Eighty One
Rex was in a quandary.
He didn't know who to see first.
His lover or his best friend.
He marched through the GAR barracks. The news had rocked the entire base. He stopped.
Fek!
Turning on his heel he backtracked and stood outside the door and took a moment before he tapped lightly.
Their blood thicker than any water.
"Enter."
"Cody, ner vod. I just heard."
CT-2224 sat at his desk.
He had moved the same piece of flimsie from one pile to the next, and still, he couldn't find a place to file it.
"Captain, come in," glad of the distraction he swiveled his chair around and moved some manuals from the other and invited his friend to sit.
Rex was trying to gauge his emotion. Cody had always been clever at keeping his cards close to his chest.
"I can't believe it. I mean Kenobi, of all people?" Rex was truly shocked.
"Yeah, I guess they aren't as indestructible as they lead us to believe."
It was an odd comment, then he continued.
"The funeral is later this afternoon; apparently they have to be buried before the sunset of the day of their death. Don't you find that odd?"
"Everything about the Jetiii is odd ner vod."
"Yes, yes," he replied absently, still looking at the flimsie in his hand.
'Just what the fek is on this anyway?'
He took a moment and allowed his eyes to focus on the print.
Transfer orders, 'ah, yes.'
Now he remembered.
Rex had put in a request for CT-43-5643 to be transferred over to the 501st. Cody looked at it before he placed a stamp in red over the top.
Denied.
Now he knew which pile it could go in.
"Do you know who will be taking over the 212th?" Rex asked carefully.
"No. I expect I'll be told when I need to be."
"Cody, I don't know wh - "
"Have you spoken to Gem?" Cody, the consummate soldier had regrouped, quickly deflecting the conversation away from him. "A loss of a brother, we know how that feels."
It wasn't like Cody at all, but then again, neither of them had lost a general before. Krell definitely didn't count.
Rex could see him struggling with the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi from a sniper shot down on the lower levels of Coruscant.
"Just what the fek were they doing down there anyway?" There is was, a snippet of anger, his eyes imploring the captain for an answer.
"I don't know," Rex breathed, shaking his head. "Are you alright Cody, I mean - "
His emotions were like a revolving door.
"Typical, just fekking typical." He sighed and smiled to Rex. "Here," he said handing the flimsie to him, "sorry, you can't have the triplet. He's a good fit with the 212th, and Chopper has taken a shine to him after the mine episode. He might make heavy gunner after all."
Rex stood looking at Cody and holding the transfer request.
"Dismissed Captain," Cody said as he turned back to the data screen and began tapping away, his eyes not registering the information scrolling across it.
.
"Representative Skylar Gem to see Grand Master Yoda."
The young Padawan learner moved forward and showed her into the closeted chamber. The Jedi was alone, sitting on a stool, deep in meditation.
'So this is him?'
"Representative Gem, an honour to finally meet, it is." Yoda spoke first, his eyes still closed.
She had no desire for formalities.
She was only there for answers.
Taken aback initially by her strong Force presence then by her uncanny likeness to the former, fallen Jedi her mother once was, he continued. "Under happier circumstances I wish it was. Come, come," he shuffled towards a seat, pointing an elongated green finger.
Gem would have none of his deliberate, dithery demeanour. She remained standing. Yoda turned and closed his eyes.
Like her mother, she was smart.
And gifted.
'What a waste.'
"Where is Obi-Wan?" It was a simple question.
"General Kenobi is dead," she immediately noticed the tone change in his voice.
"Where is Obi-Wan," she repeated. "I will only ask one more time before I take this to the Chancellor. What have you done with my brother?"
"General Kenobi was killed by a sniper attack on level 12 this morning. His body is lying in state in the Jedi Crypt awaiting a ceremonial burial before dusk this afternoon." The voice was deep and came as a surprise from behind. She had been ambushed. Mace Windu, dark and tall walked in slowly, regarding Yoda as he spoke.
Staying true to her inner strength she replied.
"If you think for one second, I am buying this lie, then gentlemen, you are sadly mistaken. He is not dead, I can still feel his presence within the Force."
"Your lack of training, misleading you it is." Yoda knew then that she would be a risk to the mission that Obi-Wan had undertaken. His 'death' had to be believed if he was to continue undercover in the Coruscant prison as the notorious Rako Hardine.
"Would you like to see his body?" Mace thought this risky, but the need to convince the woman was paramount if they were all to succeed.
It would be the proof she needed.
They escorted her silently down to the Jedi crypt. In the centre of the room under a ceremonial Jedi shroud, the outline of a body was evident. Gem stepped forward. She could sense that something just wasn't right and as she continued a pain grabbed in her diaphragm.
"We found this on Obi-Wan. General Koon said the other half belonged to you?" Mace said it with such tenderness that it took Gem by surprise.
In his large brown hand shone the pendant that contained the holovid of them when they were children. She knew that Ben would never part with it. She was confused, she had never been wrong before, nothing made sense.
"Argh," the pain bit again, her face prickling with its severity.
The combined shock of the sight of the body together with the necklace caused the baby to roll, a foot catching under her rib cage. She tried to continue, to put up more of a fight, but partially collapsed into the tall, dark man on her right.
"Representative Gem, if I may," Mace said as he guided her to a seat.
"With child, I sense," Yoda said cautiously, "care, you should take."
He had one over her.
Gem left the crypt, angry that she had shown weakness, like her mother to the one person she hated the most in the universe.
.
Rex entered the ceremony late. The distraught look on his general's face said it all. Chiseled jaw set tight in vengeance as he stood next to the equally angry Oriian Representative Skylar Gem.
Kriff.
Waiting and watching the moving ceremony, Rex too felt a sense of foreboding, as if the war had got the better of them and taken a turn for the worse. There had been many times he thought the Separatists had taken the upper hand, but each time, good prevailed.
Nine times out of ten, the Jedi saved the day.
No one could have foreseen this.
Rex felt the weight of their collective grief bearing down in him.
His friend and commander lost, his own general's requital, Ahsoka's disbelief, Satine's pain and his partners denial.
He watched as they all filed out after the body was lowered. Making his way down from the back he cautiously sidled up behind her.
"Gem," his voice low and familiar.
She swung around to face him openly and in a voice loud enough for people to hear replied, "Rex, so glad you are here. I don't suppose you know what they are planning? How they have managed to manipulate this."
He stood in incertitude.
"It's war Gem'ika, The Jedi are blood and bone like the rest of us. One shot in the right spot, that's all it takes."
"You sanctimonious - ," she stopped and looked at him. He was strong, she needed that to guide her through this. He was the only person who would stay true, that she could trust.
"People die," Rex continued, he had dealt with a brother's pain at losing a mate or partner on the field before, "it's as simple as that. He was a good man, a good brother. Respect that and honour his memory."
"He's alive Rex, I know it," she hissed in his face, "and by the entropy I'll prove it." She walked out of the ceremony, leaving the captain standing alone. General Skywalker, hunched and red faced glared. "The five hundred and first is on cool down until I find that son of a rancor and bring him to justice."
"Right you are Sir."
Rex blew out a breath.
Obi-Wan was the glue that held all their collective personalities together.
What Rex was watching was all Kenobi's hard work unraveling before his very eyes.
Rex thought for a second. He knew where he should spend the night, but instead, headed rather selfishly to the barracks.
There were only one group that would understand how he felt.
At a time like this, he needed to be around his brothers.
.
Cody stood at the door.
He wanted to knock on it, but he couldn't move.
It was gone, his right arm.
He looked at it. Physically it was still attached, but the heavy weight that hung in his chest stopped his arm from moving.
How could this be?
He was a Jedi! They had been together from the beginning of the war. Cody blamed himself, he should have been with him, not sent on a wasteful mission to Niobus.
Cody rested his head against the wood and closed his eyes. At some point he must have knocked, as Niki opened it and let him inside.
He sat, and they talked quietly until the small boy creeped up from behind him. Cody sprung around and grabbed the child by one shoulder, frightening both Piers and his mother at the speed and ferocity at which he moved.
"CODY!"
"Ar," he looked at the horror on the boys face, his lip quivering with emotion, "oh sorry Piers," changing tact, "I didn't have my bucket on! No 360 degree head up display! You'll make a good ARC one day." He managed to save the boy from the flood of apparent tears.
"You think so?" He smiled back as Cody lifted him onto his knee.
"My, haven't you filled out? I reckon you could almost wear a junior set these days?"
"Really? Could you get me some?"
Cody leaned forward and smiled, "I can get anything. Leave it with me."
After dinner and seeing Piers off to sleep, Cody himself showered and sat at the end of her bed, clad only in a towel. He kept clenching his right hand, looking at it in bewilderment. It was numb. He then ran both hands over his face in exhaustion. It had been a long and difficult day. Then his shoulders lurched forward involuntarily, and again as if some sort of muscular spasm was taking over his entire body.
A watershed of emotion.
Niki came quietly into the room and sat next to him as he folded into her arms, sobbing like Piers would have done. But no promise of a new kit could bring his general back.
He continued to let the tears run free, for the first time ever, Commander Cody lay all his cards on the table, only this time, he had lost everything.
.