“What are you looking so serious about?” Miara asked when Kaeden didn’t laugh at the funny part of the story. Ashla did, which at least made Kaeden smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m tired, and a little worried about all of this.”
She waved her hand at the cave in general but knew her sister would interpret the gesture differently than Ashla would.
“We should get some rest,” Ashla said. “We’ve got a few more days out here, and all the jobs require attention to detail.”
The cave floor was hard, but they were able to set up a place to sleep on a flat part of it, where no rocks protruded from the floor.
“Medical cots,” Ashla mused as she unfolded a blanket. “I have no idea how we’d carry them out here, though.”
“Selda will have an idea,” Kaeden said, and they bedded down for the night.
For the next two days, Miara built explosives to Ahsoka’s specifications. It took more parts than Ahsoka was expecting, but weapons manufacture had never been her strongest suit. While Miara worked, Ahsoka and Kaeden installed the door, using an old metal hatch Selda had somehow procured and a spot welder that short-circuited at the most inopportune moments. Then they carefully collapsed most of the other cave entrances. They left a few intact, the ones that were most hidden from view and the one that had a straight line of sight to the settlement. It was risky, but Ahsoka decided that entrance was strategically necessary. There was no good in setting up a camp if they couldn’t keep watch from it.
On the fourth day, they slipped back to town just as the sun was setting. Kaeden and Miara went straight home, since they would have to report to the fields the next day, but Ahsoka went to Selda’s to meet up with Vartan. Over a crokin game, which Ahsoka lost with astounding incompetence to Vartan’s superior play, the crew lead outlined how his work had gone.
“I picked the other crew leads carefully,” he said. “Not just the ones who have been on Raada the longest but the ones who have worked with the same teams for the longest time.”
Ahsoka took a shot and missed. It was a difficult game when she couldn’t use all her abilities to the fullest.
“I watched the stormtroopers, and they have units and patrol groups. I thought it would make sense to keep ourselves organized, too, and we already have teams we’re used to working with, so that’s how I recruited people,” Vartan continued. “It worked out well.”
“How many people?” Ahsoka asked. Vartan landed another disc in the center of the board, and his points showed up in flashing lights on the scoreboard.
“Eight crews, including ours,” Vartan said. “So that’s about forty, once we account for additions like you and subtractions like Malat and her husband.”
There was no bitterness when he spoke of Malat, even though she had been on his crew for longer than any of the others. Ahsoka knew that Malat had tried to arrange for Kaeden and Miara to go with her family, but she didn’t think anyone had told the girls. It had come to nothing in the end, but Ahsoka knew Vartan appreciated the effort.
“I have to get home,” Ahsoka said. “It’s later than I thought, and I’ve been gone from town for long enough that someone might have noticed. We’ll do a full briefing tomorrow.”
“Stay safe,” Vartan said.
She replied in kind and headed out, with a brief pause to say good-bye to Selda as she passed the bar.
She didn’t notice Hoban, who sat in the opposite corner. He watched her go and then leaned forward to catch Vartan’s eye. The older man nodded, and Hoban got up to go set his own plans in motion.
Chapter 12
AHSOKA SWUNG UP OVER the back wall of the shipyard and adjusted her hood so she could pull it down over her face. Selda had given her a new cowl, and it fit her better. It was also a darker color, which helped her blend in with the night. With her were Miara, Neera, and a young Rodian male named Kolvin, from another crew. Ahsoka was ostensibly in command, Miara was needed to put the final touches on the charges, Neera had been selected because she was a quick thinker, and Kolvin was included because he was an agile climber. Each of them wore hoods like Ahsoka’s to obscure them from any surveillance and walked with light steps, staying as quiet as they could.
That part of the shipyard had been commandeered by the Imperials as a place to stage their walkers. Ahsoka had seen them being offloaded when the occupation began, but it had taken a couple of days for Vartan to figure out their exact models and where the Imperials had decided to keep them. After that, it was relatively easy for Ahsoka to plan her first strike.
They waited in the shadow of the wall until the Imperial patrol came into view. They knew that the whole yard was covered by only a handful of stormtroopers and that the rear wall they’d climbed over was thought by the occupiers to be unassailable.
“No imagination at all,” Vartan had muttered under his breath when Ahsoka told him the intel. Then they had set about altering the repulsors on the bottoms of the threshing machines to help Miara and Neera make the climb.
Miara shifted her pack very carefully. Not only did she need to keep the parts from making any noise, she also had to ensure that none of the circuits activated prematurely. It was finicky work, but Miara was endlessly patient with it, even though she was restless about other things.
“Are we ready?” she asked Ahsoka, making sure to lean close so her voice wouldn’t carry.
“I want to see the patrol a couple of times,” Ahsoka said. “This might be our only chance to break in here this easily, and we should take advantage of it.”
“She’s right,” Neera said. “Get comfortable, kids.”
Miara grumbled but did as she was told. Kolvin, whom Ahsoka still didn’t know very well, settled in without protest, apparently used to both waiting and following orders.
It was ten minutes until the patrol came back, the same two stormtroopers. They didn’t even step into the yard. They just shone their lights around for a few moments and moved on. Behind the crates, Ahsoka and the others were never in danger of being discovered. It was almost too easy, which made Ahsoka nervous. She pushed the feeling away. She needed to focus on what was in front of her, and nothing else.
They waited another ten minutes, and the patrol came again. After they moved on, Neera leaned close to Ahsoka.
“We should go now. The others will get antsy waiting for us to come back if we don’t.”
Ahsoka nodded. These were farmers, she had to remind herself constantly. She had helped train farmers to fight before, back on Felucia, against pirates. They were smart and they learned quickly, but they still weren’t soldiers. They didn’t have the adaptability or patience of the clones, and she’d had to remember to treat them differently because of that. She had learned a lot on that mission that she could use on Raada now.
“Okay,” she said. “Miara, give me your bag and follow me. Neera, you and Kolvin give us a few moments and then follow to install your part of the charge.”
Their goals were simple, as befitted their first real mission. Miara had built several devices that she would activate at the last minute, and then Ahsoka would install each of them in the knee joints of the walkers. Then Kolvin, who had steadier hands than Ahsoka—since she couldn’t overtly use the Force—would climb up with the second piece. Once the liquid in Kolvin’s half started mixing with the liquid in Ahsoka’s, it would become corrosive enough to melt not only the charge but also the knee joint itself.