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Chapter Text

Purge Trooper 2224 grunts as his back meets the wall, thrown there with a push from the jedi traitor. He blinks stars out of his eyes and wishes for his bucket. It had been lost earlier in the fight when he got a bolt to the head and the black plastoid cracked. They didn’t make the armor as good as they used to. No matter, he had a job to do and he was going to get it done. The mission had been given to them by Lord Vader himself and PT-2224 had no desire to fail that man. He likes being able to do his work for the Emperor and can’t do that if he’s dead at an impulsive apprentice’s hand. 

He and his squad had tracked down a group working with a jedi to some form of temple on a planet deep in the Outer Rim, and now all they have to do is complete their orders and bring Lord Vader the jedi’s head. The jedi is doing her best with her lightsabers to deflect any blaster bolt sent towards those closest to her, their hum filling the corridor. She’s a togruta, tall with orange skin. Her twin lightsabers spin in furious movements around her, but she can’t stop everything. She’s taller now than she was the last time he saw her, taller than the clones she once was dwarfed by. He knows her, he cared for her. 2224 shoves that last thought down with a vengeance. There’s a part of the back of his mind that is screaming but it’s easy enough to ignore. A traitor’s a traitor. It doesn’t matter who she might have been before, just as it doesn’t matter who 2224 was. He’ll do his duty. He’ll always do his duty. 

He launches himself at the nearest traitor, a young looking twi'lek. She’s small and blue, with large doe eyes wide with fear. He lost his blaster after a lucky shot by one of the others, but it doesn’t matter, he’s always been good at hand to hand. She ducks under his punch, voice shrill in alarm. The girls got a rifle, not that it’ll do her much good at the range 2224 it at. There’s the sound of a blaster going off and then she slumps down at 2224’s feet, a hole singed into her forehead. 2224’s squadmates are good shots, he helped pick them after all.

His commander shouts at them but 2224 tunes it out. He knows what she wants, he’s been in enough fights with her for that. He steps over the twi’lek’s body and continues on toward the jedi. She’s the real goal here. 

Another one of their opponents falls and a man with short brown hair and a thin frame turns to face 2224. He blanches and if 2224 was a betting man, or had anything to bet, he’d bet that he’s not used to fighting. His hands come up into what could graciously be called a stance, but what 2224 would call a disaster. The team's slicer, if 2224 has to guess on his form. All the better for 2224, should be an easy enough fight. The man lets out a shout, and throws a punch. 

2224 ducks under it and grabs around the back of his neck. From there it’s easy enough to bring his knee up and the man’s face down. With a satisfying snap, he feels the man’s nose give way under his knee. He screams, and pushes 2224  backwards, red dripping off his face and onto the floor.

The man pulls a vibro-knife from a holster on his thigh before swinging out at 2224. He doesn’t connect. 2224 parries the swing, trapping it against his forearm. The whine of the vibro-knife is loud in his ears. Stars, he misses his bucket. The man kicks out, but it’s sloppy, uncoordinated and 2224 grabs the foot, pulls and twists. There’s a snap, and the man goes down hard, the vibro-knife clattering away from him. He scuttles back, but it’s clear the 2224 but the way he’s moving that something important is broken. Good. He’s easier to take down then.  

2224 leans down and grabs the vibro-knife from the floor, ignoring the protest of his ribs. The man hits a wall and tries to leverage himself up, but collapses down again, leg not able to support his weight. 2224 continues to stalk forward. It’s easy to slit the throat of the man against the wall, to watch the scarlet gush out as the man chokes on his own blood. 2224 feels the satisfaction of a kill done well and turns back to face the rest. 

The jedi is still a whirlwind of light as she dances around the room, protecting those of her’s she can. But it’s not enough. 2224’s side is winning, and soon they’ll have her head. 

Another steps in to face him, sinking into a well worn ready stance. And 2224 sees his own face looking back at him. The other clone looks up at him with regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you, Cody, you don’t deserve this.” There’s a steely resolve there too, and 2224 knows the clone across from him will not go down quietly. 

“I’m 2224. Cody doesn’t exist.” He bites out. He knows this man he once called brother, knows the shorn blond hair on his head and the small scar across his lip. Figures he’d turn traitor too, 2224 shouldn’t have trusted he’d at least stick around. He readjusts his grip on his stolen vibro-blade and swings. 

2224 knows that he will win, he’s always been better at hand to hand than his brother and he’s not holding back. Rex is. There must be fighting going on around them but 2224 knows nothing but what is in front of him. His knife moves forward, and finds its target. There’s a wet sound as the knife sinks into Rex’s chest, through his ribs to rest just under his heart. He’s still alive, but won’t be for much longer. Rex looks at 2224, eyes wide with betrayal. Apparently even after all this time, he didn’t really believe his older brother would kill him. 

“Rex!” The jedi screams, her voice shattering. There’s a wave of power that rolls off of her as she starts towards the man at 2224’s feet. He’s thrown back into the wall, again, this time, his head hitting first. 

The world goes dark and when it comes back, 2224 feels blood dripping down the side of his face. 

There’s a buzz somewhere deep in his mind that he tries to blink off. It’s not important now, he needs to focus on the fight at hand. But he can’t, it keeps rising and rising in pitch until his world narrows down to nothing but pain, a piercing, excruciating pain. His knees give out and he digs at his ears with his fingers, trying to get it to stop. He needs it to stop. He can feel blood covering the sides of his face, falling from his ears and 2224 is sure this is how he dies, trembling and weak. Then, as soon as it started, it’s over, and 2224 can think again. But he can’t ignore the screaming in his head anymore either.

Something forces him to look over at his brother on the ground, and he feels not disgust, but despair. He caused this. He killed his brother. It’s instinct driving him towards Rex, to pull his little brother in his arms and hold him through the worst.  

The air screams with the sound of blaster fire and lightsabers but he just clutches Rex closer to him and dips his head down to press his forehead against Rex’s, to share his breath one more time. The face against his is growing colder but is still alive and Rex’s eyes flutter open, wide and panicked, his mouth moves but he’s unable to summon words. A broken whine falls through his mouth as blood bubbles up and over, staining his lips crimson. He gives a wet, gurgling cough before finally going still, light fading out of his eyes, face going slack.

PT-2224, Cody, whoever he is, moves his face back and looks for one last time, into the face of a brother. He’s seen his one face stare back at him dead so many times, but this time it’s different. He reaches up, and closes Rex’s eyes as softly as he can. The last and only honor he can give now. 

“PT-2224” His commander barks. “What are you doing?” He can hear the squad behind her shifting their grips on their weapons, turning so they’re pointed at him. 

His knife is out of his hand before he knows it, nailing the commander of the squad between her eyes before she can think to blink. With a scream, he launches himself at the others, those he fought and killed with, those he trusted his missions with. 

A blaster fires and Cody knows it won’t miss, his squad is too good for that, he helped pick the others at the request of the commander. His chest erupts in pain and he crumples back down to the floor. He can’t breathe and he can’t move and he can’t think anymore. There’s a scream from what must be Ahsoka, and he can feel a pulse of the force move through him, can taste an apology that isn’t his on his tongue. The touch of the force is familiar, even after all this time. The world around him fades until all that remains is the clash of Ahsoka’s lightsabers and then. Nothing. 

And then there’s awareness. An awful awareness. 

Cody shudders, remembers his own face looking back at him, bloody and lifeless, remembers his brother with a vibro-knife in his chest choking on the blood in his lungs, remembers the commander screaming out with pain. He flails awake and gags while turning over onto his side. His hands find a bunk and, when he opens his eyes, all he can see is the dim light of the pod’s controls. He’s not dead? He needs to get out of this pod, to see what’s out there. Why isn’t he dead? The afterlife surely can’t look like Kamino, not that Cody's even sure he would get into an afterlife anymore. 

Slamming his hand on the pod extension button, he stumbles out, falling more than climbing down the ladder. There’s a sound of alarm behind him but he can’t stop, can’t look back and see the face of a brother. He stumbles his way into the ‘fresher at the end of the hall and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His scar is a puffy pink, clearly still fresh. He needs to vomit. The door of a toilet stall locks behind him and he’s never before been so happy to have one shred of privacy. He quickly throws up, the taste of death stuck in his mouth. For one terrible moment, he knows, knows about the chips, the sith, and can see, for that one brief moment, General Windu with his saber at Palpatine's throat. He retches into the toilet again. This can’t be the afterlife, and his entire life can’t have been a dream. Where is he? He wipes his mouth and curls up into a ball. He tries to breathe evenly, to calm himself but everything builds until eventually a great, rasping sob forces its way out of his throat and then he can’t hold it in anymore. He sits and cries, cries for the lost brothers and for all the jedi he killed in the years after the purge. All the tears eaten through the war and those he didn’t feel after it come out in a flood. It feels like an age before he calms down, sobs turning into hitching breaths.

There’s a knock at the stall door. “2224? Are you okay in there?” He knows it’s Ponds, in some deep intrinsic way. He lost Ponds years ago, near the start of the war. “2224?” Ponds asks again when Cody’s silence drags on too long.

“I’m fine,” he manages to choke out. “Go back to sleep, Ponds.” Cody supposes he might as well play along with whatever this is. 

“No point. The wake up alarm is going to sound soon,” Pond sounds concerned. “You going to let me in and tell me what happened?”

Cody sighs, and thunks his head back against the door. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been crying in the ‘fresher for an hour because you’re fine, sure 2224.” Ponds really does know how to pull the judgemental older brother voice. “Last chance to unlock the door before I break it down.” Cody knows Ponds enough to know he will make good on that threat so, with a sigh, he reaches up, and flicks open the lock on the door. 

Ponds pushes his way into the stall and hands Cody a cup of water. “Drink.” He commands, and Cody listens. It’s easy to fall into the routine of a brother caring for him, even after all this time. He finishes the water and Ponds takes the glass back, places it outside the stall. There’s a hand wrapping around his neck and he’s pulled into Ponds’ chest where it’s warm and safe. Ponds’ arms curl around him and hold him tight. Cody nearly starts crying again, listening to Ponds’ steady heartbeat under his ear. It feels like a dream, and in this, Cody is happy to play along.

“What was this about, 2224?” Ponds asks carefully. Cody grimaces where Ponds can’t see him before he pushes reluctantly out of Ponds’ hold. 

“Just a bad dream, please Ponds, don’t ask me more.” He pleads more than anything. He has no idea how to explain what just happened. What is currently happening. How can he explain coming back to yourself after you committed horrors unwillingly? 

Ponds sighs and says “Fine, see you in the mess.” He pushes up onto his feet using Cody’s shoulder as leverage and leaves Cody still curled up  in front of the toilet. Cody takes a deep breath in and holds it in for a count of four before exhaling. Calm. He needs to be calm to figure out what’s going on. His life, the war, the purge, they couldn’t have been a dream, it was all too vivid for that. But this, this also couldn’t be anything but the ‘fresher in their dormitory on Kamino. Where was he? What was happening to him? 

“You are at the beginning. Or rather, before the beginning.” A voice nudges into his mind, shimmer soft. “Be brave, have heart, you know what needs to be done.”

"What's going on?" Cody asks. There's no sound but the slow dripping of the tap. "That's all you've got? I know what needs to be done? How? I don't even know what's happening!" He hisses into the silence. No more words come, but a nudge. A memory is drawn forth, a steady purple saber hovering below the Emperor’s chin. The Emperor, Palpatine, whoever he is needs to die. Cody’s got to get out of here, off of Kamino. He’s going to kill Palpatine before he can hurt anyone Cody cares about again.

Chapter Text

Ponds leaves 2224 in the ‘fresher and heads back to the sleeping pods. One quick glance at the clock on the wall shows there’s only a quarter hour before the breakfast period starts. The rest of the squad is up already—Ponds can’t see Fox, but if he had to guess he’d say he’s on the way to the dining hall already. Probably bolted there as soon as he could drag some reds on. Bastard always likes to be early to everything. Wolffe only offers him a nod before he’s off too, chasing after a clone that Ponds doesn’t know. Bly sits on the bench in between their lockers, tugging on his boots.

“How’s ‘24?” Bly asks, a hint of concern slipping into his voice. He’s the only one of their squad other than Ponds who wakes early enough to see 2224 stumble out of the sleeping pod and into the fresher. 

Ponds hesitates a moment before replying, “He’ll be fine, it was just a bad dream.” Not that he’s ever known 2224 to be shaken like that by anything, let alone a dream. Maybe it’s just an aftereffect of the head wound? Not that Ponds would particularly know; he’s not a medic. “Though he won’t be fine if he hears you call him that. You know he hates it.”

“Yeah yeah, I know. Luck, vod, see you at firstmeal.” Bly pats him on the shoulder as he walks past.

Ponds strips himself of his sleeping tunic quickly before pulling on a set of cadet reds. He grabs a second set from the lockers for ‘24, damn Bly, 2224 to put on when he pulls himself out of the ‘fresher. 

He only has to wait a few minutes before 2224 comes into view. He’s holding himself oddly, almost stumbling while walking like he’s tripping over his own limbs. Clearly what was going on isn’t just 2224 being upset from a bad dream, but Ponds will let 2224 keep his secrets, for now at least. If it starts affecting their batch’s training, Ponds will have to bring it up with somebody. Alpha-17 maybe. He’s always had something of a soft spot for 2224, if anything about the man could be called soft.

“Here.” He hands over the reds to 2224, who had clearly crawled in the sonic long enough for the smell of stale sweat to be washed off. 

“Ponds.” 2224 sounds almost desperate. 

“Yeah?” He’s careful to keep calm, well aware that he’s treating his brother like a scared tubie but not sure what else to do. He's never seen Cody anywhere near acting like this before. 

“My name’s Cody.” 

“Okay. It fits you, Cody.” And if that’s all Cody’s worked up about Ponds will eat his spare boots. Maybe he’d clean them first, after all they’ve still got mud on them from the survival exercise they did off world. But Cody seems to relax after telling Ponds that, a careful, practiced relaxing that Ponds has never seen from him before. 

Cody tugs on his reds, though does miss when trying to grab at the coat on his first try. “Mess?” Cody asks, voice back to being controlled and confident. Ponds looks over his shoulder at the clock and yes, they do really need to get going. 

When he turns back around, Cody is up and ready, though how he managed to put on and tie his boots in that amount of time is a mystery. 

“Yep, we wouldn’t want to be late for whatever culinary delight they’re serving today, now would we.”

Cody scoffs. “Yeah, always masterpieces around here.”

Cody pushes his way off of the bench and starts moving out of their lockers. Ponds falls into step beside him. They walk to the mess in comfortable silence, shoulder to shoulder, and somewhere along the way, Cody’s strides even out and he no longer looks like he just went through a growth spurt. Together, they grab a pair of trays and spoon the firstmeal of the day onto it. Today’s is an appetizing looking brown mush which Cody curls his lip up at before they dodge around the tables of brothers and join the rest of their squad.

“Hey, Ponds! Hey, 2224!” Wolffe calls out, spork halfway to his mouth. 

“Hey, Wolffe,” Cody says with a smile, “But it’s Cody. I’m Cody now.”

“Finally chosen a name, brother? Good for you!” Wolffe cheers, neatly flinging the brown mush on his spork into Fox’s face. Ponds can see where that one’s going.  

Cody’s smile falters, only slightly. “Yeah, I thought it was about time.”

“It’s a good name, Cody. I like it.” Bly says before reaching over the table to gently knock Cody’s forehead against his. Predictably, Wolffe and Fox end up tussling. Ponds can only hope the rest of the firstmeal survives the two of them.  

“What’s on the schedule today?” Wolffe asks, still with Fox in a headlock. Fox goes limp momentarily and slides out of Wolffe’s hold as his arms loosen in surprise. Fox makes a sound of victory before going back to his mush, staying as far away from his brother as he can get. 

“We’ve got hand to hand with Alpha-17 until the midmeal hour, then it's flash learning for the rest of the day,” Bly answers, at least one of them memorized the schedule. 

“Looks like you’ll need that hand to hand training Fox, if I got you in a headlock that easy.” Little gods, it’s one of those mornings, where Fox and Wolffe can’t stop antagonizing each other. 

“Looks like you need it, if I could get out of it that easy.” With that they’re back to wrestling, firstmeal all but forgotten. Bly sighs, but picks up his tray before it can get knocked off the table by a stray arm from either of them. Beside Ponds, Cody is eating quickly, shoveling food into his mouth with a practiced efficiency. One that hadn't been there the day before. Ponds carefully files that observation away into the If Needed Tell Alpha folder he’s started keeping. 

The buzzer for the end of the firstmeal period whines up above. “You ready boys?” Ponds asks with fake cheer. 

“Always ready,” comes the habitual response. They gather up their trays, place their dishes in the piles before moving out of the mess. As soon as they vacate their table, another squad slides in for firstmeal. Together, they make their way to hand to hand class with Alpha-17. Ponds can't wait to get the frag beat out of him.

It feels like a dream to Cody, moving through the corridors of his childhood, the blank white walls only occasionally giving way to a view of the endless ocean outside. He never thought he would see this again, a crowd of brothers, all bucketless and excited. In the war, and then after, there wasn't often as much opportunity for joy. He'd been trying to marshal his feelings all morning, trying to figure out what had happened to him. Best he can figure is that he's in his past, some years before the start of the war. 

He follows his squad to Alpha’s class, the long years since training dulling his memory of where the lesson would be held. They arrive just before as the other squad they’ll be working with today. Together, they all file into the gym and chat amongst themselves while they wait for Alpha to show up. Cody lets himself be drawn into a conversation with Bly and Thorn from the other squad. They’re lightly arguing about what kind of blaster is best, neither side willing to give in but also not really caring about the outcome. Cody finds himself with Bly, just out of habit. You don’t abandon your squadmate in an argument against another squad, that just simply isn't done. 

Their conversations quiet as soon as Alpha walks into the room. He calls them to attention and they hurry to form two lines at the center of the classroom. Alpha-17 stands in front of them, solid and unyielding. It’s almost nostalgic, standing here in front of him again. The man had gone missing after the empire came to power and Cody hadn’t heard anything about him being near the empire’s army. Cody can only hope that the man survived, if any of them could have survived, it would be Alpha. 

He has them start with warming up, running laps around the gym and occasionally yelling at them for being too slow. Cody’s half shocked to find himself struggling slightly, but then again, his body doesn’t have the endurance that he built up after fighting a war for many years anymore. There’s not much time for reminiscing in between the increasingly more intense “warm-up”. Cody can see the gleam in Alpha’s eyes that he knows was reflected in his own so often while making shinies do harder exercises in the name of improvement. Though it’s hard to feel any comradery with Alpha when Cody’s on the side of the shinies. 

When they’re all half exhausted, Alpha has them line up before him. “Alright, today we’re going to start with sparring. Pair up, and spar until a tap out. Try not to maim each other.”

Cody ends up paired with Fox. His younger brother flashes him a quick grin, more than a little feral. He grins back. It’ll feel good to be able to spar with a brother again just for fun. They move into one of the circles sketched onto the floor mats and face each other, about two arms lengths apart. Wolffe and Bly are in the next circle over and Ponds is one further than that, paired with ‘04 from the other squad. 

His limbs are shorter than he’s used to, it took him a while to get used to the shorter reach and stride. Though his scar does give him a good guess on how old he is. He got it in a survival training accident slamming his face into a log some few weeks before he hit 16 standard developmentally. With it being still quite new, he’d guess they just passed that milestone. It’s going to be interesting, trying to spar while only recently adapted to shorter limbs. 

“Three rounds, then you’ll switch sparring partners,” Alpha calls out. “Ready? Start!”

With that, Fox and Cody begin to circle one another. Cody punches out, just to get a feel for it, and Fox dodges around, trying to slide his way under Cody’s guard. Just for a second, Cody misjudges where his limbs are, and that’s all Fox needs, he’s down on his back before he can think. He twists back around again, no way is he going down that easily and pushes his body up, grabbing onto Fox’s  arm and slamming his legs against Fox, against the back of his knees and against his hip. Now they’re both on the ground. Fox is quick, but Cody’s quicker and although his body is dragging behind slightly, he’s got years of experience to fall back on. They twine around each other until Cody’s holding Fox in a choke hold until Fox slaps his hand against the mat. Cody pushes Fox off of him, rolls to his feet, and offers Fox a hand up. He takes it. 

“Good one,” Fox pants, “You must’ve been practicing when we weren’t looking”

Cody hums noncommittally and they wait together for the rest to finish their spars. When everyone is done with their first round, the spars start again. Fox and Cody start circling each other, steps measured and sure against the mats. This time, Fox is the one who strikes first. They trade blows back and forth, nothing solidly connecting and Cody is enjoying himself, lost in the joy of a fight without any stakes, until, suddenly, Cody doesn’t quite know where he is, but knows he can’t lose this fight.

He twists around, grabs the droid's arm, and slams it onto the ground. He can hear something crack when the droid hits the ground. Good, he hopes it broke something important. The burning smell of blaster fire scorches his nose, as familiar to him now as anything could be. He can hear a brother scream out behind him and he drives his fist down, the droid beneath him turns and his fist cracks on the ground. 

“Traitor!” he shouts, as he swings at someone who was a brother. The world around him is freezing cold and everyone is completely covered in armor or wrapped in cloth, but PT-2224 would know the shape of one of his brothers anywhere. The wind whips around them and he punches down at the traitor beneath him. His blaster is gone but he wasn’t one of the best in the army at hand to hand for nothing. He levers the traitor's arm back over his leg to break it. 

“CC-2224!” He hears shouted and he feels himself be roughly pulled back. When he looks down again, it’s not a clanker or a rebel under his arm, but a brother. It’s Fox, looking up at him with wide eyes. Kriff, he’s still a child, and Cody just slammed him down without helping his fall and almost broke Fox’s arm, probably did break one of his ribs if the way Fox is holding himself is any indication. “2224 what was that?” He hears Alpha shout at him, shaking him from his shoulders. His hands are griping Cody so tightly that he knows there will be bruises there tomorrow. 

He opens his mouth to respond but finds his words sticking in his throat. “I- I-” he can’t manage to finish his sentence, eyes glued to the shocked look on Fox’s face. He finally manages to look up and away from the horror in his little brother's eyes. The rest of the class is silent, staring at the both of them in concern. Cody can see Ponds beginning to open his mouth, though what he’d say Cody doesn’t have a clue 

Alpha throws him roughly into the next ring over, where Wolffe and Bly were working together. “Come on then kid, you’re sparring with me.” Cody scrambles back up to his feet and sinks into a well worn ready position. He eyes Alpha across from him, he’s big, he’d been bigger than Cody when he was fully grown, let alone half scrawny coming out of a recent growth spurt. He’s not sure if he can win this fight, and even less sure if he should. Just showing up one day to class and being able to beat Alpha would raise quite a few eyebrows. And that’s ignoring the way he’s been acting today, there’s no way his squad hasn’t noticed anything strange.

Alpha lunges towards him and all thoughts of tactics and whether it would be smart if he won fly from his head. There’s only the dance of the spar nothing else exists in that moment. He sees Alpha’s punches and kicks and turns out of their way or blocks them so they don’t land where Alpha wants them to. He can see the slight weakness in Alpha’s stance, the way he rests just a fraction too much weight on his back foot, and bides his time until he can use it. There's a moment where doesn’t quite dodge in time, and Alpha’s fist slams into his right cheek. His eye waters from the pain but Cody doesn’t falter. And there! He can see an opening so he lunges forward, takes advantage of Alpha’s slight unsteadiness and throws him over his hip and out of the sparring circle. The room is silent, the hum of the air conditioning the only sound. It seems like everyone is holding their breath to see how Alpha would react. In all their time training, they’d never seen anyone manage to defeat him. 

“Cadet,” Alpha’s voice is the closest to gentleness that Cody’s ever heard from him, “where did you learn to do that?”

“You taught me, Sir.” And it’s not even a lie, Alpha had taught Cody how to fight like that, but not for a few more years. 

“Did I? Well that’s news to me,” Alpha stares at him. “2224, sit over there, you’re done for the day. The rest of you pair back up and continue. And you,” he says, pointing at Ponds, “take 1010 over to medical.”

The rest of the class passes in silence, an almost uneasy air filling the room. They spar, but nowhere near the same intensity as before. Ponds returns fairly quickly, as the medical hall was built fairly close to the gym, after dropping Fox off. When the class is done, he sends the rest of them off to midmeal without him, staying behind to talk to Alpha. He shows up just on time for their flash learning, missing the entire meal. Cody pays only enough attention to the learning they’re supposed to be doing to know when a question pops up. It’s all things he knows instinctively after all these years that he hardly needs to think about it. 

While sitting for the rest of Alpha’s class, he started forming a plan. It’s not perfect, but it’ll be enough. It has to be. He can’t pretend to be who he was before, can’t manage to hide his instinctive reactions. He needs to get out. All he needs to do is steal a ship, get off Kamino, and go hide somewhere with crowds. Coruscant probably, he spent enough time there to be fairly familiar with it. But here, with all this time, he can finish it. Thinking of something completely opposite to what he was supposed to be doing and still looking attentive was one of the many skills Cody picked up throughout the war. 

There are always ships out on the docks. It’ll all depend on if there are any set aside for training that can make the jump to hyperspace, he doesn’t fancy an irate trainer coming after him for stealing their ship or trying to figure out the controls of one from the Kaminoians. Once he makes it to Coruscant, it won’t be hard to vanish into the population and find somewhere to work. There’s got to be something that he can do fairly easily, he’s strong and healthy, he’ll be fine.