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The war was over.
In the two years that followed after the sudden death of Chancellor Palpatine and the tentative truce in his absence, so much had changed. Many of the Separatist planets had ceded from the Republic as they had always wanted from the start on- perhaps not good terms, but not bad either. Many more lingered within the Republic’s grasp, holding out to see whether things would change or would stay the same. Several of the neutral systems drifted away from both sides, steadfast in their stance and favoring not one side over the other.
The GAR became a permanent fixture to combat against the wave of criminal enterprises and violent holdouts still spotted across the galaxy. Natborns and clones worked side-by-side, the latter having gotten- maybe not quite full citizen rights, but recognition as sentient beings as a first step of many as the Senate was slowly dredged of its corruption and shady inner workings that had taken root. Those who didn’t wish to fight were dispersed throughout the Jedi Service Corps, or remained as helpers and security to the Temple on Coruscant.
The war was over.
But Cody wasn’t happy.
“What’s gotten your pants in a twist?”
Appo wrenched him into an empty training room, the lights flickering on above their heads, lighting the white sections of the paratrooper’s white hair to almost a star-like glow while the dyed blue portions rippled in different shades and shadows like waves. His grip was iron on his wrist, his stern expression fixed onto Cody's face as he waited for an answer, demanding as he always was with as few words as possible.
Cody scowled, the hot, terrible words curdling just below his breastbone, but unable to claw its way out of his throat. He wrenched his wrist out of Appo's grasp, his scowl turning sharp as he nearly bared his teeth at the older CC.
“Nothing.”
Both of them knew that there was “nothing” about Cody’s mood. He was certain that even the smallest of baby Jedi on the other side of the Temple could feel the storm clouds over his head, and the only reason his General wasn’t hunting him down was that he was away performing uncle duties with Skywalker’s twins. He was usually so controlled over his emotions, and never one to project so loudly that he was bothering both the Force Sensitives and those as sensitive as a rock but no less perceptive like Appo.
Something was terribly wrong with Cody, and yet he wasn't willing to let it escape the cage of his ribs.
Appo gave him one, long look before replying with a sudden strike at Cody' head, forcing him to jump out of the way.
Cody instantly snarled, twisting his feet as he lunged at the other Commander in an attack of his own, the fury bubbling under his skin as hot as plasma. He wasn’t fighting with his head- instead he was fighting with all the fire and wrath of a pissed off gundark, the craving of wanting something to hurt itching at his teeth.
Appo wasn’t shy about fighting dirty. Most anyone else would’ve balked at having a Marshal Commander come for their throat, but Appo met him hit for hit, kick for kick. Cody may have been the top of his class in hand-to-hand and won every vode organized tournament to date, but the paratrooper was by far the most vicious bastard of the lot.
They were pummeling each other, no rhyme or reason to their fight as they rolled and grappled and punched at exposed faces and throats, clawing and snarling like fighting aaks. If they had been cadets, the Trainers would’ve ripped them apart and giving them a lashing for acting like pit-animals, but those days were far behind them, and there was only fire in Cody’s lungs as he punched and kicked, bit and spat.
“What the fuck is wrong?!” Appo yelled out, kicking Cody so hard in the knee that his leg buckled and forced him down to the floor onto his other knee. “What is it?! TELL ME.”
“THEY SOLD THEM!”
It came roaring out of him, the words that churned and churned and churned inside him since he realized the truth. The truth that he didn’t want to believe, didn’t want to think or feel, but gnawed away at him all the same, sinking its deep, dark claws into his heart and soul and rendered them to tatters. It came ripping out of his lips in a scorching flashover, chest heaving in the smoldering ruin in his wake.
Above him, Appo froze.
“What?” he barely breathed out in a whisper, blood dripping from a split lip that he didn’t bother to wipe away. It left him wide open for an attack, but Cody couldn’t bring himself to get up from his knees. Instead, the shaking, trembling rage was rattling off something much more fragile in his chest, exposing it raw and bare for all to see.
“They- they sold them,” he repeated, the heavy truth tasting of ash on his tongue despite the blood pooling in from down his nose. “They sold them, Appo. They sold the Guard. They sold Fox.”
Cody loved his brothers, but it was obvious that he had his favorites. Rex was his favorite vod’ika, but Fox… Fox had been his favorite ori’vod.
Fox had been two age brackets older than Cody- in the same age group as Ponds and Appo. Yet even with the months’ differences between them, Fox had instinctively known when to trust and follow Cody’s commands instead of argue against them like others in their training courses when faced with a leader younger than them. Both of them were goal-oriented, flexible and creative in ways that had shot them up in the rankings across all training modules. Cody had been a bit more personable than Fox, who was gruff and many found him difficult to work with- but to Cody, he understood him without words ever needing to be spoken.
Fox had a sense in knowing when Cody needed to vent and when he simply needed to have a brother. In turn, Cody always knew when to call right before Fox got into trouble when his patience came to an abrupt end, or when there had been a rough patrol or escort. Both would spend hours talking about how crazy their men were, about all the stupid little dares or pranks they’d pull on each other. Cody had been relieved to hear that Fox had found himself an ori’vod of his own in the form of a silent, Alpha-class medic, comforted in the fact that there was someone there who could and would physically care for Fox when Cody wasn’t there, someone who instantly saw right through Fox’s gruff exterior and ignored his growls and barks to scruff him until he exposed that softer, bleeding heart.
When Fox fell out of contact a year and a half into the war, Cody had instantly been concerned. They’d kept in touch even with the galaxy between them, even if it was something as little as “not dead” after the most grueling campaigns or diplomatic escorts deep into Separatist territory or as much as almost six hours while they worked on their respective paperwork. When none of the others could get in touch with their friends and batchmates in the Guard, and that the battalions on shore leave reported natborn patrols where once clones had walked- confirmed by Appo who had marched right into the old Guard barracks looking for his crabby but mutually loved batchmate and came up empty-handed, Cody immediately made some inquiries.
In short, he’d been told that the Guard had been disbanded. Something about the military presence disturbing the peace of its citizens or some other tripe. They had been reformed into some deep covert ops unit and been sent out on a blackout mission, which hadn’t seemed right to Cody. Fox would’ve sent him a message- hell, one of the other Commanders would’ve done so, if Fox hadn’t been able to. Worse, he couldn’t find any evidence of such a unit being formed, no General, Admiral, or commanding officer in sight. Not even using his General’s codes worked in getting him any closer to an answer.
Inaccuracies began popping up almost immediately when he finally brought it up to Kenobi, who mentioned it to Skywalker, who mentioned it to his not-wife. The Senator had been told that the unit had been dispersed across the GAR, although the ruling to disband the Guard had been made after typical Senate hours by less than a third of the Senate in some secret meeting no one else knew about until they went looking for it, so she wasn’t certain what had happened herself. Senator Organa had mentioned that he’d heard they’d been stationed on Kuat for extra security and development of the next GAR ships, which had been quickly refuted by the Kuatii themselves when General Fisto had gone and contacted them. Chancellor Palpatine had been confused when Skywalker asked him personally, stating that he believed they’d been shipped back to Kamino for redistribution and had even pulled out flight reports to prove it.
Only, air control had no records of any ship with those numbers leaving Coruscant airspace, nor did Kamino had reports of such a large group of clones returning.
There was only so much Cody could do, with an entire System Army to man and a war to fight. But as soon as the war had officially ended, Cody had gotten permission from Kenobi to take the first flight back to Coruscant, delving deep into government records as the others promised to keep an eye and ear out in the galaxy.
The whole GAR and their Jedi were on the lookout. And yet… the Coruscant Guard were nowhere to be found.
It had taken two years, several vague mentions across the most menial, obscure, and forgotten sections of government, and one, seemingly innocuous bill of sale before Cody connected the dots.
The Guard had been sold, as if they’d been nothing more than a crate of blasters. Slavery was illegal in the Republic, but the clones hadn’t been sentient beings and merely legal military property of the Republic. The money having been distributed across the board and disappeared into pockets he couldn’t trace, any and all information purged or shuffled into nondescript files, and the truth had been successfully buried until one determined Marshal Commander went digging for it.
Two years of work, all for a single slip of paper with a date, the quantity of units sold, and the confirmed sales price. Nothing more. Nothing less. No names, no parties who could easily be held accountable, no shipment location or ownership. Nothing but the cold hard fact that they were gone.
Cody didn’t know if they were alive. Didn’t know if they were all still together or had been sold separately, never to see their fellow Guard again. Had any of them escaped and were trying to find their way back? Had any of them been cut down before auction because they were deemed too defective? Were they resigned to their fate, hopeless in that anyone would come looking for them, would save them-?
Warm arms curled around him as knees thumped against the mats in front of him, a hand digging into the curls on the back of his head and pulled his face close until it was tucked against a warm neck.
“We’ll find them,” Appo croaked lowly, and Cody realized belatedly that he was shaking- trembling like a leaf in the older clone’s embrace. “We’ll find him. We’ll bring them home.”
And Cody could no nothing else but latch onto that feeble thread of hope, holding onto the back of Appo’s tunic as if the man would disappear if he let go. Fox and the others would be found. They would be alive, and they would return home safe, no matter how much the logical part of his brain whispered all the statistics and cold facts that the likelihood of all of them being found alive was minimal after nearly four years. He’d spend the rest of his days combing every planet and moon in the galaxy for clues if he had to, despite knowing full well the GAR would do the same.
There were millions of brothers searching for their lost siblings, and they would find them.
They just had to hold onto hope.