Previously on Star Wars: Exile's Journey
After leaving the Jedi Order, ex Jedi Ahsoka Tano joined the crew of a freighter, the Red Drexl. After a year of working as a mechanic and copilot, suddenly the Republic fell and the Empire rose in its place, and she found herself fighting and defeating a bounty hunter named Koros L'Larr and taking his ship for her own. Now Ahsoka 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 joined up with not only Jyssa Motla, captain of the Red Drexl, an injured clone trooper who now goes by the name Bryn Arc, but also three other Jedi on the run, two droids, and a Verpine mechanic.
Ahsoka and her new Padawan, Nat Tina, followed a lead on rogue Jedi activity. They discovered that a mysterious informant has been leading pirates in the area on seemingly unrelated missions, and he has been taking parts from the pirate hauls that could be used to construct lightsabers. An old pirate acquaintance, Hondo Ohnaka, pointed her towards the once-lost planet of Wayland to find the mysterious Force wielder.
Chapter 53
Facial Reconstruction
"No," Ahsoka said, "his eyes were a little narrower."
"Like this?" ZT-47 modified the image in his display.
"No, they were a little... flatter on top. I don't know how to describe it." The droid updated the facial model again and she said, "That's pretty close. Probably close enough to search through the crime databases, see if it shows up anywhere else. I'll plug you into the Whipclaw."
"That is so primitive. I feel like an astromech." ZT-47 said, with a slightly petulant tone to his tinny voice. Ahsoka had never heard a droid whine before. Although there were plenty of times that she recalled Anakin's old protocol droid, C-3P0, coming pretty close. "Can't you have Master Xho override the system to allow me to communicate wirelessly?"
"Sorry," Ahsoka replied. "The Whipclaw's last owner was a little paranoid. You can't hack the computers if you can't connect to them. And I think I'll need that extra security too."
The young Jedi walked into the hangar bay, where there was no artificial gravity. The faint sound of blaster bolts could be heard over the humming of a lightsaber. There were several faint pings, followed by the sound of the saber deflecting the bolts. Suddenly there was a hiss of breath.
"Ow," came her apprentice's voice from above her. Or at least, he was above her current orientation. She looked up at the ceiling of the hangar bay to see Ylenic It'kla, former Jedi Master, sitting cross legged in midair, Ahsoka's apprentice, Nat, was floating nearby with his lightsaber out, and between them darted a tiny globular practice drone. "That one got me right in the wrist. I almost dropped my saber."
"You were doing well," Ylenic said, "until you became overconfident. Your overconfidence blinded you to the Force, and a mishandled lightsaber can cost you a lekku if you're not careful."
Ahsoka kicked off from the floor and floated up to the top of her ship, the Whipclaw. She held up the large datapad that housed the consciousness of ZT-47. "Zete and I finished the facial reconstruction. I want to know who this guy is."
Nat shut down his saber and floated closer. "He doesn't look so tough. I think you can take him."
"That is a face I have not seen in a very long time," Ylenic said.
"Wait, you know him?" Ahsoka said incredulously.
"I am afraid so. This is the face of a Jedi who has been missing for a very long time. A Jedi who foresaw the Clone Wars and secretly worked to prepare the Republic for them. This is the man who ordered the clone army in the first place." Ylenic took ZT-47 from here and swiped his hand across the screen, rotating the three dimensional image of the man Ahsoka had fought. "I will have to smell him to be sure, but this appears to be Master Sifo-Dyas."
"That's impossible. He went missing years ago. If he was still around the Jedi would know about it. That's... crazy. Could he really have hidden from the entire Jedi council?"
"He was not the only Jedi to go missing in the time leading up to the Clone Wars," Ylenic replied. "Master Vergere disappeared while investigating an anomaly in the Outer Rim. The dark side clouded much, and the Jedi Order was slowly losing its way."
"I thought the official report said that he must have been killed. Master Plo Koon found his lightsaber in a shipwreck." Ahsoka buried her face into the palm of her hand, "Which would completely explain why he needs parts to build a new one. Sorry, I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake."
Ylenic nodded, and Ahsoka couldn't help but notice that in the negligible gravity, his fur moved a split second later than his face did. It made for an odd ripple effect when he moved. "This still leaves many questions. Master Dyas was renown throughout the Jedi Order for his ability to see the future. He foresaw the conflict that would require the clone army ten years before the Clone Wars started. What else did he see that made him disappear like this? And what else did he see that made him come back now?"
"Well, I can guess where he's been all this time," Ahsoka said. "A little backwater planet that nobody's ever heard of and isn't on most maps is a pretty good place to hide. I'd bet the only place you could find reliable information on it would be the Jedi Archives. And he had access to them before he disappeared."
"Not to question your abilities, but I believe it may be advantageous for me to travel with you when you go to Wayland. I knew Master Dyas from before he disappeared. I may be of some use to you."
"Not to look a gift dewback in the mouth, but I thought you wanted to bring Mirian back to meet her brother," Ahsoka said.
"I do. She needs time to recover from her ordeal, and meeting family who care about her will help with that. But the Imperial presence on Rudrig hasn't completely gone away yet, so it is not safe to do so at this time. Perhaps if the Red Drexl or the Whipclaw would be going anywhere near Alderaan, I could bring her to meet the rest of her family."
Ahsoka nodded. "I can't imagine Senator Organa would let the Empire hunt any Jedi on Alderaan. That might actually be a safe place for her to be for now."
"Until then, I would like to accompany you to Wayland."
"Having a Jedi Master with me might just help if I have to deal with another Jedi Master. I guess I'll let you tag along."
In the cargo bay of a stolen Imperial Shuttle, the dark-haired man assembled the stolen parts into something coherent. Something that would take energy and give it a coherent form.
He could have had his pick of any number of artificial crystals to use in his lightsaber. But he needed something that was truly his own. Something that would set him apart from the others, the pretenders, and the clones.
The man rolled the black pearl along his fingertips. It was perfectly smooth, he would not find any imperfections. He had forseen that. The perfect gem, the perfect conductor of ionized plasma. How strange that it was an organic process that created it.
He slid the pearl into the open space, then slid the entire electrical assembly into the casing. With a last twist, he added a negative flow couple and connected the dimetris circuit. The blade flared to life with a near-silent hiss. The edges glowed at the very ends of the spectrum of visible light. The blade was black in the center, with the outside edges giving off barely visible flickers of deep red and bright violet. To a race like a Barabel or a Gand, it would have illuminated the entire room in infrared and ultraviolet. But to most near-human species, the blade was nearly invisible. And thanks to the sound baffling built into the hilt, the blade made almost no sound.
Sith Assassins of old had found natural crystals that mimicked this effect, but Master Dyas was no Sith. The Jedi lived in harmony with life, and it was only fitting that his weapon did the same.
It was a very quiet harmony, though. The hum of the blade didn't carry for more than a few meters.
With this blade he could defeat the pretender, the clone that ravaged the warehouse on Wayland. With this blade he could take back what was rightfully his.
In the spacious passenger lounge of the shuttle he stood and started going through a simple Shii-Cho saber drill. Even he had trouble seeing his own blade in the dim lounge. He had gotten too used to the antique cortosis-webbed blade that he'd had to settle for in the last few months, and the feel and weight was completely different from an actual lightsaber.
Halfway through the drill he stopped. It had only been months, hadn't it? He'd lost his lightsaber more than a decade ago. Why hadn't he found a replacement before now?
His memories were fuzzy. Something was wrong. Why couldn't he remember where he'd been, or what he'd been doing?
"It's all right," he murmured to himself, "I'll have plenty of time to meditate and find out what I'm missing when I'm on Wayland. That's the important part. I must get to Wayland."
He just wished he remembered why it was so important to go to Wayland.
