Chapter Text
Fives awoke with a start.
For a moment, all he could do was stare in shock at his unfamiliar surroundings. Durasteel walls, a pair of bunks, one of which he currently laid on. His ARC training kicked in before he could even think straight, and he sat up in the bed, scanning his surroundings. Empty. A ship’s bunk, by the look of it, one entrance and exit and no possible weapons in sight. A blank clone helmet sat on the ground before him, matched to the armor he wore. What?
Then everything came rushing back. Tup. The chips. Nala Se. The Chancellor. He remembered going to the warehouse he’d told Rex and the General to meet him at. Then...nothing. Had the Chancellor gotten to him?
Footsteps sounded down the hall outside the door.
Fives shot to his feet, searching again for something, anything, to use as a weapon. The room was empty save for the helmet. His head was clearer now, thankfully, and he jammed it on, pressing himself to the wall beside the door just before it slid open.
A small figure stepped inside, and Fives didn’t waste any time aiming a punch to their face.
“Wh—“ The figure dodged in a blue and orange blur, faster than any normal reflex, backing away to the opposite side of the door. Her hands twitched toward her belt before she seemed to think better of herself.
“Commander Tano?”
Half of him wondered if he was still drugged. Ahsoka Tano had left the Jedi and 501st weeks ago, now. But if this was a hallucination, it was a very realistic one.
His Commander—former Commander—held up her hands placatingly. “I’m not going to hurt you, Fives. And it’s just Ahsoka, now.”
Just Ahsoka. Her sabers were noticeably absent from her hips, he assumed just as far gone as his pair of blasters. Besides a new outfit and some growth in her montrals, she looked exactly the same. She raised her eyebrows slightly as he looked her over. Acted the same, too.
I’m not dreaming. He needed answers.
“Comm—sir, what is this? Where are we?” Fives kept his fists up, not that it would do any good if she attacked. Her sabers were noticeably absent from her hips, but he doubted he was in any shape to take down a former Jedi, lightsaber or not.
“We’re in hyperspace, headed for Nal Hutta.”
Nal Hutta? Seeing Five’s confusion, she elaborated. “It was the first place I could think of where we could disappear.” She paused. “Rex commed me, told me what happened. I had to get you out.”
Rex. Rex had trusted him, believed in him enough to send Ahsoka. His vod hadn’t abandoned him. Ahsoka was outside the Republic. She had more power to help him figure out what the kriff was going on.
Unless this was all a lie. Ahsoka had left the Republic, yes, but anyone could be involved. She could have known about the chips. But it was Ahsoka. He’d trust her with his life under any other circumstance.
He gritted his teeth in frustration. “How much did Rex tell you?”
Ahsoka’s jaw tightened. “He told me what happened with Tup on Ringo Vinda, and how you went to Kamino. How you came back and apparently attacked the Chancellor.” She rushed on before Fives could interrupt. “He—we didn’t believe it. Something else had to be going on, so I got you out. But now you have to explain why the entire Republic thinks you’re a traitor.” She kept her voice measured, even, as if afraid he’d snap. He recalled the exact same tone in her voice when she talked down panicked shinies after their first battle. Great.
Well...he had a hazy memory of talking to Kix in 79’s, panicked and high-strung. So maybe the tone was justified.
And Ahsoka, Fives remembered, had been accused of treason too. Not that any of the veterans of the 501st had believed it—and they’d been right. But Ahsoka left the Jedi anyway.
“How do I know you’re not working with the Chancellor, or the Kaminoans?” he challenged. Give me a reason to trust you. A flicker of hurt passed over her expression, but maybe she felt his desperation, for it was gone within a second.
“Rex told me to tell you that the last thing he said to you was ‘bring him home, Fives.’ And I know what it’s like to be accused of a crime you didn’t commit.”
There was an edge to her voice as she described her own experience with accusations, slight enough that it almost went unnoticed. Convinced now, he put his fists down and removed the bucket from his head.
“You...might want to sit down for this. It’s a long story.”
He started with Tup’s strange behavior before Ringo Vinda. The words were halting at first, but as he went through Tup’s kidnapping and rescue, the story began to pour out of him almost of its own accord: how the Kaminoans had been acting strangely but he’d thought nothing of it at first, how AZ-3 helped him uncover the truth, how General Ti tried to protect him from Nala Se. Ahsoka’s expression darkened throughout his tale, and he could tell it was an effort for her not to cut in. He stopped before explaining what happened in the Chancellor’s quarters. It felt like he’d been talking for hours, though in the ship’s quarters there was no way to tell.
“I’m sorry about Tup.” There was genuine sorrow in Ahsoka’s eyes, and it made Fives remember late nights in the mess hall in the hours after battle, Ahsoka sitting beside his brothers as they told stories of those they’d lost. He remembered a younger Commander that used to sleep in the barracks when nightmares plagued her sleep.
Why did you leave? he wanted to ask.
“Me too,” he said instead.
Ahsoka chewed her lip, considering her next words. “What happened when you got to Coruscant?”
Fives shut his eyes against the onslaught of memories, the chilling feeling of helplessness. The way he couldn’t get himself to calm down, how Kix looked at him the way he looked at Tup when he didn’t remember shooting the Jedi.
“I—“ he inhaled sharply, and after a moment felt Ahsoka’s hand settle gently on his shoulder. Another breath. Two. Then:
“I remember waking up on the ship and feeling all wrong. I think they drugged me.”
Ahsoka’s eyebrows shot up, and she made some sort of high-pitched hissing noise.
“General Ti took me to the Chancellor, but she didn’t come into the office with me,” he continued. “And—I started to tell him about the chips. About the threat they posed.” Fives swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “He just...laughed. And then—and then he said he knew. He told me he’d planned it all along, and when the time came he’d activate the chips inside every clone, strip every single one of us of our very selves to serve him. He told me that someday we’d come to our senses and see what we’d done to the Jedi, the Republic, and we wouldn’t be able to live with it. But we’d keep going anyway, because good soldiers follow orders. ” He spat out the last words, and slammed his fist into the bunk they sat on.
Shoulders trembling, Fives looked up and registered the shock in Ahsoka’s expression. With painstaking effort, he unclenched his fist and lowered his voice. He needed her to believe.
“I know it’s a lot to believe. But I swear it’s true. I would never betray the Republic. But I fight for my vode, too. And the Chancellor’s Republic would throw them aside.”
For a moment, there was silence but for the low hum of hyperspace around them. Then Ahsoka spoke.
“I believe you.”
Fives stared at her with a mix of crushing relief and surprise.
“I’ve known you for years, Fives. And it doesn’t make sense for you to lie about this—you know I’d probably be able to see through you with the Force,” she said. “Rex said Kix told him you sounded unhinged, before. But now you sound like you. That would make sense if you were drugged. And if Tup completely lost himself, that can’t be unrelated to a corroded chip in his head.” Her voice was angry now. “We have to stop it. You—all of you—deserve better than that.”
This was the Commander Tano that the 501st missed so badly. He almost smiled. It was only one more person on his side, but in this moment it felt like a galaxy’s worth of difference.
He wasn’t alone. And that meant everything.
Ahsoka grinned, but it was more like a baring of her fangs. The same thing she did in the middle of a firefight.
“Where do we start?”
Saving millions of people was easier said than done. Fives didn’t have his own chip anymore, so they had no proof and no way to find out more. Not to mention that Fives was presumed dead—Ahsoka had set the warehouse on fire as they left. It had been two days since then. Whatever drug that Kaminoan sleemo had slipped Fives was powerful.
She just hoped no one questioned the lack of a body at the warehouse. Rex was on their side, at least. Maybe he’d convinced the Guard not to look too closely.
That was a long shot, especially since Rex was a terrible liar.
It had been weeks since she left, but every thought about Anakin or Rex felt like a stab to the heart. Fives had definitely noticed. The question laid unsaid between them, and she couldn’t decide whether she was grateful or not that Fives didn’t bring it up. Why did you leave?
Ahsoka shoved away her churning thoughts, staring ahead at the swirling blue of hyperspace as they continued to plan.
“We need information, but we can’t just go asking around,” she said. “Lots of questions about a chip in clone troopers’ heads will inevitably get back to the Chancellor.”
The Chancellor was another question. The man was already arguably the most powerful person in the galaxy. Why did he need the clone troopers to kill the Jedi?
The only thing she could think was that the Chancellor wanted to become a dictator of sorts, and knew the Jedi would stand in the way. But if that was the case, there were easier ways to ensure no resistance, ways that the control of millions and the genocide of thousands more could not be traced back to him. The Republic loved him; if he wanted to gain absolute power, it wouldn’t be all that difficult. The Senate had already voted countless times to give him more “emergency powers.”
There had to be something else. The Force tugged at her, trying to show her what she couldn’t see, but anytime she tried to look it was as if the revelations were coated in fog. It was frustrating to say the least.
This plan had been years in the making. The clones had been commissioned more than ten years ago, before Palpatine was even Chancellor. He had no way of knowing that the galaxy would go to war. Right?
Maybe he was working with the Separatists. It was no secret that Dooku wanted the Jedi gone—maybe they’d brokered a deal of some sort: I’ll murder all the Jedi if you let me rule over the Republic and Separatist Alliance.
If that was the case, Dooku would kill the Chancellor the moment he reached his goal.
Ahsoka groaned in frustration, setting her head between her knees.
Fives glanced over at her from the copilot’s seat, and she could see his amused expression out of the corner of her eye.
“Shut up,” she grumbled.
He mock saluted in answer.
The speed at which she and Fives fell back into old habits surprised her. Then again, joking had always been easy. Trust was harder. She’d left them all behind, and all the joking in the world wouldn’t undo it. If she’d been there, maybe she would have seen that Tup was—
She dug her nails into her legs. No use dwelling on the past. All she could do now was save the clones, and the Jedi, and the entire Republic. Easy.
Ahsoka blew out a breath, straightening in her seat. She checked the chrono.
“We’ll be at Nal Hutta in twenty minutes,” she told Fives, and looked consideringly at the armor he wore. “Check the bunks or maybe the cargo hold. You’ll need something else to wear.”
Fives nodded to her blue jumpsuit. “You’ll pass as a civvie in that?”
“It’s a mechanic’s outfit. I should be fine.”
With that, he left the cockpit in search of a less conspicuous outfit, leaving Ahsoka alone with her thoughts.
Whatever lingering doubts Ahsoka had about Fives’ story, they had dissipated in the hours they’d spent planning. Nal Hutta was a long way from Coruscant, even at light speed. There had been plenty of time to talk. The more Fives shared, the faster the last bits of trust Ahsoka had in the Republic faded. Everything about his story was wrong, from the way the Kaminoans treated the clones to the Republic’s—and the Jedi’s—apparent acceptance of anti-aggression chips. She knew the Republic was willing to overlook a lot of wrongdoing. But this?
I shouldn’t be surprised, she thought bitterly. The entire Republic was corrupt. Which meant, again, another issue.
Even if Ahsoka and Fives found irrefutable evidence of the chip, they needed support. There was no way for the two of them to remove the chips from every clone in the galaxy. Which meant telling people. And they had no idea who to trust. Rex, yes, but that was only one battalion—and Ahsoka had her own reservations about telling Anakin.
One step at a time. First, Nal Hutta. First, find real evidence.
Ahsoka stared out the viewfinder, wondering how, exactly, they were to pull this off.
After Fives returned, Ahsoka couldn’t stop laughing.
“This was all I could find,” Fives said miserably. He was wearing a lime green pair of pants that were at least three sizes too large, with a baggy purple top and black jacket. He still wore his clone boots, but in his right hand was another pair. Bright red, with heels. Heels.
“At least whoever owned this thing was close to your size,” Ahsoka said, grinning. “You could have been stuck with a Lurmen outfit.”
“I’m no fashion expert, but even I know that this,” he gestured to the entire ensemble, “isn’t what most people look for in clothing. And there’s no kriffin’ way I’m wearing those boots.”
The ship console beeped behind her, and Ahsoka made for the pilot’s seat. Less than a minute to Nal Hutta.
“Well, you definitely don’t look like a clone anymore,” Ahsoka commented, lips still twitching. Fives glared at her whilst stuffing the red boots into a wall compartment.
The console lit up again, and Ahsoka set her hand on the hyperspace lever. 3, 2, 1...
Deep space appeared around them, stars and distant planets woven through the blanket of darkness surrounding Nal Hutta. Fives came up behind her, taking in the dusty planet and the atmosphere bustling with ships.
His unease flowed through the Force, matched by her own. This was where the work began.
Ahsoka just hoped their first mission wouldn’t turn out to be their last.
Notes:
fives just came out of drug induced sleep and this is what he gets (because i enjoy dumb humor). personally i think someone could pull off that outfit but that someone is not him. this chapter was shorter then the next ones will probably be but i hope you enjoyed, and comments give me lots of happiness :)
Chapter 2: on being known
Summary:
Fives and Ahsoka try to stay under the radar and plan what in the galaxy they’re supposed to do next.
Notes:
an eternity after chapter 1, chapter 2 is here! sorry it took so long, but the next chapters should come out quicker :) no warnings for this chapter, enjoy!
(side note, does anyone else’s ao3 do a thing where everything you italicize gets weird extra spaces that you try to fix but sometimes it doesn’t work? is there a fix to that?)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Fives and Ahsoka landed within one of the main cities of Nal Hutta, the freighter all but crashing on to the landing platform with a cacophonous boom. Ahsoka resisted the urge to curse at the junk heap. By some miracle it hadn’t come apart in hyperspace, but now came the seemingly-impossible task of selling the thing.
At least her frustration was immediately eased by glancing at Fives’ outfit.
With a human and Togruta traveling together, sticking to cities was their best option for staying under the radar. And their best option to find a buyer for the ship. Hopefully. They needed credits, desperately. The Jedi had given her a stipend upon leaving—to her surprise—and she’d worked some mechanic jobs here and there, but not enough to support a trip across the galaxy. Thank the Force that fuel was cheaper in the Outer Rim.
Ahsoka slid out of the pilot’s seat to dig through her small pack of belongings. Her meager collection of credits, her old Jedi outfit—she shoved that aside before she could think about it—some spare parts... there.
She tossed Fives a black cloak. It barely passed his shins as he slipped it on, and Ahsoka snickered.
“What’s our cover?” he asked, pointedly ignoring her amusement.
“Uh...mechanics?” She gestured to her jumpsuit, but he raised an eyebrow at her.
“We’d make an odd pair of mechanics to venture to Nal Hutta, sir.”
Ahsoka leveled him a look. “You’ve got to drop the ‘sir.’ It’ll attract attention.”
“Right, sorry, si—Soka. Ahsoka. Ashla.” He grimaced, and she rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly.
He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Anyway, Ashla,” he continued, “we’d be better off as bounty hunters. Especially since our ship is a bucket of bolts.”
True. Ahsoka reached further into her pack as she nodded her agreement, retrieving a blaster and holster belt that she slung around her hips.
“A DC-17?” Fives sounded impressed. A bit jealous, too. His blasters had been noticeably absent when Ahsoka found him in that warehouse. She’d seen him reach to his hip for reassurance only to come up empty, and knew she’d done the same countless times. Her sabers felt like a phantom limb, still.
“Rex taught me to shoot,” Ahsoka finally answered, ignoring the whole host of memories that surfaced. “Seemed like it was best to stick with what I knew.”
Fives nodded, tugging up the hood of the cloak. “Alright. Bounty hunters, here to trade a ship and have a drink. Easy.”
She stood, following him to the landing ramp. “You were right about the bounty hunter cover. No one would have believed a mechanic in lime green pants.”
Fives muttered curses under his breath as Ahsoka smirked at him.
Selling the ship turned out to be more difficult than they’d thought.
Their first buyer, an over-enthusiastic Quarren, wanted to trade a single-person fighter. The next was a human who tried to cheat them into a ridiculous price. After several hours and fruitless conversations, a bartender at one of the cantinas pointed them toward a red Twi’lek with fashion sense to rival Fives, who was apparently in possession of a 690 light freighter.
The Twi’lek leaned back in her seat, knife swinging carelessly in one hand, as Ahsoka and Fives slid into the booth across from her. Well,” she drawled. “What’s a pair like you—“
“We’ve heard you’re in possession of a 690 light freighter, and want to trade,” Ahsoka said flatly. “Allanar N3 light freighter, prime condition.” Fives coughed next to her. Okay, maybe not prime condition.
” I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, but her interest peaked in the Force. Probably because anyone who wanted to trade an N3 for a 690 was desperate, a fool, or both. Ahsoka pounced.
“With fair credit compensation as well, that is.”
The Twi’lek groaned. “Never can get a good deal on this hellhole.” Her knife twirled one, twice, three times as she considered them. “Fine! I’ll have to inspect your ship first, then we’ll talk credits.”
She stood, moving to exit the booth. “The name’s Tali. Your ship’s close?”
“Down the street,” Ahsoka said. “I’m Ashla, that’s Finn.”
Tali waved in a vague gesture of welcome. “Well, Finn and Ashla, good business.”
She chattered about the weather, a bounty she’d cashed in, and just about anything else as they made their way to Ahsoka and Fives’ freighter.
“So, what brings you to Nal Hutta?” she asked Fives.
“Er—bounty hunting jobs?” Fives said. Ahsoka tried not to groan as Tali gave him an odd look.
“Didn’t you have to do stealth work as an ARC?” Ahsoka hissed as the Twi’lek pulled ahead.
“The whole point of stealth work is that you don’t stick around to make conversation,” Fives said under his breath. “Besides, Echo was always the better liar.”
Ahsoka decided not to push, hearing the slight hitch in his voice on Echo’s name. She sped up to catch up with Tali as their ship came into view, and they ascended the ramp.
“This thing is not prime condition, girl!” Tali called as she walked down the corridor.
“From a certain point of view!”
Tali shook her head, rapping her knuckles along the durasteel walls as they went. In the smaller space, her hand on her knife was much more sure. Warning taken. Once they arrived at the cockpit, her carefree demeanor evaporated completely as she inspected every inch of durasteel.
Eventually, Tali stood from where she’d been looking under the console, dusting her hands. “Ship’s a hunk of junk. I’ll trade for the 690, but no credits included.”
“This is much larger than a 690, even if it isn’t in the best condition,” Ahsoka argued. “Credits are still on the table. And we still have to inspect your ship.”
Tali waved a hand dismissively, walking out the cockpit doors. Ahsoka and Fives looked at each other in bewilderment.
“Is she—“
“Do we follow her?”
Fives made for the cockpit door. Tali was already halfway down the corridor. “Hurry up back there!” she barked.
“Well, that answers that,” Ahsoka muttered. Fives mouth quirked up at the edges.
“She reminds me of Rex. Move it back there!” His voice deepened to imitate—mock, really—and Ahsoka giggled, ignoring the pang in her chest once again.
Tali’s ship turned out to live up to her description. Almost. It was white, jagged yellow racing striped painted on either side, and in overall good condition. It even had a med droid. Fives had grabbed her wrist with an iron grip upon making that particular discovery. She had no idea if a med droid had the capabilities to remove the chip, but they’d have to try. And hope.
Once they finished inspecting the rest of the ship, they talked credits.
“You’re ship’s in pretty good shape,” Ahsoka said to Tali. “I’ll do two thousand credits, and include the med droid.”
Tali snorted. “Nice try. One thousand, no med droid.”
“Twelve hundred, with the droid. Final offer. It’s a good deal.”
Tali gave her a long look, and shifted the same considering gaze to Fives. Neither of them backed down.
“Fine. Deal.”
Fives opened a wall compartment as Ahsoka shook Tali’s proffered hand. A gust of air blew out of a cracked pipe, and he hastily adjusted his hood as it began to blow backwards. Tali’s eyes went straight to his face, and her surprise was like a shockwave through the Force. She drew her blaster.
“You’re a clone.”
Fives jerked backward as if he was struck. “What? No!”
“I know a clone when I see one. And I knew your voice sounded familiar. What is this?” Tali demanded. “Some kind of Republic setup? You’ve got no sway here.”
“No!” Ahsoka said desperately. “We’re not with the Republic, I swear.”
Tali kept her blaster pointed at Fives as she addressed Ahsoka, pinpointing him as the larger threat. A mistake. “If you’re not with the Republic, then what’s your business on Nal Hutta? Clones aren’t allowed to leave the army. I know that much.”
Ahsoka hesitated before responding, Fives staying silent as well. What was she supposed to say? Well, actually, he’s an accused traitor to the Republic. I was, too, but they found the real culprit before I was executed.
Before she could find the words, understanding filled Tali’s gaze. “Wait. You’re a deserter.”
“I’m—“ Ahsoka silenced Fives’ protests with a glare.
“Yes. Yes, he’s a deserter,” she said to Tali. Desertion was the safest excuse. The only one, really.
Tali seemed taken aback at her admission. “Is that true?” she addressed Fives.
“...Yeah,” he said, shoulders slumping. His resignation was real enough.
Tali slowly lowered her blaster, and Ahsoka tried not to sigh in relief. “How do I know you’re not lying?”
“What would the Republic want with some Twi’lek bounty hunter?” Fives said. “On Nal Hutta, of all places.”
“We’re not with them,” Ahsoka said again. “If we were, then we would have attacked you by now.”
Tali stared them both down, the panic slowly receding in her eyes and in the Force.
“I did a job for the Republic, once,” Tali said. “Hack into a Separatist database and all that.” She paused. “Worked with some clones. It was a fair deal, but you never know with the Republic. Maybe they want their credits back.”
Fives took a step forward, prompting Tali’s hand to fly back to her blaster, but he didn’t move any closer. “I left the Republic. It’s—“ he fumbled over his words, seeming to fight with himself before continuing. “It’s corrupt, and wrong, and has betrayed me and my brothers over and over again,” he got out, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. “We’re not here for you. Just a ship.”
Tali hesitated. Ahsoka and Fives didn’t move.
“Alright,” she said finally. This time, Ahsoka did loose a sigh. “I’ve no reason to tell the Republic about a clone deserter. Better to stay away from that mess. Time to forget and go our separate ways, yeah?”
Ahsoka searched the Force for any sign Tali would betray them, and found none. And there was nothing they could do, anyway, short of killing her. Mind tricks only worked on the weak. Even if she tried, if it failed she’d out herself as a Jedi. Former Jedi.
Tali pulled out a credit chip and they made the exchange in tense silence. Once finished, Tali quickly backed away to the cockpit door. She stopped before leaving.
“I worked with some clones,” she said to Fives. “Good men.” She paused. “Consider investing in a helmet. And some different pants. You don’t have the confidence for those.” Tali grinned, the caution in her posture bleeding away slightly.
Fives chuckled. “Thanks.”
She nodded to Ahsoka, and was gone.
Ahsoka and Fives were frozen in place for a moment, before Ahsoka came to her senses and made for the door. “I’ll follow her to her ship,” she said tersely, and left.
After some time, Ahsoka returned and sat down heavily in the pilot seat.
“Tali left, didn’t talk to anyone,” she said tiredly.
Fives sat down across from her. “Guess I need a helmet,” he offered half-heartedly.
Ahsoka dragged a hand down her face. “I didn’t think anyone would recognize you. And I froze when Tali figured it out.”
“We didn’t expect it,” Fives said. “And we got lucky that Tali didn’t much care.”
“What happens when we don’t get lucky? We’re up against the entire Republic. We both got caught, last time, and this time if we get captured it means everyone dies.”
Fives stared at Ahsoka in surprise. In his days with the 501st, she’d always been confident. Not like this.
The memory of Umbara rose, unbidden. Rex falling apart for the first and last time in front of Fives.
Command was a burden he wished on no one. Being ARC meant Fives had to make some hard choices, but never was he in charge of the fates of more than a few men. The reason Rex or Ahsoka, or the General, even, had appeared so indomitable was because they had to. Sure, Ahsoka had come to sleep in the barracks in the early years, but even that faded away as she was given more responsibility as Commander. The 501st put their trust in her, and in return she was strong for them.
Fives stood and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I made a bad call. I should have put on a helmet, or stayed on the ship, or—I don’t know. Something.” He paused. “We can do this. We know what we need to do, and we know what we’re fighting for. Our vode .” Her eyes widened at that.
“It’s not all on you. With respect, you’re not my Commander anymore.” He smiled ruefully. “Right now it’s just us, but we’ll get the support. We’ll get it because we have to. For our brothers, for the Jedi, for the Republic. We can do this.”
Ahsoka stared up at him, eyebrows raised. Fives cleared his throat awkwardly and sat back down.
“I think you missed your calling,” she murmured. “You could have been quite the public speaker. Senator, maybe.”
Fives barked a laugh. “Not on your life. Politics isn’t for me.”
A smile tugged at the edge of her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “And—it’s not all on you, either, you know. You always used to take every mistake on yourself. I don’t think that’s changed much. Some things are beyond our control. Even if we’d gotten you a helmet, Tali said she recognized your voice.” She stopped, waiting until he met her gaze.
“We’re going to figure it out. Together.” She stood, offering him a hand to pull him up.
“Together.”
They planned.
Ahsoka went out and bought new outfits for them both. Fives now had a blaster, helmet, and outfit that, oddly, reminded him of Cad Bane. Still, the lack of armor made him feel much too vulnerable for his liking. Ahsoka was hesitant to part with her jumpsuit, but eventually opted for something similar to her Jedi outfit—gray-green leggings with a black tunic-skirt, long-sleeved this time. She even managed to find black sleeves to cover her lekku markings and a retractable faceplate designed around her montrals, though she made a face when putting it on.
No one looked at them twice after that. They didn’t dare talk business in the cantinas, so they had plenty of time to observe and listen in, hoping to hear about Republic and Separatist movements.
There was precious little to discover. Most of the residents of Nal Hutta, unsurprisingly, wanted nothing to do with the Republic or Separatists. The most they got was that the Republic had made some headway on Felucia. That was General Secura and Commander Bly, Fives recalled. He hoped they were doing all right. Felucia had been a nightmare for the brief period the 501st had been assigned, and the 327th had been there for months already.
Part of him whispered that his brother’s efforts on Felucia would mean nothing if he failed, and Fives crushed that voice.
Back on the ship, they struggled to piece together the endgame.
“So,” Ahsoka said, biting into a piece of mystery meat in the common area of their ship, “the Chancellor.”
The one good part of being on the run was that they didn’t have to live off ration packs. Fives had tried nerf for the first time yesterday. Not that he was keen to repeat the experience.
The tilt of her head drew him out of his thoughts. “I just—what’s his end goal? If he kills all the Jedi then the Separatists will win the war,” he said.
She stared at her meal for a moment. “Maybe he is a Separatist,” she said finally. “At this point, it’s what makes the most sense. He’s working with Dooku, and in exchange for ensuring the death of the Jedi, he thinks he’ll rule over everyone left.”
Fives snorted. “He’d have to know that Dooku would kill him the second he got what he wanted.” The man wasn’t an idiot, from what Fives had gathered a little over a week ago. Dooku would discard Palpatine, same as Palpatine would do to the clones. He said as much to Ahsoka.
“That’s what I thought, too,” she said. But maybe he has a plan for that. Or he thinks Dooku will keep to his word for whatever reason.”
Fives tried to temper the frustration bubbling up inside him. All the clones, fighting for a lie.
“Hey,” Ahsoka said, nudging his leg with her foot. “We’ve got this, remember?”
He took a deep breath, loosening his white-knuckled grip on the table. Anger gets us nowhere, a familiar voice echoed in his head. Think.
It was likely the Chancellor was working with the Separatists. Which meant...
“Tali mentioned hacking into a Separatist database,” Fives said aloud. “If the chips are a Sep plot...”
“There could be information on them in their systems, or at least a link to the Kaminoans,” Ahsoka finished. “It’s a long shot, but worth a try.”
Long shots were all they had. Fives pulled up a map on his datapad. “We’re at Nal Hutta. The closest Separatist occupied planets that aren’t deep in Separatist space are Chalacta, Deysum, Nanth’ri and Gamorr. Not Gamorr. Gamorreans don’t like outsiders, to say the least.”
Ahsoka pulled the datapad toward herself. “We need a planet populated enough that a Togruta and human won’t draw attention, but out of the way enough that the Seps aren’t too concerned about guarding it.” She looked down at the map. “Deysum is too far into Sep space.”
Fives wracked his memory for all the planetary information the Kaminoans had ingrained into his brain. “Chalacta’s population is small, and it’s much more out of the way. We’d be noticed more, but Nanth’ri is much more important to the Separatists. Might be harder to get access to a base.”
“But with Chalacta, we risk that they’re too isolated to have access to all the Separatist systems.” Ahsoka passed the datapad back to him. “Nanth’ri is our best option.”
“Now we just need a plan to get in and out of a highly-guarded Separatist base without anyone seeing our faces. Easy.”
Ahsoka laughed. “Isn’t that what ARC training is for?”
Fives grinned back. “Sounds more like it’s time for a Skywalker plan.” The smile slipped off Ahsoka’s face at that. “Er, I mean—sorry.”
Before Fives could figure out what to say, she pulled an expression of forced cheerfulness. “A Skywalker plan. The Seps won’t know what hit them.”
He decided to leave it alone, for now. Force knew he had plenty he didn’t want to talk about, either. “If we land in the outskirts of the main city, we can find a less guarded base. Communications center, maybe.”
He switched the datapad screen to a map of Cin’tel, Nanth’ri’s capital, and the hours went by as they went through every scenario they could think of.
They had to be careful. They’d gotten lucky with Tali, but Fives knew from experience that their luck wouldn’t hold. The Chancellor was still head of the Republic, and there were only two people in the whole galaxy that knew of his true motivations.
Part of him hoped that this was all just a mistake—that the Chancellor hadn’t said those things, that this was just another nightmare that Fives would wake up from to fight another day. But sometimes reality was worse than the nightmares. And if he was being honest, they’d been living a nightmare for a long, long, time. Even without the chips, his vode died in droves everyday for a Republic that didn’t see them as people.
Look out! Echo!
Never again.
Notes:
uh oh so someone knows (part) of their secret......
hope you enjoyed this chapter and feedback is appreciated!
Chapter 3: marching
Summary:
Fives and Ahsoka head to Nanth’ri in search of answers.
Notes:
i’m sorry my update schedule for this is nonexistent but here’s the next chapter, hope you enjoy!! this is kind of a monster of a chapter we’re at 5 or 6k here
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
On the way to Nanth’ri, Fives looked on with half awe, half fear as Ahsoka twirled her newly-won electrostaff in the small common space. Electricity off, thankfully.
Just before they’d left Nal Hutta, some Weequay had tried to hit on her in a bar. Before Fives could so much as aim a punch for his face, the di’kut was on the ground, the electrostaff that had been strapped to his back in Ahsoka’s hands. She’d been thrilled. He chuckled just thinking about it.
The staff hadn’t seemed all that similar to a lightsaber, but Ahsoka had gotten the hang of it within a couple hours. The DC-17 was still holstered at her belt, though Fives wasn’t sure if she kept it with intent to use, or just for a reminder of the men they’d left.
He knew Ahsoka felt guilty over leaving. Hell, he’d even been mad at her at first. But Jesse, of all people, was the one to calm him down, make him realize that the people she called family had betrayed her. There was no coming back from that.
And Fives himself being accused of treason definitely put things into perspective. He didn’t blame Ahsoka, as much as she clearly blamed herself.
A loud CLANG echoed through the room, and he looked up to see Ahsoka sheepishly moving away from an electrostaff-shaped dent in the wall.
“I think I’ve got it now,” she said. She held out the staff to him. “Want to try?”
Fives pushed off the wall he had been leaning against to take the staff out of her hands. She stepped back as he twirled it experimentally.
“It’s heavier than I thought it would be,” he observed, tossing it up a bit.
“The Weequay made some modifications. I opened it up, earlier—I think he made the electricity more powerful and added more insulation on the inside.”
Fives nodded absently, beginning to spin the staff a bit faster. He’d held an electrostaff before, even launched one into the chest of a droid, but he wasn’t used to fighting with anything but blasters.
He twisted, jabbing the staff downwards, and the tip grazed the little bit of hair that had started to grow back.
“I think you just electrocuted yourself, there,” Ahsoka said, trying and failing to hide her smile.
“Alright, alright,” he grumbled. He moved it about a bit more, before Ahsoka led him through some Jedi movements she’d modified. Katas, she called them.
“You’re pretty good at this,” she commented after they finished. “Maybe we can find you one of these staffs, too.”
Fives patted his blasters. “I think I’ll stick with these.”
Ahsoka didn’t respond, cocking her head toward the door. “Proximity alarm,” she said.
He listened, but heard nothing. Togruta hearing. They made their way to the cockpit, and after a few moments Ahsoka powered down the hyperdrive.
Nanth’ri appeared before them: a small, mountainous planet interspersed with thousands of lakes. Part of the capital, Cin’tel, was carved into the side of a particularly large mountain range.
“Pretty nice place the Seps have here,” Fives commented as they approached.
“Control to craft, state your purpose.”
“Craft to control, two bounty hunters on the job.” Ahsoka sounded bored, exasperated. Fives silently mock-applauded her acting improvement. She punched his shoulder.
“Please transmit target.”
At least they’d thought to check the bounty list, just in case. Ahsoka transmitted their chosen target, a human who was wanted in three systems for fraud.
The silence was long. Too long. Ahsoka shifted nervously in her seat. If this didn’t work, or if control asked for more information than they could give, they’d be shot out of the sky.
“Hold for scan.”
Fives exchanged a panicked look with Ahsoka. The scanners wouldn’t catch anything, but scanning was not usual protocol.
So much for staying under the radar.
They did as they were told, waiting for the scan to complete. As the silence stretched on, Fives began to rethink their plan. Why had their best idea been for a former Jedi and clone to break into a high-security database, on a Separatist planet in Separatist space?
Sometimes you can only choose from bad options.
Echo’s voice had been in his head a lot lately.
“You may proceed to Hangar Bay 16.”
Fives shook it off, slumping back into his seat in relief. Ahsoka loosed a slow breath as she guided the ship toward Nanth’ri.
“Too close,” he said.
Ahsoka shook her head. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
They landed in Bay 16 without any trouble. Ahsoka donned her headtail covers and faceplate, with a hooded cloak for extra cover. Fives followed suit with his own helmet before descending the landing platform.
The bay door opened before them, and they were greeted with a bustling street surrounded by mountain peaks. People streamed in and out of the various buildings, talking on comms and chatting with one another. A few buildings looked very Separatist, with dull gray and black walls, but others were small shops, decorated with hanging lights that were strung over the street. They were on the open side of the city, and in the distance was the section carved into the mountain, earthen homes and buildings painted cheerful colors rising above them.
Cin’tel was like the top level of Coruscant. People of all species walked the streets, blissfully unaware of the war that raged across the galaxy. Two kids ran in front of Fives, laughing and screaming as they played together.
It was beautiful. Beautiful, and so at odds with the droids sentries Fives spotted at the door to one of the larger buildings. He scanned over the sea of heads for others, but it seemed like there were only droids at a scattered few of the buildings. Ahsoka tugged her hood a bit lower, the electrostaff on her back swaying with the movement.
“I can’t see a thing,” she complained.
Fives realized belatedly that he was significantly taller than Ahsoka and resisted the urge to laugh.
“That building,” he nodded toward the black monstrosity looming over the street, “is crawling with clankers. Some of the other buildings have them too—only the plain durasteel ones—but not as many.”
The crowd thinned slightly as they moved away from the hangar bay, allowing Ahsoka a better view ahead. They relayed bits of information between them as they walked.
“Only B-1s at that entrance.”
“Some sort of business center, supers at the door.”
They rounded the corner, and Fives glanced to the right. A dull gray building, unmarked, fully protected by clankers. A human walked out the door, dressed in Separatist officer garb, fully absorbed in whatever was on his datapad. Jackpot.
“Rollies and supers at the door. No windows. I’ll bet that’s our best shot.”
Ahsoka didn’t turn her head, but she nodded. “Cover me.”
Fives stopped, motioning to one of the stores and talking nonsense about the furniture inside. Ahsoka stopped and turned towards him, eyes slipping closed under her hood.
“Uh...those pillows look pretty comfy in there, maybe we get some for our ship, or for that friend of yours...”
Her eyes snapped open, and she pulled him away from the storefront.
“Or not! You never appreciate my, er, decorating ideas!”
Ahsoka snorted. “Good to know some things never change. You can’t act if your life depends on it.”
“Hey, I seem to remember someone saying ‘unhand me, brigand!’” He pitched his voice up an octave for effect. Without skipping a beat, she kicked him in the leg.
Eventually, they found a cheap inn to get food and a room. Once inside their room, they set the food down and swept for bugs. Fives set up a scrambler that he and Ahsoka had fashioned back on the ship.
“Should be good now,” he said, flopping down on one of the beds. Ahsoka sat on the opposite bed and retracted her faceplate. Fives set his helmet on the ground.
“I didn’t sense that many people in the building, but there were a lot of droids. At least two floors. We should lay low a couple days, and then scout it out.”
Fives tried to curb his frustration, but Ahsoka seemed to sense it from a mile away. “What is it?” She cocked her head. “Not a Commander anymore. Feel free to tear apart my plan,” she said wryly.
He hesitated. “Do we need to wait that long? If we scout it out tonight, we can take a day to come up with a plan, get to know their guard patterns, and hit it fast. Get out before we’re noticed too much.”
He didn’t mention his burning impatience to do something, though it was probably obvious. Who knew how long it would be before the Chancellor decided to activate the chips?
Ahsoka was silent for a minute, thinking. “Sounds like a plan,” she said at last. “Well, part of a plan, anyway.”
“Those are the best plans.”
She shook her head in amusement, falling backward so she lay diagonally on the bed. There was silence for a few moments.
“Hey, how do you sense droids?” She turned her head toward him. “Echo used to always want to learn about the Force, but he said that it works on living things.”
Ahsoka frowned, thinking. “It’s not so much sensing the droid itself, as the absence of life in the space it occupies. That’s why it can be hard to tell the difference between a stationary droid and a data console, for example.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that makes so much sense.” Fives gestured helplessly and she laughed.
They lapsed into silence, and Ahsoka looked at him consideringly. “I...Echo asked me about the Force, once.” She smiled at the memory. “He was in the medbay, and pretty high on painkillers. I think he would have been too nervous to ask if he wasn’t.”
Fives chuckled. “That’s for sure.”
“He asked me how different things felt in the Force. I wasn’t really sure what he meant, at first, so I told him about the droids, and how plants feel different than animals, and eventually I got to describing people’s auras in the Force.”
“Auras?”
“It’s...a hazy feeling of who you are. If you were at the door right now and I reached out with the Force, I would know it was you from your aura.”
This was more about the Force than he’d ever learned in the GAR. He had to admit, he could see why Echo was so fascinated. “But you wouldn’t be able to tell me apart from another clone, right?”
“I would, actually. The aura’s not based on your DNA. More like your innate self. Not quite your personality, but that’s probably the closest I can describe it. Some people’s auras are very similar, but I haven’t sensed any that are exactly the same. Master Yoda even said that there have been a few Jedi that could see Force auras if they concentrated. I don’t know what that would look like, though.”
Fives stared at her. “Huh.”
He’d never considered that there was a way for the Jedi to tell them apart, aside from personality and small differences in their appearance. Although, it did make a lot more sense how Ahsoka always knew the names of the shinies, even in their blank kit.
“I told Echo that his aura was like waves, like the ocean,” she said. “His flows. Yours...zig-zags, and sparks. They’re opposite but similar, somehow.”
Two sides of the same coin, those two, Rex had joked once.
He closed his eyes. “Nu shi taab echaajla.”
There was some indescribable emotion in Ahsoka’s gaze when he opened his eyes. “Not gone, merely marching far away,” she said quietly.
He jolted. “You know Mando’a?”
“Some. I know vod, and curses, from all you guys. And Rex taught me some other phrases.”
Her stare was blank as she focused on the wall, lost in memory.
“Why did you leave?” he asked before he could rethink it.
His question hung in the air, and she deflated, looking bone-weary. Sitting up, she removed her faceplate and headtail covers, placing them on the table beside the bed. As the silence stretched on, Fives nearly apologized for asking, but something in her expression made him stay silent. A minute passed.
“I almost didn’t become a Padawan, you know,” she said quietly.
“What? Why?” Fives said incredulously. Then he lowered his voice. “Sorry. I just—you were a great Padawan.”
Her hand was still on her headtail cover, and she was looking down at it pointedly. “Usually a youngling becomes a padawan by 13. But I was always...not quite the model Jedi.” Her hand strayed to her hip. Where her lightsaber would have been.
“I was too loud, too reckless, too angry. If we hadn’t gone to war, I probably would be in the AgriCorps right now. But Master Yoda came to my quarters one day. Told me I’d been apprenticed to Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One.” She snorted. “I was so afraid. I’d heard that he was unorthodox, which helped, but...I knew I’d been assigned. He hadn’t requested me. He didn’t even want me, at first.”
Fives hadn’t known that, either. The General and Ahsoka had always been so close. “It got better, though,” he said. “You and the General were great by the time I got there.”
“Yeah. It did.” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she withdrew her hand from the table and looked up at him. “Anakin, Rex, all the 501st—you guys are my family. I...I miss them.”
She didn’t continue. It didn’t escape Fives that she hadn’t answered the question, but he hadn’t really expected her to, anyway.
The Jedi had been her home just as his brothers had been his, and they’d both had to leave that behind. They’d both been betrayed by the Jedi and Republic.
Fives rose from his bed and settled down beside Ahsoka.
“When my squad was on Kamino, we all wanted to be ARCs,” he said. Ahsoka’s eyes were on him now. He never talked about Domino anymore. “Every brother did. It meant you were every bit the soldier you were trained to be—and better. But my squad...we were a mess, at first.” He laughed bitterly. “Echo and I even requested a transfer. When we failed our final test, that should have been it. But General Ti let us retake the test. She taught us to work as a group instead of individuals, and we passed.” He pulled at the bedspread they sat on.
“And then?” Ahsoka asked quietly.
“And then Rishi. Even after getting stationed with my whole squad, all I could think about was being ARC. Three of them died on Rishi and it was just me and Echo that got ARC training. Training that didn’t even matter, because Echo died anyway, and then I was all alone with the one thing I had always hoped for, but all I wanted was to go back to Rishi.” His words dropped into the heavy silence of the room. “They always tell us we’re fighting for the Republic, and that’s what I always said, too, but...”
Pride for the Republic had been ingrained into every cell in his body—the Kaminoans had ensured that. Fives truly had been proud to fight.
And yet.
At some point the mantra in his head was no longer for the Republic, but for Echo, for Tup, for Hardcase, for Hevy and Droidbait and Cutup and every other clone that had died and would die for this thing they called freedom.
“I think I’m really fighting for my aliit,” he said finally.
“Family,” Ahsoka murmured.
“Yeah. And that includes you, too,” he said, nudging her shoulder gently.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “It’s nice to have a thousand vod’ika.”
“We’re older than you, vod’ika,” Fives grumbled. He felt her smile into his shoulder.
They stayed like that for a while.
Long after the sun set, Ahsoka shifted, lifting her head from Fives’ shoulder.
“That was much more comfortable than with the armor,” she joked with as much levity as she could muster.
He laughed, probably for both their benefits, and got up to look out the blinds. It was dark now. Time to go.
They donned their gear and slipped out into the night. Dressed in black, they blended in with the surroundings, but Ahsoka still worried.
The stores surrounding their target were dark, the lights strung across the street turned off in the dead of night. The streets, which in the daytime were filled with people, were nearly empty. The environment was so at odds with that of other cities that Ahsoka was struck dumb for a moment. A curfew, maybe.
“It’s better this way,” Fives said under his breath, so quiet that she doubted it could be picked up by human ears. He boosted her up to the roof of a department store a few doors down from the building, and she reached down to pull him up. She didn’t dare use the Force blatantly, even under cover of night. They laid flat on the rooftop, and Fives pulled out a pair of binoculars.
“No windows anywhere, like you said,” he muttered. “I don’t see any exits other than the front door, either. Wait.” He moved into a crouch. “I think there’s a roof hatch.” He handed the binoculars to her. Scanning the building confirmed Fives’ statement.
“We go in through the roof hatch, then. Or if we could cut through the ceiling...” she trailed off, realizing once again that she didn’t have her sabers.
“If we’re going the hatch in the roof, we’d better hope they don’t have an alarm system.”
Ahsoka drummed her fingers, thinking. “The hatch is our only option. I’d rather not climb up there until we actually do this, in case they have motion sensors.”
“And what if there isn’t a way to open it?”
She grimaced. “Then we either find a new target or go through the front door.”
They camped out for a few hours, waiting to see if anyone entered or exited. Nothing. Ahsoka reached out with the Force, and felt a few people inside, as well as several droids, but no one left. They identified the cameras on the building that they needed to take out, and decided to avoid the droid sentries at the front altogether.
“If I felt good about this before, I take it back,” Fives grumbled as they finally slid off the shop roof. They made their way to the alley behind the building, but it was more of the same: no windows, no entrances.
Everything relied on the roof entrance. Feeling slightly dejected, they returned to their room at the inn. Fortunately, their food, lying forgotten on the floor from earlier, was as good a pick-me-up as any.
“Have I mentioned how much better this is than ration packs?” Fives asked, mouth full. “‘Cause it is. It really ish—“ He swallowed loudly. Ahsoka threw a piece of meat at him and immediately regretted not eating it.
“We’re going to have to go back to ration packs soon, if we want to have enough credits to get by,” she said.
Fives held up a finger. “I know. Don’t ruin my moment.”
Ahsoka laughed, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “About the building. Information center, probably.”
“We hope,” Fives said. “We don’t have much intel.”
“And limited options to get more.” She furrowed her brow. “We could ask around, or follow one of the officers when they leave.”
Fives got a glint in his eye. “That could work. I saw an officer walk out with a datapad yesterday. If we could swipe it—“
“We’d know what we’re getting into,” Ahsoka finished. “Do we have a spare datapad we can wipe?”
Fives unclipped his from his belt. “Sending all the data to yours.” Her pad pinged on the table. “And wiping.” He grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Getting the datapad hadn’t even been that hard. Within half an hour of walking around their target, an officer strolled out the front doors, datapad clipped to his belt. Halfway down the street, a crush of people were gathered around a street performer. The officer shouldered through them, and Ahsoka went in after him, bumping his side and switching the datapads without him giving her a second glance.
They’d put a glitch in their datapad that would keep it from turning on. Hopefully it would keep the officer from realizing the switch until the next day, and they’d be long gone by then.
Back in the room, Fives worked to hack into the datapad. After several minutes, his face brightened.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered. “And...ha!”
“Did you get it?”
“I’m in. Just let me—“ His eyes widened. “This kriffer’s got a map of the entire compound,” he said gleefully.
”Really? ” She leaned over to look. Sure enough, blueprints for three floors, rooms labeled. “Maybe we can pull this off after all.”
”And,” there’s a map of the ventilation system,” he added. “Might be too small a fit for me, but you could probably get through.”
Fives went through the rest of the pad, but it was mostly reports on various issues across Nanth’ri. One was a report on Separatist movements on Anaxes, and he sent that to Ahsoka to look over later.
Even without any other intel, a map was more than they could have hoped for. The sun began its descent outside the window as they planned, and too soon it was time. They gathered their belongings and slipped out the window.
The streets were a ghostland once again, much to Ahsoka’s relief. They flitted between the shadows, making their way to what they now knew was an information center. Ducking down an alley a few doors down let them move toward the back of the compound unseen. Once the security camera was turned the opposite direction, Ahsoka crushed it with a swift motion. She beckoned Fives forward, and he groaned softly.
“I don’t like this part.”
Ahsoka grinned under her faceplate, reaching out to Fives and concentrating in the Force. Within a second, he began to float. Ahsoka lifted him to the roof, jumping up to join him once she let him go.
The roof was devoid of cameras, thankfully, and Fives was already waiting at the hatch. Ahsoka spotted the vent cover in the corner. After working the cover free, she gazed into the small space for a moment before tossing Fives the electrostaff. He gave her a lazy salute in return and she slipped inside the vent.
It was a tight fit, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She’d done her best to memorize the various vent junctions throughout the building in the limited time they’d had to plan. Just in case walking the hallways wasn’t an option. Hope my memory doesn’t fail me now.
She took a right, and another right. In less than a minute she hovered over the correct grate. Peering through the bars into the room below revealed no one inside. She reached out with the Force, feeling a droid outside the door, and waited for it to move farther away.
Carefully, she unlatched the grate, peeking out as much as she could to find the camera. It swiveled away, and she dropped silently into the room, crushing it with the Force.
So far, so good. The nagging feeling she’d had upon their arrival to the planet had receded slightly, and she took that as a good sign. Looking up, she located the roof hatch and moved to twist it open. From the inside, it was unlocked. It popped open with a loud hiss and Ahsoka glanced worriedly at the door, but she didn’t hear anything outside.
Fives climbed down the ladder, and shut the hatch behind him. Cameras? he signed.
Disabled. They’d agreed to keep quiet, just in case.
He nodded, and handed her the electrostaff and her small pack. She shouldered both, adjusting the padding she’d placed over her head to hide the prominent points of her montrals. Uncomfortable, but smart. Fives had been the one to suggest it, to make it more difficult for the Seps to identify her.
She listened at the door, and reached out again. A couple droids a few halls down, but nothing too close. The stairs were down the hall, the central database on the second floor.
As soon as the door slid open, Ahsoka checked the hallway. The corridor was brightly lit, white walls and floors. Nowhere to hide, but no droids in sight. Clear. She and Fives ran for the stairwell.
But just as they got to the door, she heard the telltale clank of droid footsteps. Two sets. They ducked into the stairwell and Fives shut the door behind them, but not fast enough.
“What was that?” The whiny tone of a B-1 droid echoed loudly through the space as Fives and Ahsoka scrambled down the stairs as silently as they could.
“It sounded like it came from the stairwell.”
Fives and Ahsoka had nearly reached the next floor down, but there was nowhere to go except into the hallway, where Ahsoka was sure there’d be droids. They only had a moment before the droids came in from the third floor.
Think. Killing the droids wasn’t a good idea; if the parts were discovered then someone would sound the alarm. She looked up, searching. Oh. Ducts.
She grabbed Fives’ arm, signing a quick sorry as she jumped up, managing to wedge herself between two of the ducts on the ceiling. She braced herself, and removed one of her hands to shoot Fives up towards her. He barely concealed a yelp, but a good thing he did, for at that moment the door opened to reveal two droids.
Ahsoka couldn’t help but think of the time on the Trade Federation ship, when she and Riyo had been in a similar situation. Except this time she was on a Separatist planet, didn’t have her sabers, was no longer a Jedi, and in the company of a clone accused of trying to murder the Chancellor.
“I don’t see anything,” one of the droids said. The other took a few steps down, and Ahsoka grimaced. She couldn’t hold this for much longer. Her hand started slipping down the side of the duct, and Fives jerked down for a moment as her concentration slipped. She gritted her teeth.
“It looks clear. Let’s get back to patrol.”
“Roger, roger.”
As soon as the door shut behind the droids, Ahsoka lowered Fives to the ground—too fast, but her concentration was shot. He groaned when he hit the floor, and Ahsoka dropped to his side.
Never again, he signed, holding his stomach and looking queasy.
Sorry, she signed sheepishly.
While Fives regained himself, Ahsoka reached out to the second floor corridor. As soon as she felt it was clear, they went in. Fives led the way, having memorized the hallways. He held up a hand before they rounded a corner, and the sound of quiet footsteps sounded down the next hall.
But then droid steps echoed behind them.
There was a storage closet across from them; Ahsoka furiously tapped Fives’ shoulder and made for it. The door swished shut behind them, and she hoped to the Force that no one heard it.
The droid passed them by, and soon after they heard another set of footsteps near.
And stop.
Ahsoka listed curses in her head, hardly daring to breathe. Fives was frozen behind her.
The door opened suddenly, a Separatist lieutenant appearing before them. Just as shock registered in her eyes, Ahsoka sent a punch to her face. She sagged, unconscious, and Fives jumped forward to help grab her arms and stuff her into the closet.
”Shab ,” Fives whispered. “Not good.”
Ahsoka clapped a hand to her forehead. “ We have to hurry,” she whispered back, adrenaline starting to rush through her veins. She hadn’t really thought they’d be able to get in and out without confrontation, but this was early. They still had to get to the database.
Thankfully, they encountered no one else on their way. Ahsoka crushed the cameras as they entered the room, and they both made for the console. She kept her eyes on the door as Fives powered it up.
The problem, they’d realized before, was that they couldn’t download any data, because the Seps could trace what they took. Information on the clones was a strange target for bounty hunters, and they couldn’t afford questions. They had to find whatever intel they could on-site, then get the hells out of there.
“It’s asking for a facial scan,” Fives said almost inaudibly, hand signals abaondoned.
She half turned toward him. “Can you override it?”
He nearly slammed a fist into the console, but checked himself. “Yeah. I just need time.”
Ahsoka couldn’t help shifting on her feet as she waited. She put her hands on her belt, catching herself checking for reassurance with sabers that weren’t there. She wanted to groan, or punch something, or just have her sabers back.
Your lightsaber is your life.
Where were Anakin and Obi-Wan now? Did Obi-Wan still chastise Anakin for misplacing his saber, Anakin making fun of him right back for the number of times Cody grabbed Obi-Wan’s own lightsaber? Did—
She crushed her train of thought before it could go father. The mission. Focus. Force, what was wrong with her?
“I’m in,” Fives said. “Searching by keyword—“
An alarm blared in the hallway. Fives and Ahsoka cursed in unison.
“Hurry!” she hissed, drawing the electrostaff.
“I’m trying! Pulling files with keyword “clone—“
Fives stopped suddenly, and Ahsoka whipped her head around. “What?”
“There’s a document. There’s something here, if I can just...”
He clicked on the file, and messed with the console a bit more. Droid footsteps sounded down the hall.
“Any time now!” she hissed.
“It’s confidential! I can’t access it, kriffing —“
“Switch,” she said, looking over at the console. Fives twisted around, pulling out his blaster.
They were out of time, Ahsoka knew. Hacking a confidential document was out of the question. But she got a fleeting glance at the file, and saw a familiar seal.
“They’re almost here!” Fives said, and Ahsoka clicked out of the file, cleared their search history, and powered off the console.
“Time to go!” The droid footsteps stopped outside the door, and Ahsoka readied her electrostaff. The moment it opened, Fives shot one of them in the head, Ahsoka stabbing the other. They dashed out of the room and toward the stairs.
“Hey!” a droid shouted behind them. An officer moved into their way, blaster drawn, but Fives shot them down.
They kept running, into the stairwell and up the stairs, and didn’t bother to stop and check the third floor hallway as they barreled in.
“Intruders!” Another pair of droids and a human stood before them, blasters drawn.
“It’s a Twi’lek and a human!” the human called into their comm. Fives fired one two three, and they went down, Ahsoka taking down the droids beside him.
She couldn’t help but grin.
Fives laughed as they continued on. This, they were used to. In combat, they thrived.
They cut down a few more droids on their way to the roof hatch, and then they were there. Fives scrambled up the ladder, opening the hatch, and Ahsoka stood ready at the bottom. He got it open and climbed outside, just as a droid came into the room and shot at Ahsoka.
Out of reflex, she raised the staff to block the shot, realizing too late her mistake. The shot grazed her shoulder, and she cried out in pain, jumping forward to electrocute the droid. Another came through the door, but Ahsoka was already flying up the ladder, coming out on the roof. Fives shut the hatch behind her and they ran for the edge.
By the time the droid popped its head out of the hatch, they were gone.
Fives and Ahsoka ran like hell towards the hangar bay. Her shoulder twinged with every step but she did her best to ignore it, keeping pace with Fives as they barreled toward escape. As long as they got there before someone could go through the chain of command, reporting two bounty hunters breaking into the information center, they’d be free.
Ahsoka never thought bureaucracy could make her life easier.
They reached the hangar bay in minutes. Whatever curfew or deterrent prevented citizens from walking the main streets at night was lifted by the hangar bays—pilots flowed in and out of the doors, several ships both landing and taking off as they reached the hangar their ship was housed in. They’d already paid the fee, so they ran up the landing platform and to the cockpit. Ahsoka furiously turned dials and switches, Fives doing the same from the copilot’s seat. But once they lifted off, she tried her best to appear casual. She was endlessly grateful for the myriad of ships going in and out, masking their escape.
They broke out of the atmosphere, and Fives set a vector for lightspeed that would take them back to the Outer Rim. The ship shuddered as Nanth’ri blinked away behind them.
He let out a laugh of triumph, and grinned wildly at Ahsoka, who smiled right back. They’d done it.
She took a breath, instinctively reaching out to the Force. Her relief colored the Force around her, but as the excitement of the mission faded, the bad feeling rose in Ahsoka’s gut again, and she couldn’t help but feel that something had changed.
Notes:
comments are love!!
things are happening.......
that entire sharing scene in the room was not supposed to happen but it kind of just came out. i want them to BOND and be HAPPY ok. chaotic sibling duo that argues over who is actually older (yeah it’s fives clearly but it’s still funny). also i will take any opportunity to bring up domino squad oop
translations:
ni shi taab echaajla: not gone, merely matching far away—a mandalorian saying meaning that the dead are never truly gone
aliit: family
vod’ika: younger sibling (as vod means sibling, adding ‘ika the diminutive).
Chapter 4: greed is my lever
Summary:
Fives and Ahsoka figure out what to do next. A little bonding, a little planning, and a LOT of chaos.
Notes:
there’s this quote from the grishaverse series: “what is infinite? the universe and the greed of men.” that haunts me and i kept thinking about it in this chapter—chapter title is from the book six of crows.
this fought me so here is this chapter a month later, sorry! im hoping to get a more regular update schedule after this, maybe every two weeks.
and IMPORTANT: for our purposes in this universe, someone else bombed the temple and not barriss. instead of just trying to ignore the islamophobia present in that arc in this fic, i decided that for this, barriss did leave the jedi because she thought they were becoming beholden to the senate and the war, but another padawan bombed the temple. so that’s what it will be in this fic. thanks y’all!
also, enjoy the chapter!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As the adrenaline wore off, the blaster burn on her shoulder became a lot more painful.
Stupid . Trying to block a blaster bolt with the handle of an electrostaff?
Fives helped her bandage it up, though they didn’t have any bacta to use. Another item that required a lot more credits than they had. The wound wasn’t bad, anyway—Ahsoka was truly considering a permanent switch to long sleeves.
She rolled her shoulder around, testing the bandage. “That’s pretty good.”
Fives nodded, closing up the first aid kit. “Remember when Kix dragged us all down to the medbay for a medic lesson?”
“Anakin bandaged my leg so tightly I lost circulation,” Ahsoka remembered.
“Echo had already read half the holonet’s stash of medical information.” Fives shook his head in disbelief. “Kix told him he could make a good medic, and the praise went straight to his head. He wouldn’t shut up about it for a week .”
Ahsoka stood up to stretch, chuckling.
“By the way,” Fives said, leaning back in his chair, “that officer thought you were a Twi’lek. A Twi’lek.” His lips twitched.
Ahsoka snorted, sitting back down. “That means your trick with the padding worked. Besides, the Seps aren’t known for their brilliant intellect.”
“What, has he never seen a Twi’lek before? He looked like the type to go to the cantina—“
She shoved his arm before he could finish his sentence, and he jostled her back, careful of her shoulder. “Fine, fine. Then we need to decide what we do next, without any intel from the database,” he said, souring.
“Actually,” Ahsoka said, “did you see the seal in the corner of the document we pulled up?”
“Yeah, a variation of the Sep seal, right?”
“That’s what I thought at first, too,” Ahsoka said, pulling her datapad from her belt. “But I remembered watching the holonews a few weeks back...” She typed into her datapad, hoping that she was right. There . “And I learned that a certain corporation changed their logo before the start of the Clone War, because of the similarity to the Separatist seal.”
She turned the pad toward Fives.
“The Techno Union?” he said, stroking his chin. “Why would they have a file on clones?”
“No idea. But it seems like we found our next target.”
The Techno Union was a ‘neutral’ corporation stationed on Skako Minor. Everyone knew that they funded the Separatists, but they covered their footsteps enough that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to accuse.
But a Techno Union file on clone troopers in a Separatist database?
“Maybe they had a hand in the chips,” Fives mused. “But I have a hard time believing that the Kaminoans asked for help. Techno Union’s supposed to be neutral, though anyone with a brain knows they side with the Seps.”
Ahsoka looked through her datapad a bit, and opened a page that made her eyes widen.
WAT TAMBOR DECLARED NEW HEAD OF TECHNO UNION
No. Wat Tambor was despicable. Ahsoka had shot down countless vulture droids that he’d ordered to dive-bomb innocent villages on Ryloth. And yet the Republic set him free, and he rose to power in one of the richest corporations in the galaxy. Did no one care about the countless Twi’leks that died by his order?
“What is it?” Fives asked. Wordlessly, she handed him the datapad. His eyes narrowed as he read through the article.
“So he claimed he was an ‘unwilling participant’ in the siege of Ryloth, and his trial got dismissed on a technicality?” Fives said, hands curling into fists. His anger felt like a tidal wave in the Force, fueling Ahsoka’s own.
“Essentially,” she said tightly.
So many had died to retake Ryloth from Tambor’s clutches. She remembered walking into Anakin’s quarters one afternoon to find him crushing a holodisk between his metal fingers, voice deadly quiet as he told that General Di’s entire battalion was wiped out on the surface of Ryloth.
They all died, and Tambor lived. Thrived.
Ahsoka stared hard at the dull gray durasteel wall.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the Dark Side.
The Jedi had been right about some things. She breathed deeply, closing her eyes. When she opened them, Fives was still glaring at the datapad, cursing under his breath.
“Hey,” she said gently. He didn’t look at her, but some of the anger seeped of him, fists loosening as he took a deep breath.
“Right,” he muttered. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“I...” she waited for him to continue. “How do you just—let it go?”
Ahsoka laughed without humor. “It’s not easy. But acting out of anger never helps a situation. I try to remember that.”
“Anger gets us nowhere ,” he said quietly, in the tone of quoting someone else. She knew who he was echoing, anyway.
“Exactly.” He breathed deeply, and the tidal wave of rage gradually receded. He turned to look at her.
“Meditation helps sometimes, too.”
“I don’t think I could hold still for that long,” Fives said wryly.
She grinned. “There’s other kinds of meditation.”
Fives tilted his head, reading the challenge in her eyes. “Oh. No Jedi tricks!”
“Deal.”
A well-placed kick to the stomach sent Ahsoka stumbling back, barely catching herself from falling to the floor.
Still, sparring again felt good.
Fives was fast. It had been a long while since they’d gone against each other, and at first Ahsoka was unprepared for the sheer ferocity in his movements. But she was faster.
“You’re using the Force,” he accused, after scrambling back up from the floor of the cargo bay.
“Am not!”
They circled each other, waiting for an opening. Something clanged behind Fives and Ahsoka’s gaze twitched away for a split second. He moved, aiming a punch for her midsection that she neatly dodged, and retaliated with a punch to the shoulder. She ducked down, aiming a kick for his knees but he caught her leg for just a moment before she twisted away. He got a knee into her side but she elbowed him in the gut, and then they were back to circling.
This time it was Ahsoka who attacked first, feinting left, but Fives didn’t fall for it and she was forced to retreat again.
They began to move faster. Punch, block, kick, punch, elbow. Fives landed a hit and Ahsoka landed the next, and they kept going and going and at some point Ahsoka realized she was grinning even as Fives tried to kick her legs out from under her. While he was low, she flipped over his back and took him into a headlock, but couldn’t hold it for long. He twisted away but she was expecting it, and aimed a kick for his stomach that sent him sprawling to the ground. She followed, kneeing him in the chest before he could get up and aiming a punch for his face.
He paused. Ahsoka knew he could get out if he tried, but they weren’t fighting to injure, and the cargo bay floor was a lot less forgiving than a sparring mat. She rolled off him, breathing hard.
“I win,” she said between breaths.
“Like hell,” he shot back, panting.
They both started to laugh. Fives stood up, offering her a hand, and they made their way to the common room.
“Who wins, you or Rex?” he asked. “Last time I saw you two sparring, he did, but that was nearly a year ago.”
Ahsoka remembered. As the war went on, the 501st saw less and less of Fives, with ARCs going on their own missions.
“Tie, probably,” she said. “We’ve sparred so many times, and the last few ended in a dead heat.” She considered for a moment. “I’ve sparred with Cody a couple times, and I’ve never beaten him.”
Fives huffed a laugh. “The man is a demon when it comes to hand-to-hand. I don’t think anyone could beat him.”
Ahsoka shook her head in agreement, settling down to the floor to stretch. Fives opened a wall compartment and tossed her a water bottle.
She drained half of it in one gulp. “We need to talk about the Techno Union,” she said. Fives gestured for her to continue.
“This isn’t going to be like breaking into that information center on Nanth’ri,” she said grimly.
Fives was uncharacteristically quiet. “We have no intel, no backup, and no contingency plan,” he said finally. “But the Techno Union is the only lead we have. We don’t exactly have a choice.”
Ahsoka gathered her knees to her chest. “I know. But if we get caught, that’s it.”
“Then we’d better not get caught.”
“And ,” she continued, “Skako Minor is in the Core. Close to Coruscant. Besides the fact that you’re public enemy number one to the Chancellor, we don’t have enough fuel to get there and back to the Outer Rim.”
“And not enough credits to keep refueling,” Fives finished, impatient. “I know. But all we have to do is bring someone in as bounty hunters, and the reward would be enough—“
“Quick to get into the criminal world,” she interrupted, raising an eyebrow at him.
“We’re already here, anyway,” he said, frustrated. “My brothers’ lives depend on us finding information!”
“I know! But we have to be smart about this,” she said, getting up to pace. “We can’t break into the Techno Union alone.”
“You don’t have any contacts that would work with us?” he asked. “They’d get a haul of tech from the most advanced corporation in the galaxy for their trouble.”
“I was a Jedi padawan, not a stealth operative,” Ahsoka said, shoving down her irritation. “Don’t you have any?”
He shook his head silently.
“So we’re back to square one,” she muttered. Fives looked like he wanted to take on the galaxy itself, and Ahsoka felt a twinge of regret. She understood why Fives wanted to move forward so quickly, she really did. But they had to be patient, come up with a workable plan.
Wow, Master Kenobi must be rubbing off on me, she thought absently.
Oh. She put that thought in her Don’t Think About It box. It was getting larger by the day, as she hadn’t been able to meditate since leaving the Temple. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Her bond with Anakin was still there, blocked off by an iron wall at her end. The tenuous connection with Obi-Wan was unbroken, too, though she’d thought about ending it plenty of times.
She made a noise of frustration, probably above Fives’ hearing range. He turned toward her, and for a moment she feared he could hear her, but he only continued to talk strategy.
“First things first, we need credits. We figure that out, then we make a plan for the Techno Union.” His shoulders were still wired with tension, but his voice was controlled.
Ahsoka exhaled, attempting to center herself. Fives had managed it much faster than she’d expected, all things considered. “Okay. Good idea.”
Fives grabbed his datapad, sat down at the table and quickly pulled up a search. His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
“Uh, is there a page on the holonet with bounties, or...”
She couldn’t help but smile as she slid into the seat next to him. “No idea. I know that on a lot of the Outer Rim planets there’s a place you can go to look at available jobs, but it’s not my area of expertise.” Far from it, even though Ahsoka had gone up against plenty of hunters in the last few years. Cad Bane. Aurra Sing. Rako Hardeen.
That went in the box, too.
Fives’ exclamation of triumph drew her attention back to the datapad. He’d found a list of bounties in the Outer Rim.
“Kriff, there are a lot of these,” he said, scrolling down. “ Twenty million credits for this guy? And ten million for—oh.”
“What?” Ahsoka moved his arm to peer down at the text on the screen: ten million credits for the head of any Jedi. Unsurprising, really. The image was of Master Unduli, looking a lot better than when Ahsoka had last seen her in the halls of the Temple. Right after Barriss left—
“Let’s go for bounties for a couple thousand,” she said, interrupting her own train of thought. “No need to get into competition with other hunters, or draw too much attention to ourselves.”
Fives messed with the page for a moment, and a new page of faces came up.
“Here’s a Gotal for five thousand, last seen on Felucia. Or a Weequay for five thousand, last seen in some city on Ossus. That’s closer to us.”
Fives clicked on the Weequay. “Wanted for piracy, no surprise there.”
He pulled up the image, and Ahsoka jerked in surprise.
“Wait.” She pulled the pad out of Fives’ hands, ignoring his protests. “I know him. He’s in Hondo’s gang.”
“Hondo?” Fives said, confused. “Is that the di’kut who kidnapped General Skywalker and General Kenobi? And Dooku?”
“And me,” Ahsoka said, brows furrowed. Which meant that Hondo had gone against Anakin, Obi-Wan, Dooku, Grievous, Maul, Savage, and herself. And survived.
“Wait, hang on,” Fives said. “When did he kidnap you ? And where can I find him to unload a few blaster bolts?”
“It’s a long story,” Ahsoka said, distracted. “I was on a trip with younglings. Hondo kidnapped me, but then Grievous showed up and we had to work together to escape.”
“Okay, you have to tell me that story. How the kriff did a pirate survive General...” he trailed off when he realized she wasn’t paying attention. “What is it?”
“I...have a terrible idea.”
He laughed at that, clapping her on the shoulder. “Those are all we’ve got left.”
It was a Skywalker plan if there ever was one.
They needed credits to get by. They also needed the resources to break into the Techno Union. Hondo could give them both.
If he didn’t double-cross them first. And Ahsoka was sure he’d try.
“Hondo’s word means nothing,” she told Fives. “He’s only loyal to one thing: profit. So we just have to make sure that working with us stays in his best interest.”
Hondo would know who Ahsoka was, mask or not, so they’d given up on that disguise. But he couldn’t find out that Fives was a clone. Fives and Ahsoka weren’t sure how far news had spread of his attempted murder of Palpatine, but they weren’t taking any chances. They’d already made that mistake with Tali. Though nothing had come of it, they weren’t keen to have a repeat.
Florrum was a dustball of a planet that Hondo called home. It had no major cities, only various bases and outposts for pirates, thieves, and seemingly every other type of lowlife in the galaxy. So of course, Fives was thrilled to be visiting.
“Remember, confidence,” Ahsoka reminded him. Again. “He’s got to believe you’re a bounty hunter. And that we have an in with the Techno Union.” Which they didn’t.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t think anyone’s ever told me I need to be more confident.” Not since Kamino, at least. The 501st would do that to you.
Fives really had no idea what to expect. General Skywalker had always made Hondo out to be a menace, but nothing too difficult to handle. Then again, the man had survived Grievous, Dooku, Maul and Savage Oppress. He had to be doing something right.
He was about to ask what, exactly, happened the last time Ahsoka went to Florrum, but then she was deploying the landing gear and the dusty orange surface rushed up to meet them.
The ship rumbled as it struck rocky earth. Fives and Ahsoka donned their gear, taking all their belongings with them—anything they left in the ship would likely “disappear” by the time they returned. The med droid remained in a secret compartment, and Fives desperately hoped it would be there when they returned. If they returned.
He steeled himself, Ahsoka doing the same. They could hear shouting outside, and—was that a tank in the viewport?
“Think of it as his regular greeting,” Ahsoka said, amusement tempering both their nerves.
They disembarked the ship, which they’d parked directly in front of Hondo’s base. Fives had worried they’d be shot out of the sky, but Ahsoka had assured him that they’d get to ground at least. If only so Hondo’s crew could loot their ship. Sure enough, a dozen pirates stood in the courtyard, armed to the teeth and looking at their ship with poorly-concealed interest.
The doors to the main building swung open and Hondo Ohnaka strolled out, looking perfectly at ease among the veritable treasure trove of artillery surrounding him.
“Hunters! You dare to approach the stronghold of Hondo Ohnaka ? You—“
He cut himself off as Ahsoka removed her faceplate.
“Ahsoka Tano!” he cried, spreading his arms before him. “What brings you to my home?” The surrounding crew muttered amongst themselves, weapons lowering slightly.
Hondo stopped a few feet before Fives and Ahsoka. “And who is this fine friend you’ve brought with you?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Did he even have eyebrows?
Hondo reached toward Fives to wrap an arm around his shoulders, and Fives held still against every instinct he had. Humor him, Ahsoka had said. Still, he kept a hand close to his blaster.
Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “That’s Finn. We’re here with a proposition for you.”
“Hmm, more rocket launchers for the Republic? I hear that Onderon is thriving since our last business!”
“Nothing for the Republic.” Ahsoka gave a quick explanation of their Techno Union scheme, keeping to the huge profits and avoiding the inconvenient fact that they all might die in the process.
Hondo was shaking his head before he even finished. “Jedi, Jedi, Jedi. Always foolish! Wat Tambor would shoot my ships out of the sky! Unfortunately, we had a bit of a misunderstanding over a shipment of shield generators not so long ago.”
Of course they did. Still, Fives would take Hondo in possession of shield generators over Wat Tambor any day.
“We’ve got a plan to land,” Ahsoka said. “All you need to do is bring along a crew to take as much tech as they can carry.”
Hondo clucked his tongue. “This doesn’t sound like good business. Like my mother always said,” he stepped back, raising a hand, and suddenly every blaster was trained on Fives and Ahsoka. “Take the profit in front of you first! And you, my dear, are in quite high demand. Ten million credits for the head of a Jedi.”
Fives eyed the pirates around him warily. If he went for the one on the right, and Ahsoka got to Hondo...
He saw the flash of uncertainty in Ahsoka’s eyes, but her voice was filled with confidence as she spoke. “Hate to break it to you, Hondo, but I’m no longer a Jedi. My head’s not in high demand.”
Fives was eerily reminded of General Kenobi as Ahsoka stared down Hondo with the beginnings of a smug grin tugging at her mouth. Hondo, for once, was shocked into silence. Yet he recovered quickly, beginning to laugh. He waved his hand, and the surrounding pirates lowered their blasters with heavy reluctance.
“Well!” Hondo said, grinning like a madman. He stepped forward and pounded Fives on the back with surprising strength. “Now this is quite the alliance! A dashing pirate and his crew, a mysterious bounty hunter, and a former Jedi. Come, come inside. Dine with us!”
Hondo led them to the doors of the compound, most of the crew following, hostility nearly forgotten at the promise of a meal.
Fives had the urge to look back at their ship, but knew the action would only bolster the pirates’ resolve to sack it. And once they entered the bar-cafeteria-lounge combination, the concern faded to the back of his mind.
The space was huge, and pirates streamed in behind them to take seats at the bar and countless long tables. Or tackle someone else out of a seat. The atmosphere quickly grew wilder, and Fives found himself reminded of 79’s, if 79’s was filled with people who probably wanted to kill him.
Hondo’s definition of ‘dine’ consisted almost exclusively of drinks. Fives saw some snacks scattered across the tables, but he also saw a Kowakian monkey taking its pick and decided to avoid them altogether.
Someone pressed drinks into his and Ahsoka’s hands, and they exchanged a glance before taking a seat at the edge of one of the tables.
“Don’t drink that,” Ahsoka muttered under her breath.
Fives frowned down at the green liquid in his cup—was it glowing? “Wasn’t planning on it.”
Ahsoka lifted the cup to her lips in a show of drinking, and it seemed to be enough. Fives was relieved to keep his helmet on. Still, he felt a stab of nostalgia staring out at the pirates. A few of them had gathered in the corner, singing drunkenly along to the music, and Fives was painfully reminded of one occasion with Kix and Jesse, drunk off moonshine that Attie had smuggled aboard the Resolute . To see Kix unwinding after a battle instead of mourning the brothers he couldn’t save was a feat in itself. Rex’s expression when they were caught said as much, though he still put them on sanitation duty.
He was drawn out of his thoughts by Ahsoka’s foot tapping against his leg. Hondo was approaching, swaying left and right.
“My friends!” Fives saw Ahsoka try not to gag as Hondo sat himself between them. His breath smelled like he’d ingested half of Florrum’s alcohol supply in thirty minutes flat.
“Another drink? Take your helmet off, enjoy!”
Before Fives could even supply an excuse, Hondo clapped them on the shoulders—Ahsoka winced as his hand grazed her injury—and moved on to a pair of pirates arm-wrestling over a bottle of the same green liquid in their cups. Hondo only laughed, grabbing the bottle for himself and taking a swig.
“I’m amazed none of them have died yet,” Ahsoka said. “I know Weequay have a higher alcohol tolerance and all, but”— she nodded towards the countless bottles strewn across the floor—“that seems like overkill.”
Fives shrugged. “Makes it easier for us.” He peered down at his cup again. “Though it does make me want to try this.”
“Anakin and Obi-Wan both had one cup and ended up tied to Count Dooku in a prison cell.” Ahsoka tried and failed to keep a straight face as Fives snorted. Two of the best Jedi they had and the leader of the Separatists taken down by a couple drunk pirates warranted at least some laughter.
Fives pushed the cup away. “Another day.” If they ever figured this out, he’d have to get some of the stuff for the clones’ leave time.
No one looked at them twice as they slipped out of the dining hall.
Ahsoka shook Fives awake the next morning on their ship—they’d figured it was safer to stay there, switching watches, than somewhere in the pirate compound.
“Rise and shine,” she said. “Time to figure out a plan where we all don’t die.”
A couple of Hondo’s lackeys met them at the doors to the compound, directing them to Hondo’s office.
The room was exactly as Fives would have expected: brightly colored rugs overlapping on the concrete floors, a wooden desk with intricately carved legs standing before a behemoth of a bookcase in the back of the room—not a single book in sight, only various knick-knacks and trophies from Hondo’s various conquests. Colored lights hung from the walls, strung carelessly over paintings that looked rather expensive.
Hondo sat with his feet propped up on the desk, the picture of ease. The pirates seated in folding chairs around him looked far more cautious.
“So what is this scheme you have come to me for?” Hondo asked, voice carrying throughout the large room.
Ahsoka smiled with false confidence. “Here’s what Finn and I came up with.”
She laid out their plan. There was no way they’d be able to land at the Techno Union base unless they were there under the guise of business—so they’d use Tambor’s greed against him. There was a summit between the galaxy’s largest corporations in a few days; Tambor was expected to be in attendance. That would be when they’d strike.
When Ahsoka finished explaining the plan, Hondo let out an appreciative whistle.
“You think like a pirate, my dear. My, my, how far you have come from the Jedi you were!”
Ahsoka flinched, and Fives resisted the urge to peg Hondo with a blaster bolt.
“What matters,” she said, emphasizing each word, “is speed . Get what you can in a few minutes and get out, or we’re all going to die.”
“Yes, yes,” Hondo said impatiently, waving a hand. “But most importantly: we must talk credits.”
Ahsoka leaned back and crossed her arms, a portrait of stoicism. “We’ll split the haul, 50/50.”
Angry murmurs spread among the pirates present. Hondo laughed aloud, but his eyes were hard as he addressed them. “50/50 for a deal with two bounty hunters? I think not! My crew will gather most of the tech, and my crew will get most of the credits. We will give you ten percent.”
“Thirty.”
“Don’t get greedy, child! Fifteen percent.”
Ahsoka visibly bristled at that, but she and Fives made a show of having a silent discussion before agreeing.
They didn’t really care for the credits. But not asking for a cut of the profits would have roused Hondo’s suspicions as to their true intentions with this mission.
With that settled, they went over more specifics of the plan with Hondo. Fives did his best only to speak when absolutely necessary, unsure whether Hondo would find his voice familiar. While the pirates as a whole seemed against a concrete plan, Hondo himself was surprisingly amenable, seeming to realize the risk in taking on the Techno Union.
Part of Fives was shocked he’d agreed to this scheme so readily. But greed drove people far, evidently.
The summit was in four days, leaving far too much time to stay with the pirates for Fives’ liking. Keeping his helmet on all day grated on him, but so did spending hours at a time on the ship. He and Ahsoka passed the daytime strategizing and sparring. Ahsoka had gotten a bit rusty from weeks away from the Jedi; after relearning her movements, Fives found himself taking her down for the first time in his short life.
At night, they worked their way through the compound in search of any bit of leverage they could get. All in preparation for the possibility of Hondo betraying them. They switched watches when they slept, but the extra rest didn’t seem to be sticking for Ahsoka. Sometimes she’d wake in the middle of his watch with a gasp, but she never talked about the nightmares that haunted her sleep. And as much as Fives wanted to push, he knew the feeling of wanting to keep those memories far, far away.
The days passed without significant change, until the fourth day dawned. Hondo’s crew was a hub of activity: dragging countless empty crates onto their saucer-like ships, arming themselves to the teeth, gathering enough ammunition to take out a herd of gundarks. Fives couldn’t help but be impressed.
They accosted Hondo before he could board his ship, checking the plan one last time. He waved them off impatiently.
Fives knew they had to leave the first step of the plan in Hondo’s hands—he’d been the one to push for it, even—but the pirate’s demeanor was not reassuring.
“I really wish we knew how to lie,” Ahsoka muttered, in agreement with his thoughts.
He shrugged with false levity. “Well, we’re probably going to be shot out of the sky. But at least this way they’ll shoot at Hondo first.” Ahsoka snorted, and he grinned down at her.
Once most of the pirates had boarded their ships, Fives and Ahsoka powered up their own. When Hondo’s signal came crackling through their comms, they took off from Florrum. The path to Skako Minor was already set, and Ahsoka and Fives took a breath as one before he pulled the lever.
Skako was hours away, leaving them to their thoughts as they prepared for the road ahead.
“Sir!”
He turned his gaze from the viewport to the approaching battledroid. “What is it, Commander?”
“Your intelligence officer on Cin’tel requests to speak with you.” It held out a holoprojector.
He took it, brushing past the droid to return to his personal quarters. The only place with any semblance of privacy from prying eyes and ears.
Once he’d ensured that his scrambling tech was online, he accepted the call.
“My Lord,” the officer said, saluting.
“Lieutenant,” he returned. “What have you discovered?”
“Sir, on official reports the bounty hunters who broke into the information center were identified as a Twi’lek and a human,” she said. “The Commanding Officer identified them as such. But a Lieutenant that was rendered incapacitated claims that she saw a Togruta.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you confident in this Lieutenant’s account?”
“More than I am in the Commanding Officer’s, sir,” she replied. He could almost feel the contempt rolling off her in waves.
The Commanding Officer of the Information Center would have to retain his position, unfortunately. Better for his own confidant to remain in the shadows.
Better for a false account to spread while he did his own searching.
“Should I file an official report, sir?”
He considered her for a moment. “No. I shall deal with this myself.”
She saluted, and he ended the transmission.
A Togruta. It was rare to find Togruta bounty hunters anywhere in the galaxy. Especially ones that broke into Separatist Information Centers with a human, without stealing anything at all. Interesting .
To keep secrets from his Master was a dangerous game. But Sidious had become distracted as of late, between the trial of Ahsoka Tano and the events on Ringo Vinda.
It was only a matter of time before his own usefulness to Sidious would run out. Ventress had already been eliminated, and Grievous was a fool that would lead himself to ruin.
He needed leverage. And now knew exactly where to get it. He sent a message to his Lieutenant, asking for the ship log during the week of the break-in.
Perhaps there were skilled Togruta bounty hunters somewhere in the galaxy, but the Force whispered around him as he sent the message. Something larger was going on, and if Dooku was to outlive this war—outlive Sidious —then uncovering this mystery was imperative.
Now to wait.
Notes:
comments are love!!
justdisasterlineagethings: having a weird and inexplicable relationship with hondo ohnaka
writing dialogue for hondo was an EXPERIENCE but i had fun, and dooku was less fun but very interesting (hopefully they seemed at least a bit realistic??). hmmm. yeah dooku‘s annoying but he’s smart, and patient. i guess we’ll see what he’ll do. but back to fives and ahsoka, our unwilling space pirates! get ready for next chapter....
Chapter 5: you will not be the same
Summary:
They're off to the Techno Union. With Hondo. It's going to be an adventure.
Notes:
me: don’t start with a nightmare sequence that’s cliche
me to me: how about i do it anyway
nightmare sequence is all before the first page break and discusses being in chains and just a general feeling of being trapped.
please excuse my criminal use of emdashes. and hey if you wanna listen to “rivers and roads” when reading the end of this chapter...i may be recommending it...here we go!
**also** i've changed the rating to teen as we get more into what ahsoka and fives have been through and,, other stuff that will come up next chapter. nothing too bad but just in case :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They were coming for her.
Ahsoka sprinted down the dim streets on the lower levels of Coruscant. The echoes of booted feet reverberated across the pavement, bouncing off the buildings that were closing in on all sides. She cut into an alley that narrowed with each bounding step forward, getting tighter and tighter until she couldn’t move, but they were coming—
She pushed hard and suddenly the walls gave, allowing her to stumble through and continue her mad dash towards...where? Away. The footsteps were gaining but she was so, so, tired.
She reached an intersection, only to find herself surrounded on all sides. Blank helmets crowded her backward until her feet slipped on the edge and she fell down, down, down, buildings becoming a blur of black and gray and brown around her.
Then she crashed onto the floor of a small room. Her whole body was in pain, but the stinging in her wrist rose above the rest—
She looked down to see holes in her bracer, a small creature standing a ways away, filling the room with sick laughter that bounced off the chains on the wall—
“Chains are the easy part.”
No. The laughter continued as her vision went blurry and the room turned upside down, and then all of a sudden her sight cleared but the room looked different, darker and grayer with a bright red ray shield guarding the entrance. A shadow stood behind the shield, staring her down with yellow eyes and she tried to cry for help but no sound would emit from her lips, this was her end and and she could do nothing to stop it.
There were chains on her wrist, hands on her arms taking her away, away, she wouldn’t let them take her away again. She kicked and scrambled and connected with something solid, and then there was a muffled curse and the pressure on her arms lightened—
“–soka! It’s not real, it’s–”
Ahsoka lashed out again, connecting once more before the words registered. She froze, the haze around her mind lifting enough for her to rocket upward and rip her eyes open. Fives was kneeling beside her bunk. Her bunk. On their ship. His eyes—brown, not yellow—were wide. No chains in sight.
Chains are the easy part.
“Fives,” she gasped, and suddenly there were tears slipping down her cheeks and she couldn’t stop them. She hadn’t cried in months, since she was a Padawan, and she turned away from him to scrub at her face.
“Hey, hey,” Fives said, heartbreakingly gentle. He sat down next to her. “Just a nightmare. Not real.”
But it had been real, running from the clones on Coruscant or falling unconscious on Mortis or sitting in a cell in the detention center. She took a steadying breath that came out more like a rattle. “Right,” she rasped. “Just a nightmare.” She couldn’t look at him.
There was silence from his end, before he seemed to come to a decision and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. Inhaling shakily, she buried her face in his shoulder.
Ahsoka’d had her fair share of nightmares. On the Resolute, when she’d woken up and hadn’t known where she was, she used to take laps around the halls until her racing heartbeat calmed enough to sleep once more. It was often the same at the Temple, when Anakin was noticeably absent from their quarters at night. But on the rare occasions he was there, he’d sit up with her. Often encouraged her to talk about it, though he refused to ever bring up his own nightmares.
A couple deep breaths stopped the flow of tears, and she allowed herself several more before pulling away from Fives.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.
Ahsoka shook her head silently, but Fives gave her a hard look. “You sure?”
She opened and closed her mouth in what she assumed was a convincing impression of a fish. Fives didn’t say a word, but he fixed her with a look that said talking helps, so talk.
“I-” she cleared her throat. “They were chasing me through Coruscant. When–when i was accused. I fell, and then I was on Mortis–” she swallowed as Fives’ eyes narrowed. He didn’t know about Mortis, but she didn’t have the energy to explain. “Then everything got hazy and it changed to a detention cell. The So–someone was staring out from behind the ray shield, and I had this awful feeling…” she trailed off, hands twisting so tightly in her lap it was painful.
But Fives had been right. It did help, to speak into the quiet bunk room. To speak to Fives, who, Ahsoka realized, had been through something so similar. They’d both been betrayed by those they trusted.
She didn’t have time to consider that any further.
She stood up. “Any updates from Hondo?” she asked, silently begging him to allow the topic change.
He sighed, but acquiesced. “Nothing yet. We should be at Skako soon.” He motioned for her to follow him out of the bunk room, and she did.
At the door, she grabbed his arm. “Thank you.”
He smiled slightly. “Anytime.”
They reached Skako Minor within the hour.
Once out of lightspeed, Fives quickly patched into Hondo’s craft, getting the tail-end of a message from the surface.
“-ification?”
“We bring new kyber explosives for Tambor!” Hondo said.
A brief silence. “Identification is required for atmospheric entry. Failure to comply will result in military action.”
“Come, now! I bring these at the request of Tambor himself. I know that he has been looking for them for months! What would it look like if I didn’t make good on my delivery? I would be disgraced! You would be disgraced! Tell me, will Tambor reprogram you when finding you turned away his shipment, or will he just sell you for scrap?”
Ahsoka had to be impressed by Hondo’s sheer nerve. Fives was right—the two of them would never have convinced anyone.
The droid on the other end seemed to be scrambling. “Er–”
“ Sell us for scrap?!” another exclaimed in the background. Fives chuckled.
“...Proceed to the docking bay,” the droid finally said.
“Good, good!” Hondo replied. There was a pause, and then he was addressing Fives and Ahsoka. “See? Nothing to worry about!”
Ahsoka allowed her stick-straight posture to relax. They’d betted on Tambor’s greed, and had been right. But that only got them to the door.
She followed Hondo’s ship closely as they approached the docking bay—a wide gray surface held up by durasteel supports that extended to the planet’s surface far below. An entire squad of tall, angular droids stood at the ready, and she resisted the urge to put her hand to her hip. The droids in the control tower had sounded remarkably similar to battle droids, which didn’t feel like a coincidence. But these droids were far taller, shiny black appendages set at sharp angles.
As soon as they landed, Fives grabbed the crate they’d set aside, and walked down the ramp to meet three of the droids. He held out the crate to one of them, and it took it, using one stick-like hand to flip it open. Time felt frozen as the droid stared into the contents of the crate. Ahsoka held her breath. Seconds passed, Fives gesturing forward as he spoke animatedly to the droid. It looked between him and the crate.
And shut the crate.
Ahsoka loosed a sigh of relief. The droid turned away, taking the crate with it as it walked toward the compound. The other two droids stayed with Fives as Hondo and two other members of his crew debarked, dragging more crates behind them. Empty ones, but these droids didn’t know that yet.
As the first droid neared the squad at the ready, Ahsoka dashed down the ship’s ramp. A few more steps.
Clank, clank, clank. There. Ahsoka clicked the button.
Boom.
The crate Fives had given the droid exploded, taking half the squad of droids with it. Ahsoka stared in shock at the magnitude of the explosion for half a second before springing into action, drawing her electrostaff to take out the rest of the droids. Fives had taken down one and was dashing toward another by the time she took aim, and Hondo’s crew began pouring out of his ship in full force. Klaxons blared, and more droids poured out the front entrance.
“We have to get to the control tower!” Fives yelled to Ahsoka, not skipping a beat as he pegged two more droids. She yanked her electrostaff out of the nearest droid and ran towards his position. Once together, they started the trek to the control tower. Ahsoka had learned her lesson last time, and she deftly dodged blaster bolts as she took down droid after droid. She didn’t dare turn around, but judging from the loud cries it seemed that Hondo’s crew was doing well.
She and Fives reached the door to the tower soon enough, and he had her back as they dashed up the stairs. At the top, they scrapped three droids before the rest even turned fully around. Battle droids, just as she’d suspected. The revelation only made her blood boil.
The rest of the droids were quick work, most not designed for combat. Once they were reduced to piles of metal scattered across the room, Ahsoka made for the main console, quickly hardwiring an all-clear signal. It wouldn’t hold the rest of the security for long, but it might get them inside the compound without any more droids sent to the landing platform.
Fives was already working at another console to pull up a map of the compound. “Hondo’s status?” he asked tersely, not looking up from his task.
Ahsoka glanced out the window to the ensuing chaos. “Seems like they’re doing just fine.” Indeed, his crew were nearly at the doors. She was about to comm Hondo to ask if they needed to get the main doors open from where they were, but one of the pirates dashed towards the door with a familiar weapon slung over his shoulder. She grinned. “Better than fine.”
The explosion from the rocket launcher shook the entire tower. Fives gave a sharp laugh, the kind that only came out in battle. “I think I see how Hondo’s survived all his schemes,” he said. He clicked a few more options on his console before backing away and blasting the thing. “Fourth floor, center left. Data room.”
“Got it.” Ahsoka drew her electrostaff again. “Shall we?”
They dashed down the stairs of the tower, meeting no resistance—Hondo must have diverted all their attention. One they returned to the landing platform, they beheld the smoking hole the pirates had created in the main doors. Fives led the way, and within seconds they were upon a group of pirates and droids, laserfire everywhere. Ahsoka ran forward, evading blaster bolts and rolling behind the group of droids. She took down two at the back while Fives took aim at one of the larger ones in front. The pirates let out a cheer as droids started going down, quickly pushing forward to finish what Ahsoka had started. Fives shouldered past, leaping over a fallen droid wielding a heavy blaster. Upon seeing the weapon he doubled back, holstering his own blaster and heaving the better firepower into his arms. He left the pirates to take care of the last couple droids, catching up to Ahsoka and running for the lift.
As the lift opened, Ahsoka stabbed one of the droids inside clean through, and quickly moved on to the other. Fives helped her heave them out of the way and they closed the lift doors, hitting floor four. The ascent granted them a few moments of respite.
One. The quiet music playing in the background was almost enough to make Ahsoka smile.
Two. She adjusted her grip on her staff, and Fives hefted the heavy blaster.
Three. They shared a look, unspoken communication passing between them.
Four. They pressed themselves on either side of the door for some margin of cover.
“Here we go.”
The lift opened, revealing a squad of stick-figured droids. Fives opened fire. The corridor was painted red as droid after droid fell beneath their onslaught. He narrowly dodged a bolt aimed for his head and hissed, swinging his blaster left and right. Ahsoka stayed behind him, picking off any stragglers not taken down by his blasterfire. Within half a minute, the eight droids that had guarded the hallway were smoking on the durasteel floors.
Fives panted, looking down at the blaster in admiration. “I see why Hardcase loved these so much.”
It was good to hear Fives talking so freely about his brothers.
They barreled down the wide, curved hallway. A few scattered droids stood in their way, but Ahsoka assumed the vast majority had been sent to deal with the pirates wreaking havoc on the lower floors. And it was definitely havoc, judging from the way the compound rumbled around them.
Soon enough, Fives slowed to a halt in front of an unmarked gray door that nearly blended into the surrounding wall. Which was a problem, because there was no keypad in sight.
“Huh,” Fives said. He ran his hand down the door. As he passed over the very center, a green light flickered against his palm, and a panel of the door slid away to reveal a keypad. “Neat trick.”
Ahsoka stood guard as Fives went to work, taking down two droids that found their way down the hallway to their position before Fives gave a noise of triumph, and the door slid open.
The room was small, empty but for the data console tucked against the wall across from them. Fives tore off his helmet and quickly dove in, fingers flying over the brightly-lit screen.
Within seconds, he hit a roadblock. Accessing the data required a two-factor override. Fives audibly groaned. “Great.”
She stayed quiet, letting him work through the problem as he muttered to himself. Eventually, he turned to her. “I think I can override it if we can get hold of one of the droid’s core processing units,” he said.
Ahsoka grinned. “Got it.”
Three and a half minutes later, a droid laid sparking on the ground, midsection cut open by a vibroknife Fives had swiped from Hondo’s compound.
“I never knew you were so good at this stuff,” Ahsoka commented off-handedly.
“Didn’t used to be, but I had to get good, once–” Fives faltered, and Ahsoka knew the end of that sentence.
“Right,” she said quietly. There was silence for several minutes as Fives worked. As the time stretched on, Ahsoka resisted the urge to fidget. There was only so long the pirates could keep most of the droids occupied.
Finally, Fives said, “Got it!” He opened the file. Inside was a single document, labeled Project Codebreaker.
Inside that document were...diagrams.
Countless diagrams and graphs and charts, measuring anything from heart rate to body temperature to nerve activity in the brain. Some of the diagrams depicted a man, or perhaps a cyborg. The schematics of some kind of head attachment, detailed labeling of various cybernetic appendages, wires, and cords.
“I don’t understand,” Fives said, eyes glued to the screen. He scrolled down.
Past all the charts were notes on the subject.
Oh, no.
1122. Subject displayed signs of infection surrounding appendage insert area.
1122.1. Subject showed strong resistance to cranial implant activity. Recommend further action.
1123.2. Attempted escape by Subject met with failure. Recommend further use of implant.
Subject, Subject, Subject.
1365. Subject response limited to designation repetition...
Ahsoka’s heart stopped upon reading the next line.
There were moments, sometimes, when the Force was loud. When it howled in her montrals and swirled inside her mind. The Force was quiet, sometimes, too, barely a whisper at the edges of her heart.
Then there were the three times in Ahsoka’s life that the Force had been absolutely silent, just for a moment. Like the galaxy itself had stopped in its tracks and begged her to see, see, see.
She twisted to Fives, who was staring at that one line of text, perfectly still. He didn’t even blink as she hesitantly set her hand on his shoulder.
“Fives…”
He didn’t respond. Ahsoka waited.
“It has to be a mistake.” Fives’ voice came out a cracked whisper, and he barely got the words out before he crumpled. Ahsoka lunged, grabbing his arms and lowering both of them to the ground.
They tumbled gracelessly to the floor, Fives staring past her with such terrible emptiness in his eyes. “...How?” he asked, and there had never been a moment and never again would be a moment where Ahsoka was this struck by how young all her brothers were, as when Fives sat on the ground staring at nothing and asking her a question she couldn’t answer.
So young. They were all so, so young. And for this she could not be the Commander, or the Jedi, or the voice of reassurance. She was just Ahsoka, nearly seventeen years old and sitting on the cold floors of a Techno Union compound searching for an answer to give.
In the end, she could only give the truth. “I don’t know.”
He looked at her then, coming back into himself so suddenly that Ahsoka barely had time to grab his arms once again when he rocketed upward. “Fives!”
He struggled against her grip, as she dug her heels in, straining towards the door. “Let me go .”
“We don’t even know where to go, or if it’s a trap–”
“It doesn’t matter!” The rawness in his tone was so shocking that her grip slipped, and he broke free of her arms. He was out the door before she even knew what was happening.
With no time to think, Ahsoka rushed back to the data console, scrolling back to the top in search of a location.
Floor 7, block 3S.
She barely had the presence of mind to wipe the history before tearing into the hallway after Fives.
Fives wasn’t sure how he got to floor seven, only that he’d accumulated a few bruises and a grazing blaster burn on his side along the way.
Ahsoka was gaining on him as he desperately searched the grid of hallways for block 3S. 3A, 3G, 3M...3S.
He skidded to a halt next to a wide corridor, allowing Ahsoka to catch up with him at last. She grabbed his arm, but didn’t try to pull him back. Instead, she squeezed his arm three times––battlefield sign that I'm with you. Fives clapped her gently on the shoulder.
Four doors lined the walls. Ahsoka took the right, he took the left. The first door was unlabeled, keypad offline. He moved on. The second door…
Next to the door was a label: Subject 1409.
Hacking the keypad was quick work after the practice he’d gotten in the data room, but the work forced his racing mind to slow. He didn’t know what they’d find in there. It was completely possible that there’d be nothing, or he’d been mistaken when he’d looked at the file in the data room. Or that they’d be finding a body.
He took a shaky breath, pausing before connecting the last two wires. Ahsoka said nothing, but Fives suddenly felt a wave of cool reassurance pass through him. He turned toward her, but she glanced meaningfully up towards a holocamera positioned in the corner of the hallway. Right. At least he’d put his helmet back on.
“Whatever happens,” she said, so softly he could barely hear it, “we’ll figure it out. Together.”
Fives took another deep breath before nodding. He connected the wires.
The door slid open silently.
The room was lit in eerie white and green, emanating from a giant contraption at the back wall. It looked—
It looked like a coffin.
Fives made a choked noise in the back of his throat.
Ahsoka, who’d been busy taking out the cameras, now walked up to the bank of consoles in front of the...machine. Fives was frozen as she searched, presumably for an open or release command. After a few moments, her hands paused over the console, and she looked back at him. Her face was obscured by her mask and hood, but Fives could read the hesitancy in her posture.
“Do it,” he said quietly.
She clicked a button. The machine before them opened with a sharp hiss, curls of steam escaping from the inside of the chamber that Fives refused to call a coffin.
A figure came falling out, faster than Fives could move to his side, but a tangle of countless wires prevented him from crashing face first into the floor.
The wires were attached to him, to the many unfamiliar metal appendages attached all across his body. But the face was the same. Fives would never forget that face.
He took a step forward, feeling like he was in a trance. Maybe he was.
“...Echo?”
Notes:
comments are love!
*cuts to black* if this was a movie or a book this would be how i ended it hehehehe, but lucky for you i am continuing now! well, remember when i said this chapter was coming out two weeks ago, ahahah….sorry. life waits for no one but i should be much more free by mid may, so expect an update in maybe three weeks? yeah. anyway-
HFDGAHDJHGJFSGJFHSDJ YEAH SO WE’VE GOTTEN TO WHY I WROTE THIS FIC IN THE FIRST PLACE AND I AM SCREAMING OVER MY OWN FIC LIKE A MADMAN SO FEEL FREE TO SCREAM WITH ME
Chapter 6: and another domino falls
Summary:
It had been a year.
An entire year, since his twin ran out to their ship at the Citadel and Fives lost him forever.
Notes:
*laughs nervously* .....hey?
i've returned with a LONG chapter for you all so uhh please forgive me for being like two months late o o p s. anyway. getting into some discussion of the clones' and jedi's place in the war. have fun! ish. there's a little pain. ALSO- highly reccomend listening to the song "nine" by sleeping at last. for reasons. you'll see. that's where the chapter title is from!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It had been a year.
An entire year, since his twin ran out to their ship at the Citadel and Fives lost him forever. Except...Echo was here. Held in a Techno Union compound. His eyes were open and blank, facing towards the wall with nothing but emptiness inside. A part of Fives emptied out looking at him.
Ahsoka was the first to snap back into action from where they’d been frozen in shock. “Help me remove these cables.”
Fives complied, finding familiarity in a chain of command that was long gone. He supported Echo by the shoulders as Ahsoka removed each cable. One by one they fell away, more of Echo’s weight sagging in Fives’ arms. When the last cable came free from a mental insert in his back, Echo’s eyes fell closed, and Fives shifted to lift his brother over his shoulder.
Echo, Echo, Echo. Echo here, in his arms.
“Fives!” Ahsoka called, making him startle.
He berated himself. They were still in enemy territory, alongside a group of pirates that would be far too willing to leave them behind. Distraction would get them killed. He pushed away his swirling thoughts, straightening. It was almost too easy to fall into the mindset of a soldier.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
Ahsoka nodded, making for the door and peeking her head out. She jerked back inside and quickly shut the door. “Droids coming,” she said. “A lot of them.”
The door was not an option, then. Fives scanned the room for any other exit. No doors or windows, but there in the ceiling was a cover to an enormous ventilation duct. “There.”
Unwilling to put down Echo, he glanced at Ahsoka. She looked at the vent cover appraisingly, until without warning she climbed onto the bank of consoles before Echo’s holding cell, then leaped to the vent cover, managing to grab a handhold. She drew her electrostaff with one hand, and a few moments of painstaking work later she’d managed to pry the vent cover free. It fell to the floor with a thunderous CLANG, and Fives winced. If the droids didn’t know where they were already, they did now. Sure enough, the telltale clank clank grew ever louder until it was mixed with the sound of laserfire against the door. Shit.
“Fives,” Ahsoka said urgently. He looked back at her. “The vent is too high for you to reach on your own.”
Right. Fives gave her a nod, and she reached a hand toward him. His feet left the ground and he tried to ignore the lurching in his stomach as he drifted toward the vent. It took a moment to maneuver himself to be able to both hold Echo and climb the duct, but he managed it, painstakingly inching upwards. Too slowly. Ahsoka gave a shout of alarm and there was a cavernous crash followed by blasterfire. Fives forced himself to move faster, Echo dangling precariously across his shoulder. The exit hovered above him, nearly close enough to touch.
Ahsoka’s cry of warning came just before a red blaster bolt narrowly missed his head. He looked down at the single droid staring upwards into the vent but he couldn’t reach his blaster without letting go of Echo—
The discharge of a blaster sounded next to his stomach. The droid went down with a single shot.
Fives looked down to find Echo, blaster in hand.
“Beat you,” he said weakly. Then he collapsed into unconsciousness.
Not wasting any time, Fives reached back up to open the exit hatch, frantically clambering out. He didn’t dare look back down at Echo, not yet. As soon as he was halfway outside the hatch, Ahsoka was moving up the sides of the vent with far more grace. Two more shots ricocheted across the narrow space before Ahsoka was out and Fives slammed the hatch shut.
Twisting, he gently let Echo off his shoulder. “Echo, wake up.”
No response.
“Fives, we have to go now,” Ahsoka said.
“We have to go now.”
A Jedi’s voice in his ear, an empty, smoking helmet left discarded on the rocky grounds of the Citadel.
Ahsoka was shaking his shoulder, and Fives forced himself out of his reverie. This wasn’t the Citadel, and no one was getting left behind.
“Fives!”
“Got it,” he said, scooping Echo onto his shoulder and getting to his feet. “What’s our fastest exit?”
Ahsoka took off to the east, and he sprinted after her.
They reached the landing platform in time to witness the pirates hightailing it back to their ship, dragging crates filled with miscellaneous technology after them even while being hailed with blasterfire from oncoming droids. Fives had to be impressed by their determination.
Hondo called to them from his perch on his ship’s ramp, mid-barking orders to his men. “This was not the mission Hondo was told about!” he said, gesturing to Echo. Fives only glared at him as they continued on towards their ship.
“Tell your crew to get out of there!” Ahsoka called to him. He waved her down impatiently.
“Patience, my dear. They will come!”
Fives didn’t bother entertaining him any longer, electing to haul himself and Echo up their ship’s cargo ramp. Ahsoka exchanged a few more words with Hondo that he didn’t catch before hustling past him to the cockpit. Fives left her to pilot and brought Echo to the bunk room. With a lurch, the ship detached from the landing platform and shot into the atmosphere. Once they leveled out, Fives set Echo down on the bunk nearest to the door. His feet were tapping frantically on the floor—the adrenaline of battle, he told himself—as he watched Echo sleep.
They were both here. Twin dominoes, knocked down and propped back up again.
At some point, the door slid open. He turned to see Ahsoka standing hesitantly at the entry.
“It’s really him.” It sounded like a question.
Fives nodded numbly, but her non-statement released a floodgate of doubts. What if Echo didn’t remember who he was? What if the Techno Union had irreparably changed him? What if—what if he didn’t forgive Fives for leaving him behind?
Because he had left him behind. He’d left Echo to burn in the flaming wreckage of their ship. And as much as he didn’t deserve forgiveness, the idea that there was a world in which Fives got his brother back in body but not in soul was almost too much to bear.
“Maybe–” Ahsoka cleared her throat. “I can go.” She made to leave, but Fives grabbed her arm before he could reconsider.
“Stay.”
Her expression softened, and she sank cross-legged to the floor, knees pressed against the side of the bunk.
“He probably won’t wake up for a while,” she offered. “He’s out cold in the Force.”
Fives nodded again, returning his gaze to Echo. His face was gaunt, brown skin sallow and pulled tight over bones. With each small breath, his rib cage protruded from his chest. One of his forearms was clean gone, replaced with a crude metal appendage ending with a screwdriver-like tip. His legs, too, were largely replaced with metal, the skin surrounding the break points a mottled red and purple mess of scabs and bruises. Some of the scabs had opened up in their escape, Fives now noticed, and small beads of blood were slowly gathering.
He felt a tap on his shoulder, and then Ahsoka was handing him their medkit. He grabbed a pack of cleaning wipes and gingerly dabbed at Echo’s wounds. Echo’s legs twitched slightly, and Fives immediately drew back, anxiously scanning Echo’s now-furrowed brows
“I can help keep him calm,” Ahsoka said. She set her hands against Echo’s temples, closing her eyes. The crease in Echo’s forehead began to recede, and Fives breathed a sigh of relief, sending a silent look of thanks to his former Commander.
He got through cleaning and bandaging Echo’s wounds without incident, the quiet hum of the ship a soothing background to the work. The familiarity of patching up Echo’s wounds helped to ground him, too. Once finished, his cacophony of worries had calmed somewhat. Ahsoka’s eyes flickered open after he shut the medkit with a soft snap. She let go of Echo to return to her original seat on the floor.
“He should be out for at least another hour,” she said. She huffed out a breath, pressing her forehead against the side of the bunk. “I just, I can’t believe it’s actually him.”
“...Yeah,” Fives said. His voice came out raspier than he would have liked. Echo twitched again, and Fives reached out a hand to soothe the crease that had reappeared between his brows, drawing up the courage to ask a question. “Does he feel the same? In the Force?”
Ahsoka cocked her head. “Yes and no. His signature is muted right now because he’s unconscious, but…” Her eyes slipped shut. “I can still feel the old Echo in there, but there’s something else, too. Tension, and some part of him feels unfamiliar.” She opened her eyes, looking apologetic. “I’m not sure how much that helps.”
“It does. It’s just–I’ve heard stories, before, of clones that get rescued after a long time being prisoner.” None of the stories had been good. “Everything I’ve heard is that they aren’t the same, after. And Echo’s been gone for a year.”
Ahsoka pursed her lips. “You may have to be prepared for a different Echo than you remember. But you got him back, against all the odds in the galaxy. Even if he’s different from before, you have each other again.”
There was a bittersweet light in Ahsoka’s eyes as she looked down towards Echo once more, and Fives decided not to respond. She was right, anyway. His brother was here, and even if the galaxy went to hell at least he had this one moment of watching Echo sleep in relative peace.
Ahsoka seemed calm, but a few weeks reacquaintance had taught him that the stiffness of her shoulders meant something more was going on in her head. It wasn’t all that hard to guess what. She missed the General. Skywalker, too, had turned different in recent months. Still good and kind, but distant. Angrier, without his Padawan by his side. He’d pulled away from General Kenobi, too.
Fives knew he’d changed without Echo on his six. They’d always balanced each other out, and learning to fight, live, just exist without him was like learning how to walk all over again. Echo had been a phantom pain at his side for so long. The rest of his brothers had helped, and he’d found another close brother in Tup, but it was never the same. And now Tup was gone, too.
He hoped Echo would be alright. Body and soul.
Echo awoke with a start.
The familiar grays and greens of his stasis chamber were noticeably absent, his limbs unrestricted by countless cables and wires and restraints. He was lying on a bunk. A bunk?
He twisted his head to the side to see—
Fives was staring at him, eyes wide. Quiet, for once. Fives.
Echo had dreamt of rescue too many times to count. Fives would burst into his holding cell, blasters blazing, and they’d escape with the rest of the 501st at their backs. Rex would welcome him back with open arms. He’d see Jesse and Kix and Attie and Ridge again.
But that was what it was. Only a dream.
Yet never once in his dreams had there been a hare-brained rescue involving Fives, Commander Tano, and––he wasn’t sure whether this was a hallucination, because he’d been mostly out of it when he’d seen him—but Hondo Ohnaka. Then again, he wasn’t sure anyone’s mind could conjure such a thing.
He realized that he and Fives were still staring at one another.
“Echo,” Fives said hoarsely.
And whatever doubts Echo had harbored before that moment were swept away like dust in the wind, because no dream could replicate the layers of emotion in Fives’ voice. Heartbreak and guilt and love and disbelief and every emotion flowing through Echo, mirrored back.
“Fives,” he returned in a whisper. “Fives.” Hot tears gathered in his eyes and poured down his cheeks. Fives was similarly affected. What a pair they made.
He let out a disbelieving laugh, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Fives’ gaze flicked from his face to his arm, his legs—all his metal appendages.
“They don’t hurt,” Echo offered. “And I guess I’ll have a conversation topic with General Skywalker.”
A strangled noise came from Fives’ throat, and before Echo could even think Fives was rushing forward to embrace him. His arms wrapped around Fives almost unconsciously. Fives was heartbreakingly gentle, and Echo wanted to laugh again.
“A conversation topic with the General–” Fives grumbled. Echo’s smile widened, and he tightened his hold. Taking this as encouragement, Fives did the same.
After a time, they broke away, Fives knocking his forehead gently against Echo’s. “Vod,” he said softly. “Me’vaar ti gar?” How are you feeling?
Echo nudged his shoulder. “Mirjahaal.” Healing. At peace.
Fives blew out a slow breath, slouching into the mattress. “It doesn’t feel real,” he confessed. “I–I thought you were gone for so long.
“I keep having to convince myself this isn’t a dream,” Echo said. He chuckled. “It did help that your escape plan didn’t line up with any dreams I had about it.”
Fives grinned, but it died out quickly. He opened his mouth, then shut it, considering his words. Echo’s joy fell away slightly. “What is it?”
Fives swallowed. “It’s...a long story.” He activated his comm. “Ahsoka, you better get in here.”
Echo raised his eyebrows at the use of her first name, but refrained from commenting. Within half a minute, Commander Tano entered the room, a brilliant smile on her face. “Echo!” She strode forward, then seemed to catch herself in an awkward moment. Her expression, while still warm, was tempered by hesitation.
Echo made the decision for her. “Commander Tano,” he said, grinning. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her. Ahsoka let out a high-pitched trill—happy sound, his brain supplied—and wrapped her arms around his stomach, carefully avoiding his prosthetics. “It’s good to see you again, sir.”
Her smile was blinding. “Likewise. But”—at this, she sobered slightly—“It really is just Ahsoka, now.”
She’d told him to call her Ahsoka plenty of times, but this one felt different. And her lightsabers were noticeably absent from her hips. All of that, combined with Fives’ assertion of a long story…
He looked between the both of them. “I’m thinking there’s a lot to fill me in on.”
Echo’s head was aching by the time they finished. Fives promised he’d update him on the rest of the past year—year—as soon as he could, but for now they’d only discussed the last few months. Starting from when Commander Tano left the Jedi. That alone was enough to leave Echo reeling, but it was only the beginning.
Chips in their heads. A conspiracy against the Jedi, one that the Chancellor of the Republic was involved in.
If there were chips...he’d need to see one. Were they implanted after birth, or written into their very genetic code? Was that even possible? That was only the beginning of the very real, very terrifying implications that Echo was beginning to see.
Echo rubbed at the skin around his neural implant. “To review,” he said, “Fives was accused of treason. The Commander is no longer a Jedi. We are possibly the only three people in the galaxy that know the truth about the chips in our heads, excluding the Kaminoans that put it there in the first place and whatever role the Chancellor plays in this.”
Fives grimaced. “That pretty much covers it.”
Echo sighed. “Figures.”
“That’s...it?” Ahsoka asked. “I was expecting a little more disbelief.”
“This would be hard to make up.” He shrugged noncommittally. “But I do have a lot of questions.”
“And there’s the Echo I remember,” Fives quipped, making Echo chuckle.
“First off,” he said, counting on his fingers. “Have we tried to contact Rex, or any of the clone Commanders we trust? Or even a Jedi?”
“No,” Ahsoka said. “I–we were worried that the communication could be traced. Or that they wouldn’t believe us.”
Echo nodded consideringly. “I can handle scrambling the communication, at least. If we want to find a solution, we need more people working on the problem. Second. Do we know how the chips work? Do they send some kind of signal to each other, or do they have to be enacted individually? Are they voice activated or is there a console somewhere to turn them on?”
Fives and Ahsoka were gaping at him. “Well, uh, we don’t know,” Fives supplied. “We’ve been a bit busy rescuing you.”
Echo clapped him on the shoulder. “Good thing you’ve got me for the planning, then.”
He meant it as a joke, but Fives’ smile was painfully bittersweet. “Good thing.”
“Should have known Echo would come prepared,” Ahsoka said. She was so much older now than the last time Echo had seen her, her montrals far more grown out. It probably helped that she was no longer subsisting on ration bars designed for human nutrition needs. The easy camaraderie between her and Fives was new to him, too. It sent a pang through his stomach to think of how long he’d been gone.
“Third,” he said, pushing that all away for now. “Do we have the capabilities to take out my chip?”
Silence. Ahsoka glanced up at Fives; clearly, they’d discussed this. Fives took a breath before speaking. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Echo argued. “I realize I’ve had...modifications, but we need a chip to study, and I’d rather not become a walking droid.”
“Echo,” Fives said exasperatedly, “they put things in your head. We don’t know how that might affect the chip. Tup–” he swallowed. “Tup didn’t survive the removal,” he finished, quietly. “I’m not risking that again unless we have to.”
Ahsoka was watching their exchange with considering eyes. Echo turned to her. “Do you have a med droid onboard that can take a brain scan? Then we’ll see if we can remove it without side effects.”
“We still won’t know if there will be side effects!” Fives interrupted. “We can find another chip. I’m not risking it.”
I’m not risking you. The puzzle pieces clicked.
“Fives,” Echo said gently. “You won’t lose me.”
“Don’t promise that,” Fives said sharply. “Don’t.” He sat down heavily on the floor. Echo sank down next to him, sensing Ahsoka quietly taking her leave.
“Hey,” Echo said. “You know me. I won’t do this unless I’m sure I know what will happen.”
Fives snorted. “You’ll do it if you think there’s any chance it will work.” He tapped his fingers on Echo’s knee, three short times. Their silent communication method back on Kamino. Nervous.
Echo tapped back, two long and two short. I can do it.
Fives set his head in his hands. Echo gave him a minute to speak. “Okay,” he finally said. “Okay. We’ll do a scan, and maybe Ahsoka will see what she can sense, and if we don’t find any complication…”
“Then we’ll go from there,” Echo supplied. “One step at a time, brother.” He nudged Fives, summoning a grin to lighten the mood, unsuccessfully. “Hey.”
“Right. One step at a time,” Fives said. He knocked his forehead into Echo’s, and stayed there for a moment. “One step at a time.”
“Now who’s echoing?”
That bought him a quiet laugh. “Had to take up your legacy.”
“Poor Commander Tano. Now she has to deal with the both of us.”
“Ah, you should’ve seen some of the shinies we got in the past few months. Repeated everything you told ‘em, nearly drove Rex and the rest of command to insanity. Don’t think any of them were as bad as you were when we first joined up, though,” Fives teased.
Echo rolled his eyes. “Funny.”
They sat there for a few more minutes in the quiet, before Fives slowly stood back up, holding out a hand to Echo. “Better bring the Commander back in, because I’m betting you have more questions.”
“Well, you’re right about one thing, at least.” At the affronted expression on Fives’ face, he couldn’t help but let out a barking laugh.
Fives slipped outside and returned within seconds, Commander Tano in tow. She grinned at him, seeming to sense the lightened tension. Even without the Force, his Commander had always been perceptive. Echo summoned up his questions once more.
“Fourth question,” Echo said. He frowned. “Well, not a question. But...about the chips.” Fives and Ahsoka immediately sombered. “The Chancellor said he’d force us to kill the Jedi, and we can assume that the chips are the method.” He paused. “But I think it would be dangerous to assume that’s all they could do.”
Fives paled. “You think the chips can give multiple orders.”
“It makes sense,” Echo said grimly. “What other way can Palpatine ensure we don’t turn against him? We’d never hurt Jedi willingly, and if someone forced us to do it, I know at least some would try to fight back.”
Ahsoka sank down to sit on the floor. “Force.”
“There’s more,” Echo said. He took a breath, steeling himself. “I think I know what orders they can give.”
“What?” Ahsoka and Fives reacted at the same time.
“In the reg manuals, there’s a list of contingency orders.” He called up the image in his mind, his implant working to comply. “No one ever mentioned them, but they exist. I assumed they’d never be put to use, because the orders had to come from the Chancellor himself, and some of them...the Jedi would have stood against. Orders to subdue a Senator by any means necessary. To self terminate.”
“Self terminate?”
“And many others. But, specifically…” He knew what the order was, but he double-checked anyway.
“Order 66: Execute the Jedi.”
The phrase dropped like a stone into the heavy silence of the room. Ahsoka looked sick, and Echo immediately regretted his blunt delivery.
“Commander–”
She rocketed to her feet and backed away. “Not a Commander. Not even a Jedi, anymore. But–” she shook her head, slipping out of the room as Fives made an aborted attempt to grab her arm.
“Kriff,” Fives cursed, and ran out the door.
The ship wasn’t large, so Ahsoka couldn’t be far. Echo let Fives lead the way to the cockpit. Then the common room. Then the refresher. All empty. After a moment of staring into the refresher, Fives let out a sigh and sagged against the wall. “I know where she is. But I’m starting to think we should leave her alone, for now.” Echo frowned, and Fives glanced over at him. “What is it?”
“I only knew Commander Tano for a year,” Echo said. “But she doesn’t seem the type to want to be alone.”
Fives let out a quiet laugh. “True. Remember when we first joined–”
“And she came to sleep in the troopers’ quarters when she had a nightmare,” Echo finished. “Not quite what we expected the Jedi to be.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Fives said. He pushed off the wall. “But it was better.” He started down the hallway, turning back around when Echo didn't follow. “You coming?”
“You know her better than I ever did. I think she needs that.”
Fives looked like he wanted to argue, but relented at the look Echo gave him. “Alright, alright. Just–” an expression of pain passed over his face, gone in an instant. “Don’t go anywhere before I’m back?”
Echo grinned at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Fives found Ahsoka sitting on one of the pipes crossing the ceiling of the cargo bay.
She didn’t speak until he settled down beside her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run out.”
Fives gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It was justified.”
Her feet kicked over empty air. “I still should have handled that better. But that order, it’s been there since the rules of this war were written.” She twisted the fabric of her tunic between her fingers in a white-knuckled grip. “Execute the Jedi . We were always meant to die!” Her hoarse words echoed through the cargo bay.
Always meant to die.
For once, Fives could not muster up the words. Ahsoka went on. “We thought we could turn the tide of this war by taking part. Save innocent lives, stop the Sith. But it was all someone else’s plan, wasn’t it? We never had any control. Just pawns. And somehow, being thrown out of the Jedi might be what saves me.” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “But they don’t know that. They pushed me to the side to placate a Chancellor who wants them dead.” She inhaled sharply, cutting herself off. “Oh.”
Ahsoka disentangled her fingers from her tunic, pressing her hands to her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Sorry.” She looked up at Fives. “I–Fives?”
Fives took a ragged breath, scrambling to gather himself. “Yeah.” His voice broke, and he winced.
“Shit–I didn’t mean to say all that, or put it all on you–”
“It’s not that,” he interrupted. He took a deep, deep breath, regarding the Togruta next to him. “Just listen.”
She nodded almost immediately, shifting slightly to face him fully. Ahsoka had always been a listener, whether that meant laughing along to a story of messing with another trooper, or sitting with Rex post-Umbara when nothing anyone said could get past the awful pain in his eyes. She’d sat with Fives after the Citadel when everything was new and raw and all the dominoes but one had fallen, a steady presence that somehow tempered the way the world had felt off-kilter for weeks.
Fives trusted her, now even more than before. But it didn’t make this any easier.
He looked down at his lap. “You said the Jedi were always meant to die. That’s something us clones have had to grapple with our entire lives.” He didn’t dare look at Ahsoka. “We were only created to fight this war. And nearly all of us are proud to. We think we can change innocent lives, and turn the tide.” He sighed. “But we were made to be expendable. There was never a thought about what would happen to us after the war, because no one thought we’d be around to see it. We have no citizenship, no home planet, and no solution to accelerated aging. We don’t even technically qualify as a sentient being. We’re products of Kamino.”
At some point he gained the courage to glance back up at her. Her expression was stricken, but she stayed silent, true to her word. “We”—he held her gaze—“were created to die for the Republic. For the Jedi, too. And I don’t know how much of this you let yourself see as a Padawan, but I need you to see it now.” He laughed without humor. “Only took Umbara and accusations of treason for me to see it, too.”
Silence fell over the cargo bay. For once, Ahsoka seemed to struggle to find the words. “I...was so focused on the Jedi, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? When I first joined the 501st, and met all the men, they were so proud to serve. And I thought that was enough. I still knew that none of you had a choice, but I thought that even if you did, you’d choose to fight. But that doesn’t change anything.” She turned to face him. “You all deserve a life outside war. I’m sorry that it took me so long to understand.”
Fives nodded. “I’m glad that you’re trying, now.”
Ahsoka leaned her shoulder against his. Minutes passed before she spoke, hesitant. “If we get to the end of all this, what will you do?”
He ran a hand through his closely-shorn hair. “Tried not to let myself consider it. But I always thought I’d want to keep fighting, somehow. Stay in the GAR, or maybe join the service on some planet. Now…” he trailed off. “Now I’m not so sure.” He’d seen enough pain and death for a lifetime, and yet the idea of giving up on being a soldier made his chest tighten. “What about you?”
“When I was still a Jedi” —her voice faltered but she ignored it, continuing on— “I would have said that I’d keep training as a Padawan, try to get Knighted as soon as I could.” She smiled wistfully. “Obi-Wan said I was on track to become the youngest Knight they’d ever had.” Her hand came to rest on her hip, and her smile fell away before she went on. “I don’t know anymore. I still don’t know who I am outside of Padawan and Commander, I think.”
“Us clones have got to figure that out, too,” Fives said. “Who we are, outside of trooper. It’s a work in progress.”
Ahsoka hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s your path, after war. Helping others find theirs.”
Fives raised his eyebrows, opening his mouth to speak before snapping it shut. He’d never even considered such a thing. Ahsoka smiled at his surprise. “I remember mentioning you could dominate in the Senate, too,” she joked.
He snorted. “It’d take all my willpower not to fistfight most of them.”
“Trust me, you’re not the only one,” Ahsoka said, amused. “Anakin was this close to punching Senator Taa in the face on guard duty one day. There’s a reason I sometimes get assigned Senate duty without him.”
Fives laughed aloud. “I remember Rex had to play bodyguard for Taa once. Came back to the ship and went straight for the sparring mats, wouldn’t say a word to anyone.”
“Senators,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head. “The only ones I can tolerate are Senator Amidala and Senator Organa.”
“What does General Kenobi always say? ‘Never trust a politician?’ Best advice I ever got.”
“Anakin’s advice was, ‘never trust a politician unless her name is Padme Amidala.’” They chuckled together at that. Whatever Skywalker and Amidala had together became more and more of an open secret as the war went on.
Fives stretched his legs out. “Not that this isn’t comfortable seating, but I think I’d prefer a real chair.”
Ahsoka sighed. “Right.” She braced her hands against the pipe, making to jump down to the ground. “We should be exiting hyperspace soon, actually. Then the real work starts.”
“Hey. I know that Echo told us a lot we didn’t want to hear, but now we know. We know what we have to stop, and I’m willing to bet that Echo’s spent this time coming up with a plan to do it. We’ll figure it out.”
Ahsoka hugged her shoulders. “I know. We have to.”
For the clones, the Jedi, the Republic. And for themselves, for this narrow shot at freedom that was too far and too close all at once. The hope of it was killing him. Hope had a funny habit of being ripped away just when he thought he was in the clear.
Yet it was the quiet hope blooming in Ahsoka’s eyes that brought her to vault to the cargo bay floor. It was the hope rising in his chest that made him follow, much more slowly, and exit the cargo bay to find his brother smiling down at Ahsoka. All of it was built on hope.
Fives was willing to work with that.
Notes:
comments are love!
god i love echo so much. he holds the braincell. mostly. this chapter took so long both because a. busy life and b. i wanted to get him right!! aaaaAAAHHH now we're really getting into the story i'm so excited for my main trio :)) hope you enjoyed! fives and echo are just so much for me i want them to be happy please. please. i'm begging myself because i'm the one writing this. anyway- a Lot of developments this chapter. order 66............ i guess we'll see what's coming up next. plus, i like that this is chapter six because it’s five(s) plus one :))
Chapter 7: and suddenly the armor fits
Summary:
A conversation, an escape, and more than one realization. There's no going back to the way it was before.
Notes:
HELLO! i've returned from a rather embarrassingly long accidental hiatus but i hope you'll be excited to know...THAT THIS FIC HAS BECOME A SERIES STARTING TODAY!! this is the LAST chapter of the first installment, and chapter one of the next fic is already published under the same series so you can just hit that 'next' button whenever you feel like it!!! i'm so excited about this and i really hope you enjoy :)
*also! 'vod' means sibling in mando'a*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The trip back to Florrum was quiet.
Echo slept for most of it, and Fives was uncharacteristically silent as his brother rested and recovered. Ahsoka assumed the shock was catching up to him. It quite nearly overwhelmed her, too. Echo, the chips, the Chancellor...and Order 66.
Just the thought of it sent a chill through her bones, and the Force trembled.
Ahsoka still grappled with the scope of Palpatine’s and the Kaminoans’ treachery, but her talk with Fives had opened her eyes. She wasn’t the only one reeling, and the Jedi most certainly were not the only ones who would suffer. The clones already had, a thousand times over. She was ashamed of not acknowledging it sooner. The Jedi—her included—had stood by, fighting for a Republic whose army had never been given a choice. Leading that army. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that the Jedi Order could have single-handedly changed the Republic’s policies on the clone army, but they should have tried. They should have fought, instead of standing by.
Like they did with you.
She shook off the thought, sighing. Her situation didn’t hold a candle to the rest of their plethora of issues. She knew that. It still didn’t make the voice in her head go away.
Ahsoka stood from the pilot seat, walking down the hall to clear her thoughts. She, Fives, and Echo had debated next steps several times already. Echo was a staunch supporter of contacting Rex, and in his waking hours had been poring over levels upon levels of encryption to ensure they could speak in confidence. They weren’t taking any chances, not when the highest office of the Republic was involved. Even with the encryption, Ahsoka still worried. There were too many opportunities for everything to go wrong. Even the smallest mistake could reveal them, and she couldn’t help but be uncomfortably reminded of their mishap with Tali on Nal Hutta. If they had another such accident and it somehow got back to the Chancellor, all their work would be for nothing, and everyone Ahsoka knew and loved would suffer for it. What if he decided to carry out Order 66 then and there, or what if the Kaminoans were ordered to terminate all the clone cadets still on Kamino?
At some point Ahsoka realized she had walked to the cargo hold, and blinked. Echo stood in the center of the room, hitting the makeshift punching bag they’d found in a supply closet. She didn’t announce her entrance, but Echo startled, quickly pulling his hands back and whirling around. “Commander. Er, Ahsoka, sorry,” he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.
Ahsoka waved him off. “It’s fine.” She examined him more closely, namely the shaking hands he tried to hide by lacing them together. “Are you feeling alright?”
Echo smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Never better, sir.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” she replied, amused. “It’s an adjustment for me, too.”
The space between her and Echo felt fragile, like the slightest movement would disturb whatever lay between them. Ahsoka had known Echo well, but she’d never been as close with him as Rex, or Jesse, or Fives. He’d been too nervous around her, in the past.
The nervousness was still there, but less. It wasn’t his nerves that kept Ahsoka from continuing toward him, but the feeling in the Force of Echo himself. Now that he was awake, Ahsoka could tell that his Force signature was different than before. It concerned her a little. She knew that signatures could change under extreme trauma, but it felt like she’d returned to square one with Echo. She’d never had the effortless rapport that he and Fives had, and she found herself stumbling over this new territory, to her relative embarrassment.
Echo’s lopsided smile filled the empty silence between them, like he knew what she was thinking. “I...came here because I couldn’t sleep,” he offered. It was a lifeline, one that Ahsoka gladly grasped onto.
She stepped forward. “Nightmares?”
He laughed awkwardly. “Just extra energy. Been sleeping a lot lately.” A blatant lie, and they both knew it. Echo had been resting for most of the trip, but the hollow shadows beneath his eyes hadn’t faded at all.
Another step. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” she said softly. “But speaking the words lightens the burden.” Let me help you, she silently implored.
Echo shifted on his feet, clearly uncomfortable. “I, uh–”
“Coming out of hyperspace in ten minutes!” Fives’ voice over the intercom shattered that uncertain space between them. Ahsoka couldn’t help the swirling tide of disappointment in her stomach. Echo gave her an apologetic look before passing by her to make his way to the cockpit.
She stood in the empty cargo hold for a moment, staring at the still-swaying punching bag. Reaching out a hand to steady it, she tried to temper the helplessness rising in her throat.
When she walked into the cockpit, Fives had already told Echo the plan.
Echo massaged his temples, a movement that was quickly becoming habit for him, and one that reminded her far too much of Obi-Wan. “If you haven’t made an enemy of Hondo yet, you sure as hell will now.”
Echo’s blunt nature was new to her, and was taking getting used to, but Ahsoka still snorted. “He kidnapped me and tried to sell me to the highest bidder. We’ll call it even after this.”
Echo spluttered, making Fives chuckle. “That’s a story we both need to hear, brother.” Fives checked the chronometer. “Four minutes. Get ready.”
Ahsoka gave a sharp nod and ran out of the cockpit towards the hidden supply closet, working to disconnect the med droid from the ship’s systems. As she worked, she felt the jerk of the ship coming out of hyperspace. Her hands flew. Once done, she grabbed the droid and dragged it toward the exit ramp. She met Fives on the way, and he handed her the electrostaff in exchange for the med droid. Echo had taken her blaster, and it was holstered at his hip.
“Ready?” she asked. At their affirmative, she punched the open ramp button.
Alarms blared as the ramp lowered down mid-air, the ship still cutting through the lower atmosphere. The barren landscape of Florrum was laid out before them; in the distance, steep cliffs cut through the horizon like dull knives. They grew ever closer as the ship hurtled forward.
“Are we sure about this?” Echo yelled over the whipping wind.
“Not at all!” Fives shouted back. They shared a grin.
The ground was rising up to meet them; once it was close enough that the sand-and-salt dust filled Ahsoka’s nose, she jumped.
For a moment, there was nothing but a blank emptiness. Then the fall hit her gut, her stomach sinking. The wind screamed around her. She ignored it, closing her eyes and reaching out–
She grasped onto the Force, eyes snapping open as she pulled on it to lighten her fall. Her feet hit solid ground and she immediately tucked into a roll, pain screaming through her ankles as she forced herself to stand, quickly finding Fives and Echo in the air not too far in front of her. She stepped towards them, concentrating.
Fives and his accompanying med droid were the first to slow down, and he yelped as his freefall was abruptly cut short. Ahsoka strained to hold on to him and to catch Echo, who was approaching the ground with frightening velocity. She let out a grunt, outstretching her arm to slow, slow, slow down.
The Force complied at the last possible second, Echo hovering in the air mere feet from the ground. She tried to lower them both gently to the dirt, only somewhat succeeding. They hit the ground with an audible thud, clouds of burnt-orange dust emanating from their landing spots. Thankfully, the med droid didn’t look too damaged.
Ahsoka dashed the rest of the way to them. “Sorry,” she said, extending a hand towards Echo to help him up. He took it, groaning as he stood.
“Everytime I think I’m done with Force shenanigans,” Fives muttered darkly.
“Hey, this was your idea,” Ahsoka reminded him.
A silver saucer soared above them, jetting to the south, towards where their crewless ship still soldiered on in the air. Echo tracked the movement with watchful eyes.
“I’d say we have about three minutes before they land,” he said, turning back to scan the barren landscape and sheer cliffs they stood in front of. “Where to?”
Ahsoka allowed herself a feral grin, holding up a small grey remote. “Enjoy the show, boys.”
She clicked the button. Immediately, the ground began to rumble, rock tumbling from the cliff face as it began to open.
All of Ahsoka and Fives’ scouring of Hondo’s compound had done them some good: The remote they’d found in a safe in Hondo’s office perfectly fit the description Katooni had given Ahsoka of the device used to open a secret ship bay. Hondo had put it to use during his and the younglings’ escape from Grievous, and she would use it now.
Fives and Echo stared open-mouthed at the quickly-widening door into the mountain. Ahsoka, still grinning, sped off toward it, leaving them scrambling to follow.
As soon as they were inside, she clicked the remote again, and the door slid shut, lights flickering on inside.
Fives did a slow spin to take it all in, still rather comically carrying the med droid at his side. He let out a low whistle. “So this is where Hondo keeps his toys.”
The bay felt even larger than Ahsoka remembered, filled with ships of all colors, structures, and sizes. One was large enough that it cast a shadow over a third of the room. Another was bright yellow with red and black racing stripes, and completely open on both sides, which seemed questionable for space travel.
“Okay.” She clapped her hands together. “We need an inconspicuous ship, big enough that it can handle plenty of hyperspace jumps, small enough that the three of us can maintain it. Weapons wouldn’t hurt, either.”
Before she could even start searching, Echo’s voice emanated from about fifty yards away. “Over here!”
She and Fives exchanged a look of surprise, and made their way over.
Echo grinned, gesturing behind him. “Well?”
Ahsoka had to give Echo credit. The ship was large, with an almost-saucer structure like Hondo’s favored crafts, but without the conspicuous sheen. A cockpit and what she assumed was a weapons console jutted out from the main body of the ship. Dull gray, not too large, clear weapons capability.
“Perfect.” Fives spoke what she was thinking. “How the hell did you find it this fast?”
“Just one of my many talents,” Echo joked.
Fives rolled his eyes, clapping him gently on the shoulder and going to find the ramp mechanism.
A faint thrum went through the ground Ahsoka stood on. Then another, stronger.
“You might want to hurry that up!” she yelled to Fives.
“I have no idea how this ship is–”
The cavern walls shook as the cliff face split apart. Fives glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening. “Going faster now.”
Though she could not see the pirates entering, Ahsoka could hear their footsteps thundering on the concrete floor. She thought she heard Hondo yell something unintelligible.
“Set your blaster to stun,” she told Echo. “I’m not trying to make any more of an enemy out of Hondo than I have to.”
“Already done,” he said dryly. “But it seems only fair we kidnap his ship after he kidnapped our Jedi.”
The words planted something warm in Ahsoka’s chest. Behind her, Fives called out as the ramp lowered with a faint hiss. Ahsoka guarded Echo’s back as he clambered aboard, catching himself when his prosthetic leg didn’t quite bend in time with his other leg. She made a mental note to check it out once they were safe. Two pirates broke through the maze of ships and did a double take upon finding her there; she stunned the both of them with her staff, but not before one of them called out to the rest of the crew. Ahsoka bounded towards the ramp, and Echo must have signaled to Fives because as soon as her two feet were aboard, the ship lurched into the air. She grabbed one of the ramp hydraulics for balance, glimpsing Hondo below her as they rose.
“Now we’re even!” she shouted down to him.
She pulled herself inside the ship before she could hear his response, and Echo closed the ramp.
Fives collapsed across one of the benches of their new ship, sighing. Echo snickered at him, and he sent a rude hand gesture in return. “It’s hard work, saving the galaxy. Let a trooper rest.”
There was a glint in Echo’s eye that had been absent before when he responded. “Funny, I didn’t realize robbery was life-saving.”
“Is it really stealing if we steal it from a pirate who stole it from someone else?”
“I like to think of it as repurposing,” Ahsoka supplied from behind him. He lifted a hand in thanks.
Echo rolled his eyes at the both of them. A quiet chuckle sounded from Ahsoka, who seemed to be thrilled that Echo was no longer afraid to joke with her. “Does the ship have a name?” he asked.
“Didn’t find one when I dug through the console, or when I scanned for trackers,” she answered, shrugging.
Fives pushed himself into a sitting position and angled so that he could see the both of them. “Consider: we name it ‘tin can.’”
Echo let out an odd, wheezing laugh. “It’s not even made of tin. You could call it ‘durasteel can.’”
“Don’t entertain him,” Ahsoka groaned. “Tin can. Really? The ship is in near-perfect shape.”
“The name has nothing to do with the condition,” Fives argued. “I didn’t say ‘bucket of bolts.’” That prompted another laugh from Echo, which turned out to be contagious.
It was Ahsoka’s turn to roll her eyes. “Insufferable, the both of you.”
Maybe it was too much, because Fives knew “tin can” was not, in fact, that funny, but it was a miracle to be alive. The dominoes were together once more, even if Echo’s wheezing laugh and different sense of humor were new.
Once they’d recovered themselves, Echo was the one to bring up next steps. They’d reached a dead end with their old leads, having found nothing chip-related in the Separatist databases. Which, logically, meant it was time to ask for help.
Echo leaned forward, expression serious. “I’ve layered a hundred levels of encryption on this thing,” he said, indicating a comm device. “I think it’s time to contact Rex, if we’re ready.”
Fives nodded. “Agreed.” Two pair of eyes fastened on Ahsoka.
Fives could see the internal war behind Ahsoka’s eyes in the second of hesitation before she said yes. Echo grinned, and went off to make preparations, but Fives stayed in the common room. After Echo was gone, and it was clear Fives wasn’t going anywhere, Ahsoka sighed and visibly deflated. She sank down onto the bench beside him.
There was silence. Eventually, Fives spoke. “Rex will welcome you back, you know,” he said quietly.
Ahsoka closed her eyes for a beat too long. “I know. But Rex will have questions, and I don’t have answers.”
Fives set his hand on her shoulder in silent support, and Ahsoka leaned into it. Her voice was a whisper when she continued. “How can he forgive me for leaving, when–” she broke off.
When I can’t even forgive myself? The unspoken words hung like a shroud over the room.
“Ahsoka.” That made her startle. “In Rex’s mind, there’s nothing to forgive. You’re his—our—family. We don’t leave them behind, even when others do.”
Fives’ thoughts towards the Jedi had been less than warm lately. He knew Ahsoka’s feelings on the matter were much more complicated, but...family was supposed to stand by your side, not cast you out when it was politically convenient. Rex had stood by him, even amidst accusations of treason. Was it so much to ask that the people who’d watched Ahsoka grow from a wide-eyed child to a capable warrior do the same?
Ahsoka was oblivious to his musings, her nails slowly digging into her leggings. She swallowed. “But I left him behind. I left them both behind. At least with Anakin, I talked to him before I left, but Rex wasn’t even in the barracks when I went, and I couldn’t ask anyone where he was because that meant facing them, too, and then suddenly it was days later and I couldn’t have faced him after that, and–” she inhaled quickly, cutting herself off.
“Vod,” Fives said, the term slipping out all on its own. It made her startle again. “You were alone, in a situation you never should have had to be in. Of course you didn’t react perfectly.”
Ahsoka stood up, Fives’ hand sliding off her shoulder. She wrung her hands. “You should have seen Anakin’s expression when I walked away.” She began pacing, and it was like she’d forgotten Fives was in the room, because this was much more than he’d ever heard before about the day Ahsoka left. “It was like I was betraying him, specifically, even though I told him that it wasn’t about him. And I don’t know which is worse, the thought that Anakin might never forgive me, or that Rex will, even when I don’t deserve it! ”
She stopped dead in the middle of the room, seeming to have surprised even herself.
Fives pushed himself to his feet and moved to face her, setting both hands on her shoulders this time. Her montrals nearly reached his nose, now. It was an odd thought, and another reminder that this Ahsoka was not the Ahsoka he’d known back in the 501st. That Ahsoka had been real, too, but only part of the picture. A Commander had to be strong for their troops. And as much as Fives would still follow her into whatever came next, he also knew they should be on equal footing, now.
He knew her guilt had only grown after she’d heard all that happened in her absence, but he hadn’t realized it hit her this hard. And Fives would have words with Skywalker, General or not, if he was making this about himself.
“Listen. Everything that you went through, and everything that happened after you left—none of that was your fault, you hear me? You had no way of knowing what would happen to Tup, or to me. And even if you’d been there, there was nothing you could have done.” Ahsoka opened her mouth to interrupt, but Fives forged on. “There wasn’t. Hell, if you’d stayed with the Jedi, you couldn’t have rescued me from that warehouse.” She halted, blinking, and Fives celebrated that one small victory. “See? You’ve been holding on to all this guilt, but you never stopped and looked around.” Fives gestured to the ship around them. “This, me, Echo—none of it happens without you making the choice to walk away. You have to realize that there’s no blame to give. If this whole situation shows anything, it shows that you never left us. Why do you think Rex contacted you? He knew you’d come if we needed you.” He squeezed her shoulders for emphasis. “You might have left the frontlines, vod’ika, but you didn’t abandon us. All us clones know that. If the General doesn’t, well, he needs to get his head checked, and realize not everything is about him.” Ahsoka let out a choked, disbelieving laugh at that. Fives himself could barely believe he said it. But he continued, quieter now. “You made the best choices you could. And for as much as you think you don’t deserve forgiveness, we’ll be here with twice the resolve that you do. ”
Ahsoka let her forehead rest against the front of his shoulder for a moment, taking a deep breath. When she straightened, she smiled softly, though her eyes were still sad. “Thank you,” she said.
He smiled. “Anytime.”
They sat down together on the bench. Ahsoka stared down at the table, expression pensive. Fives hoped it meant she took his words to heart. By some unspoken agreement, they lingered there until Fives fell asleep.
Ahsoka stayed frozen on the bench, eyes trained on nothing, for a long while after Fives fell asleep. His words echoed through her mind.
There’s no blame to give.
What had she done to deserve that kind of loyalty? She glanced sidelong at Fives, still fast asleep with limbs strewn in seemingly uncomfortable positions. She’d known him for two years—a long time, but nothing compared to the nine or ten years he spent with his brothers on Kamino, or the thirteen years she spent with the Jedi. And yet, did the count of days or months or years really matter? Fives was just as much her family as the Jedi had been. Still were, in some distant corner of her heart. War had built and broken them together; Ahsoka could not imagine a life without her brothers by her side. She hadn’t wanted to abandon them when she left the Jedi. Every day she had fervently checked troop assignments and the rare battle reports that were available to the public. Every day she had wondered what troopers had died without an extra pair of lightsabers to protect them.
But she never went back.
If she was being truly honest with herself...she didn’t regret leaving the Jedi. That had been the right choice for her, and for them, to make them open their eyes. She did regret, however, not talking to her troopers. Just to explain.
Her last conversation with Anakin wasn’t something she was ready to break into, not yet. But Fives was right. She’d never planned on leaving the clones forever, and that all-consuming guilt was just holding her back from fighting for them now. Just as they’d always fought for her.
Fives shifted in his sleep, and Ahsoka looked over at him again. She still didn’t know what she’d done to deserve that loyalty, but she was going to live up to it.
When Fives woke up, Ahsoka was gone, replaced by Echo seated beside him.
“Hey,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his head.
Half of Echo’s mouth twitched up into a grin. “Hey.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, the only sound a dull thud as Echo kicked his heels against the base of the bench.
“I was-”
“What did-”
They both broke off, chuckling. Fives gestured for Echo to go first.
“What did you say to the Commander?” Echo asked. “She seems...quiet.”
Fives blew out a breath, debating how much to tell. “I told her to stop blaming herself for what happened to the 501st after she left. Me, Tup...she didn’t have control over any of that.” He paused.
“And?” Echo prompted.
Fives shrugged, but the movement was stiff. “And...I told her what I should have told Rex, after Umbara.”
He realized too late that he still hadn’t told Echo about Umbara, but found himself without the energy to do it now. Looking back, he’d been a fool. He’d spent days refusing to say a word to Rex, even as the haunted shadows below his Captain’s eyes grew ever darker. Fives had told himself that Rex deserved it. Now he was ashamed for ever thinking such a thing. Rex made the best choice out of bad options, and everything he’d done was to try and protect his men. Yes, Fives would have made different choices in Rex’s place, but that didn’t mean he should have blamed a brother for the cruelty of a General.
He didn’t idolize Rex the way he had as a shiny cadet back on a secluded moon. Not anymore. But they were brothers, and that meant standing together through it all.
Fives couldn’t help but be reminded once again that Ahsoka didn’t have that with her Jedi. But she still did, he was sure, with her brothers in the 501st.
Echo didn’t ask about Umbara, seeming to sense Fives’ unease. He simply nodded, pulling out a datapad and starting to tinker with some bit of complicated code.
Fives found himself pondering Ahsoka’s words about General Skywalker. He’d never really seen the man past the confident facade, save for those few hours after Tup lost it. Skywalker was unwaveringly loyal to those he cared about, but Fives knew that kind of devotion could hide blindspots. He doubted Skywalker would ever leave the Jedi, even when put in Ahsoka’s position. It wasn’t hard to believe that he might be angry at her for leaving, especially since Fives had started seeing less and less of him outside of battles once Ahsoka walked away. But he couldn’t imagine Skywalker staying angry if they saw each other again. He loved his former Padawan too much for that.
Either way, it wasn’t his place to blame or forgive the Jedi. That was Ahsoka’s choice, and he’d stand by whatever she decided. He was just grateful he had a family that stood by his side through it all, whether that was the 501st off fighting battles in distant systems, or this. Three soldiers against the galaxy.
Fives had spent so many days wishing to be back home with the 501st. And that was still home, but…
He watched Echo slowly begin to doze off beside him, letting out a quiet, wheezing snore. Ahsoka was likely in the cockpit, staring at the swirling blue as they jetted through hyperspace.
Fives had spent his entire life wishing to find a home in something new. First on Kamino, dreaming of graduating and joining the fight. Then on Rishi, hoping for reassignment. Then in the 501st, reaching for ARC.
He’d never stopped to think that maybe he’d been home all along.
He stood at the prow of his vessel, surveying the organized chaos of droids navigating deep space.
“Sir!”
He turned.
“I have the report you requested.”
His eyes flashed over the report before tucking the datapad into his cloak. “Stay the current course, Lieutenant.”
“Roger, roger.”
He left the bridge, brushing past the droid on his way. In fifteen minutes, it would have an unfortunate malfunction and shut down, taking any record of his hunt with it. He would be long gone by then.
He didn’t dare take the datapad out, having already committed its details to memory.
Tali Kayleeno.
Dooku allowed himself a rare smile as he exited the hangar in his personal ship.
Notes:
comments are love!
the plot thickens....again...
next fic in the series is a NEW POV! get ready :)
i didn't put an echo pov in this chapter because i felt like i was wrapping up this section that was only fives' and ahsoka's story. after this it gets bigger, though still focused on my main trio haha. i love writing fives and echo together so of course you'll get a lot more of them seeing how they've both changed in the time they were apart (and some more echo and ahsoka! and obviously more fives and ahsoka. ok i'll stop now). very excited to continue!
thank you all so much for reading and commenting. seriously though, the comments bring me so much joy you all are so amazing for taking the time to write those i just :'))
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