Constraints: Follows "There Is No Order, There Is Only Chaos."
Synopsis: Three former enemies have settled into their new job as semi-independent bounty hunters and freedom fighters. Can they continue when liberty dies to thunderous applause?
There Is No Chosen One There Is Only Vader
Content: Some fairly nasty shit occurs in here.
"Hajarett Oba?"
The Nautolan turned around asking "Yeah? And you are?"
"I'm your arresting bounty hunter, I'm arresting you for twenty large, you do not have to say anything, and I like it that way," said the teen Togruta female.
"Sure," he said "I'll come quietly," he made to walk past her asking "This way is it?"
When the Togruta made to correct him, he threw a punch aimed across her face.
His fist ended up pinned in space, about 3cm from her face. She said "Nope," and pointed off in the direction of the bondsman office saying "That way. Come on."
He walked off in the indicated direction half snarling half sighing "Shavit."
"And where have you been?" asked Asajj as she pointed at her watch.
"Earning money," said Ahsoka as she held up the case of credits.
Asajj nodded saying "Good, that fuel was expensive," as she pointed inside the small shuttle pod they used to land on world.
There were a couple of practical reasons why they used this shuttle pod instead of their actual star ship for landing and on world operations, the public reason is that this vehicle is more manoeuvrable, it could go more places, it was more agile, they could put it more places than their star ship, including jungles, natural and urban.
They got on and sent "war horse from tick, ready for pickup."
Two hisses of static indicated an acknowledgement.
They got back on their ship, docking through the modified cargo bay, and the ship jumped to hyperspace. Asajj and Ahsoka got out, telekinetically unloading the fuel drums.
The other reason why Warhorse never touched down walked in saying "Should arrive at Shili in four hours."
"Okay," said Ahsoka.
"Barriss, Ahsoka bagged a crim down there."
"How much did we get?" asked Barriss.
"Twenty thousand," replied Ahsoka.
Barriss nodded and asked "Ready?"
Asajj set down the last fuel drum and walked up to the other two.
The three of them floated up and each telekinetically strangled the other two.
Ahsoka was the first to drop out, and then Asajj.
Barriss nodded and landed with a smug smile on her face.
"We really need another way to work out who gets the odd credit," said Ahsoka, "I can't believe throttling each other is the only way to assign it."
"What, like rock paper scissors?" asked Asajj.
The three of them shuddered as they recalled how, using the force, their hands ended up in constant flux between rock, paper and scissors as none of them could settle on any of them, constantly adapting to the environment.
It had been about a year since they had started working together on a mixture of basic bounty work and altruistic freedom fighting,
Barriss had a ship, but couldn't show her face anywhere. Asajj had no allegiances as such, but felt like she could trust Ahsoka, who trusted Barriss who Asajj didn't.
Between the three of them, they knew a good deal of the CIS, Republic, and Jedi scene, but their knowledge was considerably less current on all of those, except where Ahsoka received updates through her Shili Home guard contacts, and that was limited to what it was considered safe to share with local forces.
"Yeah, it's just Barriss always wins ... Forget it," said Ahsoka as she opened the case and started dividing the credits, 6667 for Barriss, 6666 for Ahsoka and Asajj.
Asajj went back to moving the fuel from the drums into the ship's tanks.
Ahsoka's dad watched the news, not really expecting much.
"Ooop, this just in, we have a rumour that General Grievous is dead."
"Yeah? How many times was Asajj supposed to be dead? Or Aurra?" he asked.
Then there was some footage showing Grievous in a fight with what looked like a human Jedi. This footage looked like it was off of a security camera.
The human, had a beard, light skin and light brown hair, was sent over the edge of the platform.
He seemed to have lost his sabre. He telekinetically grabbed a blaster and it flew to his hand. He shot Grievous.
Grievous stood there trembling and spewing fire out of every visible gap and orifice.
Ahsoka's dad leaned forward and when Grievous fell, he commented "Karkin' hell. He's really dead."
Other members of the village had also been watching the news, and Ahsoka's mum entered the room and looked at the recording.
Everyone in the village was now either laughing in triumph or asking "what's going on?" or asking "For real?"
After that mass raid on Corouscant, there was debate over whether the CIS were newly confident or desperately lashing out.
Count Dooku had been killed in that attack, head was cut off, karkload of cops had been through that ship and seen it, local coroner had confirmed it was in fact Count Dooku, not a double, none of that shavite.
Was this war finally close to being won?
That would be weird. The galaxy had spent so long fighting this war, it was hard to imagine the war being over. It had just become this ambient thing, sun shines, clouds rain, grass grows, republic fights CIS in knock down drag out galaxy wide war, same old shavite.
But when one side or the other finally gains serious advantage over the other, things start happening thick and fast. That had been the way such long lasting wars in the past had gone. Years of war being normal, then a flood of victories on one side, then one side has the other over a barrel.
"Does Ahsoka know yet do you reckon?" asked Ahsoka's mum.
He checked his watch and said "She should be back in a couple of hours."
Ahsoka landed the Tick in the villages hanger.
Like the village, a great effort had been taken to disguise it, This had been done to maintain the character of the area, not because some bell end was threatening to invade. But it worked for hiding from that too. Basic job, rectangle of soil would lift up and slide to the side to allow vehicles in and out.
Her dad was waiting in the hanger.
"Hey Ahsoka," said her dad.
"Hey Dad. You get the news?"
"About your work or about the death of General Grievous?" he asked.
"Grievous is dead?" asked Ahsoka, not sure whether or not to believe this.
"Ooh yeah, Obi Wan fought the karker, lost his lightsabre, used a blaster, ker-whoomph, karker lit up like one of those incendiary drums from that slave farm on Nal Hutta."
"Brilliant," said Ahsoka.
"So that's Dooku gone, Grievous gone, I mean, this war's winding down at long last, right?"
Ahsoka thought about it.
"Right?"
Ahsoka finally said "We can hope, I mean, it looks good, but it's looked good before. Those two are leaders high up in the separatist command, but don't forget there's a kark load of worlds in the Confederation of Independent Systems, each has a government with its standing army, it could still go on a while yet. Last look I got at the Intel said we were starting to gain a little traction, but then that fleet hit Corouscant. Still, that fleet seemed like an attempt by their snake to cut the head off of our snake because they didn't feel they could hold territory anymore."
"So?"
"Well, it looks good, but be prepared for disappointment," said Ahsoka.
"Okay. ... If this war does end though, you reckon your friends will be able to set foot on Republic territory again?"
"Hard to say," said Ahsoka, "theoretically, Asajj should be able to claim reasonable orders, nothing she did in the context of war fighting goes above and beyond what is militarily justifiable, no certainty, but odds are she'd have her wants dropped when the war ends. Barriss on the other hand, she's a traitor, that's a completely different matter. Depending on the settlement reached, she might be able to freely roam CIS worlds, but Republic, absolutely no way."
"Barriss ... The green piece of shavit that framed you for something the Republic kills over. ... I can't believe you're friends with her again."
Ahsoka sighed and said "I can't believe it either, but for some reason ... ... Can't explain it."
"Well, you could say you walked into a door, or fell down the stairs, or hit yourself in the face when opening a particularly tough packet of sweets, or-" started her dad, running through every cliché he could think of for things abused spouses often say to cover up such abuse in the holonet dramas that were available.
"It's not that," said Ahsoka, "For now, she's not currently a threat to me, no motive for her at present, she's building money, I don't want to know what she's likely to do with it if she feels she has enough to try another attack like she tried on Kamino, but with the war winding down, that set of motives should disappear too."
"Right, well, guess we'll just see what happens then. I hope your trust in her isn't misplaced."
"Yeah. ... " Ahsoka checked her watch saying "Oh look. Ten to food."
Asajj and Barriss sat in the cockpit looking out at Shili.
"I don't get it," said Asajj.
"What?" asked Barriss.
"Red Grass."
Barriss looked at the vast red fields and said "there are numerous red photosynthesising molecules, the Turu grass of Shili just happens to use one."
Asajj nodded and shifted her position, looking out at one of Shili's moons.
"Is there a family out there you are no longer able to contact?" asked Barriss.
"Err ... ..." Asajj was considering what to say and then asked "How did you come up with that?"
"This is Ahsoka's home world, where she's meeting with her family, something neither of us are able to do," said Barriss.
"Right, well, I suppose the closest thing I have to a father figure is Master Ky Nerec, a human Jedi who adopted me on Rattatak after my master as in of slaves, Hal'sted was killed in front of me. Second closest thing would be Mother Talzin, the Nightsister high mother who gave me up to that Siniteen, I must have been, like, one or two at the time? ... No way to know what was normal or healthy at that time, and Ky's reaction when I tried to give him a hand job to show my gratitude ... "
Barriss almost burst out laughing. That Asajj was clearly molested by Hal'stad wasn't funny, but Ky being approached by a child for ... ... Actually, that shouldn't be funny either. Absurd, but not funny. Barriss asked "How did he react?"
"A rather flustered and rushed run through the sexual health and relationships I would have been taught had I been going to a Republic school."
Barriss nodded. Sexual health and relationships education is taught practically the same time as basic numeracy and literacy is taught, the idea being to inform children of their right to refuse sexual advances, of the dangers posed by unprotected sex, and that if the adults in their life try to shag them while they're under the age of consent, the police will automatically treat that as rape.
Problem was you'd have to grow up in the Republic. Asajj grew up in a lawless narcoworld. The clue is in the description.
"He was horrified that that had been happening to me. I was just glad to be able to cut cockslime out of my diet. What about you? Closest thing you had to a family?" asked Asajj.
"Born on a star liner apparently, grew up in the temple, Luminara took me on as her Padawan, graduated to Knight shortly after the second Geonosis job, then, I ... realised something had to be done about the clones, had someone feed their husband some explosive nanodroids to blow up the Jedi temple he worked in, killed her in her cell from outside while Ahsoka was alone with her, tried to-"
"Okay, that part I know," said Asajj.
Barriss nodded. She then added "I accidentally killed Luminara when I was trying to blow up the Kamino system," almost grimacing at the statement.
Asajj looked to Barriss and asked "how did that happen?"
"She must have had a force vision. She ordered her ship's crew to abandon ship and parked the ship in the way of the missile, missile was in hyperspace all the way to target, point being was to get it deep enough into the mantle of Kamino's host star to assure detonation, but it instead broke into the shields of Luminara's ship, and squashed itself against the back, and fizzled. ... Luminara took a lethal dose."
"Yeesh," winced Asajj.
"Yeah," said Barriss.
"You were close to her?"
"Yeah. We're wary of taking pride as that can lead us down a dark path, but fighting off the emotion of pride was a daily challenge," said Barriss.
Asajj nodded and commented "Ky was good too. More like a parent to me than even the Nightsisters ever were. Mind, when I went after Dooku for turning on me, the Nightsisters did have my back. Not sure Ky would have gone along with that, but if that karking pirate hadn't slotted him, I probably wouldn't have gone dark side like I did. His death ... ... ... He was so good to me, trained me up, taught me to meditate, to manipulate the force, to fight, and him dying was that hard a kick to the ovaries."
"Attachment," said Barriss.
"Eh?" asked Asajj.
"Attachment, possessive love, that is another path to the dark side. It's something I sensed in Anakin a LOT, especially when his padawan was in trouble. It's not a good thing," explained Barriss.
Asajj looked at Barriss and finally asked "Oh, and you can just switch it off when you need to can you?"
"It may be hard, but you can't want to go dark side again can you? You've seen what that's like." Asked Barriss.
"Yeah, because you really are a good role model when it comes to being a lightsider," replied Asajj.
"It was not a fit of rage that led me to attack the Jedi temple and the Kamino system," said Barriss, "the Jedi order is upside down in the shavit, and it don't know it because it's too used to the smell. I don't know what to do about that."
"Yeah. Reinforces the impression I held for the longest time that there's no such thing as a good guy."
"I'd say there is, but they don't always stay good." Said Barriss.
" ... Yeah," agreed Asajj, "that works I guess."
