It was a cold, dark morning on Passenger-Cargo Loading Dock 141-73J. Super heated air was rising from the large passenger freighter's main engine exhaust, causing a large ripple in the air. There were an assortment of medium to large shipping crates ready for loading at later times.

This was one of the extremely rare times when only one starship was actively being attended to, which was odd. Although Corusant was busy at all times of the day due to the large population, but the early mornings tended to have less traffic on average. In addition to the lone starship, her crew were transferring containers, disconnecting fuel lines, and going over pre-flight checks. Everything was completely normal, except for three unusual figures.

The first was a thin, elegant form of a well known Republic senator representing the planet of Naboo. The second was an average height, female teenage Togruta who was standing with a single sack over her shoulder. The third was a tall, handsome man with white shoulder guards bearing the insignia of the Grand Army of the Republic and the rank of General. A medium sized silver cylinder lay clipped to the waist of his black robes. He regarded the spacecraft in question with a raised eyebrow.

"You know that we could have gotten you a better transport. Why are you taking this flying pile of scrap?", Anakin asked the ex-padawan to his left.

"It was cheap and relatively unbooked, but I am not a Jedi anymore, I am a regular civilian, so I can't get that much help from a Jedi or Senator without raising too many questions." Ahsoka replied in a neutral tone. It did not need to be said that she had not forgiven the Council for their betrayal. Anakin flinched at that because even though she did not blame him, he still felt like he could have done more. "Besides, I want to do this by myself."

Anakin still didn't like this, it was too abrupt. Just yesterday he was contacted by Ahsoka and told that she wanted to have him and Padmé see her off. The way she explained it, she was heading back to her homeworld of Shili to see if she could track down her parents and start a new life.

Her transport could be attacked by pirates or the Separatists. The bad feeling in his gut grew just thinking about it. "Are you sure about this Ahsoka? Couldn't you wait until the war is over?"

"No, I can't. I just have a feeling that I have to do this now." The teenage Togruta turned to face him, "Besides, the war could take ages to win."Anakin frowned at this, something Padmé picked up on.

"Let her go Anakin, this is her choice." Padmé still looked worried, but she was right. This was something that Ahsoka needed to do on her own. "Don't worry about it, I'm sure that Ahsoka can take care of herself without a lightsaber. After all, you trained her."

A loud buzzing sound came from the deck officer's booth signaling the imminent departure of the sole starship. "Well , I guess that's my call," Ahsoka announced. "Thank you for everything Anakin, Padmé." She smiled and gave both her counterparts a hug.

"Don't mention it Snips, I'll miss you" He looked down at his ex-student. "Call us when you get there, won't you?"

"Sure thing Skyguy" She replied with a grin. Although she was grinning, Anakin noticed a far away look in her eyes as if she was thinking of something else.

With that she turned and walked into the large hangar of the transport and only looked back to see Anakin and Padmé waving good-bye. She waved back until the hangar shield turned on and obstructed their vision. The transport finished it's final checks and started to slowly rise into the air, the platform heating up from exhaust of the engines. It's altitude rose exponentially as it cleared the traffic lanes.

Padmé looked back at her secret husband with a comforting smile on her face.. "Don't worry, we'll see her again." He smiled back, but even as he did, he got a really bad feeling. Anakin's bad feelings always meant trouble. Always.

"I don't know Padmé, I don't like this one bit." At that, his wife looked worried, she knew about the likelihood of his intuition being correct. "This whole thing just doesn't feel rig-" At that moment, there was a bright flash of light and the transport was gone, replaced by a massive fireball in the sky. The shock wave that came a few moments later had enough force to knock over a few of the stacked crates on the loading platform.

All Anakin and Padmé could only stare at the massive fireball that was once a space worthy transport that carried Ahsoka Tano. Anakin felt many things: shock, grief, anger, and regret. One of the things that he hadn't felt was Ahsoka's presence in the Force.

The only thing nobody noticed was the shimmer of air of a stealth ship.

"Point of No Return, this is Four-Seven-Niner, the package is secure and returning to base. Requesting permission to dock."

Docking Control replied, "Roger that Four-Seven-Niner, you have clearance to dock in Hanger Bay 2. Hope you've had a nice ride."

"It was a little bumpy back in atmo, but we got out quietly. made sure nobody followed us. The package has been quiet." Four-Seven-Niner replied.

"Quietly? The nets exploded, the story is everywhere! Everybody noticed." Docking control retorted.

"Well no one noticed us. The cloaking held, and the explosion masked our startup exhaust, although I think some of the coating got scorched."

"Well shit, the engineers are going to be bitching about that for weeks."

"Heh, sucks to be them. Good thing they have a few weeks in slipspace."

Ahsoka sat in a rather uncomfortable seat which was attached to the starboard side of the interior of the dropship. This dropship was much different than the ones she had flown in when she was a commander in the Clone Wars. Instead ond the soldiers standing, there were seats on the side of the ship. It was clearly made to hold larger figures, probably in armor, judging by the size of the restraints and buckles.

The speakers playing the pilot's conversation were rather loud, even with the background noise of the drop ship's rumbling. This brought up the question of why the pilot was even playing the audio over the loudspeakers. Maybe she forgot to turn it off or liked to listen to herself.

Across from herself, she saw a human figure sitting in one of the seats on the other side of the dropship. The mystery figure was wearing a suit of mantle black armor and a helmet with a reflective visor. Whoever it was had been silent throughout the entire trip.

Looking out of the window, Ahsoka could see the massive planet sized city slowly shrinking as it receded into the distance. There were many cruisers orbiting the center of the Republic, ready to repel a Separatist invasion at a moments notice. The cityscape of the Corusant had not changed for as long as she could remember. Ahsoka had left Corusant many times in her Jedi career, but this time she would be leaving for many years and would return completely different,

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but I have been busy with things and not have had time to write. Been watching Star Wars Rebels, it's actually pretty good. I hope it goes the way of The Clone Wars and gets a bit darker later on. Anyways, thanks for reading.