Chapter Text
Being back at the Temple meant in-person classes rather than holonet modules. Usually, this came as a relief━Ahsoka would swear she learned better when she could chat with her classmates on the side. Unfortunately, between her classes and Barriss’ classes, it was a lot harder to find the time to drag her friend out for some fun.
The first opportunity came a fiveday after landing. Ahsoka got up early, just as the watery sun was beginning to light up the Coruscanti smog, and went to go bargain with Master Luminara for her Padawan’s time.
This was easier than she was expecting. Master Luminara gave her a faint, kind of sad smile, and told her she and Barriss had the day to themselves.
Ahsoka grinned. She went down the hall to Barriss’ quarters, and let herself in.
Barriss was awake, kneeling in silence before her altar. Ahsoka waited by the door, loath to intrude. Barriss had been praying to the myriad gods of Mirial for as long as Ahsoka had known her, and while she still didn’t really get the point of praying━it sounded like a roundabout sort of meditation to her━she didn’t need to understand it to respect it. Ahsoka watched as Barriss leaned forward, lowered her head to press her forehead to the prayer mat three times, then blew out her candles and rose. Only then did she step into the room.
Barriss smiled at her, a little weakly. “Good morning.”
“Morning!” said Ahsoka. “Want to come out with me for breakfast? I’m going to see if I can steal Commander Chester away from whatever she’s been doing with Senator Amidala too.”
Barriss visibly thought about it. “Did Master Luminara…”
“She said you could take the day off.” Ahsoka did her best to radiate encouragement. “Come on, I’ll take you to Dex’s. He does the best breakfasts. Crispiest eggs I’ve ever tasted.” The Temple kitchen staff had Opinions about the appropriate amount of butter and other frying oils that should end up on the plate, which Dex clearly didn’t share.
Barriss thought a few moments longer, then gave in. “All right,” she said, and smiled at Ahsoka again. “I’ll come out with you.”
Next up was collecting Chester. To Ahsoka’s surprise, this turned out to be more difficult than getting Barriss. Technically Chester wasn’t a Jedi and technically she didn’t have any related duties or a Master (helpfully, Ahsoka added to herself reflexively, all the hovering was supposed to be helpful) hovering over her shoulder.
Technically seemed to matter as much as it usually did, which was none at all, because when they finally found Chester in one of the less-popular meditation rooms, she didn’t have just one Master hovering over her shoulder, but three.
Councilmembers, no less.
Mace and Yoda , specifically. Ahsoka was on pretty good terms with both, but that wasn’t to say that she’d have cared to have the focus of their attention at the same time!
Master Luminara seemed to be a late addition. All three Masters were clustered around Chester, who was seated on one of Yoda’s large round poufs, the lightsaber in front of her.
The pouf seemed to recently have been on fire.
Master Windu seemed to have a headache.
Master Luminara’s calm was somewhat strained. It seemed she’d dealt with the fire through upending a teacup on the pouf. There was a certain acrid stench to the room. Master Yoda was either overcome with the fumes, or was laughing gracelessly; it wasn’t clear which.
Chester herself looked appalled. “I don’t think it cared for that,” she was saying.
“Neither would I, if I was a lightsaber,” Ahsoka whispered to Barriss.
Master Windu took his eyes off the gently steaming saber, and looked up at Chester. “Perhaps you should describe what happened there from your perspective.”
Chester breathed in deep, let it out, and raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I… reached out to it with my mind open, as instructed. It… disapproved. Strenuously.”
“I cannot say I have seen a lightsaber spontaneously combust, before now.” Master Luminara set her empty teacup aside. “I suspect we should leave it be for the moment.”
“Maybe it likes me because of my shields,” Chester proposed, pulling them back around herself. The room suddenly felt a lot more pleasant━Ahsoka hadn’t realized how strong the deep, controlled undercurrent of anger in the air had been until it was whisked away. Next to her, Barriss shivered.
“Unusual that would be, hmm, but worth investigation the idea may be.” Master Yoda let out one last croaky giggle. “Attempt to rehabilitate a bled kyber we have not done for many centuries. Few established methods there are to draw upon, and no guarantee that succeed, they would.”
“And your own anger may be an impediment, Commander,” said Luminara. “Releasing it is as important to the kyber’s wellbeing as it is to your own.”
“It doesn’t like that either,” muttered Chester.
Master Windu and Yoda gave each other a meaningful look.
“Let’s try again tomorrow morning,” said Mace, after a moment. He looked over at Ahsoka and Barriss, standing at the doors. “Is there something you need, Padawans?”
“We were wondering if we could introduce Commander Chester to Dex, Masters,” said Ahsoka with her best respectful bow and most charming grin. “He might know something about the wormfield.”
Mace looked at Yoda. Yoda looked at Mace.
“In order, a change of pace may be,” said Yoda. “Go on then, young ones.” His eyes glittered wickedly. “All three of you.”
Dex’s Diner was located off a busy feeder street into one of the big luxury malls that clustered round the Senate District several city levels down. According to Master Skywalker, the best time to visit was mid-morning, after the breakfast rush had been and gone. Ahsoka squinted in through the windows as they approached, and her step picked up━they’d timed it right.
She bounced in, and held the door for Barriss and Chester. “The booth seats are best. Grab one for us? I want to talk to Dex.”
Flo zoomed in from somewhere out the back, a tray of cleaning supplies in her hands. “Morning, hun!” she called out to Ahsoka, “and morning to your friends! Be with you in just a moment!”
“Good morning!” Ahsoka replied. She glanced at the serving window through into the kitchen; Dex was there, wiping down his workbenches by the look of it. She went up and leaned on the bar on the dining-room side of the window, cupped her hands around her mouth, and called out, “Good morning, Dex! Obi-Wan and Skyguy send their regards!”
He glanced her way, and grinned. “Morning, kid! Here for breakfast?”
“Yes please!” Ahsoka grinned back. Dex was a Besalisk like Krell, which was the reason she’d wanted to talk to him first, just in case Chester got a little alarmed. (She didn’t think that was likely; Dex was a lot older and also a lot smaller, and Chester hadn’t seemed bothered by any of the non-human species in the streets so far. But hey, her masters had been trying to school her on caution, right?) “What’s the recommendation today?”
“For you? I got some quality dry-aged Shili ungulathe in fresh, available in chewy thick rump steaks or tender ribeye.” He leaned over out of view, and came back with a whole cut of meat, the near-black color of really good aged ungulathe. (Ahsoka had gotten to prepare one once in Temple Service. Once. ) “Try cutting your teeth on this, kid.”
“Perfect,” she said, grinning. “I have two friends with me today, one Mirialan and one human. Want an introduction?”
“Oh, sure.” Dex cut a generous steak off the whole rump and slid it into a marinading drawer. “Jedi?”
“One is,” Ahsoka said, and paused for effect. “The other one’s extragalactic.”
Dex paused, in the middle of washing all four hands. “Dank farrik,” he said, thoughtful. “How far out?”
“Through a wormhole, apparently. You know the Abbaji wormfield?”
Dex eyed her, snorted, and went to dry his hands. “I know it. Your friend came through from the Dominion?”
Ahsoka blinked. “The what? No, she says she’s from some Federation. Starfleet, specifically.”
“Huh,” said Dex, the word rumbling deep in his throat. “Don’t think I’ve heard of them.”
“Word of warning,” Ahsoka said quietly as he followed her across to the booth where Barriss and Chester had settled, “she had a nasty run-in with Master Krell recently. Or Krell had a nasty one with her.”
Dex made a noise somewhere between a cough and a chuckle. “I heard of it. Obi-Wan came in two days ago ranting fit to burst.”
He raised his voice. “Good morning, customers! I hear you’ve had a busy couple of weeks!”
Ahsoka stepped forward to handle the introductions. “Dex, these are my friends Padawan Barriss Offee━Luminara Unduli is her master━and Commander Diane Chester, of Starfleet. Guys, this is Dexter Jettster. He owns this place.”
Dex offered a hand to them both. “Lovely to meet you, ladies.”
Chester stood without hesitation, a friendly smile on her face, and shook it. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Jettster.”
Dex laughed uproariously. “Just call me Dex! Nobody calls me Mister except the tax man!” He let go of Chester’s hand and gave her a solid pat on the shoulder, then inexpertly returned Barriss’ polite Jedi bow. “Welcome to my fine establishment.”
Chester grinned back. She was almost as tall as Dex, it turned out. “Then I’m just Diane.”
“Lovely to meet you, Diane.” Dex produced a slightly oil-stained pad of cheap flimsi from a back pocket. “Now, ladies, what’ll we be having today?”
It took, predictably, about ten minutes for things to go from perfectly normal to kind of weird. One minute they were perusing the menu, Dex interjecting with recommendations; the next, Chester was on the other side of the counter, fixing one of Dex’s ovens.
“Yeah, it’s really similar to what we’ve got back home,” she was saying. “I guess there are only so many oven configurations that make sense. Grandma used to have me practice modifying them when she babysat me.”
“What was your grandma’s line of work?” asked Dex, tipping an amused and slightly nonplussed expression at Ahsoka.
“Chief engineer on a starship,” said Chester, the front half of her body in the dead oven. Her voice kind of echoed out of the space. “Retired, so she just commits atrocities on Mom’s ovens these days.”
It had gone like this: they’d started chatting, and then Dex had uncovered from Chester that her parents ran a restaurant somewhere called Ber-klee Cala-For-Nuha, and then there’d been some conversation about things not working, and next thing Ahsoka knew, Chester was playing maintenance droid and swapping kitchen horror stories with Dex, and she wasn’t sure she was eating anything but ration bars ever again, yikes.
“Starship engineer to chef? Bit of a change of scenery there.”
“Mom grew up on starships. She decided it wasn’t for her and went home to open the restaurant━I grew up in the restaurant, and decided it wasn’t for me and headed for a starship.” Chester’s hand emerged from the oven, deposited a wrench, and then she thumped it hard, from the inside. Something made a long grinding and clattering noise.
“That oughta do it,” said Dex. “I was gonna fix that myself, but my knees are getting on and it’s a pleasure to watch you work.”
Chester scooted out, covered in grime but frankly not nearly as much as she deserved to be. “Pleasure was all mine. Makes me feel at home again.”
“In that case, you’re welcome!” Dex handed her an industrial soap dispenser, pointed out the sink. “Ahsoka here says you’re extragalactic, right? Through the wormfield, out Abbaji way.”
“Yep, that’s me. United Federation of Planets, Starfleet, and executive officer of the starship Bedivere, though I don’t expect that to mean anything all the way out here.” Chester brushed herself down and went for the sink. “You know about the wormfield?”
“Not a whole lot, but enough, I’d say. It’s a dangerous place, and not just because of the wormholes.” Dex shrugged with both sets of arms, emphatic. “My prospecting days are long gone, but I’ve heard some talk the last couple centuries. Not a lot of friendly things out in that galaxy of yours.”
Chester made a face. “Not in that neighborhood, no.”
Dex raised his gnarled, scaly eyebrows. “Something called the Dominion ring any bells?”
Chester froze, her face going very still and her hands pausing mid-lather, her mouth all tight and unhappy as it only was when worrying about the clones.
Dex was watching her, head tilting a little to one side. “Your people ran into them too, did you?”
“Not the friendliest sorts,” she said, trying for flippancy and, in Ahsoka’s opinion, failing, “no.”
He made another of those coughing chuckles. “Not sure I’d care for those odds, myself.”
She said nothing.
“Not that I’m gonna ask further,” he said, throwing up a hand in surrender. “Only thing a spacer loves more than a good ship is her secrets, I know that one. Keep cleaning yourself up, young lady, and Flo and myself will bring your meals out in just a moment. On the house, in return for that oven.”
Dex gave Ahsoka and Barriss their meals for free as well, which was great because Skyguy hadn’t exactly had much cash to give them.
“Commander,” asked Ahsoka, after the food had come out, “the Dominion Dex was talking about–”
Chester paused with her very sweet caf halfway to her mouth, visibly struggling with what she wanted to say. “Not all our first contacts are winners, Ahsoka,” she said after a while. “Sometimes, two peoples run into each other in the universe, and each realizes the other is utterly antithetical to their existence. Sometimes you work through it anyway. Others, you don’t.”
Ahsoka cut a big chunk off her steak and chewed it thoughtfully, in lieu of answering. Master Plo had mentioned enemies, and the way Chester fought made it clear she had real combat experience. She tried not to jump to conclusions, but this one felt right.
She ventured an observation. “Master Plo said you’d seen combat.”
“Starfleet’s a mutual defense force, too.”
“From things like the Dominion?”
“Or the Borg,” Chester said, an obvious deflection.
Barriss, always too polite, went for it instantly. “Is that one of the species in your galaxy?”
“Pseudo-species,” Chester said. “They’re a collective. Thousands of species, assimilated using surgery and cybernetics into a single hivemind with one single aim: to expand. To assimilate entire species into itself, obliterating personality and sense of self and autonomy of billions of people at a time.”
There was a long, quiet moment. Barriss blinked, took in a slow, shaky breath. “That’s horrific.”
“Yes,” said Chester. “It is. A Borg cube made it as far as Earth, when I was in the Academy. Fortunately, the Enterprise was able to hijack their hivemind and destroy the ship–usually the Borg adapt to whatever you throw at them so quickly that you can only use a weapon a few times before it becomes ineffective. Same goes for shielding.” She looked very grim for a moment, then visibly shook it off.
“Well, that’s terrifying,” said Ahsoka. Unbelievable, even, but she kept that to herself.
She wondered what the Dominion was like, in comparison.
“Yeah, ‘deep space explorer’ is a wonderful job, but not everything you find out there is nice,” said Chester, trying to put a gloss of humor on it. Ahsoka eyed her askance.
She wasn’t even afraid of Dooku . And yeah, the Borg sounded nightmarish. But she didn’t even want to talk about the Dominion. Changed the subject every single time. She was inscrutable under those shields, and now Ahsoka wondered, for a moment, exactly why. Could it be fear of something else than Sith or droids?
Ahsoka wasn’t afraid of a whole lot. Fear tended to take a back seat in her head when she had a problem to work on, a tendency which had served her pretty well so far in this war. Master Skywalker seemed the same way, which might have been why she’d been assigned to him. Yeah, the droids were scary, and being shot at was pretty scary too… but you could fight back against those.
Barriss was asking Chester about Starfleet, about who they were and what they did and Ahsoka listened with half her attention, because it sounded━well, really different than the Jedi. Really different from the GAR, too. Hundreds of people to a ship, some even thousands, but mostly scientists and explorers and diplomats.
She’d heard that before, of course but…this time, there was so much more of a sense of the connections between them, of how a starship and its crew could almost become one and the same, the starship gaining a reputation and a personality, almost, from its exploits.
Ahsoka could remember the stories of how there’d been a time when the galaxy had had as many Jedi as Chester’s home seemed to have Starfleet, when they weren’t stretched thin like they’d been even in the years preceding the war. The rest of it, the high standard of ethics and the idealism–maybe that would be more possible here, too, if they weren’t constantly scrambling just to do their jobs.
If it wasn’t for the war.
Ahsoka gently pushed that line of thought aside. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it.
“So,” she said, cutting another juicy mouthful out of her steak, “If that’s the scariest thing you’ve seen, what about the coolest thing?”
Chester gave her an open smile, tinged with relief. “Oh, there’s far too many to choose just one. One time, we got sent to monitor and collect data from this supernova…”
Chester’s stories kept the conversation going for hours. By the time Ahsoka finished off her steak, it had gone stone cold. She could have sat there for hours more, just listening to the neverending tale of Starfleet exploits. Apparently there was a whole fleet of Skyguys out there, finding new and interesting ways to get into trouble.
Flo was busy cleaning, so Ahsoka stacked their dirty dishes into a pile and ferried them back to the kitchen herself.
“Your friend,” said Dex, pausing Ahsoka as she turned to leave. “Even with the impression she left on Dooku━it might be better for her in the long run if she stays here. That Dominion is nasty business. If they’re not already tangling with her Federation, they’re going to. And anyone with two neurons to bang together is going to put money on that going one way━and one way only.”
“I’ll tell her,” said Ahsoka, “but I really don’t think she’ll listen.”
“Doubt that she will,” said Dex with a sigh. “Look—I have a handful of contacts that might know their way around the wormfield. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll look into it.”
Ahsoka grinned. “Anything helps at this point, I think. Thanks, Dex.”
He patted the top of her head between her montrals. “You’re welcome, kid. Be good for that mad master of yours, hey?”
She laughed. “I’ll try.”