DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN STAR WARS OR ANY ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS

Hope you are all enjoying. Drop a review if you have suggestions or comments, or if you just want to show some support. They are greatly appreciated.

Also, with the introduction of new ships in the future, I'm going to be taking names down. So PM me ship names, and what ship you want to join the Alliance, and I'll try to find some way to work it into the story. But make it a viable ship's name and not 'genericman69' or anything like that.

Anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 15

Anakin opened his eyes after his daily meditation. He'd taken to Obi-Wan's daily meditation routine in hopes of contacting his former Master through their bond,but it was always the same. Anakin would follow the thread connecting their minds, only to run into an impenetrable barrier, as if he were under water and Obi-Wan was just above the surface.

He moved over to the door to let the person who'd knocked in. When the door slid open, Luke stepped forward. "You wanted to see me?"

Anakin nodded, moving out of the way. Luke proceeded in and took a seat. Anakin took one glance outside before closing the door. As soon as the door sealed, he whirled to face his son.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Luke was taken aback. He'd heard Anakin curse like that on just two occasions: when he was working on his starfighter, and when he talked about the Emperor. Luke was speechless, as the anger of his father had never been directed at him in such intensity.

"I-uh . . . what?" he stuttered.

Anakin crossed his arms. "What were you thinking? Huh? By alerting those technicians, you put the whole mission in jeopardy! What if there had been more than one squad? You would have been overwhelmed, and we never would have gotten away with the Pride."

"I couldn't let those mechanics die, father. Were you thinking clearly, you would have known the same," Luke countered.

Anakin shook his head. "No, I wouldn't, because I am thinking clearly. Do you have any idea what's at stake here? If the Alliance loses either of us, their shot at winning this war is over, and they know it. Hell, I know it. Rex, Alpha, everyone knows it. Everyone except you."

Luke's eyes widened. "Wha-what do you mean?"

Anakin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I mean, that you and I are the only two people in the galaxy that can stop Vader and the Emperor. You think Ezra could take him? No, because Vader wiped the floor with him before, and he barely escaped with his life. You heard the story, same as me. Master Yoda is too old and weak to fight anymore, so it's up to us. Now pull your head out of the clouds and face reality. War is ugly, Luke. Sometimes you can't save everyone. But you cope with it by saving the ones you can. By acquiring this ship, we just increased our chances of survival exponentially."

Luke was silent through Anakin's lecture. His brain was processing everything that he'd heard, and though he didn't like it, he knew Anakin was right. He leaned forward and placed his face in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Anakin's expression softened. He knelt in front of Luke, placing a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hey, don't beat yourself up. I know I'm hard on you, but I'm trying to keep you alive here. I missed the first twenty years of your life, so I don't want to lose you after a few weeks. Matter of fact, I used to make the same sorts of bantha-headed moves. Obi-Wan hated it, but I was reckless, impulsive-"

"Was?" Luke countered, sitting up with a smirk on his face.

Anakin's mouth hung open. "Fair point," he conceded. "But what I'm saying is, we're not so different. I may have more emotion than you do, but you have true compassion. And that's something a Jedi can't go without."

Luke smiled at the compliment. Here, in this moment, he'd never felt closer to his father. He suddenly rushed forward and engulfed Anakin in a warm embrace. Anakin hesitated, but lightly returned it. The moment was beginning to eat at his nerves, and made him uncomfortable.

He lightly broke off the embrace, standing as he did so. "Oh, hey, your crystal? I never got to see it, what with all the excitement of the past few days."

Luke dug into a pocket in his vest and produced a small, bright green kyber crystal. It seemed to hum at his touch, and Anakin nodded. "It suits you. Do you have the designs Obi-Wan drew up?"

Luke nodded, pulling out a folded slip of paper from another pocket. He unfolded it and laid it out on one of Anakin's tables. Together, they bent over it, commenting on certain parts, with Anakin explaining most of them, seeing how Luke had never built a saber before. To demonstrate, he pulled his own out, and deconstructed it, laying out all of the pieces, including his crystal.

He quickly put all the parts back together again, like he'd been doing it his whole life, which he had for half. The pair spent the next few hours searching through Home One's hangars and junk piles for extra parts that could be used to construct Luke's new saber. When they'd gathered them all, they returned to Anakin's quarters and laid them out on the table, spending the remainder of the day putting them together.

When Luke finally added the crystal and closed the saber, Anakin nodded at the complete assembly. It was a near identical replica of Obi-Wan's saber hilt, save for different colors in some places. Luke gingerly picked it up and held it in his hand, adjusting to the weight. He could feel the crystal inside of it, a deeper connection than the one he felt to Anakin's old saber.

At a motion from Anakin, Luke ignited it, the green blade lighting up the room. He waved it around a few times, satisfied at the length and balance, as if the saber was meant only for him, which it was. Anakin nodded again. "The color suits you."

He glanced down to Luke's belt, an idea forming. He used the Force, floating the saber hilt from Luke's belt and to his own, now sporting a pair of identical saber hilts. At Luke's questioning glance, Anakin shrugged. "Might as well put my Form VI training to use. I like to switch my styles up sometimes."

Anakin looked down at the identical saber hilts in his hands. One felt oddly heavier than the other, and the Force was tinged with darkness around it. "Horrible things have happened with this . . . " Anakin whispered.

Luke looked up from how blade. "What?"

"Nothing," Anakin shook his head. "I'm proud of you, Luke. You're well on your way to becoming a Jedi Knight."

Luke smiled, deactivating his own saber and placing it on his belt. "You hungry?"

"Starving."

Basking in the fresh air provided to him in his hyperbaric chamber, Vader took in the pure oxygen. This was the one place he left in the galaxy that he truly felt safe. He could relax, breathe, and be free of his pain without interruption, unless there was an emergency, which there seemed to be, as the comlink channel beeped at him.

Growling in anger, Vader pressed the button to lower his helmet. Each time the helmet descended towards him, it was as if it was trapping him back in an armored prison. He activated the comlink as his chamber opened. "What?"

"Lord Vader, urgent news, from the Kuat Drive Yards," Admiral Piett announced.

"Speak," Vader said. His patience was growing thin of all of these men. Oh how he longed to return to his private castle on Mustafar, and the seclusion it offered, but there were rebels to hunt down. As he was forced to obey the Emperor, he had to destroy the rebellion, or else he would be put to death, executed by Force Lightning.

"It seems that a small band of rebels has infiltrated the shipyards and made off with a destroyer, my lord."

"One star destroyer is of no consequence. This ship alone could crush the entire rebel fleet," Vader declared, as he was on board his flagship, the Executor.

"I'm afraid it was not just a star destroyer, my lord. They seem to have stolen a Mandator-II class dreadnaught, the Pride of the Core," Piett detailed.

Vader snarled. The Pride was meant to be destroyed. It was one of the last reminders of the Old Republic left in the Imperial Fleet, and now it was in the hands of the rebels. It could rally others to its cause, and inspire hope. More systems would join the Rebellion with this new information.

"Get me Grand Admiral Thrawn."

Anakin stood on the bridge of the Pride, overseeing the transfer of goods and crew to his vessel. For the past week, the massive dreadnaught had been operating under a skeleton crew rotation, but now, it was receiving a much larger crew. The extra two thousand or so clones that had come out of hiding to join Alpha made their way onto the dreadnaught, as well as many of the men that were already there. The Dauntless was now almost exclusively run by battle droids, with only a few clones left on board to pilot fighters and operate the guns.

The Vengeance was running light on crew as well, but Alpha had insisted that it was fine. Both Venators had already been stocked for three year voyages with a full crew, so a lighter one would only extend supplies. The Pride on the other hand, had the entire fleet scrambling to load their extra supplies onto the massive dreadnaught. While not as large as the 19 mile Executor-class Super Star Destroyers, the Mandator-II class Pride of the Core was eight thousand meters long. A full crew for the dreadnaught was somewhere in the tens of thousands.

The Alliance did not possess the numbers to fully operate the warship, which forced Anakin to brainstorm. The Alliance was now undermanned, and they needed a quick solution. So he brought the clone commanding officers, Rex, Alpha, Wolffe, and Doom, along with Luke and Admiral Ackbar onto the Pride to discuss their options.

They seated themselves around a large conference table that was near the bridge, Anakin beginning the conversation. "So, we may have a number of options open to us, the first of which being we rig this thing to self-destruct and fly it into an Imperial base, but I strongly advise against that. Second, we get more men. Any ideas."

The room was silent for a few moments as the men wracked their brains for any solutions. Rex spoke up. "I may have something. You know Ord Mantell?"

"The old scrapyards? What about them?"

"Well, after the war, the Empire dumped all of the deactivated Separatist battle droids on the surface. It's possible that many of them are still there, along with some Republic armor."

Ackbar nodded approvingly. "A good idea, but it would be a large-scale operation. You can't steal enough battle droids to run a fleet with only a few shuttles."

"You're right, we'd have to send larger ships. The Pride is out, it can barely sustain itself at the moment. The leaves the rest of the fleet. And I don't think the Chancellor would approve of potentially sacrificing ships and men to possibly retrieve some battle droids to run a dreadnaught she didn't approve of in the first place," Alpha detailed.

Anakin nodded. "We'll have to send the Venators. If we clear the Dauntless' hangars, it could hold enough battle droids to run the entire fleet, not just the Pride."

"What about the Vengeance?" Luke asked.

"Orbital support, of course. If any Imperials catch wind of this, we can't let ourselves get caught unawares. So the Dauntless will head to the surface, and the Vengeance will remain in orbit with as many fighters as we can spare," Anakin said.

The others all nodded their assent, and Anakin clapped his hands together. "Great! Make your preparations, Ackbar and I will go tell the Chancellor."

"No! No, a thousand times, no! I'll not condone a mission to retrieve battle droids that may or may not be there, just so that they may run a ship that I did not ask for," Chancellor Mothma exclaimed.

Anakin leaned over to Ackbar. "Told you," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Chancellor, if I may, the clones have volunteered themselves for this mission. No original Alliance members will participate in this mission," Ackbar attempted to reason with her.

She turned ger glare upon Anakin. "I did not make you a Fleet Admiral and a High General so that you could pull stunts like these. I did it because we need your leadership."

"That's exactly why I have to do this. We need the Pride, like it or not. And even with the Pride, we still probably don't stand a chance against an Executor. But we damned sure have no chance whatsoever without it. Look, I'll run this mission without your blessing if I have to. I'll even split off and start my own rebel cell with the clones if I have to, but I would prefer that it didn't come to that," Anakin said.

Mothma's eyes hardened. "That would be treason."

"Treason? To what? The Rebellion? It's not the Republic yet. And I doubt your men would see it the same way as you."

Mothma sighed, dropping her head and shoulders. The sadness in her eyes was evident, as she was making no headway with Anakin. His stubbornness was legendary at this point. "Very well, Skywalker. You may undergo this mission, but if none of you return, know that you have doomed us all."

Anakin smirked. "Well that's disconcerting. Don't worry, Chancellor, you'll see me again," he called over his shoulder as he left the bridge of Home One.

When the two Venators dropped out of hyperspace, the first thing Anakin noticed was how much the orbital junkyards had expanded over the years. During the Clone Wars, Ord Mantell had been added to, but nothing like what the Empire had done to it. Miles and miles of scrap metal floated in slow circles around the large, dusty planet. It would have reminded Anakin of Tatooine if it weren't for the millions of tons of scrap metal that could be seen even from space.

"There it is, Ord Mantell. No sign of any Imperial space presence,," Anakin observed.

"Doesn't mean there isn't one on the ground," Wolffe cautioned.

Anakin grinned. "Relax, I have a good feeling about this one."

Alpha snorted from his position next to the Jedi. "Best pray that your optimism doesn't bite us in the ass later, General."

Anakin spread his hands as he walked backwards towards the communications center. "Hey, when have I ever steered you wrong?"

The tall Skywalker turned without hearing Alpha's reply, missing the string of curses that flew out of the veteran's mouth. The super tactical droid General Kalani was on display in the center of the holotable, Luke and Rex flanking him. "General Kalani, you may start your landing. We will remain in orbit to cover your operation. Get as many droids as you can, and get out of there, we aren't here for a suicide mission."

"I will carry out the strategy to the best of my ability," the droid responded in his droning tone.

Rex saluted. "Good luck, General."

Anakin shook his head. "No, good luck to you. Be careful," he stressed, looking to Luke and Rex in turn.

"Will do," Rex said, ending the transmission. The clone looked over to Luke, who was standing across from him on the old Republic gunship. The boy looked nervous, and Rex couldn't fathom what for. The kid had blown up the Death Star near single-handedly, and yet here he was, trembling. Whether from anticipation or nervousness, though, Rex couldn't tell.

"You alright?"

Luke's eyes rose to meet the brown ones of the clone. "Yeah, just . . . do I deserve to have a command?"

Rex had to stifle a laugh. "A little Jedi padawan once asked me if the outranked me because she was a Jedi. Do you know what I told her?"

Luke shook his head, and Rex continued. "I told her 'in my book, experience outranks everything.' She took those words to heart, and soon earned her right to lead our men. Her name was Ahsoka Tano, General Skywalker's padawan. And she was at least five years younger than you."

Luke's gaze fell. "So I'm not worthy."

"That's not what I said. Listen, you made the shot that blew up the Death Star. You're already probably the second best pilot, next to the General, and you've been a commander for the Alliance since before any of the past few weeks happened. That's experience enough to lead me and my men."

Luke smirked. "But we're the same rank."

"Aye," Rex nodded. "'General Rex.' Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? I'm not used to being on par with a Jedi."

The two glanced out as the assembled landing parties made their way to the gunships. Boil and Doom hopped in with Rex and Luke, as well as a dozen other troopers. They would have twelve LAAT/i's of troopers, with another four LAAT/c's, otherwise known as Tank Lifters, to pick up any AT-TEs that they would hopefully find.

As the Dauntless descended into the atmosphere, they felt the familiar lurch and roar of the flames around the ship. The shields held, though, and they were soon touching down on the surface. The Venator was not designed to make surface landings, but it could be done. The hull set down on a soft sand dune, and the main hangars on the sides of the Destroyer were opened, as well as the ramps that would lead up to them.

On Rex's signal, the gunships took off, slicing through the air and splitting off into pairs. The gunships flew with the blast doors open, to allow the passengers to search for droids. The wind carried grains of sand inside, but it bothered no one except Luke, who had to shield his eyes from the angry grains.

Luke glanced down, seeing the dust clouds form beneath them from the displaced sand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sand shift, revealing a logo not dissimilar to that of the Empire's. It was partially obscured by a piece of canvas flapping in the wind. He tapped Rex on the breastplate twice and pointed back behind them.

"Odd Ball, turn around, decrease speed!" Rex called.

Luke reached up and grabbed one of the handles dangling from the ceiling as the gunship banked around, the Tank Lifter hot on its tail. Boil slipped, causing his hand to miss the handle. He would have fallen out if not for Rex, who dove forward to grab the man, hauling him back onto the gunship. Luke would forever marvel at the air of experience and calm that these soldiers radiated. Boil thanked Rex not with words, but with a slight head nod. They both knew what it meant, and after years and decades of fighting together, words were unnecessary.

Odd Ball lowered the gunship onto the sand, and Luke jumped out, leading the way towards the object he'd caught a glimpse of. When he spotted it, he ran up the dune, his feet sinking into the soft sand, causing small avalanches around him. When he reached it, he lifted the canvas covering it, and was greeted with the old Republic logo.

"I think we have a winner, boys. Let's clear this sand!" Rex barked. About five men pulled shovels off their backs, discarding their DC-series carbines and rifles. The clones' white armor had turned a shade of dark orange due to all the sand billowing around them, and only grew worse from digging in it. After several minutes of no progress, Luke shook his head.

"There's gotta be a better way," he said, placing his hands on his hips. Then, an idea popped into his head. He turned to Rex. "Get the men to take cover, I have an idea."

He jogged back to the gunships, speaking to each pilot in turn, explaining his idea. They both nodded and rose into the air, heading over to the dig site. Luke hid next to Rex behind the next dune and waited. They heard the roar of two engines for several seconds, then it faded to a dull hum as the gunships hovered.

Luke peeked out from behind cover with the rest of the men, grinning. In the space where the sand dune used to be, sat an AT-TE, completely intact. It's once slate gray metal hull had been worn away to a near stark white, but the red Republic logo still blazed like a forgotten banner. Rex clapped Luke on the back and signaled to the pilot of the Tank Lifter to get this thing out of here.

As the Tank Lifter rose slowly into the air, its magnetic clamps secure around the walker, it turned and headed back for the Venator. Since there were fewer Tank Lifters than gunships, they would be stretched thin if they found a surplus of tanks. Nevertheless, the clones loaded back up in the gunships and continued their search for droids. Tanks were welcome, but not a priority.

They flew for several more minutes before coming across a large, open area, still covered in sand, though the sand did not hide anything from them this time. In the center of the large, expansive area sat four rows of a dozen MTT's, waiting to be scrapped. Rex looked upon this with joy, for where there were MTT's, there were battle droids.

Feeling the excitement and sense of hope from the men around him, Luke leaned over to Doom. "Is this good?"

Doom nodded, his green helmet bobbing. "Aye. Each one of those transports can carry up to a hundred and twelve battle droids, and there are over four dozen of them."

Luke quickly did the math, his eyes widening when he did. They'd stumbled across nearly five and a half thousand battle droids. He gaped in awe, but quickly regretted it, as sand immediately coated his tongue. He sputtered, trying to expel the grains from his mouth as th gunship began its descent. Rex led the way off, sprinting to the nearest MTT, pure excitement and anticipation fueling him. He climbed up the side and popped the front hatch, heaving it open about a foot or so to peek inside. When he withdrew, the other men all looked at him expectantly. He held one thumb up, hopping down from the transport. He pointed to Boil and five other troopers, one bearing the markings of the 501st, another wearing the gray of the 104th, and the rest in the colors of the 41st elite.

"You six, check the rest of these, make sure they all have droids in them. Where are my engineers? The four of you, pair off and see if you can get these things started. We won't be able to transport all of these droids one by one, it'll be better to drive these onto the Dauntless. Doom, Luke, you're with me, we're gonna scout around," Rex said. The men immediately sprang into action, set to their tasks, obeying their orders without question. These were true soldiers.

Rex raised his comlink to his helmet. "Odd Ball, return to the ship, and bring me another squad. A scrapyard this big, and there are bound to be some defenses. We'll need the extra men."

The gunship rose into the air and jetted back towards the cruiser as Rex turned to the two remaining men. "We need to establish a perimeter. There's sure to be defense droids here."

"How do you know?" Luke wondered, following Rex as he trudged through the sand, headed up another dune.

"Because the Republic used to use sentry droids here. And no doubt the Empire has upgraded them since then," Doom said over his shoulder.

Luke gulped. He didn't much feel like tangling with droids on this hot desert planet. He simply wanted to accomplish his mission and get the hell off of this dustball. But that plan went all to hell when his foot grazed an antennae next to his foot. The tip of the antennae lit up bright red, and the ground began to tremble.

Rex and Doom froze, slowly turning around to look at Luke, who watched as the sand parted, and a ten foot droid clambered out of the ground. Luke didn't hesitate, pulling his green lightsaber from his belt and sliced the hunk of metal across the midriff, finishing it with a Force push. The head flew off and rolled several meters, coming to a stop and sinking back into the sand.

"That was a Retail droid. They bury them in the ground for . . . security," Rex barely finished, distracted by the ground shaking once again. Luke's eyes shot up, realizing that by Force pushing the head, he'd caused many more to activate. He held his lightsaber at the ready as Rex and Doom drew their dual pistols.

Nearly thirty of the large droids were shuffling their way toward them, laser cannon arms held at the ready. "Kriff," Rex sighed, pulling the trigger.