Chapter Text
It’s been 202 days since his chip went out. 202 days since the mantra of good soldiers follow orders cut out in the middle of the night and left him stranded in his own despair and horror, in the living hellscape that was the Empire. Stopped blocking out his hatred and revulsion, and the memories, the realization—his brothers, the Empire, he shot his General off a cliff whatdidtheymakehimdo—drowned him alive.
Cody’d jolted awake and thrown up everything he’d ever eaten, that first night. It had burned his throat, but he hadn’t been able to feel anything past the noise in his head and the tears that spilled down his face as he choked on his own memories and struggled for oxygen.
[There was yelling coming from somewhere, but it was a distant backdrop to the rush of noise in his ears. He’d betrayed the Republic, his General, his Jedi, his Brothers, his family. His throat felt like it was closing in on him, he couldn’t breathe. Distantly, he could feel tears on his face and a hand shaking his shoulder. A whisper of good soldiers follow orders echoed through his head, and he wanted to be sick again.]
It was only his rank that saved him, in the end. His bunkmates had insisted on dragging him to medical, and he hadn’t been in any state to argue, even if a part of him was already calculating a way out of a medical scan. He hadn’t needed to worry. “Commander” had bought him a private room. Which meant no one was around to see the med droid cut the chip out of his head and hack into the medical records. And if a few days later the droid was scrapped for deficiency, well. There wasn’t any way to trace it back to him.
But that was 202 days ago, and Cody had a new mission; To cause as much damage and leak as much information as possible without getting caught. Cody was angry, and if the Empire was going to kark up the galaxy, Cody would do his level best to kark up the Empire.
And as Cody walked through the busy lower-deck hallways of the Death Star, he couldn’t help but think today was a damn good day for it. They’d captured a ship supposedly tied to the Rebellion. Which, considering it was an Alderaanian ship, he didn’t doubt it. Cody remembered enough about Bail Organa from his friendship with General Kenobi to know that his General liked the man, and his General didn’t like anyone that had the sense to keep their head down.
Which, loath as he was to admit it, would include him. If he was smart, he would bury the memories and play the part of a good Imperial soldier until the Empire killed him off for being obsolete. It would probably be a better end. Seven months was a long time; If the Empire ever found out what he’d done–when the Empire found out–he’d be executed. If he was lucky. Traitors and Rebels were rarely so lucky.
[The door opened softly, and Cody stepped inside. It slid closed behind him, and he took in the interrogation room. The chair faced away from him, and the man strapped to it seemed far too out of it to notice the appearance of another person. The room was empty, otherwise. In the back of Cody’s mind, he had a countdown for the ten minutes until Lieutenant Urik came back from the ‘fresher.
He stepped forward, and the man stirred. The man was a Bothan, but if Cody hadn’t checked the prisoner record beforehand, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. His face was mutilated almost beyond comprehension, and the front of his clothes were burnt in a way that only happened when the interrogators turned the brands too high. Varn had been in charge of this interrogation, then. The man was vicious, and liked to toe the line between efficient and cruel.
Which meant Cody needed to move quickly, if they were going to get out of here in time. He reached out and started undoing latches. One blood-crusted eye cracked open and peered at him suspiciously as Cody threw off the restraints.
The man’s voice was barely a hoarse whisper. “Who’re you?”
Cody’s face was hidden beneath the stormtrooper mask, but he saw a flicker of recognition at his voice. “A friend. We need to move.”
When Urik came back exactly ten minutes later, it was to an empty interrogation room, a malfunctioning security system, and a missing shuttle.]
He was just digging his own grave, but anything else was unthinkable.
Cody sighed as his feet slowed. The slick click of boots on the floor would’ve been soothing, in another lifetime. It was comforting in another lifetime, when that click meant Vod, meant Brothers. Now, with gunmetal grey walls and shiny white helmets that were too plain and too harsh, it just hurt something deep in his chest that he’d learned to tiredly ignore.
Cody pushed down a stab of grief. The thought of the General, of his brothers, still felt like a saber to the guts. Some days, it was like that first morning, when he’d been sitting on a med bay bed with a bandage on his head, and nothing had looked better than the barrel of his blaster.
He’d entertained the idea of going through with it when he got to day 212. It’d been three months in, and he’d met another Vod for the first time since he was free of his chip. Hope had swelled, quick and furious in his chest as the Lieutenant removed his bucket. Cody had almost broken the Imperial mask for a moment. To desperately ask If he was awake, if Cody wasn’t alone, please don’t let him be alone. He’d opened his mouth to do so, but he’d stopped short when he looked at his brother’s face. There was no flicker of recognition for a fellow vod, and Cody could almost see the mantra of good soldiers follow orders behind that amber-colored gaze that held no warmth, no personality. The realization had washed over him like a bucket of cold water, and Cody had brusquely made his excuses.
He’d hidden in a lower-deck supply closet after his shift. It hadn’t been touched in ages, and he’d let the dust fill his lungs as the stolen bottle of Corellian brandy slowly filled his stomach. He’d spent the night there, just him, the darkness, and the dust, with cold durasteel against his back. Even through his blacks, the glass of the bottle had been cool against his alcohol and grief-warm skin. It’d reminded him of his blaster. And as he’d raised the bottle to his lips once again, thinking of his battalion, he’d considered putting the barrel of a blaster in his mouth instead. And why not wait until day 212? Little else mattered these days; his death might as well have some sort of meaning attached to it.
In the morning, and with a massive hangover that had Cody wincing at every bright light and glaring at the loud troopers from under his bucket, he had decided against it. But he hadn’t forgotten it. Sometimes in war, it was hard to be the one who survives.
God, what a shit show.
Cody turned down a hallway that would lead him to one of the less conspicuous hangar bay entrances, mentally cursing the Empire with the more creative Mando’a his brothers had learned to string together.
[In another universe, another time, Cody turns right instead of left. He goes to the Alderaanian ship and crushes a datastick of rebel intelligence under his heel when his fellow trooper’s backs are turned. In yet another universe, Cody sleeps through that night 202 days ago, his chip intact, still a good soldier who follows orders. In both universes, Cody dies with the Death Star when a plucky pilot’s torpedo hits the exhaust shaft.
In this one, Cody turns left.]
Cody paused as from ahead, the synchronized steps of a guard detail reached his ears. Cody quickly pressed himself against the side of the hallway as they turned the corner.
Cody silently sighed as the first two Stormtroopers came into view. He didn’t like the Imperial troopers in the slightest, so far up the Empire’s ass they were next to useless. Curiously, he watched as they matched closer. Their prisoner was too short for him to see; he caught flashes of brown hair and a white dress. It was probably one of the crew from the captured ship. Important, too, if she was alive instead of dead with a lightsaber wound through her torso. Darth Vader had a temper and a tendency towards murder.
Cody chanced a glance at their prisoner as the formation drew level with him, and his heart stopped.
For a moment, he was back in the Clone Wars, helping Senator Amidala down from her transport, her gait poised and regal as she stepped down. This woman, the prisoner, was not quite the same. Her nose was wider, her jaw just a little off. But for a moment, the two overlap. And then this short little woman, with Padmé’s bearing and face, with hair curled into buns at the side of her head in a way that dragged up long-buried memories of Naboo, turned and snapped at the troopers escorting her, face curled into something politely vicious. It echoed a long-lost General perfectly, and Cody’s heart stopped all over again.
The world snapped back into motion, and they marched past him. The woman’s face was lost again as they continued, footsteps harsh against the durasteel. Cody stared. The world felt like it had stopped as he watched them disappear around a corner, heart still frozen in his chest, rooted to the spot. The grief that came with the sharp clip of boots on durasteel dropped away. The noise and anger and everything else quieted for a moment.
Cody knew with utter clarity at that moment, when everything else dropped away and the world stood still, that there would be no going back. His place in the Empire, ruining it from the inside, would be over. It would not be like the other times, when he dragged captured rebels from their cells and hurried them into transports with a couple datachips of information and brisk instructions to not die. If he went after her, if he freed her, then that was it.
Cody was already moving, his feet having made the decision for him.
A plan formed in his head as he strode down the corridor. If he wanted half a chance in hell to get her out of here, she needed to blend in. She needed a uniform. Silently, he shifted his course for the Quartermaster’s office. Kestel ditched his post for a smoke more often than not, Cody could get what he needed and get out. His own rank bars sat pinned to his blacks underneath his armor. It would be easy to transfer them to an nat-born officer’s uniform.
Something grew in his chest as he swept through the corridors. It nestled right next to the determination behind his heart, weightless underneath his Stormtrooper armor. It was only as he stopped in front of the lower-deck Quartermaster’s office that he recognized it as hope.
The door slid open with a quiet puff of air from the hydraulics. Cody stepped into the room and cast a glance around. The shelves of spare uniforms stacked and folded with precision over the neat rows of boots on the floor stared back at him. The desk tucked in the corner, guarding the door with the high-ranking officer’s luxuries, was empty. Cody allowed himself a small smile. As luck would have it, Kestel had snuck off again.
Cody slid his bucket off and set it on one of the shelves. Quickly, he scanned the uniforms as he reached up to undo the straps of his chestplate with swift fingers. Senator Amidala had been a small woman, and their prisoner didn’t look any bigger. He caught the edge of his chestplate as the straps slid free. He wasn’t sure they had anything small enough, but he grabbed the smallest one he could find and slid it underneath his chestplate. It would have to do, he thought as he buckled up his armor again.
He tightened the straps and slid his bucket back on with one hand. He grabbed the smallest pair of boots and slung them under an arm. Satisfied, Cody turned and keyed the door open. No one gave him a second glance as he stepped into the hallway. The other Imperials ignored the boots slung under his arm, and he found himself grateful for the casual disregard given to the troopers.
He gripped his blaster a little tighter as he walked. He’d be gone. One way or another, he’d be rid of the Empire. No more playing a perfect soldier, no more biting his tongue when all he wanted to do was rip out someone’s throat with his teeth or shoot Admiral Tarkin in the face. A wave of exhaustion pulled at his limbs, but his steady march never faltered. Force, he was tired. Tired of the Empire, tired of not being able to do his duty (his real duty, to his family, not the mockery of the Empire). He still had a duty, though. He couldn’t rest. Not until the Empire was dismantled or he died trying.
Cody stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the detention level. He took a deep breath through his nose as the elevator slid downward. Hopefully one of the last days I have to see these walls. The thought made it a little easier.
The elevator door slid open with a hiss. Lieutenant Yissik looked up from the round security desk as Cody stepped through. The two security officers guarding the cell corridor didn’t move. Yissik straightened slowly and clasped his arms behind his back, casting a quick, dismissive gaze over Cody.
“What’s your business here, trooper?” The words sat low and vaguely disdainful in Yissik’s mouth, the hint of an Imperial accent’s short clipped tones.
“I’m here to check on the Alderaanian prisoner,” Cody said.
Yissik’s chin came up as he straightened even further. “I wasn’t notified.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ll have to clear it.”
A flash of a plan caught in Cody’s head. “Sir,” Cody interrupted as Yissik reached for the com. Cody dropped some of the steel in his spine and let his shoulders drop forward. “I’m on Admiral Tarkin’s orders. Unofficial orders,” he added, letting a note of harried desperation into his voice.
Yissik’s severe expression smoothed out into understanding with a hint of sympathy. “Ah, well,” he said, drawing back his hand and clearing his throat. “That… would explain it.” Yissik reached out and hit a button Cody knew looped the camera footage. “Cell 2187. Go on, then. Wouldn’t want to dawdle.”
Cody sent him a grateful nod. “Thank you, sir.”
Yissik waved him off. Cody moved around the security desk and inclined his head to the security officers as he stepped up into the cell corridor.
His boots clicked against the mesh floor as he walked down the hall. The long, hexagonal hallway seemed to ooze clinical, detached malice. It stretched farther than Cody could see the end of, lit only in occasional white strips and the red-tinged light that glowed beneath the mesh.
Cody kept his back straight and his movements natural as stopped in front of cell 2187. He switched his blaster to the boot arm and reached down to the cell controls for the door release. With a hiss, the cell door slid up, and Cody stepped down quickly into the cell.
His feet slowed to a halt. The woman, sitting straight-backed on the metal bench, looked up and oh. Anakin’s fire stared at him out of Padmé’s eyes, and wasn’t that disconcerting. She looked wary and worn, trying her best to hide it underneath a veneer of control. His heart gave a painful twinge as he stared.
The woman straightened and brushed her hands against the fabric of her long, white dress. An eyebrow twitched upward on that carefully controlled face as she took him in, gaze lingering on the boots tucked under one arm before drifting back up to his visor.
Her voice cut through the jumble of emotions in his head.
“Aren’t you a little tall for a Stormtrooper?”
Underneath his helmet, The corner of Cody’s mouth twitched up involuntarily. Her eyes tracked him closely as he raised a hand to his bucket. He lost sight of her for a moment as the helmet slid over his head and her eyes met his as he tucked it under an arm, curious and sensing that something was off.
“I’m Cody,” he said, and there was something unfathomably galaxy-changing about that declaration. “I’m here to rescue you.”