Project Ares Gold Edition

Chapter 31 - Ghosts

Spirit of Fire - Tatooine

After about 8 hours after they removed their inhibitor chips, the clones were starting to feel like themselves again. However, all of them still felt betrayed and used by the Kaminoans and especially Palpatine. Despite this, Blue Team got to work brainstorming ideas regarding how they were going to hide Fives and secretly spread the news.

Eventually they decided that they would fake their deaths with the exception of Chief seeing as he had gained a reputation of not being able to die. Chief would go back to Coruscant and say that he took Blue Team to go hunt down Fives but when they caught him there was a fight, leading to an explosion that destroyed the Spirit of Fire. Chief only survived because he was still on the ground when it happened and listened to the whole thing over the comm.

While Chief slowly spread the news through the GAR, the remainder of Blue Team would go to the abandoned Pillar of Autumn in the Dathomir system and get it back up and running again. They needed a place to live that was big enough to accommodate more clones that would later join them, or so the plan went.

Stepping out of the airlock and on to the coarse sand, Chief looked back and saluted his team who all returned the gesture. If anything, 117 had the easy part of the assignment, all he had to do was lie about Blue Team and trek about 40km through the Tatooine desert. Throwing on an old Jedi robe that he found in the Spirit, Chief started his walk across the large sand dunes.

Eventually reaching the cesspool of a city that was Mos Eisley, Chief covered his helmet with the robe's hood, not wanting to be recognized by a bounty hunter, mercenary or gangster and cause a scene. Making his way to the Republic outpost that was located on the planet, Chief walked through the door and immediately sounded an alarm. Turns out that there was a weapons scanner that detected blasters and explosives as they came through the door.

As six troopers in plain phase 2 armour stormed out with rifles in hand, Chief dropped his cloak and revealed himself. Stunned in disbelief that the legendary Spartan was in their outpost, the troopers immediately lowered their rifles. "Master Chief, what can we do for you sir?"

"I need a transport back to Coruscant, my ride here didn't make it."

"Yes sir, I'll see what I can do."

Coruscant

After catching a ride with a supply ship heading to Coruscant, Chief was immediately brought in for questioning by a whole squad of Coruscant Guard troops. After being borderline interrogated by the Chancellor, Commander Fox and a host of other military and security personnel, Chief was finally dismissed and allowed back to work. Unfortunately, seeing as he was no longer part of the Republic Security Agency or had a team with him, Chief was grounded until further notice.

Deciding to make the most of his time and start slowly spreading the information regarding the inhibitor chip, Chief went to the person that he thought would definitely want to know what's going on. If Chief had to guess, Captain Rex was either still on Ringo Vinda or was back on Coruscant. Either way, he had to get in touch with the 501st captain.

Turns out that the official story regarding Tup shooting Jedi Master Tiplar was that a rare bacteria native to Ringo Vinda contaminated his drink and that it drove him insane. The story then goes on how Fives supposedly drank from the same contaminated drink, thus driving him insane and causing him to attempt to assassinate the Chancellor. As a result, the entire 501st was placed under medical leave and scheduled to receive 'vaccines' for this supposed bacteria.

This meant that Rex was definitely on Coruscant and likely onboard the Resolute. Making his way there, Chief hopped on a gunship that took him to the shipyards and dropped him off inside the Resolute's hangar. Before he could even go looking for the clone captain, Rex was already barrelling towards him, clearly pissed off and looking for answers. "Chief, you mind telling me what the hell is going on?!"