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All Jesse remembers is receiving an order through his comlink. “Execute Order 66,” it said. What even is that? That was not in his training protocol. Apparently, Jesse didn’t need to know.
He cannot even explain what happened next. One moment, he was himself - thinking, breathing, existing - and the next, his mind was violently shoved backwards by a force he can’t fathom, can’t see, can’t fight. A frantic confusion swirls inside his skull, sharp and disorienting, as he tries desperately to hold onto himself. It feels like his whole existence is being erased piece by piece, overwritten by something else. Something cold. Something lifeless. An icy numbness seeps into every corner of his consciousness.
The dread grows when he realizes he has lost all control over his body. It’s moving on its own now, mechanical and precisely following Order 66 like a kriffing droid. How was this possible? Is this Maul’s doing? No - he’s not around. Panic spreads through Jesse, raw and suffocating, pressing in on his chest until it feels hard to breathe. His heart hammers violently, each beat echoing in his ears.
If there is anything clones don’t want to deal with, then it’s losing control over themselves. The one thing they’re allowed to control. The only thing that truly belongs to them - more or less, at least. Helplessness crashes over him, stronger than he ever felt in any battle.
When he sees himself raising his blasters against Rex and Ahsoka, his heart drops straight into his stomach. A sharp, sickening jolt of horror tears through him. “STOP!” Jesse tries to cry out, tries to scream, but his words never leave him. His mouth doesn’t move. His body doesn’t respond. He stays trapped in that hollow shell he once called his body.
The worst part? He can still feel the blasters in his hands. He can feel the solid weight of them, the familiar grip. He can feel his fingers tightening around them, eager - too eager - to pull the trigger.
No.
Those are not his fingers. Jesse wouldn’t do that. Not to his brothers. Not to his friends.
He tries everything he can imagine. He pushes against the cold force inside his mind, fighting to claw his way back, to reclaim even a bit of control. But how do you fight something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t even understand? His yells go unheard. Nothing escapes. He’s trapped inside this lifeless body, forced to watch himself shoot down the only people who ever loved and cared for him.
Why do none of his brothers fight back? Why do they blindly follow Jesse's order to kill their Commanders? Could it be that they are feeling the same? Why not Rex? What is this about? His questions float away in his panic. He won’t get an answer anyway.
Rex’s attempts to reach out to him fall on deaf ears. Well, not exactly. Jesse hears him, and that only makes it worse. The desperation in Rex’s voice, the strain, the hesitation, because he doesn’t want to kill his brother. It tears Jesse apart. His heart shatters into a million pieces. He’s never heard Rex this shaken, not even after Umbara. Not after Fives. And it’s his fault. His inability to fight back. To take back his body. His mind.
The guilt burns hot inside him, sharp and relentless, and somehow it fuels a fragile spark of hope. Maybe he can’t regain control—but maybe he can resist. Because that is something Clones do. They resist the control of the Separatists. Maybe he can slow it down. He has no idea how, but he fights with whatever strength he has left in this strange, void-like state. Jesse feels his mind collide with something solid. An invisible wall of nothing. It’s freezing, just like whatever is taking control of him. He throws himself against it again. And again. And again. He doesn’t know if it’s working. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing. But it’s all he has.
For a brief moment, his body hesitates. His arms lower the blasters by just a fraction of a second. Jesse notices it instantly, and hope flares unimaginably bright inside him. Not all is lost. Ahsoka and Rex seem to have noticed it too. The hope in Ahsoka's eyes warms Jesse's heart.
Then an uneasiness seeps through him, slow and dreadful. A cold breath of wind brushes past his face like a whisper. His consciousness is torn away again, dragged backwards into a void. The eyes of the Chancellor stare down at him. In that moment, his heartstrings are being ripped out. Jesse watches Ahsoka's hopeful look die out.
The Chancellor?
Jesse’s stomach twists violently as the dots finally connect. The truth settles in his mind with crushing finality. There is no stopping this. The entire Grand Army of the Republic is under the influence of the inhibitor chips. They are all trapped inside their own minds, reduced to discarded thoughts and forced to observe helplessly. It’s a cruel kind of fate to feel your own movements, without any control. To be unable to save your friends from yourself.
Jesse doesn’t want to watch this. He can’t. Instead, he curls in on himself in the darkness surrounding him. The only light comes from his body’s eyes, the very thing he cannot bring himself to look through. So he lets the dark consume him. And somehow, it’s comforting. Better than the unbearable pain of watching the reality unfold, knowing he is the cause of it.
Kix had tried to tell him - subtly, at least. He never dared to say it out loud, afraid Jesse would be in danger. Jesse remembers that last night outside 79’s. Kix wasn’t himself. He was uneasy, almost insane. He acted the same way Fives did when he “lost his mind.” That’s what the reports said. A drugged soldier. Fives was more than that. Jesse wishes he had been there. Been at his brother's side - maybe things would have gone differently then. “You need to understand that there is something wrong with our anti-aggression chips. Our whole creation, even,” Kix whispered, eyes darting around in paranoia. He looked ready to run at the slightest threat. “What are you talking about?” Jesse asked, desperate to understand. He wanted to understand. But Kix brushed him off and left.
That was the last time Jesse saw him, and it probably will be the last time Jesse is going to see him. Just like any other of his brothers.
They are going to either be a lifeless droid or hunted down by the very thing they lived for.
Is this what he meant?
Jesse imagines hands wrapping around him, holding him together, offering comfort. Whose hands? It doesn’t matter. All he wants is for this to end. This has to be a dream. It can’t be real. Clones have faced countless cruel realities; brothers dying in every way imaginable. But death at the hands of another brother is the worst of them all. And Jesse can’t be the one responsible.
It wasn’t him. It was the chip. He repeats it like a mantra. The chip is at fault. It isn’t Jesse. There was nothing he could do. Rex knows that, right? His brothers know that too… right? A suffocated sob tears through him, silent and unheard, just like every other sound he’s tried to make. No matter how hard he tries to shut it out, he can still feel his fingers pulling the trigger. He hears the orders leaving his mouth.
He imagines himself rocking back and forth with his arms wrapped around himself and his head in his knees. Like the little kid he was. He is. He’s supposed to be.
The connection ties him to that body, and he hates himself for it. He hates that he can feel every movement, every breath, as if it were truly his own. Every shot. As if it were his fault. As if he were the murderer of his brothers. Because he's too weak to fight it. To gain back control. Because he failed them all.
Jesse doesn’t need to look to know how this ends. When he feels himself dying, crushed beneath the debris of the Star Destroyer, the pain is strangely comforting. It means it’s over. An end to his misery. An end to the deaths caused by him. In that final moment, he can only wish that his corrupted brothers die as well. Because he knows, they will suffer far worse if they’re left alive, trapped inside their own bodies, forced to watch themselves live out their worst nightmare. The one they had been dreaming of over and over again.
After all this time, clones have been reduced to their CT numbers once more. Their mere being, cast aside like an inconvenience for the galaxy, and again all they could do is follow the orders of their superior with no choice but to obey.