Nara silently hoped to find the approaching chamber a hive of activity, a shuffling of techs as they carried out simple operations, the shifting of lights as the senior personnel followed directives, recentered equipment or simply took notes. She closed her eyes as the growing anticipation filled her with a sense of dread, almost certain they would find the chamber conversely empty and devoid of anything whatsoever. Nara was working out a plan, one with contingencies and alternatives to them, but one that need only come to pass if the facilities crowning achievement was as empty as she felt it would be.
Nara knew ‘He’ was close, she could sense his approach, feel his proximity, and taste the power that she had unwittingly craved. ‘He would not be here unless he meant to be.’ She thought to herself, feeling the lift tube begin to decelerate, as she opened her eyes to the unconscious clone of herself slumped at Rex’s feet.
“You’ve admitted as much to the Togruta.” Zannah whispered lightly.
‘It is a selfish thought Zannah. This chamber will be empty, and purposefully.’ Nara responded as the lift came to a stop. There was no response from Zannah, if there were, Nara would have been deaf to it. She, like Ahsoka beside her, began erecting protective layer upon layer of Force energies with the time allotted them, assurances that they were, at the very least, heeding a hard-fought wisdom in their approach.
“Rex, stay behind us.” Ahsoka whispered into the shared space, the lift doorway sliding open with an awkward silence to reveal a short, wide, hallway before a set of light gray double doors. Nara instinctively looked to the floor below the doors, willing herself to see a sliver of light from the room beyond, hoping the darkness she did see was only an illusion.
“What about her?” Rex said in a hushed tone, pressing a finger against his pant leg in an effort to dry a small patch of pooling blood, a wound he had received pulling himself into the chamber below. He lowered his other hand toward Nara’s clone absently, “I can’t just leave her in here…” Nara flashed the man an appreciative glance, wishing she had thought of an alternative for the woman herself.
“She comes with us, to the end…” Ahsoka stated, walking slowly from the lift with both hands subtly extended before her. Again, Nara swiveled to survey the departing Togruta, finding a tether to the collective consciousness they had had on Ambria once again. “There is someone here.” Ahsoka said suddenly, freezing in place just before the set of double doors, Nara finding herself in a sudden state of confusion at the admission she herself had not sensed.
Rex doubled over to rest the limp woman over his shoulder, following Nara from the lift who kept a diligent hand on his stomach, an act Rex appreciated for any defensive response it would allow. He kept his feet moving in accordance with the pace she set for them both, his eyes on her shoulders now, his own life completely in her hands as Ahsoka pushed the doors open slowly before them. Even Rex could sense the tension in the air, a palpable apprehension that bordered the limits of his own sanity, but one met with the much more powerful bond of trust the three had forged in a most unlikely way. Whatever lay ahead, he was certain, could not be worse than what they’ve already endured, even with the potential to close out their lives. The bond was strong between them in the same fashion he had shared with countless brothers through days gone by, the few that still lived and the thousands that had fallen.
Ahsoka breathed in the stale air, pausing for a moment to pierce the still darkness of the chamber, surveying a central bank of consoles and equipment that reflected the corridors light. “It smells of death.” She whispered quietly, wrinkling her nose slightly as she processed the odors.
“That is chrost Ahsoka, the levels below sustain growth. This chamber, however, perpetuates suspension.” Nara offered with a softness.
“You’ve been here before…” Ahsoka said turning toward Nara.
“No Ahsoka, but my hosts were. Suspension does not negate memory. What is heard can affect us through thought the same way sight can affirm reality.” Nara replied, turning her own head in surveillance, remembering Ahsoka’s earlier suggestion that someone was present. Her gaze fell upon both sets of eyes staring back at her, “what?”
“That would imply that subsequent clones from the same set of genomes would adopt a greater sense of origination.” Rex was the first to comment, “becoming less acquiescent over time.”
“Or a shorter term of acquiescence…” Ahsoka added, her thoughts shifting quickly to the levels below, “he isn’t assembling an army by any means as Vos had feared.” Her eyes widened as the memories rushed directly into the foreground, “it is precisely as I had, and the hosts are the key.” She finished, internally suppressing her rise in anger.
“There...although I do not see.” Nara said in a hushed tone as all three of them adopted the silence of internal inflection. She began walking slowly into the darkness beyond the central consoles, disappearing beyond what light the corridor did provide. Ahsoka and Rex remained stationary, focusing on the Mirialan’s shuffling steps above the rhythmic thumping of their own hearts. They stopped breathing altogether the moment they both collectively heard Nara’s gasp well beyond the dark curtain of their own sight. Only a second passed before they both squinted the bright orange light from their dilated pupils, the quick activation of the ancient saber assaulting their hearing as a fizzling hiss beat the dry air with a rhythmic hum. Sight beginning to return, Ahsoka focused on what had caught Nara’s attention and in the light of the double-bladed saber, saw what the Mirialan had. A lone pod, larger than the ones on the lower levels sat upright, idly socketed into a cradle within the chamber’s walls. A quick glance to either side only revealed countless cradles as she spun around in observation. Although she wasn’t certain, the pod before Nara seemed to be the only one.
“I know not who this is..” Nara spoke over the hum of both blades and the shuffling of approaching feet, feet that were increasing pace behind her.
An appalling sense of dread assailed Ahsoka as she began consuming the contents of the pod with more than her eyes. Her muscles tightened involuntarily, her breathing became more labored. Ahsoka’s stomach began to churn, her mind doubling and tripling its efforts to contain the anger that threatened to rip through her core. The muscles began to quake and quiver after tightening painfully in her arms at the same moment those in her legs shook with a violence that would shatter bone. The thoughts tearing through her wrestled, than overcame the suppression her mind had worked diligently to endure, turning itself loose before the anger consumed it entirely. She was losing control of all autonomous function the closer she came to the pod, more importantly, its contents and the dark skin of the body within. Although the subject’s eyes were closed, the familiarity Ahsoka saw within the cheek bones, the ear lobes, and the gentle curve of the young woman’s shoulders, tore through her psyche with its own volition, its own recklessness, and its own resolve. The anger consumed her, became her, drove her, in its domination of her vessel.
“That’s….that’s….” Rex stammered, placing himself a few steps closer to the pod, its contents reflecting the light of Nara’s sabers.
“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!” Ahsoka shouted, pounding through the room like a Star Destroyers repulsor array, an invisible concussive wave that stole the air from both Nara and Rex’s chests, unsettled the gelatinous fluid within the pod, sending a mass of slow-moving bubbles upward, and sent various instruments that had been unseen skittering toward the wall’s edges. “AAAHHHHHH!” Ahsoka shouted again, the deep concussion felt through the initial burst replaced by an ear splitting ring that caused Rex to drop the clone upon his shoulders and Nara to release her saber, both clamping hands over their ears as lights began to flicker from their recesses in the ceiling, the screens of the console banks to implode with a shattering demise and distant metals to creak loudly with torturous groans and life threatening splinters.
Nara, consumed at the moment with her own survival, could not hear the warnings shouted into her own mind, Zannah’s own spiritual residence hanging in the balance as the continuing waves of intense Force energies threatened to tear her from Nara’s mind and her own tether to the matrix in the Mirialan’s care. Nara released her hands from the side of her head as the same thought began to overwhelm the instinctual dread that coursed through her body, willing the wailing Togruta to contain the anger that poured from her as the refuse to the lower levels of Coruscant itself. “AHSOKA!” Nara screamed with as much volume as she could muster, at least catching the woman’s attention, the deep blue Togrutan eyes finding her own, Nara willing the woman to see the torment within her own expression and startled with a renewed cognizance of impending doom as the eyes shifted in color rapidly between purple and black. The rage offered by those windows to the soul only confirmed to Nara that she wasn’t sure who the Togrutan was at the moment, all vestiges of the Ahsoka she knew having been consumed by an uncontrolled wrath that deserved far more reason to pause than the promise of who was coming. Veins protruded from the Togrutan’s neck, muscles contracted rapidly to the rhythm of the woman’s breathing, seething through teeth clenched in malice with every inhale and exhale.
“AHSOKA!” Nara heard Rex shout, no doubt sensing the same inevitable doom she was. The rage torn face of the Togruta finally shifted away from Nara and toward the old clone on his knees to the other side of the pod. Rex immediately regretted the call to attention, as the menacing gaze found his own. A fear gripped his very soul as he fell into an almost hypnotic trance of disbelief. The passage his own past, that would always be so visibly clear when he looked into Ahsoka’s eyes, only reflected a hatred that would consume what was left of his memories. Her eyes bore into his with a fury that would suspend the blood in his veins and the passage of air to his lungs, stealing from him any hope that the woman he knew was somewhere beneath the raging beast she had become. When he could stand the penetrating gaze no longer, his own fell to the ground in a dejection that was all consuming, tears hazing his vision as he fell over the unconscious Mirialan at his side, willing himself to extinguish the life within before the Togruta could.
✦
Jade guided the vessel to a rest upon the empty landing pad, Sidious already removing himself from the seat and rushing to the cabin doorway. “Stay here until summoned. Do you understand?” He ordered leaving no room for any other interpretation, his head cast over his shoulder within the hatchway’s frame.
“I do My Lord.” Jade responded with a sudden unease, ‘I am capable of protecting myself..’ the thought shot forth in her mind before she could swallow it.
“If you disobey me Jade, you will die.” Sidious was direct, “...not by my hands..” he amended, Jade certain the man was entertaining some form of emotion she thought him incapable. As quickly as the thought assailed her, the man was gone from the doorway, Jade stretching her gaze down the small corridor beyond to confirm. The moment she turned back to survey the barren tarmac outside the canopies frame, her mind was stolen from her, her muscles constricting as her head slammed into the rest behind it and her jaws clenching with a bone crunching snap.
The same otherworldly force that gripped her in hyperspace stole the air from Jade’s lungs, tearing with a burning fire at her very instincts to survive. She attempted to raise her arms, to squeeze a finger beneath the unseen noose that had suddenly wrapped itself like durasteel cable around her throat, finding that the coordination to do so was well beyond her capabilities. Jade felt her ribs thrust inward, spear points of bone that wavered under the constricting muscles themselves to pierce the delicate organs beneath, churning her insides with a wracking pain she was helpless to combat. The ship itself began to shuffle with an ear-splitting grind as if giant hands were pushing against its port side hull, the metals grating against one another, the vibrations of firmly planted landing gear mutilating the duracreet below them. Every internal sense and reason told Jade to get away from here as fast as possible, to extend the distance between herself and the force that was stealing her very soul to the galaxy’s limits. But she couldn’t. The same forces pressed upon the need to escape, worming their way through every ounce of base instinct she possessed. And she knew all she could was endure. Endure and obey.
✦
“AHSOKA!” Rex tried again, willing himself to defy the self-interpreted doom that would author his demise. An inclining became a beacon as memory resurfaced through his own efforts, a bond that stretched beyond the simplicity of platonic or intimate consult. The bond that had sealed itself when he closed his own eyes to the trust of the same woman before him cutting deep within his own mind to restore the individual that needed to be free. Rex forced himself to his backside, placing the Mirialan behind him with a determined resolve only that memory could have summoned. He felt his flesh resist the effort to lean forward to his knees through an imagination that was not of his creation, peeling itself through its own layers to expose the bone beneath. Despite the urge to cover the wounds, he forged forward, sliding his feet underneath him, “AHSOKA, STOP!” The command felt rejuvenating although the phrase itself felt of betrayal and self-sacrifice, the words unable to penetrate the forces that pushed against them. All he needed to do was place a hand on the beast’s arm, she would know the bond, she would feel it and she would hear him. Rex could feel the years that were promised ahead rush straight through him as weak as he felt, yet he thrust forward, flailing madly with trembling fingers just beyond reach as he bent forward to defy the invisible force determined to keep them apart.
Ahsoka turned toward the pod, to the smooth and gentle form within, tight wrappings across her chest and waist binding the young woman with at least some form of dignity even though the presentation was anything but. She could only close her eyes as the fury whirled within, finding paths for her to willingly cast swaths of destruction in some outward example the rest of the universe would witness as a testament of her wrath. She launched her eyes open again as she looked upon the woman within, hearing the laugh of the child she had been, and the haunting whispers of promises made long ago. She saw what she did then, years removed from the beast that stood before her now, a youngling that needed her protection, and only hers because nobody else could. The wrath became indignation that bordered the limits of her own sanity, fueled the internal malevolence to its next degrees of irascibility and belligerence and strived to push her far beyond the borders of this self-imposed madness. And then she felt his touch.
A stillness ensued within Ahsoka’s own mind, one that did not remove the churning fury within but froze it in place with equal intensity. The warmth of the slight touch on her left arm, a conduit for her own sanity as she blinked the blindness of rage from her own eyes in rapid succession, revealing the truth within the pod and the truth that was reaching out to her from the left. The red that tinged her peripheral vision began to recede as she reached out to that truth, wrapped both hands firmly around in her mind and made it her anchor. The passion through the touch, the compassion that it promised an equal measure to the rage that began to subside as the scales turned toward a balance point. Ahsoka worked to calm herself, placing herself, through calming breaths toward the center of that balance, her mind determined to become its very fulcrum. With rapid blinks, she forced the remnants of her blinding fury to accept what she was looking at, accept the hand on her arm, accept her anger and accept the situation that reality delivered. She breathed out a heavy breath, exhausted through unintentional displays of unknown ability to accept the balance, finally, of her own truth, “Hedala...N’dali.” She whispered lightly before her.
“I know Ahsoka.” Was all Rex needed to say, wrapping the Togruta in his arms, his own body wracking mildly from shared grief.
Nara had some inclination who the woman in the pod was but focused her own gaze on the sum of their collective offerings as she shook free of the supernatural force that had bound her toward a self-imposed doom. With heaving breaths, she snapped her neck to the left, sensing the initial wave of the man’s presence, knowing it was only a matter of seconds before he came through the doors. She fired her gaze around, her head clearing with the formulation of a plan she had not conceived prior, finding the linchpin of which lying at Rex’s feet. “I need you both to trust me…” Nara whispered, her head still ringing from the unproven assault, aware that both Ahsoka and Rex had slowly turned toward her, despite her fixated gaze on the next of her sisters line, “there may be a way out of this after all…” she continued, meeting their eyes with her own as she searched quickly for her sabers hilt, finding it beside the pod. Nara pulled quickly upon the Force toward the hilt and clipped it to her waist with her right hand before articulating fingers in circular patterns with her left. She closed her eyes as she willed the incantation upon her lips, whispering indistinguishable words in rapid succession. Within moments, Nara had simply vanished from sight only seconds before the darkness of the chamber filled with a dull green light.
The lights that had flickered brightly moments before through Ahsoka’s tirade glowed with an unnatural and vile green that reminded Rex of the choking swamps of Reytus II.
“So predictable….” The statement was only slightly louder than a whisper, but carried the tone of absolute command, the words themselves strung out through impossibly long recitation, filling the room with its own echo.
“Stay behind me Rex, at all costs.” Ahsoka said turning toward Sidious fully. She could hear him shuffle his feet in immediate compliance, pulling the Mirialan with him.
“Of what consequence would the death of one more CT impose Ahsoka Tano, or that of a traitorous subject?” Sidious rasped into the air.
“You have my attention.” Ahsoka said quietly in reply, the calmness within surprising even her.
“As you had garnered my own on Nar Shaddaa I will admit, quite the display of martial prowess, but it is the fury beneath that interests me most.” Sidious responded quickly, the raspiness giving way to a more conversational tone.
“Drop the facade Sidious...it does not become you.” She said simply, watching the man closely as he remained motionless within the doors frame, the lights beginning to flicker for a moment before returning their unnatural glow.
“There is no facade young lady, no lies within. Only the truth I believe you to have just learned for yourself.”
Ahsoka thought to look around her but understood the situation better than she thought she may have as she crossed her arms before her chest in a stance that spoke directly of defiance. “There is only one truth that defies logic here…” Ahsoka stated, cognizant of the danger she was in but determined to find reason where there had been none, “an unwillingness to accept the very teachings that guide your order.”
Sidious laughed in response, despite an internal urge to congratulate the Togruta. He avoided the mirthless laugh that would cause queasy spasms within his own chest, only dancing a slight cackle through the dry air between the, “what is left to imbue when absolution is so close at hand? Or do you imagine a universe where your former master can set his mind toward anything but the past?” Sidious almost lost control of his projected stature, relinquishing the precepts that the Togruta truly carried with her. “I know of his child Ahsoka Tano…”
“Of course you do!” Ahsoka cut him off, dancing her own light laughter through the air, “or you wouldn’t have come with one so weak!” She admitted the sense she had planned to reveal over time, “one that presents so frail in the face of a foe she can’t even see...my friend,” She paused turning slightly to see Rex over her shoulder, “presents more strength through adversity, an underestimation on your part, my Lord.” She continued finishing with a short mocking bow.
Ahsoka could sense a boiling anger within the man, deciding it best to continue her revelation to see how far she could push him, despite the internal warnings that supplied counterthought. “You do not trust your own apprentice Sidious…” She said, spitting over the name as it left her tongue, “because you underestimate him as well.”
“Enough of this, Vader is beside the point Miss Tano..” Sidious fired back, the welling anger beginning to froth.
“No. He is not. He is the point, one which you have failed to see from the beginning.” Ahsoka stated with more conviction than she had ever placed in anything she had ever said in her life. Sidious tried to work some form of manipulation through her mind, images, well outside of her own design, began to flash through her thoughts, threatening to distract her from her present course, “you resort to parlor tricks to waylay the truth Sidious? Force yourself to see it! Force yourself to witness what you have been taking for granted. Force yourself to admit to a pandering fear of exposure.” She wouldn’t have held in the laugh if she wanted to as it erupted into the room, forcing its own echoes to stab their way through the exterior the Sith Lord would command. Thousands of tiny, miniscule, and insignificant daggers working their way with determined focus to penetrate the shields he erected. Ahsoka learning one more bit of information she hadn’t previously known.
“Have it all figured out then, do you?” It was Sidious’ turn to buffer the tension between the two, those behind her almost forgotten.
“Of course not, only the deprivation you cling to.” Ahsoka rebutted immediately, “I look around me, at this place, the facilities associated, and I am torn between pitying you and laughter. Everything Aborah is no more an affront to the galaxy than it was decades ago, even centuries ago, when such things were funded in secret by creative accountants and power-hungry initiatives...this is nothing new!” She continued, ready to continue despite internal warnings to the contrary, “you only project fear, Lord Sidious. What is taking place here has only one objective. One goal that stands to bastardize your very order, and that of the Whills that guide the Force. Tell me in all sincerity that you do not fear death, let me see that truth within your own eyes.” She finished, tilting to balance her body on her right foot.
With verbiage customized to the arenas of politics and negotiations, Sidious was forced to broker with time itself, regaling himself, through remembered instances, the last being that had ever truly challenged him through verbal retort. The ridiculousness almost made him shake his head as his mind presented him the only individual who had ever met the parameters invoked. The memory flashed its own image and Sidious was helpless to remove the grinning smile that looked unnatural on the Muun’s slender face. Torn between a need to do his own Master justice through his own death and the suppressed internal lament for having been the one that caused it to begin with, Sidious did feel the tinge of fear suggested. He had only two options going forward as the suddenness of his own assured survival of the present encounter quickly caved toward doubt, and the admission of any fear had been self-stamped out of reason. ‘The woman does not fear death.’ He thought quickly to himself.
“Because she is right, Sidious.” Plagueis echoed through his own mind, the barking baritone of the remembered voice causing an involuntary revulsion of his own muscles.
“You are incapable of admitting to the very thing you project, despite your cunning circumvention of the thing itself.” Ahsoka was tired of waiting, “what is it we are even doing here then, if not wasting my time.” The statement felt valid enough, but it was the evaporation of the internal warnings altogether that garnered the bulk of her attention. “You will not receive what you want from me, alive or dead Sidious so I do not fear death, but you didn’t conceive that possibility did you?” She asked through narrowing eyes, an empowering sense of herself within guiding her words without thought given to them. “I know what my anger can produce, and if Hedala Fardi was supposed to force me to quake in some realization that I don’t know my own potential, then you are woefully mistaken.” She added, the words feeling as if not her own, the sensation coursing through her body flowing with the Force itself, removing any hesitations that accompanied the fact.
Sidious was on the precipice of delving directly into the font of his own anger, ready to assail the chamber with pummeling waves of Force energies that would obliterate the two clones, destroy the suspended woman and reek undetermined damage to the chamber, if not the facility, itself. But he hesitated. The rest of the factors were of little value to him beyond the trophy that stood before him, the one facet his machinations needed in order to progress, and the one he currently did not feel confident he could overpower.
“Your weakness shames even me, Sidious. To think all that the Sith Order had endured to lead you to this moment only to find you withdrawing into a pitiful version of yourself. Admit your fear and do what is right, for the Dark Side will abandon you in any case. Allow her to end you and this mockery your making of our order...OF MY ORDER. The line will continue through her toward the heights promised if only you have the courage to embrace the death you deserve…” Plagueis boomed through Sidious’ mind, the voice he had worked to obliterate very much alive and well through his own memory.
‘Perhaps the Togruta is right then after all….’ Sidious thought to himself as he imagined his body impaled by the lethal white energy blades Tano would wield to end his life for good.