Chapter Two
It was another remote farming town on another remote backwater of the Outer Rim, so obscure that no one had ever bother changing its number designation on star charts to whatever the locals had decided to call it. All things considered, it was the perfect place to meet someone carrying sensitive information without drawing any undue attention. Of course, Ahsoka still had no idea why all this cloak and blade stuff was necessary when a secure holonet transmission would have been faster, but this was apparently just how things went.
"Rep Intel has its own way of doing things." Marczak had told her. "The rest of us just have to play their games and hope we get what we need."
He'd made that statement with a conviction obviously born of experience, which, when combined with her own limited knowledge of Republic Intelligence, inclined Ahsoka to agree with him.
Marczak stopped the dirty, anonymous looking landspeeder they'd taken into town next to a group of similarly unremarkable vehicles already sitting outside what could only be assumed to be the local cantina from the noise that emanated from the partially open windows. Rip and Niner, newly repainted armor partially concealed under brown traveler's cloaks, quickly disembarked the vehicle and moved for the door of the establishment. Ahsoka attempted to follow, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.
"Hold up a minute." Marczak's voice came from the driver's side.
Ahsoka turned toward the colonel, similarly decked out in the garish colors preferred by mercenary groups, with a questioning look. He looked serious, and more concerned than she'd ever seen him.
"Are you sure you want to go in?" He said. "I won't hold it against you if you'd rather wait out here with Niner."
"What?" Ahsoka was genuinely confused. It had been Marczak's idea for her to come on this little excursion in the first place, why did he suddenly her to wait outside?
"I'm just saying this is a pretty rough place, and I wouldn't want to put you in position that might be… uncomfortable."
"Really?" She snorted. "I've been in a cantina…"
"I'm sure you have." Marczak cut her off, his voice suddenly taking a harsh tone. "But this isn't the Core. Where out on the fringe here, it's more dangerous out here than you know."
"It's just a farming world…"
"And what exactly do they farm?" He said rhetorically, then sighed. "My point is, there's a lot of things that go on in places like this that you might not be prepared for, I need you to promise me you'll be able handle it."
"I can handle anything." Ahsoka said cockily. After all, she was a Jedi and an officer in the Grand Army of the Republic, she'd fought dozens of battles and seen things most people her age never dreamed of. Marczak wasn't even that much older than she was, where did he get off talking to her like she was some youngling who'd never left the Temple?
"I'm serious, Ahsoka." That got her attention. "You need to stay next to me and keep your head down, don't look anyone in the eye, and if there's trouble, you let me handle it. Got it?"
She just nodded, still a little thrown off by Marczak's use of her first name. It's not like she thought he didn't know it, but up until now he'd never called her by it or even said it out loud. Whatever it was he was concerned about, he was deadly serious.
"Good." He said, nodding his own head as if to emphasize the point. "Then let's go."
The two troopers were still waiting by the front entrance when Ahsoka and Marczak got there, trying the best to watch every approach while still seeming nonchalant.
"Everything all right, colonel?" Niner said in a hushed tone, hand subconsciously moving toward the blaster at his hip.
"Just running through a few things with Commander Tano." Marczak said, then gestured to the door as he continued. "Rip, get in there and scope out the back room for our contact. Niner, you wait out here and warn us in case anyone unpleasant shows up to crash the party."
Both men nodded curtly and moved to carry out their assigned task. Rip opened the door, disappearing through it into the cantina. Niner leaned back up against the exterior wall where he'd been waiting.
Marczak and Ahsoka waited outside for another minute before they made their move. He gestured for her to follow as he passed through the door straight into the crowded bar area. The interior of the establishment was, as she'd expected, hot, crowded, and filled with lingering clouds of smoke and the stench of alcohol. She stayed close to the colonel, halting by the door as he looked around over the crowd for Ripper. It didn't take him long to find the clone, waving to them from just outside a curtained doorway at the other end of the main bar area.
Ahsoka looked up toward Marczak, who tilted his head toward where Rip was waiting. She nodded and followed as he made his way through the crowd surrounding the bar and half a dozen game tables that dotted the area separating them from the waiting trooper. The stench she'd noticed when they'd walked in grew worse the farther she went, and was joined by a plethora of other odors whose origins she didn't want to know. It was also loud, with so many voices trying to talk over each other at once that it was disorienting. Worse than the noise, for Ahsoka at least, was the constantly shifting movements of so many beings in such close proximity.
After about a minute of this overload of three of her primary senses, Ahsoka realized that she'd lost sight of Marczak.
Damn it, she thought, where the hell did he go?
She looked around the crowd, but she was significantly shorter than everyone around her, and neither brown cloaks or painted plastoid were particularly uncommon among the cantina's patrons. Deciding there was no way she was going to find him by just standing there, Ahsoka pressed on further through the crowd. Passing the bar, which she hoped represented the midpoint of the room, Ahsoka barely noticed one particularly raucous group of drinkers that stood there.
Until she felt a hand.
Ahsoka wheeled around, bearing her teeth and letting loose a noise that was close to a snarl as her eyes swept over the drinkers in search of the culprit. The offending hand was attached to a male Twi'lek, still drunkenly leering at her with a look that made her want to vomit. She stared daggers at the man, continuing to bare her teeth in what she hoped was a threatening way. The Twi'lek just smiled, showing his own sharpened teeth, and turned to his friends, saying something in a language Ahsoka couldn't understand. As the others laughed, the Twi'lek turned back toward her and took another step forward. Her hand moved toward the concealed hilt of her lightsaber as she prepared teach the drunk and his friends some manners.
"Do we have a problem here?" Said a gruff voice from behind Ahsoka.
She looked back to see that Marczak had suddenly appeared over her right shoulder, cloak pulled back behind his shoulders to expose a holstered blaster and sheathed vibroblade. It took her assailant, drunk as he was, a few seconds to notice the colonel. When he did, he stepped back and raised his hands in a defensive gesture, jabbering something desperately in his strange language.
Whatever he was saying didn't seem to matter to Marczak, who, in one fluid motion, took a step around Ahsoka and launched a powerful right hook that connected with the Twi'lek's jaw. The man's body went limp and he collapsed in a pile, jaw protruding at an odd angle that led Ahsoka to believe it had been dislocated by the blow. For a minute, the Twi'lek's friends were to stunned by his sudden and decisive disabling to move, instead just staring blankly at Marczak. The one closest to the colonel, a Duros, was the first to recover, reaching into his jacket for what was likely a weapon. The alien froze before he could draw, however, when he found himself staring down the barrel of a wickedly powerful looking blaster pistol. Marczak had drawn and leveled his own weapon so fast, Ahsoka had almost missed it. None of the others moved for a weapon.
Slowly the crowd around them grew quite as Marczak stared down the five beings that, by now, must have been seriously rethinking their association with the unconscious Twi'lek. Then, quite suddenly, Marczak started shouting something in the same unidentified language she'd heard earlier, first at the Twi'lek's friends, then to everyone in the cantina. When he'd finished, he holstered his blaster, put his arm around Ahsoka, and started back toward the way he'd come. This time, the crowd parted for them as they went.
"I told you to stay next to me!" Marczak snapped in a low enough voice that only Ahsoka could hear him.
"I lost you in the crowd." She shot back. "This place is disorienting."
"I know, that's why I wanted you to stay on my hip."
"Well then you should have said that!"
"I did… or at least I meant to." He said, then sighed. "I knew something like that was going to happen, you're just lucky I came by when I did."
"I could've handled it!" She said incredulously.
"Without using your lightsabers?"
Ahsoka scowled "What did you say to them anyway?" She asked, trying to change the subject.
Marczak hesitated a moment before responding. "I told them you were my wife, and that if anyone else touched you I'd tear off their arm and stick it in a… sensitive place."
"Ok then." Ahsoka said, unsure how she felt about that. Not that it didn't make sense, it was probably the best thing he could have said, but something about it made her feel weird. She quickly dismissed the odd feeling, chocking it up to the novelty of the situation. This sort of thing didn't happen to Jedi.
Rip was waiting patiently by the door when Ahsoka and Marczak arrived, and waited with further patience for their little argument to end before he finally addressed the colonel.
"Sir" The clone said, nodding slightly. "trouble?"
"Some of the locals had a few to many." Marczak responded, his voice making it clear that he didn't wish to elaborate. "Let's just get this over with."
He pulled the curtain aside and the three stepped into a small, semi-circular antechamber with three doors along the curved rear wall. They made for the center door, Ripper once again taking point into the room beyond.
The first thing Ahsoka noticed about the space, even before entering it, was the smell, even worse than the bar area had been. It was also dark, lit by a single, failing glow rod mounted above the door. But the most disconcerting part by far was the room's sole inhabitant.
"New blood, colonel?" Said the shaggy looking Bothan, seated at a table that was the small room's only furnishing. "She doesn't look like a clone."
"Nice to see you to, Crier." Marczak said, his contempt for the man Ahsoka assumed was their contact quite clear in his voice. He sat down across from the Bothan, motioning for Ahsoka to do the same.
"Come now, colonel, are you really not going to introduce me to your lovely new friend?" Crier said, a sly grin spreading across his face.
The way her day was going, Ahsoka was in no mood to deal with any more shit, especially not from someone she was fairly certain she outranked. But, as she opened her mouth to spit a particularly harsh insult, Marczak put his hand on her shoulder.
"This is Commander Tano," He said with false politeness. "I suggest you treat her with the respect due to a Jedi officer."
The Bothan's grin didn't waver. "Hard to believe a Jedi could cause such a commotion without using her lightsaber."
Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. She was starting to understand Marczak's clear distaste for the Rep Intel agent.
"Just hand over the intel." Marczak said.
The Bothan shook his head disapprovingly as he reached into his jacket. "Impatient as always, eh Colonel?" He said. "You're just no fun at all."
Crier put a datacard down on the table and slid it over to the colonel. Marzcak picked it up, looked it over, then tossed it over his shoulder to Rip.
"Want to tell us what's on here?" The clone said, holding the card up to his eye.
"Tssk, tssk, trooper, you know that's not how this works." Crier responded.
Rip glowered at the Bothan, but said nothing else as he slipped the datacard into his belt.
"Well then," Marczak said, pushing out his chair as he stood "if that's all there is, I think we'll be on our way." Ahsoka stood and followed the colonel as he made for the door, Ripper falling in behind them.
"Goodbye, colonel," The Bothan called after them "I hope you have fun…"
Author's Notes:
At this point, if you're familiar with the original, then you're probably wondering what the point was in rewriting this story if all the same things are going to happen just described in greater detail. Well, I'd argue that greater detail and a more comprehensible writing style are worthy ends unto themselves. But seriously, there are entirely new chapters and scenes coming up, even in the next chapter, it's just that these first three and a half (roughly) chapters were written using the original as a strict guide. I got away from that when writing the rest of it, but that's why everything so far seems so familiar.
As far as this chapter goes, it has been suggested to me that the setup might not make the most sense in context. I'd honestly have to agree on that, there's no real reason for RepIntel to give out operational intelligence like this, and there's even less of a reason for a unit most operationally similar to an elite light infantry/reconnaissance unit like the US Army Cavalry Scouts to get its orders this way, especially since this is the only time this sort of thing happens. The real reason it's still in here is because this scene was part of the very original idea for this story going back to when I first thought of it in high school, before I'd ever even attempted to write anything. At least it sort of foreshadows something everyone and there mother should see coming from the moment they pick this story up.
These notes are going to be shorter than usual because I'm short on time today, so as always follow/favorite if you liked it, and leave feel free to leave a review.