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Jarik POV...
On one of the CR90 corvette's our ship was docked too, Ahsoka, Mara and I were in the communications room around the holotable, with the rest of the Ghost Crew. Commander Sato was on another ship, taking part of the meeting through a hologram. I was leaning against the wall with crossed arms, staring at the ground in thought, half listening in to the meeting. Mara was standing beside Sabine at the holotable, and Ahsoka stood slightly in front of me, more attentive, although just as quiet as she surveyed the group, hands on her hips.
The door into the room opened, revealing Kanan and Ezra, who entered with a stride. Ezra moved over towards the other side of Sabine, while Kanan went to stand by Hera. Commander Sato gave no mind and continued speaking. "The destruction of our command ship has severely limited our ability to fight the Empire in this sector."
"So maybe we don't fight!" Ezra says loudly, before realizing sheepishly that he was interrupting. "Uh, Commander Sato, sir," he apologizes sheepishly, earning a small grin from Mara before he continued. "When things got tough for me on Lothal, I'd go find some place to hide," he suggests.
Ahsoka smiles warmly at him as Sato speaks, and I perk up slightly. "You are never shy with your opinions, Ezra Bridger, but establishing a base is a good idea." Sato agrees.
"Problem is, none of the potential bases we know of have the tactical advantage we need to protect what's left of our fleet," Hera states in concern.
"Or aid the nearby systems suffering from Imperial oppression." Kanan speaks up, not being very subtle in suggestion.
To my amusement, Hera isn't having any of it. "We can't help others if we can't help ourselves, Kanan," she says firmly, and he frowns in annoyance. "If only we had more allies."
Ahsoka takes the moment to intervene. "I know someone, who might be able to help us," she says, getting everyone's attention. She then begins to walk slowly around the room as she continues. "A great military commander with a vast knowledge of the Outer Rim. He could assist us in finding a base, and his experienced leadership would make him a powerful ally."
"I really want to meet those guys," Mara mutters to herself, and I roll my eyes.
"How do we recruit this leader?" Commander Sato asks carefully.
"That's the problem. I lost track of him a long time ago, and all my transmissions have gone unanswered." Ahsoka replies with a frown.
"We can find him. Let us try." Ezra said confidently.
I give off a loud, and obviously fake cough and clear my throat at that statement. The others look at me briefly in confusion, but Ahsoka understands what I was trying to convey, and Mara sort of gets the meaning as well. Kanan and clones, do not mix.
"I get it Jarik," Ahsoka tells me with a small sigh. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."
"What do you mean?" Kanan asks in confusion.
I let off a sigh of resignation. "You'll find out soon enough. We just have to find them first."
"Them?" Sabine asks cautiously. I give off a shrug.
"He had war buddies," I reply rather vaguely. Most of them look slghtly wary or suspicious, but they accept the answer nonetheless.
"S how do we find him?" Ezra asks.
Ahsoka then perks up lightly with a small smirk. "Well, there is one option I've not yet attempted," she admits.
She looks at me with a raised eyebrow, and I stare back at her in confusion before realizing wha she meant. That thing.
"Oh. Who am I kidding?" I mutter sarcastically.
Mara POV...
"Am I really going to finally meet your old war buddies from those stories you told me?" I ask dad excitedly, an eager expression on my face.
"Yes, you are, but not for the reasons you think," he responds seriously. "You remember what Order 66 was right?" he asks me.
I nodded my head. "Yeah. The protocol that Palpatine used to turn the clones against the Jedi right?"
"Yeah, and as we've told you before, Rex, Boil, and their friends are clones too. Kanan doesn't know the truth about why the clones really turned on the Jedi," he told me.
I widened my eyes in understanding. "Oh... so he might attack them?"
"In the worst case scenario, yeah," he replies. "If he does get to that point, then you'll have to smooth things out between the clones and the Crew, alright?"
"I understand dad," I tell him sincerely.
He nods his head in satisfaction. "Great. Good luck Mara," he says, turning around and heading back towards the docking tube.
I watch him go just as mom comes back with the tactical droid head in her arms. When they both walk by each other they don't give any indication or reaction to the other, just staying silent. I bite my lip lightly, worried and at the same time irritated by this weird divide between them that came out of nowhere. It had to be because of Vader but I just don't understand why!
"You ready Mara?" mom asks me, and I walk alongside her.
I scoffed confidently. "For this? I was born ready."
She gives me a small smile before we walk through the doors into the Ghost's cockpit, where everyone except Zeb was gathered. As we walk in, they all turned their heads to look at what mom was carrying, Kanan and Sabine both widening their eyes in surprise.
"Is that, the head of an old tactical droid?" Kanan asks in bewilderment.
Mom gives the droid head to Sabine, who stares incredulously at it. "These droids were great at finding things, calculating," she says, scoffing lightly. "Found my master and I a few times when we didn't want to be found."
"How in all the galaxy is that droid gonna find your friend?" Ezra asks doubtfully.
"Jarik's already configured it to seek out the frequency of their mobile home. All you'll have to do is just plug it in, and it'll work just fine," she says, before turning back towards the door. "I heard he was last seen in the Seelos system. You can start there."
"You're not coming with us?" Ezra asks in confusion.
"I have something else to attend to," she replies vaguely.
"Darth Vader," Kanan realizes.
Mom stills slightly in response to the name, but then continues on. "There are questions, questions that need answering."
"I wish we could go with you." Ezra says in disappointment.
She turns to look at him. You have your own mission, Ezra... but this is something me and Jarik have to look into," she says, and I can sense her uneasiness when she turns to me.
"Mara, makes sure nothing too crazy happens," she says, and while everyone else doesn't understand, I nod my head. "I will mom."
"Good," she replies with a smile, turning to Kanan. "And, Kanan, if you find my friend, you must trust him."
Kanan smiles back at her in slight amusement and confidence. "If he's all the things you say, we can't afford not to."
However, mom just frowns at him with narrowed eyes. "Trust him," she says seriously, and the door closes in her face.
Kanan and Ezra both stare at where she disappeared with weird looks on their faces. "What was that about?" Ezra asks.
"I have no idea." Kanan replies slowly. With no answer, they both turn to me.
"Seriously, why was Ahsoka acting so weird?" Ezra asked.
I coughed into my hand, glancing briefly at Kanan before giving the best reply. "Let's just say that... when you see him, don't freak out. From what mom and dad have told me, there isn't anyone else they trust more than me, or themselves," I tell them.
'Until now,' I though in my head secretly, thinking back about all the tension between them right now.
"that still doesn't answer the question very well," Kanan says with a frown.
"Please... just trust him, like I will," I said seriously.
They both eyed in each in confusion, and Sabine narrowed her eyes at me with a hint of suspicion, which I ignored. Hera then detached the Ghost from the corvette, and we blasted off into hyperspace, headed for Seelos.
Jarik POV...
I sat on the bed in me and Ahsoka's room, holding the holocron in my hand with a contemplating look on my face. I closed my eyes and focused on the Force, feeling for the holocron I was holding. Despite being a regular holocron from the inside, it had an unusually vast amount of knowledge inside it, which I still sometimes have trouble unlocking. Which means this is a rather old holocron. Either way, there were still things I could learn from it... especially when I don't expect it.
As I activate the holocron, letting it hover above my hand, a small hologram streams forth from it, casting the room in a dim, blue glow. I keep my eyes closed, but I can sense the hologram being a recording of Satele. Haven't seen her in a while, aside from her journal.
"It's good for young Jedi Knights to have a trustworthy assistant," she says, and the hologram fades away again.
I open my eyes, and hold the holocron in my hands again with a sigh, those words getting to me. I know it's just a recording, but I seem to have an awful lot of random things shown to me that always have something to relate to what was currently going on in my life. Force visions of the future, which I have an awful lot of, and the holocron always having some quote from Satele that relates to my current problems whenever I open it.
This time it just made me feel more guilty, as it only reminds me of how I diminished some of Ahsoka's trust in me by not telling her the truth about Anakin. I know when it comes to life and death, we trust each other in a way no one else does. However, when it comes to secrets, which we usually told each other, there was now doubt about what was true and what wasn't. I placed the holocron beside me on the bed and looked down, unsure of what to do.
The silence is then broken as the door opens, revealing Ahsoka standing in the doorway. I look up at her as she leans against the wall, crossing her arms.
"We have to talk," she says.
"What else is there to talk about? I already told you what happened," I replied.
"You gave me a summarized version of it. I want to know the whole thing," she says firmly, leaving no room for argument.
I stayed quiet, staring at the floor as I thought over how to do this. I could sense her growing slightly impatient as I continued to remain quiet, before eventually coming to a decision. I know most of what happened, but I don't know what happened on Mustafar, being occupied with Barriss...
It would probably be good to learn the truth and also hear it from another man... an old friend. I stood up from the bed, hesitant, but also determined.
"Alright, I'll tell you, but we have to go somewhere first," I told her.
She raised an eyebrow at me in confusion and wariness. "Why would we need to go somewhere?"
I headed for the door, but stopped at her question. "To figure out how Anakin really survived Mustafar," I said seriously, and this caught her attention.
Mara POV...
"We get all the way to Seelos, and now you tell me the hyperdrive wasn't completely fixed?" Hera's voice exclaimed angrily from the cockpit.
Great. We barely arrived in the Seelo system, having come out moments ago and we were already having some serious issues. Just typical. I crossed my arms and shook my head in exasperation. Kanan raised an eyebrow at the yelling and climbed up the ladder to the cockpit.
"You finished the important repairs? How did you define 'important?'" she yelled angrily.
Kanan then popped his head up, while the rest of us watched in a mixture of amusement and exasperation. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Chopper and I are staying here. To clean up his mess! Take the Phantom. Hopefully we'll be ready to go by the time you get back!" she replied.
Kanan climbed back down the ladder to face us, an exasperated expression on his face.
"So, what's the problem?" Ezra asked.
"Chopper forgot to fix the hyperdrive," he answered with a deadpan.
Zeb growled in annoyance. "He's gonna forget how to fix himself when I'm through with him," he said, bashing his knuckles together.
"Cool it Zeb, we're taking the Phantom," Kanan said.
"And tis, is why R5 is much better, despite being just as annoying," I said with a smirk.
"I beg to differ," Sabine replies with a frown.
"Trust me, the Knight Hawk is practically R5's baby," I told her.
Within a few moments, Kanan, Ezra, Zeb, Sabine and I were all piled into the Phantom, which detached from the ship and headed down to Seelos. Once we were in the atmosphere, Sabine fiddled with the tactical droid's head before placing it on the console.
"Well, let's fire this thing up," she says, although I can sense a hint of doubt in her voice.
"Relax, if my dad fixed it up, it'll work just fine," I tell them with a smile.
"If you say so," she replies slowly, before glancing at the droid head as it begins to make a constant buzzing noise. "I think it's scanning for a signal of some kind," she theorizes.
"Good luck. You could really get lost out here." Ezra observed.
"Maybe that was the idea." Zeb told him. "What if this great commander we're looking for doesn't want to be found?"
"Once he knows my parents sent us, I'm sure he will," I told them.
The tactical droid then beeped, and began spouting off numbers. "~7567. 2376.~"
I recognize those numbers as belong to Captain Rex and Boil. We were getting close.
(There's no canon number for Boil, so I made one up.)
"It's homing in on something!" Sabine realizes.
"~7567. 2376.~" the droid repeats again continuously. Kanan steers the Phantom in the direction that the signal was broadcasting. We continued onwards for several more moments until Zeb pointed out the window.
"There. Up ahead!" he exclaims.
Far in the distance, an object begins coming into shape, and the droid continues to beep a little bit fast. We were getting close, and I was eager to meet these guys.
"~7567. 2376.~"
Once we get close enough, we see that it is actually a moving walker tank, covered in a bunch of random things to make it look more like a mobile house than a machine of war. I think it's probably an old AT-TE tank.
"Whoa." Ezra says in surprise.
"Now that is a work of art." Sabine says in admiration.
"Looks like an old Republic tank... used during the Clone Wars." Kanan says, a frown coming onto his face. I glance at him worriedly, already sensing the distrust within him. Definitely a good thing I was here.
As Kanan brought the Phantom down to land, the walker stopped moving. We all exited the ship, gazing up at the tank in a mixture of excitement, wonder, curiosity, and in Kanan's mind, suspicion.
"Ezra, Mara. Be on guard." Kanan says as we depart the ship.
I scoffed. "There's nothing to be 'on guard' about. These guys were friends of my parents."
"So they say," Kanan mutters, and I narrowed my eyes about him, but didn't say anything else in response. We all stood in front of the tank, and I moved up to the front, a hopeful expression on my face. It took them a while, but finally the door opened, and five men walked out, four looking old.
The man in the lead was bald with a white beard, wearing armor with old blue paint. Beside him was another man that looked remarkably similar, but he had a head of grey hair, and a mustache, also colored grey. His mixture of armor and clothing had yellowish highlights, from old paint. The other three I didn't pay attention to, but one of them felt kind of loopy and crazy, while the other was very suspicious, and he had a cybernetic eye. The last I couldn't really make out at the moment, but he seemed a lot younger than the rest. They were all scattered along the railing, and I grinned, feeling one thing they all had in common.
"It's just a bunch of old geezers." Zeb scoffed.
"Well-armed old geezers," Sabine pointed out cautiously.
"What do you want?!" The lead man shouted down.
"We're looking for someone!" Kanan yelled back.
The lead man leaned against the railing. "Well, that's too bad, 'cause there's nobody out here," he said sarcastically.
"Hey, uh, does the number 7567, and 2376 mean anything to you?" Ezra called out, and I stiffened slightly. Here comes the hard part.
The lead man, as well as the rest all got defensive immediately. I still had yet to know who was who, since I've never seen them before. "What did you just say?" he demanded.
"Uh, I said 7567, and 2376?" Ezra responded hesitantly.
"I haven't heard those digits in... Well the first one is my birth number!" he replied in bewilderment. That must mean he's Rex!
"What about the second number?" I asked hopefully.
"That's me... who are you!?" the clone with yellowish orange spoke up with a frown. and there's Boil!
"Birth number?" Ezra mutters in confusion.
"They're clones!" Kanan exclaims angrily. He steps in front of us and whips out his lightsaber, which all of the clones widen their eyes at.
"Kanan, wait. Stop!" Ezra yells.
"Jedi! They've come for revenge!" the clone with the cybernetic eye exclaims in a panic. He raises his blaster and fires off two shots, which Kanan deflects to the side. Zeb and Sabine both respond angrily and whip our their own blasters, aiming them at the clones. This was getting ridiculous!
"Drop the blaster, old man!" Zeb yells.
"Don't try it, boyo! I'll gun you down!" another clone yells, and Boil raises his own blaster as well, although with some hesitancy.
"WIll you just stop it!" I yelled angrily. I whipped out my own lightsaber, and then slashed the purple blade at Kanan's, knocking it to the ground. everyone stared at me in bewilderment.
"Mara, what are you doing!" he yelled at me, calling his lightsaber back to him. However I quickly dashed forwards and caught his saber in my hand, whipping around to face him as well.
"What are YOU doing?!" I retorted.
Seeing a chance, Rex raised his arms to the rest of the group. "Stand down, troopers. Now! That's an order, soldier!"
"But he's a Jedi. A Jedi!" the clone with the eye said in a panic.
"I know. I know. But they weren't the ones that betrayed us. Remember? Wolffe, remember?" Rex says, which manages to get him to back off, although he still stares suspiciously.
Boil lowers his rifle with a small sense of guilt. "I should know..." he mutters quietly.
"Kanan, Ahsoka said to trust them!" ezra pleaded, however he wasn't having any of it.
"Not a chance. Mara, my lightsaber!" he demanded with a glare.
"Not until you calm down. Mom and dad had me come precisely for this reason," I said back, holding his lightsaber away from him, my purple blade held in my other hand. This seemed to get Rex and Boil's attention, although they were more confused.
"I don't care what Jarik or Ahsoka-" he starts to say before stopping, scowling to himself. Rex and Boil I noticed, both glanced at each other in surprise. Kanan then crosses his arms reluctantly.
"Fine," he mutters.
Satisfied, I turn off my lightsaber and toss Kanan his own back, which he catches. We then turn to the clones, and Rex speaks up again.
"Sorry about the, um, weapons malfunction!" Rex says with an amused scoff. "My friend here is just a little defensive. See, we haven't seen a Jedi since, uh...
He hesitates, and Kanan narrows his eyes at him.
"Since Bardotta?" I offer. Four of the five clones all turn to stare at me in surprise and wariness, and I smile sheepishly at them. Kanan sighs irritably.
"Yeah..." Boil says slowly, narrowing my eyes at me.
"Well, it's been a while," Rex admits, looking at me with interest. "Who are you?"
Before I could answer eagerly, Ezra steps forwards and replies, much to my irritation. "Well, my name's Ezra. This is Kanan. That's Mara, and they're Sabine and Zeb. It's nice to meet you, 7567."
"Actually my name is Rex. Captain, 501st Clone Battalion," Rex introduces, and I grin at finally getting to chance to meet these guys. "Meet Boil, Kix, and Commanders Gregor and Wolffe."
"We were sent by my parents, Ahsoka Tano and Jarik Shan," I told them.
"Wh- parents?" Kix, I believe, says in bewilderment. The others are all surprised and shocked as well. Guess that was quote a bomb drop, although Rex and Boil both stare at me in wonder.
"Ahsoka and Jarik..." Rex mutters. "I fought by Ahsoka's side from the Battle of Christophsis to the Siege of Mandalore."
"I was a part of the 212th Battalion, and fought by Commander Shan's side from the Second Battle of Geonosis, all the way to the fall of the Republic," Boil says, and I perk up excitedly. "Friends of Ahsoka and Jarik, are friends of ours."
Boil and Rex then look at me. "And I suppose, their daughter as well?" he half asks.
"Yup!" I answer cheerfully, and they all glance at each other, probably because they never expected Jedi to get together like that. Well, I can understand that.
"Well that's great!" one clone says, breaking the silence with an excited yet crazy grin. I think he was Gregor.
The clones all led us into a small central room in the tank, although Kix left to another place on the tank, muttering to himself. Boil watched him go with a sympathetic look in his eyes.
"Is he alright?" I asked him.
Boil sighed. "He's doing okay but, for the last 15 years he's been frozen in stassis. We only recently found him."
I looked at where he left in surprise and sadness, not able to imagine how that must felt. We stood there in silence before Boil looked at me. "So... you're Commander Shan's daughter?"
"Adopted, technically," I corrected.
He shrugged. "Well, that's still cool," he replied then looked at Rex. "Hey, Rex!"
"What?" he replies, looking up at us.
"Remember our bet? All those years ago?" he called out.
Rex frown in confusion, staring at Boil and then me for a moment before remembering whatever he was talking about. "Oh, you gotta be joking," he muttered, however he pulled a small patch of credits from his pocket and tossed them to Boil, who caught them in his hands triumphantly.
I raised an eyebrow at them. "What was that?" I asked.
"Oh, years ago me and Rex had a bet on whether or not Commander Shan and Ahsoka would ever get together and be a couple," he told me with a small chuckle, looking rather proud of himself.
I blinked in surprise before grinning. "Oh I gotta know the full story."
Before I could ask more, Zeb, followed by the rest of the group walked into the room, and Gregor looked at him. "Hey. You're a big one, aren't you?"
"Bigger than you," Zeb replied with a scowl, still upset about the whole shooting situation. I rolled my eyes.
Ezra picked up one of the clone helmets in fascination, which I just noticed as well. "Whoa!"
"Hey, hey, easy with those, son!" Rex says, sitting down.
"Oh, yeah, yeah. I might move the dust," he replied sarcastically, dropping the helmet. Boil sighed in exasperation.
"How is Commander Tano?" Rex asks curiously.
"Uh, well, in need of help. We all are." Ezra answers, moving forwards. "Look, we're trying to fight the Empire, but we're outnumbered, overmatched and taking a beating. We could use your help."
"Well, I'm not sure I'm much help to anyone these days. Didn't you hear? The Emperor said the clone army has outserved its purpose and retired us," he says casually, leaning back. However I can hear some bitterness in his tone at the mention of the Emperor. Beside me, Boil crosses his arms, a dark look on his face. "Now we spend our days just telling stories and slinging for joopas."
Kanan scoffs angrily. "This was a wasted trip! You heard the clone. He's not interested," he says, leaving the room.
"Are you serious Kanan? Just like that?" I call out after him angrily, but he ignores me, leaving the room. I growl in irritation and cross my arms. "Moron," I muttered.
"Hey, cut him some slack," Sabine said with a frown. I just rolled my eyes.
"Wait!" Ezra interrupted. "You don't like the Empire, do you?"
"Well, the Empire certainly isn't the Republic," he recalls fondly. "But you can't do anything about that."
"You could fight." Ezra suggests.
"Sorry, son. My days as a soldier are over," he replies, sitting up.
My face falls slightly in disappointment, but I perk up again. "Maybe you could help us with something else? Mom and dad said that you knew about a lot of places in the Outer Rim, even more than they did. We need to establish a base, if you have any ideas," I asked hopefully.
The clones all shared glances with each other, and although Wolffe shook his head in disagreement, the rest of them seemed to be on board with the idea.
"Well, my memory isn't what it once was, but, um, there are a few spots I never bothered to report to the Empire," he says slyly, and I smile at him. "Look, why don't you wait outside and I'll put together a list of coordinates."
"Sure," I reply, and follow the others out.
Boil POV...
"Listen, they are in some kind of trouble. If we help them, we are putting ourselves in danger!" Wolffe immediately says.
"Not this again," I complained in irritation.
"Wolffe, relax. We got the situation under control." Gregor says with a grin, patting Wolffe on the shoulder.
"Oh, really? Really?" Wolffe exclaims disbelievingly. "What do you think the Empire will do to us if they find out that we are helping a Jedi, hmm? And one so closely involved with Jarik Shan?!"
"Are you kidding me? Commander Shan met with us before, and now you're afraid we'll be caught because his daughter is here?" I demanded irritably.
"They'll hunt us down! We can't help them!" Wolffe argues.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I would like to get to know the kid a bit more," Rex adds, and I nod my head in agreement.
"Definitely. She already kinda reminds me of the Commander," I remarked with a small, longing smile.
Wolffe however, scoffs. "But the Empire-"
Gregor then interrupts him "Yeah, I don't know what the Empire would do, but I'm going slinging," he says with a smirk, heading out the door, bringing an effective end to the conversation.
Oh boy, I already know what he has in mind.
Mara POV...
"Are you just gonna lean against the railing and pout or are you gonna be helpful?" I ask Kanan with a raised eyebrow.
"Mara-" Sabine starts to say.
"What? You know he's being a little too hard!" I argue back, turning to Kanan. "So?"
"No," Kanan says bluntly, with a hint of annoyance.
Before I could say anything else, the door opens to reveal Gregor, a grin on his face. "You know, I was thinking, since we're providing you with a list of bases, um, there's something you can do to help us."
"No thanks." Kanan immediately responds.
"Sure. What can we do?" Ezra asks, contradicting him, who sighs in irritation.
"I would love too," I also add in with a smile.
"Out there, deep below, roam the joopa. Elusive big game." Gregor says dramatically. Was is just me or did he seem a little bit crazy? "When we're lucky enough to sling one in, it'll feed us for the whole year."
"Okay. What do you need?" Sabine asks.
Gregor turns around with a sly smile, and gestures over to Zeb. "Him," he says.
Zeb immediately turns around in surprise. "Huh? What?" he says quickly.
Gregor only smirks in response.
The tank was moving again, and while the others were preparing for the whole 'joopa' thing, Kanan had disappeared back into the Phantom, which we had parked on top. So Ezra and I followed after him in an attempt to make him see sense.
"Okay. You don't trust these clones, but they haven't done anything." Ezra starts off.
"You don't understand. They're dangerous. They could-" Kanan starts to say
They could what?" I demand challengingly. "My parents were great friends with them, especially Rex and Boil during, and after the war. You trust them right?"
Kanan turns around to glare at me. "You weren't there. Neither of you were even born!" he exclaims.
"What are you talking about?" Ezra asks softly.
Kanan swivels back around, fiddling with his lightsaber. "I don't feel like discussing it. You wouldn't understand."
That manages to get Ezra to back down, and he turns to leave reluctantly. However, I was still determined.
"No, I don't understand," I say in agreement. "But at least I know what happened. You forget that my dad was at the Temple when it was attacked, and my mom was also with Rex when Order 66 happened!" I argued.
Kanan stills, visibly frustrated and upset, and Ezra turned back to look at us. "Order 66?" he asks, a little confused.
Kanan sighed, and then started talking. "It was at the end, the end of the war. Our fellow soldiers, the clones, the ones we Jedi fought side by side with, suddenly turned and betrayed us," he says, and his voice starts to break slightly. "I watched them kill my master. She fought beside them for years, and they gunned her down in a second!"
Ezra was visibly shaken, glancing down sadly, and with a hint of guilt at not knowing. I was also sympathetic, and wished that had never happened to Kanan, but I knew the truth. The clones themselves were also as much a victim as the Jedi. I didn't have to be there to know that.
"And then came for me. Later they said they had chips in their heads that made them do it. Said they had no choice." Kanan says, disbelievingly at the last part.
"I didn't betray my Jedi. Not Ahsoka," a voice from the entrance said, and we turned around to see Rex and Boil. "Neither did Boil. He, Wolffe, Gregor, Kix and I all removed our control chips." Rex tells us. Kanan just glares suspiciously at him.
"During Order 66, I was stationed with the remainder of my battalion at the Jedi Temple," Boil says, getting our attention. "I was the only clone who wasn't forced to kill the Jedi. Instead, I helped Jarik and another youngling escape the Temple."
I don't think my dad ever shared that part of the attack on the Temple, so this was new to me.
"We all have a choice." Rex says quietly, and he turns away, Boil following after him.
Jarik POV...
The Knight Hawk came out of hyperspace above the planet I sent us too, and directed the ship down to its surface. Ahsoka came up and leaned over the chair, a surprised look on her face.
"Tatooine?" she says. "Why here?"
"To learn the full truth about him," I replied. There was no need to explain who 'him' really meant. She sat down in the co-pilot's seat, and then was silent for a while. I glanced over to her as we entered the atmosphere, skimming along the desert surface. She had that look in her eyes, one that I immediately recognized as longing.
"The last time I was here was my first ever mission," she said quietly.
My gaze softened, and I looked back out across the desert. "When you were rescuing Jabba's son?" I recalled.
She nodded her head. "Yeah... feels like a lifetime ago," she says softly.
I glanced at her again. "Back when life was easier... before this," I said slowly in agreement, my voice just as soft. I continued to fly the ship over the endless sea of sand, already knowing what direction to go for who we were about to meet.
Force, the memories...
Obi-Wan POV...
I dismounted my dewback back at my quiet little hut, having just come back from observing the Lars farm, watching young Luke fiddling with some sort of machine.
"Just like his father..." I mused quietly to myself.
The twin suns were setting for the evening, however as I tied the dewback up to its post near the water trough, I noticed a strange flash in the distance. Looking in its direction, I narrowed my eyes and recognized it to be some sort of ship, settled in the sand. I didn't give it to much thought, but remained cautious of how close it was. Most likely some sort of smuggler.
I patted the mount on its side and then headed towards the entrance to my hut, walking inside the door. Hanging my cloak up on the wall, I entered the living space to find a small meal for my dinner, before stopping in surprise. I then immediately became defensive, hand held on my belt, ready for the possibility of my lightsaber. There were intruders in my home.
I turned around the wall and entered the living area, a stern expression on my face. "May I ask who would be in my home at this... hour..."
My voice suddenly trailed off as I gazed upon the two people sitting on the couch, both very familiar. One was a Togruta woman with orange skin, white and blue colored lekku and montrals. She worse some sort of combat armor, styled in the Jedi fashion. The other wasa man, who was also wearing armor of a Jedi style, but he had a dark cloak on, and his hair was long, colored a dark brown. The woman looked at me in surprise, and then disbelief.
However the man wasn't surprised at all, and looked up at me. I'd recognize that face anywhere, no matter how much time had passed.
"Hey Master... I'm back. With Ahsoka," my old friend and former student, Jarik Shan said. There was a small, yet sheepish smile on his face.
Oh kriffing Force, look who it is?! Obi-Wan meet up, with Ahsoka as well! I'm sure this has you guys going crazy huh?
While I enjoyed all of the Rebels series immensely, with season one being okay, I will admit I was a little saddened we never got to see an old Obi-Wan and older Ahsoka interaction. :P
