Hi, everyone! Thank you so much to your kind responses to the last chapter, I appreciated all of them so much. I will respond to your reviews and then we will get started with this next chapter. ;) As you all know, I do not own Star Wars. I also have a few lines in this chapter that make reference to a scene in Star Wars Rebels, and I do not own those lines, either. This is a work of fanfiction.
Jayfeathers Friend: Haha, same. I never found that quite fair. But at least I get to use her in my story! ;)
HuffleHecate: Thank you so much! :)
SilverDaye: Yay, I'm glad you liked the title drop! I have tried to make glass symbolic of the Empire, so to look "beyond the glass" would mean to look beyond the Empire's lies. In Chapter 13, Padmé and Ahsoka also have to break glass twice in order to escape the palace. Thank you for your review! :)
Jedi Master Megan: Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it; I enjoyed writing those scenes. :)
FailToWinPRO: I have already sent you a private response to your review, but again, thank you so, so much. I appreciate all of the feedback I can get, and I was so grateful that you took the time to write such a long review. Thank you thank you thank you! :D
PrincessNaina: *nervous laugh* I'm sorry! Luckily, the next chapter is up now. ;) Thank you so much for your review!
Rexwriter123: Hahaha. ;) Here it is! Thank you for your review!
Terror trickled through Ahsoka slowly, like the drizzle that comes before the rain. For a moment, it was all so unreal that she could have believed this might be another Force illusion, if not for the fact that she had already acquired her crystals. She became painfully aware of the precious seconds ticking away, of the Mirialan woman's gaze boring dangerously into hers, and even though she urged herself to do something—something, anything, Ahsoka!—her body wouldn't obey her commands. The woman's last words kept running through her head: We meet again. So they had obviously encountered each other before in her old life. If only she could remember who this woman was and why she seemed to hate Ahsoka so much.
The two women held each other's gazes, neither of them willing to even blink. The tension in the air thickened until it was almost stifling. Then Ahsoka lunged forward and outstretched a hand, urging her shoto to come towards her, but before it could, the woman extinguished one of her sabres, raised her arm, and curled her fingers as if around a cylindrical object. A gasp ripped from Ahsoka's throat as she was yanked off the ground and into the air, and strangely enough, she felt the sting of panic before she realized that it was because she couldn't breathe. Her own fingernails bit and scratched against her throat, and the pressure on her windpipe increased until black globs cropped up in her vision, and she tried desperately for oxygen before the darkness overcame her, but she couldn't, she couldn't breathe she couldn't breathe she—
—Fell. The pressure subsided and she fell.
Pain swelled in her hip and shoulder, but it didn't matter because she had been dropped to the ground and—thank the Force!—could breathe again. Ahsoka gasped for air, almost crying with relief, but then her head was yanked upwards, and she realized that the woman was now right in front of her and had a tight grip on her chin.
"The emperor wouldn't want me to damage Her Imperial Highness too badly," she whispered, dragging her thumb along Ahsoka's cheek. "Not yet, anyway. Pity, isn't it?"
Ahsoka was filled, suddenly, by a strong desire to lash out. She wanted to strangle this woman and demand that she leave her alone. Instead, she just pulled away and glared at her. "Why are you working for the emperor? What do you hope to gain by capturing me?"
The woman stared at Ahsoka as though shocked that she would even need to ask that question. "Come on," she hissed. "You and I both know that I've got a score to settle."
"Oh," Ahsoka said simply.
Her answer must not have satisfied the woman, because her lips curled into a scowl. "Stupid girl," she muttered under her breath, snatching Ahsoka by the collar of her tunic and hauling her roughly to her feet. "I guess the emperor likes you that way, hmm? Makes his job a little easier. Speaking of which, he'll be quite happy to see you again."
Ahsoka had no doubt that he would. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't going to. Her lightsaber, still hidden by the unzipped portion of her coat, bumped against her hip as the woman dragged her away from her hiding spot. They passed Ahsoka's shoto, lying abandoned on the ground, and the woman wrinkled her nose, kicking it disdainfully to the side.
Ahsoka walked with her for a few more seconds, keeping her gaze trained firmly on her toes. She opened herself up to the Force just a little bit, enough so that the woman would be able to sense some of her fear. It seemed to work. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vader's agent turn to look at her. A twisted sort of satisfaction was practically emanating from her, and after another moment, she loosened her grip on Ahsoka's collar. "He's really broken you, hasn't he?" she said, sounding almost fascinated. "For once, you know when you've lost."
"I do," Ahsoka murmured. Then she wrenched away from the woman's grip as swiftly as she could, shrugging off her coat and igniting her lightsaber. "And I haven't lost yet."
The teal blade beamed against the darkness of the cave, and it occurred to Ahsoka that she had not known its colour before now. Teal. She had never seen a teal lightsaber before, at least not in the holovids she had watched. During the Clone Wars, most of the Jedi had used blue and green sabres. But teal, she realized with a burst of contentment, was a mixture of those colours. It connected her to the entire Jedi Order while still allowing her to retain her individuality.
Vader's agent must have been thinking something similar; her eyes narrowed into confused slits as she drew one of her own lightsabers. Ahsoka took advantage of her brief moment of weakness and threw herself at the Mirialan woman, slamming her lightsaber blade down upon hers. The hiss they made upon contact seared in Ahsoka's montrals, and just briefly, she was able to grasp the fleeting genuineness of the moment: she was in the midst of a lightsaber duel, in which the only thing keeping her alive would be her own skills and quick thinking.
The woman shoved the teal lightsaber blade off of her own, but Ahsoka spun backwards gracefully, just barely avoiding one of the Mirialan's own attacks. Then, gripping her sabre a little tighter, she charged and swung at the woman's left shoulder. She caught Ahsoka's blade and pushed back, a grin slicing across the bottom half of her face. "You're still using your reverse grip?" she taunted. "That's cute." Ahsoka ignored her, bringing her blade quickly above her head and slicing downwards, but Vader's agent parried that strike, too. "Remember the last time we did this? Before I pushed you into the warehouse with the nanodroids?" The woman snorted, casually extending a hand to propel Ahsoka backwards with the Force. For one terrifying moment, she lost all sense of direction, and then she skidded to a stop on her knees, the hilt of her lightsaber still warm in her hand. "You fought with about as much precision and technique as someone might drunk. Unfortunately, you don't appear to have greatly improved."
Ahsoka just looked up at her, her expression blank. Something shifted in the woman's eyes upon her lack of a reaction, but before she could say anything else, or execute another attack, a male voice cut into the conversation. "Commander Offee! What are you doing?"
The woman—Offee, Ahsoka assumed her name was—stiffened in what looked to be rage, and her gaze locked onto somebody standing behind Ahsoka. She already knew, of course, who it was, but she turned around anyway. Prince Erosik hovered in the threshold, his dark eyes darting wildly between the two women. Offee barked something about having ordered him to stay behind, but he paid her no heed. "Soka," he breathed instead, staring at her as if she might be a ghost. But his shock quickly wore off. Only a moment later, he stalked towards her and dug his fingernails into her left wrist, trying to yank her to her feet. His grip was tight, unbreakable. Possessive. All of the old hatred she had once felt in his presence flooded back in, and a scream built up in her throat. She wouldn't do what he wanted. She wouldn't stand.
At last, she forced him to kneel down to her level. "We're going to bring you back to the palace on Coruscant, okay?" he murmured, and despite the ostensible gentleness of his voice, she didn't miss the almost violent undertone that rippled beneath the façade. "Come on, Soka. I know that you're scared. But you're safe now. You're coming with us."
"Your Highness, leave her," Offee ordered. "They've corrupted her—"
Corrupted. That was a funny word for "reintroduce somebody to their true identity and show them that they don't have to put up with poor treatment anymore". Ahsoka snatched away her wrist and climbed to her feet, backing away and igniting her lightsaber. "Don't touch me," she bit out, watching in satisfaction as Erosik's jaw dropped. "Never touch me again."
He stood as well, trembling slightly. "Soka—"
"Unless you want to lose a hand," she warned darkly.
Raging tension insinuated itself between them. She hoped that he knew she was deadly serious. She hoped that he felt as though daggers were shooting through him whenever he looked at her eyes. "What have they done to you, Ahsoka?" he said at last.
"What have they done to me?" she repeated incredulously. "'They' haven't done anything. 'They' don't exist. 'They' are fictional scapegoats created by the emperor. No. It was all you and Vader. Forcing me to be someone I wasn't. Treating me as though I wasn't really a person, as though I belonged to you, and then passing it off as 'love'. Remember when you'd come into my room and stare at me while you thought I was asleep? Even though I'd already asked you never to do that again? Because I remember. I remember everything you did."
Erosik's gaze was glued onto hers now, and he had become even paler than normal. Ahsoka was already trembling with anger, so she closed her eyes and tried to release it into the Force. It was justified, she knew, but it would unbalance her if this were to descend into a fight. Finally, waves of calm lapped against the edges of her consciousness, and she opened her eyes.
Something else was now writhing within Erosik's weak Force presence: incredulity. Frustration. Anger of his own. As though he had a right to be angry about this whole situation. "We've been waiting for you, Soka," he ground out. "We've been worried sick about you, all of us. And the entire galaxy is waiting for us to get married. We have to."
Ahsoka followed his gaze to an extinguished electrostaff that hung from his left hip. So now he was considering attacking her. His mistake. She widened her stance, slipping effortlessly into a defensive position. "I'm not coming back with you, Your Highness," she said. "That's final."
He slid his gaze back up to hers, his dark eyes steely and tempestuous. He reminded her so much of Anakin in that moment that she had to blink a few times to get the image to leave her head. "Then I'll make you," he said gravely, pulling his electrostaff from his belt.
A fleeting smirk touched Ahsoka's lips. He would make her. Sure. She had been hoping he would say that. Now he was ensnared.
She stood her ground, giving him the chance to attack first. Unsurprisingly, in his recklessness, he shot across the chamber, slamming his electrostaff down upon her lightsaber with such ferocity that sparks flew from both of their weapons. For him, this entire fight would be driven by rage. He would be trying to intimidate her, trying to get her to surrender as soon as possible. But Ahsoka was more careful, more cunning, and had better training, control, and technique. All she had to do was find a way to turn his anger against him, and she would win.
She slid her blade out from underneath his, swinging it to the right, but he just barely managed to parry the blow. Ahsoka grit her teeth together and gripped the hilt with both hands, changing the angle of her sabre just slightly so that the tip grazed Erosik's shoulder. A sharp scream, quick and abrupt as a hiccup, pierced the air. Ahsoka used the distraction to her advantage, flinging herself off of the ground and spiralling elegantly over Erosik's head.
The world seemed to crystallize into a frozen moment as she hovered vertically in mid-air, feet directly above her head, posture as straight as a rod, lightsaber out in front of her with the tip pointed directly towards the ground. Then the fleeting illusion whisked out of existence, and she was falling again, but this time, she was in control. The tip of her lightsaber made contact with Erosik's back, but she didn't watch the damage it inflicted. She arched her body so that she was in the shape of a bridge, her arms and lightsaber still extended behind her head.
When she finally rolled onto her feet, she straightened her spine, brought her sabre back to her side, and turned around. A long, angry gash snaked down Erosik's back, the expensive fabric of his jacket split open to reveal his injury. His shoulders heaved as he spun around to look at her, his eyes flashing murderously. "I came here to rescue you, Princess."
Ahsoka's gaze flicked to the space behind him. A wall. She had him cornered now. "It's not a rescue if I don't want to come with you. You're here to capture me."
He shook his head slowly, tufts of dark hair tumbling into his eyes. She could have sworn that she heard a growl rising in his throat. "Do you know how many girls would have killed to have the kind of life that you did before? Why would you throw that away?"
Ahsoka didn't answer. She didn't answer because even if she did, he would never understand. He would never understand that even though she had been named an "Imperial princess", she had existed mainly as an accessory. He would never understand that beneath the glamourous, glittery façade of status and wealth and prestige, everything had been perfectly designed to keep Ahsoka in line—to punish and humiliate her, even. And if he could understand that, then he would never admit it, because that meant he had consciously played into Vader's hands.
Instead, she drove him towards the wall, repeatedly bringing her blade down upon his. He parried almost frantically, and she could tell that he was falling behind. She was too quick for him, too skilled. "Are you duelling or dancing?" she taunted, even though she knew that Obi-Wan probably wouldn't approve. "Because if it's the latter, then I'm definitely leading."
In response, Erosik just grit his teeth together. That was fine. He could grit his teeth together all he wanted. She had pinned him against the wall now, the tip of her lightsaber hovering just above the wound on his left shoulder. "Surrender," she demanded.
His mouth fell open, but she wasn't sure whether it was in surprise or because he was about to speak. Before she could find out, though, the world blurred into streaks as she was telekinetically whisked backwards. Ahsoka grunted as she landed against someone else, an arm already around her waist and a crimson lightsaber to her neck. "Nice try, Princess," Offee said, vehemence bleeding into her tone. "But playtime's over. You're coming with us."
Before the commander could stop her, Ahsoka ignited her lightsaber and grazed Offee's leg, dodging out of her grip and pushing her sabre against hers. "I'm not coming with you," she repeated, over-articulating her syllables so that her voice didn't shake.
Offee just snorted. "We've already destroyed your starfighter, Your Highness. Either you leave this planet with us, or you don't leave at all."
Ahsoka's stomach turned to ice, and her knees weakened from beneath her. She hadn't even thought of that possibility. It was imaginable that Offee was bluffing, but Ahsoka doubted it. Why wouldn't the Empire destroy her only possible transport off of the planet?
Regardless, she straightened her posture, forcing herself to at least seem confident. "That's fine with me," she spat, even as her heart galloped frenziedly. Not only was she currently on the defensive, she was also on the losing side of this duel. Offee was backing her towards the spot where her hiding place had once been, and Ahsoka could already tell that she was about to be pinned against a sharp-looking corner of the wall. "I would rather be free on a hostile ice planet than held captive in Emperor Vader's palace."
"I don't think you'd like it so much once you started dying of starvation," Offee mocked her, the words poison on her lips. Ahsoka tried to think of a response, but before she could, a wash of wooziness overcame her, and her body felt suddenly heavier. She had the vague sense of wanting to vomit, like she had after that piloting expedition—
Oh, no. The realization crept fully into Ahsoka's mind, leaving her numb. Oh, Force, no.
Offee swung her blade down towards Ahsoka's head, and though she managed to parry, the force of the blow knocked her to the ground. Blistering pain jolted through her back lek as her head slammed against the corner of the wall. She dragged her gaze upwards and saw that both Offee and Erosik were standing before her, their weapons ignited. No. No. No no no no no. For some reason, all she could think of was Padmé, pleading with her to come back alive.
Before Ahsoka could regain her senses, Offee telekinetically wrenched the lightsaber from her grip and turned sharply to Prince Erosik. "Knock her out," she ordered, nodding at his electrostaff. "I'll contact the emperor and tell him that we've located the princess."
Ahsoka hardly had time to panic before the electrostaff was jabbed into her ribcage. A bloodcurdling scream erupted from her throat as the electricity crackled mercilessly over her body. She had consciousness of nothing but the fact that she just wanted it to stop. When the pain finally receded, she could no longer move without trembling wildly. She had collapsed onto her side. Her breaths came in shallow, desperate gasps. Her eyes were wet. Erosik bent down to her level and cupped her cheek in his palm, resting his forehead against hers. Her instincts screamed at her to pull away, but she was shaking too much. "Come on, beautiful," he whispered. "I don't like hurting you. Just promise me that you'll come with us willingly—"
She shook her head, because she knew that he was lying. He did enjoy hurting her. He wanted vengeance for the injuries that she had caused him with her lightsaber. No matter what she said or did, he would electrocute her until she was unconscious and drag her back to Coruscant. She at least wouldn't give him the satisfaction of surrendering.
Erosik pulled away and frowned at her disappointedly. The violent quaking of her muscles was beginning to lessen, but it didn't matter, because he was already standing and reactivating the electrostaff, and she was so weak from the first electrocution that she knew she wouldn't be able to stay conscious for much longer. Her eyes darted frantically from Erosik to the open space behind him, as if she could commit this image to memory and look back upon it later to prove to herself that she had once stood up for what was right. But that was of no use, either. Vader would wipe her mind again as soon as she fell into his hands. When she woke up next, she might not be able to even remember who she was.
But then, as Erosik lifted the electrostaff above his head, she caught sight of it. A small, silver beacon of hope, resting in a crevice at the bottom of the wall after having been kicked to the side. Ahsoka couldn't breathe. The electrostaff was coming down upon her, and she was still trembling all over, but that hilt was lying there, glinting slightly, as if to give her a little wink. She felt like she was dragging herself through water as she just barely dodged the tip of the electrostaff, shooting her hand towards her shoto with a strangled scream of desperation. It swept through the air and settled against her palm, and she ignited it right as the electrostaff came crashing down. She lifted the shoto to block the blow, but the world was still spinning and her hands were shaking uncontrollably, and instead of locking with the electrostaff, the blade slipped past the weapon and plunged right through Erosik's stomach.
Ahsoka froze, save for an almost inaudible gasp of shock that escaped her lips. Slowly, she pulled her gaze upwards to meet Erosik's, surprised to find that his eyes were not violent or enraged but simply stunned. He stared at her like that for so long that she began to wonder if he was even conscious of what he was doing anymore. But then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground with a thud, the electrostaff tumbling from his grip.
Ahsoka extinguished the shoto and climbed shakily to her feet, unable to tear her eyes away from Erosik's corpse. The first thing that occurred to her, for some reason, was that this meant that she was no longer engaged. The second thing that occurred to her was that she had just accidentally killed someone. The third thing that occurred to her was that Offee should have already contacted Vader, and now he would be coming for her.
She swept her gaze over her surroundings, but the commander was nowhere in sight. This could be her chance to run. Her chance to reach the cave's exit before they could find her. Maybe, if she was quick enough, she could steal their ship…
With one last furtive glance at Erosik, Ahsoka took off, racing past the threshold and through the adjacent hallways. She ran so quickly that she kept skidding along the ice and colliding with the walls, or maybe that was just because her head still ached and the world was revolving wildly around her. She wasn't sure whether the electrocution had caused her significant damage or if these were just more symptoms of her concussion. Or both. Stumbling slightly to the left, she ignited her shoto, hoping it would help to have a light source, but it didn't take her long to reach the glowing chamber where she had encountered Vader's Force hologram. Ahsoka exhaled slowly, and the tension seemed to leave her body. She was almost there.
She gave herself to the Force and willed it to guide her to the exit, following its whispers into chambers that grew increasingly brighter. As she ran, her legs regained most of their former strength, and the dizzy sensation at last began to subside. She turned a corner and the Force pounded with a promising intensity. There. Run, Ahsoka. She did. She ran. She knew the exit wasn't far. She skidded around another corner and she—
Froze.
Two figures loomed against the exit—an exit that was now completely frozen over. They gripped sabres that sliced through the darkness, each of their faces bathed half in crimson light and half in shadow. No. No! The air fled Ahsoka's lungs, and she realized belatedly that she was shaking her head in denial. She wanted them to be hallucinations. She wanted their images to curl away like drifting smoke, she wanted the ice to drip into water until the exit was open again, she wanted to get off of this Force-forsaken planet! But when she reached out, she felt each of their signatures thrash in the Force, and a desperate kind of claustrophobia overcame her.
The man took a broad step in her direction, and the red light of his sabre bled slowly over the rest of his features. Ahsoka's heart clenched, even though she had already known who it was. "Where is your fiancé, Princess? Is there a reason he hasn't been responding to our calls?"
Ahsoka bit her lip. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say.
Emperor Vader chuckled darkly, continuing to approach her. Ahsoka took a few steps back, grasping her shoto tightly, though the hilt had already become sweaty in her palm. "You took care of him?" he guessed. His grin stretched one corner of his mouth upwards before touching the other one. "You do know, Your Highness, that under this Empire, punishment for murder ranges from execution to life imprisonment—"
"It wasn't murder," Ahsoka bit out. "I was trying to defend myself. He was electrocuting me. If you want to talk about murder, then tell me why you annihilated the entirety of the Jedi Order."
"The Jedi were corrupt," he growled instantly—a practiced response. "They were warmongers. They didn't care about anyone but themselves."
"And how is that any different from you?"
He had been advancing towards her, but now he stopped, as abruptly as if he had hit a wall. A sickly shade of yellow crept into his eyes, his features twisted so gruesomely by anger that he looked as though he were about to burst. "You ungrateful little brat!" he roared, and now he was rocketing towards her, his lightsaber blade sizzling against hers before she'd even had time to realize what was happening. "I have an entire galaxy to rule, Princess, and I've spent the last month of my life searching for you and Empress Amidala! You think I don't care about you?"
"You never would have tortured me if you cared about me!" Her volume was almost as loud as his now, and though a voice in the back of her head warned her against losing her temper, she ignored it. She slammed her lightsaber down upon his, quaking with rage. "You never would have stripped me of my identity! You never would have basically imprisoned me in your palace! If you had cared about me, you would have let me go." Haziness flooded her vision, and she realized that her eyes were watering. For just one moment, the heat of anger lost its grip on her, and she looked up at him almost pleadingly. "Like Anakin Skywalker did."
The words left her lips as a whisper, but Vader obviously heard them. He screamed in fury and shoved his blade more firmly against hers, leaning so close to her that their noses were almost touching. Ahsoka widened her stance and bent her knees, pushing back with all of her might. "Anakin Skywalker was weak," Vader hissed. "I destroyed him."
His animosity was contagious. Ahsoka thought of his impersonation of Anakin and was once again drowned in uncontrollable anger. Weak? Anakin, at least according to Padmé, had taken it upon himself to train Ahsoka in a time of war, helping her to grow into a strong young woman. Vader had felt threatened by her and, in order to keep her from challenging him, had literally erased her sense of identity. How could he accuse Anakin Skywalker of being weak?
"Then I will avenge his death," she heard herself retort, yanking away her shoto and slicing toward the emperor's head. He just laughed, prepared to parry the strike long before her blade ever reached his. Everything was filling her with anger now, even how tall he was in comparison to her—with the boots he was wearing, he seemed to be almost twice her height. She hated the way he looked at her like she wasn't really a threat, like he thought she just had to get something out of her system and would surrender in a few seconds. Couldn't he see that she had risked everything to get away from him? Didn't he understand that she would fight tooth and nail for even a slim chance of retaining her freedom?
He went on the offensive, his strikes so violent and brutal that she knew he was trying to intimidate her. He forgot that she had defeated him once before. She ripped her blade away from his and took a few steps backwards, then ran towards him at full speed and propelled herself off of the ground. With some help from the Force, she rotated over his head and landed behind him, now closer to the exit of the cave than he was.
Ahsoka whipped around just in time to parry one of Vader's strikes, which had been aimed for her shoulder. He drove her forcibly toward the exit, his sabre nothing more than a blood-red blur, and she let him. The ice would melt from the heat of their lightsabers and she would be able to make her escape. She just had to hold him off for a few more seconds.
Their blades whizzed through the air in streaks of teal and red light, hissing and crackling as they slammed up against each other. Ahsoka was gasping for breath, trusting her instincts more than she trusted her mind, because otherwise, there was no time. She collided with the ice wall and instantly threw her arms out in front of her, pushing Vader back with her shoto. He grit his teeth and leaned closer, and she could see the sweat dribbling down his forehead, see the way it glistened in the light of his sabre and dampened the ends of his brown hair. It made him seem so…human. Not the ostensibly immortal monster from whom she and Padmé had been running. How could someone so human have done such terrible things?
"Tell me, Princess," Vader murmured, and even though he looked like he should have been out of breath, his voice betrayed nothing of the kind. The illusion of his humanity fizzled instantly out of existence. She hated him even more for it. "Tell me what you thought was going to happen. Did you truly believe that you and the empress would be able to permanently disappear, when I have spies everywhere? When you're living in a galaxy that belongs to me?"
Ahsoka bit down on her bottom lip, trying to fight the temptation of retaliating. The ice at the back of her lekku was growing warmer. She just had to be patient.
But Vader wouldn't let her. He lunged forward so that she was trapped against the ice wall, his lightsaber so close to her left montral that she almost didn't dare to breathe. "It's a shame, Princess, how easily you forget," he whispered. "I have allies at every turn."
Ahsoka heard her own gasp, felt her muscles clench, before she could consciously realize why. And then the crucial moment bled back into her memory, when she had skidded around the corner and there had been two figures—but it was too late. Something smashed against the side of her head, an object so heavy that, for only a second, a wash of darkness overtook her.
But a second was too long. When she opened her eyes again, she could no longer feel the weight of her shoto in her hand, and both Vader and Offee were looking down at her, two grinning faces tainted by ugly crimson light. She opened her mouth in desperation—to say what, she did not know—but then the object came crashing down with full force, and her shriek of pain was cut short as she was wrenched from consciousness.
Padmé awoke with her left cheek smushed against the dashboard, the air around her tainted by the smell of something burning. With a gasp, she flew into a sitting position, grasping at the handlebars of her starfighter to steady herself. Where was she? A quick glance revealed that she had had to crash land somewhere unfamiliar, given that her fighter had basically collapsed into ruins. Well, at least that would explain the burning.
A soreness in her cheek that she had hardly noticed before was now growing increasingly painful. She brushed her fingertips against it idly, startling when she felt dried blood. Force. What in the universe had happened? She rubbed her temples and racked her brain for answers, but everything was hazy, and they were slow to come.
At last, she managed to drag the Battle of Ilum into memory. Yes. That was it. She had been tasked with leading the fighter squadron, but they had failed. She had failed…
Padmé leaned her elbows against the dashboard, dropping her head into her hands. An ache built up in the back of her throat as hot tears pricked her eyes. She hadn't broken the blockade, and so many people had died under her command, and Ahsoka—
Ahsoka.
"Our casualties are too high!" She could still hear Breha Organa's voice in her memory, buzzing slightly abnormally as it came through her comm. "I am ordering all of you to retreat, now."
The rest of Padmé's squadron had obeyed, of course. But not Padmé herself. "What about Ahsoka?" she had yelled into her comm. "I'm not leaving without her!"
"Padawan Tano will be fine. She has hyperspace rings and will be able to escape on her own. You do not, General Amidala. I am ordering you to board this cruiser right now."
Padmé winced as she remembered how she had refused. Even with explosions and laser bolts bursting around her, even though the Rebellion's forces had been completely surrounded by TIE fighters and Star Destroyers, she had had to know Ahsoka was safe before she would get on the cruiser. Finally, Bail had contacted her and managed to talk her into saving herself. "You can't do anything more for Padawan Tano, Padmé. The most you can do for her at this point is to get to safety. She would be devastated if you pointlessly sacrificed yourself for her."
Padmé had had to drag the words out of her mouth, but nonetheless, she had quietly agreed. She and Bail had been the last ones to board Breha's cruiser, and as they had approached, she had told the Alderaanian queen that she could begin to close the hangar doors. "We'll be right there, Breha. Don't worry about us. Just be ready to jump to hyperspace."
Sighing at her own stupidity, Padmé climbed out of the pilot's seat, disentangling herself from chunks of debris. She then tried to clamour out of the fighter but leaned her weight too heavily on her right foot. A spasm of pain jolted through her, and she had to dig her fingernails into her palms to bite back a scream. After having recovered somewhat, she ran a careful hand along her right thigh, horrified to find that it was coated in blood. A piece of rubble, maybe even metal, must have cut into her leg and left a large gash. She ripped a small piece of fabric from the bottom of her tunic and tied it tightly around her thigh, trying to staunch the bleeding.
If only she had listened to Breha from the beginning. She and Bail would have been able to board the cruiser before that TIE fighter had interfered, knocking them both out of the way right as the ship jumped to hyperspace. They never would have been chased from the Unknown Regions to the Outer Rim, forced to crash land on some barely inhabited moon because they had no hyperspace capabilities, no more fuel, and nowhere else to go.
Raada. That was the name of the moon. She vaguely remembered seeing the word flash across her navicomputer. As a senator, she had had to learn in depth about countless planets and moons, and even she could not recall this one. That meant that this Raada was hopelessly remote. At least Anakin would have a difficult time finding her.
Anakin. Padmé's stomach clenched at the thought of him landing on Ilum's surface. He had gone there to capture Ahsoka, she was sure of it. She could only pray that the girl had gotten off of the planet safely and would be able to find her way back to the Rebellion. And if not…
No. She couldn't think like that.
After another few minutes, Padmé succeeded in heaving the roof of the starfighter to the side and scrambling out of the cockpit. Finding Bail would be her first priority. He had been alongside her the entire time, after all, so he couldn't be too far away. "Bail!" she called, limping slightly on her right leg as she stumbled away from her starfighter. Her eyes raked over her surroundings, but she saw nothing but farmland. This was probably an agricultural moon, then, and Padmé didn't know the first thing about farming. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. It had been in a braid but was now beyond hope of redemption, dirty and sticky with blood.
"Bail!" she called again, her voice raspy from disuse. "Bail! Where are—"
"I'm here, Padmé." A weight lifted from her shoulders as she turned in the direction of his voice. He had a few lines under his eyes, a testament to his exhaustion, but other than a couple of cuts and bruises, he appeared to be uninjured. He walked towards her, clearly not quite as satisfied by her condition. "What happened?" he asked, gesturing to her right leg.
"It's fine," she insisted. "I think it got caught in the wreakage. But it will heal. I've had worse."
Bail scoffed. "Maybe we should have just landed on Scipio."
Padmé shook her head. Scipio had been their first option, but they hadn't been quite as desperate at that point and she had wanted to land on a planet where she wouldn't be too recognizable. After the relatively recent incident with Rush Clovis and the Banking Clan, Scipio no longer fit that criteria. "It will be more difficult for the Empire to find us here."
"And the Rebellion," Bail added wryly.
Padmé swallowed hard. Her throat felt like sandpaper. "Your comm's not salvageable?"
"My entire fighter's a wreak, unfortunately." He sighed, threading a hand through his hair. It had fared better than hers. "And given your condition, I don't think I even need to ask—"
"They've got to have some sort of intergalactic transportation," she cut him off.
"Not necessarily. Not on a moon this small. And besides, how would we pay for it?"
Padmé opened her mouth to respond but realized that she didn't have an answer. She was so used to financial stability that the question hadn't even crossed her mind. Embarrassed and disappointed in herself, she looked away from him, only for her gaze to fall upon a human girl in the distance. She seemed to notice Padmé, too, for she stopped walking and straightened her posture. "We've been spotted," she murmured to Bail. "Should we leave?"
"No," he replied. "Let's see what she has to say. It might help to make some friends."
Padmé nodded and stepped forward to meet the girl as she came running up to them. She looked to be around Ahsoka's age, maybe a little younger, with dark skin and dark brown hair that she wore in braids. "Hi!" she said cheerily, but her eyes kept wandering to the ruins of Padmé's starfighter and then to her injured leg. "Are—are you all right?"
Padmé tried to laugh. "Yes. I had to make a bit of an…unexpected landing."
The girl nodded in understanding. "We don't get many newcomers around here. Though the harvest is coming up in a few weeks, so if there's any good time to be on Raada, it's now." Then she grimaced, biting her lip. "The bad news is that there's not much in terms of medical care around here. Not unless you want to go bankrupt, that is. But I know someone who might be able to help you with your leg, if you follow me."
Padmé glanced over her shoulder at Bail, and he nodded and came to her side. They trailed after the girl, who soon revealed that her name was Kaeden Larte and that she was, as Padmé had suspected, a farmer. "Most people on Raada are," she explained, gesturing to the plots of farmland around them. "What about you? What are your names? Where are you from?"
"I'm Teckla Minnau," Padmé blurted out. Then she cringed internally at how quickly the name of her old handmaiden had come to her lips. But it was a better pseudonym than Sabé, Yané, or Dormé. Teckla had died on Scipio during the Clone Wars and had never served as an Imperial handmaiden. Hopefully, the name would be less recognizable to the emperor—and besides, given that the location of Teckla's death was relatively close, it gave her a plausible story. "I was presumed dead on Scipio, but I survived and escaped with the help of my friend Gregar here." She jerked her head toward Bail, hoping he was okay with the code name she had picked out for him. "I came here hoping to lay low. You see…"
Kaeden had stopped walking and was looking at her curiously. Padmé wrung her hands, debating whether or not to bring herself up. "…I took part in a conspiracy against the Banking Clan alongside Senator Padmé Amidala. I fear I've made myself many enemies amongst—"
"Senator Amidala?" Kaeden repeated, and Padmé's heart sank. She could tell from her intonation that she knew exactly who Senator Amidala was and couldn't understand why "Teckla" wasn't referring to her as an empress. The grime, blood, and scratches from Padmé's crash would probably disguise her sufficiently well for the time being, but now she knew that she would have to be extra careful about hiding her identity.
"Yes," she replied blankly, as if she hadn't noticed Kaeden's confusion. Teckla had gone missing during the Clone Wars and would not know of the Empire's existence.
Kaeden shot her a dubious side glance, but Padmé was grateful that she didn't press for more details, even if it came at the cost of a heavy silence. After another few minutes, they stopped in front of what appeared to be their destination. "This is Selda's," Kaeden said quietly. "He knows best what to do in these kinds of situations." Then her voice dropped to a near whisper, and her eyes flicked to the ground. "He was in an accident of his own a long time ago."
Padmé frowned. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to that accident, something that had involved Kaeden personally, but the girl had respected her privacy, so she would respect hers. She followed her past the threshold of the building, expecting to find herself in a foyer or living room, but stopped in her tracks as she registered the scene in front of her. Every millimetre of space seemed to be packed, as if the moon's entire population had crowded itself into this one room. People were smushed around tables, literally shoulder-to-shoulder, standing and sitting and eating and drinking. A sticky warmth poured over Padmé's skin, and she realized that she was already sweating from everyone's combined body heat.
It was a cantina, but unlike the ones she had seen on Coruscant. There was something missing, something that grated on her with the same insistence as an itchy gown or an aching wound. And then it hit her like a punch in the gut, and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it before. There was no chatter. No music. A perfect hush blanketed the entire room, everyone's eyes glued to something at the front that she could not see.
Kaeden seemed to be thinking the same thing, for when Padmé glanced her way, she noticed that a shadow of confusion had ghosted over her face. The moment was broken as a small figure barrelled into Kaeden's arms—a young girl who looked like she might be related to her. In Padmé's opinion, she looked a little too young to be in a cantina, but then again…after having served as Queen of Naboo at age fourteen, she was not in a position to judge.
"Miara," Kaeden whispered. "What is going on?"
The girl—Miara—looked up at her, her eyes twinkling with a playful sort of delight. "You're never going to believe it, Kaeden," she said. "They found the princess!"
The princess. Padmé's eyes widened for some reason, but the words still swam idly in her ears, refusing to acquire any sort of meaning. The princess…the princess…the princess of what? Then, abruptly, her blood turned to ice, and a violent chill ripped down her spine. The princess. Ahsoka. She clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle a scream, because she didn't know anything yet, it could be anyone, there were hundreds of princesses throughout the galaxy, if not thousands…"The Imperial princess?" she demanded.
Miara turned to her as though noticing her presence for the first time. "Yeah," she replied, and Padmé's stomach dropped so quickly that the air whooshed out of her lungs. When she tried to inhale, she found herself unable to breathe. "Both of them, actually. And the crown prince, too."
Luke. Leia. Padmé's leg muscles began to twitch wildly. She couldn't be here anymore. Anywhere but here. She needed to run. Maybe if she got far enough away from this place, she could find somewhere where it wouldn't be true. It couldn't be true. Her children had been safe at the Alderaanian palace. And she had just seen Ahsoka…
Ahsoka. She thought of the way she had laughed when she'd learned to fly a speeder for the first time, head tipped back and eyes squeezed shut, despite Padmé's insistence that she had to keep her gaze trained ahead while driving. She thought of the ferocity with which she had fought Anakin as they had escaped from the palace, even while clad in an impossibly heavy wedding gown. And then Padmé thought back to their time on Alderaan, but of the darker moments when she had awoken to a stifled whimper from across the room, and of soothing Ahsoka back to sleep after she had been wrenched awake by a nightmare—always a nightmare concerning Anakin. "You're safe now," Padmé had told her, holding her close and rubbing her shoulders, even when Ahsoka, still shaking slightly, had insisted that she was fine.
She didn't realize that she'd grasped onto Bail's arm until he was whispering her name into her ear. Her head jerked up, her gaze immediately locking onto his, and raw fear seeped into his eyes. She must have looked crazed—hair matted with blood and sweat, cuts across her face and a gash along her right thigh, eyes saturated with terror and guilt. But she couldn't have cared less. None of it mattered when Ahsoka was in his grasp. None of it mattered when all of the beautiful things that had made her who she was could be wiped away in an instant.
Thirty-four minutes. Thirty-four minutes straight.
Padmé tore away from Bail as her own words came to mind, and now the breaths were coming too quickly, so quickly that she was hyperventilating. Oh, Force. Force Force Force Force Force. How long had she been out? How long? Minutes? Hours? Long enough for him to have brought her back to Coruscant? Long enough for him to have already erased her memory?
A cold sweat burst across Padmé's forehead as she looked to Kaeden. She was staring at the front of the room now, too, a blush rising rapidly in her cheeks. The front. That was how she would know. Padmé shoved numbly past the sweating bodies, tripping over her own feet and murmuring flat apologies, repeatedly swallowing back the vomit that was rising in her throat. Why Ahsoka? Why Luke, why Leia? Why everyone she loved?
Take me, you coward! The words hovered on the tip of her tongue, as if they could do any good. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and still she pushed forward. I would give myself for them, Anakin. You know I would. Just take me! Take me instead!
At last, she managed to jostle her way through the crowd, stumbling forward a few paces as she was spit out of the masses. Padmé blinked rapidly, tears beading on her eyelashes. Her husband's image was emblazoned across a wide holoscreen, his jaw set and his still-blue eyes flickering. He stood on the main balcony of the Coruscanti palace, surrounded by guards and Imperial officers. She absently noted that he wasn't wearing his mask, as he normally did for public addresses, though a velvet cape snapped in the wind behind him.
A flash of coral caught in her peripheral vision, and Padmé's heart shot up to her throat. Sucking in a frantic breath, she lowered her gaze to the girl in the emperor's arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her eyes closed and her lips parted slightly. The skirts of her coral gown rippled delicately in the breeze, and long strands of diamonds snaked around her lekku and montrals, glimmering in the sunlight. One of her arms hung limply around his neck, the other one bent back at what appeared to be an uncomfortable angle, swinging in the wind like a pendulum. Padmé pressed her hands against her mouth as her knees crumpled from beneath her, battling back a scream. No. No. It couldn't be. She couldn't be unconscious.
"Are you okay?" she heard a man say from behind her, but she ignored him. Let him think that she had had too much to drink, so much that she couldn't stand. Because she couldn't. She had collapsed into a crouching position, shivering uncontrollably, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Now that she thought about it, a drink would be nice. Or two, or three, or four. Whatever it took to drown out this moment forever.
Padmé's eyes darted across the holoscreen. She located Leia and Luke in the arms of a steel-faced officer, and she couldn't understand why he was holding them when they were her children, when they should have been hers to hold! By the time that Bail dropped to her side, Padmé's lips were moving in patterns that even she didn't recognize, her eyes still pinned to the holoscreen. Ahsoka. Luke. Leia. No, no, no.
"Teckla," he said, loudly enough to grab the attention of a few surrounding crowd members. "Teckla, come on. You're drunk. Let's go home."
Padmé realized that he was giving her an out and climbed unsteadily to her feet, clutching onto Bail's hand for support. Anakin's voice exploded through the speakers like the boom of a cannon, but to her, the sound was so faint that it could have been drifting from another galaxy. It wasn't until she and Bail had reached the middle of the crowd that Padmé finally knew what she was trying to say, finally understood the words that were lingering on her lips. "I'm sorry," she gasped, almost inaudibly, but the tears streamed down her cheeks anyway, warm and wet and gooey. She didn't bother to wipe them away. She just let them run. "I am so, so sorry."
Okay, okay, please don't kill me! I promise I'm not as evil as I seem! Really! I promise! And I already have the next chapter started, so hopefully I will be able to post again soon. ;)
With that being said, I would really love to know what you thought of this chapter in a review. Reviews give me inspiration and encourage me to write faster, so...it might help me to get the next chapter out sooner. Thank you so much to anyone who has already left a review and/or favourited/followed this story!
Love, Isabelle :)