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Rex laughed and leaned into Obi-Wan’s touch, and Cody tried not to swallow his own tongue in jealousy. Who he envied more, he couldn’t say. He and Rex had been slowly building something on Kamino, only for it to be cut at the knees as the war started. And it had been so easy to fall for the General after so many late nights of strategy and formwork, almost all of which had devolved into relaxed conversation, yet that was doomed from the start.
Because he couldn’t have them, either of them. Because during the First Battle of Geonosis, Rex and Obi-Wan had locked eyes across the arena. Because meeting his Guide had made Rex come online as a Sentinel.
And there was no room for him.
He had lived in hope that his first battle would do the same for him, that he would come online and find a mate and forget his heartbreak. After all, all the Vode had the right genetics for it thanks to Prime.
But his first real engagement came and went, and nothing happened.
He was totally, completely mundane .
“Cody, are you alright?”
He refocused and found Obi-Wan right in front of him, Rex hovering behind his shoulder, both with concerned looks on their faces. He thought about dragging up a smile for them, but he knew it would be too obviously fake. Instead, he tipped his head to one side.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, uptalking just enough to feign confusion.
Rex stepped forward, but Cody saw his arm stay back, likely to rest on the small of Obi-Wan’s back.
“Don’t worry, Obi,” he said. “You know Cody: he was probably just running through the plan one last time.”
He desperately scrabbled for the assumption like a slick lifeline. “I still think we can think of something…better,” he said. “It just seems like there are too many unknowns, and the mission details put so much emphasis on how important it is for us to keep the planet, for the doonium if nothing else, that we need to tread carefully.”
They both smiled at him, as in sync in this as they were in most things.
“Don’t worry so much, Commander,” Obi-Wan said. “I have faith in your ability to adapt on the fly, at the very least.
“I’m sure that once we land on Umbara, everything will be fine.”
Many hours later, Cody decided the General had never been so wrong in his life. General Skywalker had been recalled to Coruscant and had been replaced by General Krell. Cody, at Obi-Wan’s request, had gone along with him to meet the Five-Oh-First at a ridge in the north.
It had all gone downhill from there.
Now, after a long push towards the Capital that included banshees, a minefield, and Umbaran assault tanks, they’d finally accomplished something and taken the airbase. And yes, some of the boys had disobeyed orders to remain at base, but they’d also taken out the Seppie supply ship. They didn’t deserve to be killed for that.
“Stand down,” Cody repeated, standing firm between the firing squad and Jesse and Fives. He could practically hear their hearts pounding through their armor, could almost taste their terror.
Thankfully, almost every vod put down their blasters, even as General Krell shouted at them from behind.
The Besalisk stomped forward until he was just a step in front of Cody. “What do you think you’re doing, Commander ? These men are under my command, and they will do what I say.”
Cody tipped his chin up, a necessary action to meet the General’s eyes, but also his go-to move to show his stubbornness. “No, you lost your right to command when you tried to unlawfully execute soldiers of the Republic. These men are mine , and they are done taking orders from you.”
For just a breath, they stared in silence. Cody thought he saw a flash of yellow in Krell’s eyes, but before he could be sure, Krell’s comm chimed.
“What?” he snapped as he accepted the comm.
“Sir, we just received a report that the Umbarans are launching another attack, this time using trooper armor and weapons they recovered from the field.”
“Fine,” he said, ending the comm as abruptly as he’d answered it. He looked back at Cody. “We’ll resume this later. Now, we have an ambush to stop.”
Cody wished he could argue, but he could barely hear Krell over the pounding of his own blood. He felt suddenly consumed with rage at the Umbarans’ audacity . How dare they loot from his fallen brothers? How dare they wear their armor, those plates that were oh so precious not because of any protection they might provide, but for being one of only a handful of ways to show their individual souls to the world? There was so much wrath in and around him he thought he would choke on it.
But he swallowed it down and gathered his men. He’d deal with the strength of his emotions after the battle was won.
As they set off, Cody had the strangest feeling that his men from the Two-Twelfth were close by. But that couldn’t be right – they were much further south, trying to capture the Capital with Rex and Obi-Wan.
The thought wouldn’t leave, though. Even as he slid behind cover with the boys in blue, he just knew his golden brothers were near.
“Movement, 10 degrees east. Looks like some of ours,” Tup breathed into his in-helmet comm.
Cody was already facing the exact direction of the newcomers. Maybe he heard something just before Tup warned them?
“Commander, should we attack?” Jesse asked, not using his comm since he was right at Cody’s shoulder.
He didn’t respond, just tilted his head a little. Why was his mind screaming at him not to fire, that those scents and motions and feelings were familiar and cherished?
“Commander,” Jesse repeated, inflection showing his urgency as surely as his heartbeat.
What was really going on here?
“Cody!” Jesse whisper-screamed.
He stood up and walked toward the insurgents, tearing his helmet off as he went. Physically staggering at the sudden sensory overload, he regained himself and stood firm.
“I am Marshal Commander Cody of the Third Systems Army,” he called. “At my back are the Five-Oh-First, and at my front are the Two-Twelfth. Put down your blasters and recognize your brothers!”
A pause, one so deep it seemed as if the very planet were holding its breath.
“Cody?”
He was not surprised when the voice of his second came from directly in front of him.
“Waxer?” he yelled back.
The lieutenant walked toward him, helmet off and expression confused. “Sir? We received reports that you and the Five-Oh-First had fallen, that the Umbarans had taken your armor for themselves.”
“Who gave that report, son?”
“General Krell.”
He would never quite remember what happened next, though he was told more than once by different witnesses and several times by Fives, who liked to embellish the tale more and more each time. What he did know is that the next thing he knew, he was in the Umbaran Capital, and Rex and Obi-Wan were just a few feet in front of him.
“Cody?” Rex asked. Why did he sound worried?
“Are you…feeling alright, my dear?” Obi-Wan asked. Past the warmth that filled his chest at the pet name, Cody could just hear Obi-Wan whisper to Rex, “Dial back up your nose, Sentinel. I think there’s something wrong.”
Cody saw the exact moment Rex’s sense of smell was restored because Rex’s eyes widened and he took one step back.
Obi-Wan turned to him, his scent pile mixing into fear-confusion-love. “Rex?”
“He smells like us ,” he whispered. Then, he shook his head. “No, not like us, but close.” He finally met his Guide’s eyes, his own still wide and unblinking. “But he does smell like ours .”
Obi-Wan’s jaw dropped, and he looked at Cody again. Cody felt him reach out with his mind, and he was both surprised and not to find he could reach back. The Jedi mirrored his partner and moved back one shocked step. “Ours,” he breathed.
“Yours,” Cody agreed. He stalked forward, feeling more like a predator than any Kaminoan training had given him.
Rex and Obi-Wan did not run, though – they froze and allowed him to approach.
Cody purred with satisfaction at their acceptance. He finally reached their sides, leaned in, and breathed in the smell of Rex from the base of his neck. “Mine,” he rumbled. He twisted slightly and did the same to Obi-Wan. “ Mine ,” he repeated, a bit of a growl seeping in.
His Sentinel and his Guide both pushed closer and finally put their hands on him. His Guide’s hands went up to his shoulders, then drifted down just a little to press between the plates. His Sentinel, meanwhile, was more bold and dropped his hands on Cody’s hips, thumbs slipping in the small gaps in his armor to dig in at the junctions between his hips and thighs.
He just relaxed into it, some deep part of him noting the differences in their touches, their scents, their heartbeats. Once he’d taken everything in, he felt like parts of him started to shut down. He’d be concerned, except his mates were with him.
And then his Guide stepped away.
A soft whine ripped from his throat and was met immediately with soothing shushes from his Sentinel.
“It’s alright, Cody,” his Sentinel breathed, his volume so low that Cody knew he shouldn’t be able to hear it. “Obi-Wan just has to settle things here, then we’ll take you home. Just relax, mate, and we’ll take care of you.”
And he was helpless to do anything but obey, slipping quietly into a haze where the only real things in the galaxy were his mates.
He hadn’t been sleeping, but somehow he woke up. He was lying on his bunk in his private quarters, and there were two people with him. One was holding his hand, and one was stroking his bare calf.
His Guide and his Sentinel.
Cody’s eyes snapped open.
“There you are,” Obi-Wan said softly.
Cody flopped his head to the right and saw the General in a chair next to his bed. He tipped his chin down and there was Rex, in another chair by his feet.
“How…?” he started, but he didn’t know how best to finish the question. How did the campaign end? How did I do those things? How are you two here, with me?
“Turns out the longnecks didn’t give us the whole story about Sentinels and Guides, Codes,” Rex said. He snorted. “Big shock, right?”
“Now, now,” Obi-Wan said, looking at his (their?) Sentinel. “It’s not like this happens all the time. Even with the Jedi, it’s more legend than anything.”
“What is?” Cody interrupted. Both turned back to him. “What’s going on?”
Rex turned to Obi-Wan, who stroked his beard in his classic thinking posture. “Rex has already told me what you learned on Kamino about Sentinels and Guides,” he began. “Have you learned anything else since then?”
Cody silently shook his head.
“Well, I can fill in the rest later, but as you’ve certainly gathered from our comments just now, it was unlikely you would have heard of a situation like yours before today anyway.
“You’ve heard the phrase, ‘The Sentinel guards the rear, and the Guide points the way’?”
He nodded, again silent. Right away, he pictured the two in front of him as he’d seen them dozens of times: Obi-Wan directing their men, showing them where to go, and Rex on the ground, moving like a miracle from one fallen vod to the next to the next.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Well, in the creche, we’re actually taught the full version.”
Cody pushed himself up at that, getting his left elbow under him so he wouldn’t have to pull his right hand away from Obi-Wan’s. “Oh?”
“Yes. ‘The Sentinel guards the rear, the Guide points the way, and the Champion forges the path.’”
Cody furrowed his eyebrows. The Champion? He’d never heard of a third designation, not even a whisper on any of the planets they’d visited. And the implication was that he somehow was one?
“What’s a Champion do, though?” Rex blurted. “Because he smells like both a Sentinel and a Guide.” He turned back to Cody. “He wouldn’t tell me much of anything, wanted to wait until you woke up,” he explained, answering Cody’s unvoiced question as he so often did.
“It was only fair, darling,” Obi-Wan said, reaching out with his free hand to pat Rex’s knee. “And that’s essentially what a Champion is, actually. Stories say they have the heightened senses of a Sentinel and the empathy of a Guide. The combination produces great leaders.” He, too, faced Cody again. “It’s said that Grandmaster Nomi Sunrider was a Champion, and that she came online while witnessing her husband’s murder.”
“I’ve looked into it a little while you were out,” Rex added quietly. “There’s rumors that Mand’alor the Preserver was a Champion too. They think he came online sometime during his travels with Revan.”
Both looked at Cody, patiently waiting for him to say something. But he didn’t know what to say. How could he be anything like these historic heroes? How could he stand among such great visionaries?
He was just a clone.
Instantly, Obi-Wan’s and Rex’s hands tightened around him.
“Stop that,” Rex said. “I can smell your self-degradation from here.” He let go of Cody’s calf, then stood up and shoved his legs over so he could sit on the bunk. He leaned forward, putting one hand on either side of Cody’s torso. “Listen,” he said quietly, “I’ve known you were special since I came out of my tube. You being this amazing leader is something I’ve always known you could do. Now you just have a few more skills to do it.”
Thankfully for his tied-up tongue, Obi-Wan tugged at his hand before he had to think of a response. He turned away from Rex’s too intense gaze and found Obi-Wan’s to be no more forgiving. So he closed his eyes.
“Hey, none of that now,” Obi-Wan said. “I may not have known you as long as Rex has, but I have thought such things about you almost since the moment we met. You are not just capable, Cody – you are extraordinary.” He grinned a flirtatious grin. “And you’re not so bad on the eyes either.”
He was mortified to feel himself blush. Unfortunately, both of them were so close that they couldn’t miss it, as evidenced by Rex’s immediate snickering.
“Now, you have two choices, Cody,” Obi-Wan said, dropping into a familiar serene solemnity. “First, I can lower the shields I’ve placed around your mind, and we can begin exploring your abilities and our relationship together.”
“Or,” Rex said quietly, “he can keep the shields up until we’re able to fit you with a psionic repression bracelet, and we can go back to the way things were.” He smiled sadly. “We can still try to build something between the three of us, but I can’t guarantee our instincts will cooperate if you refuse this part of yourself.”
Cody sat in silence for a moment, truly torn. Just days ago, this would have been everything he wanted. But now, he had doubts he could live up to this immense pressure.
And yet…
He looked at Rex, smiling but still looking so sad, like he was sure Cody would choose the second option. He looked at Obi-Wan, trying to avoid showing any emotion that might sway his decision, but somehow he could tell just how much he wanted this, wanted Cody.
“You’ll point the way?” he asked Obi-Wan.
His Guide nodded once, deep and serious.
“You’ll guard the rear?” he asked Rex.
His Sentinel’s smile started looking brighter. “Always,” he said.
“And you? Will you forge the path, Cody?” Obi-Wan asked.
He tugged on his Guide’s hand until he could press their foreheads together, then he reached his free hand up to cup his Sentinel’s cheek. The Champion said, “I will.”