AN: So, as a show, I think Star Wars Rebels is pretty solid with some really excellent characters. So far, the extended material has done a great job expanding on Kanan, and while Rebels has to keep it's child target audience in mind, the expanded material doesn't. As a result, some of the show's darker elements are touched on, but not explored, which is what I'm correcting in this story, this chapter most notably in one very important way.
Kanan, without question, has PTSD in a very bad way, which is a crippling psychological mess. The show actually touches on this a bit in season 2, but being a kid's show, it's not exactly realistic to depict your hero having flashbacks and acting in ways that make sense for someone crippled by trauma, but doesn't make sense for your show's hero. It's one of the show's biggest weaknesses, in my opinion, so guess what? I'm gonna fix it.
Boom, Kanan. Enjoy your PTSD. And you, my lovelies, enjoy this chapter. The next one's a big one too, so look forward to that. Let me know what you think, kids!
Chapter 38: The Lost Commanders
"What do you suppose Ahsoka meant by trust him?" Kanan absently asked as he piloted the Phantom through the sky, the white sand below them reflecting the sun and blinding him to the details of the vast desert below. Ezra, Sabine and Zeb stood close behind him, clinging to the pilot's seat and squinting out the forward viewport in hopes of seeing anything other than the shimmering expanse of heat radiating off the white desert below. There was no such luck to be had, and they were forced to rely on other means of seeing what was beneath them, be it the small transport's scanners or the Force.
"Just look at this place..." Zeb muttered, pressing his nose and his clawed hands against the viewport. "I'm getting lost just looking at it, think how easy it would be to disappear down there."
"That's probably the point..." Sabine muttered, her hand on the comlink as she tried to get in touch with Hera and couldn't get a signal at all. While that would usually be cause for concern, upon their arrival in the Seelos system, several of the Ghost's systems shorted, including the hyperdirve and the communications relay, the result of Chopper's repairs to the ship and the moody droid's definition of important systems, which left the actual essential systems only partially fixed. The stereo system and the radio were, of course, functioning perfectly, a thing Sabine greatly appreciated. If they were going to die, it may as well be to a good beat.
An entirely different reason kept their contact with Ahsoka spotty at best. Massive sandstorms covered the planet, and while they weren't currently experiencing one, the atmospheric pressure and the charge in the air from local storm clouds and sprawling tornadoes of sand was scrambling their ability to communicate. It was a mess, one that had the Spectres extremely grateful for their Force sensitive companions, who could miraculously see through it all, and while Kanan's powerful connection with Hera only went one way, the Sith Lord that lay sprawled over four seats in the back of the transport was able to have mental conversations with Ahsoka, even with all the distance between them. Kanan and Ezra called it a powerful Force bond. Sabine and Zeb called it witchcraft.
"I mean, Ahsoka trusts him, so of course I'd trust him..." Kanan muttered. "Why would she think I wouldn't trust him!"
"Maybe," Sabine said quietly, her voice tinged with excitement, "her friend is a Separatist. Maybe it's...General Grievous!"
"Grievous is dead..." Obi-Wan drawled from the back, his voice thick and slow as he lay across the seats in a daze, his eyes foggy and distant as he kept one foot in the Force and only barely managed to hold on to reality.
"How can you be sure?" Sabine asked. "Maybe he found a way to escape! The histories say he was always escaping!"
"Skywalker killed him," Cody said quietly, his rifle laid out in pieces before him as he carefully cleaned and maintained each component. "We weren't there, but we saw the holorecording. He's dead. There is no possible way he survived."
"I felt it when he died..." Obi-Wan droned, and with a sigh, Cody reached up to slip a comforting hand into the Sith Lord's hair, though the man barely seemed to notice.
"Alright, well, what about one of the Separatist leaders?" Sabine asked again. "Oh, maybe one of the bankers, one of those Muun banking guys! Maybe Ahsoka wants them to fund us!"
"No..." Obi-Wan muttered. "I slaughtered the Separatist Council..."
"You can be certain they are dead," Cody said lightly, slowly beginning to reassemble his weapon. "I watched him execute them. It was a massacre." He shrugged, ignoring the horrified looks of the teenagers. "In any case, the Empire seized control of the Banking Clan's assets. Even if San Hill or his associates were alive, they wouldn't have access to any significant sort of funding."
"I don't get it..." Ezra mumbled. "He was the leader of the Separatists, wasn't he? Why would he kill his own people?"
"Because the Sith ran the whole thing..." Kanan growled. "There was only ever one side. A manufactured war with manufactured soldiers and billions of dead just so they could kill the Jedi and prime the galaxy for their conquest. No matter which side lost, the Sith won." He laughed bitterly and looked behind him to find Obi-Wan staring at him with distant, eerie eyes. "That's what all this was for, wasn't it? For the revenge of the Sith."
"A plan a thousand years in the making..." Obi-Wan drawled, a hint of pride in his voice that quickly turned cold. "And still it failed."
"Yeah, because of you," Kanan countered, and Obi-Wan slowly shook his head.
"No...I would have been content to serve Sidious in his Empire. After I lost Satine, I...lost my motivation to murder my Master." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, groaning softly as he extracted himself from the Force's hold, and with a shuddering breath, the Sith returned to himself. "Our revenge failed because Sidious became greedy. We failed because he betrayed me, and for that, he will die. The Force demands it."
"So...are you going to see that it succeeds?" Ezra asked cautiously, earning himself a cold, hard glare from the Sith Lord as he rose to his feet, and quickly reseated himself when he paled and swayed where he stood when a wave of nausea hit him.
"There are no Jedi left to take revenge on, Ezra," Obi-Wan explained. "Kanan, the last Padawan, is no Jedi, Ahsoka left before she could become one, my younglings are Mandalorian, not Jedi, and killing Yoda would be a kriffing nightmare." He scoffed and pulled his cloak tightly around him as he shivered. "Guiding that damnable imp into immortality is just asking for trouble. Seriously, how many more ghosts do I need haunting me...and no, don't you say a kriffing word, Qui-Gon!" he snapped as the Force spirit shimmered into existence beside him, an amused smirk on his ghostly features, but otherwise silent.
"I feel something..." Kanan muttered, turning his attention back to the viewport, his hands closing around the controls as he closed his eyes and opened himself up to the Force.
"I feel something too..." Obi-Wan drawled thickly. "Hot. I can already feel this damnable desert, why couldn't this person be hiding on a reasonable planet?!"
"That's not the desert, that's the fever, you great big idiot," Cody said with a roll of his eyes, his hand held to the back of the Sith Lord's forehead. "Just because you hate sand-"
"I don't hate sand, Cody, I hate the desert," Obi-Wan growled as he smacked the clone's hand away. "Everything always goes wrong in a desert! Look at all the shit that comes out of the desert! Sarlacs! Crime syndicates! Anakin Skywalker!" he snapped, pointedly glaring at the ghost at his side before be groaned and laid back down. "Sand sucks too."
"You know who also doesn't like sand?" Qui-Gon said gently beside him, and the Sith Lord immediately cringed. "Anakin. Anakin doesn't like sand. The similarities between you two continue to amaze me." Without wasting a moment, Obi-Wan stood up, slammed his fist on the hatch controls at the back of the ship, and vomited out the open door.
"Hang in there, Kenobi!" Kanan shouted from the pilot's seat to be heard over the sudden rushing of the wind and the pitiful heaving of their companion. "I don't think we're going to be here long, I found something." The Spectres immediately turned their attention away from the sick Sith Lord and looked out the viewport, squinting against the light and trying to see what Kanan saw. After Kenobi had been hauled back inside and the hatch resealed and pressurized, Cody joined them, the clone ignoring the Sith as he quietly whispered to the spirit that sat with him so that Cody could look out for what he was certain would be a trap.
For a long while, they didn't see anything as Kanan flew the ship down lower toward the ground, the blinding sands keeping them from discerning anything at all. After a moment, they saw it as they continued their approach, an almost indiscernible blemish on the sea of white that grew larger and more detailed with each passing moment. It was a moving, patchwork creation, a mechanical fortress that walked slowly on jointed legs almost like an insect. Kanan swung around wide the moment he got a visual on it, his chest tightening when he saw the rotating laser turrets along the sides of the massive walking tank and the huge cannon fixed to the broad head of the vehicle. He recognized this weapon of war, and despite Ahsoka's words echoing in his mind, her plea to trust her friend, he couldn't help but be set on edge by the reminder of the war that destroyed his life.
"Shit, that's an AT-TE..." Cody said, pressing closer to the Jedi as he leaned toward the viewport, and Kanan could feel the clone tense as well, his breath held and his focus intensifying as he looked at the tank. "I haven't seen one of these since the Clone Wars. I thought the Empire took all these apart to make their fancy new equipment, how did this guy get one of these?"
"Could he be an Imperial that defected?" Sabine asked, her eyes fixed on the tank as Kanan steeled himself and flew them in closer, the massive walking battle platform emitting smoke and steam as it was brought to a stop when the small transport was sighted. "I'm not the only one who sees the Empire for what they are. Maybe some officer didn't like that his Republic became an Empire and left."
"Yeah, maybe..." Kanan muttered, trying to calm his nerves, but his anxiety continued to rise as memories of his time in the war flashed through his mind, a time when he was not Kanan Jarrus, but Caleb Dume, a thing he was usually so good at separating, but now meshed within him as a keen reminder that he had once been that scared boy, that teenage Jedi Padawan instead of the roguish rebel he was now. There was Kardoa, his first battlefield, where he was shot twice by Separatist droids when he had disobeyed orders, and his life was saved by a clone soldier, who stood protectively above him until his Master could reach him. There was Mygeeto, where his battalion was saved by Mandalorian soldiers stationed to bring aid to the suffering civilians, where he watched his Master fight against General Grievous himself.
And then there was the horrors of Kaller, where they had liberated the people from Separatist rule, where he finally felt at peace, like he had a place in this world. Where the clones had betrayed them. Where he watched Depa Billaba be gunned down by the soldiers she fought beside, trusting them with her life, only to have them take it from her. Where she had told him to run, promising to be right behind him, though he knew very well she was lying to him, and instead of fighting beside her, he ran like a coward, like she had wanted him to. The last gift from his Master wasn't the holocron he still kept, but a chance to live.
Kanan's hands shook on the ship's controls, his teeth grinding together as he tried to banish the images running rampant through his mind, the bitter sting of betrayal, the terror that was put in his heart the night the Republic died, but it was no good. The war still clung to him like his old life, like the tiny voice of Caleb Dume deep within him that he never managed to silence completely, like the Force that he had once bitterly tried to drive from him and forget. Beside him, he could feel Cody change as well, the clone's breath slowing in his focus, his hands still and steady, though his body tense and ready for combat. Kanan could feel the clone's mind racing with death and killing and battle, with massacre on Dathomir, with slaughter on Umbara, with infiltration on Kamino, with atrocities on Haruun Kal, with death and terror and pain on Mustafar. The reaction was different from his, but even the battle-hardened Cody hadn't left the Clone Wars behind.
He landed the Phantom behind the now stationary tank, and the Jedi closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath, but couldn't shake the tension in his shoulders or the tightness in his chest. While his companions got ready to leave, checking weapons and securing blasters and helping the feverish Sith Lord to his feet, Kanan quickly activated the ship's comlink and tried to contact Ahsoka, but got only static in return.
"Don't bother, Jedi..." Obi-Wan said tiredly, shaking Zeb's supporting hands off his body and smoothing out his robes. Growling deeply as he shivered, the Sith unfastened his belt and quickly tore his robes from his body, carefully laying them on one of the seats as he pulled his shirt off and tossed it on the next seat over. "Ahsoka is caught in a sandstorm, she had to set the ship on the ground. Qui-Gon went to give her the details, and she would like to remind you to trust her friend."
"Oh, is that all?" Kanan asked with a high, nervous laugh, one that did nothing to ease his tension and only served to heighten the clone's unease. "Yeah, great, no problem. Is this how you communicate now?" he asked, watching as the Sith pulled the black robes back on, his partially exposed chest and bare arms allowing his flushed, heated skin to breathe. "Through ghost?"
"Hey, it's more reliable than sending coded messages when we may very well be sitting in a trap..." Kenobi said, his fingers absently running over the partially exposed deep, black scar on his chest. "Though if ever I needed proof that you Jedi are a contagion, Qui-Gon is a fine example." He scoffed softly, his hand quickly wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Stupid Force spirit, jumping around where ever he pleases, spreading it to Yoda, infecting me with Light Sickness."
"By the gods of war, Kenobi, it's a flu!" Cody snapped, swiftly tightening the strap to the holster on his thigh.
"Yes, inflicted upon me because the Jedi touched me!" Obi-Wan said pointedly, tightening his belt around his robes and securing his lightsabers. "If I hadn't been so badly weakened, I never would have contracted it!"
"Well, after we fight our way out of this trap, we'll get some women to drain the illness right out of you," Cody said tightly. "This isn't something that can't be cured by one very good night."
"You think this is a trap," Kanan said, standing from the chair after he powered the ship down, his hand resting on his lightsaber, and Cody bit down on his lip, his eyes narrowed as he looked toward the closed hatch.
"I don't know..." he quietly muttered. "But I don't have a good feeling about this. We would do well to prepare for the worst."
"I agree," Kanan quickly said. "Something doesn't feel right, something is...off, I can't quite place it..."
"Didn't Ahsoka say something about trust?" Obi-Wan drawled with a roll of his eyes, and with a disgusted grunt, Cody snatched his helmet from the seat and tucked it under his arm.
"With all due respect, sir, Lady Tano isn't here. She doesn't know what we're facing, and by her own admission, this could very well be a trap. We should treat it like one."
"I don't feel anything strange..." Ezra said, stepping toward the hatch and quickly hitting the release, the door hissing as the airlock disengaged and the hatch cover folded up, the bright sun reflecting off the sand lighting the inside of the transport. "Come on, I bet everything's going to be fine. You're probably just worried about Hera and Ahsoka, and you know what you say about letting emotions get in the way!"
"Yes, we say let them," Obi-Wan said, draping his arm over the teenager's shoulders and walking out with him into the desert and around the ship to face the tank. "Seize your emotions, apprentice, let them focus you, let them fuel your power! Be they anger or joy, hatred or love, lust or devotion, your emotions are life and the Force is fueled by them!"
"Uh, no, no, that isn't what we say, Ezra, don't listen to him!" Kanan called after his student, quickly following them, and Sabine and Zeb casually walked out after them with a shrug, Cody walking out a moment after, his helmet held tightly in his hands like a lifeline.
The tank had been heavily modified, not with armor or weapons, but with adornments and decorations, the walking battle platform personalized by whoever lived within. Functioning turrets and the intimidating laser cannon at the front did well enough to warn people away, but this was clearly not a military vessel, and the additional exhaust stacks on the top of the vehicle spoke to the state of disrepair of the engines, mended in a crude but functional manner with the addition of extra engine vents. The back hatch of the tank had been expanded into a balcony surrounded by a guardrail, making the whole thing look like a ridiculous stilted home instead of a re-purposed Clone War era military machine.
They stood in a line in front of the Phantom, staring at the still tank and the closed door and waiting for those inside to come out. Whoever was in there must have seen them, or else the tank stopping would have been terribly coincidental, and none of the Spectres believed in coincidences. Each second where nothing happened only made Kanan's mounting anxiety continue to build, his unease at looking upon the Republic tank only heightened with the knowledge that such vehicles were used to kill Jedi when they were all betrayed, that perhaps even this one turned its blasters on a hapless Master or a frightened Padawan. Most Jedi didn't live to carry the scars of Order 66.
They thankfully didn't have to wait long for the door to slide open and for three men to walk cautiously out on to the balcony, though from the ground, the Spectres could see others waiting inside the tank, peering out from the confines of their armored home to see who had come to disturb them. It was a military tactic that the soldiers among them knew well, never revealing their hand in order to lull an enemy into the security that came from larger numbers.
The three men that stood high before them all had facial hair whitened with age, the tops of their heads either clean-shaven or cut short, and despite the different cuts of their beards, the hair on their heads, and the array of scars that marked their faces and the exposed skin of their arms, each man looked strikingly similar to the other. While their nearly identical faces could be passed off as simply familial, the worn white armor they wore was unmistakable, and the blue streaks and patters upon their armored shoulders denoting the famous division that they belonged to. For a long, tense moment, they looked at each other, silent and still as they analyzed what stood before them, the fear and the tension mounting as old memories asserted themselves, and before anyone knew what was happening, the man standing in the middle drew a blaster from his hip and pointed it at the people below just as Cody pulled his helmet on and stepped forward.
"Traitor!"
"Slave!" Cody hissed in response, quickly drawing the rifle from his back and getting off a shot just as the other man fired a volley at him. The Spectres quickly scattered to avoid the sudden fire, and before anyone else could draw a weapon, Kanan's lightsaber ignited in his hands, the Jedi's breathing hard and fast and shallow as he held the blade out before him and quickly intercepted the shots, deflecting them back up at the soldiers on the tank just as the six mounted turrets on the side of the vehicle groaned and swung around to aim at them, manned from the inside by men they had yet to see.
"Clones, they're clones!" Kanan snarled, his eyes fearful and furious as he slowly advanced, and the other two men on the balcony quickly drew their own weapons.
"Jedi!" one of them shouted in warning for the men who could not see what was happening down below. "They've come for revenge!"
"Not just Jedi, boys," the man in the middle growled, indicating with the blaster in his off hand at the group while he trained his other pistol on Cody as the Mandalorian carefully aimed his weapon at the men on the tank. "That's the kriffing Negotiator and that traitor right hand of his!"
"Oh, this is perfect..." Obi-Wan said with a roll of his eyes. "This is what happens when you put a bunch of men with post traumatic stress disorder in a sandbox together. No wonder Fulcrum wouldn't tell us who we were going for, this is madness..."
"Sir, that's Captain Rex of the 501st Attack Battalion!" Cody snapped quickly, the clones on the tank and the black and red armored Mandalorian staring each other down, twitching fingers on triggers just waiting for a moment to escalate opening shots into a full-scale battle. "That's Skywalker's clone commander!"
"Guys, stop!" Ezra said quickly, pushing past Sabine and Zeb to be closer to the front line. "Ahsoka said to trust these guys, she said-"
Whatever it was that Ezra was going to say was lost in the sudden sound of firing weapons as Cody dashed forward, followed closely by Obi-Wan, now brandishing two lightsabers in his hands as they rushed toward the tank, the hulking battle platform hissing and groaning as it began to move again, the turrets opening fire and scattering the group as they dove out of the way. Plasma shots struck holes in the sand, leaving blackened, melted grains to congeal together into volcanic rock in the craters left behind, and when Rex shouted for them to make certain they couldn't escape, a well-placed shot struck the Phantom's engines, sending flames dancing up into the air from the hopelessly ruined rear trusters of the transport.
With no cover to duck behind and the increasing distance between them only serving to make them better targets for the turrets as the tank began to turn its broadside toward them, Ezra, Zeb and Sabine followed the example Kanan, Cody, and the deliriously laughing Obi-Wan and sprinted toward the tank, the close proximity keeping them out of range of the rapidly firing turret guns. The run was a hard one, the plasma shots flying through the air towards them peppering the ground and sending sand into the air to obscure their vision and the fine white sand quickly giving way beneath their quick steps and slowing them considerably, serving both to make their rapidly tiring legs move much more slowly and to make them easier targets. However, the much more threatening targets in the Jedi, the commander of the Shadow Legion, and the Separatist's Negotiator kept most of the attention off the three Spectres as they ran toward the tank.
It wasn't until they drew closer that Ezra began understanding what insane plan the feverish brain of Obi-Wan cooked up in the heat of the desert, but when he saw his three incensed companions under the shadow of the tank and quickly leaping upon the mighty legs of the mobile platform, he understood and he ran faster, intent to stop this madness before someone got killed. Ahsoka said to trust these people, and so far as he could tell, these weren't Imperials, and when he sensed from them wasn't a desire to kill but a very real, very visceral fear. He wasn't sure he blamed them. Ezra had seen the terror that Obi-Wan had inspired in Kanan, and he knew very well the things the Sith Lord had done to earn his murderous reputation. They had a right to be afraid.
By the time he reached the shadow of the tank the high sun cast on the ground, Obi-Wan, Kanan and Cody were all brandishing their lightsabers and putting them to one of the tank's thick legs, molten steel running in rivulets down to the sand below as they worked together to slice through it. Alongside the belly of the tank, hatches opened up where other clone soldiers in full armor took shots at the men on the legs, and Sabine and Zeb immediately returned fire, but the clones were much harder targets than their Imperial counterparts, and they were proving to be far better shots as well when they turned their attention on the distracting Mandalorian and Zabrak and fired volleys of suppressing fire at them, cleverly covering others who kept their fire on the enemies on the tank's legs.
Ezra reached the leg just as Obi-Wan, Kanan, and Cody had successfully cut through it, the segmented support falling with a heavy thud to the sandy ground, and the tank lurched at the sudden loss, the now limping tank making it more difficult to move and to aim the turrets. As soon as the severed leg hit the ground, Obi-Wan, Cody and Kanan jumped down and immediately ran for the far leg on the same side through a hail of blaster fire, the Force sensitives batting back the plasma as the concentrated effort rained down upon them. Ezra sprinted toward the three men beside Sabine and Zeb, defending his two friends as they shot to miss, their returned fire meant to distract, not kill. Ahsoka had said to trust them, and while the traumatized Kanan, the incensed Cody, and the feverish Obi-Wan seemed to have forgotten this, the other three Spectres meant to at least try to honor Ahsoka's plea.
That meant getting to Obi-Wan. The Sith Lord had the power to control the raging Cody, and the way Ezra saw it, things escalated quickly when Kenobi's clone snapped and went completely insane. This could be managed. This whole thing could somehow be salvaged. Nobody had died yet, so it wasn't too late, but that wouldn't last for long, especially not when Ezra saw the wild, feral look in the Sith's eyes as he ran up beside him.
"Kenobi, we need to make this stop!" Ezra said between hard, panted breaths, his lightsaber blurring green in the air as he knocked back the fire from the clones in the tank. "Ahsoka wouldn't send us to them if-"
"Ahsoka didn't send us to them at all!" Obi-Wan snapped, rushing to run in front of Cody as the man aimed his rifle at the hatches the clones were firing from. "Whoever Ahsoka wanted us to meet is gone, these are Skywalker's clones! And I'm going to make them mine. Kanan, get to the leg!" Obi-Wan commanded, the Sith skidding to a full stop and defending Cody as he crouched down and looked through the sights of his rifle at the well-concealed clones in the tank. Instead of running forward, Kanan fell back behind Obi-Wan, quickly grabbing Ezra and pulling the teen defensively behind him, the Jedi batting back bolt after bolt, his eyes wide and wild and distant, filled with a fear that didn't come from the moment.
"Or just stand there..." Obi-Wan said with a roll of his eyes. "That's fine too."
"Kenobi!" Ezra tried again, joining his two Masters in deflecting the rain of blaster fire upon them, and quickly moved as Sabine and Zeb ran to stand beside Cody in the protective circle the Force sensitives had made. "Kenobi," he tried again when the shooting lessened, the air filled with the muffled echoes of shouts from inside the tank as the clones readjusted their position. "The Phantom is damaged, we don't have a way to escape! Our best chance is to get them to stop shooting! This is a misunderstanding, if we just-"
"We need to get in that tank!" Obi-Wan quickly interrupted, his eyes darting between the vehicle's legs as he searched for an entry point. "Good idea, Bridger, we can tear them up from the inside and use the parts from the tank's engines to repair the Phantom!"
"N-no, that's not what I-" The sudden shot from Cody's rifle roared in Ezra's ears and a sharp cry pierced the air, his careful aim paying off as a clone soldier came tumbling out of the hatch and hit the sandy ground below. Obi-Wan didn't waste a moment before he rushed forward toward the slowly moving man in the sand, his red saber effortlessly deflecting bolts back up into the hatch they were fired from, allowing a temporary reprieve from the sudden intensity as the clones regrouped. The Sith dropped to his knees beside the fallen man and quickly tore his helmet off, a face he had seen a thousand times before underneath, and Obi-Wan closed his eyes, his fingers on the man's forehead as he plunged into his mind, searching for what he knew to rest deep in the brain of every clone, the quick and easy, nearly effortless way to command complete obedience from the slave soldiers.
A biochip, a control method programmed with a series of protocols that enslaved the clones to the will of the Master that made them. Obi-Wan had learned long ago how to break the chip, to short it out and render it useless, severing the chains that bound them and giving them freedom under the Sith Lord's guidance. It was an easy thing to do, a slight shift, the right push, and the commands in their mind compelling them to obey were replaced by the Sith Lord's own smooth, accented voice telling them the truth of what they were, how they had been used and manipulated by their Masters, and how they were now free. The chip was the best way, the fastest way, the kindest way to free the slave soldiers of the former Republic and bind them to him, their loyalty earned by acting as their benevolent liberator.
The chip wasn't there.
With a gasp, Obi-Wan released the man, his eyes searching the soldier's face, reaching out with the Force to feel at the man's presence. This was a clone, as were the other nine that he could sense still inside the tank, but the biochip that rested inside each of them, had to be inside each of them was gone. It was absolutely impossible unless...unless the clone had the chip removed. Unless these were the clones that had been with Skywalker on Colstev and had seen what their brother had done to the young General. Unless these clones looked upon their comrade as he was compelled to kill his Jedi commander and wondered why. And on reflection, when he had first saved Ahsoka, she had told him about Skywalker's Captain Rex and how the clone and a handful of his squad had saved her from Coruscant the night Order 66 was executed. Clones that had overcome their programming. Clones that had removed their biochips.
"Oh, Ancient Gods of the Sith, damn it all!"
"Kenobi!" Ezra shouted, running across the sandy terrain to stand beside the Sith, the boy dodging out of the way of the plasma bolts that were fired at him and knocking them away with slashes of green light when they got too close. "Kenobi, did you know that Cody has a jetpack?!" Obi-Wan looked up at the boy, his mind churning laboriously under the combined effects of the heat and the fever, and he shook his head to clear it as he tried to make sense of this entire situation. "Well," Ezra said frantically, not waiting for the man to respond, "the second they stopped shooting for a moment, your stupid clone took off and flew around to the other side. I don't know what he's planning, but if we don't do something, he's going to get himself killed!"
"That great big idiot!" Kenobi snarled, rising to his feet with a groan. "You were right, Ezra, these are the ones Ahsoka was looking for." He nudged the nearly unconscious clone on the ground with his foot, his lightsaber igniting in his hand when the soldiers began firing at him once again, much more cautiously this time because of how close the Sith Lord was to their wounded comrade. "Not just any clones, but clones that broke free of their slavery to the Republic and helped a Jedi to escape."
"Ahsoka?" Ezra asked, kneeling beside Obi-Wan and keeping his head low as the Sith hoisted the wounded clone up and used his body to shield them, the others ceasing fire on them immediately to the chorus of tense shouts and commands, the fear in the air reaching a new high. Obi-Wan slowly nodded and quickly looked around to assess the situation, the enemy attention divided by Kanan, Sabine and Zeb, the Jedi defending the Mandalorian and the Lasat as they ran toward one of the tank's legs, a small shower of blaster fire from above following them. The clones in the hatches above had ceased their fire, looking for a way to save their friend from what they knew to be a very dangerous man, though the number of blasters trained on them simply didn't match up. The numbers were too small. Some clones were unaccounted for, meaning Cody was somewhere doing something, and whatever it was, it wasn't going to be good.
"You knew?" Ezra asked, his voice a low hiss as he ducked behind his human cover, the body held before them with the Force as Obi-Wan quickly formulated a plan. "If you knew, Kenobi, why-"
"Have you seen me, Bridger?!" the Sith Lord said defensively. "My body can't decide if I'm hot or cold, I threw up out the back of the Phantom, and I'm fairly certain I'm dying. You expect me to remember something Ahsoka said in passing sixteen years ago?!" He scoffed and rolled his eyes, his hand on the boy's shoulder as he gave the clone to the teenager to hold, his hand extended and shaking slightly as he adjusted to the weight. "And here I am, about to be the sensible one and stop this madness."
"W-what are you going to do?" Ezra asked, his hand stabilizing as Obi-Wan gave the clone fully over to Ezra's control of the Force.
"I'm going to get in that tank and stop this before Cody kills Rex. I don't think Ahsoka will take kindly to that, and if this commander is who I think he is, I can make him stop shooting at me long enough to listen." He pointed with his lightsaber out toward the other Spectres, Kanan's saber swinging to deflect the volley of plasma rounds as Zeb and Sabine clung to the leg and worked to cut the wires and oil and fluid lines of one of the segmented knees. "You and the Spectres stay on the ground and serve as a distraction. Their attention is divided and we want to keep it that way. I'm going up there, and you're going to stay by Kanan to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone."
"Right..." Ezra said, pulling the clone closer to him and muttering a quick apology to the dazed man. "Hey, may the Force be with you, Obi-Wan."
"It will be if this idiot Jedi poisoning doesn't get in the way..." the Sith Lord said, his shoulders heaving for a second before he slowly, bitterly swallowed, pushing the rising bile in his stomach down with a grimace. "I swear, everything is the Jedi's fault..." Without another word, he pushed off the ground, sand flying up behind him as he sprinted toward the yank's forward legs, the furthest point from where the Spectres were attacking at the rear. The moment he was away from Ezra, the firing began again in earnest, bolts striking the ground all around him as he swiftly evaded danger when he felt it coming, deflecting bolts out of the way or deftly sidestepping mere moments before the plasma struck the ground where he once was. The result was a fast path to the leg, a jagged, random trail of blackened sand hardening into crystalline, volcanic stone making Kenobi's path.
He could hear the clones' muffled shouting in the tank above him, the pounding on the floor inside as they ran from hatch to hatch, stopping to shoot when they had clear shots and then quickly running to the next. For all the commotion the Spectres were causing and the threat of Cody, who was no doubt inside the tank by now, Obi-Wan thought that the clones were certainly focusing a lot of attention on bringing him down. As his target grew rapidly closer, Obi-Wan briefly wondered exactly what Ahsoka was thinking by sending him with the Spectres to collect this clone. Not only was she putting her faith in a Jedi who already feared clone soldiers because of his narrow escapes in the past, but as the former leader of the Separatist army, Obi-Wan was in the unique position of not only being instantly untrustworthy to former soldiers of the Republic, but also as public enemy number one to men who had once served beside Anakin Skywalker. His survival wasn't even an option.
And here he was, his mind addled by heat and fever, and he was about to be the sane one.
Throwing his lightsaber before him and catching it in a backhanded grip, Obi-Wan jumped as high as he could and stabbed the glowing red blade into the tank's leg, the saber slowly cutting down through the steel and giving the Sith a chance to plant his feet against the leg and press off, jumping higher up toward the tank's underbelly. He had to jump twice more to get to the top, wedging himself between the tank and the leg at an angle that made it very difficult for the clones to shoot at him with any sort of accuracy. Making certain his grip was secure, Obi-Wan thrust the lightsaber into the tank and began cutting himself an entrance into the vehicle. It was short work, and within a minute, the rounded slice from the hull of the tank fell to the sand below, and Obi-Wan pulled himself up inside the armored cabin.
He crawled up inside a space under the floor, the loud hissing and humming of the engines and the systems that ran the various moving components of the mobile platform echoing around him along with the pounding of armored feet on the floor above him and the shouts of the clones as they scrambled to keep control of a battle that was quickly slipping out of their hands. With their opponents splitting up and dividing their attention, the clones were having difficulty despite the advantages they possessed. Their numbers were too few to successfully split their attention, their enemy too dangerous to ignore in favor of a concentrated effort, and the presence of the Force sensitives were a thing that the clones were all too familiar with, each of them having seen first hand the advantages the Force bestowed upon those that could feel it. It was leaving them on the edge of frantic, just enough to make the buzz of combat new and strange to the seasoned, yet our of practice warriors.
When he was certain nobody was above him, Obi-Wan thrust his lightsaber through the floor above him, using the Force to augment his strength to cut through the metal as quickly as he could, the shouts inside becoming less commanding and more tense as the clones saw what was happening. Before they could regroup, the hole was cut and Obi-Wan jumped out, his blade quickly swinging to deflect the fired shots from the few clones who were in position on both sides of the corridor he emerged from. With his hand extended before him, Obi-Wan quickly turned and pushed the clones on one side of the hallway with the Force, the five men crouched there sent flying back to hit the wall behind them.
The Sith Lord quickly swung his lightsaber around to deflect the suppressing fire from behind him, the three clones on his other side having used that moment to take up a defensive position. Reaching out to them as well, Obi-Wan quickly ducked down just as he pulled the three men quickly toward him, the clones flying through the air and over his head to crash against their brothers as they scrambled to their feet in a mess of flailing limbs, knocking them all down again as their bodies careened into them. With his opponents no longer flanking him, the Sith Lord slowly advanced on them, his lightsaber returned to his belt and both hands extended before him as he grasped the Force and sent it to subdue the thrashing clones. With the eight men in the hall and the one down on the ground with the Spectres, the only man left unaccounted for was the Captain, but that was enough. The battle was, by all rights, over. All that was left now was the negotiation.
It was irritating work to subdue the clones, like trying to herd a group of particularly rambunctious kittens. Over fifteen years of freedom had left the Republic's former slaves willful and wild, a streak of individualism within them that Obi-Wan recognized as the same free spirit of his own liberated Shadow Legions. The man they were based on was Mandalorian after all, and that same fearsome warrior spirit ran through the blood of his cloned soldiers, a thing that became more prominent with the removal of the biochips that allowed them to be docile slaves to the Republic. Trying to keep the men in tact was far harder than Obi-Wan's usual disregard for the minds of those that opposed him, and it left him with a group of eight men that fervently resisted the shackles that were clasped around their minds, and while he did control their bodies, he never got a firm grasp on their minds, the clones left struggling and resisting the worming fingers within them.
Still, it was enough. Obi-Wan didn't need the men to like their chains, he just needed them to stop shooting at him long enough to get their commander to see reason. With all the clones' bodies compliant to the Sith's demands, Obi-Wan commanded them to drop their weapons and follow him through the tank like reluctant pets on a leash, their slow, jerky movements indicative of their continued struggle for control over the bodies that betrayed them. Still, Obi-Wan would not let go, and the clones were left with no choice but obedience as their legs moved on their own after the Lord of the Sith.
When he came across a wide living area, a re-purposed command center lined with tables and couches and chairs strewn with spare helmets and armor, Obi-Wan pressed his hand to the controls on the door and quickly flattened himself against the wall when the door slid open to let the bright sun from outside in. His hand extended and issuing a silent command for the clones to stay put, the Sith ducked out into the light, his eyes closed against the blaze and feeling his way around the balcony with the Force. He quickly stopped, his lightsaber drawn and his eyes flying open when he felt the sudden shifting presence of the clone captain, the red blade blazing as he easily deflected shot after shot high into the air and on to the deck to keep from hitting the man. With a swift gesture as the weapon was primed for another volley, Obi-Wan tore the blasters from Rex's hands with the Force, sending them flying off the edge of the tank. With the lightsaber pointed menacingly at him and completely disarmed, Rex slowly rose his hands in surrender.
"You made our brothers do your bidding at the end of the war!" Rex snapped, retreating slowly as the Sith turned his blade over in his hand, his frustration and anger becoming confusion when Kenobi switched the weapon off and returned it to his belt. "The Jedi are dead! What more do you want from us?!"
"Nothing at all," Obi-Wan said tiredly, wiping the sweat from his forehead and shrugging his robes off his shoulders with a soft groan, his belt holding the fabric as it looped down by the Sith's knees. "I'm here on behalf of Ahsoka Tano."
"Ahsoka?" Rex asked, his eyes widening with shock and his chest tightening as he held his breath, a frown on his lips as he examined the Sith's face. His hand tightening at his side, Rex started to speak, but never had a chance to finish when Cody had sprinted out from the other side of the balcony and went barreling into the other clone, tackling the Captain with such force that both men went tumbling over the guard rail and landed with grunts of pain and a loud thud in the sand below. Obi-Wan stood for a moment, staring at the spot where he only a moment ago had begun to reason with the clone commander, and with a deep, frustrated hiss, ran to the rail and looked down at where Cody and Rex rolled on top and around each other in a fight for dominance as they threw punches and very earnestly tried to kill each other.
"Damn it, Cody, what are you doing?!" Obi-Wan shouted down at the clones as they rolled in the sand, but neither man seemed to hear the Sith Lord. Kenobi's hands tightened around the rails, briefly considering jumping over and forcing the men to separate, but the long fall and the heat and the weariness in his mind made him reconsider an alternative way, and he quickly ran back into the tank to set his formulating plan in motion.
Cody's hands were held in front of his face as he blocked punch after punch from the man above him, Rex having gained the upper hand and rolled on top of him during their brief scuffle after they fell. Each strike was fast and heavy, Cody managing to deflect most of them, but a few glancing blows still caught him on the side of his helmet, and despite the protection it afforded him, he still felt his brain jar inside his skull with each hit. Rex was punching too fast for Cody to have a moment to reach a hand down to draw one of the blasters strapped to his thigh, the other clone as fierce in his intent to murder as Cody was, which made this a dangerous position to be in, especially if the Captain learned there were two weapons just within reach.
Seeing his moment when Rex drew up for a particularly hard strike, Cody blocked the punch as it descended on the outside of Rex's arm, forcing his arm to cross his body and the weight behind it upsetting his balance just slightly. It was enough, and when the fist his the ground beside his head, Cody quickly brought his foot up and kicked out Rex's knee, straightening the leg out and forcing the man to lose his footing, allowing Cody to roll on top of him, and in the next moment, the positions had been switched and it was Cody throwing the punches while Rex defended.
With the advantage in his hands, Cody brutally threw punch after punch at Rex with the intent to put his fist through the other man's skull, but Rex was quick, and despite over fifteen years of being away from war, the man had kept in shape, his edges dulled with age, perhaps, but the blade was still sharp. When he had caught the Captain with the edge of his fist on the side of his head, Rex grunting in pain as it hit, Cody swiftly reached down and drew the blaster on his leg and pressed the barrel right up against the exposed joint under Rex's arm. The Captain's eyes widened when he felt the weapon, heard it charge, and twisted his body just as it was fired, the plasma bolt striking the ground just beside him when the sudden movement dislodged the barrel from it's place.
Hissing a curse under his breath as the advantage left him, Cody felt his upset balance immediately used to Rex's advantage when the Captain hooked his arm under Cody's leg and grabbed for the other blaster. As Cody moved to stop the other clone from taking the weapon from him, Rex threw him, sending him tumbling into the sand, and as Cody caught sight of the Captain, he saw the man scramble to his feet, the blaster stolen from his holster in his enemy's hands. As soon as Cody was on his feet, he opened fire on Rex, the other clone running out of the way and returning his own fire, the bolts striking the sand and occasionally glancing off their armor, making the men stagger and groan from the impact, but taking no serious damage through the sturdy protection they wore.
The Spectres ran toward the clones the moment they fell from the tank, the firing stopped and the tank still presumably due to Kenobi's success inside, though reasons for the mad dash toward the brawling pair differed greatly among them. Kanan led the charge, his lightsaber grasped tightly in both hands, his breathing fast and frantic as he rushed to save his comrade, the fact Cody was a clone forgotten in the Jedi's mind as his vision tunneled to focus on the clone trying to kill him. The other three followed as fast as they were able to stop Kanan, both from killing Ahsoka's friend and from getting killed himself. Ezra had done what he could to follow Kenobi's instructions, had quickly informed Zeb and Sabine about the Sith Lord's plans, but keeping the Jedi out of the terror of his memories was proving to be far more difficult than the teen had anticipated.
About halfway through the long run under the length of the tank to where the clones were shooting at each other, Zeb managed to get close enough to Kanan to pounce on the man, the Jedi and the Lasat tumbling in the sand, the lightsaber knocked from his hand, and Zeb quickly wrapped his arms around him and pulled the squirming Jedi into his lap. With nowhere to go and absolutely no ability to move, Kanan's ragged breathing slowed into shallow gasps as he caught his breath, his eyes shut tightly and listening to the distant sound of the clones fighting, the pervasive clanging of the war machine in motion and the high whine of rapid nearby blaster fire faded to the sound of the wind in the air and the hard pounding of the Lasat's heart behind him.
Kanan opened his eyes to see Ezra kneeling in front of him, the teen's face both concerned and understanding, and the Jedi quickly averted his eyes, swallowing hard and allowing his body to relax, despite the tension he still felt in the air, the Force still disturbed and turbulent. "I'm sorry..." Kanan muttered, breathing easier when Zeb's tight grip relaxed slightly. "I thought I put all this behind me, I-I thought-"
"Hey, it's alright..." Ezra said, laying his hand on the Jedi's shoulder. "I don't know what you've been through Kanan, I don't know what the war was like, but if you need help with all that, we're here to support you." The teen shrugged, a slight smirk on his face when the man looked gratefully up at him. "And, you know...keep you from killing Ahsoka's friends."
"Clones, Ezra, are dangerous," Kanan growled softly. "They fought beside us, they were our friends and our companions, and without warning, they turned on us. The Jedi are gone because of clone treachery."
"...which is why we're going to let Kenobi deal with this, alright?" Ezra said nervously, looking behind him at where Cody and Rex still fought, much closer to each other now and alternating between swift kicks and punches and shots from the blasters in their hands. "He's got a plan."
"We should be helping Cody," Sabine said, her back to her fellow Spectres and her blasters in hand, the girl ready to rush in and start shooting, but Ezra reached out and quickly took her hand.
"I don't know if that's a good idea," he said quietly to the Mandalorian. "I'm...not sure Cody won't turn on us if we try to get between them, and we don't know that the other clone won't just kill Cody if we restrain him. We need both of them alive. Kenobi needs to handle this." When he was met with silence from the stoic Mandalorian, he laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, they don't call him the Negotiator for nothing, right?"
"They tank stopped and the clones stopped shooting," Sabine said matter of factly. "Probably because he killed them all."
"Hopefully..." Kanan growled, earning himself a tight squeeze from the Lasat as Zeb quietly hushed him, his large hand patting the Jedi on the head.
"Obi-Wan said to trust him, and Ahsoka said to trust her friend!" Ezra said firmly, standing before the seated Lasat and the restrained Jedi defensively, his hands on his lightsaber just in case it was needed. "I'm going to trust them. He'll find a way to fix this. I know he will."
"...I don't like this," Sabine grumbled, her eyes drifting between the protective Zeb, the concerned Ezra, the pacified Kanan, and the unconscious clone that fell out of the tank earlier, the man knocked out by Zeb the moment Rex and Cody tumbled from the vehicle. "You're right, but I really don't like this." She pulled down her visor and zoomed in on the fight, the Mandalorian jogging closer when she saw the two clones drawing closer to each other, their strikes becoming harder, their aim becoming better, and when Rex took a shot and Cody cried out in pain, a hand clutching his side, Sabine couldn't help but run across the sand toward them.
Cody fired at Rex as quickly as he could, his eyes narrowed in rage and pain, plasma flying rapidly and wildly at the other clone as he dove out of the way, cursing loudly and dropping the weapon when a shot hit the junction between his wrist and forearm, but didn't have time to stop as the other continued his suppressing fire. Cody only stopped shooting when the blaster began beeping, a red light flashing on the side of the weapon indicating that the pistol was overheating. Cursing loudly and throwing the blaster to the side, he squinted against the blazing sun at Rex as the man ran toward him, aiming a punch right at his head, which Cody quickly dodged to return his own strikes.
They both moved fast despite the sand, their breathing heavy from exertion and sweating profusely as they nearly cooked in their armor from the sun beating down upon them. For a long while, they blocked and punched, kicked and dodged, lunged out and quickly back in, their movements so seamless, so perfect it looked rehearsed, like a training exercise they had practiced together for years. They easily feel into their old training on Kamino, the close quarter combat that had been so rigorously drilled into them since the day they emerged from the tubes they were made in fresh in their minds, altered slightly by their differing experiences, but their extensive training left them well prepared to deal with the variations.
Things only changed when Cody quickly shifted his stance, ducking under a swift hook but getting caught by the clone's knee, the hard impact striking Cody on the side he had been shot. With a yelp of pain and stubborn fury, Cody stumbled back and extended his hand, the gauntlet on his wrist shooting his grappling line out at Rex's feet, the strong tensile cord wrapping around the Captain's legs, and with a swift tug on the line, Cody pulled Rex's legs out from under him, the clone falling heavy to the ground and quickly trying to untangle his tightly bound legs. His enemy lay prone before him, his mobility severely restricted and his attention divided by not just the cord binding him, but by the sudden appearance of another Mandalorian at the edge of his vision, and Cody felt rage and pain and victory, the conclusion to a fight began long, long ago at hand. He drew the lightsaber from the back of his belt and quickly ignited it, and with a savage growl, Cody jumped toward the prone Rex, his lightsaber held over his head as he bore down on the man for the killing strike.
Just before Cody's blue blade connected with Rex's body, an invisible force slammed into him, knocking the air out of him and throwing him backwards, the lightsaber dropping out of his hands as he reached up to claw at his throat, the clone held in midair and struggling to breathe as the Force constricted around him. A moment later, and the same force slammed Cody down to the ground, the impact leaving an indentation in the sand, the pressure released from his throat allowing him to scream in pain, his heels digging into the sand and his back arching off the ground as the Force spiked through him. Swallowing hard and staring at his enemy with wide eyes, Rex slowly looked up at the tank and saw his men kneeling on the balcony, their heads bowed and their shoulders slumped in defeat, the Negotiator standing up tall behind them, his red blade in his hand. Fear for his friends' lives kept Rex from moving, his legs still loosely tied as he kneeled in the sand.
"As I was saying," Obi-Wan said in a lazy, affected drawl, his voice carrying easily through the hot air. "I'm not here to kill you or your men."
"And why else would you be here?!" Rex shouted back, and Obi-Wan answered him with a short, dismissive laugh.
"Sweetie, they call me the Negotiator. I'm here to negotiate." Obi-Wan shrugged, watching as Rex cautiously removed the bindings from his legs and beginning to pace, looking cautiously back toward Cody, who now lay doubled over and panting as Sabine hovered protectively over him. "Don't worry about Cody, Captain," Obi-Wan said, Rex swiftly looking back up at the menacing man. "I won't let him hurt you. You have something I want, after all, and you can't give it to me if you're dead."
"You expect me to deal with you while you hold my men hostage?!" Rex snapped, and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and kicked a rolled up ladder down to the ground, the rungs unrolling as it fell and giving those on the ground access to the tank's balcony platforms.
"You don't have a choice," Obi-Wan drawled. "Come up, we'll discuss the release of your men." Rex didn't move, didn't look away from the Sith Lord as he stood over his clone brothers with a weapon in hand. He couldn't see his men's faces, couldn't see if they were injured, or even alive at all.
"Wolffe!" Rex called, and the clone beside Kenobi tensed, his shoulders shuddering for a moment before he looked up, his eyes searching before him before he leaned over and looked down below, and Rex breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you and the men alright?"
"Yeah..." the clone replied, looking cautiously up at the Sith Lord beside him, his gaze returning to Rex when Kenobi didn't say anything. "Kix was shot down, but he survived the fall. The rest of us are fine." A low, deep growl rumbled in his chest. "The kriffing Negotiator threw up on my boot!"
"I told you I was sick, you ingrate!" Obi-Wan shot back, smacking the man lightly on the back of his head. "You'd do well to not make me angry if you want to keep your other boot clean, getting angry is making me nauseous."
"Are you trying to tell me that a sick man defeated ten men and captured our tank?" Rex frowned when he heard the men on the balcony grumble, and he eyed the ladder for a moment, looking back at Cody quickly before turning his attention back to the Sith. "Did Ahsoka really send you?" he called, and Obi-Wan nodded.
"She did," the Sith confirmed. "I'm here because she's my friend and she asked me to come for some stupid reason. Honestly, she could have done better than the Negotiator, the commander of the Shadow Legion, and a Jedi survivor of Order 66." Rex slowly looked behind him at the Spectres as they slowly approached, the clone looking over the man he had seen with a lightsaber, his face hard and distrustful, the man just old enough to have fought in the war beside a Jedi General.
"Y-yeah..." Rex said, swallowing hard. "Yeah, this maybe wasn't the best choice. Granted, knowing Ahsoka, she was probably anticipating a trap, and were that the case, I think you may have been the best choice."
"Ahsoka tells me it was you that saved her," Obi-Wan said somberly. "She was dear to my friend Quinlan, and for that, you have my most sincere thanks." Rex was speechless, staring at the Sith Lord for a moment in silence, his jaw slack, and Obi-Wan leaned over the railing. "Tell me, Captain, how does the clone commander of Anakin Skywalker come to save Ahsoka Tano when I distinctly remember him ordering her hunted and killed? How does a clone come to save any Jedi, for that matter?"
"Not all of us betrayed the Jedi," Rex said, pointing to a long scar on his shaven head. "I watched one of my brothers betray General Skywalker. He would have killed him if we didn't stop him. Some of us went to Kamino and learned the truth, and we got our chips removed before the order was given." Rex's chest tightened when he heard the Jedi growl viciously behind him, but he didn't look away from the Sith Lord, afraid of what would happen if the young survivor felt provoked. "And what about you?" he asked. "How did the Negotiator come to be friends with Jedi?"
"A very long story," Obi-Wan drawled. "Why don't you come up here? You ruined our ship, and I'd like it fixed, and no doubt you want to negotiate for the release of your men. After all that's settled, perhaps I'll tell you."
With a sigh of relief, the tension leaving his shoulders for the first time since this whole ordeal began, Rex grabbed hold of the ladder and quickly climbed so that he may face the Negotiator.