Drifting in Malachor’s low orbit, Ahsoka had not even remembered falling asleep as she opened her eyes slowly in response to the constant beep and chime from the ships control board. Her body was unresponsive in her mind’s efforts to shake the sleep loose from her extremities. They, however, would not be swayed from their present inactivity. Refusing to further irritate their restful state she laid her head back into the seat’s headrest and contemplated the series of events that had led her to this point. How a suggestion from the Jedi temple on Lothal had irrecoverably changed the paths of everyone involved. In hindsight, she understood precisely the guidance that Ezra had received and imparted on the three of them. “The three of us,” she said to herself, remembering that Rex had offered to assist as well. “How would that have played out?” The question formed itself and filled the air before she could stow it under her breath. She knew she did the right thing by removing Ezra from the viciousness of Vader’s wrath, but Rex. Rex. She knew she could not have done that to him. ‘And he’d be dead.’ The thought took form before she could blink an eye. “Yes, he’d be dead.” She said in her own response, remembering the look in his eye as they parted ways via holo in the Phantom. She owed it to him as well to make her way back. Her thoughts shifted in and out of those moments as the images of Rex, of Kanan and of Ezra flashed in her mind. Her thoughts returning then to Ezra’s question and Master Yoda’s subsequent answer and only screwed her face into a contorted confusion. Had the aged Master not understood the question itself or did they miss a vital opportunity that he had foreseen? ‘The Sith will not be destroyed if Sidious yet lives.’ The thought rousing her senses, feeling finding its way back into her fingers and toes. “Surely Master, you know this.” Ahsoka said aloud, feeling the truth of the statement as assuredly as she believed it.
Ahsoka, fresh with a renewed sense of comprehension, began again to swaddle her mind and thoughts with Ezra’s ramblings. The young man had seemed almost deranged after she had regained her consciousness with only tiny shreds of understanding doing their best to grasp for context. He was in a hurry, they both were, to escape encroaching doom from the man who always was one step ahead of any effort to unseat him. She pinched her eyes in thought as she rubbed at her forehead with vigor, an effort to rekindle Master Yoda’s wisdom into an understandable framework in relation to what she knew to be true. Again, she came up short of comprehending the initial guidance, knowing full well her earlier assertion was correct. She was missing something.
“You’ve missed a lot.” Ezra had said upon her inspection of him. ‘The young man’…. she paused in thought. “He’s a young man.” She said to the foggy canopy of the shuttle’s cockpit before her. She traced her memory back to that conversation, noting his stature, his facial features, even his hair. Everything about the ‘boy’ she had known had changed into the young man that had saved her. The look in his eyes, however, had not. They continued to bear the weight of his own past but seemed weary to Ahsoka as she paused in the present on the image her memory had forged. Those eyes have seen additional grief, despair, and heartache. They reflected the loss of his Master. “I have missed a lot Ezra, I have.” Ahsoka said aloud again, filling the cockpit with her morbid tone, renewing the sadness she had thought she was beyond. She bowed her head as her lips mouthed the words, she had tried consoling him with as he watched his own Master die for the second time, knowing he was helpless to stop it only at her behest. “You can’t save your Master and I can’t save mine.” She could not stop the waves of sorrow from casting their nets about her soul. Within a matter of minutes, she had seen that sorrow manifest itself through the truth of Anakin’s fate and the death of Kanan Jarus. Her heart cried out for some modicum of relief from the constant state of anguish, pain and mourning her life had become. A wash of guilt followed closely behind, an ode to those she knew that suffered similarly as she selfishly tried to consume the whole of the grief for herself. There seemed to be no winning in this war of emotions, only stalemates and misdirection. She would need time to figure that strategy out to remove herself from its distraction. Time.
‘Time’ she actively thought, as her tear-filled gaze drifted from the dust covered canopy to the ship’s chronometer. “Time?” She said aloud, finding reason to question her sanity once again as its readings could not be correct. She tapped at the control panel mounted device several times, hoping it was just faulty but watched with fruitlessly diminishing hope and reason as the instrument continued to tick the seconds away. “Two years?” She shouted at the controls, thrumming a fist upon its ambivalent features, she let the enormity of the realization consume her. Ezra had mentioned that she had missed a lot, but she could not have realized he had meant it. “That’s…. not possible.” She stammered, her mind, yet again, lost to what was staring her right in the face. ‘Diagnostic.’ The practical side of her mind filled in the haze with some form of reason, assuming the instrument was faulty. She checked her coordinates in relation to the planet, deciding that a full diagnostic sweep would be safer in high orbit and punched a new set of coordinates forty thousand kilometers distant from Malachor’s surface. Engaging the Ion engine bank once again, she felt the ship shudder in defiance but then gradually smoothed out its protest into acquiescence as the makeshift craft responded to her command.
High orbit established, she commenced with the diagnostics knowing full well it would be a half hour at minimum before they conveyed any information necessary to plan her next course of action. In the meantime, she was afforded some time to reflect, to unmask her emotions and deal with them head on, to unlearn what she had learned and closed her eyes to meditate. Where had Ezra gone? ‘To fulfill his own destiny’ her mind answered. ‘You told him as much’ she reminded herself. Ezra just simply did things, then thought about it later, while comprehending the consequences he did not take the time to foresee initially, whereby learning the lesson inherent with all action and choice. It was his weakest trait, but he seemed to do quite well by it, even though it usually led to hasty decisions and sometimes disastrous outcomes. The parallels to Anakin were almost uncanny.
Could she have returned to Lothal with him? ‘Yes’ was her immediate response but with a plethora of addendums and consequences that would have irrecoverably diverted his own fate and destiny. Her presence would only provide him with the crutch he would need to absolve himself of the responsibility of resolving his own destiny and the consequences of his own actions. She could not follow him, as she could not walk the same path as Anakin.
Ahsoka had no more need to follow the path of inquiry as her third entry brought itself into resolution. Had they remained together Sidious would certainly have achieved whatever goal he had intended. By diverting his efforts, they were both able to enact their separate escapes. Sidious…. Palpatine. Again, the man inserted himself into her thoughts and meditations. From his meddling in Jedi affairs to his corrupting seeds sewn galaxy wide, the man’s agenda was far wider than anyone could account for or anticipate. Having unrestricted access to that place with no name has the potential of omnipotence, and that was his end goal. To know what is coming, encourage what you wish to happen and change what you do not is more power than any one being should ever wield. She was not sure how exactly Ezra had managed to get in himself, and her thought now relied on her faith in him. That he would understand, upon exit, the absolute necessity to immediately close, lock and throw away the key to that portal. She shifted her thoughts then to her own exit from the temple. She was not surprised in her ability to use dark side energy. The nature of the force itself had taught her long ago that she did not own it and it did not own her. What surprised her was the well of knowledge, vitality, and power it yielded in the short amount of time she employed it. She came to understand quickly how one could succumb to it as its whispered promises never settling on an ultimate price until one is too deeply entangled to refuse its offer.
Ahsoka basked in the thoughts that followed knowing the Light exacts its own price, the cost of using it is not unlike that of dark energy, it requires one to relinquish oneself. Precepts adopted by the Jedi and forced into code millennia ago categorized the levels of relinquishment of the self and became more doctrine than practice. She could only shake her head at that level of nepotism. Her own exit from the order was by choice in defiance of a moral code over what should have been natural. But it was all precisely where it belonged, in the past. She smiled to her astral self as she knew she was a force user, somewhere in between.
“I am Ahsoka Tano, Force user of somewhere in between” she said definitively as she forced herself back into her mortal shell. She smiled at the comment as she opened her eyes to the sights and sounds of the shuttle’s cockpit once again, at ease with what she had been able to work through.
The beeping of the diagnostic panel alerted her to itself run completion with a stellar all clear green flash and confirming data scrawl.
“Thank YOU” she muttered upon reviewing the results. She knew she would have to put down soon for a reboot and would most certainly have to service the seals and rings before navigating to any hyperspace lanes, but a clean diagnostic was a particularly good first step. Her meditations certainly helped her to understand a great deal and she would most certainly return to them once clear of this system but until then she needed a viable spaceport to put down.
“That would be Vyndal” she mentioned after close review of the sim star chart. “Vyndal station to be exact.” Returning to Malachor not being an option, more out of choice than circumstance, she whirled around to visually inspect the hyperdrive. A palpable tension gripped her as she weighed the consequences of engaging its reactor and ripping the modified shuttle apart at its seams. She entered the projected trajectory toward her destination and rolled her eyes at the estimated three days it would take to make the distance with the Ion engines engaged. “What I’d give for a sub light bank.” She said to herself, even with the notion that time was something she had in abundance now, in fact she had two years of it to catch up on.
Ahsoka knew she was hungry. Water was not a problem as she eyed several full cisterns but locating salvageable rations was turning out to be. Restricting food was not new to Ahsoka and the best way to mitigate the pangs of hunger was to forget one was hungry. “Three days is a long time to forget I’m hungry.” She said, getting out the pilot’s seat and rummaging through storage cabinets. Finding nothing, as she eyed the dormant astromech yet again she settled on the water. Her thoughts turning to Vyndal, assuming it was still a functioning spaceport and assuming it was not under Imperial control, and what the small world had to offer. What plans she could assemble after retrieving what she needed. “Attolon.” She answered herself, “make your way to Attolon…” At that very moment, the whisper could be heard again, for the third time.
“Ahhhhsoo…. feel….to...min…. Da.” Ahsoka stopped everything she was doing, felt her inward tensions cease to be and was as still as possible. It was not the words, or fractions thereof, that halted all her activity. It was the voice. She knew it immediately.
“Master Yoda”? It was a question on every level. Not expecting an answer, the question itself verifying her intuition. Without another second wasted she returned, yet again, to her meditative seat and, proverbially, dove right in.
“Master Yoda”? She thought, in all senses and in all ways possible.
Nothing. Silence.
She pulled back into her core and reached out with the Force, receiving multiple provocations in return but all so incredibly vague. She could locate ley lines with great ease and feel the living force as a net encompasses its quarry. She could see subtle movement in and around the planets in this system as well as in the closer systems of the sector but could not locate a being or single focal point emanating a coherent direct connection to the Force, either light or dark or in between. It was all around her but not centered on an individual directly communicating within it or to it. To Ahsoka it meant that either the voice or whisper was well outside of her capacity to reach, or it was no longer mutually connected.
“Ahhhhsssooookkkkaaaaaaa” it came again, spoken but not spoken, directed at her subconscious, of which, she was currently in complete control of and operating within. Again, not sensing a particular form from which to locate the source. It was outside her reach. Unless there was some guidance, she was unable to return the call and would have to try again once in a hyper lane. She took a deep breath and closed off energy to all but her mind for the time it would take to reach once more, straining to push herself past her own limits. She could sense more systems falling into the fold this time, her net, which was encouraging but not to the extent needed. She inhaled deeply to compensate and held the air there momentarily as she came out of meditation and sprinted over to the navicomputer. It still held the jump coordinates for Vyndal and without hesitation she engaged the hyperdrive. The ship groaned, and for a second, she thought she may have Ezra’d herself into an un-salvageable situation, but the ship only lurched and shot forward into and directly out of hyperspace in the time it took her to think this was an awfully bad idea. The large ball of green and blue snapped into view, and to her relief, did not get bigger, as her mind foresaw the ship hurtling straight through the planet and into complete obliteration.
“Those seals are going to hate me,” the red warning blips of plasma leaks already registering.
“Coolant levels, zero. Fuel, final cell about to burn up. Shields, 15% and dropping fast….”. There was next to nothing encouraging through her verbal assessment, coming in hot was an understatement. If the shields did not yield before she broke atmosphere, she was certain she would be fine, and full thrust ion burst would ensure that but if the fuel cells ran dry before a landing cycle was established, the ship will be unrecoverable, much less space worthy. A full throttle descent became her agenda and goal, stabilizers were not even a consideration as the ship canted to either direction at random. The ship tore through the atmosphere with an incredibly loud crack and thunderous boom, listing port and twisting the cockpit inverse. Instinctively knowing her controls would be reverse of her intention, she forced the throttle deeper into its pit and pushed as hard as she could on the control arm, barrel rolling into a stall out inclined acceleration. Pulling back on the arm, cutting power to the Ion banks, and engaging both the repulsorlift and maneuvering jets, she flattened out and came to a controlled downward descent with the landing cycle finally entered. Blinking several times to let the last ten seconds of her life catch up with her heartbeat, she could only imagine what that entrance looked like from the ground.
Ahsoka quickly exerted the necessary audible data for clearance to the ground crew at Vyndal station once she found her voice however, she hesitated to release compromising information to the electronic voice demanding credentials. “Uh...I had a reactor core breach in transit to Vynai from Trokien…. I just need to put down for repairs then I will be on my way” satiating Ahsoka’s fears concerning Imperial occupation. She was in a hurry to land this thing and assess damage so she could get what she needed, fix it, and get off this planet in as little time as possible. She wanted to get herself space worthy and back into a suitable position to attempt to reach out to Master Yoda once again. Doubtful that it was the best of ideas, she switched on the mech droid in the hopes of some assistance with the noted repairs. It bleeped three times, spun its head around twice, stopped its photo receptor on Ahsoka, bleeped once more and began spinning and banging itself into everything it could bang itself into.
“I know I’m not your master little guy, but I do need your help” Ahsoka relayed as calmly as possible. The droid immediately stopped moving and beeped twice more.
“Yes, I can understand you. I am Ahsoka, and I need your help” she said maintaining her calm and thinking how many more droids she had befriended than actual people as she felt the ship lurch into motionlessness, the landing cycle completed.
The ragged port was unmanned, her permissions directed by another droid in a customs bay. Quickly the astromech came to rest at her side and followed her as she lowered the boarding ramp and half stumbled down, she immediately turned her attention one hundred eighty degrees after planting her feet on the ground taking in the damage. It was extensive. The ship smoking, creaking laboriously and dripping various lubricants and coolants onto the landing pad. She already knew she needed new seals. Rings for the plasma housing as well as durasteel panels to repair the damage from the escaped plasma. Shield generator power couplers “And probably a kilometer of wire to replace everything that's fried.” Attaining the parts was not the problem. The time it would take to fix what needed fixing was adding up, quickly. Time she was not sure she had, even with the droid’s assistance, in stark contrast to just a few minutes ago when she thought she had more than enough.