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After the war, about a third of the Vode had been absorbed into the Coruscant Guard. For those Vode that weren’t (like the 501st) they had instead been given the choice to join a new taskforce of the Jedi Temple, or to go out and seek their luck elsewhere in the galaxy.
Rex himself had grown… fond of the Jedi he had served with. He'd found himself reluctant to leave them behind. So he, as well as much of Torrent Squad, had decided to stay and become apart of the new Service branch of the Jedi: the VodeCorps. The VodeCorps would be a taskforce that would be in-charge of helping maintain an informational network for the Jedi that had been established during the war through the GAR, and they would also provide first boots on the ground for recon as well as any protection services the Jedi might need.
Most of the 212th had decided to not become part of the Corrie Guard, but had instead become the first members of the VodeCorps. And since it was the 212th that had helped found the new Corps division, Cody had ended up as the main administrator and founding councilor.
Rex was glad for his ori’vod, the man was truly gifted at leading and organizing people. But the problem of Cody’s new position arose when it became clear Cody wanted to send out people he trusted on the first missions the VodeCorps had, as the Corps tried to find their purpose among the Jedi and among the galaxy. This meant that Rex had been one of the first Vode to go on a mission, and he had been going on small missions with various Vode ever since.
And Rex was tired.
On top of that, the very first Life Day since the war had ended was fast approaching, and Rex really didn’t want to be off-world when that happened. He wanted to be on Coruscant where he could celebrate with all his brothers.
So Rex did the only thing he could think to do: he begged Cody to give him a few weeks' furlough that would cover all of the Life Day celebrations as well.
Cody smiled one of those I’ve devised the best strategy to win smiles at Rex, which scared Rex a bit, because Cody could be ruthless in his quest for success.
“Of course you can have a break. You’ve been working so hard vod’ika. You know I have given you the first and some of the hardest missions because I trust you to get them done. But you’ve done a lot, so I just have one last small mission for you, then you can have a month of shore leave while Wolffe’s squad takes over.”
Rex felt his shoulders sink in relief. He had expected Cody to say no, which was ridiculous, Cody was a reasonable man. “Alright, I can do one last short one.”
“Good,” Cody nodded, clapping Rex on the shoulder, “because this mission shouldn’t take longer than a few days.”
Rex leaned into Cody’s hand with a smile and let himself be led over to the holotable, where Cody would explain all the details of the mission.
Rex walked towards the galley on their small ship. They had landed and would all have a hot meal, suit up, and then start their mission together.
He sighed when he walked in and saw the furious expression on Echo’s face. As much as he loved the Domino twins, the two of them together could be a headache.
“If you don’t stop leaving your boots on my bunk, I will make you wash all of my sheets by hand. And I will make you bring in clean snow from outside and melt it to wash them with,” Echo said, his voice quiet in its intensity.
“Aw, Echo, you know I didn’t mean to bro,” Fives swung his arm around Echo’s neck, which Echo tried to shove away.
Rex turned away from them and began preparing a fresh pot of caff. “Why did I have to be stuck with only these two,” Rex whispered desperately to himself, fiddling with the auto-kettle.
Somehow their bickering had gotten so much worse since the GAR had disbanded. Rex thought one of the main reasons was that the GAR rules no longer ruled their lives, and both of them were struggling to adjust without the strict structure of those rules. He thought the other main reason they had been arguing so much recently was because the Vode had been given the opportunity to room with one or two other brothers, and the two of them had chosen each other. And for better or for worse, the two had also been assigned to various VodeCorps missions together, as the two of them worked well in high-stress situations together.
So the two of them never seemed to get any time apart from each other.
Rex loved his brothers, but he thought he might go insane if he had to spend every single moment of every single day with the same brothers. Cody had been switching up all the teams depending on what skills and the numbers needed, and this was Rex’s first mission with the Domino Twins.
Fives murmured something behind Rex and then laughed.
“That’s not funny, Fives!” Echo scolded his brother, and Rex could hear Echo shove Fives away.
Rex turned away with his now prepared cup of caff, rolling his eyes at the other two who were now shoving each other back and forth.
“You two need to cool it!” He said loudly, trying to get their attention. “We’re about to leave for a mission, and I need your heads in the game.”
The two men paused, each grabbing the other and turning their heads to look at Rex.
“It’s not even a hard mission!” Fives complained, finally letting his brother go. “The agreement and details have already been straightened out between the Jedi, Senator Chuchi, the Talz and a negotiator on the ground.” Fives pouted, crossing his arms, “We’re only here as errand boys to gather the negotiator. We don’t even have to get the formal contracts and information the Talz have, the contact has already done that. A trained Kowakian monkey-lizard could do this mission!”
“Regardless of its difficulty, this mission is important. The Talz, the Order, and the Pantorans are counting on us to help finalize this peace agreement, which if it works could last for centuries,” Rex explained, already feeling tired. “Now, get something to eat, then get on your cold weather gear. We have to get going in the next hour if we want to get to the Talz settlement and back before nighttime falls.”
Fives sighed. “Yes sir.”
Rex sat and drank his hot cup of caff, enjoying it and knowing how cold he was about to get. A few minutes later, Echo came back over with three bowls of hot rations in the form of gruel and passed them out.
Rex thanked his younger vod and went to add on some Zingbee Honey he’d seen in one of the cupboards. The Jedi had just as boring ration food in their newly outfitted VodeCorps ships as the GAR had offered the Vode during the war. But the one thing that made all the difference (and one of the reasons he far preferred ration gruel) was that Jedi ships always seemed to have a few things you could add to the rations to make them more palatable: honey, fruit preserves, hot sauces, and even curry sauces. It really made the entire dish much more enjoyable.
The three of them ate quickly, and Rex tried to ignore Fives and Echo kicking each other under the table the whole meal. Once they were finished and their empty dishes were in the dish-cleaning unit, they headed to the cargo bay to suit up in their cold weather gear, and pull out their modified speeders.
Within thirty minutes, the three of them were zipping out across the frozen topography of Orto Plutonia.
Shockingly, the trip went smoothly, and the Talz quickly brought them into a central structure that was heated by a large fire pit in the center of the building.
Sitting close to the fire, with a bag full of datapads that held the signed and agreed contracts, was their contact wearing a cloak made out of some kind of animal fur native to this planet.
The man turned to them and smiled. “Took you boys long enough, I was afraid my balls were gonna freeze right off before you came to get me.”
“Bacara?” Rex stepped forward and pulled his helmet and the cold-weather hood that encapsulated his helmet off his head. “Holy Force! I didn’t expect our contact to be you!”
Bacara crossed his arms and leaned back, laughing. “Yeah, my Jedi General has been training me to do negotiations since the war ended. This was meant to be my first solo negotiation.” He nodded to the Talz around them. “I came with only a translator program, a communicator and my wits. It has been… an interesting mission. I’ve actually quite enjoyed it, but I’m ready to get off this giant ball of ice.”
“I’ll bet,” Rex grinned at Bacara. He and Bacara had never known each other well, but Bacara had been one of Cody’s batchmates, and from what Rex knew the man was a bit intense, but incredibly practical and no-nonsense. Cody had mentioned in the past that Bacara was a good man who believed fiercely in justice and common sense. Rex couldn’t argue with either of those things, and he hoped Fives and Bacara didn’t clash on the journey home. “Well our speeders are just outside, so whenever you’re ready, we can head out.”
Bacara nodded and stood. “Let me say my goodbyes.”
Bacara spoke to the leader and then was crushed in a hug by the large Talz. Rex wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but Bacara seemed a bit put out by the hug, but patted the Talz back kindly before he stepped away.
As they stepped out into the cold, Bacara put on a pair of goggles and wrapped a furry scarf around his face to protect his skin from frostbite.
“Where’s your armor and cold weather gear?” Rex shouted at him, his voice being half lost in the wind.
“It was good enough for the first five days, but after that the insulated rubber and synth cloth outer layer began to crack and shatter in the extreme cold. It just wasn’t able to withstand that long in the cold. The Talz gave me this.” Bacara shouted back, “And I gotta say, it’s much warmer.”
Rex shrugged, satisfied with the answer.
“It’s quite the fashion statement,” Fives shouted as they began to load up on their speeders. “Looking good, Commander.”
Rex was glad Bacara seemed to ignore Fives and climbed up behind Rex.
Soon enough, the four of them were on their way.
They arrived back at their ship just after this planet’s sun had set and the bitterly cold wind had picked up.
They were able to load the speeders back onto the ship, and Rex sent Echo and Fives ahead to start up the ship, while Rex strapped the speeders into the hold and Bacara headed off to get some hot caff.
“Sir?” Echo appeared back in the cargo bay.
“You know you don’t have to call me sir anymore, Echo,” Rex said calmly, tying down the last strap.
“Right. Only, you’re in charge of this mission, and we’re in trouble.”
Rex straightened, motioning for Echo to continue.
“The engines won’t start.”
“What?” Rex startled, “Why not.”
“We’re not completely sure. The sensors are going haywire in the cold.”
“Kark. Alright, let’s check it out.” Rex ran past Echo, heading for the cockpit.
What they found out was that the lubricating fluids that helped the motorized parts of the engine run had frozen solid, and the entire engine had seized.
To even get to the compartment and try and warm up the engine with heaters, they would have to go outside and access a panel on the outside of the ship. The temperatures had dropped to below minus 60, and Rex knew if he sent any of them out there, it would be to their deaths.
As soon as he realized how truly karked they were, Rex radioed a distress signal to the temple and to Pantora.
Pantora was a thirty-six hour journey away because of some dangerous space currents in this system, whereas it was a forty-eight hour journey from Coruscant. They might all be dead by then.
Once he knew his messages had been received, Rex began enacting the stranded, hostile-weather protocol that he had trained for in the GAR. Technically, now that the Vode were a part of the Jedi Order, they had new emergency protocols. But many of the Vode found their training from Kamino to still be incredibly useful in emergency situations, and they had trained for them so many times that they were instinctual.
With the power systems on the ship failing and the engines unable to start, Rex decided very quickly they would pick a room to hole up in together to conserve the residual heat of the ship and their body heat.
As Rex herded Fives, Echo and Bacara into the most well insulated room of the ship — a storage room meant for sensitive microchips made to calculate hyperspace routes without a droid — he couldn’t help but chuckle over the irony of the situation. This was meant to be his last short milk-run mission before his month-long furlough that he’d specifically asked for so he could celebrate his first Life Day as a free man with his brothers and friends… And now, he probably wasn’t even going to live until Life Day.
The four of them crowded into the narrow room with as many blankets as they could, basically sleeping on top of each other. In the GAR, there had been little space or privacy, but this situation brought the word “cramped” to a whole new level.
Fives squeezed in next to the wall, Echo next, then Rex, and Bacara squished in on Rex’s other side.
There was little to do other than sleep or talk, and with the cold creeping in around them, they decided to hold off on sleep as long as they could.
Bacara started by telling them a few funny stories from his time as the Commander of the 21st Nova Corps. Rex thought the story of Captain Keller accidentally attracting a Toola Caraboose — which had involved the animal being incredibly affectionate and following the man everywhere — was his favorite. He got a kick out of imagining Keller being followed around by a giant ungulate. Keller had been in Rex’s batch, and he hated that prick. Keller had been so competitive with Rex during training, and the two of them still had a legendary rivalry today.
Rex hoped they would get out of this situation alive so he could give Keller a beat-down during a spar, in the future.
Echo and Fives returned the favor to Bacara, by telling the Commander some truly embarrassing stories about their former General: Master Anakin Skywalker.
At one point when Fives was detailing a time Skywalker had thought he and Senator Padme Amidala were being so sneaky, Bacara laughed. “Even the 21st Nova Corps knew that those two were dumbstruck in love. They were the most transparent love birds I’ve ever seen. I’ve only seen them twice in my life, and both times they were trying to suck each other’s tongues out.”
Rex sighed. “You were lucky your Jedi wasn’t as embarrassing as mine… Or your vod’ike. These two di’kute were as bad as Skywalker,” Rex revealed.
“Captain!” Echo whined sadly.
“We were not!” Fives protested.
So of course Rex had to launch into the story about the time Echo and Fives had thought it would be a good idea to put purple dye in the liquid body soap the GAR provided, giving everyone in their battalion a purple glow to their skin.
“That wasn’t me, that was all Fives!” Echo protested.
Rex just chuckled. “It’s all over now. Looking back, it was kind of funny. But I also really enjoyed making you two clean the ship 'freshers with your toothbrushes.”
Fives cackled. “I told you it was funny Echo!”
Rex could tell that Bacara was rolling his eyes without even looking, so he then launched into another story about Echo bringing a tooka he found on Kothlis onboard. Fives had started a campaign of hiding the tooka in different squads’ bunkrooms whenever Rex caught wind of the animal’s position. Fives had led him on that wild goose chase for a month.
“Sometimes you two drive me crazy,” Rex slurred, the cold starting to get to him. “But I love you two so much. I would do anything to keep you safe.”
Bacara snorted and Echo crowded closer to Rex.
“I love you too, Captain,” Echo said quietly.
“But what about me? Echo, you love me too, right?” Fives whined, then cried out when Echo kicked him.
Eventually, they couldn’t stay awake any longer. All four of them were aware that the ship had cooled enough that falling asleep might mean their deaths, but they were tired, cold and stressed. And at this point there was little left to keep them awake.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was supposed to be an easy mission, one that even a trained Kowakian monkey-lizard could do. And now, Rex and his three brothers would die if it got any colder and help didn’t arrive soon.
Even without war, life was tumultuous, and Rex couldn’t help but realize the irony that there was no safety, no guarantee; not even now that the war was over.
Echo murmured in his sleep and snuggled his face further into the warmth of Rex’s neck.
But even despite all that, Rex had them: these two annoying little brothers he loved dearly, and an older brother he knew so little of. At least he wouldn’t pass into the Force alone.
And if today was the end… then today he would die beside two men he adored, and another he respected.
He just hoped this wasn’t the end.
Rex awoke to a loud banging and a jolt. He felt as if he was on a life raft in the middle of the Kaminoan ocean, being tossed about by the stormy waves.
He tried to open his eyes, but he was just so comfortable, and yet he felt so cold. Everything felt so heavy and dreamy that he fell back asleep almost immediately.
“How come he’s not waking up?” Rex heard a familiar voice ask loudly next to his ear and then a sharp poke to his cheek.
“Give him a moment Ahsoka, their core temperatures were dangerously low when we got their ship onboard.” A second, equally familiar voice responded.
Rex realized the sharp poke had been someone poking him in the face with their finger.
“Wazz happ’ing?” Rex asked blearily.
“There he is!” The second voice crowed.
“Alright you two, give Captain Rex some space.” A third voice, dry with exasperation, chimed in.
Rex’s eyes fluttered open to find himself lying on a cot in an unfamiliar medbay. Thermal body heat-packs surrounded him with everything covered over in blankets.
“You’re on the Negotiator 2,” the third voice spoke again, and Rex moved his head to locate the person speaking. “Glad to see you back in the land of the living, Captain.”
Master Kenobi smiled down at him, Master Skywalker pressed close to his side, and Knight Tano pressed to Skywalker’s other side.
“How did ya get to us in time?” Rex slurred.
“We were meant to be leaving on a lineage meditative retreat a week after you got back,” Ahsoka chimed in, “but Master Kenobi kept having a strong feeling we needed to leave early, so we did. We were only 16 hours away when we heard from the Temple what had happened to you.” Ahsoka moved closer to the end of his cot and patted one of his feet. “As soon as we entered atmo on Orto Plutonia, we scooped up your ship into our hold and took-off from that horrid ice-ball.” She shivered dramatically.
“Echo, Fives, and Bacara?” Rex asked, worried.
“All fine,” Skywalker confirmed, gesturing to the left.
Rex turned his head and noted his brothers all laying on their own cots, asleep and with a lot more color in their faces than when he’d seen them right before he’d passed out on the ship.
“Rest Captain, we’re on our way back to Coruscant.” Kenobi smiled.
Rex smiled crookedly and let himself fall back asleep, warm at last.
The four Vode exited the Negotiator 2 (which Kenobi had sheepishly admitted Cody had suggested the name of, in a bout of nostalgia, after the Order had purchased the Barloz-class freighter a couple of months ago) in the Temple hangar, feeling much better than when they had unconsciously entered the ship.
Everywhere, even the ship hangar, was decorated with Life Day decorations. At this point there were only five days left until the holiday, and the Jedi and Temple employees looked to have caught the spirit of the holiday. Many of them were wearing outrageous sweaters or hats that were brightly colored and Life Day themed.
Cody (unfortunately unadorned in any Life Day themed clothing) was waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp.
Cody’s face was normally very stoic and hard to read, but Rex prided himself in knowing Cody well enough that he could see how his ori’vod’s face relaxed slightly when he caught sight of them all at the top off the ramp, looking unharmed.
Cody grabbed Rex by the shoulders and looked him over. “Why is it, that the easiest mission I’ve given you all year ended the most horrifically? I don’t think I can ever assign you an easy mission again.”
Rex just threw his head back and laughed.
That moment of joy was ruined when Fives pushed Echo out of the way, calling “I’m getting the first hot shower,” back at Echo.
“Fives!” Echo called out, betrayed, and he began to give chase.
“Why do I love those two again?” Rex mumbled under his breath.
Bacara passed him and smirked. Cody just sympathetically patted him on the shoulder.
“That’s little brothers for you,” Cody reassured him.
Rex put his head in his hands and groaned.
It was good to be home, just in time for Life Day.