Chapter One

June 8th, 1966

Occupied Yugoslavia

The wind and rain lashed against the armed men as they exchanged gunfire with the grey uniformed soldiers in the streets of Zagreb. The communist Partizans were active again, ambushing a German patrol a few hours after curfew. It has been 20 years since the Nazis defeated their enemies in World War II. The once great armies of communism and democracy were reduced to a handful of partisans in Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America. Most of Europe was under Nazi control with Italy controlling the rest. It was a dark 20 years for many, seeing as Jews, homosexuals, and Russian Slavs were virtually non-existent.

The gunfight in Zagreb left five German soldiers dead for two Partizans. The rest of the insurgents retreated into the dark alleyways, their hit and run complete. Janko Šerić was one of those Partizans. His set up against the German patrol worked splendidly. Discarding his gun as he ran, Janko ducked into an alley and kept running, changing direction at every turn. He eventually reached the streets and slowed down. But luck wasn't on his side tonight. Turning left out of an alley, Janko managed to run into a battalion of German troops.

'Jebem ti mater! Just the typical Slavic luck.' The 21 year old Croat thought as he surrendered to the battalion, who raised their weapons.

'Just my typical luck.'

-o0o-

Janko's solitude in jail did not last long. An SS officer stomped in, grinning cruelly.

"Congratulations, communist scum. You have been chosen to participate in our space program. You'll be blasted off into space for our education of astronomy." The officer said. "Of course, the only way you'll survive is if we or the Japanese decide to pick you up from the ocean."

Janko, intrigued, know enough about the Germans to understand that this isn't normal.

"When?"

The SS officer no longer smiled, adopting the standard sneer Janko sees on most German faces.

"Three days. Until then, you get to think how lucky you are that you weren't immediately shot or sent to the camps." The German said before marching out.

-o0o-

It was the worst day in Ahsoka's life. The betrayal of Barriss and the Jedi Order hurt her more than any war wounds. She might have been cleared of all charges, but her trust in the Jedi and the Republic were forever lost. The Clone Wars for her is over. Ahsoka snorted in derision at the thought of the Separatists and the Republic. Both are corrupted governments full of greedy politicians.

As Ahsoka walked away from the Jedi Temple, she heard a shout from behind her.

"Ahsoka! Wait! Hold on!"

It was Anakin shouting for his former apprentice to stop.

"Anakin?" Ahsoka asked. Anakin caught up with her, holding two boxes.

"If you are going to survive out there in the galaxy, then you should at least have a means of transport and defense." He said with a sad smile. Ahsoka opened both boxes, one carrying her lightsabers and the other enough credits to buy a second-hand ship.

"I imagine you would want to leave Coruscant after everything that has happened." Anakin continued.

"Thank you. Thank you very much." Ahsoka said. "I will never forget you."

"Same here."

Ahsoka turned away and continued her long walk down.

-o0o-

The three days had passed since Janko was captured. On the last day, two soldiers came in and escorted him out of the cell. After several hours of travelling, Janko arrived in Baykonur, Kazakhstan, where the rocket to space awaited 10 kilometers ahead. The soldiers forced Janko to walk the whole way, and after three hours, they arrived at the launch pad. The rocket was all white except for the Nazi flag emblazoned on its side.

"In the elevator." One soldier ordered as he and Janko stepped in. The other stood guard at the entrance to the elevator. The elevator took the pair to the rocket's life module.

"In." The German said curtly. "Strap yourself in. I will close the hatch."

Janko climbed through the hatch and into the cramped space inside. The interior of the life module was almost bare, except for the seat, a few small windows, and a dashboard containing a few gauges. Once the Partizan was inside, the German shut the hatch and sealed it. Janko strapped himself into the seat, contemplating his fate.

"T-minus 10 minutes." The launch pad's intercom system announced. People and equipment began moving away quickly as the countdown continued. 10 seconds remained when all was clear.

"T-minus ten, nine, eight…" The intercom counted down. Janko sighed and looked out the window to see the flat featureless landscape that surrounded the launch pad.

'At least I'll be off this fascist-controlled hunk of rock, even if I die.' Janko thought as the countdown reach zero and the rocket fired its engines for lift off. Being without a G-suit, Janko struggled to keep himself awake as the G-forces increased. But just before the rocket reached space, he lost consciousness.

Just as he did, the rocket broke out of the Earth's gravity field, entering space. The rocket continued to accelerate as the engines kept going until they finally flamed out. Janko, having no control of the rocket nor being awake to have it if he did, could not prevent it from flying right into a wormhole, which appeared right then and there. The German scientists back on the planet tried everything to save their rocket, but it was too far gone and began to break up.

"That's the fifth rocket we lost to that stupid thing." One scientist said. "Der Führer isn't happy with our repeated losses."

"Someone's going to get executed for this." Another said. "May God have mercy on that poor man in the rocket."

-o0o-

Ahsoka bought a heavily modified YT-1300 freighter named the Millennium Falcon once she reached Coruscant's spaceport. The previous owner of the Falcon won it in a podracing bet, but already owned a ship, so he saw no use for it. After paying the former owner, Ahsoka blasted off to space. Dodging the Republic fleet in orbit, she jumped to hyperspace, heading for Tatooine.

Three days into the five-day journey, the Falcon's obstacle warning sounded, forcing the Corellian freighter out of hyperspace.

'Don't be a black hole.' Ahsoka thought as the blue tunnel of hyperspace gave way to the black expanse of realspace. To her relief, the obstacle turned out of be a debris field. Ahsoka's relief gave way to curiosity. The debris field looks like the remains of a large missile.

"What's this thing doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" Ahsoka muttered to herself. She scanned the debris for any signs of activity and was surprised to find a lifeform in the biggest chunk. It looked like an escape pod, but without the booster engines that escape pods usually have. Ahsoka carefully piloted the freighter closer to the life module and saw a young human man strapped inside. Intrigued, Ahsoka activated the Falcon's equipped tractor beam to get the pod inside. Once the pod was inside the miniature hangar, Ahsoka left the cockpit and headed there. Once she reached the pod, Ahsoka looked for an entrance, but could not find it. It was well hidden for something so… primitive.

The former Jedi activated her lightsaber and cut a hole open before unstrapping the man from the seat and pulling him out. He began to stir before waking up. He looked around before starting to speak in a foreign language Ahsoka didn't understand.

"I don't understand what you are saying. Can you speak Basic?" Ahsoka asked carefully. The young man gave Ahsoka a slight look of revulsion.

"You speak German? Damn it, I had enough of Germans." The man said, switching languages. "Where am I? Am I dead?"

"Hold on, one question at a time." Ahsoka said. "But first, who are you?"

The man paused considering his response.

"My name is Janko Šerić. I was a Yugoslav Partizan before I got captured by my enemies and blasted off to space."

-o0o-

Upon telling Ahsoka that, Janko started to have flashbacks. He remembered his teary-eyed mother giving birth to him in that small village near Županja, his mother hiding him before she was taken by the Nazis, the group of Partizans that found his six year old self crying for his mother, his trip to the former Soviet Union to learn the ideology of communism from the Soviet resistance group known as the NKVD, the many espionage missions, and finally his capture. Janko remembered everything that happened for the past twenty years thanks to his gift in photographic memory. Then he burst into tears.

"Are you okay?" Ahsoka asked worriedly.

"You have no idea of all the shit I've been through my entire life. Nothing but experiencing the fascist oppression and fighting it at every turn." Janko choked. Ahsoka's heart went out to the young human.

"I am almost 17 years old and I have seen things most people are lucky not to see for their entire lives." Ahsoka said. "I fought in a war where I thought I knew who the enemy were. And then, I almost get executed for a crime I got framed for. Fuck me, right?"

The pair walked slowly in the Falcon's corridor.

"Who are you?" Janko asked. "What are you? You don't look like a normal person to me."

"I'm guessing you have never left your planet before?" Ahsoka asked. Janko affirmed her guess.

"Well, my name is Ahsoka Tano. I was a Jedi Padawan before I left the Jedi Order because of my trial. It might surprise you, but I'm not exactly a human. I'm a Togruta, a species of human-like people who are mostly hunters." Ahsoka said. Janko looked at her with wonder.

"What are these?" Janko asked, touching Ahsoka's lekku. She let out an involuntary giggle before shifting away.

"That's my lekku." She said nervously. "Don't touch, it's very sensitive."

Janko gave a thoughtful look before withdrawing his hand. Ahsoka felt apprehensive about Janko's future intentions, but brushed it off for later.

"My turn." She said. "What happened to your planet?"

Janko's face fell, steeling himself for the story.

"It all began 30 years ago. My planet was divided into local governments called countries. Adolf Hitler was the fascist dictator of Germany, one of the more powerful countries on Earth, my planet. He invaded a bunch of small countries, which caused his enemies, Britain and France, to declare war on him. But Germany was known for producing some of the greatest strategists on the planet, with the likes of Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel leading the German armies. The Germans crushed both Britain and France, leaving half of Europe, one of the continents, under his iron fist. Then he invaded my country, Yugoslavia. And then Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. In two years, the only country in Europe that could hope to stop Hitler was Soviet Russia. But Hitler invaded them too and won in another two years. During the war with Russia, Japan, a German ally, attacked the naval fleet of the United States, bring them into the war. After Russia lost, Germany partook in the largest naval invasion in history. Four million soldiers landed in the US East Coast, where three years of bitter fighting secured Nazi victory. No one could hope to defeat the Axis Alliance now that both the communist and democracy major powers were defeated. Thus, I spent most of my life in the Partizans, the communist resistance group in my home country." Janko explained. "And then I got captured and blasted off to space as a test subject."

Ahsoka could not possibly feel any worse. This person has seen and done a lot for his entire life while she only experienced two and a half years of interplanetary conflict. Force, this guy seen more things than she has!

"Oh the Force! I'm so sorry for what you've been through. It must have been very difficult to be born in a world of oppression." Ahsoka said.

"Especially when you have photographic memory, where's its impossible to forget anything no matter how hard I try." Janko replied. "Being unable to forget the deaths of your comrades is depressing."

Ahsoka sent waves of reassurance and calm to Janko, who relaxed. However, his sharp mind immediately noticed the change.

"Are you doing that. Ahsoka?" Janko asked. "That feels a little unnatural."

If Ahsoka had eyebrows, she would've raised one of them.

"How did you know I was sending soothing feelings to you through the Force?" Ahsoka said. "Only a Force-sensitive would be able to know if another is sending emotional support."

"I don't know. What is the Force?" Janko asked. Ahsoka gave him the explanation that most Jedi are taught.

"That explains so much." Janko said.

"How so?" Ahsoka wondered.

"When I was little, I used the make objects fly. My mother was terrified that the Nazis would burst in and take me away for experimentation." Janko said, Ahsoka wincing at the last part. "Next, when I was 14, I went to the former Soviet Union to study communism under the Soviet resistance group named the NKVD. The Nazis had just nabbed a bunch of young peasant women and I got angry. I wanted to strangle these soldiers for their treachery and wished death upon them for what they were going to do to these poor women. Strangely enough, all the soldiers started choking until they died. It was weird as I wondered if there was such thing as God and he responded to my wish. These were the two major incidents that stuck to me. There were also other instances where I would run unnaturally fast or jump unnaturally high, so much so that my comrades believed I was superhuman."

Ahsoka stood in the corridor surprised, amazed, but also a little disturbed. She without a doubt believed that Janko is a Force-sensitive, a powerful one at that.

"I need to test your blood. I want to know how much midi-chlorians you have in your body." Ahsoka said, going to the infirmary and taking out a blood sampler. She went back to Janko and gave him the sampler.

"Just prick your finger on the slit." Ahsoka instructed. Janko did so, allowing the sampler to analyze it. A ding was heard to signal completion.

"Not bad." Ahsoka said, looking at the numbers. "You have enough midi-chlorians to rival some of the Masters on the Jedi Council. No wonder you think you are superhuman. You are a Force-sensitive."

"Will you teach me how to use the Force?" Janko asked.

"I will teach you everything you should know to the best of my ability." Ahsoka said. "Including how to use a lightsaber."

Ahsoka took out her lightsaber and activated it, showing the young Partizan the green blade in all its splendor. He looked starry eyed.

"That's some weapon." He exclaimed.

"I agree. Lightsabers can cut through almost anything and can deflect blaster bolts. Especially useful in times of war like this." Ahsoka replied.

"War?"

"Oh. Right now the galaxy is in a state of warfare between the Republic and the Separatists. Rumors are circulating that the war is almost over." The former Jedi explained. "Now earlier you have made multiple mentions of communism. What is it?"

Janko smiled.

"It is a political ideology on the far left of the political spectrum. It's kind of hard to explain, so I have a book by the man who created it, explaining everything about communism." He said, taking out a small copy of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. The Yugoslav offered the book to Ahsoka, who took it. A series of beeps began, signaling an incoming transmission. Ahsoka and Janko went to the cockpit, where Ahsoka answered the call. It was the Mandalorian Bo Katan, looking surprisingly fearful.

"Ahsoka? Is that you?" She asked quickly, looking around as if someone was after her.

"Bo Katan? What's going on?" Ahsoka asked cautiously. She still didn't trust the former member of Death Watch.

"Maul is in a state of uncontrollable rage. He's terrorizing the planet ever since his brother was murdered by a mysterious robed figure a few weeks back." Bo said. "For the sake of Mandalore's safety, we need him removed."

"Okay, I'm on my way." Ahsoka said. She punched in the coordinates to Mandalore and set the autopilot. The Millennium Falcon shifted its path and jumped into hyperspace.

TBC...