Chapter Text
One of the first things Cody did after he’d returned to the Empire’s fold, chip gone and a plan forming about how the Empire would fall, was look for his General.
He didn’t dare approach him, not after betraying him, not after being at direct fault for the death of every single one of his family, no matter how he would have protested about the use of the word ‘family’.
But he found he needed to know if his General was even still alive. It would give him the strength for his plan, for a campaign he thought would take two decades minimum if everything aligned.
It took him weeks of covertly scanning video on Coruscant to prove a feeling he had that Senator Organa had aided his General after Utapu. Weeks more to track a ghost of a trail out towards the Outer Rim, where subtle inquires to people that had crossed paths with his General, had talked of a man vaguely fitting his description of his General, but with a baby.
It had been like a shock of lightning.
He’d remembered Skywalker’s marriage to Senator Amidala and had suspicions on what would drive his General out towards Hutt territory, and specifically, what was looking like Tatooine. It took another week for him to go through footage of her from the last year, and carefully note the times the Senator had switched out with one of her doubles, and how the times she was there, her clothing got progressively thicker and more concealing.
It was still something else to realize that his General was running to the one place guaranteed never to see Skywalker with Skywalker’s child.
~
His men settled quickly into a routine, rotating in two of themselves to Tatooine as part of the overwatch the Emperor placed on all Outer Rim planets thanks to a careful suggestion by Ponds into the Emperor’s ear.
It was through them that he gained a whisper here and there of how a ‘Ben Kenobi’ lived out in the Wastes, that a young couple by the names of Owen and Beru Lars had a baby they’d adopted after the death of Owen’s brother named Luke Skywalker.
It was the sort of proof that had him reaching out after nearly a year since Order 66 to Rex, begging his vod to listen to him.
He just never expected Rex to answer.
Nor did he expect to hear his vod’s news that there was another child of Skywalker, this one a girl and adopted by Senator Organa.
He’d cried as he’d realized that his General intended to protect Skywalker’s children as best as he could, believing that he was alone, and would give his life to make sure they lived free of the Emperor’s grasp.