Stealth

by Karen Miller

  Slowing, he turned aound. Behind the casual inquiry she was anything but casual. In her eyes he saw a terrible fear—and hope.

  Oh, Padmé. My dear friend. What have you done?

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think he knows.”

  She shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Okay. That’s fine. I was just wondering.”

  He could see in her face that she knew she’d betrayed… something. But he made sure she couldn’t see that he’d seen it. She deserved a little privacy. He couldn’t bring the Jedi home safe—but he could give her that much, at least.

  “I should be back well in time for the briefing day after tomorrow, but I’ll comm you if there’s a problem.”

  She waved a hand. “Don’t worry. I can cover for you. Focus on this, Bail. This is what’s important.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, smiling, and reluctantly left her alone.

  At first Ahsoka was surprised when Master Damsin said they were taking one of the public shuttle flights to Corellia. Then she thought about it, and of course Master Damsin was right. Given the nature of their mission they needed to be inconspicuous—which was also why they’d abandoned their regular Jedi clothing. It was actually a bit exciting, even if it did feel odd to be all covered up, long sleeves and trousers and a baggy overtunic down to midthigh so nobody would notice the lightsaber on her belt.

  Hey, look at me. I’m a plainclothes undercover Jedi, like Skyguy.

  The dowdy but serviceable shuttle they’d chosen was timed to arrive onplanet just as the working day began. That way they’d be swallowed up in the bustle of rush hour, just two insignificant bodies among many hundreds. Leaving so early from Coruscant meant the transport was barely half full, so she and Master Damsin—Taria—had a whole seat row each to themselves. And tucked away right up the back, too, so they could talk in low voices and not have to worry about being overheard.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d traveled on public transport. That felt odd, too, after months of gunships and starfighters and the soaring majesty of Republic Cruisers like Indomitable or Leveler. This shuttle, it was so ordinary. And it wasn’t armed, not even with a single laser cannon. But then why would it be? Who was going to attack a public shuttle on the tedious back-and-forth hop between Coruscant and Corellia? And their fellow passengers? Not a single one of them was scared. They listened to music headsets, or watched vids on the HoloNet Entertainment feed, or read datapads, or snored. It was as if in here, the war didn’t exist.

  Leaning closer, Master Damsin—no, Taria, she had to remember that—tapped her on the arm. A small smile was lurking and her eyes were amused. “It’s called ‘culture shock,’ Ahsoka. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I don’t know if I want to,” she said, frowning at the oblivious passengers in front of her. “I think I want to smack their heads together and shout wake up.”

  “But isn’t this what you’re fighting for?” Taria said softly. “The chance for them to go about their lives without fear and violence?”

  You’re. Not we’re. That was curious. But she wasn’t going to say anything. She was going to keep her mouth shut, for once. See, Skyguy? I’m learning. I am.

  She looked again at the scattering of drowsy passengers. “I know. I just can’t help wondering if they get that right now, right now, there are people fighting and dying for them. Hurting. Bleeding.”

  “Is that what you want?” Taria said, curious. “To be burdened with gratitude?”

  Burdened with gratitude. She’d never looked at it like that. “I don’t—I guess—” She leaned her head against the seat. “Maybe,” she mumbled. “Maybe a thank-you once in a while would be nice.”

  “And is that why you became a Jedi? To be thanked?”

  “No!” she said, shocked and staring. “I became a Jedi because I couldn’t be anything else.”

  Taria smiled properly. “Good answer.”

  Warmed by that, Ahsoka settled herself more comfortably against her seat. “But still…”

  Taria’s sigh sounded sympathetic. “I know,” she said. “Especially when you see them doing stupid things, yes? Selfish and thoughtless and reckless things that put others in danger. That prove they care about nothing and nobody save for themselves. And then when the inevitable happens, and they scream for the Jedi to come get them out of trouble—” Taria shrugged. “But what can we do? We’re the galaxy’s troubleshooters, Ahsoka. That’s our job.”

  Well, it was more than a job. Really it was a sacred calling. But she’d feel stupid putting it that way, so she just nodded. “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Taria echoed. “But even so—don’t think you’re alone in wanting to smack some sense into them sometimes.”

  Charmed, Ahsoka stifled a giggle. Taria Damsin was the most un-Master-like Master she’d ever met. She was finding it hard to remember that this female was a Jedi Master, with years of experience and seniority. Oh please, what am I, ninety? Call me Taria. And then there was the way she’d excitedly rummaged through the Temple’s wardrobe warehouse as they’d looked for something suitable to wear for their mission. Taria’s squeal of satisfaction as she pulled out a drab, dark brown two-piece traveling suit, as though they were headed on some kind of adventure, not a serious important mission for Yoda, had left her astonished. No other Master she’d ever met was so… so informal. Not even Skyguy.

  Also, Taria had amazing hair. Long and thick and such an amazing color. Even carefully confined in its braid, it seemed to make her tawny eyes glow.

  I’ve never ever been jealous of human hair before. Not until now.

  Curiosity got the better of her. “Where are you from, Taria? I’ve never—”

  Another smile, mischievous this time. “Seen anyone who looks quite like me?”

  Oh, no. Was it rude, to ask? Probably it was. She was blushing, she could feel it. Me and my big mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Relax, Ahsoka,” said Taria. “I’m not going to bite. I’m from Ghaina. Have you heard of it?”

  “Sorry. No.”

  “I’d be stunned if you had,” Taria said cheerfully. “It’s one of the earliest settled colony worlds. Remotely situated and not at all interested in galactic affairs. I’m the first—the only—Ghainan Jedi. What you might call an aberration.”

  Oh. “Is that—does that make you—lonely? Being the only one?”

  Taria gave her the strangest look. “D’you know, you’re only the second person who’s ever asked me that.”

  “Who was the first?”

  “A friend,” Taria said, after a moment. Her sharp face softened, and her gaze lost its focus. Then she blinked and pulled herself back from wherever she’d gone. “So. Tell me about Anakin.”

  She was going to have whiplash before this mission was over. “Master Skywalker? Oh. Um. I don’t—I’m not sure—well, what did you want to know?”

  Taria leaned close again, confidingly. “Basically—how good is he at not getting himself killed?”

  Ahsoka stared. “You don’t know?”

  “Well, I know he’s the Chosen One,” said Taria, shrugging. “The Council didn’t manage to keep that secret very long. Other than that… see, the thing is, I’ve led kind of an odd life for a Jedi. Maybe it’s because I’m Ghainan or maybe it’s because I’m me. Whatever the reason, I never trod the regular Jedi path, Ahsoka. I’ve had long-term postings in far-flung places. Been on quite a few extended retreats. Not so many visits back to the Temple. That makes it tricky to keep up with the news.”

  And it explained why their paths had rarely crossed. “It sounds—exciting.”

  “It had its moments,” Taria said, and chuckled. “Now. About Anakin…”

  “Anakin—Master Skywalker—is really, really good at not getting himself killed.”

  “Hmm.” Taria flipped the end of her braid over her shoulder and fiddled with it. “What’s his track record on not getting anyone else killed?”

  Something the Jedi Master had
said niggled. What was it? I’ve known Obi-Wan a long time. Risking censure, Ahsoka sank a little way into the Force and extended her senses…

  “Hey,” said Taria. “No peeking. It’s rude.”

  And asking a Padawan to gossip about her Master was polite? “My Master would die before he’d let anything happen to Master Kenobi,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to worry about him.”

  “Have to?” Taria flipped her braid back. “Well, no, of course I don’t have to. But every girl needs a hobby, Ahsoka. Yours is worrying about Anakin, remember?”

  Ow. “I’m sure they’re both fine, Master Damsin,” she said firmly. “Master Yoda—”

  “Attention, passengers. We are on final approach to Corellia, for spaceport docking in Coronet. Prepare for sublight and have all relevant inbound documentation ready for Transit Authority inspection.”

  “Right then, Ahsoka,” said Taria, suddenly briskly businesslike. A Jedi, through and through. “Let’s run the plan one more time before we hit dirtside.”

  They both remembered it perfectly. Of course. Encountering no trouble with Coronet’s Transit Authority, and with minutes to spare, they made their connecting shuttle to the satellite retirement suburb of Visk, where Bant’ena Fhernan’s mother made her home. The nav computer on their hired groundcar—speeder access was restricted to local law enforcement personnel—guided them without incident to the address the captive scientist had provided. Mata Fhernan wasn’t there.

  “Market day in Tiln,” her chatty neighbor said helpfully as they stood stranded on her doorstep. “Always traipses down to Tiln for her shopping, does Mata.” A disapproving sniff. “My Herold’s tabba-root isn’t good enough for her.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Taria, self-contained and polite. “Thanks for your help.”

  They returned to their groundcar and looked up Tiln on the nav comp.

  “That’s a long way to go for tabba-root,” Ahsoka said, frowning at the readout.

  Taria punched the nav comp’s ACCEPT DESTINATION button and grinned. “I don’t know. I’ve gone farther for less.”

  Really, she was the most disconcerting woman.

  Reaching the small rural township without incident, they soon found themselves bogged down in traffic. It seemed that Tiln Markets were a shopping destination in their own right. The crowds were going to make finding their oblivious quarry something of a challenge. Disengaging the autodrive as they reached the end of the queue for access to parking, Taria took over manual control of the groundcar, lowered its shield, and swept her narrowed gaze around the other vehicles and the roadside stalls and the meandering pedestrians loaded down with boxes and bags and little carts full of fruit.

  “Well, Ahsoka? What do you feel?”

  A cool breeze across her skin. Clouded sunshine on her face. The dampest hint of rain coming on. Soft like the ocean, a steady sussuration of human and nonhuman emotions. Contentment. Avarice. Anxiety.

  Danger.

  “Yes,” Taria murmured. “Someone unsavory’s here. Very dark side. They might as well shoot up a flare. Let’s tread carefully, shall we?”

  Stop start, stop start, they crawled their erratic way into the public parking station and then into a coded slot on the third level. After paying their credits, they took their ID chip for later, rode down to ground level in the turbolift, and joined the throng heading into sprawling, popular Tiln Markets. Partly covered, partly open-air, it was crammed full of sentients from at least sixty different systems, ripe with smells and sounds and a thousand ways to make and lose money, and, according to the welcome board at the entrance, they now swallowed almost a quarter of the town.

  “I don’t know,” Ahsoka muttered, staring in dismay at the shifting sea of shoppers as it spilled and surged among the endless rows and cross-rows of stalls and displays. “Maybe we should’ve stayed in Visk and waited for Mata Fhernan to come home. We’re never going to find her in here!”

  “Patience,” said Taria, patting her shoulder. “We’ll find her. And unlikely as it sounds, it’ll be much easier spiriting her away in this madhouse than it would’ve been in that neat and tidy retirement estate with its empty streets and nosy neighbors.”

  Maybe. And of course Taria was an experienced Jedi. But there was no denying it, all these people made her nervous.

  “Don’t think about our quarry,” Taria added. “Focus on the creature hunting her, Ahsoka. Wherever she is, it won’t be far away. And so long as we’re careful and don’t send up any flares of our own, it’ll do most of our work for us.”

  Admiring, Ahsoka looked up at her. “That’s really smart.”

  “Oh, not so really,” said Taria, offhand. “Just a little trick I picked up on my travels.”

  The creature sent to shadow Mata Fhernan left a smear in the Force like something dead and dragged across ferrocrete. Rancid. Rotten. A corruption of the light. Gagging, Ahsoka tried to close most of her mind to it. Let only enough of its putrid essence past her defenses so she could track it through the echoing cacophony of every other sentient in this enormous place.

  “Good girl,” said Taria, as they made casual, careful, apparently random progress from stall to stall, closing in on their prey. “But I think that’s close enough.” She shuddered. “Time to start looking for Mata.”

  They’d both memorized the woman’s holoimage. Medium height, straight brown hair muddied with gray and cropped short. A singular individual who, it seemed, had never chosen anti-aging or physical enhancement therapies, so she was wrinkled and hook-nosed and bigger-boned than civilian society deemed acceptable.

  Her face was a map of a life lived brashly, on its own bold terms. Before her retirement she’d lectured in Galactic theater across half of the Republic.

  Ahsoka, struggling to stay hidden from Mata Fhernan’s shadowy observer, struggling to keep that shadow as close as she could bear, felt Taria Damsin stumble beside her.

  “Stang,” the Jedi Master muttered. “No. No. Don’t mind me.”

  Beneath her light caf-colored skin she was pallid. Cutting through the shadow’s darkness and the mayhem of the markets, Ahsoka felt pain. A corrosive quiver of fear.

  Something’s not right. She’s—

  “Ahsoka!” Taria snapped. “On the job.”

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to—”

  The press of bodies around them eddied like a stream striking rock. She felt a tugging, off to the left. Feeling that peculiar rightness in the Force, she turned and looked.

  “There,” she said, pointing. “Taria, there.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fear and pain crushed to silence, Taria looked. “Yes, that’s the woman we’re after. Well spotted, Ahsoka.”

  A Jedi wasn’t supposed to care about praise. And yet, she realized with a shock, Taria Damsin’s approval mattered—which was almost as odd as Taria Damsin herself.

  Never mind. I’ll figure it out later.

  Mata Fhernan was chatting animatedly to a man selling hand-carved, hand-painted wooden stirring spoons. Ahsoka couldn’t believe it when their quarry handed over good credits for two of the spoons. Cooking with wooden utensils? Urrggh. That was so unhygienic.

  She glanced at Taria. “What now?”

  Taria’s eyes were half closed, her lips tight with concentration. “Now, Ahsoka, we proceed with extreme caution. The sentient watching her—I still don’t see him, but I think he’s Anzati.”

  Oh. Well. That wasn’t good. Anzati were born predators, even better hunters and trackers than the Togruta. Highly sought after as criminal assassins. He’d be difficult to shake off.

  “The good news,” Taria added, “is that he hasn’t spotted us.”

  Ahsoka grimaced. “Yet.”

  “Now, now,” said Taria, nudging her with an elbow. “Would Anakin let you get away with saying that?”

  No, he wouldn’t. He’d give her a look. “Sorry.”

  “Forget it. Come on. Let’s make a new friend.”r />
  Threading their circumspect way through this covered section of the markets, toward Mata Fhernan who’d shoved her spoons in her shopping bag and was now inspecting handcrafted lace doilies, they gradually and unobtrusively began to drift apart, angling themselves so they’d end up flanking her. When they were almost close enough to reach out and touch the woman, Taria flicked a sideways, warning glance.

  Let me do the talking.

  Ahsoka nodded. Drifted her hand closer to the hilt of her hidden lightsaber. Strong in the Force, that sense of lurking danger.

  “Mata Fhernan,” said Taria, fingers closing gently on the old woman’s arm. “Mata, I have a message for you. From Bant’ena.”

  Mata Fhernan’s eyes were sharp with intelligence. Hearing her daughter’s name, she gasped. “Benti. She’s not dead? Oh, I knew it. I knew it. They said I was a crazy old woman to believe she’d survived the Separatists’ attack but—” She pressed shaking fingers to her lips. “A mother knows. Where is she? How is she? How do you know her?”

  Taria’s free hand twitched away the folds of her overcloak, drawing discreet attention to the lightsaber on her belt. “She’s—a friend of a friend. And she wants you to come with us.”

  Mata Fhernan’s eyes narrowed, and her unpainted lips framed a single, silent word. Jedi. “She’s in trouble?”

  Taria nodded. “As are you. So please, let’s go. Slowly, no rushing. No making a fuss. A nice casual stroll, Mata, toward the nearest exit.”

  “Why?” the old woman demanded. “Am I being watched?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Taria. “We’ll protect you.”

  “We?” Turning, Mata Fhernan looked down and blinked. “Oh. Aren’t you a little small to be a Jedi?”

  Ahsoka managed a polite smile. That sense of danger was uncomfortably flaring. “No. Please, we really do need to go.”

  “You’re taking me to Benti?”

  Ahsoka looked at Taria. I’m Jedi. We aren’t liars. But sometimes the truth was more dangerous than a lie.

  “Yes.”

  Mata Fhernan’s amazing face tightened. “Then why are we standing around here gossiping?”