Part 1


I have heard it said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. If Anakin had been present he would no doubt have pointed out that the old saying is even more accurate when the enemy are not where you expect them to be and are, in fact, the ones making all the contact.

The comm on my wrist crackles.

"Cody, come in! Get the tanks down."

"Copy that..."

"Move it! Move it!"

"Here they come! Bugs incoming!"

Then I hear Cody's voice yelling: "General Kenobi, don't land! The zone is hot!"

Something screams past the nose of the gunship.

"But there's nowhere else to go!" I argue back as I glance around at the men of the 212th. Unfamiliar in their dusty ARF desert camo, they are nevertheless as I know they will be, standing fast, firm, determined, while the air around them is bright with laser fire. For all our strategies and plans it is once again the Geonosians who have taken us by surprise. They knew we were coming.

There's no time to consider that now, or to formulate a new plan. Instead there's the whine of Nantex starfighters, a nearby explosion, and the LAAT/i's deck lurches sickeningly beneath us. The engines scream. I know then we're not going to make it.

"We're hit!" I shout into the commlink. It's not much of a warning, but it all I can give. Cody will have to make do without us. "We're going down!"

The gunship pitches wildly from side to side. There's smoke, stinging fire coming from somewhere. Alarms are blaring out from all sides. I snatch onto a strap above my head; around me troopers are desperately clinging on. Somewhere up front the pilot cries out and the dying ship drops sharply beneath my feet.

"Brace yourselves!"

There's not much time, but I close my eyes, drawing the Force in tight and pushing forward, trying to build a cushion of energy around the burning cockpit to buffer the falling craft as we smash into the earth. It's a vain hope but I'll save as many as I can.

If there had been an extra ten seconds it might have worked.

Instead, there's a sudden blast against the port side of the hull, right where the defences I'm constructing are weakest, and the frail Force shield I've built shatters into ash at the impact. Then reality ruptures; we smash into the ground with a sound like the world ending. The cockpit is ripped away; the pilot and gunners disintegrate under the awful crush of metal and rock. The twenty-five unsecured men around me in the rear of the ship are slammed into the metal roof and hull at 200 kph as the gun-ship is scored across the planet's surface. I fall away from the wall, strike the deck hard, and feel sixteen lives blink out in an instant.

Eventually, everything stops.

My awareness is limited only to fragments of reality. Pain is a primary sensation, followed by muffled, dull sounds of horror, stifled as if we were under water. Distant cries perhaps, and the shrill pulse of alarms ringing, echoing inside my head. There's a stench of blood and piss, burnt plastic and acrid, toxic smoke. The ship has crashed but the danger isn't over; fire is spreading out from the engine about to engulf the port side fuel cells. I am also aware that I am not the only one still alive; I can sense flickers around me, at least eight fragile lives. Blindly, clumsily, I swat at the flames with the Force and the fire is smothered out.

There is so much to do. I have to get up. Save the survivors. Contact Cody. I roll my head, and-

Darkness swallows me up and then recedes again, like a wave. I am aware of a voice across the hold whimpering in pain. It falls silent. I eventually realise that since I was last conscious, three more men have died. There are only five of us left now, little lights, glinting in the dark. With that awful realisation, the tide of unconsciousness rolls in once more.

When I come to again for the third time, it is to someone touching my face. I'm awake, I try to reassure, but I can't really seem to speak. There's an awful lot of pain; dark and heavy and wrong in my abdomen, sharp and spiteful down my back and limbs. I breathe in the Force and expel the pain on the exhale. Better.

I reach up to touch the hand resting on my cheek. It rolls away, too light, and that's when I realise it is just a hand. I can feel where the limb has been torn from an elbow, wet and jagged and sticky with cold blood. I lift the severed forearm off me and gently lay it down onto the deck at my side. Then I carefully roll the other way and my body heaves, expelling mouthfuls of blood and bile onto the grating. My head is buzzing; loud and jarring.

A voice nearby say; "Hear that? There's someone else alive..."

A second voice, weak and breathless, calls out. "Hey! You okay, vod? Who is that?"

"Kenobi," I answer. My voice catches, dry with the smoke.

"General!" The trooper's voice is tight with a relief so intense that makes me feel dizzy.

"Cody?" I mumble, unable, for the first time, to distinguish the clone I am speaking with. It's too dark in there to see much beyond odd shapes; the ship's lights must have blown out with the impact. Or perhaps the hull is all but buried in the dry red dust that passes for earth on this wasteland planet.

"It's Trapper, sir." The first voice corrects me out of the dark. "The commander went with the AT-TEs."

Of course. I remember the battle plan. The crash. This planet. I cannot believe we're back here again.

"Who else is still alive?" I ask, although I already know how many there are. I can sense another trooper has died while I was insensible and there are only four of us left still breathing in the wreckage. Four, out of twenty-eight. There is no time to grieve. "What are your injuries?"

"Chest's a mess. Leg too," admits Trapper's voice. "I've got Copper with me."

"That's me, sir," says the second voice, presumably belonging to Copper. It sounds slurred, unclear. "Can't move that much. Think I'm pinned."

"Digit's alive too," Trapper says, although Digit himself remains silent and Trapper doesn't elaborate any further on the trooper's condition. Instead, Trapper asks; "How badly are you injured, General?"

"I'll live," I say, without going into any further details. I click at the comm unit in my gauntlet, but it just sparks and hisses. Dead.

The two clones' voices came from nearby. Either they have moved closer together, or, more likely, the starboard side of the craft where we had been standing had remained more intact during the crash. I should check their injuries, though I am not sanguine that there is much I can do for them. I drag my tingling arms under me and manage to push myself up unsteadily to sitting. Distantly I can feel my nerve-ends screaming at me but I bury their complaints down beneath the blanket of the Force. I stumble dizzily up to my feet and carefully draw my lightsaber.

"Close your eyes," I warn the clones and switch the blade on. The light casts the garish scene into an unreal washed-out blue. It glints dully off matt armour plates, painting lifeless skin grey and glimmering from splashes of blood turned black and viscous. Black specks swarm before my vision.

"Do you know how long it was since we came down?" I grip the 'saber tight, picking my careful way across the deck between the silent corpses.

Trapper doesn't sound sure.

"I passed out for a while, sir," he hedges. "Maybe twenty, thirty minutes?"

He is leaning up against the sealed starboard hatch; the clone lying on the deck to his side must be Copper. Trapper seems more or less in one piece; there is no obvious blood or missing limbs at any rate. I raise the 'saber and cast a quick glance over the other injured men. The trooper named Digit is lying half across Trapper's legs. I can see his helmet and the skull inside have been crushed like eggshell. For all that Digit's chest is still rising and falling I know he is already dead. There's no waking from an injury that severe, not on a battlefield, but at least he isn't in any pain. Copper by comparison is still conscious, but the 'saber light casting over his belly betrays a wide pool of blood, a glint of imbedded durasteel and, deep down, a coil of viscera.

I look around and spot medic's patches in amongst the scattered armour. I roll the dead medic gently over and rummage in his backpack for the med kit. It's half spilled across the floor; the stimpaks and injectors are missing or crushed but there's a stack of bacta gel and some pressure bandages that have survived intact.

I crawl back to the injured men and wedge the 'saber handle into a nearby tear in the hull. The light flickers but it is enough to see by. I drop down gracelessly at Copper's side, ripping the packaging off a bundle of dressings. The wound is awful, gaping messily around the impaling metal, but I have to do something. I pack the dressings into the hollow space in Copper's abdomen, then clamp down hard, applying as much pressure as I can.

Copper groans, breathes hard for a second, and then slurs out, "...it's better than it looks. I've had worse hangovers."

I smile at his joke, even though it's the last thing I want to do. When I glance over at Trapper, the trooper's expression is unreadable behind his helmet. He must know as well as I that whatever we do, Copper and Digit are not going to make it.

From our own awful circumstances it is clear that the enemy was fully prepared for our 'surprise' arrival. The Geonosians knew we were coming. How they knew is a problem for another time because the fragments I had heard through the comms from the other units were no more reassuring – Cody taking heavy flak at the drop zone and no contact with Anakin, Rex or Ahsoka. Even if Ki-Adi-Mundi and Commander Jet made it through, they will all be pinned down at Point Rain until the 501st can arrive. I know that if any of the Republic's forces survive this day, someone will eventually search for our downed ship. But we were still several kliks from the landing point when we were hit, and it might take hours for Anakin to secure the drop zone sufficiently to send men out to find us. I'm far from certain that by then there will be any survivors left to find.

Copper emits another low groan of pain and mumbles something about his helmet. Trapper still has a firm grasp on Digit, so I let go of Copper's wound for a moment and set about carefully sliding his helmet off his head. The version of the familiar face that is revealed is adorned with bold arrowhead tattoos down each cheekbone but underneath them his tanned skin is pale and wet with perspiration. I return to compressing the awful wound but under my palm I can feel Copper's breath come in short little agonised pants. He doesn't have long, and I cannot save him. Proper Force healing is a rare and precious gift, and it takes skill, teaching and years of practice. It has never been one of my particular talents and my skills are rudimentary at best. So no, I can't save Copper, but I am not prepared to let another one of my men die gasping in agony either.

I place my palm onto the last intact part of the trooper's abdomen and, after a moment to compose myself into something close to meditation, I let go of the barriers holding back my own pain and reach for the Force, diverting all the energy I have left. It takes an intense focus, but I slowly weave together cooling layers of peace and painlessness, and wrap what serenity I can muster about the dying man. Copper sighs and through the Force I see tight little tendrils of his pain relax away and dissolve into mist.

I am ashamed to realise afterwards that I don't notice when Copper dies. I am too wrapped up in the deep meditation I need for soothing the injured man in the Force, all while balancing on the knife-edge of my own pain that the moment of his passing escapes me. At least the other troopers can be assured that this brother at least was not suffering when he died, even if that I was all I could do for him.

Digit lingers on for another twenty minutes, perhaps, before his chest falls for the last time and his breaths quietly fade to silence. Then there is just two of us left.

Trapper keeps his hold of Digit's hand. His own breathing doesn't sound right now but I don't think that is to do with any injury. I stay silent and buffer myself against the trooper's grief.

Eventually Trapper clears his throat.

"General...you should go. We can't be more than five kliks from the drop zone. I can't walk on this leg but you could make it there. Send back some help."

We both know what he is proposing. I am saddened though I am not surprised.

"No good, I'm afraid," I dismiss the suggestion, gently. "I'm not going to leave you. Besides, I'm far from certain I could stand again now, in any case." It's not entirely obfuscation. Now I have drawn back from my meditation, I am aware of a deep shocky cold spreading out through me from my core, battling with the fire laying claim to my legs and spine. It's possible I may have overreached myself. I lean back against the hull, trying to breathe slowly, letting the dizziness and the pain pass into the Force. My hands too are numb and tingly and those black specks of unconsciousness are back, flickering across my sight.

I reclaim my lightsaber and turn it off, plunging us back into the reeking, stifling gloom, surrounded by the silent dead. I clip the 'saber back to my belt, where it belongs.

"Better save the power cell," I tell Trapper.

"Of course, sir," the trooper says.

We sit in silence in the hot, stinking dark and wait. For rescue or for death.

My consciousness is on the verge of drifting away when I realise I can hear cannon fire. It's far off, very far. Several kliks at least, but there is a fierce fight going on somewhere out there. My heart swells with pride. Cody and Ki-Adi are holding on to Point Rain as long as they can.

After a while, I pick out more sounds; ATTEs, proton cannons and blaster fire. Some of it is growing louder and closer, as if something is drawing the fight towards the downed ship. There are three loud shots close by and a couple of metallic thuds which echo through the hull. At my side, I feel Trapper go tense and I know what the clone is thinking. With a fight as heavy as the one we can hear, it is very unlikely that troopers could be spared for a rescue mission. It is far more probable that the approaching sounds are a droid squadron sent to slaughter any survivors of the crash, or some opportunistic Geonosians come to strip the gunship for every valuable scrap and paw over the dead. My hand finds my 'saber hilt.

Two more shots impact somewhere nearby and then we catch the tail end of a conversation.

"...the fun part. Getting back to the square is the fun part."

The accent is Mando'a, the intonation and gruff irritability is even more recognisable. These are no Geonosians.

There is a screech of metal, a pained graunching sound, and the buckled hatch door is dragged open. Light burns into the gloomy wreck and we shield our eyes. Two clones are silhouetted against the harsh desert light. Through the glare I can pick out ARF armour with highlights of 212th yellow, and as one trooper turns his head I see a flash of blue glinting on his helmet. It's a little painting of a smiling Twi'lek child.

"Waxer. Boil," I greet them, relief and disbelief flooding through me. "Am I glad to see you."

The troopers pause for a moment, seemingly stunned at the devastation inside the ship.

"Trapper and I are the only ones still alive." I explain. There is little point in sugar-coating the truth, though I understand their dismay. No doubt they had hoped for far fewer casualties. If things were as hard pressed for the besieged troops as they sounded, Waxer and Boil returning to the rendezvous point with a squadron of clones plus a Jedi Master would have been a welcome reinforcement. Instead they are getting only two more casualties.

Boil bustles into the ship, unflinchingly passing the bodies of his comrades to reach us.

"Good to see you, sir," the trooper says. I just nod, tiredly. Waxer goes over to Trapper while Boil crouches down in front of me. I shift a little, preparing myself to move, and hold my arm out to Boil. The clone takes the hint and settles my arm down over his shoulders. Then, without further warning, he hauls me up.

The moment I move pain erupts through me like I'm being electrocuted; tongues of fire burn along my spine and down my legs and steal the very air from my lungs. For a long moment all I can do is gasp though my gritted teeth and fight every instinct that is screaming at me to stop moving! It takes several moments but I claw back my control and force the pain down. As my mind clears, I realise I'm not actually standing yet; all my weight is still hanging from my one arm around Boil's shoulders. I hear that Waxer is speaking; I take in something about Cody and bugs on the move, but by the time I've forced my treacherous legs to hold me, I've missed the briefing. I open my eyes just in time to see Waxer and Boil exchange a glance but I'm too weary to figure out its meaning.

"Come on," says Boil. "Gotta get you two out of here."

The two clones drag us out into the arid, red heat of the Geonosian sun. The planet reeks of fumes, chemicals and hot metal but it is sweet perfume after the stench inside the crashed ship; an overpowering of death and excrement and cooked meat. We pause for a moment, breathing in the fresher air, as Waxer hands around his water canteen. I manage to grasp it on the second attempt, gratefully. After a swallow of hot, dusty water, I pass the canister on and turn my head towards the far-off flashes of light where the distant landing zone is under fire.

"How far off are we?" I ask.

"Only about five kliks, sir," Boil says. The little blue Numa on his helmet flashes and winks at me in the sun. "But it's no stroll in the park, not in flak that heavy. Took us nearly thirty minutes to get over here. It'll be twice that getting back, I guess."

I nod; it's a fair estimate. I haven't really been able to assess Trapper's injuries properly, but it's clear neither of us are in a fit state to sprint any distance through a warzone.

"What's the situation? Has General Skywalker arrived yet?"

"Not when we left, sir." Waxer shook his head. "Captain Rex had comm'd through to say they'd been forced down on the far side of the fortress. They'll have to fight their way over."

"And General Mundi?"

"He never made it either, sir, and neither did any of his troops. They lost contact just after you crashed."

Kriff it.

"So Cody is holding the landing zone alone?"

I'm concerned, of course, but it doesn't really surprise me that of the four generals, five commanders and an admiral involved in the Second Battle of Geonosis, only Commander Cody has managed to follow the battle plan through to the letter. In a universe of reckless ingenuities perpetrated by the likes of Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex and, if I am being brutally honest, also myself, Cody's ability to follow his orders to the letter is a gift.

Boil comes back to my side and we set off towards the distant sounds of the battle. For a while all my attention is occupied by controlling my pain and forcing my recalcitrant legs into some semblance of motion. I distract myself by focusing on the distant horizon. It can only be mid morning but already the punishing sun is beating down on the scorched, tainted dustbowl we have landed in. Five kliks would seem to be nothing through macrobinoculars, but even to my Force-assisted vision both the distance and the rising heat waves make the scene distorted and uncertain; the far-off tanks are dark shadows, the plasma fire little more than sparks of lightning. The sound carries better; violent, unrelenting noise.

I am not optimistic about our chances of retaking the planet. The attack plan had gone wrong from the very start, but now I know Ki-Adi has not made it either...Well, my gunship had set off several minutes before both Anakin and Mundi, and the younger knight had been shot down first. If my gunship was five kliks off the landing zone, Anakin could have come down two or three times that distance, Master Mundi no closer. If any of them have survived it will likely take them several hours on foot to reach the landing zone. Even allowing for the time it took for Waxer and Boil to find us, and the doubtless slower pace we will make back to the landing zone, we cannot expect reinforcements at the landing point for two more hours at least. The chances of getting air support are next to negligible, even if we can still get comm signal to Admiral Yularen.

It seems that the Second Battle of Geonosis is going to end in an ignominious rout. At worst it may end in slaughter.

When Trapper's breathing gets noisy and pain-filled, we stop for a rest on a low rocky outcrop. We are, perhaps, around halfway to the drop zone. The injured clone sinks to the floor as soon as we stop, coughing and hunched. He needs medical treatment as soon as possible. For now he will have to make do with more sips of water and a ration bar out of Waxer's belt. I resist the troopers' attempts to make me sit down too, despite my exhaustion and the growing torment of Boil's gauntlet pressed against my back. It's becoming fairly clear that I have done some significant damage to my spine in the crash – perhaps a cracked vertebra. I shouldn't be moving at all, let alone returning into an active combat situation with the intention to fight. But I have no choice. The least I can do is avoid any further stress on the injury that repeatedly sitting and standing would cause. Now I am on my feet, I shall stay on them.

I compromise somewhat by leaning against Boil and resting my eyes. When I look up again, Waxer has got Trapper back up to his feet and the three clones are exchanging some meaningful glances. I'm never certain how my men manage to communicate so effectively non-verbally through full-face helmets, but they seem to manage somehow. I huff a sigh.

"Are we ready to continue?"

We make slow but steady pace and are five hundred metres from the landing zone when we are spotted by the enemy. I have had my gaze fixed on the distant Republic tanks; Cody has arranged them into a ring, like a fort, and I can see white shapes darting about the area using the tanks and landed gunships as cover. The air is thick with blaster fire. Off to the right and over our heads, there is suddenly a squeal of engines and a lone starfighter loops around and dives back towards us, a rain of plasma smiting the ground around.

"Run!" yells Waxer, though that is more or less impossible at this point, even with Boil all but dragging me. I bolster my failing legs with the Force and push myself on, feeling Waxer and Trapper just behind. I don't dare fail now; I know as soon as I fall the others will refuse to leave my side and then we'll all die. A plasma shot sears into the sand right at Waxer's feet and then, suddenly, a green bolt blasts the Geonosian fighter out of the air and sends it spinning into a far-off stand dune. The saving shot came from a laser-cannon turret on one of the landed LAATs in the defensive ring. Someone is laying down cover fire.

We are 250m away and now fully out in the open when two more starfighters scream towards us and now the circling Geonosian speeders start shooting too. There's no time to find a defensive position. We have got to get within that ring, and the bugs seem just as anxious to stop us. I move to grab my 'saber, intent on deflecting any shots that come our way, but I am forced to discard the thought – my left arm doesn't seem to be working. We will just have to run for it and hope Cody is covering us. Just when things couldn't get worse, I recognise the low ominous rumble of the enemy's Armoured Assault Tanks moving up the dunes behind us; if we make it to the drop zone it'll be by a thread.

Cannon and laser fire light up the air around, thick with shouts and explosions and flying rock and the stench of burnt hot metal. We are one hundred metres away. I can see Cody by one of the tanks now, shooting bugs out of the sky. A shout and a gesture from the commander and two clones are sprinting forward, laying down a thick spray of cover fire; they pass my little group and fall in behind us. Fifty metres and we are somehow still moving, still alive. Ten metres and we pass under the legs of an AT-TE and suddenly everything goes quiet. The battle is still raging behind us but it's holding at the tank line. It's like we've entered a tiny soap-bubble of serenity.

Boil makes a beeline for a nearby stack of crates. It's probably an ammo depot, but I find I don't really care what they are for as long as I get to sit down in their shade and not move for a few minutes.

Commander Cody is instantly there and I can see for all his calm control that he's tense, on edge.

"Are you injured, general?" he asks as Boil drags me along. I sense, rather than see, Waxer making some frantic hand gestures behind my back to Cody. As usual I pretend not to notice and reply; "No, nothing too serious," in order to stem Waxer's no-doubt panicky communication. It's true, from a certain point of view. If the internal bleeding was going to kill me, it would have done it by now. I can control most of the symptoms of shock through meditation and the Force. And yes, the injury to my back might be a little more serious but there's nothing I or anyone else can do about it trapped in the middle of a warzone. I need my men focused on the task in hand.

"What's the situation here?" I ask but then once again I take in only the first few words of the reply before Boil is unfolding my arm and lowering me to the ground. The curvature of my spine as I bend causes everything to be washed away again in an all-consuming haze of pain. I end up seated on the floor, just staring dumbly at Cody while I try to breathe. I can see the commander is still speaking from the small movements of his helmet but the words are drowned out by the pounding of blood in my ears.

I manage to drag myself back to alertness as Cody is saying "...knew our every move." Waxer and Trapper have disappeared off somewhere, Boil is still kneeling at my side and another clone is jogging over to join us. He's got medic's patches on his helmet and he's holding a med kit. It hadn't really occurred to me before how rough I probably look, but the fact that the medic immediately pulls out a hypo-injector first really ought to be a clue. I obediently turn my neck as the medic leans in and both Cody and Boil project little flurries of disbelief and concern at my lack of objection to the pain relief. I am too exhausted.

The analgesics hit my bloodstream and within seconds cooling tranquillity flows through me. "Well," I hear myself say, distantly. "I'm sure General Skywalker and General Mundi will make it to our position. We just have to make sure we're still here when they arrive."

Then, I pass out.


TBC


NB: So this happened while I was supposed to working on Weeds. I've reached some kind of threshold with chapter 23 where I had to write something else or bust, so this was my outlet. I'm not sure how or why this exists other than I have probably seen Landing at Point Rain more times than is healthy.

The title is from the poem Rain by Jack Gilbert.