As soon as his cockpit opened on Mustafar, Anakin could smell the sulphur from the volcanoes. One of the most tectonically active planets in the galaxy, Mustafar was usually described as one continual volcanic eruption.
Looking around, Anakin could see where it had got that reputation from. The air wasn't chokingly full of ash, but there was enough that he was left using the Force to control his cough reflex. The clone troopers waiting for him at the landing pad looked distinctly ash-coated.
"Master Skywalker." One of them greeted him. "Rex is waiting for you at the forward command post."
"Thank you, Scope." Anakin replied. He didn't every last one of the troopers in the 501st by name or reputation, but he knew all of them by sight.
"It's an honour, General."
Forming up into a ceremonial escort formation, Anakin appreciated that none of the clones stood behind him. He knew and trusted them, but Tiplar had trusted her killer. At the moment, and until the damned chips had been surgically removed, he wasn't in the mood to take chances.
Rex's command post, or CP, was half a mile away, at the head of a valley overlooking a mining facility. From the surrounding hillsides, where cover was available, Anakin could see exchanges of gunfire, with blue and red blaster bolts flicking back and forth. The clones weren't close to a breakthrough, but he could see that their casualty rate was far lower than that of the droids they were engaging. At the door of the facility, Anakin spotted two magnaguards, although they were simply holding the doors.
Rex, watching from his command post, came out to meet Anakin.
"Boss." He said. "We've got them surrounded. A shuttle tried to bug out just after we arrived, but it got nailed with a SAM (1), so they're considering their options."
"Have you got armour planetside yet?" Anakin asked, looking at the CIS fighting position.
"We've got a walker platoon making their way here, but they needed a larger LZ (2) than a starfighter or transport does. Depending on what they run into, it might be two more hours until they arrive."
"What about air support?" Anakin asked.
"They've got SAMs as well. The last gunship to try nearly got knocked down. So we have to dig them out the old fashioned way."
"I'm here now." Anakin replied. "Get a team together. We'll jump off in ten minutes."
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It took Obi-wan and Shaak-Ti about ten minutes to arrive. Ahsoka, who'd managed to float herself into her hoverchair, giggled slightly as Obi-wan landed. The Jedi Master was piloting a large, expensive and bright red open airspeeder with an open canopy. To her surprise, it had a rear passenger compartment that was big enough for an adult. One of the rear seats had been removed, presumably to make room for her hoverchair. Obi-wan helped her load her hoverchair into the airspeeder. Once the chair was clamped in place, Obi-wan climbed back into the driver's seat and secured his restraining belts.
The flight lasted about five minutes. To Ahsoka's surprise, Obi-wan turned out to be a far better driver than her master. It made her wonder exactly who had taught Anakin to drive, and on what planet.
"Where did Anakin learn to drive?" She asked curiously. Her master was not exactly renowned for correct use of directional signals. Or obeying the skylane code. Or consideration for other users of the same section of sky.
"On Tatooine." Obi-wan replied. "Driving podracers."
"Oh." Ahsoka said, suddenly remembering a small, interesting scar behind her master's right shoulder blade.
The medical centre was the top floors of a larger apartment building, and unsurprisingly well equipped. Her hoverchair was pushed through a sequence of corridors and into a section marked cybernetics.
They followed the corridor for a short distance, perhaps twenty feet or so, and then turned into a small lab.
She smiled when she saw what was waiting for her. After an incident involving a blister agent attack on Nal Hutta, Anakin had insisted on her being issued her own suit of phase two armour. She'd been 3D scanned in her underwear, much to her embarrassment. With the scan complete, her armour had been specifically fabricated in order for it to fit her perfectly.
It'd ended up in storage. It seemed, though, that it was being given a new lease of life. Along the outside of her armour, Ahsoka could see filaments and fibres. There were also small servos and pneumatic rams. Her old helmet was never going to fit her again, given the changes to her montrals. Instead, a new helmet had been fabricated.
She couldn't resist using the Force to pull it over and examine it. The montral housing was significantly oversized, almost large enough for Master Shaak-Ti's montrals to fit inside. A pair of slots provided an escape for her front lekku, with protective mesh housings for them. When she put the helmet on, she felt like she was suddenly missing a sense. Normally, she was aware of every movement around her and every sudden noise. Now, they were totally muted by thick layers of plastoid and foam.
The helmet had audio-pickups, which transmitted the sounds in human audible range inside her helmet. The vision system was very satisfying, featuring thermal, low light and X-ray modes. Admittedly, she couldn't smell anything, but that wasn't a major issue.
Obi-wan and one of the staff helped her out of the hoverchair, before leading her across to the suit. With the Force, Obi-wan was able to support her bodyweight while the suit was secured, and a small device pricked the back of her neck. Most of the buckles needed to be adjusted inwards, although she grinned slightly when the chest layer was let out.
"We've just fitted the neural pickup, knight Tano." The cyberneticist said. "Try and take two steps towards the centre of the room.
With an invisible grimace while ensconced in a fully seal suit of clone armour, Ahsoka stepped forward, and then took another step. It wasn't quite as she remembered it, but she was walking.
Then she remembered her spinal injuries.
"How am I walking?" She asked.
"The armour is doing most of the work, knight Tano. We borrowed some tech from the Astartes program, and we fitted it to the outside of your armour. The pick-up transmits your instructions to your muscles, and some extremely classified technology deciphers them. The hardware on the outside of your armour then acts as if it was one of your muscle groups."
Ahsoka very nearly kissed the technician.
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Crouching behind a barricade, Anakin adjusted the straightforward breastplate he'd borrowed from a clone shot in the legs. It wasn't necessarily going to stop a direct blaster hit, particularly at close range, but it might save his life. With a grim smile, he produced an extremely archaic metal item. About the size of a large stylus, the whistle was perhaps a centimetre around. He had no idea where they had been found, but most Jedi carried one. Placing it between his lips, he waited ten seconds, and then blew a three second, continuous blast.
Across the valley, clones began to advance. Shielding his troop, Anakin pushed forwards, linking up with several other elements as they began to push back the battledroids defending the facility.
The first magnaguard came out of the entrance fighting. Blocking a blow at his head, Anakin replied with a cut to the droid's chestplate, nearly disabling the unit. Then it was shot about fifty times by the clones around the Jedi Master, and ceased to function. An ion grenade cleared the doorway, disabling the second magnaguard. Anakin led the advance inside, his lightsaber forming a shield for the clones surrounding him.
The CIS leadership were waiting in a conference room fifteen metres beyond the door, behind an improvised fortification build using the local volcanic sand, packed into bags. Two repeating blasters fired on the Jedi as he advanced. Precision shots from behind him disabled the gunners, and the bolts stopped flying.
There was a flurry of fighting as the clones reached the CIS holdout point, and the last droids fell. Four clones were also dead on the floor, and five more had been wounded in the fight.
The door of the conference room flew backwards as Anakin slammed a surge of force energy into it, and he stepped through the door, lightsaber lit.
His eyes blazed yellow as he advanced on the CIS commanders.
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Ahsoka had barely been able to sit still during the flight to Mustafar. They'd taken off perhaps two hours behind Anakin, and were on final approach when both Ahsoka and Obi-wan began to look uncomfortable.
"What's happening?" Shaak-Ti asked, from the pilot's seat. Obi-wan had declined the offer of piloting the light shuttle they were using. Ahsoka had wanted to fly, but been vetoed on grounds related to untested cybernetic suits.
"He's..." Ahsoka broke off.
"I feel it too..." Obi-wan said. "We need to land as soon as possible."
As the shuttle dropped onto the landing apron outside the CIS base, Obi-wan watched as Ahsoka discarded her helmet, before deliberately setting her lightsabers aside.
Shaking his head, he disembarked.
"Where is General Skywalker?" He asked a clone.
"Out on the balcony, General Kenobi." The clone replied. "You might want to avoid the conference room. It's a bit messy."
"Oh Force." Obi-wan said out loud. "Anakin, what have you done?"
At a jog, he followed his sense of where Anakin was and emerged onto an open balcony, where his former padawan was dangling what looked like an incredibly uncomfortable neomoidian over a river of lava.
"Are you sorry yet?" Anakin yelled. "You tried to kill my children! You tried to kill Padme! You tried to kill Ahsoka! And now you're going to pay for it!"
"Anakin!" Obi-wan called. "Put him down."
The last thing anyone saw of Nute Gunray was him disappearing into a stream of molten rock as Anakin released his telekinetic grip.
"Anakin!" Obi-wan shouted.
"He tried to hurt my children!" Anakin yelled.
"Revenge isn't the Jedi way, Anakin."
"I wanted him to know fear." Anakin finally looked at his former teacher. "I wanted him to know what it felt like."
Obi-wan recoiled. "Anakin, please." He said.
"Are you here to lecture me, old man?" Anakin asked.
"No. I came here to help you."
"Liar!" Anakin yelled. "You came here to kill me!" With his lightsaber drawn, he advanced. Obi-wan took up his ready stance.
"Stand down, Anakin." He said, sternly. "I don't want to hurt you!"
"Don't lie to me!" Anakin yelled, before lunging forwards with his lightsaber, swinging at his Master's shoulder. Obi-Wan's guard was perfect, the two sabers meeting at the exactly optimal angle, but it still gave under the power of the stroke.
As Anakin stepped back, Obi-wan saw a slight opening in his stance. He didn't take it, and simply braced for the next onslaught. Five cuts pounded his defences in quick succession, and he realised, much to his horror, that Anakin was trying to kill him.
And that he had two choices: fight back in earnest, or continue to defend himself, and hope Anakin came to his senses.
Why is there never a good option? He silently demanded, before a cut from Anakin nearly got through his guard. With a heavy heart, Obi-Wan went on the offensive. If I hold back, he will eventually kill me. If I don't, I could quite possibly end up killing him.
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From a distance, Ahsoka had felt Nute Gunray die. Following behind Obi-Wan, she saw Anakin strike at his former Master with his lightsaber, attacking mercilessly. Obi-Wan was attacking as well, his lightsaber carving complex hieroglyphs in the air. She didn't doubt for so much as an instant that they were fighting in earnest. Or that Obi-Wan was holding back.
"Anakin!" She called. "Please. Stop!"
Her lover stepped away from Obi-Wan, although he left his lightsaber powered.
"Did you come here to help him kill me?" Anakin demanded.
"Anakin, I love you." She replied. "I came here because I love you. I'd never do anything to hurt you."
She moved closer.
"I don't know what made you do this, but please, come back to me." She stood, with her arms outstretched and her head bowed. Anakin's fury left her feeling like she was standing in the mouth of a blast furnace.
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When he'd first heard Ahsoka's voice, Anakin had looked around. As the battle lust drained out of him, he looked at her properly. She was wearing clone armour, clearly the suit he'd had made for her years earlier. Her lightsabers weren't on her belt, which, for an absurd moment, he wanted to chide her for.
Then she looked into his eyes, visibly forcing herself not to flinch away from the burning yellow orbs. "I love you." As Anakin looked at her, Ahsoka let down nearly every metal barrier she possessed. Openly, she began broadcasting her feelings about him, her love for him, and her utter trust in him. Looking him in the eyes, she remembered their first night together, building aches and snatches of sensation into a coherent set of memories. She showed him his tenderness, his love for her, and her love for him.
Still retaining eye contact, even though the eyes she was looking into were yellow, rather than a soft blue, she laced her fingers together. She rested her hands on her third lekku, behind her head, and finally looked away. Then she closed her eyes, and shut herself down as much as possible in the Force. I trust Anakin. She thought. I know he loves me. He won't hurt me.
The next contact she felt was Anakin kissing her like a drowning man, pulling her close, frantically. Her arms wrapped around him, and she just relaxed into the embrace. She reached out, finding him in the Force, and mingled her Force presence with his, sending streams of calm, love and trust to her fiancé.
Behind them, Obi-wan lowered his lightsaber, and powered down the weapon, before slotting it onto his belt. Anakin's eyes were their normal shade of blue when he came up for air.
"I…" He said.
"I know." Ahsoka replied.
Carefully, Anakin led the way back to the shuttle. It wasn't long until they were passing the room in which the CIS command had finally been cornered. Ahsoka bristled slightly as Anakin made a point of pointing her head away from the door. When she trod on something that felt like an arm, he didn't allow her to look, which earnt him an elbow in the stomach.
"Ahsoka." He said. "What happened in there… isn't something you need or want to see."
She nodded, slowly. Behind her, she could feel Obi-Wan trying to control his stomach.
Outside the entrance, he relaxed, but he kept hold of her. Various clones ran up, presenting status reports, but he just waved them away. Ahead, Anakin could see the shuttle they had arrived in, an Eta-class unit. He could feel Shaak-Ti on board, and relaxed further as Ahsoka calmly walked up the ramp, and sat down, buckling herself, then him in for take-off.
Anakin didn't let go of her until the shuttle had taken off.
SAM: Surface to Air Missile
LZ: Landing Zone
Tiny bit of a quicker turn-around than I sometimes manage to produce. I had mostly planned out this chapter while writing the previous one, so I didn't have to do the same amount of coming up with ideas that I sometimes do. I've spent the time productively, and have been through the first few chapters and edited them again, both for maintenance and to improve them.
I'd like to thank jessemccoy32 for their review, and for prompting my train of thought about what was going to happen to Nute Gunray.