The Unchronicled Adventures Of Ahsoka Tano, Book Nine

Chapter Fifty: Stronger Than You Know

KAYA TI AREEKO

The first thing Kaya Ti knew upon regaining consciousness was that there were shackles on her wrists.

Her deeply inset smuggler's instincts kicked in almost immediately, and, ignoring a sudden bout of dizziness as the blood rushed back to her head, she began struggling against the cuffs and ties around her.

But she soon realized that it was in vain – the binders around her wrists and ankles and medal strips around her midriff wouldn't come off so easily as that. She had to play it smart and avoid depleting her already low reserves of strength.

She exhaled softly, trying not to wince as the release of her diaphragm sent a wave of pain through a particularly nasty bruise on her torso. "Okay. That's one way how not to do it."

Kaya craned her neck, looking around her. Where even am I?

She was in some sort of makeshift holding cell, she knew. She guessed she was somewhere in the less used underground tunnels where IronFist extracted the iron ore and kyber crystals, since the walls were made of rock and looked more like a natural cave than one hollowed out with chisels and hammers by the workers.

And, from a quick glance at her cracked wrist chrono, she'd been out for at least eight hours. If the gash on the back of her head covered in half-dried blood meant anything at all, then there was at least one good reason behind why she'd been out cold for so long.

"Enough about being in here. Time to figure out how to get out."

Carefully, she summoned the Force, trying to do so as gently as possible in hopes of escaping notice. General Grievous had commanded the Separatist Armada under a Darksider – Count Dooku – back during the Clone Wars, and if the red lightsabers he had fought with were any indication, then it was inevitable that he was working for another Master. She couldn't afford to attract unwanted attention.

But the second she moved the energy she had built up towards the cuffs, a searing electric current shot up her spine, tearing a cry of pain from her lips as her body convulsed with the full force of the charge.

Thankfully, it didn't last long, and even as she stood hunched over, gasping for breath, she was perfectly conscious that it could have been much worse.

Much to her dismay, without anything to hold them in one place, the tendrils of the Force she had so patiently gathered around her drifted away.

"Well, apparently, these cuffs are Force-resistant. I guess it's back to square one," she grumbled.

Then, something else occurred to her. And with that realization came a plan that would allow her to free herself: the cuffs wouldn't allow someone to use the Force on them, but perhaps she could use it briefly to get one of the hairpins she rarely ever used out of her boot and into her hands.

And so, she stretched out with her sense once more, pulling a hairpin from where it was stuck in the lining and levitating it above her head to where her hands were chained. The second she had it within her grasp, she got to work.

A smirk curled the corners of her mouth as the cuffs clattered to the floor. Kaya massaged her wrists for a moment before getting to work on the other restraints. It wasn't long before they too were out of the picture.

Suddenly, she heard a scratching sort of thud from around the corner. She instinctively reached for her blaster, but soon realized her holster was empty. So were her two pockets for her lightsabers.