Chapter Text
"We've received a comm from the Temple flight control. We've got a ship incoming, no name on the passenger manifest. But it's got a Jedi Master's authorisation codes."
Cody's fingers tightened on the edge of the holotable. It creaked, the metal protesting his heavy grip. He had to force himself to let go.
This was going to happen eventually. Cody knew that. The 212th had been without a General ever since their last one had died, and that had been several weeks since.
In a way, it was surprising that it had taken so long to replace him. Not that High General Obi-Wan Kenobi could be replaced so easily. His shadow loomed large on the Negotiator, his memory imprinted in every corridor.
He shouldn't have died. Not without Cody. Commanders were supposed to die protecting their jetii, not be stuck in orbit when their jetii got sniped in what was supposed to be a safe place. The shame and disgrace of letting his jetii die first were difficult to shake off.
Now, the wheels of the GAR had finally moved. The ship no doubt contained their new General, even if the orders hadn't come through yet. They would have to go back out into the warzone, and follow a different jetii into battle. The very thought made Cody sick to his stomach.
But he was a professional, and the world moved on as it always did. "Hangar Three has space. Direct the ship there, I'll go meet them directly."
It was good thing that he was wearing his helmet. His expression would have given away in a heartbeat what his voice did not. Boil still side-eyed him hard, not bothering to hide his skepticism.
"Do we have a room ready?" Cody asked Boil, hoping to distract him. They hadn't touched their General's quarters yet. Only Cody and the medical staff had override codes. He couldn't bring himself to box up his General's possessions to send back to the Temple.
"There's one officer's quarters not in use," Boil said. "We can put them in that."
Cody gave a sharp nod. "You sort that out. Crys, you have the bridge," he announced. "I'll go meet our new Jedi."
He strode out of the room without looking back. It was a long walk to Hangar Three, which was why Cody had chosen it. It gave him time to pull himself together.
He would be professional. He would greet his new General. He would accept the way that things were, instead of constantly brooding on what had happened. Cody had thousands of brothers to look after. He couldn't afford to let the weakness control him.
By the time he neared the hangar, Cody had reached some semblance of calm. Of course, that was when Crys commed him, his voice routing to Cody's helmet speakers.
"The passenger manifest has been updated," Crys said. "Commander, it's General Vos."
Cody stumbled. Vos? Their new General? Little gods, he hoped not. He'd experienced Vos before, and while he respected the jetii's abilities and competence, the man was not someone that Cody would be able to work with without grinding his teeth to rubble.
Vos was not made to lead troops. He was a Jedi Shadow, a lone operative. If the Council had resorted to putting Shadows in charge of battalions, then the war was in a very grim state indeed.
The dread that he thought he'd squashed was back with a vengeance. The hangar was right there around the corner, Cody no longer had an opportunity to pull himself back together before the jetii got close enough to sense his turmoil.
As he entered the hangar, the shuttle was going through the landing sequence. Cody wondered if he should get the troopers present to get into formation, then discarded the idea. There still hadn't been official confirmation of the transition of power.
The ramp was descending as Cody reached the shuttle. He stood near the bottom, falling into parade rest. Moments later, Vos came barrelling down the ramp, almost skidding to a halt at the bottom a few paces away from Cody.
The ramp immediately retreated. The shuttle hadn't even bothered turning the engines off. As Vos walked towards Cody, the shuttle lifted off the ground, leaving the jetii behind.
Cody saluted when Vos reached him, as perfect as any trainer on Kamino could demand. On the other hand, Vos looked a mess. His dreads were ragged, and his robes had soot stains on them.
"Welcome to the Negotiator, General," Cody greeted, shifting back into parade rest. Best to get this over with quickly. "Do you have orders for us?"
The question didn't have the reaction he was expecting. Vos seemed surprised by it, peering at Cody with a frown.
"I need to talk to you," he said instead of answering the question. He looked around the hangar, at the troopers stationed within it dealing with supplies. "In private. Is there a room we can use?"
Cody forced himself not to react outwardly. "My office will suit." He really should have offered his General's office, but they hadn't cleaned that out either. He would need to get someone on that before the end of the shift.
"That will do." Vos kept staring into the empty spaces around the hangar. Cody figured he had half the General's attention at best. It sent a flare of annoyance through him, one which he immediately tried to squash. Fortunately, it didn't seem that General Vos had noticed.
In fact, the man was surprisingly oblivious of the people around him for a jetii. Kenobi had always given off the impression that he was aware of everyone and everything around him. In the beginning, some of the braver troopers had tried to fool him by swapping armour. It never worked, Kenobi always addressing them by the correct names.
Vos remained restless as they walked to Cody's office, fidgeting with his robes. His energy was contagious enough that by the time they got there, Cody was clenching his fists to stop himself from doing something similar.
"After you," Cody said as he punched in the code. While Cody had an open door policy for his troopers, he still kept the room locked when he wasn't present. By the time Cody had stepped inside and the door clicked shut behind him, Vos was already settled in one of the uncomfortable chairs in front of Cody's desk.
Cody's eyes flicked between the other uncomfortable chair and his heavily modified one behind the desk, featuring a cushion stitched together from destroyed blankets with 212 embroidered in the corner. He then sat in the uncomfortable chair opposite Vos. This didn't feel like the sort of conversation he wanted to have across a desk.
When Vos didn't start talking, Cody started for them, going straight to the heart of the matter. "What can the 212th do for you, General? Will you be taking over command of the battalion?"
Vos startled. "Force, no."
Relief surged, followed by apprehension. If General Vos wasn't there to take up command, what was he there for? Vos' work as a Shadow very rarely coincided with theirs at the front lines of the war, except for when Kenobi was pulled away on those karking Jedi Council missions he always came back from injured.
Cody crossed his arms across his chest, tilting his head at Vos. "Then why are you here? Do you have a mission for us?"
Vos finally looked at Cody properly. The intensity of his gaze made it difficult to remember about the shabbiness of his appearance. It was suddenly very easy to remember that this man was a Jedi Master, and thus very dangerous.
"Not for the 212th, no," he said slowly. "But I do have one for you."
Cody's mind immediately went to the clusterfuck that had been Rex and the Zyggerians, right before their return to Coruscant. Rex had come back from that half-starved and covered in lashes. The memory didn't make Cody optimistic for his own chances in any mission Vos might lead.
He wanted to protest. His place was with the 212th and 7th Sky. Cody wasn't just any clone—he was responsible a full third of the GAR. Kenobi only got away with running off on his Council missions because Cody stayed behind to keep running the army in his place.
But orders were orders, and Vos outranked him. There was nothing he could do about it but grit his teeth and hope for the best.
"What are the mission parameters, sir?"
Vos slumped, running a hand over his face. "This is a top secret mission," he said, glancing at the shut door. "Only the Council know about it. Can know about it until after it's done."
Great. Not only was Cody going to have to follow Vos into whatever dangerous situation he was expecting, he wouldn't even be able to tell anyone else about it.
"There's no good way to say this, so I'm just going to spit it out," Vos continued. "Obi-Wan is alive."
Cody stared at Vos. There was a static-y sound in his ears. He reached up, fiddled with the antenna on the side of his helmet. Surely he had heard the man wrong.
"Come again?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi is alive," Vos repeated slowly. "The whole Rako Hardeen incident was a con so that he go undercover."
The words were beginning to sink in. Kenobi—alive? It seemed too good to be true. Cody had spent the past few weeks wishing that there had been some mistake, that Kenobi would come strolling onto the bridge, alive and with a quip in his mouth.
"It was a setup," Vos continued. "Obi-Wan is now impersonating Rako Hardeen. The aim was to prevent an assassination attempt on the Chancellor during the Festival of Light on Naboo and to apprehend Dooku if possible."
He'd thought that the assassination was suss, especially with the way the Jedi Council was handling it. However, Cody hadn't suspected it of being a cover. He'd thought that the Council were simply embarrassed about how easily one of their own had been killed on the doorstep of the Senate, when Coruscant was supposed to be relatively safe. A famous Jedi Master renowned for his fighting abilities, none the less. It wasn't a good look for them.
And he'd thought that Kenobi's other Council missions were karked. This one blew the rest of them out of the water.
"That festival was more than two weeks ago," Cody said with a frown as his mind ticked. "It went peacefully. There was no assassination attempt."
Vos' lips pursed. "Dooku twigged that we were onto him too soon. He's gone to ground."
Cody was starting to get a bad feeling about this. "General Kenobi hasn't returned to the Temple, has he?" He didn't even wait for Vos to respond, sighing deeply. "Of course he hasn't." If he had returned, he would have sent word to Cody—to the 212th. It wasn't like him to keep them in the dark about something so important as his continued survival.
Vos leaned forward. "Obi-Wan isn't trained in undercover work like a Shadow would be," he said. "This sort of mission should have been done by a Shadow, not him."
"General Kenobi has never had any problems with undercover work," Cody pointed out. They'd done more than their fair share for reconnaissance. Kenobi had always surprised him by how easily he was able to pretend to be someone else, once he'd discarded his distinctive jetii robes and hidden his lightsaber.
"It's not his skill level. It's his mindset."
At Cody's questioning tilt, Vos continued. "Deep undercover work is different to reconnaissance," he said. "You need to be able to compartmentalise. Know when to come back out again, and not have it adversely affect your psyche. Shadows spent years learning his skill. Obi-Wan… we both know he's always cared too much to be a Shadow."
"Then why was he the one doing this?" Cody challenged. "If the Council needed him to die, he could have just stayed out of the spotlight while a Shadow did the work."
Vos grimaced. "The Chancellor requested him personally for this mission. The Council has yet to figure out how to say no to him."
Of course. It was always the karking Chancellor. He was a politician, not a soldier, and had no business getting into the detail of the war. Those times when he stuck his nose in never went well, the current situation being proof of that.
"What's he trying to do, then? Get at Dooku, kill off the bastard?" He knew even as he said it that it was wrong. Kenobi wasn't one for shadowy assassinations—Cody knew him better than that.
"Worse," Vos said. "We think he's trying to find the Sith Master."
That sent a chill right through Cody. He'd heard the rumours that there was another Sith, possibly one even more powerful than Dooku. The knowledge that they had of the Sith, the timelines that went from Maul to Dooku, indicated that there had to be someone else involved.
They were only ever rumours. No one had ever found any proof, no matter how hard they looked. The Sith Master remained a mystery, and it scared Cody that Dooku might not be the worst they had to worry about.
But he understood Kenobi's mindset. "If he finds them, he could end the war," Cody said quietly. "He'd be willing to risk anything to make that happen, especially himself."
Vos' eyes slipped closed for a moment. When they opened again, Cody could have sworn he saw a hint of yellow, gone too soon to be certain. "I thought so too. It didn't work out for me either."
Cody inhaled sharply. This was another set of rumours he'd heard thanks to his high rank. Vos had disappeared for months, and when he emerged the jetii were tight-lipped about where he had been. The hint that Vos had just dropped went beyond even Cody's speculation of what might have happened.
"It's why I know that this will destroy him. He's surrounded himself by the scum of the galaxy, cut himself off from the Force to prevent giving himself away. And he's gone straight for the darkest influence he could possibly find, without any protection."
"Surely he knows what he's doing," Cody said. It was difficult to get the words out.
"He cannot do this without Falling," Vos said, leaning forward. There was a note of finality in his voice. "Even if he finds the Sith Master, it won't matter. He will Fall, and there won't be anything left of Obi-Wan Kenobi to come back to us. No one wants to see what will rise in his place."
Cody wanted to rage against Vos, to question his conviction. Kenobi was stronger than that, he wouldn't Fall—he couldn't Fall.
But at the same time, Cody understood that not even Kenobi was invincible. His General could break, just like any other sentient. He could Fall.
And that was unacceptable to Cody.
"So why are you here?" he asked bluntly. "If he's not come back of his own accord, you should have dragged him back by his ears by now."
Vos looked askance at him for a long moment before he barked out a laugh. "I'm starting to understand how you've managed to keep up with him," he said.
"That doesn't answer my question. Do you even know where he is?"
"Oh, I do," Vos said. "And that's exactly my problem." The laughter died away as quickly as it had arrived. "He's still with Cad Bane and Dooku. I've tracked them down to the Pyke homeworld of Oba Diah."
"Then why are you here?" Cody ground out again. His headache was growing with his frustration.
"Because I can't get to him in time, not by myself," Vos said. There was an expression of annoyance on his face, but it wasn't directed at Cody—it was directed at himself. "The Pyke Syndicate have me on their list. By the time I manage to get anywhere near him, he'll be long gone."
Cody's eyes narrowed. "You need backup."
"You're the closet battalion to Coruscant who don't already have an assignment. I need a ship, and a couple of troopers who can handle a mission that's likely to go belly-up the moment we arrive."
Then his mouth quirked. "Plus, you're Obi-Wan's battalion," he added. "I'm hoping that gives some incentive to bring him back alive."
Cody's mind was already working. He had an idea of who would be best to go on a mission like this, and was already mentally putting together the roster and supply list. "You didn't mention a pilot."
"I've already got one," Vos said.
A moment later, Cody's helmet comm came alive. "Commander, we've got a Jedi fighter incoming—it's General Skywalker piloting."
Based on the way Vos was looking at him, he knew exactly what Cody had just been told. "No offence to your pilots, but they fly like military. It's obvious to anyone who looks. It would give us away before we even landed. I needed someone a little more—"
"Insane?" Cody suggested wryly. "Prone to crashing everything he touches?"
Vos didn't dispute that. No one who had ever experienced Skywalker's flying could do so.
"More than that, he's my backup plan," Vos said. "If anyone is capable of talking Obi-Wan down, it's Skywalker. It might take the both of us to drag him out of there, if he resists."
Vos had a point there. Kenobi loved Skywalker dearly, not to mention Skywalker was a deadly warrior. With Dooku potentially involved, they needed every edge they could get. While Cody doubted either Vos or Skywalker were capable of taking Dooku down by themselves, together they might be enough.
Cody turned his comm on. "Send him to the briefing room when he gets here—we have a mission to plan. I need a shuttle fit-out for departure in four hours. Pick the one that's most beat-up that is still capable of flying." That would be plenty of time to put together some semblance of a plan while his chosen troopers got prepped to leave. He'd send the orders through to them personally—best to keep this out of official channels as much as possible.
He stood, Vos following. "After you," he said, gesturing at the door. The jetii gave him a long, considering look before leaving Cody's office.
With him gone, Cody took a moment to just breathe. He had learned a lot of intel in a short amount of time, and it had thrown him more than he would like. He couldn't afford the weakness, not now. Not until he had his General back on board.
Whether he liked or not, General Kenobi was going to come back. And when he did—him and Cody were going to have words.