AHSOKA TANO

Ahsoka watched as Lux walked quickly out the door. Craning her neck in an effort to see what was going on, she dragged herself to the edge of the bed. She was just in time to see Lux walk back in.

He was pulling two younglings – Misha and Loli, who were about ten – by their robes behind him. They were straining to get away, but Commander Cody, who was dripping wet, was walking behind them, and that cut off any means of escape.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, sitting up, in an effort to look more together than she actually was.

“Tell them,” Cody said. He was not pleased at all.

When the two frightened kids offered no reply, he told the story himself. “They rigged a bucket of ice water to tip when someone opened a door in the barracks. I happened to be the unlucky one to open it, and as a result, I was chasing these two rascals down the hallway. One of them fell and knocked something over. That was probably the crash you heard.”

He was talking about the recently installed Rebel Trooper barracks down on the ground floor. It was one of the new installations that Lux had told her about to the New Jedi Temple. There was nowhere near enough room for all of the Rebel Troopers inside, but they had scrapped two of the two dozen or so commandeered Imperial cruisers from their rebellion, and used the parts and made another base a few kilometers away, and on a few other planets. The one on Cialone consisted of a large training facility, a reconnaissance area, more barracks and a mess hall.

In order to create the new features, Lux had had to pull some string with some old friends of his or of his mother’s amongst the Imperial Senators. He wasn’t able to afford providing for well over four million clones, and was thinking about setting up a mining operation on Bespin to pay for it.

Ahsoka shook her head, a slight smile on her face. “Misha, Loli, you never cease to amaze me.” The two got into such trouble – they had ever since they had been taken into the Order.

After a moment, she continued. “I’m not mad at you, but that wasn’t a nice thing to do, and we have to be nice to the Rebel Troopers, because they’re the ones making sure we stay safe here on the planet. So I’m going to let you off the hook with a warning this time. If you’re both good and do well in your studies, and I’ll be sure to get you some extra sweets next time I go on a supply run.”

They nodded, clearly pleased with the idea of candy. “All right. You can go.”

Ahsoka looked over at Lux, who closed the door behind him, then went to Ahsoka’s refresher to get Cody a towel. “I still don’t understand how they always listen to you,” he said.

She smiled. “It’s a gift, Lux. But Cody, I sense that this isn’t the only reason you’re here. What’s going on?”

As Cody towel-dried his carefully cut hair, he answered. “I was actually coming out of the barracks when the water hit me. When I found out you were awake, I remembered that I had something that someone wanted me to give to you.”

He handed her a holo-transmitter. But it had been equipped with some sort of lock that Ahsoka knew opened by voice recognition. She pushed the button, and a hologram came up. It was Darth Vader! 

“I know that you’re alive," he said. "I know that you’re on Cialone. If you are listening to this now, then it means that Order 67 has successfully been initiated, and I will have no recollection of what just transpired here. You now have your army, an army to fight for the Rebellion against the Empire.

He paused for a moment, then spoke again. “Enclosed in this disk is information that can overthrow the Empire. But I need to know that this is really you. So I set up this little security measure to keep sticky fingers out. Good luck and may the Force be with you… Snips.”

Ahsoka blinked away a few tears. There was still good in the man that the galaxy as a whole saw as pure evil. “May the Force be with you too, Skyguy…”

Suddenly, a green light flashed on the transmitter. A few almost inaudible clicks filled the air, and then another hologram popped up. “Password accepted. Welcome, Ahsoka Tano.”

She smiled. “He knew I would say that. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

Ahsoka looked through the catalogue of the transmitter’s contents. “This is incredible! The emplacements of almost every Imperial listening outpost, all of the secret operations that the Empire is or will be putting underway, and…” She gasped. “The technical readouts for the Death Star!”

*What secrets will the holo-transmitter from Darth Vader reveal? What will become of the plans for the Death Star, and how can this dangerous information be used against the Empire? And what has become of Anakin, Rex and Christopherus? You'll find out in the next thrilling chapter of the Unchronicled Adventures Of Ahsoka Tano!

Fall in love with a princess you rescued from the Death Star and may the Force be with you,

Sharron