Fallout
Chapter 20
Things got ugly once they hit the ground.
Anakin charged full-tilt at the swelling ocean of battle droids pouring into the ruined capitol's interior, like lines of harvester beetles spilling into the soft innards of a split gourd. The shattered protective dome curved above them as they clanked and shuffled forward, mindless and soulless, filling the dust-laden streets and overflowing into the empty buildings. Like a slow flood set to drive womp-rats from their underground burrows, the mechanical invasion oozed through the dead thoroughfares, piling inevitably up the ceremonial stairwell leading to the government building's blasted façade.
His heart hammered in protest. So many… why? Dooku must know , since he knew enough to come to this far-flung and forgotten planet in the first place, that there was no Republic military presence here. Why send hundreds upon hundreds to retrieve one or two? The excess of it, the overpowering show of force and sheer numbers, was a spark set to still-hot embers hidden in his memory. They flickered, caught fire, leapt back to burning and painful memory. Geonosis. A thousand battle droids, pouring into the arena, an ocean of death. The moment when he felt himself, and Padme, and Obi Wan – his most beloved family, his wife and his brother – surrounded by death, by hatred, by empty, crushing despair. He had wondered then, in blank incomprehension, why so many?
Then, it had been a trap. Now, it was nothing but cruel spite. The droids had been sent to slaughter whatever or whomever they found – he was sure of it. They had been sent in such vast numbers to break the spirit of the Jedi who had so foolishly crawled into the trap, like blind beasts rooting in the earth, following the lure of some delicacy, some bait set to draw them in and corner them, lay them bare and vulnerable to the hunters…
His breath rasped, and his headlong charge carried him to the last ranks of droids. He had outstripped his troops, running ahead. The gunships tore overhead, blistering the close-packed ranks of machines with plasma fire, gouging out wide gashes in their legions, hot furrows of slagged metal and stinking dust. The droids' uniform march disintegrated into a chaotic melee; soon he was a blinding sphere of wrath hurtling through their lines like an angry comet, a cold and contracted ball of hatred with a long pennant of destruction flying in its wake.
It was a trap! Dooku had set this trap somehow! He had…somehow… made this happen, sent some Dark Side message to Obi Wan, brought them here to kill them, like he had almost done on Geonosis, like he had promised to do should they meet again. And Sen Sen Xerxes…. that old, conniving, twisted barve. He must be in league with Dooku… this was all a horrific manipulation, a web of lies and deceit and trickery.
And Yoda had sensed it. And he, Anakin, whom Yoda had expressly commissioned to stay close to Obi Wan, to protect his master, had failed! Once again. It was happening again. He was too late, he wasn't there, he had come back too late, the trap was sprung and his mother Obi Wan Geonosis Tatooine his arm Dooku the Tuskens hate hate hate – it was all around him, walls of fire, rivers of fire, dark voices chanting – screaming- in the fire, in his blood.
He could hear the voices – the ghosts of Rhellis Massa chorused with the whispers of the dark, nourished them, fed them and fanned the flames. They were another army, another pale and invisible swell of power, gathering around Anakin as star-dust gathers about the nova's center, as emptiness swells and coils about the imploded heart of a black hole. The droids were Dooku's, and these voices - this lingering, unfulfilled, terror-blind, hate-sodden choir of vengeance, sweet obliterating annihilation- this was Anakin's. His. The Chosen One's.
The rising chorus was a siren call; it called the droids to him. Dimly he registered his men calling to him, to slow down, to wait for them, but he could not wait. There was no waiting. His foes were drawn in, summoned to their judgement. He was implacable, merciless; though soulless, lifeless, he condemned every one of them to the Hells, marking their hollow corpses with the burning line of his saber, the damning signet of his displeasure. They fell, they piled about his feet, they bowed down into nothingness as he surged onward, toward the steps to the capitol building.
There- at the summit – fighting for all he was worth, a tiny candle flame of Light amid the crushing avalanche of killers, stood Obi Wan. Anakin could hear the other Jedi's saber sing out, high and frantic, and his own blade seemed to answer. And fear blossomed anew, because there was still so much distance between them, because he was too late, because he was going to fail.
His saber shore through a droid, impaled another, beheaded a third, carved the next into six pieces, bisected its partner's head to mechanical crotch, blurred into a raging howl of denial as he spun it about himself, the battle-cry of his own invisible allies. The hatred of Rhellis Massa, the ethereal dust of rage floating in the Force around the ruined world, obeyed the summons. He took it all in, all of it, channeling it, containing it, banking its fires behind his eyes, beneath his breath, within his veins, until he felt he was dying, torn apart by it.
He drove forward. A vulture careened overhead, streaking toward Obi Wan, toward the lone besieged figure defending the arched entryway, holding back the flood of destruction. It swooped over the battlefield, hollow eyes leering with bloodless thirst, with empty, unfeeling lust. Anakin grasped at it, not with his hands, but with Darkness. The hurtling fighter droid seemed to hit a wall in midair, a net of malice. Anakin dragged it out of the sky, flung it down in to the bitter earth with the power of his will, with a snare of shadow and terror. The impact left a crater, flung droids sky-high, shook the ground beneath his feet.
He ran, toward Obi Wan, away from the rising panic inside himself, across the ruinous landscape, closer, closer, closer.. killing crushing carving spearing slicing destroying everything, his heart weeping screaming shouting howling with pleasure, with wild painful enjoyment, terror and longing and -
It's ark, its Dark…help. Help. I'm not supposed to do this…I can't… it's wrong, not again, no no no…
"Anakin!"
It was Obi Wan's voice which saved him. Like a slap of ice-water, like a bitter wind that extinguishes a fire, that voice quenched the Dark's hungry clamor.
"Master!"
He looked with new eyes, vision no longer smeared red with a sand-storm of vengeance. He was at the summit of the stairs. He had made it. He wasn't too late. Obi Wan was next to him, hidden behind the clone armor, but shining even brighter than ever, white tongues rippling invisibly about him in the Force, waves of channeled Light. Anakin closed his eyes, basked dizzily in the radiance for a half-second, then raised his blade to ward off the next salvo of blaster shots.
They fought, desperate. Above them, the cracking arches of the capitol building's entry crumbled, fluttered down in rivulets of white dust as deflected fire slammed into roof and walls, shattered statuary, broken tile. Two sabers blurred and howled a defiant song, tone and overtone, twin lines of sapphire dancing in the midst of oncoming death.
"What took you so long?" Obi Wan demanded, grunting as he batted away four rapid-fire shots and then plunged his saber through a stalking hunter-killer's glowing eye.
Anakin leapt to stand back-to-back with him, Force pushing an SBD into the roof, ducking to sever its companion in two. "Waiting for reinforcements!" he explained breathlessly.
Obi Wan's voice actually cracked a trifle as he shouted in disbelief. "What reinforcements?"
Another wave of droids pounded up the stairs, pushing them back inside the foyer. The acid waterfall spattered behind them. Droid parts sailed through the air, hit the trickling column, sprayed hot droplets like blood. "They're coming!" Anakin snarled, wondering what was taking them so long. "Patience!"
They spun, retreated again, changed positions. Now Obi Wan had Anakin's back. Foes fell around them like drifting autumnal leaves. New ones kept piling through the doors, from three directions at once. The air stank of acid and plasma, rang with the saber's strident voices, the burbling malice of the droids.
"Anakin-" Obi Wan carved through a droid. "Leading your troops-" He Force pushed three away – "Implies being near them!" He leapt over the next attacker, buried his saber in its head, backflipped off the carcass as it collapsed in the pool of corrosive rainwater. Bitter liquid sloshed over their boots.
"They're coming!" the young Jedi shouted hoarsely. He lifted the wrecked droid with the Force and sent it hurtling into the next wave of attackers. His blade flashed to the left, catching a bolt destined to hit his friend's exposed side. "Obi Wan! Focus!"
There were hundreds of droids, more squeezing in every second. Where were the clones? How thick could it be out there?
"Back into the bunker system," Obi Wan commanded, slicing two droids with one sweeping strike. He caught four more shots, beheaded a new attacker, kicked its body into the next one with a high roundhouse kick.
But their means of retreat was blocked. In fact, they stood on the rim of the acid puddle, surrounded on all sides. There was a momentary cease-fire. Countless ranks of enemies closed in, blasters and cannon leveled at their targets, waiting. The two sabers hummed ominously. The rain trickled over the dome's broken lip and spattered musically on the tile behind them. They could hear each other's breathing over the helmet comm. system. In, out, in, out.
"!"
"Take this, clankers!"
Oafer and Gripes burst into the droid rearguard, and a handful of blinking spheres sailed majestically through the air, their graceful arcs seemingly suspended in time. There was a horrible moment when the clones realized that their Generals were neatly pinned inside the crushing assembly of droids, that it was too late to stop the grenades from falling, detonating, taking out everything in the room…
The two Jedi, on purest instinct, in perfect unison, threw up their free hands. The Force blazed with Light, and the space blazed with terrible fire, crushing waves of heat and power. Metal, circuits, weaponry, sparks and burning slag pummeled the walls, the roof, the floor, the bodies of the two Jedi slammed mercilessly into the shallow pool behind. Their combined Force shield saved them from destruction , but not the rainfall of sharp pieces and hot shards, nor the bite of the acid.
Breath knocked clean out by the shockwave and the impact of Obi Wan's elbow in his midriff, Anakin fumbled onto hands and knees, seized his companion's arm, dragged him upwards. A grotesque bramble of charred droid bits hemmed them in. Coughing, gasping, limping, they shoved through it. The thud of four pair booted feet joined them, and new pairs of hands hoisted and pushed at their limbs, at the obstacle course.
"…The bunker…" Obi Wan choked out. "Inside. Defend it."
Outside, battle raged on, Soon its tides would wash over this chamber again. They stumbled and ran their way through deep passages, sub-basements, cellars, to the radiation lock.
"Get in. Go," Anakin ordered his squad. They obeyed without question, still wordless with awe and mortification. The inner and outer hatches were ruined; more evidence of battle was strewn on the floor. Ahead lay the shimmering decontam field. The clones slid through first, then the Jedi.
On the other side, Obi Wan ripped off his helmet, his unruly hair comically imitating the flash of vexation in his eyes. "For Force's sake, Anakin!"
He yanked off his own head covering, met the accusation head on. "It's not my fault!"
Obi Wan's piercing gaze flickered over the younger man's shoulder, to where the clones stood cringing against the corridor's far wall. Oafer stepped forward, removing his own helmet and saluting, his olive skin pallid with fear. "Ah…. General Kenobi, sir," he ground out, swallowing hard. "I take full responsibility for our recent action. I gave the order to use grenades." His amber-colored eyes managed to make brief contact with the Jedi's before riveting themselves on the opposite wall.
Anakin opened his mouth to defend his men's actions, but Obi Wan's annoyance had already melted like steam curling in the warm, scented air. Humor edged his words with knife-like clarity. "In the future, " he recommended, dryly, "You will toss grenades at enemies."
Oafer blinked, and swallowed again. "Sir yes sir," the foursome intoned.
"But good timing," Anakin added, grinning.
"Yes," Obi Wan drawled sarcastically. "Your rescue tactics are more than worthy of General Skywalker."
The rookie clones glowed with pleasure. Anakin scowled. "You're welcome," he muttered to his friend's back.