Chapter Nineteen
Three days after Ahsoka's sacrifice, Senator Amidala managed to deliver the chip to the Chancellor. Upon delivery, the Chancellor immediately put in the order and rallied a group of shock trooper clones who ended the riot. After a week and four days, it was all over for the stall that held the Jedi Order at bay and even had the Council on its knees. Despite that victory combined with the restoration of the communications center, Skywalker was at a loss for words as to what happened to his Padawan.
When he first met her on Christophsis, he had been very reluctant to take her and had even voiced as much to her and Obi-Wan. Now, she was gone and before her death, he had come to terms with training and even managed to befriend her. Though he was a little more public about how offended he was by her death, it was Plo Koon who took it the hardest. He was the one who had found her as a Youngling and brought her to the Temple, even taking the liberty of raising her for her first few years.
During that time, despite the ban on the formation of attachments, Plo had come to view Ahsoka as a daughter he never had more than his own niece. "Tell me Skywalker, while under you, what did you notice about Ahsoka? Any strengths and weaknesses that might have caught your eye?" Plo asked. His logic for this was that perhaps talking about her to the man who knew her second best after him might help address the grief far more than tears ever would.
"She had a knack for being reckless and impatient from time to time, something I think I kinda helped with. But she knew when it was a good time to activate her lightsaber and fight and when it wasn't," he said, admitting one of his own great faults. "When I first met Ahsoka, I was not only impressed by her connection to the Force but also by her kindness of heart," Plo added. Anakin smiled and knew that that was also true for when she was under his tutelage and asked Plo how he met her.
"How I met her is of no concern to what has now come and gone. But perhaps I have spoken too much already and should be on my way by now," Plo answered before turning to leave. However, Anakin stopped him before he got more than three steps and asked why her. Plo stopped and froze, thinking over how best he might answer that question to the younger human Knight before him.
"During all my travels for the Jedi Order, I have noticed something that Yoda would have one overlook in favor of what he defines as wisdom. He would have you know that the mighty, loud, and huge acts of courage that the Jedi Knights do for the galaxy keep evil at bay. The future of the Jedi Order might depend on those sorts of things for longevity as far as a relationship is concerned but it's not what keeps evil at bay. Instead, it's the little things such as acts of kindness people do to each other each day that keeps the evil of the Dark Side at bay, not the big courageous acts of the Order.
"Why recruit any Youngling if not for Force-sensitivity, who knows the answer to that? But why Ahsoka Tano of all the ones I could've taken back with me that day? Perhaps because even then I was afraid for the future of the Jedi Order and she gave me courage, still does, in fact," he finally said. Then he left Skywalker to think on that while the funeral festivities for his Padawan were concluding at last.
But before Plo was out of hearing range, he heard Anakin say that he wished Ahsoka had never been sent out on the mission. "I wish she didn't have to die," he said. Plo, who also had ill will towards what happened, turned back around, walked to Anakin and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "So do all who live to see such times as this but that is not for them to decide: all you have to decide is what to do to carry on afterwards," Plo stated before leaving for good.
Depa looked out the viewport of the factory and was honestly not impressed by what she beheld before her. She even said as much to her Mistress who had returned from facing several warriors of the extragalactic race Thrawn had mentioned before. "Did he ever tell you what their name was?" Depa asked her. Arden nodded and told her they were called Yuuzhan Vong and though they had managed to send a ship through, Arden managed to persuade the pilot to turn back.
"How?" Depa inquired. "Let's just say my sword and I did a little persuasion when he sent six men against me," Arden replied. "I see Mistress and when do you suppose I should head back to Irkalla?" Depa asked. "You will head to wherever I say when I say it and not a moment sooner, I promise you that," Arden answered, her hologram occasionally making static.
Depa bowed her head and bade farewell to her Mistress in a formal matter and decided to explore the factory. She was going to need to know where she could chase down any escaping engineers now that Pre Vizsla had taught them his Mandalorian secrets. Already, she had to turn around two engineers and kill one older man who tried to escape but turned a blaster on her when he failed. But she didn't just kill him: she deflected his bolts and combusted him before bursting him into flames with the Force.
The powers that Arden has taught me are incredible. It's no wonder the ability to conduct them haven't survived all these years: they're far too wild and dangerous for the Jedi she thought. Pyrokinesis, Combustion, Battle Meld, Lightning, Teleportation, Rage, Enlightenment and even Force repair combined with her skill in Vaapad made her very confident as a warrior. She had a lot of powers that none of her peers knew but would no doubt overwhelm them if they were faced with it.
Plus, she also could conduct Force Destruction when faced with a Clone battalion which would throw them off even further than they already would be. Plus she knew Soresu, Jar'Kai, and even Shien which could all work advantageously if Vaapad failed to defeat a Jedi enemy. Which had her wondering: did Master Windu know she was out and about thanks to Arden? Was he pursuing her and hoping to bring her back under Jedi custody and justice or was he busy with other things?
She had heard of Lom Pyke's ploy in the form of a riot but she doubted that would have stalled him very long if he desired to search for her. Mace Windu was never one to stall around when he wanted to do something longer than he needed to. Where are you Windu? I thought you and I were good friends and you wouldn't want to miss a thing I do she thought silently.
While she could admit that she did feel something for him when she was a Jedi like him, she didn't think it was the sort of thing that would warrant desiring his search for her. Nonetheless, it was fun to mock his character now that she had been enlightened to the true nature of the Force. Had she been enlightened on Haruun Kal or had she been enlightened when she trained with Arden? The woman was a mystery but she had most certainly taught Depa so much since reviving her.
Because of how much she learned, it was no wonder the Jedi had rejected Arden and her husband when they first proposed this new knowledge all those millenniums ago. The years most certainly showed when Depa asked if the two of them would be going after Jedi yet and Arden said no. "For the moment, we'll be patient and see if they come looking for us first, Depa. I have waited so many years to finally have a chance at my revenge against the Jedi, I can wait a little longer," she added.
"But they will learn you have survived all these years, one way or the other and they will come for us," Depa warned. "Precisely why I am counting on it, as we speak, the wheels in my mind are turning. I think we'll plan a little surprise for the Jedi: one where they are the only ones who think we're doing evil deeds but everyone else knows we're doing good ones. We will fool the population into thinking they are violent criminals who want nothing more than to keep the war going so they can remain in charge.
"Much as I hate saying it, the Yuuzhan Vong will come in handy for this sort of operation. Especially if we raked up something that allowed us to remove any evidence of their presence and fool the Jedi into believing we're going on a bloody rampage. They would be the only ones thinking along that trend of thought while everyone else knows that's not true," Arden replied. "And how do you propose to do that, might I asked?" Depa inquired.
"In my day, there were those-myself included- who could manipulate any image we thought into one that gave our enemies the thought we wanted them to have. Meanwhile, everyone else would see the true portrait and wonder what the hell was wrong with that person. It would make them look not only like idiots but also like tyrannical dictators when it came to their point of view on something," Arden explained. She added that perhaps she could learn how to take apart any survey footage, image by image, and use that same manipulation technique as in her day.
"Then I could put all the images back together and while the Jedi would see the illusion, everyone else would not. The benefits of that are that if that fails, the Yuuzhan Vong could be a good team to ally with in the name of galactic conquest," she stated. "Why would we want to ally ourselves with them? They're uncontrollable at best and once they've done the dirty work for us, what's to stop them from also destroying us and ruling the galaxy in our place?" Depa asked, frightened by that idea.
"According to Thrawn's Intelligence units, the Yuuzhan Vong believe that if an outsider challenged their supreme Overlord and succeeded, they could rule them. That could work to our advantage if I decide we do that and they succeed in claiming the galaxy," Arden answered. "Thrawn will suspect treachery from you and if he found out about this, he wouldn't be pleased," Depa warned. "I am more than aware of that, my apprentice, more than aware," Arden said before that conversation ended and Depa was sent to Mustafar.
What was her Mistress actually planning to do with the Yuuzhan Vong and the galaxy that the ladies now lived in? One day, she was talking about how she would use the Yuuzhan Vong as a contingency plan should Maul and Savage fail and the Collective fall under. The next day, she was talking about how she would direct the Jedi toward them and into a slaughter. Now she was talking about how she would make the Jedi think they were doing bad things when the women were actually weren't.
Did her Mistress deliberately do this to confuse her apprentice and throw her off the scent of her true designs? Or was she so maddened by grief for her husband that madness had enveloped her mind thus making her think all these strange things nearly simultaneously? Did the Dark Side drive one to such a toll or was this the working of the Jedi putting her in that trance? If the latter... did Depa also have the building blocks for it that Arden was now putting together with and sometimes for her?
In mere days after the riot, Anakin Skywalker had already been involved in an assassination attempt on Senators Amidala and Clovis. They had been chased down to the snowy mountains of Alderaan where Embo and Anakin had fought in hand-to-hand combat. Though the Jedi Knight won, he tried to make Embo talk on the account of who was paying him to do all this. "Go ahead Jedi, torture me all you like, I don't break deals with those who pay me good money." Embo said.
"I'm not going to torture you Embo and since I know you wouldn't tell even if I did, can you at least direct me to who killed Ahsoka? Maybe they can tell me who is paying you to kill the Senators and paid you to help with the riot that held the Jedi Order hostage," Anakin asked. "Well, my contract didn't say anything against giving away that kind of information. Asajj Ventress is her name and last time I saw her, she was making herself at home on Coruscant." Embo answered.
Anakin couldn't believe the name he heard: Ventress, of all people, was the one responsible for the death of his Padawan Ahsoka. It would most definitely explain the lightsaber marks more than anything else would. "Thank you Embo, I will go find where she's hiding and hopefully make her talk," Anakin said. Hopefully, since she's only loyal to the highest bidder now, she'll tell me who paid her to do it he thought but didn't say.
He still thought it as he tracked down the last known residence of his former nemesis in the Lower Levels of Coruscant. It was when a masked warrior lunged from the shadows and attacked him with two red lightsabers that he was caught off guard. He had not sensed this one nor did he have enough time to prepare for a counterattack until after his lightsaber collided with the other two. However, he caught the look of the hilts at the corner of his eyes and knew immediately that he was dealing with Asajj Ventress.
"What are you doing? You know you're not officially my enemy anymore!" he asked Ventress immediately after pushing her off him. "Do you honestly think that just because Dooku betrayed me, I'm going to forget what you have also done to me? How pitiful is that even for a Jedi," she answered.
"Can you at least tell me who paid you to kill Ahsoka and keep the riot going as long as it did?" he pressed. "If I did that, I wouldn't be good on my word now would I? Even after I end a deal with someone, I never share information about them to an old enemy," she snapped. Looks like I'm going to have to be nasty, sorry Snips but I have to find out who was behind your death Anakin thought before replying with a volley of Djem So strokes.
As usual, Ventress was forced to back down from it and even made it so that she could turn her two lightsabers into the one saberstaff. Even when that happened, Anakin pressed with his attack and he found that soon she was retreating even with the aid of the saberstaff strikes. When she presented her ability to use Jar'Kai and switch to the saberstaff and back, he was impressed. But he was not fazed now that he had an understanding of both styles and had an opportunity to wrap some loose cords around her.
Once he did that, he proceeded to use the electricity in them to torture her, the pain immense beyond even his own comprehension. When he couldn't bare to see any more of it, he dropped her, uncurled the wires, and repeated his question of who paid her. At first, Ventress couldn't say anything since the pain was still relatively overwhelming for her as it would've been for Skywalker himself. Then she started trying to talk though the pain still impeded her oratory, at first.
"Fine Skywalker, if you want the name of the man who hired me so bad... his name is Lom Pyke. He owns the corporation known as Pyke Family, who you may know by their infamous spice runs to the Outer and Mid Rim territories. Though he has properties across the galaxy, he should still be here on Coruscant as I finished talking with him on his home channel, not too long ago," she said, huffing. Lom Pyke... the name sounds familiar but why would he want to create a riot and trap the Jedi at the Temple? Anakin asked himself.
"Thank you Ventress and sorry it came to this, I didn't want to do it but you gave me no other choice. You know that, right?" he said aloud before leaving. He knew where Lom Pyke's fortress was from a previous visit he and Kenobi had paid to the Pyke seven months ago. The man had denied any accusations that the spice sold with his patent had been earned illegally to the point of anger.
Luckily, Anakin recorded Ventress' confession so that he had evidence to show Pyke that he was not kidding around this time. If Pyke cooperated and told Anakin everything, he might be let off with a lighter penalty than he would get if he didn't. That scum is probably one of the most fraudulent bastards in the galaxy after the Hutts and now Ahsoka's dead because of him Anakin reminded himself with anger festering in his heart and mind.
Plo Koon examined the tomb that had been used for Ahsoka Tano's ceremonial burial after the festivities were over. Everyone else was probably asleep or meditating by this time except for Skywalker, who had gone off to find out who killed Ahsoka and who hired them to do so. It was a good time to be alone, beside the tomb of one of his favorite people in the galaxy though she was gone. Having left his lightsaber back at his chamber, he figured it would be best to have some parting words for his Little Soka.
"Koh-toh-yah Little Soka, I suppose being dead, you won't be able to greet me back as once you did," he began, trying to joke and lighten up the situation a little bit. But he sensed there was no getting around it so he decided to just say it as it was. "When I first saw you, Little Soka, I was baffled by the powerful aura I sensed in the Force. I looked down and I saw you which surprised me beyond all end as you turned out to be the source of the aura.
"At first, I was a little too shocked to do much else except kneel down so that you could get closer to eye level with me. And when you reached up to touch my mask, it immediately felt as though I was seeing my daughter or my niece attempting to do the same thing. When the village elders told me that you were the one they had seen performing feats only related to the Force, I was surprised. Do I feel disappointed that your powers might not have metamorphosed into what they could've been?
"No, I am happy because they transform into everything I would've expected them to be even though I must admit that your assignment to Skywalker caught me off guard. Not that he wasn't to be trusted with a Padawan but he was much better doing things alone or with Kenobi than with a stranger. But as he gradually warmed up to you, I knew you would shine under his teachings even if you had adopted his lack of subtlety as I pointed out during the mission to find Boba Fett. You were brave, heroic, beautiful, and most importantly, you never lost the purity of your heart even while under him.
"If I had had a daughter during any time, I would adopt you because there is no one in the Order nearly as unique, mature, and intelligent as you were in your final hours. How many other Padawans would have faced down Asajj Ventress if they had known there was no way to escape her? Who else would have thought to stall her until Senator Amidala's maiden arrived and took the chip from you that Skywalker had given you when they weren't Masters like myself? But even with all this, I fear Skywalker will take your death too hardly with drastic consequences.
"I fear that whoever killed you did it because of a higher power that works against the Order and possibly seeks out downfall as Dooku does now. What this greater power might be, I have no idea and when it will reveal itself is an even bigger mystery. Nonetheless, I fear it carries a vengeance more ancient than any we have faced before: the vengeance of a power older and more terrifying than Sith. Will we survive its wrath or be crushed into oblivion?
"I have no idea but the memory of how you might act in face of this new power gives me courage to stand against it when it shows itself. While you were alive, I hope the memory of me helped you through your most challenging struggles as well," he concluded, the last comment being his most bitter. Then he bade farewell, tears likely to have flown from his eyes if he had stayed a moment longer than he did.
Ahsoka truly was like a little daughter he never had and though Skywalker would likely never know it, her death had hit Master Plo the hardest. But as he continued to walk back to his chambers, he felt a dark power enter the funeral chambers of Little Soka. He hesitated, debating whether or not to return to the chamber and find out what it was and neutralize it if he could. Then it disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived, relieving his worries that something was transpiring in the chamber.
Hopefully, it wasn't that dark power I mentioned doing something forbidden to the body of Little Soka he thought. But to his satisfaction, nothing had indeed transpired in those dark chambers.