Star Wars: Exile's Journey
Ahsoka Tano, during nearly a year of exile from the Jedi Order, has lead a mundane life. Befriending a Corellian trader named Jyssa Motla, she has spent the last several months as a mechanic and copilot.
While on a trip to Rhen Var, the two found an injured clone soldier who had been left behind. The soldier, named Arc, had lost an arm and received serious shrapnel injuries to one side of his face. Out of contact with any Republic authorities, the two have spent the last few days trying to nurse the injured clone back to health.
Jyssa's ship, the Red Drexl, has been hired to transport a group of archeology students to Dantooine, where they are excavating an ancient Jedi enclave...
Chapter 1
Peace
The young woman sat cross legged on the smooth surface of an ancient, weather worn blba tree. Despite the constant hacking sounds of shovels and pounding of picks nearby, she sunk deeper into placid meditation.
She remembered the words of a tiny green teacher, one who seemed to stand so tall and yet was her height ten years ago when she first heard him say the words, "At peace, you must be. Centered. When open you are to yourself, open you will be to the Force."
This place seemed to have a calming effect. Ahsoka felt herself sink further into a state of tranquility. The Force had once been strong in this place. The worn remains of stone meditation benches encircled the tree she sat in. Hundreds of Jedi had once sat in this garden while it flourished. Hundreds of Jedi lived in this enclave when it flourished. But four thousand years ago the Jedi Order was torn apart by war. The enclave was destroyed, and abandoned. It was no wonder that Ahsoka Tano felt drawn to this place.
"Grife, I don't know how you can meditate with all that noise." The voice below was throaty, most likely caused by the smoke that Ahsoka could smell curling up through the dead blba branches. "Must be a Jedi thing."
Ahsoka's eyes stayed closed. "I'm not a Jedi anymore."
Below her, leaning against the thick trunk of the blba, Jyssa snorted, "You're sitting in the middle of an ancient meditation room in an old Jedi enclave. Meditating. I'm pretty sure you're still a Jedi."
Ahsoka uncrossed her legs and hopped down from the tree. She landed with catlike grace next to the Corellian smuggler. "I left the order almost a year ago. I haven't been a Jedi for a long time."
Jyssa shook her head, her short curly hair bobbing with the movement. "Look, kid, I know you look up to the Jedi. It was your life. But right now the Jedi are fighting a war, and they've got themselves a nice shiny slave army doing the fighting and dying for them. You're here looking for peace and knowledge. You didn't leave the Jedi. The Jedi left you."
"Don't pretend that you know anything about the Jedi." Ahsoka stood up to her full height, her eyes on level with Jyssa's shoulders. Ahsoka's hornlike montrals made her look a little taller, but not by much. "The Jedi are trying to defend the peace."
"Yeah, well we've got about ninety percent of a clone trooper recuperating in my ship's medbay. The Jedi didn't do a very good job of protecting his pieces. What's left of his hand is scattered all over the snow of Rhen Var. And last time I checked, he didn't enlist in this war. Neither did you."
The young Togruta's shoulders slumped, and her posture wilted. "Yeah, well, we're both out of it now."
Without warning, Ahsoka's knees buckled. "I've got you!" Jyssa tried to wrap her arms around Ahsoka. Despite the size disparity between the two, the young Togruta's body had gone limp and Jyssa couldn't hold her up. "Spast! I don't got you!"
Ahsoka fell to the ground, "Master Fisto! No!"
"Ahsoka, what's wrong?"
"Master!"
Jyssa shook her prone companion, "Ahsoka! What's wrong?"
Ahsoka's eyes rolled in the back of her head. She could feel the surge of fear and anger. And she saw, from her Jedi master's eyes, the sight of Mace Windu, falling to his death. The Jedi master who could shatter anything lay on the ground, broken.
She could feel it. Master Windu was the master of the shatterpoint. He could instinctively see where a single well placed strike could destroy everything. And now Master Windu was that shatterpoint. The lines that connected the entire Jedi Order spread out before Ahsoka's sight. The death of Mace Windu started a chain reaction that rippled through time and space. In a moment, she felt the loss of the entire Jedi Order. And the loss of the Republic itself.
It was too much. Ahsoka's eyes rolled back, and she went limp.
"Hey kid, you awake?"
Her thoughts were sluggish. "We have to warn them..."
"Warn who?" Ahsoka's eyes focused on the speaker. Arc was sitting up in his bunk. That must mean that she was in the med bay of Jyssa's Tolos class freighter, the Red Drexl.
"The Jedi are in danger! We have to warn them!"
Arc shook his head, "Sorry, kid. It's a little late for that."
"What?"
"It's all over the holonet. Even out here on Dantooine. The Jedi tried to oust the Chancellor by force. So the Chancellor called for Order 66."
"Order 66?" Ahsoka knew she should be able to respond with more than repetition, but her mind was still fuzzy from the overload it had just experienced.
"Every trooper has to memorize a bunch of emergency orders. The higher numbers are what to do if there's a rogue element within our own command structure. 65 is if the Chancellor turns against us. If the Senate calls for order 65, we remove the Chancellor by force." Arc looked away from Ahsoka. Despite her mental overload, she could feel a hint of shame through the force. "Order 66 is what we do if the Jedi go bad. A politician can be removed from office. Arrested. But Jedi... well. Jedi can't really be contained."
Ahsoka closed her eyes and reached into the Force. Ever since she was strong enough in the Force to reach out with her senses, the galaxy had been full of stars. Points of light scattered across the night sky.
The last few years, the galaxy had been embroiled in war. Chaos swirled through it. The Jedi were spread thin, points of light in the Force spread out across the galaxy, just like the stars themselves.
And now... it was silent. Empty. The stars still burned. People still lived their lives. But the chaos was gone. And the twinkling points of light that were the Jedi were gone with it. A new order smothered the galaxy. A silent peace swept across the galaxy.
And in the med bay of a small freighter in the outer rim of the galaxy, a seventeen year old girl wept.