Chapter 3
Sabine Wren was contemplating whether she needed to run into Capital City for supplies, or whether she’d rather spend the day at the Pelamir Gorge, checking on the growth of the new spine tree forest. It was a replacement for the one cut down and destroyed by the Imperials during their occupation of Lothal, planted about seven years ago. The replanting had been part of a commemoration ceremony celebrating the lives of those lost fighting the Empire, and partly just to restore a native portion of Lothal’s damaged ecosystem. All in all, things could have been far worse—they’d gotten the Empire out of here just in the nick of time, as it pertained to the planet’s climate and health. The damage done had not been too extensive, and was reversible with time and stewardship.
Sabine sighed, realizing that neither option really appealed to her. She reached over and shook a plastic container experimentally, before pouring some kibble into the bowl of her one boon companion, a stray Loth cat that had adopted her, for lack of a better description. Sabine certainly hadn’t gone out of her way to take on any pets, but the Loth cat moved in with her of its own accord. They were living in Ezra’s old digs in the abandoned comm tower, and Sabine had finally named her Murley in lieu of just calling her ‘Loth cat’ or ‘Cat.’ Murley appeared as if summoned from the netherworld, drawn by the tell-tale sound of food hitting her bowl. Her tail swished appreciatively, and she purred, rubbing once in thanks against Sabine before settling in and setting to. Sabine watched her without much feeling, before sighing again. She gave Murley a gentle, melancholy scratch, and although the Loth cat lifted her spirits some, they didn’t rise far when they were starting from the proverbial cellar.
Unbidden, Sabine impulsively dug into an open crate underneath the table, rummaging for a moment before pulling a holographic solido and setting it on the table. She triggered it on, and a hologram of Ezra Bridger sprang into existence, smiling up at her in that mischievous way he’d always had about him, even when he was trying to be serious.
Hey Sabine, Ezra’s image greeted her, waving once with one hand.
Sorry for disappearing on you. I made this recording because, more than the others, I need you to understand. As a Jedi, sometimes you have to make the decision no one else can. So, that’s what I did to defeat Thrawn. We’ve been through a lot… we grew up together, in this Rebellion. We’re not really family, but you’re like a sister to me. I know your fight isn’t over, and I won’t be there to help you, but I’m counting on you to see this through. May the Force be with you.
When the message ended, the holo-image didn’t fade out, just settled into a still of Ezra Bridger, smiling at her. Sabine stared at it for several long moments, her mind wandering, and then she looked up and away with an angry toss of her head as she bit back bitter tears.
At first, Ezra’s disappearance . . .
no, she caught herself,
call it what it is: his sacrifice . . . Ezra’s
sacrifice had been easier to accept. There was the exhilaration of victory, the expulsion of the Empire from Lothal, and the slow realization over time that the Empire wasn’t coming back. Then things had started to slow down, settle down, and become… complicated. Hera and Zeb had left, still embroiled with the Rebellion, and after Scariff and the Battle of Yavin, General Syndulla had been all in, never looking back.
Actually, that’s not true, Sabine corrected herself.
Hera was all in from the very beginning, long before any of us. Ahsoka Tano, like Kanan before her, had recognized Sabine as a potential Jedi, although perhaps not the strongest candidate ever to begin training. Kanan had told her she was blocked, that maybe it had to do with her outlook on life, shaped by her Mandalorian values and combat training. He’d begun training her to safely wield the legendary darksaber, which had fallen into her possession by chance, but all that was cut short. Kanan was killed, and even before that she’d passed the darksaber to Bo-Katan Kryse to aid in her attempt at rallying the Mandalorian people. Those people—
her people—were dead now, massacred by the Empire toward the end of the war, and her home planet was glassed—poisoned and lifeless for centuries to come. The Mandalorians were no more, except for isolated knots of nomadic survivors eking out a pathetic, meager existence on the fringes of the galaxy. Clan Wren was even less than that, now down to a single surviving member.
And that’s all she was doing on Lothal: surviving.
She could have gone with Hera and Zeb, and would have, except for Ahsoka Tano. The latter had seen something in her, or so she thought, and asked Sabine to stay with her for a time and train as a Jedi. Sabine had agreed, as much to honor the memory of Ezra Bridger and Kanan Jarrus than for any other reason. Ahsoka had taken her to Shili, the world of Ahsoka’s birth although she had no memory of it. They took up residence in a tiny mountain village in the middle of a large pine forest, spending most of the next few years living as virtual hermits within the depths of that forest. They ate Kybuck that they hunted themselves, supplemented with nuts, berries, and native root vegetables. They drank and bathed in cold, native mountain streams and brooks, and defended themselves against native predators as needed. Ahsoka immersed them in a rich, natural, life-filled environment that shone with the Force, and Sabine had begun her training in earnest.
Her tenure on Shili was where she met Huyang for the first time. He was an antique droid, a servant of the Jedi Order from time immemorial. He was so old that nobody, including himself, could speak with certainty as to his origins. He was a professor of sorts, a teacher of younglings, and a specialist in the engineering and construction of Jedi lightsabers. He had escaped Palpatine’s Jedi purge, perhaps finding it easier than most given his nature as a droid rather than an organic Jedi. He re-connected with Ahsoka Tano at some point during the intervening years and accompanied them to Shili where he aided in Sabine’s training. He helped her modify the lightsaber gifted to her by Ezra Bridger, making it her own. He was also helpful as a trainer and basic form instructor, but Ahsoka conducted most of Sabine’s training personally. While master and apprentice wandered the forest for weeks and months on end, training, meditating, and living off the land, Huyang would remain with Ahsoka’s hidden shuttle, maintaining the ship’s camouflage and seeing to its upkeep.
It was a difficult apprentice-ship. Ahsoka Tano, it turned out, had issues of her own to wrestle with—issues from her past which were unresolved, and about which she refused to confide in Sabine. Sabine was an adult by this time, her brain hard-wired by two decades’ worth of training and beliefs, and a philosophical outlook far from the Jedi Way. The mental block that Kanan Jarrus sensed in Sabine was difficult to overcome—there was much to unlearn that had already been learned. It took three years of intense study, physical and mental training, and meditation before Sabine felt the first vestiges of the Force as something tangible that could be called upon for knowledge and defense. The relationship between Ahsoka and Sabine was also difficult, even stormy at times. Both were strong-willed, and both in deep states of grief although they failed to recognize it within themselves.
Then, just when Sabine was starting to show real success in her journey to feel and wield the Force, word had come to them of the purge of Mandalore. A trip to the devastated star system confirmed their worst fears: Sabine’s family was lost along with the rest. This put her in a dark place, one of terrible grief, rage, and a burning hatred for the Imperials that clouded her mind and opened her to the dark side of the Force. Her relationship with Ahsoka descended into a state of mutual frustration, and her training reached an impasse.
So Ahsoka had walked away, abruptly severing the relationship, declaring that Sabine had to find a new path. It was painful for both of them, and Sabine was never convinced by the reasons that Ahsoka gave her, leaving her feeling embittered and abandoned. Ahsoka had resumed her solitary, wandering lifestyle, and Sabine Wren, having nowhere else she could think of to go, had returned to Lothal: the one place where she had known a sense of love and family, if only for a few short years. Ezra’s old haunt was still there, several kilometers outside Capital City, and Sabine had taken up residence in his absence. She felt like a squatter, empty inside, waiting for the return of someone she knew was never coming back.
Sabine decided on a third plan for her day: art. She’d begin work on a new piece, although a part of her dreaded that as well. She didn’t want to face what it would tell her about herself—her mood tended to come out in her art, and she didn’t like where it was pointing, lately. Still, she had to do something other than sit and cry over Ezra’s holo, or her dead family, or her wretched life. She was galvanizing herself to action when Murley suddenly sat up from where she was curled against Sabine’s leg, her tufted ears pointing straight up. She abruptly jumped up and sauntered cautiously toward the open door, clearly hearing something outside of Sabine’s auditory range.
Curious, Sabine followed her out onto the high tower balcony, leaning against the railing in the warm sunlight and closing her eyes as the morning breeze blew through her long, multi-colored hair. After a minute she could feel a vibration in the air and the structure of the old tower, soon followed by the distinct whine of a starship’s drive. This one sounded familiar, and she looked up as the red-and-white shape of a Jedi T-6 shuttle passed almost directly overhead, flanked by two escorting E-Wing fighters from Lothal’s defensive constabulary. The shuttle was still in cruise configuration, its broad wing rotated to the vertical position as it leisurely cruised Lothal’s cerulean sky towards the white, regular skyline of Capital City.
Behind her, inside the tower, her communications panel signaled an incoming call.
Sabine barely heard it; her mind was in turmoil, as a myriad of emotions wrestled one another. She knew of only one T-6 still flying, and it was her old master’s. The rarity of that design coupled with the arrival of one here narrowed the possibilities below the margins of simple coincidence. There was little doubt: Ahsoka Tano had returned, and Sabine guessed that she herself was probably the reason, for better or worse.
The communications panel signaled a second time, and Murley butted urgently against Sabine’s ankle, giving her an inquisitive mewl.
Are you going to address that annoying noise for me, human?
Sabine cocked an eyebrow at the Loth cat before stepping back inside and answering the call. She was met with the white-bearded visage of Ryder Azadi, the governor of Lothal and about the closest thing she had to a friend, these days. He was one of the few people who knew where Sabine lived, and one of very few with access to her comm-code.
“I just saw her fly over, Ryder,” she said without preamble.
“Good,” he replied. “It saves me the trouble of explaining why I’m calling. She’s already contacted me and asked me to relay her request for you to meet as soon as possible. I think you’re going to want to hear what she has to say.”
“What did she tell you?” Sabine asked in a flat, uninterested tone.
“That she may have a line on where Ezra Bridger ended up after the battle with Thrawn.”
Sabine felt a psychic jolt run through her body, and something like a spark of fire ignited in the depths of her soul, like the power cell in a dead speeder being jump-started. The feeling was strange, and long forgotten—something she had given up on completely. It took her a moment to realize what it was.
Hope.
“I’m coming,” she said, and severed the communications link.
* * *
Ahsoka’s shuttle was docked at the government complex, not far from where officials made public appearances and where the mural of Lothal’s liberators, painted by Sabine almost a decade before, graced the central terrace. Sabine stood there now, her body bladed almost defensively, arms crossed, and her hip defiantly cocked as she glared across the intervening space at Ahsoka Tano. The latter stood calmly, facing her with arms also folded, with warm eyes but a face almost devoid of expression.
“It’s been a while,” Sabine said, her voice almost a challenge.
“Things have changed,” Ahsoka replied, trying to calm her own emotions as well as her voice.
“Ryder Azadi told me why you’re here. Do you know where Ezra is?
Is he alive?”
“If we work together, we may be able to find out where he and Thrawn were taken by the Purrgil. If we can solve that, then maybe we can find the answer to your second question. Do you think we can do it?” Ashoka added, her voice taking on the old tone of the master addressing the student. “Can we work together?”
“You were the one who walked away, not me,” Sabine shot back.
“That’s true,” Ahsoka agreed. “Now I’m back, and to find Thrawn, and hopefully Ezra, I’m going to need your help. I can’t do it alone.”
“Which one are you looking for? Thrawn, or Ezra?”
“I’m looking for both, Sabine,” Ahsoka replied, her tone slightly pleading. “Things are happening, and another war may be brewing if they go badly. Not that the war has truly ended, but we’re talking about its resumption on a scale not seen since Endor. Would you like to come aboard the ship? We should sit down, and I can explain what I’ve recently learned.”
Sabine stared at her for a long moment, her eyes unreadable. Then she uncrossed her arms and shrugged. “I don’t see why not. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”
The interior of the T-6 was just as Sabine remembered; even the smell was familiar. She almost instinctively moved to her old bunk, which with typical Jedi frugality was little more than a sleeping alcove that could be sealed off with an opaque transparisteel pane. Very monkish, and well in line with the way the Jedi Order had treated itself in its last few centuries before Palpatine and the Empire. She had doodled in that alcove, mostly small artistic renditions of Loth cats or Kybuck from Shili. They were still there—Ahsoka hadn’t wiped them clean. She felt another sensation tugging at her: the urge to smile. She didn’t give in to it, not yet.
When she turned around, she found herself facing another familiar figure: Huyang, looking at her through glowing yellow photoreceptors. “Well, look what the Loth cat dragged in,” he said in his distinctive mechanical voice.
“Hello, Huyang. Still in one piece?”
“Yes, and seventy-five percent original parts!” he joked. “Welcome back, padawan.”
“I’m not a padawan anymore,” she retorted sharply, although it was never easy to be cross with Huyang. The droid had a dry wit about him, sometimes a feigned world-weariness, but his voice was so peaceful and agreeable that he amounted to a soothing presence under any circumstance.
“But you may be again,” he replied sagely, foreshadowing what this was about.
Curious, Sabine thought.
“Please, sit down,” Ahsoka added, gesturing to the table. Sabine did so while Ahsoka moved over to a side panel and retrieved a container of tea, and two plastic cups. She sat down opposite Sabine and poured for both of them, while Huyang cited work as an excuse to leave them alone to talk. Sabine took the cup she offered and set it aside for the moment. Ahsoka regarded her calmly but steadily, trying to read her mood.
“So,” Sabine said somewhat uncomfortably, “where do you call home these days?” Ahsoka looked surprised at the question and gestured slightly around her with her cup. “Really? After all this time?” Sabine went on. “Don’t you ever get tired of just wandering around?”
“I go where I’m needed,” Ahsoka replied guardedly.
Sabine sat back, crossing her arms again. “Not always.”
“You never make things easy, do you?”
“Why should I? You never made things easy for me . . .
master.”
“There’s nothing easy about becoming a Jedi.”
“Then I should have made a good one,” Sabine countered.
Ahsoka smiled slightly, a hint of fondness creeping into her tone. “Yes, you should.”
Sabine blew out the tense breath she’d been holding. “So, what’s this really about? Why do you need my help to find Thrawn, and . . . Ezra?”
Ahsoka spent a few minutes telling Sabine what she knew. She related the rumors she had heard about Thrawn’s return, the involvement of Morgan Elsbeth, and what she’d learned about the map key, its alleged location in the Jedi temple on Lothal, and the challenges they would face in finding it. Most of that challenge now balanced on Sabine’s ability to use the Force, and the willingness of the Force itself, or the temple (Ahsoka wasn’t sure which), to accept them as master and padawan for purposes of gaining access.
“That temple is gone. Destroyed,” Sabine said, reiterating what Hera had said on Corvus.
“Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t,” Ahsoka replied. “If it’s truly gone, then there is nothing we can do and we’re right back where we started—with nothing. If it is there, even part of it in some form or another, there’s a chance. There’s no chance if we do nothing. Don’t you want to try?”
Sabine gave her former master a sarcastic look. “There is no try. Remember?”
“Then let’s
do,” Ahsoka urged her with some genuine enthusiasm. “Have you kept up with your training?” she asked, noting that Sabine wasn’t wearing her lightsaber, or even her blasters, for that matter. Weapons were part of her religion, at least her original one. That was a favorite saying of the Mandalorians, anyway. She wasn’t wearing her armor, either; just a nerf-hide jacket over russet colored swoop leathers, painted up the way Sabine tagged everything. Ahsoka was suddenly struck by the realization that this was the first time she had
ever seen Sabine without some type of weapon at hand. Even when she bathed, there was usually a blaster or vibroblade within easy reach. Seeing her this way said more to Ahsoka about her mental rut than anything else could have.
“In a word, no,” Sabine replied flatly.
“Can you feel the Force?” Ahsoka asked.
“Honestly, I haven’t made the effort in years.”
“Okay,” Ahsoka replied evenly, fighting to keep her own temper in check.
Why does she have to be so hostile? She thought to herself. Deep down she knew the answer, even if she didn’t want to face it. Sabine was right—
she was the one who’d given up, who’d walked away. And both knew that the only reason she was here now was because she needed Sabine’s help to obtain the map key. The young Mandalorian probably wondered what would happen when they had it. Would Ahsoka just walk away again? She realized that she hadn’t even addressed that issue with herself. Did this mission represent a permanent resumption of Sabine’s training on the Jedi path, or a temporary thing to be discarded when they had what they needed? One thing hadn’t changed in the past few years: her own worries and misgivings about her own training, life, and path were still very much a part of her. They had affected Sabine’s training before, and likely they would again. So what was the answer, here?
She honestly wasn’t sure.
What she
did know was that to obtain the key, Sabine would have to become her apprentice again. And the first rule of teaching anything was to ‘start where your student was at.’ Ergo, she needed to know where Sabine stood with her ability to tap into the Force. She reached out with her mind, levitating Sabine’s cup off the table and drawing it to her, where she took it in hand and set it back down. She cocked an eyebrow at Sabine, the challenge clear.
Sabine’s eyes narrowed and she gave Ahsoka a dry look, before setting her gaze on the cup. She stared at it intently for several long moments, and it was clear to Ahsoka that she was concentrating hard. Ahsoka felt no stirring in the Force coming from Sabine, and the cup didn’t move. Sabine shifted slightly in her seat, eyes narrowing further in concentration, until it looked like she might bore a hole in the cup just with her gaze. Still nothing. Finally, she let out her breath and sat up with a small shrug.
Her self-evaluation was flip and sarcastic. “You win this round!” she sang to the unmoving cup. Her frustration and embarrassment were plain to see, and unfortunately very familiar.
“It’s alright,” Ahsoka assured her. “We have all the time we need, Sabine. Morgan Elsbeth is in custody, and there is nobody else who can open the temple. Let’s pick up your training and see where it leads. A lot of time has passed, giving pain and anger time to fade. The Force is with you, as it is with all living things. It always has been, and always will be. You reached the point where you could feel it and make it your ally. You can do it again, and I suspect that it won’t take long for you to rebound to where you were, if we make a genuine effort.”
Sabine nodded, but she looked unsure. Unconvinced.
Uncommitted.
Ahsoka closed her eyes and lifted her chin slightly, taking a calming, peaceful breath and extending her senses. “The Force is strong on Lothal,” she added, feeling the eddies and currents of it around her. It enveloped her senses like warm light, passing around and through her and everything around her. She felt herself begin to calm—it had been an emotional day for everyone. “This is a good place to train the body and heal the soul.”
“Ezra’s place,” Sabine said in a small voice, anger and tension giving way to a soul-crushing, long-held grief.
I can’t go on like this forever, she told herself.
I need to find him or let him go. And I won’t ever let go until I know he can’t be found, or that he’s gone. So there’s really only one thing to do, isn’t there?
Ahsoka reached across the table and took Sabine’s hand—something she rarely did with anyone. “I can feel your sense of loss,” she said gently. “I know it well, trust me. Do you know what my master once told me?” she asked. It was something of a rhetorical question, as Ahsoka rarely if ever spoke of her own master or years of training. Sabine had never understood why, since the master referencing her own experiences seemed like a natural road for imparting knowledge to the student. Nevertheless, it had not been Ahsoka’s way.
Today merited an exception, apparently. “He once told me that grief is love that has nowhere to go,” she explained. “But it does, Sabine, even if most are blind to it. Grief is a consequence of attachment, and attachment is a trap of the ego. We are all one with the Force, Sabine. Your blood family has passed from mortal life, and maybe Ezra as well, but they,
and us, are all one with the Force, now and always. Look to the Force, and you’ll always find them there.” Ahsoka’s voice had become soothing as she spoke, like a mother to her child, almost hypnotic. “Speak to the living Force, and hear it answer. Close your eyes,” she said, and Sabine did. “Take a deep breath and let yourself go . . . that’s it . . . floating free.”
“Floating free,” Sabine whispered, her breathing slowing and deepening. She felt a tightness in her chest beginning to let go, as if someone was loosening a constricting band around her. It felt good.
“There is no death, there is only the Force,” Ahsoka breathed. Sabine repeated the mantra from the Jedi Code, her voice a dry whisper.
“I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” Ahsoka continued, her voice a lulling drone as she quoted the Journal of the Whills.
“I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me,” Sabine repeated. Ahsoka prompted her on, and soon the two were speaking in one voice, almost as if in prayer.
I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
Master and Padawan, again.
