Quinlan stumbled through the sand, casting occasional glances at the two clones ahead of him as undead Geonosians slowly began to follow. Force, I hate these bugs.

It vaguely occurred to him that that particular sentiment was incredibly unworthy of a Jedi. Oh well, if he cared enough to bother, he'd meditate about it later or something. For the moment, he had other things to do. Like surviving.

Turning, Quinlan reached up towards the doorway the Geonosians were filtering through. He clenched the Force around the weakened wall surrounding it and gave a solid tug, bringing shale and stone and dust down in a heap. Blinking blood out of his right eye, he admired his handiwork with a sort of grim satisfaction.

The undead in the tunnel would have trouble getting through that. Unfortunately, the ones already in the room were unbothered by the sudden blockade. They continued to advance slowly, though their approach was stalled by the many dead bodies in their path.

Quinlan kept half his attention to them, just in case, but refused to rush towards the main doorway despite their presence. He had a couple of injured teammates to keep track of, and there was no way he was going to risk losing sight of them, even to scout ahead.

Cody and Hunter were moving quickly enough, but they were wavering. The commander's limp had become more pronounced, and his left arm was braced against his chest. Hunter's face was smeared all over with blood, but what was more concerning at the moment was how quiet and seemingly unaware he was. His eyes were squinted, probably against a headache, and he tripped on a dead body that was in plain view.

At almost the same moment, Cody's ankle gave out and he nearly fell, just barely managing to catch himself against the wall.

With a tolerant sigh, Quinlan caught up to the two clones. Positioning himself between and a little behind them, he put a hand out to either side in case he had to steady them. Another turned ankle or bad fall would slow them down more than a careful walk would.

As they stepped through the cave's doorway, Quinlan glanced at Cody. "We should leave another barricade," he said conversationally.

"Understood, General." Cody's words were as crisp as ever, but his movements dragged as he placed the armed explosive on the upper edge of the doorway.

Beep – beep – beep.

"Countdown started, sir."

Quinlan did not waste time asking how long the countdown was, and neither did Hunter. They moved along the tunnel for ten meters or so, only pausing to look back when Cody did, and then quickly took shelter behind a ceiling support.

From inside the room, uncomfortably close to the doorway, a thin scream sounded.

"Umm." Narrowing his eyes as he peeked over the edge of his cover, Quinlan gestured impatiently at the blinking explosive. "Come oooon, that's your cue . . ."

A final flash of red light later, it detonated. The doorway crumbled in on itself with a sliding rattle of stones and sand, burying the undead who had made it that far. Hunter flinched at the noise, then slung Cody's armor over his shoulder. "Too bad they took our weapons," he murmured. "There are some Geos left."

"Where?"

"Somewhere ahead." The sergeant shifted a little. "I can't tell exactly where."

"Well, I'm sure we'll find 'em sooner rather than later," grumbled Quinlan. He didn't want to leave his lightsaber behind, but neither could he justify staying to look for it. Not with Cody injured as badly as he was. "Too bad I can't say the same for our weapons, but –"

A sharp sound of exasperation from Cody made him stop short. "Commander?" he asked hesitantly, turning his head.

Cody, who had bent to pick up something, straightened and turned, glaring at Quinlan as sharply as he had the time Quinlan told a bunch of rookies that Obi-Wan encouraged creative use of explosives.

"What?" he demanded, lifting both hands. "I didn't do anything this time, Codes!"

The commander shoved a lightsaber hilt into his hands, growling, "You were saying about our weapons?"

Quinlan accepted it with a sort of vague surprise and concern. "Uh, were you carrying this?"

"No, General." Cody turned away and carefully knelt to pick up his pistol while Hunter, with a pleased hum, collected his knife and rifle and helmet from a small stack of random weapons the Geos had probably taken from other unfortunate captives.

". . . Okayyy." Quinlan started down the tunnel again at as quick a pace as he dared. Had their gear seriously just been left, piled conveniently, thirty meters outside the cave? Well – he wasn't one to look a gift bantha in the mouth.

Behind him, he heard Hunter whisper, "What's wrong, sir?"

"Nothing," the commander answered, but not three seconds later, Quinlan distinctly heard him mumbling something about Jedi and their Force-forsaken habit of losing lightsabers.

Well, at least that was encouraging – sounded like Cody wasn't about to drop dead at any given moment after all.

Something chittered in an alcove, some fifteen meters ahead of them. Cody and Hunter fired together, and a dead warrior fell into view.

Quinlan blinked, eyeing the body. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"Yes, sir." The commander sighed. "Request noted."

"I'm just saying," Quinlan mumbled, stooping to touch the sand. Hunter's tracking abilities were better than his own in many ways, but nothing beat psychometry for backtracking the way they'd been brought in. Even if feeling their own fear and uncertainty wasn't exactly pleasant.

As a matter of fact, it was less than pleasant. Between that and his injuries, by the time they neared the top, Quinlan was dragging almost as much as the other two were.


Only a hundred meters left to walk, and they'd be out of this hive. Despite the fierce burn in his shoulder, Cody felt his lips turning up in a sardonic smirk. Somehow, they'd beaten the odds again. . . well, almost. He wasn't about to lower his guard.

Cody glanced at Hunter, whose attention was fixed on the approaching exit, then at Quinlan, who was dragging along worse than ever.

"What happened to the chipper spirit, sir?" he asked.

"Those bugs ate it a while back." Quinlan stumbled in the sand. "Must be some sort of Geo ability or whatever where they can suck the happy outta a person – or – something." He tripped again and huffed. "Sand does that too."

"Let me guess," Cody said dryly. "Because it's coarse and rough and gets everywhere?"

". . . Codes," the Jedi said in a serious tone. "Something tells me you got stuck working with Anakin the past few days."

"Whatever could have given you a thought like that?"

Hunter's helmet shifted as his focus moved from one to the other in evident confusion.

"The way you said it," Quinlan said, for once not noticing the sarcasm. "Hey, there's a guard coming up behind us –"

Cody turned around and fired a burst of lasers down the corridor. The startled screech of a Geonosian drone cut off halfway through.

And then, they were at the entrance. The sudden rush of cool night air woke Cody, and he clambered through the crumbling-edged hole into the starlight with a sense of vast relief. For a moment he stood, swaying a little as he tried to regain his bearings.

Hunter tapped his arm and pointed, pulling his helmet off with his free hand. "Our speeders are still there, Commander."

The universe, Cody thought, was occasionally kinder than he gave it credit for.

"Oh good," Quinlan sighed, slouching forward. " 'Cause base is . . . forever away, and I'm too lazy to walk that far, so yeah. The speeders still being here?" He shot Cody a tired smirk and a thumbs up. "Wizard. Race ya both back."

For someone who wanted to race, the Jedi was moving pretty slow.

It wasn't until they were mounting their speederbikes and Cody was reaching for the handlebars that his shoulder injury reasserted itself with a vengeance.

He bit his lip, then dismounted carefully. "I'll have to double up with one of you."

Hunter, who was fastening Cody's armor to the back of his speeder, looked up, but Quinlan shook his head before he could offer. "You'll have enough to do keeping yourself on, kid," he said, scooting forward. "You good with guiding us back to base?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." Quinlan waited for Cody to get on behind him, then pressed the activator and glanced over his shoulder. "Can you hold on okay?"

Gripping the saddle with his knees, Cody hooked his good arm through the back of the Jedi's crisscrossing overtunic. "Well enough we'll both fall if I do."

" . . . Good enough."

After checking that they were ready, Hunter shot away over the vaguely shimmering sand of the dunes. Quinlan hit the accelerator and followed. Within a minute, the entrance to the Progate Temple labyrinths was well out of range and Cody felt himself start to relax. With any luck, that would be the last time any of them would have to see it.


The rushing wind against Hunter's face helped clear his head of the internal pressure that had been building the whole time they were in the Geonosian caves. The injuries he'd gotten, in those last few desperate moments before Quinlan killed the Geos, distracted him from the remnants of the aching buzz in his limbs.

Letting out his breath, he accelerated over the top of the dune, enjoying the split second of airtime the maneuver gained him. The partial lack of gravity cleared his head even more, and by the time the base came into view, the last traces of the strange overload were fading.

Unfortunately, so was the adrenaline. After coasting past the sentries, who waved him through, Hunter pulled to a stop and dismounted. His knees promptly gave out, and he clutched at the speeder to steady himself.

Quinlan parked next to him and got clumsily off before turning to help the Commander, who was sagging weakly.

Hunter stepped forward to pull Cody's uninjured arm around his neck.

"Meeeedic!" the Jedi called, not very loudly, at the already-approaching medic.

"All due respect, sir, shove over," the medic said in a gruff but calm voice. He tapped Cody's face roughly, nodding when the Commander looked up. "Let's get you to the med tent, sir."

Hunter nodded, ready to bring Cody there, but a second medic was tugging at him. He stood in confusion for an instant, until Cody released him. "All set, Son," he said with a small smile. "Get yourself looked after."

As the Commander was helped away, the young medic whose voice Hunter was only now starting to register said, "Sergeant? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah." What kind of a question was that, anyway?

The medic said something else, but Hunter was distracted by the Jedi, who had joined them. "Better get him off to medbay with the Commander," he advised. "Those two have had it pretty rough, lately."

"What about you, General?" The medic sounded suspicious for some reason.

"I'll wait for you to come back." Quinlan patted Hunter on the back, stepped aside, and promptly allowed himself to flop onto his stomach in the sand.

The young medic – a rookie by his movement – jumped in surprise. "General?"

The Jedi lifted a hand and mumbled something into his sleeve.

With an uncertain look at Hunter, the medic tiptoed closer and crouched to poke the Jedi in the shoulder. "Sir? Would you repeat that?"

Raising his head, Quinlan gestured limply with his elevated hand. "Whenever you have time, you may drag me the rest of the way," he said. "Please and thank you."

Hunter felt the sudden urge to roll his eyes. "General, all due respect, stop being such a drama queen."

"I feel like I should resent that. . ." The Jedi did, however, get up. Catching sight of the rookie's face, he grinned a little apologetically. "Just lead the way, trooper."

". . . Yes, sir."


There wasn't much to add to the report. Peering down at the datapad, Quinlan distractedly blew his errant dreadlocks out of his eyes before tapping the scroll icon again. And again. Bored, he scrolled up and down several times, watching the words blur past.

He was pretty sure he'd added just about as much detail as he could stand in one sitting – heh – and besides, no one would care to read it anyway. Well, no one except the people involved on Geonosis, anyway – Cody and probably all the other commanders. And the lieutenants and captains and sergeants and heck, probably even the Jedi. But for whatever reason, he couldn't just toss it aside and send in the first draft like he usually did with quick side-missions. Maybe it was because he knew that at first glance and without enough details that no one would believe it? Maybe not even the guys who were here?

Kriff, there were still points he wasn't quite sure he believed. But that was only due to the fact that it had happened so fast. And also maybe just a little bit to the fact that he didn't want to really think about how he'd nearly been dinner for a queen of undead bugs. And he hadn't even had it as bad as Cody or Hunter, really.

Closing his eyes, the Shadow wondered what kind of nightmares they were all going to have from this little incident. Oh well, he thought. That does tend to happen when you are nearly about to be eaten alive by some creepy Hive queen wannabe.

He considered adding that description to the report and decided against it.

Sighing tiredly, Quinlan slid down to sit on the floor and propped up his chin with one fist, glaring at the screen as he tried to think of something to add. It didn't help that his eyes hurt from staring at the screen, despite the small light he'd kept on. If the medics would let him leave, he could do this in the main tent, but Obi-Wan's medics, go figure, were pretty much sticklers for procedure. Apparently plastering his back and arms and half his face with bacta patches wasn't enough to satisfy them.

Still, he had to admit to himself, even if to nobody else, the only reason he was actually finishing his report early instead of seconds before the deadline was that he was bored stiff. So that was at least useful.

"General," a now familiar voice whispered cautiously. Hunter was probably trying to avoid waking the commander, who slept in the cot between them. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to finish this report," he whispered back, waving the datapad at the sergeant. "It's taking forever. What are you doing?"

"Listening to you type and delete what you've been writing."

A scarily accurate assessment, especially given that Quinlan could barely hear his own fingers on the keypad. "Sssshhhhh," he hissed. "We don't want to wake the commander."

"Oh, you don't, do you?" grumbled Cody good-naturedly. "Well, too late for that, I've been awake for a long time. Hunter, go back to sleep. General, would you kindly put the datapad down and turn down that light? It's late and I don't want to deal with the medics throwing a fit at your not listening, because I already have a headache."

Quinlan huffed and complied. "Oh, sure thing, Dad."

He heard Hunter and Cody whip their heads around to look at him, but ignored them, instead climbing carefully back onto the cot and continuing to grumble. "Sheesh. I know medics are, like, monster crabs, but I didn't figure you were that scared of 'em."

The commander – rather pointedly – refused to say anything, opting instead for leveling Quinlan's happy-go-lucky attitude with a desert-flat glare. Then he sighed. "You realize the medics won't let us out until they are satisfied with our state of health?"

"Or until we're attacked," Hunter joined in.

"Right." Cody eyed him. "They might not let you out even then, lad. Go to sleep."

"Yessir."

Quinlan smirked. Cody and Hunter, he thought, had shown surprising levels of dad-and-sonness, so it only stood to reason that that was their proper affiliation. Which was great, as far as Quinlan was concerned. There was nothing as fun as teasing Cody and watching him get mad in that calm, stoically professional way of his. Especially when he was grumpy. Especially when he was grumpy; that was just solid gold waiting for an explosion.

And Quinlan's random jabs at Cody about being a dad confused Obi-Wan, so that gave Quinlan double points. Fox had once rolled his eyes and agreed with him, which definitely meant triple points. After a moment's thought, Quinlan decided to grant himself quadruple points if he ever managed to trap Cody into admitting it, and quintuple points if Cody admitted it while Hunter was in the room. Now that would be one for the books.

He was still smirking when Cody raised his left eyebrow in a darkly suspicious expression. "Vos," he said. "I don't even want to know."

"Yeah," Quinlan said brightly. "I know you don't. That's okay, I'll just give you a hint: I was kind of thinking about the fact that you're starting to get a reputation."

Cody's eyes narrowed.

Hunter cocked his head, eyes wide with wary curiosity. "Sir?"

Heh. Quinlan held back a grin. Hunter took the bait.

"Nothing," said Cody, sounding weary. "Right, General?"

HAHAHA, SO DID CODY!

"I don't think it's nothing." Quinlan sniffed thoughtfully. "I'm just talking. To pass the time. Because I'm bored. . . And because it's more fun to tease you about your dadness than to think about the fact that we could have been eaten by royal bugs."

Cody's expression went still, but his eyes made the slightest flicker to Hunter and back.

"Dad – ness?" Hunter asked, face going crooked in confusion as he tested the word.

Quinlan propped himself up on one elbow and tried not to laugh. Oh . . . this is so GOOD.

"Yeah, Sarge." The Jedi gave him as serious a look as he could muster at the moment. "See, 'dad' is a term used for fathers. Natborn thing. Basic-speaking planets especially. Y'know."

The look on Hunter's face implied that he did not know, but that light was beginning to dawn.

"And Cody's just got that typical 'dad' thing going," Quinlan went on, ignoring the way Cody's mouth had drawn into a thin line. "You know – 'Watch what you're doing, son' and 'You'll be fine, lad' and 'It's okay, kid'. The shinies especially." He grinned pointedly at the sergeant.

"I'm –" Hunter's gaze flickered between Cody and Quinlan. "Not a shiny. Sir."

Quinlan grinned and flipped his pillow over to the cool side. "Sure you're not, kiddo. So there's absolutely no reason why the Codes would ever call you –"

"General," the commander said flatly. "I believe that's quite enough for the moment."

"– Son," finished Quinlan, already savoring the Commander's murderous-not-murderous expression. "Which, like. I heard him do three times this mission."

Cody crankily tugged the blanket up to his neck – probably trying to hide the red creeping into his cheeks. Hopefully that was because he was embarrassed and not mad, though Quinlan supposed he'd probably find out the hard way. As usual. Totally worth it.

"I use it to keep soldiers from panicking." Cody defended himself at last, voice cold and grumpy as he stared at the medical tent's ceiling. "Typically, because of the familiarity of it, it seems to calm them down." He cleared his throat. "It just seems to work better on the . . . younger – troopers."

"Yeah!" Quinlan agreed heartily. "The shinies. Thus the dadness. Also Fox agrees with me."

The silence really stretched this time. Quinlan pondered how fast he could transfer to Aayla's battalion – after the medics let them go, of course. He could grab a transport and fly to meet up with Aayla and Bly. Might be smart. . . Even though Cody had his eyes closed now, his eyebrows were lifted with unmistakable displeasure.

But it was wooooorth iiiiiiiit, he sang mentally, lying down himself and not bothering to hide his self-satisfied smirk as he reached over and finally flicked off the lantern.


In the dark, Cody cracked open an eye and shot a sidelong glance at the Jedi to make sure he was actually going to sleep. Cody had too much experience with being stuck in medbay longer than he should have been, all because certain Jedi refused to cooperate. It was as though the medics took out their annoyance at the Jedi's lack of behavior on Cody. And now he had both Hunter and Quinlan stuck in here with him.

But the Jedi seemed to be going to sleep, finally. At least he wasn't reading under the blanket with a flashlight or whatever. When Cody paused to consider that he had even come up with that as something Quinlan would do, a sighing sense of annoyance hit him. Really? Was his opinion of the 'mighty' Jedi getting so low?

"Probably doesn't help that the ones I know all act like half-grown children," he muttered under his breath.

Then he cast a quick glance at Quinlan to make sure the Jedi hadn't heard; but there was really no worry. He'd already sunk into a meditative trance. Turning carefully onto his uninjured side and bunching the blankets around his neck, Cody carefully ignored the fact that he could practically hear Hunter's grin.

Force, he thought wearily at the reluctant understanding that Hunter was amused by Quinlan – a very dangerous thought, indeed. Guess I should just be grateful it wasn't all four of the lads working with him.

Feeling a bit mollified by that fact, Cody decided to ignore the threat for now and shut his eyes, finally allowing sleep to claim him.