A Bringing Of Forces

Chapter 2

First: her vision. It was blurry and clouded in bland. Nothing but grey. Grey walls, grey seats, a grey surrounding. Next: her thoughts, which were just as bad. Nothing made sense. Where she was, what she was doing, how she got there. Finally, came the recallment of the previous events, her capture, the torture, the escape. . . Obi-Wan.

It seemed as though the cushion beneath her back had long since provided any sort of comfort. Threadbare, holes tapped with the stuffing still spilling out, the hard metal cutting into her skin beneath, but it was better than nothing. Her body ached, shoulders screaming in agony as she tried shifting; lungs feeling as though she'd been stuck in an engine room with a lit fire; hands burning with every flex and relax; mind swimming through murk and haze. Her head was pounding, but as she focused, there was something other than metal and cushion beneath her. It was a leg.

"There you are. Are you feeling any better?" A soft, tentative voice reached through the haze, dragging her to the surface. It was Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan Kenobi who she thought she would never see again. Tears leaked down her dirt smudged face, she didn't move to wipe them away. "Oh, Ahsoka, what did they do to you?" That soft voice was more of a comfort than any of the words spoken. It could have been in Huttese for all she cared, but that gentle, soothing tone of voice. How she had missed it.

"Obi-Wan, I've missed you." Her voice was nothing more than a rasp, but it brought tears to Obi-Wan's eyes as she gazed up at him.

"I know. So have I."

"What. . . what happened. I remember getting on the ship. Hyperspace. And then. . . nothing." The haze thickened once again as she sat up dizzily.

"Your ship must've been hit, it was only seconds after I got you aboard that it blew. I'm not sure what happened before, but you've been asleep for the past thirteen hours. Surprisingly short for the state you're in." A small smile twitched the corner of his lips.

"There was something. Something important. I needed to tell somebody." The far reaches of her mind were still fogged; she couldn't put her thoughts in order. She had the outline of what had happened, but no words to express it. "It was awful," the barest of a whisper. "Oh, Obi-Wan, they were so confused. They cried out looking for their mothers, but they were dead. All of them. Killed by the Empire. Children, they only had three at the time, but they're getting more. They were all so small. Only babies just weaned. It's happened before, in the Clone Wars, on Mustafar, we were there, we saved them. We need to save these."

"Where are these children?" Obi-Wan stroked his beard.

"On a Star Destroyer." The memories were resurfacing now, like rain falling, each droplet right after the other. Rushing down, exploding into millions of fragments on impact. "It was over Ryloth, but I escaped just as they were about to jump to Mon Cala. The only thing I managed to get a good look at was some planet named Carik, I have its coordinates as well. I've never heard of it before. It was five down from Ryloth on the list, logged into the ship's data banks, but they wiped them as soon as I gained access."

"These are Force sensitive children, correct?" Obi-Wan implied, his face a mask of displeasure, his brow wrinkled.

"Yes, I'm positive about that." Ahsoka's mind veered directions. "Anakin, what happened to Anakin?"

Obi-Wan's face said it all, the slight shutting of the eyes, the way his mouth slackened, his throat bobbing miserably at his Adam's apple. "He was killed."

"Who." It wasn't a question

"A turned Jedi." He did not continue.

Her heart felt like it had been stabbed. Stabbed in just the right place to wound, but not kill. To let it bleed out slowly, drip, drip, dripping until every last drop had dissipated. "No, no. . . he was so powerful, so smart, he couldn't have been killed. You must be wrong. There's no way. . ." She had known, though, the second she had seen Obi-Wan, sitting there alone without the familiar sight of her former master next to him. The way his face seemed to have aged, the greying of his hairs, her luck had only gone so far.