Fallout
Chapter 21
The Friends were milling about the floor of the garden cave, confused and fearful. Dim light filtered from the banks of hovering glow-globes, playing gently on the insectoid people's waving antennae and the long, dour faces of the Pau. Children clutched at their caretakers' skirts, chittering or whining softly. Sen Sen Xerxes hurried forward to greet the Jedi and their contingent of clones when they emerged from the tunnel system into the wide domed space.
"There is a droid invasion force on the surface," Obi Wan informed him in a low voice. "Republic troops are engaging them as we speak, but there is a good chance the front entrance will be overrun. I think we must collapse the tunnel if they penetrate as far as the radiation lock."
The Thisspiasian nodded gravely. "Then our only means of escape will be this chamber – and once the roof is compromised, there is no going back."
"We will delay that event as long as possible," he assured the ancient Jedi.
Sen Sen Xerxes nodded, again, then unexpectedly lurched forward, grasping at Obi Wan's arm for support as his weight sagged.
"Master Xerxes?"
The ancient one released a pained breath of laughter. "There is another event which cannot be much longer delayed, I fear," he muttered, one broad hand massaging his chest, where the crisp layers of golden cloth crossed over his heart. "Ah… this mortal shell is at the limits of its long endurance. Your arrival releases me from my duties."
Anakin's hand gripped insistently at Obi Wan's free shoulder. "Just a moment," he growled. "You," he addressed the ailing Thisspiasian. "You led us into this."
Sen Sen Xerxes straightened, gently extricated himself from Obi Wan's hands. He trained his dark eyes upon the furious young Jedi. "Master Skywalker," he replied. "Your anger is not welcome here among the Friends."
Anakin's brows gathered into a thundercloud of warning. "You lure us here with…with your message… and then you call down Dooku on our heads. Don't think I can't see through a trap!"
Obi Wan shot out a hand, closing his fingers around Anakins' right wrist before his hand could stray toward his 'saber hilt. Anakin wrenched himself free, resentment flaring like sudden lightning on the Force's horizon.
"Anakin!"
"No, let him speak," the ancient Jedi declared. "You accuse me of treachery, Skywalker. Why? What reason have you to level such dire accusations against another member of our Order? Have you no respect or trust in our sacred oaths?"
Frustrated, teetering on the brink of rage, Anakin whirled to face his mentor. "Master! Don't tell me you don't see what a load of bantha poodoo he's been feeding us! I can feel how uneasy you are about this whole thing. You don't understand how he was able to speak to you through the Force – do you? You know why? Because it's a Sith trap, master. You shouldn't have listened, you shouldn't have come!"
Obi Wan stepped back, reflexively, heart hammering once before he reasserted control. Sen Sen Xerxes said nothing, only watched them, sadness billowing off him in soft, ethereal waves. The Force churned darkly around Anakin, shadowy fingers of accusation pointing at the Thisspiasian, at Obi Wan, at the Friends. Was it a trap? It was true that he did not understand at all how the message had been delivered, nor why he had been chosen to receive it. They were indeed in great peril here, hedged in and caught neatly in a snare. There was no explanation for Dooku's prescience of their arrival. There was no explanation for any of this…. but his heart told him that treachery was not at its root.
"Anakin," he forced himself to say, voice flat and emotionless. "You are mistaken. You must trust Master Xerxes."
"Why?" his former Padawan ground out, a corner of his mouth lifting to reveal clenched teeth. Perspiration trickled along a throbbing vein in his temple, rolled slowly along the still-bright scar over his right eye. It was oppressive under the dome, and the thick layers of armor did not help.
"Because I trust him."
That was no answer at all, so far as Anakin was concerned. His mouth thinned into an all-too-familiar line. "Why?" he demanded again, thrusting against Obi Wan's mental shields with savage force.
He flinched, gritting his own teeth against the invasion. How dare Anakin attempt to breach his privacy?
"Give me one good reason!" Anakin insisted, snarling. He bore down harder.
Because you trust me, the voice – that singular, familiar, beloved voice answered from within the Force's hidden depths.
He slammed his armor back in pace, threw Anakin off with sufficient lack of restraint to send the young Knight reeling backward a pace, hissing under his breath. "Mind your thoughts!" Obi Wan snarled in his turn, addressing himself and Anakin at once, one no more than the other. Control.
Master Xerxes slumped again, and Obi Wan moved to catch the failing Jedi beneath the arms, to lower him gently to the floor. The powerful tail writhed, coiled tightly and then lay limp, scales brushing roughly against the floor. Friends came running, in twos and threes, until a wide circle of whispering concern cradled the scene. He knelt beside the dying Jedi. "Anakin," he ordered, not making eye contact. "The entrance."
Sen Sen Xerxes groaned deeply in pain, his luminous spirit ripping free of its moorings, tearing loose from blood and tissue, bone and breath. Long, gnarled fingers twitched, gripped at his elbows, bruising in their last strength. Anakin's glare burned a hole between his shoulder blades, but there was no time for this. He felt the young Jedi leave, taking the clones with him. He felt the Friends draw closer, terrified, sorrowful. He felt the Thisspiasian shuddering between life and death, lungs stuttering unevenly as Light wrenched its slow way into liberty, into the Force, abandoning its mortal dwelling place.
The end was near.
Anakin stormed back toward the radiation lock. Pyro, Vetch, Gripes, Oafer followed behind, their white armor gleaming dully beneath the orange light globes. The clones said nothing, only followed their young General with determined strides, all the way back to the narrow entry point.
The clatter of droids descending through the capitol building's bowels echoed down to them, a skittering and shrill sound, dull clanking and the squeal of metal on metal.
"They're comin'," Gripes remarked, clipping a new charge pack into his blaster. "Five against five hundred. What'dye reckon about those odds, eh, General?"
Anakin snorted. "They're outnumbered." The tumult drew nearer.
"Should we set the explosives?" Oafer asked, fiddling with the contents of his pack. "I got plenty to spare – could take down this whole passage an' a lot of what's on top, too."
"Yeah," Vetch grumbled. "Only how're we getting' out again?"
There was an awkward silence. Anakin glared over his shoulder. "We'll improvise," he told them. "Set the charges. But don't blow the passage till I give the order."
The clones set to with enthusiasm, packing the high density chemical explosives into crevices and keypoints in the structure. They worked with the academic precision of men who have practiced a skill in the sterile confines of a training center until it is second nature to them, with the eager giddiness of children experimenting with a dangerous new toy. The droids grew ever closer; the Force tautened, warped; Anakin's 'saber thrummed into life, burning hotly in his hand, impatient, eager for the clash.
He swept it in a wide circle, waited. The droids crushed into the radiation lock, relentless, maniacally calm. The foremost fired shots at him, and he rebounded the projectiles into the mass of legs and arms and armored bodies. A few fell; others trampled them in their eagerness to reach the prey.
"Retreat," he growled. The word tasted like the sting of Watto's lash on his back… like the embers of a dead fire… like the stink of disinfectant chemicals in the air when he woke in a medbay after Geonosis. But he spat the syllables out anyhow, and edged his way backward, deflecting fire in a blinding dance while the clones pumped the oncoming ranks of droids full of plasma bolts. They reached the edge of the decomtam field. The troops pushed through first, backing slowly into the safety beyond. Anankin remained, holding off the murderous swell of machines until the last possible moment, until they were practically on top of him and the sweep of his blade threatened to dismember their leaders.
He shouted as he shoved the entire throng backward, the Force pouring through him without mercy, ripping the cry of effort and pain from his throat. Droids slammed into those behind, tumbled into their brethren. Gasping, he backflipped through the decontam field, springing powerfully through the air. The rapidity of the motion was a mistake; the energy barrier snapped and raked harsh lightning over his body, lancing through his clothing, slamming into the energy-dispersal bodysuit like a maelstrom of invisible fists.
He landed on the opposite side, tunics smoking, prosthetic arm crackling with randomized electrical charges.
The droids hit the barrier, began to push through.
He waved an arm at his squad. "Back! Back!" They scrambled into the wider passage.
Oafer's thumb hovered over the detonator. "Ready and waitin', General."
The first droid made it through the decontam field intact. Anakin batted blaster bolts back into it. The head flew off and bounced in the floor. A limitless crowd of others stomped and pounded behind it, filing the hallway, the chamber behind it, the radiation lock, the cellars and passages beneath the ruined buildings above.
"Now!"
First there was the flash of light, and a moment later the deafening roar. The warm perfumed air transformed to choking dust, to shuddering waves of heat. The floor buckled beneath them. Destruction rained down.
They ran, pushing further into the bunker, pelting down corridors and tunnels for the newer construction, the deeper places. Like a slow dirge, repercussions sounded out in steady rhythm – new explosions, more collapsing ceilings, imploding walls. they were pursued by crushing oblivion.
"We mighta overdone it!" Vetch panted, sprinting flat out behind his brothers as they ran to escape the inevitable, as they fled before the avalanche of stone and girders and falling support structures.
"Keep moving!" They dove through a broad, reinforced arch, a threshold between the original bunker and the later excavation, skidded down a final stretch of passageway, and arrived breathless in the central domed chamber, where the Friends' garden rose in graceful tiers almost to the distant roof.
Obi Wan still crouched amidst the small crowd, Sen Sen Xerxes lying supine beside him. Anakin thrust his way through the press of bodies, Pau and Ichth'chtxl alike, until he too stood in the center of the gathering. The Thisspiasian's eyes were closed, his breath rising and falling slowly. The Force swelled about him, with an unfamiliar vibrancy. His light did not seem to fade, but merely to diffuse into the whole cavern, a spirit beginning to unravel into striating ribbons, glittering ethereal banners.
"Master."
Obi Wan's eyes met his, guardedly.
"We're sealed in," Anakin muttered. "The entry tunnel collapsed, maybe a good deal of the basement beyond. We'll need another way out."
They stood, a pair of eager Pau and a hoary Ichth'chtxl hurrying forward to tend to the fading Jedi master. The crowd shifted, parted around them and re-formed its protective circle as Anakin drew his friend apart, toward the base of the garden's terraced pyramid.
"The only way out is up," Obi Wan said grimly, beginning to ascend the spiraling garden footpath. "Master Xerxes said that the cave roof here is a weak spot. We might be able to evacuate the Friends through the roof while the droids are occupied with our clone forces in the capitol. This should issue out beyond the city boundaries."
They gazed up at the hard curve of the cave roof, spangled with dull stalactites, fretted with dark veins of stone. "We have enough gunships to manage it," Anakin mused. "Don't think the Seps can get their droids loaded back up as fast as we can. And the cruiser's in atmosphere; it would be a close thing but I think we can make it to the hangar bay before their fighters can catch us. But, master… the sooner the better. The distraction won't last long."
Obi Wan stroked his beard, frowning. "I don't think we can move Master Xerxes right now," he admitted. "He's … not well."
"He's dying."
The older Jedi didn't flinch. "Yes. His time has come. He sent for us – for me – because he knew that day was fast approaching. You must not blame him for Dooku's treachery, Anakin."
"Then who do I blame?" Anakin demanded. Because somebody was behind this. It was always somebody's fault.
The older man's eyes hardened. "Does it truly matter? We must simply do what must be done. The why and wherefore can be sorted out later."
Anakin shook his head. It was humid, dizzying at the top of the cave. He reverted to a more practical problem. "Fine. Can you bring down this roof?"
"Without killing all of us? I don't think so." Obi Wan scowled up at the rock above them, as though seeking answers written in the delicate veining.
"Yeah, neither could I. Maybe… together?"
They looked at each other, hope kindling and then fading just as quickly. It was far, far too risky. They might easily crush the people they had come to save.
Obi Wan's mouth twisted wryly. "Well, I suppose we ought to be grateful for small mercies. At least our problem is the solidity of this cave roof, and not its imminent-"
"Don't say it!" Anakin jested, but too late.
"-collapse."
The thunderous reverbration of a heavy long range cannon shook the very foundations of the cavern. Dust wafted down, and an ominous crack appeared amid the smooth surface of the cave ceiling. The Force lanced with white-hot warning; the thousands of tons of stone overhead creaked and groaned; the Friends looked up in utter horror at the slow cataclysm unfolding above them; and the Jedi leapt headlong for safety as the first massive chunk of rock plummeted downward in slow and graceful majesty, crushing the topmost level of the garden to a ruinous pulp.
A shaft of light pierced through the gloom, a spear impaling the sanctuary's heart; and with it came a smothering cascade of dust, poison, and noise – the fanfare of brash and blaring death.