Chapter 13

Chapter 13

STEALTH WAS IMPOSSIBLE, so they just had to run for it. The streets were mostly deserted, thanks to the curfew. Ahsoka and the others were almost halfway to the Imperial compound when the alarms sounded. The damage to the walkers had taken a while for the troopers to detect. That was good news, as far as Ahsoka was concerned. Anything that bought them more time was good news.

As she ran, Ahsoka put aside her anger. It would do her no good in the coming confrontation. She also put aside her desperation to make sure Kaeden was all right and every thought about her failures over the past year. She focused on her strengths: her speed, adaptability, and familiarity with military procedure. That was going to get them through this.

They were a block from the compound when the first explosion rocked them back on their heels. Ahsoka looked at Miara with some surprise. She’d had no idea the girl was capable of building anything that big.

“That wasn’t one of mine!” Miara said. “They must have found something else. That or…”

She trailed off, unwilling to voice the other option.

Ahsoka waved them both close. They were behind the cover of the last non-Imperial building before they’d be exposed to the artillery. She needed to know more before she stepped out into the fray. Once they went around the corner, they’d be in full view and wouldn’t have time to confer.

“Tell me everything about the plan,” she said. “Numbers, objectives, all the details. Quickly.”

“Hoban split the group into three, one for each door,” Neera said. “They all have explosives, and most of them have blasters, too.”

“Where did you get blasters?” Ahsoka asked.

“Here and there,” Neera said. “Vartan said most of them are in pretty bad shape, but they’ll get the job done for a little while at least.”

“I hope it’s long enough,” Ahsoka said.

They walked the last block cautiously, even though they met with no resistance. The Imperials must have been busy with the others. It wasn’t exactly a cheery thought.

“Miara, can you find the caves again in the dark?” Ahsoka asked when they stopped again. She took a look around the corner, to see how the fight was unfolding, and then came back to finalize the plan.

“Yes,” Miara said. She sounded sure.

“Then you wait here,” Ahsoka said. Miara started to protest, but Ahsoka held up her hand. “This is one of those things I said you were going to listen to me about, got it? You wait here, and Neera will start to channel our people toward you. Tell them where to meet up on the edge of town. Not Selda’s. Pick someplace random. Then lead everyone out to the caves as quickly and quietly as you can.

“Neera, you come with me. There’s a line of Imperial tanks pointed away from the compound. They must have set them up for defense, and they haven’t had time to get them turned around yet. I’m going to disable as many as I can. You go to the doors on the left side of the compound and get those people out. They aren’t being pressed as hard, so they should be able to get free.” Neera nodded. “If you can get to the right-side doors, try for that, too, but if you can’t, leave them, do you understand?”

“Where’s Hoban?” Neera asked, shrewdly seeing the information Ahsoka had omitted.

“I didn’t see him,” Ahsoka said. “I’m sorry, but you need to focus, too.”

“I understand,” Neera said.

“What are you going to do, Ashla?” Miara asked. For the first time, she sounded very small.

“I’m going to the front,” Ahsoka said. “The fighting is the thickest there, but I might be able to help out long enough for our people to retreat.”

“Where did you come from?” Neera asked. She didn’t sound like she was expecting an answer, but Ahsoka decided to give it to her. In all likelihood, they’d find out soon enough anyway.

“The Clone Wars,” she said. “I fought in the Clone Wars.”

She didn’t give them any more specifics. Let them think she was part of a planetary militia. She was pretty sure that’s what Selda and Vartan thought already. They weren’t even wrong. She had been part of a planetary militia. But she’d also been a part of something else.

There was another explosion. They couldn’t afford to wait anymore.

“Are you ready?” she asked Neera.

Neera held the blaster she’d gotten from Vartan in one hand and a couple of explosives in the other. Ahsoka carried most of the explosives, because she had no blaster of her own. She was sure she’d be able to pick one up after a few minutes of fighting.

“Good luck,” she said to Miara. The younger girl swallowed hard and crouched to wait.

Neera and Ahsoka turned and ran into the yard.

Ahsoka’s initial tactical assessment had been immediate, instinctive, and not at all promising. Now that she could see the whole compound at once, she was no more optimistic. She had warned them that this kind of strike was a terrible idea, for exactly this reason: the farmers were outmatched, and she still wasn’t entirely sure what they were up against. They hadn’t listened. Now she had to either leave them to their fate or go to their rescue. No choice, really. Her only advantage was that they were up against the Empire’s new stormtroopers, not the formidable clones. She couldn’t use the Force for anything as showy as deflecting blaster bolts, but she could jump and she could run, and that would have to be enough.

Most of her friends had already retreated, and Neera was rounding them up. The left side was clearing, and even the fighters on the right side were starting to retreat now that they knew their options. It was the disastrous attempt to take the front gate of the Imperial compound that was causing the biggest problem. It had ended almost before it began. As Ahsoka had suspected, the heavy artillery was too much for the ill-equipped farmers to deal with, even with the element of surprise and Miara’s explosives to back them up. The five who remained alive were pinned down, with the Imperial ground reinforcements closing in. Through the smoke, Ahsoka could see both Hoban and Kaeden crouched among the survivors. They didn’t have a lot of time, and Ahsoka was their only hope.

She moved forward cautiously, staying as low to the ground as possible to present a minimal target for the guns that lined the compound walls. She was far enough away that the troopers couldn’t target her more easily than they could her friends, and she didn’t want to draw attention until she had to. She listened for incoming fighters but couldn’t hear anything over the noise of battle and the hammering of her own heart.

“I am really out of practice,” she said, talking to companions who were no longer with her. She spoke out of habit, falling into the banter as easily as she took stock of her surroundings, even though there was no one left for her to banter with. She shook her head and refocused: it was not the time to get lost in the past. There were plenty of people, living people, who needed her at that moment.

Staying behind the line of Imperial tanks, Ahsoka attached charges to every one of them she could reach. Apparently, a backwater like Raada didn’t merit entirely new weaponry, and Ahsoka knew these Clone Wars–era vehicles like the back of her hand. The charges wouldn’t destroy the tanks completely, but they should render them immobile, and Ahsoka needed all the help she could get. The explosions started just as she jumped clear of the last tank, earning her friends a momentary reprieve from bombardment.

“This way!” she shouted, waving them toward her so that she could guide them to the questionable safety of the hills. At least it would be harder for any fighters to maneuver in there.

The five survivors moved, but three of them were wounded, and that slowed them down. They didn’t get very far before stormtroopers from the compound caught up with them. Ahsoka engaged a trooper in hand-to-hand combat, taking him down with a vicious kick to the midsection and keeping him down with a blow to the head. Kaeden gaped at her, but Ahsoka didn’t have time for that. She picked up the fallen stormtrooper’s blaster and did her best to cover their retreat with her newly acquired weapon. Despite her best efforts, the distance between the Imperials and her friends kept shrinking.

“Leave us!” Kaeden shouted. She was half carrying Hoban even though he was twice her size, and she was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. “You told us not to get in this mess. You shouldn’t pay for it.”

“Not an option!” Ahsoka shouted back.

Anything else Kaeden might have said was drowned out by an enormous explosion in front of them. A crater opened, blasted by one of the tanks that still had a working gun. It would take too long to go around the smoking hole in the ground, and if they went into it, they were as good as dead.

“Freeze,” said the closest stormtrooper.

“It’s our lucky day,” said Hoban sarcastically as Ahsoka lowered her gun. “They want prisoners.”

Ahsoka didn’t have the heart to tell him it was more likely the stormtroopers just wanted clean shots. Sure enough, when she turned around she found a line of blasters and no signs of mercy.

Obi-Wan would have had a clever remark in this situation, something that belied the danger of the moment and confused his adversaries into doubting themselves. Anakin wouldn’t have surrendered in the first place. Ahsoka usually fell somewhere between the two, but right now she didn’t have the luxury of deliberation.

Hoban threw himself toward the line of stormtroopers. It was pointless, but Ahsoka couldn’t stop him. She heard Neera screaming behind her, but then the sound was drowned out by the whine of Imperial blasters as they ripped Hoban apart at close range. When he was dead, there was a horrible moment of silence. Someone must have shut Neera up, or dragged her far enough away that Ahsoka couldn’t hear her anymore.

Then the Imperial lieutenant raised her hand, giving the order to fire, and Ahsoka raised hers at the same time. Since she’d started helping the Raadians organize themselves, she’d used the Force only to sense her friends and avoid her enemies. She’d been careful, contained, making sure she would not be detected. That caution was gone now. For the first time in too long, she felt the full power of the Force flow through her, and she welcomed it.

Blasters flew backward through the air, some even dragging the stormtroopers who held them. Metal screamed as it was bent away from her and her friends, and even the ground seemed to shift as Ahsoka pushed the Imperial firing line back. The lieutenant gaped at her, staggering as if someone had struck her across the face.

“Ashla!” Kaeden was staring at her, too, which was when Ahsoka realized exactly what she’d done.

“Run now,” she said. “Talk later.”

The Raadians did as they were told, making for the hills. Ahsoka lagged behind. With her cover well and truly blown, she had no qualms about continuing to deflect the heavy artillery aimed at them. It took longer than she would have liked and she could only imagine what a spectacle she made, but eventually she and the farmers reached the temporary security of the hills and the cave where they could hide until they came up with a better plan.

As soon as Ahsoka walked into the cave, all eyes turned to her. Kaeden, who was sitting next to her sister on a medical cot, turned and bore down on her.

“So,” she said, her eyes blazing with anger, “was there something you wanted to tell us?”

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