Forcefields were damn useful.
You could use it to trap air in and keep hot plasma from scorching you to death when you enter a planetary atmosphere at hypersonic velocity, so, if there's storm troopers milling around the village, they won't ever find your EVA suit.
Of course it is essential to Ahsoka's plan that they not see her land. There shouldn't be a contrail because there's no material to react with the atmosphere, but there will still be the emission spectra of the atmospheric gasses as they sheared sideways around the forcefield, that can be a bit bright.
Ahsoka finally made it to the ground, using force telekinesis to bleed off the remainder of her kinetic energy.
Eventually she arrived back at her village and was greeted by her dad and the local homeguard captain.
"Destroy those worms?" asked her dad.
"Yep," said Ahsoka.
"What did you use?" asked the captain.
"Neutronium. Squished some asteroids together to make it, dropped it in a forcefield generator," said Ahsoka. There was something pleasing about the memory of that explosion they had made happen.
"So, you've basically ... " Ahsoka's dad looked uneasy.
"Seemed like the only way to be sure we wouldn't see any more of them, otherwise we'd have been down there poking around hunting the karkers," said Ahsoka, noting and seemingly in agreement with her dad's uneasy tone, "I know the place will be intensely radioactive for decades to come, but those worms had to go."
"Agreed," said the captain, not really showing any unease or anything, "this is no longer the galactic republic, the Sith have control, so we have to play a lot rougher than we would normally like. Those worms would have been an immense security risk, and had you and your friends been captured, those worms could have given away any secrets you would otherwise take to the grave."
Ahsoka nodded.
"Come on. Food's ready," said the captain before he lead off inside.
Sionver looked worried at Barriss as Barris slept.
Well, slept might be ... Barriss's eyes were closed, but her sleep sure as kark didn't look peaceful.
She looked to Asajj who was sat there, not really sure how to just sit there.
"Withdrawal symptoms plus PTSD equals ... " said Asajj with a gesture towards Barriss.
"Right," said Sionver, "has she picked up her spice habit as a result of her captivity?"
"No, it's because we had to do a whole load of work non-stop to get that EMP device built," said Asajj.
"Are you sure that's all?" asked Sionver.
"No, but we'll have to see how it goes," said Asajj, "she's got to know all about addiction and PTSD and all that, she trained as a healer, but all Jedi are well aware of the threat of the dark side, and yet, plenty of them go dark side."
"That could happen to her?" asked Sionver.
"Easily," said Asajj.
Sionver eventually asked "Or that has happened to her."
Asajj didn't respond. She was speculating on that one too. But who knows?
"I know what you're doing," said Palpatine.
Barriss rolled over onto her back, alarmed at Palpatine's presence. He was on top of her, straddling her form on top of the blanket in her ship. She tried throwing him off with force telekinesis, but she couldn't. She then noticed the feeling of the force suppression cuffs on her wrists. Palpatine leaned in. "You will be mine."
"This is a dream," said Barriss, not a denial of some worse situation, just a cold fact. This was pretty much like any of the other nightmares she had had since her rescue, she then went on to say "I take it my force signature's gotten a bit dark of late."
"Yes," said Palpatine, he then asked "think you can fight it off indefinitely?"
"Yes, I can," said Barriss. She was also aware she could fail, but she has a chance of not falling to the dark side.
"No," gloated Palpatine, "you really can't," he reached down and grabbed Barriss's wrists, pulling them over her head, causing Barriss to notice that the blanket was gone, and a clone trooper apparently positioned in front of Palpatine took her wrists, and she felt hands on her ankles, pulling her legs straight out, her underwear also seemed to be gone.
Palpatine pulled his lightsabre from inside his cloak, placing it under her nose, the smell of her blood mixed with vaginal secretions wafted off of it.
She also felt the words that had been carved into her skin being carved again, the air touching sub dermal layers that it really shouldn't.
Palpatine dragged the shroud of the lightsabre down between Barriss's breasts, down along her abdomen, across her navel, down to her mons, forcing Barriss to anticipate the pain she experienced last time. She tried waking herself up, she SO didn't need this.
It wasn't working, she had no force powers, and all pulling her hands and feet did was inform the troopers that she wanted out of this and reinforce their sense of power over her.
The shroud eventually dragged down her labia right to the back, and then it was up inside her again, the path of the shroud carved into her vagina.
There was a long pause between the thrusts in and out, this rate continued for a while until Palpatine suddenly sped it up.
"BARRISS, WAKE THE KARK UP!"
Barriss finally saw what was going on around her and what she was doing, which was telekinetically pinning Asajj and Sionver against the wall, strangling them. She stopped, and ran over to Asajj saying "Sorry, you alright?" Asajj nodded, coughing too hard to talk, waving Barriss towards Sionver.
Barriss got to Sionver saying "Sorry, didn't mean to do that, you alright?"
Sionver looked up at Barriss, terrified of her, Sionver's force signature reinforced that. But she seemed to be recovering just fine, coughing like Asajj.
Barriss eventually stood up and stepped away. Looking in the mirror over a hand wash station confirmed that the wounds had not re-opened, it was still all scar tissue, her sleepwear soaked in sweat, clinging to her body. Barriss walked into the shower booth, stripping off.
Ahsoka had slowed her eating and her dad noticed. He asked "You alright there Ahsoka?"
"Yeah, just felt Barriss having a flashback," said Ahsoka, "it's even harder on her at the moment, she was doing a bunch of all nighters on stims."
"Stims?" asked the doctor from across the table.
"Yeah," confirmed Ahsoka, "now she's got to wait out the withdrawal symptoms."
"Best watch your shavit then," said her brother, "lot of pawn brokers that don't ask a lot of questions on Tatooine."
That earned him a slap across the montrals from his dad and he quietly asked "Still too soon?"
Ahsoka mentioned "got captured by Cad after my initial attempt to blow up the ship failed. Had that not happened, I could have made a second attempt to blow up the ship, and saved Barriss from having to use those stims."
"Did she know about the withdrawal symptoms?" asked Ahsoka's mum.
"She should, Jedi Healer and all," said Ahsoka.
"Maybe the three of you should take a break from this for a while?" suggested Ahsoka's dad.
"Works for me," said Ahsoka.
"How long was she doing those stims?" asked the doctor.
"About three days," said Ahsoka.
"Right. ... Force active, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and now withdrawal symptoms. ... I'm a doctor, not an armourer, right? But that, is a karking bomb."
Latts and Dengar continued watching the Togruta villiage.
"It would so help if we could get some eavesdropping devices in there," said Latts.
"Yeah, all we got to do is sneak past a village full of Togrutas, a species known galaxy wide for their ability to locate a field mouse in tall grass in the middle of a hurricane, who have been training up on the off chance the Zygerrians invade, meaning their security protocols are wired tighter than gluons. ... Piece of piss," said Dengar.
"Wonder if we could hire Asajj to do that?" asked Latts.
"Doubt it, that Dathomiri's grown a loyal streak longer than the Hydian Way," said Dengar.
"Gift then? Post them the device?" asked Latts.
"Okay, give that a try," said Dengar.
"We'd find it right off," said a child from their 8 o'clock radial.
"Yeah, and if your device accesses the holonet, it'll have to send it's data packets somewhere," said another at their 6 o'clock radial.
"And if you use your own subspace signal modulation, that's going to stand out, it'll be the only thing in a relatively empty part of the spectrum," said a third at their 4 o'clock radial.
Latts and Dengar slowly looked around behind them.
They could just about make out the voids in the turu grass shadows where the kids were.
They then looked at each other and Dengar commented "We're karking turning into Greedo, aren't we?"
"Don't say that," said Latts. She then continued, "No, really, do. Not. Say. That."
They then heard a couple of bowshocks off to their left and looked in that direction.
"Republic shuttle, kappa class" said one of the kids.
"No, imperial, remember?" said another kid.
"Oh, yeah," replied the first kid.
The shuttle came to a hover as it approached the Togruta village and turned the port side of its tail to the village entrance.
"What the karking hell do they want?" asked Dengar as he watched.
"Ahsoka Tano," demanded Darth Vader.
"Why? What's she done?" asked the homeguard captain.
The village didn't obstruct the clones as they filed in looking around. Darth Vader said "She is suspected of treason."
"Yeah, there's an awful lot of Jedi coming down with the ol' treason lately," said Ahsoka's dad.
Darth Vader telekinetically started strangling and lifting Ahsoka's dad.
"HEY!" shouted the homeguard captain, getting Darth Vader's attention, he then said "it's a fair question. Are you open to the likelihood she is innocent? And since when does the Grand Army start menacing Republic, excuse me, Imperial, citizens like this?"
Darth Vader dropped Ahsoka's dad on his arse and told the homeguard captain "Be very, very, careful, captain, you wouldn't want to create a bad impression, would you?"
Ahsoka entered the court yard, clones started pointing weapons at her telling her "Ahsoka Tano, stop right there," only for Ahsoka to telekinetically remove the takedown pins of their weapons as she otherwise ignored them as she walked up to Darth Vader. Darth Vader now focused entirely on Ahsoka as she stood there. She eventually asked "So, Skyguy. What can I do for you? I heard something about me being suspected of treason now?" Her tone tense with disgust.
"You will submit yourself for interrogation," said Darth Vader.
"Like Kark," said her dad as he stood up, ready to kick off. This made Darth Vader raise his hand, intending to telekinetically bat him across the village.
Ahsoka telekinetically slapped Darth Vader's hand down glaring at him, before telling her dad "Not seeing a choice here. ... I'm sure it'll be fine."
About now, half of the troopers had reassembled their blasters, pointing them at Ahsoka as she walked past Darth Vader to the shuttle, seemingly ignoring them.
As the troopers filed out after them, Ahsoka's dad used his lekku to signal to the homeguard captain "we're not letting them take her, no karking way."
"Yes we are," he signalled back, "then we're sweeping this place for bugs, as per our usual precautions against Zygerrian infiltration, and then we're going to figure out a way to rescue Ahsoka without getting our karking species exterminated, alright?"
Ahsoka's dad reluctantly signalled "fine."
The flight was completed in silence.
When they landed, they got off equally silently. Willhuff met them at the door from the hanger and asked "Where is her restraints?"
Darth Vader and Ahsoka looked at each other. Ahsoka then looked at Wilhuff asking "who's the Sith Lord here, you or him?" pointing at Darth Vader.
"Suggestion accepted," said Darth Vader, and signalled to one of the clone troopers.
Ahsoka sighed in exasperation as one of the clone troopers came up behind Ahsoka and attached force suppression cuffs.
"Okay, interrogation room 1," said Wilhuff.
"Is Ahsoka around?" asked Dengar as he and Latts entered the village.
The whole village glared at them.
"They look friendly," commented Latts.
"Oh, shavit," said Dengar in realisation, "Clone troopers took her?"
"Yes," said the homeguard captain, he then asked "how much were they offering?"
"We're not aware of a bounty on Ahsoka," said Dengar, "we were stalking her to see what she was hiding from us hoping we could then start leveraging favours out of her."
Ahsoka's dad sighed and walked off saying "excuse me, suddenly feeling the urge to hit something."
Ahsoka couldn't work out if this was a catastrophic cock up or the least bad decision.
Going into evasion would have meant the whole village being rounded up and put in ... ... whatever the kark that machine was.
Her hands were linked behind her with force suppression cuffs, and her neck was chained to a hole in an exposed column in one of the brightly white painted walls in this room of the ship. Grey floors, brilliant white walls, all illuminated at the lux levels of a blue giant's corona.
And this machine that had this vertical bed with straps that had in front of it some ugly looking points and probes and this evil red glow. No one had said what it was, Ahsoka hadn't asked in case it was some kind of torture machine, it might not be anything to do with her interrogation, just there for effect.
Still, she knew full well there were no longer any rules governing interrogation, and had seen how little regard they have for the wellbeing of their prisoners first hand.
She could have grabbed a blaster and shot herself with it, had that occurred to her back on Shili.
Yes, that would have been a good move. Her secrets stay secret, village could have blagged their way out of danger from there.
...
...
...
There was no way around this. Her village was still in danger. She karks up, they die.
...
...
...
Weren't they going to ask her some questions?
Barriss eventually woke up again. She didn't seem to have had any nightmares this time.
If this could turn into a pattern, that would be most appreciated.
She telekinetically gabbed a bucket and threw up into that, having ate kark all.
"How you feeling?" asked Asajj.
"Like a dried shavit rather than fresh and loose shavit," said Barriss. She then said "Some point we're going to have to get back into things."
"Bounty work?" asked Asajj.
"And overthrowing the empire," said Barriss, "what's our money like?"
"Insufficient if we want to do another neutron bomb," said Asajj, "and we will need to get back to our normal day jobs if we don't want our money to keep decaying, this hero shavit is expensive."
Barriss nodded. She then said "I think I might be up to piloting some point tomorrow. Ahsoka been in touch yet?"
"No," said Asajj.
"Guess she needs a break too," said Barriss, "means we're out of ships we can visit Tatooine in, we never got that shuttle pod back, and we can't really show up in either the ETA 2 or Warhorse."
"We're shavit out of things to do then," said Asajj.
The main comm. station Sounded.
Asajj got up and walked over to it. "y'ello?"
"Hey Asajj, have a job for you, can you meet me on Polis Massa?"
"Sure," replied Asajj.
"Good, see you there," said the human on the other end before hanging up.
"Right, off to work we go then," said Asajj.
The door opened and a clone trooper entered the interrogation room carrying a bottle of what looked like a fruit juice and an empty bottle. "Hello Ahsoka."
"Hi. Don't suppose you know when Anakin or whoever the investigator is is going to ask their questions do you?"
"No, all I know is I've been sent to feed you this," he said holding up the fruit juice, "and collect your urine in this," he held up the empty bottle.
"Okay," said Ahsoka.
He opened the fruit juice bottle and offered it to her mouth, and Ahsoka sipped at it until the bottle was empty.
With the bottle empty, he crouched down and Ahsoka felt him unfasten her trousers.
"I have to stay restrained like this do I?" asked Ahsoka as she quickly worked out that this wasn't intended to be a sexual assault, well, not an overt sexual assault anyway.
"Afraid so," he said as he lowered her trousers and pulled her knickers down to her knees. The embarrassment of having a random clone seeing and manipulating her vulva darkened her lekku stripes, and then she felt his finger and thumb spread her labia and then the lip of the bottle press into her vestibule just behind her urinary meatus, he then told her "alright, ready."
Ahsoka urinated away, her eyelids squeezed shut as she felt the humiliation wash over here. Luckilly her bladder ran out before the bottle did. The clone trooper asked "That it?"
"Yes, thanks."
He removed the bottle allowing her labia to close, setting the bottle down. Ahsoka was unable to bring herself to ask him to wipe her labia with a paper towel or something as she realised that a few drops remained and would soak into her knickers, as they were brought back up. He then brought her trousers back up and refastened them saying "Okay, that's you done for now."
"Thank you," said Ahsoka.
"Just tell me you haven't done anything," said the clone trooper as he picked up the empty juice bottle and the ¾ full urine bottle, "seriously, I've lost some good friends to Jedi treachery, you had better not be involved in that shavit."
"I'm not," said Ahsoka, "I just hope I can prove it."
"Alright," said the clone trooper, "well, see you later," he then left.
After he left, Ahsoka said to herself "yeah, I just need a pacifier and a diaper and I'll be all set. Come on, karking ask your questions already."
"Where's Ahsoka?" asked Bail.
"Taking time off," said Asajj.
"And she's on," said Bail looking at Barriss who seemed to still be a bit ill, "okay, you may find yourself in conflict with imperial forces, so you want to be up for that if you accept this one, we can provide fuel and armaments, take a look around our armoury figure out what's compatible, replenish food and medical kit and consumables, now, money is an object, so we had to pick a figure that's sustainable on the assumption that we will have to do a lot of these operations and there is a load of creative accounting if we don't want to get caught financing this, so, 30000 credits fixed."
"And the job is?" asked Asajj.
"Extract some Jedi, last message said 23, hopefully there's still 23, bring them here, we'll work out how best to hide them," said Bail, he produced a holocron saying "we have the contact details here, channel, code prompts and responses, it's somewhere on Eriadu, but for understandible reasons, they don't want to narrow it down any further until you're there to pick them up."
"Alright, sounds good," said Asajj, she looked at Barriss asking "Yeah?"
"Yeah," said Barriss, "we'll need fuel, I'll also check the armoury and infirmary as you say, we'll be on our way within the hour."
The general quarters alert sounded.
Ahsoka was left to guess who they were getting into a fight with, because seriously, all the likely opponents should be in such disarray ... ...
This was getting beyond stupid though, they'd chained her up like this, and no consideration other than to send someone around to rehydrate her and remove her liquid waste, otherwise they didn't seem particularly interested in her at the moment.
Could also be a deliberate measure to prepare her for what it was they wanted to do, technically chaining her up like this and leaving her with no idea when she was going to be released could be defined as a form of torture, albeit perhaps the weakest she had ever been subject to.
That wasn't a discussion she was going to initiate with these karkers though, Willhuff was one creepy motherkarker. And that's even when he's standing next to Anakin, who had slain every master, knight, padawan, initiate and youngling in the temple.
The alarm eventually stopped.
Ahsoka could make out a lot of footfalls throughout the ship, no audible conversations, too far away from any point defence station or any CnC node.
No blaster or missile impacts from what she could hear.
Eventually she heard the public address announce "Stand down, stand down, all stations stand down."
"Well, that was well worth the wait," commented Ahsoka.
Eventually five sets of feet caught her attention, they were headed her way.
The door opened and Wilhuff and Anakin entered, followed by two clone troopers who had a human dressed in Jedi robes and force suppression cuffs, with a padawan braid on the back of his head, there were some sabre gashes and some bruises visible.
"Put him in there," said Wilhuff, pointing at the machine. Willhuff then turned to Ahsoka saying "Ah, Ahsoka, sorry to have kept you waiting all this time, I can now say you will be needed in the next twenty minutes, and you may be free to go as soon as tomorrow," he then glanced back at the Jedi being loaded into the machine and pointed at him with his thumb saying "unlike this ... thing ... "
Asajj and Barriss looked at each other, Barriss asking "feel that?"
Asajj replied "Yeah."
Sionver asked "What?"
"Ahsoka," said Asajj, "something's wrong on her end, she'll just have to cope. Okay, select autofire, safe zones three and seven o'clock."
Sionver did that.
"You're getting good at that, make a gunner out of you yet," said Asajj.
"Yeah," said Sionver, "just wonder if I'll ever get used to being in the middle of raging battles?"
"You do want some fear," said Asajj, "that's what keeps you switched on, just don't let it disintegrate into full blown panic is all."
The holocomm beeped.
Palpatine answered it, seeing Anakin kneel into a bow.
"Speak, Lord Vader," said Palpatine.
"We have located another band of Jedi on Eriadu, we shall be there in the next half hour."
"Good, good my apprentice, let me know how it goes."
Palpatine then hung up and returned to what he was doing, musing at how Darth Vader seemed to be making up for the string fo fail he had been doing lately.
It was a pity the clones couldn't have eliminated all the Jedi, but the remaining work had been considerably reduced. He hadn't killed Yoda, but he had seen that little green shavit off. He hadn't managed to hang on to any mind worms, but ... ... actually that one was a total clusterkark, no redeemable features on that one.
Anakin is back on a roll, see if he can stay there.
"Alright, we're coming up on our target," said Barriss as she left the pilot station, Asajj took her place, "You ready Sionver?"
"Raring," said Sionver as she checked the gun and targeting settings.
"Bit of luck, piece of piss," said Asajj, "they shouldn't be expecting us."
Barriss got in the ETA 2 and started setting everything up. "Warhorse, Wasp, comm. Check."
"Wasp, warhorse, five by five," sent back Asajj, "tactical, check IFF."
"IFF good, guns on auto," replied Sionver.
"Good, flight controls on manual, closer to the world we come out, less time we spend with nothing to hide behind," said Asajj.
"Good, wouldn't want to be hiding behind nothing, even driving straight into a planet is better than that," said Sionver.
"Isn't it?" asked Asajj, "right, vehicle door open," said Asajj as she opened the main door, the forcefield was up, "wasp, warhorse, releasing moorings," said Asajj as she paused half a second for Barriss to register a problem, when she didn't, Asajj released the moorings on the ETA 2, Asajj then focused on the force saying "Wasp, warhorse, standby to deploy, stand by ... stand by ... stand by ... ... ... Go," said Asajj as she disengaged the hyperdrive, bringing the planet scarily close to their windscreen, Asajj noted the cruiser and the squadron of fighters rush past them. "Oh, shavit."
Barriss launched and said "Were these people expecting us?"
"No way to tell," said Asajj, "we get a suspect reply, we'll just do one," Asajj sent the first prompt.
Ahsoka had been left to her own devices again, chained to the wall, with the human Jedi still in the machine in front of her that had yes, been confirmed to be a torture device.
There wasn't much Ahsoka could do to right the situation, but she could do something.
Or will in a few more minutes.
She had been slowly ramping up her force powers with the hope that the decision point in the force cuff's punitive measures would be pushed meaninglessly high. It seemed to be working so far. She just needed to get it a bit higher.
"Shouldn't we try misleading them, aim for somewhere else and then turn-" started Sionver.
"No, we try that, they will swamp us, besides, they seem to know where the Jedi are located anyway," said Asajj, she then sent "Carriage, train, we will make one pass only, soon as I say jump, don't even ask how high, just karking do it, then hang on, we get one chance at this."
"Train, Carriage, got that, ready."
Asajj selected a shield mode that would turn the shield into a parachute, only in reverse. Not a parachute as would be conventionally pictured, but there would be essentially be a revolved curve a couple of metres upstream from their centre of mass that would provide a stable source of drag. The autopilot would manipulate this to bring the ship right up to the waypoint. This required less energy for the same delta V that would otherwise have to come out of the thrusters.
"Right, tactical, no fire zones are five, six and seven o'clock," said Asajj as they came up to their pick up point. She then sent "Carriage, train, standby to hop on, stand by, stand by ... stand by ... ... ... Go," as the last of their speed bled off, she reconfigured the shields so that they had enhanced forward defence.
23 people of various sizes, shapes and species jumped in through the back door, and she heard one of them shout "that's all of us," prompting her to start their escape, close the rear door, restore all around shields, and tell Sionver "tactical, restore full surround fire zone."
The fighters arrived just as they started accelerating out, Asajj didn't have a great deal of speed to work with as she began her evasive manoeuvres, so their shields got depleted in short order, the guns managed to scatter some of the fighters, others flew into each other, or the ground, but over 90% of them survived, including one ETA 2 through which Asajj felt "It's Anakin." She then sent "Wasp, Warhorse, id Anakin, that ETA 2 at the back of the gorilla."
"Warhorse, wasp, have that, I'll work him until we're clear, over" replied Barriss.
Ahsoka decided she had sufficient leeway to act now, and activated the controls on the machine. Once it's prisoner had been jolted awake, she stopped it and redirected her force telekinesis at his force cuffs. They broke apart. She used force persuasion to convince him it was vital he leave alone.
He undid the rest of his restraints and climbed out. He was barely able to move, but he was able to prop himself up with his own force telekinesis. He approached Ahsoka. Ahsoka ramped up her force persuasion again. He looked puzzled.
"Take a hint," whispered Ahsoka.
Eventually the human said "Whatever, have a shavit life," and left.
"Already there," whispered Ahsoka.
"That fire's really witling down our shields," said Sionver, "also, we're getting a bit close to bingo fuel."
"We're almost clear," said Asajj, she then sent "Wasp, Warhorse, 5 seconds, slot in for a tow."
"Warhorse, Wasp, have that," replied from Barriss.
One of the Jedi came forward, a Nautolan holding a comm saying "sorry to do this to you, but we have a 24th Jedi, just stepped off the imperial cruiser in an EVA suit."
"Okay, guide me in," said Asajj, as she sent "Wasp from Warhorse, swinging by the cruiser for another pickup."
"Lovely. Got that," replied Barriss.
They came up on the imperial cruiser and the fighters stopped getting so close as the cruisers point defences took over.
That fire did din the rest of the shields.
"Wasp, Warhorse, time on target six seconds, be there or stay karked," sent Asajj.
"Got that," replied Barriss, sounding a bit stressed.
They passed the Jedi, the ship getting bits of the space frame blown off, disconcerting red splodges on the ship's damage map.
"Got the Jedi and wasp, go," said Sionver. Asajj, her hand having been on the hyperdrive control the whole time, initiated the jump and slumped back remembering to send "Wasp, warhorse, status, over?"
"Warhorse from Wasp, shields are karked, targeting computer's karked, life support's karked, how's my ship looking, over?"
"Well, it's," said Asajj as she assessed the situation, and then sent "Actually, I think it's prettier than ever," with a chuckle.
"Warhorse, Wasp, bite me, over" replied Barriss.
"Wasp, warhorse, maybe after a second date, over."
After a pause Asajj said "Wasp from Warhorse, going to drop out of hyperspace and pull you in now."
"Have that, thanks." Replied Barriss.
Asajj shouted "Ladies and gentlemen and anyone in between, we will momentarily drop out of hyperspace to pull in our fighter and the 24th Jedi, please get clear of the rear door."
Once the ETA 2 and the human Jedi were on board, Asajj resumed their course.
Barriss drew some stern looks when she removed her EVA suit helmet.
"You're welcome," she told them all before heading to the flight deck.
"At least you seem to be one of the good guys at the moment. Ahsoka's turned Emperor's evidence," said the human Jedi as he removed his helmet.
Barriss stopped and turned, looking at him. She eventually asked "what?"
"Ahsoka Tano, Togruta, formally your best friend, until you stabbed her in the back," said the human Jedi.
Barriss continued her annoyed look as she asked "and the incident of her 'turning Emperor's Evidence' was what exactly?"
"The part where she helped Darth Vader rip the location of the Eriadu hideout from my mind, Vader softened me up, Ahsoka did the last bit," said the human Jedi, he then asked "is this one of those things where two people in the same room ask this third person to tell the other to pass on messages that could just as easily be passed directly between them?"
"What did they do to Ahsoka to make her do this?" asked Barriss.
"As far as I can tell, all they did was keep her chained to the wall, not a mark on her."
Barriss thought and commented "any sign of being opposed to the empire could endanger Shili, or just her village," she then headed for the bridge.
"You heard that?" asked Barriss when she caught Asajj's eye.
"Yeah, I hope we're not being naive in trusting Ahsoka had no alternative open to her," said Asajj.
"Just have to wait for more evidence," said Barriss.