The abyss gaped up at them, a yawning chasm in the fire-blasted terrain. Standing on the edge, white-armored troopers were dwarfed by the very scale of the hole.
"We could go around it," suggested one, looking back to see if their General was within earshot.
"Why didn't we see this on the air recon?" asked another, shouldering his rifle. The men shifted uneasily; the pit was unexpected, and while the Clones of the 501st were the best of the best, bred for battle and trained to overcome adversity, there was something about this particular adversity that triggered their in-bred danger reflex.
"Well." The men snapped to attention as their young General approached the lip of the chasm. "That explains a lot."
"Explains what, Sir?" the Clone Captain, Rex, asked, joining Anakin Skywalker on the edge. The air from the pit smelled ancient, cool and clean.
General Skywalker tapped his datapad. "These readings," he explained. "The Sep base isn't in front of us. It's beneath us." He pointed downwards. "You ready for some spelunking, Captain?"
Rex pulled his grappling line from his belt. "Always, Sir," he replied.
"We won't be able to bring down the heavy artillery," Skywalker said thoughtfully, peering into the abyss. "I can't get a read on how far the base is from here, so we'll need to at least bring a few days' supplies. I don't want to bring the whole legion either," he added, "in case this is a trap." He laid a hand on Rex's shoulder plate. "Pick your best ten men, and get with the quartermaster to re-allocate our supplies and rations. Tell the rest to set out around this thing and keep to the original plan."
Rex nodded. "And you, Sir?" He already knew the answer. Skywalker would be going with them into the pit, fueled by a sense of adventure and duty to his men. It was what made them follow him so enthusiastically; he never asked them to do something he wouldn't do himself, always led the charge, lightsaber blazing.
"What do you think, Rex?" Skywalker asked with a wry expression. "Go get ready. I want to be down there within the hour."
Rex nodded again, and turned to prepare his troops. This was no different than any other engagement, really. No different than any of the other strange and unexpected circumstances that tended to crop up on the fields of battle. They would all do their duty. They were born for it, bred for it. They would follow orders until their last breaths. But that day would not, Rex hoped, be today.
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"Change of plan." Ahsoka Tano jerked her head up at the sound of her Master's voice. He looked almost excited, which made her distinctly nervous. Any time Anakin had a plan, it inevitably involved something ridiculously risky.
"Okay..." She wasn't sure what else to say, honestly.
Anakin pointed towards the gaping maw that definitely hadn't been there when they'd done their air recon. "Me, Rex, and a few troops are going to go that way," he informed her. "I think the base is below-ground. But, in case I'm wrong, or this is a trap or something, you're going to take the rest of the 501st around like we originally planned." It seemed to make sense, but Ahsoka felt an uncomfortable prickling in her montrals that she'd learned to associate with a Bad Idea.
She stood, dusting off her leggings. "Are you sure?" she asked. Most Padawans, she knew, would defer to their Masters in all things. But she'd learned that sometimes certain Masters required a little special handling. "What if the base is down there and you need more than a handful of men? What if it iis/i a trap?"
"If the base is down there, I'll comm you and have you provide backup support," Anakin replied, blithly. "And if it's a trap, well... There hasn't been a Separatist trap yet I haven't been able to get out of." He grinned at her, disarmingly.
She resisted the urge to sigh. This was typical of her Master, of how he operated. So sure of himself, and his men, and of her, that there wasn't even a chance of failure. He was right, though - there hadn't been a Separatist trap they (they - she reminded herself) hadn't been able to escape. "Let me come with you, Master," she implored, already knowing the answer.
Sure enough, Anakin shook his head. "No, Snips," he said decisively. "I need to trust the men up here are taken care of." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Ahsoka. We've done this before, you know."
He was so casually confident, so sure of himself. She knew she was making a mistake underestimating him, but she couldn't help icy worry from rising in her gut. "Okay, Master," she said, finally. She still didn't like it, but she supposed, as a Padawan, she didn't have to like it. "Just... be careful."
Anakin flashed her a grin. "I'm always careful," he informed her. "Go get ready. You're leaving soon."
She nodded, resisting the urge to grab his hand in farewell before she trotted away towards the rest of the battallion.
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Headlamps and lightsaber blazing, Anakin and his small squad descended into the pit on rappel lines, 50 pounds of supplies on their backs and blind darkness below them. The mouth of the pit grew smaller and smaller, and Anakin took one last, desperate, look at the sun before it winked out of existence. The men were silent, the only sounds the hum of Anakin's 'saber, the rustling of armor against rock, their breathing. It was as close to silent as Anakin supposed he'd experienced in ages, and it was wholly disconcerting.
Finally, his boots hit firm ground. The shaft opened into a tunnel to his left; it didn't look man or machine-made, a natural path through the rock. He didn't know what had created it, and he didn't much care. What he cared about was finding the Separatist base and getting back up to the surface. Already he could feel a prickly sense of claustrophobia settling over him. It was odd - he spent a good deal of time in the cockpit of a starfighter, not the roomiest accomodations by any stretch of the imagination. But somehow, that was different. Somehow, being able to see a wash of stars outside the canopy made the cramped quarters more manageable. This was... he looked overhead, and saw nothing but more rock.
He turned his attention to his datapad, frowning as the device struggled to find a signal. Luckily, he'd saved the last report to the harddrive, so it was mostly a matter of following that to the base. He was worried, though; if the datapad couldn't transmit, what that meant for their comms. He decided not to think about it for the time being - he doubted they'd need them in that capacity, anyway.
The path sloped downward at a gentle pace; it was an easy walk, even with the extra gear. The rocks beneath their feet were smooth, worn down over time to something resembling a sidewalk. Here and there were evidence of the Seperatists: an abandoned, powered-down battle 'droid, a gauge in the rock wall where heavy equipment had been brought through. Still, it was quiet. Even the catacombs under Geonosis hadn't been this quiet, hadn't been so desolate. There had been life there (well, as lively as undead Geonosians could be, anyway), the sounds of activity and other beings. This was... nothingness. Even straining his senses, Anakin couldn't hear anything besides his men and himself. The 'droid army was not known to be quiet, and he expected to hear evidence of them by now.
"Where are we going, Sir?" Rex asked, coming up beside him, his head lamps cutting through the pitch dark.
Anakin shrugged. "As far as I can tell, if we just keep following this path, we'll reach the base in a few hours." He kept the 'I hope' part to himself.
"And what if the path forks?" Rex asked as they came upon a divergence in the trail. He sounded a little smug, Anakin thought wryly.
He cast out the Force, trying to sense down the tunnels, trying to determine where to go. What had he learned from Obi-Wan? What was the secret to a maze? The datapad was of no help, only showed where the base was, not how to get there, through underground tunnels. Anakin closed his eyes, dredging up old memories of his training. 'Pick a direction, and stick with it.' That's what Obi-Wan had said. And Anakin was from Tatooine, superstitious to a fault. The right hand was evil, he knew from his childhood. At the memory his mechanical right hand tightened into a fist, as if in agreement. "Left," he said after a moment. "We'll go left."
He hoped half-memories and folklore were good enough.
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Ahsoka let out a frustrated puff of air. Once around the maw her Master had disappeared into, the terrain was flat, even, easy. And there was no sign of the Separatist base, all the way to the horizon. Which meant Anakin had probably been right. Which meant she wanted nothing more than to be down there with him.
The sun was sinking down below the - completely empty - horizon, and Ahsoka brought her troops to a halt. She would have expected to hear from Anakin by now, whether because he needed backup or because the base had already been destroyed and he was on his way to meet her. But she hadn't heard a thing, and didn't want to get too far ahead of him. Besides, with darkness falling, the men would need to rest. She needed to rest.
"Set up camp here," she directed Sergeant Appo, gesturing around them. Appo was a good man, still kind of shiny, but he followed orders to a fault, and was generally fairly affable. He wasn't Rex, though, Ahsoka thought. She knew such thoughts were not very Jedi-like, but she had been told from a young age to allow herself to have thoughts and emotions - just to let them go once she'd felt them, and not let them get the better of her. She found it easy enough; she didn't dwell on her hurts and disappointments over the current mission. Instead, she felt those emotions, and let them go. She did find herself having to do that several times an hour, but she was still technically following her Jedi teachings. Jedi teachings, not her Master's, she differentiated.
Clearing an area to make a campfire, Ahsoka considered the difference. She'd never been so proud as the day she was named as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan, and in the time they'd been together, she knew she had grown and thrived; she could command troops with ease, now. She led battles and wrote mission reports and her opinions on tactics and logistics were taken seriously. She was able to hotwire an enemy ship, could turn the tide of battle to her favor almost on a whim. She'd watched him, carefully, trying to absorb even a fraction of his natural talent, his effortless, commanding presence. She was at her best on the battlefield, like he was, because of him.
But battle, she knew, was only part of being a Jedi, and she had realized with some annoyance not very long ago, that other aspects of her development were being neglected. She couldn't meditate with any consistency, was ill-suited to quiet contemplation. She tended towards impatience and while she did spend time with the Youngling clans when they were on Coruscant, her tolerance for it was limited. These things, she knew, were also her Master's legacy, his unintentional teachings. He was brilliant, but his gifts did not extend everywhere, and where they did not, so too did Ahsoka's training suffer.
She wasn't sure what to do about it. Going to the Council was out of the question; she had no desire to get Anakin in trouble, because as far as she saw it, it wasn't really his fault. He didn't have time to teach her the traditional Jedi ways, because the war had him overextended already. It was a wonder, she often thought, that he had time to breathe with all of the missions and duties he had on his shoulders. She already knew he did not often sleep, and she didn't want the Council to decree that he needed to exert yet more effort on her behalf.
She did her best to supplement, and in the end, she knew that it wasn't something she would be able to fix, not until the war was over. When the war was over, things would change, and her training would take on the traditional trappings once again. Well, as traditional as having Anakin Skywalker as her Master could be.
She ignited a pile of dry grass in the middle of the fire pit she had created, and sat, cross-legged, beside the flames. She watched the fire dance and sputter and grow and let her mind wander, reaching out with the Force to sense her Master. He was there, in their bond, but he seemed so far away. She couldn't get a good grasp of his emotions; it was so much easier when they were closer together, or didn't have however-many feet of rock between them.
She drew her legs up to her chest and leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees. She closed her eyes, and before she even realized it, she was asleep.
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The Clones were able to tell what time it was using their helmet-mounted heads' up displays. Anakin had only the Force to tell him they'd been walking for almost ten hours. Though the path was easy, Anakin still found himself beginning to drag with fatigue, the darkness telling his internal clock that it was time to sleep. He reached out with the Force, trying to determine if they were drawing closer to their destination, but 'droids did not have Force signatures to latch onto, and the silence was absolute.
Suddenly, the path ended and in its place a wall, with a slot at shoulder-height, just big enough for Anakin to squeeze through on his stomach. He considered; they could stop here for the night (if it even was truly night) and tackle the slot upon waking, or they could forge ahead. He shoved his arm through the slot, using his lightsaber to illuminate what was beyond. He couldn't tell, but he could see that the slot got bigger somewhere within the glow of his 'saber.
There was no way the 'droid army could have gotten through, he realized. His instincts had failed him; they'd been going the wrong way. Now he had a decision to make: go back the way they'd come, and add an additional ten hours to their timeline, or forge ahead and hope that there was more than one path to the base. The Force whispered in the back of his mind: 'Go forward,' it said.
"I'm going to see what's past this," he informed Rex. "Once I figure it out, I'll give the signal." He forced himself to sound confident, though he knew the Clone Captain knew they'd made a mistake. The thought niggled at him; he wasn't exactly known for making such major tactical errors. He was glad for the darkness so his flushed embarrassment wasn't completely obvious.
He dropped his pack onto the ground, leaning back, rolling his shoulders. Fifty pounds wasn't a lot for him, but after ten hours, his shoulders, back, and neck were aching. Once he felt like he could move properly again, he drew himself into the slot, arms over his head. He pushed himself along by his fingertips and toes, wincing as jutting rocks occassionally snagged on his skin and tore at his clothes. He didn't ignite his lightsaber; there was no room for it and him at the moment, and he didn't want to accidentally bring the tunnel down on himself.
Anakin Skywalker was not afraid of the dark. He wasn't afraid of what he couldn't see, wasn't scared of monsters or enclosed spaces. But in the tunnel, unable to move in any direction but forward, not knowing what was in front of him, he could admit to a certain discomfort.
The silence was making his ears play tricks on him; he thought he heard rock shifting on rock, or someone screaming. He shook it off, forged ahead. Three hundred yards in, the tunnel expanded - he could feel the pressure ease, and he ignited his lightsaber.
The cavern the tunnel led into was nothing he'd ever seen before. Rock formations that looked like trees rose up from the ground, and pink transluscent stone flowed like honey down the walls. He blinked, looked around, his 'saber's blue glow casting shadows on the walls. And then he saw it - a feeder tunnel to the side, expanded and reinforced with metal struts. He felt vindicated - he'd been right, after all.
He started the slow crawl back through the tunnel, this time using his 'saber and the Force to expand the tunnel's dimensions enough for the clones in their armor to get through. When he emerged back where he'd started, he was confused to find himself entangled in charge wires. "What are you doing?" he asked Rex, pulling an explosive out of a crack in the wall next to the slot. He wondered, suddenly, if his troops had been planning on trapping him in the tunnel, then pushed the thought aside; it made no sense, he was just overtired.
"Sir!" Rex exclaimed, at his side in an instant. "Are you alright?"
Anakin looked himself over. Besides a pair of skinned knees and a couple of other minor scrapes, he was unscathed. "Fine - Rex, what's going on?"
Rex shifted slightly in what Anakin could sense was discomfort. "We heard you calling for help," he replied.
Anakin frowned. "I was only gone ten minutes!" Besides, calling for help wasn't his thing - surely Rex knew that! He thought about the screams he himself had heard, and disregarded, wondering suddenly if perhaps they were not as alone as he'd originally assumed. He banished the thought, and pointed to the tunnel. "It should be wide enough for you guys to go through easily now," he said. "The base is that way."
"Are you sure, Sir?" Rex wasn't being critical, he was just... being cautious, which Anakin supposed he could appreciate on a certain, non-cautious level.
Anakin nodded. "The Seppies came in through a different tunnel, but the way to the base is clear now," he replied. He wondered if going right would have brought them to that cavern beyond the slot sooner, but decided that dwelling on it would only frustrate him, and he was already too tired. And, again, that question - stop for the night, or press on. The noises he'd heard in the tunnel had unsettled him more than he'd realized, because he did inot/i want to stay here for the night. "Let's go."
With the widening he'd done of the tunnel, it only took a few moments for the squad to emerge on the other side, one of them whistling in appreciation of the eerie beauty of the cavern.
Down the feeder tunnel, reinforced with steel beams, signs of the Separatists became clearer. Anakin tried to comm Ahsoka, but there was no signal, and besides, she was too far away now to be much help - he was not interested in sticking around and waiting for her. Still, there was that silence, that all-encompassing deadness of the air, the disturbing lack of sound.
The base appeared before they expected it, illuminated in their headlamps and lightsaber glow. Taking up the majority of a cavern larger than the launch bay of the Resolute, the base was carved from the very rock, reinforced with struts and girders. Anakin stopped short, holding up a closed fist, reaching out with the Force. There was nothing - no life forms, and he still couldn't hear any evidence of 'droids. "Careful," he said softly. "We'll go in... carefully."
In twos, they approached the base, lights darting here and there. The massive metal-plated door had been torn out of its resting place, laying in pieces on the ground. Anakin swallowed a sudden rush of dread and cautiously picked his way over the threshold.
"They're all destroyed!" one of his troopers - Helm - exclaimed. And he was right; all around them was mechanical carnage, 'droid carapaces and heads and arms strewn around the room. Anakin was reminded, suddenly and unpleasantly, of Orto Plutonia and how the outposts there had been set upon by the Talz.
"Set your charges," he ordered, and stood back to let the Clones do their work while trying to make sense of the scene before him. He couldn't sense anything - or anyone - else down here, nothing that would explain how hundreds of battle 'droids had been torn to pieces. His stomach churned, his spine prickling. iI have a bad feeling about this/i. It was Obi-Wan's familiar refrain, but it rang true.
The Clones seemed to be experiencing the same uneasiness, because the charges were set in record time. Not wanting to risk getting lost, Anakin led them back the way they'd come. The cavern imploded behind them, dirt and debris coating their armor, Anakin's robes. He felt nominally better, now that they could start back to the surface. He'd never wanted to see the sun so badly in his entire life.
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The ground rumbled beneath her feet, and Ahsoka spat out a curse. "Master!" she growled. She knew - she wasn't sure how, but she knew - that he'd gone and destroyed the Seppie base without her. She wasn't sure why she was so surprised by that; her Master did what he wanted, when he wanted to. He'd wanted to destroy the base: he wouldn't have waited around for her to do so.
She rounded up the men - it was time to go back. Anakin hadn't specified what to do if he destroyed the base without her, but she assumed the hole he'd gone into would be how he'd return, and she wanted to be there when he did. She wanted hers to be the first face he saw when he emerged, so he knew exactly how she felt about what he'd done.
