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Stopping at outposts for several rotations on end often led to extreme boredom within battalions, which in turn always led to some form a chaos and moments like this where Kix sat in the medbay, glaring at an injured Hardcase who had already attempted to escape at least six times since he arrived after blowing up yet another droid base before he was out of range of the blast. Fives and Echo sat by his side, Echo dealing out cards for a game. The medbay door suddenly slid open with such speed it hissed and spit out a few sparks.
“General, will you please stop using the Force to open the door, it’s going to bre-” Kix was cut off as General Ahsoka Tano sped past him over to Hardcase’s bed where she stopped to catch her breath.
“Commander Cody has a crush on Master Obi-Wan!”
“I KNEW IT!” Fives shouted, “Hardcase pay up,”
“That was a hypothetical bet,” Hardcase complained, “I don’t have any credits!”
“Draw two,” Echo said, placing down a card with a smirk.
“Oh, kriff you,” Fives muttered, drawing another card.
“I heard drama, what happened?” Jesse asked, poking his head in the room.
“Commander Cody has a crush on Master Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka said again, “Where’s Rex? He owes me twenty credits,”
“Control center,” Tup answered, poking out from behind Jesse, “Did you guys really bet on that?”
“Yup!” Ahsoka said, sprinting out of the medbay towards the control center.
“Rex! Pay u-” Ahsoka cut herself off, skidding to a stop. Master Kenobi turned to stare at her, Rex stood beside him, tilting his head questioningly.
“Oh, Master Kenobi, I didn’t, uh, see you there,” Ahsoka shot Rex a look. He blinked, confused. She glanced at Kenobi then shot Rex another look. He shrugged, still confused. Ahsoka rolled her eyes, “Twenty credits,” she mouthed. Rex’s eyes widened, “Really?” he whispered back.
“Can we help you, Ahsoka?” Obi-Wan said somewhat loudly, breaking their not-so-subtle conversation.
“Uh, no, Master,” Ahsoka shook her head, “I’ll come back later,”
Obi-Wan gave her a suspicious look but seemed to brush it off and turned back to the holomap he had been studying.
Rex met her in the hallway after the meeting.
“Where’d you hear it?” he asked as they started walking back to the medbay.
“Credits first,” Ahsoka demanded, holding out her hand. Rex sighed and handed her twenty Republic credits.
“Don’t spend it all at once,” he ordered, “Now spill,”
She grinned.
“Well, I was trying to catch a mouse droid that had somehow made its way into the vents…” she started as they walked into the medbay. Everyone quickly perked up to hear the story.
“So I was crawling through there and I managed to make my way all the way to Commander Cody’s quarters. I was about to keep going but I saw him writing something in a journal, then he hid the journal behind a loose panel in the wall. I thought ‘okay that’s a little suspicious’ so when he left the room I went down and looked through the journal and-” she paused to giggle.
“Well???” Fives urged, “What did it say?”
“I-” she burst out in giggles again, “I can’t say it without laughing! Here,” She pulled the little journal out of her pocket.
“You took it??” Jesse gasped.
“Blackmail material,” Hardcase grinned.
“No, no, we’re gonna give it back,” Rex said, “...after we read it, go ahead Fives,”
“Alright, latest entry: ‘I think the reason I wear my helmet so much around General Kenobi is so that he doesn’t see me blush-’ ”
“What’s going on in here?”
Everyone froze.
“Commander! Hi, we were just…playing,” Fives threw the journal across the room earning a confused look from Commander Cody, “Do you…want us to deal you in?” he held up the cards.
“Uh, no thank you, I was just going to meet with General Kenobi,” Cody said, “Have any of you seen him?”
Ahsoka hid her face, stifling a laugh but made the mistake of making eye contact with Fives who was also trying not to laugh. She clasped her hands over her mouth as Fives turned his face away from Cody and gave a silent wheeze.
“Control center,” Rex directed. Cody nodded and continued down the hall. The moment he was out of earshot Ahsoka and Fives burst out laughing as Echo got up to retrieve the journal with a grin. Rex smiled.
“Ahsoka, if you wouldn’t mind returning the journal to our dear Commander,” he said.
“Of course Captain,” she said, still giggling. Ahsoka took the journal from Echo and hopped onto an empty medbay bed. She jumped up into the vents and began making her way through the tight tunnels.
She made it only as far as the next corridor before pausing to listen in on a conversation between who she recognized to be two members of the Coruscant guard who were visiting the outpost to pick up a prisoner.
“What do we do?”
“We can’t just leave him!”
The other shook his head.
“This is bad, this is really bad,”
“You think I don’t know that?? The son of Jango Fett is loose in this outpost!”
“Ugh, we’re gonna get in so much trouble,”
“Not if we find him before anyone finds out! Come on!”
The two ran off down the hall, leaving Ahsoka to process what she had just heard.
“The son of Jango Fett,” she whispered to herself thoughtfully. She remembered hearing about the clone kid the bounty hunter Jango Fett had specifically requested to raise as his son. Ahsoka had met him once; feral little kid. What was his name? Boba? It was probably best to keep this under wraps for now, the guards probably had it handled. Then again…the son of Jango Fett? Loose in the outpost? You can’t not say anything.
Ahsoka continued through the vents until she reached Commander Cody’s quarters. She put the journal back behind the wall panel, carefully placing it back the way it was found. As she turned to leave she heard a small bump, like something or someone knocking into the wall. Silently creeping through the dark room, she crouched down to look under the bed. But before she could, the door slid open, casting a bright light through the doorway.
“General Tano?! What are you-”
“SHHH,” Ahsoka hissed at a very confused Cody. Turning back to the bed, she slowly peered under it.
There was a sudden whistle and whirr as the mouse droid she had been looking for whizzed out from under the bed.
“Oh!” she startled, “There you are!” Ahsoka picked up the small droid and walked out the door, much to the confusion of the Commander.
“Oh by the way, keep an eye out; I just heard Boba Fett escaped and is somewhere in this outpost,” she added.
“The bounty hunter kid??”
“Yup,” Ahsoka continued down the hall leaving Commander Cody, puzzled as ever, standing at the door to his quarters.
“Hey! You can’t stack draw twos!”
“Yes you can!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No!
“Yes!”
“YAHTZEE!” Hardcase shouted. Echo and Fives paused.
“Not again!” Echo groaned.
“He always wins!” Fives complained. Rex rolled his eyes at the trio. The medbay door slid open again and Ahsoka popped her head in.
“Out of curiosity, have any of you seen that bounty hunter clone kid?”
“You mean Boba Fett?” Kix clarified.
“Yeah, him,”
“No, isn’t he supposed to be on the prison transport back to Coruscant?” Rex asked.
“Well yeah but he escaped,”
“He what??” Rex jumped up.
“Yeah, I just heard it from the guards who were supposed to be picking him up,”
“Haar’chak, Thorn,” Rex muttered under his breath, “Okay Fives, Echo, come with me, we’re going to alert some troops. Not too many though, we don’t want to cause a panic or anything, after all, he’s just a kid,” he ordered, “Kix, make sure Hardcase doesn’t try to escape again. Ahsoka, keep a lookout, maybe try the vents, anywhere you think he might be hiding,” Ahsoka gave a nod and ran off to find a vent opening.
She was halfway through climbing into a vent when, “Snips?”
Ahsoka slipped back out of the vent to find Master Anakin Skywalker standing with a confused look on his face. That seemed to be a consistent today.
“Boba Fett’s loose in the outpost,” she explained shortly.
“Jango Fett’s kid??”
“Yup, Rex is already alerting troopers, I’m checking the vents,”
“Okay, but be careful!” Ahsoka smiled.
“It’s like you don’t even know me.”
She made it to the ducts above the control center before looking up from the grate overlooking the holotable to meet a pair of eyes staring back at her through the darkness of the tunnels.
“Hey,” Ahsoka whispered, “I was looking for you,”
The kid didn’t say anything, he just glared at her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said gently. Boba didn’t look convinced. She glanced down at the control center below. Commander Cody was standing across from Master Kenobi, discussing some sort of battle plan.
“Look,” she said quietly pointing at the Commander, “That’s Commander Cody, and he has a crush on Master Kenobi,” she pointed at Obi-Wan. Boba scrunched his nose.
“A crush on a Jedi?” he mumbled.
“Yep,” she chuckled.
“I thought…I thought Jedi were forbidden to form attachments?”
“Well, we are,” Ahsoka said, “But no one really follows those rules,”
Boba scowled.
“That’s the problem with you Jedi,” he muttered, “You can’t even stay loyal to your own code. The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers but all you do is bring death and destruction,”
Ahsoka sighed.
“Yeah, I feel that way too sometimes,” she rested her head in her hands, watching as the holotable below them flickered, “They say we should be compassionate, but also not to form attachments. Bring peace, and yet we still fight in a war. It honestly sounds like a load of osik to me,”
Boba glanced at her curiously. She smiled.
“My vode, the clones, taught me a little Mando’a,” Ahsoka told him.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“A Jedi killed my father,” Boba said abruptly, “I just wanted revenge,”
“I know,” she replied, “And I understand, there are countless times I’ve wanted revenge as well. And I’m not going to tell you that you’re unjustified, but look where that got you,”
Boba didn’t say anything.
They sat in the vents a little longer, just watching people move around the control center.
“Are you-” Boba started, breaking the silence, “Are you going to turn me in?”
Ahsoka let out a sigh.
“Come with me,” she moved back through the tunnel and to her surprise, Boba actually followed her. At the end of the tunnel, she checked the hallway for guards before kicking out the grate and jumping down from the vent. She led Boba down the corridor to the hangar. The outpost was on the moon of a small Outer Rim planet, (the 501st and 212th legions were only stopping here for a few rotations before continuing on their missions) so there weren’t many guards patrolling the hangar, leaving plenty of unattended starfighters.
Ahsoka turned to Boba.
“Do you know how to fly an ARC-170?”
He nodded slowly, confused. Ahsoka glanced around to make sure no one had spotted them, then pulled Boba to the nearest starfighter.
“Okay, there’s a bunch of hyperspace rings in the orbit of this moon, people just kinda leave them there so they shouldn’t be too hard to find but if you can’t find one, this ship has enough fuel to get you at least to Tatooine,” Ahsoka gave the hangar another quick scan.
“You’re letting me go?” Boba asked.
“Yes, I am. Now get on before someone comes,” Ahsoka nudged him toward the ship. He hesitated.
“But, why?”
“Maybe…” Ahsoka sighed, “Maybe I believe you deserve a second chance.”
The ghost of a smile crossed the boy’s face and he climbed into the ship.
“Hey,” Ahsoka said, Boba looked up, “Stay out of trouble, adiik,”
This time he did smile.
“Vor entye,” he said gratefully, before closing the cockpit and taking off.
“General Tano!”
Oh, right.
“Captain! I had him but he, uh, he got away,” Ahsoka said, no doubt unconvincingly.
“Did he now?” Rex said skeptically.
“Yuuuup,”
Rex sighed.
“You know what it’s Thorn’s problem now, come on,” he beckoned her, “We have tea to spill to the 212th,”
Ahsoka grinned.
“Race you to the control center!” she quipped.
“Twenty credits says I win,”
“Oh you’re on.”