The Clone Wars: Brainwashed Brothers/Chapter 2

Within a matter of minutes, the 30th began deployment under Kenobi's orders. Jacius agreed to stay with Obi-Wan to prevent any possibility for them to be attacked in space, while Trigg and the entirety of Havoc Company boarded their HAAT gunships and flew to the surface below. Trigg had Fox Squad and the rest of the company seal their helmets to keep possible toxicity from the terrain from seeping into them. By the time they had arrived at the designated landing position, they were struck with horror.

Before them, a destroyed Juggernaut was striped and exploding on the terrain. It had belonged to the 615th, and must have been the source of the distress signal. "That cannot be good," Shad exclaimed as he turned to Kimbo, who was using his inherit technology skills to scan the tank.

Trigg immediately had his men search the rubble, where they came across a multitude of dead clones and pilots shot in their seats. Kimbo was able to confirm the signal sourced here, but that gave no present comfort to the current situation. Trigg motioned to some of the 30th troopers on the ground. "Medic's, load as many as you can, injured go first, then we'll see about burying the dead if we can."

Just as they began to go about their procedures, Flade motioned to his commander. "Sir, I think I've found something."

Trigg ran to Flade, who was now looking at cables that had extended down to the ground from the tank. He pointed at the place where they hit the ground, and then followed his arm out to detail footprints leading away from the attack site. "They managed to get away."

Trigg put a hand on Flade's shoulder. "Great work, Flade, notify command if you can."

Trigg immediately called upon Flade, Jaing, Kimbo, Nex, and Shad to move out and follow the pathway, hoping it could lead them to Thorner and his men. The rest of the 30th would attend to the wounded. Where most commanders would have questioned Trigg as to why he would move out with a small team, he knew the response. His squad was no ordinary clone trooper squad.

They retraced the steps until they came to a crater, where the facility had been located in. Trigg cursed as he looked down at it. Flade smiled under his helmet. "They had to make it difficult for us, didn't they."

Jaing hit the back of Flade's helmet. "Shut up, Flade."

Trigg and his men used the acension cables already present from Thorner's men earlier to repell down to the facility below. The met no resistance, and could have easily walked through the front door. No droids were on guard and the facility appeared to be empty. Jaing shook his head. "Shad, you could have just had us walk through the front door, not that air duct."

Shad pointed his DC-15 down the hallway they began to walk down and turned to Jaing. "It's never that easy. Never."

Flade chimed in. "The guy's got a point."

"Men, turn on your floodlights," Trigg said.

All of the troopers turned on the floodlights on their helmets. The hallways were dark and empty as far as they could see. Nobody was here. They made their way into the prison blocks, hoping to find someone there. But to no avail, they could not find Thorner or his men. They were about to give up hope, when Trigg noticed a dark figure, a silhouette of a clone, walking across the far end of the hallway. "Hey! Trooper, over here!"

The trooper turned, but drew his blaster and pointed it down the hall at Trigg. Jaing immediately ran up to Trigg. "Trigg, look out!"

Jaing collided with Trigg, tackling him to the ground and dodging the blaster fire. Fox Squad spread to the opposite walls of the hallway and prepped their blasters. Trigg and Jaing quickly got up and moved up against one of the walls. Trigg drew his DC-17 hand blasters. "The hell was that!"

The trooper called on a comlink, and before long, a mass of 615th troopers had surrounded Trigg and his men on all sides. They could not shoot the clones, for risk of what was happening, and had no choice but to lay down their arms. Kimbo slowly put down his blaster, saying "Something's not right here boss..."

Immediately, fifty or so battle droids emerged along with the looming figure of General Grievous. He was just the same as Trigg remembered him on Illum. Weak in character and tactical prowess, yet powerful and intimidating. He was not an expert strategist, but his skills spoke well enough to equalize the infamy of his command. He coughed and walked up to Trigg and his men, who were now standing together in the center of the hallway surrounded by the clones and droids. "You fools never learn, do you..." he growled.

Trigg and Fox Squad where bound in cuffs and taken off by the droids and clones. Nex, Flade, Shad, and Kimbo were taken somewhere else, while Trigg and Jaing accompanied Grievous to wherever he planned to have them. Four commando droids flanked Jaing and Trigg, and escorted them to a room in another part of the facility. Upon entering, Trigg saw a row of containment fields lined across the semi-circular room. Thorner and the 615th trooper known as Vile where sitting in two of them. The commando droids pushed Trigg and Jaing to the ground, which caused Thorner to stand up in response to seeing a familiar face. The droids removed their helmets and set them on a table where Thorner's and Vile's sat. Grievous shouted at Thorner to sit, but he responded only when an engineer droid triggered a shock that shot through Throner's cell and put him on the ground by force. Trigg and Jaing where then put into cells of their own by Vile and Thorner. Grevious took interest in Trigg, and walked up to him. "For a clone, your smarter than most."

Trigg spat on the ground in front of him and Grievous. He responded by grabbing Trigg's throat and lifting him off his feet, only to throw him multiple feet into his cell. The containment field closes as Trigg tried to run at him. "Stupid clone," Grievous said with a wave of his hand.

The cyborg general left with the commando droids, while a few B1 Battle Droids remained to guard the room Trigg was currently in. Thorner turned to Trigg. "How did you get here?"

Trigg frustratingly turned from the area where Grievous had been and looked at Thorner. "One of your pilots sent a distress call, when we showed up it was too late, until we entered the base and saw one of your men."

"One of my men? Alive,down here?"

"Yes, but he was...different, changed. He fired a blaster bolt at me and we were surrounded by more clones, who were also different. The troopers had veins on their face, and pure white eyes."

Thorun nodded. "I did hear one of the droids speaking about augmentation. It's probably what their studying down here."

"Well its no hope for them now. They seem to have complete obedience to the Separatists."

"Don't give up so easily on your men, Trigg," Thorner exclaimed "there may be a way to reverse this affect on them. We just need patience."

Trigg chuckled. It was as if he was speaking to Jacius. He always got annoyed when Jacius would quote Jedi teachings, because it never solved the present situation immediately. He was about to reply when Grievous entered the room once again. He looked at the clones in a triumphant glare and walked over to the table. "Having fun, clones?"

"Why haven't you augmented us yet, Grievous. Why leave us to wait?"

Trigg figured that he wanted the suffering to drag out as long as possible. Grievous laughed and turned to the four clones."Well, you will forget everything soon, so why don't i tell you?"

He turned to face the clones. "As you could clearly see, your 'brothers' did not enjoy your presence as they once did. You see, I have infected your men with a prototype virus, one that we plan to use in the future. The substance that does this can only be found here, deep within the planets core. We know not how it works, but it clearly does..."

Grievous coughed again."However, we've run into a previous error, the stronger the will power of the host; the more resistance to the virus there is. The first of your clone squads to investigate here was quite easily manipulated by the virus, however, the commander of the squad was not easily controlled. Eventually he broke free from the virus and came so, so very close to getting me. I spotted the rat from the corner of my eye, and removed his pathetic mind from his pitiful body!"

Jaing shook his head in disgust and sorrow. Trigg merely gave Grievous a glare of disgust. "So to prevent this from happening again" Trigg began "you're scanning the brains of the clones with the highest willpower-"

"And killing them off, yes."

In an instant, the containment field around Trigg evaporated, and Grievous's powerful arm extended out and grabbed Trigg by the chin, lifting him up from the ground and holding him their in mid-air. Even off the ground, Grievous was still taller than Trigg." Begin the brain scan," Grievous ordered to a nearby droid.

"Yes general," it answered.

Immediately, blasterfire is heard outside the room. Grievous then drops Trigg where he is and heads to the door. "What's going on," he yelled as he approached the door panel. Suddenly, troopers from the 30th burst through the windows and roofs of the facility. Grievous immediately left the room in search of his shuttle, and saw the corpses of battle droids strewn across the hallways. Ever since Illum, Grievous had always hated the 30th; he hated their effectiveness.

Bett and Vegire, two troopers from Fox Squad, came through the door and performed vaults over the table and shot the security droids. Bett went to the control panel and deactivated the containment fields. "Bett, Vegire," Jaing exclaimed "boy am I glad to see you."

Bett lifted Jaing from the ground while Vegire helped Trigg up. Trigg and Vegire then went to help Thorner and Vile up from their cells. "Likewise, Jaing," Bett replied.

Trigg turned to Vegire after helping Thorner up. "Vegire, status report?"

"We're doing our best sir," Vegire answered "the droids are dropping like flies, and Grievous slipped away again, however we're having more trouble with the clones. Why are they attacking?"

Thorner looked at Vegire. "Well explain later Vegire. Right now, just get all the troopers to set their blasters to stun."

"They already are, commander, have been since the start. Can't say the same for the other clones. We've already had a few casualties..."

Trigg shook his head. Vile gave Vegire an awry look of shock and anger. "Don't say that word, every again...please."

Thorner turned to him. "Vile, now is not the time, lets move everyone!"

Trigg, Thorner, Vile, and Jaing grabbed their helmets from the table and accompanied Bett and Vegire into the hallway with their recovered weapons. Bett and Vegire went to assist the rest of the 30th with Jaing and Vile, while Trigg and Thorner went to go find a way to reverse the virus. As they went down the corridors, members of the 615th appeared and fired on them. Trigg shot stuns at them and they dropped to the ground, allowing the two commanders to continue down the hallways. Two magna-guards appeared around a corner, and activated their electro staffs. Thorner readied himself. "I've got this, Trigg."

Thorner rushed at the magna-guards, drawing his famous vibrosword and activating it. He dodged to the left, ducked, and stabbed one of the magna-guards in the back. As the droid fell, Thorner grabbed his staff and threw it to Trigg. He caught it, but in the process, the other guard managed to hit Thorner across the head and send him sprawling to the floor. Thorner dropped his sword in the process.

As the guard prepared to bring his staff down of Thorner, Trigg pierced the guard through the chest with the staff he had been handed, and let the droid fall down on it as it fell to the ground. It was slightly morbid, but Trigg cared only that it wouldn't be able to get back up. He helped Thorner up and handed him his vibrosword, and the two made their way down the corridor. They came to a room, full of inactive Super Battle Droids, with three B1 Battle Droids guarding the inside.

Trigg drew his hand blasters and fired a succession of three shots, each finding their mark on the droids, within seconds of entering the room. Thorner turned to Trigg with awe. "Well, know I know why Alpha named you Trigg."

"Yeah, and he named you Thorner because he knew you'd be a pain in Grievous's side. And mine," he said as he laughed and shoved Thorner humorously. Thorner punched his shoulder like he had done before, and the two made their way to the center of the room. They came to a work desk and frantically searched through files strewn all over it, until they found what they though was the anti-virus. Trigg had now taken off his helmet and had sat it on the desk, along with Thorner. "Are you sure that's the one?"

Thorner tossed the vile in his hand. "Time to find out."

Thorner placed the vile into the air duct tank in the room. The anti-virus became airborne in the facility and spread to all areas of the complex. Suddenly, all of the 615th troopers along with Flade, Kimbo, Shad, and Nex dropped unconscious. Trigg, Thorner, and the 30th Assault Legion set charges all around the base, unfortunately not making it to Grievous in time to capture him.

Jaing and Vile managed to establish communications with Obi-Wan, and Cody immediately deployed with members of the 212th to provide reinforcements in the complex. The 615th and the 30th got onto the gunships, and all the troopers left the facility to go back to Kenobi's star destroyer. On the trip back, Trigg and Thorner detonated the explosives and destroyed the facility, along with its research and the virus. They explained the details of the mission to Kenobi and Jacius, dubbing the experiment as a classified file named the "Anti-Clone Virus" and having all connections to it removed. Afterwards, Trigg would accmpany Jacius and the 30th back to Coruscant to await furthur orders, while Thorner saw to the treatment of his troopers who had been infected by the virus. Trigg expressed his deepest gratitude and his thanks, wishing Thorner's men a speedy recovery. Thorner apologized for the men Trigg had lost to the brainwashed 615th and thanked Trigg for his help on the mission. Trigg assured him war affected everyone, and nothing could be done to even protect clones from each other in these times. They both exclaimed that they would enjoy working with each other in the future, as they were now the closest of brothers.

The mission went unrecorded for sake of keeping the details away from both Republic and Separatist parties, lest either use its knowledge for ill purpose. Trigg, Thorner, the 615th and the 30th would not forget what had transpired, nor the increasing dangers that the war put on them.