𝗙𝗔𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗦 | anakin skywalker

✰ 21: where is she?

Anakin Skywalker woke up with a gasp.  He panted for a couple moments before realizing what had just woken him.

"Something's wrong," he muttered.  Anakin turned to Obi-Wan, who was sleeping just across the tent from him.  Anakin stood up and walked over to him.  He shook him awake, repeating his name.  "Obi-Wan," he said.  "Wake up.  Something's wrong."

"What, Anakin?" said Obi-Wan drowsily. 

"Something is wrong, Obi-Wan."

"Are you sure you're not hearing things?" Obi-Wan turned to the other side. 

Anakin thought for a moment.  What was wrong?  What had he felt?

"I'm sure," said Anakin.  "I think it's Akya.  Something's wrong with Akya."

Obi-Wan finally sat up, quickly and suddenly. "What?  How do you know?"

"I just do," said Anakin. "Come on."

"Alright," said Obi-Wan.  He grabbed his cloak from the chair beside his cot and followed Anakin outside.  The Jedi Knight immediately ignited his lightsaber when he stepped into the darkness outside.  Akya was not standing on the borders of the camp where she was supposed to be.   It was snowing hard, and colder than Anakin thought it was going to be.  But he didn't care.  He just wanted to find Akya.

"Akya!" Anakin called, spinning from side to side, following the light of his lightsaber in hopes of seeing something.  "Akya!" he called again, louder now.  No response.  Anakin heard nothing in the distance— but something had happened to her.  She wouldn't just abandon post.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan called behind him.  Anakin turned around to find his old master kneeling in the snow next to one of the men, whose helmet was not on and his blaster had fallen some inches from his hand.  He was collapsed on the ground, and in his right shoulder plate there was a hole from a blaster shot. 

Anakin stepped over to where he was and knelt on the other side of the clone with a concerned look on his face.  He spotted the tattoo of the number two by his eye and immediately realized who this was — Double, who was on patrol on the west end of camp.

"Double," Anakin muttered.  Obi-Wan checked his pulse on his neck.

"He's still alive," said Obi-Wan.  The two of them were quiet for another moment, listening to find Double's shallow breaths in the silence. "And breathing," he confirmed.

Double began to turn. He blinked his eyes and moved his head, groaning wearily. He took a sharp breath in and tried to get up, but Obi-Wan prevented that by putting his hand on his chest. "Stay down, Double. You're injured."

"Did they take her?" he said, his voice hoarse. He sounded like he was in pain, yet he still tried to pick his head up to try and look in the distance— the way they had taken Akya.

"Who, Double?" Anakin said. "Akya? Where is she?"

"There was two droids," he began. "Big ones. Not the usual B1s or B2s. I heard something, some kind of muffled shouting, so I ran over there. All I saw was the droid injecting something in her neck. She passed out. Then they shot me."

Anakin sighed. "Do you know where they were taking her?"

"Toward... the east woods," he said weakly.

"I'm going to get a medic," said Obi-Wan. He stood up and walked in the direction of the medical tent, where Kix or someone else was usually up, taking care of injured men.

"Do you know of any structures in that area?" Anakin continued frantically.

"I don't think so," said Double.

"Don't overwhelm him, Anakin," scolded Obi-Wan from behind. He then knelt beside Double.  "Kix is on his way."

"Thank you, General," he said.  Then he turned back to Anakin.  "I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"You were a great help," replied Anakin.  Kix rushed over with his medical kit, and Obi-Wan moved so that he had space.  Two other clones followed the medic, and lifted Double onto a stretcher as Kix held pressure on his wound. Anakin stood up and turned to Obi-Wan.

"We have to go find her," he said determinedly.

"What? Now?  Anakin, it's too dark to do anything right now.  It'll be light in a couple hours."

"That's the point, Obi-Wan.  They took her for a reason. They're expecting us to notice in the morning.  If we go now, we have the element of surprise."

"The element of surprise doesn't necessarily work on droids, Anakin.  Besides, we don't even know where she is."

"There's only so many places on this side of the planet.  We took one yesterday, and the day before.  Double said they took her into the east woods.  There's no way to park a speeder in there, so they had to have walked.  We can decipher from there."

"I really don't think this needs to be done right this moment, Anakin."

"She's your Padawan! And there's tracks, Obi-Wan.  They lead into the forest, and they're going to be gone by the morning.  It's snowing still."

"Anakin..."

"I'm going whether you like it or not, Obi-Wan.  She's vital to our siege.  She's the other half to your brain."

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes a little— just enough so Anakin could see his annoyance.  Anakin didn't seem to care that much.  "Fine," agreed the Jedi Master with a sigh.

"Come on," said Anakin, walking toward the biggest structure in the camp— the briefing quarters, complete with holo-maps of the entire planet as well as communicators and trackers.  Akya didn't have one on her, as most people don't when they do the night watch, but she did have a communicator on her.  If the droids didn't take it off or break it, they could transmit something and track her frequency.

Once they stepped inside, Obi-Wan immediately pulled up the map of the planet and zoomed in on the east woods. "We have this facility and this one," he said, pointing out two structures on the map. He then used two fingers to slide the map a little further, bringing into view two more structures. "That means there's only this, and the main facility."

"This one doesn't have a detention level," said Anakin, pointing to the smaller of the two. "It's all fuel storage. The Main Post is where she is. Definitely."

"We weren't supposed to take the Main Post until the Republic sent reinforcements."

"We won't. I'll take a small squad." Anakin clicked on the Main Post, expanding it to create a map of the facility. "We'll sneak in through here." He pointed to a back hatch door that led straight to the basement, just above which was the detention levels.

"Alright. But we won't have long. You—"

"Hold on." Anakin cut him off. "We?"

"Like you said, she's my Padawan. I'm coming with you."

"I thought—" Anakin decided to stop himself before things got too complicated to explain. He shook his head. "Never mind."

"Right. Anyway— you gather Rex and a couple other men. I'll see if I can get a signal from her communicator."

"Will do." Anakin nodded then ran off in the other direction to go wake Rex.

a.n.:

no because i am literally halfway through writing the rots portion of this book and theres so much clone wars left for you to read.  so i'm just gonna keep publishing because i dont wanna wait ages for you to read these things

anakin knowing something is wrong im crying :( his girl needs him 

ily, dont forget to vote!

molly