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Anaxes is supposed to be one of the safest military worlds in the Republic.
Rex thinks that description needs updating.
The shipyards burn beyond the command bunker’s armored windows, distant flashes blooming orange against the violet sky. Anti-aircraft batteries hammer at formations of droid fighters while half-completed cruisers hang above the planet like metal skeletons caught between construction and death.
The War College already evacuated its cadets into the lower shelters.
The 187th holds the western approach. The 212th spent the last six hours preventing the Separatists from cutting the primary supply line. Coruscant Guard SpecOps teams are hunting infiltrators through the shipyards, which Rex hadn’t known was a sentence anyone could say until this morning.
The 501st is losing ground.
Not much.
Not yet.
But enough.
Rex stands over the tactical table while another blue defensive line turns red.
“Again,” General Skywalker says.
The display resets.
The latest engagement begins from the top. Republic units advance across the ridge exactly as planned. The droids fall back. Torrent Company moves to exploit the opening.
Then the Separatists close around them.
Not randomly.
Not because a tactical droid got lucky.
The droids avoid the feint, ignore the obvious weak point, and strike the precise section Rex reinforced to support the second phase of the attack.
The section no one outside the 501st should’ve known mattered.
Rex watches the recording until the last marker disappears.
His jaw aches from how tightly he’s holding it.
Master Windu stands on the opposite side of the table, arms folded into his robes. Cody is beside him, helmet beneath one arm, expression grim. General Skywalker paces near the bunker wall like he would personally like to challenge Admiral Trench to come down from orbit and explain himself.
Fox remains still.
He stands at the head of the table in black-and-red armor, one gloved hand resting against its edge. The metal reconstruction covers part of the right side of his face, disappearing beneath his collar. His mechanical eye burns red beside the remaining gold one, both tracking the tactical display together.
He looks almost exactly as he had before the gala.
Almost.
Maybe 99 percent.
98 if Rex counts the metal.
The voice implant adds a faint electronic resonance when Fox speaks. “How many times?”
Rex knows exactly what he means.
“11 engagements I can confirm. Probably more.”
“And the pattern began?”
“Months ago. Small things at first.”
General Skywalker stops pacing. “You thought we had a leak.”
“I still do.”
“We’ve checked communications,” Cody says. “Shipboard terminals, command relays, encrypted channels. Nothing.”
“I checked the officers too,” Rex says. “Quietly.”
Skywalker’s expression darkens. “You thought one of ours was passing information?”
“I thought someone might’ve been compromised without knowing it.”
Nobody objects to that possibility.
Not after everything they’ve seen.
Fox touches the display. Three battle recordings open beside one another, each showing a different 501st defeat.
“Not raw intelligence,” he says.
Rex looks at him.
Fox enlarges the first recording. “They aren’t reacting to your deployment orders. They’re predicting how you’ll alter them after contact.”
He shifts to the second.
“Here, they allow your forward element through because they know you’ll use apparent success to draw attention away from the actual objective.”
The third recording expands.
“Here, they target your reserve before it moves.”
Rex nods. “That’s why I think it’s specific to us. Trench didn’t just get troop movements or mission plans. He got our methods.”
“A strategic model,” Windu says.
“Some kind of Republic strategy algorithm,” Rex agrees. “Something trained on 501st operations.”
Skywalker leans over the table. “Could they have built it from battle recordings?”
“Not this accurately.”
“They’ve fought us for almost four years.”
“So have half the Separatist command staff. Most of them still think your plans are random.”
“They aren’t random.”
Cody makes a quiet sound suspiciously close to a cough.
Rex keeps his face neutral.
Fox does not even try.
His organic eyebrow rises while the mechanical side of his face remains still.
Skywalker points at them. “They work.”
“Eventually,” Cody says.
“Usually,” Rex adds.
Windu closes his eyes briefly, perhaps asking the Force why it has placed him in this room.
Fox returns his attention to the tactical display. “The Separatists have a limited window between receiving information and using it. Their adaptations are current.”
“How current?” Windu asks.
“The last three engagements incorporated changes Captain Rex introduced after arriving on Anaxes.”
The bunker goes quiet beneath the distant thunder of artillery.
Skywalker straightens. “Those strategies never went through central command.”
“No,” Rex says.
“Who had access?”
“Torrent officers. Me. The General. A few senior 501st majors.”
“And whoever is feeding Trench,” Cody says.
Rex stares at the red markers on the table.
For months, he treated the thought like a splinter beneath his glove. Something small enough to ignore until pressure drives it deeper. He checked the comms. He reviewed mission logs. He traced every tactical file he could access.
Nothing.
Every trail ended cleanly.
Too cleanly.
Fox closes the battle recordings.
“We proceed under the assumption that Trench possesses a predictive model built from restricted 501st strategy,” he says. “Until we identify the source, Captain Rex alters operational patterns and routes all major deployments through independent tactical review.”
Skywalker frowns. “Independent meaning who?”
“Anyone who doesn’t think like you.”
“That narrows the list.”
“It improves survivability.”
Cody looks down, very interested in adjusting the seal of his glove.
Rex almost smiles.
Almost.
Fox continues issuing orders. The 187th will reinforce the eastern defensive trench. Guard SpecOps will audit the shipyard’s internal networks while hunting infiltrators. The 212th will prepare a counteroffensive but hold until Rex creates a plan that does not resemble anything previously used by the 501st.
It’s practical.
Immediate.
Fox doesn’t waste time demanding proof Rex doesn’t have.
That should make the next part easier.
It doesn’t.
The briefing ends 20 minutes later. Windu leaves to coordinate with General Billaba. Cody follows him into the corridor to contact the 212th. Skywalker remains long enough to tell Rex they’ll solve it, claps one hand against his shoulder, and leaves to inspect the forward line.
Fox stays.
Of course he does.
He closes the bunker door before turning back toward Rex.
“You withheld something.”
Rex exhales.
He should’ve known.
Fox has been back on active duty for less than a month and is already detecting omissions by posture alone.
“I didn’t think the Generals would take it seriously.”
“Skywalker considers crashing a cruiser into another cruiser a valid tactical option.”
“That’s different.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
Rex looks at the secured door.
Then at Fox.
“The strategies Trench keeps predicting,” Rex says, “aren’t just mine.”
Fox waits.
“I made them with Echo.”
The name hangs between them.
Fox knows who Echo was. Everyone in high command does. ARC trooper. Domino Squad. Presumed killed at the Citadel.
Rex has said those facts so often they have become smooth, painless things.
The truth underneath them is neither.
“Some of the maneuvers are his,” Rex continues. “Not recorded doctrine. Not battle plans we filed. Things we worked out together. Contingencies. Shortcuts. Ways of reading how the General reacts when a plan goes wrong.”
Fox’s expression does not change.
That is somehow worse than disbelief.
Rex forces the words out.
“I think Echo might be alive.”
There.
Said aloud, it sounds exactly as impossible as Rex feared.
The Citadel exploded around them. Echo was caught beside the shuttle. Rex saw the blast. Saw the helmet roll across the platform. There had been no body to recover, but there had been almost nothing left of the platform either.
For years, Rex accepted that Echo died there.
Now the Separatists are using Echo’s mind against him.
Fox studies him for several seconds.
“You believe Trench captured him.”
“I don’t know.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Voluntarily cooperating?”
“No.”
That answer comes too fast and too hard.
Fox accepts it anyway.
“Then we treat him as a prisoner until evidence proves otherwise.”
Rex stares.
No lecture.
No careful explanation about grief creating patterns where none exist.
No suggestion that he sleep before making accusations.
“You believe me?”
“I believe the Separatists are using information only Echo possessed.”
“That doesn’t mean he survived.”
“No,” Fox says. “It means the possibility is operationally relevant.”
Something tight inside Rex’s chest shifts.
Fox ran on crazy ideas. Everyone knew that. He built strategies out of missing records, procurement discrepancies, suspicious timing, and the occasional instinct so specific it made other officers wonder whether he had planted the problem himself.
He did not dismiss impossible things.
He dissected them.
“If Echo’s alive,” Rex says quietly, “he’s been in their hands for years.”
Fox’s jaw tightens.
“I know.”
Rex looks back at the tactical display.
Echo alive.
Echo imprisoned.
Echo forced to help the Separatists dismantle the 501st one battle at a time.
Rex isn’t sure whether hope or horror is winning.
The bunker door opens.
Cody enters carrying a datapad and the expression of a man who has already decided something unpleasant for someone else.
“I may have a route to the Cyber Center,” he says.
Fox turns toward him. “Explain.”
Cody brings up a terrain map. The Separatist facility lies behind enemy lines, buried beneath layers of droid defenses and shielded communications infrastructure.
“A direct assault would draw Trench’s attention,” Cody says. “A small infiltration team could cross the ravine here, enter through the ventilation network, and access the Cyber Center before the droids realize we’ve breached the perimeter.”
Rex studies the map. “That approach is vertical rock for six kilometers.”
“Yes.”
“Under artillery coverage.”
“Intermittent artillery coverage.”
“There’s a minefield.”
“Only near the top.”
Rex looks at his Ori'vod.
Cody’s mouth twitches.
Rex does not like that twitch.
Fox notices it too. His eyes narrow together.
“A conventional squad won’t make that approach,” Fox says.
“No,” Cody agrees.
“Who exactly are you recommending?”
Cody’s grin widens into something deeply untrustworthy.
“Clone Force 99.”