The Resolute

Day Ten, late morning

Delta Thirty-Eight leaned an elbow against the viewport and gazed out into the twisting blue streaks of hyperspace. It was nice to have some real down time, after three back-to-back high-stake missions. The last week had been a constant whirl of activity involving two of them. Then there was Ichtose, and then, the Deltas had been stuck in their shuttle for nearly two days, because on their way to deliver the intel to General Kenobi, they'd been contacted and retasked for the purpose of blowing up a cache of deactivated droids, ten hours in the opposite direction.

And then, late yesterday, when they'd once again been heading for the Negotiator and the rest of the Third Systems Army, the Delta Squad had been redirected again, this time to Pantora to rendezvous with the Resolute. Upon arriving, they immediately brought the captured data stick to the bridge, because Boss wanted to wrap up the old mission – classified as non-urgent, but nevertheless – and Skywalker was the closest Jedi, and the Jedi had been the ones who wanted the intelligence in the first place.

The young general, who was more than pleased with their results, thanked them and ordered them to get some rest while they could, because they'd be traveling with the 501st for a day or so before being dropped off again, which was news to the sergeant. Less than an hour later, the Resolute had entered hyperspace. Boss thought about asking where the 501st was headed, but supposed it didn't matter. The Deltas wouldn't likely be involved in their mission, anyway.

In the meantime, Thirty-Eight and his squad mates had taken advantage of the fact that they were not stuck on a shuttle. As a matter of fact, Boss hadn't laid eyes on any of his teammates since leaving the Predator, early this morning. The others had scattered in all directions. Boss himself had eaten breakfast in a slow and unhurried manner. Then he'd hit the gym, talked with some of the troopers, sparred with some of the other troopers, two against one – he'd lost twice and won eight times, which irked the 501st rookies greatly – and then taken a quiet walk around the spacious corridors.

Currently, he was in one of the forward observation decks, staring out into hyperspace and trying not to think about anything in particular, just for a change of pace. Fixer was on the bridge, running a group of officers through the new missile logistics at Captain Rex's request.

Thirty-Eight didn't know where Sev and Scorch were, but he hadn't any comms from irritated officers. He figured that as long as they weren't trying to start fights, weren't trying to bribe the loadmaster, and weren't swapping grenades with the ARC troopers, he didn't really care where they were.

Sitting on the bench next to the viewport, Thirty-Eight leaned back against the cold transparisteel and closed his eyes. He wore his armor so much that, when he did wear fatigues, he was always surprised at how comfortable they were in comparison. As a matter of fact, they made him feel so much lighter that it actually took a bit of getting used to. Well, he'd have time. Another few hours of silence, and –

His commlink beeped.

Boss opened one eye and stared at it, hoping he'd heard wrong. Unfortunately, the green light for short-range comms was, in fact, flashing.

After indulging in a brief thought about not answering, he answered. "Delta Thirty-Eight here."

"Sergeant," said Commander Cody's voice. "I heard you'd boarded."

"You heard right," Boss answered, sitting upright with a faint smile. He'd had no idea the commander was on the Resolute. "Were you calling to verify a rumor, sir, or do you have a job for us?"

Cody huffed a laugh. "I've always got a job for you lads."

"Eh, that figures." Thirty-Eight got to his feet. "Where should I meet you?"

"Briefing Room Twelve."

"I'll contact the squad."

"They're on their way." A short pause. "Already wanting to get back to the action, eh, Sergeant?"

Thirty-Eight headed aft and did not disguise the sarcasm in his voice as he replied, "Yes, sir; we debriefed from the Ichtose mission nearly six hours ago. I was starting to think we'd been forgotten."

". . . No chance of that, I'm afraid."

The way Cody hesitated made Boss raise a suspicious eyebrow. "Why? Do I need to corral Scorch?"

"No." Cody chuckled, as if in realization. "Sorry, I was distracted. No, no fights have broken out . . . Though, fair warning, apparently that bet from the mission to Vassek Three and Rattatak is still good as far as some of Rex's men are concerned."

"That was months ago." Boss sidestepped a mouse droid. "Is Rex still trying to even the score?"

"Rex isn't," Cody told him. "But Fives and Echo and Hardcase are."

As Boss entered the lift, he said, "I don't recall a trooper named Hardcase."

"He's a demolition expert. He takes challenges to the Five-Oh-First personally, even if he wasn't present at the time they were given."

"Don't introduce him to Scorch," Boss requested promptly.

"I didn't. . ." Cody sounded a little too amused as he added, "But Fives did."

"Just what we needed," Boss said. Fives, he remembered, had been quite the risk-taker. "I'll be with you in a moment."

He deactivated his comm just as the lift doors opened.

Two troopers without helmets, who were waiting for the lift, stepped aside to let Boss between them. As he did so, one of them glanced down at the commando sergeant's stripes on his right sleeve. "Hey!" he said, sounding both surprised and pleased. "You're Delta Thirty-Eight, aren't you?"

"Yes." Boss turned slightly to glance at a Two-Twelfth trooper. He didn't recognize this guy, but then again, he hadn't really worked with many of the regulars.

"I thought I recognized you!" The trooper gave him a wide grin and elbowed his companion, who wore the blue markings of the Five-Oh-First. "Flash and me were wondering the other day if you guys were still around."

Flash? Boss paused, tilting his head. He was on the Rattatak mission.

And the voice and intonation of the Two-Twelfth clone brought back a vague memory of a trooper being shot, Fixer trying to keep the medic back, General Fisto staying behind to help . . . "Gadget," he said.

"Yep!" The trooper grinned and fell into step beside him.

Thirty-Eight glanced over at Flash as he kept pace beside Gadget. "Weren't you two headed somewhere else?"

"We sure were," Flash answered brightly, despite the fact that they were very obviously not heading somewhere else. "Where are you headed, Sergeant?"

"To the briefing room. What's the Two-Twelfth doing on the Five-Oh-First's flagship, anyway?"

"There's only a couple of us here," Gadget explained. "Ghost Squad is stuck out near Pantora for a while to train a bunch of new guys. Wooley's in charge of that, because Cody got recalled to the main fleet, so General Skywalker had to pick him up on his way by . . ."

Delta Thirty-Eight turned a corner.

Gadget kept talking. "And Cody pulled a few of us less experienced troopers to go with him, because we weren't being useful where we were."

Boss cast a meaningful look in his direction, because he didn't think that unnecessarily escorting a commando sergeant was useful either, but said nothing.

Just as well, considering that Gadget completely ignored his look. "Waxer and Boil got stuck with Wooley, though. And we won't be on the Resolute long – maybe another shift or so. Kind of funny, huh, Sergeant?"

Boss gave a noncommittal grunt, as he had no idea what was supposed to be funny or whether it was, and kept moving.

"I mean, running into you here." Gadget gestured with all the enthusiasm of a newly deployed shiny. "If you'd finished your mission tomorrow, for example, we wouldn't have seen you at all."

The briefing room door was in sight. Thirty-Eight picked up his pace a little.

"Sergeant," Gadget went on, completely undeterred by his continued silence. "Is your whole squad here? On the ship, I mean?"

Halting in front of the briefing room, Boss finally turned to look at him. "Yes." He keyed the door open and was just about to stride in when familiar footsteps sounded to his right.

"Hey, Boss." Fixer, also wearing fatigues in the relative safety of the ship, stopped next to him and cast a curious glance at the two regulars.

"Corporal!" Gadget said excitedly.

Fixer blinked once, but that was all the indication he gave of being caught off-guard. "Gadget," he said. "Flash."

Boss gave an amused huff. Of course Fixer remembered names ten times faster than he could. "Commander's waiting, Forty."

Gadget's smile wilted a little in disappointment, and Flash said, "Come on, Gadget, we've got our own duties to attend to."

"Uh – right." Gadget grinned again. "Hope to see you around, sirs!"

Boss and Fixer nodded back before entering the room. Cody was standing at the holotable, leaning both hands against the edge as he observed a map of a city. Scorch and Sev, meanwhile, were sitting on a bench at the opposite side of the room, heads bent over a single datapad as they read silently.

The sight was unusual enough that Boss and Fixer paused to exchange wary glances. Scorch and Sev were acting strange. Instead of jumping to their feet and complaining about how long it had taken their sergeant to show up, the two batchmates muttered back and forth for a minute, looked at Boss, and then side-eyed each other.

Scorch hesitated almost guiltily, then typed something into the datapad and turned it towards Sev, who gave a miniscule nod of approval. Then Six-Two tapped a button, almost like he'd just sent a message.

Wondering if he should be concerned, Boss headed over to Cody.

The commander was focused on a map of what appeared to be a cave system situated to the east of a city. He set a holographic marker in the centermost cave before finally looking up.

"Commander Cody," Thirty-Eight said.

"Boss, Fixer." He stepped forward, clasping their hands in turn. "Glad to have you on board, as always."

Boss smirked. "Because you get to send us off on another mission, sir?"

"That's only partly true. It's always good to see you're alive."

"Can't trust the reports, eh, Commander?" Thirty-Eight asked, stepping back.

"Not as much, lately." Cody's easy smile faltered. "Keeping track of different units was a big enough chore before, but lately intel's been harder and harder to verify."

Fixer tilted his head. "How so, sir?"

"Well. Last week, we received a transmitted code from a platoon leader, reporting a successful mission. But he and his men never showed up at base. We sent a search party, finally located them. All dead. The lieutenant's comm was still transmitting the code, but as a matter of fact, the mission had never even started."

He paused as his datapad pinged, glanced at it, then looked back at the commandos. "Some unidentified group of Separatist patriots not only managed to kill them all within a few minutes of deployment, but were clever enough to get through our codes and use them against us."

Boss frowned. "And you're seeing this tactic more frequently."

"Yeah. . . We have to verify everything with verbal codes now, when direct observation is impossible." Cody stared at the floor for a long moment, then straightened. "But we know how to deal with that whole mess. That's not why I called you here."

"No?"

"No." Cody typed on the holograph table for a moment, and the image zoomed out until the entire planet became visible. "Sev, Scorch."

"Right here!" Scorch bounced up from the bench and hurried over.

Sev followed, met Thirty-Eight's eyes briefly, and focused on the holograph table.

"Alright, gentlemen," Cody said, clasping his hands behind his back. "Four days ago, the Jedi Temple received a request for aid from the Temple of the Whills, which is, to the best of my knowledge, a sort of . . . sister order of the Jedi. General Vos was dispatched and arrived there two days ago. Today, he was reassigned, and his former padawan was sent to replace him. She is on her way there now."

Fixer raised an eyebrow at his datapad. "So General Vos is the one who knows the situation, but General Secura will be the one going in."

"Wait." Scorch glanced at him. "Who's General Secura?"

Delta Forty tilted the datapad toward him for less than an instant. When Scorch tried to tilt it back towards himself, Fixer pulled it away and said, "General Aayla Secura, Twi'lek female, former padawan of Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos."

"Exactly," said Cody, not batting an eye at Forty's rapid-fire research. "The situation is not ideal, but unfortunately Vos and his particular skillset are needed in an ongoing investigation on Coruscant."

"I take it this is where we come in," said Boss.

The commander nodded. "You're going to Jedha to assist General Secura."

"Just us?" Scorch checked. "Or will it be a joint mission with the Five-Oh-First?"

He sounded a little too eager, and Oh-Seven gave him a slow look.

"What?" Scorch asked, all innocence.

". . . Nothing."

"The Five-Oh-First has another assignment," said Cody. "A planetary invasion, to be exact."

"Aw, blast." Six-Two huffed. "I thought it would be a good chance for them to try and even the score, seeing as how they lost last time."

Thirty-Eight folded his arms. "Commander, given our lack of data, do you think our squad will be enough?"

"General Fisto suggested that I pick a few good men," Cody said. "I believe you fill those qualifications nicely."

"And conveniently," Fixer said in a dry voice. "Respectfully, Commander, you didn't know we'd be here this morning."

Cody looked smug. "As a matter of fact, I did."

"That's weird," Six-Two said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. "We didn't know we'd be here this morning."

"Who do you think redirected you to the Resolute?"

". . . Advisor?" guessed Scorch, and Fixer facepalmed.

"As a matter of fact," Cody said, easily ignoring the Deltas' tendency towards theatrics. "General Fisto particularly requested Delta Squad, and asked me to pass on his greetings and thanks."

"Oh," said Scorch. "Cool."

Sev, never one to let Scorch have the last word, shook his head. "And here I thought General Skywalker just wanted to work with us again."

"He was very impressed with your work on the Rattatak mission," said Cody, then glanced sidelong at Boss. "Actually . . . That brings up a little complication. You guys have room on the Predator for one more?"

The commandos exchanged swift glances. They had the room, all right, something which Cody knew perfectly well. In fact, Boss decided that he really didn't like Cody's tone of voice or the look of bland innocence on his face.

So, he chose to ask a question instead of answering directly. "Room for who, Commander? General Skywalker?"

"No. His padawan, Ahsoka Tano."

His padawan. Boss clearly remembered the skinny little Togruta girl who'd pranced onto the bridge of the Negotiator before the Vassek Three mission. She couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen, standard.

Cody was eyeing the Deltas, obviously enjoying their hesitancy.

"Ahsoka Tano?" Fixer repeated blankly.

"You mean . . . the Togruta kid?" Sev added, in a tone that indicated he sincerely hoped he was wrong.

"Oh! Oh, her!" Scorch exclaimed, as though he'd had no idea who Cody was talking about. "Yeah, I mean, it'll be a tight fit, but we could probably stuff her in a storage rack . . . Maybe if I move some of my explosives, what do you think, Boss?"

"Sir," Fixer put in. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

"What," Sev grunted, deliberately being difficult. "Moving explosives, or stuffing her in a storage rack?"

"Both!" Scorch said, over Fixer's, "No, taking her with us."

"Hold on, hold on." Boss turned to Cody. "Commander, did General Skywalker request that she join us?"

"He – suggested it," said Cody, still holding back an amused smirk. "I'm sure he'll talk to you about it."

There was a moment of silence while Fixer pulled up Ahsoka Tano's service record; Sev and Scorch stared uncertainly between each other, their other teammates, and Cody; and Boss stood, gazing down at the holotable and wondering 'why'.

The Deltas were one of the top commando teams in the entire GAR. If they'd been picked for a mission, it was because the mission required higher levels of skill and focus than the regular troopers could provide. They didn't need to have their focus split by babysitting a kid who probably couldn't keep her mouth shut to save her own life, let alone those of her teammates. He'd mention as much to the general, respectfully of course . . .

But I can't refuse if Skywalker insists, can I? Boss gave an inaudible sigh. Great.

Having gotten his mental complaints out of the way, at least for the moment, Thirty-Eight cleared his throat. "We'll . . . talk to the general."

"Good idea," Cody replied.

Fixer shifted and looked up from his screen. "What's our specific destination, Commander?"

Cody zoomed the holograph out even more, until Boss could see that what he had thought was a planet was actually a moon, and pointed at a blinking red dot on the moon's surface. "You boys are headed to the Catacombs of Cadera."

"Roger that," Boss said. "Any chance we can contact General Vos and obtain mission data?"

"You'll be rendezvousing with him in the catacombs before he heads to Coruscant," Cody said. "Secura should be there in a few hours, and Vos will brief you on the situation when you arrive. Any further questions?"

"Yes!" Scorch answered promptly. "Boss, can we visit the armory before we take off? The Predator's kind of low on supplies."

Fixer looked confused. "I restocked our supplies already, including standard ammo."

"Yeah, yeah." Scorch brushed him off with a wave. "But we're low on the important stuff. The Resolute just picked up a new supply of thermals."

Boss eyed him. "How do you know that?"

"Ah. . . a trooper named Hardcase told me."

Cody looked stoically down at his datapad, probably glorying in the chaos that Boss definitely hadn't asked for on his first eight hours of leave in three weeks.

"We could use some more sonic detonators," Boss said at last, when he'd let the silence last long enough to indicate his disapproval. "We'll ask the quartermaster before we ship out. Commander, is there anything else?"

"Not unless you have questions. The Resolute will drop out of hyperspace to let your shuttle off in less than three hours."

"We'll be ready." Thirty-Eight glanced once more at the holograph. "How long will our flight to Jedha take?"

"About six hours."

"Okay. Any estimations on mission length?"

"None." Cody raised a dissatisfied eyebrow. "I don't even know the mission objectives. It's been sanctioned by the Jedi Council, but might not be related to the war effort. Very likely not, as a matter of fact. Jedha's a destination for pilgrims, and that's about it. There hasn't been a hint of Separatists taking even the slightest interest in it."

"Hmm." Thirty-Eight tapped a hand thoughtfully against his leg. "What if we get recalled by the GAR while we're on Jedha?"

"You won't. You're working directly under General Secura for the duration of the mission. Command knows not to call on you until you're back with the fleet."

"Understood. I'll verify with Advisor after I speak with the general."

"Excellent." Cody straightened. "Good luck, Delta Squad."

They saluted him together, then turned and left the room. All four of them remained quiet until they were halfway down the corridor, at which point Fixer drew ahead a bit. Strangely, both Sev and Scorch kept pace on either side of Boss, but neither of them made any comments.

Just as Thirty-Eight was about to ask what was up with them, Scorch said, "Hey, Boss, do you remember Fives and Echo?"

". . . Yes."

"They're ARCs now."

"Are they?" He raised an eyebrow. "They were good troopers, but I'd never have guessed they'd make ARC."

"I know, they're still surprised about it. At least, Echo is. But anyway, they got to train with jetpacks."

"All commandos train with jetpacks," Boss said, tilting his head. "We did."

"Yeah, but they have theirs here!" Scorch said excitedly. "And we've got a couple hours until we leave. You think we could – "

"No," said Boss. "I'm going to speak with General Skywalker. You three need to make sure the shuttle's ready for takeoff."

"Already done, sir," said Fixer absently, poking at his datapad.

Scorch and Sev both looked at Boss, who found himself wishing, just a little, that Fixer wasn't so blasted efficient all the time.

Noticing Scorch's eager grin and the way Sev was poised, ready to bolt for the hall leading to the hangar – as if Boss had already given permission – Thirty-Eight pursed his lips.

"Come on, Boss," Scorch begged. "I promise I won't smuggle any jetpacks into the Predator."

Had that been in Scorch's original plan for the day? Boss decided he didn't want an answer. "If you land yourselves in medbay, I'm leaving you behind."

"Yes, sir," Sev told him. "Wouldn't expect anything less. We'll be in Hangar B."

Without missing a step, he and Scorch turned right at the next fork in the corridor.

Boss gazed after them for a moment, then continued toward the lift. "I suppose they were planning that when we got the briefing room."

"Probably," said Fixer. "Want me to head to the armory, sir? I'll sign off on the requisition forms."

"Oh?" Boss adopted a pointed tone. "Sure you wouldn't rather help me convince General Skywalker not to send his padawan with us?"

"I'm sure, sir. I don't mind doing supply runs."

"You mean you don't mind bailing on me."

Fixer shot him an injured look. "Sir?"

"Never mind." Boss huffed. "You handle the grenades. I'll talk with the general."