#title change happens five hours after i post the story but eh whatever

[sanerontheinside]

Call Sign (1 of 2, apparently)

Over a year ago I did a prompt run for titles. Now, it’s been over a year, and I’ve amassed over 30 titles. Obviously I’m never gonna fill them, eh? y’all thought. 

Actually, about a third of them have ideas attached, and a few more have ideas that I’m lukewarm about, so they’re still marinating. You should know, there are... 7 aus between them, and 2 short stories (that I’m relatively set on going with). 

Call Sign alone, however, happened to be a particularly active title, and spawned 3 stories. One buggered off and found another name to live under (and, incidentally, another au). One is a Rogue One au. 

That is not this one. 

“Captain,” Governor Arkin grated irritably, “you were tasked with subduing and eradicating the rebels, and yet the terrorist attacks on the Empire's citizens continue!”

Ty drew himself up taller, forcing down a misplaced pang of wounded pride and smoothing his face to a neutral mask for the Governor’s lecture. It wasn’t his first time. It wouldn’t be the last, either. He’d be thoroughly reamed, sent out to do the job “properly this time,” yet again without assistance, and criticised again for failure. Better him in the line of fire than his men.

They were doing their jobs! They were, truly, doing their best. Problem was, Onderon’s military hadn’t been much to boast of since the Clone Wars, when their most respected generals had abandoned their posts in the midst of the Separatist occupation and joined forces with the deposed King Dendup. For a time, they’d even won back their standing, all of them—until the arrival of the Empire’s forces. Now, their king was dead, former rebels declared outlaws once more, and the people of Onderon again utterly demoralised. This was nothing like the fire Ty remembered, when the Gerrera siblings began to show the first signs of a true, organised resistance force.

Despite his fairly young age, Ty had earned his rank as Captain of the Guard fair and square—he’d been the best in his class. But he harboured no illusions about how he might compare to his predecessors. His uncle General Tandin might well have been a walking legend in comparison.

Ty was just… doing his best. Besides, how could he ask his men, his brothers-in-arms, to fight their own family? Uncle Ari might still be out there, despite reports of his suspected death. Ty certainly wasn’t going to be the one to turn reports into reality.

So he fell back on the usual script; not enough people to comb the mountains, not enough equipment or weaponry to flush the caves. He wasn’t going to sell out his men either, after all. Ty had the feeling the Empire knew all about their familial connections among rebels, and also caught the feeling that they didn’t care enough, but that could change at any moment.

But, for once, things did not go according to plan. Apparently, Governor Arkin did have a limit to his patience.

“Backup, he says. You want backup?” Arkin snarled. “Fine. I’ll put in a request for an orbital strike.”

Ty barely held back a horrified noise. “Governor, sir, we’ve requested one before, the Empire—”

“The Empire will provide resources at my request,” Arkin replied scathingly, “as your people proved unequal to the task. You call this a military, boy? I ought to send you to the Imperial Academy, but I don’t expect to see you after that strike anyway. Dismissed, Captain,” Arkin added with an ugly sneer, and Ty, shell shocked, fell back on trained habits. He saluted—making it just barely passable, he was trying so hard to keep his hands from shaking—and turned on his heel, all but fleeing the Governor's office.

Office. He’d defiled the bloody throne room, but that was neither here nor there.

Fuck, Ty thought, fucking fuck fuck shit fuck arse. He needed a drink. And a Mandalorian. A drink to appease an annoyed Mandalorian, and a Mandalorian to help him find the right fucking swear words, and tell him what the fuck to do, because Ty honestly didn’t fucking know anymore.

Fortunately, he knew where to find both.

Imps could say what they liked about the Clone Wars vets still in their command structure, but Ty preferred working with Commander Naasade, and drinking with him. For one thing, Naasade was efficient, and could drink anyone under the table. For another, the vet could always make sense of things, like command decisions.

Particularly this latest slap in the face.

“They’re sending a squadron of troopers to wipe out the resistance fighters in the mountains,” Ty mumbled into his fourth drink, about two hours later. His head was floating and his ears were ringing, but Naasade looked completely unaffected. Luckily Ty wasn’t stupid enough to try a drinking game with him.

“They’ve been saying that since we got here.” Naasade shrugged. “They say it about every planet with a resistance cell, anyway.”

“Yeah?” There was just a hint of bleak sarcasm that Ty couldn’t keep out of his voice. “What happened to Lothal?”

Naasade pinned him with a too-sober look. “Onderon isn’t Lothal. You’re Inner Rim, kid. That’d be like the Emperor ordering a strike on Alderaan.”

That sounded fair enough, Ty supposed, staring into his glass again. Things made a lot more sense when alcohol was involved, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

He was sad. Why was he sad?

“I don’t wanna, kill ‘em all,” he slurred, then frowned with effort. The Empire wanted the rebels crushed, gone, forgotten, but… “S’not… right. They’re people.”

Naasade sighed. “Better be careful who you say that around, kiddo. You’re never the one who picks the booth with the jammer in it, what’re you gonna do when I’m not around to watch your sodden arse?”

Ty smiled. That sounded like a fond sort of grumble.

One thing the occupation kept reminding him of, was that there were stupid damn idealistic idiots everywhere, green and naive and itching for a way to get themselves killed. Drinks with Ty always left him in a foul mood and a sour taste in his mouth.

Naasade sighed irritably into his drink, then thought better of it and pushed the glass away. He had an appointment to keep as it was—and it just got much less pleasant. A night patrol, an out-of-the-way meeting. Now a warning to pass along.

People like that, naive and idealistic and stupid-young, they made his job easier, sometimes. Sometimes all he had to do was sit someone down for long enough that they’d lay out the plan for the next month in perfect order for him. Sometimes he got the chance to stretch out, talk rings around an officer until he could play them like a bes’bev, make them a Rebel sympathiser for a day to get the newest codes for transmission frequency encryption.

Ty was loyal, and devoted completely, to Onderon—not to the Empire. That was a crucial distinction; Naasade had no problem manipulating Imps to do whatever he needed them to. Disillusioned Imps were, in fact, the easiest to compromise. But Ty was less a target for recruitment than a source, and every time the kid walked away Naasade thought the Empire would swallow him whole, leave the body in a sewer somewhere.

Didn’t want to kill Rebels… Yeah, that kid wouldn’t last long.

Naasade was here shadowing an injured Fulcrum. He didn’t even know which one of them it was: some clever fucker in Command had once suggested tagging multiple people with that call sign, to have the Imps chasing their own tails for a bit. Based on the fact that Command had assigned him to babysit, and seemed to be keeping a very close eye on the situation, Naasade was almost convinced this was the real, original Fulcrum.

He was perversely grateful, still, that they hadn’t specified. For one thing, it gave him plausible deniability. For another, if the rumours from the early days were at all true, Fulcrum was likely to be a Jedi.

He wasn’t ready for that yet. The thought had him reaching for his glass again in a hurry, washing down a wave of bitterness before it could overtake him. Then, of course, Naasade grimaced at the empty tumbler, put it down, pushed himself up out of the seat and made his legs take him out of the bar. He certainly didn’t need that habit coming back.

He’d probably earned himself a headache for tomorrow morning anyway. Annoyingly, it tended to center on the faint scar on the right side of his head—evidence of careful brain surgery, an extraction he didn’t even want to think about. It seemed both appropriate and ironic, that he be reminded of the exact thing that drove him to drink in the first place every time he forgot himself and went a little bit too far again.

It was almost time to start his patrol, anyway, which meant that he had to be outside the city in five.

He made it in two, pulling out of the main gate like a man let loose. This was his favourite patrol route. The grey, weighted feeling of the city melted away from him and into the brisk air as he cut through the fields.

Somewhere in the middle of his patrol route, Naasade slowed down to a casual, coasting halt. It was a habit he’d established well enough during his posting that no one would think it strange. Some of his patrolling reports mentioned meeting the locals. Naasade reported meeting farmers, peaceful people, and either passing along the boundary of their land or having well-intentioned quiet arguments on where the boundary lay.

Naasade made sure to never capture a recording of one. He always left his swoop idling; his helmet, with its shitty voice pickup, never got anything over the rumble of the engine it was sitting right on top of; and in the dark, with companion in shadow or behind a large boulder, the video feed also caught nothing.

Their meetings also fell in seemingly random intervals. Actually it had more to do with which of Onderon’s moons had completed its cycle, but most Imps never bothered to learn the traditions of the planets they’d invaded. A great deal of local mythology was built on the phases of Onderon’s satellites.

Naasade just considered himself lucky that tonight was one of those predetermined meetings, and that he wouldn’t need to run the risk of requesting emergency contact.

He parked his swoop near a generously-sized boulder and got up to stretch, and stare at the stars. He was making good time, anyway—as always.

Radha was already waiting for him, but that wasn’t unusual either.

“Late, Commander,” a low voice said from behind the stone.

“Just fine,” he murmured. “How’s the patient?”

“Pain in everybody’s arse,” Radha shot back without a second’s hesitation. “Could be worse, though. Should’ve moved out a month ago, said they wanted to stay—to help out around the house.”

Naasade raised an eyebrow at the night sky. “And you don’t need the help,” he said flatly.

“Naw, we do,” Radha’s grin was audible, “but we’re not the only ones. There’s others they could assist. Not complaining, anyway. Not really.”

He knew the frustration in that voice—was intimately familiar with it. Definitely a Jedi, then, Naasade thought. ‘Helping about the house’ could mean anything, too, from training the troops to literally helping them explore the cave passageways. He suppressed a heavy sigh. “You’re gonna need all the help you can get, soon.”

“Shit.” He caught sight of the dull glow of a discarded tabac stick before it was viciously ground out. “Storm?”

Naasade nodded, mentally reviewing the last known fleet positions. “Big one.”

The Governor could be a right bastard, but Moff Sesirri Tanai had control over this sector at the moment. She was cold, calculating, and absolutely ruthless. At least she wasn’t also Tarkin-levels of destructive.

Sesirri was pragmatic, though, even in her overkill.

Radha swore fervently. “When?”

“Soon. Eight days,” at a minimum. Naasade thought about it a moment, wondering what to expect from Moff Tanai. “Expect nightcrawlers,” he added.

Death Commandos. From behind the stone, Naasade thought he heard a strangled curse as the realisation hit. They hadn’t exactly needed to use that particular shorthand phrase before. “Can your friend get out on their own?”

“I don’t know,” Radha said. “If I tell them, they won’t leave. They’ll want to help.”

Naasade snorted quietly. “Figures. Can you relocate?”

Radha was silent for a moment. “Do they know where our house is?”

An excellent question. Ty never said, but there had to be a record of sightings, suspected resistance outposts. “I’ll ask around.” He’d picked up a trick or two from slicers over the years, and with the right set of commands, computers didn’t mind questions nearly as much as people might. “When can you take delivery?”

“Fourth moon.”

Naasade grimaced. “City beat.”

“Then I’ll find you. At market?”

“Generator side. Prearranged drop-off site.”

“Done,” Radha agreed. “Now go home, Imp.”

Naasade smiled faintly. “You too, Rebel scum.

#Commander Cody #Naasade #Onderon #Imperial occupation #Fulcrum #wild ficcage and au spawn #Call Sign: Sky Squadron