SWRC: Tales of the Clone Wars (Book 2.5)

Chapter 14 A Graveyard of Trees and Stones.

Song Language Warning!

"After them!" ordered Neeran as the two men fled the room.
Tye was the first to respond and took off after the pair, gaining quite a bit of ground within the twisting mining city maze of Gorse until he wound up at a grave yard with a single scraggly looking tree positioned in the middle of it.

Along with the two fugitives he was chasing.

"Wait!" yelled Tye, aiming his blaster at the pair. "Who are you? What's going on?"
"Are you Captain Tye of Orange Company 49?" asked the man who had defeated his commander in battle.
Tye was surprised for a second but then lowered his blaster and removed his helmet.
"I am."

"Get out of GAR," said the man. "It will only end badly for you and your precious company."
"Who are you?" asked Tye. "How can you be sure that there's something going on?"
"My name is Jax," said the man. "You already know Vax, a clone of me."

Tye remembered Vax from early on in his training as a clone cadet and knew he'd heard the name Jax before.
"Like Neeran is of my apprentice and your previous commander."
"You're her Master," realised Tye.
"You aren't the first Jedi Clone Tye," said Jax. "There have been others before you."
"Jedi Clone?" asked Tye. "What do you mean?"

"Ever felt something happen?" asked Jax. "Something that was completely unexplainable?"
Tye's mind immediately went to Mykapo and the incident with Commander Sato.
"You have," said Jax. "Haven't you?"

Tye was silent as Jax approached and explained, pressing a drive into Tye's hand.
"We are all connected to the Force Tye. But your company has a particularly strong connection for clone troopers. That will make you targets."
"Targets by who?"
"The Chancellor isn't all of who he says he is," said Jax as he nodded to Vax to take off. Tye replaced his helmet and hid the drive in his belt as the troopers and commander of his company came closer.
"If you wish to see your family survive, as well as yourself," said the man as he began to morph into and dead tree like the one beside him in the graveyard.
"Get out soon before it's too late. You can't trust anybody now."

Tye was surprised and shocked but Neeran could not tell under his helmet as she rounded the corner and came face to face with Tye who was staring off into the distance.

"What happened Captain?" asked Neeran.
"They got away," replied Tye. "We're never gonna find them now."
"Shit!" cursed Neeran loudly, leaving her company to go clean up their previous mess. Only C.T seemed to note how Tye was reacting.

"What is it?" he asked when the others were out of earshot.
"It was Vax," whispered Tye. "And the original template of him. His name was Jax."
"Did they say something?"
"We need to get out," said Tye, showing C.T the hidden drive slyly so that no one would notice. "But I don't want to leave everyone. To watch our family die."

C.T could see the cogs working in Tye's mind and guessed what he was about to ask.
"Do you think," muttered Tye as he stowed the drive again. "there's a way to get everyone out?"
"We'll think of something," said C.T placing his hand on Tye's shoulder. "Right now, we need to get off planet before the commander starts to get suspicious."

Tye and C.T made their way back to where the company had disembarked and saw the entire company waiting for him to arrive.
"What are you waiting out here for?" asked Tye playfully. "Get on inside so we can go home!"

Out of the corner of his eye, as everyone boarded the ship, Tye swore he saw Vax for a split second before his attention was drawn to a small child, probably not much older than seven, with a small cat-rat-weasel creature on her shoulder surrounded by several particularly suspicious people that looked more like an escort than random citizens as Tye watched them closely.

The girl suddenly looked over at him and Tye could see straight through her dark blue eyes, almost as if the girl was terrified as to what was to come next for her.

Tye went to intervene but it was too late. The group was gone and the little child was lost in the depths of the city with them forever. Tye realised that he could do nothing for the child as he was called over by his company and left the planet, the pleading look in the girls eyes ingrained in his memory for a long time to come...

It would be many years later that Tye would discover that the child had survived and had been saved by his former commander, General Neeran Claire Zaneshi, after the Fall of the Republic and the Rise of the Empire.
He would then learn that her name had once been Nadia Star-Jinn when he'd first seen her but her name when he really knew the child, though she was really a young adult by then, was Jexxel Zaneshi with her pet Star who actually turned out to be one of Neeran's old masters like Jax.