Hey everyone. I'm sorry so long to get the next chapter out. I had a major move, I'm getting ready to start school and a lot of other fun jazz. Really quick, I wanted to say thank you all for the likes and bookmarks. I have been seeing those come in, which is super cool. :)
Also, I have done a lot of thinking and watching. Some of you may know this, but I started crossposting onto AO3 (Archive of Our Own) a while back. Given the current state of FFN, I will probably be moving there exclusively over the next few months. I will continue to update this story and Days of Fire on . However, outside of checking DMs, that will probably be the end of things on this account. I won't delete anything, but if you are interested in reading newer stories I come out with (I have two in the works), I would highly recommend hopping over there and looking up Red_October. The content will be similar (Gen fics, fandom crossovers, emotional drama, etc). So, you don't have to worry about me abandoning this type of work.
Anyhow, let's move on to what y'all came here for. Things are starting to heat up in both the drama and action departments with this story. So, hopefully, this chapter was worth the wait. Without further ado, I give you chapter 8...
A ghostly wind cut through the valley, blowing the sand under a cold sun. The Darkside ebbed and flowed with it, whispering words and barely audible promises into Vader's mind. A few meters away, Luke was stacking boulders. The rocks were as heavy as they were unstable. The task required a lot of concentration for the young Jedi and added to the sweat pouring down his face. Over the last day, fear and panic had given way to agitation and anger as his father refused to return to the fleet.
Crash!
The stone pile toppled to the ground. Boulders shattered and rolled everywhere. Only a panicked push with the Force kept Luke from being buried alive.
"Blast it! We're wasting time here," Luke yelled.
Anger and impatience quickly supplanted the fear of nearly being crushed.
"Do not forsake what you learned on Dagobah. Focus. Be mindful of what is happening here and now," Vader replied.
Even through the monotone his helmet produced, his voice was cold and sharp. The artificial boom of his vocabulator added extra gravity to his words. However, Luke simply rolled his eyes. He'd heard the speech more times than he had cared to count. When Obi-Wan wasn't pushing it, Yoda was swinging it at him like a club, usually while whacking his shins with that stick of his. He knew he needed to be patient, but there was a difference between patience and simply refusing to do anything.
Vader simply shook his head. The child was so much like him that it almost hurt to watch. He was reckless and impulsive. He took unnecessary risks and acted before seeing what was in front of him. Not once had the boy asked what he was doing on the hill or why he insisted on staring at various datapads and flimsiplast sheets during today's "training" sessions. Luke was too focused on the visions that had been rammed into his head two days prior.
"When the rocks are stacked, then we will go," Vader finally said.
Luke ignored him and started rebuilding the base of his monolith. As he worked, Vader began to drift further and further away from the ship, down the backside of the slope. He began to pace slowly. His motions were slow and seemingly without thought.
Down by the ship, Luke noticed this. He didn't know if he was driven by the Darkside or the instinctual need to get back to the fleet. Regardless, Luke found himself watching his father's pacing. As he stacked the boulders, he kept half an eye on the slope. Only a few meters were separating him from the ramp of the shuttle. He knew this. He also knew that Vader could not stop what he could not see.
Luke set the last boulder on top. The stack was unstable. As soon as he let go, it would crash down as it repeatedly had for the last several hours. He took a deep breath and pushed out. The stack came apart and rolled across the sand.
"Blast it!" Luke yelled, adding extra venom to his voice for spice.
Before the dust cloud had settled, he was already up the ramp of the shuttle. His eyes darted from side to side as he slipped into the cockpit. He stretched his arms and twisted his body across the tight space as he struggled to operate both the pilot and copilot parts of the startup sequence.
"Come on. Come on," Luke muttered as indicators and buttons began to light up.
Luke paused. A tremor in the Force sent a shiver down his spine. He twisted around in his seat, expecting to see Vader behind him. He saw no one and jammed the throttle forward. At the same time, he hit the ramp recall button. The engines whined and sputtered, dying with a sudden pop. Luke scowled. Neither the ramp control nor the engines had come online. He hastily scanned the pilot's display. There was a hydraulic warning, likely just dust accumulated where it shouldn't be. He slammed the throttle lever forward again. This time there was a metallic screech followed by a ship-rocking boom from both engines.
"I would advise you not to do that again."
Luke leaped from his seat as his father's voice cut through the ship. An invisible hand wrapped around his waist. Before he could react, Luke flew out of the shuttle. He bounced off the edge of the ramp and rolled across the rock and sand. Luke twisted his body, kicked his feet out behind him, and used his hands to propel himself into an upright fighting stance. His green lightsaber snapped to life in his hand.
"Your weaknesses are in your impulsiveness, impatience, and single-mindedness. It makes you predictable," Vader chastised, "Predictable people do not live long."
"We're wasting time. The fleet has to know what's happening," Luke spat.
As he spoke, Luke stepped forward. A fire burned in his eyes as he picked Vader apart. For his part, Vader simply stood at the edge of the ramp. His fists tightened with a mechanical whine. There was no fear and no aggression. He merely stood there as Luke's anger, and fear washed over him.
"What is happening? Do you know?" Vader shot back.
"The Flood, they're- they're getting ready to invade," he stuttered.
In his mind, the first doubts began to form, but his stubbornness would not have it.
"Where is the attack coming from?"
"I-"
"What are their plans?"
"To-"
"How do we fight back?"
Luke fell silent. As much as he didn't like it, the former Sith had a point. For all those visions had shown him, there was still much he didn't know. Across from him, Vader held up one of the switch assemblies from the shuttle like a trophy.
"In your haste to escape, you neglected to see what was happening right in front of you. You ignored the pre-flight checks, you ignored changes in the Force, and you ignored me circling the ship in plain view. You nearly destroyed the engines."
Darth Vader delivered his words with cold fury. It was the cold, harsh tone that had precluded many people's deaths. Luke suppressed a shudder, but he did not say a word. The emotions swirling in him made organizing an argument impossible. Not to mention, now was not the time for such things. Now was a time to listen.
"Luke, people die because of what you did." Vader fell silent momentarily as though suddenly taking on a great weight before speaking again. "Impulses such as those are why I am in this suit. I did not bring you here to learn of good versus evil or right versus wrong. This is about maintaining control when everything else falls apart. This is what the Jedi teach. This is what Obi-Wan and Yoda sought to teach you in that swamp. If you cannot learn to control your emotions and impulses, then you are just as dangerous as me."
A heavy silence fell over the duo. Neither one moved, and neither one spoke as Luke considered his words. Darth Vader had a point. Luke had been - and still was if he was honest - dangerously impulsive. Had Vader truly not been paying attention, they would have been trapped here. Wait. That tremor he had felt…
"What I felt in the cockpit… that disturbance in the Force… That wasn't…"
He trailed off as Vader slowly moved his head up and down in a rough approximation of a nod.
"Things are in motion now. It is time to return to the fleet," Vader declared.
"But you said-"
"Focus on the here and now, yes I did," Vader snapped. "What is here and now has changed, and our course must change with it. Now come."
The agitation dripping from his voice told Luke this was not another test. That disturbance in the Force had been much more alarming to his father. Without a word, Luke hurried up the ramp while Vader replaced the switch.
(Deep Core Region)
Trees loomed like prison bars. Water and dirt mixed in a slurry that consumed the dead and drowned the injured. It weighed down each person's steps and insisted on being everywhere it shouldn't. The pouring rain promised only to make things worse. In the distance, ghostly howls echoed through the night sky. The faint scream of TIE engines did little to comfort anyone as they sprinted up the draw. In the distance, spotlight beams filtered through the trees, providing the only light for the night vision optics in each trooper's helmet. The sergeant at the front of the pack threw himself against a tree trunk. His chest heaved as he struggled to take in the oxygen his body demanded. Imperial infantry standards weren't easy to meet, but they had done very little to prepare him for the horrors of today. He took one last breath and keyed the command channel on his comm.
"Echo 1 to any call signs, come in," he demanded.
The channel whined with static. The sergeant winced as cramps began shooting up his legs. Next to him, a Private Tomell had thrown off his helmet and was bent over heaving. Sweat soaked his face while the sounds emanating from his body announced its attempt to reject yesterday's lunch. Behind them, the rest of the squad was breathing heavy. A couple of the stormtroopers were crouched, trying desperately to get air to their lungs and cope with the severe cramps shooting through their bodies. Traces of desperation leaked into the sergeant's voice as he tried again.
"Echo 1 to any call signs, come in."
Flashes of green flashed across the sky. There were nine in total, each one punctuated by searing fireballs. There was another hiss of static in the sergeant's ear, followed by something that could only be described as some alien's vague attempt at a human voice.
"Retreat… Units return… all personnel evacuates by way... nearest landing pad," ground out a voice.
The sergeant scowled. The static added its own measure of distortion, but something was still wrong. Everything was stilted. The voice sounded too gravelly, and the sentences were almost incomprehensible in their construction. He turned to the rest of the squad as Tomell replaced his helmet.
"Anything?" asked Tora as she looked over her shoulder.
"Nothing good. Everything is still scrambled. We'll make for the summit- see if we can get above this," the sergeant responded.
"We lost. We need to find the other troopers. We can't keep this up," protested Tomell.
His voice was shaking, much like his body. The kid had logged at least two kilometers more than the rest of the team today, and it was beginning to show.
"I know!"
His voice snapped like a whip. The sergeant's glare was palpable through his helmet as he regarded the panicking trooper. Everyone's collective sanity was holding by way of a very weak thread. He didn't need Tomell breaking that thread.
"They just began orbital strikes, and the bombers are beginning to circle. We need to re-establish contact. That isn't gonna happen waist-deep in the mud," the sergeant added as he clicked off his own night vision.
The combination of intense light flashes and pitch-black forest made night vision optics more of a hindrance than anything. His head was spinning enough as it was. The last thing he or his squad needed was to be subjected to irregular flashes of blinding white light from the optics.
"Switch to lamps, and let's move."
Another howl punctuated his words. This time, it was followed by the same slithering, wet sound that had chased them out of the tunnels hours ago. One by one, narrow conical beams of light began shooting out from under each trooper's blaster.
"No... No. No. No."
The words poured out of Tomell's mouth as he whipped around. The panic and fear caused his breathing to accelerate even faster somehow. The sergeant felt a cold chill shoot up his spine as he grabbed the kid's arm. He pulled Tomell forward as he started running. Now was not the place to break down, not with them nearby.
All five of them climbed, crawled, and wove their way through the trees. Their worn and battered bodies were driven by the intense fear of what would happen if they stopped again. In the distance, more explosions rocked the ground. Flashes of orange and white illuminated the ground like hellish springs. The heat from the explosions washed over them like a cold blanket. With each one, the sergeant saw small blobs of green and brown slip through the bushes. Blaster shots screamed out as a few got too close.
At the top of the hill, the sergeant was rewarded with a welcome sight. Further up the ridge was the distinct outline of an Imperial outpost. The blinking markers of the landing pad could be seen just beyond the perimeter barricades. Even better was the silhouette of a shuttle. Just beyond that was the geometric outline of the structure, complete with a communication dish on top.
"We're almost there!" he called as he broke into a sprint.
About a hundred meters of open grass separated them and the outer barricades and nothing else to be seen. This was it. After everything they had endured that night, the run to the outpost felt like nothing. Their lights all turned forward as explosions punctuated each step. The sergeant was the first to hit the barricades, with the rest of the squad right behind.
"Eyes up. We're not safe yet," announced one of the troopers.
As he spoke, he shined his light between two of the duracrete slabs. Tucked out of sight was the twisted and mutilated body of a stormtrooper. Two other burned were corpses tossed in the brush to the left, and one slumped against a tree. The entire left side of his face was gone. The troopers pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, as they continued forward.
"Shuttle looks intact," noted Tora.
"It does, as does the communications dish. Let's make sure we're not gonna get blown out of the sky before doing anything too rash," the sergeant decided.
The orders from earlier still didn't sit right with him. However, the lack of any living imperial presence on the ground was starting to give weight to the transmission. Perhaps things had gone that bad. Whatever had attacked them in the tunnels had succeeded in chasing the small Imperial force off the ring. If the officers had opted to quarantine the planet, they could shoot down anything, imperial or otherwise, that tries to escape.
"I don't see any other bodies," muttered another trooper.
The sergeant nodded. Things were too quiet, just as they had been at the relay station. Suddenly, the all too familiar sound of wet tentacles entered their ears. However, this time there was a new sound. A growl, low and guttural, cut through the night air. Everyone's motion trackers chimed at once, and the squad whipped to the right. Through the tangle of vines and trees, they could see several creatures. A mass of tentacles and surged forward. Angry red blaster bolts tore out of the brush. Some went high, and some went low, but all missed the squad by a wide margin.
The stormtroopers were quick to return the favor. The open field flashed in a brilliant display as streaks of superheated light shot in every direction. The very ground seemed to come alive with the creatures. Green mist sprayed into the air as the smaller ones exploded. The larger ones, the ones clad in broken white plating, simply staggered back before continuing their march across the grass.
"These things just don't quit," shouted Tora over the scream of her blaster.
The sergeant grunted as he shot two of the smaller creatures. Next to him, Tomell tossed a thermal detonator into the pack. The resulting ball of fire ripped through the back ranks of the attacking horde. During this, the sergeant's mind raced. There were too many. Yet, they were staying back, never finishing the ambush they had started. He and his squad should have been dead by now.
"To the shuttle!" the sergeant yelled.
There was no time for doubt. Whether these creatures were sentient or not, he did not know. All he knew was that they were all running dangerously low on time and charges for their blasters. Seconds felt like hours as meters drug on to eternity. With two fewer troopers, they had arrived at the shuttle. The alien horde nipped at their heels as they tore across the cratered grass.
"Go! Go! I'll cover you!" he desperately shouted, "The Empire must learn of these creatures."
His tone brokered no argument. The squad never broke stride as he pivoted around. The sergeant's blaster tore into the creatures, mowing them down by the dozens. He had to buy them time to escape. Even still, it wasn't enough. He was being overrun within seconds. The new hulking masses of flesh charged right at him. Before he could react, his chest exploded in pain, and he was sent flying backward. The air was forced from the sergeant's lungs as he slammed into the ramp. His vision narrowed from the pain as his lungs struggled to reinflate.
"Sarge!" Tora called.
As she yelled, Tora darted back down the ramp. Blaster shots flashed through her peripheral as she dragged him into the deployment bay. He barely made it back into the shuttle before the ramp started closing. As the door pulled itself upward, some troopers continued to shoot at the creatures while others went to power up the ship. When the ramp sealed shut, they all breathed a sigh of relief before going to check on their sergeant. Never before had the roar of ion engines sounded so good.
The shuttle lifted off and immediately started on their journey to command. The squad was not alone in this journey. In the chaos, one creature had slipped in. A tiny little spore had folded itself into the long shadows of the craft, waiting to strike… waiting to be the one that changed the galaxy.
(Rothana: 8 days later)
The planet was a wasteland. With the rise of the Empire, Palpatine had seen no reason to keep the spider web of orbital shipyards and planetside munitions factories running. There was no reason to hide the true extent of his military industry now, and it was light years removed from the central staging areas of Kuat, Corellia, and other Mid Rim industrial worlds. As such, the rise of the Empire had spelled the end of Rothana as a dominant industrial complex. Its mighty forges were snuffed out while its great assembly lines slowed to a stop. The complex and its unreceived products were left to rot in the frozen hellscape below.
It was in this land that troops from every part of the alliance toiled away. The Swords, UNSC, Alliance, and Death Squadron had all picked their own areas and set to work. The risks of abandoning an arsenal had been well understood by Emperor Palpatine and those who served him- notably the late Grand Moff Tarkin. He had ensured that numerous traps and automated defense systems were carefully tucked away in this mass of ice and abandoned metal.
"If I'm reading this right, we should be at the southern storage bay!" shouted the Twilek at the front of the squad.
Blown away by the wind, her voice was barely audible to anyone except the duo standing next to her. A woman in heavy grey robes nodded. Next to her, a man in suspiciously Imperial-looking white and blue armor slowly turned to the right. Through the fog and blowing snow, he could make out a looming wall of grey yawning up into the distance. In the featureless void, that single wall served as the only landmark for where they were.
"So, where's the door?" called out a third, distinctly human voice.
"Under us somewhere," answered the woman in the robes.
"We'll never get it free from that ice," the trooper protested.
The white and blue soldier shot back, "That's what the explosives are for."
They were broken from their conversation by the snap-hiss of a lightsaber. The white glow of the blades washed into the background, although they produced a savage hiss as they plunged into the ice. The woman disappeared behind a wall of hot steam as the lightsaber turned the ice straight into vapor.
"You might want to move," stated the woman in robes with a wry tone.
Everyone took several steps backward as she dragged the superheated blade across the ground. As she traced out a large square, the man in white and blue took a cautious step forward and knelt. He then looked up and nodded to the woman who had finished cutting by now.
"We'll have to take it in layers. We still haven't hit metal yet," the man called out.
The two continued to chatter as the Twi-Lek poured over her copy of the factory layout. There had to be an easier way in. They were standing on one of the primary storage bays, but that didn't mean there weren't access doors elsewhere - preferably unguarded ones.
"What about that wall to the left? Why can't we breach it and go in there?" quizzed another soldier, this one a very miserable Rodian.
The Twi-Lek dramatically shook her head.
"That's about a ninety-meter drop straight down through the main assembly plant, which in of itself isn't a problem. That's what the rappelling gear is for," she explained before pointing dramatically at the wall itself, "The real problem comes from the explosive net lining the inside of the wall. If I understand this correctly, just so much as breathing on that wall will blow up this entire side of the complex."
"Oh."
"Yeah…"
There was a moment of silence, interrupted by the sound of scraping ice. She looked up to see the woman in robes reaching out. She was kneeling with outstretched arms and tense muscles. Her gaze was set intensely on the square as an invisible force wiggled and scraped the ice block against the walls. The woman responded by leaning back, almost like she was bracing herself against an invisible wall. She brought her arms down slightly before shooting them upward. The ice block responded by ripping free of the ground. With another dramatic push, this time outward, the ice block went hurtling forward. It smashed against the ground and slid out of sight in the fog.
For the next several minutes, the woman dug down through the ice. She would slice out large squares of ice and then toss them up over the side. The work was slow and tedious. However, as meter after meter of ice was thrown to the side, it became clear that this was a faster way than trying to blast through the avalanche. The woman went to drive her saber into the ice. However, this time she was rewarded with the scream of tortured metal. She froze, and all eyes turned to the Twi-Lek with the datapad.
"Rola-"
"Already looking," Rola announced.
Her eyes darted across the stolen schematics as she tried to trace the different triggers, turrets, and explosives. After a couple of seconds, she looked up from the pad.
"There are four auto-turrets buried in the corners. The door also has an explosive seal…" Rola took a cautious step toward the hole "...Just left of your heel. I don't see anything about security droids, but that doesn't mean anything."
The woman took a reflexive step to the right as Rola spoke, eliciting a snicker from the Twi-Lek.
"Don't worry. It's on the underside so that it'll detonate if the door tries to open. A pressure plate wouldn't be much good in this climate," Rola added.
"Of course."
The woman gingerly placed her fingertips into the snow next to her heel. She paused, took a deep breath, and plunged the lightsaber through the metal. The blade sparked and squealed as it melted through the door. She twisted the lightsaber back and forth, careful to ensure she hit her intended target. She pulled her blade out of the seam and turned to the rest of the squad.
"Start rigging up. It's time to get inside," the woman in robes announced.
The squad didn't have to be told twice. Each person hastily began setting their anchor points and rigging up tethers. Behind them, sparks flew, and metal groaned as the woman cut out the final square.
∫∆πµπ∆∫
Ahsoka ignored the cold eating through her robes as she pulled her lightsaber around the square. She was much more focused on getting into the factory and ensuring it was still some functional equipment after all these years. Of course, the first step was ensuring she didn't break her legs going through- the floor was suddenly replaced by air. Ahsoka's hands flew downward out of reflex. Her body slowed, and she felt the Force gently lower her to the floor below.
She looked around. The hole cast a dim white light on a pair of AT-TE walkers. Beyond that, the room was bathed in darkness. She reached out in the Force. She felt the side walls in the distance. In the corners, smaller life forms scurried away from the noise and light. Ahsoka couldn't feel anything else and looked upward where Rex was staring expectantly.
"Come on down, Rex. It's clear," she called with a half-hearted wave.
Rex nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later, seven separate cables fell down the hole, followed shortly by the rest of the rebel squad. Each one hit the ground with blasters raised. This factory was still crawling with traps and droids- standard security models and other, less conventional models.
"Spread out and search the area. Let's get the lights on," Ahsoka ordered.
Flashlight beams pierced the darkness as everyone made for the walls. Ahsoka snapped on her white lightsabers and held them up as glow rods. The pale glow reflected off the tank armor, bringing back a surge of memories with it. A layer of frozen dust clung to the red and grey armor. It gave them a weird sense of familiarity to her. She had only ever seen AT-TEs between missions and out on the battlefields where they were always dirty and scarred.
As she walked, Ahsoka thought about the endless nights on the battlefields, the tasteless rations, and gallows humor of the troops. In the deep recesses of her mind, she could still hear their laughs. If she listened even closer, she could still hear their screams and desperate prayers as well. Seconds ticked away, and Ahsoka found herself blinking away vivid memories of her past life.
Further to the right, Rex slowly picked his way between the aisles. The one fortunate side-effect of being bred for combat was an inherent detachment from most things. He could take much more of an emotional battering than most other beings. Rex found himself grateful for this as he shined his lights against the side armor of another walker. This place was bringing back memories he would rather not have. He mentally called up the statistics of each vehicle while simultaneously pushing back the surge of more personal recollections.
"Twenty people or forty-tons of cargo… Never fill the tank."
Rex scowled as images of dead bodies and twisted metal pushed into his mind. It had been on Mygeeto. Eager to keep up the fast pace, he had ordered his men to load up on the walkers. They didn't have time to walk, and there was another unit further down the road. Of course, that wasn't the unit that got ambushed. The missile had gone in just left of the driver and detonated inside the crew compartment. The resulting explosion turned both the tank and its passengers inside out. Rex shook his mind free of the memory and ducked under another AT-TE.
"One mass driver cannon, four heavy laser turrets… Its armor is sloped against kinetic projectiles… thickest around the crew compartment and magazines. Never hide under the legs. If it loses a leg, they'll be pulling you out in pieces."
This time, Rex went back to the campaigns of Felucia. It was a younger clone, not five weeks out of the training on Kamino. Rex could still hear the ragged gasps even all these years later as the tank's lower plating ground the clone into the mud. The kid's final screams were silenced by the air leaking from both punctured lungs.
He forced this memory from his mind with the others and turned to the wall in front of him. A couple of meters further to the left, he found a door and a large power box. On it was several levers, each one labeled with a half-faded sign. Using the light from his helmet, Rex went over every inch of the panel, surrounding wall, and the adjacent door. He was looking for any sensors or wires that might indicate a hidden trap or alarm. Finding nothing, he yanked down each of the levers in turn. With each heavy, mechanical thud came a wash of light. Row after row of lights hummed to life, bathing the entire space in a cold white light.
With the lights back on, Rex could take in the true scope of the space. Rounded walls arched upward into a pair of massive doors. Each one ran the entire half-kilometer length of the room. In the distance, Rex could make out what appeared to be yet another layer of ice and snow.
"The entire south end is caved in," crackled Rola's voice from through his wrist comm.
"Noted. Fall in around the entry hole," Rex ordered.
As he spoke, he made his way to the nearest walker and slowly clambered up the side. He pressed himself flat against the backplate and craned his neck up to look around. Seeing no danger, he finally pulled himself up and gazed out at the vehicles.
Even with one section destroyed, hundreds, if not thousands, of tanks and walkers were here. Rex was at the back edge of the AT-TEs. Behind them were all manner of two-legged walkers. There were some AT-RTs, AT-TPs, and other more experimental ones. Further out, he could make out Striker Hover Tanks with self-propelled laser batteries beside them. All of these were parked in orderly rows, with yellow and red stripes running between them. With a sigh, he dropped down the other side of the tank and started walking. The past would have to wait for another day. Now was the time to end this war once and for all.