Chapter Text
The Republic burned.
The Republic burned and Rex and Ahsoka ran from their men, who had gone in a few seconds from searching for Maul with them in the Outer Rim to trying to murder the former Padawan.
The Republic was no more.
The Jedi were no more.
Desperate, feeling himself responsible for the young Tortuga, even if she insisted it was the other way, Rex only thought of one way to turn.
Mandalore.
Mandalore….Why choose Mandalore?
Well, it was one of the only worlds he had visited that wasn't somehow on fire at the time. It was backed up by all the Neutral party subsisting. It was strong, it was very much not the type to open the door to a tyrant from another world.
And more important, it was the only world where he knew personally the leader.
As the long way to the planet passed, Rex asked himself numerous times if he was right. Would Satine even remember him? It had been almost one year ago and so much had come to pass in that time.
In his memory, she was a moment of pleasure, a harbour. Of course, there had been other pleasures. Since the moment Cody and Obi-Wan had become an item, he had been invited in their bunk regularly, and there had been other experiences. But that night, that single perfect night, Satine, Cody, Obi-Wan and him, was a clear memory, a warm coal against the shadows of war.
Perhaps it had been different for her. Perhaps Cody and he had just been a kinky game between Obi-Wan and herself, a naughty night with sex toys...
No, he didn't really believe it. He knew that what Cody and Obi-Wan had, that had been real, had been love.
That's why the idea that one of the two had probably killed the other hurt so deep. He had tried to com them once, before Ahsoka and he had to throw away their comms and there had been no answer. If Cody had killed Obi-Wan, his eyes empty, with that damn sentence on his lips like the brothers who had tried to kill Ahsoka.... good soldiers follow orders. What did that even mean?
Or if Obi-Wan had killed Cody in self-defence?
The Commander had always been just one step behind the Jedi, guarding his back, after all. And all over the galaxy, vode had killed the Jedi that had their back to them. Next to him, Ahsoka was sleeping, exhaustion having finally beaten her, after days where she had been almost delirious, Seeing and Feeling things Rex couldn’t guard her off.
He touched carefully the bandage on her shoulder. Blood stained it, but it was dry. He examined the stain. No, it didn’t seem it had started to bleed again. The memory came back, the noise his brother’s had made when Rex had put a blaster charge in his skull, to save Ashoka’s life.
He had been a shiny, without a proper name yet.
With a sigh, Rex put his head against the shuttle wall and regretted to have no religion. Now would have been a good time to pray. How did people find religion? Did they just pick one they liked? If so, he would choose one where the world make kriffin sense and the thrice damned Sith burned in the afterlife, and where brothers found each other again. And if that particular religion didn’t exist, he was half ready to create one!
They arrived on Mandalore in the middle of the night.
It was....ok, it was an administrative mess. People can't exactly arrive in orbit in a stolen shuttle and ask to speak with the planetary leader. But Rex spoke to someone who spoke to someone who spoke to someone and two hours after they were escorted by guards armed to the teeth to the palace.
“Aren't you pacifist now?” Rex asked, nearing the end of his patience, and eying the blaster of the leader of their escort, a petite woman who had not deigned to offer a name or to take his helmet down to salute them.
“We are no easy prey,” the woman answered and even with the helmet Rex could hear the teeth in her grin, an impressive trick.
He didn’t have to fear Satine’s reaction. She was as he remembered, she was more even, bigger than life, strong, decisive. That woman had fought all her life to make the galaxy a better place, her life a long line of tasks, each as momentous as possible, from the bettering of Mandalore to the Council of Neutral systems. She had made horrible mistakes, she had taken the wrong roads sometimes, but her heart always had been in the right place. Satine had never despaired, never renounced and she wouldn’t now, at the darkest hour. She bore that new mantle with her usual grace.
Mandalore opened its arms to all people fleeing from the Empire.
Mandalore opened its arms to the surviving Jedi.
Mandalore opened its arms to the vode with disfunctionning chips.
The clones trickled down slowly, grim-faced, and placed themselves under Rex’s command. Every day, the captain consulted the list of new arrivals. Cody and Obi-Wan were never on it.
The Jedi were even fewer. After a time, Ahsoka started to bunk with them. She was the only one of them who turned her back on the vode. Even if it hurt, Rex understood.
On the holonet for a few days, the images had been easy to find. Troopers suddenly turning against their Jedi, shooting them in the back. The desperate few parades the Jedi had the time to do, so surprised a first blaster shoot easily slipped past. And then so many others, even when the Jedi were down, the body twitching with it.
After a few days, the images disappeared. Someone smarter in the new Empire command had probably understood video of Jedi gunned down by thirty time their number, in the back, weren’t such good propaganda.
Satine offered two places on her Council, one for Rex, representing the vode deserting and running to Mandalore, and one for Master Knol Ven'nari, a Bothan female Jedi Master the few surviving Jedi had elected as their leader.
One day, a shiny who had been on the Negotiator manning communications, arrived in a stolen fighter. He had heard Rex’s message, relayed by Mandalore on every channel. He came with only his armour on his back and a tale of another Jedi, gunned down by his troops.
“I don’t think General Kenobi had the time to understand,” he said, as nicely as he could, when he saw the expression of Rex. Master Knol Ven'nari, seated next to Rex, growled low, what Rex had quickly learned was an expression of mourning in Bothan.
“Commander Cody made them use a very big calibre. No time to suffer with such a wound. And then the fall from the cliff… It went very quick.”
“And Cod- Commander Cody?”
“He was called to the Imperial Center. Apparently, Vader wanted him to lead his personal legion. Vader’s fist. They…hem, they were your men, sir. The 501th. But his transport was caught in one of the last pocket of resistance. I mean, one of the last, apart Mandalore. The transport exploded.”
Rex told it to Satine and Ahsoka himself. Satine thanked him very politely, and then asked him to leave. Ahsoka wailed in his arms for hours and he finally let himself cry too.
That night, he dreamed of them. They were in bed, the three of them, Obi-Wan between Cody and Rex, smiling, laughing. Rex was covering Obi-Wan’s bellies with hundreds of kisses. Then the laugh stopped and when Rex straightened up to look at him, there was blood everywhere, from Obi-Wan’s throat to Cody’s hands.
Every day, new refugees arrived.
“The Empire will come,” Bo-Katan whispered to her sister, when they were watching another long column exiting a ship and Satine nodded, her soul weighted by all her dead dreams.
“Oh, I know. The Empire will not let anything free. And offering refuge to those fleeing it will only put us higher on the list of targets.”
“This could be the end of Mandalore,” Bo-Katan remarked, as they observed Korkie working with Ahsoka and two young Mandalorians, handing out cups of warm soup. The first stopping place of the refuge were the medics, Mandalore really didn’t need some strange of outbreaks of little known virus right now, but nobody said they had to do it with empty bellies.
Satine took her sister gauntleted hand in her bare one.
“Then, I’m happy you’re here with me. If Mandalore must burn against the Empire, we’ll give it an end worthy of songs.”
Bo-Katan gripped her hand in return.
Mandalore was pacifist, officially, but Mandalore remembered the old ways. It didn’t need long to arm the planet to the teeth, probably less than would have made Satine comfortable. Soon, Mandalore was ready for a siege.
“It’s like even children had cache of weapons,” Satine remarked to Rex. They had listened all morning to her closest advisors preparing for what would probably be the first wave of the Empire attack and then she had asked Rex for her arm and took him for a stroll in the palace whose purpose he couldn’t understand.
“Your Highn-“he stopped himself. Pacifism had been her dreams and now she was probably the only Mandalorian not wearing plastoid. He didn’t know what words to offer.
She snorted.
“You should call me Satine. It would be strange not to, with our past,” She said and it was the first time they acknowledged what had happened, half an eternity ago. That one, perfect night, the four of them on the Coronet.
“If we are using our first name, can I convince you to wear armour? That would really make everyone in your immediate entourage happy.”
“No.”
“Pretty sure your sister would even smile.”
“She hasn’t in ten years.”
“Best reason to help her, then.”
“Still no.”
She touched his hand and he closed his mouth, already open for an answer.
“I didn’t ask you for a walk together for a discussion about my security. The stars known I have enough of that with Korkie and my sister. I have a mission for you. It will be a difficult one. That chip you told us about in your debrief….”
“Yes?”
“The medics need one of your brother. Alive, with the chip working.”
“To dechip him?”
She grimaced.
“Not like you think. The Empire is too big. We’ll lose. Nobody is saying it, but the minute they have finished to put out fire left and right, the full might of the GAR, ex-GAR I should say, will fall on Mandalore. It’s only a question of time. We’re strong, and armed, but we’re also the only one in the Neutral Systems. At the end, it won’t be enough. We will resist first, we’ll make it costly for them, but at the end…We need a way to destroy the chip still in the skulls of your brothers. The medics extracted some chips malfunctioning on the brothers who joined us at your call, and they designed a prototype, a sonic weapon. But we need a functioning chip to be sure. ”
Rex wanted to throw up. He let her arm go, took a few steps away from her. What had he been thinking, talking about that damn chip? All natural born were the same, even the ones speaking of friendship and equality of rights.
“Are you saying…. No. No, as much as I want the Empire down. I can’t help you design a weapon to kill all my brothers.”
He trembled, furious. He wanted to strike her. He thought of his brothers, enslaved and brainwashed, eyes empty, and Satine had probably never been in such danger, because he could have throttled her.
His anger probably was open on his face, still, she marched to him and put a hand on his cheek, despite his instinctive movement away.
“I want to save them,” she whispered fervently, “Yes, there is a risk, there is always a risk in medical experimentation, but I want a weapon that will make them free, not a weapon that will make their heads explode. I want to see the chips die in their heads and your brother picking up their weapons and turning on the Empire. We can’t rescue them and de-chip them one at a time. There are too many of them. I want to make them free, legion by legion, hundred by hundred…I want to rescue every single one of the victims of the Sith. Help me, Rex. For all those we can’t help anymore. I want to see Palpatine burn, the stars forgive me, burn, him and his shadow enforcer with that red saber. I want to see Palpatine down and spit on his corpse and then, Obi-Wan and Cody’s souls will have peace.”
She was beautiful like that, the fire of her soul in the open, calling for the blood of those who had destroyed the world and their lost ones. Rex felt the world titling on his axis. Adrenaline was still burning in his blood and he reacted before thinking and took her mouth in a brutal kiss, that wonderful, extraordinary woman.
It was like a spark falling on gasoline.
One instant, they were standing in a hall of the palace, the other Satine had opened the closest door, locked them in a small room, still kissing.
They had endured high level of stress those last days, those last months, something had to give and they came together violently.
Satine couldn’t touch him, too much armour in the way, but she kissed him hard, with an edge of desperation, opened his codpiece herself. He rucked up her skirt until he could touch skin, then swore remembering his gauntlets and took them down, almost trembling. He was hard, as he hadn’t been for months, too stressed, too exhausted, and now his dick was curving towards his belly and so hard it almost hurt.
There were pearls of sweat in the hollow of her throat and he swiped his tongue to taste them, then bit down once, probably harder than was protocol with a lover still so unknown.
Satine ran her nails on his neck in answer and they bit each other in another hungry kiss. He was tearing her underwear off her before really thinking and she hoped on a table.
They fucked like that, Satine still dressed to the last button of her dress, Rex with only his codpiece opened, and he saw her grimace when he entered her. He stopped, suddenly remembering he had saw Obi-Wan use his mouth first on her their only time together, and cursing his inexperience. That night, more than one year ago, had been his only experience with a human woman, and he wasn’t sure two nights with a Rhodian female once qualified.
“Don’t stop!” She protested, urging her from her legs around him.
In her eyes, darker than usual, he saw the same despair of something, of a moment without weigh on their shoulders. He kissed her again, deep and hard. That, he knew how to do. He kissed her again and again as he started to move and he fucked her on that table, Satine nails hard on his neck, her voice encouraging. It was less about pleasure and more about need. He came too fast, muffling his groans against her lips and observed with keen eyes when she made herself come with her fingers, swearing silently to himself to remember the way she did it.
It startled him to realize he hoped for another time. He remembered Cody had used his mouth on her, too, when Rex had been busy with Obi-Wan. He wanted to try that, another day, if he lived to ask.
Ten hours after, he left Mandalore with nine brothers, all volunteers. Ahsoka had wanted to come with them, but he had refused.
“If we have to kill some vode to kidnap another, we want to do it ourselves.” The former Commander had protested and he had hugged her hard, until she had relented and hugged back, as hard.
“Take care of the vode here and the Jedi, ok? They need someone helping them connect again. We’re gonna need to be united.”
“They know it’s not your fault,” Ahsoka answered him. “You know the Jedi know. It’s just…”
“It’s difficult and perfectly understandable. But they still need to be battle ready. War is coming for us. We’ll deal with trauma later, if there is a later.”
He hugged her a second time.
“And take care of the Duchess, too,” he added, not watching her face as he entered the shuttle.
If he had looked at Ahoska, he wasn’t sure he would have the strength to leave. For how much he liked them, he didn’t really know any of the brothers that had joined them. He didn’t even really know Satine. He only had Ahoska and she only had him. He hoped she could herself connect with the other surviving Jedi, if he didn’t came back.
For the end of their lives, the ten brothers of the strike team would refuse to speak about this mission, ever. No debriefing, no questions, no tender asking would ever make them tell the tale of that particular part of their lives.
Whatever had happened, it ended like that: a fortnight after leaving, they came back, all alive if a little burned in some case. Rex dropped off three sedated brothers from the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps into the waiting arms of Satine’s medics.
The Duchess had come to the medical compound at the news of their arrival. She saw his face and wisely didn’t ask questions, only took him back to her apartment. This time, they got as far as finding some softer surfaces before her underwear lost its fight against Rex’s fingers. He knelt on the carpet and did his best with his mouth, but was sure that one or twice, that had been too much for her, his fingers and mouth too insistent. He took her against the arm rest of a sofa, still half in armour, Satine cursing in a language he had never heard of her, asking for more.
After, he cried, without a word, the horrors of this particular mission pouring in his tears, and Satine never asked, just stayed there, with him, and for that, in that second, he adored her, for her compassion, her strength, for more than the memories of a late night during the war.
For Satine, not for the memories of Cody and Obi-Wan who tied them together.
She didn’t let him go to the barracks that night and he slept in her bed, a bed even bigger that the one she had on the Coronet, round and with a high head of wood forming the Kryze sigil. He didn’t even know bed so comfortable existed.
The sleep was good, deep, the morning not so much, when he saw the bruises on her hips, her thighs, and realized he had done that, fucked her with his armour still on and bruised her.
“This is nothing,” she insisted after his babbling, horrified excuses. On her fair skin, the bruises seemed as black as the empty void between the stars. The inner thighs were particularly marked and he remembered how hard he had taken her, searching in her body some absolution.
“No, no, Duchesse, Satine, this isn’t… I hurt you!”
“I remember asking for more, for harder, didn’t I?”
He rolled over on the bed, got out of it, still naked, searching for his clothes.
“I won’t be the way you use to punish yourself,” he spat, but her hand hold him back.
“I have some bacta cream in the bathroom,” she said and he recognized it as some sort of peace offering.
He hesitated for a second, searching her gaze, then abandoned his black on the floor. He followed her into the bathroom, examining the bath, more a pool than anything, the walls of precious mosaic. She saw his expression.
“Too pompous?”
“Perhaps a little strange, after the barracks.”
He put the cream on her himself. Every bruise he covered in cream and then bandaged, to stop the cream from soiling her clothes, was an apology.
“Would you still want me in your bed, if I don’t keep my armour?” He asked after, because they had never talked, just fucked violently, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted pleasure, some sort of memories of Obi-Wan by proxy, or simply human contacts. He didn’t even know what he wanted, apart from a moment of reprise.
She touched his cheek and, feeling bold, he kissed her palm. She didn’t answer his question directly, instead she asked another question:
“I have a dinner with some Separatist Senators tonight. There are some parts of the Separtist Space that the Empire haven’t seized yet, they could be good allies. I would be happy if you came with me.”
“Am I some sort of message for them?” He hated politics. Cody had been so much better at it. Once again, the intensity of the loss closed his throat.
On tiptoe, she kissed him and he answered. It was slow, hesitant, and very different from the other kisses they had shared the two times they had come together. They were still totally naked, save for her bandages, and he grew hard, and broke the kiss because he really wasn’t in the mood for the demands of his libido.
“Can’t it be both? I don’t have the luxuries of making decisions only for myself. Everything I do engage Mandalore too. Can’t I want you by my side because I appreciate your company, and also because having the representative of the clones at my side will help?”
He had a small laugh and he asked another question, instead of answering:
“I made the medics swore they wouldn’t test the sonic weapon on my brothers without me. Will you come with me?” And it was perhaps cruel of him to ask it, because she would possibly assist to the death of the three vode, but he wanted, he needed someone to bear that weight with him, and Ahsoka had enough problems trying to find a place in the small Jedi settlement, after leaving the Order.
Satine nodded.
“Then I will come to your Separatist party with you.”