The Weaving Force: Chapter 73 (Patreon)

Chapter 73:

Saesee Tiin

“General, sir!”

The shout halted his conversation immediately, all eyes on the bridge turning towards the sensor officer.

The clone continued, seeing he had Tiin’s attention, “Hyperspace disturbances detected. They’re here.”

He wouldn’t see them through the viewport, so he didn’t bother. Instead, the Jedi Master turned his eyes towards the sensor array.

He could say one thing about the CIS fleet:  They had a flare for the dramatics.

They dropped into the system in a wide formation, as though they were ready to envelop the whole planet around its equator with a line of unbreakable ships.

As for how many ships... His own fleet was outnumbered. Considerably outnumbered.

Then again, they were always outnumbered in this war.

Six Lucrehulks. Judging by the scans, each were dedicated carriers.

With them, six Providence-class destroyers, ten Recusants, twenty Lupus-class missile frigates, forty-two Munificent-class frigates, and thirty-six Hardcell-class transports.

A hundred and twenty vessels. Not counting however many fighters, bombers and further light escorts those Lucrehulks were carrying.

His shield fleet had just twelve Venators, twenty-two Acclamators, thirty retrofitted Consular-class cruisers, and fourteen Carrack-class anti-starfighter light cruisers.

Little more than half the ships of the CIS fleet.

“Run the calculations, please,” he commanded calmly

There was a moment of silence, the tactical droid humming as it ran through the numbers.

After a moment, he received the verdict.

About what he expected.

“Comms,” he called, the clone turning to look at him as he awaited his order, “inform our allies planetside. The CIS fleet has arrived. We can delay their arrival groundside for two days. No more.”

“Got it, sir,” the clone acknowledged, sending off the transmission.

Tiin took a moment to breathe deep, eyes closing as he focused and felt the approaching fleet through the Force.

It was disconcerting, knowing that right there were a million approaching creatures and all he could feel and sense was cold metal.

But, even so, it made the few organic presences stand out like blades of grass poking through stone.

Just a few he could sense, and one of them sent black thorns through his insides.

Not Jorus. Not Tann, and not Komari.

Another Sith? Or something different?

—

Ahsoka:

“OW!” The lightsaber stung the back of her hand, the muscles of her fingers freezing open as her saber went clattering to the ground.

Her Master stood at the other end of that saber, one hand behind his back, the other holding out the blade in an almost picture perfect Makashi stance.

Ahsoka rubbed the back of her hand, grimacing as she tried to rub away the sting.

“You’re not beating me with a reverse blade grip, Snips.” Her Master smirked.

Ahsoka glared at him for it; her Master made it very clear he didn’t like two things. Dual blade styles and reverse blade stances.

She used both.

Still… at least they were doing something useful, and not practicing punching droids, urgh.

Her Master raised an eyebrow, and she realized in that moment that her surface thoughts weren’t nearly as guarded as she’d thought.

“All knowledge is useful, Padawan,” he said.

Ahsoka glared at him. “Oh, come on, Master, I know you’re just sending me there to free up some of your time for you to work on your ship or practice actually useful things with the other senior Jedi.”

Anakin balked. “Is that what you think?”

Her Master sounded so genuinely shocked that it… actually took the wind out of her sails a bit.

“W-well…” She crossed her arms. “I don’t see Master Unduli giving Barriss off to Master Taylor, or Master Cere sending off Trilla either!”

He blinked. “And Kestis? Do you think Master Rancisis sent Cal there to waste time?”

She sighed. “Master, come on, everyone knows that Cal wants to learn every form of fighting, even the useless ones.”

Anakin’s features softened, shaking his head. “Ahsoka, I didn’t send you down there to waste your time or ‘free myself up,’ I sent you down there to learn.”

“We have lightsabers.” She held up the hilt of her blade as if to prove the point. With a wave of her hand she sent a chair sailing across the room. “We have the Force. No one is getting past that with their fists,” she argued. “And if it’s so important, why didn’t you just teach me, then!?”

“Cause she’s better at it than me?” he answered with a shrug.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. Even to her own ears she was just repeating herself. “Learning useless stuff is a waste of time.”

“It’s not-” He sighed, his free hand rising to pinch the bridge of his nose

Then, very simply, he took his fighting stance again. “One more time.”

Her eyes narrowed, glaring suspiciously, sensing a trap but seeing no real way around it.

She lit her own blades.

Her Master waited. She didn’t have that much patience.

She charged, swinging-

Her wrist fell into her Master’s iron tight grip.

Her eyes widened, Master Skywalker’s speed almost making him look like a blur to her naked eye.

Even so, he was open. His left hand had caught her left, so his whole back was exposed. Her second blade swung-

His knee cracked into her inner forearm.

Ahsoka yelped, the sharp pain feeling far, far worse than the sharp electric shock of a saber’s stun setting, as her hand and arm lost all feeling and strength.

She reeled back, off balance. Master Skywalker drove his shoulder into her middle, literally shoving the air out of her lungs before his booted foot coiled around her ankle and the next thing she knew, she was staring up at bright white lights.

Master Skywalker knelt beside her.

“Know who taught me that?” he sing-songed with a smirk.

Ahsoka groaned, coughing to try and get air back into her lungs.

Master Skywalker let her squirm in dull pain for a bit.

“Look, Snips,” he sighed, “I get it… I do. When I was where you were, I thought I was the greatest Jedi ever. The most powerful, and the one who thought he had the whole world figured out. I knew everything.” He said with an almost wistful smirk.

She thought the story would end there, or at least dive into how she was wrong in having those beliefs he assumed she had.

Instead, it took an unexpected turn.

“First real fight of my life, Master Hebert was there, ya know?” he said.

She raised an eyebrow, still a bit too breathless to say anything, but the question was rhetorical anyway.

“It was Vosa. We know that now. We didn’t at the time, though. I was a Padawan. So was she, come to think of it.” He shrugged. “She nearly killed the both of us.”

This was… new. Both this - Anakin going down memory lane - and, of course, the story/information itself.

She’d never heard about this back at the Creche.

Everyone knew about Master Skywalker and Obi-Wan at the Creche, the first to fight and defeat Sith in centuries. It’d been why she’d been so excited when Master Yoda told her who her Master would be.

There were rumors about Master Hebert and Dallon too, of course, facing down the Sith, but the stories went like ten different ways so who knew what was true there.

“I’d been taught by Master Dooku, and by Obi-Wan. Best duelist in my age group. Better than most Knights twice my age, even,” he affirmed. “She still practically plowed straight through me.”

“So…” She hesitated, finally finding the strength to sit up with little more than a pained groan. “What’d you do?”

“Me? Hardly anything,” he said. “Master Hebert recognized that Komari was better than either of us. She wasn’t a Master back then, either. Just a Padawan, with barely two or three years training under her belt. So she wasn’t gonna go sword to sword against Komari. No,” Master Skywalker smiled. All teeth and malicious joy, “she got in close. Real close.” He leaned in closer to Ahsoka. “Close enough that Komari couldn’t use the sabers well. Close enough that how Taylor knew how to fight could come into play.” Her master nodded. “She practically choked Komari to death with her bare hands.”

That made her balk. “Bantha dung,” she snapped. Then blushed as she realized what she’d just said straight to her Master’s face.

Master Skywalker threw his head back and laughed

“No,” he insisted, snickering, “it’s true! She quite literally grabbed Komari by the throat and started choking the hell out of her.”

“She got away, though,” Ahsoka grumbled.

“She did,” Anakin agreed easily, “but so did we. We wouldn’t have lasted long enough for Master Obi-Wan or Master Dallon to arrive if not for those skills.” He paused. “My second fight with the Sith,” he resumed, shifting forward until he was almost nose to nose with her, “we got this close, Snips,” he emphasized, his features so close they were almost blurry to her eyes. “This. close.” he repeated.

He moved her hand between them, no real room to speak of, the hilt of her saber and her hand smushed between them.

“Think you’d be comfortable lighting that?” he asked.

She shook her head, eyes wide.

Her Master pulled back, sitting back on his haunches. “Did the only thing I could in that situation.” He closed his fist and punched. “Hit him as hard as I could.” He grinned. “Gave me some breathing room. It hurt him. Probably kept me alive then, too.” He shrugged. “It’s not useless,” he insisted. “I’ve studied under Master Dooku, and Master Kenobi, two of the best swordsmen to ever live, but just because I have that under my belt doesn’t mean I’m gonna turn my nose up at…” He paused. “Having other tools I can use. Like she said. Lightsaber, blasters, or raw knuckles. You’re not allowed to be helpless, ever.”

“I guess,” she begrudgingly allowed, adjusting her legs to sit properly. “It still feels… I don’t know, like we should prioritize. I get that we’re fighting Sith, but we’re mostly fighting droids. And I don’t know about you, Master, but punching through metal isn’t my strong suit.”

Anakin stared at her, taking a long, slow breath through his nostrils before letting it out.

“Tell you what,” he suddenly said, “I’ll cut you a deal. You take your lessons with Miss Hebert seriously, give it your all, and then, you and I both will practice dual blade fencing together once a week, every week that we can,” he promised.

She blinked. “Wait, really!?”

He nodded. “I just said I won’t turn my nose up at useful tools, right? I might not like it, but who knows. Two blades might be needed one day.”

She grinned. “And what about reverse grip.”

“Useful tools,” he deadpanned.

“Why do you hate it so much?”

“Your great-great-Grand Master.”

“Huh?”

—

Taylor:

Illum had an aurora borealis. It was beautiful. The night sky glowed with a rainbow of colors.

It was a shame the view was spoiled by what lay beyond it.

Far, far above, I could just see it: the streaks of light across the stars, the bursts of fire from sudden explosions, snuffed out.

The battle was just out of reach. But it was here, regardless.

Tiin said he could give us two extra days at most.

I tried to… appreciate it. Two days was two days. Two days to double check equipment, build an extra barricade or two, recheck or move ammunition and supplies where they needed to go.

It was 48 hours that could help, and clones were selling their lives to give us this extra time to lay the foundations for the trap Obi-Wan would spring on the CIS forces.

I should appreciate it…

But there was another, larger part of me… that just wanted to get it the fuck over with.

That’s the worst part of it, really. The waiting between battles.

“Phew. It’s freaking cold on this planet.” Vicky’s voice reached me, shivering under a heavy layer of covers as she made her way closer.

With a thought, I made more of the fires that orbited me. Tiny orbs of light that radiated the warmth of open flames as I had them float closer to Vicky. Happy little dancing lights.

I could feel her smile as I did it, and that made me smile.

She marched up to my side, sighing happily as she was enveloped in warmth as she slid an arm around my waist, pulling me close.

Ever since Corellia, she didn’t ‘hold back’ much. Only around Yoda and Plo-Koon, and likely because she either didn’t want to complicate their lives with the politics or make them uncomfortable.

She rested her head on my shoulder, and I leaned down, letting my cheek fall over the top of her head, her hair brushing under my eye.

As I’ve said, it pays to be the tall one.

“Kinda nervous,” she said,

“Why?” I asked neutrally. “Bad feeling?” Vicky usually did have a greater gift for foresight than I did. She’d been one of the few to really feel the threat to Windu and Yoda all those months ago, and she’d been training that skill to a finely honed edge in terms of combat applications.

Something I encouraged.

After all, It became exceedingly difficult to land a lucky shot when her shield was down if she was also a lowkey combat precog.

“First time we’re walking into a fight with so many of the kids, ya know?”

I did.

Truth be told, it scared me too.

“We’ll protect them,” I said, knowing that wasn’t her problem… but lacking anything better to say.

She didn’t let me get away with it. “You know what I mean. Fights like this, on this scale, with stakes like these… they mess with you.”

I did know, and more than once I’d stayed awake at night thinking about Karla with nightmares. Or Iskt, losing himself to the struggle, the fighting, like I had. Or Tenhu- with master Poof, losing his love of learning, replaced with just someone who knew how to dismantle droids.

Cal already wanted nothing more than to be the greatest Jedi Battlemaster the order had ever known. He said it was to teach people, but how much of that was true? How much was just him wanting to hurt the people that took Tapal from him?

So, yes. I did know.

And I wasn’t sure how to help.

I could give my kids a goal. Keep them focused, help them work - literally work - past the grief. I could listen. I could watch them. Angelica could stay by their side and make them feel better in the soothing aura of the Light.

But I didn’t know how to fix it. I wasn’t good at words, at teaching them how to confront and overcome that thing in the back of their minds that told them they weren’t ok.

I had no idea how the Jedi did it with me.

I wasn’t Yaddle, or even Vicky. Someone who knew just what to say. Who always let them leave feeling better than they had when they arrived.

I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to lie.

“It does,” I admitted, my next words emerging carefully chosen from my lips.  “But… we’ll simply have to do our best to help. If we could be helped… they can be, too,” I said, my thumb rubbing small circles on her shoulder. “They’re not like we were.”

She nodded, finally looking upwards towards the sky above.

“It’d be so beautiful, wouldn’t it?” she said, a note of melancholy in her voice.

I understood what she meant.

I offered her a kiss on the temple, the dancing lights moving over our heads to block out the orbital battle. “Come on. Let’s go to sleep.”

She didn’t argue, but she didn’t let go, either, as we made our way back inside the temple.

—

It was little over thirty-four hours after the orbital battle started that the first breaks in the atmosphere occurred.

Saesee Tiin was falling back.

They’d return soon enough, I knew.

It would still take several hours for the Separatist fleet to get into position above the temple in low atmosphere to provide direct support, but they were just about ready to send their ground pounders in now.

So it was that thirty plus Hardcell transport vessels slammed through the atmosphere, along with several hundred dropship transports and possibly thousands of individual vulture droids.

Atmospheres weren’t meant to go through this. It didn’t happen naturally.

As such, less than ten minutes after the initial disturbances, a blizzard formed damn near instantly. According to readings, we would be in almost full whiteout conditions in less than an hour.

“Meh, they probably skimped on the opticals on those B1s, so they can’t see shit, either,” Orwell had grunted before fastening on his weather approved gear along with the rest of my squad.

As the sensors and probe droids provided as much data as they could in regards to the deploying ground forces, I could say the CIS did, indeed, bring in plenty.

Millions of B1s, and several hundred thousand B2s to serve as the primary backbone. Retrofitted hovertanks and skimmers meant to go over or through the snow.

Vulture droids circled overhead like… well, vultures, and the dropships were deploying their payloads. Explosives, artillery shells, ammo crates and such, and almost immediately being refilled with droids in preparation for the upcoming attack.

All the while the CIS fleet, battered and bruised but still very much intact, moved into position above the temple and its surrounding structures itself.

Orbital bombardment didn’t worry me. The shield generator and the three backups that had been installed were not like the Green Jedi Temple shield generator, which hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. These were new, and much, much stronger. I had read their data sheets. I knew their power capacity.

They wouldn’t be winning this through orbital bombardment.

They were gonna have to slug it out.

As I closed my eyes and took a moment to focus across the temple grounds, I felt something. Raising a slender eyebrow that most didn’t notice as my lips curled into… What exactly does one call a frown mixed with a smile with just a tinge of incredulous confusion, exactly?

…

Alexandria was right. English is a limited language.

“Don’t let anyone forget just how menacing we are, we are lions!”

I reached through the Force, tugging on our bond as I just had to ask the question.

“Vicky-” I heard the proverbial squeak of surprise even in her thoughts. “-are you paraphrasing Achilles' speech to the Myrmidons from Troy to your clones?”

A moment of startled quiet.

Then a sheepish, or perhaps shameless, answer: “Hey! They never saw the movie. If it works, it works!”

“Vicky!” I admonished, people starting to give me a wide berth as they saw a very definitive smile pull at my lips, in their minds for no reason whatsoever.

“What!? Look how pumped for a fight they are now!” she defended.

They were, at that. But…

“Wait, did you steal your speech on Akoshissss, too?”

“See! You didn’t see that movie either and it was great!”

“VICKY!”

—

(X)(X)(X)We're back friends!

There is *a lot* of content for everyone, not just these four chapters but our first official artwork, a slew of other smaller pieces for our 3 dollar members  new Polls and an entirely new fic!And we're diving right into the Clone wars with the battle of Illum. I know that everyone wants an Orbital battle; but given my relative inexperience writing them I kind of want to do that when Obi-Wan joins the fray since that battle can be a bit more impactful than Tinn's battle here. I'm not exactly confident in my ability quite yet to give full on Orbital battles and keep their tension up so trying to do so with a big battle that was essentially a feint feels a bit too much for my current skillset. Either way; We're gonna have a lot of fun :)