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Plo finished with a sweeping blow, but things did not feel finished. Not as the Sith used his final breath to smile.
The first scream came from down the corridor.
It was not long before it became a chorus, more voices joining in.
And yet the Force felt quieter.
“Help, please, somebody help.”
“Senator Organa?”
“It’s my guard, he just collapsed. He's not breathing please.”
The feeling grew worse.
A second senator bust in.
“Senator Amidala.”
“We’re doing CPR but we need a proper medic, none of them are responding.”
Plo ran after her, to the young Pantoran Senator desperately trying to keep the young clone below her alive, but Plo could not feel a soul left in their young body, even as she begged them to breathe.
“Please help him.”
Plo placed a hand on the young girl’s shoulder, and bowed his head.
“No, No! We were just talking, he was fine, and then...”
She broke off, and Senator Amidala wrapped her in a hug.
“Plo.”
“Mace?”
He knew that look on his friend's face...
“Three Guards, all gone before I got to them. Senator Organa’s and two more.”
There were more aides rushing, more calls for help, distress through the whole building...
It wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be possible.
“Jedi, you, our clone died. Useless thing just dropped dead, spilled caff everywhere.”
Plo’s hands shook.
“Return to the Senate, we will work out what the problem is.”
“I would but I am without any guard. I could be killed.”
“Can you not call for new Guards.”
Plo had no idea how Mace was managing to keep a level voice when his presence bubbled as much as Plo’s own.
“We tried, they won’t answer our comms. I will be putting in a complaint.”
“You do that.”
The two bustled off and young Chuchi let out a sob.
“They’re dead. People are dead, and they only care for themselves.”
“Sir... what happened?”
“Wolffe, what are you doing here, you were supposed to...”
“General Windu called, asked us to bring medics...?”
His son’s focus was on the dead Guard behind him, chest plate and bucket thrown off in the Senators attempt to save them, but otherwise uninjured. And young, younger than any of the clones who fought under him.
At his dead sibling.
And Plo had no answers to give him.
At least, none he liked.
.
“Now Squash says you can’t make rations taste good, but every vod knows the key to...”
Boba’s smile at his big brother’s ‘life lesson’ vanished as Fox cut off and dropped on top of him. Boba hit the floor hard, his ori’vods weight right on his legs and back and his chin stung where it had stuck the ground. There hadn’t been a blaster shot or any indication something was wrong, but he wasn’t moving.
“Fox? Fox!”
He couldn’t get up, he was pinned, and Fox wasn’t moving why wasn’t he moving. The corries didn’t have enough, he knew that, maybe Fox had fainted, he’d be coming around any minute.
He'd come around and get off and apologise and help Boba up with a hug and they’d go see Fix who would yell at him for setting a bad example.
He didn’t wake up.
He wasn’t waking up.
Boba reached back and shook Fox desperately, feeling every bit the 12-year-old he was.
“Ori’vod, ori’vod, please, wake up, please. Fox, please, you’re crushing me, please.”
He needed... he needed to get help.
“Help, please somebody help!”
He needed somebody.
The rec room was right around the corner, that’s where they’d been headed, his ori’vod was going to play chess with him.
There was always a medic in the rec room.
Always.
Someone to help his ori’vod, because the rest of the corries loved Fox as much as he did. Fox had snuck him out of the prisons, brought him here to be safe with them, given him a fresh start and helped him cope with losing buir and...
And Fox was going to be ok.
“Somebody please! Please!”
Why was nobody coming?
He realised his breaths were coming out in short sharp little puffs and tried to do what Fox had taught him, slow and steady breaths, breathe through the panic. He needed to be able to think. He needed to if he was going to help Fox, he had to help Fox.
Why wasn’t he waking up?
Nobody was coming.
He had to get Fox off of him, he had to go get help.
He'd left his comm on his bunk...
If he’d had it a medic could already be here, this is what Fox meant when he said Boba needed to be prepared for the galaxy, why he said he worried so much about Boba trying to leave. Stupid mistakes like this.
Fox would have a comm.
Even in his casual clothes, and Boba was really glad he wasn’t in his armour, he’d have his comm.
Boba just had to get out from under him.
Fix said Fox was underweight, but he was plenty heavy to Boba. He had no leverage and nothing to grab on to and he was scared.
He was so scared.
He just wanted Fox to wake up.
No, he was their vod’ika, he was their brother, he was a vod. He was one of them. His ori’vode managed to get through every day no matter what, they worked with limited supplies they worked with injuries, and he was not weak and he would not fail. He would do this.
Squirming and wiggling, he managed to pull himself forwards, managed to twist and shove at his brother who was limp, too limp, and worm himself free. He rolled Fox over and tried to find his comm.
Fox wouldn't wake up.
“Ori’vod, please.”
No, the comm, the comm.
There.
“Fix, please, I need you. Fix answer please. Boba to med bay please someone answer. Please.”
Why wouldn’t they answer? Fox needed help!
He needed to go get help.
The rec room always had a medic.
It was just around the corner.
He didn’t want to leave Fox.
He ran.
The door hissed open.
“I need a... medic? Weave?”
He'd almost tripped over his vod, sprawled in the doorway. And Loom was on the sofa, project on his lap and the floor, and Knick and Knack over a chess table and Ink and Tundi and Velt and Shap on the floor and none of them were moving, they weren’t moving. Thorn was slumped over the cards table, hand splayed, and Boba rushed to his side, trying to shake him.
“Please wake up, please wake up.”
Why wouldn’t he wake up.
“Somebody please, please.”
None of them would wake up, no matter how hard he begged.
He needed to get back to Fox he needed to get a medic for Fox for everyone here.
Skinsuit.
No.
“Please ori’vod, Skinsuit, wake up, I need you please.”
Nobody would wake up.
Nobody would wake up.
Boba stood sharply, sucking in a breath as he bit back tears and shaking his head.
He fled the room, crashing back to his knees at Fox’s side, throwing his arms around his ori’vod and sobbing into his chest.
“Wake up, wake up! Fox! Wake up please wake up please I need you please. You can’t leave me too please.”
.
Wolffe knew what they were going to find before the doors to the Guard Barracks opened.
The same thing that littered the senate.
The bodies of vode.
That didn’t make it easier.
Sinker and Boost had been lost to him over the body of a vod with blue hair, and General Buir had joined them in their grief on finding a thin, scarred Artem, oh Art’ika what had he done, found in the office of a Senator who’d been attempting to cover up that they’d been whipping him to shreds when whatever this was had hit.
He wished that Senator had been alone in the belief that they’d gone too far killed a vod...
His General’s voice had been choked as he gently asked Wolffe if he felt able to continue.
Wolffe hadn’t found Fox yet.
He wasn’t stopping until he knew.
The General had steeled himself, pushed the pain and guilt to one side to break down over later likely exactly as Wolffe was doing, and they’d pushed on.
Their group was a mix, members of the Pack and of Windu’s legion, and any vod on leave on Coruscant who had someone in the Guard.
Word spread fast.
The rest of the GAR didn’t know yet, he hoped. The Generals had wanted to keep it quiet, but vode deserved to know their batchmates were dead, vode deserved to know this tragedy had unfolded.
He didn’t want to be the person who told Bly or Rex or Cody, to watch them fall apart at the loss, and he knew Ponds felt the same.
But they’d have to know.
Once they found Fox.
They came to their first body immediately, and one of the vode by Pond’s side let out a cry and rushed forwards.
The massiff between them and the vod growled protectively.
“Thunder...”
“Oh, Pup. Hey girl, it’s ok, I won’t hurt him.”
You can't, a bitter part of Wolffe hissed, you’re too late for that.
Seemingly no longer considering this vod Thunder a threat, the massiff returned to nudging the vod and whining low.
Wolffe forced himself to walk past, to move deeper into the base as the vod knelt down and the poor animal wept for their loss.
He had the feeling this would not be the last massiff waiting for their Guard to wake up...
He was right, and a vod called Boulder didn’t even react to the massiff biting them hard as they reached for a brother’s body, Commander Stone, if he remembered correctly. On planet with an injury, set to re-join their unit when it arrived for leave in a week's time. Clutching the hand of their vod and whispering apologies that felt deeper than just having been too late.
But they met too many bodies before they made it to the med bay, too many to count and too many with nobody to drop and grieve them as batch, and then the med bay itself clean but decrepit, run down.
And every patient and medic past their help.
All they could do was switch the blaring machines off and take each number.
Three of their group found chairs in the med bay, held the hands of their batchmates and bowed their heads.
It felt like the Malevolence all over again.
A few thousand death notices to be sent at once, the GAR reeling.
But this time the war was over.
This time the Sith was dead.
This time it wasn’t part of some battle, it held no strategic value. It wasn’t in the depths of space or on some contested planet.
It was just slaughter.
It was just grief with no reason.
A final blow, a parting gift from that Sith shabuir.
And every vod in the GAR would wake to learn the war was over.
And too many of those would wake to learn that victory had been a bitter trade.
That the Sith had taken so many of their own when he’d fallen, refused to go quietly.
They would wake to a hollow victory tainted with loss.
A broken cry broke his thoughts.
A survivor.
Someone alive.
He skidded to a stop at the end of the corridor, and his stomach dropped.
“Please,” came the soft broken voice, scratchy from screams and hitching with tears as the young boy clung to the body, alone in the corridor, “please, ori’vod, wake up.”
“Boba Fett.” his General whispered.
But it wasn’t Boba Wolffe was looking at.
He didn’t look at Boba, nor at his General, nor at Ponds.
“Please, Fox, don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone again.”
Fox’s blank eyes stared over the fluff of Boba’s hair, down the hall straight into his heart.
Not pained, not accusing.
Empty.
“Please.” their vod’ika whispered as Wolffe’s knees hit the floor, “Just wake up.”