Trying to gather her bearings through a fearsome headache, Ahsoka wondered whether it might have been a mistake to forgo consuming any water the day previous. She had already been drinking as little as she dared to survive, that she might retain the slightest connection to the Force. Then, a few days after she had begun needling Fifth, he and Barriss had enjoyed another, even more than usually vicious row, and that sliver of the Force to which she still had access had begun to quiver with anticipation. So she had sacrificed hydration, considering it imperative to recoup her strength in the Force, if she would take advantage of whatever was about to happen.

It was such a relief to regain that connection. For the past couple of weeks (as near as she could calculate), the world had been dull and hazy, like a holo from the other side of the galaxy, but now that her missing sense had returned, everything had taken on a new vividity.

Included in which, unfortunately, was First's seething irritation, a rich, prickly foliage fed by stout, pulsing veins of anger. Fifth, meanwhile, she could not detect at all. Her prison was blessedly hushed, too, and the Force was unperturbed by childish anguish. She enjoyed but a moment's peace, however, before relief fissured, giving way to a cavern of dread. The child was gone, but so was Fifth, and when Barriss' vexation was added to the equation, the most fitting explanation was that Fifth had decamped, along with the boy. To Nur?

Ahsoka slammed down her fist on the duracrete floor. She wasn't given to violent displays of frustration, as a rule, but neither was she used to so utterly failing in her duty, and untold days without proper sustenance, in conjunction with the pounding in her head, had joined forces with the despair of unmitigated failure to push her beyond the pale of tranquility.

The coldly sensible voice of judgement didn't help matters, either, harping incessantly on the multitudes she could have helped, had she returned to Yavin upon discovering the Inquisitorius' trap. Meeting with her new Ryloth contact would have been of infinitely more use to the Rebellion than the rescue of one Force-sensitive child.

In my life, when you find people who needs help, you help them.

No matter what.

But what about when everyone needed help? What about when one person needed help in the moment, but it meant risking your ability to help others in the future?

The answer, simply, was that her way of life had never been intended to be carried out by only a handful of people, never been intended for galactic war. Certainly not for the two together. Irreconcilable.

Everything had a point at which damage became irreparable. Starships. Governments. People. Even the galaxy itself must have such a point, and what if they had found it? The Empire was vast, its power unmatchable, and the Rebellion perhaps no more than a ship caught in its gravitation. Like—barren stretch of ground—massive hull, crumpled like a child's toy—tidy grid of graves—

She curled tighter on the floor, drawing her knees in to her chest as her breath hitched, and the weight of the worlds bore down upon her shoulders.

With the few tears that her dry eyes permitted to escape, however, the inky darkness faded just a little. Ahsoka was too much her master's padawan, too much the 501st's commander, to give up before she had exhausted every avenue. The Rebellion might be a forlorn hope, but it was her people, her duty, and she had to find her way back, to continue the fight. Perhaps it was futile, but they would never know until they had arrived at the bitter end—and they would never arrive, if they lay down and gave up in the middle of the road.

Reluctantly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, and then, shakily, to her feet. Her injured leg quivered, but she braced herself against the wall with one hand. Shoulders back. Chin up. Resolute. The Force is with me. It had to be; the Empire could not be the will of the Force.

Barriss, features creased into a severe frown, blew into Ahsoka's prison like a stormfront.

"Two weeks," she spat, coming to a halt just across the threshold. "Two standard weeks, and you're still standing there like a damned master!"

"What did you want me to do?"

"I want you to tell me where Kenobi is. My masters are deeply interested in his whereabouts."

It was true, but there was another motivation, as well—unspoken, yet echoing deep in the Force.

"Then why haven't you told Vader about me?" Ahsoka asked. "I'd have assumed he would want to know about anyone who might have a lead on Obi-Wan."

"Maybe I just wanted to deal with you myself."

"Deal with me? For what? I didn't hurt you! You framed me!"

Barriss glared at her in wordless fury.

"You framed me," Ahsoka continued, "and you think you have a reason to want revenge on me? That doesn't make sense!"

"Doesn't it?" Barriss asked. "You can't see things from another perspective any better than the Council could, can you?"

"That's unjust."

"As if you're in any place to talk about justice."

"Better of a place than you, I think. Why do you hate me, Barriss?"

"I am a Sith Inquisitor. Hating the feeble light and its users is my imperative."

"That's not the whole truth, though, is it? You're…." She focused on the emotional welter radiating from the Inquisitor. "You're envious. Of me?" That was almost laughable, given Ahsoka's present, dire situation.

"Maybe I was, once," Barriss replied. "You had a master who would go through fire and flood and all the Sith hells for you. Who would have done everything he could to bring you back if you fell, no matter how futile. I had Luminara. Yes, I envied you—but I don't anymore." Though she spoke with conviction, the declaration rang false. "I don't envy you; I don't have to. I don't need to rely on anyone ever again. I've found something stronger than any attachment could be."

"No," Ahsoka said. "Maybe that was part of it, but it's not the whole story, is it? You're jealous because I never fell. I never broke. I was younger, and I was in the war almost as long as you. On the front so much more often. But I didn't fall apart like you did. And because you can't have what I had, you want to see me break, like you."

"You're just as bad as the rest of the Jedi, presuming to know what's wrong with everyone!"

"I'm not a Jedi, Barriss. I'm just a person. Just like you."

"Stop reaching out to me! Self-righteous little—I betrayed you! I tortured you. I tortured that brat you were trying to rescue. You should hate me!"

"No, I shouldn't." She wasn't supposed to hate anyone. It was a mandate mostly fulfilled, and while there were exceptions, Barriss had not numbered among them for a long time. Ahsoka didn't like her, not now, not who she had become. She was frustrated by her, hurt, perhaps a little bewildered even now, as to how she could frame one she had once called friend. But for all that, she did not hate her. And for the sake of the friend she had once been—

Ahsoka sighed. "I think you hate yourself enough for the both of us. You've lost your way. But the dark side isn't the end of everything. I know someone who used to be a Sith acolyte; she's one of my best friends now. Barriss, I know you're alone, and you've done awful things, and it seems like there's nothing left for you but the dark side. It isn't true, though. I'm here. You don't have to be alone like this. Please, let me help you."

Something seemed to wilt inside Barriss. Her furrowed brow relaxed just a little, and her stance lost a trace of its aggression as she leaned ever so slightly forward, like a cautious akk-pup. The stagnant darkness around her rippled for a moment, thinned like clouds over a starry sky. Ahsoka, holding her breath, slowly extended her hand, dared to ease her shields enough to let soft encouragement waft through, carefully filtered of all resentment.

The clouds returned with a vengeance to blot out the stars once more. Barriss sprang forward with a snarl when she registered Ahsoka's use of the Force, sabers igniting. Wrath billowed from her like smoke from a burning engine, laced with fumes of embarrassment. She drew on the dark side all the more, knocked Ahsoka to the floor half bodily, half through the Force, and leaned down to cross her sabers over her throat, baring her teeth as she hissed, "Damn your compassion! You're no more a Jedi than I am, so stop pretending to be one. Stop trying to tempt me into your weakness!"

"Barriss, wait—"

"Shut up! Now, tell me, where—is—Kenobi?"

Lips pressed into a narrow line, Ahsoka met her eyes in silence.

"Fine. If you won't tell me—" Barriss extinguished one saber, returned it to her belt, keeping the other leveled at Ahsoka's neck, and bent to shove her palm against her forehead. Then she brought her will and the Force to bear against Ahsoka's mental shields, still loosened from reaching out to her. Ahsoka tried to shore them up, but with her brain sluggish from dehydration, she wasn't fast enough, and Barriss broke through the outermost layer.

Ahsoka scrambled to school her thoughts, sequester the secrets—and Force, she had so many secrets—it was impossible to hide them all behind her strongest shields, and the more she tried to hide, the more those shields thinned. Even when she sacrificed the names of her contacts, possible sabotage targets, Alliance goal timelines, there was still too much to keep hidden long under Barriss' scrutiny, especially when thirst and pain also sapped her resources for maintaining shields. She was losing the fight, crumbling under the continued pressure—

A pulse of glee, and she knew Barriss had found something important. Obi-Wan? The base? The twins?

Instinctively, Ahsoka reached out into the Force, flailing for a handhold, anything against which to brace herself. Brushing against something, she recognised it as her sere training bond. Hitherto, she had avoided touching the bond, half because she might be right, and her Fallen master might be out in the galaxy somewhere—half because she might be wrong, and the bond might be severed, after all. There wasn't time, though, to debate the chances and the risks, as Barriss rummaged through her memories. She needed to throw her out, and this seemed the only way. So she clutched at the bond. Master, help me! Just let her get through this, and she would deal with the consequences later.

Touching the bond felt like plunging into one of Alderaan's mountain streams by midnight—under a moonless sky, a jolt of cold that sent a fearsome ache into mind and body alike. Ahsoka let the cataract rush over her, bury her secrets beneath its stygian flood, and sweep the Inquisitor's probe from her mind.

Fighting her way back to the surface, she opened her eyes to see Barriss, now kneeling on the floor at her side, staring at her through a stunned haze. Without pausing to think, either of what she had just experienced or what her long-term plan should be, Ahsoka flung out one hand to snatch up the saber Barriss had dropped during the deluge. Thank the Force that the weapon hadn't fallen in such a way as to take off her head. Her thigh protested vociferously as she rolled to her feet, but she merely gritted her teeth and struggled to keep her balance until the world ceased spinning. What now?

The kyber crystal in her hand still echoed residual notes of Asajj in its song, and she could almost hear her friend's raspy scolding. I haven't spent the past few years training you to have you kick the bucket the first time you really get in over your head, Tano. Now, get your kark together, do what you have to do, and get your shebs out of there.

Do what you have to do.

Barriss knew Alliance secrets—maybe about Obi-Wan, maybe about Yavin, maybe about the twins, or the list of operatives Ahsoka worked with. She knew Alliance secrets, and she would report them back to the other Inquisitors, to Vader, to Palpatine, if Ahsoka didn't stop her.

What you have to do. She had to survive, and she had to make sure Barriss couldn't share her stolen knowledge. In the end, it boiled down to a simple question of need. The galaxy needed Fulcrum, and it needed Alliance secrets to remain sacrosanct. It did not need First Sister.

Ahsoka stared duty in the face, and found it loathsome. There had to be another way, didn't there? Wasn't there something she could do to keep secrets safe and spare Barriss' life? But she couldn't find one, not in the present circumstance. She was weak, injured—had to act now, take advantage of Barriss' temporary disorientation—there was no other option, if she would ensure that the Rebellion was not compromised.

So she steeled herself as her thumb pressed the ignition switch half against her will, simultaneously touching a quiet chord of sympathy for Obi-Wan. But she couldn't make herself move against her onetime friend until the other woman's glazed look faded, and the hateful intent smoldered again in her eyes.

Do what you have to do.

Ahsoka held out her free hand. It trembled; she didn't waste energy trying to steady it. "I'm asking you one more time, Barriss—I'm begging you—please, listen to me, let me help. There's still light in you—I know I didn't imagine that. Even after everything you've done as an Inquisitor, it's still there."

"Go to hells," Barriss replied coldly. Back on her feet, she circled, predatory, while she sought an opening to attack.

Ahsoka raised her saber into a defensive position.

"Don't—" her voice cracked. "Don't make me do this."

The Inquisitor responded with a rapid, nimble assault, which Ahsoka was hard-pressed to block.

So be it. She hushed the wail that old memories sent up. Tucked away her sadness. There would be time for grief later. Time for guilt. Time for wondering how such a horrible thing could ever be the better choice, and cursing the fates the dictated their lives should follow this path.

It had to be a quick fight, short and dirty—no time to think, no careful evaluation, only action and reaction, reflex and survival. It was a hand-to-hand scrap as much as a duel. Ahsoka moved in for a strike. Feinted. Turned off the saber, dove low, kicked at her opponent's legs. Had the saber ignited and raised again just in time to bar Barriss' sweep from severing a montral—and then she reached into the Force, tugged plasma into an arc that broke their blade lock and sent Barriss stumbling forward.

Don't think don't think don't think—

She pursued the advantage, adrenaline banking the fire in her injured thigh, overwhelming her foe with a flurry of strikes.

Do what you have to do.

Ahsoka didn't want to kill Barriss.

Fulcrum needed to eliminate First Sister.

Forgive me—

She didn't know who she cried out to—Barriss, the Force, her own self?

It was wrong. Wrong, this red blade in her grip. Wrong, her hand driving this blade forward, to pass so easily through Barriss' chest. Wrong, the hurt that peered out from behind the Mirialan's astonishment. Wrong, that she had thought Ahsoka wouldn't be able to go through with it. Ahsoka was a defender of the light, cast in peace, but she was also a fighter forged in war and honed in rebellion. She knew the cost of lives and the mathematics of victory. So, she had bought the continued safety of the rebellion with one life and a fragment of her own soul. It was a bargain, truly. One life for many.

That knowledge did nothing to allay the horrid, coiling, rotting feeling, and it took all Ahsoka's fortitude to keep from hurling her guts into the 'fresher as she looked at the body of Barriss Offee. She had seen death. She had brought death. But she had never dealt it to a onetime friend. To a person she knew could be brought back, if there had only been more time.

She stooped to close Barriss' eyes.

I'm sorry I didn't realise how bad things were for you. I wish I had. Or even that I had just been wise enough, kind enough, a big enough person to put myself aside after the Temple, and try to help you then. You were kind, and good, and you deserved better than this. I'm sorry, Barriss.

And then Ahsoka withdrew. Her mind was oddly numb, grief and guilt but distant things now she was no longer in the same room as Barriss. They would close in later, she knew, and the reality of it all would sink deep, like a brand on her being. When that happened, she needed to be somewhere safe, so she only lingered in the room outside her cell to find her sabers and a comm that must have belonged to one of the Inquisitors, before finding her way out and up to the streets of Daiyu.

"Demonstrate what you have practiced in my absence."

Vader's apprentice made a stiff obeisance and picked up the saber which he was to use until able to construct his own. The hilt was far too large for Starkiller's eight-year-old hands, but he seemed to be growing accustomed to the challenge, for his grip was less appallingly clumsy that it had been last time Vader had come to oversee his training.

The boy went through a few basic katas, in which he demonstrated reasonable proficiency for one of his age—far better than the present cohort of future Inquisitorius, who at times seemed selected for their ineptitude. While his footwork was sloppy, and he had not perfectly memorized the katas, his aim was good, and his ability to improvise when memory failed showed promise. Then he began the more advanced Shien exercise which Vader had last assigned. Moving faster, his errors were more numerous, but there was also a gratifying power behind his strikes, and—

What in the Sith hells was his apprentice doing now? He had flipped his saber around, so that the blade extended downward from his hand in a reverse grip. Oh, for— This was not what Vader had envisioned when he set out to corrupt the boy.

"You will not invert your blade!" he commanded.

Maintaining the forbidden grip, Starkiller stomped his foot. "No! I wanna do it this way! 'Sides, PROXY says it's an acceptable variant of the form."

PROXY, off to the side of the practice room, nodded his agreement.

Very well. If Starkiller was determined to make the lesson more difficult, and increase his risk of dismemberment, Vader would not stop him. Ordinarily, he tried to avoid dismembering the boy, for the purely practical reason that he was still growing, and while repeatedly having to adjust to a new limb would fuel his frustration and deepen his connection with the dark side, it would also interrupt other aspects of his training. The reverse grip, however, was the last straw. It was too like— Hatred rose, like an industrial world's suffocating smog. Yes, he hated Starkiller—hated him for the child he was not, and for the apprentice he could never become.

"Let us test this novel strategy which you favor," he ordered, unclipping his own lightsaber from his belt.

No more than a few blows had been exchanged before there was an odd tugging sensation in the Force. It came from a bond Vader hadn't even realised was still intact. Distracted, he froze mid-swing. The Apprentice lived? It could not be, for had he not seen the crippled Venator and the graves, found her saber forgotten in the snow? But that was their bond, it was her presence, her distress sparking like a flare.

He was distantly aware of Starkiller's gleeful pounce, executed with a wild slash that appeared to be an attempt to recapitulate Kenobi's damage. Vader knocked him away with the Force so that he tumbled head over ears into a training droid, sending up a resounding clatter that also faded into the distance as the Apprentice's plea echoed along the bond.

Master, help me!

Without thinking, her master opened the bond further. She was in trouble, she needed help, where was she, what was she doing—

What was Vader doing? The Apprentice was a traitor. She had left, had abandoned him, had allowed him to believe her buried alongside her brothers. [And how could she do such a cruel thing, after she had been almost as distraught during the Rako Hardeen deception as he—as the Jedi had been?] Besides which, she was probably working for the insurgents by this time.

Starkiller, having disentangled himself from the training droid, came at Vader again, under the arrogant delusion that he could use his master's abstraction to take him unawares. This time, Vader merely wrenched the lightsaber from his grasp. The boy squawked in indignation, but his attempts to reclaim the weapon were futile. Vader turned the hilt over in his hands, considering.

Ahsoka's crystal lay locked away in a vault on Mustafar. Sidious had accused Vader of viewing it as a token of the lost apprentice, yet he had only kept it to remind himself of Skywalker's weakness. There was no deeper reason. Just as, if he went to the vault, if he opened it, if he stepped inside and lifted up the crystal, listened to its lamentation—he was but using the kyber and all its associations as a focus, for it was through pain and through fury that the dark side was to be reached.

Now, however, Vader saw that he had but deceived himself all these years. For the crystal had also been a reminder of the apprentice—of her pertness, her skill, and her warmth. Well, his eyes were open now, to her infamy and his own un-Sithly sentiment. Such oversights must be corrected without delay, and so he turned back to Starkiller, who had subsided and now stood beside PROXY, awaiting his master's orders.

"You will begin to collect the requisite parts to construct a lightsaber of your own," Vader told him. "While I will provide the crystal, you shall make it befitting of the weapon of a Sith."

Outside the building that had served as her prison, Ahsoka took off, still running on the adrenaline of the battle. She had to move as far as she could now, before that energy gave out. Buildings and streets were no more than a blur as she pushed on, heading for the dense jumble of Force signatures that signified a crowded district.

At the edge of the area, she stolen took out the comm and entered the first code that came to mind as she hunkered down in a dark corner behind a closed street vendor's stall. A moment later, Rex's voice cautiously inquired, "Hello? Who is this?"

"Rex, it's me."

"'Soka!" A barrage of questions promptly issued from the comm. "Are you alright? Where are you? What happened?"

"My ship is gone, and I'm stuck on Daiyu. There were Inquisitors, and Barriss, and… it's… not so good, Rex."

Understatement of the millennium.

"Are you safe for now?"

"Yeah."

"Can you hold out a couple days?"

No, she wanted to say. But because there was really no other option, she replied, "Yeah."

"Okay. I'll send someone to get you." And then, because of course Rex could see through her half-lie, he added, "Hang in there, Commander. We'll be there before you know it."

"Thank you," she whispered. Ending the call, she emerged from her hiding spot and plunged into the crowd, where she wandered aimlessly. The bustle had seemed like it should be a good distraction, but such an abundance of life, even dissolute or apathetic as lives tended to be on Daiyu, served only as a reminder of the cooling corpse she had left behind.

A familiar voice interrupted her wandering.

"Spare any credits, Lady?"

Why was Rex—no, it wasn't Rex, the cadence wasn't right. Casting her gaze about the area, she spied a bearded human in an incongruous combination of armor and rags. She moved closer, and a flicker of what passed for hope lit his eye.

"Help a veteran get a warm meal?" the clone asked, holding out his bucket. In the gloom, Ahsoka noted with helpless indignation the blue markings of the 501st. This was one of her men, one of the people for whom she had been responsible.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't have anything, either." Just her lightsabers, plus the stolen comm and cloak.

Wait, perhaps that wasn't quite true. Lightsabers. Kyber…. Someone on Daiyu ought to have an interest in that kind of valuable, illicit item. It was a bit of a risk, but she would be needing food anyway.

It didn't take long to find a streetcorner shell game. The Rodian running the operation was leery of accepting a kyber bet, at first, but a second crystal tipped the balance from risk to reward. To his dismay, however, his hooded guest proved quite adept at anticipating his tricks, and it wasn't long before she relieved him of a small pile of credits. And then she had the nerve to thank him for his services before collecting her crystals and fading back into the crowd. Probably off to start up her own scam somewhere. Such was the way of things on this world.

After exchanging her credits for food at one of the more reputable-looking establishments along her way, Ahsoka returned to the place where she had seen clone. He was surprised to see her again, and still more so when, wincing, she dropped into a crouch beside him and held out one of the wrapped portions of food, still steaming.

"I hope you like roba pie," she said. "Although I have my doubts as to whether there's even a trace of real roba in it."

The clone grinned. "Couldn't be worse than some of the things we ate in the field. Thank you, Lady."

"Do you mind if I eat with you?" Ahsoka asked.

Again, the clone seemed surprised, but he shook his head. "Not a bit. Gets quiet, living alone, when you're used to having a herd of vod'e around you. Er—herd of brothers, I mean. Name's Snap, by the way."

"Ashla," she said, trusting to the years and the gloom to conceal her identity.

"You remind me of someone I used to know," remarked Snap. "She was a Togruta, too, but more'n that, she was good. A real Jedi, even though she was just a kid."

Ahsoka had to force herself not to stare at Snap in bewilderment. Had his chip malfunctioned? Had it somehow never been activated?

"I thought the clones believed the Jedi were traitors," she ventured.

"Most do."

"But you don't."

"No. I know it's not true. Something happened to all the vod'e, made 'em turn on their jetiise. All I know's that at the end of the war, I was in the GAR medcenter on Corrie, and out in the halls, the vod'e started running, yelling. Just a few at first, but it spread fast. Couldn't tell what they were saying, most of the time, but I made out something about orders, traitors, and killing the Jedi. I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't want any part it whatever it was. Sneaked out a window, stole a speeder, headed for the Temple to warn the jetiise that there was some sort of osik going on. Hadn't quite landed before I saw the General and Appo—he was my commander—leading the rest of our boys inside. I don't have any of that Force osik, but a good soldier's always got his instincts, and mine knew whatever the kriff was happening, it wasn't right.

"There wasn't anything one person could do, and whatever was happening to the rest of my vod'e, I didn't want to get too close. Official word on the first trooper who killed a Jedi was that it was some kind of virus. So I went to one of our off-duty hangouts in the lower levels, but it was empty. Like the whole kriffing GAR had gone mad as one. Well, I didn't stick around. Got out of there, got on a civvie transport bound off-world. Guess they'd call it desertion. Anyways, I didn't have much in the way of credits, didn't know much except fighting. Ended up here awhile back." Snap spread his hands as if to say, And that's the end of it. "What about you, kid—how'd you end up in a place like this?"

The last bite of roba pie turned to paste in Ahsoka's mouth as she thought of the past weeks, the boy she hadn't been able to save, the sound of Barriss' body tumbling to the floor.

"I ran away," she said, "and when I tried to go home, there was nothing left but ghosts."

It was true, in a way. They were all ghosts of what they could, what they should have been.

Snap gave her knee a sympathetic pat. Commiseration, however, turned to concern as she jerked away with a gasp.

"Ashla?"

"It's nothing."

"Like haran. Don't try to hide an injury from a soldier, kid. We know every trick in the book."

Ahsoka brushed away his solicitude. "I got into an accident. I've had worse. It'll be fine."

"Wouldn't hurt to take care of yourself, though. There's a clinic a few blocks away, sort of charity establishment. They probably won't be able to give you high-grade bacta or anything, but you could at least get that cleaned up a bit." He pointed at her leg. "Looks like it needs it."

Kix really would lecture her something fierce if she turned down the chance to have the wound seen to.

"Ashla, you've helped me. Let me do the same for you. It isn't often I get the chance to be useful anymore."

That last remark, more than anything, decided Ahsoka.

"Okay, Snap. Thank you."

Later, as a battered med droid applied a low-grade bacta to her thigh ("The best we have, I'm afraid"), Ahsoka wished that she hadn't acceded to Snap's request. While the cold gel soothed the wound, it also reminded her of the icy blackness that had washed through her mind earlier that day, when she had touched her training bond. The bond she shared with Anakin, whom Obi-Wan and Padmé claimed was dead, and Luke insisted was alive. Here was confirmation that the latter was correct, and it did absolutely nothing to allay Ahsoka's distress. Somewhere in the galaxy, her big brother was alive, somehow, alive after all these years, and part of her thrilled at the knowledge—but he was also fallen. Dark. Sith. (And breaking the Sith code by his very existence, she realised with a slightly hysterical giggle. Always two, there were, except when Anakin made three.)

Regardless, she needed to get off this world, comb her networks for some clue as to his whereabouts, and— And what? Bring him back to the light? Because that had worked so well with Barriss.

But it could have worked, she knew it could, if they had only had more time!

[How could time be infinite, and yet one of the many things of which there was never—could never be—enough?]

Through tacit agreement, Ahsoka and Snap stuck together. The clone, for his part, was determined to see that his new charge took care of herself until her friends came for her, while she had resolved that he would accompany them offworld. Not to Yavin, perhaps, but Seelos wasn't too far out of the way, and Wolffe and Gregor would take him under their wing, as they had taken the other vod'e who had chosen quiet retirement over fighting with the Alliance, or had been unsure where their futures lay.

It helped, too, having company to pass the time until help arrived. Ahsoka didn't like to think where her mind might otherwise have wandered in the two days that it took for a familiar blue-and-white figure to show up at the end of the alley where she and Snap had sheltered during a rainstorm the night previous.

"Rex!" she cried, tugging down her hood with one hand as she beckoned with the other, and Snap watched with dawning comprehension.

"Commander?" Rex hurried toward her, paying her wide-eyed companion little mind until he had ascertained that Ahsoka herself was in a relatively stable state.

"Captain Rex?" Snap glanced between him and Ahsoka. "Commander Tano? I knew you reminded me of her!"

"That's the Commander, all right," Rex said. "What's your name, vod?"

"Snap, sir."

A moment passed as Rex ran through hundreds of names and faces, and then he grinned. "I remember. From one of Appo's units, weren't you? Got chewed out by Kix after you tried wrestling with Fives."

"Yeah. My squadron used to dare each other to take on Torrent."

"And you decided to go up against one of our ARCs."

"Sir, you've clearly never had to live with Sarlacc Squad after you've turned down one of their dares."

"And here I thought Torrent had sole claim to being the insanest company in the 501st." Rex clapped his brother on the back. "It's good see you, trooper. If you'll wait here a few minutes, I'll get the Commander seen to, bring you onboard once she's safe."

"Rex, he's fine," Ahsoka protested. "He knows who I am, now, and he's not—"

"Better safe than sorry, 'Soka."

After a quick gesture to Snap to stay put, Rex helped Ahsoka up, watching with concern as she stumbled when she tried to put weight on her bad leg. The clinic's dilute bacta had helped for a time, but the wound was still far from healed.

"Hey, careful now, vod'ika. You need me to carry you to the ship?"

She gave him a flat look, and he sighed. "Kix is gonna have my hide when he finds out I let you walk with that leg of yours."

"Only if he finds out," she retorted through clenched teeth.

With another despairing sigh, Rex tucked his arm around his stubborn vodika's waist. She hobbled onward, her hand resting along the blue stripe on his pauldron. She wasn't sure whether the vod'e had known the meanings of the colors used to paint beskar'gam when they chose their unit colors, but even if they hadn't, the 501st couldn't have chosen better, for blue signified reliability, like the unfailing sky.

At the ship, docked at a landing area not too far away, Rex handed Ahsoka off to Asajj, who greeted her with an expression equal parts relief and horror, and the vehement assertion that, "If you ever almost die again, I'll kill you myself."

"Counterproductive," Ahsoka muttered.

"Exactly. So don't make me do it," Asajj replied crisply. She caught Ahsoka in a hard, one-armed hug that somehow strategically avoided the worst of her bruises and lacerations. "I mean that, got it?"

Long accustomed to her friend's brusque forms of affection, Ahsoka just leaned into her bony embrace and allowed herself to be guided into the waiting ship, where she was taken immediately to the medbay and delivered into Azi's care. The droid blinked several times as he took in the sight of her.

"Oh, dear," he said. "Kix did warn me about the Jedi propensity for incurring damage, but I had hoped he was exaggerating."

Meanwhile, across the galaxy, Hondo Ohnaka opened a bottle of Corellian whiskey in celebration of a masterful scam well-conducted. It had been a little unusual, for him—he wasn't accustomed to outsourcing work to slicers—but Katooni had been right, and it had paid off in the end. The girl was brilliant, really. It was ever so fortunate that she hadn't been mixed up in that Jedi mess—what a waste of talent it would have been, if she had perished along with her peers!

It was her foresight which had led to the hiring of a slicer for a delicate bit of information-gathering. The pirates had wanted to heist a load of valuable cargo from an Imperial base. Hondo would have been perfectly happy having Kat trick her way in and out of the base, but she had suggested that, if their ship transmitted the right credentials, they would be able to land right smack in the middle of the place, have the cargo loaded by Imperial personnel, and make a clean getaway. And, she had said, they could even make it look like the heist had been pulled off by one of the big syndicates, which would put the pressure on whichever syndicate was framed, and would open up more profits to the Ohnaka Gang of Two. It was just an added bonus that they would be making a spectacle of one of the Imperial karkers who secretly supported the major syndicates, to the detriment of the smaller organisations.

The slicer had been hired accordingly (though Hondo had complained profusely at the commission she had required), and an Imperial higher-up had been selected. Kat, former Jedi that she was, had wanted to target Lord Vader, for she still resented the hunting of her fellows. Hondo had been leery of drawing the Sith Lord's attention, however, since he would likely sense that the framed syndicate was not lying when they claimed innocence—or that they were lying, when they claimed guilt in a play to boost their notoriety. No, Jedi might make fun playthings, but Sith were not to be trifled with. Not this Sith, at any rate.

Kat had then suggested another of her particular bêtes noires, in the person of one Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, who, it seemed, had been a trifle overzealous in his prosecution, and therefore persecution, of her friend Ahsoka. The Moff had seemed more feasible than the Sith, so Hondo had acceded to the proposal.

The slicer had conducted her digital witchery accordingly—the result of which was that the Moff was presently suffering from a raging case of identity theft, while Crimson Dawn squirmed and tried to decide whether it preferred to look tough or remain in the Empire's good graces, and Hondo and Kat basked in sweet clover. Yes, the slicer had been worth the cost, for the two of them had been able to land their stolen Lambda right on the base, and with various of Tarkin's codes, they had had but to don their likewise-stolen stormtrooper armor and prowl alertly about the ship while its cargo holds were loaded with kyber—originally intended for parts unknown, and now generously rerouted to the black markets and back alleys of the galaxy. A masterful heist indeed, thought the pirate, and raised his glass to Profit.