Hey, everyone! I'm back! So, yes, I know that it's been over a week. I was actually quite flattered to receive a review requesting an update. I guess that means that you're enjoying this story enough to remind me of that!
I do have some excuses: I had a crazy week filled with tons of homework, lots of musical rehearsals, and I had a piano/vocal music contest all day yesterday. So as you can imagine, I had to be pretty creative about finding time to write, and this was a challenging (but eventful!) chapter. But don't worry, I have definitely not abandoned this story or anything. :) More updates are on their way!
Thanks to Guest and Hope reigns on for your kind reviews! Sorry about making Anakin so cruel, as you both commented on it. I figured it was more in his character for this particular story. After all, he is closer to the Vader/Sith Lord end of the spectrum than the Anakin/Jedi Knight one.
All right. Sorry for the long author's note, and here's Chapter 9! As you all know already, I do not own Star Wars.
-Isabelle ;)
Connection to the world of dreams was a delicate thing, and in the middle of the night, it inevitably snapped. Ahsoka noticed through a sleepy haze the rapid jolting of her body—back and forth, as if someone were shaking her by the shoulders. Groggily, she battled against the heaviness that now weighed down her eyelids, blinking them open halfway.
"Come on, Your Highness." The voice emerged as a whisper, amplified only by its urgency, and Ahsoka finally registered that falling back asleep was not an option. When she managed to fully open her eyes, she saw that Lahnya was hovering over her, the tips of her lekku dangling only a few centimeters from Ahsoka's face. With a huff of impatience, she seized the princess's hands and dragged her out of bed. "We're switching places," she hissed, once they were in the refresher. "Give me your nightgown. Sabé's taking you to meet with the Chandrilan rebels."
"What—" Ahsoka stammered. She hadn't known she would get a glimpse of the rebellion at all, but now that Lahnya mentioned it, the prospect sort of excited her. She did as her handmaiden instructed and donned the uniform, smoothing the skirt out of habit.
Sabé, as Lahnya had promised, was waiting outside of the princess's sleeping chambers, cloaked beneath the shadows cast by tall doors and arches. She slipped an arm around Ahsoka's shoulders and hurried her down the hallway, muttering about chores that Lahnya had yet to do and half-heartedly scolding her for taking so long to attend to the princess.
But the vicious snap of a silken cloak interrupted her jabbering, and Sabé yanked Ahsoka behind the velvet curtains of a nearby window. They watched, fixated, as a large shadow plodded along the hallway, the chilling echo of his breath hovering precariously in the air. Sabé's grip tightened around Ahsoka's shoulders. Both women knew exactly who it was, even before he drew close enough to a window that moonlight fell upon his mask. Emperor Vader.
Ahsoka and Sabé waited until he was long out of sight to move again. The former hardly dared to breathe. Anakin had almost seen her. He had physically lashed out at her when she had found her lightsabers. What would he do if he knew she was trying to sneak out?
"Come on, Princess," Sabé whispered, shaking Ahsoka from her thoughts. She turned to face her and saw the hint of compassion that glinted behind Sabé's eyes. It was still enough to invoke a burst of warm gratitude in her chest. "Let's get you where you're supposed to be."
Lahnya couldn't have been in bed for more than two minutes before the shriek of an opening door pierced the air. She made a fist underneath the covers, just barely biting back the urge to curse out loud. Of course she hoped this visitor was only Rabé, Yané, or Eirtaé, come to tell her that Princess Ahsoka had made it safely out of the Chandrilan Palace, but Lahnya knew that the Empress Padmé wasn't that careless. She wouldn't allow her handmaidens to send a message if it meant simultaneously jeopardizing the secrecy of the mission.
Sure enough, when the mysterious visitor sat upon the mattress, it sank considerably beneath their weight. Lahnya discreetly buried her face against a silk pillowcase. Thank the Force she had already had her back turned to the door. She and the princess looked almost identical from behind; their lekku stripes were the same colour and their skin tones were an almost perfect match. Besides, it wasn't as though this stranger would be able to see her well in the dark, and—most importantly—no one had good reason to suspect that the princess was sneaking out in the first place. They wouldn't be looking for differences, and that would play in her favour.
On the other hand, if she were caught…impersonating the princess was punishable by death.
"I'm leaving now, Ahsoka," boomed a metallic voice, ironically in the closest thing to a whisper that it could manage. Lahnya ground her teeth together. Of course it was the emperor. She had been hoping it would be the princess's fiancé or something. He was a creep, but at least he couldn't kill her by flicking his wrist or shooting lightning through his fingertips.
She heard a hiss as Emperor Vader removed his helmet, setting it heavily on the bed. "I'm going to track down whoever's wreaking havoc on this planet and make them pay," he growled. "Whoever was behind the attempt on my life today. All of those rebel scum will be dead."
Lahnya tightened her grip on the blanket to fend off the sting of panic. If the emperor found the rebel base too quickly, he might also find Princess Ahsoka and Empress Padmé…
…And Lahnya had no way to warn them.
The young handmaiden could feel the emperor's gaze on her, and her skin crawled. She thought for a moment that he might squeeze her upper arm, or kiss her between her montrals, or something like what her older brothers had done—before she had been dragged away from them by the emperor's troops. But he didn't. He just sat there and stared at her.
She knew, of course, that Emperor Vader wasn't really the princess's brother, that she had been kidnapped and forced into that role, just as Lahnya herself had been. But she had also assumed that the emperor—in private, if nothing else—would be at least a little bit affectionate towards his supposed sister, especially given that their history dated back to the Clone Wars.
Apparently not.
In all honesty, Lahnya had resented the Princess Ahsoka for the longest time. She had known, from the Empress Padmé, that the emperor was feeding her lie after lie after lie, but what did it matter, really? It wasn't as though the princess could remember a family or a home that had been stolen away from her. It wasn't as though she spent every day yearning for her old life or mourning the dreams she had lost. In fact, Emperor Vader had practically handed her everything on a silver platter: silks and satins and precious gemstones….
But now, Lahyna felt almost sorry for the princess. Silks and satins were no substitute for an identity of her own, and this—life as the sister of the feared Emperor Vader—was all that she could remember. Lahnya had never once seen the emperor hug the Princess Ahsoka, or carry out a conversation with her that wasn't saturated with hidden threats.
She had seen the bruise on her cheek. She had seen the holovids of her torture.
Finally, the emperor's voice shattered the uncomfortable silence. "I'm doing this all for you, you know," he said. "I'm doing this all to protect you and Padmé."
There was another awkward moment of stillness, as if he were waiting for a response, something to confirm that he wasn't actually as selfish and cruel as the rest of the galaxy made him out to be. Naturally, no response came. Instead, Lahnya listened as the emperor stood and padded toward the doors, slamming them shut behind him.
She found herself before another old building, so isolated from civilization that it had suffered a humiliating dilapidation. Clearly, nobody had since bothered to mend this ruinous state, and as Sabé opened the door and pulled Ahsoka inside, the princess feared the slanted roof might crumble and clatter down on top of them. Of course it didn't, but the uncertainty lingered.
Sabé strolled around the room for a minute, as though looking for something specific. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with food products that were obviously too old now to legally sell, though Ahsoka couldn't imagine that anyone cared in an area as abandoned as this. In fact, she had begun to suspect that this wasn't a real store so much as a way to disguise the rebel base. After all, it had to be nearby, or else Sabé wouldn't have brought her here.
Finally, Sabé wandered over to the cash register, where a man around her own age was trying to glance at her discreetly. Ahsoka could tell, from the single moment they met eyes, that they already knew each other. Sabé leaned on the counter and deliberately drummed her fingertips against its surface for a few moments. Then, when Ahsoka came a bit closer, she murmured, "My colleague and I are looking for some caf. You don't seem to have any."
The man leaned back in his chair, crossing a pair of muscular arms over his chest. "No," he said slowly. "But we might have some in the back, if you and your friend come with me."
Sabé nodded and gestured for Ahsoka to follow. The three of them filed into the back room, and the man shut the door—and locked it. Ahsoka glanced worriedly at Sabé, but the latter gave her head a calm shake and Ahsoka a reassuring smile. She swallowed hard and refocused her gaze on the man, expecting him to unlock the door on the opposite side of the room. Instead, he hauled a large rug to the side and pried up one of the floorboards, revealing a trap door.
The man bent to the ground, slipped a key from his pocket, and inserted it into the lock. As he hefted open the trap door, Ahsoka caught glimpse of a staircase that plummeted into the depths beneath them, lit only by extremely dim lights attached to either wall. "Thank you," Sabé said with true gratitude, hurrying Ahsoka inside somewhat absent-mindedly.
The princess started down the stairs, but she kept alert. Sure enough, as she moved out of human earshot, Sabé again addressed her friend. She must have assumed that Ahsoka wouldn't be able to hear her, but she had forgotten that Togrutan montrals could pick up sounds from extraordinarily long distances. "Thank you for still trusting me, Tonra," she whispered. As Ahsoka glanced over her shoulder, Sabé reached as if to run her fingers through the man's dark hair, but she soon dropped her hand as she thought the better of it. "We're here to help. Padmé is most grateful that you also want to partake in the struggle against the Empire."
When Sabé finally left her friend—Tonra, as she had called him—and caught up to Ahsoka, she decided to address her relationship with him. "You know each other."
"We do."
"How?"
For a long moment, Sabé hesitated. Then she said, "We both worked for Empress Amidala, while she was the Queen of Naboo. He served in the royal guard, and I was the queen's decoy and handmaiden. He's the reason we even know where this rebel base in located."
"But how did he come into contact with you again? And how did you know to trust each other?"
Sabé stared straight ahead, nearly unblinking, as though fixated on something Ahsoka could not see. "We never broke contact with each other. I told him offhandedly in a transmission that I was coming to Chandrila, because I knew the Empire had transferred him there to protect the new royal family. I had my suspicions about his involvement in the uprising, so I hinted at Empress Amidala's, er…efforts at the Imperial Palace. I didn't tell him anything out loud, of course, but…he understood. That's how we came to receive our intelligence. He's already smuggled in the empress so that she can speak with the leader of the Chandrilan Rebellion."
"Oh," Ahsoka said. She hadn't realized that Padmé was already so far ahead of them.
After a few more moments, the staircase tapered to an end, and Ahsoka and Sabé stepped into a dark corridor. Sabé's lips turned into a concentrated frown, and she closed her eyes and rapped her fist against the wall blocking their path. A precise pattern of knocks reverberated through the air and then faded away, leaving nothing but silence in their wake—
—Until the wall split down the middle with a deafening rumble, sliding apart to reveal…a base.
And Ahsoka gasped audibly, nearly clamping a hand over her mouth in shock. She had never seen so many computers assembled in one place. And the people, all those people—sweeping through the aisles from one screen to the next, talking to or even yelling at each other, punching symbols and numbers on their keyboards with a sort of ferocious precision—the sight both terrified Ahsoka and sent shivers of excitement racing down her spine.
All of these people wanted an end to the Empire. All of them!
And this was only one planet.
Sabé swept Ahsoka inside as quickly as possible, effectively shattering the princess's train of thought, and the wall sealed itself shut behind them. The force of the collision was so great that it sent a wave of vibrations shuddering through the floor. "We're going to find Empress Amidala," Sabé announced. "She should be in conference with Senator Mon Mothma."
Ahsoka wasn't sure who that was, but she nodded. "Okay."
Sabé tilted her head and examined her for a moment, a curious expression playing across her features. "Stay close to me," she advised at last. "Some of the people here may be reluctant to trust you, especially once they realize that you're not actually Lahnya."
Ahsoka nodded at the ground. "I know," she said.
Sabé, satisfied for the time being, put a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder and began to lead her through the base. They had just turned yet another corner when they collided with a particularly large crowd, all of its members apparently in a rush to get somewhere. Ahsoka felt her knees sink against a cold durasteel floor and looked up in a panic. She couldn't see Sabé; in fact, she was swarmed on all sides by strangers. "Sabé?" she called. "Sabé!"
A pale hand, the same skin tone as Sabé's, stuck out of the crowd to help her up. Ahsoka grasped onto it, assuming that it belonged to the person she had just addressed—but then she locked eyes with the girl who had pulled her to her feet, and her heart dropped.
This girl wasn't Sabé. No. But she certainly wasn't a stranger, either.
"You!" gasped Princess Nadila of Chandrila. She dropped Ahsoka's hand as though it were infected, leaping backward multiple paces at a time. As Nadila threw a frantic glance over her shoulder, Ahsoka followed her gaze and caught sight of the princess's companion. Even in simple attire, Countess Emalina was stunning, with light brown skin and thick, dark curls that tumbled down her back. She had been at Princess Nadila's side almost the entire evening, at the extravagant ball thrown to celebrate the arrival of the Imperial royal family.
"What are you doing here?" Nadila demanded. Even as she straightened her posture, drawing on her royal authority, her voice cracked in betrayal of her fear. "Oh, kriff," she swore through threatening tears. "What do you think she's doing here, Emalina?"
The countess simply glanced between the other two girls, at a loss for words. Nadila, on the other hand, was not. "Are you here with your brother, Your Highness?" she snapped, now trembling ferociously. "Are you here with him? Is he going to snap all of our necks, too? Is he going to strip us of everything we've worked for over the past—"
"No," Ahsoka insisted. "No, I'm not. I'm not with him—"
"Oh, I'm sure," Nadila sneered, nodding her head as if to give the illusion of keeping calm. Of course it was all a lie; her cheeks and neck were already flushed red, and she shook with derisive laughter. "Don't try lying to me, Princess. I know your type. I've been reading all about you on the HoloNet. My father wanted me to be just like you, you know."
"What?" Ahsoka stammered. "I don't—"
"Understand?" Nadila finished for her. "Of course you don't understand. Your brother does all of your thinking for you. He tells you to do something, and you obey."
Ahsoka sucked in an indignant breath through her teeth. "I'm not actually like that!"
"No?" Princess Nadila took a step toward her and gave a mocking pout, her emerald eyes blazing. For just a second, Ahsoka could almost see Anakin in her place, and her heart plunged to her stomach. "You mean, Princess, that you wouldn't watch your brother publicly snap a teenager's neck, then blindly trail after him when you told you to 'come along'?"
"Don't call him my brother!" Ahsoka cried. "He's not my—"
"And your fiancé," Nadila seethed. When Emalina reached to set a calming hand on her shoulder, the Chandrilan princess brushed her off. "I talked to him for two minutes today. When I asked him why he loved you, do you know what he said? That you're so young and pretty. And he respects your brother for his intelligence and strength. Not you, Princess. Your brother. How could anyone with even a sliver of self respect agree to get married to a man like that?"
"But I never agreed!" Ahsoka didn't realize she had raised her voice until a hush swept through the computer lab, followed by a multitude of eyes darting toward her. For once, though, she didn't even care. "I've tried to argue with him before. You know what happened?" She took a deep breath and scrubbed at her left cheek with the back of her hand. She had only ever removed the makeup in the privacy of her chambers on Coruscant, where Anakin felt confident that nobody but him would see the proof of her mistreatment. While on Chandrila, however, he had made it clear that she was to keep her bruise hidden every hour of every day.
Not anymore. Nadila inhaled shakily and clasped a hand over her chest, and Ahsoka looked down at the concealer now smeared along the back of her hand. "He's abusive," Nadila realized quietly, her voice trembling. "Kriff, I'm—I'm a terrible person. You need to get out—"
"You don't think I'm trying?" Ahsoka demanded, her tone sharpened by an edge of resentment. "That's the whole reason I'm here. This"—she brushed a gentle hand against her left cheek—"isn't even the worst of it. In the earliest days of the Empire, I fought Vader. I fought him! But he captured me and dragged me back to the Imperial Palace, and then…"
She tapered off as she realized that her shoulders were shuddering, her throat raw with pent-up sobs. "…And then he erased my identity. He tortured me and broke into my mind and stole all of my memories. When I woke up six months later, he told me that I was his sister and, by extent, an Imperial princess. He led me to believe that he was the only person I could trust, and so I acted exactly as he told me I should—that is, completely helpless and dependent on him." She shook her head and blinked back angry tears. "I know the truth now. The emperor took more from me than he did from anyone else. I used to be a Jedi. And now look at me!"
The room descended into such a pristine silence that Ahsoka could have heard a pin drop. "You used to be a Jedi," Princess Nadila said at last. Her mouth hung open slightly as she exchanged a disbelieving glance with Countess Emalina. "You used to be a Jedi?"
"Yes," Ahsoka whispered, reaching to wipe a single tear from her cheek. "I was his student. Vader's. Anakin's. While he was still on the Light Side. But he betrayed my trust, and now…now he doesn't even let me use the Force anymore…and sometimes he makes me wear these corsets, and I can't breathe, and I can't move in those skirts, and Prince Erosik…"
She realized that she was rambling as she noticed the skepticism in Countess Emalina's eyes. "You can't be a Jedi," she said, but she sounded as though she were trying to convince herself rather than Ahsoka. "All of the Jedi were persecuted and murdered—"
"—During the Great Jedi Purge, I know," Ahsoka finished. "But not all of them. Ana—er, Vader spared me. He wanted me to become his Sith apprentice. But I refused, and now this is his way of punishing me for it. He couldn't just kill me. He had to force me to submit to him first."
Before she could think the better of it, Ahsoka turned back toward Princess Nadila. She was still staring at her in shock, but somehow she mustered the composure to announce, "Well, then." The corners of her lips pulled into a hesitant smirk. "You've actually got a temper."
Ahsoka swallowed hard as her cheeks and lekku grew warm. She nodded.
"Yeah," Nadila murmured to herself, planting her hands on her hips. "You do, don't you? And a heck of a lot of bravery, Princess, to keep fighting after all the emperor's done to you."
"Just Ahsoka," she hastened to correct her. "I'm not a real princess."
"Well, neither am I," Nadila laughed bitterly. "That doesn't seem to stop my father from getting all pompous about his new kingship, just because he was one of the few politicians on Chandrila willing to suck up to the emperor. But very well, 'Just Ahsoka'. You should come with me. There's someone you need to meet, and I think he'll want to see you, too."
Nadila led Ahsoka through identical, grey hallways with floors that left tinny echoes of footsteps lingering in the air. The rebel base—comprised of offices, private chambers, and training rooms in addition to the massive computer lab—was surprisingly large for having been built beneath a tiny, worn-down shop. Then again, Ahsoka supposed that was part of the genius.
Nadila came to a stop before one of the training rooms and cracked open the door. Quite a few people were already gathered inside, most of whom were in their twenties or thirties, though Ahsoka noticed some people around her own age, as well. Nadila scanned the crowd before heading toward a young man in the corner. His back was to Ahsoka, but she could see that both his brown hair and the back of his neck were drenched in sweat.
"Senator Bonteri," said Princess Nadila. For a moment, Ahsoka just hovered in the threshold, trying to remember where she had heard that name. She was pretty sure that Padmé—
Bonteri.
Her throat closed up. Bonteri. As in…as in Lux Bonteri. The boy she had met at the ball. The boy whom Anakin had Force-choked, just because he had caught him talking to her.
Senator Bonteri turned around. Ahsoka felt a strange urge to leave the room, but her legs wouldn't move. For whatever reason, her stomach was tying itself into knots. What if he didn't want to see her again? No. She was being ridiculous. There was no "what if". Of course he wouldn't want to see her again. If she had been choked the last time she had set eyes on him, she wouldn't want to see him again, either. At least, she was pretty sure she wouldn't…
Maybe she should just step out…
But Senator Bonteri had already noticed her. His mouth had dropped partway open, like Nadila's after Ahsoka had told her of her past as Anakin's Jedi Padawan.
And then he started walking towards her.
Ahsoka's heart pounded against her ribcage, hard enough to leave her almost lightheaded. She couldn't tell why she was so nervous. This was so stupid. She was being so stupid!
"Your Highness," she heard him say. Now he was in front of her. He even gave her a slight bow, which, oddly enough, made her cheeks and lekku flush—out of shame, she was pretty sure, though she couldn't tell why she was ashamed. "I…didn't expect to see you here."
She was almost pained by the formal, detached way in which he spoke to her. She had kind of liked it before, when he had talked to her as an old friend, someone he trusted to create a plan. Ahsoka realized now that he had thought she, Ahsoka Tano, a former Jedi, would have already known how to overthrow the emperor. And he had wanted to help her!
How disappointed he must have been to learn that she wasn't who he'd thought she was at all.
For a moment, Ahsoka found herself grasping for suddenly elusive words. Then, finally, she stammered, "Senator, I…I think I want you to call me Ahsoka."
The senator raised his eyebrows. "I'm sorry?"
"No, I'm sorry," she corrected, somehow keeping herself rooted in place despite the urge to run. "I'm sorry, because you called me Ahsoka at the ball and I got upset, but…I want you to call me Ahsoka again. Padmé told me about Raxus and Carlac, so I know who you are now—"
Something changed in Senator Bonteri's eyes. "You…you do?"
"Yes. That's why I'm here. Padmé and I…we're trying to rebel against Anakin, but he's just so…just so powerful…" She was stammering again. She hated herself for it. "We…we need help."
The senator stared at her for a moment, almost sadly. Then, at last, he gave a sigh and rubbed at his temples. "Okay…Ahsoka, maybe we should talk about this in private."
She nodded a little bit too enthusiastically. Yes, she wanted to talk to him about this. She wanted him to understand that she wasn't the same girl he had encountered at the ball, the one he had been so horrified to find in the place of the Ahsoka he had once known.
She still wasn't quite that Ahsoka, but she was a little closer than she had been before.
She and Nadila followed Senator Bonteri into an empty training room, where he collapsed into a chair that had been pushed against the back wall. Ahsoka sank into the seat beside his, and he shot her a glance. "Tell me about Sena—Empress Amidala's rebellion."
"It's not much of a rebellion yet," Ahsoka admitted, fiddling absentmindedly with her fingers. "She contacted Bail Organa of Alderaan. He's going to come to my…my wedding shower…"
She sped past the word wedding. She didn't know why, but she did. And her voice still broke. Senator Bonteri cast her a strange look, so she hurriedly continued. "Padmé said that he might want to join our rebellion, so she's hopeful that she can convince him to help us. And I've been meeting with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi—well, once. Anakin took him as a prisoner, so I snuck into his cell as a handmaiden to learn how to 'remaster the Force'. Except…"
She tapered off. Her cheeks and lekku were hot again. "Except?" the senator prompted her.
Ahsoka looked up at him, met his eyes, and immediately diverted her gaze. "Except that I can't use the Force anymore," she whispered, almost ashamedly. "Anakin gives me this shot every twelve hours. Personally. I can't get out of it without him noticing, and it puts my midi-chlorians to sleep. In other words, while it's in my system, I can't connect to the Force."
Senator Bonteri put a hand on her shoulder. She tensed, and he instantly withdrew it. "Oh, I—I'm sorry." Now it was his turn to stammer. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
She gave her head an impatient shake to silence him.
A long moment passed before he added, "So…do you have a plan, then?"
A plan. He still trusted her to come up with a plan. Somehow, that knowledge softened the knot in her chest. "I thought for awhile that I might fake my own kidnapping—disappear for a few days so that he couldn't give me the shot. But I'd have to sneak into the palace dungeon every night to see Master Kenobi, and in the meantime, Anakin would have the entire palace staff on the lookout for me. It would be almost impossible to keep that up for a few days without getting caught—not to mention the fact that he'd be even more suspicious of me when I eventually did return. Besides, once he started to administer the medication again, I wouldn't be able to use the Force anymore, so what would even be the point of training?
"Then I thought maybe I could trick him into having someone else administer the shot. Even—" She stopped. She had almost said my fiancé. "Uh…I just figured…it would be easier to get out of the shot if someone else were responsible for it, but Anakin's not stupid. He would never let another person take his place. And if I even tried, I would pique his suspicions, so…"
"So you need to play it safe," the senator agreed. Ahsoka examined his furrowed brow and narrowed grey eyes. For just a moment, he looked so much older than she knew he was. Padmé had said, after all, that he was around Ahsoka's age. "If you can't get out of taking it," Senator Bonteri said finally, "is there a way that you can maybe counter it?"
Ahsoka frowned pensively. "'Counter it'? What do you mean?"
"Maybe there's an antidote," he suggested cautiously, but his eyes still lit up at the idea. "You could take it before he administers your shot, and then—"
"—It will neutralize the effects of whatever Anakin gives me," she finished.
"And Vader won't be suspicious of you, either," Senator Bonteri said. "He'll think that because he administered your shot, you're still cut off…" Suddenly, he reached for her hands and took them in his own. Ahsoka's heart leapt to her throat before she could help it. "I can look into this for you," he insisted. "Viceroy Organa is one of my allies in the Senate. If I do find answers, I can get him to smuggle me into your…your wedding shower. So that I can…see you."
He had lost some of his enthusiasm now and released her hands. Ahsoka felt strangely disappointed. And the realization that she was disappointed made her embarrassed. Her lekku and cheeks flushed. Again. "I…I'd appreciate that, Senator Bonteri," she said with stiff formality.
His gaze instantly focused in on her. "You don't have to call me that, Ahsoka. You can call me Lux." After a lengthy pause, he tacked on an awkward, "If you want, of course."
Ahsoka swallowed hard and nodded. Then she opened her mouth to say that she would call him that, if he wanted, but she could call him Senator Bonteri, too, that was okay—
—And then a siren screeched to life with a tumultuous whine, jolting her from her thoughts.
"Kriff!" Nadila swore loudly, shooting to her feet and feeling for the blaster at her side. Senator Bonteri—Lux—stood as well, and Ahsoka saw that he also had a gun in his possession. She hadn't noticed that before. "Imperials," Nadila growled, as if she had been itching to fight them for quite some time. "Senator Bonteri, go track down Empress Amidala and tell her to get the princess out of here. If Vader finds either of them in a rebel base, we're screwed. I'll—"
"No," Ahsoka protested. "No, wait. I can help, I promise."
Both Nadila and Lux shot her dubious looks. In response, Ahsoka glared at them. "I used to be a Jedi, remember? You can use me in battle. I…I've been practicing."
That was pathetic, of course. Her only "practice session", so to speak, had lasted for three minutes during the journey to Chandrila. But maybe if she were tossed onto a battlefield, something would awaken inside of her and she would become the warrior she had been before Anakin had captured her. She had done it once before, according to Padmé. She had been thrown into the Clone Wars as a fourteen-year-old commander. Other people's lives had depended on her, and she had adjusted. She had learned how to survive.
If she could do that once, she could do it again.
"Ahsoka," Lux insisted, "we're just worried about Vader recognizing you…"
"Don't be ridiculous," she scowled, crossing her arms over her chest. "He might not even be with his troops. Besides, you're both important political figures. He could just as easily recognize one of you, and it would be disastrous." She looked Lux directly in the eyes. "For instance, if he saw you, Lux, he would arrest you. Then you definitely wouldn't be able to research the antidote."
She could tell from the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes that she had begun to sway him to her side. But Nadila continued to protest, "Princess, I just don't think—"
"Ahsoka," she corrected her reflexively. "And if the emperor sees me, we'll just say that I'm your hostage. It might give you an advantage, even, to have something to bargain with. After all, if Vader didn't want me alive, he would have killed me himself a long time ago."
Nadila examined her for a moment. "Fine," she said. "You can tag along. But as soon as there are any sightings of Vader, you and the empress have to get out. Immediately."
"Deal," Ahsoka replied with a grin, and then the three of them were sprinting down the hallway, the whine of the siren pulsating in the panic-stricken air, and there were screams and shots, and Ahsoka was running running running, running towards the danger, and for once in her life, for once, she felt a glorious burst of exhilaration buzz through her body—and that was when she realized, truly, that this was what it must feel like to finally be free.
So, lots of new information in this chapter! Next time will be the Battle of Chandrila. I'm guessing that it might be about another week before I get that one up, because I've got another crazy few days ahead of me, and battle scenes are difficult to write. But we'll see how creative I can get with time! :)
I know that I haven't fully explained yet where exactly we diverged from canon in Revenge of the Sith to get to where we are now. Don't worry. I have that planned out, and it will be revealed to you soon. I just have to find the most natural way to convey the information to all of you, since Anakin was technically the only one who was there for all of it. And he's not just going to sit down with Ahsoka and randomly tell her the truth!
Anyway, thanks for reading, everyone, and please remember to favourite/follow/review!
-Isabelle
