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This can’t be happening!
No, I don’t want it. I am going to stop. Now!
I-I can’t.
This is just too powerful.
“Find the Jedi Ahsoka Tano and the traitor CT-7567. Shoot them at sight if you need to. I want them dead!”
“Yes, sir!”
No! I don’t want them dead!
What is happening to me??
Fives… Fives said it. The chip, it’s the chip inside all of us!
Stars, what have we done?!
Jesse moves through the ship’s corridors with an elite squadron of the 332nd.
The orange markings on their helmets now made them seem like insane dangerous demons.
It was all a big sick joke.
“Sir, we have a problem. The engine of the ship is failing to respond. We are crashing, sucked by the gravitational camp of the moon in front of us.” Says the commlink attached to his forearm.
“Deploy the escape pods.”
“But sir…”
“Do you want the traitors to leave?! Nobody’s gonna leave! If we have to die, then let it be. It’s our duty.” Rages Jesse.
“I want every single soldier down to the hangar. They’ll probably try to reach the shuttle!”
NO! No… I don’t want to die. Not like this!
But after all… clones are expendable. We were made for this.
This was the big master plan. An army of traitors.
Men programmed to kill those who needed them the most.
My brothers… reduced to mindless droids with flesh and blood.
What a cruel destiny. If only I could do something.
CAN YOU HEAR ME? JESSE STOP!
The doors of the hangar open with a sinister alarm. The ocean of soldiers painted in white, blue and orange storm out of it, disposing in squares, blasters ready. Jesse walks out fiercely.
Enough. Please.
“There they are! Look!”
“I see them!”
“Hold your position men. If they try to leave, they’ll have to go through us.” Shouts Jesse, walking up and down impatiently.
What do I have to do? Surrender to it? Let it be?
Kill Rex, the companion of a short but intense lifetime, and Ahsoka, the most caring and lovable General I had?
I have become a machine, like my brothers.
I am suffering and no one can hear me.
My soul, my emotion, my will power. Erased.
Reduced to this, a conversation with the void, like I was alone in the Galaxy.
If I am alone, if I can do nothing but suffer, then yes, my last wish before I hurt anybody, is to die with my brothers beside me.
Please, let it end.
“Hold your fire! I said hold your fire Jesse. I have the situation under control.”Rex, blaster aimed on Ahsoka’s head, walks up to him.
“You have your order sir. Now execute it or I will.” Barks the lieutenant. He moves his arms automatically, raising them to their level.
“The order was to execute the Jedi for treason against the Republic! The problem is, Ahsoka Tano is no longer a Jedi. Hasn’t been for some time!”
Jesse lowers the pistols.
A spark of hope!
The end of the tunnel?
I don’t have to do this!
Please, listen.
Help them. Save them.
This is the chance, I know I can do this, I know I can hear this, feel this.
I’ve always been here, I am not some mindless droid, I am a man who has learned to take his decisions, who is independent!
Think about those who didn’t, like Dogma.
Think about the brothers you have lost, like Tup or Hardcase.
Think about those who sacrificed to learn the truth, like Fives…
Think, Jesse, think!
“Sir… you said yourself we’re under special order from Darth Sidious to eliminate Ahsoka Tano and any other clone who disobeys Order 66.” Replies Jesse, aiming again with a slight trembling of the wrist.
Think, take the right decision.
Do it.
I can do the right thing. I can.
“Jesse. Jesse, listen to me. We’ve known each other a long time. If we don’t get this right, we will be the ones committing treason, not her!”
Jesse lowers the blasters again.
I can.
I can help.
I can save you, Vod.
This is gonna be alright.
I will get back my body, I will get back my willpower.
I will get back my life.
“Commander Rex, you’re in violation of Order 66. I accuse you of treason against the Grand Army of the Republic. You’ll be demoted in rank from commander and subject to execution along with the traitor Ahsoka Tano.” Rex turns to look at the Togruta as she mutters something undistinguished.
“Company, ready. Aim!”
There is no going back.
Another terryfing siren blasts through the hangar, breaking the tension. The floor suddenly breaks open and Jesse turns around in visible confusion. Half of the 332nd scream helpless as they are eaten by the pitch black abyss.
The other half has no time to react as the same fate attends them. Jesse grunts. It’s them! He turns around ready to fire back but Ahsoka pushes him away with the force. He does not feel anything but air as he flies into the pit, screaming and grunting.
He lands on another unfortunate comrade, who softens just a bit his fall. The lieutenant looks around: motionless bodies are resting, dead or alive he cannot tell, on the ground of the lift. His body is in pain, his arms ache as he tries to move them to reach the blasters. On the surface he can only hear open fire and savage screams. Maul got out as well….
Ahsoka appears on the edge of the cliff. She is struggling to hold on, her lightsabers sparkling as they sink into the metal floor, melting it. Jesse takes advantage of that weak moment of hers: this is not the soldier way but he is not even a soldier anymore.
Now he knows, he is just a weapon.
And there is no chance for me to survive.
“Move it. Move it! Get these lifts activated. Get us up there!”
“Our panel’s locked out” shout two technicians looking at their superior. Jesse’s rages from the inside as he hears droids approaching to help the traitors.
“Fire on those droids!”
Ahsoka reaches the edge of the floor and disappears into the battle. Blaster shots fly around like mad fireworks on Life Day. The ship sinks unstoppable to its fate as troopers start abandoning themselves to the same, tragic, dark destiny.
A hole is cut into the metallic pavement and Ahsoka with Rex collapse down into the lower ground, right where Jesse and the rest of the 332nd is waiting.
“Blast them!” shouts the Lieutenant.
The remaining droids activate the first lift and clones are sprinted back up in the hangar.
“Hey!” a bunch of soldiers surround Cheep and RG.
“Blast those dirty droids.” Commands Jesse through the commlink in the helmet.
The soldiers blocked at the lower levels of the hangar continue their restless attack on the traitors, but they eventually get stunned by Rex or wiped away by Ahsoka’s sage use of the Force. “Here, follow me.” Jesse collects a group of troopers and they manage to follow stealthy the Jedi and their Captain in their research for an escape pod. The Tribunal was collapsing on itself, burning from the inside, but those men were not abandoning the idea to shoot back at Rex and Ahsoka.
We are going to die anyway, might as well die while doing the duty... right?
Troopers surround the fugitives again in their desperate attempt to reach the only shuttle that wasn’t under maintenance.
A gunshot reaches Ahsoka’s shoulder, making her grunt in pain, but not stopping her from deviating the bullets with her lightsabers.
Jesse reaches her, they are almost face to face. He still fires his shots, his arms as thigh as violin strings, but under his dirty helmet tears start welling up in his eyes.
He does know.
This is his end.
Die already, Jesse. Let it end.
“I… I only wanted to do my duty.” He mutters. To himself or Ahsoka, it doesn’t matter. Warm tears are now dripping down his cheeks.
I am a good soldier.
And good soldiers follow orders.
Ahsoka knocks him out with the force.
He falls on his back as the ship scarily turns its angle into a free fall. Soldiers scream in their attempts to not fall or get sucked out by the powerful airflow generated by the engines of the enormous ship, grabbing whatever they have near them for support. Jesse watches Ahsoka jump out in the void, disappearing with Rex’s tiny ship.
His strength leaves him, his body abandoned to the ground as he stares his faith with eyes wide open.
Behind him an explosion makes him tremble, smoke and cinder coming up to him, wrapping his whole body, invading his mouth and nostrils.
He coughs in vain, chocking and gasping for air.
Ahead of him terrain is coming closer and closer: sparkling phantom of fire clouds eager to consume the whole ship and the bodies inside it.
“The mission. T-the nightmares-s. Finally... over.”
This is it.
I’m coming brothers.
I’m coming home.