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Alpha-17 scowled down at the squadron of shiny cadets tussling with each other on the ground. The sheer lack of discipline still set his nerves on edge. But the cadets were allowed things like the opportunity to be a little undisciplined and a little rowdy, now.
Not too much, though. “Form up!” he snapped out the order.
There was a moment of distraction as a few cadets were caught unaware, but it lasted only half a second before the whole squadron were sitting down, in perfect straight lines. Faster than any natborn group of shinies, Alpha-17 was sure.
On the edge of the room he saw two of his old CC-trainees. The never-quite-a-Commander Cody and his faithful shadow Rex were peering into the room. Alpha-17 narrowed his eyes at them and Commander Cody sent him a jaunty little salute the looked more like a ‘better-you-than-me’ than anything approaching actual respect. Alpha-17 would have to take him to the training mats to remind him which of them was older.
“Alpha, Alpha, Alpha!”
Alpha-17 sighed, dismissing the thoughts for later, as he turned his attention back to the fidgety bunch of cadets he was in charge of for the next— he checked the chrono, 2 hours and 37 minutes.
“All right, settle down.”
He still didn’t know how he of all people had been assigned ‘story time’. He suspected it was buir Obi-Wan’s way of making him take a break.
In which case, Obi-Wan was a hypocrite, and Alpha-17 was going to tell his wife.
No one messed with buir Padme, not even either of her husbands.
“Are you going to tell us a story?” one of the cadets, Gibber, asked with the sort of serious intent of someone who had been promised a story and would lead a riot if he was denied.
Alpha-17 had helped trained far too many of his younger brothers to dismiss the possibility that one of the cadets actually deciding to start riot at some point, especially now when they had the freedom for things like that.
“Not if you don’t settle down,” Alpha-17 informed him. Because he might have been signed up for story time, but that didn’t mean he had to be particular happy about it.
Gibber settled down, fierce little scowl that would be so much more effective if Alpha-17 hadn’t seen it on hundreds of thousands of different faces.
He took his own seat, scrunching his nose when he realized someone had put a cushion on the seat. What were they, a retirement home? “What story do you all want?”
“The Jumping Tooka Rat!” Ninja called out immediately. Only Alpha-17’s careful control of his expressions kept him from grimacing. He would jump off the highest tower of Kamino before he ever let himself be tricked into telling that story again.
“The Princess and the Princess’ Ghost!” There were several cheers of agreement at that one, but Alpha-17 had never been very good at mimicking the many voices that were needed to really do the story justice. Alpha-17 didn’t do something if he couldn’t do it well. That included story time.
“The Great and Honorable Pirate Ohnaka,” another shiny—Menace—called out, way too excited. Alpha-17 didn’t know how all the buire had become friends with Hondo Ohnaka, but Alpha-17’s life would have been so much easier if they hadn’t. Especially since the pirate thought that sending little comic strips with his ‘daring exploits’ made for a good recruitment strategy.
It was worse, because he was right. Alpha-17 didn’t know how many vod’e he’d had to talk out of becoming pirates in the past year, but it was too many.
“The buire story!” another shiny called out, and several other cadets joined in.
“All right,” Alpha-17 agreed, and there was not a note of relief in his voice. This story he knew, both the real version, and the one that the galaxy believed. “Now sit still,” he told them all as he leaned forward. “And I’ll tell you the story of the Soldier, the Queen, and the Hunter.”
THE FICTION
“To get to the light, you must first pass through the dark—“ That was how the holo-novel started it; Alpha-17 thought it was needlessly poetic, but buire Padme and Obi-Wan seemed to like it. “Which is why our story starts in the dark,” Alpha-17 started, lowering his voice to something just a little creepy. He saw two of the cadets shiver and cuddle into each other. “Two forces of evil combined against the Soldier and the Hunter, landing them together in the dark mines of Bandomeer…”
Death, Jango was learning, had many names.
A friend’s betrayal alongside an enemy’s tank. A jetii’kad on a snow-covered plain. A whip held in a slaver’s fist.
The kid that had just been thrown into the mines needed to learn the danger of the last if he was going to survive.
Jango let himself slow, waiting for the kid to be pushed past him so that he could ‘stumble’ into the path between the kid and the slaver.
“Wait!” Menace interrupted. “Buire were slaves?”
Alpha-17 narrowed his eyes and Menace hunched in on himself a little, but the cadet’s jaw clenched seriously and he jutted out his chin. He’d make a good Commander, if they ever had need of Commanders again.
“For a little while, yes,” Alpha-17 finally answered. “Buir Jango more than buir Obi-Wan, but they both were.”
“What about buir Padme?” Nibbler asked, voice quiet. “Was buir Padme a slave too?”
“No, Buir Padme wasn’t a slave. Now are you going to let me tell you the story or not?”
The cadets went quiet, giving him innocent looks that not even a Kaminoan would have believed. Good thing the Kaminoans weren’t a problem anymore.
“As I was saying,” Alpha-17 continued, shifting back into his best storyteller voice.
He got a fist to the side and a curse for his troubles, but the kid sent him a grateful, if terrified, look.
Jango wasn’t much of a Mandalorian, not anymore, but he couldn’t bare the thought of abandoning some kid to go through this alone. His voice was hoarse, dry from weeks, no months, of not talking. “Move quickly and keep your head down.”
The kid, at least, seemed to understand the importance of doing just that, because he scuttled forward. He was too small, Jango thought. He looked like he couldn’t have even been thirteen. So karkin’ small.
The boy peppered him with questions, fear and anxiety heavy in his voice. Jango tried to answer, but couldn’t. It had barely been more than a half a dozen words, but it seemed to have sapped him completely of words. But there were more ways to care for someone than through words. He kept the kid close to him throughout the day. Helped tighten the next-to-useless mask around the kids’ face. Showed him how to best mine the ionite. Stuck the kid between him and the wall when it was finally time to sleep.
It would never be enough.
But it was all he had.
“My name’s Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the kid whispered, and he was looking at Jango with quiet, hopeful eyes.
Jango’s lips were dry and it took him a few tries before he managed to answer. “Jango. Jango Fett.”
The kid shifted closer, and Jango obediently put his arm around the kid in answer to the silent request. “Thank you, Jango Fett.”
Jango didn’t deserve any gratitude, not when he couldn’t do a thing to save the kid.
The words seemed to burrow into his chest. It was the first bit of warmth he’d felt since the snows of Galidraan.
THE TRUTH
Obi-Wan spared a careful glance to the side to see how his companion was taking the sight in front of them.
Senator Amidala’s face was carefully composed, the serene smile of a politician as she looked out. The look in her eyes was downright murderous. Thankfully the Kaminoans giving them their tour seemed to struggle with reading human expressions.
Well, it was a relief knowing that it wasn’t just him that was entertaining some far-from-peaceful thoughts at the moment.
“If my companion and I could take a moment,” Obi-Wan suggested, allowing his own diplomat smile out. “Your success is even greater than we could have hoped for.”
“Of course, of course.” The Kaminoan—already taller than him by a good foot—straightened with a subtle gracefulness that he might appreciate if Obi-Wan didn’t know that they were the sort of people who killed children for ‘unwanted deviations’.
The Kaminoan escorted them to a meeting room, leaving him and Senator Amidala there.
They waited until they were left alone before they sat and Obi-Wan held up a quiet hand to ensure that Senator Amidala didn’t speak out quite yet. “And how did you find the tour?” he asked, voice deceptively light as he closed his eyes and scanned for listening devices.
“Educational, most certainly,” Senator Amidala answered, voice cool with disapproval.
He found what seemed to be a listening device and he prodded at it until it fritzed. He let his hand down and opened his eyes. “Yes, educational is one word for it.”
Senator Amidala gave him a searching look and he nodded. “Did the Jedi really…?”
Obi-Wan shrugged a little helplessly. “I… can’t imagine that they would ever condone such a thing. But I do know that Master Sifo-Dyas was a member of the Council.”
Senator Amidala pursed her lips. “I don’t like the sound of that, Master Kenobi.”
He didn’t either. “It sounds as though it’s with Senate permission. Do you know anything?”
Senator Amidala shook her head, but she was biting her lip. “I… I don’t know. Possibly through some sub-committee. But an army?”
“It puts the current vote in a whole new light,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“I’ve been through every subsection of that bill,” Senator Amidala snapped. “It said nothing about a clone army.”
No, he would have been surprised if it had said anything about a clone army. But the timing… well, it was awful convenient.
They sat in silence for a moment as they considered the situation.
“So maybe Jedi involvement and maybe Senate involvement,” Senator Amidala finally said, and there was a sense of warning in the Force at the words.
“And available at just the right time.”
Another long round of silence and Obi-Wan couldn’t help but wonder if they were both thinking the same thing.
Jedi and Senate involvement, an army for the Republic. They were a Jedi and a Senator and there was an implied duty in that acknowledgment. They were meant to accept this.
“The question,” Obi-Wan said slowly, because some things were not quite that simple. “Is what we perceive our duty to be in this moment.”
Senator Amidala inhaled sharply, head jerking minutely before she was able to get it under control. “Our duty,” she repeated, and he could see that she was thinking through the possibilities. “Perhaps it would not be… unwise, for us to look at the possibilities.”
THE FICTION
“There are some people,” Alpha-17 said, letting his voice take on that quiet lilting that buir Obi-Wan’s sometimes did when he got melancholic. “Who seem to be born for a purpose. Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of those, nearly every step he took was haunted by war. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a Jedi, but time and again, Obi-Wan Kenobi became a soldier.”
He could see the cadets wiggle at that. They always liked knowing that they were like their buire, even if not genetically, the way they were buir Jango.
Obi-Wan Kenobi knew violence the moment he left the Jedi Temple. It followed him, from a warring ship, to a underground slave mine, to the broken planet of Melida/Daan, to the Stark Hyperspace war.
A wending path, one that some might call fate or an unfortunate case of luck. But in truth, there is no such thing.
And if there is no such thing as luck and no such thing as fate, then there is only choices and the wending way choices lead people to one another.
“I want to be a writer, someday.” Alpha-17 heard one of the cadets say, voice low and excited. Alpha-17 was glad someone liked the story.
He’d found Master Nu’s style a bit too flowery for his taste.
“I thought there’d be more fighting,” someone else complained.
“Do you want me to keep telling this story?” Alpha-17 asked a little pointedly.
“Jango?”
Obi-Wan almost couldn’t believe it. But the bounty hunter turned towards him. Obi-Wan glanced back to where his fellow padawan, Quinlan Vos, was in the middle of causing problems.
It was, Obi-Wan had realized quickly, an almost constant state for Padawan Vos.
“Kid?” The bounty hunter seemed surprised to see him.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “Not a kid.”
Jango was wearing his helmet and silent, but Obi-Wan could feel him laughing. “What are you doing here?”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “My Master and I got assigned to help with the war.”
“What are they doing sending thirteen year olds into war?”
A flash of Melida/Daan—of children so much younger than thirteen—crossed through his vision and he had to blink it away. He crossed his arms, glaring at Jango.
“I’m sixteen, thanks.”
Jango did not seem impressed. “Kark.” He glanced around. “Look, I’m transporting some cargo right now.” He pulled out some flimsiplast, before dotting down some information. “But when you inevitably end up over your head. Let me know if you need help.”
Obi-Wan rubbed the flimsiplast between his fingers.
“Only if I’m over my head?”
He missed Jango. He hadn’t known the man all that well. But as much as Obi-Wan loved his friends at the temple… none of them understood his nightmares.
THE TRUTH
“We can take you to see the Progenitor now, if you would like—”
“We would like,” Padme agreed quickly. This bounty hunter Jango Fett. The man who had likely been hired to have her killed, the one who was progenitor of an entire army. No, she and Knight Kenobi most certainly had to meet with him. But she would like to have a better idea of what was going on before then. “But first I’d like to take a look at the contract. And if possible I’d like to see the contracts for the trainers as well.” She needed to know if they would get in her and Knight Kenobi’s way.
Lama Su gave a slow blink that Padme translated as confused. “You do not have the primary contract with you?”
Padme gave Lama Su her haughtiest look. “Do you not have your own copy on file, Prime Minister?” Haughty, she’d found, usually worked well to cover unpreparedness.
As she expected, Lama Su back-tracked. “Of course, we will get you both a copy of that and the trainers’ contracts to look through.”
“Just the Senator, Prime Minister.” Knight Kenobi was standing near one of the windows, looking down at the clones segmented into smaller groups, each group leading some sort of military training. “I wish to be introduced to some of the men.”
Padme blinked and looked up. That was a good idea, she was embarrassed she hadn’t thought of it herself. ”Perhaps—“
Knight Kenobi shook his head. “No, I’ll go myself. It’s best we not waste any more of our hosts’ time. And I’m a mere Knight, Senator Amidala, I would be little help with the contracts.” There was an easy dismissal in his words that made Padme think he would be more help than he was taking credit for, but he had a point that they needed to be moving quickly.
“I’ll bring you down to visit an Alpha-led Commander Class,” Lama Su decided, before turning slowly back to Padme. “And I’ll have Taun We bring you those contracts.”
“Much appreciated.”
Knight Kenobi left the room following Lama Su and Padme moved to the window to watch as Kenobi appeared down in the training room and walked gracefully over to one of the training groups.
She could see the clones standing at stiff attention, could see even from a distance as Knight Kenobi seemed to slowly put them at ease.
It was something he’d been good at, she remembered, back during the Naboo Blockade. He’d been awkward, yes, but she knew that several of her handmaidens had reported that he’d comforted them. They’d only had a conversation or two between themselves, she’d spent most of that time with Master Jinn, but he’d seemed… a good man.
Knight Kenobi had removed his robes and was taking a place amongst the soldiers, gesturing to the leading clone to continue running the drills. It was a tactic she had used herself, putting herself on the same level as those she was trying to get to know. But at this moment, as he was putting himself on the same level as these men to engender familiarity, she had no doubt that it was more than just a tactic, that Knight Kenobi was sincere.
Knight Kenobi and the clones had made it partway through one of the drills when Taun We finally arrived with the contract. “Thank you.”
Padme took it, grimacing a little as she did a quick scan. There was no way there was enough time for her to read through all of this.
She sat down and set the datapad down in front of her. Hopefully she could find enough to stop this from getting more out of control then it already had.
THE FICTION
Obi-Wan was shaking. He felt cold inside. Felt cold in the Force. Felt cold in his mind.
“Here, cyar’ika.” He let out a soft breath of air as Jango handed him a cup of shig.
“Darling?” Obi-Wan managed hoarsely. The cup was warm in his hands. “Really?”
Jango gave him a quiet smile. “You looked like you could use it. And I didn’t think you wanted to be called ad’ika.”
Obi-Wan made a face at that. He didn’t particularly want to be called a kid at all. But he found he particularly didn’t want to be called a kid by Jango. “Not a kid.”
“I know.” They sat there quiet for a while.
They’d been together just over two weeks since Obi-Wan had sent that desperate call to Jango. Obi-Wan would be joining Qui-Gon and Satine again tomorrow, and he found the idea feeling almost sickening.
Aruetii, his mind told him. He shuddered again. He didn’t know how it had happened. Or he did. He’d been warned that Death Watch was dangerous. Had tried to prepare himself.
But he hadn’t thought they’d be able to start twisting his mind against his own people.
Even now he found himself thinking of Qui-Gon and a hint of disgust filling his thoughts.
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan whispered.
Jango turned his head to look at him. “I didn’t do anything that needs thanking.”
Obi-Wan shuddered. “You got me out, Jango. I… I was starting to hate myself, Jango. For being an aruetii Jetii. I had already started looking at… at others…” He shook his head.
Jango moved and then he was kneeling in front of Obi-Wan.
“You would have made it out, Obi-Wan. You didn’t need me.”
Alpha-17 had to stop, take a sip of water for his throat. The cadets were all watching him with enraptured eyes, as they listened to the story of their buire.
It was not a pretty story, but Alpha-17 couldn’t help but note how much kinder a story it was than the reality.
There had been no one there to help buire Obi-Wan get out of kyr’tsad. As one of the few people who’d known that this story was fictionalized, he’d wanted to know the truth. It had been an ugly truth.
He shook his head, took another sip of water and began telling the story again.
Obi-Wan leaned forward, grateful when Jango leaned forward in return, letting their brows meet in a Keldabe. It felt grounding.
“I don’t know if I trust myself anymore,” Obi-Wan whispered. “What if I’m compromised?”
“I trust you, cyar’ika.” Jango shifted to press a dry kiss to Obi-Wan’s cheek. It wasn’t the time or place for it, but Obi-Wan’s heart seemed to skip a beat. “I can’t join you with your Master and the Duchess. But… I need to re-establish some contacts here on Mandalore. I’ll be here. If you’re ever out scouting…”
The air escaped him in relief. “Will you forgive me for helping the New Mandalorians?”
Jango sighed. “Before I could condemn you for that, I have to condemn myself for not being ready to come back.”
“Will you, someday?”
Jango was quiet for a long moment. “Someday, I hope.”
“I hope I’ll be there to see it.”
Jango dropped another soft, dry kiss on his cheek. “Me too, cyar’ika. Me too.”
“It’s so romantic,” Gibber sighed.
Alpha-17 rolled his eyes just a little bit. “Not sure I’d call the three of them romantics,” he couldn’t help but say.
They were a pragmatic group, Alpha-17—who had been told he wouldn’t recognize romance if it hit him—could appreciate that much at least.
He got two dozen glares at that. “Ro-man-tic,” Menace repeated, stressing each syllable. Several cadets looked at him as though he’d just dropped several levels in their estimation of him.
Kriff, all his little brothers were getting so soft.
Romantics the whole lot of them.
He was absolutely blaming this on the buire.
THE TRUTH
“I have an idea,” Senator Amidala told him when he entered the little meeting room again. “But it’s… a little extreme and perhaps a tad absurd.”
“Extreme and absurd,” Obi-Wan repeated. He considered it a moment before shrugging, he’d certainly worked with worse. “Well then, Senator, let’s hear it.”
Senator Amidala took a deep breath. “Well, to start with, you should probably start calling me Padme, if we’re going to pull this off.”
Obi-Wan raised a brow at that. “Conspirators, I see.”
Senator Amidala’s—Padme’s—lips pursed. “Spouses, conspirators, they’re not so different.”
Obi-Wan opened his mouth, considered what he might say, then closed his mouth again. Well, then. This was not going in any sort of direction he’d expected. “I hadn’t realized there was an occasion to move our relationship in such a direction,” he finally managed.
“Why Obi-Wan, you don’t seem excited by the prospect,” Padme said a little wryly, a tired sort of teasing.
For a moment he couldn’t help but pictured Anakin’s expression if he were to see this conversation. Anakin had never quite gotten over his crush on Senator Amidala. Alas, Anakin was on a ‘meditative retreat’, which was the best Obi-Wan could do to get him some time alone to follow up on the dreams of his mother. He pushed the thought of Anakin away and back to the matter on hand.
“I admit, I fail to see how getting married is going to help us with…” he raised his hands and gestured to the world at large.
“Not just us,” Padme told him, and for a moment her composure slipped to show that she was likely making this up as she went. “We’re going to convince Jango Fett to marry the both of us.”
Two marriages in one day, and to think that before this moment Obi-Wan had never considered marriage at all. “I’m still going to need you to explain, because I’m still failing to see how marriage is going to get us out of this situation.”
Padme winced. “I’m still working out the particulars, but here—“ she beckoned him over to look at the datapad with the contract on it. “Look at the wording here.” She pointed to a few paragraphs before scrolling down and pointing to a few more. Obi-Wan took a moment to read through it. He parsed through it, doing his best to summarize what he assumed were the important bits. The Progenitor, Jango Fett, is hereby donating his genetic material to the Kaminoans for the purpose of creating a hundred thousand units of cloning material to be given to the care and stewardship of the Republic Senate and Jedi Order.
“All right, and this leads to marriage how?”
Padme bit her lip in what was an uncharacteristic display of nerves. “Naboo marriage vows. Part of them include giving something precious into the care of the person you’re marrying. Which means we’re both going to have to find something precious to give to each other and Fett.”
“A Senator and a Jedi,” he murmured. “That’s not quite the same thing as the Republic Senate and the Jedi Order.”
Padme nodded, but seemed undeterred. “I’ll be finding a very good lawyer.”
Obi-Wan wasn’t sure there was a lawyer good enough to get around this, but it wouldn’t hurt. They still needed to convince Fett to marry them before that even became pertinent.
“I think we’ll need more than that to go on,” he finally pointed out, because this was flimsy to say the least.
“It is,” Padme agreed. “But there are other little bits of this contract that I’m sure we can use and… It just feels like all I have right now.”
Obi-Wan closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out to the Force. It seemed… amused, though it was difficult to tell if it was in approval.
He opened his eyes again, moving to the window where he could see the clones. He could still see the group he’d joined. The men had been… They had seemed awed by his presence, had seemed almost desperate to please in a way that was both familiar and so much worse than anything he’d ever felt himself. They had been good men, capable, talented, intelligent men. Scared men.
Alpha-17, Cody, Fox, Wolffe, Ponds. All these men meant to lead others into battle, telling him that they would follow him, him and his fellow Jedi, into death itself for the sake of the Republic.
The thought was distressing.
He did not want war. He had never wanted war, for all that he had seemed to get pulled inexorably towards it during his life.
He wanted even less to lead these men into it.
“Let’s do it,” Obi-Wan finally said, and the Force seemed to soothe itself with a gentle laugh and a promising little burst of peace.
Well, that seemed as good an encouragement as any.
He turned when his eye caught on the second datapad. The Force gave him a light little nudge as though saying if you’re going to do this right…
“But first, I think we should take a look at those trainers contracts.”
THE FICTION
“The day Queen Amidala had taken the throne of Naboo, she had sworn to lead and protect them. For her, these were not oaths taken lightly.”
“‘Cause buir Padme’s the best,” Politics whispered. “Not like other leaders.”
“Don’t interrupt,” Alpha-17 reminded him. But then allowed him a rare conspiring smile. “But you’re right.”
“My people are dying.” The words had cycled through Padme’s mind since nearly the moment she’d left behind her planet. Now, voiced out loud for a stranger, they felt so much more real.
“Your people are being killed,” the Jedi, Padawan Kenobi, corrected. Padme stiffened, because that felt so much worse and she couldn’t understand why the Jedi would word it that way.
“Is that meant to be a condemnation?” the words came out angrier then she meant.
Kenobi winced, but then slowly tried to explain. “Dying is an inevitable thing. It is the state of things, for people to die. What is happening to your people is not inevitable. Your people are being killed, and that means that there is someone behind it. And that means that there’s something you can still do to end it.”
Padme frowned, considering the words. She was not sure if it was a comfort or not.
“Do you think the Senate will help us.” She turned to look at him, watching the shadow of expressions cross his face.
Kenobi paused, looking uncertain for a moment. “Do you want me to comfort you?”
Those words, in and of themselves, were not comforting. “I want honesty, I want to prepare myself and my queen for the possible realities.”
Kenobi sighed. “I don’t trust the Senate. I’ve… I’ve seen them turn the blind eye too often. That does not mean they will not help you. Naboo has more importance than many of those planets.” He rested a hand on her elbow for just a moment. “But you should always be prepared to help yourself.” He gave her a wry smile. “But something tells me that that’s something you don’t need me to tell you. You look like the type of person who already knows that.”
For once, she found that what the Jedi had told her was genuinely comforting. That this Jedi—who’d seen who knew how many things, had met who knew how many people—looked at there and saw someone who knew what it took.
“Thank you.”
THE TRUTH
Jango did not want to be here right now. Would far rather have left the moment he’d realized a Republic ship had landed on Kamino. But when he had told Tyranus that a Jedi and Senator had found their way to Kamino, Tyranus had given him rather strict instructions to try to lure them to Geonosis next.
He cursed the Kaminoans quietly. They had told him that their darts were completely unknown in Republic Space, that throughout the galaxy there were at most only a handful of people who could identify those darts. The Jedi weren’t supposed to be part of that group.
He should have just used his Westars, but he’d been training Boba with them and his son had knocked the sights off balance just before the hunt.
Wouldn’t matter as much if he’d cared less about the, admittedly minute, possibility of missing, if he’d actually been allowed to kill the Jedi. But Tyranus had had instructions about that too.
Kriff, he was so tired of Tyranus and his machinations. Once this job was over he was going to take Boba and vanish into the galaxy for a while.
Finally, almost nine hours after the two had landed on Kamino he heard the chime of the door.
Boba answered it almost immediately, and Jango headed out towards the living room just as Boba called for him.
“Master Jedi, Senator Amidala, this is Jango Fett, he was chosen specifically for this project.”
The two exchanged significant looks before the Senator was turning to Taun We. “I’m sure this will be quite the lengthy discussion,” the woman said smoothly, smile charming. Dangerous, Jango noted. He hated politicians, even if once upon a time he might have—by the barest definition of the word—been one himself. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find our way back to you once we’ve finished here.”
Taun We gave one of those slow, graceful nods. “Of course, Senator, Master Jedi.”
The two waited for the Kaminoan to leave before turning to him, separating just slightly in a way that Jango noted was not unlike a pincer formation.
Oh, this was getting interesting. “It may be best if you send your son away,” the Jedi informed him, voice light and unthreatening.
Jango considered it for a moment. He didn’t think this was going to turn into violence, but the two were clearly preparing for the possibility of it. He might have expected it if it were just the Jedi, but from a Senator it was more surprising.
“Boba, why don’t you go see if any of the cadets are free to train with you.”
Boba looked like he was going to protect, but Jango gave him an uncompromising look. He did not want to risk his son getting twist up in a fight if it did come to that.
The Senator watched Boba leave, while the Jedi kept his attention firmly on Jango. They waited until Boba had left before they both turned back to him.
“I don’t suppose you’d be able to explain a few things to us,” the Jedi started in a faux pleasant voice.
Jango had already planned out his lines. “How can I help you?” he asked in his own faux pleasant voice.
The Senator pulled out a datapad. “You can explain to us why you and the other trainers would sign a sith-spelled contract.”
Jango opened his mouth to answer before the words actually computed. “What?”
The two exchanged another meaningful look. Jango decided he rather didn’t like the way they kept doing that.
“A sith-spelled contract,” the Senator repeated. “I had assumed you knew.” Her tone indicated that the Senator had rather suspected he hadn’t known. But then only an absolute fool would knowingly sign a sith-spelled contract.
He resisted the desire to clench his fists. He had about much Force Sensitivity as dirt, which meant he had no way to actually verify the claims, which made the whole situation more galling.
Politicians weren’t exactly trustworthy. And she was with a Jedi. Jedi weren’t to be trusted as far as they could be thrown. Less than that, because Jango expected that if he put his mind to it, he could throw a Jedi a decent distance. It was an interesting open gambit if it was a lie. But if it was true… he shuddered.
It would be a very, very bad thing if it were true.
He didn’t exactly have a plethora of people he could use to verify that claim.
“If I could offer you a hypothetical situation, to judge your opinion,” the Jedi suggested. “So that you can see the effects of the contract yourself.”
Jango clenched his teeth. He liked to think he was adaptable, but the two had successfully gotten him wrong-footed, and now he felt little choice but to accept the suggestion. “A hypothetical situation?”
“There’s a planet called Melida/Daan,” the Jedi said smoothly, clearly taking his question as permission. “Not many have heard of it, it’s never been all that consequential, though I assure you you can verify the details of the scenario at a later date.”
“Get to the point,” Jango gritted, his head was buzzing, hot and sharp and angry. It was a… familiar sensation, but it was perhaps also the first time he had truly noticed it.
It did not help the gut feeling of wrong that was coalescing.
“Melida/Daan had been at war for centuries,” the Jedi said and there was a hint of… pain, at the words. Personal, ugly pain. “They’d been at war for so long that they had killed off most of their population. They’d been at war so long that they would draft their children as early as they could.” The Jedi leaned forward. “They would put blasters in the hands of their children, in the hands of four year olds and start training them to kill.”
Jango went cold. Mandalorian children were trained young. He’d had his own blaster by seven, but it was to get him used to the feel, to learn to protect himself, not to… not to kill.
You did not train children to be soldiers to throw into war. You protected children. Children were precious, they were the future. “Demagolka,” he snapped.
He saw the Jedi’s eyes widen at the word, staring at Jango with something almost shocked, but it was clear that whether he spoke Mando’a or not, he understood what Jango had meant.
The Jedi swallowed. “Yes, they were Demagolka. Perhaps you could explain your reasoning?”
Jango stepped forward, and he couldn’t help the snarl that escaped him. “You don’t turn children into killers—“ he trained Boba, but it was because the galaxy was a dangerous place, and his son would know how to survive it. “—you don’t put a blaster in the hand of a child to be… to be cannon fodder in some war.”
The Senator let out an almost relieved sigh, as though she’d been worried he might think differently. It was almost enraging. He would never— “Then you agree that in your right mind you would never do such a thing,” she said, just a hint of prodding in her voice. Jango turned towards her, snarl still on his lips when it hit him like an asteroid.
“No. That’s—“ there was a seizing pain in his head and he brought his hand up, to press against his temple, not caring if it was a sign of weakness he couldn’t afford in front of two potential enemies. “That’s. That’s not the same thing.” It wasn’t the same. He’d never have done it if it were the same. Why wasn’t it the same? Gilamar, Skirata, Dravin. None of them would be doing this if it were Demagolka. It… it wasn’t. It wasn’t the same.
Why wasn’t it the same?
He swore, nearly keeling over. His mind was burning.
“Obi-Wan,” someone was calling. “Do something!”
Someone else swore. “That wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“Well it did.”
A hand touched his shoulder and Jango reacted. Here, here was an enemy he could deal with, not whatever was in his head, growing larger and uglier and overwhelming him.
He caught the hand, twisting the wrist as he pivoted, bringing his other hand up to slam into the person’s solar plexus.
There was a grunt and Jango pressed the advantage, lunging forward as his hand went to the knife in his boot.
“Don’t shoot him, Padme!” someone snapped. “I need him conscious if I’m going to disconnect the spell from his mind.”
The words made no sense other than to remind him that there was a second threat in the room. He slashed out with the knife, forcing the man to jerk backwards. He turned, found the second threat, and lunged for them.
There was a blaster in their hand and he jerked to the side to avoid the worst of the blast. He stumbled a little when a low-grade stun hit his shoulder.
The woman swore, aiming her blaster again. He was tackled from behind. He and his assailant tumbled to the ground in a mess of limbs.
“Get the knife,” his assailant snapped. “And don’t shoot him again!”
Like he’d let her. But then something was smashing into his head, and the world went dizzy.
“Calm down.” The words hit him hard, almost as hard as whatever had smashed into his head.
And then the fire in his head was flaring, hotter, higher, harder like a tidal wave of heat. Something softer, cooler, kinder was rising up to meet it.
The world came back in flashes. He ached, his head pulsing in painful beat with his heart. “Kriff,” he muttered.
“Thank Force,” someone said. “We didn’t break him.”
“Take more than that to break me,” Jango snapped, or tried to. It came out more exhausted then he’d planned. He wasn’t even sure what that was, but he was still sure that it was true.
He forced his eyes open, taking in his surroundings. He was… he was in his own apartment, on his own couch, and there were two people with him.
The Jedi and the Senator, with their claims of a sith-spelled contract and a…
He lurched off the couch, world going dizzy as he stumbled to the fresher to throw up until there was nothing left in his stomach.
Demagolka. He was Demagolka.
His buire would never forgive him. His people would never forgive him.
Kriff. Kriff. Kriff. How had he gotten here? The past decade of his life stood out in sharp contrast and he discovered there was still plenty of bile to throw up.
“Do something,” someone behind him hissed.
“I don’t exactly want him to try and kill us again,” the other hissed. “He doesn’t need another concussion on top of everything else.”
Jango wanted another concussion at this point if it would stop him from thinking.
Demagolka.
How had he gotten here?
He turned towards the voices. Right, Senator and Jedi. He should be able to remember that, but his brain still felt a little like it had been fried.
“I’m assuming there was a plan after informing me about that sith-spelled contract,” he managed. He couldn’t quite get to the point of thinking past this present moment. But there had better be a plan or Jango was going to resort to the tried and true method of killing whatever was in front of him, and that would be a whole lot of Kaminoans.
THE FICTION
“Don’t see why you needed me to kill her, if you could do it yourself,” Jango snarled, hand tightening for a moment around his Westar.
“I wanted to see just if you were capable of it,” the man said, voice low.
“Lot of credits just to see if I was capable of killing.”
“Not just killing, but killing a Jedi.”
The smell of burning bodies, the white snow across the ground, the hum of jetii’kad. “Oh, I can kill Jedi.” The rage burned, sharp and bright, and he’d almost forgotten how strong his rage could be.
He couldn’t remember much of what happened next, there was a burning rage in his mind, overcoming everything.
“No!”
Alpha-17 stopped in surprise, looking at Emphatic who was glaring at him as though this was his fault.
“I don’t like this part of the story.”
Alpha-17 blinked a few times. “You realize if this part of the story hadn’t happened, then none of us would be alive,” he pointed out finally.
It seemed that none of the cadets had ever actually considered that.
“But buire love us,” Gibber pointed out.
“Yes,” Alpha-17 agreed. “But they hadn’t planned on having us.”
Emphatic crossed his arms, glaring at him. “I still don’t like this part of the story.”
Alpha-17 snorted. “That’s fine, you don’t have to. Now if you’d let me get back to the story…” He got a few reluctant nods and Alpha-17 sighed. Cadets these days, no discipline. He focused back on the story. “If asked, Jango would say he knew exactly what he was doing, but that’s the danger of Sith magic…”
There was a contract in front of him and it was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But he brushed aside the wrong and kept going.
There was another contract, and suddenly he could see Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan as he’d been on Mandalore. Obi-Wan as he’d been grieving a Master and worrying about a Padawan. Obi-Wan smiling at him, fuzzy and blue over the comms, but always there.
His mouth opened and he rearranged the contract. Small little words here and small little words there.
He prayed to the kara that someday those words would be enough. And then the fiery rage came over him again and he forgot all about it.
THE TRUTH
Padme had not expected this conversation to happen in a fresher. Jango Fett didn’t seem quite ready to move from the toilet though, so needs must.
It was… promising, in some ways. Clearly Fett wasn’t a fan of what he’d been doing the past few years, which meant he might be more amenable to helping them.
She took a deep breath, finding her best persuasive voice. And she’d told she could be very persuasive when she put her mind to it. Well, she was putting her mind to it. “We’re trying to stop this war and ensure the clones aren’t sent out to die in it.”
Fett just blinked at her. The look in his eyes was still blank. Perhaps now really wasn’t the right time for this conversation. But there was so much to do, and she wasn’t sure if there was enough time to do it. She pressed forward.
“There are certain similarities to the contract for the clone templates and a certain type of contract on my home planet, we’d like to turn the Kaminoan contract into that.” Fett was still staring at her, not a hint of his thoughts. “A marriage contract,” she finished.
That did get a reaction, though she wasn’t sure it was one she was hoping for. Fett blinked slowly, head tilting sideways as he observed her.
He’d seemed mostly out of it when she’d started talking, but she could see that he was coming back to himself, a sharp intelligence entering his eyes, dimmed as they were with what she thought looked like self-hatred.
“A marriage contract.” He sounded like he thought she’d completely lost it. He might not be entirely wrong about that, unfortunately.
Padme nodded. “Naboo marriage contracts include gifting something important to ones spouse, or spouses, in this case.”
Fett’s gaze shifted slightly to look at Kenobi.
“A Jedi and a Senator,” he noted, and she could see him putting it together.. She’d been right, he was intelligent.
“Yes.”
“An arranged marriage. To free the—“ he cut off for a moment, turning as though about to vomit again, but got himself under control. “To free the clones.”
She nodded, relieved he seemed to be on the same page as them. “Yes, I was—“
“What if it wasn’t an arranged marriage,” Obi-Wan interrupted.
Padme furrowed her brows, turning to look at Obi-Wan who was clearly deep in thought. “What do you mean?”
“What if it was a love match.”
Padme stared at him, trying to figure out what he could possibly mean by that. “A love match?”
Obi-Wan was nodding, and she could see he was warming up to his idea. She glanced at Fett who was still watching them rather impassively.
“We already noted that we were going to have to bring in lawyers to get the contract overturned. But what if we get the people on our side? A dramatic love story, almost destroyed by the cruel manipulations of an actual Sith, but in the end ‘true love’ prevailed.”
She slowly started putting the pieces together. People would be hesitant to accept Sith, they had been relegated to horror stories and the monsters from bed time stories…. But maybe that was the point. “I’m… not sure I follow.” It wasn’t entirely true, but she also wanted Obi-Wan to spell it out a little further.
“What if Fett hadn’t meant to agree to a clone contract. He’d been looking for a son and a Sith got to him, twisted his brain.” He pointed to the datapad with the trainers’ contract. “It’d be easy to paint it as he was completely coerced.”
“Not… completely,” Fett muttered. “I… he said it would hurt the Jedi. That… that shouldn’t have been enough to make me agree. But…”
Padme could see Obi-Wan hesitate over that reveal. Hurt the Jedi, well, this whole thing was getting messier and messier. “Well, we won’t be including that bit into the story,” she noted as dryly as she could manage. “But if it was coerced, and we play it off as you doing your best to neutralize the contract by turning it into a marriage contract… then we can completely overturn it. A coerced contract would be invalid, and if anyone tries to argue that…”
Obi-Wan gave her an expectant look. “You work in politics, you know how swaying the popular vote can make an otherwise impossible scenario succeed.”
She did. Her heart was starting to race as she started putting together ideas. “We’re going to need a backstory. Something for people to really root for.”
Obi-Wan glanced between her and Fett. “I think between us we can make that work.”
“I haven’t actually agreed to this,” Fett pointed out tiredly.
Padme turned to look at him. The scent of vomit was still sharp where it lingered in the air, a testament to his guilt and disgust. They all knew he would agree. He did not seem like the type to passively sit back and do nothing.
“Well, will you?”
Fett stared at them for a moment before he gave a curt nod.
“All right, then,” Obi-Wan said, as though that made things final. “Let’s get started planning, then.”
Fett heaved himself to his feet. “Not sure how we’re going to create a romance between the three of us, when I’ve never even met either of you.”
Obi-Wan hesitated, but then nodded abruptly. “It should be easy to spin something for Padme and I, but…”
“We need a timeline,” Padme decided.
Her own timeline was easy enough—while also perhaps the most difficult to work around—she’d been in the public spotlight for nearly her whole life.
Obi-Wan would likely have a little more flexibility than her, but he had too many mission reports that people would be able to look into for them to make up too much.
Fett’s timeline was probably going to be much more available.
They crowded around Fett’s kitchen counter, each with a datapad in hand as they wrote down their own timelines as well as they could remember.
Fett finished first, handing her his timeline.
She swallowed tightly when she finally read through it.
- Concord Dawn and a family dead. Adopted father killed seven years later.
- Child ruler, just like she’d been, though in rather more tragic circumstances.
- Galidraan and the source of his desire to hurt the Jedi.
- Three years as a slave on a spice ship.
Then it got more vague, years as a Bounty Hunter, though with enough gaps that they could have some freedom to manipulate the timeline. A bounty to the moons of Bogden where a mysterious Tyranus hired him to be a clone template. Ten years on Kamino with a few interspersing missions. These missions the Kaminoans would have some sort of records for, so they’d have to be more careful.
Obi-Wan handed him her his own timeline.
Years as an initiate in the Jedi temple just as she’d expected. And then it immediately turned to chaos.
- A dismissal to the agricorps and then three months in slavery.
- A few more missions and then a year off the grid as he fought in a war on… Melida/Daan. No wonder he’d known the story of children with blasters in their hands. More missions.
- A year on the front of the Stark Hyperspace War.
- Just over a year on Mandalore in their war. More missions.
- Then Naboo.
- A few years at the Temple training Anakin. Then a return to regular missions.
Goddess help him, half the man’s life was a war.
“Well.” She swallowed again. “I think Obi-Wan’s going to have to be our lynchpin. His and my love story should be relatively easy to create. And his and your—“ she nodded toward Fett. “—love story has a surprising amount of potential. But trust me. We can make a love story out of this.” They could write a force-damn tragedy out of these stories. They’d have people demanding a resolution to this story that didn’t end in more heartbreak.
Obi-Wan and Fett both looked surprised by that.
“There is the uh…” Obi-Wan paused. “Difficult matter of mine and Jango’s backgrounds being rather antagonistic.”
“Star-crossed lovers,” Padme supplied promptly. “And enough trauma to start with to bridge the gap.” She turned to Fett. “Can anyone attest to where you were a slave?”
Fett frowned. “At the beginning when I was initially sold, but people were sold off that ship all the time, and anyone who owned me is dead.”
Padme swallowed. “From now on, you were sold first to a spice ship before you were sold to an undersea mining colony. The timeline is terrifyingly perfect for you and Obi-Wan to have met there. Obi-Wan was only twelve, so despite your hatred of Jedi…”
Obi-Wan and Fett exchanged surprised looks. But then, they hadn’t seen each other’s timelines.
“Between him being a slave and a child I’d have been…”
“Less likely to want me dead,” Obi-Wan supplied, voice dry.
“You both escaped, but you’d formed a… bond. Friendship, of course, given the rather severe age difference.”
“Right,” Obi-Wan and Fett said at the same time.
She turned back to the timelines, before turning towards Obi-Wan. “Would there be anyone to attest to whether Fett—“
“If we’re getting married—and it’s a kriff-damned love story, instead of an arranged marriage—you should probably call me by my name,” Fett—Jango—interrupted.
Padme smiled at him and was surprised that it was mostly sincere.
It was harder to despise him when she knew he’d been literally compelled into his actions, or at least, compelled into the absolute worst of them. Especially now when she could look at his past and see why he’d been so vulnerable that the Sith had gotten into his mind so thoroughly.
“Is there anyone who could attest to whether Jango might have helped out on Melida/Daan?” Padme asked Obi-Wan.
Jango took a sharp breath, clearly remembering the hypothetical that had started this all.
“Only half the Young,” Obi-Wan answered, shaking his head. Padme winced, because she was trying not to think about Melida/Daan and what little she did know of that. But she did not like the name of that group, it made it hard to ignore. “I don’t think we can bring quite that many people into our fabricated story.”
Padme nodded. “Any way you’d have been able to contact him?”
Obi-Wan shook his head. “Long-range comms were a heavily fortified resource. We only were able to take them by the end of the war.”
“You were there,” Jango murmured.
Obi-Wan swallowed, meeting Jango’s eyes. “Children with blasters in their hands will eventually do anything to be able to put those blasters down. Even if it means fighting back. I was one of the oldest, and…” Obi-Wan shook his head, and it was clear he didn’t want to say anything more about it.
They’d all have to. They’d have to know each other’s darkest secrets, they’d need to know each other’s pains.
Jango stared at him for a long moment before nodding, sharp and curt.
“Stark Hyperspace war?” She asked instead. She’d been 14 then, her first reign as Queen. At the advice of her council, she hadn’t gotten involved.
“There were plenty of smugglers and bounty hunters who got involved with that on both sides,” Jango supplied. “I didn’t, but it would be easy to pretend I had. Not like anyone was keeping track. Bacta smuggling might endear me to our ‘audience’. We could have run into each other there.”
“I worked almost constantly with another Jedi,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “But Quinlan can be trusted to help sell the story.”
She didn’t like it. Secrets were best kept to as few people as possible. But then, she’d need to bring in her handmaidens. She’d have to trust that Obi-Wan knew which of his friends would be best to bring into this.
“Our second meeting, then?”
Obi-Wan nodded. “I turned sixteen during that war, it would still be too young for anything but friendship.”
“Don’t worry,” Padme said. “I’ve got a whole year to help you two fall in love.”
Jango raised an eyebrow, but Obi-Wan winced. “Oh, that’s going to be interesting.”
“Mandalore,” Padme said.
Jango stiffened, Obi-Wan rubbed at his neck. “I don’t think Jango would have had anything to do with helping the New Mandalorians.”
“Not a chance in any version of Hell,” Jango snarled. He was glaring daggers at Obi-Wan. They’d been making such progress, too.
Padme bit her lip, but then pressed on. The two of them would have to get past this. The galaxy was a little more important than the personal right now. “You need to fall in love during Obi-Wan’s Mandalore mission. So we need to find some way to make this work.”
It was quiet for a while. Jango was seething and Obi-Wan was looking at a wall like it was particularly interesting.
Padme just scowled at both of them.
“What about… what if you helped me escape Death Watch?” Obi-Wan asked slowly, glancing carefully at Jango. “I was… undercover. I almost didn’t make it out. Their indoctrination was… more effective than I’d like to admit.”
Padme really didn’t like the sound of that, but it made Jango hesitate, which was all that was really important right then.
“With our backstory? Yes. There would be no way I’d leave you with them.”
“It only gives us seven months to fall in love,” Obi-Wan warned.
“That’s fine,” Padme decided. “You two just have an awful lot of bonding due to trauma.”
Obi-Wan nodded. “I did a lot of scouting, after that, to get away from Satine and Master Qui-Gon. We could have kept meeting up.”
“You weren’t helping the New Mandalorians,” Padme extrapolated, trying to make this easier for Jango to accept. “You were working against Death Watch.” She doubled checked it was the right name, and both Obi-Wan and Jango nodded. “Still too much trauma to return to Mandalore proper. But you intended to, would have if not for the later Sith manipulations.”
“Oh Satine is going to hate this,” Obi-Wan muttered. “This is going to cause problems on Mandalore when this whole ‘story’ comes out.”
“Hut’uun deserves it,” Jango muttered, voice dark. “And it helps that I actually did start establishing contacts on Mandalore back then, it’d be easy to spin it as intending to return to Mandalore before my brain got karked by the Sith.”
“Right, so you two fall in love on Mandalore. You hadn’t met too often before that for it to for the age difference to make it odd. Add trauma, some competence kinks—“ both Jango and Obi-Wan looked away at that. It was harder to tell if Jango blushed, but Obi-Wan most certainly did. It was fine, she had a competence kink too. “—and some star-crossed lovers and you two have a story.”
She turned back to Obi-Wan. “You came to Naboo shortly after that. Where you saved my life and helped get me off of Naboo.” It was a shame that she couldn’t pretend she’d stayed on the ship instead of going into town with Master Jinn, but the Chancellor had learned the whole story, so had many of her advisors. Too many people to trust to keep the secret. “I was at the beginning of my second term, and I wasn’t a new Queen, but I was new to war. You helped advise me.”
It was even true, she remembered Obi-Wan giving advice to both her and to Sabe. And he’d helped with the battle planning, at least until Master Jinn had made a rather pointed comment about being a Jedi and not a soldier.
“We bonded,” Obi-Wan agreed.
“Then when your Master died…”
Obi-Wan sighed. “I’m starting to see a habit between me falling in love with people and being traumatized,” he noted somewhat wryly.
Jango let out a snort of laughter at that.
“We didn’t fall in love then, we just admired each other,” Padme assured him. “But we kept in contact after and fell in love long-distance.”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “A little less dramatic than mine and Jango’s love story.”
“My planet was literally blockaded and we went on the run together,” Padme pointed out. “And then your Master died when you killed a Sith.”
Obi-Wan’s head jerked up at that. “Yes. Yes. I killed a Sith. We can use that.”
Jango got it first. “Which was half the reason why I was targeted by the Sith to become the progenitor. I’ve killed Jedi before, which was part of it. But they also wanted revenge on you for killing one of them. And what worse than to take your lover and use my face to cause you pain?”
Padme tilted her head, noting that down. “I’m starting to believe our story, and I know it’s fabricated.” It just fell together far too easily, as though the galaxy had arranged itself so that it could have fallen into place just like this.
“So how did you and Jango fall in love?” Obi-Wan asked, getting them back on track. “Jango took the clone contract shortly after Naboo, so that gives you almost no time to meet.”
“Through you,” Jango said slowly. “You admitted to me that you were falling for someone. I’m Mandalorian, we don’t have traditional views on marriage, I wouldn’t have a problem…” he paused. “Well, I would, because I’m a possessive bastard. But you wanted me to be okay with it, so you regaled me with all her good attributes. You did the same to her.”
“The two of us actually wanted to meet. It could have happened during your few trips off of Kamino,” Padme suggested. “As we tried to get the measure of each other. You were already bound by the sith-spelled contract, which is why you never mention the whole thing to either me or Obi-Wan. We bond over how we feel bout Obi-Wan. Then if we add in our own mutual competence kinks, relatable backgrounds of being child rulers, and some heart-felt conversations...”
Jango tilted his head in acknowledgment, clearly thinking through it. “It works. Not as dramatic as the others.”
Padme barely resisted the need to roll her eyes. “Our audience will have to get over it. But I’m not sure we can fit any more drama into this story.”
“No,” Obi-Wan agreed. “It’s a good story. All of it is. But it’s a little bare bones,” Obi-Wan noted. “If we want people to believe it, we’re going to have to plant evidence to corroborate our backstory.
Padme nodded. “We’re going to have to fill all that in. Remember, only the people we trust completely can know. And even then, keep it as small as possible.” Their whole plan fell apart if it ever got out beyond them.
She ran a hand through her hair. Now, what sort of evidence did they need to indicate that they’d all been in love with each other for years?
THE FICTION
“Hunter and Soldier, Soldier and Queen, there lay something between them that was too beautiful for any amount of words to describe.” Not that it had stopped Master Nu from trying, Alpha-17 thought wryly. That woman had never found a sentence that she couldn’t add a half-dozen adverbs and two completely unnecessary metaphors to. “It was balanced, in it’s own way. But there was space, still, for Hunter and Queen to find one another.”
One of the cadets let out another sigh that was clearly meant to convey their pleasure with how ‘romantic’ the whole thing was.
“He talks about you a lot.”
Jango snorted. “Probably not as much as he talks about you.”
They exchanged amused glances. “He’s not particularly subtle about it.”
“He can be,” Jango corrected. “But he seems to have decided not to be.”
Padme’s smile was wry. “I know he loves you.”
“It’s a mutual feeling,” Jango told her quietly. Obi-Wan had been important to him, perhaps from the first time they’d met each other.
He’d been a kid that Jango had protected when Jango had given up on protecting anything. Then he’d been a passionate teenager who wanted to protect people. Someone Jango thought could become his friend, given enough time. Despite the rather unfortunate Jedi past.
And then Mandalore.
The comm Obi-Wan had sent him had been garbled and confused. Half Mando’a as he’d whispered about Aruetii and Kyr’tsad and about how things felt wrong in his brain.
There had been a quiet plea for Jango to help him.
Jango had come. And then Jango had stayed. Stayed and reconnected with the people he’d left behind. Stayed and fallen in love with a young man who was passionate and brave and competent and determined.
He’d planned on going back and… Jango’s thoughts diverted, a warm brush of fire over his mind, turning his thoughts to ash as they often did and he turned to meet Padme’s gaze again.
“Is it mutual for you?”
Padme’s smile was soft, fond. “Yes. He’s… he’s good, and kind, and clever. And sometimes he’s an absolute idiot, but somehow it’s charming.”
“That’s fair,” Jango agreed, laughing. “He really can be an idiot sometimes.”
Padme laughed, and Jango remembered Obi-Wan going into detail about how Padme’s laugh made people want to laugh themselves.
Obi-Wan was right, not that Jango was surprised to hear that.
“Perhaps it’s egotistical to say,” Padme continued. “But I think that Obi-Wan has rather good taste in lovers.”
Jango snorted. He didn’t actually preen, at the words, but the desire was there. “What can I say, I think you may be right.” He raised an eyebrow at Padme, because he suspected that she had more to say than just that.
She did. “Perhaps, we should take his judgment into consideration.” The words were bold, and she met his gaze determinedly. Her eyes were bright with passion, and Jango could see, just a little, why his cyare had fallen in love with her.
Jango considered that, observing her. “I don’t have much free time, anymore.” There was Boba and the clones and Kamino—and he kept meaning to tell Obi-Wan, but it never seemed to happen. He would need to do that now, but even as he thought it, the thoughts faded like ash—but he had a hunt every now and then, and that would give him an excuse to find her. “But I think we could give it a try.”
THE TRUTH
There wasn’t as much for Jango to do, not compared to the other two.
The Senator—Padme—was on the comms with one of her handmaidens and they were talking about adding diary entries to her records that would detail her’s and Obi-Wan’s love story as well as her eventually meeting Jango and falling in love with him as well.
He couldn’t imagine it would be comfortable to know that she was going to have to let someone steal her diary so that info could be ‘leaked’.
Jango had already reached out to one of his few trusted slicers and they were taking his and Obi-Wan’s comm id’s and adding hundreds of calls between the two of them. In this fictional story he and Obi-Wan were too wary of being discovered for either of them to ever leave messages, which was convenient since those were harder to fake then regular comm calls. The slicer would do the same for Obi-Wan and Padme as well as Jango and Padme.
Obi-Wan had commed a fellow Jedi and was getting their story straight between the two of them. “Force,” Jango heard the other Jedi say. “This has got to be the wildest thing you’ve done in a while, Obi-Wan.” The Jedi sounded far too amused at this whole thing, as though it was some grand joke, instead of an attempt to free hundreds of thousands of men from a slavery that Jango had trapped them in. “You could sell holo-novels of this.”
Jango paused at that, letting go of his self-recrimination for a moment so that he could focus on the thought that was nudging at him. Holo-novels. Now, that was an idea. “We’re going to need to have a ready way to leak this to the press,” Jango suggested when Obi-Wan hung up his call.
“I was hoping we could leave that to Padme,” Obi-Wan agreed, making a face. Jango agreed with the sentiment. “I’ve got very few press contacts, and even fewer that I’d actually trust to handle this well.”
Padme made a gesture at them to show she had it in hand. Her and her handmaidens were going to be handling most of that. Jango had to admit that Padme’s group of handmaidens seemed almost terrifyingly competent and were handling the idea of committing what might technically be treason with absolutely zero hesitation.
“We shouldn’t stop with the press. We should find someone to be our auto-biographer,” Jango said, still dwelling on the idea of holo-novels. “Frame it as ‘telling our story’, but in reality turn it into one of those trashy holo-novels that people are always lapping up.”
Obi-Wan turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “You want us to find someone to actually write our story?”
He was a decently handsome man, Jango decided. He could see how an attraction could have formed. He’d need pictures of him at eighteen, when they’d supposedly actually fallen in love.
Padme put whoever she was talking to on hold for a moment as she turned to him, with pursed lips. “We’d need to find someone we truly trust. They’d have to be informed that it’s not real, so they’d be able to supplement some more romantic elements into the story.”
“I might know someone,” Obi-Wan finally supplied, he looked up at the ceiling as though considering all his life choices. “Well, two people. One’s written several romantic operas and plays, but he wouldn’t be able to write an actual book, I don’t think. But our archivist has been known to turn mission reports into written histories, before. This would be the sort of challenge she’d love. Though I’m not sure how she’d feel about falsifying history.”
More Jedi, Jango thought unhappily, something sour curdling in his stomach. He was supposed to trust more Jedi.
A memory of the clones, so much younger, with brave faces and blasters in hand flashed through his mind.
Demagolka.
It hadn’t been his fault, he wanted to cry out. But it had been his hands, and his body, and his choices, compelled as they’d been. He’d do whatever it took.
Kriff, he was marrying a Jedi and a Senator. He could trust a pair of Jedi to write their romance story. “See if she’ll do it anyways,” he pushed out, the words came out pained. He made himself breathe. “Falsified history or not, we need this to work.”
“Let me call them,” Obi-Wan said. “I’ll swear them to secrecy. Not even the rest of the Council will know. There are already far too many people involved as it is. We shouldn’t tempt fate any more than we already are.”
“Do that,” Padme agreed, turning back to her own comm calls.
Obi-Wan stood and moved to the side of the room to make the comm call. “Mace,” his voice was soft and easy. “I’m in need of a favor.”
“I’ve got a headache, and I’m pretty sure it’s your fault,” the man answered. “What shatterpoint did you stumble into?”
Obi-Wan glanced over his shoulder to look at Jango and Padme and his smile was sheepish. Yes, if even his sheepish smilers were that attractive then they would have no problem selling the attraction aspect of this whole thing, Jango decided.
He turned to watch Padme, her face was sharp and serious and her eyes were flashing with determination as she spoke with her handmaiden. Beautiful, indeed.
Passionate, beautiful, competent people. He could imagine it.
He stood, sharp and abrupt. On opposite sides of the room, both on their comms, they turned to look at him. “I need to talk to some of the men.”
There were no apologies that would ever make this right. None. But he… he needed to at least explain. To promise them that they had a way out now.
He knew the routines and schedules of the Alphas and he found them in the weight room for conditioning.
They stopped what they were doing when they saw him, coming to attention. Their eyes were like flint, hiding any thoughts.
“At ease.” His voice was suddenly hoarse.
Children, his mind told them, and he’d turned them into very capable killers.
“There have been… developments,” he said finally. Words seemed to fail him. How could he even explain? What sort of explanation was there when it was their lives he’d ruined. “We’re trying to end the war.”
“Thought the war hadn’t started,” one of them—Alpha-17, he pinpointed quickly—noted.
“It won’t,” Jango promised. “I won’t let it. Or I won’t let you get trapped in it.” He could tell they didn’t believe him. He couldn’t even blame them for that. What had he ever done to prove himself worthy of trust? “Destroy any recording devices,” he finally said. “And I’ll tell you what I can.”
The order surprised them, but in less than a minute the recording devices were all taken care of.
“I’m getting married.” He winced, because that made almost no sense as a starting point. “And they’re… adopting you as part of the process.” It was a not quite sufficient way to say that he was technically gifting his future riduure with all of the clones as his ‘something precious’ part of the Naboo marriage vows.
Apparently there was precedent in marriages with children from previous marriages, which at least made Jango feel less like he was selling his children.
Again.
“Why?” It was Alpha-17 again, the unofficial leader.
How was he supposed to answer that? “Because it never should have happened in the first place,” he said finally. “I… I was compromised. Got trapped in my own mind and failed to protect you all. They helped me get out.”
He wouldn’t say anything more about the sith-spelled contract. It felt too much like an excuse.
“I’m just trying to make this right before I let it get anymore wrong.”
The Alphas seemed to be communicating silently amongst themselves. They didn’t fully believe him. It hurt, but he didn’t blame them.
“We’re made for war,” Alpha-17 finally said.
Demagolka, his mind hissed.
“You get to decide what you’re made for.” He shifted. “Come meet my soon-to-be riduure for dinner tonight. You… you deserve to know. And you can help us figure out how to protect the rest of your vod’e. Let them tell you their plan to get you all free.”
Let him give this small bit of power.
More silent, almost movement-less communication. Finally Alpha-17 nodded. “Some of us will be by, sir.”
Jango nodded, standing there unmoving for a moment as he tried to think of something else to say. In the end there wasn’t anything to say. He bowed his head. “Ni ceta,” he murmured quietly. It was not enough. But he would apologize for the rest of his life and it would never be enough.
He started back towards his room, thinking about the situation. He wouldn’t let his children go to war. And if the Republic didn’t have their ready made army, perhaps there would be no war at all.
They just needed to find a way to stop Tyranus—
He cursed, increasing his pace towards his apartment. Tyranus—Dooku, his mind supplied and he wondered how he’d never known that, not until now—had his own army of droids. And public opinion might be swayed more to fear than to love if they didn’t find a way to at least partially neutralize that.
Padme and Obi-Wan were plotting together when he entered his apartment again. The galaxy really didn’t know what it was getting into with those two.
Jango certainly hadn’t been prepared for the havoc the two of them could wreck.
“We have another problem,” he informed them. “Tyranus, Dooku, he has a droid army. I was supposed to lure you to Geonosis to find it.”
Both of them stared at him. “I knew it,” Padme snapped, looking almost victorious. “I knew he was behind the assassination attempts.”
“Fake assassination attempts,” Jango said, watching her startle at that, but he had no time to explain the ways he’d ensured the attacks would fail. “But that’s secondary.”
“Dooku?” Obi-Wan was musing. “…I don’t suppose he actually owns the armies?”
Jango tilted his head. “He might not have purchased them all, but they would belong to him. From what I know of the movement, many of them were ‘gifted’ to him to buy their way into the CIS council.”
Obi-Wan was humming, far too pleased by this information. “We need to fake a will,” he said finally. “And then we need to kill Dooku.”
Jango would have killed the man regardless, and happily, but it was nice to have permission. “A will?”
A viciously satisfied smile crossed Obi-Wan’s face. “Dooku is going to leave all his possessions and inheritance to his grandson.”
Jango was glad to see that the look Padme was giving Obi-Wan was as confused as his own. “Grandson?”
The smile on Obi-Wan’s face somehow got even more vicious, it was kriffin’ attractive. “Me, of course.”
Jango didn’t understand, and didn’t really want to. “Will that work?”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “It will confuse the issue enough for us to make something stick on a more permanent basis.”
That was going to have to be good enough, Jango decided.
THE FICTION
He loved this man. Loved this man. Why was he hurting him?
He could hear Padme in the background and he loved her too. Why had he tried to hurt her?
“Jango! Jango. You need to stop. Please.”
He couldn’t stop, his mind was on fire. Raging, blinding fire. Hotter, higher, harder like a tidal wave of heat.
But then something softer, cooler, kinder was rising up to meet it. Something familiar, something he had known, something he had loved.
Something he still loved.
And then it was gone. Then it was just him in his mind, and he hadn’t realized how long it had been since he had been alone without that raging fire.
Memories flashed through him. Children holding blasters. Children afraid of him, afraid of the men he’d brought with them to train them. Train them into killers. Demagolka. He was Demagolka.
The contract flashed into his mind again, the small changes that he’d prayed would someday matter. He could fix this. Fix something.
“Marry me,” he whispered. “Both of you, marry me. Help me fix this.”
Obi-Wan stared at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “What?” But then, Jango couldn’t blame him. Jango had gone from kissing him, to trying to kill him, to asking Obi-Wan to marry him.
Jango didn’t have time to explain before the world turned gray, then black.
THE TRUTH
Jango stared at his wedding gifts. An R2 unit with more personality than could fit in it’s small frame and an actual rock that had been a coming-of-age gift and had apparently saved Obi-Wan from being mind-wiped. Which was an awful lot to expect from a rock, but Jango decided to accept it and not ask questions.
Boba stood at his side, standing straight and trying to look as grown up as the other clones present.
Obi-Wan had Alpha-17 and Cody standing on either side of him, and he was holding an incredibly fine, metal medallion that symbolized Padme’s time as queen in one hand.
Padme had Fordo and Fox standing on either side of her and was holding a crystal that had apparently once belonged to Obi-Wan’s old Master’s lightsaber. There was something amusing about Obi-Wan technically giving both of his riduure rocks.
Gifts, from one to another, granted into the care and stewardship of one another.
“You know you won’t be a Senator after this,” Obi-Wan murmured quietly to Padme.
She nodded, and if there was any regret inside her, it wasn’t visible. “You won’t be a Jedi.”
Obi-Wan looked just as serene as she did. “Vows and then taking the galaxy by storm?”
The Nabooian vows would come first, and then the Mandalorian ones.
If he was going to get married, he would get married right.
Obi-Wan had Jango’s right vambrace on his arm, and Padme had Jango’s left vambrace. Getting them their own armor would happen eventually.
But it was not the priority, given everything else.
He met the gaze of his two ven’riduure and felt something that might be hope start building in his chest.
It was not the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
This might even be the best.
Even as she’d put the plan together, Padme had half-expected the whole thing to fall apart.
Yet somehow… somehow it didn’t. No, the Goddess seemed to have blessed them. Because instead of falling apart, people believed them. More, they believed in them.
They had leaked the information to one of Padme’s carefully curated friends within the press.
It had taken off, and it was everything she’d been hoping for. No, it was more than she’d hoped for.
She shouldn’t have doubted herself.
Their story wasn’t just a love story—though it was that—no, it was a story of three people whose different stories had allowed them to come together at just the right time to stop a war and save the galaxy.
It was a story of intrigue as the galaxy tried to trace whoever was behind the conspiracy that had broken three hearts and a galaxy, and was only now mending all of those.
It was the story of a Senator and Queen, a Mand’alor and Hunter, and a Jedi and Soldier.
“Force, I can’t believe this is working,” Obi-Wan muttered, he was once more scouring the holo-net watching the tides.
“It was my plan, of course it worked,” Padme said, her voice right by his ear. He turned, letting her drop a kiss on his lips.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “You’re just as shocked as I am.”
She didn’t admit it, but they all knew it was true regardless.
“Any more developments?” Jango asked as he entered the room. Obi-Wan watched Jango drop a kiss on Padme’s lips and tilted his back so Jango could kiss him as well.
He wasn’t sure what this was between them. Their love story was supposed to be a fiction. But sometimes it felt like it was becoming a little less of a fiction as they played along and told their story.
“Someone’s trying to purchase rights to our love story to make a holo-film.” It was not really news, but it was mind-blowing.
“Sabe was telling me that the Soldier, the Queen, and the Hunter has become a top seller,” Padme added, and she was smiling. “Useful, since all those proceeds are going to feeding a literal army, right now.”
Maybe letting them turn it into a film wouldn’t be the worst idea if they got proceeds from the film. There were a lot of mouths to feed these days. It was something to consider.
He focused back on the earlier question. “On another note, Chancellor Palpatine has publicly cut ties with us, calling us war-mongers, since we technically have two armies we could use.” The Chancellor’s popularity rating had fallen quite a bit after the announcement, which was both surprising and hilarious.
Obi-Wan had never liked the Chancellor and the Chancellor had never liked him, and Obi-Wan could admit he was enjoying watching the Chancellor flounder as his term came to an end with none of the Emergency Powers he’d been angling for falling into place.
“War?” Jango asked.
“Less and less likely.” There was something entirely relieving about that fact.
Force, he still couldn’t believe this had worked.
They’d stopped the war, though Obi-Wan was sure whoever was behind it would coming up with some back-up plan.
But they’d bought time, and they’d deal with the next threat when it happened.
“What’s next?” Obi-Wan finally asked.
THE TRUTH WITHIN THE FICTION
Hidden away on Kamino, the three of them exchanged the fast, desperate vows of the Naboo. Praying to the Force, to the Kara, to the Goddess, to everything that any of them believed in, that this desperate plan would work.
It wasn’t enough, and all three of them knew it. What were desperate words in the face of a conspiracy none of them could see? What was love in the face of a war they couldn’t stop?
But it was all they had, and so they said their vows.
And then, because all they had were vows, all that had was love, they said them again.
“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”
It was the three of them against a war. By all accounts, by all logic, it shouldn’t have been enough. But together, the Soldier, the Queen, and the Hunter… it was enough.
He looked up as the story ended to see buir Jango leaning against the wall. His eyes were soft in a way that Alpha-17 had never seen in the first ten years of his life, but had seen more and more often in the past year and a half since they’d ended a war that hadn’t even started.
“Are they going to live Happily Ever After?” Menace asked in the silence.
“Yes, Menace,” buir Jango said quietly and the cadets all let out little jumps as they turned to see him.
“Buir!”
Jango smiled. “Your buire and I are going to live happily ever after. And if we have anything to say about it, so will all of you.” He crouched down. “And let me tell you a secret. When your other buire put their minds to something it happens.”