Star Wars:
Treason
Written by Rachel E Hayler
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
This mission was so simple, yet why did it feel so complicated? RC-4376 rolled his eyes and then blinked them twice in rapid succession. His HUD display darkened for a second, and then a confirming "ping" showed that the current wind speed had been marked. Sure was windy up here. Sighing in boredom, 4376 or Cuyan forced himself to return the electrobinoculars that were sitting idly in his gauntleted hands. Yes, complicated was the only way to describe it.
He was spying on the Jedi, for osiks sake!
Well, that wasn't the official word for it, but everyone was aware of military euphemism nowadays. He was here to check the "security protocol" of the Jedi Temple. According to the mission briefing, there were rumours stirring that the CIS were planning a strike on home turf, a last ditch attempt to bring the Republic to its knees. He could understand the thinking that might have gone into the attack, but it was very foolhardy. If the Republic could be stripped down layer by layer, then it would show that the Jedi were the closest people to protect the Galactic Senate. And that wasn't just in geographical terms. Take the Jedi out of the equation and you might have a run at taking over the entire government. Not that the Seperatists hadn't tried this already, of course.
Just days ago, they had tried to capture the Chancellor. Clearly something within Dooku's brain had shut off his ability to think. How could one as seemingly intelligent and military-minded as Dooku make a kind of mistake like that? Well, General Grievous it seemed, as he had accepted to lead the attack. Whatever the reason, the Seperatist leader had paid heavily for his costly error: with his life. And who had been the one to kill him? Skywalker, the hero with no fear. Now he was being heralded as the single hero of the Republic, as if he had been the only man present at the Battle of Coruscant. Cuyan had known a great deal of the marines who had helped him and Kenobi rescue the Chancellor, and many of them hadn't returned. Didn't their bravery deserve a mention too? Apparently not, they had just become statistics in an unfair war like so many others before them.
That was why none of these rumours made much sense! Why would the Seperatists risk what little remained of their fleet against the impenetrable defenses of Coruscant? More over, why pick the Jedi who could clearly take care of their own? Either the Seperatist leadership had crumbled since the death of Dooku, or this was just some grand ruse that he couldn't begin to comprehend.
"Suc'uy, Cuy'ika?" Came a call over his helmet com-link that barely awoke him from his thoughts. "You awake, ner vod?"
Cuyan shook his head and found that a frown crept up onto his face as he answered, "Yeah, why?"
"Just that you've been looking in the same spot now for the past three minutes," the voice explained, and he recognised it to be that of RC-6372 or Adenn. "Have you become as depressed as our other ner vode?"
Cuyan took note of the fact that Adenn was speaking to him over an open 'link, one that all of the clones in the squad could drop into. Oh, wayii, that di'kut was really looking for a smack in the face. Unfortunately, his analysis of the moods of their other squad mates was one hundred percent correct. Their other brothers, RC-1139 and RC-7283 - weren't their usual selves this morning. 7283, Aran, had been disturbed and snappy for the past few days. And as for 1139, Orar, he was just...well...Orar: grumpy, irritable and pessimistic.
"Cut it out, Ad'ika," Aran interjected into the conversation, but his voice sounded like he had no bite to back up his demand. What was even worse was that he sounded desperate and; upset, like he wanted them to drop the subject so that he wouldn't have to be reminded of it. What the fierfek was going on with him? "I'm fine."
"Speaking frankly, Sir, that's a load of osik. Nayc, you aren't alright," Adenn's reply sounded resentful and more than a little hurt. "You're shutting us out. There's something that you aren't telling us, so what's going on?"
The Vod leader exhaled loudly and hesitated, shocking Cuyan more than he thought it would. Was he trying to think of an excuse, or debating whether to tell his brothers to back off? No, he couldn't lay more lies upon them. He would betray the squad trust in doing so and crack it. It had never been fractured before, but recently it was becoming more and more strained.
"I..." He paused, as if selecting his words carefully. Was the thing that was bothering him so terrible that he couldn't bring himself to speak the words? "Well, I -"
"Well nothing," a new voice interrupted what he was saying and cut him off. "We've got a mission to complete. That comes first, not gossip. Get back to it."
Wayii! Orar was in a really bad mood. It would normally have been Adenn who tossed back a rebuke at such rudeness, but an irritable Cuyan beat him to it, "Usenye and calm down, di'kut! Nothing is more important than your brothers. Learn some respect or I'll -"
"You'll do nothing." Aran's voice was more like his usual tone as he stopped Cuyan's threat dead. "Just carry on with the observations. I'll tell you later, I promise."
The fact that the Vod leader had placed emphasis on the word "promise" did little to calm Cuyan's sudden annoyance. How could Orar get away with talking to them all like that? His attitude towards the rest of them had been getting progressively worse over the duration of the war. Maybe it was the pressure of battle? He had no idea, but he did know that he - and Adenn - wouldn't tolerate it for much longer. After all, it would seem that the only people they could trust were their other brothers, and a select few, so turning against them was idiotic.
Biting back any further comments by actually clamping his teeth down on his bottom lip, he blinked once to cut himself off from the shared 'link. He supposed that this little act would be seen as childish, but at that moment he just couldn't bring himself to hear their voices. He forced himself to take a deep breath and then made another note of the wind direction. As far as he could see, despite the Temple's towering height, it was an absolutely nasty building to try and defend from a military perspective.
The fact that the spire got steadily thinner and thinner until it reached the crown of the Jedi Council chamber on top just screamed bad design. In theory, the halls would have to get narrower and narrower as it sprouted upwards. A terribly cramped space if you were surrounded by potential aruetti - enemies. That would also show that there was little room to escape if you needed to retreat. Even Jedi weren't invincible. And then, the Council chamber itself was a death trap. As far as he could tell, apart from jumping off of the roof of the room, there were no other exits. You had one way in and one way out.
He jotted all these down on his datapad that he had yanked off of his utility belt and once again made a note of the new wind speed. Fortunately it was breezy enough up at this towering height to be able to prevent troops from rappelling down onto the Council chambers roof. For any regular infantry that would have been suicidal, but that was just the kind of thing that Republic Commandoes such as himself had been trained to do. He decided to add detail of how a droid would probably struggle with this, but real life troops may stand more of a chance of pulling off something like that.
He raised his electrobinoculars once again, this time looking for possible sniper posts and sentry hideouts. Non-military looking this building may be, but looking at all of the smooth surfaces and scarce few angles made him feel; pleased. It was meant for aesthetic purposes only, he presumed, although he had heard Jedi saying before that the Temple's design helped to aid meditation, something about it being able to channel the Force. A beeping noise suddenly interrupted him and he looked up to see that Adenn wanted to open up a private 'link to him. Grudgingly he answered the call, but didn't stop making notes on his datapad, "Yes, Ad'ika?"
"Do you feel as awkward about this as I do?" His brother asked him bluntly.
That caught him off guard. A question like that had a million possible answers, and right at that moment he thought that he could think of as many as that. A few he really hoped weren't the ones that his brother was looking for. He decided to stall the conversation in hopes that his brother would tire and give up on him, and also gain some more detail on what he wanted to know. "Care to elaborate on that, ner vod? If this is about Aran or Orar..."
"No, not those di'kute," Adenn's voice sounded angry. "The mission. The "security protocol". We're basically spying on the Jedi. I swear that's treason, and it's making me have very bad feelings about this whole thing."
The whole thing? It was very unusual that Adenn would be vague about something, let alone something when he was expressing his feelings. His words were rude and...poetic when he did that. Cuyan felt a frown of confusion and curiosity slip onto his expression as he tried to concoct a viable answer, "Yeah, this does bother me. None of the "rumours" that were described in the briefing make any sense to me. But there's nothing that we can do about it, Ad'ika. It's just a mission."
"Just a mission?" Adenn reiterated, his voice rising with his temper. He must have noticed because he dropped the tone of his voice back down to a more acceptable, calmer level. "Ner vod, you just said that this bothers you, stop contradicting yourself! We have to hand all this data back to Republic Intelligence, to some random lackey who will pass it on and on and on. Fierfek knows how many people will read it before it lands in the Chancellor's groping hands. Aren't you concerned that someone could intercept it and leak it out? We could be compromising the Jedi without them being aware of it."
Cuyan's voice filled with a little fire at his brother's words. "Ad'ika, you're the one that's contradicting yourself. Your lady friend is a member of the RI. By suggesting that they are corrupt it's as good as saying that you don't trust her."
As soon as the words had left his mouth, he instantly regretted them. That had been low, far lower than he thought he could stoop. Over the course of the war, Adenn had become very close to Republic Intelligence officer, Raikia Rayth. For roughly two years of that, they had been romantically involved with one another. Their relationship wasn't "illegal" in any sense of the word, but there were some who frowned upon fraternising with clones. And so, they had decided to keep their blossoming love a secret. They had agreed that the main reason behind this was due to the nature of their careers, such sensitive information could be used as leverage against them if they found themselves in a dangerous situation. However, Adenn had confided other feelings in his brothers. He was concerned that she felt ashamed of dating a clone; and whether she was with him out of pity, due to his short life span. They had all told him not to be such a di'kut, but it clearly hadn't helped to quell his doubts.
And now the silence that followed showed how Cuyan's malicious words had brought all of those feelings flooding back.
"Ad'ika, I'm sorry," he apologised, the tone of his voice showing his deep regret. "I know that Rais is trustworthy. She's mandokarla."
Mandokarla: of Mandalorian spirit. The fiery little intelligence agent had certainly proved that with her unshakeable loyalty to not only Adenn, but the entire squad. She had become an informal fifth member of their team, and had been officially named their executive officer. Well, not officially by Republic standards, but that was the way that she helped them the most and now had a title for those efforts. She was their eyes and ears for accurate Intel, and so far she had failed to disappoint.
"'Lek, Cuy'ika, I know you didn't." Now Adenn sounded even more grumpy and withdrawn than his brothers. "I know."
A round of static penetrated his ears before he had a chance to babble more excuses and he knew that Adenn had dropped out of the private 'link.
"Ok, ner vode," Aran's voice announced over the com-link soon after, connecting them all instantly to an open 'link once again. "We've got enough data. Let's get this back to RI HQ."
Cuyan sighed and put all of his equipment away and then hopped over the railing of the balcony that he had been using as an observation post. He then started the long climb back down to the residential landing platform that their speeder was waiting on.
It was going to be an awkward journey back to the HQ, he presumed.
