The Child of Darkness Chapter 1, a star wars fanfic

The pub didn't offer much except a searing tonic that seared her throat, but she drunk it down anyways. There was, after all, nothing better to do except wait for work.

Work. Her shoulders slumped with the thought. From working with Jedi, the most powerful people in the galaxy, to seeking employment with a smuggler's gang on Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon. It was as steep a decline as it could get.

Her blue and white head tails rolled down her shoulders and she shrugged them off. Such thoughts could not disturb her now, when she least needed it.

"Hey, miss. Fancy somethin' else to drink?"

She had sensed his approach but had hoped her aloof manner would detract him. She was wrong. "No, I'm alright, thanks."

"Well, don't accept me all at once!" He smelled as rotten as the bar- or rather, the whole planet. She slipped into his mind with ease, saw his intentions, and she recoiled.

"Think I'm alright, thanks. I'm just looking for work."

"Work? Well, how about a quick buck here?"

She laughed artificially. "Not that sort of work. Now get out of here."

"Hey." He grabbed her forcefully by the shoulder. "I'm talking to you- wha?"

"You don't want to be here right now," she said firmly, her other hand waving in front of his face.

"I... don't want to be here right now."

"You want to go back to your ship and fly off planet."

"I... want to go to my ship and get offplanet." He sauntered off with a spring in his step as if the conversation hadn't happened, and she exhaled, turned back to her drink. She checked the chrono that was stuck to the grimy pub wall. Thirty minutes remained.

She groaned. She hated waiting, just as much as her former master, Anikan Skywalker. She slapped a hand on the pub desk to get the Gran bartender's attention. "Another one, if you wouldn't mind."

The three-eyed being looked her up and down. "Look a little young to be drinking here, girl."

Ahsoka Tano laughed openly. "I think I'm a little young to even be on this moon. How about you cut the morals and serve me?"

XXX

"What's your name, kid?"

"Ashla," she said with no hesitation. The way she saw it, there was a tiny chance that anyone on this backwater moon would know her actual name, but down the line, someone might. She would forge a new identity, here and now. "You're Captain Hoffner, I take it?"

"That'd be me," the other said affably, flipping a credit chit in his hand. He looked down at her with sharp, thorough eyes; she could see reserved intelligence within them. She looked back with a blank look.

His gaze relaxed. "That's me, yes," he grunted. "Well, Ashla, 'fraid you came a little too late."

"Late?" she echoed. "Your navigator told me a hour-"

He snorted. "And? We're smugglers, not clones. Timekeeping is just chicken scratch."

She opened her mouth- and stopped. The look was back in his eyes. "Is that right?" she countered slowly. "Sorry, but way I remember it, in gambling time is everything, isn't it? And gambling is just like a small smuggling trip."

Hoffner smirked, turned to look behind him. "Karrde? What were you doin' telling this little lady all about me? I thought you only told her to come in an hour."

"You have gambler's eyes," she said before the navigator could respond. "Sharp and observant. Like me," she added with a flashy smile.

"True enough," Hoffner grunted. "You pass the test; get on board. Get acquainted with the other mechanic; you both will be on engine maintenance."

"Understood, Captain." She walked up the ramp into the ship; Hoffner's eyes wafted around the landing pad, hand on his blaster, before finally entering the ship.

XXX

"What's your name?" He was a human, young and short-haired. Black hair was matted down to his head and his face was covered in grime, but his bright green eyes shined inquisitively at her.

"Ashla," she said shortly, and turned to knock one of the ion coils back into place. She was, after all, here to make money not friends.

"My names Asger. Do you... uh, need a hand?"

"No, I got it." She tapped the loose coil experimentally; Hoffner had warned her before coming down that the ship was old, and to be careful with the mechanics. She wondered briefly if her former Master would have had any tips for her; he was a fantastic pilot, after all. But she immediately shrugged it away; that was no longer her life.

There was a series of low-pitched beeps; the squad black-and-red astromech droid Asger called R3-46. "Arty's right," the mechanic said with mock professionalism. "You won't fix it like that. Here-"

"I got it- there, see?" She showed him the coil, knocked back into place where it hummed smoothly.

"You're good," he said with admiration. "Been a while since someone who knows what their doing came around here. The last one got shot up in a botched landing on Trandosha; those reptilians really don't like outsiders."

"Mhmm." She sat down on one of the tool benches and stretched. Asger came over, and as he did so she saw something peculiar. "What's that?"

His hand came almost casually to put the cylindrical device out of sight. "Just an old memento from my... family," he said. "Nothing really important. But hey, I'm the one asking the questions, right? Why are you here?"

She shrugged. "Why not? Fast, action-packed life while making money."

"Not to mention dangerous; the Republic and Separatists really like making life hard for us. Arty bounced on his two roller-legs; by his tone she could only imagine the sarcastic qualities he probably shared with Artoo back with her former Master. "Yeah, Arty, those vulture droids really did a number on us back at Christopholis. It's a risky business-"

"I can manage." She looked around his work station. Everything was haphazardly organized; tools and spare parts were shunted into a corner. A Republic propaganda poster was taped above his bed, except it had been modified to have the clone trooper's heads had been painted over to give a much more artistic design.

"Yeah, I did those," he said, following her gaze. "Beats the bland white armor, huh?"

"I guess." Carefully, she tried to ease into the other's mind; to her great surprise, she found a well-organized mental barrier in place.

His left eye twitched, but nothing more. "Where do you come from?"

She eased out, swallowing her strained breath. "I'm... I left my home behind. Things... weren't working out for me." She was feeling more comfortable around him, at least. He seemed to radiate warmth despite his closed thoughts; for the moment, it wouldn't hurt to tell him the truth while really not.

Strangely enough, his eyes seemed to grow gaunt. "Yeah... that's not too distant from myself," he said slowly, sitting on his bunk. "Except instead of me rejecting my family, they rejected me." His hands clenched on his lap. "So I left them. Bet they regret that now."

The warmth in the room seemed to disappear, and she shivered. Before she could comment, however, the hatch above them opened. "Well just look at you two lovebirds," Hoffner chortled. "Come on up; we got chow for both of you, the engine's can go without a nanny for a bit."

"Coming, Captain."

XXX

The food wasn't anything special and certainly wasn't the tastiest thing she'd ever had, but the way she figured this would be a common meal from now on. Get used to it now, she thought with some disgust.

"Here's what we're doing," Hoffner said, belching. The crew sat back in their seats; there were fourteen of them altogether. The navigator whom she had spoken with back on Nar Shaddaa gave her a friendly nod, the others either scowled or ignored her presence.

"We're going to break into a Separatist-held planet called Hypori and pick up some weapons for some sort of rebellion going on at a different planet- I'll give that later. All in all, a quick pickup. In and out, eas

"Hypori? The Republic only recently made an attack there, the Separatists are going to have some heavy patrol craft running around."

"Yeah, the Aggressor has been reported running around there," another crew member said worriedly. "For a Carrack-class cruiser, it's gotten one of the highest kill-counts in the war-"

"Stop your worrying!" Hoffner said angrily as the other crew members grew sober. "We went up against a Republic Venator before and we were fine!"

Asger snorted on her left. "Fine? I spent the next week patching up the left engine thruster! Not to mention that was when we lost the original mechanics!"

"Yeah, you sure got lucky there," the Captain snorted. "Hell, you've been lucky everytime. Let's hope little Ashla gets some of it, cus Palpatine-knows when we'll get the money to hire another."

The crew dispersed back to their stations, and Ahsoka followed Asger back down to the engine room. He quietly helped put together her sleeping bunk, then crawled into his own. The droid Arty struck the lights with a farewell warble, then powered down for the night.

"I know you said you're just here for the money and stuff," the boy said into the darkness. "But I hope you stay make it out of this smuggling run alright."

She found that odd of him to say. "Why?" she wondered aloud. "Think I'm going to end up like the past mechanics?"

"Yeah." He said it with such seriousness she sat up in the darkness and looked in the direction of his bunk. She could see his green irises staring straight up and the ceiling.

"Why so certain?"

"Just a... feeling I have. Try not to worry about it," he added hastily. "I always get nervous on operations like this. Just try and catch some sleep, we'll probably get there in the morning."

"Yeah," she said sarcastically. "I'll try." She rolled over in her sleep, but her dreams were filled with nightmares of the past and dread of the future.