Cejanr (A Rexsoka SWTCW Fanfic)

38

Ahsoka resisted the urge to fidget as she was marched through the halls of the temple, surrounded by four temple guards with their pale yellow blades barring her from trying to escape them.

A door to a meditation room was open and she was herded inside. It was odd being in one of these rooms with the lights on. Master Ti sat in one round chair, and a Kaminoan sat in the other. Ahsoka thought it would be Nala Se or some other higher up.

The kaminoan inclined his head, a practiced and graceful movement.

"Greetings, young togruta. You must be Ahsoka." His voice was not as clipped as Nala Se's had been when Ahsoka had meet her once, sounding much smoother and somehow more real than the head cloner seemed.

"I am. And you are?" Ahsoka said, kneeling on the third round seat in the room.

"I am Izee Ka, head technician and supervisor of the Fett clones accelerated aging. I was told you had some questions about this subject." He supplied. "Jedi Master Ti told me about your marriage to one of the Fett units. Am I correct in assuming you are expecting your first child?"

Ahsoka flushed slightly and shifted uncomfortably. "No. My husband was reconditioned some months ago due to crimes he committed in helping me prove my own innocence. He gave his life so I could live free." She said quietly. Izee showed no emotional reaction, simply sitting back with a soft 'Ah'.

"The information I need is for a young woman who attends the medical establishment I have found work at." Ahsoka pressed her lips together before taking a deep breath and straightening. Izee nodded.

"Begin your questions." He asked. Ahsoka nodded.

"Will any alterations to the clone's DNA affect the mother or the child in any way, shape or form?" She asked. Shaak Ti shifted, leaning forward slightly to a more attentive posture.

"No. In fact, the child will probably be healthier than most due to the father's enhanced immune system and metabolism." Ahsoka pulled out her datapad and began to take notes.

"Will the rapid aging affect anybody other than the father?" Ahsoka glanced up as she typed furiously.

"No. Despite our best efforts, we cannot have a genetic rapid aging that does not leave the units terribly crippled, if they survive period. An example of our experiments is EU 99, a maintenance clone." Ahsoka gave a start.

"If the acceleration is not genetic, then how does it work?" She asked.

Izee blinked rapidly a few times, the Kaminoan equivalent of a gleeful grin. This was his niche.

"We use a specific combination of radiation and microvibrations to accelerate the growth manually. The technology is built into the sleeping pods. In the older units before the outbreak of war, we gave them eight years with acceleration before letting them age the last two years naturally. Since the outbreak, however, they have been receiving acceleration treatments nightly up until they leave Kamino." He was plenty happy to share. Ahsoka frowned, unable to resist doing some math in her head.

Rex was one of the older batches, serving since the first battle of Geonosis. He would have been biologically sixteen when he started aging naturally, and he was chronologically thirteen now. That meant biologically, he was barely twenty one. Ahsoka gave a soft chuckle to herself without thinking about it.

"Do you find something amusing, Ahsoka?" Shaak Ti asked. Ahsoka smiled bitterly.

"My husband was one of the older batches. I guess the biological age difference was not so big as we assumed." She said ruefully. "For reference, could I have access to the decantation dates to find her husband's age?" Ahsoka asked tentatively.

"I see no harm in you seeing that." Izee replied. He stood smoothly. "I will get it now, unless you have more questions. I believe master Ti would like to speak with you alone." He left the room, and the door hissed shut behind him.

"Ahsoka, how did Captain Rex resist the reconditioning?" Master Shaak Ti asked, her voice low and dangerous. Ahsoka frowned.

"I'm not sure what you mean." She fibbed.

"False innocence does not suit you, young one." Shaak's normally smooth voice was a low and predatory growl. "If one reconditioning can fail, all of them can. You are far too healthy to have lost a bonded mate, therefore he must retain perfect memory. We have wiped the minds of some of the most dangerous failed clones. What is to stop them from regaining their memories?"

"Rex had had his inhibitor chip removed several months before after it was damaged. They replaced it during his reconditioning, and the new one didn't take very well. The reconditioning didn't hold." Ahsoka supplied quietly, tracing the patterns in the plastoid bracer on her right forearm.

"Has the new chip been removed?" Shaak asked. Ahsoka shook her head.

"They didn't want to risk even more damage to the brain by causing a hemorrhage in the still healing tissue. They just got it stabilized for the time being." Ahsoka met the intense gaze of the other togruta. Shaak Ti sat back.

"One last question. Did you see the arc trooper Fives before he died?" She asked. Ahsoka hesitated, then nodded.

"I was with him when it happened." She answered.

"Did he say anything about an order 66?"

"No. He was mostly out of it at the end. I did my best to give him a painless death."

Shaak seemed to accept this and eased off of the younger togruta. Izee returned not long after with a datachip and handed it to the young civilian. Ahsoka took it and was escorted out of the temple by the hooded guards once more. She scrolled through her notes, compiling a report for the hospital and for Alinia.

And for herself to read off to Rex at the next holocall. She hoped it wouldn't be a long wait, but she knew that Anaxes had a lot of environmental challenges as well as the seppie ones. Between that and the too-young shinies, Rex was going to be walking through hell. She just wished there was something else she could do for him than just sit and talk with him over comm calls.

Seeing him was it's own form of torture. She could see him, hear him, but she couldn't touch him. At least it was better than no contact whatsoever.