by Karen Miller
When I return, Skyguy and I will be sent back to the war. And you’ll still be stuck here.
But she didn’t say that aloud. There wasn’t any point.
“I’d like that very much,” she said. “Taria, I’m sorry, I have to go. Be well, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best,” said Taria. “And you stay safe.”
“Always,” she said, and managed a small, trembling smile. “May the Force be with you, Master Damsin.”
“And with you, Padawan Tano.” Taria wiggled her fingers. “Now shoo.”
It hurt to leave her. In such a short time, Taria Damsin had become a good friend. But so was Anakin her friend, and right now he needed her.
“Little’un,” Rex greeted her, at the 501st’s GAR complex barracks. “Word’s come down. We’re shipping out. Are you coming with us, or waving us good-bye?”
“I’m coming with,” she said, and gave the crowded mess hall a hard look. “What’s the mood, Captain?”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You can’t tell?”
“Ha-ha,” she muttered. “I’m comparing notes, all right?”
Side by side they took in the huge room, crowded with clones, the buzzing conversations, the undercurrent of excitement, trepidation, and endurance as they grabbed a quick meal. The 501st was ready. They were always ready.
Rex nodded, pleased with his men. “You got a destination for me?”
“Command didn’t tell you?”
“No,” said Rex. “Word came down we’re shipping out. That’s all. Is it a secret mission?”
“Not exactly. But it’s sensitive. Rex—” Ahsoka looked up at him. “This is for your ears only. We’re going after Skyguy and Master Kenobi.”
Rex’s scarred face went very still, just one muscle leaping along his tightly held jaw. “Right.”
“They’re in trouble, Rex. Trapped behind enemy lines.”
“Right,” he said again, that muscle still leaping. “This anything to do with what happened on Chandrila yesterday?”
He was a smart, smart man. “Everything,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. “They were trying to stop that attack, but—”
“Best not say anything more, little’un,” Rex told her, his voice just as low. “But don’t you worry. We won’t be leaving them behind enemy lines.” He nodded at the crowded, noisy room. “The boys and me? We’ll fight to the last man to get them home again.”
His hand on her shoulder was warm and hard. Comforting. “Rex, the troop carrier’s going to be here soon. Ten minutes—then they gear up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, letting his hand drop away. “Ten minutes. Excuse me.”
She watched him cross to Sergeant Coric, who was sitting with Checkers and Dandy and Flash. Checkers turned, hearing Rex’s approach, and nodded, seeing her. One finger touched his forehead in a small, genuine salute. She smiled at him and tried not to dwell on his chin’s fresh scar.
They’re too easily hurt, all of them. And if this mission turns into a pitched battle, they won’t all come home.
So she drank in their faces and their laughter, the jokes and the teasing and their wild, reckless courage. Because this could be the last time for some of them… and she never wanted to forget.
ONE BY ONE, Yoda looked at the holoimages of his fellow Councilors. He’d never felt so alone in this place he loved, this Council Chamber that was a home within his larger home of the Jedi Temple. The war had swallowed his colleagues completely. At no other time in his memory had the Council been this scattered, its cohesiveness this endangered. It wasn’t simply a question of companionship. In weighty matters the Council functioned best when its members shared the same space, the same moment. When the Force could weave its way effortlessly among them and their separate strengths and talents combined to become something greater and more powerful than each of them alone. That was impossible when they were separated by light-years, represented only by a coalescence of shallow particles.
But even with those limitations, he knew that in this matter they felt with one heart.
“Then agreed we are,” he said. “Insist we must that leave Kothlis Mace Windu should to assist with freeing Lanteeb from Count Dooku.”
“Indeed,” said Ki-Adi-Mundi. “And I am at a loss to understand why Palpatine is so intransigent on the matter. Why will he not be guided by us in this? After Chandrila it is plain that Lanteeb has the higher priority.”
“So you would think,” he said. “But always a politician Palpatine is.”
“You’re concerned he seeks to protect his own dignity and entitlements at the expense of innocent life?” said Adi Gallia from her ship in the depths of the Aostai region. “That doesn’t seem like him, Yoda.”
“Concerned he is that Kothlis and Bothawui offended will be by our withdrawal of protection,” he said. “To Dooku he thinks they might turn if abandoned by us they consider themselves.”
“He’s worrying for no reason,” Mace Windu said flatly. “Kothlis and Bothawui will never leave the Republic. Yoda, he’s going to have to accept the Council’s decision. I’ll leave enough clones here to satisfy the Ruling Council’s need for security. Tell Yularen that Dagger and I will rendezvous with him at the battle group’s pre-approach coordinates.”
Soberly the other Councilors nodded their support, then disconnected from the holoconference. In the end only Mace remained, his image gently flickering.
“You’re not happy about this,” he said. “Do you know something I don’t?”
Yoda let his chin sink to his chest. “Usurped Palpatine will feel, when told of our decision he is.”
“That’s too bad,” said Mace, shrugging. “Palpatine’s wrong. Durd’s our greatest danger now. It’s not enough for us to hope that Obi-Wan and young Skywalker can pull off a miracle on Lanteeb. They need our help—or Chandrila will only be the beginning.”
Yoda sighed. “This I know. But this also I know—a wedge between the Jedi and the Supreme Chancellor will this unfortunate business drive.”
“Politicians don’t tell the Jedi what to do, Master Yoda. And smart politicians take our advice even if they don’t always understand our reasons. That’s how it’s worked for a thousand years and for a thousand years it’s worked just fine.” Mace snorted. “Palpatine should be more worried about offending us than Kothlis. We’re the ones keeping the Republic together.”
And that was true, too, though he wouldn’t phrase it quite that way to the Supreme Chancellor. “Go to see him now, I will. Contact me when approaching your rendezvous with the battle group you are.”
“Shall do,” said Mace, and disconnected their link.
Filled with a weary unease, Yoda stared at the cityscape for a moment, then withdrew from the Council Chamber so he could make his preparations to meet with the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor.
And may the Force be with me, for pleased by this news he will not be.
Chapter Sixteen
THE LATEST DROID BOMBARDMENT HAD STARTED JUST AFTER dawn, and nearly ten hours later it showed no sign of stopping.
Covered in hydraulic fluids and scattered singe marks, smeared with sweat and dirt and blood, Anakin stood before Torbel’s laboring storm shield, raised his fists at Durd’s relentless army and vented fear and fury in one long, soundless scream.
You stinking barves! You can keep on firing until Lanteeb’s sun goes supernova! We are never going to let you in!
Panting, he turned away from the merciless machines and struggled to recover his precarious balance.
It was nearly five days since he’d had a decent stretch of sleep, or a full meal, or anything approaching enough water to drink. The village was on strict rationing, every single mouthful accounted for. Rikkard and Jaklin had even discussed the slaughter of their poultry and milk cows. It hadn’t come to that yet, but it would if help didn’t reach them soon. And there’d been no word from the Jedi Temple. No hint of any kind that this wasn’t a battle they were fighting on their own.
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Every time he looked up, it seemed, another shipment of ammunition was arriving for the droids to pour against Torbel’s flimsy shield. Since the start of the siege, their number had swelled from three hundred units to more than four hundred. There were no sentient soldiers in this army. Durd wasn’t risking a single man. The barve didn’t have to. He could sit in his compound and watch his assault via holoremote, surrounded by luxury, convinced the victory was already his.
Light-headed with weariness, Anakin shoved his microspanner back into his tool belt.
And maybe it is. Was I wrong to push us into this? Have I condemned every last one of us to a swift and brutal slaughter? Or will we die of starvation and sickness first?
He’d never felt so afraid in his life.
Every waking moment was spent slaving over the power plant and the storm-shield generators, checking and rechecking the shield’s perimeter, patching and tinkering and pulling miracles out of thin air to keep the old and overworked equipment from disintegrating into smoking slag. His modifications had worked, but the price was ferocious. They were burning through the stockpiled liquid damotite so quickly, burning through circuitry and wiring and stripped-out spare parts just as fast. And everyone was looking to him for the answers, expecting him to keep the miracle going.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep on doing this.
The day was dying, the last of the light draining out of the sky. But that didn’t matter. The constant barrage of plasma and blasterfire hitting the shield turned night to day. It was as bright here after sundown as it was on Coruscant.
The thought of home pierced his guts, a sharp shiv of memory. By now Padmé had to know that he and Obi-Wan were trapped on this mess of a planet. Yoda would’ve told Bail Organa and Organa would certainly tell her—or she’d rip the news out of him. She had to be sick with terror for him. A couple of times he’d risked trying to feel her in the Force, tried to see where she was, how she was, but he was simply too tired. All his strength was being poured into keeping Torbel and its people alive. He had nothing left. Nothing to give her.
Oh, my dearest love. Can you forgive me for putting you through this? I’ll make it up to you, I promise. When I come home.
Blat… blat… boom… blat… boom… boom… boom…
The storm shield couldn’t muffle all the bombardment’s noise. The constant dull impacts hammered at everyone trapped in the village, keeping headaches simmering just below the surface. Tempers were short, fights erupting at the least provocation. Rikkard and Jaklin had confiscated every last weapon and anything that could be used as a weapon if it wasn’t needed to keep them alive. Teeba Sufi didn’t need any more casualties. She had enough on her plate, with the sick house full and the charter house turned into a second ward.
His jaw clenched tight, Anakin watched the blooms and blossoms of superheated blaster plasma drip down the storm shield. Surely the Seps had to run out of ammunition soon.
A crackle in his pocket, then Devi’s faint voice sounded over his comlink. “Anakin? Do you copy?”
He pulled out the comlink and thumbed the transmit switch. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
He was so tired he had to think about it. “I’ve just checked Generator Ten. Why?”
“I need help here.”
“Can’t you ask Rikkard? I’ve still got—”
“Rikkard’s dropped. He’s greensick. I’m on my own and I’ve got a blocked fuel valve. I’ll have a red needle in minutes.”
Stang. She sounded desperate. And if he lost Devi… “Fine,” he said, eyes closed, head pounding. “I’ll be right there.” With a final look at the droids, he started back toward the plant. “Devi, can you comm Tarnik? Get him to check the other generators? They should be holding but—”
“I’ve tried. I can’t raise him.”
“Then try again! Devi, the generators have to be kept under constant surveillance. If even one fails—”
“I know!” Devi shouted back. “I’ll try. You just get here. Hurry!”
Shoving the comlink into his pocket he broke into a shuffling jog, which was the closest he could come to running right now. The light was fading faster, Lanteeb’s sun lost behind the hills that stood between the village and the open country. If the droids would only stop firing, he’d be able to see the night sky’s first, faint stars.
I don’t care if I never see stars again as long as I live. Please, please, let that shield hold.
He jogged past the silenced mine and the burned-out hulk of the refinery, still stinking, past the groundcar graveyard and on to the plant. There he unstuck the blocked fuel valve, coaxed another eight valves into running a little more smoothly, answered a spate of questions from Tarnik, who’d been grumpily roused from sleep, helped Devi recalibrate the four main shield monitors, and then, last of all, double-checked the plant’s fuel gauge for accuracy.
“So I’m not imagining things,” said Devi, seeing his dismay. “Our usage has gone up another two percent.”
He tried hard to sound confident. “They have to start running low on ammunition soon. It’ll get better. Don’t worry.”
“If you say so,” she said wearily. “Anakin…”
He knew what she was going to ask. The same question was in the eyes of every villager he came across. “Soon, Devi. I don’t know exactly, but they’ll be here soon.”
“I can’t tell if you believe that,” she said, after a moment. “Or if you only want to believe it. Or if you’re lying because you don’t know what else to say.”
“I’m not lying!” he snapped. “Help is coming. We just have to hold on a little longer, that’s all.”
She turned away, the servos on her antigrav harness grinding like broken bones. In silence they listened to the monotonous thud of blasterfire against the shield.
“I am holding on, Anakin,” she said at last. “As hard as I can. We all are. But…”
“I know,” he said, almost whispering. “I’m sorry. Devi, let me look at your harness. The servos have slipped.”
“Fine,” she said, listless. “If you want to. I don’t care.”
So he fixed her harness, knowing that by morning the servos would have slipped again, worse than ever.
“Will you be all right here on your own for a while longer?” he said, tossing the mini hydrospanner back into the plant tool kit. “I want to check on Obi-Wan, make sure he’s not overdoing things.”
She shrugged. “Sure. I’ll comm you if there’s another crisis.”
When there was another crisis. The problem was that aside from him and Obi-Wan there wasn’t anyone to relieve her. Not now, with Rikkard dropped greensick. Anakin pressed his flesh-and-blood hand to her shoulder.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Anakin, you need to rest. Take an hour. Take two. If you go down greensick—if you go down for any reason—then it’s over for us. You do understand that, don’t you? Without you we die.”
Struck dumb, he stared at her. Without you we die. She was right, he knew she was right, but he’d never wanted to hear it said aloud.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and stood on unsteady tiptoe to kiss his cheek. No hint of flirting from her anymore, just a warm, sisterly affection. “I didn’t mean to make things harder. I’ll see you later. Don’t forget to eat.”
On his way to the village center he met up with Tarnik, and they compared notes. So far so good, still. The generators were holding. The old man promised to keep on doing rounds awhile longer.
“Get a bite and some shuteye, boy,” he said. “We need you.”
And if one more person reminded him…
He didn’t need to use the Force to find Obi-Wan. When his former Master wasn’t in the power plant he was in the sick house, trying to ease the load on Teeba Sufi. Thanks to the toxic smoke from the burned refinery, more than half the people of Torbel were suffering greensickness even though they’d had a lifetim
e of swallowing their secret pill. Thanks to the Force, he and Obi-Wan were managing to avoid the malady. He didn’t know whether to feel grateful or guilty for that.
Standing unnoticed in the sick house’s open doorway, he took one look at Obi-Wan’s face and cursed under his breath.
You fool. What are you doing?
Teeba Sufi glanced up from straightening one patient’s blanket, saw him, and frowned. Then she looked over at Obi-Wan, who was seated beside a burdened cot oblivious to everything save the suffering man he was trying to help. Lips pursed, Sufi picked her way between the other cots to the door.
“Anakin,” she said, pressing one hand to his forehead. It was her habit to test him for fever every time they met. He was used to it now. “Take your friend out of here. Get him into what passes for fresh air in Torbel these days. I don’t want to see him again till morning, but since I know that won’t happen, keep him away for at least an hour.”
Nodding, Anakin looked again at the score of sickened villagers. “I’ll do my best, Teeba. Is Rikkard here?”
“You heard?” With a sigh Sufi gestured to the crowded room’s far corner. “I’ve put him with Arrad. Thanks to Obi-Wan, the boy’s making progress. I think it does Rikkard good to hear his son’s voice. If he can hear anything. He’s gone down hard.”
“How soon before you run out of your home remedy?”
“A day or two,” she said heavily. “I stripped the herb field bare this afternoon. The last of it’s brewing now, out back. I’m diluting it, and portioning it into half measures. If I have to I’ll drop that to quarter doses but what good it’ll do us then, who can say?” Frowning again, she nodded at Obi-Wan. “I think he’s doing us more good than the potion, but he’s not going to last much longer than my herbs. Not even with Greti helping him—though I’ve put a stop to her for now. So you talk some sense into that man, Anakin. He’ll not listen to me.”