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Something wary lit Rancor Command’s eyes when Colt put the signal jammer on the meeting room table.
It was only reasonable. Even a tube-wet cadet knew no space they were allowed on all of Kamino would ever be private. A jammer would only mean very good news or very bad news.
“I have sworn Rancor Battalion to the Vod’alor,” Colt said the words because there was no sense in pretending the situation was anything but what it was. There were careful rumors among the vode, talk of peace, freedom, home.
Blitz, Havoc, Hammer, and Pots all waited, one breath from protesting. Rancor Battalion was not on a battlefield, they were protecting their littlest brothers.
“In exchange, we take every single one of our brothers with us when we leave Kamino.”
Four sets of eyes narrow. Slow, matching manic grins appear on his ARC Commanders.
“How long do we have to plan?” Pots was always a brass-tacks sort of vod, and Colt had never been more thankful for it. “Safety is going to be the priority when we have to move that volume of tanks.”
“Don’t know the date, but they won’t move before we’re ready.” Colt knew Cody wanted every one of them, and Rancor would do their part. He brought up maps on the table, and settled in to begin with the broad strokes of his plan.
“As for the tanks,” Colt said as he shifted through the stack of datapads in front of him for the tank specs he’d found the other night. “Here.” He held out the correct one. “This was the most comprehensive list of tank requirements.”
“That’s why we didn’t get snacks for the meeting.” Havoc nudged Hammer. “Have to actually use the meeting table this time.”
The others snickered, and Colt looked around the table at his brothers. They could have told him he was an idiot, could have called him a traitor, or been looking for the first moment to alert the longnecks. Instead, they were reaching for datapads and dividing the work out between them.
Somewhere between the discussion of the resource draw of tanks on a venator and the best way to utilize CC cadets, Colt was stunned by the enormity of what he’d done. Sitting in a booth at Dex’s with Cody, he only had to think of his brothers fighting and dying on battlefields around the galaxy and the cadets and tubies who had nothing better to hope for than out of their lives to know he had to agree. Looking at the numbers on the holopad in his hands, the literally millions of vod’ikase he was willing to gamble, the weight of the decision was crushing.
“The General’s going to get the Template?” Blitz didn’t look up from the three ‘pads he had fanned in front of him.
No , Colt couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“We have staff in the room with the Template,” Pots countered. “She’d probably be much more useful in the docking area to safeguard the cadets.”
“Makes sense.” Blitz nodded along, glancing up to examine the map but his eyes met Colt’s. There was a long pause before his second-in-command spoke. “Is that where the General’s going to be?”
He couldn’t say, not really, and his silence caused the others to look up from their work
Blitz caught on first. “...Colt.”
“Vod, we need the General on this.” Havoc set his ‘pad down and pointed at the map. “She’s the best chance we have to pull this off.”
“Wait… she’s coming with us anyway, right?” Hammer looked at him with the wounded kind of akk-puppy eyes that allowed cadets to get away with anything. “She’s our general.”
Colt would have allowed them to believe he’d chosen to leave Shaak off the mission, but he wouldn’t allow them to believe she’d turned it down. “I haven’t told her. Yet.”
“Because you’re waiting for the final planning assessment,” Pots supplied. “So she can help refine the plan, and choose the best way to aid us. As our general.”
Colt was silent again. Blitz was already shaking his head, mouth a grim line. The others still were hoping Colt was going to reveal some brilliant plan.
There was no brilliant plan that included the General.
“Once the signal is given, Master Ti will no longer be our General.”
“You are out of your karking mind.” Pots slapped his hand on the table. “Maybe she won’t be our general, but that won’t change anything.”
It would change many things, and Shaak would decide for herself what came next for herself. Colt knew she believed his brothers deserved more, better. Colt knew she did.
But he couldn’t build an attack plan around a feeling.
“Nothing on the planet is secure, and I won’t endanger her, or our brothers.” His tone was low and furious. Colt tried to reel it in. Of course his men were confused, but Colt had thought it through. It was a risk they couldn’t take. “I will inform her as late as possible. Once the wheels are in motion.”
The reaction was instant, Blitz’s glare hardening, Havoc and Hammer both muttering under their breath, Pots making that sigh medics all seemed to make that suggested they were dealing with the most infuriatingly difficult vod ever to be decanted.
He tipped his chin up, welcomed their anger and frustration. It was easier than allowing himself to focus on the way the thought of leaving without her tore at his heart. He loved her, even if he shouldn’t, he loved her. Just because she would understand what he had to do for his brothers didn’t mean she’d accept what he had to do for himself.
“Oh. Shit.” Havoc understood what Blitz had known for a while now, what Colt had known since he’d sworn to the Vod’alor.
Even if Shaak supported them, supported the Vode breaking from the GAR, there was no happy ending down the line. Shaak was a Jedi, Colt was Vode, and the two paths would diverge. If not when the tsunami siren went off, then after, once his brothers were safe on Concord Dawn and she was called back to the Temple with her own family.
“Maybe she’ll come with us.” Hammer shrugged. “We spend a lot more time caring about her than her Jedi friends.”
That got a startled laugh out of Colt. He wasn’t sure he’d had a laugh in him, but Hammer had found it.
“I hope she will,” Colt agreed. “But we can’t plan for it.”
Hammer shook his head. “She’s going to be so mad when she hears you left her out of the plan.”
Maybe she would, Colt thought. If she was, it would be because she wanted a bigger role in the departure, and Colt could make one for her. Planning for her to be neutral was as sure as Colt could be until then. There wasn’t a universe in which Colt could imagine the woman he loved siding with the Kaminoans over his brothers, but he would respect it if she couldn’t take a side.
“So, we’ll hold the landing area, and we’ll have to be smart about the Template.” Blitz diverted attention away from Colt and back to the plan.
“That Sith witch couldn’t pull it off.” Hammer scrolled through the ‘pad thoughtfully. “It’s the first thing the snakes will lock down.”
“So, what can we learn from the failed attempt?” Colt had spent most of the aftermath in med. He had read the reports, but not with the kind of clarity that would allow him to improve on her attack plans.
“The alarm is not triggered when the Template goes missing.” Blitz brought up the DNA room on the map. “There are six troopers on security any given day, and the alarm is triggered when the casement for the Template is empty for too long.”
“How long?” Havoc asked, mapping the path from the DNA room to the docking bay.
“No,” Pots was grinning now. “We don’t need to beat the alarm. We just need to make sure it never goes off. What can fill the casement?”
“Any other capsule. They are coded, but otherwise interchangeable.” Blitz was nodding along.
“So, we need a decoy.” Colt liked this plan, liked that it relied only on his brothers and did not require any direct confrontation. “Swap out the sample for a decoy before the alarm goes off and make sure it’s somewhere the longnecks can’t find it.”
“Decoys of the decoys.” Havoc was grinning in that alarming way that suggested a wild plan was being hatched. “In case they try to stop us. Stash everything we need to take a couple days early and hope that if they start locking down, we can keep them busy long enough to get the Template out.”
“Template,” Pots corrected quietly. “And the edits.”
“Edits?” Hammer set down his ‘pad. “I thought the Template was edited.”
“Ours is, but there’s one for Boba.” Pots shrugged. “And another one.” Rancor’s CMO was a plainspoken vod, but he was choosing his words with great care. Colt was tempted to jump in, spare him having to answer, but Pots went on. “Found it when I was cleaning up some documentation after the Battle and it looks like they have another one for us. I don’t know everything about it, but… It looks like the genetic version of a software patch.”
They were silent because there was nothing else to say. They’d all been made in tubes, designed and built for a purpose. The idea that there was something in reserve to change them was tempting, crushing. Like there was more they could be, just out of reach. Like they weren’t their own men, but just another work in progress. Still nothing more than flesh droids.
“Well, we’ll just leave that. There’s nothing wrong with us the way we are.” Hammer’s anger almost covered the hurt in his voice.
“We’ll take it,” Colt corrected. “We’ll take everything that’s ours.”
“But not the General.” Blitz had always been more jare’la than he would ever admit.
Even Havoc glared at him for that.
“She's not ours. She belongs to the Jedi.” Colt met Blitz’s blazing eyes. He knew, he understood. Colt wished Shaak was theirs. His, too, but more importantly theirs. But that had never been on the table.
Blitz felt deeply and protected what he loved. Even if it didn’t feel like it, Blitz was trying to protect him, protect them. They had both made it clear that duty came first, and that was true even when it hurt. Blitz wanted to protect both of them, all of them. To make sure walking away would mean only good things. Life didn’t work that way.
“She’s not ours to take.”
Colt would tell her, and Shaak would decide for herself. But, Colt had always been defensive-minded. He would only take that chance once the plan was in motion. Once their departure was as secure as he could make it.
If leaving Kamino would save his brothers at the cost of ripping his own heart out, well, that was a more than reasonable price.
“I’d like to have a farm,” Hammer decided, breaking the tension between his ori’vode. “Nothing fancy. Not like the ones in the holos. Just a little house and some animals to care for that would give me food in exchange. Maybe banthas. Then I could have milk, and cheese, and ice cream…”
Havoc laughed. “No, thank you. I want to see the Galaxy. See cities that aren’t bombed out for a change. Meet people who know about more than war.”
“Bet I could get a team of medics together.” Pots had a hint of a smile on his lips, enough to scare any vod who knew a medic. “Tend refugees. Help train new medics on smaller planets. If we aren’t fighting a war, there will be a lot of us with nothing to do. Maybe become a real doctor, if they’d let us go to school like the natborns do.”
“Once a medic, always a medic.” Blitz shook his head. “I go with the vod’ikase.”
“Of course you do.” Havoc grinned wickedly. “You and Trib can’t help yourselves. You’ll have a whole houseful.”
Colt could see the moment that idea landed.
The moment Blitz realized that he and the man he loves could have a house full of vod’ikase. Of ade. A family of their own. The kind of future that was unimaginable before they walked into the command meeting room.
Blitz swallows hard once, eyes skating off to the side like his brothers can’t read him well enough to know the tidal wave of emotion threatening, and Colt feels something warm and sweet in his chest.
This would be the best chance at happiness his brothers would ever have. Colt would do anything to make sure they can reach it.
“What about you?” Hammer was still grinning, still thinking about his banthas. “What will you do?”
Colt had tried very hard to not think about After. It was too far, too uncertain a thing. The only thing he wanted out of After that he could have was his brothers safe and happy. The only other things he wanted, he knew he couldn’t have.
But they were watching him, bright faces full of the kind of hope Colt hadn’t seen in a long time. They wouldn’t be happy without an answer.
“Find somewhere peaceful, maybe near a lake, lay in bed at night and watch the storms on the water.” Maybe Colt couldn’t have the woman he loved in his arms, but if it was close enough, maybe he could just remember instead. “Spend the rest of my time making sure our vod’ikase were safe. Healthy.”
Happy , he didn’t say because the cadets were still stealing scraps of happiness. If they were free, they could have the real thing, make their own lives.
Hammer rolled his eyes. “Sounds like what you do here.”
Colt chose to ignore the pained comprehension in Blitz’s eyes and the concerned frowns stamped on Pots and Havoc’s faces.
“Yeah,” Colt agreed. “I guess it does.”
He shifted the map on the meeting table to a close up of the landing bays. There was a lot of work to do until any of their futures could come true.