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Olympus Mons, 1700 meters above the volcano's escarpment, Confederate Occupied Mars
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The 10th Mountain Division had been battling up the dormant volcano for four months now. Ever since the glorified, yet inept, Legionnaires had let the Empire's troops escape outside of Amidala City.
The mountain was huge and the twelve Army divisions General Onassi had ordered to surround the enemy's 212th Stormtrooper Legion were strained to maintain a continuous encirclement around the Imperials still resisting on the mountain above them. Most days it was all the 10th Mountain could do to maintain contact with the 2nd Alpine Division and the 3rd Turkestan Rifle Divisions on their flanks. After four months of fighting up the 8,000 meter tall cliff face of the escarpment it was an ongoing and embarrassing issue how porous the Confederate lines still were.
The soldiers of the 10th Mountain had to carry all their equipment and oxygen up five thousand meters to confront the Stormtroopers, but were only able to engage for a few hours before altitude sickness forced them to descend again. Infiltration behind their lines and Imperial-caused landslides were a constant danger.
The patrol found themselves socked in by a thick cloud cover that seemed a constant fixture of Olympus Mons at this altitude. The Imperials were still somewhere above them, but that hardly mattered when the clouds prevented you from seeing anything more than two meters in front of your face.
The soldiers had been climbing to relieve another unit that had been fighting above the Death Line for twelve hours already. Each man was burdened with over sixty kilograms of ammo and personal survival gear. No vehicles could make it up this high until Combat Engineers could blast a road up the escarpment and no cargo helicopters could fly it up to this altitude either. Some supplies had been dropped from orbit, or by drones, but that had stopped once General Onassi had realized that some of those supplies were landing within Imperial lines, allowing them to continue to resist the Confederate's grinding advance.
"Contact left!" One of the soldiers concealed in the cloud cried out before a whirring noise cut him off.
Each man in the patrol dropped to the ground. The young Lieutenant leading them scanned the slope ahead. He had to remove his oxygen mask to place his thermal imaging gear to his eyes. A maneuver that instantly exposed his face to the sub-zero temperature at this altitude. Forty meters ahead of his patrol he spotted the prone figure of his lead scout rapidly losing body temperature. He called out to his man. "What is it? What did you see?"
He got no response. His thermals couldn't detect anyone else ahead. Which wasn't really a surprise. The terrain was a jumble of ancient lava channels, obsidian and salt pillars and a jumble of igneous boulders discarded by millions of years of eruptions from the grand volcano. A lone infiltrator or a battalion of Stormtroopers could be hiding anywhere out there.
"Drone coverage isn't picking up anything in our sector, sir. Do you think it might be the Ghost?" The Lieutenant's radioman asked, sending a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature down the officer's neck.
"You men," The Lieutenant pointed at the six men on his left, half of his patrol. "Go up ahead and check it out. The rest of you cover them. Make sure you verify your targets in this soup."
The soldiers on his left climbed to their feet and advanced. They disappeared within seconds as the cloud cover swallowed them up. The Lieutenant could feel his O2 levels dropping and replaced his oxygen mask, ensuring he kept a proper seal around the edges of his face. Like the rest of his men he stared ahead as the silent mist swirled around them.
Suddenly the whirring sound returned with an electrifying crackle. Up the slope flashes from BARs and E3 phasers could be seen momentarily lighting up the encompassing cloud as reports from the weapons echoed from every lava channels' walls. The chaotic eruption of the unwitnessed battle lasted less than twenty seconds before silence returned to the volcanic slope.
The Lieutenant waited nervously for any sign from the men he had sent forward. All he received for his patience was the quiet chill of death that permeated the concealed mountainside.
Suddenly, three meters in front of the officer a sliver of bronze light emerged in the shape of a meter long laser sword. The few survivors of meetings with the Ghost had all reported the presence of the weapon during futile fights with it.
The Lieutenant was so startled he didn't know whether to fight or run. When he turned to look for his men he realized they had already made the decision for him and were fleeing back down the slope, away from the Ghost in the mists.
The soldiers fled into a large dried-up lava channel that was filled with scores of ancient magma pillars that had been carved out eons ago. The men sought cover behind them, the Lieutenant among them, hoping that the Ghost had lost them in the cloud coverage and moved on.
Three of his men were located just forward of his position and he could just barely make out their outlines in the foggy mist. Like an unwelcome intruder, the bronze light erupted into its sword-like shape again. The three men started firing at it with well-practiced marksmanship. It didn't help. The bronze light swirled back and forth deflecting the bullets and phaser bolts with ease. The bronze weapon came closer and closer until suddenly it lunged and in an instant a half meter of it was projecting out of the furthest man's back.
The bronze blade vanished and the corpse of the pierced soldier fell to the ground in a heap. The smell of burnt flesh wafted through the cloud cover.
The two men that were left, huddled behind separate pillars, cautiously peeking out in the vain effort to spot their tormentor. A noise from their right caused both men to turn that direction. It was their last mistake. The bronze saber ignited behind the man on the left's pillar and with a pair of slashes cut through the obsidian tower twice, piercing stone and man alike.
The other soldier turned on the Ghost and his stricken comrade. The Lieutenant couldn't be sure but he thought that he spotted the ghost wave a hand at the still living soldier. Somehow the middle section of the rock pillar, which had been cut loose by the laser sword was flung from the pillar and three hundred kilograms of dried lava rock smashed into the other man like a cannonball.
The Lieutenant broke and ran, taking his two surviving men along with him. He briefly looked over his shoulder in a panic and witnessed the Ghost calmly standing next to the bisected pillar, its bronze weapon held at its side. The pillar toppled over slowly and smashed into the side of the channel before crumbling into a hundred smaller pieces.
Three hundred meters downslope the Earthlings turned and took up defensive positions. Their weapons pointed back up the lava channel for any sign of the Ghost. The Lieutenant was breathing heavy from a mix of fear and exertion. The Ghost's moves were more like Spiderman than a regular human. It had no right to exist in a sane universe.
He turned to the rifleman on his right. "It's off the scope. Draw it out."
The soldier stood up and timidly took a few steps forward. There was a rush of movement from the cloud bank next to him. The Lieutenant couldn't turn his BAR in time to help his man before the bronze light emerged from the mist and cut him down. The blade vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. The officer fired three shots into the cloud bank to no effect. His target was no longer where it had been a heartbeat ago.
"I've lost visual. Scan for movement." He called to his radioman, the lone survivor from his patrol.
The warning went for nothing as a shadowy figure rose from the mist behind the radioman. Once again the bronze blade emerged from the cloud. Once again it struck true to its target, and once again another Confederate soldier's blood soaked the Martian soil.
The Lieutenant saw his radioman cut down out of the corner of his eye and spun in his direction. A dark shape vanished into the cloud. The officer's bullets chased after it.
The Ghost knew where he was, so the Lieutenant knew it was time to displace. He rose to his feet and started to run to his next concealment. Something was following him in the fog. He turned to see the bronze blade hard on his heels. The officer stopped and turned. He couldn't outrun his pursuer. He unloaded his clip a single round at a time. Each time he fired the blade swung and deflected his shot. The superheated blade flash melting the lead of his bullets in the blink of an eye.
As the blade drew upon him it rose one final time. Its glow revealed the face of the Ghost; the most beautiful and terrifying alien girl the Lieutenant had ever laid eyes upon. With a downward stroke she was also the final thing he ever saw.
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Crater Pangboche, Olympus Mons, 14,501 meters above sea level, Confederate Occupied Mars
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Even though she had spent her childhood on the fortress world before leaving for Wadarae some years before becoming a Padawan, B'asia Ti had forgotten how cold this planet was. Now after four and a half months atop Olympus Mons she knew she would never forget Mars' frigidity. It had become embedded in her bones.
Mars should have never been anything like a warm womb for the Empire to have emerged from. The planet had originally been inhospitable to life when they had seized it from a small mission of Earth astronauts. A year of intensive terraforming by the original Imperial settlers had led into two years of escalating contact with their solar neighbor, Earth, which had finally boiled over into a full blown war that had left Earth a near wasteland while Mars remained relatively untouched. Those original years had created a breathable atmosphere, an ozone, a healthy regolith layer, a large ocean in the northern hemisphere and a working magnetosphere. But the one thing everyone would tell you upon their first visit to the red planet was that they never did get the temperature right.
Everything problematic about Mars was magnified several hundred fold atop Olympus Mons. The gargantuan shield volcano located in the vast empty wastes of Mars' western hemisphere was two and a half times taller than any mountain the Confederacy ruled back on Earth. Its peak was so high that it actually pierced the upper atmosphere and dragged through the vacuum of the Void during Mars' daily twenty-five hour rotation.
No trees grew on Olympus Mons' low-laying escarpment above four thousand meters. A thin carpet of mosses and algae survived up to seven thousand meters. At eight thousand meters one found themselves in the volcano's death zone. A region where most human and alien oxygen-breathing species found it very difficult to survive without supplemental oxygen. The pressure upon their bodies caused difficulties with proper saturation of their hemoglobin and without mountaineering equipment and medical attention they eventually contracted Altitude Sickness and died.
The 212th Imperial Legion defended a shrinking perimeter at fourteen thousand meters atop the mountain. The Confederacy of Earth Nations had ordered twelve of their own Army Divisions to lay siege to the volcano and force the Imperials to surrender. The only way they could guarantee to do so was to send their own soldiers up into the death zone.
B'asia Ti shivered under the thick layers of robes and cloaks she wore tightly wrapped around her body. Exposed skin at these altitudes, where average daily temperatures hovered around -28 Standard, was highly prone to frostbite after only a few minutes of contact with the open air.
She was climbing back into this frigid wasteland after an expedition behind enemy lines. Her trip had provided few results. She had intercepted and destroyed an enemy patrol. But such efforts at this point were too little, too late. The enemy were all around. Avalanches, sabotage and a dwindling Imperial artillery ring would not be enough to stop the Confederacy from overrunning the last line the 212th Legion defended. Like Greedleback termites the Earthlings were climbing the monumental volcano by the tens of thousands, determined to bury the last Stormtroopers of Mars under the crush of their bodies.
B'asia waited until there was a break in the near-constant enemy shelling before she snuck back into Imperial lines. The Confederates had manhandled hundreds of howitzers to the top of the escarpment where they now shelled Imperial positions. They had to bring several dozen expensive cranes from Earth and spent weeks affixing them to the tops of the cliffs just to hoist millions of kilos of shells from the valley floor surrounding Olympus Mons. All of the effort was stretching Space Force's supply abilities when they should have been advancing down the Bloodstripe Run towards Palpatine Prime. The stubborn defenders of the 212th Legion had done their part to slow President Harris's plans. More than anyone had asked of them.
Explosive artillery shells were not the only thing to plague the 212th. The Confederate troopers had tried chemical shells but they had proven useless at such extreme altitudes and thin atmosphere. They had also transferred several squadrons of B3 Stealth Bombers away from deployments coreward in their occupied territories. The atmospheric bombers pummeled the mountain along with a swarm of next generation drones armed with Hellfire V air-to-ground missiles. The aerial pests smashed Imperial positions day and night but that didn't prevent dozens of them from being blasted from the sky by Imperial Bp-5s and HVs-2 hypervelocity anti-airspeeder cannons. One by one the Imperial turblolasers were running dry and the weight of the air attack was starting to be felt.
If the air attack wasn't enough, the Confederate Space Force took a page from the Imperial playbook. Most of their heavier warships were needed coreward but they were forced to keep a handful of their light Revenge corvettes at Mars until it was completely pacified. Those spaceships bombarded the volcano haphazardly from orbit, sometimes even shelling their own lines when they grew too close to the opposing defenders of the mountain; their crews ambivalent to the struggle below as they yearned to return to the front lines and face the slippery Imperial Fleet.
Finally she spotted a let up in the torrential barrage and, with the assistance of Force Cloak, moved silently between Confederate fox holes and observation posts until she slipped down into a sparsely populated Imperial trench. She traveled a hundred meters before she encountered the first Stormtrooper on picket duty. The atmosphere prevented either side from any lengthy exposure to the elements and the bulk of the defenders huddled in pressurized bunkers or deep underground in lava tunnels carved into the mountain during ancient eruptions.
This section of the line was held by the 5th Lancers, the fabled Blade Runners. She didn't know what drew herself to this part of the 212th's defenses. The fathers of the current Blade Runners had ridden with her mother during the Battle of the Crater, which had stopped the notorious General Boston in his tracks. What most did not know was that General Boston had become her father after the battle was over and the battle itself was one of the few times her parents had ever disagreed over anything.
She made some noise to attract the picket's attention. It wasn't safe to catch someone unaware on Olympus Mons. The dormant volcano had a way of claiming lives through friendly fire on both sides. The man snapped to the ready and swung his blaster on her when he heard her approach. Not an easy task through a Snowtrooper's helmet. "At ease, trooper."
"Commander. I didn't know you had returned." The trooper greeted her.
"Aye. My rebreather's power core is nearly depleted. Where is the nearest charging station?" B'asia spoke through the thick plastoid breathing mask connected to the portable oxygen extractor she wore as a back pack.
"Platoon has a ramtek charger set up in the command bunker about another hundred meters up the line. Can't miss it. You won't bump into anyone else between here and there. I'm the only one on duty in this section of the line. Just stay low. Snipers been busy around here lately."
"Solar snipers? Really?" B'asia had some doubt. Earth had trained their scout snipers extensively in a dozen sniper schools back on Earth. The only thing they hadn't trained them for was to fight on planets with different gravities than Earth, which fouled up their targeting computers. The near-lack of air resistance at this altitude played havoc with their aim as well.
"They've gotten a kriffing hell of lot better in the past weeks. Got an E-WEB gunner and a hyperwave radio trooper yesterday." The picket assured her.
"Whittling us down slowly but surely then. I will keep an eye out, trooper." B'asia patted the Stormtrooper on the shoulder pauldron and slipped past him.
"Safe travels, Commander. And tell them not to be late with my relief."
The bunker proved easy enough to find. She had a passing familiarity with this section of the line and knew that it had been the highest point their walkers had been able to climb the mountain. The toppled AT-AT lay directly across the shallow trench system like a dead bantha. It lay on its left side and its exposed right side armor was riddled with carbon scoring and bomb and slug damage. B'asia carefully climbed out of the trench and slid on her belly for several meters to limit her exposure to enemy snipers down the mountain. It took her a few minutes to reach the battle-scarred head cockpit of the fallen walker.
The cockpit's view-slits, or eyes, had been destroyed and then replaced by heavy durasteel shutters. When she reached the barricade she firmly rapped out the first few notes of the Imperial March with her knuckles across the shutters. The left eye shutter slid open and an E-11 blaster rifle emerged and pointed in her direction.
"Cassio."
"Tagge." B'asia returned the counter sign. They rotated daily and this one was supposedly named after some hotshot general back in the Home Galaxy. Earthlings shouldn't know such things but there were rumors their military advisors from the First Order knew more about the 2nd Galactic Empire than they knew of their mysterious enemy. Luckily, B'asia had never witnessed a First Order advisor eager enough to climb higher than the escarpment and place themselves within range of the 212th's blasters.
"Come on in, Commander." The Stormtrooper on the other side of the open shutter said. She placed her arms into the opening and he grabbed them. With a mighty tug he pulled her inside the tiny opening to the cockpit. As she brushed herself off he hefted the shutter back into place. "Hey, Loot. The Jedi is back."
A voice replied. "Send her back, and make sure you close the pressure curtain tight behind her."
"Aye, aye, sir." The Stormtrooper led her to the heavy curtain barrier at the neck of the cockpit that separated it from the hull. He held the drapery aside for her.
It felt good to feel pressurized air again. Even through multiple layers of clothes and protective gear B'asia could feel the difference from outside. She removed her snow googles and removed her rebreather to test the air inside the hull.
The smell nearly knocked her over. At least fifty troopers made the fallen walker their home. Fifty troopers who had gone four months without a sonic or water shower, and from the odor drifting from the upper deck, B'asia guessed they had a backed up fresher as well.
The troopers wore their armor loosely. It no longer fit properly on their famished bodies. They stood tiredly and slowly, but Imperial pride and discipline compelled them to come to proper attention upon B'asia's arrival in spite of their exhaustion. A few of them had to be shaken awake, but they threw off heavy layers of blankets and rose to their feet to show proper respect to her perceived rank.
One of them stepped forward. She recognized him right away as B'asia had worked with this officer several times in the past months. "Welcome back, Commander."
"I've told you before, KH-2004, it's B'asia, or if you're feeling formal; Knight Ti." B'asia reminded the Stormtrooper lancer.
"That may be Knight Ti, but your mother, the Grand Master, offered the New Temple's services to the Imperial military for the duration. You may not like it but if you're a commander in the Empress's eyes then you're a commander to every Stormtrooper along the Bloodstripe from Mars to Palpatine Prime." KH-2004 swore.
"Fine. Have it your way." B'asia conceded. There wasn't enough fight left to waste any of it on semantics. "What's been happening since I've been gone?"
"Just the Solars getting closer and closer. They're launching medium range missiles at us now."
"They've had launchers on the valley floor for months now." B'asia replied.
"Not just their HIMARS and Thunderbolt launchers. They've finally brought enough of their orbital satellites over from Earth to operate their global positioning systems. They're launching tomahawk missiles at us from Amidala City now."
"That's on the other side of the planet. Can't General Dritwright do anything about them?" B'asia asked.
"Maybe, if we had any Huntmaster orbital missiles left. Fierfek, a single light cruiser could clear all those satellites in an hour." KH-2004's frustration and hopelessness reverberated in her words with a growing growl.
"It will probably matter little in the end." B'asia set a hand on the Lieutenant's arm and squeezed. There was little reassurance in the gesture. The 212th knew it had been abandoned by the rest of the Empire. "They're bringing more and more troopers forward. I hardly heard any of our artillery while I was behind their lines."
"We don't have many left. The AV-7s we do still have up here are limited to ten rounds a day by Moff Hinter. And that won't last much longer. Some of the crews are starting to spike their cannons." KH-2004 explained. They were running out of everything atop Olympus Mons. These troopers had once been lancers, but they had long ago consumed their dewback mounts to survive, reducing them to ordinary Stormtroopers.
"Speaking of dwindling supplies. I foraged a bit while I was out there." B'asia smiled as she went and plugged her nearly depleted oxygen extractor into the bunker's charger.
"The few enemy troopers we've been able to scavenge haven't had any food on them in weeks. We heard they have orders not to bring any food past the escarpment since they're only stationed this high up for half a day." The lancer stated.
"I found a cheater and took these from him." B'asia pulled three small brown bars from her pack and held them out to the Lieutenant. The other troopers stirred at the possibility of food.
KH-2004 took one of the offered foodstuffs and looked it over, unsure of what to make of its packaging. "I'm afraid I grew up in the Old Core. I can't read Alternative Basic."
"It says Snickers, it's some kind of candy, I think." B'asia opened up the first of the packages and laid it on a nearby table. KH-2004 handed her a vibroblade to cut the candy into small bite-sized pieces which the Lieutenant started handing out to his troopers.
They ate hurriedly as if the small bits would vanish from their hands if they took their time. Finally KH-2004 gulped down the last piece, not noticing that B'asia did not partake from the Earth snack. Food from Earth did not agree with Jedi. "That really satisfies, Commander."
"Good. I'm glad I could do even a small tenderness for you and your men. We will need it for what lies ahead." B'asia told the lancers.
"Speaking of which. Some OP must have seen you coming back in. Command wants to see you." KH-2004 informed her.
"If you don't mind, I will rest here awhile. That climb takes a lot out of me and my rebreather needs time to recharge." B'asia asked.
Of course, Commander. You can rest over there." The Lieutenant indicated a small spot in the sleeping area. B'asia sat down with her back against the wall and within seconds had fallen asleep from exhaustion.
She was shaken awake by KH-2004 a little under an hour later. "Sorry, Commander. Your pack is charged. I thought you'd like to know."
"Thank you. Can you tell Command I'm on my way? I just need to swing by the 3077th MedStar bunker on my way up there." B'asia asked as the Lieutenant helped her to her feet.
"Aye, ma'am." He promised as another trooper assisted B'asia in donning her oxygen extraction pack again. A few minutes later she was crawling out of the AT-AT's eye-slit entranceway once more and back out onto the frozen volcano of Olympus Mons.
The Confederate artillery was there to meet her. Even with their most advanced computers aiming slug howitzers in decreased gravity and air pressure along with sub-zero temperatures was more of an art than a science. With no sure way to precision hit a target, the Earthling gunners instead attempted to pulverize every meter of the largest planetary mountain in the Sol System. Shrapnel peppered the ground all around the trench she found herself crawling through. Every few minutes a near impact lifted her bodily into the air and slammed her back down into the dirt.
"Blessed Light." B'asia exclaimed as she ensured there were no leaks in her rebreather after a particular violent crash. As soon as she ensured it was still intact, she scurried like a nexu from one cover to the next. What would have been an hour hike along steep mountain trails took her a mere twenty minutes, all of it done on all fours amid a downpour of high-explosive slugs.
The Carrack class light cruiser Fang of Boz Pity had survived the Battle of Luna but had met her demise in the retreat west from Amidala City. Outnumbered twenty to one she and her sister Zarymok had both crashed into Olympus Mons after succumbing to dozens of fatal wounds. The wrecked fuselage had remained pretty much intact after its final descent and had been converted by Imperial engineers into a makeshift MedStar operating center. A large red cross had been painted atop the derelict and open air broadcasts had been sent to the Confederates that the facility housed the wounded of both the Empire and the Confederacy. That didn't stop the Confederate Army from sending a few slugs towards the hospital unit every day. The damage left by the constant barrages had transferred the Carrack into something less resembling a starship and more resembling the rumors of what lay under Darth Vader's mask.
B'asia crouched low and crept into the destroyed frigate through one of its mangled thrusters. The engine had been stripped for parts and a series of bomb proofs wound their way through the aft end of the wreckage to allow beings to enter and exit. B'asia had to make way for troopers carrying wounded on stretchers into the MedStar base and watch where she placed her steps as the hallways were crowded with the walking wounded sitting along the walls.
She had become accustomed to the feeling of fear and pain in the Force whenever she stepped inside the field hospital, but as the months atop the volcano had passed one all-encompassing feeling had surpassed all others; hunger.
Stormtrooper corpsmen had to hold down screaming wounded as 2-1B droids went about their grisly work of saving them. Pain killers were in short supply, as was every precious drop of Bacta now that they were cut off from the Empire's main source of the drug on New Thyfeeria. Bacta tanks that had been muscled up the mountain during the retreat now stood empty along the MedStar's walls. The starship's former mess hall was now blocked off by a single trooper from Pyre Registration who cataloged the large stack of full body bags that now filled the former cafeteria. Screams and moans filled every corridor as the wounded and hungry suffered a fate that would surely only grow worse.
A song came from one of the medical bays where a few wounded troopers were well enough to talk and laugh with one another.
"We're the Offendin' Orphans of Olympus.
No mama, no papa, no Empress Yos
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces
No bacta, no airspeeders, no turbolaser pieces
And nobody give a stang."
B'asia could feel the hurt in their words. Where was the Imperial Fleet? Had the Empress turned her back on them? Had the Admirals been beaten so badly that they went into hiding against Solars who they'd trounced twenty years ago? Had their legion been left to die atop a frozen volcano? Surely not.
The Jedi Knight could feel her destination before she could ever see it. In a way he must have sensed her coming as well. The man wearing the uniform of a field medic was crouched over several wounded in a smaller secluded medical bay guarded by a single Sand Trooper. Most of the wounded in this section wore the uniform of the Confederate Army and had been taken prisoner during the intense trench fighting in the frozen lava flows surrounding the Imperial redoubt. The two he kneeled over wore Stormtrooper body gloves and blood filled bandage wraps as their armor had been stripped off them. IV poles hung over their beds replenishing their lost fluids. Jason Bogan didn't look up from his work. "B'asia is that you?"
"Yes, Papa. I just got back."
He stood up and looked her over, checking for any bumps and bruises she didn't possess the last time he had laid eyes on her. "Have you eaten?"
"No. Have you?" B'asia retorted. She worried about her father just as much as he worried about her. Her attachment to him would have been seen as a weakness by the Jedi of old, but the New Temple had only found ways for love to conquer fear and make a Jedi more in touch with the Living Force.
"Rations here in the MedStar have been a quarter rate for weeks. But they didn't serve breakfast or lunch today. That's got me worried." Jason Bogan admitted. "I saved you this."
Her father pulled out a single slice of polystarch and handed it to her. B'asia looked at the wounded. "What about them?"
"A single slice of bread won't matter now." Jason's shoulder's sagged in futile despair.
B'asia wadded the polystarch into a ball and popped it into her mouth. It was so meager she could chew it all in a few bites. It hit her empty gut like a bomb causing her stomach to grumble. Probably in shock from having something to digest, B'asia thought of the offending organ.
"You swallowed that like a sarlacc pit." Her father chuckled.
"I wish I could digest my food as long as those monsters. Wouldn't have to worry where my next meal was coming from for another thousand years." B'asia joked half-heartedly. Food was on everyone's minds these dark days. She pointed at the two patients in body gloves. "Who are they?"
Jason turned and looked at where she was pointing. "Infiltrators. Five of them crawled into our lines yesterday using armor they stripped from our dead. Attacked a mortar team that stumbled across them as they were slipping in. These two are all that survived after they got six of ours. CompForce wanted to execute them but General Dritwright overruled them."
"How come? They were caught in our uniform." B'asia asked.
"I think he knows the Confederates will be here soon and we couldn't conceal what we had done. We can't get a pyre to burn a body in the thin atmosphere up here. Perhaps he is thinking about how the other side is going to treat us in a few days." Her father explained.
"A few days?"
"Aye. You might not see it, but I've been through this once before. This Legion is on its last legs and it won't be long before Moff Hinter has to give up the ghost."
B'asia couldn't argue. She had seen the Stormtroopers that could still stand and fight. They were hungry and freezing. There was no bacta to treat their wounds, no tibanna for their blasters and no relief riding to their rescue. They had given their all to their Empress. She knew in her gut and felt it in the Force that they had no more to give.
"Hey. Hey, you. ET medic." One of the captured Earthlings called out to B'asia's father, not knowing that he was every bit an Earthling as one of them. "Can I talk to her?"
"Shut your mouth, scum." The Sand Trooper warned the wounded enemy. He pointed his blaster at the prisoner to emphasize his point. "You don't have the right to talk to an officer."
"It's all right, trooper. This man has multiple lacerations. He's not a threat to the commander." Jason told the Sand Trooper who lowered his weapon and backed away.
B'asia noticed for the first time that the earthling was staring at her in wide-eyed amazement. He reached over and shook his comrade lying next to him to get his attention. The other infiltrator looked at B'asia. His mouth dropped in visible amazement and he needed to comically rub his eyes as if he didn't trust what they were showing him.
"How are you feeling . . . soldier?" B'asia asked the wounded enemy trooper. She could see he was in horrible pain, yet the Force was telling her that the fear he felt for his own condition was rapidly fading into something else. Was it awe? She wasn't sure.
"Are you her?"
"Her?" B'asia was confused.
"The Ashla." The first trooper said her mother's name and it made her heart want to skip a beat.
"The Guardians preached that you might still be out here in space somewhere. But we never thought we'd be blessed enough to actually run into you." The second Earth trooper explained before breaking into a hacking cough full of bloody flecks. B'asia could see the binds around his chest were seeping through with blood.
"Try to rest and get better." B'asia told the two infiltrators.
"But are you really her. You look just as Grand Master Stoen described." The first trooper asked,
B'asia knew she certainly wasn't her mother. A mother who shielded her daughter from real action and hampered her from doing real good in the Galaxy by giving her meaningless missions. Well mother hadn't counted on the Confederacy of Earth Nations invading Mars after mom had sent her there. Now she was in the thick of it, perhaps the worst of it. "I'm sorry but I am not Grand Master Ashla Ti."
"But she is just as powerful in the Force." Her father interrupted. Why her father was telling enemy agents that she was a Force-user confused B'asia. Certainly those two Sith from Amidala City were still searching for her. B'asia had no doubts they had manipulated the Earthlings and the First Order into this destructive war just to crush the New Jedi Order in its infancy. He turned his attention from the prisoners to her. "Perhaps you can help them."
B'asia looked at her father. She was no medic. But then again neither was he. He was just a man who saw beings in need and stepped in to lend a hand when it was needed. She had inherited the same helping streak from him. "I think I can try something."
"Do or do not. There is no try." Her father reminded her of one of her master Gap-Ido's most powerful tenets.
The young Jedi looked down at the two prisoners who in turn stared at her as if she were the second coming of the missing Grand Master Yoda. She had heard rumors of their kind. Some kind of oddball Earth cult which worshiped the Force, yet had no true understanding or access to its power. They were confused and misled, but she could tell they were earnest in their belief even if mere hours ago they were sneaking into Imperial lines to murder and kill, something abhorrent to all but one loathsome side of the Force.
"What do you think I can do?" B'asia looked to her father for guidance.
"Sometimes you act so much like your mother it's scary. Being a Jedi isn't just about mastering lightsaber forms. I know your master extremely well and he would agree." Jason whispered so that only she could hear him.
Indeed Master Gap-Ido would. The handicapped Jedi was ever focused on defensive and passive control of the Force. Concepts his more active-yearning Padawan ached to get away from. What good were Force Visions when they provided more questions than answers?
A lightsaber on the other hand was an elegant solution to nearly every problem. But Gap-Ido had forced her to practice a wide host of passive techniques despite her protests and complaints. One of those had been a particular pest to master and one her actual Master made her focus on quite often. Force Healing was useful around the New Temple, especially around youngling initiates and a host of Temple livestock and pets. Gap-Ido was far more advanced in the illness alleviation techniques but B'asia was no slouch when it had come to wound manipulation and infection control. Her Master had seen to that and her father was well aware of it. After all if she was going to be as great a warrior as her mother she would need to be able to undo as well as cause the damage she might inflict on another living being. The Force willed it so.
The Jedi Knight approached the two captured infiltrators. The one that had originally noticed her pointed at his buddy. "He is hurt worse than I am."
"It doesn't matter. The Force can help both of you." B'asia assured him. She knelt between their cots. She could sense the unease from the nearby Sand Trooper as he gripped the handle of his E-11.
B'asia laid her hands upon their chests and focused her mind. Instantly she seemed to be spirited away from Mars and was meditating in one of the gardens on Wadarae. Her Master Gap-Ido stood before her with a proud smile upon his face. The Cerean Jedi offered guidance born across the stars from another Galaxy far, far away. "You must relax… reach out with your mind… reach inside… through the pain… to touch the Force! Knit bones… mend flesh… renew!"
She was snapped back into the present. The two Earthlings looked aglow in the Force. They were no longer enemy agents in the guise of humans but iridescent masses of bone and muscle highlighted by phosphorescent roadways of veins and arteries. Great nerve clusters radiated around the edges of the prisoners' wounds. B'asia focused on mending the injuries, rearranging the broken pathways into clear passages through their bodies. She imagined their pain as a physical manifestation that she could take from their bodies to let dissipate into the air.
One of the prisoners gasped as B'asia came to the end of her treatment. "You are the Ashla."
B'asia removed her hands and stood up. She stumbled backwards away from them. "No. I'm sorry, but I am not who you think I am."
From out of nowhere an overriding sense of weariness overwhelmed her and she suddenly started to sag limply towards the ground. Her father was there in an instant, steadying her before she keeled over and leading her away from the newly healed Confederates and their guard. "Thank you, Papa."
"I knew you could do it, kid." Her father hugged her. His pride poured forth in his voice and in the Force. "You look beat. Let me get you a bunk so you can get some rest."
"I can't." B'asia refused the tempting offer. "I've been called up to headquarters."
"No rest for the wicked up there. The Moff's back is up against the cliff's edge now." Jason offered an analogy.
"You couldn't imagine. There's tens of thousands of Solars all around us now. I can feel them in the Force."
"You're mother always said there was something off about us Earthlings. She could pick me out at several kilometers with her bat radar." His downplaying of the Force caused B'asia to giggle at its absurdity. "You look spent. I'm going to go with you."
"Alright." B'asia agreed. She didn't want to worry him by telling him they needed to stay close to one another now. She sensed the situation on the mountain was about to change rapidly and not for the betterment of the 212th.
He escorted her to the nearest airlock of the crashed Carrack. He told her of what she looked like when she was healing the two Earthlings. How her hands had glowed blue while all the whiteness vanished from her eyes and they became a bright yellow during the mystical process. B'asia couldn't recall Gap-Ido exhibiting the same conditions when he had healed the Temple's sick nerfs.
Her father set her down on a bench to rest while he dressed in his protective gear. It took him almost fifteen minutes to fully don his evo-suit and when he was finally done there wasn't a square centimeter of his body that wasn't covered in multiple layers of warm clothing underneath a pressurized vacuum suit. For a helmet he wore a Stormtrooper's bucket that had hoses running from the facial respirators to another backpack oxygen extractor that her father had to strap himself into.
The short break had been enough to give B'asia some recuperation. They crouched at the exit for several moments as a rolling barrage moved across a nearby spur before it settled into a pounding of a nearby valley. Her father almost stepped out of cover before B'asia grabbed his arm and held him back. She had sensed an incoming rocket attack that slammed into the defensive works on the other side of the Fang of Boz Pity. The missiles sent up a choking cloud of lava ash that would have smothered the two of them had it not been for their rebreathers. Once it was clear they scurried to the nearest communication trench and started making their way upwards towards the 212th's headquarters.
The headquarters was located in a deep tunnel carved into the mountain by the lava flow of an ancient eruption. Several destroyed Juggernauts blocked the cave entrance and only small gaps in the wreckage allowed passage inside. After following the tunnel inwards over a kilometer the father and daughter reached the legion headquarters. The thud and impact of the Earthling barrage could barely be discerned at this depth.
The headquarters itself was a scene of turmoil. Officers screamed at and berated each other. Battlefield holographic control interfaces monitored the perimeter around Olympus Mons and the nearby Martian Orbital Space. Each of the stations was rigged with explosives. Elsewhere the base's droids were being given memory wipes and powered down. B'asia and Jason walked by a line of several junior officers tossing documents into a portable disintegration field where the flimsiplast records and datasticks were instantly flash fried into ashy dust. The command staff could see the writing on the wall and were prepared to not hand over a single scrap of anything that could assist the Earth in their cowardly war with the Empire.
One officer was restrained by a pair of stun cuffs fastened behind his back. A lone Naval Gunner stood guard over him. Jason pointed at the man. "I wonder what he did to deserve that."
An electric voice interrupted from behind them before B'asia could guess at the man's crime. "The Lieutenant is being subdued to prevent him from harming himself. He was caught preparing his suicide but was stopped before he could go through with it. It seems the inevitable collapse of our defense is disconcerting to many of our less sturdy troopers."
They both turned to face a bugged-eyed, black RA-7 protocol droid. B'asia recognized the droid as one of the many that followed Moff Hinter around constantly stewarding her entourage of HoloNews reporters and hangers-on. Hinter never seemed to run short of their type.
"Why haven't you been deactivated Gort?" Jason asked the droid, who appeared confused at her father's reference to another droid from an Earth holodrama. As if to emphasis Jason's point a staff officer brushed past them so that he could drop a deactivated mouse droid into an incinerator. Nothing, not even the simplest of droids could be left to fall into enemy hands.
"Moff Hinter still requires my services, in order to record her correct decisions during this heroic defense of Fortress Mars. I am here to usher you into her presence, Knight Ti. Your medical escort may remain here in the operations center until after you have met with the Moff." The droid informed them.
"He goes where I go." B'asia told the Moff's servant.
"That is not . . ."
"It's non-negotiable." B'asia growled. Long months on the volcano had done nothing to lengthen her patience.
"Very well. If you'd follow me." The droid turned and walked further into the command center, never once turning around to ensure that B'asia and her father were following its direction. In its mechanical arrogance it must have just assumed that no one in their right mind would refuse to meet with the wonderful Moff Hinter.
Her father sighed, "Might as well get this over with."
"That seems to be the motto of this legion these days." B'asia agreed and followed the RA-7, which was most likely the last functional droid in the 212th.
They came to a room blocked by a pair of Field Police troopers whose uniforms were near spotless, as if they hadn't seen a moment of the battle that raged above and all around them for months. The room was filled with chairs where reporters and sycophants lounged about in a thick fog of cigarra and skywalker smoke. The reporters had been laughing at one of their owns' jokes but had immediately ceased at B'asia and Jason's entrance. Their suspicious eyes narrowed as the RA-7 directed them to the blast door guarded by the Field Police troopers. Who were these interlopers that were so easily granted passage into their master's lair, they must have been thinking. B'asia could sense their growing suspicion over their underlying fears and self-doubts about the dangerous days ahead.
The command center was crowded with junior staff officers huddled around communication and encryption gear. A large holoprojector in the forward center of the room emitted the scene of dozens of Confederate walkers being slowly hauled up the escarpment around Olympus Mons by massive cranes the enemy had erected at the top of the barricade. Called AMPs by the CEN, the smaller walkers would be destroyed by the score but their final charge would surely overrun the last Imperial defenders on the volcano. The 212th had nothing left to stop that many of them this time and not even a Jedi could stop an entire army.
Along one wall were several real time projections of various maps. B'asia tried not to stare at the representation of the Bloodstripe Run, the very heart of the Empire, and how it showed that the hyper-route had been nearly overrun down to the Kuati Spur, which left half the Orion Spur in Confederate hands. Standing in front of a large map of Olympus Mons were two figures discussing adjustments to the dwindling defenses atop the mountain. The RA-7 turned towards them, expecting B'asia to follow.
"Pardon me, Moff Hinter. The guest you requested has arrived." The RA-7 announced before backing away to give its master some privacy.
"Knight Ti. It is good to see you are still with us." General Dritwright turned and greeted her first. He was dressed in the Army's olive grey uniform. He held out one of his four hands and shook hers. He held another out to her father, "And this is."
"My medic and assistant." B'asia lied. If they were going to send her out on another fruitless mission she believed her father's tenet that they needed to keep each other close and others distant in these last days.
"Have you come from topside? I haven't been out there in days. How are the troopers doing?" The General inquired. B'asia didn't have to wonder why the General hadn't been to see his troopers recently. She had been to this headquarters many times and knew that Moff Hinter preferred her officers at her personal beck and call.
As if reading the Jedi's thoughts, Moff Hinter turned to the new arrivals. Her cape a swirl of the Imperial blue over her black Moff's battle armor. "My troopers would be doing a kriffing hell of a lot better if the Imperial Navy had any guts left in it."
"Still no word on an attempted breakthrough of the Confederate blockade?" B'asia asked. The 212th had been promised for four months that the Navy would eventually sail to their rescue. A task made nearly impossible by the advance of Space Force's 1st Fleet to Kafrene Outpost and their remaining 2nd Fleet's stationing at New Ryloth. Not to mention the mysterious First Order's own fleet which had settled in and around Titan, here in the Sol System, mere minutes away by light speed.
"The Prime Chancellor and his new War Minister abolished the Admiralty, and good riddance too. But they made that upstart Gentis the new Fleet Admiral. Not even a Grand Admiral. He got what he deserved after he stole the Ares command from me ten years ago." Hinter swore.
Dritwright had more experience than most dealing with the self-centered Moff. "We both served under Grand Admiral Yutu during the last war, my Lady. You would know better than most that Gentis is no Yutu."
"If I had the Navy we would have stopped them at Quarzite II. Gentis won't even move them out of the Kuat Spur. If Akfar moves coreward and brushes past Anax and Judicar this spring he'll have nothing to stop him from reaching Palpatine Prime other than a handful of old frigates and cruisers." Moff Hinter glared at the Galactic map mounted to one wall.
"My Lady, there is nothing we can do about it now. Knight Ti is here by your order." General Dritwright reminded the Moff, perhaps to distract her from the simmering anger B'asia could feel radiating from Hinter.
"Ah, yes, official business from the capital." Moff Hinter suddenly remembered. B'asia noticed several officers turn their way. Their hands resting on their sidearms. She sensed another figure silently enter the command room behind her.
"Not Wadarae?" Her father asked the Moff and General.
Hinter was not one to speak with lowly medics and so it was up to Dritwright to respond. "I doubt an order like this would come from the New Temple."
Moff Hinter squared off from the young Jedi. "Knight Ti, the Empress has been made aware of our dire situation here on Mars. Orders have come down from the Rhombus. While there has been some talk about getting my person out of enemy hands as no Moff has ever surrendered to the Earth, it has become absolutely imperative that no Force-user be captured by the enemy. I have been given orders to prevent that by any means necessary."
Everyone in the room suddenly grew nervous as they waited for her to make the first move. Was Moff Hinter willing to kill her to keep her from becoming a test subject in some Confederate lab? Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father slowly reaching for his own blaster on his hip.
"Wait." B'asia and Dritwright both said at the same time. Obviously the General had seen her father's movement as well. He spoke first, "While the stoopas back at the Rhombus may not have thought this through, they do not have the experience of our Moff Hinter. Without her we never would have made it here to this brilliant defensive position atop Olympus Mons."
"Precisely, General. While I have to suffer those fools on Palpatine Prime for a few more rotations you do not. I am ordering you to escape, young Jedi. Get off my mountain and fall into obscurity until such a time as the Fleet finally liberates this planet again."
"But how? She has slipped in and out of enemy lines before but there is a whole army climbing up the escarpment. She will never make it through that many Earthlings." Jason asked.
General Dritwright looked past the father and daughter at the figure standing behind them. "Have the necessary preparations been completed?"
B'asia turned and faced the man behind her. He was an Ubese mercenary who leaned, cross-armed, against one of the door frames. He nodded and then spoke through his speech scrambler attached to his helmet. His heavy cloaks were a good match to the reds and oranges that covered much of Mars.
"Very well." Dritwright must have understood the Ubese's complex language. "B'asia Ti are you familiar with Sarge's Irregulars?"
"Aye, as much as anyone up here on the mountain. Colonel Antilles's men have smuggled enough food and medicine up here to allow us to fight for a month longer than we should have." B'asia disclosed her knowledge of the partisan group which was supposedly led by an ex-Stormtrooper.
"Maybe three. We never did bring enough supplies with us when we fled, um, left, Amidala City." Dritwright admitted. Moff Hinter glared daggers at her General for the slip up. "Savushh here, can smuggle you past the enemy patrols into one of the valleys down below. There you are to make contact with Colonel Antilles and lend your services to his partisan groups until you receive further orders."
"But the fight is up here. The Irregulars can only annoy the Confederates." B'asia argued.
"The fight up here is nearly over." Dritwright admitted. Which not even Hinter could dispute anymore. A long list of casualties were displayed on a nearby monitor, prominently showing that Moff Hinter had less than fifteen hundred effective troopers left in her Legion and nearly all of them were out of food, medicine and tibanna. "You must live to fight another day."
"There is always the regrettable alternative." Moff Hinter reminded her as she tapped her own personal sidearm. "Though that would be a waste for the Empire and your Order."
"I think we should take the Moff's offer and join our new friend here." Jason nodded to Savushh.
"Medic, you will return to your duties. Your fate is the same as the rest of the 212th." Dritwright ordered her father.
"This man is my steward on special detachment from the Temple on Wadarae. He is not a trooper under your command, General." B'asia took a step towards the senior officer.
Perhaps realizing it wasn't worth the fight, Dritwright immediately conceded. "My mistake. I saw the uniform and assumed."
"Anything to keep warm up here. The little air that's up here cuts right to the bone." Jason admitted.
"Echuta. You can say that again." Dritwright smiled at Jason as two men of the same age were wont to do. B'asia wondered what Dritwright would say if he knew he was speaking to the legendary General Boston who nearly got the Empress to bend her knee in the last war. "If I could get every trooper off this mountain I would."
"One less mouth to feed." Hinter shrugged.
"I suggest you get moving and quickly. Every moment spent dawdling up here is another moment the enemy brings up more troops." The General pointed at the nearby hologram to emphasize his point. Thousands of small figures could be seen scaling the massive cliffs in their effort to conquer the last Imperial position on Mars.
"One more thing, young Jedi." Hinter interjected. "When you get to friendly forces you tell them I did everything possible to hold off the enemy. It was those fools on Palpatine Prime that lost Mars. Not I."
"Aye, my Lady." B'asia softly responded. She had seen the results of Moff Hinter's decisions firsthand in the starving faces of thousands of Stormtroopers. They had fought to the breaking point, not because of their Moff, but out of the simple desire to survive and serve the Empire.
"We need to go now." Jason declared.
Savushh spoke to Dritwright who nodded in acknowledgment. "Aye, you have fifty hours at most. Two rotations. The Legion won't hold when the Earthlings launch their next assault."
"My Lady. General. May the Force be with you." B'asia offered the two leaders of the failing Martian defense. She turned to follow Savushh out of the command center, for she did not truly believe Dritwright and Hinter had two days to give her.
B'asia and Jason followed the lithe Ubese out of the command center. Wisps of smoke were starting to fill the cavern as the headquarters unit started burning everything combustible to keep it out of enemy hands, including their last long range hyperwave receivers.
Near the mouth of the underground lava chamber was a large pack animal. It had a mammoth oxygen extractor mounted over its nostrils that fogged over every time the beast exhaled. It was covered in so many furs and blankets that B'asia initially mistook it for a bantha but was surprised to discover it was actually a Varactyl upon closer inspection. Two large saddlebags were secured to the creature's rear haunches. Each large enough to accommodate a single passenger. Savushh reached into the nearest one and rearranged several items. Apparently he had been expecting to retrieve one passenger, not two. When the Ubese was satisfied with his arrangements he held the heavy flap open and pointed inside.
"You go first, Papa." B'asia told her father.
"Age before beauty is it?" Her father chuckled. As he climbed into the bag he held his nose and smiled. "I thought they smelled bad on the outside."
B'asia giggled at her father's joke, that was, until she had to fit herself into the opposite saddle bag. The smell of heavy ronto leather and womp rat oil was nearly stifling. The inside of the pouch was completely dark but Savushh had left a few glow rods inside along with a small portable radiant heater. Through the thick leather she could hear the Ubese Irregular climb atop the beast and shout several garbled commands to it.
With a lurch the reptile sped out of the cave entrance. The rolling motion it created with its skittering locomotion would have caused B'asia to have nausea and lose her stomach contents. That were if she had eaten anything more than a single slice of bread in the past few days.
She could sense when they left Imperial lines and penetrated the Earthlings' defenses. She could feel their slippery strangled feel in the Force all around. They were always at a distance though as Savushh used the fog and darkness to keep well away from enemy patrols and lookouts.
As the hours ticked by the gravity in the saddlebag shifted forward as the varactyl climbed over a hidden pass down the vertical escarpment. The scream of Confederate airspeeders could be heard in the distance as well as the sound of heavy machines of war being slowly hefted up the volcano.
It was nearly half a day before Savushh opened the flaps to the saddlebag and allowed the bright morning light of Sol into the smuggler's hold. The air was nearly fifty degrees warmer than it had been when she had entered the saddlebag and much easier to take in a full breath without having to reach for a rebreather.
Several figures emerged from a nearby field and greeted Savushh. The Ubese helped her father exit his own saddlebag before slapping the varactyl on its tail, causing it to flee into a nearby copse of trees. The new arrivals brought food with them which B'asia and Jason hungrily scarfed down. The Irregulars, with Savushh at their lead, motioned for the two refugees to follow them and to keep up as they were going to be moving quickly to put as much distance between them and the dormant volcano as they could before enemy search parties arrived.
B'asia followed her rescuers, but not before turning and taking one last look at Olympus Mons. The escarped mountain towered over them nearly a dozen kilometers to the east. Smoke lay about the upper half of it as if it were slowly awakening and getting ready to erupt. Confederate airspeeders circled the volcano and every once in a while swooped in to strafe or bomb a new target of opportunity.
B'asia stared long and hard while remembering every trooper of the 212th she had left up at the summit. "This fight is long from over."
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