Chapter 10: Epilogue

Padawans Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee stared at me with open mouths and eyes as round as saucers. The two young Jedi, Captain Rex and I were all sitting in a nice little bar that used to stand not ten minutes walk from the Jedi Temple. After I had finished explaining what had happened to me after my capture on Felucia, Rex had taken up the narrative for the latter half of the story; as he felt that I would inevitably be far too modest. Barriss at last whispered in an awe struck voice "wow".

"Did you really kill a giant Hawk?" asked Ahsoka eagerly.

I smiled leisurely "well I don't know if you'd call him a giant, commander, but I..."

"Of course he did!" bellowed an excited Rex. "I saw the body with my own eyes in the prison control centre; must have been all of nine feet tall, no ten!"

I chuckled indulgently "hardly, eight at the most".

"And you saved all their lives" said Barriss reverently. "What happened to the Neimoidians?"

I shrugged "we all decided that it was time to call it a day. Captain Rex, Commander Cody, the rest of the Republic prisoners and I all hopped a lift over to the Resolute and set a course for Coruscant. The Seps resumed control of the Rapacity and went their own way. Very polite and gentlemanly all round really". And so it had been. It was one of the rare movements of spontaneous camaraderie between a Republic and a Separatist army in the entire war. It briefly did wonders for foreign policy; that is to say both sides stopped ripping each other's throats out for about five minutes and hinted that there was a faint, unlikely, probably not going to happen, don't know even why we're mentioning it really, possibility of perhaps whispering about peace. Nothing came of it of course. A week or so later it transpired that there was some sort of Separatist conspiracy in the Senate, or some such rubbish; which naturally had the hardliners baying for blood. But the point is that it could have been peace, and during the Clone War could was about as much as you could ever hope for.

Before the iron curtain of civil war went back up and it was once more a state crime and a treasonable offense to consort with the enemy, I received a communication from Colonel Lamon telling me the news. Apparently his nephew Lieutenant Veen had made a full recovery after the battle on the bridge, having taken a blaster bolt in the shoulder. I came to rather like that young man; he was a useful chap to have around. Mind you I never did figure him out. I'm generally a fairly good judge of character (it comes of being such a disreputable scoundrel myself), but that lad threw me. He was occasionally as brave as an ARC trooper (well a normal ARC trooper anyway), but then at times he seemed as eager as I would have been in his place to save his own skin. Neimoidians are a hard bunch to fathom. Captain Vrawn had his ship refitted and rearmed, and decided to become a front line fleet captain once more. Apparently he'd had more than enough of ferrying POWs around and I can't say that I blame him. Lastly Lamon thanked me on behalf of the Separatist government for telling him where Teach's stash of credits could be found. He said that it was a little light by a few hundred credits, but that on a ship crewed by pirates and mutineers that was only to be expected. Please bear in mind that I'm now an old man and my memory is not what it once was; perhaps I may have pockets a few fistfuls of golden credit chips just before leaping onto a shuttle bound for the Republic Star Destroyer, and perhaps I didn't. Looking back now I really can't seem to recall...

Those few of Teach's savages who had been taken alive were tried for treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. They were lucky if you ask me. The military tribunal ruled that, as they were experimental troopers, malfunctions such as the one that had occurred were only to be expected. If they had been regular Fett clones, or more pertinently if I had been tried before the same court, they would certainly have decided to let the Kaminoans have poke around inside our skulls to see exactly where the problem lay. I hated Teach and every one of his men with a passion; but even I, low and devious though I am, wouldn't have wished such an end on them. At least let a traitor die like a man and a soldier, not like a malfunctioning piece of machinery to be sent back to the manufacturer for analysis.

I took a deep draught of my drink and looked around the Coruscant bar. My little misadventure had very nearly had me blasted to bloody offal by droids, lynched by traitors, murdered by an overgrown mutant, clubbed to death by a raving lunatic and finally might well have ended with me being tried as a defector! I'd fought in harder battles and endured more nightmarish situations; but off the top of my head I couldn't for the life of me think of an episode of my career in which I had been forced to walk through a more lethal minefield of treachery, intrigue and savage politics. Still, I conceded as I drained my glass and caught sight of a very spritely little Pantoran barmaid with a coquettish smile, things hadn't turned out all that badly. There was talk of me being awarded a Chancellor's Service Medal for courage above and beyond that expected in the face of the enemy (if you can believe that!) and Rex was buying the drinks. I slid my empty glass across the table towards my fellow captain and said with a grin "another of the same Rex, if you don't mind". Yes, I thought cheerfully to myself as Rex called for the next round and the saucy barmaid gave me a wink that suggested interesting things in both our futures; all in all not bad at all.

The End

Author's Notes:

I hope you enjoyed this latest edition in the Cowardly Clone series. I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to finish it. Thanks a lot to all my reviewers for their comments, advice, questions and feedback; they were all very helpful and encouraging.