Chapter 56 – Travel Preparations

Ahsoka takes some time to prepare a few more things for their upcoming journey to Coruscant.

Hope you enjoy.

;-

Ahsoka was in the palace with her sister Marina, discussing some more details of their upcoming trip. Her sister was still a bit annoyed at one of the reasons for particular journey.

The Republic had announced a new series of tax laws and rules yet again. It seemed that the longer the war went on, the more 'great' ideas some senators brought up to 'fund' the war. While these new laws wouldn't affect any trade between Republic worlds, it was a different story for neutral worlds. It could cause quite some financial and political annoyance and trouble to some of the existing trade agreements that Shili shared with several Republic worlds, Onderon included.

Marina, being the Senator and Princess, had of course inquired on Shili's behalf as to what it would all mean and what could be done about it. The simple answer that she had gotten back was that Shili could just join the Republic and not be affected by anything.

That answer hadn't really satisfied anyone, so a trip to Coruscant was now needed. They would hold discussions and negotiations there and see where it would all lead to. If it proved to be helpful to the planet and her people, then Shili might also officially join the Republic. Because of the war, they had remained neutral so far, however, that seemed to no longer matter in this war. The Separatists had recently occupied several neutral planets, showing no care for the people of those worlds. Kiros remained an obvious example.

Opinions were divided on the joining the Republic issue. Some were in favor, others were against it and then there were those who were neutral on the matter. There were plenty of advantages and risks associated with this decision. All of that would be discussed once they were on Coruscant. Depending how all of that went, Shili might or might not join the Republic.

Ahsoka was glad that all of the real political matters would be up to her sisters and other staff that worked with them. Marina had told her that they might occasionally ask her for her opinion about some matters. She had of course had some less than ideal dealings with the Republic before she came back to her family on Shili. She knew that some people were a little biased against the Republic because of that and other matters.

Despite the fact that dealing with politics wasn't one of her favorite things to do, she couldn't deny that it was going to be interesting to see how this would all play out. Some senators of the core worlds thought themselves superior to others. They would of course think themselves better than some Togruta as well, but they would learn the hard way not to underestimate her sisters. Their time spent on Coruscant was going to be something else, that's for sure.

"Well, I guess everything for our little trip is taken care off," Marina said as she turned to her sister. "I can only imagine how this is going to go. I have to say, I'm not particularly interested in some of the 'small' talk that several male senators tend to make."

Ahsoka chuckled a bit and shook her head. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Some can just be real creeps and the fact that they're married doesn't even seem to matter to them," she replied. "But who knows, maybe you can find some way to use it against them." She smirked a bit.

Marina smirked as well. "Now Ahsoka, you're not suggesting that I blackmail fellow senators, are you?"

"Blackmail? Oh no, my dear sister. I'm shocked that you'd think that of me. Just think of it as 'aggressive negotiations'," she replied.

They both laughed for a moment. Marina shook her head lightly. Her Jedi sister had shared plenty of stories about her adventures. She then looked at her sister again and grew a bit more serious. "Ahsoka? How are you feeling with going back to Coruscant?" she asked gently.

Ahsoka sighed. "I suppose it will be fine. I've had plenty of time to process everything. Besides, there was something that I wanted to discuss with Master Yoda," she answered.

"Really? What do you want to ask him? You're not suddenly planning to suddenly rejoin the Order, are you?" Marina asked a bit confused.

"No, I wasn't planning on doing that. At least not while this war is still going on. Maybe I'll see about that when it's over and they've changed a bit," Ahsoka replied. "There are just… a few things in the Force vision department that I want to discuss with him."

Marina grew a little worried at that. "More of those bad visions like you had about Kiros being attacked?" The possibilities of what could have happened to their people still horrified her a little.

"Something like that, but it's not about any of us. I just don't know what to make of them, but the nightmares are starting to annoy me greatly and Aisha and mom are starting to get worried. I'm hoping that Master Yoda can help me make some sense of them," she explained.

"I see. Well, I hope that you'll succeed in that. He'd better agree to talk to you. After everything that happened, it's the least he could do," Marina replied, unable to keep a slight trace of irritation out of her voice at the end. She then gained a bit of an evil smirk. "And if they do deny you, we can always go a little behind their back and say that a princess of Shili wants to meet with him simply to discuss a couple of things."

Ahsoka smirked at her sister. "Now Marina, you're not suggesting that I use my status as a princess to trick the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order into a meeting?" she said teasingly. They both laughed for a moment. "Come on, let's get over to the dining room. Mom and the others will be here soon for dinner."

"Oh yeah, let's go," Marina replied as they got up and left the room.

;-

The following day, palace hanger

Ahsoka was onboard her ship, the Radiant Eagle, making sure that all of the systems of her ships were working as they should. Her sisters and their staff were going to travel with a diplomatic transport of Shili, but she and Aisha would travel with her ship. That way, they could travel back to Coruscant earlier, should all of the political matters take longer than expected. She suspected that that might just happen, thinking back to the endless arguments she had often seen in the Senate. "For people that are supposed to be deciding all sorts of matters for the entire Galaxy, they can be worse than younglings," she thought with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

Satisfied with the status of the training area and medical bay of her ship, she moved over to the galley to check the food and drink supplies. While working on a list for supplies, she thought over her Force practice with Daughter.

Daughter's instructions had served her really well. If she had to guess, she could probably overpower the members of the Council in a one on one Force contest, possibly even several of them at once. She only wasn't sure of Master Yoda though, she found it difficult to judge just what the old master was capable off. Yes, just about all of the younglings practice with him when they are little, but obviously the Grandmaster of the Order wouldn't use his full strength against little children.

She was capable of handling more of Daughter's power and energy now. Provided that she didn't try to tap into the full extent of her powers, something like that crane incident with her passing out for several days would not happen again.

She also felt confident that she could hold her draconic form longer now. Although, she doubted that she could truly fight in that form. It would be more suitable for a quick escape rather than prolonged battle. She had done some private practice herself to get a bit more comfortable with the form. If she really had to, she could transform and get out of a nasty situation. She was quite curious to see how fast she could move in that form. Her wings packed some serious muscle. However, she hadn't tried it out yet. If anyone spotted her flying in that form, it could cause some massive panic.

While Aisha knew that she was able to transform into this form, she had decided to not to tell the rest of her family about it yet. Aisha at least understood the Force somewhat, even if she still had a lot more to learn, but the rest of her family didn't. Trying to explain that she could transform into a dragon would no doubt confuse them or freak them out, especially her mother. So, she had made the decision to keep it to herself for now. Perhaps later, once she could control it even better, she would show it to them.

One of the things that she had practiced to quite some extent with Daughter was a way to keep her energy safely restrained. Daughter had explained that the technique was known as Force Shackles. To summarize, they were mental locks that would keep the level of energy coursing through her at a certain level, unless she 'undid' the locks. In essence, it was a simple technique, but it really helped her to comfortably control her powers.

The technique also prevented others from being able to sense the full extent of her Force Powers. That made her a bit more relieved about the upcoming visit to the Temple. None of them would be able to sense just how much power she now wielded. It would no doubt avoid a lot of awkward questions and strange suspicions. Considering how easily the Council had just cast her aside with the whole Temple bombing, she didn't exactly want to know what kind of bizarre fears they would get if they felt the extent of her powers now. She worried that they might somehow think that she had turned Dark to gain more power for revenge, or probably something like that. So, no point in letting them know that she was becoming a Force Wielder.

She figured that she might get some questions about Aisha, but they could easily deal with those. It's not like the Order had a monopoly on the Force, so there was nothing they could do about her teaching her little sister. Especially considering the fact that with them both being Shili royalty, the Council had nothing to say about them.

Master Yoda was already aware of them though, seeing as he had been on Ilum when she had brought Aisha to the crystal cave. She wondered if he had discussed it with the rest of the Council. She figured that they would see once they got to Coruscant.

With her inspection of her ship complete, she made her way off her ship. One of the staff working in the hangar came up to her. She discussed the status of her ship with him, requesting a refuel and the list of supplies that were needed. Once everything was set, she thanked him and started making her way towards the H'Raani M'Kai barracks. There was a matter that she wanted to discuss with Shaden.

;-

Ahsoka sat down with Shaden Zadane, the leader of the royal guard, in his office in the barracks. When she told him that there was a matter she wanted to discuss with him, he had quickly agreed. He knew her well enough to take her seriously in cases like this.

"So, what did you want to talk about Ahsoka?" Shaden asked her. This time, he did not use her title of princess like she had requested of them. In other times, they would occasionally tease her with it, especially since her older sisters had insisted that they address her with her proper title. However, he could tell by her stance and the look in her eyes that this could potentially be a serious matter.

Ahsoka was quiet for a moment as she thought her words over. "You're leading the team that will accompany us on the trip to Coruscant. I just wanted to ask you and the others to keep alert, just in case," she replied.

Considering her Force powers and previous events, Shaden knew not to take her words lightly. "Are you expecting some kind of danger to come to us on Coruscant?" he asked her, already formulating an additional briefing with the team he had chosen.

"I'm not entirely sure," Ahsoka replied slowly. "As our departure date grows closer, I've been feeling an odd warning sensation. At first I thought it was just hesitation on my part to return to Coruscant, but the feeling is still there."

Shaden thought it over a moment. "Do you think there is any threat on anyone's life?" he asked.

Ahsoka shook her head lightly. "I'm not sure, it doesn't really feel like it." She paused a moment, concentrating on the Force. "It… doesn't feel like a direct threat to us, but… I think something might happen on Coruscant that could potentially cause danger to us."

Shaden nodded. "Considering the planet we're going to, it wouldn't surprise me if something dangerous happened. Things seem to happen constantly on that world," he replied. "I'll make sure to tell everyone to stay alert and be prepared for an emergency evacuation should it be necessary."

"Thank you Shaden, that makes me feel a little better," Ahsoka said with a smile. "I'm not sure if anything will happen. The future is really clouded in the Force, making it difficult to see anything clearly. Nevertheless, being prepared never hurts."

Shaden nodded in agreement. "Precisely. I'll get everyone up to speed on this. We won't be caught unaware on that planet," he informed her.

Ahsoka discussed a couple of other things about the trip with Shaden, before saying goodbye and heading back home.

;-

That's the end of this chapter.

A shorter chapter to set up the upcoming events a bit more. Now, Ahsoka and her family will travel to Coruscant. Her sisters have their political matters to attend to, while Ahsoka will go to see Master Yoda about her nightmares. How will everything go with the Jedi?

There is another chapter for Barriss that needs to be finished first, so I'll be continuing with that next. After that, both stories are at the same point in time.

I'm also working on revising my older chapters in between writing the new chapters. I'll probably replace a large bunch of them once they are finished.

Until next time.