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The siege had gone on for a month now.
A full month, in the pouring rain, in the mud, and with nothing to show for it.
Rain, Cody was used to. It was the mud that he was starting to decide he hated. They didn’t have mud on Kamino. It might be the only good thing about Kamino.
The only person who looked more miserable than Cody felt was General Skywalker. He was positively drenched in rain and mud. The organic materials that Jedi tunics were made of tended to absorb water, rather than repel it, and Skywalker did not wear nearly enough armor to make the environmental controls be of any use.
Currently, Skywalker was pacing on one of the flatter stone floors of the ruins they had chosen as their base camp. Skywalker had always been one of the least patient people Cody had ever met, and the siege was wearing on him far more noticeably than everyone else. There was, for the most part, nothing for him to do. Their tanks and artillery were doing most of the shelling, and they had those set up on a shift rotation of trained operators. The rest of their ammunition, they were saving for when they’d actually managed to run down the city’s shields. At this point, everyone knew their tasks, and knew exactly when and how often to perform them, and needed no direction whatsoever.
The only thing they really needed the General for, right now, was to sense surprise attacks.
And considering how comfortable the Seps seemed to be in their shielded city, he had a feeling that surprise attacks were very unlikely.
He watched as Skywalker made another annoyed pass over the cracked, decaying floor. After a month of rain with little respite, the cracks were getting larger. The valley between them and the city had become a marsh, and he was glad he had a jetpack for the inevitable assault.
“General,” Cody said. “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor with all that pacing.”
Skywalker whipped towards Cody, turning with a stomp and an “I am not—”
And the floor fell out from under him.
“General Skywalker!” Cody said, leaping to the rescue. He threw himself into the hole, and caught the Jedi, lighting his jetpack as soon as he had a hand on Skywalker.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Skywalker said.
Cody lowered them onto a pile of rubble in the area below. Whatever this room had once been, it was flooded now. The water was a slimy brownish-green color.
Skywalker gagged beside him, and Cody whipped towards him, ready to face any enemy.
But there was no one.
Cody switched tracks. The air down here could be poisonous, who knew why these ancient ruins were abandoned—
“I’m fine, Cody,” Anakin said, interrupting his thoughts. “Force, it reeks down here. Worse than bantha poodoo in the middle of the day.”
“You know, sir, if you wore a helmet, you’d have access to breathing filters that protect you from that sort of thing,” Cody said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Anakin said, lighting his lightsaber and holding it up to get a better view of the surroundings.
Cody sighed quietly enough that the vocoder wouldn’t pick it up. It was an old argument—while Kenobi had taken to wearing armor with ease, Skywalker still barely wore any at all. Worse, Skywalker seemed to be rubbing off on Kenobi, who seemed to find a new reason each week why he couldn’t wear this piece or that piece.
Cody, who had worn armor since he was three years old, found it infuriating.
“Does it look like there’s a tunnel over there?’ Anakin asked.
Cody looked in the direction indicated, which was a slightly-darker darkness than the rest of the room, and turned on his helmet flashlight, which was a far more focused beam, and usually more useful, than lightsaber light.
“It does,” Cody said.
There was definitely a tunnel there, ancient, stone, water-stained yet somehow less weathered and ruined than everything on the surface. And, in fact—
“It goes towards the city,” Cody said.
Anakin lit up like it was Life Day. “We could have our way in!”
And before Cody could say anything about the wisdom of jumping into slimy brown water filled with unknown contaminants and various foul-smelling mucks, Skywalker had jumped off the small pile of rubble into the slimy brown water filled with unknown contaminants and various foul-smelling mucks.
The good news was that the water was only knee-deep, because Cody would have been very annoyed if he’d had to save Skywalker from drowning in it.
“General, I advise that we wait until we can assemble a team of back-up—”
“I’m gonna explore the tunnels down here,” Anakin said. “Cody, secure the area above so nobody else falls in. If I’m not back in three hours, notify Obi-Wan and assemble a search party.”
Why does Cody even bother?
“Yes, sir,” Cody said reluctantly. “I’ll notify the General of where you’re going.”
“No, Cody, don’t do that!” Skywalker said, turning around quickly. “He hasn’t slept in days, if you tell him I ran off, he definitely won’t be sleeping now either!”
Cody scowled under his helmet. Unfortunately, Skywalker had a point.
But if Skywalker got injured down here, and General Kenobi only found out about it after the fact, both of them were going to be in trouble.
And if Skywalker got killed, well, that would be a disaster from every angle.
"Come on Cody, what can I do so you won't tell Obi-Wan?"
"Take a squad with you," Cody said.
"Other than that?" Skywalker asked. "It’s a stealth mission, Cody, one person is going to be much less detectable than a squad."
That was…unfortunately reasonable. And it was always best to send the Jedi, because they had magic stealth powers, and it was very hard for anyone to keep up with a Jedi. Most troopers couldn't do it, and Cody didn't have any ARCs to spare at the moment.
"I'll give you my dessert rations for a month!" Anakin offered.
Cody tilted his helmet, because really? Bribery?
"And I'll get you that fancy candy you like the next time I'm on Coruscant!"
Oh, now that was a bribe. Skywalker had introduced him to that stuff shortly after they’d met, and he'd had the opportunity to indulge exactly twice in his life. Neither he nor Skywalker actually knew what it was, just that it was some kind of Naboo specialty.
But Cody was the Commander of the 212th, one of the finest battalions in the GAR. He didn't get this far in life by accepting bribes.
Skywalker made a helpless gesture, and whined, "Come on, Cody, give me something to work with here."
Cody sighed, well-aware the clock was ticking. He really should tell General Kenobi. That was his duty as second-in-command. But if he told General Kenobi, Skywalker would run off as soon as he left, and he’d have to deal with a sleep-deprived, grouchy Kenobi worrying the entire time Skywalker was gone.
Sithspit.
Skywalker gave him a pleading look, as if that had worked at any point in their working relationship. Cody was sure it had probably been effective when Skywalker was cadet-sized and adorable, but Cody had trained hundreds of adorable cadets, and had been immune to that look since he was seven years old.
But he really didn’t want to deal with General Kenobi’s ill-temper.
And…this wasn’t the worst thing he'd covered Skywalker for.
Sithspit.
"If you're going to refuse backup in the field with you, then I want updated coordinates as frequently as you can make them," Cody said. "And if we don’t hear from you for more than an hour, I'm sending backup."
"Yes!" Skywalker said. "You're the best, Cody!"
Skywalker hurried off towards the tunnel, lightsaber glowing above his head. Cody watched as the glow got smaller and smaller, until Skywalker was just a wisp in the dark.
And then, with a long-suffering sigh, Cody jetpacked up into the rain, to get backup and something to block off the area.
—
True to his word, Skywalker sent coordinates at irregular but frequent intervals. Cody marked the coordinates on a map as they were updated, and from that, he and his men could get a general idea of what they were dealing with.
There had to be multiple tunnels, because Skywalker went backwards and sideways at several points. They wouldn’t know if the tunnels were damaged or dangerous until Skywalker came back, but they could see that the tunnels definitely went towards the city. Cody couldn’t help but feel optimistic as each ping brought them closer to the enemy camp.
And then, right at the border, the updates stopped.
He could feel the rising unease among his men, and he refused to show any worry. The Seps likely had some sort of signal jammer operating. If Cody were in charge of the siege, he would be doing the same thing.
Twenty minutes passed, then thirty.
At forty minutes, Cody told them to start prepping for an extraction mission. The men hurried off, and then hurried back.
At fifty minutes, they had assembled at the hole, far enough away not to destablize the rest of the ground, and were readying their lines and hooks to go below.
And at fifty-six minutes, Cody got a ping on his comm.
“Oh, thank the Force,” Cody muttered, too low for his vocoder to pick up. He checked the message, which was a location ping, and said, “He’s alive, boys!”
The troopers cheered.
A second ping came not much longer after the first. Skywalker was mobile, and he was coming back. Cody kept the troopers nearby, just in case Skywalker was being followed, but he had sent no danger alarm, so Cody had high hopes.
And finally…
“Codyyyy!”
From the excitement in Skywalker’s voice, Cody knew it was going to be good news.
“Cody! Are you up there?”
“I’m here, General Skywalker,” Cody said. “Do you need help?”
“Nah,” Skywalker said. “I just wanted to warn you guys before I jumped up.”
There was a blur of black and brown as Skywalker rocketed out of the tunnel. Cody watched him do a flip, and then land very gently, obviously wary of dislodging any more stones.
Skywalker was covered head to toe in muck, and Cody really hoped he wasn’t going to be on the infiltration team.
“Good news, sir?” he asked.
Skywalker grinned. “Go ahead and jump for joy, boys,” he said. “We’ve got a way into the city.”
—
Anakin and Cody discussed the tunnel extensively, making plans and discarding them as they went. Cody wanted to send at least a full squad for the infiltration and shield attack. Anakin was sure that he could go back down there and do it all on his own.
Their compromise was General Kenobi. Skywalker would still have backup, and it would still be the smallest possible team. They would go through the sewers, pop up through the maintenance hatch in the generator room, take out the guards, take out the shields, and then Cody would lead the troops in as soon as the shields were down.
As soon as they’d finished making the plan, Cody moved towards where General Kenobi was sleeping.
“Wait, Cody!” Anakin called.
Cody turned back.
“Help me play a joke on Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked.
“...A joke,” Cody said.
“Yeah, it’ll be hilarious,” Anakin said.
“We don’t really have time for that,” Cody said. “We need to brief the General.”
“We can do both at once!” Anakin said, scrabbling in the mud for something. Whatever it was, he dropped it onto the map he’d made, and twisted it up into a bag.
Then he dug up some more, and Cody realized that Skywalker was dropping live bugs into his map-bag.
Cody was not certain he really wanted to be involved in this.
“What did you have in mind?” Cody asked reluctantly.
“I want you to tell Obi-Wan that it’s going to be at least three more months before we can break the siege,” Skywalker said. “Really sell it, too, so he believes it.”
“...Why?” Cody said.
“Because it’ll make it really funny when I tell him that we discovered a way into the city, and we can end the siege today!” Skywalker said.
Cody…wasn’t sure he saw the joke.
But it seemed relatively harmless.
“What are the bugs for?” he asked.
“I’m hungry, and tired of rations,” Skywalker said. “And Obi-Wan hates it when I eat them.”
Alright then.
“Are you sure they aren’t poisonous?” Cody asked, because that was one of the first questions he’d learned to ask whenever his troops got adventurous in the field.
“They’re not poisonous,” Skywalker said. “I checked them against the holodex and everything.”
Thank the Force.
“Alright,” Cody said. “Let’s do this.”
—
General Kenobi was not actually asleep when Cody jetpacked in.
“General Kenobi,” Cody greeted, trying to keep his voice level.
“Commander Cody,” Kenobi said, grouchy, but no more grouchy than he’d been for the last month.
“The seige goes well,” Cody said, trying to sound perfectly normal and not like he was lying. “With our continued barrage, the shields should be down in three months.”
There was a clear look of despair on Kenobi’s face at that.
“But we’ve been here a month already,” Kenobi said, almost pleading.
“Yes sir,” Cody said, doing his absolute best to feel disinterested. “We’re right on schedule.”
And then, because he could not hold it in any longer, he jetpacked off, landing next to Skywalker, who was shaking silently with laughter as he shoved a few more beetles into the bag he’d made of his map.
“You’re the best, Cody,” Anakin said with a grin.
He jumped up, and casually wandered down into the trenches, smoothing his grin into a smaller, smug smile.
Cody could just hear them talking as Anakin approached.
“What is that?” Kenobi asked, already resigned.
“Lunch!” Skywalker said brightly.
Cody couldn’t see them, but he could imagine the General’s shudder as he said, “How can you eat that?”
“But Master,” Skywalker said, with the same false-innocence that General Kenobi used on obnoxious politicians all the time, “you’re the one that always taught me to feed off the Living Force.”
“That’s not what I—” General Kenobi sighed, and gave up. “Where did you get that stuff, anyway?”
“From the enemy camp,” Skywalker said, as casually as one would say ‘from the mess hall.’
“What?!” General Kenobi yelped, voice rising an octave, and Cody slapped his vocoder off, laughing in the safety of his helmet.
By the time Cody got himself under control, he could hear General Kenobi talking again.
“—I assume the plan is to crawl through the sewer, work our way to the shield generator, fight our way through their defenses, blow up the generator, knocking out the shield, and all our troops swarm in and overwhelm the enemy?”
“Yep!” Anakin said brightly. “Let’s go!”
And Cody laughed.