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The blood won’t stop coming from Tup’s right nostril.
Kix wiped it away four times. Each time, another dark line slips over Tup’s lip before the cloth leaves his face.
Tup doesn’t seem to notice.
He lies strapped to a diagnostic cot in the Sentinel’s isolation bay, helmet and armor removed, wrists secured to the rails with padded restraints. His eyes stare past the medical lights into something Fives can’t see.
“Good soldiers follow orders,” Tup whispers.
Every clone in the room goes still.
Fives heard the phrase in his sleep.
Not in a memory he can place. Not in any lesson he remembers receiving. It lives somewhere deeper, waiting beneath nightmares of Kaminoan halls and doors that lock from the outside.
Kix glances at him.
Fives knows from the medic’s expression that he hears it too.
“Tup,” Kix says. “Look at me.”
“Good soldiers follow orders.”
“You’re aboard the Sentinel. You’re safe.”
Tup’s head turns slightly.
“Orders.”
Fives grips the edge of the cot.
Less than an hour ago, Tup had raised his blaster in the middle of a firefight and shot General Tiplar through the head.
No warning.
No hesitation.
One second, she was directing the advance. The next, she was on the ground while General Tiplee screamed for her sister.
Fives can still hear it.
He can still see Tup standing over the body, blaster smoking, looking almost peaceful.
Then the fighting had collapsed around them. Droids pushing forward. Tiplee trying to reach Tiplar. Rex shouting for Tup to be restrained while half the battalion stared at their brother as though he had become something else.
Tup started bleeding before they got him onto the shuttle.
He hasn’t stopped repeating the phrase since.
The isolation door opens.
General Skywalker steps inside with Rex behind him.
Tup’s entire body arches against the restraints.
“KILL THE JEDI!”
Kix jumps back as the cot rattles across the floor.
Tup fights the straps with sudden, impossible strength. His bare heels strike the mattress. Blood spills freely from his nose.
“Kill the Jedi. Kill the Jedi. Kill the Jedi.”
Skywalker stops.
Fives moves between him and the cot before anyone orders him to.
“General, get out.”
Skywalker’s expression hardens. “I need to question him.”
“He needs you gone.”
“Fives,” Rex warns.
Tup jerks one wrist hard enough to split the skin beneath the restraint.
“Kix,” Fives snaps.
“I see it.”
Kix presses a sedative injector against Tup’s arm.
Nothing happens.
He checks the dose, swears, and tries another.
Tup keeps struggling.
“Good soldiers follow orders. Kill the Jedi. Good soldiers follow orders.”
Skywalker backs toward the door.
The moment he disappears from sight, Tup collapses against the cot.
His breathing remains ragged, but the violent thrashing stops.
Fives stares at the empty doorway.
“That isn’t battle shock.”
“No,” Kix says.
Rex looks toward the blood running down Tup’s cheek. “What is it?”
“If I knew, Captain, I’d be treating it.”
A holographic projector flickers to life beside the diagnostic station.
Scalper appears above it from the waist up, rendered in pale blue. Her blonde hair is tied back, an inhaler hanging against her fatigues. She looks as though Kix pulled her away from three surgeries and an argument she was winning.
Kix turns the main scanner toward her.
“Chief.”
“Report.”
Her damaged voice rasps through the speakers.
“CT-5385. Acute neurological disturbance beginning during combat. Sudden fixation on Jedi personnel, homicidal behavior, disorientation, right-sided nasal bleeding. Two field sedatives had minimal effect.”
Scalper’s eyes move over the diagnostic feed.
“Temperature?”
“Elevated by 1.6 degrees.”
“Pupils?”
“Reactive, but delayed.”
“Head trauma?”
“None recorded.”
Fives leans closer to Tup.
“Ask him why he did it.”
Kix gives him a look.
“We’ve tried.”
“Tup.” Fives grips the cot rail. “Why did you shoot General Tiplar?”
Tup’s eyes drift toward him.
For a moment, Fives sees his brother again.
Confused. Frightened. Young.
“I...” Tup swallows. “I don’t know.”
Then his expression empties.
“Good soldiers follow orders.”
Scalper goes completely still. It lasts less than a second. Fives notices anyway.
“What?” he asks.
Her gaze shifts toward him.
“What do you know about that phrase?”
Kix’s head turns.
Scalper reaches for her inhaler and takes one measured breath from it. “Common training phrase.”
“No, it isn’t,” Fives says.
Rex steps closer. “We’ve all heard it.”
“Where?” Scalper asks.
Nobody answers.
Fives searches his memory and finds only white corridors, static, and the sense of waking with his heart pounding.
“I don’t know,” he says.
The isolation door opens again.
This time, Fox walks through it.
He’s still wearing his ARC armor from the aerial engagement. The red-dominant plates are scored by cannon fire, and one gauntlet smells faintly of overheated circuitry. His helmet sits beneath his arm, black hair damp with sweat from the cockpit.
Fox looks first at Tup.
Then at the blood.
Then at the restraints.
“What happened?”
Rex straightens. “Chief.”
Tup turns his head.
The change is immediate.
His breathing slows.
The tension drains from his arms, and his fingers uncurl against the mattress.
“Chief,” Tup whispers.
Fox’s gold eyes narrow.
Fives looks between them.
Tup doesn’t know Fox. Not personally. The 501st has served with the Guard only in passing.
Maybe it isn’t Fox calming him.
Maybe it’s the title. Authority. A higher order entering the room.
Fox approaches the cot slowly. “CT-5385.”
“Tup,” Fives says.
Fox glances at him.
“His name is Tup.”
Something in Fox’s expression shifts.
“Tup.”
Tup’s eyes close briefly. “Sir.”
“What were your orders?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said good soldiers follow them.”
Tup’s lips move.
No sound comes out.
The monitor spikes.
Blood spills faster from his nostril.
Fox immediately stops questioning him. “Kix.”
The medic presses fresh gauze beneath Tup’s nose.
“Pressure’s rising.”
Scalper’s hologram expands beside them.
“Full cranial scan.”
“I ran one.”
“Run deeper.”
“The scanner’s already at maximum field resolution.”
“Override limits.”
Kix hesitates. “That could cause neural irritation.”
Scalper’s expression becomes glacial.
“He’s already deteriorating.”
Fox looks at the holo. “Could this be biological?”
“Possible.”
“Contagious?”
“Unknown.”
Everyone in the room glances toward Tup.
“He wasn’t sick this morning,” Fives says. “He ate with us. Complained about the ration bars. He was normal.”
Scalper studies him. “Behavior changes before Tiplar?”
“None.”
“Headaches?”
Fives thinks. Tup had rubbed his temple during the first briefing.
“He said his head hurt.”
“When?”
“Before deployment.”
“Which side?”
Fives looks at Tup’s face.
The blood comes from the right nostril.
“Right.”
Fox’s fingers tighten around his helmet. Fives catches that too.
“Chief?”
“Nothing.”
That is a lie.
Fives knows lies. He serves under Skywalker.
Fox turns toward Rex. “General Tiplee?”
“In mourning.”
“Keep her away from this bay.”
Skywalker appears in the doorway again but remains outside Tup’s line of sight.
“We need to know whether he acted alone.”
Tup begins murmuring the instant he hears the Jedi’s voice.
“Kill the Jedi.”
Fox turns. “General, leave.”
Skywalker’s brows rise. “Excuse me?”
“You are worsening his condition.”
“He murdered Tiplar.”
“He is also a Republic trooper experiencing an unidentified neurological crisis.”
“He may be a Separatist agent.”
Fives feels anger flash through him.
“Tup isn’t a traitor.”
Skywalker looks at him. “I didn’t say he was.”
“You thought it.”
“Fives,” Rex says sharply.
Fox steps between the doorway and the cot.
“We will determine responsibility after he is stabilized.”
Skywalker folds his arms. “And if he attacks another Jedi?”
“He’s restrained.”
“He broke one strap.”
“Then we use stronger restraints.”
Tup whimpers behind them.
Fox’s jaw tightens. “Outside,” he tells Skywalker.
For several seconds, neither moves. Then, finally, Skywalker looks past Fox toward Tup and leaves. Fives watches him go.
Fox turns back to Scalper’s projection.
“Recommendation?”
Scalper’s damaged voice becomes quieter.
“I hate to say it... but Kamino is closer than Coruscant.”
Fives’s stomach drops.
“No.”
Every head turns toward him.
Scalper’s hologram watches without blinking.
Fives steps closer to the projector. “They’ll decommission him.”
Fox answers before she can.
“No.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can deny the request.”
“And if the Kaminoans don’t ask?”
Silence.
Fives never trusted Kamino. None of them do, not really. It is home only in the way a factory is home to whatever it produces.
Tup is sick. The longnecks will see defective property.
“I’m going with him,” Fives says.
Rex frowns. “That’s not your decision.”
“It is now.”
Fox studies him.
Fives expects an order to stand down.
Instead, Fox asks, “Why?”
“Because something happened to him, and everyone’s already acting like the only question is who gets to punish him.”
Kix looks down.
Rex’s expression tightens.
Fives points toward Tup. “He didn’t know what he was doing. Look at him.”
Tup’s eyes have gone unfocused again. “Good soldiers follow orders,” he whispers.
Fives’s skin crawls.
“He needs someone there who knows him,” Fives says. “Someone who’ll notice if the story changes.”
Fox’s gaze sharpens at that.
Then he looks at Scalper.
“Can you meet them on Kamino?”
“I’ll leave within the hour.”
“You’ll have full medical authority.”
The corner of Scalper’s mouth moves without becoming a smile. “I already do.”
Fox ignores that. “No invasive procedures without your approval.”
Kix glances toward the holo.
That is not how Kamino normally works.
Scalper nods once.
Fox turns to Fives.
“You remain with Tup until transfer. You follow Kix’s medical instructions and Scalper’s orders.”
Fives’s shoulders loosen.
“Yes, Chief.”
“If a Kaminoan attempts to separate you without written authorization from my office, contact the Speaker.”
“What happens then?”
Fox’s gold eyes go cold.
“They explain themselves to me.”
Tup shifts on the cot.
“Chief?”
Fox moves back into his line of sight.
Tup looks calmer now, but the blood has soaked through the gauze beneath his nose.
“Am I a good soldier?”
Nobody breathes.
Fox’s expression doesn’t change.
“You’re sick,” he says. “That’s all we know.”
Tup’s brow creases.
“But I followed orders.”
Fox looks at him for a long moment. Then he reaches down and grabs Tup's hand. Fives sees another flicker of pain cross Fox’s face, quick and strange.
“Rest,” Fox says.
Tup’s eyes close.
Within seconds, he is murmuring again. “Good soldiers follow orders.”
Fox steps away from the cot.
Fives watches him exchange a look with Scalper.
Something is wrong.
Not only with Tup.
With the phrase.
With the blood.
With the way the Chief of Defense looked as though he had heard his own nightmare speaking from Tup’s mouth.
Fives looks down at his brother.
Kamino will have answers.
He is suddenly certain he won’t like any of them.