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1.
“That’s the Jedi we’re escorting to Thalassia?” Cody asked, incredulous.
The man’s outfit consisted more of sheer gauze, tight leather, body paint, and glitter than anything that could reasonably be considered clothing, even to someone like Cody, who admittedly had limited experience with civvie fashion. Still, if he’d had to guess at a career for the man, he would have picked low-cost sex worker — the sort that tended to hang around 79’s. Not Jedi.
General Kenobi’s lips quirked in a smile. “He’s very good at what he does.”
“He must be,” Cody muttered, and then straightened to attention when the apparently-a-Jedi sauntered over, confident and unselfconscious. He gripped Kenobi in a crushing hug that transferred over half the glitter before Kenobi could get away. Based on the man’s smirk as Kenobi attempted to brush it off his robes, Cody figured that was probably his intention all along.
“Obi-Wan!” the man exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you since the Battle of Rendili.”
Kenobi’s smile turned fixed. “There’s a reason for that,” he said, but Cody could see the exasperated fondness in his eyes.
“And who is this handsome man?” the Jedi said, turning to Cody. “Have you been holding out on me, Obi-Wan?”
Cody held his head high, trying to pretend there wasn’t a blush creeping across his cheeks.
Kenobi sighed. “Quinlan, this is Commander Cody of the 212th Attack Battalion, Marshall Commander of the Third Systems Army. Cody, this is somehow-a-Jedi-Master Quinlan Vos.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Commander,” Vos said, directing a blinding smile at Cody.
Oh, this flight was going to be very interesting. “Likewise, General,” Cody said with a salute.
“Go ahead and get yourself settled, Quinlan,” Kenobi said. “We’ll be along momentarily. And,” he added, “Do try to keep the glitter contained.”
“You know I can’t promise that,” Vos said with a cheeky grin, and strutted up the ramp. Cody and Kenobi watched him go, and then Cody turned to his general with a questioning look.
“We were crechemates,” Kenobi said.
Ah, Cody thought. That explained a lot.
“And we dated briefly. Very briefly,” Kenobi added, his face red.
That explained even more. Based on the way Kenobi’s gaze had strayed south as Vos walked up the ramp, Cody suspected Kenobi wouldn’t object too strongly to rekindling that relationship.
“I know Quinlan can be very, well, Quinlan,” Kenobi said. “If he says or does anything that makes you uncomfortable —“
“It’s fine,” Cody said, and…it was nice, actually. The way Vos had called Cody handsome, had looked at him as though Cody’s face was something special and not identical to a million others. Just like the way that Obi-Wan looked at Cody whenever they could find a moment alone for themselves.
Cody took a moment to imagine both of them focusing their attention on him, and suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Kenobi gave a truly wicked smile that said he knew exactly what Cody was thinking. “If you change your mind, I’ll make sure he stops.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cody said. “But I think I’ll be fine.”
2.
“I’m coming with you,” Vos declared.
Halfway up the ramp, General Kenobi paused, and so Cody came to a halt as well.
“No, you’re not,” Kenobi said. “You’re needed on another assignment.”
“Aayla needs me,” Vos countered. “The other mission can wait.”
“You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgement.” Kenobi was using the lecturing tone he sometimes still took with General Skywalker, but it seemed to have little effect on Vos.
“It’s Aayla,” Vos said, like that explained everything. Maybe it did. “Please, Obi-Wan. If it was Anakin in trouble I’d do the same for you, you know that.”
“Maybe if you actually had your own ship,” General Kenobi muttered, but his eyes softened. “All right, you can come with us. But you have to promise not to do anything reckless, and you get to be the one to explain to the Council why you’re not on Nar Shaddaa when they ask.”
“Deal,” Vos said, his voice choked with gratitude.
Kenobi put a hand on Vos’ shoulder. “You’re a good man, Quinlan Vos,” he said, and then continued his way into the ship.
Vos didn’t follow, just sank down on the ramp, careful not to touch with his bare skin, and let out a shaky breath.
Cody thought about Rex on the other side of the galaxy and out of reach, about sending Waxer and Boil out to scout never knowing if they would return, about all the brothers whose lives he held responsibility for as Marshall Commander.
He’d been surprised when he found out that Vos had been the one to train General Secura. Surprised Vos had successfully trained any padawan, really. But now, hearing Vos’ desperation and determination to reach her, he believed it.
“General Secura is an excellent fighter,” Cody said. “And Bly is a good commander; he’ll keep her safe until we arrive.”
“I know,” Vos said. “I know.”
“We’ll get there in time,” Cody said, and Vos looked up at him, his eyes red from sleepless worry but full of gratitude at Cody’s reassurance.
“We will,” Vos said.
Cody offered him a hand up, catching Vos’ glove with his own and pulling him to his feet. “Let’s get inside,” he said. “And we’ll find something to keep you busy for the next few hours.”
3.
In retrospect, Cody supposed, he shouldn’t have been surprised that the coordinates to retrieve General Vos from an intel-gathering mission led him straight to a brothel.
Stepping inside, he was immediately hit with a cloud of spice and perfume, thick enough to be visible even in the dim light. He coughed a little, and moved in further, stepping around an entwined Twi’lek and Human who hadn’t bothered to find a private room.
Vos was easy to spot, up on a stage near the back of the room, pulling some sort of acrobatic moves that Cody supposed could be called dancing, although they looked more like the sorts of things Vos might do in the bedroom. His entire torso was sparkling with both glitter and sweat, and there was a wicked grin on his face that grew wider when he noticed Cody.
He finished his routine with a seductive crawl that took him right in front of Cody, who was suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and also wishing that the civvies he’d been issued weren’t quite so tight.
He had a feeling the quartermaster might have done it on purpose. He also thought it was suspicious that General Kenobi was too busy to perform the retrieval himself (but had managed to find the time to admire Cody’s ass while seeing him off), and apparently, absolutely no other men could be spared for this mission.
Cody fisted a hand in Vos’ hair, pulling his head back so that their eyes met, and tried to ignore the way that Vos’ startled and then darkened with desire.
He lowered his lips to Vos’ ear and whispered, “There are rumors that the Black Sun is going to stage a raid on this place sometime in the next hour.”
Vos smiled up at him coyly. “Sounds exciting,” he murmured, and Cody wasn’t entirely sure whether he was acting or not. He settled his hands on Cody’s hips, and pulled him in closer.
“How much for the night?” Cody said, loud enough to be heard by anyone who cared to listen.
“A hundred fifty,” Vos said. “But for a gorgeous man like you, I’ll knock off twenty credits.”
“Sounds fair,” Cody said. Based on the twitch of Vos’ lips, he probably should have tried to negotiate the price down further, but the lack of bargaining could be written off as inexperience, and his performance only had to hold until he could get Vos alone. “Got a room?”
“Of course,” Vos said, rising to his feet smoothly and catching Cody’s hand to lead them up the stairs and down a hallway to a small room with a bed and a ‘fresher.
Cody closed the door behind them, and resisted the urge to slump against it. He needed fresh air and a cold sonic shower, and he wasn’t going to get either of those things until they made it back to the Negotiator.
“I take it you’re my ride out of here?” Vos said, delighted. His body language had changed dramatically the moment Cody closed the door; still utterly confident, but no longer predatory.
Cody suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We got the tip about the upcoming raid, and the 212th was the closest battalion to your position. If you’ll follow me, please.”
“Oh, there’s no need to be so formal,” Vos said. “Call me Quinlan.”
“Sir, Cody said pointedly. “We really need to get out of here.”
“You said we have an hour,” Vos said, reaching out again and pulling Cody close. “Plenty of time for a dance.”
“I said we had less than an hour,” Cody objected, but Vos was holding his waist carefully, gently, like Cody was delicate and precious and not a replaceable cog in a machine, and Cody didn’t want him to let go.
Vos swayed them gently, not at all in time with the music blaring up from the bar below. Cody took one breath and then another, and told himself sternly that he wasn’t going to fall apart in the middle of a mission just because it felt so good to be held like this by a man who was probably strong enough to use Cody as a battering ram if he wanted.
The music stopped, and Vos came to a halt but didn’t pull away. Cody didn’t either, just looked up at Vos, trying to figure out what to say.
And then instead of a new song, screams sounded from the bar, and the sharp noise of blasters and slugthrowers firing, and they broke apart in a hurry. Vos grabbed a bag from underneath the bed and then opened the window, gesturing to it grandly.
“After you,” he said.
They could have left via the brothel’s back door if they’d gone as soon as Cody had gotten there, but somehow he couldn’t make himself mind the delay. He hurled himself out the window, trusting Vos to make sure he didn’t get hurt, and heard a whoop behind him as Vos jumped too.
4.
“Hey, Commander! Wanna join us?” Vos asked, grinning as if Cody hadn’t just caught him gambling, in direct contradiction of a dozen different regulations, with half of Ghost Company.
Waxer and Boil looked stricken, at least, and Wooley was hurriedly trying to stuff his cards into his armor. It wasn’t going well.
“I’m on duty,” Cody said, and hurriedly looked away from the contraband alcohol still sitting blatantly on the table.
“Maybe after, then?” Vos said, entirely unrepentant. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head in a way that showed off his frankly impressive biceps and revealed a sliver of tanned belly. Cody supposed he was lucky that at least this time Vos was wearing an actual shirt; otherwise, his knees might have given out at the sight of all those muscles stretching.
It was a blatant invitation, although Cody wasn’t sure whether it was just for the game or for something more private.
“What sort of example would I be setting for the men, then?” he said.
“Obi-Wan must have been thrilled to have gotten you as his commander,” Vos said. “Do you drink tea together and discuss the regulation manual?” He didn’t sound mocking or unkind, just delighted.
There was a snort from someone behind him, but lucky for the trooper, Cody couldn’t tell who it was.
Cody couldn’t openly take Vos up on his offer, not in front of the men. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun. And he was sure Obi-Wan would approve.
“Every night,” he said with a straight face. “Until the early hours of the morning. There are just so many…nuances.”
Behind Vos, the snorting turned into a choke.
“Lucky man,” Vos said, playing along.
“I’m sure he’d love it if you would join us this evening,” Cody said. “We could have a fascinating conversation about chapter thirty-three section forty-seven b. You must have so many opinions about it.”
That was the fraternization section. Cody didn’t expect any of the others to recognize it offhand, but Trapper put a hand over his mouth and started wheezing. Longshot pounded him on the back until he could breathe again, while the other troopers around the table watched, confused.
Vos watched the drama with an amused smile. “Well, when you put it like that, how could I say no?” he said.
Cody nodded. “I’ll let General Kenobi know he should prepare extra tea,” he said.
“Oh I can’t wait,” Vos said, his voice low.
Cody saluted and left the room before he could do something stupid like sit himself down on Vos’ lap right then and there.
Tonight. He could wait until tonight. Obi-Wan was going to be thrilled.
5.
Tambolor prison was a nightmare. Dirty and overcrowded, and smelling of unwashed bodies even through the filters in Cody’s helmet. The lower he went, the worse it got; there were fewer inmates in the cells, but more signs of outright torture — blood and broken bones left untreated, prisoners lying on the ground twitching and moaning.
Finally, finally he got a glimpse of familiar dreadlocks. It was hard to tell Vos’ state from a distance, but he was slumped over and didn’t seem to notice Cody was there even when Cody shouted his name.
“I’ve found him,” Cody reported into his comm. “Lowest level, third cell block. We’re going to need Meter and his medkit.”
“Acknowledged,” Boil said.
Cody shut off his comm and shot out the lock on the door, entered the cell, and crouched down in front of Vos. Up close, he looked even worse. There were dried tear tracks smudging the grime covering his skin, and a faint tremor running through his entire body.
“General!” Cody said, but Vos still didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge his presence. He did flinch away hard when Cody put a comforting hand on one arm, and Cody jerked back, remembering too late that it was a terrible idea to touch a Kiffar who wasn’t in control of their psychometry.
“Quinlan,” Cody whispered. Even knowing how much it would hurt, it was still hard not to reach out and pull Vos close, run fingers through hair matted with blood, and assure him that he was safe now, that it was all over.
For a long moment, there was still no response, and Cody was seriously considering getting on the comms again to order Meter to get his shebs down here faster, but then Vos blinked and very slowly said, “Coooooody?”
“Yeah,” Cody said, relieved. “It’s me. Boil and our medic will be here soon. General Kenobi too, probably.”
“Coooody,” Vos repeated, and a smile spread across his face, even though he still wasn’t making eye contact. “You’re here.”
“Yes sir,” Cody said. “I’d like to get those handcuffs off you. Will you let me do that?”
Vos frowned down at his hands. There was something off with his reactions — too slow, too confused. Drugs, Cody thought. Meter needed to hurry the kriff up. “Sure,” Vos said.
Cody reached for them carefully, doing his best not to touch skin as he fried the locking mechanism with a small EMP blast and then pulled the cuffs away from Vos’ wrists.
Vos slumped in relief the moment they were gone, but he was still twitchy, on edge, like he was seeing ghosts. Probably he was; Cody doubted that anything that had happened before in this cell would be pleasant to relive. Hurt as he was, Vos would no doubt rest easier back on the Negotiator.
“What are you doing here?” Vos asked.
“Heroically rescuing you,” Cody said. “Do you think you can stand up?”
“For you, I could dance,” Vos said, but it still took a concerted effort on Cody’s part to get Vos to his feet. Cody looped one of Vos’ arms around his shoulders with an apology, and helped him out of his cell and down the hallway, one faltering step at a time.
Meter met them before they got very far, and Cody helped Vos stand still just long enough for Meter to confirm that a more thorough inspection could wait until they were back on the ship. By that point, Kenobi had arrived as well, and he ducked under Vos’ other arm to help Cody walk him out of the prison and onto the nearest lartie.
They sat him down on the floor as the lartie took off, and Kenobi pulled a pair of gloves out from his belt pouch, handing them over to Vos, who made no move to actually put them on.
Instead, he grinned up at them, listing a little. “Cooooody! Ooooooobi! You found me.”
“Of course we did,” Kenobi said. He moved out of the way to let Meter wave a scanner over Vos and then apply a hypospray to Vos’ neck. Kenobi carefully touched Vos’ leg, making sure he was only in contact with tattered fabric. “Of course we came for you.”
“Knew you would,” Vos said, his eyes slipping shut as Meter’s sedative took effect.
Both Cody and Kenobi turned to Meter, who assured them, “I’ll do a proper scan in a biobed once we get to the infirmary, but with bacta and a little rest, he should be fine.”
Cody let out a sigh of relief, finally letting go of the panic that had lodged itself in his throat from the moment he’d heard that Vos had been captured by the Separatists. Kenobi looked equally relieved.
Cody reached out and put his hand on Vos’ knee, next to Kenobi’s, just to reassure himself that Vos was really there, alive, in front of them. Kenobi’s other hand came up to grasp Cody’s, holding on tight.
+1
“Hey, Commander, lookin’ good.”
CC-2224 knew that voice. He knew those words, had heard them before, a lifetime ago. But he couldn’t think, couldn’t remember…
It couldn’t be referring to him. Only natborns held officer ranks; clone troopers were just foot soldiers.
He turned anyway, and there was a Kiffar with shiny beads woven into his dreads and a shirt with sleeves. Something about that struck CC-2224 as wrong, but he wasn’t sure what.
“What is your business here?” he asked.
“I came for you, actually,” the Kiffar said, then flung out his hands, and before CC-2224 could call out a warning or cry for backup, he was slammed against the nearest wall, and his vision was fading in and out. The last thing he thought before the darkness claimed him was, Jedi.
Cody woke up, flat on his back, with his head aching and the smell of bacta in his nostrils.
“You just had brain surgery,” a familiar voice said. “Don’t try to sit up yet.”
Cody ignored the voice. He needed to know where he was, what he was doing here, why his memory felt fuzzy.
He flopped himself over onto his side and then pushed himself up with weak arms, and the voice said, “Kriff.” And then there were strong arms wrapping themselves around him, helping him dangle his feet off the side of the surface he’d been lying on and not go tumbling after them.
The arms were familiar, the voice was familiar, the dreads hanging in Cody’s face were familiar… “Quin — General Vos?” he said, thoroughly confused.
“Nobody’s called me ‘general’ in a long time,” Vos said, and Cody didn’t think he was imagining the thread of grief in those words. “But yeah, it’s me.”
“Where am I?” Cody said. “What happened? I don’t remember. There was something. I did something, I think.”
“Yeah, you did,” Vos said, his voice heavy. “But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of your faults.”
Cody managed to get his arms steady enough to brace himself, and Vos pulled back a little.
“There was a chip in your head,” Vos told him. “In all your heads. One command, and you were gone.”
“Execute Order 66,” Cody whispered, and had a flash of memory, pointing at General Kenobi’s distant figure and ordering his troops to open fire.
He looked up at Vos, horrified. “I killed him?”
“It wasn’t you,” Vos said, but it was, it was Cody’s voice and Cody’s hands, and a dozen rebels bleeding out on the ground at his command.
“I killed him,” Cody repeated. “I…” A horrible thought occurred, and Cody made an attempt to throw himself off the bench, only to be caught again by Vos and settled back. Cody tried to fight, but he was weak, uncoordinated. “What if I kill you too?” he whispered.
“Chip’s gone,” Vos said, running a soothing hand down Cody’s back. “Your mind is yours again.”
Cody grabbed a fistful of Vos’ shirt and clung tightly, letting out a sob when Vos pulled him forward so that Cody could bury his face in Vos’ chest. They stayed that way for a long time, until Cody registered the hum of an engine running through the floor, and pulled back just enough to say, “You got a ship?”
Vos huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I finally did,” he said. “A Corellian light freighter. Not as impressive as a Venator class ship, but much easier to sneak around in.”
Vos was a Jedi, actively being hunted by the Empire. He would have to be stealthy just to survive. And yet, he’d come for Cody anyway. Gotten him away, gotten him free.
“Why did you come for me?” Cody said.
“I owed you a heroic rescue,” Vos said with a wry smile.
Cody shook his head. “It wasn’t worth it. You could have been caught.”
“It was,” Vos said, smile dropping away. “I couldn’t leave you there like that.”
Puppetted, empty, a good soldier following orders. Cody fought back a shudder, his fingers tightening in the fabric of Vos’ shirt.
“So what now?” he said.
Vos shrugged. “Whatever you want. The war is over.”
Two years ago, Cody hadn’t even dared to hope he might hear those words. Now, knowing how the war ended, he wished he never had.
Every moment of Cody’s life, he’d known he was meant to fight and die. For the Jedi, for the Empire. He’d dreamed, briefly, in the short moments he’d had with Vos and Kenobi — with Quinlan and Obi-Wan — of a different life. One where they could take their time with each other, grow old together.
Obi-Wan was dead. Quinlan may have said it wasn’t Cody’s fault, but it was Cody’s orders that tore that future away from them.
Maybe he was never meant for peace.
“The Empire has my brothers,” he said. “I’m not done fighting yet.”
Quinlan gave him a long, assessing look. “Are you sure?” he said. “We could fly off to some remote planet where the Empire won’t find us. Live a quiet life.”
“Is that what you want?” Cody asked.
“Nah,” Quinlan said. “Quiet is boring. But I would, if you wanted.”
It could be close to what Cody had dreamed of. Not the same, not without Obi-Wan, but at least Cody and Quinlan could live out their lives together.
Cody shook his head. “I couldn’t live with myself if I left my brothers behind.”
“Alright, then,” Quinlan said. “Where to first?”
“You don’t have to —“ Cody said, but Quinlan cut him off.
“I’m not leaving you behind either,” he said. “So tell me. Where are we headed?”