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“Obi-Wan, this is crazy.”
“That’s not something I often hear coming from you.”
Anakin is indignant. “She’s a child.”
“You didn’t seem to mind when the Council ordered me to bring you onto the front lines.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
He’s not sure. He was older at the time (but not by much). It wasn’t a full scale war when he trained with Obi-Wan (not that the danger was any less).
“Besides, I thought you said you liked her. What could have possibly changed?”
“I do like her, but she’s not ready to be on the frontlines.”
“I understand where you’re coming from, Anakin, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“It’s her first mission.”
“I know.”
War changes the reality of things. His earliest missions were no action; all recon. It wasn’t until he had some experience under his belt the Council sent them on any remotely dangerous assignments.
The action suits Anakin, but he can’t be expected to command a platoon and look after a padawan at the same time.
What if she doesn’t take orders well or she gets overwhelmed? What if he can’t keep a close eye on her while leading the troops?
His stomach tightens, worse than before he met her.
He knows Ahsoka Tano now. He likes Ahsoka; Anakin wouldn’t go so far as to say attached, but what if something happens to her?
Obi-Wan clears his throat, “Do what comes naturally and Ahsoka will follow.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?”
“Not in the least, but it’s kept you alive this long. Go and find your padawan. It’s nearly time for you to leave.”
----------
Rocking on the balls of her feet, Ahsoka strains to see the terrain of Toydaria. It would be easier if the transport weren’t jostling her around, making her queasy. Maybe it’s anxiety. Or excitement, but mostly it’s anxiety.
Lightning flashes ominously over the swamplands, unaccompanied by rain. Another knot tightens in her stomach.
Her master’s voice booms over the rattling carrier, “We’re a line of defense; the Separatists already tried convincing King Katuunko to join them through diplomacy. We won’t let them take it through force.”
The troopers shout their support.
In a few words her master inspired confidence in the men; Ahsoka tries to let them bolster hers.
“You alright?”
She swallows and nods.
Master Skywalker grins encouragingly, “Try not to worry so much.”
“I’m not worried,” she says a little too hotly.
“Whoa! No need to get snippy,” his tone barely conceals a chuckle. More than anything, it loosens the knots.
Ahsoka cracks a small smile, “I’ll try not to, Master.”
His mouth moves to the side in mild irritation, but he doesn’t get a chance to respond. Another lightning bolt strikes the carrier behind them.
“Emergency landing – all units! Now!” he bellows.
The steady rattling becomes all-out jostling as the transport descends at an alarming rate. Gripping her hand-hold tighter, the knots twist and reform in the pit where her stomach should be, but Ahsoka’s pretty sure it bottomed out.
Her master turns back to her, grinning like it’s a bad joke, “Having fun yet?”
----------
Master Skywalker consults with Captain Rex.
Fortunately, the transport which was hit didn’t suffer any fatalities. The pilot was unconscious when emergency landing order was given and the carrier crashed, but the troopers were able to rescue him and a fair amount of the supplies it was carrying.
Feeling small and unimportant, Ahsoka listens to them plan their next move.
“It’ll take too long to dig the carriers out of the muck.”
“How long?”
“A few days at least, General.”
“Alright, we’ll continue on foot and send a team back if we can spare them after we reach Toydor.”
The captain salutes and takes his leave. Master and padawan are left alone.
“How are you holding up?” He sounds worn, which is unexpected. But neither was the thrill of the crash and emergency landings; she should have expected it, given her master’s reputation.
Despite getting off on the right foot with each other, Ahsoka doesn’t want to seem weak.
“Fine,” she lies. Ahsoka bites her bottom lip, more overwhelmed now than nervous. It isn’t just their enemies that are dangerous in the field. What was supposed to prepare her for this?
He doesn’t buy it. His face lines with amusement.
“I am!”
“Oh course you are. Just like you were when we landed.”
Her knees were shaking when they got off the carrier and waded through the swamp; she thought she had done a better job hiding it than that.
Hanging her head, “I just didn’t think it was going to be like this. I thought we were supposed to be fighting an army, but we haven’t even seen the Separatists yet.”
Thunder rolls in the distance as her master turns her concerns over in his head.
Slowly, “Sometimes there are things bigger than the Republic versus the Separatists. We can’t control the galaxy, however much we might try to.”
She doesn’t feel very comforted by his words. Between his words and distant stare, what Ahsoka hears is: the universe is big and unfair. He can only reassure her as much as he can reassure himself.
“Master Skywalker, is it always going to be this way?”
He shifts uncomfortably; Ahsoka doesn’t understand why. Then, “It will probably be worse.”
It’s the honest truth and somehow it doesn’t scare her.
She perks, “Well, then you better get used to it because I’m about to make it a whole lot harder.”
He snickers and she doesn’t get it – again. (What’s so funny about ‘improper lightsaber use’ anyway?)
Getting control over himself, “The only way you could make things more difficult for me is if you can’t keep up.”
“I’d like to see you try to leave me behind.”
“Then let’s get moving, Snips. We can’t sit around here all day.” He picks up a pack and throws it over his shoulder.
Ahsoka stays put.
Snips. She likes the new familiarity.
Noticing she isn’t following, “Hey! You’re already falling behind!”
----------
Emergency landing turns out to have worked in their favor. Anakin, Rex, and Ahsoka peer from around the trees at the Separatist platoon headed for the capital.
“Fifty clankers and a tank, by my count. Not much of an occupational force, General.”
Rex is right; it’s a curiously small unit, but they can stop them in their tracks.
Anakin draws up a quick plan, “Rex, you and the troopers draw their fire and take out as many battle droids as you can; Ahsoka and I will take the tank, then clean up whatever’s left.”
Traveling without artillery makes the troopers faster than the battle droids; they position themselves a good way ahead of the caravan as Anakin leads Ahsoka to the rear, to await Rex’s signal.
“Do you think the diversion will work?”
“These droids aren’t very smart. It doesn’t take much to distract them.”
Momentarily the droids are shouting.
“Hey!”
“Look over the there!”
“It’s a clone!”
“There are more of them!”
“Ahh!”
Anakin turns to his padawan, “That’s our cue.” He ignites his lightsaber and charges; Ahsoka close behind. They tear across the landscape toward the tank, cutting through droids as they go.
Reaching their target, Anakin lobs the head off another droid and, light on his feet, leaps onto the tank. Throwing open the hatch, “Ahsoka, charges!”
She tosses them up to him with her free hand and deflects the shots now headed their way; the droids at the back of the line wising up to the attack from the rear.
“Better hurry up, Master!” A hint of nervousness permeates her otherwise exhilarated voice, Anakin understands but doesn’t dwell.
He chucks the charges down the hole and jumps down to her side; the tank shorting out behind them.
They fight their way through the remaining droids, rejoining Rex and the others after they’re all just scrap metal on the ground.
“How was your first fight, Commander?” the captain asks Ahsoka, her breath still quick.
“It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.”
“Lucky for us,” Anakin almost thinks to himself before both Obi-Wan’s instance there’s no such thing as luck and bombs boom dramatically in his ears.
The thundering sound is followed immediately by actual thunder; both make the ground quake beneath their feet.
There’s no need to order the men to take cover, they’re already scrambling for the trees and thickets, whatever’s closest.
“The air support was unexpected,” Rex mutters under his breath.
He’s taken shelter with Anakin and Ahsoka under a sparse bush. It’s only enough to hide them from the ships overhead, but if a bomb is dropped anywhere near them or the Separatists decide to land in the bog, they’re done for.
Sprawled on the ground next to him, Ahsoka is straining again, this time out of determination. She’s had a taste of battle now and she’s ready to get back out there, “What’s the plan, Master?”
Plan? There is no plan, but hell if he’s going to let his padawan know that. It’s not confidence-inspiring, even if Obi-Wan says he’s better at making things up on the fly.
“Firstly, you don’t need to call me ‘Master’ all the time. It’s not really my thing.”
That’s the only explanation he gives (she must have noticed it bothers him) and it gives him the time he needs to come up with the skeleton of a plan. “Then I’m going to get onto that bomber and disable it before it hits us and moves on to Toydor.”
“By yourself?!”
“Yeah,” it comes out smugger than he means, but this is how he operates.
“But –”
“I need you and Rex to lead the men to the city and prepare them for an airstrike.”
Lips pursed, Ahsoka voices her protest anyway, “But I’m supposed to follow you.”
“You’re also supposed to follow orders.” He wraps his mechanical fingers around her hand, resting on her lightsaber, ready for more action; a reminder of what could happen if she doesn’t listen to him.
Her face is inscrutable, but she nods.
“Ready, Rex?”
“On your signal, General Skywalker.”
Anakin slides out from under the bush and makes for one of the taller trees to wait for the bomber to come back for a second sweep of the area.
It takes a while, but it does return. Flying low, the rushing wind heralds its approach.
When Anakin makes his jump, there are two thuds on the ship’s wing. He looks about wildly for the enemy, but sees only Ahsoka.
Yelling over the sound of the speeding ship, “What are you doing here?!”
“Coming with you, Sky Guy!” She looks pleased with herself.
Bewildered and suddenly understanding exactly how Obi-Wan must have felt all those times he disobeyed orders.
“I told you to go with Rex!”
“But the Council said – look out!”
In an instant her lightsaber is out and in another she’s brushing past him to deflect a shot back at the droid making his way out onto the precarious wing.
Though still in a state of shock and annoyance, Anakin’s impressed: she managed to sneak up on him and protect him from a battle droid (though he wouldn’t have needed the help if she hadn’t distracted him). And even though she left the troops, they’re in Rex’s capable hands.
Seeing nothing else for it, “As long as you’re here, do exactly as I say, or there won’t be a next time. Got that, Snips?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Now keep behind me. We’re going in.”
Anakin and Ahsoka cut their way inside, rather than use the entrance the droid opened, hoping anything else onboard will be expecting them at the hole. They’re right, of course (the day battle droids gain any wit will be the day Tatooine floods).
Inside, they cut down any droids between them and the cockpit. Ahsoka stays at Anakin’s elbow, not daring any further, but eager to help and learn.
The pilot goes down as easily as any other and Anakin takes the helm.
“Hold onto something.”
Ahsoka braces herself on the pilot’s seat and Anakin jerks the controls upward. Nothing happens.
“Shit. They’ve rigged it.”
“What?!”
“I need to get down to the engine room! Take the steering; keep your commlink on! Whatever you do, don’t crash the ship!”
He flies from the cockpit to the engine room, droids barely a problem. (Why do the Separatists bother spending money on them?) The rear engine room is a mess, but he’s always seen things clearly in wires and parts.
He doesn’t pause to examine the engine, though the kid in him desperately wants to, but sets to work reconfiguring the little circuit box by the door.
“Try it now, Ahsoka!” Anakin shouts into his commlink. The whole ship jerks upward and he laughs, triumphant. “Let’s land this thing and go home!”
Ahsoka’s response is garbled and the bomber jostles from side to side.
His face drains of color.
Something’s wrong. Ahsoka’s in trouble. He runs the entire length of the ship, the unsteady flight rattling those two thoughts back and forth in his head.
It is some relief when Anakin reaches the cockpit to find Ahsoka fighting off droids trying to enter from another door. She is unhurt, just distracted from the controls. “You’re okay!”
“Not for much longer if someone doesn’t get behind the steering!” she retorts and a droid goes down as she smacks it with her hilt.
He doesn’t need another hint and takes the controls.
This time when he shouts back to Ahsoka to tell her to hold onto something, the ship does his bidding. Its nose turns upward and the droids clogging the doorway fall down the hall, freeing Ahsoka from combat.
Anakin whoops from the thrill of flying wild.
Ahsoka looks equally enthusiastic, “We did it! We did it, Sky Guy!”
An odd sort of pride bubbles up in Anakin. Not for himself, but for her. Maybe – just maybe Yoda knew what he was doing when he decided to give him a padawan.
Leveling the ship, Anakin searches for a place to land (hopefully somewhere it won’t sink into the bog like their transports).
She rests her arms on the back of the pilot’s seat, content from the success of her first mission. A restful calm overcomes the pair – a new level of comfort exists between them.
He asks, “Why Sky Guy?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “Because of your surname? Because you like flying, don’t you? Is ‘Sky Guy,’ okay?”
“‘Sky Guy’ is just fine.”
Anakin supposes she’s not entirely done thinking of him as ‘Master Skywalker,’ but they’ll get there.
----------
The likelihood of another Separatist attack on Toydaria drops significantly; Ahsoka and Master Anakin are returned to Coruscant to report to the Council.
He doesn’t mention her flagrant disobedience.
Master Yoda still chuckles knowingly, like he can read it in both of their faces.
“Well-matched you are.”
Ahsoka feels herself swell with pride.
Younglings talk in the training rooms about what it will be like when they are padawans, they talk about which masters they would like to train under, and how they’ll be the greatest knights the galaxy has ever seen. None of it compares to the real thing.
After the meeting, Ahsoka tags along with Master Anakin to his friend’s apartments near the Senate Dome. He looks exhausted, but indulges her chatter until they walk through the door of Senator Amidala’s apartments.
They are greeted by the senator and Master Kenobi.
Too excited to contain herself, Ahsoka talks animatedly about their mission when asked how it went. Even though they all nod their heads and smile, she can tell they don’t want to hear about it now.
Master Kenobi takes her back to the Temple.
She yearns to get back out there. It takes most of the night to stop her head from floating out into space.