Chapter Text
Wolffe took a shortcut on the way to the latrines in the early morning hours and stumbled across a bit of Contraband. This was not entirely unusual━the men found all sorts of not particularly regulations-approved things to hold onto. What was unusual was that this one followed him of its own accord.
He washed and dried his hands, then bent to pat the miscreant. The tooka twined around his legs and rubbed its flat face enthusiastically against his hands. Loose fur stuck to his palms; he wiped it off on his blacks, and picked the critter up. It settled into his arms without hesitation, purring like a little engine. Most likely a lost pet, then.
And here came the culprits, even less surprisingly the same gaggle of men who’d adopted Chester. The one in front stopped in mid-call for the tooka and gave Wolffe an alarmed stare. Wolffe, holding the tooka, stared flatly back.
Of course all his major problems would meet up and make friends. Of course they would.
“Um,” said the one in front━Joyride. What a name. “Thank you for catching it, sir. Commander Chester said we needed to catch and monitor it so it wouldn’t have a devastating impact on the planet’s native ecosystems.”
Wolffe tilted his head, and looked at the edge of camp where one of the particularly toxic plants uncurled hopeful tendrils next to the maw of one of the carnivorous ones. Felucia’s native ecosystem was probably going to be able to handle one stray tooka. Probably for lunch. Which was why it was staying right here, with him.
To Joyride’s credit, however, it absolutely sounded like something Chester would say.
“Well,” he said, after giving Joyride long enough to really start squirming, “can’t have that, can we.”
Joyride watched him expectantly. Wolffe stared him down. “Run along, then.”
Joyride obviously had never learned the basic rules of officer wrangling. His wide eyes went from tooka to Wolffe’s face to tooka to Wolffe. “You’re keeping him?”
“Run along, soldier,” growled Wolffe.
Joyride, being tugged at by one of his wiser brothers, stood his ground. “He only likes the ration packs in the green wrappers, sir,” he informed Wolffe firmly.
“Sorry sir,” said one of his squadmates, tugging at his elbow. “He’s uh. He’s deficient in common sense. Joyride, you idiot, come on. ”
He’s been spending too much time around Chester , Wolffe thought privately as he glared the little knot of men out of sight. The tooka kept purring.
With a sigh, he turned around and headed for the mess. “We’ll find something better than ration packs for you,” he told it.
General Plo nodded at Wolffe as he entered the officers’ kitchen, radiating amiable humor from the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. “I see you have made acquaintance of our stowaway,” he said.
“What do tookas eat?” Wolffe toed open a low-level cupboard, crouched, and rifled through its contents one-handed. “No reason to inflict the rations on this one.” The tooka purred louder in his arms and pushed its blunt face into his collarbone.
The General handed him a jar. “Insects, molluscs, and small animals in general, I believe. Try this.”
The jar contained something closely resembling brightly-colored slugs. Wolffe swallowed the automatic faint roll of disgust long enough to dig two out and present them to the critter. It sniffed the offering, genteelly, then made them disappear.
“That is kiyideolo,” said Plo, satisfied. “Very cheap, if you are anywhere in the northern galactic hemisphere. They are edible to humans, if you were wondering.”
“No thank you, General.” Wolffe had gotten used to refusing Plo’s offers of interesting cultural food. They resembled the things he’d seen squirming in the Kaminoans’ lunchboxes a little too much.
Plo laughed softly through his mask. “Well, the little one is welcome to it, then.”
“Thank you, sir.” Wolffe tucked the jar into his back pocket, and took himself and the tooka off to work.
“I know General Plo talked to her,” said Cody, watching Wolffe pet the tooka. (A bit judgmentally, Wolffe felt.) “And I know you and Rex talked to her. It do any good?”
Wolffe huffed. “Yeah, they had a talk all right.” Chester was one of those people who got quieter mad, but the sharpness of her voice had carried all the same. “We should have sat her down and had that chat before she got half the camp shot up. My men told me she kept being protective. Just not exactly how protective, or why.”
Cody snorted, plopped down opposite him. “She’s not the most forthcoming natborn I’ve ever met.”
Wolffe thought about what he had overheard. “You could say that, yeah. Personally, I’d really like to know if she’s bullshitting us all about her behavior being normal for Starfleet━hard to believe there’s an entire space service of officers pulling her kind of shit.”
“Hard to believe they’re all still alive, more like,” said Cody, and pulled out his usual stack of datapads. Wolffe made a face at him for being a workaholic, and kept petting the tooka. “So, that talk. Did it work? Do I need to talk to her, too? Are we going to find out what she might do to a ship?”
“Ugh,” said Wolffe. “Anyone’s guess. She listened, she said all the right things, she made the right faces. She did not promise not to do it again. And it was like… she was watching us and thinking the whole time. About what, I’ve got no idea but… I do not like it when that woman starts thinking. Things tend to blow up.”
“So I need to talk to her too,” said Cody, resigned.
“With all due respect, I don’t think it’ll do any good,” said Wolffe.
“How so?”
“She’s made up her mind. About something, at least. But if she’s not going to listen to Plo about it, or to me or Rex…”
“Talking to a senior officer she barely knows is unlikely to change anything.” Cody pinched the bridge of his nose. “So we’re just going to have to manage her.”
Wolffe snorted. “Good luck.”
Cody eyeballed him from behind the datapad. “Rex and I manage General Skywalker.”
“Still. Good luck.”
Teaching Chester how to actively use the Force was turning out to be equal parts frustration and fascination, Plo reflected, as he collected the staves and helmet after a slow, unfruitful training session and returned them to their place.
It wasn’t a lack of natural ability. It also wasn’t a lack of effort on Chester’s part━she threw herself into this task as she did every other, with full focus and effort. She asked questions, applied the answers to her actions, and was willing to experiment. In short, she was a dedicated student, and a joy to teach.
The problem was possibly that she was too disciplined. Plo was not at all used to thinking of Jedi discipline as loose or laissez-faire, but this Vulcan mental self-control of hers made it seem so in comparison. Jedi teachings spoke of the danger of allowing one’s emotions to guide one’s actions, but at the same time so much of connecting to the Force was the willingness to reach out, to trust in one’s feelings and sense through them the flow of energy through the world around oneself. Chester must have been naturally inclined toward self-containment before she took up the Vulcan discipline, Plo thought, because even with her formidable shields down she seemed to unconsciously limit herself to a bubble within a metre or so of her body at all times. Which was fine, for close-quarters exercises. She’d gotten the hang of sensing the path of the staves, and was making good progress on the split-second precognition that would one day allow her to see a feint coming before it was even set up. But when Plo retreated beyond that bubble of awareness, she lost him. If he circled round behind her and swung quickly enough, she couldn’t react in time.
That was the frustrating part━though mostly for her, it had to be said. Plo found himself fascinated by it. Force-sensitives tended to reach out instinctively, even as children. Locking themselves away behind impregnable barriers wasn’t something that came naturally━even basic shielding had to be taught.
He was interrupted in his reflections by Chester clearing her throat politely. “I’m not sure this is working,” she said.
Plo blinked behind his goggles, considering. “Do you have a sense of anything in particular that isn’t helping, or might be causing the issue?” he asked. From his perspective, slow progress did not mean no progress━but he did suppose she was operating on a deadline, after all.
“I have some of the ideas you’re trying to convey,” she said, “but I don’t have the fundamentals. It’s as if I’m learning the technical process of playing an instrument, and I can read the music, but I can't actually hear it, or differentiate the notes.”
Plo nodded, faintly amused. The metaphor seemed apt. “Unfortunately, this is where your situation makes things difficult. Ordinarily, learning to actively sense and use the Force can take months━it can be a very subtle sense, and there really is no substitute for practice. Rather like music, in that respect. Regarding the fundamentals… I can have the Archives send you some books, if you like, but the Force is a little different for everyone.”
“It’s not a knowledge issue,” said Chester, and made a face. “I can’t believe I just said that━I’ll happily read more on it. No, it’s my fundamental inability to act on that knowledge, and it’s all of my instincts running directly counter to what I need to do. Maybe if I’d learned more of the Vulcan disciplines, which would require being Vulcan myself, I would be more competent━but they do not share the training for telepathy and other abilities with other species. It’s deeply private. As it is, I can shield and control myself, but I can't reach outward.”
Plo hummed, thoughtful. “I have been trying to encourage you to reach for the Force instinctively during a familiar activity… but perhaps we ought to try a different solution. Have you any experience in meditation?”
Chester looked relieved. “I can do that,” she said. “I haven’t in some time, however.”
“Then perhaps that would be in order.” Plo finished tidying away the equipment, and gestured to the shade of one of the very few of the native flora that had been left standing in camp. It was tall, a virulent shade of leafy yellow. It was also one of the very few Felucian endemics that wasn’t toxic, predatory, or both. “Perhaps here?”
Chester eyed it, then nodded. “Here looks good.”
They settled in. Plo was pleased to feel Chester’s presence smooth out relatively quickly, her bright presence steadying and calming. He focused for a few moments on his own━the last few days had not been too conducive to calm reflection, or meditation, or much of anything good for mental wellbeing. But something prickled the edge of his awareness, startling and━not right.
It was Chester. Her presence was━it was hard to describe. It was like she was folding herself away, neatly and methodically, slipping out of notice. It was certainly thoughtful; the edges of her presence would flare, as if she were paying particular attention to them, and then dim almost out of perception.
She did not seem to be in distress, but to someone raised in the Temple, it was a little like watching someone cut their own fingers off without blinking.
He opened his eyes. Chester sat across from him, still as stone bar the even rise and fall of her breathing. Alive to the eyes, but only barely to the Force.
It was like… looking at a fish tank without any fish. Water rippled, filters hummed, ornaments glistened under the light━and nobody was home. Plo closed his eyes, reaching out through the Force, and the echo of Chester’s presence felt like the membrane inside an empty eggshell: fragile, translucent.
Plo wondered about the species she’d learned this from. Such an iron discipline spoke of some considerable power. Her earlier comment made sense, in that light. An outsider, she had learned the very basic techniques of control, and then none of the ensuing abilities they enabled. But she had learned these things with the focus and energy she’d applied to everything else, on top of an already reserved personality…
The brush of Obi-Wan’s presence slipped into his awareness, a polite greeting before Obi-Wan himself knelt next to Plo, his eyes fixed on Chester. “I felt it across camp,” the other Jedi murmured. “What is she doing? ”
“Meditating,” said Plo, his own voice dry.
“Not any meditation I’m familiar with,” said Obi-Wan. “That species she learned this from must be very odd.”
It was a purposeful understatement. Plo could feel the deep current of dismay under Obi-Wan’s words.
“She indicated to me that she’s only learned the underpinnings of their mental disciplines,” said Plo. “Perhaps these are meant to be built on.”
“I certainly hope so. The idea of an entire species willfully blinding themselves to the Force is a very disturbing one.”
Chester’s presence stirred, and she opened her eyes. “I take it that this is not having the intended effect,” she said, just as dry as Plo.
Plo and Obi-Wan looked at each other.
“Not intended, but edifying nevertheless,” said Plo. “Our apologies for interrupting. Obi-Wan, would you like to join us?”
Obi-Wan looked at Chester, seeking permission; she nodded, her expression wry.
This time, Plo focused on his own meditations. Whether or not Chester’s strange form of meditation helped her connection to the Force (and he was fairly certain it did not) the base practice of calming one’s mind and ordering one’s thoughts could be beneficial on its own. And, like Chester, it had been a while since Plo had had the luxury of sitting down and meditating in the middle of the war.
Ahsoka, as a junior Padawan, was not privy to the mother of all debriefings that was held following Commander Chester’s unexpected return from CIS captivity. That was fine; she had her own way of getting her hands on the intel━namely, she tracked down the troopers who had come back with the Commander and stared at them with the big ol’ eyes she couldn’t wait to grow out of until they cracked and spilled the deets.
This took all of five minutes. What they’d been privy to wasn’t ultimately of military value. And it was really, really funny.
And then, like a day later, Master Krell snapped and tried to kill Commander Chester. Ahsoka had only arrived in time to witness the dramatic end of the chase, in which Krell tossed a kriffing tank out of the way like an empty ration pack and then got nailed in the back by lightning, which was almost scarier than the attempted murder. (She’d had a few of those herself. She was getting used to it. Sort of.) Clearly Master Plo had been holding out on them all.
“What we have got here,” she said, thoughtful, “is the best kind of shit-stirrer.”
Skyguy tossed a halfhearted wad of crumpled flimsi at her without so much as lifting his head up off his desk. “The best kind? You know how much kriffing paperwork Krell’s little tantrum’s landed us with?” He groaned theatrically. “Also, language, Snips.”
“Exhaust, meet fumes,” she retorted. “Yeah, the best kind. The technically correct kind. Yeah, Krell made a giant mess, but no-one died and now his men don’t have to put up with him anymore. Jesse showed me some of the videos they took and it’s horrible, Master.”
“I know, I was up all night with Obi-Wan taking notes.” Fury washed through Force for a long moment, ebbing gradually as Master Skywalker got himself under control. He flapped a hand at her. “If you like the Commander so much, why don’t you go bother her and let me sleep. ”
That was a good idea, actually. The 501st and 104th were due to head back to Coruscant the next evening, and all of her things were packed and ready to go. She had a dearth of things to do in the meantime.
She levitated the wad of flimsi off the floor and stuffed it down the neck of Skyguy’s robes as she left. “Go sleep in your actual bed, Master.”
Ahsoka had been raised from toddlerhood in the Jedi creche. She knew benevolent shit-stirrers.
She cast her awareness out through the Force, and found the Commander’s signature out on the edge of the growing base. Master Plo was with her, as he usually was━Ahsoka also knew babysitting duty when she saw it. So were a whole bunch of off-duty soldiers, including a handful of familiar presences.
She tried to sneak up on Fives as practice. Unfortunately, Fives had been snuck up on one too many times lately and he caught her in her final approach. She played innocent, squeezing between Jesse and Hardcase instead. “What’s the show, guys?”
Jesse gestured forward. “Commander’s got some moves with the staff.”
Beyond them, in the cleared space in the center of camp, Chester came into view, falling deliberately back step after step, a staff held before her by its bottom third. With each step, she swept the staff in a movement that was both block and strike—to the evident profound frustration of the shiny raining blows down on her. He was so frustrated that he missed it when she advanced and was shocked as hell when she abruptly broke the pattern, swept his feet from under him and stepped forward smartly with the base of the staff at his throat. It was beautiful and economical, but what interested Ahsoka most was that Chester had not deliberately called on the Force once the whole time. Instead, she’d moved between its currents, like a purrgil through an asteroid shower.
Hardcase bounced out to take the shiny’s place, grinning and eager. Chester smiled at him, took a quick gulp of water from an offered canteen, and turned to face her new opponent.
“How is she doing that?” Ahsoka wondered out loud. “She’s not using the Force to sense, but she’s kind of just… striking and blocking like she knows it anyway.”
“Years of practice.” Commander Wolffe and Master Plo had wandered up beside them. “Now watch her with Hardcase,” Wolffe said to Plo. “See what I mean? She reaches. She’s setting up every blow like she’s fighting a taller opponent.”
Master Plo’s presence in the Force flattened out a little. Sympathy, Ahsoka thought, though her Finder could be so hard to read at times, and not just because of his full-face mask. “Some of the enemies her Federation faces, from what little she has told me, are very large. I imagine that reach is habit.”
Wolffe looked sidelong at him, and the bright controlled flame of his presence flickered in a slow wind. “Yeah, I’d imagine it is.”
“She’s really good,” said Ahsoka. “I always thought staves were a bit boring, but maybe not.”
Jesse snickered beside her as Hardcase took a glancing wallop on the shoulder. “Only if you’re not paying attention, Commander. We didn’t get that much training with non-projectile weapons, but it was staff, knife, sword and axe on Kamino. Cadets always want the staff option first ‘cause it seems simpler, but I never had so many bruises in my life.”
A double thud punctuated his words; Hardcase and Chester had managed to land simultaneous blows on one another. Chester was rolling back up onto her feet, grinning. Hardcase was doubled over, whooping for air. He still swung for her as she came up at him; she got her guard up just in time.
“She does fight like a professional,” said Fives, his eyes narrowed, stroking his weird little goatee thoughtfully. “The title isn’t just for show, is it?”
Wolffe hrmphed, which was answer enough.
Ahsoka frowned. “She said bloodshed doesn’t solve problems, and she doesn’t approve of any of it.”
In some ways, it wasn’t too far off the way some of the Masters talked━that the Jedi had never been meant to be generals, and that war represented a catastrophic failure of diplomacy━and of everything the Jedi strove to achieve. They were, however, a great deal more diplomatic about the way they said it than Chester was.
“She is right, on the long-term scale.” Master Plo folded his arms, claws tapping contemplatively against the Wolfpack emblem on his forearms. “War, fundamentally, is two things: defense, or domination. Were it up to the Order, we would be fighting only to defend the Republic. But the Separatists are not just Separatists; they are being led by the Sith, who have never accepted any victory less than total domination. We could hold the line for years or decades and they would not stop coming. Such a war does not allow us to fight defensively alone.”
“So, the best defense is a good offense.” Wolffe glanced sideways at Ahsoka. “But the only problem beating them into the ground solves is the immediate one where they’re trying to kill us. Doesn’t stop them from regrouping and trying again down the track.” He sighed, his presence in the Force going wobbly and jellylike with disgusted resignation. Ahsoka stifled a laugh. “She’s not wrong, Commander━just focused on a different part of the problem.”
A rapid exchange of blows and then the match ended abruptly, Chester’s staff at Hardcase’s throat and Hardcase’s stopping just above the crown of her head.
Ahsoka couldn’t resist. She stepped forward to take the staff from Hardcase as he stepped back. He looked down at her, raising an eyebrow.
She grinned back.
He handed over the staff with a lopsided smirk. “Good luck.”
Ahsoka twirled the staff, getting used to the weight again. She was pretty rusty━staff had been really boring━but she was still pretty sure she’d need to go easy on Chester anyway. “Mind if I join in?”
“Be my guest,” Chester said, with a small bow and a wide grin. It was an expression of pure mischief, miles away from the composed and contained anger Ahsoka had seen from her before. Her presence glowed steady behind her shields, bright and content.
Chester settled into a guard stance, still holding the staff by its lower third by her right hip. She waited.
Growing up in the Jedi Temple had also given Ahsoka some familiarity with head games in sparring sessions. She had a lot less patience for them, though.
She swept her staff around at Chester’s head in a feint, then twisted at the last moment and struck at her ankles. Chester, who’d already raised her staff to block the blow, pivoted out of the way and dropped the end of her staff at Ahsoka’s shoulder.
Ahsoka flicked her staff up, sending Chester’s glancing away. Chester used the momentum to send hers swinging around for Ahsoka’s ribcage, and when Ahsoka blocked that with the center of her staff, slid her hands to the middle and pivoted to go for Ahsoka’s unprotected side. Only the twitch of the Force around the weapon, and a quick spin of her staff to knock it off target and a quick step backward saved Ahsoka from it actually connecting.
As both of them reset, she resolved to stop going easy on Chester.
The next time they moved into range, she flipped over the top of the other woman’s head and attacked from behind.
Chester dropped flat to avoid it, spun, lashing out with a foot at her legs and used the momentum to roll back to her feet. Ahsoka sped up, incorporating more movement, rolls and flips into her fight. Chester seemed to settle, taking a solid stance in the center of the ring and pivoting to meet Ahsoka’s attacks. And it was incredibly hard, suddenly, to get her off balance, or to get past the whirl of her staff. She had it by the bottom third again, and every time she blocked, Ahsoka found herself dodging the blow that was part of the same movement.
Ahsoka was sure that if she were actually going full speed and pulling all the dirty little tricks she’d learned from Skyguy, she would have won. But at some point that certainty had dropped from absolutely to just pretty sure. Chester was good, with the fluidity that only came from decades of practice━like she’d been doing this since she was a kid. And wasn’t that weird, from someone who’d been turning her nose up at violence at every opportunity?
Chester suddenly ditched the pattern of parries and lashed out at her stomach. Ahsoka had to flip out of the way in a hurry, catching the ground with the end of her staff and landing steady on her feet. Chester pressed the advantage. She wasn’t quite as quick as Ahsoka’s crechemates, but her skill was years advanced. Ahsoka caught a puff of contained satisfaction through the wrought iron of her shields.
Maybe it wasn’t the violence, she thought. Maybe it was everything else about their war.
Chester danced forward with a quick double blow that drove Ahsoka back again. Ahsoka found herself frowning. Chester still felt steady and stable, but the Force moved gently around her, she wasn’t moving with it. It was like she was totally unaware of it, and yet━
Another blow; Ahsoka blocked it and struck at Chester’s leg. Chester pivoted and drove forward again, three quick sharp blows that had Ahsoka taking yet another step back━
━and out of the ring sketched on the dirt.
“Oh,” she said, looking wide-eyed at the other woman. She’d been so focused on Chester, so focused on the fight, that she’d lost track of her surroundings! Which was something Skyguy and Master Obi-Wan had been on at her about, admittedly. She swore, internally, and spared a thought to be glad neither of them had witnessed this.
Chester offered her a hand and a wide grin. Ahsoka got the sense this wasn’t exactly an uncommon tactic for her.
She’d barely had to land a blow.
“You went easy on me,” said Chester, gentle teasing in her tone. “Don’t think I couldn’t tell.” She paused. “Wanna try again?”
Ahsoka hesitated, then felt herself start to grin. “Ready when you are, Commander!”
(About twenty minutes later, a soundly defeated Chester limped over to a supply crate and sat down heavily, breathing hard. “Good grief, kid,” she said to Ahsoka next to her, “you make me feel my age.”
“You and Obi-Wan both!” said Ahsoka cheerfully.)