Jaig Eyes
Part XII: Jaig Eyes
Rex stunned two of his brothers as he turned around the corner and ran straight into Bo-Katan. They bumped into each other with a thud.
“Ouch!”
Bo-Katan regained her senses first.
“There you are,” the Mandalorian said, rubbing her head. “I was looking for you.”
Her voice was almost covered by the sound of the alarm filling the base.
“Well I’m here now. What’s your plan?”
“I was thinking we could fight our way out.”
“That’s not a plan!”
“Sorry, but with your brothers on the heels, I didn’t really get the chance to think about it.”
New footsteps were already coming in their way.
“Couldn’t you think about it before blowing the whole thing?” Rex asked, moving to position himself back to back with her, blasters ready to shoot.
“I reacted emotionally, okay? I’m sorry it put you into trouble but what’s done is done.”
He turned around to look at her in disbelief. She had reacted emotionally? It really didn’t sound like something she would do. Whoever was this Korkie, he was obviously more important than Rex had thought.
“What?” She asked.
“Nothing,” he said resuming his position. “Brace yourself, here they come.”
Indeed. Troopers appeared at both ends of the corridor, shouting and shooting. Rex and Bo-Katan immediately started to blast. Their respective skills combined with the surprise effect allowed them to take down the squad in a matter of minutes.
“Let’s move before the second wave arrives,” Bo-Katan said, panting.
“Right. Let’s go east. That’s where the ships are.”
They ran a few more meters before coming face to face with another group of clones. Rex growled.
“How many are there?”
“We don’t really have time to count,” Bo replied. “Ahsoka always said you were the best shot in all the GAR, looks like we’re about to see if she was right.”
With that, she charged at the group of troopers.
Rex raised a brow. Ahsoka had said he was the best shot in the whole army? They both knew that claim wasn’t true. That made him feel a sudden wave of fondness for the young Togruta. He missed her. “Someday, I’ll thank you for that compliment in person, Ahsoka,” he thought. And he joined Bo-Katan in the fight, determined not to let his friend pass for a liar.
He was surprised to realize how easy it was to fight alongside the Mandalorian. It didn’t take long before they figured out each other’s fighting style and became able to anticipate the other’s moves. Sure, Bo-Katan wasn’t Anakin or Ahsoka. She didn’t have the incredible abilities that came with Force-sensitivity and Rex wasn’t so confident that she would have his back that he could jump into battle without even thinking about it. But she was definitively a skilled warrior he could rely on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her using ancestral Mandalorian fighting techniques so efficient that it made her look like she could take down an entire army by herself. It wasn’t the first time Rex was seeing a Mandalorian fight, but he had never worked so closely with one of them before, even during the siege on Mandalore. And he could see why they were considered the best warriors in the galaxy.
With their concerted efforts, Rex and Bo-Katan managed to get through the second group of troopers who had put up a good fight. Rex sighed as he looked the bodies of his brothers on the floor. The situation was beginning to resemble too much his escape from the Venator with Ahsoka. An event he really didn’t want to relive, especially now when he needed to stay focused. Next to him, Bo-Katan noticed his discomfort.
“Rex?”
“We really need to get out of here…”
“Agreed. How much farther is the hangar?”
Rex was about to answer when a mechanical voice resounded through the base.
“Attention, attention. Code 78-B activated; I repeat, code 78-B activated.”
Bo-Katan turned to Rex.
“What does that mean?”
“That means there’s an intruder in the base and that all the ships are to be grounded.”
“Great. There goes our only chance to get out.”
Rex thought quickly.
“There’s another way. The emergency exit. Once you’re out, you can go back to the Gauntlet and leave.”
“Won’t it be guarded?”
“I don’t think so. Intruders are not usually aware of its location, so the men are not used to protect it.”
“But if we run straight to it, they’ll figure out where we heading.”
“Not if we part ways. I’ll lure them to the hangar; it will divide their forces. Some troopers will still be looking for you but they won’t guess you know about the emergency exit. And with your skills, it will be easy for you to slip past them.”
“Out of question. I’m not leaving you behind. Plus, we have a better chance to get out of here if we stay together.”
“Perhaps, but in the present situation, that’s not an option we have.”
She seemed to be thinking.
“There’s a whole planet waiting for your return,” Rex added. “Nobody’s waiting for me. Not anymore.”
She looked at him. Her expression was unreadable but she definitively seemed conflicted.
“Alright, then,” she finally said. “Tell me where the exit is.”
“First floor, behind the officers’ quarters. It’s easy to spot.”
“I’ll find it. Oh! And Rex?”
He looked at her.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
“Go now.”
The course of events that followed remained blurry in Rex’s mind. What happened in a matter of minutes seemed to last hours. Rex knew he couldn’t hold off his brothers too long, at least not alone. He stunned some of the clones firing at him but couldn’t bring himself to keep shooting at them. Flashbacks from order 66 kept dancing before his eyes, overrunning his mind with painful memories and distracting him from the scene happening before him. His best chance was to run for the hangars. The chances of success were slim but if he was lucky, he would be able to steal one of the ships; if he wasn’t, he would have bought Bo-Katan some time to escape.
Fortunately, his brothers seemed as much disturbed as he was at the idea to shoot one of them and many hesitated to pull the trigger, which gave Rex an advantage. He managed to cross half of the base and, for a split second, thought he could make it to the runway and the hangars. But just as he arrived in the last wing separating him from the exit leading to the hangars, a new wave of troopers appeared in the narrow corridor right in front of him. With others still coming from behind, he was trapped.
Rex quickly glanced around him. A few meters ahead, on his right, was an unguarded door. Strange, but Rex didn’t have time to think about it. He went for it with the last of his strength. The door opened to a staircase leading upwards and Rex threw himself inside. But he barely got time to climb a few steps before the troopers behind him opened the door themselves. He turned around to shoot the door controls, blocking the entrance to new pursuers, but three clones had already stepped inside. Rex swore. They were getting close and the staircase provided no cover. He would have to get to the upper floor as fast as he could. He climbed the steps two at a time and finally reached the exit door. But a chill ran down his spine as he realized he had ended up on the roof. There was no escape. The short moment of hesitation accompanying his realization was enough for the three troopers behind to catch up with him. One of them knocked Rex’s blaster out of his hands and the confrontation turned into a hand-to-hand fight. Rex took down two of his assailants but the last one broke free from his grip and when Rex turned around to face him, the trooper was pointing his blaster at him.
Rex put his hands in the air.
“Alright, trooper. You got me. Now, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”
“Why would I regret shooting a traitor? Who are you? Why did you help this woman blow up our base?”
The clone was slightly shaking. Obviously, he had never had to confront one of his brothers before. This was a weakness Rex could exploit. He slowly lowered his hands to his head.
“I’ll just…”
The other clone stiffened.
“Easy, easy…” Rex said. “I’ll just remove my helmet.”
He knew that would work in his favor. The other would be even more hesitant to shoot if he had to face his own visage. Rex slowly proceeded to take off his helmet. His brother remained still, probably desperate to see if the person under the armor was really another clone.
“You see? I’m just like you. Same nose, same mouth, same eyes…”
But his words only seemed to make the other angry.
“You’re not like me! You’re a traitor to the Empire!”
Rex frowned. He knew only too well this kind of blind loyalty.
“Listen, trooper… What’s your name?”
His brother opened his mouth to answer but at the same moment, an old separatist STAP suddenly emerged from behind and before Rex could say anything, the STAP’s guns fired at the trooper.
“No!”
Rex caught him just before the body hit the ground.
“I…” His brother coughed. “I’m Brisk.”
And he closed his eyes, dead.
“No…” Rex whispered. “Not again.”
He remembered holding Waxer’s corpse on Umbara, then Fives’, then Jesse’s…
“I’m sorry, vod,” he said, pressing his forehead against Brisk’s.
A voice next to him echoed his words.
“Sorry.”
He looked up. Bo-Katan had jumped off the STAP and was walking towards him.
“That thing can only fire real blasts.”
Rex gently put Brisk’s body on the ground.
“You came back.”
“Of course. I borrowed this to someone in town,” she said pointing her thumb at the STAP.
She looked at the three bodies laying on the roof.
“We should hurry now. It’s only a matter of time before the others arrive.”
Rex silently nodded in agreement. He gave a last look at Brisk and climbed on the STAP behind Bo-Katan. They left the base’s roof without a word. A few seconds later, Rex heard the remaining troopers finally reaching the roof but Bo-Katan and him were already too far to be hit by their shots. They got back to the Gauntlet they had parked outside the city and took off, the both of them still silent.
Rex waited until they were sure to have a sufficient head start over their pursuers before switching to autopilot and turned his seat to face Bo-Katan next to him.
“Thanks.”
“What for?”
“Coming back to get me.”
“I didn’t want you to reveal the location of the Lawquanes’ house under torture.”
She paused.
“And I’m the one who brought you there in the first place. I wasn’t going to let you die in that base.”
“You didn’t force me. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to.”
“Mmm.”
The young woman remained silent for a time.
“You know, I saw your dedication to the fight and to your brothers. This is something I respect. You fought like a real Mandalorian back there. And I would never abandon one of my people.”
Rex was strangely touched by her words.
“Thanks. I guess I’ve always tried to do what was best for my brothers.”
“That’s what one of us taught you to do, isn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?”
“That’s what Mandalorians do. And when we were on the roof, you called the other clone ‘vod’. I don’t think the Kaminoans taught you that word.”
“No.”
He paused as images from his past came to his mind.
“Back in the days, before the Jedis and the war, many of our instructors on Kamino were Mandalorians. Those of us who were trained by them also adopted some elements of their culture.”
“That explains the jaig eyes on your helmet. I’ve always thought you didn’t know what it meant.”
“I earned them during my training on Kamino. During an important test. We used to call them the ‘make or break tests’ because the stakes were real. Everything was recreated to mimic a real fight. If you got shot, you were hurt and nobody could help you until the end of the fight. The Kaminoans’ goal was to physically eliminate those of us who were not strong enough for real battles. That day, it was the selection for command training. I was the one in charge of my team. We almost made it to the end. But the last step to win the mission required me to sacrifice one of the boys under my command. I knew he would most likely die, so I refused to do it. I knew I had made the right choice but the Kaminoans didn’t share my opinion. They thought we should value victory over the life of a single brother. It cost me my place in command training.”
“How old were you?”
“In normal age? Eight. After that, I kept the designation CT and joined a squad of regular troopers trained by a young Mandalorian named Fenn Rau.”
Bo-Katan interrupted him, visibly surprised.
“You were trained by Fenn Rau?”
“Yes. You… know him?”
“He was a… friend. But I never knew he had trained clones on Kamino.”
“He did. He was one of the best instructors I ever had. Rau thought it wasn’t fair that I was punished for what I had done. He told me it was incredibly selfless and very honorable; worthy of a Mandalorian like him. So, he gave me my jaig eyes and I never stopped wearing them.”
Bo-Katan slowly nodded.
“Well, for what’s worth, I couldn’t have made it today without your sacrifice, captain. I think you can wear those jaig eyes proudly.”