Back in the Game (COMPLETE)

9.15.2

Ahsoka finally pulled herself together enough to drop down and keep moving. Swiftly, she snuck to the detention level and found the cell Maul's containment module was being held in. Two clone troopers had beat her there, but she knocked them out before they had a chance to do anything more than open the pod.

Maul's bloodshot eyes followed her, eying her lightsaber somewhat fearfully as she held it to his neck. "Don't make me regret this," she threatened him, before pressing the release button on the module. Bo-Katan would kill her when she found out, but she didn't see any other options.

Coughing, Maul sank to his knees before managing to choke out a few words. "You-you survived."

"Is this your doing?" She asked, using her lightsaber to keep him on his knees. "Choose your words carefully!"

"No, no. It was not my doing," he told her. "I do not know what has occurred, but surely, you have felt it. The voices crying out. The death."

She didn't deny it. Ahsoka still wasn't sure she believed Maul was innocent, but there was only so much he could have done from his cell. "The clones turned against me. Even Rex, I think," she admitted. "I don't know why, they just suddenly...weren't themselves." She was about to walk away, but Maul chuckled lowly behind her.

"Brilliant, brilliant! I was not privy to my master's plan but now, now I see it." Looking up at Ahsoka, he explained. "He turned the Jedi's own army against them."

"Order 66," she whispered hauntingly, finally able to think straight for the first time since she had left the bridge. She wanted to kick herself for being foolish enough to forget about it, but Maul didn't give her that opportunity.

Standing up, he exhaled and started talking. "Well, you've done the right thing by coming to me. Only together can we survive this. Now, if you'll follow my lead-"

"You don't understand," she corrected him, bringing her lightsaber back up to his neck. "I'm not here to team up with you. I need a diversion, and you're it. Now go cause some chaos, it's what you're good at," she snarled, walking slowly out of the cell.

How could this have happened? She wondered, trying to comprehend what it meant. She would have thought more about it, but Maul bothered her one last time. "Uh, care to give me a fighting chance?"

As a matter of fact, she didn't. "I'm not rooting for you. Now get going," Ahsoka ordered, much to Maul's displeasure. He stalked off, hopefully to go get killed. It was the least Ahsoka could hope for, if the clones were being forced to murder Jedi. Maybe they would kill him off too.

Turning the other way, Ahsoka started looking for cover. She needed to get her head on straight again, especially if she was going to come up with a plan of her own. After a minute or so of sneaking around, she found the compartment the droids usually charged themselves in. No one was in there, clone, droid, or otherwise, so she had some time to process what she had learned.

She really felt stupid now. Ahsoka should have realized right away that the mass murder of Jedi was a result of Order 66, but she had been so distracted by the deaths themselves and the betrayal of the clones that she hadn't even thought of it. The very thing the Sister has suffered for a year to prevent had somehow slipped her mind at the most crucial moment.

If she had the time, Ahsoka would have tried to figure out how it was even possible that the order had been activated, but that information wasn't going to save her right now. What she needed to do was find a way off of this cruiser. If the clones found her, they had orders to kill her, despite her not being a Jedi. Again, she didn't have time to wonder why she had been marked for termination. She just needed to stay away from-