Weeks of careful planning is a must, weeks of gathering intel, of resources poured into one missions, calling in favors, getting a ship that can bypass the Empire’s security, getting a basic trooper outfit, unpainted, getting falsified papers…

But they’re ready.

They’re going to do this for Obi-Wan’s sake.

To set Obi-Wan’s mind at peace, because Obi-Wan’s wide eyes is something the troopers are all too used to seeing when Vader marches in on a place that has rumored to have held Obi-Wan with Cody at his sake.

For him, they are getting Cody out.

Its not that they don’t want to, of course not, if they could, the would get all their brothers out of the hell that is the chips…

But they don’t have the resources for all of them, they can’t bring them all out, as much as they desperately wants to. To save every last one of their brothers from the Empire and the snake at the top, leading everything.

However, they can’t.

They don’t have the resources for it, they don’t have the space and they don’t have the manpower to do it.

They do bring some vod out of it, when they can, a squad they come over, knocking them out and taking them to the medbay of their ships, getting them dechipped and rescued. But not as many as they wished they could.

Cody however is bait and they all know it, he’s bait for Obi-Wan.

They had all known that from the moment they had seen the blank eyed Commander, their vod, marching beside Vader, as if he didn’t have morals anymore.

Cody had always had strong morals, had them from the moment he was decanted on Kamino and under General Kenobi, they had only been fortified as he learned and saw more of the world and of the Jedi behavior.

Cody was a man of honor, morals and justice.

The blank eyed man was not Cody.

Couldn’t be Cody.

But he would be Cody again.

That was why Rex was on Coruscant, dressed in the white of a shiny from salvaged armor, following the commander silently.

Around him, others from Homebase were following equally silent, all of them grim but determined.

The plan was simple.

Follow Cody until he was alone, hypo him, keep him in place until he was out, deprive him of armor in case of trackers and bring him to the ship they had bartered from a smuggler with the falsified papers.

Then they ran.

Cody was making it hard though, most of the day he had been with Vader, making it impossible to approach him and Rex honestly worried that if he got too close, Vader would feel that it was him.

It was one of those things, when Vader had been General Skywalker, had always been nice, that the man always knew who his troopers were and called them by name.

Now it was a nuisance.

Dangerous.

So they had to use distance.

Only Lamb could approach without worry as Lamb was not part of the 212th or the 501st, he had been a shiny from 612th and therefore Vader had never meet him. So he had been set on trail duty for most of the day, keeping the other appraised through their private and protected comms.

They did have one scare, when one of Tarkin’s lackeys had tried to send them of to the other side of Coruscant but had managed to get out of it. By sending another team of troopers unfortunately, they didn’t like taking advantage of their own, mindwashed brothers but they didn’t have much choice.

They had to get Cody and they had to get him soon.

‘Hold on Obi-Wan… soon Cody will be home with us… just don’t do anything stupid.’ Rex bit his lips, eyes on the back of his black armored brother, wondering how many Jedi the other had murdered in his state.

Under Vader’s orders.

‘Force, I don’t ask for much, but please let it be zero.’ Rex swallowed.