Chapter Text
CT-7567 was a good soldier.
The limp body in front of him proved it.
He didn’t know why his hands had been shaking moments before—he was only following orders—and as he picked his helmet off of the ground, he caught something curious in his reflection: tears.
Fives…find him…find him…Fives!
The words were meaningless.
CT-7567 wiped the tears away, and once his helmet was secured, his gaze fell to the body. Her lightsabers were still gripped tightly in her hands. Her head lolled to the side.
He saw tears in her eyes, too.
Since I’m a Jedi, and you’re a clone, I technically outrank you, right?
Jedi. She was a Jedi. And that makes her a traitor.
The Republic couldn’t have asked for better soldiers…nor I, a better friend.
Friend. No. Enemy. His head pulsed as if it had been slammed into a wall. What made her a traitor? He searched for an answer, but all he found were memories: tired smiles and lighthearted jabs; all he found was the cherished camaraderie of a girl who was now dead.
But that didn’t follow Lord Sidious’ order. She was a Jedi, and that meant a fate worse than that of the Separatists.
Still, he did not approach her, finding that the mere sight of the body made breathing almost impossible. So he turned away, and realized the air smelled of burning flesh, and the smoke of his still-hot blaster.
“Trooper,” he called to the soldier next to him. The markings of the Jedi were painted on his helmet. “Take the body to the medical bay.”
“Yes, Commander.” The trooper lifted the body with ease. Her arms were slackened, but, for a moment, her lightsabers remained clutched in a death grip: one final act of defiance.
Then, as the trooper slung her over his shoulders, they clattered against the floor of the bridge.
Never to be held by their creator again.
The sound of metal on metal echoed around them, and CT-7567 barely contained his shudder.
His head burned…
~
“A Jedi’s lightsaber is their life, Rex,” Ahsoka said. Her face was scratched and bruised, but her eyes shone with defiance that she carried from her master.
They were separated from the rest of Torrent Company and General Skywalker after a failed attempt at rerouting Separatist forces. Now, the capital city of Thresk was occupied, and the 501st would have to regroup and rearm before even attempting to free it again. He didn’t think about the casualties.
Shaking the thought from his mind, Rex grabbed Ahsoka’s shoulder. He had a whole lot of duties, but protecting his Jedi commander was proving to be one of the most strenuous.
“Kid,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “It’s gotta be under thirty feet of rubble by now, not to mention surrounded by battledroids. It’s not worth it.”
He tried to pull her, but she didn’t budge.
Ahsoka shook her head. The stripes of her lekku darkened with anger. “No,” she said through gritted teeth.
“No?” Rex repeated. It was getting harder to not yell; he swore the Jedi were crazy for letting a kid onto the battlefield.
“You don’t understand. I need it. You can go without me, but I am not leaving without my lightsaber.” Ahsoka turned around, towards the destruction of the city that had fallen beneath the fist of the Separatists.
“I’m sorry to break it to you, but your life if worth more than your lightsaber, and I think General Skywalker would agree.”
“Master Skywalker doesn’t want anything to do with me. He’s made that pretty clear, recently.”
Ah. Another one of their fights, then.
Rex knew the general hadn’t wanted a Padawan, not that he blamed him; taking care of a child during an intergalactic war was probably more trouble than it was worth. But he supposed that part of him had hoped Ahsoka wouldn’t take it to heart, like a soldier.
But she isn’t a soldier , Rex reminded himself.
Either way, it wasn’t his place to comment on that. Jedi relationships were sensitive things.
“The general means well. When he gets angry at you, he’s just trying to hide that he’s angry at himself.”
“How do you know?”
Rex laughed. “I’ve served with him for over a year, kid. You learn things.”
She stood silent for a moment. Rex waited, albeit impatiently; they needed to regroup with the rest of the 501st before it got too dark.
“Listen,” he tried again. “I won’t pretend to understand your Jedi ways, but trust me when I say that a weapon is not your life.”
She scoffed. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I was made for war. I’ve been told since I was created that the value of a clone’s life is determined by the accuracy of the blaster in his hand. It’s not. You think a piece of metal is worth dying over? Because I don’t, Commander.”
“It’s more than that, it’s—it’s all that makes me a Jedi.” She was shifting her weight from one foot to another—she was nervous. But she never liked to be treated like a youngling, so he pretended to not notice.
Instead, Rex considered her words. He was aware of the importance of lightsabers, to some extent. There were no beings in the galaxy more capable of wielding them; the Jedi had some sort of connection to its energy, one that fueled them in battle and kept their mind at ease. But he also knew General Skywalker. How many times had the 501st been saved, and not by the general’s handiwork with a blade, but by the ingenious of his tactics? The soundness of his analyzation of the Separatists, finding details that even Rex had missed? And how many times had he seen the commander use her own set of specialties—empathy and unbreakable resolve—to keep up the men’s morale when the battle seemed all but lost?
“Commander, you’re more than your lightsaber.” Rex took off his helmet, knowing that seeing his face might give her some more sense. “Take it away, and there’s still a whole lot more Jedi left in you. Probably the best parts.”
Her shoulders fell, and he saw her hands clenched into tight fists.
She inhaled in shakily.
“What good am I without it?” she asked, barely a whisper. Her voice lost its viciousness, instead replaced with the shaking insecurity of a fourteen-year-old—a young girl burdened by the chaos of war. “What good am I on the battlefield without a way to defend myself?” Then, she looked at him. “Or you?”
“Do you want me to count the number of men you’ve saved with nothing more than a droid popper? Or how about when you single-handedly crushed twenty droidekas with a boulder?”
She blinked, as if just remembering how much she’s done without needing a lightsaber in her hand.
“C’mon,” Rex said. “The others are waiting for us.”
She nodded. Her walk was a bit slow, but it was better than nothing. They started to make their way to the rendezvous coordinates in a comfortable silence.
After a few minutes, she spoke again: “I’m sorry for acting so childish. It’s just—when I don’t have my lightsaber, it feels like something is missing. In here,” she said, pointing to her heart. “The Force becomes all…unbalanced, you know?”
Rex didn’t, but he nodded anyway.
“It’s a piece of me, but I know it’s not worth someone’s life.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for talking some sense into me.”
“Eh, it’s all in the job. General Skywalker probably would’ve had my head if I let you go back.”
She chuckled. “He’ll probably have mine once he realizes I don’t have my lightsaber.” Then her eyes widened in fear. “You don’t think he’ll take me off the mission, do you?”
Rex slowed his pace, then came to a stop, Ahsoka along with him. No matter how capable she was, it was still his duty to keep her as safe as he could.
Her eyes narrowed as she watched him take one of his DC-17’s out of his holster. He examined it; the grip was a bit big, but with two hands, he was sure she could manage.
“Actually, I was thinking about that. Can’t have you running around without any sort of defense, can I?”
She regarded him with a curious tilt of her head.
“Luckily,” —he presented the blaster to her, an invitation— “I have just the idea.”
~
CT-7567 reached down for the lightsabers. He couldn’t feel it through his gloves, but he imagined they were still warm where she had once held them.
“Commander.” The voice broke his concentration. Jesse . CT-5597 .
“Lieutenant.”
“Sir, what should be done with the prisoner Maul?”
“I’ll deal with him,” CT-7567 said. He was commander; any and all executions would be overseen by him. “Contact the Coruscant command center—tell them we’ll arrive by oh-nine-hundred standard time.”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant walked away.
CT-7567 took once last look at the lightsabers: pure aritrium hilts with black accents, carefully crafted without weld marks or seams. She’d once told Rex why she chose aritrium: it was a metal found only on her home planet, Shili. She said it connected her past to her life as a Jedi.
“I thought the Jedi Temple was your home.”
“I wasn’t born there, Rex. I was taken from Shili when I was three.”
He raised his brow. He guessed that made sense, but he just hadn’t thought of any Jedi coming from somewhere other than Coruscant.
“It’s dangerous to be Force-sensitive,” she explained. “It makes you a target for bounty hunters, pirates, the likes. The only reason I’m alive is because Master Plo saved me from a bounty hunter who tried to take me from…from my village.”
“You miss it,” he said, catching the longing tone in her voice.
“I only remember flashes of it. Loud music, the smell of roasts…I think I used to like dancing with the other children. But I endangered everyone there by just existing.”
She looked down at her hands. With her face hidden, Rex couldn’t quite tell what was on her mind.
“I’m not supposed to say this, but…someday, I’d like to go back.” Her voice sounded wistful, as if the idea was something to be ashamed of. “Maybe after I’m knighted, and Anakin and the Council aren’t tracking my every move. I’d like to hear the music again.”
CT-7567 placed the lightsabers down tenderly onto the holo-table. The soft blue glow beneath them reminded him of the plasma blades they once emitted. Never again.
As he turned away, he expected that suffocating feeling to disappear, too.
In the back of his mind, he knew it never would.