2,528A/N: Disney owns Star Wars, blah blah.
Chapter 2
It was one of the first burning questions that I satisfied when I realized I had hit the reincarnation wheel into the Galaxy Far Far Away and I was old enough to use a library computer - just how did hyperspace travel actually, practically work and make civilization on the scale of the galaxy possible. Suffice it to say, in the movies, hyperdrive travel was a hundred percent plot driven. The prime example I could use was the journey from Tatooine to Alderaan in the original Star Wars - no explicit reference is given in the scene, but it's sheer lunacy the speed of the Millennium Falcon that's implied. In actuality that journey, all interstellar conditions being optimal, would take six days at least, and that's using the Corellian Run hyperspace lane.
In any event, our journey aboard the Resolute - Anakin's 'flagship' Venator class star destroyer, and where the 501st Clone Battalion was primarily stationed, would take twenty hours to reach Teth from Christophsis, and that was achieved using the Corellian lane partially.
That downtime was well used by the troops; catching some sleep, drills, gym, target practice, training in general. What that meant for me was that I had barely set foot on the Resolute before Anakin had me duel him right there in one of the landing bays, among all the crew and clones. So he could get a sense of where I stood in my training and apparently because he wanted to see if I could keep collateral damage to a minimum and fight among the troops without harming them.
I recall reading somewhere that facing Darth Vader on the assault was like facing a force of nature. Duelling Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight of the Clone Wars, was not like that, but I could definitely feel the beginnings of that utterly relentless pounding offensive Djem So style that Vader would develop. It was barely two minutes into our 'spar' and I was already feeling the burning strain in my arms of blocking the fourth Falling Avalanche attack, needing to use both my blades to cross Anakin's single blue blade and a hefty amount of Force buffing to strengthen my body. I was so tempted to simply switch to Makashi or even pull in the moves I had developed from remembered Earth martial arts - but those were my trump cards to use when I was truly fighting for my life, and there was no way in hell I was showing them to the man who could potentially in the future, fall to the Dark side and be coming for my head.
I felt the impetus of Anakin's attack lose steam, and fluidly went into a riposte, counter-attacking low with my right blade, while keeping my left blade protecting my body. Anakin Force leapt over the blade smoothly, and intercepted my own version of the Jar Kai Dual blade Falling Avalanche with disgusting ease.
A warning from the Force had me disengaging my left blade from Anakin's and rapidly deflect blaster bolts being shot at my back. They were the yellow bolts of a training blaster that would sting rather nastily when they hit someone at lowest setting and utterly stun you at highest. I sent a sudden Force push the way of Anakin that pulled him away from my right blade enough to bring it around and briefly aid my defense - enough that I managed to deflect a bolt right back at that sneaky Captain Rex, who yelped as the bolt hit him right in his little sniper perch at the control booth for the hangar bay.
I twirled around just in time to lock blades with Anakin again.
"Sneaky, Master."
Anakin just grinned and resumed his offense. We finally called it quits after almost an hour of back and forth sparring. It was exhausting in every sense of the word, but I loved the workout, riding the endorphin high. There were many times during the spar where I had been 'killed' or 'wounded', and he would never fail to point it out.
I was kneeling in recovery meditation, covered in sweat, using the Force to in essence to self-heal from my exertions.
Anakin was in a similar pose opposite me, "That was quite good Padawan, and for your age, very impressive. Where did you rank facing the simulated Sith opponent during your Padawan Trials?"
"Second in my class, and that's only because I used the Force to trip the Sith and then cut his head off."
Anakin shook his head, "They penalized you for that?"
"The Master in charge of the Trials had added a handicap, I wasn't to use any offensive Force technique at all, only blade work. He also didn't like the fact that I kept killing off the Sith simulacrums with 'needlessly aggressive' finishers." There was a damn good reason for those, you only had to look at Sith like Darth Nihilus, Sion, Maul and even Vader to see how they all had been kept alive through dark side shenanigans because they hadn't been 'properly' killed by a decapitation, destruction of the brain or spinal column.
He shook his head in exasperation, "Let me guess, Master Mundi?"
I nodded, the look of near constipation on the Cerean Jedi's face as I finished a simulated Sith off with a downward stab through the neck had been priceless.
"Regardless, I can already see where we have to go from here with regards to your bladework. You've worked a lot on upper body strength and Force enhancement, given the fact that you're using dual blades, but we're going to have to step that up considerably. I want you to work to the goal of being able to eventually put as much strength in a single swing of either blade as you would with both hands on a single blade. I'll tell Rex to organize you some time in the gym and work with him. As much as those crusty old Masters would like to say otherwise, the body in the end, is the foundation, the better the body, the more force you can tolerate channeling into your blows. You also tend to favor your right side too much in ready stances, and the majority of the times when I got 'killing' attacks through was through your left side."
"I'm right handed," I shrugged, "still working on getting the left up to speed."
"Yes, its unfortunately not something that has a quick and easy fix. I'd be pleasantly surprised if you gain a Jar Kai mastery in the next ten years." I hadn't chosen it because it was easy, on the contrary, I'd chosen it precisely because it was so difficult, and therefore few chose it, which would not make me an easy target for any Sith asshole in the future. "I'll also be showing you some more Djem So that I want you to begin working on." He stood up. "All right, get some rest, I want you fresh and ready for anything when we reach Teth."
Being a Jedi and General Skywalker's padawan meant technically holding the rank of Commander, so I was issued quarters in Officer country aboard the Resolute. I had roughly ten square meters all to myself, which was decidedly tiny compared to what I was used to even in the monk like existence of the Jedi Temple.
The bed was hard, the shower limited to five minutes of running time, and a tiny desk with a computer integrated into it with a holo-display that hovered above it. There was even a small kitchenette, which was good enough for cooking and storage of some perishables. The closet was just big enough to store my armor in, and a couple of more traditional 'Jedi-like' outfits; leggings, skirts, and sleeveless tops in muted colours, and a few winter outfits. Traditional Jedi robes could die a fiery death in my opinion. I've only ever worn them at formal occasions.
My stomach reminded me that it was running on empty so I headed off to the officers' mess. It was like most of the ship, filled with Fett clones, but wearing the grey naval uniforms of starship personnel. It was like I was the only splash of colour walking into a grayscale painting. I found an empty plate and took a walk down the line where the cooks (yet more clones) slapped generous portions of food that had wonderful names like 'nutritional thirty-four' which was code for essentially the GFFA version of mash potatoes, that used some or other alien plant that created the same texture and taste. Actual meat wasn't in evidence at all, but there were artificial versions, that simulated it well enough and had the nutritional protein value, but my tongue could immediately tell there was just that something missing.
Since I was Togruta, I had to decline most of the carbs on offer and stick to the proteins, there were only select fruits and plant matter that I could safely eat, and they were all thousands of light years away on the Togruta homeworld in the Expansion Region.
I took an empty table and began tucking in, resisting the urge to wolf it down. I was not someone who spent downtime utterly idle, so I pulled out a portable holo projector, put it to the side of my plate, and pressed the activation button. "Summary search, planet Teth, latest results, pull from the holonet and Jedi archives," the planet in question appeared in miniature and rolling text began to display, "and you're a jungle planet with some nasty critters… great."
It took me twenty minutes of reading before I was satisfied that I wouldn't be surprised by anything that was already known about the planet. So dismissed the search results and moved on to my favorite topic, spacebattles!, "Access file on local storage, Tano one delta."
What appeared was the warhead of a capital grade proton torpedo, but instead of being surrounded by a ray shield generator, maneuvering repulsors, computer, comlink and ferrous casing (so it could be accelerated along the electromagnetic launchers of a starship) of an ordinary torpedo this one was housed in an fifteen meter long missile tube. Inside of which was a sublight engine that due to the power to weight ratio being utterly ridiculous, could push the missile to fifteen thousand Gs of accel. Ray shielding would also prevent it from being shot down by point defense, like a normal torpedo, but the problem I was still trying to solve was one of maneuvering. The repulsors that I could fit in, given the power I could give them, meant that at the speed the thing was going that they simply couldn't turn the missile worth a damn if any course correction needed to be done in the terminal attack phase. I was basically trying to create a torpedo with a range measured in AU, not merely thousands of kilometers.
I could put in a small hypermatter fusion reactor, but its cost per unit would shoot into the stratosphere. No way the Republic bean counters would ever green light its production.
"Interesting."
The deep voice startled me out of my introspection, and I gazed into the mustachioed visage of Admiral Wulf Yularen holding his own plate of food. I was about to snap to my feet and salute… but the Admiral waved me down. "Please, Padawan Tano, this is Officer's mess we don't stand on ceremony here. Do you mind?" He indicated an empty seat opposite me.
"Of course not, Admiral, please."
He sat down and began primly eating while gazing at the holo. "Not something I'd thought I'd ever see a Jedi tinkering around with."
"No, I imagine it's not," I admitted ruefully. "But from a certain point of view, it's should be something a Jedi could look at. The Separatists can manufacture a single droid in under eight hours to the point of combat readiness. A basic Clone trooper takes eight years. Therefore, we need to give the clones and by extension, our ships, stand-off weapons that will destroy the enemy way before conventional ship to ship turbolaser range is reached. That way, we save lives or if we want to be cold-blooded about it, save troopers that can live to fight another day and spare resources."
"Hmmm," Yularen nodded, "when you put it that way, Padawan, it is logical."
"What would be even more logical is if the Republic also employed combat droids."
I nearly laughed at the expression on Yularen's face as he had the bad luck to swallow at the moment I said that. I could also sense more than a few clones that were in earshot suddenly stiffen in astonishment.
"Excuse me," he coughed, "are you being serious, Padawan?"
"Yes," I shrugged, "the Seps have a major logistical advantage over us, they just need fuel, energy, ammunition, and they're ready to go. We need all of that, plus food, plus life support, plus all the supplies any organic lifeform needs. They can throw their droids into near-suicidal and dangerous military maneuvers that we wouldn't do. So if I was in the Chancellor seat, I'd order that the growth of more clones be stopped, and commission Republic combat droid models that the current active clones would be in charge of in the field."
"Ah," Yularen scratched his chin, "it's an interesting notion, but I'm not sure we could afford the costs, since there is no private sector combat droid manufacturer allied with the Republic. That means a company like Industrial Automation would have to research and develop such a droid line from scratch - the money for which would have to come directly from Republic coffers. So not only would we have the cost of clones, equipment and the starfleet, we'd be adding droids as well."
My brain prickled with an obvious idea, and I smiled deviously, "If you can't build something yourself, and need it, but your enemy can build it..."
"I see where you are going with this," Yularen nodded, "reprogramming the droids is the easy bit, capturing them en masse and in useful numbers, then making sure there aren't any failsafes will be the hard part."
"But worth it in the end, to achieve victory and save lives in the process."
Four hours out from Teth, Torrent Company of the 501st, was gathered in the main briefing hall of the Resolute. Anakin walked up to main podium and began his briefing.
"Good morning, our target today..."
A large circular building with multiple towers arranged and built on top of a tall plinth of rock jutting up into the sky over eighty meters from the jungle floor appeared in giant holographic form.
"This is a B'omar Monk monastery on Teth, that's currently occupied by two supposedly 'renegade' droid battalions. Inside of which is being held prisoner a huttlet." An image of a typical infant hutt appeared; resembling lopsided teardrop of a slug, with two little spindly arms and huge yellow eyes. "This is Jabba's son and the hutt has given us only one Tatooine planetary rotation to return it. Given that we need to factor in the travel time from Teth to Tatooine...in the end we will have only three standard hours of time once we land to secure the hutlett and be on our way again. We'll be deploying Torrent Company with mechanized armor support. Given the expected Anti-Air defenses that means we'll have to land at the base of the mountain and ascend under fire, so make sure your ascension attachments in your rifle has plenty of ammo."
"Myself and Padawan Tano will take point once inside the monastery and spearhead the search for the hutt. Whoever is behind the kidnapping will also have some form of point man there, so our secondary objective is to capture them. General Kenobi with his battalion, is also already on his way as our backup."
"Any questions?"
Silence.
"Dismissed."
Resolute emerged from hyperspace and smoothly inserted into a low orbit of Teth. After doing as thorough scan as possible of the planet below the one thousand one hundred meter Star Destroyer decelerated and began a smooth descent into the atmosphere. The ship leveled out at over ten kilometers from the surface and well over sixty kilometers from the monastery, before opening its cavernous dorsal hangar bays. Torrent Company launched in six standard LAATs along with two carrier versions, that brought two All-Terrain Tactical Enforcer (AT-TE) Tanks.
Being inside one of these that was riding into a battle was honestly terrifying. No amount of Jedi zen really could compensate for the reality that you were trapped in a craft that was being shot at by heavy blasters and flak - that there was nothing you could do at all if the LAATs shielding was breached. You would be there one moment, the next, you would be dead or flung out of the dying transport while everything around you disintegrated.
I reached out and fortified myself through the Force, casting fear away as much as I could, reciting the Litany of Fear; I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert was awesome.
I opened my eyes to the interior of the LAAT, as it being jostled by blaster fire and felt Anakin's gaze on me. I met his eyes and he nodded approvingly, having clearly sensed what I had done.
"Stay close to me," he grinned with a challenging glint in his eye, "if you can."
"That won't be a problem, Master."
"This will be the real deal, Ashoka, a straight battle where anything can happen."
"I know."
The LAAT was jostled heavily and I nearly lost my footing, bumping into the trooper next to me.
The clone pilot turned in his seat in the cockpit, "Sir! The flak fire is thickening!"
"Lieutenant! Close the blast shields, get us under those guns!"
The LAAT was plunged into darkness until a trooper flicked a switch and the interior was bathed in red light.
"Red light, stand by." The troopers shouldered and raised their rifles, cocking charging handles and flicking switches on their DC-15S long blaster rifles.
I felt the LAAT start to slow down and flare in preparation for landing.
"Welcome to paradise, rockjumpers!" the pilot declared.
There was an abrupt jolt as the LAAT landed the interior changing to green light. The hiss of a servo motor, and I had to briefly squint as bright light flooded the interior as the side doors opened.
"Go! Go!"
I paused briefly to let the troopers go first, giving me space to activate my lightsabers and jumped out into a jungle battlefield. Red blasts of fire singeing and whining through the air, explosions above, blaster bolts hitting the earth, causing brief geysers of mud and sand to fling into the air. I was fully swimming in the current of the Force, my lightsabers twirling and dancing to deflect any threatening bolt that was arcing in from the droids high above us.
The AT-TEs were deployed and steadily walking forward at forty kph, their laser cannons angled upward and firing in bursts, and the big mass driver turret elevated as high as it could, occasionally adding to the destruction it was sending towards the droids.
The entire company rushed forward as fast as they could, while presenting the smallest profile to the enemy above. Inevitably the red plasma bolts from the droids would find their mark and a life would wink out to my perceptions.
We made it to the base of the plinth, now shielded from droid fire by the overhang of rock.
I couldn't spare the time to count the dead, nor do I think I wanted to.
When everyone who could had arrived and the AT-TEs started to lift their forward legs to clamp down and begin the vertical climb upward, Anakin gestured up. Every trooper raised their rifles and fired ascension cables. The cable could only reach about halfway up, so every trooper reloaded the rifle attachment before beginning the climb.
I bent my knees, reaching out to the Force, and pushed into the highest jump I'd ever managed, letting me grab the cable nine meters up, I holstered a lightsaber, leaving only one to deflect bolts that were screeching down to me as I climbed under fire.
The now fully vertical AT-TE climbing the plinth sent a mass driver round directly into the overhang the droids were shooting down at us from, sending parts of broken droid raining down. Some fell intact and Anakin even managed to bisect a falling B2 as it was on its way down.
Spider droids, with their big comical looking 'eyes' and heavy blaster cannons for a nose, came crawling over on the side of the mountain, clamping into the rock face and sending fire down at us. Torrent company snipers finally made their presence felt at this point, using their DC-15X sniper rifles to send ridiculously overcharged blue plasma bolts directly into the spider droids. The DC-15X sent the equivalent power of eighty shots from a standard Clone blaster rifle into a single bolt, and as a result were also a decent anti-materiel rifle when fighting droid armor that wasn't ray shielded.
The four spider droids clamped onto the mountain face were wrecked with the coordinated shots of the snipers from the jungle below, and I had to use a hasty Force push to divert a falling droid from colliding with a group of ascending troopers.
When Torrent company had reached halfway up the mountain, the droids decided to go mobile to avoid the sniper fire. A squadron of twelve B1s mounted on armed speeder bikes swooped down from above. They concentrated their fire on a single AT-TE, overwhelming the shielding with a single salvo. The front legs and forward compartment were utterly wrecked, killing half the crew instantly, it titled back off balance, while the rear legs snapped under load pressures more than triple they were meant to sustain. The Republic tank fell, crashing against the mountain, and taking three unlucky nearby troopers with them to their deaths.
We couldn't afford to lose another tank, so I started swinging the cable I was climbing to build up some momentum before leaping in a Force assisted somersault towards the remaining AT-TE, and landed right on the flat forward viewport of the cockpit.
It startled the hell out of tank driver but he quickly recovered after recognizing me and got back to moving the tank. Now with a horizontal base under me and not having to do the work of climbing, I lit my second lightsaber and deflected fire from the droid speeders meant for the tank.
Busy as I was defending the company's only remaining tank, I could spare no attention to actually take out the annoying speeders. Thankfully, Anakin had seen it too and leapt off his cable when a speeder buzzed by, decapitating the B1 pilot with single swipe and appropriating the ride for himself. It was truly amazing how quickly he made short work of all the airborne droids, using the speeder's auto-blasters and his lightsaber like some bizarre futuristic vision of cavalry. Even when his own speeder took a hit, he swiftly abandoned it in mid-air, simply leaping to the speeder that had shot his, and taking that one over.
When it was done he zoomed up the mountainside.
"Gotta keep up, snips!" he shouted as he passed my now positively pedestrian tank.
"Hey! You could've at least left one for me, laserbrain!"
He used the damn speeder to destroy the last of the spider droids that were still hanging on up there, and jumped off, landing on the main exterior of the monastery.
"As fast as you dare, Lt!" I shouted down at the tank driver.
It was soon raining singed parts of B1 and B2s from Anakin no doubt going medieval on the droids up there, and soon even intact B1s as they screamed in simulated electronic terror as they fell from Force blasts and pushes.
By the time the tank was climbing over the lip of the balcony and onto a horizontal surface once more with Torrent company in support, Anakin had discovered a new game. He was using a droideka with engaged shields as a wrecking ball with telekinesis, against two others, keeping them knocked off their feet and the wrecking the last few remaining B1s.
I knocked on the window of the AT-TE, pointing at the wobbly droidekas.
The driver wasted no time in blasting them with a full power shot from the mass driver. Anakin used the Force to crumple his 'pinball' and turned to me with a quizzical expression.
"What took you so long?"
I folded my arms, "Funny, Skyguy."
"Skyguy?"
"I figure if you're going to use 'snips' to refer to me, then it's only fair I get to return the favor."
"All clear, General," Captain Rex reported burying his laugh into an amused cough.
"Good, detail some men to see to the wounded."
"Yes, sir. Sergeant."
"At once."
The company began their delegated tasks and securing the perimeter of the monastery.
"The size of this droid force can only mean the Separatists are trying to deceive Jabba, whilst they make pretensions at rescuing his son, they're the ones who did the kidnapping in the first place through a deniable third party," Anakin mused.
"So their endgame would be to make sure relations between the Republic and the Hutts are permanently soured by keeping us from rescuing the huttlet?"
"Yes, this is clearly the machinations of Count Dooku. So let's get this over with, time is running out."
We headed off from the main landing pad into the monastery courtyard with Rex, and four troopers taking up the rear. The main doors were identical to the one seen as Jabba's Palace front door, and would take very heavy firepower to blast through, a Force user to lift, or a handy astromech to slice the door controls - which R2 did in less than five seconds.
The entry hall was in pitch darkness, but it swiftly retreated in the light coming from the open door. There wasn't much internal lighting beyond that so the troopers activated their helmet mounted flashlights to pierce the darkness further in.
"Typical," Anakin shook his head as he saw the decomposed remains of a robed alien lying sprawled along the corridor, "smuggler gangs love taking over these kinds of monasteries precisely because the B'omar monks always build far from typical civilization and seek isolation."
"And the smugglers don't take 'no' for an answer." I felt the concentrated power of an active droid power cell ahead and lit both my lightsabers, grabbing one in a telekinetic grip I sent the blade hurtling into the darkness, spinning in a lethal fan of light.
There was a flash of light and singe as I felt my lightsaber slash through the droid and with a twist of will, the blade returned hilt first into my hand.
"Nice technique, snips."
Only it turned out that the droid I'd sensed wasn't a battle droid at all, but a silver protocol droid in the same model line as C3P0. My lightsaber had bisected the thing around the torso, and it was still twitching and mumbling, "I am.. but.. the … caretaker…" and it gave up the ghost a moment after.
"Good going, you killed a local, snips."
I shook my head, "No such thing as a friendly droid in any Separatist controlled area, Master." R2-D2 gave a blurt of worried tone that was easy to interpret. "Except any we bring ourselves of course, R2." I patted the droid on its dome reassuringly. I kneeled over the dead droid and pointed at its non-standard head, "Is it typical for that model head to be fitted on a protocol droid, Master?"
"No actually, that's a Z-series head - used by news media outlets - they have much larger and higher quality optical sensors, totally unnecessary… unless you intend it to be a spy." Anakin pulled on the torso section, and flipped it over carefully, exposing a rear access port. "R2, interface carefully, see what you can find."
The astromech whistled in affirmative and a logic probe extended from its side and plugged into the silver droid.
The Force shrieked a discordant warning just in time for us to watch the silver droid being utterly crushed by telekinesis, before distant retreating footsteps could be heard the darkness. R2 was left with his instrument stuck in the wreckage and had to detach the probe.
"Ventress," Anakin hissed, briefly engaging his lightsaber in reflex.
"Dooku's Sith assassin?"
"Yes, that was her. R2 did you manage to get anything?"
The astromech whistled in affirmative, displaying a holo of the monastery, and the lowest level lit up in red.
"They're holding the huttlet in the basement, can they get any more obvious?"
"Rex, hold our exit point, Ahsoka and I will head down."
"Yes, sir."
The lower levels were a total mess, filled with garbage, debris, parts, wrecked droids of too many models to name, canisters that had held spice were now empty but still had that distinctive tangy metallic odour that characterized the raw form of what was turned into ryll and glitterstim - mind and mood altering drugs that enjoyed a very illegal and lucrative trade across the Outer and Mid Rims, but was also smuggled into the Core for the seedy and very rich to enjoy.
The lowest level was once clearly the very spartan quarters the monks used to live in, now were completely stripped down and used as a crude detention facility with metallic doors occasionally blocking the entryways. The half-dozen B1 droids hiding in the deep shadows of each cell were very obvious to me.
"This is a trap, Master."
"I know," Anakin kept walking forward, sensing for the infant hutt.
"Oh," I nodded in understanding. I used the Force and yanked the droids out of the cells to slam them into the corridor walls. My lightsabers were lit and I threw my left blade to spin down the corridor, slashing at the level that bisected the droids' blasters and their chests. I recalled the saber and instead of grabbing it, let it past me and Anakin and into the shadows beyond where it felled another droid waiting in ambush.
"Good," he nodded and walked ahead.
He stopped at a nondescript metal door, "I sense the hutt in here."
I twitched as my nose was assaulted by a smell I could only describe as some unholy combination of skunk and odorous swamp. "Is that what all hutts smell like, Master?"
"Pretty much, though this one's pretty mild."
I tried imagine Jabba as even worse and wondered if hutts did that on purpose so their smell would be the equivalent of a natural biological stun weapon.
Anakin gestured at the locking mechanism and the hydraulics engaged to shoot the door upward abruptly. The light hit a miserable little slug like creature, barely a quarter meter in height, patterned in brown, and seeing us began to whimper and wail like most any infant sentient would. Only that while most humanoid aliens would look 'cute', an evolutionary imperative programmed into us to make us dote on infants to make us forget their shortcomings, on a non-humanoid like a hutt, it only caused me a reflex of revulsion.
"He's even younger than I thought he'd be."
The big eyes of the infant hutt stared at us imploringly. Life is life, I reminded myself vigorously, even if it stank to high heaven, but I wasn't going to touch that so I called on the Force and carefully levitated the hutt. I imagined a floating repulsor couch, much like what his big daddy would use to get around in the future.
"If Obi-wan was here, he'd reprimand you for frivolous use of the Force, but I can't bring myself to do the same," Anakin commented, "lets just get out of here."
We were back in the courtyard and the little Hutt had been loving the Force ride so far, however when we entered the sunlight it allowed me to see a rather concerning fact about him - the phlegm gathering on the edges of his mouth, and some clear discoloration in his skin. I carefully placed a hand on the brow of the Hutt and listened to what the Force was telling me was going on inside.
"Master, JJ here is sick."
Anakin paused and put a hand on the Hutt as well, "yeah, that temperature is way too high. The unsanitary conditions down there must have taken their toll. JJ?"
"Jabba Junior," I explained.
"We have to get JJ here then to the medical bay of the Resolute. Trooper, get me a backpack and empty it out."
A few moments later a clone brought a standard issue backpack that JJ was slightly too fat to fit in all way, but allowed half his body to enter, leaving his head and arms sticking out. Of course, he much preferred my 'Force couch', and started wailing again the instant we placed him in his new transport accommodations.
Of course, being the Padawan I was relegated to wearing JJ's impromptu baby carrier.
I heard the vibration of Anakin's holocom and he keyed it up, to reveal a miniature full body image of Obi-wan.
"Greetings Anakin, do you have the Hutt?"
"We have him, but it's clear the Separatists are the ones behind the abduction."
Obi-wan nodded in understanding, "Yes, I had a feeling given what I observed while speaking to Jabba. Count Dooku is using us in an effort to sway the hutts to the Separatist cause."
"Master Kenobi, there's also the problem that through what is no doubt purposeful neglect, Jabba's son is very sick. If he dies in our custody…" I didn't need to finish that sentence.
Obi-wan stroked his beard thoughtfully, "That is what Dooku no doubt intends and he will endeavour to make sure it happens, utterly destroying any chance for a Treaty with the Hutts to use their outer rim hyperspace lanes."
An urgent beeping came from Anakin's holocom and the holoform of Admiral Yularen appeared, next to Obi-wan, "General Skywalker, a Separatist Cruiser has just emerged from hyperspace and has launched two landing craft and a squadron of fighter droid escorts."
"Sithspit," Anakin swore, "all right, get the Resolute into orbit and engage, you're a sitting mynock down here. We'll have to hold out until you deal with the cruiser."
"I'm due to arrive at your location within the hour Anakin, we'll hope my forces aren't needed as well. Protect the Hutt at all costs."
"Defensive positions!" Anakin shouted as he pocketed his com.
I could see the distant form of the Resolute shoot upwards at its maximum atmospheric speed of nine hundred kilometers per hour, leaving a sonic boom in it wake. The clones found what little cover they could in the open courtyard and turned it into a giant killbox. High in the sky overhead, the flat double pronged shapes of Sep Landing craft appeared and grew closer with alarming speed, along with the smaller forms of droid fighters.
Then a lot of smaller forms detached and rocketed down towards us. B2 and spider droids rained down, slowing their fall into controlled descents with built in jets and repulsors. The fighter droids opened fire to cover their landing.
I was already busy deflecting blaster fire, very conscious that I would have to take JJ into account if I had to pull off any acrobatics to stay alive.
The AT-TE thought was making its presence felt, all its guns were trained on the entrance from the landing platform and was making scrap of the steadily marching droid company that was being disgorged more conventionally from the landing craft.
"Get inside, Ahsoka," Anakin ordered as his blade flashed through air and redirected fire back at the droids.
I saw his point, fighting with JJ on my back was not an option, and ran for the monastery entrance, using the Force to levitate one of my blades and hovered it behind my back where it intercepted any bolt that would've hit JJ. Once inside, I retrieved the blade and found R2 there warbling with concern at the progressing battle.
"R2, we need an alternate escape route out of the monastery, is there anything you got from that droid that could help?" The astromech whistled in confirmation and displayed a holo of the monastery, in red it highlighted a secondary hidden landing pad that could deploy from the nominal 'rear' of the monastery and was built into the cliff face on that side.
A large explosion rocked the air and I saw that the AT-TE had died under the combined fire of the advancing droids, and the surviving troopers were retreating into the monastery.
"Quick R2, get plugged into the door controls and get ready to scramble it." Torrent company rushed in, and when I saw the majority was beyond the threshold, "lower the doors, R2."
Anakin, being what he was, was the last to enter safety, rolling under the descending doors at the last possible moment.
"Captain Rex," he shut down his lightsaber, "we'll stay here until Admiral Yularen or General Kenobi arrives with reinforcements."
I shook my head, "Master, adopting a siege mentality now isn't a good idea. It won't be long until the Seps can physically barge their way through the door, Ventress is out there and time is ticking if we're to make it to Tatooine in time, oh and we have to get JJ some medical attention on the way too."
Anakin pursed his lips and nodded, "I see your point, I hope you have a plan, snips?"
I nodded and turned to R2, "Can you open that pad up from here R2?" The droid hooted.
"Pad?"
"On a hunch I had R2 look for another way out, just in case this happened. There's a secondary landing pad that can deploy from the base of the north end of the monastery."
"Good thinking, snips. Captain, I want you to briefly hold this entrance, then retreat deeper into monastery and scatter by squad, divide their forces into hunting for you."
"Yes, sir. We'll give 'em hell."
"Ahsoka, R2 lets get to that landing pad."
We were halfway to the pad with R2's guidance on the shortest possible route when the entire monastery was rocked with an explosion and the echoes of blaster fire and battle rumbled through the entire structure. By the time we had emerged onto the pad itself a massive aerial battle was underway as what I recognized as Resolute's Alpha squadron's ARC-170 starfighters clashed with their fighter droid counterparts. In the far distance we could see the star destroyer once again descending into the atmosphere.
"It seems the Admiral's done the job upstairs."
Anakin nodded and tapped on his wristcom, "Admiral Yularen, mark my position, I need a medical ship down here…"
Only static replied.
I shook my head, "Those Seppie landing craft must be generating a jamming signal." Then felt a ping on my senses, and lit my lightsabers, "Incoming droidekas."
Two of the rolling droids appeared in the large corridor leading to the pad, came to a stop and deployed in the same motion, shields jumping to life and began spewing plasma bolts our way. They were not alone; a tall, severe bald woman, wearing a dark blue dress and skin tight top casually walked into view behind the droid. Her makeup made her look even more eerie, dark blue tattoos that were drawn from the edges of her mouth down to her pointed chin, with others sprinkled about her face. This close I could finally sense her in the Force and it wasn't the most pleasant experience to say the least. But no one would ever accuse Asajj Ventress, former Nightsister of the Dathomir witch clan, and now Sith assassin and apprentice of Count Dooku of being pleasant at all.
"R2, doors!" Anakin ordered and droid rushed over to the controls.
Ventress clearly didn't want that to happen and threw a Force push at the droid, I countered it with my own and focused on deflecting as much of the droideka blaster fire right back at her.
She had to jump back and drew her own red dual blades in defense, but R2 had managed to reach the door controls and shut them right in her face.
The doors of this platform were too thin, and Ventress stabbed her blades through and began cutting.
"Okay, as much as I would enjoy getting even with her, it'd be all too easy for her kill JJ during the fight. We have to retreat, maybe into the jungle."
We rushed over to the edge of the pad. "Master, the jungle is a very hostile place. Even if we could fight off every nasty creature, the environment will make JJ's health even worse."
A droid fighter was hit at this point and spiraled to its destruction, hitting the side of the mountain and exploding. It was near the nests of some kind of large flying insectile creature easily as big as a plane - who promptly started to evacuate their stricken and damaged nests.
Anakin turned to the door as R2 joined us, "Looks like we're out of options." Ventress' blades had nearly finished cutting a hole.
JJ decided to poke my head at that point and whine. "What is it now, JJ?" The hutt did it again. "Ouch."
"Ah ha, Ahsoka, JJ's found us a ride," Anakin pointed off to the north-west, where a layer of low clouds had parted to reveal another tall mountain plinth, with a landing pad cut into the very top, except this one actually had a small cargo ship. The problem was it was nearly ten kilometers distant.
"How are we going to get over there?"
He simply pointed at the large swarming insectile flyers and I felt the Force surge from him - abruptly one of the flyers changed course and headed directly for us. Ah, he's using Force Domination on the animal's mind.
Ventress' hole was finished, but before she could push it through I gathered the Force against the smoking circular piece of door, and held it fast with telekinesis. She was having none of that, and I could instantly feel her throwing her own power against it, in an effort to wrest control away from my mental grip.
No weight, no difference in power, the Force is with me, I am one with the Force. That door is closed. She might have a lot of power gathered in her selfishness, but I have the RIVER!
"Climb on Ahsoka!"
I jumped onto the insectile flyer behind Anakin and only when we were well away, did I release the hold on the door. The circular piece abruptly came flying out like a missile and Ventress emerged with both red sabers onto the landing pad and snarled with frustrated fury at us.
I was relieved that R2 was also flying in formation with his leg jets deployed. Didn't want him to fall into Separatist hands. At the speed Anakin managed to coax out of our pet insect flyer, we made good time, and thankfully didn't draw the attention of the various fighter droids dogfighting in the air.
We jumped off onto the landing pad barely five minutes later and regarded our new ride.
It was an old Corellian G9 Rigger freighter under thirty five meters in length, which like most Corellian designs favored function heavily over form; it was basically just a rectangular block main body with a starboard wing and a folding ventral wing. The thing came with it's gray factory paint job and showed a lot of wear and tear. Hello Twilight, I thought. It's boarding ramp was open and a lot of spice containers were strewn about, clearly from when the smugglers got out of dodge when the Seps moved in.
"R2, Ahsoka, get on board and prime the engines, assuming it has any engines."
It was just as I was about to set foot on the ramp that I looked up and three B1s appeared at the top. "All cargo loaded."
"Roger, roger… oh no, a Jedi."
"Yes, Jedi," I agreed, and used the Force to yank all three off their feet and past me, where they were clotheslined by my lightsabers.
We entered the ship and not wanting any more unwelcome visitors, retracted the ramp. It was a short walk into the forward cockpit and we took our seats at the pilot and co-pilot's stations respectively, with R2 anticipating his master's request and plugging his standard computer interface port to begin diagnostics and hack the ship's systems for use. He beeped his success barely thirty seconds later. I was now sitting with JJ's backpack on my lap and idly tried to boot up the station - to no effect.
"Good work, R2," Anakin praised and basically pressed the 'start' button on the console. The engines whined and spluttered but did not engage. "R2, see if you can't reroute some power from auxiliary to spark the ignition couplers." The engines got a little more life but still failed. "Open the fuel lifters all the way." The cockpit suddenly sprang to life with light behind the displays and the engines hummed in a steady cadence. "Good work, buddy."
Anakin pulled on the throttle lever and control sticks, and the ship briefly jerked into the air before lifting off smoothly. "Okay, heading for the Resolute, three minutes out at top speed… and hope this junker doesn't come apart on us before then."
I meanwhile got busy at the co-pilot station by slaving the blaster cannon controls to my screen and checking them over. "Good news, Master. We've got some nice upgraded technically illegal black market guns on this thing. Should have more than enough output to grind through any droid fighter."
"The shields are in a sorry state though," Anakin commented from his own readouts. "Which is strange since you'd think they prioritize shields on a spice smuggling boat."
"Maybe they were due for replacement, hence why they just abandoned the ship when the Seps showed up."
"Probably."
I brought up the scanners - and found the ship had the standard mix of radar, lidar, gravimetric and magnetometric sensors, active and passive, with poor civilian grade resolution - not really surprising. I set them to omnidirectional briefly, then focused forward towards where the Resolute was…
"Nerfshit… the Resolute is engaged with a Sep frigate."
The cloud cover parted and we treated to the sight of the Resolute engaged in slugging match with a Munificent class star frigate. It would ordinarily have been no contest, but the Resolute had visible battle damage from its previous fight in orbit - three of its portside capital turbolasers were down, and Admiral Yularen was keeping his starboard side facing the enemy. The fighter battle taking place was a conflagration of epic proportions. V-wings, Actis Interceptors and ARC fighters were fighting in the airspace between the two starships against a swarm of droid tri-fighters and Vulture droids.
"Ummm, Master… I don't think we can dock, they'd have to lower a hangar deflector shield and then it'd take just a single droid fighter to perform a suicide run and the Resolute could be crippled. Not to mention we don't have any Republic IFF on this rust bucket, they're likely to shoot us out of the sky before we can even say 'Don't shoot'."
"Blast!" Then he took a breath and checked a few readouts on the HUD. "Okay, R2, program the navicomputer, get us a course to Tatooine, best speed. There should be enough fuel."
Anakin pulled the small freighter around and headed for space.
My console lit up in red, "Three vulture droids locked on!"
Anakin abruptly shifted to full throttle and began banking and evading, as streams of red blaster bolts flashed past us into the distance. I brought up the guns and powered them up to full, but first had to rotate them to face rear. Then began the difficult process of trying to shoot wildly maneuvering droid fighters, with the added complication of the evasive maneuvers Anakin was pulling with turrets that had a decidedly slow refire rate than what I was used to and their response to remote input was sluggish as a snail.
I took a deep breath and let the frustration go. One with the Force, the Force is with me. One with the Force.
"Ahsoka, any time now."
I guided the turrets to traverse starboard.
"Ahsoka…"
The Force is with me. One with the Force…
"Ahsoka!"
I keyed the trigger sending two bolts into the airspace behind the ship, seemingly completely missing… then a Vulture droid swooped down right into bolts' path for an attack run and blew up.
We finally broke atmo and raced for the edge of the gravity well.
I pushed the turrets down and again sent blaster fire into empty space, achieving another deflection shot that caused the second Vulture droid to blow up, and its wreckage spiralled out of control right into the path of the third.
"Well done, snips!"
I let out a deep breath, "Thanks Master." The lack of whimpering in the general din of the cockpit drew my attention and I noted with alarm that JJ was really looking listless and his colour had worsened. "How long to Tatooine?"
R2 let out a long string of whistles, beeps and tones.
"With the hyperdrive on this thing and R2's plotting, sixteen hours. That means we should get there before Jabba's deadline, assuming no further problems."
Anakin pulled on the main hyper control lever and the engines whined in concert with the hyperdrive motivator - starlines stretched and the ship plunged into the seemingly endless blue tunnel of hyperspace.
"I'm going to see what medical supplies or facilities there are, as far as I remember, all Corellian ships have med-bays of various sizes as standard."
"Good thinking, snips. I'll work with R2 on getting this bucket of bolts in better working order, and let Obi-Wan know our situation."
A/N: So we have the first battles of our journey, hope you enjoyed.