The Force Wills - Chapter 171 (Patreon)

My perception of time passing was usually something that went by at a speed that could be called breakneck, at least when I wasn’t paying attention to it.

A natural consequence of effectively having just over a century of combined memory from two lifetimes. Add in prescience, the exploration of causality, searching through and living certain probability lines; then I could confidently say that I was pushing 130 or maybe 140 years?

What was that gulf of time in comparison to a mere 25 hours?

It was as if I had inadvertently pulled on the brakes of time.

25 hours of the siege was now behind me, but it felt like a week.

A ‘week’ of effectively reenacting the old Dutch story of the boy Hans Brinker stuffing his finger in a dike, except this dike kept developing more holes.

The current hole I was dealing with was called Caimih station.

In the last 10 hours, the CIS had managed to land a full regiment of droids with their repaired transport capacity and that regiment was marching down the Caimih tunnel line. The droids had subverted the local station’s surveillance completely, so we only had long range scans to rely on, which was spotty at best thanks to the battle of ECM and ECCM that was now being waged as well. We had also managed to cut power lines to the station, forcing General Kalani to bring forward portable fusion generators to keep his droids topped up.  

“All commands, stand by,” I called into my comlink.

I was standing in a forward command post set up on the roof of a building 90 meters away from the Caimih station’s only exit into the city proper. We had already headed off four attempts by commando droids to cut a new exit with shaped explosives and even laser drilling.

No, if Kalani wanted into this city through Caimih station, he was going to have to do it the hard way.

The only thing standing in his way now was me and five companies of the 96th. That was all I could afford given the other security commitments and stopping this entire attack from being one big diversion. It didn’t help that we stopped the enemy here, only for a droid commando team to sabotage the city’s reactor, kidnap a VIP or dozens of other catastrophic plans that Kalani had devised. The greater number of effective troops from the Scipio Volunteer Division (SVD) was the only reason that we hadn’t suffered a major setback in the city’s defense.

“Enemy contact in one minute.”

Four clone companies, Wesk to the north, Osk to the west, Sen to the east, Zerek to the South, manned the fixed defense works around the station, whilst the fifth, Xesh, were my rear line mobile reserve to plug any gaps. They were all in converted cargo speeders with two Repeaters mounted to act as budget LAAT gunships. My actual gunships, of which I had one squadron, I was keeping in reserve.

I heard the enemy before I saw them.

The heavy metallic footfalls going up the long set of wide stairs leading out of station and onto the city’s ground floor.

I closed my eyes and focused.

The first line of enemy droids appeared - B1s each with a red glowing riot shield, holding it perfectly interlocked with each other.

What was the old saying? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

“Nice try, Kalani. Open fire.”

17 Repeaters, most relocated from the security grid in other parts of the city, came to life with a repetitive roar of whining blaster fire.

From Zerek company’s position, who had a direct line of sight on the station’s exit, a half dozen thumps heralded their grenade launchers.

For just three seconds, the enemy shield line held, bouncing off the combined blaster fire, allowing the B1 company to advance six meters.

Then the droid poppers arrived, air bursting right above the enemy.

The 96th’s engineers had spent hours tweaking our supply of poppers with ground proximity sensors. The result was an EM grenade that didn’t wait on a set timer on ground contact, but instead detected how far it was to the approaching surface it was fired at, and detonated at a preset.

In the artificial evening of the arcology, actinic blue light flashed and I heard the thrum of energy release.

The B1 company’s riot shields winked out, even as they began twitching, internal circuitry frying and melting to slag as a mere six droid poppers did the work of dozens in a moment.

They barely had the chance to drop to the floor, before the combined firepower of so many Repeaters hosed over them like water. B1 droids were slagged and torn in half. The debris and pieces barely settled before more bolts arrived.

It was to every current paradigm of warfare, overkill.

I would teach General Kalani that no such thing existed.

B2-ACMs, with their own riot shields welded to their left arms appeared, their triple barrel right arm Repeaters streamed fire towards Zerek company lines. The droids were using the shield with the intent to protect the vulnerable left shoulder gap and sensor from my sniper fire.

Sen Company fired EM grenades.

The airburst killed the B2’s shields and Zerek company snipers fired.

One shot was all it took.

Chewie and the muun armory engineers in the SVD had looked at the problem for maybe half an hour, tuned the DC15X’s power governor, added an external cooling jacket and now the sniper rifles of the 96th could once again one-hit-kill a B2.

It came at the cost of halving the projected barrel lifespan, a few other components and extra weight, but it was infinitely better in these circumstances.

I could only smile as I imagined Kalani’s droid circuits burning with frustration as his oh-so-clever idea was countered.

Dead B2s began once again clogging up the passage of the droids behind them.

That was the problem when you built what was effectively a walking tank and couldn’t easily deal with the wreckage when they were slagged down.

The entire B2-ACM company was reduced to blocking debris in less than six minutes of combat.

Kalani next sent a group of B2-HAs forward to start pulling that wreckage from blocking the tunnel emergence. It was something that should’ve been completely safe, as no Republic troops had line of sight.

It was an effective reverse slope.

I keyed my comlink, “Zerek Company, Poppers in the hole.”

“Confirmed, commander.”

A few seconds later, grenade launchers thumped, sending EM grenades with specific flight angles and timing.

They arced and fell directly into Caimih station’s tunnel, bounced once and twice.

Their detonation within the staircase tunnel destroyed the lighting, the blue flashes strobing, grounding and arcing power licked at the droids.

B2-HAs, instead of solving the problem of blockage, became part of it.

“Nice shots, Zerek. Good effect.”

For the next half hour I gave my opponent a near constant grinding attrition, to the point where he was forced to use B1s to steadily clear the droid wreckage. I also had to be frugal with the droid poppers as our supplies of them were far from infinite.

I had stripped Conqueror’s fabricators and attendant droids, commandeering any local workshops and maintenance bays, which were managing to kitbash together more EM poppers. Any civilian and engineer with any shop experience, was organized into a rough assembly and fabrication line to produce more.

They had managed to begin production just six hours ago.

My fists clenched as Kalani tried something else.

Enough wreckage was now clear and B2-RPs with flight capabilities began advancing up the stairwell.

“All AA units, stand by. RPs in the pipe. Repeat, RPs in the pipe.”

“Affirmative, commander.”

I hated these things. They were the primary reason why the battles in the tunnels had gone so poorly.

Now I was facing 20 of them, just in the first wave.

They lit their integrated jets and blasted diagonally up, through the angled stairwell, straight into the darkened arcology sky. With their contrails behind them it looked like Caimih station had just become a giant land cannon.

The B2-RPs had just a few seconds to enjoy freedom of flight and they angled back around to ID positions and target the Republic defenders, firing their wrist blasters.

The AA teams raised their PLX rocket launchers and sent their response.

40 guided concussion missiles streaked straight towards the formation of droids.

They tried to dodge and weave, but RPs did not have starfighter levels of agility nor were they trained Mandolorians.

The arcology sky over the next four seconds lit with rapid explosions as the PLX missiles found their mark.

Pieces of B2s began crashing on roofs, deflecting off the sides of buildings or just simply crashed to the street.

Some actually exploded a second time as their on-board fuel supply cooked off.

The AA teams dropped their launchers to pick up another, letting the SVD troops among them quickly reload the spent launcher.

30 RPs launched themselves out of Caimih station a few minutes later.

Kalani once again tested if my initial defense was a one-shot.

50 missiles fired by the AA teams was my response.

I had left Coruscant with as much PLX-1 launchers and ammo as I could get away with, managing to finagle about 350 for the 96th Legion. A standard legion loadout issue was 200. As far as ammo for them, I had almost cleaned out the shipyard stocks, grabbing 6000 of them.

The hardest part was organizing the ammo runs from the fortresses towards the various points that needed them.

Combine this with the Scipian AA plasma cannons and the air above Aureus City was going to be a very unfriendly sky for any B2-RP that managed to breach through the line.

“Your move, Kalani,” I whispered.

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Eight hours of on and off again battle followed over the skies of the arcology.

Whilst the majority of the enemy force was still slowly pouring through Caimih station, they kept our defenses busy by trickling B1s. The B2-RPs were now being sortied with BX commandos, attacking the city’s minor and auxiliary airlocks.

Those that we had locked down and sealed earlier, were just attacked again and sliced through, simultaneously at opposite ends of the city.

It moved the siege into a completely new area of battle, the city’s computer networks, and thankfully the IGBC was no slouch in that department.

Within the hour I had managed to mobilize as many muun slicers as we could find and properly configured astromechs to plug in and fend off the BX droids slicing into those airlock’s systems.

It significantly reduced the amount of infiltrations, but it didn’t stop them. We also observed an entirely new tactic, which was BX commandos hitching a ride on B2-RPs, usually 2 or even 3 at a time. In addition, they were also flying as low as possible, using buildings to break line of sight and to keep themselves under rooftop mounted AA guns.

To counter, I personally led and organized every jetpack qualified trooper in the 96th and authorized the launch of six of our LAAT gunships to patrol.

“All right, Forn squadron, gather round.”

I knelt on a high flat landing platform of a major building right next to the IGBC HQ and Vault building. Surrounding me were 34 kneeling jet troopers, keeping their heads low.

Before I could begin to speak, the high hiss of PLX missiles streaking through the air reached us, followed by the booms of explosions. Rapid whines of AA fire joined in as another group of BX-RP squads were engaged.

“You know our job, we are air cavalry. Your main targets are the RPs rear integrated jetpacks. Thankfully, a pistol blaster is good enough for this, so keep your flight evasive and don’t be predictable. Stay in your formations and think of yourself as a starfighter. Also those BX clankers will definitely try to defend their rides. Understood?”

“Yes, commander.”

“Good luck, Force be with you all.”

Everyone spread out to give themselves as much room as possible, before the jet troopers of Forn squadron began launching themselves in groups of four into the sky.

Soon, only myself and the four men of my squad of jet troopers remained. “Muk, Brinla, Catcher, Clocks,” I said, meeting the gaze of each trooper’s visor with my own. “Friendly advisory. Don’t try to match my maneuvers. Follow my course and do only what you can.”

The four looked at each other, feeling rather apprehensive. “Is this more crazy Jedi stuff, Commander?” asked Clocks.

I began trying to explain but stopped myself and nodded ruefully, “More crazy Jedi stuff.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

I pulled out my WESTAR and Darksaber, keeping the latter firmly off.

“Ready? Let’s go!”

A crouched jump and my jet boots burst into life.

Behind me, my squad followed mere moments later.

A quick bit of maneuvering and we regrouped into a V formation with myself in the lead slot.

I turned us towards the north north-eastern sector, our assigned ops area.

With the beautiful night sky above, complete with a pink nebula shrouded rendition of the galaxy, the city was a carpet of brilliant twinkling light below. It was practically a crime to see the view ruined by glowing scars of battle and debris that the city was accumulating over time. Fire was thankfully not a huge problem due to extensive suppression systems present in all buildings and even the streets had gas-based extinguishing systems that popped out of the road surface.

The one drawback of fighting in the air now, was that any reliance on MK1 eyeball or even the clone’s MK2 eyeball, engineered for visual acuity in aiming, wasn’t enough to help pick out RPs against the backdrop. A problem that jet trooper helmets was equipped to solve, with an extensive target scan acquisition system with a NV mode.

“M8, any customers?”

“Yes, mistress. 4 RPs bearing 071, altitude 20 meters, range 400.”

She highlighted the position in my HUD and the troopers’.

“All right, boys. Let’s go!”

I angled my body right slightly and kicked up the speed, before we all dove straight for the city deck.

As much as I was trained by now in the Munad jai'galaar-senaar or the ‘Art of the Rising Shriek Hawk’, both from my imbued memories in the Darksaber and training on Concordia, the feeling of jetpack flight never got old. It never failed to send a thrill racing up and down my spine. No amount of embracing the Force or calming myself would dismiss it.

We picked up a significant amount of speed and the city streets were racing towards us.

I had timed our dive to come swooping down from straight above our targets. 

Our approach had not gone undetected and the Darksaber burst to life as the RPs below angled their arms up to send rapid fire plasma bolts up from their wrist blasters.

My squad scattered into evasive, but I bullied through the fire with the Darksaber deflecting bolts to the side, before I managed to return a single bolt back to its sender.

The RP took the blast straight to its integrated jetpack and began veering wildly off course and even accelerated as it lost throttle control completely.

It crashed and vanished into a building before a minor explosion engulfed it and the two BXs droids it carried.

My squad fired back with their DC15S pistols, their HUDs giving them suggestive markers to aim into.

I joined with my WESTAR, firing rapidly three times to blast the 2 BXs, before the third shot punctured straight through the RPs back.

A very satisfying explosion lit the night, whilst the combined fire from my squad accounted for the third and fourth RP droid.

We flipped head over heels and our jets went into brief overthrust mode to shed our speed.

I landed in a crouch, scanning my WESTAR around for threats, whilst the other four landed around me, but Muk had little too much speed.

“Ah! Kriffing hell!”

The trooper immediately collapsed onto his left side, badly spraining and twisting the ankle on that side.

“Cover!” I ordered.

The other three surrounded him back to back with raised pistols, whilst I stowed my WESTAR to immediately grab hold of the injured ankle.

“Sorry, commander,” Muk gasped in pain, furious with himself.

“It’s all right. Relax. Recall your training.”

He nodded, taking deep in-out breaths, stilling himself against the pain. All clone troopers had been given a bastardized version of the Rising Shriek Hawk by the Mandalorian trainers, which included how to deal with the most common injuries you received.

“Good news, it’s only a bad sprain, not a tear. I’m healing it, but it won’t be 100%. Next time you land, use the right leg only.”

“Yes, commander. Thank you, commander…” The relief in his voice was palpable.

“Incoming!”

“Help him up!” I commanded, surging to my feet properly in the direction of the incoming RP droid squad.

My 2nd and 3rd lightsabers shot up from my hips and snap-hissed into life, as I deflected blasts that rained down on our position and fired shots back into the sky.

The squad rushed and rolled into the cover behind an abandoned speeder.

I managed to shoot straight into the weak spot of the leading RP droid. It went out of control and spiraled straight into its wingman, before one blew up and sent pieces of B2 and BX droids outward on ballistic trajectories to smash and shatter building façades.

The two surviving RP droids landed heavily on the duracrete just twenty meters away, streaming fire towards us, buying time for the four BX to jump off and add their weight of fire.

I glared at them from behind three rapidly spinning and angling lightsabers, holstered my WESTAR and raised both my hands.

All six droids lifted into the air, yet continued trying to manipulate their arms for angles of fire on me and the troopers.

My hands clenched.

Six war droids became crumpled balls of armor and destroyed circuitry, whilst RPs fuel, power sources and blaster tibanna gas came together in a volatile mix.

The dual explosions sent pieces and debris flying, some of which deflected off the TK shield I had already projected in front of me.

“Any more, M8?”

“None in our sector, mistress. Fighting is ongoing in all sectors.”

“Give me a vector to the closest targets. There’s going to be a lot more work tonight.”

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The air in the main command center had a thick weight of weariness to it and I could feel the spirits of everyone perk up a bit at my entrance.

The command crews had already gone through double duty rotations and finding sleep was increasingly problematic. The uncertainty of not knowing when you had to pick up a blaster to defend yourself against an infiltrating BX droid was playing havoc on everyone’s downtime. There was no real chance to completely relax and drop your guard.

“Master Chief, what do you have for me?”

Chewie was growling under his breath at a large datapad in his huge left hand. He looked at me with an annoyed glint in his black eyes. It thankfully wasn’t directed at me, but rather the whole clusterfuck situation we found ourselves in.

With a single finger he practically punched the holotank control panel, “Take a look.”

The city’s very busy tactical plot vanished and a large sensor readout appeared along with a live encrypted feed from a cloaked scout.

“Scouts detected enemy activity in the system’s asteroid belt. They’re harvesting small rocks, nothing larger than 30 meters. Attaching a thruster, maneuvering repulsors, an inertial damper, power supply and a shield emitter.”

I just barely caught the string of curses and invectives that threatened to burst out of me. My hands reached into the holotank, manipulating the view and sensor readouts, beginning a matching analysis. “These are thrusters from a Vulture droid and the shield emitters are definitely strong enough for resisting entry interface. Oh, so they want to get around their space to surface transport problem that way?”

“That’s the only conclusion I can come to.”

My fingers began tapping into a keypad, “Assume they use the reverse side of the asteroid to pack as many droids on it as possible, bolting them in place… four Vel r squared divided by half…  1413 square meters of space. Let’s be pessimistic, a folded up B1 barely takes up half a square meter, so this single asteroid could carry an entire droid regiment.”

Chewie shook his head, “Look here.” He manipulated the holo and zoomed in to show B1 engineering droids bringing in large transport containers and anchoring them into the asteroid surface.

“All right, multiple regiments, what do you think about them surviving the landing?”

“They wouldn’t be doing this if the math and simulations showed otherwise. My own calculations show that droids packed around the inner and mid core of the asteroid have a greater than 80% survival chance.”

“Well, the disguised asteroid insertion technique is not new to them. They’ve had three years of war to perfect and refine the calculations and engineering.”

I leaned back from the holotank and folded my arms, then swiped the holo back to show a surface level topography of the northern hemisphere, especially in the area around Caimih City.

“Look, here to the north-west. Caimih is 43 kilometers distant, also in the same mountain range we are, but the Slovesk Flats is 80 kilometers north. Crash land the asteroid there, slow enough and you only cause minimal damage. They’ll still end up throwing a significant amount of top soil into the atmosphere, but it’s not like this frozen mudball will generally care about going a few degrees colder for a year or two. How many asteroids are they retrofitting?”

Chewie brought multiple scan windows, “Five.”

Despite the dire thought of an entire legion of droids screaming in from space, riding a retrofitted asteroid, I couldn’t help but smile. “This plan reeks of desperation and just think how many droids are going to be destroyed doing this. A legion per asteroid, 80 percent survival rate. That’s just over 9200 dead droids, theoretically.”

“That’s still 36 800 battle droids dropped onto this planet, marching straight to Caimih and then to us. If they space out their attacks to lessen the load on the tunnel, we’d be hard pressed to stop them.”

My fist lightly punched the side of the holotank. “We have to hold it for at least another 14 hours. How soon until those asteroids are launched?” 

“Best guess, within two hours. They’ll enter the atmosphere within 43 minutes after that, scattered over a period of 13 minutes based on their current orbits and a least time course to Scipio.” 

I swiped the holos, returning to the Aureus City tactical plot. “Chewie, begin prepping an atmo containment shield and make the calculations for a controlled demolition of the city’s tunnels.”

He turned his big hairy head to me with a flat look in his eyes.

“I know, big guy. You let me worry about the frakking politics. I’ll sell it to the Scipians somehow. Better a few tunnels than losing this city entirely.”

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“Well, we’re here commander. The floor is yours,” said Clu Lesser graciously.

I stared at the Scipio ad-hoc governance committee arrayed before me on chairs laid out in a half-circle on the lowest floor of the VIP bunker.

Trust politicians with little to do, to do what only they knew how to do, create red tape and organize themselves into a council-committee hybrid. Ostensibly to ‘advise’ me, but it was immediately clear that they saw themselves as an opposing force, who would if pushed too hard, make my command of the city a miserable experience. Forcing me to use precious troops to ‘force’ my decisions through, which I couldn’t afford if I wanted to defend this city and the frakking bastards knew that.

‘Careful Ahsoka…’ Padme thought to me.

‘I know, trust me. I can see it.’

I pulled some measure of comfort from her steadfast, warm presence beside me.

“Thank you for coming. We’ve been keeping you up to date on the siege’s progress, but I’m happy to announce that we’ve all but repulsed the first major assault campaign against the city-”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” grumbled the nautolan senator, Jaal Tromde, folding his arms and glaring at me with those big black eyes of theirs.

I turned my visor to glare at him, lightly weaving with the Force directly onto their spirits, just enough to push against the perceived confidence they had to oppose me.

“We are still experiencing a constant incursion from B2-RP droids, which has pushed the battlefield into the skies over the city, Senator Tromde. Air defenses have forced them low, where only 96th Legion jet troopers can pursue them. It’s thanks to their heroism and the SVD air defense volunteers which have brought us to this point. I can tell you now however, that while the main arcology and vault remain secure, the situation has grown more and more precarious.

“As you know, the Separatists have successfully secured at least one ventral-side grav-lev tunnel and are using it to funnel additional droid forces directly into the lower levels of Aureus City. Caimih Station defenses are currently holding, but are under heavy pressure from B2s, BX commando droids, and B2-RPs. I must explain to you that tunnel fighting is nothing like the grand open-plain battles that you’ve seen from COMPOR; confined spaces, limited visibility, and both sides have been forced into battles for dominance in the EM spectrum, making normal scanning all but useless. This causes naturally high casualties on both sides. The ECM battle is also our primary problem in preventing infiltrations, since the city and the military scanners we’ve brought are struggling to keep up with the enemy jamming. We can barely communicate with our cloaked scouts in the system anymore.”

“Grim prospects, commander, especially since you’re still fighting in the other four tunnels as well,” Senator Braacho commented.

“Two of those have been rendered completely impassable by droid wreckage, which eases the strain considerably,” I nodded to the Kel Dor senator. “What I’m proposing now is to further ease that, in preparation for a new wave of over 40 000 droids that’s due to arrive on Scipio within the next hour.”

I raised my hand and M8 projected a compound holo of the asteroid landing ‘ships’. “The Separatists are trying to ease the problem of space to ground transport, by retrofitting these small asteroids that you’re seeing into rudimentary landing ‘barges’. They have already begun initial maneuvers-”

“Bah! Why are you bothering us with this? Asteroids as landing barges?… Impossible,” sneered Senator Tromde. “All the Separatists will manage is to destroy every droid they send on those things.”

The muuns among the ad hoc committee gave a side-eyed look towards the nautolan senator.

“The analysis of my engineers, the SVD and astromechs is conclusive, Senator,” I said, unable to keep the edge out of my voice. “The improvised nature of the asteroid barges will cause droid losses, but we estimate only 10%. The rest will survive to land. The enemy is well versed in using this technique to secretly infiltrate worlds with commando droids. Scaling it up is well within their capabilities, especially this enemy commander; General Kalani.

“The point I was trying to make, is that given the increased threat, we need to preemptively demolish the remaining grav-lev tunnels-”

“NO!”; “ABSOLUTELY NOT!”; “ABSURD!”; “RIDICULOUS!”

It was sometimes a curse to have the acute hearing of a togruta. A number of council members had risen out of their seats to shout at me. The notable exceptions being the muuns, which was not really surprising.

I let the ranting go on for thirty seconds and simply raised a hand, dialing up my Battle Meditation ‘intimidation’ level to just slightly below a classic Darth Vader.

The abrupt silence that followed was laced with fear, as my armored presence loomed large in their minds, memories of my troopers aiming weapons set to stun rushing to the fore, as if they had just experienced it. A reminder of who I truly was, a battle hardened Jedi commander who brooked little nonsense. That I was allowing them the luxury of this little committee. If I had to drag them kicking and screaming through this battle, I’d have no hesitation about it.

The Force infused into my every word, “As I was saying,” I folded my hands behind me. “We will be preemptively demolishing the remaining tunnels. Leaving the Caimih line as the only way in. It will force the enemy to stagger the arrivals of these new droids, instead of flooding us through three fronts. This is what must happen if we’re to survive until the Republic Fleet can arrive. Yes, I know the risks of this plan, we’d be losing short-term egress routes, potential disruption to internal logistics or power systems, and the permanent loss of valuable infrastructure.

“I remind you that the enemy’s goal is control of this city and the main vault. If they manage to pour enough forces through the tunnels, our entire defense would be steadily worn down to a point of collapse before the Republic can even get here. I acknowledge that this is a very difficult proposition, that you must destroy a part of your city in order to save it.

I eased up on the Battle Meditation slowly. “I would like to have consensus from you and even formal agreement on such a drastic action. There is no other choice in the matter. It’s either this or our defenses collapse. The people of this city have already sacrificed everything in the face of the enemy. We will not belittle it or let it be in vain! I will already promise here and now, that the Republic will bear in part, the cost of future reconstruction in Aureus City.”

Padme, bless her heart, nodded visibly in support as I said it.

“This is not a surrender of any part of the Scipio or the city. This is us, choosing how the battle will be fought, on ground we control.”

The ad-hoc committee looked nervously at each other.

“How long can you give us to deliberate?” Senator Braacho asked wearily.

“There is no point to debate on it, Senator. It’s a binary choice. At this point all you can do is argue about what future policy will be after the battle.”

Braacho looked at the other officials and stood, “Then, for what it’s worth, you have our agreement, Commander Tano. I will speak for myself, when I say, what you have already accomplished here in the last few days, is a miracle of tenacity and the art of war. The fact that we still sit here, free to deliberate is all thanks to you.”

“Thank me, Senator, when this is all over.”

I whirled around on my heels and strode out of the room.

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It felt like there was a sudden yawning void. As if where once had been an entire planet’s worth of gravity, it had suddenly vanished.

That was the only way to describe Ahsoka’s departure.

Padme knew and had felt that the Jedi commander had been employing the Force to get her point across to the room full of obstinate politicians, yet it was clearly more than just that.

The young togruta’s sheer physical presence, rather ironic because she was one of the shortest beings in a room full of towering muun, the visage of her Mandalorian armor, the weight of her reputation; it had all weighed down on everyone. Yet it wasn’t something Ahsoka wielded casually or arrogantly. There was always a point to it or some greater plan at work.

It was difficult in her mind to reconcile that the same young woman who had just laid down the hard, brutal reality of the siege and delivered an effective ultimatum to twenty career politicians, was the same one who had slept so peacefully vulnerable in her lap.

Braacho leaned back in his chair, his relief palpable to her senses through the Force, even as the kel dor near perfectly controlled his body language. Padme quickly had to cast off the mildly irrational feeling of guilt at knowing almost perfectly what everyone in the room was feeling. It was something of a constant struggle that she was lately dealing with. The advantage of knowing exactly what her fellow senators were feeling in any meeting, especially with those she considered her opposition or even enemies, was utterly invaluable.

Yet it felt like cheating and from that the guilt rose up.

“Senator Amidala, again, can you confirm the commander’s words? Will the Republic and the Chancellor commit to Aureus City’s infrastructure repair?”  

“As I still speak with the authority of the Chancellor's office, I can confirm, Senator Braacho.”

“So noted,” he declared, pulling a datapad from his jacket pocket, then tapped it. “Senator Lesser, what would be the position of the muun government?”

“No one truly benefits from Aureus City and Scipio as a whole, being at less than 100% functional. They will make the calculation, as every muun in this room already has. I would not be surprised if there are already contracts being negotiated for construction companies to come here. In the short term, I know the 96th Legion has engineers that can already begin working on any critical repairs once the siege is concluded.”

Senator Jaal Tromde tsked skeptically, folding his arms, “You assume the Republic will win and we won’t be enjoying new accommodations on Raxus Prime.”

“The calculated possibility of that is rather remote,” Lesser retorted coolly.

“You muun and your calculations and equations,” Tromde sneered, yet Padme could feel the nautolan was deep in conflict with himself, emotions of dire pessimism, fear and even a desperate hope battling each other within him. His pessimism didn’t see how a Jedi padawan, still a girl by many species standards, could possibly save them all. Yet it warred with the cold reality of what his own eyes had just seen. “You can’t factor in everything, yet you’ll base your lives and decisions on it.”

“There is always that possibility, Senator Tromde,” Lesser admitted, however he didn’t truly believe it. He merely said it to avoid an unproductive argument and his emotions were dismissive and condescending. Padme knew how muun viewed the so-called ‘lesser intelligent’ species of the galaxy, that their intellect let them stand above almost everyone else. What other species called ‘chaos’ or ‘luck’ was just a lazy failure to account for all the variables.

From there, the meeting continued into a dreary affair of every ad hoc committee member wanting their own concerns to be heard.

Padme listened attentively, committing the good and bad points to memory, old political skills merging with her new internal Control through the Force. Just a year ago, she would’ve already asked for a seat and barely remember half of everything that was said, but the physical conditioning of Matukai and the awakened Force within changed things considerably.

Each opinion from each member, spawned a whole host of arguments and counter-arguments. She felt for the gaps and weaknesses, smoothly inserting her own arguments, shifting the course of debate and policy.

She ironically recognized that she was doing in a microcosm almost precisely what Palpatine was doing on a macro scale to the entire Senate.

Finally, after three hours, Braacho called for a recess and lunch break.

Lesser glanced at his own comlink, “If you’ll excuse me, Senator Amidala.”

“Of course,” she said automatically and joined the small stream of officials leaving the room.

Typho and Master Damsin, still in their Senate Guard disguises, stood outside like infinitely patient sentinels.

She gave a gestured signal and her bodyguards followed wordlessly behind her towards the nearest turbolift bank on this floor of the VIP bunker. As the turbolift began its upward journey, its inner walls shimmered and projected an overlaid holo, giving a beautiful exterior view of the city.

It had been one of the hidden fortresses dotted all about Aureus, standing just under 70 meters from the Main Vault building. Of course, the view was hardly so beautiful anymore, perfectly showing the artificial night and war-torn interior cityscape; columns of smoke indicated where local fire suppression systems had failed, the bright blue ion streak of a missile rising into the sky, searching for a target before ending in a a small flare light and fire. Occasionally, even the AA cannons would send streaks of green bolts upward.

It was all against the backdrop of a breathtaking star scape in the sky beyond the arcology’s skin.

It struck her as being… desolately beautiful somehow. It was horrifying, tragic, yet…

She firmly shook off that train of thought as the lift came to a stop on the sixteenth floor and her assigned apartment within the bunker.

There was hardly a soul in the corridors, most of the residents just stayed put and watched the battle in the air with a grim finality and even despair in some cases.

She paused at the front door, wanting nothing more than to just collapse in her unfamiliar, stiff bed, and waved her hand over the keypad.

The front door hissed open.

“Greetings Senator.”

Before she could even think, she felt the Force recoil horribly around her-

Typho and Damsin lifted into the air, their rifles clattered to the floor as they clawed at their throats and were slowly pulled into the apartment.

Padme stared in horror as Dooku stood not 3 three meters away from her, dressed regally as ever with dark brown cape around his shoulders, black tunic, leggings and knee length boots. His hand raised almost casually in the direction of her two bodyguards.

“Do come in and I trust you understand the futility in trying to call for help?” He gave a mild smile from behind his perfectly trimmed gray beard, corrupted yellow eyes glinting in the gloom of the apartment.

She mastered herself quickly, casting off her emotions even as she retreated further into the carefully constructed protections that she had built with Ahsoka. It was how she could still be in the same room as Palpatine and not betray her own strength and sensitivity to the Force.

Padme stepped forward into the apartment properly, folding her hands together as the door shut with an ominous finality.

“Count Dooku,” she greeted him, letting a furious, stubborn glint of defiance project from her eyes.

The Force flexed awfully and her bodyguards were released to collapse to their knees on the floor, gasping for air. She inwardly sighed with relief, knowing that Dooku could’ve snapped both their necks in an instant if he so desired it.

“I take it we’re going to be your hostages now?” she said, even as she plunged into the Bond. ‘Ahsoka!’

“To a degree,” he confirmed. From Ahsoka, there was only silence. “You see, you should’ve died at the beginning of this war, in a Geonosian arena and on many other occasions. I could kill you in an instant now, but unfortunately for me, you have a firm use at the moment in luring Ahsoka Tano to where I can kill her.”

Padme poked the Bond firmly and found only the mental equivalent of a shut door.

The feelers of panic began creeping onto her mind. Why? Why is she not answering? Why would she shut it off now of all times?

Dooku rested his hands on his hips, his cloak parted enough to reveal the glint of his curved lightsaber. “Now, we are all going to walk out of this fortress, where an associate is waiting with transportation. I will be watching and sensing carefully, Senator. If you attempt to communicate, warn or even make a non-verbal signal, you will forfeit the lives of not just your bodyguards, but also quite a number of the senators, officials and civilians in this building.”

The broad threat made it clear he had infiltrated a handful of agents and he definitely had inside help. She dearly wanted to know just how he had made it all the way into the most secure bunker of the city in the middle of a warzone, but it was a stupid question. She had personal experience of what a Sith Lord such as Darth Maul was capable of in stealth and infiltration. She didn’t doubt that Dooku, a very experienced, older Force Practitioner, was even more capable when he truly put his mind to it.

She did not look or even think about the undercover Master Damsin to her left. She carefully emptied herself of all such notions and questions, lest she betray the slight ray of hope that Dooku clearly didn’t know of the undercover Jedi Master’s presence. Or did he know and was just humoring her that he didn’t?

“Very well, Dooku. We will do as you say,” Padme declared, looking back to Typho and Damsin pointedly.

Both her bodyguards nodded.

Dooku smiled wider, “Excellent, you may arm yourselves again, guards of the Senate. You understand that trying to shoot me is just an elaborate form of suicide?” They nodded. “Good.”

The Count of Serenno closed his brown cloak around himself and lifted a deep hood to hide his face.

“Lead the way, Senator Amidala. I will be right behind you.”

Padme felt like her spine wanted to jump out of her body, as she turned her back to the Sith.

Typho and Damsin had gathered their rifles, holding them in port arms position, taking their spot in the lead of their impromptu formation.

The Force flexed in a way that made her mouth feel like she had acid on her tongue; which she recognized as just her neophyte practitioner's mind’s way of interpreting the feeling of the Dark Side.

The doors to the apartment parted and they began walking.

‘By Shiraya, why aren’t you responding Ahsoka?!’

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A/N: Oh dear. Big oopsie, or is it? ;-) Infiltration and stealth is a Banite Sith forte after all, as is treachery, moles etc. The chaos of a city battle makes it even easier. Why did Ahsoka press the mute button on Padme's Bond I can already hear you ask? Well, have to preserve some mystery thriller intrigue, don't I? :-) Ahsoka has a PLAN.

Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend. As always, stay awesome!