CHAPTER SEVEN – WE RUN IN CIRLCES

AHSOKA

"Mina? Mina!"

Lux rushes to his mother's side, but Steela and Hero are there first. The two of them step off the couch and lay Mina down, propping a throw pillow under her head.

Rex gives her a cursory examination. "She'll be all right, she should wake up in just a few minutes."

"Are you sure?" Lux asks.

"Kix taught me some basic skills. She'll be fine."

I don't back Rex up, because the logistics of our situation are snapping into place at a breakneck speed.

Sierra is with Tor, meaning she's good as cooked if we don't get her home. Lux is becoming scarily familiar to my old master. Oh, and to top it all off Mina's passed out from stress.

It's a good thing Tav is napping, because I don't think any of us can handle much more stress.

Okay, Ahsoka. So you have many legitimate problems. What did the Jedi teach you about how to handle them? I ask myself.

Easy, break them down into pieces and solve them one at a time.

One: Mina is unconscious.

That's incredibly easy to solve: she just has to sleep it off. When she wakes up, I should probably talk with her and Lux and try to calm them a little.

Which leads into problem two.

Two: Lux is acting like Anakin Skywalker.

When Anakin or I focused all our energy and resources into finding the other, our troops said we were "pulling a Skywalker". With Lux's hell-bent determination on finding Sierra, it's a safe bet that he is indeed "pulling a Skywalker".

And look how well that turned out for Skyguy. Now he's a black-suited psychopath completely lost to the Dark Side who doesn't even remember his real name.

One of the reasons I fell in love with Lux was that he reminded me of Anakin. Even if Lux isn't the galaxy's greatest genius at times and he can't remember to put the toothpaste cap on, he's still lovable, he is fiercely loyal, and he loves his family with everything he has.

Of course, those had to be the qualities that dragged Anakin into a volcano. Literally.

And of course, there's number three, the most urgent and distressing of all three problems.

Tor has Sierra.

I may have been sick when Tor had me, but I remember some details. I can feel the bone-chilling cold, the kiss on my cheek, his telling me of the torture I would be put through as casually as if he was discussing menu options.

"So the electro-table isn't for you?" he asked, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb, a gesture which shouldn't have hurt but did. "Well, we still have knives and viroblades. I don't like those much, though. They're too messy."

And then later, this name man callously cut down my father-in-law and left his body for the scavengers.

I was a Jedi Padawan in the home stretches of her training, and John was a trained military officer. Sierra does not yet have a secondary education diploma. When Tor starts in on her…

My blood pressure hits an all-time high, and not just because when Tor starts working on Sierra it's going to be swift and brutal.

It's because of what'll happen to us.

Steela takes her eyes from Mina and finds mine. As discreetly as she can, she steps out of the room.

I excuse myself for Steela's room and shut the door behind us.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Sierra."

"Well thank you, Captain Obvious!" Steela says, reaching for her sniper rifle to wipe down the barrel; a nervous tic she slips into when she's scared or stressed. "You were with Tor for a while. You know better than anyone how bad it's going to be."

I nod. "Steela…Sierra's-."

"In deep trouble? Going to be very messed up? Good as dead?"

"No. Soft."

Steela stops her obsessive blaster-cleaning. "Huh?"

"She hasn't seen a battle. She hasn't held a weapon, except when you took her shooting that one time…"

Steela looks down at the gun. "Which was a disaster."

"Her only real experience has been the jobs. She's good at what she does and she's smart, but torture is another story."

"Do you think she's going to die?"

"No, I think she's going to crack."

Steela nods. "That's a safe bet. What about lies? Giving them false information? I mean, that is her job."

"Trust me on this one. When someone breaks under torture," I specify, "They just say whatever comes to their heads first. When she snaps she's not going to have the presence of mind to make up lies. She's just going to babble on about whatever she thinks of first and what she thinks Tor wants to hear. Which would be…"

Steela looks across the room. "Us."

I follow her gaze to Sierra's side of the room. "Yeah…"

"How long do you think we have before she starts to talk?"

I glance at the clock. "If everything Hutch says is right, then they're arriving at the prison now."

"When are they going to start?"

"Immediately."

"Ahsoka-."

"I give her forty-eight hours, tops. He won't-."

"Ahsoka," she orders, every bit the rebel commander she is. "Tell me what happened."

I don't have to ask what she means, and I've been her friend and her roommate long enough to know that she's not backing down without an answer.

I sit down on the bed, ironically covered with the same quilt John and Mina bundled me in that fateful day.

"My master and I were on a mission to secure a fuel refinery." I begin, "And the Separatists launched a nerve gas."

"It was awful," I tell her. "I was sick and I was cold and scared, and here's John trying to keep me with him where I could heal and be safe, and Tor ripped me out of his arms."

Steela is frozen in place. "How long were you there?"

I feel myself shrinking as if I'm not a grown woman, but that sick teenager once again.

"Overnight. He only had me overnight."

SAW

"Okay, so Sierra is going to talk." Steela says over ration cubes, the most unappetizing dinner for the most unappetizing dinner conversation. "Which means Tor will know what we're doing."

"If Tor knows what we're doing, then how are we going to get her out?" Hero asks.

"We have to plan the con in a way she wouldn't think to." Lux says.

"We already don't have a grifter." Ahsoka says. "Someone will have to do Sierra's job, and in a way she wouldn't do it. Lux, I think you're up for it."

Lux nods.

"Hutch. Do you have any aliases that are still safe?"

"Most of yours don't run through the same channels that the Emily Spring one did. You have your pick." Hutch says, popping a ration cube into his mouth.

"Good. Second order of business: how are we going to get in?"

"Can't go the way we always do." I say. "If he hasn't figured out the maintenance worker scheme, it'll be the first thing out of Sierra's mouth."

Lux's face turns red, but Ahsoka grabs his arm.

"Steela, can you break us in?" I ask.

Steela gives me a look. "This isn't some random office building. This is a prison. All the windows and the vent covers are going to be connected to the central alarm system and if that goes off, we're toast."

"Can't Hutch turn it off?"

Hutch sighs. "I wish. But the system is controlled by an intranet, not the HoloNet. To turn it off, I have to be on one of the inside computers."

"Then there's only one way in: through the front door." Hero announces. "Our aliases have gotten us through Imperial checkpoints. I think they'll still work."

"This entrance is a whole different animal." Steela butts in. "They have an X-ray scanner installed in the doorway that everyone has to go through. I would ask you to hack it, but they'll notice if you have your datapad out. You have to put it through the X-ray device anyway."

"How is that going to affect us if we travel clean?" I ask.

But Ahsoka understands. "The comms. The machine will pick up the earbuds."

"Assuming Tor has Sierra's earbud, it won't take him long to put two and two together if he finds them." Steela crosses her arms. "Also, I need to bring in my gear. And that's not an option if we're going to break her out with any kind of success."

"What kind of gear?" Lux asks.

"Rigs, screwdrivers, lockpicks, rope, things that are never going to get past security. Not in a million years. Ideas, anyone?"

"What if we stash your gear in a package and have it brought in with the mail?" Ahsoka suggests.

"They X-ray everything, even the mail." Steela rubs her temples. "Anything else? I'm half-tempted to just drive the ship through a wall like Rex says some of his brothers did."

Rex sighs. "Don't remind me. They'd had far too many drinks at 79's and when they get drunk, they acted like children."

Rex. Children.

Who can walk right past an X-ray scanner?

An idea forms in my mind.

Steela sees it.

"Uh-oh. I know that look. What are you thinking?"

I smile to myself.

"You and Rex are going to hate it, Steela."

"How about you tell me what it is first?" Rex not-really asks.

"All right. So, only little kids, the very old, and disabled people can skip the X-ray scanner. Tandin's still too young to skip the scanner, so we don't fall into any of those criteria…unless we make it happen."

"And how are you planning on doing that?"

"You see, there's another person who can't undergo the scanner…" I slide my gaze over to Steela, who's sitting next to Captain Rex.

A horrified expression comes over her face as she understands.

"Oh no."

"Oh, yes." I grin wickedly.

"What?" Hutch asks, clueless.

I don't even feel bad for him when Hero, Ahsoka, and Steela all bellow "Pregnant people!"

Rex nearly chokes on his ration stick. "Pregnant?"

"And you, Rex," I announce, relishing every syllable, "Are going to be the father."

Katooni jumps out of her chair and rushes off to her room, coming back with a small box. For a joke, Katooni pooled her birthday and Life Day money to buy a set of fake wedding rings for Steela and Rex. Uncle Saw, Uncle Lux, and Aunt Ahsoka may have helped her with it, to perpetuate our running joke that Rex and Steela, being the last two singletons on the ship, are going to get married.

She hands the box to Rex, who opens it with a sigh and slides Steela's fake ring onto her finger.

"Rex and Steela sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."Katooni sings. "First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes Rex with the baby carriage!"

Steela facepalms, unwittingly showing off her ring. "Guys, seriously. Rex and I are not-."

"Ever going to leave each other's sides?" Hero jokes.

Rex looks at Steela. "Steela, you are a wonderful person, but I have no romantic feelings toward you."

"Same on this end!" Steela says, and shakes his hand.

I clasp my hand over my heart. "Wounded! I thought I would walk you down the aisle. I thought there would be little Gerreras running around and I would be an uncle."

"You ARE an uncle." Everyone says.

"And they wouldn't be Gerreras." Hero says. "They'd be…um…"

"Gerreras." Ahsoka clarifies. "Clones take on the civilian's surname. So Rex would be Rex Gerrera."

"No, he will not!" Steela and Rex shout in unison.

"Look, their speech is synchronized!"

Steela fumes. "Well, since it's our only option, I guess I'd better get that fake pregnancy belly in order, shouldn't I?" she mutters under her breath.

"Take good care of my niece or nephew, Stee. They're our only chance at getting Sierra out alive."

A/N: Poor Rex and Steela. Their friends ship them way too hard.

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Until next time,

Lux's Sister