"Commander..."
"Commander..."
"Commander Cody..."
"Huh?" — Swoosh — Cody jolted upright in an instant, instinct taking over as he dropped into a defensive stance, scanning his surroundings with trained precision.
His barracks?
Familiar grey walls. Same narrow bed. Same desk. Shelves lined with relics from past campaigns, tokens of war and memory.
Cody's gaze shifted to the clone trooper standing at his doorway, the soldier stiffening in surprise at the commander's sudden reaction.
"Trooper... what happened to me? How did I get here?" Cody demanded, his voice edged with confusion.
The clone blinked, visibly puzzled. "Sir? I'm not sure what you mean. You had too much to drink last night. Commander Thorn carried you back to the barracks."
"He did...?" Cody echoed, rubbing his temples as fragments of the night before flickered in and out of memory.
Then—a stab of pain—sharp and unexpected—flared at the back of his head.
He reached up slowly, fingers grazing his scalp... then pausing.
A patch. Bare. Hair missing.
And beneath it—rough, scar-like skin.
"What the hell...?" he muttered, crossing the room toward the small wall mirror. Tilting his head, he caught the reflection of a faint scar nestled at the base of his skull.
He stared at it, unease coiling in his gut.
"Commander…" the trooper repeated, still standing in the doorway.
"Commander Cody," he said again, this time more firmly, pulling Cody from his daze.
"What?" Cody snapped, blinking back to the present.
"General Kenobi is waiting for you at the landing docks, sir."
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, warm and accusing. Cody swore under his breath—he was late.
"Shit. Tell him I'm on my way."
He threw on his gear in practiced movements, fastening each piece as his mind raced with questions. No time to investigate—not now.
Duty called.
But the scar still burned. And something deep inside told him...
Something had changed.
---
Meanwhile — Senate Building, Chancellor's Office
"Chancellor Palpatine," the clone officer announced, stepping into the grand chamber with crisp authority. He wore a sleek, jet-black variant of Phase II armor—no rank stripes, no identifiers. ISB. Silent, efficient.
"It seems we've picked up the trail of CT-5555," he continued, activating a holo-projector. A flickering blue image appeared: a hooded figure slipping into a tech shop—Greywire—in the CoCo District, Level 1315. Just before vanishing through the door, the image captured the faint reveal of Fives' face.
Palpatine, seated behind his massive desk, remained still, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. The shadows of the high office flickered around him, sun filtering through the translucent blinds behind.
"Excellent, Lieutenant," he said at last, his voice calm, almost fatherly. "We cannot have such a clone running loose... possibly endangering innocent civilians."
His golden eyes narrowed subtly. "Have your ISB team coordinate with the Coruscant Guard. I want CT-5555 located, contained... and brought in."
He paused, his tone darkening ever so slightly.
"And remember, Lieutenant—this must remain off-record. The people must not know a defective, possibly dangerous clone is among them. Panic... would serve no one."
The officer nodded firmly. "Understood, sir. We'll keep it quiet. We'll get the job done."
With that, he turned on his heel and departed, leaving Palpatine alone in the dim hush of the office.
As the door slid shut, the Chancellor's solemn expression twisted—his features hardening into a grimace of contempt. The mask fell away.
His gaze slid toward the figure standing silently to his right—tall, robed, and shrouded in pale mystery.
"Sly Moore," Palpatine said coldly.
The Umbaran didn't move.
"Commission a bounty hunter," he growled, a flash of molten red flickering in his eyes. "I want that clone eliminated."
Moore dipped her head slightly. "It will be done, Chancellor."
With the grace of a shadow, she turned and departed.
Alone once more, the Sith Lord sat back in his throne-like chair, the darkness coiling behind his composed exterior.
"Soon," he whispered to no one. "Very soon…"
---
Level 1313 — Abandoned Mechanic Shop, Second Floor
Fives sat hunched behind a dusty, cracked desk, deep within the shadows of an old mechanic's loft. Rusted tools and half-scrapped droids littered the walls, a faint hum of obsolete machinery filling the silence. The room was lit only by the pale glow of a jury-rigged console, its flickering screen showing layers of Coruscant's security grid.
His brow furrowed as he scanned Republic patrol patterns—an instinct sharpened by survival and suspicion. Then, something caught his eye.
"Hmm… What do we have here?" he muttered, fingers dancing across the console as he tapped into a nearby security feed.
The camera blinked to life, revealing a squad of Coruscant Guard shock troopers—armored in crimson and white—breaching the doors of Greywire, the tech shop he and his contacts had used as a quiet drop point.
Fives leaned in closer, tension growing.
The feed jumped. Now it showed them leaving—Nyx restrained in binders, her head held high despite the odds as she was marched toward a waiting LAAT/le patrol gunship.
Fives' jaw clenched. Then—beep-beep—his private commlink buzzed to life.
He answered instantly. "Commander Thorn, we've got a problem."
"I know," Thorn's voice replied, calm but edged in steel. "Nyx's transponder just activated. What have you got?"
"Visual confirmation. Shock troopers grabbed her from Greywire. She's being transported via LAAT/le patrol ship. I'm tracking it now to determine the destination."
Thorn was silent for a moment.
"Arm Slick, Dogma, and Tup. Get them ready for extraction protocol. Nyx cannot fall into Palpatine's hands. Is that understood?"
"Crystal clear, Commander," Fives replied.
The transmission ended with a sharp click. Without delay, Fives sent the alert to the others. There was no time to waste.
---
Level 2156 – Perimeter of a Forgotten Industrial Sector
"Fives, we've found the patrol gunship," Tup reported over the commlink, his voice hushed but urgent.
Through his cybernetic optics, he zoomed in on the LAAT/le vessel resting near a shadow-drenched compound, its hull dimly lit by the eerie orange glow of malfunctioning security lights.
He stood atop the crumbling roof of an abandoned factory, wind cutting across the steel skeleton.
Behind him, Slick and Dogma watched silently, their figures cloaked in tattered brown robes.
Beneath the weathered fabric, their upgraded muscle suits and personalized weaponry remained hidden—silent, deadly, waiting.
"There's no registry on this facility," Fives responded, his voice grim through the comm. "No power signatures in the public grid, no patrol routes logged. It's off the books. ISB black site, most likely. Where they make ghosts."
"Then we get her out before she becomes one," Tup muttered, cutting the channel.
Slick turned to him, jaw set. "What's the plan?"
Tup's eyes narrowed, the glow of his optics flashing in the dark. "No schematics. No intel. We go in blind. Minimal noise, maximum speed. In and out."
"Stealth op," Dogma said, tightening the strap on his rifle. "High stakes."
"Highest," Tup replied, already on the move. "If Nyx breaks under interrogation or worse—if they pull the data from her implants—it's over."
Without another word, the trio descended into the shadows, a blur of silent resolve and hidden firepower, vanishing into the steel labyrinth below.
Time was not on their side.
Slipping past sentries like shadows in motion, the trio infiltrated the black site with silent precision. From the outside, the structure posed as a forgotten factory—rusted girders, shattered windows.
But once inside, the illusion shattered. Polished durasteel walls, humming energy conduits, and pristine black flooring revealed its true nature—a covert military facility, hidden in plain sight.
"Dogma," Tup whispered, scanning the dim corridor, "splice into the system. We need eyes."
Without a word, Dogma stepped to the nearest terminal. His cybernetic arm shifted, revealing a retractable scomp link which he slid into the port.
In an instant, a torrent of encrypted data streamed through his optic HUD—surveillance feeds, security protocols, biometric logs—all deciphered within seconds.
"She's in Interrogation Room Two. One level below us," he said, retracting the link and stepping back.
Tup gave a single nod. "Then let's move."
The squad advanced with purpose, fluid and silent, ducking beneath cameras and timing their movements between patrols like veterans of a thousand ghost ops.
Not a footstep echoed. Not a word was wasted. The facility, though alive with activity, never noticed the three phantoms weaving through its corridors.
At last, they reached a reinforced door marked INTERROGATION ROOM 2, the air thick with tension and fluorescent hums. Behind it, Nyx waited—alone, or perhaps not.
Tup signaled a halt, eyes scanning for traps. "On my mark."
---
"This individual arrived at your shop yesterday. What was he doing there—and where is he now?" The voice was mechanical, distorted by a modulator that turned every syllable into something inhuman.
The speaker loomed tall in matte-black, modified Phase II armor—sleek, imposing, and unmarked. A ghost in the Republic's machine.
In his gloved hand, a blue-tinted hologram flared to life, displaying Fives entering Greywire.
Nyx sat bound to a chair in the dim interrogation chamber, her feline features battered and bloodied, one eye swollen nearly shut. The cold metal bit into her wrists. A single flickering light buzzed above her.
"He just... he just wanted a processor, that's all!" she gasped, voice quivering, lips trembling. "He bought it and left—I swear!"
"Please... let me go," she begged, her voice cracking as tears welled in her eyes. "I don't know anything..."
BAM—the interrogator's gauntlet drove into her gut, forcing a cry of pain and a spray of saliva as her body curled in agony.
"Lies will get you nowhere," he growled.
The interrogator opened a metal case with a hiss of decompressing air. Inside, rows of syringes gleamed under sterile light, each filled with shimmering fluids in unnatural hues. He picked up one filled with a dull green serum, holding it to the light.
"The truth," he said coldly, "always finds its way to the surface... with the right persuasion."
As he stepped forward, syringe poised, HISS—the secure door behind him parted.
The interrogator spun, syringe still in hand—only to freeze. Three hooded figures stepped into the room. Before he could react, a flash of movement—
ZZZT!
A stun round hit him square in the chest. His body convulsed, locking up mid-motion, before collapsing like a lifeless puppet to the ground.
From the shadows, Tup lowered his weapon.
"Took you boys long enough," Nyx rasped, gritting through the pain as Slick and Dogma rushed to her side, cutting her restraints.
Tup activated his comm. "Fives, the target is secure. We're extracting now."
"Copy that," came the reply in his ear. "Get out clean."
Tup gave a sharp nod. "Move out."
Exiting the interrogation room, the team moved swiftly—but not unnoticed. At the far end of the corridor, a two-man patrol rounded the corner. Blasters already drawn.
"Contact!" one of them shouted, opening fire without hesitation.
PEW-PEW!
A barrage of crimson bolts screamed through the corridor.
Slick was faster. He ripped the beskar-forged shield from his back, locking it into place with a satisfying clang as he threw himself between his squad and the oncoming fire. The blaster bolts struck the shield with sizzling deflections, sending sparks ricocheting in all directions.
He knelt, angled the shield, then raised his blaster pistol over the top.
ZAP. ZAP. Two perfect stun shots dropped the patrol where they stood.
"Movement—rear flank!" Dogma called out.
Footsteps thundered from behind. Slick didn't wait. In a single fluid motion, he spun and hurled the shield down the corridor. It tore through the air like a disc of vengeance, CRACK—slamming into the first trooper, ricocheting off his armor with a sickening clang, then spinning midair to strike the second across the helmet.
Both crumpled.
With a magnetic hiss, the shield whipped back into Slick's waiting hand.
Then—WEE-OOO, WEE-OOO.
The corridor bathed in red as sirens blared. A mechanical voice echoed through the facility: "Intruder alert. All personnel proceed to Sector Alpha-4. Apprehend at all costs."
Tup's eyes narrowed beneath his helmet as he steadied his rifle.
"…Guess stealth's off the table," he muttered.
Dogma checked his charge pack. Slick rolled his neck.
The game had changed. And now, they were fighting their way out.