Chapter Text
After Ekkreth left, Ahsoka took a seat at the front of the cell, her side turned so she could keep an eye on what was happening outside the ray shield and so she could watch the others. Kix, deciding that he’d laid prone long enough that he was no longer at any medical risk, sat up and took a position next to Rex along one side of the cell, opposite Echo and Fives.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Fives asked, breaking the silence that had settled between them.
Kix shrugged. “I was always led to believe that our behavioral mods were genetic. I’ve never heard of any vod having a chip in their head before.”
“I wonder what reason he would have to lie about this?” Echo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve heard some rumors. Missions that go awry in certain sectors of space. Clones turning up after going missing for a few days. Just speculation on the intranet.”
Rex hummed absently, even as he listened to the conversation around them, his eyes fixed on Ahsoka, who glanced back. “I’m still leaning towards breaking out of the cell Commander. I don’t trust this Ekkreth.”
“I sensed nothing in the Force that would indicate he was lying.” Ahsoka said. She closed her eyes and reached out. As it was the first time, the ship they were one hummed with life. Some disgruntled crewmembers were arguing, their feelings like currents in the Force. There were a few injured on the ship, but no overwhelming tang of grief. Concentrating, she reached out to try and feel Ekkreth. The problem was that Force Nulls were quieter in the Force, and Ekkreth was not close enough to feel. She couldn’t pick out individual lights, just the hum of a ship. It was akin to what she felt when she was alone with the clones. It felt safe. “Everything Ekkreth said, he believed to be true.”
A contemplative silence fell between them for several long minutes. Finally, Fives broke the silence. “I’ll go first.”
Rex cocked his head to the side, as Echo went to immediately protest, but Fives didn’t wait for them to speak before adding. “The commander thinks they’re telling the truth, and if there really is a chip in my head, I want it out. So, I’ll go first.”
“That easy, huh?” Rex asked, disbelieving.
Fives shrugged but didn’t respond.
“All right.” Rex agreed.
The door to the hold slid open once more, and several beings stepped inside. All of them were dressed in standard spacer fare with the same red bird taking flight against a yellow sun on the pauldron of their jackets. The one in the lead was a short middle aged green twi’lek woman with crisscrossing red tattoos snaking up and down her lekku in an intricate geometric design. She stopped in front of the cell and her armed escort paused behind her, but their weapons remained holstered at their sides.
“Su cuy’gar. I’m Nevia, the ship medic. I’ll be performing the surgery if you’re ready.” She told them. “I can also tell you more about the surgery if you’d like. You should know I’ve removed hundreds of chips from your siblings’ heads in the last few months.”
“How did you find out about the chips in the first place?” Ahsoka asked the question that had been burning in the back of her mind since Ekkreth had left.
Nevia said, “It was in the contract given to the Jedi when they took possession of the clones.”
“Okay, but how did you find out? That contract was never made public. It was only shared with the council and the senate.” Ahsoka asked skeptically.
“There are people fighting for freedom among those two groups.” Nevia told her simply. “One of them passed the information along to the Path, and we have been making use of it for months now.”
That… actually sounded plausible. Ahsoka could see a senator like Senator Amidala being involved with something like the Path. She was outspoken about anti-slavery measures before the war began. She was also one of the biggest champions of the Clone Sentience and Rights Bill that kept getting tabled in the senate.
“If there are no more questions, I’ve been informed that Padawan Tano is welcome to accompany the first one to volunteer to the surgery. Our captain thought you may feel more comfortable if she were nearby.” Nevia said.
They weren’t wrong. Instantly the four clones relaxed and Ahsoka brightened. If they were willing to let her out, it was lending credence to her tentative theory that they were, indeed, telling the truth about helping them.
Fives said, “I’ll go first.”
Nevia nodded. She asked for Fives name and he gave it. “I’m afraid I must ask the rest of you to stand against the back wall with your hands behind your head while Fives and Padawan Tano step out of the cell. Your siblings are not always known for behaving.”
“Damn straight.” Kix mumbled, even as the three of them rolled to their feet and did as they were told. The beings escorting Nevia flanked Ahsoka and Fives as the ray shield fell, surrounding them but not touching as they were guided into the main hold. When the shield was back up, Ahsoka could feel the spike of nerves that ran through all four of the clones.
“Don’t worry.” She assured her men. “I won’t let anything happen to Fives.”
Nevia added, “We have no intention of allowing harm to come to any of you, rest assured.”
The medic led the way out of the hold, Ahsoka and Fives flanked by the escort. The ship itself was a mid-sized vessel, designed for a crew of about fifty. They passed a few beings in the corridors, all bearing the red bird emblem, as they were guided to a lift, up a level, and down towards the med bay.
In the med bay, Fives was directed to lay on a medical cot while Ahsoka was directed to a corner of the room where she could see everything without interfering with Nevia or the med droid that buzzed about performing scans. As she worked, Nevia kept up a steady stream of chatter, her mild Rylothi accent soothing.
“We have to do a level five scan to see it, because it’s so small. The chip gets missed by the vast majority of medical scanners. It took us a while to procure the right kind.” She pulled up a holo where Fives and Ahsoka could see it. “See? Yours is right where we thought it would be. That’s good. It makes the surgery even easier.” Sure enough, there was a small red dot on the blue scan of Fives’ brain. They really weren’t lying. Ahsoka relaxed even more as she watched. Two of the beings that had escorted her and Fives were still in the med bay, guarding the door, but neither seemed particularly concerned.
Nevia talked through the med droid administering a hypo that would immobilize Fives for the surgery, and when Ahsoka felt Fives panic spike she said. “Nevia is telling the truth. I’m here.”
“I trust you, commander.”
The actual surgery was done by the droid, and as they’d been told, took only a few minutes. Nevia put bacta on the small wound and taped a bandage down before gesturing Ahsoka over. She showed Ahsoka the petri dish containing the chip, barely the size of a grain of rice.
“How do you feel?” Ahsoka asked Fives a few minutes later. Nevia had gone to a different room (she had other patients, she explained) but their guards were still there. Still, it was as private as they were likely to get.
“I don’t feel any different?” Fives confessed. “I guess I kind of thought, if they were telling the truth, that the change would be instantaneous.”
“It takes about a day.” A new, familiar, voice said. Ahsoka glanced over her shoulder momentarily at the person standing in the door, and then glanced again as realization hit.
There was another clone standing in the door to the room.
This clone was bigger than other clones Ahsoka had met, bulkier in the shoulders and arms and taller too, with shoulder length curly hair left to fall freely around their face. Ahsoka had heard that Alpha clones were larger than run of the mill CCs and CTs. Was this one of the fabled Alphas?
“Su cuy’gar, vod’ika.” The clone greeted, stepping into the room. “I’m Birdie, she/her. The captain asked me to deliver a message to Padawan Tano for him. I would have come by sooner, but I was buried under work on the bridge.”
Birdie held a com out to Ahsoka, who took it carefully and turned it on. An image of her master appeared before her. “Ahsoka.” Holo-Anakin said. “I told you to stay on the ship. You weren’t supposed to go with Rex and the others on this mission.” He sounded frustrated, before he sighed and ran his mechanical hand through his hair. “But since you have once again failed to listen to me, I guess you deserve to know what’s going on.
“Whatever Ekkreth has told you about the Freedom Runners and the Path is true. They really are helping to smuggle members of the GAR to freedom if they wish, or just remove their chips if they want to go back. I’ve known the captain since I was a kid on Tatooine. You can trust him. I trust him and his crew.
“What we’re doing is illegal, Ahsoka.” Anakin added. “If any who are involved were to be discovered, we’d be charged with theft at best and treason at worst. I’m sorry you got mixed up in all of this. I wanted to keep you out of it. It’s not that I don’t trust you. Now that you’re involved, I know you’ll do what’s right. I just didn’t want to put that kind of weight on your shoulders.
“Stay safe, Ahsoka. I’ll see you in a few days, either with Rex, Fives, Echo, and Kix or without. Either way, may the Force be with you.”
The com shut off. Ahsoka heaved a heavy sigh and handed it back to Birdie. “I guess that answers a few questions.”
“Does the general really believe we wouldn’t come back?” Fives asked, disbelieving. “I don’t think that crossed anyone’s mind at all.” He turned to glare at Birdie. “Vode An.”
Birdie narrowed her eyes back. “Kote lo’shebs’ul narit.” She hissed back. “My duty to my vode is here. Or would you like me to ask Nevia to put your chip back in?”
“No arguing!” Ahsoka ordered, even though she wasn’t quite sure what Birdie and Fives were arguing about. She turned to Birdie. “I take it you help with the Path then?”
Birdie nodded. “I intercept and decode all GAR transmissions to track vessel movements past several key points. If a small mission is sent out in a window where we can reasonably intercept it, we send a crew to retrieve the Vode and perform the surgery.”
Fives was still glaring at Birdie, who was steadfastly ignoring him to focus on Ahsoka, who asked, “How many of the… Vode… are there among the Freedom Runners?”
“Just me right now.” Birdie replied. “There’s about twenty of us who cycle in and out of different ships, or who are on call if needed. Quite a few who leave the GAR just want to settle down and not fight anymore, and the Path helps set them up with lives and jobs and new identities.”
“Is it all right if I ask why you decided not to go back after you got your chip removed?” Ahsoka asked.
Birdie frowned but said, “I deserted before I had my chip removed. I’m an RC clone, RC-4979. I was on a mission with my batch that went to haran and back. We were all left for dead, and everyone did die. Except me. I didn’t want to go back to an army that saw me as disposable. I didn’t want to be disposable. RCs don’t have Jedi working with them, normally. I’ve heard from the others that Jedi care about the clones. That we’re not disposable to you. But that’s not how the rest of the galaxy sees us. And then I met the captain and got my chip removed and it got even more complicated.”
“Oh?”
“We don’t know what exactly the chip suppresses, but it’s a lot. Mild feelings make it through just fine, but big feelings. Fear, disgust, anger, sadness… grief… Even if I wanted to go back, I couldn’t anymore. I’d see a vod die and I’d probably lose it. I’d get my siblings killed. And none of that is even touching how I feel about my gender.”
Ahsoka nodded. “I’ve never met a clone who used female pronouns before.”
“Neither have I.” Birdie replied. “But thinking about it, it’s always been there, these feelings. The chip suppressed a lot of it, but I always looked at my siblings and felt wrong. It’s become a lot worse since having the chip out. I wasn’t even the one who figured out what was wrong. One of the crew just one day said, ‘Hey, Nines – that was my name before I changed it – you should try using female pronouns and see how it feels.’ Turns out it feels better this way. I bet there’s others like me out there. Maybe when all the chips are removed, I’ll meet another sibling who feels the way I do. Thinking that, it drives me to keep doing what I’m doing.”
She glanced over at Fives, who’d stopped glaring at her sometimes during her conversations with Ahsoka. “Vode An. I’m not fighting in the GAR, but I’m fighting for my siblings nonetheless.”