Chapter Text
21 BBY, day 374 of the War, 2139
Coruscant Guard Command Chat
2139
Thorn: Fox where are you
Fox: Senate Building
Fox: why are you asking that
Thorn: you’re supposed to be back why are you not back yet
Thorn: also don’t you have another Senate shift tomorrow?? But also that whole stack of datapads that’s on your desk?? So what the kriff is the plan?
Thorn: don’t pretend you don’t have that shift because I saw it
2216
Thorn: Fox I’m serious what are you doing
Fox: I’m busy
Fox: if you have questions ask them later
Thorn: so help me Fox
Thorn: kriffit what are you doing
Thorn: you’re going to kill yourself
Stone: Fox, it’d be better if you just went back to base as soon as possible
Stone: I’m sure the lieutenants on duty can handle it.
Stone: do you need someone to pick you up though?
Fox: I’m fine
Fox: I’ll be back later
Thorn: if “back later” means you’ll be back two hours before you next shift then that’s not enough
Fox: kriff off Thorn
Fox: if you must know it shouldn’t be more than an hour
2341
Thorn: DO WE DEFINE AN HOUR THE SAME WAY??
Thorn: it’s been nearly an hour and a half Fox
Thorn: what the kriff
Fox: ten minutes Thorn
Fox: I’m going to head back
Fox: would you lay the kriff off me until then
Thorn: we have to talk when you get here then
***
The couch in Fox’s office has been there since he arrived on Coruscant. It’s a dusty dark red, faded and worn thin in places from years of use. Fox never complained about the state of the couch. It made his office seem a bit nicer, back when he cared about that kind of thing. It’s seating, sure. It’s also a place to crash on the nights when he doesn’t want to walk into the commanders’ bunkroom and face Thorn, or Stone when he’s there.
Especially not on nights like this, when they’ll be able to see at a glance that Fox can barely walk
He winds up facedown on the couch, arms splayed out, groaning as he tries to straighten his legs out fully. Not happening. He’s twisted something. Well, he hopes it was a twist, but it’s perfectly likely that it’s a break instead. And kriffit, he’s been standing on whatever it is all day. His right leg finally seized up completely halfway down the hall to his office, and he resorted to nearly crawling through the door.
Stars, it hurts. Now that he’s lying down—still in full armor, osik—he’s aware of just how acutely all of him aches.
“Gah,” he mumbles into the cushion, slowly rotating his shoulders in an attempt to loosen the tension. He gives up halfway through and just lies there, arms spread and left leg hanging off the couch, breathing in the must scent of the old fabric. And the sweat that’s soaked into the cushions over the years. And the paint scent that gets into everything. It kind of stinks, but he also kind of doesn’t care.
The comm on his gauntlet buzzes.
He lifts it enough to see who’s trying to comm him. Kriffit, Thorn already? He can’t give Fox at least a bit of a break?
But Thorn did say that he had something to tell Fox, so it’s probably at least semi-important. Gabe doesn’t care enough at this point to worry about what it is until after he answers the call.
He thumbs the button to answer it and says as neutrally as he can, “Fox speaking.”
“Fox, are you back yet?” Thorn sounds annoyed. Fox doesn’t know why, unless it’s some of the general annoyance that’s been hanging around Thorn more and more often in the last year.
“Yeah, I’m back,” Fox says.
“Where are you then? It’s nearly 0000. You’re on shift at 0600, so what’s happening?”
“I’m sleeping in my office tonight.”
There’s silence on the other end of the comm. It stretches on for at least a minute. Fox nearly falls asleep—stars, he doesn’t remember the last time he slept for more than five hours at a time. But before he can properly drift off, Thorn’s voice comes through the comm again.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Okay.” Fox stifles another groan as he shifts his screaming right leg. “Check my comm location if you don’t believe me, Thorn. I’m here. In my office.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Just tired.”
“I don’t believe you.”
And with good reason, Fox figures wearily. He doesn’t exactly have a great record with the nights that he spends in his office. Usually if he stays here, it’s because there’s something going on. Or it’s because Fox is trying to work through the endless reports that never seem to even allow a dent to be made in them. In hindsight, he should probably have made an effort to sleep in here on a normal night, before the night when he actually can’t walk.
“It’s fine, Thorn,” Fox says. “Go to sleep.”
“I’m on shift, di’kut. And I’m coming over there.”
“Don’t.”
“Is that an order? No? Good, because I’m coming anyway. I know you’re kriffed up somehow, and if that means you can’t get away from me for once, I’m taking that chance, thanks.” Thorn sounds seriously annoyed. “Give me two minutes and I’ll be there.” The call cuts, leaving the office quiet and still again.
Fox groans into the cushions of the couch again. He lets himself close his eyes again. Thorn will be here in two minutes or whatever. He’ll want to know what happened.
And kriff, Fox will have to tell him that he made a mistake. There’s no other explanation at this point. The part of the mistake that he won’t mention is the part about the reason that he kriffed up his ankle. Because he tripped—he, Fox, the marshal commander of the Coruscant Guard, tripped—because he was fifty-one hours into an awake cycle. That part is the part that he won’t tell Thorn, because it’s not relevant. Thorn currently believes that Fox slept the last two nights—he hopes. In reality, Fox was staying up and working on some of those reports that Thorn was going on about. They’re never done, kriff it all.
The next thing he knows, Thorn is crouching beside him, fairly glaring at him. “Seriously, Fox?”
“Seriously what?” Fox slurs out, very aware that he’s just been asleep. For all of what, thirty seconds? Kriff, he meant to stay awake. Two minutes shouldn’t have been so hard.
“You know what Pol is going to say when he sees you like this,” Thorn says.
“Kriff that. Pol doesn’t need to know.” Fox turns his face back into the couch cushions and continues, muffled. “I’m fine. I’m completely fine. Get out of here, Thorn, before I have to order you to.”
“Like kriff you’re fine.”
Fox can’t really come up with an answer to that. Not with his exhausted brain. Stars, he’s tired. If Thorn would just go away, then he could start sleeping right now and not have to think about anything. At least, not for the next five hours, until he has to get up and shower off his accumulated sweat so that he can put on a semi-clean set of blacks, grab an excuse for breakfast, and get back on duty. Stars. Stars.
Thorn is probably rolling his eyes, but Fox can’t see. He can just see the couch underneath him. There’s a stain next to his face. He’s pretty sure it’s from the time he spilled caf here.
After a long minute, Thorn asks a little more gently, “What happened.”
Fox doesn’t care. He doesn’t kriffing care anymore.
“I tripped,” he said. “Kriffing tripped on a step in the back halls of the Senate building this morning. Wait, it’s 0001. Yesterday morning. Whatever. Twisted my ankle. It’s fine, though—it didn’t stop me from doing anything today.”
Thorn blows out a breath that says more than a lot of words. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t want Pol in here,” Fox says firmly, picking up his head a little. “He’s going to try to tell me some osik about not going to my shift tomorrow. I mean, today. But there’s no one that can cover for me, so I have to go. You have the prison shifts and the patrol shifts, and Stone has to leave with some senator again.”
“Then switch with Stone for once,” Thorn says. “You could get off the planet for once.”
Fox shakes his head. He hasn’t been off the planet since that one time he had to go to Tatooine early in the war. “Kriff, Thorn, you know I can’t do that. I have responsibilities here. And Stone is going with Senator Organa, right? That’s the first decent assignment he’s gotten in a month. I’m not going to take that away from him.”
Thorn is silent. That’s fair. This is the first time in a while that Fox has spoken this freely. He should probably care more about what he’s saying. But he can’t. He’s too tired.
“He’ll switch with you in a heartbeat,” Thorn says finally.
“That’s why I’m not saying anything to him. Is he sleeping right now?”
“Kriff no. What do you think, Fox? He’s worrying about what’s going on with you.”
“Stone doesn’t worry about things like that.” Things like Fox’s problems. Stone has enough of his own problems.
“Yeah… just like you don’t get hurt.” Thorn looks pointedly at Fox’s ankle that he’s propped up on the arm of the couch.
“Thorn, would you just kriff off?”
“Kriff no. Either I stay here and make sure you’re not dying, or I call Pol, and I think we both know which one you want. So kriffing choose, you di’kut.”
“Shut up, Thorn.”
“No. Sit up.”
Fox groans, but he does as Thorn says. Kriffing stars, it hurts. He has to clutch the couch cushions and blink hard to keep his eyes from watering. He abandoned his helmet before he made it to the couch, so he doesn’t have that to protect him from Thorn’s scrutiny.
Thorn rolls his eyes pointedly. Wolffe would be proud.
“You look like osik,” Thorn says.
“Thanks loads.”
“When did you sleep last?”
Fox crosses his arms.
“I know you didn’t sleep last night. Was it the night before that?”
Fox tilts his head back and looks at the ceiling.
“What the kriff, Fox?”
“Sixty-seven hours,” Fox says.
“You did not.”
“You asked.”
“Kriff you, Fox. Kriff you.”
“To be perfectly honest, Thorn,” Fox says tonelessly, “I don’t care. So just do whatever you want to do, and then let me kriffing sleep before I have to go back on shift.”
Still muttering curses, Thorn crouches down and drags Fox’s boot off. He’s not gentle about it. Fox bites his tongue and tastes metal.
“That hurts?” Thorn asks.
Fox shrugs. “Yeah. Not too badly.” The lie rolls out so easily, just like all the other lies he’s told people today, and all the days before this one. He’s barely talked to people today though. Told to himself? Stars, he doesn’t remember.
“Like it’s broken?” Thorn asks.
Fox shakes his head. He knows how broken bones feel, and this isn’t it. “No. Just twisted.”
“How many hours since you twisted it in the first place?”
Fox has to pause and do the math. “Fifteen or sixteen. Somewhere in there.”
“You’re a kriffing idiot. You know that, right?”
“I’m a marshal commander. I can deal with my own problems.”
“Clearly.” Thorn snorts and glares at Fox. “Like I believe that.”
“I don’t care what you believe about that.”
“I brought painkillers,” Thorn says.
“Where’d you get them? I thought we were nearly out.”
“Yeah, so did I, but then I walked into the medbay to try and convince Pol to give me something for your inevitable return like this, and he had plenty. Go kriffing figure. Maybe he got the suppliers to finally get their act together. I’m not too worried about that, though, because at least you’re going to get to sleep tonight without your own stupidity bothering you too much.” Thorn holds out two tablets. “Take these, or I’m calling Pol.”
Fox rolls his eyes and dry swallows them. “I’ll ask Pol about that.”
“I can ask him.”
“You’ve got the prisons—”
“And you’ve got the Senate, and I’m on shift, so I’ll be asking Pol.”
“Fine.” Fox sits back and leans his head against the back of the couch again. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore Thorn, but it doesn’t work that well. Kriffing stars, it’s been far too many hours since he slept last. In a matter of seconds, Fox’s thoughts become too thick to even move anymore, and he’s barely aware of whatever Thorn is doing, moving around the room.
“Are you asleep yet?” Thorn asks.
“I might be able to if you’d kriffing leave already,” Fox mutters. He’d like to have a bit more bite in his voice, but he’s too tired for that, too.
“All right,” Thorn says. “Well, you’d better actually sleep. I’m going to come and check on you in an hour. If you’re not sleeping then, I’m calling Pol.”
“Okay. Whatever.” Fox shifts his position to a more comfortable one, not bothering to open his eyes.
He hears the door open and shut, and then presumably Thorn is gone. Stars, Fox is tired. The pain in his ankle is starting to fade a bit. He’ll take whatever he can get, though. He exhales heavily. After sixty-seven hours of nonstop worry and work and exhaustion, he finally falls asleep.
***
21 BBY, day 375 of the War, 0015
Thorn returns to the commanders’ barracks grumbling under his breath. Fox has done increasingly more stupid stuff in the past few months, and there was that lousy day when Thorn caught him talking to Senator Chuchi and they did some yelling at each other. But honestly, he’d rather angry-and-yelling Fox to quiet-and-exhausted Fox, because at least the angry one still acts like Fox. Seeing him like this—tired and hurt and not caring—makes Thorn’s spine crawl and his heart skip a beat.
“Kriffing di’kutla’shebs,” Thorn mutters to himself.
He'll go back and check on Fox eventually. But for the moment, he’s got other things to deal with. Like his own work that he’s trying to finish so that he can appropriate a bit more of Fox’s—though that’s assuming that he can get away with it without Fox noticing. Fox has a kriffing bad habit of noticing each time Thorn tries to take some of his work.
Thorn slips into the commanders’ barracks. The lights are off, and Stone is sprawled in his bunk. He has one arm over his eyes and his datapad abandoned next to him.
“Stone,” Thorn says.
Stone shifts and says hoarsely, “Is Fox back?”
“Yeah. He kriffed up his ankle. And he’s sleeping in his office tonight. I think he was actually planning to sleep, and either way, I told him I’d call if Pol if he didn’t.”
“Good,” Stone says. He rolls over, and a few seconds later, his snores start up.
Thorn grabs his datapad and retreats as quietly as he can back down the hall to Fox’s office. He sits down on the floor just next to the door and powers up his datapad. There are seemingly millions of files on his screen that still require his approval, or authorization, or just his reviewal. Some of them are properly directed to him—thinks about the prisons or the orbital defenses. Some of them he has to forward to Fox, because he doesn’t have clearances. Kriffing stars, why does he not have clearances to take some of the weight of Fox’s shoulders? Maybe, then, Fox would smile again. For the moment, he has no choice but to keep adding them to the workload that will be waiting when Fox wakes up.
Report after report, the minutes of the night shift slip past while Thorn works away.
***
Fox can barely walk when he wakes up. He doesn’t mention that to anyone, though. He’ll force himself through this day, just like every other day. He has a couple of painkillers in one of the compartments on his belt, so he doesn’t even have to go and ask Pol for anything. He can just get out of the base and head straight for the Senate building, to pick up where he left off the night before.
Thankfully, he only has to spend a few hours in the Senate today. After that, he’s free to go about his other business. Today, that takes the form of filling in at one of the checkpoints on the lower levels. Bennor’s latest set of orders made it necessary for the Coruscant Guard to start patrolling several more important locations on Coruscant. The one that Fox finds himself at today is the entrance on level 5100 to Coruscant’s central power grid. If he can get a feel for it for a few hours, then he’ll know what kind of instructions he should give to the next patrols that get assigned down here.
A steady stream of workers moves in and out as they arrive for their shifts. Fox checks each of their passes as they walk through, and gives them the go-ahead once he’s sure that they’re authorized. After that, they’re able to enter the lift and go down the remaining hundred levels to the central power grid.
He falls into the routine easily enough. He’s had to learn things quickly on Coruscant. There are too many kriffing things to do to waste time on learning them for a long time.
“All right, everybody have your passes out,” Fox orders as a handful of workers and a group of droids approaches.
They shuffle into line, just like all the other groups. They’re all just a part of Coruscant’s well-oiled machine. Much like the Coruscant Guard, except that the Guard is running out of oil and doesn’t get paid for being a part of the machine.
Fox checks the passes of the workers, who continue on to one of the lifts. The droids trundle up to him, a whole group of them. They look like another group of maintenance droids. There was already a group that went through half an hour previously.
The droid in front displays a holographic pass and buzzes.
Fox scans it. “Generator maintenance?” He notes the clearance code. It’s valid. He didn’t realize there would be multiple sets of maintenance droids. “Well, everything checks out,” he says. “Good luck down there.”
The droids trundle onwards, leaving Fox with an empty line again. He glances back to check on the droids’ progress and—
What the kriff? Why are they going to the right? The maintenance droid lift is to the left. He thought their programming was supposed to be better than that.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Fox calls out. “Wait a minute. Power generators are that way.” He points to the left.
The droids pause, then turn around and head in the direction that he pointed.
Fox turns back around, muttering under his breath, “Kriffing stupid droids.”
While the line is empty, he can scan the news feeds that are scrolling across his HUD. There’s been an uproar the past few days about possible peace being negotiated with the Separatists. Fox doesn’t believe that the Separatists are going to agree to peace. After all, they’ve killed enough clones and even Jedi already. Count Dooku and General Grievous and whatever other Separatist leaders are masterminding this are senseless monsters.
But strangely enough, today’s news feeds look like peace might not be entirely out of the question. Fox frowns as he reads the reports. There’s no way. No way that they could settle things so easily. Either the Separatists have lost their minds, or they’ve got something else up their sleeve. No one could mastermind something like the Separatist movement for a year and then just decide to give up. Not when the Separatists are kriffing winning this war.
Yeah, it’s not happening. That’s for sure.
The minutes slip by while he goes on keeping an eye on the news feeds and checking credentials of the people that pass. It’s honestly the most peaceful that he’s been in… well, a long time now.
At this point, he should know that it’s too good to be true.
It’s always too good to be true.
This planet is out to kill them, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
And yet, when the ground shakes with an explosion somewhere far below, that was the last thing he was expecting to happen.
“Kriffing—” Fox starts.
Every light in sight blinks out. The news feeds in his HUD disappear.
“—stars,” he hisses. He opens a comm line to the Coruscant Guard’s base and says, “Marshal Commander Fox speaking. Status update, now.”
Only the static of a disconnected line answers him.
“Kriffing stars,” Fox whispers again.
The lights all turned off. Which means that the power grid got disrupted. Fox himself is standing at the entrance of the power grid. There must be a problem down there. But there was an explosion. So something blew up. It had to be an accident or sabotage. Either way, if the central power grid is down, that means that everything is down. That means comms. That means lights. That means lifts. That means every kriffing thing on this planet. The backup generators are housed a thousand levels farther down. They’ll take time to get turned on. Until then, Coruscant is a dark ball of rock adrift in the galaxy. And what the kriff happened down there?
The Coruscant Guard base, including its comm system, has backup generators, Fox knows. It’s only a matter of time until they turn on and he can get comms back.
He unclips the torch from his belt and turns it on. The military-grade beam of light bursts to life, illuminating the street in front of Fox. All the people that were still frozen in shock turn toward him, blinking in the light.
“Kriff,” Fox mutters again. That’s becoming a refrain. He tries opening the comm line again. Static greets him again. “Kriff.”
“What’s happening?” a twi’lek woman asks, hurrying toward Fox with two children in tow.
“What happened to the power?” a Rodian man demands. “I must get to my meeting on time—”
“Hey, it’s all broken!” a human teenager shouts.
Fox ignores them all. The nearest lift shaft is two blocks away. Each one is equipped with a staircase, in case of emergencies. And this, in every sense of the word, is an emergency. Coruscant’s central power grid is never supposed to go down. Fox needs answers. But more than that, he needs to be at the Senate. If he’s not, questions are going to be raised, and others are going to be getting blamed for this. He needs to be there, now.
He breaks into a sprint, dodging everyone in his path. His torch light bounces crazily across the buildings and streets as he weaves his way toward the stairs.
Kriff, kriff, kriff, what’s happening?
Fox reaches the lift shaft and has climbed nearly a full level when his HUD abruptly flickers and turns back on. Next to him, the gears in the lift shaft grind to life again. Reddish floodlights burst on across the top of this level.
Fox opens a comm line. “Marshal Commander Fox speaking. Status update.”
“Sir,” says whoever’s on the other end. “We don’t know, we’re trying to get information. Power is down across the planet.”
“What happened to the power grid?” Fox demands. He’s still going up the stairs as quickly as he can, heading for the next place where he can catch the lift.
“It’s down, sir. We don’t know why.”
“Send a platoon down there and find out why.”
“Yes, sir. Nocturne Platoon is available. I’ll send them down right away.”
Thire’s platoon. Well, at least Thire will do a good job down there, even if he’s a man short at the moment. Fox still hasn’t figured out a replacement. Kriff, he needs replacements for so many troopers now. He knows the number, though, because those are almost all men that have died under his command.
“Good enough,” Fox says. There’s an incoming call from Thorn on his HUD. He switches over to it. “Thorn, I’m en route to the Senate. Get to the prisons.”
“I’m already on my way,” Thorn says. For once, he doesn’t sound immediately annoyed at Fox. “Vector is there right now, and he’s reporting that their generators kicked in right away. They’ve got a few prisoners trying to make a break for it, but they’re dealing with it, and anyway, I’m on my way, so it’ll be resolved pretty soon. I’ll notify you when they’re under control. Where are you right now?”
“I’m on my way to the Senate.”
“You’re not there already?”
“No. I’ll deal with Chancellor Palpatine and whatever else is going on.” Fox stops on a landing as a realization hits him. He’s out of breath after climbing so many stairs. “Kriff. They were trying to vote on peace negotiations with the Separatists today.”
“The kriff?”
“Did you not see those broadcasts?”
“I don’t look at the news in my HUD like some psychos I know. Yeah, I knew they were trying to do something with the Separatists, but I didn’t know they were negotiating kriffing peace today. Did they do it yet?”
“They were going to vote,” Fox says. He looks at his chrono. “Ten or fifteen minutes ago.”
“So just before that explosion knocked out the power grid? If that’s the case, then I’m kriffing suspicious, because you don’t just have something like the power going out planet-wide the same minute that they were going to vote for peace, and then call it a kriffing coincidence. It wasn’t, and I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Nocturne Platoon is going to investigate right now,” Fox says.
“Okay. I’m nearly to the prisons. Update me.” Thorn leaves the comm call.
Fox reaches the next level—at last—and barrels across the platform to the lift. He punches the code into the keypad that will let him override the controls and will bring the lift directly to his position. An excruciating half minute passes before it comes whizzing downwards and settles at his platform. The doors open, and a few confused-looking natborns stumble out.
“What’s happening?” a Kel Dor man asks Fox.
“The lift stopped and then started again,” a hysteric Torgrutan woman shrills.
Fox ignores them, and all the rest of the natborns. He steps into the lift and hits the button for the surface.
Kriffing stars.
The lift whizzes upwards. Fox has maybe two and a half minutes before he reaches the surface.
He pulls off his helmet and takes a few deep breaths. His ankle still aches, but distantly, and he doesn’t have any capacity to care about that anymore. He’s fallen into the middle of another nightmare, and this one—well, Thorn’s right. It can’t be a coincidence that the central power grid got bombed just as the Senate was about to vote for peace. Which means that someone is sabotaging the power grid. Which means someone got down there.
… did the saboteur get down there while Fox was checking clearances?
He thinks suddenly of that second batch of maintenance droids. The ones that went in the wrong direction.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, stars.
Fox stumbles back a step and finds the wall of the lift. He slides down it to a sitting position, clutching his helmet. He has no evidence yet, but he knows. Those maintenance droids weren’t maintenance droids. They had some other purpose. He checked their credentials, but somehow—somehow—they had the right ones. The Separatists—the same ones that are winning the war and faking peace negotiations—got ahold of those credentials.
Oh kriff oh kriff oh kriff it’s all his fault.
He’s rising past level 5122 now. He gets to his feet, pulling his helmet back on. The lift passes the last few levels, and then settles on the surface.
It’s chaos in the space beyond the doors.
Fox takes one last breath in the bubble of the lift. Then he steps through the opening doors and into the chaos.
There’s nothing he can do to fix the past. He can only face the future and the consequences of his actions now.
Kriffing stars.