Chapter Text
Where was he? He should have been here by now. She paced around in agitation. Something was wrong, she knew it. She’d felt something big awhile ago, and then nothing… nothing but his absence. He wasn’t dead, he couldn’t be. No, she would have felt that for sure. But hurt? Knocked out?
“Commander?” She jumped when Rex set his hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay, Rex, I’m just on edge,” she said, trying to take a deep breath. “Master Skywalker should have checked in by now.”
“Well you know the general,” Rex said coolly. Yes, of course she knew the general. Probably better than most. But even knowing he was reckless, impulsive and intense sometimes, he never missed a check in. At least not when they were splitting up, at least not when the stakes were this high. Something was wrong, she was sure of it. Had he been captured?
“Press forward, I’m going to circle around,” she ordered, turning to head in the opposite direction.
“But sir, the plan?” Rex questioned.
“Follow it,” she said distractedly. “I’ll meet up with you as soon as I find the general.” She ignored the rest of his protests and took off running as fast but as carefully as she could. She didn’t want to think about what would happen leaving her troops to fend for themselves. But she couldn’t ignore the feeling that was pumping through her. He was hurt, she was sure of it. It wasn’t just her imagination, or her constant worry for him. Something had happened, something bad. And mission or not, she couldn’t leave him behind to complete it.
She searched for him with the force, but she was having trouble pinpointing where he was. The feelings were chaotic, but also somewhat muted, as though they stirred the air but unconsciously. She made it back to where they’d split up in half the time, then slowly turned to follow the direction he’d headed with his troops.
Her comm beeped and she answered it quickly, hoping it was him. “Commander.” Her gut sunk when she heard Rex’s voice instead. “I just heard from Fives.” She sucked in a breath, feeling suddenly lightheaded at his tone of voice. “He said General Skywalker got an unexpected call from the Chancellor. He didn’t hear what he was told, but it had clearly distressed him. But then without explaining anything, he’d run straight into the building, apparently telling them to stay back, or that he’d be right back. They’ve not seen or heard from him since.” Her throat constricted and she gasped a little, unable to make her voice work. “Commander?” She shook her head, unable to answer. “Ahsoka?” he said a little softer.
“Tell Fives and his group to stay put, I’ll be there shortly.”
“What about us?” Rex asked.
“Find a way to their position, we’ll regroup there.”
“But…”
“That’s an order, captain,” she said a bit tighter than she meant to.
“Yes, sir,” he said and clicked it off.
What had the Chancellor told him that would make him run stupidly into a building full of Seps with no backup, troops or help? And how the kriff was she going to get him out of there? The reason they’d split up to begin with was because the building was so heavily guarded, they’d needed to divide the enemy, attacking from several sides. Now they were going to have to make a frontal assault together or they’d have absolutely no chance getting anywhere. Master Kenobi would probably tell them to retreat and call for help, but time was of the essence. There was no doubt that if Anakin had done something that stupid, he’d been captured, or injured, or worse…
She shook herself angrily. No, he was still alive. He had to be. She wanted to be mad at him, berate him for being so stupid, so reckless. But she was too afraid right now, her anger fizzled out as worry drowned her normal snippiness. A million scenarios were running through her head, each progressively worse until she finally caught up with his group and had something to distract herself.
“He went in there,” Fives pointed out a door about two clicks away. “He wasn’t making a lot of sense when he left.”
“He sounded angry,” Jesse murmured. “More than normal.”
“But he made it inside the building?” she asked.
“Yes, we watched him disappear inside, haven’t heard from him since.”
“Why didn’t one of you call us?” She hated how rude her question had sounded. It wasn’t their fault that Anakin had done this, but she was annoyed nobody had thought to tell her.
“Well, we knew something was odd about it, but General Skywalker does things like this all the time,” Fives started carefully.
“We thought maybe he knew something we didn’t, or that he’d already communicated to you what he was doing.”
“He didn’t,” she muttered.
“So, what now, Commander?” She wanted to just run in after him, believing sheer will would get her to his side, but she had to be smart about this. Getting killed trying to rescue him wouldn’t help anyone. But also realistically, she might actually have a better chance getting inside alone. She took the monoculars from Jesse and zoomed in on the building, scanning for another way in. She wouldn’t follow him exactly if she went in alone, she’d use stealth; the ventilation system.
“How far away is General Kenobi?” she asked, trying to stay as calm as she possibly could. Her and Anakin had been instructed to start the ground assault, hoping they could secure the fort before Master Kenobi arrived with reinforcements. And they might have been able to if Anakin had stuck to the plan. But since now he was nowhere to be found, she highly doubted they’d secure it without his help.
“ETA in about thirty minutes,” Rex reported obediently.
“We can’t wait that long, we have to get inside,” she said in frustration, pacing again. “But without Master Skywalker, we can’t afford to split up.” She stopped pacing and looked at Artoo that had wheeled up, beeping in concern.
“What’s he saying, sir?”
She didn’t think it was possible for her gut to sink lower. But this, this hurt. She’d always known that Anakin had been in love with the senator of Naboo for pretty much as long as she’d known him… but Artoo had just told her that he’d run recklessly into the building because the Chancellor had told him that Padmé had been captured. She stared at Artoo for a few minutes in confusion. But that didn’t make sense… She’d just seen her friend before they left on this mission, she was getting ready to head to Alderaan for a peace conference, how would she have ended up here?
“Give me a moment,” she whispered, beckoning Artoo to follow her out of earshot of the troops. “What did the message say, Artooie?” Artoo beeped and whirred, telling her that the Chancellor had claimed the senator had been hurt enroute to Alderaan when the Seps had attacked her ship. Supposedly they’d captured her and brought her here to see Dooku, apparently unaware that the Republic was about to launch an attack.
She suddenly understood what she’d felt earlier, and why she hadn’t heard from Anakin since. This was personal, this wasn’t about the mission or anything that the Jedi would approve of. He’d told them to stay back so they didn’t get in trouble for his own attachments. She turned and headed back to the clones waiting in confusion.
“Call General Kenobi,” she ordered. “Tell him to delay his attack.”
“But sir-”
“I want Fives and Jesse to scout the perimeter, counting troops and reporting back. Artoo, I want you to slice into their system and give me a map. Rex, you and the rest of the legion are going to head to these coordinates and cause a distraction after Fives and Jesse get back.” She poked a couple buttons on her wrist comm and transferred the information. “Don’t take unnecessary risks, this isn’t about kill count. Just get them as far from the building as possible, then retreat into the woods.”
“What about you?” Rex asked.
“After Artoo gives me the map, I’m going to sneak through and find Anakin. Once he’s secure, I’ll signal the rest of you to call General Kenobi.”
“But the mission?”
“The mission will have to wait,” she said. “I need to get Anakin, I mean Master Skywalker, out of there before Master Kenobi gets here. Then we’ll regroup and figure out how to secure the objective.” She watched them exchange glances, but no one said anything else. They knew too. She didn’t have to say it. If she didn’t rescue Anakin before Obi wan showed up, he’d never hear the end of lectures from his former master. Master Kenobi wouldn’t care or understand why he’d done it, only that he had. He’d endangered his mission to rescue someone he was attached to and she wasn’t going to let him get in trouble for that.
“What if General Kenobi questions why?” Rex whispered to her after the others had started coordinating and preparing for their new orders.
“Tell him we met more resistance than we expected and are having to re-strategize.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but the reason they were re-strategizing, he didn’t need to know.
Rex nodded knowingly and set a hand on her shoulder. “Be careful, commander,” he said, and she thanked him.
“Come on, Artooie,” she called the droid.
After getting the map and any other additional information about the building from Artoo she could, she sent him back to help Rex and the others. Then she scaled the nearby wall and slipped into the small exhaust vent, pulling it closed behind her. She dreaded what she’d find as she slinked through the building as quietly as she could. Even with a distraction from the clones, she knew she’d still meet plenty of resistance. If Dooku was in fact here, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave the building defenseless. Not if he’d captured Anakin and wanted to use him to bargain for something.
She didn’t want to think about what could happen if she didn’t succeed at getting him out of here. She also didn’t want to question whether or not she’d been wise to delay Master Kenobi. As frustrating as he could be sometimes, having him to help rescue Anakin sounded really good right about now. He was the Negotiator after all. That was what everybody called him anyways. But she knew in her gut, if something had happened to Senator Amidala, Anakin would be inconsolable, and Obi wan would only aggravate it. Though she wasn’t thrilled about having to pick up the pieces after a blow like that, she knew if she didn’t, things would get way, way worse.
And if Padmé had in fact been hurt, captured and brought here, and Anakin hadn’t been able to save her… she dreaded the shattering of his confidence and what that would mean for the future.
She tried to take a deep breath to calm herself down but moving through the small ducts was slow going and it gave her way too much time to overthink everything, increasing her anxiety ten-fold with every slow progress forward. Occasionally she’d have to stop and check the map or look around to see if there was any sign of him. Fives and Jesse should have completed their recon by now, so any time now there should be indication that their distraction was working. But none of the droids seemed to be moving and as she crawled along as quietly as possible, she hoped that she’d be able to get Anakin out of here.
She glanced through the grate into a room and was about to move on when she looked back. Something had glinted in the low light and as she squinted, she saw his lightsaber. But to her horror and fear, it was in several pieces. She glanced around, but there was no sign of him. There were no droids nearby as far as she could tell so she carefully moved the grate and summoned the pieces to her hand, before putting it back in place. She looked over the pieces. It appeared to have been cut in half by another lightsaber by the look of it, then parts of it were squashed and bent as though thousands of heavy metal feet had stepped on it. That wasn’t good, not good at all.
She slipped the pieces into the pouch on the back of her belt and tried to calm herself down. Dooku was here. He must be. Maybe she should call Master Kenobi after all. But she pressed forward anyways without lifting the comm. She had to find him before she called for backup. She had to know what they were up against.
A loud explosion rocked the building, echoing through the small ducts. A sudden rush of smoke blew through them and she coughed, choking on the dust. She heard droids moving in the direction of the sound and tried to stay as still and quiet as she could as they went by. She hoped that had been the clones’ distraction. But it was a bit more than she’d bargained for, and confined in the ventilation system, she was having trouble breathing.
She crawled faster as more smoke came through the duct. Her eyes started burning and she was having trouble seeing. She heard voices and squeezed everything closed, holding her breath for a moment as they went by. Nothing about Anakin though. She was starting to get lightheaded and had to risk getting out of the ventilation system or she was going to suffocate on the smoke.
She listened for a moment near a grate, heard nothing and swung down, landing lightly in the room. She ducked behind some crates as more droids went by and tried to catch her breath. She saw a message blink on her comm. According to Rex, the explosion had started a fire and the southern part of the building was engulfed in flames. He was telling her to get out of there. She messaged him quickly that she wasn’t leaving without Anakin and pressed on.
If the southern part of the building was on fire, she would not be able to escape the way she’d come in. But before she could even think about escaping, she had to get what she’d come here for.
“But sir, what about the prisoner?” She heard the grating mechanical voice of one of the standard battle droids.
“Leave him. The building is going to be coming down any minute now, and he’s still unconscious,” came the unmistakable drawl of Count Dooku. “His fate will be the same as the senator. It will be a huge blow to the Jedi order and the Republic.”
Oh no. Anakin. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stay as calm as possible, but another distant crash, made her start running forward again. She swallowed the lump in her throat and hid only when droids passed by. She was running blindly though, through the burning building. She had no idea where he was and if he was unconscious, she couldn’t sense him.
She stumbled into a room after trying to outrun the flames. The building was so full of smoke now she could hardly breathe. She blinked through it and saw two figures lying on the ground. She crawled to Padmé first, looking for a pulse, but then she set her hand down sadly and tried to blink away the tears. From the feel of her skin, she’d been dead for awhile. There was nothing she could do for her now, so she turned her attention back to her master. He was lying on his back not far away. Dried blood was caked on his forehead, there were cuts and slashes through his robes and the glove over his mechanical hand was in tatters.
She felt a rush of relief when she saw his chest rise and he let out a grimace, his face screwed up in pain. “Master!” she called, running towards him and shaking him. He didn’t wake up. She shook him again, but nothing seemed to rouse him. Her panic got the best of her and she commed Rex, “call master Kenobi!” she ordered. “Tell him we need a medical evac immediately!”
“Yes, sir!” Rex replied obediently, and she went back to checking over Anakin. She tried to roll him and saw blood pooled behind his back. His grunt of pain though had clenched her chest. All frustration at his recklessness had been forgotten as she frantically tried to prepare to move him. In normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have dared to move him until Kix or another medic could assess the situation, but she didn’t have a choice if she was going to get him out of here alive.
“Artoo!” she practically screamed into her comm as she called the droid. “Read my position and tell me how to get out of here!” The droid immediately started beeping instructions. She wrapped some gauze around his torso from her small medpack on her belt. It wasn’t much but it would have to do. “Okay,” she said breathlessly, getting to her feet and staggering under his weight. Progress was slow because she had to drag him along with her. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her at any given time, but she dutifully followed Artoo’s instructions.
She lost track of time as the fear pumped through her. At least, she supposed, it wasn’t a crippling fear. Just enough to keep her buzzed and unhappy. She didn’t want to think about what Anakin’s mental state would be when he woke up, especially since she had a pretty good idea he’d seen Padme die or laying there before he’d been knocked out. If she’d had help, she would have insisted they carry out her body too. But since she was alone in here, she had to cut their losses and save the person that was still alive.
She silently mourned for Padmé as the time seemed to drag on forever. After awhile, she had no idea if she was even making progress, or if she was anywhere closer to the door. She started feeling faint after awhile, coughing from all the smoke and staggering under his weight every time the building dropped debris nearby. She could still hear Artoo, but it felt like he was getting quieter and quieter.
Then she heard it… the unmistakable sound of a nearby ship. The sudden rush of hope renewed her strength and she stumbled out of the building seconds before it seemed to collapse behind them. She wasn’t sure what all was happening, but she heard Obi wan, Cody and a few other clones. She felt herself lifted back to her feet, an air mask put over her nose and mouth. She tried to cry out for Anakin, but she saw Master Kenobi’s face swim into view.
“He’s being taken care of,” Obi wan assured her and she relaxed into the sudden rush of exhaustion. “You did well, Ahsoka.”