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79’s is loud enough to conceal classified information, bad decisions, and several hundred soldiers discovering they have disposable income.
Cody has been explaining General Skywalker’s latest tactical offense for 12 minutes when Ponds stops listening and points across the table.
“Fox is distracted.”
Fox looks up from his fifth drink.
“I’m listening.”
“What did Cody just say?” Bly asks.
“That General Skywalker attempted something reckless, Commander Tano encouraged him, and General Kenobi was forced to prevent their deaths.”
Rex lifts his glass. “That doesn’t prove he was listening. That’s every mission.”
Cody can’t argue with that.
Around them, 79’s pulses with music, colored lights, and enough off-duty clones to crew a Venator. Armor and dress uniforms fill every booth. Commanders wear white, streaked with their battalion colors. Lower ranks wear grey or arrive in armor because nobody owns civilian clothing and wearing fatigues to a bar feels universally wrong.
Fox’s dress whites carry Guard red. Cody’s carry 212th orange, Ponds’s brown, and Bly’s marigold. Rex, being a captain, wears grey with 501st blue and looks relieved to be drinking somewhere General Skywalker can’t immediately create a crisis.
Probably.
Fox had intended to spend his forced rotation off asleep.
The Chancellor had apparently entered one of his rare, generous moods and officially ordered Fox away from duty. Cody had enough clearance to confirm the order, locate Fox, and personally prevent him from using the time to complete reports.
Fox had only agreed after Cody offered to pay for his drinks.
The Guard doesn’t receive wages.
Cody knew that as an abstract fact. Watching Fox stare suspiciously at a menu with prices on it had made the injustice feel considerably less abstract.
Ponds leans across the table. “Who is she?”
Fox’s expression doesn’t move.
Cody has known him since they were decanted. He knows that expression.
It means Fox already prepared six lies and is selecting the least punishable.
“There is no she.”
“Definitely a she,” Bly says.
Rex nods with drunken authority. “His ears changed color.”
Fox’s hands rise toward his ears before he catches himself.
The table erupts.
“Traitors,” Fox says.
Cody grins into his drink. “You walked into that one.”
Fox drains the rest of his glass. He’s looser than Cody has seen him in years, though that isn’t saying much. Fox’s idea of relaxation is sitting instead of standing while he works.
Even now, his posture remains too rigid. He keeps shifting as though every position hurts after a few minutes.
Cody had asked if he was injured.
Fox said no.
Cody knows better than to press when Fox uses that particular tone. He’s always been private about pain.
At least, Cody thinks he has.
Some memories don’t fit anymore. Cody remembers a cadet who slept sprawled across the entire batch bunk and complained loudly whenever Wolffe stole his blanket. The Fox sitting beside him barely sleeps at all and flinches when strangers move behind him.
Cody assumes command changed him.
Command changes everyone.
Ponds taps the table. “We know she works in the Senate Dome.”
“You know nothing.”
“You’ve checked your messages nine times,” Bly says.
“Operational updates.”
“You smiled at one.”
Fox looks offended. “I did not.”
Rex squints at him. “Maybe it was a muscle spasm.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“That wasn’t a defense.”
Ponds gestures for another round. “Senate aide?”
“No.”
“Representative?”
Fox’s stare sharpens.
Ponds notices.
“Interesting.”
“It isn’t.”
“Security officer?” Cody guesses.
“No.”
“Diplomat?” Bly asks.
Fox picks up the newly delivered drink and examines it like he suspects interrogation drugs.
“Stop.”
Ponds grins. “She’s a politician.”
Fox’s silence condemns him.
The others shout over one another.
Cody laughs hard enough to nearly spill his drink. Fox, who distrusts senators as a professional discipline, has somehow become distracted by someone working inside the Senate Dome.
“Which one?” Rex asks.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Human?” Ponds asks.
“No.”
Fox freezes.
Bly points at him. “There. He answered.”
Fox looks down at his drink with the betrayed expression of a commander whose own mouth has committed treason.
Cody feels a strange warmth beneath the amusement.
He doesn’t know when Fox last allowed himself something personal. Their messages are usually short, limited to casualty reports, supply warnings, and Cody checking whether Fox is still alive.
Fox never speaks about the Guard beyond operational facts.
He never speaks about himself.
Now there is apparently a woman in the Senate Dome who makes his ears red.
Cody wants to tease him until sunrise.
He also wants to know whether she treats Fox well.
“Does she know?” Cody asks.
Fox’s expression goes blank.
“Know what?”
“That you like her.”
“I don’t.”
Ponds makes a thoughtful noise. “Five drinks and he’s still lying.”
“Impressive discipline,” Rex says.
Fox redirects with the speed of a trained ARC.
“Bly is sleeping with General Secura.”
Bly inhales his drink.
Cody turns.
Ponds slams both hands on the table. “What?”
“I am not,” Bly says through violent coughing.
Fox takes another calm sip.
Rex stares at Bly. “You absolutely are.”
“Based on what?”
“You call her Aayla when you’re injured.”
Bly looks horrified. “Who told you that?”
“Frontline medics talk.”
Fox’s gold eyes brighten.
There he is.
Few people know that Marshal Commander Fox is one of the GAR’s most dedicated collectors of gossip. Drunk frontliners pass through Coruscant constantly, and the Guard learns everything while escorting them from 79’s to the prison complex.
Which Jedi has slept with which senator.
Which Padawan commander got trapped in a supply locker.
Which general lost an entire vehicle because they forgot where they parked it.
Fox knows all of it.
He merely stores gossip with the same security protocols as military intelligence.
Ponds leans toward Bly. “How long?”
“Nothing is happening.”
Fox says, “Three months.”
Bly stares at him. “How do you know that?”
“A drunk lieutenant from the 327th attempted to bribe Stone with the information.”
“To avoid the drunk tank?”
“To receive a blanket in the drunk tank.”
Bly closes his eyes.
Cody decides Fox’s mystery woman can wait.
“So,” he says, “General Secura.”
The interrogation shifts targets instantly.
Bly is down badly enough that even Fox looks impressed. He denies everything while accidentally revealing that he knows Aayla’s preferred tea, meditation schedule, favorite flowers, and the exact expression she makes before using him as bait.
Rex listens with deep sympathy.
“I understand,” he says.
Cody turns toward him. “You’re 17.”
Rex gestures vaguely. “Commander Tano has opinions.”
“She’s 15 next month.”
“Exactly. She has 14-year-old opinions with command authority.”
Fox almost smiles.
By the time Bly begins describing Aayla’s eyes, everyone has forgotten to ask about Fox’s woman.
Everyone except Cody.
He glances at Fox across the table.
Fox has checked his messages again.
The newest one softened something in his face. Not enough for Ponds or Bly to notice through the alcohol, but Cody sees it.
He’s known Fox since they opened their eyes beneath Kamino’s white lights.
Or he thought he had.
Cody raises his glass.
“To mysterious Senate women.”
Fox’s eyes snap toward him.
Cody drinks before Fox can object.
Near the entrance, several red-marked Guardsmen begin collecting intoxicated brothers and sisters. Thire stands among them with his helmet beneath one arm and the exhausted posture of a man preparing to process an entire battalion through the drunk tank.
Fox spots him and immediately looks more sober.
“Time to leave.”
Ponds groans. “We’re not done.”
“Thire has binders.”
Rex looks toward the patrol. “He wouldn’t arrest command officers.”
Fox stands carefully, hiding a wince. “He absolutely would.”
Across the room, Thire sees them.
He smiles.
Cody has faced droid armies with less concern.
“Move,” Fox orders.
Four senior officers and one captain abandon the table with impressive speed.
They may be drunk, but they still know when the Guard is coming.