Hi everyone, hope you're doing well during this season! Obviously I'm not sure where everyone lives, but where I am, we just went into lockdown again so I wanted to send a friendly reminder to take care of yourself and keep safe. And if anyone feels like a chat, I'd love to get to know you guys!
I hope the last chapter was okay for you! It was dark for sure haha. This next one isn't as dark, but we're still dealing with zygerrians, so I thought I'd just let you know that there is still some mentions of violence and abuse. I'll leave a chapter summary at the end if you'd rather stick with that for now. I'll definitely let you know in the chapter notes when we're out of zygerrian territory.
Love you all, and enjoy the story!
CHAPTER TRIGGERS: Torture, Physical Abuse. Read at your own risk.
PREVIOUSLY...
She's just shy of seventeen when she's admitted into the facility for the last time. Bruno Denturri tosses her to Keeper Agruss and claims that he will be back for her when he finishes seeing through business offworld. He never does, and she's left indefinitely in the hands of the Keeper and his guards. Left to a life of labour and torture, waiting for her slaver that will never return.
She doesn't know that Bruno Denturri was killed by Anakin Skywalker, doesn't know that he's one step closer to finding her. All she knows is that if she keeps her eyes down and remains hard at work, she might be granted a moment more spared of the zygerrians' hungry eyes and lashing whips.
TWO: Slaves of the Republic
Rex doesn't like this plan one bit. It's highly unorthodox, too risky and entirely different from the types of missions he was trained for. He's a soldier, not an undercover operative. He's not at all cut out for this, and if he's honest, he's not entirely sure that the two Jedi are either.
"Sir, I don't know the first thing about being a slaver," he tells Anakin honestly, hoping at least for a bit more of an explanation if it's not enough to deter him from the plan.
"I'd be worried if you did," is his reply. "Just... don't stop to help the slaves, no matter how tempting, and don't shy away from any eye contact. And try not to look down if you can."
The explanation doesn't make him feel any better, and neither does the scowl that seems to have permanently settled on Anakin's face. He doesn't know much about his general's time as a slave, but he does know that if not stopped by General Kenobi, he very well may have murdered the zygerrian they had encountered on Kiros. Rex thinks that he's too close to the mission, but that's not for him to say.
"Sound advice," Obi-wan remarks from behind him, wearing nothing but tattered pants and a pair of shackles. "I only wish it wasn't me that had to play the part of the slave."
Anakin scoffs a little bitterly. "Yeah, well I tried it once. I wasn't any good at it. Besides, I need to use my… charm to bedazzle the queen."
"Force help us all," Obi-wan says dramatically, and Rex too might have found it amusing if he was not so concerned. Anakin's personal vendetta against slavers is enough of an obstacle to the mission without Obi-wan's presence provoking him further. He doesn't know what the Jedi Council was thinking by sending the two of them together for this. "And how exactly are you going to get an audience with the queen?"
"I… knew a zygerrian once," Anakin explained a little uneasily. "Well I didn't know him, but… he had a strained relationship with her. I'll name drop. His name was Bruno Denturri. She'll be curious."
"If their relations are strained, how is that going to gain us favour?" Obi-wan asks. Rex is surprised he didn't pick it up by the way Anakin had explained. He would have thought his species would be enough to suggest his fate by Anakin's hand.
"I caught him smuggling slaves on Ryloth, so I killed him."
"Anakin!"
"He was a slaver, Obi-wan! Don't lecture me on it!" The dark gleam in Anakin's eye is back again, and this time, Obi-wan seems to pick up on it too, because he tenses. Rex wishes Cody was here to help him mediate. He knows that the generals aren't on good terms with each other, but now the resentment seems more so than usual. They're unusually quick to challenge each other, especially Anakin.
"I hope I don't need to remind you that you're a peacekeeper. Don't let what happened to Ahsoka allow you to forget." Obi-wan doesn't meet Anakin's eyes when he speaks, and neither does Anakin, so Rex is the only one that catches the pain in both of their eyes. He's sure that it's reflected in his own as well, but he likes to think that he's slightly more accustomed to losing friends in war.
"Whatever, old man. We're on a tight schedule."
There's nothing more to say, so nothing more is said. The three of them adjust their disguises and board the ship, and Rex seeks out the company of Oddball in the cockpit while the Jedi make themselves comfortable at the back, and as far away from each other as possible. As much as the tension is making things difficult between the three of them, he understands.
It's Ahsoka's people that they're rescuing, and it's hard to be reminded of her. Of how they failed her. She was his family as much as she was theirs. He just hopes that they won't fail her this time. It's the least they could do.
"Everything alright back there?" The 212th pilot asks as he checks the controls one last time.
"You know how they are, Oddball. It shouldn't be them. Not for this mission," Rex tells him.
"Yeah. What I'd give to see what goes on in the Council's head sometimes," Oddball scoffs, and Rex looks back towards the Jedi out of habit. It's not usually a problem with those two as their Generals, but he knows there are Jedi generals that would be less forgiving for comments like that. He lets it go. Oddball isn't really his trooper to reprimand, and he knows that his lack of tact is more than compensated by his piloting skills.
It's silent for most of the journey, apart from the dull hum of the engines. Rex leans his head back against the co-pilot seat and tries to allow himself to rest. He doesn't quite manage to sleep, especially not with the clunky zygerrian armour he's wearing, but he manages to forget what's to come, even if it's just for a bit. It feels like only a moment has passed before he feels the familiar jerk of the ship landing. He opens his eyes and makes to join the generals. Oddball grabs his arm before he gets too far.
"Rex," he looks slightly conflicted, and it makes Rex frown. Oddball has never been one to tiptoe around his words. "He tries not to show it, but I know that General Kenobi took it hard when Commander Tano… you know… and now with the Togrutas…" his eyes pleaded with Rex's. "Will you watch over my General too for me?"
He nods. "You know you don't need to ask, vod," he tells him, and Oddball looks relieved.
"I… yeah. Thanks. Take care of yourself too, Captain."
Rex gives him one more pat on the pauldron before he heads out. The Jedi are already outside and waiting for him. Obi-wan looks at him expectantly while Anakin has already started the journey towards the marketplace.
"Shall we, Captain?" Obi-wan asks him, and Rex lets him lead the way. Anakin slows his pace to allow the two of them to catch up after a while. The heat and the disguises make for an irritating journey, but they make good time.
"Sands and slave auctions. It's like I'm home," he jokes as they reach the busy market centre. Obi-wan doesn't look like he appreciates it, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he keeps his eyes down and plays his part as a submissive. He's good at it, from the smug looks he gains from the slavers around him.
"We should split up now," Anakin says, and he turns to Rex. "Look around to see if you can find any sign of the colonists. Obi-wan and I are going to try to talk with the queen. Keep your comms handy."
"Yes, Sir. Good luck," he mutters quietly and with a dismissive nod, they part ways.
Rex remembers after a while what Anakin told him about keeping his head high, and his gaze challenging. As he complies, his eyes are free to wander, and he doesn't like what he sees one bit. Oppression and cruelty in every direction. He has the urge to deck every zygerrian with a whip on their belt, but he was warned not to act, so he doesn't.
It doesn't take long for him to spot a togruta male at the bottom of a slave pit. He's a long way down, and shackled to the wall from what he can see from this height. He knows he can't go down there, knows that he won't have a way back up. Reluctantly, he walks away before he can gain any unwanted attention. He'll have to come back later.
He scopes out the rest of the market. The more he sees, the more he realises just how sick this place is. It's big, and more well established than he would have thought possible. It's a wonder they were able to operate for this long under the Republic's scrutiny. After they rescue the colonists, he hopes they'll get a chance to shut it down for good.
Rex thinks he's just about done with his recon, and is about to head back towards the togruta he passed earlier when he passes two slavers gossiping near him, and what he overhears causes him to halt.
"... caught two Jedi!" One whispers excitedly. The other only smirks. "It was the big shots, Skywalker and Kenobi. Don't know what the Jedi were thinking, sending two of the most well known Jedi to spy, but they're being dealt with in the pit."
"Now? Well this, I've got to see!"
Rex's heart is racing. He doesn't know how things went on the Generals' end, but Rex still knows nothing of the colonists, and isn't likely to find anything if he can't talk to the Togruta. He'd have to rescue the Generals, and they'd have to replan.
The two slavers make their way towards the pit, and Rex follows some distance behind them. Once he arrives, it's hard to miss. Especially with Obi-wan in the centre on his knees a level below where he is, and Anakin standing behind him brandishing an electro-whip.
"Strike him, Skywalker!" The queen demands, her voice carrying loudly through the open space. "Prove to me that you're not a Jedi! Or die beside him!"
Rex inches closer with a hand on his blaster. Somehow, he manages to meet Anakin's gaze, and he nods slightly. He's ready if Anakin is planning to fight his way out of this.
"You leave me no choice, your highness," Anakin calls out, and the electro-whip bursts to life. He rears it back and cracks it at the guard closest to Obi-wan. It curls around his weapon, and tugs it out of his hand.
Rex wastes no time in joining the fight. Pulling out the blasters at his side, he fires from above, then at his sides as the guards beside him realise he too is a threat. Zygerrian blasters are just about as horrible as their armour, but he's been trained to improvise with any weapon at his disposal, and they're better than nothing. He shoots round after round, less accurate than he's known for, but more than enough for them to be fatal.
They close in faster around him, and he knows that he's fighting a losing fight. From below, he sees that Anakin and Obi-wan aren't faring any better.
The decision to glance down proves to be a mistake, and he's tackled down by a guard who gets too close. The two of them fly off their platform and land hard beside two Jedi. The guard that attacked him appears to be unconscious from the fall, but there are many more guards down below, and he's quickly replaced by many more.
Rex doesn't even manage to retrieve his fallen blaster before an electro-whip is coiled around his arm, and electricity runs like fire through his veins. He drops back down on his hands and knees, trying to breathe through the immense pain, but it doesn't let off. His muscles clench hard with the current and he can't move. He doesn't even notice that he's screaming until he distantly hears Obi-wan's voice join his.
He's blacking out. He knows it, and he tries to fight it. The Jedi need him to fight. Fight it! But he lifts his head to see Obi-wan drop to the floor unconscious and he knows that if got the better of a Jedi, it's only a matter of time until it gets the better of him too. All he can do while he waits is breathe and scream.
Eventually, unconsciousness overtakes him too.
The shift from the dimness of the zygerrian ship to broad daylight makes Rex's likely concussed head pound. He wants to shield his eyes, but his hands are shackled in front of him, and he doesn't think the guards behind him will react kindly if he brings them up, so he settles for squinting.
He doesn't recognise the planet, but the heat and the dryness reminds him a little of the planet Maridun, from a mission with General Skywalker and Secura, back when the Commander was still around.
It feels like a very long time ago. He supposes it was, things were different back then.
Rex is marched forward along with Obi-wan and the togruta from earlier in the pit. The Governor of Kiros, as it turns out. It makes Rex feel a little worse for not going back earlier, but there's nothing he can do about it now.
"My people," the Governor exclaims suddenly. "We found them!"
In front of them, dozens of the missing togruta colonists are lined up in rows, shackled like they are, as several zygerrian guards watch them, keeping them in place.
Rex is shoved with the back of a fist, and he catches himself and continues forward.
Seated on top of a platform and waiting for them is another zygerrian. From what Rex can tell from his attire and evident gluttony, it's him who the guards answer to.
"General Kenobi," he sneers down at them, and beside him, Obi-wan's jaw sets. "You should know that you will not be the first Jedi to break at our… education centre. You possess a Jedi's resolve, and it is strength and will that is my greatest enemy."
The zygerrian slams his palm into the controls of the platform, and an entire row of togrutas cry out as they drop through the floor. Rex waits, but the sound of bodies hitting the ground below never comes. They fell to their deaths.
He knows he shouldn't, but he counts the number of colonists standing in the row in front. There are seven of them, and that means that seven of them fell. He looks to the zygerrian with a new light. He's cruel, barbaric and Rex wants to kill him.
Now that I have your attention Jedi, be aware that it will not be you who suffers, should you defy me."
With a wave of his hand, the three of them are prodded forward towards the entrance of the establishment. He wants to say something. Anything. But Obi-wan's eyes are downcast, and the Governor is now mourning the loss of his people.
Rex hopes that Anakin is faring better on his end, wherever he may be.
After nearly a day and a half in the processing facility, Rex is starting to understand the true power that the zygerrians have over the slaves.
At first, it doesn't sound so bad, nothing more than manual labour, and he's seasoned for that kind of work. But he's quick to realise just how difficult it is to work to the sounds of screams of pain and to the sight of the colonists being struck down and shocked. He also realises that even his strength and training is not enough to spare him from the wear of his muscles for long. But he can't stop, because someone always notices. It's either a muscle ache, or being electrocuted.
It's psychological as much as it is physical. It's nothing short of torture. Not the kind that makes you scream, but the kind that slowly but surely wears you down.
As a cadet, he was trained to resist such things, but the zygerrians don't ask any questions. They don't want anything other than to fill their ears with the cries of others. Here, there's nothing that he can actively resist. All he can do is endure, with the uncertainty of when the nightmare will end. In a way, this is much worse.
If he, as a seasoned soldier, is quickly being worn down, he can't imagine what this place is doing to the peaceful people of Kiros.
For the first day, he remains attentively by Obi-wan's side. The zygerrians watch him closely and strike at the colonists closeby for any slip up made, however minor. Rex can see how it's slowly forcing the Jedi to misery, and he hopes that his close presence is enough to bring some kind of reassurance, no matter how small.
This is probably not what Oddball had in mind when he asked Rex to watch him, but he's not about to abandon the General to his own thoughts.
That night though, when they find their hard bunks in the common sleeping quarters, Obi-wan says quietly that they should split up. Lend his presence elsewhere, and keep an eye out for anything he can pick up about where they are. Even while being beaten down, Obi-wan is still trying to be selfless. Rex admires that, and as much as he wants to disagree, his duty is to the people just as much as it is to the Jedi.
So the next day, he stations himself elsewhere, and he lets his eyes wander. He almost doesn't want to, because all there is to see is anguish and torment and all it does is make Rex want to tear this whole place down. He knows that from what he can see, he'd be willing to kill for much less.
Still, he's a soldier and sidetracked as it is, they're still on a mission. Recon is something that is somewhat nice to fall back to, something that he knows. Twenty workstations, thirty something guards armed with whips and electro-staffs. He estimates around two hundred colonist slaves, all impaired with a shock collar. There are men and women, children and elderly.
It's close enough to the number of colonists missing from Kiros for him to know that it's unlikely that more are being held elsewhere. But it falls short enough for him to know that this place is killing the people, and will kill more of them if they remain here for much longer.
From the station next to him, he notices a smaller togruta walk by with a load of rock in her cart. Her back is towards him, but he thinks it's strange that she's alone. Many of the other colonists have gravitated towards their loved ones, though in a place like this, it's more than feasible that her family has perished at some point in their stay.
The sight is nothing special, but for some reason he can't let her out of his eyesight. Maybe it's because she reminds him of his failed duty as a protector. But maybe it's also because there's something about her that reminds him of his long gone vod'ika.
She dumps her load and turns, making her way back towards another station a little further away. He continues to stare, though now it's hard to because she's getting further and there are plenty of people in the way. Dark blue chevrons on white lekku, and though he can't quite make out her skin colour through the grime, he wants to say sienna, though it's duller than what he remembers on his Commander.
Then she looks up, not enough to meet his gaze, but enough for him to see her blue orbs.
No.
At first, Rex thinks he is seeing things. It's possible, his head is already light from dehydration and he's surrounded by many other Togruta colonists, all of them somewhat leading his thoughts to her. But he'd recognise those blue eyes anywhere, even under the dim lighting of the mines.
But that wouldn't make any sense…
Ahsoka Tano had been declared KIA three years ago. What is she doing in a slave processing facility?
She's out of sight before he can react, and he panics. Blindly, he tries to hurry in her direction, but he's stopped by a guard, who glares harshly at him.
"Back to work, skug!" he growls, and Rex blurts out an apology and heads back in the direction towards where he last saw Obi-wan.
No. He's seeing things. Those weren't her eyes.
But even if he's mistaken about who they belong to, he knows that she's been here longer than the other colonists. He knows that in the same way that he knows who the war-worn veterans are amongst his brothers. And though he didn't think much of it at the time, Agruss claimed to have processed other Jedi. That alone is enough to suggest that maybe, maybe, he's not crazy.
He reaches Obi-wan, and he tries to say something but his words are stuck in his throat. How can he even begin to explain that he thinks it's possible they abandoned one of their family?
"Everything about this place is designed to shatter the will," Obi-wan says quietly to him, or maybe to himself. "It's already begun to affect these poor people."
Rex doesn't have a chance to respond, because the distinct crack of a whip sounds from behind them, followed by a strangled cry. He whips around.
"Speech is forbidden," the guard standing in front of them taunts. One of his hands is outstretched, holding the togruta girl out in front of them, while the other holds out a whip, crackling with energy.
His heart drops. Next to him, it looks like Obi-wan has forgotten how to move.
The togruta that he's holding is Ahsoka. There's no mistaking her this time, severely malnourished and heavily scarred as she is. Now with a full sight of her in front of him, his gaze drops to her right lekku which was concealed from the angle he had before. The tip of it is missing, severed from her level of her shoulder. He's horrified. She doesn't even look up.
"I'm sorry," Obi-wan pleads with him. His voice is smaller than Rex has ever heard. "Please, it won't happen again."
"You were warned that it is not you that will be punished," the guard only sneers at him as he shoves Ahsoka in front of them and brings his whip back down on her.
CHAPTER SUMMARY:
Rex, Anakin and Obi-wan are on their undercover mission to Zygerria to find out what happened to the missing Togruta colonists from Kiros. Rex feels uneasy about the mission, partly because Anakin is unpredictable around slavers as is seen when he admits that he killed a slaver named Bruno Denturri while he was offworld, and partly because Anakin and Obi-wan don't get along with each other. The mission is also to rescue Togrutan people, and Rex thinks that the reminder of Ahsoka will not do good for any of them on a mission that is so sensitive.
During the mission, Rex is undercover as a zygerrian guard while Obi-wan pretends to be a slave with Anakin as his slaver. Rex wanders around the zygerrian slave market but doesn't uncover any useful information. He soon learns that Anakin and Obi-wan were discovered and captured. He goes to rescue them, but the three of them are subdued and rendered unconscious.
Rex wakes up with Obi-wan and the Governer of Kiros, and the three of them are sent to a slave processing facility. They realise that they're with the missing Togruta colonists, but they can't do anything about it because the zygerrians threaten to punish the colonists if they act out of line. On the second day in the processing facility, Rex realises that Ahsoka is not dead, but is also a slave in the facility. He realises that she's been here longer than any of them. Obi-wan slips up in front of a guard, and the guards punish Ahsoka for it, making good of their threat to punish others for their mistake.
And that's where we leave off for the next chapter! Hope you enjoyed it. Surprisingly, this story is coming to me quite easily. I already have a big part of the third and fourth chapter written believe it or not! Maybe it's just me being bored in lockdown.
Feedback is always welcome.
See you for chapter 3!