Chapter Text
Two months after Palpatine’s demise
(Two months prior to the epilogue)
Cody looked around himself in utter awe at the sheer mass of vegetation surrounding him. The only other view he’d seen that was remotely similar was the garden inside the Temple, and his first view of that had been mostly subsumed in his shock at his own survival. Now he stood just a few steps inside a massive forest and it took his breath away.
Besides the scouts that were still working to explore every inch of the Temple of Hope, dozens more scouting teams had been sent out to survey the rest of the moon of Drashen to ensure they got at least some warning of anything concerning on the moon.
So far the biggest potential danger were the half a dozen relatively large predatory species that the moon was apparently home to. Luckily predators became significantly less of a threat after a handful of negotiations conducted by some of the senior Jedi who were good at connecting with animals through the Force. There were still repulsor beacons surrounding every place where cadets and younglings played outside, but so far at least the “live and let live” agreement seemed to be working out.
Besides looking for threats, however, the scouts had also made notes about dozens of interesting-looking places to explore. Cody had plans to explore all of them eventually, but this one - a forest with 60-meter tall trees and a path leading to a waterfall - was one of the closest of them to the Temple. In fact, it was actually halfway up the far side of one of the mountains the Temple had been built into.
Cody and a couple dozen of the other troopers had been excited about the chance to check it out, and some of the Jedi Masters had agreed it would be an excellent place to host a meditation lesson in a natural environment that wasn’t actually at the Vergence itself.
With that much enthusiasm on both sides the planning had been going quite well, right up until the question arose of whether they were bringing some of the cadets along. The Jedi agreed that it would be an excellent experience for as many as it was practical to bring at a time, but balked when they realized how long of a hike it would be and what age cadets the vode had planned to invite.
“I’m not sure I understand what the problem is,” Cody had admitted. “The waterfall is only fifteen kilometers away from the Temple entrance on that side, and we aren’t planning on bringing any cadets younger than two.”
“You’re proposing to bring two-year-old cadets on a round-trip hike of 30 kilometers, with some very significant changes in elevation along the way,” Master Luminara had repeated incredulously. “Not even Jedi four-year-olds who are already comfortable drawing on the Force are up for a hike of that length in a day!”
“We’ve been genetically engineered for stamina,” Cody had reminded her. “Any cadet of that age is expected to be able to jog that long in a single stretch while wearing a pack. I know the cadets haven’t been keeping up with their endurance training these past two months, but we’re planning to walk, plus have at least a short break at the waterfall for the meditation practice. That’ll be enough for them to recover for the hike back.”
Luminara’s face took on a very sad expression. “Cody,” she had said gently, “I don’t want to dismiss you and your brothers’ stamina. But requiring children of that age to march that far without even taking any breaks - is that a healthy level of effort for them, or was it just the trainers and the Kaminoans wanting to push them to their absolute physical limits without regard for them as people?”
Cody had paused at that question, taken aback. He had certainly done all of that training himself at that age - marching until he felt dizzy or made himself sick, but forcing himself to keep going because that was what was required of him to make him into the perfect soldier. And yet, when he thought about requiring the same thing of the youngest cadets, he found himself hesitating.
“But don’t you have to be pushed just as far as you can during training? When that training will be the only thing keeping you alive one day?” Cody asked cautiously.
“Training is valuable,” Luminara conceded, “but even the Jedi, who tend to find ourselves in deadly situations on a weekly basis, do not condone the level of training you were subjected to - even taking into account your enhanced strength and stamina.”
She paused for a long minute, then asked, “Cody, have you gone through any of the EduCorps modules about psychology or sociology?”
Cody winced at his oversight as he shook his head no.
But Luminara didn’t seem to be upset or consider his studies lacking. Instead she simply said, “Then I’m guessing you haven’t run across the Corellian University Prison Experiment yet?”
“No,” answered Cody with wide eyes, as his mind suddenly raced trying to figure out why a university would need a prison, and how many of his brothers he was going to have to help get transfers away from there before any of them found out the answer the hard way.
Perhaps Luminara felt his sudden spike of worry in the Force because she added, “This was a single experiment over a century ago, and there have been a lot of improvements in ethics rules ever since. But the basic gist of the story is that a researcher from the university asked a number of young men - mostly but not entirely human; all of them decent, ordinary people - to participate in a study about life in prison. Half were randomly assigned to be prisoners and given numbers instead of names, and the other half were assigned as their guards. Over the next few days, many of the guards became more and more sadistic, treating the prisoners badly, humiliating them, and doing their best to pit them against each other. After six days, Master Yaddle, who knew the researcher in question, saw how badly things were going and lectured him for several hours straight until he agreed to stop the experiment early.”
“So what are you trying to say?” Cody finally asked. “The people training us were decent people in a bad situation?”
“Perhaps,” Luminara allowed, “but the more important point is that even decent, ordinary people can become sadistic when they are given absolute power over others whom they have been encouraged to see as less than true people. And I find it highly unlikely that a crowd of angry Mandalorians who have agreed to train an army of children to become soldiers for a government they don’t even agree with would generally be considered ordinary members of the Republic to begin with. Add in the Kaminoans’ determination to consider you less than sentient, even to the point of giving you numbers instead of names…”
You get a planet where children can be taken away and “decommissioned” for failing a test, or subject to live blaster fire with no warning, or “trained” long past the point of injury just because a trainer feels like it, Cody finished silently.
“So what does that mean for us now?” Cody finally asked aloud.
“I suppose, ultimately, the point I wish to make is that if you or any of your brothers ever think that there is some aspect of your training or childhoods which you feel like you are supposed to replicate but you hesitate to do so, ask a Crechemaster, or indeed, any adult Jedi, whether it is, in fact, appropriate. Children cannot avoid all unpleasantness in life - chores must be done, medicine must be taken, bedtime will always eventually arrive - but mostly, children are to be protected and loved.”
“And yet the only examples we ever had growing up were the same people who hurt us.” Only Cody’s iron control over his voice prevented it from starting to waver. “We’ve only known you for a year - not enough time to break a decade’s worth of conditioning. How often will we not even realize we ought to ask whether something is appropriate?”
“You and your fellow CCs had significant authority over the troops under you, correct?” Luminara asked, as she offered her hand for Cody to take. He hesitated a moment, but finally took it and let her draw him a little closer until they were sitting side-by-side. “You had power over your brothers and nothing but truly awful examples to follow. You could have easily followed in your trainers’ footsteps, and yet you didn’t. Not once did we see any sign of a vod commanding officer abusing the troops under him. Throughout everything you’ve held onto your love for your brothers, and your desire for what’s best for them. Keep holding onto that, and you’ll all do okay.”
She smiled then, and added, “Still, while love may be the basis, there are the practicalities to consider. Do you think there would be interest if some of the Crechemasters gave a few lectures on techniques for raising children, and what is and isn’t generally considered acceptable among the Jedi and the greater galaxy?”
“Please!”
“I’ll see what I can do to arrange that, then. But before I do, we should make a final decision on the hike tomorrow. We could just leave the littlest cadets back at the Temple this time?”
A test, to see if he had actually internalized the instruction he had just been given. Oh, Cody knew that probably wasn’t how Luminara had intended the question, but it still felt like it. The cadets all wanted to go, and would be disconsolate if some of them were told they were too young - they all wanted to prove themselves just as much as he had at that age - and all the years since, if he were honest. And the kids were strong and fast and really could keep going for long distances, even at that age. And they did recover quite quickly given even a few moments to breathe….
“What if we took breaks a little more often?” Cody ventured. “Maybe if we stop a few places along the way, not just once we reach the waterfall?”
“That’s an excellent idea - I think Barriss and I would insist on at least a good 15 minute break every 4-5 klicks for our own sakes, even if no one else’s!” Luminara answered with a gentle smile. “And we certainly can stop for longer breaks, too. We were also thinking of at least a couple of hours at the waterfall itself. I gather the base of the waterfall is a pond large enough to go swimming, and we’ll also want midmeal in addition to the meditation practice. Really the only time constraints are that it would be nice to be back for latemeal, but if we aren’t, we’ll just have to talk to the kitchen droids about keeping something warm for us until we get back, and maybe packing some extra snacks for the hike.”
Luminara had just told him that their trainers weren’t to be trusted as examples of appropriate behavior. She had just said that the Jedi had vastly different ideas of how to treat children. Cody himself had trusted that from the moment he commed Colt to tell him that their little brothers were being rescued. And yet it still somehow felt like the breath was knocked out of him to realize that the Jedi would make sure his brothers always got fed. Even if training ran late, even if it was his brothers’ slow speed and limited stamina that had caused training to run late, meals wouldn’t be withheld as punishment, or as “practice for enduring missions with limited supply availability.” They’d just adjust things so that everyone got food regardless.
Maybe one day some of his little brothers would voluntarily choose to fast for a few days as a religious practice. More than likely they would at some point end up on a mission where food was scarce and they had to ration themselves for a little while. But that would be when they were old enough to know what they were getting into - not when they were two years old and should never be asked to understand why there was plenty of food available but someone had decided they didn’t deserve to get any tonight.
“Yeah,” Cody said hoarsely, blinking back tears that even he couldn’t hide any longer at the revelation, “that’ll give us more than enough time for as many breaks as they need. And if the littler ones do get tired at some point even so, there isn’t a single one of us who wouldn’t be willing to carry them just as far as they’d like.”
---
So now here they all were: over two dozen adult troopers and a good three dozen cadets ranging from ones old enough they would have already been deployed had the war continued, all the way down to the two-year-olds who were being watched over with eagle eyes by everyone else. Leading the expedition were Master Luminara, Padawan Barriss, and Master Obi-Wan, plus Rys as the scout who had originally found the ancient trail.
The massive trees, with their blue, green, and purple leaves, were the most striking part of the forest, but there was plenty of underbrush of varying types, too. Not all the plants that the vode had studied in the Temple’s garden were native to Drashen, but enough were that all the vode were periodically pointing out the ones they recognized with great excitement, and then clustering around to try to pool what they remembered about their names and properties. Others were excitedly exclaiming over bugs, small animals, cool rocks, and everything else Kamino-raised cadets had had depressingly little exposure to previously.
Cody had started out watching them all indulgently, but as the group walked deeper into the forest he started feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. This would be an excellent place for an ambush.
What had they all been thinking, not wearing their armor? The adults were all armed, yes, but with pistols, not proper rifles. Then again, the trees surrounding them would pretty much guarantee any combat would be at extremely close range, where it would be all but impossible to get the cadets under proper cover. Three lightsaber-wielders would help, certainly, but not enough, especially with everyone unarmored.
Cody tried to shake himself out of his spiraling fear - the moon was safe, surely! They weren’t far from the Temple, they would have gotten comm calls if the ships in orbit had noticed any strike forces trying to land, and the war was pretty much over, anyway.
His attempt at reassuring himself didn’t last very long. Any remaining enemies would be desperate now, certainly, and it wouldn’t be hard to guess that hurting the clone children would be devastating to everyone else. How certain were they, really, that all the deactivated droids on the moon’s surface would actually remain that way? The Temple itself would likely be safe - the two layers of shields would hold against anything - but they were suddenly far too far away from that protection for Cody’s peace of mind. The forest might be giving them some cover, but it would serve equally well to hide anyone trying to sneak up on them.
Barely noticing it, Cody switched from the ambling stroll he had been in as he watched the cadets darting around to a more combat-focused prowl. His eyes flicked around, trying to watch all possible approaches without being obvious about it.
Vaguely he noticed that the other adult troopers around him had also come alert and were scanning their surroundings suspiciously, but he neither knew nor cared whether they had picked up on his own unease, or whether it was the underlying situation that suddenly seemed as risky to them as to him.
It only took a moment longer for the Jedi to pick up on their concern.
“Cody?” Obi-Wan asked quietly, clearly trying not to worry the cadets. “What’s going on? Is there a threat?”
“Nothing specific I’ve picked up on,” Cody admitted with a touch of chagrin. “It’s just this whole situation - being away from the encampment without armor, without proper military support…. Anything could go wrong in an instant. We’re far too exposed here.”
Obi-Wan nodded, as if he expected that answer, then asked, “But what does the Force tell you?”
Cody stopped, taken aback. He still sometimes struggled to remember that he could actually ask the Force for stuff. Advance intel, in particular, would always be appreciated. But as he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to pull up that sense of the Force’s presence and guidance, it wasn’t working. His fear and worry were just swirling around to the point where he didn’t have a clue what was actually a legitimate concern and what was, if he were honest with himself, merely too many battles making him jump at shadows.
His grimace must have told Obi-Wan everything he needed to know.
Obi-Wan patted his shoulder reassuringly, then turned towards the group and raised his voice. “Everyone, gather round! I think this would be an excellent spot to have our first meditation lesson. Luminara and Barriss, would you please stand watch over us all? The rest of you, sit if you’d like, or stand if you’d prefer.”
Cody hesitated for a moment, but two Jedi would be able to give them at least a warning. He helped a couple of the smaller cadets get comfortable on the ground, then placed himself between Clip and Fox at parade rest.
It took him a while to get settled in the meditation, but eventually he reached a point where he could actually work through his fears. Were they understandable? Entirely - during the war, just because a planet was officially “secure” didn’t mean there weren’t at least a few droids still around potentially able to make trouble (left behind by accident, if nothing else). For his entire life, safely had meant being indoors somewhere - barracks, a ship, one of the Temples - or at least wearing armor while surrounded by guards and guns and the best sensor nets the GAR could buy, and even then they’d faced ambushes by Separatist forces far too often.
So his fear was understandable, even rational, but that didn’t mean it was actually warranted. He had promised himself he was going to learn how to be a Jedi, and part of that meant not letting his fears control him, but instead releasing them to the Force and learning how to trust, instead.
Cody gave a brief mental groan. He never would have made it as a marshal commander if he hadn’t been able to master his own fear, but apparently one of the side effects of not being in combat day in and day out was that he - and all the rest of his brothers - now felt safe enough to have some of the emotional reactions that would have gotten them killed during the war.
He felt the Force wrap itself around him at that thought, reminding him that he and his brothers weren’t going to have to face any of it alone, and Cody belatedly realized he had finally calmed down enough to be able to sense the presence of the Force again.
The Force gave him one last, It’s okay, you’re safe, it’s all clear here, and then he heard Obi-Wan’s voice leading them back out of the meditation.
Opening his eyes again, Cody was pleased to see everyone else looked much more relaxed as well, and after one more moment to make sure everyone had gotten enough water and snacks, they headed off again.
Cody managed to stay relaxed for all of a kilometer before the doubts started creeping back in. He trusted the Force to warn him if there were any problems, yes, but did he trust himself to notice the Force’s warnings? He had had a grand total of two months of Jedi training so far - a Jedi youngling leaving the creche for the first time would already have ten times that much experience! What if…
Cody’s thoughts cut off like a droid encountering a lightsaber as he dove forward toward ‘64, grabbing the kid’s arm and dragging him away from the bushes at the side of the path. A moment later he found himself on the bottom of a vodpile, as every other adult trooper and nearly all of the cadets dove towards ‘64 as well.
‘64 sat in the middle of the path where Cody had pushed him and looked very, very confused.
Obi-Wan had startled at Cody’s initial lunge, but after a moment he gave a gentle laugh and walked over to the bushes at the side of the path which ‘64 had been looking at a moment prior.
“Ah,” he said with a smile, “it’s always good to be careful with unknown plants.” He delicately reached out and snapped off a branch to show the rest of the group, who were one-by-one being disentangled from the pile by Luminara and Barriss. “This one looks like it has some rather impressive thorns. Not particularly dangerous - no poison at any rate - but sharp enough to draw blood, I think.”
Cody finally got a hand up from Barriss and crouched down by ‘64. “Sorry for yanking you like that, vod’ika. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No, sir,” ‘64 answered.
“And you didn’t get poked by the thorns? We have a medkit along if you did.”
“No, sir! You pulled me away first. But there was a lizard on the branch, and it was really cool and it wasn’t scared of me at all, but I think it ran away when it saw everyone else running over.”
“Just as long as you’re okay, kid.” Cody ran one last careful glance over ‘64, but the cadet really did seem to be okay.
As the group started moving again, Cody finally couldn’t resist asking his questions any longer.
“Okay, so what just happened? All of us reacted to ‘64 about to grab the thorns, but none of the Jedi did. Was it just because getting poked by a few thorns isn’t exactly a significant injury? Obi-Wan, if you had tried to react like that during the war to every clone about to stub a toe, you’d have died of exhaustion within the day!”
“I can think of a couple possible explanations, Cody,” Obi-Wan answered with a gentle smile, “either or both of which could be true.”
“Oh?”
“First, we have a saying in the Order, ‘Your focus determines your reality.’ Or to put it another way, during the war, all of us Jedi had to get very good, very quickly, at paying attention in the Force to only those threats which we both could do something about, and actually needed to do something about. Even right now, we’re still listening to the Force for warnings, but we’re also enjoying the day, and feeling how the Force is moving through everything in the area, and staying aware in case someone starts using the Force in a way that will hurt them or anyone else. You all, I would suspect, were focusing exclusively just now on listening to warnings from the Force - which is in no way a bad thing! You’ll spend years in training focusing on doing each skill well by itself before you’ll move on to trying to split your attention - but that meant you were able to pick up much more subtle warnings than any of us either noticed or felt we needed to react to.”
Cody nodded slowly. He and his brothers had spent hours at a time in sims that were nothing but low-powered blaster bolts coming towards them. At first it had been merely to desensitize them, and ensure they could continue shooting with no loss of accuracy despite the streaks of fire heading in their direction. After a while the difficulty had increased, with some percentage of the bolts aimed to hit them. Any bolt that wasn’t dodged was a sharp sting and a reminder to be better next time. Any bolt that was dodged unnecessarily was points docked. Any dodge - whether the vod in question would have been hit or not - that resulted in them missing their next shot was significant points docked. And everyone knew better than to risk their scores being too low for too long of a stretch.
Being able to pay attention to the warnings of the Force while also deflecting blaster bolts and leading the charge would have been a critical skill during the war, and equally as important would have been knowing how to not get distracted by the pain of and potential harm to an entire battalion’s worth of clones.
Cody would forever be grateful for every brother who survived the war because General Kenobi deflected a blaster bolt that would have killed them. But Cody would never blame Obi-Wan for the brothers who were killed, because the shots that killed them weren’t deflected - because Cody had read the reports, and the Jedi who had tried to save every single one of their troopers had been stretched too thin and died themselves in very short order, leaving their remaining troopers without any protection at all.
Hopefully, with the war over, such trade-offs would be far less likely to occur going forward. Still, one of the first skills Cody would have to learn would be how to stay well aware of any possible warnings of attacks or significant injuries, while also learning how to avoid overreacting to a cadet pricking a finger or stubbing a toe, or he’d never manage to get any sleep again.
“And the other possible explanation?” Cody asked.
Luminara gave him an understanding smile. “The Force knows what you need. It’s always possible it simply wanted to reassure you all that you could trust yourselves to notice and respond to its warnings.”
That was… not what Cody had been expecting to hear, but if it was true…. Cody gave a small but helpless smile back, and noticed all his other brothers doing the same.
---
From there on, the hike proceeded much more smoothly.
Well, mostly: with a couple dozen cadets along there were a few moments of peril. Warned by the Force, a full dozen troopers were ready to catch Fern when the tree branch he was climbing along gave way unexpectedly. ‘52 got a scolding from Barriss when he decided to escalate the pinecone-throwing game with a decent-sized rock. Cody himself caught ‘64 from darting straight off the side of the trail and down a hill; ‘64 was less abashed than ‘52 at the subsequent lecture, and mostly just excited that it had inspired him to choose his name: Dart.
After Dart’s retrieval, Cody had looked pleadingly at Barriss in the hopes that she might have some better ideas about entertaining cadets than he did, given that most of his own ideas tended to revolve around blaster practice and other combat drills.
“Why don’t we sing a song?” Barriss suggested brightly. “Who knows ‘The Radiant Mountains’?”
A chorus of eager voices answered her - it was one of the songs several of the creche-assisting padawans had been teaching the cadets the previous week - and a moment later the song was echoing off the surrounding trees.
Not exactly stealthy, Cody thought wryly, but maybe he could trust they didn’t have to be.
He listened to the whole song through once to get the words and tune, then joined in himself.
“Mountains” was quickly followed by “The Ballad of Captain Keeli” and then “The Stars Sing Sweetly Overhead,” which was supposed to be a lullaby but made a surprisingly good marching song when sung with enough gusto.
They almost made it as far as the waterfall without any further drama. They were less than a klick away, by Cody’s estimation, when Dart offered the suggestion of “Vode An”, and Fox barked out a very annoyed, “Absolutely not!”
Two months with the Jedi was far too little time to convince Dart it was safe for him to cry when he felt upset, but his shoulders went up and his eyes dropped and he instinctively offered a hasty, “Sorry, sir!”
Fox grimaced, but before he could say anything that might make the situation worse, Obi-Wan spoke up brightly, “Who here has met Master Tapal? Anyone? No? How about a lasat, has anyone met any other lasats yet?”
“Just seen pictures in training modules, sir,” ‘19 offered shyly, clearly still a little rattled by Fox’s strong reaction.
“Ah, not surprising, Nineteen,” Obi-Wan reassured him gently. “Many of them stay on Lasan. Master Tapal was offered to the Jedi Temple to raise when it was realized just how strong in the Force he is, but by that point he was already old enough to have learned some of the culture and traditions of the lasat, particularly about the Force, which he then also studied further once he was at the Temple.
“And, most importantly for this conversation, he volunteered quite often in the creche with my initiate clan, and he taught us many songs from Lasan. Would you like to learn one?”
There was an excited chorus of agreement - even after this much time away from Kamino new songs were something to be treasured.
“Well, then! The fun part about this one is that it’s a question-and-answer song between two different people - or in this case, groups of people. Half of us will be Bogan, what the lasat call the Dark Side of the Force. The other half will be Ashla, their name for the Light Side of the Force. Now that means we’ll have to divide into two approximately equal groups….”
Obi-Wan paused as he tried to figure out how to divide them, so Cody spoke up firmly, “Odd numbers are Ashla, even numbers are Bogan!” At Obi-Wan’s look of brief surprise, Cody grinned. “Our numbers may have been meant to dehumanize us, but they are useful on occasion! Now, what are our parts?”
Obi-Wan laughed, and then started going through the lines for each part. Given the clones’ nearly perfect recalls, it wasn’t long before they had the song completely memorized and were cheerfully singing away, all the way down the path.