Chapter 04

Chapter 04

KAEDEN DIDN’T COME BACK the next day, which Ahsoka took as a sign that the girl had healed enough to return to work. In the daylight, the Raada settlement was mostly deserted. Nearly everyone who lived on the moon worked in the fields. Those who didn’t—food vendors and the like—usually followed the field workers out of town in the morning. It made sense to go where the money was.

This meant that Ahsoka had her days to herself, or at least she would until Kaeden made good on her promise to tell the others that Ahsoka could fix things for them. When the quiet got too much for Ahsoka to bear, she tucked a ration pack into her bag, filled a canteen with water, and headed toward the hills.

It was warm enough that she didn’t need her cloak, though she knew that when the sun went down, the heat would drain off quickly. Ahsoka was used to fluctuating temperatures. When she’d been a Padawan, she’d only occasionally known what sort of planet she might end up on, and that was good training when it came to learning how to adapt. At least it didn’t get cold enough on the moon that she’d need a parka.

There didn’t seem to be much in the way of wildlife on Raada. Ahsoka had seen a few avians clustered around the water sources when she flew in. There must have been pollinators of some kind, but when it came to big things—predators or creatures worth hunting for meat—Raada didn’t offer much in the way of variation.

The place would’ve driven Anakin to distraction, unless he somehow managed to arrange for podraces. No real technology to fiddle with, nothing dangerous to protect hapless villagers from—just work and home, work and home. He never said as much, but Ahsoka knew her master had gotten enough of that growing up on Tatooine. Master Obi-Wan would have said Raada was a good place to relax and then somehow stumbled on a nest of pirates or a ring of smugglers or a conspiracy of Sith. Ahsoka—Ashla—was hoping for something in the middle: home and work, and just enough excitement to keep her from climbing the walls.

In the meantime, climbing the hills would do. Ahsoka had left the plains and was walking over rolling hills, each covered with rocks and whispering grasses that concealed all manner of dells, hollows, and caves. Though the settlement itself was indefensible, the surrounding area would be a more than adequate place to stage an insurgency if needed. There were good vantage points of the spaceport, and the caves would provide cover from aerial assault. The only trouble was water, but if the farmers had tech like portable threshers, they must have portable water sources, too.

Ahsoka stopped on a hilltop and shook her head ruefully. She could not stop thinking like a tactician. The clones—before they would have tried to kill her—would have said that was a good thing. Anakin would have agreed with them. But Ahsoka still remembered, vaguely, Jedi training before the war. They hadn’t focused so much on tactics then, and Ahsoka had still been interested in what she was learning. Surely, now that she had nothing left to fight for, she could go back to that.

“Not until you’re safe,” she whispered. “Not until you know for sure that you are safe.”

Even as she said the words, she knew it would never come to pass. She would never be safe again. She would have to stay ready to fight. She guessed the Empire wouldn’t visit Raada anytime soon, as there was nothing on the moon they needed, but she knew how Palpatine worked. Even when he was the Chancellor, he liked control. As the Emperor, as a Sith Lord, he’d be even more of an autocrat. With people like Governor Tarkin to help him, every part of the galaxy would feel the Imperial touch.

But Raada was clear of it for now, at least. Ahsoka left the hilltop and ventured into one of the caves. She was pleased to discover that it was dry enough that she could store food there if she needed to, and tall enough that she could stand up without the tops of her montrals brushing the ceiling. She wouldn’t want to live here permanently, but in a pinch it wouldn’t be so bad.

Toward the back of the cave was a natural low shelf where a piece of rock had broken off and left a flat surface. Part of the shelf had cracked and fallen onto the cave floor. Ahsoka picked it up, noting that the edges of the cracked piece matched up with the solid shelf. She set the piece down where it had broken off, and it fit neatly into place, with only a thin seam revealing the break. Ahsoka picked up the shard of rock again and fished in her pocket for the metal pieces she kept there. She set them down, under where the broken rock would go, and put the slab back on top. It still fit.

It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but Ahsoka didn’t have much of anything to hide yet. It was more of a promise, a possibility, like how she’d judged the tactical value of the settlement and surrounding hills. If she needed to, she could cut into the rock underneath to make a larger compartment.

Ahsoka stood up, leaving the metal pieces under the stone. She could return for them if she needed. She suspected that this wouldn’t be the only cave she set up, but it would be the one to which she gave the most attention. It was the closest to the settlement, the first one she could reach if she was running.

Yes, it would do for a start.

* * *

Kaeden’s repaired thresher was doing a fabulous job. Once she’d refueled it and added more coolant, the machine worked better than it ever had. This did not go unnoticed.

“Hey, Larte,” Tibbola said at lunch break. “Where’d you get that? It looks like your old beast, but it moves like a new one.”

Tibbola was one of the oldest farmers, unmarried and mean when he was drunk. Kaeden avoided him as much as possible, but the man had a sharp eye for changes, and a faster thresher would be more than enough to catch his attention.

“I had it fixed after it sliced me up,” Kaeden said.

“Who did it?”

“You know, I didn’t get a name,” Kaeden realized. That was strange. She and the Togruta newcomer had talked for a while both times, and Kaeden had introduced herself. She’d even been inside her house. “She just moved into Cietra’s old place.”

“Clearly she’s good at what she does,” said Miara, Kaeden’s sister. The younger girl sat down on the ground beside her and held out her hands for Kaeden’s canteen.

“Get your own,” Kaeden said.

“I’ll refill them both on our way back out,” Miara promised. Kaeden rolled her eyes and passed the container.

At fourteen, three years younger than Kaeden, Miara shouldn’t have been working a full shift allotment, even though she was as capable as Kaeden had been at that age. Necessity was a harsh, if effective, teacher, and Kaeden regretted that the same pressures that had driven her to the fields at a young age had pushed Miara after her, though the younger girl never complained. As a result, Kaeden had a hard time denying her anything. Thankfully, Miara was wise enough not to press the advantage too far.

“If she can fix your old clanker like that, maybe I’ll ask her to look at mine.” Tibbola was cheap, and his thresher had been patched so many times Kaeden wasn’t sure there was an original part on it.

“You’re not going to be able to put one over on her,” Kaeden warned him. “She’s smart.”

“Maybe I’m more charming than you are,” Tibbola said with a leer. He got up and left.

“Not with breath like that,” Miara said, giggling. Kaeden couldn’t help laughing, too. “We’ll warn her. Where’s she from?”

“She didn’t say that, either,” Kaeden admitted. “Mostly we talked about Raada.”

“You can’t blame her for being cautious if she’s new to the moon, and on her own,” Miara pointed out. “You’re right about her being smart. She probably wants to know what it’s like in town before she opens up.”

“Who’s opening up?” Four bodies thumped to the ground around them—the rest of their threshing crew joining them for lunch.

“Kaeden made a friend!” Miara said teasingly.

“Did she now?” Vartan, their crew lead, waggled his dark eyebrows at her. It would have had more impact if his eyebrows hadn’t been the only hair on his head.

“She’s a mechanic, of sorts,” Kaeden said, ignoring his tone. It took more than mechanical aptitude to turn her head, though maybe she was going to have to reevaluate that. There was a lot to be said for cleverness. “I didn’t get her name, but she fixed the thresher so well it’s better now than when I bought it.”

“I thought it seemed less murderous today,” Malat said, digging into her food with long delicate fingers.

“We’ll go and get her after shift and take her to Selda’s,” Miara declared, referring to the cantina where they went nearly every night. She got up and went to refill the canteens.

“What if she doesn’t want to come out?” Kaeden asked.

“What else is she going to do?” Hoban asked. He had finished eating and was lying back on the ground with his hat over his face to shield his pale skin from the sun. “Sit at home by herself in the dark?”

“Maybe she likes that sort of thing,” suggested Neera, Hoban’s long-suffering twin.

“If Tibbola’s going to introduce himself to her, we should make sure she meets other people,” Vartan said. “Or she’ll be so put off by him, she’ll jump on the first ship out of here.”

It was on the tip of Kaeden’s tongue to mention that her new friend had a ship of her own, but something stopped her. No name, no history…she probably wouldn’t want Kaeden spilling her secrets. Kaeden could understand that. There were plenty of things she didn’t like sharing with her sister, let alone her crew, and she’d known her crew for years.

“All right,” she said, finally. “After we’re done for the day and cleaned up a bit, I’ll go and ask her if she wants to come out with us. But you won’t pressure her, and you won’t bug her if she doesn’t want to be bugged.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Vartan, saluting.

The others laughed, and Kaeden was gracious enough to join in. The horn sounded, so she threw her head back and tipped the last crumbs of her lunch out of the package and into her mouth. Miara handed her a full canteen of water with a smile, and then it was back to work.

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