Chapter Eight
"We were just sitting around the table, discussing a few matters, like how federal funds had suddenly started disappearing. And I mean, they weren't even disappearing to the war effort. Force knows, we've lost enough funds to building warships and starfighters. No, I mean disappearing," said Deila, a pretty woman of about thirty. With short brown hair, and piercing green eyes, she could be very intimidating. "Another thing, the Prime Deputy has recently been purchasing new things for him and wife. As far as I know, the taxes he gets don't nearly cover the costs of that…"
Roenni, smaller, with sandy-blonde, wavy hair down to her shoulders, looked very upset about the whole thing. She was still very weak. She had been hurt the most.
"Anyways," she continued, "we saw a blaster bolt come out of nowhere, and Michen, one of the newer members, well, his head gone blown to pieces."
Siri winced at how easily Deila told the tale. But, she had seen, been through, and participated in numerous bloody wars. She was used to it.
"So we all get up from the table, and I pull out the blaster I always had. Yeah, I know, it's illegal for everyone but military, but still. Never know when I might need it. We see some droids coming out the shadows, and start blasting us. Roenni and I get shot in the arm, and the rest go down like that."
Roenni and Rica nodded solemnly as they listened to the tale. Roenni was even crying a little bit.
Siri's comlink beeped. "Excuse me," she said, and walked off to the corner of the room. "Yes?" she spoke into her comlink.
"CT-87/456, checking in, sir," said the commando through ragged breaths. He sounded as if he was running. "I…have…located General…Grievous."
"Excellent work, commando. Now report back to-"
"The base? General…there might not be a base by the time I get there."
"Speak plainly, Ron."
"General…Grievous has…sent an army…to destroy…the base."
Siri almost dropped her comlink. She swore in her head. "I'll signal the others. You keep yourself alive, commando. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good, and, um, commando?"
"Yes?"
"How long have you been running?" she asked, a little bit worried.
"Fifteen minutes sprinting, sir," he replied, almost amused. He was in peak condition.
"Carry on, trooper."
"One-hundred percent," she heard, and the signal cut off. She bit her lip, thinking. Yeah, she'd better go to the base. She called the other three Spec. Ops. troopers, and told them her coordinates. She told them to get their butts down here, on the double. They were there in a span of ten minutes.
She didn't bother with introductions. The three clonetroopers didn't seem to scare the others in the least bit. "Do you have a transport?" she asked Nield.
Nield flashed a bright smile, and led them through a network of tunnels. Finally they reached a large, bus-sized vehicle that looked slightly like a mole.
Nield motioned for everyone to pile in, and he went up the driver's side. He palmed in, and Siri heard the craft rumble, and she smelled something…
"Oh, Force. This thing's gas-powered, isn't it?"
"Well, it's a hybrid. Natural gas and hydrogen. It just so happens that Melida/Daan is ripe with both."
"Great…you know gas explodes right?"
Nield just smiled.
The noisy hybrid engine prohibited too much chatting on their voyage through the tunnels. However, Nield did ask Siri where they were going, fortunately. The tunnels didn't extend quite so far, so Siri and her troops had to walk a little bit. Nield told Siri that they'd wait in the vehicle.
"We'll bring back some weapons. We've got plenty to spare," told Siri. Nield nodded his thanks, but she saw his reluctance. They still didn't like the thought of bearing arms again. Well, they'd get over it, if they had to.
They started walking, and Siri feared it might be too late. She saw small plumes of smoke off in the distance. Smoke meant fire. Fire meant destruction. She cursed under her breath.
"Okay, boys, we need to proceed with caution."
They nodded. She closed her eyes, and looked to the left, then up. Her electronic contacts fizzled on, feeding on the energy from her brain. She zoomed in on the plumes of smoke, by changing her depth perception. Unfortunately, she couldn't zoom in very much, so she didn't find out very much else. She repeated what she'd done to turn them on, and they fizzled off.
"All right, let's go."
She crouched low, and started advancing towards the base camp, ducking under large rocks as she went. As they neared the encampment, they could see the small fires that caused the smoke. She saw the bone-white of clonetrooper armor; it was on the ground. There didn't seem to be much moving, except for the hungry tongues of the fires.
She motioned toward the base with her head, and they walked normally into. Shredded metal and body parts were everywhere. She could sense the anger and sadness from the Spec. Ops. troopers at seeing so many of their brothers. She didn't' know what it was like to lose so many loved ones, but she could imagine what it was like…
But then, they were clones? They were all the same, weren't they? Not much loss of individuality? Personality?
Were they different from each other? How much different were they the original?
How different was she from the original? Siri pushed the thought from her mind. No use worrying now.
They went from trooper to trooper, checking vital signs, if they were able to be checked, and analyzing wounds. Most of the troopers had been dropped by large lasers, possibly from droidekas, the shielded terrors of the confederate army, or by spider droids. Maybe even modified Super battle droids? Who knew?
A few had died from explosions, be blown onto sharp edges, some just hit directly with an explosive artillery shot. "Artillery?" she thought. "Artillery. Nothing else could have shots this big, and bombers drop projectiles."
The damage done to the buildings was so extensive that they weren't even worth salvaging. There were parts of AT-AP's, the All-Terrain Attack Pods, strewn about. The ARC trooper came over to her and asked if they should bury the bodies, or burn them.
"Neither, soldier. There are too many right now. We don't have time. I'll send down a squad to salvage what we can, and burn the bodies."
Soon afterward she made the comlink call.
CT-754/629, the ARC Trooper, also known as "Johnny" looked down at his fallen brothers with sadness beyond the comprehension of non-cloned beings.
The civilians thought of the clonetroopers as invincible beings, almost as machine as the Confederate troops. It wasn't fair. Sure, they were trained overmuch, they were genetically manipulated, and grown in little vats by the thousands, but did that really make them any less human? The soul was still there! And they were all different! Each clone's experiences made them different!
Which is why it made it even sadder when a brother fell. Clonetroopers had this connection with their brothers unlike any other sentient being could understand. They were grown together, always together. Thousands of them together, all the time. Parting was hard, but it was for the good of the Grand Army of the Republic.
But parting by death was hard. Civilians wouldn't understand why, or how, clones could mourn their brothers. But they did, all the same.
The other two commandos were already picking up guns, ammunition, and supplies and putting them on their back. Johnny followed suit, picking up three DC-15 rifles and shouldering them, a few grenades, a pair of macrobinoculars, and a survival pack filled with rations.
He jogged over the general.
"What are we gonna do about the bodies? Bury them, or burn them?"
Either way, a clonetrooper would be honored to have died in battle. It was what they were bred to do. Die so that the civilians can live. But still, sadness was common when clones died.
"Neither, soldier. There are too many right now. We don't have time. I'll send down a squad to salvage what we can, and burn the bodies."
He nodded. She was reasonable. He kind of liked her. She was hard, military-type. Not like most of the Jedi he'd heard of. They always seemed to be philosophical weaklings. Nothing philosophical about this chick. She was all action.
And the action she'd done was amazing. He'd never seen such lightsaber mastery. But then, he hadn't seen many lightsabers. Twice now. The first time being when he was taking part in a siege of a base on some jungle world. He'd infiltrated the base, only to find a Dark Side adept staring at him.
That guy shouldn't even have been called adept. More like, rookie. Civilian, even. It was sad. Johnny had taken him down in a little over a minute.
Johnny trotted over to the other two commandos. "Report over to the general, on the double."
They all ran over to her. "Orders, ma'am?" asked Johnny. "Well, I don't want to send down more troops, too risky. We don't know how much of a military they have here," she said thoughtfully. "I think we need to get back with the resistance. They'll know they didn't get everyone. They'll be back. We need to protect them.
"Gentlemen, this battle will not be won with military brutality. Too many unknowns. This calls for finesse, we need to flush our enemy out from within. How would you pick a rootwarter out of its hole?"
"Rootwarter, ma'am?" asked on of the troopers.
"A rootwarter, it's a creature that digs holes in the ground and eats the roots of plants. It has sharp teeth and claws, usually infectious. Well, anyways, you wouldn't reach into the hole and just pluck it out, too dangerous. What you do is you send a robotic digger in underneath it, to flush it out.
"The Confederacy is our rootwarter. Time to flush it out."
"How'd everything go?" asked Nield as they jumped down from the tunnel opening. The soldiers put the supplies and armaments in the back of the vehicle.
"It was…eventful," said Siri flatly. How could she have been so stupid ! She'd only brought down one hundred troops; she knew they couldn't stand up to something like that. So, why'd she do it? Was she just not thinking clearly?
Did it have something to do with her clone brain? What if…
"Eventful…" said Nield, breaking into her thoughts. Siri hung her head. "The base is, destroyed, completely. Not a one is alive. We could only salvage what we found. The boys I had sent down will have to do the rest."
Nield looked awe-stricken. He apparently had never heard of any Republic defeats. Not surprising. Not surprising. The holo-net was full of propaganda, all for the Republic. Palpatine had such control over the holo-net…
Wait. She stopped dead in her thoughts. If Palpatine had control over the holo-net, then why were the news discrediting the Jedi? Weren't they allies? The news just wanted a good story. But if Palpatine had seen it, surely he would have stopped the story from going on the air.
Disturbing.
"Psh, stop being paranoid," thought Siri. He just hadn't seen it. I'm sure he'd been outraged. Of course he had…
"That's…not good news," he said flatly. It was just them up in the cockpit area, so the other resistance leaders didn't hear them. No need to alarm them. They'd probably already asked the clones though.
"Nield, we need to get inside of government headquarters. We have to question your Prime Deputy. Ask him where he's getting this money…"
"Oh, that's not a problem. We can get you into the building. We'll go two nights from now."
"And in other news," said the main news reporter of the Zehava Nightly News, "the new bill has passed in the Melida/Daan senate. Melida/Daan and the surrounding sector now officially belong to the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Support teams from the nearest Confederate systems have been dispatched, and will be arriving soon. They are carrying droids, war supplies, and materials to be used in getting started with war factories and new shipyards.
"Also, government buildings are now being guarded by multiple squads of battle droids, armed to kill. Prime Deputy of Melida/Daan Perantha was assigning the battle droids to their posts. The government purchased them, actually. Perantha said today in addressing the people of Zehava that a military general will be arriving on Melida/Daan to use it as a forward base to push towards the Core. It was received with thunderous applause, and cheers.
"Now, for the newly arrived agricultural…"
Siri and Nield just sat there on the couch in front of the holo-viewer, staring. "This complicates things. How are we gonna get into the building to question Perantha?" asked Nield.
"Shouldn't be too hard. We'll just have to sneak past the droids."
"What about the convoy of ships? They'll be carrying supplies and tons of war droids. What'll we do about that!"
"Don't worry about it."
"You know, I never did ask you where you came from, what you're doing here, or how you got here…"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
"Then I'm not going to help you."
"Oh, c'mon Nield."
"I make it a point to not trusting anyone who withholds information. I did that once, and I lost the person most important to me. I'm not gonna do it again."
Siri stared at him defiantly for a tenuous few seconds. She finally gave in. Who was she to deny him an explanation? It couldn't hurt, I mean, they were allies…
"Okay, here it is. I'm on a mission from the Jedi Council to find and destroy General Grievous. They gave me a fleet of ships."
"So why don't you just bombard Confederate bases?" he asked, obviously not thinking of all the bloodshed the planet had already seen. "Believe me, I would have leveled every city because you'd gone Separatist. But that's not what the Republic stand for. What the Jedi stand for."
"Mmm…" he said.
"I don't want anymore bloodshed for this planet. Which is why I'm not sending down more troops, or starting some sort of revolt. I want this operation small. Hence, the Specs Ops troops."
"One thing though: Grievous isn't here."
"Well, even if he isn't, I want this planet safe, and free. The Republic will not give up on this planet."
Nield just nodded.
Those eyes…staring her down. "You!" she said. "Yes, me!" the man said. He looked so evil, his face was wrinkled, his eyes yellowed, he looked like a lifetime drinker on deathsticks. The lances of energy drove into her body, stinging her, sucking life…
She screamed, an unearthly, bloody scream.
Bodies of her colleagues surrounded her. Why! Why! Heads were on the ground, mouths wide open, eyes staring into space. Lightsaber cuts. But bloody. Lightsaber wounds were never bloody…
The flaps of flesh and bits of veins and ligaments from the severed heads littered the floor, along with parts and wholes of organs. She crawled backwards on all fours, and accidentally stepped on a liver. She picked it up, and saw her face in the sheen of its moisture.
Her face was a network of bloody streaks, and there was a large cut running through her lips. She looked down at her hands, and they were shriveled and covered in liver spots. She looked in the liver again, and saw that she was aging, horribly.
Suddenly, he dropped from the ceiling. His lightsaber glowing blue, he stood between her and that evil…
Then, in the blink of an eye, he turned on her, lightsaber raised high. His eyes were red with an evil fire.
The scenery changed again. Suddenly she was in the midst of an immense jungle. She was young again, and none of the cuts on her face where there.
She advanced forward, making her way towards a clearing. When she got to it, she saw hundreds of large black creatures hauling stones up and down a ramp, building what looked like an enormous pyramid. There was someone on top of the pyramid, with black hair that was flailing in the wind. He looked down at her, with the same-yellowed eyes as the man before…
He pointed at her.
The black creatures stopped their work, and steadily walked towards her. She reached for her lightsaber, but it wasn't there.
They pounced on her, talking in an unutterable language that sounded evil and demonic. She heard the words "dark side" from one of them.
The creatures, she found out, had claws, and some sort of blades on their arms. She never got the chance to examine them further, however, and her body was mangled and sliced in seconds.
She felt herself being lifted into the air, and she looked down, and saw that her mangled, bloody body was being devoured by the strange creatures. She still felt their claws, teeth, and blades ripping and tearing at her flesh…
The pain…
Blackness enveloped her.
"It's over. I have won!" she heard. What was that? Who, why…
The darkness entered her body though her mouth, and consumed her. Her eyes turned black, as her soul was consumed, she thought one thing:
"I love you, Obi-Wan…"
Siri awoke, sweating pouring from body. Nield and his followers had taken them to the shelter, in the catacombs, that they had built for themselves. It was actually quite homely. They had given them cots, and the clones and her shared quarters. There was a common shower room. She checked the chrono on the wall: 4:00 MCT, or 4:00 in the morning, Coruscant time. Siri looked down at her light tunic, drenched with sweat, and sticking to her body.
Siri decided to take a shower. It'd be nice to keep her pores from becoming acne-ridden.
When she got to the washroom, she realized that the tunic was so wet, she could see right through it. She' d heard of the wet tunic contests that some clubs held on weekends, and she absolutely despised them. Disgusting.
She imagined this is about what it looked like. She rolled her eyes, closed the door, and stripped down. Putting her soaking tunic in the dryer, she walked into the step-in shower.
She turned it on just below as hot as it could go. She liked the steam. Facing her head towards the rushing water, she closed her eyes, and thought about the dream she'd had. It was certainly different. She hadn't had nightmares since she was little. Why so much death?
It was so…gruesome. Worse than war. At least laser pellets and lightsaber left cauterized wounds. It reminded her of primitive warfare, where attackers would use swords, or even projectile weapons, often spewing their opponents' body fluids all over the place. So uncivilized.
What was that jungle world? She'd never even heard of a race of black lizard-like people. It seemed so violent.
And then the blackness…the utter blackness. It gave her shudders. It felt so evil. The hair on her neck stood on end when she only thought about it!
There was no way this dream could ever be a premonition. Some Jedi saw the future, like Yoda, but as he said so often, the future as fluid. No one can truly predict the future. The dream had to be a figment of her imagination, and random arrangement of images and memories her brain brought up to organize itself. Dreams were random energy, nothing more.
Then why had it felt so real? It had felt as real as the water pouring down her body, the cleaning solution she was running through her fingers, and the steam all around her. The pain she'd felt was real. The emotions she'd felt were real—the despair, the uncertainty and confusion!
The love.
"What love?" she said aloud. There was no love for…him. Or was there? They were supposed to be friends. Then why had she been so upset when he doubted her abilities? With anyone else, she would have just brushed it off. But…with Obi-Wan…
She tried to the think back to the time when they had been friends. That private conversation that signified them as best friends, and not lovers. As she scanned her memories, she found only that same wall. She grew frustrated, but didn't hit with the force. Rather, she nudged it in select places, trying to weaken the structure of the inhibiter.
It crumbled like the walls of Jericho.
She glimpsed the conversation, the ideal of their friendship before her death. She saw those twenty years of silence, the ignorance of each other. How that had hurt them both. She saw that mission where they had rejoined forces, and became best friends, not lovers. Lovers just got in the way, didn't it? There was not room for love in the Jedi Order.
As soon as she had seen the memory, her world peeled back, and everything became black.
Siri awoke in a nice, large bed, dazed and confused. She gave a yawn, and stretched. What had happened?
It all came rushing back to her. Everything. Everything from the dream, to the shower, to the recollection of the memories she'd lost. She and Obi-Wan had been friends. There was a time when they were just friends. Nothing more, nothing less.
Was that was she wanted?
The more Siri thought about it, the more confusing it became for her to understand the way she felt about Obi-Wan. Before, she'd always had memories of her in Obi-Wan's strong arms, or when he was bent over her broken body, weeping, his tears falling in her mouth. Oh, Obi-Wan…
Now that she had those few memories back, she felt even more confused. What were they, really, friends, or lovers?
They had decided to be friends on the same mission where she died, but they were lovers when they parted. What did that make them?
No use trying to figure it out on her own. This concerned Obi-Wan too, so she'd have to speak with him about it. She started getting up, but she soon realized that she was rather naked. Not even her inner tunic. "Jeese, where am I?" she thought. She hadn't even thought of how she got there. She only remembered she'd passed out in the shower, after breaking that wall…
She found a robe hanging on the wall, and slipped it on, and walked out into the corridor. The shelter they'd fixed up had been small, but it was roomy enough for all seven of them. Deila was on her way to the living room, when she saw Siri exit from the room. "Oh, good morning sunshine," she said, and smiled.
"Uh, good morning," said Siri, still a little disoriented. "Do you know what…"
"Roenni was on her way to shower for the morning; she gets up really early, see. She's always done things like that. Early to bed, early to rise, even when she was little and down here with the Young. Well, she hears the shower, and she knocks. When she doesn't hear anything, she opened the door; you hadn't locked it."
"Oh, oops."
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't, because she saw you in the shower, plopped right on the ground. Well, she got me, and we put you in that room right there. We save it for emergencies."
"Ah. Why was I, er, naked?" asked Siri, just a little on edge. Deila laughed. "Because for some reason, you put some really sweaty clothes in the dryer, but didn't turn it on, so…you must not have been thinking straight, huh?"
"Uh, no, I guess I wasn't."
They soon started preparing for their operation. The plan went like this: they would infiltrate the capital building, the clones providing an appropriate distraction for them to get inside. From there, they would work their way up to the Prime Deputy's office, which was heavily guarded and would be very hard to get to.
There, Siri would use a very uncommon method for a Jedi: intimidation. The Council would kill her if they found out what was going to take place, but it had to be done. Once they got the information out of him, they would stun him, throw him in a closet, and go public with the evidence.
What exactly was the evidence? If one looked at it logically, then the evidence was that the Prime Deputy was on the payroll of the Confederacy. That would get the public hyped up.
The suited up in dark clothing, except for the clones. They were dressed in blast-proof brown armor. They'd have the most dangerous job. Hopefully, the enemy would just take them as common terrorists. But then, there wasn't really anything common about terror. The Confederacy should definitely know that…