Chapter Text
It was Dogma’s turn to head to the bar and order the next round of drinks.
On any other night, he loathed pushing through the throng of civilians and his fellow troopers as they danced and drank at 79’s. He invariably ended up with someone’s spilled drink seeping uncomfortably into his undersuit by the time he returned to the table.
But tonight, he considered himself lucky. A mystery was brewing.
A striking woman in business attire had been sitting alone at one of the larger tables since before their little subset of Torrent Company arrived. A few minutes ago, she picked up her drink and offered the table to a standing group of troopers, waving off their offers to join them and making her way to one of the two-top tables to continue her solitude. Try as they might, the men of Torrent couldn’t figure out why a woman who at first appeared to be dressed for a business meeting now looked as though she had been stood up by a date.
Dogma walked more slowly to the bar than he normally would have, with the eyes of his brothers watching his progress with the utmost interest. The path to the bar took him right past the woman in question, and while he knew her situation was none of his business, he was just as curious as the rest of them as to why she was there. Each of them had come up with his own theory. Dogma’s guess was that she was perhaps a Separatist spy. He fantasized that he would be the one to notice some clue that would expose her, and he would leave the night a hero. It was outlandish, and he knew it, but it was an entertaining notion nonetheless.
Once the drinks were ordered, Dogma did his own spying as he made his way back to the 501st as slowly as he possibly could, stopping his forward motion entirely when he was near her table so he could pretend to be interested in one of the screens over the bar. It was a good cover, but one that would be blown instantly if anyone turned to him for an update. He was so focused on uncovering her secrets that if anyone were to ask him how the speeder race above was going, he would have said the current score was 3-14 in favor of the home team.
He was just beginning to crane forward to see what the mysterious woman was looking at so glumly on her datapad when the spilled drink he knew was coming landed on the back of his neck. He rolled his shoulders against the icy chill working its way between his shoulder blades and sighed miserably before turning around. The inebriated shiny behind him—gripping far too many drink handles for even two sober hands to balance—slurred out an apology and waddled back to his unit, leaving Dogma to groan as he pulled on the wet fabric at his neck.
“You look like you want to be here about as much as I do.”
Dogma turned to see the woman in question looking right at him with a couple of cocktail napkins in her outstretched hand. He hoped he didn’t look as stunned as he felt as he took them with a nod of thanks and tried in vain to dab away some of the moisture. “I prefer to stay on base in case we’re needed.”
Her tone was somewhat sad. “Must be nice.”
“What’s that, ma’am?”
The woman smiled ruefully. “Being needed.” She shrugged as she repeated her sentiment. “It must be nice.”
Dogma could feel the stares of his brothers behind him. Now that the two of them were talking, he knew he had to ask the question they were all dying to know the answer to. It was now or never. “You’ve been sitting here on your own for over an hour. Why are you here if you don’t want to be?”
She crossed her arms and gave him a sly grin. “Over an hour, huh? So, I was right. You all have been watching me. I thought I was imagining it.”
Dogma’s eyes widened. He suddenly felt as if he were trapped behind enemy lines. “We…well, we were under the impression that—”
“Relax, trooper.” She motioned to the other chair at the small table. “I won’t bite. Sit.”
Dogma turned to look back at the astonished faces of the men behind him, each of whom was looking as if he were waiting for a bomb to explode. He swallowed hard and lowered himself into the chair as if it were an actual mine.
“I was supposed to meet some people I work with an hour and a half ago," she said to answer his question. "I thought maybe I had the location wrong, so I commed one of them. This was what I got back.” She handed him her datapad with a frown.
“We decided to go to dinner instead. We tried to get ahold of you, but after three of us tried with no luck, we guessed that you must have made other plans. Enjoy your evening.”
“It’s always loud in here,” Dogma noted as a matter of fact. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for missing their comms.”
“I didn’t. Look at the incoming message log.”
Dogma pressed the small icon at the top of the screen. There had been no incoming comms in the last four hours. His eyes narrowed. “No one commed,” he uttered in quiet confusion. “They lied to you.”
“That they did,” she confirmed loftily. “I know I’m no one’s favorite person over there right now, but this stings a little.”
Dogma passed back the datapad. He knew he had no right to ask, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Why are you no one’s favorite person?”
She tilted her head and stared hard at him for a moment as if trying to determine his motives then reached into her jacket and passed him a military press pass. “I take my job seriously. When I found out one of my peers had falsified the events of a two-hour supply drop and wrote instead that it was a three-day engagement to make himself look good, then bypassed the required channels to get it published, I reported him. He got fired.”
Dogma looked closely at the thin piece of plastoid. It showed the woman in front of him wearing tactical gear, a helmet, and a serious expression above the words: Jheyla Krim, HoloNet News. His curiosity surged to the surface. “You’re a war correspondent!”
She nodded. “What’s your name, trooper?”
“CT-6922. Dogma, ma’am—private of the 501st.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Dogma. Thank you for letting me vent to you. You know, it’s funny. In my line of work, it’s usually the troopers venting to me.” She glanced over his shoulder and smirked. “Speaking of troopers, I shouldn’t keep you from your brothers any longer. They look like they can’t wait for you to get back with your own report from the field.”
Dogma turned around and felt his eyebrows lift as some of his brothers scrambled to not be caught staring. Jesse and Kix reacted in unison and suddenly found the ceiling fascinating. Fives and Rex turned to each other and pretended to be in an animated conversation complete with hand motions, with Rex trying to mimic ships in flight and Fives apparently explaining that something had exploded. Tup and Hardcase didn’t even try to hide their interest. Tup stared with a wide-eyed grin, and Hardcase’s mouth hung open like he had forgotten how his lower jaw worked.
Dogma rolled his eyes and turned back to the woman he was finding more fascinating by the minute. “They aren’t going anywhere. If you don’t mind, ma’am, I would like to hear more about what you do. What’s it like to be a civilian correspondent? You’re not trained for battle. How do you stay safe out in the field while you’re collecting interviews and data for your stories?”
The next couple of hours passed quickly as Dogma learned what it was like to witness battle from a civilian point of view. The more she shared about her work, the more questions he had. He eventually discovered that they had been present at six battles together without even knowing it, each while she was assigned to another clone unit the 501st was working with.
Jheyla stretched and looked past Dogma to see the men of the 501st huddled together in deep conversation while stealing occasional glances in her direction. “Something tells me that you’re in for it when you get back to your barracks tonight.”
Dogma scoffed. “Don’t count on it. I’m very good at reminding them what ‘lights out’ means, and I will recite the regulations requiring troopers to get adequate rest before a deployment, which is tomorrow.”
“I’ve had to remind a few troopers of that regulation myself.”
“You know the GAR regulations?”
“Some. I don’t need to know them to the extent you do, but I’ve familiarized myself with a lot of them. When your job requires you to be in close contact with the military, it’s good practice to try to understand that military, don’t you think?”
Dogma felt a smile stretch across his face. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
He sighed when he heard six sets of armor shuffling from sitting to standing behind him, and he reluctantly rose from his chair. “Looks like we’re heading out. Thank you, ma’am. I enjoyed this. It was interesting to hear about the war from a civilian perspective.”
Jheyla stood as well. “You’re welcome, Dogma. And if we ever run into each other again, feel free to call me Jheyla.” She held her hands up at the scandalized look on his face and laughed. “Or Ms. Krim, if that would make you more comfortable.”
“I-I think I’m more comfortable with ‘ma’am,’ ma’am," he stuttered. "Good night.”
She held out her hand. “Good night, Dogma. Stay safe out there.”
Dogma took her hand with a nod and a sincere, “You too.” He then turned to leave but found that he had one last parting thought he needed to get out. “For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing by reporting him.”
He walked quickly to rejoin the rest of the group, fighting hard to resist the urge to turn around and look back at the table once more before reaching the exit. Something in the back of his mind wondered if she was watching him leave. He wasn’t even sure why he would wonder that, but he knew he shouldn’t turn, not with his brothers watching him and being so uncharacteristically silent as they made their way out of the building. He had a bad feeling he knew what was coming.
His instincts were right. The moment they were all outside, the silence turned into a barrage of rapid-fire questions. Hardcase lept in front of him with his hands bracing the sides of his head. “What the hell is happening?”
“Dogma can talk to women!” Jesse exclaimed with a smile and a shake of his head. “Who knew?”
Tup stepped up even with him and nudged his shoulder. “Who is she? What did you talk about?”
“Are you going to see her again?” Kix questioned with wide eyes.
“Why did she look so sad when she hadn’t even talked to you yet?”
He was pretty sure that that last insulting question came from Fives, but he didn’t care enough to check. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to get the grilling session over as quickly as possible by answering all of their questions at once.
“Her name is Jheyla Krim. She’s a war correspondent for HoloNet News. Her colleagues made other plans tonight without telling her. We talked about her job. And no, I will not be seeing her again.”
Jesse crossed his arms. “Why not? You looked like you were getting along fine. Didn’t you like her?”
Dogma stiffened. “She…seemed nice enough. Learning about her job was a good way to spend the evening, and I’m glad I met her. But there is no ‘again.’ Regulations specifically state that—”
Hardcase groaned. “To hell with the regulations! You and she were—”
Rex cleared his throat loudly. “We leave Coruscant at 0500. I suggest we all get some rest.”
No one said another word about it as they all climbed into the transport that would take them back to the base. But Dogma knew they would be talking about her again. Strangely, he found that he wanted to. Rex’s warning to spare him embarrassment was an appreciated gesture, but in a way, it made matters worse. Dogma didn’t know what to make of the encounter on his own and ended up breaking the very regulation he was prepared to throw at his brothers that night.
Dawn came, and he hadn’t slept a wink.
LegacyGirlinGreen absolutely NAILED Jheyla as she looked the night she and Dogma met! 📰💚🫡