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'Thank you, Cody,' General Kenobi says with a wry smile as he accepts the proffered lightsaber. 'Now let's get a move on, we've got a battle to win here!'
'Yes, sir,' Cody says, watching his general depart on his varactyl with a rush of muddled feelings.
There’s pride, excitement, bloodlust... Coasting on a slippery layer of sleep deprivation.
Grievous is dead, by the hand of his Jedi. The war is as good as over... And craziest of all, he is alive. He gets to face all his dead brothers, knowing their fall wasn't in vain. That their sacrifice was so this day could rise, so that—
His comm beeps, cutting through his haze. For a wild moment he thinks it must be Fox—because who else would call him right now? Who else among his brothers would already know of Grievous' death?—but the man that appears in holographic blues is no clone, and his face is hidden by a hooded cloak, not a Corrie Guard bucket.
A Jedi? Someone trying to reach Kenobi? He doesn't have the time to even ask.
'Commander Cody,' the man says, 'the time has come. Execute Order 66.'
Cody takes a breath, blinks against the sudden onslaught of dizziness.
'Yes, my Lord,' he hears himself say.
Traitors. All Jedi. To be eliminated.
He punches his internal comm, putting every last trooper under his command on the broadcast.
'Attention all 7th Sky Corps troopers,' he intones, 'protocol 66 is now in force.'
His helmet erupts in a chorus of 'sir, yes sir!' from all his officer lines. Excellent. He turns around to Static and his AT-TE, points to the Jedi, running away on his lizard mount.
'Blast him.'
Just because the Jedi is a traitor doesn't mean his last order isn't sensical, so Cody orders his men to go to the higher levels. He himself goes down, his borrowed speeder smoking dangerously as he slowly spirals, taking careful sweeps of the rocky walls as he goes. He's seen the splash, he knows the man hit the water, but Jedi are very hard to kill, and good soldiers follow orders.
He lands next to the gory splatter that once was a bright green varactyl, steps carefully on the slick rocks, to the edge of the pool.
His head is pounding. His heart is in his throat. It has to be the gore. He doesn't see that much of it, fighting clankers. And plastoid armour is good at keeping your innards in, overall.
Yes, the gore. That must be it.
He squats by the water, extends his blaster out, reaching with the muzzle to nudge the man's boot, bringing him to float closer.
Cody doesn't want to see, not really.
His head hurts, his ears are ringing—kriff, like he just flew right through a seismic charge—but his orders are to kill the man. To kill all Jedi, all Padawans, all Traitors.
And Kenobi survived everything the war threw at him. So often he called Skywalker reckless and then ran into the jaws of danger without a care in the world or even his lightsaber at his side. And he's always returned alive. Worse for wear, sometimes worryingly so, sure, but always obstinately, tenaciously alive.
Cody grabs a hold of his ankle, a handful of pants, the lapel of his tabard. He heaves, flips the man over—
Good.
That's good.
He looks—
He looks dead.
Cody frees the lightsaber with a shaky hand, puts it at his own hip, at the clip where it spent so much of the war dangling while he ran after his General. He keeps very still while a rush of nausea comes and goes. His mind is so noisy, his balance still off. He's confused as to why. He's done everything he had to, didn't he?
Just to be safe, he stands and shoulders his blaster. He fires once, twice, thrice—six times into the floating Jedi. Until the water runs red with ugly truth, and the weight of doubt is lifted from Cody's shaking shoulders.
