Interlude: The Clone Wars 3 (Patreon)

Interlude: The Clone Wars - 3

Ventress

Her leg itched where the stump met metal. 

The doctor had warned her that leg replacements were always the most troubling. Too much weight on the artificial creation. Much more wear and tear. You used your legs, on average, more than you used your hands.

Chafing, irritations, infections, they were all a problem that leg prosthetics could have much more commonly than hand or arm ones. 

Her prosthetic was one of the higher end models, courtesy of the Jedi Order. They still recalled that she was the reason their Grand Master and the other one were alive after all. 

Still, every month she needed to remove the leg, clean the stump, reline the inner cradle with disinfectant and friction reducing gel, as well as oil and clean the individual parts.

She wasn’t a machinist, not in the least. Luckily, she knew two of them. Rugess used to do it more often than not, which made him by far the best with machines out of the three of them. But Dennis had learned and did it more and more. 

Oh, she tried her hand at it once or twice. But Rugess always complained she added too much and wasn’t detail oriented enough.

It’d be irritating if it wasn’t her leg he was helping her with. 

Considering all of that, itching being her one recurring problem was probably a veiled blessing in a sense.

But there were moments where the itch grew and grew and couldn’t be dealt with at that particular second. And in those moments, it was downright maddening. 

Like right now. 

“This is really the best the Republic can do? A couple of Jedi and a gaggle of clones?” Nym, leader of the Lok Revenants, snorted in dismissive contempt. “Should have figured. Nevermind that we’re basically saving all your sorry asses and doing your jobs for you.”

“I assure you-” Obi-Wan answered calmly, “-the Republic and the Jedi are very much taking this operation quite seriously. No one wishes to see the Megadroid project come online.”

“You sent twenty people.” One of Nym’s men, Jinkins, answered with incredulity.

If she were being honest, she didn’t blame them for the reaction. Even knowing Obi-Wan and his skills, and knowing the Republic was stretched to the near breaking point, one Jedi, Master though he might be, and nineteen clones was not a massive force, especially when the one Jedi Master was not Hebert or Dallon.

Dallon could probably tear through this factory and their… megadroids in an hour. Hebert, she’d seen that woman cut loose back on the Hypori campaign. Ventress wouldn’t even want to be on the same continent.

But Dallon was off, fighting against Grievous, always fighting against Grievous, the two eternally countering each other. And Hebert was off, hunting, terrifying the new Sith even more than their Master. 

Hell, even Skywalker, Obi-Wan’s own student, was probably stronger than him by now, by reputation alone if not in actual fact.

And so, all they had was ‘The Negotiator’

So no, she couldn’t blame them for the incredulity. 

“Look,” Dennis cut in. “We have what we have.” He answered. “We were half worried we wouldn’t get any backup. We have something, so let’s work with it rather than bitch about it.”

“I was never counting on the Republic or Jedi to pull their heads out of their asses, so I was never counting on shit from them, so I’ll bitch all I want. Job’s gonna get done with or without them.” Nym answered dismissively.

The Feeorin pressed a button on the console and up came the image of the Megadroid.

It really fit the name. 

Near sixteen feet tall, armored not dissimilarly to the ‘Jedi killer’ Grievous, with an array of weapon loadouts for any situation. Monomolecular claws for close range combat, heavy repeaters for infantry clearing, and heavy weaponry for armor.

She’d read the specs, and she was fairly confident one of these things could equal a company of even elite clones.  

It was a weapon that, if produced en masse, could very easily swing the tide of the war in the Seps favor.

Beside the holo of the Megadroid, Nym brought up another; the manufacturing plant. A large structure dug into the side of the mountains.

“The manufacturing hub is on a planet called Golatha. Nothing special. It’s got forests and mountains, and if it wasn’t in the ass end of nowhere, it’d practically be a paradise world. But it does have one thing…”

The holo of the planet shifted, showing a very, very, very large storm approaching. 

“Planet’s got storms that could rip the plates off a ship.” Nym continued. “ And it scrambles most instruments. I say we use it.”

“How so?” Obi-Wan asked. 

“We fly just ahead of it, right at the edge of the storm. The facility won’t detect us until we’re practically on top of them.”

“That’s viable to get in, but how do we get out afterwards.”

“Won’t really need to.” Nym shrugged. “Last I checked, Kronos can still freeze a ship to be indestructible even if we fly it into a star.”

In spite of herself, Ventress let out a startled laugh at the sheer balls of the plan.

Dennis too, raised both eyebrows. “So, hold up… your big plan is to rush in there, under cover of a storm, rig the place to blow, set off the bomb while we’re still in there and then hunker down through the explosion and the ship destroying storm with my ability like the world’s most expensive flying coffin?”

Nym shrugged. “Pretty much”

…

…

“Seems legit.”

—

By the time Ventress made her way back to her room, the itch had grown past the point of just annoyance and was bordering on legitimately uncomfortable.

She sat down at the bed, rubbing at the seam between flesh and metal.

She was just beginning to consider removing the leg altogether to scratch at the thing directly when the door hissed open, and Dennis walked in.

The parahuman turned smuggler turned privateer/rebel raised an eyebrow. “Thought that was bothering you.” He said, eying her fingernails scraping along the lining. 

“Oh, did you?” Was her rhetorical reply. Grunting in annoyance, she sent the mental command down through the linked nerves, having the seals unlatch and letting the leg decouple, sighing in relief as she was finally able to reach the problem. “And how about what’ll be bothering you? Sitting in a time frozen ship where if you mess up everyone blows up all over again?”

He let out a dry laugh. “What, think I can’t handle it?”

“Not sure why you’re volunteering to handle it.” Was her growled out correction. 

He walked over towards the bed, sitting on it before laying back, legs still on the floor.

She felt his weight shift the mattress beside her.

“It’s the most efficient and fastest plan.”  He said. “The explosion will be done in… what? Minutes, tops? The storm should last for no more than three, maybe six hours. It’ll be fine.”

He was right. Still didn’t mean she had to be happy about him pretending to be fine with it.

Silence lingered over them for a long while, the sound of the cooling unit being the only thing filling the room. 

“Why are we here?” She finally asked, only to receive his questioning gaze as an answer.

“Here.” She pressed. “Fighting a war? Neither of us are Republic, or Jedi. Why are we making this our problem?”

He sat up, resting on his elbows as he propped himself slightly upright. “...You want to leave?”

She leaned closer to him, meeting his gaze and holding it. “Why not?” 

Her question was sincere. “Like I said, we’re not Jedi. Not part of the Republic. All we’ve been doing is helping, pushing ourselves and all we’ve gotten so far is this fancy leg when I preferred my old one.” She smacked the metal thigh. “We hardly owe them anything.”

“No…” He admitted. “We don’t.”

But she saw his answer already. 

“Can you at least tell me why?” She asked, not… entirely unkind. 

To his credit, he didn’t answer immediately. He seemed to genuinely take a moment to think about it.

“That answer changes depending on the day.” He finally said, after a long while. “...When I started as Kronos… it was just… something to do. Something to keep busy, to make a difference… you know? Something that would… outlive me. That I’d be remembered for. After a while it became a habit. I could say it was for the slaves. To be a Hero. Fight the injustice for freedom and the American way, ya know?”

“No.” She answered drily at his stupid smile. Because he knew that she still had no idea what that meant, beyond him being an idiot.

“But I was just… someone passing through my own life. Then…” He paused, very notably and tensely. “...after I cleared up some things about our past, our homeworld and what happened, I kept doing it because… I felt like it made a difference. Every piece, no matter how small, it does make a difference.”

“So this is… what?” She shrugged. “Your ‘small piece’ to save the Republic?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Republic.” He scoffed. “I care about Mandalore. Miss M. I know the war can affect them if it goes on long enough. I care about the people and slaves being fucked over by Seps in the Outer Rim, the clones dying with no say in anything… Vicky… even Hebert.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.” She teased.

“Please don’t.”

She smirked. “I didn’t specify which one.”

“Either, thanks.” He answered sardonically. “...It matters. Every little piece. Every pebble on the road. So… yeah. This is me, adding my own little pebbles. Cause I want it to be over. I want ‘my world’-” He gestured towards the small collection of pictures hanging on their night stand and at their night table: Obi-Wan, Skywalker, Dallon, Hebert, Shmi, Aras, Jen, Daryan, Hannah, Rugess… and herself. “-to be safe. After that, we can go to a tropical world and do whatever we want. But until then, I’d like to keep adding my little pebbles to the pile.”

She took a deep breath.

She might not like the choice. Not now, not as things stood, with how dangerous it was becoming. Correction… she didn’t like it.

But she did respect it.

His hand wandered down to the leg, fingers brushing over the skin of her leg. “Need help with that?”

She appreciated the offer, and knew he was half distracting himself. The process of taking it apart and cleaning it would help clear his head´, but… “No.” She answered. ”Let's just get some sleep. We have a long few days ahead of us.”