Bowing his head in thanks to the medic, Qui-Gon watched the woman leave before turning his attention back to his padawan, carefully drawing the other’s left hand into his to have a point of physical contact, the other equipped with an IV line still.
He tried not to wince at the sight of his too small padawan in a large, sterile bed, the other looking far too much like a broken doll than a human at that moment for Qui-Gon’s comfort.
Obi-Wan had unfortunately suffered a few broken ribs due to the debris being blown around, some blood loss and he had a head wound filled with shrapnel, it had caused the medics to shave the left side of Obi-Wan’s head.
It left his poor padawan looking quite odd, copper hair on one side and nothing on the other side.
If it wasn’t for the sickly paleness of his skin and the swollen state of his eyes, one could mistake it for an odd hair cutting accident or a youngling cutting their own hair.
Qui-Gon wasn’t unfamiliar to children cutting their own hair unfortunately.
But coupled with the eyes and his skin, Obi-Wan looked the state of the victim he was.
But he was alive.
Qui-Gon knew that a few people had not survived the trauma of the shop exploding.
From the gossip he heard in the hall, it had been some sort of food place, a gas container had apparently been the cause of this entire disaster.
An accident.
Squeezing his padawan’s hand, Qui-Gon let out a deep sigh and looked to the wall with a small frown on his face.
He could imagine why Obi-Wan had stopped, he was quite aware that his padawan was part of the unifying Force. A little glimpse into the future, a little vision slipping past his eyes…
Qui-Gon didn’t like visions and precognition, exactly for the reason Obi-Wan was now laid out in bed and injured.
It didn’t always help and sometimes could be outright damaging.
There would have been next to nothing they could have done about the exploding shop and if they had continued walking, Obi-Wan might not have gotten as hurt as he did.
Normally, he would have told Obi-Wan to focus on the now.
Normally.
But Obi-Wan wasn’t normal.
His ADHD made what was a gentle guidance seem so much worse, Obi-Wan could take Qui-Gon’s gentle direction to try and focus on the now as a rejection of Obi-Wan’s very nature and that…
That could not come to pass.
Teens that felt rejected felt the need to hide and lie, Qui-Gon could not have that, not with Obi-Wan.
His condition made it imperative that he trusted Qui-Gon, should something go wrong, he must feel that he could at the very least go to Qui-Gon, so they could work out what was going on.
Yoda was skilled with precognition but he was also old and as much as Qui-Gon loved his grandmaster, the prospect of sending Obi-Wan to Yoda, who could be rigid and unbending about his own ways was setting of warning signals in Qui-Gon’s head.
Obi-Wan’s condition meant he needed a gentler hand.
Someone used to being careful but was also aware of precognition enough to teach.
Rubbing Obi-Wan’s hand, Qui-Gon frowned deeply before sighing and glancing at the dimmed sun filtering in through the window. “…Guess I’ll be sending Yan a message.” He mused a tad darkly to himself.
It wasn’t that he didn’t still care for his old master but he and Yan…
Well, they were very different people and the last stages of Qui-Gon’s apprenticeship had been a tad fraught.
But, Yan knew how to be careful, of that Qui-Gon was sure.
A man that while not outright cared for younglings, could cradle them carefully and sooth someone in need of it. And Yan was also part of the unifying Force.
If supplied with the correct information on Obi-Wan’s condition, Yan would potentially be the best choice.
‘If only to stop something like this from happening again.’ Qui-Gon reached up with his free hand and gently stroked Obi-Wan’s pale cheek, smiling sadly down at his padawan.
Tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, Boba ignored Fennec’s sharp look from the side as he continued making noise. He had an excess of energy and needed some way to work it out and since they didn’t have a person Boba could bash into the floor, well, this would have to do.
Outside of the viewscreen, hyperspace flitted by in a shower of bright light and blue and nothing Boba could do would would make things go faster.
Din’s emergency signal had gone of, sent of by the man himself instead of the time limit Boba had installed. Had the cockpit been unused for a week, it would have sent of a message to Boba’s gauntlet but no, Din himself had sent of this one.
It meant that Din, reckless, stupid Din, had looked at himself and realized that he was in severe problems and needed aid and no amount of hailing on the comms had Din responding.
Boba wasn’t sure what that meant.
He could make some guesses of course but wasn’t sure which one would be the right one and human imagination could be so much worse than the truth. So he tried not to imagine what kind of situation Din had landed himself in even as he had stocked the medbay of Slave 1 to the brim with supplies.
The King of Tatooine trusted few, his position was still precarious and leaving wasn’t in his best interest but… Din…
Din, who had such difficulty in asking for aid for himself, Din, who Boba could trust with his own life and business, Din, who could not be trusted with his own life.
Din had asked for help for once and Boba would answer it and where he went, Fennec followed these days.
Plus, regardless how much she might feign disinterest, he knew she was fond of their silver covered mandalorian.
Which was why they were both flying through space to Atanan-V to find their lost bounty hunter.
Hopefully, they weren’t too late.
()()()
Landing the piece of scrap he had ‘borrowed’ from a scrapyard onto the muddy ground, Paz eyed the other ship with trepidation even as he knew there weren’t any living signs around, Paz having scanned the surroundings before he dared to land.
It wasn’t the Razor Crest and he wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Honestly, Paz wasn’t sure what to make of the emergency signal either, still faintly beeping on his gauntlet. Din Djarin was a stubborn son of a bitch and there had only been two instances before the covert was exposed on Nevarro that the di’kut had used it in all his bounty hunter years.
Both times Din had been on the verge of death and had they been any later, Din would not be here today.
If he was alive.
Paz wasn’t sure what he was going to find inside the other ship, if it even was Din.
But it couldn’t be anyone else, only Din, their beroya, had this particular emergency signal.
It couldn’t be sourced from a terminal, the inbuilt code meant it auto destroyed itself after a week, it had to input every week for it to be usable.
A security, to keep the covert safe, to ensure their beroya couldn’t be used for them if caught.
It could only be input by a person that knew it.
Din.
Just Din.
Their beroya, their breadwinner.
Disengaging the ramp of the barely flying scrap metal he had dared to fly, Paz hefted his canon onto his back and made his way out, knowing he needed to investigate, to make sure but not being stupid about it as he scanned the surrounding area with his helmet.
Good thing he did too, picking up the signals that the ship was currently active with defenses.
Paz paused uncertainly, staring at the ship. He wasn’t a slicer, had never had the patience or mind to learn that particular skill and seeing as how he should be visible from the cockpit, it meant that whoever was in there hadn’t disengaged it.
Or couldn’t.
Paz mind flashed to the last time Din had used the emergency signal, to the blood covered cuirass of the beroya as he was transported to the ship that had come to his rescue. ‘I don’t have that much bacta.’ Paz swallowed thickly, shifting on his feet, the mud squelching under his boots, dusky rain falling down around him.
When the signal had arrived, Paz hadn’t thought.
Just acted, as he often did if he was honest.
It could be counted as both a flaw and a pro honestly, a pro when in battle, acting quickly often saved his life. But other times, it landed him in situations like this, standing without proper gear and no backup.
The potential of a survivor from the covert had been too alluring, the idea of finding Din again slamming Paz with a need he thought he’d overcome by aiding Din with the foundling.
Standing outside the ship though, Paz wished he had thought to bring someone with him, to fill his ship with better supplies.
Because either Din was not in that ship or he was too injured to move and disengage the protections set in place.
Neither prospect was good.
Grumbling, Paz only got another minute of peace to stare at the ship before the sound of another ship in atmosphere had him tensing, his head snapping up and around to find a spot of growing darkness on the grey sky.
Another ship was approaching.
Enemies?
Or did whoever, be it Din or someone else, send for more aid than the beroya signal. Honestly, Paz hoped it was the latter.
Din would have been alone for a long time and the idea of him having backup was slightly soothing… but Paz wouldn’t know until whoever was arriving landed and since he couldn’t do anything else…
Paz settled to wait, his canon pulled of his shoulder and into his hands just in case as he moved closer to the ship without touching it.
If they were friendlies, they wouldn’t dare shoot on the ship at the very least. ‘Let us hope its allies, eh verd’ika?’ Paz mused as the ship came fully into view, an old Firespray from the looks of it.
Gingerly taking a step while holding onto Dogma’s arm, Obi-Wan let out a low groan as it pulled on tender healed skin as his foggy head finally started pushing blood in the right directions. “Shitty titty… blasted naked besalisk, fucking six titted-aaaah.” He grumbled deeply and paused, ignoring both Rex and Cody giving him bemused look and Dogma’s vaguely horrified one.
Zuru was just too used to his General’s behavior to take notice of the cursing and the rather… uniqueness of it. Which was why he was just sitting cross legged on Obi-Wan’s bed, watching closely as Obi-Wan tryingly started walking around after hanging upside down.
“Next time I see Dooku, I’m shoving my lightsaber up his arse.” Obi-Wan growled before carefully pulling away from Dogma’s arm and moving on his own, breathing out heavily as it still made his head feel a bit faint.
But he felt better as he moved, healing skin stretching nicely after the bacta had healed it even if it was sore along with his head.
“Where in galaxy have you seen six tits?” Rex couldn’t finally help but ask, scratching at his blond fuzz.
“Ever seen a naked jawa?” Obi-Wan bounced back, moving between the beds with stronger and stronger steps, ignoring how the rest of the tent paused at the reply.
Dogma gained a more obviously horrified look, echoed by both Rex and Cody, Helix squinting thoughtfully at the ceiling of the tent.
“Okay, hold up, you’ve seen a naked Jawa?” Zuru blinked at him. No one saw a naked jawa, they didn’t undress in front of outsiders from what people could tell and they got really territorial and angry if you tried to pull their hoods down.
“More like stripped it, I had to find my lightsaber somehow, little weasel thought I didn’t notice he stole it.” Obi-Wan grumbled as he paused and carefully stretched. All the bed laying and coddling had left him feeling stiff but thankfully the medics were willing to let him up now.
He ignored the disturbed and shocked looks of the troopers around him as he continued lightly stretching.
People didn’t just undress jawas after all but that was what Obi-Wan had been required to do, to get his lightsaber back.
Finally finished stretching, Obi-Wan turned and gave Zuru an expectant look.
The pilot, attuned as he was to Obi-Wan’s behavior, simply shook his head and threw him a black pouch.
Grinning happily, Obi-Wan made his way over to the mirror, set the black pouch onto the closest surface and fished out a tube of hair mousse from his products.
Quietly, most of the troopers watched Obi-Wan rub the hair product between his hands and run it through his hair, working it up into the faux mohawk he normally sported. “To be fair, I couldn’t have the little bastard open the case, if it found out I had a lightsaber, I’d either have to do some fast talking to convince the mandalorians I was with that I killed a Jedi or flee, compromising my mission.” He drawled slightly.
Perking up, Cody tilted his head. “Mandalorians? You worked with some?” He asked curiously, a tad hopefully. Obi-Wan had come to learn that a lot of the vode liked to assimilate mandalorian culture into their own.
Not really a shock, their progenitor was after all one, had hired many mandalorian teachers that taught the initial troopers and those later on had taught their own brothers.
The blood of true Mandalore flowed through the clones, regardless what kind of complicated view the other mandalorians had on them.
“Spied on them,” Obi-Wan corrected easily, not letting his thoughts escape, tilting his head back and forth before reaching into the bag again for a can of spray. “Death Watch, they’re officially listed as terrorists organization, even by the Republic despite staying on Mandalore most of the time but most consider them a ‘bygone’ threat.” Obi-Wan’s lips pulled into a sneer, alerting everyone what he thought of that decision.
“So you were spying on them to…what?” Rex questioned curiously.
“Correction, I was fucking the leader for information,” Obi-Wan smirked to himself, ignoring the aghast expressions in the mirror. Pre Vizla had been an easy mark for him and chatty once in bed. “To be fair, flash a bit of stewjoni blood at a true mandalorian and they kinda lose their mind, tack in the fact that I could fight and am decently attractive, especially back at twenty five, piece of cake infiltration really.” He chuckled quietly.
Before someone could respond to that, another person spoke up, clearly horrified. “Did the council send you on honeypot missions after you left me?” A strangled voice from the front of the tent question and Obi-Wan paused, turning his head to look at Qui-Gon.
He narrowed his eyes faintly before shrugging. “We do ours for the cause, Deatch Watch leader is a man of convictions with little morals and I knew my duty. Getting him to talk was difficult. So yes.” He turned back, spraying his hair so it would hold the mohawk shape.
Was he proud of that part of his missions repertoire?
No. Had it been necessary to get Pre Vizla talking?
Yes.
Obi-Wan knew that his information had at least helped keep Death Watch from abducting more children and kept them from infiltrating offices of the New Mandalorian government.
Even if Satine refused to listen to sense.
His lip curled a bit as he thought of his old flame before firmly snuffing the thought. If she wanted to suppress everything that made a Mandalorian into a Mando or exile those that didn’t listen, then fine, on her head be the cultural genocide.
She wanted to be the Senate’s little voice, she could stay there and rot for all he cared.
But Obi-Wan had washed his hands on all that, he had given her the information she’d need and what had she done with it?
Nothing.
‘It is times like this I very much wish Jango Fett had become Mand’alor, at least this travesty of a pale imitation culture wouldn’t exist. Nor would the black markets for traditional Mandalorian items.’ He mused to himself, ignoring Qui-Gon watching him with stricken eyes in the mirror.
Looking up from his pad, Cody raised a brow as Wolffe entered the meeting room, watching quietly as his vod made his way over to the hidden cabinet to bring out the moonshine.
The gruff commander uncorked one, glanced at the others and then started chugging directly from the bottle, causing the rest to exchange resigned, worried looks.
This tended only to happen when Wolffe was geared up from something, generally something relating to his Jedi and with everything the troopers were figuring out about how the Senators treated them, a lot were automatically going that direction.
It didn’t get any better when Rex, with Kix in tow, also went straight for the booze, the two clicking the bottles together before chugging.
Pressing his face into his hands, letting out a deep sigh, Cody wondered if he really wanted to know before his mind reminded him that if it had to do with the Jedi, he had to know with what they were planning to do. “…Okay, what’s up?” He finally questioned after a few moments of the two drinking.
Poor Kix looked lost and a bit disapproving at how his captain and the commander was chugging alcohol but the medic instantly turned to Cody at the question. “We have biochips in our heads.” He announced darkly.
Pausing, Cody stared at him before sighing deeply and getting to his feet, moving over to Wolffe and Rex, holding out his hand while mentally noting that he hoped someone refilled the secret cabinet, it was getting a tad empty.
Rex quietly handed over one of the blank bottles and watched Cody chug from it. “Okay, we’ll talk about that after the meeting. Wolffe?” He turned to his vod, ignoring the shifting holos behind him of the other commanders and captains.
“General Plo let it slip that one of the CIS senators once broke his arm.” Wolffe grumbled, glaring at Cody.
Freezing, bottle of moonshine at his lips, Cody’s mind suddenly kicked into high gear.
Of course, of karking course.
The CIS had Senators in the Rotunda once too.
Karking hell.
Of course they too had access to the Jedi at some point.
Slowly he lowered his bottle, letting a deep breath out through his nose. “You get the name from the General?” He questioned, sighing quietly when Wolffe nodded. “Good, I’ll bring the issue up with Senator Amidala when I meet with her again, get some names… I know she has a big black book, actual book, with names for us.” He murmured tiredly.
He ignored Rex and Wolffe exchanging surprised looks. Padme had explained that she kept the black book with her at all times and inserted names as she either heard from the grape wine or saw for herself that someone hurt the Jedi.
A book, made of paper, after all could not be hacked and a book, simply filled with a random amount of names could mean anything. After all, the Senator was smart enough not to fill in the reason on the paper why those particular names were in it.
Things were starting to line up now, three more weeks and they’d take the Senate and Cody’s gut bubbled a bit with the thought of it.
Troopers were already cautiously being rerouted towards Coruscant, quite a bit of slicing around the natborns required to not let them get suspicious. Hell, Cody had even managed to get Tarkin’s battalion rerouted to Coruscant.
He was one of the natborns that would be a casualty of the coup. Cody did not want a man that disregarded his vode as Tarkin around for the aftermath.
They wouldn’t strictly need the superior numbers, looking at it from a logical point. Most of the Senators had no task force of their own and couldn’t fight worth shit but a voice, deep in Cody’s head, wanted more trooper feet on Coruscant.
Something deep in his mind.
Quietly, he turned his head towards Kix, watching the other quietly converse with Fox. That same little voice whispered that he now knew why he wanted the troopers on Coruscant.
Biochips were things slavers used, he had learned about them after Zygerria.
They were normally implanted into a slave with trigger words, trigger orders.
It could make a normally docile person suddenly turn into a violent maniac with the correct phrase or make someone that constantly fought kneel, the right words and suddenly a person might drop to their knees without understanding why.
Makers, sometimes they didn’t even realize that the order was wrong, that it wasn’t something they’d normally do.
A chill went up Cody’s back at the thought of being forced to do something so ingrained against his own moral code it made him wonder…
The nightmares.
Cody’s hand went tight on the bottle, his eyes widening as the thought occurred to him.
The GAR wide nightmare, the nightmare every member of the entire GAR experienced at least once a week if not more.
The nightmares of murdering their own Jedi, even the young ones.
Could it be that?
He knew, from working closely with Obi-Wan, that the question of the clones creation had always been a weird, blurry spot. The idea of Dooku ordering clones for the Jedi, along with the Jedi he had been working with, always having had big question marks with it, but what if it was so simple as these biochips.
What if the creation of the clone army, what if the nightmares and these biochips were related?
Cody suddenly felt very sick, his own dreams of turning his blaster on Obi-Wan, surfacing hard and fast and he wanted to vomit even as he slowly made his way to his seat, sitting down heavily as he let the implication sink in.
If he was right…
Ka’ra.
There were so many troopers, so many of them on Coruscant at every hour of every day.
If the troopers marched on the temple, their wills wiped, with simply the order of killing every Jedi…
It be a massacre.
Would the chip even make a distinction between the healthy that could fight or the young and the impaired?
Or would they be blasting down every knight, master, padawan, youngling and bed bound Jedi?
The alcohol bubbled in his stomach and Cody felt saliva pool in his mouth, heard Rex ask quietly if he was okay, heard Fox stand as Kix was making his way around the table towards him.
But his mind was caught on Obi-Wan, the sight of his smiling face as Cody gave his saber back, the warm glow of the Jedi’s eyes before his mind twisted the image, Obi-Wan’s eyes wide and full of shock, his own saber piercing his chest, Cody holding the hilt.
Cody turned to the side, just as Kix touched his shoulder and promptly threw up all.
SWpromptsandask 