Chapter Text
Bracca loomed red and dusty out the viewport, where swathes of static laden clouds swirled heavy and foreboding just below Ahsoka’s ship. It was an angry purple storm, threatening at any moment to engulf her ship and drag it down to the world’s rocky surface.
Ahsoka dropped out of hyperspace straight into the storm, flying on the last goodwill of a nearly defunct motivator. And despite the danger, she was relieved to see realspace surrounding her once again. It was no mistake that she had come here. The Bracca system hadn’t been her best bet for a safe jump, but its namesake planet was home to one of the galaxy's largest scrapping operations. Her small ship desperately needed new parts, but with most manufacturers and shipyards now under Imperial control, getting them discreetly was becoming more difficult with each passing day.
But, then, what wasn’t?
With a jerk of the controls, Ahsoka let her ship drop down into the atmosphere as dark writhing clouds engulfed her viewport, her gut leapt the way it did when a lAAT-i dove. The descent was treacherous with absolutely no visibility, choppy storm air and electricity buffeting the ship from every angle.
This was by no means the worst storm she had ever navigated, and she was sure it would not be her last.
While lightning struck the side of her ship and gale force winds attempted to knock her off course, Ahsoka fought to hold her descent pattern. Flying by computer readouts and the Force made for relatively few of her senses cut off. She never flew by sight anyways, not really.
If she listened, she could hear Anakin’s voice echoing through her montrals, his head resting right next to hers in the tiny cockpit of the Twilight: you don’t fly with your eyes, Snips. Not really. Your eyes will lie to you, your ears- he flicked the horn of her montrals, and she could feel it echo just as it had when she was thirteen- will be too slow. Trust the Force, instead. It never lies. Your heart, that part of you that knows what’s coming? It never lies.
Her eyes closed, Ahsoka jerked the controls to the right, dodging a lightning blast that branched and crackled in her wake. She could feel the swirl of the ion storm was to her left, and she skated by on the rim of its gravity well, riding out the turbulence as muscle memory kept her from flinching too far away from it and getting caught in the riptide.
And if she concentrated, she could feel Anakin’s hands on hers as he guided her in her first flying missions- but she didn’t. She was in the here and now. Anakin Skywalker was dead, the Clone Wars were over, and the Empire had won.
Ahsoka’s small ship broke through the underside of the storm. If she’d been expecting a relief from the oppressive darkness of the storm, when she opened her eyes she would have been disappointed. The sky was a deep, dark grey, somehow even more depressing than the electrical purple of the ion storm above the cloud cover. Trash and ruin that could generously be called the planet’s landscape stretched out as far as she could see; there was no ground, no treeline, no mountains to be seen except for the ships piled upon gutted ships. The corpses of every kind of spacefaring vessel filled the land’s natural chasms, and piled up well above them too. Rusted hulls and gutted mechanical innards, it was a horrifying sort of graveyard.
A few new warning lights blinked, adding to the strobe of alerts on her control board. Low fuel, half capacity shields, the port cannon which had been malfunctioning for as long as she’d had the ship had finally given out, and- most worrisome of all- so had the well-beyond-repair motivator.
Ahsoka knew she wouldn’t be leaving Bracca until she had replaced the entire component.
With a few frustrated prayers, Ahsoka engaged the ship's repulsors and activated the landing gear, aiming her descent towards a large, mostly empty, docking platform. She could hear the strain of metal, hydraulic hiss of failing systems, and she twisted her hands on the joysticks as she set her teeth. The Force was with her. The Force was with her. The Force had damn well better be with her after all she’d done for it, come on!
The scrape of landing struts shuddered through the skin of her ship at a volume that Ahsoka could feel in her teeth as her ship skidded to a none-to-graceful stop. The smell of acrid burnt rubber wafted through the cockpit- but, well, maybe that was just what Bracca smelled like.
With a few swift hand movements on the controls, Ahsoka scrubbed her flight data. If this ship was found, whether by scavengers or Imperials, there had to be no trace of where she’d been- no trace of Raada or the tiny colony she’d left Kaeden and Miara to make a new start on when their home was colonized, no trace of any of the other people she’d tried- and mostly failed- to help.
She powered down the ship and activated its security protocols. With a final look around the dingy freighter, Ahsoka pulled her well worn travel cloak around her. The bulky fabric hid most of her body, obscuring her identifying features as well as masking the lightsabers she kept on her at all times. There was no such thing as being too cautious these days.
By all rights, she shouldn’t have even made it to Bracca. Her ship’s motivator should have given out a long time ago, and it was pure luck the planet had even been within jumping distance.
No such thing as luck. Ahsoka recoiled at the voice in her head; it was Master Obi-Wan this time. Only the will of the Force.
The platitude had long since ceased to be comforting. But she had to admit, what she felt wasn’t just the electrical storm in the air around her. She could taste the ozone in her mouth and feel the static on her skin, but even more than that... she could feel an echo in the Force. Something happened here. On Bracca at least, if not within a hundred kilometers. There was something here.
As she stepped out of her ship, Ahsoka felt like she was descending into an even bigger storm.
She wasn’t alone on the landing platform. Droids pushed hover sleds and workers arriving from off world trundled along, entirely absorbed in their own business. Small ships landed and departed without ceremony and Ahsoka moved virtually invisible through the thin crowd, drawing no attention from droid or sentient. She hadn’t needed any papers to land, but it might be too much to hope that she wouldn’t need her forgeries at all.
In no time at all, she had reached the edge of the landing platform and a checkpoint blocking her way to the planet below. Workers with badges scanned their way through the terminal as droids moved through another. Beyond the terminal she could see high speed rail trains, packed full with all manner of species heading to their shifts, and beyond even that, the endless ship graveyard.
It was quickly apparent without identification, Ahsoka would not be going that way. Off to the other side of the platform was what Ahsoka could only assume was a sort of information office, Ahsoka watched a Toydarian argue with the protocol droid behind the counter. The Toydarian was attempting to sell his freighter full of crashed podracer remains, and it appeared they could not come to an agreement on price.
So caught up in eavesdropping, Ahsoka didn’t even notice when a new figure approached, her head whipping when an unfamiliar voice cut through her focus.
“Hey, you look lost.”
Ahsoka wasn’t used to being caught off guard, and her reflexes were much faster than her mind. Her knees bent intuitively, weight shifting into the beginning of a fighting stance, hands up and ready to defend herself. It took a moment for Ahsoka’s eyes to actually land on the source of the voice, and she was surprised to find her defensive stance subtly mirrored in the teenager standing across from her. He had quick reflexes then, reacting to her nearly as fast as she had reacted to him.
But the tense moment was a flash, two strangers sizing one another up faster than most species could blink.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to surprise you.” The teenager held his hands up in a placating gesture, though Ahsoka noted the boy’s body didn’t actually relax.
“No, I should apologize. I wasn’t paying attention.” Ahsoka let her shoulders drop, and she watched the boy relax as well. “I don’t want to say I’m lost, but I’m definitely... a new arrival.”
“Well,” the boy smiled, disarming in a way that felt practiced, “welcome to Bracca, trash capital of the mid rim. Buying or selling?”
“Buying,” Ahsoka said simply, then gestured to her ship. “Busted motivator.”
She watched the boy’s eyes as he looked towards her ship. The way they flicked, scanning the vessel, a quick methodical intake of details.
“An XS freighter, didn’t know anyone flew those any more,” he remarked. Ahsoka wondered if she heard suspicion in his voice, or if it was simply herself that was paranoid.
“Too old to sell, not old enough to be vintage,” Ahsoka joked dryly, “think I can find what I’m looking for here- or should I try Lotho Minor?”
The boy scrunched his nose up in mock disgust, “at least here the Guild sells reputable scrap, Lotho trash is- well trash. And don’t even get me started on Raxus Prime.”
“Sorry I asked.” Ahsoka could feel herself smiling. Intentional or not, the boy’s good nature was infectious. “I’m Ashla, by the way.”
“Cal,” he introduced himself, absently running a hand through his dusty red hair. “Let me see if I can find you that motivator. I can get you the Guild rate for it, save you a couple credits.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
For the first time, they openly studied one another. Ahsoka could feel his eyes examining her deliberately nondescript clothing, obfuscated features and unreadable face.
Likewise, she studied him. Scars marred his otherwise young face, and with Ahsoka’s experience in battlefield injuries she could tell the scar tissue was from a plasma bolt. They were such a stark contrast to his otherwise gentle features and affable demeanor, Ahsoka had to wonder what had precipitated the injuries. How did this child get shot in the face and survive?
They locked eyes, Ahsoka allowing her gaze to hold him in unfettered Jedi appraisement. It wasn’t a gaze most civilians could hold for more than a few moments, and Ahsoka fully expected Cal to look away, abashed.
To her growing suspicion, Cal did not look away. His face remained placid, carefully crafted bemusement written across his features, the illusion of open honesty thick in his bright green eyes.
“Is there somewhere we can meet later?” Ahsoka affected her own congenial tone. “In case you can track me down a motivator?”
“Sure,” Cal gestured towards the office she had noted earlier, “there's a cantina round the back, I’ll come find you there- hopefully with your part.”
Ahsoka nodded and Cal beamed back at her with a well-practiced smile, before jogging towards the line of other workers headed to catch the approaching rail car. She watched him go, troubled but intrigued.
She had plenty of time to dwell on her suspicions, camped out in the most secluded booth of the lively Cantina. Worker shifts ended at all hours of the day and night, so the cantina served a steady stream of scrappers exhausted from work and ready to relax with a pint.
No one cast her a second’s glance, all the many hours she waited. As it was supposed to be.
She wasn’t just wrapped in her travel cloak, she was wrapped in the Force, surrounded by the subtle suggestion that whoever looked at her would see nothing. She could watch it happen, the glare of suspicious, leering workers, roaming the room with their eyes, looking to make trouble. Their gaze would land on her, and their eyes would grow dim and distant, passing right over her until they spotted the next patron.
The fact that Cal had spoken to her, let alone noticed her at all, was either a stroke of terribly bad luck, or something else was at work.
She could already tell the scrappy teenager had been trained, his comfortable fighting stance and quick reflexes told her that. But trained as what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe nothing more than a pit fighter- or as dangerous as an assassin.
But there was something terribly, honestly sincere in his eyes. It was hard to fathom what had scarred his face so badly yet left his eyes so bright.