Chapter Text
A blue glow illuminated the small office, a tired Jedi sitting at the desk.
“What’re we at Slinker?”
“87% of all battalions of the GAR have been dechipped, sir.”
Ahsoka sighed, allowing herself a moment of relief. “And what’s our commanding officer percentage?”
“97%, the remaining ones being Coruscant Guard.”
Ahsoka nodded; it was part of their plan to leave the Guard for last. “And any signs of leaks?”
“None, sir.”
“Good work, Slinker.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Just as Slinker finished, another clone burst into the room. “Sir, Sir, Sir!”
“Yes, Sneak?”
“We have it, sir! We finally have it!”
Ahsoka’s eyes widened. She glanced back at Slinker, shared eye contact through the holo and a brief nod. The blue figure of Slinker blinked out.
Ahsoka turned her attention back to the new arrival, holding up a hand for silence, while she held up a device and did another run on the room for bugs. A positive beep rung.
“What do you have?”
The practically vibrating clone eagerly took a seat across from Ahsoka. “We finally have it sir, we have concrete info on Palpatine.”
Ahsoka’s heart seemed to stop, they finally had it? The information they had been working tirelessly for months to obtain? It seemed too good to be true.
“What’d you find?” Ahsoka’s stomach twisted in expectation.
Sneak placed the data pad on the desk and slid it over to Ahsoka. She skimmed its contents while he relayed, “Its transmission logs directly linking Palpatine to multiple Separatist leaders. And we had Senate policy checked. If it was for diplomatic reasons it would need to be made official. It’s not quite the ‘he’s a Sith’ we were looking for, but it’s enough to arrest him.”
Ahsoka looked up as he finished. “How did you get this?” She caught herself before he could respond, “No, nevermind. I don’t want to know, but this is great! With the others’ proof, we might just pull this off.”
“Amazing, sir.”
Ahsoka reached into her desk and pulled out another two data pads and connected some cables to another two. “Once I finish making these backups, could you put together a team to make this a coherent case that could be presented to the Senate?”
“Of course, sir.”
The transfer over, Ahsoka handed the data pad to Sneak who quickly left the room giving Ahsoak a moment of respite and reflection.
She couldn’t believe they had done it. It felt like only yesterday that they told the clones about their discovery of Palpatine’s true intentions. It had been a long journey full of espionage and secrecy that had been hard on everyone but they had finally gotten to the point where they were doing something about it.
Unfortunately, there were still mountains of work to do.
She took a moment to breathe, relish in the victory, and then furiously resumed her work.
And that was how Anakin found her a few moments later, furiously tapping away on her data pad. Casually leaning on the holotable he commented, “It’s crazy to think that all this importance and vitle-ness— is that a word?--- and the HISS was just created by me just messing around and tinkering in the Temple without a goal.”
Ahsoka ignored him, brow furrowed in concentration.
“And it’s been nice, you know, the visions finally lightening up.”
Ahsoka stopped typing and jerked her head towards Anakin. “Do you actually have something important to say or have you just come in here to bug me?”
Anakin didn’t respond right away so she just huffed lightly and refocused on the task in front of her.
“You know,” Anakin said softly and Ahsoka stalled her sharp movements, “if it’s too much work, Obi-Wan and I can take some of the load.”
Ahsoka sighed guiltily. “I’m sorry for snapping. Yes, it is a lot of work, but you two have just as much work and need to focus on the War front and keeping up the illusion that everything is normal. No one will notice the padawan spending extra time on class work.” She then smiled. “Besides, someone has to be the face of the war and keep all of the fangirls happy. Especially now that you have an even younger following.”
He groaned, rolled his eyes, and said, “Don’t remind me.”
Ahsoka laughed, the mood finally lightened.
“But seriously though, was there a reason you came in here?”
“What? I can’t just come in to say hi to my padawan?”
Ahsoka raised a brow.
“Ok fine, I came to tell you that we have a brief for the next campaign.”
“When is it?”
“As soon as you’re ready.”
Ahsoka surveyed her desk for anything pressing, grabbed the other datapad of the information she had copied earlier, placed it in a drawer, locked the drawer and then followed Anakin out of her office.
Her office. She mused as she followed Anakin down the corridors towards the bridge. It was still weird to think that she had her own office, despite the fact that it was where she had spent the majority of her time the last few months organizing the plan to take down Palpatine.
Soon, they arrived and the doors of the bridge swooshed open to reveal Obi-Wan staring at the holotable, talking with Cody and Rex.
Ahsoka laughed, announcing their presence. “Do you have to always do that?” she asked Obi-Wan.
“Do what?” he asked, pulling his hand away from his chin slightly.
“Stroke your chin like you have a beard, you’re like twelve—”
“Fourteen,” he mumbled.
“ — it’s kinda weird.”
Anakin nodded his head in agreement. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.
“Anyway,” Obi-Wan began, “We have been given our next assignment.”
“And?” Anakin prompted when it became clear that Obi-Wan wasn’t going to continue on his own.
“Unfortunately I don’t have much information beyond that. We have been given frighteningly little information about what we’re up against other than it’s a large Separatist force.”
Anakin scoffed. “It’s like he’s not even trying to hide it at this point.”
The joke fell flat as everyone worried if that’s exactly the reason they were given such little information.
“Regardless, with Dooku out of the picture for whatever reason—”
“I think he’s kayaking,” Ahsoka commented.
“Nah he’s become a crime boss and is currently terrorizing wild space planets,” Anakin bounced back.
Obi-Wan sighed and continued, “Regardless, we don’t know where he is other than not helping the Separatists, so we don’t know what to expect and who’s in charge. We need to be very careful.”