Chapter 22

Chapter 22

IN HER FAVOR, the armored figure hadn’t yet drawn a weapon. They really did want to talk. Ahsoka’s own blaster still hung at her side, but she could get to it if she needed to. It didn’t matter how quickly the figure could draw and fire, Ahsoka would be faster. Her Jedi-trained reflexes were more than sufficient for that. At the same time, she knew that there was no point in a firefight unless she was provoked. The Black Sun agent had come looking for Ashla, so Ashla could deal with them.

“I’m surprised Black Sun has heard of me,” Ahsoka said. She relaxed her shoulders but stayed alert, her eyes scanning the visitor’s armor for weaknesses and her feelings seeking out the surge of aggression that would precipitate a fight.

“My organization keeps watch on this whole sector,” the agent said. The voice modulator made the words difficult to understand. It must be an old machine. Either this agent was new and couldn’t afford good tech yet, or they were seasoned and had had their gear for a while. “We tend to notice when our business ventures go awry.”

Business ventures was not the term Ahsoka would have used. She considered all forms of sentient-being trafficking abhorrent. She absently calculated how long it would take to get her ship in the air from her starting position at the bottom of the ramp. The freighter wasn’t designed for quick takeoffs, but you could generally push a ship to do anything once, and this might be her one time.

“Well,” she said. “I don’t know much about that sort of thing. I’m just a hired pilot.”

“My organization is aware of that, too,” the agent said. “You’re much better than those petty Fardi scum. Whatever they’re paying you, we’ll double it.”

“You’re offering me a job.” Ahsoka’s voice was flat.

“We are,” the agent said. “Lucrative contracts, and all the benefits that come with working for such a high-level organization.”

Ahsoka almost wished the agent had come in firing.

“I had a certain amount of freedom with the Fardis,” she said. “I doubt your employers would continue to let me be so independent.”

“There are some limitations they would expect you to accept,” the agent conceded. They shifted, and Ahsoka saw that the knee plating on their armor was cracked. That would be her first target, if it came to that. “And there’s also the matter of the credits you owe them.”

“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Ahsoka said.

“Oh, but you do,” the agent said. “You’ve cost Black Sun thousands of credits, and you’ll pay them back one way or another.”

“This is sounding less and less like a job,” Ahsoka said.

“Your corpse is also acceptable,” the agent said.

“Do I get some time to think about it?” Ahsoka asked.

“Not long,” the agent said. “There will be others searching for you. I’m lucky I found you first.”

If Black Sun wanted a smuggler they felt had snubbed them badly enough to send out bounty hunters, then a suspected Jedi would be an even better target. She couldn’t reveal herself to this agent any more than she could have to the Imperials back on Thabeska. It would mean more people chasing her, and while she knew that she could handle them, she had others to consider. Wherever she set down next would become a target, just by virtue of her presence. She had to be careful.

“I’m very flattered,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m interested.”

To their credit, the Black Sun agent didn’t hesitate, but they were still too slow. Ahsoka was halfway up the ramp of her ship before the first salvo of blaster shots sounded and closing the door before the second round. The agent could have charged the ramp but chose instead to retreat back to their own ship. It seemed they now had fewer qualms about shooting her and were going to try to take her in the air.

There was good reason for this. The freighter was bulky and hadn’t been designed for speed. The agent’s vessel was sleek and vicious, a predator in ship’s clothing. Ahsoka was going to have her work cut out for her. She started the takeoff sequence before she even had the hatch shut. As soon as she was airborne, she turned around. Looking down, she saw the agent running up the ramp of their own vessel. The ship’s guns were powerful but would fire slowly. All she had to do was avoid a direct hit.

“Easy as anything,” she said.

She fired the engines, putting as much distance between her and the Black Sun agent as she could while they were still ascending. Maybe they would be a terrible pilot and this would be easy.

“Or maybe not,” she said, as the agent’s ship closed the gap on hers.

She gave the engines more fuel and took the ship down toward the mountain peaks. She’d have to lose her pursuer that way. A flurry of stone erupted on her port side as the agent’s artillery laid waste to a mountainside. She dodged the rubble and flew lower, trying to force them to fly down after her.

“Cloud cover would be very handy,” she said to no one in particular. Even R2-D2 couldn’t control the weather.

She spotted a peak and swung around it, banking so hard that the metal around her screamed with exertion. It was worth it, however, because for a few precious seconds, the Black Sun vessel crossed into her line of fire. She didn’t waste the opportunity. Her guns fired much more rapidly than theirs did, shorter bursts and less concentrated power but still effective. One of their cannons was disabled by the time she finished her pass, and they had to turn around to follow her.

She used the time, brief though it was, to start her computer’s hyperspace calculation. There was no point in sticking around any longer. So much for a few days to clear her head!

As she continued to evade the agent, though, she realized that her head did feel clearer. For better or worse, she had made a choice: she’d chosen to protect the friends she had and the friends she might yet make by concealing her identity once again, even though it made her escape more complicated. Choosing, even under pressure, had made her see that she was capable of deciding on the fly. She’d been right to reveal herself on Raada, even though it had led to problems, and she’d been right to conceal herself on Thabeska. There was no one way forward for her anymore. She would have to make decisions like that over and over again, but it was always going to be her . Ahsoka Tano. She was ready to put Ashla away for good, even though she didn’t know exactly who the new Ahsoka was going to be just yet. She’d have to write Black Sun a thank-you note.

“Or maybe not,” she said, as the agent successfully targeted her starboard engine. She was going to be much slower now, if that smoke was any indication. At least her hyperdrive was still online.

She pulled her ship around. It was time for drastic measures. The other ship was careening toward her. The agent either hadn’t noticed her direction change or didn’t care that they were about to ram her. Ahsoka fired everything she had, landing almost all her shots, but they didn’t deviate from their course.

She screamed, wrenching the helm sideways so her ship went spinning out of the path of the other vessel. It took her a few moments to regain equilibrium—both the ship’s and her stomach’s—and by then the agent was coming about for another pass at the same speed.

Both of the agent’s engine manifolds were smoking, greasy black stuff that looked as terrible as Ahsoka knew it would smell. Her starboard engine was almost stalled. It would be only a matter of time until it gave out completely, and she’d be unable to run.

“Come on, come on,” she said to the navicomputer.

In that moment, several things happened. The first was that her starboard engine failed and she began to spin out of control. The second was that the Black Sun agent pulled up, as though they wanted to watch her crash from a distance. The third was that there was another ship in the sky with them, and it was much bigger than hers.

Ahsoka saw it only in flashes as she spun. It was a new ship, shiny hull fitted with state-of-the-art cannons. There were markings on it, but she couldn’t make them out. What she could make out was that the ship wasn’t targeting her. It was targeting the Black Sun vessel.

Under onslaught from a ship that size, the sleek little craft didn’t stand a chance. The agent must have known it, because they turned tail and fled after the first salvo. Ahsoka used the reprieve to stop her ship from spinning out. She leveled off just above the treetops and began the climb back up, trying to break orbit and get away so that she could make the jump to lightspeed. It was slow going with only one engine, and she had to use her full strength to hold the ship on course.

Between that and her fading adrenaline, she couldn’t locate the bigger ship. She tried to see it on her scanners, but steering required too much of her concentration.

“Just a little more,” she said. “Just a little more.”

She broke into space and killed the port engine before it could burn out, too. Out of the planet’s gravity and atmosphere, she was able to relax a little bit and use the thrusters to maintain stability while her inertia carried her toward a location where she’d be able to make the jump.

“About that hyperdrive,” she said, turning to the navicomputer and preparing the manual parts of the calculation.

Her proximity alarms went berserk. The bigger ship was right on top of her. It must have waited for her to break orbit and then pounced when she paused to catch her breath.

“Come on, come on!” she said to the computer, but she had a sinking feeling that it was too late.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, when the computer beeped and she tried to make the jump to lightspeed, nothing happened. She was caught in a tractor beam.

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