As She Found It

by a pun or something

In the final days of the Clone Wars, just before a delayed Order 66 is to be executed, newly knighted Ahsoka Tano is sent on a doomed mission at the strange insistence of Chancellor Palpatine. And on the poisonous world of Kandor, where the cure to a new toxin ravaging the Republic is said to be waiting, she learns something that alters her view of herself forever.

Chapter One

Jedi don't mourn. Or at least, they wouldn't mourn if they never cared about anything. Attachment was the word they used for it. Jedi aren't supposed to get attached. Aren't supposed to be led by emotion.

Aren't supposed to care.

The floor of the transport rumbled under my feet, dampened vibrations shooting up my legs, and I grabbed the handhold swinging from the ceiling above my montrals, the bar a piece of ice in my palm. Even before the transport's side-door slid open, the sonic imprint of the Valiance hangar crashed into my mind, the image grainy like static from the hum of the transport rattling around me.

The voice of the shuttle pilot cut into the passenger hold, "Docking successful. Opening shuttle doors."

A small breath escaped. My first mission without Skyguy, or Master Kenobi, or anyone. My first mission with a star destroyer under my command.

My first mission as a knight.

My fingers instinctively searched for the padawan braid behind my lek, my constant companion for the last four years, and found nothing but empty air where ornate beads once tickled my neck like a safety-line reminding me I had a master to turn to if I messed up.

Now the ghost of its presence whispered reminders that my decisions began and ended with me alone, for good or for bad.

The soles of my boots thunked against the floor of the hanger, and the troopers lining the hangar—my troops—snapped crisp salutes. "General on deck!"

A trooper with a captain's stripe inking the length of his armor's right arm stepped forward, another trooper in the plainest armor I'd ever seen trailing a step behind him. "Welcome aboard, General," he said, tucking his helmet under his striped arm. "I'm CT-7424, Raile. I'll be serving directly under you for the duration of your command."

I straightened and inclined my head. "Captain."

He turned to the trooper behind him. "Get the General's things from the transport and take them to her quarters."

"Yessir."

I held up a hand. "Actually, I'm carrying everything I brought with me. No luggage service needed." If anything, years with Anakin taught to travel light.

Raile nodded and gestured toward the trooper again. "In that case, just follow this waster and he'll take you where you need to go. Assuming he doesn't get lost, of course."

I looked between them, and the plain trooper turned his helmeted head away slightly. Not enough to be disrespectful, but enough to notice. "Right this way, Ma'am."

He turned in the opposite direction of Captain Raile, and marched through the hangar toward the exit.

My brow scrunched, and I followed behind him, forcing myself not to glance at Raile as I passed. Trooper politics weren't a ledge to step off of without seeing how deep the fall was first.

I caught up to him, and he led me through halls I could have navigated in my sleep thanks to my time on the Resolute. "What's your name, trooper?"

He looked straight ahead. "RT-623, Ma'am."

Ma'am? Not sir? "I meant, what do the others call you?"

"RT-623, Ma'am."

I raised a brow. "They don't call you by your nickname?"

"I haven't been given a nickname."

The door of the General's quarters broke the hall, and he stopped and faced me fully for the first time, raising his hand in salute. "If there's anything you need, General, please let me know and I'll get on it immediately."

"Thank you... 623." Definitely needed a name if we were going to serve together. "You're dismissed."

He nodded and disappeared down the hall back toward the hangar.

As strange as he was—as strange as both of them were—I couldn't help the slight curve that tilted my lips as he rounded the corner at the end of the path.

If nothing else, this command was certainly going to be an interesting one.

OOO

I wanted to sleep. I needed to be fresh for tomorrow. But the steady trickle of adrenaline tingling through my veins chased away the brief flickers of sleepiness that came and went like ghosts. I sighed, and pushed away the scratchy blanket already tangled from rolling over who-knows-how-many times, planting my feet on the cold floor.

Maybe something to eat would smother the adrenaline.

I dressed, and shuffled through the night-empty corridors until the open door of the mess hall welcomed me inside.

It wasn't as empty.

A solitary man sat at a far table under the dim glow of the only active luminator, picking at whatever filled his dinner tray. Short hair sat tussled against his forehead, within regulation length, but beyond what would be expected. Definitely not a trooper, but no officer's uniform.

Our eyes locked, and he paused a moment before standing to his feet, offering as crisp a salute as could be asked for under the circumstances.

My hand raised on instinct more than conscious thought, but then I shook my head and lowered it. "At ease."

He broke eye contact as soon as the words left, and he hesitated before sitting back down, picking at his dinner.

My brow scrunched, and I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I got a tray and served myself whatever meat the cafeteria had to offer. Was it worth satisfying my curiosity? Or should I just take my meal back to my room and leave it alone?

I walked to his table. My shadow fell across his meal, and he looked up.

"Okay if I sit with you?"

He ducked his head in what was probably supposed to be a nod. "Of course, Ma'am."

I swung my legs over the bench seating, and set my tray down across from his, lowering myself onto the durasteel. "You can't sleep either, huh?"

"I just prefer to eat later."

"Oh?"

He nodded, but otherwise didn't look up.

The Council had outdone themselves finding me the oddest crew in the Republic. "What's your name?"

Something like a smile passed. "RT-623, Ma'am."

I blinked and pulled my head back. "You're a trooper? But, you're not…" I stopped myself before something too blunt came out.

His eyebrow quirked above an emerald gaze. "I'm not what, Ma'am?"

Deliberate ignorance duly noted, trooper. I gave him a look.

The smile faded. "One of them?" He gestured with his head in the general direction of the crew barracks.

I nodded.

"You're right, I'm not." He stabbed a clump of mush on his tray with his fork. "They make a point to remind me of that whenever convenience allows."

Captain Raile's interaction with him in the hangar flashed through my mind, and suddenly it made more sense. "Is that why you're eating here alone, rather than earlier with the others?"

"Seclusion is nicer than rejection."

The cold steel of my fork whispered quietly beneath my thumb as I traced a circle into the handle, and I chewed the corner of my mouth. What was there to say?

The seconds ticked away in silence, and the moment passed. Too late now anyway.

He continued eating, and I buried a sigh. Off to a great start leading my men so far… Maybe sympathy was better than trying to give responses I didn't have.

"This is my first mission alone," I said. "Well, my first mission without someone to fall back on. A lot of people were against it, but here I am, you know?" I'd been called young before, but never so dismissively. "I've faced Grievous, and I've never been as nervous as I am now."

"I'm not."

I looked at him.

He hitched a shoulder. "You'll do fine. Like you said, you've faced down Grievous and come out alive. I'm sure you'll get us through whatever comes our way just fine."

It only made my gut sink. "You certainly put a lot of faith in me for never having met me before."

Another shrug. "You're sitting here eating with me. That's more than I can say for anyone else I've met in the Grand Army." The plainness of his tone didn't quite match his words. "I trust you, Ma'am."

He picked up his now-empty tray, and quietly left the mess hall, disappearing into the darkness of the ship.

I sat there under the glow of the luminator for a long time, my meal forgotten.

Chapter Two

The world of Kandor stretched outside the viewport like a swirling, emerald fog as I stood at the glass. Muted flashes of lightning underneath the haze illuminated green tendrils weaving a heavy blanket over the world.

Cheery place.

The footsteps hustling around the bridge reverberated in my montrals, the patter bouncing off every surface and crew member, and a living image of the bridge filled my mind, every swipe-of-the-hand and turn-of-the-head playing before my mind's eye.

Captain Raile's sonic figure broke from the crowd and stood behind me, folding his arms. "Definitely looks like the sort of place a weaponized toxin would come from."

The corner of my mouth tilted. "Seems only fair it's where the cure is going to come from, too."

"If the reports are even true. If the CIS is harvesting the toxin here, why aren't we staring down a small fleet?"

"Good question."

A hydraulic hiss breathed through the room, and a trooper stood at the opened door. "The shuttle's ready, Sir."

I nodded mostly to myself and rubbed my palms against my pantlegs, turning away from the window. "Good. Have the men prepped and ready."

Raile snapped a salute. "Yessir."

"And Captain, I want 623 on the ground team."

He paused. A hesitation so slight, I only noticed from years spent with Rex. "Why, Sir?"

I looked at him, silently daring him to say what was written on his face. "Because that's the decision I've made, Captain."

He snapped straighter, but his eyes spoke more truthfully than his posture. "Yes, General." He turned a tight ninety-degrees, and marched out ram-rod straight.

I tapped a finger against my thigh, and the fog swirled beyond the glass, far below.

OOO

White, armored shoulders bumped and scraped against each other inside the trembling LAAT gunship, foggy tendrils slithering through the gaps in the hull as we sunk steadily through Kandor's thick atmosphere.

623 hugged against a corner and checked his handheld electro-sensor, careful not to jostle the troopers around him.

Raile held onto one of the hand-bars dangling from the ceiling to my right. "So how did the Republic get word this woman was developing a cure here? It's not like she called to let us know."

I tore my gaze from 623 and shrugged. "I guess moving a few shuttle-loads of specialized equipment into the middle of a toxic wilderness catches attention."

"Attention from who? There's no sentient life signs for kilometers around the drop point."

Good point... My touch brushed across the cold metal of my saber hilt, and I glanced at the scanner in 623's hands. "Make sure it's set for maximum range."

A nod and a quick press of a button. "Ma'am."

I returned to Raile. "All I know is, the Chancellor himself is trusting me with this, and I'm not going to prove the people who told him I was too young for a star destroyer right."

It had stung when even Obi-Wan expressed his hesitation, gentle though it was. But Palpatine had stood up for me, supported me, and assured them—and me—that I was ready. And I finally understood why Anakin spoke so highly of him.

Raile grunted. "As long as our guys get the antidote before time runs out."

The transport shuddered, and through the gaps in the hull, the outline of a makeshift lab appeared in the fog, blue beacons piercing the haze and reflecting off prefabricated walls snapped together like puzzle pieces.

Raile let go of the hand-bar, and checked his blaster one final time. "Hope she's in the mood for visitors."

The side door of the shuttle slid open, and I looked at him. "We're here peacefully, Captain. Negotiation, not force."

"Our men are dying, Sir. We can't leave without getting what we came for."

My boots sunk into the mossy earth, and I started walking. "We'll just have to be extra persuasive, then."

623 wore his helmet the whole time, but his presence brightened as he fell in behind and to the left of me in a delta pattern, scanning the perimeter.

Raile grunted again as he completed the delta on my right. "Can't get much more persuasive than a blaster, Sir."

The grey metal of the lab's door slid away as we neared, and a human woman stood in the threshold, the hem of her white labcoat swishing at her ankles with each swirl of wind that crept along the ground like a slithering undercurrent. "This is not a Republic world." Her voice held more steel than her gaze did. "You have no rights here."

I stopped and showed her my palms. "Doctor Amali? My name is Ahsoka Tano, I'm a Jedi with the Republic. We're not here to hurt you."

"Then be on your way. There is nothing for you here."

It was times like this I wished Anakin had passed on a little more of what Obi-Wan had taught him, and a little less combat training. "You're developing an antidote to a toxin the CIS has released against our soldiers." I looked at her. "Please, doctor. Will you at least talk with us?"

Grey eyes that once might have been blue narrowed, and her gaze flicked to the distant fog. Searching for what, I couldn't guess.

Finally, she breathed out a small breath. "I must ask that your soldiers remain outside. The equipment inside is far too delicate to trust clumsy armor." She turned, and disappeared into the shadows of the doorway.

I waved off Raile before the protest left his lips, and trudged through the moss. "I'll be fine, Captain. Secure the perimeter and stay alert. I'll be right back."

Shadows draped throughout the lab, broken only by the tiny blue embers of portable luminators scattered here and there. A constant beeping came from somewhere deeper inside. Steady, and rhythmic. It filtered through a tarp hanging against the wall like a curtain, muffling the sound as it fought through from the other side.

Amali stood before a row of vials, her back to me as she pored over a datapad, the glow shining across the glass tubes. "What exactly are you hoping to walk away with, Miss Tano?"

She didn't waste time getting to the point, did she? I cleared my throat. "I'm here to ask you to help save our soldiers."

"I know. But you seem to be under the impression I'm in a position to be able to help."

I scrunched my brow. "Aren't you developing an antidote to the Separatist's new bio-weapon?"

She fixed a sidelong glance. "Shouldn't you know?"

What?

And then, from behind the tarp, the beeping shot to a fever pitch, piercing through the heavy fabric, and Amali whipped her head toward it. "Sumi!"

She ripped the tarp aside and rushed through a doorway gapping the wall like a missing piece of the patchwork puzzle, the heavy tarp swinging back into place behind her with a loud flap.

Fear washed through after her, prickling my skin, and I hurried behind.

She hunched over a young man lying prone on a padded, metal slab protruding from the inner wall like a shelf, a few tubes running from his arm to the rapidly-beeping machine next to him.

Amali held a respirator to his face, his eyes fluttering but never quite opening as a strange, red-colored mist fogged the inside of the mask with each of his breaths. "Hand me that syringe." She pointed to a tray just out of her reach, a few safety-capped needles resting on it.

"Which one?"

"They're all the same!"

I grabbed one and held it out to her plunger first.

"Take this." She gestured to the clear mask she still pressed against his face with one hand as she grabbed the syringe from me with the other.

We switched places, and she yanked one of the tubes from the machine and stabbed the needle into the open end. Orange fluid filled the tube, draining into the boy's arm.

The fluttering of his eyelids slowly faded, and she placed her hand against the side of his face, brushing a few damp strands of hair away from his forehead as the frantic beeping calmed to a steadier rhythm.

The tension radiating off of her broke like a string snapping, and she lowered her head with an exhale.

I stood back, and looked between them. It didn't feel right to ask yet.

"My assistant," she said after a few long moments. "…My son. He's very sick."

That much was obvious. "Is there anything I can do?" This mission might be important, but an innocent life was an innocent life.

"You can leave empty-handed for now." She straightened, and sniffed as she ran a finger over her eyelids. "You're correct, Miss Tano. I am developing an antidote to the Separatist's poison, and it will be ready soon. But the first dose is already spoken for, and it will take more time to create another batch."

My lips parted, and I looked once more to the boy no older than fourteen lying on the bed. "He... How?"

"Where do you think the CIS tested their new weapon before unleashing it on your people?"

The boy's sweat-soaked chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow breaths that fogged the inside of the mask, and my lips pressed into a thin line. Civilians.

I should have been more surprised. If I hadn't dealt with the CIS so many times before, I might have been.

The beeping reverberated in my montrals. "What about our scientists? We could bring him back to Coruscant with us. If you give me the first sample, we can reproduce it much more quickly than you could. Our troopers and Sumi would both have the antidote in time."

She shook her head. "You don't know how close he is. I'm sorry, Miss Tano, it's not a risk I'm willing to take." She looked at him. "My son doesn't have time to wait for your scientists."

He was an innocent boy, and I would never condemn him to death. But I also couldn't just condemn others to death instead. She was a doctor. Of all people, she could understand that."You could save hundreds of lives."

"Lives that were sent into danger by the Republic. Not by me." She brushed her thumb across his cheek. "My son is my responsibility. My duty is to him. Not to your soldiers."

My stomach tightened. There had to be something. I couldn't fail five minutes into my first mission. I couldn't prove them right.

"What about these?" I gestured toward the remaining syringes. Maybe the life of a child did outweigh a hundred soldiers. And maybe I couldn't save them all. But maybe I could save enough without endangering Sumi. "These have kept him alive long enough for you to engineer an antidote, maybe they can keep our troopers alive long enough for you to make a second batch."

Her eyes met mine in silence for a few moments, and finally, she nodded slowly. "What you see on the tray is all I have left. Not nearly enough for your men. But I will give you the formula to take to your scientists. The ingredients are not rare. It will be a simple matter for them to mass produce it."

The knot coiling in my chest loosened somewhat, and I breathed out. "Thank you."

"You should get it to them as quickly as possible if you want to save as many as possible."

It was the most polite way to say 'please leave, now' that I'd ever heard. I nodded, and with a final glance toward Sumi, stepped out into the darkness and fog.

Raile stood like a statue just outside the door, arms folded. 623 leaned against a cargo crate a meter to the right, clamping his scanner to the mag-point on the thigh of his armor. Both turned their heads toward me as I stepped out.

"Well?" Raile straightened. "Package secure?"

I looked up at him. "A package..."

I felt his eyes narrow behind the lenses of his helmet. "What do you mean? What did you get us?"

I rubbed my palms against my pantlegs. "Time."

"Time," he said. "We didn't come for time, we came for a cure."

"And we'll get it. But not at the expense of someone else." I would never trade one life for another.

In the distant fog, a small dot of faint light danced and weaved between curling tendrils sprouting from the ground like reaching hands.

"In the mean time, raise the Valiance and tell them to prepare to receive transmission. Doctor Amali is going to send us the formula to keep our men alive."

He shook his head, but touched a finger to the side of his helmet, turning away as he activated his comms.

The dot of light disappeared behind a curling tendril, and I squinted, something niggling in the back of my mind like a whisper I couldn't quite hear. The cold of my saber-hilt whispered against my fingertips.

"623, anything on scanners?"

623 padded through the moss until he stood next to me, keeping the barrel of his blaster pointed down, but hugging the stock into his shoulder as he glanced between my touch on the saber, and the murky distance. "Nothing, Ma'am. Why?"

I tilted my head and focused, but no spark of life from a living being glimmered in the surrounding wilderness, and no sound broke the heavy silence.

The dot of light did not reappear.

I squinted harder, but let my touch fall from the saber-hilt. "Nothing... A glow-bug or something." The whisper still hovered just-out-of-reach in the back of my mind.

He nodded slightly, and relaxed his grip on his blaster. "Those can be dangerous, but I'm with you until the end, General."

I looked at him and he stared right back.

So that's how it was going to be.

I crossed my arms, and gave a look to that blank helmet. "Are you making fun of me, trooper?"

"Never, Ma'am."

Raile called from where he stood. "Sir, I can't raise the Valiance. Something's interfering with our comms."

The whisper in my mind swelled. "From where? There's no signal traffic for kilometers."

"I don't know, Sir. It seems like it's—"

The dot of light stalked out from behind the tendril, and a bloom of flame ignited the darkness for a split-second. A booming rush crashed like a tidal wave through my montrals, and a glowing missile burst from the fiery blossom, streaking through the night and smashing into the hull of the LAAT gunship.

My eyes widened.

Durasteel warped and twisted, and then all at once, a nova erupted from within the shuttle. Shards of metal exploded outward, burning trails through the fog like comets. Blinding light set fire to the haze, turning the world white as a blur of armor dove in front of me.

"Ma'am!"

The armor tackled me to the ground with a pained grunt, his weight pressing me into the moss, and all the light retreated back into the shuttle as if sucked into a vortex. A deafening blast jolted the ground under me and rocked through my montrals, washing out the sonic image of the camp in my mind's eye as invisible force slammed over us, ringing inside my head.

Get up!

623 lie half-limp on top of me, and I planted my hands against his ash-coated chest-piece and rolled him over until I crouched over him, ripping my saber and shoto from my belt and jamming my thumbs against the activation buttons.

Two snap-hisses burst, and emerald light enveloped us.

"Contact!" Raile dropped to a knee a meter from the smoldering husk of the gunship, and squeezed rounds off into the hazy plume left over from the missile launch, blaster bucking in his hands.

Each chirp of his blaster resonated through the darkness, bouncing off moss and tendril until the sonic imprint of the wilderness solidified in my mind, and the fog choking the world and veiling the distance ceased to matter.

A hundred meters in the distance, a sonic figure broke the stillness, racing away as fast as its legs would carry it.

"Keep firing, Captain!" I gripped the hilts and launched forward, devouring the ground until a dark silhouette appeared through the green mist, thin cracks of light blinking with each step it pounded into the soft ground.

I leapt, and the emerald glow of my sabers cut down like a lance through the murk. A brief jolt ran up my arms. A flash of sparks and a metallic whine spat.

The figure crashed face-down into the earth, two golden trails carved through its back. Golden embers floated down and died upon the damp moss surrounding its metallic body, and I skidded to a stop, lips parting.

Commando droid. Internal sensor-masking… Invisible to scanners.

My brow knit hard and I turned in place, sabers humming in my palms as I squinted into every shadow and crevice visible through the fog. The body architecture didn't lie—I would know the shape of those soulless killers anywhere. But where were its partners? These things never worked alone, much less just to blow up a transport and run.

A scream pierced from Amali's lab, "No!"

My feet were moving before the scream finished.

Through the fog, the captain-striped form of Raile charged into the shadows of the lab's doorway.

623 twisted and squirmed where he still lie on the ground, digging his fingers into the soft earth and clenching a fistful of moss, not getting up. A splotch of red marred the pearl of his armor.

I tensed my jaw and followed Raile into the lab.

Mist seeped in through a human-sized hole blasted into the far wall, the warped edges curling like the tendrils outside. Raile stood silhouetted in the opening, sweeping the barrel of his rifle to-and-fro across whatever part of the perimeter remained visible through the fog.

Amali stood amid shattered remains of vials that once lined her shelves. "It's gone," she whispered.

Shards of glass crunched under my boots, and weight settled in my stomach as I asked what I already knew, "What's gone?"

She closed her eyes, and slowly brought clenched fists up to her lips, speaking against the flesh of her fingers. "The cure."

The weight knotted inside me, and I shifted my grip on the sabers until they weren't as slippery in my hands. "Anything, Captain?"

He shook his head, not looking away from the distant fog. "Nothing."

The grooves of my saber hilts pressed into my palms. A distraction. The droid had been a distraction to get me away from the lab. "How did we not hear this breach?"

"Must've timed it perfectly with our shuttle getting slagged outside. Couldn't hear a thing with that blast shakin' the ground under us."

Amali disappeared through the tarp into the medical room, and the heavy flap of the fabric slapping back into place brought me back to the present, the bloom of red on 623's chest-piece flashing through my mind.

I jabbed my thumbs against the activation buttons of my sabers, and shadows swirled around me as the emerald glow retreated, leaving me in darkness as I made for the exit. "Have the rest of the men secure the perimeter, Captain." I didn't look back as I spoke. The knot cinching in my chest wouldn't let me.

623 was a lump of ash-covered pearl in the fog, and my heart beat faster as I slung my saber hilts on my belt and hurried to his side.

My knees hit the ground next to him, and I placed my hands on either side of his helmet, gently easing it off him as his chest rose and fell within his blood-stained chest piece. Eyes the color of the moss beneath him appeared from under the pearl, lines of pain etching the skin around them, and my gut cinched tighter as I set the helmet aside, glancing down at the crimson rivulets staining the edges of a jagged puncture below his armpit.

"It's not a fatal hit, Ma'am."

I looked at him, and a slight tilt touched his trembling lips.

"I told ya those glow-bugs could be dangerous."

End Chapter