Mara darted out of the house, not thinking even for a moment of what she was doing, until her hand was closing around the arm of the Torgruta woman, who spun around-
Mara stumbled back. "I'm sorry."
The Torgruta tore her arm from Mara's hand, and Mara half-expected a slap going by her expression alone. "Who the hell are you?" she asked, voice hitting like boiling water.
Mara floundered. "I-- I'm sorry. I thought-" that you were the woman who saved my life at fourteen after my father was-
"Odessa!" Tiernan's voice anchored her back to the earth, not a blessed moment too soon. His hand rested on Mara's shoulder. He's hasty to say: "This is my friend, Mara. She's helping Delta and my father. Mara this is our pilot, Odessa Haa."
Odessa narrowed her eyes at the pair of them. Behind the surface-level anger and defensiveness, Mara saw a flicker of panic in her features.
Odessa moved her gaze over Mara's head to look at Tiernan. "Where's your father?"
"In the town hall, probably-"
Odessa turned on her heel without another word, weaving through the village towards the largest structure they had. Mara watched her go, slack-jawed. The interaction felt painfully short--even if it wasn't Ahsoka. It's not Ahsoka, it's not Fulcrum, get it together, Mara--
"Odessa means well," Tiernan said to her. "She's a bit standoffish. I don't think she has many friends here, other than Ledoa. They were rescued from the same labor camp together. My mom told me Odessa helped deliver Kirrie, Ledoa's daughter. They all live together, now."
Mara nodded, numb to conversation. It was uncanny, how similar they had looked. Mara saw a lack of resemblance, now: Odessa was thinner and taller than Ahsoka had been, her face sharp and narrow, unlike Ahsoka's soft smiles and gentle words. Ahsoka. Mara hadn't realized how much she missed her until she had thought she had seen her. Ahsoka, Fulcrum, Cassian-
She ducked away from Tiernan, doing her best not to break into a sprint back to Delta's. She felt like she was spiraling into panic, and if she did fall that far, she did not want others to see it.
She almost careened straight into Delta, who stepped out of the house the same moment she tried to disappear inside.
"Hey, kid."
"Delta, sorry-"
"What did you say to Odessa back there?"
Mara shook her head. Not this, not now. "Sorry, I mistook her for a friend-" A hero. A sister. A woman Mara hadn't seen in years and was beginning to fear the worst for-
"Did you call her Ahsoka?"
Mara blinked, Delta's statement enough to take her bumbling thoughts to a screeching halt. "You know her?" she asked.
Delta sighed, and Mara didn't fancy the darkness that welcomed itself into his eyes as he gestured Mara past him. "I knew her. Come sit down."
Mara moved as if in a trance. Numbness wasn't a pleasant alternative, but if it kept her from having another breakdown, she would take it. She sat in the chair Tiernan had claimed earlier, watching as Delta lowered himself onto the couch with a huff.
"Ahsoka Tano," Delta said. "It's been a long, long time. I haven't seen her since--blast, the Siege of Mandalore?"
Mara leaned forward. "Ahsoka fought on Mandalore?"
"Sort of," Delta said, with something of a wry smile, "but we had shared the front lines more than once. General Sunfall and General Skywalker headed many a battle together."
Mara's heart stuttered. This was the first mention of her mother since they came to Raada--something that felt painfully overdue. She should have asked more about her mother, but even trying to form the words left a rock in a throat. Instead, she asked dumbly, "General-- General Skywalker?"
Delta nodded. "Anakin Skywalker. He was probably the best warrior in the Order. And your mother's best friend." He looked like he hadn't thought of these things in a long time.
Mara was silent. Mother's best friend. She shook her head. Some things still weren't making sense. "But then, what do General Skywalker and my mother have to do with Ahsoka?"
"Commander Tano--" Commander! "--was Skywalker's apprentice." Delta frowned. "His, uh--"
"Padawan," Mara finished quietly.
"Padawan, that's it."
His padawan? Mara had never thought--would have never even guessed, given all the time in the universe--that Ahsoka had known Anakin Skywalker. That she had fought alongside Luke's father, Mara's mother, and her father...
The revelations started to make her head spin. How did Ahsoka meet her father? Why did Ahsoka never mention Jade or Anakin ever again? Why does the galaxy seem so hell-bent on hiding things from her?
Mara stood up abruptly. "I-- I think I need some air."
This time, she was stumbling out of the Delta's house. Her hand found the side of the hut, and she walked--staggered, really--around the edge. Collapsed against the wall. Slid to the ground. Dug her fingers into the mud. Ahsoka, Cassian, Mom, Dad, Anakin Skywalker-
She was going to lose control. Her breath was escaping her. She tried to quantify the connections between all the people in her life--all the people who had been in her life and were now gone--gone, gone, gone away. If she could just understand it, if she could see the answers like a web in her mind, then maybe she could stop, stop, stop the panic.
She didn't notice when she got off the ground, or when she started walking--but suddenly she was pacing back and forth, her feet digging a path into the mud. Cassian had been close with Ahsoka-- he took her codename, Fulcrum. Had he known Mara's parents? Had he known other Jedi? Would he have told her, if he did? There must have been a reason Ahsoka left Mara with Cassian, all those years ago. There must be a reason (that Ahsoka was gone, that Cassian died, that Mara never got to know her parents)--
"Hey, Mara!"
Mara jumped, spinning around to find Tiernan standing in front of her. He seemed to have no inclination to her plight. Maybe Mara was good at hiding her emotions. Maybe Tiernan just had something more important to think about than her plights. Maybe both.
"I just talked to Odessa - she's got some big news," Tiernan said, all in one breath. "Sounds like my father's planning a mission. You in? The whole village is gathering in the hall."
Mara blinked, hardly able to comprehend the spew of words that came out of his mouth. Eventually, she just nodded--hurried and eager to think about anything other than what was going on in her head right now.
"I'm in."
The dining hall was never used for eating; from what Mara had seen, the villagers ate together in their homes or under the stars. Dusty and Delta used the hall as a staging area and a debriefing room.
Tiernan led her there. They found a seat on the floor with the rest of the village, Strata and the other teenagers crowded around them. Delta and Dusty stood on a concrete stage at the end of the hall, talking in hushed voice. Lorelei lingered at the edge of the rooms, her lips pulled into a tight frown. Mara saw Ledoa and Odessa talking with her, little Kirrie clinging to Odessa's leg.
"Alright, everybody, quiet down." Dusty's voice boomed over the crowded hall, and by some miracle, the people listened. "Now, I know this meeting was called abruptly, so I'll get right to the point: Delta and I have just received some... unfavorable information, from our pilot, Odessa."
People in the crowd turned to each other, speculating.
"Hey," she heard Tiernan's voice close to her ear, "are you okay?"
She didn't even feel rooted to this planet, anymore. Her head was bent into her chest as she tried to shield herself from the outside world. The panic was pushing at the gates of her mind. The crowded room wasn't helping. She didn't answer Tiernan.
"To make this brief," Dusty continued, "the Empire has started jamming communications. Now, I've seen this before. It may not seem like much now, but it's the first step towards even bigger plans. If the Empire wants to keep us from reaching the rest of the galaxy, it means they want to silent us. I believe--as does Delta--that the Empire is planning a large-scale assault."
People began to panic. The noise and the chaos in the town hall only grew, and Mara only shrank smaller into herself.
"The Empire means to flush us out," Dusty boomed, voice carrying over the frightened mutterings of the villagers, "but we're not going to let them."
A few shouts, many of them coming from the teenagers surrounding Mara, echoed up to the rafters--cries of agreement, that they wouldn't let the Empire silence them, here.
"I know you're all scared," said Dusty's voice. Mara was looking at the floor now, breathing harshly. "For your homes, your families, your way of life. Trust me, I'm scared, too.
"Mara," Tiernan said softly.
Her knee bounced feverishly.
"The Imps have a comms tower a few klicks south of their base. It's not far from our own territory. With enough firepower and luck, a group of us could breach it. So, I'm proposing something risky--but worthwhile. We blow up their comms tower. Hit them before they hit us."
Emboldened and, frankly, out of options, Mara hastily slipped her hand into Tiernan's. She was immediately grateful when he squeezed it gently, his calloused fingers running against her hand. Reassurance and calm ushered off of him, grounding her. Suddenly, she was realizing what Delta was saying:
"Now, this is a full-frontal attack. The Empire will see it as a call to arms. They'll hit back hard, but if we make the first move when they're not expecting it, we'll be prepared--"
As if possessed, Mara looked up and said, "No."
The crowded hall fell silent, and dozens of heads turned towards her. It wasn't the first time Mara felt like the entire village was staring at her--it was, however, the first it was true.
She couldn't back down from the scrutiny now. There may not be any titles here, but Mara was still a commander--she could still think like one, when she wanted.
She stood up from the bench, sensing Strata and Tiernan watching her with befuddled gazes.
"Hitting them first is inviting a war you can't win," she said, voice rolling over the quiet crowd. "If you blow up that comms tower, the Empire won't hesitate to escalate. They'll blow up your village in retaliation. Or, if they really want to make a statement, they'll torch your farms and leave you all here to starve."
Murmurs waded through the crowd, some fearful, others accusatory.
"Who's she to question Dusty?"; "Just let her speak!"; "She's just a child."; "She has a lightsaber, she must be a Jedi."; "Let her speak!"
Mara met Dusty's gaze from across the room. She waited for him to tell her to sit down. He didn't.
"You don't have the fortifications or the firepower to withstand a direct attack from the Empire," she said. The words came so easily, her mouth practically moved of its own accord. "We'll need stealth. Strategy. Above all, we need to be smart."
Delta stepped forward, arms crossed. "So, what are you proposing, little rebel?"
Mara levelled her gaze with his. "Take a small, unassuming party to the comms tower. If we can sneak past their fortifications, we can slice through their command central and open a small transmissions gap to send messages through. I've done it before." She nodded. "I can do it again."
She didn't say that she had done it with Cassian, who was years older than her and the only one able to stabilize her shaking hands when she started to panic. She didn't tell them because she needed them to believe her, and to go along with his plan.
And they did.
Dusty called out the party that would be going: Mara, Tiernan, Wynora, Zotee, Denit, and Delta. The villagers nodded along to everything he said, even when he said that Mara's plan was a good one (words Mara never thought she would hear from Dusty's mouth).
Mara was swept up in the wake of Tiernan, Strata, and the others, as they pushed their way out of the mess hall. Many of the villagers were casting glances at Mara, and it wasn't hard to imagine what they might be saying. For once, Mara didn't care. Let them talk. She wasn't going to stand around and let them make a decision that would get them all killed.
Tiernan and Denit were chattering about the mission to her left, and on her right, Strata was discussing what weapons and supplies they should grab from the Starbird before they left. Mara's head was elsewhere, consumed by memories of the last mission like this she went on--one of the last times she ever saw Cassian.
"Hey, kid."
Mara looked up, finding Delta's towering figure standing above her. He gestured for them to step out of the crowd, and they did, ducking into a quieter corner of the hall. He crossed his arms, leaning down to her.
"It was a good speech--great one, in fact." He nodded at her. "Your mother would be proud."
Mara wanted to believe him, but there was no denying the small voice that crept through her subconscious, whispering: Would she? Would she be proud of me? If she was who I think she was--would she even look at me? Could I look at her?
Mara stared up at the former clone for what may have been too long. Then again, it had been too long since she asked, too long since she had tried to get answers.
"Delta," she said, "do you know what happened to her? The last few days of the war, did you ever see her?"
Delta deflated with a sigh. "Your mother and I were close, kids. As good of friends as generals and clones tend to get. But I flew with Commanders Tano and Zillah on Mandalore the day the order was called. Your mum was on Coruscant, that's all I know. I'm sorry, kid."
Mara dropped her head. One less place to look for answers. She was getting nowhere with Dusty, the only other person on this planet who knew about her mother. Perhaps, after she helped them with the comms tower, it would be time for Mara to head back to the Alliance. She would go to Dodonna a failure, embarrassed of all the trouble she caused while she was away and returning with nothing to show, but at least there she could ignore the sting of failure and confusion over and over again--
"I always wondered what happened to her," Delta said quietly, in such a tone that Mara almost thought he wasn't really talking to her. His eyes were trained on Dusty, directing troops on the other side of the hall. "I never found the truth. But I did learn something."
He put a hand on Mara's shoulder, looking up from the ground into her eyes. "The truth, little rebel, is like the sun: it can burn, it can heal. It can scorch crops or it can nourish them. But it doesn't stay hidden for very long."
a/n
one: i am SO SORRY about the false ahsoka tease. i can only bend canon so much. (but, this is a fanfic, so i can't rule out ahsoka appearing in this book in one way or another--she is, of course, very tied to mara's backstory *hint hint nudge nudge*
TWO: this arc is about to hit it's stride in "oh shit is this really happening" content and i am SO EXCITED.
Imaginary hugs!
Lily_Jasmine