Broken Beginnings (A Star Wars: Clone Wars fanfic)

Chapter 23: Speeder Ride

Rendal POV

I am currently sitting in my wheelchair at one of the many tables in the mess hall eating what is known as breakfast, though I have heard the clones calling it the "morning dose of slop." Me personally I don't think the food here is that bad, admittedly the quality of food has declined over the last few weeks as the Trade Federation have been cutting off some of our major food supplies from other planets.

But at the moment that was the least of my problems, I have been been feeling rather strange lately and I can't work out why. I keep getting this feeling and I don't know what it is..... My chest feels tight, almost like it was going to explode, and when Alexa came and found me the feeling only got worse!

Yet I had this happy, warm feeling too as she stood next to me.... Of late I find myself always looking forward to seeing my friend again, spending time talking, laughing and messing around with her.... I know friends are supposed to want to see each other, but this feels a little extreme, so I can't help asking what is this?!

I thought hard about this as I paused in eating my breakfast and I swear I almost had a heart attack as my eyes landed on a certain female Togruta who just so happened to be walking over to me! I felt that warm feeling somewhere inside me as she flashed me a small smile.

'Hey Rendal.' She greeted sitting down beside me.

'Hi Alexa.' I gulped silently.

'How's your leg feeling?'

'Better.'

'Good.'

'How are you?'

'I'm alright.'

'Glad to hear it.' I nodded. 'So.... What are you and Master Skywalker doing today?'

'I have no idea, but I hope it doesn't involve sitting around and not doing anything.'

'Actually, Lex, we aren't doing meditation today.' General Skywalker came up from behind me.

'Thank goodness, so are we doing sparring, strength training or do I finally get to do endurance training?' She asked, excitement shining through her voice.

'Afraid not.'

Alexa didn't reply to that, but it was obvious that she wasn't happy.

'Why are you so anxious to do your strength training anyway?' I asked curious.

'I don't know, doesn't really matter anyway.' She answered.

'Cheer up, Lex. I have something that you might enjoy even more.'

She looked at him quizzically as did I, though I had a feeling he was going to keep it a surprise and the wink he gave us only served to prove my suspicions correct.

So the three of us ate our breakfast before Alexa went with her master to do their secret training while I went to see my own master.

'Hey, come back and tell me what happened, ok?'

'I'll think about it....' She smirked before running off after Anakin.

Alexa POV

'So what are we doing, Skywalker?' I asked as we walked to the hangar.

'Be patient, Lex, you'll find out soon enough.' He smiled knowingly while just stared at my surroundings until we came to a rather impressive air speeder. 'Hop in.'

I looked at both him and the speeder suspiciously for a moment until it clicked; this was the speeder he had been using when he first found me and brought me to the Temple.... But what are we doing in it now?

My curiosity drove me to humour the man and the two of us got in and after the engine started Anakin drove us out and into the closest skylane.

'Now, I remember how much you seemed to enjoy flying through the city, so I thought you might like to do it again, but in the day light.' He gave me a kind smile.

'Thanks.' I smiled back happily. 'I appreciate the thought.'

'You're perfectly welcome my young padawan, now sit back and enjoy!'

At first we took things slow so that I could take in every tiny detail of the place, however we then began to go faster and faster until we were flying rather dangerously! We weaved in and out of traffic before plummeting and joining another skylane just for the sheer joy of it!

'Woo hoo!' I shrieked, my adrenaline skyrocketing!

'You like this?' Anakin grinned madly.

'Are you kidding?! This is amazing!' The two of us laughed as Anakin performed his crazy, outlandish, almost suicidal, stunts!

'Obi Wan hates it when I do this.' He smirked.

'I can't imagine why.' I rolled my eyes giggling, he just laughed. 'How long have you been flying?'

'Almost all my life, I used to race pods back on Tatooine when I belonged to Watto.'

I cringed inwardly at the mention of the dustball planet that I had lived on for so long, then looked to Anakin as a question popped into my mind.

'How do you talk about your past so openly?'

'I guess I've more or less come to terms with it, I may not like that I was a slave or how my mother and I were treated, but I know that no matter how much I wish things had been better the past can't be changed. All we can do is work for today and look toward the future.'

'I guess you're right.... But that doesn't mean that I'm about to go and shout it out from the roof of the Jedi Temple.... That reminds me, you haven't told anyone about my secret have you?'

'No, I swear it on my honour as a Jedi.'

'Good, though I have the feeling they are Jedi who don't posses such honour.'

'Oh? What makes you think that?'

'Well look at Count Dooku, he was once a Jedi, right? Now he's a crazy Sith who's trying to take over the Galaxy!'

'Yes well even Dooku possessed honour until he fell to the Dark Side.'

'If you say so.' I shrugged, before looking once again to our surroundings and the two of us sat in silence for a while, just keeping up with the traffic and watching buildings become little more than a blur as we shot past them.

'Tell me honestly, when you're up here you lose yourself, don't you?' He asked, I nodded. 'All you really want to think about is the feeling of flying.'

'Yeah.'

I smiled, loving the feel of the wind on my face, feeling like I am on top of the world, hearing the zoom of speeders and small one-man fighters rushing past. I felt like all of senses had been heightened ten-fold as we swooped and dashed through the sky!

I never want this to end!

But sadly it had to, of course it was inevitable that we had to go back the temple as we both felt our hunger grow and we were running out of fuel, but that didn't mean that I didn't feel disappointed. I really wished that things could stay like that forever, unfortunately though I was brought straight back to reality when we arrived back at the hangar to find Obi Wan and Rendal waiting for us.

Just as we came into the hangar I decided to show off a little and jumped out of the speeder, performing a summersault and landing perfectly in front of the Master and his padawan.

'Welcome back.'  Obi Wan nodded calmly, though I could see through his eyes that he was impressed.  However it didn't take that much effort to see the awe that was written plainly across Rendal's face.

'Hello Master Kenobi, Padawan Brask. What brings you here?'