The sun, once warm and gentle, now beat down on them as they were paraded through the city. A thousand colourful, scared faces, hid behind doors, staring at them from apartment windows and tiny stalls that lined the streets. The troops slogged on, chained together as kicked up dust coated their armour red. Even with blasters pointed at their heads, Commander Cody marched alongside his brothers with as much dignity as he had always maintained.
Their escape plan to steal a shuttle was supposed to be simple. In hindsight, it was too simple. He rarely worked with General Skywalker's Padawan, but he respected her swift evaluation and the respect was returned - Commander to Commander. However, her presence was sorely missed when they arrived to a landing platform full of battle droids. There was barely enough of them to sustain much of a firefight. And any resistance was thoroughly crushed upon the arrival of the Droid General Grievous.
He'd faced General Grievous one too many times. General Kenobi would joke that the Cyborg must track his movements considering how often they'd meet. All of those times, he'd had his Jedi General by his side; always calm and confident in the face of chaos.
In that palace, on that landing platform, they were alone.
He was snapped back to reality, as a shiny to his side groaned. The trooper clutched what was left of his arm. From the corner of his eye, he could see Kix sidestep towards him. Cody rummaged his brain, searching for a name and number. Ct - 4897… Torq, he recalled with a sting of sympathy. He had just managed to earn his yellow stripes.
Upon their capture, Grevious immediately questioned them for their Jedi's whereabouts. None of them spoke a word. Cody knew each and every one of his troops would die before handing their Generals over to the Separatists. But Grevious couldn't accept their silence as an answer.
"Tell me their location now, or watch your fellow clones die!" Grevious hacked, prowling up and down the line of clone troopers.
There was a sudden rush of movement. With the hiss of a lightsaber, Torq silently fell to his knees, cradling the cauterised stump of his elbow. Shallow breaths echoed around them.
"Leave him alone you overgrown tin can!" Fives spat. Cody had to admit that the arc trooper had heart. But his attitude often left them in compromising situations. The General coughed, clunking away to tower over him.
"I'll grant him a quick death if you tell me where the Jedi are?" The General lifted his sabre to Five's throat on the last word. Rex clenched his fists behind his head. The 212th's Commander snapped into action.
"You can't afford to kill us. You don't know how many were on the Citadel mission," he barked, borrowing some of the 501st's infamous lip.
Fives cast him a glance and the look of astonishment on his face almost made up for the giant cyborg now stalking towards him.
"Cody…" Rex muttered beside him. His concern didn't go unnoticed. Torq's arm lying across the floor was warning enough. But he knew he was right. Being Commander to "The Great Negotiator" had its benefits in that regard.
Greivous inched so close, he could smell the rotting breath from under his armour. His eyes looked more dead than alive. The Commander stood taller. He refused to give him the satisfaction of another fight with General Kenobi. Not today.
Unfortunately, a B1 battle droid did it for him.
"Sir! Our tactical droid has an update!" It squeaked. The General whipped around to face it down with as much loathing as he'd shown the clones. The poor droid flinched before whimpering, "The Jedi have been spotted in the palace throne room. With your forces, there is a 89% chance of detainment."
The General's laughterter swelled into a crescendo of coughing fits. Giving Cody one more despising glare, he flicked his cape at them and marched off to his shuttle.
Now, after a night of sporadic bouts of sleep in the palace dungeons, the droids were keeping them to a steady pace down the main road of the overrun city. Kix attempted to lean in closer to Torq, desperate to help his wounded brother. At the speed they were going, it was almost impossible for the medic to make any significant headway adjusting his bandages correctly. The atypical movement within the parade of clones stirred the focus of their droid entourage.
"Eyes forward, clone!" one whined, bumping up against his heels.
Kix lifted his hands in the air. His head hung low, his shoulders folding in on themselves. Their resident medic didn't just look tired - he looked trampled. Determined to help somehow, he turned to Rex for any creative ideas. Of course Rex had been watching the entire thing unfold. After the Umbarra incident, The Captain of the 501st Battalion had become far more attuned to the toll on his brothers. Cody had barely had a chance to understand the whole incident. But he remembered the look of devastation each one of those troops wore. That alone told him far more than any report ever could.
Rex bowed his head at him, before glancing over his shoulder at the droids behind him. Even with the helmet on, Cody knew that he was grinning. His feet begun to drag behind him, forcing his droid captors to momentarily slow down. The move was subtle, yet effective. Catching on, Tup adjusted his strides, followed up Boil and some of the 212th (who were ready to cause some mischief for once). Fives stretched his hands in the air, yawning with gusto. A soft chuckle arose from one or two of the Shiny's.
"Keep marching!" Squawked more droids. "Hey, I can't see!" Another cried out.
With a blanket of tiny distractions covering up his intent, Kix tended to the wound, tightening his bandages and applying some bacta salve he managed to hide. Cody knew that without hydration, they would all eventually succumb to their exhaustion. But the display of camaraderie helped ease his heart a little. Whatever happened, he would face it with his brothers.
Noticing how far ahead they were, the commando droids flanking the precession halted their ransacking of nearby stalls and citizens. They jogged back toward the group and after a few blaster barrels levelled at head height, the clones once again picked up the pace.
"Why do they want us out here? They've given us a better chance of escape…" Rex muttered to Cody.
Cody thought it through strategically. He knew the Separatists had taken the city and that thankfully, their Generals and the Commander had somehow evaded capture. For the Separatists, there was only one objective left to complete.
"We're bait to draw out the others," he replied. Their state of helplessness frustrated him to no end, especially when he could understand each and every move that Greivous had made.
Rex cursed quietly. "If we don't find a way out of this soon…"
Cody nodded, gazing to the citizens cowering with each metal footfall. He spotted a mother dragging her child away from the window.
"I know. The Generals will have a plan. We just gotta hold out until we know what it is."