Chapter warning for a torture scene. It's the second scene, so if you don't want to see it, you can just skip down to the third scene instead.
Jocasta follows Quirk and Sly back down the path, using the Force to erase their trail as they do. Plo had taken the rest of the team away as soon as the weather control device had gone up in the explosion, but since they'd had to temporarily abandon their swoop bikes a little further down due to the path thinning out, they'd left more obvious tracks in the snow. While there wasn't exactly anyone left from the base to follow them, Jocasta's instincts had still rankled enough at the idea of leaving a way for someone to possibly track them down had meant that she'd stayed behind to use the Force and hide their path.
Sly and Quirk had demanded to stay with her to defend her, which was heartwarming in the face of the destruction they left behind. She'd at least managed to persuade them that she needed to be at the back of the group to effectively use the Force on the snow to hide their footprints, though Quirk had argued so furiously at that that Jocasta was mildly worried about them. Possibly the disappearance of Wolffe and his squad had rattled them more than they wanted to admit; the majority of these clones were quite young, after all.
Plo reaches out and tangles his mind against hers for a moment as they approach, making her tilt her head and send back a questioning-curious-concern hum back. Plo's own reassurance-hope-fondness-worry isn't exactly as reassuring as he might hope, and she nudges against him again before sweeping sideways with the Force to bury their tracks again.
They can discuss whatever's going on with her ankai'a in a moment. For now she needs to keep these two troopers of hers safe.
Plo is practically bouncing by the time Jocasta finishes her trek back to the bikes, but the thing that really clues her in to the situation is the way Boost makes a beeline for her, barely sparing a moment to nod thanks to the Scouts before tucking himself against her side again. She raises an eyebrow at him, unseen, and transfers it to Plo the second that they're close enough for proper conversation in the slowly-dying storm.
"Knight Kiili believes he has located Wolffe." Plo tells her, and everything immediately makes perfect sense again.
"How?"
"Since the storm was dying down, he used Sinker's commlink to attempt to connect to Wolffe's using the locator and the booster device." He explains, holding out a hand and tucking her into his side when she takes it. "It's nearer to us than to the main base- a second processing facility that Adaroo knows how to reach- but Kit has promised to send some of the troopers our way to help us liberate the facility."
Jocasta frowns, nodding, and looks up to meet his eyes. "There's no guarantee that Wolffe is actually there, other than the fact that his comm is."
"If they've been captured it's likely that their armour is nearby. It would be too ineffective to remove it away from the base."
"Could take them back to the base and then move them elsewhere."
"It's a chance."
Jocasta sighs, fond, because she knows full well she won't talk him out of this. And honestly she doesn't intend to; someone has to play the advocate here, however, and at least try and prepare them for the chance that things will be worse than they hope.
"We absolutely can't go in there like this." She says, and means you are not taking a civilian into this fight.
"Of course not." Plo agrees, to both her spoken and felt words. "But we can at least scout things out somewhat before the troopers get here and we can make a proper assault."
"Do we have any sort of data on it already?"
"Aside from the holos, no."
"Then I think the order of events here is getting to the base, then making plans." Jocasta gives him another stern look, and her ankai'a nods again.
"Adaroo, could you lead us to this second processing site? Then perhaps you should return to Kit's group, so that you can help those being kept in the mines."
"Of course, Master Jedi." Adaroo says, as they all head back to their bikes. Clicker is already on his, looking thoroughly ready for the potential fight, and perhaps Jocasta should re-evaluate her position on letting Cin have him for a while. Being trained by the Temple Battlemaster might knock some more patience into him.
"Shall we, Master Nu?" Plo gestures towards the swoop bike as she disentangles herself from the two of them- as much as she loathes to take the comfort Boost is drawing from it away, they have a mission and that comes first- with a semi-formal bow.
"Oh, after you, Master Koon." She smirks back, waving grandly towards his bike and then turning the gesture to encompass the path beyond.
From behind them Jocasta feels a sharp spike of exasperated-embarrassed-for kriff's sake stop flirting from Boost, which it so unexpected that both of them laugh, and she turns her grin back towards her boy.
"Problem, foh paqor?"
"Yeah, we've got a mission to get on with." He grouses at them both. "Now come on, already."
Jocasta laughs again, swinging astride her bike. "Very well, foh kitobotho paqor." She consents. "Ser Adaroo, lead the way."
The besom chaavla masquerading as a proper aru'e returns some unknown amount of time later. Wolffe hears her coming well before she gets to the room they're in and places himself between her and his vod'ike. It won't do much, not if she's determined to get to them, but Wolffe's equally determined to try anything to defend them even a little.
It's worthless, of course; she just uses the Force to tear him away from them and slam him against the wall.
"Hello there darlings." She grins, sweet and sickly, and Wolffe hates her. "Having fun?"
"Go kriff yourself." He spits. She tuts.
"Now now, dear, didn't anyone ever teach you manners?" She mocks, stepping closer to Comet. She runs a finger along the line of his jaw, tilting his head up slightly, and meets Wolffe's gaze as she lifts one of her lightsabers. "It wouldn't do if your poor behaviour caused some… issues, now, would it?"
He bites his tongue on his next reflexive response and glares back instead.
"Good boy." She coos, letting go of Comet. "You can be taught! I was wondering." She steps closer to him instead, still held against the wall, and swaps her lightsaber for a short knife instead.
Wolffe's almost impressed. Most Force users seem to forget that they can carry other weapons than their lightsabers. Almost, because this is the worst person to remember that that's an option.
"Now, darling, how about you go ahead and tell me a little about your Jedi's plans, hmm?" She asks.
"Get lost." He snarls, because there's not a force in the world that'll make him betray General Plo's plans. Not when it means vod'e will die in her pursuit of him. He'll die before he lets that happen, and he knows each of the shinies in here would agree with him.
He hates that too, because none of these shinies deserve to die just because they were unlucky enough to be in a squad with him when he was targeted.
"Hm, I see your lesson needs a bit of reinforcement to stick." She tuts again, sighing. "Oh well, I suppose it's only to be expected, really. Stubborn mastiffs do exist, but even the most stubborn of them can be taught, don't you agree?"
Without warning, she twists, suddenly slicing the knife through Incident's shoulder from where she'd been slowly edging towards them.
"Ah-ah-ah, darling, none of that." She scolds, mockingly pleasant and entirely sour. "Violent mastiffs get put down, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"
Incident glares at her, pushing down on her shoulder with her free hand, and Spitter shifts himself next to her to apply pressure of his own as she sinks to the ground. It doesn't look too deep, Wolffe doesn't think; it's not really to injure so much as it's to cause pain and to piss him off.
He hates that it's working.
"How about you tell me what I want to know?" She asks him, like he's inconveniencing her instead of her having kidnapped and tortured his vod'e in front of him. "If you do, this'll all be over, you know? I'll even let your little troopers go."
The offer smells like osik and he knows it, because the Sith doesn't care about what happens to his siblings, and she's far more likely to kill all five of them the second she gets her information. He won't break.
She sighs again, still sounding for all the Galaxy like he's the one being unreasonable here. "I suppose you need a little encouragement to speak up, then, don't you."
She walks away again, going over to Spitter and hauling him to his feet, wrenching his hands away form Incident's wound and making her cry out. She hums, stretching his right arm out- and the fact that he's frozen means that he's either too terrified to try anything or being pinned down with the Force, too- and examines it for a moment before lighting her lightsaber.
Wolffe freezes.
"Like I said, darling," she says, like she's just discussing the weather, "Just tell me what I want to know and all of this stops."
Spitter looks terrified as she lowers the blade slowly towards his forearm, just keeps looking straight ahead as if not watching could make it stop happening, and something inside Wolffe snaps. He tears at the pressure on him, ripping himself out of the Sith's grip and lunging.
He makes it all of a step before he's caught again, first by the Force then her hand physically around his throat, but even in the face of her absolutely furious scowl all he can feel is relief that he got her away from Spitter without getting him hurt. It's not much, but even one of the shinies avoiding injury is all he has to win right now.
"That," she hisses, "Wasn't very nice, now, was it?"
She presses him against the wall again. Her lightsaber's still lit.
"I think you need a more personal reminder of what happens when you defy me."
It flashes down.
They're working on scouting out the base when Plo suddenly shouts, dropping to one knee and clutching at his face. The Force reverberates with pain-horror-terror-anger-pain and Jocasta reacts instinctively, spinning on her heel and darting over to her partner's side. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registers Clicker doing the same, and Boost is following them even though he clearly has no idea what's going on, radiating panic-confusion-fear in a twisted blast.
"Plo." She says desperately, reaching out to pull his hands away from his face and squeezing. He squeezes back, tighter than he's done in many years, and the tips of his claw covers dig into her skin, drawing blood. "Plo, ankai'a, what's wrong?"
"Jo." He replies, the word nearly lost among the hisses of pain and grief falling from his palates. His tusks are twisted up in a striking position, as though warding off an attacker, and he pulls a little at his hands, trying to move them back to his face. "Jo-"
"I'm here, Plo, I'm here, what's wrong, please."
"Jo, I- it- ezrhu, ankai'a, foh wung-" He stutters, and Jocasta's heart drops.
"General, ahran, what-"
"Hold on a moment, Boost." She says, sharply- she doesn't mean to be sharp and she feels bad for snapping when he's distressed as well but- she kneels properly, breathes deeply, and pulls on the Force.
Some of the pain comes with it, drawn out of Plo and into her, and she spends a moment processing it- sharp, burning heat along her eye, dragging and dragging and burning it burns it burns- before releasing it into the Force. Plo sags into her at the relief, and she ignores the tears running down her cheeks before doing it again.
Part of her registers that Clicker has joined them in the meditation, helping to pull the pain from Plo and release it into the Force so that he can think again, but it still takes far too long even with both of them helping to get Plo to the point that he can do this for himself.
But it works, and once they're all settled enough from it- Plo pressing apologies all around for making them bear that weight with him and both of them forgiving him- they pull back.
Boost is kneeling next to them as well, hands on theirs like he's trying to help them, and the rest of the clones are circled loosely around them with their blasters raised.
"Ahran? Buir?" Boost asks softly. "What- what happened?"
Plo reacts immediately, always so in tune to the emotions of his charges, and pulls Boost against his side in a hug. "I am sorry I worried you so, foh paqor." He murmurs.
"It was a type of psychic shock." Jocasta explains to all of them, though she moves in to hug Boost as well. "Backlash of strong emotions passing through a bond, and in this case, manifesting in similar physical sensations."
Boost perks up. "A bond? Like-"
He freezes, then, apparently realising what the implications of that thought actually mean, and Plo nods solemnly.
"I believe we have discovered what has happened to Wolffe." He says, mournful-tired-regretful-horrified. "And I believe he is being tortured."
Jocasta breathes, bearing that pain for a moment and letting it wrap around her chest, squeezing her heart, before letting it go.
"Then we best get a move on with rescuing him, don't you think?" She decides, standing and pulling both her boys to their feet as well. "There's no time to waste, after all."
Dai Bendu
Ankai'a- darling, heartsong, soulmate
Foh paqor- my child
Foh kitobotho paqor- my great/wonderful child ('kitobotho' is made up from 'kitobo', meaning good, with the suffix 'tho', which is basically an 'est' or 'er' ending. I think. Dai Bendu is a bit of a mess in that regard but I'm fairly sure I got it right)
Ezrhu- to suffer, to be tortured
Foh wung- I hurt (wung is used specifically for physical pain)
Ahran- parent
Mando'a
Besom- ill-mannered lout, unhygienic person, someone with no manners (in Mandalorian terms)
Chaavla- rough, unruly, of the criminal underclass (by Mando standards, which is very rough indeed)
Aru'e- enemy
Vod'ike- little siblings ('ika' is a diminutive, often used to suggest a younger sibling in this case, and 'ike' is the plural form)
Vod'e- siblings
Osik- shit
Buir- parent