As he strode purposefully down the hallway, Darth Vader felt no sense of urgency. The idea that either Ahsoka or this strange girl could evade his senses onboard his own ship was ridiculous. The idea that either of them might pose a threat might have been laughable, if he had ever laughed. There was no escape for either of them, nowhere to run, no place he could not sense their presence.
Vader turned the corner where they had bolted. They were already out of mundane sight, but no matter. He knew right where they were. He might have called on the dark side to bolster his cybernetic legs, to temporarily overcome the bulky suit and catch up with them immediately, but why would he? He knew this ship inside and out.
Moreover, Ahsoka’s persistent willfulness in the face of torture was becoming an irritant. Allowing her to run herself ragged trying hopelessly to escape, only to see with her own eyes that there was no way, might well be just the solution. Creeping despair could often do what pain alone failed to accomplish. It might be better to wait to catch up until she had exhausted herself and the futility of her hope had been made plain. Then kill her would-be rescuer in front of her – after tearing what he wished to know from that girl’s mind, of course.
Still, just because Vader felt entirely in control did not mean he was foolish enough to take unnecessary chances. The Sith Lord reached calmly for his commlink as he walked.
“Captain Orion,” he demanded.
“Yes, Lord Vader?” the man’s voice replied a moment later. “Shall we dispatch Stormtroopers to your location now?”
“No.” The man had far too little faith in the power of the Force. “I want you to move the 501st to secure all docking bays and escape pods without delay. No ship is to enter or leave, no escape pod is to be jettisoned until I give word. All docking bay doors are to be sealed. Open fire on any ship or pod attempting to leave the Devastator. Use ion cannons and tractor beams only. Am I understood?”
“Yes, my lord,” Orion said hastily.
“Inform all troopers to set their weapons for stun. A Togruta female and human woman in an Imperial uniform missing her left arm are loose in the ship. I want them alive.”
“It will be done,” the officer promised.
“I leave you to it. Do not fail me.”
Ahsoka and her one-armed rescuer ran through the bowels of the Star Destroyer like they never had before. They darted down strangely empty halls and corridors, ducked through meeting rooms, and wove through cargo holds. All the while the Togruta could keenly sense the presence of her master’s killer through the Force, never in sight but never far away. He was making no effort to hide himself, nor did he seem to be trying to catch up. He was just… there, relentless and implacable.
As she ran and the Force flowed freely through her for the first time in weeks, Ahsoka found herself feeling much better far more quickly than she’d expected. Vader droids had put her through weeks of unceasing pain, given her the barest minimum of rest and nutrition – but they’d also sutured up the tissue where she’d be stabbed through the gut. They hadn’t done any permanent damage, and with the pain finally receding she could focus again.
The same couldn’t be said for her companion. The woman was taking it remarkably well all things considered, but a dismembered limb is a dismembered limb however resilient you are. She was clutching the charred stump of her arm with her hand, holding it close to her chest. Her awareness seemed only half there at best. Once she even stumbled and fell, unable to catch herself with only one arm. The stub of her left arm hit the ground under her body. Immediately her eyes and scrunched up, pain radiating from her.
Ahsoka quickly turned around, rushing to the other woman’s side. She knelt, worked her arm under her right shoulder, and tugged. They rose together unsteadily, the other woman’s legs trembling and the Togruta bearing most of her weight. They set off again at a reduced pace, Ahsoka at some points virtually carrying the other woman.
“Urgh…” the human said through clenched teeth. “Sorry.”
Ahsoka looked at her as though she were insane.
“Don’t be. You got me out of the cell, and anywhere’s better than there. If anything, I’m sorry,” Ahsoka panted a little. “You got your arm cut off trying to defend me. You could easily have run off and left me to Vader. You didn’t, and for a complete stranger!”
“It may not be for… nrgh… anything,” she groaned. “He’s close. I can feel it.”
“He’s been close… the whole time,” she took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’s trying… to catch up.”
“Just to keep us moving.”
“Right,” Ahsoka nodded. “I’ve noticed… I haven’t sensed much life where we’ve been. There are tens of thousands of people… on board a Star Destroyer.”
“The… docking bays,” the other woman managed.
“That’s why he isn’t trying to catch up. He knows… there’s nowhere to go.”
“We can… fight?”
Ahsoka looked at her. There was a small possibility that she could fight her way through the doubtlessly enhanced security, hijack a ship, and blast off before Vader could catch up, even accounting for the unfamiliar saberstaff she held. But to do that while protecting this woman? All but impossible. And abandoning her was simply out of the question, this woman had risked life and limb to save someone she didn’t even know.
“No…” Ahsoka breathed. “We’d never make it… to ship. It’d be right back to cell… and I won’t let that happen. Ever. We ought to… go for the reactor.”
“What?”
“If they’re trying to keep us corralled in the ship… they may have left it undermanned. We could overload it, bring the ship and the monster down with us.”
“Are you… urk… insane? We have to out of… here!” the other woman was still clutching her stump arm tightly, eyes scrunched tightly.
“We won’t make it through bay security,” Ahsoka shook her head. “Not with you injured and Vader on our tails. If he catches us, there’s no way we can beat him right now. I’ll go back to that cell and…” she shuddered at the thought. “I won’t let it happen. I’ll die first.”
“Can still… get away…” she managed, grinding her teeth.
“How, you have a plan b?”
“Sort of…” Ahsoka sensed conflict in her mind. “I really didn’t want to…”
“It’s that or we both die,” Ahsoka tightened her grip on the saber. “I won’t let myself be taken alive. Not again.”
There was a brief pause as both women more staggered than ran down one of the Star Destroyer’s countless hallways. Ahsoka half thought she could hear Darth Vader’s mechanical breathing in the quiet, but the more rational bits of her dismissed that as simple imagination. After a little bit, she spoke again.
“Alright… get near… the hull,” she managed. “Close as we can… to the exterior.”
“The hull?” Ahsoka might have laughed in a less serious moment. “You want us to cut our way out? I can’t breathe in space. Or fly through it. Can you?”
“Just… trust me,” the other woman answered.
Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, her instincts still telling her to go for the ship’s main reactor. If she could destroy that she and the other woman would certainly die, but the ship would go down, likely taking Vader with it. He’d killed her master, tried to torture her into becoming a monster like him, and then maimed this poor woman who’d tried to help. If she had had any doubts Anakin Skywalker was dead, he had put them to rest. That monster had to die for the good of the galaxy, and to avenge the Anakin she’d known.
But… this woman had risked everything to help her, a total stranger. Her own life was a price Ahsoka was willing to pay to end Vader, but hers? Could she in good conscience drag a stranger into martyrdom if there was even a chance of saving her life? By all rights the answer should be yes, the human was clearly delirious from pain. How would going near the hull help them? Still…
Ahsoka sighed wearily, some habits too ingrained to ignore.
With the Togruta guiding and bearing most of the weight for the pair, they turned aside at the next corridor. They continued to run and limp along as best they could, the loomed dark presence never far behind. Each new turn took them closer to the ship’s armored hull and away from its deeply-buried reactor core, each step away increasing the conflict in Ahsoka’s mind. This was insane! They were going to pin themselves in if they weren’t careful! She could sense the presence of more life as they drew close to the exterior, doubtless Imperials manning and guarding the warship’s many weapons emplacements.
“Stretch out… your mind,” the woman said as they rounded one corner, now all but next to the outer hull. “Can you feel anyone… in space… any minds?”
Crazy as it seemed, Ahsoka did as her companion asked. Beyond the massive ship’s superstructure she could sense a number of dim minds, mostly moving swiftly. Fighter pilots on patrol, most likely. A few were close, some further away. Other minds seemed to be holding position relative to the Star Destroyer – shuttles or freighters of some sort, she guessed. But how did that help them?
“I sense…” the woman winced again. “Two minds… not far from the ship… not moving…”
“Probably a supply ship of some kind, cut off when Vader locked this place down,” Ahsoka agreed, her keen hearing already picking up the sounds of heavy boots drawing closer, while they were barely moving at all. “What does that charge? We can’t fly through space towards it.”
“Just trust me… and don’t resist…” Ahsoka could feel the other woman gathering the Force around her. “Only one shot at this…”
“Don’t resist what?” The Force was doing strange things, flowing in patterns she’d never seen before. “What are you doing?”
“This,” she said quietly.
It was like nothing Ahsoka had ever experienced. One moment she was standing in the middle of a Star Destroyer’s corridor, completely supporting her very strange rescuer with one shoulder. The next there was a surge of Force energy, coinciding with a flash of purple. The Togruta blinked, and found herself standing in what looked to be some kind of dark cargo hold. The other woman groaned, slumping off Ahsoka’s shoulder to hit the deck with a dull thud.
Ahsoka reeled back, brain scrambling to process what had just apparently happened. She only got a few seconds before a door to her side opened, revealing a lighted cockpit and a man in an Imperial uniform standing in it. He saw her, yelped, and went for the blaster at his hip. Well-practiced martial drills sprang immediately to mind.
Ahsoka threw herself at the man, one azure blade of her rescuer’s saberstaff flaring into life. Before the Imperial’s blaster was halfway out of its holster she ran him through with it, then kicked his corpse off the lightsaber a moment later. Behind him, the other pilot screamed, jumping from her chair with her empty hands thrust before her.
“No! Please don’t-”
The Togruta ended her sentence with a slash across the heart.
Even while the woman’s carcass was still smoking, Ahsoka was looking around. This cockpit was almost identical to those of several classes of shuttle she’d had the occasion to fly during the Clone Wars – she knew roughly what everything was. More importantly, she knew she had a few minutes at best before Vader realized something of what had happened, if that. Stepping right over the crew’s bodies, she sat down in the pilot’s chair and began firing up the engines.
“Shuttle Bounty, you are not authorized to move from your current position,” came a voice over the shuttle’s comm. “Lord Vader has ordered all ships to hold course until the lockdown is complete.”
By way of answer, Ahsoka jerked the ship’s throttle hard, taking the Lambda-class bird into a sudden and jerky dive past the Star Destroyer’s superstructure. She angled the ship along its underside and past the rear engines, moving rapidly out of the arc of its tractor beams. As a pair of TIE fighters moved to an intercept course, she squeezed down on a trigger. The shuttle’s forward laser cannons opened up, blowing one fighter out of the sky. The other one angled sharply away, but the Togruta didn’t let up until it and its pilot were a burning ball of plasma in the cold void. Very cathartic.
The Devastator opened fire, white ion bolts filling the space around the hijacked shuttle. But its weapons were primarily designed to combat capital ships, and were mostly forward-facing to begin with. The great behemoth was beginning to turn, but Ahsoka could already tell it would be too slow. The TIE fighters swarming like hornets from their nest might have been another matter, but they seemed reluctant to fire. Instead, they were soaring out and ahead of the slower shuttlecraft, then pulling elaborate maneuvers directly in her path.
It just a moment for Ahsoka to put it together. The Star Destroyer was using weapons meant to disable rather than kill, but the fighters weren’t equipped with anything beyond their laser cannons. The Empire’s cheapskate ways robbed them of tactical versatility. They more afraid of what Vader would do to them if they violated orders than being blasted out of the sky!
Taking a gamble, Ahoska transferred all power from forward shields to rear and pushed the throttle to maximum. A lucky ion shot from the Star Destroyer crackled against the shield, but it held for the moment. She squeezed down on the trigger with both hands, and a steady stream of laser fire erupted from the shuttle’s cannons. TIE fighters, trying desperately to corral her rather than attack, were shot out of the sky one after the other in a series of very satisfying explosions.
“Spike…” she vaguely heard the other woman moan, presumably into some commlink. “Get out of here… meet me back… where we came from… understand?”
There was a reply of some sort, but Ahsoka didn’t hear it. The shuttle rocked as one fighter, apparently having decided potential death later was better than sure death now, broke pattern and opened fire. Green lasers clipped the shuttle’s topmost wing, blasting chunks of armor from its right side. The Force guiding her actions, she jerked the shuttle hard left, just in time to avoid another ion shot from the Devastator. The white bolt hit her shieldless antagonist instead, more than enough to instantly overload every system on the fragile craft. Ahsoka blasted the helpless pilot out of the sky just the same.
The sensors on the dashboard lit up as the navicomputer signaled its readiness. She pulled the shuttle directly away from the planet as fast as it could manage. Behind her, the Devastator had finally managed to come about, unleashing an all-out broadside with its ion cannons. Sensors indicated that it was finally launching more TIEs, more than two dozen soaring from its many hangers. She had no doubt Vader himself was among them. But it was already too late.
Finally, the shuttle passed beyond Shyish’s gravity well, and with that beyond the monster’s reach. Ahsoka grabbed a lever and pulled, and space around her turned blue as the shuttle shot into hyperspace.