Ahsoka leaned back against the healing bed as she examined her fresh injuries. Soaking wet and a bit battered and bruised here and there, other than that she was physically alright once all the water got out of her lungs. Yet she couldn't shake feeling awful.
Then, a faint glow filled the small room. "Wow," a familiar voice said, "you look terrible." Anakin Skywalker appeared as a ghost beside her bed.
"I feel more terrible than I look," she confessed, "believe me."
"So, you lost a fight," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
She wanted to be offended he had the gall to come out and say it so bluntly, but she knew he was right. She shook her head and asked, "Aren't force ghosts supposed to have a good reason to show up?"
He replied, "I have a good reason to be here. Why don't you tell me what happened?"
Ahsoka confessed sadly, "I don't understand how everything went so wrong so quickly. The fight was supposed to be easy. The force was in my favor, I could feel it."
Anakin replied, "We've been through something similar before. Remember." He reached out and grazed her forehead.
The scene suddenly changed to years earlier in the bridge of a republic ship in the middle of the clone wars. Anakin walked directly to Mace Windu with little padawan Ahsoka trailing behind. "You asked to see me, Master?" Anakin asked, walking directly up to him.
"Yes, General Skywalker," Mace said, "I have an assignment for you and your padawan. The Synat system is in desperate need of medical supplies now that their battle under Obi-wan's command is over. We have a medical transport ready for your escort." He motioned to the hologram of the ship and a map to their destination floating between them.
Ahsoka stepped up to see the hologram better and said, "I've never seen that route on any map before."
"It's a new one our R5 unit just mapped out," Mace explained, "it's the quickest way to get to Synat from here using lightspeed. I'll have you take a group of a half dozen clones to help unload once you get there."
Anakin said, "I understand, Master, but Senator Amidala asked me to accompany her on Naboo later tonight. Is it possible for Ahsoka to make the delivery with the clones without me?"
Mace asked, "Do you believe this task is beneath your station, General?"
"I didn't say that."
"It's written all over your face," he replied, "and I can feel your growing frustration. If you're having trouble reconciling the idea, I can demote you, and then this mission would fit perfectly within your station."
Anakin quickly fixed his angry face and said, "I don't see any need for that, Master. We'll take this mission with pride, the same as any other." He gestured to Ahsoka who smiled at Mace.
"As a jedi you're supposed to take everything with humility, General," Mace replied, "but I'll leave you to it." He motioned for the two of them to get going.
Inside the medical transport, Anakin and Ahsoka prepped the bridge for takeoff while the clones captained by Rex went to their stations in the room behind them. "This is such an easy job," Ahsoka remarked, "it makes me wonder why Master Windu wanted all this fanfare for a simple delivery."
Anakin replied as he started up the engines, "Think of this little trip as a break from all the chaos of the war for a while."
"You're taking this better than I thought you would," she said, looking him over suspiciously.
"I just want to get this over with quickly so we can get back to the real action as soon as possible," he confessed with a smile. He didn't dare say so out loud, but in his mind he was still secretly hoping he'd make it back to Padme in time to meet her that evening.
Ahsoka replied, "Let's get this over with then. Rex, are you ready back there?"
The clone popped his head in and answered, "Ready, commander!"
With that, they were off. R2D2 set their course for the new hyperspace route and they jumped to lightspeed with ease. Although, the longer they moved along, the more Anakin felt as though something was wrong. This mission felt off from the beginning, and that wasn't because he was an experienced war general that should have been doing more important things with his time. The force was trying to tell him something, but he couldn't figure out what.
"I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing hyperspace up close," Ahsoka said, leaning back in the copilot seat and marveling at the sight.
"Something's wrong," Anakin said, looking down at his radar, "I can't shake this bad feeling and it's only growing stronger."
R2 beeped away behind them just before a blip showed up on the radar.
"Get us out of hyperspace now, R2!" Anakin demanded. He grabbed onto the controls as he watched the light on his radar showed something big immediately in front of them.
They left lightspeed in time to see a giant blue planet with massive clouds swirling on the surface show up. Anakin pulled away so hard, the controls bent under his strength. Everyone on board shifted violently in their seats.
"Steer away!" Ahsoka screamed, holding on for dear life.
"Put the engines in full reverse thrust R2!" Anakin commanded, "I can't get away! The atmosphere is sucking us in!"
"General!" Rex called from the back, rattled, "What happened?"
Anakin answered, "Everyone brace for impact!"
Ahsoka said, "Not again!"
They all braced themselves as the transport was dragged into the massive planet's atmosphere, and sucked down to the ground. The clouds were a light shade of blue and the ground was covered in rich blue rocks. There was no time to marvel at it's beauty as the rocks came up to greet them fast. No matter what Anakin did, the engines didn't cooperate and they hit the ground hard, scrapping against the boulders for several feet before screeching to a halt. Anakin and Ahsoka slammed into the steering collom.
"Is everyone alright?" Anakin asked as he tried to sit up. He struggled to catch his breath but it felt like his lungs couldn't fill properly with air.
"All of us are alive back here, General," Rex called, "and no one has any injuries, but something is definetly wrong. None of us can move."
"I can't get up," Ahsoka said as she pushed against the console, "and my chest hurts, like my ribs are broken, but I know they aren't."
Anakin pushed himself over and landed flat on his back on the floor. As he did, the entire ship creaked and the electrical began to break apart. "R2," he said, "open all our interior doors, quick, before we lose power."
Even R2 had a hard time moving the gears in position. The electrical circuts fought hard against gravity to open the doors of the ship. Ahsoka fell onto the floor beside Anakin and cringed in pain. "Ow."
"What happened?" Rex asked, laying on the floor through the other room, "I thought this route was clear."
"I know what went wrong," Anakin answered, struggling to breathe, "we can't move because of the gravity of this system is so much stronger than we're used to, and the atmosphere is so thick it feels like we're thousands of feet underwater. This ship wasn't made for this much pressure. It's going to crush us if we don't get out of here fast."
Ahsoka said, "But Master, we don't know if we can breathe the air here."
"Get the oxygen out of the emergency hatchs on the way out the door," he said, "I'll call for help. Master Windu!" He finally got his wrist next to his face. "Master Windu, are you there?"
"General Skywalker," he said, appearing as a hologram on his arm.
"We ran face first into trouble."
Mace asked, "What's the problem? How badly are you hurt?"
Anakin explained, "We're all uninjured. There's an entire system in the middle of that route. It was completely undetected by radar until we were right on top of it. The gravity is so strong here we can't stand up. I think the atmosphere is so thick it absorbed our radar until we were almost on top of it."
"If you're all alright," he said, "what about the cargo?"
"The ship is breaking apart under the pressure," he answered as he listened to it creaking and whining under its own weight, "I don't think the medical supplies are going to make it. We need an evac immediately."
Mace said, "The closest person to your location is Obi-wan, I'll contact him."
Anakin said, "Make sure he doesn't use hyperspace to get here! He'll end up the same way if he does."
"Understood," he said, "sit tight." They ended the transmission.
Meanwhile, everyone on board struggled to crawl their way out. "Master!" Ahsoka said, "the air here is breathable! We'll be okay."
Anakin rolled over and crawled on his belly back through the transport and made it all the way over to the main exit. The ship rocked and crunched violently the entire time, threatened to fall apart at any moment. Rex helped pull him out of the ship as it impoded under it's own weight behind him.
The crashing kicked up the blue dust of the planet and shook the ground under their bodies. Anakin laid out, feeling the tense atmosphere slowly pushing down on him from above.
Bow, one of the clones, said, "I thought this hyperspace was clear."
"We all thought it was," Anakin said, "we're lucky I was looking at the radar at the exact moment I did, otherwise we'd be blood stains right now."
Attie, another clone, said, "I just hope this place is uninhabited. Otherwise we're in even deeper trouble than we were before."
Anakin's wrist flashed with a transmission. It took most of his strength just to reach up and hit the button. "Anakin!" Obi-wan said frantically, "Master Windu told me you crashed on some unidentified system." Explosion and blasters were going off all around him in his background.
"We're alright," Anakin assured him, "but I think these medical supplies are ruined."
"I was told to rescue you," he explained, "but the separatists brought re-enforcements and are back for another round! I don't know how long I'll be."
Anakin explained, "Master, this system's gravity is so harsh we're all going to get crushed to death if someone doesn't come and get us now." He watched as Obi-wan dodged attacks through his communicator.
"He's not coming?" Rex asked.
No sooner was that said, did the ground under them begin shaking. A roar echoed much too close for comfort.
Ahsoka asked, "Now what?"
"I'm sorry, Anakin," Obi-wan said, "you're going to have to wait." His transmission cut off just as the landscape around Anakin, Ahsoka, and the clones shifted violently around them.
Massive creatures, even taller than wookies, stood above them with the largest blaster weapons any of them had ever seen. These people were also blue in color, similar to the landscape, and wore primitive loin cloths as clothes. They shouted at each other in their alien language and took aim at the helpless group.
"So much for an easy mission!" Ahsoka shouted.
"I wish I knew what they were saying," Anakin said as they started taking fire.
It took all their strength just to pull themselves across the ground, let alone crawl, and no one was walking anywhere. The clones tried blasting away, but their lasers were no good against them. Ahsoka attempted to use her lightsabers and the force to stop their fire blasts, but she could barely move. She had to dodge their blows instead of block them like usual.
She asked, "What's wrong with the force? It isn't working!" She threw her shorter lightsaber, but it bounced onto the ground next to her instead of hitting the aggressors.
"There's nothing wrong with it," Anakin explained as he deflected the blasts of fireball ammunition he had never seen before, "it's us. We're not used to using the force with this strength of gravity. You have to put in more effort." A fireball landed on his left foot. He screamed out and recoiled in pain. His anger rose and he used all his might to throw his lightsaber like a boomeraang, using the force to guide it through the giants, cutting them all down with ease, and instantly had it return to his hand.
"You're on fire!" Ahsoka shouted as she tried to pat it out with her hands. His shoe was burnt off, and his flesh wasn't spared underneath.
In pain, Anakin said, "We have to get out of here!"
"General," Rex said, "there's a cave not too far behind us."
He commanded, "Then move out."
More natives moved in to continue their assault as the group of them crawled away. It wasn't until they were all the way inside that the blasting finally stopped.
Ahsoka asked, "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"
Instead of blasting them inside the cave, their explosions hit the mountaintop and walls. Rocks of all sizes quickly fell down around them. They were too far in to leave, especially since they could barely crawl. Anakin turned face up and used the force to stop the boulders from crushing them from directly above. Their exit was quickly closed in, and he felt the entire mountain collapsing in on itself. The cave slowly shrunk in size all around them.
"Quick!" Rex said, "Help him move these rocks!" The clones worked together and tried their hardest to pull the boulders away from the opening of the cave, but they didn't budge.
"Even the little ones feel like they weigh a million pounds," Ahsoka whined as she tried to push one the size of her hand away.
"General," Ridge, another clone, said, "we're trying, but the gravity here is too intense. All these rocks might as well weigh more than a shuttle. It looks like we're trapped in here."
Ahsoka tried to use the force to the best of her ability, but even the ones on the ground wouldn't lift or roll. She looked up at the ceiling through the darkness as the clones activated their flashlights. "Rex," she said, "try blasting the rocks directly above us. If we make them smaller, they should be easier to move."
They took their basters and launched them at the roof. The rocks exploded and Anakin screamed, "No! No! Stop! You're making it worse!"
Dust fell down and small rocks felt like missles landing on top of them. Whatever was left of the mountain above them had completely collapsed in on itself. Anakin now held the entire weight of it with the power of the force, using everything he had to fight against gravity.
"It's like the force is gone," Ahsoka said, laying on the ground and struggling to catch her breath, "I can't move...a single stone!"
"Like I said, snips," Anakin explained, his voice strained as he continued to struggle, "we're not used to using the force...against this much gravity. Every time I move a stone to the side, another one takes its place." He struggled to take deep breaths, but it felt like his lungs were fighting against his ribs. "Ahsoka, call Obi-wan on my communicator."
She wiggled in beside him and struggled to even lift her hand up to the button. "I got it!"
"Obi-wan!" Anakin shouted at him, "Master! Answer me! We're in a bind!"
"Anakin, I'm in the middle of a crossfire so intense we might not make it out of this alive," Obi-wan explained, fighting for his life, "I've been ordered not to rescue you until I finish helping the Synat system."
Ahsoka explained, "Master Kenobi, the locals on this system attacked us! Master Skywalker...has a burnt foot, and now...we're inside a cave that's collapsing on top of us! If someone doesn't get here soon...we'll die."
Obi-wan fought the separatists while on the hologram and said, "I didn't realize things were that dire, but I'll have to talk to the council again before I can act."
"Obi-wan," Anakin said, grunting, "go against orders for once...and pilot a shuttle here as fast as you can but do not use hyperspace!" The rocks above shifted as they spoke, and more dust clouded their eyes.
As Obi-wan fought, he said, "Sit tight, Anakin, I'll get there as fast as I can with anti-gravity disks." He ended the transmission.
Rex asked, "How long do you think...it'll take for him to find us?" He coughed and struggled to inhale a breath.
"I don't want to think about it," Anakin answered. He stared at the pitch black abyss above him, barely able to make out the outlines of several massive boulders ready to crush them all. Using the force had always come easy to him once he knew what it was, and now, for the first time ever, he was pinned and the odds were stacked against him and his entire crew. How was he going to get out of this one?
Ahsoka did her best to control her breathing, but every breath was beginning to feel like her lungs and ribs were getting stabbed repeatedly. She attempted to help her master with lifting the rocks overhead, but the force wasn't with her.
"I'm sorry Master," she said, struggling to turn her head towards him, "for being so weak." She groaned in pain as the gravity pushed against her neck and jaw.
"You're still a learner," he said, gritting his teeth against the weight, "all you can do...is keep making attempts until you do it."
Over time, their weight against the thick atmosphere of the planet continued to crush them. The clones had to take their armor off and wear only the underclothes. Breathing only grew harder. Ahsoka managed to wrap up Anakin's burnt foot, but it was all she could do as the weight of the world pressed against her.
Slowly they all felt their bones begin to crack and their internal organs shift. The rocks Anakin held up inched their way down to the ground and nothing he did got them any higher. Even speaking hurt as their lungs struggled to hold their breaths.
Anakin's arms started to shake, and sweat ran down the side of his face and neck. He had faced death in so many situations before with this very same crew, but this one seemed to be the most ridiculous one he had gotten them into yet. And to think, he had wanted to spend that evening with Padme. He kept the thoughts of never seeing her again off of his mind.
"Do you think," Ahsoka said, taking a shallow breath, "we'll ever see...sunlight again...Master?"
"Focus on your breath," he said quickly, "take charge of the force."
Rex added, "Think positively...commander. We've been through...worse than this."
What they didn't know, was Obi-wan was on his way. Because Anakin insisted he not use hyperspace, it took much longer than he expected to arrive. Using the force, he found the planet they were trapped on and grabbed the anti-gravity disks.
"He wasn't kidding about the gravity here," Obi-wan said to Cody, his clone officer as they landed, "it's like the planet wants to pull us in and crush us."
They found what was left of the crash site and the dead bodies of giants. Cody asked, "Where are they? All I see his this twisted up metal." He paused. "Oh no, you don't think-"
"I sense them," Obi-wan interrupted, "they're alive! Over here! Hurry!" He grabbed more disks and the group of them ran to the pile of rocks that used to be a cave.
By then, the boulders hovered inches away from their faces. Every breath Anakin inhaled took more power away from his concentration on the rocks. They were moving down fast before he sensed Obi-wan approaching.
"He's..." Anakin struggled to say, "here." He couldn't breathe in again without dropping the rocks.
Obi-wan threw the anti-gravity disks by the pile and used the force to lift them just as Anakin passed out from exhaustion.
"Anakin!" he shouted, "Ahsoka!"
They all moved in to help each other out. Obi-wan dragged Anakin's unconcious body along. Ahsoka whispered, "I'm so glad..." her body gave out, she couldn't move.
As soon as they were all safe and Obi-wan deactivated the anti-gravity disks, the rocks fell. Everyone was loaded onto the ship and sent to regroup with Master Windu. On the way there, Ahsoka woke up first.
"According to the medical droid you managed to make it out of there with only a few injuries," Obi-wan said as he stood next to her sick bed, "you'll be out of the action for a while."
"How's Anakin?" she asked, sitting up and holding her ribs.
"He's still unconcious," he answered, "and he's injured too, but he'll be alright."
Ahsoka said, "You should have seen him out there. I thought we were goners as soon as we crashed into that planet, but he just kept pushing like it was no big deal. It's like he knew we would survive this."
He replied, "And he was right, you did."
"Barely," she said, "if you hadn't showed up the exact moment you did, those rocks would have crushed us to death."
Obi-wan said, "Then it's a good thing I showed up. Get some rest, Ahsoka. Master Windu is going to want a full report from you as soon as we arrive to his ship." He stepped out of her healing bay and over to Anakin's.
He laid unconscious, an oxygen mask on his face, unaware he had been rescued in time. When he did finally wake up, he couldn't help but inhale, bolt upright, and use the force to push everything away from him. Obi-wan leapt in and grabbed him by the arms and held him down. "You're alright!" he said, "I got you out of there! You're on a ship now."
Anakin laid back and took the mask off. "Alright!" he said, "Whoa! Okay! At least that's over!" He caught his breath and held his ribs in pain. "Thank you, Obi-wan, for coming to rescue me."
"I disobeyed Master Windu's orders," he explained, "I pulled out of the battle when I wasn't supposed to, and I just received the report of the aftermath. We lost. All the clones I left behind have been killed, and the separatists now have control of another system. But at least you're alive."
"I'm sorry, Obi-wan," Anakin said, sitting up delicately.
"This isn't your fault," he said, "I left my post."
He said, "My entire mission was Master Windu's plan. We almost died because he insisted this new hyperspace route was safe and clearly it wasn't. This is his fault."
Obi-wan said, "I just hope the council sees it that way."
Ahsoka sat back away from Anakin as she remembered that day. "That was awful," she said, "truly. I thought we were going to die, but for some reason you just knew we wouldn't."
"It wasn't the fact that I knew we were going to live," he said, stepping away from her, "I decided we were, big difference. You, on the other hand, gave up in the very beginning, snips, just as you did today."
"Hey," she said hastily, "I told you it ended up being harder than I expected."
He shook his head. "The point of making you remember that day is to remind you why we survived in the first place. It was supposed to be an easy mission-quite frankly, one that was beneath us-but it ended up being much harder than we expected. Still, I fought to ensure our survival even though it was borderline impossible. Without Obi-wan's help we would have died that day."
Ahsoka smirked, "And the universe would be a very different place."
Anakin shook his head, "If I died there Palpatine would have chosen a different apprentice, not much would have changed, I'm sure." He put his hand up to signal a wave and as he disappeared, he said, "Remember, always fight for survival, even when it feels like it's impossible to win."
She wanted to smile at remembering him, but she also remembered all the terrible things he had done as well, and she couldn't. Still, she knew he had a point.