Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

49

A/N: I'm going on vacation today and I won't have a lot of time to write, so some of my chapters might be coming at odd times for the next month. Sorry in advance!

Astera:

"Why is he sitting back there alone?" Omega asked, both of us watching Gungi in the back room, knees pulled up to his chest and refusing to look any of us in the eye. Where he'd been since the ship had entered hyperspace. Even from here I could feel the emotions radiating off him, fear, anger and betrayal all rolled into one. And most of it centred on the clones on the ship gingerly avoiding the young Wookiee Jedi.

I still hadn't gone to talk to him yet, keeping an eye on him from afar as he huddled in the farthest corner from us. Actually, I hadn't talked much at all since we'd fled Vanguard Axis, too preoccupied with my thoughts to say much of anything to anyone. Another survivor. A child too. How he had escaped, I had no idea. I myself had barely lived through the attack on Mandalore, and I was a fully trained Knight. Or I'd been made one, right before I left. Gungi couldn't have been more than a Padawan. Someone had to have helped him. It was the only possible explanation.

"Because he's scared," Hunter said eventually with a sidelong glance at me, when I deigned not to answer. "He's been through a lot."

An understatement to say the least. Order 66 was terrible enough on its own, but clearly the Wookiee had been unluckier than I had in escaping the aftermath, if he'd landed in the hands of the droids on Vanguard Axis.

Wrecker picked up the ration crate he'd spent the last twenty minutes searching for at Omega's request and pushed into her arms, standing back when she marched past him in a beeline for the back room.

"Well, he still needs to eat," she said firmly, glancing up at me in confusion when I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Hold up, kid. Let me talk to him first." She frowned but willingly stayed behind as I pushed off the doorway and headed forward in her place,

Gungi raised his head when he heard my approaching footsteps, teeth bared in as menacing a snarl as he could manage. I stopped a few paces away from him in response, slowly crouching in front of him with both palms held up in clear sight as a gesture of peace.

"Easy, Gungi. It's Astera. You remember me?"

The defensive expression relaxed slowly, replaced with wary suspicion as he growled out a question, uncoiling from his rigid position against the cold metal wall.

"Yeah, I survived too. I was with Ahsoka on Mandalore, putting down an insurgency created by a rogue Sith Lord." Gungi brightened at the mention of Ahsoka, a sudden stream of questions in half intelligible Shyriiwook pouring from him, asking about her fate, if Yoda was alive, if anyone was still alive other than us. Questions I didn't have the answer to.

"I don't know who's still alive." I finally had to admit in between his barrage of questions. "Ahsoka survived, and so did Master Kenobi, but I don't know what happened to either of them after that. How did you survive anyway?"

Another series of soft roars, describing his Master forcing him to take off on a ship just before the clones under their command found them. It had been too late for his Master, the unknown Jedi choosing to stay behind and sacrificing himself so Gungi could live. A noble sacrifice. One worthy of a true Jedi.

Omega was still hovering by the doorway, craning her neck to see our interaction over my shoulder. I finally waved a hand and beckoned her forward, the girl eagerly trotting up with a water container and the box of rations tucked under her arm.

"Here, you look hungry." She set the water container and the open box of rations on the floor in front of Gungi, the Wookiee hesitantly glancing up at me for affirmation before reaching out for the food.