Ahsoka Tano was helpless to defend her backward flight as the towering monads of Coruscant’s skyline were ripped from her view, replaced by the frantic rage that roiled mercilessly through Nara’s expression. She was internally transcribing what she had just witnessed and was ill-prepared for an elevated confrontation. ‘He lied!’ Ahsoka thought to herself, her back bearing the brunt of her landing as she thudded to the translucent ground at Rex’s feet. What little oxygen her lungs held was depleted quickly by the Mirialan’s hand forcefully pushing upon her rib cage, her knee pressing hard into her sternum. A warbling hiss and deep persistent hum shot through her montral, simultaneous to the bright flash and variating reflections of deep orange within the Mirialan’s contemptuous, fury engorged, black eyes.
“I should kill you, Tano….right here, right now...I should kill you.” Nara seethed her anger with volition, the reflective glow bathing her face in warbling luminescence, twisting enough at her features to glisten through tears of no identity.
Ahsoka could feel the heat of the blade tip not millimeters from her throat but couldn’t comprehend fully what was unfolding, the image of the Kiffar’s face still firmly planted in her mind.
“I am not Barriss, Ahsoka….but I own her memories. Your history with her should have been enough!” Nara was outraged, only staying her hand through sheer will.
“Nara…” Rex began from his backside, and the Mirialan’s actions were so swift after he pulled at Ahsoka’s cord that he didn’t have time to react.
“Do not interfere, Rex.” Nara had managed to contain enough of her rage to keep from shouting.
Ahsoka could only stare into the Mirialan's eyes as Vos’ image faded away, centering her sanity enough to comprehend her presence and what appeared to be an unwanted confrontation.
“Is there nothing that would stop you, stop the Jedi, from satisfying your agenda?” Nara mouthed in a contemptuous sneer, Ahsoka realizing, as she glanced up the blade at her throat, that the Mirialan had only engaged a single emitter upon the long hilt in her iron grasp.
Ahsoka briefly considered a tactical roll to her right so she could retrieve her own sabers but stopped herself quickly with a fast reminder that the woman was operating well outside her abilities.
“We...needed to...know,” Ahsoka said slowly, carefully expressing her non-hostile wishes while keeping her throat clear of the increasing heat. She was uncertain if Nara had heard her, then shifted her thoughts toward apprehension when she saw the hate return to the Mirialan’s eyes.
“That is precisely the point…” Nara spoke slowly through clenched teeth.
“Nara, please disengage...let me talk to her.” Rex pleaded with open palms raised.
Nara fought against her urge to impale the Togruta’s prone throat, shaking her head in disgust, the tears of rage wringing themselves free as she lifted her gaze to the clone's concerned eyes.
“Who better than a Captain of the Grand Army of the Republic to commence where I have left off,” Nara said, deactivating the brilliant orange saber with a warbled chirp, giving the Togruta a hard push to the ground as she raised herself and left the two.
It took a moment for Ahsoka's eyesight to return. She lay there staring at a star field far overhead, panting as her lungs worked to replenish themselves.
“Ahsoka...I know there is nothing you could have done.” Rex began calmly, his voice close but not within her field of view. “But I don’t think you did.”
Ahsoka worked the statements through her mind as her breathing began to normalize, each breath falling into sync with the beat of her heart. “We needed to know...Rex.”
“Did we?….or did you?” He fired back immediately, his voice rising with concern. “And at what cost, Ahsoka?”
She was uncertain how to answer the questions, lacking some form of comprehension that both Rex and Nara obviously shared.
“Would that cost have included stepping on the bodies of innocence, driving sharpened shards of glass further into them in that pursuit?” Rex asked bluntly.
“Of course not!” Ahsoka said, unmoving from her position. The pinpricks of starlight made themselves known as the bright light of the saber’s glow finally receded completely.
“Because sidestepping them was more humane….” He replied, his voice again changing as it carried the sorrow he was clearly battling.
A long moment passed between the two, neither moving from their positions, Rex in a deepened contemplation while Ahsoka worked through her intentions.
“Ahsoka, you knew you were powerless to help those people. We all did.” Rex began after the long pause, expelling his breath with the statement only to breathe in some fresh common sense. “And you knew you were powerless to aid General Windu.”
“And you want me to tell you what the difference was…” Ahsoka interjected.
“You don’t need to tell me anything...that truth is for you alone, kid,” Rex stated quickly, pushing himself to his feet and walking off toward Nara.
Ahsoka knew her old friend had no ill intentions and began scolding herself for entertaining as much before she cast the thought aside entirely. ‘Did I know?’ She asked herself, remembering the emptiness that followed the Force’s outright denial, the feeling of isolation, of helplessness. The same that must have been rocketing through the innocent pedestrians as death had rained down on them from above. People. ‘Are they so forgetful?’ Ahsoka asked herself, her own memories creeping back with graphic detail as they worked to justify her own actions. Each infusion of her blades and abilities a statement of exposing risk, ‘but what of those that I could have helped?’ She bit back at those memories as a great deal more reminded her of the times she didn’t. “Hedala….” she whispered to herself as she found the one very personal bridge between Nara’s comments and her own actions.
Ahsoka pushed herself to her backside, staring through the dormant portal, how deeply it personified the turmoil left in the wake of personal inflection. The Thebeskan was lost to those who cared deeply for her, but her mind would not relinquish its own tether as it strangled her with a deep seeded regret, one consumed by ‘should have’s’ on Thabeska so many years ago. Ahsoka felt shame fuel her imagination, knowing all it would have taken was a much different conversation with the young girl’s father to alter her tortured life but reality strangling the thought outright as the path chosen at the time was made out of both pride and selfishness. She closed her eyes, bringing her mind back to the present but not before the lessons of memories impression where extolled out of necessity.
“She sits there through her loathing and self-pity…” Ahsoka could hear Nara say to Rex off to her left, “...absent any moral sense of her actions.”
“Nara, listen to me..” Ahsoka heard Rex reply, his tone familiar as he had consoled her many times over, “she does understand...and this? This Nara is neither self-loathing nor pity. If you claim to own Barriss’ memories than you already know this….” his voice spiked surprisingly in tone before it concluded on a dour note. Ahsoka could hear Nara blow out her breath, completely relating to the noted exasperation. “She still has their blood on her boots Rex….”
Ahsoka looked down, closing her eyes when she found the truth at the boots edges. “No, it isn’t pity at all…” She said, turning her head toward them both and slowly opening her eyes again. “It’s a proclamation.” She stated, pushing herself to her feet. The wavering ripples extending from the exercise throughout the ground were minus the fluidity and uniformity that had defined them earlier. The wavering pulses extending now looked like arcing scars that slowly crept outward from her feet in a severe ochre, a bloody doormat to the events beyond the dormant portal replete with particles of broken glass and shattered intentions.
Ahsoka approached them both, holding her head high, “I do understand your misgivings, both of you.” She began, her tone calm yet firm, “we all wrestle with the ghosts and specters left behind as consequence of our decisions and actions. I am no different.” She stated casting a final glance at the dormant portal over her right shoulder. “..but when there is nothing left to feel, no sorrows left to grieve...what then is left?” Ahsoka stated as she slowly turned back toward them both. “You think me a monster for callously letting innocence perish, but what of the truth that their souls had already learned, what place among the Force they had embraced after a decades old death that intervention would have torn them from?”
Neither Rex nor Nara could answer as they both cast somber glances toward the ground at their feet. Through experience, Rex understood that truth to both its, and his, very core, the tethers to his own memories clinging to every loss with a noted absence of the empathy that had once dominated them. Nara immediately forged beyond the implanted memories of others to search out the truth of her own grief, struggling to identify with the hardships of forced adulthood in a war torn galaxy.
“We stand on the brink of collapse only by the sum of what we’ve lost. Sidious has infused subjugation with the oppression of emotional grief so finely that it has become his most effective tool.” Ahsoka continued, placing a hand on either’s shoulder. “Do not grieve for those that perished so long ago Nara, nor should you deny them the peace they now embrace.”
“What of Windu then Ahsoka? Although well phrased, your intent seems rather self-serving…” Nara said suddenly, not completely willing to let the matter drop.
“Think it through Nara.” Was Ahsoka’s only reply.
“It wasn’t about General Windu at all…” Rex blurted, surprising them. He lifted his head, his eyes wide with realization. “You already knew he had survived?”
Ahsoka let the smirk of a smile spread through her lips, “knew? No. Suspected, yes.”
“Then this was about...who was it that stemmed the General’s fall Ahsoka?” Rex continued switching gears mid-sentence to ask what should have been obvious.
“Vos.” Was all Ahsoka needed to say.
“Master Vos?” Nara blurted, contorting her features into a confusion that spoke of a revelation she would have never entertained.
“Yes.” Ahsoka responded, amending her own inflection with a calming undertone. “I only suspected on Ambria when he was nothing but elusive. I knew the saber didn’t hold anything beyond what he already knew.” She continued, a look of concern washing over her own expression, “all we did is awaken a memory he had buried long ago.”
“So, it was a ploy…” Nara worked to piece the encounters together.
Ahsoka let any hint of wonderment fade from her cheeks and chin, “not exactly, there was something learned in the process.” She stated quizzically, lifting a hand to her chin in thought. “The Force would not respond...in fact, it pulled away.” She finished, narrowing her eyes.
“You forced his hand in desperation no matter the reasons...but he had already saved the General?….Right?” Rex didn’t even bother trying to veil his confusion.
The straining lines of thought on Ahsoka’s face deepened as she worked on an answer to his question, “of that, I am uncertain….there was no way to identify him clearly.”
Nara almost choked on her response as it followed a chuckled retort, “only that it was Vos, not which version of him? This is ludicrous!”
“Is it Nara? Look around you, then think about rephrasing that statement.” Ahsoka responded quickly.
“But you just said the Force pulled away from your own actions...how could it aid him?” Rex continued piecing things together.
“It felt as if it pulled away. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t redirected.” Ahsoka continued, lifting both hands to either temple and massaging lightly as she closed her eyes. “We all know someone quite adept at that very ability.”
“Come on Ahsoka, Ani wasn’t there.” Nara was the first to respond as she let a mumbled retort follow with a deep exhale.
“Of course not...I am simply suggesting…” Ahsoka began.
“Manufactured…” Rex cut her off to the abrupt surprise of all of them. Three pairs of eyes widened through the silence between them.
Each of them stood in a confused silence, the underlying hum that had pervaded all since they became aware of its presence only added to the percussive hammering their hearts were enacting upon their rib cages, “we need to get out of here.” Ahsoka was the first to comment through the verbal stalemate, “if this is indeed manufactured, then we are not alone...someone else has access to this place.”
“I will not argue with that point.” Nara said, “we will need to find Ani.”
Ahsoka was close to agreement on that particular subject but stopped herself short, “we can’t Nara...we need to find Aborah.”
Nara’s expression turned quickly to the fused anger it had adopted earlier, a seething rage that she couldn’t contain.
“Nara, we need to otherwise we lose the opportunity...do you not see?” Ahsoka stated in defense, calming the conversation with open palms.
“Nara, she is right...if we try to locate Ani and lose whatever tether we have to… this.” Rex began in his own calming voice, his hands waving around his head, “we will not have another chance to find the truth of Aborah.”
They both watched Nara as she assimilated the wisdom, her features hiding nothing as spasms of angst were replaced with contorting grief, absolved with a chuckle only to be swallowed by indignation all over again. Ahsoka could sense the anger burning within the Mirialan, a different hue within the confines of its own source, noting a resolve that began to tease at tensing muscles in her neck and fingers, “I understand, so let’s be quick about it.” Nara finally said as she breathed deeply, plying a redirected focus to the coursing emotions.
“We’ve never been there Nara, this is your door to open.” Ahsoka stated plainly, her calming voice and demeanor an intricately woven cloak of deception. She trusted the Mirialan, although she couldn’t explain the intricacies. It was the spirit that resided within, the one that had chosen to remain silent when she had had so much to offer in the past that reminded her far too much of the silence that preceded T’zar’s betrayal. Ahsoka could almost hear the warnings of Master Obi Wan but knew the venerated Jedi would most certainly be the first to spring any perceived trap, but this one was different. She was uncertain if there was one to begin with, but if this was indeed a trap, it was being set by those determined to continue cheating death no matter the cost or casualty.
“What do you need us to do Nara?” Rex asked serenely as he focused on the Mirialans determined face, Ahsoka at his side.
“Nothing, just be ready.” Nara answered as coldly as her memory of the sterile facility, one she had been working to a fine pointed clarity since Ambria. She looked briefly at the closest of the dormant portals, shaking her head slightly before turning for the next. A short distance away, a circular frame stood silent, minus some form of graphic display at its borders, unlike every other one they had encountered. Silently, Nara dropped to her knees, placing her hands upon them as she closed her eyes. Rex and Ahsoka stood to either side, observing, while the Mirialan mumbled incoherently to herself, words that held no meaning for them.
“This is for you brother...for you Derha and you Nerha. This is for you Koko.” Nara repeated under her breath, letting the wetness at her cheeks remind her of the brothers name she could not remember. “This is for you Luminara…” She continued, a silent lament to those she chose to anchor her endeavor.
As the mumbling continued, Ahsoka was drawn into a deep blue glow at the portals center, pulsing with the Mirialans will before it. Finite waves pushed the glow out from its center, similar to the concentric rings that accompanied their own footsteps in this ancient place. She couldn’t help but think there was some form of resistance from an unknown, and unseen, force working against the Mirialan as the pulsing blues burned with a white at its edges, meticulously fighting for every millimeter of growth within the darkened doorway. A light hearted hoot filled the tension filled air, begging for her attention. Ahsoka looked around, certain she would find the companion that only seemed to make itself known when it decided it was important enough. The light hoot repeated itself as she spun her gaze slowly in all directions, flashing beyond the closed eyes of Rex. She wondered if he had even heard it before finding the elusive Convor perched stoically upon the upper reaches of the doors frame.
Ahsoka stared at the avian for a moment, internally divulging its reason for being there. Was it guiding them toward the right path? Acknowledging that they had made the right decision? ‘No. Neither.’ She told herself staring into the unknown beyond the darkness of its eyes, understanding on the appropriate level that their actions were not entirely dependent on the Mirialan’s efforts alone. Ahsoka smiled briefly to her companion as it blinked its knowing eyes. She reached for Rex’s arm, startling him somewhat in the process, but an understanding of his own quickly taking form as she placed his hand upon Nara’s shoulder, mirroring the action with her own on the other. The only message that needed to be conveyed suddenly understood by all three without a word between them. Ahsoka closed her own eyes, as Rex had quickly done again, knowing that any resistance within the portal had been sapped through their united effort.
✦
It felt like hours before Ahsoka opened her eyes again, her legs aflame with a burning stiffness attesting as much to the static view of a dimly lit, austere, hallway beyond the portals edges. ‘She has done it.’ She thought to herself, lifting an aching hand from Nara’s shoulder. “Well done Nara.” She said with a jovial pride.
“I cannot be certain, but this looks awfully familiar…” Nara responded slowly, lifting a leg to bring herself to her feet. Ahsoka felt the wavering of the Mirialans balance and offered an assist as she rose from her knees.
Ahsoka felt the looming decision reach its apex, dreading the knowledge that choice was inevitable. ‘So, it comes to trust…’ she told herself in a solid engagement of the facts. ‘What version of this woman are we dealing with?’ She continued the inner dialogue, assessing the viability of stumbling blindly through deaths door on the heels of a woman torn between so many variables. “I can guarantee nothing once we step through that door.” Ahsoka said flatly, “we go in together, there is no way to anchor to this realm.”
“Fine by me. I’d rather face my own demise on solid footing with a blaster in my hand.” Rex was the first to respond.
They continued to simply observe the view beyond the portals edge, noting the complete lack of anything present other than the gray walls collectively.
“For truth.” Nara stated, jarring both Ahsoka and Rex as she walked right through the opening.
“For truth.” Rex repeated, surprising Ahsoka as he, too, walked through the waiting portals edge.
Ahsoka didn’t move immediately, despite her surprise, swallowing hard against the pangs in her stomach she hadn’t noticed earlier. “For t…” She began but cut herself off, “For the living…” She amended before ignoring every inclination to remain where she was and stepped through into the unknown.
✦
Ahsoka felt Rex’s hand grab at her waist as she stumbled through, an awkward angle to the poorly lit hallway almost taking her feet from under her. She noted Nara, a hand outstretched to the oddly porous material of the walls, sniffing at the air, and blinking through the imposed darkness, “this is it. I am certain, it smells right…” Nara said, Ahsoka finding that an odd way to determine success.
“Do you have any idea where we are Nara?” Rex asked as he let Ahsoka’s waist go slowly, her footing established.
“In truth...I do not, only that we are here.”
“We need to find an access terminal…” Ahsoka whispered, the return stares offered by both Rex and Nara confirming that they had already forgotten the fourth member of their team, “R3’s core Rex.” She felt compelled to add to his blinking stare. He silently palmed his forehead as he shook his head slowly and pointed to the comm device at his wrist. Ahsoka nodded in the affirmative with a slight smile creasing her lips.
Nara silently, and slowly, led them through the hallway that seemed forever turning to their right. The dim light due to the staggered nature of incandescent sources, recessed deeply within the ceiling above, offered them cover of a sorts from any prying eyes, Ahsoka finding it interestingly odd how their intrusion could be masked so expertly without any knowledge of their proximity. She stowed the observation as she noted doorway looming to their left, “Nara,” Ahsoka whispered catching the Mirialans attention. She pointed toward the doorway to which Nara nodded in agreement, each of them placing the left wall at their backs as they proceeded toward it single file.
Against Rex’s better judgement, and swipe of his hand, Nara darted into the doorway with startling speed. He spun his head to look Ahsoka in the eye, only meeting a shoulder shrug in response, “I would have waited….” She whispered in return. The two slowly followed, finding Nara staring into the dimness of a vast chamber, massive cylinders directly in front of her set in rows lost to the darkness beyond. What little light there was from the entrance to the chamber revealed only the gray of what appeared to metallic vats by the lead container of each row. Piping attached to their tops suggested that they were housings of liquid, but no other clues were present.
“Bacta…” Nara whispered, the absence of sound echoing her offering far beyond her intention. ‘The Empire withholds it from its own troops yet stockpiles it…’ Ahsoka thought inwardly.
“There is enough here for the entire Alliance.” Rex complied with a silent offering of his own.
“We are definitely in the right place…” Nara continued, “the Bacta will be mixed with other reagents that offer similar effects and a congealing oil that turns the mixture to a jelly…” the memories were rushing back to her as she approached one of the cisterns. “It creates a stasis, while the mind is altered...reformed….I remember this…”
Rex ticked at Ahsoka’s shoulder, garnering her attention as he pushed a finger toward the interior of the same wall as the open doorway, Ahsoka spotting the access terminal immediately. “Nara.” Ahsoka whispered, pleading for the Mirialans attention. Nara turned slowly and padded the distance between them.
“You’re up Ahsoka, I have no idea how to implement this…” Rex appealed for Ahsoka’s lead, handing her the palm sized memory core. Ahsoka snapped up the rectangular object and ran her fingers down its smooth edges lengthwise. She found what she was looking for in short order, depressing an inlaid button that was invisible to untrained hands. R3’s central memory core hissed quietly open along its length, hinging its casing open midway and exposing a terminal access key at its end. She rotated the contraption several times in her hands before locating the random output display that briefly flashed a cadence of sequential numbers in groups of three, six separate times. Switching her attention to Rex’s left arm, she lifted the comm device at his wrist to her eyes and began recording the same sets of numbers into a configurable data compilation field and finished by switching on the tiny holo emitter within the device. “We should have uninhibited access to the terminals readout through your emitter Rex, but I cannot guarantee that whatever is left of R3 won’t be lost through the exchange.
“Nothing about this comes with a guarantee Ahsoka..” Nara chimed in immediately, “Ani would agree.”
Ahsoka couldn’t argue that point whatsoever as she tilted her head in agreement and jammed the key into the access terminal.
Ahsoka only hoped the droids creator had suffused its hardware with the same delicate touch and attention to detail that she had her own ship, complete with anti-intrusion considerations and confounding jacketing. Too much was at stake if the intended download became an unintentional upload. All eyes were transfixed on the device as it sat agonizingly idle within the terminal.
“It is supposed to do something...right?” Rex asked turning slightly toward Ahsoka before the device about his wrist began chiming a little too loudly for his liking. He quickly snapped his other hand over it to mute the sound.
“I think it is.” Ahsoka said, turning to Rex’s wrist and peeling his fingers from their death grip over his wrist. With each digit removed, an emitted blue light grew in intensity. With his fingers free of the device, it could emit a small image that floated above its projector but near impossible to identify without more context.
“It looks artificial…made.” Rex offered first, noting the geometries involved within the torpedo like image, a rounded end on the southern end of it as if aiming for the emitter itself. “But impossible to comprehend…” He stopped himself as the image began to populate itself with more context and detail then he could have asked for, complete with adjoining weapons cache and distribution hub above that dwarfed the first image. The image began to shrink within the emitted field as more of the details were revealed through an accessed zoom feature. The configuration at the center, although massive in its own right became mere pixels to the wheeled housing it was attached too. Thirty three spokes broke from their central location into a massive orbital ring that served upwards of twenty plus separate Star Destroyers simultaneously.
“Where the hell are we…” Ahsoka groaned with growing trepidation, watching as the image continued to pan out depicting twice as many Star Destroyers of all class lying in wait for their own turns on the docking hub, “and what are they loading into them?” On cue, the accessed information scrawled in a slow patch of text at the bottom of the increasingly larger image.
“Probe droids?” Rex said, bewildered. “What are they probing?” He continued his thoughts without the comprehension necessary to understand what would require so many.
“Everything. They’re going hunting Rex.” Ahsoka could find no other reasoning that would require so vast an operation. “We’re in orbit over...Botajef.”