Star Wars Rebels - Lost

Chapter Seven: Revelations

The red laser bolt melted through the droid's spinal power cells, and its weapon instantly stopped firing. It whirred for several seconds, making a pained sound, before its head lowered and any lights on its armour flickered away. It was offline, permanently. Sabine breathed a sigh of relief, removing her helmet and placing it safely on a nearby rock. She wanted to make sure this thing wasn't coming back. With a cautious movement, she stepped towards the droideka and tapped its head several times. There was no response, it was definitely dead. Sabine smiled in relief and stepped to the edge of the cliff, giving Ahsoka a thumbs up. The togruta soon joined her by the carcass of the droid, both of them breathing rather heavily from the fight.
"Good shot" Ahsoka commented, taking a close look at the droid.
"Thanks, what should we do with it?" Sabine asked in reply, cautiously glancing around to make sure that there were no more of them.
"Let's get it back to the ship, pick up your helmet and then help me carry it" Ahsoka responded, making Sabine nod in agreement.

It had taken them well over twenty minutes to drag the droideka's empty shell back to the Gauntlet, it weighed far more than they had expected. Eventually, they made it, dumping the damn droid in the centre of the cargo hold and sighing in exhaustion. They shared a brief grin, almost laughing at their situation, before turning back to their fallen opponent. Ahsoka hadn't seen very many Separatist units at all following the end of the Clone Wars, and had never seen such a rarely used model, which begged the question, why was it here?
"Well, we can assume that this was what killed those Scritters before, but what's it doing here?" Ahsoka wondered aloud, before turning to Sabine "think you can find anything out from what's left of it?"
"Yeah, I can take a look" the Mandalorian answered. She set to work, busily examining every possible component of the droideka while Ahsoka watched with a mildly clueless expression. While advanced mechanics had been among her interests in the past, she had not practiced such things in years, and so she had no idea what Sabine was doing as she precisely welded into certain areas of the droid. The Mandalorian muttered indistinguishably under her breath as she worked, completely in a world of her own behind her welding mask. To avoid the embarrassment of gawking, Ahsoka decided to move to the corner of the room and meditate, cross-legged. Of course she wasn't really in a deep mediation, she simply wanted to look as if she wasn't staring at Sabine gormlessly. The Mandalorian, meanwhile, was so completely focused on her task that she had almost forgotten of Ahsoka's existence. The only things on her mind were what she could learn from this droid, and how it could aid them in their search for Ezra. Finally, she smiled beneath the mask when she found something of use.
"Aha!" she exclaimed in victory, lifting her mask.
"Found something?" Ahsoka asked with interest, standing up and walking to Sabine's side.
"Yes, I've managed to isolate the droideka's central computer signal" the Mandalorian stated.
"That could be helpful" Ahsoka asked.
"Precisely, from what I've studied on droid mechanics in the Clone Wars era, droidekas, like the standard battle droids, don't have independent logic processors, they're controlled from a central computer" Sabine explained, and Ahsoka nodded before frowning.
"But surely all of the central computers were deactivated when Emperor Palpatine decommissioned the droid army after the Clone Wars" the togruta said.
"Exactly, there was General Kalani and his unit a few years ago. But I find it hard to believe that a battalion of droids like that could stay hidden or operating for as long as this. And we were surprised to see a droideka on Pillio" Sabine responded.
"So you think that somebody, for some reason, programmed this droid with the specific purpose of killing us?" Ahsoka asked, a little confused.
"I don't know how they knew we would be on Pillio, but yes. And, now that I've found this signal, I can track it to its source and hopefully get us some answers. General Skywalker did sense that our path would start here, but he never told us that it was thanks to something we'd find in the observatory. Perhaps this is the lead we've been searching for" the Mandalorian suggested. Ahsoka nodded her head and considered for a moment. It certainly made sense, Skywalker seemed wise enough but he could not sense their whole future, and she herself had sensed nothing significant to their search in the observatory. If someone had programmed the droid to attack them though, then they would probably be in for a fight when they traced this signal. Still, that was hardly anything new.
"Okay, so where is the source of this signal?" Ahsoka asked. Sabine nodded her head and began examining the signal closely. After several seconds of busily working, she frowned in confusion, almost as if she didn't believe what her work was telling her.
"That can't be right" she muttered under her breath. Ahsoka sensed a dark feeling.
"What?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer.
"This signal, the co-ordinates are putting its source somewhere in the Unknown Regions, an uncharted system" the Mandalorian explained, before an excited smile formed on her face "do you think that's where Ezra is?"
"It's definitely possible, transfer the co-ordinates to the Gauntlet and I'll calculate a hyperspace jump. I've had enough of mysteries" Ahsoka answered. It was time for some answers.

The pair had left Pillio in rather a hurry, both of them eager to find out what possible answers laid at the end of this signal. Finding a droideka on an isolated planet almost thirty years after the end of the Clone Wars was strange enough, but finding it connected to an independent central computer was just plain suspicious. Before they knew it, the hyperspace jump had been made and now all they had to do is wait. But something was still on Sabine's mind, it had been since the moment they'd stepped foot on the Gauntlet again. She had no idea how she was going to word her next sentence, but she knew she had to say it.
"Ahsoka?" she began, in an untypically quiet voice.
"Yes? What can I do for you?" the togruta replied in a warm tone.
"I wanted to talk about earlier...back on Pillio" Sabine said uncomfortably.
"What about it?" Ahsoka frowned in confusion, as if she couldn't think what Sabine was referring to.
"My...breakdown. I wanted to apologise, we've only just started this mission and already I lost hope. I don't want you thinking that I'm not invested in this, I want Ezra back more than anything else, and if we ever do find him then...please don't tell him I said that" she said quietly, ending with a smile.
"There is nothing to apologise for, truly" the togruta said in a comforting voice.
"Yes there is, I'm a Mandalorian, I shouldn't let emotions like that cloud me. I should be focused on the mission, and determined, and...perfect...like you" the Mandalorian explained, ashamed.
"We all have our moments, you've moved on from it and you're still here, ready to fight. And I am far from perfect, now, let's focus on the task at hand" Ahsoka answered, lightening Sabine's spirit. Silence returned between the pair, and Ahsoka turned her attention back to the dashboard of the cockpit, calibrating different systems to fill the time. Sabine, meanwhile, reached down next to her chair and picked up her helmet, sliding it back over her head. She pressed a few buttons on its side, accessing the image archive and smiling as a specific picture filled the view in her eyes. It was a photo taken by Chopper of her, Ezra and Zeb, just before the final battle of Lothal. Even then, when they had Governor Pryce in custody and were preparing for the last fight, the three of them still managed to look happy. Sabine reckoned it was because they were in each other's company, even in the darkest of times, the presence of family could act as a beacon of hope. Ezra seemed to be looking at her, from the photo, with an enigmatic smile on his face. She knew it sounded stupid, but it was like even then, he knew he wouldn't be coming back, and was calling on her to find him. And she would, she'd had her moment to break down and she'd used it, now was the time for action. There was no going back into charted space until that stupid, cocky and charismatic Lothalian was with her or she was dead. As she thought this, the Gauntlet rocked and the blue visage of hyperspace was replaced by a whole new image. Sabine removed her helmet, and let out a gasp. Even Ahsoka looked a little shocked. Ahead of them, was a jungle planet, looking as wild as an acklay. Of course, in such a vast galaxy, a jungle planet was nothing unusual. But it had just occurred to them that this was an uncharted world, in the middle of the Unknown Regions. They could be some of the first people to see it and uncover its mysteries. Both of them shared this thought, and shared an excitable grin at the prospect. Ahsoka pulled a lever on the dashboard with vigour, and sent them zooming towards the new planet. The adventure was only getting started...