Swan Song

"Aurra Sing?" Ahsoka asked. "She's a huge name among bounty hunters. Dooku must have put a massive fortune on your head."

"No," Ventress said. "The official Separatist line is that, when Mother Talzin refused to extradite me for my war crimes, General Grievous routed the nightsisters and personally killed me in single combat. I doubt Dooku believes it, but as long as I act dead, he won't interrupt his war to complete his genocide."

Ahsoka was taken aback. Ventress always seemed grouchy, but the casual way she talked about…all of that…it was heart-breaking? Pitiable?

Ahsoka stored those thoughts away. She could process them later. Keep the conversation moving. "So did you steal your ship from a Hutt or something?"

"Worse," Ventress said. "I double-crossed her son, stole his share of a bounty. She didn't take kindly to that. So she tracked me down, played coy, convinced me to let her on my ship. She can be quite…persuasive. She managed to drug me when my defenses were down. When I woke, I was tied up and my ship was in the middle of hyperspace, headed on a crash course towards Coruscant."

"She…" Ahsoka could hardly believe it. "…I've run into Sing before. She was trying to assassinate Senator Amidala. First time I was ever shot. But I never would have thought she could do something like…that."

Ventress looked confused at Ahsoka's reaction, "Killing me is more evil than killing Amidala? I'd have thought 'Senator-suing-for-peace ranks higher than amoral-bounty hunter."

Ahsoka felt an unexpected stab of annoyance. "You are not amoral. You're trying. That counts for a lot." Ahsoka surprised herself with those words, but knew they were honest. She saw that same surprise mirrored on Ventress' face, mingle with...gratitude? Ignoring the sudden heat in the room, she rushed on to avoid addressing it. "But, I was talking about her method of killing you. Ba—another padawan at the temple, before the war, did the math. If a capital ship hit the planet at full lightspeed, Coruscant would crack like an egg. If a ship this size hit the Jedi Temple, the Chancellor would be dead before he could look up from his desk."

"Grievous wanted to do something like that early in the war," Ventress said. "Dooku refused any strategy with that degree of civilian casualty. He was almost a good man when the war began."

Ahsoka doubted that, but didn't interrupt.

"A tactical droid looked into it. MM-50 told me every planet that could ever afford it has put up defenses against that. Tractor fields, laser grids. If Sing's plan had gone through, the Banshee would have been annihilated eight thousand kilometers before impact."

"And you just claimed a bounty in your own name," Ahsoka thought out loud. "If she's paying any attention, she'll know where we are."

"Where I am," Ventress corrected. "I doubt she knows about you. So while you hunt her down, I'll hole up here in the ship, scanning for unscheduled interstellar traffic."

"You want to split up?" Ahsoka was surprised that her apprehension was related to the mission, and not to the fear that Ventress would abandon her. "It's not like I can sneak up on her; she knows my face. And I'm a togruta, it's not like it's easy for me to blend into a crowd, not on this planet."

"Hmmm…" Ventress considered, "I have an idea that could help with that."

"This is the stupidest possible plan." Ahsoka grumbled through her comm.

Ventress's voice crackled through Ahsoka's new helmet, "Have you lost sight of her?"

"Sing is still scoping out the Banshee, but yes I have lost visual. I can't see anything in this thing."

They'd needed to wait almost two weeks for Aurra Sing to arrive on Corellia. In that time, Ventress discovered that Graballa the Hutt (a very minor cousin of Jabba) had put out an enormous bounty on Sing. Apparently Sing claimed a bounty on a dirty smuggler. Said smuggler happened to be running spice for the Hutt.

Ahsoka did some sightseeing and determined the best sniper nest with a view of Coronet City's spaceport. She then began playing her part, begging on the streets nearby, wearing the helmet Ventress ordered for her. Unfortunately, Ventress hadn't been able to procure a helmet designed with montrals and headtails in mind. So she had improvised.

"Are you still whining about that?" Ventress's voice snapped. "Toughen up. It's the only one large enough to not give you away. And get eyes on the target. This could be life or death."

Ahsoka paused as a young woman paused to drop a credit in her tin, along with some condescending advice on where a veteran Bith might be able to find work around town. The racial slur was almost enough to get Ahsoka to break character.

"That line was convincing a week ago," Ahsoka said when the donator had moved along. "But at this point—she's moving."

"She's what?" Ventress barked. "Where is she? Where's she going?"

"I don't know," Ahsoka mumbled, grabbing the neck of the oversized helmet and adjusting the view of the misplaced eye holes. "There she is. Coming your way. Finally."

"Get into position," Ventress said.

Ahsoka rose from her position, stretched a little to get a prone day's stiffness out of her legs. The street wasn't quite empty; an apparently lost overweight man was wandering by for the third time that day. She'd have preferred to keep a lower profile, but there wasn't much time. She called on the force and leapt directly to the rooftop of the nearest building. She could sense Sing making her way through the mostly empty streets below. Hopefully the old man wouldn't raise any sort of alarm too quickly.

Ahsoka discarded her oversized helmet and plotted her course. She ran across her building and leapt to the next. These inner-city roads were narrow, and it wasn't difficult to outpace the sniper. She charged up a staircase, scaled a flagpole and flipped over a wall. Ahsoka reveled in the chance to stretch her limbs and meld the force's strength with her own.

Ahsoka crouched on the wall above the Banshee's docking space, waiting for Sing to arrive. "In position," she whispered into her comm.

Her comm. Still in the helmet three blocks back.

And she had no time. Sing was in the hangar, rushing towards the Banshee, thermal detonator in hand. Ahsoka didn't know if she had the firepower to destroy the ship, but she was in no mood to find out.

The plan was never that good in the first place. Time to improvise.

Ahsoka launched herself from her perch, landing between Sing and the exit. She ignited her lightsaber. "Drop it, Sing!"

The pale antenna woman pulled up short. "Jedi? What are you doing here?"

"I'm bringing you in. And I said drop the explosive. We don't have to do this the hard way." Ahsoka tried her best to sound threatening.

"Can we do this in five minutes, child? I have some business to finish here." Sing primed the detonator and lobbed it towards the Banshee.

Ahsoka reached out with the force and grabbed the explosive out of the air. She raised it as high as she could in the spare seconds she had.

The volume of the small explosion would inevitably bring the authorities. They would stand little chance against someone as deadly as Sing. This needed to end quickly.

Sing seemed to agree. Both of her pistols had found their way out of her holsters and were leveled at Ahsoka's head.

"I'm not looking for a fight with the Jedi today girl. Back off. We've done this before, it—"

Sing didn't bother to finish her sentence. A hiss of steam and the creaking of metal sounded directly behind her.

"Thermal detonators and blasters?" The explosion had alerted Ventress to Sing's arrival. She sauntered down the Banshee's boarding ramp, lit lightsaber in hand. "I think I like your other toys better."

Sing whipped her blasters around and began unleashing a storm of blasterfire at Ventress.

Ventress darted one way and then the other, dodging most of the attack and deflecting the rest, but Sing's attack was relentless even as the veteran bounty hunter ran away from both Ventress and Ahsoka. She vaulted over an empty crate and renewed her attack, spitting dozens of blaster bolts at the other bald, grey-skinned woman.

Ahsoka knew Sing's offense would outlast Ventress's defense if she did not intervene. All her experience dealing with blasters told her to close the gap and get within striking range to force either Sing's surrender or strike a debilitating blow. But something was off this time. A whisper told her to run. Not to attack Sing. Not to defend Ventress. Not to escape. But to an unremarkable stretch of ground that wasn't even useful as cover from the laser blasts.

Ahsoka ignored her experience and listened to the Force's whisper.

No sooner had she found footing on that ground than Ventress raised her saber, accidentally deflecting one of Sing's deadly attacks directly at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka reacted without thinking, batting the laserfire away.

The shot caught Aurra Sing in the center of her chest. Her eyes went wide, but she said nothing, body limp. Her blasters hit the ground a moment before she did. A spasm in her dying throes, or perhaps the angle of the impact made her finger squeeze the trigger one last time, the aimless shot striking the dirt without effect.