Rage Against The Dark Ch 6

Good morning y'all.

I worked...so much overtime this week. I'll tell y'all h'wat.

Like...we got permission to leave early on Thursday. And I stayed three hours later than usual.

BUT! As a consequence of working way too much overtime, I was able to not have to go into work Saturday and today! So I was able to obsessively write Friday night, and all of yesterday.

Here is the next chapter of this fic. Hope y'all enjoy. Lemme know in the comments whatcha liked and didn't.

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Anakin watched as Rylanor commanded the Troopers as they stormed and secured the the monastery’s foyer. The stone edifice was dark, lit only by flickering emergency lights.

It had a melancholic, sepulchral air. Its sacred majesty first tainted by smugglers, then by Separatist droids, and now by war.

“I don’t like this place.” Rex said, his helmet lights planning around. “Gives me the creeps.”

R2 whistled and beeped a few choice words about superstitious meat bags. Anakin really should do something about the droid’s vocabulary.

“Fear naught, Captain.” Rylanor said, walking ahead of Anakin, panning his blaster rifle around, its pattern one that Anakin didn’t recognize. One of its attachments was a flashlight which his Padawan was using to scan along the walls. “The dark is afraid of us.”

Anakin felt his eyebrows rise at the younger man’s bravado, but he could feel the spirit of the men be buoyed by his words.

He glanced over his shoulder, Rylanor’s ‘Command Squad’ were subtly surrounded by an honor guard of Troopers. He could feel a level of protectiveness coming from the men that, anywhere else, would have surprised him. The clones did not often react well to civilians, they didn’t understand them. They were simply too different.

But the four women who came with Rylanor? They had proven themselves in the battle at Christophsis. In particular, the two shortest. It was thanks to them that casualties were minuscule.

Them and Rylanor’s insane plan.

“Identify yourself!”

Rylanor’s commanding shout brought Anakin out of his revere. An instant later, a droid was fully illuminated as several dozen flashlights and blaster rifles were trained on it.

“Where is the Hutt?” Anakin demanded, stepping forward.

“Well goodie.” Rylanor said, and promptly shot the droid, molten metal and the acrid stench of vaporized electronics spattering the wall behind it as it dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Anakin suppressed the urge to scowl. The absolute least his (formerly unwanted) Padawan had earned was the benefit of doubt. “Why did you do that?”

Rylanor snorted. “If he’s a caretaker, I’m an ancient Sith. That’s a Z-Series head, used by news outlets for their high optical quality.”

Anakin blinked and properly looked at the droid. Rylanor was right. “It was here to spy on us.”

“Nah.” Rylanor said, kneeling next to the scrapped droid and pulling out a data-spike from one of the pouches in his armor. “My guess is they were going to use it to implicate us somehow. Edit a video and make us look bad, send it to the Hutts. Classic false flag.”

There was a ragged warning from the Force, Rylanor rolled away from the droid and came to a knee, his lightsaber coming to life in his left hand as he panned the odd slug thrower around the room with his right. The troopers all took aim, looking for the threat.

They really shouldn’t have bothered, with a screech of seeming agony, the droid’s body compressed into a metal ball in a vicious telekinetic assault.

“Okay, there’s a Force User.” Rylanor said, shutting off his lightsaber. “Good to know.”

“Ventress.” Anakin hissed, his metallic right hand twitching in an urge to grasp his lightsaber. “Dooku’s pet assassin.”

“Then we better hurry up and get that Huttlet.” Rylanor said, standing up.

“Right.” Anakin turned to Rex. “Rex, Rylanor and I will find the Huttlet, guard the exit.”

“Sir!”

“Captain Rex.” Anakin slowed as Rylanor spoke up. “Coordinate with the medics, find an easy to defend room and have them turn it into a triage station. Ready this area for a defense in depth, break what you need to and make some cover, failing that, make some concealment. Have the sappers rig the roof to cave in. And see if you can back one of the tanks in here.”

“Sir!” Rex saluted and began relaying the Padawan’s orders.

“Aegis, Iris, Charlotte, stay here and help however you can, but be ready to grab the VIP and escort it out. Sussurro, with me.” The Padawan nodded at the girls as they accepted his orders, the short near-human in the light-green armor falling quietly into step behind him.

“You think we won’t be able to find the Hutt on our own?” Anakin asked as Rylanor fell into step beside him, the Padawan’s large frame, made hulking by his armor, making the hallway feel cramped.

“I think it’ll be good to have a medical professional when we find it.” He said, turning his head and stretching his neck. “I doubt the combat droids have nursing routines programmed into them.”

Anakin scowled and chastised himself for not having thought of that. Still… “Hutts are immune to nearly anything.”

“Correction:” The girl, Sussurro, said. “Adult Hutts are immune to nearly anything. This is an infant, and as a rule, those require a lot of care. In the worst-case scenario, we are walking towards a corpse.”

Anakin barely managed to hold back a scoff.

One less Hutt in the galaxy would be a good thing as far as he was concerned.

As they turned a corner and came onto a hallway with doors, Rylanor trotted forward, stuck his rifle into a door and there were three bright flashes in quick succession, a snapping crack resounding, a lot like the sound of a whip cutting the air but in triplicate, very different from the usual report of a blaster, followed by the clatter of metal made forcefully inert.

“Clear.” He said, trotted to the next door and repeated the process, rewarded by another rattle of metal. “Clear.”

He rushed forward and did the same a third time, quickly but efficiently panning the rifle through the room, this time without firing. “Clear.”

He went to the next door, repeating the motions, and fired a three-round burst. “Clear.”

Anakin hummed, most Jedi relied on the Force rather than the methodical approach that Rylanor seemed to favor, but he couldn’t say he disagreed with the Padawan either.

The next time his Padawan exited the room he’d just cleared, a metallic clanking announced the remaining battle droids finally working through their self-preservation routines and confronting the threat together rather than be destroyed piecemeal. Rylanor drew his lightsaber and lazily threw it, Anakin felt the Force leap at his direction, taking hold of the weapon and accelerating it into a spinning disk of death that shot down the hallway, leaving a molten line on the walls and decapitating every battle droid before they finished exiting the rooms where they’d lain in ambush.

Rylanor continued to check every room before they passed it, calling clear every time. Firing a final three round burst at the penultimate door.

It was then that Anakin smelled it. Ammonia, rank sweat, and just a dash of sulfur. The standard Hutt bouquet.

“Judging by the look on your face, by the Force am I glad I’m wearing a helmet and a pressurized suit.” Rylanor said sarcastically.

“I should make you take that off.” Anakin growled, pushing forward into a set of stairs leading down into the basement. “Toughen you up.”

“Is it too late for that freighter ride back to Coruscant? I’m certain the Council of Reassignment would love the opportunity to throw me out of the Order.”

“No can do, the men already adopted you.”

“Drat, foiled again.”

The basement was much like the hallway, but with less cozy rooms, in a better time it would hold the monastery’s food and other supplies, now they were crude holding cells for the Smugglers that first took over the monastery, then the Separatists who unknowingly and uncaringly avenged the original owners.

Anakin followed his nose to one of the doors, and opening it, he was slammed by concentrated eau de toilhutte and saw a large semi-spherical slug slithering around making strange noises.

The Huttlet shrieked when it saw him and Rylanor, slithering to the corner farthest away from them.

“Good news,” Rylanor said, checking the room’s corners before stepping out and waving his companion through. “We found the Huttlet, and it’s not dead.”

More’s the pity.

The girl, Sussurro, surprised him by taking her helmet off, the floofy animal-like ears on top of her head moving through their surprisingly large range of motion as she stretched them.

Her cherubic face didn’t so much as twitch as she was doubtlessly engulfed in the creature’s stink. She smiled at the huttlet and knelt next to it, checking it over while making soothing noises that quieted the slug and made Anakin feel…things he did not want to parse.

He buried the memory of Schmi Skywalker that had come unbidden. “What’s the status of the VIP?”

“He’s starved, dehydrated, and sick.” Sussurro said, her voice mellifluous and surprisingly deep for a girl of her minute size. She pulled various packets and pills out of her pack, the things quickly vanishing into the slug’s gullet. “I’m giving him some food and liquid, and I’ll start him on an antibiotic and antiviral regiment, he’s running a fever, if it doesn’t break in a couple hours with the antibiotics and antivirals, I’ll administer something for it.”

“Just give the slug something for the fever and something else to suppress nausea, I’ll string it up and carry it out.” Rylanor said, stomping in. “And put your helmet back on, we’re in enemy territory.”

Sussurro scowled at him, it was one of the most adorable things Anakin had ever seen. She placed her hands on her hips in a pose that screamed disapproval. “You will not treat him roughly! He’s not only my patient, but an infant! His father may be guilty of many crimes, but the father’s sins are not the son’s to bear!”

Anakin barely managed to suppress his scowl, she’d clearly never seen what the slugs got up to when they grew up.

“Give it a few years, and if he’s not a murderous gang lord, feel free to say ‘I told you so.’ Until then.” He pulled a length of rope out of his pack. “I don’t have a backpack that’ll fit the thing, and I’ll need my hands to fight.”

Sussurro’s scowl deepened. “I’ll carry him.”

Rylanor shook his head. “It weighs close to a third what you do. You already struggle with your armor and equipment due to your physique; you are not carrying the Huttlet.” He pushed the rope onto the girl. “Tie it securely, I’ll carry it out.”

“Stop calling him an it!” Sussurro demanded, stomping her foot.

“Hutts are hermaphroditic.” Rylanor said in a deadpan. “Jabba Junior here is a few decades from the hormones that will make it grow one or the other set of dangly bits that will make it a he or a she until it decides to be the other one. ‘It’ is the most correct way to refer to a Huttlet.”

Sussurro looked sheepish as she took the proffered rope. “Oh…sorry, I thought you were being mean.”

“Maybe a little.” Rylanor admitted. “I really don’t like Hutts.”

Anakin grunted his agreement.

Before long they were walking back up the stairs, Anakin in the lead, Rylanor in the middle, screaming Huttlet dangling from his left fist, slug thrower in his right, and Sussurro bringing up the rear, her helmet’s articulated ears twitching as the Huttlet screamed and did its best to slither away without any contact with the ground.

Thankfully, it eventually grew tired of screaming and hung limply from the rope. It should be thankful, the rope Rylanor used was softer and of much higher quality than any that had been used on Anakin when he was young.

They emerged to a thoroughly changed foyer, the clones had done as Rylanor asked, turning the open area into a make-shift fortress, immediately past the door was a killing field, they’d felled support columns from elsewhere in the monastery and had dragged them in to make makeshift barricades, and one of the AT-TE’s was currently squatting down in the center of the fortification, its front aimed at the monastery’s gate.

Looking up, Anakin used the Force to enhance his vision and saw the shadowy outline of explosives. He wasn’t an expert on things that went boom, but there was a very discernible pattern to said explosives that made him think that they just might collapse the foyer while leaving the barricades largely untouched.

Bringing his eyes back down, Anakin saw Rylanor had left to meet up with his Command Squad.

Anakin shook his head and, not spotting Rex, turned to the nearest lieutenant. “Huttlet secured, call in extraction!”

He waited several seconds, then the clone said. “Sir! I cannot raise the Resolute!”

Rylanor immediately shoved the Huttlet into the arms of one of the taller girls and began running for the door. “Incoming! Get everyone inside! Abandon the other tank if you have to! INSIDE! INSIDE!”

Anakin opened his mouth to shout at his Padawan for panicking, when he felt the Force shift, an instant after that he too was sprinting for the door, weaving through confused clones. “What are you waiting for!? Get moving! Ready to repel an attack!”

There was the sound of artificial thunder, followed by the ground beneath the temple shaking. He exited just in time to see a squad of clones be thrown off their feet by a Vulture droid’s strafing run.

Not all of them got back up.

“Inside! INSIDE!” Rylanor shouted, using his lightsaber as a signal baton. He gestured with the hand holding his slug thrower and the clones who were crawling or unmoving on the ground were dragged, skidding into the monastery. “Get them to Sussurro and Iris! Hurry!”

At the edge of the plateau, Anakin saw two C-9979 landing crafts, both already disgorging the battalion of droids they each carried in their cavernous holds, he spotted two more coming in for a landing. The first ranks of droids were already opening fire.

The company’s other AT-TE was covering the last of the clones as they sprinted for the monastery door, when spider droids were disgorged, eight of them deploying their legs and cannons, and zeroing in on the tank.

“Get out of the tank!” Anakin ordered, but too late.

All eight spider droids fired.

To Anakin’s horror, Rylanor jumped into the path of the incoming shots.

His perception accelerated, forcing him to witness what was happening in slow motion. His Padawan put away his slug thrower and held his lightsaber two-handed, swinging it at one of the incoming bolts.

He struck it, successfully deflecting it skyward, but he was physically pushed back, his feet leaving the ground.

Rylanor swung his lightsaber at a second bolt as it soared past him, deflecting it into the ground, where it detonated into a cloud of vaporized stone and smoke.

The other six bolts slammed into the AT-TE, instantly transforming it into a burning, smoking husk. Rylanor crashed into its side a moment later and fell limply to the ground.

“Rylanor!” Anakin shouted. “You reckless little!”

Anakin was the worst Master ever. Chosen One? He’d had a Padawan for less than two days and he was already dead! This is why he didn’t want a Padawan! He!? Protect someone!?

He'd not even managed to protect his own mother! What could a failure like him—!?

Rylanor sprung to his feet, shook himself like a womp rat shaking off the sand, then jumped into the AT-TE through the hole made by the Spider Droids, made one on the other side with his lightsaber, and ushered the crew out, three white-armored bodies stumbling to the monastery, the Padawan carrying the limp bodies of two more of them to safety.

“There’s one more!” He gasped out.

“Stupid stanging!” He jumped into the AT-TE, used the Force to find the last clone through the smoke, put his body over his shoulder and jumped out. “Close the gate!”

He backed to the gate, deflecting the occasional blaster bolt that got too close, and slipped inside seconds before the door slammed shut.

He gave the wounded trooper to one of his brothers, who ushered him toward one of the two women who used the Force to heal, and made his way to his Padawan, who was sitting with his back to the wall, the animal-eared near-human fussing over him.

Anakin could feel her use of the Force, channeling it through the staff she carried. It was unlike any Jedi Healing he’d ever seen, but he could not doubt its effectiveness.

“Concentrate on the men.” Rylanor was saying petulantly. “Seriously, I’m good.”

“What was that out there!?” Anakin snarled. “Are you trying to get yourself killed!?”

Rylanor’s head turned to him, but he couldn’t see his expression past the helmet’s visor. “I was protecting the men. If I hadn’t redirected both of those bolts, the turret gunner would have died, and the tank would have gone critical.”

“What possessed you to do something so reckless!?”

“I thought ‘what would Anakin do?’ and went from there.” He answered with a shrug.

Anakin grit his teeth. He wanted to lash out, to scream, to smack his Padawan upside the head and make him apologize for causing him such worry.

But Anakin threw himself into danger for the men often enough, to do that would be hypocritical.

He let out a long sigh. “Be more careful next time.”

“I’m wearing armor!” Rylanor protested.

The girl, Sussurro, tapped him on the helmet with her staff. “You broke two ribs, and if I weren’t here, you’d have tinnitus.”

“See? Perfectly fine.” His Padawan said petulantly.

“Sir!” One of the tank troopers Rylanor had saved called out. “I forgot my lunchbox outside. Think you could fetch it for me?”

His Padawan chuckled. “I’ll get right on that, trooper. It may be lightly singed though.”

Not only the tank crew, but most of the men chuckled darkly.

Anakin sighed and turned away. “Rex!”

The captain materialized as if from thin air. “Sir?”

“What’re the casualties?”

“Three dead, a dozen wounded but fighting-fit.” He paused for a few seconds. “Make that thirteen fighting-fit. Critical cases reduced to zero.”

Anakin blinked, he’d expected it to be much worse but…the healers.

He’d have to make certain the High Council didn’t learn about them. “Very well, we’ll bunker down, be ready to split up into the monastery. They’ll have to dig us out, and by the time they do, Obi-Wan should be here to reinforce us.”

“Anakin, I believe that is a poor decision.” Rylanor said, pushing himself to his feet, disregarding the near-human healer’s protests. “We need to concentrate on extracting the Hutt.”

Anakin scowled. “Explain.”

“We’re on a time crunch.” Rylanor said. “We’ve used a large chunk of the time we had available to extract the Hutt. Bunkering down for a siege? It might ensure we get out of here, but we’ll be missing the Tatooine rotation deadline. Which knowing Hutts…”

Anakin swore. “They’d renege on the deal.”

“So, we need to find a way out of here and extract the Huttlet…but one of us needs to stay behind.” Rylanor slammed a fist onto his plastron. “And that should be me.”

“What!?” Anakin snapped.

Rylanor shook his head. “They have a Force User. The men won’t be able to deal with a Force User and a battalion of droids at the same time.”

“Four battalions.” Anakin corrected, his lips twisting at the sour taste the words left in his mouth. “With air cover.”

“I have no doubt the men can take on four battalions and win.” At his words, the Force soared with fierce pride as Torrent Company stood taller at their new Commander’s firm belief in their abilities. “But a Force User? One trained by the Count Dooku? She’ll collapse a part of the line and create enough confusion for the droids to overrun their position. The only solid counter to a Force User, is another Force User.”

Anakin shook his head. “Then I’ll stay, you take the Huttlet to Tatooine.”

“I’ve never handled a Hutt in my life.” Rylanor said. “You already know how to speak to them so as not to cause offense, I don’t. Would staying quiet the whole time and just returning the Huttlet be enough to not cause offense?”

Anakin sighed. “No…that’d be taken as a slight. Like you are ‘too good’ to speak to them.”

“My point exactly. If I deliver the Huttlet, I run the risk of ruining the deal that Obi-Wan secured.”

Anakin rolled the problem over and over in his head before sighing in defeat. “I don’t like this.”

“It is what it is.” He paused as the Force roiled on the other side of the gate, Anakin could feel Ventress’ rising ire and waning patience. “We’re out of time. We in agreement?”

Anakin wanted to protest…but Rylanor did make a few good points. He pondered sending Rylanor to Tatooine with the Huttlet, but a heavy feeling of dread from the Force at that possibility made him discard the notion.

He sighed. “Alright, we’ll do that. But be careful, Ventress is crafty, dangerous, and ruthless. You are handy with that lightsaber, but she uses Jar’Kai.”

“I’ll see if I can get her lined up so the boys in the tank have a shot at her.” Rylanor said, chuckling. “I’ll send my Command Squad with you as backup, but I’ll keep Sussurro, she’ll be invaluable in keeping the men in the fight longer.”

Anakin chewed on the inside of his cheek but sighed in agreement. “Very well. R2, let’s go!”

He stepped resolutely away from his Padawan. He did not like this, but Rylanor had exceeded his every expectation so far. He would trust the younger man on this. It was either that or sacrifice the whole of Torrent Company for a Hutt of all things. And if it were up to Anakin, he’d trade every Hutt in the galaxy for even one of the men who had died taking the monastery.

He was soon joined by both of the taller young women, and one of the short ones, their armor pattern nearly identical to Rylanor’s, but lighter, and colored a dark orange, a deep blue, and a light violet. The taller girl in the blue armor was carrying a backpack with the Huttlet smushed tightly into it so it couldn’t slither away.

“Sir!” Orange said with a nod, cradling a flechette launcher in her hands. “We’re ready to move out.”

“Right.” Anakin said. “Follow me, we need to find a data port so R2 can slice into the Monastery’s systems and find some blueprints.”

“Oh! I saw one of those while we were moving stuff to make cover in the foyer!” The short one in the violet armor said, trotting forward and taking the lead. “This way!”

“Anakin!” He paused and turned back to look at his Padawan, who nodded in the direction of the girls. “Keep them safe!”

Anakin had a slight suspicion that it was more than camaraderie that made Rylanor utter those words. Nonetheless, he nodded. “I will!”

Rylanor saluted and turned way, shouting at the men to move aside while he used the Force to shift one of the makeshift barricades to provide better cover. Anakin turned his back on his Padawan, and followed the slightly taller healer, the girl in blue armor holding a vibrosword of an unusual make in her hand.

Beside him, on the backpack, the huttlet burped, a noxious green cloud polluting the air and making him wish he had a sealed helmet like the rest of the 501st, and his Padawan, and his Padawan’s Command Squad.

…

Why didn’t he wear a helmet anyways? It would certainly make him better at commanding his troops…

He shook his head and concentrated once again on the mission.

First, deliver the Huttlet. Then, come back and pick up his Padwan and his men. Thoughts of a helmet could wait until after the current mission was over.

“Found it!” The violet armored girl said, pointing to a data port.

Anakin nodded. “R2, you know what to do.”

His droid beeped and warbled his agreement, rolling up to the data port and stabbing his data spike into it. As he worked, Anakin heard the report of blaster fire coming from the foyer, his commlink lighting up with the troopers’ shouted orders, and Rylanor’s encouragement to the men.

The three girls with him became visibly more tense, he could feel their desire to rush back to Rylanor, to aid him and keep him safe as he fought. But they held to the mission with grim determination.

Anakin grit his teeth and did the same.

Doubt plagued him, but both Qui-Gon before he’d died, and Obi-Wan, did tell him to trust his instincts. And he had a good feeling about Rylanor’s chances.

Besides. That feeling of dread he’d felt at sending Rylanor to Tatooine had been replaced with a cold anticipation now that he’d made the decision to go there himself.

His right arm itched.

Oh yes. Rylanor would probably be fine. He was strong, crafty, and good with a lightsaber. And he’d protected the men without hesitation. He could trust Torrent to his Padawan, he would not spend their lives needlessly. And Torrent would hopefully keep him from doing anything too reckless.

But at his current skill level, Rylanor would be no match for the Count of Serenno. That was a rematch Anakin had been looking forward to for a long, long time.

And it would be rude to keep his Great Grandmaster waiting.