High Command, of course, dragged its feet over authorizing the Kamino data retrieval mission. Padmé's run-in with the Sith apprentice had given the original naysayers a fresh excuse to question the necessity of the mission, and it required another round of meetings and arguments to remind them of why they had agreed to the plan in the first place. Once authorization was at last granted, there were then logistical matters to deliberate over: who would go, how many Jedi could they spare, when should they go, what ship should they take? But these questions were at last ironed out, and several months after the idea had first been suggested, the mission was finally set.
It was to be carried out by a small party, consisting only of Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, and Artoo. Obi-Wan had been an obvious choice, for even his passing familiarity with Kamino could prove advantageous, and his diplomatic skills would be invaluable in a tight spot. Artoo, likewise, had been considered a necessary member of the group, due to both his familiarity and his technological capabilities. Rex, for his part, had flat-out refused not to be part of the mission, and no one had felt it just to deny him. And so Ahsoka, naturally, made up the fourth.
They were now on en route to their destination, Rex studying over holos Artoo had recorded of the Kaminoan research facility, while Artoo himself flew the ship, and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan sparred in the modest cargo bay.
They had begun sparring together not long after their reunion. The first match had ended with Obi-Wan thoroughly trounced by his energetic grandpadawan. She had always been a capable fighter, but her skills had blossomed into lethal maturity under Ventress' tutelage, and while solitary katas and sparring with Padmé had kept some of the rust off Obi-Wan's abilities, he certainly had not maintained the level of training required to duel a highly skilled Force user. After months of continual practice, however, sparring with either Ahsoka or Asajj—whoever was on-world—he had regained most of his former speed and strength, and fair matches, at least, were more often than not a tossup.
Just now, Obi-Wan held the upper hand, as he borrowed elements of Ataru to better match against Ahsoka's athletic style. She was hampered, too, by the confines of the cargo bay, but the challenge was good practice for her.
Both duelists had drawn their shields close, lest fate should be plotting a chance encounter like Padmé's, yet Obi-Wan could almost feel the glow of happiness emanating from the young woman. Even after months of sparring together, her joy still hadn't faded. Perhaps the two of them could not achieve the fluidity of exchange that he had grown accustomed to in sparring with his former padawan, but her enthusiasm was infectious, and he felt years younger as they exchanged strikes and critiqued one another's form. The shades of the past withdrew, leaving just the present. Ahsoka's thoughts, however, were evidently focused on the future, for when they stopped for a rest, she asked,
"Obi-Wan, what are you going to do? When this is all over?"
"When?" he replied.
"When. I have to believe we'll win, or else I'm not sure I could keep going. This can't be the Clone Wars all over again. So yes—when this is over, what will you do?"
She leaned against the wall of the bay, awaiting an answer that he did not have.
"I don't know, Ahsoka. I've stopped making plans for the distant future." What was the use, when everything could change at the shot of a blaster, at the slash of a blade, in the blink of a yellow eye?
"Letting go?" she asked.
"Only of illusions of control. What prompts these questions?"
Ahsoka shrugged. "I thought you might be planning to rebuild the Order," she said, watching closely as her grandmaster adopted his thinking posture, chin in hand.
It was a thought which had occurred to him from time to time, though after the spectacular mess he had made of bringing up one padawan, Obi-Wan was not at all certain that he ought to take on the responsibility of rebuilding the entire Order. With assistance, however—perhaps with the aid of someone less steeped in dogma—
"Would you care to help me, if I was?"
"I…." Would she? Her pride still recoiled at the thought of the Order, its arrogance, and its lack of faith, but there were more important considerations than personal feelings. There would always be Force-sensitives, who, lacking guidance, could wreak havoc upon the galaxy. There would always be a need for keepers of the peace.
"I would. Not as a Jedi, though. I couldn't teach some of the things the Order taught—it would go too much against my principles."
"I wouldn't ask you to."
"Do we have a pact, then?"
"We shall see. It would be a monumental task, Ahsoka."
She grinned, showing her sharp canines. "Just up our alley, then. We'll call defeating the Empire a practice round."
Obi-Wan tried, and failed, to suppress a smile of his own—though it was more bemused than daring. Oh, the energy of the young.
They ran through the plan one more time as the ship dropped out of hyperspace above Kamino. It was simple, as far as infiltration schemes went: Artoo, still painted dark red, and Ahsoka, her blue stripes also painted red and her facial markings similarly altered with white paint, would leave the ship before it landed, and then sneak into the research facility, where Artoo would tap into the mainframe and retrieve all protocols related to the GAR. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Rex, their appearances also disguised, would take the role of Criina Reth's deputies, going to speak with Nala Se, as per an arrangement made via holo some days previous. Their primary purpose was to give legitimacy to the presence of a strange ship in Tipoca City. Their secondary (and ideally unnecessary) purpose was to serve as backup, in case things went south for Ahsoka and Artoo.
Obi-Wan took over the ship's controls, and Rex slid into the copilot's seat with a grimace. "Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be going in to have a nice chat with the longnecks," he said. "I almost hope things don't go according to plan, just so— Are you sure you wouldn't rather do this part, Commander?"
Ahsoka looked up from the grappling hook she was examining. "Not unless you can use the Force."
"If only." He donned Asajj's bounty hunter helmet. "Good luck, 'Soka."
"Good luck, Rex. Good luck, Obi-Wan!" she added, just to get a rise out of the latter. But Obi-Wan's characteristic remark on the fallacy of luck did not come. Instead, he just looked back for moment, to say, "May the Force be with you, Ahsoka."
"May the Force be with you," she echoed, the words now strange on her tongue, but sweet.
Then, followed by Artoo, she went to the cargo bay, where she secured her grappling hook to the inside of the ship.
"Ready, Artooie?"
[Always.]
Then she spoke into her comm, which was linked to the comm inside Asajj's helmet, "Rex, we're set."
Obi-Wan brought the ship down below the level of the city, to the pillars that supported it, like the stems under a grove of mushrooms. The door of the cargo bay opened as they neared one of the pillars, and Ahsoka dropped out, followed by Artoo. With the aid of the Force, she swung as far as the grappling hook's rope would allow, flying gracefully above the rippling grey ocean, alit on the ladder leading to the maintenance hatch that was their target, and began to climb. The entry point, Rex had told her, had once been a favorite portal for cadets sneaking out on dares. It was hard to imagine her steady friend, who had generally served as the sole mature adult in all of Torrent Company, as a reckless young cadet, slipping through the hatch on his way to ride a wild aiwha, or plunge headfirst into the waters scores of feel below. Knowing Rex, it was more likely that he had accompanied one of the dared as a responsible chaperone.
Artoo, already hovering at the hatch by means of his rocket boosters, beeped impatiently as she reached him and took up one lightsaber, which she used to slice an opening in the door. As the loose piece of metal began to fall, she slowed its descent with the Force so the plume it raised upon entering the water would be minimal, mistakeable for the splash of a wave against the base of the pillar.
"Okay, Artoo," she said, once the metal had been safely disposed of. "Lead the way."
Using Artoo's footage from the previous visit, and aided by Rex's memories, the Rebels had been able to piece together the locations of the research facility's access hatches into a rough map that approximated the layout of the maintenance tunnels. Artoo had downloaded this map, and now used it to navigate to the general area of the room housing the mainframe. The trip was mostly uneventful, the passages mostly deserted. Only once did they encounter a Kaminoan menial trudging along the tunnel, which individual, being swiftly mindtricked by Ahsoka, wandered away without a backward glance, mumbling to herself about the dangers of consuming too much of a certain variety of seagrass.
Unfortunately, when Artoo's positioning system placed them near the mainframe, there was no access hatch in the vicinity.
Ahsoka sighed. "I suppose we'll have to cut down through the ceiling and hope for the best."
[Skywalker plan = bad idea.] Artoo replied.
"It doesn't count as a Skywalker plan if it's a last resort and doesn't involve things exploding. I thought we'd settled this years ago?"
[Still bad idea.]
"I never said it was a good idea, just the most practical!"
[Impractical. Chance of discovery = 96.04%.]
"And you have a better idea, of course."
[Of course.]
"You know, I think you're letting getting away from Vader go to your head."
[Am not.] But there was a rather self-satisfied timbre to his blat.
"You are— Okay, fine. What's this brilliant idea of yours?"
[Large computer, generates heat. Must use ventilation.]
It was the sad truth that as one grew up, one tended to forget about contingencies that would have been second nature when one was a child. How many times had she crawled around the ducts and ventilation shafts of the Resolute and the Jedi Temple for eavesdropping purposes, or even just for the fun of it?
Several ducts, a few dead ends, and a handful of wrong turns later, Ahsoka felt the air warming around her as she crawled forward on hands and knees.
"I think we've found it," she hissed over her shoulder.
Up ahead, light shone up through an opening in the bottom of the duct, through which she could make out a multitude of small, bright lights amidst what appeared to a number of number computer stacks. Behind her, Artoo crowded forward, warbling quietly with excitement, but she pushed him back with a gentle hand.
"Wait."
But across the vent glared several thin, red lines, smugly guarding the opening. (Ahsoka was really becoming rather tired of the color red.) Of course there was a laser grid. Of course Kamino wasn't stupid enough to leave the vents leading into their main data storage center unprotected.
"I told you we should just cut through the ceiling," she muttered—athough she suspected that the laser grid covered the entire ceiling. There wasn't much point in guarding the vents if aspiring thieves could simply carve their way in elsewhere.
[Now what.]
Ahsoka studied the grid. A system of mirrors would theoretically be able to deflect the laser beams away from the opening, while still directing them to the sensors that would trigger some sort of alarm if they stopped detecting the light. Unfortunately, there was a distinct lack of mirrors in the vent, and they didn't have time to design such a system even there was not.
[I could cut power to detectors.]
"They've probably got it set up so the detectors send a constant signal, too, and killing them will still raise an alarm."
Ahsoka resisted the urge to grind her teeth. There had to be some way around the grid. No system was perfect. She stared into the red lines, the light hovering in the air, weightless and yet more solid than durasteel.
Solid…
In her last year as an initiate, she had taken classes in physics, and the master who taught the class had delighted in turning their students' worlds upside down. Light is energy. You know this. But it is also made of particles. For months afterward, that mind-bending piece of information had been at once the most fascinating thing Ahsoka had learned all year and the bane of her existence, as she tried to wrap her mind around how something could be both energy and matter. (Then she had become a padawan and been immediately thrown into the war, and all thought of light's mysterious nature had gone out of her mind, replaced by more practical concerns like staying alive.) Now, however….
"Artoo, back up a bit," she said.
[Why?]
"Because I'm going to test something. Back up enough that I can turn on a lightsaber."
He backed up accordingly, emitting a querulous beep, however, as he did so. [Really the time for playing with swords, Snips?]
"I think it is."
Ahsoka ignited one saber, and the dully reflective interior of the vent shone with soft, white light. She aligned the tip of the blade with one of Artoo's lights, then closed her eyes, opening her mind. Looking past the singing of the kyber, she found the blade itself in the Force, a stream of energy, but also of matter, particles flowing together until they dispersed through space. She reached out toward the stream, pulling it gently with her will and with the Force—envisioning the middle of the blade curving toward her fingers as she crooked them slightly.
Opening her eyes once more, she inspected the blade. It arced toward her fingers in the middle, while the end remained aligned with Artoo's light. Slowly, maintaining her focus, she extended her hand toward Artoo. The bend in the blade shifted, following her hand.
"It works!" she gasped, not quite able to believe her eyes.
[Bend the lasers?] asked Artoo.
"That's the idea. I need you to be quiet, though—it's going to be a lot harder to bend a whole grid."
The astromech blipped once in acknowledgement, and Ahsoka, turning back to the laser grid, first shifted the vent cover out of the way, and then dropped once more into mediation. Finding the red lines was easy enough, but taking hold of them was harder. Where her lightsaber's blade had been compliant, connected to her through kyber and the Force, the laser beams were slippery things. It was like trying to herd eels. Eventually, though, she managed to bend the grid just enough that she could—ever so carefully—slip down between the lines, using the Force to cushion her fall so her concentration remained unbroken long enough for Artoo to squeeze through, as well.
Once he had, she let the grid spring back into place. A wave of exhaustion crashed over her as her awareness returned to the present.
[Okay, Snips?]
"Yeah. I—" She yawned.
Artoo gave a skeptical whistle and extended his electrical prod toward her leg. Ahsoka stifled a yelp as she stepped quickly out of his reach. "That won't be necessary!"
[Just trying to be helpful.]
"Thanks, but I'd rather not be zapped. Now, can you get into the mainframe?"
With a disdainful beep, Artoo rolled over to a port in one of the computer stacks, while Ahsoka took up a position where she could keep an eye on the door. Just a few minutes later, Artoo announced he was beginning to search for cloning-related files, having just bypassed the mainframe's security measures—which made Ahsoka wonder just how the astromech spent his free time, and whether she should be concerned. After several more minutes had elapsed, he informed her that he had found a location which appeared to contain files primarily related to cloning.
"Can you find one about aging?" she asked, eyeing the door anxiously.
[Haven't yet. Lots of files, all labeled with numbers or codes. Have to look at contents of each file.]
That was a problem. She had no idea how long they had until someone came into the mainframe room, and even if she knew, there were other time constraints at play, because even Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn't keep a conversation going indefinitely. Either he and Rex would have to bring things to a close, or Nala Se would begin to grow suspicious of the visitor who was prolonging their conversation beyond all reasonable purpose.
"We're going to be getting short on time. Are there any shortcuts you can use to find the most likely candidates?"
[No. Kaminoans probably use this system to make stealing information harder.]
Ahsoka took a moment to quiet her rising frustration. No matter how much her mind, tired and fuzzy from bending the laser beams, wanted to just curl up in a corner and wither away, they couldn't fail this mission. They had come through other impossible challenges, so to fail now would feel like putting in half effort. The vod'e deserved better than that. They had come through other impossible missions, and this would be no different. There was a way. There was always a way.
"Artoo, would it be faster to just download all the files? Rebel techs could sort through them later."
[Yes, but my drives don't have enough space.]
"How much could you fit?"
If he could take ninety percent, there was a good chance that whatever he took would include the information they needed.
[Twenty to thirty percent, depending on file size.]
"That's not going to be enough."
[Statistically, no.] He was silent for a long moment, before adding, his pitch and cadence uncommonly subdued, [Could wipe drives. Nine years would free enough space for ninety-eight percent of files.]
"You can't do that!" she exclaimed, only just barely remembering not to shout.
[I can. Will. If you want.]
"No, I don't want! That would—you can't just wipe away nine years of your memory! That would be—you wouldn't remember who any of us are, or anything we've done together."
[I know. But should have been wiped long ago, anyway.]
Ahsoka shook her head so hard that she felt the whiplash in her lekku. "Artoo, stop it. You know as well as I do that that's complete and utter bantha poodoo. Anyway," she continued, "there has to be another way to do this. Can't we take the mainframe's memory unit?"
[Will probably set off security system alerts.]
"Well, that's nothing we can't handle. Just like another day in Torrent, right?"
[You are insane.]
"I am not the one who was just volunteering to get amnesia! Now, can you find the physical location of the drive the cloning information is stored on?"
He could and did. Ahsoka pulled a multitool from her belt and began to remove one of the panels covering the mainframe's innards, while the astromech began to poke around in the mainframe's directories until he found the connection to the building's security feeds.
Once the panel was removed, Ahsoka entered a code into her comm. "Rex!" she said.
After a moment, Rex's voice came across the comm. "Yes, Dr. Se, I see what you mean."
"Rex, we've run into a bit of trouble."
"Of course. That's not at all surprising."
"We're going to take out one of the mainframe's storage drives, and it's probably going to throw a fit. I don't think we'll have time to get out the way we came in, and I'm not sure I'd be able to get us through, anyway. Not sure I even have the focus to do a mind trick. Can you and Obi-Wan carry out plan besh?"
"I'm beginning to wonder the same."
Elsewhere in the facility, in a small meeting room, Rex almost sighed with relief. Far be it from him to look forward to the implementation of plan besh—which usually led to the implementation of plans cresh and dorn, at the very least—but at least it would be an excuse to be out and doing something. For the past half hour or more (he had quite lost track of the time), he had been sitting in a small, stuffy room, with nothing to do but wonder about the Commander and Artoo's progress, as he listened with half an ear to General Kenobi's conversation with Nala Se. It was truly incredible, how many cohesive words and sentences and entire paragraphs the man was able to spew forth, without actually saying anything at all. Perhaps the greatest wonder of all was that Nala Se appeared to find some meaning in his words, and indeed to be rather engaged in the exchange.
When Ahsoka had commed, Rex had begun to enter into the discussion himself, uttering small inanities that slipped neatly into the pauses left by the eloquent ones.
Yes, it was a relief to hear Ahsoka call for backup. Listening to this wordplay was more wearing than most battles.
When Ahsoka ended the call, Rex rose.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but I've got an important call to make, if you'll excuse me. Business, you know." He clapped General Kenobi on the shoulder in the signal they had previously designated for the adoption of plan besh. "I'll be in the ship whenever you're done here, Ben. Thanks for your time, Doctor Se." Those last words were like spoiled fruit in his mouth—cloying and foul, and just plain wrong.
Leaving the room, he heard Obi-Wan also rise, and heard him say, "Well, then, Doctor Se. I know the Reth saw your facilities when she was here a few months ago, but would you mind showing me about?"
"Not at all." The longneck's voice floated after Rex as he stepped out into the hall. "We are proud of our institute, and only too happy to show it to our potential clients."
Ahsoka's sleepiness was not helped by the cozy warmth of the mainframe room as she and Artoo awaited Obi-Wan's arrival. She was making a valiant effort to stay awake, but her eyelids had just begun to drift downward.
They flew open again, however, when several thumps sounded from the hallway outside. Faintly, she made out the sound of her grandmaster's voice, and then a second voice following the same rhythmic pattern. A mind trick. Then the door opened, and she just had time to glimpse a dazed Kaminoan standing out in the hall before there was a flash of a stun bolt, the Kaminoan slumped to the ground, and Obi-Wan stepped into the doorway, blaster in hand.
"Ahsoka?"
She hastily disconnected the memory drive from the mainframe and held it out to Artoo. "Hang onto this, will you?"
Once the drive was safely stowed in his storage compartment, the two of them hurried out from behind the computer stacks to join Obi-Wan at the door.
"You have the file?" he asked.
"And then some," Ahsoka replied, not quite able to keep the glee out of her voice.
"And then some?"
"Due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to take a whole memory drive."
And oh, she remembered the expression those words brought to Obi-Wan's face. It was the Why-is-this-my-life-Padawan-why-are-you-like-this look. She must have seen it a thousand times in her life. It had usually been directed at her master, of course, but she had been its recipient more times than she cared to count.
"It was better than Artoo wiping his memory," she said, as she reached down to relieve one of the stunned guards of their blaster. Artoo whistled his agreement.
"I see. That does make it rather the preferable option, yes. Now, shall we go, seeing as we've likely exhausted Kamino's hospitality for the foreseeable—"
He was interrupted as a new pair of guards came into sight at one end of the hall. "Halt!"
Both guards were efficiently dispatched with stun bolts before they had time to aim their own blasters, but one managed to hit one of the red buttons that dotted the walls at intervals as they went down. The stark, sterile lighting of the corridor was replaced with flashing red, and alarms began to sound.
"Plan?" Ahsoka asked.
[That way.] Artoo spun and took off down the hall, in the direction of the guards.
"Why?"
[Leads to a hall where security holorecorders are looped. Can get into maintenance tunnels there.]
Well, that explained how he'd entertained himself while they were waiting for Obi-Wan to show up.
They chased after Artoo at a fast clip. Ahsoka's tiredness subsided for the time being, and she soon caught up, Obi-Wan not far behind her. They followed the astromech around a corner and down several empty halls.
Ahsoka's comm chimed, and when she answered, a harried-sounding Rex said, "Commander! There's a group of longnecks heading for the ship. I can hold 'em off for a while, but this thing wasn't made for on-the-ground defense. You almost finished in there?"
"Artoo, are we close to the hall with the blind holorecorders?" Ahsoka asked.
[Almost. I downloaded maintenance tunnel schematics. Should be able to find a way out quickly.]
"We should be out soon. We'll be on one of the city's support pillars—hard to say which, though, so keep your eyes sharp when you fly by."
"Copy that. See you soon, 'Soka."
Ahsoka had fallen back a little during the comm call. Ahead of her, Artoo and Obi-Wan rounded another corner, and she heard a shriek of alarmed binary, followed by the sound of blasterfire, then several thuds and a clatter. Both her comrades rushed back around the corner.
[Detour!]
They backtracked, turned down another hallway, took what Artoo termed a shortcut across the gap of a turbolift shaft, and then down one more hall, which they were halfway down when the astromech announced that they had arrived in the area where the holorecorders were looped. There were several doors along the hall, and an access panel in the ceiling, which Obi-Wan had just begun to pull open with the Force when the sound of numerous footsteps echoed down the hall.
Artoo beeped with alarm and rolled over to one of the doors, where he shorted out the locking mechanism through judicious use of his electrical prod. [In here! Let them search tunnels.]
The three of them dove into the room and shut the door just in time, leaving the maintenance access open. Surrounded by darkness, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka lit their sabers. They found themselves in what appeared to be a storeroom for medical equipment, mostly empty. There were some crates in one corner, on top of which was perched a small med droid, while another corner was occupied by a single stasis pod.
Outside, voices clamored, arguing between continuing to search the hallways and taking the hunt into the maintenance tunnels. Ahsoka held her breath as the debate continued for several moments—and let it go, relieved, as those in favor of the tunnels carried the day. It wasn't as if it was a matter of life and death—she and Obi-Wan could get out of the facility easily enough with their lightsabers, after all—but to do would mark them as possible Jedi, and while they didn't look like Commander Tano and General Kenobi at present, a lightsaber fight might bring to mind certain similarities in the minds of the Empire, to whom the Kaminoans would surely report an encounter with possible Jedi. In the long run, it was safest to rely solely on avoidance, blasters, and distractions.
Speaking of which…. She scanned the room, looking for anything that might prove useful.
"Hey, Artoo, do you think there's any way we could use that med droid for a diversion?"
[Probably. Would have to convince it that programming obligates it to help.]
"You think that'll work?"
[Med droids are programmed to be helpful and to avoid doing harm. Just have to phrase things the right way.]
"That will be my job, I suppose?" Obi-Wan ventured.
"But of course!"
Ahsoka switched the droid on, and its "eyes" lit up.
"Initiating… initiating…. System wipe complete. Please wait."
"Well, there goes that idea," she muttered.
The lights serving as the droid's eyes dimmed, then brightened once more. "Hello! My name is AZI-3, formally designation AZI-345211896246498721347."
Ahsoka cocked her head. "That's funny."
"What is?" the med droid inquired.
"You just introduced yourself with your name."
"Yes. AZI-3 is my name. Is this humorous? My programming doesn't indicate—"
"No, it's just that droids don't usually come with names." She peered closer at AZI-3. "I wonder…." Then she switched the droid off.
Artoo blatted indignantly. [Rude.]
"Shh, Artoo, it's okay."
[Is not. Thought you knew better than to turn droids off without permission. Or at least advanced warning.]
"I'm sorry, but I had to. Some sort of glitch must have allowed AZI-3 to access a name that he had adopted, which means the system wipe didn't completely erase his memory. I had to shut him down because we couldn't risk overwriting old files, if we're hoping he might know a way to get out of here. Now, Artoo, can you access and restore the old information?"
[Could violate med droid-patient confidentiality.]
"This is the time he's picking to be conscientious," Obi-Wan grumbled.
Ahsoka shot him a mild glare. "Don't mind Master Grouchy-One, Artoo. Besides, I don't think you need to worry about violating confidentiality. Anyone AZI treated is likely no longer living."
While Artoo connected to AZI-3's data port and began to run data retrieval protocols (letting forth a querulous warble as he did), and Obi-Wan investigated the crates for anything that might prove useful, Ahsoka wandered over to study the stasis pod by the light of her saber. It was running, which was strange. Why put a patient inside a stasis pod in a storeroom? She inspected its sides, looking for any clue as to why it was there, and eventually found a display, dim and dust-covered. Blowing the dust away, she read the display. It held a date over six years in the past, along with several numerical sequences which seemed to be identifiers of some kind. Most bore no significance to Ahsoka, but one stood out, like a brilliant jungle flower against the snows of Ilum:
CT-6116.