Cody was bored.

Everything had been a blur of constant activity since departing Ord Cestus. Too keyed up to sleep, he stared at gleaming black floor, wondering again if he'd done the right thing. What if he'd stayed at the medical center?

Followed orders.

He'd been following orders since he was a tubie.

But, then he'd been assigned to Kenobi and everything changed. The General encouraged him to think differently. Challenge beliefs. And, that had led him here to the RMB.

He huffed out a barely audible breath of laughter at his current situation, wondering what Kenobi would think of him now. Would Kenobi agree with the choices he'd made? Did it matter? He wasn't likely to see the General or the 212th again. That thought stung. He was headed for court-martial. And, what then? A firing squad? It was the most likely outcome.

They'll likely make an example of me.

He closed his eyes and let his mind drift further back. A few months back he'd walked into a minefield. His injuries were so severe he was surprised the Republic bothered to keep him alive. And, he'd been assigned a Jedi healer.

There are some good people in the Republic.

His thoughts drifted to a certain Jedi commander. The one he'd told himself he wouldn't think of anymore.

But, if he wasn't going to be around much longer, what harm was there in thinking of her?

She made him feel differently about everything. Their time together at Ord Cestus had been difficult sometimes. He'd been in pain from his spinal injury, but she'd made see everything in a new light. She made him laugh. She challenged him to think about life outside of the war. Before they'd even gotten intimate, he and Barriss had shared the simplest of experiences. Preparing a meal. Sharing a dessert. Watching a holovid. This was the missing piece in the highly structured life of a clone. Clones were created to fight and die for the Republic. Not enjoy the privileges of it.

She gave her body to him. Made him feel-

His reverie was interrupted by the force shield dropping.

"Commander, let's go."

Cody didn't move.

"Go where?" Cody challenged. Fox had introduced him to the guards in the morning when he delivered him to the cell. But, these two were different. Their armor markings were slightly... off. His hackles immediately raised. "And, who the fek are you? What happened to Switch and Flak?"

The trooper looked at his counterpart who shrugged. Clones didn't shrug. "They... were assigned elsewhere. Come on, move it."

Cody refused to move. "Where am I headed?"

The two guards looked back and forth at each other. There was a longer than average pause as the two guards conversed behind their helmets.

The first guard walked in and grabbed him by the arm. "To the mess."

That was too long of a pause to answer a simple question. Cody dodged away from the guard. "Who are you?"

The two guards hesitated and looked back and forth at each other again.

"Murgh," said the first guard.

"Akirono," mumbled out the second one.

Cody continued to stall for time. "Akirono? What kind of name is that for a clone?"

"You ask too many questions, Commander," the guard said Cody's name with mocking emphasis.

Cody tensed. But, he didn't know that he had many options either. He had no way of contacting Fox. Ponds and Fox had warned him to "watch his back" and be careful here in the RMB. But, how exactly he was to do that they hadn't specified.

The second guard reached for him, but Cody spared him the trouble, not wanting his shoulder pulled back out of the socket. He walked out of the cell out on his own. He'd play their game. For now.

He walked out of the cell between his two guards, giving both of them a searching look.

"Eyes straight ahead!" barked the first guard, the one who'd identified himself as 'Murgh.'

There was something off about their body language...

Murgh and Akirono directed him down corridor after corridor.

This is a very long walk to the mess.

Cody stopped and faced his first guard. "I want to talk to Fox."

"Keep walking, Commander," said Murgh with that same mocking tone.

He grabbed onto Cody and steered him into a poorly lit side corridor.

"We have something special planned for you," mocked Akirono.

Oh, I'm sure you do.

Cody caught a glint of metal as Murgh ejected a vibroblade. Akirono slipped behind Cody, pinned his arms and clicked binder cuffs on his wrists.

"For the Republic," the guard taunted ramming his blade toward Cody's abdomen.

Not happening.

Cody was glad for a bit of action.

He used Akirono's pinning him for balance and threw his body in a 360 degree spin up and out of the way. The blade only grazed him, leaving a light trail across his gut in what should have been a fatal thrust.

"For the 212th Airborne," Cody hissed, head-butting Akirino as he came down from his spin. There was a satisfying thwack of plastoid hitting bone and his attacker dropped.

Cody turned his attention to Murgh. The first guard realized now Cody would not go down easily. Murgh pulled out his blaster in his right hand, the other still brandishing the vibroblade.

Cody didn't hesitate.

These guards were out to kill him.

He focused on the blaster first since it had greater range and could potentially do more damage. He whipped up his leg and did a perfect break of his attacker's scaphoid bone.

Alpha would've loved that one. Disabled his wrist in one kick.

Of course, there was still the vibroblade to contend with-

Murgh howled in fury and charged at Cody's chest with his blade. Cody side-stepped him, but still ended up with the blade buried deep in his bicep.

Gah. Ow. Ow. Ow.

Blood rushed down his arm. He focused his attention on getting loose from the binders. It took several precious seconds to slip out. He threw the binders to the corridor floor and clasped a hand on top of his arm, trying to stem the rapid rush of blood.

I hope the shabuir didn't get lucky and hit an artery.

Murgh came in for a second wave of attack. The familiar sound of armored boots running full tilt on polished floors told them their fight was about to be interrupted. Murgh heard it, too, and he yanked a thermal detonator off his belt.

Murgh's fumbling movements suggested he wasn't comfortable with using the device. He stabbed at the arming switch, trying to get it to activate.

"Fek, no," Cody said, refusing to be obliterated along with half of the RMB. He leapt on Murgh and they wrestled for control of the explosive.

"Cody! Stand down!" Commander Fox shouted across the corridor.

A piercing alarm came off of the explosive.

Brilliant. Murgh figured out how to arm the t-det. Cody continued to fight Murgh for control of the explosive. He caught sight of the timer. There were only seconds until it detonated.

"Cody! Stand down or I will fire!" He took a precious micro-second to look back over his shoulder at Fox.

He didn't have time to explain.

The Coruscanti Commander and two full squads from the guard had their weapons trained on him with high-powered assault rifles.

So, this is how it ends.

He snapped the clone's neck and grabbed at the t-det, hitting the kill switch.

"Fire!"

He wished he'd had a chance to figure out what was wrong with Fox. Maybe try and make amends with his brother.

In a last ditch effort, he threw Murgh's armored body up to absorb the worst of the blaster fire. He was surrounded by a hail of blue bolts.

He thought of Barriss and General Kenobi. He thought of Rex, Wolffe, Ponds and the rest of his batch.

This was a fekked up way to die.

One of the shots slipped past his "cover" and burned into his thigh. He hunched himself up as small as possible.

"Commander, look!"

"Cease fire!"

He stayed down, not moving. He coughed from the smell of burnt plastoid.

Fox came over and lifted the armored body off of him.

Cody still didn't dare move. Fox and his men had shot him.

"Get Silver down here immediately."

Fox pried the t-det out of Cody's hands, and examined it. "You deactivated it," he murmured.

Cody slowly opened his eyes and blinked up at his brother. "Of course I deactivated it. The shabuir was trying to blow up the place," Cody grumbled, resisting the urge to add di'kut to the end of the sentence, but it was implied. Very clearly. He was tired. In pain. And, frustrated.

He did give himself credit for learning restraint from Kenobi. He blew out a long deep breath and tried to pull himself up, but his strength failed him. He cursed and made a second attempt.

Fox yelled for a medpac, helping him to a seated position. "Hang tight. The medic is on the way." He wrapped a pressure bandage around Cody's bicep, careful not to cause him undue pain.

His brother's actions implied he still cared what happened to Cody. He didn't understand Fox.

"What happened?" Cody demanded, starting to feel dazed now that the adrenaline rush was over.

"Keep pressure on your arm until the medic gets here. He hit an artery." He pressed Cody's hand over the wound and then turned his attention to the charred and burnt guard next to them. He rolled him onto his back and tugged off his helmet.

Cody leaned forward and examined Murgh with interest. "I didn't think they were clones. Their body language was all wrong."

"My guess is he's a bounty hunter," Fox shook his head. He pointed inside Murgh's helmet. "Voice modifiers so they sound like clones," he pointed out all the extra wiring inside the helmet.

Cody glanced over at Akirino. He couldn't see the other 'clone' because he was surrounded by a group of Coruscanti guard. "I take it he's no Jango either?"

Fox nodded. "One of my men pulled off his helmet to check to see if he was still alive. It was what alerted us to stop firing."

Cody shook his head. "Good timing."

Fox shoot his head. "Better timing would have been before we started firing."

Cody snorted lightly with laughter. "Not arguing."

More troopers arrived on scene. Cody immediately recognized Thorne and gave him a nod.

"Hey Cody, heard you were here," Thorne greeted, "you alright?"

"I was stabbed by a fake trooper and then shot by the real Coruscant Guard, but yes, I guess I'm alright," Cody conceded.

"You shot him?!" Thorne stared at Fox.

"I'll explain later," Fox's voice conveyed his agitation at the whole incident. "Find Switch and Flak. They had guard duty. Why aren't they here? And where did these... bounty hunters... get our armor?"

Thorne nodded. "I'm on it." He looked at Cody again. "Take care, brother."

Silver came around the corner at a run, medkit in hand. The mutilated 'clone' body was being hauled away and Silver looked at the armored form in alarm.

"I'll explain later," Fox said to the medic. He pointed to Cody. "Take care of him."

Silver gave Cody a wary look, surveying the all the blast damage to the hallway. He knelt down next to Cody and murmured: "I thought I told you to be careful in this place."

"I was being careful."

Silver ran a scanner over Cody. "This is not being careful." He looked over at Fox. "Can I bring him back to medbay for treatment?"

Fox looked back from where he was directing cleaning up of the scene. "He's headed straight back to his cell. Patch him up here."

Silver gave Cody a questioning look.

Cody surveyed the damage in the hallway. "This is not my fault."

The medic shook his head. "I've heard that before," he began pulling supplies out of his pack, "in your case, though, I believe you." He removed the pressure bandage from Cody's bicept and sealed up the wound, before applying a generous amount of bacta. He also applied a light coating of bacta to the wound on Cody's abdomen.

Cody kept his attention focused on Fox and Thorne. They were conversing back and forth, looking over at Cody.

He'd been getting a lot of that lately, and he hated it.

He glanced back at Silver in surprise as the medic slipped something cool into the bandage around his middle. Silver shot him a look that said not to ask any questions. Cody turned his attention back to Fox.

Two clones in guard gear came running around the corner and saluted Fox, trailed by a third member of the guard.

"Switch! Flak! Where the fek have you been?!"

"Escort duty for the Chancellor," Flak rushed out, breathless, "told the orders came directly from you." His gaze swept the scene in the hallway before fixing on Cody.

"Our comlinks went down as soon as we arrived," Switch said. "We had no idea anything was wrong until Squawk came looking for us."

Fox's fist clenched in frustration. "I never gave that order." He turned back toward Cody. "Someone is trying to kill you."

"Noticed that," Cody murmured, accepting the hand up the medic offered him.

Fox walked Cody back to his cell, escorted by a full guard of troopers. He doubled the guards on Cody's cell, taking pains to introduce Cody to his guards. He handed Cody a com link. "Comm me if you need me. Don't try to call outside. Signals here are encrypted."

Cody tilted his head to the side. "You are making a concerted effort to keep me alive."

"Except for the part where I was fooled into trying to kill you about an hour ago."

"Yes, except for that," Cody acknowledged.

"You're confined to your cell, for your own safety."

"Figured as much," Cody blew out a sigh.

"You don't leave here unless I'm escorting you out of here."

"Duly noted."

Fox turned to leave, heading up the steps out the cell.

"Hey, vod," Cody called, pausing Fox mid-step, "thank you."

Fox turned, looking as if he wanted to say something, and then shook his head, making a quick departure.

Cody settled on his bunk, ignoring the sting of his new wounds. With everything that happened, he forgot to ask Fox about food. He rolled onto his side for sleep, making sure he was facing the door. Clutched in his hands was the sharp surgi-blade given to him by Silver.

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