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Astrid cast Vader a furtive glance before quickly looking away, hoping that her unresponsiveness to his comment would make him think that he had been mistaken in regards to her identity. Instead of answering him, she kept her eyes trained on the dancing couples before her.
"You're Senator Organa's advisor," Darth Vader finally said. He drawled out the syllables of her fake name as he added, "Ayla." He paused. "What is your last name?"
Astrid's mind whirled as panic flared inside of her. Her heart skipped and bleated like a sheep. When it came to Vader, she found that she was frequently turned into a sheep, while he remained the wolf.
Astrid scrambled for a last name to tell him, but the only name she could think of for some reason was Ahsoka Tano, so she quickly blurted, "Ayla Rano." She forced herself to look at him and his terrifying helmet.
He cocked his head.
"Why were you speaking with Galen Erso?" His mechanical voice was cold as he spoke.
Astrid immediately understood he was trying to catch her by having her reveal that she knew about the Death Star. After all, she couldn't already know about the ship as Bail's advisor since the Death's Star's construction was top-secret. So, if Astrid let it slip that she knew about the ship's existence, then he would know she was a rebel spy.
Astrid held his stare as she answered, "I admire him for his work as a scientist. I was merely inquiring about his past work."
Somehow, she knew Vader was unconvinced. He turned towards the dancing as he remarked, "You were pregnant last time I saw you. I could sense the presence of your unborn child through the Force." His gaze turned towards her, and she imagined that if she could see his eyes, they would be narrowed with suspicion. "You are no longer pregnant."
Astrid was startled-- and then instantly apprehensive-- by his abrupt change of subject and his uncanny control of the Force to sense such a thing so easily. They'd only spoken for maybe two minutes last they'd met formally in the Alderaan palace-- he didn't know they'd met again in Scarif-- and he'd managed to sense her pregnancy in that small amount of time.
Astrid replied reluctantly, "You're correct."
Vader turned his head to watch the dancing in the center of the ballroom as he said, "It would be quite a shame if I found your loyalties are not as they should be, Ayla. It wouldn't take much effort to find your child."
She read the threat within his words, and her stomach dropped. Astrid quickly reassured herself of her twins' safety-- they were with Obi-Wan on Tatooine, after all-- and the fact that Darth Vader thought she only had one child, not two.
That was a small mercy.
Astrid swallowed and wet her lips before she replied quietly, "You will find my loyalties are exactly as they should be, Lord Vader."
"I would hope so for your sake... and your child's," he responded unfeelingly before he marched away with a billow of his black cape. Astrid watched his back as he strode away, and she noticed him clench his mechanical right hand-- the one she'd sliced off with her lightsaber in Scarif-- in discomfort.
Why did the action look so familiar to her?
Suddenly, Bail was at her side, ushering her away with a hand on her forearm, and he muttered, "What did he want? What did he say? He hasn't caught onto you or anything, right?"
Astrid swallowed nervously as they wove between the people that had gathered around the sides of the room to watch the dancing. She cast a look at the surrounding people as they came to a stop in the corner of the room before she spoke quietly, "He suspects my loyalties are not where they should be. He threatened the life of my child."
Astrid gave Bail a meaningful look at this, and Bail seemed to understand the implication in her gaze. Vader only knew about one child.
"What about Galen? Did he say anything?" Bail demanded in a low but urgent voice.
Astrid pursed her lips in an effort to suppress her wince. She replied with matching volume, "He was very... cagey, but I think he's not much of a fan of the Empire. He told me, and I quote, 'The Death Star will be completed within a few months. And if you want information on the construction of the Death Star, then see Saw Gerrera. Find Jyn and you will unlock everything you need to know."
"Jyn?"
"His daughter," Astrid explained. "You know anything about her?"
Bail shook his head before replying, "No, but Mon Mothma and I will use our network to find her. She can't stay hidden for long, wherever she is, though I don't know how much we can trust her if her father is working for the Empire."
"Well, we have no choice but to trust her. We need her," Astrid remarked as she crossed her arms and shifted her feet. But then she realized her feet were in the traditional fighting stance, so she quickly uncrossed her arms and changed her position.
Bail nodded in agreement, and his gaze shifted towards the center of the room, where eight pairs of people were now dancing as a new song resumed, this one more upbeat and lively. His eyes were deep with thought. Astrid hesitated, not wanting to interrupt his thought process, before she asked tentatively, "Who is Saw Gerrera?"
His brown eyes snapped to her face, and he replied quietly, "He's a known rebel. He helped the Republic fight against the Separatist from the Clone Wars. I believe he was familiar with Master Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano." He paused. "Especially Ahsoka Tano."
A shot of pain pierced her heart like an arrow at the mention of the three Jedi and the old days of the Clone Wars. That must've been one of the many missions the three Jedi went on without her since the Council seemed to have always sent her on a mission far away from Anakin.
"Do we know where he is?" Astrid murmured.
"Yes, he's in Jedha. But we'll find Jyn first, and the girl will go to Jedha with a couple of our people to see what Saw Gerrera knows. I suspect Saw and Jyn already know each other. It may make Saw more willing to help us."
"Why wouldn't he help us?"
Bail cast her a look as he replied unamusedly, "He likes to be difficult."
They settled in silence, their conversation ended for the moment being, and Astrid studied the people in the room-- she noticed Darth Vader was gone-- before turning her attention to the room, itself. Being here in the temple always made her sad, but also a little antsy.
She longed to walk down the expansive hallways again, to visit the Council chambers, to drop by her room to see if her nuna-ball poster was still there, or perhaps even visit Anakin's room. She doubted her things were still in her room; the Empire probably ransacked her room in the beginning and then burned everything into ash and cinders.
Astrid's eyes drifted to the sweeping, double stairs at the far end of the room, and she remembered one time when she and Anakin had walked down those stairs to attend a training session together. They'd been laughing about something Obi-Wan had said the other day, and Anakin had been doing a fairly good job impersonating Obi-Wan.
Astrid's eyes flicked to the ends of the room where three stormtroopers stood by the walls, guarding them, or perhaps trapping the them inside, making sure none of them left the room.
Astrid took a shuddering breath, hardly believing what she was daring to do, and said to Bail, "I'll be right back," before she began walking towards those three stormtroopers.
She made her steps sloppy as she walked slightly crooked, and she peered at the stormtroopers through half closed eyes as she said in a loopy voice trying to sound drunk, "'Ello, Imma just, uh, lookin' for a restroom."
The stormtroopers exchanged uncertain looks before one of them pointed down the hall with his blaster gun and replied, "There's a restroom down the hall to the left around the corner."
Astrid gave him a lopsided smile and lifted her champagne glass in his direction-- she made sure her hand trembled so her drink would slosh a little-- as she stumbled past them down the hall. She kept her charade until she rounded the corner, and then she wiped the ridiculous smile from her face.
The hallway was strangely deserted, which made Astrid frown, but she continued onwards, her eyes sweeping the adjacent room doors as she sought to orient herself again. It had been a while since she'd traversed these halls. She finally remembered where she was, and she realized with a startle that she was near Anakin's room. Heart speeding up, Astrid jogged down the corridor towards Anakin's room, making sure to keep her footfalls silent.
She fell on muscle memory alone as she jogged towards Anakin's room, and she found his door easily. She thought his room would be locked for some reason, but when she tried the door knob, it was unlocked.
Astrid's breath hitched as the door swung open with a small squeak of the door hinges, and she stepped inside. She was surprised to find Anakin's things still in the room, unburned, and covered in a thin layer of dust.
Undisturbed.
The air was musty and slightly stale, and small dust motes floated leisurely in the air. Astrid walked silently to the closet door and ran a hand along the dark brown Jedi robes and maroon shirts hanging there. She pressed her face into the long sleeve of one of Anakin's shirts, and she found the very faint lingering smell of his honeyed scent on the dark fabric. Her eyes welled with tears.
Before she could think too hard about what she was doing, she yanked one of his black shirts off its hangar before tugging the bottom of her dress up enough to tie his shirt around her leg. It was the only place she could hide it.
Astrid cast one last look around the room, her eyes lingering on Anakin's bed and the small mechanics work table in the corner before she hurried out of the room. She was afraid to linger for fear of getting caught. She closed the door quietly behind her before hurrying down the side hallway to the intersection where it connected to the main corridor. She reached the end of the side hallway and began turning right to head back to the ballroom, but she hesitated.
Would it hurt to go to her own room just real quick? Maybe there was something important to her there that she hadn't realized she'd been missing. Astrid took a left.
Her footsteps were hurried as she strode farther down the eerily quiet main corridor towards her own room. She cast an anxious look around the halls, her entire body on edge with the absence of the stormtroopers in the halls. She heard two voices somewhere ahead of her echoing through the corridor, and she came to an abrupt stop, feet skidding on the slick marble floors, before darting around the corner. Astrid pressed her back against the wall as she sought to listen to their words.
She instantly recognized the two voices as Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader.
"My Master," Darth Vader was saying, "I felt an unusual and unexpected disturbance in the Force tonight and yesterday."
"What was this disturbance, my apprentice?" Emperor Palpatine questioned, and Astrid thought she caught a hint of ire in his crackling voice.
There was a moment of silence before Vader spoke, "Yesterday, I sensed--" There was a pause before he continued in a frustrating tone, "I don't know what exactly I sensed, but something happened. There are Jedi still surviving in the galaxy. Powerful ones."
Astrid's breath hitched. Was it possible that Vader had somehow sensed the birth of Luke and Leia? If so, why would Darth Vader of all people have been able to sense such an event?
"Of course there are," Emperor Palpatine spoke dismissively. "The Jedi will always be the bane of our existence. It's why we now have the Inquisitors hunting them down throughout the galaxy. Eventually, all of the Jedi will be extinct. Now, what was the other disturbance? The one that happened tonight?"
Astrid could sense Darth Vader's sudden reluctance as if he had changed his mind about sharing what he had sensed through the disruption of the Force tonight, but finally he spoke in a quiet voice, "I sensed a presence I have not sensed since the fall of the Republic. It was only for a moment, but I sensed Jedi Knight Astrid Katarn's presence in the Force."
Fear like icy cold fingers shivered down Astrid's spine at his words, and she stopped breathing as Palpatine answered in a voice full of disapproval, "Lord Vader, do not let this distract you from your mission. Astrid Katarn is dead." He gave a weighted paused. "And so is Anakin Skywalker."
Why would Palpatine bother mentioning Anakin's death? What did that have to do with anything?
"Of course, My Master," Darth Vader replied, but his voice held a hint of doubt that surprised Astrid.
From where Astrid stood, she could sense Palpatine's annoyance at the doubt he, too, detected in Vader's voice. Palpatine questioned, his raspy voice cold and menacing, "Need I remind you, Lord Vader, of our mission to bring peace and security to our great Empire?"
"No, Master," Vader replied calmly. "I am loyal to our cause." He paused before adding, "I only suggest, Master, if Astrid Katarn is truly alive, perhaps she can be persuaded to our cause. I knew her as a Jedi. She would be a valuable asset."
Astrid's brow drew together at Darth Vader's words. So, she had known Darth Vader when he was a Jedi in the Order. Who could he be? Her Padawan friend, Maddox? Perhaps an older Jedi like Ka-Moon Kholi?
She was jerked out of her ruminations when Palpatine hissed, "Astrid Katarn is dead." At that moment, Palpatine reminded Astrid of a snake, a venomous snake eager to strike at the earliest convenience or perhaps at the latest inconvenience of his plans. And Darth Vader was beginning to look like the prey.
Astrid almost felt sorry for Darth Vader.
Almost.
"Of course, My Master," came Darth Vader's soft reply.
Yet, Astrid could still sense the lingering doubt in Vader's mind, and she cursed internally. The last thing she needed right now was for Darth Vader to believe her alive. She needed to be undercover right now to spy, but with him on the lookout for her Force-presence, she would need to slide back into hiding, which she really didn't want to do.
She heard their footsteps coming down the main corridor towards her, and her breath hitched as she slipped further down the side hallway and pressed her back closer against the wall. A minute later, the Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader walked past her side hallway hiding spot. But right as they passed it, Darth Vader paused for just a moment, and Astrid sucked in a breath as she held her breath, fearful that he would be able to hear even the sounds of her breathing. But then he continued onwards, and Astrid relaxed.
She waited there for ten minutes before she headed towards the ballroom. Her earlier desire to visit her room had evaporated with her encounter with Palpatine and Vader. Now, Astrid wanted nothing more than to leave Coruscant altogether for the safety of Alderaan.
As she neared the ballroom, she slipped back into her role as a drunk advisor as she passed the stormtroopers, and she told them in a slurring voice, "Surry, I got lost."
She stumbled past them, making sure she veered rightwards so she wouldn't be walking in a straight line. She kept this up until she slipped behind a group of people out of sight of the stormtroopers. Astrid found Bail easily enough; he was still on the left side of the room in the corner.
He was speaking with Mon Mothma, but occasionally his gaze slid away from the senator's face towards the surrounding room with an anxious look. His eyes returned to Mon Mothma, and he said a few words to her before his eyes slipped back over her shoulder and automatically landed on Astrid.
Relief flooded his face, and Mon Mothma glanced backwards to see what he was looking at. Astrid rushed forward, and when she was close enough, Bail demanded, "Where did you go? I've been worried about you! I saw that you and Lord Vader weren't here in the room anymore, and I feared the worst!"
"I'm fine," Astrid reassured him, "but can we leave now? I just have a bad feeling."
She didn't want to worry him with Darth Vader's newest suspicions about her being alive. She didn't know how or why Darth Vader had suddenly sensed her presence when she'd already encountered him thrice now.
Bail nodded and turned to Mon Mothma as he said, "Inform me when you find and recover Jyn Erso, and I will send Astrid to meet you on Yavin 4."
Mon Mothma dipped her head in acknowledgement to his words, and then Bail was walking away towards the ballroom doors. Astrid ducked her head as she followed behind him through the crowd. She hoped the stormtroopers wouldn't recognize her, but in case they did, she made her step slightly unsteady and sloppy.
One of the three stormtroopers stepped forward and demanded Bail, "Senator, you cannot leave this room without a valid reason. State your cause."
"My advisor is quite drunk," Bail informed them, waving a hand towards Astrid, and she immediately pasted on a drunken grin and offered the stormtrooper a wave and a wink. She had to stifle her laugh at the realization that Bail had noticed her drunken act. Bail continued, "I think it would be wise if we leave now before she causes any more embarrassment to me."
The stormtrooper cleared his throat, revealing his unease, and he beckoned them forward with a hand as he told them, "Well, I suppose you can go ahead, sir. Be quick about it."
Bail inclined his head respectfully before he grabbed Astrid's arm and began helping her forward past the stormtroopers. Astrid made sure to stumble a few times and lean heavily on Bail until they were safely seated in the Tantive IV.
Only then did she relax her shoulders with a heavy, relieved sigh as she slumped into a chair by the table they'd sat at earlier. She folded her arms in front of her on the table before burying her face in them, and she heard Bail move into the seat across from her.
"Is everything alright, Astrid?" he asked her quietly, perhaps sensing her worry.
"I'm fine, thank you," Astrid told him as she lifted her head to peer up at him. She kept her face carefully neutral. "Just tired. Today has been a busy day."
Had it just been this morning that she'd said goodbye to Luke and Leia?
Bail nodded in understanding before saying, "I suppose it has been a rather busy day for you." He smiled a little as he added, "We'll be in Alderaan in a couple of hours, and then you can rest. You can take a quick nap during our journey if you're tired enough. There are a few rooms down the hall." He indicated to the hallway that split off from the room they were occupying.
Astrid offered him a grateful smile as she replied with a small chuckle, "Thanks, Bail. I think I will be able to make it to Alderaan without falling sleep, though."
In reality, Astrid could most definitely fall asleep right now, but if she were being honest, she was afraid to fall asleep. She was worried something would happen to their ship while she was asleep, like someone attacking their ship or capturing them. It would not be difficult for someone to attack their ship since it was but a defenseless senatorial ship.
But Astrid was also scared to fall asleep because that would mean letting her guard down, something she could not do if Darth Vader was potentially on the lookout for her. She needed to be alert at all times. She wouldn't let herself be taken by surprise again like she had during Order Sixty-Six.
Bail nodded before rising from his seat, and he told her, "Well, I have a call to make to my wife. I'll be in the second room to the left in the hallway if you need me."
Astrid nodded in understanding, and as he left the room, she settled in her seat to begin her two hour vigil over the Tantive IV.
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I posted this on my last chapter a little late, so I figured I would post it again below :)
Final voting for the best Anakin Skywalker book is open for the Solo contest hosted by @swcommunity !! Just go to the most recent chapter and comment "vote" by 'The Tragic Jedi' if you want to vote for my book! Link to the contest is below :))
https://my.w.tt/YB60438nTcb
Voting ends January 16th I think :)