Inevitability

Slick stared at the comm link in his hand.

Ventress had sent him a message.

Directly to his helmet!

While he was on the LAAT!

In front of the Jedi and Commander Cody!

Fortunately, their attention had all been on the TK droid head.

She wanted to listen what happened in the command center now that the Republic plans had failed. She also sent him the location where to meet her now that his part in the CIS victory was done. It was a simply assignment; just set some active link into the command center.

Fek! He didn't want to be captured.

An open comm link in the command center? It would be too easily discovered, too easily seen and tracked back to him. .

He had the hand links from the other sergeants to turn in even as he absently thought about more effective ways of linking the Jedi into the command functions of Commander Cody's helmet. Still, his mind contemplated while he walked with his squad then turned toward the center as they moved towards the medical unit and their barracks.

He'd be caught.

Wasn't that what he wanted?

For them - the other clones - to know?

Wouldn't they'd always wonder why he was a traitor?

Wouldn't they realize that they didn't need to always follow orders?

That they were more than Kamino's commodities and slaves of the Jedi?

Deserving the rights of citizens?

He knew his squad was broken now; not by his treatment of them but by the inescapable revelation that he was a traitor.

Had the cruelty really been necessary to weaken them in their first step to freedom and to understanding their potential?

Slick wasn't sure anymore.

He stared at her message for a moment, nodding at two troopers in the corridor. But, in his imagination he could see their reaction to his treason. Especially Commander Cody who had interviewed him and chosen him for the special assignment that had led to all this.

He rubbed his thumb over the smooth surface of the comm link.

Could he break Commander Cody like he'd broken his new squad?

It might be worth the try and there was no reason - no real reason to try to remain free. Without his brothers and Maruli, he had no incentive to stay alive. The only thing he lived for now was his vodes' freedom, breaking the troopers so they understood their slavery and their prisons.

But, if he could break the commander then Cody might gain his freedom. He might reach his full potential and continue the work to set the clone army free of Kaminoans and Jedi. He'd be in a much better position to actually provide some kind of a future for free men.

Slick sighed a heavy breath as he stared at the command center doors.

It wasn't really that straightforward.

He didn't want to be caught and executed. Kamino had programmed enough self-preservation in him to not want to die.

Or was that merely a human response?

He wasn't sure of that either.

Ventress had promised to take him though he hadn't really counted on going with her. But he could have made himself a good home on Christophsis. No other clone knew it like he did, he could have avoided capture for desertion. It would have been a long time, if ever, before he would have found himself a woman… a wife, but eventually he would have healed. Perhaps he would even have had children. And, after he had tucked them into their small pods at night, he would have kissed his wife - whoever she might have been - and gone outside. Each night he would have gone out to see the stars and meteors of Christophsis. Each night he would recite remembrance for his first squad and his first love.

He would have stared upward at the asteroids of Christophsis, quick and brilliant like his brothers, wondering if the men of his second and best squad had achieved their freedom yet. If they - somewhere in their souls - thanked the powers that existed that they'd been in his squad.

Now, there would be no woman for him, no vatlings or cadets - no children. But, he knew the men he'd broken would someday be free.

It would be only a matter of time.

They'd never know how much he had loved them and what he'd done for them.

Softly, he set the handheld communication links on the console, leaving one active, and strode from the command center.