Previously on Star Wars: Exile's Journey
After leaving the Jedi Order, Ahsoka joined the crew of a freighter, the Red Drexl. A few days after Order 66, she found herself fighting and defeating a bounty hunter named Koros L'Larr and taking his ship for her own. Now Ahsoka Tano has taken on the persona of Riella Masso, bounty hunter, as a way of keeping tabs on the current hunt for Jedi on the run
So far on her journey she has discovered two Jedi Padawans, one Master, a Verpine mechanic and his tiny droid, a manual labor droid who goes by the name Bollux, and one dark Jedi who had been infected with shards of an ancient Sith holocron, the likes of which she'd never seen before. The holocron contained the spirit and essence of an ancient Sith Lord, and in the end she decided that the only safe course of action was to put the broken holocron into a message capsule and shoot it into the nearest star.
Before she made it into firing range, her ship was attacked by the pirate Hondo Ohnaka, who had a score to settle with the bounty hunter Koros L'Larr. During the struggle the ship jumped to hyperspace and Ahsoka found herself on the planet Korriban. Once the capital of the Sith Empire, it was now a Sith graveyard.
Despite the pirates and the voice of an ancient Sith Lord trying to force his way into her head, Ahsoka, with a little help from her friends, managed to destroy an ancient Sith device, and drive away the pirates at the same time.
Chapter 37
Silence
The feeling of triumph as Ahsoka felt the six trapped souls in the Sith Crystal becoming one with the Force was cut short by the shockwave of the explosion. The Whipclaw shook in the shockwave like a drunken dinko and hit the ground hard. Ahsoka could feel the resounding thump of the rough landing rattle every bone in her body all the way from her toes to her teeth. The landing struts made a strange groaning noise that Ahsoka had never associated with hydraulics before, and once that sound passed, she realized that she could also hear the faint sound of wind.
Apparently the ship still had an air leak somewhere.
Ylenic groaned and rubbed what appeared to be a rising bump on his forehead.
"Yeah, I know, we should install a stick instead of that yoke. Or lower it a few centimeters," Ahsoka said. "Anyone shorter than Koros is gonna hit their head on it every time the ship shakes too hard."
"Luckily for me," Ylenic replied, "the bruise cannot be seen through my fur."
"Bollux? Nat? You guys okay?"
"My servos seem to be properly calibrated," BLX-5 said.
"We got tied up by pirates," said Nat. "And you blew up an entire canyon with a single thermal det. That... was... awesome!"
Ahsoka laughed, "Yeah, well, next time I'll try to wait until we're a little farther away. I think I made some more repairs for us to do. And I don't want to stay on this planet any longer than we have to."
Out of the cockpit canopy, she could see Arc heading towards the ship. Through the force, even through the dark side haze that surrounded the planet, she could sense Jyssa and Mirian. They had been closer to the blast than either one probably would have liked, but they were all right.
"Wow," Ahsoka said, "Everybody made it out okay."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could still feel an angry presence. As long as that holocron existed, Darth Nadir was still alive. Or at least, he existed. Alive might not be the right term for Nadir.
"Grife, kid, what did you do?" Jyssa said as she looked at the landing gear of the ship. "I've heard of bad landings... but this takes the ryshcate. I mean, fluid leaks happen with hydraulics, but not from there!"
"Hey, don't look at me," Ahsoka retorted. "Ylenic was the one at the controls."
"Yeah, and you're the one who blew up the kriffing canyon!"
"It's not my fault! Hondo's guy said that the det was on a thirty second timer."
"Yeah," Jyssa said, "well it looks like you tore the leak open wider than it was before, and one of your landing struts is frozen until we replace a part, and the other one is leaking from something that's supposed to be leak-proof."
"I think we can patch the leak. I'm just worried about the drag from the one that's stuck. I don't want to leave the ship here. I don't want to come back here if we don't have to."
In the back of Ahsoka's mind, she heard a familiar voice. "You still tell me your desires... little fool."
Using her bounty hunter persona mask to protect her eyes from the glare of the arc welder, Ahsoka sealed the metal sheet around the leak. Over the hiss of the welder, she could hear the sounds of another, larger weld on the other side of the ship. She could see Bollux's mechanical legs, braced on the rock to hold up the heavy metal patch. Next to him were a smaller pair of humanoid legs. Bollux was helping teach Nat how to weld.
Which meant that Ahsoka was going to double check the weld before they lifted off. It needed to be air-tight.
"So you really think that you and your merry little band are going to leave this planet?" said the voice of Darth Nadir in her head. "That's almost... cute."
"I destroyed your power source," Ahsoka said back to it. "The worst you can do is taunt me."
"Oh, the whole of Korriban is my power source. So much power here, concentrated over the millennia. You destroyed my trophy, nothing more."
"So why is it that your hold on me feels weaker? Why is it that your voice is so much quieter? Ever since I left that cave, you've been unable to toy with my perception. You really should use your last few hours to make peace with yourself."
"Peace is a lie. The greatest lie of all. There is only passion. And my passion will consume you and your false peace, and save me."
"Pfft," was Ahsoka's only response. "Quiet, you. I'm trying to weld. Delicate work."
"I do admit that splitting my attention has left me with a lighter grip on you," the voice continued droning on. "But when your friends turn on you, and you have to kill them to survive, it will be well worth the effort."
Ahsoka paused for a moment, and reached out with the Force. She could feel the broken darkness in the nose of her ship, where the message capsule lay in the torpedo tube. But the dark energy of the world around her made it impossible to find the threads in the Force that connected the broken holocron to herself, or anyone else.
"Checking up on me, are you?" For the first time since Ahsoka had broken out of the Sith cavern, the bubbling laughter came back. "Oh, you know what you'll find. Absolutely nothing. Even without a body to call upon the Force with, I am more powerful than you will ever be. Your false peace will always lull you into tranquility, and then we men of passion and power will take what is rightfully ours. It has happened without fail in the past, and will continue to happen."
Ahsoka finished her weld, and she watched for a moment as the metal cooled enough to stop beading up into fat droplets. "There is no emotion, there is peace. When I am at peace and the Force flows through me, you don't stand a chance."
"And yet, I'm still here." Ahsoka could practically feel the long dead Sith's grin in the back of her mind, "Your peace has always been a lie. You are a woman of action. A woman of impulse. Imagine what you could do if you gave in and let your impulses rule you. Why, you could even become as powerful as I... if you were willing to let go of your silly Jedi ways."
"Tried that once. It didn't take," she said as she ducked under the nose of the ship. On the other side, she said, "You two have this patch under control?"
"I believe so, Mistress Tano," replied Bollux.
"Ack!" Nat yelped as a drop of melted metal started to crawl down the side of the ship. "Yeah, I got it! Just don't distract me."
Ahsoka laughed, "Sure thing. I'll be inside with Ylenic."
She walked around the ship to the ramp, then headed back to the cargo bay where she knew Master It'Kla was meditating to recuperate from the bump on his head. Maybe someone a little older and wiser would have some advice on how to deal with the ancient Sith Lord in her head.
She paused to open the door to her cabin, and used the Force to call the ancient Jedi holocron she'd found on Dantooine to her hand. Maybe the long-dead Master Lestin would have some advice as well.
Author's note: Thanks for the support while I was working on my other project! I didn't quite finish the book itself, but I still got 7/8ths of the way through the book (My outline had 16 chapters, and I finished chapter 14), and ended with 71,011 words. Which is more than enough to 'win' NaNoWriMo, and more than 20,000 more words than I've written for Exile's Journey.
I've still got to finish the book and do some rewrites on the sections I wrote very fast before I can start looking for an agent or publisher, but I do genuinely hope to get my book published. In the meantime... back to the daily grind for the serials I was neglecting last month! Hopefully I'll be able to churn out a full four chapters of Exile's Journey this week, and I should be posting another chapter of Saving Christmas: Slay Bells on JukePop Serials before Wednesday.