Chapter 14 – If you continue to fight, what will you become? - Saw Gerrera
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What…
What just…
The Sith moved so fast. He had not even seen the blow, so quickly was it over and then he was on the floor, the cold from the hard steel floor clawed at his back.
His right hand burned like he had shoved into a burning inferno. He could barely stomach the sickening smell alone. He struggled against the feeling of nausea that rose in the back of his throat and his hands just wouldn't stop shaking.
His left hand reached for the right one, instinctively trying to protect it and curl protectively around it. He stilled, a breath locked halfway up his throat and his heart stopped. His searching fingers had found nothing where his hand should be. There was nothing at the end of his wrist.
He held his shaking arm up above him.
Where his hand should have been, there was nothing. Luke recoiled from the thought in horror. His breath quickened and he could feel his heart hammering in his throat.
He couldn't move.
Why couldn't he move?
Above him, the red lightsaber drowned the darkness in a hellish red was held in the hand of a man with a signature even darker than the pit below. It hung there over him like an executioner's axe and above it stood the dark figure silent and unmoving as Luke's sight slid in and out of focus.
Vader
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"I have a cell with your name one it." Anakin leaned in so close that the force field just about brushed his face with its burning sting.
"Oh, I am sorry. What did you say again?" Luke said. The first words were more a startled sound than a word until Luke got his voice under control. He could not help it, his heart had skipped at beat when he looked right into the hate in Anakin's eyes "I couldn't hear you over the sound of force field." He mocked tapping at the force field.
It distracted Anakin long enough for Luke to make his fear bleed back behind his mental shields.
He would never be a prisoner again.
Never.
"It will only be a matter of time." Anakin walked the edge of the field like a caged beast. It was nothing more than a few steps back and forth, but the irritated huff that came from Anakin when he gave up and stopped was a very comforting sound. "No one has ever gotten away from me."
"Right." Luke said and couldn't help his lips crook into an old expression he had almost forgotten. "Because I didn't just do that… is it three times now?" He smiled like he meant it but the look in his eyes was as crooked as his smile. "I am afraid I lost count."
"Cute." Rex says.
Luke had almost forgotten about the clone, but he was very grateful for the interruption. It drew him forcefully out of the conversation with his farther immediately.
'Why do I always get tunnel-vision when he is around?' he berated himself.
"Thank you for the compliment, Rex." Luke side-stepped the laser, that was still hovering in the air. "But you are not my type." He clenches his hand into a fist with a fast and violent move, like he is crushing something. Immediately the blaster-shot twists around and disappears into the dark. The crack of the shot when it hits something in the hall rises and dies in the span of a second.
Power returns to him, now that it is no longer bound to the blaster-shot. But it is like giving a glass of water to a starving man. Luke has already exerted himself too far. Exhaustion makes his finger shake until he draws on the power of the force surrounding him and the energy soaks mercifully into his strained muscles.
"Why did you follow us here, Vader?" Anakin said. He was very close to the force field again, trying to tower over Luke from the other side. He looked angry, but he didn't feel it in the force. He felt more… curious? "And how is it you are you working with Fives?"
The scars burn against his skin, as if in warning, but Luke did not need the reminder. He remembered the bargain very clearly.
"…I followed you?" He said and let the sentence die and decay into nothing between them. Anakin's eyes narrow a fraction and Luke can feel the careful touch of his force-presence. 'Amateur.' He thinks. Anakin's attempt at gauging Luke's intentions, was the indelicate touch of one not used to hiding his powers at all but one used to carrying it around like a torch for all to see.
He ignored the envy that sparked under his carefully built control.
"No…" Anakin says, but it sounds like a question. He does not seem to understand, his face is an expressionless mask, but there is a spark of realization in the force. "You followed…" His narrowed glare slip towards Fives for the fraction of a second before it snaps back to Luke. "Why? I thought you were only trying to assassinate the chancellor!"
There was a whisper in the force, a warning, and the instinctive response died on Luke's lips. He drew back folding his frustrations with the man around himself like a shield.
"Indeed" He answered with a rare touch of pride. "The force is my ally." He explains vaguely, trying to avoid the question "There must be a reason it brought me here."
"Your ally?" Anakin repeated like that fragment of the sentence was important and there was a flash of…something in the force. Luke let it lie, he did not need another distraction. He drew his gaze away from his father painfully.
"Sleep." He says and in the force five different signatures becomes dormant. Luke heard the noise clearly when the soldiers fell into an unnatural sleep so deep that not even the impact with the floor woke them back up. Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught the sight of Rex's right hand that snapped to his waist, forgetting that he had surrendered those blasters moments before.
"And the clone?" Luke continued and drew back a little under the pressure of Anakin's scrutiny through the force. "I have never met him. I don't even know his name." With a flick of his wrist Fives collapsed into a boneless heap on the floor. "But it was a very interesting story he just told."
"Leave him!"
"Why do you care?" He keeps his eyes on Fives, but he can feel Anakin's burning glare. It follows Luke when he closed the distance between himself and the fallen soldier. Worry and anger warred for dominance in Anakin's force presence, along with something else.
Doubt.
"You didn't believe him…" Luke says carefully, weighing every word. He needed to cultivate this sudden fragility from Anakin and break his trust in Sidious. "...and I need to know if he told the truth. If all your little soldiers can be controlled."
"That is impossible!"
Luke notes with a small measure of hope Anakin's uncertainty. The sudden doubt could only signify that Anakin considers there might be something to Fives words now that Luke has shown an interest… Or so Luke dearly hoped.
"Maybe." He extends his hand again and the unconscious Fives lifts into the air, the feet are dangling limp just low enough to scrape lightly against the floor. "Maybe not." The words are as merciless as the expression he painted on his face. He tugged at something invisible and as if pulled on a string Fives floated within reach, his boots dragged against the floor.
"If you touch him with that hand, be prepared to lose it." Anakin said from the other side of the force field, as intimidating as a caged rancor could be. Even with the blue light of the lightsaber shinning out from behind the force field it did not worry Luke, not when the remote Fives had used was resting neatly on the floor on this side of the field.
"Now, now Anakin." He says without looking back. "You are hurting my feelings"
"I will hurt more than your feelings when I get out of here!" The light blue saber flashed forward and had a taste of the force field in a shower of sparks. "Let him go!"
"Quiet." Luke said trying to latch on to Fives mind, but the clone's thoughts was in such a delirium that it was impossible to make sense of any of it. "This is very difficult."
"Stop it!" Anakin steps closer to the force field, close enough for Luke to see the desperation in his eyes.
It is not so intense though as the full blown terror in Fives mind
Luke tried to sooth the panic and the fear that was running rampant in the clone's head, but even unconscious like this, his mind was unreasonable and nothing but a vortex of desperation, fear and despair. "Show me." He said forming it like a request in the force, the mind of Fives was already too damaged, there was so little left intact and he dared not make it a demand. It might just shatter what was left of the clone's mind.
Fives presence drew away from him and Luke forced himself to slow down, and be very, very careful. 'I am a friend.' He told Fives. 'The chancellor is my enemy too.'
"STOP IT!" Anakin raises his hand no doubt trying to reach Luke with the force but the field must muzzle Anakin's force presence because Luke feels absolutely nothing despite Anakin's obvious anger.
There was hesitation in the Force from Fives, but he stopped moving away from Luke's attempt at contact. 'You… believe… me?' came a voice lower than a whisper. The desperation of it was a sharp sting to Luke's heart.
'I do.' He told, but kept his signature as suppressed as he could in order not to further damage Fives mind. He extended his power elsewhere trying to repair the edges of fives tattered mind and attempting to strengthen Fives. The poison in his blood was strong, but Luke's extended will was stronger and the poison started to give way before him.
'…Why?' Fives voice whispered from the great divide between them.
'I know Palpatine and what he is capable of.' he said and hesitated, looking for the words he would be allowed to say. I know his plans'. There was a gnawing pain in the scars. A warning. But Luke pressed on continuing to battle the poison. 'I can stop him. With your help.'
There is a flash of elation that manage to break the panic and the fear for a golden moment. Then Fives signature in the force dimmed drastically, and the last contact is severed. In the shock of it, Luke lost his concentration and the clone falls like a limbless doll to the floor.
Luke panicked for a long horrible moment, but then he felt Fives presence and he breathed a sigh in relief. The clone was out cold, but not dead. His presence in the force was burning steadily. His body was still in the grip of poison, but not as much as before.
"I SAID LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Anakin yells in the same moment. Luke can see the blue glow of the lightsaber before he turns back to his father. The blade is deadly, but it is held uselessly in Anakin's hand when the force field is between them. Kneeling over the collapsed Fives, Luke has no illusion what it must have looked like when the clone-trooper suddenly crashed to the floor.
Luke sighed and let Fives lie on the floor. Fives was far too gone now to communicate with in an effective manner, too much of him was gone. Luke would have to get rid of the poison first, and there was no chance of doing that here.
'This just makes things a thousand times more complicated.' He thinks.
He knows he could not purge the poison here. There were simply too many things he had to focus on at once. It was hard enough as it was to keep the soldiers sleeping.
"He has done nothing to you!" Anakin said, trying visibly to centre himself, but worry is screaming from him in the force so intensely that for a moment it looks like the dark side of the force.
"And you have done nothing for him!" The sentence escaped Luke's lips like a starving chained hound, hurting and wanting to hurt someone else.
"What was it then?" Rex's voice is strangely vulnerable under the hard façade. "Is there a way to control us?"
Luke was seconds away from just saying 'yes'. He would have done anything to turn things around in his favour, but at the last moment he remembers Anakin who it is staring him right in the face, or rather what he might know.
Luke knows how to fake a truth, he has plenty of experience but he had never lied to a Jedi before, and he knew how easy it was for himself to spot a lie in the force.
And he had to get that skill from somewhere.
'How do I play this?' To buy time he looks down on the fallen Fives, with a slight frown carved between his brows. 'Do I tell the truth, that I am not sure if the man is delusional or do I try the lie and say yes?' None of the options felt right. Even if he told Anakin the truth his father would not believe it, because Luke was the Sith who tried to kill his friend.
There was no way
Unless…
"Seems like you were right, chosen one." He sighs in mock disappointment. "There is no chip." He says and the lie tasted sweet when it crawled over his lips. "It is not possible for anyone to control the clones against their will. This one is merely delusional." He gestures at Fives for good measure.
He feels the sudden pressure of Anakin's force presence, and it is all he can do not to smile. He was right, Anakin would never believe a truth from him. But a lie?
That was another thing entirely
"Well… thanks." Rex looks doubtful, but Luke's suddenly honest expression seems to convince the man. Luke cannot really blame him for it. Luke has had a lot of experience looking sincere when he was busy lying through his teeth. "All things considered it is good to know-"
"He is lying!" Anakin's eyes never leave Luke.
"Am I?" Luke smiles carefully now that Anakin is on the hook.
Then there is a shift in Anakin and the emotion that replaces the anger is more calculative.
Maybe that last question had been a bad idea.
Anakin opened and closed he free hand in a restless unwilling move that gave away the same feeling of unease broadcasted in the Force.
"What is this to you?" He made a gesture with his right hand and as a consequence drew attention to the lightsaber still locked in his grip. "This war." He explained dryly. "I have never even heard of you before. Grievous didn't seem like he knew you either, and he is about as close to high-command as you can get."
"Maybe I am a secret agent?" The question the sentence formed blurred the lie before it imprinted in the force.
"Are you?"
A warning pain bled into the scars on Luke's lower left arm
…Careful Jedi.
"You tell me."
The frustrated look should not have been so satisfying, but in a macabre way it was. He had spent so much time trying to outrun the terror Anakin had become that it was hard to remain unaffected. Vindictive, as he knew it was, it was hard to resist. It was simply a reaction to, for once, having the upper hand in an endless string of defeats.
"So when did you lose the hand?"
The smile bled away slowly. He resists the urge to look down at the hand his father mutilated. "An old enemy." He said and the voice does not sound like him, it is too calm. To indifferent. "You would have liked him. He also liked to mutilate his enemies."
"You keep saying that like I do it all the time! Dooku had it coming! He was the one who-." Anakin flexes his hand and stops himself, his eyes slide to the side to look at Rex. Then the steel is back in his voice. "And who are you to say anything? You are Sith!" He says in a justified way, like he has the moral high-ground and therefore did not need to argue.
Luke always despised arrogant people like that. It was the same way people used to call him 'farmboy'. Like he was inferior just because he hadn't had their fancy upbringing. The fact that Anakin thinks he stood in front of a Sith did little to quiet that old hurt.
But then instead of rising to the challenge, Luke hesitates. There was a glimpse of… something in Anakin's eyes. An expression with a sinister edge ghosted across his father's face. He couldn't tell what the exact expression was, but it looked ugly.
'Why are you suddenly so eager to talk?' Luke thought. Anakin was no longer pacing the force field, in fact he had taken a step back and that made the alarms go off in Luke's head. His already strained force presence rushed out into the room, searching for a trap and there is a stab of panic at what he finds.
'…I see.'
There had been eight soldiers in the red armour.
Not five.
'Trying so hard to distract me.' Luke thinks without letting the thought linger long enough to make an imprint in the force. 'You are good.' He reluctantly admitted. Even now when he has his senses focused on the soldiers it is hard to keep locked on their presences, like they had training in deflecting force- users. 'I am better.'
The crushing sound from the blasters exploding in the hands of their owners' sounded like hellfire when the walls screamed the sound back into the room at impact. It was not as loud though as the sound of their startled yells when the weapons in their hands self-destructed.
The broken fragments collect and rush back to Luke, swirling around him in a storm of razor-sharp knives.
"Did you really think that would work?" Luke said and a dark laugh that was not his own reached out from under his iron control and into the sudden silence in the room.
'The dark side' came a warning from nowhere. It sounded like Leia and it made the anger in him burn brighter. In their desperation the clone troopers tried to charge and get Luke within reach. Luke stopped them with ease.
It was pathetic, their last effort to rush him. They seemed more like helpless children than grown and trained soldiers when the dark side sunk its teeth into them. They were fools even to try and fight the power he bound them with. Their bravery was morbid in contrast to the force that they had no chance to challenge.
'…Luke?' A weak voice whispered and faded back into memory where it belonged. The silence it left in his mind highlighted the nasty crack when the last clone trooper hit the ground landing on his back. The life did not go out in the force, but it dimmed.
'You have to stop!' A voice that was not here anymore yelled at him in desperation, just like it had done that night, but it didn't change anything then. 'Can't you see what this is doing to you?'
And it wouldn't change anything now.
He sees the fear in the last conscious clone trooper's eyes when he rips the helmet off him and lifts him into the air. 'Wise soldier' He thinks darkly holding him meters over the floor his hand extended up and away from him. An eternity stretches. 'You should be afraid of me.' He thinks and then he snaps the hand down.
The trooper's head hits the floor first and then there is nothing in the force and he pauses despite himself and looks down at his hand. That had felt… surprisingly good.
It gave such a lovely cold touch.
"No more witty comebacks?" He said finally and looked up from his hand over his shoulder to Anakin. Then his smile froze and his eyes slid away as he tried to avoid the horrified eyes of his father. "Where did all that spirit go?" He says with a hollow tone; he suddenly felt sick… and very cold.
He suppressed a nervous laugh that felt nasty and pathetic in his throat, and turned back to Fives. He kneeled down beside him and reaches forth to the limp form tortured by the poison running in his veins and his mind delirious with pain, but still somehow conscious. The mind is an open book to him, the mental barriers cannot stop his descent into the haunted and weakened mind.
"Tell me what you know." He says, drawing heavily on the dark side. "Tell me!" He reached into the mind but the care from before was gone. If he had to rip Fives mind apart to get what he needed, he would. There was so much at stake. The very fate of a galaxy.
There was a cold feeling in his hands, the fingers felt numb and there was a sound like twisting winds inside his head. There was nothing in Fives mind at first, then mercifully, he felt Fives mind start to collect itself, bring itself back from the very brink. Sensing his chance Luke flooded his power into Fives. It was power he could not spare, but Fives needed to live along with the secrets in his head.
Then a warning screamed through the force and he drew his mind back and snapped his eyes open just in time to see the red flash. It was too late to stop it. He knew even as he commanded the force to form a shield around him.
Slamming through the half-formed shield, the blaster shot flashed forward and passed without hitting him. Going up to disappear somewhere in the ceiling.
A miss.
He was on his feet in an instant, and the trooper's arm holding the blaster snapped with a loud crack.
"That was stupid." He said with the fear of the almost death sending all his senses into overdrive. The man was screaming, but Luke did not really notice it until the gun he had missed the first time crumbled into an unrecognizable mess when the weapon imploded under the power of the dark side. "Very stupid."
Luke had closed the distance, and froze when he looked down on his almost killer. There was no fear in his eyes. He was smiling.
What?
There was a rush through the force. He snapped around just in time to see the force field flicker out and Anakin's lightsaber lift into attack position, and Luke felt a very familiar stab of terror.
Oh no
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Vader was a monster.
Even after all he just did, he still had power enough to match General Skywalker in battle.
With the sound of lightsaber's slamming together behind him, Rex ran to his guns and reclaimed them in an instant that took too long for his liking. He hears the sound of lightsaber's clashing again and again behind him and it urges him to move even faster.
The sharp sound echoes against the walls somehow just as loud as the real strikes as the weapons clash in an insanely fast pattern and makes the red and blue light flash through the dark. It seemed the battle was unfolding everywhere.
With the blaster leading the way, Rex turns and faces the fighting. The Jedi and the Sith move fast. He has seen this before, how force-users fight, but this… is on another level. Even with his lifelong experience and practice, it is hard to get a clear shot and he is too old a veteran to chance a shot when he is not certain.
The light dance on the walls and the high racks and the light makes the shadows seem even deeper. The flickering light of red and blue rises and dies like sparks from a fire. Then they separate and their weapons stop for an endless moment. The lights of the red and the blue bathe the room as the two foes measure each other.
He catches a smile from General Skywalker, but Vader expression is grim, focused and Vader's hands are shaking. His lightsaber is reaching out in front of him, held more like a spear than a sword while Skywalker's blue is held overhead, like frozen half-way through a strike.
It is Vader that moves first.
Then very air collect around him and throws him forward, Fives felt the rush of air push past him when the Sith attacks. Vader's blade moves faster than his eye can catch, but somehow, Skywalker intercepts it until a strong blow blasts forward and General Skywalker is flung back.
Skywalker retreats and regroups. He sidesteps a strike meant for his eyes and attacks with a sharp strike that should have removed Vader's heart. Instead Vader's blade dance around the fatal strike and rips upward in a strong move that almost take the blue lightsaber from the general's hand.
Vader is on the offensive. Rex watches in horror as Skywalker is pushed violently back. A hailstorm of blows strikes down upon him and he is forced to give ground. The attacks are insanely fast but Vader shows no sign of slowing down, when the red blade dives again and again at an insane speed. The blue lightsaber is more a shield than a blade and it barely catches the eager red sword in time.
Then in a move almost too fast to follow, Skywalker strikes back flinging the blade forward in a move that intercepts the darker lightsaber rushing after him.
They lock together, even from this distance Rex can see Skywalker's arms shake under the pressure from Vader's powerful blow. The gasp and the tense shoulder coming up to strain against Vader's strength tells Rex all he needs to know.
He aims, and the trigger gives away willingly.
Vader never saw the shot.
The red blast slips past Vader's guard and even then he knows his shot is a lucky one. Vader dodges a strike from Skywalker and backs directly into the shot. Rex hears the startled scream and he notes with elation that Vader's face twist in pain.
Skywalker moves fast. The red lightsaber is suddenly in the air and the light snaps out. He can hear it land somewhere in the dark. Then the blue lightsaber goes out too and plunges the room into complete darkness. The battle does not stop. By the sound of it, it only intensifies.
There is crash somewhere, the sound of something huge hitting the ground hard. He steps forward, the gun leading the way in his hands and the trigger already drawn slightly back. A blue light flicker on again, and Rex snaps the gun in that same direction. Then he registers what he sees and releases the trigger.
"Tough bastard!" Skywalker swears from the floor. The lightsaber rest heavily in his hand, pressed down and only inches away from the back of Vader's neck. "Stay down!" He yells at Vader who just won't stop resisting. A blast of force lightning roars from Vader's free hand and rips the darkness apart long enough for Rex to catch a glimpse of his brothers that are lying lifeless on the ground.
He closes the distance between them in an instant.
"We will bring him back to the chancellor" Skywalker hisses trying to keep the resisting Vader down with great difficulty. Vader is twisting and turning like a man possessed, it looks like darkness itself is gathering around the Sith and the air is so cold is stings the skin of his face. "Rex, give me the binders!"
Rex instantly moves to do just that. He unclicks the binders from his belt. It was binders that had originally been meant for Fives and he doubted it would keep the Sith in control for long, but this is the best they have right now.
He kneels down beside his general and Vader's moves become more and more frantic. The air stink of burnt flesh and Rex sees instantly the burn marks on the back of Vader's neck. It is like Vader does not notice the pain and the damage he is doing to himself. There is a wild look in Vader's yellow eyes.
Rex puts the gun down and reaches for Vader's hands. The binder clips easily around one of Vader's wrist, but then another more foreboding clicking sound ring out very close to his temple.
"I am sorry." A voice says, a familiar voice, sounding more broken than he ever heard it. "But I have to stop this… stop him."
Then the world goes dark.
He blinks his eyes open. Everything blurs in and out of focus. Vader is still underneath General Skywalker but he has twisted out of his grip and around to face him. There is a sharp purple light reflected on the walls, and Vader's hand is digging into General Skywalker's short hair.
The general is screaming
Rex struggles to rise, but he cannot move his arms, legs … anything. His eyes blink in and out of focus again. His world goes dark and when he can finally open them again, the general lies lifeless on the ground and a pair of yellow eyes are looking down on Rex. There are hands searching him and the chain of the binder is still dangling from one of Vader's wrists.
'…the key.' He thinks with a faint smugness that bleeds through the strange numbness that had overtaken him. The Sith won't find the key, Skywalker had it, but Vader does not seem to think of it. Rex laughs in the Sith's face and sees the surprise in his eyes. Then a heavy hand press down on his forehead.
Then the lights go out.
And Rex knows nothing more.
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To be continued
A special thanks to Shinigami Merchant for taking the time to Beta :)
