain her strength. She felt the vibrations of the trooper near her, but he wasn't touching her or trying to attack her. But for a split second, she did see an ARC trooper gloved arm fall on the ground in front of her as she struggled to pull herself up. The doors next to her immediately then closed, and she scooted herself away from them. Her walleyes looked around and saw a friendly sight in front of her; R4-G4.
Derpy coughed again. "R4?"
"Bwoop boop."
Derpy pulled herself up and gave a soft hug to the astromech unit. "Thank you buddy."
"Brt de bep. Bwoop bwoop bwoop!" R4 jittered.
"I know buddy. I don't know what's going on with the clones either," Derpy answered.
"Bwoop bwoop bwooooop..."
"R4, we can't just leave. Something is going on with the clones, and we have to find out why. But I can't just take them on, there's too many. If they were unconscious, I could--" Derpy suddenly came to a realization. "Wait... I have an idea. R4, are you comfortable with helping me?"
R4 let out a series of beeps that definitely said 'Yes'.
"Okay great, come on, follow me!" Derpy opened up another door, and so the two raced off.
--
The doors that R4 had locked eventually opened, with Commander Bubbles and the Baker's Batch walking through. They saw Mohawk on the floor and watched as he got himself up, slowly.
"Trooper, are you alright?" Commander Bubbles asked.
"Yes Commander," Mohawk replied, shaking off his pain. "I don't know how or who, but someone knocked me out with an electroshock."
And eventually the rest of the doors opened up with more clone troopers arriving on the scene. And of course, no one had any idea where Derpy had run off. That didn't change Commander Bubbles' position in their situation though.
"Alright, listen up, because I'm only going to say this once. Derpy Hooves is marked for termination under special Order 66. Under this directive, any and all Jedi leadership must be executed for crimes of treason against the Republic. Any soldier that does not comply with the order will also be marked with treason. Understood?"
"YES SIR!" Everyone acknowledged.
"Excellent. Now I want everyone to split into parties; there is only so many places a Jedi can hide. Destroy the escape pods, lock down any ships you can, we cannot allow her to escape. Now move!" Bubbles ordered.
Just like that, the clones were on the move again. And Commander Bubbles pressed forward down the hallway to continue his search...
Sneaking by as best as they could, the two watched, listened, and waited as clone patrols dashed through the hallways. There was always the chance of security cameras, but Derpy didn't have the time to think about them right now. She had one priority, and that was finding the medical bay. The doors opened up as Derpy and R4 snuck inside, locking the door behind them. And as luck would have it, Bolt and Vargas hadn’t moved. They were still laying on the beds for examination.
“R4, activate the medic, we need to find out what’s going on.”
The medical scanner was activated, and it hovered over to Varga’s corner, and ran a scan up and down his body, checking for everything that would have possibly enacted the sudden turn. She payed close attention to the monitors, but nothing was blinking or alerting her of anything wrong.
“Nothing? That’s not right, something has to be wrong,” Derpy worried. “Wait, run a scan on Bolt, maybe we’ll find something from him.”
R4 did just that, running another scan, this time, moving the scanner up and down on Bolt. Once again, the scanners picked up nothing except for their vital signs.
“That’s impossible,” Derpy pouted. “Something isn’t right, I know it.”
“Brt beep bwoop bop.”
“We’re not leaving, R4. I’m not just going to leave my family. Besides, even if I tried, they probably have the parking boots locked onto my fighter, and they’ll block the escape pods before I get a chance,” Derpy replied. She paced back and forth, thinking. "There's something I'm missing, I know it."
She snapped her fingers, "Wait! The Flim Flam Brothers, maybe I can talk to them... except they aren't on this ship," Derpy facepalmed. "But I have to know what to do! Okay, think, think... what did they do, they did something to them, what could they have done? They did something to Bolt, whatever happened to him had to have happened to the others, but what?"
She leaned against the wall, head resting against the hard metal plating. Her wall-eyes lazily gazing at the monitors besides Bolt's bed, continuing to show his heart-rate and vital signs. And on another screen, there was a display of his inner cranium, showing no signs of damage. But as Derpy looked at the scanner, an idea formed in her head. Slowly she got up, looking at the scanners as she typed on the controls.
No signs of change, as per usual.
"They must have done something to him. Hmm... well, I don't know if this will work, but nothing else works, so..."
Derpy walked up to Bolt, looking straight at him as he laid there. Slowly but hesitantly, her hands reached down and felt the sides of his head. His skin was still nice and warm, and no signs of fever. Her eyes closed as she tried to focus all thoughts on only the hurt man in front of her, and quietly talked.
"I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me... I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me... I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me..."
R4's dome spun around, checking the door if anyone was coming through. And thankful that none of the clones could see them right now. Derpy kept her focus on the screen, until finally she heard a small alarm ding on the monitors. Opening her eyes, she walked over to the monitor to take a look. A small red glowing pattern was shown on the side of his skull, some foreign object that the scanners never picked up on the first try.
"What the heck is that? R4, activate the droid, we need to remove it. And the same goes for Vargas."
"Bwoop boop."
And so, the machines got to work...
--
A few minutes was all it took for the two men who were in an unconscious state, and thankfully the foreign objects were found and removed right away. Bandages were then wrapped over the sides of their heads to cover up the surgery. And once the objects were removed, Derpy collected them both in small glass tiles, holding them in her hands. A part of brain tissue had been extracted, but something very microscopic had also been found in them.
Running through the scanners helped identify some information regarding the foreign piece of tissue that had been extracted. And on the screens, it showed signs of 'activation' of some kind. But both pieces that were taken from them showed no signs of tumors, infections, or rotting. And it made quite a relief when Derpy saw the two clones slowly start to wake up.
Vargas’s fingers started to twitch and move, and his hand started to move soon after. Bolt’s hands were moving as well, as he pushed himself to lean up straight to look at the general he nearly shot. Vargas leaned up too, just barely. Both of their heads had a bandage on the right side, where the foreign pieces were found.
“Bolt? Vargas? Are… are you two okay?”
Bolt struggled to move. “Yeah, I’m… I’m okay. General, are… General, I’m so sorry. I-I couldn’t control it, and I—”
Derpy stopped him, moving in and giving him a hug. Her head leaned on his shoulder, and Bolt embraced her back. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” Derpy said, her words almost hurting as she spoke. When she broke from the embrace, she then gave a hug to Vargas as well, happy to see he was okay as well.
“I… General, where are we?” Bolt asked.
"We're back on the Axiom ."
"Did we win?" Vargas asked.
"Yeah... we won," Derpy said, rather negatively.
"You don't sound happy."
"Because I'm not," Derpy looked up. "But I am happy that you two are okay."
"Okay, wha--what is happening, I don't understand," Vargas questioned.
"I don't know!" Derpy panicked, yanking her hair. "We won, we're supposed to be on our way to Arvala-7, I got a scary vision, and now all the clones want to kill me!"
Bolt and Vargas stared blankly, not even sure how to really take that news.
"Kill you? Why would they want to kill you?"
"I don't know. The last thing that happened was Commander Bubbles was talking to some woman who told him to execute some order, I don't even know what it means. What does Order 66 mean!?" Derpy sighed and threw her head back again, lightly hitting against the wall. "I don't know what to do."
"Well... what should we do then?" Bolt asked, getting up on his feet.
"I don't know. For the first time, I really don't know," Derpy cupped her face, trying to calm down, breathing in and out.
"Well, what does your gut say?" Bolt asked again.
Derpy looked at her friends (R4 included). "Bubbles told me to run and save myself. But I'm not going to leave, not now. Even if I tried, the troopers would no doubt block every exit and corridor, and they would kill me before I can leave. Besides, the only reason I'm not leaving is because of you guys. I'm not about to let this happen. Especially since I found this," Derpy raised the glass tiles containing the brain tissues. "Whatever the Stormies did to you, probably spread to everyone else on the ship."
“How did—I don’t understand, how could that have been in our heads without us knowing?” Vargas asked.
"I don't know. But I do know this," Derpy continued. The clones looked at each other again, thinking as they listened to her words. “If these things are making the clones evil, then we got to get them out. I love all of you, you all are family to me. I’m not going to leave and let this go, we need to capture every single clone and remove these chips. I don’t care if I have to run out in the open to attract their attention, I will do what I can to help you all! Now who is with me?” Derpy raised her hand up in a fist motion.
Awkward silence was in the room of the four individuals, with the astromech and clones just staring at each other.
Derpy’s hand slowly lowered down with a bashful grin. “Or maybe we should just go. Where did I park the shuttle?”
“Now, hang on. This idea is crazy, insane, it could get us killed… but I love my brothers. I don’t want my last memories to be my brothers turned to the dark,” Bolt said, pulling himself back on his two legs. “If you’re going out there to save them, then I’m joining you.”
“Count me in as well. We’re here to help, General," Vargas agreed.
Derpy softly smiled. “Bolt, Vargas, R4.”
All three of them gave her their undivided attention.
“Let’s go save our family.”
Patrols continued throughout the ship, and the clones continued constant surveillance. Troopers still were on the lookout for Derpy, but no one had came close to finding her, not yet. Corporal Mix kept searching, still not having any luck. Even with the aid of Tom and Crow, there wasn't anything.
"Check the the left wing of the ship. Perhaps she chose to flee on that side," Mix ordered.
"Understood," Crow acknowledged, with Tom right behind him.
Unbeknownst to Mix, he had done exactly what Vargas wanted him to do.
“Anyone out there? ” Derpy asked.
“Hang on. Okay, I see Mix, he’s on his way. Tell R4 to activate the doors,” Vargas replied into the coms.
Mix darted through the hall until Vargas stepped in the way, making him slam into his shoulder and foot, almost tripping.
“Hey! Out of the way, yo—wait. Vargas? You’re injured, how are you on your feet?” Suddenly, the doors that Mix ran down closed on all sides, with all three of them boxing the two of them in. “What’s going on?” Mix asked, looking back to the doors. “Vargas, what are you doing?”
“It’s for your own good, brother,” Vargas said.
“Mix.”
Silence fell, as someone was walking down in her brown boots approached them. She looked at Mix with a serious face, calmly looking at him. Mix spun around and cocked his gun at Derpy, ready to shoot. And before he could act, Vargas pulled the trigger on his gun, stunning Mix. Mix felt the jolt hit his body and so he dropped to the floor.
"Huh. That worked," Vargas stated, not able to believe it.
The two of them yelped when a blaster bolt shot at the door behind them. Their gaze turned over to another man in the hallway; Commander Bubbles. He was slowly walking towards them with both his pistols with intent to shoot.
"Bubbles, listen to me--"
Another blast fired and Derpy blocked it with her lightsaber.
"Bubbles, I know you're in there! You got to fight it!"
And he fired again.
"I am not getting through to you, am I?"
Once again, no response, just another blaster bolt as he zeroed in closer.
"Vargas, now!"
Vargas shot right at Bubbles, stunning him as well. He dropped to the ground just like Mix, finally subdued. Quickly moving, Derpy ran over and dragged Bubbles across the ground like a corpse and pulled him into the middle of the corridor. The door behind Derpy sealed shut, and another one opened; revealing Bolt and R4 coming forward.
"Did anyone see you?" Bolt asked.
"No, we're safe. For now," Derpy said, still dragging the commander's body across the ground. "Come on! We gotta get to the medical bay!"
Vargas and Bolt picked up Mix, and together the group of four made their way down the hall straight back to the medical ward.
Once the two troopers were hauled into the medical ward, they were immediately placed on the examination tables. The equipment got right to work on removing the chips from their skulls just as they did with Bolt and Vargas. R4 kept his eye on outside surveillance, making sure none of the others were going to be coming their way.
The first to wake up was Mix who groaned as he felt a little headache hit his cranium. "Agh, oh--I--wait, where am I?"
His eyes locked onto Derpy. "Derpy, I... I'm so sorry, I did--"
Derpy stopped him as she gave him a much needed hug. She patted his back and rubbed him affectionately. "It's okay. It's okay. You're safe now."
Mix reciprocated back, still shaking a little from the experience. "I couldn't stop... I didn't want to shoot, but I was forced to, I couldn't control it, and then I just... forgot everything."
And Bubbles woke up not too long after that. He sat up, rubbing the side of his head, feeling the bandage that had been wrapped over the cuts. Derpy slowly approached him, cautiously but warmly.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah Derpy, I'm alright. I'm sorry about earlier, I... I almost killed you," Bubbles apologized, sliding his feet off the board to sit up straight.
“Commander, how widespread is this?” Derpy asked. “Is it just our crew that's having this problem?"
“Derpy.”
That solemn tone in his voice grasped the attention of the entire room. And Derpy could see the fear and pain in his eyes as he spoke. “It’s all of us. Every clone in the Grand Army of the Republic had been bred with those chips in our heads with orders to hunt down the Jedi."
Derpy blinked. “I don’t understand, what do you mean?"
Bubbles rubbed his head, trying to compose himself. "Derpy, you know we were all cloned from birth, right?"
Derpy nodded. "From Jango Fett, but what does that have to do here?"
"Derpy. When we were being bred, they conditioned us to follow any orders that were given to us. I always believed that even when we were supposed to follow orders, we had to know what that really meant. Knowing what was truly right from wrong," Bubbles explained.
"But what about the inhibitors?" Derpy asked.
"I don't know everything... but I do know this. A few months ago, I read a grievance report from Captain Rex of the 501st. He reported an incident with clone trooper Tup and Fives. Apparently, Tup had snapped during a battle and killed Jedi Master Tiplar. When Fives investigated, he discovered inhibitor chips that had been implanted in us during birth. He said that they were dangerous, and that the entire clone army was compromised. I didn't know what to believe of it... but I have a feeling he was right."
Bubbles felt his body shaking again, this time out of anger and fear. He was trying hard not to scream or yell, and Derpy could feel the pain resonating in his body.
"And now, all of these things that are inside of us are taking over us to wipe out the entire Jedi Order..."
--
And he was right. Across the galaxy, the executive order was given to every single clone battalion wherever they were. 501st, 332nd, 212th, everywhere.
On Endor, Vinyl jumped through several trees, listening carefully on a com device that she always wore over her ears, listening for her troopers actions and precautions. But when she got back down to the ground, there was a strange interference over her earpieces, just as she faced an incoming army of Storm battle droids. It was eerily quiet, and then everything went black as she felt the hot sting of a laser hit her body, and multiple shots continued as she dropped to the ground...
Octavia blocked several shots that came her way on the grounds of Hoth, trying to fight back against an incoming army. She and her commander ducked in time from an explosion and were ready to start running. But as Octavia was about to run, she heard a click from several guns right behind her. She turned, and her commander without hesitation started firing at her, hitting her right in the heart enough times until she finally dropped.
On Ryloth, a heart sank as a a mid-twenties aged girl with yellow skin and fiery hair opened up her eyes and dropped to her knees, feeling heavy pain in her soul. She didn’t know what, but something just felt horribly wrong. And the poor R2 unit beside her didn't understand what was going on.
Jedi Master Sandalwood joined by a crew in space fought against several Storm Army ships that had formed a blockade around another planet. And Captain Planet had just received a message from the main hologram table, telling him to ‘Execute Order 66’, to which he simply said, ‘it will be done, my lord’. And without warning, he and the rest of his troops pulled out guns and opened fire on Sandalwood, shooting him in the back and still firing as he dropped to the floor.
--
"I don't know who gave me that order. The only thing I know is she ordered it, and now everyone is a fugitive of the Republic," Bubbles finished, practically shaking.
Derpy wasn't sure what to say. This was so much information to take in at once, she didn't know how or even if she should react. But she recovered from the massive info-dump and brought her focus back to the present. "But why did you tell me to run?"
“Because I don’t want to kill you!” Bubbles snapped. “I don’t want to kill you, I don’t want you dead, that’s why I was hesitating, I wanted to buy you some time! I wanted you to leave, why didn’t you take an escape pod?”
“Because I love you all and I don’t want to leave you guys!”
Derpy's body was visibly shaking, almost like she was on the verge of breaking down as well. The others in the room just looked at each other, unsure of what to say. None of them wanted any of this to happen, but there was no way any of them could have foreseen this event happening.
“So… now what?” Bolt asked.
“Well, now that we have more numbers, we just need to yank another clone as soon as he comes by, and just need to do that for, um… well, the rest of the crew,” Derpy said, not too confident in her plan.
The commander had a solemn expression on his face. “I hate to tell you this Derpy… but you can’t save everyone,” Bubbles with a bit of anger and sadness mixed in his voice. “You may have saved us from those chips, but you can’t save everyone else on board this vessel. This ship is about to arrive on another planet, bringing more battalions of clones who have already turned. And those soldiers who opened fire on you… they don’t care. You're not a person to them anymore! You are a fugitive, and those soldiers, my brothers are willing to die if it means taking you with them!”
Derpy’s hand limply raised up. She wanted to protest, she wanted to speak against, but then she gave his words another thought. It wouldn’t matter if she knew what was wrong with them. It didn’t matter if she wanted to save them, they were going to kill them all if they stayed here. She couldn’t save them all. And her heart snapped.
Bubbles looked beyond distraught, and she could visibly see one tear run down his face. Her finger went across his face, wiping it away as she leaned her head on his shoulder, embracing him.
“So what do we do?” Vargas asked.
Derpy felt a tear run down her face, but she stood up and gave the clones a serious gesture. She wiped the tear from her face and gazed at them with furled brows.
“We must blow up this cruiser. If we can’t save them all… then we have to stop them before we arrive on Arvala-7. We’ll set charges to the most crucial areas on the ship and get ourselves out of here before we all die.”
Derpy’s eyes slowly closed, and another tear escaped from her face. Bubbles slowly moved in and gave her a hug, holding her in another warm embrace. And all of them could hear her whimpering, trying not to cry.
“General. If it’s any consolation, I…”
“I really don’t think—” Bolt started.
“No, it’s okay Bolt,” Derpy sniffled, turning to look at Vargas. “W-What were you going to say?”
Vargas could see the eyes of his brothers now on him, especially from the walleyed Jedi and artificial intelligence of the astromech unit. Regardless of how they were judging him, he still spoke.
“General. I am not experienced like everyone else. When I was sent off for battle, I did not know if I would fit in with anyone, or if I would make it out of this situation alive. But then I met you, and I got to know my brothers. I felt like I was a part of your family, a real family. And when that order commenced, I… I know I was following orders, but I did not know if I could break free from the control. I thought my end had already came. But you saved me, you saved us.”
Derpy looked around her, looking at the four remaining brothers who exchanged agreeing nods.
“You may not be able to save everyone… but you did save us. And now, it’s our turn to try and save you,” Vargas said. “And that means, all six of us are getting off this ship and getting our tails out of here.”
Derpy looked at her still okay brothers and softly smiled. One small glimmer of hope came back to her, and it was enough to bring her back to the present.
“Okay. Then if we’re going to get out of here, we need to find a way to escape together. We probably can’t use the escape pods, can we?”
“I ordered them to be launched from the ship… sorry,” Bubbles said, shamefully.
“It’s not your fault. But let’s think, there has to be a way to get out of here,” Derpy thought, pacing back and forth. “What about the hangar bay? Shouldn’t there be a shuttle or two we could borrow?”
“No way, there are too many clones, they’d overrun the hangar bay before we even get there,” Mix said.
“I have an idea, if, you um, don’t mind me suggesting,” Vargas asked.
“Go on,” Bubbles said.
“There’s still a frigate attached to the bottom of the ship. What if we set the charges and run down there to escape. Once this ship is out of hyperspace, we’ll trigger the charges, detach from the docking port, and get ourselves the hell out of here,” Vargas explained.
Derpy and the others looked at each other.
"You know, that just might work," Derpy hoped.
--
Without anyone seeing them, the group of six walked into the armory room. Inside they could see spare clone helmets, extra rifles hanging on rocks with the safeties on, bombs, everything. Everything they could need was right here if they needed it, and now it was more important than ever. Quickly moving, Bolt, Vargas, and Mix grabbed some backpacks, loading them up with bombs and extra ammunition. And just as an additional, Bolt grabbed the Z-6 rotary blaster to bring a little more punch if he had to make a stand.
"Alright, here's what I'm going to do," Mix said. "I'm going to plant bombs in the hyperdrive room, I'll stick them in places where they won't be able to see right away."
"Excellent," Bubbles nodded. "Bolt?"
"I'll see if I can reach the frigate, hopefully before the others get any ideas on grabbing it first," Bolt replied.
"And what about you, Vargas?"
"I'm going to sneak up to the bridge and check on the situation up there, find out how much more time we have until we arrive at Arvala-7," Vargas nodded.
"Wait, what about me?" Derpy asked.
"You should be sneaking into the ventilation system and wait for our signal to come out. Everyone's going to be looking for you, our best bet is that you stay hidden," Bubbles explained.
Derpy wanted to protest, but she couldn't argue with his logic. The plan seemed reasonably sound to her. "Okay, I understand."
"Now let's move!"
One by one, the clones split up to set off on their missions. Derpy looked at Bubbles for a moment and yanked him into an affectionate hug, surprising him. Bubbles softly reciprocated back, not willing to fight it.
"I promise when we escape, I'll find us a safe place to hide. Somewhere far from war, far from battle. Somewhere where you can live as free men, and not drones. None of you deserve this," Derpy whispered before climbing up into the ventilation shaft. She closed the shutter behind her, and started to make her move, crawling through the ducts.
Bubbles and R4 looked at each other, nodding and walking off to begin their final mission as soldiers; possibly for the last time.
Elsewhere on the ship, Mohawk and Patch kept searching for Derpy and the missing troopers, they hadn't heard from them in a while. Frankly, it was starting to become concerning.
"Think there's a chance the commander is going against orders?" Patch asked.
"Let's hope not," Mohawk replied, still looking around him.
"Attention troopers," Bubbles spoke into their com channel. "Rest assured that I am alright, along with the others. We have not been harmed, and we're still on patrol. I believe I saw the Jedi make a run for the hangar bay, she may try to escape with one of the craft there. Make your move there and find her."
Mohawk and Patch looked at each other, nodding to one another.
"Looks like we got ourselves a plan," Mohawk acknowledged.
"Wait, what about the frigate? It's still docked underneath the ship, what if she tries to break for that?" Patch suggested.
"Then I say we go and stand guard before she can even think about taking it," Mohawk proposed, marching around the hallway towards the direct path to the frigate.
One by one, everyone was on the move to begin their mission. Mix ran down a few hallways with some urgency, still trying to make sure none of the bombs fell out of his backpack, and trying to avoid any suspicious clones nearby. Just up ahead was the entrance to the hyperdrive room, just where he needed to be. He pressed the button to open the door, and carefully walked on through. Inside, he could see a few of his brothers monitoring the engines and controls, and doing some patroling of their own. He would have to make this fast.
"CT-2983, have you found anything?" Mix asked, trying to stay inconspicuous as possible.
"Negative Corporal. There's no sign of the Jedi here," the trooper replied.
"Keep searching, she can't hide forever," Mix ordered, allowing the trooper to dash on past him. Looking around, he could see the coast was clear for now. Quietly, he pulled one of the bombs out of his backpack and slipped one underneath one of the panel controls where they wouldn't look right away.
Thankfully no one had seen him do it, and so he kept moving. He walked on the pathway around one of the hyperdrive engines and quickly slapped one of the bombs up high with a bit of a jump so it couldn't have been snatched out right away. And when the clones looked back, Mix was just seen casually walking as if he wasn't doing anything suspicious. And he walked past them towards the other hyperdrive engine pathway. Once again, he slapped a bomb to the engine where it couldn't have been seen right away.
And with no one even taking note of his actions, Mix just casually walked out of the hyperdrive room with no one following him. Once he knew the coast was clear, he pressed his comlink and spoke. "Commander, the bombs have been placed in the hyperdrive room."
"Good work. Meet me over near the barracks, I'm circling around with R4. Still have yet to hear from Vargas and Bolt."
--
Elsewhere, Vargas was taking the elevator up to the bridge. He felt a little anxious, knowing full and well that all of them could kill him the moment he walked in. But he wasn't about to let that stop him. So he just pushed himself to get his task done. The doors opened, and thankfully no one blasted him the minute he walked through.
But it didn't mean the others forgot about his injuries back on Nevarro.
"Vargas? What are you doing here? Are you alright?" One of the crewmen asked.
"Oh, I'm fine, Captain Torgo, thank you," Vargas nodded. "I just wanted to check up on the bridge, Commander's orders."
"Very well," the captain shrugged, going back to his post.
Relieved with the cover, Vargas soon got to work. Discreetly, he placed a bomb underneath the projection table, thankfully with no one noticing. And he walked towards one of the other consoles, hiding another explosive without anyone noticing. And one more for the other side of the bridge. All he had to do now was access the terminal.
He pressed the projection table, displaying a map of their next location; Arvala-7. And accessing another archive on the machine, he found a list of other jobs that needed to be done, nothing important.
"Ahem, Captain? How much longer until we arrive at Arvala-7?" Vargas asked, sheeply.
"We have fifteen minutes remaining, shouldn't be much longer," the captain replied.
"Understood. I'll go patrol the hallways, continue my search." Vargas said, stepping into the elevator. He closed the door behind him, and raised his comlink. "Commander, we have fifteen minutes until we arrive."
"Understood, Vargas. Meet me and Mix near the barracks, Derpy's on our way to come meet us," Bubbles responded.
Bolt was almost down to where the frigate was located. Just a few more hallways to walk down and he would make it. However as he made the last turn that would be directly to the elevator down to where he'd need to walk, the ARF trooper froze. The entire Baker's Batch crew was standing there, guns ready to shoot. They almost blasted Bolt, but stopped when they recognized their brother.
"Bolt? What are you doing here? Are you alright?" Mohawk asked.
"Yes Mohawk, I am okay. What are you all doing here?"
"We think General Hooves will try and make her way for the frigate; so until she does, we're standing guard," Mohawk said.
Bolt was now worried. Their only means of escape was blocked off, and if they tried to fight for it, they would no doubt be slaughtered. They had to find another way out of there, but how? The ARF trooper looked to the left and noticed something. Another long hallway connecting to more pathways. Maybe they couldn't take the direct path, but maybe they could still make it to the frigate...
Slowly he turned to the left hall and squatted down to the control panels. One of them took notice however.
"Bolt, what are you doing?"
"Trying to access the controls. If we can control the doors, we can box the Jedi in. I just need to enter in some commands," Bolt lied.
The ARC trooper just shrugged off and looked back down the hallway they were guarding. Without them noticing, Bolt raised his comlink...
"Commander, we have a problem," Bolt said over the coms.
"What is it?"
"I think Mohawk and Patch are onto you. They're blocking the only path that heads straight down to the frigate. The only way we're getting through them is if we take a longer way around."
"What do we do?" Derpy gulped.
"I have an idea," Bubbles suggested. "Bolt, you're on the left side of them, right?"
"Yes sir."
"Can you hack into the doors, seal them shut to buy us some time to run?"
"I'm trying," Bolt replied. "But you better distract them, I don't think I can fool them for long."
"We're on our way," Bubbles replied. "Here's my idea..."
The Baker's Batch stood together in the hall, waiting for their commander. They hadn't heard from him in a while, and that only meant one thing; possible betrayal. So Mohawk and Patch took charge, standing in front of the rest of the Baker's Batch, awaiting for Derpy to come running out. They were guarding the only way out.
"Mohawk! Stand down!"
Slowly moving down the hallway was R4, Bubbles, Mix, and Vargas. And Derpy Hooves was moving in front of them, hands behind her head like a prisoner. Of course she wasn't really cuffed, but it only added to the illusion to the troopers. All of the clones immediately pulled out their weapons and cocked them, ready to execute their former general on the spot. And even Mohawk and Patch pulled out their twin blasters with the others.
"I said stand down! I have the situation under control."
"You have your orders, Commander. Now execute it, or we will," Mohawk retorted, not moving from his position.
Derpy quivered to see Mohawk and Patch with so many men by their side. Even worse; Bounce, Tap, Coil, Fuse, Ace, Knight, and Stinger were all by their side. And with so many other clones on their side, Derpy felt even more alone. But then she looked at her sides, seeing Mix and Vargas standing there with her. Remembering that they were freed, she kept her attention off them to hopefully convince them of their plan.
"The order was intended to terminate any Jedi who committed treason against the Republic, Mohawk. The problem is, Derpy has not committed any treason whatsoever, so she does not deserve to be hunted and attacked like this."
Mohawk and Patch's gaze lowered slightly.
"Sir, you said yourself we're under special orders from Lady Midnight to eliminate Derpy Hooves, and any other clone who disobeys Order 66."
Derpy's eye rolled to look at Bolt who was still working on the doors. He needed more time, they had to distract them somehow! Derpy looked up at Bubbles who looked back at her, and he nodded, understanding her intention.
"Mohawk, Patch, listen to me. We've known each other for a long time. Don't tell me you're just going to disregard everything we've gone through. Please, tell me you're still in there," Bubbles insisted.
And Mix joined as well. "Come on, guys. Think of everything we've done together, doesn't that mean anything to you? I know you all are still in there, don't tell me you're just going to give in."
The entire hallway was quiet, and everyone was staring off at one another. The Baker's Batch staring off against the Derpy and the clones by her side. It didn't take long for them to think of what they had to do, but they needed the orders from the real good soldiers in charge right now. Mohawk and Patch looked at each other, thinking silently. Their gaze drew back to the group and their weapons were raised back up.
"Commander Bubbles, trooper Mix, and trooper Vargas. You all are in violation of Order 66. I accuse you of treason against the Grand Army of the Republic...."
Derpy glanced back to Bolt who was still working on trying to access the door panels. He was almost there, just needed a little bit longer...
"... you'll be demoted from ranks and subject to execution along with the traitor Derpy Hooves!" Mohawk declared.
Vargas saw a signal light up on his wrist control; the ship had finally arrived at Arvala-7. He nodded to the others, confirming to them, which they understood. Bolt meanwhile finally got the controls again and gave Derpy a thumbs up for them to go. Derpy then looked back over to Bubbles, whispering, "Ready?"
"Yeah... this wasn't going to work anyway," Bubbles sighed in agreement.
"Aim company and... fire!"
Just then, the doors slammed shut on them before they could make their shots out.
"Okay, time to run! Move, move, move!" Bubbles ordered, leading the group towards the freed hallway.
"Get these doors open, after them! Alert all troops to pursue the traitors!" Mohawk ordered from the sealed doors.
Booking it, the group of four ran as fast as they could down the hallway to make their escape. But it didn't stop the other clones who were moving in on their position to chase them. Worse, they were blasting at them, trying to kill them in their steps.
"What do we do?" Bolt asked, trying to keep the rotary blaster on his back.
"Set your weapons to stun, I don't want to kill them!" Derpy pleaded.
"Aren't they all going to die anyway? We're about to blow up the ship!" Mix argued.
"I still want to spare them! At least try!" The Jedi insisted.
Not wanting to argue with her, the troopers set their blasters to stun and fired a few shots back at the pursuing clones. Two of them dropped from the stuns, but the others were still chasing them. Looking at the directions they had, the group decided to book it for the lifts. Sliding their boots across the ground, they kept on running, but halted when they saw the astromech unit stop running. R4 accessed the panel on the wall, shutting the doors behind the group so the clones couldn't follow them.
The astromech unit chuckled to hear them yelling in anger on the other side, but he stopped laughing when he heard the gun clicking. His dome spun around and he whimpered. He forgot to shut the left door; and now he was surrounded.
They heard Mohawk's voice on the comlink, nodding to his orders. Derpy and the clones halted in their tracks to look back at the poor astromech unit, and could only look in horror as the R2 unit was shot on sight. R4 let out one last cry before he finally was executed.
"R4! NOOOO!!!" Derpy cried in agony.
She was about to run forward but Bubbles grabbed her arm before she could run after.
"Don't look, just keep moving!" Bubbles warned, trying to keep her head straight.
Derpy didn't want to, but she soon realized she had no choice. She turned around and ran with the group back down the hallway. The clones continued to chase the 'traitors', and continued to open fire.
"How much further til we get to the frigate?" Vargas cried out.
"We're almost there, we just need to go down the elevator!"
The clones made it to the elevator and Derpy's fingers kept spamming the down button, praying the doors would open up. All the while the four of them kept looking around, making sure no one was coming. Around the corner, two of the troopers fired but Bubbles quickly subdued them with his pistols.
The elevator finally opened and the five of them squeezed inside before anyone else could come. Once they had arrived on the floor they needed, the group ran once again. More clones started to chase them, and they blasted them with the stunners, taking a few of them down to the ground.
Derpy opened up the door to the frigate, allowing the clones to go through first. But one clone didn't go through, and he stood there in the middle of the hall, whipping out the rotary gun.
“Bolt, come on!” Derpy pleaded.
“General, go! I'll buy you all some time, you need to leave!"
Just then, the marching footsteps of angry clone troopers caught his attention. Bolt prepped the rotary gun and with one big breath he let out one final battle cry.
"For the Jediii!!!! "
Clone troopers emerged in front of him, and they started to drop like flies once he shot them. Derpy still wanted to bring him into the ship, but Bubbles held her back.
"Derpy, we have to go, now!"
"But what about the trigger for the bombs? How do we set them off?" Derpy finally realized.
"I'll take care of it, go! I can't hold them off forever!"
Bolt fired as much as he could, shooting down many more of his turned brothers. But there were too many of them. More and more kept coming, and it didn’t stop! Bubbles yanked Derpy, who struggled to fight back but it was no use. Bubbles shut the door of the frigate hall, and pulled the worried Jedi into the vessel.
“Mix! Launch!”
“I can’t! They magnetized us!” Mix panicked, trying to find any button or switch to deactivate it.
And back inside, Bolt was firing as much as he could, struggling to reach for the trigger to detonate all of the bombs. He kept his hands on the rotary gun and fired as much as he could, but it was slowly starting to run out of blaster ammunition. And a few of the clones were getting good shots in, hitting his shoulders and hitting a part of his gut, finally getting him to drop to the ground.
Believing that he was dead, Mohawk led the rest of the troops ran over him and tried to work on getting the doors open to annihilate the traitors. All of them ignored the freed man as he forcibly crawled on the floor, trying to reach the detonator. His fingers lightly tapped it, until it finally got under one and he clutched it tight.
He pulled it close to him, and pressed his com-link on his arm, panting heavily. He knew what was going to happen. He was going to die, and there was no way out. But he wasn’t about to let them kill what remained of his family.
“Bubbles. Mix. Vargas. … Derpy.” Bolt spoke into the com. “I just wanted to say… it has been an honor serving with you all. I know fighting against our own brothers isn’t how we planned to celebrate, but I believe the rules have changed.” Tears were now starting to form in his eyes as he was about to say his final words. “If you all get this…”
Which they did, judging by Derpy’s whimpering lips and the scared looks on the rest of his brothers inside.
“… I hope all of you find sanctuary, and the freedom you earned. This war is over. This ends… for all of us. May we live to fight another day boys. And Derpy?” His finger was over the button, and he looked at it with one small but heartfelt smile. “May the Force be with you.”
His finger went down, and the ship started to rumble and shake. Tremors were sent all over the inside of the ship, and fires were erupting in every section imaginable. The engine room started to go, the controls inside of the main bridge started to explode, killing admirals inside. The hangars started to go as well, hallways, cafeterias, ammunition rooms, everywhere was starting to explode in a fiery inferno.
Derpy and the boys felt it too, and they clamped onto anything inside of the ship that they could so they didn’t fall or hit their heads or anything. Just then, Mix saw something appear on the controls. “The magnets are gone, we can release!”
“LAUNCH!” Bubbles wheezed at the top of his lungs.
Vargas yanked the lever down, and the clamps underneath the ship finally let go. The Republic frigate was finally out of the underside of the ship and it started to descend to the ground as well. The thrusters activated, and with a powerful push, the frigate moved itself far away from the crashing ship as it could. Finally, they were far away from the downed ship, watching it explode as it hurled through the surface.
None of the four crew members on board were expressing joy, or happiness to be alive. In fact, everyone was looking solemn. Exhausted, tired, and more sad than before to watch as a symbol of the Republic, now reduced to a smoldering ship doomed to be destroyed. No longer were any of them heroes. And none of them felt heroic for their escape. How could they feel great, when only a handful escaped, and everyone else on board was turned by force?
There was no victory. There was only their escape, and death for their fallen brothers. Death.
--
The surface of Arvala-7 was quiet. The Republic cruiser that had crashed was now a smoldering mess, with smoke and flames all about. Pieces of the ship had fallen apart during the crash and had scattered about all around.
The frigate that was used to escape was still together, in pristine condition. And nearby, troopers Vargas and Mix were standing, waiting for Commander Bubbles and Master Derpy to return. Bubbles came back with the shovel in hand, ready to put it back inside with the rest of the tools. He turned around, looking back at Derpy who wasn’t ready to leave.
Master Derpy stood quietly, gazing upon rows and rows of troopers that had been buried. All of them died upon the crash. And so, she and Bubbles (with the help of Mix and Vargas) took the time and buried each deceased trooper, even marking a post above each one, with their helmet or hat posted above it. No sounds but the wind blowing in the air, making her hooded robe fly around. Bubbles, Mix, and Vargas watched from far away. All three of them were quiet, waiting for her.
Derpy took one last look at the burials, and at each name that she had written in the sands. It would be futile, considering if any storms would wipe it away, but she still felt compelled to do it. Tap, Patch, Stinger, Coil, Fuse, Knight, Ace, and Bolt’s. All of them still standing up right on the posts above their grounds, covered in dust and burn marks. And right beside them was another post, but only with the dome of R4’s, sitting on top of it’s buried body. She sniffled, and her eyes were watering. She pulled her lightsaber out, gazing at it one last time. Not even fumbling, she slowly set it down on the ground, in front of her former troopers.
With a tear finally dropping, she slowly turned around and walked towards the frigate. The clones said nothing, waiting for her to come on board. Her feet dragged as she got on and didn’t say a word. She sat on one of the chairs, head down and thinking back to so many battles.
Bubbles, Mix, and Vargas took one last look at their former comrades, and got on the the frigate. Vargas, taking control of the pilot chair, started to take off. The ship’s engines activated, and it thrusted into the air, leaving the planet.
Away from the planet’s atmosphere, Derpy’s eyes closed. Bubbles slowly walked over to her and sat on the space next to her, patting her shoulder. Derpy finally opened her eyes, and for a single moment, her eyes looked at the commander like a regular clear set of eyes. She felt his hand pat hers, and she looked back down to his, her eyes resetting back into the wall-eyes they always were. Slowly but surely, she closed her eyes and let her head rest back in her seat and tried to keep herself awake. But ultimately fell asleep, exhausted emotionally and physically.
15 Years Later...
Ajan Kloss; a secluded jungle planet in the Outer Rim territories. A few hours in hyperspace away from Yavin IV, and a perfect place to hide. Although for some people who were knowledgeable about anything, Ajan Kloss also made a sweet vacation spot to go to. But for a group of young Rebels who were on a mission, they weren't coming for any vacation time.
They made their way through the jungle, hearing all sorts of critters and wild animals about in the wildlife. Among this group was a minty Equestrian woman in Jedi robes, a Mandalorian in blue armor with pink marks on her helmet, a blue Griffon, an orange Draconoid, a Siren, and a roughly seventeen-year-old Equestrian girl with pale skin, and blue and light purple hair. She was dressed in Jedi robes like the minty green woman, and had a makeshift lightsaber hanging from her belt. The group stared up at a mansion in front of them, looking in awe.
This mansion had been made out of scrap parts, made from stripped Republic ships, walkers, and other sorts of tech that had been long abandoned on this jungle. They could see a few floors, judging by the railings and awnings that surrounded the house. Around this mansion were a few staffs with helmets sitting on top of, old clone trooper helmets at that. A hot springs, with some machines connected to harness the hot water, most likely for cooking or washing clothes. And they could even see some clothes hanging from some clotheslines, both on the outside and near some racks close to the hot springs.
Just on the second floor of the mansion, they could see a door open up and five bodies walk outside. All of them were the same in builds and height, even having the same faces. Only some different features on their faces; some had facial hair, some were balding, others had longer hair, etc. The sight made the minty green Jedi freeze in place as she held the Mandalorian's hand, squeezing gently. She did not like the look of this one bit...
"What do you want?" The middle man shouted.
The youngest person in the group stepped forward. "We're looking for someone. By any chance do you know someone named Derpy Hooves?"
To Be Continued...
Author's Note
And so we come to our conclusion. I am sorry this took so long, real life issues and motivations were hindering progress. Not gonna win any awards for originality here, will be honest to myself.
But hey, it's done! And now that our 'third' entry is done.. I think we can now descend onto the real stories. This wasn't made just cause. I got some fun ideas cooking.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it, and have a great night!
