Between the Shadows

Chapter 2 - Trial

Fives only seems to be growing increasingly agitated as they fly up for the cruiser. He's eyeing Salvo suspiciously and looks this close to trying to bolt or maybe attack him. Not like that's surprising considering how he's been acting this entire time. But they probably need to start getting answers now.

"Can you explain what you were saying before?" Anakin inquires finally.

"It's a conspiracy," Fives insists, gesturing almost wildly at his head, "The evidence is in here. It's in here. It's in all of us, every clone!"

"What is it?"

"Organic chips built into our genetic code to make us do whatever someone wants, even kill the Jedi. It's all in here!"

How would chips make them kill the Jedi?

Considering what happened with Tup, maybe it's not as outlandish as it seems, but the way Fives is acting is entirely unlike how Tup was. And then there's that the Kaminoans said removing them would affect their behavior and Anakin doesn't see any reason to think it's untrue, considering how Fives is acting. He has no idea and it doesn't make sense, and he's so afraid of how this is going to go down that he can't try to clear his mind enough to – to anything.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" Salvo advises, "Explain to me everything that happened. There is a chance that you're on to something."

Anakin's gaze jumps sharply to him. He half wonders that too, but it sounds so crazy.

Fives doesn't look like he's feeling much better than before, even at the reassurance. "I went with Tup to help. I didn't expect it to be a conspiracy. The Kaminoans were covering something up. They were going to – to terminate him for analysis. I couldn't let them do that for no reason!"

Anakin winces, reaching out to touch Fives' arm.

It never stops infuriating him how people treat the clones they're some kind of droids that can be deactivated whenever something goes wrong with them. Of course Fives would have reacted badly to them trying to do that to Tup. Tup is the brother he's been closest with since what happened to Echo.

Fives twitches a little, but he doesn't seem to be expecting to be attacked, which is a plus.

Anakin can see the tightness in Rex's expression at the news, but it's not really surprising to anyone. The clones are used to being treated like that.

"What did you do?" Anakin asks.

"I talked to the medical droid analyzing me. It said a brain scan could determine the problem without killing him."

"And why didn't the Kaminoans do this before? What reason did they give?" interjects Salvo.

"They claimed he was too weak," Fives replies, "That it was going to kill him, but they were going to kill him anyway. For nothing. The medical droid thought it was a risk worth taking and I convinced it we should do it, even if it was against regulation."

He definitely can't blame him for that. Anakin wouldn't have done any less, had he been there. Maybe it would have been better if Rex had stayed with him but Ringo Vinda was in chaos and Anakin didn't have a choice but to call him back to the fronts.

"What did you find?" Salvo prompts.

"He had a tumor," Fives explains, "But the Kaminoans didn't care. They were going to kill him to dissect him either way, claiming it was a virus. They wouldn't even look at it!" That... now that he's actually spelling it all out, even if he's still rambling, Anakin's beginning to think that maybe he's not wrong. Something's not right about how the Kaminoans were acting but that doesn't change that something's wrong with Fives right now.