Chapter 5: The Insurgency
18 BBY- 1 Year after the Rise of the Empire
Ahsoka has a dream that she's standing in front of the Crystal Caves on the ice planet Ilum. She's a youngling again, and Master Yoda has just told her to go and search for her kyber crystal. The ancient, iced-over door towers over her, frozen and terrifying. It's a door that probably doesn't exist anymore.
She races inside of the cave, because the sun is setting and time is running out. If she isn't fast enough, the ice will crystalize over the door once more, and she'll be trapped inside, lost to space and time. She'll become a legend used to scare younglings. A myth of a ghost who didn't find her crystal in time and now haunts the tunnels of the cave to this day, searching and searching and searching for what she never found.
Inside, the cave is black and twisting and silent. No crystal calls to her, and she runs further and further into the caves, searching, frantic. But then, an unexpected calm washes over her, and suddenly, she's years older, as old as she is now, and it only makes sense because it's a dream and everything makes sense in dreams.
Her footsteps slow until she's still, facing the dark stone of the cave wall. She reaches out and brushes her fingers against a crack in the wall. It fractures at her touch. It shatters, and comes crashing down over her, crushing her and suffocating her and ripping the air out of her lungs. All around her, the kyber crystals of the cave cry out with agonized, tormented screams.
"Master!" she cries out, a plea for help. Dust and blood turned to mud cakes her lungs and she feels the weight of each stone pressing in on her body.
"I thought I taught you better than that," she hears Anakin's voice, and he's looking down at her from between the cracks in the falling rocks. His deep blue eyes stare down at her scornfully. Then he changes, and it's Master Yoda again. "Everyone knows you can't touch the caves at Ilum," he says, which isn't true at all, and it's still Anakin's voice, and it's weird and messed-up and shouldn't he be speaking his sentences backwards? "Even a droid with half a brain knows not to touch the walls of the cave, and droids don't even have brains." He shakes his small and hairy green head in disdain.
"I'm sorry!" Ahsoka chokes out, fighting for air. The crystals are still shrieking and she doesn't know how to shut them up, and even though the Force is practically pulsing like thunder out of her palms, the stones of the wall keep crashing down, sending blood spurting up through her lungs and out of her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Ahsoka startled awake and jolted upright in her bed, sweat dripping down her back and something wet trickling down her cheeks.
With a strangled gasp, she realized she was crying, and choked on it.
She hadn't cried in years. Jedi weren't supposed to cry.
"It's alright, it was just a dream," came Rex's voice, low and tender in a silent whisper against her neck. It's only then that she was aware of him on the top bunk with her, arms around her, holding her close. "It wasn't real." His hands were rough and his grip tight, as though he was trying to pull her out of whatever hell she was waking up from.
"Rex… I'm okay, I'm fine," she managed to say, shoving the hiccups back down her throat. Her voice sounded weak and small and she hated it.
Hearing her words, Rex slowly released her and leaned back, hands still hovering near her shoulders just in case. He stared at her, and in the dark of the room, Ahsoka realized the glint in his eye was fear. Stress came off of him like swells in a sea. She could feel it in the Force.
"I'm okay," she said again, more to herself this time than to him. She forced her voice to stop shaking but has less luck with her hands, so she fisted them into the sweat-dampened sheets that lay twisted around her. She could not tolerate such weaknesses.
"You're okay," Rex said softly, and she wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement.
She took in a trembling breath and closed her eyes.
After finishing up with the last ship they'd been paid to fix, Ahsoka and Rex headed over to the cantina. The walk was silent, as usual, but Ahsoka's mind was busy thinking about the ventilation system on the ship. It was a Class-580 freighter that was a bit rickety and falling apart at the seams, but still working for the most part. The pilot's main complaint had been that the cooling systems in the cargo hold had broken and that the temperature was stuck at -4˚ Celsius, freezing all of his cargo and rendering it unsellable. Ahsoka had personally dug through every wire and cord under the panels, looking for the source of the problem, and hadn't found it. It bothered her like a mosquito that kept buzzing in your ear but kept coming back whenever you tried to clap it in your hands. "The ship's probably just too old," Rex had told her, but she planned on going back to dig deeper at first light next morning.
Now that the sun was setting, the air was starting to cool down, and a pleasant breeze slipped past Ahsoka's back. She still had grease stains covering her arms and she was pretty sure it was somewhere on her face, too, but Rex had practically dragged her out of the innards of the ship to come get dinner with the crew. "I'm not hungry," she'd protested. "And I don't care," he'd deadpanned in return. He eventually got her to come with. Maybe she sulked about it a bit, but she still came.
The two stepped into the cantina, greeted by bar music and loud conversation. It wasn't hard to spot their friends in the back corner, seated at their normal table. They were playing another game of crokin. As Ahsoka and Rex approached, she noticed the pieces on the board happened to look a lot like the structure of the town itself. In fact, it almost looked like the lines of the Imperials' main office, the trooper barracks, the order of their AT-STs…
Rex flashed his arm out and wiped the pieces off the board, beating Ahsoka to it, and sent the temporary battle map scattering.
"Hey! What was that for?!" Kolvin said angrily.
"Are you stupid?" Rex fumed, taking a seat.
Kolvin glanced toward Chenna and Banji. "We were just—"
"We know what you were doing," Ahsoka cut in, scowling, "and the Empire isn't that dull. If a pair of storm troopers had walked in here…"
"We'd be blindfolded, lined up, and shot dead," Rex finished grimly, his voice lowered.
It was enough to scare the three of them. Ahsoka watched as Kolvin swallowed and Chenna tucked a strand of hair behind her ear nervously. Good.
"They're right," came a stern voice. They all turned to see Vartan standing behind them. "You were being foolish. Don't be again," he warned. "My farming crew is no good without any of its farmers."
Chenna bit her lip nervously. "But what about our fields?" she blurted suddenly, then hastily added in a whisper, "they're going to ruin them!"
Ahsoka raised a brow. That was new information. "What do you mean?"
The older girl gulped and sat back in her seat. Next to her, Banji straightened her back and her gaze darkened. Ahsoka found it disconcerting that she suddenly seemed so much older. "We overheard them—one of the officers," she began quietly. "They're bringing in a new crop for us to plant. It's why they came here in the first place."
"Well, what's wrong with a new plant?" Rex asked. "Raada's got plenty of farming space."
"It's not just any plant," Kolvin added bitterly, "it's a tasteless nourishment-packed starch they'll use for storm trooper rations."
Rex and Ahsoka looked at each other. "I'm… familiar with the crop," Rex began evenly, and Ahsoka knew that by "familiar", he meant "had eaten it on many a battlefield", and so had she.
"The Republic used it during the Clone War," she said carefully.
Chenna shook her head. "No, no, not that one. That crop is outdated. They used to farm it over on a neighboring moon. This isn't the same plant," she corrected, and Ahsoka suddenly felt stupid for trying to tell a farmer about farming. "This one's much worse. It sucks up all of the nutrients from the soil and leaves it useless for any other crop after just one harvest!"
"How do you know all this?" Vartan asked, and Ahsoka suddenly remembered he was there.
"Chenna and I overheard it with Hestu when we were walking near their office building," Banji explained. "Hestu said he'd heard of the new crop and what it had done to other agricultural moons like ours when he purchased stuff for his general store."
"And that's why they even bothered with us in the first place," Kolvin muttered. "They think we're just some useless rock that can be used and thrown away."
"That can't be right," Vartan said, shaking his head. Ahsoka and Rex glanced at each other once again. They agreed silently that what Chenna and the others were saying could easily be entirely true. Ahsoka wouldn't put it past the Empire to exploit a small moon like Raada. They could do whatever they pleased, including planting a crop-killing plant, harvesting what they need, and leaving the population to starve in the remaining dust. Raada was tiny. And in the Empire's eyes, it had a population that wouldn't be missed.
"We have to do something," Kolvin declared. He picked up a crokin piece and inspected it. "Maybe not like this… but something." Chenna and Banji nodded next to him. Even Vartan seemed to be giving in.
In the seat to their right, Hedala was unbothered, focused instead on finding out how small she could break the pieces of her cracks into.
"You're right," Ahsoka said rather abruptly, surprising herself and Rex, who swung his head around to gawk at her.
"We'd have to gather more information first, but…" Vartan concurred, furrowing his brow, "we could poke back at them a bit. A little rebellion, if you will."
"Rebellion is a big word, and not one you want to use lightly," Rex warned angrily. "There's no such thing as 'a little' rebellion. It only goes in one direction, and that's an insurgency. And with the Empire, insurgency only leads to one result: failure."
"It would be very risky," Ahsoka noted firmly.
"We could fight back," Kolvin protested. "We could get them out of our home!"
"Lower your voice!" Vartan said sharply. Like a scolded child, Kolvin nodded and lowered his head. Vartan took a deep breath before continuing. "Rex and Ashla are right. It would be very dangerous. Too dangerous," he looked at Banji and Hedala, "for young children."
"I'm not a kid!" Banji pouted. "If I can use a farming hoe, I bet I can use a blaster."
Ahsoka, Chenna, Rex, and Vartan all opened their mouths just to tell her how wrong she was, but Kolvin went on before they could.
"But what else are we going to do?" he argued. "They've left us no choice. If we let them carry out their will, they'll destroy our fields and leave us with nothing."
"You cant—" Rex started, but his jaw slammed shut as soon as a handful of off-duty storm troopers walked in the bar. They took off their helmets, chitchatting, and went to get some drinks.
Their table grew silent. Ahsoka checked the crokin board once more just to make sure it didn't resemble anything of the Imperial compound.
"We'll meet tomorrow night," Kolvin decided, his voice a whisper. "We'll go to my house after the work day ends. We'll talk there."
Everyone at the table nodded slowly, except Rex, who's frustration was cemented into the lines of his sharp features. Grumbling to himself, he gripped his drink with white knuckles and forced himself to take swig. He shot Ahsoka a glare that said "we'll talk later". She rolled her eyes and took sip of her own.
"Well, well, look what the blurrg dragged in," rasped a voice from the bar. The crew all turned to look at the commotion. It was Tibbola, a local Gotal farmer. Everyone knew he was a mean drunk who didn't know how to keep his mouth shut after a couple drinks. It wouldn't be the first time he'd bickered with someone in the bar, but it would be the first time he picked it with a storm trooper. And this, of course, only made it infinitely worse.
"You got something to say, farmer?" one of the storm troopers jeered. He slammed his drink on the table and strode arrogantly towards Tibbola. The troopers behind him snickered.
Ahsoka instinctively reached for her belt, but before her hand even reached her hip, she remembered what she was looking for wasn't there. She glanced from the trooper to Tibbola before eyeing the blaster on Vartan's hip.
"You Imperials show up here and act like you own the place," Tibbola rattled angrily. He hiccupped once in his drunken stupor. "We don't need some core-slicker bucketheads telling us what to do around here."
Kolvin and Chenna shifted uncomfortably next to each other. Clearly, Ahsoka thought, they were conflicted, catching themselves in agreement with the drunk for once. Everyone was watching now. Even Hedala, whose big brown eyes stared up fearfully at the soldiers in white. Chenna put an arm around her and tugged her closer.
The trooper, at least a foot taller than Tibbola, towered over him menacingly. "That's because we do own the place, outer-rim scum," he gibed, getting into his face. "We're in charge, now."
Tibbola spat down onto his dusty white-plastoid boot.
That's it, Ahsoka thought. Her hand moved for the blaster on Rex's hip, but he was faster, and he grabbed her wrist.
"Not wise," he murmured, and she knew he was right. But her blood was simmering under her skin. It wasn't in her to stand by and just watch, even if he was just a mean drunk. No innocent deserved death.
"Clean it," the trooper snarled. He jabbed a gloved pointer finger towards his boot.
"Not on my sorry, farmer life," Tibbola sneered.
The trooper snapped. "That's what it will have to be, then," he seethed. He raised his arm high, aiming for back-handed blow.
Ahsoka jumped to her feet, tearing her wrist free of Rex's grip, ready to kick away the trooper's hand and step in to be the mediator.
Vartan was closer. And faster. He shot up out of his seat and caught the trooper's elbow in a firm hold, throwing him off guard. The trooper tried to shrug him off, but Vartan's grip was tighter.
"Please excuse our drunk friend here," the older farmer said evenly, eyeing the trooper carefully. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."
"It sure sounded like he did," the trooper retorted, trying and failing again to shake off Vartan's grasp.
Vartan ignored him. "We'll pay for your drink as an apology, then you can be on your way. Tibbola was just leaving, anyway," he added shortly, casting a sideways glare at the drunk. With an irritated grunt, Tibbola grabbed the rest of his bottle and sauntered out of the cantina.
With the nuisance gone, Vartan released his hold. He dug in his pocket before pulling out some credits. "For you drink," he said placidly. He put the credits on the counter.
The trooper scrutinized him for a moment as though pondering his offer. But like any good enlisted soldier, an offer of a free drink was too much to pass up. "Fine," he yielded, swiping the credits off of the counter. He stuck his chin in the air before turning to go back to his buddies. "Just make sure you keep a better eye on your 'friend' next time."
"Of course," Vartan obliged, but the trooper had already given him his back. Sighing, Vartan returned to their table.
"What was that about?!" Kolvin hissed as soon as he sat down.
Vartan looked past him, reaching for a bite of food. He seemed tired. "Doing the right thing."
The Rodian scoffed. "What, so you're not only going to let them destroy our fields and our homes, but you're gonna pay for their drink, too?" he stormed. "Why don't you just let them stay at your house, while you're at it? In fact, why not just let them sleep in your bed? Or how about—"
"You watch your mouth, boy," Vartan warned, slamming a fist on the table, making Kolvin and everyone but Rex flinch back. "I'm the lead of this farming crew, and I can just as easily kick you off of it if you continue to act like this. You would be wise to follow my example and bridle your tongue."
"Vartan's right," Ahsoka found herself saying. "You don't have much of anything to go on, yet. Just rumors. And where you're at now, you can't really try to stop them. Be a mediator, not an instigator," she finished, recalling Master Obi-Wan's words as they slipped unchecked through her lips. She could almost picture Anakin rolling his eyes in the background as he lectured them.
"What's an instigator?" Hedala asked in a small voice, breaking them all out of the severity of the moment and reminding everyone she was still there.
"I'll tell you later," Banji said to her. The younger girl reached a protective arm around her little sister and drew her close.
"Fine," Kolvin conceded bitterly. Ahsoka relaxed a little bit, and next to her, Rex did, too. Now, they knew he wouldn't run off and do something stupid without thinking. At least, not yet. "But as soon as the workday's over tomorrow…" he trailed off. He took a swig of his drink. "…my place. We'll meet there and figure out how to deal with our… problem."
Rex gave Ahsoka a wary glance. She knew he was thinking of the cave they'd yet to explore outside the city. She stared at her empty hands sitting in her lap, pensive. The urge to meditate pricked against her spine. She needed to think. Hard.
"If we are not careful," Vartan said lowly, "this could very well be the end of us."
"It will be for sure if we do nothing," Kolvin answered. His blue-flecked eyes darkened, and with a cold shudder, Ahsoka remembered the twinkling crystals in the cave in her dream.
He swallowed the rest of his drink and wiped the corner of his mouth with his knuckles. "So we might as well go down trying."
It is just so like me to get carried away, write seven chapters, then go off to work for the week and forget to upload even just one of them. Anyway, there's more coming soon, kids, don't you worry.