Chapter 21

Ahsoka was waiting for him outside the Council Chamber, and Anakin saw instantly that she was worried. He knew that his former Padawan was not one hold back unless she thought she needed to, so he just walked over to her and sat down beside her on one of the benches that had been fitted for those awaiting an audience. It was a long, relatively wide corridor, but usually only a few people were in it. Anakin had been the last to leave, so they had the space for themselves.

"Master, you know it's a trap."

"Of course, Snips, but what choice do we have?"

"You have one." Ahsoka said, and turned towards him in her seat. "At least you should have one. You are the one Jedi with the most to loose. Me on the other hand..."

Anakin shook his head. It appeared that the emotional damage Ahsoka had suffered in leaving the Order had yet to be fully healed. "For once in your live, listen to me Snips." he said, "You are a part of my family, more than any other Jedi, except maybe Obi Wan. The two of you..."

He sighed, and remembered the long and difficult conversation he'd had with Ahsoka after the Exodus.

"Ahsoka, without you, Padmé and Obi Wan... who knows what would have happened in that Office, and I am eternally grateful for what you did that day. I will never be able to thank you enough, and Force..."

She took a deep breath. "I know. But I can't help but think that Luke and Leia would be able to do better without me than without you or their mother."

"What, without their favourite aunt? Never." Anakin replied, and was grateful that his quip was rewarded with a fond smile. "And what's more, with the two of us there to keep the Old Man out of trouble, the Empire can do to stop us. And to be honest, there is no one I would rather have by my side than the two of you. Danger or not, Padmé understands this, and so would my children if they were older."

Ahsoka looked at him again. "But if something happened to you... I would have to be the one to tell her, and I couldn't do that. I..."

"I know, Snips, I know. And thank you."

"For what?"

"For being there when I needed you the most."

Anakin rose to his feet and held out a hand towards her. "Now come on, my former Padawan. We have to have a look at the Mynock if she is to be ready in time."

"So you are going to use her?" she asked, and her old Master nodded in reply.

"Yes, and you will like the plan. Come on, let's walk over while I fill you in."

The rougish smile on his face and the way he'd said the words made her be certain that she wouldn't. And she turned out to be right, but at the same time it was just the thing Anakin, even this wiser, far more responsible Anakin, would do. And it might just work.

What was now officially her shuttle was parked with the other military craft that couldn't stay in orbit forever, on a rocky plateau about two kilometres away from the settlement, and soon the two of them were within her bowels. Even as they removed, rerouted and generally moved many of the systems especially in the lower systems bay near the dorsal hull around, Anakin continued to fill her in on what hat happened at the meeting.

According to Senator Organa, there was a faction within the Imperial Senate that used their status and position to help organize cells that would one day resist the Empire. In the core Palpatine had a far tighter control of things so they had to proceed slowly, but apparently on the Rim, Imperial control was far more limited. Of course that wouldn't remain so, as the Senate had been 'persuaded', read, ordered to approve a further increase in the Fleet budget to clamp down on piracy.

Knowing what he did from various sources, Organa had gotten the sense that Palpatine was looking towards keeping the outright Rebellion as well as many CIS holdouts in t he region a secret for political reasons. That certainly made sense, as his New Order was based on, well, keeping order and if he admitted that many sections of the farther reaches of the Empire were in open rebellion that would hurt his position.

Which also helped to explain why he had been so eager to search for an apprentice. With Anakin not available and even a Sith not being able to be in two places at once...

"But one thing that bothers me is this: Why is he keeping up the Palpatine act? Why not openly move around as a Sith?" Ahsoka asked as she lugged the focusing assembly for a laser cannon past the compartment where Anakin was working on some actuators. He came up out of the bay and wiped some gear grease off his forehead, not realizing that his dirty fingers only made it worse.

"I've been thinking about that as well, and my theory is that he either doesn't feel secure enough to do it or he thinks the Palpatine persona is too useful for it. I mean compare him how he is now, still the Grandfatherly Emperor who reluctantly took the throne when seditious Senators and the Jedi Order betrayed and nearly dismantled the Republic. Never mind that this entire narrative is so full of holes I could fly Fearless through them. Do you imagine that could work if he was openly a Sith?"

Ahsoka considered what he'd said and then nodded. "You're right, Master. If he did that, then he'd have to stomp down even more unrest against his rule, and if what the Senator said is accurate, he can't do that right now."

"Exactly. And he doesn't care that we know, because if we trumpeted the news around, no one would believe it. At least not those that weren't on our side already. It pains me to say this, but people haven't suffered enough yet for us to have a realistic shot at defeating him. Not yet."

It wasn't as if Ahsoka liked what he said, but she was forced to agree. At any rate, she knew that the longer Palpatine was distracted elsewhere, the longer the Remnant had to build up Sanctuary, recruit more beings to the cause and generally become all the nastier. Deep in her heart she knew it would be years, if not outright decades before the rebels were strong enough to openly confront the Imperial Fleet. Right now the Republic Navy consisted of two outright warships, three freighters that were being modified into armed merchant cruisers, two-dozen armed shuttles such as this one and a wooping dozen starfighters. Not much, all things considered. While Sanctuary was now able to just so feed itself and re-charge energy cells from the freigher full of carbonite-frozen Tibanna they'd taken two months ago. But beyond that...

Anakin was right again. And he was right about their desperate need for those supplies.

"Eventually though."

She readjusted her load and carried it to where it was needed. Over the next hour the two of them were busy putting everything together the way they wanted to. Anakin insisted on working on the engines once they got back, and for once Ahsoka agreed. All the extra toys they were installing not only drew a lot of power from an admittedly limited powerplant but also weighed a lot. While Anakin had managed fiddle with the power core enough to produce enough power and then some for the new systems, mainly by swapping out substandard parts for those he'd taken off an Imperial light freighter that was too damaged and thus used for parts, but the basic engine assembly was beyond his means at the moment. Until that was done, the Mynock would be slower and more unwieldy than before, but Ahsoka felt that the retractable blaster turret under the nose, the upper spinal laser turret that now actually worked and traversed twice as fast as the manufacturer said it could. All with modifications that would have been hideously illegal in the Old Republic but that were now accepted practice, within and without the Navy.

"We are in for a long fight, Master." Ahsoka said after running status checks on the nose turret, speaking as if no time had passed since that conversation.

"That we are, Snips. But unlike during the War, the Jedi are going into this one with seeing eyes, knowing just who and what our enemy is. If we had done that before Geonosis, then things would be different."

Ahsoka didn't reply. Her thoughts went back to her adventures during the war, and once again to the Temple bombing. In hear heart she had forgiven the Jedi, Master Windu's humble and obviously heartfelt personal apology had seen to that, but there was one thing she wanted to know, but would probably never find out for certain what had made a certain former friend turn to the dark side. The speech she had given during the trial was nothing more than exactly what Palpatine had spewed since taking over, and that was one question Ahsoka dearly wanted an answer for. But Barriss had disappeared during the Exodus, either killed when the 501st had broken into that section of the Temple during the final retreat to the shuttles or... something. It was similar with Master Unduli, who had never made it off Kashyyyk before Order 66, and she was the only one who could have had the answers Ahsoka craved.

Still, she had a new task to perform, and to be perfectly honest, she felt as much at home in this new Jedi Order than she had been in the old one. As much as she had seen and experienced in what Anakin called 'the real world' in the months between leaving and that ambush on Corellia, the Order had changed as well. The inherent sense of serene wisdom and well, knowing that one was always right that had sometimes come across to her when talking to the Council, especially during the trial was gone. Much like Anakin, the Jedi as a whole had been humbled by the experience.

That didn't mean that there weren't those who rejected the changes. While most, and especially the younger Jedi, were beginning to pair off now that romantic attachment was allowed and even quietly encouraged, there was a faction that held true to the old ways. Most of them blamed Anakin for what was going on with the code, but when confronted with their concerns and dislike of him, he had only shrugged and said that the lack of this sort of dissent was what had led the Jedi on the path towards the Exodus. Some had reacted to it with the want for reform to keep it from happening again, and some were clinging even closer to what remained of the only life they knew.

"How can you be certain?" she said in answer to Anakin's earlier statement.

"Well, for one I wouldn't have been so convinced that the entire Order would act against me if I admitted to being married. And of course we likely would have sensed Palpatine's presence. But beyond that... there is no real certainty in the Force, Snips, not with things like this. When we reach out into it like this, it only shows us what might have been, not what would have been. The universe and the ways of the Force are too unpredictable for that. If we learned one thing from Palpatine managing to evade us for this long it's that. We were too certain that we had considered everything and that our ways were entirely perfect. And never believe that I was an exception to that."

She looked at him oddly, once again struck by the change in him, but Anakin didn't even notice.

"I still think that I am on the right path for the future of the Jedi, but unlike then..."

Unlike then he was open to the idea that he might not be.

A somewhat uncomfortable silence settled over the shuttle's cockpit, and Ahsoka was fishing for a way to change the subject.

"Do you think that we have a chance of carrying it through?"

"The raid? Certainly. After all, it was my idea." he replied with a wink.

Ahsoka smirked, shook her head and went down on her knees to access the underside of the console in front of the pilot's seat. Some things would never change, and in all honesty, she liked it. For all the talk, she knew that he would do his utmost to return to his family. And at that moment, for the first time, she fully, utterly and totally felt a part of it.

tbc

Shorter than usual, but I couldn't think of a good way to make it longer, so I ended it there. I contemplated doing a canon!Ahsoka Force dream sequence, but I've already done enough of those for the time being, and I figure that Heresy!Ahsoka needs to be as old as her canon-counterpart when last seen. Besides, I want to know if the canon variant survives the opening of Season 2 first. That being said, I had to explain several times why I was so giddy in the last day or so and kept humming the Star Wars theme...