Ahsoka was no expert on politics (she couldn't learn everything by osmosis, regardless of what the Jedi Council had said before that Force-forsaken investigation two years ago) but even she could tell Lux's claims he was terribly out of shape were blatant exaggeration.
Having spent two years out of the public eye, Lux thought himself something of a recluse. Clearly, he and Ahsoka had different definitions of losing one's people skills. The passion in his delivery was magnetic, and the tone that carried it informal enough to make even topics like workers' rights and Imperial security in the outer villages seem unassuming. The balance it struck, the place suspended between emotion and voice that Lux seemed to thrive in, was striking.
'Ex-politician' my sheb. We always need extra bodies for the Rebellion, but people with his ability as an orator could sway billions, Ahsoka thought.
She shook it away, shifting uncomfortably in the thick shawl that protected her from the chill. She couldn't start thinking like that. Lux was useful, and his sunshine was a great comfort to her, but his reputation would invariably precede him anywhere he went – the good and the bad parts of it both.
Lux lightened a heavy statement with a clever joke and wave of his hand; she smiled proudly from the sidelines when his audience of miners and farmers laughed. But the sting of old wounds quickly soured her pride.
Perhaps that was why she was drawn to him. Lux made her feel comfortable in a way no one really had since her childhood. (Save Anakin, but he wasn't here now.) The power he had when he spoke, though – that was glaringly like Padmé. At times, Lux's pensiveness and warmth almost made Ahsoka feel like she was with her old friend again on Coruscant, a cup of expensive tea at her lips and a chuckle in the back of her throat as they gossiped about mutual friends...
Not light years away, with a tracker in her chest to keep her from wandering too far out of Lux's – her master's – sight. Ahsoka supposed the likeness made sense, if Padmé had been so close to Lux's family before Ahsoka's time. But it still hurt.
"Believe you me, my father will not hear the end of this until real changes have been made," Lux was saying, and the emphasis on the word 'father' snapped her back to the task at hand.
She'd heard him practice this part of the speech several times the night before to get the inflection right, and she knew his concluding statements would soon follow. He'd be distracted for a while after that by the cam droids – of which there were still far more than either of them had estimated – and by the question and answer session, which was growing more popular with every village he visited.
The time to move was now.
Ahsoka had chosen her spot by Lux's riser with care, making sure she was too far into the background for any droid or sentient to notice her. She only had to trick two troopers with a subtle pressure on their minds – I belong here, I am your better, you will let me pass without question – before she could slip through their line of defense and melt into the shadows beyond.
The applause and cheers in the square grew thunderous as Lux thanked the townspeople for their time. She wished she could've stayed to hear the end, but she had work to do. She could always listen in on the next one.
She ducked into a back alley and crouched behind a dumpster, pulling a spare tunic she'd been hiding beneath her shawl over her head. The pants on the indigo jumpsuit she'd chosen for the day's outing were unremarkable on their own, but the beading and low neckline on the bodice would draw too much attention when she needed the shawl as a cowl for potential security cams.
Thankfully, as impractical as it was, the bodice had some uses: for one, it was tight enough to hold the many bracelets and montral ornaments she'd been given to wear. She didn't have a single pocket on her, and though she'd gotten lucky this time, he wished she hadn't been so blasé the night before about choosing her outfit.
Now came the more complicated part – the one she hadn't been able to plan. She'd found a map of the town on the HoloNet, but she hadn't gone looking for more information about specific locations. She'd worked hard to subtly maneuver Lux into agreeing to bring her along yesterday, and she would not risk him catching on to her excursion with something as stupid as her search history.
Lucky for her, she'd been taught at the finest institution there was for making things up as one went along: the Skywalker School of Improvisation. Anakin's lessons wouldn't fail her. They never had.
Ahsoka dipped into the Force, splaying her senses out to feel for changes in the current. There were no Elites for a hundred klicks in any direction. Not that she'd expected to find any when she'd seen hide nor hair of them since her and Lux's abrupt departure from Kyzeron, but she still had to be mindful of the danger.
Satisfied, she twisted her shawl so the plainer side was facing outward and draped it around her head and shoulders. Then, she walked the rest of the way to the next street over – which was one of the town's main boulevards, if she was right – and turned onto it.
It was full of shops offering everything from tech repair to a quick bite to eat. The kiosks and tents of travelling peddlers, garishly colored to attract attention and jockey with their equally vibrant competitors, clustered between more monotonous prefabricated buildings.
Ahsoka grinned. This was better than she'd hoped for, in a town so small.
Leisurely she strolled down the street, trying to look like she belonged. There weren't many other people around to mimic; the only other passersby were a Twi'lek couple at the other end of the street and a group of elderly Humans examining some crates of medial supplies. The shopkeepers and peddlers, for their part, stared out at her from behind their wares with narrowed eyes.
She shivered and moved on.
Most of the shop signs were in Onde'er, and though Ahsoka had picked up a passable mastery of the spoken language, but she could only read bits and pieces of it. Thankfully, the buildings were all made with the same template, and each one had a large window at the front that showed what was for sale.
Her heart skipped a beat when she spotted secondhand tech through one of them. The featureless buildings made it hard to guess how long the village had been here, so it was a long shot, but perhaps she could find an old transmitter inside.
In her darker moments, Ahsoka held her own survivor's guilt responsible for making her wait to find a way back to the Rebellion – like her year in chains was a great trial to face with the poise and wisdom of a Jedi Knight, and she'd simply been too numb to overcome it yet. There was truth to that, but it wasn't the whole reason.
Before the GAR, Jedi, and Republic leadership had fled Coruscant, four Senators had activated Evacuation Frequency 04, or EF-4. The decades-old protocol had been designed give the Republic a comm network that couldn't be tampered with in the face of an invasion. It was sound in concept, but not in practice. Since it was off-limits to civilians, only military transmitters could access it – and the Empire knew it. Though it was beyond their power to hack EF-4, the Emperor's dogs had done everything else imaginable to make old Republic military tech scarce.
Still, Ahsoka had hope. Since her arrival on Onderon she'd been in and out of towns like these since – places the Empire deemed so insignificant they barely even followed through on their threats of violent responses to insubordination. The locals were tenacious, and good at hiding things until someone offered the right price for them. And, with a little help from the Force, Ahsoka could be extremely persuasive.
Of course, that brought her to the other part of the plan she hadn't been able to figure out in advance: where to get the credits. She didn't want to swindle anyone outright – that wasn't the Jedi way – but revealing her identity to curry favor with Rebel sympathizers was out of the question. Her mission to find Anakin depended on secrecy.
She slouched against a wall to think. The clasp of one of the jewel-incrusted bracelets she'd been wearing earlier dug into her skin, and she touched a hand to her chest. Now there was an idea.
Ahsoka adjusted her shawl around her neck and lekku, using the gesture as cover to slip a hand discretely down her tunic and bodice. She kept the bracelet out of sight even once she'd retrieved it, wary of thieves. It was probably worth more than all the wares those peddlers were hawking put together.
She froze as she was about to get up and cross the street. Sure, she had another five bracelets just like this one down her shirt, but they – like the clothing – were brand new. How would it look if it went missing so soon under suspicious circumstances? And would the store even accept something like this to trade? If she had no proof of its value, probably not.
Ahsoka groaned. Where was her faith in the Force? (Burnt away with those children on Felucia.) Or, failing that, where was the confidence of her early teens that everything would work out all right? (Sleeping in stardust with Padmé and her unborn child, and everyone else lost to Ahsoka now.)
Without her friends and comrades at her back, it was a lot harder to feel certain about anything. Even on Wasskah, pursued by Trandoshan hunters, Ahsoka had been secure in the knowledge Anakin would find a way to reach her if she did everything in her power to meet him halfway.
Her power would just have to be enough to cover everything, this time.
She looked across the street again, looked closer, and on the sign above the shop she was interested in saw a few sloppily written characters she recognized. The place didn't just sell tech; it was a pawnshop, and she had something to trade.
The golden prongs holding the six gems in place on the bracelet were thin and flimsy. It was easy to wrench one open with her nail and tip the stone out into the palm of her hand. Then, hiding the bracelet away, she strode across the street.
While the sign had left something to be desired, the inside of the store was almost painfully clean. Appliances and instruments were nearly stacked in the corners, and jewelry and small objects were arranged on a long counter. At first glance, everything looked unprotected.
Then Ahsoka spotted the telltale distortions of ray shields, and nearly rolled her eyes. What was it with Onderonians and ray shields? she thought. She schooled her expression when she realized the plump, middle-aged Human woman sitting just behind the counter was looking at her with a hard expression.
"You here to buy or sell?" she asked gruffly. She left one hand beneath the counter, ready to grab a hidden weapon at a moment's notice. Ahsoka wondered how often people tried to rob her.
"That depends."
"On what?"
Ahsoka set the stone down before her. Beneath the glare of the floodlights, it sparkled a cold green. "I'm in a rough spot, and this popped out of a family heirloom last week. My moms would kill me if I sold the bracelet, but this..." Ahsoka shrugged. "Well, it's easy enough to replace with glass and pretend it never happened."
"You didn't answer my question, girl."
Ahsoka put her hands up in a pacifying gesture. "Hey, take it easy. The selling, I wanna do," she said, slipping into an easy drawl instinctively. "But I'm also looking for some transmitter parts – the expensive ones. If you've got one in good condition I could cannibalize, that'd be great. Could even be Republic, for all I care. Lot of the same parts, just a different way of putting 'em together."
The pawnbroker hesitated, and Ahsoka sighed. "Hey, if this was a stickup, would I have given you the gem?"
"I guess not," she said, and pulled a pair of goggles with five or six additional lenses attached to them out of her frizzy hair. Pressing them to her face, she examined the stone for several minutes before speaking again. "It's an emerald – well-cut, good color, very little weathering. But the lattices are too uniform to be natural, and synthetics are less valuable. I'll give you four hundred credits for it."
Ahsoka winced. It would've been enough to buy a civilian transmitter in her Padawan yeas, but now that Republic tech was illegal merchandise, the cost on the black market would be four or five times that. Perhaps she would have to make the whole bangle disappear after all, and blame it on a faulty clasp.
"Well..."
"Take it or leave it, girl. It's all the same to me. But I don't recognize you, and I know just about everybody 'round here, so I'll need to see your ID."
Ahsoka tensed. "Oh. I'm just... passing through. On business."
"Still need to see it. I've got nothing against you, but the Great Houses and the Imps won't catch me selling stolen merchandise unless I've got someone to blame."
"All right, all right." Ahsoka lifted the hem of her tunic and pretended to rifle through a pocket, stalling for time. Nothing came to her save another one of Anakin's teachings, an old trick to back out of a deal gracefully or get a more money out of a buyer. Leaning forward, she said, "You sure you can't give me a bit more on this? The guy I went to in Izadash – that's where I'm from – said he'd give me five fifty."
The pawnbroker's hand disappeared beneath the counter again. "Thought you were trying to keep your moms from finding out you took the bracelet."
"I'd really prefer it, but money is money," Ahsoka said, shrugging.
"Four hundred is the highest I'll go."
Ahsoka turned to go. "Then I guess I'll be on my way."
"Wait," the pawnbroker said, tucking a few curly strands of hair behind her ear. "Don't you want to see what kind of transmitters I've got, first?"
Ahsoka paused, weighing her options. A touch of the Force could soften the other woman up; make her decide she didn't need to see Ahsoka's identification, not really. But if her mind was strong and focused enough to put up a fight, quelling it into submission would bring every Elite on the continent down on them.
"Nah. Might be back later if I change my mind," Ahsoka said, recovering the emerald and breezing out of the pawnshop.
The Force flared in warning a split-second before she turned to go back the way she came. Ahsoka flattened herself against the wall, shunting power into her lekku and montrals to boost her hearing.
"Please, ma'am," came the voice of an old man, "my daughter needs this medicine. The medcenter just went bankrupt. This is her only chance for relief."
Shifting into a stance less reminiscent of a cornered animal, Ahsoka glanced down the street. A squad of storm troopers plus a few more locals had joined the group of elders gathered by the crates of medical supplies. Desperation streamed thickly from them, coloring the Force like blood in water. For the first time, Ahsoka noticed the Imperial crest on the crates, and she understood.
"We all chipped in to buy the rest of your stock – or even just some of it, at a higher rate. We can pay," the man went on, making a beseeching gesture to the squad leader before him. Ahsoka's eyes were drawn to the Imperial crest on her shoulder as the woman raised her arm, pushing him away from the crates. The collection of lines was a spider's web glinting silver over white in the dying light.
Ahsoka hated that Dooku had chosen white plate for his new troops, even if that was probably why he'd done it. It was too like clone armor to sit well with her.
"You have no claims on them," the squad leader spat. "These supplies are the property of the Empire, surplus from the garrison back in Kyzeron made available out of charity. It's not my fault there isn't enough demand here to make a profit."
Her heart twisted in her chest. This was exactly what she'd tried to prevent in her ten months on the run with Anakin – little actions made in passing she'd hoped to organize into a cohesive movement at the assembly on Felucia. The Rebellion, last she'd been a part of it, was little more than a group of factions sharing a name, far too preoccupied with their own safety to make a lasting effort in defending others. These people had no one to defend them now.
Another man, a Togruta, separated himself from the others. "Have mercy on him! He's just an old man, and his family has been through so much..."
"I have my orders." The woman motioned to her troops, who began loading the crates onto an antigrav flatbed. That done, a pair of storm troopers broke from the group and pushed the flatbed off down the street. The rest went in the opposite direction, marching past Ahsoka in perfect unison.
Her unspoken promise, the one she'd made in the heat of anger at the auction house a week and a half before, prickled at the back of her mind. Ahsoka had sworn Barriss' death would mean something, and she'd eventually decided that legacy would be a rebellion she waged in Barriss' name. Her first try had been too bloody, too bitter. Her second would be slower, softer – molding the system to suit her needs instead of tearing it to pieces.
Ahsoka's feet carried her toward the group and the two retreating troopers before she could think about it. A chance flick of her eyes down another alleyway showed her forgotten crates that looked almost the same as the medical supplies.
She smiled, tucking her shawl so tight around her face only her eyes would be visible. Even if the Rebellion couldn't yet, the Republic would've helped these people. Barriss would've helped these people. What better way to turn the Imperial system against itself and uphold her legacy than staging a few nonviolent mix-ups?
The Togruta looked up from where he was comforting the old man as she drew near. "Hello," he said tiredly, adding a few words in Togruti she couldn't make out. His eyes were heavy, but something about the set of his shoulders evoked command. Hopefully he was the right person to talk to. "I don't recognize you."
"I'm here to help," Ahsoka said, dropping to a lower pitch than her normal speaking voice. It wasn't much of a disguise, but shifting the Force around her face and montrals to hide them would attract as much attention as a difficult mind trick. "Wait for me here. I'll be back soon."
He said another few short phrases in Togruti. Ahsoka hated that she spoke the language of her oppressors her better than her own mother tongue, but the only words she understood were 'you' and 'kindness'. "Yeah," she murmured, hoping she hadn't misinterpreted him. "I'm a lot kinder than the Imps."
She ran back to the alley before he could reply. Then, summoning the Force, she leapt to the roof of the nearest building. The sun had set enough that her dark clothing would conceal her from all but infrared scanners. Adrenaline was making her reckless, but in a small village like this, she could afford to take some chances.
The Force sang in Ahsoka's soul as she ran from building to building, using their roofs as her own personal highway. It had been so long since she'd just run like this, open and free with the air rushing around her. She reached for the two troopers in the Force, laughing when she sensed their auras in another alley a few buildings behind her. In her eagerness, she'd overshot them.
She launched herself at the utilitarian border running around the edge of the next roof and pushed herself off it. She was thrown backwards, and for a moment, ground became sky. Then she arced her body into the jump, dropping smoothly into a crouch on the building closest to her targets.
She stepped off it into the emptiness beyond, pouring all her eagerness, all her light, into soothing the troopers' conditioned urge to shoot first and as questions later as she landed. They didn't fight her. Their grips around their blasters went slack in seconds, and their stiff, intimidating posture slumping into nothing.
A cursory glance around her revealed garbage, refuse, and more abandoned crates behind a dumpster. They were a bit dirty, but they'd do the job. Gesturing to them with one hand and raising the other as a conduit for the Force, she murmured, "You will replace the crates on the flatbed with these ones. You'll then forget this ever happened, and continue on like no change was ever made."
"We'll replace the crates on the flatbed with those ones," one trooper echoed.
"We'll forget this ever happened after that," the other continued cheerfully, "and continue on like no change was ever made."
Ahsoka smiled, and melted into the shadows to wait.
The switch took only a minute, slowed some by the troopers' attempts to dust off the replacement crates. With mind tricks, there was always some variation between what Force wielder imagined and the affected individual's execution, but Ahsoka couldn't complain. Their efforts would only make the switch harder to spot.
Once all the crates had been offloaded, the two troopers went on through the alleyway and turned the corner. Satisfied the medical supplies would be safe there for the moment, Ahsoka walked back out to the waiting townspeople. The same Togruta man from earlier came to meet her, crossing his arms behind his back.
"Do you speak for these people?" Ahsoka asked, quietly enough that only his specialized montrals and lekku would be able to catch it.
"Yes, when the overseer's not here, anyway. I try to help people when I can."
There was truth in his words. Careful not to displace her shawl, Ahsoka pulled the loose emerald and the bracelet it had come from out of their hiding place in her bodice. "The metal is an alloy of chromium and gold. The gems are synthetic emeralds that will go for four hundred credits each, maybe more."
The man's eyes widened. "I– I cannot accept this. There are others who–"
"It's not just for you. You were kind to that old man, and you defended him. It's rare to find people like that, these days." Ahsoka put the bracelet and gem in his palm. "See to it that the money is distributed to those who need it most."
"I will."
"And send someone you trust to the alleyway I just came from later tonight. The medicine that old man needs is there. If you're lucky, you'll have a few days before the Imps catch on to the switch, but the crates need to be gone by morning."
She righted her shawl and turned to go, but the man grabbed her shoulder with a weathered green hand. "Please, wait. Who are you? Why are you doing this?"
"I'm..." Ahsoka hesitated for a moment. "Who I am is not important. I just promised to give someone I cared about a legacy she could be proud of. She was a healer, and there's nothing that would give her more joy than helping those in need."
The man flashed her a warm smile as he let go. Ahsoka nodded farewell and walked back to the square. She'd forgotten how good this could be; she felt like her old self again. Fresh ideas were springing from wells she'd thought would only run dry until she had the means for a large-scale rebellion at her disposal. But perhaps...
Ahsoka smiled. A few little excursions wouldn't threaten her mission if she didn't get caught, and she was sure Barriss would approve of her doing this again.
Halfway unintentionally, Ahsoka has found a new – and far less tainted by the dark side – purpose in helping those cast off by the Empire and the Noreinos. However, she already has other obligations filling her plate, and adding another one could easily get her in over her head. How will her efforts to give Barriss a legacy she can be proud of impact her missions to save Anakin and make contact with the Rebellion? More pressingly, how will they affect her agreement to train and protect Lux, who is a Noreino himself? Only time will tell...
If Ahsoka's grief over losing the ones she loved was the stone that started an avalanche at the auction house, her desire to atone for them will start another one now. If any of you have been feeling Ahsoka is uncharacteristically flighty or unwilling to commit to certain courses of action, you'll understand why soon. She's about to go through another big change, and I think this one will bring some of the old Ahsoka back – even if it also brings more widespread repercussions with it than an auction house's worth of casualties.
I think this will be the last Monday update I do for awhile. As fate would have it, I'm actually busiest from Saturday to Tuesday these days, and I think I'll be more rested if I post on Wednesdays – which means higher quality content. Unfortunately that means it'll be a little more than a week before the next chapter, but it's a flashback to an iconic prequel trilogy moment. I hope that will make up for it!
Talk to you guys in the next chapter!