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"What have you...?" Cody hears, the sound filtering slowly through his helmet and his fuzzy brain.
"Spit it out." The voice demands, stern and resigned. "Come on Chrissie, out. You can't eat him, and nobody wants to wake up inside your mouth. There are far more pleasant ways to wake up, trust me."
Something whines, low, and the sound vibrates through Cody in a way he really doesn't like.
"Drop him."
Cody's body tilts, and whatevers got a grip on his torso lets him go. He clatters to the floor, armour jarring.
"Good girl."
There's the sound of a very large creature panting happily very close to him.
"Who's a good chrysalide, yes you are."
The only chrysalides Cody's ever heard of are Sith chrysalides. He hadn't known Sith doted on their pets quite like this. Had been told they were incapable of positive emotions. But that man clearly loves whatever the hell it is that's making happy growling noises, claws clicking as it turns and bounds away.
The maybe-sith sighs, fond and exasperated, and when he next speaks his voice is much closer.
"Now," he muses, "who might you be?"
"Commander Cody, Sir." Cody introduces himself, still sprawled face down on the ground. It would be nice if his brain stopped trying to violently escape from his skull. "Third Systems Army."
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you."
Cody doubts that. He's little more than a vaguely conscious pile of armour at the moment.
The maybe-sith chuckles. Oh. Right. Empaths and mental shields and force-osik. But Cody has more important things to worry about.
"My men?" Cody asks. They'd been shot down, he remembers. By a squadron of Seppies. The ship beginning to tear itself apart as they hurtled through atmosphere, then impact. And water. Did they hit a sea?
The clattering of claws returns. Multiplied. The chrysalide's brought its friends. Then there's a familiar thump of plastoid, more than one set from the sound, enough that he can't work out exactly how many.
There's a moment of silence underscored by ominous monster panting, then -
"Ow." Boil deadpans.
He sounds miserable but alive.
"Sitrep." Cody demands.
"Not a clue, Sir." Waxer answers cheerfully. "We were mostly fishing ourselves out of this giant lake when whatever these things are sort of loomed out of the shadows? And we thought they were going to eat us, but then they were carrying us? Towards where you were? So we just kind of let them. Have you seen the size of these teeth though, Commander? They're really cool!"
"What have I told you about prioritising information?" Cody asks, still not moving from his collapsed heap on the floor.
"Err... To start with the important bits like casualty numbers."
Cody remains pointedly silent.
"Of which there are none." Boil adds.
"Oh." Waxer says. "Yeah, that. Sorry Commander."
"To be fair, Sir," Boil says, and Cody can hear the smirk in his voice. "you look by far the worst."
"Same as usual then?" Trapper snickers.
Cody doesn't quite have enough coordination to twist his hand in a rude gesture, but from the increased snickering, he manages well enough to get his point across.
"Who's your friend, Commander?" Wooley asks.
"She's called Chrissie."
There's an unholy screeching yip of sound, and then something is dragging across the back of his armour.
"She just licked me, didn't she." Cody says on a sigh.
"Chrysalides!" Wooley breathes, "real life Sith chrysalides?"
"Well..." The maybe-sith says, "there might be a slight chance that they're not actually technically fully alive. My research suggests that there was likely a small amount of necromancy involved in their creation. Only a very small amount, though, I assure you."
Cody wonders precisely what a very small amount of necromancy entails, then decides he's probably best off not knowing.
"Real dead Sith chrysalides!" Wooley breathes with the exact same level of awe.
"...Boil, please tell me he's not petting the chrysalide."
"He's not petting the chrysalide Sir." Boil recites obediently.
"Try behind the things that look a bit like spiky ears." The maybe-sith recommends with a suspicious level of innocence. Something thumps heavily and repeatedly against the floor. "Yes, just like that. That one's called Brian."
Cody sighs and rolls into something vaguely resembling upright, biting down on a grunt of pain. He prises open his eyes, and blinks until the blurriness resolves itself into actual shapes.
Then he blinks again.
The maybe-sith is pretty.
So, so pretty.
And none of his force forsaken brothers had warned him.
The kriffers.
There's a loud huff of air, and something thumps into Cody's lap, making his uncooperative body jerk with the movement. It's a head. A giant head. Absolutely grotesque. The most hideously disgusting thing Cody's ever seen. Its tongue is lolling out of its mouth, covering Cody's legs in drool, and giant round eyes are gazing soulfully up at him. It's extremely adorable for something so ugly. Cody reaches up and scratches the strange combination of fur and scales behind its weird spiky ear things. Its eyes narrow, sliding contentedly closed, and a weird growling rumble starts, like someone gargling rocks. Its purring. His chrysalide is purring.
It must be possible to hide a chrysalide from the General on the Negotiator. He just needs to work out how. Maybe they can turn invisible.
"Cody, no." Boil says.
Cody raises an eyebrow inside his bucket.
"I'd like to see you try and stop me."
"How the kriff did you make the Generals think you're the sensible one?" Waxer whines. He's just jealous. "They know you adopted Rex."
"Yeah, but Rex blames all his osik on his General." Boil points out. "They haven't worked out that more than half of what goes down in that battalion is due to the poor unpromoted Captain, who valiantly goes along with the chaos. They think he's trying to wrangle it into some sort of order."
Cody snorts.
Then regrets it when his ribs hurt. The kriffers.
"There's a medbay." The probably-sith says, something wry and warm in golden eyes as he studies Cody. "It's, well, it's not really set up for humans, but I'm sure we'll be able to make do."
Cody narrows his eyes.
"It's set up for the chrysalides, isn't it." He says on a resigned sigh. Because of course it is.
"Well," the probably-sith says, just a little snippy, and Cody can't help his smile at the tone. "This is a wildlife reserve."
And he's right. The planet they'd been shot down over was listed as an animal sanctuary.
Cody has endless reserves of exasperated patience. He needs them as a Commander. And he clings to them.
"You got this entire planet listed as a wildlife sanctuary," he says, voice completely flat, "in order to look after Sith chrysalides."
"Technically," the probably-sith says, "they are wild."
"Not exactly alive though?" Cody asks, innocently.
"Mostly alive, my dear." The probably-sith corrects, with an archly amused look that has Cody biting back another grin. "Sufficiently alive to fit the classification, at any rate." And that's said with the confidence of someone who's spent endless nights pouring over legal documents looking for loopholes.
"Would you mind showing us to the medbay?" Artery asks, infinitely polite. Cody's blood freezes in his veins. He's in so much trouble. Artery's always more dangerous when he's being nice.
"Of course." The almost-certainly-sith says, gesturing towards a door, apparently unconscious of the danger.
Chrissie moves her head from his lap and Cody contemplates the logistics of standing. His ankle is throbbing in a way that says it's going to be extremely painful to walk on.
Chrissie takes matters into her own... teeth, and gently bites the back of his armour, hoisting him into the air. Cody dangles by the scruff of his neck with a scowl, and folds his arms. Technically, that solves the problem, but Cody's not happy about it.
His men are very carefully not snickering, and the almost-certainly-sith is watching him with brightly amused eyes.
"Thank you, Chrissie." He says seriously in that pretty voice of his.
Cody resists the urge to throw a rude hand gesture at him, and sighs. Millions of brothers have taught him that sometimes the only way to maintain what little is left of his dignity is to just go along with things.
Cody's attention is caught by Wooley who is eyeing Brian speculatively. Brian eyes him back, then flattens himself to the floor. Oh no. Wooley whoops, then clambers onto Brian's back. Wooley gets to ride his Chrysalide, and Cody is being carried like a sack of tubers. There is no justice in the Galaxy.
Cody looks around, swaying with Chrissie's movement. They're heading deeper into an eerily empty city, and the architecture looks old.
"It was a sith planet once." The really-he-must-be-a-sith says quietly, just loud enough for Cody's brothers to hear as well. "Abandoned millennia ago. But they left behind some of their experiments, and some of their guards."
Cody's a little tempted to ask which he is, but that would probably be rude.
As they enter the medbay, another chrysalide raises its head from where it's curled protectively around a pile of sleeping baby chrysalides, and growls at them. The resemblance is uncanny.
"Don't mind Alpha." The probably-definitely-sith says fondly. Cody blinks. "he's a little grumpy but very protective."
Alpha-the-chrysalide bares his teeth at the probably-definitely-sith.
Un. Canny.
Boil nods sagely.
"All grumpy protective bastards are called Alpha. It's a law of the universe."
Wooley frowns from on top of Brian.
"Protective?" He asks. "He threw me in the sea!"
"Were you being a little shit at the time?" Cody asks.
"Commander!" Wooley protests, outraged. "I've never been a little shit once in my life!"
"No." Cody agrees. "It's significantly more than once."
Wooley sulks at him.
"You'd know." He mutters darkly.
Cody smirks.
One of the other chrysalides that had followed them in suddenly lunges forwards, grabbing Waxer by the shoulder, stopping him sidling forward.
"They're so tiny and cute!" He squeals, mixed excitement and protest. "I just want to pet them!"
Kriffing hells. Cody can't take them anywhere.
Artery stalks forward and glares at Alpha until some sort of truce is reached, and then at Chrissie until Cody is gently deposited on a medbed. The rest of Cody's brothers hop up onto their own. Wisely.
The probably-definitely-sith takes a subtle step towards the door, and Cody could have told him that was a bad idea. Artery whirls on him immediately.
"And you." He snaps. "Don't think I haven't noticed that this setup means that you haven't been able to treat yourself either."
"My dear," the medbay-runner-probably-sith protests, but it's weak. "Having the force means that I'm well aware of anything that may need fixing, and that I can do so if necessary."
"All due respect, sir, that sounds like an absolutely massive steaming pile of banthakark. Sit."
The medbay-runner-probably-sith draws himself up, but is promptly grabbed by the back of the robes and hoisted into the air. His face is a picture of betrayal.
"Chrissie!" He protests. "I will give you another bath."
Chrissie seems entirely unmoved by this threat, and drops the medbay-runner-probably-sith next to Cody with a satisfied chuff, then pins him in place with a claw.
The medbay-runner-probably-sith sulks. Which is adorable and endearing and highly amusing.
"Don't you start." The probably-definitely-sith mutters, glaring sideways at Cody. But there's something warm in his eyes, a resigned smile just curling over the edge of his lips.
So pretty.
Once Artery has patched them up, the Sith frowns at them.
"Well, we'd better see to finding you somewhere to stay, seeing as it seems that you'll be staying here for the foreseeable future."
Cody feels his men tense around him. The very-pretty-absolutely-definitely-sith wasn't going to let them leave? In a fight between them and him, they'd win, but the chrysalides very much weigh the balance in his favour.
"Why's that, Sir?" Cody asks.
The very-pretty-absolutely-definitely-sith blinks at him, confused.
"Well. I don't have a ship. We're self sufficient here, you see. Very good soil. And I don't believe that yours is salvageable."
"And we can't com for pickup because...?"
Understanding sparks in the very-pretty-absolutely-definitely-sith's eyes.
"Forgive me," he says, "I thought you knew." He frowns in confusion. "It should have been common knowledge." He waves the thought away and continues. Cody's not surprised. It's far from the first time intelligence has failed to pass them basic but vital info.
Cody listens carefully to the explanation, full of unfamiliar, highly technical, concepts that the enthusiastic-sith is clearly enjoying trying to explain with truly absurd analogies. But Cody decides it can be best summed up with 'they can't send any communications off-planet due to force-osik.'
Which is a little frustrating because his brothers are out fighting a war without him, but on the other hand -
"Indefinite shore-leave on a planet with a massive creepy abandoned ancient city swarming with Sith chrysalides?" Wooley breathes, eyes wide with excitement. He's bouncing slightly on his toes.
***
Cody wakes up in a pile of his brother's limbs, something tugging at his foot. He squints through the darkness. Chrissie. Once she sees she has his attention, she lets him go, and Cody clambers out of the warm pile and onto solid ground.
"Commander?" Boil asks, half asleep.
"Chrissie wants something."
Boil moves as if to get up.
"Stay there." Cody tells him. "If it's something I can't handle, then I'm sure Chrissy will."
Boil grumbles unhappily and sinks back into the pile.
Chrissie gently closes her giant jaws around his arm and tugs him forward. Apparently they're going somewhere. Cody follows. Not that he has much choice in the matter. Not if he wants to stay attached to his arm.
Chrissie leads him a little way down the hallway, then noses open a door. It opens into a room smaller than the one he and his brothers had ended up in, and which has a tiny wardrobe and a bed. And a Sith. On the bed. Half tangled in the sheets.
As Cody peers through the darkness, the Sith shifts sharply, restlessly, and makes a horrible hurt little whine.
Nightmare.
Cody steps forwards. He knows how to deal with nightmares. Has dealt with his brother's for years. And they're safe here. Nothing will hurt them. And if anything tries, Cody, Chrissie and the Sith will take care of it.
As Cody reaches the edge of the bed, the Sith turns, eyes still closed, and grabs. He wraps himself around Cody's middle as best he can without falling off the bed.
"Sunshine." The Sith murmurs, and tries to burrow closer.
Cody raises an eyebrow at Chrissie in query. She's lying in front of the door, guarding it. And just huffs at him.
Great. The sith chrysalide is laughing at him. If he ever gets off this planet, he's going to update the Kamino training modules to cover this situation.
Cody sighs and steps out of his boots, climbing up onto the bed. He props himself into the corner against the wall, and lets his Sith curl around him, head in his lap. He cards a hand through copper hair.
"Sleep." He commands. "I have the watch."
A moment later, Chrissie shifts a little, away from the door, which cracks open. Boil's helmet peers through the gap.
For kriffs sake.
Cody tilts his head back against the wall.
"All clear." He reports in a murmur to not wake his Sith. "Nightmares."
Boil's helmet nods but doesn't retreat.
Cody sighs.
"Fine. Get in."
The entire company file inside and settle themselves on the floor.
"He can feel us in the force." Cody explains.
"So think safe thoughts." Boil says with a smirk. "Got it, Commander."
"Go to sleep."
***
"My apologies for last night, Commander."
Ghost Company had split up and were exploring the ruins, the Sith tagging along with Cody.
Cody turns his head so he can send him a confused look.
"Ah, about the nightmares." His Sith explains, "I hadn't meant to disturb you."
Cody is even more confused.
"Is this a natborn thing, or a you thing, Sir?"
And now his Sith looks confused, a little crease appearing in his brow.
"I'm sorry?"
Cody takes a second to work out how best to resolve this communication difficulty.
"Clones are decommissioned if they fail to reach expectations." The furrow on the Sith's brow deepens. "We all have nightmares." Cody explains. "That's why we sleep in piles, to take and to offer comfort. It's normal and expected and not remotely the fault of the vod having the nightmare."
His Sith's confusion doesn't clear.
"But I took advantage, I -"
Is Cody's pretty Sith actually a di'kut? That's worrying.
"You called me sunshine and curled close for a cuddle." He says, and very carefully doesn't roll his eyes. "Neither of which I had any sort of problem with. Which you know because you can feel my emotions in the force."
His Sith pauses as if this is new information.
"You can, can't you?" Cody checks.
"Well, yes." His di'kut-of-a-sith admits.
There they go then.
"Why sunshine?" Cody asks. The way the Sith had said the word felt more like a description than a casual endearment. But he was asleep at the time.
His Sith flushes slightly, a light tint of pink dusting across the top of his cheekbones. Pretty.
"Everyone feels different in the force, my dear." His Sith explains. "And you taste like sunshine. Warm and steady. Unending. Calm and capable. Bright with love but shaped by thunderclouds of darkness. Rising through the dark of the night that formed you. You all are. Beautiful light shaped by darkness. But you in particular are breathtakingly lovely, Commander."
Cody's breath stutters. Damn.
"Thank you, Sir." Cody says, because manners are important.
His Sith rubs a hand over his beard to hide a smile. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes giving him away.
They continue on into the ruins in silence for a while, and now that Cody has space to think, mind not cluttered with the details of running an entire army, his thoughts turn to his brothers. One brother in particular.
"May I ask what's worrying you, Commander?"
Cody sighs. Ignores the eyes watching him from the shadows. They don't seem to be attached to any sort of body, they're just shadows. With eyes.
"My batchmate." He confesses. "Fox. He's on Coruscant, and there's something... something wasn't right before we left. Something's been wrong since the start of the war, and it's getting worse."
His Sith hums, sympathetic.
The eyes vanish from the shadows.
From around the corner, there's an angry "What the kriff now?" that Cody would recognise anywhere. "Take me back." Fox's voice demands.
Cody turns the corner, his Sith on his heels, and Fox spins, blaster out. Relaxes slightly when he catches sight of Cody. Shadows are writhing over his armour, sinking into it, and oozing back out again. Eyes peeking at them from over Fox's shoulders.
"Fascinating." His Sith breathes.
"Should have known this was your fault." Fox snipes, glaring at Cody.
"Rude."
Fox pinches the bridge of his nose and gestures at Cody's Sith with his blaster.
"I'm going to regret asking this, but why do you have a Sith?"
"Because."
Fox's face twists into an angry snarl.
"Get your own Sith if you want one so badly." Cody tells him. "This one's mine."
Fox rolls his eyes, but lowers his blaster.
"I had one. That's the problem."
The shadows suddenly dive into the side of Fox's head, who scrunches his face up in a silent snarl of pain. Cody tenses, not sure what - then the shadows have come out again. And they're holding something. Something that's dripping blood onto the stone floor. Fox looks at it with narrowed eyes.
"The kriff is that?"
That turns out to be a mind control chip, implanted in them as tubies, and with a list of orders coded onto it. Very much not the sort of orders likely to be put there by the Jedi.
Fox looks up and meets Cody's eyes across the medbay.
"The whole guard?" Cody asks quietly.
Fox nods shortly, and the shadows writhing over his armour all fade, as if they've been sucked into the white of the plastoid.
"Oh what new Sith karkery is this?" A voice says behind him.
Cody raises his eyebrows at Fox, who's looking past his shoulder, eyes full of calculating suspicion, and turns.
Stone is standing behind him, the rest of the Corries at his back, studying the shadows dancing across his armour with a resigned frown.
"Right." Artery declares. "Shank, I'll brief you." He turns to Cody. "Sir, I'd like to recommend leaving the guard to whatever sithy-osik is going on there. It'll only take a couple of hours to reconfigure this kit for human brain surgery. I'll be taking the chips out of the rest of you."
It figures that Artery doesn't trust eldritch Sith shadows to do decent brain surgery.
"Huh."
Cody turns slowly towards the noise. Stone is now standing on the other side of the medbay. "That's neat." He takes a step backwards, shadows rising up to swallow him, and reappears back in front of the rest of the guard.
"Out!" Artery demands. "I have a karking osik-tonne of surgery to prep for! And take your sithness out with you until you can prove it's sterile!"
As one, the guard fade from existence, Fox's evillist grin the last thing to vanish.
Cody's lying on a medbed, apparently he needs to recover from the brain surgery, which is banthakark - he's fine, when Fox fades back into existence. He's holding a slugthrower and has the decapitated head of the Chancellor of the Republic under the other arm. Cody decides it's best not to ask. Instead, he pulls out his datapad and slowly and deliberately adds it to his list of 'strange things Fox does'. Fox, the kriffer, doesn't rise to the bait. Cody is bored. The least Fox could do is entertain him.
"Where's your Sith?" Fox asks, "I have something to show him."
Cody narrows his eyes. Fox had best not be bringing courting gifts to his Sith. Though Cody's not at all sure that his Sith would have counted the Chancellor of the Republic as an enemy. Unless he'd hurt one of his chrysalides.
"Don't worry, Commander." Stone says, fading out of the shadows behind Fox's shoulder, "Commander Fox has a particularly dashing Jedi he lets torment him."
Stone expertly dodges Fox's aggressive elbow, and Cody perks up.
"Tell me everything."
Cody's Sith confirms that the decapitated head of the Chancellor of the Republic used to be part of a Sith, and Cody is suddenly extremely glad he's trapped on a communicationsless planet far from the war. That is not going to be a fun situation to sort out.
And it very much explains both why the Jedi were so surprised by their existence, and where the chips in their brains came from.
His Sith hums, pleased and amused.
"A quick review of the facts then, Commander." Cody narrows his eyes, something about that tone is suspicious. "You are clones of a highly dangerous creature." Oh no, this is not going - "You were modified, engineered, to make you faster, stronger, more dangerous. You were created by a Sith."
In the next medbed along, Wooley gasps in excitement.
"You are, in a definition of the term, Sith Chrysalides."
"Yes!" Wooley cheers, punching the air.
"Which means," Cody's Sith continues, "that I have absolutely no hesitation in welcoming you and all your brothers to the planet. Permanently. Or, well, for as long as you wish to stay. You fall under my protection. Legally. The city might need a little work before it's habitable, but I believe we have more than enough space."
Cody closes his eyes. They'll need food, supplies, but the Sith had said the land was fertile now, and the climate seemed good. They'll be able to grow most of what they need if the vode who arrive bring the necessary equipment with them. And with the guard able to travel across space in the shadows, communication won't be an issue. Once they've got some working ships here, they'll be free.
***
"Sir!"
Cody turns and glares at Waxer. He does not have a good feeling about this.
"Look!"
Cody braces himself and looks at the offered datapad, his pretty-sith peering over his shoulder.
It's a holo of a very unimpressed looking tooka. Dressed in a little outfit.
No. Absolutely not.
"Oh, how absolutely adorable." His pretty-sith murmurs.
Oh kriff No.
"Look," Waxer says again, voice bright with excitement. "There's more!"
No.
Cody's pretty-menace-of-a-sith leans over him to swipe through the holos. There are indeed more.
No. No. No.
"The Corries brought back some of those craft supplies you mentioned, do you think we could learn to knit? Do you think the chrysalides would like it?" Waxer asks, with a decent attempt at tooka eyes.
Cody sighs in defeat.
"I'm sure they'd be delighted." His absolute-annoyance-of-a-sith assures him.
Cody raises a dubious eyebrow.
"Even Alpha?"
His exceptionally-pretty-sith smirks at him. He really is stupidly pretty.
"Especially Alpha."
Cody watches the first of the cadets from Kamino march down the ramp of the ship.
"So." He says. Fox stares at him, suspicious. "Who's going to introduce Alpha to Alpha?"
Cody watches with narrowed eyes as a chrysalide stalks a squad of cadets along the bank of the lake. None of them have noticed its presence yet. The cadets move off the path to make way for Cody's Sith, who has his head buried in a datapad, apparently oblivious to everything. The chrysalide pounces, the cadets scatter with a snicker, and Cody's Sith goes flying into the lake.
Cody hums and makes a note of their squad number as the cadets playfully dogpile the chrysalide. That's a decent show of initiative.
His Sith comes to stand next to him with a playful scowl.
"A little warning, Sunshine?"
He's so pretty. Even sopping wet, covered in murky lake water. It's ridiculous.
His Sith looks at him sideways for a long minute, then takes a slow, deliberate step towards him.
Cody's heart thumps, and he hides a victorious smirk as he allows himself to be backed against the wall.
"May I ask, Commander," His Sith says innocently, as if he doesn't currently have his arms either side of Cody's head, pinning him in place, "if your mental shields are down deliberately?"
His Sith isn't showing, hasn't ever shown, any sign of it upsetting him, but still.
"I can put them back if it's a problem for you." He offers genuinely.
Something in his Sith's eyes softens.
"Oh my dear," he murmurs, and he's really very close. "Not at all."
Fingertips ghost down the side of Cody's face, barely brushing skin, and his breath catches in his throat. His Sith's eyes are more black than gold.
"Your thoughts never cross that line. Are never invasive, never make me feel uncomfortable. You admire, but you don't press." His hand comes to rest on the plastoid of his armour, directly over his heart. "You state I'm pretty like it's an objective fact." Which it is. "You like that you think I'm pretty." Which he does. "And that's it." His Sith shakes his head slightly in wonder, eyes wide. It's captivating. Makes warmth flow through him. "Your thoughts never go further, you never contemplate more. You treasure the feelings you have, utterly content."
Cody hadn't thought that was anything out of the usual. But he's not going to argue with his Sith about it. Not if his Sith is looking at him like that. Not when his Sith knows exactly what he's doing to Cody.
His Sith smirks at him, trouble and mischief and so, so pretty, and walks away. Cody stays where he is, against the wall, and watches him go.
"You are such a disgusting sap." Fox's voice says from the shadows.
Cody flips him off.
"Sir!" Boil calls. "Unknown ship, incoming!"
Cody scowls and grabs his bucket, heading for the landing pad, his Sith on his heels.
A kiffar Jedi strides down the ramp, a truly annoyed scowl on his face.
"FOXY!" He yells.
Behind him, Cody's Sith has frozen.
"Quin?"
The Jedi spins to face them.
"Obes??"
There's a moment of silence, then -
"You could have told me you weren't dead, you little kriffhead." The Jedi's eyes narrow. "I will tell you you're an idiot for that later. Now, have you seen an extremely handsome clone that tastes like cunning and conniving, like mercury and fire, like the crouch of a predator, light off a blade in the darkness?"
Ah, this must be the Jedi Fox is crushing on. His little kriffer of a batchmate has a decided advantage in their physical tussles now that he can teleport, but there is always psychological warfare.
"I'm afraid that Commander Fox has been taken ill." He tells Fox's Jedi. "It turns out he's allergic to baby rabbits, but for some reason he just can't stop petting them."
Fox's Jedi turns to him, head tilted in interest, gleeful trouble glittering in his eyes. Cody's expecting the hit from behind, takes it, and grins evilly as his head meets the ground. Grabs onto Fox's ankle and holds him in place. Mission accomplished.
"Lies and slander." Fox hisses.
"Oh, I don't know, Commander." Fox's Jedi purrs, "I think you'd look good with a cute little bunny."
"What do they teach them at Jedi school?" Waxer murmurs quietly. "I thought they were supposed to be emotionless religious monks? Do they hold actual classes on flirting?"
Fox is spinning his blaster threateningly in his hand, but hasn't actually shot his Jedi yet. Stone was right, Fox really likes him.
"Are you here to arrest me?" Fox asks casually.
Ah. Killing the Chancellor of the Republic probably did come with consequences. Consequences Fox is perfectly capable of avoiding. No, he wanted his Jedi to find him.
"I did have some questions-" Fox's Jedi starts, then tails off in confusion as Fox fades from view.
"What if I don't feel like answering them?" Fox asks from behind the Jedi, blaster tucked under his chin.
The Jedi swallows. Fox's blaster shifts with the movement.
"And you called me a sap." Cody scoffs. "Come on," he says to his Sith, "I feel a sudden need to be far away from here."
"Mmm." His Sith agrees, sly mischief dancing in his eyes. "I do agree, Commander. I don't believe our presence is required for this... questioning. I'm sure they'll find us when they've finished."
Brian comes skittering into view, tongue lolling, worms his way through the standoff, and crouches in front of Waxer with his shebs in the air in what his Sith had called a play bow.
"Sorry!" Wooley calls from his back. "No sense of dramatic timing, this one."
"Oh my Force," Fox's Jedi whispers in awe, staring at Wooley on top of Brian. Apparently completely distracted from Fox holding him at blaster point. Fox tilts his bucket to the sky. "They let you ride them?"
He turns pleading eyes on Cody's Sith.
"Quin, you know those eyes stopped working on me when we were still Padawans."
The Jedi pouts at him.
"And the pout." Cody's Sith says, amused. "Now, I believe you had some questions for the good Commander."
The Jedi blinks, freezes as he remembers where he is, Fox up close behind him with his blaster pressing under his chin, and tilts his head back even further until it's resting on Fox's shoulder.
"Foxy..." He starts, gazing up at him through his lashes.
"No."
Cody rolls his eyes and grabs his Sith's hand.
"Come on, Sweetheart. We can make what's left of your Jedi friend tea once Fox has finished with him."