Jedi Council arc - 3
At The Jedi Temple
Kev was quietly thoughtful as he ran his fingers over the chest plate of his armor. It was a beautiful, strong design, delicately painted and visible only to those who truly looked. Fives and Echo were going to the Jedi Temple but he had taken the time to find Chopper's old squad mate, Sketch, and thank him more than the bare acknowledgement he'd stuttered out when they were all sparring.
Sketch had shrugged and smiled widely. "It keeps my hands busy," he said in a slightly shamed manner as his hands drew a design on flimsi. "For a long while it kept me from taking a blaster to my head. Now it's a comfort and just keeps me busy."
Kev had been astounded at that admission. "Why would you want to do something like that?" And more, why would you tell me?
"Chopper hasn't told you?" Sketch had rubbed a paint-splotched finger over his chin. "No, I guess Chopper wouldn't tell anyone. There are probably rules against most of it anyway." He shrugged.
"Is.." Kev began hesitantly. "Did Chopper do something bad?" Once he'd had plenty of ideas of things that Chopper did; from insubordination to unauthorized affiliation with civilians, but now he couldn't really think of anything. "Because I used to hate him, but I don't. Quite. Not so much now. Anymore."
Sketch laughed and Kev gave a somewhat embarrassed shrug.
"Yes and no. We were in the same squad and had a bad sergeant. We dealt with it in different ways." Sketch glanced down at his drawing thoughtfully and added a line, then carefully smudged it with his finger. "He didn't let me draw. Except what he wanted. What he ordered me to draw," Sketch added with careful concern. He slipped the stylus into the book and closed it, laying it on the ground then brought his clasped hands up to his mouth to keep them from shaking. He paused. "When he found my hidden flimsis, he kept them; destroying them one by one each time I received a demerit or simply whenever he felt I was getting..." Sketch shrugged. "I don't know. Whenever he felt like it."
Kev could only imagine how much that would hurt, to see drawings of his beautiful armor, curling in fire or the ripped edges wafting to the floor like flower petals. He shook his head in disbelief. "I can't imagine a sergeant doing that."
"Probably not." Sketch picked up the book of flimsi pages, opened and continued drawing. "He used Chopper and Jester worse and I think he had something nasty planned for Gus." Sketch paused. "You see, I could always draw something new. As much as it hurt to see him destroy my drawings, I could always reach into my mind and see it in my head. And my brother Punch was there." Sketch smiled as he glanced up at Kev. "That's as far as I'll go. You want more details about Chopper, you ask Chopper
Knowing his words for the rebuke they were, Kev looked down at the drawing in Sketch's hands,. It was a design for someone's armor; matte black with a galaxy of constellations beginning mid-chest and spreading over one shoulder. It was magnificent and the trooper wearing it stood pround and tall.
"Can...," he licked his lips and began again. "Can I ask you the best way to deal with him? I'm finding it hard..."
Sketch looked at him closely and Kev got the shivers he usually only got around Chopper, as though Sketch could see his darkest thoughts.
"What did you do," asked the other man in a kind, quiet voice. "That you feel so guilty for?"
Kev's mouth dropped open.
Kev muttered under his breath, sometimes cursing Chopper who'd started his entire downfall and sometimes the perspicacity of Sketch, but mostly cursing the hut'tuun, miserable shadow of a real trooper that was himself.
He'd done well, Echo had said, finding several married Jedi; had done excellent in following Jedi who'd left the Jedi Temple and found an offshoot which allowed marriage among Jedi.
Then why did he feel so miserable?
Chopper had told him when he had to be at the Temple to appear before the Council. He'd even extended a half-hearted invitation to Kev.
"Not that you'd do anything at the Temple but wait, Kev. I've heard I get interviewed alone." He had ducked his head, avoiding Kev's eyes. "But you're welcome to be there, be one of the first to know if the commander's coming back."
Kev had declined.
He could see the Temple from where he stood
"Hut'tuun. Miserable coward," he muttered, pulling on his helmet as his feet started toward the massive building. "Are you afraid of waiting? They waited for you, kriffing mirosik. They painted your armor."
Kev knew that Fives and Echo would be with Chopper in spite of the fact that they were raggedly tired after three days of research and practice; Echo researching obscure rules and philosophic development consolidating it into a cohesive argument, Fives going over and over with Chopper how to stand to project confidence, to project openness, to look someone in the eyes, to not flinch when one of the woman Jedi looked at him. Kev had thought Fives' rules simple, yet Chopper had looked miserable every time he practiced-looking one of them - one of his own clone brothers - in the eyes.
"I can't do this, Fives," he'd say in his rough voice, his head shaking and him chewing his lips and inner cheek so hard they'd bled.
"You can, Chopper," Fives would patiently say and Echo would add his own words of encouragement.
Kev remembered he'd said nothing.
He ran now, drawing occasional stares from civilians, but it was early and he was headed toward the Jedi Temple, perhaps not such a strange sight on Coruscant.
Echo may have been the sergeant, but it was Chopper that was the foundation of this squad. It was a good squad, Kev realized, strong and flexible. It was his squad and if he didn't like his squad mates, it didn't matter. You were there when they needed you. You covered the backs of your squad mates whether or not you personnally liked them because they were your squad. You covered them when they needed you and not just in battle.
Chopper marched up the stairs of the Jedi Temple, removing his helmet at he came to the top step and the giant pillars that surrounded the building. General Kenobi was there as was General Skywalker. Rex was at Skywalker's side listening to the generals' discussion while Fives and Echo were a little further back, closer to the wall, present but not intruding on the command group. Surprisingly, Kev was with them. Deferential and diffident, his head slightly down and the slight flush of exertion on his cheeks, but he was there. Fives flashed Chopper a smile and, as Chopper moved next to Captain Rex, the small group of troopers joined them.
"I won't be there, Chopper, but General Kenobi will be." Skywalker was saying.
"Why not you, sir? You're both Jedi," asked Chopper as he tried to remember everything Echo and Fives had told him. What to say, how to stand, what to do, how to ask.
"I sit on the Council, Chopper," replied General Kenobi mildly.
Chopper frowned. "That's right, sir. I forgot. I hope that's all I forget today." He glanced at Echo who had pressed a palm to his forehead, his eyes closed in mortification and at Fives who merely nodded approvingly at the way he was standing.
Fives' earlier remark that morning after two days of practice and four hours of sleep for Chopper had only been a deep sigh and the comment, "At least you're better than Echo."
"It's just questions, Chopper." General Kenobi stood relaxed, one hand stroking the tip of his beard.
"It's not the questions and answers I'm worried about. It's the reactions and end decision." Chopper replied. He looked into the general's eyes. "Soft eyes," had said Fives, "soft eyes."
After three days, Chopper was as thoroughly sick of Fives lessons as he was of Echo's research; but this was to get the commander back where she belonged so he had listened and memorized and practiced and set aside so many of his self-defensive behaviors.
"You'll have to look at people in the eyes, Chopper. You can't just stare at the floor or at the wall or past their shoulder," he'd entreat Chopper. "You can't pull on your bucket or grunt and mumble or rub your lips with your thumb. You will have to speak clearly; you will have to look at them." Fives had put his arm on Chopper's shoulder. "You will have to let them see into your soul."
Chopper had sat abruptly on the bunk. "I can't do that, Fives."
Apparently, he could. He let his eyes hold the general's eyes for the barest moment then look out past his ear toward the Senate Building in the distance.
General Kenobi gave him a small smile. "You and Commander Tano do have a friend on the council, Chopper. Remember that."
Chopper glanced into Kenobi's eyes with amazement then smiled, tentatively at first then with genuine appreciation. "Thank you, sir."
General Kenobi gave him a pat on his shoulder. "I don't know the decision the Council will make, Chopper, but we will listen to you."
Chopper nodded, again looking the general in the eye then turning to Captain Rex and General Skywalker.
"They will be letting Rex in the chamber with you, Chopper." Absently Skywalker nodded as General… no, thought Chopper remembering another of Fives' dictates, think of him in the full terminology… as Master Jedi General Kenobi made his departure into the massive stone building. "Partially because you requested it, but mostly because he is your commanding officer."
"General Kenobi has already told us they will not ask for your transfer from the 501st," Captain Rex said as they all turned toward the entrance. "However, Commander Tano's status remains in dispute."
Chopper nodded. "Then they'll interview General Skywalker? And you?"
Skywalker sighed deeply. "I've had my interview, Chopper. My only consolation is that it's the best interview I've ever had with the Council."
Chopper frowned at that bit of information even as he looked around the long corridor. The noise of their boots was muted by the grandeur of the place; stone columns reaching heights, glass fronted walls letting jeweled sunlight through stained glass. There were designs on the floor picked out in contrasting colored stone. The building had a silence like the med unit or the education halls of Kamino, like the early morning hours of night watch. Subdue but … prepared.
They passed a large inner courtyard with a fountain; several people were moving slowly in some exercise, like blades of grass bending in a breeze. Chopper wanted to stop and watch them; the movements seemed so familiar but just out of reach of memory.
As they moved toward the center of the building, taking an elevator, the rarified atmosphere seemed to thicken and become almost tangible, like a fog you could feel but not see; like the electricity of the battlefield that moved from man to man, settling nowhere but felt by all. This must be what birds feel when they all turn at the same moment; thought Chopper.
"Here's where we wait," General Skywalker gestured as he strode into a chamber that had no door, only a large arch of some beautiful white stone. In the chamber were chairs, tables with flimsi sheets and styluses, several doors. Again he gestured as he sat at a table. "The door to the Council Chamber, 'freshers. Please make yourselves comfortable. The Council tries to keep waiting to a minimum, but sometimes…" he waved his hands helplessly in the air. "It's a council. Twelve people, fourteen opinions."
"I'd prefer to stand, sir." Chopper glanced into the general's eyes. Soft eyes, he told himself, soft eyes. The general nodded and Chopper stepped near a wall as he began going over Echo's research and Fives' practice in his mind.
Fives' chuckled as he sat on a bench. "So it's not one person, one opinion?" He glanced up at Kev and gestured an offer, next to him.
"I'm sorry, sir," said Echo simultaneous with Fives' voice. "How can twelve people have fourteen opinions?" He moved closer to Chopper, available for questions but not disturbing him.
Kev glanced at each man in the room then turned to Fives. "Just a moment, Fives".
"They just do, Sergeant, they just do," replied the captain who had taken a chair and, about to set his helmet on the wood, changed his mind and set it at his feet on the floor. He watched Kev make his way over to where Chopper stood near the corner.
"Some of the members argue both sides," explained Skywalker. "Obi-Wan is one of those; no question or detail is so isolated from reality and context that he can't find at least one and often more alternatives. It makes him an excellent negotiator."
Kev put his hand on Chopper's shoulder and Chopper jerked softly in surprise, his hand circling Kev's wrist in a defensive grab.
"You can do it, Chopper." Kev's voice was soft, meant for Chopper's ears only, but they all heard him. "I know you can do it."
Kev turned and made his way back to the bench, sitting next to Fives, his helmet on the floor and his head bent, watching his helmet.
They had dwindled into silence, each man alone with his thoughts, by the time the auditor asked for Clone Trooper 9523 and Clone Captain 7567. Both men glanced at each other in solidarity, took a deep breath and paced into the Council Chamber, their helmets at their sides.
Soft eyes, Chopper repeated under his breath. Eye contact. Twelve council members. Look at them when you speak.
He'd rather face a droid company; alone, unarmed and naked.
"Sex, trooper," growled Mace Windu in a hard voice. "Do you seek friendship with Padawan Ahsoka Tano because she is a woman and you – like all troopers - have no sexual experience?" It was more attack than question, as many of the previous questions from Jedi Master General Windu had been.
It wasn't the time to bring up Fives, thought Rex irreverently as he seemed to feel the temperature of the room drop considerably at Chopper's icy rage. No one said a word and the silence dragged on. The anger in Chopper was palpable in these hallowed halls. Rex could feel it; he could feel Chopper wanting to pound Jedi Master Mace Windu into the walls as he had pounded Kev for the same suggestion. Chopper's fists clenched then he slowly released them. Still he said nothing.
Finally the smallest, wizen Jedi Master Yoda hummed in the back of his throat and broke the silence. "Answered is that question, most assuredly." he closed his eyes slowly to the general positive body motions of the Council members. "This I ask. With the commander, friends you are, is it not."
Chopper paused, tilting his head, and Rex wondered if he was trying to understand Yoda's circuitous speech patterns.
"It a great honor, Jedi Grand Master General Yoda, to be friends with Padawan Commander Ahsoka Tano. I deem it such an honor I asked her to consider me as a 'brother-by-choice'." Chopper spoke softly as he stood straight and tall in his armor. "Do you Jedi understand the concept of brother-by-choice?"
"That is a clone concept. It does not apply to Jedi." Jedi Master General Mundi leaned back in his chair, the back of one hand brushing his chin.
"It does apply, Master Jedi," Chopper turned his attention to the Cerean, "because the Jedi do not dwell in a vacuum; because you have put your child padawans in the midst of an army of clones."
Rex was glad Chopper had gotten that little dig at the Jedi. He didn't know a single clone trooper who approved of sending children, prepared or not, into battle.
"I admire her abilities and her training," Chopper continued, "her willingness to learn, her courage in the face of death, her good humor and truly bad jokes when times are difficult. The qualities I admire are the same I admire in my brothers; strength of will, compassion, courage, camaraderie, protection for each other, steadfastness, integrity. The concept of brothers by choice is for two people – yes, usually clones, and usually from Kamino together – but two people to reinforce these qualities in each other. To be better troopers for the presence of each other. To be more together than merely the two people they are, a whole greater than the sum of its parts."
Chopper shrugged as he continued. "We are friends because we talk with each other; because we enlarge each other's boundaries and experiences, because we care what happens to each other." He paused and Rex knew Chopper was thinking of a specific incident. "We are strong when the other is vulnerable; we listen when the other wishes to be heard." Chopper's head had started to drop to stare at the floor, but he brought it up abruptly and gazed in Jedi General Mundi's eyes and shook his head. "This isn't a permanent attachment like you fear, this isn't the attachment practiced by the Altisians."
Rex saw they hadn't expected Chopper to know of the heretical Jedi and their practices. Their surprise was muted, barely a tightening of the lips or a narrowing of the eyes; but noticeable by a man who could distinguish a thousand identical brothers.
"This is attachment similar to the practice of master and padawan; similar to the practice of Concordance of Fealty – to learn from each other and to honor each other." Chopper tilted his head. "It's hardly permanent attachment, like Jedi Master General Mundi's or Master Solusar's marriages."
Jedi Master Shaak Ti parted her lips slightly as if to say something. Chopper noticed, stopped speaking and looked at her. He looked straight on at her, into her eyes, politely waiting for a comment. Rex held his breath for the long moment. Chopper was looking at a woman, into a woman's eyes, neither ducking his head nor flinching.
There was no doubt Chopper was nervous; the fingers of his right hand were moving, touching his thumb in some silent pattern Fives had given him to substitute for his more normal nervous habits while the knuckles of the hand holding his helmet were white. He took a deep breath before and after each sentence he spoke. He tilted his head as if getting a slightly different perspective at each question.
The Togrutan Jedi Master merely tilted her head slightly and leaned back
Chopper gave her a slight nod and continued speaking to the Council. "One day I'll die and she'll cry for me. She's already cried for so many of her men; I don't see how you can single me out." Chopper shrugged elegantly. "She might cry a little harder and a little longer for me but in the end, I'm just one more of her men."
Rex stared at Chopper and nodded. Fives and Echo, he had talked to Fives and Echo more than simply research. Altisian. Concordance of Fealty. Those would have been Echo's words, Fives' gestures.
"She says that you and she were naked, skin to skin." This was from a female Jedi, Jedi Master General Adi Gallia and her expression was more concerned than stern. Rex glanced back at Master Windu and Master Yoda. Windu was leaning back in his seat, his fingers pressed against each other, templed; listening intently to each word of Chopper's as if he was discoursing on the secrets of the galaxy. Yoda was leaning forward, his chin resting on his hands cupping his small cane, his eyes closed, as if he'd already heard the lecture.
Chopper frowned and raised his hand to scratch the back of his head. He paused, remembering where he was then continued the gesture.
"Not exactly naked." He glanced at General Kenobi. "You were there. Why didn't you explain it?"
General Kenobi gave him a small nod. "Commander Tano did not ask for me to explain."
Chopper nodded to himself as he chewed his lower lip then the inside of his cheek. "She doesn't ask for help, you should have offered." He turned to General Windu. "You're all Jedi, why don't you just read my mind?"
Rex noticed a tightening of General Kenobi's lips in amusement, the hand of the Togrutan master cover the forming smile on her lips, the slight movement of General Piell as he glanced at the floor. Rex avoided their eyes in case he also began to smile. General Kenobi had offered and their little commander had thought she could do it all herself. Rex started to feel better, Chopper may have had only one friend on the Council and Ahsoka only a couple, but the Jedi High Council knew her impulsive, independent nature.
"Do we not, you think, Chopper?" asked Master Yoda as he leaned his chin on his stick.
Chopper was too intent to notice that Grand Master Yoda had called him by his name, but Rex wasn't.
"It is not a simple trick to tease out specific information," began Master Windu, leaning back slightly, relaxing and gesturing with his hand. "There is the possibility of mental and physical damage; hallucinations, hemorrhagic stroke in humans. There are lies of commission, lies of omission, opinions as facts, facts as opinion." He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "This is so much easier on everyone concerned."
Chopper grunted as he glanced at the floor with a frown, a purely Chopper-ish reaction. Then he looked in Mace Windu's eyes and nodded. He took their words with equanimity and returned to General Gallia's question. "We had been pushed into a cave by rain flooding and mud slide. There was no way out. Her clothing was soaked and the temperature was approaching freezing; she'd been unaware of a warmsuit."
Rex nodded. It was another dig at the Jedi.
"By the time I realized she didn't have a warmsuit and didn't even know what it was, she was going into hypothermia. I had no real choice but to put her in the warmsuit I was wearing. We were lucky she was small enough that the connectors fit with both of us."
"Why not just give her the warmsuit?" General Adi Mundi.
Chopper thought a moment. "I take it that Cerea doesn't have severe temperature drops; that it doesn't freeze on a regular basis, that there aren't mountains above 5,000 meters."
It definitely not a question. Echo's research. Rex's eyes glittered. It was almost too bad Fives and Echo would be going to ARC training; the three of them would be the start of an excellent squad. Rex corrected himself, Kev was coming along nicely as well. He was waiting in the antechamber with the others.
"No," supplied General Mundi. "No one lives in the arctic regions of Cerea. There are no high mountain ranges."
"For future information, Jedi Master General Mundi, in cold weather sharing body heat not only provides warmth, but a larger person will retain core warmth longer than a smaller person." Chopper gave them a chagrinned expression, one side of his lips curling into a depreciating smile. "I wasn't too keen on dying, myself so we were lucky my first option worked." He didn't say what he didn't need to say. I would have done whatever was required.
"You're saying that it was your core temperature which prevented Padawan Tano.." began General Koth.
"Commander Padawan Tano," corrected Chopper quietly.
Rex stared at Chopper and nodded. Fives and Echo, Chopper had planned this with Fives and Echo. He'd want to debrief them later.
General Koth accepted the correction graciously. "which prevented Commander Padawan Tano from dying?"
"I have to agree with Chopper," added General Kenobi. "When we found them, the clone medics were amazed she was still alive. The med droid later calculated she would have died several hours earlier if he had simply given her the suit."
"And as she matures?" asked Master Gallia of Chopper. "As she grows older and becomes sexually mature, Trooper, what then? Will you become skin to skin then?" Her chin was raised and she looked regal as she challenged Chopper with her words.
Chopper looked at her, speculatively. When he spoke it was more slowly and with quiet deliberation. "With no disrespect, Jedi Master General Gallia, I fail to see what concern that is of yours. As she matures, she will make her own choices no less than any other Jedi." Then Chopper shook his head. "But if or when she does choose a sexual partner, it will not be me."
"Murky, at times, the Force is," murmured Master Yoda in his seat, his eyes open now and his chin no longer resting on his stick. "But not now."
"No," agreed Master Windu, leaning forward and resettling himself square in the chair. Chopper stiffened at his single word.
"As prepared as your words were," General Adi Mundi added, nodding. "They run true in the Force."
"Like sunlight and clear water," added Master Gallia smiling at Chopper. Chopper merely blinked and Rex thought it was his astonishment that a woman smiled at him.
"And the commander's didn't?" Chopper asked, once again his own curiosity, his own words.
"She is a padawan, trooper. Still in training, and still testing her boundaries. Still finding them. Still young." General Koon explained in a cavernous voice and Chopper relaxed.
Rex glanced at General Kenobi. He was friends to both General Skywalker and his padawan; if he was smiling it couldn't be all bad.
"You are in the process of making your boundaries more solid," continued Master Koon, "but you know where they lie. Ahsoka doesn't yet know her boundaries. In attachment one limits oneself in deference to the object of one's attachment. Expectation becomes limitation. Boundaries are not extended."
Chopper obviously didn't understand that totally, he had the stillness of when he was memorizing something to ask Fives or Echo later. Rex thought it was good that the Kel-Dor spoke of 'Ahsoka' by her familiar name rather than by her title.
"We carry the Force in our lives," stated Master Jedi General Windu. "In attachment, it would be so easy to lay all that power to the benefit of one person or a small group of people; family or clan or friends. It would be so tempting to be selfish, to change the way of worlds for mere convenience and that is the way to the dark side. We were concerned that your friendship was for the purpose of using her connection with the Force for your personal betterment."
Chopper nodded slowly, understanding that explanation in an odd way. "And not sexually?"
"That, too, was a concern," answered Shaak Ti. "But a lesser one." She lifted her hands and stretched her lips into a feral smile. "Togruta women are rarely taken against their will and Ahsoka is too willful to be 'talked into someone bed'."
Chopper nodded, again looking into her eyes. "There'd be me to deal with also." He glanced down at his knuckles, no longer the same white color as his helmet. "I don't fight often, but when I do I don't go down."
Rex suddenly understood why Ahsoka hadn't asked him for this kind of friendship. He would never have been able to stand before the Jedi High Council like Chopper was doing. He was one of her boundaries, the last one she would attempt. Rex swore he wouldn't fail her, wouldn't limit her or lead her to the dark side.
Yoda leaned back in his chair. "Over, this is. Deny not friendship, do we."
There were murmured agreements from most of the Council members, three deferred judgment asking for follow-up interviews each time the padawan returned to Coruscant. This was also agreed to with, to Rex's shock, Chopper asking for the interviews to cease after two years or when the commander reached her adult age. The Jedi Council seamlessly began debating that suggestions and it, too, passed.
"We will keep her at the Temple for several more days to finish some training, but she will return to the 501st and the Resolute within a tenday." added Master Windu.
"Thank you, sir. Thank you Masters of the Jedi High Council." Chopper inclined his head, held it a shade longer than mere duty dictated then he turned and, followed by Captain Rex, strode from the chamber.
As always, read, review and enjoy….
Next chapter - no later than two days from now. After that, I should be posting daily, finishing up on New's Year's Eve or so.