"You're okay with this, right?" Quin asked as he tugged his gloves off his hands.
"Um, not really," Thire answered.
Quin finally had to come clean with the fact that he could see the past by touching objects. At this point, he knew that Fox knew that he was investigating them specifically. It probably wouldn't hurt to be a little more open and honest with the Corries. After all, it seemed like Fox had come to the same conclusion by letting Quin stay while he openly broke the rules and released a drug dealer (and a Hutt!) to get what he wanted.
Quin was impressed. Fox was a bit of a rebel after all. He liked rebels. Hopefully, this meant that soon Fox would be telling him all his dirty little secrets, like what exactly were 'blackout' missions and what were they used for. One could only hope, at least. He had gotten pretty attached to the Corries since starting his new mission. He wanted to help them out.
"Hey, it's okay. I was literally trained for this," Quin said, careful to put the hand still gloved on Thire's shoulder. A clear way of saying he wouldn't pry unless absolutely necessary.
"I just… you can see the past by touching things? You touch things all the time!"
"Wrong! My gloves touch things all the time," he said, grinning and wiggling his fingers at the commander. "Trust me, it's a pain in the neck but those of us with the ability learn to mitigate it pretty quickly."
"Still, I feel like I should not be the one in the room with you," Thire said, shuddering. "Shouldn't I call another Jedi or something? I think General Windu is on the planet right now."
"Do not call Windu. I owe him twenty credits for a bar tab from a few months back and he's got his panties in a twist because of it. Obi-Wan keeps offering to pay it but he's paid Windu back the last three times and I'm kind of starting to think he's judging me for my life choices."
Thire chuckled. "He probably is. Hell, I'm judging you for your life choices, sir."
Quin had long given up getting the Corries to stop calling him 'sir'. Even Fox still said in on occasion and he was certain that man did not see him as any sort of commanding officer. It seemed to be a sign of respect for them more than anything, so he decided to let it slide.
"Don't get snippy on me now," Quin said. The lift came to a stop at the floor Bane was being held. "Alright, you know the drill?"
Thire nodded and put on his helmet, his grim face hidden by the plastoid. "Stand back. Don't interrupt. If you start seizing, move the furniture out of the way and call some Jedi named Bant so she can come yell at you. And then call General Kenobi so he can also yell at you. But don't call General Windu because he wants his credits back."
"Good man," Quin said, lightly punching Thire on the pauldron. "Remember to do your best not to touch my hands. I can get overwhelmed if I got too many things coming to me at once. Okay?"
"Yes, sir."
The door hissed open and the sheer wave of panic slammed into Quin the second they stepped out of the lift. There were several troopers shouting and trying to get the door open.
"What's going on?" Thire shouted as he rushed forward, easily slipping into 'commander' mode.
Quin rushed after him.
"Robin's gone crazy! He attacked Crescent, locked us out, and now he's in there alone with Bane." A trooper answered.
Quin slipped back on his gloves and reached out with the Force, trying to see the state Robin's mind was in. Only, he couldn't sense anything. There was Crescent, unconscious but there. He couldn't sense Bane (not a good sign) and he also couldn't sense Robin.
"Crescent's alive. Bane and Robin aren't," he told Thire.
"No, sir," One of the troopers said. He pulled out a video screen and held it up to him. "See, there. Robin's still there."
The video kept cutting in and out and there were black parts on the screen that didn't give Quin the full picture, but the trooper was right. Someone in clone armor was standing there in the room.
Quin frowned and took the video from him. He reached back out with the Force.
Nothing.
No, not nothing.
Emptiness.
There was a hole where Robin should be. Sort of like something blocking the light. Robin was gone. It was the strangest thing in the world.
And it made Quin very, very nervous.
"Move!" He commanded, igniting his lightsaber.
The troopers scattered behind him. He slashed an 'X' into the door and then used the Force to blast it open. It smashed into the opposite wall, leaving a great dent. But it was open. The troopers poured into the room, weapons drawn.
The door blasting open must have startled Robin because Quin could feel him in the Force now. First confused. Then horrified.
He rushed into the room.
"Sir, wait!" Thire called, rushing after him.
The first thing he did was check to make sure his earlier assessment of Crescent had been correct. The man's helmet had been knocked clean off and there was blood dripping from a cut above his eye and his lip. It looked like he had been headbutted and he was out cold, but he was alive.
"Get a medic for him!" Thire called, he stepped into the cell, weapon raised.
"Thire," Quin said. He could feel the terror coming from Robin. One wrong move and the kid could start shooting.
"Drop your weapon," Thire said, his voice cold; almost unrecognizable from the cheery man Quin had been chatting with on the way to the prison.
"Sir, I—"
"I said, drop your weapon. Hands on the back of your head, and kneel."
Quin stood and stepped into the room too, his lightsaber still drawn and glowing in the dim red lights. Robin saw the lightsaber and sucked in a breath. His terror increased tenfold and he took a small step back.
"Now!" Thire barked.
He flinched and practically chucked the gun in Thire's direction, quickly going to his knees as requested.
"I don't know what happened. I don't know," Robin gasped. "I swear I don't know. I was talking to Crescent and the next thing I know he's dead. I don't know. I didn't do it. I swear I didn't do it. How long was I out?"
Thire's hold on his shields slipped just a bit. Conflicted. He was feeling conflicted and struggling to figure out how to handle the situation.
"Go contact Fox and let him know what's going on," Quin said to two troopers, deciding he should be the one to take charge if only to spare Thire the pain of having to arrest a brother. Especially one as distraught and confused as Robin was.
"You two, get him into a holding cell until we have time to interrogate him properly. Robin," Quin turned to the kid, who flinched upon being spoken to. "Don't say another word until Fox gets here, alright? Just keep quiet. We'll figure this out."
Blackout Mission.
They don't remember what they did on a blackout mission. They wake feeling confused, unsure of where they are or what day it is.
It had to be a Blackout Mission. Thire seemed conflicted but also resigned about the whole thing. Like he knew what Robin was going through and also knew there was no way to fight it.
And this made everything so, so much worse. Blackout missions weren't just random soldiers going off and doing weird things in the night. Someone had used Robin to kill Bane. Someone didn't want him interrogated. And they probably messed with the cameras too. Just enough so that it was clearly Robin who killed him. Which meant Fox and Thire wouldn't be able to cover this up. They'd have to arrest Robin, even if he wasn't in his right mind when he carried out the deed.
"Good soldiers follow orders," Robin gasped. "Good soldiers follow orders. Good soldiers—"
"Trooper, be quiet," Thire snapped.
Robin let out another choked sob as Coop and Ram pulled his hands behind his back to cuff them.
"And someone get me a goddamn coroner to do an autopsy on Bane!" he shouted.
"Yes sir."
Right. Bane. The whole reason they were there in the first place. Quin looked down at the body. There was one, clean shot right through the head. He was probably dead before he hit the floor.
"They wanted to make him suffer," Robin said as he was led away. "I didn't want that. But they wanted that."
"Not another word," Coop hissed. He was panicked about how much of this Quin was seeing, and how he would react. Coop was scared that something would happen to Robin and that Quin would be the one to do it.
He picked up the blaster and turned it in his hands. It was dangerous to use retrocognition on weapons. The pain and suffering they caused could destroy his mind.
He looked at Thire, still trying to keep control of the situation and his own emotions. He then pulled one of his gloves off and touched the blaster.
There was pain. There was fear. There was one phrase repeating over and over and over again.
" Good soldiers follow orders."
"Sir."
Quin was yanked back to the present by Thire's voice.
"Get anything?" He asked, nervously fidgeting (as much as a highly trained clone commander would fidget).
Quin tossed the blaster at him. "Good soldiers follow orders. Mean anything to you?"
Thire shook his head. "Not particularly. We were told that on Kamino a lot, but it's not necessarily an impactful phrase."
"Hmm." Quin turned back to look at Bane's body on the floor.
Thire was holding something back. The phrase did mean something to him. He didn't know whether to push or to leave it be for now.
"I'm going to go meditate. Let me know when Fox gets here," he said, sweeping out of the room.
He had always suspected the Blackout Missions were dangerous, but he was just now realizing how dangerous they were. Someone very powerful could control the Corries at whim, it appeared. And that same someone likely had hired Bane to take out Ahsoka. Why else would they be so quick to kill him?
Speaking of quick…
Quin slowed to a stop. Bane hadn't even been in their custody for an hour. Someone knew he was here and acted fast. He glanced up at a camera stuffed in the corner.
You ever notice how many cameras there are?
Someone was watching Fox. Someone had hired Bane to kill Ahsoka. Someone could control the Corries to commit heinous acts.
If the person in question could do all this and not get caught, what else were they doing behind the scenes?
"Yeah, definitely need to meditate on this one," he sighed.
And to think, he had been having such a nice day too. He needed to figure out what was going on and quick. Before the person behind all these things enacted the final part of their plan.
*****
Fox: Wolffe, I need you to help me smuggle one of my troopers off Coruscant
Wolffe: What happened?
Wolffe: Hang on
Wolffe has added Cody to the chat
Cody: Fox, what's going on
Fox: The Hutts delivered Bane to us on a silver platter. Even offered to cut off his hands.
Wolffe: No shit! Really?
Fox: Waxer and Boil's segment got the Hutts involved. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that he's dead.
Cody: Bane? How?
Fox: I don't know. Cameras were cut and no one knows what happened. There's 'evidence' that one of my troopers did it. A shiny named Robin.
Cody: He didn't?
Fox: Not this kid. But such a high profile case, Palpatine's calling for someone to get blamed. And… I hate to say it
Wolffe: Very few people have unrestricted access to the prison. A trooper is more likely to be the killer than someone else.
Cody: Was it maybe another prisoner?
Fox: We kept him out of gen pop for this very reason.
Fox: Palpatine killed him somehow. I don't know how. I don't know if he smuggled in an assassin or drugged Robin and got him to kill the man. But it happened. Before Vos and I had a chance to interrogate him too.
Cody: And now Palpatine is calling for an investigation of the trooper. He's going to find him guilty and then have him decommissioned.
Wolffe: Quit fucking talking about us like we're droids. He's going to execute the kid. That's what he's going to do.
Cody: Sorry. I know. You're right.
Wolffe: What do you need me to do?
Fox: I'm going to have Robin 'escape'. Stone is going to lead a manhunt through the city. We'll corner him in the lower levels and 'shoot' him. Right through the skull. Once we've got him in the morgue, we'll swap him with another body of a brother that's actually dead. I just need you to help get him off planet. And if you know a place he can stay that would also be a great help. Preferably not with your pirate buddies.
Wolffe: I got you.
Wolffe: Okay. I've got this band of smugglers he might be good with. They smuggle medical equipment to places undergoing trade embargoes.
Cody: Awfully altruistic of smugglers
Wolffe: Don't worry. They smuggle highly illegal fuel sources for highly illegal races too.
Cody: And there it is.
Wolffe: Look, Fox, you're going to have to be quick about this. Once he's out of the morgue, he's going to have to go to a restaurant called 'The Sugar Shack'. There he'll ask to speak with Mian, tell the guy Wolffe sent him. Mian's the leader. She'll help get him out. Okay
Fox: Thank you, Wolffe. Thank you so much
Wolffe: Don't thank me yet. The kid still has to get off of Coruscant and Palpatine's going to be an even bigger bitch to deal with. Gah! You really didn't get jack shit from Bane?
Fox: No. Nothing. How's your investigation into Tarkin going?
Wolffe: Has a super hot chick dropped off a datastick to you yet?
Fox: No
Wolffe: Then it's going poorly
Cody: Focus on Robin first. Once we've dealt with that lets hold a meeting with whoever else has these datapads and start talking about next steps. If Palpatine's starting to frame us, we might need to move forward without Tarkin.
Wolffe: He's not just framing us. He's testing our loyalty. Seeing if we'll be more loyal to each other or to him.
Cody: Then let's make him believe that it's the latter. We need Palpatine to underestimate us if this is going to work.
Fox: I know. I know. I'm sorry, Cody. I shouldn't have waited so long to interrogate Bane.
Cody: Can't do anything about it now. Focus on Robin. We may have lost a lead, but we aren't out of this fight just yet.
Fox: It's not just the lead, though. People are starting to question us again. They're worried that we'll go crazy and start killing people we don't like. If I stand by Robin, I let Palpatine know we aren't loyal to him. If I turn my back on him, I let the people know we are nothing more than a corrupt senate's dogs and will do whatever they say without questioning it.
Wolffe: Okay, okay, we can deal with negative public perception. That's practically been our whole lives up until recently.
Wolffe: Cody is right. We just need to focus on getting Robin out of here first. Then we can focus on our Senate investigation and dealing with the fallout later. Maybe Ahsoka can help?
Cody: No. She's been dragged too far into this already. If we use her, Palpatine will keep coming after her. She can continue to make videos if she wants, but I'm not using her to make us look better.
Wolffe: Hang on! Fox is a politician. Politicians make public statements all the time. If we can get him to make the right statement, then we might be able to weather this storm.
Cody: You're right. Something that says 'what happened to Robin is a tragedy and we're working to make sure it doesn't happen again'.
Cody: I'll set up a PR team. I think Obi-Wan could be of some help. Wolffe, what about your contacts?
Wolffe: My contacts are mostly sex workers, smugglers, and other people who aren't technically breaking the law but boy are they skirting it. Fox, do you have anyone who's still in your camp?
Fox: Yeah. Riyo, Amidala, Bail, and Mothma are all still allies.
Cody: Great. Get them involved. Palpatine set us back, but he didn't destroy us just yet. Wolffe is right. We can weather the storm.
Wolffe: Oya!
Notes:Mandoa:
Shabuir: Jerk
Neverde: Citizens