Cora/Tup: The Good Soldier (An AU story)

Cora/Tup: The Good Soldier

"A good soldier obeys orders...." The voice made Tup twitch.  He was in a haze, and there was blackness all around him.

"A good soldier obeys orders!" the voice repeated.  It was an old, decrepit voice, a gorgon in his mind.  Tup tried to run from the hideous man calling out from the void.

"Who are you!" he shouted "SHOW YOURSELF!"

A light went up in a spot of his dreamy void, and Tup saw his Jedi Commander.  Cora took his breath away, for she was radiant in the darkness.  But Cora looked at him, scared.

"Execute Order 66!" the old voice commanded.  Tup raised his gun.  He lost control of his body, and it terrified him as he aimed at her.

"CORAAAAA!!" he shouted as he pulled the trigger.....

Tup woke up, sweating.  The nightmares were getting worse.  Each time, his muscles felt stiff as he sat up in bed.  He pondered the horror of the dreams until it faded, and he could scarcely remember what it was even about.  "I must be losing my mind!" he muttered.  He got dressed, and though he had several hours before starting his duties, he decided to just work out his anxieties with some PT.

Meanwhile, Jedi Cora looked over several mission briefings handed to her by Admiral Yularen.  "Master Yoda wanted these handed to you, Jedi" he bowed formally "For your eyes only.  It seems....your mission is to capture Admiral Trench.  Our intel shows he is hiding on Balmorra.  Take your troops and strike fast!  Dead or alive.  Preferably alive"

Cora bit her tongue, resisting the urge to comment about splatting that spider.  She simply nodded and exited the briefing.  She reached her barracks, where the other troops trained or relaxed.  Tup was jogging by, having been on a workout for the past hour.  His T shirt started to show the sweat of his labors as he stopped to smile at her.

"Commander" he greeted.

"Soldier" she smiled back, but stayed formal.  Sometimes, Cora felt her feelings for Tup were the worst kept secret in the GAR, but things were not so obvious to the high command or the Jedi.  they ere often preoccupied with their own missions and concerns.  Cora was glad to be somehow overlooked.  She sometimes worried about what would happen if the Council were to ever become aware of her lack of discipline.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Tup, who wanted to say something, but hesitated.  "Are you....okay?" he asked.  His question made her raise an eyebrow

"Yeeeeeah.  Why?" Cora sensed some confusion.  And some fear.  What was he afraid of?

"I just....forget it.  It's nothing.  Want to join me in circling the compound?"

"Sure" She joined him in a jog, but she still had a nagging sense that Tup was holding back something.

"Want to see if you can outrun me?" he asked

"Why?  Are we racing?" Cora looked at him funny.  Tup started to run faster, and Cora got faster to keep up.  Tup got faster, then she got faster.  She giggled a little at how silly they were becoming.  Tup giggled a little as well, but felt uncomfortable and didn't know why.

"I just want to make sure.....you're a good runner...." He smiled at her playfully.  They stopped and rested.  Cora was signaled by her comlink.  Yularen informed her the fleet was prepping to leave for the mission.  She acknowledged the Admiral and went to shower up.  Tup watched quietly as his commanding Jedi did all this.

He started to get a bad feeling about all this.  But didn't know why.  He wanted to say something to her, but was uncertain what it was.  Why was he scared for her?  Why was he feeling suddenly so....angry and emotional?  He shrugged it off as she entered her personal quarters.  Duty was everything now, and he went to prepare for the trip.  After all, a good soldier obeys orders.


Cora's unit traveled on the Cruiser to Balmorra, and launched their LAATS in a textbook strike to the surface.  Tup watched Cora, and felt so many emotions.  Cora stayed focused on the mission, and though she sensed the usual amount of anxious activity among the troops, Tup's energy was off the charts, so to speak.

She turned to him, just to reassure him of the mission "It'll be quick and easy.  Smash the clankers, grab Trench, and get back to the ship."

"You know nothing is ever easy." He tried to make it a sort of gallows humor response, but he suddenly got quiet.  He felt an itch on the back of his head and kept wanting to scratch it.

"Commander!" he blurted out "I.....I will do my best...." he suddenly blushed "I wont let anything go wrong...."

Cora nodded "Of course, soldier".  She turned back to wait as the gunship was about to land.  She wanted to give Tup a curious look, but let it pass.

Tup wanted to do so much now.  With Cora, as if it were their last day together.  But the ship landed and the doors opened.  Outside, the assault around a worn Separatist base.  Troops were advancing, and Cora lit up her saber to lead her unit.  "Let's smush this spider so we can all go home!" she yelled as the laser blasts flew around them.  Dust storms of exploding dirt fell around them from cannon fire, and there was tons of debris around the old base.  Cora led her men carefully through the maze of wreckage and ruins as they approached the defense lines.

The Clone advance was stalled by fierce resistance from swarms of droids protecting the base, particularly at a central point with solid defense walls surrounding Admiral Trench's compound.

Cora looked to her demolitions soldier with his large, portable cannon.  She pointed quickly with two fingers at the target.  The trooper leveled his gun at the wall and fired.  The frustrated line of Clone troops cheered as the walled defenses were obliterated, with droid pieces flying everywhere.

Admiral Trench watched in despair as his defense line finally started to crumble.  "We are finished.  The base will be overrun!" He turned to his chief strategist droid "Prepare my escape pod!"

Cora and Tup led the charge into the base.  "We have a short time to catch the Admiral!" Tup warned her "He might make a quick getaway!"

"Not a chance!" She smiled at him as she started to cut through the clankers with her blade "He won't get far!" She pointed at her demolitions trooper "Eyes on the sky!"  The trooper reloaded his missile launcher and saluted back.

"Wait up!" Tup called out as they mopped through the retreating droids.  Cora was running fast to get to the Command center.

A couple droidekas tried to block her way, when she jumped over them and dropped a detonator.  She kept running as a the explosion vaporized them before they could turn around.  Tup almost smiled at her quick thinking and skills.

As he was getting ready to catch up, he was paged from his comlink.  He and every other trooper on the battlefield.  It was the Chancellor.....

"Soldiers of the Republic....." The elder statesman smiled "The time has come.  Execute Order 66....."


Cora sliced her way through a line of terrified droid guards as she ran down a long hallway, dodging laserblasts, to get to Trench's command area.

Trench was still making preparations to escape when she cut through the blast doors.

"Impossible!  No one could get to the center of the base so fast!" The Admiral gasp.  The blast doors warped and fell over as Cora cut through, stepping into the room.

"Jedi!" Trench curled his hands into fists as she held her blade at him.

"Time to surrender, Admiral.  The whole Confederate defense is going down all across the system.  We've already taken Boz Pity, Koorivar, and Cato Nemoidia.  There's nowhere to run." Cora looked at him.  She did not see Tup marching up the hall in the distance.  His face held a blank stare.

"All good soldiers obey orders...." Tup lifted his gun and took aim.  Admiral Trench spotted him and tilted his head in confusion.  Cora saw Trench's expression and turned to face Tup at just the right split second!

Tup's blast missed her head by an inch.  "TUP!  What are you doing??"  Cora yelled in surprise and irritation.  Tup fired again and again.  Admiral Trench ducked to the floor as Cora deflected his shots.  Soon, more Clone Troopers marched down the hallway and started to fire at her.  Cora jumped away from the door, and smashed through a window overlooking the battlefield.  She climbed up on the roof quickly and tried to think.  She spotted Tup crawling up to the roof.

"TUP!!  What is your major malfunction!?  I had the prisoner!"

"A good soldier.....obeys orders!!" Tup raised his weapon again, but Cora pushed him off balance with the Force.

"What orders?  WHAT IS GOING ON!?" she demanded.

"The Jedi must be executed, Commander" Another clone trooper answered.  "You're guilty of treason against the Republic and Chancellor Palpatine!"  The trooper fired his gun, but Cora deflected it and backed away.  She could not bring herself to fight her own troops, her own friends.

"Just get the prisoner to Coruscant!" She felt silly giving an order that they were obeying without her in command.  She started running again across the roof of the base as Tup and other soldiers open fired.  Tup stopped for a second and hesitated....but then kept firing.

"Take the prisoner back to the transport" Tup told the others "She's mine!"  He ran after her.

Cora ducked into a vent shaft and quickly crawled as far as she could down into the ventilation.  She heard in the distance that Tup entered the vent and was pursuing her.

"You can't hide, Jedi!  We will be destroying this base soon.  You can come out and face punishment with me....or hide in shame with oblivion takes you!"

Cora's heart nearly broke at his harsh words, but she concentrated on survival.  She also sensed that his mind was not what it once was.  She reached out in the Force and felt a dead zone in his mind where Tup had been.  Cora opened a vent into the base and ran through the halls into a hiding place.  Her heart pounded fast as she could sense a vast neutral essence from many of the troops.  What had changed them?

She waited for Tup to exit the vents, and could hear him walking slowly down the abandoned halls.

"Why are you trying to kill me, Tup?"  She called out.  Her voice echoed from the darkness, and sounded off from every direction.

Tup froze, trying to hear where she was, but could not pinpoint her.  "I must obey my orders!  The Jedi are traitors and must be executed!"

"But you KNOW me, Tup!  I am no traitor!" Cora tried to reason with him

"I....I must obey orders!" Tup hesitated, but pressed on.  A noise echoed behind him.  He turned and fired fast "A GOOD SOLDIER OBEYS ORDERS, TRAITOR!"

Tup hunted for her with more effort.  "I can make this painless, Cora.....Come out...."

"Tup...." Cora sighed from the shadows, holding back tears "Don't do this!  Don't make me fight you!"

He looked around, and started to feel uncertain "But....a good soldier...."  He listened carefully....

"Tup....Please...."

He stopped, and rubbed his helmet for a moment, like his head hurt.  He heard another noise and open fired into the dark corridors.

"You would.....really kill me, Tup?" Cora asked in a terrified whisper.  She did not klnow what had happened, but she was still in shock at the notion that someone so close could have been so deceptive.

"The Chancellor COMMANDS IT!" Tup shouted more in pain from his headache than in any rage.  He threw his helmet off and rubbed his head.  It began to hurt as his dream came back.  He remembered the nightmare of killing Cora, killing other Jedi.

"SHOW YOURSELF!"  Tup winced in pain and fired his gun into the darkness, becoming frustrated.  He took a moment to catch his breath, trying to shake the nightmare from his mind, trying to erase the nightmare of Cora's dead face staring back at him....

Cora sighed once more and stepped out into the light.  There was no where to run.  Not from the Republic.  Not from Tup.  She once thought to herself on how she truly felt about Tup, the Jedi, the rules, and the need to win the war.  All the variables led to the same conclusion.  That she would do anything for Tup's happiness.  All roads led to him.  If Palpatine found a way to control him, to change him, she could not fight it.  She was no politician.  With her feelings held back by a thin wall of duty, she almost could not call herself a Jedi in the truest sense of the word.

She did the only thing she could do for Tup.

She surrendered.  "Here I am.  If the Force wills it so, then I must face my destiny."

Tup aimed his gun at her, his heart pounding, Palpatine's words echoing their power in his head, the nightmare of dead Cora in his waking dreams.  His head thrpobbed with pain and he could barely see straight.  Cora closed her eyes and waited.

Tup looked at her, saw her soft vulnerability, the Cora that was never allowed to be shown in front of the men.  Her expression of surrender to him was one that only he had ever known.  They had shared a secret kind of intimacy without ever being together, but it was a friendship and love they had expressed in privacy of words and expressions.  His heart beat terribly as he remembered that deep down, he had always loved her, and would give his life for her happiness.

The pain, however, had become great.  His trigger finger twitched from the pounding of Palpatine's evil in his head.  The trigger went off, and the bright colored blast torpedoed at Cora.  The last thing Tup saw was Cora's shocked expression.

He screamed in terror and guilt before fainting.

He was not unconscious long, but his nightmares taunted him.  Palpatine's laughter mocked him and he almost felt he could see Cora's dead face looking up at him.  Tup awoke, then started crying and wanted to scream!

"CORA!!!  NO!" He shouted.

But Cora was holding him, cradling him.  She was trying to calm him down

"SHE'S DEAD!!" He felt tears and pain all over his face, but Cora held him strongly

"Shhhh, no, I'm here, Tup!  I'M HERE.  It's okay....it's okay"

Tup looked up at her.  "Not a dream?  Cora?"

"It's me.  You are not dreaming.  You may be a lousy shot, but you are not dreaming."

Tears started up in his eyes, but she wiped them away "Shhh, don't.  Don't start beating yourself up.  We have to get ready to go."

Tup had been so relieved to see her, he forgot the pain in his head.  It was subsiding to a dull thumping, but he bolstered his courage by looking up at her.  "The other soldiers....we're surrounded."

"No, they are currently retreating.  They've been calling you on your comlink, but I think they've given up.  I think they intend to destroy the base from orbit.  We have to go.  Quickly."

"How?  We will never make it away from here in time." Tup sighed.

"Admiral Trench's personal shuttle is still intact, and ready to go."  Cora showed him.  Tup suddenly realized they were on board the shuttle.  Trench had hoped to use it for a cowardly escape.  But for Tup and Cora, it became their hope for a future together.

Cora got up and went to the pilot seat and prepped the engines.  She caught a signal coming in from Coruscant.

"It's Chancellor Palpatine!" Tup got up and listened.  Cora and Tup listened with some despair as Palpatine announced a new Galactic Empire, and declared all Jedi to be enemies of the state.  Tup could not look at her, his guilt creeping upon him.

But Cora took his hand to comfort him.

"We will be hunted.  All hope is lost." Tup grimaced.

Cora smiled and let the engine hum on standby "They will think we are dead.  We will fly away as the fleet bombs the base.  They will never detect us in our escape."

"But where can we go.  We will both be declared traitors if they ever discover us."

Cora leaned over to him and kissed him with a passion that flooded finally from her, a passion that had been locked up behind duty.  "We will survive as best we can, each day.  We will live each day until we meet whatever Destiny is in store.  Come what may."

Cora scanned the Republic fleet activities and sensed the bombardment about to begin.  Flying low, they took the shuttle at full speed.  The ship trembled a little from the shock waves of the attack that vaporized the old Separatist base.  But they were alive and free.

Tup held her hand as they remained hidden on the world, only making the jump to hyperspace once the fleet had left.

Cora set coordinates for the outer rim, to find a planet where they could rest and be safe.  In the quiet of hyperspace, they were free of all duty and rules.  Though the future was uncertain, they knew it was a future where they could face each day together.