Mistaken Identity Chapter 88 — There be Monsters (Patreon)

Jaden kept walking through the desert long after the twin suns dropped below the horizon and the sky turned a deep black dotted with stars. The temperature plunged fast on Tatooine once night fell, and the chill settled into his bones almost immediately. He pulled his torn cloak tighter around his shoulders, but the fabric had taken too much damage during the crash and the fight with the droids, so it did not offer much protection. Instead he reached into the Force and drew on it to generate a nice warmth that spread through his chest and limbs, keeping his core temperature stable while he moved. The technique took focus, but he had practiced it enough during Jabiim that he could maintain it without much effort, even with his body still recovering from everything it had been through.

He had been walking for hours already, maybe six or seven since he left the crash site. His legs felt like lead at this point, and the sand didn't help, it shifted under his boots with every step, making each stride require more energy than it should. The scanner he had jury-rigged from the wreck's parts stayed clipped to his belt, and he checked it every half hour or so. The signal for Padmé and Rotta hadnt moved significantly, still showing them roughly a hundred miles ahead, though the distance shrank slowly as he kept putting one foot in front of the other. 

He figured if he maintained this pace without stopping for too long he would reach their position in three days at the most, maybe two if the terrain stayed flat and he avoided any major delays. Once he found them they could figure out transport, get to Jabba's palace, hand over the Huttlet, and hopefully end this entire mission. The thought kept him moving forward even when exhaustion started to creep in.

After another stretch of walking he decided he needed to stop for a few hours. His body demanded rest, and pushing too hard now would only make him slower later. He found a small depression between two low dunes where the wind would not hit him as directly, and he dropped his satchel beside a cluster of rocks. 

He gathered a few dry scraps of scrub brush that had somehow survived in the area, piled them together, and used his lightsaber to ignite a quick fire. The purple blade hissed for a second before he deactivated it, and the small flames caught right away, giving off a pleasant heat that pushed back the night chill. He sat down cross-legged on the sand with his back against a boulder, pulled a ration pack from the satchel, and tore it open. The food tasted like cardboard, but he chewed slowly while he stared into the fire and let his mind settle.

He sighed. 

He was getting closer to Padmé and Rotta now, and that part of the plan still held together, but the rest of it gnawed at him. A while back, hours earlier while he was still walking, he had felt a huge spike in the Force from Anakin's direction. A surge of anger mixed with raw fear that hit him like a punch to the gut. He had reached out instinctively, trying to sense more, but the connection faded quickly, leaving only echoes. 

He hoped they were okay. He hoped Ahsoka was with him, that they had managed to escape whoever took them, but the silence that followed worried him more than the initial burst of emotion. He could not dwell on it right now. He had to focus on Padmé and the mission. That was why he came here in the first place, why he sent her and Rotta away in the escape pod instead of trying to ride out the crash with everyone else. If he let himself get distracted by worry for Anakin and Ahsoka the whole thing could fall apart, and all the death and pain so far would mean nothing.

He finished the ration bar, drank a few swallows from one of the water canister and then closed his eyes to meditate. He sat straight with his hands resting on his knees and drew the Force around him like a blanket. He directed it inward first to the worst of his remaining injuries. The cauterized wound on his stomach still pulled with every deep breath, so he focused there and coaxed the damaged tissue to knit together more fully. 

He moved to his broken arm next, feeling the bone that had started to set but needed encouragement to align properly. The burn across his ribs and the graze on his thigh got attention too. The healing went slower than he liked, since he still carried traces of dark side energy but it would eventually go away... it always did. By the time he opened his eyes again the fire had burned down to embers, and he felt better. Not perfect, but a lot better than before, he'd say his arm was cracked now and would only need one more session before it healed entirely. 

He kicked sand over the remains of the fire to smother it, shouldered his satchel, and started walking again. The night stretched on, and he covered more ground than he expected. Hours turned into another full day as the suns rose, climbed high, and then began their descent once more. He walked through the heat of midday with his cloak pulled over his head to block the worst of the glare, rationing his water and stopping only briefly in whatever shade he could find under rock overhangs. 

The landscape changed gradually from open dunes to rougher terrain with more stone and fewer stretches of soft sand. By late afternoon he entered a rocky area filled with stepped cliffs that rose in layers like giant stairs. Narrow paths wound between the formations, some barely wide enough for one person, and drops fell away sharply on either side. He moved carefully here, testing each step before putting his full weight down, a single slip could send him tumbling a long way.

He pulled the scanner from his belt to check progress again, but when he activated it the screen flickered erratically. The signal for Padmé and Rotta blinked in and out, then froze completely. He frowned and tapped the side of the device with his finger. Nothing changed. He hit it harder against his palm, shook it once, and tried powering it off and on again. The screen lit up for a second, showed garbled lines of code, and then went dark. He cursed under his breath. "Come on, you piece of junk. Work." He pried open the casing with his thumbnail, checked the connections he had soldered together back at the wreck, and reseated the power cell. Still nothing. 

The transmitter coil must have raken more damage in the crash than he originally thought, he might be able to fix it but it would take some careful work, though it wasn't like he had a choice, without the scanner he only had a rough mental map of the trajectory and the general direction he had been and kept moving forward along the narrow path between two tall cliffs.

He had taken maybe twenty more steps when he felt the shift in the Force, a prickling awareness at the back of his neck that told him he was no longer alone. He stopped and scanned the rocks above him, but before he could reach for his lightsaber the first Tusken Raider dropped down from a ledge directly in front of him. 

The figure landed in a crouch with his gaffi stick already raised, and let out the distinctive howling cry. Two more appeared on his left, scrambling down a steep incline with rifles leveled, while another pair came up behind him on the path, cutting off retreat. Jaden counted at least six in the initial rush, though more shouts from higher up suggested others waited out of sight.

He ignited his lightsaber with a snap-hiss and dropped into a defensive stance. The lead Tusken charged first, swinging the gaffi stick in a wide arc that Jaden cut through easily. He countered with a quick slash that sliced the raider open, but the others opened fire with their cycler rifles. Bolts sizzled past him, and he deflected two while he sidestepped a third that scorched the ground where he had stood. He pushed forward with the Force, sending the closest Raider flying into the cliff wall with a crunch, but the others adapted fast, spreading out to flank him while they kept up the barrage.

Jaden leaped up onto a ledge to gain height, slashed downward at one of the shooters, and severed the rifle barrel before the Raider could fire again. The Tusken dropped the ruined weapon and pulled a curved blade, rushing him with a guttural yell. Jaden met the attack head-on, cutting the blade in half befroe kicking the Raider square in the chest to send him tumbling down the rocks. More Raiders poured in from the sides now, at least a dozen total. He felt the press of numbers and the tight confines of the rocky path working against him, but he held his ground.

Jaden deflected another cycler bolt with his lightsaber and sent it straight back into the Tusken Raider's head. The bolt burned through the wrappings and punched a smoking hole right through his skull. The Raider dropped his rifle, staggered back against the rock wall, and slid down dead before he even hit the ground.

Jaden pressed forward along the narrow path and met the lead Raider, who swung his gaffi stick in a wild overhead arc. Jaden blocked the strike with his blade, and the lightsaber sliced clean through the wooden shaft like it was nothing. The top half of the stick clattered away. Jaden twisted his wrist, brought the blade around in a tight arc, and cut the Raider from shoulder to hip in one smooth motion. The two halves of the body separated with a hiss of cauterized flesh and fell apart. Jaden kicked the remains off the path so they tumbled down the stepped cliff and disappeared over the lower edge.

The other Raiders howled in rage and closed in from both sides, but Jaden moved through them like they were standing still. He leaped over a low swing from one, landed behind a second, and drove his lightsaber straight through the Raider's back. The blade punched out the front of his chest in a burst of scorched fabric and burned meat. Jaden yanked the saber free and spun to cut through a gaffi stick from the side. He countered with a quick slash that severed the Raider's arm at the elbow, then finished him with a thrust through the throat.

He reached out with the Force and yanked two more Raiders off their feet, pulling them straight into his blade. One got bisected at the waist, the other lost his head in a single clean cut. Their bodies hit the ground in pieces while the rest kept coming, scrambling down from higher ledges with rifles up. Jaden deflected the incoming bolts sending several back into the shooters. One bolt burned through a Raider's eye socket and out the back of his head. Another caught a Raider in the chest and dropped him instantly. A stray shot hit the cliff face near a dark crevice Jaden hadn't noticed before. The impact cracked the stone and sent chunks tumbling, and a loud rumble started deep inside the rock.

The Tuskens froze for half a second and looked toward the sound, but they charged again with louder howls. Jaden kept retreating step by step while he deflected shots and cut down anyone who got too close. He sliced through another gaffi stick, took a Raider's rifle arm off at the shoulder, then drove the blade up under his mask and out the top of his skull. Another Raider fired point-blank, but Jaden sidestepped and brought the saber down across his torso, splitting him open from collarbone to groin. The body collapsed in two smoking sections.

More shots hit the crevice and widened the crack. The rumble turned into a full shake, dust poured out, and then the cliffside blew apart as a massive Krayt dragon erupted from the hidden cave. The beast uncoiled its full length with a roar that rattled the rocks. Its multiple horns scraped stone, and its scales ground together as it moved. Fresh blood already crusted around its jaws from whatever it had eaten last.

The remaining Tuskens turned and fired their cyclers in panic. Bolts sparked and bounced off the thick hide and the dragon charged and snapped its jaws around the nearest Raider, biting him in half at the waist. The upper body flew one way while the legs dropped straight down. It swung its tail in a wide spin and caught three more Raiders. The impact crushed their chests and sent them spinning off the path into the canyon below. One Raider stabbed at its leg with a gaffi stick, but the dragon stomped down and flattened him into the rock, grinding the body under its foot until only a smeared mess remained.

The dragon pursued the rest relentlessly. It lunged at a cluster on a lower ledge, clamped its jaws around two at once, and bit down hard. Their bodies crunched and split open, scorched torsos and limbs dropping separately. It swiped a claw across another Raider and tore him open from neck to stomach, flinging the remains against the cliff wall in a wet smear.

Jaden watched for a second hoping he could slip away, then the dragon locked its glowing eyes on him and roared again. It sensed him and charged straight down the path, shaking the ground with every step. Jaden reached out and grabbed a loose boulder from the cliffside, then hurled it at the dragon's head. The rock cracked against a horn and staggered the beast for a moment. He followed up by pulling more chunks of stone from the walls and slamming them into its face and chest. Each hit dented scales and drew thin lines of dark blood from the cracks.

The dragon shook off the impacts and kept coming. Jaden leaped to a higher ledge and focused on the cliff above it. He pulled at the weakened rock with everything he had. The stone groaned, then a huge slab broke free and crashed down onto the dragon in a thunderous pile. Tons of rock buried the beast up to its shoulders. It thrashed and roared while dust filled the air.

Jaden breathed hard, his injuries burning from the strain, but he knew it wouldn't hold long. The dragon surged and shattered the pile apart, rocks flying everywhere. It charged again, faster now. Jaden threw more boulders, shards of stone, even collapsed sections of the stepped cliffs into its path. The creature plowed through most of it, taking hits that opened deeper gashes and spilled more blood down its sides.

He landed back on the narrow path and slashed at its foreleg with his lightsaber. The blade carved a deep, smoking cut through muscle and tendon. The dragon bellowed and reared up, then slammed its front claws down. Jaden leaped back toward the edge. He rolled to his feet and struck again, slicing across the dragon's flank.

The dragon lunged forward. Jaden pushed with the Force to hurl it back, but the beast planted its feet and resisted. It slammed its tail into him instead. The impact caught him square in the chest and lifted him off his feet. Jaden flew backward over the cliff edge, his body tumbling into open air while the canyon floor rushed up to meet him.

He deactivated his lightsaber mid-fall and reached out with the Force, grabbing at the cliff face that sped past him. His hand found a protruding rock ledge through sheer instinct but it was just as easily ripped from his grasp, he channeled everything into slowing his descent. He pushed against the air and the rock walls, cushioning his fall with telekinetic bursts that bled off speed. He slammed into outcroppings along the way, each impact jarring his body and reopening wounds, but the Force kept him from breaking completely. He bounced off one final ledge and landed hard on a narrow shelf far below the path, his breath knocked out as he rolled to a stop against the canyon wall.

Pain radiated through every limb, he lay there gasping while he assessed the damage. His vision blurred for a moment, but he forced himself to sit up slowly. Above, the Krayt dragon's roar echoed faintly as it moved back and forth along the edge as if waiting for him. Jaden clipped his lightsaber back to his belt with shaking hands and pressed a palm to his ribs, where fresh blood seeped through his tunic. He had survived the fall, barely, but now he was deep in the canyon with no clear way back up and his mission farther out of reach than ever.

Jaden pushed himself up from the rocky shelf with a groan, pain shooting through his chest and arm as he moved. He winced slightly and leaned against the canyon wall for support while he looked up toward the cliff edge far above. The Krayt dragon was still there, its massive form silhouetted against the sky as it paced back and forth along the path, but it made no move to follow him down into the depths.

He took a moment to check himself over, running his good hand along his ribs where the impact had hit hardest. Four of them felt cracked or fully broken, each breath sending a stab through his side that made him grit his teeth. His left arm hung limp again, the bone rebroken from one of the collisions with the rock outcroppings during the fall. He probed it gently and confirmed the damage, the pain flaring up fresh with the touch. "Could be worse," he muttered to himself as he straightened up as much as he could.

He reached to his belt with his good hand and pulled out the scanner he had built from the ship's parts. The casing was cracked in several places now, and when he tried to activate it the screen stayed dark no matter how many times he tapped the power button. Pieces rattled loosely inside, and he shook it once before realizing it was beyond repair after the tumble. "Guess I won't be fixing this..." he said under his breath, the word escaping as he clipped the broken device back to his belt anyway. He decided to take a deep breath to steady himself, ignoring the sharp pain from his ribs, and looked around the narrow ledge where he had landed.

His gaze drifted upward again, and he spotted the Krayt dragon still lurking near the edge, its head turning as if it waited for any sign of movement. He realized he could not just climb back up the way he came unless he wanted to fight the beast again, and in his current condition that would end badly, Krayt dragons were notoriously hard to kill, even for a Jedi. It looked like he would have to walk through the canyon and find a way out on the other side, maybe loop around once he reached open ground. He sighed a long exhale that carried frustration and exhaustion, before he pushed off the wall and started moving along the narrow path that led deeper into the canyon.

The inside of the canyon turned out to be very rocky, with jagged walls rising high on both sides and the ground covered in loose stones that shifted under his boots. Bones littered the floor everywhere he looked, some from large animals that had fallen or been dragged down here, others from smaller creatures scattered in piles near the bases of the walls. Many different caves dotted the rock faces, dark openings that went back into the cliff where wind whistled through and carried faint echoes. The sheer number of them made the place feel like a maze built for prey.

He continued on anyway, even if the sight of all those bones and the caves creeped him out a little. Every step echoed slightly and he kept his hand near his lightsaber hilt in case something stirred in one of those openings. He kept his focus on the path ahead pushing his discomfort aside. He just needed to reach the other side of the canyon and find Padmé. Rotta would be with her, and once he linked up with them they could still complete the mission. Anakin and Ahsoka were tough, and he had to trust they were handling their end. For now, his job was to keep moving forward, one painful step at a time, until he emerged from this place and got back on track.

The canyon narrowed in some sections, forcing him to squeeze between rock walls. He stepped carefully over a pile of what looked like bantha ribs, the bones cracked and weathered from years in the elements. More caves appeared as he went deeper, some with faint scratches on the stone around the entrances that suggested claws had marked them. He avoided looking directly into the darker ones, focusing instead on the faint light at the far end where the canyon seemed to widen again.

He paused once when a low rumble echoed from somewhere ahead, but it was just loose rocks settling after the earlier collapse, nothing more.

He hoped. 

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Ahsoka gasped awake, her chest heaving as panic flooded through her the moment her eyes snapped open. She panted hard, her breaths coming in short bursts while she looked around wildly at the deep canyon walls that rose steeply on all sides. The rock faces towered so high that the strip of sky abive barely looked visible. She tried to shift her body instinctively, but agony exploded through her when she moved even slightly.

She looked down at herself and saw a large bone protruding from the ground, one that had impaled her straight through the stomach during the fall. Blood soaked her skirt around the wound, and the bone held her pinned in place like a spike. Her legs lay twisted beneath her, both bent at unnatural angles that made her stomach turn even through the haze of pain. 

She reached out with one hand to push herself up, but her right arm buckled immediately, the bone shattered somewhere in the forearm so that it offered no strength at all. She tried to stifle the pain that surged with every small movement, biting down hard on her lip, but she could not hold it back and cried out as fresh waves of pain crashed over her.

She'd never felt so much pain before, nothing during training, nor when she had her arm cut off only days ago. 

Despite everything, she forced her mind to work through the pain that threatened to cloud her thoughts. She needed to stay calm if she wanted any chance of surviving this. "It's okay Ahsoka... y-you're fine... you're fine." She breathed in shallow gasps and focused on slowing her racing heart. She needed to find her lightsaber first, she could use the blade to cut herself free from the bone that impaled her. The heat would cauterize the wound at the same time and stop the worst of the bleeding. She scanned the area around her, turning her head slowly despite the pull on her neck muscles.

When she could not spot the hilt anywhere near her, panic began to set in again, creeping up her spine as her breaths quickened. She kept looking anyway, forcing her eyes to search farther out among the scattered bones and debris that littered the canyon floor. Eventually she spotted it about twenty meters away, the silver and black hilt half-buried under a pile of rocks near the base of one wall. Relief mixed with desperation, and she focused her mind as best she could, reaching out with the Force to pull the lightsaber toward her. The pain made it difficult, since every throb in her stomach and legs demanded her attention and scattered her concentration.

She gritted her teeth and tried harder, extending her good hand even though she knew the gesture was not necessary. The hilt twitched in the dirt, then shifted slightly as her pull took hold. She dragged it slowly across the ground with every ounce of concentration she had, inch by inch over the rocks and bones that lay between them. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the effort, and her vision blurred at the edges, but she kept at it until the hilt was almost within reach.

A heavy thump echoed through the canyon then, followed by the low rumble of something large moving nearby. Her concentration shattered in an instant, and the lightsaber stopped moving as her Force grip slipped. She looked around frantically, her eyes darting to the numerous caves that dotted the canyon walls around her. Dark openings stared back from every direction, some wide enough for something massive to emerge. The ground she lay on was not just rock—it was a nest, piled with cracked bones and scraps of hide that formed a crude bed in the center of the area.

Fear gripped her fully now, and she panicked as she tried desperately to regain her focus on the lightsaber. She reached out again with the Force, but her mind raced too much with terror, and her grasp kept slipping every time she got close. The hilt wobbled but refused to move farther. "No no no no," she whispered at first as the footsteps grew closer, heavy impacts that shook loose pebbles from the walls.

"This can't be happening... this has to be a nightmare!" She panicked even more, her breaths turning to sobs while she strained toward the weapon that lay just out of reach. The monster emerged from one of the larger caves then, its body a massive cross between a lizard and a dog, with scaled hide stretched over powerful limbs and a wide maw lined with jagged teeth. It growled low in its throat as its eyes locked onto her, the sound vibrating through the ground where she lay pinned.

The creature rushed forward without hesitation, its claws scraping rock as it charged straight at her. "NOOOO! PLEASE NO!!!" Ahsoka screamed, the sound tearing from her throat as the maw opened wide and descended. She reached out one last time toward her lightsaber with everything she had left, her fingers stretching desperately, but the jaws closed around her and the world went dark as sharp teeth bit down on her outstretched arm and severed it in a crunch of bone.

(AN: You know Tatooine is a pretty dangerous place, apart from being a place of scum and villainy, it's also got some pretty scary wild life. Poor Ahsoka, it's kinda sad this happened on her first official mission but what can you do. The galaxy is a terrifying place and even Jedi can find themselves in situations like this if they aren't careful. Anyway hope you enjoyed it.)