The Force Wills - Chapter 150

Getting raked over the coals by the sovereign of your star nation was not an experience I cared to repeat.

It was something that Satine definitely needed. After days of living with the worry of her son’s safety, only for her to be used as a human shield by her own Interior Minister, then revealing his treachery… 

So both Streng and I became the verbal punching bags for her anger and I gave a succinct summary of everything I knew, over the cooling corpses of Varnok and the traitorous guard.

“The next time something like this happens, you find a way to secretly let me know, Manda’lor!” she said with gritted teeth and her blue eyes flashing. “We could’ve made the arrest quietly and rooted out all of Varnok’s influence. Now he’s taken all of his knowledge to the grave!”

That was an approach I had considered, but there was just too much that could go wrong. Varnok had taken many precautions and plans, especially if he was arrested and sitting in the detention complex. Most of which were related to sabotage all across Sundari, which would kill thousands.

With him dead, unable to give the orders to his brainwashed lackeys, those plans were in limbo and bought the time needed to apprehend them and stop it.

“I’ve already ordered my men that were confirmed to be free of brainflashing by the Manda’lor to begin a full investigation, highness. With her help we’ll root out everyone affected in the palace. We’re already going through all of Varnok’s files in his office, and a team is en route to his residence as we speak.”

“Do warn them that the place is probably trapped, General,” I said mildly.

“Of course it is, my men aren’t amateurs, Manda’lor and I trained them personally.”

“The Blades will also need to be deployed around Sundari to various locations, highness; food depots, power plants, water reclamation, grav generators and sewage works. Varnok has plans in place to sabotage all of it.”

Satine gripped her hands tightly on her throne’s armrests, “Which you need my order and blessing for, otherwise it’d look too much like a military takeover. Is this also your explanation for the decision to openly march into my palace and boil Varnok’s brains out?” She glared briefly at the body in question.

I bowed in acknowledgement, “He would’ve held the entire Sundari population hostage from prison.” Streng gave me a strange look. “I have a captured Nightsister who was hired by the Separatists as part of the greater plan, who was persuaded to reveal all she knew in return for imprisonment on Concordia.”

It was nice to have a ready excuse for my foresight. Satine knew in general terms that I was gifted with it and would make the right conclusion anyway.

“Was she the one who tried to kill Korkie?”

“And the entire Blades squadron,” I confirmed.

I could feel Satine’s anger erupt but she managed to wrap her will around it like a constrictor. “General Streng, you are dismissed. I want a formal preliminary report in at least two days.”

“Understood, Duchess,” he bowed, before marching out and closing the throne room doors behind him.

Satine gave me a pointed glare, her right hand reaching to a small hidden panel on the right armrest of her throne. A press of a button later and every single official listening device was muted and any others from the CIS that might be listening were absolutely blasted with white noise.

I didn’t sense any, but I was not infallible.

Her right hand moved through a few quick Mandalorian hand signals. Are we secure?

‘Yes,’ I signed. ‘We’ll speak-’  “-like this,” I spoke directly into her mind through a Bond that was surprisingly easy to establish.

Satine was not Force Sensitive, but she wasn’t weak of mind and we generally had no problems talking like this. She could even mostly keep her focus on what she intended to say, but her emotional turmoil of the last few days was fraying it somewhat. I could perceive ghostly extraneous thoughts that I firmly ignored.

“How is Korkie?” She eventually managed.

“He’s handling it as best he can, as he was trained, Satine. He inherited command of the squadron and is returning to Concordia. I’m sure you can find some excuse to visit him or even summon him to the palace.”

“He’s faced danger before, in battle, yes. However, being a target of assassination is different entirely. He’s being targeted for death because of who he is personally, what he represents, because of me.”

“He’s strong and this won’t break him.”

She nodded, her mind shifting from topic to topic, bundled in a myriad of emotions that were tangled up like a ball of yarn, before she asked, “This was Dooku?”

“Correct. The CIS wants the alliance with the Republic to falter. They’ve now seen and felt the difference our commandos and pilots make in battle. Their goal with Varnok was to sow the seeds of yet another civil war. As you know, their clan was decimated in the previous war, reduced to just eleven members carrying the name, their assets and holdings rubble. I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events, since I’m working via deduction from foresight and current database research. Yet at some point Clan Varnok was recruited by Dooku, well before the Clone Wars even began. In light of this, their conversion to the New Mandalorian movement is rather suspect and I also foresee investigators reopening quite a few cold cases or even looking into a number of fortunate ‘accidents’, which led Varnok to his current prominence.”

Satine wearily rubbed her forehead and I felt a tinge of weary despair from her. The thought of someone hijacking the New Mando movement and using it as a wolf in sheep’s clothing was almost anathema to her. She was no stranger to how awful people could be to each other in the desperate circumstances of a civil war. Yet what was really sticking in her craw was that Varnok could only be so successful because of corruption that she had hoped her people had left behind.

It was that naivety, an overreaction from her trauma during the civil war, that I was trying to get Satine to move beyond. In her fear, she thought she could literally legislate and mold people into never behaving that way again. It was putting square pegs into round holes and then acting surprised when it doesn’t work.

The only difference being that you were working with people and not inanimate objects, who tended to resent and react very badly to being shoved into a mold and being told that it was ‘for their own good’.

“Will we be able to deprogram the victims of his brainwashing?”

“Generally, yes. In my examination of the affected Blade, Sergeant Kast, I determined it greatly depends on the individual and the amount of flash learning they were subjected to. One of the first things I want to do-”

The possibility hit me in a moment of inspiration and realization.

“Ahsoka?” Satine thought, feeling my emotions through the Bond distantly.

“Tell me, does the palace have a dedicated mind healer or psychiatrist?”

“Yes, Doctor Tar’ol, why?”

“It just occurred to me that this brainwashing can’t happen with the snap of a finger. Sergeant Kast needed hours and multiple sessions, which they first did after abducting her in secret and then she reported to another location in Sundari for follow-up sessions. Now, I doubt Varnok spent as much time on the various palace guards, but it would still require hours of undisturbed access. So how did he get it?”

Satine’s mind latched onto the answer, seeing where I was going. “Each member of the palace staff and guard needs to see Doctor Tar’ol for a psychiatric session every six months. That’s how he got his unfettered access. The only question is, is Doctor Tar’ol an accomplice? Could he have been brainwashed himself?”

“There is only one way to find out.”

Satine pinched the bridge of her nose, “Very well, Manda’lor. Deploy the Blades at your discretion. You have one week, no more. Now let us speak of what we can do to preempt further attempts by the CIS to destabilize our sector.”

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I opened my eyes, back in my meatbag self on the Omen, and pulled off the interface circlet with a wince.

“Everything all right, Snips?” Anakin asked, his attention mostly on a proxy chair diagnostic readout.

“As much as it can be,” I sighed wearily and dumped the circlet on the nearby table, before closing my eyes to regain equilibrium in the Force. “I’ve delegated as much as I can, but I’ll need to check in on some things personally in a day. Not to mention proxying in every week at least. Palpatine doesn’t want a strong Mandalore and his machinations via Dooku against us isn’t going to stop. Not unless I can influence things in just the right way, maybe demonstrate or convince him he can use us instead of outright massacring.”

Anakin looked at me with alarm, “Massacring?!”

“In his ideal future, Mandalore is reduced to scattered enclaves all over the galaxy, a dying way of life. Sundari and all the other domed cities of the homeworld are bombed out ruins. Concordia is only kept for its beskar and an Imperial governor rules over workers who are slaves in all but name.”

I stood up onto my feet, straightened my askew underwear in annoyance, before dressing in a presentable manner.

I felt the distinct hum of an engaged hyperdrive and hyperspace beyond.

“We’re going somewhere, Skyguy?”

“Back to Coruscant. The ship needs a crew rotation, you’ve been summoned by the Council of First Knowledge, not to mention we have those medal ceremonies that COMPOR will be all over, so I thought, might as well hit three womp rats with a single shot.”

It would be just under three days to get there and I mentally rearranged my schedule with that in mind.

“Any word from the CFK as to why they summoned me?”

He nodded, “Master Yoda has agreed with the Council’s suggestion and given his permission for your temporary reassignment to the CFK, where you will train under Master Damsin.”

I was somewhat pressed to contain my excitement at the thought. Master Taria Damsin was someone who I was pretty sure was one of the very few Jedi Shadows that still remained in the current day Jedi Order.

I gave Anakin a narrowed, evaluating stare, carefully parsing through what emotions I could sense from him.

He gave me a flat stare in response, “What is it, Snips?”

“No annoyance at having your padawan usurped, no jealousy, no-”

He rolled his eyes and held up a hand, “Let me stop you right there, Snips. I fully accept that I can’t teach you everything you might need, because I don’t know everything. Do give me some more credit than that.”

I gave him a teasing smile, “Just checking you weren’t being stupid about this.”

He nodded and began powering down the interface chair, “Besides, even if our paths may diverge for a time, you’ll still be my padawan at the end of the day. Even when you get your knighthood one day, you’ll still be Snips,” He grinned widely. “And I’ll be Skyguy.”

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The journey to Coruscant was far from relaxing.

My days were filled with flimsiwork for the Resolute’s upcoming crew rotation, in addition to the usual supply and logistics management. Each day ended with me jumping into a proxy for a few hours to get reports and monitor the progress of the Blades and the investigation on Mandalore.

It left me with only four hours of sleep in the schedule, which as a Jedi, I had no physical problems with, but my mood was another story.

I didn’t want to greet the CFK in a foul mood, so I grabbed Anakin for an hour long lightsaber spar, where we both did a fair job of whipping each other’s asses across the training bay. Naturally, I lost the sparring on points, seven to four, but it was very satisfying.

I decided to take the Omen down to land directly in the Jedi Temple complex after the Resolute dropped out of hyper, since the latter would be docking at the primary Navy shipyards.

The Temple flight controller directed me to one of the sublevel bays, that saw me carefully fly into a trench in the northern side of the Temple complex and descend down a shaft to park the Omen in Bay 16.

There were only three ground staff assigned here so I pitched in to help secure the Omen and run it through the post-flight procedures.

“Thanks for the help, Padawan Tano,” the weary chief, a toweringly tall lasat in an overall, with two tool belts over his shoulders greeted me.

I gave a smiling salute with the hydrospanner before shoving it onto the Omen’s primary fuel valve controls, “Not a problem, Chief Nus. Very busy?”

“Oh yes,” he tapped his diagnostic station controls. “You Jedi are coming and going so much, we’ve had to reduce our team sizes to cover all the work. Word is we’re getting more hands on board soon, but that takes time and it's straining the Maintenance Corps budget. You can begin turning.”

I began ratcheting the spanner, “You’re getting your pay on time and in full, I trust?”

“That we are, Padawan. Never had a better employer than you Jedi.”

“That’s good to hear, how long have you been with us?”

“A few months after the war started, I was in one of the first new cohorts that was brought in.”

He was the first lasat I had ever met in person, and they were notable for their prehensile feet, digitigrade legs and very impressive strength and agility. Nus had light brown skin and noticeably furry arms. Their homeworld was all the way in the south-east of the galaxy, deep in Wild Space. Which went on to explain their non-standard physiology as it was highly likely the species had never been touched by ancient Rakatan meddling in their gene pools for better slaves.

“So what made you decide to come all the way to the Core Worlds?” The valve clicked fully shut and I moved onto the secondary tanks.

He shrugged, “Honestly, I was bored of the homeworld. There, everyone just wants to fight in the warrior way or the Boosan Keeraw. All the other professions are looked down on even though our society would quickly collapse if those jobs weren’t done. I was a middling warrior with not a single hope of ever making the cut for the Lasan High Honor Guard. So, much to my family’s dismay, I grabbed the first transport I could out of Wild Space.”

Just the thought that someone as big as Dus and with the way he moved, could be considered ‘middling’, showed the standards that the Lasat had for their warriors.

“Well, I’m glad you found your way to us, Chief.”

“Glad to be here, padawan and a pleasure to be working on a ship like this,” he gave me a big toothy grin. “Now let’s move on to the hyperdrive.”

Twenty minutes later, with the Omen secured and buttoned up, I grabbed my duffel bags, waved goodbye to Dus and took the turbolift back up to the Temple proper.

The serene, grand halls and walkways greeted me.

Every Jedi I passed was busy with their own day or assignments, and gave me the occasional nod in greeting. I had to make way for a cadre of younglings, who became a small nova of excitement as they realized who I was, though their teacher managed to keep them in check and en route to their next class.

I took my time to get to Anakin’s quarters, letting the soothing atmosphere balm my spirit into relaxation. I put aside the war, the worries and the future for a moment. It was like a walking meditation that I sank into.

When my feet finally stopped at the front door, I came back to myself and entered.

I got busy making the place livable again, pulling things out of storage, powering up systems and appliances.

Finally done with that, I brewed some caf and regarded the exterior view projected on the wall, giving the illusion we had a floor to ceiling window in here.

The sun was low on the artificial horizon of the ecumenopolis, washing the sky with orange light and low white clouds hovered among the distant skyscrapers, sky car lanes threading constantly through them like a writhing web.

The Force flared in warning abruptly and I dodged with a step to my right, careful to keep my cup from spilling.

A small knife bounced off the window screen and clattered to the floor.

I didn’t stop moving, dodging left, then right and twisting around into a duck.

More knives missed and clattered to the floor.

It was practically a sin to waste a good cup of caf, but my assailant wasn’t going to stop until I showed some response.

Another dodge left, quick right, before I swiped my right hand holding my cup in front of me, sending a wide spray of hot caf streaking through the air.

A few meters to my right and behind the couch the spray hit something in mid air.

My mind wanted to recognize what it was, but it was as if the very idea slipped through my mental fingers, failing to find purchase.

I let my instincts to the fore, and chucked the cup to my left.

It was stopped in mid-air… no… it was caught.

My eyes blinked and the cup was now in the hands of a fairly tall human female with light brown skin, wearing a traditional beige Jedi tunic, pants and calf length leather boots - which was sprinkled with wet caf stains. She regarded me with a wry amusement in her exotic golden eyes and straightened her shoulder length green-blue hair.

The cup was placed on a nearby table with quick use of TK and the woman wiped her face with the sleeve of her tunic.

“I must say that I’ve never been attacked with scalding caf, Padawan Tano. It’s also a record, at least in my experience, for finding me. Well done,” her voice had pleasant richness to it and I could imagine she would be able to sing a fairly excellent soprano.

I bowed in greeting, “Master Damsin.”

“You’ll find that I prefer to be called Taria. I’m not one to stand on ceremony and formality. I’m a humble teacher in this Order and are rarely called to fulfill an assignment in the greater galaxy.”

While I could hear sincerity in those words, they were so understated that it almost beggared belief. What went unsaid, was that her assignments were usually the kind that involved the destruction and if impossible, the recovery of Sith artifacts and writings. I had no idea what she had gotten up to thus far in the war, but knew that given how few Shadows there were, the CFK would only send her when shit truly hit the impeller.

“Very well, Taria. Am I to be your student?”

“You passed my first test, so yes, I will begin teaching you the arts of our little part of the Order. More tests will follow, with some or no warning. Fail any and our relationship of teacher and student will end.”

“I believe I understand, Taria. Though only time will really tell.”

She gave me a long, evaluating look from those golden eyes. I could sense from her biology that it was entirely natural and wondered what world could possibly give rise to such an adaptation.

“Time indeed,” her lips quirked at both ends. “Follow me, we begin our first lesson immediately.”

Her throwing knives soared back to her, holstering themselves into a fan of sheathes hidden in the small of her back, before she covered that up with a traditional brown robe.

I considered changing my Hapan attire for something else, but dismissed the idea and only called my lightsabers to hook onto my belt.

We left and she set a mild pace in our walk towards the north-west of the temple, where the Tower of First Knowledge awaited us.

Instead of leading me through an indoor entrance, we went outside on the rooftop that surrounded the base of the tower.

Here were several pleasant gardens carefully maintained to perfection with flora that looked like it had come from Dantooine; green grass and blba trees with a few exotic arrangements of multihued flowers. All of this was surrounding statues and memorial stones of ancient and even more recent Jedi lost in the service of the Order. None of those who had fallen in the Clone War were yet memorialized here and it would only happen once the war was over - at least that was the current plans I had heard.

No one thought in their darkest imaginations that there wouldn’t be an Order left to even make that memorial.

Taria led me to a patch of grass in front of a meter tall block of white stone, which had five lightsaber hilts inlaid in it. She folded her legs as she sat down and patted the grass in front of her.

I mirrored her pose and sat down, even as my mind felt a dark amusement as I realized who the memorial stone was for.

The five Jedi who were credited with the final defeat of the ‘last’ Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Bane.

She gestured to the memorial, “What do you think, Ahsoka? Given the situation we found ourselves in today, should we remove this?”

“No,” I said firmly.

“Why?”

“Bane may have survived, faking his own death, but this memorial also honors the five masters who fought him, with no guarantee of success whilst the galaxy was crumbling around them. If we really want to be pedantic we can just edit the language of the memorial, emphasizing Bane’s defeat and retreat, instead of using the word ‘vanquish’.”

She nodded, her face utterly inscrutable and it figured that she, of all the Jedi masters I had met, would have a perfect Sabacc face. In the Force, she was difficult to pin down and I couldn’t be sure if I was actually reading her or she was just showing me what I wanted to see. Sure, other Council Masters could pull this off, but only with effort. In Taria’s case, it was just her natural state of being. “Or we should keep it exactly as is. That way, it teaches to all Jedi, that our vigilance must never wane against the darkness. Each Jedi who passes here will see the folly of our forebears in thinking the Sith extinct and learn the lesson that should never have been forgotten.”

“That is certainly another way to look at it,” I agreed.

Her evaluating gaze practically speared through me and I couldn’t help but feel almost naked in front of her. I had every defense of my own being raised as a fortress, which was a necessity on Coruscant, yet somehow in front of this master, it didn’t seem to matter.

The Force ballooned outward from her and washed over me, briefly infringing on my Control, before it passed beyond and surrounded both of us in a perfect sphere.

The sounds of the wind, the rustling of leaves in the garden around us abruptly stopped.

My montrals reeled briefly from the sudden change, feeling the acute absence of sound.

“What did I just do?” Taria asked expectantly.

“You’re holding a constant kinetic force around us in a sphere, preventing sound transmission in either direction.”

“Can you do this, Ahsoka?”

She dropped her sphere, returning the ambient noise abruptly.

My montrals really didn’t like that, so I quickly focused and brought up my own shielding technique around my head, specifically to counter sonic weapons. A few moments later, I pushed it outward, to envelop my whole body and further, but stopped before I could reach Taria.

I puzzled a few moments about how to keep it contiguous yet not cause any kinetic transfer to her.

I just about managed to open a gap in it briefly, pushing it outward around her further before closing it up around us.

“Good, figured you would be able to do this as a togruta,” she nodded in approval.

“Sonic weapons and explosive concussion is a concern for most species, but especially for mine.”

“Keep the technique up, if you falter for a single moment, I will stop your first lesson and we will part ways.”

I let the anxiousness and fear that threatened to crawl into my heart go, solidifying my focus “Understood, Taria.”

“You know that there are generally three broad types of Jedi recognized and trained by the Order; Guardian, Consular and Sentinel. In these times especially, the first two are prominent, while the Sentinel has seen a marked decline. That is only natural, as Sentinels by their nature focus on the community or a singular planet, using the Force minimally and in concert with mundane skills. In a galaxy at war, their approach is too focused and it honestly amazes me how the reduction in their numbers over the last two generations hasn’t been seen as a sign of things to come. You know of the Watchmen who focus on a single planet, developing and guiding its society. The Temple Guard, who protect us here on Coruscant. However, there is another branch that is not talked about or mentioned in the Archives. We work with the CFK alone and the Grandmaster - we are the Jedi Shadows.”

Keeping my reaction in line and natural in front of her perceptions, whilst keeping up a silence sphere, was easily the single most difficult feat I had ever done. It was mostly possible because I was leaning on checking probability lines as well.

“You are not entirely surprised,” she observed, narrowing her golden eyes at me.

Frak.

“Not as such. I am a student of history, the path of my heart is as an explorer. The one thing you always see in any civilization or organization, is the need for those who walk in secrecy. The guardians of the guardians, who walk in darkness to serve the light. As such, I always figured the Jedi Order is no exception, despite what the old Code said.”

Taria was silent for a very long few moments that she stretched out. “Interesting, and yes, you’re correct, Ahsoka. The history of our little secret corner of shadow dates back to the Great Hyperspace War. My predecessors were gathered by the grandmaster of that time and sent to find and destroy any artifacts or imbued constructs of the Sith Empire, which had collapsed in the war’s wake. He knew that scavengers, rich businessmen, politicians and greedy opportunists, would seek out anything related to the Sith, for display in their hoards and collections. Ignorant of the danger they posed, they’d show it off to the rich and powerful, who were swiftly corrupted and even in extreme cases possessed by Sith holocrons.

“The Jedi Shadows were commissioned and sworn to investigate and hunt down every artifact. It was only natural that we were first chosen from among the Sentinels, who knew best how to move through communities unseen. They were the most skilled at mundane investigation, since many Sith artifacts and constructs of the time were resistant or invisible to broader perception through the Force. Over time we also welcomed Consulars, especially when a construct or holocron was particularly powerful, who could do direct battle with them through the Force. As such, we began to develop techniques in the Force unique to only the Shadows, which we kept hidden from the greater Order.”

“Which is how you infiltrated my quarters and even hid yourself from every perception.”

Taria nodded, “I know you developed your own limited form of it, in mimicry of the current Sith’s ability. This goes quite far beyond that, as you felt.”

It had been quite disconcerting. Even now my mind struggled to make the association that Taria had been the one to throw knives at my back. It was also a quite obvious weapon for a Jedi Shadow to use. A lightsaber wound on someone was very distinctive, and totally contrary to a Shadow that wanted to remain undetected. A mundane throwing knife, which could be guided with TK for precise effect was a perfect choice for a stealthy weapon.

“Is that what I’m going to learn?”

Taria let her mouth give the hint of a smile, “In time, if you pass my tests. To continue, in the Post-Ruusan era the Shadows diminished over the centuries as we seemingly did our job too well. There was a time a century ago, when only a single Shadow was left in the entire Order and it’s only thanks to Master Yoda that we remain in a continuity of training and experience from the days of the Old Republic. Our role in this era has mostly been a reversion to that of a more specialized Sentinel, except our investigations are politically sensitive. We do that which cannot be linked to the Order. We also hunt any Jedi who have fallen to the Dark Side and deliver them to the Citadel for incarceration or treatment. Obviously, that’s impossible now with it firmly behind enemy lines.”

“Have you been called on to do anything for the war effort?” I asked carefully.

“Yes,” she answered with a mild smile and didn’t elaborate. “If you are to be Shadow, you must learn to guard knowledge carefully. You do not need to know what we are doing, therefore you will not. Each Shadow will rarely know what the other is doing, unless we deploy together in a group on an investigation. Only the Master of the CFK and the Grandmaster know the complete picture of our activities and how many of us there are.”

“You mean, even you don’t know-”

She raised a hand, “I will admit to knowledge of one other Shadow, because I worked with him briefly. The perception has been created, even among those in the High Council, that our numbers are very small. Whether that is true or not, is besides the point. Jedi Shadows, by our nature, mostly work alone in ideal circumstances. I can’t tell you how many of us there are, because it will be a guess. I can say your potential recruitment is the first among your generation.”

I gave her a shrewd stare, “And how would you know that?”

Her golden eyes twinkled with satisfaction, “Precisely, Ahsoka. I can’t know if any of the others have recruited a student. If I truly knew then we are doing it wrong. A Shadow walks alone in their duties and must be invisible. In that respect, you are at a marked disadvantage. You are very well known across the Republic as a war hero with more official commendations on the way. Congratulations on those, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Therefore, you have two roads to secrecy as I see it. The road of audacity and deception, show the galaxy one thing, while your true work happens in the shadow. The other road is in pure invisibility and disguise, the latter of which I know you have some ability with.” 

In my innermost self, I roared with laughter. In the former respect, I was already a Jedi Shadow a million times over. “You did your research on me.” 

“As is natural when you are asked to take on a student. Your profile makes for fascinating reading. Now,” she reached behind her back and pulled out a single throwing knife to balance on her palm in front of me. “Levitate the knife,” she demanded abruptly.

There is no thinking about it.

Levitation within a constant silencing sphere, which was itself a constant exertion of telekinesis… I didn’t let any notion of impossibility find purchase in my psyche.

A few moments later, my focus simply brought the knife into sphere technique, amending it on the fly…

The knife lifted a few centimeters in the air.

“Good, keep it there. Now, understand that Shadows are also permitted the study and use of certain select abilities that are considered part of the Dark Side. As a result, we are also under the close and direct scrutiny of the CFK or the Grandmaster. The reason for this is that to fight the enemy, we must know their potential abilities and be ready to combat them. We can’t afford to be ignorant of what the enemy is capable of.”

“But, how do you remain uncorrupted then?” I asked with genuine curiosity. I had some ideas on that front over the years, but it wasn’t something that I was eager to test.

“Firstly, you are experiencing the first method right now. Rigorous selection criteria. The only reason we are here now, is because you’ve already fought and survived a fight against a Sith. You remained in balance afterward and didn’t fall into despair. There are other reasons, but that’s not important to go through right now. Secondly, we use a technique called Poison Dose, which you’re already familiar with, if by another name. It was how you learned the Emerald Judgement - intellectually, ritually, with no emotion and under the strict supervision of your Master and others.

“The next method we use is called the Anchor. You will choose someone who you trust to always be in balance. They will be given a small kyber crystal which they will attune themselves to. Afterward, the Shadow will always wear that crystal, which will act as touchstone and real-time mirror. The moment you begin to feel anger, hatred or exhilaration from the dark side, your anchor will also feel that and can immediately pull you back into equilibrium telepathically.”

That was actually quite clever. It was a materially reinforced Force Bond that could survive the potential tempest of the dark side, which had a tendency to outright sever normal bonds.

“After every mission where we use a dark side technique extensively, we’re sent for weeks or even months of recovery into isolation and meditation on vergence worlds where life and the Force is strong. The locations of which you’ll learn eventually, should you make it that far. The final method I’ll admit to you at this stage, is known as the Shadow’s Oath, which you take at the conclusion of your training. You will only hear it then and I will not speak it now. Suffice it to say, the oath itself can act as a bulwark against the dark side.”

I tried to imagine how an oath could do that. Perhaps it is imbued into the Force within you in some way?

She pulled out another knife, “Float this one as well and begin moving them in any complex pattern you wish.” I chose an infinity symbol, orbiting the knives around each other, letting them draw it in the air with a mild speed. She eyed the floating weapons, her eyes glinting with approval. “Do you have any further questions about the Shadows, Ahsoka?”

“Not at the moment,” I declared after a moment’s thought. “Since most of them won’t be answered at my level.”

“Good that you understand that, now we’ll continue with this exercise until you can float every knife I have within the sphere of silence.”

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From that point I operated on minimal sleep and Taria would come at any time with no rhyme or reason, then lead me to a random spot in the Temple; in the middle of an empty docking bay, a randomly chosen room in the Halls of Healing, the Garden of a Thousand Fountains, between random data racks of the Archives.

There the tests would continue, refining my ability to use the Force in any way whilst keeping up a Silencing Sphere. Some were easy, others left me with awful migraines and were horrendously complex, such as trying to channel an Emerald Judgment within the Sphere.

Added to the difficulty was that our training had to remain hidden in plain sight and secret from the perception of every Jedi’s senses who might happen to be in the vicinity.

Taria was doing that with a technique that was both similar and ridiculously more advanced than my own Force Stealth, what she called Buried Presence. It was by the sixth day of training that she handed over the burden to me of keeping us hidden.

Making things even more complicated, was that I was expected to keep up with my GAR duties and present a normal status quo. No Jedi could see us training together, which was another test in itself. To everyone else, I was just on downtime after my covert mission with D-Squad. The only exception that Taria allowed was Anakin, since he would have a good idea through the padawan bond about my comings and goings, despite all the sneakiness we were doing. He had returned to the Temple on day three of training after dealing with Resolute’s logistics - the ship was getting another round of experimental system addons. Lira Blissex had practically adopted it as her practical test bed at this point.

On day seven, Anakin and I had to don our Jedi finest to attend the medal ceremony for the Cross of Glory, which Palpatine himself attached to our collars.

It was held in his office under the gaze of the entire Loyalist Committee. He looked like a proud father as he went about it, whilst he wore that damnable knowing glint in his eyes all the while.

It was only when I was back in our quarters of the Temple, that I let my feelings of disgust expand minutely out behind my multitude of masks, letting them go and returning to a state of serene equilibrium.

On day eight, Taria arrived at three in the morning, woke me up with only two hours of sleep and led me to the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

The entire temple was mostly asleep at this time, with only the primary hangar bays showing any activity, the starship mechanics working hard as always to keep the interstellar steeds of the Jedi in good repair and the kitchens beginning their prep work for breakfast.

I kept both of us under Buried Presence and Silence Sphere as we ambled through the giant indoor garden.

She led me to a small bridge that crossed a merrily trickling stream in the south-eastern portion and gestured for me to sit down right in the middle of it. The trees along the banks formed a natural barrier to being observed from afar, with only the stream allowing sightlines to our position.

“You are ready for the first phase of Qey’tek or the Heart Stopping Stillness as it’s referred to by some Shadow in the distant past,” Taria lectured, bringing her lightsaber to hand as she walked around me. “I prefer to call it the Curved Mirror. Your goal is to make yourself so transparent to the Force that you cast no shadow in it. Your self-learned technique is innovative, it works as a stealth barrier, consciously dampening the ripples you leave, but it is a dead-end and cannot bring you to the true goal. Now, we will begin - enter meditation to the point of emptiness or still water.”

That was second nature to me by this point and I managed after just a few seconds.

Taria’s lightsaber snapped on with a harsh ripple in the Force and I wasn’t surprised to feel the yellow light bathing the area. Another little fact I could sense, it was dialed down to the highest non-lethal training mode.

“Now, visualize the Force, not as a river flowing through you, but as a mirror you are standing behind. You do not stop or influence the current, you let it reflect around you.”

This took a fair bit of time, as my mind was so used to the former visualization. Breaking the mold of thinking was bloody hard and I reflexively grit my teeth to make my mind more malleable to the path.

I could feel myself slipping, stopping the useless gesture. Honestly, why would clenching my jaw help at all?

I fell into my focus and will… 

… in my inner mind the Force became an infinite curved mirror standing above the smoky black and white earth under me…

“Contract your strength in the Force inward into a tight spiral within your solar plexus,” came the next instruction.

My experience in Control and Healing, the internal application of the Force came to the fore. My mind threatened to ask ‘Why?’ but I let the thought fall away.

Time began to lose its hold, though I kept a mild sense of its passage, but I managed after just a few minutes to hold the spiral.

“Excellent, now fold your emotions along the same spiral. Your master must be unable to sense your emotions, even should he actively peer through your bond.”

My mind threatened to bubble up with the notions of how that was ‘impossible’ and surged with disbelief.

NO!

I’ve cast aside my preconceptions before! This is NO different!

The thought of difficulty assaulted me.

NO!

I reigned my mind and emotions, grimly and without pause clawing and pulling them, molding them around the spiral of the Force I had generated.

“Yes, now hold it,” Taria commanded and without warning hit her saber across my back.

The shock ran through my body even as I barely managed to keep my focus and split it into a Tutaminis, letting the energy bleed into the bridge underneath my ass.

I felt her scrutiny as she continued her slow pacing around me, spinning her blade lazily in an infinity arc around her.

The spiral and mirror was hanging on by a thread of stability.

My focus was scrambling to gather purchase, as if I was holding a slippery rope with a heavy weight on the end.

The lightsaber struck again, right on my left montral this time.

My focus shattered and I lost the spiral and mirror.

“Tsk, start again, from scratch,” she commanded with a mild serenity at odds with her actions.

I gained calm, rebuilt the mirror, twisted my internal Force into the spiral and overlaid my emotions.

The pride at having maintained the Buried Presence through all of this was discarded and banished before it could even become more than passing thought and emotion.

The lightsaber struck me on the right lekku.

My Tutaminis was thankfully equal to the task, the mirror and spiral held this time.

“I trust you realize why we are training this way, Ahsoka. As a Shadow, there can be no room for faltering or a mistake. Losing the qey’tek for even a moment, could mean failure of your mission or death. The assignments we undertake leave no room for it. As a Jedi, you’ve surely undertaken many combat roles where failure wasn’t an option, but you’ve always had the luxury of retreat in those scenarios. You’ve had the support of tens of thousands of clones, the power of a star destroyer around you, the combined fleet you were commanding. Shadows have none of that. We are alone in the dark.”

She struck me on the left knee next, the sharp pain was brief before I channeled it and the energy away.

I was so absorbed in my task that I didn’t even notice it at first.

Generally, my foresight was sometimes like a radio in the background, set at low volume, to not interfere overtly in my day to day existence too much. Within the Shroud, it was a radio with static overlaid on the broadcast, to carry the analogy further.

In that moment, the probability lines burst and shrieked open into a kaleidoscope as my sight caught wind of the upcoming event through the Shroud, roughly eighteen hours from now.

My emotions threatened to run away from me completely, they wanted to twist away into an exasperated frustration and denial.

I clawed my way back to this strange new equilibrium just barely, even as a part of my mind was dispassionately coming to the realization that in history; the actors may change, circumstances and choices differ, a thousand events spiraling outward that narrows to a singular point of change, but history also loved to rhyme.  

“What was that? Ahsoka?” Taria gazed at me with what felt like a spiritual x-ray.

“A vision of the future,” I fell to the old standby.

“You have those? Wonderful,” she said dryly. “I’ve had a grand total of two in my entire lifetime and both were utterly useless in preventing the events they depicted. Nevertheless, I don’t care if you’ve received another Chosen One Prophecy, you will remain in control.”

I nodded and reestablished myself in the Curved Mirror. 

We continued for a full two hours before Taria declared the session over.

“You were… satisfactory, Ahsoka,” she said, clipping her lightsaber back to her belt. “For the next few days I want you to spend as much time as possible practicing it. Your goal is to eventually reach a point where you can achieve the state in a moment, at any time, place or condition.”

We parted ways and I took the trip back to my quarters to mull over the full blown temporal dilemma heading my way.

The probability indicated a large explosion would occur in one of the primary hangar bays on the eastern side of the Temple complex. 

The Shroud was obscuring further exploration, but I knew the current point in time was about right for the original bomb plot that in another time and place, would’ve been hatched by a disillusioned Barriss Offee, who would try to frame another Ahsoka Tano as the guilty party.

This was clearly not Barriss, as she was far from bitter and disillusioned in this timeline and wasn’t even on Coruscant at the moment - electing to continue her medical work on RMSUs in the GAR. Last word I had on her, she was assigned to a Medstar-class frigate to work on wounded naval clones in all the void battles happening all over the galaxy’s front lines.

Yet the conditions that gave rise to that Barriss were still there.

Any other Jedi of the hundreds present in the Temple could’ve snapped and decided to take matters into their own hands to object to the war and the Order’s extensive involvement in it.

It would be one of the traditionalists perhaps, who remained in the rear echelon or…

There were just too many possibilities and I had no choice but to wait.

Then, as if the universe decided that it wanted to put something else onto my plate to worry about, my communicator chirped.

I double tapped the device on my wrist and ducked behind a giant pillar in the hall I was walking through, by sheer instinct throwing a Silencing Sphere around me.

“Yes, HK?”

“Statement: I’m in position, master.”

It didn’t take me a moment to answer, as I considered the probability lines, “You may proceed.”

“Statement: Commencing infiltration.”

I cut the link.

Now the question was, do I allow the bomb to go off. This was not a Palpatine plot as far as I was aware. The chances of that were minimal, yet I couldn’t discount it entirely. In the original timeline he had merely been opportunistic, using it to tear apart Anakin from his padawan. Yet, Palpatine here and now had every motive to want to tear me away from the Jedi Order, to disillusion me from it thoroughly. After all was said and done, after the false accusations, the show trial before the Council, then a military tribunal and even after an exoneration…

Yes, I could plot the chain of events that he would sculpt, to practically drive me right into his grasp, to then make me fall to the dark side.

The overarching issue that I didn’t dare forget, was the greater war I was fighting against Palpatine. If I fought tooth and nail to stop this bomb, liberally using my prescience, especially whilst his gaze was focused my way… I’d be winning the battle, but losing the war.

No, especially now I needed to keep his eye on me.

HK’s infiltration of Palpatine’s lair in The Works was not going to be quick, given all the precautions and security that had to be subverted.

I hated this.

Right there, behind the pillar, I found myself in a battle with my dark side, who had arisen at the worst possible moment.

Yet wasn’t that its nature?

If fear was the mindkiller, hatred was its cousin which targeted the spirit.

I rallied and denied my darkness, casting it away like the rabid dog it was.

It was only when I regained equilibrium that I saw that my imbalance was coming from my Shadow training. Obviously, molding the Force internally in such strange and new forms had led to my spirit being more malleable and vulnerable.

A little warning would’ve been nice, Taria, I grumbled to myself.

I huffed with irritation and set off, intent on finding the sweetest, tastiest breakfast I could find.

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A/N: Really Ahsoka, what did you expect would happen when you begin training as a Shadow and screwing around with the Force within you? Sunshine and roses? He he.

Hope you enjoyed the beginning of the new arc. Have a great weekend and stay awesome folks.