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Kamino, 2232, eight months after the Battle of Geonosis
General John Smith examined the body of a dead clone trooper with Aayla Secura and a cloner nearby. He extracted a blood sample from the corpse as Kit Fisto walked in.
"What happened?" he asked.
"That is what we are trying to find out," Smith said. "Though, he isn't the only one. There are seven more over there in the corner."
"Strange," said the cloner. "These soldiers were infected with a deadly nano-virus that appears to move with lightning speed. It's quite amazing."
"You know what isn't amazing? Dead bodies. Can't even determine if we're safe."
"We are. The virus seems to have been engineered with the clone troopers in mind. For it to effect anyone other than a clone, it would need to be injected directly into the bloodstream."
"Well, you guys do what you think needs to be done. I'll check this blood sample to see what I can find."
Smith stopped outside the door and placed the blood sample in a pack on his belt. As he walked one way, Aayla and Fisto walked the other way.
"This is a disaster, Kit," Aayla said.
"That's putting it lightly, Aayla," Fisto said. "We don't stop this here and now, the Republic will be defenseless against the Separatists."
Smith went to his temporary quarters on Kamino. He examined the sample under a microscope.
"Damn, we're looking at a man made plague right here," he said to himself. "The DNA in the blood is melting away. But that's impossible. Is it?"
He rest his elbows on the desk and laid his shin in his hands.
"Who would be able to engineer a virus like this?"
Then, something dawn on him.
"It has to be a cloner. But who?"
He heard thunder and... blasters firing? He turned, looked out the window, and saw two super battle droids firing on Aayla and Fisto. He could make out a fifth figure: a cloner.
"Gotcha. Well, they did find you first, so..."
***
Aayla and Fisto faced the battle droids as the cloner began to make his escape on a ship.
As they fought, they heard an explosion, someone yelling, and they saw Smith on the cloner's ship.
"Where do you think you're going?" Smith asked as he rammed a metal rod into the ship.
"You missed," the cloner said.
"You'll be putting your money in your mouth when lightning strikes."
A lightning bolt struck the rod and exploded the ship. A fragment hit the droid Aayla was fighting and dragged her underwater.
Despite Fisto having a ten second head start, Smith jumped in feet first and reached Aayla before Fisto did.
"Amazing!" Fisto thought. "He must have the swimming speed of twenty-five miles an hour."
Smith broke the droid's hand that held onto Aayla.
"I'm not going to make it," she said to Smith through the force.
"Relax," Smith responded. "I have plenty of oxygen to share. Let me share it with you."
They held their lips tightly as they floated back to the surface, with Aayla breathing in the oxygen that Smith gave her.
Once at the top, Smith saw Fisto.
"Did you enjoy that?" he asked.
"Hey, I was just giving her oxygen," Smith said. "It's nothing personal."
"You knew I was amphibious, right?"
"True, but you probably weren't born with two sets of lungs, were you?"
"Hold it," someone said.
Smith and Fisto turned and saw the cloner with Aayla in his grip and a injector in her neck.
"Drop your weapons."
Smith and Fisto did just that.
"Fools." He prepared to turn on the injector.
"Wait," Smith said. "You are making a big mistake."
"Am I?"
"In the amount of time it takes you to kill her, that will be all I need to kill you."
The cloner released Aayla and fired a blaster at Smith. Smith quickly took the point of the injector off and rammed it into the back of the cloner's neck.
"I got you," he said.
"I know," Smith said. "But I also got you." He took the blaster out of the cloner's hand, as he stood there paralyzed.
"What did you do to be?"
"I put the tip of the injector in the back of your neck."
"That's it?"
"You made it as thin as a needle. But here's the thing: I put it in a forbidden area. Science calls it brain aneurysm. A culture on my world calls it the kiss of the dragon. The blood in your body will go to your head and stay there until it comes out of your mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. And then death, every painfully." He removed the needle and said, "It'll take a minute, but it will happen."
"You thought of a different way of dealing with him other than killing him?" Fisto asked.
"I was aiming for his arm."
"There should be enough to make a vaccine from the strain of the virus here," Aayla said.
"That's good."
The cloner began to spas out, his body shaking violently, and soon fell to the ground, with blood on the ground and his face being washed away by the rain.
"Damn, that's horrifying. I'm wishing I did get him in the arm."
"How did you get over there so fast?" Fisto asked.
"Well, I love a good entrance, but..."
An explosion erupted from Smith's quarters.
"...at the end of the day, I'll still be paying for damages."