Chapter 24

"Thank you for breaking the blockade and for the offer, commander, but it's not necessary."

I stared at the holo of Iridonian Prime Chief Marag and struggled to push away the brush of Darth Maul coloring my perceptions of the zabrak species. Marag, like most of the zabrak, had a crown of vestigial and very sharp horns, but his skin in contrast to Maul was brown and quite human-like, with even a full head of black hair on his scalp. His face was an intricate mesh of artistic tattoos that was applied during their coming of age rituals, and added on as the individual gained new achievements throughout their life. Most humans didn't react well to the visage of zabraks, due to the lack of eyebrows and other facial hair when combined with the horns.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes," Marag said firmly. "Every adult Iridonian male and female has at least a year of compulsory militia service. We've already raised an army of two hundred thousand to deal with these droids. In addition, every household has multiple firearms and the training to use it. We've already cut the droids down by a quarter of their number since the invasion began."

"There must be something I can do to aid you?"

This was the problem with the zabrak species as a whole. Three words came to mind to explain their general temperament; proud, strong and confident, the Iridonian zabrak especially. The planet was littered with extremely difficult terrain and conditions to survive and live in. Even in the modern era, where those problems had been solved by technology, they continued to educate their youth to the old standards in survival and martial arts. It reminded me of the traditional togruta taken to the extreme.

Marag kept an excellent politician's poker face, but I could sense through the connection that he was irritated with me and even angry at my suggestion that they needed aid at all. His practicality, though, won out over his pride.

"There are two things where you can contribute that would save some time," he admitted grudgingly. "We're working on restoring interstellar communications, but the droid commandos did a very thorough job. We almost have the main com tower for the capital rebuilt and a number of holonet satellites ready for launch. Any engineers you can send to hasten the job would be welcomed."

"Consider it done, what's the other?"

"There are a number of droid formations we've had to avoid engaging due to their size and composition. Normally, we'd have used starfighters, but the invasion managed to catch all of ours on the ground. If you could begin an aerospace campaign from your ship to bomb them into scrap, it would greatly reduce the duration of this conflict."

"We can begin sorties within the hour."

"Really?" That finally managed to get the taciturn Iridonian leader to finally show some emotion.

"I've got quite a lot of squadrons on board, Chief Marag. Many are itching to fly and get clankers painted on their fighters."

"Very well, I shall communicate their coming to all of our forces. We've managed to keep the tactical droids from using their Vultures and Hyena bombers so far by using PADS in combination with the terrain."

"Understood, thank you. Be aware to expect quite a lot of scanning emissions from the Resolute."

Marag waved me off, "Understandable Commander. Our own scanner systems have been considerably reduced due to the CIS destroying our sattelites, but our ground based ones are still there. If your ship can fill in the gaps, it would be appreciated."

"I'll get my ELINT division in contact with your militia to coordinate."

"Excellent, is there anything else you wish to address, commander?"

"No, I think that is all, Chief Marag. Thank you for your time. May the Force be with you."

He nodded and bowed slightly before cutting the connection.

"I'll begin making the arrangements, Commander," Yularen declared.

"Thank you. Oh, before you go." I turned my chair around and handed him a datapad.

He tapped it, "Ah, astronavigation report on the Ord Cantrell Corridor."

"Yes, as it turns out, we'll thankfully not need a strong presence here in Iridonia to lock it down. The biggest ship they can squeeze through is a Lucrehulk and only one at a time."

The corridor had been struck from charts due to a pulsar that had pulled in a significant extra mass at some point. This had changed its mass shadow and the EM radiation it was shooting out of its poles to essentially shut the door on the route.

It was only in the last few hundred years that the pulsar had begun to stabilize in a new emission pattern that was predictable.

It practically meant that the door to the corridor would open again, but only if you timed your approach precisely. Mistime it and you'd be yanked out of hyperspace into an electromagnetic hell of radiation that would overwhelm your shields in short order and a magnetic field strong enough to dissociate any matter.

"One has to wonder how many ships the Separatists lost to determine the timing of this corridor."

"Many, but it's something they can easily afford to do."

Yularen nodded, gave me a salute and left the bridge.

Two days later, a three Venator strong task force emerged from hyper into the Iridonia system to plug the Ord Cantrell Corridor and would make the system their new primary base of operations.

It was two rather busy days where I could honestly say I had essentially played 'Command and Conquer' on Iridonia from the Resolute, with the caveat that I was only in charge of any air units. Even the Kel Dor fighters would be returning to Dorin with kills painted on their hulls.

Casualties and losses had thankfully been fairly light, as the squadrons with Z95s would always be in close formation with the Y-Wing bombers. The Iridionian militia's man portable missile launchers would also assist. I had been worried initially that there would be friendly fire incidents, but the PADS were sophisticated enough that they could easily distinguish the scan profiles of droid fighters.

Two days of fighting and bombing had reduced the CIS droids to a third of their former strength, with no significant mass formations remaining. It was now up to the Iridonians themselves to root out those who remained. The most conservative estimates indicated it would take a month or more and would eventually become small unit actions and guerilla warfare. It all just depended, like on Ryloth, how quickly the Iridonians could knock out the droid's mobile power sources and keep their own power plants secure.

"Incoming transmission from the lead ship, commander."

"Thank you Comm, put them through."

The holo forms of Master Plo Koon and Anakin Skywalker appeared in front of me.

"Masters, welcome to Iridonia," I bowed to them, speaking with mock pompous formality.

"Greetings little Soka, thank you for your hospitality," the big Kel Dor smiled in amusement through his rebreather mask at me. "I also just want to extend my personal thanks for your achievement here and at Dorin. It's good to see the homeworld safe and the Sages would like to see you at your earliest convenience."

"That could be a while," I said worriedly.

"It was an open invitation with no specified time and date, coming from them, it just means that there's nothing critical about the visit."

Any group of Force prophets wanting to see me was not my idea of a good time to visit on holiday, even if I was intrigued as to what they could tell me.

"I'll make a note of it. Master Skywalker, I trust your mission went well?"

Anakin just nodded but I sensed he had a distinct bee in his bonnet. "Good to see you, Snips. You've done great work here. I'll be shuttling over to the Resolute in a few minutes. I'll brief you personally on our new orders."

"I look forward to it, Master. Master Plo, I'll transmit all relevant tactical and strategic data to you. There's still fighting on Iridonia and while they will be very stubborn about requesting it, you might need to have a few squadrons on standby for ground support sorties in support of the militia."

"Understood, Ahsoka. Thank you. Force be with you."

"And you, Master."

I was idly fiddling with my computer terminal in my quarters, reading C3P0-Echelon's report for the sixth time in hard copy flimsi format with my other hand, when Anakin pinged our bond and the door chime for entry.

He entered with a disgruntled and restless energy about him.

Anything he could say I interrupted by standing up and holding a single finger to my lips, with a significant look into his eyes.

'Let me speak first, Master,' I thought to him.

I pressed a button on my computer, then picked up another handheld device that looked to all external appearances like a tiny datapad. A few taps there and everything was working.

"Sorry about that, Master. It's safe to speak now."

Anakin looked alarmed, "What?"

"Republic Intelligence installed an audio listening device in my quarters on the last layover from Coruscant. I just activated a program and device that's giving the bug a wonderful yet very boring rendition of me excitedly giving you a report of the last few days of the air campaign on Iridonia."

"Those paranoid stupas," he grumbled in annoyance.

"Incidentally, they gave the same treatment to your quarters and the admiral's." I picked up another device and handed it over to him.

"What's this?"

"A little something I made with HK's help. It'll suborn the bug in your quarters and allows you to create entire conversations by typing them out on there. It's essentially a vocal emulator."

"You mean you can fake my voice using this?"

"Pretty much, it does require a fair bit of sampling first for the program to work, but that was easy enough to do. With yours you can even fake Padme's voice in the future, should you need to."

"Why would I ever need to do that, Snips?" he asked, giving me a mild glare.

"If you ever want to speak to Padme candidly in a relatively non-secure space, that device will also detect and alert you to listening devices."

"I have half a mind to just destroy any bugs I find with this," he declared, tapping on it and exploring its user interface.

"Then they will just get more creative and use methods even harder to detect," I explained with a bit of frustration. "The key with counter-intelligence is to give the enemy what they expect, while keeping them interested just enough that they feel like they're achieving something. You can also give them outright false information or misinformation, but only as part of a greater plan. If they investigate and find out they've been duped, then they know we know and then the bugs here will be considered compromised and useless. That's a general rule of using this device and why the vocal emulator exists."

"Where do they get off doing this? What's the point?"

"It's entirely in Republic Intelligence's remit to do this, Skyguy. From their point of view, they see it as protecting us."

"How does spying on us equal protecting us?"

"If one of the senior leadership of the GAR was compromised by the enemy, then these bugs would let them know. For example, if one of Yularen's family was kidnapped and the CIS blackmails him, to force him to pass on information or even outright sabotage military operations."

Anakin gave me a probing stare, "Do you foresee that happening?"

"Not as yet, the probability is there. Though the threat would most likely not come from the CIS. In any event, we Jedi are not likely to have such weaknesses to exploit, but I think many of us forget that there are some who know their history. There could be some paranoid high level leadership in RI, that wants to spy on us to see if we have a hankering for the bad old days of Jedi Lords and maybe even taking over the whole shop again. We are in a prime position to do so, after all."

He shook his head in disbelief, "That's insane."

"Yes, and dances nicely to the tune of the true enemy. Who will also have access to that intelligence."

"Fine, Snips, you've made your case well. I'll use it."

"Excellent," I clapped my hands together, "Cheer up, you now have a nice tool to spend some more quality time with Padme, so how was your mission?"

"Seeing those two together… urgh, I didn't know it was possible to feel so…"

"Jealous, angry, embittered?" I suggested with a sympathetic look. "But Skyguy, you must ask yourself, do you really think she actually enjoyed it?"

"No, she made that very clear on the way back, when she managed to keep Typho busy enough for us to… sneak away to the cargo hold of her ship," he had a little pink in his cheeks as he said that.

I couldn't help the giggle that escaped my mouth, "So what's the problem?"

"I don't think I realized how good an actor she was until this mission. She had Clovis eating out of her hand. Led him by the nose and was able to steal the data with him not even realizing it."

Ah, light dawns. "Skyguy, she was trained from a very young age to be queen. Naturally, what comes with that is acting skills that lets her seem perfectly happy even if she's utterly disgusted by some politician schmoozing her. You're worried she could be applying the same to you."

He shrugged and nodded.

"Do you not sense her feelings and mood when she's with you?"

"Yes, but… lately it's been difficult."

I slapped my own forehead and groaned, "Of course, Master. She's starting to apply the techniques I taught her to survive standing in the same room with the enemy."

"Well, can't she stop when…"

"At some point, yes, but it has to be second nature eventually. So until she masters it… I'm going to have to consult the Jedi Archives, maybe even seek an audience with one of the holocrons."

"What for?"

"See if there's anything about creating a Force bond between a sensitive and non-sensitive."

His eyes widened, "You think that's possible?"

Knowing how bloody Sidious kept the critically injured and dying Anakin from death on Mustafar, by using his bond with Padme to suck the life out of her, keeping him alive until they could get back to Coruscant… it definitely was possible.

"Yes, but the lore and knowledge required to do it safely is deep in the past, among the memories of those holocrons. Now to just find a suitable excuse to ask for one."

"Hold your speeder, Snips, we can talk and worry about that later. For now I need to brief you on our next mission."

He pulled out a data chit from his belt and slotted it into my desk terminal.

An angry red hologram appeared that depicted a giant building complex, with architecture that seemed very insectoid in construction. The building promptly split apart holographically and began to fill in the details - foundries, assembly lines, programming stations…

I swore in togruti and huttese, "How did they possibly build an entire droid factory complex on kriffing Geonosis again?!"

"That's the question of the hour," he gestured wryly at the holo. "All the monitoring satellites placed in orbit of Geonosis showed no major building activity of this scale on the surface for months. Even now, those satellites are showing this building doesn't exist. Yet this taken from Clovis' database, has been verified as well. There are none of the typical mistakes and programming artifacts you'd see in a fake scan and holo."

"Either way, it seems we're dealing with a group of slicers in the employ of the CIS that are very good."

"Yes, an independent spy mission has in the meantime confirmed that this factory complex does indeed exist and it's ramping up its operations."

"A factory on this scale coming online in the south is very bad news for any future ground battles in the battlefronts there."

Anakin nodded in agreement, "In response, the Jedi Council has ordered an invasion to take care of this threat." He tapped a few buttons on my terminal and a flat holograph of the projected order of battle appeared.

I stared at the numbers and could only shake my head in response, "Six Venators, ten Acclamators, four cruisers, four legions of clones; the 41st, the 212th, the 301st and the 501st. Four Jedi Generals commanding it all. This is a major hammerblow, master… all we need now is a dreadnought from one of the core world home fleets and we could maybe smash open the south."

"Good luck convincing any of them to put those oversized slabs of metal in harm's way," he commented derisively.

"What of the enemy? This is the Geonosian homeworld and they've had many months to re-arm and rebuild."

"That we are less sure about, the spy mission couldn't really do a full survey and scan without giving themselves away. It's one of the reasons for the amount of firepower we're bringing. Snips, what can you foresee?"

I pushed my perception along the probability lines and into the future. My memories were of little help here for exact numbers, but those would be different anyway… prescience was telling me however…

"There will be Lucrehulk core ships, grounded. We can expect a sizable aerospace defense force of the Nantex-class fighters that the Geonosians only had a few squadrons of during the first battle. The J-1 proton cannons will be defending this factory as well as sonic cannons. There will also be a theater shield preventing direct bombardment either from orbit or by Y-Wings. The amount of droids will be about three or four months of construction output - so roughly eleven garrisons. Every Geonosian in the battlefront will be a combatant, either armed with standard CIS blaster weaponry or their sonic weaponry."

"That's just great," he wearily rubbed his face.

"There's more. This factory has not just been pumping out the standard CIS fare, it's also involved in prototype construction and testing."

Anakin groaned in annoyance, "What have they built now?"

"Baktoid is in development of a new tank, built with the lessons learned so far in the war. I can't tell you specifics naturally, but I foresee nothing we have in our own arsenal on the ground capable of penetrating its ray shielding or the heavy armor beneath. It'd require a direct strike from a ground attack proton torpedo to do the job."

"You are not painting a good picture of our chances, Snips."

"No, I'm not and all that won't even be our biggest problem."

"Then what will be?"

I didn't relish saying this, but began laying out the probability line of events.

Such was the priority and urgency of the coming campaign that when Resolute emerged in the Coruscant system, the ship was over a few light minutes away from the planet itself. Waiting for it at this interplanetary rendezvous point was a single large bulk freighter. It was of a unique design, in that it had a T-shaped hull in forward profile, and if any Venator opened all its dorsal hangar doors, the freighter could literally use specialized lifts and openings in its ventral facing hull, to directly put supplies into the spine of the Resolute.

It required quite a bit of piloting finesse to get the two ships into such a configuration, but it was done very slowly and carefully.

Thankfully, Resolute didn't require as much resupply, as it had needed before the Dorin campaign, so it was mostly an exercise of topping up all the tanks and munitions after the extensive use of starfighters.

The moment resupply was complete, the fleet tender pulled its lifts back into itself, closed its hull doors and carefully fired its thrusters to push itself in the positive Z-axis away from Resolute.

The Star Destroyer turned on its axis, angling for the Correllian Run hyperspace lane, got itself up to speed and with a flare of its engines shot itself into hyperspace.

It would take a further six days to reach the Geonosis task force staging point in Mon Gazza.

It was six days spent with me and Anakin bashing our heads against the problem of assaulting the droid factory complex, that didn't involve having to stick the army into a meat grinder.

Archduke Poggle the Lesser, the nominal 'leader' of the Geonosian forces and a member of the CIS Council, had chosen the location of this new foundry very well.

From the west approach, you had a nearly flat plateau, with no cover and would be easy pickings for any artillery and attack by fighters that would strafe you at will. A kilometer to the east of the factory, a long deep chasm cut through the earth, which was spanned by a single bridge. That bridge fed into a narrow valley, with mountains rising on each side and would eventually enlarge to feed into another large plateau.

The theater shield covered most of this expanse, ending just as the valley opened up.

The whole setup combined with the CIS ground arsenal's capabilities, made the east approach the only viable assault option. Which naturally meant that every gun, cannon, missile and laser was trained in that direction.

Resolute took its place in the formation of Venators, off to the left flank of Obi-Wan's flagship, the Negotiator, which took the lead in the wedge formation, with the various Acclamators and cruisers arrayed in a fan behind the Star Destroyers.

It was a singularly impressive sight and would give anyone in the galaxy pause - if they were planning on engaging it in space.

The Task Force shot itself into hyperspace for the final leg of the journey, entering sector R-16 a day later, cutting into the Trellius Trade Route and emerging into the Geonosis system nine hours later.

No CIS forces in space was there greet the Task Force.

How this wasn't sending up red flags in the strategic thinking happening at a high level, I had no idea.

Then again, I was starting to think that I'd need a cast iron skillet and bash in Master Ki Adi Mundi's thick conical skull to get that bloody cerean to wake up and smell the ashes that surrounded him. Even here on the battlefront, it seemed he carried his ivory tower with him.

Anakin and I walked up to him and Obi-Wan, as they stood on the main bridge of the Negotiator, quietly talking.

In the far distance beyond the windows, the orange white orb of Geonosis was steadily increasing in size.

"You're late," Obi-Wan reproved his former padawan, but the jocularity in his tone took the bite out of it and turned it into something more like teasing.

"Sorry Master, but our pilot briefings ran a bit into overtime."

"Something that can be said about the war in general, overtime and with no end in sight."

As the two spoke, I was having a silent battle with the disapproving gaze of Ki Adi Mundi, who took in my new armor and found it much to his disliking. No doubt how it spat in the face of the Ruusan Reformation and tradition. Never mind that the armor was actually based on a Jedi design from the Old Republic… it was actually even more traditional from a certain point of view.

It must really grate him that, by tradition, the only person who had any say over that, was now Anakin - who would very politely tell Mundi to shove his own lightsaber up his ass, before he would order me to take off this armor.

Master Mundi broke from my gaze and fell into the discussion as if nothing had happened, "Which is why it is crucial that our invasion of Geonosis meets with success."

A beeping emerged from Anakin's chrono. "It's time for the command briefing. Ahsoka?"

I bowed briefly and hurried to the rear of the bridge, where the main holotable sat. It was the work of a few minutes to get everything linked and set up. Soon the holoforms of Master Unduli, Mace Windu, Yoda and Chancellor Palpatine were hovering in the air on one side, with the central area displaying the planet of Geonosis.

Obi-Wan began, "Our ships are in position and we're ready to begin our campaign against the Geonosians."

"What about Poggle? Any report on his location?" Mace Windu queried.

"Communication intercepts indicate he is indeed present in the primary droid foundry." The holo zoomed in to display the accursed terrain and tactical layout that the complex was situated on. "The factory is protected by a shield generator. Anakin, Ki Adi and I, shall attempt a three pronged attack, through their defense lines to a staging area just short of the shield."

I wanted to scream. The plan was a combined brainchild of Obi-Wan and Mundi - and clearly showed the high level tactical inexperience most Jedi had demonstrated so far in the war. All this did was add unnecessary complexity and would open up the assault to a defeat in detail. My prescience was currently showing that everything was on course to occur as I remembered. None of my butterflies in the event stream mattered to a ground battle on a distant outer rim planet with the same immutable terrain and tactical considerations.

"Once we've landed, we shall knock out the shield generator. That is our primary target."

"Isn't it risky committing three generals to one area of the attack?" Palpatine logically pointed out. Urgh, even the Sith agreed with me. "If something went wrong we could be dealt a serious blow."

Of course, Sidious really wouldn't like this. This was risking the skin of his planned future apprentice to a degree that was very risky. I doubt even his foresight could reliably plan a way through the maelstrom of probability that we were about to enter.

"To ensure, that rise again, Geonosis does not, capture Poggle we must," Yoda explained.

"Of course," Palpatine agreed with a mild smile. "As always I shall leave the strategy to you, Master Jedi."

Behind my metaphysical shields and concealment, I could only laugh.

"Our thanks, Chancellor," Obi-Wan said politely.

"May the Force be with you." Windu declared.

The senior brass bowed their heads slightly in politeness and their holo's vanished as they cut the connection.

Anakin turned to me, "Ahsoka, call in the legion commanders."

The four most senior clones in the Task Force entered the bridge a few minutes later and stood at attention briefly.

"Welcome to you all, Cody, these are coordinates for the rendezvous," Obi-Wan advanced the holo to a detailed view of the valley approach.

"Yes sir, when we hit the ground there, we'll create a perimeter. Getting past their AA defenses here will be the trick. General Mundi will cut across the defensive lines from the north. We will make our assault through the middle. General Skywalker, will make his attack on the defensive lines from the south and we'll meet at the rendezvous point at 0700 exactly."

Mundi began to say something, but Anakin spoke up, "I wish to make an amendment to this plan."

The other three generals looked at him in surprise.

"Oh? This should be interesting," Obi-Wan smiled and gestured to the holotable.

Anakin loaded a data chit into the table interface and began outlying our plan.

"First, we combine Master Mundi and Obi-Wan's forces into a single thrust that will attack straight into the enemy lines from the east. This is merely to occupy the enemy and present them with exactly what they are expecting."

Obi-Wan thoughtfully stroked his beard, "And what will they not be expecting?"

"That you will be escorted by numerous squadrons of space superiority fighters as you travel in your gunboats, towards the front lines, Z95s and Torrents."

"That's ridiculous," Mundi objected. "Intelligence has observed little to no enemy starfighters."

"Of course they haven't," Anakin retorted. "The Geonosians are insectoids, they live underground. Are you seriously thinking that in all the time since we were last here that they've just been sitting idle?"

Numerous small models of the Nantex class fighter began popping up from the valley sides, only to be engaged by equal numbers of Z95s and Torrents.

"With enemy air and ground forces engaged, the Resolute will take up a suborbital position above and out of range of the J1 cannon fire. Where myself, Ahsoka and a specially trained Recon squad of the 501st will do a skydive and steer ourselves to land directly on top of the shield generator."

"Ridiculous, even if you make it through the shield with jet packs to slow your falls, you'll be detected in short order and blasted out of the sky," Mundi pointed out.

"Which is why everyone doing the jump will be fitted with a device of my own design," he pressed a button and a first sized square device attached to a standard utility belt appeared in holo form. "It's an active lifesign dampener, prevents you from showing up on passive sensors, and emits a low level field that absorbs active scan emissions, preventing any reflections back to the receiver."

"Fascinating," Obi-Wan frowned, "But won't such a device emit harmful radiation?"

"Only if you're just wearing clothes, but luckily all our troopers wear void rated armor and I have my own version of the armor Ahsoka's wearing. We only need to keep the things active for the duration of the jump, which is less than eight minutes. Then we destroy the shield generator with demo packs."

The theater shield vanished from the holo.

"At this point we should have a measure of air superiority, where our Y-Wing bombers can come in and throw stand-off ground attack concussion missiles at the J1s and sonic cannons, not to mention bombing dug in Geonosian positions to scrap. Allowing our ground forces to advance… and the Acclamators can land and deploy the legions."

"It's certainly an ambitious plan, Anakin," Obi-Wan admitted.

"A plan which hinges on a single point, whether you can perform this insane stunt," Mundi also pointed out. "At least with the original plan there is a measure of redundancy."

"A plan that splits our forces into weaker components, to be picked off in an easier fashion, where we have to combine ourselves anyway, only this time while under fire," Anakin retorted with narrowed eyes.

Mundi pulled in a deep breath to respond but was interrupted.

"Enough," Master Unduli snapped. "Both plans have their merits, but I must admit the first was crafted with a few erroneous assumptions. Skywalker makes a valid point about the possible presence of a great number of Geonosian fighter squadrons and other threats that we may not know about. Baktoid Armor Workshop is a Geonosian company and are very good at what they do, they will have been contracted to build new weapons of war that we have yet to see deployed. We may even face them on this battlefield. Master Kenobi, I think we should go with Skywalker's proposed amendment."

Obi-Wan frowned into the holo, then looked very seriously at Anakin, "Can you do it?"

"Yes," he answered immediately.

"Very well, then let it be done. May the Force be with all of us."

Standing in the main reception area of the massive port docking area of the Resolute with the doors wide open and looking out to open space with only a partial disc of Geonosis in view was one of those moments where I wish I could've just brought a proper camera or even just sat down and painted the scene.

I was also wearing my armor's helmet for the first time and had to admit that Anakin had outdone himself with it. The Torgruta government would probably give him a medal and honorary citizenship, not to mention a ton of credits if he licensed the design.

My montrals and three lekku were sheathed first with a balaclava style headdress, which could act to provide mechanical counter pressure in vacuum. It also had flexible transducing speakers surrounding my montrals, which were fed from external microphones mounted near my pauldrons. The next bit was a head framework that clamped onto the armor's shoulders, but was articulated to allow neck movement, the montrals and lekku were arranged comfortably in there, after which the main armored helmet would be mounted.

It did have the unfortunate effect of making my profile look like a potato head Sontaran armor straight out of Doctor Who. Though, to balance that out, I had a freaking HUD, with various vision modes and limited sensors.

Klanking footsteps announced the arrival of Anakin, HK-47 and Alpha Recon company of the 501st.

Anakin in his new armor looked rather alarming. It was the Aegis pattern, like mine, but instead of any sort of urban camo scheme, he went for his preferred coloration - dark gray and black, with the only color on it being the red Jedi symbols on his armor's pauldrons. The only reason you didn't think kriffing Darth Vader was right there, was the normal rounded helmet and extra armor plates.

"Ready Snips?"

"Ready master, we're still ten minutes from the drop zone."

"Excellent, we're early for once. Shall we?"

Everyone walked to the edge of the bay and space yawned just a few centimeters from our feet. The view down was rather frightening to the uninitiated, even with many skydives under my belt by now, there was still that little part of my hindbrain that gibbered in terror.

"So I couldn't help but notice, Master Mundi shooting blaster bolts out of his eyes at you, Snips."

I understood his meaning and the implied question that went with it.

"I've long since put it behind me, master. Clearly, Master Mundi hasn't. You recall I told you about my padawan trials?"

"Yes, Mundi administered those and he wasn't happy how you succeeded with them."

"Correct, that was the truth, just not the whole story." I got my thoughts in order and even tweaked my bond with Anakin to help with conveying this. "You know the kind of student I am, Master. I question, I debate, I hold that nothing is set in stone. Now imagine a younger me in a classroom situation with Ki Adi Mundi as a teacher in the Academy."

"I can only imagine things not going well at all."

"That's putting it mildly. It also didn't help that Mundi loved teaching the Galactic Philosophy course, which is odd since it's a class that actually encourages debate in theory, but Master Mundi just used it to essentially preach and hammer the superiority of the Jedi Code as a belief system into the initiate's skulls."

"Which you naturally challenged him on."

"Yes, constantly. It got to the point where my classmates wanted me to stop. 'Just keep quiet, Ahsoka. We want to just finish the chapter and get on with it. Don't antagonize, Master Mundi.'"

I laughed ruefully. "I just saw that as conforming for the sake of it. Allowing Mundi's indoctrination to take hold, not just on myself but on the others too, allowing him to win."

I gave a look at the chrono on my gauntlet, "Eventually, it all came to a head at lightsaber instruction class, our usual blademaster was unavailable and Master Mundi filled in. When it came time for me to spar with him, he naturally beat me into the ground. The hothead I was, I couldn't let it go and hit him with words that it seems are still bouncing around in his skull. I said simply, 'Resorting to force, Master?'"

"Implying that even he would ignore the Code when it was convenient or if he was emotional enough," Anakin nodded in understanding.

"I recognized we were both at fault for letting things get to that level. It takes two to dance, after all. So I stepped back and resolved to tone things down, de-escalate, only it was too late. Word of it had reached the Council and Yoda, in his way, directed that Master Mundi's talents were best put to use away from the Academy. To this day, I regret those words. It might seem like I had won, but I had lost - because only then did I realize what value I had gotten from my debates with Master Mundi. How it had challenged my own beliefs.

"I might not like Mundi, he's a hyper-traditionalist, overly logical, almost too wise for his own good and too ready to simply dismiss death as 'rejoining with the Force' but I respect him and would even welcome having a debate with him again. It seems unfortunately that he can hold a bit of a grudge, rather illogical, but nobody's perfect."

"Statement: One minute to drop zone, Master," HK piped up.

"Thank you, HK."

"All right Alpha company," Anakin turned to face the clones. "You've trained hard. Watch your intervals, remember your dampeners and we'll get through this. I'll see you all in the mess after the mission, agreed?"

The clones let out a roar of approval.

"Thirty seconds!"

We turned to face the maw of the hangar, limbering up.

"Ten seconds!"

"See you all on the ground, Alpha, go, go, go!"

With a few running steps, we ran through the magcon field and jumped ourselves out into suborbital space above Geonosis. The gravity immediately began pulling on us, the troopers let out brief bursts from their jetpacks to get more clearance from the lower hull of Resolute. Anakin and I did the same with the integral boot jets of our Aegis armors - inspired by the same that Cad Bane had worn. HK was also fitted similarly.

We oriented into the head down free fall position immediately afterward to gain as much speed as possible.

I isolated my com briefly to only HK, "So, done anything like this before, HK?"

"Answer: No, master. Neither Revan, Suutrik or Valkorion had me do something like this. The closest was using a modified escape pod to infiltrate a world that had an assasination target. You'll be gratified to note that this particular insanity is unique to you, master."

The atmosphere became steadily thicker around us, slowing our fall and soon the buffeting and rushing of air began resonating on our helmets in an awful cacophony of noise that was thankfully dampened.

The view was now completely dominated by the planet, but we could still see its curvature and the first upper layer of clouds in the stratosphere was like a fluffy carpet way below us.

"Engage dampeners!" Anakin ordered.

I pressed a button on my gauntlet and just like that, we were invisible to scans.

The cloud layer steadily rose to meet us and soon we plunged into a world of fluffy white.

This didn't last for more than a few seconds before we broke through and plunged through the sky towards the next cloud layer.

When we broke through that, we could finally begin to see the battle happening far down below.

The small vaguely spiky shaped dots of Geonosian fighters dueling with the Clone squadrons, purple and blue blaster bolts and lasers flashing through the air and the occasional missile streaking through the air.

The Nantex fighter was nasty thing and not easy to engage. The pilot was situated on top of the double-needle nose hull in a bubble canopy, affording the Geoniotian inside a full 360 degree view that took advantage of their non-standard stalky eye anatomy. There was no surprising the pilot from behind or any significant blindspot. They were extremely maneuverable with a laser cannon situated between the prongs, which was also mounted on a swivel turret, which could give that laser an almost 320 degree traversal and off-bore shots. If that wasn't enough, the design incorporated gravitic deflectors that pulsed to repel incoming concussion missiles.

The only advice I had been able to give Resolute's pilots was to 'divide and conquer' the system - two fighters would target one Nantex and lob missiles at it from different angles. The gravitic system couldn't fire off in a full bubble around the ship at the required power to deflect a missile; unless they wanted to have a very small wrecked fighter compressed to the size of a small aircar afterwards.

It was a very good defensive craft, but otherwise lacked traditional armor, strong shields or any strategic mobility. It was fast, nimble, hit you from many directions, but once you got its number, it was dead. The Geonosians liked swarm tactics naturally, so could throw a lot of them at you.

There really was no certainty about who would win the air war in this case. I had to trust in Yularen and my pilots that they would see the day through.

To one side of the valley, the Republic ground forces were steadily advancing on the Geonosian lines and firing as they moved forward, centering the advance around AT-TEs with clones steadily marching alongside. Quite a few were armed with man portable rocket launchers and firing into the enemy, even sending a few streaking into the air at any passing Nantex fighter. Gunships made low flying passes, blasting away and lasering entire lines of Geonosians into pieces.

"Thousand meters to target, stand by!"

The angry red bubble of the theater shield was now directly below us, with only minor adjustments needed to head for the front right quadrant. The vagaries of the terrain meant that the shield generator building was off-center.

"Eight hundred meters, flare!"

We moved, spread our arms and legs, falling into the belly-to-the-earth position.

Our velocity decreased drastically.

"Five hundred."

"Four hundred."

"Mass reduction! Boost now!"

I slapped my belt to engage the device, forced my legs straight, directing one leg toward the earth below, and engaged my jet boots to max thrust. My will also reached out to the Force and pulled on the air around me to further slow me down.

Now in a feet first position, I gritted my teeth in tension as I worked to bleed off more momentum and speed, whilst also trusting in the Force for precognition on how to direct my legs to keep stable.

The shield would generally let anything moving below 11km/h pass through or about 3 meters per second.

I really didn't have the concentration to worry about how anyone else was doing. I was now two hundred meters from the shield and still had 70 kph of vertical velocity.

My deceleration wasn't cutting it. The jump couldn't be a standard sedate skydive, but would've been called on old Earth, a XALO or extreme altitude-low opening. Geonosians could fly themselves with their wings and while they couldn't really go to extreme heights, they had evolved to think of movement in 3 dimensions and had no problem with looking up. It was one of the primary reasons the army had to draw their attention, and we couldn't afford to go slow.

I drew on more of the air around me, creating a larger resistance.

At a hundred meters, I had slowed to 35kph.

In the next two seconds, 27kph.

"Oh shit!"

I threw two Force Pushes at the looming red bubble of death.

Then bent my legs as I finally shed the last bits of momentum.

"Cutting it close there, Snips." Anakin called.

Everyone else had seemingly managed to stop, and were hovering over the shield bubble perimeter.

Wait, someone was missing. "Who did we lose?"

"Drody, commander. Jet pack malfunction. It was quick at least."

Bloody lowest bidder shitholes!

Anakin lit his lightsaber, "Okay everyone, you know the plan. Final descent, now!"

We briefly deactivated our propulsion, and gravity 'slurped' us through the shield.

Below, we flared our jets again, regaining control and began our final approach to the shield generator building below.

It was a rather small building, but narrow and high, in the typical Geonosian style of angled organic looking spires, colored in a rusty orange. The walls were also organically round and flared out the closer it got to the surface. The only technological elements you could really identify were the industrial emitter dishes mounted on the spires.

Then there was the base of the building, which was a platform where the Geonosians had positioned numerous J1 cannon droids and sonic cannons, looking towards the valley where the Republic was likely to come from.

Not for long though.

The thirty-nine men of Alpha Company pulled two droid poppers from their belts, armed them and dropped the devices.

It rained poppers among the J1 droids and among the surprised Geonosians seated in the gunner positions.

They could only look up, in time to see Alpha company descending towards them, before the J1s and sonics were blasted and encased in crackling electric discharge.

HK already had his rotary blaster cannons out and sent scything fire down on the Geonosians in the tanks and those supporting them.

The clones followed suit and finally landed, blasting bugs left and right.

Anakin and I landed with lit lightsabers and began running along the perimeter of the building, deflecting fire from Geonosians who had overcome their surprise and were finally reacting. Those who came into close quarter range were also swiftly cut down. We rushed for the sonic cannons and with a combination of the Force and lightsaber, rendered them disabled and useless scrap.

The clones, in true guerilla warfare style, got into the gunner positions of the J1s and turned the guns to blast any targets of opportunity until the internal ammo ran out. This laid waste to fifteen CIS tanks nearby within less than ten seconds.

Meanwhile, the clones on demo duty started placing their demolition packs against the walls of the shield generator building. The packs were essentially twenty thermal detonators linked to share a common trigger and mounted into a matrix shaped frame, placed inside a standard trooper backpack.

HK, with shield engaged, was having the time of his life.

"Gleeful exclamation: Eat hot efficiency, bugs!"

The droid efficiently moved his rotary cannons from target to target, giving a brief burst of fire and moving on, whether it be a flying or running Geonosian.

"General! Demo packs are hot!" shouted Rex over the company frequency.

Anakin twirled his blade around him, sending deflections straight back into the flying Geonosians who were harassing him, whilst cutting down a further two who tried to engage with their own vibropikes. "Everyone, retreat east! Now!"

All of us, turned in the direction, took a few running steps before igniting our jetpacks and boots.

At this point, our element of surprise had run its course and the enemy was literally swarming towards our position.

Anakin led the way, his lightsaber efficiently moving in defense, whilst literally corkscrewing in the air, cutting down three very surprised flying Geonosians as he passed them.

For my part, I was on his left flank, flying with my lightsabers orbiting me, defending me from enemy fire and occasionally spinning in a blur, resulting in chunks of cauterized Geonosian to fall to the ground.

The recon troopers followed in a loose formation, all of them holstering standard blasters and using pistols to fire whilst they were in flight.

Our flight was brief, but it had given us enough distance quickly to send the signal, which Anakin did from his remote detonator.

We landed at the mouth of a cave that would lead us back to the valley, half of the company leading the way inside, whilst the rest formed a rear-guard.

A few seconds later, the demo packs detonated.

The baradium based explosives and their placement around the shield building, meant it looked like a Titan had lowered its giant hand on it and squeezed. The shockwave radiated spherically away from it in an eyeblink, picking up dust everywhere. The upper spine towers began falling, crumbling due to the stresses of suddenly finding no more support existing underneath it.

The theater shield flickered and vanished, taking away its ugly red hue from the entire area.

That was all we could process before we had to defend ourselves again.

"There's bugs in the cave!"

Of course there was.

"Snips, help them, we'll hold the entrance!" Anakin ordered.

I rushed forward with Force-empowered strides.

The cave tunnel snaked left then right, and I found the troopers engaged in a close quarters melee.

The largest deficiency I had found with the general rank and file trooper was their true lack of options when CQC against an organic enemy occurred. Sure, they could use their weapons to bash, but if they lost their weapon, they were mostly screwed unless they fell back to using a pistol. The problem with a blaster pistol backup, was that they were not really a favored weapon, due to their lack of stopping power against heavier droids.

In Alpha Recon company of the 501st, Anakin and I had made the first steps to fix this problem.

Each recon trooper now carried a machete length vibrosword and were at least proficient enough with them to carry them into battle. That was the weapon in their dominant hand, whilst a blaster pistol was in their left.

I threw my left lightsaber to spin and scythe through the air above the dozen troopers locked in struggles and duels with Geonosians who had tried to grapple them.

My lightsaber dealt with six bugs that were hovering in the air, waiting for their fellows to either succeed or take their place when they fell.

My right lightsaber moved in defense as I recalled the other, sending threatening blaster bolts back to their owners and killing them.

The tide slightly turned at this point. The troopers finished off their opponents and started to advance through the tunnel only to run into yet more of the enemy.

I rushed forward to join the line and with the Force, pulled every piece of rock or boulder that was loose to me, then when that wasn't enough, ripped away the stalagmites and 'tites.

The effort was considerable, but worth it as I pushed the mass forward.

The effect I could only liken to bugs on a windshield, on a large scale.

It created a considerable break in the swarm of Geonosians coming towards us, but more just kept coming.

"Statement: Impressive, master!"

HK's glowing form rushed into the line and his cannons began working.

The Recon troopers needed no prompting to switch back to blaster rifles and join in.

The volume of fire and the confined space, meant the enemy's numbers were to a degree less effective.

I busied myself acting as an active bulwark of defense, deflecting enemy fire back, generating mobile cover with telekinesis (though I had to be careful as I didn't want the cave walls and ceiling to collapse), and occasionally sending a boulder forward in offense when I had recovered enough.

The Geonosian handheld sonic weapons were a problem though, and I had to occasionally use HK as my own cover when those appeared.

Soon we were advancing slowly forward again, stepping carefully over the corpses of the fallen enemy.

"Ammo status?!" I shouted over the comms.

The surviving troopers in the line chimed in with various numbers, but it was very clear we were burning through power packs fast at this volume of fire.

I sent more heavy boulders into the storming enemy as my prescience narrowed to two paths.

I would fall exhausted, weakening our defenses, our ammo would run out and we'd be overrun in an avalanche of chitin, blades and sonic waves…

… or a wall of fire…

We had to buy time.

I reached to my belt and pulled a thermal detonator from it.

"Commander, you're gonna bring down the cave ceiling on us with that!" Rex shouted in alarm.

Do or do not.

I armed the device, grabbed it with TK and launched it into the throng of chittering screeching enemies.

I sensed it punch through the first Geonosian it encountered, like an ancient cannonball it continued through the throng, massacring as it went. Chitin yielding to the kinetic energy of the makeshift projectile.

Thirty meters downrange the detonator lost its integrity and the unstable baradium inside detonated.

I threw everything I had forward.

Creating a kinetic TK shield that stretched in front of me from wall to wall.

Then there was a flash.

Flame and pressure swept forward and hit my defense…

My world changed… I saw… something.

A hint of cerulean blue, an endless black… gnawing hunger… desperation…

The blue returned, an infinite stretch of it and…

I was now flat on my back looking up at the cave ceiling. The HUD of my helmet was displaying something but it felt like cotton wool had replaced my brain.

Anakin's face came into view, his helmet off and looking at me with deep worry, he was saying something.

Rex's face looked down on me next, he also said something but no sound was reaching me.

Was I deaf?

'Snips! I sense you're alive in there… speak to me!' Anakin thought to me in alarm.

"Master?" I was very confused.

A relieved look crossed his face and he knelt down, reaching towards my helmet and I sensed briefly how he used to Force to work the hidden internal emergency controls.

The faceplate came off and suddenly, blessed sound returned! I heard the footsteps of troopers, the smoldering cracks of burnt chitin, flesh. My sense of balance and montral echosense was back.

"Easy there, Snips. Relax. I think every Jedi on this planet felt that. Your armor's sound pickups are damaged as well."

"Oh, so this is not the afterlife?"

HK stepped into view. "Statement: Master I highly doubt I would be in your afterlife. So rest assured, your meatbag self has not expired."

I groaned, "It was sarcasm, HK."

"Think you can stand, Snips?"

I lightly embraced the Force, just dipping a toe in… giving myself a mystical diagnostic of sorts.

My answer was to nod and reach up. Rex and Anakin grabbed a hold of my arms and lifted me to my feet.

The world unfortunately swayed a bit and Anakin slung my arm over his shoulder. "Okay, ready?"

I nodded and stumbled forward with him, wearily walking forward… feeling like I could go and sleep for a week. I hated Force overuse.

We emerged on the other side of the tunnel to regard the valley below.

The Republic Army's legions had broken through.

Y-Wing bombers swept forward, dropping bombs among the enemy lines.

AT-TEs sent their rounds downrange, knocking out CIS tanks that came into view.

In the sky, multiple Z95 duos chased down Geonosian fighters, streaming ion and laser fire at the enemy, tagging them and sending them hurtling out of control to crash into the mountains lining the valley.

"Admiral Yularen is the reason we're still alive," Anakin explained. "They managed to trace our signal into these caves and when he spotted the Geonosians swarming through here… he diverted a squadron to bomb the area in front of the entrance."

I could see immediately what he meant… the cratering around the area was substantial.

"Your little trick with the thermal detonator bought enough time for the squadron to do its run and allowed it to make a difference in the end."

I only knew one thing at the moment, "Master, my bed on the Resolute is all I care about now."

"Well, you definitely earned it, Snips," he laughed. "Though do feel free to pass out right here if you want to… I'll carry you all the way."

"Thanks for the offer, but as tempting as that is, I have to leave this battlefield on my feet, Master."

He simply nodded in understanding and we kept walking.

I was surprised though when the survivors of Alpha Company, roughly nineteen clone troopers in all, hurried in front of us and formed an impromptu parade formation to one side.

"Company! Attention!" Rex shouted.

Nineteen pairs of armored heels clapped together.

"Company… commander departing! Salute!"

I stared in astonishment at the clones. Their arms and hands raised, their armor scuffed, dirty and even bloody. Their helmets off so I could see all their identical faces, with only the occasional facial tattoo that marked them differently.

I sensed their respect, gratitude and a whole mix of other emotions that washed over me from them. Their actual expressions were the rock solid poker faces you'd expect, but their eyes followed me as I passed and spoke volumes.

My throat felt gripped as my own emotions threatened to escape from my control.

I nodded at them as I passed, and awkwardly returned the salute with my left arm.

We continued on, Anakin led me towards the nearest vaguely flat area and in the distance a LAAT gunship approached our position.

It landed and opened its doors.

Anakin briefly helped me make the short jump into it.

The doors closed again, the engines spooled to takeoff thrust.

"It's okay, Snips."

My head lolled to the side on his shoulder… and I slept.

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