Star Wars: Ahsoka

“Move along,” said the stormtrooper, though he didn’t lower his gun. The other one said something into his comm that Ahsoka couldn’t hear.

“Happy Empire Day,” she said, and turned down an alley in the direction of the music.

She didn’t wait to see if they would follow her. She jumped to a first-story window and climbed up the building until she reached the roof. So close to the main Fardi compound, the houses were nicer than her little shack. They were taller and had flat roofs. More important, they were built very close together, to save on construction costs. It wasn’t a perfect traveling path, but for someone with Ahsoka’s abilities, it was passable enough.

Hoping that no one could see her, she ran along the tops of the houses. Even with the danger, it felt better than anything Ahsoka had done in a long time. She didn’t use the Force to run—there was no point in taking unnecessary risks—but she did use it to make sure each jump across the streets below was safe. Every time she looked down, she saw more stormtroopers patrolling. They didn’t appear to be searching for a specific target, though. The pair she’d talked to must not have raised any alarm.

Ahsoka reached the edge of the row of tall houses and crouched, looking down over the shipyard. There were two under the Fardis’ control, and this was the smaller one. The bigger one would have had a larger selection and possibly more holes in its security system, but the smaller one had a roof approach, so Ahsoka decided to take her chances here.

The ships were mostly Imperial, and therefore not good targets. They would have been registered and tagged, and probably had some kind of tracking device. Ahsoka looked at the troop carrier with some regret. Of all the ships docked there, it was the one with which she was most familiar, but she couldn’t take the risk. Instead, she focused on a small freighter tucked in at the very back of the yard.

It was a Fardi ship, one of the legal ones, but Ahsoka knew it could be made less legal very quickly. The Fardis paid her to tinker. She was a good mechanic, and she’d earned their trust through diligent work. The ship was also unguarded. Ahsoka didn’t know if it was an invitation or not, but she wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass her by.

There were maybe twenty stormtroopers in the yard. Before, when she could openly use the Force, that would have been no trouble at all. Now, with just her blaster, Ahsoka took a moment to consider her options.

Anakin would have crashed right through, regardless of personal risk. Even without his lightsaber, he’d have been fast enough and strong enough to make it. It would have been very noticeable, though. Explosions had tended to follow close behind her old master. She missed the excitement, but this was not the time for it. Master Obi-Wan would have tried to charm himself through and would invariably have ended up making as much noise as Anakin anyway.

“When are you going to admit you’re on your own?” Ahsoka muttered. “They’re gone. They’re dead, and now it’s just you.”

As motivational speeches went, it was not her best, but it did spur her into action. She risked a jump from the rooftop to the alley below, prioritizing speed over anything else. She pulled the blaster out of her bag. Quickly, she unseated the overload dowels in the ammo pack and set the blaster on the ground. Now she had to move. She ran down the alley and leapt over a short wall into a family garden. A few steps and another jump took her to a different alley, and she raced toward the shipyard.

She reached the open area just as the blaster exploded. The stormtroopers reacted immediately, falling into neat lines and running toward the noise with admirable dedication. They didn’t completely desert the yard, but it was good enough for Ahsoka’s purposes.

Ahsoka stuck to corners where she could hide and behind crates to block the remaining Imperials’ sight lines. She reached the ramp of the Fardi ship and was aboard before anyone was the wiser.

“I hope I’m not stealing anything you need,” she said to her absent benefactors. “But thanks for the ship.”

The engine hummed to life just as the other stormtroopers returned to the yard, but by then it was too late. Ahsoka was in the air before they could set up the heavy weaponry and out of range before they could fire. She was away, on the run again, and she had no idea where in the galaxy she was going to go next.

Chapter 02

FROM ORBIT, Raada didn’t look like much. The readout from the navicomputer wasn’t particularly enthralling, either, but that was part of Ahsoka’s reason for choosing the moon. It was small, and out of the way even by Outer Rim standards, with only one resource. Ahsoka could be unremarkable here. She didn’t like to make the same mistake twice, and she had made a big one on Thabeska, getting involved with one of the planet’s most prominent families.