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The call came at 02:17 Coruscant Standard Time. That in itself tipped Cody off that something was wrong. Fox did not call people in the middle of the night unless someone was dead, actively dying, or had somehow set part of Coruscant on fire again.
Cody woke instantly, years of war having trained that into him. One second he was asleep, and the next he was fully conscious, hand already moving toward the comm unit beside his bunk before his eyes had even adjusted to the dim light of the quarters aboard the Negotiator.
The room was quiet except for the low thrum of the ship’s engines. The incoming signal on his comm flashed red with Fox’s information displayed across the screen. Cody accepted the transmission immediately.
Blue holographic light flickered to life above the projector, resolving into the familiar armored form of Commander Fox. His bucket was on and his shell was scuffed and dirty. One shoulder plate cracked near the edge. He looked like osik.
Which was admittedly not unusual for Fox. The Guard commander had looked exhausted since approximately the second month of the war. But this was different. There was something wrong with the way he stood, Cody could tell. He was too still. Too alert.
“Fox?”
Fox didn’t answer immediately, instead looking over his shoulder, checking the room behind him.
Cody sat up straighter almost instantly. That was not normal. Not from Fox. Not from the clone who routinely bullied senators for entertainment and once threatened one of the long-necks with a cafeteria tray.
“Hey,” Fox said finally. The vocoder flattened his voice, but it couldn’t fully hide the exhaustion underneath it. Or the tension. He sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with the amount of sleep he was—or rather, wasn’t—getting.
“What happened?” Cody asked immediately.
Fox ignored the question completely. Which, to be fair, was very in character. “Cody, I need you to listen to me carefully.”
Something cold settled low in Cody’s stomach. The kind of instinctive cold soldiers learned the hard way not to ignore. “Fox.”
“If the Chancellor ever calls you,” Fox said, each word clipped and deliberate, “don’t pick up.”
“What?”
“Do not answer communications from the Chancellor.”The seriousness in Fox’s voice was immediate and absolute. He wasn’t joking. But that made no sense.
Cody frowned harder. “Fox-”
“I mean it.”
There it was again, that sharpness. It wasn’t his normal irritation. It sounded a lot more like fear. And not for himself, either. For Cody.
Cody had known Fox since birth. They had shared a tube on Kamino. Shared training halls. Shared punishments. Shared languages and bruises and secrets and idiotic ideas.
He knew what Fox sounded like angry. He knew what Fox sounded like tired. He knew what Fox sounded like right before he made stupid decisions. This sounded like him when he was terrified.
“Fox,” Cody said carefully, “I can’t ignore the Chancellor.”
“You can,” Fox snapped immediately, “and you will.”
The force behind the words startled him. Fox leaned slightly closer to the projector without seeming aware he was doing it. “Do you understand me?”
Cody stared at the hologram in shock. Fox never sounded like this. Never.
“What is this about?”
Fox went completely still. For one horrible moment Cody thought the transmission had frozen. Then Fox looked away again.
“I can’t tell you.” The words came out strained, like they physically hurt to say.
Cody’s confusion was rapidly turning into genuine alarm. “What do you mean you can’t?”
Fox’s gloved hand tightened around the edge of whatever console he was standing beside. Even through the hologram, Cody could see the faint tremor in his fingers.
Fox swallowed. “Just-” He stopped. Started again. “Please.”
That alarmed Cody more than shouting would have. Fox didn’t beg. Fox ordered people around. Fox threatened senators. Fox insulted admirals so creatively it became an art form. Fox did not say please like his life depended on it.
“Don’t answer his calls,” Fox whispered.
“Why?”
Fox closed his eyes briefly behind the helmet. Cody couldn’t see it, but he knew anyway. Twins always knew.
“I hope,” Fox said slowly, carefully, “that you never understand.”
Something icy slid down Cody’s spine. “Fox, you’re scaring me.”
A weak laugh crackled through the vocoder. “Yeah.” A pause. “So am I.”
Cody opened his mouth again. Fox cut him off before he could speak. “This is the last call.”
Cody froze. “What?”
“Goodbye, Kote.”
Cody’s breath caught sharply. Fox never used Mando’a unless it mattered. Not really, not anymore. Kamino had spent years trying to beat their culture out of them, and most of the clones used the language sparingly now. Carefully. Privately. Fox rarely slipped into it.
“Fox.” No response. “Fox!”
Fox looked over his shoulder again, checking the hallway’s shadows. Checking for listeners that Cody suddenly suspected were very real.
Then finally, softly: “Take care of your Jedi.”
Cody blinked. “What?”
“Promise me.”
Cody frowned deeply. “Fox, what-?”
“Promise me.” Fox’s voice cracked through the transmission, urgent and desperate.
Cody answered instantly, “I promise. Fox, what’s going on?”
Fox exhaled shakily. The sound distorted badly through the vocoder. “Good.”
“Fox-“
“Tell Wolffe not to answer either.”
Cody stared. “What?”
“And Bly.”
“Fox-“
“And Ponds. And Rex if he’s still in range.”
Cody’s pulse began hammering harder “Fox.”
“I’m sorry,” Fox whispered, and the transmission cut.
The projector went dark, and silence filled the quarters.
Cody sat motionless in the dim light, staring at the empty space where his twin had been. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Cody called back immediately. There was no response. Again. Nothing. Again. Still nothing.
By morning he had contacted Wolffe. Then Bly. Then Ponds. He couldn’t reach Rex as he was out of range. But every single one had received the same call. They’d all had different wording, but at their core they’d been the same message. Don’t answer the Chancellor. Protect your Jedi. Run if you have to.
Wolffe looked furious when they compared notes over secure comms. Bly looked genuinely shaken. Ponds was solemn. Cody just felt sick.
“What the hell does he know?” Wolffe growled.
Nobody had an answer.
Rex contacted them two days later. “Fox called Anakin.”
Cody looked up sharply. “What did he say?”
Rex hesitated. “…The same thing.”
Apparently Skywalker had demanded answers. Apparently Fox had refused to give them. Then, according to Rex, Fox had ordered Anakin to stay the hell away from the Chancellor, which had nearly caused a diplomatic incident all by itself. After that, Fox vanished back into Coruscant.
The calls stopped. And no matter how many times Cody tried to reach him—Fox never answered again.
For a year, nothing happened. Life continued, the war continued. The Republic continued its slow-motion collapse while everyone pretended not to notice. And gradually, horribly, Cody began wondering if maybe Fox had finally cracked under the pressure. Nobody could survive Coruscant forever.
Then the HoloNet exploded.
TREASON WITHIN THE JEDI ORDER
CHANCELLOR ALMOST ASSASSINATED
JEDI COUP ATTEMPT
EMERGENCY MILITARY DIRECTIVES AUTHORIZED
The reports flooded every military frequency simultaneously. They were confusing and contradictory.
Cody stared at the holoscreen from the bridge of the Negotiator, unease twisting harder and harder in his chest with every update. Around him, the 212th murmured in confusion. Obi-Wan stood beside the central holotable, frowning thoughtfully at the incoming information.
Then Cody’s comm chimed. He checked it instinctively. It was Fox. Cody answered instantly.
Static exploded through the line, and blasterfire echoed somewhere in the background. There was shouting, and sirens.
“Kote.” Fox sounded more exhausted than Cody had ever heard him.
“Fox!”
“Listen carefully.”
Cody’s stomach twisted violently. “What happened?”
“I was too late.” Fox’s voice broke.
“Fox-”
“He gave the order.”
“What-?”
Fox kept speaking quickly, like he was racing a countdown only he could hear. “Whatever happens next—” A burst of static swallowed half the sentence. “—not your fault.”
“Fox, what order?”
The only response was harsh breathing. Then: “Get away from the Chancellor’s office.”
“We’re not on Coruscant.”
“Good.”The sheer relief in Fox’s voice was painful.
“Fox, tell me what’s happening.”
Fox didn’t answer for a moment. Then, very softly: “He found out.”
Cody’s blood ran cold. “Who found out what?”
Fox ignored the question again. “Take your men and leave if you can. Keep your Jedi safe.”
“What about you?”
Cody knew immediately that that was the wrong question. Because Fox went quiet.
“…I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Cody begged. “Fox, what do you mean?”
“I’m on Coruscant.”
Like that explained everything. Maybe it did.
“The Guard-” Fox stopped abruptly. Cody heard shouting in the background. The blasterfire was closer now.
“Fox?”
“Listen to me.” The command snapped through the line like a whip. It was pure commander. “If something feels wrong, trust it.”
Cody’s chest tightened painfully. “Fox-“
“Protect your Jedi.”
The transmission crackled violently. Then Fox said, so quietly Cody almost missed it: “I’m glad you won’t understand now.”
“Fox-”
“This is goodbye, vod.”
“No.”
Fox laughed weakly. “You always were stubborn.”
“Fox.”
“Tell your General I’m sorry.”
The transmission died and left Cody standing motionless on the bridge. The silence around him felt unreal.
Obi-Wan stepped closer carefully. “Commander?”
Cody looked up slowly. For the first time in his life, he truly understood fear. Fox had spent an entire year trying to save them. And whatever terrible thing was happening now—whatever horror had finally escaped—his twin had been trapped in it alone the entire time.
“Commander?”
Cody’s head snapped to look at Obi-Wan. “We’re going to Coruscant.”
Around the bridge, every clone went still. Obi-Wan frowned immediately. “Commander-”
“No.” Cody turned fully toward him, jaw tight beneath his helmet. “No, General. Something is very wrong.”
The words felt painfully inadequate. Wrong did not cover this. Wrong did not explain the sick, crawling feeling under Cody’s skin. Wrong did not explain the way every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to run toward Coruscant and drag his vod out of whatever nightmare he’d been trapped in.
Fox had sounded terrified. Fox. Fox, who once got stabbed through the shoulder and insulted the attacker while patching himself up. Fox, who routinely threatened senators for fun. Fox, who had spent their entire lives surviving things specifically designed to kill them. And now he sounded exhausted and resigned in the same breath. Cody’s stomach twisted.
“He said the Chancellor gave an order,” Obi-Wan said carefully.
“Yes.”
“And you believe this concerns us?”
Cody looked at him sharply. “You heard him.”
Obi-Wan’s expression tightened, and that was answer enough.
His comm chimed again with a priority military frequency. Supreme Chancellor authorization, it read on his screen. Cody stared at the blinking notification. Then remembered Fox’s voice. Don’t answer.
Very slowly, Cody reached over, and shut the comm off entirely. The relief that tore through him was immediate and visceral, cutting through the building sense of dread he had not even realized was occurring.
Obi-Wan noticed, because of course he did. “Commander?”
Cody looked up sharply. “General,” he said, voice low and urgent, “I need you to trust me right now.”
Obi-Wan held his gaze for one long second. Then nodded once. “Alright.”
Cody immediately turned toward the bridge crew. “All GAR communications from Coruscant are blocked. Nobody answers direct Chancellor channels. Nobody.”
The 212th obeyed instantly. They might not’ve understood, but they knew Cody. If he said no, then there was a damned good reason for it.
The Negotiator changed course less than three minutes later, heading straight for Coruscant.
The closer they got to the capital, the worse things became. Military frequencies were chaos, filled with screaming and blasterfire. Conflicting orders flooding every available channel. Which meant Coruscant was probably already self-destructing.
The moment the Negotiator dropped out of hyperspace, Cody felt his stomach drop clean through the floor. Coruscant was on fire, and Cody didn’t mean metaphorically. It was actually burning.
Smoke curled up from multiple districts across the planet-city. Gunships streaked through the skylanes. Explosions lit up the street in poor imitations of fireworks.
The military broadcasts screamed over each other in overlapping panic. The Coruscant Guard had apparently locked down entire sectors. Civilian riots had broken out in others.
Obi-Wan stared at the planet in stunned silence. “…Oh dear.”
That was one way to put it. Cody’s comm crackled violently. A vaguely familiar voice shouted through static. “—all units fall back—” It was interrupted by more blasterfire and screaming.
The Negotiator barely made it through Coruscant airspace. The moment they crossed into the Senate district, every available battery on the surface locked onto them. Guard-controlled anti-air.
Cody’s stomach dropped further. Fox controlled those guns. Or had.
“Commander, we’re being targeted!”
“I noticed!”
The first shot nearly clipped the cruiser’s wing. The second one was closer. The third disabled a support frigate beside them.
Obi-Wan grabbed the nearest console to steady himself as the ship lurched violently. “Are they trying to kill us?!”
Cody stared at the tactical display. At the Guard formations surrounding the Senate. Or, more specifically, the way they moved. It was precise and mechanical. Wrong.
“No,” Cody whispered. “They’re trying to kill you.”
The realization hit both of them simultaneously. Keep your Jedi safe. Stay away from Coruscant.
The clones weren’t choosing this. Cody felt sick. “General,” he said immediately, “you need to get off this ship.”
Obi-Wan looked personally offended. “Absolutely not.”
“Sir-“
“I am not abandoning your brother.”
“That’s not-“
“Nor am I abandoning you.”
Another explosion rocked the cruiser, and the bridge lights flickered violently. Somewhere deeper in the ship, alarms began screaming.
“They can’t control it, can they?” Obi-Wan asked softly. Cody didn’t answer.
Getting planetside was a disaster. They’d eventually had to take a pod down with a few members of the 212th as backup. Cody had very firmly told them that they were not to leave the ship unless explicitly called for.
As Obi-Wan and him ran through Coruscant’s backstreets, he was glad for it. The Senate district had become a war zone. Burned speeders littered the streets, gunships had crashed into skyscrapers overhead, and smoke poured from shattered windows.
Everywhere Cody looked were members of the Coruscant Guard. Red armor moving through the streets in terrifyingly organized formations. Some fired on civilians, some on Jedi. Some on each other.
Cody saw one Corrie shoot another point blank after the second trooper hesitated to fire on a group of younglings. The hesitation lasted less than a second. The execution lasted even less.
Obi-Wan went white beneath the soot and ash. “Oh Force…”
“They’re fighting it,” Cody realized.
Because some of the Guard were hesitating. Some were actively turning their weapons on each other. Whatever was happening wasn’t a clean control.
“Fox is alive.”
Obi-Wan looked over sharply. “How do you know?”
“Because if he was dead,” Cody said grimly, “the Guard would already have won.”
The further they went into the Senate district the more clear it became that this wasn’t a battle. It couldn’t even be called a war zone anymore. It was hell. The Corrie commanders had barricaded entire sectors around the Senate building. It seemed to be Fox’s men against the Chancellor’s controlled forces. Clone against clone. Brothers killing brothers in the streets of Coruscant while the city burned around them.
Cody had seen battlefields less horrific. Everywhere he looked there were red-armored bodies. Some were dead, some were wounded, and some were still trying to crawl back into the fight.
And through all of it echoed one constant order in a voice Cody didn’t recognize over military frequencies: Execute Order 66. Over. And over. And over again.
Cody was starting to feel it scratching at the edge of his own thoughts, pulling and insistent. He shook it off. Wrong.
Obi-Wan glanced at him sharply once. “Cody?”
“I’m fine.” It came out too quickly. He wasn’t fine. None of them were.
Eventually, they found Fox. Or rather, Fox found them first. A group of Guard troopers rounded the corner ahead, weapons raised. Cody moved automatically in front of Obi-Wan.
The troopers froze. Every rifle remained trained directly at the Jedi. One stepped forward slowly. The clone bore commander markings on his shell. His red-striped kama was torn almost completely through, his bucket was cracked down one side, blood soaked into the paint. It was Fox.
Cody’s chest tightened painfully. Fox swayed slightly where he stood. Staying upright clearly required immense concentration on his part.
“Fox!”
The commander’s helmet tilted toward him. For one awful second, Cody thought he was going to open fire. Then Fox’s rifle lowered.
“Kote,” Fox rasped. There was no comm between them to hide the strain anymore. Or the pain.
Obi-Wan stepped forward carefully. “Commander Fox-”
Every weapon in the squad snapped toward Obi-Wan instantly. Fox jerked violently, like someone had hooked wires into his spine, and was playing a bad puppeteer.
His breathing hitched sharply. “Don’t,” he choked out. “Please don’t come closer.”
Obi-Wan stopped immediately. Fox’s entire body was trembling now, blaster shaking in his grip. The other Corrie commanders behind him looked barely better. Thorn had blood running down one arm. Stone looked half-conscious. Thire’s face was split open. Several troopers had removed pieces of their own armor at some point, exposing bloody surgical cuts along the backs of their heads. Cody wasn’t sure why.
“They’re fighting the control,” Obi-Wan realized softly.
Fox laughed, but it came out broken and exhausted. “Trying. Karking chips-!” his voice lilted up in a pained gasp as his entire body locked rigid. Every Corrie in the squad stiffened simultaneously. Cody felt the shift in the air immediately.
Fox made a horrible choking sound. “Run,” he gasped.
“Fox-”
“RUN!” The word ripped out of Fox like it hurt. Every Corrie behind him jerked violently in unison. Blasters twitched upward toward Obi-Wan. Toward the Jedi.
Cody moved instantly, shoving Obi-Wan backward just as the first shot went wide. Fox had fired it deliberately off target. Cody knew he had. Fox never missed.
The street exploded into chaos. Blasterfire lit the smoke-choked avenue in violent red flashes. Guard troopers staggered as they fought themselves for control of their own bodies. Some managed to angle shots away at the last second. Others physically grabbed their brothers’ rifles and forced them toward the ground.
One Corrie screamed, distorted and raw with agony, “I CAN’T STOP-!”
A blaster bolt tore through the side of his shoulder as another Guard tackled him sideways before he could fire at Obi-Wan again. Clone against clone. Brother against brother.
All while whatever chips Fox was talking about clawed at their minds like parasites. Fox stumbled hard, one hand slamming against the wall beside him. His rifle shook violently. It pointed at Obi-Wan. Then away. Then back again. Every movement looked agonizing.
“Fox!” Cody shouted.
Fox’s head snapped toward him. For one split second, Cody saw his brother underneath the programming. Terrified.
“Get him out of here,” Fox choked out, as another violent tremor wracked his body. “Kote, there’s chips, mind, don’t listen to radio—” Fox doubled over suddenly with a sharp, strangled gasp.
The Force shifted sickeningly around them, and every Corrie in the street froze. Then, in horrifying synchronization, they all turned towards Obi-Wan.
Cody’s blood ran cold. “Oh no.”
Fox’s rifle came up with the others. This time he couldn’t stop it.
Cody grabbed Obi-Wan bodily and threw both of them behind a crashed speeder as the entire squad opened fire. The barrage annihilated the vehicle in seconds. Chunks of molten metal exploded outwards, while smoke filled the street.
Obi-Wan’s lightsaber flashed into motion beside Cody, batting away bolts too close to dodge. But neither of them attacked back. Neither of them could.
Because those were clones. Because those were Fox’s men. And because half the troopers firing were crying. Cody could hear it.
One Guard repeatedly slamming his own helmet against the wall between shots like he could knock the chip loose through sheer force. Another screaming stop over an open comm channel.
Fox said nothing. Every ounce of his concentration had narrowed into fighting his own body. He moved like he was underwater.
His rifle tracked Obi-Wan’s movements with terrible precision. Then jerked sharply aside at the last second every time he tried to fire. The shots kept missing by inches. Deliberately.
Fox was still fighting, even now.
“Cody,” Obi-Wan said tightly while deflecting another bolt, “we cannot stay here.”
“No shit!”
Another explosion rocked the street. More Guard reinforcements poured in from adjoining alleys, dozens of red-armored troopers all moving with eerie, synchronized purpose. The chip-controlled clones.
Unlike Fox’s squad, they moved smoothly. There was no hesitation. No fighting themselves. No mercy. Cody saw one of them aim directly at a wounded Corrie trying to rip his own helmet off. The trooper fired without pause and the wounded Guard dropped instantly.
Fox made a small, destroyed sound. There was a sudden lull in blasterfire as Fox’s group of Corries seemed to gain back control.
“THORN!” The shout cracked through the street. One of the commanders Cody vaguely recognized looked up sharply. Fox pointed violently toward a side corridor. Thorn reacted immediately.
He slammed bodily into two nearby controlled troopers, shoving them off balance long enough to create an opening.
“GO!” Fox roared.
Cody didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Obi-Wan’s arm and ran. The Jedi followed instantly, blue lightsaber flashing through smoke and debris as blasterfire erupted behind them.
The side streets of Coruscant had become a battlefield maze. The sirens were still screaming overhead as the persistent explosions shook nearby buildings hard enough to rain glass down around them.
And everywhere, clones fought themselves. Cody saw a shiny holding his own blaster under his chin while another trooper desperately tried to wrestle it away. Saw two others physically restraining a third as he begged them to kill him before he hurt another Jedi.
Saw Coruscant Guard troopers ripping chunks of armor off their own bodies trying to reach the chips embedded in their skulls. The screams followed them through every street.
Obi-Wan looked sick. “Force,” he whispered as they ducked behind another barricade. “They’re suffering. I can feel it.”
Cody checked the street corner before answering. “Yes.” The word came out flat and tight. There wasn’t enough room inside him right now for anything except focus.
If he stopped moving—if he thought too hard about what was happening—he might break.
His comm crackled suddenly and the ever present static flooded the channel.
“Kote.”
Cody grabbed the receiver instantly. “Fox! You’re back!”
Heavy breathing answered him first. Then Fox speaking through gritted teeth. “They’re heading your way.”
“You alright?”
“Do I sound alright to you?”
Cody closed his eyes briefly. “Where are you headed?”
There was another pause, longer this time. “Away from you.”
Cody’s head snapped up. “Fox-“
“Get off the planet. I told you not to come.”
“Absolutely not.”
A rough sound crackled through the comm, half laugh and half despair. “Knew you’d say that.”
Something exploded loudly near Fox’s end of the transmission, shouting erupting in the background. Cody heard Thorn yelling orders somewhere nearby.
Fox inhaled sharply. “Kote.” The word was quieter this time.
Cody’s chest tightened painfully. “Yeah?”
“If we lose control-”
“No.”
“Listen to me.” Cody clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt, but Fox continued anyways, “If we lose control completely, you do not hesitate.”
Obi-Wan looked at Cody carefully. Cody couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. He knew exactly what Fox meant. Fox knew Cody understood too.
“You shoot first,” Fox said softly. “You hear me?”
“No.”
“Kote-“
“No.”
Fox went quiet. Then, very tiredly: “Why are you so stubborn?”
“You’re my brother.”
Another explosion thundered through the comm line. Fox coughed harshly. “I know.”
Fox’s voice sharpened suddenly, back to military again. “They found you.”
Cody spun around. Red armor flooded the avenue. There were at least fifty troopers, all moving in that eerie synchronization, weapons already raised.
Obi-Wan ignited his saber instantly. Blue light reflected off shattered glass and smoke.
Fox swore violently through the comm. “Get out of there!”
“We’re not leaving you!”
“You can’t help me if you’re dead!”
The first volley slammed into the barricade hard enough to punch chunks of concrete into the air. Cody returned fire automatically while Obi-Wan deflected bolts beside him.
There were too many, and more kept coming. The Chancellor was throwing the entire Guard at them. No. Not the Guard. Their bodies.
Cody saw familiar markings among the attacking troops. Men he recognized. Men Fox knew. Men who had probably stood beside Fox for years. All now moving like puppets.
Obi-Wan blocked another barrage before looking sharply at Cody. “We need to move.”
Cody fired twice more before backing toward the alley. “We’ve got to get Fox.”
“Cody-”
“No.” The word came out iron-hard. “We’re not leaving this planet without my brother.”
Another barrage exploded around them. Cody barely noticed. “He fought the chip for us.”Blasterfire scorched the wall inches from his bucket.
Obi-Wan stared at him for one long second. “You already decided before we left the Negotiator, didn’t you?”
Cody looked toward the distant Senate building burning against the Coruscant skyline.
“Yeah,” Cody said. Then he reloaded his rifle. “We’re bringing my brother home.”
Everywhere they went, there was fire. The path to the Jedi Temple was littered with dead bodies. Entire skylanes had collapsed into the lower levels, twisted metal and shattered transparisteel raining endlessly into the abyss below. Smoke rolled between buildings in thick black waves, turning the endless cityscape into something apocalyptic.
Emergency sirens wailed from every direction at once until the sound blurred into one endless mechanical scream beneath the thunder of blasterfire. The closer Cody and Obi-Wan got to the Jedi Temple, the worse it became.
Obi-Wan had gone completely silent. It wasn’t the thoughtful quiet Cody was used to. This silence felt hollow and stunned.
His lightsaber remained ignited in his hand, even though there was nobody immediately around them to fight. Blue light flickered across ruined streets and smoke-darkened walls as they moved.
Then Cody saw the youngling, and his stomach lurched. The kid was small. He couldn’t have been older than seven, and there he lay, curled against the base of a shattered fountain, still wearing Temple robes, dead.
Obi-Wan stopped walking and Cody stopped too. The Jedi Master stared at the child for a very long time without speaking, the firelight reflecting strangely in his eyes. Cody turned for a moment to give his General privacy. Around them, Coruscant continued burning.
Obi-Wan finally stepped forward slowly and knelt beside the body. His hand hovered for half a second before gently brushing soot-dark curls back from the child’s forehead. The movement was painfully careful.
Cody suddenly understood why Fox had sounded so desperate. Why Fox had called every batchmate he had left and begged them not to answer Palpatine. Because this was what happened if the order went through. This wasn’t war. It wasn’t even combat. It was slaughter.
Obi-Wan rose after another long moment. When he turned back toward Cody, he looked older somehow.
“We need to keep moving,” he said quietly.
Cody nodded once, and did not mention the trembling in Obi-Wan’s hands. It was the one kindness he could give him right now.
The Temple came into view twenty minutes of walking later. Or what was left of it. Cody stopped dead in the middle of the ruined avenue. “Oh.” The word escaped before he could stop it.
The Jedi Temple was burning. Massive sections of the upper towers had collapsed inward, sending plumes of black smoke spiraling into the night sky. Fires raged behind shattered windows. The grand staircase leading to the entrance was cratered and scorched black with blaster marks.
Bodies covered the steps. So many bodies. Jedi robes mixed with white plastoid armor and the red markings of the Coruscant Guard. The clones stationed here had fought hard. Cody could see that immediately.
Dozens of dead troopers positioned like they had made their final stand on those stairs. Against Jedi. Against their own brothers. Against themselves. The smell hit next. The mix of smoke, blood, electricity, and burned flesh made Cody nauseous. He swallowed hard. Obi-Wan had gone frighteningly still beside him.
Cody looked at Obi-Wan carefully as the Jedi Master stared up at the burning Temple without blinking. Then his gaze shifted lower, towards the bodies. Towards the familiar faces of people he knew.
Cody watched recognition hit him over and over again. A Master near the staircase. Temple Guards cut down near the entrance. Padawans. Knights. Clones. Friends. The sheer scale of it seemed to hollow Obi-Wan out from the inside.
“General…”Obi-Wan didn’t answer and Cody stepped closer cautiously. “Obi-Wan.”
That finally got a reaction. Obi-Wan blinked once, like he’d forgotten where he was, then inhaled shakily. “The children...”The words came out barely above a whisper.
Cody didn’t know what to say. Because yes. There had been children. And the clones had still come. The chips had still made them come.
A blaster shot cracked somewhere inside the Temple, and both men snapped instantly back into motion. Shots meant survivors.
Cody raised his rifle immediately. “There are still people inside.”
Obi-Wan held his saber more firmly in response. The exhaustion vanished from his posture. Cody watched him bury his grief for a later date. For now, there was still work to be done.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “There are.”
The Temple’s inside looked like a massacre. It was a massacre. The grand entrance hall had become a graveyard. Broken marble columns littered the floor. Blaster scoring covered every surface. Smoke drifted lazily through shattered ceilings overhead while emergency lights bathed everything in dim red.
There were bodies everywhere. Some clones still had their helmets on. Some didn’t. Cody almost wished they all had.
One trooper lay slumped beside a dead Jedi Knight, their hands still locked together like the clone had grabbed him at the last second and tried to shield him. Another had clearly turned his blaster on himself. A third still clutched a combat knife buried in his own thigh, probably trying to ground himself through pain long enough to resist the chip.
Cody’s chest felt tight. These weren’t traitors or monsters. These were men forced to watch themselves become weapons.
Obi-Wan moved through the Temple like a ghost.
Every room they passed carried evidence of desperate fighting. Younglings hidden beneath furniture, clones dead in hallways with surgical cuts carved into the backs of their necks. Jedi who had clearly refused to strike killing blows even while defending themselves.
The tragedy of it sat heavy in the air. The only conciliation Obi-Wan could take was that there were more dead clones than Jedi, and that was not much of a conciliation at all.
When they reached the training halls, Cody stopped breathing.
The walls were shredded with blasterfire. Practice sabers littered the floor among tiny bodies. Force. Cody felt sick.
Beside him, Obi-Wan physically staggered. It was as if his legs had briefly forgotten how to hold him upright.
Then Cody heard it. A very soft noise coming from Obi-Wan. He was laughing. No, not laughing. Trying not to. He was making that awful sound people made when grief became too large for the human body to hold inside any longer.
Cody immediately stepped closer. “General.”
Obi-Wan covered his mouth sharply with one hand, but his eyes stayed fixed on the room. On the children. On the little training sabers scattered across the bloodstained floor.
“I taught here,” he whispered. Because of course he had. Obi-Wan had probably known every single child in this room. From their names to their favorite lessons. He probably knew which ones cheated at sabacc. Which ones snuck sweets from the kitchens. And now….
Cody suddenly wanted Palpatine dead with an intensity that almost frightened him. And not killed in battle, or sentenced to death for these crimes. He wanted the Chancellor dragged apart molecule by molecule for this.
A distant explosion rocked the Temple, and dust rained from the ceiling. Both men snapped back to attention instantly. Survival first, grief later. That was war.
Cody’s comm crackled, and the only sound that came through was ragged breathing. Fox.
“Kote.”
Cody grabbed the comm immediately. “Fox!”
The response was delayed. “You’re at the Temple.”
Cody looked around the destroyed hall silently. “Yeah.”
“…I’m sorry. I tried.”
Cody closed his eyes. Fox sounded devastated, like he could see every body through Cody’s eyes. Maybe he could. Maybe he had.
“Fox,” Cody said carefully, “where are you?”
Fox did not answer. “I sent my men away.”
Blasterfire thundered somewhere behind him, and Cody could hear people shouting. Then another explosion, and screams. Fox coughed harshly. “They’re breaking through.”
“Hold position,” Cody said immediately. “We’ll find you.”
“Negative.” The refusal came sharp and immediate. “You cannot bring your Jedi here.”
Obi-Wan stepped closer. “Commander Fox-”
Fox inhaled sharply, and when he spoke again, the strain was unmistakable. “…General.”
“Fox,” Obi-Wan said softly, “we are not leaving you.”
A horrible silence followed. Then, very quietly Fox said, “You should.”
Cody’s grip tightened on the comm. “Not happening.”
“Kote-”
“You’re my brother.”
Fox made a rough sound through the vocoder. “Why won’t you just leave-?!”
Another explosion thundered through the line and Fox swore viciously in Mando’a.
Cody’s grip tightened on the comm. “Fox-”
When Fox spoke again, his voice had changed. It was less controlled and less steady. “Listen to me.” The command came out rough. “Both of you.”
Obi-Wan stepped closer, expression sharpening. “We’re here.”
Fox shuddered. Cody could hear it now. Fox’s breathing was uneven and strained. “We… we tampered with them,” Fox said. The admission sounded dragged out of him. Painfully. “The chips.”
Cody went still. “We tried to nullify the command pathways,” Fox continued, voice hitching faintly, “slow it down. Disrupt the signal.”
There was another pause, longer this time, like holding onto the thought itself was difficult. “It worked.” A bitter, broken sound crackled through the vocoder. “For a while.”
Cody’s stomach dropped. “Fox…”
“We bought time.” Something heavy slammed in the background on Fox’s end of the transmission.
Cody leaned closer to the comm like that would help. “Fox, talk to me.”
For a moment, nothing. Then Fox spoke again. “They’re pushing through,” he repeated.
“How long til?”
“…Not long.”
Obi-Wan closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, there was something resolute there. “Commander Fox,” he said gently, “hold your position. We are coming to you.”
“No!” Fox blurted. “No.”
Cody’s jaw clenched. “Fox-”
“Cody, you need to leave. Please, I’ll never ask anything of you again, Cody. You just need to get off-world,” Fox begged, voice beginning to shake, “both of you. Now.”
“We are not leaving you behind,” Obi-Wan said firmly.
Fox made a sound that was not quite a laugh but not quite a sob. “General… please. You don’t understand,” he whispered.
“Yes, we do-“
“No.” The word was louder this time, more frantic. “You don’t.”
Cody could hear movement now.
“It’s getting worse,” he said. “I can’t-“ He stopped, and sharply inhaled. Then a strangled noise like something had seized inside him.
“Fox!”
“I can feel it. Every command. Every override. It’s-“ His voice broke completely. “I can’t hold it much longer,” Fox finally forced out.
Obi-Wan stepped closer to the comm, voice low and steady. “You are stronger than this.”
Fox let out a broken, almost hysterical sound. “No, I’m not. Not this time.”
Cody felt something in his chest crack. “Fox.”
“Kote.”
Cody swallowed hard. “Yeah?”
A long pause followed. “I need you to listen to me.”
Cody already didn’t like where this was going. “No.”
“Kote.”
“Don’t-“
“Listen,” Fox said desperately. “The next time you see me, it won’t be me.”
Cody shook his head immediately. “No.”
“It’s already starting.”
Cody’s grip on the comm tightened painfully. “Fox, we can help-“
“You can’t. I’ve seen what happens when it takes over completely.” A faint tremor ran through his voice. “They don’t come back.”
Silence stretched between them. Cody couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Fox sounded so sure. So certain. Like he already knew how this ended.
“We slowed it down,” Fox said again, weaker now. “Me. Thorn. Stone. Thire.” A shaky exhale. “A few others.”Another pause. “It wasn’t enough.”
Something slammed in the background, closer this time. Fox inhaled sharply. “They’re here.”
Cody straightened instantly. “We’re coming-“
“NO!” The word tore out of him, raw and terrified. “Do not come here.”
“We’re already-”
“If you see me like this-”Fox cut himself off again. A choking sound escaping him. “I don’t want you to see that.”
Cody could feel the familiar burn of tears pricking his eyes. “Fox,” he begged.
“I won’t be able to stop. You won’t be my brother. I’ll hurt you.”
Obi-Wan stepped closer. “We won’t give up on you.”
Fox laughed. “Yeah.”A pause. “I know.” Something in his tone shifted then. “Kote…”
Cody leaned in closer instinctively. “Yeah?”
“I’m glad you didn’t answer.”Cody’s throat tightened. Fox continued, voice barely holding together. “You would’ve-“ He stopped. “I couldn’t have stopped it. I wouldn’t’ve ever have forgiven myself.”
Cody closed his eyes briefly, then forced them open again. “You did stop it,” he said. “You stopped it for me.”
Fox didn’t respond. For a moment, Cody thought the line had cut. Then came the small whisper of: “…Good.”
Fox’s breathing spiked. “It’s happening,” he said.
Cody felt his heart drop. “Fox-“
“Get off the planet.”
“We are not-“
“GO. Before I lose yo-“His voice cut off abruptly with a sharp, strangled gasp.
Cody froze. “Fox?”Obi-Wan’s face went still beside him. There was no response. “Fox,” Cody said again, voice cracking despite himself.
The transmission cut, and for several long seconds after, neither of them moved. The Temple felt impossibly quiet. Of course, it was not truly quiet—there were still distant explosions, still screaming sirens, still the crackling roar of fire spreading through ancient halls—but compared to Fox’s final moments over the comm, the silence felt crushing.
Cody stared at the dead receiver in his hand. He was somewhat expecting it to light back up, expecting Fox to come back. A joke. An insult. A psych, vod, got you good. Anything. Instead there was silence.
Cody and Obi-Wan both understood that they had just lost Fox. And somewhere in the depths of Coruscant, the Commander that remained was now hunting them.
Obi-Wan finally spoke first. “Cody.”
Cody inhaled sharply through his nose and forced himself to move. He had to be a soldier first. The break down could come later. Fox would punch him for freezing up in a war zone.
“New mission,” Cody said tightly, hating himself for the words about to leave his mouth. Obi-Wan watched him carefully. “We can’t reach him now.”
The words tasted like betrayal. But they were true. Fox had been barely holding on before. Now…. Cody swallowed hard. Now Fox was gone. Or buried deep enough under the chip that trying to reach him would get them both killed.
“The ship,” Cody said, forcing himself back into focus. “We’ve got get back to the Negotiator.”
Obi-Wan nodded. He understood exactly what that meant. This was now a retreat. They were abandoning Coruscant and leaving Fox behind.
The guilt squeezed Cody’s heart, and waves of despair threatened to crush him. He’d been so close. But trying to rescue Fox now, when he was part of whatever this hivemind thing was, was suicide. It had been different when Fox was still Fox. But Cody, as much as it physically killed him, could not risk Obi-Wan now. His twin was gone. He could not lose his General as well.
The Jedi Master glanced once around the ruined Temple hall before extinguishing his lightsaber.
“We need to move quickly,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
Cody nodded. The longer they stayed here, the worse their chances became. Fox knew they were in the Temple. And if the chip had him completely now, the Guard would know too.
They barely made it three corridors before the Temple alarms changed.
“Oh, that’s bad.”Obi-Wan looked up sharply as red lights flooded the hallway.
“Move,” Cody said immediately. And then they ran.
The Temple had become a trap. Blast doors slammed shut section by section as they moved through the lower halls. Guard squads flooded corridors with terrifying efficiency, driving them towards dead ends.
And yet, everywhere Cody looked, he saw evidence that some clones were still fighting it. A Corrie slumped dead against a wall with a self-inflicted blaster wound under his chin. A glassy-eyed clone kneeling beside a dead Padawan with his helmet pressed against the child’s shoulder.
Obi-Wan saw it too. Cody could tell from the grief carved into his expression every time they passed another body.
“Force…” Obi-Wan whispered after one hallway lined almost entirely with dead clones.
Cody looked over briefly. The Jedi Master looked devastated.
“They didn’t want this,” Obi-Wan said quietly.
“No.”Cody’s voice came out rough. “They didn’t.”
Ahead of them, blasterfire erupted. Cody raised his rifle while Obi-Wan reignited his saber in one smooth movement. Blue light flashed across polished stone just as a squad rounded the corner.
The Coruscant Guard’s weapons were already firing. Obi-Wan deflected the first volley automatically while Cody returned fire low and precise, aiming for weapons and knees instead of kill shots.
He couldn’t do lethal. Not against brothers. Not when they were victims too. One Corrie staggered as a bolt clipped his thigh plate. Another physically jerked his own rifle upward at the last second, sending a shot into the ceiling instead of Obi-Wan’s chest.
“Stop resisting!” one trooper screamed at himself. Another slammed his helmet against the wall hard enough to crack the visor.
Obi-Wan’s face twisted in horror. Cody grabbed his arm immediately. As horrifying as this was, and Force, Cody knew he’d have nightmares about this til he died, they simply didn’t have the time.
They sprinted sideways through a maintenance corridor as more Corries flooded the main hall. The Temple map in Cody’s head spun rapidly. Every exit route they’d originally planned was compromised. Every main hangar was probably locked down already. Which meant—
“The undercity route,” Cody said abruptly.
Obi-Wan looked over while deflecting another shot behind them.
“The what?”
“There’s an old supply tunnel beneath the western platforms.”
Obi-Wan blinked once. “You know secret tunnels under the Jedi Temple?”
“I know Fox.” That explained basically everything.
Coruscant outside the Temple had somehow gotten worse. If Cody had thought the streets below looked like open warfare before, it was nothing compared to now. Smoke choked the skyline so heavily that even the endless lights of the city seemed dimmed.
And everywhere they looked, were Corries. Cody had never seen so many of them at once. Whole squads moved through the streets in coordinated sweeps, hunting and securing sectors with brutal efficiency.
The chip had turned the Guard into exactly what Palpatine wanted: Perfect control. Cody hated it. Hated him. Hated this entire kriffing planet.
The undercity access tunnel sat half-hidden beneath a collapsed transport platform. Fox had shown it to Cody years ago during shore leave.
If Coruscant ever goes to hell, Fox had said while bypassing the security lock, these tunnels bypass most Senate checkpoints. I’m really the only one who knows how to navigate them.
At the time Cody had laughed. He wasn’t laughing now.
They slipped inside seconds before another gunship screamed overhead. The darkness swallowed them immediately. The tunnel smelled like dust, coolant, and old machinery.
Obi-Wan exhaled slowly beside him. “How far does this lead?”
“Three klicks east of the Senate district.”
“And then?”
Cody checked his rifle charge. “Then we make our way back to the pod and pray the Negotiator is still in orbit.”
Obi-Wan gave him a look. “…Your plans concern me sometimes.”
“Fox’s plans concerned me all the time.”The words escaped before Cody could stop them. The silence that followed was deafening. Because Fox wasn’t here. And probably never would be again. Cody shoved the thought down violently. He couldn’t do that right now. He couldn’t.
They were halfway through the tunnels when Cody felt it. Something, someone was hunting them.
He slowed immediately. Obi-Wan noticed at once. “What is it?”
Cody held up the sign for silence and strained his ears. Nothing… nothing… nothi- there. Footsteps up ahead.
Cody’s stomach dropped. No. No no no— “I’m really the only one who knows how to navigate them.” A red armored figure stepped into the tunnel intersection ahead. It was Fox. Or whatever remained of him.
The corridor lights reflected off cracked crimson plating and the shattered visor line running across his helmet. Burn marks scarred one shoulder. Blood stained the kama around his waist. He looked like he’d crawled through hell.
Cody stopped breathing. Fox tilted his head slightly. “Commander Cody,” he said flatly. “General Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan’s hand tightened almost imperceptibly around his lightsaber. Fox raised one pistol slowly. Every one of his movements was smooth now. There was no more hesitation or emotion.
Cody stared at him desperately searching for something familiar. Anything. A twitch, a pause. A sign Fox was still in there. Nothing.
“By order of the Supreme Chancellor,” Fox said evenly, “you are under arrest for treason against the Republic.”
The words echoed horribly in the narrow tunnel. Cody’s chest felt like it was collapsing inward.
Fox sounded exactly like himself. It was his voice, his posture, his cadence. It was everything except the soul underneath.
“Fox,” Cody whispered.
Fox lifted the second pistol. “Stand down.”
Obi-Wan stepped slightly in front of Cody, and Fox’s weapons tracked him instantly. Cody felt physically sick.
For one horrible moment, nobody moved. The tunnel hummed softly around them, dim emergency lights flickering overhead. Fox stood twenty feet away with both pistols trained steadily on Obi-Wan’s chest.
Cody had seen Fox in standoffs before. Usually with senators. Occasionally with bounty hunters. Once, memorably with that one long-neck.
Fox always looked relaxed during confrontations. He wore the kind of confidence that came from knowing he was the most dangerous person in the room and was enjoying it immensely.
This wasn’t Fox. This was a weapon wearing Fox’s face.
“Commander Fox,” Obi-Wan said carefully, voice calm and gentle, “you do not want to do this.”
“Yes,” Fox replied immediately, with no emotion, no sarcasm, no life. “I do.”
Cody’s stomach twisted violently. That wasn’t true. He knew it wasn’t true. And somewhere inside that armor, Fox knew it too. Which somehow made it so much worse.
Obi-Wan took one slow step forward. Fox’s blasters adjusted instantly. “Do not approach.”
“Fox-”
“General Kenobi,” Fox interrupted flatly, “failure to comply will result in termination.”
Cody saw it then. The tiny, almost invisible, tremble in Fox’s left hand.
“Fox,” Cody said quietly. The commander’s helmet turned toward him immediately. Cody swallowed hard as the guns followed. For half a second, the tremor got worse.
“It’s me. It’s Kote,” Cody said softly.
The pistol in Fox’s left hand twitched downward a fraction, before it snapped back up violently. Then Fox staggered, one hand flying briefly to the side of his helmet.
“Fox?” Obi-Wan said carefully.
Fox inhaled sharply. “Do not,” he started, then abruptly doubled over.
One pistol discharged wildly into the ceiling and the tunnel exploded with sparks.
Cody moved instantly and Obi-Wan surged forward at the same moment Fox recovered enough to fire again. Blue light flashed through the tunnel as Obi-Wan deflected the first shot wide. Cody closed the remaining distance at full speed while Fox pivoted with terrifying reflexes, second blaster already snapping toward him.
Fox was still one of the best commanders in the GAR. Chip or no chip. Cody barely got his rifle up in time. The bolt scorched across his shoulder plate hard enough to spin him sideways. Fox kicked him immediately afterwards, hard enough to send Cody into the tunnel wall with enough force to crack the duracrete.
“Sorry,” Fox gasped, then jerked violently. His expression vanished back into mechanical stillness. He fired again.
Obi-Wan blocked two shots while closing distance, but neither man wanted to hurt Fox, which made everything infinitely harder. Fox, unfortunately, had no such restrictions. Or rather, the chip didn’t.
Fox fought like a man possessed. Every movement was deadly. He shot to kill because the chip demanded it, and every time Cody saw the tiniest hesitation before the trigger pull, it felt like getting stabbed. Fox was still in there.
Cody caught Fox’s wrist during the next shot and twisted hard. One blaster clattered across the floor. Fox immediately headbutted him. Force, that hurt!
Cody saw white. “Fox, kriffing-”
Fox slammed an elbow into his ribs hard enough to knock the air out of him. Definitely still Fox then.
Obi-Wan used the opening immediately, sweeping in low and clipping Fox’s knee out from under him with the Force. Fox hit the ground hard but rolled instantly, retrieving his dropped blaster with frightening speed.
“Commander!” Obi-Wan shouted. Fox fired twice and Obi-Wan deflected both bolts aside.
Then Fox froze. His pistol trembled violently in his hand, and Cody saw his entire body lock up. The chip was pushing one direction and Fox was clawing the other.
“Go,” Fox choked out suddenly. The words sounded dragged from his throat. “Before I-“
Fox jerked forward as if he’d been hit and let out a strangled cry, as he lunged forward again. Cody reacted on instinct. He slammed directly into Fox mid-charge, driving both of them hard into the tunnel floor.
Fox fought like a wild animal underneath him. His hands shook violently as he tried to reach for the fallen blaster.
“Fox, stop!”
“I CAN’T!” The scream tore out of him raw and horrified.
Cody’s heart nearly stopped. Because that was Fox. And he was terrified, and aware, and drowning in whatever was happening in his head.
Obi-Wan moved instantly. The Force wrapped around Fox’s wrists and pinned them against the floor just long enough for Cody to wrench both blasters away. Fox bucked violently beneath the invisible hold.
“NO!”Then, suddenly, his eyes unfocused.
Obi-Wan’s expression changed immediately. “Cody.” Cody looked up sharply. “The chip is overloading him.”
Fox convulsed hard enough to nearly throw both of them off. A broken sound escaped him, one of both pain and panic.
“He’s fighting it too hard,” Obi-Wan realized.
Fox’s breathing hitched violently. Then his head slammed backwards against the floor with a sickening crack.
“Fox!”
His body jerked once more, then abruptly went limp. Then there was silence.
Cody froze. “Oh Force.”He grabbed Fox immediately, hands searching frantically for injuries. “Fox!”
There was no response. Obi-Wan knelt beside them quickly, fingers pressing lightly against the side of Fox’s neck beneath the helmet seal. “He’s alive.”
Cody sagged with relief so sharp it hurt. Then immediately tensed again. “What happened?”
Obi-Wan frowned slightly. “I think…” He hesitated. “I think resisting the chip is harming them.”
Cody looked down at Fox. At his twin’s cracked red armor with blood staining the seams. Exhaustion carved into every inch of him even unconscious.
The commanders had been fighting this for hours. Maybe longer. If it had been hurting them, no wonder Fox had sounded like he was breaking apart.
Cody swallowed hard, then looked up at Obi-Wan. “We’re taking him with us.”
Obi-Wan looked faintly surprised Cody even thought it needed saying. “Of course we are.”
Together they carefully rolled Fox onto his side. Even unconscious, he looked tense, like his body no longer remembered how to rest.
Cody reached automatically for the helmet seals, then stopped himself. Fox never removed his bucket around outsiders. He wouldn’t want Cody to reveal his face to Obi-Wan now. The thought still made Cody’s chest tighten painfully. Fox trusted almost nobody. And now Cody understood why.
“Can you carry him?” Obi-Wan asked quietly.
Cody immediately hauled Fox up across his shoulders. “Yeah.”
Fox was lighter than he should’ve been. That realization settled ugly in Cody’s stomach too. He was way too thin, weighed far too little beneath the armor. How long had the Guard been running themselves into the ground like this? How long had Fox been suffering under Palpatine’s control?
Obi-Wan extinguished his lightsaber and glanced down the tunnel. “We should move before more troops arrive.”
“Yeah.” Cody adjusted Fox more securely against his back. The commander’s head lolled slightly against his shoulder plate, completely unconscious for the first time since this nightmare began.
For the first time in hours, Fox wasn’t fighting. Wasn’t hurting himself trying to stay himself. Cody hated that unconsciousness was probably the closest thing to peace Fox had gotten in a very long time.
“Hang on, vod,” he muttered quietly. Then the three of them disappeared deeper into the tunnels beneath burning Coruscant.
The trip back to the extraction point felt endless. Every tunnel echoed with distant warfare. Explosions above them shook dust loose from the ceilings at irregular intervals, and more than once the lights flickered hard enough that Cody thought the entire undercity network might collapse on top of them.
Fox never woke. Cody kept checking anyway. Every few minutes his eyes flicked instinctively toward the unconscious commander slumped across his shoulders, searching for movement. And every time, Fox remained completely limp beneath the armor.
Obi-Wan noticed. “You can put him down for a moment if you need to.”
“No.” The answer came too fast, Cody knew. Obi-Wan knew it too. But the Jedi Master didn’t push. Because Cody and him both understood exactly what unconscious meant now. Safe.
Well. As safe as any of them could currently be. The moment Fox woke up, the chip would start tearing him apart again. So Cody carried him. And kept carrying him.
The extraction point sat deep beneath an abandoned industrial sector several klicks from the Senate district. It was an old emergency GAR docking platform Fox himself had once pointed out.
Backup exits save lives, Fox had said with a cheeky grin. You never know what might happen on Coruscant.
At the time Cody had rolled his eyes and accused him of being paranoid. Fox had looked him dead in the face and replied: I work for politicians. Which was fair enough.
Now that same hidden dock housed the few members of the 212th Cody had brought planetside.
The moment the blast doors opened every blaster in the room snapped upward. Then froze.
“Commander?” The relief in Waxer’s voice was immediate. Then his eyes landed on the unconscious red-armored figure over Cody’s shoulders. “…Oh.”
The 212th stared at them. Cody and Obi-wan stared too. The three other Coruscant Guard commanders lay unconscious near the far wall, wrists restrained with binders. All of them showed obvious signs of injuries hastily treated in the field. Scattered nearby were other Corrie troopers in similar condition.
Helix looked up as Cody entered and visibly sagged with relief. “Thank kriff.”
“What happened?” Cody asked immediately.
Boil gestured tiredly toward the unconscious Guards. “They found us.”
Obi-Wan’s expression sharpened. “They surrendered?”
Waxer barked out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Kinda.”
Another trooper spoke up from near the med station. “They showed up together about twenty minutes ago with their hands up.” He still sounded slightly stunned by it. “One of the commanders asked if we were the 212th.”
“Stone,” Cody guessed automatically.
“Yeah. Him.”
The trooper rubbed a hand down his face.
“Then he said—and I quote—‘Can one of you idiots knock us unconscious before we murder someone?’”
Several clones nearby snorted despite everything. The humor died quickly, because none of this was actually funny.
Cody carefully lowered Fox onto one of the medical cots. Even unconscious, Fox instinctively curled slightly toward the nearest wall.
Helix approached carefully. “Is he…?”
“Alive,” Obi-Wan answered softly.
Helix visibly relaxed. “Good. We didn’t know if Commander Fox made it out.”
Cody looked at the Corrie troopers properly for the first time then, or rather at the condition they were in. Force, they looked terrible.
Exhausted didn’t begin to cover it. Several had blood seeping through bandages around their heads—failed chip removals, Cody realized with a cold twist in his stomach.
One trooper’s hands shook uncontrollably even unconscious. Another had deep bruising around his neck and wrists like his brothers had physically restrained him during an episode.
Every single one kept their helmet on. The 212th clones had clearly respected that. Not one helmet had been removed. Good.
Helix glanced uncertainly between Cody and Obi-Wan. “General…”Obi-Wan looked up. “The commanders said to keep them unconscious.”
Cody immediately understood why. Helix continued carefully. “When they started waking up earlier… the order came back.”
“Headsplitting pain,” another trooper added quietly. “Muscle spasms. Aggression spikes.”
Longshot, who was near the wall spoke for the first time, “Said if they’re asleep, they can’t hear him.”
Obi-Wan’s face tightened sharply and Cody looked away. Force, that was bleak. The chips weren’t just controlling them. They were constant. An endless pressure inside their heads. An endless command.
Execute the Jedi. Execute the Jedi. Execute the Jedi.
No wonder Fox had sounded half-insane by the end.
“How long have they been resisting?” Obi-Wan asked quietly.
“Since the order dropped apparently.”
Cody frowned. “That’s impossible.”
Helix looked at him tiredly. “Apparently not. Just painful.”
Across the room, one of the unconscious commanders twitched violently against the binders. He settled again after a moment, but nobody relaxed.
Cody stared at Fox. At the commander who had spent an entire year trying to save his brothers from this. Who had warned every batchmate he could. Who had fought his own mind until it broke him. And in the end, Fox had still made sure Cody got out alive.
Obi-Wan moved quietly beside the cot. For a moment Cody thought he was checking Fox’s condition again. Instead, the Jedi Master carefully pulled a thermal blanket higher over the unconscious commander’s shoulders.
The gesture was so gentle it hurt to look at. Obi-Wan glanced toward the other unconscious commanders.
“They trusted you,” he said softly to Helix.
Helix shook his head. “They trusted Cody.” Cody looked up sharply, and Helix shrugged. “They said that, and I quote, ‘Commander Fox said if the 212th found us, they’d help.’”
Something in Cody’s throat tightened painfully. Fox had planned for his men to survive, at the expense of himself. Even while drowning under the chip, Fox had still been organizing evacuation routes and backup plans and rescue contingencies. Had been protecting people until the bitter end. That was Fox. It always had been.
Boil approached after a few moments. “Commander?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re ready to go.”
Cody nodded once. “Let’s load up then.”
Boil hesitated. “What about Coruscant?”
The question lingered heavily in the docking bay. No one wanted to answer it.
Above them, the capital of the Republic was tearing itself apart. Billions of civilians trapped between a power hungry, evil Chancellor, a panicking Senate, and a military district full of chip-controlled Corries.
Every instinct Cody possessed screamed at him to go back and keep fighting. To drag every last Corrie he could find out of that nightmare with his bare hands if necessary. But Fox had not spent a year warning them just for Cody to get everyone killed now.
Cody looked around the docking bay slowly. He looked at his men and at the exhausted, unconscious Corries. At Obi-Wan standing beside Fox’s cot with soot still clinging to his robes. Then at the unconscious commanders laid out side by side near the far wall. Thorn. Stone. Thire. Then at the last of Fox’s squad.
“We can’t.” The words came out quiet, and were immediate followed by intense guilt. He forced himself to continue. “We have to get out.”
Cody turned toward Waxer sharply.
“Comm the Negotiator for evac. Let them know to meet us up there.”
Waxer straightened instantly. “Yes, sir.” Then hesitated. “…What do we tell them?”
Cody glanced instinctively toward Fox, the unconscious commander who had probably saved the entire GAR by warning his batchmates early.
If Fox hadn’t made those calls, if Cody had answered Palpatine’s transmission, if the chips had activated across the Republic cleanly…. Cody couldn’t even comprehend the scale of the slaughter.
The GAR was still intact. The 212th was fine. The 501st was fine. Wolffe’s men. Bly’s. Ponds’. Rex’s. All of them were untouched because Fox had seen the trap coming and thrown himself into its jaws long enough to warn everyone else away. Only the Guard had fallen fully. Only the men trapped closest to Palpatine. The realization made Cody feel vaguely sick.
“Tell the Negotiator,” he said finally, “that Coruscant has fallen.”
Silence settled heavily across the bay. Waxer swallowed, then nodded sharply and moved toward the comm station. Across the room, one of the unconscious Corrie troopers suddenly jerked violently against the restraints, and a strangled noise escaped him.
Helix immediately checked the sedative drip. “Easy, vod,” he murmured softly. The Corrie settled after another moment. Cody looked away. He couldn’t take any more of this. He threw himself into work.
Preparations moved quickly after that. Military efficiency took over where emotions threatened to overwhelm. The 212th secured the docking bay perimeter while Helix stabilized the unconscious Guards for transport. Portable sedation units were rigged hastily to armor ports. Restraints were checked and rechecked—not because anyone wanted to bind them, but because if the commanders woke mid-flight…. Nobody finished that thought aloud. Obi-Wan helped where he could.
Helix finally approached Cody again near Fox’s cot. “Sir.”
Cody looked up, and Helix hesitated briefly. “Commander Fox should stay sedated during ascent.”
“No arguments there.”
Helix shifted uneasily. “The chip activity spikes when Jedi are nearby.”
Obi-Wan, standing only a few feet away, went still.
Helix noticed immediately. “General, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s alright,” Obi-Wan interrupted. He crouched slightly beside Fox’s cot, gaze resting on the unconscious commander. “He was fighting it harder when I spoke.”
Helix nodded reluctantly. “Probably, sir.”
Obi-Wan was quiet for a long moment. Then: “Can he hear us while unconscious?”
Helix looked uncertain. “…Maybe. I don’t know.”
Obi-Wan’s expression softened. He looked down at Fox for another long second before speaking quietly enough that Cody almost didn’t hear it. “You did well, Commander.”
Fox didn’t move.
The trip to the surface launch point was tense, cramped, and painfully quiet. Because while the transport pod had originally been designed for evacuating armored soldiers, it had not been meant for this many of them. Every available inch of floor space was occupied.
The unconscious Guards were secured carefully along the side walls, monitored constantly by Helix. Fox remained nearest the cockpit, so Cody could stay beside him the entire time.
The transport engines roared to life with a violent shudder, and the pod lifted carefully through hidden industrial shafts toward the upper skylanes.
No one relaxed. The pod was completely silent, and nobody looked at each other, as if afraid that would jinx their chances.
Cody sat beside Fox’s cot watching the unconscious commander’s shell reflect dim emergency lights.
“You stubborn bastard,” he muttered quietly. Obi-Wan, seated across from him, looked up slightly. Cody shook his head once. “He planned this. The evacuation.”
All of the subtle warnings and taking time to show Cody escape routes nobody else knew about. Fox had known this was coming for a long time. Probably since the chips first started affecting the Guard.
“He saved us,” Cody said softly.
Obi-Wan’s expression tightened. “Yes.”
“And nobody’s ever gonna know.”
The galaxy would never hear about Fox’s year-long quiet rebellion against a genocide. Would never know the Guard had effectively held the line long enough for the rest of the GAR to avoid activation.
History would call them traitors to the Jedi. Murderers. Cody had the sudden urge to punch history in the teeth.
The transport jolted violently as they broke into the upper atmosphere, and alarms started to scream.
“Sir!” Wooley barked. “We’ve got Guard interceptors locking on!”
Of course they did. Cody lunged toward the cockpit display to see three red signatures closing fast behind them.
“Can we outrun them?”
“Not in this!”
Blasterfire streaked past the transport hard enough to rock the entire pod sideways. Several unconscious Guards shifted dangerously on their restraints, and one began convulsing.
Helix swore violently. “Hold it together, vod,” he whispered desperately.
Another blast clipped the transport’s rear stabilizer, and the pod screamed in protest. Then a new signature dropped from above. The Negotiator was here.
Relief hit everyone in the pod like a physical wave. Seconds later, several ships launched from the cruiser hangars and dove straight toward the pursuing Guard craft.
The comm system crackled to life. “Commander Cody, this is the Negotiator. You are cleared for immediate recovery.”
Waxer barked a sharp laugh. “Never thought I’d be so happy to hear that.”
The pod lurched violently again as their pursuers engaged the 212th’s ships. Cody barely noticed. He was a little caught up on the fact that they might actually survive this.
He looked down at Fox again. At the unconscious commander who had sacrificed everything to make this escape possible. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you,” he said.
Fox didn’t answer.
A Few Weeks Later
The first thing Fox noticed when he woke up was the absence. The orders and screaming static clawing through his skull were gone. So was the endless pressure that had been wrapped around his mind like barbed wire. It was just… quiet.
Fox frowned before he even opened his eyes. That wasn’t right.
Then pain arrived, and ow, yep, that seemed more on par. Every nerve in his body lit up at once, sharp and throbbing. His head felt like someone had split it open with an axe. His throat burned. His muscles ached from too much time unconscious. He’d take it. All of that was still better than the nothingness caused by the chip.
Fox inhaled slowly, and abruptly stopped in shock. He could smell bacta. Which wasn’t right, because the Guard had been out for literal months. The sheets were soft beneath his fingers, and cool recycled air tousled his hair. He could hear the low hum of a Republic cruiser. He was in a medical bay. Which made no sense.
Even more than that, he was alive, which made even less sense.
His eyes snapped open and took in the white ceiling and dimmed lights.
He wasn’t dead. Fox stared upward blankly for several long seconds trying to process that. The last thing he remembered clearly was the tunnel. Cody and his General. The chip had finally won out again Fox’s will.
After that everything became fractured pieces. There’d been pain and a droning voice giving out orders and rage that hadn’t belonged to him. Then nothing.
Fox swallowed hard. His throat hurt enough to suggest he’d been intubated at some point. Wonderful.
He shifted experimentally, and immediately regretted it.
“Oh, don’t do that.”
Fox went rigid. He knew that voice.
Cody stepped into view beside the medbay cot looking exhausted enough to qualify as legally deceased.
Fox stared at him. Cody stared back. Neither spoke for a moment.
Then Fox’s first coherent thought finally surfaced. “…You’re here.”
Cody blinked once. “Yeah.”
Fox frowned harder. “Why?”
That earned him the most offended look he was pretty sure Cody had ever produced. Fox relaxed marginally. Okay, good. It was still Cody.
“You warned me, remember?” Cody said.
His memories came to him jagged flashes. Fox closed his eyes briefly. “Kriff.”
“Pretty much.”
Fox laid there another moment before another thought occurred to him. Slowly, carefully, he lifted one hand toward the back of his head.
Cody watched him quietly. “They got it out,” he said softly, and Fox’s fingers froze, trembling slightly.
Gone. It was gone. Actually gone. No more endless pressure forcing him apart from the inside.
Fox’s hand dropped shakily back onto the blanket. “…Oh.”
Cody’s expression softened. “Yeah.”
Fox stared at the ceiling again. He’d spent so long bracing against constant agony that the absence of it felt unnatural.
“How long?” he asked quietly.
“Three weeks.”
Fox turned his head sharply enough to regret it instantly. “Three-?!”
“You scared the absolute shit out of everyone.”
Fox ignored that. “Three weeks?”
“You wouldn’t wake up.”
Fox processed that slowly. Then another realization hit him. “The others?!”
“Alive.”
Fox’s entire body went still. “…All of them?”
“Everyone you sent to us. Which, while it was nice thinking, I’m still pissed at you for trying to stay behind.”
Fox stared at him, and resolutely ignored the last part. Cody seemed to realize this, and leaned back slightly against the wall beside the cot. “The chips are out across the GAR now.”
Fox blinked once. Twice. He genuinely couldn’t process the sentence. “What?”
“The whole GAR.”
Cody sounded vaguely smug about it despite the exhaustion. “Turns out when clone commanders and Jedi start screaming about brain chips, people listen. Especially with uh- the proof given on Coruscant.”
Fox continued staring blankly. “The chips are gone?”
“Every battalion we could reach.”
Fox’s brain felt like it had stopped functioning. That… that was impossible. That was everything. The entire reason Fox had stayed on Coruscant. The entire reason the Guard had endured Palpatine for so long. The entire reason they’d fought so desperately to hold the line.
Fox swallowed hard. “Palpatine?”
Cody’s expression darkened immediately. “Alive.”
Fox groaned aloud and dropped his head back against the pillow dramatically. “Are you kidding me?”
Cody barked out a startled laugh. “There he is.”
Fox glared weakly at the ceiling. “You had one job, Cody.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, next galactic crisis I’ll schedule the assassination better.”
Fox snorted before he could stop himself. The sound startled both of them. It had been a long time since Fox had laughed. A very long time.
There was a long pause before Cody spoke again. “You really thought you were gonna die down there, didn’t you?”
Fox looked away immediately, and that alone was answer enough.
Cody exhaled slowly. “Fox-“
“I lost control.” The words came flat and matter-of-factly. Fox kept staring toward the opposite wall. “I remember enough.”
Cody didn’t interrupt. Fox’s jaw tightened. “I pointed weapons at you.” At Cody’s Jedi. At brothers. At civilians probably. Fox didn’t remember all of it. He remembered enough to know he never wanted to remember the rest.
“You were chipped,” Cody said firmly.
“I still did it.”
“You fought it.”
Fox laughed, short and humorless. “And look how well that worked out.”
Cody straightened. “No.”
Fox glanced over to see that Cody’s expression had gone sharp. “You listen to me real carefully, Fox.”
Uh oh. That was Cody’s commander voice. Fox instinctively considered faking a coma relapse.
“You fought a Sith Lord in your own head for over a year,” Cody continued. “You warned the entire GAR. You got the chips removed. You saved who knows how many Jedi.” Fox opened his mouth, but Cody steamrolled right over him. “You held out against Order 66 longer than anyone thought possible.”
Fox looked away again. Hearing it said aloud made something uncomfortable twist in his chest.
Cody’s voice softened slightly. “You saved as many as you could.”
Fox swallowed hard. “I hate when you get emotional,” he muttered weakly, in lieu of a proper response.
Cody grinned immediately. “There’s the Fox I know.”
Fox rolled his eyes. “…Wait.”
Cody blinked. “What?”
Fox narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You’re being nice to me.”
“Oh, for kriff’s sake.”
“No, no, hold on. Explain yourself.”
“You were in a coma!”
“And?”
“And I thought you might be dead!”
Fox stared at him. “That doesn’t explain why you’re being nice.”
Cody stared at him flatly for a long moment, then muttered something deeply rude in Mando’a under his breath.
Fox relaxed back against the pillow slightly. The bickering made all of this feel more normal. For the first time in what might’ve been years, Fox felt something inside him slowly begin to unclench. He was safe with Cody. Trusting this, Fox closed his eyes, and drifted off.
When he opened his eyes again, Cody was still there. Fox stared at him for a long moment before speaking quietly. “…Did we really save them?”
Cody understood immediately who he meant. The GAR. The Jedi. He nodded. “Yeah, Fox. You did it.”
Fox inhaled shakily. “…Which of my men survived?” The question came out quiet, and Cody knew his twin well enough to hear the real meaning underneath it immediately. Who didn’t I save?
Fox stared at the ceiling instead of looking at him, jaw tight enough to ache. One hand curled slightly into the blanket like he was bracing for impact. Cody hated this part, because there was no good version of the answer. There was no way to spin this to comfort Fox. No miracle he could grant.
The Guard had been closest to the Chancellor. They’d been closest to the signal. Closest to the rot. They had never really stood a chance.
Cody swallowed once before answering carefully. “You.”Fox’s eyes flickered shut briefly. “Thorn, Thire, Stone, Hound…”Cody counted slowly, trying not to watch Fox visibly unravel with every name that didn’t come. “Nox. Catwalk. Skipper. Uh… Brim. Kicker. Vale.” Cody rubbed the back of his neck slightly. “And a few more.”
Fox finally turned his head. “…How many?”
Cody hesitated, but Fox immediately understood anyway. His expression emptied out before the answer even came.
“…Thirty total.”
Fox stared at him blankly. Then shifted his eyes away again to stare at the wall. Thirty. Thirty.
Thirty out of an entire battalion. Thirty out of ten thousand men. Thirty survivors from the Coruscant Guard. The Guard that had patrolled the entire capital. The Guard that had held together a planet-sized city through riots and invasions and political disasters and Separatist attacks. The Guard that had once been everywhere. Now reduced to thirty breathing men.
Fox inhaled sharply.
“Fox-”
“How many are injured?” The question was clipped, as Fox’s voice went commander-flat. They were entering dangerous territory.
“Most of them,” Cody admitted carefully. “But they’re alive, and recovering.”
Fox nodded automatically, but his eyes stayed distant. Cody could practically see him trying to rebuild the Guard inside his head from the ashes upward. Thirty.
Fox’s throat worked once. “Who didn’t make it out?”Cody hesitated and Fox looked at him sharply. “Cody.”
Force. There was no easy way to do this.
“Most of the Guard was already under full chip control when we landed,” Cody said quietly. “Your team held out longest.”
Fox stared at the wall, unreacting. Which somehow worried Cody more.
“The Senate district was the worst hit,” Cody continued carefully. “Some of them…” He stopped.
Fox finished it anyway. “Chose not to wake up.”
Cody said nothing and Fox exhaled shakily through his nose. Because yes. Some of his Corries would’ve absolutely chosen death over risking hurting people once the chips started winning. And Cody had seen the bodies. Troopers who’d removed themselves from the equation permanently before the order could fully take them.
Fox closed his eyes briefly. “…Kriff.” The word was more of an exhausted puff of air.
Cody leaned forward slightly. “Fox.” No response. “Fox, look at me.”
Slowly, Fox did, and Cody held his gaze steadily. “You did not fail them.”
Fox laughed softly. It was a terrible sound. “Didn’t I?”
“You held off a Sith Lord for over a year.”
“Thirty survived.”
Cody’s jaw tightened. “You think that number would be higher without you?”
Fox looked away. Because no. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t. Without them tampering with their chips, there likely would’ve been no survivors at all. Without Fox warning the other clone commanders, the GAR itself might have collapsed into massacre. Without the Guard slowing the activation, Order 66 would have succeeded completely.
But knowing logically that he’d saved lives didn’t erase the image of thousands he hadn’t.
Fox’s breathing had started getting uneven again. Cody recognized the guilt in his eyes. Every clone commander carried it differently. Wolffe got angry, Bly got quiet, Ponds internalized until he looked half-dead. Fox carried his guilt like he was trying to hold up a collapsing building by himself.
“How many did I kill?”
Cody went still. Fox stared at the opposite wall as he asked it. He wasn’t looking at him. He didn’t want comfort. He wanted the truth.
Cody chose his next words very carefully. “We don’t know.”
Fox nodded. He’d expected that.
“The chip-”
“I know how the chip works, Cody. I saw it.” Fox visibly regretted the sharp interruption immediately. His shoulders slumped slightly against the pillow. “…Sorry.”
Cody ignored the apology. “You were compromised.”
“I still pulled the trigger.”
“You were being controlled.”
“And they were still dead afterward.”
Silence settled heavily between them. That was the horror of the chips, wasn’t it?
Fox looked suddenly exhausted in a way sleep couldn’t fix. “I should’ve tried harder.”
Cody nearly lost his mind. “You literally rewired your own brain implant with a kriffing vibroknife.”
Fox blinked once. “…That was Thorn’s idea.”
“That doesn’t help as much as you think it does.”
A startled snort escaped Fox before he could stop it.
Cody leaned back in his chair with a long exhale. “For what it’s worth,” he muttered, “your surviving Corries think you hung the stars.”
Fox looked horrified. “Oh absolutely not.”
Cody ignored him completely. “Apparently Commander Fox saved the GAR.”
“That sounds fake.”
“Commander Fox protected the Jedi.”
“Propaganda.”
“Commander Fox fought the Chancellor with the power of friendship.”
Fox finally looked genuinely offended. “That one’s slander. It was with several blasters.”
Cody grinned faintly. There he was.
Fox rubbed tiredly at his face. “…Thirty.” The word came out even smaller this time.
Cody’s grin faded. “Yeah.”
Fox swallowed hard. “Do they know?”
Cody frowned slightly. “Know what?”
“That I lost control.”The room went quiet again. Fox was terrified his surviving men would look at him differently now. He’d failed as their commander.
“They know you fought it until it nearly killed you,” Cody answered.
Fox looked unconvinced and Cody sighed heavily. “Fox.”
“What.”
“You realize your surviving squad is alive because they followed your orders to get themselves knocked unconscious, right?” Fox blinked. Cody pressed on. “They trusted you.”
Fox suddenly went very still.
“Even at what they thought was the end,” Cody continued quietly, “they trusted you.”
Fox looked away sharply, as an emotion flickered across his face too fast to fully identify. “…I want to see them.”
Cody’s expression softened immediately. “They’ll lose their minds when they hear you’re awake.”
Fox groaned. “I changed my mind. Can’t I fake the coma a little longer?”
“No.”
“Cruel and unusual punishments Kote.”
“You survived a Sith Lord. You can survive your own squad.”
Fox considered that. “…Debatable.”
The surviving members of the Coruscant Guard arrived in stages because the medbay staff (read: Helix) insisted on organizing the visit so nobody accidentally crushed Commander Fox to death in the emotional stampede.
Fox thought that was dramatic. Then Thorn nearly tackled him off the cot the second he entered the room. “YOU’RE AWAKE!”
Fox grunted painfully as Thorn wrapped both arms around him hard enough to threaten structural damage. “Thorn,” he wheezed, “I am begging- internal organs-”
“Shut up.” Thorn sounded suspiciously choked up.
Fox froze slightly. Ah. Oh no. Feelings.
Around them, his other corries allowed in crowded into the room in varying states of armor and recovery.
Thire stood closest to the door like he still wasn’t fully convinced this wasn’t some cruel trick. Stone looked half-dead on his feet. Hound had one arm in a sling and very clearly hadn’t slept properly in weeks.
Nox immediately burst into tears upon seeing Fox conscious. Fox stared at him in horror. “Nox.”
“You were dead!”
“I very obviously was not.”
“You were unconscious for a month!”
“Three weeks.”
“That’s basically a month!”
Fox looked towards Cody desperately. Cody folded his arms smugly from where he leaned against the far wall, the kriffing traitor.
Then Hound crossed the room in three strides and punched Fox squarely in the shoulder, though not hard enough to injure him again.
Fox hissed. “The kriff was that for?”
“You scared us.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You better be.” And then he practically crushed Fox in a hug.
The room slowly settled after that. It wasn’t fully calm—the surviving Guard carried too much exhaustion for calm—but something softer slowly replaced the initial panic. Relief.
Fox looked around quietly at the men packed into the medbay. Five of his thirty. Only thirty. But they were alive.
Thorn was arguing with a medic about sedation schedules (and losing). Stone was now half-asleep standing upright. Nox kept staring at Fox like he might vanish if left unwatched.
Hound had somehow acquired mastiff treats for Grizzer (whom had accompanied them to the 212th), and Fox had no idea where he’d gotten them. Some things remained eternal constants.
“They said you weren’t waking up,” Thire admitted quietly after a while.
Fox glanced over. The commander stood stiffly near the foot of the bed, helmet tucked under one arm. Fox suddenly realized most of them weren’t wearing helmets. In front of Jedi. In front of other clones. They were safe. The realization was strange.
“Oh,” Fox said softly.
Thire misunderstood immediately. “We can put them back on.”
“No.” Fox shook his head. “No, just…” His throat tightened unexpectedly. “…Good.”
Silence settled briefly. Then Cody, because apparently he enjoyed ruining emotional moments, cleared his throat loudly. “So.”
Fox narrowed his eyes immediately. “That tone means trouble.”
“It means briefing.”
“Same thing.”
Obi-Wan entered the medbay at that exact moment carrying datapads and looking exhausted enough that Fox immediately distrusted whatever was about to happen.
“You’re awake,” the Jedi Master said warmly.
Fox eyed him suspiciously. “You also have briefing face.”
Obi-Wan actually smiled slightly, but Cody looked deeply offended. “I don’t have briefing face.”
“You absolutely have briefing face.”
“We’re discussing the survival of the Republic.”
“See? Briefing face.”
Helix snorted loudly from the corner. Cody ignored all of them.
“The GAR is stable,” he began. “Most battalions removed their chips without issue once the warning spread.”
Fox blinked slowly. Most. The scale of it still didn’t feel real.
“The Senate,” Obi-Wan continued more grimly, “is less stable.”
That sounded more believable. Fox rubbed tiredly at his face. “Palpatine?”
“Still alive,” Obi-Wan admitted.
Fox sighed dramatically and swung his head back to Cody. “Again. One job.”
“We’ve been busy!”
“Excuses.”
Thire and Nox snorted quietly.
Obi-Wan set the datapads down. “The Chancellor survived the initial assassination attempt,” he said. “Barely.”
Fox looked deeply annoyed by this information. “We should’ve brought more guns,” he muttered under his breath.
“But,” Obi-Wan continued, “the situation has changed significantly.”
Fox frowned slightly. “How so?”
The Jedi Master exchanged a glance with Cody.
“Survivors from the Temple came forward.”
Fox went very still. “…What?”
Cody’s expression softened immediately. “We didn’t know at first either.”
Fox stared at him blankly. It had worked?
Cody mistook it for confusion. “The evacuation routes were clear,” Cody explained quietly. “There were no troopers near the pods.”
Fox and his team had held off the attack on the Temple for a while after the initial wave, but they hadn’t known if it would be long enough. It had been. Their plan had worked. Jedi had survived. Fox swallowed hard.
Obi-Wan continued softly. “More Jedi escaped than anyone initially believed.”
Fox’s breath caught with hope. “How many?”
“At least four hundred that we know of,” Obi-Wan said.
The room fell silent. Fox stared at him. That was more than he’d ever hoped for.
“The Temple attack still devastated the Order,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “But without the path to the pods being clear…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Without Fox, there would have been no survivors.
Fox looked down at the blanket in his lap very suddenly. Eye contact had become impossible.
Thirty Guards. Four hundred Jedi. The numbers tangled painfully together in his head. It wasn’t enough. It’d never be enough. But it was something. He had managed to save something.
Thorn seemed to notice where Fox’s thoughts were spiraling because he spoke immediately. “You did good, Commander.”
Fox laughed weakly. “Thirty men survived.”
“And hundreds of Jedi,” Thire said firmly. Fox looked up sharply. Thire met his gaze evenly. “We held the line.”
The room went quiet again. Fox swallowed hard. Then abruptly changed the subject before feelings could happen. “So when are we murdering Palpatine?”
Cody barked out a startled laugh. “There he is.”
Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Commander Fox-”
“No, no, hear me out,” Fox interrupted, suddenly more animated than he’d looked since waking up. “Clearly the first assassination attempt failed because we didn’t commit hard enough.”
“Fox.”
“We need more explosives.”
“Fox.”
Thorn pointed immediately. “He’s right though.”
“Thorn!”
Stone, without opening his eyes, muttered: “I still think dropping a cruiser on the Senate building has merit.”
Obi-Wan looked moments away from an stress-induced spiritual awakening. Cody, unfortunately, looked thoughtful. “That would solve several problems.”
“Cody!”
Fox pointed triumphantly at Cody. “See? Visionary.”
Obi-Wan stared at all of them in visible horror. “You cannot solve political instability with orbital bombardment.”
Fox considered that. “…Counterpoint.”
“No.”
The medbay dissolved into overlapping arguments immediately afterward. Thorn advocated for explosives, Hound suggested poisons, Stone was still insisting on the cruiser idea, and Cody was contributing far more than Obi-Wan clearly found comforting.
For the first time in weeks—months, maybe—the corries sounded alive instead of frightened. They were just brothers arguing loudly in a cramped medbay.
Fox sat in the middle of it all watching quietly. Watching Thorn shove Hound. Watching Cody bicker with Obi-Wan. Watching his corries laugh for the first time since Coruscant burned.
Alive. They were alive. Not all of them, never all, Fox would never be fast enough, smart enough, crafty enough to keep them all. But enough. Enough had survived to rebuild something. Enough had survived to fight back. Enough had survived to have a future.
Outside the medbay viewport, hyperspace stretched endlessly blue around the Negotiator.
For the first time in years, Fox looked at the future and did not immediately see a dead end. It terrified him a little. Hope usually did. Still, when Cody glanced over and caught him smiling faintly to himself, Fox didn’t look away this time. It would be okay. They’d be okay.