It had been about a month when we got a quick blip of a holomessage from Talen. It was a quick four sentences sent directly to me, detailing where we were going and that he had already talked to Fox about it. We had five days to get the tracking dealt with and moved elsewhere. I don't know how he managed to make that little miracle happened, but I could only suspect that he called in a favor from Venn. Apparently, we were heading for a small series of ravines on Alsakan. Had to say... it was better than most of our assignments.

When we received the message, Red and Grek got to work pulling any strings they could to find a way to get in to see Sana Bre. Tor knew that something was moving, but judging by the way that he never said anything, if he had an inkling that something was up, he never spoke a word of his concerns to me. If anything, he had lightened up since Concordia. The tensions that had built up between him and the others had seemingly all but dissipated, and I wondered to myself whether Red had something to him that made him calm down.

I had been on my off-shift when Red hurried into the room holding a datapad with one of those dumb smiles on his face, "Guess what I got?" He asked she passed the datapad to me.

I was going to ask to avoid reading it, but when my eyes hit the screen, I saw the reason he was so excited. "You managed to make it in to meet Doctor Bre?"

"Am I good or what?" He asked with a laugh and thrust himself down onto his bed. "We go in tomorrow, and then in four days..." He trailed off and I saw red watch me intently for a moment before he dropped his eyes to his hands that were folded on his knees. His smile fell as he did before he sighed, "Are... are you going to come with us?"

I shook my head, "I need to stay with Tor until the war is out."

"Maybe..." He hesitated for a second and then looked up at me with a new look of conviction on his face, "Maybe we should ask Tor if he wants to come. This isn't fair to him."

"This is on you and Grek," I replied with a frown. "I can't decide what to do here."

"What's on this loser and me?" Grek asked as he lumbered into the room from his shift. He sat down on his own bed and looked between us.

"Telling Tor," Red replied, making Grek look between the two of us uneasily. "We can't just desert him, Grek. He deserves to know."

"He's a snitch!"

"He's our brother," Red's counter made Grek look away. The look of shame that came across his face hit even me. The idea that we were cutting Tor out made everything so much worse.

"You're... you're right," Grek fell onto his bed with a groan. "When?"

"ASAP," I crossed my arms as I sat there at my desk and watched the two exchange and look. "Tor comes back from his shift at the desk in four hours. Come up with something good between now and then."

Sure enough, four hours and three minutes later, and exhausted Tor came into the room to find Red and Grek waiting for him. He never even got to ask what was happening before Grek had pulled up another chair at the desk they had both chosen to occupy. Red sat Tor down and explained everything. The whole plan. He told him about the Beroyas' offer, the plan with Doctor Bre, the escape route - literally every single detail. Tor just sat there in a state of complete shock as he looked back and forth between the three of us and shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"No," he shook his head quickly. "No, this is some pathetic joke on your parts, right?" He asked with a nervous laugh. When nobody replied, his face fell and he narrowed his eyes at us, "You... This is desertion!"

"Yeah, and the Senate is considering killing all of us!" Grek countered. "The Beroyas are giving us an out, and only you and Kando are being stupid enough not to take it!"

Tor looked at me with an unreadable look on his face. Out of all of my brothers, only Tor managed to evade getting read by me. His mind was a steel trap unless he wanted to let you know otherwise. Finally, I saw him set his Jaw and look at Red and Grek with a stony glare, "Go on," he snarled, "go on. Get it done. Let them catch you. When you get found out, I'm not sticking my neck out for you."

"Are you coming?" Red asked as Tor shot up from the desk.

"No!" Tor shouted at them, and for half a second, I got scared that someone would overhear. "I won't take part in this! This... This isn't why we were made! This isn't what we're supposed to do!" He hesitated, clearly wanting to say more, before he just shook his head, "I won't say anything. If Fox or anyone catches on, I won't hesitate to turn you in - brothers or not. Loyalty is everything."

He left the room without another word.

*

We left that same evening when the duty roster came out. We were lucky that our rotation wasn't until the following day. Red had been mostly silent on the ride there and stayed that way until we had stepped off outside of Sana Bre's office. Almost as soon as we stepped inside, we saw several Mandalorians leaving with a cloaked man beside them. For a brief moment, our eyes met.

My eyes.

Our eyes. The Clone looked dazed, but upon seeing us he stepped in closer to the arm which was wrapped around his shoulder. He was afraid, but he still whispered, "Good luck," as he passed. When we finally approached the front desk, the protocol droid running it looked up and almost immediately buzzed into the office and spoke in the quick flowing Kaminoan tongue I hadn't heard in close to thirteen years.

"You are CT-7209, CT-2453, and CT-18-4443, correct?" It asked, making us all glance at or another before Red nodded.

"Yeah, that's us."

"Excellent. Doctor Bre is expecting you."

We were led through sterile white halls that reminded me so much of Kamino that I swore we had stepped back onto the wet planet and I almost immediately wanted to leave. I swore I would never wind up back at Kamino.

Yet when we entered that room, I knew that Sana Bre was our last hope. Any discomfort that I had faded away at the thought of my brothers getting the life. She looked up at us and sighed as she set down the datapad she had been writing on and looked at us, "Why have you come to me, Clones?"

"We need our tracking chips removed," Red supplied and we were all more than a little confused that she didn't seem to know. However, at the confirmation, she hung her head, "I cannot. Not anymore."

I wanted to scream. It was the only thing that my brothers wanted. "What do you mean?"

Sana shook her head and sighed, "People began to notice. Clones who would come to me would suddenly disappear and questions were asked. I would only be endangering you all if we were to continue this discussion. I am sorry..."

"There has to be another way!" Red leaned across her desk with a look of desperation scrawled across his face. "Please, Sana! They're going to kill us!"

That made her hesitate. I saw the wheels turning in her Kaminoan head as she drummed her long fingers against the desk. Finally, I saw something in her big dark eyes light up as she raised her head to look back at us. "Can you return here in two days?"

We all exchanged a look and finally Grek asked, "Why?"

"My brother, Director Iru Bre, will be... back. He should be able to assist you."

Iru Bre... That was a name I thought I was never going to hear again after I left Kamino. Suddenly it made sense as to why Sana and her crew were able to fly under the radar as long as they did. If Iru was in on it, then he was a lot more emotionally invested in us Clones than I initially was led to believe. Had to hand it to him, that took guts.

"Director Bre will be here?" Red asked as his eyes went wide.

"He currently is - but before you get excited, he is performing this same surgery on Clones smuggled in from Kamino by their instructors. This is why you must wait. He has an opening slot in two days. Return here at oh-right-hundred exactly and he can help you."

*

Two days felt like an eternity.

Tor barely spoke to us the entire time we waited almost as if he was off somewhere else. However, when we fed him the information, we conveniently found ourselves getting scheduled on night shifts for our rotations. I don't know if it was dumb luck, or if he had prodded Fox to assign us to times so asking for a switch wouldn't seem to strange. We had always mentioned we preferred working nights anyway.

Whether he helped us or not, the two days passed and we all met in our room. Grek was as ready to go as ever. His tenacity still impresses me after everything we've been through. Red looked half exhausted from his night watch at the prison monitors, but he seemed anxious nonetheless. Honestly, I was, too. This was a massive risk, even if it was worth taking.

"Nervous?" I asked as I crossed my arms.

Red snorted, "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware this was a walk in the park."

"I'm not," Grek huffed. "I'm ready to go. The sooner we see Bre the quicker we can get out of this."

Part of me thought back to Tor, and I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind.

We hopped aboard the first taxi and showed up at the front desk fifteen minutes before 0800. The protocol droid led us past Sana Bre's office and to a much larger one in the back, where glowing letters in both Aurebesh and Kaminoan denoted the seasonal office of one "Director Iru Bre". We entered the office after the droid and found ourselves staring at Iru Bre, clothed in deep lavender and whites and looking ever like the stoic scientist I remembered him being. I had no idea how Kaminoans aged, so to me, he looked pretty much the same as I remembered him.

However, while we were happy to see him, it seemed, his eyes widened and his nostrils flared. "Sana," his voice trembled and strained as he turned to her in what all of us noted at once was as close as a Kaminoan could get to terror, "you did not tell me that these clients were Coruscant Guard!"

Sana glanced back and forth between us before she frowned, "I do not understand..."

Iru turned his head quickly back to us, "I cannot perform the procedure on them. It is too high risk."

"What?" Red sputtered out the word. "Why not?"

"You. Are. Coruscant. Guard," He enunciated each word, his upper lip twitching as he did and slowly rose up out of his seat. "If you are even seen here it could cause an incident. Leave."

"Hold up!" Grek pointed at him accusingly, "You let Commandos out!"

Iru's face fell and he seemed to search for words, "It is not the same! You do not understand...!"

"Then make us," I joined in, watching his eyes dart back and forth between the three of us.

He went to speak and then stopped, "I... I cannot..."

"Why not?" Red and I asked the question in unison. I didn't notice it until after we had stopped but we had each taken a step forward when we spoke, which explained why Iru looked both terrorized and panicked at the same time.

Iru hesitated for a long while before he leaned over the desk and heaved a heavy sigh, "You do not know what you are asking of me. The Coruscant Guard is elite and answers to someone far above me. For a standard Clone I could, but this..."

"Iru," I leaned even farther over the desk, "Director, sir... You once told me that we were artwork. They took you off the project you poured your heart and soul into because we weren't just flesh-droids to you. This is your chance to let them be something else."

Iru let his eyes drift up from the table and settled onto me with a conflict swimming inside of them. It seemed like an eternity before he slowly allowed himself to straighten up before he glanced briefly at Sana, "I know... As you all are aware, all of you are equipped with identifiers that allow you to be tracked should you decide to desert. I can remove these trackers and identifiers, but after your next assignment, CT-2435 and CT-18-4443 must have met their demise and swiftly, at that. If they stay, these missing trackers will undoubtedly be noticed and the consequences for everyone involved - for you, for me, for Sana - will be... tremendously terrible to imagine."

I could have hugged that long-necked Kaminii if I thought I wouldn't have accidentally broken him in half when I did. It did strike me how concerned he seemed, but I was too relieved at the moment to care too much about what he said. Looking back on it, I should have asked.

"I have one final question for you, CT-7209." Iru caught me off-guard. "Do you... also plan to leave?"

"Not... Not right away. I want to finish up my term." Surprisingly, Iru seemed upset by that. His nose wrinkled for a brief moment and I saw what almost appeared to be worry flash across his face.

"How long ago was your last cranial scan?" Again, an odd question.

"Just yesterday, sir. It was rather intensive. Why?"

"I will remove your tracker as well," he said the words as he folded his hands before him. "But you cannot remain for much longer before it gets noticed. I should warn all of you that this procedure is intensive. The tracking chip is located in your skulls, and therefore this procedure is... invasive, as well as dangerous."

"We're ready, Director," I replied with a nod that seemed far more confident than I felt. I hated operation tables and medcenters. They reminded me of less than pleasant memories of Kamino and then later battles I would have much preferred to forget. The chance at a new life was overruling all of my inhibitions, though.

*

Iru led us back through his office to one of the sterile operating rooms, and gestured to the table, "Who will go first?"

When both Red and Grek hesitated, I instinctively stepped forward, "I will."

The Kaminoan watched me get up onto the table with a shaky breath as the medical droid came into the room to assist in the procedure.

"Relax, CT-7209," Iru reassured me with a voice that was stunningly calm in spite of everything getting ready to happen, and I was honestly more surprised than anything else that he was capable of being so soothing. "I have never had any complications with this procedure and I do not plan to have one now."

"Director Bre is an excellent surgeon!" The droid added emphatically beside him, too cheery for my taste. "You have nothing to worry about!"

"You'll be performing the surgery?" I asked as I leaned back and took one last look at Red and Grek on the other side of the large viewing window. It was the first time I had seen either of them look worried.

"Myself and Exfour, yes. I personally oversee all operations for the appropriate disposal of the tracking chips."

"Did you sign off on them? The chips, I mean."

"No," I saw him wrinkle his nose as he worked away on his console. "Not these particular ones, especially."

There was a long silence before he seemed to finish and began closing the room down and narrowing the lights on me. I figured the anesthetics were coming next at some point, and there was one last thing I needed to ask.

"Director?" I asked him as he opened the door to grab the final few tools he needed. He turned back to me, barely moving his long body as he did, eyes as unreadable as I remembered them being as a child. "Why?"

He hesitated before he closed his eyes, "My work... all twenty long years of it... it should not be wasted. You are a product of generations of genetic art, Captain - not some utensil to be discarded." He turned away and nodded to the droid. "Begin the procedure Exfour. Be extra careful with this one. I have known him for a long time."

I remember feeling the anesthesia hit in, and then I was out.

*

When I came to, Sana was helping Exfour lay Grek down onto a bed beside Red, who was still out and sleeping like a baby. I was honestly stunned when I saw them. Only a hairline scar remained where the incision had been made. Iru entered not much later looking genuinely exhausted with several small vials in hand - one from each of us.

"Those the chips?" I asked as I gained coherency.

Iru looked at me for a moment before he nodded and passed them to Sana. "Incinerate them," he spoke low and with gravity. She left without a single question. It was only when she left that he looked to me, "I have written medical excuses and updated your records indicating that you have been given updated cranial scans. These will keep you away from a doctor for about another six months."

I nodded, still not quite ready to make a full sentence yet.

He watched me sit up and shake my head a bit. Surprisingly, I barely felt anything. It was almost like I never had any surgery at all. "You may have headaches from time to time for up to a week, but they will pass," he added as he glided over to me, gently pushing me back down onto the bed. "Your brothers will come to in about an hour. After that, you are free to do with your lives what you will."

I was trying to formulate a thank you when Iru turned to leave. I forced myself back up on my elbows and inhaled, "Iru!" He stopped and looked over his shoulder at me seeming close to surprised to hear me talk. "Th-thank you."

He paused before he looked off to one side and nodded. When he left the room that day, it was the last time I ever saw him.