Chapter 25

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Chapter 25

“HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?” Bail said the first thing that came into his head.

“Artoo opened the hatch for me as soon as he got on board,” Ahsoka said.

“I should have him deactivated,” Bail said with no real heat in his voice. “He is far too independent for a droid.”

“He had a lot of bad role models,” Ahsoka said dryly.

“That’s true,” Bail said. “Though Skywalker was your teacher, too.”

“I was talking about Senator Amidala, actually,” Ahsoka said. “Artoo belonged to her first.”

“Where’s your ship?” Bail asked, changing the subject to avoid the sudden tightness in his throat.

“Hidden on one of the lifeless rocks in this system. I knew that I’d be too small for the scanners to pick up, unless someone got very lucky looking out a window.” Ahsoka glanced at the helmet. “I’m surprised I found one that fit.”

“Why didn’t you just come with Chardri Tage?” Bail said. “Save yourself the hassle?”

“In my position it’s difficult to trust someone who employs a tractor beam before a hello,” Ahsoka said. “I take it you didn’t tell them who they were after?”

“No,” said Bail. “I wanted to preserve your anonymity. I didn’t know it was you until I saw the surveillance footage.”

“Artoo was supposed to wipe all of that,” Ahsoka grumbled. “I think you might be right about his independent streak.”

“It’s difficult to look for people without compromising their safety, I’ve found,” Bail said. “The new order is harsh and unforgiving, so I thought if you didn’t want to be found, I would give you the option.”

“How did you even know where to look?” Ahsoka asked.

“I keep an eye out for acts of kindness in this new galaxy of ours,” Bail said. “When there’s a concentration of them, I try to find out who is behind them, and then we have a talk.”

“What do you talk about?” Ahsoka asked.

Bail gave her a measuring look and decided to go for it.

“The Rebellion, Padawan Tano,” he said. “I look for people who will fight against the Emperor, the Empire, and everything it stands for.”

“I don’t deserve that title anymore, Senator,” Ahsoka said quietly. “And I don’t deserve your trust.”

Bail let her sit on that statement for a few moments. Politics had made him good at getting people to talk.

“There was a planet,” she said, finally. “A moon, actually. I tried to help them when the Empire came, but I couldn’t. People died. I had to run and leave them behind.”

“Raada,” he said. “I heard about that, and what you did there.”

“We tried to fight, and everything just got worse,” Ahsoka said. “It’s not like the Clone Wars. I was never alone then. I had an army, I had masters, I had—”

She’d had Anakin Skywalker.

“You can’t fight the Empire alone, Ahsoka,” Bail said gently. “But you don’t have to, either. You can fight it with me.”

“I can’t command people anymore,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can’t order them to their deaths. I’ve done that too many times.”

“We’ll find something else for you to do, then,” he said. “I have a lot of job openings, as you can probably imagine.”

He could see that she was very tempted. It would be safer than continuing to right wrongs on her own. Whatever was chasing her would have a harder time tracking her down.

“There are children,” she said after a long moment. His blood ran cold. “All over the galaxy. I’ve met one, but I know there will be others. They would have been Jedi. Now they’re just in danger. Something is hunting them down. I don’t know what it is. I’ve never seen it. But if you will help find it, I will join your rebellion.”

The casual way she had talked about Anakin and Padmé made him think that she might have known the true nature of their relationship but not the outcome. He was sure she didn’t know about Leia, about the boy. She couldn’t know his motivations, but he would overturn every stone in the galaxy to help her, if it was in his power to do so. Having someone else lead the search would work out well for him, too. Every layer of deception between him and anything connected to the Force was another layer in the safety net he was building for his daughter.

“That seems like a bargain to me,” he said, when his voice came back. “And I have a mission for you, as it turns out. Are you up for it?”

* * *

Ahsoka was exhausted, though she did her best to keep it from showing in her face. The fight with the Black Sun agent, her escape from Bail’s hired hands, and then her trip through zero gravity had drained her. It was taking everything she had to stay upright behind the desk while she and the senator traded barbs, then words, and finally got down to negotiations. When he said he had a mission for her, she almost wilted, but she had been awake this long. She could manage a little longer.

“I might need a meal before I head back out,” she said, “but I’d like to hear about anything you think I’d be interested in.”

“It’s on Raada,” Bail said. Ahsoka felt immediately sharper. “My contacts in that sector have been getting spotty information for a long time—that’s part of why it took me so long to find you—but then this, as clear as starshine.”

Ahsoka held out her hands and Bail handed her a datapad. She flipped through it as Bail continued to talk. It was mostly maps, and diagrams of the Imperial compound, things she already knew.

“It seems there’s a new sort of Imperial agent there,” Bail continued. “Nonmilitary, but powerful. He has complete control over the garrison, if he wants it, and orders the officers around like they were stormtroopers. All of this is made more complicated by reports that he carries a double-bladed red lightsaber.”

Ahsoka nearly dropped the datapad. It was getting too easy to surprise her. She needed to refocus, but she couldn’t seem to find something to focus on .

“What does he look like?” she demanded.

“The overwhelmingly common descriptor is gray ,” Bail said. “Not terribly helpful, I think? Even the security footage doesn’t reveal very much.”

Ahsoka’s mind turned it over quickly. Gray was not the sort of word anyone would use to describe any of the adversaries she was used to facing. This had to be someone else. Someone new. Someone like—

“A shadow?” she asked. “Gray like a shadow?”

“I suppose,” Bail said. “He’s rumored to be very fast, and he must be a Force wielder to carry a lightsaber, don’t you think?”

“Not necessarily,” Ahsoka said. “But it’s probably true in this case. The Empire wouldn’t send just anyone to hunt down Jedi.”

“How do you know he’s hunting Jedi?” Bail said.

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that your intel was so spotty on Raada until now?” Ahsoka said. “Until I started drawing attention with my ‘acts of kindness’ as you call them? Until whatever this creature is was drawn away from the whispers he was hunting to follow bigger prey?”

“I didn’t know about the last part,” Bail said. “But yes, I did think it was strange. Also, there’s something else you need to see. I thought it was just a trap set for anyone, but now that I’ve heard your side of the story, I think it might be a trap set specifically for you.”

Bail picked up the datapad that Ahsoka had dropped and thumbed through to the final entry. It was a picture, taken by a security camera and beamed out across the stars, to be decrypted by Bail’s agents. But it was astonishingly clear for an accidental transmission. Knowing that it was a trap made the clarity make much more sense.

Ahsoka took back the datapad and looked down at the picture. Her heartbeat sped up, and she felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out through the very airlock she’d used to get into Bail’s office. There was the gray creature, his face obscured by a helmet but his lightsaber plainly visible. And there was Kaeden Larte, obviously his captive, with her broken arm bound tightly to her chest and her frizzy hair flying in all directions.

“Oh, no,” Ahsoka breathed. “I have to—”

“Stop,” Bail said sternly. She froze automatically and then glared at him. His expression softened and he came around the desk to stand close to her. “Ahsoka, you need to rest. You need to plan. They’re not going to hurt her any more. They need you to show up first. The best thing you can do is make sure you’re as prepared as possible when you do.”

She slumped back in his chair, hands falling into her lap in defeat. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, and they both jumped when there was a clamor outside the main door of his suite. It hissed open and Captain Antilles burst into the room with several security officers.

“Senator!” Antilles said, and then stopped. He took in the room at a glance and dismissed the security force.

“Everything is under control, Captain,” Bail said. “This is a friend of mine. She’s going to be with us for a while. We’ll need to pick up her ship before we leave, and she’ll need quarters.”

Antilles nodded sharply, and then left as quickly as he’d arrived.

“You didn’t tell him who I was,” Ahsoka said. “Are you really that vulnerable?”

“Yes,” Bail said. “But we’re getting more secure every day. Still, I don’t like to give away other people’s secrets. If you want to tell him who you are, that’s up to you.”

“Thank you,” she said. Then: “You mentioned quarters?”

Bail showed her into the suite next to his and then went down to the cargo hold to make sure her ship was being secured. Ahsoka cleaned up, stripping off the pressure suit. She’d had to leave her bag in the ship, but the little package of tech parts fit next to her skin inside the suit. She opened it now and made sure everything was still intact.

“As if you could break any more than you already have,” she said. Then she turned her attention back to getting dressed.

She debated for a moment between food and sleep, but the latter required less effort, so she lay down on the bed. She was asleep almost instantly.

* * *

Ahsoka dreamed of ice, and an urgency she hadn’t felt in years. She had to make it back to the mouth of the cave while the sun held the ice back or she’d be trapped on that frozen planet for much longer than she wanted to be stuck anywhere so cold. But where was her crystal? Master Yoda had been no more helpful than he usually was, telling her only that she would know it when she saw it. But where was it? And how would she know?

She stopped running, closed her eyes, and thought about what she did know. Master Yoda was strange, and more often than not, she didn’t understand him, but he was almost always right. She would just have to trust that he was right now, that she would find her crystal and she would know it when she did.

She opened her eyes. There, twinkling in the dark of the cave, was a light that hadn’t been there before. It called to her, and she went to it. When she got close, she saw that it was a crystal, and just like Master Yoda had said, she knew it was hers. It fell into her hands, and she turned to run back to the mouth of the cave.

* * *

It was warm in her quarters when she woke up, which is how Ahsoka knew the dream was over.

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered, though she knew that Master Yoda couldn’t possibly hear her, or help her even if he could.

Rising, she went to the low table that held her belongings and picked up the little pouch that usually rested in her pocket. She spilled out the collection of used parts and other derelict pieces she’d been carrying with her since her arrival on Raada. She could see now that several of them were useless, and she discarded them. The pieces that were left, however, might be worth something.

Lightsaber construction was a Jedi art of the highest order. Ahsoka had never done it unsupervised, as she knew she must do now. She also knew that she was missing important components, but since her vision was guiding her toward Ilum and the crystals that grew there, she would have to trust the path she was taking. The material she had would be sufficient to begin construction on the chambers. The hilts would be inelegant, but functional.

She finished after a few false starts and examined her work. She could almost hear Huyang fussing over her shoulder, but she still felt pleased with herself. She stood, stretched out her shoulders, and went in search of the senator. She found him in the mess hall, having a conversation with the captain.

“No, Captain, stay please,” she said, when Antilles would have left them alone. “I think I’m going to need your help, too.”

“What are you thinking, Ahsoka?” Bail asked.

And Ahsoka told him the plan.

THE CRYSTALS GREW.

Clear as ice and cold until they found the hands that waited for them, they added structure in an ordered way, one prism at a time. And while they grew, they waited.

From time to time, someone would arrive and call to them, like the harmony of a perfect song. Each crystal had a chosen bearer, and only that bearer would hear the music and see the glow. All others would pass by, seeing nothing but more ice.

There were larger crystals, visible to all but inert unless properly calibrated, and there were tiny ones, the size of a fingernail or smaller. Even the smallest could channel power and find a bearer. All they had to do was be patient and grow.

There was no particular pattern for where the crystals might be found. There were some planets that hosted them in countless numbers, and those places were often considered holy or special. Pilgrimages were made and lessons learned and lightsabers crafted. And thus the light crystals went about the galaxy to be put to use.

Dark crystals were made, too, but not in that holy place. They were plundered from their rightful bearers and corrupted by the hands that stole them. Even rock could be changed by the power of the Force, bleeding alterations until their color was the deepest red. The balance was finely staged between the two, light and dark, and it took very little to upset it.

When the first ships appeared in the sky over a planet where the crystals grew in number, nothing seemed amiss. Ships visited the planet all the time, and crystals were taken away, but this occasion was different. There were no young bearers to hear the songs, no attentive students to learn the lessons. There was only greed and a terrible, terrible want.

The planet was ravaged, its crystals broken by uncaring hands who thought to twist them to their own uses. No more could the planet be considered a holy place, and no longer would pilgrimages be made. Instead, those who had once gone there would avoid it and despair for the loss of the crystals that once sang to them.

But in the wideness of the galaxy, there were many planets and many places where the crystals could appear. They would be harder to find, their concentration lower, but it would not be impossible for one who sought, for one who listened—for one who had learned the first lessons and had the patience to learn more.

The crystals grew, adding structure in an ordered way, one prism at a time.

And while they grew, they waited.

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