Chapter 6: Ahsoka’s Power and Anakin’s Fate

Things were bad onboard the Resolute. The medic droids present were not enough to keep Anakin’s condition stable. His skin was pale and sweaty, and he was still coughing up blood.

All he could feel was pain. He could barely see anything and the flurry of voices was painful to his ears. He could not make out one bit of it, and he tried saying something, anything to them, knowing full well even in that dismal state that they were speaking to him. Yet his own voice could only come out as slurred gibberish.

“This isn’t good!” Ahsoka said. She clasped his organic hand, cold and clammy, but he could not properly grip hers back. She had forgotten the fever she had contracted on the mountain and was consumed with worry. She looked at Obi-Wan and at Rex. “Can’t we do something?” They both saw the desperation in her eyes. But there was anger boiling underneath too, and even these two seasoned in so many conflicts were wary on how to answer this mere Padawan.

“Ahsoka, I...” Obi-Wan started. He looked back at Anakin. “Let’s get him into a bacta tank.”

“General, with all due respect my men are all injured too, and we have yet to scan the extent of Skywalker’s injuries,” said Rex. “And our bacta tanks are limited.”

“This is a life or death situation!” Ahsoka said. She went up to Rex so she was only inches away from his face. “I’m not going to ask again.”

She was just a stripling but despite her youth, she was hardly soft. Rex looked at Obi-Wan again. He sympathized with their situation but he had seen many of his comrades die in battle before, and he was hardened to their loss. As far as he was concerned, even with Skywalker as his commanding officer, it was just another thing to be weighed. “General...”

He looked away from the both of them at Anakin. “Put him in the bacta tank. I can feel his life fading.” It was not just Ahsoka that put him on edge or the very real possibility of Anakin dying that worried him. Part of him worried about the Jedi Council’s reaction if they learned that Anakin had died. He could not see very many of them expressing any real concern. And even the greatest of them would only advise Ahsoka to let go of her grief. That was far crueler than any of the trials of the Sith.

“Yessir,” Rex said. Anakin was stripped down and moved to the nearest bacta tank. Ahsoka breathed a sigh of relief when he was lowered into the fluid and the lid was closed.

But Ahsoka and Obi-Wan were far from idle. They weren’t trained medics but someone as down to earth as Rex still recognized the healing powers of the Jedi, even with neither of them being proper Jedi healers. They did what they could to stabilize the wounded clone troopers. The battle droids had that silly four syllable response to all their orders, but they were still vicious combatants in any warzone. As the two of them looked over the span of injuries on the clone bodies, even Anakin’s Padawan wondered if she had made the right move.

Not that there was much time to think about it. They were busy, using what little knowledge they had of Jedi healing and applying what practical knowledge they had of field healing too. Ahsoka in particular despite coming off so strong earlier was out of her depth more than a few times. She had learned a few things from Wag Too, it was not proper Jedi healing used by Luminara Unduli or Barriss Offee, but in the current situation, her mind was scrambled as she couldn’t properly remember what he taught her.

She suddenly felt guilty for coming off so strongly to Rex earlier. There were people dying and she couldn’t do a thing. She didn’t regret her decision one bit. But she still wished that hadn’t been so insensitive.

“Let me help,” Rex said to her. He had sensed she was on the verge of breaking down and went to her before that could happen.

“Thanks.” She paused then said, “Sorry about earlier.”

“About what?”

“About wanting to rush my master into the bacta tank. I didn’t properly think and...”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I lost my head a few times back after my first few battles too. And loyalty to one’s comrades is always an honorable thing.”

Obi-Wan caught a glance of them working together. He smiled. He knew they barely survived this battle and they abandoned a vital strategic location for nothing. But things could always be so much worse.

Yet he sensed a strange presence from Ahsoka. There was something strange in her force signature. He didn’t know what to make of it, none of her behavior was off. Still, he kept an eye on her.

Coruscant was still several days away and Muunilinst was the closest Republic planet they could reach. Nobody there was happy to see them again. The first battle at the city of Harnaidan where the planet was won for the Republic before Anakin took Ahsoka under his charge was a cruel one. The power brokers of this world were indifferent to who was in charge and so under the auspices of the Banking Clan, they let the Confederacy come in and take over. But that sort of opportunism was not rewarded, and many locations were turned into droid factories and weapons depots. Adults and children alike were afraid to go outside and so they petitioned the Republic to come to their aid. They did but at that point the Separatist forces were so secure they had to destroy many homes and skyscrapers in order to secure their position. Even though the last battle they had fought was on a rural hilltop far away from the greater areas, these old feelings were not so easily extinguished. As far as the people here were concerned right now, the Confederacy and the Republic were two sides of the same coin.