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Fox reads the reassignment order three times.
Then he turns the datapad upside down.
The words remain equally stupid.
Commander Thorn leans over the edge of Fox’s desk, squinting at the authorization seal as though the Chancellor’s signature might rearrange itself into something sensible if bullied hard enough. Commander Thire stands beside him with his arms folded. Commander Stone has taken the only chair not currently buried under reports and looks personally offended by the document’s existence.
Nobody speaks.
Fox turns the datapad upright again.
TEMPORARY REASSIGNMENT: CC-1010
THEATER: RYLOTH
OPERATIONAL PURPOSE: STRATEGIC COMMAND AND AERIAL COORDINATION
DURATION: UNTIL RELIEVED
AUTHORIZED BY THE OFFICE OF THE SUPREME CHANCELLOR
The name of whoever submitted the request has, of course, been redacted.
Of course it has.
Fox lowers the datapad.
“Is this a trap?”
Stone answers first. “Probably.”
Thire tilts his head. “Could be an administrative error.”
“That’s worse,” Thorn says.
Fox agrees.
Administrative errors have already given the Guard three contradictory prison-transfer schedules, assigned a dead CorSec officer to Senate patrol, and ordered a medical transport to deliver riot shields to a maternity ward.
A trap can be anticipated.
Bureaucracy has no predictable attack pattern.
Fox looks down at the order again.
Someone searched the Grand Army’s training archives, filtered through thousands of command evaluations, found his record, and requested him by designation.
Not rank.
Not name.
CC-1010.
That means whoever made the request either has access to Kaminoan training records or knows exactly where to ask for them.
Neither option improves Fox’s mood.
“Orn Free Ta?” Thorn asks.
“Kriff no.”
Fox doesn’t need time to consider it.
Senator Orn Free Ta barely seems aware that Ryloth exists unless someone mentions taxes, food shipments, or an opportunity to appear in front of a holocamera. He spends more time discussing banquet arrangements than civilian evacuation routes.
Too many times, women leaving his private residence have requested Guard escorts home.
The Twi’lek senator knows Fox as the commander of the security personnel who stand outside his doors and remove inconvenient witnesses from hallways.
He does not know Fox as a strategist.
He probably doesn’t know Fox has ever flown anything larger than a speeder.
“This didn’t come from Free Ta,” Fox says.
Thire looks toward the redacted section. “Then who?”
“That’s the important question.”
Stone points at the Chancellor’s seal. “I have another one.”
Fox waits.
“Why did Palpatine approve it?”
The Chancellor doesn’t allow Fox off Coruscant. EVER.
Fox has submitted requests to inspect Guard supply routes, review defensive installations, and attend command conferences in person. Every one has been denied, delayed, or redirected until the original issue no longer matters.
Once, Fox requested six hours aboard an orbital station to inspect a security flaw.
The Chancellor sent Commander Thorn instead and summoned Fox for a three-hour meeting about ceremonial patrol formations.
Fox doesn’t usually get to do what he likes.
He doesn’t usually get to do what he was trained to do either.
The Kaminoans built him for command. Not hallway patrols, senatorial babysitting, prison reports, and explaining to elected adults why they can’t park speeders on military landing pads.
Fox trained in planetary defense, fleet coordination, siege logistics, aerial warfare, and operational strategy. Even the longnecks admitted he had a talent for seeing a battlefield as a whole instead of a collection of individual fights.
The trainers hated admitting it more.
One of them had called Fox the best strategic mind in the command batches, then punished him for looking pleased.
He’d learned not to look pleased.
He’d also designed most of the early ARC selection program and terrified several Mandalorian instructors with the pace.
Fox was trained for Ryloth.
That is why this feels wrong.
Thorn takes the datapad from him and scrolls through the attached authorizations.
“Full theater access,” Thorn says. “Fleet command clearance, air-wing authority, logistics override, casualty-routing permissions.”
Thire leans closer. “That’s more authority than they give most Jedi Generals.”
“Temporary,” Stone says.
“Still too much.”
Fox takes the datapad back.
The order authorizes independent travel.
He can fly himself.
That part is almost enough to make him overlook the rest.
Almost.
Fox hasn’t flown in active combat since Geonosis.
He pilots Guard transports when nobody can stop him and occasionally takes interceptors up during readiness drills, but those don’t count. Coruscant traffic control gets upset when he performs combat turns between civilian lanes.
Apparently, “testing response time” isn’t considered a valid explanation for frightening diplomatic shuttles.
Fox looks at the projected departure window.
Four hours.
His pulse picks up.
Not from fear or dread for once.
Thorn sees it.
“You want to go.”
Fox gives him a flat look.
Thorn’s mouth curves. “You do.”
“This is an active war zone.”
“You say that like it helps your argument.”
“I’m assessing the order.”
“You’ve already assessed it.”
Thire glances between them. “He definitely wants to go.”
Stone nods. “It’s the flying.”
“It isn’t the flying.”
All three commanders look at him.
Fox sets the datapad down with more force than necessary.
“It’s not only the flying.”
Thorn grins.
Fox considers assigning him to Orn Free Ta’s personal escort detail for a month.
Unfortunately, Thorn is about to inherit temporary command of the Guard.
That thought wipes away the grin Fox almost feels forming.
He looks at Thorn properly.
“You’re taking command until I return.”
Thorn’s expression changes.
“Me?”
“You’re senior.”
“Stone is older.”
“By eleven minutes,” Stone says.
“You bring it up constantly.”
“Because it matters.”
Fox ignores them.
“Thire retains investigations. Stone keeps prisons and riot response. You’ll coordinate Senate patrols, logistics, and command reviews.”
Thorn glances at the mountain of paperwork occupying half the office.
“Can I refuse?”
“No.”
“Can I fake my death?”
“Stone will arrest you.”
Stone nods. “Gladly.”
Thorn looks betrayed. “Batch loyalty means nothing anymore.”
“It means I’ll give you a private cell.”
“That’s touching.”
Fox pulls up the Ryloth theater reports.
The first casualty projection makes the room’s humor disappear.
Republic forces have failed to break the blockade. Medical transports can’t reach the surface. Supply routes are collapsing. Civilians are trapped between Separatist occupation forces and Republic bombardment plans that appear to have been assembled by someone actively hostile to maps.
Fox scrolls faster.
The air-wing losses are unacceptable.
The fleet placements are worse.
Someone spread the available ships across too broad a line, leaving each formation too weak to press an advantage and too far apart to support the others. The blockade is being treated as a wall instead of a system.
Fox can already see three ways through it.
Four if the casualty reports are accurate.
Six if General Skywalker can be convinced not to improvise something suicidal halfway through the plan.
His confusion sharpens into focus.
Whoever requested him knew exactly what they were looking for.
They knew Fox’s training.
They knew Ryloth needed someone who could coordinate fleet movement, aerial combat, supply logistics, and planetary defense at the same time.
They also knew enough to request him by designation, bypass whatever assumptions people make when they hear Coruscant Guard, and get the order directly beneath the Chancellor’s stylus.
Fox looks at Palpatine’s authorization again.
The signature is real.
That does not mean the Chancellor read it.
In fact, the more Fox studies the request, the more likely it seems that Palpatine signed the reassignment while looking at something else.
That would be insulting if it weren’t so useful.
Thire breaks the silence.
“What are you going to do?”
Fox closes the casualty projection.
“Go.”
Thorn sighs. “Of course.”
“Prepare the Guard command transfer.”
“You leave in four hours.”
“I know.”
“You need to pack.”
“I own armor.”
“You need sleep.”
“I slept yesterday.”
Stone frowns. “For how long?”
Fox stands.
“That isn’t relevant.”
“It was two hours,” Thire says.
“One hour and 47 minutes,” Thorn corrects.
Fox looks at both of them.
Traitors.
He gathers the Ryloth files and sends a request to the Guard hangar for an ARC interceptor to be fueled.
Thorn notices.
“You’re flying yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Across multiple systems.”
“Yes.”
“To an active blockade.”
“Yes.”
Thorn looks toward Thire and Stone. “He’s smiling.”
Fox is not smiling.
His face hasn’t moved.
The fact that all three commanders have begun looking alarmed suggests his eyes may have betrayed him.
Fox picks up his helmet.
“This still might be a trap.”
Stone rises from the chair. “You sound excited about that.”
“I’m prepared for it.”
“That wasn’t a denial.”
Fox heads for the door.
Behind him, Thorn calls, “What do I tell the Senate when they ask where you are?”
Fox doesn’t slow down.
“Tell them I was reassigned.”
“And when they ask who authorized it?”
Fox looks back at the Chancellor’s signature glowing on the abandoned datapad.
“Tell them his Excellency did.”
That should create enough confusion to keep everyone occupied until Fox reaches Ryloth.