"Rex! Rex are you in here?" Anakin called out as he entered the ship.
"Yeah, General, in here," Rex's voice called out.
Anakin started to walk over to the room. "Finally. Why weren't you- oh. Oh! Force Rex why is there a baby in your hands and.... what happened to your face?"
Rex wanted to make a snarky remark, but stopped himself. Instead he said, "I probably left some evidence on the... thing over there, sorry about that. And you don't look to good either, no offense."
Anakin sighed, "None taken. Do you uh have a concussion? You usually know everything on a ship by name,"
Rex just shrugged.
"Great. Also is that a Togruta?" Rex nodded, "Boy or girl?"
"Girl. The parents are dead if you're wondering," Rex said as he pulled up a chair and sat down with the baby in his arms, sound asleep.
"Hmm, okay. Whatever you do, do not let Ahsoka see her. You've seen how she reacts to younglings, and since this one is her kind, it's going to be crazy. And don't let her name her, otherwise she'd get more attached,"
"So what do I-"
"Anakin are you done yet," Mace said as he came aboard the ship.
"Oops, I forgot he was here," Anakin mumbled.
He entered the room and Rex quickly stood up and saluted him, "At ease Captain," Rex sat back down, "Is that a baby?" Mace asked,
"Whose child is that?"
"A dead person's," Anakin responded.
"Then take it to an orphanage, we don't have the time or credits to deal with one this young,"
"Hold on now, Master. Can't you feel it? The Force?"
Mace slightly furrowed his brown and nodded, the he closed his eyes, along with Anakin. Sensing how strong the baby was in the Force.
"Oh not this again," Rex muttered.
He explored the baby's face markings, the little white marks on her chin, contrasting against her light red skin. She had mahogany lips, just like his wife. The baby slowly started to wake up and whimper, "No, no, no," Rex whispered, "You can't bother them. Please don't cry,"
He placed his ungloved finger over her mouth to try and silence her, but that was a mistake. She opened her mouth, and bit down on his index finger. Although she barely had any teeth, she had her small, needle tip fangs. Rex let out a muffled yelped and tried to pull his finger out, trying to to disturb the Jedi doing whatever it was they were doing. He bit his bottom lip and pried her mouth open with his free hand, and released his trapped finger. He took a sigh of relive when he saw there were no punctures, just red indents in his skin. Rex rubbed his sore finger and the baby stared at him with her large violet eyes.
Anakin chuckled at the two and Rex didn't realized he had watched the whole thing. Rex cheeks turned pink and he pushed down his embarrassment. His mood changed in an instant as he stood up and held out the smiling baby to Anakin. Anakin shook his head, "I don't want her, I don't have any experience," Rex pressed on, "Fine. Where are you going?"
"My head hurts," Rex said as he went into a small med room.
He came out a few minutes later and saw his General bouncing the girl on his knee and Mace was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, "What happened with the Chancellor?" Rex asked.
".... he's dead," Anakin said at last.
"Did you just leave him in the senate building for certain members of the senate to find?"
Anakin glared at Rex then relaxed his expression, "Well I was going to call it in, but then I realized that it wouldn't go over well,"
"And leaving him for people to find is better?"
".... well no...."
"So call it in,"
"Wow, a captain giving orders to a general, didn't think that would happen,"
Rex crossed him arms.
"Fine,"
——
Ahsoka was staring at a data pad and tapping her foot impatiently, "Cody are you done yet?"
"Almost," Cody replied over his shoulder.
They were talking to the clones on board about certain things, Ahsoka interrogated one group, while Cody did the other. Ahsoka finished with hers and had been waiting for a while now for Cody to finish. He just finished talking to a clone and he walked over to Ahsoka, "I haven't found anything suspicious. Have you?"
"No. Not yet. I just hope we don't have an affected clone or two running about."
Cody was about to speak when his com went off, "Sir, there's a few random droids wandering around the Med Bay. Haven't seen 'em before," a clone's voice said.
"Alright, thank you trooper," he disconnected the line, "Maybe it's droids and not clones,"
"Hmm, maybe. Let's go see if we can find them,"
Cody nodded and they jogged toward the Med Bay. As they were jogging, he rounded a corner a little too sharply and clipped his shoulder, causing him to lose his balance and nearly fall over. Ahsoka laughed, "You're about clumsy as Rex,"
"Well we are clones,"
"Yes, you all may look the same, but you act very different from one another,"
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
"How would you feel if there were millions of exact copies of Fives or Hardcase?"
"The galaxy would either be in flames or everyone would be joking around about the dumbest things ever,"
Ahsoka smiled, he was right. They made it to the Med Bay and looked around, but there was nothing other than a few clones hanging around, "Seen any droids lately?" Ahsoka asked them.
"There was one that went into there but it was a medical droid. There was another one that went down that left hall,"
"Description?" Cody asked.
"Uh it was a protocol droid and an R2 unit I think," the clone said.
"What color?"
"Black,"
Ahsoka and Cody looked at each other and said at the same time, "Assassin droid,"
Cody drew out his blaster, putting on his helmet, and him and Ahsoka ran down the halls. She ignited her lightsaber when she picked up clanking metal feet and a whirring sound with her lekku and montrals. Just down the hall were the black protocol droid and R2 unit. The droids turned around and suddenly a bunch of guns and missile launches came out of the astromech's head part. The protocol droid pulled out a variety of weapons and aimed them at the Jedi and clone.
Ahsoka ignited her lightsabers and prepared to run to the droids, but the astromech fired a small missile from the turret in its head. The missile twisted and spun in the air. Ahsoka had to think fast otherwise she'd die. She dropped her lightsabers and stuck out her hands, using the Force to stop it from crashing into her and Cody and the wall behind them, "Get out of here!" She commanded Cody.
Cody could see her straining, "I can't!"
She used one hand to quickly shoved him with the Force into a nearby room and she locked the door. Cody got the wind knocked out of him as he landed hard against the floor. He saw the door shut and lock, "Haar'chak!!" He shouted.
Cody tried to get the door open, but a loud explosion erupted and caused Cody to leap back at the sound boom. He leapt just in time, the door came clear off and crashed into the back wall. He covered his ears as an instinct, but it didn't do much. He heard the adrenaline pumping through his body though and he carefully walked over to the hole in the wall. Cody stopped breathing when he saw Ahsoka lying on the ground with dark spots on her clothes and some of her skin singed.
He ran over to her and ripped off his helmet, "Commander!" He shook her trying to get her awake, "Ahsoka are you alright!?" He checked her pulse and found it was spotty and irregular. He looked up and saw a huge and burnt hole in the wall at the end of the hall, "C'mon get up!" But she wasn't moving, "No, argh! Rex's gonna kill me...."