Ahsoka (Star Wars)

by E.K. Johnston

It was the sort of thing she might have done with Anakin, though espionage with Anakin Skywalker always ended with explosions, and Ahsoka had no intention of going that far.

It was a good strategy game, and she thought Obi-Wan would have liked it. He was the more patient of her teachers.

She really, really missed R2-D2. The little droid was always good at this sort of thing.

Ahsoka scoffed. Rex would never have been so lax with security.

Her only advantage was that they were up against the Empire’s new stormtroopers, not the formidable clones.

Ahsoka was their only hope.

Obi-Wan would have had a clever remark in this situation, something that belied the danger of the moment and confused his adversaries into doubting themselves. Anakin wouldn’t have surrendered in the first place.

She wondered what had become of Chewbacca, the Wookiee with whom she had escaped from captivity on the hunter moon. She hoped he had survived and that he hadn’t regained his freedom only to lose it again,

Ahsoka had heard rumors of a dark lord who served the Emperor, but nothing confirmable.

When she meditated and thought about the quandary, the voice that came to her with a suggestion was, somewhat surprisingly, Padmé Amidala’s.

Obi-Wan told her that Anakin had been found by Obi-Wan’s master, Qui-Gon, because of his quick reflexes.

He got a small cup, filled it with water, and then returned to his seat on the floor. Something caught his attention, one of the few pieces of his old life that he’d taken with him to his desert solitude. Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. It was all that was left of the man who had been, often simultaneously, Obi-Wan’s greatest annoyance, his brother, and his closest friend.

All Obi-Wan could do was make sure the child Luke survived to adulthood, and train him if he exhibited his father’s talents. He wondered briefly how the daughter was faring under Bail Organa’s tutelage.

Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Down he plunged, through memory and dream. There was Commander Cody, handing him back his lightsaber only to blast him off the cavern wall moments later. There was Anakin, laughing as he made some improbably difficult landing, saving all their lives again. There was Ahsoka, her hands on her hips, her endless questions challenging him at every turn.

“Obi-Wan,” said Qui-Gon Jinn. He was sure the voice was stronger this time. “Let go.”

She studied the creature before she walked out to meet him. He was tall with broad shoulders, and of a species she had never seen before. His face was gray, and it didn’t look like the color was natural. There were other markings, too uniform to be scars, on his cheeks, nose, and chin. They gave his face an evil look, though Kaeden imagined that without them, and without those piercing ice-blue eyes, he wouldn’t be so intimidating. As it was, he was intimidating enough. He wore a gray uniform, too, but not a typical officer’s. There was no rank insignia. It was like he had been designed to be as unremarkable as possible, except for one thing: he held a massive double-bladed red lightsaber.

The second thing she noticed was the beeping of an astromech droid, one that sounded exactly like— “Artoo!” She didn’t mean to shout at the little droid, but she was so startled and surprised that she couldn’t help it.

The little blue-and-silver droid disconnected from the console he was working on and rolled across the floor to her so quickly that she thought for a second he might have flown. He was beeping so fast she could barely understand him, but she could tell by his tone that R2-D2 was as happy to see her as she was to see him.

The droid reminded her that Padmé Amidala, too, had trusted Bail, not just the Jedi. Ahsoka sighed.

“Thanks, Artoo,” she said. She turned to go, but he rolled over to her again. He made a series of sad sounds. “I know, little guy.” Her heart clenched around the empty spot where Anakin Skywalker used to be. “I miss him, too.”

Lightsaber construction was a Jedi art of the highest order. Ahsoka had never done it unsupervised, as she knew she must do now. She also knew that she was missing important components, but since her vision was guiding her toward Ilum and the crystals that grew there, she would have to trust the path she was taking. The material she had would be sufficient to begin construction on the chambers. The hilts would be inelegant, but functional.

She could almost hear Huyang fussing over her shoulder, but she still felt pleased with herself.

Dark crystals were made, too, but not in that holy place. They were plundered from their rightful bearers and corrupted by the hands that stole them. Even rock could be changed by the power of the Force, bleeding alterations until their color was the deepest red. The balance was finely staged between the two, light and dark, and it took very little to upset it.

“I’m not really a Jedi, you know,” she said. They hadn’t talked about it before, but again, now that they were alone, it was only fair to let him know that his investment might not get the return he was counting on. “I left the Temple, turned away from the Jedi path.” “If you’re not a Jedi, then what are you, Ahsoka Tano?” Bail asked. “Because to be honest, you still sound and act like a Jedi to me.” “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” she said.

She felt the Force flowing through her as his lightsaber flared to life. She could hear its hum, a dark counterpoint to the song of her own crystals, now quite nearby. Ahsoka cleared her mind of all distractions.

What the gray creature lacked in finesse, he made up for in brute strength. He pushed Ahsoka back, toward the line of houses, and she let him, still taking his measure as a fighter. When she reached the front step of the house behind her, she jumped off of it, using the Force to propel herself in an elegant flip over his head. She easily avoided the frantic swing of his lightsaber as she flew over him, then landed in a crouch on the other side, ready to continue.

She felt something awaken in her, every combat lesson Anakin had ever taught.

Just as she’d reached for her first crystal all those years ago, Ahsoka stretched out a hand.

the Inquisitor tried to disconnect his weapon and fight her with two blades instead of one, but it was spinning too quickly for him to do it. Ahsoka’s hand landed almost gently on the cylindrical metal, and the Force was with her. The hilt cracked at her touch.

A sharp whine reached Ahsoka’s ears, the dark and light song of the crystals ...

When she turned them on, they shone the brightest white.

Bail thought of Obi-Wan, sitting by himself on some Outer Rim world. His sacrifice was to take himself out of the way, to focus only on the future and not give any thought to the present. It would be a lonely way to live, even if it was peaceful, and Bail did not envy him at all.

“What am I going to call you, if I can’t call you Ahsoka?” he asked. “You’ll need a code name at the least, so you can deal with other operatives.”

“Fulcrum,” she said. “You can call me Fulcrum.” “Then welcome to the Rebellion.”