Star Wars 2.0

Episode 5: Rise of the Clones

Chapter 8

For the first time in months, the Republic was on the offensive. Their forces had barely been able to hold out on the defense, so going after the droids in a counter-attack was out of the question. But since the droids had made a series of strategic blunders, they had weakened themselves enough that the Republic was able to make a move to retake some of their lost ground.

Obi-Wan was leading the landing on Garvin. It was primarily an agricultural world, so the droids had not taken any cities. There were inhabitants, however, that had not been heard of ever since the occupation began. It was not unusual for the Neimoidians or some other race within the Separatist Alliance to come in and regulate the public; forcing them to continue working as they had, but the labors of their work would be divided up by the Separatists. This being a planet whose primary export was food, there wasn't much chance of the military taking it to feed their soldiers since they were droids. So the civilians might have been spared too many of the hardships that came with being occupied.

The Republic forces had landed near a series of farms. The soldiers formed a perimeter around the ships, and Obi-Wan led a platoon toward one of the houses. Though they expected the droid army to be gone, they kept their weapons drawn and ready. There might have been some left behind.

Obi-Wan was beginning to get nervous. They had not detected life signs nearby. This alone was not too big of a deal; life sign detectors were notoriously unreliable. But typically, civilians would come out to greet the liberators; at least some of them would anyway. But there were no signs of life as they approached the homestead; no distant voices or movement, no radio or holovision. Even the animals were quiet. Something was wrong.

Obi-Wan began using hand signals to direct his platoon. He led them into the tall grass where they could crouch out of sight as they headed toward the front door of one of the farmhouses. The last fifty yards or so were clear, so he left a pair with DC-15s to cover them while the rest approached the house.

Obi-Wan knocked, but no one answered. He opened the unlocked door and the team searched the home. Nothing. He spotted a barn-like structure in the back, so he approached it. The building had a few windows along the sides, so he peered through them from a distance. It was difficult to see inside, but he spotted a couple figures. With one of them he could clearly make out the head. "Hello in there!" he called. "I'm here to help. If anyone is inside, please let me know." No response. The silhouettes didn't move. Obi-Wan lit his lightsaber.

He approached the double doors at the front. He slid one of them open with one hand while clutching his weapon in the other, and the wide, main room was revealed to him.

The family was inside. Dismembered. Their body parts were placed on sticks that were shaped like elongated bodies. It was purposely done to look comical in a sick joke. It was enough to even make the disciplined heart of a Jedi boil.

He stepped inside and began to investigate. He used the light of the saber to illuminate what he needed to see. He found footprints of the perpetrators. Droids, just as he had expected. One of the pair was larger than the others. General Graves, just as he had suspected.

Then all hell broke loose outside. Blaster fire filled the air. He got to the doorway just in time to see half the house explode, the bodies of soldiers flying along with the debris. Obi-Wan readied his saber and began toward the tall grass from which the droids were shooting, but more appeared along both his flanks. He backed up into the barn, deflecting the shots that came at him. He began toward one of the groups. Then he felt a sharp pain in his back, and all went black.

A soft, steady clomping and the restless motion of a shadow around the room awoke Padme from her sleep. She saw the shadow of Anakin pacing around the room. She could hardly see his face, but his body language screamed that something was disturbing him. "What is it?" she asked.

"Something's not right," he said.

"I know. The speech went all wrong."

"What? No, not the speech." Anakin was more annoyed by her now, like she was a child disturbing his work. "There's a disturbance. I can't put my finger on it." He checked the window again and saw nothing particularly unusual. But looking skyward, he could swear he spotted a few faint stars that hadn't been there before. Those were sometimes ships in orbit. He tried to stretch out his mind, to see what might be out there; but sensing at long distances was never his forte.

"What do you see?" Padme asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"Nothing with you breaking my concentration," he snapped.

"Well I'm sorry to break the concentration that's clearly serving you so well," she retorted.

Anakin stopped trying to see what was far away and looked around at what his eyes could see and his ears could hear in the streets below. He shifted a couple times, trying to take in as much as he could.

"You have your own room, Jedi. Why don't you..."

"Shhh!" Anakin hissed, this time with enough urgency to cause Padme to sit up in bed. Anakin stuck his ear out the window and let it do the searching. It was the sound of an army on the march. The clunking on the plastement streets was metal. Hundreds, if not thousands, of metal feet. "The droids are here," he said.

The battle droid column marched steadily down the road, their lines tight, their steps in perfect synchronicity. Droidekas rolled along one side in pairs. Commander droids marched down the other. A tactical droid, TX-38, marched among them with a handful of aristocratic humans. These people had figured out quickly that the droids were more interested in capturing the Republic representatives than they were in conquering their world, so they had immediately surrendered and offered to take the invaders to the visiting delegation members. The T-38 let them think that this would spare their lives.

The aristocrats pointed out the buildings where the Republic members were staying, and the droids moved in. Amidala's escorts were quickly rounded up. Those who resisted were thrown out windows. The rest were lined up and shot. When they got to the queen's room, however, it was empty.

Anakin leaped from rooftop to rooftop, Padme on his back. "You almost missed that one," she scolded when his foot slipped on the edge.

"This is a bit easier when I don't have a couple hundred pounds on my back," he responded.

"Couple... I'm no more than 120 pounds soaking wet!" she said, offended.

"My mistake. You just feel that way with all the bull..."

"That'll be enough. Concentrate," she said, then nearly let out a scream as they made a longer jump than usual.

They were heading toward the space port. If they could get into the ship, Anakin was confident enough with his piloting abilities that he believed he could get past the blockade. They wouldn't need to wait up for any of the delegation. They could see what was happening to them as they flew over the streets and alleyways. Everywhere they went, the droids were searching. It was only a matter of time before they looked up.

At last the pair came close to the space port. The tall buildings dwindled off closer by, so they would have to maneuver through the last few blocks on foot. But they could see that there would be no point. The space port was covered with droid vessels, and where their ship had been a plume of smoke and flame steadily arose.

Owen's ship sat snugly under an overhang on a large asteroid. The stony roof overhead was less to avoid being seen, and more to avoid smaller asteroids pelting into them; though the former was on his mind as well. They were hiding out in the Snoyer System, an entire orbital body with no formed planets and covered in asteroids. No one would find them here.

Owen needed the time to sober up, and to look over star charts to determine where they could go. Though Tempus Legion was not part of the Republic or the Separatists, both were willing to uphold extradition treaties and send them back. His actions had just cost Owen most of the galaxy.

But as he glanced over at the woman who had opened up the side panel in this cockpit and was looking through the wiring to see how it could be improved, he knew he had done the right thing. Sure, she was avoiding being close to him and she had taken a nap in a room with a locked door between them, but he knew in the long run, it would work out.

Going back to the star charts, he narrowed in on some areas to which he might be able to flee. Life would never be the same, but it wasn't exactly a life he would miss.

"You say you don't have a name for this hunk of metal?" Baroo said.

"No," Owen said, his eyes remaining on the star charts.

"How about Lightning Mouse? You shoot lightning, then you come hide in a hole like a mouse."

Owen looked over at her, "Would you rather be out there taking on their whole fleet?"

"Okay, you're offended by that one."

"I'm not offended, I..."

"How about the Bondage Crusader? Or... Let's see, the Outa My Way! I Can't Slow Down!"

Owen smiled and turned back to the monitor. "Keep trying." The neighboring monitor had the news. With the recent wars, the shifting climate could really affect his choice on where to go. Then one piece of news grabbed Owen's attention.

Brodax had been attacked by Separatist droids. That was the world on which Owen had spotted Anakin. The report claimed that there had been little damage before the government surrendered, but it had been a new tactic of the Separatists. They had previously sought for governments to join them in their war against the Republic. Now they merely conquered them. And they had landed in massive numbers; large enough that the Tempus Legion had put up little resistance.

"I know where we're going," Owen said.

Baroo leaned over the neighboring chair at the planet he had on the screen. "Where?" she asked, assuming he would replace the image with their actual destination. "You're giving me back?" Owen shook his head. He was too worked up with anger and fear to respond. "What, did the price on my head go up enough? Was this all so you could just sell me back at a profit?"

Owen shook out of his concentration and faced Baroo. "No! No! It's... It's my brother. He's on that planet." Owen scrolled back through the news stories and showed Queen Amidala arriving on the planet. "There," Owen said. "That's him. He's her bodyguard."

"What are they doing there?"

"Looks to me like she was trying to get the Tempus Legion to join the Republic."

"They want slavers to be part of the Republic?"

"Apparently they're desperate for allies."

"And you want to go back to not only where there are killer robots, but the people they're killing want to kill you also, and send me back into bondage."

Owen sighed. "I know it's a tall order..."

"Oh, I'd say," Baroo said. They were both silent for a time. Then Baroo sat down next to him and strapped herself in. "Well, you can't just leave me off here, so let's get to it."

To be continued...