Hey everyone! I procrastinated so much on this but that's okay because I did write two pages a day when I wasn't procrastinating lmao
Im glad that I can still keep up a regular posting schedule even though I'm at school, and it is great practice to write fics no matter how many people read them. Reviews would be greatly appreciated, but you don't have to write any, they just motivate me and make me super happy 3
Anyways, on to the chapter! this is a fun one
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. If I did, the torture would have to be less physical in this fic lmao
Chapter Eight: Guys I think Ahsoka is the impostor
Ahsoka was running. Not as fast as she would have liked, but that was alright. Anakin could pretty much support his own weight now but couldn't go at full speed yet, slowing all three of them down. They were searching for the missing fourth member of their merry band, running through the hallways trying to find any leads to his location. Stealth was completely out the window at this point, as time was of the essence and it wouldn't help much either. The General had decided to take one of the magnaguards' staffs, deciding it was a good lightsaber alternative, but his companions stuck to blasters.
As they rounded a corner, they came face-to-face with five droids. The Commander quickly used the Force to smash them into the ceiling, giving her Master the ability to fry some with his staff while the Captain shot the rest. The metal parts clattered to the ground as they were released, the Knight barely having time to dodge a torso as it almost whacked him in the head.
The togruta really didn't like that the alarm was still going, it was overpowering her senses with the powerful hearing her montrals provided. Her head pounded but she pushed past it and the lingering pain of burns as she scouted ahead. The clone was holding up his General, the man still needing help to walk, but he was recovering quickly. He was mostly exhausted, lingering soreness not being the main handicap.
As the padawan rounded a corner, her friends far behind, she came face-to face with another dispatch of droids who immediately saw her.
"Look, it's the tiny Jedi! Blast her!" The nasally shout of the B-1 reached her quickly, along with an addition, "Seal the blast doors so she can't escape!"
Oh. Oh no.
Ahsoka sprung into action, shooting one of the droids but missing a second. She heard the blast door behind her closing and knew she wouldn't make it on time, her companions' shouts coming through. She narrowly avoided another bolt, returning fire and taking down a second droid.
She panted for a moment, not exactly in prime condition at the time, and fought with a fury. She spun and dodged, firing with deadly accuracy. Finally the entire group was dismantled, but the togruta was stuck on the ship, alone. She turned and ran to the blast door, banging on it with her fists as if it would help. She gave up, looking around for a way to return to her friends.
Something caught her eye, and she looked up. High on the corridor wall was a vent, screwed in at the corners. She could certainly do something with that, given her small size and not yet fully developed montrals. The young padawan smiled and reached out with the Force. This was going to take a while.
Obi-Wan glared down at the mean before him, biting out, "What do you want."
It was needless to say that he was in a bad mood, stiff from hours in the containment field. The view and sound from the torture room had been turned off shortly before Dooku had arrived in his tiny cell, so the Master could only hope that Anakin wasn't still under torture.
The visitor clicked his tongue. "That's no way to talk to your grand-Master! Respect your elders."
The General gave a derisive snort. "You do have a point. You're so old I'm surprised you can still walk around without a cane."
The old man in question laughed. Banter with his old apprentice's old apprentice may not always be the most fun but it was entertaining.
"I may be old, but my mind is young, Obi-Wan. To answer your earlier question, I simply want to chat, to socialize. Of course, it will be nice when your little friends join us."
"What?" What was Dooku getting at, his friends were imprisoned and this room certainly couldn't fit them all if they were properly restrained.
"Oh, the alarm didn't clue you in? Perhaps Qui-Gon died too early for you to become a Knight. Your friends have escaped their cells and will likely come looking for you. None of them are aware of your whereabouts, so it may take time, but they are a smart enough bunch to find us quickly."
The Jedi narrowed his eyes. "What are you getting at, Dooku?" The mention of Qui-Gon was a sharp jab and hurt, especially since that was a thought that had crossed his mind before.
"Simply put, I have set a trap and you are the bait."
Obi-Wan hated being the bait. It was so annoying, to be helpless as you were used for ill. Of course it was not a common occurrence, but that didn't make it more enjoyable. He said, "You underestimate their power. Even without lightsabers, Anakin and Ahsoka are certainly competent fighters, and Rex is one of our most skilled Captains."
At that point the leader of the CIS truly laughed, a full bellow of mirth. "It is you who underestimates me! Do you truly think that a child, a clone and a stunted man-child can defeat a Dark Lord of the Sith?"
The General was confused. "Wait. A… stunted man-child?"
Brushing past the question, the Sith Lord continued. "They will be recaptured and taught a lesson. Perhaps I will have to be a little bit harsher on them during our chats."
The Jedi glared down at him. "You will do no such thing."
"You can not control me, Obi-Wan." On that note he turned his back on the Jedi and faced the door.
Ahsoka squirmed in the vent, its walls pushing in on her. After the screws had been painstakingly removed with the Force, she had yanked the grate off the wall and clambered into the narrow passage. Now, she was reminded that she had grown a lot since she was fourteen and her montrals kept painfully hitting the ceiling of the vent. Every time that happened, the togruta froze, trying to hear if anyone was around, because the metal headdress was still on and attached to the montrals' tips. Luckily, nobody had yet discovered the escaped prisoner sneaking around in their ventilation system.
One of the perks of this new method of transportation was that it did muffle the alarm a bit, granting her a reprieve from the sensory overload. She was still unable to hear if anyone was in the corridor or not, and she had completely given up on finding her friends. Anakin and Rex had moved on from the blast doors, likely not realizing that she could vent, and the Commander had decided to find Obi-Wan on her own.
The vent was a little dusty, and she sneezed suddenly just as a group of B-1s were walking by the vent she had just passed. She held her breath as one stopped and said, "Did you hear that?"
To say she was nervous was an understatement. Her blaster was currently residing on the floor of the corridor she had jumped into the vent from, completely useless to her that far away. If she was discovered by the droids she wouldn't be able to dismantle them before the ship was notified of her location. They'd probably electrify the vents and knock her unconscious before retrieving her body from it's hidey-hole.
Another droid responded, "Hear what? Are you malfunctioning?"
They had all stopped now, looking up and down the blue-lit corridor as if they could find the source of the noise. A third nasally droid said, "There's nothing here, I think you're crosswired!"
There was a chorus of "yeah"s, and the clankers marched out of view. The teen let out the breath she'd been holding, going momentarily limp on the metal. She then got back on her knees and elbows to shimmy along the vent and find Obi-Wan.
She was unsuccessful for a while, but a flash of human conversation whilst at a crossroads in the vent set her veering left and coming to another grate, a dead end. Through the metal slats, she could see the side profiles of the people she wanted to find the most and least. Obi-Wan and the Count.
The Jedi Master was suspended in a blue containment field, his head being the only body part that truly had freedom of movement. His shoulders were as hunched as possible in the restricted bindings and head lowered, though there was a defiant gleam in his eyes. He said, "You know that your plan will not work, right?"
The padawan belatedly realized that she should really mask her presence in the Force if she did not want to be discovered then and there, so she did. Dooku, the man she was hiding from, turned from his place at the door. He responded, "Such faith you have in your friends, but I'm afraid it is misplaced. The girl is young and weak-" rude!- "The clone is mere bantha fodder-" what a piece of- "And Skywalker is about as competent as a loth-cat at fighting me." That wasn't actually that far off.
As the two continued to banter, their hidden viewer settled in to spy.
Anakin walked along the hallway, finally able to do so on his own. Rex was their new scout since his padawan had gotten separated from them. It had been gut-wrenching to have to leave her behind at the blast doors, he had yelled and yelled and heard her banging on it, but finding her would be impossible to do on purpose. Instead, the duo had trekked down the hallway on their own.
It had been somewhere near a standard twenty minutes since they had separated, and the General was now able to support himself. He could run for a bit as well and their pace had significantly increased, something it was easy to see the Captain was pleased about. They were trying to loop around to their starting point near that interrogation room and go from there, Obi-Wan was probably nearby.
As Rex passed an open door, something inside caught his eye. "General, get over here quickly! There's something you need to see."
The man, looking intrigued, hastened to the doorway from his place behind the scout. Inside were consoles filled with buttons and levers, a few noises making their way out into the hallway. They were messages, broadcast from the long-range transponders and communicators.
"I like the way you think, Rex," the Jedi complemented, immediately understanding what he was getting at.
He nodded at his CO and they walked inside, getting a good look at the controls. A few buttons and dials looked like they controlled the messages' output, adjusting the frequency and reach. A couple seemed to be to input the message, perhaps forward a previous one. A keypad appeared to have some sort of purpose to dispatch droids, likely in the case of a Separatist distress call.
The Captain commented, "We need to send it on a Republic frequency, but I'm not sure how to do that without surrendering our codes to the Seppies."
Anakin nodded. "We have to think of something quick, I'm sure they have patrols for this area."
The clone started fiddling with some dials, analyzing the room. His General was walking around in the way he does that makes him look aimless and useless but was actually his brilliant mind at work. He turned a dial, lowering the volume of the message coming through, and turned to the output section. With a nearly imperceptible smile on his lips, he clicked two buttons and brought up the comms log on a hologram. Rex immediately looked up and came over, looking at the aurebesh text with a smirk.
He commented, "You certainly are resourceful, sir."
The General smiled. "If we end the message and then delete it once it's through, it will make it to the Republic without alerting the Seppies to our plan."
They got to work, writing out a suitable distress call and sending it out, waiting for it to finish before deleting it from the logs. Satisfied, the duo scampered from the room, mere minutes before the next patrol and thanked the Force for good timing.
Ahsoka was certainly uncomfortable. She hadn't learned much from her unknown amount of time in that vent, the only valuable piece of information being that her secondary mentor was alive and mainly well. He was likely experiencing even more cramps than her, it was evident that he'd been in that containment field way before her escape.
She refused to shift, aware that the most miniscule movement could end up alerting the Count to her presence. He was standing patiently by the door, waiting to make his cliche villain appearance to her friends. That made her wonder, how long did villains typically sit around to wait for their foes? Was Dooku lurking by the door like someone awaiting a package due that day a common occurrence or was this a new thing? Didn't he have something better to do?
The old man started pacing, a clue that he was not pleased to be standing around doing nothing. Obi-Wan chuckled, quipping, "Anxious, Count? Afraid your little trap will be unsuccessful?"
He sighed. "I grow tired of your insolence, Kenobi."
The Commander wished she had some jerky to munch on right about now, this was finally getting interesting. She needed to bide her time for the right moment to strike, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy some entertainment.
The Jedi Master smiled. "I think you're just tired, Count. It's the old age catching up to you."
The teenager in the vent stifled her laugh. The only good part about being captured was talking back. It was certainly more fun to do when not captured, but made for a good way to pass the time behind enemy lines. Of course, It may have some unpleasant side effects.
The Sith Lord turned swiftly and extended his hand, and Obi-Wan started choking. He was gasping, opening his mouth for air that was not coming.
Dooku smirked. "Cat got your tongue? Be careful it doesn't get ripped out."
The General was released, head going limp as he hungrily inhaled. The padawan frowned. This was the unfun part about capture, you were completely at your enemies' mercy.
She took a moment to go over what she had learned in her head. Obi-Wan was alive, in this room with the Sith Lord waiting to spring a trap. He expected to easily beat her friends, unaware one of them was watching him that moment, and clearly had ill intentions for afterward. The Jedi in the containment field was bait, unable to aid in the fight but a good lure. She would wait in her hidden spot until the time was right, bursting free and helping get all of her friends away. Then they would find a way off this bucket of bolts and be free again after this harrowing ordeal.
As Ahsoka reveled in her airtight plan, she lost focus and accidentally hit the vent ceiling, going completely still like prey in speederlights. Eyes darting to Dooku, she was glad to see that he had not spotted her yet, though he had heard something and was turning around just as the General looked up and locked eyes with her. That wasn't so bad, but the Count noticed in the split second before his prisoner looked down again to keep her secret. Her face drained of blood as, in a swift and decisive motion, he yanked the grate off the wall and used the Force to pull out the spy by her throat.
"Well, well, well," he said, "look what we have here."
As she kicked in the air, panicking so hard that she couldn't even think, he sent out a blast of Force-lightning so intense that she was knocked out, her unconscious body dropping to the floor.
Plo Koon was standing on the bridge of his ship when he was alerted to a message coming through.
"General," called the clone, "There is an urgent distress call coming from Separatist space! It's on a Republic frequency, but I'm not sure who sent it."
He walked over, saying, "Patch it through."
The soldier nodded, pressing a series of buttons until a blue hologram emerged from the projector in his station. Displayed in it were two figures, Skywalker and clone Captain Rex. The General said, "We are stranded on a Separatist ship, having been captured by Count Dooku during our mission on Zygerria. He has been interrogating us, all of us-" Plo knew that he meant Ahsoka had not been spared- "for Republic secrets. We need help soon, it is likely going to get much worse very quickly. We have included our current coordinates in the transmission. Help us, you are our only hope."
The hologram changed and the message started playing again before the clone turned it off. The Jedi thought for a moment before saying, "We cannot aid them right now. We have a mission to complete, people to return home. What we can do is alert the Council of this information, allow them to decide the course of action."
The clone nodded, forwarding the message to Coruscant. All of the clones on the bridge saluted as he left, headed to his quarters. Once there, the Kel Dor sat on his cot and pondered the message. He knew that Separatist interrogations meant violence, the war crime of torture. It was unsettling to think about that on its own, but worse when he factored in Ahsoka's inclusion.
This was what they were fighting for. A galaxy free of the tyranny of the Separatists, willing to torture- to torture children- to get what they wanted. The Jedi knew that if many of the Separatist citizens and those who weren't military were aware of this, they wouldn't be on that side anymore. The CIS wasn't evil at heart, it was just corrupted by those in power.
Though, he mused, that is likely what they think of us.
Plo Koon sighed. The war was tough, many good people had lost their lives for it willing or not. The only good thing that had emerged were the clones; fine soldiers and good men. They were a good addition to the Republic and served well, many of them were his friends.
He prayed to the Force that Ahsoka and her companions made it out of that Separatist ship alive.
Ahsoka blinked her eyes open, a pounding headache already forming. She was sitting against something hard and uncomfortable, her hands bound behind her back and neck sore from the awkward dangling position it had been in. Memories of how she had gotten into this situation came back to her in a rush, and she hurriedly closed her eyes again and fell limp.
A slight probe with her senses and the Force allowed her to feel her surroundings, the metal console she was bound to and the room around her. The object against her back seemed to be the controls for the containment field Obi-Wan was in, the man himself having noticed her awakening but this time not actually giving anything away.
Count Dooku was by the door, viewing something on a hologram. She couldn't tell much else about her current situation, afraid to alert her captor to her consciousness. The Commander knew that she could use this to her advantage; if utilized correctly it could be more powerful than the high ground. Master Kenobi did have the latter at the moment, but context made it useless.
The togruta calmed herself, going into a meditative state of mind, and pondered her next move. She needed her binders off to be of any use, the restricting material keeping her stuck to the console. That was step one, but she needed a better plan of action. What would she do once they were off? She could try to free the Jedi Master suspended in front of her and escape, but he was probably weakened and the Sith Lord was too powerful. She could also bide her time, wait for her Master and Rex to find them before springing into action and releasing her companion.
Now that her plan had been decided, she needed to complete the first step: removing her binders. It was certainly easier said than done, these of a high-end design and not easily snapped. A lightsaber would do the trick, but she couldn't exactly ask Dooku for one. The padawan also had to consider that she needed to do this undetected, no easy feat. She mentally growled at this impossible task, but decided she had to try.
She started slowly dragging the binders across the corner of the metal they were secured on, almost no sound escaping. She did this for a while until she felt it: a chink in the armor. The smallest of grooves was embedded in the binders, the shatterpoint of the material. She may not have the Force ability that Master Windu possessed, but she knew she could still search for small weaknesses. She had found one, and it would be the key to escaping this sticky situation.
The teen started moving the binders up and down the groove, deepening it. It was hard work, but she refused to stop until she had succeeded. By the time she was nearly done the girl was barely concealing her panting, exhausted by the arduous task. She gathered herself for a moment and did it again, barely restraining from yelling in joy when the cuffs finally snapped with an audible crack, alerting the Count. He turned around, but his prisoner pretended to have made a noise in her sleep, holding her arms like she was still bound.
As he turned away, unbothered, she allowed herself to smile. He had no idea what was coming.
Anakin crept silently down the hall, Rex close behind him. They stopped near a blast door, a presence inside making the Jedi falter. He snarled, "Dooku."
The clone stopped, knowing what came next. This was where they went all in. As the popular saying went, go big or go home. The General gripped his electrostaff and ignited it, the purple energy filling the hallway with a low buzz. Behind him a blaster had its safety removed, and he approached the blast doors. Readying himself for a fight, he pressed the button that opened them up.
Inside was The Count; entirely expected, Obi-Wan; not much of a surprise but incredibly relieving and Ahsoka; he was completely floored to see her. His former master was in a containment field, but his current padawan was just bound to the control panel. Clearly she'd gotten captured after they had separated and was taken back here, where there was no other way to contain her. She looked up as the door opened, a devious smile spreading across her face. Kinda odd for someone stuck to a hunk of metal with a Sith Lord but whatever.
The Sith in question smiled when he saw who was at the door. "Skywalker! So nice of you to show up. Your friends and I were wondering how long it would take you." Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. The old man continued, "It would be a shame if I were to accidentally hurt one of them were you to fight me."
The Jedi, always thinking with his heart instead of his head, growled, "Let them go."
Dooku chuckled. "A bold statement that I must decline. This feels quite familiar, but last time Kenobi was not in danger as well."
He was about to make an angry remark when he saw something quite peculiar. In the room, Ahsoka's binders were snapped in two and she was at the console trying to power down the containment field. How the kriff had she managed to do that? He was more confused than her when she discovered his prosthetic! Luckily, his quick dumbfounded expression (one that he quickly knocked off his face) went unnoticed by the preening Seppie.
Deciding to stall, the Knight played up the anger card. "I am going to kill you for hurting them!" That was true, he just wouldn't have actually said it before. Now, he really needed to give his friends time.
Catching on to the strategy and having seen the togruta's miracle work as well, Rex added, "and I'll help!"
Count Dooku laughed. "The clone is quite brave. You chose it well Skywalker; it must be an adequate Captain."
It. It? Oh, he really was gonna tear that bantha poodoo to pieces! He chanced a glance behind the man he was facing to see his student grin in triumph before hitting a button, draining the containment field's power and causing his former Master to fall into her arms, loudly.
The sleemo that called himself Count Dooku heard and turned around in confusion and then shock as Ahsoka froze, but Anakin would not let them fail in their escape. He thrusted his electrostaff at the old man and fully expected it when he quickly blocked with his lightsaber. The Jedi did not know the location of his own lightsaber, so he had to make due with his glorified sparky stick. Moving to draw the Sith into the hall, he pretended to be falling back due to the poor weapon but was actually giving the other Jedi a way out of the room.
As they fought their way into the more open hallway, Rex started firing his blaster at the Separatist leader. The bolts were deflected, but it certainly made the fight easier. The General could see Obi-Wan and the togruta heading down the hallway, and with a jerk of his head the Captain headed in that direction as well.
He kept on fighting, doing his best to parry the Count's stoic attacks. They kept coming, one after the other, but he persisted. He managed to land a slight hit to his opponent, causing him to falter, but realized it was for show when the Sith Lord used his lowered defenses to blast him with Force-lightning, throwing him down the hallway where he landed at Rex's feet.
The Knight was helped up and they started limping away, lingering pain and spasms slowing them down. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan were close ahead, but Dooku was gaining on them. Trying to think fast, his pain-muddied brain was at least good for something, and he saw the control panel for the blast doors on the side of the hallway. He pointed at them, and Rex thankfully noticed. He pulled the trigger and fired a perfect shot, busting the panel and causing the doors to close moments before an angry Count arrived.
All four of them turned around as a red blade stabbed through the thick surface, melting the metal as it slowly started to form a circle.
Ahsoka said, "Let's go." And they did, not exactly wanting to stick around, so they were long gone by the time Darth Tyranus broke through.
End of chapter!
Notes:
-Yess some action!
-Reunited and it feels so good
-Ahsoka said SNAP to those binders and nobody knows how she did it
-Ahsoka is so sus guys she definitely vented
-Dooku is so tired of Obi yet somehow upset to see him go
-Plo Koon is smart but like they NEED HELPPPPPPP
-Dooku: "it" Anakin: I am going to slap you so hard you gon shift REALITIES, bitch
Tune in next week for chapter Nine!