Precipice by shadowsong26
Part 4: Commander
Commander: Chapter 7
The buzz droids, fortunately, hadn't done nearly as much damage as Rex had feared. Artoo had just finished running a full diagnostic and, according to the readout, not only did they have on hand everything they'd need-or, at least, a reasonable substitute-for a patch job that would hold them 'til a safer port and proper repairs, the three of them could get the work done and be underway in six to eight hours. Give or take.
"You're sure about this?" he asked. It seemed too damn good to be true. But he needed the win; the General probably did, too.
The little droid beeped at him, smugly, which he took for a yes.
"Excellent," he said. At least that part of things was going right.
He tried not to think too much about how things might be going down the mountain. There wasn't a damned thing he could do about it from here. And if he'd followed, he'd've been a liability, in the way-potentially even a hostage, like that time with Asajj Ventress. There were some things, Rex knew, that were just out of his league. And a Sith Lord was one of them.
At least if I'm by myself.
Which was not a thought he wanted to have, especially not this week.
He cleared his throat, shaking it off as best he could. "I'll, uh, I'll update General Kenobi and Commander Tano, then get started." The fiddly detail work he'd leave to General Skywalker, of course, but there was plenty he could do in the meantime.
Artoo beeped at him again, then trundled off to start on his own set of repairs, as Rex settled himself at the long-range comm station.
Reaching out to General Kenobi was no trouble at all-they had long since put together a limited number of code phrases for communication of rapid changes to plan like this; delays to making a set meeting were one of the situations they'd covered. Rex added a couple layers of more standard encryption-couldn't be too careful-and had it sent off within a few seconds.
Simple enough, although it was a little disconcerting that General Kenobi hadn't responded to any of the messages Rex and General Skywalker had sent since meeting up with the Commander. True, he had almost certainly just gone dark for his mission, but-
Well, Rex had spent far too much time around Jedi to believe in coincidence.
But he couldn't do anything about that, either. And if he was going to function the way General Skywalker needed him to, he had to put it out of his mind; focus on the tasks he actually could accomplish.
Like contacting the Commander, though that was considerably more complicated. They hadn't had time yet to develop a reference system with her, or even read her in on the basics of the one they already had. And he didn't know what encryptions she used, so he couldn't rely on that and hope no one was listening and able to decrypt the content while it was still relevant.
For the first message, Rex had settled on the same system the Generals used to identify their rendezvous points-referenced a similar event from their shared past, betting on the Commander remembering what they'd said about Cinna and piecing the rest together.
Safe bet, that; she was wicked smart. The real concern was that she simply wouldn't remember the mission in question.
He was trying to come up with a similar translation for the update when the console vibrated; incoming transmission, long-range.
Commander Tano, at least, was in a position to return his message.
And, yeah, it was probably a risk to accept the call, but he'd have an easier time explaining things this way. As long as he was careful, and kept it short, they'd probably be fine.
She seemed to have a similar notion; got right down to business as soon as the connection solidified.
"Rex," she said. "I got your message, and I think I'm reading it right? Is everything okay?"
"Not much I can say on an open line, sir," he hedged apologetically. "Suffice to say, we...ran into a little trouble, had to go to ground. But it looks like we'll be on our way in eight standard hours or so."
"Okay," she said, looking more than a little relieved. "Sorry, I know I probably shouldn't've risked calling, but I felt like I should...I don't know, check in."
Which-well, he didn't want to think about the alarm bells that raised, but there was a Sith Lord involved, and Commander Tano had been concerned enough, lightyears away with no context, to risk an open call.
And then-and then Rex's regular comm began beeping frantically at him.
No…
"Rex?" Commander Tano asked. "Rex, what's that-what's wrong?"
Discipline of a lifetime kept it off his face. "General Skywalker just activated his distress beacon."
And, on the one hand, that meant he was conscious at least long enough to do that. But on the other, if things were bad enough that he wasn't trying to drag himself back here on his own, then-
Judging by the look on her face, the same thought was probably going through the Commander's head.
"Where are you?" she asked-demanded, more like.
He didn't hesitate. "Sending you the coordinates now."
That was probably an incredibly stupid risk; the line wasn't secure and someone could well be listening in-but, then again, chances were good Darth Specter was being tracked, and if-when-he was missed, they'd have company coming anyway. And with-depending on how bad the General was injured, speeding up their extraction carried a hell of a lot more weight than keeping their presence here quiet. And Commander Tano's help would get them off this rock that much faster.
Plus, if more trouble did find them, Rex would need her help defending against it. Especially since the General-probably couldn't right now.
"Got it," she said. "I'll be there in two hours."
"Sir," he acknowledged, then her hologram dissipated as she ended the call.
Artoo had overheard some of that-or maybe just picked up the beacon himself. He'd come back to the cockpit, and crooned worriedly at Rex.
"Stay here," Rex said. "Keep-keep working on the ship. Whatever happened down there, sooner we get out of here, the better."
Artoo beeped again, which Rex decided meant "all right."
Time to go.
The beacon's signal was still coming through nice and clear, and hadn't moved. He gathered up the supplies he was likely to need-medkit, climbing gear, extra harness, portable heat source (the General hadn't been wrong about how cold it was out there)-and headed out, hoping like hell he wasn't too late.
After about a half-hour's descent, Rex found where the fight had started, on a crescent-shaped cutaway in the cliff. There were a pair of discarded cloaks, one on either end; and a series of gouges in the rock he recognized as coming from lightsabers.
No further sign of either the Sith or the Jedi.
But the beacon was still urging him along; all indicators were that he was close.
He made his way over to the edge of the cutaway and peered down, looking for the best route-
And there they were.
The Sith Lord was sprawled on a natural ledge about half a dozen meters down-Togruta; male, based on the shape and angle of his montrals; dead, based on the charred hole in his back.
Pinned under him was the General.
He wasn't moving.
At this-at this distance, Rex couldn't even tell if he was breathing.
He took a step back, squeezing his eyes shut and beating back the horror; the mental images of the blood-soaked Temple, the dead child in the Council room, his General tumbling backwards out the window.
Never again, he reminded himself, reaching up with a shaking hand to brush against the fading scar on his head. I am my own man.
It took-it took a few minutes for the moment to pass and his heartrate to mostly go back to normal.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself before looking down over the edge again.
He processed a little more detail this time-the General's left leg had been cut off; somewhere above the knee, he thought, but it was hard to tell exactly where, with Darth Specter's body in the way. Nevermind assessing for other injuries.
Getting down to the ledge, at least, wouldn't be too big a problem-plenty of solid places to anchor his line, and no serious obstacles to trip him up on the way. But-
Not a lot of room to work down there, he thought. Not sure how stable that ledge is, either. The cutaways were fine, smooth and solid, possibly with additional supports built into the rock. But natural weathering processes weren't nearly that careful.
He'd make it work, somehow. He had to.
He pushed that worry to the back of his mind, made sure his line-and the heater and medkit-were secure, then lowered himself down with care.
The ledge held. So far, so good.
He dragged the corpse off of his Jedi, and put a careful finger on the General's neck, and-
There was a pulse. Rapid and thready, but there. And he could see it now; the slight rise and fall of General Skywalker's chest.
He was breathing. He was alive.
It was all Rex could do to keep from shutting down again, this time in giddy relief.
But breathing or not- alive or not-the General was still badly injured. Rex had to move if he wanted to keep him alive.
"Right. Okay." He took a deep, shaky breath of his own, and got to work.
First thing first, he got the heater going, then unpacked the medkit. Rex wasn't technically a medic, of course, but all the clones had received at least basic medical training. In case they got separated, or were otherwise unable to get real help. So, something like pull out bandaging, load it up with as much disinfectant as he could, and wrap it around the stump-that, he could do.
Next, he set up a scanner-the basic one in the kit wouldn't tell him all that much, of course, but it would at least identify any spinal damage. Which would let Rex know if it was safe to move the general; whether or not he could do it without killing or paralyzing him.
And if he couldn't?
The ledge was still holding stable. If Rex couldn't move his General, he'd just do what he could to keep him warm and prevent further damage, and wait for the Commander to join them. She could lift General Skywalker back up to the ship safely.
After less than two minutes, the scanner beeped-more good news, sorely needed; no spinal fractures.
"Okay," Rex said again. He'd done what he could down here-lightsabers cauterized, fortunately, so he didn't have to worry about any bleeding on top of the rest. And everything else could wait 'til they were off this damn ledge and back in the shelter the ship provided.
He went back up to the crescent to collect his General's cloak-added warmth, once he had to shut the heater down, plus a little more padding between the harness and any other bruising the scanner hadn't shown.
Then, back down to the ledge, to get the General strapped in securely and the two harnesses hooked together.
After that, it was only a matter of climbing back up the cliff.
"All right," he muttered to his still-unconscious General. "Might be better for you to stay asleep for a little while longer, sir." Because, as worrisome as his continued lack of consciousness was-and as heavy and awkward as he was to carry, limp like this-Rex was worried that he'd try to help. And that would just end up hurting him worse.
No answer, of course. Rex checked the straps one more time, then started up the cliff.
It took a little more than twice as long to get back to the Waterfall as it had to work his way down. Of course, considering that going up was always harder, to say nothing of the extra weight he was carrying, Rex thought he'd made pretty damn good time.
He hauled the General up onto the semicircular cutaway and paused for a minute to catch his breath.
And, right on cue, General Skywalker stirred a little, coming at least partway awake with a faint moan.
Oh, good, Rex thought. Finally. I was-if he hadn't woken up soon...
"Easy, sir," he said. "You've been pretty badly injured. Try not to move too much."
"Rex…?" he asked, a little hoarse.
"Right here." He paused for a second, then added, "Commander Tano's on her way." Probably be here any minute now, in fact.
"Good," he said. "That's-that's good." He drew in a slightly unsteady breath. "S'cold."
"I know," Rex said. Time to get moving again. "Hang on, it'll be a little warmer in the ship. Just rest for a minute, I'll get us there."
"Right," he said. "Okay."
Rex set to work uncoupling the harnesses-good for getting up the cliff face, but put them at an awkward angle for moving across level ground. It took a few minutes; while they were designed to be quick-release, he'd been paranoid about accidentally dropping General Skywalker on the way up, so he'd made some on-the-fly improvements.
The General was quiet for a minute, probably sorting through everything that had happened as the post-fainting grogginess faded a little bit. "What…" He cleared his throat, shook his head. "What day's it? Have I…?"
"Same day," Rex assured him. "You went down after him a couple hours ago."
"Okay." he said. He sounded relieved. "That's okay, then." He paused. "'Soka's coming."
"Yeah," he said. "Real soon."
He shook his head. "Now." He waved vaguely at the sky. "Listen. Engines."
He paused for a second, tilting his head, and-yeah, there it was. Or, at least, he heard engines. And, as out of it as he still was, if General Skywalker said those belonged to Commander Tano, not one of Specter's friends, Rex believed him.
He eyed the platform around them, trying to decide if they should stay put, or make for their ship, or maybe drop down to the next natural ledge. Depending on how big her ship is, she should have room to land here without any trouble, he decided. They probably shouldn't try stumbling across to the Waterfall until she did, though. Didn't want to be in her way.
As he was unhooking the last of the straps, the ship came into view through the cloud cover; nondescript, a little battered-looking, and disappointingly small.
So much for that, he thought, shifting to protect his General from any debris kicked up by the backdraft as she maneuvered into her landing. He hadn't even really consciously considered the possibility until he'd seen it wouldn't work, but-if the Commander's ship had been just a little bigger, she could've evacuated General Skywalker herself, faster than he and Artoo could get the Waterfall functioning again.
The General muttered something Rex just barely caught over the noise; it sounded like something less than complimentary about the little ship's landing gear, or the timing with which she'd deployed it.
...assuming, of course, we could talk him into it, he thought dryly. If he's alert enough to critique the Commander's landing, he'd probably put up a fight about leaving the Waterfall behind.
Amazing, how much that half-overheard and completely unwarranted complaint had improved his mood.
The engines were barely powered down when Commander Tano pushed open a hatch on top and leapt out, darting across the platform to join them.
"Hey, Snips," the General said.
She took a shaky breath, but smiled, relief painted clear all over her face; when she spoke, her voice was steady. "Busy day?" she asked.
"Could say that," he said.
"I left you guys-what, less than a day ago?" She shook her head in mostly-mock exasperation. "You couldn't wait a day before getting into trouble?"
"You know me. I get bored easy."
"The firefight earlier wasn't enough?
"What c'n I say?" he said, trying for airy unconcern, but the pain cut through it and ruined the effect. "F'I don't find trouble, it finds me."
She hugged him then, very, very carefully. "You look terrible," she informed him.
He managed a smile at that. "Love you, too, Snips," he murmured, then shivered.
Not good.
"We should get inside," Rex said.
"Yeah," the Commander agreed, sliding under the General's right arm.
Rex did the same on his other side; with her to help, he was a lot easier to carry.
"It's okay, Skyguy," she said. "We've got you. You're gonna be okay."
"Mm," he agreed, but he was starting to fade out again. He'd been putting up a front, Rex realized; not wanting his apprentice to worry too much.
The two of them exchanged a glance over his head, and picked up the pace.
Not that she was wrong. Rex knew she wasn't. He would be okay, eventually-there wasn't much could kill General Skywalker-but 'eventually' was still a long way away.
But they were headed that way, at least. Next steps-get him warm, get the ship repaired, get to a medic. As long as they kept moving in the right direction, they could manage the rest as it came.
As long as they kept moving in the right direction, everything would be okay.
Original Author's Notes: Things I know very little about: a) mountain climbing; b) medicine. Um. Please forgive any errors. I know I don't usually stay in the same thread, so to speak, two chapters in a row, but I felt like it would be a bad idea to leave Anakin hanging out on that cliff for too long, so here we are. Thanks so much for reading, and see y'all next week!
~shadowsong