Coruscant, Imperial Special Forces Training Center – One week later
"They'll be coming in for a reconnoiter; considering their cover ranks, you'll probably get to give them a decent brief," Raen's voice scratched quietly in his ear. He was just grateful his helmet hid the anxiety clawing around his gut. "Best of all, they should have a good plan for covering you and the rest in getting out of there."
"Not sure if that comforts me or worries me more," he murmured. Outwardly, the other officers and cadets he passed gave nods to the training commander; inwardly, though, Commander Cody wanted nothing more than to get out of the armor, out of the academy, and run. So far, he'd had to keep that desire clamped down, but since Raen had called him to say she had friends on-world that might could help it was all Cody could do not to desert and hang the consequences.
After Order 66, after the Empire's rise, Cody had more often than not wished he was dead. The chip in his head had forced him to fire on his friend, his general, and once he was himself again Cody hated finding the reports that General Kenobi was presumed dead – maybe not by Cody's actions, but probably close enough. The tide of change had decommissioned most of his clone brothers – Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor had simply vanished, and Cody envied them – but somehow Cody had been kept on. His brass in the new chain of command put him in charge of running the SO cadets, and put a handful of nominally-retired clone commandos under him to train the new kids. The work had kept him busy enough to forget the regret and the guilt, save a couple of patrols that had ended up pulling his course hard off the road.
A year ago he'd been taking a group of cadets on a training op through the sector outside the Jedi Temple. The place was off-limits to everyone except those on the Emperor's allowance, but Cody had plotted the course to skirt the very edges of that restricted space. All told, the op had been going smoothly until a ventilation grate burst open from the restricted side of that invisible boundary. The blur had charged through them with a lightsaber and panicked most of the group, and Cody had immediately retasked the cadets to getting back to the academy while he tracked down the blur. Of course it'd disappeared as soon as he'd started losing speed, but the next few weeks Cody had managed to secure permission to walk a solo patrol to find the source.
It had taken him three months before she found him. A lone Jedi survivor, but when Cody had run the mental math she couldn't have been older than thirteen when the order landed. But there she had been, a yellow lightsaber at his throat and demanding to know if he wanted her dead.
No, he had told her, but maybe I can help you.
Since then Cody had been a secret traitor to the Empire, to the force that had destroyed everything he had believed in. He couldn't directly send supplies to Raen, but he gave her the convoy schedules so she knew where and when to raid them for supplies. He warned her when the first Inquisitor he had ever seen arrived to hunt her – and when the other two arrived two months after the first had failed to find her alone. He wouldn't be the reason another Jedi died. He owed Obi-Wan that much.
"Consider it repaying you for what you've been doing," Raen told him as Cody reached his office, and relative safety from the people outside and his thoughts inside. "They should be at the center this afternoon; a delegation from Alderaan, three individuals."
Cody was already bringing up the schedule and saw the notice: Princess Leia Organa, soon her father's replacement in the Senate, along with a Lasat bodyguard and one Ambassador Kifeoth for a tour of the training facility at fourteen hundred.
"I'm playing tour guide to a pair of diplomats?"
"Kifeoth's your contact," Raen continued. "He'll confirm when you meet. His phrase is 'a force of peacekeepers may be better suited to my people's needs'."
Cody immediately committed the phrase to memory, then clicked into the channel twice. Raen returned the click before the channel closed, and Cody pried off his helmet with a sigh. Sure, living a double life was taxing, but Cody preferred it to the blind servitude his new peers offered the Empire. Not a single independent thought beyond expansion and oppression among them. This way he could make up for his mistakes, for the things he had been forced to do.
The desk job was cozy enough, especially given his age. Cody was just glad that his hair wasn't all gone to gray yet, though white at his temples reminded him of more than one thing he couldn't control about his life. He did keep up with physical training, still in top physical condition for a semi-retired clone commander, and the bi-weekly medical exams, while a little excessive, made sure the Empire knew he was still useful – for the time being. The commandos, though, were another story.
Apart from the core trainers that the Empire provided his branch of the academy, five formerly-Republic commandos had been 'donated' from the reformed 501st to serve as instructors based on their specialties. During the GAR days, SO and regular infantry barely mixed, so it was a very instructional day for Cody when he met his new staff: three members of the former Delta Squad, and two members of the former Omega Squad. He learned right away that they despised the Empire, despised being relegated to training, and by ultimate extension despised him. Between the five, the two former squad leaders were at least forced to despise him the least, and Cody liked to imagine that Boss and Niner – Delta and Omega's leaders, respectively – got on decently well with him. Delta's tech man, Fixer, was a closed book and entirely unreadable in the few times Cody had seen him. The remaining two, their squads' demolitions experts, were a definite problem though it wasn't an obvious one to someone who didn't know clones. When Cody had initially introduced himself to the two, he knew right off they'd lost someone close. When he'd tried asking for details Scorch had filled Cody's ears with blistering invectives for a good ten minutes and Darman, though quieter, had given Cody such a murderous look that Niner had to keep Darman from chasing after Cody while their supposed CO made a break for his life. Neither Boss nor Niner had offered explanations for the behavior in those initial meetings right away, and Cody even surprised himself by not referring the altercations up the chain. No one else in the Imperial command structure would understand what was going on with them – which was why Cody wanted to get all five of them out and on their way to somewhere safe. Commandos always had a backup plan, even if it took nearly sixteen years to complete.
It had been three weeks ago when Niner and, surprisingly, Fixer had caught Cody in the commissary at the end of another boring day, asking to speak to him in private. Instead of his office, Cody took them directly to his quarters, even finding some tihaar that Raen had somehow managed to smuggle to his desk months ago. The strong Mandalorian liquor was enough, Cody felt, to start breaking the ice, particularly with Niner as the two began to explain what had happened to their brothers, in better detail than any mission report Cody tried searching for from the few GAR records he had access to.
Fixer went first, voice quiet but somehow still emotional. Delta had been sent to Kashyyyk at the end of the war, under the command of Generals Yoda and Etain Tur-Mukan with Etain as their direct Jedi liaison. Although the squad had completed their mission of rescuing the Wookiee leader Tarfful, as Delta were approaching their rendezvous their fourth man, Sev, was captured by Trandoshan slavers working for the Seps. Scorch and Sev had been batch-brothers, so Sev's capture was a personal matter to Scorch, one that needed to be followed up immediately in his eyes. Worse, rather than getting the order to go after him, Delta had been ordered to regroup with Etain and the Wookiees – leaving Sev behind to an unknown fate.
"He blamed Boss and me for the longest time," Fixer had said in conclusion, drawn gaze uneasy at revealing such personal information. "It's been a long time, and Sev might be dead, but Scorch refuses to give up hope. He doesn't like talking about it because he's decided since the Empire replaced the Republic and killed the Jedi, they're the next party at fault for not letting us recover Sev."
Niner's explanation earned Darman Cody's everlasting sympathies. Darman had fallen in love with Etain over the course of the war, and she with him, to the point that Etain had been ready to leave the Jedi. They even had a kid, a boy that had been adopted by Darman's training sergeant to keep him safe from the Jedi. After Etain had come back from Kashyyyk and retired from the Jedi, Order 66 had gone out.
"Don't know about you infantry guys, but we never had the issue of being made to go through with it," Niner had added, not without sympathy but still leaving a bitter taste in Cody's mouth. "Otherwise it wouldn't have ended well for her anyway."
Omega and a batch of independent ARCs had been coordinating a mass desertion, with Etain trying to meet Niner and Darman to get to their vessel. A checkpoint had separated them, and Etain had been right behind a small group trying to get through. That small group had drawn their lightsabers, to cut through the soldiers manning the checkpoint. Etain had been caught in the crossfire, and struck down by a Jedi lightsaber while trying to protect the clones that would have killed her if she'd pulled the same stunt. Darman had watched the whole thing, Niner, too, before they had been caught and thrown back into the Imperial Army.
"His son has been without Dar his whole life," Niner had finished. "He might not say it, but I know he'd want nothing more than to see his ad'ika again. Has to."
Cody had thanked them, had bid them farewell, and in the privacy following spent the night discovering what a bender was. It wasn't just the scars of the sudden end to the war had left them; it was the immediacy of those unseen injuries. Cody had been forced to turn on his best friend, but Scorch had lost his brother, Darman his lover and son. The tihaar had dulled the pain but not the grief, and Cody had spent the next day with a raging headache and unable to listen to anything louder than a whisper without reeling behind his helmet. After the hangover was gone had been when he'd told Raen he needed to get those five out.
"And now they might just get a chance," Cody murmured as he confirmed the tour. If Kifeoth was part of Raen's ticket to getting those men out, Cody wasn't going to pass it up.
–
Meeting with Senate representatives and foreign ambassadors wasn't usually on Cody's to-do list, but it was one of the few things that meant he wasn't in armor. At thirteen-fifty-nine Cody was out at the academy's speeder pad, without a guard detail, crisply dressed in the dark gray of the Imperial Army and commander's rank tabs firmly pinned to his breast. He eschewed the cap since he preferred a helmet anyway and had done everything in his power to keep his uniform pants straight when tucked into his boots. Of course he wore his armor bodysuit underneath, just in case.
He only needed to wait an additional five minutes before the Senatorial speeder appeared in the skylanes and began its descent towards him. Cody gave his jacket one last tug before pulling himself into his at-ease stance. This is it.
The speeder landed without issue and opened for the passengers to disembark, with the young princess first, escorting a man that towered over her easily and had his eyes hidden behind a darkened visor, and closed after the princess' bodyguard, a Lasat, hopped off the ramp, drawn up above the two humans. Cody exhaled slowly before approaching them with an ease that he absolutely did not feel.
"Your highness, ambassador, it's an honor to welcome you to the Empire's Special Operations Training Center," Cody greeted them, inclining his head briefly. "I'm Commander Cody; I'll be escorting you through the academy."
"A pleasure to meet you, commander," the princess replied; although she was young, Cody couldn't help but be reminded of Padme Amidala. Padme had been a force of personality that this new senator had undoubtedly studied and could channel all too easily. "I was told that this training center was one of the few places in the military that still makes use of Clone War veterans; part of my interest in this inspection was to determine these brave soldiers are being treated well."
Cody heard the soft crack of a knuckle and saw the ambassador clenching a fist. That doesn't bode well if this guy doesn't like clones. Must be Raen's man. Just great.
"Well, your highness, rest assured that's the case; I'm one of those few still under the Empire's watch," Cody told her, though she could have undoubtedly guessed. "I'm sure you'd like to see for yourself."
"Both myself and Ambassador Kifeoth would appreciate that, thank you."
Cody nodded, giving a glance to Kifeoth and the Lasat before leading them inside. Kifeoth has strong opinions on clones and/or the war. Figures, Raen always draws in hard cases like me and those Inquisitors. Let's hope he gives me that damn confirm phrase or we're getting nowhere fast.
Cody didn't focus too much on actually giving the tour, since he was cleared to show off some of the practice floors and one of the med clinics and only needed to give a general explanation of each area. It did give him an opportunity to study the civilians. The princess, Leia, reminded him in every good way about the former Senator from Naboo: always concerned and open-hearted, but she could get feisty and fierce if she couldn't have her way. Cody could respect the Lasat – there were few of them to begin with – but suspected he had a much deeper role than a mere bodyguard; maybe a former military man, even. But Kifeoth made Cody very wary; despite the fine green coat and well-shined boots, Cody could tell Kifeoth was no diplomat by trade. He walked a little too gracefully, was a little too lean, to pull off a full-fledged ambassador for the long term. Not to mention, other than his steady grip on Leia's shoulder, Kifeoth hadn't relaxed for a moment since Cody had admitted he was a clone. In Cody's experience and with the benefit of hindsight, he could make two guesses about Kifeoth: one, the man knew very well who Cody was, probably even knew who his general during the war had been; and two, Kifeoth had been in contact with, or maybe even was, a survivor of Order 66. Only someone exposed directly to that day would react in such a small but obvious manner.
The clinic was, obviously, Leia's primary goal, and while she interrogated one of the doctors Cody lingered with Kifeoth.
"What you're doing is all well and good," Kifeoth said quietly, the first words he'd spoken all day and rough with a hint of anger, "but, to be honest…"
Say the damn words already, man!, Cody thought anxiously.
"…a force of peacekeepers may be better suited to my people's needs," Kifeoth finished, and Cody couldn't help closing his eyes with a relieved sigh. "I'll need to ask for some specifics from my sources."
You mean you're going to ask Raen how she got me on her side, Cody thought bitterly. Can't just trust a man on his word these days, apparently.
"If you have any concerns I should be aware of, ambassador, I can take any complaints and escalate them to my superiors," Cody noted, keeping his voice cold. Cody would have sworn Kifeoth smirked at him before the ambassador handed a datapad to him.
"I made a list," Kifeoth answered, and Cody felt the brief impulse to wring his neck. "You don't need to advise your superiors on the matter, you should be able to handle it."
"I'll keep that in mind," Cody muttered, keeping a hold on the datapad and making sure the screen didn't turn on. Leia finished her conversation with the doctor and made her way back to Cody and Kifeoth, though her gaze was more sternly directed to Kifeoth before Cody escorted them out of the clinic.
"Well, commander, this has been a very enlightening trip," Leia said once Cody had gotten them back to the speeder pad. "Perhaps we can communicate in the future, regarding the medical equipment here."
Medical equipment? Why'd a senator want to discuss that with me? Cody thought briefly, but his brain kicked in. Kifeoth wasn't the only representative Raen had sent; the princess and maybe even the Lasat were all in on it, together. I just walked a rebel cell right through my command!
"I'll make sure to leave my information with your father's office, your highness," Cody told her, at once relieved and shaken. Clearly, though, they'd all seen what they needed to; all he could do was sit tight and keep his role in the dark until it was time to move. "If you'd like to discuss those logistics in person, you can almost always find me here."
"I'm sure we'll be in touch," Kifeoth added, and Cody bit back another internal fume. Not a Jedi, that one. Raen might be jare'la, but she's still got some of the Jedi attitude. Kifeoth just has attitude, period.
Cody watched the trio re-enter the speeder, and felt a sense of impending action as the speeder took off. Instead of leading and designing an operation, Cody suddenly realized, he was about to become the objective of an upcoming op. He and five other clones who would not appreciate being in the dark when the call came to move out.
"Gotta get some more range time in," Cody muttered to himself as he went back inside to get out of the stupid uniform. He had a feeling he was going to need as much prep as he could get in as possible.