Star Wars: Ahsoka

Afterward, when she was able to think about it, Ahsoka was glad to know that she’d responded instantly, reaching out with the Force. The numbness she had worked so hard to maintain since Order 66 remained intact, but she hadn’t watched mutely as the crates fell, the children screaming as they fell, too. She’d acted.

And then the screaming stopped. The crates settled gently on the ground, and the children settled just as gently on top of them. The other kids stared, unable to figure out what had happened, but Ahsoka knew. She got ready to run. She looked around and saw little Hedala Fardi, too small to be included in the game, standing just clear of the crates with a fascinated look on her face.

“You know you’re not supposed to play out here,” Ahsoka said, hoping to head off any awkward questions the kids might have had. “You were almost crushed by falling crates. That’s no way for a Fardi to go out!”

She was right to appeal to their pride and fear of the trouble they’d be in if they got caught. They made Ahsoka swear not to give them up—for her silence, she exacted from them a fair amount of sweets, the only currency they had—and then they all ran off. They never mentioned it again, and Ahsoka was fairly certain they hadn’t even noticed their brush with physical impossibility.

She watched Hedala closely after that. She was certain that the child was the only one who’d fully seen and understood what Ahsoka had done. Three days later, she watched with some horror as Hedala, left alone by the older kids, casually moved a small stone from one side of a doorway to the other without laying so much as a finger on it.

She should have done something. She should have told the girl’s family and helped get her off-world. But she had no idea how to hide a Force-sensitive child from the Empire. She could barely hide herself. So she did nothing instead. She told herself she would think of a plan, but she didn’t, or at least she didn’t try very hard.

And then it was Empire Day and the Imperials came in greater numbers. Ahsoka could have stood her ground, could have fought them, but she couldn’t take on the whole Empire herself. When the Fardi girls warned her and offered her a way out, she took it without a second thought. She didn’t remember Hedala Fardi until she was in orbit, and then it was too late.

Chapter 11