Ahsoka, Daughter of the Light, Book 7: Hunt

Chapter 2: The Rebel Girl

KELA BARAN

Would it work? She hoped so. Five long years under the Empire and she couldn't wait to take back what rightfully belonged to the citizens of Shili.

Being a rebel sympathizer, she was always at risk of being caught by the Imps, even if they had no evidence. And they did kind of have evidence, after some of her friends got caught with an unregistered crate of weapons. They managed to escape the authorities, but everyone they knew about was going to be questioned, and that pushed Kela to finally join up with the rest of the Togruta resistance, as she could let it slip that she was harboring rebel sympathies.

Ever since she was young, she had been a fighter. She took up martial arts as a hobby, and quickly became a protégé and the best in her class. She could hit Stormtroopers with moves they've never seen before. After all, all they seemed to know how to do was shoot a blaster (and miss).

She remembered, just as she had become a teen, watching Palpatine's declaration of a New Order. She had been angry over his accumulation of power, but this had made her seethe with the anger of a thousand suns. Ever since then, she wished she could manufacture a poison with no known antidote that would slowly consume his organs, giving him a slow, painful death.

She watched as the once-idolized Clone Troopers turned on them, and then were replaced with Stormtroopers who pillaged her world. Imperial authorities and politicians seemingly went out of their way to make things harder for the Togruta citizens of Shili, while offworld human entrepreneurs from the Core Worlds got rich off of their backs. And she remembered as she was helpless to stop slavers from taking her friends away from her, sometimes literally within eyeshot of the authorities that should have saved them. All too often, what little morality the Imps had could be bought out with a sack of credits.

But that wasn't the least of it. Sometimes, she had dreams of bad things happening. And sometimes, they didn't feel like dreams, they felt real. And the worst part was that sometimes, they did turn out to be real, like the aforementioned kidnappings. It felt like she was seeing things before that happened. There were legends and stories of people across the Galaxy who could do that, but to her, it was a curse. She didn't want to see these things. She kept telling herself it wasn't real, it was just a coincidence, and everything was fine... right?

Now, she was staying full-time at the hideout in a forested valley. It was a much safer place to set up camp, as opposed to the flat plains, where the Imps could see you coming from miles away. Here, it was much easier to take them off guard. Sure, it was no Onderon or Kashyyyk, but it would work. Much better than being sold off into prostitution.

The only problems were the Akul, even though they were really a double-edge sword–they didn't care if you were a Togruta or an Imp, they just tried to eat you. And the Togruta knew how to deal with Akul. The Imps, however, did not.

Her combat suit was starting to get notably dusty, as she had spent a lot of time on the trek to the base. There were splotches of mud and dirt on her blue skin and white-and-purple lekku and montrails. If there was somewhere she could sanitize herself, that would be nice.

This hideout was a lot more neat and high-tech than she had thought. It came with power, some armaments, air conditioning, you name it. There was even a landing pad, although wear and tear had caused it to collapse. Apparently, this place used to be some kind of smuggler's den back in the Clone Wars, perhaps even beforehand.

As she walked to the showers, someone walked over to her.

She turned around to see the tall, muscular, brown Togruta man dressed head to toe in military gear, with scars across his arms and face.

It was safe to assume he was in charge around here.

"Hmm... Kela Baran, right?" he said.

"Yep, that's me. Who are you?"

"The name's Redan Rova. But just call me Commander Rova. Your friends have told me all about you and your skills in close-quarters combat. Almost reminds me of myself when I was younger."

"This doesn't look like it's your first combat experience," Kela asked.

"I'm an ex-Republic mercenary," Commander Rova replied. "It wasn't all Jedi and Clones during the war. Me and some of my old squadmates brought down Separatist commanders, bounty hunters, pirates... I was the guy they sent when something was too intense for a clone, but too unimportant for a Jedi."

"Well, then I'm glad someone like you is in charge." Kela replied.

"Unfortunately, people like me are hard to come by. A lot of people in this building haven't held a blaster. Heck, we've got people in here as young as fourteen!"

"...They're volunteers, right?"

"Of course," Commander Rova replied, "It's kind of hard for an underground resistance network to enforce mandatory conscription. Unless someone here's been duped by their friends into joining, and I'm not aware of any instances of that happening."

"Well, we'll need everyone we can get."

"I'm glad you managed to make it," Rova continued. "It's hard to come by someone who knows the location of this base."

"That's a good thing. Keeps the Imps out."

"I'll let you get back to your business," Rova concluded. "I have things to set up too. Got a crate full of blasters arriving in a few."

"Thank you," Kela replied. "I need to wash myself and get some rest."

The two saluted each other, and walked away.

A/N: And here we have a new character! If you couldn't tell from the description, she's the girl on the left on the cover. Regardless, it looks like she's decided to get involved in something greater than herself, and I'm excited to show off this new character. And I'm getting all this Shili stuff in now before some new SW content renders it obsolete. See you next chapter!