Chapter Text
The air was cold inside his lonely meditation chamber, the white walls and glowing red and green buttons performing as his only company. Above him, the helmet. In front of him, the mask that had blinded him with an angry-red vision for oh-so-long. And around him, as a mockery of a hug that he would not admit he wished, the suffocating pressure of his life-support suit.
The air was cold, a relief to his wound in his right shoulder. A scrape, really. A scrape that was the only physical proof that he had met his son face to face, with both of them knowing the truth by the time they parted. By the time his son parted. By the time his son left him, as all eventually did.
Well, one thing was for sure. If he hadn’t deserved it all those other times, with all those other people, he certainly did so now. He should have been more careful, but whenether in his words or his fighting, he could not see. Maybe both? Yeah, that seemed about right. Could he have been more careful? Did he even remember how?
With a sigh and a shake of his head, Vader pushed the button that would couple the helmet, and as it lowered, he called on the Force to flote his mask towards him and attach it to the neck of the suit. As The Shell opened and the ventilator shut off, Vader was suddenly greeted with the face of an old friend. “Commander Cody, how unexpected”.
“The 501st and 1st thought that you might need an escort today.” The Commander started, his expressions neutral and professional but his eyes soft. “It was an intense situation yesterday, and Kix was concerned you had received more wounds than the one you told him.”
“The concern is appreciated, Commander, but unnecessary. You may return to your normal duties.” Vader doubted that the medic meant his emotions, and he truly had no other injuries. For now, at least.
“Sir, it will either be me who accompanies you, or any other trooper that you encounter in the day. Unfortunately, you have no say in this.”
Vader paused. He hadn’t slept in two weeks, his son had rejected him, he had mountains of paperwork to review (including dealing with the aftermath of Ozzel's murder, as well writing a note to his pitiful family), the Emperor had just summoned him to Coruscant and now his own troopers were worried that he might not be able to fulfill his duties on his own and thought he would be better off with a babysitter. It was too much to deal with at the same time, and so this early in the day he made his first tactical retreat. “Very well,” he said as he stood up. “We will go to the bridge first.”
-
Already on the bridge was Admiral Piett, hands trembling from the amount of caffeine he had consumed by fear of dying after having Skywalker and his friends escape him the day prior. True, His Lordship had spared him right after the fact, but there was no way Firmus was going to risk it and try to predict his boss’ behaviour this day. So he occupied himself, his body with drinking a mug so hot that it made his hands feel like the skin was going to cook itself well into an eating point, his mind with making sure his crew were performing their jobs with an efficiency that would make a droid proud.
There was barely any sound to be heard in the room. Breaths were being held, lest any of them breath too hard and their Admiral turns to dust from that alone. Or worst, some thought, lest they turn to dust.
And in the midst of a ship’s bridge's silent and evasive atmosphere, Lord Vader and his personal third in command, Commander Cody, enter the scene. Firmus, standing near one of the communication’s officers, examines their appearances, their body languages. The Commander was attentive, yet relaxed; it reminded Firmus of his parents when they took him to play outside with the other neighbourhood kids when he was a child. And the Supreme Commander was… tired. Incredibly tired, if he could be read so easily. This did not bode well for the Imperial Army, but for Piett? Oh, he would certainly live another day, if he could play his cards right. And he could.
“Ship’s status report. Now,” muttered Lord Vader as he walked towards his favourite standing point, at the middle of the center viewport. An Ensign, Edmund Sal, looked to Admiral Piett. Once he had nodded his approval, Ensign Sal took a deep breath and nearly tiptoed towards the living dark pillar.
Firmus saw as the young man whispered the report, datapad held tightly in his hands, before Lord Vader turned around to look at the stars, clearly dismissing the little ensign.
“Excuse me, Admiral Piett,” he heard the young one whisper to him. They exchanged quick salutes, and Ensign Sal started again. “Excuse me, Admiral, but Lord Vader has ordered us to set course to Imperial Center.”
“Very well, thank you Ensign; you are dismissed. You heard him, set course to Imperial Centre!” He exclaimed to the crew, setting them into action and releasing them from the spell they had all been under the entire morning.
Meanwhile, Commander Cody walked up to Lord Vader and sat on the floor next to him. Sat! No trooper in shift would do that, no matter how close to their boss, and Cody certainly wasn’t one of the reckless ones.
‘Ah, that explains it,’ Piett stared at the most recent message from said Commander, ‘the troopers have ganged up against His Lordship and are taking turns out of duty to watch over him. Still,’ he thought bitterly, ‘massive protocol breach.’
The flight to Coruscant from Bespin would last them 14 standard days. Force help them.
-
The next few days went by rapidly, especially after Kix drugged the Supreme Commander into sleeping for three days straight. There were blaster orders to fill out, shinies to train, bets to win. The 501st and 1st legions kept busy, never thinking too much, never thinking too little. Lost siblings were remembered, and new ones were taught the particular subculture that occurred amongst the troopers of the Executor .
“So the red laundry baskets are evil on uneven months, the green ones on uneven days and the blue ones on uneven weeks?” Asked Luigi, the bravest of this batch’s shinies, still looking like he thought this was some kind of weird prank.
“No, the green one is evil on the weeks, the blue one on the days. You gotta go with bigger to smaller and the colours of the rainbow, kid.” Cody explained for the third time, his patience wearing thin.
“Ok, so red on months, green on weeks, blue on days… What about years? Or hours? Do we have those?” Disco seemed genuinely worried.
‘ Good, ’ Cody thought, ‘ at least one of them is taking this seriously. ’
“On uneven years you’ll have to take your bunkmate’s laundry, and they yours. Same color system applies, but it’s just generally safer to do it like this. And as for hours, it’s the even ones that you want to look out for. The uneven ones are safe, as long as the entire trip from your bunk to the common washer is within that hour,” answered Drummer. “Some try to trick the even hours by starting the trip then, and finishing it in an uneven hour, but the results of that are still inconclusive.”
“Inconclusive how?” The tallest one, Niraa, started to write all this as a message for the shiny’s group chat.
“Well, Commander Oogy once had a washing machine thrown in his direction just as he arrived, and that broke his leg.” Drummer sat down on the lower bunk, next to where Cody was standing, and started to clean his blaster. “But you also got Sergeant Sam that tried it, and it worked out perfectly for them.”
“Whatever you do, when uneven days, weeks and months coincide, you have to take all your laundry in the purple blanket that’s behind the top left corner of the fake wall panel in your room. After you use it to carry your stuff, just put it in the washer. It’ll stink otherwise.” Cody interjected, looking at each of the five kids so that they knew he was being serious.
“What do you mean ‘Commander Oogy once had a washing machine thrown at him’? Who did the throwing?” Luigi stood up from the floor, helping the other one, Mark, immediately after.
“Lord Vader,” said both Cody and Drummer in unison. The little ones looked between themselves with knowing eyes, and only a glint of fear in them. Brave indeed, these ones.
Then, as expected, Niraa’s comm unit made a ‘ping!’ sound, indicating the little ones were supposed to join the other half of their squad so they could go report to their sergeant. With memories resurfacing, Commander Cody and Major Drummer observed their younglings as they shuffled through the door of the squad’s quarters. Usually they would leave first, but they still had to carry the last day of laundry of these smelly kids to the washers. Thank the Force and all the Dead Jedi that it was the last day, for he could not stand it anymore; he certainly wasn’t going to cover for Sam anymore.
So they waited a few more minutes, just until the hour changed, before they grabbed the dirty clothes and purple blanket. They walked out the door in matching strides, tapping their left feet twice before each time they stepped with them.
Who would have thought that twenty-five years later, and thousands of lifetimes after, the ritual that Kenobi, Vader, Commander Tano, Rex and him did that one time to calm down that one batch of shinies that didn’t make it out of their first battle was still going to be used. Repeated so many times, for so many siblings. Some made it, but the majority did not. The Empire made it’s stormtroopers wear their armor mostly out of the Clone Wars related nostalgia that plagued the people. Nostalgia from times before the debt that both the Separatists and the Republic accumulated with the Banking Clan; before the Trade Federation collapsed from their inability to settle on a lucid head of the company, as well as their inability to make valuable, strong and lasting contracts; before so many of the common folk died from illnesses and hunger; before so many joined the military in search of money for their families, and one less mouth to feed.
Nostalgia for the times when the Jedi were a living myth. Difficult to find, but not as impossible as now. And to think that his Kenobi was alive for twenty years of this madness, alone in an unforgiving world, taking care of who would have been his nephew.
It was strange to think of his small family now, with all of them spread too far and wide in the galaxy, be it physically or mentally. Vader tied to a man, in a mutually despised relationship; Rex and Ahsoka either dead or with the Rebellion, fighting shoulder to shoulder for what is truly right; Obi-Wan dead (for real this time); and Cody… fighting to keep himself upright another day, teaching younglings, and trying to avoid the obvious signs of his old age. His time was getting close, he could taste it. Be it next month, or ten years, he nonetheless would part with the earthly plane.
It was in midst of these musings that he quietly made the entire journey to the common washer, with Drummer drumming his fingers in his chest plate to set their pace. Upon their arrival they crossed paths with an erratic Supreme Commander, who was carrying so many datapads he could be mistaken for a librarian.
“Strange man, that one,” said his companion.