Chapter Text
The assertion that Starfleet was not a military had started to wear a little thin to Chester over the course of the war, as it very likely had to many of her fellow officers. They’d all gotten used to their wartime footing, the new security protocols, discussions about weapons efficiency, the way families and civilian scientists had vanished from their shipboard lives. Research projects on phenomena and archeology and history had gone from being duties to off-hours hobbies; Chester couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had time to read a paper in any of her chosen fields of study.
But a few days aboard the Triumphant firmly disabused her of the idea that Starfleet had become a military. This ship had been purpose-built from the ground up as an instrument of destruction. There were none of the little notes of grace that defined the starships Chester had served on–no paneling selected for aesthetics, no carpeting in the hallways, access panels kept as strictly utilitarian as possible. Everything here was about hosting the masses of soldiers and equipment needed to attack and hold entire solar systems. It reminded her horribly of the few times she’d boarded Jem’Hadar ships, though these were much, much bigger.
The personnel aboard were all solidly dyed-in-the-wool military, in a way that made Starfleet look like a dowdy collection of academics playing soldiers. The chain of command was more inflexible than even the most hardassed Starfleet captain would have imposed, and Chester found herself very glad of the nebulous position she occupied; the culture and military courtesy were at first as utterly alien to her as any alien civilization she’d been a First Contact lead on. Her in-between status saved her from putting her foot into something, multiple times. While a Starfleet captain made the ultimate decision, that decision-making process was often the culmination of intense debate━after all, why did Starfleet select the brightest minds in the Quadrant if they weren’t going to use them?━debate that would never have been tolerated on this vessel.
Well. Sometimes discussions involving Master Plo, and not involving the non-clone officers, edged tentatively toward debate. For all that they called him General, it seemed he wasn’t; not really. Chester wasn’t sure whether that was a relief or more of a concern.
Half the personnel seemed to have lumped her in with the Jedi; the other half viewed her as an obnoxious civilian they were babysitting. Most of the non-clone personnel (‘natborns’, she heard the clones calling them) had categorized her as the latter. She didn’t miss the raised eyebrows when Plo insisted on referring to her as ‘Commander’, or the profound condescension in the voice of the lieutenant guiding her around on her first very brief tour of the bridge. He insisted on explaining things to her as if she were very stupid or very young, and the only reason she didn’t ditch him on the spot was that their technology was so completely divergent from the standard in her galaxy that the simplicity of the explanations was somewhat helpful.
Refreshingly, however, it seemed that Plo’s commander, Wolffe, thought she was a spy. She could have hugged the man for it, except he probably would have shot her. So she confined herself to asking questions and driving him up the wall. Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest approach to one of the very few people inclined to take her seriously, but the very fact he was taking her seriously was such an incredible relief.
“So these torpedoes are sublight weapons?” she asked, as they watched a few of the ensign-equivalents━called shinies, apparently━on punishment duty inventory the weapons. She could practically hear his teeth grind.
“I don’t have to answer that,” he said, after a very deliberate intake of breath.
“Of course not,” she said. Then she waited as he turned the implications of her question over in his mind and looked sharply up at her, his frown deepening. His artificial eye lent a particular ferocity to the expression, but she’d never seen him do anything but frown when she was in eyeshot, and particularly not when she was within reach of Plo━the man was profoundly protective of the Jedi Master. She wondered why━it didn’t seem to fit the military mold.
“Would you expect them to be something else, Commander?” he asked, and she could practically hear the quotation marks clank into place around her title.
“I suppose not,” she said blandly.
He was still giving her the hairy eyeball. “I suppose your Federation in the Unknown Regions has better torpedo technology than we do,” he said. “Just as they do for medical?”
Chester, very carefully, suppressed a shudder. CMO Jelly was doing his best with what he had, but what he had, in her opinion, wasn’t much above the horrors of 20th century Earth medicine. Needles, for fuck’s sake, and a lot of the approach to injuries seemed to be to slap a bandage on it━literally! She’d also seen and learned about the bacta tanks and most sincerely hoped she’d never experience one for herself.
At least they sort of worked.
With limitations.
She really didn’t want to get seriously injured here, and even less did she want to see what a real pitched battle was going to do to the people around her━and she, with her basic Starfleet emergency medical training and whatever Jelly was succeeding in beating into her head, was going to be one of the frontline personnel dealing with it.
“Heard Republic Intelligence was interested in talking to you,” Wolffe said into her telling silence.
“Oh, very,” she said. “For all the wrong reasons, I’m afraid. I’ll be a terrible disappointment to them if they get me into an interrogation room.”
“Good that the General took an interest, then,” he said. “We wouldn’t want them wasting their time.” He didn’t look at her, but he did lean a little closer and lower his voice. “By the way, if anything happens to him, or to my men, because of whatever you’re plotting, Commander, you will wish Republic Intelligence had gotten to you first.”
She did turn to look at him then, not bothering to hide her grin. It wasn’t because she didn’t think he was serious, or because she didn’t think he was capable of carrying out the threat; it was that she was charmed. “I’m glad to hear you care about all of them so much, Commander,” she said. His face worked, very likely a desire to shoot her or brig her on the spot. She glanced back at the bay, and felt her own smile sag. “Someone needs to.”
She got the chance to witness some of their weaponry in action the next day, when they came out of what was called ‘hyperspace’━she wasn’t enough of a physicist to tell anything beyond that it was a very unusual sort of warp-equivalent, and perhaps not even an equivalent━at what the Navigation officers called a ‘junction system’, and stumbled across a small Separatist battle group lurking outside the rings of a rather spectacular gas giant.
Commander Wolffe personally escorted her to a tiny office space at the rear of the expansive bridge. “Sit tight and don’t bother coming out until we give the all-clear,” he instructed brusquely, and then locked her in.
She did not care for this at all. Fights in systems were hairy enough, because you weren’t just dodging the enemy or enemy torpedoes━there was all the other garbage floating around in a system, too. Moons seemed nice and stationary until you were zipping around them at warp, at which point they had an ugly tendency to sneak up on you.
So she sat, as instructed. There was an empty steel desk, and a rather dismal office chair. There were shelves, but these were empty. She poked idly through the unlocked desk drawers, which were also empty but for thick drifts of dust in the bottoms. Whatever kind of a ready-room this was supposed to be, it wasn’t one anyone found useful.
Just like her, right now.
There was a porthole-style window, which gave her a narrow view of the battle going on outside the ship. The Separatist ships glinted in the light of a bright young star. She’d thought the Republic ship was enormous, but the biggest of these was probably twice as long, roughly cigar-shaped and visibly armed; two much smaller blocky things flew close to the belly of the larger craft. They loosed a volley of short-burst lasers that fizzled out anticlimactically against the Triumphant’s shielding.
A cloud of… things appeared from around the bulk of that larger craft. They moved like a swarm of insects, streaming directly for the approaching Triumphant.
Chester glared at them, at the entire situation, and tried not to feel like there was another swarm of insects under her skin. She should be on the bridge right now, goddamnit, not stuffed away like a spare broom.
She forced a deep breath. Non-interference. Even if they weren’t determined to treat her like she was useless, she had no business in this battle in the first place; a Starfleet officer was not to lend aid in a foreign military conflict outside of very specific circumstances, none of which involved being kidnapped.
That did not make sitting there and realizing that was a swarm of attack fighters any easier. Especially with the memory of the way the other officers on the ship viewed her.
Shapes flashed past below the window. She craned her neck, looking down. The Triumphant disgorged a wing of its own starfighters━twenty, thirty tiny ships in red and white livery. They met the approaching craft with a volley of laser weaponry.
It was, she realized with slowly dawning astonishment, a dogfight. They were using small attack craft in a way reminiscent of Earth’s 20th century at massive scale, and she didn’t know if she was impressed or appalled. Yes, single-pilot attack craft had found a foothold in Federation and allied operations in recent years, taking a leaf from the Bajoran Resistance’s book, but not like this, not at this scale as the primary form of engagement between fleets. Starships themselves fought like this in close quarters━a Galaxy-class doing that kind of maneuvering was really something to see, especially with a similarly sized opponent━but no one scattered lives to the wind like this in such small, lightly armored craft, not if they had a choice about it. She hoped they had a good transporter lock on the pilots.
And then as one blew, she remembered that no, they didn’t have transporters here.
Why wouldn’t they cling to these old tactics? After all, they could always just make more people.
A second wing of starfighters zipped past, into the fray. There was a single other ship with them, delta-winged and even smaller, painted deep blue and silver in stylised rays of sun. What was this ship for, she wondered, and then a moment later the answer became clear: whoever was at the controls of this one was an absolute madman. She followed it through the carnage in the void, sickly fascinated, as it took out three enemy starfighters in a row and then led a whole skein of pursuers in a tightly-corkscrewing path away from the main swarm, whereupon the rearmost rank of Republic fighters picked them off one by one.
For all that the Republic’s lack of care for its men’s lives was horrifying, at least the Republic fighters appeared to have shields. The Separatist fighters did not. They blew all over the damn place.
She looked for the little blue fighter and found it, which was a pleasant surprise; she’d been half-certain the maniac would have gone splat by now. As she watched, it doubled back in a maneuver that had to have been breaking some law of physics and destroyed a pair of enemies that had been locked on to one of the Republic fighters. Good, she thought; at least someone out there cared.
There was a flicker of energy, shielding becoming momentarily visible around the Separatist ships. The Triumphant’s guns kept firing. Torpedoes streaked across the void and blew against the flickering-red barrier in a bloom of intense blue-white light. The field blurred, and the shielding flashed; Chester shielded her eyes. Then it vanished, and the next volley of lasers slammed solidly into the ship’s broadside.
She could hear the cheering on the bridge through the locked door.
The swarming starfighters collapsed into disarray all at once. The Republic’s forces moved in, picking them off score by score. In the background, the unprotected warship turned to flee. Its rear engines glowed bright, firing up, and then━it disappeared.
Leaving the fighters behind.
The Republic gave no quarter.
Chester watched the carnage with queasy, outraged horror, taking an unconscious step toward the porthole. When the door unlocked, she didn’t look at it. “So you kill surrendered troops, do you?”
The quality of the silence made her look over her shoulder at Commander Wolffe. Whatever expression she’d been expecting to see on his face, it was not gobsmacked confusion.
Under her inimical gaze, he said, “Commander… they’re droids.”
“As in automated systems,” she said. He nodded, and she felt herself deflate with a mixture of profound relief and equally profound embarrassment. She could feel the color coming up in her face. “Both sides?” Oh, that was much better━
“No,” he said, startled again, like it was obvious. “The Separatists use droids, Commander. We don’t.”
So much for that.
“Why not,” she asked flatly, tamping down on the horror. “The technological capacity clearly exists.”
Outside the porthole, the last few scattered droid fighters zipped past, heading down into the gravity well of the gas giant. The blue maniac and a handful of the Republic fighters broke off pursuit, wheeling back toward the Triumphant.
Commander Wolffe sighed. “But not the production capacity. Look━people die in war. That’s just what happens.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, Commander,” she said, it coming out sharper than she meant it to. She could still smell the burnt flesh, and that terrible, cut-off scream had jolted her out of sleep at least once in the last twenty-six hours. It was all still too raw to bear this poor bastard mistaking her compassion for inexperience.
Wolffe gave her an assessing look, but also did her the courtesy of pretending not to hear her outburst. “Our pilots are better than anything the Separatists have ever put in the field━the only reason they ever win these kinds of engagements is sheer numbers. Come on, Commander, I’ll take you down to meet the General.”
She reluctantly followed him out of the room. Now that he mentioned it, there had been a conspicuous lack of Jedi ever since the alarm had gone off. “May I ask where we are going?”
Wolffe gave her a third faintly-incredulous look. She was beginning to wonder what else she had missed.
“The starfighter hangars,” he said. “Where else?”
It turned out to have been Master Plo zipping around like a maniac in that little blue fighter. Chester found herself entirely reassessing her opinion of the Jedi.
Wolffe delivered her to her babysitter as promised. “Sir,” he said, not quite as gruffly as before, “you’re going to have to explain some things to this one. She thought the Seppies were flying manned craft.”
“Ah,” he said, peering down at them from the opened cockpit of that blue fighter. “My apologies, Commander–it must have slipped my mind. One minute, Wolffe, I have diagnostics to run. I may have overstressed an instrument or two out there.”
Wolffe sighed–and it seemed lighter somehow, less harried. “More repairs, then.”
“More repairs,” Plo said cheerfully. “They should not take long.”
Chester did some rapid mental arithmetic. Oh, she thought, an engineer at heart. She was familiar with the sort–plenty of those in the war back home. They either made the best helm officers or declared war on the maniacs abusing their ships. Plo was clearly the former. “So,” she said to both of them, “small fighters are your primary defense?”
Wolffe’s expression about her questions had gone from confusion to profound resignation. “Commander, I don’t know how they fight wars in your galaxy…”
“It’s uncommon outside of resistance movements,” she said. Computer targeting was just too accurate on most starships, and phaser banks had enough charge that picking off small ships wasn’t a waste of time. Not that she was going to actually say that out loud.
Wolffe gave her the hairy eyeball, the sort you gave the stupider variety of Admiral. Desk jockey. “No wonder it’s difficult to imagine you in one of them, sir,” he said, very bland.
Ouch. She just raised her eyebrows at him. “Yes, looking at those configurations, I think my knees would end up under my chin.”
Above them, Plo paused in whatever he was doing to look down at both of them, and it was amazing how reproving he could look behind that mask. She’d gotten the hint, and from his grudging expression, Wolffe had too. His jaw worked a moment.
“I understand your specialty is diplomacy,” he said, a grudging olive branch. Plo’s head vanished back inside the fighter, evidently pleased.
“After a manner.” A less disciplined man would have rolled his eyes; Wolffe’s face just set harder at another qualification. “My service is primarily a deep space exploration service. I came to command track through communications as a First Contact specialist, which is heavy on the diplomacy━but command requires a slightly more diverse skillset.”
“Such as strategy and tactics,” he said. Unspoken, so you ought to have more military awareness than a head louse, right?
There was a certain stillness from the cockpit above that indicated Plo was thinking of keeping the kids from fighting again.
“When the need arises,” she said, and then figuring the horse had left the barn on this one, “but it does seem our galaxies differ significantly in strategic schools of thought.”
For instance, it’s absolutely indefensible to create an army of sentient beings for war and war alone. The Jem’Hadar were a case in point, and somehow it was easier to deal with seven-foot tall reptilian supersoldiers who didn’t eat or drink or sleep, whose only sustenance was the drug used to keep them under control, than it was to deal with people who acted like people and groused about the rations and sang bawdy songs and tried to express their individuality while everyone around them tried very very hard to pretend they hadn’t been stripped of all their rights before their first breath, while everyone tried to act like they had a choice, that they weren’t here because they were, ultimately, disposable.
The thought made Chester want to set the entire galaxy on fire and run.
At least we learned our lesson about this in the Eugenics Wars, she thought. But as that ugly little debacle with Commander Data’s trial had shown, there was always someone out there looking for a way to make people disposable.
Wolffe was still watching her narrowly. Probably wondering what the hell her problem was, if he hadn’t already leapt ahead with his own diagnosis. It wasn’t like she could blame him for doing that, and it wasn’t like she could out and say, my problem with you is that you and all your brothers are being horrifically abused by the people you trust, basically enslaved to do the dirty work of war━and there’s none dirtier!━and have you considered massive armed rebellion? Prime Directive aside, either someone had made sure they wouldn’t be able to realize that, in which case he wouldn’t be able to process her objections, or they’d all realized it and coming in to tell them how oppressed they all were would be incredibly condescending. They had enough natborns telling them what to do and how to feel; her time was probably better spent listening, and perhaps shouting at Jedi to alleviate her feelings.
Krell was supposed to be one of the generals in this task force. She was very much looking forward to shouting at him.
Unless that would rebound on his men. Like all abusive situations. Which meant she had to confine her shouting to people who wouldn’t take it out on the disenfranchised soldiers under their control, which was basically useless. Wasn’t this how it always went, the abusers hiding behind the abused, using them as a shield━and her choices, such as they were, were to risk those people or stay silent and be complicit.
In light of that dilemma, Wolffe’s suspicion and distrust was such an incredible relief. On the one hand it was a welcome indication that someone here thought she was competent enough to be a threat, and on the other, it made her feel she didn’t have to be careful with him. So instead of any of the things she could have said about sending disposable people out in small craft to fucking die because no one had reevaluated military tactics, she said, “I rather prefer ours, I think.”
“Something to do with those faster than light torpedoes of yours?” he said.
“What faster than light torpedoes?” she asked. In retrospect, she’d probably have been better off not asking that question. “I only asked if yours were.”
“They’d be incredibly inaccurate,” he said. “Useless to anything less than a lightyear away. What do you do, sit in different solar systems and throw rocks at each other?”
“Commander Wolffe,” said Plo, quelling.
“Just following up on a previous conversation,” said Chester, and tilted Wolffe a look of see, here I am covering your ass. It got a genuine frown.
“Commander Chester.” Plo turned that quelling look on her. It was surprisingly effective. Chester quieted down faster than she had since the time she’d spilled Commander Janeway’s coffee, back on the Billings.
“Perhaps a more neutral topic of conversation?” suggested Plo. “The food in the canteen, perhaps?”
“That’s not food,” said Chester and Wolffe together, and then looked at each other, appalled. Plo chuckled and ducked out of sight again.
They came out of hyperspace at the edge of the Felucia system late the next evening, at least by Coruscant standard time. Instruments pinged off an extensive debris field stretching between the two nearest outer-system planets, the remnants of the long battle between Obi-Wan’s reinforcements and the occupying Separatists. There were no Separatist ships in-system; latest intel suggested they had withdrawn to the neighbouring Mossak system to lick their wounds.
The Triumphant skirted that debris field, skimming into Felucia on low sublights. Plo spoke to the men on surface comms as they came into orbit, and then went to find Chester.
He found her in the officers’ canteen, staring out the observation window. Felucia filled the viewport, a patchwork of yellow-green-grey continents and dirty-blue seas, swirls of white cloud high in the atmosphere.
“Much less urbanized than Coruscant,” Plo said, coming to a halt at the viewport beside her. “It is hot and very humid on the surface, even to relatively high latitudes. The heat is a product of the atmospheric composition–the sky is often yellow, for similar reasons. I’m told the air smells a little off, but it is perfectly breathable to human standards.”
“What is the atmospheric composition?” she asked, bemused. “I’m sure it won’t be the weirdest-smelling planet I’ve encountered.”
She said it like there was a lot of competition for the title. Given her stated background in exploration, Plo had no doubt this was true.
“The shorthand is Type-1━a nitrogen-oxygen primary mix, within the comfortable range for human and near-human habitation. There is an anomalous layer in the upper troposphere that causes the yellowish tinge, but it has little relevance for us.” He made a wry expression behind his mask. “The vast majority of species in the Republic evolved in Type-1 atmospheres, so it tends to be the expected default for air-breathers.”
She nodded; her presence shimmered, a little distracted.
Plo waited for a minute, giving her space to think. Then he said, quietly, “I hope you have come to a truce with Commander Wolffe?”
She blinked at him, so much like a chastised Padawan. “He was convinced you are a Separatist spy,” Plo added. “I suspect he is not so convinced, now, but heightening his anxiety on that count is neither kind nor particularly wise.”
“Understood,” she said, a little sheepish. “It’s just━he’s the only person on this ship, besides you, who takes me seriously. Even if it’s only as a threat.”
Plo regarded her. She’d taken the dismissiveness of the naval officers with perfect composure━if some very evident amusement━and settled into shipboard life, with her insistence on pulling Wolffe’s (metaphorical) tail being the only outward sign of anything amiss. He had initially supposed this to be the result of Wolffe’s ongoing suspicion, but a moment’s consideration of what it might be like, as a highly trained officer, to be dropped aboard a completely foreign ship and treated like a passenger at best, made her confession seem a great deal more likely.
He was going to have to find more ways to keep her busy.
Unfortunately, it was all too likely he’d have ample Separatist help in that. The GAR had retaken Felucia, but it had been a hard-won battle, and the droid armies remained in force in the surrounding systems, from which they had launched a number of blistering assaults. The 212th and 501st had held the planet so far, but their losses had been heavy. The 257th, and now the 104th, were to shore up their defenses.
Plo was not looking forward to seeing the 257th’s General again. Krell had been quietly placed under investigation, which had revealed a number of inconsistencies. Were it up to the Council, they would have placed him on leave while the investigation ran its course, but the GAR’s core command, all ex-Judiciary, had flatly refused to take a General out of the field without solid evidence of wrongdoing.
That bothered him a great deal. It bothered the whole Council━Krell was a Jedi, under their authority, their responsibility. The Republic military may have been content to overlook abusive behavior from their officers, but the Order was not. Yet, somehow, the authority to make that decision had been stolen out from under the Order’s collective nose. Had the Senate overreached a third time, after the drafting of the Order and then the extension of that draft to their padawans? Or was this simply an extension of that first overreach that had gone unnoticed until now, amid the busywork and stresses of the war?
Chester was quiet most of the way down to the planet, ignoring Wolffe’s baleful watchfulness, and the way he’d carefully interposed himself between the two of them. Wolffe, for his part, was not quite so insistent about Plo’s security as he had been.
They disembarked into bright sunshine and brilliant color, even on the landing field.
“Well,” said Chester, looking around, “that’s some novel flora. And brightly colored, too. How much of it is toxic?” She started down the ramp.
“Most of it,” grumbled Wolffe, letting her go ahead with only a dubious look. “Watch out for the carnivorous plants, too.”
“Ugh. I had to go into one after one of the ensigns tried to feed it a sandwich, and it ate him instead.” She shuddered. “There’s a texture.”
“You went into one?” exclaimed one of the captains. “D’you have a death wish?”
Chester exhaled a faint laugh. “I object to my junior officers getting themselves eaten without my permission.”
“Not while they’re on duty, at least,” murmured someone in the back, not quite quietly enough to go unheard. “Save that shit for leave.”
There was a little group of Jedi and clone commanders waiting on the edge of the landing field. They came out to greet them, Obi-Wan and Anakin in the lead, Ahsoka confidently striding along in Anakin’s footsteps.
Trailing significantly behind was Pong Krell, who upon catching sight of Chester went through a complex series of expressions beginning with confusion and ending on deep suspicion. He opened his mouth, cutting off Kenobi’s friendly greeting. “Master, why did you bring this… criminal?”
“Because I’m such good company,” deadpanned Chester. “A pleasure to meet you in person, Master Kenobi. Perhaps we can continue our argument.”
Obi-Wan visibly smoothed out his expression. “Perhaps we can, once the task at hand is dealt with. Master Krell, do remember your manners.”
Plo stepped in to handle the introductions. “Everyone, this is Commander Diane Chester of Starfleet. She is joining us here out of necessity; the rank is courtesy, and not applicable to the GAR chain of command. Commander, you have met General Kenobi; here is Marshal Commander Cody, of the 212th, and General Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex of the 501st. You are of course familiar with General Krell; and I see Commander Dulcet is not currently present.”
Not, in itself, an indication of foul play–someone had to handle the rest of the base while the top brass greeted the newcomers–but enough to make Plo wonder, nevertheless.
Chester handled the introductions with perfect cheer, ignoring Krell’s visible hostility. Possibly because she knew that would anger him more—there was a ghost of vindictiveness in her easy manner when she happened to catch his eye. Plo wondered if he ought to caution her discreetly, but decided against it. A little harmless pettiness was a small price to pay for willing cooperation.
Anakin folded his arms and frowned down at Chester. “Obi-Wan told me about you and your views on the war, Commander.”
She quirked an eyebrow up at him. She wasn’t that much shorter.
“It should never have become a war,” she said. “From what I can tell, it’s a political food fight that was allowed to get too big because both sides created armies they didn’t care about. And the fact that most of the fighting is going on on planets people don’t give much of a damn about doesn’t help, either.” She raised a hand to forestall comment. “If anyone complains about me coming in and passing judgment, I will just remind you that I was dragged in against my will.”
Anakin’s frown twisted deeper. “Most of the people here got dragged in against their will as well.”
“Yes. But unlike most of the civilians caught up in this mess, people seem to be inclined to listen to me enough to get angry when I point out what a goddamn waste all of this is, so I’ll keep pointing it out.”
Plo traded a glance with Obi-Wan. Past their shoulders, Commander Cody and Captain Rex were doing much the same with Wolffe. In other words, she was going to keep doing it as long as it got a rise out of people.
An understandable impulse, he thought, if not particularly constructive. Were he not a High Councillor with the safety of the entire Jedi Order resting jointly on his shoulders, he may have given in to the temptation as well.
“Shall we get settled in?” he said aloud, pre-empting Anakin’s impassioned rejoinder. “I believe there is a debriefing due on both our accounts.”
Obi-Wan sighed. “Indeed. Master Plo, Commander Wolffe, the temporary command tent is this way. Anakin, would you and Ahsoka show Commander Chester to her accommodations.” To Chester, he added, “You’ll have a tent to yourself, adjoined to Master Plo’s. There is a guard post just outside if you find yourself in need of assistance.”
Ah━they’d heard of at least some of her escape attempts. Her molded-steel presence glowed a little brighter, wry. She knew it too, then.
Plo gave her a nod. He replied to Ahsoka’s cheery “Kohtooyah, Master Plo!” with a warm greeting of his own in keldeorinyaa, pleased to see her accent was improving, and then allowed himself to be drawn off to the command tent. The war awaited.