If I fall along the way
Pick me up and dust me off
And if I get too tired to make it
Be my breath so I can walk
If I need some other love
Give me more than I can stand
And when my smile gets old and faded
Wait around I'll smile again
Commander Gree and Captain Jor walked through the Tranquility's stocked cargo bay, inspecting all supplies and rigging for their upcoming departure to Saleucami in unusual silence. The 41st operated a little more somberly over the past day since the HoloNet hadn't stopped rehashing commentary and reports about Commander Offee confessing to crimes against the Republic. Their helmets had been safely stowed on their belts an uncommonly long time because the vast majority of the information scrolling along their heads-up displays focused solely on their almost certainly former commander.
The turning point had been when the HUD traffic veered from discussing Barriss into implications about her master, their general. Gree was immediate in chewing out the instigators, threatening demotion, and reminding them not to question a leader who had consistently proven herself for nearly three years. Ever since, his helmet had been on his belt and his mood had been dampened. Now, the officers were keeping themselves busy, like the rest of the 41st, until they could commence lockdown upon Luminara Unduli's return from the Jedi Temple.
Gree expected his usually chatty captain to break the silence on several occasions, mainly when Jor restlessly ran a hand over his bald head or glanced at the remaining cargo, his mismatched eyes— one tan, one blue— practically screaming his dismay. Gree was almost surprised that he didn't himself break the silence that felt heavy enough at times to buckle his knees. But he harbored a nagging suspicion that whatever topic they attempted would ultimately lead back to Commander Offee, and that was a subject neither man wanted to broach at the moment.
Halfway through their inspection, Gree's wristcom beeped, bringing a message from one of the bridge officers. "Commander, we just received word from the Jedi... they're recalling our operations order."
"They're what?" Gree nearly shouted. A look to Jor hardly helped; his expression floundered in deeper confusion than the commander's.
The gray-clad clones on the bridge paused when Gree appeared, red hair as distinct as his helmet, Jor at his heels. The bridge officers never had much in the way of interesting events occuring during their shifts, so they watched their commander with bated breath as he stalked over to the communication terminal to replay the newest message. Four holographic figures flickered to life, Masters Yoda, Windu, Kenobi and Secura. It took longer than necessary for the Jedi to dance around their point, but "in light of recent events," they decided it was best to pull the 41st from the mission to Saleucami, instead entrusting it to Master Secura and her soldiers.
This was certainly unprecedented. So unprecedented that Gree stared in silence at a vacant holoterminal for the better part of a minute until he heard Jor whisper over his shoulder, "Sir, can they do that? Don't they have to get it approved through the GAR first?"
Gree turned to the captain. "Who in the GAR outranks any one person on the Council?" He vented a sigh and momentarily ran a hand over his forehead. "Let me know when the general returns from the Temple; I want to make sure she's tracking—"
"Er, commander..." one of the communication officers spoke up from the opposite side of the terminal. He shrunk back slightly when Gree leveled a glare from an interrupted train of thought on him. "General Unduli's been back for at least an hour already... sir."
Gree immediately swung his gaze to Jor, who balked at the attention.
"I didn't know, either, sir."
"Who did she check in with?" Gree demanded of the gray-clad officer. "And why wasn't I informed?"
"We only saw her walking down the corridor. We thought she was going to talk to you, sir."
A nod from Gree ushered Jor out into the corridor with him. "I'm going to check on her," he said as the bridge doors closed behind them. "All command decisions defer to you in the meantime, Captain. I'll be back when I can."
"Understood, sir."
Unduli's cabin was the last door in the officer's quarters section, yet so far down the hall that it felt like foreign territory. Gree knocked; a weak, almost muffled sound with his gloves. If there were any noises of movement coming from inside, he couldn't hear it over the distant rumble of the engines running through routine pre-flight diagnostics. Not everyone had been informed of their cancelled mission yet.
"General?" Gree called, knocking this time with his hand plate to create a rude, tinny sound that he almost regretted. He waited the better part of a minute in silence before tapping the control panel on the wall. The door slid open immediately, revealing Luminara Unduli sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cabin floor, illuminated by the hallway light slanting in around Gree.
Only after the commander spared a hesitant glance around the empty corridor did he enter. The door closed behind him and the room descended into near-darkness. Gree remained standing two steps inside, listening in vain for some sort of acknowledgment from his superior.
"Sir," he said, his normal voice almost jarring, "we received word from the Jedi about Saleucami. Did they already inform you when you were in the Temple?"
The silence dragged on.
Soft light crept along the edges of the floor, not daring to stray too far from the perpetually glowing luminescent bulbs. As his eyes adjusted, the light grew bright enough to highlight his general's silhouette, and eventually her calm face still in that stoic expression. Gree unhooked his helmet from his belt and set in on the floor as he sat down facing her, taking a moment to silence his wristcom. And he waited.
Eventually, Unduli surfaced from her meditation and blinked at the presence of her soldier. "Commander...?" He hadn't heard her sound so exhausted since the second battle of Geonosis.
"We've been removed from Saleucami, sir," Gree said.
A slump bent her shoulders. "Yes, the Council mentioned that might happen." She smoothed several of the folds in her skirt before saying, "I assume you already know the news..."
Of why she returned to the Tranquility without a padawan.
"Yes, sir." Along with every other soldier who had access to the helmet HUD screens.
"Well, the Council has deemed it appropriate to investigate me, as well. If they find nothing amiss, then we will receive our next set of orders," she explained softly.
Gree's expression fell. "Do they really think you had anything to do with Commander Offee...?" The news that Barriss had orchestrated the attacks which left both soldiers and Jedi dead was planet-shattering enough after Gree had worked first-hand for nearly two years with such a kind and caring padawan. The idea that General Unduli could have any connection with it as well was outrageous. She was the embodiment of compassion, and Gree had yet to meet a more warmhearted sentient.
"They are pursuing all leads, currently," she said quietly. "I technically shouldn't be back here... that's why I didn't inform anyone of my return. But I couldn't stay in the Temple anymore. Not today."
Gree considered her a moment before popping to his feet and extending a hand to his surprised general. "Care to go to the mess with me, sir?"
"I ought to meditate more. I need to focus—"
"Sir, you oughta eat."
Her exasperated huff was a novelty, but she took his hand and let him help her to her feet.
They walked down the comparatively bright corridors together, hands behind their backs. For Gree's part, it was a habit picked up from working with her for over two years. He watched her head bow in the silence. It was uncharacteristic for her to carry herself in any other way besides shoulders back and chin high, radiating an inner strength that had always been contagious— not only for her soldiers but for her padawan as well.
"What's going to happen to her?" Gree eventually asked.
Unduli failed to lift her gaze off of the floor. "A trial. I suspect it will conclude much faster than Padawan Tano's."
It would've been nice to have some words of encouragement to spout— anything to cheer his general up. But for all the old histories and dead languages he studied, nothing helped him when connecting to another sentient.
Turning into the mess hall, Unduli sighed, "She was my padawan for nearly six years. So many moments to recall to find out where I went wrong."
"It's not your fault," Gree quickly spoke up. "What if I turned on you, sir? That would be my own decision, just like this was hers." He wished he had his helmet on at that moment, because at least he could mute himself after that. Unduli looked up at him with the faintest wince, but thankfully it ebbed into an understanding smirk.
There was no line tonight in the mess hall; most tables stood empty. As it was outside the window of regular meal hours, all that was available were the prepackaged individual ration boxes precisely stacked by the kitchen droids at the end of the main counter otherwise empty of food. Gree and Unduli each grabbed one, found a table, and fell into the routine of exchanging their least favorite rations.
A huff from Unduli interrupted her dinner halfway through. "How did she hide this from me? I should've known... should've felt..."
"We're all pretty busy anymore," Gree said, running his words through several layers of his brain before spitting them out this time. "The war is consuming us. We miss things."
"The entire tradition of Mirialan Jedi only taking on Mirialan padawans is to cultivate our culture, our heritage, our religion... it's like none of that mattered," she elaborated as a hand flew to her forehead. Gree had only seen her rub her head in great times of stress— most often in dire situations on the battlefield, not sitting safely on her own flagship. "Six years... teaching her was effortless. She was so dedicated to learning. I actually prided myself on being a good teacher." She poked her fork at a ration square. "I was so blind."
"You're a great teacher, sir. But you can't make her decisions for her. You have the loyalty of all the men; you're an inspiring leader."
It was possibly the most articulate thing Gree said all evening, and it only seemed to help deflate his general. They fell into silence once more. As Unduli slid into a thousand-meter stare, Gree's gaze turned to the helmet sitting on the table, painted green like his previous Phase I armor.
It was easy to remember meeting his general for the first time: he personified a mix of nervousness and eagerness to please. His armor and everyone else assigned to the 41st was impeccably white, straight out of Kamino. Within the first two missions, Gree was astounded by his general's fighting skill and battlemind— as he had been ever since. When he and his soldiers were allowed to choose a design for their armor, they unanimously decided to paint it green. The first briefing after decorating his armor, Gree noticed the smallest tug of a smirk on his general's face, almost hidden in her nod of approval.
Gree stalled his fork in midair to admit, "We're very proud to have you, sir."
Unduli covered her mouth with her hand, staring off into nothing while Gree continued his dinner. By the time he finished, she hadn't yet resumed hers.
"Anything I can do for you, sir?"
"What's there to do outside of turn back time?"
"You can't put so much emphasis on the past that you lose sight of everything else. Commander Cody liked to say 'hurdle the dead.' ...Er, well— that's probably not..." Apparently the filters between mind and mouth were once again broken. He let his face fall into his open hand. At least the extinct cultures he was so familiar with never needed cheering up.
"I appreciate your bluntness, Gree." Her good-natured tone easily pulled him out of his embarrassment in time to see that same, fleeting smirk cross her face. "Some on the Council are too preoccupied with dancing around the issue."
She considered it blunt; he considered it flying a larty into the problem.
A small chirp from Unduli's wrist broke the silence for Gree. Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice came through, requesting her presence in the Council chamber. Unduli acquiesced with the stiffest posture Gree had seen all night. She quickly completed the call and went about collecting her half-finished rations.
"I'll accompany you, sir," Gree volunteered, standing with her.
"It's fine, Commander. They don't need to speak with you." Her gaze was all authority, her tone dismissive as she skirted the table to veer toward the trash bin by the door, leaving her commander standing next to his chair.
"Y...yes, sir."
Returning to previous duties was incredibly more difficult for Gree while his mind was divided between General Unduli's problems and how he could've satisfactorily said the right things during dinner. He made it all the way through the remainder of the supplies in the cargo bay an hour later without inspecting a single thing.
A couple blinks opened up a private in-helmet com channel. "Captain Jor. I need your assistance."
Jor's response was properly immediate. "Yes, sir. What's your location?"
"Er, I need your opinion, rather. Nothing I'm saying is getting through to the general. She can't see past her own guilt and I'm at a loss trying to help her."
In a way, Captain Jor was wrestling with the same confusion as Unduli, because Jor's company almost always fell under Commander Offee's leadership during battles. He worked the closest with her out of all the 41st officers, so Gree expected the long pause that followed.
"Maybe she needs to hear it from more of the 41st, sir."
Gree tossed that around in his mind as he returned to the middle of the cargo bay to launch a proper inventory. Halfway through, his communicator beeped, bringing the voice he was most anxious to hear.
"Commander, I was just informed that Barriss asked me to visit her in the detention facility."
Gree quite possibly remained silent as long as Jor had before assembling some of his fragmented thoughts. "That's... good, General?"
"I'd like you to come with me, Commander. To the detention facility."
"Is it all right with Commander Offee?"
"It's all right with me, Gree."
"On my way, sir."
The Republic base sat relatively close to the ship docking yards; Gree arrived at the front gates sooner than his general.
Unduli held her head higher than Gree had seen all night as they walked silently through the compound awash with inorganic light, stabbing even into the corners to drive out all shadows. Despite all of Coruscant being covered in durasteel, there was something cold and foreign about this base, even for Gree. He heard they'd stepped up security since Commander Tano escaped, and now seeing what that entailed, he was hard pressed to remember entering a more unwelcoming situation in his career as a soldier.
They walked silently all the way to the security room guarding the detention blocks, where several red-painted Coruscant Guards watched monitors on the opposite side of a transparisteel window. Several more stood sentinel on either side of the doors in their small room.
"Only the general is permitted to enter," one guard informed them stiffly, voice distorted by both his helmet and the public address system. They required her to leave her lightsaber and wrist communicator before opening the blast door. Gree remained after the door slid shut, arms folded across his chest, green armor almost dingy from the blaster residue that just wouldn't wash out compared to the Coruscant Guards' immaculate red and white.
Gree at least had the convenience of reopening a private communication with Captain Jor to not only check up on the Tranquility but also further investigate the captain's earlier suggestion. They talked until Unduli reappeared in the security room, much sooner than Gree anticipated. He talked with his general longer during their late dinner than she had with her former padawan. She reclaimed her effects and silently nodded Gree toward the exit.
Unduli didn't speak a word the entire journey back from the detention center. Gree's only company was the scrolling information on his HUD screen, still primarily focused on their incarcerated Jedi commander. Most of it was still confused chatter, asking if anyone had seen this coming. As much as he wanted to know what happened between master and padawan, he wasn't going to pry. Jedi business was out of his lane, but if his general wanted to include him in the matter, he wouldn't object.
The Tranquility received them back into its cold corridors, somehow more welcoming than the GAR base, its busy troopers prepping a ship that had yet to receive a new destination. They ambled through the halls, returning nods to the crew who saluted or greeted in hurried passing.
Unduli tilted her head ever so slightly in Gree's direction before she broke her silence. "The Council hinted they might send the 41st on to a new objective without me if their investigation isn't concluded by the end of the week."
Gree clenched his fists. This was also unprecedented.
"All I can say is I apologize that any of this happened," Unduli continued. "I was complacent and—"
"Sir, it's not your fault," interrupted Gree. "Commander Offee's decisions aren't a reflection of your mentoring."
Unduli clasped her hands behind her, walking with her gaze tilted downward once more. Eventually, they wound up in the officer's cabin section, sweeping closer to her door.
"I'll leave you to your duties, Commander," she said softly. "I'll let you know if the Council contacts me."
This was as close to Unduli running off with her tail between her legs as Gree had ever seen. There was no guarantee that if she retreated into her cabin, he'd be able to coax her out again for anything short of the next mission— whenever that would be. So as she thumbed her door open, Gree reached out and caught her by the arm.
He missed her narrow-eyed expression as he swiftly cleared his HUD screen of all but one window, the one that scrolled with constant updates from 41st soldiers, all answering a specific question. Gree removed his helmet with one hand and offered it to her. "If you won't listen to me, sir, maybe you'd like to see what the rest of the men are saying about you."
The longer she hesitated, her indecisive gaze slipping from him to his green helmet, the more he feared she might deny his request. And then he would honestly be at a loss of how to help her.
Unduli finally nodded toward her open door before entering, pulling off her headdress in the process to reveal a head full of tiny, dark braids, all pulled back into one thick ponytail. Gree stopped short two steps inside her cabin, as if he had just caught sight of something he shouldn't be looking at. Her headdress discarded on her bunk, Unduli unbound her hair tie and let her braids cascade freely past her shoulders before accepting Gree's helmet with her usual air of solemnity.
All her experience watching her soldiers don their helmets did not help her when it came to putting one on herself, though.
Gree bit back a smirk observing her struggle shifting it back and forth, and he nearly lost his battle to the sudden desire to snicker when she slapped a hand down on the crown of the helmet to make it finally drop in place. An exasperated huff hissed out through the vents and she stood in silence, a green-painted bucket atop her Jedi garb.
Gree had half the mind to ask her a question, just to hear her voice filtered through the helmet. But he refrained once Unduli began tipping her head side to side, probably adjusting to the HUD screen right in her face.
The silence stretched on.
There was no doubt an outpouring of responses to read now; when Gree first sent out a message for the 41st to explain what they liked about their general, soldiers immediately complied. Some were a little more excited than others, but his only condition had been that the responses be sincere. Plus he had Jor monitoring the feed in case some soldiers felt like turning snippy, reminiscent of earlier.
Slowly, Unduli's hands gravitated to her mouth in the way Gree had become familiar with, but she ended up bonking them against the bottom of the helmet, sending her whole head jerking backward. Gree succumbed to his laughter then as he reached out to steady her. She grasped his arms in return but continued her lapse of silence, helmet still jerking side to side as she read the scrolling information.
Her head bowed not long before a soft gasp snuck through the filters. "The screen's turning a little erratic now." Her voice through the bucket sounded exactly as he expected it, but still thrillingly cute.
"You're probably blinking too fast, sir," he said and without thinking pulled her into a hug.
He never dreamed of touching his commanding officer like this before, but he also never dreamed he'd see her without her headdress, either. In all his studies and observation of the Jedi, he knew they weren't ones for physical contact, but if anyone needed a hug right now it was General Unduli. The helmet clunked against his shoulder and he felt his body armor tighten as she wrapped her arms around his waist in return.
Another sound came from Unduli. "Now the screen is entirely too much," she said before pulling away and wrestling the helmet off of her head. She presented it back to Gree with blue eyes glistening, and that irritatingly fleeting smirk making him question if it was ever really there. "But thank you, Gree." Her nod bounced her braids.
Holding his helmet in his hands was an unsatisfactory replacement. He wasn't exactly sure why he did it, but already the moment seemed to be the closest they'd ever been, so in some corner of his mind he reasoned he could get away with it. Gree reached forward and traced his thumb slowly down her tattoo pattern. Unduli didn't flinch or pull away; she just stood there and let him repeatedly stroke it.
"How do you have fewer tattoos than Commander Offee when you're more advanced?" he asked quietly, eyes intently on her chin. Despite Mirialans being a notoriously close-lipped species when it came to their culture, Gree at least learned some things from written sources and his own leadership, like how they received tattoos upon great achievement or skill acquirement.
Her room turned as dark as during her earlier meditation when everything faded into a familiar tunnel vision, most often experienced on a battlefield. Gree's heart was certainly hammering at the same speed as when he was being shot at, even though this was a different sort of danger. His gaze slid up and all he could see were blue eyes looking straight at him.
"I have three times as many tattoos, Gree. But it would be improper for you to see them."
He slowly dropped his hand from her face to rub his own, hoping to rid his cheeks of their sudden flush. She flashed that aggravatingly quick smirk of hers before tying her braids back into a manageable ponytail.
"Will you be all right?" Gree asked, hooking his helmet on his belt. She at least stood a little taller now than on the way back from the detention center.
"I'm... still trying to understand. But even through this confusing time, I need to let go of my padawan."
"Sir, the men and I are here for you. You'll always be able to count on us." His hands were achingly empty. He had come close to crossing a line a surprising amount of times that night, so Gree decided one more thing couldn't hurt. He reached out and clasped Unduli's hand in his glove, conveying his own sincerity and reassurances.
And finally, after the terrible ordeals over the last couple of days, his general smiled in earnest.
終わり
A.N. Song: "Bent" by Matchbox Twenty.
"You'll always be able to count on us." hahahasob. And if you're thinking, "Why can Barriss get visitors when Ahsoka couldn't?" my only answer is: Exactly. All my thanks and early Easter chocolate to Starcrier who gave me great suggestions for this chapter!
I can see Gree and Cody getting along famously. Jor's made up
From 1 to Magellan's Victoria, how sailable is this ship?