Dear Reader, Thank you, first of all, to my reviewers: The Unnamed Guest, Darth Pancake, RohirrimGirl, Ms CT-782, Shadow Wanderer and Undercover Dreamer. As always, I appreciate you taking the time to review and keep me motivated. So, here we are, onto the Citadel. There were always a few things about the Citadel that bothered me, as a viewer - mainly how uncaring Obi-wan, Anakin and Ahsoka seemed at the death of various clones, but when Piell died, they somehow found the time to "mourn" him a little bit. You will pick up that sentiment in my writing of the Citadel. Full disclosure: I detest the character of Master Piell. He may not be on the same level as a General Krell, but he really struck me as being a real jacka**. Also, there seemed to be an inconsistency with how many 212th clones were on the mission. I ultimately settled on three. At any rate, I hope you enjoy! Peace, CS
Chapter 86 Subterfuge
"Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception."
The Prince
Nicolo Machiavelli
So much for his hope that the transition from the carbon freeze would be easy. Rex had entertained the possibility that maybe—just maybe—being carbon frozen would be like the peaceful bliss of a bacta tank. Or the gentle work of an analgesic.
He'd been wrong on both accounts.
Emerging from the sleep of the carbon casing had been one the most uncomfortable feelings he'd ever experienced. An initial disorientation, during which he wasn't sure where he was or even who he was, lasted only a few seconds. Once the neurons began firing in his brain and the synapses began carrying their electric signals again, his recollections began flooding back like water filling a basin. This phase was accompanied by an almost overpowering sense of nausea.
Vaguely aware of the sound of other team members emerging from their encasement, he held out a hand to brace himself against the frame from which he had just come. He kept his eyes closed, breathed deeply and slowly, and waited for the waves of stomach-roiling unsteadiness to pass. He heard General Skywalker's voice, distant and watery. "Hey, Snips."
Commander Tano's response of "Hey, Master," was equally distorted.
"I must have carbon sickness, because I could swear that's Ahsoka." That was General Kenobi's voice, and it sounded a bit clearer.
"Your eyes are fine. It's Ahsoka's hearing that needs help."
The conversation was occurring just on the fringe of Rex's awareness, but at least he was starting to feel well enough to comprehend its implications. Commander Tano was not supposed to be on this mission.
So, what was she doing here?
"I received orders to join the team. I thought you knew." Commander Tano's voice again, and even Rex, in his unsettled state, could detect the falsity in her tone.
"Orders? From who?" General Skywalker demanded.
"I discussed it with Master Plo."
Ah, the commander's emphasis on the word, discussed, belied her careful phrasing of the answer, so that she did not have to compound her original lie with yet another one. Rex was certain that General Skywalker had detected the same hints, and now that the nausea was wearing off, the captain waited to see if the general would call her on it.
"He didn't tell me," Skywalker challenged.
"You . . . were already in carbonite."
"Well, I gave you a specific order not to come." The general was angry.
Rex slipped his helmet on and pretended not to be listening. As General Kenobi approached, both he and Cody went to parade rest.
"Everything in working order, Captain?" Obi-wan inquired.
"Just about, Sir."
Kenobi now addressed both firsts-in-command. "As soon as the others are unfrozen, we'll move out."
"Yes, Sir," both men replied in unison. Behind them, they could hear the grunting and groaning of other team members, but that was preferable to the arguing between General Skywalker and his padawan.
Such back-and-forths between were fairly commonplace where the two were concerned, but that fact did not lessen the discomfort it caused their troops.
Rex had become a master at presenting himself as the disinterested, disengaged party in the room, being that these discussions very often took place in his presence. And if, on the off chance, he was drawn into the fray, his decision was simple enough. He sided with General Skywalker. Always.
Still, he could not feign surprise at the fact that Commander Tano was taking after her master in many areas, this sort of bending of the rules being one. Her next statement drove that point home.
"If there's one thing I've learned from you, Master, it's that following direct orders isn't always the best way to solve a problem."
Rex was tempted to deflect attention away from the conversation. It was annoying enough that he had to listen to it, but he knew Cody could hear every word, as well.
"Armor did a good job against the carbon," he said, flicking his finger against his breast plate. "Not a scratch."
Cody recognized the deflection for what it was, and he went along. "Good thing."
As the two clones tried to focus on anything but the kerfuffle brewing a few meters away, Kenobi decided that he, too, had heard enough of the quibbling between master and padawan, and so he intervened. "I see Anakin's new teaching method is . . . do as I say, not as I do. Welcome aboard."
So, it was settled. That quickly. That easily.
Rex could not help but wonder if he would have gotten such an easy pass had he so explicitly disobeyed his general's orders. Of course, he could also not even remotely envision a scenario in which he would have ever done such a thing.
"Let's go see how the others are doing." Cody interrupted his musings with mission practicality.
From the 501st, Rex had brought only three: Echo, Fives, and Dodger, a veteran whose presence in the 501st had preceded Rex's command. Dodger had been chosen for his overall experience, but mostly because of his skill at scrambling communications. The Citadel had extensive and formidable comm and surveillance networks. Dodger was an expert at disrupting those systems, and it was likely that the need would arise to do just that – at some point or other.
Cody's 212th contingent consisted of Longshot, one of his best snipers; Daws, who, like Dodger, was a veteran trooper and reliable in a pinch; and Bounce, in the event a pilot was needed.
They all appeared to have fared well during the carbon freezing and thawing process. Poor Fives seemed to be taking the worst of it. Rex attributed it to the ARC's already heightened state of agitation, given his worrying over the procedure. Upon being unfrozen, Fives had actually fallen to his knees and remained there for some time, gathering his composure. Echo, knowing any assistance would be waved off, stood by silently as he regained his own equanimity. At length, when both men were on their feet and nearing normalcy, Fives spoke in a raspy voice.
"I am never doing that again."
"It wasn't so bad," Echo said, grinning beneath his helmet. "Interesting concept, using it on people. It's meant only for perishable goods—"
"I don't need to hear that, Echo," Fives cut him off.
"Yes, I know, but the fact that we survived has major ramifications for all sorts of things – like space travel, medical healing, prolonging life—"
"That's very exciting," Fives blunted the subject. "But we can talk about it some other time. Let's just be glad we didn't turn into ice cubes and—"
"Carbon freezing doesn't involve water, so ice cubes wouldn't be—"
"One more word, Echo," Fives warned.
Echo clapped him on the shoulder. "Okay, you win."
Less than five minutes later, the team was ready to move out.
"Guard the shuttle, Artoo," General Skywalker ordered the droid. "We'll contact you when we're ready for take-off."
Rex would have felt better leaving Bounce there to perform the extraction, but it was crucial that the ship remain void of life forms. The plan had been that the shuttle would, ostensibly, be able to clear Separatist lines by being piloted by battle droids claiming to be on a resupply mission. So far, all had gone according to plan. The carbon frozen human contents had, in fact, gone undetected. The ship, instead of reporting directly to the Citadel Central Control-appointed landing site, had instead turned off its tracking system and gone into the canyons near the Citadel, where it had dropped off and thawed out its human cargo. At a word from either Kenobi or Skywalker, the ship would head for the Citadel in anticipation of being the escape vehicle for the rescue team. Yes, the Separatists would already be suspicious, given the shuttle's late arrival, but a plausible story might still be concocted. However, a humanoid presence on board the shuttle would be a complete giveaway.
Concern about the shuttle's status, however, was soon supplanted by a greater concern. After less than an hour of skirting along a narrow ledge overlooking the steaming lava river below, the team had come within sight of its objective: the Citadel Tower. And if they had not been impressed by reports of the structure, they were now awestruck its appearance.
The immensity alone was enough to strike fear into lesser hearts. A massive cobant retaining wall rose at least four hundred meters above the swirling, molten pool formed by the sluicing of the river into a sort of harbor – not used for ships, but rather for generating power. In the center of the wall rose the tower, jutting out into the harbor, wider at its base and tapering towards the top, several banks of illuminated windows glowing white in the yellow-orange haze, and crowned with four search lights, sweeping randomly across the forbidding landscape, searching for anomalies.
This was what they were going into. One way or another.
Anakin drew out his micro-binoculars and searched the cobant wall, following horizontally until he came to the rough and crooked seam where the wall met the natural rock of the cliff. About a hundred meters below the rampart that ran along the top of both the cliff and the wall, he spied a wide door with a landing. "I see the entry point."
Cody, in the meantime, was taking wind readings with his wrist sensor. The canyon from which they had just emerged, now opening onto the broader harbor, exited the gorge with gusty force. This had been expected and was the reason the idea of jetpacks had been abandoned.
"You were right," he reported. "The wind conditions are too strong for jetpacks."
"Yes," Obi-wan concurred. "We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way – with ascension cables and a steel grip."
"I don't think so," Anakin balked.
"What do you mean?"
"Electro mines. There's nowhere to put a grappling hook at that height," Anakin explained, looking through his binoculars once again. "And if we hit one of those, the mission's over. They'll know we're here." He handed the binoculars to Obi-wan.
It was Rex who stated what they all knew to be the case. "I suppose that means we free-climb it." Of course, when Rex said it, the slight hint of challenge and fervor was detectable beneath the evenness of his tone.
"I'll lead the way," Obi'wan announced. "Try to follow in the same holds."
"Easy for the Jedi to say," Longshot quipped to Bounce. "They have a little advantage over us."
"Eh, we can do this," Bounce replied. "No big deal."
Rex drew up and stood beside Cody. "You know, we'd be able to use jetpacks if they'd taken my suggestions on improving the things back in ARC training," he threw out with a self-certitude that made for some humor under the circumstances.
"The only one who could fly the thing the way you improved it would be you," Cody replied. "The rest of us would blow ourselves sky high." He nudged Rex towards the face of the rock. "Start climbing."
They were fortunate in that the cliff face which they were scaling was rough and uneven, offering good purchase and many choices for holds and mantling. The entrance was about a hundred meters up, certainly no more than a forty-five-minute climb given the agreeable conditions of the face. The only negative factor was the wind . . . and the possibility that they might very well already be under surveillance.
Even so, Rex was pleased with their progress. No one seemed to be having any difficulties. He silently congratulated himself on his choice of team members, extending his unspoken gratitude to Cody's selections, as well – for he was under no illusion that this was going to be an easy mission. They would need every bit of cunning and skill to successfully carry out what could only be described as a highly dangerous plan with so many variables and moving parts, that it could go wrong at any step along the way. And Rex did not miss the irony of the fact that he was risking his life to rescue a man whose past behavior had so angered him that this was one Jedi whom Rex would have been happy to never see again.
"If this is the best they can give you, Skywalker, you deserve my pity."
"You can save your pity, General Piell," Rex grumbled to himself as he reached up for the next hold. The insult was as fresh and biting today as it had been when it had happened. "I'm the one saving your life. Maybe we clones aren't as useless as you thought."
Over the course of the war, Rex had met and observed many Jedi generals; and it had not taken long for his misconception about the uniformity of the Jedi to be scattered to the four winds. Not surprisingly, Rex's ideas about the Jedi had been formed in his early days by the example of General Shaak Ti on Kamino. Everything he had ever seen of her was comprised of grace, unwavering fairness, and a consideration of all options. General Shaak Ti rarely saw the way forward as offering only one path. She had wisdom, patience, and a deep reverence for the gift she had been given in her affinity with the Force.
Rex had imagined all Jedi would be like her.
Not so. Definitely not so.
Why, his own Jedi general, General Skywalker, was as far from the dulcet, measured character of Shaak Ti as Coruscant was from the Outer Rim. Not that Rex had any complaint. In fact, General Skywalker had shown Rex that there was a type of Jedi with whom he himself was a better fit – the devil-may-care, try-anything-once, rules-are-meant-to-be-broken brand of Jedi that General Skywalker embodied; though, to own the truth, Rex realized that it was highly likely that there were no other such Jedi, that General Skywalker was one-of-a-kind when it came to that mysterious group of knights.
Still, Rex had believed that all Jedi would display the sort of subtle nobility that was a hallmark of their order. From Master Yoda to Master Windu to Master Ayala, all Jedi seemed to share a certain sensitivity towards the value of life, the implications of mere existence.
It wasn't until his encounter with Master Piell that Rex had been forced to face an unpleasant truth: the Jedi were not all equal in demeanor, not all equal in deportment, not all equal in their estimation of the value of things – including the value of mass-produced lives.
It was a lesson Rex had never forgotten. He could play off the insult as well as any other man, shrugging it away, as if it hadn't been able to touch him – or the other men at whom it had been directed – but though he might not show it on the surface, he kept it closely guarded inside. His treatment at the hands of Master Piell was one of the things that made him so greatly appreciate and revere General Skywalker. Rex could not even conceive of what his performance might have been like had he had the ill luck to be assigned to serve under someone like Piell . . .
"Hangin' in there, Snips?!"
Rex looked up at the sound of General Skywalker's voice addressing his padawan.
Ahsoka replied gamely, "Couldn't be better!" Almost as an afterthought, she added, "I could do without the wind, though."
Yes, Rex considered himself fortunate. Of all the Jedi, of all the padawans . . . he had scored the winning team – their squabbling, notwithstanding.
He continued to climb, the wind seeming to pick up, as if it had heard Ahsoka's lament. The magnetic fields of the electro mines pricked and crackled, taunting reminders of the danger that even the slightest breaking the field would entail.
"The entry point is just a few more meters," General Kenobi announced. Whereas he had been moving slowly and cautiously before, now he scaled the final height with the rapidity of a Jedi, picking his way up the rock face in Force-assisted leaps and bounds. Within seconds, he was peering over the lip of the platform, but before he could pull himself up, a roller and two SBDs came through the door.
Immediately, he dropped back below the platform and held his finger to his lips.
Anakin, catching the warning, put his hand out to stop all movement behind him.
Several tense seconds passed during which the climbers hugged as close to the rocky surface as possible, hoping to minimize their silhouettes. But the droids did not bother to look directly below them, and at length, they returned back through the doorway.
Obi-wan pulled himself up once more to look over the platform, only to see a filmy red light across the threshold. "They locked the door. It's ray-shielded."
Anakin grimaced. "Ray-shielded? That wasn't in the plan."
"Well, it's in the plan now," Obi-wan replied.
"There's an opening up there," Ahsoka pointed out.
"We know," Anakin stated. "Ventilation ducts. But they're far too small for us to gain access."
"Too small for you, maybe; but I think I can squeeze through," Ahsoka opined.
"Well, we hadn't planned on Ahsoka being here," Obi-wan reasoned. "Perhaps she's right."
At this point, Anakin was willing to give anything a try. If they spent much more time on the open face of the cliff, they would certainly be spotted; and climbing another hundred meters to the rampart was out of the question. The wind was definitely picking up, and this sort of free-climb would start to take a toll on the clones.
He nodded his approval and watched as Ahsoka made her way up to the ventilation duct. Using the Force, she opened the hatch and, in the blink of an eye, disappeared into the narrow opening.
A few seconds later, General Kenobi gave the go-ahead.
"She did it," Longshot said to Bounce, who was just below him on the face.
"Good thing, too," Bounce replied. "My fingers are starting to ache."
"Well, don't let go now," came Longshot's chiding encouragement. "We're almost there."
Up above them, General Kenobi was helping Commander Cody onto the platform. Things were moving quickly now. The prospect of getting off the wall had given everyone an added boost of adrenaline. On one side of the platform, Fives was the anchor, pulling his brothers up to the platform; on the other side, General Kenobi filled the same roll. Cody was holding his men back from entering the corridor, keeping them concealed behind the rocky abutment, despite Commander Tano's presence beside the opening. Cody preferred to have everyone assembled and then to move forward as a group. As far as he was concerned, there could be any number of enemy in those corridors, and avoiding detecting was going to be the key to successfully carrying out this mission.
Rex had already begun to pull himself up onto the platform when Fives took his forearm, more to steady him than to offer any meaningful assistance. The captain got to his feet and was already heading for General Skywalker when he heard Fives' voice call out urgently, "Dodger!"
There followed a cry of panic. Rex and General Kenobi raced to the edge of the platform to see Dodger tumbling away from them directly into an electro-mine. The impact detonated the mine, killing the clone instantly and exploding any possibility of secrecy.
For just a moment, Rex allowed the loss to hit him. He had to give some leeway to the horror of the moment, to the knowledge that one of his long-term troops had just died – a bulwark of the 501st, a clone whose loss would be heavily felt by those who had come to see him as one of the long-termers, one of Skywalker's original troops.
"Well, they know we're here." This was General Kenobi.
Rex felt a pang in his gut. There had been a strange sort of callous, almost-gallows humor in the general's voice. No remorse for the life that had just been lost. It struck Rex as cold and insensitive – not at all what he'd come to expect from the 212th Commanding General. Rex quickly caught himself.
"What could he say, under the circumstances? He's right, they know we're here now, and we can't waste any time," he told himself. "General Kenobi respects us clones. He wouldn't make light of something like this." He was ashamed of himself for even thinking such a thing.
General Skywalker's expression and voice were somber. "Let's move out. They're going to be looking for us now, so everyone be on alert." As the others shuffled into the corridor, he hung back until Rex drew up beside him. He placed a hand on the captain's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Rex. Dodger was a good soldier. We can best honor him by succeeding at this mission."
It was only a few words, but words well-chosen and heartfelt. Words that meant everything to Rex at that moment.
The captain nodded once. "Thank you, Sir."
If Rex had believed in blessings, he would have counted them then and there. But if blessings did not exist, at least he could believe that the cosmos had given him the greatest of honors. Yes . . . he'd been given the best of the best. No one could compare to General Skywalker.
"Sir, one of the cargo shuttles was cleared for landing but never arrived."
Battle droids might have been machines, but they had enough sentience to recognize when they were putting their own existence in peril.
Giving bad news to Osi Sobeck always fell into that category. The warden had a ghastly temper; and being that he himself was a true sentient, a creature of flesh and blood, he had absolutely no qualms, not even a flutter, when it came to brutalizing and destroying his own mechanized staff.
Announcing an errant shuttle might not merit a visit to the disassembly shop or a blaster bolt to the head, but it could bring about any number of lesser reactions.
The droid that had given the dreaded news was preparing for the worst when, much to his good fortune, even worse news came from another droid who was monitoring the perimeter scans.
"Sir, a mine in Sector 9G was just detonated."
Sobeck immediately ran through the possibilities, and at the top of the list was infiltration. The Jedi had launched their rescue attempt. He'd been expecting this. "Mindless droids," he ground out, furious that an earlier notification of the missing shuttle might have given him a headstart against the enemy. "Activate all security protocols. Lock everything down. Where are my special units?"
"They are here, Sir."
The door opened, admitting a team of commando droids.
"We have intruders," Sobeck stated. "Start in Sector 9G. Find them. Kill them. Don't let them get to the prisoner."
The sound of the klaxon confirmed what Anakin already knew. The detonation of the mine had given away their presence and put the Citadel on high alert. It seemed that, around every corner, battle droids were scurrying here and there; surely, there could be no doubt in Sobeck's mind of the object of the infiltration. That meant, in Anakin's reasoning, two possibilities: Sobeck would order an increase in the security around Master Piell, and he might very well order the torture be accelerated in order to gain the information – that was, if Master Piell had not already cracked.
"Yeah, that's not likely," Anakin said to himself. "He's too crusty to give in."
Up ahead of him, Ahsoka was running point. "Clear," she announced quietly after a gaggle of droids had trotted past at the far end of the corridor.
Anakin heard Rex behind him. "Their detection system, General." He looked up to see the sensors to which Rex was referring, then turning to Fives, who was running beside him, "Take our their surveillance."
Fives dropped to one knee and fired a single shot, taking out the forward camera/sensor. The destruction of the sensor triggered an automated response of laser fire from the ceiling- and wall-mounted hubs; but these were easily taken out by the accurate aim of the clones and a few swipes of light saber.
There was, however, no chance to breathe a sigh of relief. At the opposite end of the corridor, a bluish-white light spread from wall to wall, crackling and hissing as it advanced rapidly towards them.
"The walls are electrified," Bounce said rather unnecessarily, for everyone could see that fact. He turned and began to run. "Go, go, go!" He could feel the tingle of the electricity at his back. He wasn't going to be able to outrun it. His only hope was to attempt a dive to safety. A side passage was only a few meters ahead. He put everything he had into one powerful, final leap, going in head-first and somersaulting across the floor, coming up on his feet. He whirled around just in time to see the field go past him. And as it passed, it left a body on the floor . . .
"Longshot!" Cody cried out from the opposite side of the corridor in which Bounce was standing.
Bounce sprang forward, crouching down beside his fallen brother, but he knew there was nothing to be done. The shock from the electric field had killed Longshot instantly. Bounce could at least be grateful that it had been a quick death.
"We must keep moving," Obi-wan said gravely.
There was no hesitation, no lingering, no voicing of dismay at the lack of even a moment's consideration for a dead man. Just one more dead clone among the many hundreds of thousands that had already died in the act of fulfilling the role for which they were created.
At least, for Rex, he could hang onto General Skywalker's words, that the best way to honor the dead was to complete the mission for which they had died.
It was an encouraging mindset . . . a mindset that was about to be put to the test in ways Rex had never imagined.
**NOTE: I love in the episode where, after being unfrozen, as Anakin and Ahsoka are arguing, you see Rex and Cody in the background. That's the scene where Rex flicks his finger across his breast plate. Silly me, but I always thought, "What is he doing? It's like someone flicking lint off their coat." Anyway, I just had to include it (and find a reason to explain why he was doing it).