Chapter 86
If the underwater battles we'd had before then weren't enough of a paradigm shift in just how to approach a battlespace? Battlewater? Then fighting one on this scale presented an entirely new set of considerations.
As far as I knew from recorded galactic history, no one had fought with these numbers in an aquatic environment. Maybe the peoples of Dac and other water worlds had in the ancient past or perhaps a conquest of the Rakata had involved such a battle.
Whatever the case, Anakin, Lee-Char, General Tarpals and I were now grappling with that very real problem. It was not helped by the fact that for all we knew, our karkarodon opposition might be more experienced in it - by fighting wars amongst themselves. Tamson's temperament certainly suggested that to me.
"General Tarpals," I held up my hand to project a tactical holo of the local battlespace. "We need to deploy in layers and walls. M8, five icons for each gungan regiment, please." I grabbed two delta shaped icons and positioned them in the upper layer of the ocean, two for the lower layer beneath the first thermocline and a single regiment for the deepest part all the way to the ocean floor. "The enemy will make use of the deeps to flank us from below if we let him. Each layer, must have a wall of your troops, use your shields, double stacked, to create a central bulwark. The first layer will absorb as much fire as possible, then the layer behind them will swim forward, allowing the first to retreat and let their shields recharge and cool. They advance as they do this, whilst each wall has left and right prongs of troops that will swim to the side, attack the enemy and eventually surround them. Do you see?"
Tarpals was a relatively older gungan but still in his physical prime. As a native aquatic, he immediately saw what I was trying to do.
"It can work, Commander Tano. General Skywalker?"
Since Anakin was the senior general on the field, even though Tarpals technically should've had that, all orders had to come from the Jedi General.
"Deploy as the commander indicates," he nodded.
I grabbed the holo and chucked it to Tarpals. M8 immediately handled the nitty gritty and the gungan general's hand held holo blossomed with my battle plan. He began immediately speaking in rapid gunganese into his comlink.
It took barely a few minutes and I could see the results as the regiments began diving and orienting themselves. They wouldn't finish before the enemy reached effective weapon range, but it was far better than just blundering head first into an experienced army of nasty aquatic warriors with far too many teeth.
The combined clone and mon cala special ops squads that had sabotaged the scanner building now joined us, bringing their subs including the five modified disruptor cannon subs.
I handed the controls of my own sub to another trooper and took over his standard Devilfish sub.
Anakin nodded at me, then addressed the four clones and all the other sub pilots, "All right everyone, the disruptor cannons are our best shot for taking out the Tridents at a long range. The gungans could also do it with boomas, but they'd take awful casualties in the process. We'll also be using standard cannons and torpedoes against them. We're the cavalry and long range artillery in this fight. Understood?"
"Sir, yes sir."
"Ahsoka, you need to stay in the rear with Prince Lee-Char, Chewie and General Tarpals. I have no doubt that Tamson is taking to the field himself and he wants the prince."
I nodded in understanding, it went unsaid that I needed to remain here to apply maximum levels of Battle Meditation to so many troops. I couldn't do that and be in the battle, whilst also having to worry about bodyguarding the prince.
"Let's go!"
The newly formed aquatic cavalry squad pushed pedal to the metal on their subs and streaked away towards the battle layers.
I set my new sub to a buoyant station keeping mode and sat down cross legged on its hull.
"Prince, keep your spear up and ready. General Tarpals, same with your weapon. Chewie, you need to be my bodyguard."
"What are you doing, Ahsoka?" Lee-Char asked curiously.
"You'll feel it soon."
I closed my eyes, calling up my full focus and the Force, pushing my perceptions outward to encompass a spherical hemisphere of five kilometer radius from my body, down to the sea floor. I ignored the logical part of my brain roughly calculating just how much volume that was and banished the thought.
My mind found the concentrations of spirit that represented every gungan, clone and karkarodon in that hemisphere.
I also found the very blinding presence of Anakin.
He hardly needed his own spirit buoyed but excluding him required effort, which was far better used elsewhere.
The energy of the Force flowed in me and through me, branching out and connecting to every little light of spirit.
It was so beautiful to see in my mind, I wish I could have made a painting of it, yet I knew many of those lights would join the Force in death within moments.
Ranges closed, the gungans continued getting the formations in order.
The karkarodons opened fire.
The gungans returned fire.
You can do this.
The Force is with you, always.
We are with you.
Take heart, fight for your fellow warrior beside you.
"What is this?" Lee-Char's mouth was partially open in astonishment, his eyes shining with a near elation, his stance in the water subtly shifting. He was no longer an introverted princling, thrust into a battle for his people and world, now he was clutching that spear blaster as if he had been born with it. His movement fluid and body language with a hint of confidence.
I didn't answer, instead focusing on the enemy. It would be the first real time I used the offensive version of Battle Meditation at this scale, my mind bent onto their spirits…
In the Force, I perceived the educated hunch I had was correct - the karkarodon homeworld was one beset with internal conflict even to this day. Every warrior Tamson had brought was from his own clan, simply because he could be assured that a rival clan wouldn't try to stab him in the back, literally and on a greater scale.
Your cause will fail.
You are outnumbered.
These waters and this planet will be your doom.
Below us is an entire city of people who will hang your carcasses to the sky and air.
The enemy began dying.
Blaster shots hitting them mostly in the head as they swam towards the gungan army. Their own shots being deflected off gungan shields and the slowly building shield wall.
The walls were incomplete and sheer volume of fire meant that gungans also suffered casualties.
Tridents decloaked below the first thermocline and opened fire with their weapons, killing nearly twenty gungans in an instant before their shields could be brought to bear against the Repeater fire.
The local gungan commander responded almost instantly, getting his warriors in order, keeping them organized and retaliating.
Entire companies worth of blaster fire impacted against the Trident's shielding, then mass amounts of boomas were thrown and the Trident's internal power systems died - fried to a crisp by exotic plasma.
I sensed all the karkarodons inside trying to get out, but it was futile. What had been their transport and gunship became their tomb as none of the exterior doors would work and the transparisteel was too strong for their own blasters to work on. The Trident sank into the deepest depths and would settle there, until someone could improvise an explosive charge.
I traced the probability line and it showed them all dying in an hour when that charge was incorrectly placed and calibrated. The ship's structure would fatally collapse and the ocean pressure at that depth would crush them like a trash compactor.
The battle in the lowest thermocline also began similarly, with three Tridents decloaking, except these ones immediately opened to disgorge their troops.
The difference here was that the enemy was caught somewhat off-guard.
They had not expected a mere land walker to think so three dimensionally and had delayed deployment, hoping to get properly underneath us.
The battle that ensued was an awful close range slaughter, favoring the gungans.
The gungans practically enveloped the Tridents, dropping boomas and shooting into the emerging karkarodons from above, below, left and right.
Only so many of the enemy could deploy from the relatively narrow deployment door between the massive tentacles of the Trident.
The karkarodons ended up using their dead as shields from gungan fire to close range, where their superior physicality and teeth came into play.
It was balanced by the gungan agility in the water, who fired their rifles from close range, stabbing their barrels into karkarodon chests before pulling the trigger, resulting in very messy explosions. Some gungans even used their shields, finding that the edges of the energy constructs were quite handy in cutting the enemy.
Whereas the old gungan shield needed extra support buttressing on the edges, blunting its potential use as a cutting weapon. These were now more compact, modernized to fit onto the gauntlet of the warrior and could retain cohesion without the buttressing.
Booma hits now began to disable the Trident's exterior weaponry. They were barely able to emerge from their panels before a gungan chucked a booma to impact the weapon.
The bisected chunks of karkarodons leaking blood began creating a stained cloud in the water.
Gungan limbs and bodies began joining them.
Meanwhile, the battle in the upper thermocline reached a new ferocity when torpedoes from the Tridents began launching.
What made it worse was that whoever was in charge of targeting didn't care whether they hit karkarodon or gungan. The formation shield wall was well established at this point and the gungans were steadily advancing in leaps, with the two 'horns' of their formation beginning to envelop the enemy.
The tips of the horns were the most contested, with gungans forced into close quarters fighting with the enemy. The torpedo salvo had multiple targets, but it seemed to favor the closest intermingled lines.
The gungan center frantically fired on the incoming torpedoes and Anakin's sub cavalry swooped in, where he used the Force to crush the weapons outright.
The tips of the formation were not so lucky and three torpedoes detonated.
I felt twenty-three gungans and forty-seven karkarodons die instantly. The expanding hammer blow of expanding compressed water, with subsequent a void implosion and final shockwave doing its terrible job.
Anakin's Devilfish subs fired their own torpedo salvo in retaliation, focusing on a single Trident.
The ship's Repeaters fired in defense, but it was far from an effective anti-torpedo unit, the design trying to tick too many boxes at once.
Five torpedoes made it through to detonate against its shields, which popped like a bubble. The subsequent effects tore at the hull, rending huge wounds in it. Something was also damaged internally and the internal reactor's fusion bottle failed. Thankfully, it scrammed successfully but it lost all power, its tentacles freezing and all propulsion systems giving up the ghost.
The sub squadron targeted the next Trident, this time using their blaster cannons. It did nothing but splash against the shields, until the disruptor cannons fired.
The orange beams sliced through the water in an instant, going completely through the shields and slamming into the hull directly.
At the contact points, the armor disintegrated immediately and the Trident was wreathed with slivers of electric energy briefly as its power systems immediately began failing.
The squadron followed it up with a coup de grace of blaster cannon shots that consigned it to finally drop into the deeps.
Some karkarodons tried to swoop in and attack the subs, but Anakin with his lightsaber and the clones working in concert fended them off by shooting their DC-12s with one hand.
It was at this moment I noticed a cluster of life signatures in the Force, which were slowly approaching from our right flank straight towards my position.
They had taken a long route, circling around the periphery of the battle and were now coming closer.
A cloaked Trident.
My Battle Meditation was on them, but there was one among them who merely seemed to use it to spur his own anger and determination. It didn't take a genius to guess who this was. No need to use Farsight at all.
I was about to break the Meditation, but my Prescience practically screamed a warning down the probability line.
Despite how well the battle seemed to be going in the gungan favor, there had yet to be any sign of the League quarren or aqua droids. The latter was being occupied by the allied forces at the city's periphery. If either enemy force managed to break contact and return to the main battle over the government complex, the numerical advantage would be equalized considerably.
Currently, my blanket of Battle Meditation was keeping someone from ordering that.
Both paths would still result in victory, but the cost in one was leaning more towards a pyrrhic type and it would also have unacceptable ripples back on Naboo.
A small part of me wanted to scream in frustration. Served me right for not going into Meditation in a more secluded spot, yet events and timing had forced our hand.
I pulled back just enough focus and concentration to speak.
"Lee Char, Tarpals, Chewie," I gained their attention.
"What is it, commander?" the prince asked with worry.
"I cannot stop what I'm doing and we're about to be attacked."
"From where?"
He was answered when the Trident decloaked, its forty meter long tentacles surrounding us. The main hull right over our heads and the debarkation door opened immediately with an ominous mechanical groan.
Emerging at speed from the dark maw of the Trident above us, was a furiously swimming Riff Tamson. An odd alien blaster in one hand, whilst the other held a dagger and his mouth was open baring all his fearsome teeth to us. His snarls of anger resounded through the water around us.
Tamson was many things, but stupid was not one of them and he led his attack by throwing that dagger down at us.
It cut through the water but wasn't aimed at us, instead the dagger detonated in a small explosion just a few meters above our heads that put all my defenders on the backfoot.
It saved Tamson from getting a bowcaster bolt shot through his maw and his first target was Chewie.
His blaster shot speared down and would've hit Chewie in the abdomen, but Tarpals interspersed his shield and the bolt was deflected away. The Aegis would've saved the wookiee's life, but not without an injury that would take him out of the fight. The gungan general's instincts were spot on.
Especially when he slammed the shield reflexively straight into Tamson's face.
"Argh!"
The karkarodon recoiled backward, clutching at his shocked snout.
Chewie roared in anger, firing his bowcaster but the range was close and Tamson's own instincts saved his life as he dove low under the sub, using it as cover.
Lee-Char, Tarpals and Chewie through some instinctual agreement surrounded me, backs to each other and weapons raised, waiting for Tamson to try again.
I siphoned off a precious bit of focus and will, enough to say, "M8, autonomous defense mode."
"Autonomous defense engaged, mistress. I dare this pathetic meatbag to come close now!" she snarled into my helmet, so only I could hear. She engaged her external speakers. "Hey, karkie boy, is it true if you stop swimming, you die?"
Tamson roared into view trying to bite Lee-Char.
The prince swiped his spear into the karkarodon's face, forcing him to dodge aside and dive again, especially when Tarpals fired a trio of bolts, one of which clipped the enemy on his armored shoulder.
"Try again, meatbag!" M8 chirped with fury.
Chewie slung his bowcaster over his back and drew his wookiee spiritblade, switching on its vibro function.
He was just in time to block an attack from Tamson, deflecting his dagger attack to the side and slashing in a riposte.
With frightening reflexes and speed, the Separatist dodged again but now with a souvenir.
The spiritblade caught Tamson on his rear leg as he dove again, leaving a clear blood trail that dispersed in the water.
"Ha ha ha," his voice rumbled from underneath the sub. "Prince Lee-Char! I've been looking forward to this moment. I must admit these creatures you've brought to fight my army are giving a good show of themselves. But it'll all be for nothing when you join your father in death, as he did at my hand!"
"The only thing you'll be doing, Tamson, is rotting in the depths of Dac!" Lee-Char retorted.
The Separatist popped up like some demented jack in the box, trying to let off a quick shot with his blaster.
Tarpal's shield was there, the general having clearly anticipated that Tamson would go for the prince.
Tamson charged furiously, snapping his jaws in a threatening display.
Chewie and Lee-Char thrust their weapons forward, forcing Tamson to dodge to the side lest he impale himself.
M8 made herself known by literally puppeting me, grabbing my lightsaber, igniting and giving a simple upward slash.
She did this with machine reflexes and speed, injuring my right arm somewhat in the process.
The surprise on Tamson's face was total, not that he had a conventional humanoid expression.
M8 lopped off both of the karkarodon's legs with an awful grating noise that resounded in the water.
Lee-Char gave a vicious shout and surged off the sub in the next moment, pushing against the water with all his strength.
"Haaaaah!" The Prince shouted with exertion and his spear blaster stabbed through Tamson's chest.
The karkarodon gurgled and coughed blood.
Lee-Char was far from satisfied, letting his momentum pull his feet forward to settle on Tamson's chest. He grabbed a dagger from the Seperatist's belt pouch and stabbed it right into the karkarodon's neck.
The prince pushed off, kicking Tamson away who was amazingly still hanging on to life.
He flailed and pumped with his arms trying to regain control of his near bisected body.
Lee-Char aimed with his spear blaster and fired.
The shot, taken from just over five meters away, hit the dagger.
The explosion was brief and bright, the small void quickly reclaimed by the ocean and staining it with green blood and scattered viscera.
Riff Tamson's lifeless head, burst eyes, jaw and teeth wide open and dangling, began sinking to the bottom.
"Prince Lee-Char!"
M8 grabbed my DC-12 and aimed it at the still open maw of the Trident, my lightsaber also coming up in defense. Tarpals brought his shield up, rushing to the prince's side. Chewie roared in defiance at the owner of that voice, bringing his spiritblade up and ready to launch himself forward with the promise of violent dismemberment.
Emerging slowly and without any weapons was Chieftain Nossor Ri.
Lee-Char aimed his spear blaster but didn't fire, "Are you surrendering Nossor?"
"Yes…" Ri bowed his head. "Your highness."
That surprised the prince enough that he slightly lowered his weapon. "What? What happened to going it alone? Independence? Isolation?"
Ri shook his head, "A foolish notion, born from the latest generation, encouraged then subverted by Tamson and the Separatists. The karkarodon wished to place himself on the throne of this world and in so doing, both our people would be slaves to them. He merely used the quarren. We would've been used as labor for the war machine of Tamson's clan on Karkaris and the CIS." He closed his eyes. "I was swept away by the tides of ambition. When your father died, seemingly at the hands of a mon cala, I took it as a sign-"
"Wait, you thought that a mon cala did that?"
"I was a part of the government and an advisor to your father. The investigation found mon cala skin on the handle of the coral dagger. Suffice it to say, it was clear to me that there were even mon cala unhappy with the monarchial government. I see now after the fact, that it was all just Tamson, especially when I discovered he had brainwashing technology which worked on mon cala and quarren alike."
Nossor now looked to the nearby ongoing battle - just in time to see a Trident exploding violently.
Everyone winced at the sound and the shockwave that eventually reached us was little more than a light push.
"I can only now do one thing, you highness. Then I will submit to whatever justice you wish," he tapped his comlink. "Attack the karkarodons."
Emerging from the city buildings nearby, thousands of armed quarren swam into view.
They charged with speed and swiftly cut off any line of retreat the karkarodons had - capping the tips of the gungan formations, achieving a complete envelopment.
General Tarpals's eyes widened and he hurriedly gave orders over his comlink for his warriors to not engage the quarren.
The battle would stretch on for another fifty minutes as not a single karkarodon would surrender.
They fought viciously and to the last.
My only consolation was that the gungan casualty rate petered off to almost nothing after the last Trident was disabled.
We received word not soon after that the diversionary action at the city outskirts had also ended, with every aqua droid being destroyed as well.
All across the planet, the now dissolved Isolation League quarren laid down their arms in surrender.
The battle for the waters of Dac was over.
The battle for the Mon Cala system was a different story.
Barely four hours later, after losing all contact with their aquatic forces and Riff Tamson, the CIS fleet in Ruisto jumped to hyperspace.
The Republic Task Force was there waiting for them when they emerged into the Mon Cala system.
The battle in space was something we had no control or influence over, it was all in the hands of Master Koon.
The majority of the civilian population emerged to begin the clean up and reconstruction of the city even as the battle for the fate of the entire planet raged in space.
My own time was spent with General Tarpals and Anakin as we supervised and helped in the retrieval of the gungan, clone, mon cala and quarren dead.
The deaths across the planet would take months to properly tabulate. Those missing and taken offworld into slavery was few in number relatively speaking, but it was definitely in the hundreds. Mon cala who were now being ferried across the stars in cloaked ships towards whatever destination that Dooku and CIS had in mind for them.
Among all the Republic forces that had come to Dac, counting clone and gungan, a figure of 8% casualties and 3% deaths was reached within a few hours of the post-battle recovery efforts. The shields had done their job and it was only the Tridents and close quarter actions that had resulted in gungan deaths. It still meant just under four hundred gungan families would get unbearable news soon.
The injured, both civilian and military, began filling the capital's hospitals. 1,232 gungans and clones clung to life, with missing limbs, blaster wounds and blunt force trauma being the biggest causes of injury to the combatants.
It was a never ending list of issues and worries, which would only continue to grow, especially when the political situation was taken into account. I didn't envy Lee-Char at all.
The landlubbers were finally given a reprieve when the prince ordered that the largest hotel and a few smaller ones in the city that catered to offworlders be opened up for us.
I climbed out of my armor in my new somewhat basic 30 square meter accommodations with a hurry and just sighed in relief when my skin could just breathe properly again.
I walked forward to lean against the circular window, staring into the waters as the sun went down over Coral city.
"M8, status of the battle?"
"Ongoing, mistress. After the CIS achieved a foothold, Master Koon had to retreat to Dac's orbit. Both sides are still having fighter duels across the system, fighting to conquer and defend Mon Calamari system infrastructure. Tactical advantage remains with Republic forces due to the microjump ability of our star destroyers."
I had to sleep and was running on fumes at this point. The mass Battle Meditation combined with the post-battle cleanup work had shattered me. Moving constantly in an underwater environment for so long made me feel like every muscle in my body had undergone a punishing workout. Even with the Force aiding me internally and my Control skills, there was only so far you could push the body.
"And the Providence carrier?"
"It has sustained damage but is still in the fight."
It would be supremely annoying if we won the underwater battle only to fumble the fight in space. If the CIS attained space superiority, we'd be trapped in the waters of Dac. Waiting for whatever factory that pumped out aqua droids to produce enough to attack us again, unless the Republic could push them out of the system first.
I was so tempted to find a proper sized holotank and begin plotting tactics to help Master Koon, but my thinking was also quite sluggish at this point and I'd be risking making critical mistakes. No, I had to trust that Plo Koon could handle it.
My feet plodded me over to the bed and I promptly collapsed face first onto its delightful softness. The hotel room wasn't a penthouse suite equivalent or anything, but right now anything vaguely sponge-like was like laying on a cloud of softness to my battered body.
"M8, guard mode, please," I mumbled with the last vestiges of wakefulness.
My armor sealed itself up minus the helmet and M8 picked up the DC12U rifle to arm herself.
"Sleep tight, mistress."
I gave her a mumble of acknowledgement and soon fell into the welcoming oblivion of sleep.
Of course, my subconscious decided to delight me with a wonderful rerun of the worst moments of the battle. The awful price of Battle Meditation, I was acutely aware of when someone died whilst I was using that skill.
That rerun was interrupted when I abruptly found myself in the infinite white and dark crystalline domain of the Darksaber.
"Seriously?" I asked, looking around me.
"That'll be enough of that," said an old female voice from behind me.
I recognized it instantly and I felt my back stiffen and shiver.
Fear was not something I was going to show this specter of the past. Why would the Darksaber choose her of all people to wear as its face?
I turned around and beheld an older human woman slightly shorter than me, she wore old style Jedi robes, green tunic and dress, with a hood that purposely covered her eyes, which I knew would be milky white underneath. Her long gray hair was parted into two braids which framed her face, with golden rings binding them. She wore her experience and age in her body language, but I saw the skin on her face unblemished with wrinkles as was typical for certain Force users who had the skill and power to control their own aging. Jedi Master Fay being the only contemporary Jedi who had managed to achieve that.
I folded my arms and frowned, "Why?"
"You're taking the deaths rather hard, young one," said Darksaber Kreia. I could only nod, it was the truth. "So now I mirror your question, why? You've got that necklace to represent every clone that you've lost under your command. To keep yourself from trivializing their sacrifice. Is your resolve faltering now that you have natural born soldier's names to add to that necklace?"
I sighed, fingering the necklace in question that was naturally there the instant I thought about it. Originally conceived to hold the names of every clone pilot who had flown and died in Wraith Squadron. I was now probably going to have to add a data chit to it if I was going to memorialize the names of all the gungans. "I suppose the fact that they have families back on Naboo is what's getting to me. The gungans have their own traditions for honoring their fallen in battle. However, they were technically in the GAR. My decisions led to their deaths and the responsibility for their loss is mine. I know they accepted the role of warrior knowing it could lead to their death, but whilst my mind can accept that… the heart is not so easy to conquer." My eyes found Kreia's missing left hand. "Every time someone dies whilst under my Battle Meditation, it feels like a lightsaber chopping off an arm. How does one ever get used to that? Are you even supposed to?"
"This has been haunting you, ever since you started using it properly on your return from Mortis?"
"Of course."
"You know the dead do not care about our silly little rituals to honor them. Only the living do, they're to help and alleviate our pain, it's what helps us continue onward." Kreia gestured with her stump. A small wooden table appeared and all it held was a simple datapad; it was on and a word processor program was running…
Such a simple thing, yet I felt a terrible dread just looking at it.
It was totally irrational and my subconscious speaking.
"You're thinking of writing letters to the gungan families. Why? You didn't know them until they fell under your command. Let Tarpals handle that. He was their general. Even he wouldn't have known every single one of them. He is going to rely on the commanders and lieutenants in the gungan regiments to do this."
I shook my head, "I must… do something-"
"Simply because you felt every single death?"
"Yes, as you said, rituals are for the living."
"So you're going to do it for yourself. You'll take this burden on your shoulders because to do otherwise would be unconscionable to you."
"Yes, it's-"
"This is not Earth."
The Darksaber was pushing my buttons. I knew they were doing it. Yet, I couldn't stop the flash of outrage and anger at the kyber entity.
"So what?! So I should become an uncaring, unfeeling monster who spends the lives of those who come under my command like currency? Shrug it off and hyper away, second star to the right? I've already made my peace with it and accepted it."
"Yet you can't help but feel that something is distinctly different now. That every dead gungan warrior and mon cala was unique, never to be repeated. A snowflake falling from the sky, which meets its inevitable end with the dawn. Hence, the clones."
"They might be spun from the same DNA, but each is unique in mind and personality! They each have a unique presence in the Force-"
"But no family who could accept a condolence letter. That is the point of them after all, to spare the pain of war from the families of the Republic."
"They died in the defense of their own home. If the CIS succeeded here, it would've shown they are ready to invade Naboo's waters as well. It doesn't help you conquer the land, when there is also an army in the water waiting to take you out. Naboo is also a symbol-"
"You're rationalizing now."
"Why are you doing this?!" I finally snapped, glaring into the face of Darksaber Kreia.
"Why do you think I chose this form?" she countered.
"Of all Force users in history, I fear most becoming like her."
"That is what you tell yourself rationally and it certainly has merit, I will not deny that. Kreia, however, is still a valuable lesson to learn from. She once said that she is merely a mirror and her purpose was to show what her student's eyes could not yet see."
"And what are you trying to show me then?"
Darksaber Kreia only smirked in response.
My weary sigh echoed throughout the infinity of this kyber realm, "An answer I will have to find for myself, naturally."
Kreia raised her arms and now the hilts of three lightsabers hovered around her, which activated with purple blades and began lazily orbiting around her.
"The outfit is wrong, she only wielded those as a Sith," I criticized.
She laughed with amusement, "I'm not here to make sense for you, Ahsoka."
A simple thought and I was fully armored in my Aegis, with my two blades and the Darksaber humming threateningly around me in guard positions.
She immediately sent two blades forward trying to stab my stomach and slash my head off, keeping the third back in defense.
I intercepted them with my green blades, whilst sending the Darksaber shooting forward.
Abruptly the two purple blades shut down, zipped under my guard and reignited. Whilst she easily fended off the Darksaber with a twirl of her defending blade.
Only a Force Push overwhelming Kreia's control briefly saved me from being impaled as I rolled backward.
"Trakata, really?" I asked wryly, when I had reestablished my defenses. The technique was rare to both Sith and Jedi. Only someone like Kreia would use it because she alone didn't give a shit what both Orders thought about it.
"I'll admit, the chance that you'd ever fight someone like this is almost impossible. Yet, lightsaber training is not really the goal here."
All three of her blades surged forward this time, coming in at odd angles.
My blades rose in defense, batting them away, but I kept my body moving to create more complexity for my opponent in controlling those purple blades.
The speed and complexity of the battle challenged not just my telekinetic control and reflexes but also the intellectual mind. It was like a very deadly form of three dimensional chess, with lightsabers and your body as the pieces.
"Then again, never say never," I gritted through my teeth as my blades were pushed back on the defensive. "We live long enough, there might come an opponent who challenges us like this. Trying to beat us at our own game."
I dodged to the side, shutting down one of my blades. It snuck past her blade, then the hilt shot straight towards her head. I timed the blade to activate at the last possible moment.
Kreia smirked and tilted her head with a blurry movement, so my extending blade missed by an inch, before a Push from her sent it back my way with no more effort than batting aside a fly.
"So you'll use Trakata as well, tsk, tsk," she grinned.
How was it that she could make even a grin take on a distinctly sinister air - it was very creepy.
"In a fight to the death, nothing should be off the table. However, in this case, I'm merely equalizing the playing field."
Darksaber Kreia nodded, "Good."
Her next attack shot towards me, her blades spinning like energy buzz saws and shooting towards me from my left, right and above.
Finding the intercept points conventionally with my own blades was ridiculously complex, the timing down to the millisecond, especially as her blades had variable speeds.
I was not playing that game.
I pulled my blades back to my inner ring of defense, made some room and released a Force Wave that overwhelmed her control over her own weapons.
The purple blades scattered back in Kreia's direction flailing randomly, but she quickly regained control as I lost them due to distance and the increased influence of her passive defenses.
I sent my green blades to attack, recalled the Darksaber to my right hand and charged her down.
She recalled one of her blades to her right hand, gripping it just in time to overhead block my Falling Avalanche on her head, all the while we were jockeying our other blades to gain an advantage.
My armored knee surged forward abruptly, catching her in the stomach.
Despite having seemingly caught her off-guard with that, I knew she was faking. Her internal control was too good, fortifying even her internal organs to dissipate the sudden kinetic energy. Not that she really had organs, this was just the Darksaber entity simulating and its own opinion on what Kreia should've been capable of.
It nevertheless forced her back a step, breaking the blade's contact.
I lunged forward with my blade even before my feet hit the ground again, pulsing the Force from them to provide a base and keep me balanced.
She had to dodge and I applied a Trakata to my green blades to sneak them through her defenses, attacking her back. At the same time, I slashed to force her to retreat straight into my oncoming weapons.
She fended off the Darksaber with a deflection, bowed and twirled her blade behind her back, knocking my green blades off course, then added her telekinetic strength to their direction of travel - which was straight into my abdomen.
My control over my own blades meant that I could shut them down, and they bounced harmlessly off my armor.
At that moment, I only had the Darksaber, but now she had three active weapons to retaliate.
I deflected one, but the tips of two purple blades stopped themselves millimeters from my forehead and right side, just above the togruta liver.
"Checkmate," I acknowledged the defeat.
Darksaber Kreia nodded, "You did relatively well considering the fact it's the first time you've fought another opponent with the Ehn Kad Ky'ram."
"You came up with that or did one of your previous wielders read a dusty old tome somewhere in the Vizsla vaults?" It basically translated to the 'three blade death dance'.
"I'd like to think that's what Tarre Vizsla would've called it."
"So, shall we try again? Still have no answer on what you're trying to teach me."
She smirked and stepped back, bringing her blades to the ready.
I mirrored her.
This was going to be a long night.
The next morning I was back in my Aegis, eating a meaty breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, which was also packed with troopers from the 104th Battalion. Getting just one set of some sort of comfortable clothing was next on my to do list.
Across from me, Chewie had enough meat to feed me for a whole day on his plate, just as his breakfast. He ate with perfect decorum, using a knife and fork. The amount of food he could wolf down with one bite was substantial as well.
"Sleep well, Chewie? The beds aren't exactly wookiee sized in this hotel."
"Fine enough, just slept diagonally on a double," he waved off my concern. "Have you heard anything about the fleet battle?"
I finished chewing on my first bite and swallowed, "Master Koon's fleet has fended off every attack throughout the system overnight. It's now just a matter of consolidating to push onto the Ruisto hyperpoint and either force that CIS Providence to retreat or destroy it outright. The enemy's lost enough ships that we can be confident they won't conquer the system anymore unless they receive reinforcements, but our scouts up the hyperlane haven't found any."
"Good news then," Chewie's shoulders lost a subtle tenseness. More than likely he was relieved that he wouldn't be in for a long duration stay in the waters of Dac. "What are we going to do today?"
"More of the same, post-battle operations and cleanup, intelligence gathering from the wrecks and debris on the ocean floor. These Tridents represent a worrying threat. It means the CIS can now perform deep tactical strikes with relatively large numbers anywhere in Republic space at will. The security of being behind the front line battle spaces is not so absolute anymore. They can't hold a planet or system, but they can do a lot of damage until we're able to respond."
"Think I can take a look at the remains of their cloaking devices?" Chewie asked.
I carefully swallowed as I shut down the impulse to face palm. "Sure, in fact I think I'll invite over a few mon cala engineers as well from the shipyard. It'd be nice if there was a handy exploitable weakness in the CIS cloak."
No cloaking device was perfect after all.
It was just a matter of finding what it didn't shield from detection. The problem was that usually those kinds of emissions were only detectable by highly specialized sensors that you'd find in a university lab or science facility with machinery that measured its size in kilometers.
Pre Clone War cloaks had all been penetrable with detailed magnetic scans and eventually torpedoes with specialized EM seeker heads had been developed to counter them. Then Palpatine had let the horse out of the stable, with a cloak that got rid of that weakness, by giving the late Cad Bane the Xanadu Blood fighter.
That had been a very enjoyable spanner to throw in ol' Sheev's plans.
Now the Republic openly had their own version of the modern cloak.
These Tridents now represented a further refinement, allowing them to operate in the complex environment of an ocean.
With the mon cala studying and eventually putting their own spin on it for the Republic and themselves. We would now have a full blown arms race of cloak vs. detector and which side could be better would determine who'd have a vital strategic and tactical advantage.
It was amazing how these little happy accidents and opportunities arose to complicate Palpatine's vision.
I daydreamed a bit about a Mon Calamari MC-80 star cruiser decloaking and delivering a titanic world of hurt on a surprised enemy.
My comlink did its usual thing of interrupting the moment. I put down my cutlery, "Yes, master?"
"Hope your armor is in presentable shape, Snips. The mon cala and quarren want to coronate Prince Lee-Char today."
"So soon? Their system isn't even secure yet."
"They see it as a sign of defiance against what the CIS tried to do here. Now hurry up and get to the complex. Use the transport tubes."
"They're cleared already?" I asked in astonishment.
"I don't think there's a single person in this city who can say they didn't help in the clean up in some way, Snips. It's amazing what the people of this world can do when they put their minds to it."
The central multi-level hall that had held the Grand Conclave was absolutely packed with mon cala, quarren, gungans and assorted off-world dignitaries who maintained an embassy. It was practically a demonstration of that old Earth simile 'like sardines in a can'.
It also truly demonstrated the mental difference the people of Dac had in comparison to typical human or humanoid behavior. Just a few days ago there was an entire civil war happening, yet now through that crucible of fire, they emerged and I didn't sense any resentment or anger from either side. It was like I was watching the perfect coordination of a school of fish in the oceans of Old Earth, but on a societal level.
It wasn't totally perfect, as the entire civil war had demonstrated neatly, but the moment it was revealed how the quarren leadership had been essentially tricked and subverted, things changed quickly. The only emotion I did sense was a strong determination and purpose for the future that this would never happen again.
Prince Lee-Char kneeled before a Mon Cala priest who opened a chest made out of coral.
Nossor Ri, in his final act as chieftain, opened it and pulled out a grand crown made of gold and perfectly uniform shells shaped to fit the head of a mon cala. It didn't really hold a candle to an Imperial State Crown of the British Empire, but the reverence for it that I sensed everyone around me felt was impressive.
"As representative of the quarren people, I pledge our loyalty to you," Nossor said grandly, putting the crown onto Lee-Char's head.
Lee-Char rose and swam upward into prominence, then looked at everyone in turn. "As your king, I pledge my loyalty and faithful service to all the people of Dac, until the sea calls on me to return to the deeps."
The priest raised his staff and bellowed, "So it has been witnessed! Prince, he is no longer, now King Lee-Char!"
"KING LEE-CHAR! KING LEE-CHAR! KING LEE-CHAR! LONG LIVE THE KING!"
The shout was deafening but every mon cala and quarren raised their voices as one.
In the distance, I could also see that the entire city, watching in front of holo terminals had also joined in.
Just as suddenly, there was silence when the new king raised his hand.
"In my first act, as reconciliation in addressing the wounds that this war has opened. I declare a blanket pardon for all combatants. Crown authorities will not prosecute quarren or mon cala for any actions which resulted in loss of life and property. That being said, Nossor Ri has offered his resignation as chieftain and to forfeit his freedom for life. I will accept the first but not the latter. The Quarren Isolation League also has been dissolved."
Everyone cheered for that.
"There can be no division in the face of a galaxy at war. The CIS heartlands are practically on our doorstep. Their ships are still in our system, being driven out at great cost by the Grand Army of the Republic. In my second act, I thank our brothers and sisters of the sea, the gungans, who traveled far in the void between stars to lay down their lives and fight with us. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten and has created an unshakable bond and debt between us. One that we will honor in an alliance of mutual defense. The waters of Naboo are now as the waters of Dac to us."
A great shout of affirmation rocked the waters.
"My personal thanks to General Skywalker, Commander Tano, Senator Amidala, General Tarpals of Naboo and Captain Ackbar without whom I wouldn't be here today. Finally, I will commission the construction of a memorial here in Coral City. Everyone who lost their lives in this war and in the defense of this planet, be they quarren, mon cala, gungan and clone, will be enshrined on it. So that future generations can see and learn the heavy price paid for their freedom, so they may cherish it forever. So shall it be!"
"SO SHALL IT BE!"
"SO SHALL IT BE!"
"SO SHALL IT BE!"
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