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The transport is there.
Then it isn’t.
Then it is again.
Rex stares at the tactical display like glaring hard enough might convince it to explain itself.
One second ago, the Resolute’s scanners had the transport locked in place roughly six thousand kilometers off the port bow. Generals Skywalker and Kenobi had taken Commander Tano aboard to investigate an ancient Jedi distress signal, because apparently the Jedi Order’s official response to ominous messages from the void is to send three of their most important people toward it in a lightly armed shuttle.
Then communications had gone dead.
The transport had vanished from every scanner on the Resolute.
One heartbeat later, it reappeared in exactly the same position with its engines offline, its systems barely functional, and emergency life support screaming for assistance.
Rex has seen strange things during the war.
He serves under Anakin Skywalker. Strange things are practically listed under additional duties.
This still feels wrong.
“Confirm the reading,” Rex orders.
The sensor officer looks like Rex has asked him to confirm whether Coruscant is still a planet.
“Already did, Captain. Three times.”
“Do it again.”
“Yes, sir.”
The flight deck crews launch recovery craft while the Resolute moves closer. Rex watches the transport float against the stars, dark except for a flickering emergency beacon.
It looks abandoned.
It isn’t.
Life-sign scans show three people aboard.
The same three who left.
Rex doesn’t unclench his jaw until the recovery team reports visual confirmation of General Kenobi, General Skywalker, and Commander Tano.
All alive.
Mostly intact.
The mostly bothers him.
The three Jedi return aboard a medical transport less than twenty minutes later. General Kenobi looks like he’s been awake for six days and spent four of them being personally insulted by the Force. General Skywalker looks worse, but in a way Rex can’t immediately define. There’s no obvious injury beyond exhaustion, yet the general’s face has the distant, hollow expression Rex has seen on troopers dragged out of collapsed trenches.
Commander Tano looks pale.
There’s also a bird sitting on her head.
It’s perched across the back of her montrals with long green-and-white wings folded neatly along its body. Its feathers shimmer beneath the hangar lights, and its eyes are a bright, unnatural green.
It watches everyone.
Rex doesn’t like that.
He especially doesn’t like the way it watches him.
“Medical,” Rex says as soon as the shuttle doors open.
“We’re fine,” Skywalker replies.
General Kenobi steps down behind him. “Anakin, you died.”
Skywalker points back at him. “So did Ahsoka.”
Ahsoka hops down from the transport. “I got better.”
Rex stares at all three of them.
The bird continues staring at Rex.
Skywalker walks past as though none of those words require explanation. “We need to debrief the Council.”
Kenobi follows him, rubbing one hand over his beard. “We need several things, including medical attention, rest, and perhaps a collective agreement never to discuss any of this again.”
“That’s not happening,” Rex says.
Neither general stops.
Ahsoka starts after them.
Rex catches her gently by the upper arm.
She turns.
The bird turns with her, its head rotating farther than anything with a skeleton should reasonably manage.
Rex releases Ahsoka.
“So,” he says slowly, “what happened with that distress signal, Commander?”
Ahsoka looks toward the departing generals.
“Well, you’d have to ask Anakin or Obi-Wan to get the full story.”
“That answer has never once made me feel better.”
“Fair.”
She shifts her weight, suddenly fascinated by one of the yellow deck markings beneath her boots.
“We met three manifestations of the Force.”
Rex waits for the rest.
Ahsoka glances up. “They were kind of like gods, I guess. Two gods and a goddess. Or one god, one goddess, and their deeply unstable son. The family dynamic was honestly rancid.”
Rex remains silent.
Ahsoka begins counting events on her fingers.
“I got possessed, turned to the Dark Side, and tried to kill Anakin.”
Rex’s hand drifts toward his sidearm before he remembers there’s nothing to shoot.
“Then the Son killed me.”
His hand stops.
Ahsoka sees his face and winces. “Don’t look at me like that. I was resurrected by the Daughter.”
Rex can hear the hangar around them. Engines whine. Deck crew shout coordinates. A medical droid argues with General Skywalker somewhere near the lift.
None of it sounds real anymore.
“You were killed,” Rex repeats.
“For a little while.”
“A little while.”
“I don’t know how long exactly. Time was weird there.”
Rex looks toward the shuttle.
Its chronometer has advanced by less than a second.
Ahsoka keeps talking, apparently deciding that the fastest route through this conversation is to sprint directly into madness.
“Then the Daughter died saving me, which was awful, and the Son turned Anakin to the Dark Side by showing him the future.”
Rex closes his eyes.
He opens them again.
Ahsoka is still there.
Unfortunately, so is the conversation.
“General Skywalker turned to the Dark Side.”
“Temporarily.”
“Of course.”
“Then the Father erased his memory, Anakin turned back, the Son killed the Father, Anakin killed the Son, and now all three of them are dead.”
Rex waits.
Ahsoka waits.
“That’s it?” he asks.
“That’s the simplified version.”
Rex looks past her toward General Kenobi, who is currently attempting to convince Skywalker that collapsing against a wall counts as a medical symptom.
The transport disappeared for one second.
One literal second.
During that second, Commander Tano had apparently been possessed, corrupted, murdered, resurrected through the sacrifice of a Force goddess, and dragged through the destruction of an entire immortal family. General Skywalker had fallen to the Dark Side and come back. General Kenobi had witnessed enough events to age another ten years, which is impressive because Skywalker has already been working on that project since Christophsis.
Rex feels something cold move through his chest.
He’d lost her for one second.
One second had been enough for her to die.
He looks at Ahsoka more carefully. Her posture is casual, but her shoulders are too tight. Her hands keep opening and closing at her sides. There’s dried blood near the edge of her headband and a dark mark along her throat that no medic has cleaned yet.
She’s talking quickly because if she stops, she might have to think about it.
Rex knows that trick.
The GAR invented that trick.
“All right,” he says. “You’re going to medical.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were dead.”
“I’m not anymore.”
“That isn’t the standard for returning to duty.”
Ahsoka folds her arms. “Anakin says it is.”
“General Skywalker once returned to duty while actively on fire.”
“He put it out.”
“Eventually.”
The corner of her mouth twitches.
Rex’s chest loosens by a fraction.
Then the bird shifts on her montrals.
Rex looks at it.
The bird looks back.
There’s far too much intelligence in those bright green eyes. It doesn’t behave like an animal brought aboard by accident. It sits close to Ahsoka as though it belongs there, feathers brushing against her striped montrals without making her flinch.
Rex points at it.
“That still doesn’t explain the bird on your head.”
Ahsoka reaches up and scratches beneath the creature’s beak. It leans into her fingers.
“Her name is Morai.”
Rex stares at the bird.
Morai stares into his soul, evaluates the structural integrity, and appears disappointed by the inspection results.
“What is she?”
“I think she was connected to the Daughter.”
“You think?”
“She followed us back.”
“From the place outside normal space where you died.”
“Yes.”
“And now she lives on your head.”
Ahsoka gives him an offended look. “She doesn’t live on my head.”
Morai settles more comfortably across her montrals.
Rex looks at Ahsoka.
Ahsoka looks at Morai.
Morai closes her eyes.
“Right,” Ahsoka says. “That looks bad.”
“What the actual kriff?”
A nearby deckhand chokes on a laugh and immediately pretends to be inspecting a fuel line.
Ahsoka lowers her voice. “Can we maybe not tell everyone I died?”
“Commander, you just announced it in the middle of the hangar!”
“I meant everyone else.”
Rex pinches the bridge of his nose.
He understands now why Cody always looks one inconvenience away from walking into open space.
“Medical first,” he says. “Then you’re giving me the full report.”
“I already gave you the full report.”
“You called immortal Force entities ‘Bad Force God’ and ‘Good Force Goddess.’”
“It’s accurate.”
“It isn’t a report.”
“It gets the major points across.”
Rex gestures toward the medical wing. “Move.”
Ahsoka groans but starts walking. Morai remains perched on her montrals, silent and watchful.
Rex falls into step beside her.
He stays close enough that their shoulders nearly touch.
It’s irrational. The transport is back. They’re aboard the Resolute. Whatever world or realm had taken them is gone, and Rex can’t protect her from beings powerful enough to kill and resurrect people like pieces on a dejarik board.
He knows all of that.
He also knows that he looked away for one second and she died.
Rex has no intention of letting her out of his sight again.