Chapter Text
After removing the chip from Rex’s brain, Ahsoka felt that something new was binding them, and it refreshed their mutual affection, which was still valid despite her friend's "betrayal". This time, Ahsoka had prevented the irreparable from happening and avoided her own death. Using the Force, her greatest ally, she had succeeded in exposing the Kaminoan machinations carried out under Sidious's orders. Damn it, if she wasn't so caught up in the unlikely chain of events that had befallen her in the last five hours, she would have been too busy planning a hunt to find Sidious and scratch his eyes out. At least, if she had the power and the means. But he was a far too dangerous creature. Although Ahsoka was tired of meddling in the war, she couldn't help but think about it. Why did he do it? Why did that man want to get rid of so many lives in one go? Why did he want to wipe everything out? How had he made sure that every last detail of his dismal plan was perfectly planned?
At least she, Skyguy and Kenobi made it out alive. She didn't know what was wrong with Anakin yet, but she knew that at least Sidious' plan hadn't entirely worked. As long as there were survivors, the plan would remain unfinished, and light would continue to shine throughout the galaxy. She had high hopes that the Dark Lord would be too busy partying after the slaughter to notice anything. Running away was the only thing to do, but she and the last survivors would not last long if Sidious was as stubborn as his former apprentice. If he gave them the chase, all was lost. The entire galaxy would sink if its balance was taken from it, and even the bravest would be forced to live in constant fear, suspicious even of their own shadow.
Rex had explained everything to the Togruta. The entire Republic army was nothing more than a sinister armada of puppets, and their programming now forced them to shoot the very people they were supposed to protect. His best friends were to be used as killing machines, and cannon fodder if they failed. Ahsoka became more aware of the magnitude of Sidious' plan every second, and each new discovery hurt more than the last. It was like being stabbed from side to side each time as the funeral chant of the Force continued to anesthetize the young Jedi's senses, swallowing her up and choking the smallest fragments of Light left in the universe. Manipulating both the Republic and the Separatists was impossible. Despite her efforts to understand, Tano could not. It was beyond her comprehension, and she was afraid that if she found out, insanity would prevail. The pain was bad enough as it was for the moment.
Either way, she wasn't safe yet, and neither was Rex, far from it. They had to get off this ship at all costs. She feared more than anything the moment she would be alone with her thoughts and a Force irreparably torn apart. She was certain it would torment her for the rest of her life, but she had to hold on and put every chance she had to save Rex from this abomination. If she stayed, so be it. At the very least, she had to take her friend as far away from the other soldiers as possible, and if circumstances permitted, she had to take him - by force, if necessary - on a ship on its way to the farthest planet. Away from war, conflict, and most of all... away from Sidious.
But his former brothers had already resumed the assault, now attacking the armoured door of the infirmary. The frame of the infirmary was already weakening under the heat of the tools they were using to melt its contours, and Ahsoka had to think fast to find a way to escape them.
*
It had been a tough battle, but with Rex's agility, nothing was impossible. However, the hardest part was still ahead: finding a transport as quickly as possible and getting off the ship. With any luck, Maul had gone his own way, or...Ahsoka didn't dare hope he'd been killed, but the thought was still blooming in her mind. If he had died, she probably would have felt it, but she hoped it didn't alter their plan. If freeing Maul meant that he had put their chances of survival at risk, Ahsoka would never forgive herself. She was already struggling with the fact that she had taken that decision, and thus willingly unleashing the fury of a killing machine, resulting in the death of who knows how many soldiers. Instinctively, she repeated to herself that this was an evil for a good, something necessary for her and Rex to get out alive.
But once the two friends reached the console overlooking the vast hangar, things didn't go as planned. An entire battalion sprang up on both sides, blocking all passage. The men in armor stood ready, their helmets staring at the glass: the only thing separating Ahsoka and Rex from certain death was the thin layer of glass. They needed a solution. Anything, as long as no one died. And if survival was part of the equation, so much the better. But when the droids chirped to tell her that all the exits were locked, she sighed sadly. The thought of dying here was not in itself a problem, but she didn't want it to end like this for Rex. And when he offered to force his way through the shed...she had to make a considerable effort to make him understand indirectly that their journey was ending here. He was appalled. The commander began to raise his voice, explaining that the clones didn't care and that they would do everything possible to drag them both down with them. Ahsoka stared at him for a long time, gently removing his helmet to reveal a sad face, tears streaming down the soldier's sunken cheeks. She reassured him, then reinforced her decision that she would not be their executioner. There was no way those clones would die at Ahsoka Tano's hand.
As the Jedi watched the helmets painted in her honor, she couldn't suppress a shudder. It was one of the many things that made it all very disturbing, and yet...this breathtaking view of the armada of determined clones made up solely of her old friends mesmerized the Togruta. It was both fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Then an idea came to mind.
*
Their tactics had succeeded brilliantly. The opposing clones had been delayed just enough by Rex's jibber-jabber to allow the astromech droids to sneak up behind them and tamper with the hangar controls, sending several rows of soldiers to the underground basement. But the battle was far from over. Rex threw the two silver handles to her friend, which she grabbed and activated narrowly to block the incoming projectiles that were coming straight at them. While Ahsoka used all of her strength to fend off the projectiles, her friend aimed perfectly at the remaining clones to incapacitate them and prevent a massacre. Massacre, which, according to what the Togruta had told him, was precisely what had happened in every corridor the Sith had passed through. Strangely enough, he didn't seem to be around, but Rex hoped with all his heart that the red monster would not get out alive. Their survival was more important to him than anything else, and if Lord Maul found himself in the same place as them, there was no doubt that he would take the first working shuttle he saw and leave without them, even if it was the last one in the whole hangar. He knew what the Sith were like. They were selfish, and the only thing that mattered to them was their own survival.
The commander could hardly breathe under the strain, and he felt that his aching arms would soon give way after having fought so much against his former brothers. But he had to keep going, repel the attack as much as possible and immobilize as many of them as possible to have a chance. Ahsoka moved so quickly and nimbly that it was impossible to see her every move, and for a moment he remembered all the years he had spent fighting beside her. She was a fearsome, persistent, tough opponent who never stopped believing in her friends. And he realized this a little more each day, but this day was decisive. Ahsoka Tano was one with the Force.
As she threw the more stubborn attackers with Force thrusts, an ingrained carmine red dot flashed across her left side, racing towards the nearest ship. Which happened to be the only transport available from the upper level of the hangar.
"Rex, the shuttle, hurry!"
When he understood, he felt his heart beating harder against his ribcage. Maul was going to make it out alive and leave them to die aboard the destroyer. And he couldn't let that happen. Ahsoka made a spectacular leap to the open corridor leading to the ship, while Rex fired a few more shots to get rid of as many clones as possible before focusing on anything else. The moment Maul saw the armed Togruta rush towards him, he used the Force to send every storage box he could find to stop her in her tracks, but the Togruta dodged them with disconcerting ease.
"You wanted this chaos!" he roared as he prepared to lift a transport wagon to stop the Jedi.
Ahsoka leapt over the cart, heading straight for the Zabrak. Wielding her blades, she attempted to injure him with a blow that nearly decapitated the Sith, leaving a trail of heat toasting a few patches of tattooed skin. Maul sensed that she was here to stop him and take his life if necessary, so he used the Force again, but this time it was to push her as far away from the shuttle and himself as possible, sending her several meters further and almost dropping her into one of the breaches containing a squad of clones lying in wait. Rex rushed to rescue Ahsoka while continuing to resist the continuous attack that was coming from behind them as best he could. All seemed lost. Maul was about to board and leave with the only exit ticket they had left, and reinforcements from the other side were about to burst into the hangar. They were about to be decimated by Republic forces.
When Ahsoka recovered from her fall, she focused on the transport door, imploring the Force to block the entrance and prevent Maul from getting in. If he wanted to play it that way, then no one would leave that destroyer. They didn't stand a chance, and she refused to let the Sith get away and leave them to die. It was only a matter of equal footing. After focusing intensely, begging the Force for help, Ahsoka was relieved that her ruse had worked. The Zabrak raged at the locked door, unable to open it despite his impressive physical strength. It was simply blocked. He wouldn't be able to open it again for a good minute, giving them time to try something else to save themselves. But something had to be done immediately.
"Rex! Hold them off and head for the shuttle, I'll cover you!"
He nodded silently, tapping into what was left of his energy and thus definitively activating his survival instinct to continue on the offensive despite the fact that his physical strength was beginning to leave him. He fired relentlessly, incapacitating each soldier he still managed to target, while taking a few pauses during which he dodged opposing fire to advance towards the ship where Maul continued to furiously manhandle its entrance. Ahsoka was doing her best to protect Rex, but they were becoming far too numerous to avoid and repel them all at once. She feared the worst, but when she realized they were close to the shuttle, she redoubled her efforts.
Even so, a plasma beam hit her forearm, burning the orange skin. She groaned in pain and let her guard down for half a second, the wound destabilizing her defense. The young woman clenched her teeth and pulled herself back into position to deflect a few more blows, then she finally decided to make another jump to reach the transport more quickly. Maul grunted as he perceived the impact of the Togruta as she landed near the freighter. He felt it as clearly as her desperation, and he took advantage of the situation to gorge himself on it and summon the Dark Side. The entrance cracked everywhere, the metal bending and yielding to Maul's whims and his devastating grip. A carnivorous, triumphant smile appeared on his lips. He gave the Jedi and his clone friend, who were now struggling to resist, one last look of false pity, and then boarded the ship.
Rex, on the other hand, quickly realized the obvious. They couldn't hold off the assault forever. And Ahsoka wasn't going to last much longer.
"Ahsoka!" he called out.
The terrified tone he used instantly caught the attention of the Jedi, who parried two more shots before shouting:
"We're almost there! Stay with me!"
She dodged more shots, but one of them rattled her calf, and she definitely fell on impact, dropping one of the swords. She fell to the ground, crawling to the entrance and up to the deployed ramp while brandishing the last blue blade she had left. Rex could see no way out. He couldn't let Tano die. She had to get on that damn ship, she had to go...he didn't care what she thought. All he wanted was for her to be safe. Even if she was hurt, she could sneak on the shuttle and Maul wouldn't notice. In fact, he doubted Maul's intention to kill her. If he really intended to kill her, he would have done it by now. Either way, she could easily stand up to him. He wasn't worried about that.
The freighter's engines started humming loudly. And it only strengthened Rex's resolve as he watched the reinforcements coming up from behind the group of clones still shooting at them to finish them off. More shots came from the back of the hangar, close to Ahsoka, who was already too injured to last another second. But she persisted. He saw her reach out to him from the bottom of the ramp, her big eyes reflecting her fear.
"Rex! Come to me!"
He took off his helmet, staring her straight in the eyes in the midst of all the projectiles whistling around them. He couldn't contain his tears when he realized it was over.
"Commander, I..."
A missile hit him head-on between his shoulder blades as he collapsed. He kept his balance by getting down on one knee.
"Get in, damn it!" she shouted at her friend.
Ahsoka's gaze expressed sadness, despair, and anger, while Rex's expressed resolution, affection, and melancholy.
"You have been...the best person I've ever known."
Ahsoka was petrified. She couldn't get the words out of her mouth. She wanted to scream, to wake up from this nightmare.
"And the most remarkable woman there is in this galaxy", he ended up in tears.
Another shot put Rex to the ground under Ahsoka's horrified gaze, but he took one last long look at his commander before passing away. A look that was enough to express all that he hadn't had time to tell her. His head fell to the ground, lifeless. The ship's ramp folded back, the last rays ricocheting off its surface and conveniently protecting the Togruta as the darkness of the ship engulfed her. Maul took off, leaving the ravaged destroyer, where the last spark of light that was part of Ahsoka's life had also died.
She had nothing left. No one.
She was alone.
*
Maul was at ease, tapping on the ship's control panel, quickly becoming familiar with all the various levers. He carried out a fluid manoeuvre to get out of the exploding hangar, dodging the many pieces of scrap metal that were separating from the destroyer. The clones continued firing, to no avail. The shuttle was deep in the sky, already lining up for its hyperspace trajectory. In a few moves, Maul had programmed everything, with his destination displayed in large on the holographic navigation screen. His flaming irises scrolled through the screens displaying the calculations leading to the best hyperspace routes to reach the desired planet, whilst his gloved hands danced on the controls.
But as he left the system where the destroyer was on its way down to the unidentified moon, Maul felt something. He didn't know exactly what, but something in the back of his mind was trying to get his attention and warn him. Once in the hyperspace tunnel, he concentrated on that distant sensation to find the source. What he found there surprised him: a familiar aura that he had already felt several times in the last few days. No, it couldn't be-
"Don't move, or it will be your last mistake."
There was no doubt about it. The female voice was unmistakable. And in addition to the hateful tone, the characteristic vibration of a light saber was part of the threat. So she was still armed... which gave her the advantage, for the hundredth time that day.
Maul had to admit that she was far more powerful and cunning than he had believed before he met her. But although the Togruta's imperturbable strength was remarkable and, Maul had no doubt, useful if used in the right way (something which, because of her intractable character, he did not have the chance to witness with his own eyes), she had a knack for intervening at the wrong time. In this case, when he was trying to get out of the mess she herself had caused by refusing to join him and handing him over to the forces of the Republic. Maul was as annoyed by her stubbornness as he was by her presence on the ship and what it meant to his survival plan. She was going to be an unnecessary obstacle he could do without.
"Get up. Slowly," she ordered.
Her voice was...different. It was still cold and calculating, but Maul could feel as clearly as the whisper of the laser sword the sadness and confusion veiling her orders. She was probably as shaken as any other Jedi. After all, most of them must have been dead by now.
"I told you, get up from that kriffing seat!"
Togruta's voice was trembling, and every word she could still speak threatened to break her. Maul probed the cockpit and the main compartment leading up to it to mark the position of her armored pet in preparation for the double attack, but he found no presence there other than the Jedi’s. He wasn't really surprised, but he had to admit that the Togruta's resolution and ability to stand upright after all that had only increased his respect for her. However, that didn't change their relationship: she was a rival, and she was challenging him again right now.
He didn't say anything, and then he finally decided what to do to avoid further injury. Although young Tano was upset, her instability made her even more dangerous, and he was already too physically invalid to take unnecessary risks. Talzin was no longer there to stitch him up if something went wrong. He rose slowly from the padded seat as ordered, always with his back to the blade of light that kept him at a safe distance.
"Go to the back compartment," she spat.
That was not going to happen.
His reaction was a simple swivel. Facing her, he could not hide his amusement. She threatened him, but her body was strewn with bruises and blaster burns. Even more crippled and pitiful than he had thought. She could not stand up to him in a duel under these conditions, armed or not. His gaze shifted from her wounded limbs to her broad, weakened face: his arrogance took over and Maul could not hold back a slight grin as he saw the damage. Ahsoka was trembling, and she wanted to give him a raging look, but all she managed to get out was an intense expression that reflected everything but anger and determination. In a desperate move, she raised the blade further, the burning heat of the laser grazing the Zabrak's chin. He instinctively stepped back to cling to the control panel behind his back.
"Go. Now !"
I will not give in to your absurd demands, Jedi.
She stepped out into the confined space to make way for him, keeping her weapon in a defensive posture like pointing a blaster at a prisoner trying to escape. But Maul knew she would be no match for him if he chose not to comply. She was just trying to intimidate him by exposing her sword, reminding him that she had an advantage. An advantage that was now useless.
He did his best to make the Togruta believe that he had resigned himself. A simple growl, a fiery look and a few steps forward as when she had released him were enough for Ahsoka to subtly lower her guard, too exhausted to concentrate on anything but the past. She was convinced that Maul wouldn't try anything under threat, or at least that he wouldn't because he couldn't defeat her unarmed. If he hadn't even managed to defeat her armed on Sundari, what were his chances of winning? Probably one in a million. And that's exactly what Maul needed: that tiny, almost non-existent fragment of slack, that tiny dose of misplaced Jedi confidence after surrender. Apparently, she hadn't been able to give up all of their doctrines.
Maul jumped at the chance. Just as his metal legs crossed the threshold of the cockpit entrance, he turned around sharply and struck a lateral blow to her armed hand, sending the sword handle away from them. He took advantage of her surprise to grab her wrist with his free hand, then pulled her towards the main compartment with all his might, where she landed heavily in a small cry of surprise. She quickly got up, staring at the Sith, a hint of fear in her dilated pupils indicating that her fatigue was beyond physical exhaustion. She had lost her characteristic spirit of hope. But when Ahsoka got up, the contraction on her face was almost insane. Maul knew the expression all too well to confuse it with another. The young Tano was losing it: she was distracted. Alienated. It was as if someone else was controlling her body to get her up and keep fighting, pushing her to the edge until she broke. It was grim, and Maul was far too familiar with the feeling to ignore it. He'd never seen anyone but him reach this point of exhaustion.
"Turn the ship around!"
She was no longer herself. It was surely a mental self-defense mechanism that had been triggered, to prevent her from facing reality and accepting it. She was postponing the moment of silence during which she would be confronted to all these deaths and the sinister murmur of the Force in agony. Maul had been unable to suppress a hateful grunt when he saw her obstinately standing up to him, but the fact that she was in the midst of a rout before his eyes, when he had always seen her as a perfect little stubborn and impassive warrior with excellent self-control slowed him down, and his tense face relaxed slightly, giving way to silent and calculating contemplation. If he hadn't been so riled up, he would almost have felt pity.
Ahsoka curled up, an icy emptiness inhabiting her gaze haunted by recent events that had left behind a bloody and unbalanced universe. She wrapped her body with her own arms. Maul could not bring himself to simply finish her off. He had respect for Tano, and he knew that the least he could do was to guarantee her a dignified end. He would drop her off on the first planet he came across, perhaps a deserted moon in the system where he was directed.
"Calm yourself, Jedi. You've had a hard day."
Those were the last words she managed to hear before she felt the Force muffle the surrounding noise from the ship's entrails. All she could see when she looked up was the blurry, nightmarish silhouette of the Sith and, through the cockpit window, the hyperspace tunnel of blue ripples that had filled the entire ship with its glow. A horrific calm pervaded the atmosphere. She groped the walls and leaned against them to stagger to the bottom of the transport. Ahsoka could feel the Sith's piercing irises on her back, watching her every move, but there was little she could do about it. She had to get to the bottom of the shuttle as quickly as possible before she'd collapse to the ground in the middle of it.
Once she reached the other end, she slid effortlessly against one of the side walls. The Force pulled her into its damaged, stagnant foliage, which was usually so alive and responsive to any signal of distress. The sidereal void vibrated all around her as her eyes struggled to stay open. The presence of a Sith was the number one reason to not fall asleep and stay alert, but she couldn't stand it anymore. Nothing really mattered anymore.
Warm tears streaked her cheeks. Her limbs twisted into a tight ball, and then she laid her head against the railing wall. At last her heavy eyelids closed, and her heart forced her to accept the past.
Her thoughts drifted one last time to her men, Rex, Master Kenobi, and...Skyguy.
Silence enveloped the Togruta as a rain of ashes fell over the Galaxy.
*