AUTHOR'S NOTE: TW for security lockdown type situations and anxiety over traumatic memories
Riyo took a bite of pastry and glared at the data pad in her other hand, expertly navigating the corridor with her peripheral vision as she read. "Hmmmm."
"Commander Cody said he'd send another report in a week's time, but he doubts we'll see a huge shift in the numbers," Maja said.
Riyo sighed. "I understand, thank you." She'd known that most clones were unlikely to voluntarily leave the GAR, but the numbers in Commander Cody's report were even worse than she'd feared. Barely 0.1% of has chosen to leave.
"I can't say I blame them," Maja said. "What would I do if someone dropped me off on a random planet with no job and no money?"
"They're waiting for Senate support. At least, I have to hope many more of them will accept retirement if programs and resources are made available to them. Which reminds me—Maja, can you ask Senator Sadeas to attend the Armed Services Committee tomorrow? She's on the Education Council and I'd appreciate their cooperation on developing a job training program."
"Certainly, ma'am. She was right back in that conference room—I'll see if I can catch her now."
Maja hurried down the hallway and Riyo returned to her datapad, reading it through once more in the hopes that further absorption might magically summon a solution to her mind. Commander Fox keyed open the lift for her and she entered without looking up from her reading. Then, just as the lift started its ascent towards her office, it jolted to a stop.
Fox immediately emerged from the shadows, placing a firm hand on Riyo's shoulder and raising his other hand to the side of his helmet. "Understood. Execute a full lockdown now."
Riyo's heart started to race. "What's going on?"
He moved to the control panel in the corner and punched in a series of codes, answering without breaking his concentration. "There's a security breach in the lower levels. I'm taking you to a safe room on a private level of the Senate inaccessible except by this lift with my security code. We'll wait there until we get the all clear."
"Is it serious?" Riyo asked, fingers curling tightly around the datapad still clutched in her hands.
"We don't know anything yet, Madame Chancellor, but we have to take all threats seriously."
The lift started to move again, coming to a stop at a floor with no number displayed. The doors hissed open onto a bare, utilitarian hallway with two troopers posted on either side. They saluted her and Fox, but Fox ignored them, grabbing Riyo by the elbow and practically carrying her down the hallway.
They entered an intimidating, triple-sealed door at the end of the hall and Fox locked the door behind them, activating a ray shield over it for extra protection. Heart still racing and adrenaline pumping, Riyo looked around at the small, windowless room he'd locked them in. There was a couch and a refrigerated chest labelled "provisions," and that was it. Trying to calm down, Riyo sat herself in the corner of the couch and drew her legs to her chest.
She sat in suspense, breathing in and breathing out and with each inhalation wondering what was going on outside of their bunker. It was just standard procedure, she knew that. She'd been in the Senate building during lockdowns before and usually it was a simple misunderstanding. A visitor forgot to leave his blaster at home or a protestor decided to make a scene or someone set the fire alarm off by accident—none of them had represented a real threat to the Senate. She knew this, yet she feared.
You've meddled in my affairs for the last time, Riyo Chuchi. The rasping voice sounded in the back of her mind, reminding her that there could be spies, secrets, enemies—anywhere.
Fox paced back and forth in front of the door, his head tilted forward and his grip tight on his blaster. The steady thud of his boots reverberated through Riyo's head like a pounding headache, the second heartbeat doing nothing to slow her racing pulse.
"Please stop pacing," she said, holding her head in her hands.
The steps stopped, their even beat replaced by an even more unbearable silence. How was it possible that the absence of sound could be even louder than its presence?
"Um… Um… So what do you think it is this time? The Trandoshan senator forgot to leave his vibroblade at home again?" she asked, chuckling weakly.
"I don't know yet. I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything," Fox said, not acknowledging her joke in any way.
Well I can't say I blame him, Riyo thought miserably to herself. It was a pretty terrible joke.
The quiet continued, and Riyo took to cracking her knuckles, moving one finger at a time and hearing her mother's annoyed reprimand in her head as she did so. You're going to get arthritis, I swear!
She looked up at Fox and saw only the back of his white-and-red armor, his posture perfectly straight and his body unmoving. He stared forward at the ray-shielded door, rifle held at the ready and stance completely controlled. He might as well have been a droid.
"Can you please just say something?" she said, harsher than she meant to. "I'm scared, and you're the only one here."
He turned to her, shoulders tilted back like she'd bit him. "Yes ma'am! ...What would you like me to say?"
"I don't know, anything that doesn't involve shooting or hostages or death."
Fox paused, as if her requirements were simply too difficult to fulfill. "...There's a new batch of clones coming from Kamino next week."
It occurred to Riyo that Fox didn't have much to talk about outside of his life in the military, and that struck her as sad. It was also unfortunate for her, since the thought of more soldiers the Republic never should have conscripted and couldn't afford to pay did little to calm her nerves. The part of her motivated by guilt wanted to let the matter drop and leave the poor Commander alone, but the part of her whose mind was spiraling with nagging anxiety won out.
"Why are more coming? I thought we stopped production," she said.
"You did, ma'am, but it takes nine years for clones to be ready for combat. Production began on the clones arriving tomorrow nine years ago."
Riyo winced. "Let's… let's not use the word 'production,' shall we?"
"...It was the word you first used, ma'am."
"I'm aware, but let's not use it anymore."
"As you say, ma'am."
They both fell silent, and Riyo curled even farther into the cushions of the musty couch. It smelled like mildew with a faint whiff of industrial cleaner, and she wondered when it had last been used. The Senate Dome was an ancient building, and it had witnessed many a coup or otherwise traumatic incident in its long history. She wondered if anyone had died in here, unable to escape the vault that was supposed to protect them, trapped in their own tomb.
"I went to a bar last week," Fox blurted out, interrupting Riyo's circling disquiet.
"What?"
Fox shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "...My apologies, ma'am, I was trying to think of something to distract you."
She stared blankly at him for a moment, trying without success to imagine Fox letting loose in a nightclub. "...Well? How was it?"
He was still helmeted but she imagined she could hear the grimace in his voice. "Not great. I don't like alcohol."
"Then a bar seems like an odd choice for an evening out."
"I was meeting with a colleague."
"What for?" Riyo asked, trying to drive the less than scintillating conversation to a topic compelling enough to distract from what might be happening outside their little bunker.
"To talk. About the past."
"...The past?"
"Yeah."
The climate control clicked on, filling the empty room with a low, steady hum. The elaboration Riyo waited patiently for never came. Well, perhaps she wasn't waiting that patiently.
She huffed. "You know what? Just don't say anything. If you're not going to say anything of substance I prefer the silence."
Fox stared at her for a moment, then turned to the door, his back to her. He stood there, completely still, staring at the wall, and Riyo realized she'd ordered him both to stop pacing and to stop talking. He didn't have many other options to pass the time.
She sighed and, with some effort, uncurled herself from her tightly-wound ball. "Fox.. Will you sit here please?" she said, patting the couch next to her.
Fox turned around, his head tilting first toward the cushion on the couch and then towards Riyo. "I'm on duty."
"I know, but you can hear the comms through your helmet, right? And there are at least a dozen troopers just outside. If something is headed for us, you'll know with enough time to get off the couch."
"Yes, ma'am." He walked towards her like he was stepping through a minefield and carefully lowered himself onto the couch.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you," Riyo said, voice soft. "I wasn't like this before. Nobody thought I could, but I handled negotiations with the Talz without breaking my composure. Our people were on the brink of war with them, but I was able to take it in stride. But ever since I found out about Chancellor Palpatine… Ever since I had to look him in the face and pretend I didn't know, hope that he couldn't somehow tell… I don't always handle the fear very well."
"Chancellor Palpatine was a frightening man."
Riyo nodded. "I suppose you would probably know that better than most.
She looked down at the hands in her lap and fiddled with her fingers. She didn't like anyone knowing about this weakness, but she supposed if it was Fox it was alright. He'd probably already guessed from her nightmares, anyway.
"I don't deserve to be the role model you're looking for," Fox said.
"What?" Riyo said, not following the transition in Fox's thoughts.
"You wanted someone to be the first to leave the GAR, right? I don't deserve to be that person."
Riyo furrowed her brow. "What do you mean? You have an excellent service record, and-"
"I have an excellent service record because I did everything Chancellor Palpatine asked me to do."
"But why would that-" Riyo cut herself off, Fox's meaning dawning on her midway through her sentence. "Oh. I see."
Fox took his helmet off, resting it bottom-up on his lap so he could still hear the faint sounds of the comms coming through. He ran a hand through his thick hair and his shoulders sagged. "Captain Rex doesn't like me because I shot his friend on the Chancellor's orders."
"Oh! A… a civilian?" she said, trying to sound as non-judgmental as possible.
Fox shook his head. "No, a clone. An ARC trooper named Fives."
"Do you know why the Chancellor asked you to kill him?"
"No. He told me that Fives had tried to kill him, but I have no idea if that's true or not. With the former Chancellor… there was always an angle. I thought it wasn't my place to question his orders, so I've followed hundreds—thousands—of orders having no idea if they were for the good or the Republic or not. For all I know every single one of them was a cruel, sadistic act done on behalf of a madman."
His words sank in slowly, the horror of their meaning taking time to settle in Riyo's mind. What would it be like to know that everything you'd done in the past three years might have been in service to an evil, corrupt plot? Realizing the degree to which Chancellor Palpatine had manipulated the Senate to his own ends had felt like that to a certain extent, but it didn't approach the kind of control Fox was talking about.
"It wasn't your fault," she said. "As far as you knew following his orders was the right thing to do. He was the highest representative of the Republic."
"That's not an excuse," Fox said, his eyes flashing. "I used to believe that but not anymore. If I receive an order that is amoral, I will not follow it."
"How can that not be an excuse? I anyone has an excuse, it's-"
"I understand that, but claiming that I never had a choice isn't acceptable. It takes away my ability to think for myself. It takes away my belief in myself as a full person."
Riyo fell silent, nodding slowly as she processed his words. She might not agree, but she could understand where he was coming from.
"...What does this have to do with refusing to leave the GAR?" she asked eventually.
Fox's hands flexed around the base of his helmet, his amber eyes staring steadily into its depths. "It's a chance for a redo, of sorts. A chance to serve a different Chancellor—one I believe in. A chance to try to fulfill my duties again but this time without ceding my integrity over to someone else."
"I… understand," Riyo said, though of course she couldn't truly. But the part she understood was enough. "I won't ask you to resign again."
"Thank you."
She looked sideways at him, then let her gaze fall to her lap. "I…" she wrung her hands. Then sat up straight and looked him in the eye. "I promise I will do everything I can to be a Chancellor worthy of your loyalty and protection."
"I know," Fox said, the corner of his mouth turning up to the smallest degree. "I wouldn't have requested this post otherwise."
The beginnings of an answering smile grew on Riyo's face, then crackling words emanated from Fox's helmet, capturing his attention. He shoved the helmet on and got to his feet, standing still for several beats while he listened.
"We've got the all-clear," he said, motioning for Riyo to follow him.
"Oh! Well…" She'd almost forgotten about the lockdown, somehow. She supposed she had to thank Fox—his attempts to distract her had ultimately succeeded.
Feeling almost dizzy from the sudden change of pace, Riyo gathered her datapads up in her arms and followed Fox out of the room. The troopers outside saluted her as they made their way back to the lift, and Riyo tried to nod and smile back encouragingly, disoriented as she was.
The lights of each floor flashed across Riyo's face as she took the lift down to her next meeting, each flash illuminating Fox's face beside her. He was the same, but somehow his eyes seemed more expressive, his skin more organic. He was a living, breathing Human. He'd been born, grown up among his peers, and struggled to get through his day-to-day life. And one day he would die, too, like any other Human or near-Human. Riyo was grateful that day had not been today.
In only ten minutes she was back in a conference room, fielding questions about the budget and negotiating terms on a spending bill. Her mind still buzzed with thoughts of Fox and the guilt and regret he'd shared with her. If she were him, she didn't think she'd have the discipline or endurance to try to set things to right. She didn't think she'd have the courage to face her past and stare down her mistakes day after day.
A door slammed particularly loudly behind one senator as he entered the room, and Riyo jumped, losing her train of thought for a moment and looking down at her pile of datapads in confusion.
I should ask for a recess, she thought to herself. I'm a mess.
Then she felt Fox's presence behind her, reassuring and confident. He believed in her. He'd been broken and abused by another in her exact position, but he was willing to do it all again for her.
Riyo got back to work.
Usually Fox went right to bed as soon as his shift ended. A sleep-deprived guard was a sloppy guard, and Fox's shifts were long. Back when he'd still commanded the Guard, he'd operated on a lot less sleep, but he'd also never acted as anyone's personal guard. A well-rested mind was essential to a job that combined a need for constant attentiveness with mind-numbing boredom in that unique way guard duty did.
For all those reasons Fox's typical routine after the shift change involved dragging himself to his quarters, a quick trip to the 'fresher, then bed. But tonight he'd need to make an exception.
Fox sat down at the personal communications terminal in his quarters. He hadn't used it much since Commander Thorn had taken over his duties with the Guard, but it was still here. Just waiting for me to reach out to my many friends, Fox thought to himself, chuckling at his little joke. Although he supposed today that wasn't a joke, since he'd received a message just yesterday from Bacara asking for Fox to comm him.
A distant memory from commander training on Kamino returned to Fox, bringing him back to endless storms and even more monotonous drills.
"CC-1010! What do you think you're doing?" Ouijan Bataar yelled from the platform above.
Fox lay immobilized on the ground of the training arena, the practice rounds from the battle droids having incapacitated him. "Our orders were to hold our ground no matter what, sir!"
"Well holding your ground isn't much use if you're dead," the cantankerous bounty hunter said.
"Even so, a commander can't ignore orders from his superiors. Perhaps my death bought another battalion the time they needed to advance."
Ouijan rolled his eyes and jumped down from the platform, landing right next to Fox. He kicked Fox's paralyzed side. "That's very poetic, soldier, but save that kind of attitude for the troopers. You're in commander training. You need to think for yourself. You need to be willing to improvise."
Bly, Cody, and Bacara murmured amongst themselves from somewhere above Fox, and Fox gritted his teeth. It was about the only movement he was capable of, anyway.
"I understand that, sir, but I will only improvise how to achieve my objectives. I won't improvise what those objectives are. We serve the Republic, not ourselves."
"You don't seem to be getting it-" Ouijan said, his foot pulling back for another kick.
"I agree with CC-1010, sir!" a clone voice called from above.
Fox craned his neck as much as he could manage, catching Bacara's face looking down at him.
"Oh do you, CC-1138?"
"Yes, sir. Unwillingness to adapt is weakness, but choosing to follow orders out of principle isn't."
Ouijan crossed his arms across his broad chest, his beady eyes narrowing. For a moment, Fox thought he might have been convinced, that he might relent-
"Ok then. Both of you, 100 laps. Now."
Legs aching just at the memory, Fox chuckled to himself again. That was two chuckles in one evening; telling Chancellor Chuchi about Fives must have really loosened him up. Thoughts of the Chancellor brought an uncomfortable warmth to his cheeks as embarrassment paired with a strange sort of lightness accompanied the recollection. Some level of emotional distance was helpful in discharging his duties as a bodyguard, but there was something nice about getting to know the Chancellor better.
The communications terminal pinged insistently at him, and Fox remembered his purpose. He had no idea what Bacara wanted to talk about, but he knew it wasn't wise to delay. Bacara was a man after Fox's own heart, and he wouldn't want to meet up over trivial nonsense.
Fox punched in Bacara's holo code and Bacara immediately answered, appearing from the waist up above the terminal in luminescent blue.
"Fox. Good to see you."
"You, too, Bacara. You haven't been back to Coruscant in a while."
"Since before we got the new Chancellor."
"What's on your mind?"
The corner of Bacara's mouth turned upward—he'd always appreciated Fox's ability to get right to the point. "Tell me about Chancellor Palpatine's arrest."
Fox paused, his brow furrowing. "...Didn't you get the reports?"
"Yes, but I want to hear it from you."
"Alright. About six months ago Chancellor Chuchi came to suspect Chancellor Palpatine of corruption. She found evidence that he was actually a Sith—a dark Force user—so she went to the Jedi Council to ask for their help in arresting him."
"She went straight to the Jedi Council? Without going through the Senate?"
"She got the support of several senators first, but she didn't take it to the broader Senate. She was worried that if Chancellor Palpatine got wind of her investigation he might do something drastic, and she didn't know who to trust."
Bacara frowned, one hand tapping slowly on his other forearm. "It seems like the kind of thing the Senate should have voted on."
"You know I don't comment on politics," Fox said. One thing he'd learned in his time on Coruscant was how important it was for the GAR to stay out of the legislative fray.
Bacara drew his lips to a line, his gaze hardening. "What about the day the Chancellor was arrested. You were there, right?"
"Yes. I'll never forget it, brother. I was just outside of his office when Generals Windu, Yoda, and Koon arrived with Senator Chuchi and several of her allies. They brought an arrest warrant and a petition signed by around twenty senators, so I let them in."
"You just… let them in? It could have been a coup."
"No elected official is above the law, not even Chancellor Palpatine, and they had an arrest warrant. I followed them into the study, to make sure everything stayed calm, and I saw it with my own eyes. Chancellor Palpatine attacked the Generals—he nearly killed General Windu."
"Hm. That's… strange."
"What's this about, brother?" Fox asked. He'd indulged Bacara's curiosity long enough.
Bacara's intelligent eyes were cool as he carefully chose his wording. "I've come across some information that has me concerned. I'm concerned that perhaps the Jedi Council is too powerful. I'm concerned that the Council, which is supposed to serve the Republic, was able to replace the Republic's Chancellor."
"The Council is powerful, but it was the Republic who gave them that power. And… Bacara, I know you haven't spent much time on Coruscant, but as someone who worked with Chancellor Palpatine regularly, I can't blame Chancellor Chuchi for keeping her investigation a secret until the arrest. He was a powerful man who always seemed to know everything."
"...Maybe you're right."
"And what is this information you're talking about? What have you heard?"
Bacara shook his head. "I can't tell you now. I'm coming to Coruscant in a few weeks. We should talk then. I'm hoping to get Cody, Bly, and Gree too."
"Bacara, what's going on? What has you so spooked?"
"In two weeks. I can't talk openly until we're in person."
"Bacara-"
"I've got to go, Fox. Thanks."
The comm shut off. Fox stared into the empty space Bacara's face had just occupied, his mouth pulling into a frown. What had that been about?
Fox sent Bacara several followup messages, but they all went unanswered. Fox gave his terminal a withering stare, the kind of stare that could make any shiny follow his every command, but the terminal remained unimpressed. Bacara was gone.
Unable to command his Bacara's prompt reply, Fox finished his nightly ritual and climbed into his bunk, pulling the coarse, practical fabric up to his chin. There was nothing more he could do for now, but still Bacara's words rattled around in his brain, warding away the sweet embrace of sleep.
Fox couldn't imagine what had spooked his brother so much, but there was one thing he knew for sure. Bacara wasn't the type to worry over nothing.
AUTHOR'S NOTE PART II: I swear I wrote this before everything happened at the US capitol last week
