Chapter 9
On The Twilight
"You claustrophobic yet, kid?" Anakin asked with a smile as Carter shuffled into the cockpit several paces behind Ahsoka.
The black haired boy nodded. "Yeah. Who designed this ship anyways? You'd think that they'd make the rooms a little bigger."
"Well, if you'd rather I hadn't installed the walls…" Anakin grinned.
"Huh?" Carter's mind was barely registering what was happening at the current moment, his mind reeling at the fact that he and Ahsoka almost had a repeat of the post-Malevolence incident.
"The general put in those walls and doors to make separate rooms, little 'un," Rex explained. "Before that, just bunks and nothing else."
"And that would cause quite a bit of discomfort, considering Ahsoka is… well, she's female. Isn't that right, Snips?"
"Oh, yeah. Uh, sure does, Master. Major discomfort."
Carter nodded. "Um, I think I understand where you're coming from, Master Skywalker." Again his mind flashed back to just a few minutes ago with Ahsoka. He'd be lying if he'd said he didn't enjoy it. But he needed to hold back from now on. He'd already told himself that on the Resolute.
The thing was, Ahsoka seemed to want it, too. She was the one who held his hand when he'd tried to open the doors. She leaned in closer, she'd even put her hand on his face. It took all of Carter's will to stay in the cockpit with Rex and Anakin than to run to his quarters and bang his head against the wall out of sheer frustration.
Hopefully the mission would preoccupy him. Because otherwise he wouldn't be able to hold out.
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The trip proved to be long and dull, the exact opposite of what Ahsoka needed at the moment. It gave her time to let her mind wander, and lately, it had always ended up with her thoughts occupied completely by one person.
Instead, she lay down on her bunk and pulled out her datapad. She'd never heard much of Elom, only that their main export was Lommite, a mineral used in transparisteel. So, to fix this, she hooked up to the downloaded texts she'd been given from the Jedi Archives. The information contained on Elom, however, didn't go into detail beyond. It was inhabited by the Elomin and the Elom, both very different species. From what Ahsoka could gather from her datapad, it was highly unlikely that she would encounter any Elom, with them living in caves hidden in mountains. The Elomin, however, were the ones who operated the few spaceports, cities and Lommite mines that the planet held.
Unable to gather anything else useful, she tossed the 'pad aside and sighed, forcing herself to focus on an oddly shaped grease stain on the ceiling in order to keep her thoughts from drifting. If they did, they would, without a doubt, move to Carter, and he was the last thing she wanted to be thinking about right now.
A light rapping on the door mercifully pulled her from her fixation on the stain. She needed to be distracted, and talking to someone would make for a good diversion. Then, a sinking feeling came in the pit of her stomach. What if it was Carter, coming to apologize for what had happened? What if he wanted to talk it over? Instantly, she turned away from the door and started to feign sleep, until a rough voice stopped her.
"Hey, little'un, have a minute?"
Ahsoka sighed with relief. Rex. Her friend and confidant. She smoothed out her appearance quickly, pasted on a smile, and said, "Come on in."
In the close quarters of the Twilight, she couldn't say too much to the clone captain that wouldn't be overheard by Anakin, Carter, or R2. But she could still give him an impression of what she was feeling, if she chose her words right.
Rex leaned against the doorframe. "The Commander and Draik are fixing things up in the cockpit. Droid's helping."
"And why aren't you up there with 'em?" asked Ahsoka.
"Well, I'm no good with a hydrospanner anyways. It got boring, so I came to find you."
"Yeah, well everyone has different tastes," she said with a smile. "So if you don't fix things, what do you do?"
Rex's eyebrows rose slightly, his way of showing mild surprise. It was clear that the thought had never occurred to him.. "I… I don't know. What do you like to do?"
She shrugged. "Well, I like helping people. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, but if I can help, it works. I like piloting some, too, but compared to Master Skywalker, I don't really do too well. Just… when you feel happy, or at peace, what are you most likely doing?"
"Um… DC in hand, gunning down droids," he said with a wince.
"Oh… Well, that' not going to help much here, is it?"
Rex shook his head. "Not a bit."
"Ever think about what you're gonna do when the war's over, captain?"
"Sometimes, when our platoon has some downtime, we do talk about what we're going to be used for when it's all done, yes. Most likely, security duty. Quelling rebellions. Simple things like that. We can't just become productive members of society."
"Why not?"
"Well first of all, we're clones, see? We all have the same face, and there's a lot of us. People will look down on us in the future, segregate us, discriminate."
"But that's wrong! You're fighting for their safety!"
"That's the problem. Not everyone can see the war from a perspective like you and I, because they've never experienced it. For all they know, it's the politicians fighting for them. And secondly, we're warriors. We fight, it's in our blood, it's what we've been bred for. We can't just get thrust out into the world that is nothing like our own. It doesn't work that way."
"But-" The sight of Carter behind Rex cut Ahsoka off sharply. "Carter. What do you need"
The black-haired boy smiled apologetically. "Sorry if I was interrupting something, but Master Skywalker wants you- both of you, really- back in the cockpit. We're about to lad, and what with all the snowstorms and such, it's not gonna be easy." He put on a joking grin and saluted. "All hands on deck, full crew participation!"
She couldn't help but smile and let a strangled giggle come out at the joke, no matter how hard she tried to hold it back. Even when she was going insane over him, angry, and upset, she still felt… whole, when he was with her.
As Rex nodded and strode up to the cockpit, Ahsoka began to follow suit. When Carter touched her shoulder, however, she turned. He said nothing, the look in his eyes conveying what he meant more than words ever could.
He was sorry.
And Ahsoka couldn't understand why her heart sank at that.
Carter nearly lost his balance as the Twilight shook violently. He could tell the situation was bad. Never had he seen Anakin Skywalker grip a steering yoke of a ship so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The Chosen One could have been born in a cockpit, he was so comfortable with ships. So the stress he showed as he attempted to land the flailing craft didn't provide much hope.
"Ahsoka, do we still have that escape pod from the time we rescued Master Koon?"
"Yeah," she replied shakily, grabbing onto the control board.
"R2, did you ever finish sealing it?"
The little Astromech tweetled an affirmative response.
"Okay, we're gonna miss the landing zone by several kilometers, and we don't have the time to make the hike back there towards the base. Ahsoka, Carter and R2, you get to the escape pod, we're gonna drop you in. Rex and I will land, fix up the ship, and get to you ASAP. We shouldn't take long."
Carter wanted to tell the man he was insane, but judging by the look on Ahsoka's face, ideas like this popped up all the time, so he held his tongue. Instead, he followed the Togruta into the cargo hold and helped her open the hatch to the escape pod.
"Ladies first," he murmured with a smile, surprised when she allowed him to take her hand and help her up, knowing she could have made it inside easily on her own. R2 was next, using his boosters to fly easily into the pod. Carter was close behind him, closing the hatch as he went in and taking a seat at the controls.
Ahsoka keyed the comm. board. "Master? It's Ahsoka. We're all in and ready to go."
"Got it, 'Soka," came Anakin's voice.
"Good luck little'un," said Rex. "Both of you."
"Dropping you in three… two… one!"
The cargo bay's doors opened in front of them, showing the whiteness of the blizzards outside. Instantly, the escape pod was sucked out and began the plummet towards Elom's snowy surface.
