Chapter Text
There was a certain air to the inside of the skimmer as they limped home, Chester’s luggage on the floor around their feet and Anakin and Padmé sitting in silence while Anakin drove. Plo had preceded them, doubtless to brief the Council on new developments. Chester was feeling the edges of a pounding headache creeping in around the edges of her awareness, like the wine was already delivering a hangover. The hell was in that, she’d like to know—she wasn’t usually this much of a lightweight.
She felt like a kid called on the carpet for bad behavior, or good behavior people wanted to call bad, like picking up a school bully and dropping him in a waste receptacle. That one, she could confirm from painful personal experience.
“Commander,” said Anakin, “what in the Sith hells inspired you to goad him ?”
“Well, he wouldn’t let me alone,” she said. “So I decided to encourage him a bit, just in case.”
“Just in case what? ”
“Just in case this ,” she said, and looked at Padmé for help.
“Well,” said Padmé, diplomatic, and then ran out of diplomatic and said flatly, “he had it coming.”
Anakin rolled his eyes. “I know he had it coming. I know. But now we have to deal with the ‘it’ that he had coming! Tarkin’s faction are in an uproar, the pro-war senators are throwing a fit, and even the Chancellor is livid, if only because he’s the one that has to play peacemaker about it! And guess who they’re livid at! It’s the Jedi, Padmé. They’re angry with us. And we don’t need this.”
“Yeah, and I’m not apologizing,” said Chester. “How many other people do you think that man’s taken advantage of because he’s rich and powerful? He wanted my attention and cooperation and very likely more, and by the end there he made it pretty damn clear he would threaten me into getting what he wanted. I’m a loose cannon, Skywalker. If you have to blame anyone, you can blame me. It’s hardly as if I haven’t made a reputation for myself.”
The inside of the shuttle lapsed into silence again.
“It was nice to see Crace get what he deserved,” said Padmé, a little wistfully.
“His friends are going to want revenge,” said Anakin, glowering. “His friends include Tarkin.”
“He’s a traitor,” said Padmé, with the satisfaction of someone who’s been called the same name far too many times. “They’re going to drop him like a sack of refuse.”
“And go looking for revenge,” Anakin repeated. “And Chester here is going to be a really easy target. You don’t have the power or friends you need to go around making enemies like that, Commander.”
“As if I haven’t heard that before,” said Chester dryly. “People in this galaxy have a real problem being told no.”
“Anakin, that’s enough,” said Padmé firmly. “Crace backed her into a corner and she dealt with him.”
“You are not a good judge of that,” Anakin informed her. “ You make enemies just as much as she does.”
“And I’ve heard plenty about it from you.”
Chester looked deliberately out of the speeder, fixing her eyes on a point on the horizon and willing the growing hangover-induced motion sickness down. Her head had started to ache. What the hell, she hadn’t even drunk that much. Between her spinning, aching head and the uneasy lurch in her stomach—maybe everything there had been compatible with the physiology of the humans in this galaxy, but perhaps not in hers —she wasn’t thinking clearly.
The question came out before she thought better of it. “So, how long have you two been together?”
Anakin almost drove into a skyscraper.
“I am so sorry,” said Chester about ten minutes later, and meant it, but it probably wasn’t going to do enough to stop Anakin’s red-faced blustering about how wrong she was—what an awful liar he was—or Padmé’s silent mortification. “My mind was elsewhere, I forgot it was a taboo, I am very sorry I intruded on your privacy.” Oh god, they were a couple, forbidden romance and all, and oh god did she not want to be involved in this, what an absolute shitshow this had the potential to be.
Like this galaxy had the ability to serve up anything different!
Padmé visibly recovered herself and gave Chester a long, measuring look. Then she glanced at Anakin.
“Yes,” she said, testing the waters, “we have been together for a while now. May we count on your discretion in this matter?”
Anakin’s protestations cut off abruptly. The flush drained from his face, which went pale, and he looked at Padmé and anxiously set his shoulders square.
Chester nodded, resigned. “I see no reason to bring it up to anyone. Your personal lives are your own business and no-one else’s. Regardless of what local regulations might say, regulating personal relationships has never worked out for anyone.” That they were a Senator and a high-ranking military officer messed with the usual standard somewhat; they were a lucky paparazzo away from a gigantic scandal over the perception of conflicting interests, whether or not there was one in practice. But, again, the fewer political messes Chester got herself into, the safer.
The irony of that thought was not lost on her.
Both starcrossed lovers gave her looks that were relieved but still wary. “Thank you,” said Padmé, and wow did she mean it; the relief in her presence was contagious. Anakin was still on edge, an uncomfortable sharpness to her sense of him, and a look in his eyes that made her suspect he still felt cornered, for all her assurances.
She didn’t like that; a cornered Anakin was certain to be very dangerous.
“I know you mean it,” he said at last, grudgingly. “So thanks. I guess.”
“Well,” said Padmé, with a false kind of brightness. “We should be getting home.”
The three of them looked around the rooftop Anakin had hastily parked them on. It lacked many charms.
“Yes,” said Chester. “Let’s get home.”
Somehow, she suspected this wasn’t going to be the end of it.
Wolffe had developed a policy, on Felucia, of having his troopers update him on Chester’s comings and goings. This had proven fortuitous on several occasions, given her talent for disaster. She badly needed keeping an eye on.
He wondered, in a way that was becoming solid habit, how Plo managed to pick up such difficult strays. Plo had gone for some strange and unpleasant ones before, of course, many nonsentient creatures that bit everyone or crapped everywhere. None of them had ever caused a major political crisis, however.
Fox had given him a ragingly enthusiastic account of the incident, peppered with what Wolffe felt was concerningly hyperbolic praise of the 104th’s resident pain in the shebs. He’d started wondering if his brother had finally cracked under the strain of handling Senators all day. Which, he could admit, might make someone a little more amenable to Chester’s variety of banthakark insanity.
He badly needed the rest of the story—preferably from someone who wasn’t going to break off into delighted cackling every few sentences—but like hell was Chester going to sit down and talk about it. That was the kind of relationship she had with Plo, and they were welcome to it. No, he was going to try another tack, and hope he wasn’t as damn stupid as Skywalker had been. He didn’t want his brain punted through a wall, thanks.
Really, really disturbing she could do that these days. There were a very few people Wolffe would less rather have able to do that, all of which were on the other side.
Sparring, barehanded, no Force shit. Probably would be fine. Wolffe weighed up the evidence in favour and against. He’d be shocked if she wasn’t at least competent, the way she’d held her own against multiple clones and a Jedi Padawan with the staff, but it wasn’t like she was the one whose genome had been meticulously crafted for battle. That should be a way to get her to talk about what was on her mind, when she was in motion, not guarding every syllable that came out of her mouth.
He made his way up from the clone barracks in the Temple—small, on a level apparently abandoned for a couple centuries before the war—to the guest quarters she’d been given. Same corridor as Plo’s, presumably to keep her from getting up to things. He pressed the chime on the door.
“Enter,” Chester said. The door slid open.
She was on the couch with shoes off and feet up, reading. There was a massive stack of flimsi and datapads next to her—like she was trying to learn the whole Republic in one sitting. She looked up with an eyebrow raised.
“So Fox won’t stop talking about you,” Wolffe said, and stepped in over the threshold. The door slid closed behind him.
“Fox arrested the overconfident shit who’d cornered me just dying to talk about all his money,” she said. The corners of her mouth twisted into a satisfied, slightly smug smile. “I’m feeling pretty pleased about him, too. Is that why you’re here?”
Wolffe cut straight to the chase. “I want the whole story. Fox won’t give it to me, because he’s too busy either doing his job or gloating. But us and sitting down and talking?” He made a face. “We’ll end up at each other’s throats, as usual. So. Sparring? Bet you’ve been slouching on your hand to hand, Commander.”
Bewildered was a new look on her, and a pretty funny one too. “You’re thinking we’ll get along better when we’re trying to beat the shit out of each other?”
“Well, we can’t get along worse ,” he pointed out.
She blinked a few times, and then the corner of her mouth turned up in a knowing smile. “Commander, are you trying to make friends?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. Perish the thought.
“All right. I had to check.” She put her reading down and swung her feet to the floor. “One moment.”
She came out again in exercise kit, or a version of it. She’d foregone the Jedi-style robes in favour of something a lot more like one of Wolffe’s brothers would wear—sleeveless top, leggings. Wolffe sized her up. Her height and long limbs gave her a lot of reach, and there was some solid muscle across her shoulders. She moved like a predator, confident and powerful, which was interesting contrasted against all the pacifist garbage she spouted.
He’d wondered sometimes if she’d been a glorified desk jockey, with her idealism and holier-than-thou attitude—it was hard to imagine her in a trench, covered in shit—but that didn’t seem likely right now. Sure, she ought to have a lot more scars, but he’d heard from Plo about the types of medical tech she was supposed to have in her galaxy. He guessed he was willing to believe it. Someone who was willing to take the sort of risks she seemed prone to should have ended up with some dramatic injury to show for it by now.
“All right,” Chester said, tugging on her shoes. “Let’s go.”
“No Force shit,” Wolffe said as they stepped into the first empty training room. He unclipped his own armor and put it aside, stripping down to his blacks. “No weapons.”
“Fair enough,” Chester said. “No throats or eyes, for that matter. Two blows to tap out.” She demonstrated against her leg.
He nodded. That was standard. Given that she was from another galaxy, it was better that she was checking.
They limbered up, Wolffe watching Chester out of the corner of his eye. Unsurprisingly, she knew what she was doing. He shook his head a little. Sometimes, he wished she didn’t. She’d be so much less aggravating if she were genuinely an innocent who simply didn’t know better. But no, she was competent and also an idiotic idealist. How did that even work?
However it did, it was incredibly annoying. Wolffe sighed, and went out onto the mat. “Ready when you are, Commander,” he said.
She grinned. “Bring it,” she said, and moved quickly into range.
He’d expected her to wait and watch, like most Jedi did with a new opponent, but she moved immediately, a vicious fast kick aimed at the side of his abdomen. He stepped aside, moving to catch her leg and dump her on her ass, but she pivoted away too quickly, blocking his following punch and maintaining her distance, where her longer limbs would keep him at a disadvantage.
He evaluated her as they went, as he would with any new recruit. She fought smart and fast, with good strength for a natborn, but also by the book. She’d learned whatever hand to hand had been taught in her service, achieved technical competency, but evidently didn’t like it as well as she did her sword and staff. There was none of the creativity or the glee she brought to her sparring matches with Plo. And while she was competent at this, and clearly took it seriously…
That lack of creativity was going to be her undoing, especially against someone who’d been made for battle, as Wolffe and his brothers had.
Didn’t mean it was going to be easy. Didn’t mean it was going to be fast. Wolffe was used to sparring with Plo, who was about Chester’s height, but while Plo was fast and wiry, Chester had solid muscle behind her height and hit like a shuttle. She dropped him on his face twice and got him to tap out while he was still figuring out her technique, but after that he realized she was predictable, without the ‘vocabulary’ she had with staff or sword. Technically competent, he thought again, but without the edge of experience, practice, and passion that had given her the ability to keep up with Jedi and outmatch clones in other arts. And whatever else she was, she wasn’t made for war like the clones, she didn’t have the training of a Jedi; in any martial skill she wasn’t wildly brilliant at, she was at a disadvantage.
And wildly brilliant, Wolffe would be the first to admit, was a high fucking bar.
He waited a bit to start talking, enjoying the sheer physicality of trading hard blows and the satisfaction of hard exercise well done, watching her get her usual anger out in the process, swapping falls back and forth. Even after he’d gotten used to the way she fought, could see her next move, sometimes she’d do it just well enough she’d still get him. She hit well, too—heavy enough to be serious, controlled enough not to seriously injure.
“So,” he said, the third time he put her down and sat on her while she fumed and tried to get back up, too stubborn to tap out just yet, “the kark were you thinking with the Senate? Goal was to keep it quiet and convivial.”
The growl he got in response was lengthy and somehow articulated quite clearly that, whatever the advantage he currently possessed, it would be wise not to count on it too much. Then she shifted her weight in such a way he almost went flying and had to do some quick adjustments to stay where he was. “Nice try,” he said, by way of encouragement.
“Fine!” she snapped. “Asshole wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. He was top of Padme’s shit list, and he was pissing me off even more because I’d just had to listen to Palpatine wibble over how sad it was he couldn’t get off his expensively upholstered ass to do something helpful . Figured I’d make an example of doing something inconveniently helpful!”
“Do you mean,” said Wolffe, very carefully, like he was diffusing a bomb—not because of anything he was sure she might do, but because he really didn’t like the implications of what she might have already done, “that you got a sitting senator arrested to stick it to the fucking Chancellor?” Pause as she subsided, very clearly thought about just giving up, and then got the just one more attempt glint in her eye, which she’d had about three times by now; Wolffe would admit, she did not give up easy. The second horrible thought occurred hot on the heels of the first. “Commander. Does the Chancellor know this was about sticking it to him?”
There was a sullen silence from around floor level. “Is this how you treat all your friends,” she said at last. “Sit on them and interrogate them?”
“It works wonders on Rex,” said Wolffe, smug.
She sighed heavily and finally tapped out. Wolffe graciously got up and sat on the mat instead as she rolled free and glared at him. “I might have made pointed eye contact.”
“Eesh.” Wolffe contemplated that. Sought, rather fruitlessly, for a saving grace to the situation, came up with something right off the bottom of the barrel. “Well, at least he’s not a Jedi.” At least he’d only gotten some of her intention instead of…whatever she’d probably been projecting into the Force, which had probably been more offensive than just words.
“I wish he were,” she growled. “He might be the innocent old man he plays,” her tone left a certain amount of doubt behind that, “but he took on quite a lot of power to prosecute this war, and he doesn’t seem much interested in leveraging it in any way that’s not just an exercise in appeasement. Playing nice wasn’t going to be any kindness to him; when this goes pear-shaped, his head is going to be the first on the block—and I am being very literal about that.”
Wolffe stared at her dubiously. “You think we’re in danger of a coup? We’re not the Separatists, and we’re not some backwater little world.”
“Yeah, but how many people here actually believe the government’s looking out for their interests? How many actually believe in your democracy? Hell, look at you ; the people fighting for it don’t even get a say. A stable free society costs , and I’m not just talking about wars, I’m talking about the everyday, the showing up to vote, to volunteer, to build coalitions when you see something that’s wrong and needs fixing, even if some of the other people in that coalition are people you’d rather not talk to, let alone work with–and when most of the population decides things are too broken and stops paying that cost–that’s when people start hoping for a revolution. And there is nothing more efficient than that for destroying the last vestiges of a democracy, because scum has a way of floating to the top.”
“You must be a lot of fun at parties,” said Wolffe, not keeping the disapproval out of his voice. He would be the first to admit he didn’t think much of the Republic. But prophesying its downfall was too much.
“Well I am,” she said. “Weren’t you paying attention to Fox?” She rolled to her feet and offered him a hand up.
He was more than willing to pick up where they’d left off, with that nasty series of observations rattling around in his head. The next time he got in close enough as she reached up two-handed to club him in the shoulder, he got her around the waist and flipped her over his hip. She hit hard, bounced back up with a roll, and came in with a nasty blow to the back of his knee that brought him down. Joke was on her, though—his center of gravity lowered meant she was easier to send flying a second time.
That exchange left them both on the mats, panting. Wolffe had won again, of course, but Chester really wasn’t bad, and he said as much. “Though you don’t like it and you’re bored with it,” he added. “Why I keep kicking your shebs. Stop being so lazy.”
“Lazy!” she said, her voice comically indignant.
“You don’t like this as much as you do messing around with swords,” he said to the ceiling, in the same tone he would while lecturing a shiny. “Fine. It probably cuts it over there in your galaxy, Commander, but over here…” He paused, thinking about it; she so often fought with the technology at hand, or her own wit and charm, like she already knew this. “You’ve got some of the Jedi…” He wiggled tired fingers vaguely. “Little of their training or their discipline, though, you’re outmatched in a simple fight with all of them, even the apprentices. And as for us clones, you’ve been managing on sheer skill when you’re armed, you do have decades of training on us, but when you slouch like you have with your hand to hand, you’re toast.” He chuckled a little. “Natborns always forget, we’re genetically modified. We’re stronger, faster, and we can keep fighting for much longer. So when you don’t have the edge in skill—when you don’t get creative like you do with a weapon in your hands—we can wipe the floor with you.”
She groaned. “Thanks for the reminder.” A pause. Then, by way of explanation, “Non-therapeutic genetic enhancement is illegal in the Federation. Stupid bastard scientists a few hundred years ago tried to make superhumans to keep the rest of us in line. It ended badly.”
“Thermonuclear badly?” Wolffe guessed from her tone. Not hard to put together from her previous comments, either.
“Thermonuclear badly,” she confirmed.
“Nice to know that all of us would be illegal in your enlightened Federation,” he said, not bothering to keep the acidity out of his voice. “And here you are twitting us about our lack of citizenship in the Republic.”
“Laws can be changed,” she said firmly. “And I think that would sum up why I believe in my Federation, and not in your Republic.”
It’s not my Republic, Wolffe thought, reflexive, and then felt badly about thinking it, and angry that he’d thought it, because it proved her point. “I’ll believe that when I see it, Commander,” he said, “and not a moment sooner.”