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Darth Sideous—no, Sheev Palpatine, he couldn’t afford that slip up right now—was currently very stressed. At the present moment, both the Separatist forces and the Republic Army were dependent on him for orders, which was normally a wonderful feeling of power when they came to him one at a time, but was quite inconvenient when they were both asking for him at once. He had resorted to spinning back and forth between two holoscreens, hiding and reapplying his disguise rapidly as he spoke. As one could imagine, it was quite taxing on the Sith Lord.
“Sir, what are your orders for the men?”
“My Lord, what shall we have the droids do?”
Alright, quick processing and calculations, it would likely be better for the Republic to win, especially considering how many battalions were currently dispatched, but they should suffer severe losses. It would be to his advantage if a section of the droids began behaving erratically, hopefully throwing both sides off but taking out a large portion of the Jedi present. He whirled to the Separatist leader, he couldn’t r be bothered to learn his name, and said,
“Have the army execute Order 44. Cause chaos.”
To the clone, he turned and spoke,
“Win at any cost. I don’t care what you have to do, claim the planet.”
Both holos flickered and disappeared, and Sideous let out a sigh of relief at no longer having to keep up this side-switching charade. He reached to grab the Separatist communicator in order to hide it, after all it wouldn’t look good for him to be caught communicating with the enemy, but almost dropped it in shock upon seeing the Republic symbol on the top of it. No, no, no, that couldn’t- he grabbed the Republic communicator and swore aloud, seeing that it was in fact his Separatist comm. If he had gotten the communicators switched, then that means- what had he just ordered his two armies to do? Sideous put his head in his hands and, like a very refined Sith Lord, screamed until he ran out of breath.
— — —
CC-2224 began moving immediately as soon as he revived the command. Order 44 would need to be relayed to all of the battalions currently involved in this battle, which, with this being a major fight, accounted for around a million men. CC-2224 first messaged the other commanders, as they were viewed as the most trustworthy with how important this order was, before sending out a message to the men currently in his battalion. Just as he was about to order that the 212th fall back, something caught his eye. General Kenobi. Here, CC-2224 hesitated for a moment. Orders, the likes of the numbered ones such as 44, typically only applied to clones. However, with what 44 was, it seems as though it would be more prudent to include the Jedi generals as part of the army. In addition, the Jedi were excellent fighters, and would make incredibly annoying enemies. The one problem with bringing them was that they didn’t have the full knowledge of Orders that all Clone Troopers did, and might interfere with executing the Order quickly. CC-2224 would need to decide on a course of action, fast.
Having made up his mind, CC-2224 sent another message to the other commanders: the Jedi should be brought with the army, but if they do not immediately comply, they should be knocked out until the Order can be fully explained to them. CC-2224 got an immediate affirmative from CC-3636, who indicated that his battalion had already subdued their General and were all finishing retreating to their ships. CC-2224 sent a message telling his men to do the same, before commanding the two nearest CTs to come assist him in recovering General Kenobi.
General Kenobi was in the middle of combat when CC-2224 managed to reach him. He called out, ignoring the droids that the General was unfortunately destroying,
“General Kenobi! We’re going to need you to come with us immediately.”
“What? Cody, I can’t just leave. We’re in the middle of a battle, this is an important one!”
Annoying, but not an entirely unexpected response. Still, General Kenobi was part of the 212th, and would understand eventually. CC-2224 raised a hand, signalling the closer trooper. He raised a blaster, set to stun, and immediately fired it directly at the General’s back, knocking him out instantly. CC-2224 and the other trooper immediately moved to secure the General, before bringing him towards the Negotiator.
Once they were securely in space, CC-2224 got a message saying that the last of the forces, CT-7567’s battalion, had left the planet's surface. He called up the ship’s navigation menu, setting a course for Seranno. The planet, being one of the biggest Separatist bases, would likely be the best place for their forces to go. CC-2224’s communicator rang, indicating that a call was coming from the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. CC-2224 ignored it. He had no need to communicate with the Chancellor. Instead, he began composing a message to the leader of Serenno.
— — —
Cody woke up with a massive headache. Seriously, it was a ‘hurts to breathe’ kind of headache. Seriously, it was almost as bad as the time that Waxer and Boil had gotten the entire battalion shitfaced with their homebrewed alcohol after they had been left alone with the 501st for a week. What was the last thing he had been doing?
Groaning as he pressed his hands to his eyes, Cody slowly sat up, trying to figure out where he was. The bed he was on felt far too nice for even medbay, and he genuinely had no clue where he could possibly be. Looking around the room once his eyes adjusted to the light, he took in a room, simply decorated but quite nice looking, more expensive than what GAR funds would typically rent. How had he got here, and what had he been doing last? Just as he began thinking back to a massive battle, the door to his room creaked open, revealing none other than Obi-Wan himself.
“General!”
He attempted a salute from where he was sitting up in bed, but winced again as a fresh wave of pain coursed through his head. Obi-Wan’s smile was a bit tight, but genuine as he responded.
“Commander. How are you feeling?”
He considered the question for a moment, then spoke.
“Well, sir, to be honest it feels like a rancor sat on my head and I can’t remember the last thing I did prior to waking up here or where we are. Other than that, I appear to be fine physically, except for feeling strangely… rested.”
Obi-Wan gave a snort at this, his smile turning far more real.
“Glad to have you back, Cody.”
“Glad to… be back? Sorry, but could you tell me what happened?”
Obi-Wan sighed.
“What’s the last thing that you remember?”
Thinking back really hard, Cody could make out one scene before everything went hazy.
“I remember… being in the battle. I had just contacted the Chancellor for orders, and then… I’m not sure. It’s hazy from there.”
Obi-Wan sighed again, which was slightly funny because usually it was Cody sighing at him instead of the reverse.
“Alright then. I was hoping that you would remember at least some of what happened, but I’ll try to catch you up. Let’s start with the, probably easiest question: where are we?”
Cody raised an eyebrow, waiting on an answer.
“We’re on Serenno.”
“Wait, as in, ‘Home of Count Dooku’ Serenno? Like, ‘Major Separatist Base' Serenno?"
Obi-Wan nodded at that, the smile of a man who has been through a lot without enough sleep appearing on his face.
“Yep. That Seranno. You want to know why?”
“Do I?”
“No, but if I had to live through this, the least you can do is remember it. Alright, here we go. Let’s start with this: as of exactly nine days ago, the Grand Army of the Republic defected to the Separatists."
“We kriffing what?”
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”
Cody didn’t have a chance to say anything else to express the emotions rapidly moving through his mind before Obi-Wan continued speaking.
“Something… happened to you. We didn’t know it at the time, but we have since determined that all of the clones had chips in their brains to control them.”
“WHAT?”
Cody barely pushed down a wave of horror at the thought of something in his brain, controlling him, controlling his vod… wait. He looked at his General.
“Is that why…”
“You have a headache? Likely. You were one of the last people to get their chip removed, and while you were in… chip-mode, you didn’t seem to view things like sleep as a priority. You have gotten less sleep in the last week than I have, my friend.”
Cody took a moment to let the sheer horror of the fact that he had somehow managed to get less sleep than Obi-Wan, which he didn’t know was actually possible, before the rest of the implications of what he had said fully sunk in.
“Are you saying that I was controlled?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“How did that lead to us joining the Separatists?"
Obi-Wan looked slightly hesitant here as he shrugged.
“From what I’ve been able to gather, you were issued an order telling you, and the entire rest of the army, to switch sides.”
“But who-”
“And there’s the other thing that I have to explain now. The Chancellor is, ah, a Sith Lord?”
Cody stared blankly for a few seconds. Then,
“WHAT?”
“Yes. It appears that, while in the middle of battle, the Chancellor—that is, Darth Sideous—attempted to give an order to the Separatist forces and inadvertently activated your control chip. When our slicers decoded the list of orders in the chips, we found the one he had commanded to be activated: Order 44. I’ll spare you an exact reading of what it was, but essentially, it ordered the army to switch sides. And apparently, even in your mostly unthinking states, the men decided that the Jedi were a major part of the army, and brought us with you. We were not consulted on this.”
Cody stared, unblinking, at Obi-Wan for several seconds, before letting out a long defeated noise and falling back on the bed.
“Is there anything else worldshattering that I need to process right now?”
“Fox shot Sideous, as it seemed reasonable considering that he was the Republic’s Chancellor. We are currently still technically in conflict with the Republic, but hopefully, as soon as they elect a new Chancellor, we’ll be able to negotiate an end to the war.”
Cody considered this, before placing the pillow on the bed (seriously, why was it so soft, do natborns really live like this?) over his eyes.
“Cody?”
“Nope. I’m done with this. I’m going to go back to sleep until I can actually process this.”
Obi-Wan chuckled lightly.
“Alright then. I’ll leave you to it.”
As Cody heard the Jedi stand up to leave, he rolled over. He did not want to deal with this. If the Chancellor was a Sith Lord, and the vod were now on the Separatist’s side, does that mean– you know what, no. Nope. Someone else can deal with this. He is– nope. He’s done.