Several uncomfortable, hungry days later the shuttle Bounty broke hyperspace above Dantooine, much to the relief of its occupants. Ahsoka piloted it towards the surface Dawn had indicated, feeling considerably better after spending most of the trip in a healing trance. Her stomach was seriously starting to get painful, though. As to her mysterious rescuer, the Togruta wasn’t entirely sure but it did look as though the stump of her arm had gotten slightly longer between her naps. Maybe there was something to it after all.

As the tri-winged shuttle soared over majesty, sunny plains, Ahsoka kept a wary eye on the scanners. This planet was sparsely populated and had no known Imperial presence, but whatever her master had become he was not one to be underestimated. It was entirely possible that he had discovered Dawn’s friend and tracked him here, or even taken his ship directly to rendezvous after tearing the location from Spike’s mind. That sounded like something Anakin might do. Ahsoka smiled briefly as she reminisced, then grimaced as reality sank back in.

Despite her misgivings, the skies around them remained clear of everything but birds. The clouds were light, white, and fluffy, and the sun was shining peacefully overhead. Even the Force here felt tranquil and soothing, seemingly almost exempt from the darkness smothering the galaxy. It wasn’t too long before the shuttle’s scanners picked up a freighter, and Hwk-290 by the looks of it, landed amongst the grassy plains. Its engines were primed and it didn’t seem armed, but Ahsoka kept the Lambda’s forward laser cannons pointed at it anyway as she slowly circled in for landing. After what had happened last time, she didn’t feel like taking chances.

When nothing untoward happened, Ahsoka guided the shuttle down nice and easy, again keeping its nose pointed directly at the other ship. She pulled a lever and lowered the landing ramp, but didn’t deactivate the engines. Instead, she looked over at Dawn.

“Can you sense him?” Ahsoka asked. “Is your friend on board?”

“Yes,” Dawn nodded after a moment. “Just him, no one else but the droid pilot. It’s fine.”

“People can conceal their Force signature,” Ahsoka cautioned, but the other woman was already getting up.

Ahsoka sighed and powered down the engines, grabbed the saberstaff just in case, and then followed the other woman down out the cockpit and down the landing ramp. The first thing that hit her, when she finally stepped out of sterile, recycled spaceship air and into nature was how beautiful it was. The cool breeze, with the it rich, earthy smells. The warm sun overhead, the soft grasses under her still shoeless feet. The second thing that struck her was that she was hungry. Very, very, very hungry.

While under Vader’s “care”, Ahsoka had been injected with just enough liquid nutrients to keep her body’s health from deteriorating, but not enough to maintain her athletic figure. She’d lost weight, a good deal of it muscle. Add to that the days spent in a shuttle with not a scrap of food from top to bottom, and the Togruta was fairly certain that she hadn’t actually eaten anything in more than a month. The sight and smell of grasslands, reminiscent of those on her homeworld of Shili, was causing her species old hunting instincts to kick in, reminding her of just how long it had been. What she wouldn’t give for a little meat right now. At the thought of it, her stomach rumbled painfully.

Ahead of her, Dawn was racing towards… well, someone very short judging by the ripples in the grass. Ahsoka chided herself for getting distracted when the freighter’s landing ramp had come down, then jogged lightly to catch up. The not-so-human woman gave almost girlish squeal of delight a second later, half reaching down, half catching a little purple figure in her remaining arm.

“Spike!” she said, hugging him close to her chest. “I’m so glad you’re alright! I’m so sorry I left you there alone!”

“I almost thought I lost you, Twilight,” the small, chubby, purple reptile answered back. “And… what happened to your arm?? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said as she squeezed him. “The arm will come back after a while. I’m just happy to see you made it here safe and sound.”

“But how did you lose an arm?” Spike protested. “Who hurt you? Don’t you need medicine?”

“I always knew the risks, Spike,” she assured him. “It’s nothing that won’t heal, given time. You of all people know how insanely resilient… my kind’s biology is.”

“Doesn’t it hurt you?” Ahsoka could hear the concern writ large in his voice, see it in his eyes. “That’s a really serious injury. Shouldn’t you have gone to a doctor or something before you came here?”

“Don’t be silly, I couldn’t take chances that you might get hurt.”

“Me?! What about you? I didn’t even do anything but sit in the ship and wait for you.”

“But the Empire could have traced the ship to me, I had to make sure you were alright before anything else. You mean the world to me."

Ahsoka didn’t catch her reply. The passive echolocation of the long montrals atop her head alerted her to the movement of something small behind her, at the same time as her stomach gave another rumbling cry. It was obvious this fellow wasn’t a threat, so where was the harm? She stretched out her mind, calling on her species natural affinity for the living Force, and felt the presence of a tiny heartbeat not far away.

Ahsoka whirled around snatched up the little rodent in one swift movement. In a flash she buried her sharp canines in its neck, killing the creature almost instantly. Warm blood, tasting faintly of iron, trickled down her throat like manna from heaven. As she squatted there, hunched over her prey, the Togruta concluded that nothing had ever tasted better in her life.

“-and this is a new friend,” she vaguely heard Dawn – or was it Twilight? – saying. “She’s the one Vader had caught, and she saved my life on board his ship. Spike, I’d like you to meet Ahsoka…”

Hearing her name, the ex-Jedi looked up at the pair of them, still hunched over in the grass, dressed only in worn medical wrappings, mouth full of wild rodent, blood trickling down her orange chin.

“…Tano?”

The two were staring.

“What?” she mumbled.

Thunder crashed and lightning flashed on the graveyard moon of Kohlma. A torrential downpour swept over the lands, through the valleys, and over the mountains. It pounded on the roofs of the commandeered citadel’s many buildings and towers, sounding for all the world like the crack of gunfire. Inside the dark structure voices whispered from blackened corners and just beyond eyesight, the echoes of victims and villains alike now joined as one. They spoke a hundred languages, some long extinct, revealing a message only the insane would truly understand.

Luna ignored all of it, immersed deep in mediation before a glowing blue window. Once, the leader of the cult that had dwelt here had ordered the deaths of her enemies from this exact spot, and the dark side was particularly potent. Stretching out into its currents with her mind, the princess beheld a bewildering variety of potential futures twisting in every direction out into infinity. The sheer number of possibilities for even a lowly soul was enough to occupy one’s attention for a human lifetime, if not more. But she wasn’t here simply to observe.

Calling on her pent-up bitterness, frustration, anger, and hatred, the alicorn exerted her will. There were countless possibilities here, but only one reality, and she was determined that it would be the one she chose. Through the dark side it was possible not just to see the future to actively mold it, to force destiny down a desired path rather than blindly acquiescing to it. It might take years, decades, or even centuries for the full effects to be felt, but an immortal has patience like no other. She wanted fate to bring her to the delicious future that she had seen, and she was determined to make it whether it liked it or not.

But whatever progress she might have made that day, the alicorn never found out. The echoing sound of mechanical feet tramping along the stone floor broke her concentration, yanking her from the immaterial realm of possibility to cold hard reality. She opened her eyes to find EV-T3R walking towards her, mechanical mind entirely immune and oblivious to the lingering Force energies.

“What do you want?” she said, irritably. “I am occupied.”

“Pardon the interruption, mistress,” said the droid. “But Lord Vader has sent a message. He says that he would have words with you.”

Author's Notes:

Thus ends Act IV of Empire and Rebellion.