Star Wars: Ahsoka

Once the senator was gone, Ahsoka made a few last modifications to her ship and started her preflight checks. She’d had to make quick decisions the previous day, and she wanted to be sure that she hadn’t put stress on anything besides the engines. She had time and security to do it now, and even though waiting galled her, she knew it would pay off.

She hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep at all the night before, the image of Kaeden with the lightsaber to her throat burned into her memory, but she’d been so exhausted that she’d dropped off almost as soon as she’d stopped moving. When she woke up several hours later, she’d felt much better and then instantly worse: Kaeden probably hadn’t slept very well, whatever time it was on Raada.

She forced herself to clear her mind of worries. It wasn’t easy, but she knew she would do her friends no good if she let emotion cloud her judgment. She might not be a Jedi, but she needed to act like one for a little bit longer. She knew how it worked, anyway: clear your mind and see the goal. She was determined to do that for the sake of her friends.

The preflight check ended, signaling that nothing new had been detected. She stowed her gear—the bastons, her carry bag, a few useful things that Bail had given her—but kept the pouch with the hilts on her. It was bulky now, but she was reluctant to store it anywhere else.

She asked for clearance to depart and received it, along with the deck officer’s wish of good luck. She took the ship out of the hangar and then ran her calculations for the hyperdrive.

When that was ready, Ahsoka placed both hands on the controls, looked through the front viewport, and made the jump to lightspeed.

* * *

Ilum was a world of ice. Stark, cold, and beautiful as long as you didn’t have to spend too much time outside. It had been a holy place for the Jedi. Ahsoka had been there three times, once for each of her own crystals and once with a group of younglings. The first two times had been unremarkable, except for her excitement over having the tools with which to build her lightsabers. The third time had been more of an adventure, complete with pirates. Ahsoka was very much hoping this visit would be a quiet one.

She’d calculated the jump to take her out of hyperspace some distance away from the planet itself. If she remembered what was buried in Ilum’s crust, it was entirely possible that others did, too. She wasn’t sure where those from the dark side got their crystals, but she knew they had to get them somewhere, and she wasn’t about to take any risks just to cut some time from her travel schedule. When she emerged back into normal space and saw what was waiting for her, she was very glad she’d been cautious.

There were at least two Star Destroyers and a massive mining ship in orbit around the planet. The Empire definitely knew there was something it wanted beneath the surface of the icy world.

The planet itself was much worse off than she’d feared. Before, it had looked like a giant white ball from orbit—uniform in color except the brighter spots where it reflected the light of its sun. It had been as striking from up high as it was on the ground, even though the great cliffs and deep crevasses that scored the planet’s surface weren’t visible from afar. Now it almost hurt her to look at it.

Great chunks of the planet had been carved away, exposing rock and lava that boiled up from the planet’s core. With no real hope, Ahsoka scanned the usual landing site. Gone was the cliff-side entryway the Jedi had used for generations, the waterfall smashed to gain entrance to the cave beyond.

Ahsoka felt a swell of fury, which she had to work hard to pin down. They dared to invade Ilum, to spoil such a beautiful place, and for what? To carve out rock and dirt in the hopes of finding a few shards of crystal that none of them would be able to see? It was wasteful and terrible to behold, and also more than a little intimidating. Ruining the soil on a faraway moon was one thing. Destroying a planet, even piece by piece, was something else. The Empire had no sense of limitation and no respect for the order of life in the galaxy.

She was halfway through planning an attack run on the mining ship, analyzing it for weaknesses she could exploit if she was able to get past the Star Destroyers, when she remembered why she couldn’t. Raada. She needed to go back to Raada. She couldn’t die or get captured in some pointless skirmish. And it would be pointless, she reminded herself, even though it hurt to think of Ilum as expendable. No one lived there, and it wasn’t like the Jedi needed the planet anymore. She wouldn’t spend her life there, not when there were other places where it was worth more and when there were people who needed her.