Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex Are Dead
Bonus Epilogue 2:
Cody hated teaching.
It didn't help that the new clones from Centax were idiots – no, that wasn't fair. They weren't idiots, they were brothers, and doing everything they could to learn from him. But they were ignorant, and inexperienced, and children in the bodies of adult men. Some would say the same for him, fourteen, almost fifteen in the body of a man in his prime, but these – no. They were two year olds in the bodies of men just entering their prime. Two. At two, Cody was just learning how to clean his blaster, take it apart and put it together again, not to mention read and write. These men were flash programmed even more intensely than he was, than his Kaminoan brothers were. Everything stuffed into their heads in utero, with no space for anything but what was put there by the Empire. All they could do was learn, soaking up knowledge like sponges, breathing in information like air.
But they had no experience. No common sense, because they were too young to have ever earned any. Everything was literal to them, everything by the book, just as they were taught while they still swam in a sea of chemicals in their growth jars.
They had no idea how to react to something out of the ordinary.
So they screamed, like little boys crying for their big brother when a monster popped out of the dark. So he ran, trying to guess at what the monster was, trying to hold them together, trying to keep them from panicking. Things he'd have never had to do a year ago, when he was leading the 212th, had competent, Kaminoan troopers with him and behind him, and a leader who actually listened to his advice.
He slammed hard into a Herglic as he rounded a corner, galloping down the steep slope of a narrow street and trying to cut the Jedi off. The Herglic warbled a warning and an apology as Cody shoved him aside and pelted down a set of crumbling stairs that curved around a green stucco plastered building then through an alleyway, down, down, downhill. His legs pumped, his breath hissed in and out of his helmet, the suit desperately trying to regulate his body temperature, between his running and the sweltering humidity outside.
But there was a larger issue at hand than panicked little boys in the bodies of men.
A flick of his eyes to the right and he opened a comm channel, a little red light glowing in the bottom left of his HUD. "Clicks, status report."
There was the barest breath of a pause. A year ago, with Kaminoan troopers, that pause would never have existed. Clicks would have been proud to replace his designation with a name, not confused by Cody's gesture of kindness, giving him a name rather than number. There was a test, six weeks back, where his cadets had to communicate with each other, though their communications systems were offline. Clicks invented a primitive code of clicking, insectile noises his team was able to use in the forest setting.
It should have been a proud moment, his naming. A moment where Clicks smiled and his squad grinned.
Instead, all he got were puzzled looks.
Even after an explanation, the cadets seemed only moderately intrigued by the idea. Clicks still had problems responding to the name; in his head, he was still just SC-3-1723. He breathed in knowledge like air, but couldn't comprehend his own uniqueness.
And so, whenever Cody called him by name, there was an ever so brief pause, as though Clicks had to remember that he was, in fact, the one being addressed.
"Sir," Clicks' voice said, sounding stunned and breathless somehow. "She…she jumped."
Cody leapt off the bottom step of the stairs to the sound of startled shrieks, emerging into a small plaza with a bubbling water fountain. Civilians took one look at the sight of a white-armored stormtrooper with his blaster raised and began shouting, scattering in alarm. He scanned the plaza, ignoring the running bodies. There were three other paths he could take, winging west, north, and south. "Explain!"
"She jumped, sir! Right off the cliff, sir! Half a klick between here and the next level! Just jumped off, nearly took me and 3-2318 with her!"
A second red light near the bottom of his screen flashed, and a small viewscreen popped up, a feed from Clicks' helmet camera. The timestamp at the bottom was marked forty-five seconds ago, and was speeding forward; the view was of the back of a running woman, perhaps forty meters or so in the lead, rushing down a narrow street between houses. Then she was a leaping dark blur against the bright sky, with Clicks running up behind her. Clicks looked upward, and she vanished into a shadowy blotch against the sun in the sky, growing more distinct as she dropped. Before the helmet could get a positive ID to run against the databank of Jedi, the world tilted, and Clicks was thrown from his feet.
The video feed ended, disappearing from his screen. "She was headed east, but…"
Clicks had never seen a Jedi before. Didn't know what they could do. The note of skepticism in his tone suggested Clicks doubted she was alive after a dive off one of the city's rocky cliffs.
Cody breathed hard for a long moment. He could encourage that belief. Call off the hunt. Reorganize it into a body search, and by the time they agreed there was no body, that somehow she survived, she'd be well off the planet.
He could let her live. He could make an impressive display of tearing the city apart for her body, while she slipped away into space to live a little longer, until she encountered another clone commander who had never learned to doubt.
"Sir!" 3-2218's voice interrupted, excited. Another video feed flipped up into the corner of his display, this one zooming in just in time to see a blurry figure in loose clothing leap off the side of building. "Kriff, she made it!"
3-2218 was doing what he was supposed to do. What Cody was supposed to be doing; hunting down a Jedi, a threat to the Empire. That was what a good soldier did. Followed orders, did what he was told, ended threats to the sovereignty of the Galactic Empire. Pacified the galaxy.
What was left of it, at least, after the Clone War. After the Republic. After the Jedi.
Cody's voice was rough when he responded, "Which direction?"
"North, sir!"
Cody turned right and headed north; there was only one thing of interest for a fugitive towards the north. Landing bays. She was looking to get off world. No choices. He was a clone. No, not even that. A stormtrooper. There was no other life. No other end, except for death. The usual way out of the GAR was the same as the usual way out of the Imperial Army. Maybe she'd kill him if they faced off. He wasn't quite ready to die, but this life wasn't much of a life, either. He could keep teaching his little brothers to be better soldiers for an evil regime, and watch them die at two, three years old, their hearts full of loyalty to a cause they'd been programmed for.
He cut off his communication channel for a moment and cursed, as lividly and fluidly as his ragged breath would allow. The crowds thinned and he was under the shade of a palm-lined street, winding its' way towards the mercantile districts, and beyond them, the docks where all those goods and supplies were delivered from. Another moment, and the channel was open again, and he flipped open a display that targeted the locations of his team. They were scattered around the upper levels of the city, winging around the last location of the Jedi, trying to catch her in a net.
He had to be a leader. They had no one else. Little brothers. He hated his job. Hated them and their need of him. No. Not quite. They didn't need him. Not him. They needed a leader who was just as dutiful and faithful to the Empire as they were.
Cody's voice was as calm and authoritative as it always was, when he spoke. "Head towards the docking bays. Converge at the following coordinates and wait for further orders."
He and his brothers were soldiers, not peacekeepers. He'd thought, in the beginning, there was no difference, but there was. It was part of the undoing of the Jedi. Turning peacekeepers, meant to protect and serve the people, into soldiers, meant to crush enemies and cause them so much pain they were forced to retreat, to surrender. That was what you did to win a war. The Emperor understood that. Destroy the enemy, no matter the cost. Strike at their heart. That was how you won a war. The very nature of it undermined the entire structure of the Jedi; to protect and defend at all costs, rather than kill enough, destroy enough, cause suffering enough, to win.
Strategy and ruthlessness and damn the civvies – that was how to win a war. The Chancellor had not been at war with the Separatists, but with the Jedi. He struck at their heart and tore it to pieces.
Right alongside the Jedi were so many little boys stuffed into grown up bodies and grown up armor. Just like the Jedi, they were being torn apart from within. Just like the Jedi, they didn't even know it was happening. Except for maybe him. And Cody had no idea what to do about it.
This was supposed to be a simple, practice run out to Spindrift Station and back to Daluuj, an exercise for the shuttle crew before they were shipped out to Kuat for transfer out to their legions; it was meant to be a lesson on proper conduct for commanding officers for the remaining eight clones on board, all meant for leadership positions. His cadets. His students.
Another corner and then down another set of steps, this time a wide set of sweeping, broad ones that descended gracefully, carved out of some expensive looking, glittering rock. From below, the steps probably glistened in the sunlight, glittering brightly. Cody streaked across them, moving north and down, down, hitting a mid-level and then tearing across a wide plaza, trying to avoid slamming into any more beings as he ran.
He wished he had more names for them. He opened a comm line and barked, "1156, what is your situation?"
The other end of the line crackled to life. "We're up the street, sir!" 1156's voice was tremulous, uncertain. "The thing…thing didn't follow, sir!"
Cody bit back a curse at the thought of any clone trooper turning tail and running. Damn little children! Little boys who spooked at the first thing they didn't understand couldn't lead anyone to anything but a slaughter. They were all going to be killed, no matter how much information he stuffed into their heads. He didn't even know what exactly scared them so much; just that there was screaming, the sound of weapons fire, calls for help, and the pilot calling for him, for a retreat.
That was just over eight minutes ago now. At least 1156 wasn't screaming in panic this time.
"Sitrep, 1156," he snapped, heading down another narrow flight of steps and pushing past a pair of Rodian teenagers who decided to meander down them too slowly. One of them swore at him as his friend bounced off a cobblestone fence and tripped over his feet, falling to the ground with a yelp. The red dots that signified his team were beginning to converge, all heading north by northwest. Just over five minutes until rendezvous. He pounded down the stairs. "Try to explain what you saw."
There was a gulping noise as 1156 began. "Sir, I've never seen anything like it. Came up out of the controls! Screaming and wailing! Tried to grab me, and 1427 tried to shoot it, and it should have hit, but it didn't! Went right through! Ricocheted off the wall and right back into 1427! He's bleeding, sir, I dragged him out while that thing came after me, then it disappeared – then there were more shots from the engineering bay; I got 1427 out, but then that thing showed up again outside. I opened fire, and the others got out and started firing too, but the noise, sir! So loud…we opened fire, tried to shoot it down, but nothing hurt it, and it just kept coming, and coming…" 1156's voice, shaky but holding at first, escalated the longer he spoke, alarm creeping in and taking hold. "2023 called for a retreat when I called you!"
Little boys. Little boys, all scared. Two years old and not knowing what to do when something unexpected appeared and terrorized them, and they reacted just like two year olds. Human two year olds. They ran, screaming for their big brother to save them, because there was apparently some sort of monster coming out of the closet. They were only two – two! Children in men's bodies, not even teenagers in men's bodies. They were human, despite being clones that were programmed so much like droids. How could he blame them for being afraid of what they didn't understand? They did what they were trained to do when they were antagonized – they opened fire. When that didn't work, they panicked.
So human.
Sending them back in would only terrorize them. They needed to regroup. Two minutes til arrival. "1156, stay where you are, repeat, stay where you are. Arm yourself and the others. We have a primary objective. Focus on the Jedi. Prepare for hard contact."
There was ragged breathing on the other end of the line. 1156 didn't dare ignore a direct order, but there was fear there. Fear of whatever that monster in the dark was. Some sort of trick? Cody didn't know. But it was odd that it would happen just as their target was trying to escape. Sowing confusion on the battlefield was a tactic of diversion. Someone was trying to get them running scared, and help the Jedi in the process. An accomplice? But who, and what? For all their powers, Jedi weren't blaster proof, nor could they pop out of navigation consoles.
Cody broke past the mouth of a shopping arcade, his helmet speakers blaring, "Move, move, move!" while he hefted his blaster upward. There were a series of shrieks and a scattering of the tide of beings milling around the entrance of the mall, the scent of frying food pungent in the air. His armor, at least, let him clear the way quickly; no one wanted to get on the wrong end of an Imperial stormtrooper, especially not one in a hurry.
The mercantile district began to fall away behind him, the roads widening to permit larger speeder trucks to ramble through to the shopping district, making deliveries of textiles, foodstuffs, and other goods. On his display, the red dots representing his men were continuing to converge on the landing bays; he couldn't let that happen. Not just yet. Not with some bizarre unknown factor lurking around. There would be no panicking this time, no screaming little boys running in fear. He'd go in first, just like a big brother should, to chase away whatever monster was lurking in the dark.
It was too much coincidence; the mysterious monster was working with the Jedi, somehow. She was heading for the docks, just as his men were being scared away from their ship. It was an insane plan, if he was right, but there was too much convergence going on – he had a hunch that Jedi was headed, not just for any ship, but for his ship. His Imperial ship. She wasn't just planning an escape, she was planning on giving the Empire the finger in the process. She had guts, whoever she was.
He opened a broad channel to his group as the red dots that represented his men drew closer. His breath was ragged from the run and he struggled to steady it. "1156, stay with 1427, position yourselves to cover the street. The rest of you, rendezvous on the southeast side of the street, fifty meters up from where we're docked." There was a moment where he half hoped someone would make a comment, any kind of comment, about what he was telling them to do – a quip about coming back to where they started, someone figuring out what he had and swearing once into the open comm channel – but there was only silence and the sound of breathing, and he knew they were merely obeying his commands without question. It was always that way.
The wall that surrounded the docking platform pulled into view, with a small, mixed crowd of Bothans and humans storming out from the platform's entrance, the Bothan in the lead swearing most colorfully as he stormed up off the street. Cody paused; a year ago, someone would have asked permission to stop the group, question them, get information.
Today, there was silence. No one took the initiative. They waited for orders.
Estimated time until the rest of his group's arrival: thirty seconds. The red dots on his display were merging, forming clusters. Ten seconds, he'd be across the street. Fifteen, he'd be at the entrance. Twenty, he'd give the order to fall in behind him. Thirty, he'd be in a firefight with his men at his back, pouring in through the entrance. She would stand in the middle with room to move, to spin and twirl and wield her lighsaber with deadly accuracy, returning their fire to them with precision. This was no frightened child-Padawan, to be jumping off cliffs and trying to steal their own ship from them. He would not be leaving with all of his men. Possibly none of them, if she was good enough, fast enough, strong enough. She had chosen her ground for battle. She already had the upper hand. There was only one way in, and she would be controlling it.
Seconds passed; the Bothans and humans passed further up the street. More seconds, and he was crossing the street, the entranceway looming large before him. A few more, and he could see his men running towards him, from either side of the street, blasters poised and ready. It would be the first real battle they'd seen.
Ten seconds, and they would be there. Just a few heartbeats. He stepped forward into the entrance, and in a blink, took in the scene.
Two droids were hovering on repulsors above a mess of white chemical foam; the place was coated, the ships dripping in fire suppressant. The emergency response droids were cheerfully spraying away, two blasts of foam shooting out of each of them as they enthusiastically put out the now-dead fires. Something must have caught when his men opened fire on the monster in the dark.
There was no monster. Only the Jedi. She stood in the center of the ring, her back to him. She had dark hair.
Eight seconds. He could hear the sound of pounding footsteps on pavement.
A Jedi. The first he'd seen since Kenobi on Utapau. His hands tightened on his blaster. He was an Imperial stormtrooper. He had men behind him, men who relied on him. He shouldn't feel resistant. Shouldn't feel doubt. He should be more like his men, his little two year old boys, full of certainty and absolutism. He shouldn't think things like run, at the Jedi's back, shouldn't want her to escape. She was going to kill him in a minute. Kill him and his men to save herself, and that was as it should be, because a stormtrooper was meant to be a predator to a Jedi, and she had a right to defend herself, even if she was supposed to be prey.
Five seconds. A glance in either direction showed his men only meters away.
He had to act. He moved forward, aiming for the center of her back. A clean kill. Possibly the best shot they would have. She was looking away, seemingly distracted. The red bolt of energy slipped out from the muzzle of his blaster, slid across the air, scorching it, closing the space between him and her.
And then it met a blade of blue, singing in the silence of the fighting ring, and he saw her face.
Distantly, he heard the startled shriek of one of the droids, and the spray foam waterfall ceased.
He had not seen her, since she departed the landing bay of the Vigilance, just over a year ago. She'd been worried then, not quite frightened, but apprehensive. It was her first solo mission as a Jedi Knight, a mission to the deathtrap known as Felucia. A mission of mercy and of support. She was there to help his brothers. He'd told her to keep up the morale of the men, if she could, since that was all one could really do on Felucia. Continue, and try not to be consumed.
He'd held her hand. Touched her. It was only for a moment.
Two seconds. His comm channel was still open. He said a single word, "Hold," and then ended transmission. He knew they would obey; it was all they ever did.
Barriss Offee was standing before him, her knees bent, her lightsaber lifted into the familiar pose of Soresu, one hand stretched out, lifted in warning to any who would dare to challenge her. She was thin; too thin. Her cheeks were hollow, shadowed, as were her eyes, as though she slept little and ate not enough, pressured onward, running constantly. From him, or men like him. She wore loose clothes of indigo, cut in the flowing style the locals preferred; they hung from her, draping lightly around her narrow frame. Her hair was short, cut unevenly and hanging around her chin as though she had sliced it off quickly with a vibroblade. The smattering of black, diamond tattoos that bridged her nose and cheeks stood out darkly against her pale skin.
Her eyes, though – her eyes were intent, sharp. There was weariness to her, but not desperation. Not despair.
She was alive, and he thought, perhaps, he loved her for it.
He'd held her hand when she needed it. Felt something – he didn't know what he felt, only a strange kind of awareness stirring in his mind. It was a strangely intimate moment, unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. A moment of reassurance, of hope, of support. He'd given help and encouragement before, to the men that served under him, but that moment – that very quiet, private moment – it lingered on in his mind afterward. It was only a moment, but he could so easily recall the weight of her hand in his, the feel of the contours of her palm, her fingers, as they slid between his. Her eyes were so wide then, astonished, her lips parted in such a very fascinating way – he'd never seen lips like that before. They were certainly the most perfect lips in the galaxy.
She'd needed him then, and he'd given her the support she needed. It was not the kind of support a clone and a Jedi usually exchanged.
It was only a moment. And then she was startled, and flustered, and her dark eyes no longer met his, and her hand was no longer in his, and her lips were speaking words of propriety and normalcy again, and the moment was gone.
It shouldn't have meant anything to him. It shouldn't have lingered in his mind every day since Utapau, as he followed the order that destroyed her people. It shouldn't be coming back to haunt him now.
She was no traitor. Neither was Kenobi. He was, for following an order that destroyed the Republic. For staying with the Empire, allying himself with the force that murdered the freedom of the galaxy, assassinated its' defenders.
It was then that she began to move. Slowly. Ever so slowly. She straightened, gaining height. Her lightsaber, though lit, lowered, falling to her side.
Her left hand, extended in warning, turned over into invitation.
He stopped breathing.
In the moment of her doubt, he had given her support. In the moment of his, she was offering hers in return. The hand of a Jedi was held out to him, in peace, a stormtrooper of the Galactic Empire.
He'd done as he was told, when the order went out. Followed orders faithfully, obeyed his superiors, acted as a good soldier should.
He'd dreamed, one day, right after Utapau, that Rex had visited him. He'd tried to defend his actions, and found he could not. Rex would never be a traitor, but he'd called it wrong. All wrong. That was the beginning of his doubt.
Somewhere behind him were fourteen men, waiting, waiting, waiting for his orders. Waiting to be told what to do. They'd always been told what to do, what to think, what to feel. Little boys, just two years old, in the bodies of men of twenty. Even if they lived through the battles they would face in the future, that future would be short. They'd age, and age, and age, until they were withered old men at six, seven. The Empire stole their lives before they'd even lived. They were created as disposable people.
Disposable. Just like him. Just like Rex. Just like a million others born on Kamino.
He'd always followed orders. What would happen, if, for once, he didn't?
A slim, olive colored hand was outreached, hanging in the air, waiting for him.
Slowly, his blaster lowered. He straightened, took a single, halting step forward. Barriss watched him, her eyes steady, watchful. Another step, and those eyes widened slightly, some sort of light kindling there. The next step was easier, the one after that, even easier. The sound of his own breathing seemed loud within his helmet, echoing within the little space. Again, a step, and Barriss' indigo eyes were bright, her fingers close and stretching towards him.
He lifted a hand. It seemed heavy, weighted, but he kept it moving, upward, outward, fingers open.
It hovered above hers for a moment, the black glove and white gauntlet hanging in the air above her bare, callused hand.
And then he lowered it, placed his hand in hers, and held on.