Hssss.
Both white blades snapped off in quick succession as Ahsoka closed the distance between them. Three long strides through the mud and she was standing over the downed trooper, looking down at the jagged branch still buried in his gut.
The wound was bad. Dark blood had soaked through most of his white armor by now, pooling thickly in the depressions of his chest plate. His breathing came in short, wet rattles that fogged the inside of his helmet visor.
"You're going to want to leave that branch exactly where it is," Ahsoka told him, crouching down. "Pulling it out will just make you bleed faster."
The trooper's response was to spit a mouthful of blood directly at her boots.
"Jedi," he wheezed. The word dripped with enough venom to melt through durasteel. "Should've... known the Rebels would send scum like you."
"Rebels?" Ahsoka raised an eyebrow. "I'm just a concerned citizen doing some hiking."
"F-off with that." He coughed violently, a wet hacking sound that made his whole body seize around the impaling branch. "Saw the... saw the blades. Traitor to the Republic. Murderer."
Ah. There it was.
Ahsoka had encountered this particular flavor of brainwashing before. The Empire had done a remarkably thorough job rewriting recent history to paint the Jedi as treasonous conspirators who had attempted to overthrow the Republic. Most citizens just accepted the official narrative because questioning it was highly uncomfortable. The ones who genuinely believed it tended to be either very young or very committed to their paycheck.
This one was a true believer.
"Okay, listen—" she started.
"Don't... don't talk to me." The trooper's head rolled weakly against the mud. "I'm not telling you... anything. You can... torture me if you want. I won't... help a Jedi."
Tkk-tkk-tkk.
Ahsoka's lekku twitched with mild annoyance. She really did not have time for ideological stubbornness right now.
"I wasn't planning on torturing you," she said calmly. "You're already dying. Torture would be redundant."
"Good."
"But I do need some information."
"Go to hell."
The trooper tried to shift his weight, presumably to reach for something, and immediately gasped as the movement sent fresh blood pulsing around the branch. His face went grey behind the helmet.
Ahsoka watched him struggle for a moment, feeling a familiar tired weight settle in her chest.
She did not enjoy this part.
The Jedi Council had always been deeply divided on the ethics of mind influence. Some Masters argued it was a violation of sentient autonomy no different from physical torture. Others countered that extracting time-sensitive intelligence from hostile combatants was a necessary tool in wartime, especially when lives hung in the balance.
Ahsoka had never been entirely comfortable with either position.
She reached out with the Force, brushing against the trooper's feverish, pain-addled consciousness. His mind was a mess of fear, anger, and fading loyalty, all tangled together beneath a thick layer of Imperial conditioning. Breaking through that conditioning on a healthy, alert subject would require significant effort and risked causing permanent neurological damage.
On a man who was already bleeding out in a swamp?
It was almost embarrassingly easy.
"You're going to answer my questions," Ahsoka said softly, her voice taking on that particular resonant quality. "You want to answer my questions. It's the most natural thing in the world."
The trooper's rigid posture loosened slightly. His breathing steadied, though the rattling wetness in his lungs remained.
"What... what do you want to know?" he mumbled, his previous venom dissolving into hazy compliance.
Ahsoka kept her expression neutral despite the faint twist of guilt in her stomach.
"What planet is this?"
"Dromund... Dromund Kaas." He blinked slowly behind his visor. "Sector... Esstran. Assigned here three... three cycles ago."
The name sent a cold ripple down Ahsoka's spine.
She had heard that name exactly once before, in a very old and very restricted archive during her early Padawan years. Master Sinube had caught her skimming texts she was not supposed to access and had quietly redirected her toward less dangerous reading material.
Dromund Kaas. An ancient Sith stronghold, lost to recorded history thousands of years before the Republic even existed. The Jedi Order had possessed only fragmentary records of its location, and those records had almost certainly been destroyed along with the Temple archives during the Purge.
If the Empire had found this place and established a permanent garrison here, they were sitting on something far more significant than a simple military outpost.
"Why is the Empire here?" she pressed.
"Don't... don't know exactly." The trooper's brow furrowed with the effort of recall. "Prophets... Prophets of the Dark Side. They run the sector. We just... follow orders. Guard perimeters. Patrol zones."
"Prophets of the Dark Side," Ahsoka repeated carefully. "Who are they?"
"Cultists. Red robes. Red sabers." A wet cough interrupted him. Kaff-kaff. "They don't... don't tell us much. Stay in their temples. Send orders through... through intermediaries. Command said they have... direct line to the Emperor."
Ahsoka felt her stomach drop.
Direct line to the Emperor.
She had suspected for years that Palpatine possessed some form of Force sensitivity, though she had never been able to confirm it. The Inquisitorius was obviously trained by someone with deep knowledge of Jedi techniques. But an entire cult of dark side users operating openly under Imperial authority?
That was not one or two Sith hiding in the shadows. That was an infrastructure.
"Where is their headquarters?"
"Main temple... northeast of here. Big one. Old." The trooper's eyes were starting to glaze over. "Can't... can't give you coordinates. Don't have them. Just... just patrol routes."
Ahsoka leaned closer. "Patrol routes. Tell me."
What followed was a fragmented, halting recitation of grid references and checkpoint codes that meant absolutely nothing to her without a proper map. She committed everything to memory anyway, trusting she could make sense of it later.
"How many of them are there? The Prophets?"
The trooper's face scrunched with concentration. "Dunno. Dozens, maybe. Never seen more than... than a few at a time. But the acolytes... lots of acolytes. They're the ones who... who do the actual work."
"Acolytes with red lightsabers."
"Some. Some just use... use the Force. Push things. Choke things." Another cough. Kkk-hss. "Saw one kill a man from... from fifty meters away. Just... just squeezed."
Ahsoka filed that detail away. Telekinetic killing at range required significant power and control. These were not untrained enthusiasts playing with dark side aesthetics.
"One more question." She hesitated briefly. "Have you seen a boy? Young. Eleven or twelve years old. Human. Dark hair, blue eyes. He crashed here a few days ago."
The trooper's brow twitched. "No. No boy. Just... just orders to hunt the... the beasts. They've been going crazy. Coming out of the deep swamp. Attacking outposts."
"Why are the beasts acting different?"
"Don't know. Command doesn't... doesn't tell us why. Just tells us to shoot." His breathing was growing shallower. "Prophets seemed... seemed worried about it. Sent multiple teams into the forest. Most didn't... didn't come back."
Ahsoka sat back on her heels, processing.
The stormtrooper's knowledge was limited by design. Imperial grunts were rarely given context beyond what was strictly necessary for their immediate assignments. But even this fragmented picture was deeply concerning.
Dromund Kaas. An ancient Sith world, hidden from the greater galaxy, now hosting an established Imperial garrison under the command of a dark side cult with direct ties to Palpatine himself. Dozens, possibly hundreds of dark side users training and operating in secret while the rest of the galaxy remained completely oblivious.
And somewhere on this nightmare planet, a twelve-year-old Padawan was supposedly hiding.
The rescue mission had just escalated from complicated to potentially suicidal.
Ahsoka looked down at the trooper. His eyes had drifted half-closed, his chest barely rising and falling. The mind influence was keeping him compliant, but it could not stop his body from shutting down.
"What's your name?" she asked quietly.
"Bron. TK-6731." He blinked slowly. "Why... why do you care?"
Ahsoka did not have a good answer for that.
"You fought well," she said instead. "Took down one of those things with just a squad. That's not nothing."
Bron's mouth twitched. "Didn't... didn't take it down fast enough."
"No. You didn't."
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the steady drip of rainwater and the distant calls of unseen creatures.
"Is it... is it going to stop?" Bron whispered suddenly. "The hurting?"
Ahsoka reached out with the Force, gently brushing against his fading consciousness. She could ease his pain, at least. It was a small thing, but it was all she could offer.
"Yes," she said softly. "It's going to stop."
She pushed a warm wave of calming energy through his mind. His body relaxed, his breathing steadied, and the fear in his eyes gradually melted into something quieter.
Bron TK-6731 died in the mud approximately ninety seconds later, looking almost peaceful.
Ahsoka remained crouched beside him for a long moment, staring at the rain-soaked ground.
Then she stood up, activated her holotracker, and started walking.
The stolen Inquisitor transport resembled a very expensive, deeply scorched lawn dart driven nose-first into the swamp.
Ahsoka stopped at the edge of the clearing, keeping herself pressed against the shadows of a massive rot-wood tree. She spent a full minute scanning the tree line, listening past the relentless drumming of the rain for any sign of an Imperial ambush.
Nothing but the steady, miserable hum of the jungle.
Getting here had taken nearly four hours of exhausting detours. The deep forest was practically crawling with white armor. She had managed to bypass three separate Imperial patrols by sticking to the high branches, though she hadn't been quite as lucky with the wildlife. She had carved through two more feral Vine Cats and something that looked like a terrifying cross between a centipede and a rancor just to reach this quadrant.
Along the way, she had found two more separated troopers wandering the muck. A quick, aggressive application of mind influence on both of them had painted a much clearer and much worse picture of the planet's situation.
The Prophets of the Dark Side predated the Empire entirely. According to the older garrison logs one trooper had memorized, the cult had been operating here since long before the Clone Wars even started. They had been hiding out right under the Jedi Order's collective nose for decades.
We were fighting a galaxy-wide war to save the Republic, unaware of even greater danger lurking behind.
It consoled a bit if anything...Jedi had not fallen without a cause. As much as someone in the empire's higher up was involved, the presense of a dark sider cult strengthened the suspicions of their involvement in the ploy.
"The chosen one...," she muttered to herself, shaking her head trying to forget the prophecy involving her deceased Master.
She had many times wondered about what was this Balance that the prophecy spoke of. Across centuries, Jedi had seen many masters and knights fall to the dark side, so when Count Dooku did the same, it was yet another case, albeit one that had caused far greater betrayal to the Temple.
It was not until the Seige of Mandalore where she had learned from Maul that there was some Sith named Darth Sidious controllling things from the shadows, through his claims held no evidence to it for her to believe, especially with his intent for her to swear allegiance to him.
Yet it was a grave matter and she was to share it with the Temple, even if she had left the place behind. Order 66 gave her no chance through.
The purge swallowed even her Master, extinguishing the prophecy of the Chosen One alongside him.
She shook her head and focused on the current situation.
The silver lining of it was that whatever happened a couple of days ago had completely upended the cultist's operations. Something had caused the local predators to abandon their deep-swamp nests and throw themselves violently at Imperial outposts. One trooper had even heard panicked chatter about a minor cultist temple getting overrun by the stampeding beasts.
Command was currently deploying every available squad to suppress the wildlife and track the source of the disturbance. That meant fewer eyes looking up at the sky, giving Ahsoka exactly the window she needed to grab Ezra Bridger and get off this nightmare planet.
She needed to warn Bail as soon as possible. A hidden Sith cult boasting dozens of trained Force users was way more dangerous that anyone could expect. The inquisitorius had already been a problem for hiding Jedi, but these prophets could put the Rebellion itself at risk if they emerge.
Satisfied the perimeter was clear, Ahsoka stepped out of the trees and approached the Scythe.
The hull was scorched black, covered in deep atmospheric burn scars that suggested a violently uncontrolled reentry. She walked around the port side, her boots sinking deeply into the mud.
A sharp, putrid smell suddenly cut through the damp scent of the rain.
Ahsoka gagged instinctively, raising a forearm to cover her nose and mouth. She drew a lightsaber hilt with her other hand just in case, following the stench toward the rear of the ship's massive impact trench.
A body was lying haphazardly in the mud.
It was a human male, and based on the state of decay and the swarming insect activity, he had been dead for at least a few days. The local scavengers and maggots were already aggressively claiming the softer tissues of his face and neck.
Ahsoka felt a cold knot of dread form in her stomach. She quickly pulled up the encrypted holo-file Bail had provided on her wrist tracker. She compared the blue glowing face of the twelve-year-old boy to the adult features of the corpse.
Relief washed over her. Not the kid.
She tapped the file to the next image, displaying Bail's two adult Alderaanian operatives.
The dead man matched the pilot, Ryn.
"I'm sorry," she whispered softly.
She stepped closer to inspect the cause of death, but the decay and the mud made it impossible to tell if he died in the crash or afterward. What caught her attention instead was the pile of freshly turned earth just a few feet away.
It was a rectangular hole, half-filled with rainwater. Right at the head of the ditch, a piece of salvaged hull plating had been shoved into the mud. The name Ryn was crudely carved into the metal.
Ahsoka frowned, letting her lightsaber drop slightly.
You don't dig a proper grave, carve a makeshift marker, and then just toss the body out into the mud right next to it. Someone had obviously taken the time to bury him with whatever dignity they could manage in a swamp.
Someone else had dug him back up.
Ahsoka closed her eyes and stretched her senses outward, pushing past the oppressive dark side energy saturating the air. She searched for any lingering imprints, any trace of hostile intent hiding nearby. The Force around the crash site was murky and heavy, but completely empty. Whoever exhumed the body was long gone.
"Looks like our little secret isn't so secret anymore," she murmured.
She walked back to the Scythe and hauled herself up one of the crumpled landing struts to peer through a shattered view-port.
The interior of the ship was completely destroyed. The damage clearly went far beyond the physical impact of the crash. Consoles were melted slag. The primary conduit runs were fused together in warped clumps of metal. It looked like a catastrophic electrical surge had completely hollowed out the internal systems before gravity ever took over.
There was zero chance anyone was fixing this ship.
She hopped back down into the mud, wiping the rain from her montrals. The heavy downpour had thoroughly washed away any chance of tracking footprints away from the crash site. The rain had turned the entire clearing into a uniform, soupy mess.
She unclipped her tracker again. The faint SOS signal Bail had given her was still pinging steadily. It was transmitting from an elevated position a few miles further up into the dense, rising foothills.
The surviving operative and the kid must have grabbed the emergency gear and moved to higher ground to get a signal through the atmospheric interference. It was the smartest move they could have made under the circumstances.
Ahsoka secured the tracker back onto her belt and checked the power cells on her lightsabers. The rescue mission was getting vastly more complicated by the hour, but she finally had a clear direction.
She turned her back to the ruined ship and started marching uphill into the thick brush.
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Got a bit late in update cuz I had fallen asleep. Don't forget to donate your stones :)
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