Just here for the clones.

Stars burned from bright stubs through to exhausted red giants, species lived and died and evolved into new forms, buildings were erected completed and then crumbled into dust, the galaxy itself creakily completed another rotation upon its ancient axis –

And maybe, possibly, at some time following all of that, Fox might actually stop laughing.

He was such a karking asshole. Slick loved him so much he wanted to throw up about it.

He wasn’t alone, either, given the expression on Thire’s face every time he took a moment to glare in the off-holo direction where Fox was (presumably) located, having fallen off his chair and not yet gotten back onto it. Thire looked like he had a headache, or possibly wanted to commit a murder, or maybe both.

Slick was betting on both.

Either way, it was sucker’s odds that he was going to give in to the urge to kick Fox within minutes.

Appo was still trying to explain what in the galaxy he’d been thinking.

“…really the only reasonable target available. There aren’t many people who can draw the attention of the entire galaxy, not the way the Chancellor can. And of course it was of primary importance that this not be permitted to impact the war effort.”

Appo was, as always, perfectly sincere. Slick marveled.

Fox made a sound not unlike a wailing Wookie. Possibly one high on laughing gas.

Thire shifted briefly in his seat.

This resulted in a very brief “ow” before the laughter picked up again.

Called it.

Of course, Slick couldn’t blame either Fox or Thire for their reactions. He felt halfway like he was about to lose his mind over it, even more than he had already been over the sheer spectacle and scandal of it all. The Chancellor! The kriffing karking fucking Chancellor of the Galactic Senate! Chancellor Palpatine himself! Accused of embezzlement and corruption! Palpatine! Chancellor Palpatine! The – Slick was running out of adjectives.

Maybe Ventress had a point about too much cursing deteriorating the vocabulary.

Anyway.

All that was bad enough, but then Appo had just gone and casually admitted that he’d been the one responsible for framing said Chancellor in the same genial tone of mild disinterest that he usually used to explain that he’d shifted training schedules around to accommodate for an unexpected shipwide announcement.

Honestly, Appo was damn lucky that Slick had been so unnerved by the masses of people crowding into the main part of the Hall of Records that he’d retreated into the archives to do his filing in peace. That meant that his only audience was Slick and his seemingly never-ending pile of data tapes, all of which needed to be put into different places in the massive towering pillars of the record stacks.

Ugh.

Flimiswork.

“I see,” Thire said, with commendable restraint that he almost certainly wouldn’t have shown if it was anyone other than Appo speaking. Speaking as a sergeant, Slick could tell that he was itching to tear someone a new one. “Could you explain that a little more, please? How exactly does implicating the Chancellor not impact the war?”

That was a very good point.

Slick finished slotting in his current set of tapes and kicked the switch on the platform he was on to send himself zooming up several stories to the next stop on his filing circuit, then settled in to listen to what was undoubtedly going to be an explanation like no other.

"It's precisely because it is Chancellor Palpatine that there will be no serious impact," Appo explained earnestly. "Aside from the initial shock and some salacious interest, no one would seriously believe that someone as universally respected as him is genuinely corrupt.”

Thire made a very strange sound. Completely indescribable, and judging from Appo's expression, also indecipherable.

"The Chancellor," he said. "The Chancellor…"

Unfortunately he seemed incapable of continuing the thought.

“Yes, the Chancellor,” Appo said, now looking a little puzzled. “I have no doubt that he will rightfully deny all the allegations and insist on a proper investigation. Once one has commenced, it will be short work to discover that it’s all a load of nonsense. They will blame the sabotage on the Separatists and the war can then continue uninterrupted."

“The Chancellor,” Thire said. He seemed stuck on that for some reason. “The – he – it – I – ”

Fox had started making high pitched little hiccupping noises from the intensity of his laughter. Slick was starting to get minorly concerned about the integrity of his ribcage.

“What about him?” Appo asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

Thire opened and closed his mouth. He seemed to want to say something, but to be struggling with what.

“Technically yes,” Slick butted in. “I mean, Appo, aren’t you the one who’s always talking about the integrity of the record?”

“I didn’t impact the record.” Appo looked almost offended to have it be suggested. “All the evidence has been falsified at a higher operative level than that – documents and communications, poorly done back-dating and suspicious bank transfers and the like. Sufficient stand up to initial scrutiny, yes, but any forensic comparison to the record will reveal them to be forgeries at once. In short, unless the Chancellor has actually been committing embezzlement, he’s completely safe.”

“I think I’m going to die,” Fox’s faint voice floated out of the holocall, a tinny and wheezing sound to it lending more than usual credence to his claim. “Thire. Thire, I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die unless I kill you myself,” Thire said flatly. “Stop laughing.”

“I can’t. I can’t. Thire. Did you hear –”

“Yes I heard.”

“I’m not understanding the problem,” Appo said.

“I mean, other than the fact that you just admitted to framing the Chancellor?” Slick suggested. “That’s a pretty big problem.”

“But –”

“Yes, yes, I follow your logic.” Slick waved a hand dismissively. “But Appo, everyone in the Galactic Senate is corrupt! I can’t imagine Palpatine is any sort of exception, no matter how many natborns say nice things about him.”

Fox certainly didn’t have anything nice to say about him, though in fairness Fox generally didn’t have nice things to say about anyone who wasn’t a clone, and even less for anyone who worked in the Senate. Slick wouldn’t say that Fox complained about Palpatine notably more than the rest, and if anything the sheer depth of his dislike for the man seemed a little unwarranted given that Fox’d always been a little vague on what was actually wrong with him – in fact, even in Fox’s recent breakdown, he’d admitted that it had been Palpatine’s intervention with the Committee that had spared Fox in particular. Of course, Palpatine had also made the original suggestion that had put Fox in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that wasn't something he could have known…though on yet another hand, he had consented to the Committee’s decision to cull the Guard.

Never mind. Palpatine was clearly a waste of space.

“General Skywalker has always spoken very highly of him,” Appo said with a frown.

“Yeah, well, General Skywalker started the war out still in his nines,” Slick said, rolling his eyes. “Sure, he’s an ace fighter and an even better pilot, but if it’s not about hitting things, he doesn’t know his boots from his skidplate. Probably regularly mixes them up and tries to shove his foot right up his own –”

“Fox,” Thire interrupted, his voice extremely flat. "Stop hooting like some sort of demented snow owl and make yourself useful."

"I refuse. You can't make me. I outrank you."

Despite this proclamation, Fox shortly reappeared on the holocall, looking vaguely wild-eyed and a little punch-drunk, and also still sporadically giggling so hard he’d developed hiccups.

"Appo," he said, and paused for a hiccup-snort he couldn’t suppress. "Appo. A question. Can I – heh – can I ask – I want to know why.”

“Why?” Slick snorted. “Isn’t how a better question? You’re the one who’s always saying you’re just a sergeant in a single battalion, Appo. How’d you manage to create a trail of evidence good enough to convince not just one but multiple Coruscanti journalists that your allegations are legit?”

Appo blinked. “People tend to believe evidence that appears in multiple places,” he said. “And that’s easy enough. All records stored in hardfile are routinely sent for replication and back-up throughout the Galactic information network. An entry on Coruscant will quickly appear on Messida, Kolona, Scarif, and so forth.”

“Yeah? But how do you get –”

Slick paused.

He wasn’t actually stupid, no matter how he sometimes scolded himself.

He looked down at his hand, literally in the middle of putting one of the tapes into its proper place in the record stack, and had the sudden sensation as if he were holding a particularly poisonous viper instead of a datatape.

“Don’t worry,” Appo said. “All of that material would have already been filed several days back; this set is all normal BAU. Anyway, hand-filing is a particularly secure method of data transfer because there’s no forensic trail to it. That’s what gives it the false imprimatur of legitimacy.”

“All that is well and good, beyond the fact that we should probably be looking more closely at what you’re sending us to file,” Fox said dryly. “That wasn’t my question. My question was why.”

“Why what?” Slick asked.

“Why exactly Appo felt the need for a distraction so large it would make the entire galaxy look at it instead of him. I mean, Appo, what did you do?"

Thire abruptly looked stricken.

Appo didn’t look too great either.

“I did not…” he hesitated. “I didn’t harm the plan. In fact, I’ve been rather remiss in that respect, when I believed that – but in fact everyone is alive. My concerns were misplaced. I will return my attention to it at once.”

“That wasn’t the question,” Fox said. His firm, friendly-but-unyielding demeanor was somewhat undercut by the way his shoulders would still occasionally shake from suppressed laughter. “Listen, Appo, I’m not really concerned about what you did. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is. I mean, no offense, Appo, but you’re – well –”

Thire put a hand over his face and left it there.

“Inclined to overthink things,” Fox concluded in a frankly brilliant bit of diplomacy that managed to avoid any of the usual complaints about Appo. Which was right, since Slick would have no choice but to fight anyone who tried to call Appo boring, or else any of the other stone-face dead-heart appellations that some of the more annoying 501st assholes liked to throw around.

Okay, sure, only Appo would have turned a plan to free clones from slavery into a flimsiwork project. But the point remained, anyone who had the balls to frame the Chancellor of the Republic as a distraction was certainly not boring.

“Either way, I just want to know the immediate impetus,” Fox concluded. “Why the need for a really big distraction?”

Appo winced. “It’s – complicated,” he said, in what was possibly the first time Slick had ever heard Appo hedge about anything. “Following the events at Lola Sayu, I was under an unusual amount of pressure and felt as though there was no other choice to preserve the plan.”

Slick waited for him to continue, but apparently Appo thought that was a satisfactory answer.

“Are you kidding?” he asked.

“Could you elaborate on that ‘pressure’ you mentioned?” Thire asked at the same time.

Appo paused.

After a moment, in the tone of someone tentatively trying out something that had previously worked and that he hoped would work again, he said: “I would prefer not to.”

“Then you don’t have to,” Thire said at once, and visibly kicked Fox when he opened his mouth to protest. “Fox, go take that personal call.”

“Personal call? We’re under that comm blackout – oooooh right that call. The personal call. The call I need to go make right now before that Marine manages to find the way out of HQ now that we’ve told him he can’t use his head on any more of our walls.”

He disappeared out of the frame a moment later.

“Wow,” Slick said. “Subtle. Veeeeery subtle. One might even say slick, except –”

“I know where you sleep,” Thire said, very pleasantly, and Slick shut the hell up. What was it to him if Fox felt like being blatantly obvious about the fact that he was going to call someone to get more info about what had happened to Appo on Lola Sayu? Totally irrelevant.

Just as it was irrelevant that the person he was probably calling was Cody.

Because obviously everyone knew that the Citadel and Lola Sayu had been retaken by General Skywalker and General Obi-Wan, and everyone also knew that whenever General Obi-Wan and the 212th went on high-risk danger missions, so too went Cody. Fox, of course, was best rivals-friends-somethings with Cody, and that meant that Cody would pick up his calls, even if it was through the medium of some random Marine. Cody would answer Fox’s questions. Cody would probably do that little half-smile little huff of amusement when he heard about the comm blackout, and he’d –

Slick turned and put a few more of the data tapes away. He had very important filing to do. Intense, serious, vitally important filing. Appo’s stupid shit needed to go into the right place, after all.

Meanwhile, on the holocall, Appo and Thire were staring into each other’s eyes.

“I’m very glad you spoke with Doom,” Thire was saying, looking unusually earnest.

“I appreciate him getting us in contact once more,” Appo said, equally serious. “I will need to reach out to him to convey my thanks.”

“Pass along mine as well.”

Romance was dead. Slick had probably filed away its corpse at some point today on Appo’s ruthless orders.

“Oh, though, speaking of Doom, I have some news he will find enjoyable,” Thire said. “Some of our Guard recently claimed to encounter a vigilante –”

“Hey, Appo!” Fox chirped in an artificially bright tone that in no way concealed how absolutely furious he was, coming back into the frame as he spoke. He was still holding another comm in his hand, presumably the unfortunate Marine’s. Just holding it, casually, like it was no big deal that he had probably just been talking to Cody on it – “What’s this I hear about some asshole naval officer threatening to report you to the Chancellor for malfeasance?”

“What,” Thire said.

Slick agreed with him entirely.

“Captain Tarkin had grounds to do so,” Appo said, like that wasn’t the craziest thing anyone could say about anything. “I failed to efficiently follow his orders. Also Bossk hit him on the head and I didn’t report it.”

“He threatened to report you for lack of efficiency?” Thire’s voice was slightly more shrill than usual. “To the Chancellor?”

“And the Senate. That was the reasoning behind the size of the required distraction,” Appo said apologetically. “Between those threats and my incorrect belief that Slick was dead, which rendered Rex’s internal investigation a significant threat to the plan, I felt at the time as though there was no other choice. However, in retrospect, I can understand that I was likely behaving irrationally and should have consulted with someone else before acting.”

Because it was Appo, and this was Thire, there was absolutely no hint of an unspoken but still intended I tried to call you and you didn’t answer. Appo probably hadn’t even thought it, or even had it cross his mind in the background where no one was ever watching.  

 On second thought, maybe Slick could see why Thire was so damn nervous about emptying his blaster pack here, even though there was no chance Appo would ever turn him down.

“This Tarkin bastard was going to murder your men,” Fox said. “He was going to order you to murder them.”

“No,” Appo said, and all of a sudden he did not look well at all. “Death on the battlefield is not murder.”

“Yeah? When it’s that level of karking unnecessary –”

“I don’t think now is an appropriate time to discuss philosophy,” Appo interrupted. “Or ever, in fact. It is not a conversational subject I enjoy. Excuse me, I need to end this call.”

Appo must be really upset, Slick reflected. Normally he’d at least come up with an excuse before blatantly hanging up on two commanders (one possible Marshal Commander).

Still - wow.

Framing the kriffing Chancellor.

Slick turned back to his tape filing after Thire cut the call (obviously he hadn't actually called to talk to Slick, since he'd already extracted every piece of useful information about Slick's underworld excursion over what Fox had delusionally termed a "nice friendly chat"), but he couldn't seem to focus. There was just too much going on in his head, no matter how many calming breathing exercises (Cody had picked them up from his General and passed them on) or murder visualizations (a Slick subconscious special, courtesy of a Ventress dream) he did.

The Chancellor.

And poor Appo, thinking it was necessary - and maybe it was, if that Captain Tarkin scrughead really meant it about reporting him. Reporting Appo, of all people! Slick couldn't even imagine it. Nor did he want to: Appo was critical to the plan, and it was about time he realized it…even if it required Appo thinking everyone else was dead to do so.

Ugh, that was worse. Slick had been convinced his boys were dead a few times back in the rat cage, and he wouldn't wish that hell on an enemy.

Poor, poor Appo…

Who had just framed the Chancellor for embezzlement.

Poor anyone who went up against Appo, really. Still, Fox's distaste aside, Appo was undoubtedly correct that absent any real evidence of corruption beyond the normal for the Senate, Chancellor Palpatine would be quickly able to shut down any allegations and emerge smelling sweet as - something sweet.

Yeah, data filing clearly wasn't cutting it.

Slick gave it up as a waste of time and went to go find Boba.

Technically Boba was supposed to be helping Slick out as part of some sort of "supervised work release rehabilitation program” that someone, probably Thorn, had invented to justify Boba being out of prison without the reassignment they'd given Slick. In reality, it had been mostly Slick doing the filing, with Boba huddled up somewhere obscure moping and decompressing from his interrogation.

Slick didn't blame him. Karking General Vos.

He’d been damn good, too damn good. Boba had gotten out of that first interview more or less intact, without having given up the goods, but it had been part skill and mostly luck. If Vos hadn't had to rush of when he did…

Well, he had. And though they’d all stayed in the prison for another day, tense as wire strings expecting him to return to pick up where he'd left off, he hadn't - and then, of course, news had started filtering in about what exactly had been of such magnitude to draw Vos away and they'd realized he wasn't going to come back for a while.

After all, investigating Boba on a rumor was one thing, but investigating the Chancellor…

Slick ran through some of his better profanities in his head as he waited for the little platform he was on to complete the circuit around the giant tower of data tapes. It was a very good thing that clones didn't get vertigo, given how the bottom of the tower wasn't even visible from where he was standing – not to mention a mystifying decision not to include any guardrails on the moving platform he was on. Did they want people to fall or something?

Or maybe the idea was to prevent break ins by forcing anyone unauthorized to have to climb the towers manually to get to the right filing section.

Slick entertained himself with ideas of such a break in as he made his way across to Significant Individual Tax Filings, which was located four towers over and required at least two switched platforms, six swipes of his permitted ID cards, and one call back to the main desk for extra authorization that caused fair bit of annoying wait time for no real reason. No one was actually going to break in here. What would they even be looking for? Some poor bastard's tax record?

Well, maybe the Chancellor…

Slick very seriously contemplated the merits of beating his head against one of the reams of data tapes crowded into the tower.

Luckily that was about when he reached his destination.

Boba was perched on another filing platform, legs dangling over the edge above the abyss and his comm active for a group holo - with some very familiar faces projected in blue light from on the other side, even putting aside the fact that it was all the same face.

"You really think there's something wrong with the buckets?" Boba asked.

"What else could it be?" Sikes replied practically. "We were all there, same time and place, and none of us heard the warning Second Sarge did. And the only difference between us, besides rank, is the fact that we were wearing full kit and he wasn't."

Slick stopped right where he was, feeling like he needed a moment to absorb the fact that Appo's boys apparently called him Second Sarge behind his back.

His chest felt stupid warm with it.

"We're willing to go out on a limb and say rank isn't the differentiating factor here," Jester said dryly. "After all, the Boss being different is more about him personally than it is his CC training. So it's got to be the kit, unless you're willing to buy into Lacey's crazy watches-too-many-holos theory -"

"Of course not. Nobody's ever a 'secret' anything, least of all something that requires lots of training."

"I'm given to understand one is born with the ability," Lacey said haughtily, then laughed. "Not that any of us were born."

"Plus I think someone else might've noticed by now," Gus said, rolling his eyes. "Like, say, any one of the Generals. But yeah, we're thinking it’s the buckets. They’re made by one of the megacorporations that everyone knows is playing both sides, after all. And just think of it! It'd be a great sabotage opportunity, wouldn't it? Sneak in a backdoor no one knows about and then just sit and wait until the right moment to cause maximum damage."

"That's not really the Seperatist MO, though."

"As far as we know it isn't. But what if they're working on two parallel tracks at once?"

"What, one blatant and obvious and one subtle and sneaky? Gus…"

"It's not impossible," Boba interrupted. "The Seperatists have more than one General. And if Fox's theories about them doing something to play tricks with my dad's money have any basis…"

He scowled.

"Never mind about that, it's classified. But it would be a lot more aligned with the sneaky-subtle than the blatant-obvious."

"And if they're sneaky once, they could be sneaky again," Chopper said. "We've got some ideas on how to look into it once we're done with this escort gig, which should be soon now. Cordé just got the all clear from the Senator…"

"Good," Slick said, unable to help himself. "Because there's a hell of a lot more datatape filing to be done. So if you think you're about to go haring off on a wild nuuna chase in your own time, think again."

"Aw, Sarge…!"

"I'm cutting you," Boba informed them smugly. "Go suffer."

He did cut the call then, and looked up at Slick as he stepped over to join Boba's platform. It was just barely big enough for two grown men, so with Boba still being pint sized it wasn't too uncomfortable for Slick to come sit next to him.

"You okay?" Slick asked, since Boba still looked a bit shaky.

"You don't mind me talking with them without you?" Boba asked in return, avoiding the question.

"Why would I?" Slick shrugged. "One of you has got to be a good influence on the other, even if I haven't figured out what way that'll go."

That got a bit of a smile, though not much.

"Besides, if you don't talk, how are you going to conspire against me?"

That got a better one.

"You're just paranoid," Boba said, not very convincingly. "Anyway, it's whatever. They're just bored. I…Slick, can I ask you something?"

"Anytime," Slick said, trying to cover up his immediate concern. Boba wasn't normally the type to ask for things. Normally he was confident, even arrogant. It covered up a certain level of insecurity, of course, but who wasn't horribly insecure at age six? It was a terrible age to be, all growing pains and emotional angst and social awkwardness, and even sometimes spots, and Boba with his weird aging had to do it for twice as long as any normal clone. Yet despite all that, Boba's usual confidence wasn't just something he used a cover; it was genuinely based on a bedrock (if perhaps slightly exaggerated) faith in his own excellent capabilities.

This, though…Boba had really been knocked off balance, persistently, in a way that exceeded Slick's original estimation. He seemed nervous, even anxious. He seemed uncertain, and severely so, and Slick was at a total loss about how to help him.

None of his boys had had this sort of reaction, not even to the really bad trainings. Of course, neither they nor he had had to endure the horrors Fox sometimes casually mentioned as being part of the command course, which might be a better source of comparison. Should he go get Fox to talk to Boba? Or even Appo, who was also a CC - which had been an unpleasant realization, actually, and it still bothered Slick to think of sensitive Appo being subjected to that sort of thing – but maybe he would be better able to help..?

"Is my dad dead?"

Slick blinked.

"You mean Prime?" he asked, baffled. "Yes. He's definitely dead. I saw him without a head, remember? So did you. We both saw it."

"We both saw it," Boba repeated. He seemed more distressed, though, rather than less. "That's right. We both saw it, so there's no way it didn't happen. And there's no way he could've faked it - and he wouldn't have, anyway. He wouldn't have tricked me like that."

"Prime would have gladly tricked the whole galaxy, but he wouldn't have tricked you," Slick said with probably unwarranted confidence. He'd never actually met the man alive, so he really wasn't the person to offer such concrete reassurances…and yet he was absolutely if absurdly convinced that he was right. "You were his boy, remember? The only one he had. He wanted you bad enough to make you part of his price. If someone told him he could have all his dreams but had to give you up for them, I'd bet he wouldn't have taken it."

Boba made a choked sound, and rubbed his sleeve over his eyes.

"Maybe," he said, voice thick with emotion. "Maybe, maybe not. He was pretty set on his dreams – but what he dreamed was…oh, it doesn't matter. I had to convince myself he wasn't, you know. For Vos."

Slick wasn't surprised that the interrogation was what this was all about. But somehow he hadn't expected it to be this, either, and he felt horribly helpless, unable to think of anything useful to do or say to make Boba feel better.

"My dad told me that there's only one way to trick a spy," Boba said. "And that's to tell the truth. Or at least the truth as you know it. So if you can convince yourself to believe something, then you can convince them, too. So I did. I told myself that my dad was alive, and I made myself believe it. The worst part was that it wasn't even that hard…"

"You miss him," Slick pointed out. "And you're very capable. I mean, you actually convinced yourself well enough to lie successfully. I don't know if I could've done something like that."

Boba gave a watery snort. "Of course not," he said, and if he hadn't been so upset it might have come off as scathing. "You go crazy every time you think of something happening to your boys."

"And you," Slick pointed out. "Did I tell you I punched a Mandalorian because I was so worried about you?"

"You did what?!"

"He was wearing full kit, too. It was pretty stupid."

Boba burst out laughing. Or possibly crying. It was a bit hard to tell, and only got harder when he turned and buried his face into Slick's side, which did nothing to hide the way his shoulders were shaking.

Lacking any better ideas, Slick draped an arm over him. Not patting him or anything like that, nothing Boba might take as an insult, but just – trying to remind him that he wasn’t alone.

“He’s dead,” Boba mumbled into Slick’s shirt. “He’s really dead. I made myself think he wasn’t, and now it feels like I’m losing him all over again.”

Yeah, Slick had no idea what to say or do. It felt like shit.

“There’s worse, though. Even worse. Because sometimes I wonder if what I miss isn’t just my dad. If maybe what I miss is more like a picture I’ve built up in my head, a picture of what I think he should be like – should’ve been like. Because he didn’t really care about freedom, did he? My dad. He didn’t – he didn’t care.”

“It doesn’t seem to have been high on his list of priorities,” Slick hedged, because your dad was personally responsible for signing all of us up for this shit was probably not helpful right now. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t care about it at all.”

“No. But it does mean that I – that I – that I wanted –”

Boba’s voice was sounding increasingly fragile. He was getting worse, not better.

Slick needed to say something. Knock him out of the self-blame loop, somehow. Show him that it wasn’t his fault, that it was okay, that he didn’t need to feel like he’d done something wrong just by growing close to someone who wasn’t his dad even if they shared the same face –

“You can call me Sarge if you want,” he blurted out. “Uh. I mean, you don’t have to. Just, you know. If you wanted.”

Boba pulled away and stared at him.

“…I knew you’d think that was stupid and I still went ahead and said it anyway,” Slick said, and wracked his brain for anything else. “Hey, do you happen to know any commando clones that go on unsanctioned missions sometimes? Because one of them said something about you not getting your head stuck in a toilet and I wasn’t sure if that was metaphorical or literal –”

“When did you meet a Null?!” Boba exclaimed. “Which one – no, wait, never mind, it’s not important. Stay away from them, they’re trouble…not important. No. Let’s go back to what you were saying, that was important – wait, what were they even doing? You said it was a mission? Unsanctioned?”

“Something about hunting down a shabuir who was pretending to be their Kal’buir?”

“Oh great.” Boba pressed his hand to his head. “Did you tell Appo?”

“No? Why would Appo care – wait, actually, speaking of Appo, you will not believe what he apparently did while we weren’t around to stop him –”

“He’d care because he’s the shabuir in question! Not that Appo’s a shabuir. Appo’s great. But he’s pretending to be Skirata, remember? Kal Skirata?”

Well, shit.

In Slick’s defense – “They said Kal’buir, not Kal!”

“I think I need to teach you Mando’a,” Boba said, then wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know Mando’a! Or, well, not much, anyway. I know things like buir and stuff. But Dad wasn’t really into talking about it, not the way some of the others were.”

Slick blinked. It had never occurred to him that Boba wouldn’t know Mando’a, instead of just choosing not to use it. He’d somewhere gotten the impression that knowing Mando’a was an important part of being a Mandalorian.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” Boba said emphatically, as if he could turn it into truth just by willing it to be. “We need to tell Appo. I’ll call him now. Did you say he did something weird again? Was it flimsiwork related?”

“So weird,” Slick said, relieved to finally be able to share the news. “And yes, technically flimsiwork related, but so much weirder than – wait, you said you were calling him? How can you be calling him? There’s a comm blackout, isn’t there?”

Boba rolled his eyes at him. “Uh, secret datapad, remember? The one we use for the Mordagon stuff?” He picked up the datapad that had been sitting next to him the whole time and started jabbing at it. “Appo brought this with him from the 501st, so it’s not imprinted with Guard codes. No one will be able to trace a call made by this back to the Guard, so there’s no violation.”

“Yeah, but that datapad doesn’t make external calls, remember?” Slick objected. “It’s locked down. We have to set up a call time and have them call us.”

“It was locked down,” Boba said primly. “I got it fixed while I was outside. Now shut up, he’s on the line.”

Appo’s image was indeed flickering into appearance above the datapad.

Which, good. That meant he could tell Boba about the fact that his ‘weird flimsiwork thing’ was actually framing the karking Chancellor, a piece of news so utterly ridiculous that it would surely divert Boba from any and all Prime-related angst.

“Hi, Appo,” Slick said, abruptly gleeful again. This was going to be so much fun. “I was just about to update Boba on the news, but since you’re here, you can tell him yourself. Any other planet-shattering revelations you’ve thought of since we last spoke?”

Appo blinked owlishly at him.

“Oh,” he said. “You mean about how Prime was working for Count Dooku?”