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“I really thank you for your hospitality, Commander Fox,” the Rodian said softly.
Fox grunted noncommittally, unsure of what to say or do. It wasn’t everyday, after all, that he had to deal close and personal with a Jedi – and it usually suited him just fine.
In truth, Fox rarely gave more than afterthought to the Jedi, even if they were Generals in this kriffing war his brothers and him were fighting him. The Coruscant Guard didn’t have one assigned to them, and their duties were first and foremost to see to the safety of the Senators and deal with crime on the planet alongside the Judicial forces. Oh, Jedi dropped regularly by the Senate, usually shuffling in for a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine, or to meet up with ‘old friends’ – an excuse nobody in the Guard bought when it came to Senator Amidala and Knight Skywalker – but Fox saw them for a couple minutes at most and went right back to his duties.
He never knew what to think of the Jedi, exactly. On one hand, most of his brothers genuinely liked the Jedi with whom they served, quoting acts of bravery to defend them from enemy fire, gallantry and genuine care unlike what they had ever felt or experienced on Kamino, from Fett, the Longnecks or any of the trainers. On the other hand, while it was generally accepted that the Jedi were, apparently, good people bar a few assholes, it was also very, very obvious and painful to see that they weren’t soldiers, and that rattled.
Oh, they gave orders and most led from the frontlines (which gave Fox’s brothers no small amount of white or gray hair because trying to keep them alive was almost a full-time job), but when one studied their tactical decisions… Fox was too polite to not mind his words, so he would just say that whatever the Jedi came up with wasn’t always the most tactically sound course of action.
They tried, though, and they did their best, and they gained victories – just as they failed and took losses, be they clone troopers or fellow Jedi.
Funnily, Fox had never really thought about the Jedi losses… until now.
“I was afraid you’d be too busy to join us,” the Rodian continued in a soft voice, sounding out of breath already and something in Fox came loose, urging him to just do… something for the Rodian. Throw a blanket around his shoulders to warm him, maybe, or comm. Stone to bring in a hover chair, maybe, since the simple act of walking seemed to cause the Jedi genuine respiratory distress, and that… that wasn’t right. Jedi weren’t supposed to look so kriffing fragile.
And he had nothing on the Padawan already in a hover chair who had come with him and was overseeing the group of actual karking kids the two of them had come in with. There were at least a dozen of them, all Cadet-age or younger, so somewhere between 6 and 9 standards, Fox guessed, and what was his life again? He hadn’t signed up to babysit children!
… Even if the children, the baby Jedi really, were already showing more discipline and obedience and kindness to the Guard than the three quarters of the Senators Fox had had to displeasure to personally get acquainted with, to his eternal chagrin. They listened to the Padawan in the hover chair calmly and with little nods of acknowledgement and soft ‘yes, Padawan Knox’ and put themselves into a line without fuss and it was… ugh… it was adorable.
Fox was certain his brothers were recording via their buckets, and he could almost not blame them.
A headache threatened to take him over. What did it say about the leadership of the Republic when actual, non-growth accelerated kids were better than them at listening to the people charged with their security?
“I wouldn’t have missed your visit, General,” the Clone Commander replied stonily.
Because he had thought it had been a very, very bad idea, and he hadn’t wanted to find out how badly from second hand accounts, he didn’t say.
Really, when the whole thing had been proposed to him, Fox had thought it ludicrous. He knew the Chancellor hadn’t been very convinced either, but many Senators, including Amidala from Naboo and Organa from Alderaan, had pushed for it and after some debate Fox hadn’t been privy to, he had been given orders: prepare the Senate for a visit by several groups of Jedi Initiates for what amounted to a PR campaign for the Jedi Order.
Clone Troopers died everyday, and nobody cared; Kamino was ready to produce millions more, all via a vote from the Senate, and it was a bitter pill to swallow for Fox and his brothers.
But Jedi also died, and people were pushing and pushing, asking them why they hadn’t stopped the war yet, or asking to send more Jedi to the frontlines, effective immediately.
Except, Jedi weren’t as easily replaced as Clones, it turned out, and the Jedi couldn’t send in more of their numbers, unless they were willing to send in the very elderly, the disabled adults AND the karking little Cadets that would never had been on a simulation already on Kamino.
And the public needed to be made aware of this, to be made aware the Order really was doing and giving their best, and that if they kept pushing, then the Jedi likely wouldn’t survive this war at all.
Cue the PR campaign, and the horde of journalists and news droids who were following the little group of Initiates around in between two interviews like vulture-droids. Some looked quietly horrified to be there, and Fox wondered what the kids’ individual interviews had sounded and looked like.
Perhaps they had just grown a damn karking conscious or gotten sucked-punched with the knowledge that those kids, the older ones at least, were reaching the age to be picked for an apprenticeship and risked to be packed off to the frontlines with whoever picked them as a Padawan, because most of the older kids were already off and dying or already kriffing dead themselves, leaving the Jedi to ‘fill the ranks’ with younger kids instead, even if they hated it with every fiber of their being, Fox thought viciously.
(No Jedi and no Clone worth its salt wanted to have a kid trailing after them on a battlefield, but there was no choice, because the children needed to be trained, and there weren’t enough adults left at the Temple to see to it, and the Jedi couldn’t pull out because the Senate wanted them to fight, and they wouldn’t, couldn’t abandon their men, who were depending on them and it was all a big, freaking mess of a situation.)
That just… that wasn’t fucking right! Clone Cadets were never sent that young, so why baby Jedi should, uh?
For their sake if no one’s else, Fox hoped this PR campaign did some good. Granted, with Amidala spearing the move, Fox had little doubt that it would. The Senate asides to ‘get a good grasp of the democratic process’, he knew the Initiates Clans were supposed to visit two museums, a zoo and see a spectacle at the Opera in order to ‘broaden their general culture’. There were rumors the kids were also going to start engaging in art and crafts to make trinkets as gifts for the troopers, and help prepare care packages for the soldiers and displaced civilians.
Shoving the kids in the galaxy’s face wasn’t fair to them, but… they might be the one thing that’d make politicians stall in their tracks. The general public could grow upset when sweet little kids with a gap between their teeth where one had gotten loose were suddenly expected to face Commando Droids.
Next to him, the Rodian gently chided. “Please, do not call me General, Commander. I have hardly merited the title, now that my men…” he paused, and his face took a pained expression. “And I can hardly go back to fight now either,” he added more quietly, sounding genuinely distressed by both statements.
“Master Ropal,” Fox acknowledged, and fuck him, he wanted to put a blanket around that Rodian’s shoulders even more than before.
He had read his file, of course. Master Bolla Ropal, Rodian. Captured by the Separatists while protecting the Devaron System. Tortured by the bounty hunter Cad Bane for information he refused to deliver, until his body went into cardiac arrest. Body recovered by Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Padawan Ahsoka Tano and their troops. Rescussited via cardiac massage, CPR, and the 501st’s CMO’s sheer obstination, helped by peculiarities of the Rodian anatomy that allowed their body to be deprived of oxygen to the brain longer than humans before all hope was lost.
Kix had saved the Jedi, but it had really been touch and go – and Master Ropal was no longer fit to fight, at all. The time he spent without a beating heart had left damage to his brain and limbs and to his heart and lungs. The Rodian had to go through surgery to be fitted with a pacemaker and was under medical order to keep a heart rate monitor on his wrist. Fox very pointedly didn’t look at it, but he knew that if the thing started beeping, he’d need to comm Medical ASAP.
Then there was the Padawan with him, the one stuck in the hover chair, the Commander thought, lips pursing despite himself. Padawan Knox, no family name attached. Nautolean. Fifteen years old standards. Padawan to one Roonan male Jedi Master Halsey, deceased. Suffered from spine damages after being thrown into a door by a suspected Sith warrior. He was very lucky not to have suffered a broken neck, which would have killed him instantly – not that the end result was much better. The kid would never walk again, effectively ending his Jedi training.
Then again, being a Jedi wasn’t all about fighting, or hadn’t been before the war, and Master Ropal seemed devoted to continuing Padawan Knox’s formation, even if that would never involve lightsaber fighting.
Fox was, according to most of his brothers, a mean bastard, but even he hoped the kid and his new Master could pull through.
Coughing, Fox inclined his head toward the Jedi. “The Guard is honored to be showing you around, Master Ropal,” he said with a less grumpy voice than usual.
“As we are by their help,” the Rodian inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Shall we go, then? I will not lie, most of them are very giddy to see the Guard’s famous massiffs, and Senator Amidala hinted to me that candies may be waiting for them in her office when we go visit individual Senators for a rundown of their duties.” He was smiling faintly, and it was a good expression on his tired face.
Fox smiled faintly in turn. “Then I guess that Grizzer is going to get a lot of pets today,” he commented idly. “But I warn you, if they try to take him home to the Temple with them, I fear they will have to engage in a custody battle with Sergeant Hound.”
And if his heart warmed at hearing the Jedi’s soft laugher over his banter, well… no one else had to know.
End