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Hair still dripping from his shower, Cody stood in the middle of his habsuite and pinched the sleeves of his ironed shirt. He turned it this way and that in an exasperated attempt to figure out which side was the front. For months now, he had been telling himself that he would spend some of his meagre earnings to get ‘212’ embroidered on the back of his collar. It would be both sentimental and practical. However, each time he touched down on Coruscant, he promptly forgot about this promise to himself.
A frantic banging on his door startled him out of his indecision.
“Commander, are you in there?” someone shouted through multiple inches of reinforced military-grade steel. “It’s an emergency.”
Which bloody shiny had forgotten how to use the doorbell and intercom?
Cody hastily pulled on his shirt, hoping it was in the correct orientation, while the door continued to be pummelled. Muttering profanities, he marched down the short hallway, jabbed the green button on the control panel, and narrowly dodged the fist that nearly disfigured his face. Thank the stars for reflexes.
“Commander!”
“Waxer,” Cody said, taken aback. “What’s wrong?”
“The caf, sir. We’re out.”
Cody’s heart rate spiked with alarm, not because he was addicted — all right, he might be (just a little bit) but that was secondary — but because for a moment there he thought Waxer was referring to the code name of some mission he had forgotten to manage. Then his brain caught up with reality. When had he ever been the kind of person to neglect a mission under his purview?
“That’s your emergency?” Cody asked. “The pantry isn’t a spawn point for caf, Waxer. It has to run out at some point. Just wait for the next supply to come in. We’re on our way back from a mission anyway. You can hold out until we reach Coruscant.”
Cody knew he would have to make do. The paperwork would just be that much more agonising to get through, that’s all. He secretly suppressed the dread curdling in his chest.
“That’s the thing,” Waxer insisted, desperate. He smacked a hand against the doorframe, stopping the panel from sliding out. “I don’t think there’s going to be a restock. I checked with Simon back on Coruscant. Even the CG boys are out of caf. Have been for a few weeks now.”
Oh.
Oh dear.
Cody was beginning to understand the gravity of the situation.
The Coruscant Guard subsisted on caf. They were always the first to receive the next batch of supplies. No one complained about their ‘privilege’ because everyone knew the ones who had it worst were the ones that had to put up with politicians instead of droids, so by all means they needed the caf the most. If they were out, then Cody trembled at what this could mean for the rest of them.
“I’ll see what I can do about it. In the meantime, try not to start a fight,” Cody said.
“Too late, sir. That’s the other thing. We have one bag left and, well, they’re already fighting to decide who gets it.”
“You mean quarrelling verbally, right?”
Waxer averted his eyes. Cody’s blood pressure spiked in a way that would send any medic into overdrive.
“Verbally,” he repeated, “right?”
From his vantage point at one of the windows, Cody calmly noted that the mess hall had been utterly destroyed. The service droids cowered behind the 3D-printing serving counters. Tables were upturned. The ground was made slick with sauce. Tomato pasta seemed to have been on the menu that day.
A few steps further down the corridor, the doors of the entrance hissed open. The cacophony of what might as well have been wild animals waging war over the last bone in the carcass slipped through. The doors slid shut again. Silence resettled. A meatball rolled past Cody’s boot, successfully escaping into the hallway.
“You should have lead with this,” Cody told Waxer, who shrugged and made a non-committal grunt. Together, they peered into the chaos with a solid panel of transparisteel protecting them from it.
What to do? Even if he grabbed a megaphone and yelled ‘CLANKER’ with a hard ‘R’, he doubted anyone would hear him, much less heed him.
Someone flew into the window with a resounding BANG. The transparisteel rippled from the impact. Another person was shoved over a toppled over table and clattered to the floor, narrowly missing a concussion by the table’s legs. Cody had better do something before someone got seriously injured. That would be even more of a headache to deal with than his currently throbbing temple.
What to do? He glanced around and spotted the fire alarm. ‘For emergency use only,’ read the words printed behind the glass. With his authority as the Marshal Commander of the 212th Battalion, Cody decided that this was indeed an emergency. He shattered the glass with his elbow.
In his short life, he had heard many types of alarms before. There had been the morning call alarms on Kamino, the morning call alarms in the GAR barracks, and, of course, the ‘WE’RE BLOODY UNDER ATTACK’ alarms on the Negotiator. But never in his life had he encountered this alarm before. It was a continuous, high-pitched ring that shrieked directly into Cody’s ear, louder than any siren that he had ever had the misfortune of experiencing.
“What did you do?” Waxer hollered.
Something he would regret, Cody thought.
At least the fighting had stopped. With hands still around each other’s throats, the 212th brothers looked around in confusion. No one made any move to run for their battle stations. Evidently, not a single one of them knew how to respond. Some ‘emergency’ alarm this was.
It abruptly cut off.
“Attention all personnel,” a feminine, robotic voice came through the shipwide speakers. “The fire alarm has been activated. Please remain calm while the situation is being investigated. Attention all personnel. The fire alarm has been activated. Please…”
The message looped itself. Slowly, the brothers crawled off one another. With a self-affirming nod, Cody concluded that it was finally safe to enter the mess hall. Yelling was replaced by confused whispers of ‘What’s going on?’ All thought for the last bag of caf evaporated as quickly as the mania must have descended.
Where was it anyway?
In any case, Cody considered his termination of a civil war a success. Regardless of the disaster presented to him, he would efficiently and competently regain control of the situation, for he was the man in charge aboard this ship.
“Cody,” Obi-Wan’s voice filtered through his wrist communicator.
Kriff, Cody thought and raised it to his mouth. “Yes, sir.”
“Where are you? Are you all right?”
“Uh, yes, sir. I’m at the mess. Don’t worry, sir, I’ve got everything under control.”
Out of nowhere, several droids trundled past him and filed into the mess hall. They hovered over the debris and extended their little probes to inspect the damage.
The automated voice over the intercom spoke again. “Attention all personnel. The fire alarm was triggered in the vicinity of the canteen. Please remain calm while we continue to investigate the situation. All personnel are advised to stay away from the canteen.”
“Cody?” Obi-Wan stressed.
“There’s no fire, sir,” Cody quickly reassured him. “The boys were having a scuffle and I triggered the alarm to stop them. I’ll get right to sending them to the training hall for disciplinary action, sir.”
To Waxer, who had followed him in like the loyal soldier he was, he muttered, “Best you leave before they figure out you’re the snitch.”
Once Waxer had scurried away, Cody raised his voice and addressed his men.
“Look at the mess you created,” he said. For the first time since he arrived, they acknowledged his presence. Their heads swivelled to him as one. A beat. Then, they were all scrambling to get to their feet.
Cody stalked deeper into the mess hall, picking his way through rare patches of uncovered floor. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that this was a room of tubies.” He shook his head. “I thought you boys had better self-control than this. I thought you boys were soldiers. Is this how a solider of the Republic behaves?”
“Sir, no, sir!” they yelled in unison.
“I don’t think you believe that. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of this mess right now!”
He whipped around, startling a shiny with freshly minted blank armour and hair that was growing out to be longer than the regulatory quarter-inch military buzz cut that Kamino demanded.
“Attention all personnel.” Cody withered as his momentum was interrupted by the intercom. “The fire alarm was a false alarm. Please resume normal activities. Attention all personnel. The fire alarm was…”
“I want everybody in the training hall now,” Cody said over the announcement. Feet were dragged, grumbles were made. Cody clenched his fists. “I said, now.”
They quickly shuffled out of the mess hall.
As Cody himself was about to leave, a droid whizzed up to him and offered him a datapad. “No concerning heat sources were detected, sir,” the droid reported. “However, significant damage was sustained in the canteen. We were unable to discern the cause. Droids may be prone to errors. Please proceed with caution.”
“Uh, thanks,” Cody said and accepted the datapad.
“You’re welcome,” the droid said and whizzed away.
Cody glanced at the datapad in his hands. What was he supposed to do with this?
“Then, according to Waxer, they started brawling over who would get the last bag of caf. I have yet to extract a confession from them, but assuming that the intel is true, it quickly got out of hand after that. By the time I arrived, the mess was already in that state and I had no choice but to pull the alarm — the fire alarm, apparently — to intervene. And that, General, is how we ended up here.”
Cody concluded his oversimplified situation report with Obi-Wan in hushed whispers outside the training hall.
The doors were closed, but he could still hear murmurs of the raucous conversations taking place inside. He was starting to question the structural integrity of the ship that had suffered so many hits. Where was the soundproofing it was supposed to boast?
“Such an uproar,” Obi-Wan reached into the depthless sleeves of his robes and withdrew a brown packet, “over this? One would think this was spice.”
Cody’s eyeballs nearly burst out of their sockets.
“Put that away. You can’t let them see that.” Without thinking, he grabbed his general’s arm and pulled his sleeves back over the baneful object. “Where did you find it?”
“I passed the canteen on my way here. A droid gave it to me.”
Kriffing droids. Cody would have preferred receiving this package over the datapad.
No matter. It was in Obi-Wan’s hands now, where it was probably safest. Cody felt a vein in his jaw throb. Obi-Wan regarded him with an amused smile.
“I once again extend my invitation to complete your reports with me in my office,” Obi-Wan leaned forward conspiratorially, “where the last bag of caf will be brewed.”
“I can’t. What will the men think? They’ll know. They’ll smell it on me.”
But then again, what could the boys do if they found out anyway? Steal the bag back from their general? Highly unlikely. He considered the mischievous glint in Obi-Wan’s eyes. Perhaps his protection was worth the hassle of transporting multiple stacks of datapads to his office.
(In summary, that was how Cody’s workstation was permanently moved to Obi-Wan’s quarters, where the incorporated office in the general’s massive habsuite offered comfortable accommodation for two men and their several cups of tea and caf.)
“Come on, then. I haven’t seen you give a good lecture in a long time,” Obi-Wan said, beckoning Cody to enter the training hall with him. As the doors slid open, Cody’s eardrums exploded.
The deafeningly loud room fell silent the moment the general entered. The abrupt silence had Cody momentarily questioning whether he had in fact fallen deaf. After all these years, it wasn’t the bombshells that permanently impaired his hearing, but his brothers.
Obi-Wan drifted to the back of the hall while Cody ascended the platform where the drill instructors usually stood. He swept them all with a stern gaze. They peered back curiously. Clearly, it had been too long since Cody had unleashed his wrath upon them. Long enough for them to have forgotten.
Well, he would simply have to remind them.
Frenzy was contorting himself with a pool noodle’s flexibility to palpate his back, hissing with pain each time he found a new bruise, when General Kenobi and Commander Cody entered the training hall. He untangled his limbs immediately and glued them to his side.
The disappointment radiating from the General gnawed right through his ribcage and sunk its teeth into his heart. Though he was out of sight, Frenzy could still feel him. His displeasure permeated every inch of the room.
Equally concerning was the hard set of the Commander’s face. Frenzy could see the fury written all over it. With each angry flare of his nostrils, Commander Cody expelled his own brand of immense dissatisfaction with their conduct.
They were eyeballs deep in trouble, Frenzy knew. He wanted to curl into a ball and hope he would escape notice, but he was a soldier of the Republic, and not even a tsunami could knock him over when he stood at attention.
“Frenzy,” Commander Cody barked.
Frenzy jerked. “Sir, yes, sir!”
He straightened his spine, then had to fight against a wince as his back smarted as if he had been thrown against the window again.
“Care to inform us what happened?”
“Um.” Frenzy peered around for help. Next to him, Rumble stared straight ahead, stoic as he abandoned his only surviving batchmate. Fine, Frenzy would fend off the questioning all by himself.
If only he actually knew what had happened.
“I’m not really sure, sir. One second I was eating lunch, the next I had someone falling in my soup,” he said, telling the truth as it was.
“Your poor soup,” the Commander said. Frenzy’s ears warmed with embarrassment. At least the Commander’s glare silenced the few snickers that had dared to make themselves heard.
“What did you do about it? Did you retaliate? Did you avenge your soup?” Commander Cody continued, taking it upon himself to be the only one allowed to shame Frenzy.
The warmth had spread to his cheeks. He swallowed before he answered honestly, “Yes, sir. I– I hauled the guy off my table and yelled at him.”
“About your soup?”
More sniggers were quickly terminated by Commander Cody’s predatory looks.
“Yes, sir?” Frenzy said.
“Then you’re not who I’m looking for.”
The release from Commander Cody’s attention allowed Frenzy to breathe again. He sagged with relief, as much as he could sag while standing ramrod straight with his spine stinging.
The Commander’s eyes scanned the crowd again. Among the masses, he pinpointed another victim for his public interrogation.
“You, moustache.”
Everyone, including Frenzy, immediately turned to stare at the guy. Nexus’ eyes darted around before they finally found the courage to meet Commander Cody’s.
“Yes, sir?” Nexus said.
“You seemed to have been in the thick of it. Perhaps you’re better informed to share what happened?” Commander Cody said. Nexus glanced down at the big red splat on the front of his armour.
Oh, he’s doomed, Frenzy concluded. Now that his turn had passed, and his lungs were functioning again, he could enjoy the show.
“No, sir,” Nexus lied. “I’m not sure either. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A wave of disappointment so strong it nearly toppled Frenzy rolled through the room. The General was displeased. Very displeased. Some would even say severely displeased.
“Well, actually,” Nexus said, fidgeting, “I’m pretty sure the guys at the next table were arguing about something. About… caf. They were saying there was one bag left in the kitchen, so I figured I could get my hands on the last of the stock before it completely ran out. Looks like they figured the same and disagreed with me having the same idea. It all happened so fast after that.”
“And who might these guys be?”
“A bunch of shinies who don’t know better.” Nexus’ glare swung to Fallout and his gang of unfortunately named friends.
“Hey, we didn’t do nothing! Don’t you go around throwing us under the bus just because we’re new around here,” someone from that side of the room yelled.
Frenzy resisted the urge to stand on his tiptoes. With all of them being the same height, that course of action would most certainly not bode well for his self-imagined bright future as a potential ARC trooper.
“You tell ‘em, Talkback!” one of the shiny’s friends said.
What an appropriate name.
Commander Cody cleared his throat.
“All we wanted was some caf, man. You had to make it a fight by pushing and shoving everyone else out of the way!” Talkback continued.
Commander Cody cleared his throat a second time. If they did not shut up soon, the whole lot of them would lose their tongues.
“Stop accusing someone else for what you did, shiny,” Nexus said, using someone’s shoulders to push himself taller. The boys between them shuffled to duck under the crossfire.
“I beg your pardon,” the Commander said loud enough to be heard over the bickering. They all slammed their mouths closed, whether they were arguing or simply gaping, and whipped back around to face the front.
“Thank you,” Commander Cody said pointedly. “Now then, considering that everyone has contributed in creating the mess regardless of who started it, you will all be responsible for cleaning up for yourselves.”
Frenzy suppressed a groan. All things considered, he was a casualty of the altercation. He should be in the medical bay, not righting the tables that someone else had toppled.
“Furthermore, Nexus and Talkback will work together to coordinate the clean-up of the canteen. That will teach you to sort out your differences in a civilised manner.”
The crowd swelled. It was silent, but they must naturally react in some manner or another to the disaster that would no doubt follow that directive.
“While you work, I expect all of you to think carefully about the standards expected of a Republic soldier. Descending into feral behaviour over the brief deprivation of a luxury — not a necessity, a luxury — is nothing short of a grave disappointment to both General Kenobi and me.”
Ouch.
Frenzy thought he felt an actual stab somewhere left of his heart.
“We will have to make do with shortages, as we have always done on the battlefield. You are all elite soldiers of the Republic. Bloody act like it.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Your drill sergeants will see to it that you meet the penalty for causing such destruction to Republic property. If you are found again to display such disrespect to the ship that has sheltered you for so many missions, rest assured that your punishment will not be as light. Now, if you want to have a functional canteen before dinnertime, I suggest you all get moving now.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Frenzy let himself be flowed along the current of the crowd, resisting the urge to swat at the useless Rumble pressed against his side. Just as he slowed at the bottleneck created by the narrow doorway, Commander Cody latched onto his arm and pulled him aside.
Frenzy nearly shat himself. Had his soup story thrown him under the skiff? But it was the truth! The whole truth and nothing but the truth!
“How is your back?” the Commander asked. The earlier sternness of his face had melted, replaced by genuine concern.
Frenzy’s nervous laughter sounded like a gargle. He cleared his throat.
“I’ll probably be sleeping on my front for the next few days, sir. Sirs,” he amended as General Kenobi materialised next to the Commander and Frenzy’s legs nearly gave out.
“Go to the medbay. Let Pharynx clear you for physical duty before you go to the mess hall,” Commander Cody said.
“Sir, yes, sir.”
Frenzy was released back into the pond with his brothers. In the hallways, he participated in the implicit permission that they could begin complaining the moment they stepped over the threshold, even though their superiors were still very clearly within earshot.
However, once he peeled away from them into a branching, unoccupied corridor, he allowed himself a small giggle before he fully committed himself to the worst injury to his spine — an indispensable part of his nervous system, mind you — that he could possibly sustain.
If Pharynx was any less of a professional medic, he might have dropped his tray of tools on the floor when Frenzy limped into the medical bay, hunched and clutching his back.
Obi-Wan and Cody strolled down the corridors leading back to the mess hall. They kept their distance from the group ahead, giving the boys the space to noisily air their grievances before the hard work began.
“Handled magnificently, Commander,” Obi-Wan said.
Cody grunted. “Should I have been more harsh?”
“I thought it was appropriate. I have seen the way Rex disciplines his men. He is far less kind than you, but I don’t see how that correlates to better behaved soldiers in the 501st.”
“There most certainly is no correlation there,” Cody agreed with a snort.
Rex levied heavy on the brutality of the consequences, but that did not seem to deter the men as strongly as disappointment, which Cody thought Obi-Wan embodied the best. The mere thought of failing Cody, and by extension, Obi-Wan, was generally sufficient to keep the 212th boys in line.
“Well, then,” Obi-Wan said, “I hope this means I will be seeing you in my office soon.”
“Yes, sir, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. I really need that cup of caf right about now.” Cody dropped his head and rubbed his temple. They would have to supervise the clean-up, of course, but if Obi-Wan were to invite him to take a breather first…
Chuckling, Obi-Wan tucked his hands into his sleeves. “Right this way, my good man.”
Cody grinned with triumph.
As they made a turn, Obi-Wan tilted his head and squinted at Cody, who raised his eyebrows in question.
“Also, Cody, please don’t be alarmed, because it is fortunately hard to tell, but do you have your shirt on backwards?”
Elsewhere in the galaxy…
For the first time in his life, Rex was grateful that he had repeatedly failed to shut down the black market that rampaged the Resolute. At present, there were two highly sought after commodities onboard — caf, and Jedi almond chocolate.
Yes, even Anakin had finally traded a hand in the black market with the chocolate. Allegedly, they were made from a recipe that Master Nu kept under analogous lock and key in the Jedi archives. They rivalled spice in terms of addiction potential and each almond chocolate was packed with as much energy as three ration bars.
And now, they were being traded for simple caf. Rex would deal with the consequences later.
Ahsoka was involved as well. Anakin claimed she was too young to be drinking caf, so he did not need to know that Rex bought enough caf for three people.
In the shadows of a poorly lit corridor on the bottom storage levels of the Resolute, Rex dropped two canisters of Jedi chocolate in Hevy’s hands and received six bags of caf in return. That should last each of them another two weeks, he hoped.
“Thanks for the business, Captain,” Hevy said, grinning.
Rex sighed. “Not a word about this to anyone.”
Meanwhile, the Triumphant had never known as much peace since the caf shortage began. Plo Koon had hauled out his stockpile of tea, accumulated over the years from gifts from friends and grateful rescuees, and distributed them generously among the Wolfpack. Turned out, the hyperactive lot of them became much more manageable in the absence of strong caffeine.
As the canteen survived yet another day without being demolished, and his brothers milled about serenely with their shoes firmly attached to the floor instead of clambering all over the chairs and tables, Wolffe turned to his general and said, “I’m thinking of making this shortage permanent.”
“Go ahead,” Plo Koon said. In the background, the ambient music, which could be heard for once, serenaded his declaration. “I have enough tea to last us till the war ends.”