After its bombardment and destruction of the Kaminoan cloning facilities and cities, the Galactic Empire begun its own cloning program. Operating out of a facility on Mount Tantiss on the planet of Wayland, the Imperial cloning program conducted its own cloning projects at the behest of Emperor Palpatine, but lacked the scientific refinement of the Kaminoans. Several months after Kamino's destruction, the Empire had managed to clone a Zillo Beast using DNA sequenced from the same creature that had attacked Coruscant several years earlier. The juvenile clone was being transported on an Imperial vessel to Mount Tantiss from an unknown location when it broke free from its containment and attacked the ship's crew. After it damaged the ship to the point of ripping it out of hyperspace, the creature chased a surviving Imperial clone commando through the ship's hallways. As the commando readied an electrostaff and prepared to stand his ground against the beast, it ambushed him and pulled him into the ship's ceiling shafts screaming, where he was killed and consumed. The ship would later crash-land on the nearby planet of Silla, where the inhabitants of a nearby village noted its presence.
The information broker, Ciddarin Scaleback, would eventually come to learn of the wreckage and offered the Bad Batch to scout out the ship for any valuable cargo, with the promise of giving the mercenaries 50% of the cut. Though the squad was hesitant to work with Cid once more after she had previously abandoned them, they ultimately accepted the job. Meanwhile, Royce Hemlock, a doctor in charge of the Imperial facility on Mount Tantiss, learned of Transport 904's fate and ordered a recovery team to be sent out to recover the ship's cargo.
The Bad Batch managed to reach Silla before the Imperials and begun to scout out the wreckage of Transport 904. As they traversed through the ruined vessel, the clone mercenaries gradually began to realize that something was alive and stalking them. After more exploring, the group was ambushed by the juvenile Zillo Beast, which had survived the crash. After a brief battle with the rogue clones, the beast fled the vessel and headed towards a nearby village, intending to feed on its power grid. The squad's leader, Hunter, pursued the creature along with Wrecker on their ship the Marauder, while Tech and Omega reentered Transport 904 in an effort to uncover more information about the beast. Meanwhile, the juvenile creature managed to reach the nearby power grid and feasted on its energy, before rapidly metamorphosing into its towering adult form.
Concurrently, a fleet Imperial Venator-class Star Destroyers arrived above Silla and deployed numerous LAAT/i gunships and V-wing starfighters, which quickly descended upon the planet's surface, followed by a science vessel armed with a NNJ-40 "Thunderbolt" long-range ion cannon. Upon spotting the Zillo Beast, the Imperials divided their forces, with the V-wings breaking off to destroy the remains of Transport 904, while the LAAT/i gunships chased off the Bad Batch and contained the Zillo Beast. After the Zillo Beast had been incapacitated with an ion cannon, it was captured and put into stasis inside of the science vessel. The Bad Batch, meanwhile, were chased off-world after a brief aerial pursuit. As this happened, three Rho-class transport shuttles deployed clone commandos into the village nearby the battle, with the objective of securing the village and rounding up any witnesses to the cloned Zillo Beast.
The Bad Batch managed to escape into hyperspace before the Imperials could shoot them down, taking with them clandestine information extracted from Transport 904. After reviewing the information and discovering Palpatine's intentions to use the cloning technology gathered from Kamino for his own nefarious plans, Hunter elected to send the information to Captain Rex, who was conducting a small but organized resistance against the Empire. Meanwhile on Silla, the Imperial clone commandos rounded up the village's inhabitants before shipping them off-world to an uncertain fate.