How to Take an Empire

Part 5: Chapter Forty: Cal

There were times in the last five years where Ahsoka felt like her work building the Rebellion seemed fruitless. Slow going as things were, even with Vader's help, Diya's network, Barriss' outreach, and the thousands of rebellion cells, contacts, and sympathizers, it felt like she did a lot of work for little reward. And while she didn't doubt Vader's ability to destroy Sidious with his mind and heart set to it, Ahsoka sometimes questioned the necessity or the effectiveness of the Rebel Alliance. She definitely doubted its magnitude.

But after five years, she was finally seeing the work she'd put in over the years amount to something more tangible with the construction of their first consolidated Rebel Alliance base. An official headquarters.

They were still careful. Only abandoning the old protocol of keeping the cells isolated for their most stable and trusted cells while keeping the rest in the shadows until they were stronger. But now things seemed a lot more real. Now she was sure that it wouldn't be very long before they could officially wage the Emperor's war.

"It's something. Isn't it?" Bail asked, coming to stand next to her from where she was observing workers in their hanger. "To finally have something tangible after all these years of work."

"Yeah. It is," Ahsoka replied.

While she and Bail were close colleagues as it pertained to Rebellion work, Ahsoka didn't have the same personal closeness and friendship with him as she had with his wife. Mostly because her friendship with Bail had to maintain the precarious balance that came with your subordinate being your acquaintance. Part of High Command thought she was too young and too inexperienced to lead the Rebellion. Bail generally defended her and her choices, even if he would disagree with her in private. But she couldn't afford to show any weakness before him that he might inadvertently mention to those he was close to and might use it in the case against her. Not to mention, he didn't need to be accused of having a bias toward her.

"Have you decided? About Mandalore?" he asked.

Ahsoka sighed. "I'm going to see what they have to offer."

Weeks ago, insurgents on Mandalore reached out to the rebellion with what they claimed was valuable information about a top-secret Imperial project. There was always a fair amount of caution when a planet reached out to them with what they claimed was classified Imperial information, but Mandalore was a special case. A long history of civil war, regime changes, terrorist groups, and betrayal. When the Empire rose, they declared Mandalore a hostile planet. The Mandalorian civil war was brought to a swift end by the Empire's brutal newly appointed governor, forcing the Mandalorians fighters to put their differences aside and go into hiding. Lately, there had been whispers of rebellion rising again on the planet. Still, no one forgot how volatile and, frankly, wishy-washy the planet could be depending on its interests. Against the Empire today, sure. But it was possible they'd be against the rebellion in the next. Mandalore was only loyal to Mandalore.

"Rex is arranging transport for me," Ahsoka added.

"And what's your contact's opinion about all this?"

"They think I should exercise a very healthy amount of caution."

Ahsoka was severely understating Vader's opinion. He'd all but tried to forbid her to go, saying that any classified information on an Imperial project that Mandalore thought they had he could find a way to access. Ahsoka argued that was only true if it wasn't a project Palpatine was keeping secret from him.

"They don't think you should go at all," Bail said bluntly.

"Pretty much."

"Did they have any idea what Mandalore's intel might be?"