Gray Jedi Ch. 6

Gray Jedi Ch. 6

“That is my official designation. But as you well know, my friends call me Rex.”

“Yes… Captain Rex of the 501st legion,” Malik replied.

“The same, sir.”

“Also the legion that slaughtered all our friends in the Jedi Temple,” Malik seethed, gripping his lightsaber tightly.

“I had nothing to do with that,” Rex said calmly.

“Is that so?! Then which Jedi did you turn on, huh?” Malik shot back, taking a step forward, the tip of his lightsaber precariously close to Rex’s face. “These betrayals happened all over the galaxy, Jedi being slaughtered by the clones they regarded as friends.”

“I… I know…” Rex hung his head. “I cannot condone the actions of my brothers, sir. All I can say for sure is that I have never and will never betray my Jedi comrades. And I can prove it.”

“How?” Serra asked, not relaxing for a moment.

“Look.” Rex turned slowly to face away from the pair, keeping his hands up the whole time. “Here, where my neck meets my head.”

“What is that?” Malik asked, noticing a scar on the skin.

“That is where my inhibitor chip once was.”

“Inhibitor chip?” Serra repeated.

“It’s a tiny biochip implanted in every clone from birth,” Rex explained. “Its primary purpose is ensuring our absolute loyalty to the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic.”

“Palpatine,” Malik spat.

“Correct. But beyond that, I made a terrifying discovery a few months ago. One of my men came to me bordering on insanity. He kept talking about a grand conspiracy to force us clones to commit a horrible atrocity, and that the cover-up went as high as the leaders of the Republic. He died before we could verify any of it, and Palpatine closed the matter straight away, but I continued to research his claims. Though I never confirmed the conspiracy itself, this led me to discover the existence of the inhibitor chips. Realizing that these chips could force us to commit the atrocity of which he spoke, I removed my own in secret.”

“And those chips contained the program used to nearly wipe out the Jedi Order,” Malik finished.

“Yes, sir,” Rex sighed. “I am only sorry that I could not gather enough evidence to convince any more of my brothers to follow my lead.”

“How do we know we can trust you?”

“You were always our best interrogator, sir. You could tell through the Force if any captives were lying. Am I?”

Malik concentrated for a moment before replying, “No… no you’re not.” He and Serra put their weapons away.

“Rex,” Serra said, “you were stationed on Mandalore with Ahsoka Tano, is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am. When the clones received the call for Order 66, she became an immediate target. Thankfully, she was out on reconnaissance alone at the time, and I volunteered to track her down myself. I caught up to her and warned her of the incoming danger, but by then my battalion had followed and opened fire on her. But thanks to some quick thinking on her part, she made it appear that she had killed me before making her escape. This allowed me to fake my death; hell, there’s even a tombstone with my name on it down there! A powerful and resourceful Jedi that one is. Just like her master,” Rex said with a smile.

“Um, Rex,” Malik began, but he then felt Serra’s hand on his shoulder.

“You deserve to know… Anakin didn’t survive the attack on the Jedi Temple,” Serra said. “I’m so sorry, Rex. I know he was among your closest friends.”

With a heavy sigh, Rex replied, “It was bound to happen sometime… as powerful a Jedi as he was, I have no doubt he was made a top target. And the 501st legion knew his tactics and strategies better than anyone…”

Before anything more could be said, the ship was suddenly rocked by an incoming attack.

“Shit! I left the cloaking device off!” Serra realized, rushing to the cockpit.

Malik and Rex ran after her, arriving in the cockpit to find her frantically working the console.

“It’s no good; some of the couplings came loose,” she said.

“Rex, can you fly this thing?” Malik asked.

“I can fly anything, sir.”

“Then get us out of here. Serra, go down below and get to work on the cloaking systems. I’ll get the weapon systems up and running.”

Serra dashed off to the engine area while Rex took her place in the captain’s chair. As Malik powered up the targeting computers, he noticed an immediate difference in Rex’s skillful defensive flying.

“What have we got, sir?”

“Looks like two recon fighters,” Malik replied. “Their fast, but not heavily armed. But I bet they’ve already called for reinforcements.”

“Why do you say that? They don’t know who’s on this ship, do they?”

“They caught sight of us as we made our escape from Coruscant in this thing, and nearly cornered us on Ord Mantell. There’s no other ship in the galaxy like this one; we’re a marked target,” Malik explained.

“Then we’d better get the hell out of here.”

“Just keep us on course; I can’t program the hyperspace coordinates and fire the guns at the same time, but I can hold ‘em off until Serra gets the cloaking unit up and running.”

As Rex continued his evasive maneuvers, Malik brought the turrets online and returned fire. The fighters chasing them were quite agile, evading with relative ease while continuing to pepper their shields with blaster fire. The chase continued for several minutes, when Rex noticed another ship in the distance also being pursued by Imperial fighters.

“Sir, you see that?”

“Yeah, that’s odd… but we’re in no position to help them at the moment,” Malik replied.

“I’ve got it!” Serra exclaimed as she burst into the cockpit. “Engage the cloaking device!”

“Done,” Malik said, flipping a switch.

As soon as they had disappeared, Rex executed several swerves to throw off their attackers. As they scanned for any sign of the Jedi ship, a group of five reinforcement fighters arrived on the scene to assist, though they were as clueless as the first two. Deciding to give up on them for the time being, the group converged and went after the ship in the distance being pursued by an additional two fighters.

“Whew… that was close,” Rex sighed, wiping the sweat from his shaved head.

“Yeah, but that ship over there won’t stand a chance, not with nine Imperial fighters on its tail,” Serra said.

“Hang on, got an incoming transmission,” Malik said.

“…Concordia is in need of immediate assistance! This is Bo-Katan Kryze of the Night Owls Mandalorian Resistance Force! If anyone can hear this message, please render aid!”

“Sounds like our work’s not done,” Malik said to Serra.

“Yep.”

“Wait, you can’t be thinking of jumping into this fight!” Rex protested. “Bo-Katan Kryze killed lord-knows-how-many of my men on Mandalore last year!”

“And then allied with the Republic by saving General Kenobi’s life,” Malik fired back. “She put herself in danger to help the Jedi, so we’re going to help her now. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Besides, we have the element of surprise,” Serra said with a grin. “I’ll take the controls, you two go man the heavy guns.”

Rex and Malik rushed out of the cockpit towards the two heavy laser cannon installations, located on each end of the hammer-like bow of the ship. Though Malik had been able to control them remotely before, having gunners in full control would be a great advantage for them against the numbers they were about to face. Malik strapped in and activated his targeting systems, testing his commlink with Rex and Serra.

“Ok, we’re gonna stay cloaked as much as possible,” Serra told the pair. “Wait for my signal to fire.”

She approached the cluster of fighters converging on the Mandalorian gunship, lining Malik and Rex up to be able to take them out before they knew what was happening.

“Rex, I’ll take these three in front of me, you get the three nearest you. That’ll thin their numbers out a bit,” said Malik.

“Roger that.”

“OPEN FIRE!” came Serra’s command.

Malik and Rex fired in unison, targeting the cluster of fighters near them. Though each managed to destroy a pair, the remaining five ships recovered enough to scatter and try to regroup. Meanwhile, the two men stopped firing long enough for Serra to move them to another position, as they remained cloaked and undetectable so long as they weren’t firing their weapons. By now, the Mandalorian gunship had recovered enough to be able to return fire on its own, assaulting the fighters from a distance. Taking advantage of this distraction, Rex drew on his extensive training and took out another pair of fighters in quick succession.