Chapter Text
They found out like this: five of them, under the rafter of the 26th storage facility (or the Coral Cupboard, as they called it. Maybe they’d still call it that, now, but it’s been a hot while since they talked about the place at all), in their off-rotation time, sacrificing sleep and possibly putting themselves up for reconditioning, just to see what the phantom people they only vaguely understood to be out there were talking about. Even on strictly Basic holonet boards it was like they didn’t share the language at all – holoflicks and novels and food they’d have had no way to know existed and weird, wonderful vehicles and charts for extremely abstract phenomenons. And spells.
That’s what it’s called, in the age of holonet and hyperspace travel. Anytime the question is posed in Basic, it’s that word. Topic: Introduction. Tell us your name, where you’re from, and your little spell! Include your spell in your signature, in my experience that helps you make friends. NO I went to the show last night too! You go by this, right? And your spell?
Spell. The vode don’t really… use the word. In Cody’s experience so far, they don’t use any word at all. It goes like this: Hi, this is my name, and I do this.
Hypothetically. The culture is to shut your mouth until common sense dictates you can start talking, of course, and much as Cody thinks his siblings are all insane, they do surprisingly have their head screwed on right. Usually. The shit they get up to that reveals what they do to them is… well, the fact that most vode Cody’s come across know the things they do already is a big clue. But they shut up about it, is the important thing.
It’s… sometimes Cody wonders why it becomes such a big deal. And in such a haphazard way. He looks at people, he knows the beats of it; it’s nigh universally one of the first things offered up if you want to be friendly with the person you’re talking to. It’s appropriate, if he has to guess, because it’s always tiny, the thing one does. The spell, or whatever. It’s never something like indestructability or full immunity to poison, no, it’s just. The smallest things. The most inconsequential ones, if not for the fact that they’re so important to all of them.
The first day Rex got to his new post, he called back very excitedly and dumped it all over their comm call while Cody was busy having a heart attack over how his favourite person to bully was going to be sent to the flusher for making personal calls on shift. “Shut up, it’s fine, they don’t care,” Rex raised his voice to drown out Cody’s stare. “No, they legitimately don’t, you’ll see! It’s fucked up. Anyway Commander Skywalker peels tapes off perfectly.”
Cody dropped his stare at that. It was one of his only mistakes in life, he’s pretty sure. “Mm-hm,” he said back.
“Yeah,” Rex nodded. “It is extremely stupid. The pieces of tape he peels off are reusable too. Like, they still stick perfectly.”
“He uses the Force,” Cody said, because he was panicking. Rex shook his head vigorously.
“Nope, General Kenobi tried to do the same, in front of us too. He could pull the tape off no-tear, yeah, but it didn’t stick back. Also if he does it with the Force he doesn’t touch it. Commander Skywalker uses his, like, hand,” he wiggled his free hand in front of the comm for emphasis.
Cody was too busy coping to come up with a rebuke. In the comm’s hologram, Rex’s eyes shone so bright.
“They asked for our names, too.” His little brother’s voice was so gentle when he said that.
Cody could picture it, so clearly. Their batch (Rex counts, shut up Fox) had gotten into the habit of assembling their introduction out loud at least once when they’ve found both things. Rex has stumbled into what he does first, and then the name followed a year later. Su’cuy, I’m Rex, I break stuff perfectly in half. The way every single vod who heard Rex’s introduction visibly struggles to not give Rex something to break right there is one of Cody’s greatest joys in life.
He’s just stood there and listened to Rex’s gushing about meeting his new command for a while, before his own duties started banging on the door. It’s not like it was hard; predictably his siblings made it very entertaining, and apparently they managed to make both the General and the Commander laugh. It was… maybe the easiest thing Cody’s got to hear in the world. He still remembers it practically verbatim.
It’s how he realized, later in his own bunk, that General Kenobi didn’t say anything about what he does at all.
GAR Jedi High General Obi-Wan Kenobi is an average human in most ways. Obviously the fact that he touches the Force sets him in the minority, but apparently among that minority he’s also pretty average, base abilities-wise. He has mild prescience (Cody decides to set that aside for a hot second), average range of Force use (don’t know what the fuck that means, these guides need better structuring), no special healing inclinations (alright, it’s starting to sound like the network is fucking with Cody), passable mechanical skills (means he can build from scratch a— okay Cody’s in wild waters now), good enough piloting skills (this is a bullet point, sure). Weird Jedi criterias for command aside, it seems General Kenobi is not supposed to stand out on many things at all. Except for, it turns out, prior military experiences – this solidifies something suspiciously like a brick in Cody’s guts – and killing the one Sith that surfaced in the millenia before the war.
Cody’s learned what he could of General Kenobi by heart, months before he’s actually assigned to the man. The moment he woke up at the realization that Kenobi hadn’t shared what he does with the rest of his battalion, in fact. It’s decidedly nosy, and probably not that subtle – Cody is only an okay slicer, and he relies mostly on people assuming he’s too straight-backed to snoop around – but… if he has to guess, he just worries. Anything slightly North of outright refusal to engage means you share what you do. It’s not a rule, it’s just how it is. There must be some corners of the galaxy that don’t care about these things, but from what he’s dug up, Kenobi isn’t involved with any of them. His origin planet is Stewjon, of which all seven native languages have actual words for the thing one does. He is a Jedi, and so is his padawan Commander Skywalker, who demonstrably does something. He has spent a period of his life in the Mandalorian system, and Cody knows enough about Mandalorians to know that some of them use the thing they do instead of a name.
It’s not a mystery Cody can solve without getting into some serious troubles, for sure. It’s also not one that’d leave him the fuck alone. He’s asked his other batchers who received assignment before him; Bly’s general Aayla Secura does something, but prefers to share on introduction (Cody definitely judged Bly for knowing that, because it means he asked her about it), Wolffe’s general Plo Koon folds flowers out of any materials thin enough, Pond’s general Mace Windu does something that needs a setup of nineteen glasses and a deck of sabacc – which is to say he didn’t demonstrate, but usually people don’t lie about this stuff, because it’s extremely inconsequential. It’s not enough to make an absolute statement, but the trend does seem to be that the Jedi are willing to somewhat enthusiastic about sharing the things they do. The trend holds true as words from the network trickles in.
All the implications of it, the fact that the Jedi want to know the clones’ names, the fact that they tell the clones about the things they do – all of it sit second in Cody’s brain to the fact that Kenobi is an outlier. He didn’t share the thing he does, and Rex was serving under him.
Cody doesn’t try to make shit up without evidence. It’s not good for his health; he’s got a good imagination, a bit too good. He grounds himself to routines and actionable plans and the people around him, instead. He didn’t hover, Rex gets scared when people hover over him, monitor him too closely, no matter the intention. He just… was awake whenever Rex called. And reconnected with some vode who happen to station with the 212th. Very auxiliary stuff, while he did his actual job.
It’s how he got to hear about the shift in 212th command before anyone outside of the battalion. Alpha was apparently returning to Kamino to fill a trainer position – he and Cody would maybe see each other briefly on their respective way in and out of the shuttle. Skywalker was getting a promotion as well, he was just waiting for his ship to be finished and flown out to meet them. He would be staying on Kamino for a week or so meanwhile. Rex was coming with him.
Cody couldn’t really identify what he felt about the news. What he felt when he met his new general, who happened to be Rex’s ex-general, who happened to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, however, can be summed up with a simple sentence: oh, I’m about to step in it.
Kenobi has been perfectly pleasant and warm upon first meeting. He was unremarkable, but Cody recognized the effort in it – the neatly trimmed hair and beard, the relaxed posture, the way his robes laid to soften the few pieces of plastoid armors he wore. The way he tilted his head, just enough motion to be picked up if the other person wasn’t paying full attention, when he said, “Hello there. Welcome to the 212th, Commander…?”
Cody, unlike his siblings, was decanted with the burden of common sense. So he took the hand Kenobi offered, forgoing the Vode-style handshake, and lied as blatantly as possible, “Cody, sir. I light matches on first strike. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Kenobi, to his credits, caught on immediately. The raise of his eyebrow must’ve meant he was onto Cody’s game. What he asked, however, was, “Matches? Phos drops? What archaelogical dig did you walk out of to find out about that, Commander?”
Cody mirrored Kenobi’s tilt of the head. “A mystery I shall keep,” he said.
Kenobi, once again surprising Cody, laughed. “Oh dear, and here I hoped you’d bring me the next time you visit.” He started to walk towards the lift as he continued speaking, leaving Cody to follow him. “It’s fascinating, you know, the firestarting techniques of the old world. I wonder if you could do the same with flintstone.”
“I can,” Cody said. Not a lie, he’s pretty good at starting a fire when he wants to. It’s just not the thing he does.
“Must come in handy,” Kenobi mused. The lift door opened in front of them, and he walked in, putting himself in a corner to leave ample space. Cody chose the diagonal-opposite corner to stand in. “One’d think there’s certainly no need of such a gift, in this day and age, until one finds themself on an overly moist rock field with no fuel and very limited kindling…”
Cody’s face under his helmet had automatically scrunched up at the concept of moist rocks. Kenobi’s eyes, again to his surprise, twinkled with mirth. The sight was achingly known to him, as was the tone of his new general’s voice when he poked.
“You’re familiar, Commander?”
“I’ve yet to known a dry rock in my life, sir.” Cody fought to keep emotions out of his own voice. The half-joke landed for Kenobi, who laughed again.
“Of course, how dare I forget Kamino’s peculiarities? Though, if I could be bold enough to assume, I still hold expertise in moist rocks.”
Aaaaand Cody was playing along before he knew it. “What’s the difference, sir?”
Kenobi wasn’t outright grinning – his smile stayed a subtle, unassuming curve, but Cody could feel the glee in his words. “Well, I’d say it starts with the texture. A wet rock is a rock that’s wet. A moist rock is very supple, maybe baby-like.”
“Got it, sir.” Don’t laugh, don’t fucking laugh. Cody’s will has the strength of a thunderstorm and the immovability of a mountain, and him keeping the bit going right then was the evidence. “Infant-esque in texture, I understand.”
“Yes. Perhaps toddler-adjacent.”
“Tubie-approximated?”
“Childly. Of the relative qualities of a child.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Kenobi broke out into laughter again. Cody found, then and there, that he was already getting used to hearing it.
Cody’s wrong. This isn’t novel, he’s been wrong before. What’s novel is that he’s right, too, at the same time.
GAR Jedi High General and Cody’s direct commanding officer Obi-Wan Kenobi is a painfully, awfully average human in many ways. Cody’s assessment on this front was correct, and continues to be correct. His performance level correlates well with a human Jedi’s average range of needs gathered from the network’s intel, which is to say he does worse when sleep-deprived and in need of a meal than when he’s gotten some time to recharge, preferably every day cycle or so. He takes his meals in the mess with the troops, same as the majority of the Jedi command prefers, unless he has too much flimsywork to do, in which case he eats in the record stall. He dislikes caf, because he “get the jitters from it, and if I filter the caffeine out then what’s the point, really?” Tea, on the other hand, he’s an encyclopaedic snob about, for really no reason except that’s just how he is. He gets cold spells that he toughs through by wearing seventeen layers and ingesting previously mentioned tea whenever he has the chance to. If circumstances allows it, he walks around in the office while doing flimsywork. He was the one petitioning for resources to build the little herb and spice garden taking up a whole rec room on third deck. If he doesn’t show up bleary-eyed and confused about most things at the mess for first meal, the best bet on where to find him would be in there. He’s just a man, in basically all facets of being. A man, with needs and hobbies and likes and dislikes.
GAR Jedi High General Obi-Wan Kenobi is also extremely dangerous.
This isn’t about him being apparently one of the best saber duelists in the Jedi Order, and how he achieved that reputation. That is related, but only tangentially. It’s also not about how he was an accomplished diplomat before he took up command, though that’s also linked to this mess in some ways. It’s… the fact that everybody seems to care about Obi-Wan Kenobi and have strong opinions on him, despite how utterly normal he is. Even the vode are not excluded from the trend – they all either think he’s awesome and cool or find him annoying as fuck.
Cody’s decided that he thinks Kenobi is both. Especially now, after they’ve concluded three campaigns already, and he’s managed to learn all of these things about Kenobi except for what his thing is.
Cody knows what a good liar sounds like. He’s pretty good at lying himself, but more importantly, he grew up next to Fox. In his humble opinion Kenobi is still one step down from Fox and the shit he can pull – that vod can tell people there’s no breathable air in the room and they’d just start choking – but he’s really, really good at playing a conversation. Cody’s heard him effortlessly steer a trooper into talking about some niche interest when they ask about the thing he does enough to pick out a well-practiced and pitch-perfectly executed beat. Kenobi knows the kind of assumptions people make about him, and he pushes and pulls on those like an artisan weaver. He’s an excellent diplomat because he will play into anything, including being so insufferable all parties immediately agree on everything just so he’d go home. He’s an excellent duelist because he builds an impenetrable defense wall while being so fucking smug it’s impossible not to run into it on sight like a feral rancor.
Cody gets the impression that’s what he’s being goaded into doing. Cody’s getting the feeling he’s not immune. Cody is circling the realization that he’s being played.
“You kinda started it,” Wolffe says. Cody was, at first, very happy to have two out of five batchers (including Rex, yes, fuck off Fox) of the nosy enough type to get invested in this with him, but it’s devolved into being made fun of every time he even coughs into the call, so he’s allowed to sulk a little bit.
“I’m also playing him, yes.”
“Well if you’re both playing then he’s kicking your ass into oblivion,” Fox remarks. Cody pouts exaggeratedly, knowing his vode can’t see it. “Don’t fucking make that face, you did all that and all you got is getting flirted with. How’s it feel to be a scrub, idiot?”
“He flirts with everyone!” Cody swings his arm out in emphasis. “He flirts basically on reflex. That’s not a score for him.”
“It is, by the rules,” Wolffe says. Cody can hear he’s being laughed at verbally.
“What rules.”
“The rules, you know. Of the codes.”
“Man,” Cody scrubs his bare hand up his face and through his hair. “Fuck you so much.”
“I know your ass, Codes,” Fox concludes. “You’re done for the moment he talked you into making this a game. The only way you’re keeping any shred of your dignity is to disengage.”
“With my fucking general? That I work with?”
Fox sighs directly into his comm, just to make his opinion clear. “Obviously too much to expect of you, I know. Suffer, then.”
“Condolences to your dignity, vod,” Wolffe offers with glee, because he’s a good-natured man, but not that good-natured. “If it means anything, General Plo also thinks your general is annoying, but he’s kinda endeared by it. It’s universal.”
Cody contemplates for a brief, glorious moment using underhanded tactics, before regretfully casting the option aside. It’s not much of one, anyway – his batchers love seeing him suffer too much to ask their generals about Kenobi in his stead. And it’s rude, anyhow, to offer that kinda information third-hand. “I’m not endeared by his anything,” he settles with that instead.
“You’re lying.”
“You’re lying.”
“Manda’atayl, he’s just some guy, okay! He’s fine. Perfectly fine.” Cody’s personal comm falls onto his desk with a clack. Cody is, inexplicably, a bit mad at that. He sighs, and rolls his eyes at himself. “He does his duties, he’s nice to his surrounding, he doesn’t go out of his way to fuck with us. He even lets officers chime in to fix plans. He’s about the best case scenario for natborn command. It’s just—”
“—he doesn’t trust you,” Wolffe finishes for him, voice quiet.
Cody gaze moves from the comm to the corner of his desk, where a stylus stand’s nailed down. Wolffe’s sent to the batch chat a picture of a flower folded out of a piece of gauge, put in the same spot on his desk on the Triumphant, a few days into receiving his assignment. He just kinda folded it while talking, his text’s read. He wasn’t even trying to make a flower. It’s insane.
Cody’s replied with a teasing okay. then. He can’t figure out anything to say now.
Fox sighs again – privately this time, but Cody knows he does it before speaking up. “Jedi bullshit’s gotten you dickheads all softened up and ready to roll over. He’s your natborn commanding officer, Codes. You’re not taking anything even if he’s giving. You’ve got a family already, you’re doing your job and you’re staying alive and that’s it, ‘bac?”
“Hate the way you put that so fucking much,” Cody mumbles, but even right as he does it he knows it’s an admission of defeat. Fox’s reasoning is sound. It doesn’t matter if Kenobi trusts or likes Cody as a person, as long as they both manage to work together and Cody can keep his siblings alive. There’s no requirement for a general to be friends with their commanders. Before the war broke out, it wasn’t even the assumption most vode made.
Cody remembers the early days when the network was just in place. Outposts were still settling down into branches, none of them’s ever kept a bookshelf before, let alone an archive, and opsec was dismal. It was a logistical nightmare that they all beat into shape with bloody hands, because there has to be something, anything, to let them have the chance to hear from one anothers that’s outside of command’s grasp. In those early days a whole sound bite was a luxury, and still outposts were stubbornly ringing every day to talk about how the Jedi generals and commanders were sitting with the troops whenever possible. How they were asking, not in the interrogation sense, but in the making a conversation sense. How they all had names, and a thing that they do, and they were giving those away. Sharing them. Like it never occurred to most of them to deny their soldiers that.
It’s taken them months to get used to it. Acceptable time frame, tactically said. Too short a time, for caution. Too long, for decency. Cody sighs again, when the call’s disconnected and the comm’s been returned to behind the false back of his illegal ration drawer. He really has been too close to the mystery to remember how it’s supposed to be.
Kenobi’s not required to like Cody. It’d be better if he does – Cody’d have an easier time on the job without scrutiny stapled to the back of his bucket – but Cody will manage either way. It’s all there is to his posting. Command units are a buffer between authority and their family first and foremost. Being good at their ‘job’ is just the most surefire way to get to fulfill that purpose, and it’s the way Cody’s chosen. Kenobi liking him as a person would help secure the buffer, but there are other ways to become essential, and thus not expendable, to the process.
Cody pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. It’s just… Kenobi also doesn’t act like he doesn’t like Cody. He’s seen his general in action enough; the man is in no way a pushover. If he’s doing something stupid and self-sacrificing, he’s doing it on his own fucked up, weird twisted terms. It’s always a battle to get him to not do what he’s set his mind on, and that Cody’s heard from both Alpha, who can probably stop time itself on its track if he cares to glare at it, and the other High Generals, who he’s seen throwing at Kenobi every chit under the rain, from claiming seniority to invoking his late Jedi teacher to invoking their authority as his Jedi teachers. Kenobi’s special Force power seems to be dialing the thickness of his skull up to two digits whenever it suits him, nevermind that it’s not how the Force works, Cody. He’s a nice man, sure, and so far he’s kind, but he doesn’t suffer people he doesn’t like for nothing.
And yet. If he doesn’t like Cody personally, then he’s been going out of his way to suffer his existence.
He stares down at his promotion form, the cause for the call with his batchmates to begin with. The empty slot where Kenobi’s signature should be stares back up at him from the screen. It’d streamline the work for the general to sign it first before sending it over – he can promote Cody without his informed opinion, even, Core will sign off on anything with his name attached unless there are numbers involved or the Chancellor himself sits down to veto it. This is not just the decent thing to do, Cody mentally words it out as his stylus taps a beat on the datapad. This would mean Cody handing the form back for the general’s signature, leaving an opening for a conversation to occur, or, if Cody knows how Kenobi works (and make no mistake, he’s being allowed to know how Kenobi works here. They all are, really), it’ll leave a spot for the man to come by himself, under the ruse of collecting the flimsywork. This is making nice territory.
Kenobi does this a lot. This is an outstanding occurrence, the promotion, because this is Cody being directly handed something here – and no way he’s refusing, of course. The prices he can pay later, but this will make sure he’s the one paying them, not his vode. But Kenobi is, in general, suspiciously generous with how he deals out these cues. He makes small talks with the troops and with Cody even when they only share the space for a brief moment, like in the lift, or when coming across each others in the hallways. He tries to have his hand in mundane organizational work aboard, takes his shifts in the garden and the record room seriously, even tries to talk his way into kitchen cleaning every once in a while. He positively revels in the chance to push a cup of tea onto anyone coming by his office for any reason, and makes his opinions known very loud and clear, despite it meaning nothing to anyone aboard other than him, not really. That, in particular, is always so rife with opportunities to poke at him, that Cody’s wholely resigned himself by now to giving in to the temptation every time Kenobi brings out the tea set.
And— that’s maybe the thing. That’s been the game. Cody’s learned, after his gambit, that Kenobi’s pretty good at spotting a liar. It’s got something to do with being more of the Unifying Force, as Wolffe relayed – the vod is soaking up Jedi knowledge like his life depends on it. More than the rest of them. It’s probably that it’s not a concrete science, Cody would genuinely love for the Force to adhere to some fucking logic for once, but more of something storylike; there’s a weird narrative sense to the bullshit the Force likes to burden people with, Cody’s realized, spending the last three campaigns dealing with and planning around it. Kenobi’s supposedly got a weird, off-center view of time itself through the Force, and that means with lies that are “local” enough, whatever that means, he can just… tap the Force on the shoulder and ask it to show how the impression lays on top of the history. Or so Wolffe’s said. Weird Jedi shit, but not uncommon Jedi shit; High General Windu apparently can do pretty much the same thing, as well as at least a third of the Jedi command.
Cody doesn’t get it, but from what he can get of it, lying about himself to Kenobi’s face is about as “local” a lie can get to where the truth is. So either Kenobi knows and doesn’t care, or he didn’t check and purposefully took Cody’s words at face value.
He doesn’t want to admit it. Cody can tell himself that much. But this is Kenobi’s game as much as his, and all evidence points towards the man enjoying it. Kenobi has a million ways to disengage if he wants to, a majority of those won’t even compromise his reputation of being annoyingly polite, and it’ll cost him nothing to put the vode in their place, unless he… likes talking to the troops. To Cody.
But. But, but. He doesn’t trust you, Wolffe’s voice comes back to say the words Cody doesn’t want to say. And you don’t trust him either.
You want to, though, another corner of his mind chimes in in Fox’s voice.
Cody sighs.
“Didn’t you hear the big man?” He mumbles to an empty office. “Aspiration for anything but life itself is a chump’s game.”
He puts the stylus to the right slot on the form and scribbles down his serial.
There was celebration. Of course there was at least some celebration.
It is, afterall, Cody’s literal job to take care of his siblings, make sure they intergrate well with the battalion, make life easier for all of them where he can. And the point of being a Marshall Commander, he’d think, is so he can.
So his siblings’ chance to have fun it would be. He spun Kenobi’s teasing Maybe we should toast to this sent to his datapad into an invitation to bother the man in his own office, along with the officers and most of Ghost Company. They filed in, Cody intending to ask for some loose tea leaves in a tall plexi cup of cold water, but Kenobi had anticipated it and broke out something called “hot toddy” that was a finger of betel spirit and lime juice in honeyed charred tea, and that was. Nice. Cody found he didn’t mind the sweetness when there were other, equally strong things in the cup with it, and it went down smooth as water. Ghost’s newest addition Wooley, however, he’s pretty sure found his new favourite thing in the world.
Kenobi’s eyes practically radiated fondness as he looked from Wooley to Cody. “I shall have to get my hand on some uj cake,” he said, nonchalantly, and Cody knew it was a promise. “You’d like it, the flavour profile is close, though the density is… For something so sweet it’s also such a meal.”
“High metabolism,” Wooley declared with such enthusiasm he almost tipped over. None of them were drunk, Cody knew, betelhalh is nothing compared to the shit he’s not supposed to know’s getting cooked up in the perpetually broken communal shower on second deck, but it seems they may be susceptible to sugar.
Kenobi smiled in their general direction, but Cody got the distinct sense the man was looking at him. “Always good to have a spot of challenge in one’s life,” he said, serenely.
Things change, Cody’s very, very aware of it. But… in hindsight, he’s expected the promotion to be a gate towards the next phase of the game, or something like that. In reality, the changes are barely noticeable: more flimsywork, Cody’s used to much worse on Kamino. More authority, meaning one or three layers less of mind game in official communication. He notices, of course he notices, how he’s basically co-building every battle plan now, instead of Kenobi proposing a spine that they start slapping meat on afterward. It raised his brows a little, re-compliling the reports from the quarter after his promotion and comparing the numbers to the previous trend; he’s milking his new position for all it’s worth when it comes to equipment and organization, sure, but the casualties number’s not drastically improved.
It’s not something they bring up a lot in batch check-ups and such. Cody knows every commander stares at the numbers at least once every other day, and every commander knows every other commander does it. It’s about as opposite of the things they do as any concept can be – monumental, well-understood, and never to be shared out loud. And, at least to Cody, for a good enough reason; just the idea of comparing those numbers makes him want to tear something out with his teeth. And that’s coming from him, the commander of a battalion – and now a system army – with “pretty good” stats on that front.
Pretty good. Another thing that’s changed is Cody now has to take his eyes off the Code Red transport. Fox is already heavily involved, given that he’s the one dirtside and with access to safehouses; they don’t need two clone marshall commanders implicated, two of the same batch even less. It could kill the rest of them. Cody has trust in the network they’ve built – and it’s not like they have any prospect for promotion past their model label they can be losing out on anyway – but. He can’t help linking the numbers and the disengagement sometimes.
Nothing would make up for the lack of progress on that front, not to Cody, but he knows he’s not gonna like the person that restlessness turns him into. So he takes to the new responsibilities (and newly officialized ones, since he’s basically done most of it before) with as much grim enthusiasm as he can muster. He doesn’t let up on personally running sims with the troops, really pushes the boundaries with what he can file away as “non-combat equipments”, even managed to accidentally smuggle a med droid back onto the Negotiator. On one particularly memorable occasion – to himself, anyway – he stared Kenobi in the face while lying to him about the load of flimsywork he’s now burdened with.
It wasn’t a part of the game, Cody’s told himself. One, because it can’t be. It’s literally official business and he actively wants to deceive his commanding officer about this. Two, because it’d be fucking mortifying if it were.
His conscience was absolutely clear when he told Kenobi, “I see nothing objectionable about expanding the on-board archive.”
By the twinkling in Kenobi’s eyes, the bastard absolutely knew. And wasn’t hiding it at all.
“I readily agree with that point, Commander,” he said, one hand tapping a stylus on the datapad set precariously on his thigh, the other stroking his beard thoughtfully. “As a folk we’ve always valued such spaces. Though,” the look in his eyes turn piercing for a heart-dropping moment, “I fear just sectioning off a corner of the new record room for, ahem, highly confidential military intel, is perhaps not the best tactical move.”
In hindsight, the moment was memorable at least in part because Kenobi has never really altered Cody’s proposals before. Cody doesn’t make a lot of those – no use involving a superseding opinion when not absolutely necessary – but the ones he’s made have all been met with warm-to-enthusiastic endorsement thus far. But, on the other hand, if (and only if!) they were playing their game here, this would be a big gamble from Kenobi’s end on top of Cody’s already pretty bald-faced move. Kenobi has, so far, not let up on letting everyone believe they’re lying to him successfully. It’s catalogued as one of his most successful tactics, and he seems to derive great enjoyment out of the act, so to reveal his hand like this just in hope of Cody revealing his own…
It was also a highly effective play. Would be. If they were playing.
“Security can be custom-implemented, sir,” Cody replied.
“That will then be vulnerable to the people who implemented it,” Kenobi said. Cody could almost imagine a cup of tea in place of the stylus he was holding. Could imagine him taking a prolonged sip, staring at Cody all the while, before continuing his thought. “And you are a plenty capable engineer as well as slicer, but we both know just on this ship alone there are a company worth of people trained to do things with technology we both could barely imagine.”
Cody tilted his head. “Sir.”
Kenobi looked at him for another second, then his eyes widened and he did a weird half-aborted motion that looked fit to swing him off his seat. “I— oh, dear, I did not mean to imply— the troops are capable, trustworthy being. I hold you all in the highest of regards.”
When in doubt, let them ramble, Cody thought to himself, then. And not like he’d be faking his skepticism right then, even if what he said out loud was, “I don’t doubt it, sir.”
This, at least, Kenobi seemed to take at one-layer-under-the-face value. He moved the stylus-holding hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, suddenly seeming very tired. “I… honestly, with the rate of conflicting intels coming in from all direction with every campaign, I doubt any piece of information salvaged would keep its price tag for long,” he mumbled, and then caught himself again. “Force leaves me alone, I’m just digging my own hole deeper right now, aren’t I? What I meant to say, Cody, is that unfortunately in this world we live in many people do not need consent to get information out of your head, so it’d aid us all greatly if the possession of such information couldn’t happen by accident. Or, well, on a dare.”
Cody knew this. He resolutely did not think about the depth of reassurance he found in those words regardless. He still doesn’t think too hard about it now. It was time to let Kenobi off the hook there at least; he wouldn’t get much more than a really, really awkward standstill if he kept not responding. “What do you suggest as an alternative then, sir?”
He could see Kenobi holding back a sigh. “Well, there we go,” he said to himself again, before putting the datapad he was scribbling in on the table, as well as both of his hands. “The offices are already access-restricted, with a mandatory door log. I say we add another and shuffle the layout to repurpose the one next to yours.”
Cody tapped the inside of one wrist with the other hand, both hidden behind his back. “That’d make for some questionable optics, sir,” he said. This would complicate the supply chain a bit, but nothing he couldn’t plan around. More space is more space, and this way security does answer directly to him. Unless the General steps in, of course, but the General can do that with anything on board already. Still, he needed to push a bit, because they were working here.
Kenobi looked at him, his gaze still just as piercing, but Cody thought it wasn’t really scrutiny, there. “Nowadays, Commander,” he intoned, “optics is a loser-versus-loser game. And I don’t expect it to get better any time soon. So,” he smiled, and held the datapad up and tapped the bottom side on the table like he was straightening out a stack of loose flimsy, “I will never begrudge you a bit of spare breathing room.”
That’s a new development with Kenobi too: he seems to make and follow through with many more promises nowadays. He was on a personal call for half an hour right before they docked back on Core for the supply and retrofitting, and when Cody came back from needling Fox he got to hear from Wooley about uj’alayi, brought over to the barracks from Keldab’ika. When Cody’s “personal archive” went active, Kenobi toasted to it with a warm cup of tea and said “I trust in your common sense fully, Commander,” and ever since he has not even so much as looked inside the new rec (short for record, of course) room at all. He entertains about everything Cody brings up, though pushes back just enough whenever Cody presses on something a bit ridiculous, so he’s not just being irresponsible. If anything, it seems more and more like he cares about keeping the troops happy. Or, well. Facilitating making the troops’ time a bit easier.
The main conflict of their game, however, remains the same. Kenobi still hasn’t told Cody or any vode the thing he does, and Cody has not told him his.
Contact’s gotten a bit spottier after he was made Marshall Commander – too many ledes in the same casual call’s never a good idea, and they’ve gotten further into the war now, with all the promised bloodshed. His batch, sensible vode despite all else, have started spending more time talking about actually important things on call, rather than gossipping about Cody’s little game. Especially now that it’s come to practically a standstill with no direct development for a while. It’s what Cody wants, since he’s not made fun of for it whenever he even looks in his batchers’ general direction anymore, but on the other hand… a lot of things just don’t cohere, spread out in front of Cody’s mind’s eyes. And he just likes it better when his business is orderly, is all.
It’s nothing, in the end. A roiling current of something different in the back of his mind, when he’s on the job. Which is at all time. Cody finds himself starting to believe, in the solitude of his thoughts, without the usual audience booing him, that this alone may not have much to do with his post or the vode’s wellbeing or Kenobi’s ability to lead. None of what they’re engaged in, ultimately, demands trust. Not with official communications and predetermined battle plans and the bureaucracy. This game he’s embroiled himself in, he may start to admit, has very little to do with the war at all. It’s a dangerous thought.
Purveyor of dangerous ideas or not, Cody still knows plausible deniability and all it entails better than the back of his hands. He’s gotten to understand very quickly, thanks to his CC serial, that this part also has close to nothing to do with trust. It’s just modus operandi. No vod wants to be the one making the mistake that wipes out their batch.
General Kenobi very rarely drops by his office without a warning, and always with at least half a Coruscanti rotation of buffer beforehand – a curious piece of etiquette he holds onto, contrary to his effort to be in the vicinity of the vode whenever he can otherwise – but Cody refuses to take that cue, especially since it’s not a part of the game. He doesn’t need that kind of space to do his job; it’s better if his office stays as clean as possible. Especially since Kenobi doesn’t steer clear of it the same way he overlooks the “personal archive”.
The man does the opposite, sometimes. The second time he came to Cody’s office – barely bigger than a req closet, enough to fit a small desk-file cabinet combination and a chair – he brought with him a transparicrete figurine housing a lump of green floating in water. He’s tried to casually leave it on Cody’s desk in the middle of their conversation, and it would really have gone unnoticed too, if not for the burning question Cody had the whole time of who the fuck does that? The herb garden, sure, the general was genuinely ready to tend to it himself when he proposed the idea, and back then Cody’s taken it to be whatever version of indulgence a Jedi’d have. A green thing in his tube-sized office?
Cody hasn’t said anything about it for the duration of that meeting, until Kenobi stood up to leave, with apparent intention to “forget” the figurine behind. “General,” Cody’s said then.
Kenobi’s turned back to look at him from the door. “Yes, Commander?”
“Your…” Cody couldn’t call it toy, obviously. Trinket would’ve sounded trivializing. He’s seen reports bring up artifact once, but assuming that here may get him in hot water. “…thing, sir.”
Kenobi didn’t seem offended off the bat, so at least Cody had that going, but he did gain an expertly mixed air of amusement and embarrassment, which was way too far off script for Cody’s comfort. “Oh, that,” the man’s said, “well. I forgot a house… office? Warming gift, last time.”
Cody’s thinned his lips, and substituted a thank you sir, there is definitely too much oxygen in my office I need to get rid of with a more constructive “What kind of nutrient plan does it care for, sir?”
“No worry, it doesn’t—” Kenobi’s waved his hand, and then stopped dead mid-motion. “Oh, I forgot— escaped my mind entirely! Oh dear. There’s no need to take care of this at all, Commander, it’s a closed ecosystem. As long as the vessel doesn’t leak, this little moss ball should stay perfectly happy and well.”
Cody’s not been able to do anything more intelligent than blink at the answer. In the end he’s only said, “Good to know, sir,” and that’s been that.
He’s brought the thing back to his quarter, equally as cramped, equally as barren – except for that figurine, now. Kenobi’s made a face at its absence from his office the next time he dropped by, but he’s let it go. Nothing else’s been “forgotten” in his office since, and the buffer time between warning and visit only becomes more and more apparent.
Cody’s thought that was strictly on office hours at first. Well, he’s thought there was nothing such as office hours, when he’s just taken his post; it’s a war they’re fighting, not a competition, and it’s a product the Republic’s bought, not a service. But then he’s ended up here, on the same starship as Obi-Wan Kenobi, who’s deigned it worth his effort to call ahead of each visit whenever possible. Who’s kept on doing it for even technically non-work-related meetings, which— Cody’s still wrapping his head around, really.
It happens the same way now, the better part of a year into the war, while they wrap up a relatively calm campaign in the Mid-Rim. Cody received the text while shiplight was still off and he was still two illicit forms away from finishing the flubbed casualty report; a Will you be in after midday meal? pinged on his datapad.
Yes, sir, he replied, and received back a I’ll take the opportunity to discuss something, then. And then, a Hope you’re not in right now, however?
No, sir, he replied, and switched tab to finish faking the required forms.
And now he’s here, half a rotation later, in his barren office that’s still without a second chair, face-to-face with General Kenobi across the tiny desk. They’re both standing, Kenobi because there’s still no second chair in here, Cody because his Force-damned general is standing. Cody only allows himself to dwell on how fucking stupid this arrangement turns out every time for two seconds before moving on.
Kenobi’s got a certain look to him, today. The man always has some kind of look about him, to be fair – it’s called emoting, lots of people do it – but Cody rarely sees him this… careful with how he schools his face. It’s usually an effortless calculation to him. Last time he had this air in Cody’s sight was during a pretty thorny comm call with General Skywalker.
Not a lot of data to go off of there. Whatever is up with Kenobi and Skywalker is about as unrelatable as any experience can be to a common person in the galaxy. “If it’s the second deck droid tunnel, sir,” Cody decides on the spot to forge his own way into the situation, “rest assured that there are eyes on the matter. And it’s a project with a due date.”
Kenobi immediately squints his eyes at Cody. Mission accomplished. “Which second deck droid tunnel, Commander?”
“Don’t worry about it, sir.”
“Mm-hm.” Kenobi harrumphs, but that fragile air’s gone from his demeanor. Cody does not acknowledge the smile fighting to curve his mouth. “Well those may very soon be important enrichment, so please at least keep the walls intact for the time being, would you kindly?”
“Acknowledged, sir.” Cody digests the new information. “Enrichment?”
Kenobi nods. He drops one hand onto the table between them; he’s wearing his Jedi outer robe today, the hand fallen down to his side’s hidden wholely by a sleeve. The one on the table taps a finger idly.
“It’s what I wanted to meet you to talk about today, in fact.” He says. “You’re aware Anakin was my padawan until… last year, yes?”
This is going in a direction, Cody immediately thinks. He does not very much want it to go in that direction, but it is definitely going there.
“Yes, sir,” he says, plain.
Kenobi sighs. “Well, I’ll still say it out loud at least, lest we talk past each other. Now that Anakin’s training has been completed, I’d like to train another padawan.”
Cody chooses his next words very carefully.
“Sir,” he says.
It gets the point across. Kenobi closes his eyes. His shoulders drop, making the hand on the table go lax. “I understand what it looks like,” he says, “but I do welcome your perspective, Commander. I’d like to hear out loud your opinion on the matter.”
“It’s a cultural matter, sir.” Cody pauses, and then speaks again in time to cut off Kenobi’s answer. “We are fighting a war.”
Kenobi takes a deep breath. “We are, indeed, fighting a war.”
“How old was General Skywalker when he became your padawan, sir?”
“Ten, but his case was— a bit unorthodox, my new padawan would most likely be fourteen or fifteen—” Kenobi grimaces. “Alright, it sounds horrid when said out loud—”
“Sounds, sir?”
“It, well, I—” The hand on the table curls into a loose fist. Cody wishes, just a little bit, that he hasn’t snuffed out the tension at the beginning of their meeting. Maybe if he’s left it Kenobi’d have chickened out, and Cody wouldn’t have to be in this discussion at all. “No, it’s worth calling it what it is, you’re right. It is horrid. Everything about a war is horrid, Commander. I just— have to at least consider the possibility, you must understand.”
Do you? Cody stays silent. Must I?
“Younglings at the Temple do not disappear when a war happened upon us,” Kenobi continues, voice measured, “and they don’t stop becoming of age for apprenticeship. And— the fact of the matter, for better or for worse, is that we are not prepared to care for them outside of an apprenticeship. We are… deeply unprepared for the reality of a war, Commander. Fulfilling our duties as generals and commanders has fractured what we have at the Temple, and denying the initiates their teachers will only strain the situation further.”
“Sir,” Cody says, maybe one more sentence out of Kenobi’s mouth short of spelling the words out for them both. “We are at the frontline of a galactic war.”
Kenobi huffs a breath, probably not amused about Cody’s unmoving stance. Too fucking bad. “I am aware of the fact, Cody, I really am.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. You know of the padawan commanders already in the army, yes?”
Kenobi immediately visibly regrets bringing that up, which is as correct as he’ll be today. “For what it’s worth, sir,” Cody says, finding it perhaps too easy to keep his voice in a monotone, “I also think they should not be in the situation they’re in.”
He gets the sense Kenobi desperately wants to put his face in his hands. The man may be purposefully projecting the sentiment into the air between them. “Nobody should be in the situation they’re in right now, Commander,” he says, tone light when he gets to the rank like it is not at all for the sentence that precedes it. “As we’re both clearly aware of, we’re in a war.”
Cody mentally takes a breath. What does it mean for their conversation, if he takes Kenobi at his words right now? War is the worst case scenario. War is the brother-devourer. His general, going by what he’s said, understands this. Why, then, would he even think of— who would intentionally put their own charges into this situation?
He wants to… Cody doesn’t finish that thought. He doesn’t want to anything. Whatever this becomes is just data.
“Cody,” Kenobi says. Cody can’t place the way his name sounds right then and there, its own fresh kind of fragility.
“Yes, sir,” he replies.
What fragile thing that was there shatters. Kenobi closes his eyes.
“No, you’re— you’re right,” he mumbles, probably to himself more than to Cody – though Cody definitely gets to hear all of it. “There has to be another way… I think myself, more than anyone else, cling to the illusion that we can keep going how we’ve always done it. You’re right, Cody,” he speaks up again, and looks straight at Cody’s helmet in that eerie way Jedi do where there might as well not be a helmet at all, “we’re in a war. Thank you for letting me hear your opinions. I mean it.”
That’s the most bureaucracy-laden sentence Cody’s ever heard, and he grew up next to Fox and Ponds. It makes the sincerity he hears in it even more absurd.
He’s too busy processing to even try and react normally to Kenobi’s retreat, accompanied by a smooth-edged “Well, I shan’t take up more of your time”. When he looks at the closed door to his office, having been that way for seemingly forever, he can only swallow back a sigh and gets his stack of flimsywork going. Most of it is autopilot by this points; he needs to— get to the bottom of this. Even though it doesn’t seem anywhere in sight.