Chapter Text
“Name?” The officer drones, looking down at the scruffy-looking teenager staring back at him; she’s definitely a tough one, a street-kid from the looks of her clothing and the dirt caked on her skin, but she’s well fed, so obviously smart enough to know how to get food. Or at least strong enough to win any fights for things to eat.
“Jade Kenobi.” She says, and the officer quickly writes out her name on the form - an orphan, or one of the hundreds of abandoned children on Stewjon, nothing too special. He saw tens of them a day. “I’m here to join the Academy.”
“‘Course you are kid. Age?” He says slowly, patronizing, eyes studying her dark red hair and amber-tinted green eyes. The only thing that made her stick out among the hundreds of other red-haired recruits coming to him from Stewjoni families, or being picked off the streets, was the darker tone of her skin, copper instead of pale.
“Fourteen. And I will get in.”
“Your test results will tell us if you’re cut out for this or not.” The flare in her eyes almost makes the officer smirk as he hands the form over to her. “Report to Captain Gren for your test.”
“Thanks.” The little spitfire grumbles, not at all thankful, and the officer lets himself chuckle as she marches away. The girl immediately left his thoughts once she was out of his sight; it wasn’t his job to think about the kids, just get them through the door.
( “I can do it.”
Around her, the adults go silent, eyes shifting to where Mara had shoved herself into the planning; two days ago, the Rebellion had gotten an encrypted message through one of Gregor’s old comms from the Clone Wars days, from a CT-15-2239. Mara had seen the recognition in her father’s eyes immediately - Wooley he had said, one of the troopers he had trained himself back when he was Commander of the 212th Battalion. The man had been reaching out desperately to any possible free clone, having recently suffered a head injury during a training exercise that had damaged his chip enough to make it inoperable; apparently one of four decommissioned clones serving as training officers on Stewjon’s Imperial Academy.
Wooley, Odd Ball, Thire, and Trapper - the names of four uncles Mara had been robbed of because of the Empire. Three of them were 212th, her parents’ men.
For the last two days, Mara had been skulking around, listening to the adults make and scrap plans to get the four men out; Wooley may have been the only one freed from the chip in his head, but none of them wanted to leave the other three behind to suffer if they could save them as well.
“I can go in as a recruit.” Mara continues, peering at the holo of the Stewjoni Imperial Academy. “I’m the right age-”
“Absolutely not.” Her buir cuts her off, and Mara jerks her head up to stare at him, wide eyed, expression quickly morphing to offended outrage.
“You think I can’t do it.” She accuses, jabbing a finger into his chest as she talks, drawing herself up to her full height. “You’ve been training me for this!”
“We’ve been training you to defend yourself. Not to go undercover into an unknown situation without backup!”
“Mara,” Her mother speaks up calmly, trying to defuse the tension that had been growing in the command room. “You’re only fourteen-”
“Exactly!” Mara spins around to stare at her màthair , “I’m fourteen - the same age Master Ahsoka was when she was assigned to the Clone Wars. A year older than you were when your Master left you behind to lead a war effort of children!”
“Wait, what?” Uncle Rex says, but quiets under a quick glance from the Grand Master of the Jedi Order.
Her mother’s eyes swing back to her, sharp and calculating, and Mara doesn’t let the new light it casts on her kind face startle her as she straightens, carefully shutting away her outrage behind a veneer of Jedi calmness. She was trying to make a case that she wasn’t an over-emotional teenager right now, but instead an asset who could help . “Master Kenobi, I’ve already thought of the risks, but I’m the one with the best chance to get in and out with those men.” Mara says calmly, “I’m the right age, my looks won’t get me a second look on Stewjon, and I can defend myself. I’ve had training for this; I can go in under an alias, just another unwanted child looking to make a name for themselves in the Imperial Army.” She can see in both her parents’ faces that they want to argue, “Do you have any arguments against it that can’t be drawn back to the fact that I’m your daughter? Those men need help, and I’m the best chance they have.”
"She has a point." Ahsoka says quietly.
“Mara,” She almost feels guilty when she sees her mother’s shoulder’s droop and her expression crumble. “You’re right - I did lead an army of children into war, and most of them died. I don’t want to see more children die.”
“Then it’s easy,” Mara says confidently, “I just won’t die.” )
Getting into the fast-tracked combat trooper program at the Academy is the easy part, the hard part is downplaying her abilities enough to get her noticed, but not enough to catch the wrong type of attention. Jade Kenobi is just a street kid after all, a talented one for sure, but not a suspiciously good one; but she manages it, and that means that Jade gets to be the prodigious street orphan who makes it into the trooper courses, to be trained under veterans of the Clone Wars.
It’s supposed to be an honour.
Finding Wooley is also surprisingly easy; the three other clones feel like null areas in the Force, made of bitterness and hatred, but Wooley - Trainer CT-15-2239 - is reeling and confused and scared, all hidden under the determination to get himself and his brothers out.
“Excuse me?” Jade speaks up, catching the attention of her trainer, definitely not reacting when the face of her father, aged and less scarred, stares back at her with dark brown eyes instead of gold. “Are you,” She makes a show of squinting at the datapad in her hand, and Force what a mouthful. “Trainer CeeTee-Fifteen-Two-Two-Thirty-nine?” The clone inclines his head silently, and Jade beams at him, seeing him twitch faintly at the expression - she has her mother’s smile, Jade knows this, and she can see that the trooper recognizes it too, even if he probably doesn't know why. “I’m Jade Kenobi, I just got assigned to your Scouting Course. I was wondering if we could talk about the curriculum? I’m at such a disadvantage - all my classmates already know all this stuff, and I don’t want to be the one dragging us all down.”
CT-15-2239 nods, gesturing for her to follow, and Jade falls into step behind him, keeping a respectful distance as they walk down the hall and into the man’s office, the door closing behind them with a click. He immediately moves towards his station, typing something up on his computer, and Jade waits - when he looks up, Mara knows that it’s Wooley she’s looking at, not Trainer CT-15-2239, and she changes her stance to reflect that.
“They sent a cadet?” Wooley breathes, and Mara can see the grief in his eyes as easily as she can sense it in the Force around him. It's the same kind of grief she had seen on her uncles as they had helped her go over her cover, the same kind of grief she had sensed off of her father and mother as they sent her off on her own.
It's the grief of an adult looking at a child of war.
“I had to fight for this assignment.” She tells him, “They wouldn’t have sent me otherwise. And if we were at War, I wouldn’t be a cadet, I’d be a commander.”
Wooley slumps, head dropping into his hands as he lets out a ragged breath, “Kriff.” He curses, “This entire drukshow, I swear-”
“If it helps, we had the same trainer.” She winks at the man, and she can see the awed understanding blooming in his gaze.
“Cody.” The man whispers, “He got out, thank Ka’ra. I tried to look for him, but he’s listed as KIA - I thought he was...” The word dead hangs in the air like a knife, and the younger of the two shifts nervously, running a hand over her freshly cut hair - and hadn't that been painful to go through, she had been growing her hair out for years, and now it was no longer than red fuzz, shaved off according to regulation for the sake of her cover.
“He got a little blown up.” Mara tells him cheerfully, making him laugh, glad to have lightened the room. “But he got better.”
“Shouldn’t have expected anything less from the Commander Cody.” Wooley says ruefully, shaking his head, and Mara grins momentarily before falling into plan mode.
“You’re the expert here,” She says, “I’ll follow your lead. Fulcrum taught me how to block off the chips from sending your brains signals, so we’ll be able to temporarily take them out of commision until we can get the vod’e back to The Temple and get all of you into surgery to remove them permanently.” Wooley hums thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully, and Mara can recognize her buir in the move and expression.
“Getting to Trapper will be the easiest.” Wooley says immediately, “We work closely together. Odd Ball and Thire are a little more closely monitored though, being CC class instead of CT, like myself, or CS like Trapper.”
“I never was told what the difference is.” Mara says in faint amusement, trying to lighten the atmosphere once more. “No one really talked about it and I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
Wooley chuckles, “CC are Clone Commanders, CT are Clone Troopers, and CS are Clone Specialists. CT and CS can be interchangeable, with the right training, but CCs are the special ones.”
“Must have been nice to know - sibling rivalries and all that.” She says sarcastically, watching the old man grin - it took years off of his face, happiness looked good on him.
A faint warning in the Force had Mara straightening, falling into the guise of wide-eyed Jade Kenobi, and Wooley disappearing to let CT-15-2239 take his place as the door chimes.
CT-15-2239 stands, moving towards the door with mechanical precision, letting the door slide open and admit another clone, also wearing the soft gray clothing of the Academy Trainers, but a bar on his chest marked him as a commander just as obviously as CT-15-2239’s salute, which Jade jumped to copy, fumbling with her datapads.
Blank brown eyes stare back at her, void of any emotions but bitter contempt, lacking any of the warmth that Jade was used to seeing in the eyes of her buir and uncles, and making her shiver as cold sweeps over her.
“CT-Fifteen-Twenty-two-Thirty-nine.” The Commander’s eyes finally leave her’s, shifting to meet the Trainer’s, moving further into the office to let the doors slide closed behind him. His tumultuous Force signature is a little warmer when looking at another clone, and Jade waits until CT-15-2239 begins to speak before letting out enough of a Force probe to lock the doors.
“Commander CC-Fourty-four-Seventy-seven, Sir!”
Mara doesn’t wait for the man to speak, mentally plunging forward with the Force, immediately locking onto the signal given off by the biochip implanted in the man’s head, and locking it away in a thick bubble, coming back to herself on time to see the man crumble. Wooley catches him immediately, gently lowering Thire to the floor and sending her an alarmed look as Mara herself sags against the wall.
“I’m fine.” Mara assures him, then adds sheepishly, “I may have panicked a little.”
“Happens to everyone.” Wooley says quietly, before his eyes slid back to Thire’s lax face.
“That was lucky.” She says awkwardly, and Wooley snorts bitterly. “I thought you said the CC boys would be hard.”
“We’re just getting started, kid.”