Disclaimer: I do not own any of Star Wars, the right of ownership of Star Wars belong to Lucasfilm and I guess Disney too. The only thing I own is the characters you do not notice and the plot.
Universe A year: 13 BBY
Universe B year: 14 BBY
Chapter 14: Serenno at Last
According to plan, a Sentinel-class Landing Craft drops out of Hyperspace at 12,420 miles from Serenno. If they push the ship to it full speed for the whole way, they will be at the planet in 2 hours. Enough time to plan, according to Dooku, but how much Rachelle trusts him, she does not know if his estimate is anything close to being right.
"I got the ship on auto pilot right now." say Rachelle as she got up. "No, bad idea. Kick it off, we will resume after talking to the troops." say Dooku as he flips the Auto pilot off. The ship engine vibration and noise grow much softer.
Rachelle just rolls her eyes at this and walks off into where the Clone was sitting at. "Did we drop out of Hyperspace?" ask one of the nearest clones. Dooku crosses his arms behind his back.
"Yes, we have dropped out of Hyperspace, if we go at full speed we will be within the orbit of Serenno in 2 hours. I think it is time to know what we might be facing. As of right now we have no eyes on Serenno, but we can be positive if either Darth Vader or Ma…Darth Destria is on the planet there might be an army." say Rachelle pressing a button and a hologram of Serenno appears in front of her.
Dooku looks at the planet. "If I remember correctly, the planet is protected by a planetary defense system." say Dooku as an orb appears around the planet. "What type?" ask Rachelle in a slightly harsh voice.
"Both Ray Shields and Particle Shields. Yes, I know that it will be impossible to get to the planet if it has a Particle Shield up. There is a secret entrance that was created during the Clones Wars that I know that is only protected by Ray Shield. The only problem is that it changes location ever 3 days." say Dooku
"How big is this secret entrance?" ask a Clone. "Not that big. It would not fit Star Destroyer in it. It was made for the Separatist forces to either get their ships back to the planet safely in case in attack from the Republic happens or to send out ships without lowering any of the shields. To find it we must scanned the shields. Which if they have not changed, I should be able to do it easily." say Dooku. "Bout time you are some help." mumble Rachelle as she shakes her head slightly. Dooku eyed her with a soft look and shake his head.
"Of possible ground forces?" ask Captain Kia from his seat in the middle. "As we stated, we have no eyes on the planet. All connection with the planet is down. I would image so. Our duty will be to locate that secret entrance and enter that way. Trying to avoid being shot at while doing so. They most likely have bunch of huge ships like Star Destroyers which one shot from them will have this ship and it shields destroyed. Once we landed the ship, we must make sure it is in a safe place, because this might just be our only way off the planet." say Rachelle knowing the limited shields on this ship will be useless against a ship with the power and size of a Star Destroyer.
Rachelle looks around at all the Clones that were looking at her to lead them. It is a feeling she have not gotten used to. Yes during the Clone Wars she was a Commander due to the fact that she was a Padawan. Still it is the General of the squad that has the full command not the Commander, they only have less control. She hope they all get out of there alive, but if you throw Dooku into the mess, who knows if they will get out of there alive.
Now being the General of them, it made her realize how serious it is to be in command of a whole squad of troops. She does tend on having all of them making it back. She will hate to lose them on a mission like this, but she knows that they are willing to put their life on the line, like always, to get the mission done. In ways it reminds her whole the Jedi are, they are willing to put their life on the line to protect the Republic and the Jedi Order.
Through the Force she could sensed that the Clones also does not trust Dooku, and for the most part she does not blame them. It was because of him that they lost so many troops. There were Jedi and many Clone Troopers that died from Dooku and his droid army during the Clone Wars. No ought Dooku and Grievous was behind more of the killings of Jedi. Still for every Jedi that was killed it is to be blamed on both Dooku and Palpatine since they have been on about the Clone Wars since it started.
Dooku left to go back to the cockpit, while Rachelle shuts down the holographic projection. "Can he be trusted?" ask a Clone looking at the door that just slide shut which Dooku walk through. "I do not know, the Council trusts him enough to give him the rank of a Knight and put on probation." say Rachelle, through in her eyes she thinks the council has made a huge mistake on letting him rejoined. Then again, she would not be surprise if that her emotions is getting to her.
Even through the "death" of Master Aluna was 8 years, she stills harbor feelings against Grievous, who is dead, and Dooku. It was there fault that lead to her forgetting who she is, which that lead her to be tricked by Darth Vader. She knows Mark will be displeased at the way she is acting toward Dooku, but he would also understand. The question would be what Mark would do.
She knows that he stated that there was good in Dooku, but for the life of her she cannot seem to trust that. She is expected to be betrayed by Dooku. Yes she knows it is possible to be redeemed, if she thought otherwise, why would she be trying to redeem her fallen first mentor. She just does not trust Dooku at all.
She walks back into the cockpit where Dooku was sitting in the copilot seat with his finger tip touching each other as his elbows rest upon the control panels. He looks up at her.
"For a Jedi Knight, you surely let your emotions blind you. If you haven't notice, if I truly wanted you dead, I had bunch of time to do so. I could have killed you when you were asleep. I could have killed you when you were talking to the Clones and could have killed them too without a second thought. Since I did not have any intention nor attempted to that to you, wouldn't that make you trust me a bit. If I truly was a Sith, I would have killed you when I got the chance. The Sith is not honorable." say Dooku.
"How do I know, you might want to join up with Darth Vader. Maybe Darth Vader is not after Mark. This could have been a whole big scam. Maybe he wanted Mark be in a coma or be killed by the crash. Then he had to make the saturation fit to why we need you and bang you right out of jail." say Rachelle.
"If that was my plan, I could have killed you and the Clones as soon as we have taken off into Hyperspace and fly myself to Serenno to meet up with Darth Vader. That is not my plan. My plan is to help you save Skywalker. Now whatever I did to you or anyone you cared about was in the past, when I was a Sith. I am trying to redeem my actions. Fix what I have caused! Like I told you earlier, you do not have to like me all you need to do is trust me and I am not asking you to forgive me for the things I have done so easy, I had yet to do that myself. The Sith will use any weakness against you and me." say Dooku peacefully without looking at her.
Rachelle rolls her eyes as she begins to pilot the ship. While they were getting closer, Dooku spins his chair around and begins to scan the planet that they are nearing. Easily he was able to scan the planetary defenses.
Rachelle picked up some of the Empire ships on a scanner and decides to activate the cloaking device that was installed on the ship for the mission. If someone was seeing the ship as she activated it, they would notice how the ship begins to fade from sight. The cloaking device also disrupts any signal coming to detect the ship.
Rachelle hopes that the Empire does not have any Ion Cannons, because if they get in the range of one of those things and be fired upon, not only will they lost the protection of the cloaking device but all power from the ship.
It will be pretty bad coming all this way to save Anakin and then they would never be able to make on the planet surface. She looks over at Dooku who was working on scanning the planetary defenses. She is keeping an eye out on him for any measures that he might betray her on. The last thing she wants to do is end up being crushed by a Star Destroyer or whatever else that the Empire has among there fleet around the planet.
"Dooku, you got anything?" demanded Rachelle as she looks at him. "Almost got it, or at least I think." say Dooku ignoring the quick and demanding tone that Rachelle give him. He is trying to work very fast, because he knows the planetary shields on Serenno is on purposely hard to scan for any information. There is a bunch of thing he has to unscramble to find.
"What do you mean you think?" ask Rachelle harshly. "Well the planetary shields around Serenno have bunch of scramblers on them. Which makes them very hard to get a good scan on them and even hard to find something on those scans." say Dooku. Rachelle rolls her eyes and mock Dooku a bit. She knows what a scrambler does; it does exactly what it name applies. She knew what a scramblers were when she was a youngling.
"Well you better hurry up because we are nearing the planet." say Rachelle. "Patient, now please be quiet, I am trying to focus here. If we miss up even the slightest on entry, we might damage the ship." say Dooku.
"Or maybe we could just ask if we can park?" stated Rachelle not meaning a word. Dooku look at her quickly. "Please, you got of be joking. I highly doubt Vader would have his men let in a Republic marked military transport through and oh by the way, I found the entrance." say Dooku as he spins his seat around so he can direct Rachelle to the entrance's location.
As they got neared the secret entrance, they realized that there were bunch dark gray with black stripe Star Destroyers and other warships. Right away she could tell that the fleet is Empire even if she did not know that the Empire was on the planet. While the warships for the Republic are a light gray color close to white with a red stripe, the Empire is darker color. So even if they have the same warships the color scheme gives them away.
"Careful now, we do not want them to be alerted of our presence. Slow down a bit." say Dooku. Rachelle looks at him with narrow eyes. He makes it seem like she does not know how to pilot a ship. It not like they were in a big ship like a Star Destroyer, now those are much hard to move around compare to the ship they are in. "I know how to pilot a ship." say Rachelle as she flies close to the underbelly of an Empire's Star Destroyer. She figures even if they manage to track them, it will be harder to tracked them if they are very close to the ship.
The only thing Rachelle needs to make sure of is that the ship above them does not drift a bit downwards or the ship she is piloting drift a bit upwards, because someone would bond to feel the scraping of the impact. It will be softer to feel standing in a such a big ship as a Star Destroyer, but she knows that they on a smaller ship will feel the impact more greater.
"This is insane." mumble Dooku a bit as he pinches his nose a bit. Even through he has the power of the Force on his side, he still worry that they might get caught. He uses the Force to mask his, Rachelle, and the Clone presences from the Force. Better not give any Dark Jedi or the Sith a heads up that they are coming. He expects that if Darth Vader senses their presence and that none of their was Master Zane, he might open fire on the ship or kill Anakin right away.
They went under the thrusters of one Star Destroyer and tilt downwards into the secret entrance that is only cover by a Ray Shield and not a Particle Shield. Once they were within the planet atmosphere, Rachelle slows the ship down greatly so it would not get damage from entering the planet at such a fast speeds. Entering a planet going at very fast speeds could catch any ship on fire and that would damage the ship greatly.
Rachelle sighs when she notices that there was no one guarding the other side of the secret entrance, maybe it was just a coincidence that bunch of the Empire's ships was at that location within the orbit. It highly understandable, if Dooku could be trusted, then there is not a lot of people who would know that the secret entrance existed. She had worried that due to all the ships around the secret entrance in the orbit, they most likely known of the location.
Still wanting to keep the element of surprise and secrecy, She was forced to work with Dooku on finding a good place to land the ship that was close enough to the palace but far enough away that the Sith will have a hard time finding it. It seems to her for once on the trip they seem to have a good idea together.
They decide to land the ship in a place no one expects to find it. There was an ancient dried up river bed that spans for miles around the whole planet. There are areas of the dried river bed that are tunnels. Normally no sane person would ever try to park a ship there because of how tricky it is to land.
The river bed have bunch of uneven ground and the edges are rounded and narrow. The ship was just small enough to fit into it and fly into a tunnel. When it landed she heard the wings rise to their vertical position and that it scraped the tunnel slightly. The ship was leaning to the right front, due to the uneven ground.
"When I say land in the river bed, I did not mean in a tunnel with this much of an uneven ground." say Dooku looking out the viewports and see nothing but darkness and a small spec of light ahead. They are halfway in a tunnel. Good thing that the river bed has never had water in it for at least a thousand years. Yes it got rained in it, but it never full up to makes water flow.
Another good thing is that the river bed is cover with tall trees with large crowns. So it will be even harder to find them. All they have to do is make sure all computers or anything that could give the ship location away was shut down. It will be bad to rescue Anakin and come all the way to find out that their ship has been destroyed.
She walks back to where the Clones were seated. The ones on the right side look a bit uncomfortable. That level of uncomfortable seems to more to the front along that side.
"Okay, as far as we know, Darth Vader nor does his army knows we are on this planet and we would like it to be that way. I am hazarding a guess that we are about 10 miles from the palace. I know it seems like a long walk, but Dooku assure me that we have landed on the side of the palace that have the most forest, so we will be cover from the top. I will have to ask you that you turn off anything that can be aid to track us, including Comlinks. If we do get separated and need to rely on communication, turn them on if needed. I want to try to keep our element of surprise as long as possible, but I know that sooner or later we might lose that. When that happens feel free to open communications. Now I have shut done all power in the ship, so that it cannot be detected." say Rachelle as she crosses her arms.
Dooku then step forward. "I know there are many of you who really want to take your blasters out and shot me. I would like to let you know, that I have been masking our presence through the Force. So as of right now, due to the cloaking device of this ship and my connection with the Force, they do not know we are here." say Dooku.
Rachelle looked shocked at this. She did sensed something through the Force as they were approaching the secret entrance to the planet but she did not expected it would be Dooku masking their presence through the Force. It sounds like something Mark would do without telling.
"So exactly where are we?" ask Captain Kia as he got from his seat. "Our exact location is in a dried up ancient river bed, that have been dried up for at least a thousand years. This river winds all around the planet. It uses to be a main source of water back in the days. It is believed due to the heat surrounding the river, all the water evaporated." say Dooku.
"Oh great is there a chance of flooding?" ask a Clone. "No, for all the records I have known; even through some areas where the river is get heavy downpours, it never turns into a river. Like I say this river bed have been dried up for a long time" say Dooku.
"We get the point already, it a dry river bed. I just want to get Master Skywalker out of there and get off this planet. I just do not feel safe being on a planet that the Sith have control with very little amount of troops. It just not right." say Rachelle. Dooku nods slightly at this.
He knows that not only he got to watch out for his own back, but he might have to watch the young Jedi Knight's back as well. Yes she is highly trained; he can sense that through the Force. He would be blind to think anyone of Master Zane had train would be lacking in skills. He trained them so they can be the best they can be and throw in his friendly nature; he is someone that anyone could get along with if they tried too.