The Force Wills - Chapter 173 (Patreon)

“Whether she is here or not, it makes no difference to the inevitable.”

My green blade zoomed through the air to return to my side. I considered whether there was any point to verbally engaging with Dooku from this point on. There were quite a few zingers I could deliver to him with Dun Möch, but he was just too experienced for them to do anything to change the outcome of this. It would not stop him from trying to use it on me though.

“You came running to save her, just as I knew you would. Attachment is a dangerous thing, young Tano.”

He rushed towards me, his blade in the lower right mid-ring, in his flawless Makashi aiming to strike at the vulnerable gaps in my armor - neck, hips or any part that needed flexibility, which was only protected by kinetic and void resistant flex material.

I pushed back, levitating, feinting my retreat and that I would continue kiting the Banite. 

Instead my left foot caught on the floor ribbing and pushed straight into him.

My left blade inverted itself in a heartbeat, intercepting his attack, whilst the Darksaber and my right blade stabbed straight for his heart and groin.

The abrupt change of tactic managed to surprise him for one precious second.

Yet his own preternatural reflexes saved his life, as he twisted right, avoided the stabs, then ducked under them as my blades tried to bisect him with a left slash.

He had no choice but to step back and partially levitate himself in retreat.

If there was one advantage I had given myself in this fight, then it was forcing Dooku to expend focus and strength to simply keep himself standing properly. Makashi and especially his version of it now that he was steeped in the Dark Side, relied on him having a flat surface. So he could twirl that lightsaber into perfect ripostes, one hand always behind his back and make a mockery of any opponent he faced.

Now he was forced to use Ataru forms and I could sense it was having a marked effect on his pride. That it was me who had done it, a young padawan in his eyes, was just salt in the wound.  

A brief Force Jump and pulse from jet boots turned me into a three bladed meteor, and I performed the Falling Avalanche from Djem So aimed straight at Dooku’s head.

Dooku briefly deflected the Darksaber and my right blade, spinning around to avoid the momentum of my attack, breaking contact, whilst quickly twirling his own blade in a spinning left to right deflection to turn away my left blade that simultaneously had tried to stab him into the stomach.

Fighting against three blades at once from a single opponent was an entirely novel experience and he wasn’t enjoying it.

I felt him surge his Control towards me, trying to rob me of my hovering blades.

Nope.

My counter to the attempt cancelled out his kinesis completely, even as I blurred forward with two of the blades spinning like buzz saws towards his arms, the Darksaber probing towards his heart.

He raised a single eyebrow at my attack, shifting his blade to defend in the inner ring of defense.

A rapid left-right deflection stopped the buzz saws perfectly, whilst a twist of his body left, caused the Darksaber to miss his chest by less than a centimeter.

His blade riposted in a heartbeat, coming from below and rising, trying to cut my extended right hand off at the wrist.

My own reflexes were quick enough to move that arm just a few centimeters forward.

His blade instead only hit the solid beskar of my vambrace.

The next moment my right arm pushed down on his blade, keeping it engaged and sending a burst of sparks downward, my left hand blurred over my right arm, aimed straight at Dooku’s chest.

Under M8’s initiative, the Whistling Bird cluster round fired.

The range to Dooku’s chest was almost point blank.

Which was the only reason he didn’t die the next second, as the smart munitions needed distance and time to both arm themselves and build up penetrating kinetic speed.

The twelve tiny warheads nevertheless managed to avoid any interference from his lightsaber and inner ring of defense, it slammed into his chest and only a last ditch Force Fortification, prevented them from breaking through his tunic, skin and burrowing deep. If only I had more precision focus to use Mechu Deru on even one of those warheads, this would’ve all been over.  However, keeping my blades under proper control this close to Dooku, didn’t leave me the fine control necessary.

We both blurred away from each other to make space and the Count ruefully rubbed his chest, glaring furiously at me.

“You would use one of Grievous’ signature attacks on me? The one who taught him everything he knew of lightsaber combat?”

I felt no need to explain myself and fell into my own Djem So stance, Darksaber held in the middle ring, horizontally forward, whilst my other blades hovered at my shoulders, pointing directly to my opponent.

My left hand flexed as the next cluster of Whistling Bird moved forward into launch position.

“Tricks and trinkets from the Mandalorians will not save you here, Ahsoka Tano. You will die and your master will mourn you briefly, then he’ll let his rage consume him and I will easily destroy him too.”

The Dun Möch was a pretty good attempt, it tried to target my fear of Anakin falling despite all my efforts.

I could only chuckle and shake my head, using my amusement as a shield, which was fortified by my own knowledge and prescience.

Dooku frowned at my strange reaction to what should’ve been a hit to a weakness he perceived. He still thought, despite everything to the contrary, that my decision to embrace a Mandalorian mindset and heritage was just surface level trappings. A manipulation from my part.

Perhaps in the beginning there was some partial truth to that, but after everything… after the sacrifice of who I had been… and what I had done for the Mandalorians since…

I felt the outrage from Darksaber palpably and the being of kyber in my hand all but demanded that this old deceived fool had to die on its blade…

I pushed off into Force Speed.

All three blades moved into a different simultaneous attack - high slash left, forward lunge from the Darksaber, low slash right.

Dooku was presented with a nasty choice. No matter how fast he defended and riposted, one blade would remain which could penetrate his defense.

There was only one answer; retreat.

He made a backward somersault and I felt his fury as he landed six meters away on the precarious floor ribbing. Ataru was not something he was enjoying. He was in relatively superb shape for his age, but the strain it was putting on his body was building up, combined with the Dark Side over time taking its toll.

He barely had time to settle when I fired the Whistling Bird behind me.

And a heartbeat later was charging into his defense again.

Under M8s programming, the munitions immediately spread apart, circling around to gain space and speed, arming themselves and angling into Dooku from left and right.

He gestured with his left hand and managed to halt every speeding projectile, bringing them under kinetic control. 

He blocked the slash of my right blade and Darksaber, but again had to retreat into a reverse somersault as the smart projectiles detonated in his kinetic grip, sending their lethal AP plasma to converge right where his chest had been.

“How many more must die for your misplaced sense of duty, Ahsoka Tano?”

My answer to his Dun Möch was to send my green blades shooting towards him, aiming for his head and heart.

He defended in the middle ring, even trying to slash at the hilts.

At the last moment, I pulled my blades back just a few centimeters and rolled them into an immediate riposte that would’ve been impossible for someone holding it in their hand.

I pushed my focus as much as I dared, and started hammering Dooku’s defense with rapid slashes and stabs, testing every angle.

It was utterly amazing to watch and fully demonstrated why he was Master of Makashi. Every angle that his blade couldn’t cover, he dodged and twisted out of the way. His footwork, even on the compromised flooring, was masterful.

“ENOUGH!”

The abrupt Force Push that he released from his left hand caught both my blades like leaves in a storm, nearly robbing me of control and sending them briefly hurtling into the nearby darkness and out of the building.

I regained control and extinguished them, letting gravity pull them down only slightly, and began carefully guiding them.

Dooku, sensing a significant part of my defenses were gone, charged towards me.

His first strike was straight to my neck, aiming for the thinner beskar which wouldn’t resist the lightsaber enough to matter.

I dodged back, slamming the Darksaber into the reverse side of his slashing blade, increasing its momentum so much that it threatened to tear the weapon from his grip.

Dooku barely managed to counter, surprised by the sheer physical strength I had put into the hit.

His curved hilt helped to save his grip, and saved his life as I riposted, straight towards his stomach.

He caught the Darksaber on the upper third of his blade, trying for a blade lock and moving it out of the way, again slashing for my neck.

I ducked in a blur of Force Speed, purposefully using the side of my beskar helmet to headbutt his blade.

The Darksaber slashed back into his knees, forcing him to hop backward in evasion.

I stepped forward, bringing the blade back for a slash to his right hip.

His blade came back in time to deflect, but in a heartbeat my left arm came up, trapping the glowing red weapon between the Darksaber and the beskar vambrace on my inner forearm. The lightsaber screamed and sparks shot off the surface of the beskar.

I stepped behind Dooku and my armored left knee hammered upward into the rear of his right knee, then I rammed him bodily, managing to add a minor Force Push that did just enough. 

With his balance completely upset, his weapon trapped, there was only one way to go.

He tried to hold onto his lightsaber, but we were both in an effective blade lock and he crashed with his back to the ruined floor.

For a glorious second, Dooku was disarmed, in pain with a nearly dislocated knee that only instinctual Fortification had saved from being shattered and on the floor.

His lightsaber safety, a feature that nearly every Jedi or Sith built into their hilts, kicked in. With no hand holding it, nor its owner using Mechu-Deru or simple telekinesis on an internal switch to keep it lit, it defaulted into a battery saving mode and shut itself down.

The hilt began to fall.

The future split as I perceived two major paths.

These shatterpoint equivalent moments always managed to sneak up on me, no matter how thoroughly I explored a probability line. This entire fight had so many factors, influences and outcomes, it could be likened to a ball of entangled yarn made up of kaleidoscopic light. You knew it was coming, but once you were in it, the path through became such a mess. Now I was within that entanglement and had found a major inflection point.

I could reach down with TK and grab the falling hilt.

Dooku would do the same, his own precog reflexes ensuring that both forces would converge on the hilt at the same time.

The fight would become a battle of Control. A manner of fight that I had quickly come to despise falling into. It reminded me too much of being a local equivalent of a power battle. Where the fight was determined by who could muster more of the Force in the shortest amount of time, who could withstand doing it the longest or was willing to pay the price.

The outcome of that was clear; I would lose.

At this point, as much as Dooku wanted to cleanse himself to the level of Dark Side corruption that he had before the duel on Serenno, the temptation to backslide in the face of potential defeat was just too high. The Dark Side had clawed over the original line he had set for himself and like the slippery slope it was, he would slide down it again. There was no way I could defeat a Banite Sith with Dooku’s experience and training in the direct conflict of power. It was folly to even attempt.

His own weapon would return to his hand and I’d have nothing to show for it, except dealing with a Dooku even more high on the Dark Side.

The other path…

Shabla! For frak’s sake!

Yet, did I truly expect any difference in a confrontation against Dooku. To defeat that level of the Dark Side without sacrifice?

The moment passed, and I chose.

The beautifully elegant lightsaber, so awfully corrupted, returned to its master’s hand and ignited.

As much as I had braced myself, prepared, even internally cut off all conventional feeling from my right leg, getting stabbed by that awful lightsaber in the right thigh sucked bantha poodoo!

The blade had penetrated through the right inner thigh, in a barely two centimeter gap in the beskar there that was even smaller than it would be on an older, traditional armor set.

It seared flesh, bone and the tip was firmly stopped by the beskar plate on the other side, sparking and causing it to heat up.

Dooku held it there with a triumphant, savage delight, for another three seconds of eternity, letting the beskar begin to burn my outer thigh.

PAIN.

No, I refused to yield to it.

PAIN.

I refused to scream.

PAAAINNN.

NOOOOOO! I DENY YOU!

My own Dark Side tried to rise.

I sent it back to its corner like a scolded dog.

I ENDURE!

Dooku pulled the lightsaber out of my thigh and I let myself collapse on my right side, just barely managing to hold onto the Darksaber. The floor ribbing was not a friendly surface to fall on.

The Count got to his feet and turned around, giving me a mild smile. His expression smug, eyes openly telling me this had always been the inevitable conclusion of the fight between me, an upstart padawan and him, the Jedi turned Sith of 82 years old.

“It was a good fight, Ahsoka Tano. I haven’t been challenged or suffered as much injury in a duel since my early days as a young Knight.” He twirled his blade menacingly, beginning a slight hopping walk around my prone form. “You’ve given me a unique privilege of what it is to face a Mandalorian trained in the Jedi Arts. Something not seen in a millennia.”

He stopped near my head and lowered the blade to hover near my neck. “You have talent, Tano and a mindset that I can scarcely believe could emerge from the decrepit Jedi Order. It is a shame that it must end here.”

I looked at the end of the red blade hovering so close, traced its path back to Dooku and felt no fear.

My head turned and I pointedly looked straight up into the looming Sith’s face.

“No.”

Two fingers of my left hand twitched.

My two green blades, which I had painstaking maneuvered into position since I had ‘lost’ them, their length adjusted to be double as long, cut through the ceiling, panelling and ribbing of the floor below us.

Erupting upward and straight into Dooku’s heels, burning through bone and flesh, until it finally stopped at his knees.

He looked down in stupefied horror.

I shouted into the Bond with Taria one word.

‘Now!’

An orange-yellow lightsaber blade seemingly spouted straight out of Dooku’s chest, and Taria shimmered into existence right behind him as she dropped out of a properly mastered Curved Mirror technique.

The Count gasped rapidly, trying to breathe but was unable. His heart tried to beat, but was unable.

Taria abruptly pulled her blade out and swiped her blade in a timed horizontal slash that decapitated the falling body of Count Dooku.

The head rolled and bounced off the collapsing body, falling into the gap between the floor ribs.

With a final heavy thump, Dooku was no more.

I was too busy managing the shock and damage to my leg to really pay attention as Taria quickly used a Force Push to send the body flying to the side.

The body of Dooku erupted.

It was not equivalent to Palpatine down a reactor shaft, but it was still enough to send a miasma of awful corrupted Dark Side energy spewing outward that enveloped the entire floor.

Taria was already kneeling beside me, shielding us both as the torrent of energy seeked to hungrily snuff us out.

Just as quickly as it had appeared, it burned itself out as a bonfire suddenly deprived of fuel.

I grabbed Taria by the shoulder and pulled myself up, peering around her.

Dooku’s headless body was remarkably in one piece, the Dark Side burst not powerful enough to actually cause physical damage to the building’s structure.

“Ahsoka, how are you managing?”

I fell back awkwardly and she thankfully caught me from bonking my helmet on the floor. “Dealing with it,” I gasped with the strain of maintaining internal Control. “I’m going to need to get a full bacta immersion within the hour if I want to keep this leg.”

“I’ve already sent the distress signal, mistress! Do you want me to administer internal bacta stims?” M8 asked with such a panicked squeaky voice, that my montrals shuddered.

“No point, too much damage,” I gasped. “Taria, I’m going into a healing trance. Follow the plan. There’s still a battle to win against Kalani.”

“It’s all right, Ahsoka. You’ve done your part far beyond what anyone could’ve dreamed. Relax.”

“Thank you.”

I closed my eyes and plunged into blissful peace.

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Taria lifted her unconscious student with a heave of effort, and it was a mild bit of concentration to thread the hilts of the blades that had first pierced into the Sith, through the holes they’d made.

With all three lightsaber hilts secured to Ahsoka’s waist, Taria carefully hopped forward towards the far edge of the building floor.

The LAAT gunship that had done the job of dropping the weapons Ahsoka had used roared into view from above.

Two pairs of clone medics with repulsor stretchers carefully jumped out.

“Jedi Master Taria Damsin, undercover!” She shouted over the din as the clones approached, since she was still in Senate commando armor. Levitating Ahsoka to the stretcher and the visible lightsaber on her hip did enough to ID her. “Get Commander Tano to the hospital immediately! Second stretcher, follow me.”

The clone’s reaction to seeing Dooku’s decapitated head and injured body floating towards the stretcher was enough to break through even their conditioning.  

“Holy kriffing hell!”

“That’s… Dooku?! The commander didn’t…”

“Enough!” snapped Taria. “You were told this was a rescue mission for Senator Amidala from a Separatist insurgent. That is what you will say when asked by anyone else until further notice. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Throw a thermal blanket over the body and let’s go!”

When the gunship finally pulled away from the building, Taria finally released some of the sheer stress she had been holding onto.

The challenge of holding the Curved Mirror in the midst of that fight was like nothing she had experienced before. Keeping the technique balanced amidst the disturbances in the Force from that battle was akin to dancing on a tightrope in a storm. Even worse was mastering her worry and concern for Ahsoka. There were so many occasions where she could’ve stepped in and potentially ended it, but her student was adamant that there could be nothing left to chance. 

Dooku had to be blinded with the moment of victory, otherwise he would’ve potentially even reacted in time to Taria’s attack.

And Ahsoka had bought that moment with sacrifice. 

The gunship flared for a landing on the primary exterior emergency pad of Gomar Chope Medical Center and Ahsoka was immediately carried off into the building. Nearly every clone trooper on the gunship became a security escort for her and followed.

“Take us to Command!” Taria shouted to the pilot above her.

As the gunship took off again, she made some appropriate wardrobe adjustments. Acutely aware of Dooku’s cooling body near her feet.

The command bunker swung into view and she turned to the two clone medics. “That body is to be taken to sublevel 2. Empty out one of the consumable cold storage bays and place it inside. You are then to arm yourselves appropriately and let no one inside except myself or Commander Tano. You are authorized to use full lethal force on anyone else that tries to cross that threshold. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

When she entered the command center, she was now wearing a Jedi half-robe over the commando armor, her lightsaber prominently worn on the hip.

Chewbacca and the nearest clones were the first to notice her.

The wookiee let out a deep worried note as he immediately understood that if she had dropped cover whilst not hearing a word from Ahsoka, then something was either very wrong or things were about to get interesting. The Master Chief’s own position in Fulcrum and their mutual closeness to Ahsoka naturally brought him into the fold of many secrets.

“Attention!” snapped a naval clone to the room at large.

By reflex everyone was on their feet and it brought her under the weighted scrutiny of the entire room. A position she was trained to avoid at all costs but there was little to be done about it now.

“My name is Jedi Master Taria Damsin. Echo, Three, Alpha, Beta, Omega, Four, Nine.”

The alien language flowed from her lips and along with a specific pulse through the Force sent mentally into the mind of each clone, it unlocked a memory Ahsoka had left during the training sessions aboard the Conqueror.

The language, as far as Taria could tell (which Ahsoka refused to elaborate about) had no precedent in galactic phonology, as far back in history as any database she had access to could tell. It was wholly unique and might as well be a language Ahsoka had invented herself. The idea was not new in spycraft, but thousands of years of vocal language analysis programs and refinement to protocol droids always meant that it was only a matter of time before it was traced and solved. All language and thought had a root origin, somewhere. Even when someone tried to think of something new, they still couldn’t escape the fact that their own native language structure would subconsciously influence things. 

Ahsoka’s language had none of that and even the latest protocol language programs simply could find no basis to even begin attacking it.

“Commander Tano is alive but injured, currently undergoing treatment. She was involved in a classified operation to rescue Senator Amidala from undercover Separatist insurgents. As of this moment, with the authority of the Jedi Council and Republic, I’m assuming command of the defense of this city until such time as Commander Tano has recovered or I’m relieved by General Skywalker. Commander Cyrtt, Master Chief Chewbacca…”

Both wookiee and the senior clone in question saluted in response, “Yes, ma’am?”

“What is the status of demolition prep?”

Chewie and Cyrtt looked at each other briefly.

The clone 2IC of the 96th chose to answer, “Ready, ma’am. We were just waiting for the commander’s order.”

“Consider it given. Evacuate all troops, detonate as soon as our people are out of the tunnels.”

“At once, Master Jedi.”

The orders began filtering down the chain and Taria stepped forward to lean against the holotank. She projected as much confidence, authority and power in her bearing through the Force, taking a number of cues from her student’s unconventional style.

Over the next quarter hour she patiently watched the unit symbols in the holotank steadily withdraw. Repeaters were left in either auto-targeting mode or were remote controlled with hard wire loops run towards the fallback positions in the city proper.

“Master Damsin, intercepts indicate the enemy is responding to our withdrawal.”

“Understood, Intel,” she nodded at the clone officer who was practically surrounded by holoscreens.

Sure enough, the sporadic indicators of enemy units in the holotank that were flickering on and off began surging forward in the tunnels with increased speed. Kalani was pouncing on the perceived weakness.

Cyrtt tapped his comlink, “All units accounted for. Master Chief-”

The wookiee’s hands moved on the various control panels arranged just for him. He growled in rapid shifting tones, the translator on his bandoleer blurted to life, “Force fields engaged. Detonating.”

The floor underneath their feet shuddered briefly before a sharp rattling note of noise rang through the air in the command center. The entire arcology had just been struck as if it was a giant percussion instrument.

Seconds later, the tactical plot in the holotank showed only one tunnel left.

Taria took a moment to let everyone recover from having their ears assaulted, letting go of the relief she felt that the city wasn’t seemingly going anywhere. “What’s the arcology’s status, Master Chief?”

“Stand by, scanning.”

The entire room watched as Chewbacca stared at the incoming sensor readouts, as he spoke over com channels to droids and muun engineers who were also interpreting the data. It was complete jargon even with the wookiee’s translator module getting a thorough workout. The tension in the room only increased as seconds turned to minutes.

It was clear that a very complicated debate was taking place.

Finally, after nine nerve wracking minutes, Chewbacca sat back and leaned the back of his shaggy head against his cradled hands. “The city is stable and will remain so for the near future.”

The cheers of relief resounded briefly, fists pumping air or knocking on consoles. It was a brief exultation that Ahsoka encouraged her troops to express, despite training to the contrary.

“Near future, Master Chief?!” Taria asked pointedly.

The wookiee nodded, “Yes. Our calculations were as good as could be within the timeframe we had. The city won’t be falling off the mountain this year, but it’s going to need a full structural assessment and reinforcement.”

“Good enough for me. Thank you. Commander Cyrtt, begin a full redeployment to the remaining tunnel.”

“At once, ma’am.”

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Padme sat in silence next to Typho’s biobed. The hum of small repulsors in medical droids going about their duty echoed softly throughout the sterile room.

Her bodyguard was almost invisible underneath the machinery that was keeping him alive. What little she could see of his skin was angry red and purple, the physical injuries from Dooku’s Force Lightning. His shallow breathing was all that could be managed, even with all the state of the art medtech in this hospital. Padme could feel his spirit hanging on by a fragile thread.

She just knew that something in Dooku’s attack was more than just mundane electrons given deadly purpose. There was a malign corrosiveness within Typho that she could barely sense and until that was gone, he would not improve.

Doctors and medtechs could only declare that he would live, for now, but the damage to the nervous system and brain was extensive. An induced coma and bacta infusion therapy was the only treatment left, everything else had been exhausted.

She closed her eyes, wishing she could reach through the sterile field to touch his hand at least. Try to reach or reassure him through the Force somehow, but she didn’t dare.

She tried counting in her head how many times he had saved her life, even as the memory of him jumping in front of the lightning attack for her rose in all its awful traumatic glory.

He almost died for me… again.

If it hadn’t been for the clone medics who were right there among the first troops to rescue them, he would’ve died on the flight to the med center.

That brought her thoughts straight to the architect of her rescue, plans concocted with prescience, riding on the edge of a knife. The only reason Typho had the minor hope of survival.

Ahsoka is alive and Dooku is dead.

The mix of relief and sorrow washed over her. She had hated Dooku so fiercely for what he had become. There were moments on the flight where once again she fought her own Dark Side anew. Triumph had not been easy. Yet the knowledge of who Jedi Master Dooku of Serenno had been in the past, of the good he had done, sustained her.

There had been a time when Dooku was renowned and celebrated within the Jedi Order and Senate. Many still remembered those years and while it had been mostly before she had even ascended as queen, the once noble Jedi Master had inspired many.

Until it had all been lost, the venerable Master swayed and corrupted by Palpatine.

Ahsoka’s explanation had brought Dooku’s corruption into sharp perspective for Padme. Highlighting the tragedy of what had caused it in the first place.

Its origin point traced back more than sixty years ago, when a gifted Jedi padawan and friend of his, Sifo-Dyas, had a vision of the planet Protobranch being hit with a deadly solar storm. Yoda and the Jedi Council warned that visions in the Force were not absolute and an entire planet couldn’t be evacuated just because a 19 year old padawan had a ‘dream’.

The events to follow would only vindicate Sifo-Dyas’ vision. The awful attitude and behavior of the planet’s senator, Tavetti, whose only concern had been worry for the loss of resources and bacta production, would go on to be Dooku’s first experience of Senate corruption.

And yet, despite all of this knowledge, a part of her could only be glad.

The war had just lost one of its primary architects.

It should’ve been a cause for celebration. The knowledge of what was truly behind this war and what was likely to come put it in a different, horrible perspective. For the briefest of moments, she found herself despising the fact that Ahsoka had pulled back the veil and laid bare the truth. She looked around her at all the civilians, the clones, everyone… for them this was the defining struggle of their lives. There was nothing more. They wandered in a fog prepared for them and naively thought that only it existed.

Before feelings of resentment and condescension could come forth, she turned to the origin of her moral center, and tried imagining telling her father about everything.

By Shiraya, how long has it been since I talked to him, mother or Sola?

How old would her nieces be now? It felt like a lifetime had somehow been squeezed within just two years. She had appeared in the Naberrie household by holo just after the last Lifeday and had briefly visited in person when Palpatine had returned to Naboo for its Republic Day celebrations. Things had been so hectic in the wake of that debacle, she had barely been able to visit her parents for a few hours.

She tried to imagine the aftermath of what would be called the Siege of Scipio, whether she could justify a trip all the way back to Naboo.

What’s this? Why am I feeling like this? 

She stood abruptly from the visitor’s chair, seized with a sudden energy of emotion she had to express somehow and left the room.

Her feet carried her into the corridor, where a security detail of four ARC troopers of the 96th, smoothly fell into escort formation. Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to a growing trend amongst the legion’s troopers to adopt a stylized rendition of their commander’s white facial tattoos set against a solid backdrop of orange that covered the entire faceplate of the trooper’s helmet. Even some of the SVD troopers had similar embellishments somewhere on their gear. Something that had begun ever since word had spread throughout the city that their commander had been gravely injured in battle.

Far from demoralizing, it somehow had spurred every trooper and SVD soldier to greater heights of determination in the face of the enemy.

Padme was looking forward to Ahsoka’s no doubt amusing reaction upon waking up.

They tried to make their way through the busy hospital corridor without disrupting too much. A difficult task in the face of heavily armed ARC troopers, whose presence alone made everyone stop and look.

When she finally approached her destination after a brief ride in a turbolift, they were immediately stopped by two squads of troopers and subjected to verifications and scans.

“Sorry about this, Senator,” said the clone captain in charge of Ahsoka’s security. “Can’t risk anything with the commander in the bacta tank.”

“Entirely understandable, captain. It’s reassuring that my friend’s safety is in such zealous hands,” she smiled at him.

He coughed uncomfortably, “Yes, well, only doing our duty, ma’am. You’re cleared.”

She moved beyond the first checkpoint, only to find that the 96th had gone a little overboard and practically fortified the entire floor of the hospital. Stopping just short of relocating the other patients off the floor entirely. She could feel quite a few disgruntled doctors and medtechs around the place.

It would take two more scanning checkpoints before Padme was cleared to enter Ahsoka’s hospital room.

It was dominated by a central cylindrical bacta tank, but also had a singular biobed to the side. The room was decorated and designed to be soothing, relaxing, with soft white and blue coloring, holographic plant life and the walls displayed various customized natural scenes, most of which seemed to be from the togruta homeworld of Shili.

In the corners of the room, two armed clone medics stood vigil, their attention mostly fixed on supervising the lone 2-1B medical droid that was interfaced with the bacta tank. M8 also stood nearby, acting as the final line of defense to her mistress.

Her ARC trooper escort peeled off, remaining outside.

Only when the doors closed did Padme begin walking to the bacta tank.

Ahsoka was floating unconscious inside, modesty preserved by a supportive strap of fabric over her chest, whilst the tank plumbing was attached to the adult diaper she wore.

Padme glanced down and was rather thankful that Ahsoka's entire right thigh was obscured with white plasteel bracings, concealing the awful mess that Dooku’s lightsaber had made there.

She put her hand on the cool transparisteel of the tank and tentatively reached out with the Force.

As expected, Ahsoka was so deep within a healing meditation that there was no reaching her mind.

“What’s her condition, M8?” Padme stepped back, looking at the moving Mandalorian armor that was the droid’s body.

“On the road to recovery, Senator. For a while I was worried she might lose the leg despite everything. A number of the doctors wanted to amputate anyway. Lazy, ignorant fools. Even when I told them the mistress was using the Force to help rebuild from within, they just dismissed me! The nerve!”

“These muun doctors have never dealt with anything like the healing abilities of the Jedi, M8,” Padme pointed out reasonably.

“The Force is a verified phenomenon in the galaxy, which has been studied for thousands of years! Yet these meatbags with an overly inflated sense of their own intelligence, just-” M8 cut herself off. “Did I really just use the term ‘meatbag’?”

Padme’s mouth twisted with amusement, “Yes, you did.”

“Ahhhh! That blasted assassin droid’s madness is spreading! Did he infect me with a virus? Excuse me, Senator. Running self-diagnostic.”

She left the armor droid to her frantic inquiries and finally tackled the one thing she had been mildly dreading, but couldn’t put off any longer.

A deep breath, reaching inward and opening the Bond to Anakin.

She instantly knew he was awake, standing on the bridge of the Resolute. She received a vague image in her mind of the rapidly swirling vortex of hyperspace. Her mind basked in his warm presence and sheer strength. She imagined putting her arms around him from behind.

He naturally detected her presence immediately. ‘Padme?’ He was both relieved and intensely worried. ‘Thank goodness. Are you all right?’

‘Come through and focus on my surroundings.’ She wasn’t experienced or skillful enough to really communicate beyond the thoughts associated with words.

Abruptly she almost felt completely smothered in his strength in the Force, but it quickly disappeared. ‘Sorry about that, love. Still working on fine control-’

In her vision, she saw her husband standing close to the bacta tank in his more traditional brown Jedi outfit, with a faint wispy blue energy surrounding his form. He stared intently at his injured padawan. She felt the battle with his fear and anger erupt, his mouth pursed into a thin line whilst his fists clenched.

In moments, the battle was over, he took a deep breath and looked at her with a raw vulnerability and need that took her breath away.

‘What happened, Padme?’

‘Dooku infiltrated the city. Somehow subverted a squad of clones, but I’m not sure about it. These clones were different. He also had help from Pors Tonith. They took me right out of the VIP bunker, threatening to detonate a bomb unless I cooperated. He contacted Ahsoka later, luring her to Tonith’s safehouse using threats against me.’

He raised a hand to pause her recollection, ‘I want you to carefully remember the beginning of events.’

She nodded, ‘All right.’ She focused on the moment Dooku had appeared in the temporary apartment.

‘Good. I’ve got it. Think now of the end that you wish me to see.’

Ahsoka’s lightsaber stabbing into the floor, cutting through it, to send them to relative safety. The clones moving her, Typho and Tonith to the gunship.

Anakin visibly winced as he experienced her memory anew. By the end, he was feeling a furious satisfaction and mild pride at what his padawan had achieved.

‘And given that she’s here, alive… Dooku is…?’

‘Between her and Master Damsin, they defeated him. He’s dead, Ani.’

The sheer exultation of victory that he felt burst like an ocean wave over her. It was gone in a heartbeat, ‘Sorry.’

She gave him a rueful smile. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Yet the battle isn’t over. What’s your situation? How have the CIS responded?’

‘It’s not clear if they know. Master Damsin has taken over and kept news of Dooku’s death from spreading. All the clones who were involved in the operation were ordered to never talk about it and his body is currently cooling in the command bunker’s food storage under guard. We’ve demolished most of the tunnel routes the CIS were using to try to get into the city. The 96th is holding the line for now. There is an ongoing air battle in the arcology against RPs and BXs that manage to infiltrate.’

‘We’re precisely eighty minutes from emergence in the Scipio system, Padme. Tell Master Damsin to hold on.’

‘I will. Our defenses are holding, Ani. You just make sure you’re ready to face a dreadnought. General Kalani is on board and has been leading the offense.’

‘Really? Well, I think I know just the way to reward Ahsoka for her efforts in that case.’

‘Ani, no overly dangerous heroics, please. I need you in one piece and not moldering in a bacta tank as well.’

He smirked, feeling mischievous, ‘Hey, you know me. I’m better than that.’

She rolled her eyes at her husband, ‘Now hurry up and get down here.’

He smiled wider, ‘Of course, my queen.’

She tried to slap his shoulder, and only hit air as he vanished with a chuckle.

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A/N: And thus, the first true hurricane from the butterfly's wings begin. Rubs hands together eagerly. Ooooh, the aftermath is going to be juicy writing, especially from Palpatine.

Enjoy your weekend folks and as always, stay awesome!