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It doesn’t feel right, being here.
Kanan and Hera and their crew are nice enough, Wolffe supposes. Once introductions had been made, after bolts and blasterfire and a singed hull, they’d welcomed them aboard, given them quarters, and told them they had only to ask if they were in want of anything.
None of them had. Wolffe had learned a long time ago the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’, and with his heart pulsing against his ribs and his blood thundering in his ears, all he’d needed was a quiet corner to calm his head.
For that, the quarters are just fine.
Almost as soon as they set foot in the door, Gregor curls up on a bunk, closes his eyes, and goes to his mantra: whispering the names of the brothers they’d loved and lost until he slips into a dreamless sleep. No twitching. No whimpering. No tears.
First time in a long time. Wolffe reaches over to adjust a corner of his blanket.
“It’s good,” he says, to the aching silence. Rex, perched on the bunk directly across from him, doesn’t so much as bat an eye.
Wolffe clears his throat.
Rex quirks an eyebrow and scrolls idly on his pad. The scowl he’s had his face set into since they first said the name Seelos deepens. “What?” he asks tightly.
“I said it’s good.”
Rex catches the meaning behind his words. His eyes flit to Gregor. A bit of the tension in his frame eases. Just a bit. “Yeah,” he says. “That is good.”
Since the Order – since the chip – since the fall: he’s different. Angrier. Wolffe wonders, sometimes, why something that staggered him, seized his heart and twisted it until he was almost too tired to keep on, had shattered Rex into someone that seethed rage. It ripples beneath his skin, sometimes. Twitching jaw. Trembling palms. His eyes turn steel. He goes somewhere Wolffe can’t reach him.
“Don’t,” Wolffe blurts. “Don’t do that.”
Rex blinks at him, once. He knows; they’ve had this argument before, many times. Wolffe expects the wall, but all Rex does is lift a hand to scrub at his eyes. The datapad clatters to the floor. He leaves it there.
“I’m sorry,” Rex mutters. His next breath is strained. Hoarse. “I’m sorry, Wolffe. This isn’t your fault.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I should’ve.”
The Imperial station on Seelos was supposed to have been harboring the Imperials’ best-kept secrets. They’d drawn up a detailed plan to infiltrate it. They’d spent weeks planning for the operation.
And then they’d ended up running for their lives in a stolen relic from another age. It was only by a chance strike of fate, Ahsoka’s rebels, that they’d survived at all.
“You couldn’t have,” Wolffe offers, daring to shift to his feet and cross the expanse between them. Rex doesn’t flinch away when he eases down beside him and settles an arm around his shoulders. “We had to try.”
Rex’s jaw twitches. “I put all of you at risk.”
“We want to find him just as much as you do.”
Rex swallows thickly. His throat bobs. A single tear struggles from the corner of his eyes, swelling until it slips down his cheek. Wolffe swipes it away with a gentle brush of the thumb.
“We’re gonna find him,” he says, squeezing Rex’s shoulder. “If Cody’s still out there, Rex – we’ll bring him home.”
There are a million questions in Rex’s eyes. If they find Cody, after all this time – will it still be him? Wolffe remembers life before the chip’s removal in tormented flashes: remembers the wild fear turning in his chest when he woke up in some gritty dive that was supposed to pass for a medical center. Rex had been there, clutching his hand like his life depended on it. The world had been hazy, for a while: convoluted and confused. He’d been so afraid.
Rex had stayed by his side. Rex had never wavered.
“We’re going to find him,” Wolffe repeats firmly. “You understand?”
Rex nods wordlessly. For a moment, for all of his indomitable steel: he looks so tired. So worn. So alone. Cody had been brother and solace and confidante all rolled into one. Wolffe strains to think of a time when he saw one without the other close behind.
Fifteen years is a hell of a long time.
It takes about as long to get Rex to lie down and go to sleep. Wolffe hovers after he’s settled, because more than once Rex has sworn up and down that he’s going to sleep and then rolled out of his bunk the second Wolffe shut his eyes.
Tonight, it seems, Rex is too tired for even that. He stays put.
Wolffe doesn’t.
He used to walk the halls back then, too, when the war was too much and he couldn’t get the fire and the fear out of his head. Star destroyers were massive, brimming with life and never quiet for long, but if you knew the right passages to take during the night cycle, you could avoid the souls stuck on the graveyard shift long enough to pretend you’d been granted the precious privilege of solitude.
The Ghost isn’t large enough for him to walk very far without running into anyone. Hera had been kind enough to give them a brief rundown of what was where before she’d showed them to a space and let them be. Wolffe lets his fingers drag along the wall as he goes. Just above, he can hear the droid – was it Chopper? Chipper? – rattling around.
He’s familiar, at least.
The commons area isn’t as deserted as he’d expect it to be at this hour. Wolffe falters.
The young Mandalorian is hunched over the table, studying something. It takes him too long to realize that there’s a helmet clutched between her hands.
It takes him even longer to realize that it’s his.
Wolffe clears his throat.
Sabine startles. The helmet clatters away. She leaps over the table and dives after it, tucks herself into a roll to gather it to her chest, then spins about to face him with it hidden behind her back. The whole maneuver took her less than three seconds.
Smooth, but not smooth enough.
There’s a stretch of awkward silence. Sabine shifts from one foot to the other.
“Can I help you?” she asks at last.
Wolffe resists the urge to roll his eyes. Mostly. “That doesn’t belong to you,” he says, and holds out a hand.
Sabine’s eyes snap from his hand to his face, and back again. She thinks about lying. He sees it in the stubborn twist of her mouth.
“Sorry,” she offers instead, and slowly brings the helmet out from behind her back. “It was in the bay. I was just….”
The bay. He strains to remember. It must have gotten launched off his head when they were hauled unceremoniously aboard. He’d been too caught up in checking on Rex and Gregor to pay any mind to whether or not he had his helmet. Maybe he wouldn’t have thought about it until he needed it. Not like Rex, who kept close tabs on every piece of his armor like it was sacred.
He’s lost too many things sacred to him already.
“It’s fine,” Wolffe returns evenly, and waits.
Struggle flits across Sabine’s face, as if she’s torn between silence and saying something daring and out of place. He could stand around and wait for her to come to a conclusion on her own, or for Kanan to come charging in to stand between them like he thinks Wolffe will snap at any moment and revert to a chip that’s no longer jammed in his brain, but waiting requires patience, and negotiation requires tact, and if there’s one thing Wolffe has never had in any great measure, it’s a tolerance for a process taking ten minutes when it could easily be shortened to two seconds.
“Spit it out, kid.”
That sets something off in her. “I was going to fix it for you,” she says. Fire flares in her eyes. “It needs paint.”
Wolffe stares at her for a moment. “Paint,” he repeats.
Sabine surges across the distance between them and shoves the helmet toward him, like he hasn’t memorized every curve and arc on the thing. “It’s a work of art,” she says, and jabs at the faded lines that used to comprise his battalion’s symbol. “These haven’t been painted in years.”
He hadn’t even thought about it. Once, maybe, the work had been bright enough he could call himself proud for doing it. Now, it’s ragged. Faded.
Tired.
All at once, he feels the ache in his bones. He should get back and check on Rex. Make sure Gregor’s still asleep. Be there if he wakes up confused. This place isn’t familiar to him; he won’t want to find himself in a strange room on a strange ship in the dark.
“It looks fine,” Wolffe returns, more shortly than he means to. He closes his grip around the helmet – and waits.
Sabine’s mouth twists into a shadow of a scowl. She meets his gaze squarely. For a second, he thinks she’s going to argue.
“Of course.” Her voice is quiet, though not subdued. That fire burns beneath her words. She lets go of the helmet in one deliberate motion and steps back. “I only meant—”
“Sure, kid.”
“It’s Sabine.”
Maybe it should be atin, with the way she sets her jaw. She reminds him of him, years ago, all fury and fight. “Sure,” Wolffe agrees stiffly, and shifts the helmet to rest against his hip even as he turns to make his way back down the hall: back to Rex and Gregor and staring at the blank durasteel ceiling. He didn’t sleep well before the war – could never sleep during it. Can’t sleep after it.
Sabine’s boots scuff sharply. He knows before she falls in beside him that she’s following him. “Your armor,” she says, taking a few uneven strides to reach his pace. “Why did you paint it like that?”
Wolffe glances down at his chestplate. Didn’t he take it off, before he eased Gregor out of his? Rex always sleeps with his on: for security, or because he’s so used to it that, like Wolffe, he wears it like a second skin.
“What?”
“The Iron Heart.” Sabine’s words hum determined curiosity. “Why do you wear it?”
Wolffe’s hand goes to his chest unbidden. “It’s the warrior’s heart.”
“It’s Mandalorian.”
“You don’t say.”
An exasperated breath escapes her. Wolffe stops suddenly. She stops with him. Their stares strike one another as surely as steel. For a beat, he can hear Plo Koon’s voice in the back of his mind, that gentle reproach: often, true strength is simple patience.
It doesn’t feel like strength to heave a measured breath into his hollow chest and bite back the scathing dismissal. Sabine’s gaze is cutting. “This symbol is nearly identical to the one used by the True Mandalorians, too,” she says, tapping his left shoulder pauldron. “Jaster Mereel created it to distinguish between his followers and the Death Watch.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.” That fire flares again. Wolffe swallows the hysterical urge to laugh. Some distant, stupid part of him wonders if this is how Plo felt dealing with him for the entire war. “Why do you wear it?”
“Because I’m not Death Watch. Why do you think?”
“If you’re Mandalorian, you should take pride in your armor, beskar or not,” Sabine returns. “It’s who we are.”
The symbol he carved into his shoulder pauldron isn’t an exact replica of Jaster Mereel’s insignia. He and his squad modified it: added the outline of a wolf’s skull and made it their own.
Wolffe’s pauldron has been worn down by blasterfire and blood and grit. He’s had time, between missions, to remedy it. It had just never seemed important. The other men who’d borne the symbol were long dead – or worse. There was no one left alive to care what his armor looked like. Not Sinker. Not Boost.
Not Plo Koon.
“It’s fine,” Wolffe lies, and closes the door behind him.
Gregor’s still asleep. Rex, predictably, is not.
“Damn it, Rex,” Wolffe grumbles. “You always do this.”
Rex props himself up on his elbows, then swings his legs over the side of the bed to sit. It’s almost a pass at looking like he’s just woken up. Not a bit convincing, not to Wolffe, but at least he tried.
“Hey,” Rex whispers, with a furtive glance at Gregor. “Everything okay?”
“You’re supposed to be asleep.” Wolffe drops down onto the floor beside Gregor’s bunk and tugs at the latches on his chestplate. Once they click free, he pulls it off and flips it around to examine it.
Sabine’s right: the armor needs maintenance. The chestplate is pocked and marred. His battalion’s insignia is barely discernible. If any of his men had let their armor fall into this kind of disrepair during the war, he would have had their heads.
“So are you.” Rex’s voice bleeds worry.
“I’m fine,” Wolffe mutters, and hopes he sounds more convincing than he feels.
It’s the longest two day trip he’s ever taken in his life.
The Ghost is not a large ship. It didn’t have a lot of spare room before Ahsoka’s rebels brought them aboard; now that two of the usual crew have vacated their quarters to make space, it’s only gotten more cramped.
Wolffe does his best to steer clear of the others, on the rare occasion he finds cause to leave the room. It’s not as difficult as he thought it would be. Zeb seems to have no interest in engaging with him, and Hera and Chopper have yet to vacate the cockpit and cross his path. He’s seen Sabine once since their first night aboard, and only in passing.
Ezra follows them persistently. Asks questions. Mostly of Rex. Wolffe is grateful for that; his regard for Plo’s long-standing advice wouldn’t be enough to stop him from telling the kid to shove it after a while. Rex seems to thrive on it.
It’s been a long time since he had the chance to mentor anyone.
Kanan, too, is always close by. Wolffe can feel his presence prickling at the nerves on the back of his neck. He doesn’t trust them, and Wolffe can’t blame him. The Jedi and the clones were both casualties of Protocol Sixty-Six. Chipped or not, there’s no longer any faith between them.
Wolffe wonders, in his darker moments, if that’s how Plo Koon would see him if he was still alive.
The Rebel fleet is small by his standards. Wolffe is still accustomed to seeing star destroyers blink to life on every side. Even all these years later he’s still too used to that enormity to be impressed by the small flotilla that greets them upon their departure from hyperspace.
Gregor doesn’t seem to have that problem. There’s a glint of light in his eyes as he peers out the viewport.
“They have a fleet, Rex,” he says, awed.
Despite the grim set of his jaw, Rex looks begrudgingly impressed. They’ve been on their own for so long, running raids and blowing depots, that the thought of support never crossed Wolffe’s mind. Not one ship, and certainly not ten.
Maybe Gregor has a point.
“Look at that.” Wolffe shoves Rex’s shoulder. “They’re organized.”
Rex snorts softly. The edge of his mouth curls up in a small smile. “Yeah,” he says. “They are.”
Something in his voice sounds dangerously like hope.
Kanan’s a brooding presence behind them all the way to and through the airlock. The hatch hisses – clicks – and slides open.
None of them has seen Ahsoka Tano in months. She’s been a shadow since she started running operations without them. Her goals weren’t contrary, she’d assured, just parallel. She never said what exactly she was working on. She only said that she was concerned with a different scale than they were.
Rex didn’t resent her for that. None of them did. It went unspoken between them: she couldn’t dedicate all of her resources and time to chasing ghosts.
She couldn’t help them find Cody.
“Ahsoka,” Rex says warmly, and holds out a hand so she can clasp his wrist in the usual greeting. She stands motionless for a second, then bypasses the gesture entirely to fling her arms around his neck like she’s a padawan again. She would never ask for solace; somehow, Rex had always known when she was seeking it.
“Good to see you again, kid,” Rex says.
Ahsoka laughs at that, holds a moment longer, then eases back. “I’m not a kid,” she reminds.
“You’ll always be a kid to us, Tano,” Wolffe says. “Might as well get used to it.”
Ahsoka rolls her eyes at him. It’s meant to be good teasing, he knows. When he first met her, she was a teenager, and every gruff sigh he gave or blunt remark he made had been something she could imitate and turn back on him. If Sinker or Boost or Warthog had done that, he would have shoved them into a wall. But Tano? Tano could have stabbed him, and he would have laughed. She’d stuck as close to Plo Koon as he had: protector, padawan. Daughter.
In his better moments, Wolffe let himself think that the General had seen him like that too: a son, not a soldier.
“It’s good to see you all again.” Tano’s eyes sparkle.
“You asked for our help.” Rex’s hand lands heavy on her shoulder. He squeezes tightly. “So here we are.”
Sleep’s as elusive here as it is anywhere else.
Wolffe checks on Rex, tucks in Gregor, and slips into the hall. The Rebel cruiser is a lot larger than the Ghost, and certainly more spacious than a shuttle. By routine or random chance, he doesn’t see another living soul.
“Something’s troubling you.”
Wolffe starts violently. “Ahsoka,” he says. His heart pulses loud in his chest; his blood thunders in his ears. “What the hell?”
Ahsoka glides across the space between them. “Sorry,” she offers. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
His throat is tight. “You didn’t.”
She snorts softly. “Sure.”
Wolffe rolls his eyes at her. It earns him a chuckle. “Rex is right,” Wolffe says, shoving her shoulder. “You got old.”
Ahsoka taps his temple. There’re silver streaks there now, tangled through the dark curls. “You too,” she says, but there’s a note of sadness to it. Thirty-six's too young for your hair to turn grey. The stress did that to Kenobi, even earlier. Might have killed him, if Protocol Sixty-Six hadn’t gotten him first.
Wolffe draws a hand through his hair. It’s longer than regulation by a long shot. Sometimes, he amuses himself thinking about how annoyed Cody would be if he saw it. Sometimes, he lets himself believe he’ll get the chance to see that scowl for real. “What are you doing up?”
Her face shifts. She’s no longer the teasing sibling; there’s a hard edge instead. “Running through some logistics with Commander Sato,” she says. “We’re coordinating with other cells.”
“You’re practically a marshal commander.”
“I don’t think we have that rank in the Rebellion.” Ahsoka squeezes his shoulder.
“General?”
“I prefer commander.” Ahsoka tilts her head at him. “As you do.”
Wolffe manages a noise that almost sounds like a laugh. “I never would have been promoted to marshal commander, let alone general,” he says. “I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“I’m sorry about Cody.”
His throat tightens again. “Not your fault,” Wolffe says. “We can’t find him either.”
She’s kind enough not to suggest what they’re both thinking. “I think he’d be proud of you,” Ahsoka offers instead. “If he was here.”
“You should tell Rex that.”
“It matters to you too.”
Wolffe shrugs. He and Cody were the same age, but Cody had been larger than life: brother and mentor in equal measure. It was part of what had made him such an effective marshal commander, that careful balance of compassion and courage. He would never ask his men to do something he wouldn’t do himself, and he loved to a fatal fault. It made him a hell of a leader.
Wolffe would have followed someone like that anywhere.
“What is it?” Ahsoka asks softly.
It must have showed on his face. Wolffe swallows thickly. “What do you think General Koon would say about all this?”
“The Rebellion?”
“Any of it.”
Ahsoka contemplates the question for a beat. “I think he’d want to help,” she says. Her voice cracks, just a little. “Master Koon always said he was a Jedi because he believed each of us could be a light.”
What would he think of me, after everything? The words catch. He doesn’t try to force them out. He’s not brave enough, not for that.
Maybe, deep down, he’s afraid he already knows the answer.
“It’s good to see him like this.”
Wolffe glances up from the crate he’s unpacking. Across the bay, Rex is leading a squad of rebels through a martial arts routine. So far, not one of them has managed to deal a decisive blow to him – Sabine included. The casualties are sprawled out in a haphazard pattern. Sabine’s already forcing herself to her feet, but the others have yet to even push themselves up onto their elbows.
Wolffe knows the routine; he’s seen it run through, many times.
“He came up with that routine with Cody,” Wolffe says, lips twitching into a smirk. “It was part of their ARC regimen.”
Gregor chuckles and shakes his head. “Poor bastards.”
There’s a genuine smile on Rex’s face as he crouches down to help one of the rebels up. Unease sits heavy in Wolffe’s chest like a constant companion. For a second, though, just a beat in time, it eases.
It’s a feeling that’s dangerously close to hope.
Wolffe’s commlink blips. He taps the button for a holo, then turns back to the weapons in the crate. “Ahsoka,” he says. “What is it?”
“I need to speak with you.” Her voice cracks. Wolffe snaps around. Her hologram is composed: hands folded, head held high. But her eyes, shaded as they might be by the holo’s blue tint, are full of pain. Conflict.
“Gregor,” Wolffe says, without taking his eyes off the holo, “go get Rex.”
Ahsoka is in the tactical center, seated at the head of the holotable. Her hands are folded neatly before her. She’s the picture of poise.
Except for her eyes.
“What is it?” Rex asks immediately. “What is it?”
Ahsoka’s gaze locks with Wolffe’s, turmoil and tumult, and flits away. “A year ago,” she says, “the Ghost crew came across a transmission that led them to believe Jedi Master Luminara Unduli was still alive.”
Gree’s Jedi. Wolffe starts. “Was she?”
Ahsoka flinches. “No,” she says, and takes a steadying breath. “The Inquisitors were using her remains as a way to lure in any surviving Jedi. When Kanan and the others arrived, all they found was a skeleton, a squad of stormtroopers, and the Grand Inquisitor.”
“You intercepted another transmission,” Rex surmises. “For a different Jedi.”
“Not just any Jedi.” Ahsoka pauses. Her fingers curl around the edge of the table until her entire hand is trembling. “For Master Plo.”
“General Koon is alive?” Wolffe whispers, and knows he shouldn’t be saying it, and can’t stop himself anyway. That dangerous spark pulses in his chest again.
“It’s another trap.” Rex sounds subdued. His hand lands heavily on Wolffe’s shoulder. “Wolffe, they’re just trying to draw us in.”
His heart’s pounding too wildly to make any sense of what Rex is saying. A warm presence at his side, like the sun breaking through Kamino’s stormy skies. A quiet voice, gentle in both praise and reproach. That calm certainty. That brimming compassion. Simple reassurance: I’m here, son: you’re safe, be still.
“If there’s any chance,” Wolffe snaps. “If there’s any chance it’s really him—”
“Wolffe—”
“No,” Wolffe hisses. His head is so heavy. He can’t breathe. He needs to breathe. He can’t be still. He has to go. “If we can save him – if there’s any chance we can save him—”
Dimly, he’s aware of Gregor easing an arm around him. Steadying him. Rex squeezes his shoulder again. “It’s a trap,” he whispers. “You have to see that.”
“What if it was Cody?” Wolffe bites back. “What about Seelos?”
Rex flinches. “That’s not fair.”
It’s not. “I’m going.”
“Wolffe,” Ahsoka cuts in. “I don’t think—”
“Why tell me?” Wolffe snaps. That spark has flared – and caught – and burns.
Ahsoka’s quiet for a moment. “I thought you deserved to know,” she offers at last. “I didn’t think it would be fair to keep it from you. But that doesn’t mean—”
“If it’s him, then we bring him home,” Wolffe interrupts. “If it’s not, we burn the place to the ground.”
“That’s what they want. For us to charge right to them.” Rex seizes his shoulders and makes him meet his gaze. “They’ll be ready, Wolffe. We can’t take on an entire base alone.”
His heart’s so loud he can barely hear Rex over it. To hell with the odds. “I’m going,” Wolffe repeats. “Trap or not – I’m going.”
Rex takes a slow breath. His eyes search Wolffe’s face. Looking for doubt. Or maybe just judging his sanity.
“All right,” he returns at last, and lets go of Wolffe’s shoulders. “All right. But we’re not going in without a plan.”
The fire in his chest eases. Tempered. “You’re coming with me?”
Gregor smacks him on the back. Wolffe chuffs something between a laugh and a groan. “Well, you’re not going in alone,” Gregor says. “That’d be insane.”
“It might be close anyway.” Rex drags a hand down his face. “That’s never stopped us before.”
Ahsoka studies the three of them. “You can’t come with us,” Wolffe says for her. “They need you here.”
“I’m sorry.” Ahsoka’s smile is rueful, on the surface; profound sadness bleeds beneath it. “I wish I could.”
Rex draws her into his arms. “Don’t be sorry, vod’ika,” he whispers, and holds her close. “If we find him, we’ll bring him home. I promise.”
“This brings back memories.”
Wolffe wasn’t on the team that breached the Citadel during the war; he was only deployed to extract them. He hadn’t needed to read the mission report to know that the mission had been shot to hell six different ways. He’d only needed to take a headcount and see that they’d come back with a lot less men than they’d left with. He remembers Cody, stalwart, unshakeable Cody, collapsing against a wall and clutching his helmet close. He remembers Rex, there beside him: no steadier.
If this brings back any memories, they can’t be good ones.
The Imperial base was built into the side of a cliff-face. A large landing pad extends out over the chasm’s void, supported by diagonal girders that extend from the cliff itself to make a sharp angle with the platform. One Imperial shuttle sits ready in a corner. Two lines of TIEs are positioned inside the bay, poised for deployment. If they set off any alarms on their way back to the shuttle, those fighters will launch and pursue them.
“We’re not fast enough to outrun those,” Gregor mutters.
“Then we don’t get caught.” Rex jams his electrobinoculars back into his pack. “You remember the plan?”
“I think you just said it was ‘don’t get caught’,” Wolffe returns dryly. “Yes, of course we remember the plan.”
There’s a maintenance hatch below the platform, dead center. Getting to it means taking the path to the platform as far as they can, dropping down, easing over the edge, and free climbing to the hatch. Once they bypass the security measures and squeeze inside, it’s a matter of making their way through the ducts to a clear corridor, finding a terminal, determining the location of the detention level, and taking a turbolift down to it – all without tripping an alarm or tipping off the guards.
Easy.
The planet hasn’t had a significant rainfall in the last few days; the cliff-face is mercifully dry. Rex goes first, then Gregor. Wolffe brings up the rear. He hangs, silent, barely daring to breathe, while Rex works at the hatch.
“We’re in.”
The vents aren’t overly roomy. Wolffe’s shoulder pauldrons scrape against the sides as they inch and wiggle their way through. It’s difficult to be quiet, with the way they all fit in here. Every clatter stops his breath in his throat. Every scuff sends a surge of adrenaline straight to his heart. At every sudden sound, they stop, and they wait, and when the duct doesn’t get blown full of blasterbolts, they push on.
“Here,” Rex says, almost a whisper, even over internal helmet comms. He pries the vent cover off with one decisive jerk, then swings forward and disappears through. Gregor follows.
Wolffe lands softly beside them. The corridor is abandoned. The lights, set to activate and deactivate according to the motion sensors embedded in the ceiling, slowly power on.
No one’s been through here in a while.
“It’s a top-secret base,” Gregor supplies, as if he can hear Wolffe’s thoughts. He shifts from one foot to the other and scans the corridor behind them while Rex works at the console in the corner. “Might not be well trafficked.”
“I still don’t like it.” Wolffe’s heart turns in his chest. He wishes, for a moment, that he had the Force: that he could reach into the massive web of mind and life and find the gentle pulse that would mark Plo Koon’s presence. He wishes, once – and he stops. He doesn’t have the Force. But he does have his training and his brothers, and that’s always been enough.
Rex blows out a long breath. “What is it?” Wolffe asks. “What did you find?”
“There are three detention blocks.” Rex makes a frustrated noise. “They branch off the main corridor, twelve levels down.”
“It doesn’t list the prisoner’s location?”
“No.”
Wolffe sets his jaw. “So we split up.”
Rex stares at him for a long beat. “All right,” he says. “Follow me.”
They only encounter three guards on the path to the turbolift. Gregor charges and dismantles them before Wolffe even has the chance to give a warning.
“Bring them with us,” Gregor says, nodding to the unconscious guards, and then to the turbolift. “We’ll leave them in a detention cell. No evidence.”
“Forgot how good you were at this.” Rex grunts and hefts one of the unconscious stormtroopers over his shoulder.
“You almost scare me sometimes, Gregor,” Wolffe says, and punches the key to summon the lift. They step inside, unconscious bodies in tow. The lift whooshes down.
Wolffe’s stomach turns. Only three guards in the hall. No extra security measures in the ductwork. Now, no one else in the turbolift. He doesn’t want to call it too easy, but none of their missions have ever gone this smoothly.
“It’s a trap, remember?” Rex reminds. “Just keep your head up.”
Wolffe nods. His blaster pistols are a comforting weight at his side.
The lift door slides open.
No one guns them down. The hall is completely empty.
Wolffe’s heart sinks. That familiar unease swells until it nearly chokes him. Like Rex said it would, the hall splits off in three directions, each of which presumably leads to a different cell block. Maybe the prison’s designers thought it would allow for more effective lockdown procedures in the event of any escape attempts: keep the prisoners separate and install individual bulkheads so you can cordon off any trouble at a moment’s notice. It’s a lot more thorough than the Empire usually is with their in-house security.
It reminds him more of a Republic protocol.
“We’ll each take a corridor,” Rex orders. “Get in, check the cells, get out. Comm silent unless you find something.”
Wolffe takes the corridor to the left, Rex takes the center, and Gregor takes the far right. Wolffe gives them a sharp nod and half a salute, then moves down his assigned hall.
The space has only emergency lighting. It bathes the grating an eerie red. He can barely see a few feet in front of him at a time, let alone all the way down the hall.
His stomach turns. He palms open the first cell.
It’s empty.
Wolffe crisscrosses the corridor, opening cells one after the other. Each is the same as the last.
There’s no one here.
He feels it pounding in his chest with every swipe of the hand. His heartbeat ticks up – up. There’s no one here, and there will be a bastion waiting upstairs and outside. He’s led his brothers into a trap.
No time for that now. Wolffe stops short.
There’s a glint at the end of the hall. Most top-secret holding facilities Wolffe’s been in, be they Republic or Imperial, have only one way in and one way out of the cellblocks; that way, if the prisoners break out, they have to rush one choke point head-on if they want to complete their escape. It’s futile, mostly, but their only other option would be to huddle, defenseless, against the rear wall, and wait for the guards to come to them.
But this facility doesn’t have a rear wall at the end of the cellblock. It has another door. And if the place’s designers were following any sort of pattern, then the door doesn’t lead out of here.
It leads into another cell.
Wolffe swallows past the lump in his throat. In the gloom and the haze, he can just barely discern the door’s outline. He’s so busy studying it, burning it into the back of his brain, pressing down the fatal hope singing like fire in his chest, that he doesn’t see the misstep until it’s too late.
Wolffe stumbles. Whatever he hit goes skittering away from him, clattering to a stop against the cellblock wall with a dull clack.
“What the hell—”
It’s a Phase II helmet: something that would have been used by one of his brothers during the war, before the Empire took over. Wolffe crouches and turns it gently to face him.
His breath catches.
The 212th Attack Battalion had decorated its armor with a distinctive shade of sunburst gold. But only one man in that battalion had worn a helmet with a marked visor and an antenna.
“What the hell—”
He hears the electricity before he sees it, crackling toward his skull like a storm. Wolffe throws himself backwards, skittering and scuffling until he’s clear of the strike. He gets one arm under him, then the other, and throws himself upright.
His opponent hasn’t moved. They stand, motionless, over the helmet Wolffe had just held in his hands. Considering.
It’s a stormtrooper, though not wearing any armor Wolffe’s ever seen before. It’s solid black, save a few white stripes on the vambraces and the right thigh guard. There’s a thin slit of a visor, humming a cruel crimson in the gloom. A leather pauldron decorates the trooper’s left shoulder; a kama hangs loose about their legs. The Imperial insignia is emblazoned on their right shoulder pauldron.
The trooper holds an electrostaff at their side, loose and ready to swing.
“CC-3636,” the trooper says. “You are wanted for treason against the Empire.”
Wolffe can’t breathe. For a second, he forgets how to speak.
“Cody,” he whispers.
The trooper doesn’t answer. Maybe the haze is playing tricks on his eyes. Wolffe could swear he flinched.
“My designation is CC-2224,” the trooper snaps. “I’ll give you one chance to surrender. I will not be held responsible for what happens to you if you resist.”
He can’t surrender. He has to get to that door. Wolffe takes a step back.
“CC-3636. Do you understand?”
“Rex,” Wolffe growls, triggering the internal helmet comm. “Get the hell over here.”
“I’ve jammed your communications,” Cody says. “The others won’t be able to hear you.”
Damn it. “Cody,” Wolffe says again. His voice cracks. All these years – all this time. He’s still alive. He’s here, right in front of him. Wolffe’s heart turns. Aches. Screams. “Cody, it’s me. It’s Wolffe. Come on, you know me.”
Cody stands motionless. The electrostaff hums. His grip around it tightens, squeezes, holds. There’s a minute tremor in his arm.
“It’s me,” Wolffe repeats. “Cody, it’s me.”
“I know,” Cody says briskly. “I know who you are. And I know that you’re outmatched. This isn’t a battle you can win. If you value your life, lay down your weapons. I’ll take you in. You’ll be given a fair trial.”
“Rex is here too,” Wolffe tries, because he’d always been closest to Rex, loved him with a fierce and wild abandon. Vod’ika, he’d called him, even when they’d stopped being kids and Rex had command of Torrent Company. “Gregor, too. We’ve been looking for you.”
“CT-7567 and CC-5576-39 are also wanted for treason.”
“Cody—”
Cody lunges across the space between them. The staff is at his side, and then it’s buzzing toward Wolffe’s skull.
The plastoid alloy used to craft clone trooper armor is laughably inferior to beskar. A lightsaber would slice through it without as much as a stutter. The electrostaff isn’t quite so powerful.
But it’s powerful enough.
Wolffe’s right vambrace shatters under the impact, showering the grating in shards. He staggers. They crunch beneath his boots. Cody presses his advantage; the staff rips the air ragged, a breath from Wolffe’s helmet – over, over, over. Each blow comes so close he swears that, even through the helmet filter, he can smell the ozone.
Cody isn’t fighting to take him in. He’s fighting to end this as quickly as he can, mortality be damned. His motions hold a brutal grace they didn’t have during the war; he’s always been offensive, in a fight, but never to the point of self sacrifice. Now, he swings his staff like losing an arm would be a small price to pay for victory. His focus is single-minded. He was given a directive; the chip will make sure he carries it out, regardless of the cost to him.
Life or limb: just complete the mission.
Every blow beats him back toward the door he came in. Wolffe’s running out of hallway. He doesn’t remember sealing the door behind him, but it’s closed, and getting closer. He can’t take more than a few hits from the staff before he goes down and doesn’t get back up.
Wolffe whips out his pistol, sets it to stun, and fires.
Electrostaffs are good against lightsabers in a duel, but they’re poor deflectors for properly charged blaster bolts, and the best they can do against a stun blast is absorb it into the staff’s charge. It sends a burst of energy rippling up the rod’s length; usually, the resultant surge is enough to get an attacker to drop it.
Cody doesn’t.
Wolffe’s back hits the wall. He draws his other pistol and raps off a dual line of fire. The blasts hit Cody’s staff head-on.
He doesn’t stop.
Wolffe dodges the first strike. The second cracks his left vambrace. The third breaks it completely. He fumbles for the controls.
The door stays closed.
“Cody!”
The staff stops a breath from his helmet. Wolffe shudders a slow breath. The lightning dances in pulsing arcs.
Then Cody drops.
Wolffe heaves a long breath. His heart’s in his throat. Slowly, he turns.
Sometime between his cry and Cody’s strike, the door opened. Rex is behind him, both blaster pistols drawn.
He’s shaking.
“I stunned him,” Rex says. Gregor appears beside him, pressing a hand to his forearm until he lowers his weapons. “I stunned him. He’s okay. I just—”
Wolffe falls to his knees beside Cody and gently, so gently, lifts the helmet.
He’s still breathing.
“He’s okay,” Wolffe confirms. Immediately, Rex is next to him, stripping away the visible weapons and seizing the electrostaff. The stun blast will keep Cody out for a few hours. He’ll still be here after Wolffe checks the room. Rex and Gregor can look after him until then.
He almost can’t leave him.
“I’ll come back,” Wolffe swears, and rests his palm on Cody’s chest. It doesn’t have the Iron Heart, the way the old armor did. The wrongness strikes him like a blow. Wolffe takes a shuddery breath. “I’ll come back for you, Cody. I promise.”
The final steps to the cell at the end of the hall feel like they take a century. Wolffe stops before the door. Takes a breath.
Slowly, tremulously, he lifts his hand and swipes it over the sensor.
The cell isn’t any larger than any of the others he opened. It takes his eyes a second to adjust to the comparative brightness of the space.
There’s a solitary figure, shrouded by a hood and a cloak and sitting cross-legged in the center of the room. Suddenly, Wolffe can’t breathe. For a moment, he can’t think. Can’t move. The figure is so still he’s afraid to approach – afraid to reach out – afraid to speak.
Afraid to ask. Afraid to know.
“You should never be afraid to ask what you do not know,” the figure says. The voice is more tired than he remembers it, but there’s a tiny sparkle of mischief, there at the edges of his tone. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“General,” Wolffe says. He rushes forward before he can stop himself, dropping to his knees and reaching out, heedless of traps or tricks. His hands close around the edge of the cloak. He stops – stunned.
Not a hologram. Not a trick of the light. Not a ghost, haunting his desperate mind.
“General,” Wolffe whispers, when all he wants to say is Plo’buir. “It’s – you’re…”
Plo Koon draws back his hood. His left arm is cybernetic to the shoulder; the right side of his skull has been reinforced with some kind of medical-grade durasteel. His goggles and breathing mask have been reconstructed or replaced. They’re nearly identical to the model he wore during the war, save the slight silver sheen at their edges. He looks thinner, battered, and worn, but he’s breathing
He’s here.
Wolffe presses his hands to his shoulders. “You’re alive,” he croaks.
Plo Koon meets his gaze squarely. Studies him. A soft breath escapes him. “It is you,” he says. He brushes his fingertips along the edge of Wolffe’s helmet, almost reverent with even so glancing a touch.
“I came to get you,” Wolffe says. “Rex and Gregor and I. We came to get you. We’re getting you out of here.”
It takes Plo a long beat to register his words. “Oh,” he says at last. There’s no jubilation to his words. He sounds neither disbelieving nor elated; his voice is blank. Monotone. Wrong. Wolffe’s heart twists. He doesn’t ask how long Koon’s been here alone, or whether he thought he was talking to the real Wolffe when the door to his cell opened. Those are questions he’ll leave to the medics – to Ahsoka – to someone who can heal with their hands.
“You are gentler than you believe,” Plo Koon says softly, as if Wolffe had said it aloud. “You always have been.”
Wolffe helps him to his feet and loops his arm around his shoulders for support. “Learned it from you. Come on.”
By the time they reach the opposite end of the hallway, Rex has hauled Cody over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. It’ll limit him to one weapon, if it comes to a firefight, but they’ve trained for this: transporting wounded and beating their way out of enemy territory.
And Gregor still has both hands free.
“General Koon,” Rex says, like he’s been struck by lightning. “You’re—”
“The rumors of my death were, it seems, greatly exaggerated,” Plo manages. He sounds exhausted.
“We’re taking you home,” Wolffe whispers fiercely. “Hang onto me.”
The second their boots hit the turbolift, the lights shift to red. A blaring klaxon splits the base speakers.
“Cody must have had a contingency in case he didn’t check in,” Rex growls. “Damn it, Codes.”
“Cody’s always been thorough,” Gregor says. He would know; Foxtrot squad was attached to the 212th until Sarrish tore them apart. “Don’t see why the chip would change that.”
“It wouldn’t.” Rex blows out a breath. “I just should have seen it coming, that’s all.”
Wolffe tunes them out for a beat. Plo leans heavily on him. His breath comes in short wheezes. The respirator hasn’t been well-maintained. Why would it be? If he wouldn’t surrender any information about other surviving Jedi, then he would have been of little use to the Empire beyond serving as bait.
“It’s not the mask,” Plo Koon whispers harshly. “It’s the Force.”
“What’s it telling you?” Wolffe asks. Urgency ticks behind his tone. They came this far. They can’t give up now.
He can’t lose him again.
Wordlessly, Plo presses his palm to Wolffe’s chest, over the Iron Heart. “You,” he says, “have endured so much pain.”
Wolffe’s breath leaves him in a disbelieving huff. His eyes sting, suddenly. “Stick close to me,” he orders, past the constricting lump.
Gregor slams a fist into the lift controls. The turbolift lurches to a halt. “Let me see his comm.,” he says, and takes hold of Cody’s dangling wrist. “Maybe we can buy ourselves some breathing room.”
Wolffe holds his breath while Gregor goes back and forth with the stormtrooper on the other end of the line, talking past the missed check-in and wheedling his way into getting the klaxon disabled. Gregor’s gambling on Cody making use of the same codes and protocols he established during the war. The trooper doesn’t seem astute enough to distinguish Gregor’s voice from Cody’s, but if the protocols Gregor keeps stored on his helmet’s memory chip are even slightly out of line with what Cody’s established for this facility, the entire base will know in a matter of moments, and they’ll be dead in the water.
“Roger that. Authorization to transport prisoners to the landing platform approved. Proceed as planned.”
Gregor signs off. There’s a pleased smile on his face, there behind his helmet, as he hits the lift controls again. His stance sobers a second later. “We should be able to get to one of their shuttles,” he says. “But I don’t think we can make it back to ours.”
“We wiped the nav computer before we disembarked,” Rex says. “Let them have the shuttle.”
He doesn’t say it. But his grip on Cody tightens, and Wolffe feels that same belief in his bones.
It’s more important we get them home.
The turbolift door whooshes open.
The platform is crawling with troopers.
“Great,” Wolffe says. “I’m sure they won’t notice we’re carrying their commander across the bay like a sack of fruit.”
“Can’t you redirect them?” Rex asks.
Gregor makes a frustrated noise. “I can try,” he says. “No guarantees.”
“We have Cody’s code cylinder,” Wolffe points out, and snatches it off his unconscious brother’s belt. “Create another emergency somewhere one isn’t actually happening.”
Gregor dashes across the space between the turbolift and the console, glances down the corridor both ways, and slides the code cylinder into the appropriate slot. His fingers fly across the keys for a few beats.
The klaxon starts up again. There’s a rumbling surge from the bay, roaring past the lift. Wolffe presses his back against the turbolift wall and makes himself breathe.
“We’re clear.”
Wolffe nearly leaps out of his skin. “Damn it, Gregor,” he hisses, and follows him across the bay.
Close. Not close enough.
They’re almost to the shuttle when he sees it: a lithe shadow darting about in the girders above. The figure leaps – soars – and lands soundlessly before them with a flourish of dark robes. Their face is concealed by a gleaming black helmet.
There’s a saber hilt in their hand. The dual blades hiss to life: morbid crimson.
Plo Koon’s breath leaves him in a rush, as if he’s taken a blow directly to the chest. Wolffe pulls him a little closer, shifting so he’s shielded. Away.
“Jedi,” the Inquisitor says, voice tinged metallic. “So the commander wasn’t exaggerating: one of you did survive.”
“Get the hell out of the way,” Wolffe demands.
The Inquisitor gives a melodic little bark of a laugh. In the quaking still of the cliffs beyond, it ricochets. “Or what?” she asks, and twirls her saber. “You’ll make me? Don’t be a fool. Put the Jedi and the commander down, and maybe I’ll let you live long enough to see another sunrise.”
“Not gonna happen.” Rex eases Cody off his shoulders and passes him to Gregor. The electrostaff surges to life in his hands.
The Inquisitor laughs again. “Really?”
There’s a rumble behind her: a thundercrack like the sky breaking wide. She whirls about. The platform lurches beneath their feet. The girders embedded in the cliff-face groan – and shudder – and start to give.
Wolffe doesn’t ask what happened – or how. Plo Koon sags against him, spent, and he knows. “Go!” he barks, hoisting the Jedi onto his back and sprinting for the shuttle.
Gregor makes it up the ramp with Cody first. Wolffe follows him just long enough to ease Plo into a seat, then darts back to the ramp.
Rex is locked in combat with the Inquisitor: saber to staff. She snarls at him through the sizzling sparks the clash creates. Her mask’s filter twists the sound in pitch and tone until it’s piercing.
Wolffe unholsters his pistols and dashes toward them, blasting the ground at her feet. She executes a graceful series of backflips. None of the rounds hit her, but the onslaught knocks her far enough back that she can’t immediately reengage Rex.
“Go,” Rex says. “I’ll—”
Wolffe shoves him bodily toward the shuttle. Gregor’s powered it up; it’s lifting off. “I’m not trading lives,” he snaps. “Move your shebs, Rex.”
Wolffe waits for him to move, then follows, spinning every few steps to send another volley at the Inquisitor. She zigzags, keeping low. Coming close.
The platform drops, suddenly, and Wolffe’s stomach drops with it.
“Wolffe!”
He scrambles for purchase. The surface is treacherously smooth; he can’t find a hold, the TIE fighters closest to the edge of the hangar are sliding, rocketing toward him. He rolls to dodge the first and loses what little traction he’d managed to gain. The incline is rising, he’s slipping. Sliding.
Falling.
He hits something hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. There are hands under his arms, dragging him inside. A low mechanical whirr. A click. A lock. A hiss.
“Wolffe!” Rex yanks his helmet off. “Wolffe, are you with me?”
Wolffe blinks slowly at him. Dimly, he realizes Gregor must have swooped under the falling landing platform and caught him before the jagged canyon below did. “Yeah,” he says, and pushes himself up on one elbow. “Yeah, I’m okay. I think.”
There’s another hand on his back: grounding him gently. Plo Koon is there, kneeling beside him. Wolffe clasps his wrist and squeezes.
“It’s okay, buir,” he says. “I’m okay. We’re going home.”
“How is he?”
Rex has barely left the medical bay since they got back, nearly a week ago. There are dark circles beneath his eyes. If he glances in a mirror, Wolffe’s not sure he’d look much better.
Somehow, he still feels the lightest he has in years.
Rex twists his hands together. In the civilian gear that passes for rebel fatigues, he looks so much more vulnerable. “He’s sleeping,” he says. “They took the chip out.”
“Was it still intact?”
Rex nods. His teeth drive into his lower lip, once. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s intact.”
“I was fine, Rex.”
“Not for a long time.”
In some ways, the chip still haunts him. Removing it hit him hard. It took him years to adapt, and even now, sometimes, he still forgets things. Still has bursts of paranoia and overwhelming fear.
But it’s nothing he hasn’t learned to manage. It’s nothing the rebels can’t find a way to treat.
“I’m okay,” Wolffe says, and wraps an arm around his shoulders. “He’ll be okay, too.”
Rex nods. Some of the tension drains out of his frame. “You should get some rest,” Wolffe reminds, and ruffles his hair. “He’s gonna need you.”
“He’s going to need all of us.”
“So you’re gonna sleep?”
“No.” Rex takes a deep breath, then shifts to stand, one limb after the other. “I’m going to sit with him for a while. I want to be there when he wakes up.”
Wolffe stands, too. Rex holds out his wrist. Wolffe drags him close instead. Holds him tight.
“It’s gonna be all right,” Wolffe whispers.
“I know,” Rex says, and Wolffe thinks, for the first time in a long time, he might actually believe him.
Rex disappears through the door that leads to the recovery wing. Wolffe waits until his footsteps have faded to slip out of the medbay. He tells himself it’s late, that he’s just wandering, and he knows it’s a lie.
He knows exactly where he’s going to go
“Thought I might find you here.”
Plo Koon spends most of his time in the ship’s makeshift arboretum when he’s not being tailed by Ahsoka or hounded by a medic. The place isn’t much to look at: just a few potted trees, a couple of flowerbeds, an ugly little homemade fountain, and one or two benches someone threw together.
Plo’s seated on one of them, hands folded serenely in his lap. Ahsoka procured a fresh set of robes for him; the cloak is pulled tightly about his shoulders. He motions to the seat beside him. Wolffe obliges.
For a while, they sit in silence.
“You have something you want to ask me,” Plo says at last.
He has so many things he wants to ask. So many things he wants to say. I’m sorry. Forgive me. But the words stick stubbornly in his throat.
“You should never be afraid to ask what you do not know,” Plo offers softly.
Wolffe chuffs a helpless breath. His shoulders rise – and fall. His eyes sting. He opens his mouth to speak – to say something, anything, to plead forgiveness or beg reprieve. All he can manage is a faint, high noise that’s somewhere between a gasp and a sob.
A warm embrace wraps around him, drawing him to Koon’s shoulder. Plo’s hand cradles the back of his head. “It’s all right, ad’ika,” Plo murmurs. “Be still. I’m here. You’re safe.”
There’s a gentle comfort to his tone that Wolffe isn’t sure how to accept. Plo’s always known him better than he knows himself. Here, now, even after all he’s endured, all he’s lost, all he grieves: that hasn’t changed.
“I’m here, Wolffe,” Plo says again, and Wolffe finds it in himself to let go.
When he finds his composure again, he finds his voice too.
“Thank you,” Wolffe says, and draws back to meet his eyes. Concealed as they are by the goggles, they still bleed that infinite kindness.
Plo makes a thoughtful noise. “Perhaps I am mistaken,” he says, “but I believe it is I who should be thanking you.”
“We never would have made it if you hadn’t collapsed that platform.”
“Did I collapse it?” Plo asks. “I thought it might have fallen on its own. I’m told Imperial engineering is always suspect.”
Wolffe rolls his eyes. Plo’s features light up in the way Wolffe long ago learned means he’s smiling. He’s not all right, not yet: but he will be.
He’s not alone.
“It’s good to have you home,” Wolffe says. “I thought we'd lost you.”
“If you had truly believed that, you wouldn’t have come looking for me.” Plo rests a hand on his shoulder. “There is nothing more powerful than hope, Wolffe, and so there is no greater strength than belief. Yours saved me. Let it save others, as well.”
He finds Sabine in the Ghost’s hold.
“Hey, kid,” he says, propping a shoulder against the entryway. “Still got that paint?”
Sabine folds her arms. “Always,” she says. “Why?”
Wolffe shrugs the pack off his shoulder and crouches down to unload his armor, once piece at a time. “I still have to replace my vambraces,” he says. “But in the meantime, I thought you might be able to help me with the rest.”
Her eyes light up. “I think I can do something with this,” she says.
When it’s finished, the colors sing like the fire pulsing in his chest. The True Mandalorian shield on his shoulder pauldron is outlined in crimson and emblazoned with a wolf. Below it, Sabine has painted one word.
Vercopaani. Hope.