Precipice by shadowsong26

Reunion: Chapter 10

Darth Infernalis may have been primarily a blunt instrument but, despite what that might imply, he was not just dumb muscle. His Master wouldn't have tolerated him this long if he was. And he had, to a point, learned how to be subtle in the years since joining the Sith. A blade, as Sidious put it, rather than a hammer. It didn't come naturally to him, sure, but he was capable.

But all his talent and hard-earned skill didn't necessarily guarantee success, especially not when tracking down possible offworld connections for some idiot's attempt to kidnap his Master's brat.

Oh, there were petty insurrections and insurgent cells that had taken advantage of the sudden shifts in security procedures-plenty of them, all over the galaxy. The problem was, none of them seemed deliberate. They were all, on closer look, acts of impulse, or, at best, pre-existing plans that were accelerated to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity.

The only thing that really stood out in all the noise had been an explosion in a warehouse, on an otherwise unremarkable Outer Rim planet. It didn't necessarily seem any more connected than anything else he'd uncovered. The insurgent cell was a little more organized than most, but it still felt opportunistic, rather than deliberate.

On the other hand, the explosion had destroyed yet another classified shipment for the project Infernalis supposed he should probably care about. The one Tarkin seemed to care about a great deal. So, he felt like he should take a closer look. Yes, yes, he had an assignment, one he technically should still be pursuing until his orders changed, but-

Well. His Master did, on occasion, give him his head. And if this incident, or something he uncovered there, did prove to be valuable, all would be forgiven.

There might even be Jedi survivors involved. There were some hints that pointed to that, based on the preliminary reports from the stormtroopers who had been on site, but he couldn't know for sure until he got a closer look. Besides, Jedi involvement would explain why Infernalis was drawn to this particular incident-even if it made it even less likely that it was directly connected to his official mission. All propaganda aside, to Infernalis' knowledge, Jedi didn't typically kidnap seven-year-olds.

And if there were Jedi involved-well, it wasn't Skywalker, he didn't think. This wasn't particularly his style. But he had known associates, and there were still a few other survivors scattered around who occasionally poked their noses into Imperial business.

Worth a closer look, anyway. Especially since it had been a while since he'd last tangled with someone really worth his effort.

Of course, if he didn't run into any fugitives, there was probably plenty there to interest him. For one, Infernalis didn't particularly like Tarkin, and poking around in his business (within certain boundaries, of course; he wasn't yet interested in interfering with his Master's plans) seemed a much better use of Infernalis' time.

Particularly after the call he'd gotten this morning from one of his contacts on Coruscant, advising him that there had been an attempt to breach ISB's mainframes at around the same time as the would-be kidnappers had struck. That seemed a much more likely secondary attack, but Infernalis wasn't in position to do anything about it. Even if he had been present, there wouldn't be much for him to do-the thief had been shot and killed by the agent who caught him. Something which probably meant Sidious was not best pleased with Tarkin, who had been in charge of the planetside investigation, after all.

And that, well. That certainly improved Infernalis' overall mood. Jedi involvement or no, finding any evidence of further failure on the Grand Moff's part, in that context-and, in so doing, potentially keeping Tarkin out of favor and increasing his own status in his Master's inner circle-was an excellent plan.

So, he abandoned his pointless search and set out to see what he could find.

To Ahsoka's relief, she and Jyn and Rex made it safely back to Saw's base without anyone else getting shot. The rest of the cell was still trickling in, singly and in pairs; so, after treating Rex's injuries, she settled back against the cave wall, where she would be out of the way, and considered their next move.

Most likely, she and Rex would have to get moving before too much longer, but she was pretty sure they could afford at least a moment to rest. And given how much attention she'd drawn in the warehouse, she wanted to be absolutely sure their exit was as clean as she could possibly make it. That probably meant bolting as soon as they had a path prepared, but it might also mean sticking around and keeping their heads down for as much as a day or two. She wasn't sure yet. She'd probably have a better idea after checking in with Saw.

Besides, Jyn had promptly reattached herself to Rex as soon as they'd finished bandaging him up, and he didn't seem to mind at all. The opposite, in fact. He was showing her something Ahsoka couldn't quite see, but it looked like some kind of semi-dangerous dexterity game from his time as a cadet. Ahsoka definitely saw something sharp and shiny flashing in and out of view between them. They both looked happy, anyway, and Ahsoka didn't want to cut into that until she absolutely had to.

She shook her head and bit back a fond smile; her attention drawn away from the two of them as Saw's heavy footsteps approached and he slid down the wall to sit beside her.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied. "Everyone's accounted for, thought you should know. Some injuries, but no deaths."

"That's good," she said. "Always nice when that happens."

"Yeah, isn't it?" he said, and paused again, his eyes on Rex and Jyn.

"Something wrong?"

He shook his head. "No, of course not. I just wanted to…he saved her, back there. Jyn told me. I don't think that's all of why she likes him so much, but it probably helped."

"I'll tell him you said thank you," she added, with a little grin.

Saw rolled his eyes, and managed to smile back before it faded away, quick as it had come, and they lapsed into another, slightly tenser, silence.

"Spit it out," she said. "Come on, the quiet is worse."

He didn't answer right away but, after a moment, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a muscle on the side of his jaw tighten. "The kid," he finally said. "The one on Coruscant."

Well, that was…not exactly a surprising subject change. He knew more than he'd said before, she knew that for sure.

"Yeah?"

"I know who went after her."

And Rex owes me five credits. Not that Rex had thought Saw didn't know, just that he wouldn't give it up quite so easily. Sure, he was being a little blunter and more straightforward about reading her in than she'd thought he would be, but-well, what had happened between Rex and Jyn clearly meant a lot to Saw. Enough, maybe, to get him to trust them again. Really trust them, not just team up with them for a mission because they were there and skilled and not his enemies.

"How'd you find out?" she asked.

"Didn't have to," Saw said, eyes still on Jyn. "He tried to get me to join him. I told him no."

"Okay," she said. Also not exactly surprising, but still good to know that Saw had balked at targeting a kid over what her father had done.

"It was stupid, for one thing," Saw went on. "His plan-he hadn't done enough groundwork, didn't have the resources or the current, accurate intel he'd need to pull off his primary objective, let alone grabbing a hostage like the Emperor's kid. And even if she was a secondary target-I told him to go after someone that mattered, if he was that set on it. Tarkin is on Coruscant right now, we know that much. Security around him would be about the same, and taking him out would've meant something, in the long run. If, by some miracle, my friend had actually pulled it off."

That made sense. And, honestly, if Saw's anonymous friend had gone for Tarkin instead…

Well, at this point, it wasn't only Ahsoka's personal dislike of the man talking when she instinctively approved of that idea. Probably. She hoped.

"What was the primary target?" Ahsoka asked. "Did he tell you?"

Saw shook his head. "Not specifically," he said. "Just that he was after something on ISB's servers, and needed physical access to the mainframe for it. Maybe the location of a prison, or the identity of an undercover agent, I'm not sure. But he wanted the kid, too, if he could get her. Why, I don't know. I didn't ask."

"Who was he?" Ahsoka asked. "Your friend?"

"Doesn't matter. He's dead by now," Saw said. "Probably. Even if the Empire hasn't made any noise about it, I'm sure his execution will be all over the 'net before too much longer."

Saw probably wasn't wrong there-unless his contact had gotten killed outright instead of captured.

"I'm sorry," she said.

He shrugged. "I told him it was a bad plan," he said. "I told him to think it through and do it right, but he made his choice." He paused. "I will say this for him, though-he had the courage to follow through and at least try to make a major impact."

"Fair," Ahsoka said. "But there's a point where that kind of courage does more harm than good."

"Yeah," Saw said. "I still say more people are too afraid of hitting that limit to get anything done, but I know he blew past it as soon as he went to Coruscant with a half-assed plan like this one. In the end, he screwed up; got his people killed and didn't really accomplish anything. Other than giving us-and maybe some other cells-a window to act on something real. Which, yeah, it's good, but it would probably mean a lot more if that had actually been part of his plan."

"Yeah," she said. "I agree."

He turned to her at last, raising an eyebrow. "Is there a 'but' coming?"

"Not really," she said. "Not in this specific case."

"But?"

Ahsoka considered for a moment, thinking through what to say while she watched Rex demonstrate his knife trick for Jyn again, a little slower.

"This war," she finally said, "constantly puts us in a position where we have to ask ourselves is this worth it? And I find that the answer isn't usually as clear-cut as it probably should have been for your friend. And it changes, all the time, for each and every mission. But we can't always know, when we start, what the answer will be. Especially when you start looking at the bigger picture. Long-term impacts, you know?"

"Was our mission?" Saw asked, looking back over at her.

"As itself? Yeah," she said, because that wasn't really a question. Rex was hurt, but not dead, same for Saw's people, and they'd damaged or destroyed something worthwhile to the Empire. They still needed to sift through the data Jyn and Rex had stolen to find out exactly how worthwhile, but they'd accomplished all their objectives for the moment and the price was more than reasonable.

"And long-term?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Too soon to tell, I think." Because they still needed to sift through that data, for one thing.

"Fair," he said, then shifted gears. "Will you two stay tonight? We'll probably be clearing out in a day or two, once planetary security normalizes again. After everything you two did to help us, you're definitely welcome."

Ahsoka's first thought was to agree-she had been trying to decide whether immediate flight or lying low was the better option, and Saw's invitation pushed her more towards 'lying low.' After all, while the two of them had spent some time cautiously catching up during the hours between their initial contact and the start of the raid, it would've been nice to take a few more. For one thing, that would do a lot strengthen their alliance.

Besides, while the others would be leaving Alderaan around now, the convoluted path they had planned meant that she and Rex weren't due to meet up with them for another two days. This was as good a place as any to wait out the extra hours outside of travel time, right?

But as soon as she made the decision, she immediately knew she couldn't do it. A faint tinge of danger clung to the thought-maybe for her, maybe for Rex, maybe for Saw and his people…it was hard to tell.

What was clear, though, was that the Force was telling her that sticking around any longer than they already had was the wrong decision. Rex had had a moment to breathe and get cleaned up, and she'd had a moment to think and check in with Saw, and now it was time to move on, before someone less friendly found them.

Plus, while Rex had been cleaned up...true, his injuries weren't too serious, and Saw's people had decent supplies, but Ahsoka kind of wanted to swing by Dr. Naar's place on their way to the rendezvous. Just to be safe. There weren't enough hours to stay the night here and see him and make their set rendezvous on time.

So, even though part of her was still reluctant, she shook her head. "We should probably get going."

"You sure?" Saw asked.

"Yeah," she said, and then hesitated for a second, considering the best way to warn Saw of the possible danger. If she was the source of it, after all, the damage might already have been done, back during the fight in the warehouse, or while she was stealing the speeder. She didn't think she'd been caught on camera, but it was even odds she'd missed an angle. Not to mention, they'd left living witnesses-the stormtroopers by themselves might or might not be believed if they insisted they'd fought a Jedi, but if there was security footage backing them up…

Finally, she just went with, "I had to get a little more up close and personal than I liked. It might cause problems for you and your people even if we do leave now, and if we stay…"

He nodded. "I get it," he said. "Look, don't worry about us, we can handle ourselves. And someone had to go in to extract the two of them. Worst case scenario, we've got contingencies for this kind of problem-evac plan or three-but I think we'll probably be okay for a few days."

"I believe you," she said. "Still."

"All right," he said. "You two need any help securing your exit?"

"I think Rex and I can manage, but thank you."

"Sure," he said.

She started to get up, then stopped. One more thing to say, I think. "I probably won't contact you for a while-let the heat die down, you know."

"You can reach out when you're clear," he said, answering her unspoken question. "Don't get me wrong, I'm still not sure about joining your network, exactly, but-yeah, we should stay in touch, at least. See where things go from there."

She nodded, and gave him a brief smile. "Thanks, Saw. And-you know, on a personal level, it was good to see you again. Always nice to run into old friends." Force knows we all have too few of them left.

He smiled back at her, and if it wasn't quite the smile she remembered from Onderon ten years ago, it was a lot closer than anything she'd seen since making contact. Even during the hours they'd spent talking that first night, after their initial briefing. It made him look younger. Not quite so hard.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said. "If I come across anything I think you and your network should know about, is there a way to reach you?"

"Here," she said, pulling out a datastick. "Details for a couple of our dead drops. It'll wipe itself after ninety minutes, so pay attention when you look through it."

He nodded and took the stick, sliding it into one of his pockets. "Got it."

That settled, Ahsoka finally stood all the way up; she caught Rex's eye from across the room, and he nodded briefly and began gently extracting himself from his conversation with Jyn.

"I'll be in touch when I can," Ahsoka said.

"I look forward to it," Saw said, standing up as well.

She grinned at him, and bowed briefly. "May the Force be with you, my friend."

He nodded, and copied the gesture. "Good luck."

As soon as Infernalis dropped out of hyperspace, he knew he'd made the right decision in coming here.

His attention was immediately drawn to a small light freighter, weaving expertly through planetary security and air traffic control.

And, more importantly, to its pilot.

Just as he'd suspected, the pilot was not Skywalker, or Kenobi-but it was the third in their cell, he thought. Tano.

His grip on the controls of his own ship tightened reflexively, as a slow smile spread across his face. He had encountered Tano once before, two months after his first face-to-face meeting with Skywalker. Though he hadn't seen her in person-their prior meeting had been under circumstances not so different from this, both of them in ships, each trying to shoot the other down and live to tell the tale.

But this time, she didn't have an asteroid field to dodge through while she calculated her exit vector and made the jump to lightspeed.

This time, he had her.

Oh, he was looking forward to this.

He felt a slight ripple in the Force; a jolt of recognition spilling out from the enemy freighter. Even better-she would be fighting back when he killed her.

It was always so much more enjoyable when they fought back.

Infernalis fed power to his forward deflector shields and spun onto an attack vector, letting off a quick burst of fire in her direction. He didn't particularly expect this first volley to hit-or, if it did, he knew it wouldn't get past her shield-but seizing the initiative had its benefits.

She flipped, skewing to her port and neatly dodging his fire before returning it.

Interesting- she wasn't the actually one shooting back; whoever was manning the guns was slightly slower, slightly more cautious. And definitely not a Force adept of any kind.

The clone, he decided. The deserter. Good, Infernalis could kill him, too.

On the other hand, having someone with her left Tano clear to focus on evasive maneuvers and, potentially, plotting her escape.

Infernalis would have to end this quickly.

He swung around the deserter's return fire with ease and responded, herding Tano and her ship back towards the planet's gravity well. Two benefits-it made her escape more difficult, and it made it possible for him to ground her, and finish this face-to-face. Bring back her blades, or some other trophy, to his Master.

But Infernalis was nothing if not practical. And he knew he had less than half the experience she did with a 'Sabẻr. Killing her in space combat was a much surer bet. Proof of death aside, that would be his first choice. Still, best to leave that option on the table. Just in case.

Tano swooped and swerved; her gunner only took one in three of the shots Infernalis would in his position. Satisfied with that, that the deserter's slower reflexes and Infernalis' own abilities with the Force would enable him to predict the pattern and evade, he threw all of his own active focus into piloting, ducking and weaving and taking every possible shot he could at Tano's ship.

Every shot he took missed by inches. He growled faintly, fed more power to his forward shields, and closed the distance.

A split second after he'd done it, he realized his mistake.

Tano fed more power than her ship should have had to the thrusters, flipping over him; the deserter fired once, twice, at the rear of his ship; Infernalis scrambled to adjust his shields, absorbing the worst of the blow, but his ship still rocked with the impact.

He brought his ship about-

Just in time to see Tano vanish into hyperspace.

He snarled and punched in her exit vector into his own navicomputer, intent on pursuit- she will not escape me again -and only then noticed the warning light.

The deserter's final shot had taken out his hyperdrive.

Infernalis swore, and slammed a fist into the console.

Control, his Master's voice echoed sharply in his head. Your anger gives you power. Use it, but do not let it use you.

Infernalis took a breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

With discipline, with attention to detail, he refined his frustrated rage; let it power through him without clouding his focus.

Tano and her deserter got away, he thought, letting his eyes fall open again. I can't pursue them now. I will have to deal with them some other time. But I doubt they pulled off that raid on their own. I will find their accomplices. Even if they can't lead me to the Jedi base, slaughtering them has its benefits.

Besides. He would need to find something to do to pass the time while he replaced his hyperdrive.

Now merely simmering, as opposed to boiling over, he headed towards the planet. He would contact his Master with an update and remain here to root out the other insurgents until his ship was ready to leave. At that point, whether he had found and dealt with them or not-well, either his Master would order him to stay, or would have another task for him somewhere else.

As for Tano and the other surviving Jedi…

He would find them again. And again, and again, and again-as many times as it took, until he killed them or one of them killed him.

Between his years in the mines and Sidious' training, Infernalis had long since learned the value of being patient. An opportunity would come.

And when it did, he would be ready.

Original Author's Notes: Happy New Year, y'all! 3 May it be safe and prosperous and happier than the old.

One more chapter in this arc, which I'm hoping to get out either this weekend or sometime early next week! Fingers crossed!

~shadowsong