#hence why he made Fives get a bunch of backup copies and give some medics on Kamino some copies so they could get the word out if needed

[somestorythoughts]

Eldritch Echo, Pt10

I thought this would be the last chapter...turns out I'm still not sure how to end this. But I think this part is long enough anyway. Enjoy!

They end up in what Fives tells them is called the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He’d ended up here, wandering sleeplessly after the Jedi had invited the Corries into the Temple shortly after everything went down. He drags them, Echo literally, to a labyrinth of rosy gray stone surrounded by bushes with dark green leaves and large indigo flowers.

“Are you two going to be cuddling the entire time?” Crosshair snarks as Fives pulls Echo down to sit next to him on the labyrinth.

“You’re welcome to join if you’re feeling neglected.” Echo retorted with a smirk.

“Nope I got him!” Wrecker grins as he slings an arm over their sniper, careful not to jar his injured leg, and drags them both down into a comfortable sitting position while ignoring Crosshair’s attempts to jab him between the gaps in his armor.

“Irritating cuddle-obsessed tank–”

“Enough.” Hunter and Rex said in the same no-time-for-these-shenanigans voice. They eyed each other while Kix snorted and everyone else found a spot on the stone or grass. Rex continued. “You owe us an explanation trooper. And it better be thorough.”

“Sire yes sir.” Fives salutes sarcastically, but his voice is sincere when he says, “I am sorry. It wasn’t my plan, but once they realized I was still alive and we started plotting, op-sec took over.”

“We understand. Talk.”

“We were fighting on Ringo Veda.” Fives begins for the benefit of Echo and his squad. He leads them through that part of the story; Echo’s eyes wide with shock when he recounts how Tup had killed General Tiplar and Tech’s narrowed when he recounts Nala Se’s actions on Kamino. But everyone stays quiet until he tells them about the chips in their heads.

“There’s WHAT?” Kix shouts.

“Biochips in our heads that wipe away most of our free will and force us to follow orders. I don’t understand how they work; Blood was too busy figuring out how to safely remove them to figure out how to give an answer in plain Basic. He and the Jedi healers could tell you more.” He grimaces. “I suggest going to the healers. Blood needs a break and he’s not going to let himself get one until all the Corries are well, so Bones is trying to keep anything stressful that isn’t directly related to the Corries away.”

“That’s understandable.” Kix murmured. Jesse adds something to his datapad and Fives knows their information broker of a lieutenant is going to have questions for him later.

Fives squeezes Echo’s hand and continues. He tells them about Shaak Ti ordering them to Coruscant, Nala Se drugging him, and finally Chancellor Palpatine’s revelation. He tells them about Order 66.

Rex goes pale. Jesse fumbles his datapad. “What the hell?” Wrecker asks. Direct this one. “Why’d the Chancellor want them dead?”

“The Sith are the old enemies of the Jedi. It probably had as much to do with that grudge as it did the fact that they’d do everything they could to keep the Republic from becoming an Empire.” Fives answers.

“He would have made us kill Ahsoka.” Rex whispers, and both Kix and Jesse freeze.

“All the Jedi cadets.” Jesse adds in horror. The handful of 501st behind him shudder, their own horror joining the noise. Someone’s muttering “no” over and over again, and Fives leans over to see a vod wrap their arms around the trooper next to them. Good.

“Echo.” The sniper says suddenly and Fives whips around. His twin’s frozen and distant and Fives pulls him forward to thump their foreheads together.

“Echo. Hey vod, come back.”

The slicer – Tech Echo said his name was – scoots closer. “Echo. You need to breathe.” His twin inhales sharply and Tech nods. “Good. Now breathe out.” He takes Echo through the breathing exercises while Kix begins to calm the others down. Fives takes a moment to glance over at Echo’s squad. Sergent Hunter and Wrecker both look nauseous. The sniper’s inscrutable but the only expression Fives has seen from him so far has been brief pain, likely due to his injured leg, so he doesn’t take offense.

He turns back to Echo, who’s breathing steadily again. “You alright?”

“Did Rex tell you about Skako Minor?” Echo murmurs.

“Cody did, a little – oh.” Yeah, the realization that they could be mind-controlled would probably be especially terrifying to his twin who’d had his mind torn open. “We’re safe Echo I swear. The slicers have a signal going out that turns the chips off and Blood figured out a way to safely remove it. If everyone wants their chips removed it’ll take a while, but they’re turned off and Palpatine is dead dead dead. No one’s going to make you hurt anyone.”

“I would be interested in learning the details of both the chip and the signal.” Tech states, eyes still on Echo.

“I’ll introduce you to the Corrie slicers.”

“Tell us the rest.” Rex orders. “What happened after?”

“Palpatine let me run, he thought it’d be entertaining. Eventually I made my way to 79s and Kix, asked him to send you that message to meet me in the warehouse.”

“And then Fox showed up.”

Fives sighed. “Yeah. Please don’t stay mad at him Rex, he didn’t have much choice. Turns out the Corries aren’t just undersupplied like we thought, they’re overworked to the point of exhaustion and some of the Senators have been exceptionally nasty. Our dearly beloathed Chancellor had Fox pulled in twenty directions trying to keep everyone safe while being willing and able to order decommissions, and they were constantly terrified someone would catch on to all the vod they were hiding that were supposed to be decommissioned. They’ve got Dogma by the way, he’s been helping out with the Jedi tubelings for the last few days. I think it’s good for him.” It looked like a weight dropped off Rex’s back. “So yeah, faced with the choice of shooting me or pissing off Palpatine, he took the shot. And realized in a split second that I was a twin and shifted to miss my heart.” Fives frowned. “Or his aim was slightly off because of said exhaustion and he didn’t realize I was a twin till he got a better look. I’m not actually certain.”

“You don’t want to find out?” Jesse asked.

“Well I’m not going to ask now, I’m not even sure if he’s awake yet.” Jesse snorts. Fives continues, “I woke up with CMO Blood. Kix, you might have competition for the title of scariest medic.”

“A twin medic who kept his men alive with severe cuts in medical supplies and limited aid from the other vod because we could only send so much bacta?” Kix retorts dryly. “I’ll happily take second, vod deserves first place.”

That gets a few chuckles and a handful of wary looks. “Fair. Anyway, he got Fox, made us both explain the situation. And then we hashed out a plan.”

“He shot you and you had a chill conversation?” Crosshair drawled. Fives raised an eyebrow.

“Look, when a medic who’s about eight feet of bleeding muscle with claws the length of your hand and a mouth like a lamprey tells you to sit your ass down and explain yourself, you say ‘yes sir’ and report. Regardless of whether you’re a twin or not.”

Seems Crosshair couldn’t argue with that. Fives continued. “Deciding to kill Palpatine was the easy part. But if I did it and failed, he’d come down hard on the Corries and anyone he thought I could’ve told about the chips. We didn’t want to go to the Jedi for a lot of reasons. If we went without proof they might not believe us, if they did but opsec wasn’t fully taken into account Palpatine might find out, and even if all of that went well they’d still have to successfully arrest Palpatine without being portrayed as traitors to the Republic. If we killed him without proof the Senators would come down hard on all the troopers and if we failed, well Fox thought he might decommission the entire Guard just to be on the safe side. So Fox set anyone who worked in the Senate regularly to very careful evidence collecting and had his slicers dig into Palpatine while Blood started dechipping people. They didn’t want me in the Senate in case Palpatine sensed my presence or whatever in the Force so I provided unseen back up for the Corries and swiped some food and medical supplies until Commander Thire figured out a way to get me to Kamino. When I got there, I got a medical droid to help me find the files on the chips, I even got records of the Kaminoans interacting with Count Dooku. By the time I got back Blood had finished the dechipping and the slicers had figured out a way to disrupt the chips. We made a few more copies because Blood believes in copying everything unless you want it to never see the light of day, then Fox had some of his fastest troopers run copies to the Temple while he took a squad and I to confront the Chancellor. We recorded it, Fox tried to arrest him so no one could say we didn’t do it by the book, and when he resisted we fought. The Jedi reached us a bit after he blew up.”

They’re silent for a long moment. Then: “What do you mean he blew up?”