Chapter Ten
Oddly, it was Obi Wan who broke cover first and reached Anakin. When she saw him run, Ahsoka remained behind and watched how the elder Jedi Master reached Anakin and quickly examined him. Much to her eternal relief, Anakin began to move on his own and only needed minor assistance to make his way back to her.
For Anakin, the world was still spinning, and he was glad to have Obi Wan to lean on, and his ringing ears didn't help either. He knew that he had narrowly escaped death, and had the still smoking robes and singed hair to tell the story.
When they reached and gone through the door where Ahsoka was hiding, Anakin leaned against the wall to regain his bearings.
"We have a speeder too, and our gracious hosts haven't found it yet."
"How do you know?"
"R2 would have called us." Obi Wan said, "So I do suggest that we go there as fast as we can, because they are bound to have heard the racket you have been making."
He had turned to Anakin with the second sentence, and was glad to see that he was at least not seriously wounded, though he would need new robes and a haircut.
"Me?" Anakin replied, moving away from the wall and checking for his lightsabre as he did so.
He found what he was looking for and took it off his belt without igniting it.
"I never make any noise like that, Master. You on the other hand..."
Obi Wan was about to reply when Ahsoka cleared her throat.
"As much as I like to watch the two of you bicker like an old married couple, we do have places to be."
Going by her voice, she was annoyed, but her grin and her eyes told a different story entirely.
Anakin looked at Obi Wan. "Lead the way then."
They had no real hope of reaching the front entrance without being seen if they went around the outside of the building, but when they backtracked and moved through the rooms and corridors, they had, in Anakin's estimation, a better than even chance to either slip by entirely or at least to negate the larger numbers of their attackers. He noted with approval that Ahsoka did so as well. She took the lead and used her sense of orientation and the force to guide them through the lower levels.
It all worked perfectly.
Except that they ran into a search party almost immediately. The two mercenaries didn't even have the time to call for help before the three Jedi had overcome them, but noise made by the short fight attracted the rest.
A running battle ensued that slowly drove them towards the main entrance. At one point, just as they went around a corner, Ahsoka hung back. Anakin noticed, but before he could do more than turn on his heels, she had already stripped off her cloak.
Below the cloak she wore an outfit that couldn't have been more different than what he remembered. A light grey undershirt, an open but high-sleeved brown pilot's jacket, with blue Corellian military trousers and black leather boots, nothing too fancy, but it underscored just how much she had changed since leaving the order.
Ahsoka stood there, blithely ignoring the blaster bolts that zipped past her. She reached out into the force and created an incredibly strong pocket of condensed air in front of her. She pushed it down the corridor towards their pursuers.
It was strong enough to rip fastened fixtures from the ceiling of the utility corridor they were in shortly before collapsing it along with the walls on the side for the length of what Anakin thought had to be half the building. It effective, impressive and far beyond anything she'd been capable of when she'd left the Order.
Ahsoka turned around and walked past him, picking up her cloak as she went. When she noticed that Anakin was staring at her, she stopped and looked in his eyes. "What? I had a lot of time on my hands."
There was a tiny, tiny bite in her voice and even without it Anakin would have known better than to ask further. If and when she was ready to tell, he would find out. Obi Wan was about to ask her anyway, only stopping when Anakin motioned for him not to with a slight of his hand.
So both made a mental note to talk to her later as they followed the corridor to a door that, as it turned out, led to the lobby of the building.
Said lobby was sparse, with little more than the barest furniture for a bank of reception droids that had never been installed, but the desk crossed the reception area in a half-circle and behind it, six mercenaries had taken cover, and one of them had manhandled an heavy repeating blaster into place. The only exit from the building was off to the right, with an almost cover-less open space between the two sides.
Anakin and the others took cover behind the only other features in the room, a set of empty flowerbeds that had been meant to decorate the reception area.
The heavy blaster began to shower everything with bolts, and the other mercenaries joined in. Two of them tried to flank them on their right, only to be picked off by Ahsoka. For the moment it was a stalemate, but that wouldn't last, as the one side had both numbers and fire-power.
"Snips, can you get a shot at them?" Anakin yelled to be heard over the blaster bolts.
Instead of answering, Ahsoka tried to peek around the corner of the column she was hiding behind, but a bolt missed her head only by the width of a human hair. She just shook her head, but still blind fired a few bolts at their enemies. "Doesn't look like it, Master."
Anakin sighed, and instead checked Obi Wan, who was trying to use a broken piece of decorative reflective material shot loose from the flowerbed he was covering behind to look around the obstruction. What was he looking for? Through the Force they knew how many mercenaries were there and where they had taken cover.
"Anakin?"
"Yes?"
Instead of a reply, Obi Wan pointed up at the ceiling. Sure enough there was an empty transparent tank of some sort, probably some sort of Aquarium as Anakin knew of no other reason to place it where it was. As in exactly in front of the reception desk. The problem was that it was anchored with durasteel bands set in ferrocrete, and even as he tried, Anakin realized that between his wounds and the knock on the head from his fall he was too... off balance at the moment to have more than a very basic control over his abilities.
"Master, I..."
"Stand aside, Skyguy!" came Ahsoka's voice and she only looked at them both with grim determination on her face.
Obi Wan just shrugged and then nodded at her.
Both closed their eyes and began to manipulate the tank. At first their efforts seemed to have little effect, but after a short while whisps of crumpled ferrocrete began to rain down, and soon enough the metal fastenings began to snap loose one after another. It was only when the first two clanged to the ground that the mercenaries noticed what was going on, and they started to back away.
It was too late by then. With an all-mighty groan, the tank began to dip down before the last bits of metal gave way and the entire thing came crashing down.
Neither Jedi waited. Even though their ears were ringing and the entire area was covered with dust and debris, including them, they ran. They ran past the stunned mercenaries and out the door, and much to their relief they were neither being followed nor immediately attacked. To all of them the fresh night air was a liberation after the smell of wet decay they had moved in for the last hour. It took them only minutes to reach the speeder, where Ahsoka had a joyful reunion with another old friend.
"So, where to next?" Obi Wan asked as they settled into their seats. "We have a rented shuttle at the capital we could use..."
He trailed off when a speeder flew over them and towards the building.
"No. I have a shuttle that I own, and I won't leave it behind." Ahsoka said.
"What shuttle? And there are bound to be more mercenaries waiting for us there. Force, they could have taken it away already."
Ahsoka swerved around some sort of obstruction and around a corner. "They better not have. That shuttle and what's inside is all I own."
The speeder hopped over a night-swarmer who was crawling along at barely above walking pace and settled down again. "Anyway," she said, "when I arrived, the port was filled almost to capacity. It shouldn't be too hard to sneak in.
Anakin, stifling a groan at every turn now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He had scrapes and bruises, along with a few first-degree burns, nothing that would even leave a scar, but right now they were very painful at every jolt. Of which there were plenty with Ahsoka's driving style.
"I hope it has a first-aid kit." he groaned after another stab of pain. Ahsoka didn't even turn her head.
However, he was surprised to notice that there seemed to be tattered remnants and fringes of their Force Bond left between them, presumably what had allowed him to feel her presence so early, and through it he felt intense worry. Though he was not happy to notice that there also seemed to be a healthy dose of mistrust. Between his pain and the almost totally severed state of the bond he coudln't see if it was directed at him or Obi Wan specifically or at the Jedi Order, all very good ideas considering what had happened to her.
"It's a T-51b shuttle, Master. It has a system at least as good as when we liberated Jabba's son."
Even though he wasn't really filled with confidence at that statement, something else took precedence over any snarky comment he may have made.
"How did you get your hands on one of those?"
Ahsoka hesitated. They were speeding down a street that was emptier than Anchorhead during a drought, but she still concentrated on it for a short time.
With a sigh she replied: "I... inherited it, Master."
Her tone of voice was a good indicater that that was all she chose to reveal at the moment. He glanced at Obi Wan, shrugged and then concentrated on their surroundings. If his estimates were correct, they would reach the spaceport soon.
Ahsoka had been right. As they stood two landing bays down from where she had parked her shuttle, it had taken them less than ten minutes to traverse the space port, including circumventing the laughable security precautions. The shuttle had a sleek form that cried speed, and was hyper-capable like all of her class. From where he was, he could see three badly disguised weapon ports, which didn't bode well for Corellian security inspections.
Still, that left the matter of the two guards. They had to assume that they knew what had transpired, and even though he had to allow five to ten minutes for the building to be searched, he knew that they would have company soon enough.
Obi Wan and Ahsoka were aware of that too. "Luckily my blaster had a stun setting, Master."
"Are you certain that's wise, Ahsoka?" Obi Wan asked.
The reply was prompt. "We don't have time for the usual methods. If there's one thing I learned while away from the Order it was that sometimes you have to be blunt and to the point."
Obi Wan decided to ignore the stab and only stepped aside without a word.
Once again discarding her cloak, Ahsok ran out from their hiding place and towards the bay that held her shuttle. As soon as the guards spotted her, she enhanced her speed with the Force and jumped on the walls of the neighbouring bay, off from it and then landed inbetween the guards and her shuttle, stunning them both with accurate bolts before they had completed their turns.
The two Jedi looked at each other, but Anakin shrugged. "I didn't teach her that."
"But it certainly looks like something you would do. Let's get over there before the rest of them arrives."
Anakin rolled his eyes and followed Obi Wan.
By the time they'd reached the shuttle, the ramp was lowered and Ahsoka already in the cockpit, doing an emergency power-up sequence.
True to it's class, the shuttle's interior was half-filled by a set of massive hyperdrive engines that, as they would later find out, allowed her to go .45 past lightspeed, a small sleeping/cooking/general usage compartment with three berths, a small mechanic's station and a refresher, a tiny medbay which Anakin headed for immediately, a communications booth that contained a comm set that skirted the edges of legality and the cockpit. Below their feet were storage compartments that held provisions and most of Ahsokas other belongings. The cockpit was of a layout made for couriers, all together giving it the mix that spoke to customers that wanted messages or small things sent and coudln't or did not want to trust the holonet.
Most couriers prided themselves on their discretion and ability to get out of most situations, and that was probable helped by the probably highly illegal weapons fit that Obi Wan could see as he strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat, knowing that Anakin would want to take care of his wounds himself.
Two forward rapid fire laser cannons and a single proton torpedo launcher, a ventral and dorsal twin laser turret each, and a single aft-mounted laser on a swivel mount. A gifted pilot like Ahsoka could probably take this one to the Outer Rim and back again.
"Welcome aboard the Steam Runner, Master. Strap yourself in." she said without looking up from her controls.
He had barely done so when she fired up the repulsorlifts and then the main engine. The shuttle shot into the air, and as she banked to make a slow turn taking them away from the city, Obi Wan looked through the windows and saw a speeder unloading more mercenaries. Their few shots did nothing but alert CorSec.
In the end Corellian authorities had nothing more than a few dead mercenaries and several false identities to pursue.
tbc
I'm imagining the Force Wave Ahsoka did as a sort of enhanced form of the classic Force Push from the Jedi Knights game series.