Star Wars: Ahsoka

The report hadn’t been entirely reliable to start with, either. Static-laden surveillance holos of a shipyard weren’t all that useful, and he hadn’t even seen the replay himself before some inept underling managed to ruin it. All he had were the statements of four stormtroopers and a lieutenant who had seen the recording before it was destroyed, and none of them had been able to say for sure if it had been a child in the recording. No one else had actually seen a child do anything, or at least he hadn’t found such a person to question yet. The family didn’t seem to be aware that they might be concealing a traitor in their midst.

So he was reduced to this: sitting on a backwater planet, watching an unruly mob of children until one of them exhibited Force sensitivity that she may or may not actually possess. More than once, he wished he could just arrange an accident for all of them and solve the problem that way. The Fardi family was important on Thabeska but virtually unknown everywhere else in the galaxy. There would be no complaints if an entire generation of them met with an untimely end. Sadly, that was against his current directive. He didn’t kill children. He only acquired them for his masters.

The console he was seated at signaled an incoming message. It was a holorecording from a moon even more backward than the planet he was already on, so he very nearly ignored it altogether. Then he noticed the message’s code. It was a new one, created especially for him and his brothers and sisters. It might be another wild mynock chase, but it might also be something he very much wanted to see.

“Attention, Imperials,” the recording began. It was a low-level district commander, though his rank was unusually high to be stationed on a moon that far out. There must be something on the moon that the Emperor really wanted. “We have detected the presence of a Force-sensitive being. Identity cannot be determined, but ability to use the Force has been confirmed by several parties. Age indicates a certain level of Jedi training. Suspected Padawan, no higher. Report made according to standard procedure while we await further instructions. Please advise.”

This was much better than looking for a child. A child was to be captured and taken for experimentation and corruption. A Jedi, even a lowly Padawan, he could kill. Moreover, he was granted unlimited Imperial backing when it came to tracking down a Jedi, and he’d been meaning to brush up on his interrogation tactics. Now all he had to do was make sure he got there first.

He recorded a quick reply, using the same code, so the district commander would not find his arrival unexpected. From what hadn’t been said in the message, he guessed that the Jedi had already managed to escape and the commander needed all the help he could get before the full measure of his incompetence was brought to light. The Inquisitor sent a longer, though still quite terse, message to his own headquarters, detailing where he was headed and why. None of the others had replied yet, which meant his claim was solid. He was not above poaching, though, so he couldn’t really expect the others to be. He had to get to the useless little moon as soon as he could.

With no hesitation, he closed the file he’d been monitoring and marked it as noncritical. If one of the children had any power, it wasn’t enough for him to find or track and was therefore nothing to be concerned about. The Empire could always send another Inquisitor if it was deemed necessary in the future, but he was done with this dusty world. And an adult was better prey. He stood up, pulled his helmet down over the gray skin of his face, and strode across the shipyard to where his sleek vicious little ship was docked. He had no belongings, save the weapon he carried on his back, and he was in orbit and calculating the jump to hyperspace before much time had passed.

In the dust on the planet’s surface, Hedala Fardi played with her cousins in the empty yard where her family’s ships docked. The ugly feeling that had been bothering her for the past few days, like a toothache or a dark spot in the corner of her eye that she could never quite bring into focus, suddenly lifted, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. She took her turn at the toss-and-catch game and was perfect as usual, making her shot with no real effort. Her older sibling and cousins didn’t question her skill at the game. It had long since ceased to be a wonder to them.

Chapter 17