When She Was Gone

Chapter 20

Padmé shaded her eyes to watch as the shuttle landed before them. Her chest tightened with worry; what if they were badly injured?

What if one of them was dead?

The landing ramp came down, and out came her husband, seemingly unharmed. Padmé laughed in relief and ran to him. He enveloped her in a hug, which Leia and Luke quickly joined. They stayed there for a while, and then Padmé felt something wet fall onto her forehead.

She looked up to see Anakin's eyes brimming with tears. Immediately, her spirits sank.

"Ani, what's wrong?" She whispered. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He shook his head and held her tighter.

~12 years earlier~

Rex was piloting, which, in his experience, was unusual. It was, however, necessary in this situation, seeing as General Skywalker was on a different transport and Commander Tano was out cold. To add to the list of things that had gone wrong, both of his previous pilots had been shot just before takeoff.

Another day, another almost-impossible-to-pull-off-plan devised by Skywalker and friends.

Now, things were relatively quiet. The transports were headed back up to the cruiser, and any remaining vulture droids had been taken out by the (rather late) reinforcements.

"Captain Rex, come in."

Rex jumped and straightened quickly, shaking himself out of his post-battle haze.

"Rex, do you copy?" General Skywalker. The first transports must have landed. Rex hit the "open communications" button.

"I hear you loud and clear, General. We'll be coming in soon. Ten standard minutes at most."

"Good to hear. How're the troops?"

"Not great, sir. It's just me, Fives and Kryz left."

"And Ahsoka?"

Rex hesitated. "Unconscious, sir, but still alive. Took a hit."

"What? How bad?"

"I'm afraid I...don't know, General. Coric was our medical specialist and he took an earlier transport."

There was a pause. No doubt General Kenobi was nearby, or Skywalker would have exploded into a barrage of questions. "We'll have a medical specialist waiting. Don't get too close to the vulture droid remains. Some of them still have functioning weapons, and we can't lose any more of you."

"Roger that, sir. We're almost there. Rex out." He pressed the button again and engaged the landing sequences as the transport neared the cruiser.

The landing gears came out and the engines slowed to a halt. Rex heaved himself up from the pilot's seat and made his way to the main section. Kryz and Fives were nursing small injuries, but the Commander was a different story. Strapped to the row of prisoner seats in the back so she wouldn't harm herself further, she twitched in a feverish half Force-induced, half explosion-induced coma. Her ankle was twisted in a sickening way, and blood smeared one side of her face. Other than that, her injuries were not visible.

And that was what worried him.

He removed the restraints on her wrists and hefted her up into a carry-able position, with some difficulty; she wasn't the scrawny fourteen-year-old who hadn't hit her growth spurt anymore.

The shuttle doors opened, and there was the General, standing anxiously beside an obviously exhausted medical team.

Similar scenes could be seen around the landing bay, but this one held the most tension. Clones lingered by their shuttles, watching as Rex stepped out into the hangar and carefully placed Commander Tano onto the medical team's waiting stretcher. They hurried away, and Skywalker quite clearly wanted to follow, but instead he turned to Rex.

"What happened out there? Her team was supposed to have a simple in-and-out job." He asked. Rex sighed.

"With all due respect, sir, nothing on Onderon is ever a simple in-and-out job."

"Fair."

"I wasn't actually present at the time, but Kryz informed me that there was some sort of explosion. Commander Tano got most of her team out of the way, but couldn't quite clear the blast's radius."

Now it was Skywalker's turn to sigh. "That sounds like her."

~12 years later~

Rex heaved himself up out of his passenger's seat and crossed the hold, where the Togruta sat, twitching in her sedative-induced sleep.

She was almost unrecognizable. He couldn't call her "Commander" anymore, and he certainly wasn't going to call her whatever that Sith had named her. He sighed, leaning down and removing the restraints from her wrists. He hefted her into a carry-able position and made his way down the ramp.

As his eyes adjusted to the bright Yavin 4 day, he locked gazes with Padmé. Her eyes were wide as she put the pieces together. She looked upon the Togruta for a moment, then helped her husband stand and took him out of view of his former Padawan.

Rex waved down a medical team and carefully set his cargo onto their stretcher. He heaved a heavy sigh as they steered her away.

A small presence at his side made him jump slightly. Leia was standing there, watching the medical team jog away.

"Do you know what happened to her?" She asked.

Rex didn't answer for a moment. "No."