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Eidola: Chapter 21 - CT-8821 Reaver

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd and the Bad Batch

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

“I will admit, the upcoming, earlier-than-expected visit from the Imperial tax assessor has put us in a bit of a bind,” Governor Shalk said, reaching for one of the datapads on her surprisingly utilitarian desk. “Of course, we here on Wadj are proud to support the Empire, but we have so few goods we can export to Core worlds to generate additional income, and fewer highly-connected allies to help us find markets for those goods we do have to offer.”

Major Ullmann reached across the desk and accepted the datapad, turning it around to scan through the proffered file.

Reaver was standing at attention, just to the left of the door of the governor’s office. The Coruscant Guardsman, Ori, was opposite him, posture propaganda-holo perfect on the door’s right side.

They weren’t exactly a matched set though. Ori had handed Reaver an orange command pauldron, when they’d all been suiting up for this escort mission. Reaver wasn’t sure what to make of that: if their recently arrived brothers were honestly trying to loop him in on their non-standard command structure or if it was just a sop to his ego. He might still be the top-ranking clone in the 241st, but he clearly wasn’t the one calling the shots around the base anymore.

Neither was Major Ullmann, but that had been true since they’d arrived on Wadj, right after the war had ended. That was a separate issue to mull over in the middle of the night, when Reaver’s insomnia got the better of him.

“Might I take this ‘pad to review these files in detail?” the Major asked, all diplomatic etiquette and careful obfuscation, promising nothing.

Governor Shalk waved one hand with casual grace. A single ring caught the light at that gesture, one small stone set in a plain band, resting on the finger several natborn cultures reserved for signs of marital status. Reaver had been in this room dozens of times before, guarding meetings just like this one, but he hadn’t really noticed any of the fine details of the place or the people involved. It was vaguely horrifying, just how bad he’d been at everything, under the chip’s control.

“Of course, in the event this little endeavor bears fruit, I would be happy to negotiate some form of remuneration for your efforts,” the Governor was saying with a small smile.

A bribe. She was offering the Major an under-the-table cut of the profits.

Reaver’s memory might be spotty and incomplete, but after reviewing what recollections he did retain before this mission, it was obvious that the Governor had been making every effort to ingratiate herself with Major Ullmann, from the moment they’d all been stationed on Wadj.

The funny thing was, Reaver didn’t think less of her for it. It was obvious that she was doing everything in her very limited power to protect her planet’s citizens. If that meant sucking up to the Empire’s military commanders on-planet, or greasing a palm or two to keep everyone happy, then so be it. Her actions on other fronts were far more telling.

The local economy ran as much on barter as it did credits, but what little revenue did come in from the taxes on off-planet trade was cycled back into public works and social safety nets, not into lining Governor Shalk’s pockets. Not unless she was hiding her tracks better than any of them realized.

Given the aggressive plainness of the governor’s office and attire, Reaver kind of doubted it.

Wadj wasn’t exactly a prime posting for any ambitious Imperial officer. It was too small, too out-of-the-way, and too strategically unimportant to rate much scrutiny from the Empire. As long as the planet paid its taxes and kept its head down, the chances the local politicians would be replaced with Imperial cronies were low. And the higher-ups on Wadj had been scrupulously toeing the line to keep things that way. On flimsi, the planet was populated by loyal, if poor, Imperial citizens.

The planet also appeared to be the perfect place to send a trio of disgraced Imperial Army officers to languish in obscurity, under the guard of their chipped clone troopers. Finding those reports on his personal terminal had been sobering. Reaver had immediately sent them all to the Major, who had read them over with something resembling dark amusement before forwarding them to a few key brothers among their rescuers.

At least CT-8821’s chip-addled incompetence had extended to the reports he’d filed behind his own officers’ backs. They hadn’t contained anything too incriminating. Lists of comm contacts, details of the Major’s bank records, his daily schedule. Invasive? Yes. Horribly so. But not incriminating.

Ori was confident he could mimic Reaver’s, CT-8821’s, wording well enough to take over sending safely innocuous, false reports, occasionally seeded with useful misinformation. The Corrie had offered to run all of the falsified documents past Reaver and the Major both. Reaver wasn’t having any better luck interpreting that offer than he was the orange pauldron on his shoulder.

The Governor leaned back in her chair and adjusted the drape of her robe, seemingly appeased. The garment was made of a well-crafted, but unpretentious, blue fabric with only a little embroidery around the seams to add visual interest. Not austere, but also not extravagant, at least by Outer Rim reckoning.

“Now,” she said, clearly changing the subject. “Is there anything I should be aware of, regarding security operations in system?”

From his current position, guarding the door, Reaver couldn’t see the Major’s face, but he had worked with the man long enough to easily read his body language. If they’d been playing sabacc, Reaver would be on his guard, given the way Major Ullmann had just shifted in his seat, shoulders angled casually out of perfectly square.

“There has been a minor uptick in pirate activity in a few of the neighboring systems,” the Major said, sounding professional, if largely unconcerned. That statement, at least, was true. “You may notice some heightened activity, around our base. We have been instructed to take certain steps, to increase our operational readiness in the event we need to repel similar raids in system.” And there was the lie, Reaver knew that they’d received no such orders. The Empire, like the Republic before it, cared very little for the safety and security of Outer Rim planets. “We have been increasing patrols, both on the ground and in orbit, but I assure you, these actions are precautionary only.”

That was a neat and tidy way to explain away anything odd the locals had almost certainly noticed around their base, not the mention the increase in fuel the base was requisitioning from the capital’s small spaceport.

Reaver’s lips twitched upwards into a lopsided smile, which he only allowed because it was well-hidden under his bucket.

The Guardsman, Ori, might as well have been carved from stone, visor facing perfectly ahead, seemingly focused on a blank patch of wall some indefinable distance above the Governor’s head. He might have been rolling his eyes behind his visor, but honestly, Reaver doubted it. Ori had struck Reaver as a consummate professional, even though this meeting had to be painfully quaint to a brother who’d spent most of his deployment on Coruscant serving the Senate.

Major Ullmann and Governor Shalk continued to chat for another twenty minutes, discussing minutiae that Reaver would remember this time, even though he didn’t find much of it interesting. Regulation of fishing quotas, hiring additional locals to fill empty staff positions in the Imperial registrar and judicial offices, unusual storm activity off the main continent’s southern coast.

When they left, picking up Jade and Facet along the way, they were stopped at the door by one of the Governor’s aides, who presented the Major with a wooden box of ‘export samples.’ Another bribe, no doubt. Major Ullmann clearly found the whole thing highly distasteful, but he hid it well with a polite thank you and a vague gesture to the four clones flanking him.

Jade accepted the small crate, and Reaver saw Ori discretely palm out a hand scanner and give the box a quick once over. Reaver trusted that the Corrie would do or say something if he found anything too alarming.

Apparently he didn’t.

With some final nods and empty platitudes, they were finally able to join Sergeant Levee and another one of their new brothers, Hitch, who’d been guarding the armored transport they’d taken from the base.

The drive back was largely uneventful, except for the part where Ori insisted they open the crate so he could make absolutely sure of what they were bringing back before they reached the base. That seemed paranoid, but Reaver couldn’t exactly fault the man’s reasoning. The good news was that the contents seemed to be innocent enough: some kind of alcohol in three rather fancy-looking bottles, a shockingly soft bolt of green fabric with an iridescent sheen to the weave, a solid cylinder of some kind of faintly luminescent mineral, two vibrantly painted ceramic bowls, a few jars of scented creams or cosmetics, and a selection of fancily packaged herbs and spices whose names Reaper didn’t recognize.

No explosives, no surveillance equipment, nothing biologically reactive unless you counted the alcohol.

Ori sealed the box back up, apparently satisfied with his findings.

Major Ullmann sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him in the back of the transport. “I wish I had even a quarter of the connections the Governor apparently thinks I do,” he said dourly. “She’s not wrong to be concerned though. The slated increase in Imperial taxes is going to be crippling to what few import and export businesses they have.”

The clones were all silent for several minutes. Planetary economic theory hadn’t exactly been covered in the standard trooper training regimen back on Kamino.

Eventually though, Ori did say, “I will speak to the Commander,” and left it at that. It was as vaguely non-committal as anything the Major had said back at the Governor’s office. Reaver had no plans to hold his breath waiting for anything to come of it.

Clip was waiting for all of them in the base’s courtyard when they all filed out of the transport. Much to Reaver’s surprise, he wasn’t there for Ori or the Major.

“You’re needed for a comm call upstairs,” Clip explained. The ARC’s uncharacteristically terse tone made Reaver tense up, immediately assuming that he’d be receiving some kind of bad news. Clip clearly noticed that reaction and grimaced a little before adding, “It’s nothing bad, but we thought it best to let you and Brace decide what should be shared with the rest of the base.”

Brace. Brace was the 241st’s CMO. That really didn’t set Reaver’s mind at ease.

They didn’t head to the main holotable in the base’s command center, but instead diverted off to one of the conference rooms meant for more sensitive conversations. And sure enough, there was Brace, standing on the other side of the compact comms system, looking as worn and worried as Reaver felt. He had a stack of datapads sitting on the table in front of him, which he’d obviously been reading through when they’d arrived.

Clip punched a quick code into the wall panel and said, “I’ll be in the command center if you need me.”

The device hummed and flickered to life when the door closed behind Clip, light resolving into quarter-sized images of two clones. The one on the right was a brother Reaver didn’t recognize, but the medical symbol painted on one of his spaulders spoke for itself.`

The other was Captain Rex.

Despite their nominally equivalent ranks, Reaver knew perfectly well where he fell relative to Rex in the new command structure around base. Reaver found himself stiffening unconsciously, shoulders squaring under the other Captain’s scrutiny. Out of the corner of his eye, Reaver saw Brace do much the same thing.

“Sir?” Reaver asked, with a deference he knew was deserved even if it was poorly defined.

Captain Rex was silent for a moment, and Reaver wasn’t sure if it was because of a delay in the signal or something else. “We’re working on getting someone embedded in the capital’s hospital, a Core-trained surgeon,” he finally said. “Be working on a list of your people you think could benefit from access to their facilities.”

The news was a kriff-ton better than whatever Reaver had been half-expecting. “We can do that,” he said, still waiting for the other boot to drop.

“We also have some medical files to transfer to you,” Captain Rex added, glancing over to his own medic, who leaned forward to enter something into the holotable on their end of the connection.

Brace picked up one of his datapads and plugged it into the ‘table. The file transfer only took a few moments, but whatever came up on the screen earned a sharp intake of breath.

“Nails finally agreed to let us read you in on his situation,” the other medic said without any further preamble. “He’ll be on the next ship we send your way.”

Reaver couldn’t sleep.

He was exhausted, but every time he started to drift off, some new thought would bubble up to the surface and jerk him back to wakefulness. The medics informed him that this was a fairly normal, even mild, reaction to coming out from under the long-term effects of his mind-control chip. Given how most of Reaver’s men were, or were not, recovering from their own surgeries, he kind of understood their point.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the chip. It wasn’t like he was short on other, more immediate sources of stress.

Nails, for example.

Force. Captain Rex himself had told Reaver about Nails, almost the moment Reaver had left the infirmary after his own surgery. That news had seemed too good to be true, and Reaver’s small kernel of doubt had only grown after the days turned into weeks and their long-lost brother still hadn’t commed any of them.

But now that Reaver had read the medics’ reports, he had a better idea why Nails might have been hesitant to reach out to them.

Reaver himself had signed the flimsiwork, sending Nails off on a temporary assignment to the Republic medical station in the Hosnian system. He’d been helping to repair the base’s malfunctioning carbon dioxide scrubbers when Order 66 had gone out. Apparently there had been fifteen Jedi on base: nine knights and six padawans, all injured and receiving medical care.

The clones, Nails among them, had killed them all in their cots.

It wasn’t the last slaughter Nails had been ordered to perform, before being rescued out from under the noses of his Imperial commanders on one of Millik’s moons.

Force. The details had been hard to read. Reaver couldn’t even imagine.

Reaver had lost two years of his already foreshortened life to a slave chip the Kaminoans had planted in his brain before he was even decanted. He was angry, and bitter, and (although he hadn’t actually admitted it out loud) deeply afraid that removing the chip somehow hadn’t been enough, that one day another random comm call would snatch his mind away again, this time forever.

But in comparison to what their new brothers had experienced, in comparison to what Nails had experienced, Reaver was also very lucky.

Almost his entire company was here with him on Wadj. His men were wounded in mind and spirit, but they were recovering. The situation was far from ideal, but it could have been so much worse.

Reaver had met maybe a dozen new brothers who wore the infamous blue of the 501st, but the rest of their group sported all sorts of other colors, rarely in groups bigger than two or three. He hadn’t seen a single other brother wearing Clip’s shade of medium-green, or Shark’s brownish-red, or Aughts’s pale lavender. He didn’t know if their battalions were gone – just completely wiped out, or if their closest brothers were still out there somewhere under the control of the Empire.

Their new brothers had been opening up more and more every rotation, sharing stories from their pasts. Hearing more about them, what they had gone through during the war and especially after it, made his own experiences seem small and petty by comparison.

Reaver was so angry, and so afraid, and so lucky, and he’d really just like to work through his own osik, without also feeling guilty for not being happier or more grateful for his comparatively good situation.

He couldn’t blame his reaction on their new brothers. They weren’t doing or saying anything to stoke that guilt. If anything, they were being so unfailingly supportive about the whole situation that it was just making Reaver feel even worse. Aughts had flat out asked him if he’d prefer to schedule his check-ins with one of his own medics. That had seemed cowardly, not to mention rude towards the brothers who had saved them, so Reaver had turned the offer down.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

He really needed to get his bucket on straight, and fast. He couldn’t let his own issues spill over onto Nails. He wouldn’t.

Sleep was a long time coming.

“Malk, we’ve got the Scythe incoming,” Latch said over the command deck’s open comms. “You’re gonna want to clear your cadets out of the way.”

They weren’t really cadets, but nobody seemed to have a better name for the pair of stringy, half-grown Nautolans one of their new brothers had somehow adopted. They’d been on base for a little over a week at this point, running endless laps around the courtyard, or eating in the mess, or practicing with blasters under the watchful eyes of multiple different clones. They seemed like good kids, not that Reaver had a lot of experience with less-than-fully-grown natborns.

Captain Rex had asked Reaver if transferring them here was going to be a problem, and Reaver had said no. He genuinely hadn’t thought there would be any issues.

He also hadn’t been sure if he could actually voice a complaint if he did have one. If it would be heard or heeded.

He wasn’t sure if the question itself hadn’t been some kind of test.

He was pretty certain he was being unfair.

Reaver just wished somebody would just lay out the details of this… whatever the kriff this was. Rescue mission or rebellion or what.

Maybe their new brothers couldn’t.

Maybe they didn’t know themselves.

Reaver had always known where he stood back on Kamino, with the G.A.R. Kriff, even with the Empire, under the control of the karking chip. The knowing made things easier, let him predict how he should act, when he should speak, and when it was better to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t know where that line was anymore.

Major Ullmann had always encouraged his officers to speak their minds, but now he was deferring to the newcomers in all the ways that mattered. He’d instructed his men to do the same. There had been a lot of pretty words to say about self-determination and the founding principles of the Republic, but none of the brothers present had missed the guilt and anger and grief and heartache behind his words.

Reaver got it. He did. The Major felt responsible for what had happened, for not figuring out the reality of the chips or how to give his men their own minds back earlier, no matter how irrational or illogical that line of guilty reasoning was.

Reaver felt the same way.

He just wished his CO would give him a little additional guidance here.

The 241st still answered to Reaver, and Reaver now answered to… somebody. Maybe Captain Rex. Rumor had it he’d been promoted to Commander near the end of the war, but those same rumors also said he’d been stripped of his rank and accused of treason after Order 66. Reaver wasn’t interested in reopening any of those wounds with tactless requests for details. And besides, Rex hadn’t exactly been around much, to oversee the day-to-day workings of the Wadj base.

The same could be said about Ahsoka Tano, who as a Jedi padawan also had held the rank of Commander, but who had also made herself scarce shortly after Reaver had been released by the medics. From what little gossip he’d been able to gather around base, her actual rank was even more convoluted than Rex’s, even though both of them were clearly the leaders of this operation.

Perhaps Reaver was supposed to be answering to one of the seemingly random sampling of Coruscant Guards, ARCs, or indeterminately elevated troopers who seemed to round out the rest of the upper echelon of the group’s command structure. Who even knew?

Force, the entire outfit was a karking organizational mess, except he couldn’t exactly say anything against their operational effectiveness. Not when they’d taken his own base out from under him and then seen to the health and freedom of his brothers. Chips or no, the entire incident was deeply humbling in retrospect.

Reaver sure as kriff couldn’t run any of these thoughts past his own men, who needed him to be a source of stability while they all sorted themselves out.

And he still didn’t know where he was supposed to fit into this whole mess.

“The Scythe is on her final approach,” Bar reported, sending out the data on the projected flight trajectory to the other terminals. “Requesting permission to land.”

Reaver had a wild, irrational impulse to deny that request, just to see what would happen.

“Latch, please confirm that the yard is clear,” he said instead, perfectly professional.

“Yard’s clear,” Latch said after only a moment’s pause.

“Then permission granted,” Reaver said, rattling off the prescribed words like he was reading from a script.

The shuttle was easy to pick out, a dark silhouette against the last colors of Wadj’s fading sunset. They’d been routing most shuttles in and out after full dark to hide them from the locals, but sundown was just going to have to be good enough cover this time because–

“Did a piece just fall off of them?” Bar asked, alarmed.

Because of that. Yeah.

“Looks like yes,” Reaver answered without glancing over his shoulder at the men. He didn’t need to. He could feel the incredulous looks they were trading behind his back.

He didn’t blame them. He sure as kriff wouldn’t have been comfortable taking that thing out of atmosphere, much less into hyperspace.

Despite the obvious beating the ship had taken, the Scythe rotated smoothly and sank carefully into the courtyard. The base’s floodlights were doing their karking best to highlight every spot weld and temporary patch that were currently holding the craft together.

Reaver stepped closer to the command deck’s main windows, so he could see into the courtyard below. Ori was down there, waiting to greet his brothers as they exited the ship. Eventually the 501st ARC and their senior medic, Jesse and Kix, appeared, escorting an unfamiliar sentient down the ship’s damaged ramp. The being’s slender build looked particularly out-of-place surrounded by so many clones.

Right.

The surgeon.

“Slicing isn’t the issue,” the trooper said, scowling down at the datapad in his hands. Reaver had seen him around base, but he’d never managed to catch this brother’s name. Whatever his name was, he didn’t seem terribly comfortable being the temporary center of attention. “We have the access codes. In Hutt space, that’s all you need to open accounts and move around credits. But…” he trailed off.

“But the Hutts police their own banking system, and they don’t look favorably on unsanctioned thefts,” Ori said, picking up the thread of conversation without glancing up from his own ‘pad. “Draining these accounts will be a blow to their reputation.”

Jesse nodded, clearly unsurprised by their analysis, but also unhappy about it. “With the Imperial oversight of their own banks, somebody’s going to notice a huge number of credits suddenly appearing in some random account on an Outer Rim skug hole.”

“The Mandalorian banks are still independent,” Ori said, frowning to himself, and then amended, “Barely.”

Wait. Wait… “Wadj has an independent banking system,” Reaver said, looking around the holotable. He’d thought Ori, at least, had already known that, but maybe not, given the hard looks he was getting. “Lots of these small, Outer Rim systems do. It’s small, and I don’t know all the details, but I was never asked to report back on the Major’s Imperial accounts, only the Wadj ones.”

Reaver could practically see the gears spinning in all three brothers’ heads.

“Factor, can you look into this?”

Right. The trooper’s name was Factor. Reaver filed that piece of information away, grateful that he wasn’t going to have to break down and show his shebs by asking.

“Already on it,” the trooper said to himself, eyes flicking back and forth across whatever he was reading on his personal screen. After a protracted silence and a lot of rapid fire typing, he said, “Oh, that’s interesting,” under his breath. He seemed momentarily oblivious to the fact that everyone else was watching him, waiting for some kind of elaboration.

Finally, Jesse sighed and then asked, “What’s interesting?”

Factor looked up, refocused his attention with a small shake of his head, and reported in a stringently professional tone, “The local system functions more as a membership-based, credit sharing entity instead of a true bank. It looks like it only really handles in-system transactions and has agreements in place with the Imperial banks for anything off-planet.” He handed his own datapad over to Ori, who took it with obvious interest.

The Coruscant guard’s expression sharpened like a hunting strill catching a scent. “They don’t require chain codes for membership,” he said, half to himself. He shared a weighted look with Jesse. “And the transfers can be done in the system’s name, not the individual member’s.”

Jesse made a quiet sound, half exhale, half low whistle. “How the kriff did they get away with negotiating that?” he said.

Ori shrugged. “By being too small and too unimportant to be worth targeting,” he said, but there was something distinctly predatory under the casual statement.

Reaver hadn’t been following the conversation half as well as he would have liked – credit-sharing didn’t sound any different from what regular banks did to him – so it was almost a relief when a comm request popped up into his HUD. It was from Brace. He turned to the side, flashing an explanatory hand signal to the others, and accepted the call.

“Reaver here,” he said, hoping this wasn’t some kind of emergency.

“The surgeon’s here,” Brace said flatly, not even bothering with a greeting.

Kriff, already? Reaver checked the chrono in his HUD and realized that this meeting had run exceedingly late. He’d completely lost track of time. He’d meant to get down to the infirmary before the natborn surgeon arrived. “I’ll be right down,” he said.

“Good,” Brace said and then cut the connection.

Well, that didn’t sound promising.

Reaver re-engaged his external mic just in time to hear Jesse say, “… If any of the natborns might be willing to test the waters by opening a personal account.”

Ori actually snorted. “Better than stashing their credits under their bunks, which is what I’m pretty certain everyone in the safehouse has been doing so far.”

“I’m needed in medical,” Reaver inserted into the brief lull in conversation. Maybe he should have phrased that as a question, but kark that. His brothers needed him, and whatever else this karked up situation ended up demanding of him, they would always come first.

But Jesse just nodded and asked, “Can you ask Echo and Tech to come up when they get done?”

Reaver just nodded and left the command deck to the others.

The walk across base was largely uneventful. It was a little disconcerting, how day to day life just kept humming along, chip or no chip.

Except, of course, there were differences. There was more chatter in the halls, more anger and more laughter and more sniping and just more personality underlying every conversation. Most everyone was wearing their old Phase II armor again, freshly pulled out of storage and touched up with the paint their new brothers had sourced.

And of course, tan wasn’t the only color paint he saw on his walk.

Reaver had known exactly who to expect in the infirmary, but the space still felt unexpectedly crowded. That could probably be chalked up to Clone Force 99’s presence, in its entirety.

The surgeon, a slender, multi-armed sentient in surprisingly colorful attire, was tracking a small light back and forth in front of Wrecker’s clouded eye and asking questions in a tone too quiet to make out. Kix was discussing something with Echo and Tech, the kid, Omega, was obviously trying to provide moral support to the others, and Hunter was hovering over them all like a broody Krayt dragon, puffed up and just as prone to bite. The situation seemed well in hand, so Reaver felt precisely no qualms about going to his own men.

Brace was bristling in front of Truss and Curl, pretending to review something on a datapad while actually watching the proceedings unfolding in the infirmary’s neighboring cots. It didn’t escape Reaver that he’d placed himself between his brothers and the unknown natborn in the room.

As for Curl and Truss, their reactions were about what Reaver had expected. Curl just looked bored, but Truss was fidgeting, playing with the makeshift prosthetic the medics had knocked together out of scavenged neural tech and a partial droid hand. The two metal digits curled along with his organic ones, but they moved more slowly in awkward fits and starts.

“Interface still glitching?” Reaver asked him, keeping his voice low.

Truss shrugged and looked up to meet Reaver’s eye, expression stubbornly blank. “Not really,” he lied.

“I had trouble figuring out distances back when it happened,” Wrecker was saying, his booming voice filling the space. “But I’ve gotten pretty good at managing.”

That also sounded like a lie to Reaver’s ears, but maybe it was a day for it.

Reaver was about to ask Curl how he was doing as well, when his scout suddenly hissed a soft, “Force,” under his breath.

Reaver turned to see what the issue was.

Echo had removed his armor and was starting to strip off his upper blacks as well.

Karking hells.

They all knew about the prosthetics, of course. They were kind of hard to miss, even when the 99 ARC was fully armored up, but Reaver hadn’t had any idea exactly how extensive the modifications were. Exactly how far up did–

A solid thwack against his armored shoulder jerked Reaver’s attention back to Brace, who had just hit him with his datapad.

“Stop staring,” the medic hissed, expression full of warning. He turned and leveled the same glower at Curl, whose shoulders hunched up in defensive guilt, and then Truss, who was the only innocent party here.

Truss just responded with a flat, unimpressed look of his own.

“Right,” Reaver said, pulling himself back on track and trying to drag his brothers along with him. “So, what’s the plan here?”

“Plans,” Brace said, not toning back his side eye a bit. “Plural. Tide, Kix, and I have worked out a number of different options, depending on what’s actually available.” He pointed at Curl, who’d taken a lungfull of corrosive gas back on Siesiss and experienced severely decreased lung capacity ever since, and said, “Regenerative therapy, partial mod replacement, or transplants, tank-grown or otherwise.” Then he shifted to Truss, and said, “Integrated ports or enhanced neural interfacing with an updated skeletal framing covered in either armored plating or synthetic skin.”

“All of which sounds pretty kriffing expensive,” Curl grumbled under his breath.

At least that concern was something Reaver could lay to rest. “That shouldn’t be a problem for long,” he said with a tiny, lopsided smirk which slanted at least a little mean. “I can’t share all of the details, but our brothers are working on a plan to relieve some slavers of their blood credits.”

Curl and Truss just stared in surprise, but it was Brace whose entire demeanor shifted. If he’d been wearing his plate, Reaver might not have noticed the slight shudder that worked its way down the medic’s spine, but Brace was in his light grays today. His expression flickered back and forth between hope and doubt.

Reaver could relate. The clones had always worked under the framework of tightening budgets and stringent rationing. The concept that they could just get whatever they needed without skimping elsewhere seemed too big to contemplate. Too big to be real.

Apparently the 241st weren’t the only ones to feel that way either.

Later that evening, well after the surgeon had returned to the natborn safehouse and Reaver had gone back to the regular day to day running of the base, Jesse had shown up to drag Reaver and a few of his officers to an ‘unofficial, official command meeting’ in the section of the base designed for natborn officers’ R and R time.

To Reaver, it looked a lot more like ‘after-hours drinking,’ but he wasn’t about to complain about that. Not when the Major had stopped by to add one of the governor’s fancy bottles of iridescent liquor to the more questionable options their brothers had ‘liberated’ from the Abainya pirates.

Who even knew how many glasses into the evening, Jesse had leaned back in the cushioned couch they’d claimed against one of the room’s walls and said, “It’s good to see him like this.”

It took Reaver a second to figure out who Jesse meant, but he did eventually realize that the ARC was watching their own CMO, Kix, who was snickering over something with two 501st brothers and Brace, who’d also been dragged into this impromptu celebration.

“What,” Reaver said, feeling and sounding a little fuzzy. “Drunk?”

Jesse snorted, because there wasn’t any denying that Kix was at least a little tipsy, but he still corrected, “Having fun. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen him smile since… Well, you know.”

Reaver did know, but this was getting a lot more personal than he was ready to handle, even if it turned out that Jesse and the other ambiguous ‘officers’ were surprisingly easy to talk to, at least after a few cups of liquid courage.

“This is the first alcohol I’ve had, since then,” his inebriated brain decided to blurt. The admission was somewhere between a confession, an explanation for why his tolerance was so pitifully low, and a poorly-thought-out attempt at commiseration. “Imperial regulations.”

Jesse just nodded and lifted up his own glass in a casual, almost mocking toast.

“To breaking Imperial regulations,” he said.

Reaver clinked his own glass against Jesse’s and echoed, “To breaking Imperial regulations.”

The weird, sparkly liquor really was good. Certainly better than that piss-tasting swill Ori was drinking.

“Oh, speaking of recreational reg-breaking,” Jesse said, leaning forward to set his glass on the low table in front of them. “How long do we all have to keep pretending we don’t know that one of your troopers has shacked up with Agent Weeks?”

Reaver just about choked on his drink, trying not to laugh mid-swallow. He’d been covering for Callan since before the war had ended. They all had. And now that every free breath he and his brothers took already amounted to high treason, Reaver was finding it even harder to get worked up over a little enthusiastically consensual fraternization on base, especially now that the remaining complications related to their company’s chain of command were actively being jettisoned out of an airlock.

The charade was getting more than a little silly, but there was something humorous and almost comforting in the familiar, unnecessary pretense, so after a moment’s thought, Reaver answered, “Probably right up until we get invitations to the marriage ceremony.”

Don’t lock your knees.

That was one of the earliest lessons Reaver remembered from back on Kamino. Before combat training, before blaster drills or armor maintenance, before learning to read or even to march, clone cadets were taught to stand at attention. Keep your back straight, chin up, eyes forward, and never, ever lock your knees. The instructors never explained why, they just gave the order and expected it to be obeyed. Of course, a few brothers didn’t listen, or weren’t sure what the instructors meant, or maybe they just forgot the detail, and ended up face-planting on the training room floor, out cold.

And when they’d come back to, then they’d been punished for not following their orders in every detail.

So, Reaver had learned pretty quickly not to lock his knees.

He locked his knees now though. He had to.

Nails was on that descending shuttle.

“I’m going to kill them,” Reaver muttered under his breath, trying to distract himself from his own irrational apprehension. At his side, Clip just laughed quietly. Pulling a half-joking grimace in response was easy. Reaver was still working things out in his head, but he thought he’d reached something resembling equilibrium over their ambiguous ranks. Getting absolutely plastered with your brothers was useful like that, even if his head was still throbbing.

“It’s too late to dismiss them now,” Ori said blandly, standing on Clip’s other side. “You’ll start a riot.”

Wasn’t that the truth?

Reaver had told Truss, Bolt, and Callan about who was arriving today, because to do anything else would have been cruel. He’d told Agent Weeks because he wasn’t an idiot and he knew that Callan would tell her even if Reaver didn’t. He’d also told all four of them that while he didn’t expect them to keep the news to themselves, they needed to keep the welcome party as small as possible so they wouldn’t overwhelm Nails.

It looked like the entire base had shown up instead, formed up in precise lines and decked out in their old, painted armor, buckets tucked neatly under their arms. Their non-241st brothers must be covering all of the base’s essential duty postings, to help make this happen.

At least most of the extra ships had relocated to the rapidly expanding archipelago base. It meant that at a bare minimum, they at least had the room for this kind of nonsense.

The shuttle was descending towards the last open space left in the base’s courtyard, thankfully far enough away from the front line of their formation to not shower them all in dust. Once the ship had landed and cut its engines, Reaver gestured for Truss and the other brothers assigned to the armory to fall in with him. Agent Weeks did not, as Reaver had half expected, join them. She just stood at the front of the formation in her formal blacks, shoulder to shoulder with Major Ullmann and Sergeant Levee in a silent show of support.

Reaver stopped next to the shuttle’s still-sealed ramp and waited as his brothers from the armory lined up next to him.

But then the shuttle’s ramp was dropping down and there, flanked by Captain Rex himself, was Nails.

Force.

It really was him, Nails, impossibly returned to them, but frozen at the top of the ship’s ramp, body language all but screaming that he was uncertain of his welcome.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

“Welcome home,” Reaver said, voice cracking only a little.

And then Bolt staggered forward up the ramp and caught Nails in a bone-crushing hug. Callan and Truss were only a step behind him. It was a wonder the four of them didn’t topple over, back into the ship.

A miracle, which probably had something to do with Captain Rex planting a supportive hand in the middle of Nails’ back.

As for Nails, he just buried his face against Callan’s spaulder and gripped all three of his brothers with desperate strength.

“I told you there wasn’t anything to worry about,” Reaver overheard Captain Rex say to Nails in an undertone.

It took Nails a bit, but once he got himself a little more under control, Reaver managed to gently entice the lot of them back down the ramp and towards the rest of the 241st, who look ready to storm the shuttle by force if they were asked to wait even one more minute.

He fully intended to join his men in the celebratory feast he wasn’t supposed to know Kenner had been cooking up in the mess. But there was one thing he needed to handle first.

When Captain Rex finally took the last few steps down off of the ramp and into the dust of the courtyard, Reaver gave him the most proper salute he could manage, shoulders back, posture perfect, and said, “Captain Rex. Thank you, sir.” He meant it too, the respect and the gratitude for Nails. For everything. He’d been raised to be loyal, and giving that loyalty to a brother was the easiest thing in the galaxy. Especially a brother whose men and mission continuously demonstrated their mettle. This brother.

Captain Rex just looked at him for a long moment, and then, instead of returning the salute, he extended one of his hands.

Kark it all, Reaver had really thought he’d gotten this relative rank thing worked out.

But Reaver did reach out, maybe a little awkwardly at first, and grip Rex’s forearm in greeting.

“Can we not, Captain?” Rex said with a small smile, putting a little extra emphasis on their shared rank.

Except it wasn’t shared, was it? Not really.

But Reaver really was feeling a little more confident in his footing. Enough to relapse into the familiar territory of being a subtle pain in the shebs when his superior officers were being particularly dense. “Anything you need, Commander.”

Stalemate.

The grumpy, resigned expression on Captain Rex’s face was legitimately hilarious, not that Reaver was going to let that reaction show on his face and lose the upper hand here.

Finally, Rex just sighed and buckled under the inevitable. “Can I at least get some food before having to deal with whatever crises cropped up dirtside?”

“Of course, Captain.”

AN: Previous chapters are available here.

Dividers by @freesia-writes using helmets by @lornaka. More designs available here.

#eidola tcw fanfic #star wars #tcw #clone wars #the clone wars #star wars the clone wars #clone troopers #original clone trooper #clone trooper oc #oc clone trooper #star wars fanfic #tcw fanfic #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic

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weyrwolfen · 1 month

Text

Clocking Time - Star Wars: The Clone Wars One-Shot

Rating: T

Characters: Commander Fox, Chancellor Palpatine

Warnings: Sheev being Sheev, but nothing particularly graphic is portrayed

Summary: Coruscant wasn’t the same as Kamino. Commander Fox needed to retrain his instincts.

“Commander, we have a few minutes between meetings,” the Chancellor said, shuffling through the datapads spread on his expansive desk. “I believe you mentioned a proposal you wished to make to me, regarding the Guard?”

Fox, from his unobtrusive position in against the office’s curving wall, breathed, steeling himself for this conversation.

He owed his men this. He had to at least try.

“Sir, it has to do with a personnel issue, and maximizing the efficiency of the troopers assigned to Coruscant,” Fox said, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back. Perfect.

The Chancellor looked up from his datapad, and there was something cold and dangerous in his eyes. Fox’s heart rate picked up, adrenaline surging. This was… this was a mistake. This was…

But then the Chancellor smiled so gently that Fox berated himself for his immediate, illogical reaction. Three months into this posting and his instincts, which previously had served him so well, were still flinching at shadows. He was better than this.

“Of course, Commander,” the Chancellor said, folding his hands in front of him on his desk, a signal that he was giving Fox his full attention. That was… That was good. “Tell me what is on your mind.”

Fox owed his men. He’d prepared for this. Meticulously.

“Three Guardsmen suffered permanently disabling injuries in yesterday’s speeder bombing,” Fox started, voice as coolly professional and emotionless as if he was discussing a theoretical situation, a logic puzzle presented in an exam. Not Sift’s mangled eyes, or Red’s severed legs, or Amber’s crushed spine. Bacta was a miracle treatment, but even it could only heal so much. Fox breathed, holding his composure under rigid control, and continued. “I am requesting that they be reassigned to the Guard’s communications hub, to free up able-bodied troopers for more physically demanding assignments.”

The Chancellor looked up at Fox, eyebrows furrowing slightly over flat, empty eyes, his expression concerned. “That seems reasonable enough,” he said, the barest hint of confusion entering his tone. “Is there a problem with such a transfer of which I am unaware?”

“Yes, Sir,” Fox said evenly. His breath was even, perfectly controlled, even while something in the back of his head screamed a warning. This was the Chancellor of the Republic, he held the lives of trillions of sentients in his hands, and Fox was wasting his time. For three clones who were no longer able to do their duties.

Fox owed them. He was their Commander. He owed them this attempt, even if it failed. Even if he suffered for it.

“Current protocol states that they should be returned to Kamino for processing, and replacements sent from the most recent cohort of mature clones,” Fox replied, dragging his eyes away from the kindly, patient – calculating, predatory – expression on the Chancellor’s face and instead focused on the cityscape sprawled beyond the office’s expansive windows. It was safe enough; with his helmet on the Chancellor wouldn’t be able to tell. The sprawling vista was as beautiful as it was daunting. Fox breathed. “However, these replacements would require significant training to be brought up to speed on the specifics of serving on the Coruscant Guard. Retaining the three injured troopers in a support capacity, and adjusting the Guard’s protocols in the event of similar situations in the future, would prevent these temporary decreases in unit readiness.”

Arguing with the Kaminoans was generally a losing proposition, but if you had to, it was possible to sway them with cold logic and brutal pragmatism. And Fox had been very good at speaking to them in a language they understood and respected. He’d been the best at it, at maneuvering them, at making it look like they had reached the conclusions he’d wanted on their own.

But that had been back on Kamino.

Coruscant was different. He was still learning its rules.

The Chancellor shifted in his ornate chair, drawing Fox’s eye back to the man’s face.

There was understanding there, compassion in the set of his mouth, the worried arch of his eyebrows. But his eyes, his eyes…

“And you care for them,” the Chancellor said with a small smile. Gentle. Understanding.

A trap.

Don’t mention love. Love wasn’t efficient, but ‘care’ could be twisted so that it aligned with the Kaminoans’ ledgers.

“I am their Commander,” Fox replied evenly. “It is my duty to care for the troopers under my command.”

It was the correct response, the only acceptable one, but there would be a cost. The Kaminoans always exacted a cost, so Fox was sure the Chancellor would too. But Fox would pay it. For his men.

“It seems a terrible injustice, to send these troopers away, especially for injuries they sustained in defense of the Senate,” the Chancellor said with a slightly wider smile, enough to convey a sense of real warmth and care.

A bead of sweat trickled down Fox’s back, between his shoulder blades.

“I am sure that you are more than able to make the proper arrangements,” the Chancellor said with an air of finality. “I leave it in your capable hands.”

That… was it? Fox had prepared more arguments. He had numbers. Statistics. Counteroffers.

“Thank you, Sir,” Fox said, because if you ever managed to win something off of the Kaminoans, you learned not to press your luck further.

“Now, I believe that my 2:30 from the regulatory oversight committee should be waiting,” the Chancellor said, clearly moving on to the next task on his schedule. “Please see them in.”

Fox moved to comply, smothering down his shaky relief so that it would not affect his performance. He was expected to perform perfectly, and so he would. He needed to be perfect, in the eyes of his owners. It was important.

But the Chancellor interrupted his progress, just as Fox was reaching for the door panel. “Oh, and Commander?” he said, voice smooth.

The hairs on the back of Fox’s neck prickled.

He turned to address the Chancellor, shoulders squared. Above reproach. Perfect. “Yes, Sir?”

“Execute Order Twenty-Three.”

Fox passed along the good news to the Guard’s CMO. Fox would check in with Sift, Red, and Amber in the morning. They were all recovering and needed all the sleep they could get. And besides, Fox needed to catch up on the day’s flimsiwork. Guard duty in the Chancellor’s office tended to make for an easy, often boring shift, but the messages and forms tended to pile up in his absence.

The shift had been uneventful, just a steady stream of politicians and lobbyists, business representatives and aides from interest groups. The report Fox would file with the Chancellor’s office would be deadly dull for all its meticulous detail. He did not envy whichever functionary was tasked with tracking and filing such things.

Coruscant might not be the posting he’d wanted, the one he’d envisioned for himself, but he would perform his duties as assigned, to the level of quality the Kaminoans had required. There was some pride to take in that.

Fox’s own secondhand desk was much smaller than the Chancellor’s, but he suspected that his chair was more comfortable. It had already been old and worn down when he’d arrived on Coruscant, but the chair was thickly cushioned, which was an almost decadent indulgence, after the hard planes and harsh angles of Kamino. Fox sat in the creaking chair, oddly sore and stiff for physically having done so little this shift. He tugged off his helmet and set it aside, reaching for the nearest datapad.

There was a whole new stack of datapads waiting on Fox’s desk, when he’d arrived fresh from talking to his men in the medbay the next morning, cup of dubious-smelling caff in hand. It looked like more of the usual, except for one file which had been flagged as medium priority. Apparently a junior aide from the regulatory oversight committee had not checked into his suite the previous night. The chair of that committee, a mid-Rim senator Fox had never met, had grown concerned enough to file a missing persons report.

Fox was certain he’d never met any of the sentients involved, but something about the file made him pause. Something familiar.

He shook off the odd tension which was gathering in his shoulders and forwarded the file to the correct department, moving on to the next report.

AN: I sat down to work on Eidola last night and instead my brain decided to cough up this.

#star wars fanfic #tcw fanfic #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic #star wars the clone wars fanfic #commander fox #Fox is playing 3d chess on the wrong board #cc 1010 #coruscant guard

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