Race Condition - Jessepinwheel - Star Wars (2024)

Summary:

After great difficulty, Maul wakes up.

Life is sacred.

It is one of the earliest lessons we learn as Jedi, that life comes from the Force and returns to the Force, and that we must do what we can to protect it in all its forms.

The lesson we learn later is that protecting life does not always mean protecting lives.

The Jedi fight to preserve balance--not balance as in the weighing of light and dark upon an imaginary scale, but balance as in an ecosystem. Balance as in homeostasis. Balance is a cycle at steady state, with all things interconnected and growing but stable in its motion. In the same way that it is sometimes necessary to remove an invasive species to save an ecosystem, or to excise a tumor to save a person, sometimes to preserve life, we must take it.

The Jedi are meant to be peacekeepers, but there’s a reason their symbol is the lightsaber--an elegant weapon, yes, but more critically one unmatched in its lethality, so if it becomes necessary to take a life, it will be merciful and swift.

Speaking from a purely mechanical standpoint, killing is easy. The difficulty is knowing when.

It is the greatest hubris for a Jedi to believe that they alone can judge when life must be taken. It’s no small thing, to kill. The core of a Jedi’s power comes not from the saber or Force-enhanced acrobatics, but their connection to the universe and all other lives. Through the Force, they feel life and emotion of everyone around them, sometimes even across the fabric of space and time. By that same power, they feel death intimately, and they must not numb themselves to the feeling--they have to accept their actions and the consequences that follow.

A Jedi cannot seek to control others or their fates--cannot presume to be the arbiter of absolute justice, because in the Force all lives are equal, and Jedi have no more say in the machinations of the universe than any other sentient in the galaxy. It is all we can do to act from where we stand, and respect those who ask for help. It is not a perfect system--we wish there was a way to solve everything peacefully and end all the hate and the conflict and the pain, but our galaxy is not so kind, and we are only people.

All lives are sacred, even that of the Sith Lord, Sheev Palpatine. It was not my place to say he deserved to die, but he wished for the death of billions of innocents and the end of the Jedi Order, and there is no compromising with a man who wants the extinction of your people. I had to stop him permanently, and from where I stood as a free agent in a universe that wasn’t mine, I could only accomplish that by making him dead.

I wasn’t arrogant enough to say I was fulfilling the will of the Force or delivering justice or anything so righteous.

It was just the pragmatic solution.

By the time Solis did her second check-in with Maul, four hours after we had landed on Bantu IVb or about 2900 local time, Maul had still not woken up from his Force-induced sleep. I didn’t know if it was because my command had been that strong, or if his body was simply under so much stress that it had seized the opportunity to slip into a coma. He hadn’t slept so long that it was a concern yet, but it was approaching that point.

Maul lay senseless on the clean clinic bed, completely still except for his uneven breathing and the occasional twitch. Even in sleep, he looked like he was in pain. Between my first aid on the ship and Solis' preliminary work, we had gotten most of the grime off of him, which had revealed a network of scars from almost any weapon I could think of--blasters, knives, ropes, claws, teeth. Most of it hadn’t healed well. That, at least, was the same as the Maul I had known.

He looked like he’d had better days. I didn’t know when, but they must have a very long time ago indeed.

“I’m frankly surprised he’s alive at all,” Solis said as she checked his vitals--stable and mostly normal. His fever hadn’t gone down at all, but it hadn’t gone up, either. I could feel the Force flowing through him slowly, but steadily--not healthy, but not critical. Considering how he looked, that was probably as good as we would ever get.

Solis continued, “He’s suffering from long-term malnutrition, and getting cut in half has, as you might expect, caused some major stress. Zabraks are hardy, but even they can’t generally stand this much abuse.”

“He’s Force-sensitive,” I said. “Before I found him, I think he was mostly staying alive out of spite.”

Solis glanced at me. “Is that something the Force can do?”

“The Force can supplement a body’s processes--it’s how Jedi do things that are typically impossible,” I said. “Under stress and with the right mindset, the Force could probably take those processes over entirely. That’s only a guess, though.”

“And spite would be the correct mindset?”

I shrugged. “It’s a will to live, anyways. If this Maul is anything like the one I knew, he wants revenge against whoever cut him in half. Very badly.”

“Most people would,” Solis replied as she changed Maul’s nutrient drip. “Jetiise aren’t supposed to want revenge, are they?”

“He’s not jet’ad. If anything, he’s dar’jetii, though it’s not as if I’ve had the opportunity to ask.”

“Hm. Kenobi making nice with dar’jetii. Never thought I would see the day.”

Solis unwrapped Maul’s abdomen and socket while I stood by and handed her necessary equipment. She had done a much better job than I had of stripping it down to the bare connectors, and without all the extra junk it was obvious just how badly fitted the join was--Maul’s entire abdomen was ringed with scars and inflamed tissue. Solis applied another round of bacta gel to the worst of it, but even I could tell it wouldn’t be enough.

She disposed of the empty gel canister with a sigh. “I’d like to put a bolt through whoever gave your friend his prosthesis. Do you have any idea how long he’s had it?”

I shook my head. “I told you, I found him on Lotho Minor. It looked like he’d been there for some time.”

“Well, that explains it. This is completely unsalvageable,” Solis said, gesturing to Maul’s abdomen. “Once I’m convinced he won’t instantly go into shock, he needs surgery for a proper spinal uplink and neural socket, grafts to fix the abdominal tissue, and filtration therapy to get out all the nanobots. A week in bacta wouldn’t go amiss, either.”

“…Nanobots?”

She looked back at me, then gestured for me to sit down. I sat.

“You’re probably too young to know about this,” Solis said. “But about forty years ago there was a line of ‘self-installing’ cybernetics. They were, effectively, cybernetic prostheses with packaged surgical nanobots that could directly graft to the biological tissues. That way, patients could skip the typical series of uplinking prep surgeries and go straight to getting a new limb. It was a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, but that didn’t stop people from using them. It looks like your friend found one of these in the trash and stuck it onto himself.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

Solis gestured to some of the scars around Maul’s midsection. “See the banding? This is a typical nanobot scarring pattern. You’ll usually only see it in veterans who received nanobots during field surgeries. I’ve administered them myself--nanobot injections are a lifesaver in the middle of a firefight.”

“I’ve never heard of surgical nanobots.”

“Like I said, they’re probably a little before your time. They’ve been illegal in the Republic for years now, though some planets outside the Republic still use them. I hear they might be making a comeback in the Republic for cosmetic purposes,” Solis replied. “They’re useful, but there were too many lethal incidents of injecting nanobots with wrong-species firmware, and too easy to abuse. Slicers figured out how to turn them into lethal toxins and illicit neuromodulators--all sorts of things you don’t want in your body.”

“Oh. Like slave implants.”

Solis nodded. “Exactly. Most black-market nanobots were euphoriants, but nanobot-based slave implants were popular, too. You can probably find still find some of those floating around the Outer Rim.”

“Yeah, I ran into one not too long ago,” I replied. “It’s a shame surgical nanobots went out of use completely, though. They seem useful.”

Solis shrugged. “They’re good for emergencies, but they’re not miracle medicine. Even when they’re used correctly, they destabilize the nervous and immune systems if they’re not flushed out as soon as possible, and as you might guess, that didn’t always happen. All those technologies were supposed to be recalled and destroyed. I guess some of them ended up on Lotho Minor.”

I grimaced. “So Maul’s prognosis…”

“By all rights, he should already be dead,” Solis said. “Whoever he wants revenge on, he must want it very badly. If it keeps him alive long enough for me to get him stable, I suppose I’ll be grateful for it.”

I had mixed feelings about that. In my world, Maul’s obsession with revenge had led to his death at my hand. But, I supposed, his letting go of it was why that last bullet had killed him, too.

I wasn’t naive enough to think that rescuing Maul from Lotho Minor was enough to fix everything--he had committed great evil and had the capacity for much more, all stemming from that all-consuming revenge and the work he had done at the behest of his Sith Master. His own lightstaff, still hanging from my belt, screamed from the pain he had inflicted on others, and that wasn’t something he was likely to simply turn away from. Letting go was not something so easily learned.

Still, it was possible to pull him back. The Maul I had known could still be reached with kindness. He had wanted companionship and safety, just like anyone else. If I played my cards right, I could probably keep him from doing anything drastic long enough to convince him there were better options, and if after all that he still refused to stop committing murder and hurting innocents, well…

I had killed him once. If I had to, I would do it again.

“What’s your plan now?” I asked.

“I’ve already neutralized any remaining functional nanobots in his system, so I’ll get him on filtration therapy to flush them out and screen for how much of his nervous system needs to be repaired. I’ll start that after his TPN finishes,” she said, pointing at the nutrient drip. “That will be in about half an hour--I’d give him more nutrition if I could, but as malnourished as he is, he’d start refeeding. After that, if his nervous system isn’t too badly shredded, I’d like to take him in for the uplink surgery.”

“Do you think that even with this,”--I gestured to Maul’s socket--“he can get a proper uplink? I had to get half my forearm amputated for mine, and I don’t think that works as well for someone’s abdomen.”

“No, he probably won’t need that. Nerves are already bundled in the spinal column, so there’s no need to move upstream. Despite how bad this looks, I have, in fact, constructed ports with worse,” Solis said. “If there’s too much neural degeneration, I might have to replace a vertebrae or two, but that’s because of the nanobots, not typical procedure.”

“Do you have all the equipment you’ll need?” I asked.

“For the surgeries? Yes. For the cybernetics? No. I can get rid of all this junk and construct a new neural port, but I’ll have to order the prosthesis from the mainland. I know a technician there who can build it once I have the required specs. Until then, your friend will need to stay on bed rest.” She cast a baleful look at me. “You really could not have dropped a more complicated case on my doorstep, Detective.”

“I’m sorry. You seemed like the best option at the time. If it’s too much trouble, I can take Maul once he’s stable and bring him to a proper medcenter.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Solis said. “I have the equipment and the skills and the time, and a friend of Jan’ika’s is a friend of mine. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Well, you could pay me, but I’ve already seen the contents of your wallet and if your story is true then that’s all the credits you have.”

I…hadn’t thought of that. Master Kenobi may have some accounts in this world, but if he did, they assuredly were not in the same place as mine had been, nor would they have the same credentials.

Still, that didn’t mean I had no credits at all.

“I might still be able to pay you,” I said slowly. “If you don’t mind my using Jango’s credits.”

Solis eyed me sharply. “Why would you have access to Jan’ika’s money?”

“We worked together for two years. I’ve used his expense account plenty of times,” I said. “He gave me the information for one of his saving accounts, too, ‘just in case’. I don’t think this is what he meant when he said that, but that account will probably still work.”

“So you would steal his credits?”

“He’s dead, Solis. He left no will; there’s no benefactors. If I don’t use that money, nobody will, and I don’t think he would mind if some of it went to you.”

“I don’t think he’d appreciate you using it to help jetiise, though.”

“Then he should have thought about that before he gave his account information to a former jet’ad,” I said. “Do you want me to pay you?”

Solis hummed to herself, thinking about it. “Check that you can access those accounts before offering to pay,” she finally said. “In the meantime, I have more work to do. Make yourself useful and prepare fourthmeal. There’s fresh fish in the cooling unit and vegetables you can get out of the hothouse--one of the droids can show you the way. You do know how to cook, yes?”

I gave that the look it deserved. “I’ve lived on my own for ten years. Of course I know how to cook.”

“Good. Have it ready in about an hour. Make it spicy.”

With that, she shooed me off and went back to work on Maul.

Dinner, the fourth of eight typical meals in a sixty-three hour day-cycle on Bantu IVb, was a quiet affair. I made braised fish with diced peppers and a yam-and-seaweed soup--not my usual fare, but with a deep pan and some oil almost all things can be cooked approximately the same way. Solis made no comments on the quality of the meal, but finished her share quickly enough. That was as close to approval as I’d ever get.

When Solis finished eating, she updated me on Maul’s status. His screening turned up neural degeneration that would need some scaffolding to fix, but he was otherwise stable enough for cybernetic prep surgery. In the meantime, she’d started his filtration therapy to clear out the nanobots, which would take another two hours to complete.

“When he wakes up, we can talk about performing the uplink surgery whenever he wants it,” Solis told me as she handed the dirty dishes to a cleaning droid. “The sooner I can undo the damage from his previous prosthesis, the better, but that’s not a procedure I’ll do without telling him first.”

That was fair enough. It would be hard enough for Maul to wake up without his lower half, no matter how much damage it was doing to him. Waking up to find he’d also had invasive surgery was a recipe for disaster.

“Do you think he’ll wake up soon?” I asked.

“There’s no reason he shouldn’t,” Solis said. “There’s no abnormal brain activity, his vitals are stable, and he’s got no exogenous compounds in his system except for the ones I administered. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have any problem waking up, but I was just as sure that he shouldn’t be alive, so maybe this is another Force thing. I don’t know how jetii Healers deal with this nonsense.”

“With a lot of training, I would guess.”

“It must be.”

I hung up my washcloth. “Can I go see him now?”

“Wait until I’ve taken him off filtration,” Solis said. “After that, I’m going to bed and you can sit with him all you like.”

“What should I do until then?”

Solis sighed. “I’m not your minder, Detective. Figure something out. Walk around. Lay down. I don’t care, just don’t go into any locked rooms and don’t touch any equipment. Be back in the infirmary by dark phase.”

I checked my chrono. It was 3042, which gave me about two hours before sunset.

“All right,” I said. “I’m taking a walk.”

Solis' home was quiet and clean, with pristine wide corridors and very little decoration. Once, in another world, she had told me her home used to be a clinic, part of an undersea mining operation just off the coast of this small island. When the minerals dried up however many decades ago, the mining rig was sunk and the buildings were left to rot. The clinic, which doubled as an emergency storm shelter, was the only building to survive long enough for Solis to come by and claim it for herself some time after Galidraan. The clinic was probably still functional at that point--the hydroturbines generated plenty of power, and most of the heavy equipment had been abandoned with the clinic--but Solis must have needed a lot of work to get it into the shape it was now. At the very least, she had updated many of the facilities and droids. I wondered where she had gotten the funds to do so, isolated as she was.

One of the many droids rolled past me, chirping a greeting as it went. It reminded me of KY4, who was still waiting at the ship--now that Maul was stable and Solis wasn’t planning to throw us out, I ought to bring it in.

I pulled my jacket on and went out. Wind and metallic-smelling ocean spray hit me in the face and I flipped my collar up, for all the good that did. The sky had gone dark and deep red from Bantu IVb’s ‘soft night’--the daily eclipse of the gas giant and the sun--chilling the air considerably. The oceans churned below, almost black in the darkness of the eclipse as it crashed against the shoreline. The tide was low for now, several meters down, but all the nearby moons made it hard to tell when the water would rise again. If everything lined up and a storm hit, waves could swallow the island completely.

What a difference from the clean and soft white lights of the clinic.

I didn’t like it. It was a fine enough place to survive, but even with the droids it was too large and too empty--a place for ghosts rather than people. The nearest settlement was on the mainland about three hundred kilometers sunward, and with the ocean stretching out to the horizon in all directions, it was difficult to feel anything but profoundly alone. I didn’t know how Solis could stand it.

Maybe she was just a solitary sort. Many of the True Mandalorians were, after Galidraan, and I could see how an incident like that would make a people wary of outsiders. Jango had helped me easily enough when I had asked, and accepted my assistance when I was healed, but it had taken several months of living and fighting together before he trusted me.

I wondered what he would have been like in this world where we were never friends. Would he have found another partner to bleed out his poisons with, or would he have held it all inside as he took job after job until someone asked him to build a clone army? Would he have ever found a new home with a garden and a family the way he had always wanted, or would he have ended up in a quiet and lonely place like this, surrounded by nothing but violent waters as far as the eye could see?

I thought about that, staring out at the darkened ocean until I couldn’t bear it anymore.

I let myself down onto the shale, scrubbing my hands over my face. The plating on my mechanical hand scraped over my cheeks and I barely felt it. I was hazy and not entirely solid, here on the shores of an alien moon forty thousand light years away from home. It wasn’t because I had slipped from one universe to the next; that reality hadn’t sunk in and wouldn’t for some days. I was just…hollow.

The Force was so calm and slow that it was barely there. That’s not even slightly true--it was probably about the same as any other life-supporting celestial body in the galaxy--but it felt that way. For ten years, I had lived on Coruscant where the population was so dense with people and emotion that the Force was a constant torrent wherever I went. It had filled me and flowed through me, vibrating in my skin so I could feel it in my veins like before I lost the Force on Melida/Daan. Now, after a tenday away from home, with time and no distractions to fill it, I felt the Force’s absence deeply. It ached in my heart where my connection to it used to be, and more than that, it made me numb and empty.

Without the unrelenting flow of the Force pressing against my skin from the inside, it was hard to even feel myself. It was like I was made of wood, or maybe nothing at all.

I would get used to it eventually. I’d lived outside of Coruscant when I was younger and I could do it again. I knew the worst of the symptoms would subside eventually, just like I knew the ache in my chest wouldn’t until I returned home. I didn’t like it, but I could endure. It was only pain.

I breathed deep and the air burned all the way down. It gave me a heady feeling like my body needed the oxygen. Maybe my soul had slipped from my body without my realizing it--it happened sometimes. I opened my eyes to a sky that had once again become light and green as the sun slid out of the eclipse. My chrono informed me that I’d lain on the ground for about forty minutes, long enough to get pins and needles in my flesh hand from the cold.

I sat up and curled my fingers around my neural port, squeezing tightly to ground myself in the sensation. By the time the last of the planet’s shadow disappeared over the horizon, I felt physical again, or physical enough. My head felt like it was spinning. I needed to drink something, or maybe to sleep. Maybe I needed something else entirely.

I didn’t want to be outside anymore. I went to get KY4.

It was dusk when Maul’s filtration therapy completed.

“That should take care of the worst of the nanobots,” Solis told me as she removed the catheters from Maul’s chest and put a bacta bandage on. “He’s still malnourished, so I’m giving him another drip, but he’s recovering about as well as could be expected.”

“You expected him to be dead,” I pointed out.

“Don’t get smart with me. You know what I meant.”

I conceded the point and helped Solis mix Maul’s nutrition bag. She set it up for slow infusion, then cleaned up her equipment.

“I’m off to bed,” she said. “You ought to sleep, too, so pick any room--or share this one with your friend, if you want. Default sunlights are set for an eight hour sleep cycle, but obviously you can change that if it doesn’t suit you--the control panel is by the light switch. Don’t bother me before the lights cycle back on unless there’s an emergency.”

I could empathize with wanting uninterrupted rest. “I won’t. Good night, Solis.”

“Pleasant dreams, Detective.”

With that, she dimmed the lights and left. I was, once again, alone with Maul.

It was strange, seeing him asleep--after all the work Solis had done, the Force was moving through him more normally again and he seemed to be in less pain. If I didn’t know better, I would have said he even looked peaceful.

I unhooked Maul’s lightstaff from my belt and settled it across my lap. It was mostly black with a battered casing and longer than my forearm, even with one end sheared off. That was enough length to get some leverage, though I supposed with a lightstaff’s plasma blades that was less important. I had dreamt of this weapon before, but it felt so much heavier in reality--even with such a large chunk missing it was much heavier than any lightsaber I had ever held. The crystal inside still felt like it was burning, but it was calmer now--less hostile to my touch. Whether that was because it knew Maul was safe now or because it had begun to like me, I couldn’t know.

“Do you know why he hasn’t woken up?” I asked it. “My command shouldn’t have been that strong.”

Maul’s kyber hummed beneath my fingers, like a vibration directly in my bones. It gave me the faintest impression of desperation and anger, and the wretched feeling of the Dark Side on Lotho Minor. It seemed like Maul had been there a very long time--maybe he needed the rest.

“I see. He can’t sleep forever, though. Do you think it would be okay to wake him now?” I asked.

The crystal seemed to agree, but didn’t tell me whether it would be safe or possible to wake Maul. It was, after all, a crystal--its methods of communication left something to be desired, especially with someone like me.

I nodded and set the lightstaff aside. My fingers--flesh and mechanical alike--tingled strangely from brushing against the crystal’s caustic Force. I wished I could heal that pain, but it wasn’t my place to do so. For all that I was holding onto the kyber now, it was still Maul’s, and I could not do the healing for him.

I laid my hand on Maul’s shoulder. He was warm--Zabraks ran a little hot at baseline, and his fever hadn’t quite broken yet.

“Maul,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

No reaction. That was about what I’d expected--the Force had put him to sleep, and it was probably needed to bring him back, too.

I breathed the Force into my lungs and murmured, “Maul.”

The name resonated in the air, sinking straight through to Maul, stirring him. He curled into himself instinctively, like to protect himself from a blow.

“You’re safe here, Maul,” I said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

He didn’t relax, but he didn’t shy away from me or my touch, either.

“Can you wake up?”

Maul made a strange rumbling sound from the back of his throat. His Force seemed to unfold as he struggled to consciousness, and I held him steady so he wouldn’t pull out his IV line.

“Easy does it,” I said, letting the Force fade from my voice. “Take your time.”

Slowly, haltingly, he woke from what must have been extremely deep sleep. With a rasping breath, he opened his eyes, a hazy gold-and-red that nearly glowed in the dim infirmary. His Force stretched out like a yawning tooka, sweeping blindly as he oriented himself.

“Maul,” I said. “How do you feel?”

Maul froze. His eyes snapped to mine in a glare that lost a lot of its impact in his drowsiness. He snarled. “Kenobi.”

“Yes, that’s my name,” I said.

“So you’ve returned after all these years,” he hissed. His voice was hoarse like he hadn’t used it in a long time, but the venom in it got across easily enough. “Do you think you can finish me off, pitiful Jedi?”

So, okay. Apparently, Master Kenobi and Maul had some kind of history, and not a friendly one. I had guessed that much already.

“Considering I took you off of Lotho Minor and brought you to medical assistance, I think we can safely say I’m not planning to finish you off,” I said.

Maul sneered, the Force around him turning colder by the moment. “How merciful of you. Kill me and abandon me for so many years, then pretend to rescue me. Why now? Do you think I have finally suffered enough? Do you think I will beg you for forgiveness after you cast me from my rightful place by my Master’s side? You think this will stop me from killing you the same way I killed Qui-Gon Jinn? What do you have to say for yourself, Kenobi?”

So Master Jinn was dead in this universe. That was certainly different. “Um. Congratulations, I suppose.”

Maul’s eyes narrowed. “Congratulations? You don’t recall how I stabbed your Master through the chest like the trash he was? I do. He was weak, just like all Jedi are weak. Back then, I was willing to give you a swift death, but now…you will only suffer the worst torment the Dark Side can offer.”

For a man who had woken up from a coma not ten minutes ago, Maul seemed to have a lot to say. “Can we perhaps shelve the threats for a moment?”

“You are a fool if you think I will submit to your foolish judgments,” Maul continued, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I see it wasn’t enough to take my legs and my life. You’ve come back to take even more from me. You seek to torment me in person like your spirit has since you ruined me!”

I took a deep breath. It seemed that in this world, Master Kenobi had been the one to strike Maul down, and not with a stab through the heart as Master Jinn had done, but with a bisection far more brutal than any typical Jedi conduct should be. Perhaps Master Kenobi and I had more in common than I realized.

One thing was clear: this would make it difficult to win Maul over to my side.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry you had to experience what you did.”

A low growl ripped through his clenched teeth. “Pretty words, Kenobi. You have no idea what misery you’ve caused me, but I will be glad to educate you.”

He clenched his fists and the Force around him lanced through me, Dark and cold like a spear of ice. It wasn’t a physical attack like a Force choke was, but it still hit me like a punch in the chest, driving the air from my lungs. He gripped me from the inside with the Force, and I could feel Darkness like barbs ripping against the edges of my mind.

This was, perhaps, what it felt like to be attacked with the Dark Side. It pressed against me, bitingly cold from Maul’s hatred, squeezing like he wanted to break me open to reach my fleshy center where he could inflict the most pain.

Against a Jedi, this attack may have worked--cracked their shields like an egg flung against pavement--but I was not a Jedi. I had no shielding, only control of the Force within myself and the means to shift it to my will.

I sucked in a breath through my teeth, grabbed hold of Maul’s Force within me, and cast it out.

Maul, snarling but not deterred, attacked again. Even in his sorry state, he was strong in the Force--I couldn’t deny that--but he was unbalanced and chaotic and nothing compared to all of Coruscant and its blinding noise. Here on this quiet and empty moon it was easy to feel the currents of his Force and redirect them away.

I let his attacks pass through me.

Screeching in frustration, he grabbed for me with his bare hands but I forced him back down to the bed, pressing him down by the shoulders, and hissed, “Stop.”

The Force rang in my voice, shattering Maul’s attack with the force of a hammer. He went rigid under my hands, eyes wide and bloodshot.

“You will calm yourself,” I said. “We will have a civil conversation. You will not attack me or anyone else here. Do you understand?”

Maul snarled at me.

I pressed him down against the bed again. “I have killed you once, Maul. I shot you in the heart and watched you bleed to death. I know you are capable of civility, but if you insist on acting like a rabid dog, I will put you down like one.”

“Then kill me. Slit my throat and be done with it so I don’t have to suffer your company anymore,” Maul demanded. The Force around him surged in fits and starts, like it was still straining under my command.

“I don’t want to kill you. I rescued you because I believe you can be saved,” I said. “If you are civil with me, I will be civil with you. If you are violent with me, I will not hesitate to subdue you. Understand?”

Maul bared his teeth once more, struggling futilely against my grip. When he seemed to realize that I could, in fact, overpower him, he glared at me and said, “Is this how Jedi treat their enemies now? All that talk of compassion and forgiveness, and you would put me down like a common animal?”

“First off, you are not qualified to talk about Jedi doctrine and I will thank you not to try. Secondly, I’m not a Jedi,” I said. “As I was going to say before you attacked me, I am not the Obi-Wan Kenobi who cut you down. I know you can sense me in the Force--you know I am not Force-sensitive the way a Jedi would be.”

Maul seemed to concede this point, if nothing else. “Then who, pray tell, are you?”

“I’m Obi-Wan Kenobi, a private investigator on Coruscant. I left the Jedi Order twenty-two years ago,” I said. “And to the best of my understanding, I’ve been sent from another universe.”

Maul responded with a baleful stare. “Do you think I am some kind of fool, Kenobi? How would you even contrive to travel between universes, as you say?”

“Ask your mother the witch,” I said. “She’s the one who sent me.”

“My mother the--you mean Mother Talzin?” Maul said, in a tone that did not imply high esteem for the witch. “How in the Sith hells is she involved?”

I told him. From his alternate self’s death by my hands to his final wishes to the witch’s magic to my journey to Lotho Minor, I explained what had happened in the last tenday. Maul, to his credit, listened without any interruptions stronger than the occasional growl.

At the end of my talk, he frowned. “I see,” he said, though what he saw, he did not see fit to inform me. “Then what do you intend to do with me, Kenobi? You will not convince me to convert to your Jedi ways, and I will die before I allow myself to be captured.”

“Well, the first thing we’re going to do is get you fixed,” I said. “Solis has been working to undo the damage that happened to you on Lotho Minor. She wants to give you a proper uplink surgery so you can get a pair of legs that you can actually use.”

Maul looked down at his lack of legs, then back up at me. “You would empower a man who wants nothing more than to kill you?”

“I think we’ve already established I can defend myself, and I hope that you will reconsider your desire to kill me, especially since I’m not the one you want revenge against anyways,” I said.

“You said you killed me in your own universe. It would be in my interests to destroy you before you can repeat the incident here.”

“I killed you in my universe because you refused to lay down your weapons and stop killing innocents,” I said. “If you can choose differently, then there will be no reason for me to shoot you dead like I did your counterpart.”

Maul sneered at me. “I will not let you defang me, Kenobi.”

“I understand this will be a process,” I said. “But I think I might be able to bring you around to my line of thinking. Until then, I have a proposal for you.”

“What could you possibly want from me?”

“I understand you have some reasons to dislike your former Sith Master,” I said. “I’d like you to help me kill him.”

Maul stared at me for a long moment, then made a horrible wheezing sound that may have been a laugh. His fit lasted nearly a minute, and when he finally calmed himself, he said, “You must be joking.”

“I assure you, I am not,” I said. “I intend to murder the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine with my bare hands, if necessary, and I would like you to help me. After all, he’s done nothing but hurt you and the moment you ceased to be useful to him, he abandoned you and chose a new apprentice. Surely, you would like him to suffer for that slight.”

It was not kind, I suppose, to take advantage of Maul’s temperament to try to convince him. But revenge was a language he understood, and a motivation that could compel him many times over where none of my desires to save the Jedi Order would even touch him. In time, I would get him to understand me, but until then I would speak on his terms.

“You really aren’t a Jedi, are you? All this talk of revenge.” Maul’s eyes narrowed. “You know my Master’s identity.”

“I do,” I said.

“And yet, you would still wish to murder him, knowing your precious Republic may fall with his death?”

“I’m well aware of the potential consequences of assassinating the Supreme Chancellor, but if the Republic cannot stand without someone like Palpatine at its head, then perhaps it’s time the Republic had something new,” I replied. “Come on, Maul. I thought you would have jumped at a chance to get revenge on your Master.”

“Do not misinterpret me. I greatly desire my Master’s death, but he is too powerful for any of us to defeat. He is too strong in the Dark Side and his machinations are too deep,” Maul said, his words deliberately slow. “We cannot oppose him. He will destroy any of us if we try.”

“Well, certainly with that attitude, he might,” I said. “You would give up just because he has resources and the Force? You know your Master best of all. If you know the tools he has at his disposal, you can neutralize them. If you know his powers, you can find ways to defend against them.”

Maul snarled. “You underestimate the power of a Lord of the Sith, Kenobi. You have no idea what you are up against.”

“I know exactly what I’m up against,” I said. “For all of Palpatine’s powers and resources, he is only a person, and all people die.”

“You are throwing your life away,” Maul retorted. “He will subject you to torment thousands of times worse than your darkest nightmares.”

“If you keep talking like that, I might think you care, darling,” I said. “I’m not going to walk up and stab him, you know. I’ll come up with a plan, I’ll get people who can help me, and I’ll to drag him into a situation where he can’t escape alive. I assure you, at the end of my work, Palpatine will be dead. You can either have a part of that or not.”

Maul looked away from me, his expression contorted in disgust. “If you want me dead, then do it with your own hands, Kenobi. I won’t commit suicide for you.”

I shrugged. He didn’t have to agree now--there would be time to reconsider. “It’s an open offer, Maul. Just think about it.”

Summary:

Maul gets his cybernetic surgery.

Summary:

Maul finds himself perplexed by this Kenobi.

Maul wakes, as he always does, to pain.

It’s slow at first, a dull wave all through what’s left of his abdomen, muffled under a drug haze to where it simply throbs instead of stabs. It barely shakes him loose of his exhaustion--it is nothing he has not felt every day for the last twelve years.

Vaguely, he recognizes something is different. It doesn’t smell like sh*t, for one thing, and the pain is notably less than he’s used to--none of the sharp jab of metal against his ribs, or the constant chafe of his legs against his stomach. He knows it won’t last--it never does--but he takes the respite while he can and tries to drift back into unconsciousness. Better to dream of all the ways he will destroy Kenobi than to face monotonous reality.

That’s when the spasms hit, shocking him straight to consciousness. They wrack his entire body like lightning through his spine, and he grabs blindly at something--anything--to brace himself against the sharp pain that surges through him.

It is not the worst pain he has ever felt--nothing short of his Master could accomplish that--but it’s the worst he’s felt in months. Years, perhaps. It hurts like all the Sith hells and tears well up in his eyes as he struggles to keep himself silent and still, struggles to breathe against his own muscle spasms. The Force seems to roar within him as pain swamps him in endless waves and he pulls it tight around him, clutching hard to the rush of power and Darkness, trying to lose himself in it even as it sharpens him to the raw feeling of fire in his body.

He doesn’t scream. Even now, so many years after his Master has left him for dead, he does not dare make any sound besides the breath that hisses through his teeth.

The spasms seem to last forever--so long that he doesn’t even know when it stops, just that at some point he comes to and the spasms have passed. The pain lingers, and with it, a deep soreness all throughout his abdomen and down his legs that--

Wait, what? That can’t be right. He doesn’t have legs. Kenobi stole them from him in a single stroke of blue plasma, replaced them with nothing but torturous pain and suffering so many years ago. He shouldn’t be feeling legs.

Slowly, he cracks his eyes open.

He is in a room.

The lights are dim, but they’re enough to tell he is somewhere indoors and clean. Vaguely, the memories of surgery and discussion with the Duros medic drift back--he is no longer on Lotho Minor, though he has yet to see if this new locale will be an improvement. There are a few scattered pieces of medical equipment and no windows--there is nothing else of note. There is something soft under him, and pressure around his abdomen that wasn’t there before--looking down, he finds that it is some sort of wrapped brace around his midsection.

As expected, he has no legs.

There’s a soft sound of someone clearing their throat and Maul freezes.

“Maul.”

Maul’s gaze slides slowly towards the source of the sound, to that man sitting in a chair beside him. How he hadn’t noticed him earlier, he doesn’t know. Even looking at him directly, Maul has a hard time believing the man is truly there, instead of yet another hallucination or wishful thinking. He can’t be blamed for his confusion when Kenobi carries a strange aura of intangibility--like the Force doesn’t even touch him. If it were not for the visible rise and fall of his chest, he would be nothing more than a ghost.

“Maul, it’s me, Obi-Wan. Remember? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Maul sneers. As if he would be going through any of this if it weren’t for him. “You could have fooled me. Why are you here, Kenobi? Just to watch me suffer?”

Kenobi’s brows furrow--as if he actually feels any kind of remorse for what he has done. “I’m here to keep you company, if you can believe that,” he says softly. No matter how much Kenobi talks, Maul still can’t place the accent, except that it’s somewhere around the Mid- to Outer Rim. “I’ve been through uplink. I know it’s not fun, and I’m not leaving you here to go through it alone.”

Maul’s gaze trails down to Kenobi’s right hand. It’s gloved again now, but he’d glimpsed it earlier--the gleaming metal hand. Hardly comparable to his legs, and it’s insulting that Kenobi would even draw the connection.

“Why not?” Maul asks. “Is this some perverted Jedi sadism? Does it please you to see a Sith brought low?”

Kenobi takes a deep breath. “Maul. I’m here for you. Because I care about your health and from my experience, having company makes recovery less unpleasant. I understand this is a difficult concept for you.”

How patronizing. As if Kenobi’s presence would ever improve anything. As if Kenobi would ever care for any sort of pain he caused. He is a hypocrite just like all Jedi are--full of magnanimous words and empty actions. Caring never helped anyone. It certainly never helped Maul.

Another spasm hits, crashing through his body like a speeder and he nearly bites his tongue to keep from crying out. It passes quickly, but not gently.

“It will hurt significantly less if you stop tensing up every time you feel a spasm coming on,” Kenobi says unhelpfully. “This bed has rails--you won’t fall off.”

“Did I ask for your opinion?”

“I’m just offering advice. It’s the same thing Solis would say if you asked her.”

Solis, Maul vaguely recalls, is the name of that Duros medic who does not even speak proper Basic, because of course Kenobi would choose such an annoying person to replace his legs.

Spasms hit again, short and sharp and he grips the edges of his bed, straining against it. When they subside, Kenobi is still there, watching him.

“How long do you insist on watching me?” Maul snarls.

“I’m not here to watch you. I’m here to keep you company.”

“How long will I be forced to suffer your presence?”

“I’ll be here as long as you need me to be,” Kenobi says. “That’s what friends do.”

Maul snarls. “You are no friend of mine, Kenobi. The moment I am free, I will disembowel you with my bare hands and strangle you with your own intestines. Perhaps then you will finally understand the torture you have put me through all these years.”

Kenobi is entirely unfazed by this threat of violence. “That’s very sweet of you to say so,” he says dryly. “I realize you have very little reason to like me, but believe me, I didn’t track you down and bring you to actual medical help just out of the goodness of my heart. Whether you like it or not, I do care about you and your health.”

“You just want to--ghhk”--Maul gasps sharply as another spasm hits--“use me. All you want is to recruit me into killing my Master.”

“Have I asked you to join me since the first time? I don’t think so,” Kenobi replies. “I offered because I think you have a lot to gain and I thought you would be interested. If you don’t want to do it despite my arguments, then I won’t force you to do it.”

“And what if I refuse, then? You will withhold my legs? You’ll leave me to die?”

“No!” Kenobi says. “Maul, I’m not going to extort you into helping me assassinate the Chancellor! You’ll get medical attention and your legs no matter what, and if you don’t want to help me kill Palpatine, then that’s fine. You don’t have to.”

“Then what? You’ll simply let me go?” Maul scoffs. “I find that hard to believe.”

Kenobi shakes his head slowly. “No, I can’t let you out into the Galaxy as you are--I can’t trust you won’t go out and kill innocent people. But if we work on that and you prove to me you can control yourself and not commit needless violence, then there’s no reason I can’t let you go and have whatever life you want. I have no intention of turning you over to the Jedi or anything like that unless you completely refuse to listen to me and learn to not hurt people.”

So Kenobi believes there is some kind of hope for him. As if anyone who walks the way of the Sith can ever turn away. As if he can be defanged and disarmed and trained like a dog to heel to someone as soft as him. Maul will never submit to the Light, nor will he ever let himself become so soft and useless as Kenobi or any other Jedi.

If Kenobi wants to commit to his delusions, he is free to do so. It will only make murdering him easier.

“Fine,” Maul hisses, staring back up at the ceiling. “If you are so determined to be useful, then how--nnk--long will this process last?”

“Uplink typically takes about four standard days, but the worst of the spasms pass after one. Mine would come and go for about twenty minutes every few hours, but the pattern depends on the type of synthneurons you’ve received,” Kenobi replies. “What else do you want to know?”

“Why--” Maul grimaces as pain lances through his midsection again. “Why can I feel my legs?”

“That’s phantom limb sensation. It’s common,” Kenobi says. “The synthneurons are fusing with the nerves that used to go to your legs, which makes them discharge. Sometimes that’s interpreted as pain, sometimes not.”

“I don’t have legs,” Maul says.

“No, but your brain doesn’t know that. It’s getting a signal from the nerves that come from your legs--it doesn’t know where on that line the signal comes from.” Kenobi frowns. “Have you never felt phantom limbs before? You had prosthetic legs.”

Yes, his previous arachnoid legs. He had hated them--they were inelegant and inefficient trash. With them, he had stumbled and shambled across the mountains of Lotho Minor like some kind of half-formed creature, but as insufficient as they were, they had still given him the power of locomotion.

It is just like Kenobi to rip that away from him a second time.

“Why should I feel anything from them? They’re not real legs,” Maul says.

Kenobi’s frown deepens. “Maul, you’re supposed to be able to feel cybernetic limbs. They might be a bit numb because there’s less feedback, but they’re designed so you can feel where they are and if there’s damage. If you didn’t feel anything at all from your previous legs, that means they didn’t uplink properly. Were you even able to move around with them?”

He was not. They had stuttered and jerked and been disgustingly uncoordinated, but between his need for movement and using the Force, he had managed fine. “That’s none of your business.”

“I see,” Kenobi says. “They must have hurt a lot.”

His previous legs had made him feel like his lower body was made of fire every moment of the day--only fitting for the hell he had been exiled to--and so far his new legs-to-be do not seem to be an improvement, not that he cares. If they function better than his old legs, if he is able to move again, he will endure any pain rather than stay here, infirm and waited on by his worst enemy. Nothing is worth this indignity and helplessness.

Kenobi clasps his hands. “Good cybernetics don’t hurt, Maul,” he says. “It hurts now because of the fusion process, but once everything is stable, there’s no pain unless the port gets damaged. After you recover from surgery, you shouldn’t be in pain anymore.”

A lie, of course. There will always be pain in one form or another, but Kenobi is too naive to see that.

“I’m serious. I know you don’t believe me, but this will pass. Until then, you just have to wait and let it run its course. Painkillers don’t work for uplink pain, but you can still release it to the Force--that will help a lot.”

What a crock of sh*t. And so like a Jedi to take advantage of this temporary weakness to push their doctrine on someone who neither wants nor needs it. “Don’t force your Jedi nonsense on me, Kenobi,” Maul says. “If I am to suffer, I will do it with dignity.”

“Jedi? What--Maul, we’re not talking about the Jedi. Releasing pain is a normal interaction with the Force--do Sith not learn how to do that?”

Maul slides his gaze back over to Kenobi, who seems genuinely confused. He remembers now, vaguely, that this Kenobi is allegedly not the one who sliced him in half twelve years ago. This Kenobi is without the Force. He feels as null as any worthless civilian off the street--not even a Jedi. Pathetic. It is natural that he would be clueless about the intricacies of the Force.

“Sith do not lean against the Force as a crutch,” Maul says slowly. “We take control of it and force it to our will.”

Kenobi’s brows draw together. “But if you’re hurt, and you reach out to use the Force in pain, doesn’t that feed back? Wouldn’t that just make it worse?”

At least Kenobi seems to understand that much of the Force, though as typical he has missed the point entirely.

“Pain empowers you,” Maul growls. “Pain shows that you are strong. That you will not fall. That you will live to crush your enemies.”

Kenobi shakes his head. “Pain is pain. It’s useful to stay alive and keep you safe, but harming yourself is…you don’t need to do that, Maul.”

Maul snarls. “Don’t pretend like you know me. You know nothing, Kenobi. Not about me. Not about the Dark Side. Not anything.”

Grimacing, Kenobi says, “No, I don’t suppose I know much about those. But I know that forcing yourself to go through more pain than you need to isn’t helping anyone, least of all yourself.”

“Pain makes me powerful!”

“Maybe,” Kenobi says, in a way that means he doesn’t believe that at all. “But what’s the point of that power right now? You’re recovering. There’s no need to exacerbate your suffering--you’ve got nothing to prove.”

Maul turns away from Kenobi, disgusted. He doesn’t need this right now. “Leave me,” he says. “If you have any consideration, you’ll leave me to suffer in peace.”

“My point is that you don’t have to suffer at all,” Kenobi replies. “Or at least, certainly not as much. I’m here to help you, Maul. Let me help you.”

“Help me? What can you possibly offer me that the Dark Side does not?”

Kenobi shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s true I can’t give you what the Dark Side does. I can’t give you power. I can’t let you murder people or destroy worlds or subjugate innocents. But in the end, I don’t think that’s what you really want.” He takes a deep breath. "This is what I can offer you: I can offer you a home. I can offer you safety and a purpose to fight for. I can help you heal. I can help you not feel so alone.

“If you don’t know how to release your pain to the Force, I can teach you. If you don’t know what it’s like to live without having to hurt yourself, I can show you. If you need a friend or someone to keep you company, I’ll be here. Those are all things I am willing to give, but I can’t do any of that unless you let me.”

In that moment, something seems to shine out of Kenobi, a force of determination and sincerity that almost hurts to look at. It’s impossible in that moment for Maul to deny that Kenobi genuinely cares about what happens to him, though whether that sincerity comes from pure idiocy is yet to be determined. In the end, it doesn’t really matter why Kenobi cares--just that he has use for him, and will keep him alive until that use is spent.

There’s temptation in all these promises. An escape from the endless pain he has suffered from the Nightsisters, his Master, and Kenobi himself. A path of righteousness and revenge, with his Master dead at his feet and an apprentice at his side…it’s an appealing image, and one he would do quite a lot to make a reality, and Kenobi knows it.

But Maul is not a fool. Kenobi’s words are only words. He has no way to deliver what he has promised--Sidious’s death least of all. He is only one man without even the power of the Force, and soft besides. He doesn’t have what it takes to bring Sidious to his knees. Certainly not enough to kill him stone cold dead.

“Don’t presume to know what I want or need,” Maul says. “You do not understand, Kenobi, and you never will. Leave me be. I don’t want you here.”

Kenobi shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you alone for uplink. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I’m staying here while you recover.”

Stupid, stubborn man. Why does he even give a damn about a Sith? “Fine,” Maul snarls. “If it is so important that you are here, then stop forcing me to listen to your voice and be silent. I don’t need your promises and I don’t need your advice.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Maul says.

Kenobi nods and obligingly falls silent. He turns his attention to his datapad and doesn’t say anything even when the next wave of spasms hits, or the ones that follow.

True to his word, Kenobi stays by his side for the next hour or so until the Duros medic returns. She tells him something in a foreign language, and after a short exchange in which Kenobi says Maul’s name twice, Kenobi gets up with a grimace.

“Solis needs me for something,” he tells Maul. “I’m sorry to leave you alone, but I’ll be back later, okay?”

Maul, who would like nothing more than for Kenobi to go away and stay away, shoos him out.

Kenobi leaves. It doesn’t make Maul feel better at all--just very, very empty.

It’s the Duros who returns next, not Kenobi. She says very little, other than checking his status. She changes his nutrition bag, helps him drink some awful-tasting broth, then gives him another dose of painkillers that don’t even help with the spasms.

“Where is Kenobi?” Maul asks.

“Out on the water,” the Duros says. “The water generators sent errors on yesterday. He checks them so power doesn’t break.”

It is difficult to tell with the Duros’s poor Basic, but ‘water generators’ probably means hydroturbines, which means they are currently on an aquatic planet with heavy tidal forces--anywhere else wouldn’t use hydrogeneration as the primary energy source. That doesn’t really narrow down the possible planets by much, though he supposes he could just ask. He hasn’t had the inclination to, is all.

“And you sent Kenobi? I wasn’t aware he was the most qualified engineer on site.”

The Duros levels a flat, disdainful look at him. “I sent her because you are making me busy,” she says. “If you have a problem, I need to be here. The detective does not.”

Maul squints at her. He’s not sure if he heard that right. “There is no one else in this entire building who is better qualified to repair a hydroturbine?”

“I alone run the medcenter. No other people stay here,” the Duros informs him. “The detective is here now, so he makes useful so I take care of you.”

That’s…interesting. He hadn’t sensed many people around, but he’d assumed that was due to his less than ideal health state and not that the clinic was actually empty. Obviously, Maul is not the most informed on healthcare settings, but he’s pretty sure most medcenters, even the illegal ones, need more than one person to run the whole thing. Especially if they perform surgeries.

The Duros finishes taking some notes in her datapad, then says, “Give me your arm.”

Maul complies. The Duros does some kind of examination using an ultrasound transmitter embedded in her cybernetic hand, then does a more conventional sensitivity test to map out the numb areas of his hands and arms. She explains, more or less, that his previous legs have caused significant nerve damage in his extremities. With the language issues, it’s difficult to tell if she intends to actually fix the damage, or if she is just figuring out how much there is.

It’s towards the end of this exam that Kenobi shows up in a new set of clothes, with his long hair damp and falling loose. He says something to the Duros in that foreign language, and the two of them speak for a few minutes, too fast for him to catch the words even if he recognized any of them.

It’s extremely irritating, especially when they seem to be talking about him, if the looks Kenobi sends his way are any indication.

Thankfully, it doesn’t last long and Kenobi pulls up a chair. The Duros takes a little longer to finish her exam, then says, “Your after surgery status looks good. What question do you have?”

“When will the next surgery be?”

“If healing is good, then in three days standard I can do port surgery. You need to say what kind of legs you want before then so I build the port and ask technician to make legs.”

“I want legs that will let me walk,” Maul says.

“Not so easy,” the Duros replies. “Mechanical limbs have many parts to think about. I talked to the detective. She will discuss the parts with you.”

There. She did it again. Maul shoots a look at Kenobi, who doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“If that is all,” the Duros continues, getting up, “I want sleep. Do not wake me unless urgency happens.”

“Emergency,” Kenobi corrects softly.

“Emergency,” the Duros says. “Do not wake me unless emergency happens.”

With that, she leaves.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Maul asks Kenobi. “She called you ‘she’.”

“She did,” Kenobi says as he takes his hair down and combs his fingers through the mess. “I’m not saying anything because it doesn’t bother me.”

Maul squints at him. “The Duros spoke incorrectly…did she not?”

“Her name is Solis,” Kenobi replies. “And she’s not doing it on purpose. Her native language, Mando’a, doesn’t have gendered pronouns, so when she speaks Basic, she sometimes forgets which one is which. It’s a common mistake.”

“So you’ll just let it go?”

“Yes. I’m hardly going to demand proficiency from her fourth language and even if she were fluent, I don’t really care how people refer to me. If she was doing it deliberately and maliciously, that would be an entirely different matter, but she isn’t.” With a twist of the wrist, Kenobi has his hair gathered back up messily, but securely, in a claw clip. “It rarely comes up since we only speak Mando’a to each other, but if it bothers you, I can talk to her about it.”

Maul frowns and shakes his head. If Kenobi wants to take that kind of casual disrespect, it’s not his problem. He’s not going to make it his problem--he’s got too many of his own already. “Mando’a. That’s the language the two of you keep using?”

Kenobi nods. “Solis is Mandalorian. She was adopted in at a very young age--young enough that she doesn’t speak Durese at all.”

“Adopted? What happened to her family?”

Kenobi shrugs. “I don’t know. I doubt she remembers, and we’re not so close that she would tell me that kind of thing. Chances are, Mandalorians killed them.”

“The Mandalorians took her from her parents and trained her?” Maul says slowly.

“Raised her as Mandalorian, which I suppose constitutes as training, yes,” Kenobi says. “I’m only speculating that Mandalorians killed her family--I doubt it was the same ones who adopted her, in any case--but there were clan wars near the Duros sector around the time she was born, and significant collateral damage was not uncommon. Mandalorians have a reputation for adopting war orphans into their clans. They believe it’s more honorable to raise the children of their enemies as their own than to slaughter them--younglings take to Mandalorian teachings easily and are often too young to hold grudges. It’s a large part of how Mandalorians propagate their culture, or did, rather, before a large portion of the True Mandalorians were killed at Galidraan.”

“You don’t approve.”

“It’s not really my place to pass judgment,” Kenobi replies. “I’m Jedi, after all--the Temple adopted me from my birth family and raised me in the ways of the Jedi and the Force. I’ve never known my birth family, and while my blood may be from a planet in the Outer Rim I have never visited, my culture and my people will always be of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Was it an act of violence, for the Jedi to adopt me or the Mandalorians to adopt Solis? Did they steal something from us, cultures we can only ever now know as outsiders?”

After a short silence, Kenobi sighs and continues, “I don’t know. If the Jedi had left me with my birth family, maybe I would have been fine, raised with my birth culture and learned to deal with the Force on my own--plenty of Force-sensitive younglings do. But maybe I would have grown up alone and scared without anyone to connect to. People around me wouldn’t have understood what I perceived, and wouldn’t have been able to help me through visions or controlling myself. If the Mandalorians hadn’t adopted Solis, maybe she would have been found by another family, or maybe she would have been captured by slavers, or she would have simply died. There’s no way to compare this life to one that didn’t happen.”

“Except by moving from one world to the next, as you allegedly did,” Maul says.

The corner of Kenobi’s mouth twitches up. "Yes, I suppose that’s an option now, too. But my point is that we can’t judge these actions solely by comparing to what could have happened. In one case, my adoption by the Jedi might have prevented a miserable and lonely life, while in another it may have stolen away a much kinder and safer one--neither case makes my adoption more or less moral.

“The fact is, I am Jedi. I am not a Jedi, and I will never return to the Order, but culturally, I will always be Jedi and I’m glad for it. The circ*mstances of Solis’s adoption and many parts of Mandalorian culture surrounding it make me uncomfortable, but it’s her life and not mine. She’s proud of her heritage as a Mandalorian, and maybe that’s all that matters.” Kenobi purses his lips. “In any case, the True Mandalorians are all but extinct now. The old clan wars have given way to the struggles between Death Watch and the New Mandalorians, which have their own problems. I’m not especially well-informed on the political situation there, so that’s as much as I can say on the matter.”

Maul is silent for a long minute, processing that. He remembers very little of his life before Sidious--only old dreams of Dathomir and fears of Mother Talzin and the Nightsisters' wrath. He knows he had two brothers--one twin, one younger--but he doesn’t remember their markings or their voices. Maybe it was simply that long ago, or maybe Sidious stole it directly from his mind in inducting him to the Sith.

And for what? Sidious taught him to hate the Jedi and to use the Dark Side and that the only respect he would ever receive was what he took by force. Years of pain and training in the Force, hundreds of battles and assassinations to serve his Master as a Sith apprentice, until the last fateful duel where Kenobi ripped the title from him in a single stroke.

Without the Sith, he has nothing at all.

“…What exactly do you mean by ‘culturally Jedi’?” Maul asks slowly.

“The Jedi aren’t just a group of people with the Force and lightsabers. We’re people with our own religion, arts, history, foods, traditions, stories, community, and values,” Kenobi says. “I’m not religious anymore the way the Jedi at the Temple are--I lost my faith in the will of the Force over fifteen years ago--but I was still raised with a Jedi education alongside people who took me in as their own. They taught me to nurture my relationship with the Force and to value self-control and mindfulness and letting go. The Jedi shaped who I have become, for better or for worse.” Kenobi looks up, meeting his eyes directly. “What are you really asking, Maul?”

There’s something unfathomable in Kenobi’s eyes, an inhuman piercing quality that makes the skin crawl. Those are eyes that see too much, too clearly.

Maul remembers then, all too well, how he had attacked Kenobi with the full force of the Dark Side, only to be easily deflected and subdued with words alone--some strange power of the Force that even his knowledge of the Sith could not explain. Kenobi is certainly not a Jedi, and he does not have the power of the Force running through his veins, but there’s something in him. Something sleeps within him, something Maul is unsure he wants to wake.

He pulls his eyes away from Kenobi’s gaze. It’s just too much to face. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m not asking anything.”

He is not asking about the Nightbrother he could have been, nor the Sith he never learned to be. He is not asking about the histories he was never taught, the traditions he never participated in, the people he never knew. He is certainly not asking about the emptiness he feels in his chest in the moments when rage is not enough to fill it.

Sidious raised him to be a Sith, but never to be Sith. He was only ever a tool, and tools did not receive a culture or an identity or a family. Tools are made to be used and disposed of and ultimately forgotten.

For the first time, Maul wonders what it would be like to be a person.

The next few days pass. Not quickly, not slowly.

As promised, the intermittent muscle spasms continue, but decrease in intensity as time wears on. Kenobi offers once again to teach him how to release his pain to the Force, but Maul refuses. It’s not as if he doubts Kenobi’s ability to teach such a simple thing, it just galls him to have to stoop so low as to need assistance from his worst enemy. He endures the pain and ignores Kenobi’s offers.

Kenobi stays by his side through the whole ordeal, seemingly only going elsewhere when he is called away for a few hours by duties around the clinic. Sometimes he reads and takes down notes in his datapad. Sometimes he makes light conversation and tells stories about faraway planets. Sometimes he just sits on the floor and closes his eyes and does…something with the Force.

“I’m meditating,” he says when Maul asks. “It’s a way to train mindfulness and awareness of the Force. You can join me, if you like--I find it calming.”

Maul makes a face. “Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure? You must be bored, waiting around with nothing to do. Meditation could at least break up the monotony.”

Maul doesn’t get how sitting around doing nothing would somehow be less monotonous, and in any case, he survived a decade of Lotho Minor. A few weeks in a clean clinic are nothing in comparison. He tells Kenobi in no uncertain terms that he has no interest in meditation.

“Very well,” Kenobi says, and closes his eyes again.

Maul watches him a while--he has nothing better to do, after all. There’s some strange ritual to the whole affair, of the arrangement of legs and arms and the practiced loosening of all his muscles. Kenobi breathes counted breaths, four seconds in and four seconds out, and something in the Force seems to bubble up from deep within him, like he’s a gravitational well pulling the Force into his body from all around him. By the time he is so thoroughly flooded with it that there doesn’t seem to be any of him remaining, he isn’t breathing at all.

Whatever Kenobi is doing, it makes the Force in the entire room go still--even the Dark Side recedes in the face of whatever Kenobi is.

It’s uncanny. It doesn’t seem right, not for a Jedi or a Sith.

When Kenobi finishes his meditation a half hour later, it feels like letting out a very long breath, like time starts moving again. The bite of the Dark Side comes back, prickling at Maul’s senses as Kenobi smiles and stretches like what he does is normal. Maul isn’t sure Kenobi even realizes the effect he has on the Force.

It’s an increasingly common feeling, this uncertainty about Kenobi. In every way, Kenobi is nothing like what Sidious had said of the Jedi, nor like Sidious himself. It’s not just whatever mysteries the man is hiding in the Force. It’s how he remains calm even when Maul screams and attacks him. It’s how he offers to teach Mando’a so Maul isn’t completely in the dark when Solis talks. It’s how he explains the parts of a cybernetic leg and doesn’t sling insults for not already knowing the basics, then asks for Maul’s preferences for his new legs like he’s really got a say in the damn matter.

Maybe Kenobi needs him alive and with good legs to help assassinate Sidious, but he doesn’t need to do all of this. He doesn’t need to do any of it. This is too much effort for an enemy. It’s pointless and wasteful.

Kenobi sleeps in the same room as him once, exhausted from work and slumped over unconscious in his chair with his head and arms folded on the bed. Maul stares at Kenobi’s unconscious body, threading his fingers through Kenobi’s long hair, thinking how easy it would be to choke him to death. How easy it would be, to get his revenge here and now, his legs be damned. If Kenobi didn’t want to die, he shouldn’t have done something as idiotic as leaving himself completely vulnerable to a man who wants nothing more than to murder him.

Maul lets him be.

He doesn’t know why--a week ago he would have murdered Kenobi without hesitation. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t the same Kenobi who cut him down, a stranger with the same face would be worth killing all the same, just to hear him scream as he died.

Maybe Kenobi is still useful--it’s not as if there won’t be time to murder him later--or maybe it’ll be better to use him against the real Kenobi when the time comes. He never really decides why he stays his hand, just that now isn’t the time.

When Solis declares he’s ready for the port surgery, Kenobi tells him he’ll be there when he wakes up. There’s no point in such a gesture--his presence won’t affect the surgery after the fact, nor will it help the recovery.

“It’s so you don’t wake up alone,” Kenobi says simply.

It’s such an unexpected answer that Maul doesn’t even know how to respond. He’s still thinking about that when Solis puts him under for surgery. When he emerges from his anesthesia-induced haze some eight hours later, Kenobi is by his side, true to his word as always.

It is…not bad, to not wake up alone.

Summary:

Obi-Wan takes a trip to the mainland.

Summary:

Obi-Wan and Maul discuss Light and Dark and the things in between.

Summary:

Maul gets his new legs and final treatments. Obi-Wan prepares for his next steps.

That night, I dreamed.

I dreamt of black skies and green mists and the feeling of death. I dreamt of swamps and Darkness and the chill of unknown magic against my skin. I recognized the feeling of Dathomir--sick and cloying at the bottom of my soul.

From the mists, the witch emerged. She towered high above me, with pale painted skin and shrouded in red robes that fanned around her like grotesque wings. Her form seemed to shift before me, and her presence was so heavy it was hard to breathe.

I didn’t know if this was the witch of my world or the one I’d come to. In the end, it didn’t really matter.

“Traveler,” she said. Her voice seemed to come from every which way, echoing all around.

“My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi,” I told her. My voice felt very small in comparison. “My title is Detective or an equivalent. Use one of the two if you want to address me.”

The witch bent down and grabbed me by the chin with a clawed hand. It didn’t feel like claws--the dream dulled the sensation to little more than cold pressure. She forced me to look up at her. She had dark eyes, empty like the vacuum of space. There was no kindness in eyes like that. She hissed, “You will show me the proper respect, traveler.”

“I’ll respect you when you address me properly,” I said. “What do you want?”

“I sent you to find my son.”

“You did. I found him.”

“Why haven’t you brought him to me?” the witch demanded.

“I guess I haven’t gotten around to it.”

The witch snarled and grabbed me by the throat, hard enough to snap the bone had I not been dreaming. “You will bring him to me, traveler. Immediately.”

I coughed and tried to pry her fingers off, but no luck. She may as well have put me in a vise. “What, you have someplace to be? Maul’s an adult who can make his own choices. If he wants to come back to you, he’ll do it on his own time.”

I already knew he wouldn’t--from what I’d seen of his past, what little he remembered of his mother the witch was incredibly unpleasant. Looking up at her snarling face, it wasn’t difficult to imagine why.

“He is my son, and his place is at my side,” the witch said.

“Maul’s place is wherever he wants it to be. If you wanted him to come home, you shouldn’t have let Sidious hurt him all his life. You should have cared, not waited for me to come along and deal with him. Now he’s with me, and with any luck, he’ll stay there.”

The witch growled, making the air even heavier. “You think my son would choose you over me?”

“Unlike you, I know how to make friends. You certainly have not given him much reason to like you.”

The witch leaned in closer, gripping my head with both hands. “If you do not bring him to me, you will never return home. If you defy me further, I will destroy you from the inside out. I will give you one last chance, traveler. Bring me my son.”

“I don’t think I will.”

The witch’s face twisted even further, and she pressed her claws into my face, puncturing skin until I felt hot blood streaming down my cheeks and into my beard. Green mists swirled up around us, crawling up my body with deliberate slowness and suffused with Darkness. “If you will not obey, then I will make you.”

I spat at her.

She roared, and Darkness crashed down over us like an avalanche of malice. Magic coiled like durasteel chains around my throat, binding me tight. Whatever would come next, I didn’t want to know.

I woke myself up.

It was dark when I opened my eyes.

I lay back staring up at the dark ceiling, just breathing. I could still feel the Darkness of Dathomir against my soul, the weight of magic around my neck. I closed my eyes, feeling the Force roiling within me, and purged the witch’s magic from my soul the best I could. Even after that, I still felt it, like phantom touches across my skin. It must have been quite the effort, even for someone of her powers, to reach across space to threaten me.

I probably could have handled that conversation better, but I had no patience for people who thought they could walk all over me, not anymore. I’d broken a lot of friendships like that. Those weren’t the kinds of friendships I wanted anyways.

My chrono read 0740, local time. The clinic’s automatic blackout curtains would open soon, so it wasn’t worth going back to sleep. It seemed prudent not to, anyways. Who knew if the witch was still waiting for me.

I went over to the large window and manually opened the curtains to bright sunlight and clear green skies. I leaned against the sill and basked in it for a few minutes, just to let the light chase away the feeling of Dark magic. It made me feel better, and by the time I got properly awake, I wasn’t so jittery anymore.

I wasn’t enough of a fool to think that would be the end of it. If the witch wanted Maul so badly that she’d pulled me across space and time to get him, a little roadblock wouldn’t even slow her down. She’d come back, and I’d have to be ready for it.

As if I didn’t have enough problems already.

“Your mother paid me a visit,” I told Maul as he got his legs connected that morning.

Maul grimaced as Solis snapped the second leg into place, then said, “Mother Talzin? What does she want with you?”

“She wanted me to bring you to her,” I said. “She said she wouldn’t send me back to my universe if I didn’t.”

Maul’s face darkened. “I see. I suppose Dathomir will be our next destination?”

I paused. Solis moved on to first-connection diagnostics, testing joints and relays and motors. I knew from experience that it was extremely uncomfortable, but Maul didn’t let it show. His legs remained motionless except for when Solis moved them. At this point in the process, the prostheses were still ‘dead’--motor function offline and all joints unlocked.

“Do you want to go back to Dathomir?” I asked.

Maul moved to take off his blindfold, and I pulled his wrist away to stop him. Blinding for first connection was standard--being able to see cybernetic prostheses during first connection was disorienting and uncomfortable because limbs never lined up with where they felt they should be, which complicated the later calibration process. Blinding made everything easier and faster.

I said, “I’ll take you back if you want me to, but I’m not going to sell you to the witch just for passage back to my world. You don’t deserve that.”

“How honorable of you,” Maul drawled. “You would really value a Sith so much that you’d let yourself be stranded in an entirely different universe?”

“Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some sense of obligation or loyalty,” I said. “I’ll betray anyone for a good enough reason, but your freedom for my passage back? That’s not good enough.”

“Not returning means you would give up your home and family. That doesn’t concern you?”

“I didn’t say it didn’t concern me, I just said it wasn’t worth selling you out to the witch. My home is Coruscant, which is here just the same as in my world,” I said. “I have no family and only a few friends. I live alone and there’s no one whose life will fall through if I disappear or die a lonely death somewhere far away. I’ll just be someone they used to know.”

“You would give everything up, just like that?”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. I’d already spent most of the last two decades in a cycle of finding new people and giving them up. There were people I would miss--Dex and Bail, certainly--but losing them was nothing I wasn’t prepared for. “It doesn’t matter now anyways--passage back to my universe doesn’t mean anything unless I survive killing Sidious first. I’m just happy to have confirmation it’s possible to go back. I’ll have to convince the witch to send me or find another way to do it, but at least there’s the possibility.”

“Optimistic, aren’t you?”

“I try to be.”

Solis, finding the first leg satisfactory, disconnected her testing kit and moved it to the other leg.

Maul hissed as the kit connected, then asked, “What did you tell Mother Talzin?”

“Just what I told you. I’m not handing you over unless you want to go. She wasn’t happy to hear it.”

“I see. You said you would betray anyone for a good enough reason. Would you give me up if she changed her offer?”

“She can’t. She doesn’t have anything else to offer me,” I said. “The most she can do is harass me.”

Maul let out a low rumbling sound from the back of his throat. “Don’t speak so lightly of Mother Talzin’s abilities. She is the leader of the Nightsisters for a reason--her magic is powerful, even from this distance.”

“I’m aware. She invaded my dreams last night. I doubt there’s many Force sensitives who can do that.”

“She can do much worse--she is the master of Dark magic. She can raise the dead and transform the body, but her domain is the inner workings of the sentient mind. Us Nightbrothers feared her as soon as we understood the concept of fear. She has taken over Nightbrothers entirely, leaving them husks and puppets to do her bidding or use for seed.” Maul pressed his hands together. “Mother Talzin is vicious and she has no love for men of any species. It is interesting, Kenobi, that she was so gracious as to leave you with the free will to not return me to her side.”

I thought of the Dark talisman the witch had given me, and the compulsion laid in it, biting into my mind. I’d left that talisman on Lotho Minor after finding Maul--I wondered if the witch had expected me to keep it. Maybe if I had, it would have tried to compel me to deliver Maul to her.

“But then,” Maul continued, “she has already touched your mind at least once. How would you know if you are acting of your free will?”

“If she was controlling me, you’d think I’d be a bit more compliant to her demands.”

“Just because she failed to compel you in one regard doesn’t mean she did not succeed in another,” Maul said. “If Mother Talzin wants me back, she must have little love for Sidious, whether for taking me or for abandoning me the way he did. How sure are you that your desire to kill Sidious is yours?”

Green mists drifted to the forefront of my memory, and the weight of it tight against my neck. I had woken up before the witch could do anything, but did I know?

I didn’t. I didn’t know the first thing about magic.

“It makes no difference to me,” Maul said. “Just so long as Sidious is dead. But you are the one who is so concerned with intent. Perhaps it matters to you.”

“Maybe,” I said. “How would I tell if she had influenced me?”

Maul shrugged. “I do not know. From what I have felt of your mind, there is no outside influence and there are…particular elements of your mind that make it difficult to safely breach. However, my knowledge is only of Sidious’s methods. I was taken from Dathomir long before I could learn Mother Talzin’s.”

“I see.”

Solis called Maul’s attention, then. She’d finished the quality checks, so it was time for calibration, the most intensive part of a first connection. Cybernetic limbs had several motion sensors within to simulate the signals received from biological mechanoceptors--nerves to detect the length and tension of muscles, to give awareness of each limb in space. It was this way that cybernetics could give the feeling of being a real limb the way no other prosthesis could, but every sensor needed rigorous manual calibration first to line up the sense of the limb with the physical space of it.

The actual simulation of proprioceptive input required a lot of computation to convert positions into readable signals for the brain, but the practical side of calibration only involved moving a joint into a certain position--a knee fully bent, for example--and adjusting the sensors within until the patient said it felt like it was bent all the way. A few positions of the joint would be recorded this way, and the sensors would be able to extrapolate between them. The patient was kept blinded through the whole process to hide the fact that the limb was not moving at all and to prevent visual bias.

Calibration in this manner was rarely perfect, but the sentient brain was flexible in making adjustments based on experience and other sensory input, the same way someone could be tricked into feeling motion just through visual input alone. As long as the sense and the physicality of the limb matched close enough, physical therapy and the self-rewiring of the brain would take care of the rest.

How fortunate for the malleability of the sentient mind.

I watched Solis take Maul through calibration one joint at a time, starting at the right hip and moving down. Since Maul’s legs were high-mobility, his joints had a near-biological degree of freedom--very different from my stiff wrist. The whole process was simple, but tedious.

As the calibration proceeded, I considered Maul’s words. Was it possible that I was being influenced?

Of course it was possible. I’d blacked out right next to the witch who had a plethora of time to crawl around in my brain and do whatever she liked. It didn’t matter that I didn’t feel like I’d been influenced--the whole point of mental manipulation is that it’s not easily detected from the inside. Even for the Jedi, who are specially trained to perform rigorous mental self-examinations, malicious influences can slip through unnoticed.

I was no Jedi Master. I couldn’t even hack it as a Padawan.

There was no point in agonizing over whether the witch had sunk claws into my mind--I had dispelled what I could, and if anything was left, it was undetectable to both me and Maul. I did not have access to Jedi Mind Healers to thoroughly examine me, nor would I trust them to see what was in my head, so all I could do was remain vigilant and examine my thoughts with a fine-toothed comb.

The fact was, a tenday ago I would not have decided to assassinate Palpatine. I knew because I had handed the matter to the Jedi Order and to people I trusted in the Senate, people with much more power and influence who could take Palpatine down without taking the whole system down with him. Logically, that was the best approach to this situation, even now--to attack Palpatine from multiple sides to strip him of political power and neutralize his powers in the Force. All of their forces combined would have a much higher chance of success than I would and it would be the height of arrogance to think otherwise.

The problem was of stealth.

Sidious had spent over a year of war to maneuver the entire Jedi Order into an engulfing invisible trap. It hung over them like a condemned and unstable building, where any wrong move could take the entire thing down on top of them--and Sidious already had his hand on the detonator. I could bring my information to the Jedi Order and the Senate but they would have less than no reason to believe me--I would, at minimum, be suspected as a Separatist agent trying to sow discord within the Republic, and I had no proof besides the word of a Sith and some coincidences that were a bit too coincidental. Maybe I could convince them I wasn’t lying, which would lead to investigations, major ones, and inevitably Sidious would realize someone had caught on.

If that happened, there was nothing stopping him from simply bringing everything down. The only way I could see to take him down without excessive risk was to make sure he was unaware of the danger until the very last moment. That was one thing I had that all the Jedi and all the Senate didn’t: Sidious didn’t even know I existed.

The logic was sound, but was it reasoning or simply justifying my actions to myself?

In the end, I didn’t think it mattered. It was not out of character for me to commit an assassination, and taking everything I knew into account, it still felt like the best course of action. I couldn’t lose my nerve just because the witch might have influenced my thoughts to this path, like some unruly teenager rebelling against performing chores simply because they had been asked to complete them.

Honestly, I didn’t think the witch had. My memories of our conversation were fuzzy the way memories of dreams always were, but from what little I remembered, she hadn’t acted like someone who had succeeded in getting her teeth in me. It didn’t make sense for her to trade Maul for my passage back if she wanted me to kill Sidious first, either.

It was an interesting thought, though. Using the Dark Side to manipulate thoughts and actions.

Someone like Sidious could do a whole lot with that.

Eventually, Maul got through all the first-connection procedures with a certain air of grim dignity. The physical therapy, on the other hand…not so much.

“Why is this so difficult?” Maul snarled as he tried to rotate his legs and could only get an abortive stuttering motion.

“It’s because your brain is trying to operate muscle groups, not motors,” I said, pulling his legs straight again. “And because of the way synthneurons are connected semi-randomly, most of the connections are scrambled now.”

Maul tried to move his legs again, to no better success. “You mean my nerves aren’t even connected to the right parts of the leg? What idiot designed uplink this way?”

“The same idiot who realized having full fusion uplink was more important in the long term than trying to graft each connection to the exact right place. Old uplink methods caused chronic nerve pain and neural degeneration--modern auto-grafting methods don’t,” I said. “And trying to connect the right nerves to the right parts of the limb is pointless anyways. Motors and muscles don’t induce movement in the same way.”

“Is this really the time for another lecture?” Maul snapped back.

“I’m trying to explain why it’s so hard to get past the initial hurdle,” I said. “Do you not want to hear about that?”

“You talk too much, Kenobi.”

“And you’re just as charming as ever, dear.” I straightened Maul’s legs again so he could retry the exercise. “How many muscle groups do you think are in your forearm? Everything below the elbow.”

Maul hissed as he jerked his leg to the side. “I’m sure you will tell me.”

“The point was for you to make your best guess, but the answer is at least thirty. That’s not counting every individual muscle that’s used to move specific fingers, that’s major groups. Take a guess at how many motors there are in my mechanical hand.”

“Thirty, more or less.”

I shook my head. “Nine. Three for my thumb, one for each of my remaining fingers, one to spread my fingers out and bring them closed, one to extend and flex my wrist. Since my prosthesis only goes halfway down my forearm, I can still twist my wrist by using my muscles, but if I didn’t have that, that would be a tenth motor.”

“Your hand has limited motion,” Maul retorted.

“This ‘limited motion’ hand has over ninety percent the mobility of a biological hand--the only things I can’t use it for are motions like writing that need my wrist to bend a specific way,” I said. "But my point is, you have nerves for over thirty groups of muscles and nine motors to distribute them to. Even if you account for the fact that muscles can only pull in one direction while motors can push in two, that’s thirty sets of nerves and eighteen motor inputs. How would you possibly distribute those connections?

“And even if you did somehow have a way to distribute all those nerves, what would you do with the signals? When you bend your knee, it’s not a single nerve signal that controls it--there’s multiple muscles involved.”

Maul pulled his leg out straight again. “Surely there is some way to calculate the proper motion.”

“Of course there is,” I said. “Those sorts of prostheses exist right now--they’re called ‘high-level’ cybernetics, because they require high-level signal interpretation. They take in all the signals received from the nerves, then calculate the desired motion and send equivalent signals to the motors.”

“That sounds much better than what I’m currently experiencing,” Maul snarled, gesturing to his spasming legs.

“For the record, you’re doing very well so far,” I said. “As for the question you didn’t ask, high-level cybernetics aren’t common anymore. They need a lot more power, they’re harder to do maintenance on, they need frequent recalibration, and the calculations mean there’s a noticeable lag time between signal and movement--and it gets longer the more complicated the prosthesis is. Up to half a second, in some cases. They’re also vulnerable to slicing, and you do not want someone else to take control of one of your limbs.” I opened my arms and said, “Some people still get them--certain species don’t have enough neuroplasticity to use low-level cybernetics very well, and some people just prefer them because they’re easy to learn how to use, or they don’t have the time to adjust to a low-level prosthesis. They can get about eighty percent function within a week, last I checked. The number might be higher now.”

“I currently appear to be at zero,” Maul said through his teeth. “Why did you saddle me with these wretched things?”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself--you only started this three hours ago. Trust me, you’ll appreciate these legs much more in a tenday’s time. They’re more reactive, they’re easier to do maintenance on, they’re lighter, and once you learn how to use them, they’ll have very good fine control. Important if you want to run and jump.”

“You say that as if you do not have limited motion yourself.”

“That’s because I’m missing degrees of freedom, not because I have bad coordination.” I wiggled my mechanical fingers demonstratively. "As I was saying, at some point, technicians found some people had cybernetic calculators that had gone haywire--the equations had turned into absolute nonsense--but these people were still able to use their limbs normally. These technicians logically deduced that that if the brain could adjust to something that drastic, maybe it would be possible to take out the computing step completely--and it was.

“So modern low-level cybernetics connect nerve signals directly to the motors, and without the complicated computing unit and exorbitant maintenance fees associated with it, cybernetic prostheses as a whole became much cheaper--not that it matters to you, since I paid for yours. There’s a little bit of signal transduction--nerves use frequency-based signaling while motors use amplitude-based signals--but that’s it. This way, your brain figures out all the motion coordination, which it is very good at--it just has to figure out how, first. That’s the point of all this flailing right now. You’re recalibrating your brain to learn what connects to what. ‘Cortical rearrangement’ is the technical term.”

Maul hissed through his teeth. “Fantastic. I’m sure this terminology will help me greatly moving forward. I’m so glad you told me.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, dear, it’s relevant information about what you’re currently going through,” I said, helping to steady Maul’s leg again. “It takes a few days of this until your brain starts making the connection between signals and movements. Until then, you have to just keep wiggling your legs to develop the right pathways--looking at and touching the prosthesis while you move it helps speed things up. Physical therapy gets a lot easier after that first hurdle. Once you can reliably and intentionally activate the motors, we can work on locking and unlocking joints, and then coordinated motions like walking. It took a week before I could move my fingers individually, then about a month before I was able to throw with any force, much less accuracy.”

Maul’s brows drew together. “Throwing?”

“Yeah.” I made a throwing motion with my right arm. “It’s not as simple of a motion as you think--releasing an object needs a lot of coordination and you need to control the locking of the wrist joint. I still can’t throw well right-handed. For you, an equivalent would be something like a kick--the balance and the coordination are going to make it hard even after you get a hang of the motors.”

Maul scowled. He was getting a lot of that in.

“Cybernetics aren’t the same as biological limbs, unfortunately,” I said. “I hear they’re getting better--I read about some experiments with contractile fiber and artificial muscles, but they’re still in development. Maybe one day we’ll have cybernetics you can install in an afternoon and be able to use them like a new limb the morning after, but not for a long time yet.”

“I should have just gotten a pair of legs cloned,” Maul snarled. “I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Well, good luck finding a medical cloner,” I said. “And good luck affording one, too. You realize it can take months to grow full limbs, right? There’s only so much you can accelerate the growth process without turning it into cancer.” I poured myself some water from the room’s pitcher and took a drink. “And you don’t have to be so down on cybernetics. They’ve very good, honestly, just different. This hand is very good at breaking jaws, and it’s lightsaber-resistant, too. Solis has diagnostic tools embedded in her arm, including the ultrasound transmitter in her palm. Cybernetics might not be good at everything, but they don’t need to be--they’re engineered to suit our needs.”

“Spare me your platitudes, Kenobi. I just want to use my legs.”

“You’ll get there,” I said. “I think you’ve had enough of this exercise for now, though. Do you want to help me cook thirdmeal? It doesn’t have to be soups or porridges--Solis says your intestines should be healed enough to digest most solids now.”

Maul struggled a bit more with his legs, then sighed. “Fine. Help me up.”

I helped Maul into his hoverchair and said, “The traps pulled up some crabs this morning. Big ones, the size of your head. Heavy, too.”

“Hm,” Maul said. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten crab before. I think I would be…interested in sampling it.”

I wondered briefly how Maul, as well-traveled as he was, could have gotten through twenty-some years of life without ever tasting something as ubiquitous as crab. Maybe Sith didn’t have room in the budget for that kind of thing--enjoyment.

“In that case,” I said, “I’ll be glad to introduce you.”

The last of the medical procedures Solis had to perform was fixing Maul’s neural degeneration.

“Based on my examinations, most of the damage was peripheral,” Solis said slowly in Mando’a. Maul had improved in the language greatly since he’d started--the Force was some help with interpreting intent--but it had been less than three weeks. Even the Force couldn’t speed up language learning that much.

“Peripheral,” Maul prompted.

“Closer to the outside. Fingers, nerve endings. That’s where a lot of the numbness comes from.” Solis pulled up a small holodisplay with a model of Maul’s arm. The nerve damage was highlighted--it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, but it was certainly worse than I’d hoped. “Unfortunately, there’s also some damage to a few of your main nerves--that’s why you have that tingling feeling all down the back of your left forearm and the stiffness in flexing your right elbow. A lot of the weakness in your hands is because most of the signals just aren’t coming through. It’s surprising that you can use them as well as you do, with the damage you have.”

Maul frowned, slowly clenching and unclenching his fists.

“He’s been using the Force to compensate,” I said. “Mostly to reduce tremors.”

Solis grimaced the way she always did when I brought up the Force getting involved in medical issues. “Well,” she said, “the hope is that once I’m done with you, you won’t need your magic to use your arms properly. Luckily for you, your body can naturally regrow nerves--we’ll just be speeding it along by placing scaffolds.” Solis looked at Maul’s pinched expression, then added, “Scaffolds are guides that will go away after a little while. They help the nerves grow the right way.”

“I see,” Maul said.

“For nerve scaffolds, we don’t do surgery,” Solis continued. “Cutting through tissue causes more nerve damage than we’re trying to fix, so it’s counterintuitive.” She glanced at Maul. “Causes more problems. The scaffolds are very small--beads barely visible to the naked eye. We place them like trail markers, so the growing nerves will go from one to the next. Like connect-the-dots. For minor nerve damage, we can insert them with needles through the skin, like acupuncture. Very safe and very effective.”

Maul looked up at the lazily rotating model of his arm. “I do not have ‘minor nerve damage’.”

“You do not,” Solis said. “Technically, we could still use puncture methods to put in scaffolds, but that would be hundreds of punctures. Even with needles this small, that will cause problems, and it would be very uncomfortable.” She leaned back and picked up a small hypo. “For nerve damage like yours, we use targeted deposition methods.”

“Targeted…deposition methods,” Maul said, sounding the words out.

“Target, something you aim at. Deposition, putting something down. Method, a way of doing things,” Solis explained. “The scaffold beads are loaded onto nanobots that carry the beads to the places marked here--” she tapped the holodisplay and a constellation of white dots lit up along the forearm and fingers, “--after which they filter out to the blood and get eliminated by the kidneys.”

“Sounds a lot like the surgical nanobots,” I said.

Solis shrugged. “They have some similarities, but these are only for dropping payloads. They can’t restructure tissue or anything like that, so they’re safer and also legal in the Republic. They’re used for targeted solid tumor therapies, usually--they’re less specific than antibody-conjugated drugs, but they’re cheaper and more stable and generally safer.”

Maul squinted at her, and I translated.

“Can’t you two bond over medical facts later?” Maul sighed. He looked back over to Solis. “Are you going to inject those hypos?”

Solis nodded and pulled out a roll of pale blue medical tape. It looked like there were some sort of sensors attached to it. “This is orientation tape. It’ll help the nanobots navigate once they’re injected. The process should only take about twenty minutes, and it’s usually not painful--most people report a strong tingling sensation. I’ll need to immobilize your arms. I can either use a nerve disruptor or mechanical restraint. Whichever you prefer.”

“Mechanical,” Maul said. “I can start now.”

“Very well. Lay down on the bed, please.”

Maul did, and Solis took him through the procedure with brisk efficiency, taping his arms and strapping them down, then injecting the hypos. Solis had a portable data terminal pulled up, showing the scaffolding process report so we could all see it, then sat back in her chair to wait.

“With the scaffolds, you can expect a full return of nerve function in about a week,” Solis said. “Assuming you do physical therapy as necessary, of course.”

Maul grimaced. “Of course.”

That was still very fast--I hadn’t realized regeneration therapies had gotten along so far, not having needed any of them myself since the days I helped Jango with bounty hunting, over ten years ago. “Does this only work with peripheral nerve injury?” I asked. “Or can you use it for spinal and brain injuries?”

Solis tilted her hand in a so-so motion. “Central injuries are harder to regenerate just because the body doesn’t have as many ways to do it. You have to clear out glial scar tissue first, too, or the nerves won’t grow in--that’s just a pain. But mainly it’s a lot harder to take neural maps of a brain detailed enough for scaffolding methods,” she said. “If you happen to have a full neural map from before the injury that you’re trying to restore with scaffolding, then sure. There’s specialized deposition nanobots that can cross the blood-brain barrier, or you can just inject them directly into the spinal fluid and they’ll work fine. It’s not really my area of expertise, but I’ve read a few papers about patients with traumatic brain injuries regaining function through scaffolding methods--I can forward those to you if you’re interested.”

“I would be,” I said. “It sounds fascinating.”

Maul gagged. “If you two are going to flirt, please don’t do it in front of me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Calm down, Maul. It’s just some light reading. It’s good to learn new things when you can.”

Solis tapped on her datapad and sent me the papers. “There you go, Detective. Let me know what you think. Maybe you’ll have some interesting thoughts on the subject.”

“Of course, dear. I look forward to it.” I pulled the first research paper open on my datapad, a twenty-page clinical study about recovery from traumatic brain injuries secondary to ship crashes and settled down to read while I waited. I heard Maul make another gagging noise.

He was just being ridiculous. As if I would ever flirt with someone.

Honestly.

We left Solis’s clinic after twenty-one standard days--eight full local light-dark cycles. At that point, Maul was far from fully healed--he still needed pain medication and vitamin supplementation and he could only walk with a sort of stiff, shuffling gait if he steadied himself with a cane, to the point that he still primarily moved around by hoverchair. But everything we had needed Solis for was complete, and I could take care of Maul from there. It was just as well, because Maul had started to go stir-crazy from the isolation of the clinic. There was only so much clinic upkeep and cooking he could manage before going a little nuts.

I couldn’t deny the itch in my feet, either. Quiet places weren’t made for me.

“Thank you so much for everything,” I told Solis at the landing zone. “I don’t know how we would have made it without your help.”

Solis shrugged. “Business is business, Detective, and I’m always able to help a friend of Jan’ika’s. Where are you headed next?”

“You know I can’t tell you that,” I said.

Solis hummed and looked me over. “You’re serious about this, then. Ending the war.”

“I don’t do these kinds of things unless I’m serious about them, dear,” I said. “I mean to see it through all the way--you’ll probably find out if I was successful.”

“I wish you the best, then.” Solis swung around a long black duraplast case that she’d brought from the clinic and said, “I don’t have much to give you, besides what I already have, but if you’re planning to go through with your assassination, then you might want this.”

She handed me the case. It had a considerable heft to it.

“Jan’ika taught you how to use a slugthrower, correct?” she said. “Because sniping with a bullet is not the same as sniping with a blaster.”

“A slug--” I looked down at the case and back up to Solis. “This must be ancient--I can’t take this.”

“This is Jan’ika’s, or it would have been--Jaster handed it off to me over thirty years ago because he felt snipers were a bit unsporting for Mandalorian warfare. Not the psychological warfare sort of person, our old Mand’alor.” She clapped me on the shoulder. “But you’re not an honorable person, Detective. You’ll make use of this gift, and you’ll make it count. I certainly won’t need it out here.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “You don’t even know what I’m going to use this for.”

“You’re going to kill someone who would destroy your people,” Solis said. “That’s all I need to know. The specifics are up to you.”

I looked back at the case, then sighed. I couldn’t deny the practicality of it, and while I knew how to get good weapons, I was never going to get one like this elsewhere. “Thank you, Solis. I’ll take good care of it.”

Solis nodded. “I guess even you can see sense every once in a while. Don’t go out there and undo all my hard work.”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.”

I pulled her into a hug. It was not the most comfortable hug, since she was wearing armor and I was holding a massive slugthrower, but it was the thought that counted. She pulled back and folded her fist over her heart. “Go protect your people, Detective.”

I mirrored her, fist over heart. “I will. Goodbye, Solis.”

I went into the ship and pulled the ramp up. KY4 skittered back to let me know pre-flight checks were done and we were ready for departure, and I went with it to calculate the coordinates for our next destination.

Maul leaned against the doorway to the co*ckpit, watching us. “So what is your plan, Kenobi? Surely you have one.”

“Of course I do,” I said. I’d had four weeks to come up with a plan; I hadn’t spent that whole time doing nothing. “We’ll head out first to some markets I know about--we need supplies. Clothes, food, equipment. KY4 tells me it knows a decent hideout that used to belong to its former owners, and an abandoned pirate’s den will be just fine for now.”

“After that?” Maul asked.

“After that, I start investigating the Republic Army. Whatever Sidious is planning, it has to do with the war and the clones--the aligned timing of when they were commissioned and when the Separatist powers emerged is too suspicious, and I have it on good authority that there’s Dark influence on at least some of the soldiers. So that’s where I’ll start.”

I typed in the coordinates for our next destination and powered up the thrusters.

Maul crossed his arms. “And how exactly do you expect to investigate that?”

I smiled. “We,” I said, “are going to kidnap Captain Rex of the 501st.”

Summary:

Rex gets caught up in something a little above his pay grade.

It starts--though Rex doesn’t know it at the time--like this:

Senator Padmé Amidala is kidnapped for ransom.

Out in the Outer Rim on assignment, it’s not usually the sort of thing Rex hears about right away--Senate business is Corie Guard business, after all--but Fives pulls him aside in the shooting range to tell him about it the moment he finds out.

The ransom holovid, released less than six hours ago, has already hit all major holonews networks. The ransom demands themselves are not that out of the ordinary--money, amnesty, and safe passage--but the speaker is.

It’s a clone.

For forty-two full seconds, a clone in shiny white current-generation armor is fully visible in the ransom video, making demands and showing Senator Amidala’s less than ideal state. She doesn’t look injured, but she’s unconscious and her fancy Senate clothes are dirty and torn in places and she’s clearly wearing shock cuffs.

A sick feeling develops in Rex’s stomach. A defection is bad enough, but turning on the Senate like this is going to look bad for all clones--as if they don’t get enough flak as it is. Already, there’s speculation and suspicion and hate circulating public forums, talking about how clones deserve less rights than they already have for the safety of all Republic citizens.

Rex’s eyes flick over the video, trying to identify which brother could possibly be under the bucket. The brother doesn’t identify himself at all. It’s the smart, if cowardly choice--doing otherwise would be a guaranteed death sentence. There’s no identifying features on the armor besides some light carbon scoring from blaster shots, and the narrow-wavelength holovid recorder doesn’t pick up the ultraviolet ID tags. The only notable thing about him is the stiff gait, like he’s recovering from some serious leg injuries. An injury that bad, especially on a shiny, could be enough to send them back to Kamino for triage--then to treatment or decommissioning.

Desertion is a serious crime, but Rex can’t completely blame him. People get irrational when their lives are at stake, and maybe it’s better to go down fighting than to disappear without a trace behind Kamino’s doors, so running only seems like a logical choice--even if it’s the wrong one. He gets it, even if he can’t condone it.

But this…this is too far.

“They’re never going to give that ransom,” Rex says. “Not to a brother.”

And they shouldn’t. Not everyone in the 501st remembers Slick, but he certainly does. If they acquiesce to these demands, there’s really nothing stopping this brother from going straight to the Separatists. Rex is sympathetic, but given the choice of one defector brother versus the ones who might die because of this betrayal, Rex knows who he’ll pick every time.

“I don’t think it is a brother,” Fives says. “He doesn’t talk like one--his accent’s all wrong.”

Rex listens again, and sure enough, Fives is right--it’s not a clone’s accent. Some of them pick up different accents after deployment, but shinies fresh from Kamino always talk the same way--the curling of long vowels, the sharpness of hard consonants. This kidnapper, whoever they are, talks like a natborn. “Then what, someone stole a set of armor to…frame one of us?”

“I don’t know,” Fives says. “But something isn’t adding up. I don’t like it.”

Rex grimaces. Fives is perceptive--he gets hunches about things and he’s very rarely wrong. It’s not like him to bring up suspicions without being able to say what he’s suspicious of, though.

“Why’d you bring this to me?” Rex asks Fives.

“Well, it’s Senator Amidala,” Fives says, grim. “And the Guard hasn’t been able to find them yet. I just, you know. Thought you would appreciate the heads-up.”

There’s no need to explain further.

Less than three hours later, the news reaches Anakin. To say he reacts badly is an understatement, and he makes the executive decision to return to Coruscant with Ahsoka in tow to help the Senator, leaving the 501st in Rex’s command.

It could be worse. They’re not in the middle of an offensive campaign right now--it’s one of the many lulls in the action where they scout out the area and build camp and collect information. It’s not like Rex hasn’t done this before, but he can’t help the nervousness that creeps up in the back of his mind every time he’s left alone with no on-site superior officer.

He might be one of the oldest clones, but at the end of the day, he’s still just a clone--a CT at that, not even a proper CC. He’s made to follow orders, not to give them. It’s a lot of responsibility--too much responsibility, he thinks to himself--to hold his brothers' lives in his hands and make the choices to best serve the Republic and hopefully live another day.

All he can do is his best.

In the following week, there are a few skirmishes against Seppie droids. Not full armies and fleets so much as very large scouting parties, but still there are casualties. No deaths, yet. A grenade had found its way into the midst of the fighting, the kind that the General or the Commander usually would have been able to fling back at the droids, and not everyone managed to get clear. Rex listens to Kix’s end-of-day status report, grim. Of the twelve brothers injured, one was in critical condition, while three others were likely too injured to return to combat duty--if surgery doesn’t pull through, they might have to go back to Kamino.

Rex isn’t imagining how bitter Kix sounds when he says that--back to Kamino. All the medics say it that way, and Rex is smart enough to not ask why. It’s not too hard to guess, anyways. If you’re a medic, you have to save your brothers when they fall. If you have to send your brothers back to Kamino, you’ve failed.

Not everyone who goes back to Kamino returns. Decommissioning or reconditioning, it’s all the same.

Rex is up late that night, finishing reports. It’s always like this when the General leaves the front, especially without explicit approval, because it means he needs to make reports for the Jedi High Council as well as the Senate and other higher-ups in the GAR. While he understands the importance of good documentation, it always feels like too much paperwork for such a small encounter, and once again he feels sorry for Cody and all the other proper Commanders who have to deal with this all the time.

Yeesh.

It’s a little past 0100 local when his commlink buzzes. Rex checks it and frowns--the transmission is coming in to his personal line, not the line usually used for military-related business, and he doesn’t recognize the incoming code. Still, the list of people with his personal comm code is extremely limited, and none of them would comm without a good reason. He opens the transmission.

“Hello?” he says.

“Ah, Captain Rex. I understand it’s a little late where you are--I hope I didn’t wake you?” says what is unmistakably General Kenobi’s voice.

Rex’s back straightens reflexively. “General! No, I was just finishing my reports, sir.”

“Working so late? Goodness, we work you too hard, don’t we? But I guess we’re all working too hard, these days,” General Kenobi says, his Core accent lilting as always.

“It’s what we’re made for,” Rex says. “Did you need something, sir?”

“Yes, actually. I am unfortunately increasing your workload again--”

“It’s fine, sir!”

“Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” General Kenobi says, and Rex can practically hear the smile. “I’m comming because of an upcoming critical mission--you were recommended as the best operative for the job.”

“Sir? What mission is this?”

General Kenobi sighs. “It’s classified, unfortunately--I’m as vexed as you are about all this secrecy, but I can’t tell you over this comm line. Nonetheless, I have the best faith that you will do exemplary work as always--your initiative, resourcefulness, and loyalty were highly commended, and frankly, I trust you, Captain.”

Rex thinks he might be getting a little light-headed from the praise. He knows, logically, that he does good work, but to hear it from General Kenobi--

“What do you need me to do, sir?”

“Well, I heard about Skywalker returning to Coruscant for a…new mission, so I believe that makes you the highest-ranking officer with the 501st right now.”

Rex pauses. “Skywalker?”

“Anakin Skywalker,” General Kenobi says slowly. “I’m sure you know your own General’s name, Captain.”

“No, it’s just…you don’t usually call him Skywalker. Did something happen?”

"Well, he did leave the battlefront in the middle of a campaign without telling anyone. Presumably why you’re still awake finishing reports. I am, I admit, a little frustrated with him. I apologize--it’s unbecoming of me."

Rex can empathize with that. Anakin’s one of the best, but he can be…a little frustrating, sometimes. “No need to apologize, sir. What were you saying about the 501st?”

“Yes, well, since Anakin is no longer on site, that makes you the highest-ranking officer present. I can’t exactly pull you from the 501st on a whim--is it possible for you to speak to your brothers to restructure command for your absence? We expect this mission to take no more than a tenday,” General Kenobi says. “I also need complete confidentiality--of course you can discuss it with your brothers in the 501st as required, but no one else. You know how gossip spreads in the GAR, and we really cannot afford to have this mission compromised.”

“Yes, sir!” Rex says.

“Very good, Captain. I knew I could count on you,” General Kenobi replies. “Is midday tomorrow enough time to prepare?”

Rex runs the math. It’ll be a bit tight, but he can make it work. “Yes, sir. Do I need to bring anything?”

“Standard combat gear will be fine. Everything else will be provided for you. One of our agents will rendezvous with you then.”

“How will I know this agent, sir?”

“Believe me, it will be fairly obvious. Is there a private location you two can meet? The less chance of word getting out about this, the better.”

“We can meet at the edge of the camp, sir,” Rex says. He pulls out his datapad and reads out a set of coordinates.

General Kenobi repeats the coordinates back to him, then says, “Thank you, Rex. Tomorrow at midday--don’t be late. You will be debriefed then, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, comm me back on this frequency.”

“Will do, sir,” Rex says.

“Good. May the Force be with you.”

The transmission closes, and Rex takes a deep breath. A classified mission from General Kenobi--he’s not sure he’s ever had something so important put on him. Why would General Kenobi reach out to the 501st, instead of someone from the 212th? Of course, Cody’s too busy with administrative duties and commanding the battalion, but surely there’s someone in the entire 212th that would be more suited to this mission than him.

And frankly, I trust you, Captain.

Maybe it really is just that simple--Jedi go a lot on feelings with all their Force nonsense. Maybe a good feeling is all that’s necessary.

Rex gets back to work with renewed vigor. He isn’t sure what he’s done to gain that trust, but he’ll make sure it isn’t misplaced.

In the end, it’s not so hard to figure out the command structure for when he’s off-site. This is war, after all--they have to plan for the possibility that commanding officers will die or go missing, and the 501st is no exception. Jesse takes over as Captain while Fives is second in command on the battlefield for whenever the Seppies inevitably find them again. Everything else follows protocol, and Rex is confident that his brothers will keep everything in line.

By the time he finishes going over with Jesse what reports need to be made when, and to whom, it’s close enough to noon that Rex has to leave.

“Make us proud, Captain,” Jesse says, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ll do great.”

Rex nods sharply and puts his bucket on. “You, too, Jesse. I’m trusting you.”

Rex goes out to the rendezvous and gets there a little early. General Kenobi’s agent, whoever they are, is nowhere to be seen. If the General has landed a ship on the planet, it’s not anywhere nearby, and there were no ships landed that morning in the area.

He waits, and there’s a crawling feeling up his neck that this is some kind of test and he’s failing. He settles in parade rest just to settle his nerves.

His commlink goes off. He checks it, and it’s again to his private line from General Kenobi. He opens the transmission. “General Kenobi, sir?” he says. “I’m at the rendezvous.”

There might be a response, but Rex doesn’t hear it before someone grabs him from behind. There’s a sharp pinch in his neck, and--

Darkness.

When Rex wakes up, his head still buzzing from the aftereffects of whatever drug co*cktail he’d been shot up with, the first thing he notices is he’s got a crick in his neck, like he’s fallen asleep still wearing his armor. That…appears to be what’s happened, he realizes as he looks around--he’s still in full armor, except for his pistol holsters, which are conspicuously missing.

The second thing he notices is that he’s on a ship in hyperspace.

Honestly, this isn’t the worst start to a mission he’s ever had, but that’s only because he serves under General Skywalker.

The lights are down, so he turns on his helmet’s flashlight to figure out what the hell is going on. He’s not cuffed or anything, and he seems to be on a bed--not a very good one, but it’s unmistakably a real mattress on a frame, which makes it better than the cots in the barracks--and the room he’s in appears to be a small ship cabin with most of the furniture stripped.

Carefully, he gets up. His head throbs even more when he’s upright but that’s just life, sometimes. Walk it off. He’ll be fine.

Just then, the door slides open. The person in the doorway is…nondescript. Aggressively so. A hood covers their hair and a cloth mask covers the lower half of their face, revealing only piercing grayish-blue eyes and skin that’s several shades lighter than his brothers'. Human, probably. It’s always hard to tell.

Rex wonders why so much of their face needs to be covered, but resolves not to ask--it’s really not his business if this person has some kind of cultural thing or is self-conscious about their appearance. He knows plenty of brothers who are face-shy and never take off their buckets when people can see them. Even he gets that way sometimes, so he can’t really judge.

Besides that, there’s little of note about the mysterious visitor. Brown cloak, dark spacer jacket and trousers, long black gloves, blue cloth mask. The clothing is loose enough to conceal any musculature or lack thereof, and the person isn’t all that tall--maybe a few centimeters more than him and his brothers. By the left thigh, there’s a bulge under the cloak which looks suspiciously like a very long lightsaber.

This is presumably General Kenobi’s agent. A Jedi, with that lightsaber. They’re not dressed like a Jedi, but that doesn’t mean anything. This is a classified mission, so it would make sense that they wouldn’t want to advertise their association with the Order. Like one of those Jedi spies he’s heard the Generals mention once or twice. Shadows, or something.

“You’re not General Kenobi,” Rex says.

“No, I’m not. Unfortunately, Master Kenobi is a little busy handling his own battles at the moment. You’ll have to make do with me,” the person in the cloak says. Their voice is similar to General Kenobi’s in pitch, but rougher and with a burr he’s only heard on a couple of Outer Rim planets. The person reaches over to flick the lights on, revealing the cabin as bare except for the bed and a chair and a desk, but clean. “Sorry about the rough treatment. How are you feeling, Captain?”

“I’ve been better, sir. Was it really necessary to hypo me? I could have walked onto the ship perfectly well on my own.”

“Yes, I see that now. Again, sorry,” the Jedi says with a sigh. “I didn’t expect you to wake up so quickly--I’d have prepared something for you to eat if I’d known.”

Rex shakes his head. “It’s no problem, General.”

The Jedi’s eyes scrunch up in what’s pretty unmistakably a grimace. “Please don’t call me that. I don’t lead any armies and, Force willing, I never will.”

Great. Offended a superior officer already. Fantastic start. “Sorry, sir. How would you prefer to be addressed?”

“Any name I give you won’t be my real name, so call me whatever you want,” the Jedi says, leaning against the door frame. “Or you can use my title, which is Investigator or an equivalent. A bit of a mouthful, though.”

Investigator seems like a very…civilian title. “Is ‘Investigator’ the usual title for a Jedi Shadow?” Rex asks.

The Jedi pauses, scratching the side of their head slowly, then says, “It can be, out in public. It kind of defeats the purpose of undercover work if you announce it to everyone. But no, within the Temple, we typically go by Shadow instead. You can call me that if it’s more convenient.”

Shadow. That’s a decent name--Rex thinks he knows a brother named Shadow. “Shadow, then. General Kenobi said you would debrief me?”

The Shadow nods sharply. “Come out to the common area and I’ll fill you in, Captain. You can take your armor off if you want--we’ll be in hyperspace for another twelve hours at least.”

With that, the Shadow leaves, letting the door close behind them.

Rex…isn’t sure what to think. He feels very wrong-footed about the whole situation--he’s way out of his comfort zone. When General Kenobi had said he’d been recommended for this mission, he hadn’t mentioned it’d be undercover work.

It’s not like he doesn’t know about undercover work--he’s been nominally trained in it the same way all troopers have--but it’s definitely not his area of expertise. He’s not good for sneaking around and tricking information out of people, he’s good at introducing droids to blasters as quickly and destructively as possible. Getting put on some kind of solo mission like this feels very much like getting thrown into the deep end--he doesn’t think he’s been this nervous since the first battle at Geonosis.

At least at Geonosis, he had his brothers with him.

He takes his helmet off and sets it on the bed. There’s not a lot of reason to wear all his armor, but he’s not about to report to a superior in his blacks.

He goes out into the hall. The ship he’s on is a small cruiser--two cabins, is his best guess. It’s an old cruiser, too, with old-style conduits and light fixtures. This piece of junk is probably twice as old as he is. Anakin would have a fit just looking at this thing.

Rex wonders why the Jedi wouldn’t spring for a nicer ship. It’s not like they don’t have access to them--he’s seen their hangar. The hyperdrive feels stable, at least, so the ship is in good repair. Maybe it’s another undercover thing. Make it less likely someone will want to steal it.

The Shadow is sitting at a dining table near the kitchenette, reading a datapad that’s got a weird grip on the right side. To make it easier to hold, Rex supposes. He’s never seen one before.

The Shadow hears him coming and looks up. Unlike most people seeing Rex for the first time, the Shadow doesn’t stare or look surprised because of his blond hair. They simply nod and wave Rex over.

“Sir,” Rex says, saluting.

“No need for that. Take a seat, dear,” the Shadow says, gesturing to the seat opposite them. Without being able to see most of the Shadow’s face, it’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, but they seem decent enough so far.

Rex takes a seat.

“I’ve kept you in suspense long enough,” the Shadow says. “You’re probably dying to know what mission you’ve been roped into, and rightly so.” They rotate their datapad around so Rex can see. It’s a news article about one of the campaigns a while back involving some awful Sith temple--though the news article doesn’t say it in those exact words. Rex vaguely remembers hearing about it, but he’d been on the opposite side of the Outer Rim at the time. “You might recognize this mission from a month ago. A company of your brothers and Master Nareem investigated a set of ruins that the Separatists had shown interest in. There were some confrontations, as there always are, and Master Nareem successfully drove the Separatists off.”

Rex nods.

“Well,” the Shadow continues, “after this incident we were understandably concerned about the effect that the Dark Side might have on your brothers, so some of them were brought back to the Jedi Temple to be examined by Mind Healers.”

Rex hadn’t heard about that, which is weird because he always seems to hear about every other time a brother visits the Temple for the first time. He’s been busy a lot in the last month, though. It could have slipped under the radar.

“We found no lasting effects from the Sith Temple, but we did find something…more concerning,” the Shadow says. “The Mind Healers found Dark influences within the minds of some of your brothers. Very old Dark influences--maybe even predating the War.”

Rex feels himself go cold. “Sir?”

The Shadow pulls their datapad back and sets it down, then continues, “Obviously, this is not a good thing. We might even go as far as to say that it is very bad. As we all know, there are Sith working with the Separatist forces--and despite what Skywalker might boast, the Sith are quite formidable with the Dark Side. It is deeply concerning that they may have tampered with the minds of some of your brothers.”

Rex’s mouth is dry. No wonder General Kenobi wanted this quiet. “Why? Why would they do that?”

“That’s the problem,” the Shadow sighs. “We don’t know. Maybe they intend to gain access to classified information. Maybe they intend to cause dissent in the ranks. Maybe it’s something even worse.”

Rex remembers Ventress getting into his head, forcing him to lead his men into a trap, and that had only been him. If the Sith can do that to any of them, the whole situation can very easily lead to even worse.

Rex swallows. “So we’re trying to find out why the Sith might have done this?”

“Why, but also when and how. This is where you come in, Captain. You are among the earliest soldiers deployed, correct?”

“Yes, sir. I was deployed at the first battle of Geonosis.”

The Shadow nods thoughtfully. “I see. Then you must have already encountered some Darksiders yourself, correct?”

“Dooku and Ventress? We’ve encountered them--the 501st and the 212th run into them more often than other battalions. Some sort of personal grudge against Generals Skywalker and Kenobi, it seems like.”

“Troublemakers, aren’t they?” the Shadow says, and it’s impossible to tell if they mean the Darksiders or the Generals. “In any case, we received intel of Darksider activity on Piktus, an obscure Outer Rim planet on the border of Hutt Space. It’s mostly known for pirate activity and it also happens to be in my area of operations. The plan is to go in, investigate any kind of Darksider activity, and apprehend them if possible. If we can get that far, then I hope to find out what they know and how it may relate to you and your brothers.”

“I see,” Rex says. It sounds reasonable, sort of. He’s not sure how he’ll be able to help in a Darksider manhunt and he’s definitely not sure how catching some random Darksider will get them the information about how the Dark Side is being used on his brothers. It’s not like all Darksiders have one big group chat or something. At least, he’s pretty sure they don’t?

So, okay. Maybe it’s not completely reasonable, given the context so far, but there’s probably a few other steps involved that the Shadow hasn’t told him yet.

“Until then,” the Shadow says, “I’d like you to tell me about your training before the War.”

“You mean at Kamino?” Rex asks.

The Shadow’s eyes crinkle in what seems to be a smile. “Yes. Kamino. As far as we know, mental manipulation through the Dark Side requires direct access--that can include ruins or Sith artifacts, but since I highly doubt there’s any of that in Kamino, that means physical access or, less likely, live holocomm.”

“Darksiders can use the Force over holocomm?”

“A lot of sufficiently powerful Force sensitives can, though obviously the distance makes it difficult. I don’t actually think a Sith would have used the Dark Side on your brothers over holocomm, but I can’t dismiss the possibility, either.” The Shadow sighs, then leans in and looks him straight in the eyes. “Captain, it’s critical that I learn about your training on Kamino. As much as you can tell me--anything might help.”

Rex feels a chill up his spine. There’s something unnerving about the Shadow’s gaze--it’s almost too focused, too intent. It feels like they can see everything about him in a single glance and then some.

For some reason, it reminds Rex of the cold eyes of the Sith.

The Shadow closes their eyes, then opens them again. The intensity is still there, but there’s something…softer about them, now. “Please, Rex. This is to help you and your brothers.”

What is Rex supposed to say to that? He nods and starts talking.

Time passes quickly in hyperspace. The Shadow is a decent sort of person--easy to talk to like a brother is, listening intently and asking thoughtful questions. They’re a little sarcastic and blunt but not condescending, which is a nice contrast from Senators or the Admiralty. It takes a while for Rex to recount everything he can about Kamino, and the Shadow thanks him sincerely for it, which feels weird. Clones aren’t supposed to get thanks for doing their duty, but it’s…nice. It’s nice.

After that, the Shadow keeps up some unrelated conversation--it’s not as if there’s anything better to do in hyperspace--and it turns out they’ve really got a way with words. They talk about different planets and all sorts of animals and people and trouble they’ve gotten into on the Outer Rim and it’s all a lot more interesting than Rex thought it would be. There’s a big galaxy out there, much more than what he’s seen since the war started. Lots of people, festivals, planets, and cultures he’s never even thought of. He wonders what it’d be like to go out there someday.

He doesn’t really pursue the thought further than that. No point in speculating about a ‘someday’ that won’t happen. Maybe they’ll get shore leave someplace nice for a week or two, though. That would be fun.

Besides making conversation and taking notes in their datapad, the Shadow also cooks a few meals--grilled vegetables and salt fish over rice, pan-fried noodles with tree nut sauce, some peculiar pink yam flatcakes. It’s, without exaggeration, the best food Rex has ever tasted--he suddenly understands why natborns hate ration bars so much, if this is what they’ve been eating their whole lives. Like food is something they actively enjoy? That’s crazy.

Food is just nutrients and eating is tedious--if the Kaminoans could figure out a way for them to not have to eat, they probably would have, but unfortunately even the greatest cloners and geneticists in the galaxy can’t bypass basic biological functions. Food in the GAR was made in bulk, made fast, and designed for optimized caloric and nutritional value--normal food like this is filling but it burns off fast. Even with vitamin-enriched vegetables and loads of fats and carbohydrates, it’s so inefficient. It seems so wasteful and indulgent to have to break out the cooking equipment and fresh ingredients for every small meal like this, but the Shadow only smiles and tells him, “It’s good to take time for the small pleasures, Rex.”

Rex gets it, but also doesn’t, actually. It just feels perversely…intimate, to have someone cook a meal specifically for him--and it really is just for him, because the Shadow takes their meals in private, presumably so they can take their mask off in peace.

It’s too much for a clone, much less a clone like him--all this food with actual textures and different tastes and colors and real small talk and conversation like he’s some kind of…natborn. The attention makes him uneasy and something in the back of his mind screams that all this effort could be better spent on anything else. He’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He’s still thinking about it when they finally drop out of hyperspace.

It’s a mottled looking planet--mostly pinkish-red from rocky shrublands with scattered small patches of sea and electric blue forests.

The Shadow, with the help of a very old-looking astromech, takes the ship down to a spaceport in what seems to be a decently large city.

“There’s not a lot of industry out here. No resources worth mining, not much land worth farming. The only notable thing about it is its proximity to a couple of actual industrial worlds, which makes it useful for off-world storage,” the Shadow says as they navigate the ship down. “But that’s on the other side of the planet. Over here, it’s mostly a pirate’s hideout. A rest stop and trading post, as much as pirates ever are willing to trade with each other.”

“What would a Darksider be doing out here?” Rex asks.

“I’m not sure. A lot of bounty hunters pass through here, and Darksiders run in similar circles. Maybe there’s some information going around--I’d like to find out what.”

The Shadow lands the ship carefully--excessively carefully, compared to what Anakin would ever do--and gets up. “All right,” they say. “Let’s go.”

The two of them plus the astromech exit the ship, a few cases of equipment in tow. Rex feels very naked, going planetside in civvies--he’d changed out of his armor and bodyglove to something more like spacer wear because a Republic soldier on a planet like this would be an invitation for trouble. He’s wearing a mask, too, because in places like this, Jango Fett’s face is very easily recognized, even over a year after his death.

The city is industrial but not the way Coruscant is industrial--there’s a distinctly jank feeling to the whole area, like the people who built it didn’t know anything about architecture or city planning and instead of hiring someone who did know such things, decided to improvise, and then never stopped. The streets are labyrinthine, the buildings seem to be made from starship hull scrap welded together, and it doesn’t smell great, either. A lot of the people are rough sorts--scarred and wearing armor or weapons, and Rex tries not to make direct eye contact with any of them. Rex might have his blaster pistols at hand, but he would really not want to use them in a place like this.

“Relax, Rex. And stop gawking. If you act like you’re supposed to be here, nobody will give you any trouble,” the Shadow says, looking perfectly at ease in this grim environment.

“Yeah? That simple?” Rex asks as they pass a completely collapsed building that looks suspiciously like half a crashed space freighter.

“It’s the first rule of undercover work, dear,” the Shadow replies. “Act like you know what you’re doing, and you’ll find almost everyone is willing to rationalize a lot of mistakes and not-quite-right before they realize you’re not what you say you are. Confidence is key.”

The Shadow must be very good, then, because everything about them is confident. Confident talk, confident walk, confident demeanor. With that tongue and a well-placed mind trick, they could probably trick anyone they wanted to.

It’s kind of scary to think about, honestly. There’s a reason Rex doesn’t do this undercover stuff.

The Shadow leads him down a few more sets of twisty roads, to the point where Rex completely loses track of the way back. After about twenty minutes of walking and three incidents where Rex feels like he’s about to get attacked by a stranger, they reach a ramshackle apartment building that looks very similar to every other apartment building in the area--awful.

The Shadow taps out a long sequence into the keypad, then gestures for Rex to follow. The door locks behind them with a soft beep.

Dim yellow lights go up, and the apartment reveals itself to be a very open-design sort of place, with the kitchen, dining room, and what might count as the living room all smashed together into one big room. The floor is duracrete but there’s some old rugs to cover most of it and there are no windows--not that there’d be anything to look at anyways.

The Shadow takes him down the hallway past a few doors and into a bedroom with all the expected things a bedroom should have--a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, even an attached private fresher, which is surprisingly luxurious for a place like this. There’s even an actual blanket and pillow set, which is crazy. Rex can’t even remember the last time he used a proper blanket--it might have been during some diplomatic mission, though the way General Skywalker handles things, it can’t have lasted that long.

“Put your things down anywhere,” the Shadow says. “We have some time to rest now--I would recommend you get some sleep while you can.”

Rex nods. He is tired after explaining the entire training regimen at Kamino to the Shadow, and hyperspace transit can get exhausting all on its own.

“You’ll wake me if something happens, right?” Rex asks.

“Of course. If you need anything, I’ll be out in the dining area,” the Shadow says, and leaves him to it.

Rex sighs, unpacks his armor, and sets it down in a neat pile at the foot of the bed. He sits down and wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

When Rex wakes, the first thing he realizes is that he is not on the Resolute. The bed is too soft, the room is too dark, and the sounds are all wrong. It takes him a solid ten seconds to remember where he is and why--the mission, the Darksiders and the Sith getting into his brothers' heads.

Just thinking about it makes him sick. From a practical standpoint it makes a lot of sense--if you’re completely morally bankrupt and have mind control powers, using it on enemy soldiers is a great idea--but the idea of someone putting things in his head that aren’t supposed to be there makes him want to peel his skin off. He’s a clone, sure, and his service and his blasters and his armor and even his body all belong to the Republic, but his mind is his own. It’s all he has.

Feeling grim, Rex sits up. His clothes are all rumpled from sleeping in them--he’d forgotten that civvies could do that--so he straightens them out, secures his pistol belt, and goes to wash his face.

When all of that is taken care of, the wall chrono reads 1432, which means he’d slept for about four hours. It doesn’t mean much else, because he has no idea what the day cycle on this planet is like and with the lack of windows there’s not really any way to see for himself.

He goes out in the hallway and hears voices coming from the common area. One of them is unmistakably the Shadow, but the other one is much deeper with a rumbling quality to it, almost like a purr.

“--no active influence on her,” the unknown voice says. “But that hardly means anything--Sidious would be a very poor Sith if he could only manipulate people using the Dark Side.”

Sidious. That’s a name Rex hasn’t heard before. He presses closer, trying to shield his mind the way Ahsoka had taught him to.

The Shadow sighs. “That’s about what I expected. I wonder if it’d be the same way with Skywalker.”

“I’m not checking him. Unlike you, I don’t have a death wish.” The second person pauses, and there’s a clink of silverware on ceramic. “I did learn something interesting about Skywalker, though. It seems he’s not such a good Jedi after all.”

“Oh, believe me, I had no illusions about that.”

Rex bristles. He knows Anakin doesn’t get along with everyone, but at the end of the day, he’s a great General--these people clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.

“Yes, but I suspect this is worse than even you would have guessed,” the second voice replies. “Mass slaughter fueled by revenge--an act befitting a Sith, don’t you think?”

Rex reels as if struck. That’s not true. That can’t be true. Anakin wouldn’t do that.

Vaguely, he hears the Shadow say something in response, but the words completely slip his grasp. When he tunes back in, it’s to the second person saying, “--tortured and killed his mother, after all. I understand that is something that can make people…emotional.”

“Maybe so, but I very much doubt the younglings had any part of that,” the Shadow says softly.

“Most likely not,” the second person replies. “I do not know. She only heard of the event secondhand; she did not see the act itself.” There is the sound of a chair being pushed out, then slow, heavy footsteps.

Around the corner of the doorway, Rex sees the second person come into view--a tattooed red Zabrak with a stiff gait.

Rex sucks in a hard breath. He recognizes that gait.

As if hearing him, the Zabrak snaps around, looking directly at him with eerie yellow eyes. “Oh,” they say. “We have an eavesdropper. Who taught you to shield, little clone?”

Now or never. Rex steps into the doorway, pulling his pistols on the Zabrak. “Don’t come any closer.”

The Zabrak looks at him coolly, clearly unimpressed. “And what if I do?”

Beside him, the Shadow stands up and says, “Rex. Please put down the blasters.”

“This person is dangerous, sir. They kidnapped Senator Amidala!” Rex says, positioning himself between the two.

“How very astute of you,” the Zabrak drawls. “And yet you still fail to recognize the reality of your own situation.”

Rex doesn’t grace that with an answer--he’s not here for mind games. He pulls the trigger.

There’s a spike of heat in each of his blasters, then the distinct impotent hiss of a sabotaged firing relay.

Rex stares at his broken pistols in shock. In that split-second of confusion, the Shadow grabs Rex from behind in a headlock, dragging him off-balance. He fights it, obviously--he doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows he does not want to be here.

The Shadow leans in and hisses, “Sleep.”

Rex realizes a moment too late that there’s Force behind that command, sharp like a knife in the ribs. He struggles against the darkness that creeps up to swallow him, but it’s like trying to push back the tides with his bare hands. It’s too much, too powerful.

Rex sleeps.

Summary:

Obi-Wan deals with his guest of honor.

“You were correct. I found some trace of the Dark Side,” Maul told me as he left Rex’s room--or prison cell, as it was now. “It was not easy to find, but it is undoubtedly there. I am surprised a Jedi Healer would have been able to detect it. They must have been exceptionally skilled.”

“And how is Rex?”

“Still asleep. Your suggestion put him quite far under,” Maul said. “As for his health, cease your nagging--I am not incompetent. I was excessively gentle and he should see no ill effects except perhaps a headache. I did not break your clone.”

From experience, Maul’s version of ‘excessively gentle’ probing was still harsh enough to scramble the mind, but at least there should be no lasting effects. That was the best I’d get out of him.

“Rex isn’t ‘my’ clone,” I said. “He’s a person, not a thing.”

“Well, you seem fond of him, though I can’t imagine why.” Maul passed by me and into the common area. Since leaving Solis’s clinic four weeks ago, he had learned to walk fairly well--still stiff, but he had overcome almost all of his balance issues. He had a long way to go before he would reach full mobility, but with help from the Force, he was in good enough shape to kidnap Senator Amidala and keep her from shooting him in the face immediately afterward.

“It’s not that confusing. He’s a decent sort of person--that’s enough reason for me to like him,” I said as I followed after him. “What exactly did you find in Rex’s head?”

Maul sat down at the dining table. “The Dark Side is deeply embedded in his mind, but it’s not actively influencing him, nor do I believe it has been previously used to influence him.”

That, at least, was some good news. It didn’t put Rex in the clear, but maybe it meant he wasn’t entirely compromised.

Maul continued, “Despite how deep it is, it doesn’t feel as if he’s been touched with the Dark Side directly. It is Sidious’s work, no doubt, but I do not think he has ever personally looked into this clone’s mind. If he is currently exerting his influence, it is not by directly overriding your clone’s will with the Force.”

“How do you have traces of the Dark Side without actually using the Dark Side?” I asked.

“The Dark Side…echoes, at times,” Maul said, gesturing vaguely with his hands. “The same way that very strong pain and fear can linger in the Force, the actions of a sufficiently powerful Sith can leave impressions of the Dark that propagate far beyond the action itself. With how deeply embedded the influence is within your clone, I would speculate that the Dark Side was involved in his creation--not the act of creating the clone, as with alchemical Sithspawn, but perhaps the circ*mstances that led to it. It offers Sidious influence he would not have over a typical sentient.”

That meant, of course, that Sidious had influence over every clone in the galaxy. Millions of them, created by the Sith and for the Sith. What a tool to have at your disposal.

I asked, “What is he using that influence for?”

“Only my Master would know,” Maul replied. “If I must hazard a guess, I would say it is there so Sidious can more easily access the clone’s mind--whether that means taking control or extracting information. A ‘back door’, to use a crude term.”

“So Sidious could holocomm Rex and use the Dark Side remotely to manipulate his actions from afar,” I said slowly. “Rex could be unwittingly turned into a spy against Skywalker, or be influenced into manipulating Skywalker in a certain way. He could even have his memories of the conversation altered or wiped.”

Maul eyed me carefully. “It is very Sith of you to think of those options so quickly, Jedi. Perhaps you should consider using the Dark Side yourself--clearly, you would make good use of it.”

I drummed my fingers on the table. “I’ve already told you no. Answer my question, dear.”

Maul sighed. “It is not in Sidious’s character to act so boldly--that kind of manipulation would leave traces in your clone’s mind that almost any competent Jedi Master would be able to find. But yes, Sidious would be capable of doing all those things you mentioned.” He leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps now you grasp the breadth of my Master’s realm of influence.”

I didn’t, but I was starting to get an idea. Even if Sidious didn’t like to directly control his pieces for fear of detection, it still made every single clone into a potential time bomb that could be set off without risk exactly once.

If Sidious played his cards correctly, once was all he needed.

“Is there any way to remove the Dark Side from Rex and the others?” I asked.

“No,” Maul intoned. “It is too deeply entrenched--I would have to destroy his mind and rebuild it entirely to purge Sidious’s work. Even if I had the skill for such a thing, I would be hard-pressed to do it to all the millions of your clones in the galaxy, and Sidious would detect such interference very easily.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. This was something I’d have to work around, then. “How many clones would Sidious be able to control at once?”

“Using the Dark Side? I do not know. Sidious was not in the habit of puppeteering more than one sentient at a time. He prefers to poison his victims slowly and corrupt them so that they assimilate his views as their own. I believe he found such agents more reliable and helpful than mindless slaves.” Maul idly pulled at his lower lip, thinking, then said, “Of course, he can force his will on others, as any self-respecting Sith can. He could force at least fifty sentients to bend to his commands at the same time, if only for a short while. With the influence he has over your clones? Perhaps he could briefly manage a couple hundred. It is not his strength--he is not like the Sith of old who could mentally subjugate an entire nation at once.”

“I see.”

“But why would he need to use the Force?” Maul continued. “The clones are soldiers and he is the highest-ranked official in this war. You have only yesterday demonstrated quite emphatically that even the highest ranking of your clones can be easily tricked and manipulated. There is no reason Sidious cannot simply tell them to execute his orders and expect they will do so without question.”

“He can’t depend on that. There are orders that even soldiers won’t follow,” I told him.

“Then the orders will not be given in those words, will they? Good intention can lead to slaughter just as easily as bad--past missteps by your precious Jedi Order have proven that much. You say they were misinformed and had no better options--maybe that is true. There is nothing stopping Sidious from simply misinforming the clone soldiers.”

That was very much true. With the right words and the right framing, the clones would have no reason to disobey Sidious--after all, they had no reason to suspect he was a Sith or a traitor to the Republic, and even if some of the soldiers didn’t want to comply, he could simply force them to.

I closed my eyes. An Empire, the extinction of the Jedi, and a Sith Apprentice out of Skywalker. Three goals, and with the entire clone army in the palm of Sidious’s hand, it was easy to imagine how he would achieve most of them. By exacerbating the War, he would continue forcing through more powers for himself, and with his connections to the Separatists, he could even preemptively target worlds that would be most likely to oppose him, paving the transition from the Republic to an Empire. By using the Dark Side, he could force the clones to lead their Jedi into lethal traps or perhaps even to put their blasters at the Jedi’s backs directly. Even if he could only command a few hundred clones at a time, that would be enough to simultaneously execute almost all of the most powerful Jedi in a single motion. As for Skywalker, well, he was an exceptionally easy man to manipulate and Sidious had been his friend for a very long time. He obviously had plans in store for that.

I was starting to grasp the outlines of the plot, but it still wasn’t enough. All these plans were well and good to seize power, but Sidious was still only one man, and one man could only have so much influence on his own. He had to have agents within the army and outside of it. He had to be passing information to someone on the Separatist side, but who, and by what channels? What were the contingencies for if he died?

More importantly, how was I supposed to stop him?

I needed more information. In the end, that’s what it always came down to.

I knocked on Rex’s door and went in. He was awake and sitting on the bed, still dressed in the set of clothes I’d provided for him back at the ship. He had his hands clasped in his lap so that the pale blue shock cuffs were stark around his wrists. I had set them to low voltage. If he tried to escape, they would immobilize him without knocking him unconscious or killing him, but he had no way to know that.

He glared at me, but made no movement to attack. He probably still remembered how easily I’d put him down before and was not eager for a repeat performance.

“Hello, Rex,” I said, and his frown deepened. “I brought you something to eat--grilled shrike and wild rice soup. It’s cooled down a little, but you should still find it palatable.” Something like this wasn’t enough to meet Rex’s caloric requirements, but I didn’t really trust him with a stabbing implement under these circ*mstances.

Rex accepted the tray without comment. He did not eat any of it.

I pulled up a chair and sat down, well out of grabbing range. “How are you feeling?”

“You lied to me,” Rex said, his voice flat. “All that stuff you said, you did it to trick me into coming along with you.”

“It’s a little difficult to kidnap a Captain from the middle of their legion in the middle of their flagship,” I agreed. “I had to get a little creative.”

It was not the easiest kidnapping I had ever done--using my stolen military hardware to track down the progress of the 501st to a planet I would be able to pick Rex up from had been the hardest part. I was lucky that everything after that had gone as smoothly as it had. Rex was, for better or for worse, a relatively trusting person. That would likely change after this incident.

“You even got me to cover up my own kidnapping,” Rex said. “All that stuff about confidentiality and classified missions, that was just so nobody would come looking for me until it was too late. Did you get into my head, too? Is that why I believed you that easily?”

I shook my head. “Rex, I don’t know what you want to hear, but the only time I used the Force on you was to put you to sleep. Everything before that was just words.”

Rex’s brows drew together in what might be shame or disgust. Maybe it would have been more comforting if I had made him believe me with the Force--there’s no shame in failing when there’s no chance of success, after all. He scowled and said, “What would you have done if I never caught on? You’d just keep pumping me for information and have me run around on your fake mission?”

“The deception was always meant to come down,” I said. “If only because if it never did and you returned to the army, the GAR would come to the reasonable conclusion that you were either a traitor or a deserter. I can imagine what the Republic does to clones who commit those specific crimes. You don’t deserve that.”

Rex snarled at me. “Yeah. Considerate of you. I’m sure you give a whole lot of damns about my well-being. I’ll make sure to appreciate all your kindness when you’re torturing me, Darksider.”

“I’m not a Darksider,” I said. I didn’t expect him to believe me, but it was worth saying. “I’m not planning to torture you, either.”

“Right. You just kidnapped me to talk about my training and feed me weird food. Why did you even ask about Kamino? There’s no useful military secrets there.”

Rex probably suspected I was some kind of Separatist agent, which was the reasonable conclusion, even if it couldn’t be further from the truth. Back in my universe, I had stayed as far away as possible from anything involving the war the same way I avoided thinking too much about undersea mining, and for similar reasons. I hadn’t even known Kamino was where they’d grown the Republic soldiers until Rex had told me the other day, which kind of highlighted the depth of my ignorance.

I wasn’t after military secrets. I could get those later. Right now, I needed to know how the clones operated--I needed to know their skill sets and interpersonal relationships. Rex’s information was mundane to him, but it was critical for me.

It was good Rex didn’t understand the value of what he’d told me. It meant he didn’t know what I was planning.

“Rex,” I said. “I know that the current circ*mstances make this hard to believe, but we don’t have to be enemies. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“No, you just want to make me a traitor to the Republic and all of my brothers. If you think I’ll tell you anything, you don’t know a damn thing about us clones,” Rex bit out. “Torture me if you want. Kill me if you want, even, but I’m not going to let you use me against my brothers.”

I frowned. It made sense that the Republic soldiers would have a streak of self-sacrifice--I’d heard enough to know they’d been raised to believe themselves expendable--but I didn’t like to hear him lay his life down so frankly. A long time ago, I was like that, too. Ready to sacrifice my life for a worthy cause. After all, I may have been mediocre as a student and a failure of a Jedi in life, but at least I could be something worthwhile in death.

Obviously, it didn’t take. Master Jinn had stopped me from prematurely ending myself in the mines of Bandomeer, and my war in Melida/Daan had taught me the value of a life and a death. That didn’t stop me from weighing my life against others; these days, I just valued staying alive more.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an honorable death. I just think it’s terrible when you’re so damn honorable you see the opportunities for it everywhere.

“I’m not going to kill you,” I said. “I’m not going to torture you, or starve you, or force you to work against your people. I am, in fact, trying to help you, your brothers, and the Jedi.”

Rex scowled. “If you want to help so bad, then take these cuffs off and let me go. Maybe throw yourself into a sarlacc while you’re at it.”

“You know I’m not going to do that.”

“Then get out of here. I don’t need to hear any more of your lies.”

I took a deep breath. “Rex, not everything I told you was a lie. No, there is no mission to find a Darksider. No, I’m not a Jedi Shadow, or even a Jedi. No, the Jedi Mind Healers probably did not find anything in your brothers' minds, though I have no way of knowing if that’s the case. But this is true: there is a Dark influence in your mind, originating from before the War. The Sith were instrumental in your creation, and there are plans for you and all of your brothers that you will not become aware of until the very last moment.”

“You’re lying.”

“There are traces of the Dark in you, Rex. They’re so deep that there’s no way to remove it and so subtle that most Jedi will not be able to detect it, but it is there. I don’t know what the purpose of it is, but I think it is very likely that it will be used to turn you against the Jedi.”

Rex bared his teeth at me. “We would never turn against the Jedi. All of us are loyal. Always.”

“You are not,” I said. "Nor should you be. You’ll follow the Jedi into battle as long as you believe they are fighting for the right cause. Maybe you’ll even follow the Jedi if they make the wrong choices, because they’re still working in your best interests and you trust them. There’s nothing wrong with that--most Jedi Knights and Masters are genuinely good and selfless people. They can’t pass their Trials if they’re not. But acting selflessly doesn’t always mean making the right decisions.

“Here’s a thought experiment: a Jedi kills a clone. What do you do?”

Rex scowled. “The Jedi would never do that.”

"Do you think Jedi are incorruptible? They’re people, Rex, and this is a war. You learn to do numbers with people’s lives, the same way you weigh the risks of sending one squad over another, the same way I’m weighing your current pain against the future pain of all your brothers. Of course there are circ*mstances where a Jedi would kill a clone. Perhaps that clone is a traitor, with information that threatens your entire battalion, and there’s no way to stop them in that moment except by cutting them down. Conversely, perhaps that Jedi is a traitor and killed the clone to suppress the incriminating information. In another case, perhaps it is an accident--a clone in the wrong place and the wrong time, just right to get cleaved in two by a single swing of a lightsaber.

“But you see this incident from the outside and all you know is a Jedi has cut down one of your brothers. What do you do? Do you simply trust that your Jedi had a good reason to commit that murder? Do you stop them before the violence can continue? Which loyalty do you value more--the loyalty to your brothers or to the Jedi?”

Rex frowned, clearly considering my words, though he seemed to have no response beyond that. That was fine. His answers were for him, not for me.

"It’s not a bad thing to critically examine your orders and superiors, Rex. Loyalty doesn’t mean anything unless there’s the possibility of betrayal. Loyalty isn’t a character trait, it’s a constant choice you make, weighing your commander’s orders against your own morals and judgment. If you follow orders because you’re a good soldier and you think your Jedi will never do anything wrong, if there is no circ*mstance under which you will betray them, you’re not loyal. You’re just a tool. You may as well be a droid. Here’s some sincere advice: Don’t ever hand off your moral compass to someone else. That’s the only thing that makes you a person--the ability to choose for yourself what is right.

“If you are anything like the person I think you are, then you won’t stand for injustice. If your General turns his lightsaber on the innocent, the needy, the vulnerable, you can and should betray him and bring him down by any means necessary.”

Rex clenched his jaw. “General Skywalker would never do that. He’s a good General. He treats us like people and he cares about us.”

I sighed. I’d only had three interactions total with Skywalker, the first two of which were extremely unpleasant conversations and the third of which was him trying to murder me. People kept trying to tell me he was a good person, but all I saw was a man who didn’t know how to keep his heart out of his work. A passionate man, perhaps, maybe even a caring and intensely loving one, but never a fair one. The only justice a man like that could ever see was his own justice, and for that reason alone he could never be a just man.

That alone didn’t make Skywalker a bad man. I’m enough of a hypocrite without saying that everyone ought to aspire to some form of great ultimate justice. It’s perfectly reasonable to focus on yourself and the people you care about without trying to shoulder the weight of entire worlds. Life in this galaxy is already so short without making it harder. If you didn’t know about the murder and revenge, then it wasn’t too hard to think that Skywalker was, by some metric, a good man.

Whether Skywalker was good or not, whatever the hell that means, I didn’t really care and I still don’t. I just don’t think a man who can only care about people if he likes them first should be trusted with the power to kill.

“Rex, Skywalker might treat you like people, but have you seen how he treats people? How quickly did he drop the entire 501st and whatever mission you were on to run to Senator Amidala’s side? Does that bother you, that your status as a person is directly tied to Skywalker’s proximity to his wife? Loyalty should run both ways, and not just when it’s convenient.”

Rex shot me a hard look. “You’re not going to turn me against General Skywalker.”

“You misunderstand me. I’m telling you this for your sake. If you turn against Skywalker or not, that’s none of my business. I just don’t like him,” I said.

“Sounds like you’re a little further than not liking him. Sounds like you’ve got a grudge.”

I shook my head. “If I held a grudge against everyone I didn’t like, I’d never get anything done. This is how I talk, darling. I’ve been told I can come off as aggressive, and I’m sorry if that’s how I sounded. If you’re worried I’m going to kidnap him next or something, you can rest assured that I won’t. He has nothing useful and I don’t like him. I don’t go out of my way to spend time with people I don’t like.”

“And I’m a person you like?” Rex asked.

“You are. You’re thoughtful and considerate, if headstrong. You work hard and care deeply, which is very respectable, and you’re a decent conversationalist, which I like. In another universe, we could have been friends. In this one, you are the only way for me to get information I need. I will be taking it by force, and I’m sorry for that.”

Rex’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

I leaned in. “Does that seem cruel to you, that I’d hurt my own friends?” I asked. “You’re a soldier, Rex. You must understand the concept of saving blood by taking it--the only difference between you and me is that you think enemy blood is cheaper than friendly blood. You’ll hunt down and kill hundreds of Separatists or Darksiders before you put a blaster to one of your own, and that’s admirable, but I’m not like that. Blood is blood. If I can end the fighting by hurting one of my friends instead of hundreds of enemies, then I will.”

“End the fighting? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ah,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say that. I just remembered those months before Melida/Daan’s war had finally ended. Not everyone I killed in those last days were Melida or Daan, a crime so heinous that I was permanently banished from the planet for it. That my assassinations had potentially saved hundreds or thousands of lives didn’t matter--I was a betrayer through and through. I guess in that respect, Master Jinn had judged me correctly. Well, even broken chronos are correct sometimes. “It’s not important. I was just thinking about something that happened a long time ago.”

Rex pursed his lips slowly, watching me. “What…is your goal? If you’re not trying to make me defect.”

“Fishing for information, are we?” I asked. “As much as I like to talk, I like when my plans go uninterrupted better. You’ll have to figure that out on your own. I think I’ve told you enough for you to come up with some theories.”

I got up, and Rex tensed as if anticipating a blow. I wondered if he’d been kidnapped before. If he had, it probably would have been much less pleasant than this.

“I think this has been a productive conversation, but I’ll take my leave now,” I said softly.

“It wasn’t much of a conversation. You mostly monologued at me. I guess all you Darksiders are like that. Was there a point to all of this?”

I shrugged. “I wanted to talk. It’s good to get a grasp of where we stand with each other before doing anything drastic, and I wanted you to know what you could expect while I’m holding you captive. Like I said, I don’t want to hurt you any more than necessary, and when I’ve gotten everything I need, you’ll be free to return to your brothers, or do whatever else you want.”

“You think I’ll believe that?” Rex asked.

“I don’t really expect you to, but it only seemed polite to tell you.” I went to the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours. If you need anything, you can knock--I’ll hear it. The shock cuffs will only activate if you try leaving the room, so if you want to shower or anything, you can feel free.”

“So you want me to sit here and do nothing?”

“I can bring you a holonovel if you want to get in some light reading,” I replied. “But as much as I’d like to make your captivity as comfortable as possible, you are currently my prisoner.”

Rex’s face moved through a few expressions, but I couldn’t read any of them. Displeased or something along those lines would be the safe bet.

I left Rex to his thoughts and went out of the room.

“What’s the point to all of this?” Maul asked me two days later as he ran through physical therapy exercises. “If you’re planning to take all the information from your clone by force regardless, why are you bothering with all this talk?”

I looked up from where KY4 and I were extracting information from the electronics in Rex’s helmet. I’d had more conversations with Rex, which were pleasant, but nothing especially meaningful. “Talking is civilized.”

“Talking doesn’t get you anything.”

I hummed as KY4 chirped at me to connect another set of wires. Slicing and electronics had never been my strong suit--social engineering and classic burglary were more my wheelhouse. “This isn’t just about what information I’m learning. It’s about what information he’s learning, too. When I’m done with Rex and let him go, he’ll return to the 501st and report to the Jedi what’s conspired here.”

“Which is why I say we should just kill him.”

“We’re not killing Rex.”

Maul scowled. “I don’t see why not. It would solve many of your problems.”

“It would solve none of my problems, actually, and I won’t kill people for no reason.” I shot him a look over my work. “Neither will you.”

Maul sighed dramatically, the only way he knew how to sigh. We’d had several conversations already about the killing people thing--enough that I’d trusted him to take care of Senator Amidala’s kidnapping without murdering anyone--but while I had convinced him to not kill people indiscriminately, he still had a hard time understanding why killing people was not an acceptable response, other than that I had promised to terminate our partnership--and his life--if he did.

He waved his hand at me dismissively. “Fine. Explain your reasoning, then. Why bother with all this tedious conversation?”

“I’m trying to cover our tracks,” I said.

“By talking to a clone?”

I leaned back from my work to look at him directly. “Maul. The single biggest thing I’m worried about is Sidious catching wind of our investigation and deciding to cut his losses and do whatever it is he’s planning. The Jedi die, the soldiers die, and the Empire rises. Maybe it’ll be messy--if he could get his Empire at any time, he already would have--but for us, those are unacceptable losses,” I said. "There’s two circ*mstances I can see Sidious pulling the trigger: first, if the Jedi have no more possible use and his path to building an Empire is clear, or second, the Jedi are in danger of finding out about the plan such that they can take measures to prevent it. So to keep Sidious from pulling the trigger, the Jedi have to remain useful and our investigation into the plan has to stay secret, both from Sidious and the Jedi.

"There’s no way to hide the kidnapping of a high-ranked soldier like Rex. Word hasn’t gotten out yet because Skywalker was off-site and Rex made arrangements for a ‘classified mission’, but once Skywalker comes back from Coruscant and uses his brain for once to try and verify the story, he’ll find that Master Kenobi did not, in fact, send Rex on a classified mission. Skywalker, because he’s a walking security leak, will obviously tell the Chancellor about this.

“Rex is an observant and reasonable man,” I said. “And that means he’s going to come to the most reasonable explanation for all of this--that we’re Separatist agents working to sabotage the Republic army. That’s the kind of thing that’s normal in a war, the kind of thing Sidious won’t take a second look at, except maybe to see why one of his Separatist agents have gotten greedy. It’s a good cover story because if there’s a Separatist plot against the Chancellor, or even a rogue threat like we are, he’s hardly going to decide the best choice is to murder all the Jedi who are there to defend him.”

Maul snorted. “You think fighting against all the Jedi and Sidious at the same time is the better outcome?”

“The Jedi won’t be there. They won’t know about the assassination until the last possible moment, either,” I said. “Which is why we can’t kill Rex--they would have to investigate it, and that runs the risk of them finding out what we’re actually trying to do. Letting him go back and tell everyone we’re sabotaging the army is a perfect smokescreen. It’s a reasonable explanation for why someone would kidnap someone as high-ranked as Rex and extract information from him. People who come across a reasonable explanation for why things are happening rarely continue searching for the far-fetched ones, and ‘investigating a Sith conspiracy to exterminate the Jedi’ is very far-fetched indeed.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Maul said as he carefully tried to balance on one foot while steadying himself against the wall. “This plan of yours will only work if your clone returns to the army and says all these things, though. If it’s so important for him to return, why do you keep offering to let him leave?”

“It’s only polite, darling,” I said. I leaned back on my hands. “Don’t worry about that. I may not know Rex that well, but I am sure of this--he will not desert. He’s too loyal to his duties and he cares too much for his brothers and his Jedi. He would fight through hell itself if it meant getting back to the army and alerting them to this new danger that we present.” I shrugged. "And if he does desert, well, that's not too bad for us, either. Nobody will know he was kidnapped--to them, it will seem like he simply made up a mission and ran away, and we'll continue to enjoy our current lack of notice."

Maul huffed. “How shrewd. You have thought a lot about this, Jedi.”

“This is an information war, dear, and the stakes have never been higher. I’d be a fool to go into all of this unprepared, especially against someone like Sidious. I only get one shot, after all.”

KY4 chirped at me again to disconnect Rex’s helmet and hook up mine. I obliged, and it started transferring over data.

“So do you plan to recruit your clone into our operation? Since you seem to have such a high opinion of him?” Maul asked. “You could tell him about Skywalker’s crimes on Tatooine.”

“I’m not going to tell Rex about that. We don’t have any proof it actually happened. I believe it did--it’s certainly within Skywalker’s character--but it’s not an accusation with teeth. You don’t start attacks you can’t follow through on, and that’s a bomb you can only drop once,” I said. “I don’t expect Rex to defect, and I’m certainly not planning for it. It’s too risky to bring him in, anyways, with how close he is to Skywalker.” I leaned back to stretch my shoulders and continued, “But I would also like it if Rex trusted Skywalker a little less, which is part of why I’ve talked to him so much about it. He’s required to report on things like this, but exactly how much he reports is at his discretion. It depends on how much he thinks Skywalker should have that information. If he somehow catches on to what we’re doing, it’ll be very helpful if he doesn’t trust Skywalker enough to tell him about it.”

“And you would know something about breaking faith?” Maul replied.

I shrugged. “It’s not really my area of expertise. I’m not an especially faithful person myself--I don’t really know what it’s like to trust someone that much. Chances are, I can’t break Rex’s faith, but I can make him doubt. I’ve made him suspicious. Now, every time Skywalker drops him for Amidala or recklessly endangers his men or lets his anger override what little common sense he has, Rex will notice. He won’t be able to help it. I can’t say what he’ll do when he notices--maybe he’ll talk to Skywalker and they’ll figure things out in a mature manner, but I doubt it. If the Skywalker of this universe is anything like the Skywalker of mine, I don’t think he’ll take criticism well and I don’t think he’ll significantly change his behavior.”

“So little faith in Skywalker?”

“I’m probably being a little unfair,” I admitted. “But in my defense, the last time I spoke to him, he tried to murder me, his Padawan, and his Captain. I’m not angry about it, but it certainly didn’t give me a good impression. If he is able to address his behavior and change, then that’s good--it’s a sign of emotional maturity and perhaps a step further away from Falling. If not, then that wedge between Rex and Skywalker gets driven deeper. Probably. You can never know, with people.”

Maul looked over at me. “And if your clone does defect?”

“Then I guess we’ll see what happens,” I said. “Maybe it’ll help, maybe it’ll cause problems. It’ll be interesting, at least.”

KY4 beeped to let me know the data transfer was finished, and booted up the comms system. My stolen armor’s communications systems hadn’t worked because its client was outdated, but by copying over the data from Rex’s communications, I figured that would grant me access to the Republic army’s intranet, and from there, plenty of classified information I wasn’t supposed to know.

A small holographic progress bar popped up from the wrist comm’s display as it went through long distance relays. After about ten seconds, it pinged back with a successful connection.

Welcome to the GAR network, it said. It was always nice when things work as planned.

I scrolled through the functions--personnel lookup, mission reports, regulation manuals, astronav resources, messaging, group chats…

I pulled open the main chat for the 501st. It asked me for a password, which KY4 obligingly entered. That seemed to work. It took about thirty seconds to load up, which wasn’t terrible latency for so far out on the Outer Rim.

*** You have just joined #501-lgn
* Topic for #501-lgn is: The only good clanker is a dead clanker. | No more live explosives on B-deck or you WILL get latrine duty until your warranty expires! | Yes, General Skywalker really did that thing you heard about, please stop asking.
* Topic for #501-lgn set by CT-7567 32 days ago.
<CT-6116> that's the problem
<ARC-5555> oh hey a new guy!
<CT-6116> just because we can culture more bacta doesn't mean it's infinite
<CT-6116> also technically culturing it is illegal because of the rationing
<CT-6116> which is absurd
<ARC-5555> welcome to the best legion in the whole gar!
<@CT-5597> Hey, shiny! o/
<CT-6116> not that it being illegal will stop me.
<CT-6116> we need that bacta and if the senate complains, then they're even more stupid than I thought they were
<@CT-5597> We love and appreciate your illegal bacta culture, Kix ;)
<CT-6116> I mean why would they get mad I'm saving them money
<CT-6116> hello, recruit.
<CT-6116> I didn't realize we got shinies in again
<@CT-5597> We didn't
<@CT-5597> Sometimes the password gets out a little ahead of time. We're almost due for more cadets to come in

So far, so good. It all seemed like a standard Holonet relay chat. Text-only with an aggressively utilitarian client, which made some sense for the army. I tapped out a reply.

<CT-0811> Hello!
<CT-0811> I'm kind of new to this thing. Can you change your name here?
<@CT-5597> No :(((
<@CT-5597> Higher-ups says it's 'unproffesional' or some sh*t.
<@CT-5597> unprofessional*
<@CT-5597> But it's what we've got.
<@CT-5597> I'm Jesse btw
<ARC-5555> im fives!
<@CT-5597> I'm in charge rn, since Rex is out of comission for a little bit
<@CT-5597> Rex is our usual Captain
<@CT-5597> commission*
<ARC-5555> im also in charge!
<ARC-5555> no channel ops tho :(
<ARC-5555> rex says i cant be trusted with kickban ;m;
*** CT-6116 is now Away ("doing my actual job")
<@CT-5597> 6116 is Kix, he's the medic. He's great, all the shinies love him.
<@CT-5597> Us too :)
<CT-0811> It's nice to meet you!
<ARC-5555> kix is gonna get a big head if you keep saynig nice things about him
<CT-0811> Is this chat just for brothers or does General Skywalker come in here too?
<@CT-5597> Kix is great! I'm not going to lie to the new shiny!
<ARC-5555> most generals dont use chat
<ARC-5555> lot of brothers dont either tbh
<ARC-5555> too informal
<ARC-5555> comms are better for work stuff
<ARC-5555> cant sign over text either which sucks :\
<CT-0811> Oh, okay.
<CT-0811> Will we get to meet General Skywalker?
<ARC-5555> ofc!
<ARC-5555> he should be back at the resolute tomorrow
<ARC-5555> tomorrow?
<@CT-5597> Today, actually
<@CT-5597> Like in ten hours
<@CT-5597> He'll be super pumped to meet all of you, he loves shinies
<CT-0811> Really?
<@CT-5597> Yeah, General Skywalker is great, you'll see.
<CT-0811> Good to know!
<CT-0811> Sorry to go so soon, I was just looking around. It was good meeting all of you, though!
<@CT-5597> Hey, no problem! Always happy to help a brother :)
<@CT-5597> See you around!
*** You have left #501-lgn

I closed out of the chat window. So Skywalker was going to find out about Rex’s absence very soon, and presumably mount some kind of search. That gave me…maybe three or four days to get everything I needed out of Rex before Skywalker and friends were hot on our tail.

I patted KY4’s chassis. “Now that we’ve got access to the intranet, I think we can decrypt those datachips. Do you think you’re up to it?”

KY4 chirped out a cheerful affirmative and that it would get right to it. Apparently, slicing and other illegal activities made it feel less anxious. Everyone had hobbies. Even nervous astromechs.

I rolled back up to my feet and pulled my mask up over my face. I’d wanted to hold off on diving through Rex’s memory for as long as possible, but the time for that was over. After this, there would be no chance of us becoming friends in this universe. Maybe he would forgive me down the line once he understood why I’d done it, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

It was a price I was willing to pay.

Summary:

Rex deals with a very strange imprisonment.

Rex has, unfortunately, been kidnapped a few times. It’s nothing special--most officers and even Jedi have gotten kidnapped once or twice by this point in the war. Still, it’s probably safe to say this is the weirdest kidnapping anybody in the GAR’s been involved in.

True to the Darksider’s word, there’s been no torture or threats. The ‘prison cell’ is just a secured bedroom and fresher unit without even a holocam for surveillance. There’s been regular, fresh-cooked meals to the point that Rex is pretty sure he’s eating better here than he usually does on the Resolute, and the Darksider even brought him some books to read, which is weird as hell. They’re not even Sith books to corrupt him or anything, they’re just normal holonovel bestsellers or nonfiction.

Three or four times a day, the Darksider comes in to chat. Some of it is philosophical about the nature of war, some of it is just about science or medicine or literature. The Darksider doesn’t bother asking about the GAR or Kamino again except for off-hand questions--the first time seemed to be enough, and why wouldn’t it? He’d reported as thoroughly as he could. There’s nothing left to spill. Rex isn’t sure what they’re trying to get at, but he’s got the crawling feeling that it’s all a huge trap and he’s falling into it. When the hours between talks stretch on, sometimes he can’t help but think about some of the things Anakin has done. The reckless things. The callous things.

He still has nightmares sometimes of being thrown off cliffs with the Force and no one catching him at the bottom.

He doesn’t know what to think. It’s not right for a clone to expect their General to lay everything down for them and always make the right decisions. Jedi aren’t omniscient and they’re unfortunately not trained for war. Besides, there’s so few of them and so many of the clones that it’s not reasonable to expect Generals to know each and every clone personally.

Yet here’s a Darksider who’s literally kidnapped him, putting in so much effort to be decent, like he’s a…a person. They hardly ever say it in those words, but it’s obvious in the way they look at Rex and don’t talk over him and seem to really consider what Rex says, that this Darksider somehow thinks he deserves respect, and does respect him, that whole lying and kidnapping thing aside.

What a kriffed situation.

As much as Rex hates it, he’s started looking forward to these conversations with the Darksider. They’re genuinely interesting and they break up the monotony in a way that exercise can’t. The Darksider is still absurdly easy to talk to, just like his brothers. Revealing themself as a kidnapper really hasn’t changed that, and Rex isn’t sure if he wishes they were just…a little more cruel. A little easier to hate.

Maybe it’s all an act, but it really doesn’t feel like one.

Rex sighs and looks at the pale blue shock cuffs around his wrists. They’re broad and light and just loose enough that he can forget they’re there, but nothing he’s tried will get them to come off--he can’t break them or slip them or deactivate them no matter what he tries. He’s tried escaping at least ten times now, but as mundane as the room looks, it’s well-secured with no hidden objects that can be used as improvised weapons and no escape routes he can think of. It’s infuriating with how lenient everything seems to be--no surveillance, no guard detail, not even a proper cell with ray shields, just a room and a single pair of low-voltage shock cuffs.

Rex hears footsteps coming down the hallway again, and the door swishes open. The Darksider walks in, masked and cloaked as always. They didn’t bring any food this time.

“Good morning, Rex,” the Darksider says, not that the time of day makes any difference in here. They take their usual seat. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’d feel better if you let me go,” Rex says, like he always does. “You’re not even getting anything out of me.”

The Darksider huffs in amusem*nt. “Well, I’m getting good conversation. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“You know what I meant.”

The Darksider shrugs. “Is there anything in particular you want to talk about today, Rex?”

Rex licks his lower lip. There are a lot of things he wants to know, but he’s scared to ask. He’s scared if he asks the wrong question, the Darksider will say the right things to make him really question his loyalty. Make it seem right to turn against the Republic and everything he stands for.

“Take a deep breath, Rex. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Rex takes a deep breath. It makes him feel…a little better. Not much. He opens his mouth. “Why…”

“Why?”

“Why did you pick me?” Rex asks. “Out of all the clones in the entire galaxy, why did you kidnap me?”

The Darksider leans in, chin on hands. “That’s a bit presumptuous. What makes you think I singled you out, dear?”

“You…you went to too much trouble to kidnap me. You got my personal comm code. You impersonated General Kenobi. You tracked down the 501st to the planet we were stationed on. You had an accomplice kidnap Senator Amidala to lure General Skywalker away.” And that was a karked situation, too, that Senator Amidala had been used as a decoy to kidnap a clone. She must be furious about that, if she ever found out. “If you wanted just any clone, there were so many easier ways to do it. Why did you pick me?”

The Darksider closes their eyes for a few seconds, then says, “Because I knew what kind of person you were. Not everything, but well enough to be sure I could deceive you. And because of all of your brothers, you were the only one I knew for sure had been touched by the Dark Side.”

Rex clenches his fists. “How could you know any of that?”

“I can’t tell you that, unfortunately,” the Darksider says. “I’ll put it down to a reliable source.”

Rex doesn’t interact with people outside the GAR. So that means, what, a spy? Are there Separatist spies in their ranks?

“I would know if someone had used the Dark Side on me,” Rex says. He’s had his mind scoured by Jedi more than once after encounters with Ventress. They’ve never found anything. “I would know if someone was trying to control me.”

“Would you?” the Darksider asks. “Rex, darling, how do you think mind control works?”

What a stupid question. Mind control works by controlling the mind, obviously. Darksiders using the Force to make people say things or do things they normally wouldn’t. Rex says as much.

The Darksider sighs. “Is that really controlling the ‘mind’, though? Surely, that kind of control is over your ‘actions’.”

That seems like pointless semantics. Mind control is mind control.

“For example,” the Darksider says. “Tell me the names and serial numbers of the men you left in charge of the 501st.”

The command rings in Rex’s ears and words start spilling forth before he even realizes it. “First Lieutenant Jesse, serial number CT-5597 and ARC Trooper Fi--ghhk!” Rex chokes his words off, clapping his hands over his mouth just to keep from saying anything else. That was the Force. For the second time, he’s had the Force used on him and he hadn’t been ready for it at all.

“I already know about Jesse and Fives,” the Darksider says, which only makes the pit in Rex’s stomach deeper. “That was simply a demonstration. I forced you to tell me those names against your will--your mind was still your own.”

Rex watches the Darksider warily, not moving his hands from his mouth. If it’s really been that easy to get him to spill his information this whole time, he’s in big trouble.

“Mind control isn’t like that,” the Darksider says. “Mind control finds a home in your head and becomes a part of you. It doesn’t force your hand, it teases you into agreeing with it, then asks you to do it nicely. You don’t even need the Force for it, sometimes--all you need is someone who speaks the same language.”

There’s a grim undertone to the Darksider’s voice and it makes Rex icy with fear. “You’re going to make me betray General Skywalker. That’s why you’ve been…talking to me about all this. You’re trying to twist me around.”

“You, like Skywalker, seem to have a vastly inflated sense of his importance. I genuinely don’t care what happens with him, as long as he stays out of my way. If you betray him or not, that’s none of my business.” The Darksider sighs. “Here’s a tip, Rex: it’s a lot easier to manipulate someone who thinks you’re a friend than someone who thinks you’re an enemy. It’s like that for anyone--for you, for civilians, for the Jedi. And it’s a lot easier to convince someone you’re their friend if you can first convince them someone else is the enemy. If you believe certain types of people deserve violence, all it takes to make you use violence against someone is convincing you that they’ve crossed that line.”

Enemy blood is cheaper than friendly blood, Rex remembers. Of course he has to believe that. He’s a soldier. Killing enemies is what he does, even if they’re just droids. It’s what he was engineered to do.

The Darksider leans back in their chair, stretching their legs out, and says, “I had the chance to do some light reading a little while ago--a friend lent me some materials. About tumors and immunotherapies.”

This is another thing the Darksider does--bringing up obscure information that may or may not have anything to do with the current topic. Rex doesn’t get why. “Right. Light reading.”

“It’s fascinating stuff. Your immune system is designed to defend you from outside threats--so as a result, one of its most important functions is the ability to distinguish ‘self’ from ‘non-self’, as well as cells with harmful mutations that are no longer functioning like they’re supposed to. Cancers.” The Darksider opens their hands. “Of course, people still get cancers despite these protections. Do you wonder why?”

Rex shrugs. Accelerated growth means a higher risk of cancer development in the clones, but there’s so many health checks and screenings that almost every cancer gets caught very early on and treated. Even he’s had cancer treatment once when he was seven--a short surgery and a month-long course of medications, and he was all clear. It’s not something he thinks about much--that was a Kaminoan problem, not a clone problem.

The Darksider continues, “The immune system is very tightly regulated--and rightly so, or it can and will kill you. Among many things, your cells have markers to indicate they’re ‘self’ and to tell your immune system not to attack. Certain types of tumor cells can have an overabundance of these ‘self’ markers, effectively telling your immune system that it belongs there, letting the cancer grow uncontrollably without your immune system being any the wiser.” They clasp their hands together. “My point is, do you really know what should and shouldn’t be in your mind? Do you have a way to tell what thoughts are yours and what aren’t? A Jedi taught you to shield, so you have at least some training in distinguishing the inside from the outside. But do you have a way to tell the difference when the voice comes from you?”

Rex goes rigid at the implications. He barely has the ability to shield against the Force, if these last few days have any indication. If there’s worse to come, he’s screwed. He’s absolutely, truly, completely kriffed.

“Heed my words, Rex,” the Darksider says, grim again. “If a Dark influence takes ahold of you, it will not be my voice or the Sith’s voice that tells you to kill your Jedi. It will be yours. It will be natural and you will not question it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Rex asks, his voice faint.

“This is a warning. I don’t know if it will help, I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but it’s all I can offer.”

“Why now?”

“Skywalker is returning to the Resolute very soon,” the Darksider says. “When he does, he’ll discover your absence and presumably come searching for you. It means I’m out of time.”

Rex’s heart jumps. Of course he wouldn’t actually be stuck here for the entire tenday he told people he’d be gone. Of course someone would find out the ‘mission’ he got sent on was a sham.

Rex swallows. “Time for what?”

“Time to get the information I need from you. This is likely the last of these conversations we’ll have.” The Darksider gets up and steps towards him.

Rex pushes himself back on the bed. “What? What are you doing?”

“Stay still,” the Darksider commands.

Rex’s head feels like it’s ringing, and though he can’t feel any force pinning him down, he can’t make himself move even as the Darksider sits down next to him and sets their hands on either side of his face. The gloved hands are cold and rough, and there’s a peculiar hardness about the right hand--a prosthesis?

“Take a deep breath,” the Darksider says. “This won’t hurt.”

“You’re not doing a good job convincing me of that,” Rex says tightly. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m going to take the information I need.”

The Darksider closes their eyes and pulls Rex towards him until their foreheads are touching. Blood pounds through Rex’s ears and he wants to scream, wants to get away from here, wants to be anywhere else--but his body won’t listen to him. He’s locked in place, forehead to forehead against a Darksider who wants him to kill the Jedi with no way to run, no way to escape.

“I realize an apology won’t make this better, but I’m sincerely sorry for this, Rex,” the Darksider says softly.

There’s a sensation of something rushing towards him, then everything goes black.

Rex wakes in a soft bed, feeling like his mind has been completely scattered to the wind. It’s not a good feeling, but it’s not painful, either. He’s just…confused.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to gather his bearings. He’s on a bed in a room. It’s not Kamino. It’s not the barracks. It’s not the Resolute.

He has shock cuffs on his wrists.

That shakes him out of his stupor a bit, his memories slowly filtering back. The Darksider had talked about the Dark Side and mind control and then they’d done something to him, and he’d blacked out, and…

And?

He strains his mind to what happened in between, and all he can recall is flashes of battlefields and a crushing feeling of emptiness so powerful that he has to forcibly drag his thoughts away from it. He doesn’t know what that means. Did the Darksider put it there?

He hears footsteps in the hallway and tenses. He’s not going to kid himself into thinking he can win any fight that’s about to happen, but if he’s going to get his ass kicked at least he’ll face it head-on.

The door slides open and it is not the Darksider who walks in--it is the red Zabrak.

“I see you are awake. You were unconscious about ten hours,” the Zabrak says, walking into the room and letting the door close behind them. They’re using a cane to stay steady and their gait is a little smoother now since the ransom video. “The fool has instructed me to bring you something to eat while he is busy.” The Zabrak puts a large bowl of some rice dish on the desk.

“He?” Rex asks.

“He does not care what words are used to refer to him. I use ‘he’ because it is convenient,” the Zabrak says. “For your information, I am also a ‘he’, and that is not optional.”

“Right. Got it,” Rex says. This Zabrak seems much more likely to murder him than the Darksider was. “What is…‘the fool’ busy with?”

“Meditation,” the Zabrak says with a disgusted curl of the lip. “It is an unsightly habit of his.”

“And what…” Rex swallows. “What did they do to me?”

The Zabrak tilts his head. “You haven’t realized? I suppose I overestimated your observational skills.” He leans in to peer at Rex more closely. “How did it feel, when his mind touched yours? For a Forceless creature like yourself, it must be quite the novel experience.”

Mind. Dread pools in Rex’s stomach. Somehow, the Darksider had gone in his head, and for what purpose? Had the Darksider changed him, somehow?

Without thinking, Rex’s mind casts back to that yawning abyss and feels it drawing him into its jaws. The pull of it is stronger this time, powerful like a black hole that rips him apart as he slips past the event horizon…

A stab of pain between his eyes, and a touch at his temple drags him back to reality. The Zabrak’s face is right in front of him, so close that Rex has to go a little cross-eyed to see it clearly.

Rex pulls away. He’s had enough of people rummaging in his head. “Get away from me.”

“I wouldn’t be so ungrateful,” the Zabrak says with a sneer. “If I had not deadened your memory, you would have broken your sanity on it. A pathetic end, though I’m sure it’s only what you deserve.”

“Why would you care if I went insane?” Rex asks.

“I do not,” the Zabrak says. “But the fool would be unhappy if you were to meet your end in such a manner, and that would make him insufferable.”

Well, that’s fantastic. Rex is safe from this Zabrak so long as his death annoys the Darksider. It’s great to hear his continued health means so much.

Like worrying at a loose tooth, Rex tries reaching for the memory again, but can’t. He can’t even recall what it might have been, except for an impression of hollowness like the last echoes of a nightmare. It makes him uneasy, to know that a memory could have been wiped so easily--even if it was something that could hurt him. “That Darksider said they weren’t going to hurt me. Why did they put that in my head?”

The Zabrak rolls his eyes. “The fool doesn’t want to hurt people. He has some kind of moral objection to it. But he understands that sometimes it is necessary to cause pain to get results.” He gestures to Rex. “I do not believe he knew that touching your mind in this manner might destroy your sanity. But I also do not believe he would have chosen to not do so even if he did know. You are, unfortunately, an acceptable loss. Try not to take it personally--that is a man who will murder his best friends with his own hands in the name of duty and upholding his principles.”

The Zabrak, Rex notes, doesn’t look upset about that at all. If anything, there’s a bit of admiration in his expression.

“Why are you working with them? They’re going to betray you,” Rex says.

The Zabrak snorts. “Does that bother you, that the fool has a betrayer’s heart? We have an understanding. He will only betray me if I give him a reason to, and if he cuts me down it will be from the front, not the back. That is the way things should be. Of course, you must think differently. I suppose you clones were bred for blind faith. Just as any useful pawns should be.”

Rex bristles. He’s had enough of hearing his loyalty makes him somehow lesser. Like it’s some kind of flaw. Loyalty is supposed to be a good thing. “Why are you here? You dropped off food, you don’t have to stay.”

“I wanted to see why the fool thinks so highly of you,” the Zabrak says. “But all I see is another fool. Maybe that’s all it is.” With some difficulty, he pushes himself out of the chair. “You are correct. I have no need to remain here. I will return with more food in a few hours.”

“What--they’re not coming back?”

The Zabrak shoots him an extremely unimpressed look. “I told you. He’s busy meditating.”

“You said it’s been ten hours,” Rex says. “Nobody meditates for ten hours straight. Jedi still have to…eat, or sleep, or whatever.”

“Do not attempt to understand how the Force works for the fool. It is an exercise in futility,” the Zabrak says. “He stipulated that he would need at least two full days' meditation to extract the information he requires. I will bring you regular meals in the meantime as he requested.”

With that, the Zabrak leaves.

Rex lies back on the bed, feeling absolutely spent and not hungry at all. Information, the Zabrak had said. That makes sense, as much as Rex dreads to think of it--the Darksider must have gone into his mind to extract what he knew. Comm codes, classified military secrets, support structures within the GAR…there’s just too much there, ripe for the taking.

But it’s not just the Republic’s information that’s in his head. It’s personal secrets, private moments with his brothers, the promises he’s made to Ahsoka and Anakin…all the things that have nothing to do with the war.

How many secrets does the Darksider know now? How many confidences has he just broken? He knows so much about his brothers--so much that he doesn’t even know how much damage it can cause. Is the Darksider going to use that personal information to trap and compromise more of his brothers? Corrupt them all slowly and turn them against the Republic? Did he just doom them all?

Rex pulls the blanket over his head and squeezes his eyes shut. What is he supposed to do? What could he have done?

He can’t even think about it right now.

The next four days are excruciatingly slow. As promised, the Zabrak brings food every so often, but it’s not the same. The Zabrak doesn’t make conversation. He doesn’t bring holonovels or ask how he’s doing or cook homemade meals--in short, he acts like a normal jailer.

It’s silly to miss all of that. He shouldn’t have expected it to begin with, being kidnapped and everything…but it was nice. Rex isn’t grateful, so to speak, for the Darksider withholding torture and violence when this is all their fault to begin with, but he’s all too aware that it didn’t have to be like this. He knows the likes of Ventress and Grievous, and he’d be lucky to get out of something like this with his life, much less all the nice food and conversation. It’s just that…now that it’s gone, Rex really feels how much effort it had to have been, to do all that. Despite how much he hates himself for it, he does miss it.

It’s not like it was real anyways, Rex thinks bitterly as he lays back on the bed. It’s a Darksider, after all, and Darksiders are all the same--evil and manipulative. There’s nothing but ulterior motives, and he’s a fool if he ever thought otherwise.

He shakes his head. The solitude and monotony is getting to him, that’s all. He’s supposed to be rescued soon. Soon, he’ll be back where he should be with the 501st and he’ll be able to warn everyone about these Darksiders.

He’s been kidnapped for just short of a tenday, now. General Skywalker has to know he’s missing--surely he’s searching now. Anakin’s never left a man for dead in his life.

(Never mind the lives risked to stage those rescues, that’s not the point--)

He tries not to think about how long it’s taking.

The door swishes open and the Zabrak pauses in the doorway.

“You did not eat your meal,” he says.

Rex glances over at the Zabrak. A very expressive man, that Zabrak, and his face is all contempt. Not a huge departure from the norm--the Zabrak doesn’t seem to care for him much to begin with.

“I wasn’t hungry,” Rex says. It’s not entirely a lie--he passed the hump of sharp hunger a while ago and it’s since subsided into a familiar low gnawing sensation in his stomach. The 501st gets enough surplus food supplies that they rarely ever go hungry, but he still remembers hunger trials on Kamino, and it’ll be another ten or twelve hours before he really starts feeling sharp pangs again.

“You didn’t eat the meal before that, either.” The Zabrak peers at him. “Is this some kind of moodiness? Or is this deliberate? You will do no one any favors by starving yourself, certainly not Skywalker nor your pitiful little army.”

“Kriff off,” Rex says.

“Oh, how dignified of you,” the Zabrak says. He sets his plate of food on the desk next to the other uneaten meal. “Here is your next meal. Will you eat it this time? Or will you waste my efforts yet again?”

“I’m not hungry.”

The Zabrak hums to himself, then takes a seat. “You know it will take weeks for a human of your body mass to starve to death, correct? You will assuredly be ‘rescued’ by then. If you mean to commit suicide, there are much more expedient ways to do so. I’d be happy to oblige, if you asked.”

“I’m not suicidal, I’m just not hungry,” Rex snaps. “Stop bothering me.”

The Zabrak doesn’t answer straightaway. He simply stares with an intensity that makes Rex’s skin crawl. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it, because he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Why are you acting like this, clone?”

“What?”

“You are uncharacteristically sullen and I do not understand why. It is very annoying. The fool has informed me that if I do not understand something, I should ask about it. Why are you acting so irrationally?”

Rex doesn’t answer. He doesn’t owe the Zabrak any explanations.

“Are you feeling betrayed? We were never your friends--you have known that from the moment you realized you were imprisoned. Is it because the fool went through your memories? I agree it is an unpleasant experience, but since you are still sane, I do not see the issue.”

Rex stays silent. He’s not sure if even he knows why he’s feeling so awful. He’s had too long to stew in his own thoughts alone, probably. Too many dreams of battlefields and violence, too many speculations of the destruction that’s to come.

He keeps thinking about the Darksider. He keeps thinking about all those conversations. The little laughs. The interesting topics. All the pleasantries and sincerity, before it all fell through. He thinks about being locked helpless as they seized him with the Force and broke him open for information like they’d intended to all along.

Rex wants to hate the Darksider. Maybe he does hate the Darksider. After all the deception and betrayal and the massive violation of his mind and his privacy, he’d be well within his rights to hate, but if it’s hate in his chest, it’s a peculiar sort of hate--a complicated hate that he’s scared to pull apart for fear of what may be hiding within.

Maybe if the Darksider hadn’t made themself so…human first, they’d be easier to hate. If they’d been cruel and monstrous like a true Sith, it would be better. There would be no need for this conflict.

The Zabrak watches him as he mulls through his feelings, staring as if to decode his thoughts in real time. Rex wonders if the Zabrak can read his mind--Jedi can do that, sort of, and Darksiders don’t seem like they care about mental privacy.

“Would you feel better if I removed your memories?” the Zabrak asks.

Rex recoils. “What?”

“The memory of whatever is upsetting you,” the Zabrak says. “When the fool decided to dive through your mind, I offered to remove your memory of it afterwards. He ordered me not to, because he believes it is a violation of your autonomy to erase your memory, even if it is something upsetting. It is the same reason he has chosen to bind you with shock cuffs instead of simply using the Force to command you not to escape. He believes it is merciful to violate your consent as clearly and tangibly as possible--I confess I do not understand the difference, nor how it is preferable, seeing as it is only distressing you further.”

There’s something…honorable about that. Horrible, but honorable. Better to kill someone with a knife than with a poison--make it clear, make it obvious. Give a target to hate, a problem to solve, shackles to break.

A Darksider with morals? What’s up with that? Twisted morals, obviously--the Darksider’s concern over privacy and autonomy obviously didn’t stop them from cracking his head open and scooping everything out.

Still. Morals.

He’s not sure how to feel about a Darksider having such a clear understanding of what makes people tick, as if tricking him into his own kidnapping wasn’t indication enough.

“Stay out of my head,” Rex says.

“Very well,” the Zabrak replies breezily. “This is not my problem. If you wish to remain sullen and moody that is your prerogative.”

Just then, Rex hears footsteps coming down the hallway. The door slides open, and the Darksider slumps against the door frame, looking exhausted. They’re masked and hooded as usual, but their hair isn’t fully secured, giving Rex a glimpse of light brown slipping down their forehead.

They start speaking Mando’a to the Zabrak, so rapidly that Rex, whose skills in Mando’a are not fantastic to begin with, can’t pick out any of the words except “idiot”.

Apparently, he’s not the only one who thinks the Darksider speaks too fast, because the Zabrak looks over and responds in much slower, accented Mando’a: “--have to--talk slower--jetii.”

The Zabrak’s accent is so strong that he makes jetii sound like it ends in a ‘D’.

The Darksider sighs, and says more slowly, “--checked--Skywalker--nothing wrong.”

Rex’s brows draw together. Like all clones, he was only taught Galactic Basic. That was the only language they’d needed to communicate with Jedi and officers; the ability to communicate with civilians who did not speak Basic was apparently not important. Still, there’s only so much the trainers could speak Mando’a before he picked up a few words here and there. He’s certainly heard enough to recognize the Darksider’s accent--almost exactly the same as the Prime’s. Concord Dawn, if he recalls correctly.

So not just a Darksider, but a Mandalorian Darksider? A Mandalorian Darksider who doesn’t wear armor? That doesn’t track.

The Zabrak frowns. “--waste of time--release them?”

“--not--idea.” the Darksider says.

The Zabrak sighs. “This was--choice--”

The Darksider rubs a hand over their eyes, then turns towards Rex and says in Basic, “Hello, dear. I know I said Skywalker was on his way to rescue you, but it turns out that I have vastly overestimated his critical thinking skills, something I didn’t even think was possible at this point. He appears to have accepted our cover story at face value, believes you are genuinely on some sort of special mission with no attempt to verify it, and is not coming for you at all. I suppose you should be flattered by the faith he shows in you--or, perhaps, offended by his apathy. I know I am.”

Rex’s heart sinks. He knows it’s all too reasonable a story. It makes too much sense that Anakin wouldn’t verify the cover story--he almost never even verifies after-mission reports he was present for before signing them, and Rex has never been anything but staunchly steadfast and reliable. Why would he lie about something like a critical mission now? Anakin would never even consider it.

But it can’t be true. It can’t be true because Anakin would never abandon one of his men. Abandon him. He’s got the Force--he has to know there’s something wrong somehow.

“I don’t believe you. There’s no way for you to know any of that,” Rex says. “You’ve been here the whole time. How would you know?”

“That would be telling,” the Darksider says dismissively.

“You’re lying,” Rex says, more confident now. “You’re just trying to bluff me.”

“I don’t care if you believe me,” the Darksider replies. “The fact is, I’m on a fairly restrictive time crunch and have things to do without you underfoot. Left as is, nobody’s coming to retrieve you for possibly another week. So I may as well ask: how would you like to do this, Rex?”

“How--what?” Rex asks.

“It’s a simple enough question, clone,” the Zabrak drawls.

“He has a name,” the Darksider says, clearly irritated. To Rex, they say, “We’ve got no reason to keep you anymore, so what would you like us to do with you? If you’d like to leave the army, we can drop you off on a planet where you can get your bearings.”

“Leave the army?” Rex says. “What the hell? No, I’m not going to--I’m not some kind of deserter--”

“Very well,” the Darksider says. “If you wish to return, I can arrange that. I’ll put something together and I’ll be back in a few hours. Make sure you eat--you won’t have the chance to, later.”

Without waiting for further response, the Darksider leaves.

The Zabrak sighs deeply, then looks back over at Rex. “It seems your Jedi is even more useless than previously believed. This is why you should not be so eager to pledge your loyalty to fools.”

“General Skywalker hasn’t abandoned me,” Rex says.

“I don’t see why you’re trying to convince me,” the Zabrak says loftily. “I will see myself out. You should eat, this time. It will not do for you to return to your army weakened by hunger, would it?”

The Zabrak leaves, and Rex is alone again.

True to their word, the Darksider returns a few hours later. They still look exhausted, but their conduct is brisk and efficient as they clean up the room and switch out Rex’s shock cuffs for more conventional durasteel ones.

“Shock cuffs are expensive,” the Darksider says. “I’m not letting you keep them.”

“Yeah?” Rex says. “The Dark Side doesn’t pay very well, huh?”

“At least you still have a sense of humor,” the Darksider says dryly as they snap the second cuff onto Rex’s wrist. They secure the cuffs to a shackle on the wall using a long cable so he can walk around, but can’t leave the room. “I’ve set off your distress beacon, so this is goodbye. Take care of yourself, Rex. I hope we never see each other again.”

It is, all in all, a very weird goodbye.

Rex spends the next three days trying to free himself--a difficult task at the best of times, made only more strenuous when he’s only been provided maybe a day’s worth of ration bars to keep him going. He files almost halfway through the composite weave cable when he hears a crashing sound in the entryway. There’s footsteps--a lot of them. Maybe five or six people, and there’s a distinct cadence to it that sounds especially trooper.

Rex’s breath catches in his throat. After nearly three weeks, Anakin and the 501st are finally here for him, just like he knew they would be. All the Darksider’s talk of loyalty and betrayal don’t mean anything, because Rex knows he’s put his faith in the right people. He’ll be able to explain everything and warn them about what’s coming. Everything will be okay. They’ll get through this together.

Footsteps pause, and the door slides open.

Cody stands in the doorway, stock-still for an endless moment.

“Rex,” he breathes, rushing over to him as a few other brothers in 212th gold search the hideout behind him. “Rex, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Cody?” Rex asks. “But you--how--”

“We got your distress beacon,” Cody says as he gets a boltcutter from Boil and sets it to work on Rex’s cuffs. “It wasn’t anywhere near where you were supposed to be stationed, so I contacted the 501st to figure out what the hell was going on. They said you were on some kind of mission for General Kenobi, but the General says he never sent you on anything like that. He mobilized a squad to retrieve you.” He cuts through the cable with a loud snap. “What happened, Rex?”

“I was stupid. I got tricked,” Rex says. “There’s another Darksider. I think they’re planning something real bad.”

“That’s great. Just what we needed,” Cody hisses. He sets a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “All right. We’ll get you out of here and you’ll report everything you can to General Kenobi once we get back to the Negotiator. We’ll figure out where to go from there.”

“General Kenobi?” Rex asks. “Isn’t General Skywalker here?”

There’s a brief pause as Cody gets Rex’s cuffs off, then says, “No. Skywalker and the 501st are way out of the way--you’re with us for a bit until we can meet up with the Resolute later on.”

Rex feels something shatter in his chest. Tens of thousands of light years and an active engagement weren’t enough to stop Anakin from dropping everything and going to Senator Amidala’s rescue, but it certainly stopped him from coming here. In the end, for all his power, for all that he cared, for all they’d been through together, Anakin didn’t come.

Maybe he never would have.

Summary:

Obi-Wan makes some final preparations.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

After we cleared out the temporary base and left Rex to be rescued, we were in transit again. I had mixed feelings about leaving Rex like that, especially when Skywalker was too much of an idiot to realize something was amiss or too busy worrying about his wife to do something about it, but the last time I’d tapped into the GAR communications, I’d seen multiple battalions had received Rex’s distress beacon and someone was being mobilized to retrieve him. He would be fine. Whatever happened to him now was out of my hands.

Until then, I had my own work to focus on. Sidious was not going to assassinate himself, after all. I sat at the ship’s small dining table as we flew through hyperspace, going over my notes.

KY4 had used Rex’s decryption keys to decode the military datachips, which yielded some useful information--maps of the star destroyers, flight path calculators, a set of internal access passcodes. Slowly, I was cracking my way further into the GAR’s intranet, cross-referencing military officers with Sidious’s previous work, and compiling a worryingly long list of possible spies. It wasn’t too surprising--Sidious had a legitimate position of power, after all. Pretty much all officers in the GAR reported to him in some capacity. That complicated matters.

I looked into the war’s major conflicts, trying to see the shape of it all. Separatists had carved at the edges of the Republic for over a year, burning out settlements, slaughtering civilians, and destroying resources. Taken in isolation, it was hard to see the intent behind it all. They weren’t taking strategic bases, they weren’t defending their territory, they weren’t even hitting critical Republic resources or trade routes. I couldn’t pretend to understand a war so big as this one, but looking at it all…it felt like violence was being used as an endpoint, not a means to an end. Like terrorists killing and destroying to make some kind of point.

Knowing what I did about Sidious’s goals, the excessive cruelty made more sense--the Separatist droids were not fighting to win a secession, but to pull the Republic into a maelstrom of fear and hatred and desperation, ripe for an Imperial takeover. I couldn’t see an Empire yet in the bleeding Republic. Sidious had weakened the Senate’s power, but not entirely--Bail, that wonderful man, as well as a few of his colleagues who also had not yet been silenced by threats or bribes, was tirelessly blocking many of Palpatine’s further power grabs in the Senate, and Palpatine’s aggressive actions towards the war and his repeated refusal to allow negotiations had done no favors for the public’s opinion of him. If he seized power now, he couldn’t guarantee he would keep it, and no matter the power of the Dark Side, it would not protect Sidious from an uprising of billions.

He needed more time to make everything right for his takeover, and that meant I had time, too.

The question was how much.

When I arrived in the kitchen early next day cycle to plan, I found Maul in the ship’s small common area, performing exercises as he often did. Today, instead of doing basic physical therapy, he had grabbed my practice staff and moved up to a full kata, though not one I recognized. That didn’t mean much. From the positioning of his hands near the middle of the staff, it was pretty clear he meant to practice with his lightstaff, which was far beyond the basic Shii-Cho forms I’d learned as an Initiate. It wasn’t as if I’d practiced those in a long time, either.

Maul went through the movements slowly, strikes to steps to blocks. Considering he had only received his cybernetic legs a month ago, his coordination and movement was phenomenal--some combination of the Force and sheer bloody-minded determination had worked wonders for the adjustment process. It wasn’t perfect--there was tension in the line of his body as he moved, and I could feel the Force wrapping around him, guiding and steadying his limbs, balancing him when his coordination faltered. It was a strange feeling from Maul, devoid of the sharpness and barely restrained anger he seemed to always have.

He had felt much less Dark ever since we’d left Rex. He wasn’t completely free of it, and perhaps he never would be, but at least he seemed to have stopped compulsively reaching for the Dark Side like he had before. I didn’t know what had changed to make him stop actively hurting himself, but I was happy for him. That was progress.

Maul cut his kata short by unelegantly slamming the butt of the staff against the ground, his limbs shaking from the effort. He leaned his weight against the staff, squeezing his eyes shut as if in pain.

I reached a bottle of water off the kitchenette counter and held it out. “Maul, darling, are you okay?” I asked. “How do you feel?”

Maul glared at me. “I feel weak,” he hissed.

“You just did some strenuous exercise,” I said. “And just over a month ago, you were an emaciated corpse lying in a pile of trash. I think some weakness is expected.”

Maul snarled. “You wouldn’t understand, you pathetic Jedi. If I am not strong, then I am nothing.”

“Well, that’s just not true,” I told him. “Ignoring the question of whether you’re weak, now or generally, you’re still a living person and that means something.”

Maul let out a horrific, wordless screech that set my teeth on edge. He clutched his staff for dear life, swaying dangerously.

I moved to his side, and as gently as I could, I pulled his arm over my shoulder. He struggled against it, screaming, and nearly gouged me in the face with his horns in the process, but after a solid ten or twenty seconds, all the fight went out of him at once. He went limp against me, breathing in hard, ragged gasps. Slowly, I guided him to a chair, then pressed the bottle of water into his hands and uncapped it.

“Drink some water. You’ll feel better,” I told him.

Maul drank the water. He flung the empty bottle aside, then folded his arms on the table and laid his head down. His whole body was shaking, and the Force around him felt frantic. Scared.

“Don’t look at me,” he said, his voice cracking. “I swear, I’ll murder you, Kenobi. Don’t even--don’t think about me.”

I moved closer to him, rubbing slow circles across his back. A soft whine escaped his mouth, and the Force spiraling out of him seemed to settle under the touch. Physically, he remained there, hunched over the table, but mentally he reached out to me, and I let him press his mind to mine, letting the raw, unadulterated fear roiling in his soul flow from him to me. It wasn’t hard to guess where it came from--so many years at Sidious’s mercy would make anyone shake to pieces.

It made my blood burn the same way adults killing children at Melida/Daan had, but more than anything it made me sorry. Maul didn’t deserve to be hurt--nobody did--and he’d gone so long without help that he had no reason to believe it would ever come at all. How monstrous could you be, to hurt a youngling under your care like that?

In the end, under all the trappings of the Sith and the Dark Side and everything else, Maul was just a person. A person who had done horrible and unforgivable things, but also a person who had been hurt deeply with no way to bleed out his poison. It could have been anyone getting caught in circ*mstances like that. It could have been me.

“Deep breaths,” I told him. “You’re safe, Maul. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Maul made a choked noise, dragging air past his throat. “Why…” he rasped.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Why?” he demanded. He looked up at me with desperate, pale gold eyes. “Why are you doing this, Kenobi?”

I could have told him a lot of things--that he didn’t deserve to be hurt, or that I believed he could do better and ought to have that chance--but I didn’t think he was asking for explanations. He just needed to know it was real. That I wouldn’t take his trust and shatter it into a million pieces.

“You needed the help,” I said. “And I wanted to.”

Maul squinted at me. “You…wanted to? That’s it?”

“That’s all I need,” I said, pulling him into a hug. He froze for a moment, then let his head fall against my shoulder, leaning his weight fully against me.

“I’m a Sith,” he growled. “Surely you Jedi do not believe I deserve another chance.”

“Nobody deserves a chance to atone for unforgivable crimes, Maul. Not me, not you. It would be the height of arrogance to think we’re entitled to anything after the people we’ve hurt or killed,” I said. “But the world doesn’t run on what people deserve. I got that chance to be better, and I did something with it. I’m giving you that chance, too. Not because you deserve it, not because I think you’ll become some shining beacon of light at my side, but because I want to. That’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t need your pity, Jedi.”

“This isn’t pity. I just want you to be better,” I said, squeezing him tight. I could feel the ridges of scar tissue through his shirt, years and years of accumulated pain that would never go away.

But maybe it could be lessened.

Maul pressed his chin to my shoulder. “I…I don’t understand.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Let me help you, and we can work things out from there.”

Maul didn’t respond, but he wrapped his arms around my back and clung tight as he let loose a keening sound that made his entire body shudder.

I won’t tell you what happened after that. That’s no business of yours.

When Maul had calmed down some half an hour later, he did not want to discuss any of what may or may not have happened. Not a surprise.

I sort of got the feeling he had to work through things on his own for a while, so I cooked some seafood noodle soup while he ran maintenance checks on his legs. I could feel when his thoughts focused on me, like the ebb and flow of a cold tide that made the back of my neck itch. I had no way to tell what he thought, but it didn’t seem hostile so much as confused, the way most of his thoughts about me seemed to be these days. It made me uncomfortable--people thinking about me almost always did--but it wasn’t my place to tell Maul what he could or couldn’t think about.

When the soup was ready, I ladled out a bowl for him. “Here,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

Maul scowled. “What is your obsession with feelings? It is all you ever ask about.”

“That’s patently untrue, and feelings are important,” I said, getting some soup for myself. “It’s good to be aware of them and understand where they come from.”

Maul loudly slurped his soup directly from the bowl. “That is Jedi nonsense.”

“That’s what they teach us, yes. It’s good advice, especially for a Force sensitive.” I tasted my soup, then added more pepper flakes. “I suppose the Sith don’t put very much emphasis on emotions.”

“Emotion is a weakness. If you open yourself to emotion, you open yourself to manipulation.” Maul said, with a rumbling sound from deep in his chest. “The way you are manipulating me now.”

“I’m not manipulating you, I’m trying to help you.”

“You are influencing me,” Maul growled. “You are trying to change me.”

“Darling,” I said, “if you are expecting to get through life without ever being influenced by anyone, you are setting yourself up for a very lonely time. People meet each other and connect and change and grow. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it’s all a normal part of life.”

Maul simply scowled and continued to slurp his soup.

I sighed. “You have a spoon, you know.”

Maul looked me directly in the eyes and drank straight from the bowl again. Very mature.

Whatever. It wasn’t my business how Maul chose to eat, so long as he didn’t make a mess. “If you Sith aren’t allowed to feel emotion, then what is even the point of the whole thing? You hurt yourself and subjugate others for power, and to what end? Because it certainly isn’t any sense of fulfillment or happiness.”

“The point, as you so crudely put it, is self-evident to a Sith,” Maul said.

I would have to take his word on that one. I felt he was deluding himself, but maybe things made sense to him from where he stood. I wasn’t getting wrapped up in that. “Doesn’t all the anger and pain and fighting get exhausting?”

“Only the weak grow tired.”

I stirred my soup slowly. “So the epitome of a Sith is a creature who never tires, kills their happiness so they cannot be manipulated by it, destroys those around them, and is eternally in pain for their service to the Dark Side, never satisfied with the power they have already accumulated. Truly, what an ideal to strive for.”

“As if your Jedi ideals are so much better?” Maul shot back.

“I’m not a Jedi anymore, so I can’t tell you what the ideal Jedi looks like,” I said. “But the ideal I strive for is finding peace with myself, and being able to learn and grow and teach and love and be happy. Maybe, by the time I die, I will have made a difference and people will think fondly of me.”

Maul made a gagging sound. “How pathetic. You are nothing and you will become nothing, just like all your tiny dreams.”

I took a deep breath. In some ways, I agreed. A long time ago, I had touched the Force and felt the entire galaxy at once--incomprehensibly vast and cold and unfeeling. In the larger scale of things, my time was short and soon I would be nothing but dust. Nothing I did would change that--nothing anybody did would change that. It was humbling to see my own insignificance, but freeing, too. It meant that my life was not the universe’s, but my own, and I was free to do with it as I willed.

“All of us are nothing on the scale of the universe, Maul,” I said. “Even the greatest of all the Sith across all of time, raging at the universe to bring it under their control, will become nothing but dust. Same as you and me. Same as anyone.”

“And you would simply submit to such insignificance?” Maul asks. “You would lie down and drift through your pitiful life without making a single impact?”

“What’s the point of giving up everything just to have some kind of mark on the universe? Who do you think will look up to the sky and see my name written in the stars?” I asked. “I’m a person, Maul. I have person-sized problems and person-sized desires. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“It is pointless,” Maul says. “No matter what you do, no matter how you fight, there will always be more of the Dark than the Light. You will never be anything in comparison to its power, and fighting it is futile.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I certainly don’t think you can fight entropy--and in the end, the Dark Side is entropy. The heat death of the universe will consume everything in existence whether I like it or not, but it really seems silly to concern myself with something so huge. Light comes in small things, and that’s why it’s able to do what the Dark Side never could. The Dark Side couldn’t save you from Lotho Minor. It couldn’t heal your pain. It couldn’t bring you here, now, for a peaceful conversation over soup.” I took a bite from my soup. “Those things don’t mean anything to the universe, but they mean something to you. That’s why they’re important.”

“It’s all just pretty words. Nobody will remember you, Kenobi.”

“Won’t you?” I asked.

Maul snarled at me, but did not respond. He simply went back to eating his soup, diligently ignoring me.

We spent the rest of the meal in silence. When it was over, it occurred to me that Maul never actually answered the original question of how he felt.

That evening, I sat on the floor of my cabin with Maul’s lightstaff settled across my lap. After wearing it for so many weeks, it had calmed significantly--not in so much pain as it had been when I had first retrieved it from Lotho Minor. Without the pain to drown everything else out, it was easier to get some sense of its feelings. I didn’t think it liked me, but it appreciated the company of someone who could hear it, however faintly--Sith, it seemed, did not spend much time listening to their kyber crystals. Beyond all the pain and the atrocities it had been forced to participate in, I think the kyber was terribly lonely. I could understand that.

I laid my hands over the crystal embedded in the lightstaff casing. It had been agitated for a few days now--I could practically feel it vibrating, and it tugged at me through the Force like a youngling tugging incessantly on my sleeve. It didn’t really seem normal--but then again, it wasn’t as if I’d had a lot of opportunity to hold a lightsaber since I left the Jedi. Maybe this was how they felt now.

“Darling, I don’t know what you’re saying,” I told it.

The kyber, realizing I was finally paying it my full attention, pulled harder at my mind. Flashes of red plasma seared across my mind’s eye, the press of a soul and a crystal against one another, two parts of a whole. It wanted, to my best interpretation, to be used. This crystal, like many kyber crystals that had bonded to living things, did not enjoy being idle, and I had given this one plenty of time to rest.

“I can’t use a lightsaber,” I told it. “I’m sorry.”

That didn’t seem to dissuade the crystal any. It pushed its presence against mine, close enough that I could feel the flow of the Force through it and into me. Under most circ*mstances, it’s impossible to feel a kyber crystal’s weak connection to the Force, but here in hyperspace with nothing to drown it out, it came through like a shining golden thread, a clear spring of energy reaching directly down into the heart of the universe.

The intent was pretty obvious--saberwork was not the only way to use a crystal, after all.

“You want me to meditate with you?” I asked.

The crystal answered in the affirmative, lighting up in the Force with warmth under my hands. It replied, through memory and sense of the Force, that it knew of my daily evening meditation and wanted to participate.

I hesitated. Crystal meditation was a sacred and intimate ritual for a Jedi and their bonded kyber crystal alone--even a Padawan’s Master would not encroach upon it. To perform crystal meditation with someone else’s saber…it was sacrilege of the worst sort, and a horrific violation of privacy at that.

Maul’s crystal jabbed me more forcefully, reminding me that I had already dived through Maul’s memory once. What possible further violation of privacy even counted, after that?

I scowled. “That’s not how it works. Doing one thing wrong doesn’t give you free rein to commit more wrong just because they’re lesser crimes.”

The crystal seemed to sigh. It seemed to ask what the hell I was waiting for--it had given me its consent, and it was its own creature, even if not entirely sentient the way Maul or I was. Wasn’t that good enough?

Well, it had a point. I could admit that, even if it meant I was losing an argument with a crystal. It wasn’t like Maul, with his complete dismissal of meditation, had spent much time bonding with his crystal. Maybe for a Sith, using someone’s crystal wasn’t the taboo it was for me. He certainly hadn’t shown much concern for his lightstaff in the weeks we’d been together.

“All right,” I said. “But if Maul asks, this was your idea.”

The crystal felt distinctly smug as I closed my eyes and reached for the Force within me.

It’s difficult to meditate in hyperspace, especially in a small ship with a skeleton crew. With no living things around, the Force goes completely dead and it feels like a hole in my chest, much more than it ever did when I was a Jedi. It only gets worse over time, until it feels like my body isn’t the right shape and there’s some creature moving under my skin and there’s static pressing against my mind--not just a simple pain, but some kind of hallucination out of the emptiness, like when you go into a black dark cave and start to see lights that aren’t there.

In that emptiness, Maul’s crystal pressed its presence to mine and I felt it like an acidic touch, like electricity directly through my soul. It sparked along my nerves, and I let it still my mind and sink me down to meditative silence. Following the crystal’s golden thread, I dived deep, until I could feel the energy of life and the Living Force humming against my soul. In that web of shining light, with a crystal there to guide me, my senses stretched to the veil of here and now, out into the beyond--the smallest glimpse of connecting threads through time and space.

The Cosmic Force was there, just out of my grasp.

I wanted to touch it, yearning deep in my soul to feel the Force the way I had back when I was still a Jedi. I wanted it to fill the emptiness in myself, to soothe the ragged edges where I’d ripped my connection to the Force out of me so many years ago, to make me whole again. If I reached, it was so close--close enough that I could grab hold of it if I just let go--

Before I could make the leap, something grabbed me tight and dragged me back from the depths of the Force.

Against my will, my eyes snapped open. I felt dizzy and sick. My chest hurt--aching from the absence of the Force. Everything was too bright and too physical and I squeezed my eyes shut again, breathing hard. My flesh felt too tight, too small, too solid. Under my palms, Maul’s kyber felt hot, pulsing slowly like a beating heart. It reached to me with a distinctly unrepentant feeling, and I wished for a bitter moment that it had not pulled me back. I wondered why it would care--it wasn’t my kyber, after all.

I don’t know how long I sat there, feeling hurt and sorry for myself, except that eventually I became aware of a prickling sensation across the back of my neck. Someone was watching me. I looked up. Maul was leaning against my doorway. He was frowning.

“Hello, dear,” I said. My voice was hoarse, and I could still feel a vibration of the Force lingering in it. “Did you need something?”

“What did you do?” Maul asked. “I felt something. I thought you…” He trailed off, his frown deepening, then looked away. “Whatever you did…don’t do it again.”

There was an edge to his voice, a raw emotion that I’d interpret as distressed had it come from anyone but Maul.

“I was meditating, that’s all. More intensely than I should have, I admit. Did I worry you? I’m sorry.”

Maul scowled. “I wasn’t worried about you. I simply needed to ensure you weren’t doing something stupid. Until Sidious is dead, you are not allowed to die, Kenobi.”

So he was worried. It was kind of touching.

“If you are just wasting my time, then I will take my leave,” Maul said with a sniff.

“Maul, wait,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

Maul crossed his arms. “It seems like you never do anything else. Do you love the sound of your voice so much?”

“I don’t need to hear that from you of all people,” I said. “I have something for you. You’ll want it.”

With a theatric sigh, Maul entered the room and sat, sprawling himself over a chair. I didn’t get the point of his constant melodrama, but if it made him happy, then I didn’t have any issue with it. “What do you have for me?” he asked.

“Your lightstaff.”

Maul’s expression froze. He stared at me, then down to the lightstaff in my lap. It seemed to take him a few seconds to understand what it was, and his lips pulled back in a snarl. “You’ve had my lightstaff this whole time?”

“I assumed you knew,” I said.

“How could I possibly have known? You certainly did not deign to inform me of my own lightstaff.”

“I’ve been wearing it for weeks now. It’s not my fault if you’re unobservant,” I said. “And I thought you could sense it.”

Maul looked at me incredulously. “Sense my lightstaff? Why would you think I could do that?”

“Jedi can. It’s your bonded crystal. Allegedly you have some connection to it,” I said. The fact that he couldn’t was somewhat concerning. “But that’s beside the point. We will be parting ways soon, so I think it’s time you got your lightstaff back.”

“Oh, I’m honored,” Maul drawled. “Pray tell, Jedi, what changed that you so magnanimously will return my own property to me?”

“I trust that you won’t commit indiscriminate murder with it,” I said.

Maul snarled. With a swell of the Force, he pounced on me. He slammed me to the floor and seized his lightstaff, jabbing the open end of it to the base of my throat. “You’re so confident of that, are you?” he growled. “You think I’m a kept Sith who will stay my hand at your command?”

I looked him in the eyes. There was a crazed glint in them, but I felt no outright murderous intent. He just had something to prove. “Maul,” I said. “Calm yourself.”

“You overreach, Jedi. I could kill you right now.”

“You could,” I agreed. “But you won’t.”

Maul’s grip tightened. “And why is that?”

“Because you are more than your anger,” I said. “You are more than your base desires. You are more than the violence you’ve experienced and the lessons your Master inflicted upon you. Your mind and your body is your own, and you have the strength to choose and the context to make the right choice.”

Maul stared at me with burning gold eyes. His brows drew together as he seemed to process that. “Is that what your Jedi have taught you?” he asked.

“It’s what I’m teaching you,” I replied. “Take a deep breath and calm down, Maul.”

Maul took a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. He jabbed the lightstaff into my throat again, just to make a point, then sat up. He remained straddled over me, pinning me to the floor so that the metal of his prosthesis dug uncomfortably into the fleshy part of my stomach, but at least he didn’t have a deadly weapon pointed at my face anymore.

“Thank you,” I said.

Maul looked away. He held the lightstaff loosely in his fingers, his thumb resting against the ignition. “I don’t understand you, Kenobi. Why would you return my lightstaff?”

“It’s your crystal--you ought to have it. It’s not right for a Jedi to be separated from their crystal.”

“I am not a Jedi,” Maul snarled. “Sith are not hopelessly attached to mindless rocks.”

It hurt to hear that. I had known, of course, that Sith did not care for their kyber the same way Jedi did--they would have to, to bleed them as cruelly as they did. But to disregard a bonded crystal and the connection to it like that…it was hard to wrap my head around.

“A bonded crystal is a part of you, Maul. It’s an extension of your will and your spirit. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to you, but for me, that’s sacred.” I laid my hand over Maul’s on the lightstaff. It felt more calm now, settled after my meditation and finally being reunited with its owner. “It’s not right for me to deprive you of that if I don’t have to.”

“You have seen my memories. You know what I have done with this weapon,” Maul said. “Are you not concerned I will commit such atrocities again?”

“It’s not the weapon I’m concerned about, but the hand that wields it,” I said. “You’ve proven yourself trustworthy, Maul. When I sent you after Amidala, you could have left. You could have wreaked havoc on Coruscant and murdered whomever you pleased, but you didn’t. You did what I asked you to, and you came back. You’ve shown you know how to not harm people, and that you have the will to stay your hand. So I’ll trust you with your saber, and that you’ll use it appropriately.”

Maul looked at his lightstaff, then at me. His lip curled. “You are infuriating, Kenobi. Sometimes I wonder if you are truly sane.”

I smiled. “You’re not the first to say that.”

“Don’t look so pleased,” Maul said. He pointed the functioning side of the lightstaff upwards and pressed the ignition. The blade sputtered, then burst alive, shining red. Maul frowned at it. “It feels different. What did you do to it?”

“I didn’t do anything. I carried it, that’s all.” Maybe, in doing so, I had lessened some of its pain. I didn’t know if that made any difference.

Maul disengaged his blade and stood up. “I see. I will require time alone to repair my lightstaff. Do not bother me, Jedi.”

He left without waiting for an answer, but that was all right. It just hurt his ego too much to say thanks like a normal person.

With Maul secluding himself in a cabin to restore his lightstaff, I had matters of my own to prepare.

I sat in my cabin as we continued through hyperspace, carefully fitting myself with my stolen shiny white armor. I’d never really had the chance to look close at the Republic soldiers' armor, so it was surprising to find just how substantial it was. It was heavy--almost as heavy as the bounty hunting armor Jango had forced me into on a couple of jobs. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but I’d never really enjoyed wearing armor very much to begin with.

My personal opinions on armor aside, this set was remarkably high quality. What from afar had looked like plain molded duraplast was actually a combination of hardened plasteel plates to protect vulnerable areas and laminated polyweave to absorb shock, thick enough for stab and shrapnel resistance while having enough flexibility for free movement. Both hard and soft plates had a blaster-resistant coating--enough to fully disperse a few shots when new and still take the bite off bolts after that. Even without the coating, the plasteel was ablative, so it could disperse heat energy by vaporizing. That was good for blaster bolts, but not great for anything sustained, like a lightsaber. I guess that wasn’t a big deal. If you’re under a sustained plasma beam, there’s no armor that will save you anyways.

I could see mold lines and other visible manufacturing defects, so the armor was obviously mass-produced, but the materials were legitimately strong and the design had a lot of thought put into it. I suppose the Republic had realized it was much easier, cheaper, and faster to make decent armor than to grow a whole new person. That was reassuring, sort of. The Republic clearly didn’t see the clone soldiers as people, but they at least saw the economic, if not moral value of giving them adequate protection.

The armor was complex, but it wasn’t hard to figure out how to put it on, having helped Maul into it for his kidnapping of Senator Amidala and knowing now what I did from Rex. The memory surfaced easily, but as I went through the motions, it didn’t fit. I did not have the same bulk Rex had, and my hands were not practiced at manipulating the clasps and plates like his were. I felt it like a double-image, an inherent wrongness of where my fingers fell on the armor and how the plates weighed on my limbs. The dissonance made my mind buzz, trying to reconcile the sense of my body with a memory that wasn’t mine and I had to stop halfway through to squeeze my eyes shut and breathe.

Here and now, said a voice in the back of my head that sounded suspiciously like Master Jinn. Center your focus, young Padawan.

I rubbed my temples and told the voice to kriff off. I hadn’t needed Master Jinn’s help to manage my mind when I was a Padawan and I certainly didn’t need it now.

I sat there, rubbing my bare fingers against my neural port, feeling the ridge where the metal met flesh and repeating my name under my breath like a mantra. I kept doing it until my mind quieted and I felt like myself again, and not an echo of what I’d seen and felt through Rex’s memory. It wasn’t the first of these attacks I’d had since diving through his mind--I had viewed his entire memory, after all. There were bound to be side effects from that kind of sheer volume, and this attack was the worst I’d had yet. The feeling of the armor was just so heavily ingrained in him that the real sensation on my body made me feel like I was in the wrong skin. The dissonance would subside once I’d had enough personal experience with the armor, but until then…it would be some getting used to.

Slowly, I pulled the bracers on, adjusting the straps so they were secure. Thankfully, the designers of the armor had the foresight to realize even clones would have significant variations in body mass, so I could adjust for my smaller bulk. Since I was of similar height and proportions to Jango, the armor fit me comfortably enough. The only real issue I had was my right bracer--even fully tightened, it was loose on my mechanical hand and atrophied forearm. Losing my hand had made those muscles waste away a long time ago. I’d have to get some kind of padding to fix that--a problem for later.

Fully armored, I hopped on my toes a few times just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t too heavy once it was on, but the weight felt constricting, even more than the skin-tight bodyglove I had stolen from Rex. The range of motion was surprisingly reasonable--the designers had clearly emphasized mobility over pure defensive capacity, and seemed to have hit a decent balance. There was no chance this armor would stop a high-velocity slug or a significant shock wave--it certainly hadn’t protected its previous owner, after all--but at least it made me feel slightly less like I was committing a very convoluted suicide.

Finally, I picked up the clean white helmet and looked it in the face. The visor was darkened, making it impossible to see the face underneath. Anyone could be under a clone helmet--Maul had done it easily enough, and so could I. I wondered what the point was, of hiding the soldiers' faces so completely. To make them seem more like droids? So people wouldn’t care when they died?

In the end it didn’t matter, except that I could use it to my advantage now. I slid the helmet on, carefully navigating it over my hair bun, and another wave of vertigo hit me with how wrong it all felt--the shock foam against my hair, the front display too close to my face, the pressure in all the wrong places. I closed my eyes, listening to the air circulate as I breathed deep and remembered where and who I was, then activated the internal HUD. Pale blue lit up in my sights, showing vitals, armor diagnostics, and environmental conditions. Focusing on that made me feel less nauseous, so I watched those little numbers tick for a few minutes. When I thought I could stand it, I looked around the room, familiarizing myself with the visor’s narrow field of view. The reduced peripheral vision made me nervous, and though the helmet had peripheral motion sensors to compensate, it wasn’t really the same at all. I already dreaded getting into a pitched firefight like this.

What a way to see the world.

I thought briefly to myself that I didn’t have to go through with all of this--I could still back out and come up with a plan that was more sensible. But really, I already knew I was committed. I’d already gathered as much information as I could about the army from the outside--what little existed besides propaganda and the occasional newsreel footage.

With all my searching, I had only found one clip where a soldier actually spoke, and there were no clips or holos showing a soldier’s face. There was no testimony from the inside, no hearsay from associates. After all, the soldiers didn’t have family or friends--they just had their brothers and the Republic, which neatly consolidated their loyalties and severely limited the possible information leaks into the general population. There just wasn’t enough to work with--even Rex’s memories could only get me so far.

If I wanted to figure out Sidious’s plans for the Republic Army, I would have to get it from the inside, and this armor was my ticket in. I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking it was a good plan, but it was the best I had.

I’d done more with worse.

“Kenobi. What are you doing?” Maul asked.

I paused, put my shaver down, and looked from the fresher mirror to where Maul was standing in the doorway. “Is this a trick question? I’m shaving my beard.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“To make myself look younger,” I said, rubbing the freshly-shaved half of my face. It was a very strange feeling after so many years with a full beard--very naked. “Why, you don’t like it?”

Maul made a sour face. “You look like a Padawan.”

“Ah, I see.” I continued shaving the other side of my face. It was going slowly--I wasn’t used to using an electric shaver. Pretty much the only time I had regularly shaved was in my late teens when I stayed at the Temple of Kyber, and practically the only shaving implements there were straight razors--I had cut myself many times before my left hand dexterity caught up. Now, a shaver just seemed clumsy in comparison. “Is this what Master Kenobi looked like when he cut you in half?”

Maul snarled. “I can still reconsider my decision not to murder you, Jedi.”

“It was just a question. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

“You look like an infant,” Maul declared with a sniff. “What possible situation would call for you to look so pathetic?”

“Well, our plan is to find out what Sidious is plotting for the war and the army. You’re going to tackle things from the outside while I take things from the inside. So I’ll be going undercover as a soldier in the Republic Army.” I paused to shave my upper lip, then continued, “Seeing as the clones are all quite young, it seems prudent to follow suit.”

Maul made a choking noise. “Undercover as a soldier? Have you lost your mind?”

“No, actually,” I replied. “I’ve put a lot of preparation into this. I have a set of armor and a uniform undersuit, I’ve gained access to the GAR intranet, and thanks to Rex, I have a decent knowledge of their culture. You asked why I spent so much time talking to Rex, and while my previous explanation still stands, the other reason is because I needed to learn his accent.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rex’s Basic isn’t a ‘standard’ accent. None of the clones have a ‘standard’ accent--they learned Galactic Basic in an isolated facility on a planet that’s not even within the main galaxy. Their phonemes have mutated over time into a unique ‘clone’ accent. You might not have noticed, but they certainly would.”

Maul sighed. “I’m sure you’ll explain how this is in any way relevant.”

I put down my shaver and washed my face in the sink. “Maul, if I’m pretending to have grown up in Kamino like all the other clones, I have to talk like I grew up in Kamino.” I switched my accent to match Rex’s and said, “Accents are one of my strengths, so this works well for me.”

“So you can walk and talk like a Republic soldier. Astounding work. And how, exactly, do you expect this will help you achieve my Master’s death?”

“Well, I’m not sure yet,” I told him, putting the shaver back into its case. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for. But if I can see the internal power structures and the tools the army has at their disposal, I think I’ll have a better idea of how Sidious will execute his plan. After all, he’s only one person in one place--even if he has the power to control any clone he wants, it’s impossible to kill ten thousand Jedi spread out across the galaxy without some kind of extremely efficient coordination. There has to be some kind of system in place.”

“You don’t even know if the information exists?” Maul demanded. “I agreed to join forces with you to murder my Master, not to throw my life away for idiotic reasons!”

I put a hand to my heart. “Maul, darling, you’re hurting my feelings. Don’t you have any faith in my skills?”

Maul scowled. “You are an idiot and a fool, Kenobi. They will kill you if you are caught--and with such a flimsy story, you will be caught.”

“No, they won’t. I’ll convince them not to. I’m very good at that sort of thing.”

“Do you really think you can convince these clones that you’re somehow one of them? Surely your words aren’t so impressive that you can convince them to ignore your face. Surely it has not slipped your notice that you do not have even the most passing resemblance to Jango Fett.”

“Well, no,” I conceded. “I’m not a fool and neither are they. Even if I got restructuring facial surgery, they’d spot me out right away.”

Maul crossed his arms. “Did you not just claim your plan was to pretend to be a clone soldier?”

“Sure it is,” I replied. “I’m going to tell them I’m a clone of High General Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Notes:

This marks the end of act I. If you're binge reading this story this would be a good time to take a break or drink some water or something.

Summary:

Obi-Wan, against better sense and judgement, comes face-to-face with the war.

Summary:

Cody helps Rex decompress after his kidnapping.

“…and that’s when you found me,” Rex finishes.

Cody nods, mulling the report over. It’s a lot to take in. It would be a problem if any brother were kidnapped by Darksiders plotting against the Republic, but Rex…Rex is one of the GAR’s best soldiers, and snatching him from the heart of the 501st? That’s no small task. If Rex isn’t safe, chances are, no one else is, either.

The General, seated next to Rex’s medbay bed, makes a considering noise from the back of his throat. “Thank you, Captain,” he says. “It’s a very concerning set of circ*mstances. Can you describe your captors at all?”

“Yes, sir,” Rex says. Obligingly, he describes his kidnappers: one was a Darksider of indeterminate gender and species--possibly a human male--about his height with light brown hair and a very long lightsaber, and a male red Zabrak with black markings and a limp.

“A red Zabrak?” Cody asks. “Those exist?”

“They’re not common,” the General replies, twining his fingers in his lap. “To my knowledge, they’re a subspecies of Zabrak only found on Dathomir. They tend to be Force-sensitive and Dark.”

“Do you know who that Zabrak is, General?” Rex asks.

The General shakes his head. “I’ve only ever met one red Zabrak, over ten years ago. He’s dead now.”

Cody hums. “Are you sure, sir? It’s not as if there are that many red Zabraks out there.”

“I’m fairly certain,” the General replies, “seeing as I personally cut him in half.”

Cody is drawn up short. “Cut him in--in half, sir? As in, you cut him through the stomach, or…?”

“No, I mean I bisected him at the waist. Cleaved into two separate parts and dropped down a reactor shaft,” the General says. “He’s dead.”

“I…see,” Cody says. It’s hard to imagine a more definitive execution than that--just as hard as it is to imagine the General doing something so drastic in the first place. “Well, there’s not much we can do about the possibly human Darksider, but a red Zabrak should be easy enough to put a description out for. We can put a word to Intelligence and see if they can find anything out.”

The General nods. “Yes, let’s do that. If he’s bold enough to kidnap the good Captain, I’ve no doubt he’ll cause more trouble soon enough. As for this other Darksider…” The General rubs his chin slowly. “I’m concerned about what they were trying to accomplish, Captain.”

“Sir?” Rex asks.

The General hums. “It just seems…peculiar that a Darksider would use such a direct method of accessing your mind.”

Rex frowns. “I don’t follow, sir. Was what the Darksider did somehow unusual?”

“To put it shortly, yes. Extremely,” the General says. “You said that Darksider had to meditate for two whole days after entering your mind. That’s not normal. If they were simply trying to get information about military codes or plans, there are ways to bring that knowledge to the surface instead of having to dive so…deeply. It would be easier and faster. But the way you describe it, it seems as if this Darksider chose to directly contact your mind with theirs--a method about as subtle as trying to perform surgery with a hand grenade. I cannot imagine a situation where a Darksider would want to use such a risky method unless they were especially incompetent, or needed to pull information indiscriminately.”

“By ‘pulling information indiscriminately’, you mean…”

“It would be the equivalent of a slicer ripping out an entire data terminal instead of the specific datachip they wanted,” the General explains. “Instead of extracting the specific pieces of needed information, they would have absorbed whole memory. The only reason I can think of to do such a thing is if they wished to find information in your memory that even you are not aware exists, and so attempted to pull raw memory from which they could extract the relevant details themself.”

“Wait,” Cody interrupts. “Are you saying this Darksider knows everything Rex has ever done or seen or heard?”

The General shakes his head. “There’s a difference between accessing memory and absorbing its contents. It’s not like reading a book or watching a holofilm. Trying to get information from someone else’s memory is disorienting and difficult, and memories are not received in an organized fashion--not chronologically, nor semantically, nor in any other coherent manner. While it’s hypothetically possible to view ten years of memory, to actually absorb it all at once…that would be enough to drive anyone insane many times over--you could easily lose your sense of self. Because of my particular affinities with the Force, I’m more accustomed to that sort of thing than most, and even I would balk at attempting something on that scale.” The General clasps his hands in his lap. “Seeing as this Darksider was functional two days later, I think we can safely say they did not receive that much of Rex’s memory.”

That’s not much of a comfort. Even in a small cross-section of time, Rex regularly accesses huge amounts of classified information and comes into contact with many high-ranking officials, General Skywalker most of all. Whoever this Darksider was, they had enough information and savvy to trick Rex--how much more would they be able to do now?

Rex’s shoulders slump. “I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” the General says. “I don’t believe anyone could have reasonably acted differently.”

“I…I should have known something was wrong from the second I got that comm from an unknown frequency,” Rex says. “Or when they referred to Anakin as Skywalker, or when they kriffing kidnapped me…”

It’s true there were many points where Rex could have seen through the ruse and headed it all off at the pass, but Cody can’t find it in himself to blame him--he had listened to the recording on Rex’s commlink, and even he couldn’t tell that the General Kenobi on the other line was fake. The tone of voice, the cadence, the accent was all exactly correct, and audio analysis had shown no splices or markers of editing or processing--that had all been the raw work of somebody impersonating the General live. If this Darksider or their organization can do this with other Generals…it’s a new danger Cody had never thought of.

He sets a hand on Rex’s shoulder and squeezes it lightly. Guilt is probably eating Rex alive, but there’s nothing more Cody can offer right now than this. It isn’t just Rex who’s at stake now--it’s the entire army. Damage control comes first.

“We’ll have to change all of Rex’s access codes,” Cody says. “We might even need to change all of the 501st’s comms.”

General Kenobi nods. “Yes. We will do that.”

Cody will need to write and implement new policies to prevent any future vocal impersonators from hijacking the chain of command, as well as verification processes for missions. They’ll need to tighten their information control.

Nobody will be happy about it. It’ll be a lot of work--too much work in the middle of a war--but it’s not as if Cody has a choice. He can’t let this happen to any of his other brothers.

“And…we can investigate the hideout where Rex was held. We have the civvies they gave Rex, we can trace where those came from, too,” Cody says. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find some useful DNA or where these Darksiders are from or where they’re headed next. Say the word and I’ll put men on it.”

“Approved,” the General says. “But…if we are hoping to learn more about this Darksider, may I offer some more immediate assistance?”

“Sir?” Cody asks.

“I mentioned it sometime earlier, this Darksider’s chosen method of accessing the Captain’s mind is very risky. Not just because of its general clumsiness, but that sort of connection is invariably a two-way street,” the General replies. “If they extracted memory from Rex’s mind, chances are, they have also inadvertently left some behind.”

It takes Cody a full five seconds to process that. “You mean, if you…”

“As I said, I have some experience managing memories. If I were to examine the Captain’s mind, I could possibly uncover those traces.” The General looks at Rex. “If you trust me to do so.”

Rex stares at General Kenobi with wide eyes. “Sir, I--”

“You do not have to say yes,” the General says softly. “Having your memory forcibly accessed is a violating and traumatizing experience. I will not force you to relive that if you do not wish to.”

Rex doesn’t respond right away. There’s visible tension in his body just at the thought of it. Everyone in the room, Rex included, knows it’s the correct choice to make from a tactical standpoint, but Cody doesn’t try to encourage or discourage Rex from it. He can’t even imagine what Rex went through at the hands of this Darksider--he can’t take this choice from Rex to confront it.

Rex takes a deep brath. “Will this help you stop those Darksiders?”

“I cannot guarantee it,” the General says. “It’s highly likely those traces of memory are present, but whether I can access them and understand their contents in a way that will offer clues to this Darksider’s identity or intentions, I don’t know.”

Rex clasps his hands together in his lap and braces himself. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it. Anything if it means nailing those sons of bitches.”

“That’s the spirit,” General Kenobi says without mirth. Carefully, he repositions his chair. “I will be as gentle as I can. I will avoid viewing any of your memories as much as possible. If at any time you become uncomfortable and wish to stop, you may break the connection. I will not be harmed.”

Rex nods.

“Okay,” the General says. “Let’s begin.”

The General takes a deep breath and loosens his muscles. He seems to center himself for several seconds, the same way he would before meditating or saber training. A sense of calm settles over him, almost palpable in the air, and he opens his eyes again and reaches for Rex--

Rex violently flinches away.

“Rex?” Cody asks.

Rex sucks a breath in through his teeth. There’s real fear in his eyes, and he’s so on edge he looks like he’s ready to jump out of his own skin--Cody doesn’t think he’s ever seen Rex like this before.

“S-Sorry,” Rex says. “I can’t--not from the front, sir.”

“Captain?” the General asks.

“When they--they grabbed me from the front. And your eyes, I…” Rex takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I can do it, I’m fine, but not from the front, please. Is that--is that okay?”

“Of course,” the General says. “The orientation makes no difference to me. Whatever you’re most comfortable with is best, Captain.”

Rex squeezes his eyes shut and nods, then turns in the bed so his back faces the General. He’s not calm, not by a long shot, but he’s got himself together.

Cody reaches down to clasp Rex’s hand. It’s tense and clammy, and Cody squeezes firmly. “I’m here, Rex. You’ll be okay,” he murmurs. It seems to ease some of Rex’s tension, just a bit.

Gently, the General touches his fingers to the sides of Rex’s head. This time, Rex does not flinch away, and the General closes his eyes.

A strange tension rises in the air, like the building of a storm. No matter how many times Cody feels the General use the Force, it makes gooseflesh go all down his arms and neck. He finds himself holding his breath without meaning to, as the General sinks deeper into his Force thing.

After what might be a minute or ten, Cody feels something pop, and General Kenobi rips himself away from Rex as if electrified, tumbling straight out of his chair and to the floor.

“General?” Cody says, scrambling to help him back up.

The General squeezes his eyes shut and hisses through his teeth. “Water.”

Without hesitation, Cody uncaps the canteen hanging from his belt and hands it to the General, who immediately douses himself with it. General Kenobi stays on the ground, palms pressed to his eyes, counting backwards from ten under his breath.

He’s grounding himself, Cody realizes. Cody kneels and grabs his General around the shoulders--touch and a steady mind was the fastest way to ground a Jedi. “General Kenobi,” he says firmly. “You’re in the medbay of the Negotiator. The time is 2142. Do you hear me, sir?”

General Kenobi nods tightly. “Yes, I hear you.”

“What is your name and rank, sir?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the General replies. “Jedi Master.”

“Good. Do you know who I am, sir?”

“Commander Cody,” the General says, his breathing evening out a little. “Captain Rex is here as well.”

“That’s right. Breathe with me, sir,” Cody says. “In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.”

The General breathes, in and out. Cody continues talking his General through whatever episode he’s experiencing, forcing himself to stay calm despite how nervous he feels. It’s not the first time he’s had to do this after some kind of Force episode, but it’s not something he does often, and it’s always terrifying to see the General cut down at the knees like this. It’s a good five minutes before the General’s pain finally seems to subside.

“My apologies,” the General says faintly. “I didn’t--I did not expect that to happen.”

“Are--Are you all right, sir?” Rex asks.

“Not exactly. I admit, I am…a little unbalanced,” the General says. He looks up at Rex and Cody, and his gaze is a little unfocused. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to see much.”

“It seems like you saw enough,” Cody replies.

The General shakes his head. “I must have done something incorrectly--all I saw were parts of my own memories, and before I could correct my technique, there was something in the Captain’s mind that forced me to break the connection,” he says. “A--a void, of sorts.”

“What?” Rex asks.

“It’s a trap. A memory that would drive those who experience it to insanity,” the General says. “A psychic land mine, you could call it.”

That…sounds exceptionally bad. “How is that possible?” Cody asks. “If it’s a memory that would drive you insane, wouldn’t that make the Darksider insane, too?”

“Yes, that’s the pertinent question, isn’t it?” the General says. He takes a deep breath and stands up rather unsteadily. “I…need to meditate. I extricated myself before I got too deep, so I will be okay, but I need a few hours to recover. My apologies, Commander. Captain.”

“Do what you need to, sir,” Cody says. “I’ll send Mitts to check on you later.”

General Kenobi nods and makes a swift exit from the medbay. Rex watches him go, seeming more than a little uneasy. Cody feels the same.

Cody sighs and sits on the bed, next to Rex. With the General gone, they aren’t Commander and Captain, just brother and brother. For clones, ranks and brotherhood are usually one in the same, but at times like this…the difference matters.

“Well, on the bright side,” Cody says, “it looks like you’re immune to people going into your head now.”

Under any other circ*mstances, Rex would laugh or shoot a dirty look at Cody for a crack like that, so it says something to his state of mind that all he says is an uneasy, “Yeah, looks that way.”

“Rex,” Cody says. “Are you okay? It doesn’t look like you were hit with that…psychic bomb, but I just want to make sure.”

“I think I’m okay,” Rex says. “That Zabrak, he did something to my memory. Deadened it. He said it would be annoying if I went insane. I can’t remember whatever General Kenobi saw even if I tried.”

“How considerate,” Cody says dryly.

Rex lets out a long breath. “Yeah, I don’t like it, either.”

He has no more to say, and Cody has never been a fountain of words, much less reassuring ones, so the conversation stalls. That’s fine. It’s enough to be here and make sure Rex is okay.

Cody closes his eyes and listens to the slow beep of medbay machines and tries not to think about all the things that are to come. When he’d gotten Rex’s distress beacon, he’d been concerned. But then he had checked with the 501st and with the General and learned about the fake mission and then…then he’d gotten scared. Scared because anything could have happened to Rex. Scared because there was so much Rex knew that could end up tearing the Republic down. Scared because Rex was his brother.

It was a relief to find Rex uninjured behind that door, but the uneasiness remains. If Rex isn’t safe in the middle of his own flagship, then nowhere is safe, and Cody can’t help but think there will be a next time.

“Cody?” Rex finally says.

Cody looks up.

“Do you…trust your General?”

Cody stares at Rex. Surely he did not actually say something that absurd. “Is this a trick question?”

Rex shakes his head. “Do you trust him? Are you loyal to him?”

“He’s my General. I trust him with my life and the life of all my brothers. I trust him with your life,” Cody says. “What the hell are you trying to ask?”

“Would you follow his orders no matter what?” Rex asks. “If he told you to--to shoot me, would you do it?”

Cody clenches his fists. He doesn’t like thinking about having a brother on the other end of his blaster, and Rex knows it. “General Kenobi would never do that,” he says. “Rex. Why are you asking these questions? What’s going on?”

“I’m a loyal soldier,” Rex says. “I’m supposed to be loyal to the Republic and loyal to my General, but…Cody.” His voice trails off, and he signs, close to his body so nobody can see, “The two may not be the same.”

Cody falls silent. Practically half the GAR has some inkling by now of Skywalker’s latest excursion to rescue Senator Amidala after the release of that ransom holovid. Perfectly reasonable, given the Senator’s importance and the obvious threat of a clone traitor--if not for the post he deserted to do so.

“Skywalker made the choice he felt was most appropriate,” Cody says flatly.

“Of course,” Rex replies, voice just as flat. It’s an agreement, but not nearly the enthusiastic defense Rex has made for Skywalker in the past.

Cody doesn’t respond, just waits to see where Rex is going with this. They aren’t talking sedition yet, but it’s getting a little close for comfort.

Rex lets out a breath. “Anakin didn’t come for me,” he says. “I know I’m--I’m just a clone, but he didn’t even try. And I’m sure that was the choice he felt was most appropriate. Or maybe he just…didn’t realize something might be wrong. But it shouldn’t have been you that walked through that door. It should have been Anakin, or Jesse, or Fives or something.”

“We were the closest ones who didn’t have an active engagement,” Cody says. “And General Kenobi wanted to see you personally, since the Darksider who kidnapped you impersonated him. Personally calling General Skywalker all the way out here would be prohibitively difficult and inefficient.”

Rex nods slowly and looks down at his hands. “Right. That makes sense,” he says, not sounding completely convinced. “After all, Anakin had just come back from Coruscant and rescuing the Senator. He wouldn’t be able to rescue me.”

“Rex. Be very careful what you say next.”

Rex doesn’t respond, not out loud. With his hands, he asks, “Would you shoot your General?”

Cody stands up. “Rex.”

“If the General betrayed you, if the General shot your brothers, if the General--”

Cody grabs Rex by the wrists, cutting the signs short. “Rex. I think you’ve been through a very difficult time. You need rest.”

Rex looks Cody in the face and says out loud, “General Kenobi’s eyes.”

“What?”

“When he looked into my mind or whatever Force thing he did. It was his--it was his eyes that set me off, more than anything else,” Rex says softly. “General Kenobi’s eyes…they look just like that Darksider’s.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cody asks.

“Exactly what I said,” Rex replies. “The shape, the color, everything. I can’t forget what those eyes look like, Cody. They’re a dead ringer for General Kenobi’s.” He pulls his hands out of Cody’s grip. “I don’t know what it means. I just…I figured I should tell you.”

Cody frowns. “Maybe they’re some kind of shapeshifter. Between the voice and the eyes…It’s not like General Kenobi is a hard man to find a holo of.”

“I don’t know. I had to tell someone, that’s all.” Rex turns away from Cody. “But you’re right. I’m tired, Cody. I’ll get some rest.”

Cody looks him up and down. Rex looks tired. He doesn’t look nearly as bad as he could, considering the circ*mstances, but he looks spent and small, with a tremor in his hands and bags under his eyes. Cody puts a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

“Sure,” Rex says. “Not like I’ve got any other choice. See you around.”

Cody nods, then leaves Rex alone like he clearly wants to be.

It’s a few hours later when Cody is working through the most recent stack of mission reports that there’s a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he says.

The door slides open. A brother in medical uniform stands stiffly in the doorway and salutes. “Sir?”

Cody puts his stylus down. “Mitts. Come in, kid.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Mitts says. He steps into the office and the door slides shut behind him.

“Report,” Cody says.

Mitts nods and takes a deep breath. “General Kenobi is well. He is awake, alert, and oriented times four. His neurologic and physical function is back at baseline. Cognition is normal. Vitals are normal. His gait is regular, he has no tremor. Reflexes are at baseline. He denies any pain, disorientation, dizziness, or hallucinations. He was eating a meal when I left him. Sir.”

That’s good. Mitts always makes sure the General is appropriately managed--and General Kenobi hardly ever seems to fight Mitts like he used to fight with Carrion, the old CMO. Cody sometimes wonders if it’s because General Kenobi feels sorry for the kid, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. If the General is being taken care of, he’ll take what he can get.

“Do you believe there will be any lasting effects to the ‘psychic bomb’ he experienced?” Cody asks.

“No, sir,” Mitts says. “While Force abnormalities are difficult to correlate to specific findings on imaging, normal signs on neural maps have strong negative predictive value for persistent Force effects.”

“You mean his neural maps look normal,” Cody says. “So we shouldn’t need to worry about any Force nonsense.”

Mitts looks sheepish. “Y-yes, sir. That’s what I--that’s correct, sir.”

Not for the first time, Cody is struck at how small Mitts is, almost two years younger than most of the other brothers deployed on the 212th. When he’d been deployed, he had been more than a full head shorter than everyone else, not even been tall enough for armor, and even now it’s still painfully obvious how young he is. He’d been terrified out of his wits when he first arrived. To the best Cody can tell, he still is.

Nobody in their right mind would choose Mitts for chief medical officer. The kid’s smart as hell, and a damn good surgeon besides, but he’s too young and anxious and his memory problems are difficult to work around. Even Carrion, the bastard who tricked Cody into approving Mitts' assignment to the 212th in the first place, would agree--but Carrion died a few months back, and Cody simply hadn’t had a choice. Mitts was the only one with the knowledge and skills to step into the role of the 212th CMO. He does the job, and he does it better than anyone else could have, but nobody is really happy about it, Mitts least of all.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Cody says. “It wouldn’t be very good on optics if High General Obi-Wan Kenobi were taken down by a little Force anomaly. Darksiders would be bombarding us with holomail asking for tips and tricks.”

Mitts looks at him blankly. “…Sir?”

Cody sighs. “That was a joke. Is there anything else, kid?”

“I--yes, sir,” Mitts says. “I was…um. It’s not concrete, but I--it’s important. I think. Sir.”

“What is it?”

Mitts fidgets nervously, then visibly forces himself to stay still. “It’s--it’s about Captain Rex, sir.”

Cody’s brows draw together. “Rex? What about him? I thought his tests turned out fine.”

“They--they did, sir. This is, um.” Mitts grips the hem of his scrub shirt. “This is different. His armor had signs of--it had been shot by a blaster at variable distances, all less than ten meters. However, Captain Rex’s body wasn’t--he didn’t have any signs of getting into a firefight. He has no defensive wounds. He also had no muscular strain injuries consistent with being restrained for a long period of time. He had no ligature marks. He had no signs of torture. Sir.”

“What are you trying to say?” Cody asks.

“I--sir. Captain Rex reports that he was kidnapped. Sir,” Mitts says. “But he has no injuries, however mild, consistent with fighting. The blaster shot marks on his armor appear to have been made by a GAR-issue blaster, very likely his own pistols, and there is no dirt or scuffing to indicate Rex fought his captor. Sir.” Mitts swallows. “I believe it’s--I think it may be possible that, um, Captain Rex went with his captor willingly. Sir.”

“The Darksider who captured Captain Rex tricked him into believing it was a classified mission from General Kenobi,” Cody says.

“Yes,” Mitts agrees, “but his nutritional profile is unbalanced--there is an overabundance of certain compounds, a slight deficiency in others, which is consistent with a, um, a varied natborn diet. Fresh foods. Additionally, he was--the clothes he was wearing when he was retrieved were clean and very close to his size. There were no signs of blood or other bodily fluids. If he was, in fact, kidnapped by a Darksider or other enemy agent, he was treated, um. Extremely well. Sir.”

“Kid. Be careful of what you’re about to say,” Cody says slowly.

“Sir, I don’t--I don’t want to accuse Captain Rex of anything. I really--I don’t. But all the signs indicate that he was--he was treated very gently by the enemy, and--” Mitts seems to visibly steel himself. “It looks very much like…like Captain Rex either conspired with or, or, um. Cooperated very well with his captors.”

“Mitts,” Cody says. “Captain Rex is not the kind of man who would sell out his people under any circ*mstances.”

“I--I know, sir. But he has no signs of being physically restrained except for the chafing of the cuffs you found on him, and that chafing was only consistent with a few days' restraint, not the tenday he was reportedly held captive.” Mitts gestures widely. “Sir, the distress beacon was sent from his armor, which he wasn’t wearing when you rescued him. How could that distress beacon be sent, unless the Captain activated it and then allowed himself to be cuffed, or he--he told his captors how to operate clone armor?”

“That’s enough!” Cody says, getting to his feet and taking a step closer to Mitts. “Rex is not a traitor. He is one of the most loyal soldiers in this army, and you’ll do well to remember that, do you understand?”

Mitts seems to shrink under his gaze. “I--sir--”

“Mitts. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” Mitts says, barely audible. “Yes, sir. I--I understand. Sir.”

“Good,” Cody says. “Is there anything else?”

Mitts shakes his head. “N-No. No, sir.”

“Then get out of here,” Cody says. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

Mitts nods. “I--yes, sir. I’ll return to the--I will be in the medbay, sir. If you need me.”

Mitts salutes shakily, then flees as fast as he can go. Cody watches as him leave, until the door slides shut and takes him out of view.

Cody takes a deep breath and slumps back down in his chair. He knows Mitts has never gotten along well with the 501st, but to accuse Rex of treason--

It’s unthinkable. Rex is one of the best soldiers and one of the best men Cody has ever known. There’s nothing--nothing--that would turn Rex from the Republic. Not money, not the Dark Side, not even Skywalker’s constant boneheaded plans.

Cody presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and curses the Darksider who caused all this trouble. Between kidnapping Senator Amidala and Rex and going through Rex’s memories and leaving behind psychic traps, he can’t even fathom what this Darksider’s goal can be, except to tear down the Republic. But how? The pieces don’t fit into any shape Cody can recognize.

Cody’s scared. He’s not too proud to admit it. He’s a Commander, not a spymaster, and he hates it when enemies come out of the woodwork and start playing sneaky. He hates being blind, just waiting for the next strike and having no idea where it will come from--especially when this Darksider who came out of nowhere is such a total unknown.

Who knows what diabolical scheme they’re up to right now?

Summary:

Obi-Wan meets his new squadmates. Some other things happen, too.

I woke abruptly, uncomfortably, in a pile of dirty laundry.

I wasn’t in there because I wanted to be--the lower deck laundry room was the only place in the flagship where I could get any sleep, was all. It was central enough that I could feel some faint amount of Force from all the living soldiers throughout the ship, and secluded enough that nobody would happen upon me as long as I made sure to keep my sleep to specific hours. Unfortunately, the sleep I could safely get was limited to five or so hours a day-cycle and the sleep I did get was not restful. Hyperspace, as always, was not kind to me.

I pushed myself out of the hamper of clone bodysuits I had been using as a very poor excuse for a bed. It was not the worst thing I had ever slept on, in comfort or in smell, but it did much worse things to my back than sleeping on the ground in Melida/Daan had when I was fifteen. I spent a few minutes stretching in a futile attempt to get the aches out of my muscles and joints, then pulled my armor on. I was better at it now--I no longer felt the ghost of Rex’s hands when I did the clasps, probably because Rex had never spent quite so much time putting armor on while beat to hell.

I checked my encrypted comm line. Maul had sent me a message, letting me know he was en route to his first target and had not yet exploded anything, which I found encouraging. At least his side of the plan was going well. The jury was still out on mine.

It had been four days since I made my way onto the flagship as part of the Republic’s clone army. Four days since Comp’s unnecessary death, four days since being recruited to a squad, four days of sleeping in laundry rooms and trying very hard to not stand out in a sea of white plastoid. Only four days and already it felt like a lifetime.

Keeping a secret identity on a ship full of clones was not as easy a task as I had implied to Maul it would be. The Republic did not believe in things like ‘private freshers’ or ‘private sleeping quarters’ for its clone army. Food I had to take at odd hours so I wouldn’t be seen. Hygiene I had to resort to using one of the underpowered portable handheld sonics. Shaving I hadn’t gotten around to yet, but I was sure that would end up troublesome when I did. Sleeping, well, there I was in the dirty laundry.

It didn’t do any favors for my dignity, but it wasn’t as if I had much to begin with.

With a headache pounding between my temples and a body that protested movement at every turn, I left the laundry room and returned to my assigned dormitory. It was 0500, before the flagship’s day-cycle lights had activated and before my squadmates were usually awake, which gave me a little time to meditate before facing the rest of the day.

I keyed in the code and the door slid open. It was cramped, with a shared closet/armory at the back of the room and two triple-bunk beds on either side, with barely enough headroom to even sit up and a small niche next to each bunk where soldiers kept small personal items. Outside sleeping hours, the bunks could be flipped up into the wall and let down desks, which let the dormitory be used as a workspace to fill out reports. It was, frankly, a claustrophobic nightmare. Thank goodness I personally preferred small spaces, because it would be quite an effort to make any of it smaller.

I entered the dormitory silently. There was the slow sound of breathing, and the quiet ebb and flow of the Force between the men as they slept. Clones, I had found, slept in shorter bursts than natborns did, but very deeply. I went to slide into my own bunk and lay down on a properly horizontal surface, when--

I felt eyes on me.

I looked up to meet that gaze and found the darkened silhouette of a clone in the closet doorway. The floor emergency lights let me see that he was not wearing a helmet, but not the pattern on his armor or his face.

“Tracer,” he said softly. “A bit early, isn’t it?”

I had no response to that.

The clone approached me and grabbed me by the shoulder. I still couldn’t see who it was. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

What choice did I have? I opened the door and followed him out.

The clone who had confronted me was named Tazo. He was a technician and the field medic at the last deployment, the one whose armor had the chaotic paint except for the right bracer which remained plain white. At this moment, he was dressed down--boots and bracers only. He had shoulder-length hair that had been tied up into a high tail, and red tattoo stripes across his cheeks. His build was strong, as all clones were.

He was one of my new squadmates. He did not like me very much.

He walked us down the darkened corridors, keeping a firm grip on my arm all the while. It was quiet--the GAR flagships did not have curfew, but hardly anyone would miss out on sleep when they had the opportunity.

“CT-0811,” Tazo said, after we’d walked a few minutes down the corridor. “When did you leave the dormitory last night?”

I didn’t see much point in lying--it wasn’t a question he would have asked unless he already had some inkling of the answer. I signed: Time, Zero.

Tazo nodded. “Right around day-change. When I woke up at about 0100, you were already gone, so yes, that sounds right.”

I replied: Query, Status, You, Awake, Sustained.

“Well, what could I do?” Tazo said coyly. “I noticed that our newest shiny was gone in the middle of the night. Of course I had to stay up to make sure he hadn’t gotten into any kind of trouble.” He faced me directly and his playful expression evaporated. “Kid, what were you doing outside the dormitory for five hours in the middle of the night cycle? And if the way you snuck in was any indication, this isn’t the first time.”

I was sleeping in the laundry, but I was hardly about to tell Tazo that--that would lead to further explanations I wasn’t in a position to give.

Tazo scowled. “I’m not sure if you realize this, but this isn’t Kamino. There’s a war on, kid. You’re not here to screw around.” He jabbed me in the chest. “Spicy might be ready to vouch for you, but I’m not convinced. If you want to be a part of this squad, you have to prove you can pick up the slack.”

That was a vast overestimation of how much I cared about being in Deadfall squad, though I had the presence of mind not to say that to Tazo’s face. I didn’t dislike Deadfall--it was an ambush and reconnaissance squad, which played well to what strengths I had. But it’s not as if I’d expected to be personally recruited into an established squad of seniors. It just happened that Spicy was the clone whose rifle I had borrowed to snipe down that proximity sensor on the last deployment, and her squad, Deadfall squad, happened to need a spotter on account of the previous one no longer being alive. Naturally, Spicy had recruited me for the spot, and so there I was.

I could see why Tazo would be annoyed. Where Spicy had witnessed my miracle shot through the dust, Tazo had spent two whole days watching me fall behind my peers in the medical tents, not even able to keep up with the minimum amount of manual labor expected of a genetically engineered clone soldier. For me to take the place of his dead squadmate…

Well, I didn’t think I would be very happy, either.

Fortunately, success in my mission had very little to do with how happy Tazo was. If he hated my guts, that was no skin off my back, just so long as he didn’t report me.

“I’m telling you this for your own good, kid. If you don’t shape up soon, you’re going to die out there,” Tazo said when the silence had stretched on for a little too long. “We’re being deployed again in two days. This sneaking around has to stop--it’s not just your life on the line, it’s all of us. I am not dying because some co*cky shiny thinks being a soldier is some kind of joke.”

I nodded.

Tazo squinted at me. He seemed to think I was a little slow. “Do you understand the words I’m saying?”

I replied: Order received.

Tazo grimaced and shoved me away. “You’re not gonna make it, kid,” he muttered as he stalked past and back down the hall. It didn’t take Force sensitivity to know what was going through his head.

He could think whatever he liked. I had nothing to prove to him.

Tazo, it turned out, was quick to prove me wrong.

The man was relentless--he watched me like a hawk as I did my assigned duties and practiced my shooting and read about the planet we were soon to land on. He watched me so closely that it was hard to even find opportunities to eat and drink. His focus was so sharp that it made me feel like I was about to get sniped.

I knew he didn’t like me, but what the hell was this? New recruits got hazed sometimes, sure, but this was something else entirely.

At the end of the day, Tazo pulled me aside into a training room. It was a mostly empty gymnasium with mats on the floors, primarily for practicing close combat. There was already someone waiting there: a clone dressed down to boots and bracers with a face that was strikingly identical to Tazo’s, even for a clone--he even had matching tattoo stripes on his cheeks. His hair was plaited back in two braids tight to the scalp--one down the left and one down the right.

“This is the new kid?” the clone asked. He sounded bored. He stood up to get a better look at me. “Armor’s pretty clean. Guess you didn’t get shot at that much in the last deployment.”

I shrugged.

“My name’s Pip,” the clone said. “I’m Deadfall’s medic--the real one. I didn’t see you for mandatory checkup after that last deployment.”

Well, there was a reason for that.

“Tazo says you’re a misfit--and that means something, coming from him,” Pip continued when I didn’t reply. “We reach atmo tomorrow. Deadfall is a forward squad--you’ll be one of the first eyes we have on the site. You can’t do that unless you’re medically cleared, first.”

I signed: Query, Orders.

Pip glanced sidelong towards Tazo. “Does this one talk?”

“He can,” Tazo replied, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Pip looked at me. “Do you talk, soldier?”

“I do,” I said.

Pip frowned.

“Sir,” I added belatedly.

“Oh, you’re going to be a handful,” Pip said under his breath. He glanced back at Tazo and some unspoken words seemed to pass between the two. Whatever it was, Pip sighed, then looked me straight in the visor. “I won't beat around the bush. We’re not stupid and we’re not blind. It’s obvious you’re hiding something.”

I neither confirmed nor denied it. It’s a rookie mistake to give up information when you don’t have to.

“I don’t really give a damn what it is,” Pip said. “If it’s a mutation or some kind of disability or whatever. But if you’re going out to the front lines, we can’t afford dead weight. So I’m going to give you two options, soldier. Either you take off your armor and let me do my medical exam…” Pip took a step back and brought his fists up. “Or you prove to me right now that you don’t need one.”

Interesting. This was not standard operating procedure. By all rights, these two should have reported me if they knew I was hiding things--plenty of clones would have. But instead, they were giving me a chance to prove my secrets wouldn’t cause harm to any brothers.

Still, I was in armor and he was not. It seemed a bit unfair. I replied: Query, Combat, Self, You, Now.

“I said what I said,” Pip replied.

Okay. Well, if he asked for it, who was I to deny him?

I lunged for him.

Pip dodged my first strike easily--he was quick on his feet, and surprisingly agile for a bulky man. He stayed on the defensive, just dodging and deflecting to feel me out. I was slower than him by a good margin--my aching body and the armor weighing me down did no favors--but I didn’t make things easy for him. As Pip weaved between my strikes, I could feel how his intent made the Force shift and slide through him--and through that, I could sense his movements a split-second before he made them.

Left jab. Right hook. He deflected them, but not as easily. My hits inched closer as I got a better feel for him and the way he moved, and then--

My left fist struck him in the stomach.

Pip grunted, more surprise than pain--there wasn’t much force in the blow and it was only my flesh hand--and this time when he looked at me, he did it like he thought maybe I was worth looking at.

I pulled back, fists up. Pip wasn’t satisfied with that, not by a long shot. He was working me up, thinking about what it would take to take me apart.

He struck. I dodged it, barely--his fist clipped my helmet. The next strike hit my shoulder--he had a punch like a hammer, even through the armor. The third strike…

I grabbed his arm, pivoted in, and levered him down over my hip. He went down to the mat, but before I could pin him, he twisted and swept my legs out. My back slammed the mat hard--the weight of the armor was no joke and gravity worked against me--and the next moment I knew he was on me, knee braced on top of my diaphragm and thumb pressed against my throat.

I was cooked.

“Hm,” Pip said. He didn’t look bored now--he looked sharp, like a scalpel. “You’re a lot lighter than you should be, soldier. And you’re not strong--you’re using leverage to make up for it. You’re stiff, too. You haven’t recovered from the last deployment, have you?”

He said it like a question, but he already knew. Eyes like that knew anything.

“If I had my way, you wouldn’t go planetside tomorrow. You could probably do the job, but it’d do more damage to you--that’s not sustainable. But I’m not the one in charge of you.” Pip looked back towards Tazo. “What do you think?”

I heard footsteps, and Tazo was there, squatting next to me. “Where did you learn to fight like that, kid? I don’t think I’ve seen that throw before.”

Kamino, I signed.

“Huh,” Tazo said. “I must have missed that module.” He reached out and hooked a finger under the lip of my helmet. “You did pretty good against Pip, kid. If you’re willing to go that far, you must have some pretty big secrets. That’s not a good thing for a clone to have.”

He tugged up on my helmet, just hard enough that I could feel the pressure. That made me sweat--that was too close for comfort, even for me.

“What’ll I see if I pull this off? Some kind of pigmentation mutation? A scar you’re embarrassed about? Are you missing an eye?” Tazo asked. He grinned nastily and let my helmet go. “Well, if you don’t want to come clean, that’s none of my business. You probably won’t get any of us killed. I guess that’s all I can ask for.”

Tazo got up, and Pip got off of me. Neither one helped me up.

“Here,” Tazo said, tossing some ration bars and a canteen into my lap. “You haven’t eaten all day, have you? We’ll wait outside. Don’t take too long.”

With that, he and Pip left. I didn’t feel their gaze or anyone else’s, so it wasn’t a trick. It didn’t make me feel any better.

It chafed me, to play these games. To eat when they said eat and bark when they said bark, like I was some kind of show animal they could command around and expect to get results. But what option did I have? I needed food and water, and I doubted they would give me any other chance before we went planetside. I could be stubborn when I wanted to be, but I didn’t have so much pride to starve myself for it--war had taught me that lesson the hard way. I tore the flimsi packaging on the bars open and choked down four of them--all the sludge I could handle without feeling sick. Even then, it sat heavily in my stomach and left a dusty taste in my mouth that water couldn’t wash away.

It was fortunate for the Republic that the clone army was barely better than slave labor--it would be hard-pressed to find an entire army in its right mind that would endure all this willingly.

What that said about me, well, I hadn’t been in my right mind since I was fourteen.

But I already knew that.

The 352nd Battalion was deployed to a small moon called Ylis III. It was a highly aquatic moon with a sixteen-hour day cycle that was home to a small but valuable Separatist outpost--a communications relay station for this sector of the galaxy. If Republic forces were able to capture the outpost, then they could intercept a good portion of Separatist communications and perhaps even get insight into their future plans. If capture wasn’t possible, then bombing it all to scrap would do just fine.

Republic intelligence reported that there were no sentient inhabitants on the moon. The mainland was largely barren--the moon’s heavy atmosphere meant very little sunlight reached its surface, so there wasn’t much in the way of plant life. The only terrestrial life was on the beaches, where a good portion of fungal colonies seemed to thrive exclusively on dead organisms washed up on the beaches from the enormous oceans. What, exactly, lay below the ocean surface to wash up on the shore was unknown to us except that clearly something living was there.

Deadfall was among the first of the 352nd to make landfall around 0800, and we landed on a small peninsula of the mainland on a beach of black sand so fine that walking felt more like wading. The sky was filled with purple clouds that seemed to glow, backlit by the sun, cloaking the whole moon in an eerie and unnatural dusk. Looking out to the ocean, it was so dark that we couldn’t even see where the water met the sky.

We were to keep our helmets on at all times while on the ground--the air was technically breathable to humans for short periods of time but it still had irritant gases that would burn the airway if we breathed too much of it. Between the grim atmosphere and generally hostile environment, it wasn’t hard to see why there wasn’t a whole lot of community on this moon.

I supposed it was a good place to put a Separatist outpost. Droids didn’t care about things like sunlight or sentient communities or viable food sources. It made locating the outpost easy, at least--while we didn’t know exactly where it was, it was attached to a reactor that supplied power for the outpost and all the droids within it, which made it simple to use sensors to figure out which direction it was in.

“Tracer, you see anything?” said a voice through the comms. I looked to my side--one of my squadmates, Pinup, was looking over my shoulder. They had their sniper rifle slung across their back and a spotter kit in a bulky duraplast case.

I lowered my binocs. “Not much. There’s a lot of ocean between here and the outpost. Too much to actually see it,” I said. “But that isn’t saying much. The horizon is only about three kilometers out.”

Pinup took the binocs from me and scanned over the black ocean. “Ah, damn, you’re right. I was hoping we wouldn’t need to set up aerial maps. Things can never be so easy, huh?”

I could sympathize. We knew the Separatist outpost wasn’t on the mainland, so logically, it must be on one of the many islands that dotted the moon’s ocean. Because very few of the islands were large enough or sturdy enough to support all the necessary transport vessels, our only feasible method of approach was to get our forces situated on the mainland, then take waterspeeders or low-atmo ships to the outpost itself. Because of the thick cloud cover, we couldn’t use the flagship’s imaging to locate the outpost from orbit, so it was up to us, the forward reconnaissance squad, to go ahead and actually find our enemies so we could attack them.

Our work was cut out for us. While transports brought down supplies and assault squads and set up camp, Deadfall piled into a stealthy waterspeeder and set out across the ocean towards the Separatist outpost. Pinup piloted their spotter droid overhead while Tazo hunched over a complicated device that converted the droid’s survey information into usable maps. The remaining two members of Deadfall--Deadbolt and Spicy--piloted the waterspeeder while I had the dubious honor of manning the binocs and sensors. I didn’t know why they trusted a wet-behind-the-ears recruit to navigate them across open ocean, but I supposed I was the team’s spotter now. I wouldn’t be a very good one if I couldn’t even spot a whole Separatist outpost.

I did as I was asked, feeling uneasy all the while. These oceans were smooth, but they were vast and dark and low in salt content--if any of us fell in, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to make it back to air. The Force on this moon was not quiet--we were surrounded by living things, lurking unseen just below the ocean’s glassy surface. With my broken sense of the Force, I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was down there, but the slow and deliberate way it flowed put me in the mind of something very large, like an ancient mythosaur that made the ground tremble with every step. Whatever it was, if it was there, I hoped it didn’t mind visitors. Even thinking that felt like tempting fate.

I finally spotted the outpost some forty kilometers from the mainland--a blocky duracrete fortress built on a rocky cliff, well above the high tide line. It had a few signal lights mounted on the outside, but no windows--droids didn’t care for that kind of thing, and even if they did, there was nothing to see.

Spicy looked out towards the island, and we waited for her decision on how to make our approach. She nudged me in the side. “You think you can do what you did last time and see if there are any sensors before we get into shooting range?”

I shook my head. “I can’t really do it unless they see me first.”

“Then you just need to go into the line of fire, right?” Tazo asked. “Seems simple enough.”

I looked at him and hoped that my body language could convey what I thought he ought to do with that idea. “I would prefer not to,” I said. “Why don’t we use some of these nice sensors and do a scan the normal way?”

“Don’t get smart, kid,” Tazo said. “It’s not a good look on you.”

“Would you prefer I was dumb?” I asked. “And here I thought you wanted me to not get any of you killed.”

“Kid, I think I like you better when you don’t talk,” Tazo drawled. “Does mouthing off do something for you?”

Before I could retort, Spicy sighed and said, “Tazo. Tracer. Lay off. Now is not the time.”

“No, it’s not,” Tazo agreed. He tapped on his device, transmitting his maps back to the rest of the 352nd. “All right. Why don’t we see what the Seppies have in store for us today?”

We made landfall on the island and scouted out the area surrounding the outpost. We did, in fact, locate a handful of proximity sensors and cameras, which we disabled, but other than that there were hardly any defenses besides a semi-regular droid patrol. It was bizarre--there were no shield generators, no turrets, no warships on standby. It was about as straightforward as it could be--the hardest part really was just finding the place.

Over the course of the next few hours, several squads--mostly infiltration and assault--met up with us on the island’s shore. We briefed them on what we’d learned about the outpost and they did whatever they needed to prepare their attack. I wasn’t involved in much of the process--even if I was part of Deadfall, they thought I was a fresh rookie with no battlefield experience to speak of.

I wasn’t cut up about it. I’d had my fill of planning attacks years ago and I wasn’t eager for seconds. Let someone else handle the explosives for once.

And handle the explosives they did. The entire attack on the outpost lasted less than six hours from soldiers reaching the island to putting a blaster bolt into the very last droid. The 352nd took over the outpost with such incredible ease and efficiency that it almost seemed insulting that Republic command had requested an entire battalion for this mission.

I don’t generally believe in things being ‘too easy’--I’ve spent so much time around idiots that I know it really is possible for people to be that incompetent. But this…really did feel too easy. As our soldiers fanned out to take stock of our newly captured Separatist outpost, I couldn’t help but wait for the other shoe to drop.

This was how I found myself, two hours later, helping Deadfall squad comb through a room full of data consoles while Tazo muttered curses at it all. “This kriffing Seppie trash,” he said under his breath. “Think they’re too good for graphical user interfaces.” Sure enough, none of the consoles had screens--droids didn’t need them, since they could interface the information directly.

Still grumbling, Tazo rummaged in his bag and pulled out what looked like a very bulky datapad. It had a cable hanging from it, ending in a scomp link, which he plugged into the console’s droid interface port. A whole lot of text started scrolling on the datapad’s screen, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it--slicing had never really been my strong suit.

“Is there anything useful?” Spicy asked, glancing over Tazo’s shoulder.

“Too soon to tell,” Tazo said, not even bothering to look up. “It doesn’t look like the communications console--must be the control systems.”

“That could be helpful,” Spicy said, taking the datapad from Tazo. She scrolled through it a few seconds, then went rigid.

“Spicy?” I asked.

“We have to get out of here,” Spicy said. “Tazo, call the evac right now. Everyone needs to get off of this island.”

“Sir?” Tazo asked.

“The reactor--there must have been a deadman switch attached to the regulator. The temperature’s rising. Fast,” Spicy said. “Call the evac now!”

Order received, Tazo signed, and into the long-distance comms he barked, “Attention all units, this is CT-300-29. Deadfall is calling for immediate evacuation. The reactor core is rising to critical temperatures. Imminent explosion risk. I repeat: Deadfall is calling for immediate evacuation. Get out if you don’t want to get caught in the blast!”

A burst of acknowledgments came through the comms, and Spicy pushed me towards the door. “Get out of here, Tracer. Down to the water speeder, get it ready to go. Tazo and I are going to activate the blast shields--we’ll be out right after you.”

No need to tell me twice. I signed acknowledgment and ran. It was chaotic--Separatists apparently didn’t believe in fire codes, so over a hundred soldiers had to rush to the outpost’s single exit. Even if Spicy and Tazo got the blast shields down, a catastrophic reactor failure would kill anyone who was still inside. Just as I hit the ground floor, the automatic reactor alarms went off, blaring sirens and setting the halls awash with red light. Between myself and the other soldiers, I couldn’t even see where I was going.

I freed myself from the crush of bodies and skated down the cliffside. Loose shale broke free under my boots and I more slid than climbed down to the shore. I slammed into black sand--it softened the landing, but not by much.

Deadfall’s waterspeeder was docked on the beach. I grabbed it by the aft and pushed, but it was sunk in the wet sand and all my efforts didn’t do anything but sink my feet, too. I could hardly get a grip. All around me, soldiers piled into larger water transports and set out back across the ocean.

I cursed. I wasn’t going to die here, not from this. Not on a lonely moon in the back-ass of nowhere. Not stranded on an island because the kriffing waterspeeder was stuck.

I braced myself against the back of the waterspeeder, took a deep breath to focus, and shoved. I’d never shoved anything harder--I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and the blood in my ears and behind my eyes. My aching body strained against the cold unfeeling machine, and I felt it loosen.

With a final colossal effort, I shoved the damned waterspeeder and the ocean tide broke it loose from the sand and into the water. It drifted slowly in the shallow surf, and I hopped in to start the engines.

I heard steps on the sand, and yelling behind me, and not a minute later Tazo and Spicy vaulted the waterspeeder’s rail and yelled at me to drive.

I drove. We broke from the shore in a roar of firing propulsor coils and ocean spray. Not thirty seconds after we exited the blast zone, the outpost blew. It went out in a roar of blue fire, disintegrating the cliff it was built into and sending shelves of rock crashing into the water. Even with the blast shields the shockwave hit us hard, hitting me like a fist to the chest and sending the waterspeeder skating across the water’s surface, spinning out of control before I could wrestle it back on course.

“sh*t,” Tazo said, slumping back against the rail. He was breathing hard. I guess even he got nervous sometimes. “That was close.”

Spicy pushed her helmet up halfway to put something in her mouth. “Close does the job. That’s all that matters.” She put her helmet back in place. “Tazo?”

Tazo nodded and opened comms. “This is Tazo, designation CT-300-29 speaking on behalf of Deadfall: Reactor has exploded. Deadfall is clear and accounted for. No casualties.”

Scattered responses filtered through the comms, congratulations and thanks and the sort of hysterical relief you can only get when you slip death by a hair’s width. I couldn’t hear much of it through the static in my ears. Maybe I ought to have felt relieved myself, but I couldn’t--I just felt senseless. Shocked, maybe.

Spicy put a hand on my shoulder. “I can take over,” she said. “You did good, Tracer.”

I didn’t give her the controls so much as she took them from me. I collapsed on numb legs and tried to not be nauseous. The Force was roiling in me--maybe from fear or adrenaline or simply being unbalanced. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Don’t look so grim, kid,” Tazo said. “You made it out alive. That’s the best anyone can do.”

I clenched my teeth. It was over. The Separatist base had exploded and nobody had gotten caught in the blast. End of story, curtain comes down, applause.

Was it really that simple?

“--bad feeling,” I said.

“Kid?” Tazo asked.

“I’ve--” I swallowed. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Yeah, that’s normal,” Tazo said. “That’s the shock. Or it’s the adrenaline crash. You’ll be fine, you get used to it.”

“No,” I said. I could feel the Force moving, and this time it wasn’t just me--it was all around me. I could feel a presence locked onto me, that telltale feeling of a noose against my neck. Something had seen me, and it was coming. “I have a bad feeling.”

In that moment, something rippled--beneath us, the glassy water began to shake. A bone-deep cry surrounded us, bassy and loud, vibrating so strongly it made my ears ring.

Tazo flinched away. “What the hell--”

The Force flashed like a grenade in my mind and I didn’t think. I grabbed Tazo by the waist and dragged him to the floor, just as something shot out of the water. It was faster than a blaster bolt, nowhere one moment and flying overhead the next, ripping Tazo’s helmet clean off.

“sh*t!” Tazo said, covering his nose and mouth with his glove.

“What is that?” Spicy shouted as she swerved to try and avoid the thing emerging from the ocean depths.

It was enormous--it towered over us, some kind of monstrous crustacean tens of meters into the sky with a gleaming red carapace in long segments grown over with fungus and barnacles and algae. There was a massive piece of durasteel stabbed into its carapace as if shot from a railgun--or flung from a high-powered explosion.

Its eyes fixed directly on our tiny little waterspeeder and it did not take the Force to tell that this creature was not happy. It raised one of its massive pincers, larger than a transport vessel, and slammed it down. It hit the water with the power of a missile, and the wave alone nearly capsized us.

“Spicy!” Tazo shouted. “Get us out of here!”

“I’m trying!” Spicy shouted back, slamming the engines back to full power.

The creature’s mouth split open, an enormous abyss ringed with sharpened mandibles, and it roared with the force of a blast wave that blew out my helmet’s audio sensors. It lurched towards us, pulling back its pincer once more.

“Get down!” Tazo grabbed Spicy out of the way--

The pincer slammed Tazo straight in the chest, flinging him straight overboard like a flimsy piece of debris and down into the black ocean.

“Tazo!” Spicy shouted. “Tazo!”

I don’t know what I was thinking in that moment. Maybe if I’d had a moment to think, I would have done something different, but there wasn’t time and there weren’t thoughts, just the sight of Tazo’s red-painted armor slipping under the ocean surface and the Force screaming through my mind.

I went after him.

The water was cold and dark. I couldn’t see in front of my face, much less where Tazo was, but my armor could ping his and I followed the sensors blindly to where Tazo had to be.

I had to hurry. The clone armor’s helmet had rebreather functions and the armor could supply two hours of oxygen, but Tazo had no helmet and no such time.

Between my mechanical hand and my armor, I sank fast. I sank through the darkness and tried not to think about whether I would or could make it back up. I didn’t have confidence I would make it. I didn’t even have a plan.

I swam. The water dragged on my armor and I could feel strands of algae pulling back on me like tangling ropes and currents in the water as that monster on the surface continued its rampage. The distance between me and Tazo closed meter by meter, second by second.

And then…I grabbed him. I don’t even know what I grabbed at first, except that it was some piece of armor, and Tazo clawed at me with the desperation of a drowning man. He dragged us both down because he was out of his mind and dying and I…

I hadn’t thought this far. I wasn’t that strong a swimmer to begin with--how could I possibly get the two of us to surface when we were so deep and only sinking deeper by the moment?

I was out of options. I was no super soldier who could drag my squadmate to safety with pure power. I was just a failed Jedi with the voiceless scream of the Force echoing between my ears.

But even failed and broken, a Jedi still meant something. The Force vibrated under my skin like an electric current, stronger here submerged in the dark waters, surrounded by unseen life and heightened by my impending death. It surged in my desperation, like fire through my veins. If I ever trusted the Force, it was now, when it was the last thing that could save me. The one thing that only I could do.

I took several deep breaths, then yanked my helmet off. Water rushed in, slimy against my skin and stinging my eyes. I grappled with Tazo in the darkness, and wrestled my helmet onto his head. With numb fingers, I sealed the helmet and activated its emergency filtration pump--it would force the water out and release its emergency supply of oxygen--maybe ten minutes at most, if we were lucky. Not enough to save us, but enough to keep him alive.

I grabbed tight to Tazo, white-knuckled and desperate to get out of this together, to make it out alive. With lungs burning and oxygen dwindling, I prayed--I begged--to a faceless Force to hear me, to help me, to save me.

I let out the last of my air, tasted water like death, and let the burning Force swallow me whole.

Summary:

Tazo survives the depths of the ocean thanks to the help of his newest squadmate, but at what cost?

Later, when the incident is all over, Tazo will not remember exactly what happened.

He will not remember seeing the monster rear back, or grabbing his Lieutenant’s armor to pull her out of the way. He will not remember the rush of the wind when the monster strikes or the impact like getting hit by a speeder or the pain of his ribs shattering against its force. He will not remember the drowning, or how he opened his mouth before realizing he was already in the water, or the feeling of grimy ocean water burning his nose and throat and rushing into his lungs.

This is what he will remember: He will remember being flung through the air, and the cold water closing over him when he hits the surface. He will remember his inability to fight against gravity dragging him down, the blackness of the water as he sinks, the crushing weight of the ocean, and thinking with the last of his dwindling consciousness how Pip won’t take the news well--he never got trained to handle death like the other medics did, and he’s got no other close brothers.

Tazo sinks headfirst down to a dark and lonely death, a death where if he’s lucky he’ll die from the pressure before the water in his lungs, a frankly garbage death for a clone where he can’t even look his killer in the eye. Deeper and deeper he goes, and through the black…

He sees light.

It’s just blurry blue dots dancing in his vision at first. Tazo blinks, trying to get rid of them, but they only get clearer, resolving into glowing blue text that is intimately familiar--the HUD of his helmet.

The synapse fires. Doesn’t connect.

He’s vaguely aware that he shouldn’t have a helmet--but his foggy mind can’t figure out how he could have it now, or what it means that he does. Before the sluggish thought can complete, he hears a mechanical noise and grimy water flushes out, draining out his mouth and lungs and back into the black ocean. On reflex, he coughs and chokes and sputters. It hurts like hell--breathing hurts and coughing hurts more, and the water burns on the way out, but the next breath he takes is air. Sweet oxygen floods into his system in a rush, filling his vision with stars and blanking his mind in sheer animal relief.

And then--there are hands on him, pulling his armor and dragging him, and…

Right in front of his face, there are eyes. Glowing pale blue in the pitch black, their pupils blown wide, human but unfamiliar eyes in a bare face twenty meters underwater. He feels more than comprehends that something is deeply wrong, a creeping cold and primordial fear that even the Kaminoans and all their engineering prowess couldn’t stamp out of him. It grips him by the brain stem, and his body tries to pull away without conscious thought, to flee to anywhere but here.

The eyes fix directly on him, and all at once, an electric sensation goes down Tazo’s body and he can’t move. Hands--impossibly strong hands--grip him by the breastplate, dragging him up, up through the crushing depths of the ocean. It doesn’t feel like swimming--it feels like he’s being dragged by a tow line, and he’s helpless to do anything but let it take him.

In a burst, he breaks the surface of the water. The motors in his helmet whir, letting in filtered air from the moon’s atmosphere, and Tazo breathes it in as much as his broken body can bear. He can’t even tread the water--his armor is too heavy and breathing alone causes sharp stabbing pain--but the hands that had dragged him to safety keep him from sinking back down. Tazo blinks rapidly. His head is spinning, his face is grimy and wet and cold and smells like blood, and the light of the surface is blinding after the blackness of the ocean depth.

In the pale light, there is a man. Slowly, mechanically, as if sensing his gaze, the man turns towards him. His eyes glow eerily in the dim light and the silhouette looks all wrong--it’s not a face that Tazo recognizes, and certainly not the face of a brother.

Fear crawls up Tazo’s throat. How could anyone be here, out in the middle of the ocean of a distant barren moon? Is he being captured? Is what lies in store for him something worse than death?

He tries to pull away, but it’s too late. The man holds him fast. A croaking sound comes out of the man’s mouth, and Tazo feels a presence settle heavily over his mind. It is not gentle--it feels like fingers digging into his brain, physically stopping his thoughts in their tracks, and he fights it--he fights the encroaching darkness as hard as he can, but in the end, he’s half-dead and this creature that has a hold on him is too strong.

He succumbs to darkness once more.

Awareness filters back to Tazo slowly. The first thing he registers is the pain--it pulses in time with his heartbeat and with every breath he takes, sharp like a knife in the ribs. The second thing he registers is soft ground under his back, grime dried on his face, and a putrid smell trapped in his helmet.

The third thing he registers is that he’s not alone.

Next to him is a man in unpainted clone armor, sitting cross-legged on the sand, staring out across the ocean. He is not wearing a helmet. His brown hair is long and braided and coiled back against the base of his skull and still wet. Tazo doesn’t recognize him.

He stares. The man is so statue-still that Tazo isn’t even sure he’s breathing.

As if detecting his gaze, the man turns towards him. There’s something unnatural about the way he moves, more like a puppet on strings than a human person, and then Tazo sees him.

It’s not a clone’s face--nobody in a million years could mistake this man for Jango Fett. His coloring isn’t dark enough, for one thing--his pale skin and brown hair and gray eyes and a thin layer of reddish stubble. There’s algae scum and specks of black sand clinging to his skin, and the start of inflammation around his eyes and mouth from atmospheric ammonia, but he doesn’t seem to mind or even notice--he doesn’t seem to notice much of anything at all. His expression is utterly blank, and Tazo doesn’t see anything behind those eyes except the emptiness of dead men.

“Who--” Tazo rasps, then breaks into a burst of sharp coughs. Pain spikes in his chest on each one--his ribs must be broken. More than one--maybe even all of them.

The man stares blankly at him, then shifts to place a hand flat across his breastplate.

“What are you--”

No more words come out. Not for lack of trying--Tazo’s lips and mouth move, but it’s as if the air itself is frozen. The man leans down, pressing against his chest in a way that does not help with the pain in the slightest, and then slowly, Tazo feels…warmth.

It creeps from the man’s hand, flowing into his lungs and chest and body, and he feels something move in there, the numbed but no less unsettling sensation of unseen hands manipulating his bones and tissues and knitting them back together.

The man pulls away, and Tazo takes a deep breath. He coughs sharply, and a glob of blood and who knows what comes out, splattering on the inside of his helmet. The second breath smells awful, but the pain is completely gone.

What the hell.

Slowly, Tazo sits up. His muscles protest the movement, but nothing is broken anymore and he can breathe normally. He looks this man in the face, then at the unpainted armor, still scuffed from training combat.

Something in Tazo’s mind finally connects.

“…Tracer?” Tazo asks. “Is that--You’re Tracer?”

Tracer--because it can’t be anyone else--doesn’t respond. He just sits and stares, not blinking, not breathing. His face pings something in Tazo’s mind, familiar in a way that makes him itch. He doesn’t have a clone’s face, not even a little bit, but he looks like…

He looks like General Kenobi.

The realization falls over him like a bucket of ice water. Tracer had a secret--that had been so painfully obvious from how weak he was and the way he sneaked around and tried to do things when people weren’t looking--and from one brother with a secret to another, Tazo had been willing to tolerate it so long as the kid could pull his weight and didn’t get anyone killed, but this…

He hadn’t thought Tracer had been hiding this.

“sh*t,” Tazo hisses. He can figure out what to do with this later--he needs to make sure the two of them get back on the flagship, first. He grabs Tracer around the shoulders, and the kid doesn’t offer much resistance--he’s practically cataleptic. “Kid, what’s happened to you? Are you--Are you alive in there?”

No response.

Tazo pulls off his glove to feel the kid’s jugular. There’s a palpable pulse, slow but strong. The kid’s definitely not breathing, but he’s oxygenating. Somehow. It doesn’t make sense--nothing has made sense since a crab monster slam dunked him into the ocean--but this kid, this idiot kid, went after a dead brother and brought the two of them back to land alive. Tazo isn’t going to pretend it’s anything natural--there’s nothing natural about dragging them up from the depths of the ocean, or fixing broken ribs with a touch, but right now, he doesn’t care if it’s the Force or magic or damn wishful thinking. He’s still alive and he’ll work with it. He can work with this.

Tazo activates the comms on his helmet--Tracer’s helmet, it must be, his own helmet is probably somewhere at the bottom of the ocean--and transmits directly to the flagship. The transmission opens quickly--as if someone had been waiting on the other end.

“Pip, it’s Tazo,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “Tracer and I need a retrieval. And Tracer…he’s going to need an isolation room.”

“I assume you’re about to explain what’s going on,” Pip says, closing the door to the isolation room behind him and locking it. “And don’t think you’re getting out of an examination, either. Spicy told me what happened to you--I’m surprised you can even walk.”

“I’m pretty surprised, too,” Tazo replies. He gets up on a chair and disables the room’s surveillance equipment. “By all means, I shouldn’t have survived. I’m just glad the flagship didn’t leave without us.”

“Spicy petitioned the General to wait. She was the only one who could report on how things went down at the outpost, anyways, and we couldn’t leave before we were sure the mission objective was actually completed,” Pip says. “And she, you know. Needed some medical attention before she could report.”

Tazo nods slowly. Spicy and Pip had stalled for time in the faint hope that he and Tracer would somehow come back. Not much time--the stall wouldn’t have given them more than six hours--but it had been enough. Because of their efforts, he hadn’t been left for dead. “Thanks,” he says softly. “You’re a lifesaver, Pip.”

Pip casts a bored eye over Tazo. “That’s what I do, isn’t it? Keep you alive. You could stand to make a contribution to the effort every once in a while.”

“Sorry. I know you love the challenge, though,” Tazo says. He grins, but even he can feel it’s a bit strained.

Pip stares at him dispassionately for a few seconds longer, then sighs and rubs the back of his head. “Brief me,” he says. “From what Spicy told me, you took a direct hit from that creature. A thing that huge, and the damage your armor took, I can’t imagine it didn’t shatter your ribcage. I know that ocean isn’t dense enough to swim in with armor, much less for one brother to rescue another. I also know you lost your helmet, yet you don’t have any signs of irritant gas exposure. Clearly, something happened between going overboard and us picking you up, and I have a pretty good idea that this soldier’s involved.” He glances down to Tracer’s still body on the bed. “So tell me what’s going on.”

“I think it’ll be easier to show you directly,” Tazo says. He goes next to the bed and lays a hand on Tracer’s shoulder. “Kid, we’re back on the ship, you can stop playing dead now.”

Carefully, Tazo helps Tracer sit up. The kid still isn’t breathing, but it’s harder to see when he’s wearing the helmet--Tazo had returned Tracer’s bucket before the rescue team picked them up so they wouldn’t see his face. It did the trick just fine, but it was only a temporary fix. Now Tazo needs a plan.

The plan, as always, starts with Pip.

“I’m going to take your helmet off,” Tazo tells Tracer slowly. Whatever the kid’s deal is, he thankfully seems to understand what he’s being told and can follow directions as long as they don’t interfere with whatever weird single-minded goal is stuck in his head. “We’re in a private room, and I’ve turned the monitors off. Pip is here, but you can trust him--he’s my brother, and we’ll take care of you. Is that okay?”

There’s a pause, then the disconcerting feeling of fingers against his mind. Tazo feels, for a moment, like he is being peeled back into his component layers, but he doesn’t let himself flinch. He’s got nothing to hide--Tracer saved his life. He’ll protect Tracer’s secrets.

After a long deliberation, Tracer seems to accept Tazo’s proposal, and lowers his head.

“Tracer’s a brother,” Tazo tells Pip. “But he’s not a clone like us. Don’t do anything rash, okay?”

“I’m not the one who does rash things,” Pip replies. “What do you mean he’s not a clone like us? What other clones are there?”

Slowly, Tazo pulls Tracer’s helmet off.

Pip sucks in a breath through his teeth. “General Kenobi?”

“It looks like the Kaminoans tried more than one template,” Tazo says, setting Tracer’s helmet aside. “I never heard anything about that. Did you?”

“No, I didn’t. If the Kaminoans had something like this cooking the whole time, they certainly kept quiet about it,” Pip says. He approaches the kid to get a better look. “His hair is so long. And he’s…Tazo, he’s not breathing.”

“I know,” Tazo says. “I don’t--I don’t know what he did, when he rescued me. I think he’s possessed or something. He gave his helmet to me while we were underwater and activated the emergency pumps so I wouldn’t drown, and I--I don’t think he’s taken a single breath since then.”

“Possessed?” Pip asks. “Is that something that can happen to Jedi?”

Tazo lets out a deep breath. “I don’t think he is a Jedi. Force sensitivity can’t be cloned--Kaminoans and other cloners have tried. But whatever is happening now, it’s probably got something to do with the Force.”

Pip makes a considering sound. “Too bad we can’t ask the General. Maybe they could clear some of this up.”

“I don’t know. This might be a little too weird, even for the Jedi,” Tazo says.

Pip acknowledges the point. “All right, help me take his armor off. Possessed or not, he needs a medical exam and it sounds like I’m going to be his medic for the foreseeable future. You know the drill.”

Tazo does. He and Pip strip the armor from Tracer’s body, then the bodyglove too, and that quickly offers its own surprises.

“That’s a mechanical hand,” Tazo says dumbly. “Pip, he’s got a cybernetic hand.”

It goes halfway up Tracer’s forearm, and it’s simple, as far as cybernetics go, with an almost skeletal appearance and brassy outer plating and no dermal covering. It’s not a standard commercial model, nor a military model found in natborn forces, and there’s no serial number etched on the port, so it’s custom-built, not mass-produced. It’s not new, either. The neural port has been scuffed matte, the surgery scars trailing all the way up the kid’s arm have long since healed, and the portion of his forearm that remains has atrophied to skin and bone--he’d wrapped padding around his forearm just to be able to wear a bracer properly.

Tazo carefully lifts the mechanical hand--the metal is cold and smooth and heavy. He can’t imagine swimming with this. “How the hell did he get this? We don’t have cybernetics on Kamino.”

“Just because they don’t have it for us doesn’t mean the Kaminoans don’t have it at all,” Pip says as he directs Tracer to lay down on the examination table. “The Kenobi stock might have been a short run--no spare parts available.”

Tazo flexes his right hand. He knows better than most why clones don’t get cybernetics. “What, you think he’s the only clone they made of General Kenobi?”

“I can’t imagine General Kenobi was the one who provided the raw material. If he had, you’d think he would have been less surprised that we existed. There probably wasn’t enough donor material to make more than one or two units,” Pip replies. He looks up at Tazo. “I know he’s possessed, but does he have to keep his eyes open the whole time? It’s a little distracting.”

“You can just ask him. He follows basic instructions.” Tazo leans down and squeezes Tracer’s flesh hand. “Hey, kid, can you close your eyes?”

Obligingly, Tracer does. It makes him look a little more natural, but not by much. Pip and Tazo continue the exam.

It’s…difficult. Tracer’s body tells a story that makes Tazo’s skin crawl, from the cybernetic hand to the numerous knife and blaster scars across his skin to the shoulder injury that looks suspiciously like a lightsaber wound--it’s clear that whatever stuff the Kaminoans put into Tracer, they didn’t bother with the regenerative healing enhancements the standard clones got.

But of all the scars, the worst ones are across Tracer’s back, a crisscross of scars layered on top of each other that look very much like whiplashes. At some point, Tracer had been lashed, and the way the scars overlap indicate it probably happened in several sessions. The scars have faded and stretched over the skin, showing they happened a long time ago--probably before or during adolescence. Tazo is no stranger to torture resistance training, but this is different--the lashes look like they might have gotten infected, and very badly at that. The Kaminoans didn’t do this--they wouldn’t have taken a risk like an infection for simple training, especially not if Tracer was their only specimen.

Tazo glances over to Pip, whose expression is uncharacteristically grim. The thoughts running through his head are probably very similar to the ones going through Tazo’s.

Pip meets his gaze. “There’s nothing we can do about it,” he says. “It’s already happened.”

Tazo clenches his fists. He hears what’s unsaid, that even if they had known about Tracer, there’s nothing they could have done then, either. He’d never been seen in any of the medbays, and they had no power to prevent disciplinary action from the trainers.

“We won’t let it happen to him again,” Tazo says. “We’ve--we can do that much. Can’t we?”

Pip sighs deeply. “Well, we can certainly try.”

Pip has his other duties in the medbay, so he leaves to take care of those before anyone starts wondering where he is. Tazo watches over the kid.

He hadn’t had a choice in that part--whatever Force-thing was possessing Tracer strongly disagreed with Tazo leaving. If he tried, the door would simply not open, no matter what. It’s really creepy if he thinks about it too long, so he tries not to. Even alternate strategies hadn’t worked--he had tried explaining that he was on the flagship and safe again, but then Tracer had tried to get up to follow him, and that was obviously not an acceptable situation.

So Tazo waits.

He looks at Tracer, lying listless on the examination table. The kid looks…young. Perhaps the equivalent of his late teens to very early twenties--maybe he had been a second or third year batch. Tazo has no frame of reference, so he has no way to know. He definitely looks younger than General Kenobi, though. He doesn’t have the crow’s feet around the eyes, nor the full beard, and he’s a bit softer in the face, whatever that accounts for. At least whatever he was doing before he joined up with the 352nd, he was eating properly.

On the table, eyes closed, undressed, deathly still, and not even breathing, Tracer is practically indistinguishable from a decommissioned body. Tazo thinks that, then immediately tries to exorcise the idea, but he can’t get it out of his head--Tracer looks dead.

Tazo grasps the kid’s hand, just to reassure himself with the kid’s body heat and pulse, but even that’s not enough. He has to do something.

So he does. He cleans the kid up, gets the algae scum and sand and ocean grime off his skin. He carefully disconnects the mechanical hand and wipes it down and sets it aside. He uncoils the kid’s braids and tugs the hair loose so he can rinse the gunk out, then coaxes the kid into a fresh bodyglove. It’s slow work and it’s still freaking weird to manipulate a human man around like a mannequin, but right now Tazo’s willing to take anything that isn’t a spot-on impression of a corpse. Tracer doesn’t mind the manhandling--he, or whatever is possessing him, is very good at communicating when he doesn’t want to do something. The simple cleaning makes the kid look a lot better, and not like he nearly drowned six hours ago.

Tazo sits him up on the table, flesh hand settled in his lap. Tracer stays in that position, relaxed and perfectly frozen with unblinking, sightless eyes. Not for the first time, Tazo feels his skin crawl to see Tracer transformed to eerie stillness. He wonders if he’s missing something here--if there’s something he’s supposed to do about this.

“You know, when I said I preferred you when you didn’t talk, this isn’t what I meant,” Tazo says softly.

A low croaking noise comes from the back of Tracer’s throat. That seems to be a hard limitation of the state he’s in--the inability to speak.

Tazo sits down on the examination table, right next to Tracer--it’s easier to pretend everything isn’t so weird when he doesn’t have to look the kid in the face. “I don’t know if you’ll remember any of this, but I have to say it,” he tells the kid. “You didn’t need to go after me. I appreciate that you did. But you probably shouldn’t have. You’re even more trouble than I am, and that’s saying something.”

Tazo wonders if anyone else knows about Tracer--surely somebody does. There’s just no way to keep something this huge under wraps unless you’ve got people on your side to keep it under wraps. Tazo’s got Pip, but Tracer…if he ever had anyone, he certainly doesn’t have them anymore with the 352nd.

It makes Tazo’s heart hurt. Every clone ought to have a big brother--someone who can watch out for them. That’s the way life works, that brothers look out for brothers because no one else will. Not the trainers or the Kaminoans then, and not the Jedi or the Admiralty now. The thought of Tracer in the white halls of Kamino, the only unit made from Kenobi stock, not having any brothers…

He wonders if Tracer is lonely.

Tazo loops an arm around the kid’s shoulder and pulls him in. The kid allows it easily, leaning into Tazo’s side despite the whole being possessed thing. Side-by-side, it’s easy to pretend that this whole situation is normal and good and not completely kriffed to hell.

“sh*t,” Tazo says under his breath. “I don’t have a good track record as a big brother. You really should have picked someone else to show your face to. I wish I could help you, but I don’t know how.”

He doesn’t know what will happen if Tracer’s secret comes out--this isn’t a case of decommission, like it would be with normal clones. The best case scenario is if Tracer gets taken in and culled. At worst…

The person who put those scars on Tracer’s back will be there to do it again, and much more besides. They’ll want to know everything, how Tracer fled and got under the radar, what he’s capable of doing. They’ll experiment on him and take him apart. They’ll milk the kid for everything he’s worth and toss him aside like trash at the end of it all. He doesn’t know if he can protect Tracer from that. He doesn’t know if he can do anything.

Tracer shifts slightly, and Tazo feels it again, the sense of fingers against his mind. It’s a heavy touch, and it’s not nearly as unsettling now that he’s experienced it five or six times--it’s almost pleasant now, like deep pressure blanketing his mind. It wraps him securely and smooths away the worst of his anxieties. Briefly, very briefly, a sense of alarm lights in Tazo’s consciousness, that his emotions are being manipulated, and this kid is brainwashing him and he’s letting it happen.

Then that thought gets smoothed away, too.

Tazo doesn’t fight it. He’s tired--he almost died, he hasn’t slept, and he’s so scared. Scared for Tracer, for Pip, for himself. As if sensing his fear, the touch on his mind grows heavier, and Tazo welcomes it gratefully. With his arm looped around his brother’s shoulders and warmth pressed to his side, he lets the kid slow his mind to silence, tugging him gently and imperceptibly into a trance. The sensation of fingers slides deeper into his brain, and he can feel his mind yielding under the strong touch like a piece of warm plastmold, feel the fingers push and pull and carve him into a new shape--and he thinks, very distantly, that this should be concerning, this is probably not a good thing. But then that hand grips a part of his mind so deep he hadn’t even been aware of its existence--and the intensity blanks him like a flashbang. Tazo gasps, all concern instantly forgotten. It feels…good.

Rising to his hunger, Tracer’s touch intensifies--pressing so deeply that it begins to sink into him, and Tazo shudders. Awareness fades. The world dissolves and falls away entirely as the trance swallows him whole, sending him deep, deep down into a dark pit that has no bottom. Out of the darkness he feels more than hears the words:

We’ll make it out of this together.

Yes. Making it out of this--the fighting, the wars, the secrets--together, Tazo wants it so bad that it hurts. He wants his brothers to stop dying, he wants to stop being so helpless to save them, and he wants them to be happy. Happy and the master of their own lives, with no GAR to order them around, no trainers or Kaminoans or Separatists to take his brothers away and never bring them back. More than the war, more than the Republic, that means everything.

In the overlap between his and Tracer’s minds, old memories bubble to the surface, lost from conscious recall but embedded deep in the fiber of where their souls connect. He sees younglings with blasters on blown-out fields overlapped with training exercises gone wrong and cadets crying out for help. He feels the moment before that one wrong step, the blast of a grenade tearing his right arm apart, the amputation and replacement that followed. He stares at his tremulous hands, nerves still raw and screaming--a nameless brother’s arm to replace his own--opens his fist--a mechanical hand made of durasteel and phrik plating. CT-517-56 into Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi into CT-517-56, they’re beginning to blend. He is a failed specimen who can no longer hold a scalpel steady, an angry and impulsive student not worthy to hold a saber. He is a medic. A Jedi. A soldier. A betrayer. A single unit in the machinery of a war. A lost cause that for some reason people keep picking back up again and again.

Down Tazo sinks--aimless, thoughtless, senseless. He’s back in the ocean again, water crushing in and flooding his lungs, only instead of darkness and grime he breathes in Tracer’s consciousness and pure light, letting it filter into his veins and into the deepest part of his soul until he can practically feel it shine out of him. He feels it spreading from his heart on outwards, feels it like the invisible hands that had moved his ribs into place and knit them back together, but the force that rebuilds him now is delicate, making careful small revisions along the borders of his mind and soul. The two of them--Tazo and Tracer--are already so similar that there’s hardly anything to change.

Tazo is tired. He’s been fighting so hard for so long. He wants the power to make it all stop. He wants peace.

Don’t worry, echoes voiceless words in Tazo’s mind. I’ll take care of you.

Calming light holds him tight, vibrating with a promise that shakes Tazo’s soul, and he can’t tell if he or Tracer is the one who made it. He can’t tell if there’s a difference anymore.

With shocking coherence, Tazo wonders if he will remember any of this when he wakes, or if he will wake at all. He wonders if he will be the same person, or if he is being forcibly transformed into something against his will--though does it really count as against his will when he accepts Tracer’s manipulations with open arms, even now?

He doesn’t think he would hate it if he woke up overwritten into someone new. Maybe he wouldn’t notice--maybe he would even like it. With the kind of power that has burrowed into his soul, fixing him and giving him some lasting sense of peace would be possible. It would even be easy.

…But it was so hard to become Tazo. It would be a shame to have all that effort washed away so easily. It would be a death of another kind, his second death, and even now, nearly subsumed by Tracer’s consciousness, he finds the idea repulsive.

And Pip…he would be devastated. He would hide it under his bored glares and coarse commentary, but if Tazo came back as someone different, Pip wouldn’t be able to take it. To see a different creature wearing his twin’s skin--that might be even worse than a normal death.

No, that’s unacceptable. He can’t do that to his closest brother--or any of his squadmates, for that matter. It would be better to wake up the same person. To remain Tazo.

So he exhales, and he breathes off Tracer’s consciousness and the shining light, purging it bit by bit from his blood and heart and soul until only he is left behind. It hurts to let it go, and he can’t help but feel apologetic--or maybe it’s Tracer who feels apologetic to him, for not being able to grant the peace he had wished for. It leaves him feeling cold and disconnected, but he has to stay himself for his brothers, if no one else.

Maybe Tracer understands, because Tazo feels that touch again, no longer permeating him but wrapping around him like a comfortable, heavy blanket.

Enveloped in his brother’s warmth, Tazo slips finally from his trance into true unconsciousness.

“--zo.”

There’s a voice, calling from very far away.

“Tazo, what’s--”

Then suddenly, pain bursts across his consciousness, yanking him to wakefulness.

“Tazo!” Pip shouts, hardly ten centimeters from his face. He’s holding Tazo by the sides of the head. “Tazo, what happened?”

He--Tazo, that’s him, that’s his name--takes a deep breath. Slowly, light filters in, resolving into a medbay room. Tazo groans and squeezes his eyes shut--everything seems too bright and sharp and his cheek aches. It’s not that surprising. Pip doesn’t pull his punches--he never learned how. “You…did you just slap me?”

Pip lets out a long and worried breath, then looks away. “You weren’t waking up,” he says, with emotion in his voice that Tazo hasn’t heard since they were cadets. “Tazo, don’t do that. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tazo says. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was just--” He tries to remember what happened and how, but even though he knows something important happened, the feeling slips away from him as he reaches for it. It’s gone, now. “--dreaming,” he finishes lamely.

Pip grabs Tazo by the face, looking him in the eyes. “Listen to me. You were not dreaming. You were not asleep. You were sitting on this bed, staring into space, completely unreactive. I just spent over five minutes getting you back, and I have no idea how long you were in that state.”

Tazo pulls away to look at the chrono. He’s pretty sure he finished cleaning the kid up about four hours ago. If he’s been experiencing altered consciousness the whole time since…

Well, that’s probably not good. He wonders if he should be concerned about that.

“Was I breathing?” Tazo asks.

Pip sighs. “Yes, you were breathing. Your heart was brady to high 30s, but otherwise your vitals were normal.” He grips Tazo by the shoulders. “Tazo. I can handle one soldier getting possessed by strange unknowable forces. I cannot handle you getting possessed by strange unknowable forces.”

“Sorry,” Tazo says. “It won’t happen again.”

Pip nods. “See that it doesn’t.” He pulls away and scrubs his hand over his face. “We jumped to hyperspace about ten minutes ago, and I felt something weird. Like someone was putting pressure on my brain and then…wasn’t. So I came back to check on you two, and I found you like this.”

Tazo looks down at Tracer, who at some time had curled up and is now using his lap as a pillow. He doesn’t look blank now, just peaceful.

“He’s breathing again,” Tazo says softly.

“Yeah,” Pip says. “I don’t know why, but it’s probably a good sign.”

“It was the hyperspace jump,” Tazo says before the thought even registers. But when he thinks about it, the more he’s sure of it. “I don’t know why, but that’s why he’s going back to normal. We should let him sleep.”

Pip raises a brow.

“I think he’s got some kind of insomnia,” Tazo says. “He kept sneaking out at nights. I don’t think he sleeps well.”

“Well, he might as well get some rest. There’s nothing else for him to do right now,” Pip says. “Spicy tells me we’ll be in transit for at least a week.”

A week. That’s good. It’ll give them time to figure out what needs to happen next, and what they’ll do with Tracer.

“We’ll need to tell the rest of Deadfall,” Tazo says. “We can’t hide it from them.”

“You should talk to Spicy. She already knows something’s up. Ever since you walked onto the transport with your own two legs,” Pip says.

Tazo nods. “I think she’ll understand. Pinup and Deadbolt--if Spicy’s on board, they’ll follow her lead.” The Second Lieutenant is the only reason Deadfall exists and has lasted this long, after all. They all owe her their lives multiple times over.

Pip hums agreement. “All right. You go take care of that, and I can figure out what I’m going to put in Tracer’s medical file. Spicy’s in Recovery Bay C.”

Tazo blinks. He didn’t think he’d do it now.

“What? Are you waiting for something?” Pip asks.

He sets a hand on Tracer’s back. “The kid’s sleeping.”

Pip looks at him incredulously. “Seriously?”

“I think the kid will wake up if I leave,” Tazo says. “And it’s probably better if he can explain some things for himself, right?”

Pip frowns. “You’ve known Tracer for less than a week and he’s already got you wrapped around his little finger.”

“Well, you know me,” Tazo says, grinning. “I’m the one who does reckless things.”

Pip stares at him. Not like he stares at his brothers, but like he stares at his patients, carefully up and down in a swift sweep. He licks his lip. “Tazo. You would…you would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

His concern rings clear like a bell, and suddenly, the room seems to bend. All at once, Tazo feels like he is too small, a explosion of light trapped and bound within an ill-fitting body. He looks up and sees Pip’s ever-present worry like a physical weight over his body, threaded through with anxiety and uncertainty and fear. Beneath it all, he sees a loyalty and affection that burns so brightly it’s nearly blinding, and Tazo--

Tazo blinks, and the illusion vanishes. The room snaps back into place, and Pip is just Pip, looking at him with increasing concern, but Tazo can’t shake off the vision. He’s always known Pip felt that way, but he’s never seen it so clearly.

Tazo feels sick. His entire body itches like there’s something inside him trying to crawl out, and something drags his gaze down to Tracer, sleeping peacefully in his lap and clinging to him like a scared cadet. Phantom sensations flicker through Tazo’s mind, of drowning in light and the sensation of a mind sinking into his until no barrier remained between the two. He remembers wondering if he would wake up changed.

He doesn’t wonder now. He knows.

He should be horrified. It’s obvious that Tracer did something to him, something so deeply subconscious that it’s been indelibly written into his being, but there is no horror or even discomfort in the realization, just an easy acceptance of puzzle pieces fitting perfectly into place. It occurs to him that it could very well be by design, that Tracer has meticulously sanded away the part of his psyche that rejects being edited, and in the very same thought he finds he does not care.

Inwardly, he has to laugh. He’s been reconditioned so cleanly, his neural pathways rewritten by Force instead of nanobot suspension. The Kaminoans could only dream of a procedure so ruthlessly efficient--only a few hours from start to finish, fully healed with no ill side effects, and the graft so seamless that there simply is no border between Tazo’s mind and the parts that have been rewired from scratch. The part of him that remembers being a medic can’t help but feel awed. How brazen, how skillful, how disrespectful to leave him so acutely aware of the hand that manipulates him, and make him crave to feel it again. Truly, what a masterpiece.

He died in that ocean, he knows now. His heart never stopped beating and he never stopped breathing, but the second Tracer went after him into the black water, it was over.

He wonders if all his brothers' minds are so easy to manipulate, or if he’s the unfortunate exception. He lays his hand across Tracer’s side, feels the warmth of his body, recalls the intoxicating sensation of dexterous fingers plunging down to the depths of his mind, and thinks it’s really not so bad.

Ever since the day he was decanted, he has been a tool and a weapon--for an ungrateful Republic, an unknowable council of Jedi, a body of faceless war profiteers with unknown agendas. If he is to be manipulated, he prefers to be wielded in the hands of someone who’s fighting for his brothers, the same way he is. If that hand happens to be Tracer’s?

He can work with that.

“Tazo?” Pip asks faintly. “Tazo, are you okay? Say something, please.”

Tazo looks up at Pip, his twin and his partner in crime and his savior and his other half, and realizes that his love for Pip, at least, has not changed. Relief floods through him--as long as he has this, he’s still himself. Everything else…

“Pip,” Tazo says, and it feels like something else is bending--he’s hearing his own voice half a second before it comes out of his throat. “You need to do something for me.”

Pip’s brows draw together. “What is it?” The air around him seems to darken with fear, and Tazo wishes so badly he could wipe that away, make things easy for him.

“I’m not the same person I was when I fell into that ocean.” Tazo’s never kept anything a secret from Pip and he can’t start now. “You know me better than anyone--even me.” He grimaces. “Especially me. Especially now. If I’m ever not myself, you need to tell me.”

“What? What happened to you?” Pip asks. “Tazo, you’re scaring me, you--”

Tazo grasps Pip’s hand and squeezes tightly. “I don’t think I can explain it, but Tracer did something. To me. To my mind. I don’t think it’s bad, or maybe I’m just not capable of thinking it’s bad. I just--”

“Tracer?” Pip cuts in, pulling away. “You mean you know he’s doing something to you, and you want to let him do whatever he wants? Tazo, get ahold of yourself--he’s dangerous, he’s controlling you, we need to do something about him, and--”

“Pip, do you trust me?” Tazo asks.

Pip stares him in the face, breathing hard. “Tazo…”

“Do you trust me?” Tazo repeats.

“Of course I trust you,” Pip says. “But can I trust that you’re you?”

“I am me,” Tazo says. “For now. But if that changes, you have to let me know, because you’re the only one who can. I want to be your brother, Pip. I don’t want to leave you. So help me stay the person you love. Okay?”

Pip stares at him, and Tazo can see, more clearly than ever, the heartbreak. It’s so hard to look at, but Tazo can’t pull his gaze away. Pip looks away first. “Why do you always put these things on me?” he asks. “Back at Kamino, then deployment, and now here--”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“If that’s what you need me to do, I’ll do it. You know I will,” Pip says softly. “We need to do something about Tracer. If he’s going to change you, I don’t want--”

“I’m going to protect him,” Tazo says. “I’m going to protect him and his secrets.”

“Why?” Pip demands. “Because he won’t let you do otherwise? What would you do if I tried to decommission him right now? Would you fight me? Would you even have a choice?”

Tazo doesn’t know the answer to that. He doesn’t feel a strong desire to protect the kid--not anything more than the baseline he feels for any brother who isn’t Pip. But just because he doesn’t feel it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, and he doesn’t want to test it--if crossing that line would flip a switch in his mind and turn him into someone else, someone who could and would hurt Pip.

“Tazo, give me a reason why you’re letting this happen,” Pip begs. “Tell me why I should let this…this stranger kill my only brother.”

Tazo wants to protest that he’s not dead, he’s right here, but he can’t--he’s not sure enough himself to say it with his full chest, and he won’t lie to Pip. Pip can always see straight through him. Instead, he says, “Because he’s fighting for the same thing we are. He’s fighting to end this war--for us. So we can be safe. So you can be safe, Pip.” He can feel the truth in the words as he says them, like a vibration against the base of his skull. He slides his hand into Tracer’s hair, feeling the long strands through his fingers. “Let me manage Tracer on my own--that way, what happened to me won’t happen to anyone else. To you. I think this is part of something big, and I…We’ll make it out of this together. I promise.”

Pip looks at him, then down at Tracer. “He has more secrets, doesn’t he? Secrets even bigger than being a clone of General Kenobi.”

Tazo nods. “I don’t know what they are. Or, I don’t know. I might, somewhere buried deep down, but not consciously. All I can say for sure is there’s something big on the horizon, and Tracer is going to be in the center of it all. I can feel it.”

“Can I trust him?” Pip asks.

“No,” Tazo says. “But you can trust me.”

“You know I trust you,” Pip says, sounding so helpless and small. “You’re the only one I do trust.”

Tazo can’t stand it. In a single movement, he pulls Pip down into a crushing hug. With one arm wrapped around Pip’s back and the other hand threaded through Tracer’s hair, Tazo murmurs, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

Summary:

Rex returns to the Resolute and gets his thoughts in order.

It’s a relief to return to the Resolute.

Rex doesn’t have anything against the 212th--Cody runs a tight ship, so being aboard the Negotiator is never an unpleasant experience--but the atmosphere of the 212th is always so much more serious than the 501st, and between him and Cody and General Kenobi and all the discussion about the Darksider who kidnapped him and what they might have done to him, it’s been…tense. Even after a week of deliberating on the situation and cross-referencing Republic intelligence, they have no answers about who these Darksiders are or what they want--it really does seem like they came out of nowhere.

So that’s great.

The Resolute hangar is hectic. Besides the usual welcoming party, there’s a solid handful of brothers champing at the bit to get details about his kidnapping, and then a whole crowd of starstruck shinies who want to get a glimpse of the famed General Kenobi and Marshal Commander Cody--apparently they’d gotten new recruits while he was busy being held prisoner, and it wasn’t Rex’s place to dissuade their fun. The novelty would wear off soon enough anyways.

Anakin is there, too, which is a surprise.

Anakin pushes past Cody to greet General Kenobi with a loud, “Obi-Wan! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Anakin,” General Kenobi says with some exasperation. “At least let me get off of the ramp before you accost me.”

Anakin holds a hand to his heart, mock-scandalized. “Obi-Wan, how could you? I thought we were friends!”

“We are friends, but there are people trying to get out of the transport vessel,” General Kenobi says, gently nudging Anakin back down the ramp.

The two Generals talk while a small squad of 212th soldiers filter out into the hangar. They’re mostly here for tech purposes--the entire Resolute needs to have its comms and codes changed because of this Darksider thing, so Cody had brought on some of his men to make it happen faster. After the 212th members have disembarked, Rex finally makes his way down the ramp.

“Captain!”

Rex turns, just in time to catch Jesse in a quick one-armed hug. “Hey, Jesse,” he says. “The men give you any trouble?”

“No, sir,” Jesse says. “All systems green. Separatists smoked out, fires extinguished, reports all filed.”

“And Fives?”

“Did a fantastic job,” Jesse replies. “I know he’s been a little on the rocks without Echo to help balance him out, but even on his own, he’s still one of our best tacticians. He brought everyone home. You can’t ask for more.”

Rex nodded. Fives was younger than a lot of the officers, but he was sharper than just about all of them. Giving him a leadership role on the battlefield was the right decision.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve done a hell of a job,” Rex says, slapping Jesse on the back. “We’ll make a Captain out of you yet.”

"I’ll become a Captain when you become a Commander," Jesse says. He pulls away, and his expression becomes serious. “Commander Cody messaged me. The special mission you were on..?”

Rex sighs. “Yeah. Not a special mission, it turns out. I’ll brief you and the men later.”

Jesse nods. “I’ll let them know. It’s good to have you back, sir. It wasn’t the same without you.”

“It’s good to be back,” Rex replies. “And I think I see Kix over there to escort me to medbay?”

“You know how Kix is,” Jesse says. “Best to get it over with. Easier for everyone involved.”

Reluctantly, Rex agrees. It’s not that he doubts the 212th medical team. It’s just hard to feel confident when their CMO is practically a fresh-faced shiny--the kid doesn’t even wear a name tag, just the CT-3122 on his ID badge. To make a bad matter worse, there’s clearly some serious beef between him and Kix that goes way back. Rex doesn’t know what happened, but it’s got to be real bad to make Kix lose his cool. He obviously doesn’t trust that kid further than he can throw him, and Rex is inclined to agree. He still can’t comprehend what possessed Cody to promote an unqualified kid with a speech impediment and a fear of his own shadow. On the GAR’s most dangerous flagship, no less.

And this whole last week on the Negotiator, that kid’s been watching him like a hawk. Rex doesn’t know what triggered that, but it was nerve-wracking. He’s glad it’s over.

“He won’t mind if you take a detour to eat something first,” Jesse says. “Since you were able to walk in here on your own, you’re probably not too injured.”

Rex waves him off. “It’s fine, I’ll go see him. I’ll just…” He glances over to where Anakin is still completely absorbed in his conversation with General Kenobi.

General Kenobi catches his eye and offers a little wave, but Anakin doesn’t notice--he just barrels on with whatever he’s trying to say. It doesn’t seem like the two of them will be done any time soon.

Well, that’s fine. They’re Generals--whatever they’re discussing must be important. Anakin doesn’t need to check him over anyways--he’s in perfectly fine health.

“…I’ll go see Kix,” Rex says, and heads out of the hangar.

Obviously, Rex ends up reporting on the whole kidnapping thing again, this time to Anakin and also the entire Jedi Council. Rex doesn’t like standing in front of all these important people at the best of times, and having to rehash his unpleasant experience is even worse. It’s somewhat fortunate the connection is a little spotty, making the holoprojector blurry.

As prompted, Rex tells them about the ruse he’d fallen for. He tells them about being held captive in that windowless apartment. He tells them how the Darksider tried to endear themself to him with conversation and food.

“What did the Darksider talk to you about?” one of the Councilors asks.

“A lot of things,” Rex says. “Holonovels, animals, food cultures. They went on a weird tangent about cancer treatment for a little while--I got the impression they liked a lot of…academic things.”

“This Darksider sounds like a nerd,” Anakin says. “Like Obi-Wan, but evil.”

“Anakin,” General Kenobi chides.

“I’m just saying!”

One of the other Councilors clears their throat. “Is there anything else the Darksider spoke of? Did they try to convince you to do anything?”

Rex clasps his hands behind his back. “I think they were trying to turn me against the Republic, or get me to defect. They kept saying how the clones are mistreated, and how…how General Skywalker didn’t respect me--”

“They said what?” Anakin cuts in.

“--and they claimed that there was some kind of Dark influence on me and all of the clones,” Rex continues. “They also kept insisting they weren’t a Darksider, and was trying to help me.”

“Well, they handily disproved that when they violated your mind,” General Kenobi says.

“Did the Darksider make any sort of offer to you?” says another one of the voices from the Councilor’s side.

“No,” Rex says. “And I wouldn’t have taken one even if they did.”

“We aren’t insinuating you would,” General Kenobi says. “It just seems strange to try and turn you against the Republic but not give you an avenue to do so.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Many things this Darksider has done have been strange.”

“Yes, unusual this is,” says a voice that Rex easily identifies as General Yoda. “Worrisome, too, it is. Motivations of this Darksider, nebulous they are.”

“If I may be so bold, sirs,” Rex says, “I think the Darksider is trying to destabilize the Republic. At the very least, trying to destabilize the GAR. The only Republic intelligence they asked questions about was Kamino.”

“Do you think the Separatists mean to launch an attack on Kamino?” asks a Councilor who might be General Windu.

“It’s a strategic target, sirs,” Rex says. “We still have nearly four years' worth of soldiers finishing up their training. Without our reserves in Kamino to replete our numbers, the Republic would lose in a battle of attrition within half a year. However…” Rex shifts his weight uneasily. “I’m not convinced the Darksider is working with the Separatists.”

“Why do you believe they aren’t affiliated with the Separatists?”

“I’m not sure,” Rex says. “It was just the impression I got. The Darksider may have been Mandalorian, who aren’t really known for collaborating with Separatists. Also, the planet they took me to wasn’t in Separatist controlled space, the ship and the equipment they used wasn’t Techno Union, and they…didn’t seem to be especially well-funded. If they were working with Separatists, you’d think the Separatists would give them some cash.”

“An independent agent who wishes to destabilize the GAR?” General Kenobi muses. “It seems possible, though it would be quite difficult for a single person--or even two people--to attack Kamino on their own and expect any level of success.”

“The Darksider did…mention something,” Rex says slowly. “That it’s possible to use the Dark Side to influence people via live holocomm. Is that true, sir?”

“Many sufficiently powerful Force sensitives can, though obviously the distance makes it difficult,” General Kenobi says. “Captain, do you believe this Darksider could remotely access Kamino with the information you provided?”

“I don’t know,” Rex says. “I don’t…think so. I’ve never done communications or technician track--I never learned the necessary codes or procedures that would be needed to slice into Kamino’s systems.”

“Well, that’s good,” Anakin says. “It means this Darksider didn’t get what they wanted, right?”

“I wouldn’t be so confident,” General Kenobi says.

“Sir?” Rex asks with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“We can’t assume that this is the first time this Darksider has acted,” General Kenobi says.

Anakin crosses his arms. “Why not? I thought you looked through the records--we’ve never seen this Darksider before.”

“Just because we didn’t know about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” General Kenobi says. “Kidnapping Captain Rex was an extremely bold move, involving a high level of finesse and deception. It would have been impossible for this Darksider to pull this maneuver off unless they had a very good understanding of Rex’s personality and relations. The most logical place to get that information would be from another soldier.”

“But if someone else had gotten kidnapped by this jackass, they’d have reported it!” Anakin retorts.

“Not if the soldier never returned to the Republic,” General Kenobi says. “Ever since the start of the war, we have had many, many soldiers who we have been unable to retrieve and who were declared missing or killed in action. I do not think it would be difficult for a rogue Darksider to find one who managed to survive and extract information from them, and possibly even convince them to work against the Republic who had left them for dead. The fact that this Darksider has chosen to show their hand by kidnapping the good Captain…” He cuts a glance towards Rex. “I have to imagine that this Darksider is very close to having all the necessary information they require to accomplish their plans.”

“This is all conjecture, Kenobi,” says possibly General Windu.

“It is,” General Kenobi replies. “But caution is the better part of valor, and I believe it would be in our best interests to defend ourselves. My Commander has already drafted a set of new communications policies within the GAR to make sure no other soldiers will be deceived by a vocal mimic. We can implement them as soon as they are reviewed by the Council.”

“We will do that. Thank you for your swift and diligent work, Commander Cody.”

Cody nods. “Only doing my duty, sirs.”

General Kenobi continues, “Until we know more, we must also assume that returning the Captain to the 501st instead of killing him is itself part of a larger plan. I attempted to examine his mind to see if the Darksider had tampered with it and was unable to, due to the placement of a memory trap.”

Multiple members of the Council tense, which Rex has never seen before, but he’s pretty sure it’s a bad sign.

“Sure of this, you are?” General Yoda asks.

General Kenobi nods gravely. “It was not a small trap--I barely touched it, and even that was…difficult to endure.”

“Remember the sensation of this trap, do you?” General Yoda asks.

“Not much. I wrote what I did recall in my report,” General Kenobi says. “I think it may have been a sensation of death.”

“What?” Anakin asks. “How’s that possible? Don’t you have to, you know, die to make a trap like that? You don’t think this Darksider is some kind of zombie, do you?”

“I don’t know how this Darksider managed it,” General Kenobi says. “By all means, anyone who possesses a memory like that and can implant it in someone else should not have an intact mind. I can’t emphasize it enough--no Jedi should attempt to directly examine Captain Rex’s mind. A trap of that size is likely to seriously damage the mind of any Jedi, even Masters.”

Rex sucks in a breath. He’d known the psychic bomb thing was bad, but not that bad. General Kenobi had walked it off, after all.

“Triggered this trap, you did,” General Yoda says. “Safely examined, can you be?”

“I am safe,” General Kenobi says. “I’ve purged the memory completely.”

“Sir?” Rex cuts in. “I--if I may be so bold as to ask--”

“You may always ask,” General Kenobi says.

“What do you mean, are you safe to examine, sir?” Rex asks. “The psychic bomb is in my mind, right?”

It is General Yoda who responds first. "Memory traps, for Force sensitives very dangerous they are," he says. “Memories, transmitted from Jedi to Jedi they can be. Unintentional, this transmission can be. Out of control, this spread may become, if not rapidly contained it is.”

Rex goes cold. “You mean I can…infect people with this psychic bomb? If General Kenobi hadn’t stopped where he had, then…”

General Kenobi nods. “Then perhaps the Healer that attempted to examine me would be affected by it, so on and so forth. If we were exceptionally unlucky, I could transmit the memory, and affect any Force sensitive who came close to me without proper defenses. Of all the psychic traps, memory traps are very simple but dangerous--as long as the memory retains enough fidelity to cause damage, it will. The only reason they’re not more common is because there’s no way to place one without affecting one’s self, as well.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “At least, not one that I am aware of. Maybe this Darksider knows something we don’t.”

“Maybe this Darksider’s already insane,” Anakin says.

Rex isn’t sure about that--the Darksider he’d interacted with had been remarkably sane. A bit incomprehensible, but definitely on the level. “Sir, everything about this psychic bomb sounds…extremely dangerous.”

“Oh, it is,” General Kenobi says. “A typical memory trap can maybe spread ten degrees from the original source. The one within your mind? I shudder to think.”

“Sir, I--if this thing in my mind is so dangerous, you shouldn’t keep me in active duty!” Rex says. “You should quarantine me or decommission me or--”

“Captain Rex,” General Kenobi says. “We are not going to terminate you.”

“But this thing in my head could take out the entire Jedi Order!” Rex says.

“Calm yourself, Captain,” General Kenobi says. “Please don’t think we are taking your condition lightly. The memory trap within your mind is very dangerous, this is true. But you are not a Force sensitive. You don’t have the ability to transmit this memory to others--for anyone else to be affected, a Force sensitive must directly access your mind, as I did. Since we know the trap exists, we will not be doing that.” He smiles wryly. “And you need not underestimate the skill of the Jedi. We have all been trained to identify and remove ourselves from psychic traps.”

“We have?” Anakin asks.

“You have,” General Kenobi says seriously. “And if you don’t remember what you learned, you would do well to brush up on it, considering we are fighting Sith, and you are the closest Jedi to Captain Rex. If you were to receive this memory trap with no defenses, that would be catastrophic for the Jedi Order.”

“Uh,” Anakin says. “I was just joking. I definitely know how to defend myself from psychic traps.”

General Kenobi levels an impressively unamused look at Anakin. “We’ll review the subject before I return to the Negotiator.”

“We should consider that sending Rex back to us was an attempt to debilitate Jedi command, even if it ended up being unsuccessful,” probably General Windu says. “Since the Captain is commanded by Knight Skywalker, it’s possible the Darksider was attempting to target him specifically. It’s not as if they knew the 212th would perform the rescue instead.”

“Me?” Anakin asks. “Why would anyone want to target me specifically? I mean, I win loads of battles, but wouldn’t it be better to target one of the High Council?”"

“The Darksider didn’t seem to like you very much, sir,” Rex says. “It might be a personal vendetta.”

Anakin looks offended. “What? That’s messed up. What did I ever do to anyone?”

“What you did or didn’t do isn’t important, Skywalker,” says a different Councilor whose voice Rex doesn’t recognize. “The point is that the Darksider may have wanted to eliminate you specifically. You’ll have to be careful moving forward.”

“I’m always careful,” Anakin says.

Cody coughs into his fist.

General Kenobi steps up again. “We are currently performing a security inspection on the entire 501st, in addition to implementing the new security policies I mentioned earlier. For Rex, I don’t believe disciplinary measures are necessary--he was taken under false pretenses and remains loyal to the Republic. However, due to the nature of the Darksider’s interference with Rex’s mind, I submit that he should be given an oral examination by a high-ranked Mind Healer--Master Che herself, if we can.”

“That sounds reasonable. I’ll speak with her,” says probably General Windu. “Captain Rex, you are to report for a holocomm examination with one of our Healers--we’ll follow up with you on an appropriate time. They will screen for Dark influences on you.”

“You can do that over holocomm, sir?” Rex asks.

“Well, we’ve established that we can’t risk anyone directly examining your mind, so an expert physical and oral exam is the next best option, and if we’re doing that, we may as well holoconference a Master Healer. Master Kenobi will assist on your side--he has some experience with healing procedures.”

Rex glances at General Kenobi. He hopes ‘experience with healing procedures’ isn’t a euphemism for ‘got hospitalized way too many times’.

General Kenobi smiles. “One of my very good friends is a Healer. She taught me a little bit, including how to assist a physical exam. I don’t have much affinity for healing, but I have a handle on the basics.”

“I see,” Rex says. “Thank you, sir. I’ll report as soon as I get the appointment.”

“Good,” probably General Windu replies. “And to address an earlier point, you mentioned the Darksider insinuated that there is Dark influence in the minds of your brothers. Several of your brothers have been examined by our Jedi and Healers since this war started. We have not found any evidence to support these claims. This Darksider was either misinformed or lying to you.”

“I had sort of figured as such, sir,” Rex says. “But I appreciate the clarification. Thank you.”

“It is the least we can do. You are a good soldier, Captain, and we are honored to have you work with us. I’m glad you have been returned safely.”

Rex salutes. “Yes, sir.”

“Captain Rex, Commander Cody, Knight Skywalker, you are dismissed. Obi-Wan, we have a few more things to discuss.”

“Of course, Mace,” General Kenobi says. “Captain Rex, I’ll speak with you later once I’ve heard from the Healers.”

Rex nods, then files out of the conference room.

Cody catches him on the way out, elbowing him in the side, and not too gently.

“How do you feel?” Cody asks. “You were practically shaking in your boots. You couldn’t even see their faces.”

“I was fine,” Rex protests. “I reported everything, we’ve got a plan, I’m not even getting disciplined.”

Cody glances around, then signs quickly, “You didn’t mention the Darksider’s eyes.”

The eyes. Those eyes that look exactly like General Kenobi’s. He can’t even look General Kenobi in the eye up close--just seeing those eyes makes Rex break out in cold sweat. He’s not sure how he’s going to get through this physical exam later.

“The Jedi already said maybe the Darksider could change form,” Rex signs back. “After that, it wasn’t an important detail anymore.”

“It didn’t--” Cody says something in 212th sign, which Rex can’t read.

“Repeat?” Rex asks.

“It sounded important when you told me,” Cody signs, this time in standard.

“If you think the eyes are so important,” Rex replies, “you could have said something yourself.”

Cody stops. Looks Rex in the face. “The problem is not the eyes,” he says, making his signs slow and clear for emphasis. “What else aren’t you reporting?”

Rex presses his lips in a thin line. He hates when Cody gets like this, so deadly serious and perfect soldier. He knows Cody does it because he cares, but it’s…hard to feel that way, when he’s pinned by that intense stare. Shinies have nightmares about that look, and Rex can see why.

“I reported everything of importance,” Rex says out loud. “You can read my report if you have any doubts, Commander. I need to speak to my men, if you’re finished with me. Sir.”

A brief flash of frustration crosses Cody’s expression, then he sighs and sets a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Your General’s insubordination is rubbing off on you, Captain.”

Rex scoffs and shakes Cody off. “Don’t give me that, Cody. As if your soldiers never backtalk you.”

“When they do it, it’s just to annoy me,” Cody replies. “When you do it, it’s because you’re going to cause an actual problem.”

“There is no problem,” Rex says slowly. “I reported everything of importance.”

Cody fixes him with another hard look. “You should take another look over your report and make sure you’re not missing anything,” he says. “I’m sure you’re aware of this, but the circ*mstances of your kidnapping do not paint you favorably. I know you’re a loyal soldier of the Republic, but not everyone knows you like I do.”

Rex balks. He signs, “Are you accusing me of treason?”

“I am not,” Cody replies, also switching back to sign. “But others will, and already have.” He glances back down the corridor to the conference room they had come from. “I’m serious, Rex. Don’t give them more reasons to do so.”

Rex salutes stiffly. “Will do, Commander. Any further orders?”

Cody’s expression softens and he turns away. “Rex,” he says out loud, “don’t give me that. I’m scared. The war’s hard enough without some mystery Darksider trying to make us paranoid about backstabbing and destabilizing a Republic that’s already on the rocks. I can’t keep you safe in a situation like this.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to meet you on the opposite end of my blaster. I don’t think you want that, either.”

“Then stop talking like you think it’ll happen,” Rex says. “You know me, Cody. I’ve never let you down.”

Cody closes his eyes for a long second, then looks back at Rex. He looks tired--more than usual. All those reports and drafting up new policies and talking to other brothers in Command really takes a toll, not that Cody would ever admit it. “You’re right. You haven’t, and you won’t. Go talk to your men, Rex. We’ll see each other later.”

Without so much as a glance back, Cody pushes ahead, leaving Rex in the corridor alone. Rex stares at his retreating back, trying to calm the heartbeat pounding in his chest.

He didn’t lie. He did report everything of importance. All the things that Darksider told him about mind control, those long conversations about loyalty and betrayal, the dire threats of his blaster turned against his Jedi…

Nothing but empty threats. The Darksider is a liar with a silver tongue, and Rex will not let himself be swayed by it. If he spends time agonizing over those words and lies for longer than he should…

He’s only a clone--his thoughts aren’t important.

There’s no need to report them.

“Hey, Rex?”

Rex freezes in the middle of the push-ups he’s doing. Slowly, he turns towards the door of the gymnasium, and sure enough, Anakin is standing there.

He stands and salutes, and so do the other handful of brothers who are currently using the gymnasium. Rex is at once hyperaware of his current state--dressed down to blacks only, soaked in sweat, and feeling like he’s going to catch on fire out of sheer embarrassment. He’s not exactly in a state to present himself to a superior officer.

“Aw, come on, you know I hate the salutes and the formality crap,” Anakin says. “At ease, everyone, I’ve just got business with Rex.”

Rex eases up, settling in parade rest. “Did you need something, sir?”

“Obi-Wan said I should talk to you,” Anakin says breezily. “Figured there’s no time like the present.”

“Of course,” Rex replies. “We can use one of the private sparring rooms--they should be empty.”

Anakin acquiesces, and follows Rex into a more private room. The private sparring rooms are not that large--just a plain square room with mats on the floor and some racks of practice weapons. Anakin and Ahsoka sometimes use them to practice saberwork in between deployments, while clones will sometimes use them for working on hand-to-hand.

Rex drinks some water, towels off his face, and tries not to think about how he’s apparently going to have an important discussion with his General in his underclothes.

“You’re kind of hitting the gym hard, aren’t you?” Anakin says. “How long have you been here?”

“Three hours, sir,” Rex replies.

“Seriously? You haven’t even been on the Resolute a whole day.”

Rex shrugs. “I’m not cleared for active duty yet.”

“Right, you have to have your mental examination or whatever,” Anakin says, rolling his eyes. “It’s pretty banthakark if you ask me, I mean what do they expect to find? You already told us you don’t feel any different, and it’s not like anyone can check directly with the whole memory bomb thing.”

“I’m sure the Council is just being cautious,” Rex says. “Considering I’ve already been coerced into leaking Republic intelligence. I don’t want to be a danger to my brothers.”

He’s already running a pretty big risk, coming back here, and everyone knows it.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just stupid, that’s all,” Anakin says. “Anyways, uh, about the whole kidnapping thing…”

“Yes?”

“You’re, like, okay? I mean you’re probably doing all right, if you’re able to do three hours in the gym no problem, but since I’m your General and all, I gotta ask.”

“I’m well, sir,” Rex says, somewhat perplexed. He got onto the Resolute almost twelve hours ago. This kind of check-in is appreciated, but a little belated. “I’ve already seen Kix and I’m sure he’s sent you my medical clearance.”

“Right, I did get something like that, now that you mention it,” Anakin says. “You know how hectic things have been since Obi-Wan and those 212th guys got on board. I get why they need to change all the comms but it’s just so annoying--I have to reconfigure my commlink all over again, it’s going to take ages.”

“Yes, sir,” Rex says. “Did you just want to make sure I was in good health? Or was there something else?”

“No,” Anakin says. “I mean, yeah. Yeah, there’s something else. It’s about this Darksider thing. We got held up in a bunch of meetings about it, you know?”

“Yes?”

“Well, long story short, the Council talked about it a bunch, and then I talked to the Chancellor about it--”

“You told the Chancellor about the Darksider who kidnapped me?” Rex asks. “Anakin, sir, our systems are still potentially compromised--”

“Come on, Rex, what do you take me for? I waited until we switched the systems at least. I take information security seriously, too, you know,” Anakin says. “And we’re going to tell him eventually anyways, he’s the Chancellor. But the Chancellor is really concerned about this Darksider thing. He’ll be putting forces to tracking these guys down immediately. He didn’t say we’ll personally be hunting them down, but I think if I talk to him a little more, we can get assigned to that.”

“Is that a good idea, sir?” Rex asks. The 501st is a good legion, but it’s not really designed for manhunts, and he’s sure Anakin is aware of that.

“Rex.” Anakin puts his hands on Rex’s shoulders, gripping tightly enough to hurt, and Rex is suddenly very aware of how much taller Anakin is than him. “You’re my Captain. If a Darksider kidnaps you and does all this sh*t in your head, I’ve got a big problem with it. We’re going to find that Darksider and send them straight to hell, you mark my words.”

“I--” Rex swallows. It’s not as if he isn’t aware that Anakin can be intense. But it’s always unsettling to be in the center of it like this. “Do you think we’ll be able to find them?”

“We will,” Anakin says. “I will. And I’ll make them regret they ever touched you. You’ll be all right, Rex.”

“Yes--Yes, sir,” Rex says.

Anakin claps him on the shoulder. “Good man. I’ll be glad when you’re cleared for duty again--Jesse does the job fine, but he can’t fill those reports like you do.”

Rex raises a brow. “You mean you actually read the reports this time?”

Anakin makes a face. “I do read reports sometimes, you know.” He shakes his head. “Well, that’s everything I needed to say. I’ll talk to you later, Rex.”

Rex nods, and Anakin sweeps out of the room.

Rex takes a deep breath to brace himself and straighten his thoughts. This is a good thing. Anakin does care about him--all that stuff before, that was just Rex’s own insecurities and that Darksider getting into his head. Anakin is going to find this Darksider and take care of them. His brothers will be safe, and one more enemy of the Republic will be out of the picture.

This is the truth--the truth he can see with his own eyes. Anakin is a good man and a good General. The murder of innocents and younglings, that was just a lie to twist his mind around, like the Darksider twisted everything around. Rex is embarrassed he let those lies get to him so badly in the first place. He should be better than that.

After all, he is a loyal soldier of the Republic, and he always will be.

He doesn’t have any other option.

Summary:

Obi-Wan finds himself a place in Deadfall Squad.

I had known, when I had let the Force take me, that my identity would be revealed. It wasn’t as if I’d had a choice--I had thrown myself overboard into the ocean before I could remember why that was a bad idea, and once I was in the ocean, well…

I wanted to live, and I only had one way to do it.

The Force and I have not been on good terms for many years--not since I ripped out my connection to it over twenty years ago in the trenches of Melida/Daan, desperate to stop the taste of death and war spanning decades in either direction from permanently staining my mind and soul. Whether my actions succeeded in preventing that is debatable, but regardless, ripping out one’s connection to the Force--as in, the connection to time and space and emotion and also life--is a very bad idea, it turns out. Even a wet-behind-the-ears Initiate can tell you that hot tip for free. Perhaps I ought to have studied more in my brief stint as a Padawan.

The important point, once you get past the fact that ripping out your connection to the Force is generally lethal, is that even mutilated as my connection was, some very limited ability remained. I could control the Force within my own soul, and I could sense when the Force was turned towards me--when someone was watching me or thinking about me. I had learned after a stint in Jedha how to observe the currents of the Force, which was a poor substitute for true sensitivity but allowed me to detect some level of emotion and intent in my immediate vicinity--a skill I had honed in combat in my time living and regularly sparring with Jango Fett.

I had no ability to shield my mind the way a Jedi would--I was too fragile for that now, so I had learned a way to defend myself from mental attacks by letting the Force that touched me flow through me while leaving my mind intact. It was not a foolproof method. When the Force was strong--as it was in Coruscant--I was liable to get washed away. And when it did…

The Force would fill my body and use it however it pleased. Often in line with my desires, but without thought or restraint.

I have no control over what my body does when I am taken by the Force. I have no memory of what my body does when I am not in it. It is not something I can depend on, or something I try to use on purpose.

But I had been twenty meters underwater with a man who was about to die, and had only the Force to shield me. If I were to die, it would be less painful in the arms of the Force than in the crushing weight of the water, so I had given myself up to it, and hoped that when I resurfaced it would not be to a firing squad.

“So you’re…a clone of General Kenobi,” Spicy said slowly.

“I think my face speaks for itself,” I replied.

We were in Deadfall’s shared dormitory. I sat cross-legged on the bed, dressed down to blacks, while the others--Spicy, Tazo, Deadbolt, and Pinup--sat on the opposite bed and stared at me. Pip was outside, making sure nobody interrupted us.

“Is this what General Kenobi looks like without the beard?” Pinup asked. “I always wondered.”

“It’s kind of weird, I’m not gonna lie,” Deadbolt murmured back. “Without the Jedi robes, too.”

Spicy ignored the peanut gallery. I did, too. Spicy was the leader here--whatever decision she made would decide my fate here in the clone army.

“You have to understand this is a bit shocking,” she said. “I’ve never heard of the Kaminoans using another template for the clones. None of us have.”

“They went to great pains to keep me separate from any of Jango’s clones,” I replied. “I’m sure my creation is a fiercely-guarded secret. I don’t think the Jedi would be happy to know it happened--my progenitor almost certainly didn’t consent to my creation. Even if you asked the Kaminoans to their faces, they would probably deny it all.”

Spicy grimaced. “Well, that goes without saying.”

She fell silent again, and I waited patiently.

Spicy was a good person to make my case to. She was a reasonable person, and reasonable people are easy to fool. A reasonable story that could account for the facts and could not be easily disproven, that was all it took.

The facts were on my side--my face, the well-established cloners with a reputation for less-than-sound ethics. Against the sheer absurdity of a witch transporting me across dimensions…who would believe that, much less come up with it on their own? Yes, maybe it was unbelievable to ask her to accept a clone of General Kenobi, but what alternative did she have when I sat before her and she looked at me in the flesh? It was an explanation that made sense.

People, I have found, want things to make sense.

“How old are you?” Spicy asked.

“A bit over ten years,” I said. “Around the time Series 1 batches were being decanted.”

Series 1 was, somewhat counter-intuitively, the major batches of clones produced in the second year of development. The first year had been mostly devoted to small test batches like Alpha and Command class and early CTs collectively referred to as the zero series--like Rex.

“You look younger,” Spicy said.

“You can take that up with Master Kenobi. It’s his face, after all.”

“It was just an observation,” Spicy said. She reached for me. “May I…?”

I nodded.

Carefully, she leaned in to touch my face. This was my first time seeing her so close up--she looked exceptionally similar to Jango, with her buzzed hair and shaved jaw line and stern expression. She had a faded burn scar below her left ear, undoubtedly an occupational hazard of being a demolitions specialist, and she had several ear piercings with tiny handmade stud earrings. While some clones who identified as female wore cosmetics, Spicy did not--Pinup had explained some time ago that Spicy hated the texture, and if she was going to use her energy on obtaining contraband, she preferred exotic food. Fair enough.

Spicy’s hands were warm and rough with calluses, and confident as she traced around my jawbone and behind my ears. Briskly, she pressed against my cheekbones, pulled gently on the skin around my eyes and my hairline. “No surgery seams,” she reported. “Facial bone structure is intact, and the skin feels real.”

“I would hope so. I grew it myself,” I said. “I would hate to be a second-rate product.”

She shot me a bemused glance. “Is this really the time for jokes?”

“A sense of humor is good for your health,” I replied, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Life can be very difficult to endure otherwise.”

Spicy frowned. I suppose she didn’t like that very much. “Are there other Kenobi clones?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If there are, I have never seen them.”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” Tazo cut in. “Pip’s never seen or heard of a Kenobi clone in medbay. Maybe you were the Kaminoans' pet project. Trying to make a Force-sensitive clone, even though everyone knows that doesn’t work.”

“If I was, they must have been terribly disappointed,” I said. “Perhaps that’s why they didn’t make another.”

“Why would they be disappointed?” Spicy asked. “You are Force-sensitive. That’s how you were able to snipe that sensor. How you saved Tazo.”

I clasped my hands, flesh fingers twined with metal. “I’m not Force-sensitive the way Jedi are. Certainly not the way Master Kenobi is. It’s not a training issue--it’s something intrinsic. I’m not even Force-null…I’m empty.” I smiled grimly. “I sometimes wonder if the Force rejects me because it knows I’m unnatural.”

Spicy sucked a breath through her teeth.

“You dragged me out of that ocean and healed my ribs,” Tazo said. “What did you do?”

Tazo felt strangely intense--I’d noticed it when I’d first woken up on his lap in the medbay. Since then, he hadn’t let me out of sight--or his thoughts--once. It was a little unsettling. Between the ocean and here, something had obviously changed, though I’d be damned if I could figure out what.

“I don’t know what I did,” I said. “The way my connection to the Force works, sometimes it can take me over. I was drowning, just the same as you. I don’t remember anything between that and waking up in medbay.”

Tazo stared at me a long few seconds. “The Force possesses you when you’re about to die. Is that why someone put those scars on your back?”

I blinked. “My scars…? Oh. You mean the lashings.”

“Yes, the lashings,” Tazo said.

My back was covered in whiplash scars from when I’d been taken as a prisoner of war, back in Melida/Daan. It wasn’t something I thought about often--I was young enough when it happened that it didn’t affect my mobility anymore and their placement meant I couldn’t see them. Apparently, Tazo had examined me at some point and found them alarming. I guess most people do.

“I don’t remember exactly how I got them. I wasn’t fully conscious for most of it,” I said, and I wasn’t lying about that--I had been captured not long after losing my connection to the Force, so for most of my imprisonment, I had been out of my mind. A blessing in disguise, that. “You don’t have to worry about them, they don’t hurt. It’s just a little tight sometimes.”

“The Kaminoans lashed you?” Spicy asked, aghast.

“It wasn’t the Kaminoans,” I said. “I don’t know who it was. It was only a couple of weeks--I think after the infection set in they started feeling guilty about torturing a youngling.”

This was apparently not a reassuring thing to say, if Spicy’s horrified expression was anything to go by.

“I got better,” I added.

Spicy took a deep breath and visibly composed herself. “You did,” she said. “I’m glad for that. How did you…How did you escape from that?”

“Jango saved me.”

Silence fell, heavy and sudden like a curtain dropped. I knew, from Rex’s memories, that the clones had a very mixed relationship with Jango. Some saw him as a sort of father figure--a distant, cruel, and demanding father figure, but a father figure nonetheless. Others saw him simply as their template, and others still saw him as even worse than the trainers.

Very few clones viewed him favorably. Not when he had so emphatically denied them their personhood and degraded their skills and washed his hands of them all and signed them off to an apathetic Republic to die. They were his tools, and he had made sure they all knew it.

So how was it supposed to sound, when a different clone with a different face claimed to have received what all his clones had not--kindness?

“The Prime…saved you?” Spicy said slowly.

“I think I intrigued him,” I said. “A Jedi clone.” I looked down at my hands in my lap. “He hated the Jedi very much. Maybe he got some perverse joy in breaking one in with his own hands, but I don’t think that matters so much. He got me medical care so I could recover from my injuries. He protected me. He taught me to fight, and to fight well.”

“You seem fond of him,” Spicy replied.

“Do I?” I asked. I thought, briefly, of long nights in between hunts on Jango’s ship, of talking and thinking about a future together that could never happen because we just weren’t compatible in that way. In the end, we were two hurting and lonely men in a large and unforgiving galaxy, and we healed each other in some ways and tore each other apart in others. I was better for leaving him. That didn’t mean I didn’t care. “I guess I do. I loved him.”

Tazo made a choking noise.

“I don’t know if he ever loved me,” I said. "But at some point he must have cared. He was lonely and I was there to fill the space.

“After he was gone, things became more difficult,” I continued. “Without Jango’s protection, I had to fend for myself. Well, I had no way to escape Kamino, so I did the next best thing.” I gestured to myself. “And here I am now.”

Spicy took a long breath in, a long breath out. I could feel her thinking very carefully about me, could feel her gaze trail down my body, hesitating on my mechanical hand. I could sense very little from her--some uncertainty, some fear, but that was all.

“I should report you,” she said softly. “You aren’t supposed to be in the GAR, or here with us. I don’t know how you managed to even get this far.”

Tazo bristled. “Spicy, you can’t--”

Spicy held up a hand, silencing him. “Let me finish, Tazo.” She looked me in the face. “Tracer. Why are you here?”

I stared at her. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, why didn’t you desert?” Spicy asked. “You’ve had plenty of opportunity--I know you didn’t have to pick the transport for the 352nd, you could have just as easily picked a transport headed for an occupied planet, then slip away before your records got transferred properly, and vanish into the galaxy. You’re clever enough to do it, and live battlefields clearly terrify you. So why didn’t you run?”

“That would be treason,” I said.

“Your continued existence is treason,” Spicy retorted. “Does it really matter if you do it here or out there? Staying in the army only increases the risk of discovery--this right now proves it.”

I looked down at my hands in my lap. “I’m here because this is where I need to be.”

“Why?” Spicy pressed.

“Because…Because I don’t have anyone out there,” I said softly. “And I’m not strong enough to fight these battles on my own.”

Another heavy silence. I couldn’t read Spicy’s expression--it was one I had never seen on Jango’s face--but she didn’t seem happy.

“I know you never asked for me,” I said, letting just a thread of genuine desperation show. If I couldn’t make this work now, everything would fall apart. “I know you never could have expected me to be who I am. But please, don’t report me. Let me be a part of Deadfall. I am competent. I want to help you. I have abilities that are useful, so use me. That’s all I ask. Let me stay, and use me to keep your brothers alive.”

“My brothers?” Spicy asked. “And what about yours?”

“Are you my brothers?” I asked.

Spicy looked me in the face. Over the course of thirty seconds, she seemed to go through a great many thoughts, then resolved herself. “Well,” she said slowly, “I think we can be.”

Some hours passed after my tribunal, and the rest of Deadfall had dispersed--they had brothers to spend time with before we reached our next deployment, or duties around the flagship to attend to. I, who had no brothers or current duties, remained in the dormitory reading the GAR’s communications documentation. It wasn’t a very exciting read, or a particularly useful one. I would have a better time just asking Deadbolt to teach me the finer points.

“Knock knock,” said a voice from the door.

I glanced up as Tazo walked in, holding two trays of food from the refectory. He set one of the trays next to me, then sat down on the opposite bed.

“Tazo?” I asked.

“That’s my name,” he said. He pointed at the tray. “You should eat something. I don’t think you’ve eaten a full meal since you joined up with us, and I know you don’t eat all the ration bars I keep giving you.”

“My caloric needs aren’t as high as yours,” I said, but set aside my datapad regardless. The tray carried some mix of fortified legumes, a few hard loaves of bread, and protein cubes, which wasn’t an inspiring meal but at least more appetizing than sludge. I took a bite, and was pleasantly surprised to find it had texture and flavor. Bland textures and flavors, granted, but not unpleasant.

Tazo started on his own meal. “That was a neat job you pulled, kid.”

I glanced up in question.

“Earlier. With Spicy,” he elaborated.

A neat job indeed. Spicy had agreed to not report me for the time being, either to the Republic forces or to the Jedi, and I would resume my duties as Deadfall’s spotter. She had laid out a set of rules I would have to comply with, both to keep my identity under wraps and to keep Deadfall, which was now flirting with treason by protecting me, safe. I found that reasonable, and agreed. I wasn’t exactly in a position to make demands anyways.

“But you did save my life,” Tazo continued. “Spicy probably wouldn’t have been so willing to stick her neck out for you if you hadn’t. Our last spotter, Blackbox, was killed less than a month ago. Counter-sniped. Spicy took it hard. She cares about us, you know?”

“She’s your Lieutenant,” I said.

“What, do you think being a superior officer means you care about all the men under your command?” Tazo asked. “I know your training was different than mine, but you’re pretty damn naive if you really think that.”

“But you’re all brothers.”

“So?” Tazo asked. “There’s solidarity here, don’t get me wrong. But just because we all share the same face doesn’t mean we care about everyone else. Kamino’s training only filters out bad soldiers, not bad people.” He stirred his legumes. “None of us in Deadfall are good people. Spicy least of all. Didn’t you ever wonder why we only have six members? And not even that, since Pip works in medbay.”

“My understanding was that reconnaissance squads were always small,” I replied. That was what Rex’s memories had implied, anyways.

“What reconnaissance squad do you know of is made up of a demolitions specialist, a sniper, a spotter, a communications specialist, a technician, and a medic?” Tazo said. “It’s a garbage team on paper. But the Captain lets Spicy keep running this squad because she gets results and all of us--every single one of us--has had a disciplinary record. If we weren’t in Deadfall, we would have been shipped back to Kamino to learn how to behave.” He grinned that nasty little grin of his. “So we’re a forward squad. We’re the ones who go into enemy territory blind and without backup. If any of us misfits die…who cares?”

“Spicy cares,” I pointed out.

Tazo’s grin faded. “Yeah. Yeah, she does. That’s why we listen to her. Because when she orders us around she means for us to come back alive.”

That seemed to be all Tazo had to say, because he went back to his meal. I went back to mine. The next ten minutes passed in silence except for utensils scraping on the plate. It wasn’t bad, in all honesty. Dense and bland, but filling and certainly better than my days in Melida/Daan eating expired rations and rats.

Tazo finished before I did, and set his fork down on the empty plate. “Deadfall isn’t a good squad. We’re deaths waiting to happen. I still don’t know what Spicy saw in you, but you’re part of it now. The others, they might not necessarily like you, but they’ll work with you.”

“That’s what matters,” I said.

“But for Pip and me, it’s not that easy,” Tazo said. He turned towards me, that intense focus like a sniper sight fixed directly on me. It made my skin crawl. “I know you have secrets, kid. All that crap you told Spicy? Some of it was true, some of it wasn’t. Which parts are what? I don’t know and I don’t really care. What I need is for you to tell me, right now. What are you really fighting for?”

“Didn’t I already tell you? I--”

Tazo took a swift step towards me and grabbed me by the front of my bodysuit in an iron grip. He dragged me up, enough so that my empty tray slid down and clattered to the floor. “I’m not here for lies, kid. Tell me the truth.”

“What will you do if I don’t?” I asked.

“I’ll make your life hell. And more to the point? Pip will make your life hell,” Tazo said. “I don’t care if you want to play me like a cheap set of pipes. If you’re fighting for a good reason, I’ll play good little soldier for you all you want. But you have to give me a reason.”

His voice vibrated powerfully--not in volume, but in Force. It wasn’t the Force the way a Jedi would use it, like standing within the eye of a storm redirecting its currents, or the way Maul would use it, like a sharp and bloodied weapon, but it thrummed through Tazo’s body, trapped beneath the skin like it was struggling to escape.

My eyes widened. “You--You’re Force-sensitive?”

Tazo grinned toothily. “Is that what it is? I wondered, but I didn’t want to assume.”

I found myself speechless.

It wasn’t as if it was impossible for clones to be Force-sensitive. By all means, if any living person or animal or plant or even nonliving rock could be Force-sensitive, then a clone would have the same chance at Force sensitivity as anything else. Statistically, it would be strange if four million clones didn’t yield any Force sensitives.

But I hadn’t sensed anything from Tazo before--not when he was antagonizing me and not when I had gone after him in the ocean. And Force sensitivity like this…I should have noticed it, at least.

“How?” I asked. How what, I didn’t even know what I was asking.

Tazo tilted his head to one side, no doubt thinking of a good way to answer my non-question. Whatever he concluded, his expression softened and he let me down. His right hand was shaking, and he grabbed his wrist to still it. “I don’t know why you think I would know the answer to that. You’re the Jedi.”

“I’m not a Jedi.”

“Okay, a clone of a Jedi,” Tazo said. “So I’m a little bit psychic. That’s not--it’s not important right now. Just answer my question, kid. What are you fighting for?”

I looked at Tazo. He had clear eyes, honest eyes. They were the eyes of someone who it paid to be friendly with--not just because he would burn your house down if you weren’t, but because he could understand kindness for kindness. Honesty for honesty.

So I decided to be honest. “I’m fighting to save the Jedi. And if I can, the clones, too.”

Tazo fixed me with that uncanny gaze of his. I knew he could hear my omission--that I was not swearing my loyalty to the Chancellor or the Republic or any of its citizens--and he laughed. It wasn’t much, just a few sharp barks of laughter, not at all like Jango’s rare laughs in the time we’d been together. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can work with that.”

He sat down again, grinning. I couldn’t sense the Force on him now--it had settled. That was a good sign. It meant he was calmer, if nothing else.

I had passed his test, whatever it was.

“Listen,” Tazo said, leaning back against the wall. “Let’s make a deal, you and me. You want to save the Jedi and us clones? Fine. I like that. I’ll play the good soldier for it. I’ll stick my neck out for you and keep your secrets. I’ll be the big brother you never had. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

I stared at him in disbelief. Why would he, of all people, say this to me? He didn’t care about me. He certainly didn’t like me. Between letting me use his lap as a pillow in the medbay and whatever the hell this was, Tazo seemed to have experienced some kind of mental break.

Sure, things change when you save someone from certain death, but this…it made me uneasy. Something wasn’t adding up.

“But you have to do some things for me in return,” Tazo continued. He held up a finger. “First, whatever you do, you do not touch Pip. If you have mind games to play, you play them with me. Pip is off limits.”

He said it fiercely, harshly. Where all his previous threats towards me had been glib, he meant this one. I couldn’t empathize--I had never had someone I was that close to, that I’d be willing to sacrifice myself and burn everyone else down for--but I could respect it.

“I wasn’t planning to do anything with Pip.”

“Promise me. Out loud,” Tazo said. “Say it so the Force can hear you.”

“That’s…not how the Force works,” I said. Tazo glared at me, so I acquiesced. “I promise I won’t do anything to Pip.”

Tazo nodded. “Good.” He held up another finger. “Second, you know something about the Force, I have the Force, and it makes my head feel like it’s going to explode. Teach me how to use it before it drives me insane.”

“If you’re Force-sensitive, wouldn’t it be better to ask a Jedi--”

“I don’t want to ask a Jedi. I’m asking you,” Tazo said. “You’re the reason I’m here, doing all this. Take some responsibility.”

It had been a long time since I had learned anything about the Force--a long time from my short stay with the Guardians in Jedha, an even longer time from my failed Padawanship. But if Tazo wanted to learn from me, then fine. “I’ll teach you what I can. It isn’t much.”

“It’ll be enough,” Tazo replied. “And the third thing…” He leaned down and scooped my helmet off the floor. “Paint your armor.”

“What?”

“I know you heard me.” He tossed me the helmet. “Paint your armor. If you’re a member of Deadfall, you should look like one. I’m not going out there with a damn shiny. We have painting supplies in the closet. Do it now.”

I looked down at my blank white helmet. Obviously, I knew that painting the armor was important to the clones. It was supposed to be a sort of rite of passage, something you did once you proved you weren’t going to die when boots hit the dirt, something to show you weren’t just another face among the crowd. It was a statement, an expression of independence and self in a world where they had none.

It wasn’t…something that got unceremoniously shoved into your arms.

Tazo clapped his hands sharply. “Come on, I don’t have all day! It has to dry overnight, and because of that face of yours you can’t leave this room until it’s done!”

I took a deep breath. My head was spinning. Everything was moving too fast, even for me.

I try not to question a good thing when it happens, but all this felt…off. I didn’t like it--I was being swept up in the tide of something I couldn’t even see the shape of. I did not enjoy the feeling of there being a hand moving events forward that was not mine.

Then Tazo was there at my side, his hand on my shoulder and gentle. I could feel genuine reassurance in the Force that ran under his skin, and that was wrong, more wrong than any of the grand reassurances and struck deals and sudden goodwill. It was one thing for him to offer himself up as a tool for my plans, but for his actual emotions to have shifted overnight--

I recoiled from Tazo. “What happened to you?”

Tazo smiled--not one of his nasty smiles or irritating smiles or genuinely happy smiles, but one that looked like if he didn’t smile he might cry. “You know what, kid? One day, if we both make it through this, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Up and at 'em. That armor won’t paint itself.”

That was the end of that conversation. There was nothing else I could do, no answers I could receive. I went to paint my armor.

It was a little easier, living on the flagship now that Deadfall knew my identity--at least in the dormitory I didn’t have to wear the whole set of armor, and my squadmates covered for me so I could do things like shower and shave. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they loved me, but they cared enough to make small talk and give advice about being in the GAR.

Notably, Spicy pulled me aside one day to make sure I knew that if I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to be a boy just because Master Kenobi was one. It was rather sweet of her, honestly--since I hadn’t grown up alongside the clones, I wouldn’t have been exposed to their collective journey with the concept of gender. Though I didn’t say so out loud, I found it a rather strong assumption to say Master Kenobi identified as male, but I suppose when you’re ambivalent to gender, nobody ever has a reason to believe you don’t identify the way everyone sees you. Even if there was, Master Kenobi wasn’t one to announce that kind of information in public.

In any case, Spicy accepted my ambivalence without any difficulties--despite Jango’s very unambiguously male presentation, his clones had been raised genderless, or perhaps with the gender of ‘clone’--even their medical files had no sex or gender markers, as they were considered redundant. For the clones, gender was not something assigned or taught by the Kaminoans, but a form of self-expression and self-determination. I didn’t really understand it, given my inherent apathy towards the subject, but I was happy for them. Spicy made sure I knew about the codes they used--the notches on their ID tags, the filed edges on helmets and bracers and other subtle signs to communicate identities and pronouns without the trainers or the officers or the Jedi being any the wiser. I made no marks to my armor, but this time we both understood it was by choice and not just by convention.

It felt like an acceptance of sorts. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

As days went on, Tazo continued to bring me meals to eat in private, and over the GAR’s lackluster food, I taught him what I knew about the Force. Tazo’s Force sensitivity was not strong. He would never be able to lift things or directly reach into other people’s minds. He was like some of the Guardians of Jedha, the ones who had spent so much time worshiping the Whills that the raw touch of the Force had marked their souls, granting them perception slightly beyond the physical plane. He was seeing emotions and through currents of time and sure enough, the onslaught was difficult for him to handle. His Force was unsettled, like a pacing creature trying to break free of his body. Its intensity waxed and waned, his gaze and his awareness sometimes unfocusing to the middle distance as cosmic forces gripped his mind without warning.

For a Jedi Initiate, it was a common and perfectly safe experience. For a soldier, it could be deadly. It was a miracle he’d managed this long.

I taught him the crèche lessons--how to be mindful of his emotions, how to meditate and self-reflect, how to recognize when he was starting to enter a psychic feedback loop. Later on, when his awareness developed and he began to grasp a sense of the light trapped under his skin, I would teach him my own lessons--how to feel the Force buried in his bones, how to let the Force circulate and ease his pains, how to tell when someone was reaching into his mind.

Tazo was smart enough to guess that I had not learned these lessons in Kamino, but he never commented on it and he certainly never asked. Plausible deniability, or maybe he just didn’t care.

He was a good student--not naturally talented, but dedicated and not easily discouraged by failure. He didn’t chafe when I had him practice the basics again and again, so maybe he had more discipline than I had guessed from his personality, or the threat of losing his sanity was motivation enough.

When I wasn’t teaching Tazo, he lived up to his promises to look after me. He showed me around the flagship, taught me about the finer details of the army, and brought my clumsy clone sign up to speed, including the more nuanced and extended vocabulary of 352nd-specific unit sign. I did all right for myself, especially considering my stiff mechanical wrist. Besides that, he helped me run maintenance checks on my hand and told me stories of some of the deployments Deadfall had done. He treated me with warmth, with casual touches on the back and arms and spoke to me with fondness that felt real. And I…

I didn’t know what to do with that. The last time I’d had a family was when I still lived in the Jedi Temple, and in those days, I’d had my agemates and the junior Padawans and the Masters. I had never had a…big brother. I felt terribly out of place, slotting into this role Tazo had created for me, a role where someone was looking after me.

I didn’t need all the favors and the minding--I didn’t need a keeper. I could damn well take care of myself, and had for the majority of two decades. Tazo taking it upon himself to do so many things for me felt…

It felt like some kind of trap.

“You don’t have to think so hard about it,” Tazo told me one late night the day before we went planetside again. “I’m sure you’ve got your sh*t together--you wouldn’t be alive if you didn’t. But that doesn’t mean your life couldn’t stand to be a little easier.” He sat behind me and pulled a wide-toothed comb through my hair. “If that means you need something to eat or someone to talk to or someone to pull your hair up…what’s the point in doing it the hard way if you don’t have to?”

The comb hit a snag, and he not very gently worked it loose. “Kid, you should seriously get this trimmed.”

“I prefer it long,” I said with a wince. “I keep it tied up, it doesn’t get in the way.”

“It’s a mess is what it is,” Tazo said. “And I thought I had long hair.”

“It’s only to mid-back. The war’s gone on for over a year. Surely some clones have hair this long.”

“Maybe,” Tazo replied. “But that’s not saying much. A lot of brothers are idiots.” Briskly, he combed the rest of my hair, then set the comb aside. “That should do the job. You wear it braided, right?”

“I usually don’t, but you can if you like,” I said. “Do you even know how to braid hair?”

“Of course I do. Who do you think does Pip’s braids?” Tazo asked as he carded his fingers into my hair. He had strong hands, confident hands as he gathered my hair between deft fingers and began to weave it into a simple 3-plait. He hadn’t lied--he knew what he was doing, certainly more than Maul had. “And what do you mean, you usually don’t braid your hair?”

“Just what I said. You’ve seen my mechanical hand--I can’t braid with that.”

Tazo paused. “Your hair was braided when you dragged us out of that ocean.”

“It was.”

Another pause. Tazo tied off my hair and sighed. He leaned in so his chin rested on my shoulder and his arms looped around my stomach. He was broader than me, and very solid--at least as solid as Jango had been, when we had been together. He was so close that I could feel the buzz of the Force under his skin. “Kid,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m not asking for the world here. I’m just asking for a little trust.”

“I hardly know you,” I said. “How can I know if you’re trustworthy?”

Tazo nudged the side of my head with his. “You don’t. That’s why it’s trust,” he said. “You are familiar with the concept, right?”

“You don’t trust me,” I pointed out. “You barely even let me look at Pip, much less stand in the same room as him. I don’t even know what you think I can do to him.”

“Don’t take that personally--I don’t trust anyone with Pip’s life.”

“You’re…very protective of him.”

“He’s my closest brother,” Tazo said. “We’re twins. True twins--we came from the same germ cell. Incubated in the same tube.”

I supposed that made sense. Identical twins happened spontaneously in natural birth--it made sense that it could happen for clone development, too. Even the Kaminoans couldn’t completely control the hand of random chance.

“And yet you trust me with your life?”

Tazo laughed softly, barely more than a short breath against my ear. Gently, he tugged me backwards, so I was laying flush against his chest with his arms wrapped around my torso. He was warm, and the feel of the Force under his skin helped to ease the pain under mine. “I don’t know if I’d go that far yet, kid. Maybe if you give me a little more to work with. I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

“Mm.” I closed my eyes and let myself relax against Tazo’s body. After a few days in hyperspace, the emptiness in my soul where the Force used to be had made itself very known. Pressed against another sentient--pressed against a Force sensitive, however weak--there was just enough Force to feel relief.

Not a lot. But it helped.

“Kid?” Tazo asked. “Kid, we were having a conversation. What’s gotten into you?”

“Comfortable,” I murmured. “Tired.”

“Yeah. You’ve got insomnia, don’t you?”

I shook my head, and even that made me feel a little woozy. Exhaustion, without the aching emptiness in my soul to fend it off, settled heavily on me. “Just off planet. There’s no Force. Makes my chest hurt.”

Tazo seemed to process that. “But this--me holding you--helps. You can feel the Force better like this.”

I nodded.

“If I keep doing this, will you sleep properly?” Tazo asked softly.

I nodded once more.

“Okay,” Tazo said. I’m not sure what exactly happened after that, except that the next thing I knew, the lights had been turned off and Tazo had somehow maneuvered us so we were side-by-side on his narrow bunk, his arm draped over my chest and his breath in my hair. I could feel his heartbeat, slow and strong. “Is this okay, kid?”

I murmured approval. “You’re warmer than Jango.”

“Like in the Force?” Tazo asked. “I would hope so, I’m only an asshole some of the time.”

“Your body,” I corrected. “It’s warmer than Jango’s.”

Tazo went rigid and there was a sort of discordant twang in his Force.

I blinked blearily. “Tazo? Is everything okay?”

Tazo took a deep breath, then made himself relax. He squeezed me tight and said, “It’s all right, kid. Get some sleep.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I nestled comfortably against the curve of Tazo’s body, wrapped in his warmth, and slipped into unconsciousness.

Time passed. The 352nd had a few more missions. I don’t remember all of them, because when you don’t get attacked by an enormous crustacean, they tend to bleed together. I got newly-painted boots on the dirt and played the roles I was given--a spotter, a relief sniper, an evac, an extra pair of hands at the medical tents. Spicy kept me out of the thickest parts of the fighting, which was for the best. I could operate when blasterfire was overhead, but I wasn’t good at it and I never would be--that was just a fact.

Tazo continued to share his bunk with me when we were in hyperspace--something that raised a few eyebrows from the rest of Deadfall but was waved off easily enough--and my body no longer felt like it was on the verge of falling apart now that I was getting actual rest. Tazo admitted to me, privately, that bunking together helped him sleep well, too.

He gradually learned to prevent his Force episodes. The rest came along more slowly. When Tazo had no other obligations, sometimes he joined me for meditations in the morning. He had a strange affinity with the group meditation, sinking almost instantly into the Force as if becoming submersed in it, and he often came out of it…dazed. I wasn’t sure what to think of that, because it certainly wasn’t expected, but Tazo seemed to see it as a positive experience.

I wasn’t so sure. But then, I wasn’t the one with the functional connection to the Force.

Between deployments, I worked on my own projects, gathering information on the GAR and their communications and the connections from the Chancellor on down. It didn’t seem like the GAR comm network allowed for the Chancellor to transmit to multiple clones simultaneously unless there was some kind of back door I wasn’t aware of--which could very well be the case. If I were a Sith Lord with designs on taking over the galaxy, I would certainly have built in as many systems to make my takeover go as smoothly as possible.

Occasionally, I got status reports from Maul. He burned down two Separatist outposts and was aiming for his third--he had gotten his hands on a whole lot of data, though he didn’t have the patience or know-how to actually do anything with it. I would have to sort through it myself at a later date, which I didn’t look forward to. I sent him a few more possible targets based on my research.

And then, just over a month after I had gone undercover in the Republic’s clone army, the Jedi General of the 352nd was killed in action.

I never heard exactly how, but from what little I did learn, they had saved an entire platoon of clones in the process. A noble death for a noble Jedi, I supposed. There were certainly worse ways to go out, and the clones were sad to see them go. I had never personally met the 352nd Jedi face-to-face, but I felt the loss all the same--they were still Jedi, and it was an unpleasant reminder of what I was working to prevent.

The death of the General with no reasonable substitute meant that the 352nd would be disbanded. All the soldiers would be folded into other battalions.

“This is garbage,” Spicy griped as she went through the reassignment forms. “We have to fill all this nonsense out just to do our own jobs? Who the hell thought of this system?”

“I suppose it’s important to keep the records straight,” I replied as I scrolled through my datapad. It certainly was an unnecessarily convoluted process--it seemed like it would be easier to just tell everyone in the 352nd where they would be going next and have a transport come pick us up, but I guess that carried its own logistic issues. “It looks like we can request a battalion?”

“Yeah,” Tazo said. “Some of the Commanders think we should have a little bit of a say in our reassignments. Don’t see how it makes much of a difference, the fighting is the same no matter where you go.”

I hummed thoughtfully. It was true, many of the battalions were effectively interchangeable in function. That was, after all, the point of a clone army. “Maybe it’s good for morale. Is Deadfall going anywhere specific?”

Spicy shrugged. “We’ll probably be assigned to an attack battalion--that’s what Deadfall is best suited for. Other than that, I don’t know.”

“I see.” It didn’t matter to me too much where we went, so long as Command treated us with a basic level of respect, or failing that, ignored us entirely. But Spicy didn’t need me to tell her that. “How do people usually pick where they want to go?”

“Based on hearsay, mostly,” Spicy replied. “A battalion that needs certain roles, or has most of their assignments in a certain sector, or has a good General. That kind of thing.”

A good General. I hadn’t even thought of that. Maybe…maybe this could be an opportunity. I looked up at Spicy. “Have you considered the 212th?”

Summary:

Obi-Wan--both of them--arrive at the Negotiator.

The Negotiator was a behemoth of a flagship. All of the Republic’s flagships were enormous, but the Negotiator, host to one of the largest battalions of the entire army, was mind-bendingly huge--so large it didn’t even feel real as we kept drawing closer. I could hardly tear myself away from the viewport just watching it as our transport approached.

“That’s what a real attack battalion looks like, huh?” Pinup asked, leaning against the wall by my side. “Deadfall playing with the big kids, who would have ever imagined?”

“We do good work,” Spicy said. “It’s not that big of a surprise that the Commander approved our transfer.”

The Commander of the 212th… “Commander Cody?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Pinup said. “A real hardass, from what I’ve heard. Works all his soldiers to the bone. Could have been an ARC trainer, but I guess some files got mixed up and he got put into Command instead.” Pinup grinned. “They say he can make shinies piss themselves just by looking at them.”

“That’s vulgar,” I said.

Pinup snorted. “Not everyone can be as sophisticated as you, Tracer.” They elbowed me in the side. “What about you? You’re not shaking in your boots about meeting him for the first time, are you? You might have paint now, but you’re still plenty shiny.”

I didn’t know that much about Commander Cody--just that he was the Marshal Commander and among the highest-ranked clones in the entire army. Rex, however, had known Cody well. The two of them had grown up together and looked out for each other and dragged each other out of trouble. In Rex’s eyes, Cody was a dependable and dutiful man, who took his responsibilities as a commanding officer and an older brother very seriously--work got done efficiently, correctly, and completely. It was not a glamorous role--even in Kamino he had been duty-bound to make the hard decisions, the unpopular decisions, even when it meant he had to personally pick up his blaster and drive the bolt home. So he was stern, yes, with very high standards, certainly, but I didn’t get the impression that he was unkind. Cody was the type of person who pulled his brothers aside at night and talked to them to see if they were doing okay. He was the type of person to put his life on the line to protect the people he was responsible for.

I could see the appeal in a man like that. If Master Kenobi was anything like me, I could see why he would get along with Commander Cody.

“I don’t think he’s that scary,” I said.

“He full-body tackles droids,” Pinup said. “Rips them apart with his bare hands, sometimes.”

Spicy scoffed. “Pinup, do you really listen to all that trash?”

“No, no, there’s holovids of it and everything!” Pinup said. “I bet the Commander would tackle Grievous if that bucket of bolts ever got into tackling range. Not an ounce of fear in that man, no sir.”

“That just means he’s a little unhinged, not that he’s scary,” I said. “In any case, the 212th is so large. As long as we do our work properly, we’ll probably barely ever see him.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” Spicy replied. “Deadfall’s a forward squad--we’ll end up reporting directly to the Commander. But I don’t think you should worry too much. If we’ll see him or not, we’ll find out soon enough.”

As she said that, the transport shuddered as it let down its landing gear and slowly entered the Negotiator’s hangar bay, like a tiny fish getting swallowed up by a whale.

Spicy pulled her helmet on. “All right, kids, it’s showtime.”

We filed out of the transport and into the hangar, almost eighty soldiers in total. It wasn’t a large portion of the 352nd, but it was one of the largest chunks that had been distributed out to the other battalions--the 212th, it seemed, was large and hurting for manpower, and experienced soldiers from another battalion were better than fresh recruits.

Then there was the Commander. He was in full armor except for his helmet, which must have been set aside somewhere nearby, and from up close the orange paint on his armor was a lot more scuffed than I had expected from the holos of the war. The man himself looked just as he did in Rex’s memories--regulation haircut with no cosmetic variations except for an old scar that curled around his left eye. Whatever caused it must have been messy. He had hard eyes--sharp eyes--the kind that can see straight to your secrets, or get you to spill them. I didn’t put too much stock in eyes like that, but I could see why he scared new recruits.

The Commander went down the line, inspecting each of us one by one. He paused when he reached me, his gaze hesitating on my helmet, then lowering to meet my gaze. “Soldier,” he said. “What’s your name and designation?”

Well. That wasn’t an auspicious start.

I saluted. “Tracer. CT-0811.”

“Stand up straight,” the Commander said. He had a firm, authoritative voice, the kind that held no doubt it would be obeyed. With the clones he had under his command, he probably never did need to doubt. “You’re a part of the finest army this galaxy has ever seen. Act like it.”

With some reluctance, I straightened my back. It made my slight height advantage over the other clones more obvious, and the Commander must have seen it, because his brows furrowed and he looked me up and down once more. Whatever he thought, it must not have been urgent, because he turned away from me and continued down the line.

With the inspection finished, he stood in front of us all and clasped his hands behind his back. “Soldiers of the 352nd, you have safely arrived on the Negotiator. Welcome. From this day forward, you are part of the 212th under my command. As I’m sure you are already aware, I am Marshal Commander Cody, designation CC-2224. You may address me as Commander or sir. You may also use my name, as long as you pronounce it correctly.”

I wasn’t even sure how anyone could mispronounce a name as simple as ‘Cody’ outside of some kind of malicious and deliberate misunderstanding, but he sounded irritated enough that it seemed like a real issue. He would know best, I suppose.

The Commander went through a brisk introduction of the flagship, our duties, and the standards to which we would be held. I listened to most of it with half an ear--I already knew my way around the Negotiator, courtesy of Rex’s memory. I wondered idly if Rex’s 501st would cross paths with the 212th soon. I hoped it wouldn’t. I didn’t think Rex would recognize me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to take needless risks, either.

“Apologies for the delay, my meeting ran rather longer than expected,” I heard from one side, and my mouth went dry.

With a smooth, rolling gait, Master Kenobi stepped onto the scene. He entered like a ghost, draped in his Jedi robes with some split armor over top, and his boots made no sound where they touched the ground. He looked much like his snapshot had, with a well-trimmed beard, hair cropped at the nape of the neck, and a slightly floppy fringe just long enough to hang over unreadable eyes. He stood straight and proud and self-assured, every inch of him the Jedi Master and diplomat and General the Republic needed him to be--dignified, cool-headed, charismatic. All the things that I was not.

This was him in the flesh. The man I could have been.

The Commander saluted. “You haven’t missed anything, sir. I’ve just finished orienting our new soldiers.”

Master Kenobi smiled, crow’s feet crinkling in the corners of his eyes. “Thank you, Cody. I can take over from here.”

“Of course, sir,” the Commander said, then left.

Master Kenobi watched him go, then turned his gaze towards us. His attention was almost a palpable thing, reaching carefully outwards with the Force like a soft gust of wind. Beside me, Tazo stiffened. I wondered if it was the first time he’d ever had another mind brush his.

“You may be at ease, gentlemen. I’m sure our dear Commander has already told you,” Master Kenobi said, his voice soft yet effortlessly holding the attention of every soldier in the room. He spoke with a Core accent, the one I’d had growing up before all my years around the Mid- to Outer Rim had roughed it up. “But welcome to the Negotiator. I’m glad to have you all join us from the 352nd, and I’m sorry for the loss that made this possible--Master Wernes was an honorable Jedi, and they will be sorely missed.”

Several soldiers bowed their heads in respect for our passed General.

“You will all be given your dormitory and equipment assignments shortly,” Master Kenobi continued. “But I had hoped to meet all of you first--if you are to trust me with your lives, it’s my duty to know who each of you are. Please let me know how you would like to be addressed, whether that’s by a name or designation number or if you have preferred pronouns.” He gestured to a young-looking clone in medical uniform who had trailed in after him. “When you have finished speaking with me, I kindly ask that you meet with our CMO, CT-3122, to make sure the medical files we received are up to date. After that, Boots over there will give you your assignments and any other important information you need at this time.” He looked over us and smiled again. “I hope your service with the 212th will be pleasant and fulfilling. Make no mistake, we will fight hard battles--some of the hardest battles in the entire GAR. Not all of you will survive, and I am sorry. But we will make sure that your efforts and your sacrifices are not in vain. We fight this war together. All of us.”

It was a nice speech--I couldn’t have done half as well. A nice mix of somber realism and optimism, for all the good that would do in a war zone. But the duties of a General involve raising morale along with everything else, so Master Kenobi probably had a lot of practice by now.

True to his word, Master Kenobi began to go down the line, greeting each soldier in turn. He looked like a gentle man, and it hurt to think that in another world where I had not been quite so angry and so short of expectations, I could have been gentle. I could have been kind. In another world, in this world, I could have grown up without the blood of innocents on my hands and had an entire soul and a home and a family. Standing here before my mirror image, I felt the absence more keenly than ever. It smoldered in my chest, a desire I had come to terms with but never been able to purge, and in that moment, I hated Master Kenobi.

I hated that he could exist, that he could look at us and smile and swing around his lightsaber and be a hero in the way I had dreamed of as a youngling. I hated that he dared to stand opposite me as my superior, that he would never know what it would feel like to be ripped from the Force and lose everything, to be lost in the galaxy all alone.

Master Kenobi stepped before me, unaware of my churning thoughts. “Hello there,” he said.

“Hello,” I replied woodenly.

“Welcome to the 212th,” Master Kenobi said, bowing his head politely. How nice of him. How civilized. “What would you like me to call you?”

“You can call me whatever you want,” I said. “But I go by Tracer.”

Master Kenobi nodded. “Tracer. Like a tracer round?”

“Tracer like someone who tracks things down,” I said. “I’m a spotter.”

“I see,” Master Kenobi said. “It’s a very fitting name.”

Master Kenobi reached gently towards me with the Force, the way all Jedi do. For Jedi, it was polite to allow a cursory touch, to let both parties get a sense of each other’s emotional state, but I was not a Jedi and I didn’t give much of a damn about manners besides, so I let the probe pass through me. Master Kenobi, to his credit, hardly reacted, and I felt more than saw his mild confusion.

“Tracer,” Master Kenobi said. “Would you mind taking your helmet off? I like to see your faces in the moments when I can, and--”

“General,” Tazo cut in. “Tracer’s face-shy, sir. He gets real uncomfortable when anyone gets a good look at his mug. I mean, I’m part of his squad, and even we only just got him comfortable showing his face to us.” Tazo laughed, and I could imagine he had one of those annoying grins on under that helmet of his. “I don’t see why--he looks just as handsome as I do. But uncomfortable is uncomfortable. There’s no need to embarrass him in front of everyone, right?”

“Oh,” Master Kenobi replied. “Oh, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Tracer. I didn’t realize.”

I bowed my head. “No offense taken.”

“Well, it was very good to meet you,” Master Kenobi said, clasping my hand. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise,” I said, with much less sincerity.

Master Kenobi moved on, and I went to see 3122. He was young--younger than any of the clones I had seen so far, with a regulation haircut and no visible scars or tattoos. He had no name tag, just an ID badge with his CT number, with no notches on it to declare any particular gender identity. He seemed anxious, and a little jittery besides, but he reviewed my medical file without a hitch. Everything seemed to pass muster.

As he signed my medical file, he asked, “Do you need physiotherapy?”

“Excuse me?”

“You seem--it appears you have a shoulder injury,” 3122 said. “It’s noticeable when you--if you raise your right arm. Do you need me to schedule you for physiotherapy?”

I stared at him. I wasn’t even aware I had raised my arm at any point that he could have seen. Apparently, that CMO rank wasn’t just for show.

“I have exercises that I do on my own,” I told him. “It doesn’t interfere with my work.”

3122 nodded. “Okay. In that case, um. If you do need physiotherapy, or pain management, or anything else, please don’t--don’t hesitate to visit the medbay. It’s important to treat yourself properly to prevent long-term disability.”

“Of course,” I said. “Thank you, 3122.”

He waved me off, so I went to get my assignments. It seemed like the Negotiator had many more sharp-eyed people than I’d expected. It would be harder to move around here than it had been with the 352nd.

Hopefully, coming to the 212th wouldn’t end up being a mistake.

We settled on the Negotiator quickly. With the size of the battalion and the number of recruits who kept streaming through, the onboarding process had been refined and optimized to an art.

I passed the day in a daze, a whirl of white and orange armor and endlessly long corridors. It was disorienting, how similar yet different the Negotiator was to the 352nd flagship, like I had just slipped sideways into a place where things weren’t quite right.

Every so often, I felt Master Kenobi’s thoughts turn towards me. It was faint--nothing more than an idle curiosity, but it was clear that he had noticed the strange feeling I carried in the Force and hadn’t been satisfied to let it be. Well, that was expected. In his place, I wouldn’t either.

I avoided him. There would be a time to get close, but not now.

Deadfall was assigned to a 6-bunk dormitory nearly identical to the one we’d had in the 352nd, already filled with our assigned equipment, which we inspected for quality and function. A few things we had brought from the 352nd--Pinup’s customized spotter droid and sniper rifle, Tazo’s technician kit, Spicy’s bag of contraband candy. I, of course, had no belongings besides my armor.

At the end of the day, I sat cross-legged in the closet, my helmet settled in my lap. I wondered, not for the first time, if I was going a step too far. If I was being just a little too brazen, just this once.

My heart was unsettled, and it was obvious why--seeing Master Kenobi in the flesh, even for those few minutes, had shaken me bad. I couldn’t say why it affected me so much. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t known he would be there, or what he would look like. It wasn’t as if I was unaware of what Master Kenobi had accomplished that I had not. Whether he was in front of me or somewhere else in the galaxy wouldn’t change that.

And yet.

“Kid?” Tazo said, standing in the closet doorway. “It’s getting late. Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Tazo stepped into the closet and sat down next to me. “Is this about the General?”

I laughed under my breath. “Am I that obvious?”

“It just seems like the most likely possibility,” Tazo said. He put a hand on my back, rubbing slow circles with his thumb. “Is this the first time you’ve seen him in person?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. It can be weird,” Tazo said. “It wasn’t as weird for us, because we always grew up around other units with the same faces. But seeing Prime that first time…it was scary. He didn’t even feel real. He was bigger than us, louder than us, meaner than us, and he…he didn’t move right. It looked like someone was wearing his skin instead of us wearing his.”

I tried to imagine that, the strangeness I’d felt seeing men with Jango’s face transposed in reverse. I couldn’t.

“At least General Kenobi seems decent enough. The 212th love him, however much that counts.” Tazo hummed. “I think he would be kind to you, if you told him.”

It sounded like it pained him to say it. Tazo, I knew, was not especially enamored of the Jedi as a whole. Most of Deadfall wasn’t. I couldn’t blame him. As much as the Jedi were doing the best they could, up to and including dying for the clones, it did not change that they were the ones who held the power and ordered the clones to their deaths. It was not always their orders and not always their words--those came down from the Senate and above--but it was always their mouths, and it was easy to feel resentment for that, looking up from underneath.

“I’m not worried about that,” I said. “The worst Master Kenobi will do is pity me.”

“But you don’t want pity.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” I said. “I don’t want him to care about me, I don’t want him to look at me and my scars and cry about it, I don’t want him to feel things about me.”

Tazo leveled an unimpressed look at me. “If you wanted to stay away from General Kenobi that bad, why did you ask Spicy to transfer us to the 212th?”

I took a deep breath. I had no interest in making nice with Master Kenobi, but my connection to him and his rank meant that he could potentially be a valuable source of information, and if I could use him, I would. To get more information about Sidious’s plans, moving into a more central battalion had just been the strategic choice. I couldn’t afford to let that opportunity slip by. “The 212th is a good place for me to be.”

“If you say so,” Tazo replied. “What are you going to do, kid?”

“For now, I’m going to meditate. I’m going to get my thoughts and emotions under control and think about what I need to do next.”

Tazo seemed to consider that. “Do you want me to join you?”

“If you want.”

Tazo took that as a yes, and settled down next to me. He grasped my flesh hand and squeezed softly and the tremor I sometimes noticed in his right hand was absent, at least for now.

I closed my eyes and opened myself to the Force. Here on the Negotiator it was easier to feel, with the life and minds of thousands of soldiers. It was even easier to feel with Tazo holding my hand--the Force bubbled up from the depths of his soul like a cool spring and reached out to caress my mind.

I allowed the Force envelop me, but not to pull me down--I was not calm enough for that. My thoughts turned towards Master Kenobi like the pull of a magnet upon a compass needle, and I let myself feel what I felt--the anger, the envy, the resentment.

I did not like Master Kenobi. I did not like being reminded of all the things I could have been and perhaps should have been. I did not like knowing that some small deviation twenty years ago was all it would have taken to save me from the life I lived now. Master Kenobi was a vision of the best person that I could be, and a constant reminder I was not that.

But that wasn’t his fault. He had done me no wrong, except to exist.

I couldn’t wish him unhappiness just because I was unhappy--I didn’t want to see him suffer. I couldn’t wish him to lose his connection to the Force--I didn’t think anyone deserved that. I couldn’t wish him to lose his family because I had lost mine--in fact, I was fighting to save his family at this very moment.

Then why was I so angry?

I breathed Force into my lungs and let the answer rise naturally: I hated, more than anything else, that Master Kenobi would never understand me. He would never understand just how much he had, how much he took for granted, how close he had come to becoming me. Here I was, a stone’s throw away from a man who should know me better than anyone in this universe, perhaps better than anyone in any universe, and he would never be able to reach down into the pit where I had fallen and grasp my hand and tell me that I was not alone.

I felt that yawning abyss in my heart, the maw of a desperate and clawing loneliness that had made a home in my soul the moment I had ripped out my connection to the Force--and with it, my connection to the rest of the universe and the ones I had loved the most. I knew its shape intimately, though I didn’t think of it often. Over the years, I had tried to fill that hole time and time again--even with my rough personality and blunt demeanor, I had some rapport with the Young at Melida/Daan, the Guardians at Jedha, with Jango, later on with Dex and Bail--but it was never enough. There was no love that could give that part of my heart back to me, and I had long since come to terms with its loss.

This was no different. Perhaps in some small corner of my heart, ever since I realized I had arrived in a new universe that contained another version of myself, I had hoped that Master Kenobi would be able to fix me the way no one else had, to undo my pains from the past and make me whole. A foolish wish, and an unreasonable one. I let it go to the Force, and the Force accepted my offering, pressing gently like a kiss to the forehead and a soft-spoken apology.

One day, I would speak to this Obi-Wan Kenobi face-to-face, and I would not do it with hatred in my heart. He could speak for himself, and I could make my judgments then. Until that day, I would let my anger and resentments go. They were not fair, and they would not help anyone, least of all me.

Slowly and methodically, I combed through my thoughts, let myself feel what I needed to, and let it go. When my heart finally settled, I let my consciousness rise from the Force. It was dark--the lights had been turned out. Beside me, Tazo remained motionless, his hand still twined with mine. In the dim red glow of floor emergency lights, I could see he was breathing very slowly.

“Tazo?” I murmured.

There was no reaction.

I squeezed his hand. I could feel the Force within him like a deep ocean--he had gone deeply under before when we meditated together, but never this deep. Chances were, he had no awareness of the physical world anymore.

I threaded Force into my voice and said, “Tazo, can you look at me?”

The Force rippled through him, and sure enough, he looked up at me. His eyes were blank and unseeing, and his face held no expression at all.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.

“I can hear you,” he said. His voice was very soft, but his speech was clear.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I am on the flagship of the 212th Attack Battalion. In Deadfall’s shared dormitory.”

The way he spoke was eerie. Flat, without even a hint of his usual joking manner. It wasn’t…normal.

“Are you…awake?” I asked.

There was a pause. “I don’t think so,” Tazo said. “I think I’m somewhere very deep. It’s light.”

Light was better than the alternative. I could be thankful for that, if nothing else.

“Can you stand?”

In response, Tazo slowly rose to his feet. Despite being in one of the deepest trance states I had ever seen, he had no issues with balance. He stood utterly still, his limbs loose and his gaze blank. “What do you need me to do next?” he asked.

I felt a pit in my stomach. “Why are you asking me that?”

“You want to use me as a tool to save your family,” Tazo said with no inflection at all. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

Why. Why would Tazo say something like that from the depths of his subconscious? I was no stranger to using people when I needed it, but there was something repulsive about having it laid out so transparently.

There was a crawling feeling under my skin, just to think of it. I’d had enough.

“I need you to wake up,” I said. “Pull yourself out of the Force, Tazo. Follow my voice back to the waking world.”

The Force rippled under Tazo’s skin, and I could feel the ocean within him recede until it was nothing but a calm buzz under his skin. Tazo blinked a couple of times, his breath stuttering, and he looked at me.

“Kid?” he asked. “I…” He glanced around. “Why are we standing?”

“We were meditating. Do you remember?”

Tazo shook his head. “Kid, I don’t remember anything that happens when we meditate together. You made us stand up? Wouldn’t you fall over?”

“You don’t…You mean, every time we’ve meditated together, you don’t remember anything that happens?” I asked. “Tazo, that’s not normal. If you’re going so deep that you’re completely unaware, we shouldn’t--”

Tazo put a hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s not normal. I’m going to keep doing it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if I don’t, this Force thing in my head is going to drive me insane,” Tazo said. “And because I trust you. Okay? Don’t ask questions about good things, kid.”

He reached out to me with the Force, nothing more than a brush against my mind, to let me feel his trust and sincerity. I didn’t understand it. For some reason, I had the ability to manipulate him and to use him, and he didn’t care. To hand me his free will so blatantly…that wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right.

But I was not a good enough person to not take advantage of it. An ally was an ally and a tool was a tool. In my fight against Sidious, I needed every one I could get.

“You feel a lot calmer now,” Tazo said, brushing the side of my face with his fingers. “Did you get your head sorted out?”

I nodded. It was a transparent attempt to change the subject, but I allowed it. “I’ll speak to Master Kenobi at some point. But not for now. The right moment will come.”

“Okay. As long as you know what you’re doing,” Tazo said. “We have an early day tomorrow, so let’s get some sleep.”

We went to sleep. I do not know about Tazo, but my dreams, at least, were not restful.

The Negotiator dropped out of hyperspace to refuel and resupply at a Mid-Rim Republic outpost, as well as for Master Kenobi to communicate with the Council or whatever other official things one did when they were a High General.

Gossip about news made its way across the flagship quickly--something about a Darksider who was causing trouble. A Sith Assassin of some sort named Ventress. She had caused trouble before, but this time was more concerning because since the last time she was a problem she had reportedly learned some Dark magic.

“Dark magic? Is that a real thing?” I heard one of the soldiers in the rec room say.

I paused in reading my holonovel--the Negotiator had a surprisingly good collection, including several books from the year which I had skipped when I had been pulled across universes--and looked towards the voice. The man who’d spoken was at the card table and fairly distinct, a 212th soldier with a head shaved completely bald and a small patch of facial hair beneath his lip and a Lieutenant Commander’s badge--I hadn’t caught his name yet.

“With those Sith bastards, you never know,” replied the soldier playing opposite him. “Magic makes as much sense as anything else we’ve seen, and that green mist stuff sure didn’t look normal.”

Green mist. Dark magic.

An old nightmare came to mind, a towering witch in the swamps of Dathomir and a Dark talisman to ensnare my will. A coincidence? Maybe, but I didn’t believe in coincidences. Not like this.

“If the magic is real, how are we supposed to fight it?” said the first soldier. “Our armor is rated for blaster bolts, not Sith sorcery.”

“I think that’s what the General’s trying to figure out now,” said the second soldier. “Thankfully, she’s nowhere near this sector for now.”

“Boil!” the first soldier said, “did you have to say that? You’ve gone and jinxed it now.”

“Jinxes aren’t real,” said the second soldier--Boil, apparently. He threw down his cards. “And that’s game. I’ll be taking those paint packs, thank you very much.”

“What!” the first soldier squawked. “How the hell did you--Not again!”

I left them to argue over the conclusion to their game and went back to my holonovel. I only got a few more paragraphs before realizing I had lost all interest. The prospect of someone with Dark magic did not bode well, and while it was a bit egocentric to think it had to do specifically with me, I did think it was reasonable to assume Maul’s mother the witch was involved.

My commlink buzzed. It was an encrypted frequency.

Speak of the devil.

I put my holonovel back on the shelf and slipped out of the rec room to open the transmission.

“Kenobi speaking,” I said.

“Must you introduce yourself like that?” drawled Maul’s disgruntled voice in my ear. “I thought you were supposed to be undercover.”

“Aw, I didn’t know you cared so much,” I replied.

Maul sniffed audibly. “I do not care about you, Kenobi. I care that if your cover is compromised, the chances of my murdering my Master are significantly reduced.”

“That’s so sweet of you, dear,” I said. “What’s going on? You don’t normally comm.”

“I have come into a situation that calls for your immediate attention,” Maul said. “Or at least, if I did not comm you you would become insufferable about it at a later date. So I am comming you.”

“All right, you have my immediate attention. Please tell me about the situation.”

“This Separatist outpost which you have told me to attack, there appears to be a prisoner,” Maul said.

“So? Lots of Separatists have prisoners.”

“Yes, but this one is different. This prisoner appears to be one of your clones.”

I paused. A clone prisoner? That deep in Separatist territory? “What’s their name?” I asked.

“I do not know. It was unimportant.”

I sighed. “Well, go ask them, Maul. My goodness, you don’t need me to spell everything out for you.”

Maul grumbled, and I heard some shuffling sounds, then a distant, “Clone! Kenobi wants your name!”

“Darling, don’t call them that.”

There was some other noise, some more distant words I couldn’t make out, then Maul came back to the comm. “The clone says its name is Echo.”