Chapter 44: CH 45
Harry shrugged blandly in response, seemingly unconcerned with Aayla's reaction, not even bothering to turn around to look at her. "Sure, it wouldn't hurt you and it would save us … irritation in the long run. Be thankful you're such a terrible liar. Your true intentions regarding Ahsoka have shown through, so you were afforded at least that much courtesy."
"But that still doesn't answer my question of what to do with you." Harry shrugged again. "I am content with simply kicking your pretty blue ass off my ship. You have seen some of my abilities, but, as I doubt you could recreate anything I've done without my assistance or instruction, I have little concern for that."
"You and I both know perfectly well you'd… probably... be fine here until aid arrived, you can likely fit in amongst the squalor of this place until aid or an investigative team arrived and sensed you." Harry frowned a bit and reached up to briefly stroke Hedwig's feathers. "So, why don't you try again and tell me why you really want to come with us?"
Harry's words had kept Aayla completely off balance. She tried to think of a response to his piercing question, made all the more disorienting because he hadn't looked back at her once while he spoke. On the other hand, the avian on his shoulder was unnerving, as it stood with its head turned completely around glaring at her as if she were some barbarian intruding upon a holy place.
Ahsoka wasn't any help either. She raised an eyebrow at Aayla in open invitation to speak, while letting her know that she was completely on her own here. She needed to think fast, and wasn't sure how to convince him.
There were many reasons she wanted to go with Harry and Ahsoka. The Council's orders were a given, but honestly didn't hold priority at the moment. She felt a lingering sense of duty that related to the slaves who were back in the cargo hold, as she was well aware that, without the intervention of the Jedi Order, that she too would've been a slave at this very moment, if not dead from being 'too used' at her current age.
Harry's reaction and handling of the slaves had been as much of a jolt as the use of his Force powers. There were many bounty hunters in the galaxy who would have simply claimed and sold the slaves themselves if they managed to acquire a slaver's ship. Though Aayla had run into one or two who would free them like Harry was attempting to do.
The fact that he not only was providing them transport to a safe world, but making sure the slavers themselves were dealt with by one of the worlds completely against the practice, was another mark in his favor.
However, she couldn't escape thinking about his unique abilities regarding the Force. The things he could do were, in short, simultaneously amazing and terrifying, and she hoped to understand more of how he could utilize the Force in a way that was so fundamentally different than anything she had previously seen.
He even had his own fanatical version of what appeared to be some offshoot of Yoda's species hanging around. That tiny creature actually inspired a tiny sliver of terror in her heart. She had watched him almost as closely as she had Harry. The short being seemed awash in the Force, possibly even more than Yoda, when he was channeling the Force to the best of his ability. Most alarmingly, from what she had seen, the only person who seemed to stand between the universe and the absolute chaos the creature would inspire was Harry and his orders to not take things too far.
The same Harry, who even Ahsoka had claimed to want to follow all while she doubted his sanity, and the same tiny thing who thought it acceptable to stack a pile of naked unconscious bodies in a hangar bay, and who seemed very enthusiastic with doing so.
Which led her back to his question for her. She wanted to know more about this man. She wanted to know more about his 'people' that he kept referring to, especially the 'alternative education' that Anakin had mentioned when he reported what Ahsoka had written in her message to him. The Council actually was her last priority at the moment, especially after what it had done to Ahsoka.
But how could she explain that to him?
She recalled that Ahsoka had received direction on what to do regarding Harry when she had sought guidance in the Force. Yoda had also been curiously insistent she listen to the urging of the Force. Quickly she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping it would aid her as she was beginning to feel a bit desperate about how to persuade Harry she meant him no harm. She opened her senses to the Force and then after a moment a frown crossed her face. She could feel Ahsoka, not more than a few meters away. Though her presence was slightly muddled, it was only a little bit.
The Force sang to her regarding the young former padawan, and combined with her empathy, let her know that the young Togrutan was excited by the new course her life had taken. She could feel the sadness Ahsoka felt about the way she had been betrayed by the Order. There was anger and hurt about being a victim of Barriss, and purposefully trying to keep her distance from Aayla, though she held out hope that Aayla wouldn't end up in the same category she now classed all Jedi save her former Master. Skywalker being the only one that stood by her. The problem wasn't Ahsoka. The problem was this Harry Potter.
She couldn't sense him at all in the Force. Generally Force users could sense other Force users, even those of nominal power when they were close by. Powerful Force users could be felt on the same planet, or occasionally even the same system if one were sufficiently powerful and attuned.
The Jedi had never learned to mask their presence to any significant degree. In fact, the only person she was aware who could hide their Force presence was the mysterious Sith Lord Sidious they had been searching for without success for the past few years. But here she was, only a few feet from Harry, and she couldn't sense him at all. But more than that, it was like he didn't even exist. Nothing at all. No sense of life that she would get from any other life form in the universe. The owl on his shoulder actually appeared more open to the Force than him. On one hand that troubled her, on the other she didn't seem to sense him as any immediate threat.
She took a breath and put that aside. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to open up herself completely to the Force for guidance. Far more than simply extending her senses, completely submerging herself in the Force. It was something she did rarely. In part because doing so left her completely vulnerable to physical attack as she became less aware of her immediate surroundings, and in part because it was a practice that had grown ever more difficult, even futile in recent years.
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