Cuyanir (A Rexsoka SWTCW Fanfic)

34

Rex woke Ahsoka early, about an hour before they had to work on duty. It was freezing in the barracks, and there was still no gravity. "Ahsoka." Rex whispered louder, repeating himself. Ahsoka stirred from the little ball she had been in, practically in his lap. She looked as cold as Rex felt. 

"Rexie? Wha... Why's it so cold?" She muttered sleepily. Her eyes snapped open as she drifted away from him a little. "Whaa... Right. No power, no gravity." She grabbed the edge of the bedframe and pulled herself back. "Wha's the time?"

Rex smirked at her childish attitude. "We have about an hour before our team has to go help repair whatever damage Ventress did. Hopefully before we all freeze or starve or run out of breathable air." Ahsoka groaned.

"That's one way to kill the mood. Remind me that we're facing imminent doom on a powerless command ship in the middle of karking nowhere." She complained, crawling to the jammed-open doors. Her stomach didn't like the zero gravity much, and the cold wasn't helping. Rex followed her. 

"Where are you going?" He called in a stage whisper, acutely aware that his brother were asleep around him. Ahsoka paused in the doorway. 

"To go find Anakin. I want to check on the full damage." She said, mimicking his tone. Rex made his way over. 

"I'm going with you." His voice told her it would be impossible to argue. She nodded, and he followed her into the hall. Ahsoka used her shoto blade to give light. Rex chuckled as a thought occurred to him.

"Care to let me in on the joke?" Ahsoka asked, looking back at him. 

"The lightsaber, one of the most advanced pieces of technology to ever be created, also doubles as a lightstick." He snickered. Ahsoka laughed a little too. The lack of oxygen must be starting to affect their brains. That and the cold. Ahsoka shivered again, and sneezed. Rex looked at her strangely, pulling himself to a stop by her at the entrance to the main reactor chamber. He could hear faint talk and clattering on the other side of the door. "Are you cold?"

She shot him a faintly annoyed look. "No, I'm shivering and sneezing because space is so. Karking. Warm."

Rex held his hands up in surrender, the motion pushing him back. He smacked his head on the wall behind him. "Ow. Sorry, right." He covered. Ahsoka jimmied the doors open, and found Anakin hammering away on one of the main air recyclers with the help of one of the clones. He looked up at the screech of metal when Ahsoka managed to get the door partly open. Rex grabbed the side and helped her. The door finally gave, and the force of it nearly sent Rex flying back into the hall, but Ahsoka grabbed his foot and dragged him back. 

"Has it been twelve hours already?" He asked, dark shadows under his eyes. Ahsoka shrugged at him. 

"Just about. What's the current status on the ship?" She asked. Anakin rubbed at his eyes blearily. 

"The main reactor is toast. The hyperdrive and life support can both be powered separately, but any fuel cells we had were caught and aided in the explosion." He sighed, and stretched. A mini planetary ring of parts and tools floated around him. As fun as 0g could be, it could get really annoying fast. "The power surge from the explosion has carbonized half the parts in two out of three air recyclers. The system almost restarted, but I had to shut it off until I could get the other two fixed so it wasn't spewing out poisonous gasses." He yawned, and pulled out a small device. It must have had it's own battery, because it lit up when he turned it on. 

"What's that?" Ahsoka asked, grabbing the unit and pushing aside his little cloud of metal. The pieces went flying around the room, and Anakin sighed. 

"Some of those are important, Snips." He complained with a glare. "This is an oxygen readout... thingamajig. I'm too tired to remember the real name. We're at 87% oxygen currently, and dropping. We'll all be suffering from CO2 poisoning if it gets below 50, and we'll be dead if it gets below 20." He sighed again, and flipped onto his back in the air. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, and Rex made his way over to join them. 

"Sir, it's time to change shifts." He said gently. Anakin's eyes snapped open and he looked at his captain as if noticing him for the first time. 

"M'k. Uh..." He fished out his commlink. "Bolts and Zap, how's that gravity generator looking?" He groaned into it, digging once more at his eyes. The comm crackled slightly, before an equally tired voice came back. 

"Well, it should be functional if we can find a big enough power cell..."  The voice trailed off. Anakin groaned, and flipped again so that he was right side up. Ahsoka frowned. 

"Could we use the powercell and extra fuel for my starfighter?" She asked. Anakin looked at her, blinking stupidly for a few seconds. 

"Uh... Yeah. Yeah that could work. Did you catch that Zap?" He asked over the comm. The clone on the other end gave an affirmative. "Ok. Go get your men together Ahsoka and fix the gravity. I'mma take a nap." Her master pushed off the floor and made his way to the door. Ahsoka and Rex followed him to the barracks. Anakin paused at the door frame and looked at the sleeping/resting men. 

"ALRIGHT!" He roared as loud as he could. In the quiet, it was deafening. Everyone was more or less awake within seconds, and were looking to the general. "Now that you're all up. We're running out of air. We need to finish getting the air recyclers cleaned and the gravity back on. Ahsoka has come up with the brilliant idea to get the powercell and fuel from her starfighter and use it to get the gravity back on. Those are your tasks, and if you finish, try to get the life support system back online. I could use some heat and fresh air." Everyone laughed. 

Ahsoka looked at them. "Divide up. I want a half of you to go work on getting the air recyclers in working order, and I want the other half helping me get gravity back on. Let's go." She turned away from the group and started out the door. Anakin caught her arm and pressed the oxygen reader into her hand. She nodded at him, and he let her go. 

Getting the fuel cell out was easy enough, but getting it into the gravity generator was the hard part. She grimaced and let go of the wires she was trying to connect. A clone she didn't recognize came up to offer help. Ahsoka nodded at him. 

"Haywire, Commander Tano." He introduced, looking at te wires for a second before connecting them. 

"Will it work?" She asked, trying her best not to sound impatient. Haywire raised an eyebrow at her. "Sorry." She apologized. He shrugged and looked at his handy work. 

"Give everyone a warning and fire it up. It should work." He replied. She glanced at the oxygen reader. 80% and dropping fast. She could already feel the slight onset of CO2 toxicity. Her hands weren't as steady, and she had infrequent but all-too-real bursts of panic randomly. Haywire warned everyone via comm, and flipped the switch. Ahsoka had never been so relieved to fall flat on her butt in her life. Haywire gave a muffled grunt as he fell into a crouch. Rex managed to get out from under the powercell before also hitting the floor. The floor was a little tilted from the lack of stabilizers, but gravity was a major improvement. 

Ahsoka staggered to her feet, her legs aching from the lack of use. Rex held his head as he leaned on the wall of the machine room for support. There was a muffled grunt from across the room as Fives and Jesse sent them dirty looks from the air recycler they were working on. Rex got to his own feet and the two leaned on each other. Ahsoka wasn't sure who was supporting who. 

It was probably the lack of good air, combine with the stress of trying to keep everyone on the ship alive and not dying from CO2 poisoning, but she started to laugh. It was a high, slightly hysterical laugh, and not just her. Rex joined in, then Fives and Haywire and Jesse, until everyone in the room was laughing at nothing with them. 

No matter the circumstances or the reason for laughter, it felt incredibly good to laugh. 

A/N ~ So... Another chapter. I'm taking my sweet time with this one, but it will have feels and fluff and a whole lot of other stuff. I did a little research, and vastly underestimated the size of a battalion. My cover story for now is that most of the men either died or are in recovery from Umbara, leaving only about 100 or so healthy soldiers on the Resolute. RotD, What can you break without touching?