She flipped a switch and the repulsors fired up, lifting the thresher off the table about a meter. She turned it off just as quickly.
“Excellent,” she said. “I’ll test the steering and the other parts when I’m outside, but the repulsors were the part I was worried about. It’s not much good if it can’t fly.”
Ahsoka wasn’t sure how much good it would be if it wouldn’t steer, but she was also not the expert, so she let it pass.
“You’re welcome,” she said. She pulled the rest of the food out of the ration pack and ate it quickly. Kaeden watched her eat.
“I’ll pay you in food, then?” the girl asked. “I mean, it’s a good way to start, and later we can work out other arrangements.”
“Can I trade rations for tools?” Ahsoka asked.
“No,” Kaeden said. “I mean, food rations aren’t worth much to those of us who have been here a while.”
Ahsoka considered her options. She hadn’t had time to take a full inventory of the ship, and it was possible that the tools she needed were there. And she did need to eat.
“Just this once,” she said, hoping she sounded like someone who was experienced at driving a hard bargain. “Next time we’re going to negotiate before I do any repairs.”
Kaeden picked up the thresher and smiled. She still seemed a little guarded, which suited Ahsoka just fine. She was, she reminded herself, not trying to make friends, particularly not friends who were at perfect ease sitting on her bed. That sort of thing bespoke a level of intimacy in most cultures. The Jedi Temple was not a place where such things were encouraged, and Ahsoka never felt motivated strongly enough to go around the rules the way that certain others had.
“I left the crate outside,” Kaeden said. “You can come and get it.”
Ahsoka followed her out the door and saw the promised payment—food enough for a month, probably, and maybe longer if she was careful with it. Kaeden was right: food was only worthwhile to trade if you were new. Clearly, shortage was not an issue. She dragged the crate inside as Kaeden made her way down the street, her limp much less noticeable than it had been the day before. Alone again, Ahsoka lifted the crate onto the table, and fought off the childish impulse to do the work with her mind instead of her arms. The Force wasn’t meant to be used so lightly, and it wasn’t as though throwing boxes around was real training. Her focus needed to be elsewhere.
Using the Force was a natural extension of herself. Not using it all the time was strange. She would have to practice, really practice with proper meditation, or someday she would need her abilities and be unable to respond in time. She’d been lucky to escape Order 66, and her escape had not been without terrible cost. The other Jedi, the ones who had died, hadn’t been able to save themselves, powerful or otherwise.
She felt the familiar tightness in her throat, the same strangling grief that came every time she imagined what had happened when the clone troopers turned. How many of her friends had been shot down by men they’d served with for years? How many of the younglings had been murdered by a man wearing a face they implicitly trusted? And how did the clones feel after it was done? She knew the Temple had burned; she had received the warning not to return. But she didn’t know where any of her friends had been during the disaster. She knew only that she couldn’t find them afterward, that her sense of them was gone, as if they had ceased to exist.
Ahsoka felt herself spiraling down through her grief and reached out to grasp something, anything, to remind her of the light. She found the green fields of Raada, fields she hadn’t even seen with her own eyes yet. For a few moments, she let herself get lost in the rhythm of growing things that needed only the sun and some water to live. That simplicity was heartening, even if at that particular moment she couldn’t remember exactly what Master Yoda had said about plants and the Force.
The extra pieces of Kaeden’s thresher were still on the table. Ahsoka leaned down and picked them up, absently weighing them in her hands before she put them in her pocket. There, they jingled against the rings she’d taken off the ship console the day before. If she kept accumulating tech at this rate, she was going to need bigger pockets.
Thinking about what she needed reminded Ahsoka that she really ought to check her ship for tools and other useful items. She looked around the house quickly: the crate was on the table, but it was nondescript, and the panel over her credits in the shower was secure. It didn’t look like anything that would appeal to a thief, but Ahsoka was uneasy as she shut the door behind her.
“I hope Kaeden needs something else fixed soon,” she said under her breath to a nonexistent R2-D2. “I’d feel better if I had a lock.”
One of the problems with spending a lot of time with an astromech droid was that one tended to continue talking to it even when it was no longer there to talk to.
Ahsoka walked up the street, toward the center of town and the spaceport. She paid more attention to her surroundings this time, noticing the little shops perched on corners, waiting for customers. Most of them sold the same goods and sundries, and Ahsoka needed none of them. The larger houses in the center of town no longer looked intimidating now that Ahsoka had a place of her own to retreat to. Two places if she counted the ship, which was still parked in the spaceport, exactly as Ahsoka had left it. She opened the hatch and went inside.
It would draw too much attention if she did a flyover of the hills near her house. If she wanted to scout out the caves, she was going to have to do it with her feet. The house and the ship were a good start, but it would be nice to have a place she could go in an emergency.
“Food, tools, safe place in case I need to run,” she said out loud. She really should stop that. She missed R2-D2.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.
KAEDEN DIDN’T COME BACK the next day, which Ahsoka took as a sign that the girl had healed enough to return to work. In the daylight, the Raada settlement was mostly deserted. Nearly everyone who lived on the moon worked in the fields. Those who didn’t—food vendors and the like—usually followed the field workers out of town in the morning. It made sense to go where the money was.
This meant that Ahsoka had her days to herself, or at least she would until Kaeden made good on her promise to tell the others that Ahsoka could fix things for them. When the quiet got too much for Ahsoka to bear, she tucked a ration pack into her bag, filled a canteen with water, and headed toward the hills.
It was warm enough that she didn’t need her cloak, though she knew that when the sun went down, the heat would drain off quickly. Ahsoka was used to fluctuating temperatures. When she’d been a Padawan, she’d only occasionally known what sort of planet she might end up on, and that was good training when it came to learning how to adapt. At least it didn’t get cold enough on the moon that she’d need a parka.
There didn’t seem to be much in the way of wildlife on Raada. Ahsoka had seen a few avians clustered around the water sources when she flew in. There must have been pollinators of some kind, but when it came to big things—predators or creatures worth hunting for meat—Raada didn’t offer much in the way of variation.
The place would’ve driven Anakin to distraction, unless he somehow managed to arrange for podraces. No real technology to fiddle with, nothing dangerous to protect hapless villagers from—just work and home, work and home. He never said as much, but Ahsoka knew her master had gotten enough of that growing up on Tatooine. Master Obi-Wan would have said Raada was a good place to relax and then somehow stumbled on a nest of pirates or a ring of smugglers or a conspiracy of Sith. Ahsoka—Ashla—was hoping for something in the middle: home and work, and just enough excitement to keep her from climbing the walls.
In the meantime, climbing the hills would do. Ahsoka had left the plains and was walking over rolling hills, each covered with rocks and whispering grasses that concealed all manner of dells, hollows, and caves. Though the settlement itself was indefensible, the surrounding area would be a more than adequate plac
e to stage an insurgency if needed. There were good vantage points of the spaceport, and the caves would provide cover from aerial assault. The only trouble was water, but if the farmers had tech like portable threshers, they must have portable water sources, too.
Ahsoka stopped on a hilltop and shook her head ruefully. She could not stop thinking like a tactician. The clones—before they would have tried to kill her—would have said that was a good thing. Anakin would have agreed with them. But Ahsoka still remembered, vaguely, Jedi training before the war. They hadn’t focused so much on tactics then, and Ahsoka had still been interested in what she was learning. Surely, now that she had nothing left to fight for, she could go back to that.
“Not until you’re safe,” she whispered. “Not until you know for sure that you are safe.”
Even as she said the words, she knew it would never come to pass. She would never be safe again. She would have to stay ready to fight. She guessed the Empire wouldn’t visit Raada anytime soon, as there was nothing on the moon they needed, but she knew how Palpatine worked. Even when he was the Chancellor, he liked control. As the Emperor, as a Sith Lord, he’d be even more of an autocrat. With people like Governor Tarkin to help him, every part of the galaxy would feel the Imperial touch.
But Raada was clear of it for now, at least. Ahsoka left the hilltop and ventured into one of the caves. She was pleased to discover that it was dry enough that she could store food there if she needed to, and tall enough that she could stand up without the tops of her montrals brushing the ceiling. She wouldn’t want to live here permanently, but in a pinch it wouldn’t be so bad.
Toward the back of the cave was a natural low shelf where a piece of rock had broken off and left a flat surface. Part of the shelf had cracked and fallen onto the cave floor. Ahsoka picked it up, noting that the edges of the cracked piece matched up with the solid shelf. She set the piece down where it had broken off, and it fit neatly into place, with only a thin seam revealing the break. Ahsoka picked up the shard of rock again and fished in her pocket for the metal pieces she kept there. She set them down, under where the broken rock would go, and put the slab back on top. It still fit.
It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but Ahsoka didn’t have much of anything to hide yet. It was more of a promise, a possibility, like how she’d judged the tactical value of the settlement and surrounding hills. If she needed to, she could cut into the rock underneath to make a larger compartment.
Ahsoka stood up, leaving the metal pieces under the stone. She could return for them if she needed. She suspected that this wouldn’t be the only cave she set up, but it would be the one to which she gave the most attention. It was the closest to the settlement, the first one she could reach if she was running.
Yes, it would do for a start.
Kaeden’s repaired thresher was doing a fabulous job. Once she’d refueled it and added more coolant, the machine worked better than it ever had. This did not go unnoticed.
“Hey, Larte,” Tibbola said at lunch break. “Where’d you get that? It looks like your old beast, but it moves like a new one.”
Tibbola was one of the oldest farmers, unmarried and mean when he was drunk. Kaeden avoided him as much as possible, but the man had a sharp eye for changes, and a faster thresher would be more than enough to catch his attention.
“I had it fixed after it sliced me up,” Kaeden said.
“Who did it?”
“You know, I didn’t get a name,” Kaeden realized. That was strange. She and the Togruta newcomer had talked for a while both times, and Kaeden had introduced herself. She’d even been inside her house. “She just moved into Cietra’s old place.”
“Clearly she’s good at what she does,” said Miara, Kaeden’s sister. The younger girl sat down on the ground beside her and held out her hands for Kaeden’s canteen.
“Get your own,” Kaeden said.
“I’ll refill them both on our way back out,” Miara promised. Kaeden rolled her eyes and passed the container.
At fourteen, three years younger than Kaeden, Miara shouldn’t have been working a full shift allotment, even though she was as capable as Kaeden had been at that age. Necessity was a harsh, if effective, teacher, and Kaeden regretted that the same pressures that had driven her to the fields at a young age had pushed Miara after her, though the younger girl never complained. As a result, Kaeden had a hard time denying her anything. Thankfully, Miara was wise enough not to press the advantage too far.
“If she can fix your old clanker like that, maybe I’ll ask her to look at mine.” Tibbola was cheap, and his thresher had been patched so many times Kaeden wasn’t sure there was an original part on it.
“You’re not going to be able to put one over on her,” Kaeden warned him. “She’s smart.”
“Maybe I’m more charming than you are,” Tibbola said with a leer. He got up and left.
“Not with breath like that,” Miara said, giggling. Kaeden couldn’t help laughing, too. “We’ll warn her. Where’s she from?”
“She didn’t say that, either,” Kaeden admitted. “Mostly we talked about Raada.”
“You can’t blame her for being cautious if she’s new to the moon, and on her own,” Miara pointed out. “You’re right about her being smart. She probably wants to know what it’s like in town before she opens up.”
“Who’s opening up?” Four bodies thumped to the ground around them—the rest of their threshing crew joining them for lunch.
“Kaeden made a friend!” Miara said teasingly.
“Did she now?” Vartan, their crew lead, waggled his dark eyebrows at her. It would have had more impact if his eyebrows hadn’t been the only hair on his head.
“She’s a mechanic, of sorts,” Kaeden said, ignoring his tone. It took more than mechanical aptitude to turn her head, though maybe she was going to have to reevaluate that. There was a lot to be said for cleverness. “I didn’t get her name, but she fixed the thresher so well it’s better now than when I bought it.”
“I thought it seemed less murderous today,” Malat said, digging into her food with long delicate fingers.
“We’ll go and get her after shift and take her to Selda’s,” Miara declared, referring to the cantina where they went nearly every night. She got up and went to refill the canteens.
“What if she doesn’t want to come out?” Kaeden asked.
“What else is she going to do?” Hoban asked. He had finished eating and was lying back on the ground with his hat over his face to shield his pale skin from the sun. “Sit at home by herself in the dark?”
“Maybe she likes that sort of thing,” suggested Neera, Hoban’s long-suffering twin.
“If Tibbola’s going to introduce himself to her, we should make sure she meets other people,” Vartan said. “Or she’ll be so put off by him, she’ll jump on the first ship out of here.”
It was on the tip of Kaeden’s tongue to mention that her new friend had a ship of her own, but something stopped her. No name, no history…she probably wouldn’t want Kaeden spilling her secrets. Kaeden could understand that. There were plenty of things she didn’t like sharing with her sister, let alone her crew, and she’d known her crew for years.
“All right,” she said, finally. “After we’re done for the day and cleaned up a bit, I’ll go and ask her if she wants to come out with us. But you won’t pressure her, and you won’t bug her if she doesn’t want to be bugged.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Vartan, saluting.
The others laughed, and Kaeden was gracious enough to join in. The horn sounded, so she threw her head back and tipped the last crumbs of her lunch out of the package and into her mouth. Miara handed her a full canteen of water with a smile, and then it was back to work.
SELDA’S WAS A SMALL CANTINA, but it still produced an astonishing level of noise. Ahsoka was very glad she hadn’t taken the house next to it, or she might never have gotten a good night’s sleep again. There was live music, of course, but the place was also cram
med full of people, none of whom seemed able to speak below a dull roar.
“Come on!” Kaeden yelled. “We’ll sit in a corner and that will make it easier to talk.”
Ahsoka had her doubts about that. Frankly, she had her doubts about going out with Kaeden at all. The girl had shown up just as Ahsoka was agreeing to do a small repair for a truly odious man named Tibbola, and she had invited Ahsoka out for some real food. Ahsoka had tried to protest, but her heart hadn’t been in it, and it wasn’t until she and Kaeden were through the door of the cantina that Ahsoka wished she’d resisted a little harder.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Isn’t there someplace quieter?”
“What?” said Kaeden.
Ahsoka repeated herself directly into Kaeden’s ear. How did anyone in this place hear anything? How could they order drinks?
“No,” Kaeden replied. “Selda has the best food. It’ll be a bit quieter in the back.”
Ahsoka gave up and followed Kaeden through the crowd. The girl had broad shoulders and was not afraid to use them to clear a path. When they got through the main crush, Kaeden turned left and led Ahsoka to a table that was already occupied.
“My sister, Miara,” Kaeden said, indicating the dark-skinned girl already seated at the table. Unlike Kaeden, whose dark brown hair was still tightly braided, Miara’s hair was loose. It was very, very curly and surrounded her head like a cloud. Ahsoka liked it, though she had no idea how Miara kept it out of her way when she was working.
“Hi!” said Ahsoka. “I’m Ashla.” She slid into the seat beside Kaeden and called Ashla’s persona to the front of her mind.
Other introductions were made, and before long Ahsoka had shaken hands with Kaeden’s entire crew. They were all human but one. Vartan was the oldest, a weathered man in his forties. At first Ahsoka thought his baldness was an affectation, like what some of the clones had done to keep their heads cooler in their helmets, but when she looked more closely, she realized that he didn’t have any regrowth at all. She didn’t really understand how hair worked, not having any herself, but she knew men were often sensitive about that sort of thing, so even though she was curious, she didn’t ask.
Star Wars: Ahsoka Page 3
