"Master," Adhara said, bowing to Obi-Wan's hologram.
"Adhara. Lieutenant Trap. How is the mission going?"
Adhara cocked a grin at her master. "It's not like it's a hard mission, Master. Just dropping supplies off at a warzone, and getting out."
Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows. "Be careful, Adhara." He turned his gaze to the clone. "Lieutenant?"
Trap saluted. "everything is going according to plan, General. We should be on Ryloth soon."
"And then getting the hell out," Adhara added, shooting Obi-Wan a grin.
He rolled his eyes, but a smile pulled at his lips. "Well I'm glad to hear it. I'll see you two soon." The hologram flickered out, and Trap cocked his head at Adhara.
"Do you really hate this mission so much, Commander?"
Adhara pulled out her lightsabers, rubbing some of the tarnishes with her sleeve. They were newly made after Aitor stole her last one, and she decided she never wanted to be so vulnerable again. One was a regular saber, the other a guard shoto, short with an extra handle for additional movement. The metal was sleek under her fingers. "I'm just teasing Obi-Wan. To tell you the truth, I appreciate missions like this." She shrugged, flushing. "it's a nice change of pace."
Trap smiled ruefully. "I agree. To be still...it's a mercy."
A few clones at command turned around, smiling. Adhara recognized Havoc, Edge, and Pulsar. Clones she had fought with, had bled with. She knew they were brothers and she a Jedi, but they felt like family to her, as well.
"Are you going soft on us, Trap?" Havoc asked.
"Do we need a new commanding officer?" said Edge, winking at Trap.
He rolled his eyes. "Commander Starseeker is your commanding officer, trooper. She's the one you should be worried about being soft."
Adhara feigned hurt. "Me, soft? I'll have you know I'm notorious for being anything but soft, Lieutenant."
"Yeah," Pulsar said, his voice teasing. "She uses two lightsabers, Trap. How can she be soft?"
Adhara rolled her eyes, smiling, nicking Pulsar in the back of the head. "No sass from you, soldier. I'll..." she cut herself off, her head whipping towards the entrance of command. The Force tingled inside of her like an alarm bell, and her body went rigid. All of the clones tensed around her.
"Commander?" Trap said.
"You four, with me," Adhara said, pulling her lighsaber out, but keeping her guard soto sheathed. She let the blade out, lighting her face up green. "Helmets on. Fall into formation."
It was tense as they moved out, the only sound the hum of Adhara's saber. She steadied her breathing, reaching out with the force to find where the invaders were, but she already knew – the ship rocked, and she took off at a run.
"Weapons at the ready!"
She turned the corner, breathing hard, to come face to face with droids and General Grievous standing with two lightsabers already unsheathed.
"Grievous," she snarled.
"Starseeker," he wheezed back. "It's always a pleasure."
"Get off of my ship, Grievous."
"I don't think so. the Count wants you, so I want you." He rolled his tongue over the words, and Adhara bristled.
"Go arm the other clones," she said to Trap over her shoulder.
He hesitated. "But, Commander..."
"Just go, Trap. That's an order." She unsheathed her guard shoto, spinning it around her fingers.
He hesitated again before ushering Pulsar, Edge, and Havoc down the hallway. The droids began shooting at the clones, but Adhara reflected the bullets, never taking her eyes off of Grievous. He laughed, leaping over his droid army with sabers spinning.
"She's mine," he told the army, slashing his sabers at Adhara. She gritted her teeth, letting herself fall into the Force, twirling her shoto around as her main lightsaber deflected Grievous's attacks. His laughter grated on her nerves.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway behind them, and the clones appeared with guns blazing.
"Glad to see your still alive, Commander!" Trap said, the relief obvious in his voice.
"Me too, Lieutenant!"
She focused her attack on Grievous, pushing back against her as the clones closed rank. Grievous snarled, swiping at her head and hissing under his breath as she parried his attack. He reared back, swinging all four sabers at her, and she crossed her blades into an X, gritting her teeth as he pushed back against her with immortal strength.
"You cannot win, little padawan."
"Well, if I was half machine, I would be pretty confident too," she snapped, sweat running down her face as she kicked Grievous in the stomach. He barely stumbled, but gave her enough room to use the force, slamming him against the wall.
For a moment, she thought he was down, and she stalked over to her, sheathing her shoto.
Then he crawled up the wall and onto the roof.
Adhara gritted her teeth, realizing too late what was happening. She raised her lightsaber to deflect his as he dropped from the roof, rolling out from under him with the ease of a Jedi, but too slow. He pierced her ankle with her spider leg, and Adhara cried out.
Around them, the battle went still.
"Drop your weapons," Grievous said, "Or I kill your Commander right here, right now."
"He's bluffing," Adhara hissed to Trap through the pain. "Don't listen to him, Trap."
But the lieutenant was already putting his gun down, the rest of the troop following suit behind him. "Sorry, Commander. That's not a risk I'm willing to take."
Adhara deflated, her head banging against the floor as the droids took her sabers.
"Obi-Wan is going to kill me," she muttered as Grievous dragged her to his ship, the droids bringing the clones behind her, leaving their ship hovering above Ryloth with supplies that would never be delivered.
***
She knew it would be bad as soon as they landed on Serenno. They knocked her out, and when she woke she was chained to a ceiling, the clones nowhere to be seen. Count Dooku sat in front of her in a chair, his legs crossed. Waiting.
"Ah, finally awake," he said, standing and brushing off his coat. "I was starting to worry we hit you a little too hard in the head."
"How thoughtful of you," Adhara bit back.
Dooku clicked his tongue, pacing around Adhara. "Adhara, sweetheart. Don't be that way."
"What do you want, Dooku?"
He grabbed an electrostaff from a nearby droid, twirling it around with an ease Adhara had never seen before. With more skill than even Obi-Wan. "It's not what I want, per say. But you are... important to someone who is important to me. He wants me to turn you." His smile was evil, painting his face in shadows. "An opportunity to break Obi-Wan's padawan? I accepted."
Adhara bared her teeth, even as the words ricocheted through her. Aitor.
She'd tried not to think about him in the weeks following the battle on Kamino, instead focusing on the tasks at hand, and losing herself in her work. Always, Ahsoka was there, hovering at the edges of her vision.
Talk to me, Addie. You can't hold this in your heart forever. It will break you.
But she was certain she could. She was certain that if she forgot about Aitor, he would disappear.
She hadn't forgotten him, and he didn't disappear.
"You'll never break me."
He arched a brow, and then without warning he jabbed the electrostaff into her side, and blinding pain seized her muscles, ripping through her. She cried out as her body convulsed.
"How about now?" He asked as he pulled the staff away.
"Kill me, Dooku," Adhara said through pants. "I will never follow you."
He arched an eyebrow, looking genuinely sad. "So the hard way, then." He jabbed the elctrostaff into her side again, and Adhara was lost in the pain.
AHSOKA
Ahsoka looked up from her training to see Obi-Wan and and Anakin sprinting towards her. Immediately she sheathed her lightsaber, cocking an eyebrow.
"Is something wrong, Master?"
She tried to keep her voice even, but on the inside she was gloating. To get information before Adhara meant teasing her about it later to her heart's content.
It was Obi-Wan who spoke. "It's Adhara."
"What about her?"
"She's been kidnapped, Snips," Anakin said, his face sorrowful. "She's gone without a trace."
Ahsoka's body stilled. Her mind freezing. Her heart pounding too slow.
She couldn't be. She couldn't be gone. She promised she would never go somewhere Ahsoka couldn't follow.
But looking at the Jedi masters, she saw the truth in their gazes, and it threatened to make her come undone. Already she could feel her heart breaking, shattering, turning to ash. It was as if her home was ripped out from under her feet, and she was choking to death in space.
Adhara. Adhara. Adhara.
Come back.
ADHARA
First they used electricity.
Then extreme heat.
Extreme cold.
Then chemicals injected into her blood. Chemicals that caused seizures, paralysis, and hallucinations.
Then deprivation of sleep and food, kept in a dark, musty cell, so she thought she'd go insane.
And then, when she didn't break, all over again, with Dooku muttering in her ear the whole time, telling her it could be over if she just gave in.
And yet she never saw Aitor.
He said she was the weak one. But he was the one who condemned her to torture and didn't have the guts to see it through.
Time became an illusion. She lost sense of the hours, of the days. Her world became the moments when she was in pain and when she wasn't, and only two things kept her from breaking.
The Force.
And Ahsoka.
She thought about Ahsoka saying her name as she fell asleep, the feeling of Ahsoka's palm in hers. She thought about her laugh, her smile, and her eyes that were blue blue blue.
Ahsoka and meditation were he only escapes from a world of pain.
Stay strong for me, she imagined Ahsoka say. I'm coming for you.
I'm trying Ash. I'm trying.
But I might not be strong enough.
Sometimes he made the clones come in and watch her be tortured, and she would scream and cry and Havoc yelled at Dooku that he would stop her heart. Watch would cower at her pain, and Trap's face would flood with concern at her wain skin and dark bruises and the sharp angles of her face.
But they could do nothing.
She tried to stay positive for them, smiling weakly at Trap as they lead them away, but the truth was she didn't know how much longer she could hold out. She knew eventually her mind would break. Even the thought of Ahsoka could not save her.
After a few weeks, Adhara was given her first full meal in days. Warily, she ate it, feeling strength return to her muscles, and with it, a venom return to her mind as the droids came to get her.
But she wasn't taken to the torture chambers. Instead, she was led to a large room that looked like an arena, with five trapdoors in the middle. Her lightsabers sat in front of the doors, and her heart leaped, her fingers itching to pick them up, but she restrained herself.
"What's going on, Dooku?" she called into the room, knowing he had to be standing behind the glass panels on the other side.
"A new form of torture, Adhara dear." His voice echoed, and Adhara tensed, eyes focusing on him. Her heart stopped and the cavity inside of her yawned open, fracturing and splitting and breaking.
Aitor stood beside his master, arms crossed over his chest, staring at Adhara. As if this was a game. As if she was a pawn.
The trap doors rumbled, and five cylinders rose out of the ground with her clone company strapped to them. Adhara cursed under her breath, using the force to pick her lightsabers up as she ran to Trap. Forcing herself to forget Aitor was standing there, the first time she had seen him in weeks.
"Lieutenant."
"Commander." He grimaced, struggling against the chains. "What do we do now?"
Adhara grimaced, unsheathing both sabers, and Trap's face went white – Adhara only used her shoto when things looked dire.
Her smile was rueful. "You're just going to have to trust me, Lieutenant."
She turned away from him, not trusting herself to hold it together if she saw his expression even though she knew what it would be – fiercely loyal and brave.
She needed to be those things. She needed to be everything.
Adhara reached out with the force, letting the lull of battle take over her. When the first blaster shot came, she was already running across the arena, deflecting it with her saber. Her blood hummed, and she gave into the pace of it.
The shots came more frequently, and Adhara's training set it, leaving her flipping and somersaulting to get there faster, jumping higher than should be possible. Her sabers were a blur as she swung and fought, reaching the bullets just in time to save the clones.
"Yes, Adhara!" Havoc cheered on from behind her.
"You've got this, Commander!" Scythe added.
"Give em hell!" Pulsar yelled.
Sweat dribbled into her eyes, the bullets coming faster, faster, faster, until it was all she could do to stay ahead of them.
Then two, at the same time. One heading for Havoc, and a flash of Dooku's lightning heading for herself.
She gritted her teeth, throwing her lightsaber at Havoc as she used her other one to catch the Sith Lord's lightning. He screamed as it spun towards him, but Adhara narrowed her eyes, keeping the saber steady with the Force. It hovered right in front of Havoc's face, stilling just in time to refract the bullet.
Her skin was wet with sweat, pouring into her eyes, and it took everything within her to bring her shoto back to her, to wrap her fingers around it, and to cross it in front of her other lightsaber, feigning off the lightning.
But her legs trembled. She slid backwards, trying to keep her grip on her sabers as her whole body shook and sparks of lightning zapped across her skin and the clones yelled from behind her, cheering her on.
The lightning stopped, and Adhara wavered on her feet before collapsing to her knees, her head bowed. her skin was slick with sweat, and lifting her eyes, panic sliced through her like a knife.
Douku was smiling at her, so cruel it turned her sweat cold. Aitor had his head cocked, his own grin playing at her lips.
As if he knew what would happen next, and that it would wreck her.
Just like he wanted.
"Come on, Commander," Trap said, trying to sound encouraging, but she could hear the panic in his voice, as well. "Get up. You can do this."
Adhara tried to swallow, but her throat was sandpaper. For a moment, everything was still.
Then the Force snapped awake inside of her, and her head snapped up to see a red bullet flying towards them. Right towards Watch.
Adhara swallowed down a scream, trying to force herself to her feet, but her legs were jelly. Watch had his eyes closed tight, as if he knew, and Adhara thrust her hand out, catching the bullet in midair with the Force.
It took everything within her to hold it there, in front of Watch. It shook and shimmered, held unsteady as the effort threatened to pull her into unconsciousness.
"No," she said, her teeth gritted. She just had to get close enough to put her lightsaber in front of him, to refract the bullet. she just had to get close.
But still, he felt so far away.
She edged closer, but something broke inside of her. Black washed over her vision, and she felt her grip on the Force slip.
"No!" She screamed as she collapsed, and Watch died right in front of her eyes.
"Watch," she breathed, her eyes filling with tears, as she pulled herself across the floor towards his body. "Watch, no." but he was still in her arms. He was dead, and it crushed something fundamental inside of her.
He had been hers to take care of. Hers to look out for, to take care of when she had gotten them kidnapped. She was the one who was supposed to save him, and instead he was dead dead dead.
"Adhara," Trap said as their cylinders began to recede back into the ground, and Adhara couldn't look at him. "Adhara, it's okay. Don't give up."
She shook her head, looking at him with tears shining. Her words were a breath whispered on a broken heart. "I'm so sorry."
Trap strained towards her, but it was too late - his cylinder was already back in the ground, and looking up, Adhara saw Dooku and Aitor standing over her.
Douku's smile was cruel. "Do you feel broken yet?"
She didn't say anything. Just let her gaze drift to the ground.
Because, the truth was, she did.