Spoiler: This is an excerpt from Children of the Desert
He’s not ready to leave his men into battle, to their deaths, every single day, wishing there was more he could do to protect them. And he knows he’s doing everything he can and he was able to save his mother so he can somewhat trust that he’s not completely failing, but it never feels like enough. Especially not when his men are slaves, just like he was, and they don’t even get a say in whether or not they want to fight.
But he’s never thought about that quite as obsessively as he is now, after they lost so much ground on Christophsis because of a clone turned traitor.
“It’s the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We do your bidding. We serve at your whim. I just wanted something more.”
“And all you had to do to get it was put the rest of us all at risk. “
“I love my brothers. You’re too blind to see it, but I was striking a blow for all the clones.”
Slick wasn’t right in what he did. There’s no doubting that. They lost the battle because of him, and that’s not to say how many of his brothers he hurt or killed in the process.
His fate is going to be up to the Republic now. To his superiors. Rightfully, he should be executed. He committed treason, and he’s a traitor. To the Republic, to all of his brothers. He could have killed Rex and Cody. He tried to, and Anakin will never forgive him for that. Loyalty is important. He had a family, and he hurt all of them. He was willing to kill his own brothers.
But – but, at the end of the day, Slick was a slave, too. He had a right to be willing to fight for freedom, even if it doesn’t begin to justify any of what he did. He might have been willing to betray the Republic and everything the clones fought for, are dying for, but that… doesn’t mean he was fully wrong.
No one is wrong for wanting freedom.
The dream of every slave is to kill their masters, and it feels like that’s what Slick was doing. He’s one of the only clones who understands their status enough to want anything else.
They lost the battle because of him, but Anakin isn’t going to call Christophsis a lost cause yet. He doesn’t do that – maybe it’s not possible for most people, but he’ll make it work, because he has to and people are counting on him. There’s no other way it can be.
