Chapter 43
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"You think you can get it off his belt, kid?" Arc's voice came over her com unit, even though she knew he was only twenty or thirty meters away.
"Yeah, just let me concentrate." Ahsoka was sitting on a bench. The purple grass on the commons stretched out in every direction, but the closest building was the dormitory that the Imperials had temporarily taken over to house their troops while they sorted through the historical archives. They chose it because the next closest building to where Ahsoka sat was the library, and it had a secure basement. The basement was where they had moved the artifacts and archives.
In front of the dormitory were a pair of clone trooper guards. Through the Force, Ahsoka reached out. She could feel both of them, so very much like the clones she knew and had worked with. And yet, if she revealed herself to them, their immediate response would be to open fire and call for backup.
She felt something small and flat hanging from both of their belts. With a gentle nudge in the Force, one of them unclipped from the trooper's belt and gently floated up above their heads. It drifted in the wind, looking like a leaf floating on the breeze, until it came down into Ahsoka's hand.
"Got it."
"Okay," Arc replied. "I'll be coming by in thirty."
She was him walk around the corner. True to his word, almost exactly thirty seconds later he passed her, and as he passed she used the Force to gently float the keycard across the distance between the park bench and the paved walkway that led to the dorm.
He walked, with an obvious limp, making it look like the damage he'd sustained from his injuries extended to his leg as well. They'd managed to find a black jumpsuit that looked almost exactly like the one that clone troopers wore under their armor, and to help cover up any minor differences, they'd staged this little event to take place at dusk. It was too dark for the troopers to see well, but still too bright for them to switch over to night vision of any kind.
"KT-427, reporting for duty," Arc said as he saluted the guards. He was doing his best Concord Dawn accent, trying to blend in. "And glad to be back on solid ground."
"I didn't know any of the KTs were out of the medical bay yet. Welcome back, sir," replied one of the guards.
Arc dropped the salute and nodded to him. "I think I'm the first one out of the bacta tanks. Until they clear the debris out of that section of engineering, they figured they'd send me down to do some easy work. Spectral analysis on some of the artifacts is a lot easier than moving broken pylons."
Xho had hacked into the records on the Imperial ship, and found that in one of the clean-up operations against the remnants of the Seperatists, the ship had taken damage and an entire group of clone engineers had been injured or killed when a section of the ship was hit by a torpedo. Arc hadn't been happy about impersonating another clone, but he knew it had to be done.
"You'll have to talk to the desk officer about getting a room assignment. I think the only open rooms are on the top floor, but with your limp you might be able to get someone else reassigned up there and take the ground floor."
"I need to get back on my feet, so to speak. I'm not afraid of a few stairs."
He slid the keycard and went inside. Now Ahsoka just had to wait, and be prepared to rescue him if something went wrong.
Exactly how she was going to rescue him without giving away that she was a Jedi, she didn't know. For now, she just had to trust that Arc could blend in and come out with what they needed.
While she waited on the park bench, a Human couple with a small child walked through the commons. The couple embraced briefly, and the woman and the child wandered towards Ahsoka's general direction, while the man split off and headed towards the dormitory.
Stretching out with Force-enhanced senses, she could hear the man say, "I have an appointment with Captain Merkona."
One of the guards nodded, "I'll let him know that you're here, Administrator."
The man waited patiently outside the door, while the child ran around not too far from Ahsoka, under the supervision of the woman. When the woman got closer, Ahsoka saw that the woman was a little older than she'd expect from a woman with a small child, but she still managed to trail after the hyperactive youngster and keep an eye on him.
Ahsoka's attention was drawn back to the dorm when the door opened again and a man in a Navy uniform stepped out. The uniform looked the same as what Ahsoka remembered, but the Empire had only been in existence for a short time. It was possible that new uniforms simply hadn't filtered down this far away from Coruscant.
She strained her senses to hear what was being said.
"Ah, Administrator Phanan, a pleasure to meet you," the Captain said.
"Captain," the man held out a hand. "I wish I could be here under more pleasant circumstances."
The Captain shook the Administrator's hand and replied, "Please, there's no need for formality. I understand that you have a grievance to address?"
"I do. As the Administrator for the fifth quadrant of the University of Rudrig, the people who work for me are my responsibility. I must dema... ask that you release Professor Feedle from custody. I do not know what you think he may be guilty of, but I assure you that he is a simple academic."
This piqued Ahsoka's interest.
The Captain sighed and looked down. "I am inclined to agree with you, but unfortunately with the sudden betrayal of the Jedi Order, anyone associated with the Jedi in any way is suspect. I am afraid that until we can prove that he's not a threat to the Empire, we cannot release him. So far every sign we have indicates that what you say is correct. Hopefully he will be released within a few days as the innocent man that you believe he is."
"The Rudrig government has voted to join this new Empire, but the paperwork has yet to be signed. If it gets out to the public that the Empire is holding our citizens without probable cause, that could create enough unrest to derail those proceedings." The man looked the Captain in the eye and Ahsoka could feel through the Force what he was going to say next.
So she reached out in the Force and touched the Captain's mind. He was strong willed, but sympathetic to the Administrator's cause. Ahsoka spoke quietly, reaching out, trying to instill the words into the man's head.
In unison, Ahsoka and the Administrator said, "Professor Feedle is not a threat to anyone. He must be released immediately."
"You're right, Professor Feedle is not a threat to anyone," the Captain said, "We will release him immediately."
Ahsoka let out a heavy breath. That was not nearly as easy as Master Skywalker and Master Kenobi always made it look. If it had been a stronger willed Captain, or one who wasn't already sympathetic, it wouldn't have worked.
As the Captain turned and walked inside, she noticed another presence near her. She turned to see the small child, a little boy looking up at her.
"Hello," she said.
He stared at her for a moment, then said, "You're really pretty."
"Um... thanks?" She was good with younglings usually, but she didn't know this child.
The child ran up in front of her held out something in his hands. "Look what I got!" he squealed as he held it up right in front of Ahsoka's face.
Whatever it was, it had a black carapace and way too many legs. And the entire bottom half of it didn't have any kind of shell, so it was pale and squishy there. It reminded Ahsoka of how Mirian had described the disgusting giant rachnid she'd fought on Susevfi.
Ahsoka laughed, "That's gross, kid. You should let it go so it can grow up to be bigger and grosser."
The little boy grinned at her, still holding the large squirming bug in both hands. "Nuh-uh!" he said. "It'll spin a cocoon and get prettier. It's grosser now!"
"Ton, leave the poor lady alone," his mother said as he put a hand on his shoulder and steered him away from Ahsoka. "I'm so sorry, ever since he discovered that most people don't like bugs, its made him like them even more."
Ahsoka laughed, "Well, we're on a university planet. Maybe he'll become a galaxy-famous entomologist some day."
"Nuh-uh!" he said, "I'm gonna be like my mommy. I'm gonna cut people open and get paid to do it!"
Ahsoka laughed again, "You're a vicious little guy, aren't you?"
The child's mother covered her face in her hand and shook her head, "I promise," she said, "that I am not a mass murderer. I'm the Chair of the Surgical department here in the fifth quadrant." She picked up her son and gently performed an insect-ectomy from his hands. "And right now I am mortified."
"It's okay," Ahsoka said, "I've had to teach a class of sixteen seven year olds. I'm used to it."
She thought it was best if she left out the part where all of the students had practice lightsabers.
The woman walked off carrying the small boy, who waved frantically at Ahsoka as they walked away.
Ahsoka spent the next few minutes chuckling to herself about the incident, until a clone trooper with a familiar sense in the Force came out of the dorm. The trooper deftly dropped the borrowed keycard behind the guard it had originally come from, and he walked down the walkway past Ahsoka. Giving him a few seconds to walk out of sight, Ahsoka followed.
The first step they needed to be able to infiltrate the library and steal those records was done, they had a full set of armor for Arc.