Fic: intent and opportunity - ao3 - chapter 24
Relationships: Appo & Slick, Slick & Slick’s squad, Appo & Slick’s squad, others on ao3
Tags & Warnings on ao3
Summary:
After the postmortem briefing on the Christophsis campaign concluded and the command staff allowed to disperse, Appo did not leave with the others, but stayed behind to talk to Rex. “Captain, do you have a moment?” he asked, standing at attention and waiting until Rex nodded to continue. “I noticed an error in the flimsiwork and I’d appreciate your assistance in fixing it. Specifically, it relates to Sergeant Slick -“ (when the GAR’s most blindly obedient clone starts following in the footsteps of its first clone traitor, the galaxy starts to change)
chapter under the cut
"It seems very hypocritical of you to put me in iso over beating up Wat Tambor," Slick said, fidgeting with his datapad to cover up his increasing nervousness as he was marched deeper and deeper down darkened tunnels he'd never seen before. They looked like maintenance tunnels, and probably were: the question was why they were transversing these tunnels. "I'm a little offended. I know natborns count for more than clones, but I mean, of all natborns…"
"Yeah? Well, I wish someone had warned me that you didn't stop talking," Thorn retorted, more than a little theatrically. "Stop acting like I'm taking you away behind the bunker to shoot you."
"Oh, are we not doing that?" Slick sniped back. "Funny, it's a little hard to tell in the dark."
"Whine, whine, whine, that's all I keep hearing." Thorn paused. "You don't actually think I'm here to kill you, right?"
"No, obviously not," Slick said at once, because portraying strength was key. Also, Thorn himself didn't seem to have any ill intentions beyond some badly hidden amusement and anticipation, as if he were looking forward to some sort of harmless prank. "Besides, Thire would never let it happen."
"Thire, huh? Not Fox?"
"Fox probably likes you too much to properly avenge my death. Thire finding out you cut off one of his sources of info on Appo, on the other hand…"
Thorn sniggered.
A moment later, though, he sobered. "Actually, it's not a bad thing to be cautious when going somewhere with one of the Guard,” he said carefully. “You shouldn't assume that anyone is going to be friendly, even if they'd been before."
Please, Slick knew that already. He was a traitor, after all, and there were plenty of people who wouldn't forget that so quickly.
He shrugged and changed the subject.
"Where are you taking me, anyway? I didn't know the Guard even had isolation tanks."
"We don't. And if we did, they'd undoubtedly would have sprung a mysterious leak in the first week. Our medics don't put up with that Kamino shit if they can help it." Thorn smirked. "And as for where, well, you are being put in iso. Just not in a tank. And not totally isolated, either…"
How incredibly unhelpful.
"What the kark is that supposed to -"
They passed another door and Slick abruptly stopped talking. Stopped thinking. He even stopped checking his datapad to see if Appo had sent anything new from his horrible Citadel mission.
He didn't have eyes for anything but the sky.
"Tenth window on the left," Thorn said after very mercifully giving him a few minutes to just take it all in. He wasn't that bad, actually, even if he was emanating a sense of smug satisfaction like the pheromones of a sea-slug during mating season. "Six up."
It took a few tries, but Slick finally managed to tear his gaze from the polluted clouds and angry speeders stuck in traffic and countless skyscrapers that made up the first free air he'd seen since entering the rat cage.
"Okay," he said, spotting the small window that Thorn had indicated. "And what's that?"
""A Jedi safehouse for undercover missions that the Guard helps maintain," Thorn said. "Nominally, anyway. To my knowledge they've never used it. Too busy with the front lines, I guess. Anyway, that's where you're going to stay from now on."
"I …what?"
"Welcome to your new home base, Sergeant. You didn't think you'd be able to do your new Hall of Records assignment from prison, did you?"
Slick hadn't thought about it.
Somehow, despite all they had done in the name of clone freedom, he'd never thought about it applying to him.
Not Slick. Not the traitor.
"We'll be putting a tracker on you, and you have to stay within permitted areas unless you have an escort," Thorn said, leading him over to the safe house. "But it's better than prison, I think."
It certainly was that. Slick wasn't about to argue there.
In fact, this was one of the very few times in his life that Slick found himself with genuinely nothing to say.
"Oh, and there is one more thing," Thorn said, unlocking the door. "When I said you weren't exactly going to be isolated…"
"Hi Slick!" Boba shouted. He was sitting on the kitchen counter eating something out of a bowl as big as his head, because of course he was. "Look at our new dock!"
Slick sighed.
Thorn outright laughed at him.
"Yeah, yeah," Slick said, and let Thorn put the tracker on him (in him, technically: an injection to the small of the back). "I don't know what I'd do without him at this point. Besides, haven't you heard, according to him he's apparently running this whole thing…"
Thorn left still laughing.
"I'm going to go sit in front of the window for a bit," Slick told Boba. "If anyone needs me, they can wait til I'm done."
"Sure," Boba said in the middle of a mouthful. "Even Appo?"
"Obviously not Appo."
"Fox -"
"Boba?"
"Shut up?"
"Exactly."
Slick went to sit down, though not before checking in on the datapad. Nothing from Appo. Slick didn't like that - hadn't liked it from the moment Bossk and Boba had shared what they'd heard about the Citadel, an inescapable prison that had once held even Jedi. He'd liked even less the way that Appo had responded to the intel with nothing more than a list of relevant passwords to permit them to carry on with the plan if he failed to return.
No, Slick hadn't liked that at all.
There was nothing he could do about it, other than what he'd already shared from his little question session with Wat Tambor. Everything else Wat Tambor had known had been irrelevant or outdated. Worse still, Appo would be with the Jedi, who Slick didn't trust one bit…
The Jedi. Prime had fought against the Jedi, who had hired him. What did that mean? What did that say about them? What did it say about Prime?Did that make him a traitor, like Slick, or -
Slick was not thinking about the Jedi. Or Cody, for that matter. He wasn't going to think of anything but the beauty of a window that looked out into sky. A window he could open. A window through which he could breathe the air, smell the exhaust, see the speeder trails, hear -
"You sure the boss won't be mad?"
"Of course not. You're just expanding on the mission objective, aren’t you? Being creative. Boss loves that shit. Remember how happy he was with your automatic rollover idea?"
"Yeah, but this is a bit different, isn’t it? Sure, I’m just reallocating funds, but I don't even know what the projects I'm reallocating funds from are even for. What if it's something important?"
"Relax, Chopper. If the projects were for something war-critical, they wouldn't have been just sitting around accumulating funds under a bunch of meaningless code names."
Chopper.
That was Chopper, and not just Slick's imagination gone wild. And that other voice at the start, that really had been Jester. The last one, that was Gus. Chopper, and Jester, and Gus, and they were somehow here -
The buzzer rang.
"I'll get it!" Boba yelled. There was a loud thump, as if he had jumped off the table.
Slick should - something.
Say something. Do something.
Those were his boys.
"– could maybe find Sergeant Slick here?"
"I don't know, you might or might not," Boba said, the height of obnoxiousness as always. "Maybe it depends on who's asking –"
Slick suddenly found his legs and stumbled towards the door.
"Wait," he croaked. "Wait, I – I'm here – I –"
He stepped out into the main part of the quarters. All of the people standing there around the entrance looked at him.
There were a bunch of clones there, two squads at least, and Boba standing defensively in front of all of them and scowling like he thought he’d be able to keep them out if they really wanted to come in despite being half their height and totally unarmed. But Slick couldn't focus on that.
He could only focus on his boys.
It was them, just as he'd thought. There was Jester out in front with his stupid goatee and a startled expression, as if he hadn't actually expected a positive response to his question. And that was Gus next to him, eyes wide as saucers. Chopper with his scars, uncharacteristically hanging back - Punch and Sketch two steps into each other's personal space as always…it was them. Slick's squad. Slick’s boys.
A little more scarred, a little older - but still his boys.
Alive.
Here.
It seemed impossible. Like a dream, one of the ones that felt real, only - better, better and worse both. Better, because no matter how real the dream, Slick had never managed to imagine this moment. Worse, because all of his old fears came rushing back all at once: what if they hated him?
Their messages hadn't sounded like hate. But now that they were here, here where Slick could see them again with his own eyes, see and be seen by them, too…
"Sarge?" Chopper whispered. "Sarge, is that really…"
Jester took a stumbling step forward.
"Sarge," he said. "I missed you."
For whatever reason, Slick’s vision suddenly went all hazy. Possibly he was spontaneously going blind?
“…Sarge, are you crying?”
Slick made what even he could identify as a completely incoherent noise. In another moment he had taken several steps forward and was with them. He didn’t even know where to put his hands, on Jester’s shoulders, Gus’s arm, Punch’s face as he leaned forward, but a second later it didn’t matter because there were arms around him, too, and everyone was talking, or sobbing, or laughing. And it was wonderful –
CRASH!
All of them jumped near out of their skins and tried to go for their weapons, even Slick, who hadn’t held a weapon in over a year.
“Oops,” Boba said flatly, standing over the shattered pieces of a glass bowl. His cheeks were red and he looked furious – and certainly not in the least bit sorry for having interrupted. “It slipped.”
“At great velocity,” one of the clone troopers still hanging back by the door quipped.
“Slick,” Boba said, ignoring them. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
His voice was a little shrill.
“Right,” Slick said, not entirely understanding why Boba seemed so upset. “Right, right. Uh – Boba, this is Jester, Gus – those are Sketch and Punch – and that’s Chopper. They’re my squad.”
“Former squad,” Chopper said.
Slick winced. He deserved that.
Especially from Chopper.
Slick had been so distracted by seeing them again that he had momentarily forgotten both facts and fear. It had felt like it had been an eternity and yet as though no time had passed – as if this were just a reunion after a tough battle where they'd been split up for a while. It felt the same as when he had returned from the battlefield after Geonosis...but it wasn't the same at all.
They hadn't been separated by a battle. They had been separated by Slick's actions.
Slick's treason.
“Yeah,” he said, swallowing a little. “Former squad. That’s right – Jester, don’t glare at Chopper, he’s right. Boys, this is Boba. He’s…”
Slick trailed off. He wasn’t entirely sure what the best way to explain who Boba was.
Prime’s son? Slick’s boys wouldn’t understand what that meant.
An unaltered clone that was older than all of them? That would be even less coherent.
Slick’s co-conspirator in a grand plan to free all the clones? They would assume he’d lost his mind. Especially if he tried to say that about what appeared to be a cadet.
Maybe he could just say Boba was a friend? Yet that seemed somehow unsatisfactory and insufficient, too…
“Nobody important,” Boba said. “Apparently.”
Slick had the distinct feeling that he had somehow messed something up.
That feeling only intensified when Boba turned on his heel and marched straight out, shouting, “Call me when you feel like doing something useful again!”
The door slid shut behind him with a definitive click.
Silence.
“Uh,” one of the other troopers by the front door said. “Do you…want to go after him?”
“…yeah, Sarge,” Gus said. “I think you probably want to do that.”
Slick wanted to stay and talk with his boys. On the other hand, they were almost certainly right.
He took a few steps towards the inner door.
“Boba –” he started.
“Don’t you dare come talk to me right now!” Boba screeched through the door, as if he had been waiting just behind the closed door in order to say just that.
Slick took three steps back.
“On second thought, maybe you should give him some time alone,” the trooper by the door suggested hastily.
Slick could now hear stomping feet heading further into the safehouse. Probably to the room with the window – the Jedi safehouse wasn’t a very large set of quarters, only a few rooms, and that room was the furthest from the entry door. It probably did make sense to give Boba some time to cool off, he supposed, especially since he had no idea what had gotten into him to make him mad in the first place. Boba had seemed perfectly happy to be relocated to the safehouse at the start, and Slick really wasn’t sure what had changed. Maybe reality had just sunk in?
Or maybe it was just that Bossk had left so urgently, rushing to the Citadel at their request (and Boba’s demand) to help make sure Appo didn’t get himself killed. Boba had missed him quite a bit, after all, and now all of a sudden he was gone, even off-planet.
That didn’t feel like the right answer. But Slick also had no idea what else it could be.
It couldn’t be his boys. Boba hadn’t even met them before today, and they hadn’t been here long enough to do anything that could possibly upset Boba…
“I’ll take your recommendation,” Slick said, and turned back to look at the troopers – including the ones at the door, this time. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m Sikes,” the talkative one said. “This is Corporal Nis, our squad lead, and troopers Lacey, Trivet, and Rikko. We’re –”
“Appo’s squad,” Slick said, recognizing the names. “Appo talks about you.”
Sikes grinned, his smile fond. “I bet he does,” he said, with the comfortable confidence of someone who had never doubted it. A moment later, his smile sharpened. “He talks about you sometimes, too. Though not as much as our Besh boys do.”
“Sikes,” Jester said warningly.
"We wanted to come and introduce ourselves," Sikes continued blithely onwards. "Have a little chat. Make sure you were all on the up-and-up before we entrust you with our brothers -"
"Sikes," Gus hissed, clearly embarrassed.
“Don’t blame Sikes,” the one called Lacey said. “We did tell you up front that that was what we wanted to –”
“We didn’t think you were serious! He’s command! You can’t just talk back like that –”
“Yeah, and we wanted to talk to him first –”
“Former command. And I don’t see why we can’t –”
“It’s still not okay for you to –”
“I think we can put aside chain of command,” Slick interrupted. He glanced over Appo’s Aurek squad, his eyes flickering between them to piece together their basic dynamics: Sikes was their forward man, Lacey backing him, Trivet and Rikko in the back as defense, leaving Nis as their center. Quiet so far, but with sharp eyes: analytical, looking at the situation and judging where and when to best intervene when it became necessary.
Accordingly, it was to Nis that Slick said: “How about I take your ‘blaster talk’ conversation as read for the moment? Leave me some time to catch up with my boys first, and you can give it to me with both barrels later on. I appreciate someone keeping a lookout for my boys.”
Nis looked back at him thoughtfully, as if trying to determine Slick’s level of sincerity – which, as it happened, was very high. He was completely serious.
“All right,” Nis said. “We’ll wait outside. And sir?”
Slick arched his eyebrows.
“Don’t kark this up.”
Yeah, that was fair enough.
Appo’s Aurek squad left, and Slick turned back to his squad.
Former squad.
“Sarge,” Gus said, and his voice was a little uncharacteristically hesitant. “It’s good to see you again…but…”
Jester scowled. “Hey, what do you mean, ‘but’? It’s the Sarge! He’s here, he’s all right –”
“He left us,” Chopper said flatly.
Jester turned to glare, but Chopper was standing stiffly and staring only at Slick. “Isn’t that right, Sarge?” he asked. “You turned your back on us. You took that deal with Ventress – you betrayed the whole battalion. People died. And you tried to blame us – blame me for it. I want to know why.”
“Chopper –”
“I want to know why,” Chopper insisted. “Why did you do it? And why didn’t you tell us?”
Slick had always liked Chopper. Sure, Chopper had always had an attitude as long and wide as a Venator, but in most cases he backed it up with enough skills to pull it off – skills, and bravery.
He certainly had bravery.
“Chopper,” Jester said, his eyes flickering between Slick and Chopper. “We just got here. Don’t –”
Slick raised a hand, cutting him off.
“No, Jester,” he said, his voice rougher than he would have liked but still firm. He was still their sergeant, or had been, and while that would usually entitle him to a certain amount of respect and deference, he’d squandered that. “Chopper’s right. Right to ask, and right to expect an answer.”
Whether Slick had an answer…
He didn’t.
He really, really didn’t.
He had thought he did. He’d rehearsed it a thousand times, argued it over in his mind, mapped out the conversation backwards and forwards – he’d recited every single one of his justifications and excuses and reasonings until he was nearly sick with it, and now that the moment had finally come, he knew that not a single one of them was worth a single damn thing in the face of his boys, who he so loved, looking at him with questions in their eyes.
After all, what was he going to do? Blame the Jedi at them? Ventress was so full of shit.
“I fucked up,” he said instead. “You trusted me to lead you in the right way, and I didn’t.”
He closed his eyes.
He didn't want to see that moment on their faces, the same shift that had happened with Needle and Cyclops and Ferris and all the rest - the judgment, the disdain, the realization of how pathetic Slick really was. His boys already knew what Slick had done, knew him to be a traitor already, so that wasn't a revelation to them, but now they would know the truth of it. The hollowness of it. That all their suffering had been for nothing at all.
Nothing but Slick's selfishness.
He hadn't just betrayed the Jedi, no matter what he'd convinced himself at the time. He'd betrayed his boys. He had not just started down the road with Ventress, he had continued it – he had chosen to continue. He’d chosen to keep betraying the battalion; he’d chosen to commit treason; he had chosen to pass along information to the enemy that had put his battalion, his brothers, in danger. More than danger: people had died, brothers, clones had died because of what Slick had done.
He had been so selfish. At the time he’d told himself that he was thinking only of his boys, that he was doing it all for them, but he hadn’t been; he’d been thinking only of himself. He’d been thinking about what he wanted for them. It was true that all he had wanted was for them to be safe, and that that was a good thing, and because it was a good thing he had convinced himself that he was justified in all respects. But he wasn’t.
He was just plain wrong.
Slick had wanted his boys to be safe, yes, but they hadn't, and he had discounted that. He had prioritized what he wanted for them over what they wanted for themselves. He had, in spite of or perhaps because of his great love for them, stopped seeing them as people who deserved a say of their own in their own life.
And Slick didn't want to think like that.
That was how Ventress thought, blithe and facile with the lives of others, careless because she didn't care. Slick cared, but that didn't make him any better. Perhaps in some ways made him worse, because he had been careless not with strangers but with those he loved the most, and worst of all he had done it thinking he was right.
When Slick had first committed his treason, he had been unsure. When he had first continued, it was because he was afraid. But the step after that had been his own, driven by justification, excuses, by the salvaging his ego at the expense of his sad excuse for principles. He had been afraid, and he had been tired of being afraid, and so he had gotten angry instead.
He had been angry when he'd told Ventress about their battalion’s movements, opening them up to attack by Ventress’ droid army. He’d been angry when he’d told her where the Generals were going. He's been angry when he'd blown the depot and left the battalion at risk. He'd been angry when he was discovered, when he was arrested, when he was imprisoned. He'd been angry for so long.
He was still angry.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate...
By the end of it, stuck in the rat cage because of his own stupid actions, Slick had started hating everyone. He’d hated the war, the Generals, the Jedi at large, the galaxy at large...even himself.
But he didn't want to hate his boys.
Even if they hated him.
Even if they deserved to hate him.
“Boss said you were thinking of us,” Gus said abruptly, and Slick opened his eyes to look at him. To his surprise, Gus didn’t look hateful, or disdainful, or like he wanted to leave and never think of Slick ever again. He just looked thoughtful in a way that Slick had only rarely seen on him – Gus tended to be less perceptive most of the time, too rash, too impulsive, too quick to act and too slow to think. But every once in a while, when he did stop to think, he was capable of flashes of brilliant insight. Slick had been working on it with him, trying to get Gus to calm down and bring out more of his inner strategist, but they hadn’t gotten that far with it. They hadn’t had enough time. “He said that he was reassured by it, the way we were first in your thoughts the whole time. The whole time. Does that mean during your treason, too?”
Slick flinched.
“How could he have been thinking of us when he did that?” Punch asked, bemused.
“Yeah,” Sketch said, chiming it at once to match his partner. “He wanted money and freedom, didn’t he? How could that be about us?”
When Slick had been in the rat cage, he had imagined telling his boys about his real motives. Over and over again: it had been his greatest justification, the extra blaster in his pocket, the thing that would reassure them of his love for them and show them that he had never meant to do badly by them. His hidden ace. It hadn’t been until he’d actually laid eyes on them once more that he realized that he never wanted to play it.
To tell them he had committed treason – to tell them he had killed their brothers, betrayed their ideals, sold out everything they had been raised to treasure – and to tell them he had done it all in their name…
Slick didn’t want to do that.
Better they blame him. Better that they blame it all on him than risk them blaming themselves.
No, Slick didn’t want them to know.
But it was too late.
“You were going to take us with you, weren’t you?” Jester asked, getting it before Slick could say anything. He was so sharp, so bright, and he always had been. He was going to be an amazing corporal, and he was going to be an amazing officer if they ever gave him his step up. He had always had so much potential, hobbled only by fears that Slick hadn't known how to help him fight.
(He hadn't known...but Appo had. Appo had helped them when Slick couldn't.
Slick buried the surge of jealousy that sprang up immediately. He couldn't be jealous of Appo. He wouldn't. Appo was only trying to help. There would be no purpose in hating him for that.)
“Is Jester right, Sarge?” Gus asked softly. “Was that the plan?”
“Yes,” Slick finally choked out. “Yes. It was. But it was – my fault. My decision. Not because of you. I know you would never...”
He trailed off, unsure of what to say. Never betray the Republic like he had? Never pick themselves over their brothers? Never pick him, the way he had them?
“You should’ve told us,” Chopper said. “You should’ve given us the chance to choose.”
“He couldn’t,” Jester said at once. “If anyone found out that we knew –”
“He should’ve trusted us!”
“Chopper –”
“You’re not the one whose character was in question, Jester!” Chopper snapped, and Slick flinched again: he remembered saying that. He’d been desperate, by then. He’d needed to buy time. He’d thought that he could make it up later, that he’d find a way to make it all okay, that it would be fine in the end if only he had long enough to fix it…
Selfish again.
“We’re better together,” Chopper continued. “Stronger together. A single trooper all alone isn’t fighting, they’re just finding the best time to die. Isn’t that what Boss is always saying?”
Boss again, Appo again. They quoted Appo’s words now, not Slick’s. Slick deserved that, he knew, but he couldn’t help the swell of irrational jealousy: they were his boys, not Appo’s, even if Appo had taken them in and made them his Besh squad. They’d been his first, his, and now Appo was coming in out of nowhere to claim them as his own and take them away from Slick. Take them away and fill their brains with death and danger –
Danger.
Appo.
Oh, shit.
Slick turned on his heel and ran heedless of anything for his datapad, which he’d left back by the window. The shock of the renuion with his boys had totally wiped away all thoughts of Appo’s mission to the deadly Citadel, a place even Jedi feared to go. What if Appo had called? What if he’d needed something, and Slick had just forgotten –
“No calls,” he said, breathing out a sigh of relief as he reviewed the pad.
“I would’ve told you,” Boba said grumpily. He was crouched by the window, curled up and looking sulky. “Besides, Bossk’s on his way, and he should be pretty close by now. It’ll be fine.”
It probably would be.
Still, Slick couldn’t help worrying.
“Is there something wrong with the boss?” Gus asked. They’d followed Slick further inside the safehouse. “Isn’t he still on the Resolute?”
“No, he’s not, he’s in some stupid Jedi death trap prison on a stupid mission, stupid,” Boba said, having apparently fallen in love with the word at some point.
“He’s with the Generals,” Slick corrected. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
Mostly sure.
“Did you get a bad feeling again, Sarge?” Sketch teased lightly. “You used to get them as often as a General.”
“All that high-dairy nutrimush right before lights out,” Punch tsked. “You know better, Sarge.”
(“Do you think they teach ‘leave your squad out of dangerous missions’ in sergeant training or something?” Gus asked Chopper in a very low voice, clearly meant to be overheard but not responded to. “Because I for one think that it’s a tremendous load of –”)
“Hey, Sarge,” Jester said brightly, kicking Gus in the knee. “Is it true that you’re working with the boss on Project Kowaki?”
“What’s Project Kowaki?” Boba said sharply. “You named the plan? You aren’t allowed to name the plan. And that’s a really dumb name. What does it even mean?”
“Listen, we had to call it something and we weren’t about to say A000040 the way the boss does,” Chopper said, giving Boba the stinkeye. Boba glared back. “Sketch started calling it Project Moneypit, but I told him to stop because it seemed too obvious. Gus overheard us talking and thought he was calling it Project Monkey-pit, and Jester asked why we were talking about Kowakian monkey-lizards and now it’s Project Kowaki. It stinks, but it’s all we’ve got for now. You got a problem with that?”
The two continued glaring at each other for a long moment.
“...no,” Boba finally said, sounding deeply begrudging. “I knew a guy once that had a monkey-lizard. They get their hands into everything and steal it when no one’s looking, so it kinda fits, I guess. I could see Mukmuk doing –”
“Project Mukmuk,” Gus said in tones of delight.
“Absolutely not,” Slick said. “That’s a terrible name.”
“What’re you talking about, it’s a great name,” Boba said at once.
“Yeah, Sarge, it’s a great name,” Jester said.
“The best name.”
“C’mon, Sarge! Admit it!”
Well, at least they were getting along better? Even if it did mean they were ganging up on him.
“Actually, Sarge, I was wondering about that,” Gus said. “I thought you got arrested. How’d you end up working on a flimsiwork project with the boss?”
Slick opened his mouth to explain, then stopped, stymied at the thought of explaining...well, everything. His anger, his loneliness, the hell that was the rat cage. Appo’s stubbornness. Their talk, and everything that had followed: Mimban and Mordageen, the Jango impersonations, Emberlene, all of it. It was all far too complicated. How could he even begin to explain it?
“Fox made Slick a sergeant in the Coruscant Guard!” Boba announced. “He’s gonna be managing our operations in the Hall of Records going forward. With my help, of course.”
…or maybe it could all just be vastly over-simplified.
Slick arched his eyebrows at Boba, who had at last instance been declaring that he wasn’t going to have anything to do with something as boring as flimsiwork.
Boba avoided his eyes.
“Wait, really?” Jester asked. “Sarge, is that true? You were reassigned?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Slick said, because he didn’t want to deceive his boys. Not to mention the fact that Appo had listed his status in the 501st as pending for what was probably over a year at this point… “But yeah, that’s how it is right now. I –”
He stopped, because Gus had stepped up and grabbed him, pulling him close.
“I’m glad, Sarge,” he said, and his voice shook a bit. “Good for you.”
“Yeah, Sarge,” Jester said, and he was smiling, too.
Chopper wasn’t, though.
He looked uncertain, and Punch did, too, while Sketch kept looking between Punch and Jester with hesitation as if he didn’t know what he should feel.
Slick knew that he couldn’t blame them. He knew.
But he couldn’t help but feel a touch of that old resentment. If only Cody and Rex had let me talk to them before the interrogation, this wouldn’t have happened. If only they’d let me explain back then, my boys wouldn’t be doubting me now. Maybe if I explained in full now they would understand. They would see. And things would be all right again –
“That’s great news,” Jester continued enthusiastically, and Slick got the feeling that he was ignoring them on purpose rather than having missed their own lack of enthusiasm. “That means –”
What it meant Slick wasn’t sure he wanted to know, and luckily he didn’t have to.
“Besh? Hey, Besh squad!” That was Sikes, calling for them. The Aurek squad appeared at the door a moment later. “There you are. Form up!”
Slick’s boys immediately snapped into attention. Perfect form, of course – he wouldn’t have expected anything less.
“What’s going on, Sikes?” Jester asked.
“We’re getting called in early,” Nis said. “They moved up the Senator’s time slot.”
“Again?”
“That’s right. We need to move out right now and meet her at the landing platform.”
Move out? Now?
They were leaving?
But Slick had only just gotten them back! It hadn’t been long enough! He hadn’t had enough time!
“What Senator?” Boba asked. “Senator Amidala? I thought Appo said she was still back on the Resolute? Or, well, close enough, anyway.”
Technically, Appo had said something about an unauthorized mission to Scipio that had caused some excitement and a flurry of activity.
Slick’s question made teams exchange glances, in that extremely obvious we have confidential instructions, do we share? sort of way. Jester and Nis in particular gave each other meaningful looks that seemed to constitute an entire debate.
Jester won.
“It’s one of the Senator’s handmaidens, Miss Cordé, but she’s pretending to be the Senator,” he explained to Boba. “Standard stuff, all highly confidential. She’s the first of several rounds of distraction so no one knows when the Senator’s really arriving. We’ve been tasked with escorting her to the main part of the Senate rotunda so she can officially file her report…It won’t take long, Sarge. We’ll be back soon.”
That last part was aimed at Slick. Slick’s face must be doing something.
“No need,” Slick said. “I’ll come with you.”
“Wait, what?” Boba said. “But Slick –”
“Thorn said it was fine,” Slick lied without blinking. He knew he’d probably pay for it later, but he couldn’t let his boys out of his sight so soon after reuniting with them. “Here, Boba, take my datapad. If Appo calls, comm me right away, all right?”
Boba hesitated. “You’re sure Thorn really said…?”
“It’s very important that you keep a close eye on the datapad,” Slick told him, railroading over Boba’s concerns. “Just stay here and watch it closely. I’m trusting you with this, all right?”
Boba clutched the datapad to his chest. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it!”
“Good. Thanks, Boba.”
He followed his boys out of the safehouse. They had a LAAT/I transport, which made it easier: there was enough room for one more.
“You know, that cadet really looks up to you,” Lacey said. He’d somehow wiggled his way over to stand next to Slick. “I don’t think he would’ve dropped it if it was anyone else asking.”
There was a squirming feeling in Slick’s stomach that he couldn’t identify.
“Are you trying to say something?” he asked stiffly, suppressing it. It didn’t matter.
“Nothing at all,” Lacey returned. There was something in his expression, though. Judgment, maybe.
They always judged him. Everyone but his boys. As soon as they knew he was Slick the traitor, they all looked down on him, refused to listen, refused to even try to understand. Slick hated it. He hated it, and he hated them.
It didn’t matter, though. Nothing they thought about him mattered.
Slick was back with his boys. That was what really mattered.
They were the only ones that mattered.
“It was a bit harsh, Sarge,” Gus said. When Slick looked at him, he shrugged. “Just saying.”
Slick pressed his lips together, suppressing his annoyance. Why didn’t Gus understand? Sure, maybe playing on Boba’s desire to be trusted had been a little weaselly, the sort of thing he got pissed off at Fox for doing, but Slick didn’t have a choice here. If Boba had kept going, it would’ve been clear that Slick really shouldn’t go out, and then his boys would’ve left.
Again.
He couldn’t lose them again. He couldn’t.
Slick just wanted to protect his boys. How could he do that if he was separated from them? He wasn’t being irrational or selfish or anything; he just wanted to help. To do anything and everything he could to help. That’s all he was doing.
It wasn’t shame he was feeling. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, so he had nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, if he examined his feelings, he could precisely pinpoint that what he really felt was –
Fear.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate, my student, leads to –
Stupid ass mistakes.
Slick was a karking idiot.
What was he doing? He’d been free from the rat cage for all of five kriffing minutes and he’d immediately left the permitted areas without so much as a thought – and, more importantly, without disabling the tracker in his back. The Guard probably already knew that he’d left. They were probably on their way to find him and bring him back right this moment.
Worse, he’d left the datapad with Boba. What if Appo really did need something? He’d been in the middle of a firefight last time they talked; if he called again under the same circumstances, he might not be able to wait for Boba to comm Slick up. And if they lost Appo, that was the whole karking plan up in smoke – and for what? To spend a few more minutes crammed into a LAAT/I with his boys while they ignored him in favor of doing their jobs, which is what he would want them to do anyway?
How could he be so stupid? What was he even thinking?!
That they won’t come back to you even though they promised.
Slick gritted his teeth. He was not going to doubt his boys.
“Hey, I’m going to have to head back,” he said, trying to sound casual and mostly coming off as stiff. “As soon as you’re dropped off.”
“All right, sir,” Nis said. He had his bucket on, focused on his mission and ready for action as soon as they hit the landing platform even if the only action they were likely to see was the “Senator” using her pass on a bunch of doors – but somehow Slick still got the impression that he approved. “We’ll have the pilot take you.”
“Thanks,” Slick said as the LAAT/I zoomed in for a landing, heading towards the pad at the same time as the transport the Senator was on approached from the other direction. “I appreciate –”
Something shouted a warning.
Slick’s training kicked in at once: he turned around and lunged at the pilot of the LAAT/I, knocking him to the side and twisting the controls so that the entire transport heaved and shoot and veered straight towards the Senator’s ship. He wouldn’t have done it if he’d had any fear that someone wasn’t following protocol and didn’t have a hand on the transport straps, but these were Appo’s boys: they were definitely following protocol.
“Sarge!” Jester howled, voice nearly drowned up by the equally affronted howls of the wind. “What are you doing?”
Had he not heard the warning?
“There’s a bomb on the platform!” Slick shouted back, brushing off the pilot’s feeble attempts to reclaim his controls that were hobbled by his ingrained reluctance to fight back against a clone of (seemingly) higher rank. “We can’t let either ship land!”
Even as Slick spoke, though, he felt hands on his shoulders and arms, ready to pull him away – and why wouldn’t they? It was only him speaking.
Only a traitor.
Only –
“Help him turn the ship!” Nis bellowed. “Aurek squad, jetpacks. Get to the Senator now!”
They believed him.
They –
The platform exploded.
