Chapter Text
Completely black holo with yellow text reading: The Fuck, Fronties?
The black faded into pale color, focusing on the face of a vod with a scar stretching from under their chin straight down into their blacks. Warm brown eyes were jerking from side to side like they were watching a bolo ball match.
“I have been elected by fellow Corries to start a companion vid to the How to Care for Your Corries series. I don’t know why. Anyway. First things first.”
The cam swings around sharply to land on a gold painted Ghost vod with sani-gloves and a face mask on, a buzzing stylus in their hand as they carefully draw intricate lines on a bare backed Corrie (marked with only their red lowers).
“Was anyone going to tell us that there are just vode hanging around with actual ink tattoo guns?? Literally will tat anything you want, wherever you want, for like…nothing. Coffin is getting a very detailed Alderaanian Grim Reaper piece. Guns even said they could work in the scarring into part of the design. The fuck is this?”
Coffin smiled at the cam and sighed happily as they settled into the cushions on the floor.
“Gotta admit, vod, I don’t think I’ve ever had a vod sit this still for a piece like this. I’m seriously impressed by the Corrie paint tolerance.” The tattooing vod spoke quietly, wiping carefully at some of the ink before settling in for more lines.
“Coffin’s got pretty high pain tolerance, even in the Guard.” Crypt said quietly as they moved around the two on the floor, taking in the black lines slowly forming into a very detailed piece. “Can you do me next?”
“Sure. I’ve got a few more hours on this piece though. Should eat something before I start yours, what do you want?”
“Have you ever seen those fancy resting places for dead natborns? Crypts?” Crypt’s voice was slow but excited.
“Sure have. You want one?”
“Yeah! Black work like Coffin’s, same place, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, vod. I love tatting. And the commander lets me shirk shifts off to other vode whenever someone wants a big piece. He and the General consider tatting a morale boosting activity.” Guns hummed, carefully dipping his stylus in more black ink before starting in on a spot near Coffin’s neck.
The Corrie let out a giggle.
Guns eyes crinkled indicating a smile at the sound.
“Wild.” Crypt spoke with wonder before turning at the sound of a door swishing open.
A young Corrie with bright pink hair popped in, their entire face lighting up at the scene before they hopped into the room, getting very close to the cam as they engulfed Crypt in a hug.
“Crypt!”
“Ad’ika. How are you?”
“Good! Grave just messaged that Senator Amidala met up with Resolute! Sabѐ is with her.” The grin that stretched across their face was one of osik-eating vod’ike everywhere.
Crypt let out a sound like a dying tooka while Coffin gasped excitedly. “Finally! I’ve missed some good fucking sex!”
Guns choked and quickly removed his stylus before coughing into their mask, trying to cover up their laughter as a previously unheard vod spoke up.
“I didn’t realize Corries used Outer Rim curses.”
“Of course we do. We just aren’t allowed to use them around natborns, so we have what the commanders call a Professional Filter. Curse like pirates in private, but like stuffy senators in public. It’s a thing.” Crook waved their hand, barely visible in the view of the cam from their position still hugging Crypt.
“Cool.”
“Oh sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Crook, he/him. Crypt and Coffin are my buire.”
“Neat. I’m Inks, she/they. Guns is my ba’vodu. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Well Rainbow had first dibs but she went MIA. Guns is her ven’riduur but won’t adopt me until Rainbow is found. So he’s really my ven’buir, but that’s confusing so I just call him my ba’vodu until buir shows up.”
The vid was quiet, even as the buzzing of the stylus started back up.
The cam stayed on Coffin while they slowly moved their head to look over at the other vod, Crypt turning the holo with them.
Crook made a sad sound as a young clone was revealed on the screen, a riot of colors decorating her hair and their neck in abstract color splotches.
“I’m so sorry, vod. That’s awful.” Crook crooned and Crypt echoed their sad sound with a matching mourning one.
“It’s alright. The Commander has had their batcher looking into it on almost every deployment they have. Commander Wolffe has found evidence of Rainbow being alive a few times, so we have hope.”
Guns hummed in agreement.
“Still.”
“Thanks.” Inks smiled, a pair of dimples were revealed with the movement. Crypt made a cut off coo.
“Well, I can message Commander Fox about it too. Maybe he can convince Commander Wolffe to share their findings. The Commander is really good at finding vode.” Coffin muttered, trying to reach for their comm before Guns hissed at them to stay still.
“I’ve got it, Coff.”
“Is he really that good?” Inks asked quietly, her face scrunching adorably.
A loud gasp echoed in the speakers before Crook shot himself across the room, grabbing Inks hands in his own with his soft brown eyes alight with glee.
“Oh boy is he! Commander Fox can do anything! I’ve seen him…” the voice and the vid faded out to the soft sound of Crypt dialing on their comm and a quiet “the fuck, fronties?”.
--
Fox picked up his ringing comm and couldn’t even greet his friend before Thorn was speaking, “question” at him.
He responded with “answer” by rote and then frowned when Cody chuckled next to him. Fox threw him a stink eye just for the giggles.
“Anyway. Hypothetically.”
“Let me stop you there, vod. If it’s about Skywalker and Amidala I don’t want to hear it. If it’s about Rex, I really don’t want to hear it. That’s my vod’ika.”
Thorn frowned in the tinny blue holo of a defaulted comm, eyes widening as he tried Thire’s Tooka Eye trick on the master of the Tooka eyes. Amateur.
“Well, it’s not…technically…about them?”
“Shit, vod, you are so bad a lying.” Cody choked at Stone’s voice and Fox cracked a smirk at the quiet commander’s potty mouth coming out. They must really be getting comfortable on the Resolute.
“You are so not one to talk, you mir’sheb.”
“Blah blah blah, sounds like a you problem.”
“Blah blah blah, sounds like a you want to meet me on the mats problem.”
“Yeah? You think you can do anything to me with those little sticks you call arms?”
“STICKS?!! I CARRY A ROTARY, STONE YOU FUCKHEAD!”
“I SAID WHAT I SAID!”
Fox let them get it out of their system, boredly looking around the bridge as the soft-shells looked at his comm with wider and wider eyes. It’s like they’ve never seen or heard a vod-spat before.
“Uhhh, Fox’ika? Shouldn’t we stop them?” Cody asked from his side, tilting his head as he kept his attention on the holocomm. Fox scoffed.
“It’s just a spat, Kote. Best to just let them get it out of their system. They’ll actually solve it on the training mats after the call, I’m sure.”
“Alright then, vod’ika, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Vor’e.”
“Naas.”
A ping from his comm cut through the fight, but didn’t stop the two commanders on the holo, so Fox just swiped the message open. Actively ignoring the spitting insults from his friends, Fox read the information Wolffe passed along after Crypt requested looking into some MIA troopers from Ghost Company.
“Why is Wolffe sending you info about the missing troopers case?” Cody asked, shamelessly reading over Fox’s shoulder like the nosy ori’vod he is. Shithead.
“Your trooper, Guns, is tatting up the Deads and their kind of ad told the Deads about their missing ven’buir. Crypt mentioned that you asked Wolffe to look into it on recon missions and Coffin offered my expertise. She and her murder are quite enamored with Inks.”
Cody blinked at Fox.
“There is a lot to unpack there. The Deads?”
“Crypt, Coffin, Crook, Grave, Tomb, Head, Stone, and Kara. Buncha Corries that bonded over their death related Names. They like to collude on everything. Crypt and Coffin are the only batchers. Crook and Grave are their ade.”
“I don’t understand the last three, but sure why not.”
“Oh that’s a funny story. So Head and Stone actually have the same Name.”
“They do?”
“Yeah, Headstone. Natborn thing where they honor the place where they bury their dead.”
“They bury their dead?!”
“Some of them do.”
“Anyway, Headstone. Head was actually assigned to the Guard first, so he got first pick of short-name. He thought Head was funnier than Stone. And then Stone shaved his head because they had to “commit to the bit, Commander”. They’ve been hazing us ever since.”
Cody looked like someone smacked him with a sea dweller. Fox smirked.
“And Kara?”
“Oh, her name is actually Ka’ra but considering…things…she goes by Kara. She once answered to a frontie praying to the Ka’ra and I don’t think they’ve been the same ever since. Sometimes she descends from the vents like a gift to the vode. Grave has been helping her rig it so she looks like she just suddenly appears and disappears.”
“How?”
“Lots of smoke mostly. Adds to the façade.”
“Right…”
Thorn cleared his through from Fox’s comm and he redirected his attention to his commander, looking markedly more disheveled than he was at the start of the call, Stone nowhere in sight.
“Got it out of your system?” Fox asked.
“Not in the least,” Thorn grinned wickedly, “we’re going to finish it up in the training salles. General Skywalker said they have some pretty good sparring mats so we could go all out if we want to.”
“General Skywalker? Sounds a bit impersonal there, vod.”
Thorn flushed a fetching dark blue on the holo-call and made a vulgar hand sign in Fox’s general direction. Cody fake gasped like he was an offended senator and Fox laughed at his batcher’s fake offense.
“Whatever. Amidala arrived; she wants to talk to you when we land on whichever planet it is we’re landing on. Something about banta poodoo assignments, corruption, audacity, and I stopped listening after that.” Thorn somehow managed to flush even darker. Impressive.
“Oh? Too busy getting hot and bothered by the senator getting whipped into a frenzy? Did you need to excuse yourself, vod?” Fox teased, dropping his voice and octave when he felt Quinlan enter the bridge, smirking at his sharp inhale.
Two seppies, one speeder, as Apex likes to say.
“Feck off, Fox. See if I ever give you a heads-up again.” Thorn flicked off the holo-call and Fox cackled. Always delightful to get Thorn in a strop about is natborns. Truly the highlight of the tenday.
Quinlan’s strong arms wrapped around Fox’s shoulders as he purred into the ear that could still hear, “tormenting Thorn again, cyare.”
“Always, ner jetii.”
“Honestly, I have no idea how I never caught on to this. You two are about as subtle as a speeder to the face.” Obi-wan chuffed, walking over to give Cody a chaste little peck on the cheek.
Fox leered at the other Jedi, giving him and Fox’s ori’vod a slow once over, mentally counting the hickies he could see. They both flushed at his perusal. Ha.
“We CAN be subtle, Obes. We just choose not to. More fun this way.” Fox gave a smile, copying the other Jedi and giving Quin a little peck on the cheek. The Kiffar flushed a flattering shade of red that Fox didn’t know he could.
Ooooh. New plan.
Fox opened his mouth, to tease or flirt he didn’t know, but cut himself off when another ping sounded off his comm. Fox looked at it and his eyes widened.
Little gods.
“Foxy?”
“Come find me later, Quin. I need to check something.”
Fox slipped out of his Jedi’s hold and started pulling up comm codes to call while walking briskly out of the bridge of the Negotiator, hearing questions and comments of concern and ignoring them.
This was more important.
He hoped Hex wasn’t busy.
--
“Welcome back to The Fuck, Fronties. Once again, I have no idea how I got volunteered for this. But this is brought to you by shit I wish we had.” Crypt grumbled as the holo opened up to the boring sterile halls of a Venator-class ship, whipping by as the vod walked quickly.
“I’m positive you fronties have seen plenty of the Guard barracks from the archived GuardNet vids, and no I don’t want any of your concern. But. Our training facilities were…well shitty. We took a lot from the trash chutes and what not, but it was still poodoo garbage. Anyway.
“The fuck is this??”
The holo swung into a standard Training Room, recognizable by various exercise equipment, mats, water stations, separated sonics, and a whole host of other things anyvod could need for exercise reasons.
“Is this fucking standard? Are the Corries seeing this shit? The fuck is this?” A boot crept into frame as it poked at a thick mat, easily thick enough to cushion anyone being thrown around in a spar.
“And the fuck is this?” A gauntlet covered hand reached out and poked at a medkit attached to a wall near the mat, the holo swinging around and stopping on several other kits on all the other walls. “Did anyvod look in these?”
All the equipment blurred as the cam refocused on the closest kit, the same hand swinging the door open to show off the well-stocked contents. “They have fucking bacta patches! Just! In a kit! For anyone to use! In a TRAINING ROOM! The fuck??!!”
“Vod? You good?” A quiet voice interrupt Crypt’s increasing incredulous rant, the cam swung around to focus on Trapper with a happy Grizzer wiggling by his side. Hound was barely seen over on some odd fucking contraption that involved weights and arms that Crypt wasn’t sure what it did.
“No!”
Crypt did not elaborate.
“Alright.” Trapper shrugged, cupping Crypt’s elbow gently, and leading them over to Hound, Grizzer trotting along on the other side of the distressed vod.
“Hi Crypt!” Hound’s voice was loud, and his smile was bright, and Crypt hissed in response. Hound didn’t even look offended. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
“You didn’t get nearly this upset when you first saw the training halls.” Trapper huffed, hands flying along in sign as he focused completely back on Hound, who was pulling bars together and apart without breaking a sweat. The cam tilted to catch Trapper’s eyes following the movement with blown pupils.
“You didn’t see me the first time I saw the training halls. You saw me the second time. There was an adjustment period. Grizzer, diryci.” The massif laid down with a wiggly body. Crypt’s hand reached out and gave her a good scritch on the head. Hound notably kept doing the exercise and Trapper’s eyes continued to follow the movement of his biceps.
Crypt pushed against the frontie’s shoulder to snap him out of it and laughed at the apologetic wince.
Fronties.
“Is it really so shocking?”
“Yes.” “Sure is.” Crypt and Hound answered at the same time and Trapper huffed a laugh at their synchrony. Guard Things™.
“Did you want to exercise, Crypt? I can show you how some of the machines work.” Trapper offered, smiling brightly.
Crypt softly whispered “too bright” before declining the invitation. “I got distracted from what I was actually supposed to be doing. You two have fun, though.”
They both flushed and Crypt’s laughter echoed as she turned, and the vid faded out.
--
Thire walked as casually as possible into the mess of the Negotiator, putting all of his training to use. At first glance, he didn’t see the vod he was looking for, but on the second he found somevod who could help.
“Hey, Apex! Rush!”
Their heads popped up from where they were bent over their comms (Thire actively did not want to know) and smiled at him, waving for him to sit down. Thire shook his head and tried not to fidget as several fronties turned to look at them.
“Have you seen Lex recently?” Thire asked, carefully controlling the tone of his voice so no one could catch on to the hurry he was in. It paid to have everyone think you weren’t doing anything that needed haste.
Also, senators constantly enjoyed interrupting Corries that looked busy or in a rush. It was a power thing, Quinlan said.
“Saw? No. But they’re on the way here with Cantina if you wanna eat while you wait for them.” Rush answered, discreetly tapping Apex’s thigh plate. The other vod didn’t look like he was suddenly paying attention, but Thire watched his pupils narrow at the rhythm that meant hunt.
Thire tapped his vambrace in a matching pattern, pretending like he was thinking it over before “giving up” and saying “sure, I can wait,” and joining them at their table.
It only took a minute or two before the fronties lost interest in them, Thire stealing nibbles from Apex and Rush’s rations, shocked at how much they were allowed to take. Did fronties always have enough rations they could share with half a battalion and not even be worried about somevode going without?
Strange.
Anyone looking in would no be able to tell that Thire, Rush, and Apex were having a full conversation without saying anything. Something that apparently the fronties couldn’t do. Sad.
It didn’t take long for Lex and Cantina to show up. They both walked through the line for rations and settled on either side of Thire without even hinting that they were worried as soon as they laid eyes on Thire.
Corrie Things™.
They had a seemingly calm meal, no one hurrying to eat, no words spoken quickly or quietly or urgently. Just a peaceful meal, in a peaceful mess, surrounded by not so peaceful fronties. Normal things, now.
And Thire was certain they didn’t attract any attention when they stood as a unit to deposit their empty trays to the return counter and walk out of the mess in an even clip.
But as soon as they were clear of the fronties’ notice, they all sped up, Lex speaking quickly as they tried to catch up.
“Fox got more information into the missing Corrie cases? How? We’re nowhere near Coruscant?” Lex pulled up their notes app and started typing, Cantina doing the same with her recording app. Apex and Rush fell to the back, heads on a swivel as they defaulted to habits from Triple Zero. Apparently, you can take a Corrie from Coruscant but not Coruscant from a Corrie. Noted.
“It’s a long and convoluted story, but I can do the basics. So, the Deads are getting complimentary ink tattoos, right? Well the tattooer has an ad kind of, because his cyare is MIA and won’t say the gai bal manda without her. Crypt offered for Fox to take a look, cause he’s good at finding missing vode, alive or dead, and he noticed something that matched the pattern of our case.
“Fox needed your eyes because the two of you have put in the most work on this case. He saw something that stuck out and he only worked on the case on and off, the two of you have been working it constantly. He thinks you can find more.”
They slowed down and spoke quieter every time they passed a frontie but immediately picked up the pace once they were out of sight. Despite the squad size they made impeccable time to the room Fox and Quinlan had commandeered a their own.
Thire toggled the door open and quickly moved to the side at the sight of one of Fox’s investigation boards. Lex and Cantina walked confidently up to the board, both immediately starting to place some of the information Fox couldn’t.
Apex and Rush hung back. Thire tossed them a deck of sabaac and motioned to the door. They nodded and nonchalantly set up a game outside of the door, looking remarkably like they weren’t keeping guard. Thire sat next to the door on the inside, keeping his ear out for a signal of approaching fronties and started updating Stone and Thorn on the investigation.
Fox, Cantina, and Lex started discussing the new case and how the information from Commander Wolffe flashed a whole new light on the Never Found Corries. Thire shot a message to Quinlan, letting him know that he might need to play distraction for them.
He had a feeling they were going to be in this room for a while and Commander Cody would definitely worry.
Thire was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t feel as much shock about that as he did when they were first absconded with from Coruscant. The novelty might never wear off, but it was nice that it felt almost expected now.
Who would have thought?
--
“Alright the fronties have to be yanking our shells this time. There’s no fucking way.” Crypt muttered to the holocam, her face once again the sole focus of the shot.
She hurried down an unremarkable stretch of hallway, making turns so fast that even vode used to Venator-class ships would get confused, before slowing and calming walking through an unobtrusive door.
The holo turned into a standard rec room.
Kind of.
This one was bare of any of the knick knacks common to other rec rooms, instead there was a large blank wall full of red string and…stuff. Pillows were strewn across the floor, and some were occupied by vode in enthusiastic discussions.
Crypt walked slowly up to the wall of string and choked as the holo zoomed in on a bolded title page. The Senate is a Sham perpetuated by the Hutts.
Several pieces of red string were tacked to the flimsi, spreading out onto clippings from holonews articles, holostills of Hutts, and datapads with fuzzy looking vids on them. The information was notably from gossip rags and other unreputable sources.
The holo panned over to another demented tree, this one titled, Nabooian Queen actually six Handmaidens in an elaborate dress. A brief glance of a lot of holopics that the cam skipped over in favor of the next title.
The Chancellor is an Alien.
This one had a single page with large bold Aurebesh reading, “No shit, vod,” and nothing else. Crypt started coughing but kept moving.
Some titles were hard to read under a plethora of “evidence” on flimsi, datapads, and holostills.
The holo landed on the only one on a different wall, centered and with more red string than any other single tree. Commander Fox is a god actually. And the rest was crossed out in thick lines of black and red.
“Ahh, I see you’ve found the conspiracy room.” The cam jerked to the side and Waxer smiled genially from Crypt’s left.
“The what?”
“The conspiracy room. One of the vod’ike, I can’t even tell you which one, got hooked on natborn holonet conspiracies and decided the Vode needed an equivalent. Then it got pretty popular. They took over this rec room last year.”
“This one?”
“One of six.”
“What the fuck?” Crypt sounded like she was done with today, actually.
“Yeah, I don’t want to elaborate, and I don’t want you to elaborate because I’m pretty sure they’ll both make me sad.” Waxer huffed, crossing his arms and looking up and the large holostill from the GuardNet’s Commander Fox Deity vid. How did they even get it that big?
“That’s fair.”
“There’re other smaller conspiracy trees, but the vode who started them aren’t ready to share them yet. This one went up last tenday.” Waxer gestured to the Commander Fox wall and shrugged.
“Should I be concerned by how obsessed the 212th is with our Marshall Commander?” Crypt didn’t sound like she wanted to know the answer.
“No more than the Guard is.” Waxer shrugged again. The holovid just stayed facing the Ghost.
“I think the Guard has a reason to.”
Waxer nodded, “and I’m sure it’s the same reason the 212th has.”
It was quiet between the two for a long while, the holo focused completely on the tree of string that spanned almost the width of the rec room.
Crypt whispered softly to the holocam.
“The Fuck, Fronties?”
--
“Fucking…what?” Lex echoed Cantina as they looked over the investigation wall, double checking the new information and following the string to the conclusions. Twice.
“I…I don’t know.” Fox, for once, sounded just as confused as the rest of them as they tried to find a fault in the evidence or the conclusion. They couldn’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense. We were already property, the senators could already do whatever the kriff they wanted, why in the everloving embrace of Commander Fox would they do this?” Cantina gestured angrily at the map of truth and Lex couldn’t even find it in themselves to laugh at Fox’s face at their b’cyare swear to his Name.
“There has to be something that’s missing. The evidence and conclusion make complete sense, but the motive? What could that be?” Thire mumbled from the wall, holding his comm up so Thorn and Stone could see properly.
“Does there need to be a motive?” Stone asked, stupidly. But Lex wasn’t shocked, the prisons didn’t often require the Commander to do investigative work, they were rusty.
“There’s always a motive, vod.” Thorn filled them in, swinging and arm over Stone’s shoulder and sighing heavily. “No motive, no crime. It could be something as asinine as the criminal being bored.”
“Big word there, Thorn.”
“Fuck off, Thire.”
Lex sighed.
Thorn was right, there is always a motive. But Stone was also right, kind of, in that they didn’t have one.
Senators had no reason to kidnap Corries from the lower levels, or fronties from missions out in space, they could just demand their presence for whatever they wanted.
“Maybe it wasn’t the senators.” Fox mumbled, flesh fingers pinching his lower lip scar and rolling it carefully in the way he does when he’s thinking.
Lex picked up what their commander was saying immediately.
“The Chancellor has even less of a motive than the senators, Fox. He had us at his beck and call. Kidnapping would be unnecessary.”
Cantina hummed before she spoke carefully, “unless what he did to them is worse than what the senators were doing.”
Lex doubted.
“What could be worse than that?”
“I dunno, cyare, but that’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“We need more information.” Fox hissed, pulling out a blanket to cover the evidence. Lex hurried to help him, flawlessly helping Cantina climb on their shoulders to pin the top before walking her over to pin the top of Fox’s side.
“This is more information.” Thorn groaned, just as annoyed as the rest of them that it wasn’t enough to fully crack the case. “More than we had for a long kriffing time.”
“But still not enough.” Cantina hissed, plopping down and hooking her feet under Lex’s armpits so she could sit on their shoulders. Lex just cupped her knees to hold her steady.
“I’ll get Quinlan to look tomorrow. But we can’t do anything else now. Try not to worry too much about it, vode. It’ll hit us all like a speeder when we aren’t expecting it.” Fox sighed.
A chorus of “yessir” answered him as he waved them all off.
Cantina ducked as Lex walked through the door, waving for Apex and Rush to follow. Time for an Ex meeting.
“It’ll all work out, cyare, you’ll see.” Tina whispered to them, carefully playing with their hair as they walked.
Lex hummed in response.
That’s what they were afraid of, honestly.