Chapter Twenty-Four: Barriss
Righteous hate and fury simmered deep in Ahsoka's heart on most days. If it hadn't been there, Vader wouldn't have been so hellbent on turning her to the dark side. He wasn't actively trying anymore and seemed to enjoy the challenge of her resistance, but she knew he wouldn't be terribly upset if she did agree to become his Sith apprentice.
Her approach to dealing with the hate and fury she harbored was certainly not the Sith approach. The Sith approach was to get revenge. To tear everything down that might get in the way of that revenge. To destroy everything that might even be remotely responsible for that hate and rage. The Jedi way to go about dealing with it was much quieter. To overcome those feelings and let those feelings go into the Force, never daring to do anything with them.
Ahsoka's approach was a blending of the two. Use the hate and fury to selflessly drive her to something better for the galaxy so no one would experience the things that made her hateful and angry. Use the hate and anger to drive her to something productive that would build something beautiful. The Order would have called it blasphemy. But Ahsoka stopped caring what the Order would say a long time ago.
But right then, staring at Barriss for the first time since the older former padawan framed her, Ahsoka was tempted to take the Sith approach to all this.
The last thing Ahsoka had heard of Barriss Offee was that she'd been in prison for the last part of the Clone Wars. Apparently, after the debacle that was nearly sentencing the wrong Jedi to death for a crime she hadn't committed, the Senate nor the Jedi could afford the PR nightmare of making a mistake again. While Barriss had been convicted at her trial, rather than facing immediate execution, she'd been waiting for an appeal date. Because, somehow, the confession didn't matter. Everyone involved suddenly cared about the quality of the evidence.
Ahsoka and Barriss were friends. What if they'd had conspired together? What if Barriss just decided to take the fall, unable to bear seeing Ahsoka die for their plan? What if someone planted the lightsabers in her room, and she was left with no choice but to defend herself against wild accusations made against her by her superior while he threatened her with a lightsaber? What if it was a false confession under duress because of Anakin Skywalker's actions?
Suddenly, everyone was willing and ready to ask the questions that no one had cared to ask Ahsoka. Even with her name cleared, the stain of being falsely implicated in Barriss' terrorist plot followed Ahsoka that last year in the Clone Wars. There had still been people who thought she was guilty and should have faced execution—even Jedi.
So while Ashoka hadn't gone down for the crime like Barriss had intended, the botched handling of Ahsoka in the matter saved Barriss in a way. Long enough for her to apparently escape custody in the chaos of a violent regime change.
"Ahsoka," Barriss finally said.
Surprise. Shame. Guilt. Timid joy. Those were just a few of the things Ahsoka felt from Barriss as the woman stared at her. Ahsoka wasn't exactly sure where to start with all that.
"In the flesh," Ahsoka finally settled on as an answer.
"They told me… they didn't tell me you were coming. They told me the Fulcrum was coming in person."
"I am the Fulcrum."
It was a simple admission, but one that definitely complicated everything in ways that Ahsoka was sure Barriss was aware of by the slowly dawning realization in her eyes. That her wellbeing lay in the hands of the person to whom Barriss' last act was to frame her for murder. The power that Ahsoka knew this gave her over the older woman gave her little satisfaction.
"You're… You're the leader of the rebel alliance?" Barriss asked.
"Effectively," Ahsoka replied and then raised an eye marking. "What? Expected someone older? Or just not me?"
"Both."
"Sorry to disappoint you then," Ahsoka said in a haughty, shruggish manner. "You wouldn't be the only one. If I'd known you were the Jedi, I would have left you to the inquisitor."
Barriss sighed. "I deserve that."
Somehow, the woman's resigned tone managed only to infuriate Ahsoka more.
"Ahsoka," her agent said from the cockpit before Ahsoka could say something out of that fury, "we've got a problem."
Ahsoka went back to the cockpit. She'd have to deal with Barriss later.
"What's going on?" Ahsoka asked, but a quick look at the computer showed her the problem. "We're being trailed."
"We can't shake him. Whoever it is? They're good."
Artoo made a noise of agreement, and Ashoka groaned. Could nothing just be straightforward?
"They're getting in firing distance. Are the shields up?" Ahsoka asked as she watched the pursuer gain on them despite the maneuvers Jace and Artoo were pulling, trying to shake them.
"Yes," came the reply just as the ship shook with a hit.
"I'm taking over," Ahsoka said as she sat down.
She quickly gained speed, guiding them up into the atmosphere and a raging storm over one of the expansive seas of the planet.
"They're still on us," Jace said.
"I know that," Ahsoka said, directing her agent to activate the limited weapons capability on the ship. She took a deep breath and retreated into the Force to give her calm and focus, to help her put aside her conflict that she was doing this to protect someone she owed nothing. Once Ahsoka set those feelings aside, she felt the presence she'd missed. The presence she should have felt long before even the sensors picked their pursuer.
"Kriff," Ahsoka muttered.
"What?" her agent asked.
"We're not going to be able to shake him."
"Him?"
"Vader."
Her agent cursed as the ship shook with another hit. Vader was really kriffing shooting her ship, knowing she was on it. Because there was no way she could sense him, and he didn't sense her.
"Brace yourself," Ahsoka warned loudly.
"For what?"
They were shot again, enough to blast through their shields and send them into a descent.
"For our crash landing," Ahsoka informed as alarms began to go off in the ship. "Strap in."
She fought to keep the ship as steady as possible while they quickly began to descend through the storm clouds until they crashed into rocky forest terrain. Ahsoka tried to steer them clear of most obstructions as they slowed to a stop, but still the side of the ship slammed into a rocky wall. She didn't have Anakin's expertise in crashing ships, but at least hitting the wall stopped their momentum.
Ahsoka took a moment to collect herself before asking, "Everyone okay?"
"Yes," came everyone's reply.
Ahsoka nodded in acknowledgment as she stood to check on the ship. She didn't smell any fuel or fire, so hopefully, they could stay on the ship for shelter. They'd landed on stable terrain, and she didn't see any immediate danger as she did her inspection, trying her best to use the little plastic coverings she'd found to shield her from the elements.
"I think we can stay here for shelter," Ahsoka said after she told Jace and Barriss about her findings outside.
"What about Vader?" her agent asked.
"If there was any debris from the crash that would lead him to us, the storm is covering it up. Besides, I think Vader's even smart enough to know that his chances of finding us in this storm are slim. He'll wait until it clears up some. That gives us enough time to call someone out here for help. Our communication system should still be up and running. Look at our network and see who's close enough to send a message to so they can get us out of here. Tell them we need them asap," Ahsoka ordered.
"You hope," Jace said skeptically by went back to the cockpit to do as Ahsoka told, leaving her in the room with Barriss again.
If she were still just another Jedi, former or no, on the run from the Empire, Ahsoka might have just decided to ignore her. But she was the leader of not just a rebellion but the rebellion. The Fulcrum. She had a job to do. That was what Barriss was. Just another job, one of many duties she had that took her away from her children. Stars, she had to leave Luke and Leia to save Barriss Offee of all people.
Ahsoka sighed. So not just a job.
Finally, she said, "I shouldn't have said that earlier. About leaving you to the inquisitor."
"You've never been one not to be honest about your feelings," Barriss replied with a sad smile. "To be honest, if I'd know you were the Fulcrum, I might not have accepted the rebellion's offer of assistance at all when your agent found me."
"Good to know we agree on that," Ahsoka commented dryly. "But I've gone through the trouble of coming to get you now. I might have been willing to leave you to the inquisitor, but I'm not cruel enough to leave you to Vader."
"Vader?" Barriss asked. "Who's he?"
Ahsoka wasn't surprised that Barriss didn't know who the man was. Infamous as he was in the circles that knew him and paid attention, glimpses of Vader on the holonet were rare since he avoided the public eye—and that was if you were lucky enough to live somewhere in the galaxy with consistent holonet access. Encounters with Vader were even rarer. Surviving encounters with him were unheard of. It was entirely possible that even five years since the rise of the Empire, a lot of people didn't know who he was despite the ghost stories spread across the galaxy about the "dark monster." Her agents knew about him because she wasn't sending them out to retrieve Jedi without telling them about the chief Jedi hunter. The same line of reasoning went toward why she explicitly told rebel cells hiding Jedi about Vader.
"A powerful Sith that helped the emperor rise to power. He was directly responsible for the attack on the Jedi Temple when the purge started," Ahsoka replied.
"A Sith? The Sith the Jedi were looking for?"
"No. His apprentice. Palpatine was the Sith the Jedi were looking for," Ahsoka corrected.
Barriss didn't reply to that, and Ahsoka wondered exactly what was going through the woman's head at the revelation. In her private moments, when she let herself think about the mistakes of the past that led them to where they were and how she would course correct them, she admitted to herself that Barriss had been right about the Republic and the Jedi. It didn't erase that she disagreed with how Barriss had gone about trying to bring attention to the matter or the anger Ahsoka had towards her for framing her, but she'd been right.
"How do you know all this?"
"I was on Coruscant when it happened."
"So was I. But I didn't know all that."
Of course, she didn't, Ahsoka started to point out. She'd been in prison at the time. But even if she hadn't been, Barriss wouldn't have known that information. The only reason Ahsoka knew it was because Anakin had been trying to recruit her to take down Palpatine and be the next Sith apprentice. Ahsoka doubted Barriss would ever get the opportunity to tell anyone important, but she couldn't be too cautious. Ahsoka needed a plausible way of knowing everything she did.
"You were in prison," Ahsoka said bluntly. "Even if it hadn't been classified High Council business, you wouldn't have known it. The only reason I did was because Anakin figured it out and told me."
"I… what happened? To Anakin? Is he…?"
"He was at the temple during the attack," Ahsoka replied evenly, knowing what Barriss would assume from that. Knowing what any Jedi who knew her and wasn't on Mustafar would assume from it. Unless they knew, they would never fathom that Anakin Skywalker, unorthodox of a Jedi as he'd been, would turn on them. It was unfathomable unless you knew it happened. Just like it had been unfathomable that Barriss, her friend and frequently called an ideal padawan, would bomb the temple and then frame Ahsoka for it. Then again, Ahsoka supposed if you saw it coming, if it wasn't a friend or the person you least expected, it wasn't a betrayal.
Ahsoka decided that she'd more than finished her duty as the Fulcrum and started to leave the other former Jedi again.
"Ahsoka," Barriss suddenly called out.
"What?" Ahsoka said, pausing mid-step.
Barriss hesitated. Then she said, "I'm sorry."
"For what? For dragging me out here to save you? For Anakin being at the temple during the attack? For framing me for your crime? Would you be sorry for anything if the Force hadn't brought us together?" Ahsoka asked. She didn't wait for an answer. "If you think this is a gift from the Force to give you absolution from your sins, then you shouldn't bother. I'm not in a forgiving mood. Haven't been for a while now. So here's what happens today. I get you out of here. We drop you off somewhere in relative safety where you can hide, and the rebellion has nothing more to do with you."
Vader must have been rubbing off on her. That was something he would have said.
…
Kriff.
Vader.
Suddenly, this was a lot more complicated than keeping another Jedi out of Vader's hands. One thing that Vader retained from his previous Jedi life under the name of Anakin Skywalker (along with all his other darker traits) was his possessive and protective nature. As a Jedi, though, he'd had a strict moral code and tenants that he'd loosely—but at least attempted to—adhere to that kept him from crossing too far a line in his desire to protect and avenge the people he deemed his own. But Vader crossed that line long ago. And while Ahsoka's alliance and relationship with Vader was complicated on the best of days, Ahsoka did know that he thought of her as one of his own people. He always had. Even when they spent two years apart, being pissed off at and hating each other, he did. It was the only reason that while he only barely tolerated her, he didn't seem to have ever wanted to kill her. If he'd wanted to kill her, he'd never had heard her out back on Sheba. He'd never have been interested in taking her on as a Sith apprentice. He'd never have decided to continue to entrust his children with her.
Ahsoka wasn't sure whether that sense of her being his own was out of old sentiment that he'd never admit to or the fact that he seemed to gain genuine entertainment from her. Either way, if Vader figured out that Barriss was the Jedi he was hunting, there would be no safe place in the galaxy for the woman once he started to track her. She'd be a personal vendetta. He'd stop at nothing to avenge Ahsoka and give Barriss the punishment that she'd almost managed to falsely doom Ahsoka to and still managed to avoid once she had been revealed. Despite Ahsoka's own darker feelings toward Barriss, she'd keep her word as the Fulcrum and keep Barriss out of the dark lord's hands if she could help it.
"You get in contact with anyone?" Ahsoka asked her agent as she went to the cockpit, the need for an extraction even more urgent now.
"Yeah. There's a cell nearby. Running a mission to Milagro. I diverted them here. They're an hour out."
It was too long. The Force told Ahsoka so before her agent had confirmed it. She sensed the dark chill of Vader's presence coming closer and cursed herself for being so naïve as to think that a little wind, rain, and thunder might stop him. He'd dueled Obi-wan on a lava river for stars' sake.
"We've got to get out of here," Ahsoka determined.
"But the extraction will be here in—"
"Vader is going to find us long before that," Ahsoka said as she went to where Barriss was and through her a plastic rain cover from their supplies. "If you want to avoid Vader, we need to move. Right now.
Barriss didn't argue with her, putting the plastic on and following Ahsoka and her agent out the ship. The rainstorm, while nowhere near completely dissipating, was letting up, and Vader's dark presence moved quickly towards them. Even if they didn't stop, he'd catch up with them before their ride came.
"You two go ahead. I'll catch up."
"Catch up?"
"Vader's coming. I'll hold him off. Come get pick me up when you've got our ride."
"Hold off Vader? General—"
"That's an order," Ahsoka cut in. Her special agents were a strong-willed group of youth, as only people that Diya liked enough to get on board could be. Thus, she rarely gave them a directive that left no room for argument or interpretation or gave them strict orders. So when she did give them, especially in what Breha had teasingly begun calling her "general's tone," they tended not to argue.
Her agent sighed, but nodded and began to retreat. Artoo and Barriss did not.
"Ahsoka," Barriss said.
"This is a really fine time to start caring about my well-being, Offee. Don't make my coming out here in vain. Get out of here. I can handle Vader," Ahsoka said. "Now either you go willingly, or I stun you, and he carries you. Your choice."
Something Ahsoka said got Barriss moving. Artoo stayed behind, letting out a short string of beeps and whistles.
"On a scale of one to ten of pissed off? I'd say about a hundred."
The next string of beeps and whistles dropped an octave.
"I'll be fine. It's not me he wants to kill."
Artoo made another series of low octave whistles. Ahsoka sighed and patted the droid on the head.
"I know. But even if he forgets that, I won't let him. Now go make sure Jace and Barriss get away," Ahsoka directed.
Artoo nodded and activated his rocket boosters to catch up with Barriss and Jace.
The three were just disappearing over the ridge to a better pickup point when she sensed Vader's presence totally take over her senses.
Ahsoka turned to face him, an unimpressed expression on her face that she wasn't even sure he could make out through the wind, rain, and slowly darkening sky.
"Ahsoka."
Ahsoka knew that tone. It was a warning.
"Vader," she replied.
Vader wasted no time in getting his demand across.
"Where is Barriss Offee?"
AN: My intention was to update this yesterday, but things came up. School things.
Anywho, I really wanted to touch on was how Ahsoka would have been perceived had she not decided to nope out of the Jedi after Barriss confessed to the crime, and how Barriss might have been treated differently because of Ahsoka's botched case. It happens all the time in the real legal and criminal world. People proved innocent but the stain of a criminal accusation having a longlasting impact. The public thinking that just by virtue of being accused, you're guilty. Then there's the fact that Ahsoka and Barriss were friends. There would have been many, even among the Jedi, that thought she'd managed to get away with murder. The incident plausibly would have followed Ahsoka at least for a few years, if not the rest of her life, even though she'd been exonerated. It's sad in canon that she left, but all things considered, it really was the best choice she could have made. Either that or, as is implied here, she would have stayed and become even more of a maverick Jedi than she already was in the canon.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Review please!
