Bound by Fate

Lucky

The coordinates that Ahsoka Tano programmed into Captain Rex's wrist device led to a warehouse packed with large empty metal crates and the occasional caretaker and manifest droid that ignored them completely in favor of doing their programmed job. Nevertheless, Katooni, Petro, and Captain Rex hid behind one of the many metal crates that gave them a good veiw of all the entrances.

Rex was beginning to get anxious waiting for Ahsoka to show up. To distract himself, he worked on treating and dressing Katooni's wounds. Luckily, the wound on her leg was worse that the burn on her abdomen, so therefore he decided to treat her leg with the limited amount of bacta and dressing that he kept in his combat belt. He gently rolled Katooni's pant leg up over her knee. The would looked gruesome at best, and Katooni winced at the sight. The blaster shot that hit her destroyed the skin on her calf and a lot of the muscle too. He was surprised the leg didn't just fall off. He applied the bacta to her leg and watched as it stitched up the wound and repaired the damaged cells. Unfortunately, it could not repair everything. Katooni really needed a professional medical doctor

"Hey, she made it!" Petro exclaimed, climbing down from the crate that he was keeping watch from.

Rex finished wrapping Katooni's leg and peaked around the corner. Sure enough, Ahsoka was walking toward one of the entrances to the warehouse. She had her arms wrapped around her body like a hug. Her lightsabers were hooked to her combat belt. Her orange face was darkened by ash and soot, most likely from the fires that burned in the Jedi Temple. A frown was plastered on her face, and her eyes look sad and glassy as if she was crying.

Rex whistled to her to get her attention and waved her over to their position. She smiled slightly and looked around to make sure she was not followed. When she was sure she arrived untracked, Ahsoka hurried over to Rex and the two younglings.

"Thank the Force you're okay, Ahsoka. We were all so worried about!" Katooni stated. Ahsoka smiled reassuringly at her, but quickly turned her attention to Rex.

"I saw him Rex. I saw Anakin, but it wasn't him. He's different now." Ahsoka sniffled, reliving the memory of their previous confrontation.

"What do you mean different?" Rex inquired.

"He's turned to the dark side. He was the one leading the clones into the temple. They're calling him Darth Vader!" Ahsoka couldn't stop the tears from cascading down her cheeks. She felt so betrayed. The man who taught and mentored her, who was there for her when she cried, had turned his back on her. On the Jedi. She sat down on one of the smaller crates and put her face in her hands. "I don't understand why he would do such a thing," she mumbled.

Rex wanted desperately to comfort her, but nothing he could say would do so. He couldn't tell her that everything was going to be okay because he didn't know if that was true. He couldn't tell her that they would get through this because he wasn't sure that they wold. He couldn't tell her that what her former master was doing was just a big misunderstanding because it obviously wasn't. So instead, he settled for kneeling down in front of her and pulling her into a hug.

Ahsoka buried her face in the crook of his neck. It wasn't often that his commander broke down in tears. She was one of the strongest people he knew. He felt honored that she trusted hijm enough to cry in his arms.

"I can't feel them Rex," Ahsoka sobbed, "I can't feel their life Force."

"Who can't you feel, Ahsoka?" He knew the Force existed as some mystical tether from the real world to the afterworld, but he didn't really understand it.

"The Masters," Ahsoka answered, pulling away slightly from Rex's embrace. "Mace Windo, Kit Fisto, Kai-ada Mundi, Alyla Secura, Plo Koon. I can't feel them, Rex."