Work Text:
The Coruscant Guard does not gamble.
Gambling requires money.
The Coruscant Guard does not receive money.
Therefore, according to Ghost, the collection of names and increasingly specific predictions written across the breakroom wall is a resource-allocation forecast.
Ink looks up from the tattoo machine humming in her hand.
“You wrote BETTING POOL at the top.”
Ghost glances at the wall.
“That’s an abbreviation.”
“For what?”
“None of your business.”
Ink snorts and returns to the geometric design taking shape across CT-6624’s shoulder. Her tattoo machine is built from a medical injector, parts stolen from two broken datapads, and a motor nobody has admitted removing from the evidence-room ventilation system.
The Guard’s tattoo regulations are stricter than every other battalion’s. Nothing on the head or neck. Everything else is technically permitted, provided it can be covered by the black undersuit.
They aren’t allowed to personalize their armor.
Anonymous Guardsmen make senators feel safer.
Apparently, identical soldiers are less threatening when natborns can pretend there’s only one of them.
Ghost sits backward on a chair, chin resting on her folded arms as she studies the pool.
She is CT-7719, Riot Squad ARC, and one of the quietest people ever decanted. The ARC trainers named her after she unintentionally stalked an instructor through three training sectors without realizing he’d noticed her.
The instructor reportedly required medical leave.
Ghost considers that his problem.
The breakroom door opens, and CT-4206, called Hush, enters carrying three ration bars and a classified expression.
Every head turns.
Hush stops.
“What?”
“You were assigned to the northern committee corridor,” Ghost says.
“Yes.”
“Senator Chuchi had a meeting there.”
“Yes.”
“Marshal Commander Fox inspected the security panels there.”
Hush looks toward the wall.
Twenty-three names sit beneath the heading:
DATE THE MARSHAL COMMANDER AND SENATOR CHUCHI ACKNOWLEDGE WHATEVER THIS IS.
The predictions range from tomorrow to after the war.
One trooper has written NEVER, followed by THEY’RE BOTH IDIOTS.
That entry currently has the most support.
Hush unwraps a ration bar. “The panels were functional.”
The breakroom erupts.
“I knew it,” says CT-0981, called Ledger because he enjoys accounting and is therefore considered dangerous.
“Fourth time this month,” says CT-5314, called Crate after falling asleep inside one during deployment.
Ghost taps the wall. “Did they speak?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven minutes.”
Ink pauses the machine. “You timed them?”
“I was on security.”
“You were spying.”
“Security is professional spying.”
Fair.
Ghost reaches for the marker attached to the board by string.
“What did they discuss?”
“Casualty reports.”
Several groans fill the room.
“That doesn’t count,” Crate says.
“It counts,” Ledger argues. “They keep creating work-related reasons to meet.”
“They have a working relationship.”
“The senator brought him caf.”
“The good caf,” Ink adds.
Everyone goes quiet.
That remains the strongest evidence.
Not standard Senate caf. Not the industrial runoff issued to the GAR. Senator Chuchi brings Fox caf from a Pantoran shop near the embassy, made with actual beans and frost-spice.
Fox accepts it.
He drinks it without checking for poison.
More importantly, his ears turn red.
The first report came from Commander Thire, who had walked into the breakroom, announced that Fox’s ears had changed color, and left before anyone could ask questions.
Thire knows about the pool.
So do Thorn and Stone.
All three commanders have threatened to tell Fox.
They haven’t yet, mostly because they contribute new evidence often enough to qualify as active participants.
“Did his ears do the thing?” Ghost asks.
Hush chews thoughtfully.
“Left one.”
The room explodes again.
Ghost writes PARTIAL EAR EVENT beneath today’s date.
CT-6624 tries to turn around and look at the board.
Ink catches his shoulder. “Move again and your nexu becomes a diseased tooka.”
He freezes.
“It’s supposed to be a massiff.”
Ink looks at the half-finished tattoo.
“That’s unfortunate.”
The door opens again.
Everyone goes silent.
Soups enters.
Stone’s favorite trooper carries an actual bowl of soup, because the kitchens served it today and Soups has apparently been blessed by whatever god governs suspicious broth.
He looks at the wall.
Then at Ghost.
“Is this the Chuchi pool?”
“No,” Ghost says.
Soups reads the heading.
Ghost adds, “It’s classified.”
Soups nods and sits down.
He is allowed to know because he never reports anything unless procedure requires it. This makes him more trustworthy than the commanders.
“Any developments?” he asks.
“Hush observed a partial ear event.”
“Significant.”
Ledger updates a complicated chart on his datapad.
There are no credits attached to the pool. Instead, every trooper wagers something useful or terrible.
Two refresher-cleaning shifts.
One week of inventory duty.
A weekend covering the drunk tank.
Three hours helping Fox organize reports, which sounds harmless until someone remembers Fox’s reports reproduce when unobserved.
The highest-value stake is Representative Binks protection detail.
The Gungan representative is friendly.
He is also a walking workplace hazard.
Binks has fallen into fountains, activated emergency shutters, released diplomatic animals, and once knocked a ceremonial spear through a Senate window while attempting to compliment it.
Whoever loses the pool must protect him for five consecutive shifts.
Ghost has bet that Fox notices his feelings first.
Ink has bet that Senator Chuchi confesses first.
Ledger has bet that Commander Thorn loses patience and tells both of them.
Soups has bet that they are already conducting some form of courtship without realizing it.
His prediction is disturbingly plausible.
Crate points toward Fox’s name on the board. “I still don’t understand why she likes him.”
Ghost turns slowly.
Crate raises both hands. “I mean from a natborn perspective.”
“That didn’t improve it,” Ink says.
“Fox is Fox.”
“He’s the marshal commander,” Hush says.
“He’s terrifying,” Crate replies.
“So are half the senators.”
“Yes, but they have hair products.”
Ghost considers throwing a ration bar at him.
Fox’s appeal seems obvious to the Guard. He is their ori’vod. He works until Scalper threatens sedation, takes punishments meant for them, and can reduce a room of corrupt officials to nervous silence by looking at them.
Natborns usually dislike those qualities.
Especially senators.
Senator Chuchi is stranger than most.
She was clearly sent to Coruscant to be a pleasant Pantoran vote with no meaningful voice of her own. Young, inexperienced, and easy for older politicians to ignore.
Then she started defending clones.
She learned their names. She read casualty reports. She publicly called Gunray’s escape an insult to dead troopers and made half the Senate look ashamed of itself.
Fox distrusts all natborns.
Senators rank just beneath Jedi on his list of people likely to cause operational suffering.
Yet he talks to her.
Not only official answers. Full sentences.
Once, he made a joke.
Thorn had reported the incident with the solemnity of a battlefield casualty.
“She likes him because he listens,” Ink says.
Everyone turns toward her.
Ink shrugs. “Natborn men apparently don’t do that often.”
“Research?” Ledger asks.
“Dirty novel.”
Ghost distrusts Ink’s research library.
Ink owns fourteen romances, six medical guides, and one novel about a Mandalorian pirate whose armor repeatedly falls off at structurally convenient moments.
None have explained romance.
The Guard understands sex in a technical sense. Some understand it through experiences they prefer not to discuss. None understand why fictional people spend eighty pages refusing to say they enjoy each other’s company.
It appears inefficient.
Crate nods toward the board. “Maybe the senator wants political influence.”
Ghost gives him a flat look.
“Fox lives in a closet.”
“His office is a closet.”
“His bunk is also nearly a closet.”
“He has medals.”
Ink glances up again. “The Silver Star and Flying Star?”
Several troopers look interested.
Most Guardsmen know about Geonosis. Very few know what Fox did there since he treats personal history like classified intelligence, and his official file contains entire sections redacted behind Kaminoan clearance.
Hush lowers his voice. “Thire said Fox was a pilot.”
“Fox?” Crate asks.
Ghost kicks his chair.
“What?”
“You sounded surprised.”
“He’s our marshal commander.”
“He existed before the Guard.”
That concept unsettles everyone slightly.
The Guard formed after Geonosis. Before that, Fox had been an ARC, although few people outside command knew it. He’d designed much of the ARC selection program and apparently frightened several trainers with the pace.
On Geonosis, he flew.
The Flying Star proves that much.
Rumor says Fox was the first clone ace of the war. He isn’t the only clone who received the medal, only one of the last still alive.
Ghost looks at the wall again.
“Does Senator Chuchi know?”
“No,” Hush says. “Thorn didn’t.”
“Thorn knows everything about Fox.”
“Thorn thinks he knows everything about Fox.”
Different problem.
Soups finishes his soup and places the bowl neatly on the table.
“I think the senator will find out.”
“How?” Ledger asks.
“Fox will mention it accidentally while pretending to explain something unrelated.”
Everyone considers that.
Ghost adds a secondary wager beneath Soups’s name.
FOX REVEALS PILOT HISTORY WHILE CLAIMING IT ISN’T IMPORTANT.
The breakroom door opens for the third time.
Commander Thorn stands there.
Every trooper becomes intensely interested in something else.
Ghost examines the ceiling.
Ink resumes tattooing.
Ledger closes the betting chart.
Thorn walks to the wall and reads the new notes.
“Partial ear event,” he says.
No one answers.
Thorn takes the marker.
Under his existing prediction, he writes:
SHE TOUCHES HIS ARM BEFORE THE END OF THE MONTH. HE STOPS FUNCTIONING FOR THREE TO FIVE SECONDS.
He caps the marker.
“Marshal Commander Fox will be inspecting this room in ten minutes.”
Ghost looks at him. “You told him?”
“No.”
Everyone relaxes.
Thorn smiles.
“But I told him there was an unauthorized gambling operation.”
The breakroom erupts into betrayal.
“You’re in the pool!” Ink shouts.
“I’m command staff. I’m gathering intelligence.”
Ghost grabs the board with both hands.
“Hide it.”
“Where?”
“Behind the ventilation panel.”
“The one missing a motor?” Soups asks.
Everyone looks at Ink.
Ink continues tattooing with professional calm.
“I have no idea what you mean.”