Stories from the Archives

Chapter 2 – Oops

This is probably one of the silliest scene ideas I've had, but I just had to write it out.

Hope you enjoy.

;-

Captain Rex of the 501st walked through the corridors of their flagship the Resolute. Helmet under his arm, he thought about their current situation.

Their diplomatic mission had been a complete success. The planet will be joining the Republic. With General Skywalker of on a solo mission, the negotiations had fallen to his Padawan Ahsoka. He had been very relieved to see that their Commander had paid more attention to General Kenobi's lessons when compared to Skywalker. Ahsoka had performed the negotiations expertly and it all went smoothly. Their troops had some nice downtime on the planet as well. It couldn't have been a better mission.

Now they were being deployed to a new battle. Upon receiving the news, he had called all troopers back to the Resolute to prepare for departure. Everyone had quickly reported in and boarded. They had made quick work of securing everything onboard and then they made the jump to Hyperspace.

He was proud of his battalion. This was one of the smoothest departures they'd had. Something always had seemed to go wrong in the past. Just this one random thing that didn't want to participate with the troopers or someone causing trouble. "But not this time," he thought satisfied.

His commlink went off, so he stopped walking and moved his wrist up. He activated the connection and a small hologram of Ahsoka's upper body popped up.

"Hello Rex," she greeted him. "So, what's the status?"

He was a little confused by her question, but answered regardless. "Commander, Its all going smoothly. Everything and everyone's packed up and ready. We'll arrive at the rendezvous in one hour, then into battle thirty minutes after that. We're ready to go," he explained to her.

Ahsoka nodded slowly, not replying for a short moment. "And you didn't forget anything?" she asked neutrally.

"No Commander, everything went well this time," he answered. "No hungover clones lagging behind or suddenly missing inventory of supplies or suspicious packages of contraband between them." That had been the most pressing issues in their previous deployments, but not this time.

Ahsoka was silent for a moment again. He wasn't sure why. It unnerved him a little, if he was honest.

"Are you sure you didn't forget anything?" she asked him, her face a little too straight for his comfort.

He quickly ran through his mental checklist again. Not being able to come up with anything that he might've missed, he answered: "Yes, Commander, we have everything."

"Are you sure?" Ahsoka asked him again, her voice beginning to betray signs of annoyance.

He was getting a bit concerned now. He ran through his checklist two more times, but he came up with nothing. The annoyed twitch in her face made him worried. "Alright, I give up sir. What did we forget?" he asked.

He saw her take a slow, deep breath. No doubt trying to push away her annoyance into the Force. He'd seen both her and Skywalker do such things before. She then looked him in the eyes again.

"Me."

He tried but failed to keep his confusion from showing on his face. "I-I'm sorry, what?" he asked. He must not have heard her correctly.

Ahsoka crossed her arms over her chest, letting out an annoyed sigh. "You forgot me," she replied.

Rex felt his good mood evaporate and a numb chill took him over instead. They'd forgotten Ahsoka? They'd left their Commander behind?!

"As I do believe I informed all of you," Ahsoka continued. "I was headed back to the palace for a round of closing negotiations, mainly just a formality and answering a few other questions they had. Then suddenly during our talk, one of their staff came in to inform us that the Resolute had apparently left orbit and jumped to Hyperspace. I went to check and sure enough, you are all gone."

She was looking at him with a gaze of pure annoyance. He barely resisted flinching away from her, despite the fact that she was just a tiny hologram on his wrist. "Uhm… C-Commander… I… uh…" he stuttered out.

"What now captain?" Ahsoka asked. "Are you coming back to pick me up?"

He did a brief calculation of the distance and travel time, but he already knew the answer. There was no way they could go back now, pick up the Commander and fly back to the rendezvous before the battle started. It was impossible to get her before the battle began. "We…" he began carefully, "we won't have the time to get you before the battle begins."

He swallowed nervously as he watched her facial expression betray small twitches of all manner of annoyance and frustration. His nervousness only increased as she suddenly gave him a smile that was far too warm for the situation, with a twinkle of something in her eyes.

"Well then," Ahsoka started in a chillingly cheerful tone, "it looks like I have some impromptu vacation time on my hands. Don't worry, I'll be fine. The royal family here have already kindly offered me a place to stay should I need one. I'll take them up on their gracious offer. Guess I'll just be taking it easy for the next couple of days or so. Have fun with the briefing and good luck in the battle, Captain. Goodbye!" With that, she cut the transmission before Rex could think to reply.

He continued to stare at his commlink in shock, before he put on his helmet and quickly shot off orders and inquiries to the rest of the 501st. She had to be pranking him. There was no way they'd actually left her behind. No way.

Twenty frantic minutes later, they all had to accept it. They had forgotten their Commander. They'd left Ahsoka behind on the planet. Of all the blunders they'd had with departing worlds, this had to be the worst one.

"The worst one so far!" Fives commented helpfully, earning him a salvo of random objects flung to his face, courtesy of several other troopers in earshot.

Rex groaned and walked out the room. This felt like a bad dream. Ahsoka was never going to let them live this down. How could they have left her behind?! They had no time to do anything about it now. And in under ten minutes he was needed for the… "Oh crap…" he muttered out loud.

"Have fun with the briefing" Ahsoka's words echoed through his mind.

How in the seven Corellian hells was he supposed to explain this one to Skywalker?

;-

That's the end of this chapter.

I will most likely end up doing a second part to this one. Featuring a poor Rex during the briefing, an unbelieving Anakin and vacation Ahsoka.

Until next time.