Star Wars Rebels: Come In, Spectre Six

Part Nine

"Wait," Barriss said, "you're looking for that Lothalian Padawan, aren't you?"

Sabine ignored Barriss as Ahsoka trembled, lost in her thoughts.

Barriss laughed. "You are too hopeful, Ahsoka. Everyone knows he's dead!"

Sabine stormed over to the ignorant woman and held Ezra's lightsaber to her head. "You want to say that again?"

Barriss' sneer returned. "A fierce one, aren't you, Mandolorian?" she replied cynically, "I can smell the rebellion just fuming around you." When Sabine held her dark stare and pressed the lightsaber on her temple, Barriss continued, "Look, I'm not looking for any more enemies than I already have. Here's your gadget," she held up the enhancer, "and your coordinates have been sent to your vessel."

"But how did you--" Sabine started, but she was interrupted by Barriss, who looked ready to chop off Sabine's head.

"Leave now, Jedi scum," Barriss said darkly. "You don't belong here anymore. You may have once... but that was before. This is how it is now." She glared at Ahsoka. "This is not the home of the Jedi anymore."

"I'm no Jedi," Ahsoka said, returning the hard stare. "I never was. I was only a Padawan then. I am sanctuary to those few Jedi who survived. But I am no longer a Jedi, Barriss Offee. Neither of us are."

"You got one thing right, Tano," Barriss remarked. "I'm not a Jedi, either."

Ahsoka scoffed as she turned to leave. "Considering the way you betrayed us... them... you never were." 

Sabine reluctantly took the enhancer from a frowning Barriss and followed Ahsoka out of the Temple.

As the two rebels wove their way through the tight crowds of Coruscant to get back to the Trillion, Sabine couldn't help but let her thoughts wander. She wondered what the deal was with Barriss and Ahsoka, why they hated each other, how they knew each other so well, and how Barriss got her scars. As they settled in the Trillion, Sabine decided to ask Ahsoka everything on her mind, hoping she wouldn't regret it.

"Ahsoka..." Sabine started as the darkness of space swallowed their vessel.

Before Sabine could continue, though, Ahsoka had started to explain: "We trained together as Jedi younglings. When we were Padawans, we went on a few assignments together. We were like best friends."

"So, how did that change?" Sabine asked. "You were both so hateful toward each other in the Temple..."

"Did I ever tell you why I left the Jedi?" Ahsoka said as she activated lightspeed and turned to Sabine. Sabine shook her head. "I was wrongly accused of murder. I was on the run for days before I was captured and went to court. My Master proved that I was innocent before they could sentence me to be expelled from the Jedi Order."

The glimmer of hate and sadness returned to Ahsoka's eyes. "What happened?" Sabine asked.

"Barriss framed me." 

Eerie silence filled the cockpit. 

"How did she get so many scars?" Sabine asked. "You didn't..." her voice trailed off.

Ahsoka snapped out of her hate-filled trance. "No," she said quickly, "Her burns are a consequence of Order 66."

Sabine nodded. "So, they accepted her back into the Temple?"

"I've been told so," Ahsoka said, rubbing her orange chin, "Otherwise Order 66 probably wouldn't have affected her the way it did." Another long, chilling silence passed before Ahsoka spoke again. "She was right about one thing, though. The Republic failed. The Jedi were lied to and we believed and spread the lies we were told by politicians. When the time was right, corruption took its place on the top of the galaxy and did what it did best. But in the end, I suppose the Jedi corrupted people, too. We placed false hope in the hearts of innocent people waiting to be saved from a plague that we didn't know we couldn't stop; from a fate that lies in the hands of people we thought we knew."

Sabine nodded, although she didn't quite understand Ahsoka's thinking out loud. Only Ahsoka seemed to understand what she was saying. But only Ahsoka felt the loss when Order 66 wiped out the Jedi. Only she knew what the Jedi were like before the Empire. Although her past was her private business, there were so many things Sabine didn't know about the simple Togruta. There was so much about the Jedi that Sabine didn't understand. But in these times of curiosity, Sabine always reminded herself that knowledge isn't always a blessing and that staying in the dark could shine light on newer and easier possibilities. Possibilities that were sometimes better than having known dark secrets that weren't meant to be for her.

There was just one thing Sabine had to know...

"Where are we going?"

Ahsoka turned back to the tunnel of hyperspace in front of her. "A place I would rather not end up stranded on ever again, but it always seems to call to me. It's a very spiritual place where many things died and many things were born: Mortis."