Chapter Text
Fox was tired. So kriffing tired of this ruse he had to play. The role he had to occupy. He understood the triad’s plans. That they had to be subtle and play the long game to move the pieces into position before they could claim their guides. But that was Fett’s strong suit, not Fox’s.
He’d had to cultivate patience early on in the war, yes, or he’d never have managed as commander of the Coruscant Guard. Dealing with politicians- who, unlike many civilians these days, seemed largely unswayed by Jango’s PR- on the daily had been draining on his and his men’s souls. They had been trained only in the bare minimum courtesies and protocols for dealing with civilians on Kamino, and there’d certainly never been any sort of preparation for being stationed indefinitely on one planet, let alone the Republic capital.
At this point Fox was running on grit, spite, and caf; plus a beskar-solid wall of professionalism. The sentinels in the Guard spent every minute of their free time with their bond mates, seeking what little comfort and stability they could gain from each other to stave off the stress and weariness from their jobs and the lack of real action that they had been so thoroughly trained for. Fox himself stayed glued to Thire’s side whenever he could, while doing his best to truly embrace Vine as a new member of their sentinel group.
Thorn’s absence weighed on them all like a lost limb. It had been six months, and try as he might, Fox couldn’t move on. It wasn’t fair to Vine, who was a fine officer and had worked in earnest to make up for the other sentinel’s loss. But Thorn’s death… It was so pointless! So unfair. He’d been on diplomatic escort; an assignment that was proving rarer and rarer as time and the war dragged on.
But even floundering as they were thanks to the triad’s efforts, the Separatists refused to back down. Maybe being part of a sinking ship- whether they truly realized it or not- had only firmed their resolve and made them more determined not to give the Republic another inch in this conflict. Jango and the GAR’s forces couldn’t be everywhere at once, and they could only do so much without tipping their hand. And Jedi, unfortunately, weren’t invincible.
Senator Bana Breemu and Jedi Knight Mira had been killed alongside their entire escort in a Separatist ambush on neutral Generis. There had never been any plans to negotiate for the CIS; only an opportunity to stab their opponents in the back and take ever more from them. Thorn, according to vague rumors, had been the last one standing, resolute while he took down as many droids as he could, even shot through with holes as he was by the end. Unfortunately, even that couldn’t bring Fox any measure of comfort. After all, his brother was still dead. Still gone, never to return to their bond.
Fox ran a hand wearily down his face, doing his best to banish his dark thoughts as he stood up from his seat in what passed for the Center’s lounge. He dumped the caf in his mug that had long since gone cold down the sink, while grudgingly starting a fresh pot. Five minutes later, Hound joined him, Grizzer padding loyally by his side, with Stone looming behind them. The senior clone commander found himself glad that the pot wouldn’t go to waste, even if such a thing was a rare phenomenon with the Guard.
After filling his mug, Fox knocked it back and didn’t so much as flinch as the scalding liquid ran down his throat. After all this time, his tongue had gone practically numb from the affliction, as well as from his near-addiction to Rakririan Burnout Sauce. His men could call him crazy for it all they wanted, but to Fox, both foodstuffs represented relief and respite.
Hound mixed creamer and cheap tang bark powder into his caf before practically collapsing into a seat at the lounge’s small table. Grizzer panted and whined as he plunked down next to the ARF trooper’s extended leg, ever alert and responsive to his owner’s moods. Stone joined them after adding nothing but sugar to his own caf, and then looked at Fox with a questioning tilt to his head.
Fox sighed and shook his own head in a mute refusal, before gulping down the last of his caf and putting his mug in the dishware servicer. The commander cracked his neck and gave an acknowledging nod to his bond mates, before he left the small lounge, putting his helmet back on as he made for the command center near the base’s prison entrance.
Stepping inside, he nodded at Flip and Rys, who were manning the cell and hall security feeds, as well as the Center’s signals and comms. They both gave casual salutes before turning their focus back to their shift assignments. Fox walked over to the control station, eyes drifting to the feed from outside the prison entrance, before they shifted over to the data transmission readout and prisoner logs.
As he fell into the monotonous task that was reviewing data and updating records and personnel movements, fingers moving meticulously across the controls and displays, Fox heard the door outside the command center swish open. The commander paid it no mind. It wasn’t like officers and troopers didn’t come through it at least semi-regularly, even if it was primarily meant for visitors to the base and not personnel, who had their own staff corridors and doors.
A flash of movement caught Fox’s eye through the viewscreen that separated the command center from the hallway outside it, and he slowly looked up. Standing in front of him was a young Togruta with burnt sienna colored skin and blue stripes on her lekku and montrals. Looking at her, the Coruscant Guard commander felt a brief flicker; of interest or unease, he didn’t know, but he summarily dismissed it as just a faint brush against his heightened senses, locked down as they were. A reaction to a newcomer. It was nothing.
Fox straightened out of habitual decorum and asked, “Yes?”
As the commander took the girl in, his first thought was that she was young. Far too young to be a padawan on the front lines. For that was the only thing she could be, with seemingly no bar from military grounds, and with the two lightsabers hanging at her hips. She couldn’t be more than seventeen cycles old. Fox couldn't help but feel an instinctive rush of protectiveness, which he swiftly quashed as inappropriate regarding someone he had only just met.
The Togruta leaned forward and placed her right hand against her chest to indicate herself.
“I’m Commander Tano,” the padawan spoke in a clear, calm voice. “Letta Turmond requested to see me.”
Fox walked over to the girl as the last sentence left her lips, and watched her eyes widen a fraction as if surprised or discomforted. As he moved closer, he crossed his arms and leaned forward until his head was inches from hers.
“A lot of innocent people died in that blast,” said the commander firmly. “Good job capturing her.”
Even as genuine as the second sentence was, Fox got the feeling it had unnerved or surprised Tano, judging by the way she looked down at the floor and an awkward, wavering expression crossed her face. She raised her brows slightly and blinked several times, as if mulling over the commander’s words, before lifting her head to look at him again, trying and failing for a smile. Fox winced internally. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her, and he acknowledged that he might’ve been too intense in his expression of approval.
The commander turned to look back at Rys and Flip, still engrossed in their duties.
“All right, scan her,” he ordered.
Rys turned to face Fox as he said this, before moving back to do as he’d been told. The shock trooper ran his fingers through the control sequence and looked up at the display as the scanner pinged and did its work. Once the data was done loading and the equipment on her person had been highlighted, the Guard commander turned back to look at the waiting padawan, whose eyes widened again at his attention.
Fox pointed to the security tray in the wall below the viewscreen and both he and the Togruta looked down at it innocuously.
“Leave your comlink and lightsabers here,” the commander ordered as casually as he could.
Surprisingly, Tano didn’t react overtly, and complied easily with the command. She dropped her lightsabers readily into the tray before delicately removing the comlink from its place on her gauntlet and depositing it inside as well. The tray retreated into the wall and behind the viewscreen with a whirr, securing the equipment until the conclusion of the girl’s meeting.
Fox moved to the left, heading for the door of the command center, with Flip and Rys turning away from their stations and falling into step alongside him. As they approached the exit, both troopers hefted DC-15A rifles from where they’d been leaning against the wall off of their posts, each holding them in a ready carry as they followed behind Fox.
Tano turned to face them as they approached her, and the commander turned his own helmeted head to meet her eyes through his visor.
“Follow me,” he said.
The padawan gave the barest nod in response, and slipped in behind him. Rys moved to walk beside her, with Flip bringing up the rear. The party walked up to the ray shields blocking off the military prison from the rest of the base, and all deactivated in sequence, starting at the end of the hallway and finishing in front of the group. They all continued forward, with Fox still in the lead, Tano directly behind him, and both of the former’s men now side by side at the back.
As they walked ever deeper into the bowels of the complex, Fox moved to clasp his hands behind his back and ruminated over the situation at hand. Clearly, the clones’ good PR only extended so far. Even with all the trust that had been fostered between the troopers and the overall public, it didn’t trickle down into all the cracks, and resentment and distrust remained.
The politicians and natborn military personnel- most of them, anyway- still viewed the clones as little more than tools and meatdroids, content to ignore what was right in front of them in favor of maintaining the status quo; at least as it existed to them, being kept largely safe and disconnected from the costs of war and continuing to indulge themselves as they ever had.
And some civilians seemed to hold onto the idea that, by their very presence, the clones encouraged the war to continue. If an army hadn’t already existed- no matter that their life’s purpose and reason for being had all proved a sham once Jango investigated- then there’d have never been an excuse or push for war in the first place. Of course, Fox knew how ridiculous such a concept was; it hadn’t been the clones’ choice to be brought into this life, and whether they were here or not, the Separatists would’ve had their war, one way or another. There was no reasoning with the shabuire.
Still, whatever the public’s grievances, however much they hated the war and those who waged it, the commander was utterly disgusted with the methods taken to express that outcry. No matter that the bombing had seemingly been orchestrated by one woman acting alone, it never should’ve come to death to get her point across. The troopers had all but made themselves available to the public, to speak with them as equals and hear their words.
Finally, the quartet rounded the corner into the hallway that held Turmond’s cell. Fox moved his right arm back to his front, keycard in hand. He smoothly slid it along the cell controls’ reader, the status light turned green followed by a corresponding beep, and the door sprang open with a hiss and a clunk.
Tano crossed her arms beside him and looked down coolly into the cell. Slowly, she walked forward and down the steps leading into the room, Fox following behind her with both hands clasped behind him again, and stopping one step into the room to oversee the interaction.
“What do you want, Letta?” asked the Togruta, sounding mildly irritated.
The human woman looked pathetic, sitting hunched in on herself atop the slab that doubled as both a bench and bed. She hugged her knees and kept her head bowed over them, a far cry from the defiant woman who’d been protesting on the steps of the Jedi Temple and then cursing the Jedi once they found her out.
“I was told if I ever needed help you were the Jedi to contact,” Turmond said slowly, adjusting her cap before turning her head to look at the padawan face to face.
Tano cocked her head at this, brow raised questioningly.
Then the human turned to look up at Fox and his men, giving them an ugly scowl. So, not all the fight had left her, it seemed. And she didn’t trust saying anything in front of the troopers. The commander turned his head ever so slightly and met Turmond’s glare through his helmet.
Tano turned to look up at Fox.
“Give us a minute, please.”
The commander nodded, however reluctantly, and stepped backward slowly, hands still clasped and keeping his eyes on the Togruta even as he turned to go out the door. But as he set his foot down firmly atop the first step, he paused.
Abruptly, the commander’s throat felt like it had dropped down into his stomach; a brief sense of weight followed by churning in his gut. Usually, he kept his sentinel instincts contained; reined in so that he didn’t risk rousing suspicion or misstepping in front of those he served. He only unleashed them fully when off-duty with his men, or when they were out on the streets patrolling and running missions. But Fox felt an urging- or maybe even more of a yearning- to release them now, as strange as it was. And so he did.
The Coruscant Guard commander let his senses roam all around the cell and the beings in his vicinity, settling over everything like a blanket. And he almost gasped in shock.
Tano. The Togruta padawan. This… ad. She- She was his. …His- His guide. His and his bond mates’. No, not possible. Not- Manda, he was going to be sick. …And Fox was never sick, ever.
For all anyone else knew, the senior clone commander had merely frozen for less than half a minute. A pause that was almost invisible even to the Jedi in the room. Certainly no one would’ve guessed that the man had been having a near-breakdown in the confines of both his helmet and his mind, valiantly swallowing down the bile that threatened to erupt out of his mouth.
But Fox wrestled himself back under control, throwing his sentinel instincts into the equivalent of a locked cage in his mind where they could rail all they wanted while he feigned normalcy until he could truly process what had just occurred.
The commander stepped out of the cell completely and moved toward its controls, eyes lingering on Tano until they could no longer afford to; lest he bump into poor Flip, who stood closest to him.
Practically in a daze, Fox stepped over to the cell controls and pressed the button to close the door by rote. His sentinel instincts screamed not to leave his guide alone with the terrorist, but his rational mind still needed to get over the facts of what had happened.
Keeping his steps measured and even, the commander sent Flip and Rys back to the command center, before making his way to the closest refresher on base. As soon as he was inside, Fox dragged his feet into a stall, collapsed onto his knees, and tore his bucket off so he could purge the contents of his stomach from his body.
Finally, when all that remained were dry heaves and hacks that aggravated his now-sore throat, the commander wiped his mouth with his gloved hand and leaned back against one of the stall’s dividers, body trembling ever so slightly from the shock.
In all honesty… Fox had never even hoped that he’d have a guide some day. Had never let himself even consider the possibility. As far as he could fathom, it just wasn’t in the cards; not with his luck. Even being assigned to Coruscant, home of the Jedi Temple, hadn’t shaken his ironclad certainty that such a thing would never happen to him. After all, unlike the rest of his brethren, the commander neither served under nor had he been partnered with a Jedi. Not truly.
No, he and his Guard were put under the heel of the Supreme Chancellor himself, made to cater to the whims of natborns who couldn’t even claim to be anything special like the Jedi clearly were; regardless that they remained blindly ignorant of that fact. Fox only saw the Jedi sporadically, when they passed through the Senate while he was on shift there, or when there was a rare assignment that demanded that Jedi work with the Guard. But it was certainly never enough contact for the commander to catch feelings, let alone feel any stirring of his senses to suggest a pull towards a guide.
With a groan, Fox slowly shuffled to his feet and made for the sink directly in front of the stall he’d taken refuge in. Raising his head to look in the mirror, he grimaced. The commander knew he was no purebred fathier, and he’d never much cared about his appearance before, but he conceded that at the moment, he truly looked like osik. No surprise, but he had to clean himself up, and fast.
Fox knew there was nothing he could do about the bags under his eyes, which were practically permanent at this point, and so he ignored them in favor of combing the few tangles there were out of his regulation haircut- how they got there among such tight curls he didn’t know- giving his teeth a quick brush to banish the aftertaste of bile, and shaving his two-day-old stubble quickly and cleanly in the traditional Mandalorian way.
Satisfied, at least marginally more so now than before, Fox replaced his bucket atop his head and ensured the seals were tight. Even if it effectively rendered his brief clean-up moot, the commander never took off his helmet in public or while on duty if he could help it. And regardless of how invisible his efforts to look decent now were, at minimum, Fox hadn’t wanted to effectively seal the physical effects of his breakdown inside a tight, enclosed space and risk becoming more haggard for it.
Walking briskly back to the command center, Fox settled back in at his station as if nothing had happened; and as far as Flip and Rys were concerned, nothing had.
Just as his mind began to wander back to his now-discovered guide, low alarms began pinging from the monitors around him.
Oh, Ka’ra, what now? Fox bemoaned.
“Prisoner health critical,” came the mechanized voice of the alert system, “holding cell 173.”
Rys tapped the controls furiously as he looked up from them to the feed of Turmond’s cell. The woman’s body shook in aggravation as she was held suspended in the air, clutching her throat. Tano had her hands raised high, looking for all intents and purposes as if she were the one behind such reactions. And then the feed cut out, replaced by static.
Rys didn’t want to assume anything. Not with a potential guide in the mix. And a padawan to boot. But this situation needed to be taken care of, yesterday.
“Commander Fox, the prisoner,” he said, turning sharply to face his superior and giving a slight nudge of the head towards the malfunctioning camera feed.
Fox had looked up and turned his head in Rys’s direction as the trooper spoke, and choosing preparedness over caution, he quickly unholstered both of his DC-17 pistols and held them at face level, poised for action.
“Follow me,” the commander ordered gruffly, gesturing his men forward with his occupied right hand as he broke out into a run.
As the trio ran towards the cell, Fox ignored his unofficial rule and called on his sentinel heritage, urging himself to run faster, to ensure his guide- and the hut’uun with her, he admitted grudgingly- was alright.
The commander returned one pistol to its holster as he snatched his keycard out of his belt pouch, almost stabbing it clean through the reader with how firmly he pressed it in and then swiped it.
The door flew open, Rys and Flip at the ready behind him as Fox rushed forward, only to grind to a halt amid his frantic sprint towards his guide. Pausing to look over the scene from the doorway, the commander’s eyes were immediately drawn to Turmond, who lay limp and facedown on the cell’s floor.
Tano whipped around from where she was kneeling beside the still form, arms frozen mid examination. The look she gave the trio was one of abject shock, mouth hanging open and eyes wide with terror and grief. Fox quickly jumped down the steps as the young Togruta turned back to face Turmond’s body. Rys leapt past the commander and padawan to check on the prisoner, while Flip trailed slowly down the steps behind them all, both keeping their rifles in elbow carries.
“I… don’t know what happened,” said Tano in a mournful, confused voice.
Fox believed her. Even if she wasn’t his guide, genuine confusion and grief like that- especially for an enemy- couldn’t be faked. As he stood over the distressed padawan and kept a foot between them, Rys squatted down beside the human woman on the floor and touched her neck in search of a pulse. Tano held her hands out in front of her in a gesture of horror and disbelief, before her shoulders sagged, as if she was spent from the whole incident.
Then Rys tilted his head up to look at Fox.
“Commander, she’s dead.”
As the shock trooper announced the bad news and stood up from his crouch, the commander’s guide turned her head slowly to look up at him, eyes etched with sorrow, disbelief, and… a silent plea.
Fox shifted his stance and shook his head as he spoke, even though he was screaming inside, sentinel raging inside its cage once more.
“I can’t say I blame you, Commander Tano,” came the words as he watched her head shift in clear signs of disbelief. “But all the same, you’re under arrest.”
The last sentence was uttered with no mercy, and the commander of the Guard gave a small, one-armed shrug, before leaning forward and raising his dominant arm and pistol to point at her shoulder, looking down at his guide while his heart first grew heavy before shattering inside his chest.