Yep, late again, my bad, and I have a good excuse. Throwing up. Anyway heres the chapter and the next one is also out on patreon and holy shit do I like that chapter on p@treon.
Hermit47 P@treon
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The halls of the Jedi Temple felt too clean after Star Base Zahanna.
Too bright. Too open. Too calm in all the wrong ways.
Ahsoka walked beside Aayla Secura through one of the upper corridors, the polished stone floors reflecting the soft gold light pouring in from Coruscant's skyline beyond the great windows. Temple attendants moved quietly in the distance. Younglings crossed an adjoining hall in neat lines under the watch of an instructor. Somewhere farther below, bells chimed the hour.
It should have felt grounding.
Instead, Ahsoka found it irritating.
"It's not right," she said for what was probably the fourth or fifth time.
Aayla glanced sideways at her without slowing. "You've mentioned that. already"
Ahsoka threw up her hands. "Because it isn't. Virek had no right to send me back here without even telling me where my master was going."
Aayla's expression stayed patient, though there was a weariness in her eyes that hadn't been there before the war. "He didn't send you anywhere because he felt like it. He sent you because Skywalker was in no condition to take you with him and because whatever happened after the ritual was clearly being locked down."
"That doesn't make it better."
"No," Aayla admitted. "But it does make it understandable."
Ahsoka huffed and looked away toward the windows. Coruscant stretched forever outside them, all towers and traffic and ordered motion, a city-world too large to truly grasp. After Korriban, after Zahanna, after the tremors and sealed doors and too many people refusing to answer direct questions, it all felt almost fake.
She folded her arms tightly.
"I should've been told something."
Aayla softened a little at that. "You're his Padawan, not his keeper."
Ahsoka opened her mouth, then closed it again, because the worst part was that Aayla wasn't wrong.
"He was hurt," she said instead, quieter this time. "And everyone around him kept acting like I should just accept not knowing."
Aayla slowed slightly, enough that Ahsoka had no choice but to slow with her.
"You should trust the 501st," she said. "You can trust Rex and Virek. And whether either of us likes it or not, you should trust that Anakin has built people around himself who will not let him die easily."
Ahsoka let out a long breath through her nose.
"I know," she said. "I know I shouldn't complain."
Aayla's smile was small, but real. "You can complain. Just don't mistake complaining for helplessness."
That made Ahsoka glance at her.
Aayla kept her voice light, but the meaning underneath it was clear enough. "You won't help him by stewing in corridors and glaring at clone officers. If you want to be useful to Anakin, then be useful."
Ahsoka made a face. "You sound like him."
"That is a terrible insult."
That finally pulled a laugh out of her.
By the time they reached the Council chamber doors, Ahsoka had gone quiet again. Not calmer, exactly. But more centered.
The great circular doors parted.
The High Council chamber was not full.
War had made that the new normal.
Mace Windu sat in his place, back straight, expression grave and unreadable. Ki-Adi-Mundi leaned forward slightly in his chair, long fingers folded together. Master Yoda sat near the center, small and still, though Ahsoka had long since learned that stillness in Yoda often meant more attention, not less. Kit Fisto was present as well, his easy composure intact even beneath the weight of wartime. Obi-Wan sat among them too now, no longer the absent field commander she had expected but very much a member of the circle.
Other chairs held blue-lit holograms, flickering with variable clarity. Several were empty entirely.
The chamber felt less like a council of ancient guardians and more like a command room stretched thin by too many fronts.
Aayla and Ahsoka stepped to the center and bowed.
Mace was the one who spoke first.
"Knight Secura. Padawan Tano."
Ahsoka straightened.
Aayla did not waste time. She explained what she knew of Anakin's condition after the battle, the transfer to Zahanna, the station lockdown, and the fact that his recovery had become too private and too compartmentalized for even allied Jedi to remain involved. She did not dramatize it. She did not embellish. But Ahsoka noticed several members of the Council growing more intent as she spoke.
When she finished, silence lingered for a moment.
Then Yoda hummed softly.
"Strong, Skywalker is," he said. "Recover faster than most, he will."
The certainty in his tone did more for Ahsoka than she wanted to admit.
Plo Koon's hologram crackled faintly as he spoke. "Even so, his absence will be felt. Whether for days or longer, removing Skywalker from active command leaves a gap in the war effort."
Obi-Wan inclined his head slightly. "Then Perhaps Qui-Gon and I will fill it."
Ahsoka looked up.
Obi-Wan continued, calm and steady as always. "The forces attached to Skywalker's campaigns will need oversight while the 501st withdraws from direct operations. My former master and I can assume those responsibilities and pressure the Separatists where his withdrawal might otherwise create opportunities."
Windu considered that, eyes narrowing slightly in thought rather than opposition.
"At least until Skywalker returns," Obi-Wan added.
Mundi nodded once. "It's a reasonable arrangement."
Windu looked toward Yoda, then back to Obi-Wan. "Very well. You and Master Jinn will absorb Skywalker's pending assignments where possible and keep pressure on the sectors he has vacated."
Obi-Wan bowed his head. "Understood."
Mace then turned to Aayla.
"As for the 327th, Knight Secura, your legion has taken substantial losses in the last cycle of engagements. They will be granted recovery time before reassignment."
Aayla bowed again. "Thank you, Masters."
That should have been the end of it for her.
But before she could step away, Yoda's gaze shifted toward Ahsoka.
"A new assignment, Padawan Tano has."
Ahsoka straightened instinctively.
The side doors opened behind her.
She turned—and saw Luminara Unduli entering the chamber.
Aayla saw her too.
The look that passed across Aayla's face was subtle enough that most people would have missed it, but Ahsoka was standing close enough to catch it: not hostility, exactly, but a coolness sharpened by memory. Luminara, for her part, gave no sign that she noticed. She entered with her usual poise, green skin immaculate, posture elegant and composed, and bowed to the Council before taking her place near the chamber center.
Aayla stepped aside without a word and began to leave.
Ahsoka watched her go, then turned back as Mace resumed speaking.
"Padawan Tano," he said, "until Skywalker has recovered, you will operate under the temporary tutelage of Master Unduli."
Ahsoka blinked once, then twice.
She had expected reassignment of some kind. Maybe temple duty. Maybe courier work. Maybe just more waiting.
This was not that.
Yoda took up the briefing from there.
"A mission of importance, this is. To the Core world of Vel Astra, you will go."
A holo rose from the center of the floor between them, showing a pale, gleaming world wrapped in orbital lanes and layered with white-stone cities and deep industrial zones. Trade routes pulsed around it in bright lines.
Mundi gestured toward the projection. "Vel Astra controls a crucial resource refinement process tied to reactor stabilization and long-range fleet fuel processing. More importantly, it sits astride a hyperspace junction the Republic cannot afford to lose."
Kit Fisto added, "The royal house of Vel Astra retains custody of the formula used to refine the mineral properly. Without that formula, the resource loses most of its strategic value."
Windu's tone remained clipped but not cold. "Recent intelligence suggests Separatist assassins may be targeting the government there. Specifically the Prime Minister, the sector senator, and the ruling household."
A second layer of the holo expanded, showing elegant government towers, a palace district, and several faces marked as high-value persons.
"Your task," Luminara said at last, stepping forward with smooth authority, "will be to assist in their protection."
Ahsoka looked from the holo to the Council and back again.
This was a real mission. A serious one. Not just busywork to keep her from asking about Anakin.
She bowed deeply. "Thank you, Masters."
And she meant it.
Excitement cut through the frustration that had been sitting in her chest for days.
She wasn't happy to be away from her master—not really—but she did know what this was. A chance to prove she could function without him at her side. A chance to learn. A chance to matter.
Yoda inclined his head.
"Serve well, you will."
The meeting ended soon after.
When Ahsoka stepped out of the chamber, Luminara was waiting for her just beyond the doors, hands folded gracefully within her sleeves, face composed in a way that made Ahsoka instinctively straighten her posture.
"Padawan Tano," Luminara said. "Walk with me."
Ahsoka fell into step beside her.
For a few moments they moved in silence through the Temple corridors. Then Luminara spoke, her voice smooth and measured.
"I know this reassignment was sudden," she said. "And I know your loyalty to your master is strong. But while you are under my supervision, I expect discipline, patience, and precision."
Ahsoka nodded. "Yes, Master."
Luminara glanced at her. "You need not sound as though you're preparing for punishment."
Ahsoka felt her ears warm. "I'm not."
"Good."
They turned another corner, and another figure joined them from an adjoining hall.
Barriss Offee bowed her head respectfully toward Ahsoka. "Padawan Tano."
Ahsoka brightened slightly. "Barriss."
It wasn't quite friendship—they had crossed paths more than once in the Temple, shared lessons, shared temple meals, and traded enough opinions to know each other's habits—but there was familiarity there, and that helped.
Barriss fell into step on Luminara's other side.
"My Padawan," Luminara said, by way of formal introduction.
Barriss gave a faint smile. "Temporary mission partner, I suppose."
Ahsoka smiled back. "Better than being stuck in the archives."
"Barely," Barriss said dryly.
That surprised a small laugh out of her.
Luminara let them have the moment before continuing the briefing.
"Vel Astra is politically stable on the surface," she said. "That is one of the reasons the Council takes these threats seriously. Worlds like it rarely ask for Jedi intervention unless they believe the danger to be immediate."
"The monarchy keeps the formula itself?" Ahsoka asked.
Luminara nodded. "The royal archive does. The Queen and her heir are central to maintaining legal and technical continuity over the process. If they die, or if the government falls into chaos, the formula could be lost—or claimed by whoever moves quickest."
Barriss added, "And if the Separatists secure the lane and the refinement process, they gain both material and mobility."
Ahsoka's expression sobered. "So if this goes wrong, it's not just one world."
"No," Luminara said. "It's a corridor. A supply architecture. A precedent."
They reached the launch bay shortly after that.
The 41st Elite Corps fleet was already in final preparation. Green-marked clone troopers moved with efficient quiet, more restrained in bearing than the red-armored brutality Ahsoka had grown used to around the 501st. Their gunships were cleaner. Their movements less swaggering. More polished, perhaps. More conventional.
Ahsoka noticed the difference immediately.
And, though she would not have admitted it aloud, she found herself missing the harsher edge of Anakin's legion.
Luminara stopped at the boarding ramp and turned to face her fully.
"This mission is vital to the Republic," she said. "But that does not mean panic will help us. You will observe. You will think before you act. And if the threat presents itself, you will trust the structure of the mission rather than your first instinct."
Ahsoka nodded, though inwardly she already suspected that her first instinct and Luminara's preferred structure would not always get along.
Barriss gave her a sidelong look that suggested she suspected the same thing.
Then the three of them boarded.
Minutes later, the fleet rose from Coruscant and slipped into hyperspace.
Blue light flooded the viewport once more.
Behind them, the Jedi Temple receded into distance and politics and silence.
Ahead of them waited Vel Astra, the officials they had been sent to protect, and a mission the Council believed was straightforward.
It was not.
And though Ahsoka could not yet know it, she was already moving toward one of the first truths about war her master had learned long ago:
Sometimes the people the Republic tells the Jedi to protect are the very people who most deserve to fall.