Chapter Text
"A chance," Boba mused quietly, "I think I know where the files are."
Cody rubbed at his eyes helplessly. "What?"
"You don't know why they got you out right? And you don't know about the files? Now I'm not saying they didn't get you out of the kindness of their hearts but I think they got the files out with you."
Alpha was strangely silent. Cody shook his head, frowning.
"That's not possible I would know."
"Would you?" Boba prompted.
No, he wouldn't, not two minutes before he had confessed to the fogginess of his memory.
It would explain too much though, like why the Empire had been following him so persistently and why they'd been able to find him every time.
He had put it down to luck or the ever growing encroachment of the Empire.
The fracturing of his memory had almost been a comfort as of late, there was the Cody that understood how the world worked, understood his purpose and there was the doomed, dread soaked Cody who had looked over him since they started winning the war.
It was not a comfort to know he did not remember the names of the people who had risked their lives to get him out.
Cody liked control. He was used to responsibility, to command and without it he had begun to drift. He had still been in charge of the 212th but they weren't the 212th and he had had no control. Not even a chance to keep them all safe.
"So where would they be?" Boba, ignoring his silence, continued, "what did you have on you when you escaped?"
"Just my armour."
"Good, good." He trailed off softly, "always need that."
"Your helmet." Alpha cut in sharply "Take it off."
Cody traced the side of it again, running his fingers against the ridges like a rite of protection.
He pulled it off carefully, keeping his eyes on it.
Cody could feel Boba's lingering gaze on his face as Alpha scrutinised the helmet. He didn't think he looked that different, his scar still curled around his eye. His hair was slightly longer but it was not as if the face was unfamiliar to Boba.
Perhaps, he pondered, it was not the absence of familiarity that caused such wistfulness but too much.
"On the left," Alpha said softly, "inside the helmet there's a flap, almost like a pocket."
He fumbled around in it and yes, just as Alpha said there was a pocket.
"How-"
"We used to hide things in there."
Cody pulled out a silver memory stick. His hands do not shake.
"How did I not know it was there?"
"It's tracking us."
"Shit."
"Smash it."
Cody hesitated.
"I need to know what's on it."
Alpha groaned, "and you want the Empire after us for some files?"
"Well they're clearly important!"
"Important enough to get tracked and killed for?"
"I mean they're already sending bounty hunters after you." Boba chipped in and Alpha sent him a withering look.
"Thank you Mr Boba the Friendly Bounty Hunter."
Boba, the not so friendly bounty hunter now, promptly flipped Alpha off.
"Is the imminent threat of death not enough to keep you from squabbling." Cody saw Boba's mouth open and intercepted, "nevermind stupid question."
"The way I see it, the Empire is after us anyway in some capacity."
"So we might as well do it."
Boba nodded wisely, "tested and tried plan of fuck it."
Cody stared at the data stick. It was an old one, maybe pre Empire but it was unlikely. Perhaps an old war one adapted for the different terminals. It eased his mind a bit that it was from the War.
This was what someone has got him out for. This is what he had been entrusted with.
What had been worth it?
He plugged it into the desktop and waited, ever conscious of Boba and Alpha's looks.
This could bring down the empire. This could be it, the turning of the tide. These past years could be over as quickly as they began. This datastick which had been resting in his armour this whole time could end this.
Or, at least Cody allowed himself to hope before a single, crushing message flashed.
FILE LOCKED.
He'd been smuggled out of the Empire by his loyal, loyal troopers for a locked file.
"Shit."
"It's not an Imperial datastick though." Alpha prompted, "it's old. It can be hacked."
Cody gestured around to his kettle, the rug, the flaking paint on the walls. "We can't hack it from here."
"I don't trust anyone else to hack it."
Cody shared Alpha's suspicions completely.
"Where's the file from?" Boba interjected. "If we track it back we can find the file and perhaps others."
"Can you find out from the file Boba?"
He nodded and Cody moved aside, ignoring Alpha's persistent frown. Cody wasn't sure if it was the effect of being around Alpha or the strangeness of this scenario that led him to feel like a child, five steps behind.
"We should've guessed." Boba remarked softly, "it's from Kamino."
"No." Alpha choked out. "It can't be."
Kamino was a tricky place. The elder generation of clones used to say it was because of the water. Nobody, not one of them, seemed to have the same idea of it. Thinking about it was like trying to hold water.
A file from Kamino meant only one thing: it was about them.
Cody remembered quite a bit of Kamino or certain parts of him did. His muscles remained the training, his skin recalled the rain and his tongue remembered the tasteless food. But, if he had to pinpoint where Kamino lay it would be between his eyes, just out of sight.
"It's about the chips." Alpha said faintly, "it can't be anything else."
"We still need to hack it." Boba reminded them, "but if it's a Kamino file that makes things easier."
There was a stillness between the three brothers, an understanding.
"We have to go back."