Chapter Text
“Master?”
“What is it, Snips?”
“What…what did Captain Rex mean when he said, ‘I’m ten, but I’m tall for my age?’”
Anakin spun his seat. “They didn’t tell you?”
Ahsoka didn’t need to ask to know who her Master meant when he said ‘they.’
Face heated, she retorted, “They didn’t cover clone biology during my Initiate Trials.”
“There’s that snippiness again,” Anakin remarked, grinning wryly. He swung back to the nav panel and punched in coordinates for the Corusca sector. Then he explained.
“Our men were commissioned about ten years ago through a contract with Kamino. The Council didn’t know about it. The men were genetically altered to age twice as quickly and went through some pretty brutal flash training so they could report to duty ASAP. Most of the men we’re fighting with now, including Rex, are some of the first generations of clones Kamino has delivered to the GAR. But they’ve only been alive for ten years.”
Ahsoka felt ill. If what her Master had said was true, she had just watched hundreds of younglings—no older than she had been at her Gathering—be blown, sliced, and crushed to death by droids in Crystal City. “So, they’re ten years old, but…also twenty?”
“Yeah. Some poodoo, isn’t it?”
“Do you think, they feel ten, or twenty?”
“I think you’re asking the wrong person.” Archly, Anakin added, “Why don’t you go for another stroll with the Captain? You two seemed to get on well, giggling about Skyguy and rodents giving you gas—"
“Master, stop!”
- Conversation about clone trooper biology between Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, aboard The Twilight, in the Christophsis System, Year 22 BBY
CORUSCANT, TEMPLE DISTRICT
Day Zero
19 BBY
“Ahsoka!” Anakin called. “Wait!”
Ahsoka paused on the perron of Coruscant’s Jedi Temple. Determined as she was to resist Anakin’s pleas to reconsider the Council’s offer to rejoin the Order, each time her Master stayed her, she hoped that instance would be the one Anakin said something so profound that she would have no choice but to capitulate.
Or, instead, she could persuade him to leave the Order too. She knew he had certainly considered it. They could flee the never-ending missions, the subterfuge, and the constant churn of casualties that resulted on their watch and under their command...
Ahsoka dismissed the fantasy as quickly as it came. Convincing Anakin to abandon their troops was not an option.
Even though that’s what you’re doing right now, her conscience whispered.
While Ahsoka hesitated, it just took a few strides for Anakin’s long legs to close the gap between them. Ahsoka envied him; though they both could leap and run at astonishing heights and speeds, Anakin still had the physical advantage even without the benefit of his annoyingly off-the-charts midchlorian count.
While fighting alongside him, Ahsoka had to appreciate how their troops must feel having to depend entirely on their training and gear to keep up with Jedis. Or how they felt when their training and gear were sacrificed in favor of the Force’s expedience—like the time she and Anakin tossed the dignified Captain Rex off a wall.
Ahsoka couldn’t help but smile to herself as Rex’s rebuke echoed from her memory: Next time just tell me to jump!
From behind, Anakin’s hand clasped hers. With his other hand, Anakin pressed a dark grey, oval-shaped comlink into her palm. “I need to know you can contact me if you need me.”
“Anakin—” Ahsoka began, turning.
“I also know you can take care of yourself, Ahsoka. Just do this for me. Please.” He closed her palm over the comlink.
Ahsoka exhaled. She was self-aware enough to recognize she wanted to prove herself without any help from the Order, but she wasn’t willing to take it to a length that would just end up hurting Anakin. Besides, it didn’t matter whether one was a dancer in an Underworld cantina, or a Topside oligarch reaping profit from the Republic’s bloated contracts: it was a difficult life on Coruscant if one didn’t have credits or connections. Granted, occupational hazard had brought her to Coruscant’s most dangerous corners and to its criminal elements, which likely jaded her. All the same, on Coruscant, opening the door—or one’s heart—to strangers simply wasn’t done.
And, it wasn’t like she could live off the land and cultivate a garden in an ecumenopolis. It would be foolish to refuse the lifeline her Master was handing to her.
“Thank you, Master.” Ahsoka accepted Anakin’s proffered comlink and secured it to her vambrace. Then she clasped her hand on Anakin’s forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“It’s time to let go,” she said not unkindly.
Anakin tensed, and out of respect, Ahsoka dropped her hand from his forearm. She and Anakin rarely touched, and she didn’t want to discomfit him.
Anakin watched his Padawan of the last two years and countless battles turn her back on him again, the Temple pylons overshadowing her retreating figure. Closing his eyes, he meditated—or at least struggled to—on the outline of her shape and her presence in the Force, willing them to not fade from his memory.
The seedling within Anakin’s heart that harbored resentment against the High Council—and by extension, the entire Order—unfurled a new shoot. He already understood that he couldn’t let her go, and no, he didn’t have a choice in the matter. The Council had taken Ahoska’s and Anakin’s choices from them. Their offer to Ahsoka to remain as a Jedi Knight was a hollow one. No one with an ounce of pride would have accepted the Council’s offer after being willingly turned over to a military tribunal and an almost certain death penalty.
Pride was something both he and Ahsoka weren’t lacking in by any measure. For better or for worse.
Anakin stood for another twenty standard minutes, even after Ahsoka had long retreated from the Temple promenade. Then he turned on his heels and headed to the rooftop motor pool. He needed Padme, and the speedbike maintainers afforded him privileges of rank, among which was discreetly failing to notice his frequent goings and comings at odd hours.
The setting Coruscant Prime cast an orange glow on the perpetual haze that surrounded Galactic City. Although it would be night soon, complete darkness was alien to Coruscant. Light was a constant, whether it came from the sun or from the artificial glow its denizens maintained during all hours.
From recent experience, Ahsoka knew a young Togruta walking around alone in battledress invited unwanted attention. She couldn’t say she missed the poncho she had appropriated from a homeless Gotal while fleeing her pursuers just a few days ago, but it had served its purpose well. It would have been useful to have now.
She ignored vendors hawking “authentic Jedi artifacts,” and weaved into the retail district, pushing against heavy foot traffic from ritzy boutiques and street markets. Jedis discouraged materialism, but as a newly minted civilian, she would have to get used to assigning a price to everything.
However, she had no credits and no chip.
Perhaps it wasn’t a complete loss. The options surrounding her now seemed just as impractical as her battledress. Ahsoka couldn’t see herself in the flimsy fabrics and whimsical designs displayed in the store windows and market stalls.
Since shopping wasn’t an option right now, Ahsoka considered her next move. It wasn’t exactly true that she didn’t have connections. While keeping the peace (to use the Jedi term with a pinch of irony) she had forged plenty of connections, just not entirely ones of the reputable sort. In fact, she had renewed such a connection recently.
Having settled on an objective, Ahsoka made use of a civilian transport, pressing into a gaggle of retreating diners, shoppers, and Temple tourists. The transport pilot steered them towards the Pit.
The Pit was a void that yawned Topside, as if a giant surgeon had taken a cranial tool to Galactic City and created a burr hole that exposed peripheral cross-sections of its canopies and lower levels. The Pit belched and inhaled speeders, repulsor trains, taxis, and bikes. It was also a hub for turbolifts and public transports like the one Ahsoka was currently availing.
The transport started its descent, and Ahsoka’s nerves itched each time a group of civilians disembarked, their huddled bodies no longer lending her anonymity. Moonlight and satellites that were so massive they could be taken for small moons illuminated them from above, the light fading as they descended further into the Pit.
“How far down, miss?” the pilot barked, as the last passenger hopped off at Level 1850. “Gettin’ close to the end of the drop.”
“I’ll just get off here, thanks,” Ahsoka replied. Somehow, she didn’t think “Take me to Level 1313,” was the response he was looking for.
She ignored the intensity of his curious gaze as she got off the transport, alone, without gear, shopping bags, or any encumbrances that could have hinted at her purpose.
From there, she took an express turbolift to Level 1350 and boarded another turbolift that stopped every few levels till she reached her destination. With each successively lower level, her fellow passengers became increasingly odorous and shiftier. They raked her with lecherous sweeps of their eyes, blatantly assessing whether she would be worth robbing or trafficking. More so than when on the front lines, charging Separatists, Ahsoka felt exposed.
She got off at Level 1313. Oddly relieved to have finally arrived in one of the most crime- and vermin- infested levels of Galactic City, Ahsoka strolled around, avoiding drips from overhead awnings, piles of trash, and overly tame Tookas, until she spotted telltale flickering and buzzing neon from a cantina. Most of the clientele would likely be bounty hunters, syndicate muscle, petty criminals, and sex workers, but that didn’t perturb Ahsoka. She pushed through its greasy door, ignored the stares and overt hostility, and took a seat in a vacant booth.
Time passed. Eventually, the bartender—and perhaps also the proprietor—couldn’t tolerate the suspense Ahsoka’s presence created any longer. He approached Ahsoka’s booth with a schooled expression. He was a Theelin, which made him relatable: a fellow, relatively rare sentient species who was memorable and, therefore, at a disadvantage in the Underworld. His bright hair was attractive, but Ahsoka admitted the three horns framing each side of his face generated more clinical interest on her part than piquancy. Ahsoka wasn’t an expert in Theelin biology, but she guessed by his musculature, smooth skin, and the way he moved like an uncoiling spring that he was in his prime.
“You’re making my customers uncomfortable,” the Theelin said by way of greeting. He chewed on a piece of what looked like bark. (Likely for recreational rather than medicinal purposes, Ahsoka thought.) He gave the impression of casual indifference, but when she gently probed him in the Force, she sensed annoyance and caution.
“I don’t mean to,” Ahsoka said placatingly. “I have a message that I need to get to a…friend.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that? What’s a Topside sort like you got to do with anything here?” He gave her a once over, and Ahsoka could see herself from his point of view: well-groomed, short, backless dress, gold choker, cutout leggings, decorative arm wrappings, tight boots (minus her usual greaves), and low-slung hip holsters—though she was unarmed. Clearly someone who had privilege and was accustomed to provocation without fear of reprisal. And the empty holsters left a big question mark hanging.
Ahsoka answered his question indirectly. “Tell Asajj Ventress that Ahsoka would like to see her.”
The Theelin didn’t even miss a beat. “Who?”
“Someone here knows her. Even you might. I need her to meet me here, and I’ll wait as long as it takes.” Ahsoka gazed at him levelly and folded her hands onto the table—an act she regretted when she felt how sticky the surface was.
The Theelin bristled at her determination. A nearby human and Rodian pair ceased their hushed conversation altogether, and Ahsoka felt lust for a good barroom showdown pricking the Force. An Ithorian at another table bobbed his head curiously, and his Weequay companions tittered, inhaled too much hookah vapor, and coughed.
The Theelin pressed his hands in front of Ahsoka in what he must have thought was a convincing show of intimidation. “This isn’t a halfway house for runaway princesses or Senate crotch-jogans or whatever it is you are. You have business here, or you’re out.”
“I stated my business,” Ahsoka replied evenly. “I’m here to meet Asajj Ventress.” Ahsoka raised her voice for this part, hoping it would attract attention from surrounding patrons and spread like wildfire, and, at a minimum range, Levels 1300 through 1400.
“Tell her yourself. We deliver drinks, not messages.”
Ahsoka didn’t say anything. She just sat. The Theelin bartender worked his jaw some more, trying to decide if it was worth the effort throwing her out. He apparently figured that one of the other patrons would take care of her eventually, because he just shook his head and left, muttering. Ahsoka’s montrals could make out his mutterings to be to what would be the Theelin equivalent of, “Your funeral.”
Ahsoka sat longer. The clientele around her shifted, and she sensed competing desires and trepidation in the Force. With her sensitive hearing she could overhear their speculation about where an alone, unarmed and an obviously Topside girl got the self-assurance it took to camp out in a Level 1313 cantina and summon one of the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunters. Likely, they had already learned from experience that appearances could be deceiving, because while they brainstormed a myriad of potential assaults, no one made a move to capitalize on Ahsoka’s seemingly vulnerable situation.
Ahsoka tuned out their toothless conspiracies and the constant hum of others’ Force presences around her. Her thoughts drifted to the Chamber of Judgement, the trial, and perhaps worst of all, the pure helplessness and frustration she had felt while being hunted by the ones she trusted the most.
Anakin’s voice echoed from the recent past. I believe you.
She tried to ground herself by replaying Anakin’s words, but as hard as she focused on the refrain, she still gravitated to the moments just before Wolffe stunned and captured her at the Level 1315 warehouse. During those moments, she had sensed Rex and Anakin on the Guard’s heels. Anakin’s anxiety and fear had nearly overwhelmed her ability to sense Rex’s concern—and his relief when he realized they had found her safe in the warehouse.
She recollected slipping in and out of consciousness on the gunship back to the Temple. Two hands had been bracing her shoulders, one gauntleted and the other bare. Though her vision and mind had still been cloudy from the stun blast she received at the warehouse, she immediately recognized the bare hand as Rex’s.
She found herself studying it. It was large and tanned; and like his brothers, his fingers were long and thick. She respected their deftness, having been on the right side of Rex and his twin Decees countless times. Even though the two men restraining her were genetically identical, Ahsoka couldn’t help but notice a little extra warmth radiating from Rex’s grasp and be hyperaware of how it shifted along and squeezed her arm with each pocket of turbulence they flew through.
Her memories of the longest sustained time she’d maintained physical contact with Rex and its unexpected pleasantness were overshadowed by images of Anakin and Plo Koon standing over her as if they had to guard against another act of treason, and her crestfallenness at being restrained by Rex, as if she were just another hostile he had to escort for further processing. There had been a moment, though, when she had managed to lift her chin higher than her shoulders.
Rex’s amber eyes had been fixed on her intently, as if they were trying to peer into her soul and discern the truth of the whole incident: the Temple bombing, Letta’s death, the damning security footage, the stunned and murdered Guards, and her desertion.
Ahsoka wondered, Had he believed her? Somehow it was more important that Rex believed her than it was that her Master did.
Rex actively mentored Ahsoka during their first year of back-to-back deployments since she stepped off the gunship at Christophsis, and she reciprocated by teasing him mercilessly. But lately she and Rex had grown distant. Rex hadn’t been the same since losing Echo at the Citadel and since Umbara. Although they had never spoken about Umbara, she suspected he wore the guilt of having allowed Dogma to execute Krell like a hairshirt.
Like Rex, Ahsoka felt more alone in the Force after each campaign sowed further doubt about the war and revealed another glimpse of the Darkness that was taking hold of the galaxy. Their mutual trauma and war-weariness piled on, forcing them to retreat to the safety of military professionalism and gruff camaraderie.
Sometimes I think getting a shiny and then watching them die moments later and having that on repeat is what really gets to me more than anything, Commander, he had confided in her once, as they sat side by side in the settling dust of yet another mixed-success campaign. All those years training, being bred for a single purpose, just to step off the larty and get mowed down by a tinny.
Despite their distancing relationship, there was too much history between them for them to completely sever their bond. It still mattered very much to Ahsoka whether Rex had believed in her innocence. Anakin had participated in her capture, yes, but Anakin had also insisted on her innocence all along. He had wanted to bring his Padawan home to safety. What had been motivating Rex during her manhunt? Had she truly been just another target he was ordered to acquire, or was he of the same vein as her Master, trying to protect her with the endgame of getting her acquitted?
Her thoughts traveled to the 501st Legion, specifically, Torrent Company. She visualized Jesse with his bull’s eye face tattoo watching her trial on the holonews, his head shaking with disappointment in all the tactical errors she had made: why had she asked the troopers to leave her alone with Letta? Why didn’t she just stay put instead of running? She had panicked and behaved like a shiny, practically. And Kix, he had been probably thinking of all the times she had sat with the troopers, the time she had accompanied the critically injured Rex and Coric to Kaliida Shoals, the sternly worded requisitions she’d put in for the legion to get more bacta, stimulants, and medkits than what they had received in their latest shipments—and wondering if, after all of that, she could still be capable of blasting troopers to their deaths to save her skin.
Had Anakin already told them by now that she was gone? Would they try to contact her? Should she have gone to the barracks first to say good-bye? So many self-doubts were swirling in her head. How could she have gone to the barracks, not knowing whether they had believed the lies about her all along? If they had believed the HoloNet and news and Wilhuff “Stick up a Bantha” Tarkin, then it would have been nothing but awkwardness for her former troopers if she had shown up expecting tears and bittersweet farewells.
Ahsoka conceded that there was one member of Torrent Company she should have contacted before leaving: Captain Rex.
Ever since she had grabbed Rex’s hand in that chief petty officers’ mess after JanFathal and confessed her doubts about the Jedi prohibition on attachment, she had ended up developing the very thing she had been warned of. In hindsight, it was ridiculous of the Jedi Order to throw a teenager in the middle of a war and expect her to not develop an attachment to her closest superior and subordinate officers. Spending hours—even days—watching each other’s backs tended to result in affection and, well, love.
Ahsoka closed her eyes with embarrassment. Force, what had Rex thought then? He hadn’t treated her any differently afterwards. If anything, they became more like friends, and less like a big brother and little sister.
Ahsoka remembered vividly the uncertainty she felt as a brand-new Padawan about the clone troopers in general. She hadn’t even been sure whether Rex and his brothers could form attachments or feel love. She had assumed that like Jedis, the clone troopers had been conditioned to serve a directive, following orders, and so were unlikely to indulge in anything that could distract from that. Just one battle with the clone troopers at her side quickly disabused her.
As months of war passed, she grew more confident in her command, and her jittery emotions about working so closely with an experienced soldier abated a bit. Still, she felt her heart jump into her throat every time Rex got within inches of her, and she would then try to mask her nervousness with cockiness. As the months bled into years, and she turned fifteen, and then sixteen, she found herself facing a new struggle: concealing the depths of her feelings for Anakin and Captain Rex. Especially from other Jedi.
Even if her last memory of Rex was of his scarred left hand restraining her in a prisoner transport and his amber eyes questioning the fabric of her integrity, she had still owed it to him to say something before leaving. They had been through too much together.
Ahsoka’s eyes slid to Anakin’s comlink on her vambrace. Rex was just a transmission away, and not too much time had passed since she left without a farewell to make a transmission too awkward. But what would she say? Hey, Rex, it’s me, Ahsoka: innocent after all! But no hard feelings.
She spent the rest of the early morning hours running through all the different openings she could run with, whether a text or a holotransmission would be better, and whether Rex would even want to stay in touch with her now that she was a civilian. Would she be too distracting from the mission? Another—and an unnecessary—emotional burden for a GAR captain?
It was dawn when Ventress found her.