UNDERWORLD part 4

  He managed a rueful smile.
  “It still works.”
  “Maybe I should look at it.”
  He shrugged.
 “If it makes you feel better. There’s still a bruise where the edge of the rock rested on the top of my calf, but not much else. I don’t notice the muscle being stiff anymore.”
  “Oh.”
  Orbur’s eyes had lost focus. He could tell she wasn’t really paying attention to their conversation anymore. Something was still bothering her.
  “She’s got her lightsabers still, doesn’t she.”
  Gretta’s eyes still wouldn’t meet his. Their blue gaze now followed the faint shadow of his collarbone beneath his night fatigues. He looked down from her face, understanding her fears.
  “Yes.”
  Orbur’s warm hands touched his face gently and his eyes met her worried ones.
  “Be safe. Please.”
  He managed a wry smile.
  “I’ll try.”
  She smiled back but her eyes were still riddled with concern. Her hands left his face.
  “I don’t get to see enough of you already,” she continued, laughing softly. “Thanks to   Kenobi I’m stuck on Nebula talking to Rewal about his kid—“
  “Rewal has a kid?!”
  Gretta laughed.
  “Not yet, but soon.”
  “….What??”
  “Natalia is pregnant.”
  Cody let out a long breath between his pursed lips.
  “I won’t even ask….”
  Orbur snorted and shrugged her shoulders.
  “He’s going off of your plan. Nath says that you’ve scheduled the end of the war to come in about three months. So when the war ends, he’ll have a newborn baby to come home to.”
  Cody blinked, feeling an odd ache in his chest.
  Home. There was that word again.
  “You’d better be right about the end,” she added.
  The commander felt his smile fade.
  “If something does happen…and I don’t come back,” he asked earnestly. “Promise me you won’t come looking for me.”
  Knowing that he had realized her concerns, Gretta nodded reluctantly. They wrapped their arms around each other tightly for a few minutes.
  Cody gave a little laugh after a while.
  “What?”
  “I was just thinking,” he said, laying the side of his cheek on the top of her warm head. “if Daniel were here, he’d say something like, “Oh, excuse me, I have to go puke.” or something.”
  They broke the embrace so Cody could go back to packing.
  “You’re not bringing your mess kit?”
  He smiled sheepishly.
  “I’m carrying an excess thirty pounds as it is, not counting the jetpack or guns.”
  He crammed another pack of darts into his magazine. He could feel her skeptical eyes on his back.
  “I’ll need to move quickly and quietly so too much weight will wear me down too quickly.”
  Gretta shrugged, eyeing his face.
  “You’ll be hiding it all under that helmet anyways.”
  The clone nodded smiling wryly.
  “Oh!” Gretta burst out excitedly. “Tamalia wanted to have Ty and Bolt and us over for dinner.”
  He laughed but waved dismissively.
  Tama really loves those two.
  “You and them can go. Tell her I’m a little… indisposed, she’ll probably understand.”
  “I was hoping to go after you got back.”
  He turned back to her wistfully.
  Gretta blinked. “What?”
  “You’d give up having dinner, eating delicious, non-issue, food just to wait for me?”
  Orbur shrugged, her face suddenly riddled with worry again.
  “Cody it concerns me that you act that you aren’t coming back,” she said finally, locking eyes with him. “Every time you go out there….sometimes I wonder if you’ll be coming back.”
  Cody’s face dipped into a slight frown.
  “Why wouldn’t I come back?” he asked quietly. He lifted a hand slightly at the door to the room. “This is my home. My family. There is nothing out there powerful enough from preventing me from coming back or trying to come back.
  The medic sighed and dropped to her knees to be down at his eyelevel.
  “Because you want to make things right…..a lot.”
  She sighed smiling grimly.
  “And sometimes you just can’t….We’re just people, Cody. We’re not like Jedi or superheroes or anything. Just people. And the stuff you do kills people like us.”
  There was a silence between them. The clone marveled at how much she really understood.
  “When you fight—”
  “—Now I don’t think it’ll—” he interrupted.
  Gretta’s blue eyes bored into him, she knew what was going to happen eventually.
  “—When you meet her, when you fight, if she wears you down too much…..If she starts beating you too badly…’Forty percent energy left’, you know…enough to get away…”
  Orbur’s voice softened as she went on, her forced command faded into sincere worry.
  “….I want you to walk away, just get away somehow……..Even if it means she doesn’t.”
  Cody’s eyes widened with shock.
  “Gretta!—”
  “It’s the truth!” she cried, her voice cracking slightly. A ring of tears filled her eyes. “I don’t care about her, Cody, I care about you. You’ve had enough near scrapes with death for the Jedi. “
  The commander frowned blinking.
  “The Jedi told me—“
  “—Forget the Jedi,” interrupted Gretta, bitterness in her voice. “If they really wanted her back so badly they’d put on that armor and leave everything and go into that cold, black hell to save her butt.”
 Cody took a deep breath. He knew she was right. The Jedi were once again using him.
  A new idea rose in his mind.
  Does that mean Ahsoka isn’t that important to them? Don’t they see the possible implications of her leaving the Order? Does that mean they don’t care if she leaves??!
  He nodded his head, hoping to at least soothe her worrying.  
  “I’ll be careful,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. Watching her eyes search his. “I promise.”
  Satisfied she hugged him one last time.
  “See you in a month,” she whispered into shirt.
  It seemed like an eternity after Orbur left and the door closed that he finally went back to his armor.
  She’s always got a way of reminding me of all the dangers I haven’t foreseen yet, he thought, smiling grimly. I wish I’d included her in this meeting too.
  He just hadn’t wanted to worry her with any new obstacles or information while they’d brainstormed. Before he hadn’t seen Ahsoka as much of a threat. He’d observed her behaviors and tendencies enough to predict her movements somewhat. But now….
  I’ve fought Ventress, lightsabers and all….But she wasn’t trying to kill me….Would Ahsoka be that desperate?
  A part of him was beginning to think so. The image of those dead and injured clones came to mind.
  What does she think she’s running from? he wondered.
  Pushing his troubled thoughts down and finished packing Cody lay down in his bed.    Running a hand through his still damp hair, he took a deep breath and switched off the lamp. Almost immediately the suffocating closeness of the coffin set his heart pounding. Or was it The Pit? The Pit with that horrible, faceless….
  The clone forced his eyes shut and his hand to remain at his side instead of flying back to the lamp.
  It’s not real. You’re not there anymore. It’s not happening now.
  The memory faded as he fought to replace it with logic. In its vacuum he placed the image of Gretta.
  Gretta and her warm hands, her crystal eyes, her soothing voice.
  It wasn’t the darkness he was afraid of. No, the shadows were his allies, his shield.    Darkness was only a tool, as was light. And logic.
  With the diversion of thoughts away from his disturbing memories the weariness of four months of little sleep drug his eyelids down. He slept. Dreamlessly.

  It seemed like only a few moments later, and the annoying vibration of his alarm was waking him. Switching off the device under his pillow he pushed himself up with a groan.    Wiping the trail of drool of his chin he swung his legs stiffly over the side of the bed and cracked his back.
  A part of him was eager to put the suit on. A part of him was eager to feel the aches and pains of years fade away as the suit inhibited his weaker hurts. Sometimes he considered putting it one if only to relieve the nagging soreness of his side and legs.
Stripping down to his underwear he lifted the graphite colored leg plates out of their container. Placing against his calves Cody watched the little black nanofiber anchors race around his skin. The way the nanobots moved, aligning themselves like finely woven mesh over his skin, never ceased to fascinate him. Securing the arm and chestplates he shaved for the last time while the nanobots finished forming the suit. The quick needling of the sensors inserting themselves into the base of his skull signaled that the final piece, the spinal reinforcement, was finished.
  Taking the popper out from its case he placed its large point against the right side of his crown and squeezed the trigger. Calmly sopping up the drizzle of blood that leaked out the crescent shaped slit he tapped the piece of metal he’d just inserted below his skin. Satisfied that the node was securely stuck in its place, he returned to his bedroom.
Strapping the belt and holsters around his waist Cody mechanically fitted the collapsed all-purpose rifle to his back. Packing his helmet into his backpack he pulled a pair of jeans and his grey sweatshirt over top his armor before slinging the pack over his shoulder.
  Time to go.
 
  Gretta was still sleeping, probably like the rest of his battalion, when he entered her room. He watched her for a moment, content with how peaceful she looked.
  I’ll come back, he wanted to repeat.
  He also wanted to kiss the medic’s forehead, the sudden apprehension of death making the moment seem overwhelming. But Cody stopped himself. Kisses were mutual. What was the action to her if she was sleeping? Instead the commander gently touched his ungloved fingers to her forehead.
  “Don’t worry about me,” he murmured to her silent form. “Be happy. Be carefree. Enjoy the others' companionship….”
  ….while it lasts.
  He gritted his teeth.
  If they kill us after the war….
  He pushed the selfish fear aside. Ahsoka needed to be rejoined with her Jedi family and he needed to get to the bottom of whoever was orchestrating all these slips. Planting these bits of rot in the Republic’s throneworld.
  Alpha’s armor affords me the complete anonymity that I need to operate. Neither the Jedi nor their foes can know who I am, he surmised. Because when they don’t know who I am, what I am…my purpose is then unknown to them.
  Running a hand over the back of his reinforced spine he turned on his heel and merged once more with the dim shadow of the hallway beyond.