"Anyone in there?"
"Yeah," Ahsoka said from inside the 'fresher, and her voice gave an ugly crack. She pushed herself up from the chilly tile, deciding that she'd overstayed her welcome by the toilet. She'd lost her sense of time. She was getting sloppy.
Ahsoka stumbled to the door and it swished open, sending her keeling forward so she nearly crashed into Hunter's chest.
"Whoa there, kid, were you sleeping in there?" Hunter said, steadying her by the shoulders. "If you wanted your own room, you coulda just asked. No need to sleep in the 'fresher."
Ahsoka forced a smile.
"Tech has some great sleep meds, you sleep but don't dream. Not the best sleep but at least it's something," Hunter said.
"Yeah, he gave me some," Ahsoka said and something unsaid flittered between them.
Hunter nodded slowly. "He'd be glad to tell you the name and everything in it if you asked."
"Thanks," Ahsoka said, and she went to meditate in the gunner's mount.
"Stop moping, kid, you're killing the vibes in here."
Ahsoka paused her finger tracing the rim of her cup and glanced up at Cid from where she'd laid her head atop her arm on the table, the other arm propped limply by her elbow with her hand dangling down. "There are no vibes."
"Because you're bringin' the mood down! Stop pouting," Cid said. "Come on, you used to be so happy. What happened to that bouncy little padawan?"
"War, Cid. War happened. War and betrayal and everyone trying to kill me and a little more war and everyone trying to kill me again."
Cid snorted and Ahsoka looked up again, raising her eye markings.
"Look at those boys," Cid said, gesturing to the Bad Batch. "They've seen things just as bad as you have, and they don't go around all depressed like you do. Everyone's constantly trying to kill them ! Tiny, too. She's young and seen a lot."
Ahsoka thought for a moment, unconsciously tracing her finger around the rim of the cup again.
"Now stop pouting. I didn't give you a free drink so you could cry in it and play with the cup. You're old enough for it now, so bottoms up!"
Ahsoka snorted. "Since when does my age matter? You tried to give me drinks all the time when I was fourteen ."
Cid shrugged and Ahsoka pushed herself up from the counter and swiped the drink, purely so Cid would stop pestering her. She took it to Wrecker, who cackled deeply and downed it like a shot.
"Hey, that drink was for you , not Muscles!"
"Don't be offended, it's not like we're friends," Ahsoka said, and wandered off to sit in a dark corner where Cid wouldn't come looking for her.
Cid was right.
Every single one of the Bad Batchers had seen things equally as horrible as Ahsoka had… including Omega. So why did Ahsoka belly ache and cry while the others pressed on like they did?
She was being a drama queen again. That's what it was.
Ahsoka drew herself together, forced a smile over her face, and fist bumped Wrecker on her way out to join the rest of them.
"You look like you're in a good mood, Comm– Ahsoka," Echo said.
"It's a great day for a mission," Ahsoka said, and her voice sounded painfully artificial to her. But Echo looked proud so she decided it was fine.
The ramp of the Marauder lowered and the six of them shuffled down.
"There's the base," Hunter said, gesturing to a gray block poking over a hill. "Let's move."
They made quick work over the mountain and got there within minutes, ducking behind boulders to make sure everything was as Cid told them, that nothing had slipped their mind.
"Be ready for anything," Hunter said as everyone readied their weapons. "Our guy's in the back and it sounds like we're going to have to put up a fight to get to her."
Wrecker laughed. "Bring it on!"
They advanced to the entrance silently and slipped past the guards. The hallway was clear, to Ahsoka's great relief. But only after a moment did they run into a tripwire, Wrecker screaming as he unceremoniously face-planted onto the hard , metal floor.
And just like that, so many armed men– looking like part of a security team– appeared in the doorways in an almost disturbing way. One of them made a very unnatural sound and they all began charging the Bad Batch.
Stun blasts began flying and Ahsoka was holding the security back until they could be stunned. But once they were stunned, hitting the floor, they peeled themselves up again like zombies.
"What's going on?!" Hunter said as he tried to kick their adversaries into another room and shut the door.
Wrecker was practically crying. "I thought Cid said infestation, not a bunch of people who can't be defeated!"
"Do we need to switch to kill?!" Echo said.
And then Ahsoka saw it. A writhing, green worm poking out from a guy's nose. She didn't know if she wanted to vomit or scream or both at the same time, but instead she tore the worm from the man's nose and stomped on it. She shoved the rest of the infected people into the next room and shut the door, telling Echo to blast the controls.
"Brain worms, from Genosis. Once got stuck on a ship full of infected clones," Ahsoka said, and all pretense of pretending to be happy left her. She stared at the floor and turned away from the clones. "Knocking out or killing anyone who is infected won't work because the worms can control them even after they're dead. We have to kill the worms. Cold can help with that."
Ahsoka turned around again to be faced by her own men, and she knew she should be confused to see Rex and his best men, but she wasn't.
"Rex," she said, addressing the man, "Take Fives and see if you can find some sort of thermostat. Turn it all the way down if you can. We want it to be as cold as possible. The rest of you, come with me. Let's go get Barriss."
"Huh, but that's not–" Hardcase was cut off by Rex elbowing him sharply in the side. "Ow! What was that for?!"
"Go with it," Rex said. "You heard the Commander, move out men!"
Ahsoka grabbed for her lightsaber, only to find that it wasn't there. She'd lost it somehow… so she'd just have to deal without it.
Time blurred for a moment and before she knew it, she was breaking into the room where Barriss was. She burst inside to find Barriss chained to the wall, screaming as infected men tried stuffing a brain worm up her nose.
Ahsoka shoved the men away and drew out their worms to rip them apart while Tup ran over and pressed every button on the control panel to figure out which one would set her free.
The chains finally relented and Barriss tumbled to the ground, not landing on her feet like Ahsoka had expected her to. It must've been bad if Barriss couldn't land upright.
"You okay, Barriss?" Ahsoka said, helping the older girl to her feet.
Barriss looked at her and frowned. Through chattering teeth, she tried, "M-my name's not–"
"Just go with it," Echo hissed.
"W-why is it so c-c-cold in here?" Barriss asked.
"The worms are affected by the cold; makes them weak," Ahsoka said. "Come on, let's go."
Time again went a little fuzzy, and soon enough they were escaping back to the outdoors, which was a drastic slap to the face of warmth. Ahsoka felt almost sick for a moment as she adjusted to the temperature and glanced over at Barriss to make sure she was okay… only to see that Barriss wasn't Barriss.
Ahsoka almost dropped the woman in surprise. She had ratty, brown hair spilling down her back and frosty purple skin.
"You ok-kay?" the woman shuddered out, teeth still chattering with cold.
"You're not– Oh my– kriff ," Ahsoka slapped herself with her free arm. "I'm sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Echo said, and he wasn't Echo anymore. Well he was Echo… just machine Echo.
"I'm sorry," Ahsoka whispered again, and blinked back tears as she shuffled after the clones, still supporting the woman's weight.
"You aren't annoyingly talkative, are you?" Hunter asked as they got back to the Marauder and Ahsoka took the woman up to the cockpit where she could sit.
The woman shook her head, a tiny, swift wiggle.
"Then you can stay up here," Hunter said and Ahsoka dumped the woman into a seat just outside the cockpit.
Ahsoka was exhausted. She hadn't slept in days and she didn't want to sleep anytime soon, but she'd meditated and that should've helped stave off the relentless pull of sleep. Maybe it was something about the mission, the flashback, and maybe meditating would help.
She meant to go off and find a dark corner to meditate in, maybe even the gunner's mount, but she was hit with a wave of fatigue so harshly that it almost knocked her off her feet. She keeled into the wall beside the door frame with enough of a crash that the other two turned to face her.
"Tano?"
"I tripped," Ahsoka said, sounding almost dark. She didn't trust herself enough to stay upright with the uncalled for vertigo taunting her motions, so she plopped down in the seat closest to her and furthest from the woman. Ahsoka faced away from her and Hunter and curled into herself.
She'd dozed off despite her best efforts not to but snapped out of it when the woman's voice broke through the air.
"Sorry, but are you okay, miss?"
Ahsoka sucked in a breath and blinked the tiredness out of her eyes. "Yeah." She turned to face the woman and surveyed her up and down. Some color had returned to her purple skin, making it appear less frosty, but she still seemed chilled. "Are you?"
"I'll get there… once I warm up and then, you know, get over being kidnapped and everything," said the woman. "I'm Elise, by the way. You are…?"
"Ahsoka."
Elise nodded and shuddered, bringing one hand up to drag it through her hair, only for her fingers to get stuck in the endless rat's nest of tangled. "Gosh," Elise hissed, trying to yank her fingers through, "sometimes I just want to chop it all off!"
"Don't do that," Ahsoka said before she could stop herself. Elise tilted her head quizzically at Ahsoka. "I mean, I've never had hair, but if I did, I wouldn't want to waste it. How long did it take that to grow? Do you really just want to hack it off, throw it away?"
Elise wiggled her fingers free and hummed. "Not exactly, but it's gotten out of control."
"I can help you," Ahsoka said instantly, automatically. "I may not have hair, but I've helped other people with theirs."
The skeptical look crossed Elise's face for only a split second before she brightened a little and said, "Okay, you can give it a try."
Elise twisted in her seat so that Ahsoka could reach her hair and Ahsoka pulled a clump of ratty hair away from the rest. She began gingerly at the tips and worked her way upward, apologizing every time she thought she pulled a little too hard. But Elise had a hard enough head.
Untangling every strand took hours, but Ahsoka didn't care. It was therapeutic for her, reminding her of all the times Anakin would let her play with his hair… or when Padmé would make Anakin sit on the floor while she taught Ahsoka how to braid on the couch. And besides, they had a long transit to kill.
When all Elise's hair had been freed from its great mess, she reached up to feel it and turned around to face Ahsoka with a big, shining smile. "You fixed it! If only I could get it to stay…"
Ahsoka sprang at the opportunity and offered to braid it, too. "I know it's not a permanent solution, but it may help for a while."
"No way, you can braid , too? That's impressive for someone who doesn't have any hair," Elise said.
Ahsoka shrugged.
Braiding Elise's now-smooth hair only took minutes since it'd just been detangled and Ahsoka tied twin braids off with thin strings of bandages.
"Thank you so much, Ahsoka, you're a lifesaver," Elise said.
Ahsoka just smiled, even though Elise couldn't be further from the truth. It was Ahsoka's fault that so many clones died during the purge. If only she'd been quicker, thought of a better way of getting out, maybe the cruiser wouldn't have gone down, maybe it would've ended differently. Maybe it would've ended with less fatalities.
Maybe it could've been better.
