Chapter Text
Ahsoka swiftly scurries through the vents of the Star Destroyer, tilting her montrals to gauge a better sound. Beneath her, clones and Republic officers are being hastily escorted off the vessel with maximal chatter- the Republic has fallen, and the Empire has risen, Sidious was the Chancellor and killed by three Sith, and now their captors greet them gruffly and ask for their cooperation in their assimilation. The men seem somewhat disconcerted, but otherwise no one is speaking of the presence of the ex-Jedi who accidentally hitchhiked onto the ship.
When she was discovered by the clones, she was welcomed with open arms and secrecy- it has only been a couple months since she left the Order, after all- and hidden away in the vents. Luckily, none of the officials knew of her proximity, and as far as she knows, she’s a ghost.
She disappeared off the radar as soon as she left Coruscant. She can feel the aching, still present, still strong , bonds of her Master and Grandmaster, who send over feelings of affection and deep concern to her. Ahsoka just crams her Force signature down into insignificance and cold nothingness. She doesn’t break the bonds, but not being there at all is just the same. She’s a whispering specter, hiding away on ships, jumping from planet to planet, suffering silently as her life amounts to nothing more than a shadow.
A large clang interrupts her thoughts- probably just the stumbling of some shiny. “Sorry, sir,” is breathed, and her montrals pick it up muffled and muted through the metal walls. There’s scuffling on the other side, assumably the shiny, dragging loudly in a line to the vent. Breathing is heavy through the grate, and a hand grazes over the slitted lines.
Clear as a bell, it is hurriedly whispered: “Get out of here, Commander, go to the docking bay-“
But just as quickly, a rustle and harsh jerk of a struggling fight is created. “Soldier! What exactly are you doing?”
“Um, nothing, sir,” the shiny spits out. Ahsoka holds her breath, willing herself to still completely in the small box of the vent. As much as she can sympathize with wanting to help, there has to be a balance between ambition and stupidity.
“Is that true? If I’m not mistaken, your Commander, your Jedi Padawan , has been detained on another planet. Tell me, solider, are there any Jedi on this ship?”
“No sir,” he stutters. Ahsoka can feel the vibrations of his shaking resonate within her montrals. Slowly, she eases herself higher into the vertical vent, slanting her body to climb further into the system. The docking bay is in the southern sector, and it’s not a bad idea- she can escape through there, since the vessel is being abandoned.
As soon as she moves, the shuffling and muttering of the surrounding clones and officials halts into silence. A great creaking and clicking slowly approaches, the whining of twisted metal and scraping of joints becoming louder. Something- some one - is coming, and Ahsoka grits her teeth. This better not be who she thinks it is.
“What seems to be the problem, Officer?” General Grievous grates out, large limbs contorted smaller to fit within the open yet confined structure of the hallway.
Ahsoka holds her breath.
She can feel the shiny’s anxiety leak out into the Force, the other clones’ fear sharp and pungent. It spikes as Grievous thumps forward, curling a claw at the vent the trooper whispered into. He scans the empty line of space, blinking at the slow wind that pours out.
He hums, a brutal sound. “Evacuate the personnel. I will find the Jedi.”
“Yes sir.”
The scuffing of feet echoes metallic sounds in the vents. Ahsoka contorts herself smaller in her vantage point in the vent, squeezing her lekku and montrals to the ceiling as her hands and legs hold her steady. Soft murmurs and susurrus cloud the air, wafting distantly into the vent system, and the clamoring of the footsteps into the attached ship is a steady rhythm she uses to steady her breathing.
Grievous stalks further into the ship, his sharp steps beating into the treads of the ground beneath him. He leaves Ahsoka sticking to the inside of the ceiling. Footsteps fade, and Ahsoka is left alone.
She senses it before she feels it.
Danger.
She clambers down the vent shaft swiveling her head around as she watches the backs of the clones enter into the corridor that feeds into the Imperial ship. With a Force push, she extends her hands and shoves the rest of the clones into the ship, just before the long hallway crumples into shriveled, distorted metal from the impact of the asteroid.
Ahsoka exhales a burst of air. Imperial vessels should have radars, even rudimentary ones. Why didn’t they detect the large incoming mass?
Emergency lights and sounds blare on, tumultuously pleading in low tones to the darkened, empty hallways. If she were to guess, the ship is in an asteroid field- that’s why they’re abandoning the larger Star Destroyer and using a smaller vessel to transport the personnel. But this also means the ship is going to take a beating. Already, systems are shutting down. She has to be quick. She has to avoid Grievous.
With a hiss, the Imperial vessel detaches, leaving Grievous and Ahsoka on the empty Star Destroyer alone. It whirls away adeptly, a skirting, whizzing sound resounding lowly in the metal walls.
It’s just her and Grievous, then.
***
She’s been crawling in the vents for at least an hour, her elbows and legs bruised with the constant friction and pressure, montrals and back lek dragging painfully on the vent ceiling. She reaches out with the Force to scan the layout of the ship, searching for the vacant pockets of spaces and the connecting path that winds its way to the docking bay.
Ahsoka furrows her brow markings. Grievous is heading south, too, from the movement she detects- and she’ll have to go by the same corridor, she can’t fit through the smaller vents.
Kriff. She’ll have to take the main line, but it’ll be right next to him. It’s a risk she’s going to have to take.
The first stretch crawling next to Grievous is tense, but silent. That is, until the rough tremor of General Grievous’s drawl scrapes Ahsoka’s montrals.
“Come out, little youngling,” he sputters, in his coarse, rugged tone, lilting with the macabre playfulness that comes with a hunt.
Ahsoka holds her breath as he passes, the emergency lights blaring a reddened glow upon the twisted bone structure of the droid. From the vent, she shifts quickly, silently following the droid with her eyes and montrals, cataloguing his movements. He’s pacing. He knows she’s here.
From the last two encounters Ahsoka has had with the General, she knows that he’s far too powerful for her to take on- the spinning blades, hulking figure, pure strength- but here, in the vents, alone in the empty remains of the Star Destroyer, she might have a chance if she plays her cards right. With her small stature and agility, and the maze of the vent system that surrounds the hallways, she might be able to hurt him- slow him down at least.
It’s better than simply being fodder.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he jeers, igniting a lightsaber and digging it into the wall. His sabers melt bleeding bubbles of liquid metal as they shear through the walls, right under Ahsoka. The heat sears through her skin, though it only remains an inch away from her chest. Her own lightsabers are clutched between fingers as the sticks to the vent’s ceiling, elbows flush to the metal. Silently, she climbs up, swirling the Force around her to cover the small resounding sounds that leak from her movement.
The blade drills deeper into the spot she once was, slicing through the metal before retracting as Grievous tsks.
“Tricky little thing, aren’t you?” He taunts. He shifts on his feet, inspecting the hole left by the saber.
Swiftly, she flips into the overhead grate, one which hazes over the form of the General.
She takes a deep breath.
She closes her eyes.
She focuses on her lightsabers, their distinct resonance to her, their blinding white light that connects to her very being. Their pure hue, the way the kyber crystals sang to her as she stole them from a spice deal, right under the pirates’ noses. How she constructed them with scrap, their curved hilts. The way they feel in her hands, the way they ignite, the white of the blades. Fighting with them, slashing through droids, the way they cut.
Grievous steps under her, feet clicking onto the floor, four arms whorling in lazy circles, blue and green blurs of lightsabers idly swiveling in his clinking grip.
Her shoto blade floats first, her other blade following. They levitate precariously before steadying, twisting to be blade-down into the grate, above the still skull of Grievous.
He looks up.
In a rush of motion, Ahsoka ignites and pincers her blades into a downward spiral, slicing the grate open and closing in onto Grievous’ skull and torso, slamming into him at a whirlwind pace. He jerks to slant up his sabers to block-
But her sabers get to his body first.
In a tinny, gurgling, wheezing sound General Grievous collapses. His sabers give a sudden flick up, digging into the metal beneath her, but he drops first. Sabers deactivating, his mechanical parts are still, and Ahsoka has just killed the rogue Supreme Marshal Commander of the Separatist Droid Armies.
She collapses herself from the sheer effort pushed into the fatal blow, crumpling into the grate. The grate suddenly gives, and Ahsoka plummets into the sizzling corpse of the General. Her ankle contorts at a sickly angle first- being caught on the edge of the vent- before the rest of her body follows. Her forearms and shins catch most of the blow, the stray sharp points of Grievous carving slices into her skin, a long slash dripping blood on her left lek that bites into her cheek markings.
Kriff.
Well, she’s faced worse. She needs to put pressure on the wound, but she can’t do anything for the bruises. She’ll just have to live with them until she can make it to the docking bay. Thankfully she won’t be crawling on her hands and knees anymore, instead taking the hallways. It’s just her and only her on the ship now, anyways.
Pulling herself up, she unwraps a bracer to smother the long gash on her head with. It’ll do for now, for as long as it takes for the blood flow to slow.
Ahsoka shivers- another loud crash, and the ship trembles perilously. She bites the inside of her cheek. The main command is way up north, opposite of the docking bay. She needs to recalibrate some settings and functions if this ship is gonna make it, but she also needs to use her time wisely- perhaps she can go to secondary command on the lower level? It is closer to the docking bay, and should have access to the holonet for her to gather information from. Force, she’s been trapped on this ship for two days . Stowing away never gets any easier.
Granted, nothing got any easier ever since she walked the steps out of the Jedi Temple.
Plus, thermoregulation throughout the ship has been damaged, meaning she has even less time to get to the docking bay. Wonderful. She shivers again.
Ahsoka eases weight onto her twisted ankle, and winces. That’s not good, but she’ll have to manage. If she can remember the layout of Star Destroyers correctly, then there should be a holo-table just past the curve of the hallway.
She shuffles down the corridor slowly, half-hopping on her good leg, before turning the corner, slamming the door open.
Ahsoka limps to the holo-table, a flickering message playing from the dying power. It’s an emergency broadcast by Republic officials. The chancellor was Darth Sidious. He’s been killed by Dooku and two mysterious Sith. The Empire has risen from the Republic’s ashes. There’s no news about the Jedi, about Anakin and Obi-Wan, other than the news of the hunt and detainment of Jedi. The same information on repeat, ever since the Star Destroyer was launched out of hyperspace and then evacuated.
When she reaches out into her bonds with them, her family, there is nothing but darkness.
All she can do is hope. That Anakin’s alright, that Obi-Wan’s alright, that Padmé’s alright.
All she can do is hope.