Children of the Desert

Chapter 1 - The Clone Wars

The war has been raging for mere months, but the galaxy already feels like a different place entirely. It feels like almost a lifetime ago that there was peace, that the Republic wasn't owning a slave army that they claim isn't sentient enough for it to break the anti-slavery laws simply because they're clones, and that Anakin was still a padawan.

He's a Knight and a general now. He's ready to be a Knight, but a general? Not so much. Especially not with everything it comes with.

He's not ready to leave his men into battle, to their deaths, every single day, wishing there was more he could do to protect them. And he knows he's doing everything he can and he was able to save his mother so he can somewhat trust that he's not completely failing, but it never feels like enough. Especially not when his men are slaves, just like he was, and they don't even get a say in whether or not they want to fight.

But he's never thought about that quite as obsessively as he is now, after they lost so much ground on Christophsis because of a clone turned traitor.

"It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We do your bidding. We serve at your whim. I just wanted something more."

"And all you had to do to get it was put the rest of us all at risk. "

"I love my brothers. You're too blind to see it, but I was striking a blow for all the clones."

Slick wasn't right in what he did. There's no doubting that. They lost the battle because of him, and that's not to say how many of his brothers he hurt or killed in the process.

His fate is going to be up to the Republic now. To his superiors. Rightfully, he should be executed. He committed treason, and he's a traitor. To the Republic, to all of his brothers. He could have killed Rex and Cody. He tried to, and Anakin will never forgive him for that. Loyalty is important. Slick had a family, and he hurt all of them. He was willing to kill his own brothers.

But – but, at the end of the day, Slick was a slave, too. He had a right to be willing to fight for freedom, even if it doesn't begin to justify the means he went about it. He might have been willing to betray the Republic and everything the clones fought for, are dying for, but that... doesn't mean he was fully wrong.

No one is wrong for wanting freedom.

The dream of every slave is to kill their masters, and it feels like that's what Slick was doing. He's one of the only clones who understands their status enough to want anything else.

They lost the battle because of him, but Anakin isn't going to call Christophsis a lost cause yet. He doesn't do that – maybe it's not possible for most people, but he'll make it work, because he has to and people are counting on him. There's no other way it can be.

"I still can't believe one of our brothers was willing to sell us out like that," Rex remarks, still visibly angry.

"The lines of trust are blurred in war," Anakin supplies, and it's not anything that will help and hardly even something he can offer, but he has to say something.

Cody nods his agreement, no happier. "Until now, I've always believed we could at least trust our brothers."

"Still don't understand what he thought was worth all this," Rex sighs.

How many of them even realize what they are? They're so brainwashed into loyalty to the Republic, Anakin doesn't know if either of them have even thought about some of the truth to Slick's words – not that it makes it any better than he was killing his own brothers, but still.