Chapter Text
Katella flowers, thought to be native to the worlds along the Nanth’ri Route and Quellor Run, are often described as inconspicuous and nondescript flowers. They grow in small bunches or bushes close to the ground; many species consider them weeds, though they are not invasive and help retain groundwater due to their fine, dense root networks. Most strains of the Katella flower are a lacy-appearing cluster of many tiny-petaled flowers gathered together and grow in light pearlescent colors. They are not particularly hardy, yet their seeds—light and adaptable—spread easily and quickly. In worlds along to the Nanth’ri Route, they tend to symbolize foolhardiness, naivete, and faith. Along the Quellor Run, they symbolize trust, safety, and hope.
“Cody!” Wolffe dropped into the seat next to Cody, jostling him into Rex and shaking the entire booth. “My littlest vod.”
“That is patently untrue,” Cody said, wrestling Wolffe into a chokehold as Wolffe slapped at his chest and shoulders and snapped his teeth just next to Cody’s ear. “Behave, we have a cadet with us.”
Rex let out a longsuffering sigh and slowly, gently pressed his forehead to the table.
Across from them, Fox let out a snarling chuckle.
“So. When you and Keno—”
“No Jedi!” Fox stabbed a finger at Wolffe then down at the table for emphasis. “No talking about or with or to Jedi. No Jedi mentions or innuendo. If I catch so much as a whiff of Jedi, I’m turning this entire fucking booth over and leaving to slum it with Lightning.”
“Hey, fuck you!” Neyo said. He slid into the unoccupied seat next to Fox, shoving Fox down a place with his hip. “You’ll corrupt my troopers.”
Wolffe held his hands up in a placating gesture. It might have had more effect if Cody hadn’t had him by the throat.
Rex peeled his face up off the table after a moment of consideration. It was just in time for their drinks to arrive: something poisonous-looking for Cody, a glass full of ice and half-full of amber-golden liquid for Neyo, a colorful monstrosity in a martini glass with a swirly straw for Wolffe, a row of shots for Fox (yikes), and a tall glass of something bubbly and sweet-smelling for the youngest.
Cody mostly let Wolffe go and they all took a moment to sample drinks and pass them around and sample some more, murmurs of appreciation and disgust breaking out in turn. Cody ended up with both his and Wolffe’s drinks while Wolffe stole away a few of Fox’s shots, who had poured two of his own shots into Rex’s glass in exchange for some of his fruity ale. Neyo got the swirly straw.
“Sitrep,” Cody demanded once they’d all settled.
“Appreciative of the leave.” Neyo raised his glass to Fox, who delicately clinked one of his shot glasses against it. The swirly straw bobbled amongst Neyo’s many ice cubes, one of which he fished out with his fingers and crunched between his molars. “That supply drop we picked up for Nova? New company fresh off Kamino.”
“Not from existing ARCs?” Wolffe frowned, shot glass paused halfway between him and the table.
That was not SOP. The Marines were the best of the best—or the second best of the best, as Cody privately thought, since he had trained most of Ghost company himself. But the troopers of the 21st Nova Corps were comprised of ARC troopers and CCs hand-picked from Kamino’s top troopers. They didn’t get shiny troopers. They didn’t get cadets off Kamino. Nova’s troops were meant to forge deep into the enemy front and strike the hardest where their enemies were the weakest. It was a thankless, grueling task, one that Bacara bent the entirety of his indomitable will to.
Neyo shook his head. He looked as disgruntled as Cody felt.
“Did the longnecks provide an explanation?” Fox gestured towards the galaxy at large. “What, are the Marines supposed to train them? Balls deep behind Separatist lines? What the fuck are they playing at.”
Neyo shook his head again. This time it wasn’t disgruntlement in his face. It was resignation.
“Shit.” Wolffe rubbed a hand over the side of his face. His thumb traced the path of his scar, up from his eyebrow, down over his cheekbone. “Sabotage?”
“Isn’t that outright.” Neyo’s thumb traced over the parabola of the rim of his glass in sympathy with Wolffe’s. “But someone high up on Kamino ordered it. And the cadets I got—they’re practically straight out the tube. Accelerated modules. Accelerated growth. Accelerated promotions. Most of them still have serials and not names. The hell am I supposed to do with them? The hell are they supposed to do in the Marines?”
That was the question. The Marines were the frontward bulwark for a reason. They needed good soldiers, experienced troopers, not a generation of cadets untested on the field of battle. Fox’s troopers were good—hell, his command corps rivaled that of Ghost’s—but they were, for the most part, stationed on Coruscant for a reason. Wolffe’s own battalion was still recovering from its wipeout at the hands of the Separatists. Rex served under Cody himself.
Which meant…
“Take some of mine.” Cody came to the decision half a second before Wolffe did, who went rigid under his arm. “I’ll give you a list. I was going to send a few of my officers along to the 21st anyway. We’ll call this accelerated advancement.”
“You can’t exchange an entire company of your own troopers out,” Neyo snapped.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Cody retorted, idly flicking his glass up and down the table between his hands. “It makes sense. More than the GAR letting a company of cadets get wasted in the field. You can keep some of the Shinies, but you are ill-equipped to handle them and they are even less prepared for the Marines. I’ll forward it to you in the morning when I’m not tipsy.”
“Take it,” Fox said, sudden. His eyes were fixed on his (empty) row of shot glasses. They glittered between his hands like stars. “We need all the preparation we can get.”
“Hey, what the fuck?” Neyo asked into the ensuing silence. “Are you turning into a Jedi on us, Tenten? Because that cryptic bullshit? That was Jedi-level cryptic bullshit. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Fox didn’t look away from the table. He chose his next words with care. Cody could see him turning them over in his mind, again and again, tumbling against one another like Kamino’s tides. “This isn’t the only instance of bureaucratic neglect. And I’m not the only one noticing it. Every day the orders handed down from on high get harder to parse or carry out. Or both.” He looked up and met Cody’s gaze. It felt like recrimination but Cody knew that was all projection.
He knew what Fox was talking about. Fox knew he knew, and Cody knew that Fox was much, much more than he ever seemed—and Fox seemed like a lot to anyone. Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard was the trooper closest to the heart of it all: the Senate, the war, the Chancellor. He was the measure for the center of the galaxy, as far as the GAR was concerned, and his intelligence was always filtered through six different levels of redirection and obfuscation.
Fox had been sent to Coruscant to get him away from the front lines and recover from the torture the Seps had put him through. But in the middle of the Senate’s intrigue, amidst the web of lies and manipulation? Fox had thrived.
It was, Wolffe had once said to Cody, like putting a fox into an enclosure full of very fast rabbits. A lot of people including Fox were getting a good runabout but in the end, Fox was a predator through and through—and his list of enemies was getting more and more narrow by the day.
“212th’s orders come straight from the Chancellor or the Jedi Council,” Cody said.
Fox pointed a finger at Cody and threatened violence in his direction.
“Shut up, I’m not done yet.” Cody tilted his head back against the booth. “Council, or Chancellor. Guess which one gives us the directives that get the most troopers killed. We need to hold points at any cost—even when the cost is half a battalion. We need to accomplish the mission within the given time frame—even if the time frame is a matter of days. Or hours. We need to let Kenobi do his work—even when Kenobi’s work is him left to his own devices behind enemy lines at best and suicidal at worst.”
Rex sucked in a breath through his teeth. That there was a cue.
“Talk,” Fox ordered, pointing in Rex’s direction next.
“General Skywalker talks with the Chancellor,” Rex said after a beat.
Well. Cody had not fucking known that, or he wouldn’t have put Rex in Skywalker’s battalion.
“They’re friends.” Rex’s mouth twisted, just for a second, before his expression smoothed out again. Cody had taught him well. “That’s what Skywalker says. Holocalls when he isn’t on Coruscant, visits when he is. Skywalker and the Chancellor go way back. Said he knew Palpatine even when he was a cadet.”
“A Jedi Padawan?” Cody guessed.
“A cadet,” Rex agreed.
“So the Chancellor is fucked up.” Wolffe shrugged, nudging his shoulder up against Cody’s arm. “Aren’t all politicians?”
“Feels a bit dire, doesn’t it?” Neyo’s gaze darted around the table. He lowered his voice, even in the middle of a club that catered almost exclusively to vode. “Wrong orders handed down nearly every day to nearly every battalion. Or just plain destructive ones. When was the last time you couldn’t flip a coin for the probability of intel landing a company in a trap? Or worse? When was the last time we had clear, comprehensive mission parameters that took the situation into account?”
“What you’re talking about…” Wolffe didn’t finish his sentence but his mouth had settled into a troubled line. They were loyal. They were. It had been programmed into them along with how to hold and fire a blaster, how to hold and keep the line, how to die and take out as many enemy combatants as possible.
Was it still loyalty if they had no choice? Was it still bravery when war was all they knew?
What you’re talking about is treason.
Wolffe didn’t have to say what they were all thinking. Rex had gone still and quiet in his corner by the wall. He had been even more introspective since his detour on Saleucami. Cody suspected many things but they had never talked about it. Rex would come to him when he was good and ready.
“It doesn’t have to go that far,” Fox said, which was a first for him. Fox was always pushing, pushing, pushing, pressing every button within reach just to see what the fuck it would get him. He was as bad as a Marine. Worse, even, because at least Marines were predictable.
“Not yet,” Cody said. Wolffe tensed against his side and Cody unconsciously pulled him closer. They’d used to sleep in the same pod, him and Wolffe, even when their second growth spurt had hit and they’d gained inches in a matter of days, even when just being in the same space had felt like being buried alive. The reason why Cody wasn’t Wolffe’s kih’vod was the same reason why Wolffe wasn’t Cody’s: they’d been decanted in the same instant, two identical redfaced tubies in the arms of two identical nurse droids.
“All you have to do is listen. And wait.” Neyo spun his glass back and forth between each hand. The coruscating light reflecting off it reminded Cody of the sun—not the artificial, watery sun of Coruscant, but one with life. “All we have to do is be aware. Prepared? Maybe. But for now—there isn’t much we can do.”
“You can take my damn troops,” Cody said lazily. “I have some bucketheads I want off my hands anyways.”
“And they’ll all come straight from Ghost Company, handpicked and -delivered.” Neyo pretended to laze back against the booth, but his tone was sharp and cutting. “You mother nuna, you. Bacara can hold his own.”
“It shouldn’t have to be Bacara against the Seps on his own,” Cody replied. His voice was too sharp for this. He let it gentle: “Vode an. We need to start closing our guard.” Neyo wasn’t his enemy, as much as Neyo thought that he was in a galaxy full of enemies.
“And on that note.” Wolffe held up a finger and downed his final shot. “I’m due for an early morning. Need to get a head start on sleeping off my upcoming hangover.” He managed to put an elbow and both knees in Cody’s gut and ribs as he climbed over Cody to get out of the booth instead of waiting for Cody to get out first.
“Well!” Neyo said. His gaze fell to Rex, who was full of too many of Fox’s shots of dubious content and looking drowsier by the minute. “Now that that’s over. Cody, are you gonna introduce us to the cadet you brought in without so much as a by-your-fucking-leave?”
“Why, Rex?” Cody drawled. He pulled Rex in closer and clamped him to his side with one arm. “You don’t remember good ‘ol Rex? You sure you don’t want your head checked by a Jedi medic while we’re here?”
Rex twitched at his side. Good Sabacc face: check. Good liar: not so much. Kid was hiding something, and it wasn’t just about Cody trying to take the piss out of Neyo.
“Yeah, you don’t remember Rex?” Fox asked. His eyes narrowed to slits of good humor when Neyo turned to glare at him. “Trained with us by Alpha-17. That Rex. Why didn’t you say something sooner, Cody?”
“He’s straight out the tube.” Neyo gestured at Rex with the glass in his hand. “Just look at him. I can still smell the goop on him.”
“Poor Neyo.” Fox shook his head, slow and theatrical. “Memory problems at fourteen? That’s rough, vod.”
“I’ll give you a memory problem,” Neyo hissed, but the tilt of his sharp grin was pleased. Bacara, Cody knew, wasn’t the only battalion Commander who got isolated out there on the front lines. They all had the troops around them but Command batches never stayed together like lower-ranking batches did. Even the Nulls and Deltas and Alphas saw their batchmates more frequently than they.
“You could be a Commander one day,” Fox said to Rex with his voice steeped in faux sincerity. “That could be you.”
Rex made a face like someone was holding a live DC to his cod plate. “Absolutely not. I like where I’m at, thanks. There’s enough trouble—” Rex cut himself off and shook his head.
And there went Cody’s bullshit sensor, ringing merrily away.
“Trouble?” Fox’s gaze flicked to Rex and he leaned forward, like a vulptex about to pounce. “What kind?”
“It’s—inter-battalion,” Rex said, terse. All his previous levity was gone. Cody could practically feel the tension he was carrying from where he was sitting next to Rex. “We’re handling it.”
“Relax, cadet. No one’s saying you can’t do your job,” Neyo told him. “We’re nosy assholes. That’s it.”
“Objection.” Fox lazily raised two fingers, like he was intending on ordering another row of shots. Neyo only took his wrist and set his teeth, gently, around the second knuckle.
“One of my troopers killed a Jedi General.”
“Weh’ shif,” Neyo said around Fox’s knuckle. Then, after extracting Fox’s hand from his mouth—“Again?”
“Objection retracted.” Fox wiped his hand off on the shoulder of Neyo’s greys—his gaze didn’t leave Rex once. “I heard about that. Thought it was friendly fire.”
“Nominally. Yeah.” Rex studied the table like it held Separatist secrets and hyperspace routes. His mouth was still pressed into that thin and pale line. “One of my own men. He’s sick. Don’t know how or what. They sent him off to Kamino. No word back yet. He wouldn’t—near the end, all he—he wouldn’t stop saying it. Just… ‘good soldiers follow orders.’ Over and over again. And I…”
“You…?” Fox tilted his head, then kept tilting it as Rex’s gaze slid over Fox’s shoulder and landed on something—someone—over at the bar.
“I have to go.” Rex shot up and Cody found himself getting shoved around and climbed over for the second time that night. How had the Kaminoans managed to make the Trooper-class clones so damn bony and full of elbows?
“ARC-class trooper by the corner.” Neyo narrated and sprawled indolently against the corner of the booth. His eyes and grin were sharp as ever, even as he pretended to sip at the last of his drink. “Brawny kid in greys that don’t quite fit him. Younger than your Rex by a few batches. If not a gen or two. Number on his temple.”
Not this fucking guy again. “It’s a five, isn’t it?”
Neyo mimed shooting Cody with a blaster. “Got it in one.”
Rex came back with his ARC in tow. Lt. Fives had managed to procure a hat meant to hide his not very distinctive tattoo, but Rex had yanked it off and was shaking it in Fives’ face as he spoke in a low, furious tone.
“Don’t tell me,” Neyo drawled. “This one was decanted with you on Kamino, too, Cody.”
“Maybe then Cody would be taller.” Fox snorted and lovingly returned the middle finger Cody sent his way. “Guard’s been looking for a clone matching your description, ARC trooper. Got anything to say for yourself?”
Fives snatched the hat out of Rex’s hands and stuffed it back over his curls. They were just a centimeter over reg length, Cody noted. His hat would fit better if they weren’t. “The control chips have kill codes.”
What.
“They could make us kill the Jedi. They don’t control aggression or any of that shit—I got mine taken out.” Fives gestured at his untattooed temple—the hat hid a bandage on the other side of his head. His dark eyes were frantic and the brazen, lackadaisical trooper Cody had met on Rishi was gone. “I’m fine. Uh. Sir. Sirs. Commanders.”
“Sit down.” Fox clamped a hand onto Fives’ shoulder and dragged him down into the booth with them, slipping a jammer out of one of his belt pouches with the other and setting it on the table. Fives sat with a thump and swayed in place. He had the look of a trooper who had been running too many engagements on too little sleep, too little food, too little support.
Rex took his spot on Cody’s other side and shoved Cody deeper into the booth in the process. He got no fuckin’ respect from this crowd.
“Can you get me to the Chancellor?” Fives asked.
“No,” Fox said flatly. “You don’t want to take this to the Chancellor. What does this have to do with your other 501st trooper? The sick one?”
“Tup’s dead.” Fives closed his eyes. Once his momentum had been arrested, he seemed to fold in on himself. He was built along the same long, lean lines as Rex, but somewhere along the way he’d beefed up in a way Rex had never gotten around to.
“What happened?” Rex went still at Cody’s side again.
“The scientists killed him. The chip was what made him turn on General Tiplar. They—” Fives shook his head, once, like a massiff setting its jaw. “—did an autopsy. Chip turned… cancerous. It’s a part of us. We were—grown with it. Called it a biochip.”
“Alphas know about the control chips,” Neyo cut in. “Some of the CCs, too, but if they’re not there to control the aggression—”
“Slave chips.” Cody tapped a finger against the table. One. Two. Three. Fox met his gaze from across the sticky, wobbly table. One. Two. Three. “’Good soldiers follow orders,’” he echoed. Something about the phrase felt so right. It felt good in his mouth, like it was lighting up the right parts of his brain that lit up when he assembled a blaster or neutralized his target. One. Two. Three. Something was moving here, something far beyond their little circle—beyond 79s—beyond Coruscant. “The Council should hear about this… first.”
“Master Ti on Kamino—”
“Is not the Council.” Cody tapped his trigger finger against the table one more time, decided at last. “You’re coming with us to the Negotiator. Kenobi’s a High Councilmember, he’ll get you an audience. It isn’t Palpatine that’s in danger from the chips being activated. It’s our Jedi.”
“’Our’ Jedi,” Fox said. “What did I say at the very beginning of this? What did I fucking say?”
“And you’ll disappear into our ranks faster,” Cody said, overrunning Fox’s protests. “If someone recognizes you and Kamino hears we’re caught before we’ve even started.”
“This is treason,” Neyo said, barely loud enough to be heard over the thumping bass and screaming chatter that filled 79s. “You’re talking about treason.”
“Something stinks to High Coruscant with this whole situation. The orders. The chain of command. The clones, the Admiralty, the Jedi not even knowing we—all of it.” Fox rapped his knuckles against the table and thrust an elbow into Fives’ ribs, shoving him out of the booth to let Fox out. “Fuck the Senate. I want answers. I want truth. Most of all, I want to know how fast I can get this Sith-fucked thing out of my head.”
“Pretty fast,” Fives told him, absently rubbing the bandaged side of his head. “If you skip the anesthetic.”
“WORST idea I’ve heard in my life, you’re all fucking insane, I take it back. Whatever goop they put in Cody’s batch, you must’ve got some too.” Neyo heaved himself out of the booth and slung an arm around Fox’s shoulders, then Cody’s. Quiet, then, with his head tucked up against theirs and mouth barely moving—“I’ll talk to my General. Keep an eye on that ARC. He’s not the key, but he’s a crux, and we’re only gonna get one shot at this. I’ll tell Bacara. We can coordinate from there.”
“Oya,” Fox said with a snort. “Don’t let them decommission your ass. Either of you.”
“They’ll have to catch me first.” Neyo’s grin only got sharper as it widened. Fox had all the cunning and liked to think that he’d gotten all the bastard, but that was patently untrue. Neyo was as close to unfiltered Alpha as the CCs got, Cody had always (privately) thought. “Oya, Commanders.”