Archive of Our Own

Spontaneous cheers broke out as the next airship pulled up into the Resolute’s hangar bay.

Anakin broke off conversation and turned, laughing, to watch Ahsoka jump down. The clones surged forward around her, clapping her on the shoulders and shouting congratulations and wordless support as she tried to pick her way through the armored men.

She didn’t try too hard, Obi-Wan noted with amusement; she was clearly enjoying the arm-clasps and friendly punches just as much as they were, and she didn’t bother hiding her cocky lopsided grin as she finally broke free of the enthusiastic throng and made her way to her master’s side.

“...incredible out there, sir!”

“Thought they had us pinned down until she dropped outta nowhere, took out about five—nah, twenty destroyers in a couple seconds and then—”

“—didn’t think anyone could get through crossfire like that!”

“Wasn’t quite Skywalker but that was some damn good flying out there around…”

Rex had a little more propriety than his brothers, but he still gave her a fierce smile as she came up to them. “Well done out there, Commander.”

“Not bad, Ahsoka,” Anakin agreed. She shrugged with obviously fake carelessness and leaned against a nearby crate.

“No big deal, Master.” Ahsoka rolled her shoulders. “Nothing but bounty hunters and hired muscle preying on disaster victims. Are we gonna get going? I was hoping we’d get a chance to reinforce—”

Obi-Wan held up a hand, trying not to hurt her feelings by laughing. “Slow down. We’re going back to Coruscant. I just spoke with Master Unduli; the fighting around Trandosha is as good as over.”

She made a face and cursed under her breath. Obi-Wan frowned slightly, but tried to hide it. Her personal investment was understandable, of course. Trandoshan sentient-hunt rites of passage were legal under Republic cultural heritage law, but the fringe groups that illegally hunted kidnapped innocents rather than the permitted condemned prisoners were difficult not to have strong opinions on even when one hadn’t nearly been a trophy kill themselves. Still, a Jedi was meant to be able to place those emotions aside.

Sighing, Ahsoka stretched. “All right,” she said. “Well, good to know, anyway. Besides, the men are tired. It’ll be good to have time to restock.”

Obi-Wan’s inability to entirely suppress the swell of pride at the genuine acceptance Ahsoka was radiating in the Force marked him as a hypocrite. He couldn’t have controlled the emotion if he tried.

“Hey,” said Anakin, clearly trying to cheer her up. “Don’t you want to meet with the Council? They said when you got back they’d give you their decision about that mission proposal…”

Sure enough, her eyes lit up at the reminder. With Chancellor Organa and Padmé’s committee leading peace talks, the war against the Separatists officially over, and “unofficial” skirmishes finally starting to die down, Ahsoka had been the one to insist that now was the time to crack down hard against slavers in the Outer Rim.

Anakin was so proud of her he nearly glowed.

Obi-Wan managed not to wince at how hopeful she looked. He’d given Anakin ambiguous answers, but he was certain the Council wouldn’t approve the campaign, not with things still so delicate. They knew better than Ahsoka how deeply ingrained the slave trade was and how hard it would be to break. But she was still a Padawan, and he didn’t want to discourage her. Perhaps in a few years, she and Anakin would get their chance.

“Debriefing’s in half an hour,” Anakin told her, and Ahsoka gave him a teasing salute before running off to join the 501st. Rex bowed politely to the two Jedi, then followed her.

“She did very well,” Obi-Wan observed after a moment.

“She kicked ass,” Anakin protested. “You should’ve seen her! The men are saying she was like a force of nature! She’s basically controlling the battlefield on her own.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to convince me, Anakin,” he said mildly. “I’m very well aware of Ahsoka’s combat skills.” Anakin made a face. “You believe she’s ready for Knighthood.”

“I was a Knight at her age.” Obi-Wan frowned, and Anakin waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s not about that. But if I was ready, she has to be.” He smirked. “Don’t tell me you think she’s more emotionally immature than I was.”

“Perish the thought,” was his deadpan response. After a moment, he sighed. “We are considering it, Anakin. It comes down to what is best for Ahsoka. She’s still extremely impulsive, and I for one am not quite convinced she’s ready to strike out on her own just yet.”

“We worked together after I was Knighted,” Anakin argued.

“Those were exceptional circumstances.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “She’ll become a Knight when she’s ready, Anakin. Meanwhile, enjoy the time you have with her as your Padawan.” His lips pulled into a faint smile. “It will pass sooner than you’re ready for it. Believe me.”

Ahsoka bounced on the balls of her feet.

Anakin smirked as he glanced sideways at her. “You got somewhere to be, Snips?”

She rolled her eyes. It wasn’t her fault there was so much to be done. People had thought that with the war over the Jedi would have less to do. In reality everything just seemed to be intensifying. With the threat of the Separatists gone—sorry, the Confederacy, Padmé said they had to use the proper terminology now that they were their own official nation—all the little local troubles that the Council had been putting off in favor of the war were making noise.

And since the Order had access to the GAR now, the Senate said there was no excuse for ignoring those issues. Jedi were zipping all over the galaxy reestablishing order, and they were still barely keeping up!

Plus there was still slavery in the Outer Rim. Now that the war was over, she’d assumed they would drop that treaty with the Hutts on principle, but according to Obi-Wan it was too beneficial to the Republic. Ahsoka didn’t see how it could possibly benefit anyone to play nice with those slimebags, but Anakin said they weren’t politicians and it wasn’t their decision. Padmé was a politician, though, and she didn’t seem to like it either…

It was annoyingly complicated. That was why she’d chosen to subscribe to the Anakin Skywalker school of philosophy—stabbing bad guys with a lightsaber while other people handled politics. She’d learned over the course of the war that it led to much fewer headaches.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “You don’t really need me here, right, Skyguy?”

He raised an eyebrow.

Ahsoka waved a hand. “We’re leaving in a few hours anyway,” she said. “This is all just pre-jump preparations and final checks. So, I was thinking I could just...grab one of the Delta-7s and jump back to the Temple on my own.”

Anakin snorted, gesturing at the bridge with one hand. “We’ll be ready to jump in two hours!” he exclaimed. “What’s the hurry?”

“I dunno.” Ahsoka rubbed the back of her neck. “I just don’t want to sit around over this planet anymore, Master! And a fighter can get back a lot faster than this cruiser can. There’s no reason to waste time.”

Anakin tapped a few items on his datapad.

“You know, little one,” he said, which was kinda hypocritical considering Ahsoka was almost taller than he was now. “You’re gonna get in trouble one of these days if you’re always in this much of a hurry.”

Ahsoka gave him her most unimpressed look. Finally, Anakin cracked.

“What?” he demanded with a grin. “I never said I was any better. I’ll clear your fighter with the flight deck. Get out of here.”

Resisting an un-Jedi-like urge to hug him, Ahsoka saluted and ran off the bridge. One of the boys had repainted her fighter from Republic standard-issue; she was Blue Leader when they flew sorties so he’d kept the body 501st navy, but the wings and accents were bright white now and the nose bore her forehead markings as its emblem. Obi-Wan thought that was a little much, but Ahsoka loved it.

The flight-deck crew had already prepped it and unlocked a hyperspace ring for her by the time she got down; she waved her thanks, got a thumbs-up from the officer on duty, and nudged her fighter into the ring’s docking clamps without a moment’s adjustment. Not bad for a dirtside fighter. Ahsoka stuck exactly to her vector until she was out safely past the cruiser, then flashed her searchlights just in case anyone was watching and pushed forward on the hyperdrive.

She jolted awake hours later to the glare of half a dozen red emergency lights and a frantic klaxon, as the fighter shuddered around her.

Sitting bolt upright, she cracked her montrals on the cockpit and shouted something Anakin would put her on bulkhead-scrubbing duty for a month if he heard.

“Stupid—growth spurt,” she spat, blinking watering eyes as she squinted at her console readout. She couldn’t see the top of her head, how was she supposed to keep track of her montrals if they kept getting taller without her permission? And why were cockpit roofs so shallow anyway?

Not under attack, she thought with relief. The console symbols showed no enemy contacts, no proximity alarms; but the shaking of the fighter was getting steadily worse. On the schematic of the fighter glowing on Ahsoka’s readout, the hyperspace ring couplings flashed warning red.

“Oh, no,” she said out loud, fingers fumbling over the controls as the fighter’s vibration started to reach a fever pitch. “No, no no no…”

She managed to find the emergency realspace-jump command, but not quite in time.

For several long seconds there was a drawn-out, horrific shriek of tearing metal, a flash of world-ending white and a sensation like someone was pulling Ahsoka’s guts out with a meathook. And then the unpowered crash-reentry was over. The fighter, ripped clear of its hyperdrive, tumbled aft over nose into realspace, and the cockpit went black as main power failed entirely.

That was bad enough on its own, but Ahsoka’s faulty hyperspace ring had broken free right in the gravity well of a planet.

“Haha,” she told herself, tapping at the console. “Kriff.”

The dead fighter began to fall almost gracefully toward the planet below.

“Kriff,” Ahsoka repeated, more emphatically this time, and ripped the console panel free to start yanking at wires. Anakin had made sure she knew how to manually bring auxiliary power online in any fighter she took out, but she’d never tried to do it while falling in a death spiral toward the night side of a strange planet that looked more worryingly close every second.

It took too many pounding heartbeats to pull it off, but finally the low emergency lighting flickered back on. Which brought her to the next most immediate problem: emergency auxiliary power included life support, passive scanners, communications, stabilizers, and maneuvering jets.

What it did not have enough power to support, generally, was landing thrusters.

And that was going to be something of a problem.

She ducked back under the console and went back to work. It was faster now that the stabilizers had kicked in. Life support wouldn’t do her any good if she crashed and passive scanners had already confirmed that the planet had breathable air. She disconnected them both. Even the console readout was using power; she yanked out that connection as well. Finally, working blind now, she took a deep breath and rerouted all onboard power away from stabilizers and fine maneuvering and poured everything she had into the atmo engines.

She was just barely in time. The ship screamed; white-hot thrusters ignited, fighting against gravity to slow the Delta-7 as it fell. The shapes of scraggly trees whipped by in the dark, and Ahsoka’s teeth clacked together when the tail of her fighter clipped a rock.

Deciding she’d have to risk it, she felt around under the console until she found the maneuvering jets again. The fighter made a distressed whirring noise and her stomach dropped as she felt the landing thrusters’ power level cut in half, but it was better than having no control at all. Especially as artificial lights jumped suddenly out of the blackness.

Ahsoka yelped. It wasn’t the brightness of a spaceport or a city, or even a cantina village; just a few dim light globes on sticks. She was among them almost before she had time to notice them, and yanked the starfighter to one side so sharply its wing dug into the ground and threw up a trail of dirt. That path only threatened to smash her into a cliff, and she wrestled her poor abused ship onto the opposite tack, pulling in a wide circle that brought her back into the settlement; she didn’t have the fine control to make true hard turns, and by the time she’d straightened out of her bank she was careening directly toward what looked like a cantina of some sort.

She hauled back on the controls by reflex, pulling up on a sharp vertical that let her narrowly avoid the low buildings in her path.

Unfortunately, her altitude thrusters were only on half power. She’d traded them for steering. She remembered this a split second before her fighter stalled and began falling back toward the little village.

There was no time to reconnect the thrusters; instead she gunned the rear maneuvering jets, bringing the ship parallel to the ground again at the same time she sent it shooting forward with all the power simple chemical-reaction jets could manage. It worked, in a manner of speaking; she didn’t hit any houses, sending herself on a ballistic course to crash outside the little circle of buildings.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t get quite enough lateral momentum to avoid dropping straight through an elaborate communications array on the roof of one of the central buildings. Tangled metal and wires ripped at her starfighter, and if she wasn’t busy crashing she’d have cringed at the damage it had to be doing to the paint job; but the collision only lasted a moment before she was through the wreckage and slammed into the ground, skidding along for several meters before almost delicately tipping up on her nose and sliding to a rest in a ditch.

Ow. Ow…

Hydraulics hissed as she popped the cockpit, staggering and clutching her montrals as she hauled herself out over the wing. Her head was ringing and, with the immediate crisis past, the drop in adrenaline was actually making her a little shaky. But at least it was over. She could already hear shouting and see approaching lights. People obviously lived here; they’d have seen her crash, and they were bound to be able to help her. Or at least tell her where she was…

As soon as the thought crossed her mind there was a familiar blue flash of a blaster set to stun, and then everything went black.

The first thing Ahsoka became aware of was that it was way too bright.

Groaning, she put an arm over her eyes to shield them from the bright overhead lights. Pressure on her wrists told her she was wearing binders, which was enough to wake her brain up again real fast. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and tried not to groan again at the splitting headache she could feel forming as she sat up on the cold metal bench.

“Oh hey,” said the young man sitting across from her. “You’re up.”

Ahsoka took a deep breath and let it back out, forcing herself to smile. “Hi,” she said. The twi’lek was a rusty color only a few shades darker and redder than her own skin. He was also every bit as gangly as she’d been at...fifteen or a young sixteen, if she had to guess. Just barely starting to fill out into his height. No trace of a Ryloth accent, not that it told her much. “I think there’s been a mistake.”

The twi’lek kid’s lekku twitched skeptically.

“Don’t think so,” he replied. “Pretty sure you almost flattened my ma’s cantina an’ then crashed into our comm tower. You’re pretty much bantha fodder, lady.”

Ahsoka was disappointed to realize he wasn’t sitting in the cell with her. It was an old-fashioned thing, with metal bars rather than a particle-shield barrier; the lack of that familiar visual cue had confused her. She probably should have realized he wasn’t a prisoner, though, because he was holding a military-grade blaster.

Awkwardly. The weapon was too big for him, and he cradled it in the crook of his arm like it was the first time he’d held one. Not a pirate or a smuggler, then, though that didn’t mean the others weren’t. He could just be a greenhorn.

Either way, she could work with it.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “I was trying to avoid hitting any occupied buildings. I’m actually—”

“Jedi,” the kid said shortly. “We figured on ‘ccount of the lightsabers. We ain’t stupid out here, you know.”

Apparently Ahsoka’s feeling at her empty belt clips hadn’t been as subtle as she’d hoped. All right. No lightsabers. Well, there went Plan B.

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” she said. It was always good to start with the truth, and she’d learned young to respect the local wisdom of settlers and never underestimate her opponents. “I’d actually love to make some friends around here. I’m sure you know how I could start.” Now she poured the Force into her words and, as she spoke again, raised her fingers slightly. “You’d much rather open this cell so you can introduce me to people than keep me here.”

“Sure would,” the boy agreed. “Except you’re under arrest and I don’t like that Jedi mind-trick stuff, so now I’m thinking I’d rather stun you and tell the Sheriff why I did it.”

Ahsoka hastily flicked her fingers back into her fist.

“Noted,” she said, glancing at the blaster. He hadn’t raised it yet, which was good. “Well, I won’t try that again, then.”

“Better not,” he warned her.

And Plan A was out the window too, then.

Shame she didn’t have a Plan C yet.

“You got a name, kid?” she asked.

“Yup,” said the kid.

After a pause, she asked, “You gonna tell me what it is?”

“Nope,” said the kid.

Oh, this one was way too similar to a teenage Ahsoka Tano. She had no idea how anyone had put up with her.

“How’d you learn to resist a mind trick like that?” she tried instead.

The kid gave a wide grin. “Doc says I’ve got a strong sense of identity. Ma says it’s just impossible to get anything into my head on account of I’m so stubborn I’d give a damn mountain ulcers.”

That didn’t sound too unlike something Anakin might’ve said about her at that age, and Ahsoka couldn’t help but grin back.

“All right,” she said, hoping this might mark a truce. “Seriously though, where am I? You might’ve noticed my ship crashed.”

The kid gave her a skeptical look, but opened his mouth like he was going to answer.

Naturally, someone chose that moment to knock on the door. Ahsoka was having that kind of day.

“Yeah?” the kid shouted.

Ahsoka leaned forward as the door to whatever holding area she was in opened, but couldn’t see anything but a strip of weak morning sunlight.

Oh, man. She hoped it was morning. If it was evening and she’d just woken up, Anakin was going to skin her alive.

“Hey Nandu,” a male voice called. The kid made an irritated face and glanced at Ahsoka, who smirked. Looked like she had his name after all. “Sheriff says, don’t keep the Jedi waiting anymore.”

“On it.” Nandu stood up and handed over the blaster to the speaker before returning to Ahsoka’s cell. Smart move, she thought as she heard the other man leave. That way she couldn’t grab it from the kid. Of course, she could still call it with the Force at any time, but there were only so many precautions you could take.

Nandu gave her a sharp look. “You said you wanted to talk to people,” he reminded her. “We’re gonna let you do that, so you don’t need to start flippin’ around or throwin’ things, right?”

Ahsoka held her bound hands up in surrender, and he keyed in the cell’s combination. The door slid open, and Ahsoka walked out meek as a lamb. Nandu still eyed her warily as he led her through the dusty little settlement toward a short, squat duracrete cube functionally identical to the rest.

This planet, or at least this area of it, seemed to be mostly scrubland. It was almost pretty, pink-red soil and stone rising around them in bluffs and plateaus; but raising food would be a challenge and a half and it was already oppressively warm. When the sun rose this place would be an oven.

Mining colony, she decided. Only explanation for why they stayed.

Nandu pressed a button beside the steel door; an old-fashioned buzzer went off inside, and the door unlocked a moment later. Ahsoka took it upon herself to open it, to her young guide’s visible distress.

“Sheriff”’s office was as simple an affair as the rest of the little settlement, which was putting it politely. All the furnishings were molded duraplast or metal, the walls were whitewashed duracrete with tiny windows or none at all so as to avoid letting the heat in. But it was clean, and the furnishings might be old-fashioned but they were of decent quality, and well-maintained. It made a good first impression.

So did the Devaronian who stood up as they entered the room. Ahsoka tried not to be too obvious in her scan of the man, but his dark clothes made her raise an eyebrow. They were worn and faded, but like the furnishings they were well-made and well-tailored nonetheless. When they were new, they would have been on the formal side of Core-world fashion. Huh.

He offered her a hand, which she took between her own rather than make the handshake awkward. If he was trying to throw her off she didn’t intend to give him the pleasure; if not, she’d only embarrass him by drawing attention to the binders.

The sheriff still made a face. “Whose idea was that?” he asked. “She’s a Jedi.” Nandu obediently stepped forward and decoupled the binders, and the Devaronian nodded. Ahsoka had seen that ploy a dozen times before, but the emotions of distaste and faint embarrassment she could sense in this man were genuine. Well, that was interesting.

“Thanks,” she told him.

He gave an apologetic smile. “I have great faith in Jedi honor,” he assured her. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. If we had known who you were, I assure you you wouldn’t have woken up in a jail cell!” He sounded scandalized at the idea, and reached out again to shake her hand properly. “Reir Ariso. I’m...something of the mayor of this town, or what’s left of one. Welcome to Rujari, Master Jedi.”

Well. That was certainly a nice change. Ahsoka smiled at him and sat down in the duraplast chair on her side of the desk.

“Ahsoka Tano. I wish I could say it’s great to be here,” she said, giving a little half-grin so he’d know she didn’t mean anything by it. She decided not to point out that she wasn’t actually a full Jedi yet. “My hyperspace ring malfunctioned, and I really need to get back to the Temple for my next assignment.”

Ariso nodded sharply. “You will of course have our full cooperation,” he told her. He smiled. Ahsoka liked him, and not just because he was being accommodating; he had the air of a smart, no-nonsense man, like a lot of local sergeants she knew. “I respect the Jedi. Never fought in the war myself, but when I was a boy it was a young woman with a lightsaber who saved my village from slave raiders the local magistrate couldn’t be bothered to control. Rescued my little sister, and if you think that thought doesn’t keep me up at night...so rest assured, Master Jedi, anything I can do for you will be done.”

“I appreciate that very much,” she told him. “I really just need—”

Without warning, the door opened again.

“I apologize for my lateness, Sheriff Reir,” the new arrival announced.

At first Ahsoka had just glanced around at the interruption, but the clear, crisp Core-world accent made her do a double-take. The young woman who’d just let herself in didn’t look or move like a miner—and Mirialans weren’t terribly common off their homeworld. Her clothes were darker than Reir’s even before his had faded, and they were definitely not local; thick, skintight black, long sleeves, a full-length skirt? Even the sheriff’s dark uniform was loose-fitting.

This girl was from Coruscant. She had to be. Damn, Skyguy, you move fast.

“I don’t know how you got here so fast,actually,” Ahsoka said as the Mirialan gathered her skirts and settled herself in a free chair. “But I’m definitely glad to see you. How’d a Republic ship track me?”

The Mirialan ignored her in favor of crossing her ankles and leaning toward the sheriff. “I trust there’s been progress?” she said politely.

Ahsoka grinned, turning her chair to lean on the desk. “Definitely,” she said. “We were just getting everything cleared up. I was going to say, I just need some spare parts and maybe a power line to get my comm unit working again and send for help, but if you’re here, I think we can just write the fighter off as a loss. I’m ready to leave when you are.”

The Mirialan raised an eyebrow, looking at Ahsoka for the first time.

“Is that so,” she said. Ahsoka’s confidence wavered at the cold edge in her voice.

“I mean,” she said. “We can...salvage the parts, so we don’t waste Republic taxpayers’ money? I just meant it’s totalled, it’s not gonna fly again—”

Ariso heaved a sigh.

“What do you want, Barriss?” he asked.

“...Wait,” said Ahsoka.

The Mirialan straightened her sleeves in a businesslike manner.

“If it were anyone else, Reir, you would be livid,” she said.

Reir held up a hand. “Barriss, it was clearly an accident…”

“I will take on faith that the extensive damage was an accident, but whether it was intentional or not that damage has been done!”

“Hold on a second,” Ahsoka said again. She was ignored.

“Hero-worship for the Jedi cannot erase the reality of the situation,” the Mirialan continued. “Reir, we cannot afford to be without that communications array! The next time smugglers come through this area looking to go to ground—”

“You know her?” Ahsoka demanded. Reir was rubbing the base of his horns and didn’t answer; the Mirialan just acted like she hadn’t spoken.

“—and they will, especially with Republic activity increasing, if we cannot communicate with our orbital sensors…”

“Thank you, Barriss,” Reir said through his teeth. The Mirialan cut herself off and took a deep breath.

“I apologize for my vehemence,” she said. “But a worst-case scenario is not my main concern. Reir, we need that communications ability. The dry season is coming, and if the wells run dry like they did three years ago and we can’t contact anyone offworld…”

She was practically pleading, and Ahsoka, while no less confused, could tell Reir was listening to her now. She was certainly making sense, but Ahsoka didn’t see what any of this had to do with her.

And then suddenly she did, but not in time to stop the Mirialan from finally stating her point.

“Jedi make a living off of flying away and leaving others to clean up the mess,” she said. “For once, make her take responsibility for it.”

“Hey!” Ahsoka protested. “What do you mean, for once?”

The Mirialan—Barriss, Reir had called her—answered her frankly. At least she was acknowledging that Ahsoka had spoken.

“Half of the essential components of that communications array are melted past repair,” she said. “You are an active Jedi, and if the state of your starfighter’s control console when I examined it last night is any indication, you were trained in mechanics and technology repair. You’re far more able than anyone here to repair it.” She turned back to Reir. “It’s because she is a Jedi that it’s essential she make amends.”

“Surely we don’t need help from outsiders to repair—” Reir started, but Barriss cut him off.

“Turt is a good mechanic, but he specializes in starships. Together we’re more than capable of maintaining the array, or of replacing components one by one as they wear down, but rebuilding it from scratch requires resources we simply don’t have. And none of the transparent rhetoric about outsiders, please,” she added curtly. “My sense of local pride is not that easily piqued.”

“And yet you’re still convinced that the station is alive,” Reir said with an affectionate smile.

Barriss looked up at him. “Don’t let the Republic throw Rujari away to die again,” she said softly. “If you don’t believe it’s worth more than that, no one will.”

Ahsoka had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but she knew this conversation was sounding a lot like she wasn’t gonna be back at the Temple anytime soon after all.

“Uh,” she began, but Reir raised a hand.

“Barriss is right,” he said. “Fix the array, and then we’ll arrange passage back to Coruscant. You owe us that much.”

Ahsoka growled under her breath as she picked up another piece of demolished metal and circuitry.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, not at all quietly and for the fifth time in ten minutes. The array couldn’t be fixed. Well, a few parts of it had pieces intact enough to maybe put them back together, but the rest was so mangled it was impossible to even tell what they had once been. This was why Republic ships carried redundant parts!

“Yeah, you’re not wrong there.”

Turt Mahs was the local mechanic, though Ahsoka personally attached skeptical airquotes to that title in her head. He’d apparently been a crack starship repair tech in his day, but she couldn’t tell when that day had been. Even the dust around here looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in a decade.

He held up a hunk of twisted metal. “What’d’you reckon this used to be?”

Ahsoka squinted at it. “A piece of casing, probably,” she decided.

Turt made a noise of comprehension in his throat. He was decent enough; a dark-skinned human who hadn’t cut his hair or shaved in a while, but otherwise nondescript. His only real distinguishing feature was his astonishingly bushy grey eyebrows.

“So you’re a real Jedi then?” he said. “Go figure. Never thought we’d see one of you out here.”

Ahsoka sighed.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m a real Jedi. Which is why it’s stupid to do this by hand! It’s not going to work!”

“You would say that.”

Ahsoka shot a filthy look over her shoulder. She and Turt were standing on the roof of the communications building; Barriss, whom she’d gathered was this planet’s resident doctor somehow, was watching them silently from below.

At least she’d been silent until now, and Ahsoka thought uncharitably that she’d liked her better that way.

She jumped off the roof, ignoring the cries of alarm from the handful of locals who’d gathered around to watch the only interesting thing that would probably happen here for the next hundred cycles. Barriss, whoever she was, didn’t even blink.

Ahsoka walked up so that she didn’t have to yell. Just because she was annoyed didn’t mean she couldn’t be civil. Clearly, she’d done something to get off on the wrong foot with this girl.

“I’m serious,” she said. “I’m a Jedi. Literally all you have to do is let me contact the Temple for help, and I can get you a new, modern comm system and spare parts for it. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Okay, that last bit was probably too much. Barriss’ eyes flashed at the condescension, and Ahsoka winced. That was a fair reaction.

“Look,” she said quickly. “Even if I can fix this thing, it could take weeks—months! And you’re just gonna have another mouth to feed, with the dry season coming up and everything.”

“How’d she know that?” One of the locals, a Zabrak farmer, sounded impressed. She gave Ahsoka a once-over. “I knew Jedi were supposed to be perceptive, but…”

Barriss’ eyes narrowed slightly.

“I don’t appreciate coercion, Padawan,” she said quietly. “I care what happens to this planet. Don’t insult me by pretending you want anything but to get back to the comfort of the Temple faster.”

Ahsoka glared at her. “Well, yeah.” No point in hiding that. “But that doesn’t make me wrong. You said it was dangerous to be out of contact for that long. If this array is really that important, wouldn’t it be better to replace it instead of trying to jury-rig repairs together that might not even work?”

There was a murmur of agreement from the gathered locals.

“She’s got a point, you know,” a Twi’lek woman pointed out.

“Wouldn’t mind a shiny new array myself,” called Turt from the roof. Barriss’ expression shifted slightly; Ahsoka couldn’t quite place what the other girl was thinking, but she jumped on the moment of hesitation.

“Are you sure this is about caring what happens to these people?” she demanded. “Or are you just enjoying it because of whatever made you hate Jedi so much?”

The crowd went quiet real fast.

That could have been a danger sign, but Ahsoka didn’t sense any serious anger coming from the local doctor. She didn’t know what in the universe had soured this girl on the Jedi so bad, but the only reaction Barriss gave was a slight widening of the eyes, a soft, sharp intake of breath; and then it was gone, and she was calm again.

“I have my disagreements with the Jedi Order,” she admitted, folding her hands behind her back. “But they’re irrelevant. Very well then. You say you have the ability to negotiate the delivery of a valuable industrial-strength communications array to a planet they’ve never heard of.”

“I mean,” said Ahsoka, a little confused by how suddenly she’d changed her mind. “Yeah. Look, I know you’ve got issues with us, but I’m telling the truth. I broke your array and I want to replace it for you. I believe you when you say you need it. It might take a few days to make a round trip, but…”

“How would you go about it?” Barriss asked, still weirdly calm and friendly and standing perfectly still, which was starting to freak Ahsoka out.

“Um.” She shook herself. “It’s really not that complicated, okay? I signal for help, a Republic cruiser picks me up. I get back to the Temple and tell them that—what was this place, Rujari?—was where I crashed, and that I broke your comm array and request that the Council divert the nearest star destroyer to deliver one of its redundant units.”

Barriss’ voice was cool. “The cruiser itself couldn’t deliver one?”

Ahsoka hesitated. “I mean...maybe, but they’re not as big and they’re less likely to have the units to spare. A Star Destroyer could outfit a whole system, though, it won’t be a problem.”

This time, she was definitely able to recognize Barriss’ expression. She just wasn’t sure why it was pity.

“You really believe that,” Barriss said quietly. “You truly think that the Republic will divert a Star Destroyer for our sake, on the word of a padawan.”

“I can make it happen,” Ahsoka insisted.

It was the first time she’d heard Barriss laugh, and it wasn’t a happy sound.

“Really.” The tight smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You must be remarkably valuable to the Order.”

Ahsoka was still kind of weirded out, but she rolled her shoulders and tossed her head back anyway. “I mean,” she said, trying to make it a drawl. “I don’t want to brag or anything…”

Barriss raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” she said. “To anyone with the kind of influence you claim, a friendly sparring match should be no concern.”

There was a pause, and then Ahsoka gave a nervous laugh.

“Haha,” she said. “Uh...what?”

Barriss smiled, hands still folded behind her back. “Convince me,” she said sweetly.

Ahsoka couldn’t help laughing at that, for real this time. “Kitten,” she said with a lopsided grin, “you have no idea what you’re asking for. Look, I don’t want to hurt you, okay?”

Something flickered in Barriss’ deep blue eyes, but her smile didn’t falter. “I’m sure that won’t be hard, for a skilled Jedi.”

Ahsoka sighed. Jedi training was very clear about situations like this; their natural abilities were never to be used to humiliate, or to subjugate civilians to get what they wanted, no matter how irritating they were or how badly they were goaded. It was expulsion from the Order, if a Jedi let themselves be annoyed into abusing their position.

But she wasn’t acting out of anger or hurt pride now, and if all Barriss needed was a demonstration, she was right—it wouldn’t be hard to subdue this girl without hurting her.

“All right,” Ahsoka said, and struck.

Or at least, she tried.

It should have been a textbook gentle takedown. Unarmed civilian, and while Barriss’ confidence suggested some martial training she wasn’t telegraphing, she wasn’t Force-sensitive and Ahsoka had trained against the Naboo handmaiden corps. She knew the tricks. Faster than anyone could possibly have countered, she lunged into Barriss’ space, hooked a leg behind the girl’s knee, grabbed her wrist, and shoved her opposite shoulder backwards. It should have ended in her held against Ahsoka’s chest on one knee, arm twisted behind her back; in no pain but completely immobilized.

The only problem was that by the time Ahsoka reached her, Barriss had vanished.

She had a split-second to realize it before a palm struck her hard between the shoulderblades, sending her staggering forward off-balance. She spun around, hands half coming up in a defensive position, to find Barriss watching her with an expression of polite confusion.

What the…?

Fluke. Had to be. Ahsoka took a step forward, watching her opponent warily, then moved again.

This time she didn’t even have time to realize what happened; one moment she was reaching for Barriss’ arm again, the next she hit the hot, rust-colored ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her and send up a cloud of dust. Wheezing for breath, she reached up and winced as she rubbed her rear lek. That was gonna bruise…

She put a hand over her ribs as she finally managed to stand up, still trying to suck air into her lungs. This time, she decided. This time she’d be ready, and she’d watch for the throw. She’d underestimated Barriss before, but this time…

Ahsoka was watching for a throw as she moved in again. This meant she didn’t see the lightning-fast snap kick coming until Barriss’ heel buried itself in her throat.

She wasn’t even aware of collapsing. Ahsoka just heard a horrible choking noise and found herself curled up in a ball on the ground, eyes watering, clutching her throat and retching and completely unable to breathe.

Barriss was kind enough to wait for her. It was several long, agonizing minutes before the desperate gagging stopped and Ahsoka was certain enough that she wasn’t dying to push herself up onto her knees. Without speaking, the Mirialan crouched down and offered Ahsoka a bottle of water she’d produced from somewhere. Ahsoka was not too proud to accept it.

“You may be right about the Republic,” Barriss said evenly. “I wish I could trust that you are, but the world I live in is harsher than that. I believe that you would do everything you claim. But you’re a Padawan, and the galaxy is in turmoil, and the Jedi are spread thin. The Council would approve of your determination to set things right, and then they would apologize and inform you that its Star Destroyers are on missions that are simply too important to take time and resources away from right now. You might protest, and be chastised for your emotional attachment. They would make a note to see to us eventually, and then they would let themselves forget. It’s an approach that has always served them well.”

Ahsoka wanted to argue the point. She really did, only she couldn’t speak yet.

And she was suddenly remembering something Padmé had said a long time ago. Something about Anakin’s mother.

Barriss stood again and brushed red dust off her clothes.

“I don’t believe you’re lying,” she said. “But there is an old expression in the Outer Rim about avians in the hand, Padawan Tano. We can’t afford for the Republic to fail to live up to your good intentions. This is not…” she hesitated, amazingly. “I am not trying to punish you for the crimes of the Order. But we cannot fix this array ourselves and I believe you can. We cannot risk losing that.”

Ahsoka coughed experimentally.

“I understand,” she rasped, and surprised herself by telling the truth.

Barriss Offee stepped outside and blinked in surprise at the dim light. She’d known it was getting late, of course, but she hadn’t realized how many hours had passed while she was working.

Thank the Force, Herloa would be fine. While everyone lent a hand on her farm when it was necessary, no one had Herloa Ingaki’s gift for coaxing edible plant life out of the petulant earth here. It would take the good-natured Zabrak a few weeks to get back on her feet, after her speeder’s antigrav had failed and dropped the heavy vehicle on her leg; but Rujari would have its green thumb back well before harvest season.

Barriss rubbed her hands together idly. There was too little water available on this hot, dry planet, even with Chara Enthida and her son running a moisture-farming operation alongside the cantina. There was disinfectant available, but water was too precious to be used for washing. Some of the squat, ill-tempered succulents native to the planet produced a remarkable quantity of clean oil; this was spread over the skin and scraped off, taking dirt and grime with it.

It was actually highly effective but nonetheless felt strange, even after four years.

The exterior lights were just starting to flicker on; other than that, the brightest thing visible was the glow from the front windows of Chara’s. She cracked her back and started making her way toward the lights. Everyone ate at Chara’s. Rujari didn’t really bother with currency among its residents anymore; the barter system was more efficient, and everyone always found a way to pay the cantina owner back for their meals.

Inhabited homes were scattered throughout the settlement now. Once, all of the squat buildings had been host to a variety of businesses, cantinas, anything you cared to name; now most of them were empty, bright storefronts stripped bare and faded almost completely by the sun.

There was actually an abandoned hospital on the outskirts of the settlement, but with the town effectively abandoned it was ridiculous to use it. Barriss had moved the large equipment into what had once been...well, a butcher’s shop, actually, which was a bit grim, but it had extremely efficient climate control and sterile facilities and she’d painted over the old signage. Even after only four years everyone just thought of it as Barriss’ Place now.

She was surprised, though she realized she shouldn’t be, when she stumbled across the Jedi.

It had been two days, now; three nights, if you counted the one where she’d crashed. The Padawan had spent most of the first day inspecting the damage while looking dazed and in shock over being beaten so easily in hand-to-hand combat; Barriss hadn’t really checked in with her since, except to confirm with Nandu that she hadn’t somehow escaped during the night.

She could admit that her little trick with the sparring match had been a bit mean-spirited, but it had also been necessary. Besides, she hadn’t hurt the Jedi. Not much, anyway.

Barriss was surprised to find her still out here; but Sheriff Reir was standing nearby watching, so she supposed there was no danger. The Jedi was sitting cross-legged at the base of the communications tower, myriad bits and pieces of twisted metal floating in the air around her, turning over idly as her fingers twitched. Occasionally, the pieces would drift away and place themselves gently on the ground.

Barriss crossed to Reir’s side.

“Is there a method to the madness?” she asked quietly. She was hardly going to be rude enough as to break Tano’s trance, when the girl was clearly trying to make progress.

“I’m sorting,” the Padawan said anyway, voice pitched calm and low but more than loud enough to carry. She didn’t open her eyes, but her lips quirked as Barriss looked over. “Intact structural pieces; functional electronics; and everything on my left needs intense repairs.” A good two-thirds of the sorted pieces, Barriss noted, were on the Jedi’s left.

“Yeah,” Tano commented wryly, eyes still closed. “I noticed that too.”

Show-off. This one really was a Jedi to the core.

Barriss rolled her eyes. “Have you eaten?” she asked curtly.

Tano finally opened her eyes, letting the pieces she’d been working with drift back to the “unsorted” pile. “Nandu brought me some kind of root sandwich for lunch.”

Barriss frowned. “Togruta are obligate carnivores.”

“Yeah.” Tano’s voice was as dry as the steppes as she repeated, “I noticed that too.”

Barriss held back a sigh. Honestly, if she was fair their prisoner was handling this with unexpected grace. The least they were obligated to do was feed her properly.

“Reir,” she said. “I’ll take over, if you’d like to go home.”

The Devaronian looked faintly surprised, but everyone on Rujari had gotten used to Barriss’ occasional unexplained flights of fancy by now. “I wouldn’t mind that at all, frankly. Combination for her cell is the day we usually celebrate Turt’s birthday. And go easy on her,” he warned. “She’s taking this seriously.”

“I noticed,” Barriss murmured. Clearing her throat, she called over to the Jedi, who was brushing herself down as she got to her feet. “Follow me. We’ll find something you can digest properly.”

This was a weird little planet.

Still, Ahsoka thought; it was kind of...nice. Chara’s was well-lit, but the lights were yellow and warm—the kind that didn’t hurt your eyes, not the harsh white lighting favored by the GAR. The place was in need of some serious repairs; the cushions in the booths were worn and stained, the signs and menus faded to the point where they might as well not be there. But the food, while it was just simple cantina fare and not even the best Ahsoka’d ever had, was hot and filling.

Ahsoka hadn’t realized how hungry meditating all day had made her. She picked up her knife and dug gratefully into her plate of...well, she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Turt had helpfully described it as “kinda like a womp rat, except a snake, but with eight legs and a stinger.”

Sometimes, she decided, it was better not to know. The whatever-it-was tasted good, anyway, and it was the first real food she’d eaten in days.

Eventually, after she’d polished off the womp-lizard-thing and Barriss had silently slid a second plate in front of her, Ahsoka managed to come up for air. Not that she stopped eating, exactly, but she did slow down and start to take more of an interest in her surroundings.

With the locals bustling around, playing darts or cards and occasionally getting up to take their turn at a large board game of some sort in the middle of the room, the cantina should have been deafening; but there were actually only five people in the cantina other than her and Barriss, and one of them was Chara herself.

They were giving Ahsoka and her guardian space, for the most part, but Nandu and Turt had stopped by already to say hello and their friendly but no-nonsense Twi’lek host called over every so often to make sure neither of them needed anything.

“Nice people,” Ahsoka commented.

Barriss looked over at her, surprised. They hadn’t really spoken much, but the Mirialan seemed a lot less stressed today. She wasn’t wearing that thick black ensemble anymore; Ahsoka suspected that had been for the sake of making an impression, because every time she’d seen Barriss since the Mirialan had been wearing lightweight sand-colored flowing robes like everyone else. Still long-sleeved and hooded, but much better suited to the heat. That might have something to do with why she was so much less uptight. Or maybe she’d just really enjoyed kicking Ahsoka in the throat.

Shrugging internally, Ahsoka nodded out over the half-empty cantina. “It kinda reminds me of the 501st,” she admitted with a grin. Remembering she was talking to a civilian, she explained, “That’s my—”

“Your clone battalion?” Barriss guessed.

Now it was Ahsoka’s turn to be surprised.

“Yeah,” she said. “Okay, I have to ask…”

Barriss raised an eyebrow.

“What’s a nice Republic girl like me doing in a place like this?” she asked archly. Ahsoka tensed for a moment, but while she sensed resignation and a bit of irritability from her watchful dinner partner she could feel none of the dark red hostility Barriss had been radiating when they first met.

“Easy,” she said, smiling in what she hoped was a friendly, disarming manner as she rested an elbow on the old, slightly greasy table. “I was just wondering where you’re from. That’s not a Rim-world accent, kitten.”

Barriss narrowed her eyes distrustfully, but seemed to decide after a moment that the question was harmless.

“I was raised on Coruscant,” she answered. “I received medical training from a young age, and now I’m here.”

“You like it here?” Ahsoka asked for want of something to talk about.

Barriss turned away. “Yes.”

Something about her tone made it clear the conversation was over now.

Ahsoka cringed preemptively as she lined up the jury-rigged chunk of metal and wiring. There was a brief moment of resistance...and the component slid into place with a neat click.

Turt whooped, and she grinned. Whether or not the thing would even fit had been a major concern. Now, whether it would work was another thing entirely, but…still. It was a hurdle overcome.

“Nice,” said Turt.

Ahsoka took a celebratory swig of water from the canteen she’d been given, then screwed the cap back on. She’d been right about how brutal this weather was during the day, but in the past two weeks she and Turt had actually made a lot of progress. It’d been slow at first—a lot of sorting, and then a lot of examining components to determine what they’d been and what shape they were supposed to be, and using the Force to try to return them to that shape.

She still occasionally came across pieces she didn’t recognize at all—this was an old comm array. But she was pretty sure she was going to be able to put it together again. It was beginning to look recognizable again.

Actually, it was back in few enough pieces already that Ahsoka was able to look at the overall array with a critical eye.

“You know,” she said, tapping the carefully-repaired transmission dish. “This thing’s kind of a piece of junk.”

Turt snorted. “No kidding. Compared to new Republic tech, I’ll just bet it is!"

Ahsoka waved him off. “No,” she said, “I mean this thing’s really a piece of junk. The model itself is just...cheap. It would’ve been good when it was new, but that can’t have been less than five hundred years ago and nobody ever bothered updating it. I mean, look at this signal discriminator!”

Turt nodded politely at the charred, unrecognizable chunk of durasteel in her hand.

Ahsoka looked at it, winced, and quickly tossed it over her shoulder.

“Okay,” she said, “bad example. But—look at this booster.” She pointed to another pieced-together bit of tech. She was a lot more confident in that one; the parts had all been mostly intact. “That thing’s weaker than a civilian merchant ship’s beacon! I’d be surprised if the signal can even reach the nearest hyperspace lane. And this holoprojector would do more good as bantha chow. It’s scrap metal. I mean—you know, even before I hit it with a starfighter. This thing’s falling apart.”

Turt spread his hands apologetically. “Matches the rest of the settlement?” he offered. “Sorry, Ahsoka. It’s what we’ve got.”

“I’ll make it work,” she said automatically, and then, immediately, felt like an idiot. “E chu —oh, man, Anakin would’ve thought of this weeks ago!”

She vaulted off the roof. Turt had mostly gotten used to that, and just leaned over to watch her as she jogged along the furrow her starfighter had left in the ground. Reir had stopped guarding her after a week of good behavior, and not even Barriss had protested. By now Nandu had even given her lightsabers back.

Apparently, Ahsoka’s word could be trusted if it meant nobody else had to stand out in the heat. That was convenient.

She slid down into the ditch and climbed into the wrecked Delta-7, yanking off panels and tugging at wires until she managed to pull the entire comm unit free. Fervently grateful for Jedi strength, she staggered back to the communication center and lifted the unit with the Force. There was a loud crack and the sound of bits of plaster falling inside the building when she dropped the metal box onto the roof.

Well, plenty of time to think about that later.

“Okay,” she said as she leapt back up to the roof. “A lot of this won’t be compatible, and some of it was damaged anyway, but I think I can convert some of the parts. Like...ha!” She rummaged around in the comm unit and ripped a little square bit of circuitry loose. “Military-grade Jedi comm booster.”

Turt’s bushy eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “Don’t you need that?”

Ahsoka grinned. She loved when a plan came together. “Only to call for a pickup,” she pointed out. “Hey, Turt, do you mind if I borrow your comm array once we’re done?”

He laughed. “Master Jedi, I think I can make that happen.”

Dinner at Chara’s that night was...well, Ahsoka was starting to get used to it now, and it was nice.

She didn’t sit apart in the corner anymore. Reir would call her over to share war stories—she gathered he’d once been part of a sort of local militia before he ended up out here, and they played off each other almost as well as if he’d been a clone. Or if it wasn’t Reir it was Herloa, the Zabrak on crutches, dealing Ahsoka into their sabbacc games to be completely destroyed; or Nandu, who wanted to learn the trick to how Ahsoka threw her darts and refused to take “the Force” for an answer for some reason; or even Barriss, who always joined sabbacc and was actually really good, and had more of a sense of humor than Ahsoka’d expected.

Tonight Barriss was sitting off to the side while Ahsoka and the others threw flimsiplast cards at Nandu’s hat trying to outscore each other. The Mirialan was talking to Iosi—Iosi Roer, the human woman who was technically “quartermaster.” It just meant that she and her little emerald-green R3 unit kept stock of the warehouse where Rujari stored all of its supplies.

Ahsoka’d gotten a look when she was trying to get her hands on a wire stripper last week. The massive warehouse was more than half empty.

Iosi didn’t talk, actually. She could hear, though sometimes she needed things written down on the inventory datapad anyway; she just didn’t speak. She used a kind of local sign language with the others that Ahsoka didn’t recognize. R3-H3 (“Hoagie”) went everywhere with her, whistling translations in Binary, which meant that Ahsoka hadn’t had to learn an entire new language just to talk to the quartermaster. That was nice.

She wondered what Iosi and Barriss were discussing. They looked worried; Barriss looked intense, which Ahsoka could sense from here was starting to freak Iosi out. You had to be careful with her; she got overwhelmed. Hoagie brandished a shock probe warningly, and Barriss held up a hand, sitting back in her chair and apologizing. She stood, nodded to Iosi, and left the cantina.

Ahsoka’s perfect Card Toss score wasn’t going anywhere; she got up and followed the Mirialan.

Barriss didn’t look over her shoulder, but she paused to let Ahsoka catch up before walking out across the ghost town.

“What’s up?” Subtlety had never been Ahsoka’s strong point. “You looked upset.”

Barriss shook her head. “The usual,” she said. “Supply worries. My environmental controls have begun degrading; I was hoping we might have replacement parts available. It’s only an inconvenience now, but no matter how careful we are there are always a few cases of heatstroke in the summer. And if the sterilization routines fail…”

Ahsoka winced. They probably didn’t have a Republic hospital’s array of drugs designed to prevent secondary infections here. If they had any, they’d have to be incredibly precious. Losing a sterile operating room…

“I’ll take a look at it before I go,” she decided. “Maybe there’s a way to compensate for the wear, somehow.”

Barriss smiled at her, really smiled, for the first time Ahsoka could remember.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I appreciate it. I don’t believe anything can be done, but…”

Ahsoka gave a careless shrug. “Well, no harm in trying while I’m here. I hear there’s a saying out here about an avian in the hand,” she said. Barriss’ lips twitched.

“Quite.” She cleared her throat. “I overheard some of your conversation. You cannibalized your own comm unit?”

Suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm for reasons that didn’t have anything to do with the residual heat radiating from the dark steppes, Ahsoka rubbed the back of her neck.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, it wasn’t doing anyone any good, right? And you needed an upgrade. Even working perfectly, that thing couldn’t even reach the nearest hyperlane!”

“Yes, it could.”

Ahsoka looked over in shock at the sudden sharp whip-crack in Barriss’ voice. Before she even had time to think okay, what’d I do now? though, the Mirialan made an apologetic face.

“I’m...sorry,” she said. “I know what you meant. It didn’t have the range to access the closest heavily-travelled shipping lanes.”

They walked in awkward silence for several long minutes, until Ahsoka cleared her throat.

“Well,” she said. “I uh, I guess this is my stop.” There wasn’t a whole lot of point to her sleeping in the holding cell when Reir had given her the combination so that she could let herself in at night, but she supposed it was the principle of the thing.

Barriss nodded stiffly, then stopped.

“Ahsoka,” she said. When Ahsoka looked back in surprise, she took a deep breath. “This is ridiculous. You obviously don’t intend to leave even if your ship was functional, and if you did, that holding cell would not hold you.” She stopped to roll her eyes. “I know it wouldn’t stop me.”

Ahsoka had to laugh at that, and some of the tension left Barriss’ shoulders.

“You may as well stay with me,” the Mirialan said. Then, eyes widening, she clarified, “That wasn’t—I only—I have a spare room, that no one is using, so—it seems logical. This—is not a proposition, I have no interest in—not that you’re—”

“Quit while you’re ahead,” Ahsoka advised her, and Barriss closed her mouth so quickly her teeth clacked together. “I would love to crash in your spare room, that bench is doing things with my spine that should not be possible.”

Looking relieved, Barriss smiled again.

There were a few definite downsides to borrowing a spare room that probably hadn’t been used in two hundred years.

The dust was a big one. Barriss kept a clean house, but she was a doctor, and nobody, not even someone with the perfectionist streak Ahsoka had picked up on over the past few weeks, paid as much attention to their guest room as to the rest of the house. And dust got everywhere on this planet.

And of course it was a worn mattress and a lumpy pillow, and all the usual things that came with a barely-used spare bedroom, but Ahsoka hadn’t been awake long enough for anything to really register. Compared to the hard plastoid “bedding” in the holding cell, this was like she’d died and become one with the Force.

She stretched luxuriously, yawned, and sneezed.

Right. The dust.

Rolling her shoulders, Ahsoka kicked the blanket off and sat up. She’d been a little confused by Barriss providing warm blankets last night; Rujari wasn’t exactly Pantora. But Ahsoka had lived her whole life in the environmentally self-contained Temple on climate-controlled Coruscant; she’d forgotten that deserts and scrubland got cold at night, and she’d ended up needing the blankets after all.

She yawned, and sneezed, again, and then got dressed. Even her usual clothes were too thick and hot for this place, but Chara was about her size. In addition to the canteen and some open shoes, she’d borrowed a shorter, more breathable top in a Ryloth style that made working in the sun a little less miserable.

Ahsoka was really optimistic about this hybridization process. She and Turt had been discussing it over Card Toss last night and the human had some good ideas. His knowledge was a little out of date, but he picked things up really fast. And Nandu was busy helping Herloa on her farm since she couldn’t walk, but he wanted to know what kinds of exercises she did for her arms. It was kind of a weird request, in Ahsoka’s opinion, but none of the others thought so and she didn’t mind sharing. That’d have to be tonight, though, the array needed to come first…

Barriss was up already; Ahsoka followed the quiet clink of pans and the promising smell of eggs downstairs and stuck her head into the kitchen, still straightening her top.

“Fresher?” she asked.

Barriss glanced over at her, flushed dark green for some reason, and pointed down the hall. “I. Oh! Yes. First door on the left,” she managed after a moment.

Well that was weird. She must’ve forgotten I was here, Ahsoka decided, amused. That would be embarrassing for someone who so clearly prided herself on being on top of things.

Also embarrassing, Ahsoka realized as she pushed open the first door on her left: Barriss had managed to give the wrong directions to the ‘fresher in her own house.

Ahsoka Tano was a Jedi, and therefore had a natural and unavoidable instinct to meddle and investigate things. Still, she did not make a habit of looking through what was obviously another person’s bedroom. She moved to close the door.

And something...called her.

She stopped in the doorway, frowning over her shoulder as she slowly turned back into the darkened room. There was...a tug, in the Force. An insistent feeling that nudged her into the bedroom, guided her to a plain duraplast nightstand.

“This is crazy,” she whispered out loud as she guided the top drawer open.

She stared.

It never occurred to her, as she picked the lightsaber up with shaking fingers, to question whether it was Barriss’. It just was. Despite lying dormant in a drawer, this was a solid, well-made weapon. Simple, traditional design; a bit of brass around the emitter but purely functional, not decorative. Non-slip matte metal body, a blunt weighted endpiece...it was almost endearingly Barriss. It couldn’t possibly have belonged to anyone else; it rang with her presence in the Force.

Almost in a trance, Ahsoka ignited the blade, bathing the room in dim, brilliant blue.

This was impossible, she thought, at the same time another part of her was realizing how many things had just started making a lot of sense.

The saber was a lot heavier than she’d expected, from the design.

There was a twist in the Force, and the blade deactivated itself.

Ahsoka spun on her heel as Barriss stepped into the room, lowering her raised fingers. Even in the dark, she was paler than Ahsoka had ever seen her.

Barriss held her hand out. Swallowing with difficulty, Ahsoka handed over the saber hilt.

There was a long silence.

“I misspoke,” Barriss said suddenly. Her voice was dangerously uneven. “I meant, the first door on the left if you were entering by the front door. The—the first door to port.”

“Right.” Ahsoka’s voice rasped, and she cleared her throat. “Right. I’ll...yeah.” All of a sudden, neurons started firing again. “You’re a Jedi!”

Barriss’ eyes blazed. “I am not a Jedi. I left. I walked away, and I am not going back.”

“Barriss,” Ahsoka said slowly. It wasn’t an uncommon Mirialan name, but... “Barriss...Barriss Offee? You were Luminara’s Padawan! We never got a chance to meet, you kept being assigned to different places, but…” Padawan Offee had just...disappeared one night. No one had heard from her since then. There had been no note, no word of explanation, nothing. She was just gone. The Temple had buzzed for months, and then seemingly decided not to discuss it anymore.

Barriss stiffened. “I wasn’t aware she still spoke of me.”

“She doesn’t.” Ahsoka wished she’d worded that better when Barriss flinched. “I mean...not very often. Everyone thinks you’re dead. Or that you went over to the Separatists or the Sith or something. She just gets really quiet if anyone brings you up. She...you guys were close, weren’t you?” A pause. “I’m sorry, I just— Why? Without even telling anyone?”

Barriss didn’t respond. Or breathe. Or look Ahsoka in the eye. After a long minute, Ahsoka sighed.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone.”

Ahsoka really wasn’t hungry anymore, but she knew better than to work out in the sun all day using the Force without having anything to eat. It took about fifteen minutes out of her day to swing by the warehouse; Iosi was tired and her bushy red hair fell dramatically around her face when she opened the door, but she was happy enough to find Ahsoka a protein bar.

Turt also wasn’t out yet, because it was honestly far too early in the morning to be awake if you weren’t a prisoner working off a community-service sentence on the most lenient penal colony in the Republic. Herloa was probably even still asleep. Only Ahsoka and Barriss were awake at this hour…

Old Jedi habits die hard, I guess.

The click-hiss of an activating lightsaber whispered against Ahsoka’s montrals.

Ahsoka’s immediate thought was the panicked conviction that Barriss had come to silence the only person who knew her secret. It was not her proudest moment.

Once the instant of irrational paranoia had passed, Ahsoka looked around for the source of the sound. It had come from nearby; but it had been quiet, muted somehow...a hint of wavering light through the dust-caked windows of a nearby abandoned building answered the question for her.

Ahsoka pressed against the crumbling wall and edged toward the side doors. The building, as far as she could tell from what remained of its signs, had once been a fuel depot of some sort; but during the time the locals always referred to as “before,” when Rujari had somehow gone from a bustling trade station to a wasteland, the place had folded and the proprietor had taken their stock and left. What remained was a well-insulated, empty warehouse floor.

And a former Jedi, looking very still and very small, standing in the center holding her lightsaber before her in a quiet Makashi salute for the first time in four years.

Go on, Ahsoka urged her silently. Your body remembers. The Force remembers.

As if in response to the thought, Barriss stepped back and swept the blade over her head in a single fluid motion, holding the ready position for a long cluster of heartbeats.

Then she moved.

Ahsoka’s breath caught. She’d seen Anakin’s form drills and pattern dances; he was good, really good. Ahsoka was faster than him and more flexible, and she watched holos of her own drills so she could improve her form. Ahsoka was good, and she knew she was good. But this was...something else.

She’d expected Barriss to be at least a little out of practice as she twisted, lunged, pivoted on nothing with her saber blade slashing and twirling. The azure blur leapt between her hands, whistled and hummed as it sliced the air, but Barriss’ drill was as much acrobatics as it was duelling forms. She was...beautiful, and deadly, and really, really good.

The dance was over so suddenly Ahsoka took a few moments to realize it. Barriss executed one more perfect series of blocks and slashes, her blade whipped to the side—and then, too fast to follow, it snapped back into a salute. Barriss stood there for a moment, panting, and then deactivated the blade.

Ahsoka stepped away from the door and continued on to the comm tower. There was no way anything good would come of Barriss finding a Jedi watching her. She assumed Barriss would probably not want anything to do with her. Anyway, they were almost done. A few more days and Ahsoka would be gone, and Barriss Offee would probably be a lot happier.

She tried to ignore how upsetting that thought was.

It was a surprise, then, when a familiar voice called up to her a few hours later, as she wrestled with a directional transceiver.

“You know,” Barriss pointed out, “We generally stay indoors during the hottest parts of the day.”

Ahsoka was so shocked to see her that she dropped her hydroclamp. “Uh,” she said intelligently. “Huh? I mean. Yeah, I noticed.” It was already getting uncomfortably warm. “I’ll be fine. Togruta don’t really burn.”

Barriss raised an eyebrow. “A high biological resistance is not the same thing as immunity and you ought to be more careful, but I concede the point.” To Ahsoka’s continuing shock, Barriss gave a casual Force-assisted jump, pulling herself up to sit on the roof not far away. “That isn’t why I mentioned it. I understand that you want to leave as soon as possible, but is there really anything that couldn’t wait a few hours until the sun goes down? You’re making yourself miserable.”

Ahsoka had to admit she had a point. “I guess I could hang out at Chara’s,” she decided.

Barriss twisted her hands together in her lap. “You could,” she said, directing the words toward the ground. “Or you could go for a walk with me.”

Aaaaah. So that’s what this was about.

Tactfully deciding not to bring up the fact that going for a walk in the scrubland was the exact worst way to get out of the sun, Ahsoka stood up and gestured to the edge of the roof.

“After you.”

Barriss Offee, Ahsoka thought as she closed her eyes and leaned back under the waterfall’s spray, I am sorry I ever doubted you.

They hadn’t spoken since they left the settlement, but for once it hadn’t been a tense, awkward silence; there just hadn’t been much opportunity to talk. Barriss had led them to the edge of the settlement where Ahsoka had first nearly crashed—the one that backed up against a large cliff. And then she’d flashed Ahsoka a hesitant grin and leaped.

She moved fast; Ahsoka should have seen that coming, knowing who her master was. But Ahsoka was pretty fast too, and while she might not know the cliff face as well as Barriss did, she was used to thinking on her feet. They kept pace with each other pretty well, actually, though Ahsoka wasn’t too proud to notice that Barriss’ heart didn’t quite seem to be in the race. If she was more relaxed Ahsoka would probably have been left in her dust until she learned the route better.

Then, obviously, she’d smoke this girl.

If Ahsoka thought about it, of course she knew the Rujari settlement must have a water source nearby; but this was a small waterfall, tucked behind a bend in the cliff, so she’d never been able to see it from town before. Sitting under it leeched the heat out of the summer day better than walking into a climate-controlled building, though.

She didn’t really want to move, but Barriss was watching her expectantly. Ahsoka sighed, tilted her head back to let the water rush over her montrals one more time, and then stood up and followed her guide further up. For a moment, Barriss disappeared over the lip of the canyon wall, and Ahsoka called on the Force to jump after her.

It was a nice little spot, all things considered.

She could hear the river in the background, and there were trees and bushes growing here thanks to its presence. Barriss was sitting cross-legged a few meters away, tucked in the thickest patch of shade and pulling off her head covering as a concession to the heat, looking out over the Rujari valley. And... wow. That was certainly a view.

The canyon wasn’t bad either.

Ahsoka sat down at her side, and listened to the wind and the river.

After a while, she realized Barriss wasn’t going to break the silence. Okay. She’d bite.

“Do they know?” she asked quietly.

Barriss was quiet for another long moment. “Reir knows everything,” she said. “The others have all seen me heal. None of them have ever asked, but I assume they have some idea, yes.”

“Would you have told them? If they asked?”

Barriss looked over at her, quirked an eyebrow, and said, “What are you asking?”

Ahsoka watched her for a minute.

“So,” she decided on. “What...how did a girl like you end up in a place like this?”

Barriss gave a tight smile.

“I see,” she said. “You don’t believe in starting out slow, do you, Ahsoka Tano?”

“Not really my style,” Ahsoka admitted.

Barriss’ lips twitched as she turned to look out again over the little white squares of the abandoned settlement.

“I had to,” she whispered, finally. “I...Ahsoka, I had to. I couldn’t stay. I saw what the Jedi were becoming, and I...couldn’t be a part of that.”

Ahsoka frowned. “Uh...what were the Jedi ‘becoming’?”

“We are not military leaders!”

Barriss’ palm struck the red stone, throwing up dust. Her voice cracked like heat lightning. The words hung in the air until Barriss took a deep breath and continued more calmly, “We are not meant to be military leaders. The Jedi are peacekeepers and negotiators, we are defenders if necessary, but…”

Ahsoka reached out, then thought better of it. “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

Barriss swallowed.

“I respect Chancellor Organa,” she said. “But even the most honorable leaders cannot be allowed to use the Jedi Order as a military branch, and now the damage is done. We can hardly refuse anymore. There will always be a precedent. Look, when there was a crisis before, the Jedi were fused with the military. We can do it again. We should do it again. The Jedi—the Council is meant to remain politically neutral. We obey the laws of the Republic but we do not uphold them. We uphold the rights of its citizens to live in peace and safety. We place lives above political advantage. Our objective is always the preservation of innocent lives, of freedom, of rights. And we are being used to head invasion forces so that the Republic can have better trade routes. Jedi are enforcing trade treaties with the Hutts!”

Ahsoka winced. “Yeah,” she said. “I...I didn’t like that much either. It wouldn’t be right for us to be above the law completely or anything, but...I guess I do feel more like part of the GAR than the Order, some days.”

Barriss inclined her head, not looking at Ahsoka. “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t...Once I realized I no longer believed in anything I was doing, that I no longer believed I was serving the will of the Force, I had to walk away or lose sight of everything I was raised to be. So I...left. I got out of bed one night and walked out of the temple. I stole a shuttle, for which I apologize.”

“I think we can probably forgive you for that,” murmured Ahsoka.

“I had no idea where I was going,” Barriss continued. “Only that I wanted out of the war. I wanted to go somewhere with no memories. Somewhere the Jedi would never think to look for me. Of course I got lost. I was never a navigator, and I was...distraught, and afraid. Exhausted. I never slept well in the Temple anymore, by that time.”

She paused, kicked a stone out into the gulf.

“There were a series of errors. Things I might have prevented if I hadn’t let my emotions get the better of...that is, if I had been in a healthier state of mind.” Ahsoka sensed Reir’s calm guidance in that self-correction. “I found myself floating in a hyperlane I’d never heard of, completely alone for the first time in my life. I...broke down. I think I let out a lifetime’s worth of crying that night. I wanted to shut the systems down and just let it stop. I fired off my nav beacon once, out of some kind of morbid curiosity. And someone answered.”

“Reir?” Ahsoka guessed.

“Turt, actually, though he’s not usually awake so late. He guided me in. Calmed me down, and helped me into a parking orbit over Rujari rather than let me attempt a landing in that state. When I finally got here...I suppose he most have warned the others about my...condition, because they were very gentle with me.” She gave a faint smile. “Or that may just be their nature. Chara took me in, until I...woke up. I was nineteen.”

Ahsoka really did reach out and squeeze her hand this time.

“And you never...left?” she said. “After a while? You have a shuttle somewhere, apparently! You never wanted to...settle down somewhere else, maybe? A Jedi healer, you could fit right in in a much, uh…”

Barriss did not help her extract her foot from her mouth. “A nicer farming colony, yes, I considered it. But leave Rujari? I couldn’t. We’re...the same. Me and this place. These people.”

“..Yeah?” Ahsoka prompted after a few moments went by.

Barriss shook her head with a mirthless laugh.

“You’ll laugh at me.”

Ahsoka laced their fingers together and gave Barriss’ hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I really won’t.”

Barriss thought about it.

Finally, she said, “We’re part of...something that’s been forgotten.” She glanced over. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that.”

“Nobody likes to talk about it,” Ahsoka said. “I didn’t want to ask, but I know something must’ve happened.” She gestured at the distant, sprawling settlement. “This place supported that much trade?”

Some of the pain left Barriss’ eyes. She was still...sad, a little wistful, but Rujari was clearly a less painful topic than the Jedi.

“There’s a strong hyperspace lane that passes just outside of Rujari’s gravity well,” she said. “For almost a thousand years...it was never a major hub, not really, you understand. But because of its location traders, pleasure craft, travellers, they would stop here sometimes. So many lives were saved by that hospital that would have been lost with two more hours of hyperspace travel... and the commercial benefits were obvious. Rujari hardly required any detour at all, and it was quiet, welcoming...anything you needed, you could find it here.”

Ahsoka grinned. “No kidding. I’ve been reading some of the signs. You guys should really get that spa up and running again sometime.”

“We’ll take it under advisement.” Barriss rolled her eyes affectionately. “It was just a friendly small trading center. Prices were affordable, and you could often find things here that a port with more competition wouldn’t be able to afford to take a risk on. I believe there was even podracing at one time. Everyone who came here thought they’d discovered the best-kept secret in the galaxy. Or so I hear.”

Ahsoka swept her eyes over the ghost settlement, picking out the tiny handful of scattered buildings that were still in use.

“...What happened?”

She’d expected...she wasn’t sure. A plague, maybe? What she wasn’t prepared for was Barriss’ soft “The Clone Wars happened.”

Ahsoka stared at her, and Barriss held up a hand preemptively. “There was no attack here,” she said. “In a way that would almost have been kinder. The Republic never meant to harm Rujari. I don’t...believe they even knew that we were here. That it was here,” she corrected herself. “It made sense. I don’t even blame them, Ahsoka. It made perfect sense for the Republic to set up a Restock and Supply outpost station in this sector. RS Station 066. It’s about ten light-years from here. Just on the other…’side’ of the hyperspace lane, if you understand what I mean by that.”

She did. Ahsoka understood exactly what Barriss meant by that, all of a sudden.

“Oh, no,” she breathed.

Barriss inclined her head. “No one has any reason to come here anymore. Not with a Republic outpost only a few minutes away at lightspeed. The travellers stopped coming, the businesses had no choice but to close. How do you operate a fuel depot with no starship traffic?”

The worst part, Ahsoka thought, was that she knew Barriss couldn’t hide bitterness. It filled the air around her, you could taste it. And there was just...nothing. How could you resent the Republic for setting up necessary infrastructure in the face of an impending war? How could you blame civilian traffic for using it? The calm acceptance was almost worse than irrational anger. They were all just sitting here, watching their world die.

“And these guys? They didn’t leave.”

Ahsoka realized suddenly that she was still holding Barriss’ hand. Barriss had just tightened her grip, almost imperceptibly.

“It was like cutting an artery,” she said. “Sometimes the closing businesses cascaded because one depended on the other. It was over almost before they realized why. Those who are left are those who couldn’t bear to leave and can...keep one another afloat, if they try. They know I would take them offworld if they ever...but it has to be their choice. I’ve bought them time. The river ran dry a year after I arrived. That would have been the end, but the Force guided me to an underground cavern that still had water. I was able to drive off the smugglers that wanted to use this planet as a cache site on the logic that the Republic wouldn’t expect it...things like that.”

“I wasn’t going to say that it might just be their time,” Ahsoka pointed out.

Barriss looked at her appraisingly. “You weren’t,” she agreed. “Most Jedi would.”

Ahsoka couldn’t decide if she thought that was unfair.

Ahsoka had already decided that she preferred working later in the evening to staying out in the heat all day. She’d already made a lot of progress with integrating the new booster and holocam and -projector units. She wanted to run a few tests, but it was looking good.

She’d asked Nandu to grab her something to go from his mom’s cantina, and was surprised when Barriss was the one who showed up with a sandwich and a refilled canteen.

Chara’s had...a limited menu, to say the least, but the results were always good. She polished off the sandwich in a few minutes; Barriss let her eat in silence, sitting on the edge of the roof again. Once she’d finished her meal, Ahsoka joined her.

“Turt tells me you’ll be finished soon,” said Barriss.

Ahsoka winced and held up crossed fingers. “Don’t jinx us. But...yeah, I think so. Hopefully!”

Barriss smiled, playing idly with a loose string on her sleeves. “Thank you,” she said. “I realize this was not your idea, but I appreciate the effort and skill you’ve devoted to the task. You may save our lives some day.”

With what Ahsoka knew now, Barriss was probably right. That increased range and functionality could make all the difference, if they really did run out of water or medical supplies. “Well, I hope you never need it.”

Barriss acknowledged the well wishes with a polite nod. “I wanted to tell you. When you return to the Temple…” She stopped.

Ahsoka reached out and gripped her elbow reassuringly. “I won’t mention you,” she promised. “There’s no reason they have to know you’re here. It’s none of their business, you’re not hurting anyone.”

She felt rather than heard Barriss’ breath stutter.

“...Thank you,” she said after a moment. “But I actually wanted to ask you...tell my Master that I didn’t leave out of anger. That I am...safe, and happy, and serving the Force as best I know how. I...think she will be more content, knowing that I am alive. Leading the life of the Jedi she taught me to be. It may be attachment, but I would sleep better knowing she is in less pain on my behalf.”

“I thought you weren’t a Jedi,” Ahsoka couldn’t resist saying.

It was a risk, but Barriss smiled.

“Perhaps I’m just not a very good one.”

“Or maybe you’re better than any of us,” Ahsoka suggested.

Grinning widely and shaking her head at the very idea, Barriss buried her face in Ahsoka’s shoulder. When she looked up, her eyes were shining. And...close. Very close, Ahsoka’s brain was suddenly, insistently telling her. Close and warm and complicated and she didn’t really belong here on Rujari, but she didn’t belong in the Order either, and blast it, that wasn’t fair, Barriss deserved to have somewhere she didn’t have to feel like an outsider. She deserved to have something that was hers, something that was warm and safe and…

“What’s that?” Nando asked loudly.

Ahsoka scrambled back from Barriss so fast she nearly crossed the hyperspace barrier. “Not what it looks like, kid!”

The scrawny Twi’lek rolled his eyes. “Not you guys making out with your eyes,” he complained. “I said what’s that?”

Heart pounding, blushing a lot harder than she should have been, Ahsoka squinted in the direction he was pointing. At first there was nothing; after a moment though, she registered something in the sky. It was tiny, only visible because it was a lighter speck in the darkening evening sky. It almost looked like dead pixels on a vid screen. Or like a Star Destroyer in orbit, just far enough away from the planet that it could catch sunlight a little longer than the planet’s night-side sky…

And Ahsoka’s montrals were suddenly buzzing with the familiar whine of gunship engines.

Almost before she had a chance to recognize the sound she was blinded by a side-mounted floodlight and several sets of helmet searchlights as a squad of clone troopers in familiar navy markings dropped to the rooftop.

“What the—”

Ahsoka’s bewilderment was interrupted by a familiar laugh, distorted through helmet filters. “Good to see you too, sir!”

“Rex?”

Her Captain clapped her on the shoulder. “Your hyperspace ring sent out a distress signal,” he explained. “Took us weeks to calculate where the error would have dropped your fighter, but we figured it out in the end. Ready to go?”

Ahsoka blinked, still trying to shield her eyes from the blinding light. Rex, at least, noticed and switched his helmet lights off.

“I—I can’t,” was the first thing that occurred to her. “The array’s not finished, I still need to…”

Rex cocked his head. “Sir?”

“I…” She looked around, suddenly night-blind. She wasn’t surprised to find that Barriss had vanished from the rooftop. “Give me a second, Rex...”

Turt was the first one to run up to her when she dropped off the roof.

“I think I can take it from here,” he assured her. “I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t worry, it might take me longer, but I can figure it out.”

“Reir?” she asked. The Devaronian tapped her shoulder and she turned to him gratefully.

“Way I see it,” he said, “You’ve done your part. I’d rather not argue with the Republic.”

“I’ll try to get you a new array anyway,” Ahsoka said quickly. “Listen, did you see where—?”

Reir looked behind her and nodded back toward the building. Barriss wasn’t exactly hiding, but she was tucked in the lee of the comm tower with her head lowered, hood pulled up to hide her face.

Ahsoka almost hesitated to draw any attention to her, but...she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

“Listen,” she began as she ducked under the overhang. “I...I have to…”

“I know.” Barriss looked up and forced a smile. “You did your part.”

“This isn’t how I wanted to... blast, I was going to look at your climate controls, and—”

“Sir?” Rex’s voice called from the roof. “I’ve got General Skywalker on the line, Commander! He wants to know why we haven’t got you in the gunship yet.”

“One minute, Rex! Barriss, I really didn’t mean to just…”

She didn’t realize she was cupping Barriss’ face in her hand until the Mirialan reached up and gently pulled it away.

“Go,” she said. “You’re...you’re going to be a wonderful Jedi, Ahsoka.”

“I don’t want to rush you, sir, but I think he might actually kill me.”

“I’m sorry.” Ahsoka didn’t know what she was apologizing for, exactly, and she didn’t have time to think about it. She stumbled back and leaped to the roof on instinct.

The laughter and whoops of the 501st as they helped her into the gunship and sealed it for vacuum should have made her feel something.

The elevator doors slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss.

Ahsoka was back in her own clothes, and she’d slept in her own bed last night. The familiar lukewarm temperature of the Temple meant she wouldn’t normally even be thinking about it, except that after so much time on Rujari everything felt cold.

She shook herself. It was time to move on.

The entrance to the Council chamber was open; Ahsoka let herself in, bowed politely to Master Yoda, and waited.

Obi-Wan spoke first. “Welcome back.” She grinned; the greeting was equal parts warmth and amusement, and some of the ache faded.

“As you are no doubt aware,” said Master Windu, taking over, “the Jedi Order is spread thin, catching up with many of the issues the Senate has been forced to let slide while the war was in full swing. Nevertheless, you have been through an exhausting ordeal. The Council can delay your reassignment for a week, if you feel you need time to recuperate in the Temple.”

“Surely we can do better than that,” Master Fisto protested. “She’s only a Padawan, still.”

Yoda’s eyes twinkled. “Soon to change, that status may be,” he said with a smile. “But perhaps, not yet.”

“Anakin believes her to be ready for the Trials.” Obi-Wan’s voice gave nothing away.

Not entirely comfortable with the direction this conversation was taking, Ahsoka answered the original question. “I’m fine,” she said. “I can leave as soon as the mission is ready to launch.” She needed to be a real Jedi again.

Master Tiin gave an approving nod. “The transport will leave tomorrow morning,” he informed her. “There has been an increase in smuggling as wartime travel restrictions have lifted. You, and a small squad of troopers for support, have been assigned to assist customs officers at a Republic trading hub. We expect the presence of a Jedi to provide a great deal of relief, and free up manpower for other assignments.”

Ahsoka stared at him, blood rushing in her ears.

“Customs?” she finally blurted. “But—”

“Is there a problem.” No one, not even Obi-Wan, could look disapproving like Master Windu.

“I just,” she stammered. “Masters, I was told you were considering the proposal I submitted—slavers in the Outer Rim? Did someone else get that assignment while I was gone, or…?”

The Council exchanged loaded glances. That wasn’t a good sign.

Master Ti sighed and sat forward, dark eyes sympathetic. “Many members of the Council believe your reasoning is solid,” she said kindly. “Eliminating the institution of slavery is an admirable ambition.”

“But you’re not going to try.”

Ahsoka’s voice was harsher than she’d expected; she didn’t apologize, though. They could spare Jedi for customs patrols but not to free slaves?

Master Koth shook his head. “This is not the time,” he said. “And it’s certainly not an assignment for a Padawan learner.”

Maybe you could pull a few Knights off occupying forces, Ahsoka thought darkly. She didn’t say it out loud, of course, but she was pretty sure a few of the Masters in the room got the message loud and clear regardless.

Master Windu watched her for a long moment, then nodded like something had been decided.

“Your transport will be ready for you in the morning,” he told her. “You may go.”

Ahsoka ducked under the nearest starfighter as the guards’ floodlight swept in her direction again.

This was crazy, and stupid, and illegal. But it had to be done.

There was something to be said about that last one, she realized. Illegal. It had never been illegal for a Jedi to leave the Order before. It wasn’t done, it was seen as a failure, a mistake, a threat, it was seen as being corrupted by the Dark Side, but nobody could arrest you for it. But Ahsoka remembered, vaguely, when Barriss had disappeared four years ago. Right alongside “Separatist” and “Darksider,” the word she’d heard most often was “Deserter.”

Desertion was a crime, yeah—but you could only desert from the military.

Ahsoka hadn’t realized until now how messed-up that was. Probably because she’d never had to face the prospect of a bounty on her head before. That did tend to focus your priorities.

As soon as the floodlight passed her, Ahsoka swung up onto the wing of the fighter, pulled herself into the cockpit and started running preflight checks. This time she was taking a Headhunter. Not as sleek and gorgeous, but it had an inboard hyperdrive. She wasn’t making that mistake again.

Once she fired this baby up, she was gonna have to move fast to get out of Coruscant’s gravity well. She probably wouldn’t want to be inputting numbers when that happened, so she took the time to program the navicomputer while it was in standby mode. It couldn’t calculate a jump from here, obviously, but it could work in the background.

She took a deep breath as she typed in the hyperspace coordinates.

At least she’d left a note. She’d seen how shattered Luminara had been when Barriss left without a word, and Ahsoka did not want to mix that kind of pain with Anakin’s temper. Besides, she’d had Barriss’ message to pass along. Maybe it would give Master Unduli a bit of closure. Maybe it’d at least keep Anakin from following her.

Her first thought had been to just...go back to Rujari. That was where this had all started, after all, and...and she wanted Barriss to know that she’d left the Order. But that was a sentimental idea, and it wouldn’t be safe right now. She still wanted to go back someday, but...well, she hadn’t left for their sake. She’d left for her own. And she had a job to do.

Maybe she couldn’t end slavery in the galaxy, but she could make slavers think twice knowing what was waiting for them.

And, hey. She’d have a bunch of freed slaves with nowhere to go, and she was pretty sure she knew a Republic outpost in the Outer Rim that nobody really bothered with. They might not be able to officially condone a rogue Jedi in Hutt space...but they probably wouldn’t mind providing food and supplies to refugees. She knew Bail would agree to authorize that much. And there was a great little planet not ten minutes away, with a lot of empty beds...but she was getting ahead of herself.

“All right,” she said to herself, locking in the jump coordinates. “First stop, Tatooine.”