STAR WARS
The Lost Padawan
Part 1
A time of darkness has fallen across the galaxy. The power of the once thriving Republic has been usurped by Chancellor Palpatine, now the Emperor of the first Galactic Empire and the Dark Lord of the Sith, who rules the galaxy at the barrel of a blaster.
Having already crippled the Jedi Order by way of Order 66 and the subsequent assault on the Jedi Temple, Darth Vader continues to hunt down and exterminate rogue Jedi - and other enemies to the Empire - with his unit of elite Stormtroopers, the 501st.
Republic friends lie scattered across the galaxy, providing succor to fugitives of the Empire. The locations of these shelters are known only to the most trustworthy of allies, granting passage to few.
One such ally travels to the planet Ilum in The Stellar Envoy, a freighter used to smuggle survivors of the Great Jedi Purge under the Empire's nose. There, the crew has picked up a familiar distress beacon...
Planet Ilum hung suspended in the distance, first a blue speck, then a frosted marble as they drew closer. The Stellar Envoy approached slowly, looping around the entire planet once to be sure there wasn't any Imperial cruisers lying in wait on the other side to spring a trap. Gwen had insisted on it, despite the urgency of the distress beacon; it was her ship – well, it was now – and more importantly, it was their hides if they were caught. Coded message or not, a beacon originating from a planetary surface on the outer rim was suspicious, and dangerous at best – they weren't the only ones who would come calling eventually.
Gwen set the Envoy's Nav-Control to autopilot, and stood up from the command chair to stretch. They'd been clear across the galaxy in the Dagobah system when the signal had come through on the old Republic channels; weak, but traceable. That, too, was suspicious – no signal was that long range. Gwen had said as much when they received it, but Ahsoka had simply gazed out over Dagobah's forested sphere through the Envoy's viewfinder. "The Force is strong here..." she'd said. Ahsoka had entered the coordinates herself, then. That had been two days ago, and they'd nearly flown nonstop since, jumping in and out of hyperdrive. You couldn't use hyperdrive for much more than short bursts these days, Gwen begrudged. There was no way of knowing if a TIE-Fighter was waiting for you on the other side. They'd travelled along the Outer Rim, following a safe, but inconvenient course of known friendlies. Friendlier than an Imperial Armada, at least. After clocking all those hours, Gwen needed a nap, a back massage, and a tall glass of Jet Juice, not necessarily in that order.
There was a holocron playing in the galley when Gwen entered, projected onto the Dejarik table. Gwen was familiar with it; she'd seen bits of pieces before, but never the whole thing. She got the impression that she wasn't supposed to, that it was private. Not just because Ahsoka would terminate the message whenever she walked in, but from the glassy look in her eyes, the faraway stare, as though she needed to be alone, but couldn't quite, so she made it so in her mind. It was like she floated away into some void, but she was sitting right there in the galley, emotionless. She had that look then, too. The cloaked man with the beard finished the last of his message, "… I'm very sorry, Ahsoka." Then the holocron shimmered and began again: "Ahsoka, I'm afraid that I have regrettable tidings. It's about Anakin—" That was when Ahsoka took notice of Gwen in the doorway, and she thusly ended the holocron with a dismissive wave of her hand toward Ray-1, the droid projecting it.
"Thank goodness," Ray-1 said, hovering in the air, his blue ocular lens revolving on Gwen. "She was making me play her that dreadful message again. I thought you'd never interrupt her."
Gwen ignored him, as was her usual strategy. "We're very nearly there," she said, gesturing back to the cockpit with her thumb. "Wanna help me take her in, or what?"
"I suppose…" Ahsoka stood up, straightening her tunic, pulling it taut beneath her belt. "If you aren't… capable of landing us yourself," she said, very somberly. Ahsoka stepped forward, face to face. Gwen felt herself bristle. She was readying a comeback when Ahsoka's grin broke like dawn. "First one to the pilot's chair is Bantha fodder!" She shoved past Gwen, sprinting down the corridor.
"Hey!" Gwen laughed. "Cheater!" She gave chase, catching up to her in the cockpit where there were giggles and a brief scuffle, each girl yanking and yoking each other for position. With one final mush, Ahsoka threw her whole body into the pilot's chair, tossing her head back to laugh victoriously.
Gwen huffed. "Fine, I'll be the co-pilot." She pouted. "This is my ship, y'know!"
"You stole it!"
"Yeah, fair and square! So!?"
"Please take piloting seriously," Ray-1 said, floating into the cockpit. "I don't wish to die."
The curve of the Envoy's bow pushed through Ilun's mesosphere, briefly engulfing the viewport in orange as the flames rippled off their hull. Soon they pierced the stratosphere, where the friction faded away, replaced by a silvery calm. Below them, dark clouds rolled and swelled like a Kamino sea. The Envoy's atmosphere monitor was nothing but jagged, erratic lines. This isn't ideal at all. "Take us in nice and gently, Ahsoka," Gwen said, her fingers already wavering over the stabilizer console. Ahsoka gnashed her teeth and plunged them through the troposphere into the raging storm.
Swirling white, hailing, bludgeoning the Stellar Envoy's hull. The ship rattled, and Gwen struggled to steady them, but the stabilizers were all over the board, overwhelmed by the pressure. There was a near constant clattering as everything in the cargo bay toppled and slid into the walls, doing who knows what kind of damage. One of the Envoy's alarms blared, and a red light was flashing over their heads, probably warning them that, yes, they might crash imminently. I know, I know!
"Hold on!"
The blizzard was thick, and frost was spreading across the viewport, but they could still see the tail of a Corellian shuttle sticking out from a bluff of snow. "Look, over there!" Ahsoka had someone known exactly where to take them. More secrets… Gwen found herself wounded, but now wasn't the time for an interrogation. "It looks like they barely managed to put her down," she said, and knew it was true. The shuttle teetered on the edge of a plateau, its nose buried in the side of a small mountain.
"Take the helm," Ahsoka said, suddenly abandoning the pilot's chair. Gwen practically had to jump into the seat to keep the Envoy from veering into a nearby glacier. Even as fast as she had, Ahsoka was already strapping a blaster to her hip, rummaging through the equipment chest for goggles.
"What are you doing, Ahsoka!?"
Tundra-grade clothing came out of the chest next. They'd keep you warm on Hoth, but this? Gwen wasn't so sure. It looked like certain death out there. "We'll never be able to land in this," she said, wrapping herself in a thermal coat and tucking her tails underneath a furry hood. "I need you to take the Envoy up above the storm where you'll be safe and wait for my signal."
Ray-1 asked, "Do you require that I go down first to scan for lifeforms, Master Tano?"
"That won't be necessary, Ray."
"Good," he said, floating away.
Gwen had brought the Envoy approximately fifty meters above the surface – it was hard to get an exact measurement in those conditions – and engaged the bottom thrusters to hold position, but they were taking a beating from the storm and it wouldn't hold for long. Now free from the helm, she turned to Ahsoka, all but pleading with her, "Let me come with you." Her tone was hard.
"You can't," Ahsoka replies. She pressed the Envoy's hatch release, lowering the ramp and letting in the winds. Behind her was nothing but whirling white, hueing Ahsoka in sparkling flakes.
There was no room for argument in her expression. Her eyes were darkened from exhaustion, and Gwen suddenly felt guilty for feeling like she was tired herself. Sometimes it was easy to forget everything Ahsoka had been through in the past year; Ahsoka would never talk to her about any of it, but Gwen had heard her tossing and turning through the night, heard the whimpers of nightmares and the tears that came afterward. If there was anyone more hardheaded than Gwen herself was, it was Ahsoka. Her shoulder's slumped. "Be careful," was all she said, and she blew Ahsoka a kiss.
Ahsoka grinned back at her. "Careful is my middle nam-" she made to catch the kiss out of the air just as the Envoy was rocked by the storm, and Ahsoka slipped on the ramp, her arms flailing fruitlessly for something to grab hold of, and she tumbled comically out of the Envoy's hatch.
"Yep, Ahsoka 'Careful' Tano, alright," Gwen muttered.
"I would roll my eyes if I had more than one," Ray-1 said.
Ahsoka somersaulted as she fell, landing on her feet in the snow, crouched. Ilum's moonlight refracted in the blizzard, and she had to shield her from the sudden brightness. The Stellar Envoy's ramp recalled, and a moment later its thrusters rotated and propelled it away with a blur of blue flame.
Static in her ear. "Hurry back," Gwen said through their comm-link.
"Believe me, I don't intend to settle down here."
The cliff face was only a few hundred feet away, but it was slow-going. Her footing wasn't solid, and she was forced to trudge forward against the wind, clutching her hood to keep it from flying off her head and tails. When she looked up, she could see the downed shuttle's stern hanging off the outcrop ledge, gently rocking. Ahsoka heard the creaking over the howling storm. Now I just have to climb, she thought, cheerful despite the circumstances. The shuttle was about a mile up. No problem.
If her trek there had been sluggish, her progress up the cliff was painfully slow. Holds were few and far between, and the surface was slick with ice and crumbling sleet. Even wearing her goggles, it was difficult to see through the frozen slurry. Most of her ascension was done by blindly groping the cliff face for something to grip, and trying to remember where it had been to boost her lower body off of with her feet as she passed. More than once a foothold cracked under her weight, and more than once she slid down, struggling to slow her decline. If she climbed ten feet, she'd fall six. Her arms ached.
Ahsoka was three-quarters of the way up when the wind began to whip, slamming into her like a fist, almost knocking her off the wall as it blew by. It left icy fingerprints on her skin, even under her fur, and she started trembling uncontrollably. That's when she heard the creaking again, like a rickety rocking chair just above. Ahsoka looked up in time to dodge the snow falling from just over her head.
Not good, Ahsoka thought, picking up her pace. Her hands were frantically searching for something to grip, yanking herself higher and higher. Another gust caught her in mid-climb and she slipped, feet skidding off the ice and then dangling. This time the shuttle didn't creak, it screeched. Another load of snow fell, some smacking her in the face, wet and cold. She shook it off her, swinging her body back up and grabbing the wall again. Her feet pedaled until finally sinking into a hold. The screeching hadn't stopped; it resounded over the wind, muffling her heavy breathing. Ahsoka knew she was listening to the shuttle's underbelly grind as gravity seized it.
Nope, nope, nope… She felt the wind prickling her skin again, threatening to blow. She accounted for it in her mental calculations. It wailed. The shuttle fell, a boulder of ice and snow breaking off with it as the stern pulled it down, spinning. Ahsoka pushed off the wall and she leaped.
Unknowable tons of steel and rock and snow whooshed past her in midair. Ahsoka's hands extended, arms outstretched. Time seemed to slow down. Then her fingers found the lip of the plateau and held her, the rest of her body slamming into the side of the wall. The shuttle crashed into the surface below, an avalanche chasing behind it, like a waterfall of clumpy debris. Ahsoka pulled herself up with some effort. She stooped and paused to catch her breath at the top. When she looked down, she couldn't see the shuttle anymore – it was lost in an endless palette of bleary white.
Gwen's voice in her ear: "Ahsoka, are you alright? Ray detected a disturbance."
"I'm fine," Ahsoka said, dusting off the snow. "I'm having the time of my life."
From there she could see the entrance to the Jedi Temple, nestled into the mountain's bosom, hidden from the air. Massive stone pillars made an archway into the main chamber, lit by the Ilun moons through the storm like a fishbowl. Ahsoka had, of course, been there before – twice, once as a padawan herself, and again as a mentor to others. If Jedi were on Ilum, Ahsoka knew this is where they would take refuge. A force user had already opened the gates, that much was clear, but a Jedi? She couldn't be sure of that. For all she knew, Sith waited for her inside. Ahsoka entered anyway.
Now out of the hail of the storm, Ahsoka pushed her goggles up to her forehead to take in the surrounding with her bare eyes. It was warmer inside, but not much. Her breath was steam. The temple's interior chamber was tall and rounded, lit a soft white against the blue of the frosted rock. Two statues of Jedi loomed above her, watching over the temple and wielding stone lightsabers.
At the temple's crown stood the entrance to the Crystal Caves, but it was blocked off by a layer of ice, like a blast-door. There was a crystal near the ceiling to focus sunlight and melt open the corridor, but Ahsoka didn't have time to wait seventeen days for the sun to rise. Let's do this the fast way. Ahsoka drew her blaster, aiming at the base of the impasse, and squeezed the trigger. There was a red flash and a high-pitched report. Ahsoka squeezed twice more, widening the gap that her blaster burned open. She was peeking into the caves beyond when she first heard the screams.
Ahsoka whirled around. It was dimmer in the chamber than she remembered just moments before. Darkness seemed to spread like ink across the walls, smothering the moonlight. Another scream, pained beyond language, savage, like something caught in a trap. Ahsoka took a few steps back down the stairs into the center of the chamber. Her breathing was no longer simply steam; it was acrid smoke, hanging in the air as smog. The screaming had come closer, trailed by a wet, dragging noise.
"Ahsoka…" the voice was familiar. Her heart pounded, her lungs seized. From the temple's gloom emerged first a hand, flesh peeling, fingertips only bone. It clawed at the floor, pulling the rest of it forward. A head appeared next, hairless, inflamed, almost unrecognizable… almost.
"AHSOKA…!"
"Master…" Ahsoka's voice broke. Her blaster fell out of her hands, clattering. She dropped to her knees before his ruined body, reaching out uselessly, pleadingly. "Master… Master, I'm so sorry."
His eyes were sunken, ringed with gold, like an animal's.
They weren't human. Not anymore.
"I hate you," he snarled. His body ignited into flames, cutting the darkness, casting flickering shadows on the walls around them, shadows that told tales. In them, Ahsoka saw the fall of the Jedi Order. She watched as Plo Koon's fighter fell from the sky, and as Stass Allie and Aayla Secura were assassinated by their troopers. She watched Ki-Adi-Mundi fight valiantly, but in the end he was shot dead. Ahsoka saw Order 66 play out like shadow puppets in the light of her dying master. All the while, she felt the heat on her face, so hot she feared it would burn her, too. The smell of roasting tauntaun found her nostrils, and she nearly retched right there. His screams were deafening. "I HATE YOU!"
Someone grabbed her shoulder, shattering the vision. "Ahsoka," they said, softly, yet still she flinched. A young Tholothian stood beside her, her face gaunt with fatigue, lined with worry. Ahsoka knew her – Katooni. Others looked on behind them. A human boy stood on the steps that lead to the caves. His name was Petro. Four more peered out from the maw that Ahsoka had shot into the ice door. Zaat, Ganodi, Byph, and Gooji – Gooji whined shyly at her in Wookie. Younglings, all… No, two years older than when she'd last seem them at the Jedi Academy. Young padawan now, matured by loss.
"It's going to be alright," Katooni said, wiping away the wetness on Ahsoka's cheeks. Ahsoka hadn't realized that she had been crying. The others inched nearer, their trepidation fading with time. Katooni hugged her then, her tiny arms squeezing Ahsoka tight. Petro rushed over next, joining in, and the others followed suit. "It's going to be okay," Katooni repeated, "you're safe now, Ahsoka."
It occurred to Ahsoka that she should have been telling them that; she should have been assuring them of their wellbeing now that she was there, not the other way around. But it would be hours before the storm let up and Ahsoka could hail the Envoy, and an even longer journey still after that. They'd have to protect each other. "Thank you," was all she said.
It stank like bantha fodder on the ship.
It had taken two days for the storm on Illum to let up enough for Gwen to break atmosphere and pick up Ahsoka and the younglings, and even then The Stellar Envoy had been battered by hail the size of wombats. By the time they'd all managed to board and disembark, secondary support systems had been compromised. Gwen had managed to repair the rehydrator, so they did have drinking water recyced from the atmosphere, but the filtration system was still down, which meant they couldn't process their waste water. Their simply wasn't enough moisture in the atmosphere to fulfill their every need. What that meant is no one had showered in a blasted week.
The younglings were already ripe when they'd boarded, and Ahsoka hadn't exactly been a fresh meadow herself, after spending two days in a cave with them. Still, they were all lucky they hadn't lost something more pertinent, like air or gravity, so Gwen couldn't complain too much; she complaned just the right amount, she thought. "Ahsoka, please, I'm begging you," Gwen said, pressing her forearm to her nose, "stand down wind or something."
"What wind? There's no wind, we're on a space freighter."
"Then go stand in the airlock," Gwen said. "I promise not to eject you."
They were in the cockpit of The Stellar Envoy, Gwen sitting in the pilot's seat, Ahsoka standing at the navigation console. Down the hall, in the galley, they heard the younglings playing. From the sound of it, Hide and Seek with Ray-1 again. Gwen knew, because she heard his enthusiastic shouting. "I have ascertained your location, infant wookie," he said, his voice echoing down the hall. "According to my records, your performance has been poorest of all." Gwen heard Gooji growl, and something clanged. "Cease hurling projectiles," Ray-1 said. "It isn't polite to be a sore loser."
"You couldn't eject me," Ahsoka said. "If you did, there'd be no one to navigate this hunk-of-junk for you, would there?" The Envoy's auto-navigation systems had taken a hit during the storm, too. If they wanted to use hyperdrive, which they most certainly did, someone had to calculate their trajectory manually, while someone else had to continue piloting. Not the end of the galaxy, but definitely a lot of long hours in close quarters with a pair of rancor armpits.
"First of all, it isn't a hunk-of-junk, you're a hunk-of-junk," Gwen said, her head bobbing to emphasize every syllable. "Second of all, we're almost there. One more jump and you can sit your pretty tails in the airlock, and I can bring this magnificent space bird down and get some fresh air, for once."
Ahsoka stuck her tongue out at Gwen, and then she took down the corded micorphone to address the entire ship. "Attention," she said, her voice amplified in every room, "this is your captain speaking. We'll be commencing our last hyperdrive of the voyage, so please buckle yourselves in. The sweet-smelling Gwendolyn will be setting this magnificent hunk-of-junk down planet-side within the hour."
They heard the younglings' celebratory whooping in the galley. When the console read that they had all buckled in, Ahsoka pressed the ignition button on the hyperdrive, smiling slyly. "I'm the captain," Gwen muttered under her breath, just as the starry space outside The Stellar Envoy's viewfinder began to spin, and then the ship lurched, propelling them into the tunnel of light.
The young bounty hunter's spacecraft maneuvered through the dense asteroid field with ease. It was a Firespray-31 patrol and attack craft, heavily customized. It had been his father's, but he'd inherited it, as was his right. He'd even done some of the modifications himself, since. The engines, though, that was all his father; dual Kuat drive engines and power generators that allowed the ship to slip through obstacles like a shadow, yet still power into sublght speed to match a starfighter.
His father had been brilliant, truly one of a kind.
It had been months since the bounty hunter had first began honing in on his quarry, tipped off in a Coruscant rat. He'd been on their tail since; always a few steps behind, but making ground. Normally that would be too long between jobs, the fruits didn't justify the labor, but this was an exception. This new galactic empire was offering substantial credits for anyone with solid information on Republic refugees, information that resulted in their death or capture. Even more credits for that of Jedi. The bounty hunter sneered. Jedi... He didn't fear cowardly Jedi. Everyone was killable, Jedi Knight or not; you simply pressed a blaster to their heads and... click.
They all had it coming, the boy figured, for what they'd done to... for what they'd done, is all.
A few weeks earlier he picked up their ion trail near Dagobah and followed it for a few lightyears before it petered out. Luckily, the ship recognized a distress beacon in the Ilun system on an old Republic channel, weak but clear. The bounty hunter was there in less than an hour, but when his ship came out of hyperdrive he was too late. After a sweep for life signs on the planet's surface, he was sure they were already gone. Pity. Still, a fresher trail to track wasn't nothing. They seemed to be skirting Imperial space, staying just inside the Outer Rim. If he cut through the asteroid fields, he might be able to make better time...
His shortcut had paid off. The new ion trail was strong on the other side, but it ended abruptly. They must have taken their ship into hyperspace again. This might have frustrated the boy, sent him on a red-faced tantrum about the cockpit, as it had many occasions before, but not now. This time hey were travelling too close to the rim, their flight trajectory too clear. He knew the burst distance they'd used hyperdrive in the past, and there was one planet in that range. Just one.
The boy was smart, yes, he'd be like his father someday, maybe just as brilliant.
He engaged the ship's deep-space comm and waited for the call to be received. In a moment, it was. The voice that answered reminded the bounty hunter of the rumble of distant thunder on his homeplanet, Kamino. He knew it unmistakably. "This had better be worthy of my time, boy."
"Oh, it is," the bounty hunter said, masking his anxiety with boyish bravado. Still, there was a tremor in his hands. "I've tracked the smugglers outside the chomnell sector. They seem to be heading into the Naboo system. They might've picked up some Republic passengers on Ilum, too."
"Naboo..." The boy heard him breathing. It sounded like the hydraulic vents on the docking bay of a space station. "Continue tracking their ship. Confirm their arrival on the planet, and then await my fleet."
"Wait!? I don't need to wait. I can captu-"
"Do as you're told, boy!" Around him, the spacecraft began to rattle violently. Not enough to throw it off course, but enough to topple loose items and dislodge cargo. Even his chair vibrated, and the bounty hunter had the unsettling feeling that at any moment the hull would shred open like a ration can, and some unseen force would eject him, still strapped into his seat, into the vacuum of space.
The boy gulped. "Yes, my lord."
The Stellar Envoy coasted over the flowering prairies of Naboo's countryside, crossing over into the crisp, reflective waters that lay between it and the city of Theed. Its underbelly skimmed the blue surface only briefly - a bit of a show for the younglings, who oohed and ahhed at the iridescent fish that leapt all around them - before Gwen pulled the ship up by its nose, hurtling the massive walls that protected the capital from the elements, and enemies long since appeased. At once, there was an explosion of activity and color, like waking from one dream into another. "Stellar Envoy," a voice said over their comms, "this is Theed sky control. You're clear for landing at the palace, bay two." Gwen rogered up, and the voice added: "Good to have you back, ladies."
Gwen rounded the palace and brought The Stellar Envoy in for a vertical landing. Its thrusters flared sky-blue, rotating themselves downward, allowing the ship to slowly sink onto its metallic legs. The Envoy clanked to a stop, exhaling the last of its pressure as the engines shut down. The loading bay opened a moment later, allowing the crew to deboard. Ahsoka was first, marching herself down the ramp to meet the welcoming party. Gwen herded the younglings after her. Ray-1 floated down last, muttering to himself. "This humidity is not optimal for my motivators," he said to no one in particular.
Captain Palpatis waited for them on the landing strip, his arms outstretched. He was flanked by three of his Royal Guard, and a few of the queen's handmaidens. He embraced Ahsoka when she met him halfway. "It's good to see you, Ahsoka," he said. His nose scrunched, and he politely parted from their hug. "Long journey?"
Gwen, finally catching up to them, answered for her. "Our filtration system busted a couple of lightyears back," she said. "None of us have had anything but a sonic cleaning in weeks."
"I'll have our mechanics look at it," Captain Palpatis said. Then, noticing the younglings, he bent his knees to level with them and asked, "And who might these fine, upstanding younglings be?"
Ahsoka had positioned herself behind the younglings, standing in a neat row. She had given them a briefing on how to act when they reached the royal palace, and she was delighted to see them trying to follow her instructions. It was even cuter when they fell short of perfection, though. Byph twisted his long, Ithorian neck to peer at the balloons in the city's distance, nearly knocking Petro over in the process. Petro teetered and mushed Byph away. Zatt lightly cuffed him to refocus his attention. Ahsoka had to keep herself from giggling.
Ahsoka tapped each of them on the head as she said their names, "This is Katooni, Gooji, Petro, Byph, Zatt, and Ganodi. Each of them are talented Jedi padawans." They all puffed with pride.
"Jedi, you say? Well, they should enjoy meeting the others who are taking refuge here." He beckoned the handmaidens with a wave. "See to them. Have them bathed and dressed, then bring them to their fellow Jedi." The handmaidens lead them down the strip in a swarm of flowing cloth and doting hands. The younglings, not used to the attention, were easily whisked away.
"Shall I accompany the human larvae?" Ray-1 said. "To monitor their behavior, of course."
"Of course," Gwen mocked. She smiled and nodded. "Go ahead, Ray."
They watched him disappear into the palace, and then Captain Palpatis turned back to Ahsoka and Gwen. "You might want to wash up before your audience with Her Majesty, as well," he said with a laugh. "We've taken the liberty of having rooms prepped for you. They're in the North Wing. One of my guards will show you the way."
"Thank you, Captain," Ahsoka said.
"It is an honor," he said, bowing.
They were led through the rounded corridors of the royal palace by the armored guard, who said as little with his body language as he did his tongue. Ahsoka had been there many times before, but she still found herself admiring the simplistic beauty of the palace's inner architecture; the high vaulted ceiling, the polished marble columns, the open balconies and natural light - it reminded her more of a temple than a palace, and she felt a pang of homesickness. Foolish, she told herself. There's no sense weeping over ash and bone. Still... she let her eyes lose focus and walked the rest of the mechanically, with no joy.
Their rooms were next door to each other's. "I will wait," the guard said. He stood at attention with his back against the curve of the wall between the two doors and did just that. Gwen gave Ahsoka a face that seemed to ask, Is this guy serious? but Ahsoka only shrugged. The royal guard no longer surprised her. On one of their first smuggling runs to Naboo, she and Gwen had spent the better part of half an hour mimicking opera at the top of their lungs, but the guard on duty then had simply blinked at them and asked, "Will that be all?" Now she just accepted it.
They went into their respective rooms and shut their doors. Ahsoka took in her surroundings; plush red carpet, canopy bed, even real wood furniture. A fresh tunic and pants had been laid out for her on the feather comforter. "Swanky," she said aloud to herself. It felt strange, having no one to talk to. Ahsoka tapped on the commlink in her ear after a moment of consideration. "Gwen, is your room as swanky as mine is?" Ahsoka, I'm trying to get ready. "Did they leave you clothes? They left me clothes." Yes, can you leave me alone so I can wear them? "Okay, hurry up, I miss you." Tano, you just saw me! "Irrelevant argument. I'll meet you outside in ten minutes."
Queen Apailana's audience chamber was a half-sphere of cool, gray stone at the north most wing of the palace. Golden sunlight streamed in through open terraces, revealing glimpses of Naboo's powder blue skies, as was typical for Theed, but here a perimeter of simple wooden benches lined the outer columns. Ahsoka imagined what it might look like if they had been full; dark silhouettes glaring against a backdrop too bright to perceive without squinting, while Her Majesty looked down at you somberly from a tall throne on a raised dais. It was a chamber intended to cause anxiety. Ahsoka felt a twinge of it in her own chest.
They had entered side by side and taken a knee at the chamber's center, a spot marked by a single dark stone. It was only a moment before Her Majesty spoke-"Rise, allies."-and they were able to stand again. Queen Apailana sat on her throne, her painted expression much as Ahsoka had expected it to be. A line of her royal guard stood at her feet, while only Captain Palpatis shared the dais. "It pleases me to see you've returned safely," she said, in a flat tone that would leave you to believe otherwise. "And with more friends to the Republic, no less."
"We are glad to be back as well, Your Majesty," Ahsoka said, with a slight curtsy that didn't escape Gwen's eye, which she then rolled. "The journey here from the Ilun system was a long one, but definitely worth it. Gwen and I followed a Republic distress signal to caves that had once belonged to the Jedi. Five young padawans had crash landed, and taken refuge from a blizzard there." Ahsoka smiled. "They're very gifted, and very sweet."
"Padawans..." Queen Apailana's eyes flashed toward Captain Palpatis. He, almost by instinct, angled himself toward her. "Is this so, Captain? Have our ranks been blessed with a litter of young apprentices?"
"It is true," he said. "Five, little more than younglings. I am not as versed as Madam Tano in matters of their trade, but they appear healthy-strong."
Ahsoka nodded, speaking quickly. "With their potential, and the Knights already here, we could the makings of a new Jedi Academy here on Naboo." Her heart was beating hard, pumping warmth to her cheeks. "In just a few years, maybe a decade, we could begin to rebuild-"
"A decade?" Queen Apailana's lip curled. "We do not have a decade to make Jedi of those who can be soldiers tomorrow."
Ahsoka's pulse slowed. "I... don't understand, Your Majesty."
Captain Palpatis answered. "Queen Apailana has refused the Imperial ambassadors and their requests-"
"Demands."
"Yes, Your Highness, I stand corrected. Their denands that Naboo yield under the Emperor's galactic rule."
Ahsoka felt sick. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but that's madness. The Empire will never allow you to exist as a sovereign planet. They'll force you into military action, and-"
"Indeed, that is the plan," Queen Apailana said. "When the Empire wages unsanctioned war, the galaxy will see the Emperor for what he truly is, and will come to the aid of the Republic."
"Is that before or after you're crushed under the Empire's heel?" Gwen bristled. "I know I'm just a lowly smuggler, but we call that a suicide mission where I come from."
"You mentioned soldiers..." Ahsoka eyes were ovals, peering up with a kind of hope that bordered on denial. "Is that what you've been making of the refugees we've brought to this planet? The people we brought here to escape battle?"
"They all have some hand or another in the war effort, yes," Captain Palpatis said.
"Even..." The realization cut through Gwen like a vibroblade. She glared up at the dais, her fists balled. "But they're just children! Little more than younglings!"
Queen Apailana's face never even twitched a passing emotion. "No rebellion has ever been waged without the taint of sacrifice."
Ahsoka slumped. "You're monsters..."
"You're swamp scum!" Gwen spit.
Captain Palpatis banged his staff on the dais. It echoed hollow in the chamber. "Enough!" The Royal Guard below him responded by changing their stances in dramatic unison, opening their feet and chambering their own staffs in their armpits. "You have been friends to Theed, but I cannot abide treason of tongue. If you will not stay it, I'll have you seized, friends or no."
Queen Apailana raised her hand, silencing her people. "Stand down, Captain." Palpatis brought himself back to attention, as did the rest of her guard. "Perhaps it is simply too much to process at once. Let us allow our friends the opportunity to sleep on what has been said here. Should their minds not change, we will grant them safe passage and absolve our arrangement. We are not the foul creatures they think us to be."
Gwen and Ahsoka backed out of the audience chamber slowly, but no so slowly that someone might change their mind. When the servants at the doors opened them, Ahsoka said, "You're making a mistake, Your Highness..."
Apailana pursed her lips. "We shall see."
The Star Destroyer waited just beyond the range of known long-distance scanners. The rest of its fleet hung suspended in space behind it; thirty other Destroyers, packed with Tie-Fighters and Bombers and, most importantly, shuttles. They'd brought with them four shuttles capable of cloaking against most early warning radar systems. They'd never been tested in battle, of course, but it didn't concern him. His plan would work or it wouldn't, either way the tiny planet didn't stand a chance.
He stood there, watching it in the distance; a green and blue speck, a stain on so much black. He found himself remembering a time when he had thought it to be beautiful, when fields of tall grass and sunflowers had been a bed for their first kiss, and apples had floated on the sound of giggles, rolling and tumbling as they dined on...
His fists balled and the room shook, if only for an instant. He was getting better, more practiced, at controlling his temper-focusing it, but their was still work to be done. He was almost glad when the the door rung, and the intercom system said, "Lord Vader, my apologies for this disturbance. The Bounty Hunter is here to see you. You said that, when he arrived, we should let you kno-"
"Enter," he said, his voice amplified inside his respiratory prosthesis.
The door slid open with a hydraulic sigh. Two Stormtroopers stood on the other side, flanking a brown-skinned boy in rough armor. "Come," he said, and the boy-with due hesitancy-stepped into the room, and allowed the door to close behind him. Vader looked him over. No older than sixteen, but strong, he could see. Resilient, but not yet tempered. Vader might have reached out to see if he was force sensitive, but he had no need. The boy looked too much like Vader's arc-troopers to be a coincidence, and at once the surname registered with his recollection. Of course... he thought.
Vader turned toward the window again, giving the boy his back. He didn't need to watch him, he sensed every pang of anxiety, every nervous twitch. "Has your reconnaissance confirmed the vessel's landing on the planet's surface?"
"Yes, my lord," he said. "But I still say I can capture them myself. It's just a droid and two women." The boy was braver than most, Vader admitted, but foolish, as is the substance of youth. "There's no need for an entire Imperial fleet to-"
"If you learn to follow instructions, you will have a lucrative future with me, boy. If you do not, you will have no future at all." Vader sensed the hairs on the back of the boy's neck go erect, the primal instinct to flee or fight rising up from the innermost layer of his brain. But, in the end, the boy made the correct decision, the only decision.
"Yes, my lord."
"Go," Vader said, and the boy did, walking briskly from the room and collecting his credits. Vader had told no lie. The Empire was vast, but where there was light there would always be shadow. Vader had need for pawns like the boy, capable of delving into the galaxy's cracks and doing what others could not. People such as that were essential in their disposability.
The door rung again, and this time when Vader bid the caller enter it was Captain Rex in his arc-trooper armor. He carried his headgear under his arm, and for a moment Vader was struck by how similar the boy had looked; Rex might've been his father, but - of course - they were of the same DNA, after all. "My men are ready for launch, Lord Vader," Rex said, saluting. "You need only give the word."
Vader said nothing for the exhalation of a few breaths, allowing them to resound in the near silence of the ship, overlain on the ever-constant engine hum of the Star Destroyer. The dark lenses of his helmet mirrored the planet, still only a blot of color in the blackness that was his eyes. There was something there, he felt, something familiar... It was no matter, only the skeletons of a former life, like smoke on a bygone horizon. "Wait until nightfall. Wait until they sleep," he said. "Let them dream their last dreams."
It was the Jedi Temple, only it was not as she remembered it to be. The temple had always been well lit, even during night hours; fluorescent halls that lead into windowed rooms, where the Coruscant moon shone, fat and white above a endless cityscape. Here, though, there was only darkness beyond the windows, and the halls were dim and shadowy, as if lit by torchlight. And it was cold. Ahsoka could see her breath in the air, and somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered a frozen cavern, someplace far from there? The thought passed as quickly as it had come, just a whisper among whispers.
Ahsoka wandered the corridors, and after a short while she came to realize that the flickering dimness grew brighter as she walked, as if she were drawing nearer to its source. There was a sound, too; a crackling, not unlike comm static. It grew louder and louder as the light grew brighter and brighter, until finally she came upon a doorway with a flood of it all pouring through it. Ahsoka knew this room. There was nothing particularly telltale about that door or that hallway, no landmarks of any kind that she could discern, but she knew all the same. Hadn't she been there so many times before? Hadn't she herself attended Master Yoda's lectures there, all those years ago?
Ahsoka entered the Initiate Room, but there were no students. There was only a massive pyre. It burned, and spat, and popped, and all at once there was heat and stink. The body at its peak was wrapped in black robes and wreathed in smoke. Was it a Jedi funeral? Who had died? She tried to identify the face, but her eyes stung with ash, and the blaze was too wild to step any closer, but she had to know. Who was it underneath the soot, beneath the blackness?
"Ahsoka," someone said behind her. She turned, and where once there was a doorway and the hall beyond now existed only a wall of flame. There stood five younglings, untouched by the heat. Their skin was waxy and colorless, their lips cold and blue. "Where were you?"
Ahsoka jerked awake, alone in her bedroom. The sound of Naboo's swamps drifted in the open window, all croaks and chirps and caws, audible over the stillness of Theed. Her sheets were soaked with sweat, and Ahsoka struggled to control her breathing. Every inch of her trembled. When the sickness in her stomach refused to fade, she stood up and padded barefoot to the adjoining door between rooms, opening it as quietly as she could and climbing into Gwen's bed. Ahsoka curled up on the edge, her knees pressed up against her. Gwen, snoring like a Gungan, rolled over and wrapped a slack arm around her. Tomorrow we leave here, Ahsoka told herself, eyes open in the dark. And we take them with is. No matter what.
Sleep eventually came, and this time it was undisturbed.