Even after seeing her again for the third time this week, Ahsoka couldn't make up her mind and decide what she thought of Lady Noronessa Taevarion.

The younger woman was quick-witted and to the point, qualities Ahsoka had learned to respect in people like Anakin. But Noronessa didn't have any natural charisma to soften a blunt delivery, like Anakin had – or if she did, she never used it. Noronessa genuinely relished in catching those around her off-guard.

But on the other hand, it was much easier to slip away after a speech when Noronessa and Lux were bandying words, Noronessa pressing her advantage and Lux backtracking to circumvent a blow to his pride or inquest into his private life.

As uncomfortable as it made Lux to go against Noronessa, contests of wit were his area of expertise. He didn't need Ahsoka to protect him from an off-putting noblewoman, even if leaving him to it felt like feeding him to the wolves. Besides, there were other people here who needed her help more than Lux did.

Suddenly mindful of how much time she was losing by letting her thoughts wander, Ahsoka glanced from the pile of crates containing rations and medicine to the manifest on a nearby datapad. She'd filched it from a deck officer upon infiltrating the back storage lot of this small Imperial supply depot, but if the man was even moderately competent, he was sure to come looking for it soon.

She had to switch these crates with empties bound for the local reclamation center before that happened; she'd already told the locals to expect them.

She heard voices, but the Force's warning that enemies were attached to them came a few heartbeats too late. The back door of the squat building slid open, and the deck officer walked outside with three storm troopers. At least her shawl was still up; they'd see nothing but the vague outline of her montrals and a flash of orange skin between the tops of her boots and the bottom of her knee-length tunic.

The man gawped when he spotted Ahsoka – an understandable reaction, considering the electric fence encircling the lot on three sides and two-story wall of the depot on the other. She gave him a halfhearted wave.

"How did you get in here?" he spluttered.

Discretely Ahsoka set the datapad down behind her. "Would you believe me if I said I'd gotten lost?"

"What? No, I–" The man tugged his little grey cap – one that was chillingly reminiscent of Republic military uniforms, she noticed – lower over his forehead and straightened his uniform, trying to reclaim his dignity. "Troopers, I want her ID'ed immediately. If she resists, arrest her for trespassing on private property!"

Ahsoka summoned the Force on reflex as the four troopers approached. "You don't need to..." She trailed off, scowling at herself for the unnecessary risk. "Kriff this," she said, then turned tail and ran.

The trio scrambled after her, but they weren't fast enough to intercept her before she reached the building behind the deck officer. Thankfully, the brick was cracked with age and repeated storms, and Ahsoka had a myriad of handholds to choose from. She didn't even need to use the Force to climb high enough to clear the fence – though she did use it to soften her landing on the other side.

The troopers and deck officer yelled conflicting instructions to each other as they charged back into the building. The supply depot was on the very outskirts of town, and Ahsoka had at most a minute to get to better cover before they reemerged to pursue her.

She didn't need that much. Togruta were built for running.

Ahsoka reached the first buildings in record time, weaving through alleyways and quiet side streets in no real pattern. She needed only reach into the Force for highest concentration of life forces to find her way back to the town square where Lux was addressing the town's inhabitants.

She picked up the pace, focused on putting as much distance between her and the supply depot for now. If luck favored her, she could get back there in time to avoid disappointing the hopeful townspeople.

The Force thrummed urgently as she rounded a corner. She skidded to a halt just in time to avoid crashing into a patrol – but not in time to avoid being seen in the first place. Surprised by her sudden arrival, the storm troopers shifted into a defensive formation with their blasters raised.

"Hi, fellas," she said, scraping together a wary grin.

The squad leader's comm flickered to life, and a tiny hologram of Ahsoka in retreat – blessedly, with her scarf in place – appeared over the reader with orders to stun her on sight. He motioned to his troops, and snapped the safety off his blaster.

Ahsoka's grin slipped down into a grimace, and she backed down the street she'd just come from. She broke into a run when they gave chase.

The Force whispered to her, urging her around a corner to a gap between two buildings. She vaulted over a dumpster, breathing hard, and found herself in a narrow, dusty alley – hardly more than a walkway – made by the backs of two rows of houses.

She took a second to take stock of her surroundings. The alley spanned the length of the block. With all the houses' occupants still off listening to Lux's speech and no one else there to see her, it would make a decent shortcut to get a bit more distance between her and her pursuers.

She started running again, only to nearly bowl over a man leaving the ground floor of one of the houses. Reacting on instinct, she threw her body to the side, landing in a crouch with one hand out to slow her to a stop. The gravel bit roughly into her palm, and she winced, wishing for her old reinforced leather gauntlets.

The man turned to her, and she swore under her breath. It was the same man who'd interrupted her in the warehouse a few days before.

He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated, cocking his head to one side. He shut it when the shouts of the storm troopers reached him. Eyes wide, he shrank back to the side of the house, the pale yellow and beige of his jacket and pants blending into the cream-colored duracrete wall.

It took her a second to realize he was holding a hand out to her. "I saw you at the medcenter. Hide here until they leave."

The storm troopers were close enough now for Ahsoka to hear the clinking of their armor between their footfalls. It surprised her how readily she trusted the man, but she only hesitated a moment before following him inside.

He palmed the keypad to close the door and entered a code to lock it behind them, then went over to another panel to kill the lights in the room. For a few terse seconds, they stood in silence, all their attention focused on a small, gritty window set into the top of the door.

His sigh of relief echoed Ahsoka's own when the troopers ran past without stopping – but hers bled into a hiss when he turned the lights on again. She pulled her shawl up tighter around her face on reflex even though it was pointless; he'd seen her face, and he remembered her. The mind trick she'd tried at the makeshift medcenter must not have worked on him.

Time to make a graceful exit, and make sure she never saw him again. "Thank you for your help," she murmured, "but I must be going now."

"Please, wait," the man said, reaching for her shoulder. When she recoiled, he tucked his arm behind his back, chastened, but his gaze was unrelenting. "Hear me out, Lady Kindness. I didn't think I'd have another chance to see you."

"As long as I stay, I'm endangering you. I'm–"

The Force exploded from quiet stillness into a supernova of light and color. Ahsoka stumbled back, expecting from the sheer strength of it to find two dozen Elites just in the next room, before a bracing sense of rightness struck her.

This was no Elite cobbled together from the midichlorians of different Jedi. It was the real thing – pure and unaltered. Tears in her eyes, Ahsoka turned to face the source: a young Human woman, her hair tucked back into an odd, angular covering, with a fussing child in her arms.

The infant was perhaps a year old, with hair the same color as Ahsoka's rescuer and eyes as wide and blue as the sky. The second it spotted her, it went still in the woman's arms, and gave Ahsoka a big, gap-toothed smile.

"Ephraim?" The woman nodded to Ahsoka. "Who's this?"

"Mira, this is the one I told you about – the one who was at the medcenter a few days ago. She healed your grandmother!"

Mira's presence in the Force – it had some of the same brightness as the baby, but not as much – spiked sharply with emotion, though no sign of it came to her face save her widened eyes. "Ephraim," she said sharply, "take Ezra before I drop him."

Ephraim nodded and hurried over, scooping Ezra out of Mira's arms. Once he had an arm free, he put a grounding hand on her shoulder.

"Lady Kindness... you wouldn't know me, but–" She snorted, awe giving way to derision in a heartbeat. "Well, of course you wouldn't know me; I wasn't there. I'm Miradan Bridger. Friends call me Mira. That's my husband Ephraim, whom I assume had about as much social grace as usual and forgot to introduce himself."

She gave a fond shake of her head, and Ephraim smiled warmly at her.

"We owe you an enormous debt," Mira continued, looking back at Ahsoka again. "My father commed us a month ago – we live on Lothal – to tell us his mother, my grandmother, was very sick. No one knew what was wrong, but her situation was so dire we all thought she wasn't long in this galaxy."

Ahsoka nodded politely, linking her fingers together behind her back to keep from fidgeting. Mira's story was touching, but she really had to be going. Every minute she stayed upped the risk of capture – both for herself and these people.

"We had a little money saved up for a vacation, so we came to stay with him and make her passing a little more comfortable. Not that there was much we could do beyond get her one of the nicer beds in the warehouse." Mira shook her head. "I'd only been gone a few years, but I forgot how obscene the shortages can be out here."

Ahsoka studied the room around her while she waited for a clean break in the conversation. It wasn't the tidiest, which made sense if there was a young child living there, but it was homey and lived-in. Spare parts and tools were strewn across most of the flat surfaces elevated enough to keep them out of a baby's reach.

"Ephraim went to visit her a few days ago. News travels fast in the outer villages, and when he spotted you, he knew what had happened. I honestly thought my grandmother wouldn't live another week, but she recovered the next day."

"Coincidence," Ahsoka stammered.

Ephraim shook his head. "No. Twenty other people in the same part of the building recovered the next day, too."

"We know you were the one who did it, Lady Kindness," Mira said, her eyes shining. "We don't have much, but if there's some way to repay you, please, let us. You saved my grandmother's life."

Ahsoka shook her head. "I couldn't–"

"You're the fulcrum upon which many things could rest, with all the hope you've brought to people here on Onderon," Ephraim broke in.

"Poetic, but a pointless frivolity." Ahsoka crossed her arms and kept her gaze planted firmly in the gap between the couple's shoulders, trying not to look as overwhelmed as she felt. "I'm just one person. You've already repaid me by letting me hide with you this long. Besides, I–"

Her eyes fell on a boxy device hunkering in the shadows beneath a table – something she'd missed on her first pass – and Ahsoka gasped audibly. She rushed past them and crouched beside the table, mindless of her rudeness.

She'd found one. In a flash she understood why she'd had so many warnings today that were too late to be useful, and why she hadn't felt Ezra Bridger's blinding presence until she'd been about to leave. The Force had been leading her to what she'd been searching for: a Republic military transmitter.

A transmitter that could receive and broadcast EF-4, the Rebellion network.

"Where did you get this?" Ahsoka whispered, touching the top of the machine reverently. Her fingertips didn't pick up a single speck of dust.

"Oh, that? That's one of my projects," Mira said, walking over to join her.

Ahsoka wasn't able to keep the incredulity out of her voice. "Obsolete, highly illegal tech is one of your projects? Present tense?"

Mira laughed. "Yes, present tense. I'm a mechanic who moonlights as a slicer. So many people have told me it's good to have a hobby that's outside of your line of work, but I've always been enchanted by old tech. I collect antiques and make them functional again for fun, when I'm not busy with the baby."

"Where did you find it? Are there more like it?"

"I bought it a few months before the war ended off scavengers who beat the Republic salvage teams to a debris field near Ord Mantell. This transmitter was in the wreckage of a Venator-class cruiser, or so they told me."

All is as the Force wills it, Ahsoka thought, dumbfounded. It was only when Mira and Ephraim looked sharply at her that she realized she'd spoken it aloud, too.

"I'm... in need of a Republic military transmitter," she said, hoping to switch the topic before they asked after her identity. Belief in the Force had never been a widespread faith when every habitable star system already had dozens of local religions to compete. If she didn't put it out of their minds now, the first thing the Bridgers did with this information would be to associate her to the Jedi Order.

"Take this one, then, with our gratitude," Ephraim said brightly. Mira nodded in agreement.

Elation dribbled off Ahsoka like wet paint in a rainstorm. The thing was a beast of a transmitter, built to handle heavy comm traffic in tandem with several other units on the bridge of a cruiser. Its range and storage would be impressive, as well as the host of frequencies a user could tune it to. But while it device was small enough to carry in both arms, there was no way she could hide it on her person – and nowhere she could leave it for the time being she'd be likely to return to.

Ahsoka sighed. For all its good intentions, the Force definitely wasn't sentient. It felt like a cruel joke to be so close to getting back in touch with the Rebellion, only to run into the most mundane roadblock imaginable – but perhaps she should have expected that. The galaxy hadn't been kind to her in the last year, and she had no reason to believe it would start again now.

"Thank you for your generosity, but my living situation is not secure," Ahsoka said, treading around the truth as delicately as she could. "It's too big. I wouldn't be able to keep it hidden."

Mira grinned. "Not a problem. Come with me."

Ahsoka frowned, but allowed the Human woman to lead her deeper into the house. Ephraim followed for a time, then diverted to a modest living room and sat down on the couch. The last thing Ahsoka saw was the tender care with which he set Ezra on the cushion beside him before she and Mira found themselves in a cramped, messy bedroom.

"Forgive the mess," Mira said, shoving a crate aside. "My father moved to a smaller house after my mother passed, and the only way he could accommodate Ephraim and me was by putting a cot in his storage room."

Ahsoka nodded, and felt her shawl slip down a little. She forced herself to tighten it even if it was more of a formality than anything else. It gave her some comfort, and while her failed mind trick and praise of the Force probably left her background as a Jedi beyond any doubt, she had to keep up the habit.

Mira began checking the crates, mumbling to herself thoughtfully as she went. Some of them had labels, but the others she somehow knew the contents of intuitively; the one she finally stopped on didn't have any defining characteristics Ahsoka could see.

"Here," she said, rifling through it for a few seconds before passing Ahsoka a handheld transmitter – this one also of Republic make. "Will this do? It's an older model, and its range isn't the best, but if you patch it into one of the communications towers on-planet, you shouldn't have any problems."

Ahsoka hid a doubtful grimace behind a look of polite intrigue. "I thought long-range transmissions were being... taxed."

"Charmingly put, considering how karking high the prices are," Mira said with an ungraceful snort. "But that won't be a problem. I jury-rigged it to bypass the lockdown paywall on a dare."

Ahsoka gaped. It sounded unbelievable, but the way Mira's confidence bled into the Force was hard to deny. Either she'd tested this and determined it was sound, or she had a lot of faith in her abilities as a slicer.

"You can never underestimate my wife," Ephraim called from the next room. "You'll only be proven wrong!"

"This is an extraordinary risk you're taking," Ahsoka said finally. "The Empire would crack down on your family, too, if they caught you. You wouldn't bear the punishment alone."

"Lady Kindness, I get the impression you're very capable, and that you've seen a lot. But slicing and tech is what I know best. We don't think too highly of the Empire, Ephraim and I. If I can take a jab at them by doing this, I will."

Ahsoka nearly laughed at the resolute look in Mira's eye. She couldn't help but recall when, a few short weeks ago, she'd told Lux she would help the Jedi if ever she got a chance to do more than mourn Barriss. Perhaps this was how Lux had felt, listening to her speak: taken aback by Mira's bravery, but even more impressed by her drive to carry on.

"I can respect that," Ahsoka said finally. She beamed when another idea occurred to her. Maybe she didn't have to try to cover too much ground if others picked up the slack. "Is there a way to replicate what you did on this transmitter?"

"Now that I've done it once, I can do it again. It's only a matter of doctoring some control modules in the devices themselves. If the code is written properly, the device sends a signal to the nearest communications tower, telling it the fee to transmit the associated message has already been paid."

"Spread this knowledge to the people, and you could help thousands," Ahsoka whispered fiercely, taking Mira's hand. "The cities and the outer villages stand apart because of physical distance. Nothing else. People are suffering there, too, and if they know they're not alone, that others on the planet are going through the same thing, they might band together and do something about it."

It was a long moment before the other woman spoke. "Lady Kindness, you almost sound like a revolutionary."

"If trying to unite people with others like them – and with friends and family that are out of reach – is a revolutionary concept, there's something wrong with the times we're living in. Isn't there?"

Mira nodded, as though Ahsoka had passed some kind of test, and led her back to where Ephraim sat entertaining little Ezra. Again Ezra went still, looking at Ahsoka with delight, and Ephraim followed his gaze.

"Is there anything else we can give you, Lady Kindness?" he asked. Ahsoka barely heard him, caught up in the baby's eyes and his beautiful, bright presence in the Force. "We don't have much money left, but–"

"No, thank you. This is more than enough." Ahsoka flashed Mira a smile, which the other woman returned. Then Ahsoka's gaze drifted back to Ezra, and memories of little brown-robed corpses on Felucia assailed her.

Her smile faded instantly. The child was in so much danger, and his parents didn't even know it. She had to warn them, for all their sakes.

"Ephraim, your son..."

Ephraim furrowed his brow. "What about him?"

"I'm something of an amateur at it, but I still healed twenty people yesterday with a touch. Ezra could have the same power I did when he's a bit older, and more," she said. "I hope I don't have to stress that such things are dangerous, nowadays."

Mira went over to Ephraim and put a hand on his shoulder. Husband and wife shared a look, and though Ahsoka didn't want to pry, she got the impression Ezra's gifts had already begun to manifest themselves.

"Now that my grandmother is well, I think we'll be going back to Lothal as soon as they open up the spaceports again," Mira said at length. "There's barely any Imperial presence there, so he should be as safe as can be."

Ahsoka would've preferred to get the family to the Rebellion and the quiet Jedi sanctuaries that were hopefully undiscovered, but Ezra's family had lives, and people who needed them; this was the next best thing. "Good," she said, feeling a slight tension in her shoulders ease.

"Give me back the transmitter for a minute?"

Ahsoka frowned, but passed it to her. Mira booted it up and entered a few commands on the keypad. Then, she turned it off and handed it back.

"What did you do?" Ahsoka asked, turning it over in her hands.

"I put my private comm code in the list of contacts, in case you ever have questions about how to bypass the paywall." Ephraim gave Mira a long look, and she added, "And... in case we have questions about Ezra."

There was another obligation in her words, another promise Ahsoka would have to keep. Somehow, though, this one didn't weigh quite as heavily on her as the others. This was an equivalent exchange where both she and the Bridgers would profit – as well as countless strangers, once Mira spread the word about her way around the paywall. And she had faith Mira would uphold her end of the bargain.

"Thank you," Ahsoka said, and she meant it. She nodded her chin at the larger transmitter. "Hide that, and any other Republic contraband you have. Once the Imps realize they've lost me, they might double back and start searching houses."

The pair nodded. With a last fond smile at Ezra, Ahsoka breezed past them and left the house. She kept her senses on as high an alert as she dared to – it was a miracle the Elites hadn't caught her three days ago, with her clumsy lapse out of the healing trance – and before long, she found a quiet alcove that suited her needs.

She tucked herself into the lengthening shadows and keyed in the long password that would tune the transmitter to EF-4. Blessedly, the sequence still worked. But when the transmitter asked her to input a recipient, she hesitated.

There were so many people she could contact, so many old allies she'd been dying to hear from. But these were difficult times, and not many of them knew her well enough to believe Ahsoka was who she said she was, and ask questions later.

Barriss and Padmé were dead, Anakin was missing in action, and Ahsoka had no way to be sure if Obi-Wan and Cody had even made it back to the Rebellion alive after being stranded so long in Wild Space. That left only one real option – someone who, in her and Anakin's absence, was certain to have climbed the ranks high enough to pass a message along to the right people.

Quickly she entered recipient's personal comm code – one of the few she still knew by heart – and activated the audio recorder. Then, in a whisper, she said, "This is Loth-cat calling Old Dog. Soaring Bird isn't with me. I'll wait for your reply for the next four rotations between..." She trailed off to do the math. "Between 1400 and 1700 hours Standard. Stick to audio only for greater range. Loth-cat out."

She ended the message and stashed the transmitter in the waistband of her skirt. Summoning the Force, she leapt atop the nearest building and crouched low. Once satisfied the roofs were high and flat enough onlookers wouldn't see her from street level, she took off running back toward the supply depot.

The sun was nearly set over Onderon, but a new one was rising in Ahsoka's heart. Being so close to the finish line made her giddy, made her mind leap ahead of her and wonder if Rebel Command could help her find Anakin, and if there was a way Lux could fit into all this – but she still had a job to do. She could dream once the townspeople had their supplies.

Though Ahsoka has had a few near misses lately, they paid off in ways she never would have foreseen. Having met some new allies and regained the ability to safely contact some old ones, Ahsoka may soon have greater outreach than she dared dream possible – but the more her power grows, the more eyes it will draw. How close is Vader to finding her? How close is Lux to learning the truth about her? What other hidden players are waiting in the wings, ready to close in? Only time will tell...

Hello everyone!

I'm quite proud of this one, and I hope you enjoyed the cameo! In several fics (most of them unpublished) I've toyed around with the idea that one or both of Ezra's parents were from Onderon – and here that finally came to fruition. The old woman Ahsoka healed of a cough and fever last chapter was Ezra's maternal great-grandmother!

I will say in advance that the Bridgers won't play a huge role in this story, but they do make some important contributions. Since the Separatists won the war, my imagination of the SOTE universe has a lot more Separatist influences tech-wise, which makes it a different situation than canon. Regardless of that, since in SWR the Bridgers were able to get away with hacking Imperial broadcasts for their transmissions for awhile before they got caught, it's always been my headcanon that one or both of Ezra's parents was a slicer. And, thanks to Ahsoka's urging, Mira Bridger is about to do a whole lot of good with her talents!

As for who exactly Ahsoka is getting into contact with, you'll have to wait a chapter or two to find out for sure. But I don't doubt some of you will have some interesting guesses before then. In the meantime, enjoy the new cover (it has the jedi3ravenclaw seal of approval, so I decided to go with it) and have a lovely week!

Next chapter, we'll get a bit more Kyzeron context and get a little more insight into Lady Noronessa's role in the story. I'll talk to you guys then :D