Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Raada
18 BBY- 1 Year after the Rise of the Empire
Ahsoka was very good at being a mechanic, if she did say so herself.
She could fix broken tools, repair damaged ships, install new parts to old droids, and fix new droids with old parts. She could take any little piece of junk that she picked up and tinker with it until she found a way to make it useful. In fact, their shop was so full of bits and bobbles like this that it was practically overflowing with them.
Spare springs dangled dangerously off of the shelves. Nuts and bolts were piled haphazardly in the corners of the room. Gears were stacked perilously high on the tables, teetering more and more with each one she added on.
It was far more things than Ahsoka had ever been used to having, but she was starting to adjust. There was simply no sense in keeping an empty room in accordance with the modest Jedi traditions if she wasn't one anymore.
Rex, however, seemed to disagree. Every time he stepped inside their humble shop, ducking under the doorframe since it was a bit too low for his head, an expression came over him that looked like he was about to detonate from the inside out. He stared at the tumbling disarray of parts like they were the scampering rats that roamed Coruscant's junkyard on Level 1782. His sharp jaw ticked and his fingers fidgeted madly against his side. Ahsoka swore she could see a vein threatening to burst on his forehead.
"This is chaos," he said.
"It's organized chaos," she objected, keeping her eye on work from where she sat on the floor. Her client had dropped off the astromech a couple days ago and she needed to get it back to him by tomorrow at the latest. She narrowed her eyes as she twisted her wrench around a particularly rusty bolt, working to free the shoulder hydraulics.
Rex shook his head. "I don't like it," he muttered, setting down his pack of tools by the door. She watched him from the corner of her eye move over to the caf maker on the table, warily eyeing a tower of helical gears as he stepped around them.
"I know where everything is this way." She bit down on her lip and yanked the wrench to the right. The bolt popped off as it finally came free, clattering to the floor.
"Damn!"
A loud crash resounded in the room as a bucket toppled over somewhere in the nearby vicinity of Rex. Screws and coils spilled out onto the floor, clanging noisily as they scattered this way and that. After a few extended moments of ruckus, the last screw rattled to a halt a few inches from Ahsoka's foot.
"Ahsoka, we can't live like this," Rex groaned, running a hand exasperatedly over his head. His hair was still buzzed, maybe a bit longer, but it wasn't blonde anymore. It matched the new, scruffy look of his stubble. Ahsoka wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"Hestu stopped by an hour or so ago," she went on, ignoring his statement. "He needs you to fix his blaster rifle. He left it over on the table." She removed the last bolt from the astromech's shoulder before removing the plate and exposing the fine wiring. Something was wrong with its circuitry in the left side, and she was determined to figure out what. But it was such an old model of the Q7 R-series that its outdated parts made it difficult to identify the mechanisms.
"Hestu?" Rex echoed, giving up on changing her mind and returning to his previous mission of brewing a fresh pot of caf.
"The owner of the general store just down the road."
"Ah," he paused, "that Hestu."
Things had been going well for the two of them, relatively. They'd been on Raada for about five months now, marking it as the longest stay they'd had since they first went on the run. The main trade of the somewhat unremarkable planet was farming, meaning there were plenty of people who needed plenty of droids, plows, and tools fixed. It was busy enough to keep things interesting but quiet enough for them to lay low. They could only hope that this Outer Rim rock managed to stay untouched by the Empire at least a little longer.
Once the residents of the largish-village, smallish-town had found out that "Ashla and Rex" the mechanics were good for their money, they'd managed to build up a good number of clients. Sure, she wasn't an engineering prodigy like Anakin had been, but she took what she could get. There was even a handful of people that they'd go hang out at a cantina with when the workweek ended— friends, if they could call them that. People would bring her their broken tools and droids and bring Rex their damaged blasters and ships, and they made enough credits to get by. It was a pretty flawless operation.
When it came to the 'lying low' bit, Rex had claimed that his name was common enough that there must be "hundreds of lucky men" out in the galaxy with the name. Ahsoka didn't have that luxury, so Ashla the Mechanic became her new alias. It was believable enough. As long as no stormtroopers came to the planet and identified a fellow identical brother and a Togruta, they should be fine.
In all honesty, Ahsoka was doing quite alright for an ex-Jedi on the run whose world had just collapsed around her, and who had witnessed all of her soldier-friends try to kill her, and who only had a few skills outside of strategizing and fighting and lightsaber-ing.
And for a man born of a war and engineered to fight his life away, who'd also been manipulated from the start with a microscopic chip in his brain that rendered him nothing more than a tool, or a weapon, Rex was doing pretty alright, too.
"I got a coupon today for half-off at that cantina near the shipyard, so we could go there for dinner," Rex mentioned casually, pouring himself a cup of the steaming caf once it finished brewing.
Its warm, nutty aroma filled the air, making the tip of Ahsoka's nose tingle. The fragrance was tempting, and she guessed it was a part of Rex's plan to get her to stop working for once. It worked.
Reluctantly, she set down the wrench by the Q7 and stood up to go pour herself a cup, but stumbled to a halt when black suddenly flooded her vision. She reached blindly for the back of a chair to steady herself, and a moment later, the dizziness faded away and her vision came back. When she blinked open her eyes, Rex was at her side, holding her steady.
"You alright?" he asked, a little alarmed.
Ahsoka shook her head to clear it before nodding and flashing him a smile. "Head rush," she reassured him. She straightened and continued towards the caf maker. She must've forgotten to eat lunch today.
Rex frowned.
"You said you got a coupon?" she reminded him, pulling a grey cup out of a cabinet and pouring some caf into it. She immediately went for a sip, too impatient to let it cool off, and let the drink burn her tongue with her consent.
"Yeah, at that cantina by the shipyard," he replied. He still eyed her carefully as though he expected her to topple over again.
"Oh, the one with the weirdly bright-red door," she recalled, leaning against the counter.
"That's the one."
"Is it any good?"
"Guess we'll find out." He tipped the cup towards his mouth to drain the rest of his caf before stepping towards the front door. "Shall we?" he asked, opening the door and gesturing towards the outside.
Ahsoka gulped down the rest of her burning caf in one swig, setting down the empty cup before turning to walk out the door. "I'm still going to finish the Q7 by tonight," she declared as she stepped past him.
"I don't doubt it," he said as he held the door for her, closing and locking it behind them.
The cantina was noisy. And the bright-red door had matching bright-red walls on the inside that seemed a bit gaudy, if Ahsoka were to be honest. There weren't too many people, but Raada was only so big, and the lurid crimson walls made up for it by making the room seem stuffy and closed in. The food wasn't half-bad, though. Rex got a plate of couscous and fried gorg while Ahsoka munched on a breaded fish of some sort. She thought about picking apart the breading to try to see what it was, but it was probably better if she didn't find out.
"So," Rex started awkwardly. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about." He apprehensively wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his glove-free hand. Ahsoka wasn't sure she'd ever be used to seeing him in civvie clothes.
"Is it about the parts laying around the shop?" she guessed, "because if it's really bothering you, I can try to organize it a bit more."
"No, not that," he shook his head. Then hesitated. "…Well, yes, in a way, but—"
"Is it about Hestu's blaster? I can fix it you've already got too much on your plate, though—"
"That's not what I'm—"
"Oh! Then you're talking about the radiator on that cargo ship. Once I finish up with the astromech, I promise I'll head over and—"
"No! That's not it," he cut her off exasperatedly. He started to wave his fork in the air agitatedly as he went on. "I'm just trying to say that... well, I'm worried about you, Ahsoka. Things don't seem right at all."
Ahsoka stared at him blankly.
"Look," he began, "I'm not saying you're losing it or anything. I'm just noticing that things… aren't the same anymore."
"Hardly," she interrupted. "We're living under the dictatorship of Sith-controlled Empire now."
"That's not what I mean, and you know it," he countered, growing frustrated. He started waving the fork around more intensely, pointing it at her. "I'm trying to say that you're acting different. You sit in the shop from sun-up 'til sun-down, burying yourself in tinny scraps and clanker parts. And the shop," he scoffed, "the shop's a mess. The Ahsoka I know wouldn't have let a speck of dust even land on a surface before she'd wiped it clean of its existence." He set the fork back down on his plate. "It's just not like you."
Ahsoka huffed indignantly, opening her mouth to give a sharp retort but finding she didn't have one. She chose to cross her arms and sit back in her seat instead.
After she'd had a moment to gather her thoughts, she tried again. "Listen," she said slowly, trying to draw the words together, "things are different, now. And I'm just trying to adjust, because that's what we have to do. We don't really have a choice."
Rex watched her, his gaze softening. "'Soka," he said gently, "adjusting doesn't necessarily mean that we have to-"
He was cut off by a Twi'lek bursting through the bright-red door, breathless with his eyes stretched wide. "Stormtroopers!" he exclaimed, putting his hands on his knees to try and catch his breath, "the Imperials are here!"
Panic swept through the cantina like a shockwave, and soon enough, the anxious talking drowned out the noisy music playing in the background. Questions like "what do they want?" and "what are we going to do?" and cries like "we're done for!" and "they'll take everything!" whizzed throughout the cantina, as well as the occasional "maybe they'll put a stop to the unchecked crime," or "it could help stabilize the economy".
The heightened emotion in the room sparked throughout the Force like static electricity around Ahsoka, overwhelming her. She wasn't sure if it was the fear of the people around her or her own that was shaking her.
Imperials meant nothing good. In fact, they meant everything bad.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down, reaching out with the Force to feel past the frenzied people in the cantina and out into town, then further and further, until she reached the quiet hills and farmlands beyond the town's limits. She focused on the wheat sprouting from the ground and the trees growing in the orchards, on the rustle of their green leaves in the wind, on the strength of their sturdy roots and on the rivers of life that trickled through their fibers like it did her own. She took a deep breath and felt it.
"Ahsoka," came Rex's voice, startling her. She was suddenly aware of both his hands on her shoulders. He stared at her, worry flicking through his eyes as he searched her expression. "Are you alright?
That's the second time he'd had to ask her that today, she thought. "Yes, I'm alright," she answered, trying to sound reassuring. The Force still felt thick and humid with tension and dread in the room and she strained to feel the serenity of the outside.
Rex hesitated for a moment before reluctantly releasing his grip. "If he's right," he said quietly, glancing at the flustered Twi'lek who was now being handed a drink to calm down, "then we need to leave. We'll pack up our tools and whatever else we need, then we'll set our coordinates for another rock in the Outer Rim," he explained, keeping his voice level.
"Wait," Ahsoka paused, holding up a hand, "maybe we're thinking about this too rashly. Maybe we don't need to leave, yet."
Her own words surprised herself. She absentmindedly chewed at her cheek as she searched for a way to continue.
"I don't see how that's wise," Rex disagreed, shaking his head.
"Rex," she said, jade-blue eyes gazing at him earnestly, "all we've ever done is run. We've just been running and running, ever since…" she trailed off, lowering her gaze somberly, "...ever since it all happened. So maybe this time, we should stop, and stay put." She looked back up at him confidently, placing her finger on the table for emphasis.
"Running has been the best option we've had! If we made one slip up, or if a trooper even recognized me as a brother, we'd be done," Rex argued. His hands tightened into fists. "Ahsoka, the Empire is good at connecting the dots," he said heatedly, lowering his voice to an angry whisper, "and we're the kriffing dots!"
"Then we don't slip up," she countered, crossing her arms over her chest. "I already don't use the Force. And I don't have my lightsabers anymore, nor do you have your armor, so we already blend in with the rest of the town. Plus, I heard that they aren't even using the clones anymore. They're phasing them out."
Rex stayed silent. She could almost hear gears in his brain starting to click and grind, turning this way and that as he considered her argument.
"And just in case, we could set up a base, somewhere in the hills outside the town's limits and beyond the farmlands," she went on, reaching out to his inner-military tactician. She hoped she was managing to convince him. She was starting to convince herself, at least. "And we can stash food and weapons, just as a back up if things go bad."
"There could be a cave system in those hills," he murmured, mulling over her words. "We could see if any of them connect and use them for reconnaissance."
"Exactly," she agreed, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. She had him.
Slowly, Rex started to nod his head as though he'd reached a calculated conclusion. "Alright, alright…" he said, more to himself than to Ahsoka, "it could work…"
"It will," she said firmly. She reached across the table to put her hand over his. The enticement of long-needed adventure tingled in her fingertips and on the back of her neck under her lekku. "Rex, we can do this. We can stay here, go about our lives as mechanics, and if anything goes wrong…"
She glanced around the cantina, taking it in. It was small, and so was the number of its patrons. She didn't know all their names, but she recognized almost all of them, having fixed something of theirs or another. Nearly all of them had been kindhearted towards Rex and Ahsoka when they'd first arrived. She almost felt a sense of… responsibility.
"If anything goes wrong, we could try to help," she said quietly, confidence etching her tone.
Rex's hand tensed beneath hers, but he kept his gaze steady. "Alright," he conceded, "we'll try to stay this time." His eyes drifted around the cantina where people were beginning to calm down. "And if anything goes wrong, and I mean really wrong, like we-can't-do-anything-about-it wrong," paused, giving her a meaningful look, "then we get out, and run."
Ahsoka nodded solemnly.
But her mind was already starting to drift elsewhere, and she couldn't stop the small smile pulling at her lips.
Rex's brow furrowed, confused. "What is it?"
She broke out into a teasing grin. "Well, if you're so worried about being recognized, you could always grow out a beard. Like, a full-on, Master Ki-Adi-Mundi one, with the chops and all. It would be quite the sight."
Rex shot her a glare that could have killed. "Never on my kriffing life."
She laughed and sat back in her seat, pulling her hand back from his. "I don't know. I'm starting to get used to your stubble." She pinched a piece of couscous from his plate between her fingers and teasingly flicked it at him.