Precipice by shadowsong26
Repost Note: Double update today. Enjoy!
Part 4: Commander
Commander: Chapter 5
Obi-Wan slipped through the trees behind Moonshot and Reckoning, moving into their final positions just as the planet's single, reddish sun began to rise. They should appear, to any observers, as nothing but three more forest creatures drifting ever closer to the base along curls of early morning mist; moving silently through the faint, uncertain light.
He'd gone quiet for this mission, of course; leaving behind all communication devices save one, short-range, that worked only in burst-code, not holos or even voice. Reckoning had a similar one; brought along in case they needed to get in touch with Cleaver's team. Certainly he had nothing on him that could send or receive from off planet, not even his emergency distress beacon; not with the Thunder Wasp hovering in the system, substantially increasing the danger of interception.
He could only hope that he wasn't missing anything important. But the relative risk to his mission and this cell was the greater one. Or so he kept telling himself, despite his lingering unease.
The short-range receiver buzzed once, paused, then twice more, pulling him out of his thoughts and returning his focus where it belonged. Cleaver and the others were in position. Obi-Wan, Reckoning, and Moonshot's window to act was officially open-but it wouldn't be for long.
The timing, at least, was on track so far; they had only just reached the end of the cover the trees provided. The Empire was not foolish enough, particularly on a planet with active insurgency, to allow anyone to slip in too close due to the environment. They needed a distraction before they could proceed; but the longer Cleaver and his team were out there, the likelier it became that they would see significant casualties.
That was something Obi-Wan would very much like to avoid, if at all possible. Especially this week.
Reckoning sent back their confirmation and the three of them held there for several seconds, waiting for-
Ah, there it is.
A not-too-distant explosion shook the air, and a plume of smoke lazily drifted up from a sharp rise at the foot of the mountain range, on the opposite side of the base.
Beside him, Moonshot let out a breath and started to push forward, but he caught her sleeve.
"Not yet," he murmured, then let his eyes drift half-closed, sinking into the Force and listening for the right moment.
The currents of the immediate conflict swirled around him; there were Clover and the others; there, the garrison scrambling to respond; and there, looming above, the Thunder Wasp, the unknown. He resisted the broader tides of the wider war, concentrating on those three nearby ripples.
"Now," he said at last, letting go the Nautolan's sleeve and starting for the base himself at a quick, steady pace. His lightsaber was out and ready to deflect the first barrage of blaster bolts from the few guards still watching this direction, angling them back at their source. Reckoning, who was the better shot of his two companions, added a return volley of his own.
There was no second burst from the wall.
Still, it was a tense and entirely too exposed two minutes to get them across to the base entrance.
Moonshot and her datapad made quick, quiet work of slicing through the lock. Obi-Wan stretched ahead with his senses briefly. "We're clear," he said.
She nodded and pressed the final keys; the door slid open noiselessly at her request. Reckoning went through first; then Obi-Wan signaled Moonshot to go ahead-it was generally better for him to either take point or rear in situations like this one. Point by his preference, but Reckoning had beat him to it.
The door slid shut behind him, and he felt the lock engage again.
From there, it was Moonshot's turn to take the lead, guiding them along corridors that were- still -all too familiar for Obi-Wan. But there had been some design modifications in the last six years, so her map and recent scouting were far more reliable than his memories.
Reckoning covered them in the traditional way, while Obi-Wan focused on exuding a general sense of "nothing-to-see-here;" a sort of broad-range, much weaker mind trick. This technique, in his experience, had only about a fifty-fifty chance of actually working, but on a mission with as little margin for error as this one, anything helped. Besides, it was easy enough to abandon the effort, should his focus become necessary elsewhere.
Today, fortunately, seemed to fall on the positive half of that divide. They were nearly two thirds of the way to their target before they saw any trouble; a single stormtrooper on watch. Reckoning took him out before he could do more than just barely register them through Obi-Wan's interference.
And then the Force rippled again; like a mechanical scream echoing through atmosphere.
Oh, not good.
"Ben?" Moonshot asked, when he paused.
"I think we have some new friends coming in," he said. "Cleaver certainly got their attention."
She swore. "They're calling in Navy reinforcements?"
"I believe so, yes." True, he wasn't entirely certain whether that sound, that illusory TIE fighter in flight, was a five-minute warning or a more immediate alarm, but he was sure that contact with the Thunder Wasp had been made.
And it may not affect his team and their half of the operation very much, but if his alert was ahead of the Navy's arrival, it might make all the difference for Cleaver and the others.
He sent a brief message, just in case. The short-range comlink buzzed once in acknowledgement.
"So, what now?" Reckoning asked softly.
"We stick to the plan," Obi-Wan said. There was little else they could do from where they were.
"We could try to get to the comm center," he suggested. "Cut them off, at least from coordinating properly."
Wouldn't do much good at this point, and it would eat up precious time and resources.
Moonshot beat him to it, shaking her head. "We're on the wrong side of the base. Ben's right, we stick to the plan. And the sooner we finish, the sooner Cleaver and the others can get clear."
Reckoning nodded, and the three of them got moving once more, continuing their infiltration with a renewed sense of urgency.
When they reached the storeroom, they at last encountered serious, direct resistance. The four men left to guard the magazine were not taken in by Obi-Wan's Force manipulation. At all.
Moonshot and Reckoning immediately moved out of the line of fire; a brief, bright splash of pain blossomed from the young man-he'd been hit, but it wasn't serious. Obi-Wan focused on drawing and deflecting the guards' fire so the others had room to respond.
A squeal of feedback burst out of all four helmets, and the blasterfire let up for just a moment.
Moonshot had jammed their comms. With extreme prejudice.
Excellently done. Obi-Wan smoothly stepped into his temporary advantage, clearing their way.
...could I have done better than that? he thought a half-second later as Reckoning and Moonshot cautiously came out from under cover. Did I have to kill them all?
Perhaps he did-any other day, he might even say 'probably;' Moonshot's trick wouldn't have lasted more than a precious second or so, and he had two companions to protect, one of them injured, besides himself.
Or perhaps it was this week, and those helmets-which were different, yes, but not nearly different enough-and his response had been excessive.
This was why he avoided combat during Founding Week. Because he did not know how far he could trust himself. And, whether or not it was merited, that doubt toxic. He could not do what he needed to do, act how he needed to act, be who he needed to be, when struggling with those kinds of thoughts.
I cannot worry about that now, he decided as Moonshot pushed past him to slice through the storeroom's lock. I can do my best to work through it when we get out of here, and I find somewhere quiet to wait out the rest of the anniversary.
Especially as Reckoning was a little worse off than he had initially thought; not putting any weight on his left leg at all, which nudged something deep in the back of Obi-Wan's head-but not clearly enough for him to respond to right then and there.
So, instead, he extinguished his lightsaber and slid under Reckoning's arm to help him stay upright. "How bad is it?" he asked in an undertone.
"Might slow our escape," he said, voice a little tight with pain. "Sorry."
"We'll make it work," Moonshot cut in, as the lock clicked and the door slid open in front of her.
Obi-Wan and Reckoning were almost through when the day rather spectacularly turned completely against them.
A half-dozen stormtroopers, walking with purpose, rounded the corner to pin them down.
Time slowed for a split second, allowing Obi-Wan to consider the possibilities-one of the four original guards must have raised the alarm before Moonshot jammed them; which meant there were quite possibly more adversaries on their way.
Even if that weren't the case, and he simply brute-forced his way past those six, Reckoning was vulnerable, and the now-exposed ammunition in the storeroom behind him made starting a firefight...unwise.
Which meant there was only one direction they could go.
Time sped up again.
Obi-Wan dragged Reckoning back through the door, into the storeroom, then drew his blade again and, once the door was shut, slammed it through the lock.
Sealing them in.
For a long moment, they were silent, other than Reckoning's heavy breathing. Obi-Wan took the time to send another coded message to Cleaver- Pull out. Don't wait for us. Scatter. -and could only hope that they weren't now being jammed.
"What now?" Moonshot asked quietly, her wide, pupiless eyes glittering in the low light.
"We'll think of something," he said. He gently set Reckoning down, leaning against a stack of crates.
The situation was rather bleak-surrounded by half-built and highly volatile ammunition, trapped between a squad of stormtroopers at their front and a sheer mountain cliff at their back.
But they had time, and space, to formulate some sort of plan.
He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and opened them again. "All right. See if you can find anything resembling medical supplies in here."
She nodded and disappeared among the shelves.
"You'll be all right for a moment?" he asked Reckoning, who nodded. "All right. I'm going to see about finding an exit."
"Good luck."
Obi-Wan smiled at him, briefly. "In my experience," he said wryly, "there's no such thing as luck."
And if there were, I certainly wouldn't depend on it today.
He set off down another aisle, in the opposite direction than the one Moonshot had taken, and began to search the room for a way out.
"You were right," the base Commandant said grudgingly. "There was a second team, going for the ammunition. They've now barricaded themselves in with it."
Which just made an already terrible day that much worse. He did not like being shown up like this. All he had karking asked for was a little extra aerial support, a little firepower, to deal with those thrice-damned guerilla rebels before they melted back into the woods again.
Well, he thought, at least the ammunition didn't get stolen right out from under me, and at least those three aren't melting away anytime soon. He just wished he didn't have to share the credit like this. Especially when one of the captives was a karking Jedi.
On the other hand, while there was no way out of the storeroom, there wasn't exactly a way into it, either. Not one that didn't risk setting off the ammunition stockpile and blowing up the entire karking base. Or, at least, bringing a significant chunk of the mountain down on top of it.
Well, that was a silver lining, he supposed-having to share the credit also meant getting to share the blame if things did end up exploding. If the Jedi and the others had stolen the ammunition, he wouldn't have had that benefit.
"So," he said, as he leaned back in his chair, ruthlessly suppressing a self-satisfied smirk. "Ideally without blowing us all to hell, how would you suggest we get them out of there, Commander Thrawn?"
Original Author's Notes: Put together with reference to this timeline of the Thrawn novel (fudging a little bit for narrative convenience). There are spoilers in there, if you haven't read said novel.
Also, as a reminder, I haven't seen Rebels yet-most of what I know of Thrawn is from the old Legends canon, which I'm drawing from as it suits the story. I'm also deviating from canon backstory that wouldn't have necessarily shifted with my timeline breakpoint in a few other respects (most notably, I think, with Rex? And possibly Ahsoka, if I'm remembering her novel correctly), but in the interests of not rambling on for several paragraphs and/or inadvertently spoiling one of the books I have read for anyone who hasn't, I'd be happy to discuss further on my writing tumblr-feel free to send me an ask!