Chapter Text
The 443rd battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic was led by young Jedi Knight called Netta Lodarran, a teal Rodian who otherwise would have been directing university students in a choir rather than leading soldiers into war. Her troops inevitably learned more chants and battle hymns than all the other battalions put together—some of them even learned to break into parts to create bone-chilling harmonies. General Lodarran liked to say that they were simply the largest choir she’d ever directed, and the most unique, given all their of voices were nearly identical. The men found the irony of that statement pretty amusing.
General Lodarran was not a powerful fighter. She served most of her time as the front line of defense for her men rather than leading strike teams as many other Jedi did. Commander Pole and his three captains typically took the lead in offensive maneuvers, and she gave them free reign to do so.
The battalion’s armor colors were grey and white to better blend in with the ice and snow that they typically served in. Many men were named after elements of the climate—Slush, Drift, Skate, etc.—or after musical concepts or instruments—Rhythm, Chime, and Fugue to name a few. Their General always talked about music anytime anyone sat still long enough to listen, and she had no shortage of unique words for the troopers to choose from.
Her first meeting with the Commander had been a tad awkward.
“CC-1925, Commander Pole of the Four-Forty-Third at your service, General.” Pole saluted sharply.
The Rodian cocked her head and wiggled her snout as she stared over his shoulder for half a second, and Pole held his salute but suddenly felt off-balance—was her gesture one of disapproval? Confusion? He’d never seen a Rodian this close before, let alone had a conversation with one, but she was his General, so he’d have to learn quickly—
“I suppose it was too much to ask of the Force to give me the Four-Forty-Fourth,” General Lodarran sighed quietly, and then finally made eye contact. “Thank you, Pole. Ah, at ease.”
Pole brought his arm back down and he scowled behind his helmet. He’d lived his entire life under his batchmate’s shadow—Pitts was bold, daring, and trained for young planets—lots of islands, lava, and earthquakes. Now the first words out of his General’s long snout were that she wished she were serving with him instead of Pole. He resigned himself for a long, difficult life. “Sir, if there’s been some sort of mix-up, I’m very familiar with the Commander of the Four-Forty-Fourth—”
General Lodarran waved her long teal fingers in dismissal, laughing, “No, no, there’s no mistake—I apologize Commander, I was merely lamenting over the poetry of it all. I’m a music teacher, you see, or, I was, and three-four is a very common time signature.” She glanced aside again, murmuring to herself, “Hmm, I wonder who was assigned to the Thirty-Fourth battalion…”
Pole blinked in confusion for a moment. “Sorry, sir, can you explain what you mean by time signature?”
Thus Pole was graced with his first Rodian smile, and those dark-blue-nearly-black eyes with white starry specks gleamed at him.
Music was a relatively foreign concept to Pole, but over the years, it became a safe topic of conversation between him and the General, who was sometimes overwhelmed by the enormity and brutality of warfare. She was truly a gentle soul. When it was time for battle, she steeled herself up well enough, but it was obvious that it took a lot out of her.
She was a capable Force healer, though, which was probably the main reason she was on the front lines at all. Pole got used to filling out most of their post-battle reports by himself while she cycled between healing and resting until all the wounded were either out of danger or past rescue. She apologized frequently, but Pole would tell her in no uncertain terms that he would rather fill out all flimsiwork in the Galaxy if it meant she helped more of his brothers survive.
After one such conversation she had smiled sadly at him, murmuring a quiet, “I just wish I could save them all.”
“Sir,” Pole said firmly, “I fill out the casualty reports after every mission. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that we have one of the lowest casualty rates in the entire GAR, and it’s not because of Slaps’ bedside manner.”
That sparked a laugh out of her. Slaps was their CMO, and as his name implied, was not well known for his gentle demeanor, despite the fact that he was one of the best in his class.
As the war dragged on, Slaps and his medics grew exceptionally familiar with treating Force exhaustion. General Lodarran pushed herself to the breaking point time and time again to heal her men. Most of the battalion had been healed or witnessed a healing of some kind—they knew the price she paid for them, and they loved her for it.
They’d been deployed for over a standard year this time, and it was wearing on everyone. General Lodarran’s sleep cycle had become erratic, and she confessed that she suffered from night visions—not dreams, she insisted, visions. The Force was trying to tell her something.
Commander Pole was worried about her.
But they were finally on their way to Coruscant now for some much-needed shore leave, and he hoped she would find rest with her friends in the Jedi Temple while he reconnected with his batchmates—even Pitts would be a welcome face after all this time.
They were just a few hours away from Coruscant when it happened.
It was the night cycle, so only a fraction of the troops were on duty, and Pole wasn’t one of them. Captain Beats was—the three captains took a rotating shift to keep an eye on their General during the night watch. Between his helmet feed and the cruiser’s security footage, Pole pieced together what happened.
General Lodarran had been wandering through the night, unable to sleep. She eventually noticed Beats trailing her, and after visiting for a while they made their way to the bridge. The comms officer on deck kindly helped her send out a comm to Coruscant, and afterwards the General lingered and continued visiting with him and Beats.
Then a new comm came in.
And then it got confusing.
Pole watched the silent footage on repeat for hours, and he still didn’t understand it.
There was a long pause, and then entire bridge crew, including Beats, slowly raised their weapons on the General and paused while Beats said something.
In a rare display of telekinesis, she threw all eleven troopers to the floor, several into walls or monitors. None were killed, but half the bridge crew was still in medbay for concussions and broken bones from that throw alone.
Then General Lodarran disabled the ship-wide comms, drew her lightsaber, and proceeded to wreak havoc on the bridge controls, fighting the men off as they rallied against her. She refrained from using any sort of lethal force, preferring to disable their weapons and knock them unconscious one by one, even though they were clearly using live rounds on her.
Then she ran.
In a single loop around the ship, she destroyed their five primary communication relays, several key navigation components, and ended neatly at the escape pods. Whatever orders had come through had been passed to anyone who was awake to hear them—any trooper who spotted her had fired on her, but she managed to dodge and disable most of them, though Pole was fairly certain she’d been clipped a few times.
Her actions throughout this escapade looked nearly rehearsed, but Pole knew her face and body language well enough by now to recognize she was completely distraught, and not just because she was in pain.
He could see it in the way she bowed over the last unconscious guard near the escape pods and wept.
Then she dragged herself into a pod and was gone.
Pole was there in the medbay when Beats had come to, and he was the first to determine that the Captain wasn’t in his right mind. They subsequently discovered that of the troopers who had been on duty that night were similarly raving mad, insisting General Lodarran was marked for termination by some person named Darth Sidious for treason to the Republic. Pole would have laughed if they weren’t so deadly serious about it. They really would have killed her. Still wanted to, in fact—they repeatedly tried to convince Pole to send out fighter patrols to track down the escape pod. Beats had gone so far as to call Pole a traitor for not complying with this order. Pole had him restrained in the brig along with the others from the night shift who were well enough to move.
Despite the insanity of it all, Pole was almost wanted to believe them—why else would the General have run? Why not wake Pole and explain the misunderstanding? Why disable their ship, especially their comms, so thoroughly?
But as Pole listened to each man from the night shift give their report, he began to wonder what kind of sorcery had been in those orders to have turned every last trooper against their General. Some of these men had known her just as long as he had, and they all loved her, and still they turned on her.
At the end of the day, they were dead in space, isolated from the rest of the Galaxy while they worked to repair their comms and navigation, and Pole was left with too many questions he didn’t know how to answer.
Cody felt like he was dreaming.
He was doing things he wouldn’t normally do, saying things without even thinking first, and none of the men seemed to give it a second thought, even the outspoken ones who usually argued good naturedly, even the medics. Everyone suddenly cared a whole lot more about protocol, and Cody was Marshall Commander—his word was law.
There had always been a bit of distance between Cody and his troops due to his rank, but he didn’t think it had been quite this bad. It was like some switch had been flipped when they found out the Jedi were—
Nope. Don’t think about that.
Cody shrugged himself out of parade rest on the bridge and wandered around the different stations, eventually landing by the comms officers to listen in on their conversations rather than think about what had happened on Utapau.
He missed the General.
Except he wasn’t allowed to miss the General, because the General was a traitor. It really didn’t make any sense—after all they’d been through, what motive would Kenobi possibly have? But Cody couldn’t question this order without questioning his sanity as a whole, because the Jedi’s treachery was a fact that he—he just knew, just as well as he knew his own name.
Part of him was still screaming at this fundamental self-contradiction, but most of that was drowned out by the sense of security of following orders and regulations to the letter.
So he did his best not to think about it and listened to mundane comm chatter instead.
It was just as well, too, because that meant he was already on hand when the emergency channel had a message for him.
The 443rd battalion’s cruiser had been enroute to Coruscant, but their navigation and comms had been damaged and they needed help to make the last stretch. There was also some disciplinary issue happening between the officers, and since one of them was a Commander, they needed a Marshal Commander to come sort them out.
Cody acknowledged the order and welcomed the distraction—it felt so much better to move right now. It was a simple matter for him to organize a repair crew and start reviewing service records to get a feel for these officers before he put down whatever squabble warranted his attention.
Midway through these preparations, Cody was informed that the scout pilots who had found the 443rd had stopped transmitting. Loss of communications was never a good thing in Cody’s experience. He’d intended to just take a single shuttle and let the rest of the fleet move on to Coruscant and their much-needed shore leave, but if there was trouble brewing, he’d rather stomp it hard and fast. He assigned a cruiser to the mission and nearly added a second, but the memory of a teasing lifted eyebrow made him pause.
Obi-Wan had always been the one to tell Cody when he reached the far end of being too prepared.
Cody sighed. No one was going to question him now. No one but ghosts. And if an entire venator-class ship of men were somehow in the hands of the enemy, he’d need more than one of his own to bring it down.
He added the second cruiser.
“Sir, two cruisers just came out of hyperspace!”
“Two?” Commander Pole repeated.
“Yes, sir,” the comms officer confirmed unnecessarily, and Pole bit back a sigh. The entire bridge crew was made up of Shinies now because each time they’d picked something up on the short-range comms, the entire bridge started spouting the same madness as Beats’ night crew.
Pole didn’t know who this Darth Sidious person was supposed to be, but he was ready to clock him in the jaw. Preferably with a snow shovel.
A couple of scout pilots had come looking for them after they went radio-silent, and their comm units were apparently fully operational—nearly a quarter of the battalion was compromised before Pole managed to destroy the new comms, and they were all turning against Pole for obstructing orders. Captain Rhythm was chief among the new naysayers, having been compromised while he served as part of the greeting party for the scouts.
Captain Chime was the only other ranking officer aside from Pole who was still sane, but Chime saw the upheaval this was causing among the ranks, even among the uncompromised, and he quietly suggested they find some way to appease them all, and fast.
Pole agreed to take it into consideration.
But now he had not just one but two venator-class cruisers bearing down on him, and Pole felt the fight draining out of him. He knew in his gut that every man aboard those two ships would be spouting the same nonsense about orders from Sidious, and as soon as they learned General Lodarran had escaped, they’d be after her. And if he got in their way, they’d be after him next.
Pole no longer wondered why the General had run. He thought bitterly for a moment that she could have at least taken him with her, but no—if they could all be compromised at the drop of a hat, then she was safer alone. Besides, Pole wouldn’t have left his men.
And he wouldn’t leave them now.
Pole was their commander, and he had a duty to them, compromised or not.
He would see this through, and, if necessary, share their fate.
Cody’s shuttle was directed via creative lighting signals to land in a small docking bay close to the bridge. He was brought aboard with the proper honors, and Commander Pole greeted him with a firm hand-to-forearm grip. “Glad you could make it, Commander.”
“It’s good to see you, Pole,” Cody agreed. “I’ve brought a squad of mechanics and enough spare parts to rebuild the bridge from scratch.”
Pole grimaced slightly. “We may need every last screw, Commander. Our Jedi left us with quite the mess.”
“Left?” Cody repeated. “She escaped?”
Pole’s grimace deepened into a scowl, and he took a moment to answer. “I think it’s best if you see the footage, sir.”
Interesting.
Pole led the way to a small conference room, and his debrief was short and to the point.
“So you didn’t hear the order from Darth Sidious?” Cody asked in a carefully casual tone.
“No sir.”
“I see.” Maybe it’s for the best, was on the tip of Cody’s tongue, but he couldn’t say that—couldn’t contradict high command.
“Sir,” Pole continued, a note of desperation entering in his voice, “everyone who’s heard the order has been… different. It’s like someone flipped a switch.”
Cody paused. “You’re right. I felt it, too.” This was highly irregular, but he decided to share his personal misgivings, at least partially—he needed these troopers to trust him if he wanted to reestablish order, and sometimes trust went both ways.
He leaned back in his seat and looked down at his hands resting on the table. “I have two things that I know. One is that General Kenobi was the best commanding officer I could have hoped for. And the other is that he’s a traitor, even though I’ve no proof and no understanding of how in the Galaxy that can be true. But it is. Up here,” Cody said, tapping his temple. “And I can’t change it. No matter—no matter how hard I try.”
Pole looked one part relieved and two parts terrified. “What do we do, sir?”
Cody learned forward and speared him with a look under his eyebrows. “We follow orders and keep our heads down. All of your men who received the order followed it to the letter. You all did your duty to the best of your understanding, and I don’t see any reason to court-martial any of you, though it’s a close thing in your case. Now keep your head down, and maybe—”
Maybe the Jedi will come back and figure it out how to fix this, he wanted to say, and couldn’t. The Jedi were traitors. He had to hunt them down. Eliminate them.
“—maybe after the Jedi are eliminated, we’ll get our answers.”
Pole stared at Cody for a long moment, but eventually he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good man,” Cody said, standing.
“Thank you, sir.” Pole stood with him, but then he paused. Taking Cody’s raised eyebrow for an invitation, he hesitantly asked, “Sir… who is Darth Sidious?”
Cody stared at him incredulously. “Darth Sidious,” he said, as if the name should speak for itself, but Pole just blinked at him. Flabbergasted, Cody struggled to explain, “He’s …the head. The…”
There was a word for this, but what was the word?
“The Master.”
Sure, that fit.
“The Master,” Pole repeated flatly.
It sounded more right coming from someone else. “Yes. Now come on, let’s wrangle in your captains and clean up this mess.”
Cody had Commander Pole wait outside while he met with the three captains for a few minutes. He quickly learned that Beats had heard the initial Order, and Rhythm had heard it later when the scouts arrived. Chime remained quiet while the other two captains vented and despaired over their Commander. Cody already knew that most of the men hadn’t heard the Order, and he felt that it was fair to deduce that Chime was one of them.
It was interesting to watch him. For all his tactful silence, he had a terrible sabacc face. He was confused and hurting—he loved his brothers, but he’d also cared for their General, and couldn’t understand why this was happening.
Cody wondered if it would be kinder to show him the Order, to let him share their confidence, or to allow him to be a witness from an unbiased perspective, to see if the intellectual discrepancies in the Order were unique to Cody or if others felt them as well.
Cody let the captains talk their fill. Beats’ armor was painted with thick straight lines up his middle, over his arms, and down his legs—an uncomplicated pattern for an uncomplicated man. Rhythm had grey chevrons on his torso and arms with thinner lines on his legs that seemed to bend into waves as he bounced his foot.
Chime’s armor was painted distinctly different from the other captains’ straight lines and sharp angles—his paint spiraled out from a large circle in the middle of his chest, with smaller curls breaking off into complex patterns that reminded Cody of leaves or snow caught in a whirlwind.
Once the men had finished their piece, Cody turned to Beats. “You said you were with the General with the Order was issued?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you execute it immediately?”
Beats paused. “I… offered her a blindfold, first, sir.”
“You thought the traitor deserved the choice?” Cody asked in a firm tone.
“Sir, I—I admit, the Order caught me off guard. Lodarran was…” Beats, paused, but he was known to say whatever was on his mind, and he lived up to that reputation as he straightened his shoulders and looked Cody in the eye. “Yes, sir, I thought she did deserve the choice. She may have betrayed the Republic, but she was good to us.”
Cody nodded. “I understand. That was an honorable thing to do, Beats.”
Beats frowned. “It should be a demerit, sir. If I’d acted immediately, Lodarran wouldn’t have had time to react. She wouldn’t have gotten away.”
“Your opinion has been noted,” Cody said in just firm enough of a tone to communicate that while Beats may not be wrong, Cody had the final say on any disciplinary action, and he wasn’t about to hand out demerits just for the asking.
“Rhythm.” Cody turned to the next captain. “Before you heard the Order, what did you think about Beats’ actions?”
Rhythm shifted uncomfortably. He was still bouncing his heel, causing muted tap-tap-tap-tap of his boot against the floor—probably how he got his name. “I was confused, sir. I’ve known Beats a long time, and we’ve been serving under Lodarran since the start of the war. I didn’t understand how he could know she was a traitor from a single comm message.”
There it was. The illogical side of it. Rhythm seemed to notice it too because his eyes widened and he hurried to say, “Not until I heard it myself, sir. Then it all made sense.”
Cody nodded a few times, and then caught Chime’s eye. The poor man looked even more concerned than before. Good.
Why that was good, Cody couldn’t articulate, even to himself, but he felt like it was important that someone, anyone—as many people as possible—acknowledged that this was not normal.
That it was wrong.
But it couldn’t be wrong. Cody knew it wasn’t wrong.
But for whatever reason, he wanted a second opinion.
“Chime,” Cody said, “you haven’t heard the Order yet, correct?”
“That’s right, sir,” Chime said quietly.
“Does this all make sense from your perspective?”
Chime was silent for a long moment, looking between each of his brothers and finally back to Cody. “With respect… no, sir.”
Beats leaned forward from across the table. “I’m telling you, you just need to listen to the Order, Chime. It’ll help.”
Chime went perfectly still, watching Cody expectantly.
“Maybe later,” Cody said.
Chime flinched.
Cody pretended not to notice. “Can you explain what’s most confusing to you, Captain?”
Chime considered a moment, and then nodded to himself. “Darth Sidious,” he said.
“Yes?” Cody prompted.
“Who is he?” Chime asked.
Cody blinked, suddenly remembering a similar conversation with Pole. How had he answered that one? The Master?
The word still didn’t feel quite right, but Cody couldn’t think of a better one.
He turned to Beats and Rhythm, noting they also looked confused at the question. “Rhythm?” Cody invited.
“He’s the one who gave the order,” Rhythm said slowly.
Chime leaned forward, setting one swirl-filled arm on the table. “But who is he?”
“You really don’t know?” Beats asked.
Chime turned to Cody. “Should I?”
“I'm not sure,” Cody answered, and raised his hand to cut off Beats and Rhythm’s immediate protests. “I don’t think I knew before the Order. Did either of you?”
More shifting from Beats, more tap-tap-tap-tap from Rhythm. “I can’t think of a time it ever came up in conversation before, sir,” Beats said at length, “but I knew who he was the moment I heard his voice.”
Rhythm nodded in agreement, shrugging helplessly at Chime.
Cody watched Chime wrestle with this for a few seconds before he simply gave up—Cody could see it in the way his shoulders sagged and his head bowed. How long had he been fighting this? How many times had he already had this exact conversation?
Too many times, apparently. Chime had hardly raised his voice above a murmur this entire conversation, but now his voice was firm and clear as he looked back up at Cody. “Sir, I don’t think I’ll ever understand this mess until I hear that kriffing Order. I loved our Jedi, sir. We all loved our Jedi. And now this mystery dark lord shows up and calls her a traitor, and everyone who hears his voice believes every word he says.”
Cody let that rest in the air for a moment. “Do you want to hear it for yourself?”
“Do I have a choice, sir?” Chime asked bitterly, already sure of the answer.
Cody considered his options. There weren’t many. But he could postpone for a while longer. “Why did you call him a dark lord?”
Chime blinked at the sudden change in topic. “Some troopers call him Lord Sidious instead of Darth.”
“But why a dark lord,” Cody repeated.
“Because that’s what the Sith are called,” Chime said promptly. He’d obviously put some thought into this. “All the reports I’ve read—anytime I talked to General Lodarran or the other Jedi—only the Sith used the title Darth.”
It was a good point.
A very good point.
And Cody knew best of all of them that the Sith were the enemy.
So if the enemy was trying to make them believe the Jedi were traitors—
No.
Cody knew the Jedi were traitors.
He knew it as well as he knew what day it was. It was an unchangeable fact. It was heartbreaking, and cruel, but Cody couldn’t change it any more than he could change the date on the calendar.
“Captain Chime,” Cody said, steeling his voice into one with authority. “The Jedi betrayed us.”
Chime pressed his lips into a firm line.
“If you are called upon to do you duty, will you execute them as traitors?”
Chime didn’t answer.
“Under Order Sixty-Six, any soldier who does not comply must be executed for treason,” Cody said, the words leaping to his mouth and hand dropping to his pistol—but he grabbed his comm instead, setting it on the table in plain view.
Chime closed his eyes briefly, but he gave Cody a small nod.
Cody played the Order, watching with a bit of morbid curiosity.
It had happened so fast for him and everyone around him.
Now he saw it as if in slow motion.
Chime’s eyes flew open at the sound of Darth Sidious’s voice, and he stared unblinking as the Order was given. His face was utterly blank at first, and then twisted up briefly in terrible grief, and then smoothed out again.
Cody gave him a moment to collect himself, and he was surprised when Beats and Rhythm shared a sympathetic glance with him.
They all remembered that grief, however brief it had been.
At length, Chime lifted his eyes contritely. “I apologize, sir. I understand now. I understand perfectly.” His tone turned bitter, but then he shook his head and continued in a steady voice, “The men will take it hard.”
“We all did,” Cody agreed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving them all a moment to process. “Thank you, gentlemen.” He turned to Rhythm, who was closest to the door. “You can call in Commander Pole now.”
While they made that transition, and Chime learned forward toward Cody and whispered, “Sir, if I may, please disregard the report I sent just before this meeting. I’ll submit a revision by the end of the day.”
Cody nodded. “Understood, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Once Rhythm and Pole found their seats, Cody stood and clasped his hands behind his back, effectively calling them to order before saying a word.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “I understand there have been a few misunderstandings regarding Order 66 and the manner of its execution. I’ve conducted my own investigation, and I’ve concluded that each of you acted according to the best of your knowledge and ability at the time. Mistakes were made, yes, and a traitor got away, but I’ve seen better plans go much worse. My men will take over the search for Lodarran from here.
“All that behind us, I’m here to clarify expectations. This is the Grand Army of the Republic, gentlemen, and we have order and respect for the chain of command.” Cody swung sharply to Pole. “That goes both ways. Every soldier has a duty and obligation to uphold regulations, and to dissent if given an unlawful command.”
Turning back to Beats and Rhythm, Cody continued, “And there are protocols for this situation. There are also protocols for communication blackouts. I won’t rehearse them to you now, but I do expect each and every one of you to brush up on by the end of the day today.
“I also expect you all to work together to restore order and unity to the Four-Forty-Third before we reach Coruscant, and that starts here, with the four of you. What’s already happened is water under the bridge. You are more than soldiers—you’re commanding officers, and you’re brothers. I expect you to act like it, both in private and in front of the men. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes sir,” the room answered, and Cody nodded.
“Good. You’re all dismissed.”
The four men stood. Cody relaxed his stance and fiddled with his comm but watched them out of the corner of his eye to see how they took it.
Chime turned towards the door first, face grim. He clapped Pole on the shoulder as he passed, and Cody was pleased to see Beats and Rhythm intercept him long enough to press their foreheads together for a moment, murmuring quiet words of forgiveness.
After Chime left, Pole approached his remaining captains warily.
He looked to Beats first, holding out his hand. “Are we good, brother?”
Beats grasped his arm at the elbow. “Yes, sir.” He let Pole pull him into a hug with only mild complaint, and Rhythm was smiling in relief as the Commander raised his other arm towards him, pulling him into the embrace.
“Let’s never do that again, eh boys?” Pole huffed.
“Sir, yes sir,” Rhythm laughed. “That was kriffing awful.”
“You said it,” Beats said, voice slightly muffled by Pole’s shoulder.
The men broke apart with slightly broken laughter, and with light, teasing shoves, they trooped out the door together, leaving Cody alone.
He was glad they’d taken the initiative themselves to mend those bonds—it was the kind of thing that couldn’t be forced, one of the things that made the GAR so unique from other armies throughout history. They weren’t just soldiers and officers—they were family.
And at times like these, when intrinsic truths seemed to shift and crumble like sand, their family was all they had left.