This is an Ahsoka fanfiction. It kicks off before the show, will extend through the end of season one, and hopefully conclude with post-show content before season two of the real thing airs. Let me know how I’m doing in the comments!
I’ve started loading chapters into Archive of Our Own. Let me know if you follow over there!
Rating: General, Spice Level: None
Characters/Tags: Original Character, Master and Apprentice Relationships, Original Female Character, Original Jedi Character, Ahsoka Tano, Huyang
Read Chapter 20 here.
Chapter 21: Stomach in the Stars
Kendra rose from her meditation and joined Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang in the cockpit after dropping out of hyperspace in the Deneb system. She’d almost gotten used to the vastness of space, but not quite. A new solar system was always beautiful to her, and she almost missed what was being said.
“Why’d we drop out of hyperdrive so far from the planet?” Sabine asked.
“Standard Jedi mission protocol when approaching an unknown situation in order to avoid enemy surveillance,” Huyang answered.
Kendra wondered what other standard Jedi protocols existed, if they were written down, and if she should learn them. Ahsoka had never brought them up, though. Neither had Master Edith.
Sabine asked, “He’s still doing this?”
“Programming,” Ahsoka said.
“In any case,” Huyang continued, “my last scan indicates the transport was in orbit on the far side of the planet. However there also seems to be a second object. Something much larger.
“A star destroyer?” Ahsoka asked
“Negative,” Huyang said, “Whatever it is has a signature which is unknown to me.”
The ship’s alarms blared. Kendra recognized it as a proximity alarm, though that was the extent of her understanding.
“I am tracking two squadrons of three crafts,” Huyang said. “They are closing on us from behind.”
Kendra asked, “Were they just waiting out here in case somebody followed Jedi protocols?”
“Protocols are predictable,” Sabine said.
“Tail gun, please,” Ahsoka said to Sabine.
“On it.” Sabine rushed out of the cockpit.
“Best sit down, Kendra,” Ahsoka said. “Could get bumpy.”
Kendra buckled into the chair behind Ahsoka. This would be the first space engagement they’d been in together. Or ever been in, in Kendra’s case. What was she supposed to do?
“Anything in the checklists?” Ahsoka asked.
Kendra grabbed the nearest checklist and started scanning the contents. What would she even look up here?
“I do not believe this situation is covered in the standard documentation,” Huyang said.
Ahsoka chuckled. “I know.”
Kendra blushed. Everyone was remarkably calm for having six other ships approaching them with ill intent. What was she supposed to do, wait to see if they got blown up? She put the checklists back in the compartment next to her seat, then took them back out again just in case.
Huyang moved to the seat next to Kendra so he could use the scanning equipment more effectively. His robotic fingers flew across the instruments faster than Kendra could follow.
“Calm yourself back there,” Ahsoka said.
Kendra didn’t realize she wasn’t calm until then, but found herself gripping the arm rests. Obviously, she knew space fights happened, but hadn’t given much thought to being in one. She suddenly thought Jedi must stand a better chance in a ground fight, where they had a lightsaber. Why ever get in a ship?
“Tailgun, check in,” Ahsoka said over the ship radio.
“I’m here,” Sabine replied. “I see you got rid of my presets.”
“I never needed them,” Ahsoka said.
“So you say.”
Kendra found her breath and began to relax, even as Ahsoka and Sabine sparred over the radio. The earlier tension between master and apprentice returned somewhat, now that both were under stress. It was apparently fine to be in combat where others actively tried to kill you; but working together opened old wounds once again.
The ships behind them opened fire. Green blaster bolts flew over the window as some connected with the ship. Kendra lurched forward, grateful for the safety belt. Something above and behind her cracked, hissed, and then stopped.
Ahsoka swerved the shuttle in all directions. Between the movement and the blaster fire, the ship’s gravity couldn’t quite keep up and Kendra found her view disconnected from what she was feeling. Her stomach flipped in response. She bit down on her lip so as to stay quiet, though.
“Hey, hold it steady,” Sabine said.
Ahsoka replied, “Remember, learn to anticipate.”
“Now’s not the time for a lesson,” Sabine said.
“You’re just a little rusty,” Ahsoka said.
Kendra could not fault Sabine, whatever Ahsoka meant by anticipating. Although she was more in tune with the Force than the Mandalorian, she found herself entirely unable to guess which direction Ahsoka might move the ship next. The ship also continued to struggle compensating for the movement and a wave of vertigo forced Kendra to close her eyes.
“Huyang, anything yet?” Ahsoka asked.
“On the object, No. However, I have several thoughts on everything else going on.”
Ahsoka said, “Huyang, not now.”
“The way you’re both acting, there won’t be a later.”
Ahsoka took a deep breath in response, and Kendra felt the Force shift in the cockpit, even over the nausea brewing in her stomach.
“Sabine tell me what you need,” Ahsoka said.
“Move on my signal,” Sabine replied over the radio.
“Copy.”
“All right, get ready,” Sabine said.
“Ready.”
Kendra was not sure she was ready, even if Ahsoka was. She’d opened her eyes again as having them closed made it worse, and saw more and more green blaster bolts fly around the ship. At least they weren’t all hitting them.
“Dive!” Sabine yelled.
Ahsoka said nothing but slammed the control yoke forward. The ship shuddered in response as it appeared to defy the rules of physics for how fast it might move.
Kendra had never felt the ship shudder. She grabbed on more tightly.
“Don’t forget to breathe, Kendra,” Ahsoka said over the unmistakable sounds of Sabine returning fire.
“Missed,” Sabine said. “I had them but I missed.”
Ahsoka said, “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get another chance, we got two more incoming, dead ahead.I’m going to split them. Ready?”
Split them? What did that even mean? Kendra studied the ships ahead of them. They were small and ancient looking. And they were going to fly into them.
“Ready…” Ahsoka said. “Now!”
At the last second, Ahsoka turned the wings of the shuttle and the two oncoming ships split around them. Gunfire errupted from the back of the ship.
“I got one!” Sabine called over the radio.
That left five ships still attempting to kill them.
“Make sure you breathe,” Ahsoka said again.
What was breathing going to do if they blew up? Kendra felt her thoughts racing away from her, along with her stomach. She hurled on the floor behind Ahsoka.
“Kendra,” Ahsoka said slowly. “Emotion…”
“Yet peace.” Kendra wiped her mouth. She didn’t want to distract the only person keeping them all alive. “I’ll work on it, master.”
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Death, yet the Force.
She slowed her breathing and focused on the code. Her stomach felt both empty and painful, but she drew her thoughts away from it. Kendra couldn’t quite convince herself to direct any healing toward it; she was still mentally too engaged with the fight.
Sabine managed to take out two more fighters as Kendra’s pulse slowed, though, leaving only three remaining fighters.
Huyang sat up from the instruments. “We should be able to make visual confirmation now.”
Kendra leaned to the side to get a better view. At first, all she saw was the planet. Then something emerged over the horizon. A large, circular object hovered just above the atmosphere.
“If I had to guess, I would say it is some sort of hyperspace ring,” Huyang said.
Ahsoka said, “I’d like to confirm that.”
“We’ll need to get closer,” Huyang replied.
Ahsoka guided the shuttle left and right, avoiding most of the blaster fire from the remaining fighters.
“The fighters have broken off,” Sabine said.
“You better get up here,” Ahsoka said. “How much longer, Huyang?”
“Just keep the ship steady while I attempt to run my scan.”
As the fighters were no longer attacking, Ahsoka flew the ship straight and level toward the apparent hyperspace ring. It was massive; larger than any ring Kendra had read about. Three engines were mounted to each side, with another one on the bottom. A control section sat on top.
Huyang continued typing into the sensors. “I am starting to receive data.”
Suddenly, the ring ahead of them began shooting. These were not the blaster shots of the fighters, but massive green laser bolts.
“That doesn’t seem good,” Kendra sputtered.
Sabine ran into the cockpit, slamming her boot into the vomit next to Kendra’s seat. “Seriously?”
“Manage the deflectors,” Ahsoka said to Sabine.
Sabine threw herself into the copilot chair. “It smells awful up here.”
“Not now, Sabine.” Ahsoka began the nauseating weave once again, but remained moving forward toward the object.
“How interesting,” Huyang said. He pressed several buttons and leaned toward the screen. “I would never have guessed that.”
“Get everything you need?” Ahsoka asked.
“Not yet. See if you can get a little closer.”
Sabine asked, “Are you cross wired?”
Huyang ignored her. “Closer, please.”
Ahsoka swung wide of most of the laser bolts. The unpredictable movement became almost too much for Kendra again, as she started the first line of the Jedi code repeatedly. Dizziness prevented her from thinking well.
“Steady, steady,” Huyang said. This is intolerable.”
“You wanted closer,” Ahsoka said.
Another hit shook the shuttle.
Sabine said, “Deflectors at 10%.”
“Huyang?” Ahsoka asked.
“Just a moment,” he said. “Scan complete!”
At the same moment, an explosion rocked the panel next to Huyang. A bright light, sparks, and then smoke filled the cockpit area before all power went out, leaving it in darkness. Huyang remained in his seat, slumped over and offline.
Kendra floated against her harness and realized the artificial gravity had also gone out. Her forehead hurt, and she reached up to find it sticky. Shrapnel had flown across the cockpit and hit her.
Sabine moved to restart Huyang, but Ahsoka stopped her. “We can’t help Huyang if we’re all dead. Sabine, you work on the ship. Kendra, go back to the gun turret and let us know what is happening. Open fire on them if we get power.”
“Try not to hurl again,” Sabine said. “I don’t want to clean up two places.”
Kendra nodded and unbuckled herself with one hand while she pressed against her head wound with the other. She floated out of the cockpit, giving one last glance at the disabled droid.
The training room was pitch black, but the ladder to the gun turret was a straight shot. She pushed off the nearby wall and used the Force to help guide her forward, running into a stray training sword flying free without gravity. The eeriness of the silent ship washed over her and for a moment, her motion sickness abated.
Ascending into the turret area, Kendra saw several problems. They were floating through the middle of the massive ring, and spinning slowly, out of control. Debris from the shuttle hung in zero gravity like glitter with them. And the three remaining fighters were racing to destroy them.
“The fighters are coming back!” she yelled.
“Strap in!” Ahsoka’s voice carried through the ship. “I’m going outside!”
Kendra pulled herself into the gunner’s seat before fully comprehending. “You are what?”
“Don’t worry about it, just get ready!”
After adjusting the straps, Kendra watched the incoming ships. They were much smaller than Ahsoka’s shuttle; easier to shoot down, if Sabine got the guns working again. She tried to avoid thinking about what would happen if they did not regain power.
Her nausea returned once at the controls. Bile rose in her throat as she counted seconds and stared the three craft. She pulled the comms headset on and readied herself, hopeful she’d have a chance to fight back.
The enemy opened fire, but off center of the main body of the shuttle, at the wing. Ahsoka had gone outside to distract them. They whizzed by, close enough Kendra could see the padawan who’d attacked Sabine on Lothal.
She sat in silence after they passed, trying to think of anything she could do to help. Her lack of knowledge about the ship meant she was useless in the cockpit. She couldn’t even tend to Huyang. Nobody was injured, so she couldn’t heal. At this rate, she’d end up dead just sitting there.
Her forehead stung, reminding her of her own injury. She thought about healing it, but couldn’t concentrate long enough to start.
Suddenly, there was an explosion to her right. Two of the fighters flew by, but the third came across in pieces, and in flames. At the same moment, the power returned, and she grabbed the turret controls as the ship’s gravity slammed her into the seat. The normal ship sounds began to resume.
“Sabine, did you fix the ship yet?” Ahoska’s voice came over the comms.
“I got it! I got it!” Sabine yelled.
“Great, now get me.”
The sound of the shuttle’s wings rotating filled the cabin, and the airlock cycled as the ship burst forward, toward the planet. Kendra’s stomach flipped again.
“What happened?” Kendra asked into the radio.
Sabine answered, “Ahsoka stood on the wing and destroyed one with her lightsaber.”
Of course she did. “Okay…”
“Stay back there,” Ahsoka said. “Shoot at them if you have a chance.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Kendra said.
“Pull the trigger,” Sabine said, “ideally when they’re behind us. Don’t hurl.”
Their ship dropped through the atmosphere with the fighters hot on their tail. Kendra fired a few rounds just to test it out, and then adjusted the rotational controls of the turret. Unfortunately, she did this at the same time their ship veered down and right and the ship’s internal gravity system struggled to keep up with both their quick movements and the growing gravity of the planet.
Up, down, left, right, and a few rolls for good measure later and Kendra held on to the turret controls more to maintain some sense of place than to shoot at anyone. She’d heard of motion sickness before, but never had the opportunity to experience it herself. Firing off a few more shots at the fighters behind them, she forced her eyes to stay open. Crashing into a planet did not sound more appealing than exploding in space.
The comms came to life as Ahsoka said, “Don’t shoot the purgil.”
“The what?” she replied.
“The purgil.” Ahsoka sounded like everybody in the galaxy knew what that meant.
Their ship climbed and then dove, right over the back of a gigantic creature floating or flying in the air. It was gray, and larger than any capital ship she’d seen yet.
“Space whales,” she whispered. The space whales Huyang had told her about when explaining where Ezra and Thrawn had gone. They were real.
She leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the animal. All of the movement finally overcame her internal sense of direction, and she threw up again, coating the floor and window below her. She’d have to look at the space whales later.
“I am not cleaning that up for you,” Sabine yelled into the comms.
“Kendra,” Ahsoka said. “Reach out with the Force. Find Sabine and I in the cockpit. Sense the purgil all around us and the life on the planet beneath us. Center yourself on the Force. Slow your breathing. Don’t worry about shooting for now.”
“Yes, master.” Kendra did as she was instructed, holding the Jedi code in her mind. She struggled at first, but managed to feel her two companions, and then the purgil. Her stomach wasn’t much better, but she thought she might not vomit again, even as their ship continued to weave around the massive space whales.
They lost the approaching fighters a few minutes later. She couldn’t help but wonder if the purgil had helped hide their path.
“Head back up here,” Ahsoka said. “We’re going to land and power down.”
Kendra swallowed and crawled out of the seat, thankful the ship was slowing down and flying level again. She did not like this part of being a Jedi.
Read Chapter 22 here.
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