16Star wars stories: I need to kill what to get a time travel coupon?
AN: This story started as a simple premise that me and a friend wrote out when we were drunk, that came down to 'What if at some point in either the prequels or original trilogy one or a small group of the characters learn of what would happen in their trilogy and then gets the chance to go to some point in time as a group to support their younger selves (or in a few cases older selves) in either preventing or at least mitigating it, or possibly interfering in the sequel trilogy, if they manage to save another world from a horrible fate. If they don't, the star wars events just play out as in canon while they're forced to watch.'
Originally it was intended to be a short fun thing to do on the side that we could both laugh over once we were sober, only for the both of us to actually take a proper look at it once we were sober and realize we had somehow written 7k words worth of a decent story with the barebones planning for at least 60.000 more already written down on the side. At which point the two of us looked at the other and decided 'Fuck it we're going to do something with this.'
If this story finishes and we still want to write more things of this type, I'll do something suggested in the reviews, but for now read and either enjoy or be annoyed by this wonderfully crazy plan.
AN ends.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the works of fiction included in this and as such do not make a profit from it, this is a fan made work to explore both the hilarity and more serious sides of spacefaring people getting thrown into a world where the medieval nations are the most technologically advanced ones.
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Old friends meeting once more
Two jedi starfighters can be seen flying through a major battle in space, large capital ships on the sides exchanging fire as one of the pilots, a young man with brown hair and a smile on his face jokes to the other ''This is where the fun begins'' as he says so however he suddenly gets a giant headache and everything goes white before he is knocked unconscious.
Moments later
As he wakes up he sees himself surrounded by a completely white location that slowly morphs into a room before he hears a chuckle ''So this is the great Anakin Skywalker, doesn't look like much. Hello there young man.'' This causes him to rush up, with power gathering around his hands and in his limbs as he looks around himself, slight anger apparent on his face as he doesn't see anyone or even really anything other than some walls and two newly created seats.
''And who is it that is addressing me after they pulled me away from a battle that will determine the fate of the republic?'' He mentally adds 'And whether or not those I love will get to live another day.' While looking around. Upon not getting an answer he snarls out ''Show yourself, or are you too much of a coward to face me.''
He hears another chuckle as a silhouette appears in front of him, details of their appearance hard to see as they seem to shift slightly every time he tries to focus on them ''Young Skywalker, I can say with certainty that one thing I don't feel when seeing you is fear. After all, what can a lone conflicted Jedi do to a god? I could take out your beloved wife and brother in all but blood right in front of you, and the only thing you'd be able to do would be watching in horror as it happens.''
These words set Anakin off, as his hot anger turns to cold rage instead and the power around him starts flowing in earnest, sending out essentially oppressive waves of strength as he takes a step forward towards the being, which is letting some of its own power flow out in return ''I've fought and beaten those that considered themselves 'Gods' before and I killed one of them with my own hands, for trying something very similar to what you are claiming… be very careful with your words.''
The being laughs in a now distinct voice as its appearance shifts to something more stable, showing the son from Mortis, while the power coming from it directed at Anakin turns from a slight push on the edge of his senses into a battering ram slamming into his chest, pushing him back into a wall behind him, before it settles around him like a set of heavy chains. ''Ah yes, the 'god', the Son of the Dark Side. Very nicely done, but you weren't alone then. I am also quite a bit more powerful than he ever was, especially here in my domain. You're so weak I might just actually do that, summon both of them and your beloved apprentice and kill them just to show you how weak you truly are.''
As he finishes saying this an older looking version of Ahsoka appears on the wall on the opposite side of the room while a light-saber hilt appears in the beings hand. As it turns its back to Anakin however he lets loose a roar of rage and with it pushes out enough power to throw off the metaphorical chains before a saber appears in his hands as well while his eyes glow blue as he charges forward and slams into the beings defence as it turns around at the roar, stopping it from just stabbing the woman and instead forcing him to defend himself from Anakin's heavy blows.
However while the being is clearly very powerful, it becomes clear very quickly as Anakin strikes a number of quick slashes from two separate directions by using the rebound of the earlier ones off his opponents saber to turn that his opponent has never had to fight in this manner before as the slight surprise very quickly becomes something resembling fear before Anakin manages to slam through the enemies guard with a heavy downward slash that cuts into its hand, forcing it to let go before a force push from Anakin sends it into the wall of the room.
Anakin walks up to the being, rage flowing off of him in waves together with power as the being looks at him with at least some genuine fear. ''I don't care who or what you are, how strong you are, or even if you're a damn creator god, nobody touches my family and loved ones without paying dearly for it, understood?!''
At this point the being seems to regain itself, causing it to quickly dismiss the room and the blades before it starts speaking ''Keep a hold of that thought young man'' before Anakin is suddenly assaulted by information, causing him to fall to his knees and hold his organic hand to his head while trying to keep an eye on the being but being unable to as he starts seeing images, feeling things, that… no they can't be true!
A flash of himself killing Jedi trainees, of him and Obi-Wan fighting, of Palpatine in a dark cloak shooting Windu out of a window in his office with Sith Lightning… and no, no he would never knowingly hurt Padme, she's his world, why would he ever, it can't be. However even as he thinks of this he remembers the past, how the chancellor always carefully picked his side in arguments, tried to make himself seem the more appealing option, setting him up against the Jedi Council and what he himself had done against the beasts on Tatooine as revenge for his mothers fate….
At this point though he feels a hand on his shoulder and turning slightly he can see Ahsoka standing behind him ''While it has a bad way of showing it, this being is the real deal, it can somehow see the future and pulled me out of time… it felt it needed to test your ability to fight the odds for some reason..'' at this point she turns to the being with anger as well, causing the face to shift to that of a somewhat generic human woman.
Strangely enough it is slightly apologetic. ''While I can see all points in time, as part of my domain as a deity, I always thought relatively little of you, Anakin Skywalker… I realize now that not taking you seriously was a bad idea. While the son on Mortis was less powerful than me by quite a decent amount, unlike me he was a veteran combatant with literal millennia of experience and you killed him nonetheless, adding to your already filled resume of powerful figures defeaten…''
She shakes her head ''I am Shait, a 'Goddess' of Fate, or to speak more in line of how you know it the personification of its domain. While not the direct overseer of your reality, I have looked into it on numerous occasions for it interests me greatly. Sadly enough for you, if nothing changes your reality is heading towards a path of you turning to a Sith Lord to save your loved ones, only for them to end up dying anyways, or at the very least most versions of your timeline have it happen.''
He looks at her, the fire that had been doused by the visions re-igniting in his eyes ''And what, you thought it was a good idea to try and fight me and do what, kill me? While having just admitted to not having fought anyone that could actually fight back in possibly your entire existence?'' he snorts before glaring at her ''Send me back and I'll ensure this never happens, I will personally chop the Chancellors head off the moment we meet again, since Dooku has to fake him being a prisoner he likely won't even be able to fight back.''
The now visibly a woman chuckles sadly ''As much as I might wish to do that, I really cannot do so.'' As his glare intensifies she puts up her hands ''This is not me not wanting to help you, it is me not being able to offer that up so easily since I'd need the assistance of beings with a more directly involved domain to do such a thing. Which is exactly why I summoned you and your friend here.''
At this he looks over to Ahsoka before turning back to her, now slightly calmer and with an eyebrow raised that twitched slightly ''And what exactly would you have done if I failed your little 'test'?'' Shait looks away and refuses to speak, visibly still a bit embarrassed, both by just how quickly she lost and the fact that she decided to try it in the first place. ''Fine be that way, I'll figure it out at some point. However you said something about us being able to get the assistance needed for this in case we got other powerful beings to offer their assistance, how would we go about that?''
At this Shait perks up ''Well the thing is, there are two groups of beings called 'the old gods' and 'the seven who are one' by their followers. They watch over a world that has for the most part not advanced much post a feudal age, in many places even far less than that.'' Both the human and Togruta look at her somewhat confused ''Oh yes, your galaxy does not use those terms as they don't have a history with them… most places are ruled by nobility and stuck with metallurgy only just good enough to produce basic steel as the height of technological advancement for most places, with electricity not being in use anywhere on the planet.''
That gives the two a somewhat better understanding and they signal her to continue, causing her to do so ''They are going to be threatened by a horde of mostly undead necromancers with the ability to shape ice through essentially the force in a few years and while there is a chance of the living winning, their chances aren't great. Because of this, they offer support from their power as a reward for anyone that steps in and can alter the scale enough in the favour of the living.''
The man is clearly working through everything he was just told, but realizes the chance is good quickly. ''In exchange for you helping them with their ice demon problem and at least one of the two of you surviving till the end of it, they'll essentially send back whichever of you, or possibly both of you, whom survived the ordeal to your own Galaxy with whatever forces you can gather that volunteer to go along. Do you accept?'' He quickly nods his confirmation while Ahsoka nods as well, having already accepted the offer earlier but confirming it again nonetheless.
The being opposite of them starts up ''Okay, good. Some basic information: You'll have support from some friends of yours who will get a similar deal offered, the planet is called planetos and is the only life supporting planet in the system and the ice monsters will first assault a region called by the locals 'North beyond the Wall', which is a 233 meter (700 foot) high wall spanning across a continent.'' The duo stares at her ''And yes I did say they were a pre-industrial society by quite a large amount, supernatural capabilities were used in building most large structures in addition to centuries of build time and very good long term planning for some of them.''
She shakes her head ''Nevermind, I'm going rambling now, Anakin, just be aware you'll start off in mid-air in your ship while Ahsoka you'll start off surrounded by your allies on a ship, make sure neither of you reacts badly to the situation.''
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Planetos, golden fields
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As Anakin shocks awake in his starfighter he immediately realizes that the being was right, he's in the middle of the open air and his fighter seems to not be on hover mode as it starts diving towards the ground, forcing him to quickly pull up to stop him from crashing into the large open field below him. As he looks around while he gains some air again he sees a Acclimator class assault ship, which hails him shortly afterwards. ''Greetings general Skywalker, good to see you again.'' He hears Rex and smiles.
''Good to hear from you Rex, you ready to save a planet from necromancer ice demons?'' Chuckles can be heard from over the line, most Jedi commanders and regular military officers would find it inappropriate, but Anakin is and always has been somewhat different from the other Jedi and especially regular military officers.
''We've got a full Legion here including support personnel, the ship seems stocked for long term deployment and as far as we can tell we've got enough weapons and ammunition to last us months if not longer. So for now we're most certainly good, but in the long run we'll have to look for new sources of especially bacta and tibanna gas or replacements for them. Food shouldn't be a problem, we can see a town with large farm fields to the north of here, we can probably buy things and look for information about the region there.''
He nods to himself ''Nice going Rex, I'll fly there, please have a dropship with some troops join me down there,'' he thinks for a second before nodding to himself ''If possible, can Ahsoka also join me down there? Having somebody from a different species with us might help convince them we're not here to kill them.'' While partially true, he mostly just wanted to see her as soon as possible to see if she was truly alright after what had just happened, especially since she looked years older than when he last saw her.
He hears a slight chuckle over the radio ''Sure thing Skyguy, want me to scare the dangerous primitive farmers into complying with you?'' He snorts at the joke.
''No snips, I want to make sure I don't have to explain to the scared locals that the physically imposing giants with strange weapons and laser swords aren't hostile, so I'm bringing along a shorter non-threatening face to make them feel at peace.'' He can hear grumbling across the radio while he feels her projecting her annoyance to him through their bond, with muffled chuckles sounding from the other side, making him smile as he can imagine the scene on the bridge.
''You're lucky I need you for this whole thing to work Skyguy, otherwise I'd have accidentally pressed this button to target any nearby flying objects with the AA guns.'' He continues chuckling even as the line cuts with a last grumble. He flies in the given direction, seeing a small village appear on the horizon as he lowers his fighter to the ground in an dry looking open field a few hundred meters from the town, and upon leaving his ship can see the crowd gathered on the edge of town.
As he jumps out of the fighter and lands on the ground next to the fighter the people step back in fear, though how much of that was from the ship that just landed and how much simply from how high the man leaving it jumped is up to debate. As he stands there waiting for a bit he can hear the gunship approaching him causing him to look up and see the hangar doors open quite a distance from the ground upon which Ahsoka jumps out to stand next to him while the others slide down from ropes. Good, that would make sure they'd have a way of quickly leaving if the situation escalated due to a misunderstanding, and some air support in case the villagers were more of a threat than they seemed.
As the young Togruta walks up to him however this information leaves his head, knowing he likely won't see his wife or brother again and even if he will they won't truly be his anymore… As he thinks this however he hears her voice from in front of him him ''Skyguy? You okay there?''
At her words he truly looks at her, and in spite of the changes he can still see the snips he cares for, a smile immediately grows back across his face before he reaches outwards, grabs her and hugs her to himself, twirling her around for a moment before just holding her to himself. ''I haven't seen you in too long, Snips.'' At first she willingly accepts and even gives a return hug, however after a while she softly pushes him away.
She gives him a soft but slightly strained smile ''I'm more than willing to talk and exchange stories once we're back on the ship, but for now I think we should go to the villagers before their fears get the better of them.'' He nods in return and gathers himself before turning around and walking towards the town with her beside him and the six soldiers she brought in lockstep behind them, rifles displayed across their chests.
As she takes him in, she realizes that to some degree, even with her showing off her capabilities by jumping out of the plane, her presence probably detracts at least somewhat of the threatening image the villagers get upon first seeing them: A tall confident man dressed in dark clothes with a slightly billowing robe and a scar on his face followed by half a dozen marching white armoured soldiers all of almost the exact same proportions.
Within a few minutes they've crossed the several hundred meters towards the village, short enough to not make the villagers wait overly long but long enough to make them able to at fully realize this is only a small group, at least for now, and not an invasion force storming their town. As they reach the gathered townspeople they can see they all look at them with fear and confusion, in addition to strangely enough, hope. What about their appearance could have elected all of those at once?
After both sides look at eachother for a short while, Anakin decides to start off the talking ''Hello there everyone, my name is Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and general in the Grand Army of the Republic, is there anyone here that speaks basic you trust to represent yourselves?'' The people opposite of him murmur in a language unknown to him, though some of it sounds very much alike galactic basic.
After a while though a man pushes his way to the front, taller than the rest and though he looks to be getting on in years his strength can still be seen while he is wearing some form of metallic armour that has clearly seen long and extensive use in combat and has his hand on a sheathed sword of some kind. ''I speak Westerosi, or what you call 'Basic'. My name is Lawrence Waters, a knight of Westeros. You mentioned being a knight of sorts yourself, though also a general in the army of a 'Republic'. What is that exactly and why would one of its generals come here in flying ships made from steel?'' While he speaks with a somewhat different accent to most, it is still easily understood.
Anakin sizes up the man in front of him while looking over the people's reaction to the man, nodding to himself once he sees that they look at him mostly with respect and admiration, rather than fear or hatred. ''The republic is a form of government that has a number of worlds under its domain that elect representatives to make their case. The worlds still rule themselves however overall policy in fields such as diplomacy and interplanetary regulations are made heavily influenced by the central government.''
The man nods, following the concept though finding it somewhat strange and of course being somewhat sceptical that the man in front of him represents a body of government that rules multiple whole planets, but intrigued enough by both the idea and the factor of the flying ships, that he stays silent as Anakin continues ''The reason why a general ended up here of all places'' at this Anakin gestures around him ''is fairly simple. We were on a large scouting mission with our larger ship, which is hovering around a while back in the direction we came from, when something went wrong during travel that threw us heavily off course and into the wrong direction. We looked around for the nearest planet to get supplies on and found this one and decided to go down and check out the situation.''
The knight looks him up and down ''If you can get that ship to start coming over here I feel it'll be enough proof to convince both me and the others of your claims, however I feel the need to ask, if you can travel this far, couldn't you just travel back again in the same direction once you stock up on supplies for food and water?''
At this point Ahsoka jumps in, having seen and liking the story Anakin is going for ''We would if we could, however the problem is that as you can probably imagine, travelling the stars is normally a very slow journey due to just how far away they are from each-other, and each star is a system with worlds like this. Due to this a device was created that essentially speeds up the journey by a lot, but it needs fuel to do so, like a hearth needs wood to stay warm. And the fuel is something only found in a very small number of systems.'' She shakes her head before continuing ''Without it the return journey would probably take longer than most of us have left in our lifespans…''
At this the knight looks at her in pity, knowing how it feels to be far away from home. While this is happening, Anakin has called in the ship to approach closer and the villagers start reacting as they see it appearing on the horizon. Even the most travelled among them, like Lawrence, are still staring in disbelief at the giant ship, equal in size to most of the larger towns they've been to in their lives.
He now looks back onto the strange man and what he thought was a very intrinsically dressed up and mutated human woman ''May I have your name, and if possible the name of your people young lady?'' He tries to stay calm but the nervousness can be detected in his voice now that he realizes he's standing in front of two people who likely command thousands of soldiers and even then that's only the forces that managed to get stuck here with them.
She smiles at the man trying to comfort him ''My name is Ahsoka Tano, Jedi Knight like my old friend beside me, with the rank of commander in the Grand Army of the Republic, third in command under General Skywalker and Captain Rex. I am of the Togruta people, one of more than a thousand species of beings known to the Republic, alongside humans and various others. Our ship contains roughly sixteen-thousand of our soldiers though all three of the commanders were on it.'' The number makes the older man gulp, while the others able to speak Westerosi in the crowd gasp before the man quickly turns around to speak to his people, reasoning that if they really wanted, people commanding forces of similar size to those of a Lord Paramount of Westeros wouldn't be negotiating with a village reaching barely five hundred at the best of times and now was not one of those.
As the man calms his people down and talks to them to explain the situation, Anakin and Ahsoka can see the crowd both first gain more fear but then it seeps away from fear into instead careful hope… exactly what had happened to these people that sixteen thousand strange soldiers belonging to an unknown faction appearing on their doorstep would be seen as the better option. Both Anakin and Ahsoka look at the other and realize both are thinking along similar lines, causing them to turn back to Lawrence, who seems to have managed to get the crowd to be calmer.
''Lawrence.'' Anakin starts ''Exactly what happened to your people? My apologies if this seems rude and I am happy for it but… they seem far too accepting of thousands of strange soldiers showing up on their doorstep travelling through the skies in a vehicle, the type of which they have clearly never seen before this.''
The older man sighs in return as his face turns grim ''While most of the surrounding area is claimed by the city state of Myr, they don't actually put effort into enforcing that unless large outside forces interfere, meaning that there are many pirates here that other groups cannot afford to interfere too much with without chancing a war with Myr…''
Both Anakin and Ahsoka easily pick up on the meaning ''And so with Myr not interfering, and others not being able to interfere even if they want to you are left to your own, especially since Myr believes the area belongs to it meaning it probably won't tolerate even local groups unifying to deal with it if said groups can then form something of a threat to Myr's on theoretical control of the region…'' At Anakin's statement Lawrence sadly nods.
''Usually they leave us alone, since while we're not too large of a town a lot of the inhabitants are former sellswords who fled here together with escaped slaves after we got into a bit too much heat with another city state over said escaped slaves, meaning we're both willing and able to fight back far harsher than the average farming community. However lately they've been growing both more confident and stronger, while the people here that a decade ago were still combatants in their prime are only getting older and we lose some with each attack, regardless of whether they're successful or not.'' He sighs ''I've lost a dozen of my best fighting men in the last month alone, in addition to losing almost fifty of the others captured, probably waiting to be sold into slavery.''
At this point Anakin perks up, with anger as he aims his gaze at the man ''Slaves? These pirates are force-damned slavers?'' the man opposite of him nods ''And you fled here in the first place due to helping escaped slaves?'' he gets another nod in return, causing Anakin's smile to turn slightly feral ''Then today is your lucky day Lawrence Waters, Knight of Westeros, because I am freeing your people. Where the fuck are those damned slavers camped?''
The question 'why' can easily be seen on the face of the man's face so Anakin heads it off ''Let's just say that I have a very, very personal reason to despise slavery and that if it wasn't for a complicated political situation and the war we were fighting, I'd probably have started a one man war on slavery at some point back home. So again, please tell me where that slaver scum resides so I can personally rip them to pieces and free your people.''
He points further north ''While we're not sure where they'll be gathering, there is an easily fortified position a bit over fifty kilometres north of here, its on a hill formation roughly a kilometre inland to the east of the river. While I'd go there myself, the moment I do so my people are unguarded and I'm honestly the only one capable of leading them that isn't lying in bed heavily injured at this moment.''
Anakin nods with a violently greedy smile ''Consider your people saved,'' He turns back towards his following troops ''Form up, back to the gunship. I'll take my fighter and scout out the area.'' He fully activates his comm again instead of having the audio only option on where the bridge could hear him, but he wouldn't hear the replies. ''Rex? You still there?'' He gets an affirmative in reply ''Scramble whatever other gunships and fighters we have, then have them follow us to support our assault on the slavers base of operations.'' He gets an affirmative in return.
As he rushes back to his ship and takes off he can see the troops are climbing back into the gunship and follow him while he follows the older knights directions. 'I might not be able to eradicate the disease called slavery back home, but here I'll treat it with the burn of sabre and shot that is its proper medicine.'
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Pirate base roughly fifty kilometres upriver
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Two men stand on sentry duty, both obviously bored with the task, though one is having more issues with it than the other. ''So do you know when we're going on our next raid, I'm bored to tears here. Its always fun watching the fight drain from people's eyes after we kill a few of them. Cowards the lot of them, makes you wish for a real fight.'' The man next to him snorts at that statement.
''Don't let the boss hear you say that, or he might put you on the next raid to one of those settlements of former Westerosi sell-swords, while most of the dangerous ones are old by now, they're still well trained and heavily armed with many even having both gambeson and either chain or plate. Unless you managed to recently get your hands on something that's better against armour than that spear you're holding you're fucked if they raise the alarm in time. Especially since you slack off so much during combat training.''
The other man is about to retort back when they hear an enormous 'boom' in the sky, hurting their ears badly and making them warily start searching the area. ''Where could that have come…'' are the last words to ever leave the mans throat as he gets blown to smithereens by bright light and explosion while the other man is thrown away, badly burned. As he desperately tries to open his eyes he sees the area around him is smouldering in spite of it having been extremely damp only moments before. As he looks up through the small flames and smoke he sees a figure in dark robes jump out of an object that wasn't there a moment ago, before it starts walking towards the camp entrance with the dark robe billowing behind him as a rage filled shout is let loose.
''Come out and face me you cowards, or do you want me to blow up your whole camp from the sky!'' Two men armed with axes that had been close to the entrance rush out to meet him only for him to hold up his hand, causing them to drop their axes as they are lifted into the air and start chocking before he sends forward a pushing motion, throwing them backwards, and from the sounds of it into several other men before they end up in a firepit by the sounds of their pained screams.
The wounded man on the ground can do nothing but watch as at minimum four men, probably more, had just been taken out within seconds of one another with little to no effort shown by their enemy. At this point said enemy notices the man lying on the ground, causing him to lift his hand, upon which a nearby rock is lifted in tandem as the downed man screams, before they are forever silenced.
At this point the still fury driven Anakin looks towards the men fearfully watching him from the main alleyways of their camp only for him to start casually lifting the large wood fragments that the earlier explosion had blown off their palisade wall and aim them towards the group before throwing his hand forward, sending the half a dozen improvised wooden spikes rushing forward. The enemies try dodging however four out of six still hit an enemy, sending those to the ground with painfilled screams before the remainder of the group gathers their courage as one shouts ''There's only one of him, he can't take all of us, forward!''
To the shouters credit, he is one of the chargers, however this doesn't help him much when a gunship swoops in and rakes them with fire from above, which Anakin takes as the sign to charge forward, reaching the enemy within seconds upon which he chops them up with extreme prejudice. First man to drunkenly stumble towards him, still disoriented from the blasts, is beheaded, while his head is used as a force push projectile for a man behind him, covering that already terrified man in the brain and skull fragments of his former ally which combined with the impact strength is enough to knock him to the ground, out for the count.
All the while Anakin is finishing off the already wounded enemies before he sees a large angry man with a war-axe charge him, causing him to pump the force through his body before charging forward, appearing to the other man almost as if he teleported, and suddenly the glowing sword is behind him and he can't feel his right arm. Looking down reveals that is because he no longer has one, with another slash his left arm joins in before his neck is gripped by the man behind him and crushed with a single hand, feeling as if he's being choked by a metal claw ''You won't die immediately from this, but without medical attention, you'll die within minutes in a very, very painful manner.''
He looks the man over and grips at a key hanging off a cord before ripping it off with brute strength, probably doing even more damage to the man's already ruined throat. At this point blaster shots can be heard together with the slashing sounds of a light-sabre on the other side of the camp. ''Good, everything is going as planned. Now those cages were in the centre of camp, one of the gunships should have dropped some troops to prevent anyone from getting the bright idea of taking them as hostages, but they could always use some assistance in that.''
As he charges through the camp, he comes across a small group that is taking cover behind a small barricade, clearly made to protect from an attack on the outside but now being used the other way around as four men, one with a bow and arrows, the rest with short spears, hide behind it while gunfire impacts it. Smirking to himself Anakin lifts the ranged one up over the barricade with the force, quickly turning him into a burnt pile of meat that is then lifted higher again before being dropped on one of the other pirates.
The two remaining mobile slavers turn towards the man walking towards them and rush forward, not wanting to suffer the same fate as their allies. Anakin rushes to meet them, only to force jump over them at the last second, disarming one while coming down by chopping off not only the mans arm but also most of his right shoulder, before beheading the other one while he desperately tries to turn around. At this point he stabs through the head of the disarmed man, before turning and seeing that the third has moved the corpse of his former ally off himself, at which point he fearfully points a spear at Anakin as he casually walks up to him.
As Anakin nears the man tries to stab forward only for Anakin to step slightly aside, grab the shaft of the spear with his left hand and drag the other man forward while his blade is pointed straight ahead. A moment after his blade exits through the mans back he just rips his blade to the right, damaging even more internal organs as the man falls to the ground. With the spear still in his left hand Anakin stomps on the mans neck, crushing it. ''This lane is cleared, friendly approaching, don't shoot.''
As soon as he gets an affirmative he steps out and can see a dozen clones having taken up defensive positions around a trio of large cages, the doors ripped open as two medics are trying to treat the wounds of the prisoners inside while almost thirty bandit corpses lie spread around the fairly open area, with almost fifty meters between the cages and the closest tents. One of the clones salutes him ''General Skywalker,'' he gets saluted back ''With that group you just cleared out gone we've essentially taken out all active resistance in this area. Commander Tano is on the other side of the camp clearing out a defensive position they've taken up around what seemed to be their dining area.''
Anakin nods ''Good work, I'll contact her to see if she could use some assistance.'' As he opens a comm channel to her however the only thing he can hear is muffled screams in the distance ''So Snips, how is clearing them out over there going? Could you use some assistance or is it essentially already done?''
He can hear her snort ''These idiots had decided that after seeing enemies shoot what looks like liquid fire at their allies that the best defensive position would be a large tent with wooden support structures. I just had one of the men set fire to a nearby log and threw it onto the thing before collapsing one of the support structures. They're burning alive and whichever one tries to get out is shot by the men. We're just waiting till the fire ends to make sure we don't end up missing one.''
Anakin smirks again ''Well then, that's going well. I'll stay here instead, Skywalker out.'' As he stops he hears a whimper from one of the cages and looks to see two teenagers, what looks to be a younger boy and older girl crawling back into a corner away from one of the medics, the girl looking ready to defend her younger brother behind her. Anakin clips his light-saber to his belt and walks up to the medic, making sure to try and look a bit less intimidating ''What is the situation?''
The man turns to him and quickly explains ''While they don't look like they're all that wounded, the boy does seem to be suffering from a flu, I've got some medicine on me that we keep around specifically to give to civilians in warzones that should cure it but the girl isn't letting me get close. Understandable, but a really bad thing now with how the kid looks like a breeze could kill him, which is not a good thing since we still have to transport them back.'' Anakin nods and holds out his hand for the medicine.
''I'll try and solve this issue, you deal with the other wounded and sickly.'' The man nods, and though the helmet hides it Anakin can feel his gratefulness before he turns towards the children. As he slowly walks towards them and kneels down not far from them he feels the girls emotions well up through the force before feeling a push of wind against him… there is no wind around the camp and the billowing cloak for intimidation was done by a slight use of the force. Sending feelers out with the force, he can feel the girl is fairly powerful, even as young as she is.
Even more reason to keep this as calm as possible, as he sends out his own re-assurances through the force, causing her to calm down slightly but look at him with confusion as he goes a bit closer ''Can you understand me, young one?''
She looks at him and nods carefully, still somewhat suspicious ''We need to give your brother this'' at this he holds forward the vial the trooper gave him ''It's a medicine for his illness. Once he and the others are healed we'll bring all of you back to your village. We only want the best for you.'' She looks more receptive now but still not fully convinced, though since her brother is sick and she has little other option anyways she reluctantly lets him get closer.
He injects the boy with the medicine carefully before bandaging both his and the girls slight wounds with pieces of clean cloth, the bacta patched the medics had brought with them being saved for the worse cases amongst the injured. One of the troopers walks up to him shortly afterwards while he makes small talk with the children to ensure they're alright ''We're done here sir, everyone has been treated as best as we can in these conditions. We'll have to leave.'' As he stands up to leave he holds out his hand for the child to grab and she looks up at him before looking back down to the hand. A moment later she carefully grabs his hand, at which point he also picks up the boy with his other arm and holds him in his right arm while she holds onto his left before following him out of the cage.
As he leaves it he can see Ahsoka watching him from a short distance, with a somewhat melancholy smile on her face, before she realizes he is watching her and she tries to turn it into a smirk ''So I've only stopped being your padawan for a few months and you're already looking for a new one?''
He raises an eyebrow at her, giving her a return smirk, choosing to ignore it until they have more privacy ''Are you already jealous? Don't worry, I'll always have place in my heart for you, my dear Snips.'' This stuns her for a moment before drawing genuine laughter, which causes him to chuckle in return as they walk to the ships. ''By the way, can you bring my fighter back to the ship, I think I'll have my hands full for the next while. And we can't really leave R2 here, he always gets into trouble if he gets lonely.'' She nods at him with a smile and moves over to where he parked it.
A few moments later a gunship hovers just above the ground in front of them and he lowers him again slightly to pick up the teenage girl before stepping aboard. As he moves to set her down then he sees the slightly tearful gaze the girl gives and instead sits down, with the children essentially in his lap, with the boy sleeping while the girl hugs around his middle. While the sight is a lovely thing to Anakin, it also steels his resolve even more to hunt down the bastards that cause situations like this to be necessary in the first place.
After sitting like this for about ten minutes the trooper standing opposite of him signals they're about to land, making him start to carefully get up while keeping the kids in his arms as still as possible to not wake them up on accident. As he walks to the door however one of the men walks up to him ''Sir, there is one problem, its with the number of people.''
Anakin's eyes pull wide in fear of the fate of them before it quickly turns to an angry determination before he gives an angry whisper ''How many are we missing? They can't have gotten too far yet with their level of available technology, start a by air search, if they left before we attacked they probably did so by river, check for any ships nearby.''
The trooper shakes his helmeted head ''No sir, that's just it, we have too many people. The leader said at most fifty or so where captured, we've transported a total of sixty-six captives out of there.'' Anakin quickly realizes that this isn't the only village in the area hit by these raids, though this also quickly makes him uncertain if they actually got all the people from the village they left from, or if some of those were already transported away and a larger portion is from other places.
At this point the ships land and start unloading the people on them, with Anakin stepping out after the civilians had left it hearing crying and laughter from the crowd as people are hugging most of the people getting off the gunships. At this point he sees the recognizable armoured form of Lawrence walk up to him with a smile on his face ''Thank you for saving my people, you have our eternal gratitude, I don't know how to repay you.''
''No problem, slavers are a scourge on the world, being able to get rid of them is something of a reward of its own. Though if possible we do want some information, since we rescued quite a few more people from there than the number you gave us, and with how they're keeping themselves somewhat separate from the crowd for the most part'' at this he nods his head to the grouping of people that are staying close to the aircraft, looking around with uncertainty all the while keeping the children in his arms ''We assumed that they were from some other place the banta shits had raided, but since we don't speak the local language we have no way of getting an explanation from them.''
Lawrence nods ''I already thought so considering I didn't recognize some of the people stepping out, I'll go talk to the group.'' Then he takes a closer look at the two children Anakin is holding and his eyes go wide in recognition ''And I think I already know where at least some of them are from, considering those are the charges of sir Harper, in addition to being my niece and nephew.'' After having said his piece he quickly goes to talk to the group of people and starts talking with them, with the group quickly becoming somewhat calmer and more at ease with the situation, especially after one of them seems to recognize him.
While Anakin is standing there however the girl in his arms starts waking up appearing confused for a moment before Anakin looks down at her and gives her a soft smile ''Are you alright young one?'' The girl nods while a slight blush appears on her face before she buries it into his shoulder, relaxing a bit more. Anakin chuckles at her causing the now unseen blush to intensify. She can be heard mumbling 'mean' ''If I'm so mean, why are you staying there instead of asking to be put down.''
The confusion returns, though now for a different reason ''You feel safe and caring.'' Anakin looks a bit closer, realizing that the girl is probably the same age as Ahsoka was when he first met her, just somewhat short and socially stunted for her age. That meant that the stress of the situation likely caused her to unconsciously use an untrained form of empath abilities to sense the emotional state and possibly general personality of others near her, him included. With all this though, her words do warm Anakin's heart slightly especially after having had to see the depressing hellhole that was his future… no don't think of it, keep it together.
A few minutes later Lawrence returns and greets the both of them ''So good news sir Skywalker, I know how to get to the village most of them are from and one of my men knows how to get to the village the remaining three are from since we occasionally trade with them.'' At the sound of the older mans voice the girl turns both herself and her head around somewhat in his arms to see him ''And it is good to see you young Alyssa, and your brother Aerion, even if the circumstances aren't the best.''
At this the girl is looking at him for a few moments before recognition appears in her eyes as she signals Anakin she wishes to be let down, who lowers her enough for her to step out of his arms before she walks up to the older man ''Uncle Lawrence, is that you?'' the man happily nods and smiles at her, holding his hands out of a hug only to be kicked in the knee as she comes closer ''Why didn't you visit for the past year, uncle Harrold and aunt Henrietta were terribly worried about you and thought you might have died?!''
Lawrence sighs and shakes his head ''I was too busy trying to defend my people here young one, especially after the pirate raids started intensifying. If it is possible though I'd like to remedy that lack of visits if it is possible for sir Skywalker to take me along as a translator and guide to visit your home.''
Anakin nods ''Shouldn't be a problem, I'll leave some of my men behind to help defend your village in case another group decides to attack while you leave, a platoon of forty should suffice to strengthen the protection, while I'll avail you a trio of gunships to transport the people. I'll have to go back to the ship though, I need to organise everything here.'' At that point he thinks of something ''The platoon that will come to assist with the defence will have some communication devices with them so you can contact us at a moments notice should the need to do so arrive.'' At this point he hands over the still asleep boy to the other man, before giving the young girl a final wave as he walks away.
As he steps back into one of the gunships he relays the orders to the troops and soon he is joined by some of the troops returning to the ship, at which point he gives the signal to the pilot before they lift off to head back to the ship. Upon his arrival however as he walks into the hangar bays he sees two armours and faces that even among all the similarities he still remembers ''Fives? Echo?'' the two turn to him and before they can say anything Anakin has walked up to them and grasped an arm around both of them while hugging them to him.
Both clones are very surprised by the reaction, but decide to roll with it as Anakin starts apologizing to Fives for not believing him about the chips. ''I should have believed you, you were a loyal soldier and a honest man, you wouldn't have lied about something like this. I don't know how I can apologize for the fact that I was so blinded by my trust in the wrong people that I didn't believe you in spite of the evidence being in your favour.'' After a few more moments of this however Anakin comes to his senses, lets them go and apologizes to them for how he just acted.
However while it was an awkward moment for them, it also meant a lot both to them and the troops around them that their general showed his caring nature towards them as it once again made something very clear: unlike some jedi and most non-jedi officers, Anakin Skywalker cared a lot about his men.
As he walks away from there he walks towards the designated meeting room and meets up with Rex and Ahsoka there where after exchanging some greetings Anakin starts ''Okay first things first, with those operations done I want some troops to start scouting out the area and look for good places to settle a mixed military base and agricultural town with a large amount of open ground.'' Rex and Ahsoka both look at him with questions ''I thought it would be two birds with one stone, we get a place where we can land the ship to preserve fuel and settle some of the troops all the while also getting started on building up a location to produce food.''
Both of them nod, however Rex does note something ''General while a decent start there is one issue with the plan, how are we going to have the people to work the land? We got stranded here with essentially only soldiers and sailors, neither of which has much of a crossover to farming in their skillsets beside gaining the physical strength needed to work hard and long days during harvesting and planting seasons.''
Anakin has a serious look on his face as he replies ''I do have something of a solution to that, especially since we are now not in reach of the republic anymore.'' This causes both of the other two to look even more interested ''I am proposing that we offer any of our soldiers that no longer wish to fight a honourable discharge where in return for their service we give them a plot of land and a house in that settlement to be built in addition to farming equipment and we buy their crops. In addition to building factories in the town to produce things like farm equipment and other mechanical appliances.''
Both Rex and Ahsoka are staring at him by this point, neither knowing what to do with this, though Rex's thoughts go back to the small family of a Twilek, a human and the Twileks two children and thinks back on the conversation he had with that brother. After a minute or so of silence from both him and Ahsoka he answers the general ''I believe it is a good idea, though I don't think many will take it, though probably enough that combined with buying some food from the towns we've already helped so far we'd probably get enough to sustain ourselves. However even with that, such a plan would only solve the issue of not having enough farmhands, it doesn't solve the problem of not having anyone that actually knows how to farm.''
At this point Anakin looks at the other man with some confusion ''Except we most likely do because this ship should have the Republics regulation stranding files in its data storage and even physical copies of the most important of those files if you end up stranded with a non-functional generator? Which include but are not limited to files on how to clean drinking water for consumption and ones on the basics of agriculture to keep your crew alive for however long it could take for other ships to find you. I don't think the being that sent us here would go through the things and specifically remove those when she copied whatever ship in the fleet this one is based on. Also once the fabricators no longer have to assist with that, start using them to build a small satellite, we could use some eyes up in orbit to get us some semi-decent maps.''
Rex concedes the point before Ahsoka speaks up ''With that overall part of the long term plan handled for now lets first go to more immediate concerns, I believe it is a good idea to permanently keep a small guard force stationed in the town down there …. I'm going to be honest I never asked for the town name. We probably should at some point, would make it easier to specify once we start having to deal with multiple towns, which with the other towns we're returning the rescued civilians will probably happen fairly soon.''
The two men nod in agreement before she continues ''Back onto topic, I feel we should keep a small garrison there since those slaves were probably taken with a buyer already in mind. Who might just come back to try to take them themselves once they realise their river pirates have been killed off.''
Both she and Rex now turn towards Anakin, who nods ''That is likely true, the Huts acted similarly whenever they hired others for jobs that those then failed to succeed in. The most likely option is actually that the slavers will try to make an example out of this town as they'll assume the locals made a small coalition under the leadership of one of the larger towns and took to the offensive against the slavers.''
He is silent for a moment, thinking it over and remembering his own past. As he speaks next his cold anger can be heard in his voice ''If they want to try we'll just have to make sure they're ready to pay in blood for the attempt. Rex,'' the man nods as Anakin focuses on him ''get a rotating garrison to the town, company sized with the rest of their battalion as backup and functioning as the other members of the rotation. Together with the local militia that should be more than enough to defend against a slaver assault using wooden riverboats without ranged weaponry more advanced than a bow and arrows.''
As Rex nods his ascent Ahsoka speaks up, looking sternly at Anakin ''Now with that all done you are going to your rooms and getting some rest while I'm going with you to ensure you actually do that and don't jump into your fighter to assist in scouting out the area.'' Anakin frowns at her and looks ready to argue only for her to stand up and grab his shoulder ''Anakin you've come here straight from the middle of the battle for Coruscant and since then have spent all your time either fighting or rushing from place to place to try and improve our situation. You need to get some rest.''
Anakin looks over to Rex for a moment only to see him nod in agreement with Ahsoka, causing him to sigh ''Betrayed by my padawan and close friend, how could you, this is mutiny.'' He tiredly chuckles while shaking his head ''I'll go along with it now Snips but remember that even with you not being my padawan anymore I'm still the general here while you are the commander not the other way around.'' At this the two leave the room where Rex chuckles for a moment about 'just like old times' before leaving as well to make sure the plans and orders are carried out.
A few minutes later Anakin is in his quarters sitting on the bed while pulling off his boots, with Ahsoka standing near the door ready to leave ''Stay for a moment.'' She follows his request, though internally dreading the conversation that will follow. ''Just how bad did it get? While it, she, whichever is the case, showed me many things, it only showed me a small number of partially disconnected details, nowhere near enough for the full picture…'' he goes silent for a moment before continuing morosely ''Though even those already paint the picture of murderous monster…''
She looks at him sadly, already giving him all confirmation he could need before she starts up ''While you shouldn't blame yourself since you haven't actually done them yourself… you in the form of Darth Vader were Palpatine's main force of death for more powerful groups resisting his rule with your first assault in his name having been on the jedi temple, where you personally took out those guarding the library and at least some of those in the learning towers. Later you would kill thousands who were in any way related to resistance against Imperial Rule.''
Anakin holds his head between his hands, a broken look on his face as he softly asks ''Why did she choose me Snips?'' he waves her off before she can talk ''I get the practical reason of me being a powerful jedi, but if I can so easily be twisted and tempted to fight the people I love the most, how will I even fare when somebody here manipulates me against some other random local that was our best hope of beating back the undead necromancers that we're supposed to fight here.''
Ahsoka sits down next to him ''Skyguy, that isn't going to happen, not ever again.'' He looks at her, on one hand wishing to believe it on the other already having lost most hope ''Did she ever show you why you turned?'' he shakes his head ''You turned after Palpatine planted weeks of nightmares showing Padmé dying, all the while continuously implanting suggestions he and the dark side could save her while the Jedi order did little to nothing to help you whenever you asked and instead ordered you to go spy on the chancellor who you at that point still only believed to be a close older friend.''
Anakin looks at her with a sombre face ''That doesn't change the fact that I am destined to be little more than a monster, causing the deaths of the people I care for.'' Tears can be seen to form in the corners of his eyes ''Snips I literally choked my own wife enough that she died in childbirth a few hours later, fought the man I considered my brother in all but blood and killed the order that was essentially my family. No matter whether I have done them yet or not the time of me turning was at most a few months from where I was taken.''
As she sees him sit there, mourning everything, Ahsoka loses any remaining doubts she had and instead goes forward and hugs him to herself, bringing his head to rest on her shoulder. For the first time in a long time, Anakin fully lets everything out as he cries into her shoulder while she holds him. After a few minutes Anakin looks up, still with a tearstained face ''You know everything I've done, even more than I do, how can you stand to sit here with me.''
She smiles at him ''Anakin, regardless of what you might have done in the future, you are the only jedi that believed in me and stood up for me during my trial before finding the actual perpetrator and saving my life in the process. You are the one that cared for me when I was hurt, never gave up searching for me when I was lost and risked life and limb time and time again to keep me safe.''
She looks him in the eyes ''You stood up to beings that where essentially gods, not once but twice to save me even winning a face to face battle the second time out of sheer determination. Regardless of anything else that happens, I will never abandon you. You have done far too much for me to ever leave you to that fate, and I will stay by your side till you're either old and grey or we've both fallen in battle.''
Anakin is smiling at her again after this, though it is still a watery smile as he sits up straighter before hugging her to himself ''Thank you Snips.'' They sit there silently for a while, her head on his shoulder with her Montral lying against his shoulder and chest respectively while the upper end of one rested against his face, both enjoying the feeling of warmth and comfort the other gives. After about ten minutes though Anakin breaks the comfortable silence by speaking up in a jesting tone ''You sound like you're so sure that we will die in battle though, something you need to tell me?''
Ahsoka instead goes along with it and takes her head off his shoulder before staring at him ''Anakin you can survive having all your limbs chopped off while being dumped in lava on nothing but sheer willpower for hours and we have both survived crashing down from orbit on more than one occasion. We're both far too stubborn to die from anything other than a fight with some kind of deity going all out or a capital ship firing its main guns at us. And there are no spaceships on this planet other than the one we are currently inside of.'' In spite of both of them having spoken jestingly as he thinks on her answer for a moment it rings dangerously close to the truth.
After sitting in once more comfortable silence for a few minutes Anakin looks at the time ''We probably should go and both get some rest now though, we'll have a lot to do in a few hours and I don't know about you but I haven't slept in at least twenty hours by this point.'' She nods but as he removes his belt and puts it with his equipment on the desk in the office together with his robe and overclothing leaving him in only his pants and a thin undershirt he sees she is still sitting on the bed.
She hesitantly starts ''Skyguy can I stay?'' he looks at her with a raised eyebrow, causing her to roll her eyes while blushing slightly ''No not like that you nerf herder.'' Before her tone softens again ''No I mean can we both just sleep, by the time I was picked up I had not slept restfully for weeks.'' Then she looks him in the eye ''I'm also not entirely certain that if I leave you'll actually sleep instead of just fiddling with your mechanical arm or something.''
He thinks it over for a moment and then shrugs before tossing off his shirt causing her to blush again while he retorts ''Oh come on you saw me sleep like this for years as my padawan its not like its anything new.'' He lies down in the bed where she quickly joins him upon which he falls asleep almost immediately. She looks at him for a moment before smiling and joining him in sleep, though as she is falling asleep she subconsciously moves closer to him.
.
Two hours later, bridge
.
Rex had been busy on the bridge, assigning scouting missions, reading through reports coming in and is now in the middle of a conversation with a somewhat confused Lawrence over the radio of the gunship that had been giving to the man in case he needed to call for picked ''So you are telling me that in spite of being called 'the seven kingdoms', it is actually one actual kingdom with several large mostly autonomous regions with their own lords within it and that after having served as a knight and military commander there you own a map of that continent?''
Lawrences reply comes quite quickly ''Yes, that is true, I do own a map of it though it is admittedly not the most detailed one and especially the section of the map about the North might not be fully accurate since it was something produced on a relatively large scale and as such done by an overworked apprentice copying another rather than a skilled master who would be able to check everything over. I also do have a map of the section of Essos we are currently in however due to the sporadic nature of information keeping and bureaucracy only major cities and landmarks are actually present on it, with most towns the size of ours not being shown and ours only being denoted by a small red cross I calculated myself so it might be slightly off.''
Rex shakes his head, though the other man can't see it and happily replies ''That is no issue, we're already glad to have anything resembling a map to guide our exploration so the combination of your map and a satellite we are building will give us more than enough information especially in the short term.'' At this point he can hear a voice calling to the older man on the other side of the line.
''My apologies sir Rex'' the man replies with some mirth in his voice ''However my niece is getting annoyed with me again and I feel that if I do not humour her she might throw me into the lake, which would be hard to get out of in this armour. Is it possible to stop our conversation for now with you sending over one of your wonderful skyships to return us to my village, she and her family want to stay over there for a while now.''
Rex easily agrees ''Not a problem sir, you've already given us enough information and to get anything more we need you to be physically present with the map so I'll send over a gunship to pick all of you up.'' He can hear some more questions, now from a deeper voice on the other end of the line followed by the old man sighing ''Is there anything else they wanted sir?''
''Yes, my nieces other uncle who's also her caretaker wanted to personally thank General Skywalker if possible and also says he has something to give to him that might help you all going forward. So if it isn't too problematic a request, could he come down to meet us at Libertas?'' As he doesn't get a reply for a moment he quickly resumes ''Oh yes I should probably specify, Libertas is my town not this one, with us not having informed you of any of the town names that might have been a cause for confusion.''
Rex signals for somebody to note that name down as he replies ''Not a problem sir, I'll ask the general to come down to meet with all of you, he should be fine to go down currently and if not he should be available relatively soon.'' After that he can head a young voice shouting at the older man on the other side who then closes the connection, with Rex smiling slightly at the image of a young girl dragging the older man around by force before he remembers that he's going to need to call up general Skywalker. After he and Ahsoka had peer pressured the man into resting. The poor man curses under his breath as he thinks about how pissed off Ahsoka might be once she hears of it.
…
AN: And that's where I'm going to end it, thank you all for reading this, please review and tell me both the good and bad things about the story so far and for those interested I have another story I update regularly called 'Best possible version of yourself' and if this was a good read for you that will probably interest you as well. Hope to see you all again in the next chapter.
Also was Anakin too emotionally unstable here? Not emotionally unstable enough? I've tried to make him authentic to the character but I am probably not the best at writing the type of emotional anguish that cannot be expressed through applications of violence towards the reason the emotional anguish exists.