Chapter 4: Different Ways – part 2
Somehow they had achieved a landing in one piece, but then they had decided to shut down all devices, including Huyang, to cover up their disguise. Their ship was not going anywhere soon.
It did not take long for the two women to hear the engines of two ships passing by the air above them, disappearing and reappearing in their search soon. They sat them out amid a forest of red leaves.
Sabine used the table at the common room of their T6-shuttle to sort through her things in her bag and prepare her weapons. As she exchanged the loaded battery into her blaster to put the weapon onto her belt again, next to Ezra's lightsaber, she was painfully aware of being watched by her crossed-armed female Togruta master. She turned to put in the near-to-empty battery into the rechargeable box on the wall. With a grunt and an annoyed exchanged of looks with her grey-dressed master, she returned to the table to rummage through her bag again, slowly emptying it as she did not find what she was looking for.
While watching the young Mandalorian women, Ahsoka had to remind herself of the Jedi teachings to stay calm because Sabine's agitation to fill the room was more than enough. Ahsoka realized that being a teacher herself now, she tried to train Sabine a path she herself had not walked until completion and in some parts even abandoned. But at least she knew where to start. Ahsoka could only admire Luke Skywalker's commitment to teach a next generation the ways of the force. He never had any direct experiences from the Jedi Temple, always relying only on his insights and some rare secondary sources, including herself. For all what happened, having survived Order 66, Ahsoka also saw a chance in the situation Luke was in. There had been dark hours with hunted memories for herself, and sometimes they kept returning, where she would have been grateful for blissful oblivion. Although even Luke had his old share of burdens, him being the son of the former executor of will of the Galactic Emperor, and herself being just the former apprentice of the same person.
Luke and I do not share the same memories and education, but we do share a similar burden, she contemplated. The burden of the incidents on Mandalore add to the relationship of Sabine and me. It would have been easier if Luke had taken in Sabine, but Sabine had declined in her restlessness to find Ezra. So have I for being bound to the promise we made. Ahsoka sighed and decided to end Sabine's searched. She stepped to a panel on the wall, pressure-released the lock before the shelf and reached into it. With a wink of the Force, she closed the panel afterwards as she stepped beside her padawan to lay the deactivated and sheated hilt of a vibro knife onto the table.
"Is it this you are searching for?" she calmly stated.
"Ah, yes" and a hastened "thank you" before Sabine even looked at her. There was still a stressed out look on her face, her body stance still distancing from her despite Sabine's reaching for the hilt to put the weapon into her waistband behind her belt.
"Their ground base must be near," Ahsoka said. (Ahsoka s1, ep 4, ~2:32) "I think we can risk it now."
"Sounds good." Back into action again, Sabine's voice sounded less anxious.
Ahsoka activated Huyang again and Sabine did so for the backup of the ship systems. Huyang immediately went into work for a check-up and localization of repairs.
Turning to Huyang, Ahsoka said: "Try to send an emergency call to Hera. Sabine and I are outside to scout for our opponent's base."
"The two of you, stay together and be careful out here", the droid returned and the two women nodded, before Sabine put her motley Mandalorian helmet on.
Sabine and Ahsoka ran through the red-turned wood of fall toward the supposed destination of their enemies' operating point to be confronted by the veiled fighter from Corellia and a blonde woman soon. Both women, Togruta and Mandalorian, halted with a sudden stop.
The latter of their opponents stated subliminally: "Going somewhere?" (ibid, 13:43).
Sabine immediately began to shoot at the woman, who yielded away from them, while the veiled fighter ignited a red two-opposite-bladed lightsaber from a half-circled hilt to confront Ahsoka.
Well, so far for Huyang's advice for not being separated, Sabine thought as she ran after the blonde one and tried not to loose the sight of her opponent by keeping her busy with blaster shots, which the blonde one dodged or casually blocked with her orange lightsaber.
Sabine shot again, and the blonde woman jumped behind a tree, came around it and met Sabine to cut her blaster into two useless halves. One half sizzled to the ground, the one half in her hand she threw at the blonde with an out-breath without hitting. Before Sabine could inhale again, her stomach was met by a foot and she lay on leaves on the ground, gasping for air and extracting her right, empty hand in a defensive pose, trying to will something to happen that could change this situation. That only resulted in an awkward moment of realization that both women stared at each other, with her opponent in the higher, more favorable position and with her lightsaber of orange glow in hand. Sabine realized that she had not the opportunity to grab the weapon on her belt, Ezra's lightsaber.
"You have no power." the platinum blonde haired one stated with satisfaction (ibid, 23:22).
Well, that hurt in an ambiguous way. It made Sabine think of her former home, Mandalore. But the sentence also spurred her other, older instincts.
I should postpone other person's expectations and rely on what I know about myself. The thought came as a feeling from her tensed instincts during this life-threatening fight. Although her opponent meant to emphasize her helplessness, Sabine was reminded that she was not without options. Instead of a thrust of the Force from her directed palm, she lowered her hand and let flow the explosive tightened to her Beskar vambrace which connected with the blade of her opponent's lightsaber. The blonde woman parried the projectile, which sizzled into dust, but the pressure of its blow drew the weapon out of her hand.
"How pathetic", the other woman purred exaggeratedly and stretched her arm to draw her weapon by the will of her Force power back into her hand and ignited it again.
Sabine used the time to stand up again and step by step, she achieved a greater fighting distance and reached for Ezra's hilt hanging on her belt, as she was attacked again with an orange flicker of a half-swing, which she tried to dodge at first.
Are we both holding back to test the other one's boundaries? Sabine thought in a flash as she blocked her opponent's next orange lightsaber blow with the Beskar steel of her vambrace. Her other hand let go of Ezra's hilt and switched to the more familiar. Without having to look, Sabine used the focused concentration of this blocking momentum to let her free hand draw the vibro knife from its sheat stuck from the inside of her belt and stabbed forward with the same arm. As her blocking arm and the opponent's blade moved to their sides from the pressure, her knife found a gap of her opponent's amour laces and dipped into the body. Suddenly, the lightsaber deactivated with a whooshing sound and fell to the ground.
Sabine stood freely and the other woman crouched before her feet, her vibro knife in the side of the abdomen. Somehow that felt like a satisfying compensation for Sabine's own near-death experience after the two of them last encountered. An urge arose in her to complete this satisfaction. Sabine was all too aware that this woman before her likely knew more about Ezra's whereabouts and that even Sabine's master had tortured the magistrate before to learn more of the matter.
The blonde woman reached for the hilt of the weapon in her body. "You will not …" while she slowly started to extract it, something thudded to the ground beside the lightsaber before Sabine could even react. White smoke rose and blurred Sabine's vision, even with the helmet on. Instinctively, she took two steps back and reached for Ezra's lightsaber to activate it at last. Its green light added an eerie atmosphere to the fog. Sabine strode the blade defensively into thin air. With her free hand she reached for the infrared eye on her helmet to adjust, yet no one was there to be detected anymore.
Sabine waited a few moments longer until her breath calmed down a bit, staying alert for a return of the platinum blonde one or for any sound. Still no movements to be seen, but she heard a strained, muffled cry from her master and fighting sounds from afar. Sabine decided to run back to her, having Huyang's words well in mind all the way.