Chapter Text
Obi-Wan held Cody’s lifeless body in his arms as his feet slid out from under him and he cascaded down the incline, along with the rest of the muddy slope. The rain was pelting down.
Shouts of ‘Sir!’ and ‘General!’ came from above, and then yelps and shouts and more and more of Ghost Company got caught up in the mudslide.
They were on yet another ridiculous side mission deemed essential to the war effort by the Supreme Chancellor, and the farce - for it was a farce, that was clear - had cost yet more lives. Beautiful, precious, lights… winked out.
Like Cody.
Obi-Wan had slid further, and slightly off to the side from the rest of Ghost, and he just rested for a moment, covered in mud, resting on his knees, still clutching Cody’s body. The tears were coming and for once he didn’t consider them self-pitying, and entirely self-indulgent.
A moment of clarity, instead, dawned.
It wasn’t just this side mission that was a farce.
It was all a farce.
It was all a farce!
Somehow he could see it with perfect clarity, all the things he couldn’t see before. It was as if the mud washed away his blindness.
Dooku had said there was a Sith in the Senate, but it had seemed so ridiculous, so incongruous. As if the Senate, known for its corruption and treachery, known for ignoring its responsibilities and trafficking and exploiting its own citizenry, and the body that staunchly refused to admit it was wielding a slave army, and also refused to see its soldiers as sentients…
Suddenly he saw.
It was Death Watch, all over again. Somehow, it really was.
If he’d been a Sith, if Obi-Wan had been in the Line of Bane and wanted to reestablish a Sith Empire, first he’d need the Jedi gone, and second, he’d need the Mandalorians on his side. But the Mandalorians weren’t united, and a pacifist Mandalore was useless, if easily controlled. Mand’alor the Reformer had honor and a code and would never have worked with the Sith, so he had to go, and go he went. Which left the Death Watch.
Death Watch, who kidnapped children, brainwashed them, and trained them to be good little… meat droids, up to and including making them suicide bombers.
It was almost like it was… a besh test. A strategy test. An early war game to work the kinks out of the system.
With enough brainwashing, would they really fight for you? Would they really die for a cause not their own?
And if you had enough money to throw at your bid of conquest, why bother kidnapping children? Why not clone them?
Then you have Mandalorians without all of that tricky ‘truth, honor, vision’ business, you have Mandalorians stripped of Mandalore, of the Mand’alor, and bereft of the Manda.
You have the clone army; the next best thing to having a strong Sith-sympathizing Mandalore.
And because they’re Sith, and it’s what the Sith do, they’ll betray them somehow by the end. It won’t matter what the clones want, and it will be made all the easier because they’re unacknowledged slaves, people who aren't people and who have no say over what they do and how they do it.
Tup. Fives. That report. Shit, that’s how it’s done. Chips in the head. The last bit of their autonomy and authority removed, permanently with… what? One signal sent?
Fuck.
And that’s one side of the dejarik board.
The other side was also a manufactured army for this manufactured farce of a war.
Obi-Wan laughed as he cried.
Yan Dooku controlled one side of the board and Sheev Palpatine controlled the other. One was the Apprentice, and one was the Master.
Disaster lineage strikes again.
If Obi-Wan had been a Sith in the Line of Bane, if this had been his game instead of Sheev Palpatine’s, he would absolutely not want to recreate the wheel. Why bother to form an entirely new government after burning down the old one? Why not recycle?
Better to turn the Old Republic into the New Sith Empire. Better to turn the clone troopers who have a modicum of autonomy and who love their Jedi Generals and Commanders into a force of mindless automatons who will kill their Jedi and anyone else they’re told to, elite shock troops to subdue all ten thousand worlds.
In which case it would be most convenient for the sake of an easy transition to be the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, be given emergency powers until one is very nearly at the finish line, spin the propaganda machine and declare oneself Emperor for the sake and safety of the populace.
Jedi would probably be declared traitors and burned in effigy. Or just burned. The Order’s PR was never particularly good, having been shackled and chained to the whims of a corrupted Senate for a thousand years.
That’s how it’s supposed to go. That’s how it is going.
A moment’s thought for Anakin came before a shuddering cry and the harsh realization that Anakin was Palpatine’s Predator piece on the Dejarik board.
Obi-Wan let out a gut-wrenching cry.
How dare you let this happen? he screamed in his own head, to the Force that was supposed to help them, warn them, guide and guard them.
How fucking dare you?
‘No one listened,’ a voice seemed to respond. It was like his own voice, and for a moment Obi-Wan thought he’d just supplied his own rationale, making excuses as he so often did.
But no. He grew still in the rain, still clutching Cody’s cooling body like it was a talisman. The rain was cold, too. The mud was cloying. He could hear his men calling for him. His mind was silent.
“I listened,” he whispered, harsh and angry. “I always fucking listened!”
‘No. Not always. Sometimes. And sometimes very well, better than others.’
“I listened!” he whispered, his tears distorting his voice, soft as it was. “You were silent! You were complicit!”
‘Well, you’re listening now, I’ll give you that. What are you willing to do?’
“Anything,” Obi-Wan said softly, shuddering in his sobs over the body of his Commander.
‘That’s enough to get the job done, but not here, and not now. Choose a companion.’
He stared at Cody’s grey face, helmet gone, streaked in mud. Rigor mortis was starting to set in. He thought about Anakin, but that was a terrible idea. Master Yoda?
No.
Mace?
No.
Bant?
No.
He clutched Cody closer and let the tears fall, feeling so alone and bereft.
‘Good choice.’
Cody gasped.
Obi-Wan blinked, still sobbing, but now directly over the slowly recovering face of his not-apparently-dead Commander.
Cody coughed, then cleared his throat. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Obi-Wan laughed as he cried. But he also nodded.
“Obi-Wan. Your eyes are yellow.”
Obi-Wan didn’t stop laughing. Or crying. And this time Cody held him.