#ssitb verse

xoxoxo Possum~

@posstrophe

(warning for dehumanising language, Kal Skirata brand opinions, and violence)

Jaing prides himself in knowing everything that’s going on with the GAR, just a little something on the side while he’s trawling through the Separatists’ systems. It keeps him fresh and it keeps an eye on just what Fett is doing. 

He has a lot of weird feelings about Fett—Buir’s never been one to shy away from criticising the man he named Jaing after—but he figures if Buir doesn’t trust him then Jaing shouldn’t either.

So his attention is piqued when all of a sudden a new dismissal form propagates into the system—medical discharge. It comes up right on the tail end of the adjustments being made to all the Navy discharge forms—Buir wasn’t happy to hear they were doing those at all, just like how he talks about how working with the locals on equal footing is a slight to the clones’ honour—so he nearly misses it. He would have entirely if there weren’t an immediate usage case, unlike all the others.

Jaing leans back in his seat and stares for a long, long moment at the file.

He remembers a whole karking mess, two years before the war. Buir and Vau got in some big near knock-down fight and Doc Gilamar had sided with Vau for once. Jaing was on Buir’s side—that feral Alpha being put down, or whatever story they were going with, should have happened back when he beat Mereel half to death.

All the trainers had talked about it in hushed tones.

But here the bastard was, number and designation on some file being backdated as Jaing stares at it. 

What the kark. 

What the actual kark.

No, maybe it’s a cover-up, to keep someone from finding out they really did put the bastard down. 

If anyone’s gonna know, it’ll be A-26, though. 

Muzzle is feeling something he’s mentally relating to claustrophobia from being in this system so long. For the first year of the war, Maze and Fett tossed him at little problems, letting him go solo at first and then assigning him a babysitter of a LT after the little incident with Admiral Tarkin—the bastard deserved to get his jaw broken—and then a few missions later he’d gotten stuck here, leading an offensive against one of the most annoying generals the Separatists must possess.

The men that are, somehow, under him no longer cower to his glares. They ask him how he’s doing. They cheer him on.

Who do they think he is, Spar?

Speaking of that particular mess, Spar and his Jetiise should be arriving any minute. It’s hard to rail against his fate, stuck here, when this was supposed to be Spar’s life. Instead he’s stuck playing Fett’s political game, trying to keep the other Alphas from worrying too much about him. Muzzle knows better, though. Hell, even Sull and Tavo and their little clique who tried to not pay too much attention to Spar back on Kamino know.

He’s sick. Even if he mostly looks better, he’s still sick.

“Sir, the proscribed ship is approaching. They’re being directed to the docking bay,” Muzzle’s LT, Dennis, says, looking more anxious than usual.

Muzzle barely spares him a glance and heads off to the docking bay. “Medics on stand-by?”

“Yes sir, just like last time.”

Spar’d come by last on one of Muzzle’s first missions with Dennis. Muzzle may have…overdone it, if his LT’s remembering it so well. “Good.”

Muzzle waits in an appropriate parade rest as the ship ramp comes down, but any view of him as a stern ARC is absolutely smashed by the way Spar comes flying down the ramp and nearly tackles him to the ground. It’s absolutely done in when he hugs Spar back. “Su cuy’gar, shebs,” he mutters.

Spar laughs, loud and joyful and a little forced. “Su cuy’gar, al’verde,” he retorts, dropping back to the metal floor of the docking bay.

Muzzle grimaces. “Who are you calling al’verde, eh?”

“Uh, commander?”

Fox looks up from the documentation he’s filling out—most of his job is documentation and at this point it’s the part of the job he likes, especially because it looks like he’s about to be dealing with a part he doesn’t like. “Yes, Lieutenant?” he asks, trying hard not to sound too tired or annoyed.

“We found someone…out of bounds. In High General Fett’s office.”

Fox rockets out of his seat. “What?” he asks, panicked. “Apprehended? Did you check for explosives? Was anything taken?”

“Yes, apprehended. We did check for explosives and found nothing. Nothing was in their pockets but some things were out of place. They’re, uh, in an interrogation room right now, but you’re the only one on shift right now with the seniority to ask about that kind of stuff.”

Ugh. He is, isn’t he? 

“Alright,” he says, nodding and reaching for his bucket. “Let’s get this over with.”

Fox is expecting some kind of criminal, someone dressed for stealth or rough like a bounty hunter. He’s expecting some other species, or maybe one of those pale humans who tend to get really angry when a clone bumps into them on the street. And he is, for sure, expecting some kind of poor mood—whether it’s a completely neutral expression with anger and hate hidden behind the eyes or annoyance or anger at getting caught.

Instead, he gets a loudly dressed, dark skinned human-passing person, covered in gold jewellery and brightly dyed cloth, with a genuine, nearly sweet smile on their face.

He’s put off balance and immediately suspicious. “Hello,” he says, because he can at least pretend to be polite. “I’m Commander Fox.”

“Nice to meet you, Commander,” the prisoner says with cheerful amusement. 

Fox frowns under his bucket and laces his fingers together on the table as he sits across from them. “Name?”

The prisoner just smiles.

Fox sighs. “What were you doing in that office?”

Just. Smiles.

“Look,” he says, sighing. “Spies and saboteurs go to jail for a long time.”

“That’s good,” the prisoner says. They sound genuine. 

Fox turns off his vocoder and sighs messily as he leans back in his seat. How are they going to get information out of this person? But then there’s noise from outside and Fox jumps as the door behind him slides open. 

The prisoner’s entire face lights up. “Soo-coy gar or-tat! Did you get everything alright?”

Fox turns around to find a very, very annoyed High General Fett.

“I gave you my key card,” he says, aggravated.

“And the guards at your office are very, very good,” the prisoner says, almost like they’re admiring Fox’s men for taking them in. 

“You could have knocked them out.” What.

The prisoner shrugs. “I didn’t want to cause you any trouble.”

“I had to come down to the CG offices to pick you up.”

“You could have sent someone else. Or just commed. I can get home from here.”

Fett makes a whistling noise that Fox finds he’s intimately familiar with—he makes it at the shinies a lot. “There is a homicidal, immortal bounty hunter that is very protective over the fact he has your bounty right now.”

“Did you get your keycard back from the CG?”

Fett sighs. “Yes. I did. Come on, get up.”

“Uh, sir?” Fox interjects. “We—.”

“You did your job!” the prisoner tells him, and the binders tumble to the table as they get up to pat his shoulder. “So did your men! You simply…didn’t consider that I wasn’t someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Fett looks unimpressed. Fox isn’t sure who with. “Commander Fox. This is my younger sibling, Akaanik’sha. Sometimes he goes to get things for me in my office; usually there are other people in the offices to let them in. I guess the men assigned today weren’t ones who have seen that happen before.”

“I’m not wearing beskar today, so that might affect it,” the younger Fett says, voice dimming as they head out of the room. 

Fox stares after them.

What.

No really, what?

Why the hell is someone who isn’t a contractor and isn’t an officer allowed to handle stuff in High General Fett’s office, related or not? Fox certainly doesn’t let most of his brothers rifle through his office and they’re all part of the GAR!

What the hell just happened?

Dogma?

Dogma stands at attention with the rest of his squad at Commander Appo’s orders, just waiting. Over a private comm between the four of them, Tup’s started complaining.

Dogma kind of gets it, they’ve been standing at attention for a while, here in their ventaor’s hangar. Still—the commander doesn’t do these things without reason, and he’s here standing at attention just like the rest of them. 

The calm is abruptly broken by the arrival of a civilian ship. 

“Sir,” Dogma interjects—what are civilians doing here? Zeffo has a strict schedule of outside supplies and those traders never stop by here first.

“Stand down, Private,” Commander Appo interrupts him. “We’re expecting them.”

After a few minutes, the civilian ship’s ramp descends and an armoured Mandalorian comes out, jogging lightly. 

“Commander!” the Mandalorian says with a lyrical voice, quickly reaching them and extending an arm. The commander does the same and is unsurprised by the odd way the Mandalorian shakes his hand, clasping his wrist firmly. “It’s good to finally meet the man Alpha-38 has been waxing poetic about.”

Commander Appo ducks his head. “Treay isn’t the kind of person to, uh, wax poetic.”

“Not to you, maybe.” The Mandalorian turns to the squad. “So—who are you sending with us this time?” They don’t sound particularly happy about…whatever is going on. 

And more than that: this time?

“General Fett and Captain Maze gave those orders and they haven’t rescinded them.” The commander turns to the squad. “This is one of my battalion’s newest squads. You know Maze’s standards; I never expect to get new squads. Fresh lieutenant Trudie, then Privates Pyth, Tup, and Dogma.”

The Mandalorian hums. “Well. Hopefully it’ll go better than the last squad.”

What last squad?

Tup, as usual, ends up voicing the questions Dogma keeps to himself. “What last squad? Uh, sir. Sirs?”

The Mandalorian snickers. “Yeah, Appo, what last squad?”

The commander looks away from all of them. “It’s not my fault I couldn’t keep a hold of them. The moment you left, Captain Maze was comming to ask to reassign them! There was chatter about making them commanders! They were shinies, Fett!”

The Mandalorian outright cackles at that. “The former lieutenant is doing quite well as Ponds’s aide and everyone else have great positions as captains. That wasn’t just me, either, you had them for a while before you pawned them off on me!”

“The issue is that Captain Maze didn’t tell me who you were, really, before you got here,” the commander shoots back.

Dogma raises his hand tentatively. “Uh, sirs. Who are you exactly? How do we address you?”

The Mandalorian cocks their head; it’s weird to see a bucket move like one of theirs when it looks so different. “You can call me Spar.”

“Ah,” Commander Appo says, and he makes a coughing noise and goes back into parade rest. “This is Akaanik’sha Fett, High General Fett’s younger brother. He helped train some of the Alpha clones and commanders. He’s apparently a natural teacher for command. Alpha-38 claims that all of the command training modules were based off of how High General Fett taught him growing up. You’ll be accompanying his party on their business to Zeffo.”

That’s incredible! That means he helped make and teach all of the rules and regulations the command officers go by! “Just calling you, uh, Spar doesn’t seem respectful enough, sir.”

In answer to that, General Fett’s brother puts his fists on his hips, above his oddly heavy looking kama, and leans back, tilting his helmet visor towards the commander. 

“That one is Dogma,” the commander says helpfully.

General Fett’s brother nods and does some movement with one hand, bringing it up with his thumb and forefinger out and pulling them down in front of his visor, bringing the pads of the fingers together as he does. “You can call me Commander Fett, then, if you insist,” he finally says. “I am an al’verde to most Mandalorians. And you will call my friends Master—we’ll be going to Zeffo with two Jedi, Master Eno Cordova, a human man, and Master Luminara Unduli, a Mirialan woman. You can either call them Master and their surname or Master and their given name.”

All four of them nod, and Dogma can feel his excitement growing. It’s one thing to accompany someone like Commander Fett, who has played such a big role in the development of the clone officers’ system, but that they’re also accompanying Jedi? The people they were always told they’d be working under, before the last year or so before the war when everything changed?

He can’t help but be even more excited.

Then, surprisingly, Commander Fett takes his helmet off.

He looks a lot like a clone, but Dogma thinks the shape of his face and his eyes are both a little different. There are a lot of other differences, too—Dogma doesn’t think any of them, even the clone commanders, would get away with the gold jewellery on the bridge of his nose between his eyes and on either side of his mouth, though they might get away with the lines of gold that go from the corners of his eyes down to the jewellery by his mouth, and especially not the ring on his nose and even Tup has to keep his hair pulled tight back to avoid getting in trouble for keeping it so long. Commander Fett’s hair is a bit of a wild mess.

Tup is going to be ridiculous about his hair after this. 

Commander Fett smiles brightly at them. “It will be good to work with you.”

Dogma feels a little like aiwhas are flying around in his stomach. “And you, Commander.”

(@posstrophe )

After a borderline humiliating check in with command on Coruscant—General Fett spent more time questioning Niner on how they were all getting along, as if they were a bunch of cadets, rather than actually asking about their mission to rescue the Jetii hostage—Fi notices Darman asking about where their wayward Jetii has actually gone.

“Oh,” a reg clone says, “she’ll be with the other civilians on board. It’s in the same hall your squad has been assigned, somewhere, along with the officers.”

There are other civilians on board?

Wait, their Jetii is a civilian? 

“I’ll come with you, vod,” Fi tells Darman in the spirit of squad bonding, and Darman admittedly looks grateful. Fi’s pretty sure he’s got a crush on their Jetii—he doesn’t really see it personally, though she’d liked his sense of humour.

They both make their way to where their bunk has been assigned and find Atin already there, on a datapad. They drop their gear, but considering the other clone mentioned there were officers in this hall they can’t just start poking around. So Fi drops onto the bunk that Atin’s taken with a cheeky grin.

The other commando glances up at him, blank faced, and then his gaze goes back to his datapad. “Room 92,” he says.

“Huh?” Darman asks.

“Tur-Mukan is in Room 92, along with the other civilians on board. Two other Jetiise and someone unaffiliated, apparently. It’s in the ship’s files. The other three came aboard together to hitch a ride, kind of, from what I can tell. You two want to check on her.”

Fi frowns—he’s not wrong. That is what Fi was going to ask about. But it feels…weird. “Well…”

“You said you’d go with me, Fi?” Darman asks. 

Fi sighs. Well, he might as well get his medic kit and check her injuries.

They slink back out, leaving Atin to his friendly slicing and check the room numbers all the way down the hall to Room 92.

Darman stands staring at the door like it might eat him.

Fi sighs and knocks. After a brief moment, the door slides open and he finds himself staring down not at their Jetii but at a pair of clear, golden-brown eyes and a lot of real gold. The familiarly brown face is dotted with gold—between the eyes, a bit away from each corner of the full, familiarly shaped lips, dripping from the ears, and in a loop attached to the nose. More gold is painted down from outer corners of the eyes curving down to just above the dots of gold beside the mouth. 

The gold eyes blink.

Fi blinks back.

“Tur-Mukan, your rescuers are here,” the familiar mouth says wryly, turning around to go back into the room.

Fi looks up into the room after the person who answered the door to find their Jetii in a too big but clean white shirt, her dull red hair combed and braided neatly and her bandages changed to fresh ones. His hold on the medkit feels awkward.

“Padawan Tur-Mukan!” Darman exclaims in a fluster of relief and excitement. He goes in ahead of Fi and Fi’s stuck, now, going in after him. 

Besides the Jetii and the person who answered the door, the room is empty of other people, and the Jetii quickly is sitting on the bunk next to the Jetii. When Fi looks around the room, he finds a couple of droids charging nearby and—.

A suit of beskar’gam on an armour rack.

He stares at it—green, unlike any of the trainers he knows, dark green, with gold accents.

He looks at the person who answered the door.

Part of his brain had automatically said this person was a clone, but the gold had made him doubt that, as does the dark mass of hair twisted into a braid that the person has now that he has a better look at them, even if they are wearing a body glove. Worse—Atin said all but one of the other civilians here were Jetiise. 

“The other Jetiise are talking with the Council for a while still,” the odd, clone-like Mandalorian says, limbs folding up elegantly. “You have time to flirt.”

Omega’s Jetii and Darman both sputter and an attractive, smug smile changes the Mandalorian’s face even more. 

Fi feels an intense desire to do something very, very dumb.

He’ll tell Sarge it was for Darman’s honour later.

“Yeah?” he asks, leaning against the bunk above the two and looking down at the Mandalorian. “Yeah? How much time approximately? Because this could be really short and sweet, but I do prefer it when it's long—.”

(Always 💜)

All Davijaan is initially aware of is that a brother’s been cornered by a few natborns and needs a hand, so of course he swoops in and snaps the guy up, tossing him over his shoulder and walking off, leaving the natborns sputtering.

The brother over his shoulder starts to laugh.

“You know,” he says, with a kind of lyrical voice, “I was fine.”

“They were bothering you and we don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt by a civilian,” Davijaan explains. All of the commanders who are on Coruscant right now agreed that was the best course of action.

The brother laughs again. “Oh, my brother must like you.”

Davijaan pauses in his walking away from the situation. The way this brother, well, said brother is a little weird. He sets the brother back down on his feet and looks at him. He had kind of noticed the plain clothes before, but plenty of brothers wear plain clothes. Brothers on Coruscant may occasionally be this pretty, but they don’t typically look this young, though, nor do they get away with wearing their hair so long, or…wearing earrings? He stares.

The “brother” stares back at him, genuine amusement on his face.

“I’m Commander Davijaan,” he finally says.

The “brother”’s eyes light up. “Oh! Cort and Fenn talked about you—thank you for your work on Naboo.” He smiles. “I’m Akaanik’sha Fett. Jango’s my older brother.”

Fett’s brother?

That explains why he says brother like a natborn, Davijaan guesses. And why he looks like a clone.

“Oh.” Davijaan continues to stare.

The younger Fett is still smiling prettily. “Thank you for the save, though, even if it wasn’t really needed. Just because I’m not wearing beskar’gam doesn’t mean I’m not Mandalorian.”

Davijaan feels his face and ears get warm. He coughs into his fist. “Can, uh, can I get you a drink?”

Fett’s smile creeps bigger. “Why not?”

Cody is excited to finally be on Coruscant.

Sure, he’s here because General Fett has questions about how he handled the traitor incident—General Tay’haai took Slick back with him when he went for reassignment after the Christophsis campaign ended—and he’s probably going to be reassigned no matter what, it’ll just depend on if he can impress Fett to decide if he’s going somewhere good or bad, but it’s a chance to meet up with Alpha-17 again.

He has it on good authority that Seventeen is waiting for his own orders and Cody’s appointment with Fett isn’t for another three hours, so he bullshits his way to the ARC office, or whatever it’s supposed to be.

He opens the door and finds the office virtually empty, except for two clones in the back. “Captain?” he asks, amused, expecting them both to jump.

Only one of them jumps and Seventeen’s scarred face peeks out from around the side of the other clone to glare. “Oh joy, it’s you. Spar, did you meet Commander Cody?” He gestures to Cody, looking at the other clone.

The other clone turns and raises an eyebrow. “Your little protege?” His hair is in a long, thick braid that Cody is pretty sure doesn’t fly even with the expanded regulations for haircuts, and he has a thin scar on his left cheek, but the trait that pops out most to Cody is his light eyes, still brown but almost gold in how light they are. He’s also…weirdly young to be in the ARC office. Cody has shinies that look older than him.

“Something like that,” Seventeen agrees. “Cody, this is—.” Seventeen cuts himself off and frowns at the other clone. “How do I even introduce you?”

The other clone laughs. “I’m Akaanik’sha Fett,” he says. “Jango is my older brother.”

Cody blinks—he could have sworn he was another clone, especially with how familiar Seventeen is with him, and he’s so young. “Uh…”

Fett smiles. “You can call me Spar. Most people do.”

Ponds is being a good commander and getting his documentation work done with his music playing inside his bucket, thank you very much—the naval officers that don’t like playing music in the offices are nasty about it and the ones that do like it don’t agree with his tastes, while his men tend to let him have the commander’s prerogative to pick the music—when he gets a HUD notification that something has been set down out of view of his bucket’s visor.

He looks up first at the six pack of fizz that’s been set on his desk—Mandalorian orange flavour—and then up at the offending brother.

Spar smiles smugly down at him.

Ponds’s face does something complicated, going through the phases of unreality and grief of seeing him and then the joy of remembering he’s actually alive before settling on annoyance at being interrupted by someone who has enough social power at least to get him away from his work. “Fett,” he says flatly, and maybe he winces at how mechanical it comes out of his vocoder.

Spar’s smug smile widens. “Commander,” he returns in kind, though he does nothing to hide his amusement. “What are you working on?”

“That’s classified—you are a civilian in the end.”

Spar snorts. He’s wearing that fancy trainer shit, beskar’gam, and he’s wearing his hair in a long braid that would never fly for normal clones, and in the end he’s a brother who isn’t a brother anymore, because Fett took him and made him his brother. He takes one of the six pack off the pasteboard ring and cracks it open.

It fizzes temptingly.

Spar drinks and Ponds’s fingers twitch.

“Really?” Ponds asks, taking off his bucket and reaching for one of his own. “What do you want to bring bribes—why are you even in the Dustig sector?”

Spar winks at him. “That’s classified.”

Ponds groans—he may deserve that. He pops a fizz open and takes a long drink, letting the sweet and sour taste settle on his tongue. “You,” he says with great feeling, “are an asshole.”

Spar giggles.