Chapter Text
Ahsoka hadn’t expected to be back at Dex’s again this shore leave. This wasn’t a breakfast call, unfortunately. She really could have gone for another aged ungulathe steak.
Dex met them at the front doors, and brought them through the diner into a private room at the back. A party room for kids, judging by the brightly-colored decorations on the walls. He waved them in, and shut the door firmly behind them.
“The Abbaji wormfield, yeah?” He leaned in, searching Chester’s expression. “I might have a contact out there who knows what he’s doing. He’s a pain in the ass to get hold of, and you’ll need to head out and meet him there yourself because there’s no way he’ll come in to Coruscant—but if you’re willing to risk it, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Absolutely,” said Chester. Her dark eyes glimmered in the light, anticipation in the sharp line of her shoulders. “Not that I haven’t appreciated meeting everyone here, but my ship needs me. If there’s anything, anything at all I can do to get back to them, I have to try.”
Anakin looked at Dex, appraising, and then to Chester. “Who is this contact?” he asked. “No offense, but avoiding Coruscant seems like a red flag.”
Chester glanced at him. “Up until recently, I was avoiding Coruscant. For very good reason. One named Tarkin.”
Dex chuckled, patting him on the shoulder. “Less of one these days, with all the wartime restrictions. Nobody wants to risk getting caught up in CorSec business.” He reached into his pocket, drew out a little palmtop datapad and brought up an image onto the screen. “This is the guy. Name is Rustam, but I couldn’t tell you if that was real or assumed. We ran into each other a time or two out in Wild Space. I helped him out, he helped me out, sort of thing. Like I said, hard to get hold of—but I think I can get another favor out of him.”
Ahsoka watched, gently biting her lip, as the dull-steel surface of Chester’s presence began to glow a little brighter. Chester’s black eyes fixed intently on Dex, her expression carefully controlled. “But you can make contact with him?”
Dex nodded. “Heard from a friend of mine on Alashan a couple days ago—his ship’s in port there. I asked her to pass on a message.”
Anakin shook his head. “Never seen the guy. You’re sure the ship is the right one?” He passed the datapad across the table to Chester. Ahsoka leaned in to gawk shamelessly as she flicked through its contents. Still image files, most of them, and a handful of grainy security-feed screencaps. The man in the pictures was near-human, not a species she recognised; very tall, redheaded, sticklike wrists and long fingers protruding out from under a voluminous poncho. Brownish smudges marked his skin here and there, but the image quality wasn’t good enough to tell if these were scars or just a species-specific marking.
“Oh yeah.” Dex grinned broadly, showing blunt yellow teeth. “That ship is a genuine antique, and not the sort anyone could sell. Flew perfectly fine ninety years ago, but you wouldn’t even buy it for scrap if you saw it.”
Chester visibly paused, lips pressing together. “I could imagine better craft to transit a wormhole in?”
Dex waved her concern off with a cheery laugh. “Just because it looks like crap doesn’t mean it is. You ever been in a ship that felt like it was just waiting for an excuse to blow itself to hell out of nothing but spite? It complained at every little thing, but it handled them better than some of the modern models I’ve been on.”
Chester made a little self-deprecating gesture. “Only when we’d wrecked it ourselves.”
“That sounds nice,” said Ahsoka, a little wistfully. Her mental image of this ship was looking a whole lot like the Twilight.
She glanced over at Skyguy, who gave her a knowing smirk and cocked one eyebrow almost exactly like Master Kenobi. “Don’t go getting soft on me, Snips.”
“All right,” said Chester, still a little dubious. “Assuming this pilot is willing to take me through the wormhole, how do I go about meeting up with him?”
“Welllll…” Dex trailed off, eyed Anakin and Ahsoka, “I’ve got someone willing to guide you. She said you’d paid up front, and you weren’t too uptight given the company you were keeping.”
Ahsoka blinked. An incredibly wide, tooka-like grin was spreading across Chester’s face, sort of sheepish around the edges.
Dex snorted a laugh. “She’s here now, if you want to make plans, but I’m not letting all of you meet unless you promise no lightsabers are coming out. I’m not having lightsabers in my party room.”
“Maybe I should meet her alone,” said Chester, now radiating a deeply suspicious sort of energy, like Hardcase in an experimental weapons range. “You know, in case of any unfortunate reflexes.”
“Absolutely not ,” said Anakin, folding his arms. “We can behave ourselves.”
“Yeah. Absolutely,” said Ahsoka, but less certainly. She usually preferred to be a little further away when spectating on the sort of shenanigans Chester had gotten up to.
Dex and Chester shared a look. “Fine. But if you trash my party room, you’re repainting it and I’m billing the Temple for repairs.” He went to the opposite door and vanished through it.
“You already know who this is,” said Anakin, frowning at Chester. He blinked a couple times, tapped his fingers on the table—and then his face went chalky white. “ No. Not her. ”
“Yep. Her,” Chester said, eyeing the sudden pallor of his face. “I’m pleasantly surprised she came through—I’d expected her to take the money and run, actually, she made that intention pretty clear.”
“ What the hell did you pay her for? ” asked Anakin, in a voice like atmosphere hissing through a leaky airlock seal. His color came back all at once, though now he was a lot redder than usual. Humans changed color sometimes, Ahsoka knew, but she hadn’t seen such dramatic variations before. She squinted at the two of them, wondering what info she was missing.
Chester shifted foot to foot, shrugged. “In case kicking a Sith Lord in the genitals was insufficient to endear me to the Republic.”
“So you paid HER to—what, break you out of Republic custody?” said Anakin, expression thunderous. The red flush spread down his neck; Ahsoka glanced at his hands, which were white-knuckled but otherwise the usual color.
“I wasn’t sure I’d be in a condition to do it myself,” Chester said. “Contingency plans.”
“I don’t even know where to start with that,” Anakin began, and then stopped mid sentence as the door opened again and Ventress came in—
“No lightsabers!” Chester snapped as he reached for his, with such a note in her voice that it stopped Ahsoka halfway—it worked on Anakin, too, and he looked pretty confused about it. “Thank you,” Chester added, sounding fairly surprised herself, and then went to Ventress, who was observing them all with folded arms and a deeply dubious expression.
“You brought Skywalker and the pest,” she said.
“Pest?” Ahsoka echoed, indignant.
Skyguy pressed his off hand to her shoulder. “You’re one to talk!” he snarled, red graduating to near-purple. Fury boiled in his presence, filling the little room up to the ceiling. Ahsoka felt her own pulse quicken; she counted herself through a slow breath. Ventress wasn’t a Separatist anymore, sure, but that didn’t erase the memory of what she’d done for them in the past.
“Ventress, there is no call to be unkind,” said Chester, quellingly. She reached out to put a hand on Ventress’s arm and–gave her a small, gentle smile. “But I am very glad you came.”
It was the single stupidest attempt at de-escalation Ahsoka had ever seen.
And… it worked?
“I couldn’t leave you with all these boring Jedi,” said Ventress. “It might be contagious.” Her features were not made for softness, but there was a certain intentness in how she was looking at Chester that—
Ahsoka turned to her master. “Don’t tell me Boost was telling the truth about the whole Ventress thing!”
“Trust me,” Skyguy muttered, “I really wish he hadn’t been.”
“I appreciate it,” Chester was saying. “I really do, especially since you’re not having to fish me out of a high-security cell to do it. This is a bit above and beyond, isn’t it?”
“You paid me enough to fund a retirement ,” said Ventress. “I have standards , you ridiculous human. Besides, you can’t be trusted on your own. I don’t want you lighting half the Galaxy on fire when my back is turned.”
“Oh, so this has nothing to do with enjoying my company?”
Ventress’s gaze slid to Anakin, and his expression, and then she grinned. “That too. You make a very appealing damsel in distress.”
“Well, it’s certainly not my usual role. But I’m glad someone’s appreciating my efforts.” Chester tucked a hand into Ventress’s elbow, effectively immobilizing her dominant hand. Ahsoka doubted it was unintentional. Shockingly, Ventress allowed it. “I’d appreciate some pointers, though. Maybe a bit of sparring, help me spend a little less time troubling you for help, and more, perhaps, just troubling you?”
“Are you two quite done?” demanded Anakin. “Chester, you can’t possibly be proposing to trust Asajj Ventress. She’s a vicious murderer! I don’t care what you paid her, she can’t be trusted, she was Dooku’s apprentice!”
“Yes, and I’d like to see anyone in a war like this not earn that title,” said Chester. “As for the Dooku connection, that’s why I trust her. We’ve both spent too much time putting up with the man’s garbage.”
“And nothing will infuriate him more than her getting back home and out of his reach,” said Ventress, with a beatific smirk that looked really wrong on her of all people. “Infuriating him is extremely satisfying.”
“And I can’t say I’d ask for a better companion,” said Chester, cheerfully.
“Your standards are so weird,” Ahsoka said. She looked at Dex, emerging through the open door behind Ventress. “Master Plo is going to flip his shit.”
“Language,” said Anakin, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“She’s fantastic in a fight,” offered Chester, as if that wasn’t exactly the problem. Ventress grinned like a tooka with liver.
Anakin took a deep breath, let it out, and then took another, deeper breath. “Okay,” he said, eventually, “okay, fine. It’s your risk to take, I don’t have to give a shit what you do as long as you take it away from the rest of us.”
“Language,” muttered Ahsoka. Her Master did not notice.
All of Chester’s attention was on Ventress. “Thank you,” she was saying again, and Ventress reached for her with a sly look at Anakin. Chester followed the light tug, leaning down a little.
Anakin rolled his eyes and looked pointedly in the other direction, which meant he missed what Ahsoka, rooted in horror to the spot— why would you make out with Ventress!— saw; Ventress passing Chester something, slipping it into her sleeve. Chester’s hand tucked in, examining it briefly, and when they parted her grin was a little wider than the usual satisfaction of just having made out with a Sith , you’d think someone who spent so much time talking about ethics would have better taste in women!
“See you in a couple days, then,” said Chester, still grinning.
“Are you two done yet?” demanded Anakin.
They had started the long trek back to where Anakin had parked when they came across Admiral Tarkin heading the other direction, with a squad of armored and armed clones behind him. Chester kept her eyes forward, hoping to pass without incident, but it was not to be.
Anakin and Tarkin were apparently on unfortunately good terms. “General Skywalker,” said Tarkin. “A pleasure, as always.”
“Admiral Tarkin,” said Anakin, his voice warm; Ahsoka shot Chester a look that indicated they shared their opinion on Tarkin’s behavior, but stayed in step with Anakin, her face smoothing into polite neutrality. “What brings you to this part of the city?”
“The unfortunate necessities of command,” said Tarkin. “You?”
“Finding a way home for Commander Chester here,” said Anakin, jerking a thumb at her. “We think we’ve got a lead. About time, too.”
Tarkin’s reptilian gaze turned toward her. “I am sorry to hear we may be losing your company so soon, Commander Chester,” he said. “Though of course, my congratulations on your return, should it be successful.”
He unclasped his hands from behind his back, and extended one. Presumably for a handshake.
Chester had a split second of doubt, but she had not spent so much time training to be a diplomat to turn down a simple polite gesture. She extended her hand in return, trading slightly uncomfortably firm grip for slightly uncomfortably firm grip and steady eye contact. “It is appreciated, Admiral.”
She started to withdraw, but his grasp didn’t loosen. Instead, he brought his other hand around, holding a small scanner. It hummed as he passed it over her hand; she yanked free, but too late. He raised it with a satisfied expression. “I see,” he said, and turned the screen so both she and Anakin could see it, the results of a DNA scan cold and blue on the small screen, a name Chester had almost stopped thinking about.
It took her a moment to realize what he’d done.
“I don’t understand,” said Ahsoka, and Anakin lurched forward, face knotting. Tarkin withdrew the scanner before he could make a grab for it, and turned that razor-sharp satisfied smile on Chester.
“Just as I suspected.” The clones had moved to surround her; hands closed on her arms, hard and armored. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Song Tulin.”