Chapter 16
The sense of relief that suffused me as I stood with bare feet on actual planetary soil was just… divine. For months I'd been cooped up on Resolute, first as work continued on her upgrades, then during fighter training, with no chance to be in a natural environment at all. Sure, this wasn't Shili's soil or even the Room of the Thousand Fountains in the Jedi Temple, but it was something at least.
"Feel better, Snips?" Anakin asked with an amused look on his face.
"Loads," I said simply. Yes, I probably looked a bit ridiculous as I was otherwise still fully armored up, but I had two lifetimes worth of not liking restrictive footwear working against me here. Not to mention the Togrutan cultural practice of keeping barefoot whenever possible, due to the ancient belief of always keeping yourself connected to the land. When a child on Shili gets their first pair of shoes it is always a trial of endurance for parents.
"Good, now grab the scanner and get me those readings."
I nodded as he buried his torso back into the guts of the J-1 Proton Cannon droid.
The scanner wand powered up, linked with the datapad in my left hand and I began a methodical sweep over the big thing. It was currently resting on the flat underside of its hull in a maintenance position, with the legs folded in. In walking configuration it stood over four meters tall, with an eleven meter width with the legs in operation. It had a 900 millimeter caliber on the cannon and would make an Iowa green with envy. In contrast though, it only had nine meters of barrel length, compared to an Iowa Mark 7's 20 meters. Not that the J-1 needed much barrel, considering what it fired.
"The Separatists always seem to have the nicest toys," Anakin grumbled. His voice was severely muffled by the droid around him, but I heard him anyway of course.
"Money buys a lot, Skyguy, including attracting top talent and the best tech," I reminded him.
He pulled himself out of the droid, holding a very expensive and shiny look part that he had detached from in there.
"What's the field strength now?"
"It dipped as you were working, then picked up again."
Anakin stared at the J-1 with astonishment and I picked up on the frustrated awe he was feeling for it. "The redundancy of this thing is ridiculously good."
"Having fun, Anakin?"
We turned to regard both Obi-Wan and Mace Windu joining us in the impromptu gun range at a quarry we had commandeered a few kilometers outside Nabbat. Resolute's own clone engineers had flatly nixed any notion of bringing the J-1 on board after the preliminary scans were analyzed.
"Somewhat," he grinned, before giving a brief bow to Windu. "Morning Master Windu, what brings you here?"
"Greetings Knight Skywalker, Padawan Tano," the elder Jedi said as seriously as ever. "I've decided to not wait for a formal report on your evaluation of the J-1. I'd rather hear it straight from you and while we've not detected more of them on this planet, it's still possible the CIS has them hidden from general scans in the capital. I'd rather not be surprised again when our ground forces move in and have a strategy ready for dealing with them."
Anakin nodded and gave me a rueful grin, "As my padawan would say, would you like the bad news first or the good news?"
Windu simply raised an eyebrow in response and Obi-Wan was clearly suppressing a smile.
"Good news first, I think," Obi-Wan replied.
"We won't have to worry about the J-1's technology being applied to Seperatist starships."
"And why is that, Skywalker?" Windu turned his gaze onto the gun.
"The ammunition," he gestured to the large gray capsule of contained plasma sitting encased behind an active portable force field. "The J-1 much like our own artillery fires a proton shell, only optimized to work in an anti-aerospace role by exploding like a bomb with maximum area of effect. The further difference is that these shells are incorporating an element of hyperspace technology."
Obi-Wan folded his arms and looked up into the sky, whilst Windu's face seemed suddenly carved out of granite. From these two Jedi Masters, this was their equivalent of screaming 'WTF?!'
"Hard to imagine, isn't it? But it's right there," he gestured at the shell somewhat incredulously. "They've figured out a way to create an artillery shell which doesn't jump to hyperspace, but pushes itself partially out of the conventional universe, which is why it goes through shields, both ray and particle, as if it wasn't there."
"I'm still waiting for this news to be good, Anakin," Obi-Wan dryly commented.
"Despite that ammo sitting there inertly, it's very sensitive, especially to any steep and sudden shift in gravitational gradients and any number of interstellar phenomena. Any starship trying to mount the J-1 guns and keep a decent stock of its ammunition active and ready to go in the guns will quickly find itself in deep trouble the instant they jump. This ammo is not behind reactor-grade particle and physical shielding. They'd be lucky to just experience an ammo explosion and at worst suffer a misjump or outright hyperspace destabilization, which would wreck their drives in the process."
"So how did they get around that to bring it safely to Ryloth?"
"With a two stage process, the ammo that they transport is inactive completely and needs to be armed by assembling it at the destination. The moment they load it into the J-1 though, that's when it uses what almost looks to be certain key components of a hyperdrive and hypermatter generator in a process that I'm still trying to find the words to explain properly to non-subject matter experts."
Windu glared at the massive gun as if it had insulted him with its very existence. "How fast can this fire?"
"Its internal magazine carries twelve shots, with one shot every five seconds. The B1 droid crew can reload it in about two minutes."
"So what is the bad news then?" Windu gave me a glance.
Anakin also gave me a look and I shook my head in answer to his silent question.
"There's no practical way to shield our landing ships from being shot by a J-1."
"None?" Obi-Wan asked with wide eyes.
"Correct," Anakin's shoulders dropped slightly. "The shell being fired, from a certain point of view, doesn't even exist in this universe. The only reason our ships are getting hit by this thing is because the moment this shell gets near something with significant solid mass, like our ship's hull, it gets pulled right back to the normal universe, just in time to explode against it."
"Then what would be an impractical way?" Windu asked.
"I suppose if the Senate gave me the budget for building a dreadnaught, a crack team of scientists and engineers from Kuat and five years, then I could optimistically build a small frigate with the necessary shielding technology and hull armor to survive being shot at with the J-1."
Windu eventually nodded in understanding, "Then the only option is to compensate with tactics. I see this thing can also depress enough to shoot ground targets."
"These guns are meant to target our Acclamators though, pushing us to land beyond their range and force a Geonosian style ground campaign," Obi-Wan pointed out.
"In the future, the Separatists will not generally have hostages again, an air strike of suitably escorted Y-Wings can deal with J-1 emplacements," I countered.
"They will compensate with greater numbers of conventional AA surrounding the J-1s," Windu argued.
"Which is why the escorts must be Z-95s adapted into a fighter-bomber role with missile salvos that take out AA flaks at range, leaving the Y-Wings to do the heavy bomber role."
The two elder Jedi looked at each other briefly.
"That could work," Obi-Wan said eventually, rubbing his beard in thought. "The numbers of Z-95s in the GAR will be a problem in the future. It's an old fighter that is being steadily phased out and I'm not confident we can squeeze the funding for continued development of it, given all the other fighter models we have."
"Just because something is old doesn't mean it's obsolete or has no place in modern fighter doctrine, as long as its internal technology is upgraded to modern standards," I grumbled in annoyance. You just had to look at aircraft like the A-10 Warthog or the B-52 from Earth as examples of craft that just endured despite advancing technology and doctrine which obsoleted and replaced other aircraft of their generations. What I wouldn't give to have a 'Hog' built to Coruscant technology standards. Strap one of the new rotary AA guns from Resolute in its nose, concussion missile racks on the wings along with various rockets and bombs. Slap an ARCs hyperdrive in the back and you had something that was a nightmare to any enemy ground force all over the galaxy.
"A sentiment I wish that GAR Procurement would take to heart," Obi-Wan nodded.
"On another note, Padawan Tano, we are also here for your assessment as to whether you and your squadrons would be able to provide air support for our march on the capital," Windu declared.
I knew the question had been coming and no Force Prescience was needed in this case. Success inspires the need for more and the expectation that you can deliver it. Windu also knew perfectly well the losses the squadrons had suffered.
"It will take a bit of reshuffling from the other squadrons and I foresee many annoyed pilots, but I could have Wraith and Shadow returned to full strength easily."
"Good, the attack launches at first light tomorrow. Master Kenobi will also be taking an airborne mobile task group to mop up the remaining droid concentrations still spread around the planet in concert with the Twi'lek Resistance. Knight Skywalker, we expect the Separatists to try and send a quick relief force, keep those cruisers off this planet."
That was how I found myself again ensconced in my Jetsons helmet, surrounded by my Z-95 fighter, leading Wraith, Shadow and Blue Squadrons towards the capital city of the planet, Lessu.
Wraith and Blue were in Torrents, while Shadow had transitioned to a backup squadron of Y-Wings. I had decided to not bring any ARCs on this run, as I wanted more Ion cannons in the mix and the Proton bombs of the Y-Wings had the potential to wipe out entire formations of droids and armor.
The amount of loiter time we had over the battlefield was something I'm sure quite a few militaries on Earth would've gone to war over. The only limit in this case was the endurance of the pilots and ammunition. The Torrent measured its effective combat time at more than a dozen hours and the Y-Wing with its ion engines and fuel recycling system was even better. That could be improved with more economical flying at low speeds.
It wasn't even two hours into the advance that contact was made with the enemy.
A spearhead of Republic AT-TE tanks was engaged by Seperatist AAT battle tanks.
The terrain approach to the city which made it ideal for defenders now worked firmly against us. The tanks could only get there by passing through a valley, with a handy cliff cut right through the middle. The AT-TE were now caught in an ambush as they passed through this valley by the AATs coming from the other side with the high ground advantage.
By the time we were overhead, the lead Republic tank had already been knocked out and was holding up the entire column. It would've been easy to simply bomb the enemy tanks at this point, but our arrival had not gone unnoticed.
"Wraith One, scanners are picking up Hyena's launching from the capital."
The forward scopes lit up with a full squadron popping up like deadly jack-in-the-boxes from the capital, which was only forty-two kilometers away.
"Scan spike! Missile launch!"
Twelve missiles then just two seconds later another ten raced towards the Republic squadrons.
Two of those missiles decided to lock on to me.
At these relatively short ranges the only order I could give before I was consumed with the task of staying alive was, "Evade!"
I pushed my Z95's throttle to full and jinked hard left on the stick, flaring the repulsors with the controls at my feet. R3 took over the electronic battle, shooting the chaff launcher and throwing every erg of power he could into ECM, blasting the incoming missiles with electronic EM noise.
Four seconds later, the first missile missed, veering off into the chaff cloud before R3 had scrammed it enough that it mistakenly thought it's target was right in front of it.
It detonated, its high velocity proton particle cloud igniting the air with its passage, a brilliant flower of fire that hurt to look at.
The second missile wasn't fooled and my prescience flaring, I suddenly dived and switched my shield into double-back mode. The missile detonated, but my wild maneuver had been enough to only catch the edge of the detonation, which was easily handled by my shields, at the cost of a third of its strength.
I normalized the shields, leveled off and was immediately in a dogfight with three Hyena's that had decided to focus on me as their sole target.
The world became a tangled mosaic of probability. Jink left, nope. Jink right, no. Dive… definitely not.
There…
I rolled my fighter left and the horizon shifted, then pulled up, continuing the roll.
Wraith Two killed one of the Hyena's just in time, and a zone of safety opened, which I scissored into with two Hyenas on my tail and they followed me into the maneuver trying for a gun lock. R3 took the initiative and dumped the port concussion missile pod, which exploded into five missiles that streaked into the air and promptly turned around to home in on my attackers.
The missiles of this universe were so crazy relative to what I knew from Earth. There a missile had one chance to maneuver properly and hit its target, if it missed once for any reason, that was it. There was no turning around in loops and endless rocket fuel. Here and now, a missile could do 90 degree full bank turns and lasted as long as its stupidly efficient repulsor systems had energy in their batteries.
The Hyena's had no direct warning of the threat by emissions from my weapons, but their verbobrains correctly decided to go evasive and abandon their attempts to hit me with cannons.
It didn't help and two seconds later, they exploded with almost cataclysmic force as their own missiles detonated in their internal magazines.
R3 didn't waste the three remaining missiles and sent them off into various other fighter duels to aid other nearby Republic pilots.
Barely ten seconds later it was over.
We had lost only two fighters from Blue squadron, one of which had actually managed to bail out, whilst Wraith had lost one, who had also ejected in time.
Shadow had in the meantime bombed the crap out of the Seperatist AAT tank column, leaving a total of fifteen smoking wrecks littering the valley.
"Quia Actual to Wraith One," Windu's voice beamed on the squadron's common frequency. "Thank you for that. How's your ammo?"
"Plenty, Quia, we own the skies for now," I replied.
"Keep it that way, we're evacuating our wounded."
Half an hour later, the Republic column had advanced by only thirteen kilometers. As we were constantly fighting through lines of droid defenses, more tanks, fixed positions of entrenched blaster cannons and repeaters. It felt like we were being subjected to the entire gamut of the Separatist ground arsenal.
Now, one of my own ideas, suggested so seemingly long ago in the planning sessions for this campaign, was bearing fruit and the Separatists were now experiencing what the French did in early World War 2. Through the combined armor, infantry and air, we were cutting through their defense lines like a spear thrust.
My squadrons would bomb and strafe the weakest point in the line and the instant after it happened, troops and armor poured through the gap and flooded into the defense line, catching the droids from the flanks and rear, wrapping it up and preventing our own line from possibly being cut off by a counter-attack.
The natural problem this had was an attrition in the available troops going forward, not only to enemy fire, but also to the fact that we needed to man the Separatist positions and turn those guns around.
The rapidly developing situation resulted in the novel sensation of being in a strategic level briefing while still ensconced in my fighter. R3 was having distinct fun flying for me, judging by the happy tones he was beeping, as our squadrons continued to provide air superiority over the advancing columns of Republic ground forces.
To my left a small holo was projected, which contained a seated tiny Palpatine, surrounded by equally miniscule standing projections of Mace Windu, Yoda, Anakin, Admiral Yularen and Orn Free Ta, the rather corpulent rutian twi'lek senator.
"What's your progress Skywalker?" Palpatine queried.
"My fleet has taken care of the Seperatist reinforcements, their few remaining cruisers have retreated into hyperspace. My padawan has also dealt with their aerospace forces around the capital."
"Very good, General Skywalker."
"Master Kenobi has taken the Jexuan desert," Windu continued, and a holo of Ryloth appeared denoting the current global tactical situation. "So the southern hemisphere of the planet is ours now."
"Then it's almost over," Free Ta sighed heavily in relief.
"Not yet," cautioned Windu. "The fighting to break through to the capital is ongoing. Our spies are certain that the Separatist leader Wat Tambor has his command center there."
It didn't really require James Bond level spying to determine the blindingly obvious, but confirmation of Tambor's whereabouts was crucial.
"When taken the city, we have, capture Tambor, we must," Yoda instructed Windu with a pointed look.
"It's not going to be easy, Master. Tambor has chosen his stronghold well." The holo zoomed into the deeper parts of the city and the central citadel, where the general administrative and government of the twi'lek usually operated out of. It was a large complex, practically standing on its own plinth of earth, surrounded by a deep chasm and only connected to the rest of the city with one method. "This plasma bridge is the only way in or out."
"I'm afraid a siege could drag on indefinitely," Palpatine pointed out to Free Ta.
"My people have suffered so much already. We can't afford a protracted siege."
"A plan you have to take the bridge, Master Windu, hmm?" Yoda queried.
"Our forces are getting stretched with every kilometer of ground we retake. The concentration of defense the Separatists have set up here will mean that by the time we reach the citadel, we won't have enough men to successfully take it. Therefore I mean to enlist the help of the local twi'lek resistance, who's led by Cham Syndulla." As soon as Windu said it, the name clicked in my head and my prescience during the attack on Hirani base evoked both memories of my first life and active precognition now. He had been involved there and his death would've meant a very different General Hera Syndulla going into the future… bloody hell. "His fight against the droids has made him a symbol of freedom for the people."
"Cham Syndulla, was a radical figure before the war," Palpatine mused. "He is very unpredictable."
"He can't be trusted," Free Ta growled. "I know Syndulla seeks to profit and gain power from this whole situation. We were political rivals."
I could tell Windu was distinctly unimpressed and even slightly disgusted that Free Ta was playing partisanship now, "I leave the politics to you, senator. I'm going to do whatever I can to help the twi'lek people."
"Perhaps we could send you Republic reinforcements instead," Palpatine proposed.
"There are none available to send at the moment, chancellor," Yularen reported. "The launch of the Ryloth campaign and word of its initial success has stirred greater levels of CIS activity across all the major battlespaces."
"We can't win without Syndulla's help," Windu declared firmly, staring down each of the meeting attendees, but especially at Free Ta.
Palpatine sighed and folded his hands in his lap, "Very well, Master Windu. It seems politics must bow to necessity in this case. Continue with your plan."
I flicked off the holo and released my 'Force Smallness or Stealth' technique. I never could seem to settle on a proper name for it. I had barely done so when an incoming private holo from Anakin reached me.
"Master?"
"How are you doing down there, Snips?"
"Six more kills to add to my personal tally, and Wraith can add another full squadron of kills to its combined killboard."
"Good, and what's your ammo level?"
"I've been husbanding my Y-Wing's ammo consumption, we're at forty percent on proton bombs and torpedoes, while our missiles are at sixty percent."
"You sure you don't want to return to ship? You've accounted for every fighter we can scan in the capital."
"No Master, we're good to go. In fact it's imperative that we keep air superiority around the capital. We cannot allow any gaps in our coverage. In fact, I want to request that you take command of three squadrons that will relieve us in six hours or so."
Anakin narrowed his eyes at me in thought. "Very well, I see the merit. Fly safe, Snips."
The holo ended but I instantly felt his thoughts pushing down our bond.
"I get the sense that there's more to your request, snips."
"Yes, I foresee that the more the Seppies are driven into the corner and defeat is near, that Dooku will order Tambor to abandon his position, but also order a bombing campaign on every town and village within range of the capital by Hyena bombers during the night. The casualties will be enormous."
The horror he felt at the idea echoed across the bond.
"What possible reason could he have to be so…"
"It's to poison the well, Master. It's politics. He wants to demonstrate the true cost of a Republic victory to the galaxy."
"Sithspit, never mind three squadrons, I'm bringing down six. Keep your eyes peeled, snips."
"I will, Skyguy."
As much as a good Jedi could boast of incredible feats of endurance, by the time I landed on the Resolute eight hours later, if it wasn't for the Force, I would've been barely able to climb out of my cockpit. That the clone pilots could climb out of their fighters and keep straight postures spoke volumes about their physical training and how well the kaminoans had engineered them.
Nevertheless, I could sense a bone deep weariness in them, despite them showing no outwards sign of it.
The pilots of Wraith, Shadow and Blue briefly gathered in an out of way area on the flight deck.
"All right everyone, well done," I declared firmly, using the Force to swell my presence and penetrate the weary fog on their minds. It wasn't a full on Mind Trick, more like a 'Pay Attention Aura'. "Get yourselves something to eat that isn't cockpit rations, throw water in your faces, wash up, debrief in thirty minutes, Briefing Room 3, dismissed."
The pilots stiffened to attention and saluted before walking off towards their berths in pilot country.
When I entered my own private quarters, the small bed was looking like the most beautiful thing on the ship. I took my own advice and slapped water in my face in the small attached W.C. before changing into my 'uniform' of ground armor with Jedi robe attachment. Then wolfed down a few togruta-safe biscuits and water before heading off to the debrief.
I arrived ten minutes early, but there were quite a few hard-asses in Shadow squadron, who were already there and still in their flight suits.
The remainder of the time until the debrief was spent making sure the flight data from the squadrons had been uploaded into the main computer and was ready to be reviewed and displayed in the holo.
The pilots all trickled in during this time, occasionally arriving in batches, with two that arrived a minute late.
I made sure to give them a Force-enhanced glare of disapproval and they had the manners and discipline to apologize at least.
"Good, now that we're all here, we can begin. Shadow and Blue, I know how General Skywalker debriefs you, but I do things a little differently. Gossip among pilots being what it is, you probably know how I run things, but for those who live under a rock, in my debriefs rank, seniority and pecking orders gets thrown out the door. As of right now, we are a bunch of Republic pilots of the GAR who fought against the enemy. I want you to share your open and honest observations on how you think you and your fellows did. Our singular goal here and now is to get the lessons learned and distribute them among all of us. So we can roll this into tomorrow's plans, a process which continues and repeats. We are here to learn and improve.
Quite a few Shadow and Blue squadron pilots looked rather uncomfortable. I knew this was working against the clone conditioning but I wanted pilots who learned and got better, who would go on to be the best they could be. I didn't want meatbag drones who only followed my orders.
"I might provide some direct feedback to all of you and I want you to do the same for me. I can't improve if I did something wrong that I was blind to and no one points it out to me, so I need your honest input."
The holo projector lit up and began showing the recreation of battle, from the moment enemy contact was made. It took quite a bit of prodding from me and at times it was like pulling teeth, but I managed to get the debrief going.
The first thing brought up, that a Wraith pilot pointed out, was how the battle felt very different with the Y-Wings in the bombing role instead of the ARC-170. The reason eventually settled on was that since Y-Wings generally always preferred level flight even in combat, it increased the effectiveness of the turret gunners in defending the bomber formation. The ARC-170 was a fighter first and was always trying to maneuver and turn, hampering the rear gunner's role.
It really demonstrated the fundamental problem of the ARC, it would never out-turn a Vulture or droid Tri-fighter, and in trying to do so, prevented the rear gunner from getting accurate shots. Adopting a Y-Wing flight profile was also a problem because the ARC rear gunner didn't have a full 360 degree turret traversal.
It essentially settled a debate that had been going on in my head for quite a while. As much as I loved the look of the ARC, intellectually knew its role on paper and that it was an almost proto-X-Wing, actually living with the thing and seeing my pilots get blown up in it, made it a different story altogether.
It was trying to be too many things at once and a fighter craft just couldn't afford to work like that.
Its main enemies in the battlespace, the Vulture and Tri-fighter were tiny in comparison and would always win in a maneuver battle and therefore fail at achieving the space superiority role.
The co-pilot, while wonderful for redundancy on long missions, had very little to do besides be a weapons officer in battle - now that was useful in reducing the workload on the pilot in theory, but it was a role that was much better performed by an experienced astromech. Just getting rid of the co-pilot alone would double the pilot availability on the rosters, not to mention increase the life support endurance.
The frankly enormous blaster cannons on the wingtips were a threat to even capital ship armor, but the downside that came with that, was a horrendous fire rate in comparison to droid fighters. The heat generated needed a dedicated computer system to manage and the extendable s-foils filled with radiators, which made its thermal signature bloom like crazy, making it the extreme opposite of difficult to detect.
The maintenance man-hours and cost on the thing was also ridiculous. For the price of a single squadron of ARC-170s, I could buy eighteen of my own spec, modified Z-95As.
Yeah, screw it. I'd beg, borrow, steal, whatever it took, but Wraith Squadron would get Z-95As when the Torrents were retired and the ARC could go back to the drawing board and those bottom-feeders in Procurement could go and jump into the Maw.
The ARC was truly an assault fighter, a spaceborne main battle tank, in essence. Use it against capital ships, space installations and it excelled, but a space superiority or recon fighter it was not.
The debriefing continued for another twenty minutes, mostly talking and reviewing how the losses we had sustained had happened, which combat maneuver would've been better suited to possibly survive and turn the tables. That was something which had the potential to be debated for hours, so I purposefully ended the briefing and ordered everyone to their bunks.
The background hum of a starship greeted me, I was on my bed, in my quarters on the Resolute. I groaned in frustration and punched the mattress under me.
A glance at the clock at my bedside showed I still had two hours of sleep to get in.
No way that was gonna happen now. Stupid puberty, stupid wet dream.
I threw the blankets off me and stripped on the way to the refresher. First hitting myself with a blast of cold water, before normalizing it and using my allotted five minutes of shower time with practiced efficiency in getting everything washed in time.
I got dressed, donned my armor and emerged from my quarters. The mess hall beckoned and though it would still be a few hours before shipboard breakfast, I managed to snag some leftover dinner servings.
There was a strange feeling in the Force and the mood in the ship was quite upbeat. Further amplified by the fact that the mess hall was very sparsely populated at the moment.
It warred with my thoughts that was demanding I address and deal with the dream I had.
"Stupid subconscious," I grumbled, shoving food into my mouth. Honestly, what could you possibly do about a wet dream involving not just Padme Amidala, but Anakin Skywalker as well!
It was perhaps an inevitability with the middle stages of puberty beginning to hit me. Combined with the fact that they were aware that I was now in on the secret of their marriage. There had been quite a few times that I had, despite our mutual best efforts to avoid it, become aware of their 'passionate negotiations' during the stay at Padme's large house on Naboo. It was especially telling when Anakin had 'shut the door' on the bond, so to speak.
Padme had also now found a confidant she could have open 'girl talk' with, where she wouldn't have to perfectly police her speech and that had naturally resulted in a distinct deep friendship to begin.
I finished my caf with a deep gulp and brought my cutlery to the serving stations and began an idle walk to the bridge.
The potential for things to get very awkward with Anakin as my Jedi Master and everything that went with it, was also an issue. The Master-Padawan bond and relationship was mostly viewed as a parental type of thing, but it did evolve as the padawan grew older… moving away from that into a more sibling level of closeness. That was the traditional way at least.
I didn't feel like Anakin's 'sister' at all… it was more than that, yet… there were just no words I could think of at the moment to classify it into a neat box. It wasn't sexual or a crush, my subconscious notwithstanding. It was… nothing so base or animalistic.
My thoughts continued to run in circles all the way to the bridge and I found a fellow early riser in Admiral Yularen, who was already at work at a holotable.
"Ah Commander Tano, had a good night's rest I trust?"
"You could say that," I said wryly. "What's the situation down below?"
"Good news on that front, Tambor has been captured."
My brain skidded to a halt with the surprise and I imagined this was the perfect moment for the record scratching sound effect to happen. I barely caught my jaw from gaping stupidly at the Admiral.
"When did this happen? How? So quickly?" I had gone to bed just as our forces had been a few kilometers from the central citadel with night falling. I had wrongly assumed everyone would button up and the attack would resume at first light, especially since the twi'lek resistance was fighting alongside - who didn't really have night fighting ability.
That being said, even the GAR didn't really like night fighting - every clone soldier's helmet had integrated night vision systems. It wasn't something done as a rule though because of the downsides.
A clone's vision systems could compensate only so much for the bright flash of their own weapon firing in the dark, and if there was too much blaster fire and explosions on the battlefield, there was a danger the NVG gear could 'white out', forcing the soldier to switch off the system and effectively giving himself night blindness until his natural vision could recover. The war droids of the CIS had the same problem, their computer 'vision' in the ultra-sensitive 'night mode' could get overwhelmed with light 'garbage' data, leaving them standing statues as their verbobrains tried to reset their visual sensors, which might be utterly fried if the lumen level was intense enough. The thermal vision mode was an alternative, but that also had its problems, since any smoke and fires could create distinct blindspots.
"Yes, well, it seems General Windu had some kind of premonition in the Force that we couldn't afford to wait the night and he was very correct."
The rolling hum of the 74-Z speeder recon bike's engines whined down as three of them came to a stop, nearly eighty kilometers east of Lessu.
Mace Windu regarded the desolate landscape of the area. It was amazing that such an arid place was so close to the fertile capital, but the mountainous geography had seen to that. Further adding to this was the scars and debris of past battles littering the landscape.
Wrecked ground and airborne droid carriers, tanks and other CIS vehicles were in evidence.
In the center of all this was a clear graveyard, already marked with high quality stone markers to honor the twi'lek who had fought and died in this battle.
Finding Cham Syndulla was not a straightforward prospect. Even though the GAR did have radio contact with the twi'lek resistance to coordinate, frequencies and encryptions they only had thanks to the late Master Di, they were scattered and divided into operational cells. The resistance cell in the capital was not outright led by Syndulla. He had his own cell that moved all over the planet as needed.
The Lessu cell had managed to contact Syndulla though and provided a general place and time for a potential rendezvous to occur.
That it was in this war graveyard was a message not lost on Windu.
"Dismount slowly, don't raise your weapons," he instructed his two clone escorts.
The troopers looked at each other briefly before obeying.
Windu hopped off his bike and with open hands and arms away from his sides walked into the graveyard and faced a burnt out droid carrier at the perimeter of the yard.
Clearly understanding that he had sensed them, it didn't take long for a small squad of rugged, very heavily armed twi'leks to emerge, with their blaster rifles trained on the clones.
"I was wondering when you'd finally contact me, Master Jedi," said another twi'lek who emerged from behind the burnt out droid carrier. In contrast to his fellows, he was only armed with a blaster pistol, still holstered on his hip and his clothing told the story of many days out in the open with little chance to clean or mend any damage.
Cham Syndulla in person had a distinct charisma to him that Windu immediately sensed. His peach colored textured skin could almost pass as human, if it hadn't been for the recessive patterning around his lekku, sharp rounded teeth and the lack of eyebrows.
"General Syndulla," Windu bowed his head in a quick nod, "I've come for your help."
"What makes you think you'll get it?" Syndulla retorted.
"The Lessu cell clearly communicated the situation to you," Windu commented, burying his annoyance. "We need to bring every able bodied fighter from multiple resistance cells to bear if we want to take the citadel quickly and avoid a siege."
"Why should I care about that place? It's been a bastion of power for those like Free Ta to sell our people like livestock to the Hutts and the Republic for generations… couch it in whatever legal terms or fancy words you want."
"Your dispute and argument with Free Ta is not the stake here. The final liberation of your world is."
Syndulla folded his arms and regarded Windu critically before nodding, "Very well, bring your speeders, we'll discuss this in a more comfortable location.
The hideout for Syndulla's cell in the area was rather ingeniously hidden. The entrance had the wreckage of a CIS Multi-troop transport dumped over it. This led to an underground tunnel that opened up into a large bunker buried under more than a dozen meters of earth. Windu had no idea how they had done it, but they proved here why they were one of the most sought after species for laborers.
The bunker itself was no slap-dash affair either. There was an entire community of dependents successfully living here, not in luxury, but definitely making ends meet. More than likely family of the resistance fighters. A very wise thing to do, while fighting against an enemy that had free-run of your planet and cities. Syndulla's cell also made use of a wide variety of commandeered CIS gear, most notably the flying STAPs, which explained how they could be so mobile and the power plants from many armored vehicle droids.
"Impressive hideout," Windu complimented.
"We try," Syndulla nodded. "This war has taught us that necessity can inspire you to achieve things you couldn't even imagine a mere year ago."
He inwardly cursed in controlled anger, even as he admired the twi'lek resilience. Here was the unfortunate reality of war playing out. It hardened the people fighting it.
"If only the cost wasn't so steep."
Syndulla's eyes clouded with a deep grief, "Yes, if only. Do you know why that graveyard monument exists, when there are still hundreds of my brothers and sisters in arms lying in unmarked graves all around Ryloth?"
"I'm not particularly familiar with twi'lek customs for funerary rites."
"There are not a lot of people buried in that graveyard, but it is a symbolic graveyard to represent all those we did not have the resources or time to dig. They represent the victims of a massacre. When the droids swept over the planet and Republic forces were routed, we were forced to initially surrender and a large contingent of our fighters and civilians were ordered to present themselves to this area by the CIS. We thought they were coming to explain the new order of things under their rule. Instead, they simply brought tanks to exterminate us."
Syndulla led the way into a large, brightly lit common area, where many twi'lek were relaxing, mingling, helping each other and socializing in many small groups. The area was lit with glow lamps stabbed into the ground and fed by a local portable power generator. It was a rather eerie scene. He was immediately met by a young twi'lek girl who could barely be six local years old. He indulgently picked the girl up and Windu could immediately sense the relation between the two, undoubtedly his daughter or at least someone who he felt that way about.
"We have little spare food and drink, but it is our tradition to share what we do have with our guests."
Windu was about to accept as diplomacy required but his vision was abruptly clouded and he felt and saw the familiar tunneled images of the future through the Force. His training allowed him to power through the disorientation and maintain an unphased outward facade, with only a slight hesitation in his step to betray that anything had happened at all.
"I am thankful for the offer, General, but I'm afraid that time has just been robbed from us. We must attack the citadel as soon as possible, tonight."
Syndulla blinked in surprise, "What? Why?"
"You know of Jedi, the abilities that we have?"
"Some yes, those twi'lek who have become Jedi are legends to our people."
"I was presented with a vision of the future," Windu explained. "In it, the Seperetists detonate their entire arsenal of proton bombs in the citadel, causing the interior reactor to go critical. Half of Lessu is incinerated instantly, with the rest of the city becoming uninhabitable due to the residual destruction and environmental impact."
"That is… that… that is insane, why would they do that?!"
"Spite," Windu said flatly. "They know they are losing, so they want to spoil any victory. If this happens, the liberation of the planet will be like ashes in our mouth."
Syndulla's mouth formed into a thin line and Windu sensed a boiling anger frothing through the twi'lek. He looked briefly down at the small child in his arms and knelt to put her down on her feet, "Tela go take care of Hera, understand?"
The child nodded, her face becoming almost painfully serious in a way that was adorable.
Syndulla began barking orders in Twi'leki and the entire bunker seemed to spring into action.
He turned to Windu, "You have my support, Master Jedi."
"How did they manage to take the citadel?"
Yularen clasped his hands behind his back and he seemed very chuffed. "Master Windu and a recon squad managed to infiltrate a Seperatist transport ferrying twi'lek treasures and valuables into the citadel. They were discovered unfortunately while being scanned on the plasma bridge, but Master Windu did an utterly crazy Jedi stunt that I still have trouble believing happened, even with visual recording evidence. He flung the troopers with him over the remaining bridge with the Force and seemingly fell to his doom in the chasm. In the fall, he managed to hijack a droid STAP, commandeered it to fly up and jumped. They managed to secure the bridge controls and the main attack force of resistance fighters and troopers invaded the citadel."
"The bomb?"
It was pointless to bemoan not having fully thought through the consequences of preventing the Separatists from launching their Hyena's to bomb the villages and settlements around the capital. I had just stared into the face of so much death and horror from what the Hyena droids would unleash and reflexively acted, asking Anakin to beef up the air power over the capital to prevent it. It had biased me. I had thought all was well and neatly tied up and as such I hadn't even looked. I could only learn from it and move on. Thankfully, Master Windu had been on the ball.
"There was a bit of drama involved there," Yularen reported. "It seems that there was some conflict of opinion between Dooku and Tambor. The latter didn't want to leave until he had everything he desired from Ryloth, but Dooku's orders went straight through to the chief tactical droid anyway. Tambor's greed meant he was left behind by the droid when the hyper shuttle made its escape attempt."
"Which failed," I gave a small grin.
"Correct, General Skywalker shot it down before it could even make it to five thousand meters. Master Windu found Tambor in the citadel's reactor room, frantically inputting his deactivation codes to disarm the bomb."
"Well, if there's one thing Tambor values more than treasure and money, it's his own skin." With very few exceptions, no one on the Seperatist Council was in it for any ideological reasons. Those who were, always ended up in the CIS parliament to keep them nicely out of the way.
"Yes, he wasn't about to commit suicide ensuring that the bomb went off. His loyalty to the Seperatist cause doesn't extend to giving his own life for it," Yularen nodded. "There is one problem that remains on Ryloth. One of the last orders Dooku had his tactical droid here carry out…"
My back seemed to want to cringe with dread at seeing the expression on Yularen's face.
"The remaining droids on Ryloth are now in autonomous mode."
"Then have Tambor shut them down."
"He tried, his own authorization codes were locked out of the droid control network. We think it was done while the tactical droid was on the shuttle."
This… this was almost as bad as the original timeline's firebombings. The droids would effectively go Skynet until their power cells ran dry, which wouldn't happen if they had AAT or other vehicles with them.
"What's being done?"
"General Kenobi is leading all our forces, including the resistance, to find and destroy the remaining CIS vehicles and lock down any local sources of power the droids can cobble together. General Windu is interrogating Tambor for further intel and General Skywalker is leading most of our fighters on an air campaign across the planet to bomb and strafe droid concentrations."
That not one of them had interrupted my sleep was definitely by choice. I was the padawan after all and still just 15 years old at the end of the day. If I had been desperately needed, then I would've been woken.
I took a deep breath and pushed my perception into the future. I despised blind spots, but I would never be rid of them, unless I effectively made myself an emotionless droid. Only time and further experience would give me the ability to one day recognize and see them for what they were and the skill to navigate past them. If anything this definitely proved the value of teams of Jedi working together.
The future was in too much dynamic motion at the moment. Many who would've died, now would live… many who lived, now would die at the hand of a rogue droid. Whether the casualty count would be higher or lower, was also too dynamic to answer.
The one thing I could perceive was the experience of the war and without the mass loss of infrastructure due to the bombings, would actually allow a much greater baby boom to take place. Whether Cham and Hera Syndulla would survive, I couldn't say. The flux of the future over Ryloth at the moment prevented seeing anything so distant with 'high resolution', so to speak.
I emerged back to the present and looked at Yularen, "What can I do?"
The man looked at me fondly and sensing his respect I was glad I didn't really have the capability to really blush as a togruta.
"Each ship in our fleet has been assigned a slice of the planet to act as constant overwatch and direct our forces to where they're needed. Someone with Jedi perceptions would be greatly welcome in this area."
I nodded, firmed my resolve and directed my focus on the active holomap Yularen was standing over, "Then let's get started."
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