You know, originally this was going to have more shenanigans and be even more lighthearted and stuff. But then a conversation between the characters happened and it kinda got away from the initial plan.

That said, I do think that was overall for the chapter's benefit.

Anyways, here is chapter! Drop me a comment and lemme know if you liked!

=][=

Boy was I glad the clones all reacted well to an amalgamation of a few canned battlefield sermons. I had a feeling that Huītzilōpōchtli would have been proud of me.

And he likely would have offered me a cup of the blood of my enemies which I’d need to find some way to politely pour on something else when he wasn’t looking, because drinking raw human blood is how you got hepatitis.

“Put me down.” Sussurro muttered where she lay almost bonelessly in my arms, her tail hanging limp and her helmet resting on my plastron, one of her ears occasionally twitching, making the ear covering of the helmet smack me lightly in the mask. “I can stand.”

“Shush you.” I said, the clones of Torrent and the 212th giving me what little space they could, the halls of the Negotiator packed tightly as one of the ship’s naval crew led me to what would be my temporary quarters for the short hop to Tatooine, then to wherever the Resolute ended up.

“Here we are, sir.” The clone Naval officer said, gesturing to an officer’s quarters.

“Thank you.” I said, walking past him and into the room. Just like my quarters in the Resolute, the room was relatively large, but when the rest of my girls arrived it would be a bit cramped. I walked to the nearest bed and gently set down my tuckered-out vixen on the floor. I took my helmet off and set it down on the stand next to the bed cut into the wall.

I then began to gently strip the fox girl out of her armor. She protested that she could do it herself, but she was already more asleep than awake, offering neither resistance nor aid when I peeled the under suit and smallclothes off her, and she was snoring gently when I slipped a clean pair of panties on her, as well as one of my shirts over her head.

Lastly, I placed her on the bed, tucked her in, gave her a quick peck on the tip of her button nose, and threw her dirt, oil, ash and blood smeared clothes into the sonic fresher.

With all that done, I slipped my helmet back on and stepped out so I could make my way to whatever quarters my boys ended up saddled with.

I felt the ship shudder as it jumped to Hyperspace, meaning we were some twenty hours away from Tatooine. We’d arrive just in time to be too late to make a difference, one way or the other.

Putting that worry out of mind, I followed the Force’s directions and arrived at the bay, where the clones were efficiently unpacking what they would need for their short stay at the Negotiator.

I walked until I found Rex and inserted myself into the conversation he was having with the company’s Lieutenants and Sergeants.

“Pardon the interruption.” I said as they all saluted. “At ease, at ease. Rex, please continue.”

“Yes sir.” Rex answered with a nod. “But before I do, what’s the status of erm…the medic?”

“Her name’s Sussurro.” I said with a nod. “She’s fine, just not used to such a long and intense stint of using her powers to heal. She’s resting and will be fine.”

“Thank the Force.” Said one of the Lieutenants. “The men feared the worst.”

I snorted. “Don’t worry, she’s tougher than she looks. Also, I can’t keep calling you ‘the officers’ in my head, what are your names?”

The gathered Clones glanced at each other before speaking. “My name is Ashton, sir.”

“Grabber.”

“Tips.”

“Popper.”

“Coric.”

“Nox.”

“CT-5223.”

I raised my hand, stopping the next one before he could start. “I didn’t ask for your number. I asked for your name.”

5223 looked embarrassed. “I uhh…I don’t have one yet, sir.”

I nodded. “Okay 5223, the moment you pick one, you let me know, okay?”

“Uhh…yes sir.”

5223’s number joined his brothers’ names in hovering over his head unobtrusively in my HUD, and I turned to the last trooper.

He stood at attention. “Acting Sergeant, Slippery, sir!”

I nodded. “You did good Trooper, I’ll see about trying to make that bump in rank permanent.”

“Sir!” Slippery said, looking stoic, but bursting with pride in the Force.

“And I’m Rex.” Rex said in a deadpan. “But I have a feeling you already knew that.”

“Tone down the smarminess, Captain.” I said with a grin.

“Recalibrating smarminess levels, sir.” Rex said dutifully.

I dropped the grin. “Alright, by my count we had almost a dozen fatalities, with a few dozen of my boys who are going to need intensive care for a while, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Rex said

I nodded. “I’m not certain how these things are handled, but I’m telling you to hold off on sending them off to some medical facility. Between Sussurro getting some time to rest and meeting back up with Iris, we should be able to have the men back to fully fit in a few days.”

All of Torrent’s officers blinked at that. Rex eventually said. “That…That is very good to know, sir. Thank you, the men will be glad to hear it.”

I snorted and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be too grateful yet, there’s only so many they’ll be able to heal per day without adversely affecting their health, meaning someone is going to draw the short stick and go last, and I’m delegating the unsavory task of making the list to you.”

“Majority of gratitude retracted, sir.” Rex said with a complete deadpan, one that the rest of the officers weren’t able to maintain, emitting a few suspiciously mirthful coughs.

I stuck around for the continued conversation about the supplies expended during the fight, learning that the fighting had become so fierce after I fucked off to try and kill or Stamp Ventress, that a few of the men had gotten down to their last charge pack. The only reason they hadn’t run out of ammo being that they’d redistributed supplies off those who had become too wounded or dead to fight.

I made a note to come up with a fix for that. Blaster charge packs were a lot lighter than rifle magazines, so each clone could carry an amount of ammo that anyone from my Prime’s world would find staggering, but while B-1 battle droids fell to one or two shots, Super Battle Droids often took multiple charge packs each, and those were deployed by the platoon with B-1 support.

I couldn’t exactly fill a room in my apartment with charge packs and give the clones access to my pocket dimension for them to get the ammo they needed, so maybe I could make a type of carrier drone droid that carried extra charge packs and had slots that spent charge packs could be slotted into to recharge mid-operation.

Of course, because I was enjoying myself, I did not heed the Force’s subtle warning that my fun was about to end.

“Rylanor.” Said Obi-Wan.

I turned around, bringing my…what was the term again? Not exactly my grandfather because Jedi were dumb like that.

Oh right, bringing my Grand Master into view, my girl, Asami, at his heels. I made a note to check in on her and see how he was treating her. Her safety and happiness were my responsibility after all.

“Yes, Master Obi-Wan?” I said, turning to face him.

“A word, if you would, Padawan.” Obi-Wan said, gesturing for me to follow.

“Of course.” I said, then turned to Rex. “When you get a chance, compile whatever reports for me to go over later, I want to be kept abreast of the state of the men.”

“Yes sir.” He said, him and the officers all saluting me as I left.

Obi-Wan took us to a briefing room, asking Asami to wait outside.

Once the door was closed, he turned around to regard me, he remained quiet for an uncomfortably long time, but after two minutes where I didn’t speak, he began. “Rylanor…I will be having this conversation with Anakin as well. You should not have separated from Anakin, a Padawan’s place is at his Master’s side. I do not know what possessed Anakin to leave you behind.”

I stood at attention. “Sir! A Padawan’s place may be by his Master’s side, but a Commander’s place is beside his men. Master Skywalker and I separated in order to best achieve our strategic objectives.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “We may be given honorary rank in the GAR, but we are Jedi first. Peacekeepers. Not soldiers or warriors. This is not the Jedi way.”

Ah yes, this argument. One I had been having for years. “Sir, I disagree!”

“Oh?”

“You may call us Peacekeepers. But we are given rank, leadership positions, duties and responsibilities in the Grand Army of the Republic.” I pointed to the 501st Legion patch I’d painted on my armor’s plastron. “So long as we agree to shoulder the responsibilities of these positions, then we are soldiers. We are soldiers in command of soldiers, responsible for the lives of the men under our command.”

I looked him in the eye and squared my shoulders, trying to keep my gaze from becoming a glare. “Peacekeepers have no place in a war, for a war, by definition, is not peaceful. I have been made a Commander in the GAR, the lives of thousands of men are now my responsibility. Until the war ends, and I am made to muster out of the GAR, then I am not a Peacekeeper, and I refuse to go into battle with the mindset that I can talk the enemy killing my men into not achieving their strategic objectives.”

Obi-Wan stared at me for a long time, and what pissed me off the most, was the look of abject pity he flung at me. “The conflict may seem easier if you adopt that mentality. But you must be careful not to lose yourself in—”

[General Kenobi.] Said a clone’s voice over the ship’s intercom. [Your presence is needed in the bridge. I repeat, General Kenobi, to the bridge.]

Obi-Wan stared at the intercom with a neutral expression for a few seconds before sighing, then threw that damned pitying look at me again. “We will continue this conversation later. Rest, you’ve more than earned it.”

And then he walked away, leaving me ready to have it out, Asami falling into step behind him.

The bastard.

=][=

In a storage room I’d claimed for my personal use, I swung my lightsaber through the Forms, immersing myself in the movements, free from the constrains of my armor, using the exercise to banish the feeling of needing a fight, to push away the whirling thoughts, the feeling of inadequacy. The supplies piled up high along the walls to make a clear space to practice taunted me.

It had been stupid to push Obi-Wan for a confrontation. But I had just about a decade of memories of rehashing the same argument, of bowing my head, gritting my teeth, and saying I agreed, purely because to do otherwise would have assured I was placed under increased scrutiny.

It had felt good to finally say the quiet part out loud, to throw into a sanctimonious Jedi’s face that there was no place for a Peacekeeper in a Galaxy that wasn’t holding onto a relative peace. That a time of war required warriors, soldiers, men willing to do the hard things and stain their hands with blood so others didn’t need to.

I shook my head trying once again to push the thoughts away, to exist only in the now. But quiet serene meditation was not for me, and purely practicing the Forms wasn’t doing it. I halted my twelfth repetition of the Soresu basic form and sank into the quintessential Shii-Cho stance; shoulders squared, right leg forward with knee slightly bent, left foot back, lightsaber held in a vertical position in front of me.

I used the Force to bring about a mental construct of Ventress. In my mind’s eye, she stood there, her lightsabers held in an aggressive grip, her legs and back bowed into a predatory slouch. Her head, shaven menacingly bald, glinted under the overhead lights.

I could hear the sizzle of her lightsabers, feel the heat off her red blades.

She exploded forward in complete silence, her blades seeking my neck and liver. I stepped back, blocking the left blade as the liver strike had been a feint, then ducked and kicked off to the side to avoid a sweep of the right blade.

The duel continued, her movements cold, controlled, her offensive was magma flowing under a thin crust of ice. Her blades getting ever closer to my body as she dissected my use of Shii-Cho, patiently waiting for me to make a mistake. I switched to Makashi, then Djem So in an attempt to build up momentum, but her cold fury sabotaged my every attempt to change the tempo of the fight.

I was the first to slip and had to draw my red lightsaber into my left hand to parry aside a stab while I fended off a slash with the blue blade in my main hand. The duel entered its second phase, but her greater experience using Jar’Kai shone through. She once more picked me apart any time I used Soresu, sabotaging my every attempt at building momentum, not falling for my attempts to sabotage her tempo, always forcing me to play her game. Until I made a mistake, I misread a stab that at the last instant turned into a sweep, the red blade slicing through my neck.

My mental image of Ventress vanished like smoke in the wind, leaving me panting as I tried to regain my breath, my lightsabers clutched tightly in my hands.

By my new estimation, Anakin had held back on our one spar a hell of a lot more than I’d initially thought, thus I had overestimated my own ability, and underestimated Ventress. The initial Force Push had rattled her, my immediate pursuit, relentless aggression, and constant taunts had stopped her from regaining her composure, my willing channeling of the Dark Side, minute as it had been, had flabbergasted her.

Had she had greater emotional control, not allowed my taunts to make her forget most of her technique, then that duel would have gone very differently. I may well have had to retreat into the clones, trading dozens of their lives to slow down Ventress, and considering how close the fight had turned out to be? We may well have been overrun.

I needed to get better fast, I needed to do more than practice the fundamentals to exhaustion.

“That’s not how Jedi are taught to spar.” Asami’s voice made me twitch. Turning around, I saw she was standing at the very edge of the area I’d cleared for my practice.

Huh, guess the practice had finally worked, I hadn’t even noticed her come in. I shut off my lightsabers and answered her unasked question as I went to the opposite edge of the cleared area and grabbed my water bottle. “I wasn’t practicing a spar. And it’s not how Jedi are taught to fight now, but just about every manual and holocron from before the Russan Reformation taught us to fight, not to spar.”

Asami frowned. “Those were restricted.”

I finished drinking and gave her a grin. “Only if you asked permission.”

She tilted her head as she studied me. “You are not what I expected.” When all I did in response was raise an eyebrow, she continued, stepping forward into the cleared area. “You are rather infamous in the Temple. You have a reputation for being unsociable, obsessed with the lightsaber, and lacking in the serenity expected of a Jedi.”

I mulled that over, leaned against a box of supplies and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like me.”

Asami shook her head. “The entire 501st has done nothing but brag to the 212th that they got ‘the best Padawan in the GAR.’ Tales of your daring are already spreading throughout the Negotiator.” She stopped in front of me. “In the days since you’ve left the Jedi Temple and become a Padawan, you were instrumental in a battle that decided the fate of Christophsis, devised a plan to storm a heavily defended monastery on top of a plateau with minimal casualties, fought a Sith to a standstill and forced her to retreat, and led the clones through a battle, outnumbered over twenty to one, and left the planet having lost less than ten men to that battle.” She looked down at her hands, which slowly curled into fists. “I left the Temple at the same time as you, and the only thing I managed to do was deflect a few blaster bolts. I didn’t even destroy a battle droid, let alone seeing the Sith I am supposed to be able to counter.”

I could feel her emotions roiling inside her, as well as the tenuous hold she had on them as she tried to push them down. “How can I call myself a Jedi, when after preparing for fifteen years, the best I was able to accomplish was to be a burden to everyone around me?”

I tilted my head back and forth, my neck eliciting a few loud pops. “Well, as brave and bold and super-Jedi as you made me sound. I crawled through a few kilometers of dirt on Christophsis, pants-shitting terrified I was going to have to fight a whole battalion of droids with just Master Skywalker while deep behind enemy lines. I nearly splatted myself against the side and top of the plateau at Teth. My ‘genius leadership’ consisted of spewing quotes from really old war movies and telling the men ‘all of you shoot in the same direction until you run out of ammo or enemies to shoot at, whichever happens first,’ and the Sith would have skewered me if she’d managed to get her head out of her ass long enough to take a deep breath and fight me slightly more calmly.” I looked into Asami’s confused eyes and smiled. “Don’t tell the men though, it’d probably affect morale if they learned that I was essentially making it up as I went along.”

She scowled. “So, you’re saying it was all just luck?”

“Nah, the Force and the clones did a lot of the heavy lifting.” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Not to mention, I literally trained myself for this. It makes sense that I’d do a bit better than most on my first outing.”

Asami sighed and finally relaxed enough to hop up to sit on one of the supply boxes. “That’s a really unsatisfying answer.”

“Welcome to the Galaxy, where things are messy and don’t always wrap up with a neat little bow.” I said with a snort. “Anyways, shouldn’t you be with Master Kenobi? Did he let you off the leash to explore the ship?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She said, kicking her legs. “He seemed…distracted, after his talk with you. When we got to the bridge, he was pulled into two meetings about supplies and the positioning of ships around the sector. And something about projected crop yields. In the middle of the meeting, he told me to familiarize myself with the ship.”

Hmm, so the higher ups are worried about the Separatists cutting off supply lines from agricultural worlds to the Core and Mid-Rim. Not a bad worry to have, the way the Republic set up agriculture in the mid and outer rim, was to have a planet dedicated almost exclusively to harvesting of various organic resources and shipping them all to an industrialized planet for processing and canning, before those shipped it off to various worlds that acted as a warehouse for sorting and shipping. It wasn’t unheard of for meat harvested on an outer rim planet to be shipped all the way to the mid-rim as it was processed, only to be purchased at a premium and end up on the same planet it was harvested from. One of the plethora of valid reasons for resentment against the Republic.

Suffice it to say, blockading even one of those steps would increase spoilage by anywhere from two to a hundred percent, depending on the specific resource being processed. This would in turn affect the Mid-Rim and Core worlds, the Republic was still in the process of switching its immense industry to a war economy, that’s what happened when several of your major manufacturing cities were literal planets. Food shortages would quickly lead to riots, which would be far more destructive to an ecumenopolis than any Separatist sabotage…

“What is it?” Asami asked, bringing me out of my spiraling thoughts. “You feel…not dread, but it’s almost like you got a lot more out of what I said than…I feel said.”

I shook my head. “Nothing too important.” For a mere Commander, that is. “Just, thinking.”

She remained quiet for a while, probably able to feel my partial lie. I felt her emotions tighten into a feeling like a…a fist clenched in determination. “Will you teach me to fight like you?”

I blinked in surprise. “Isn’t that Obi-Wa—I mean, Master Kenobi’s job?”

She shrugged, then hopped cutely off her seat and walked to the center of the open area. “Master Kenobi is busy, and I feel the need to improve. I do not want my next showing to be as poor as my first and second.”

“Well alright then.” I said. “I don’t suppose you happen to have a pair of training sabers?”

She twitched, her attempt at Jedi Serenity dissolving into a rather adorable little pout. “No.”

I grinned. “Then follow me, grasshopper!”

“What’s a grasshopper?” She asked, falling into step behind me.

I, wisely, ignored her query. “We go to adventure and the men’s quarters!”

“Why?”

“Because; we are going to make them scrounge up some sticks, and then we’ll smack each other with them for their amusement!”

“Is that necessary for my training?”

“Vital!”

=][=

“And what possessed you to abandon your Padawan in the middle of a warzone!” Obi-Wan ‘asked’, the dressing down of all dressing downs happening on the main flight deck of the Negotiator, where the rest of my girls had joined me.

Anakin cringed back. “He made a good argument!”

“An argument!? Anakin you left him behind to fight Ventress! I’ll remind you that she gives even you trouble!” Obi-Wan thundered.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Anakin whined.

“A good idea, a good idea!? Have you any idea the type of menace your Padawan is!? I left him unsupervised for less than two hours! He drew my Padawan into a running battle through the ship’s corridors! We’re still cleaning the main mess hall!”

Okay that was unfair! I had neither started nor instigated the food fight! That was Asami tripping on a Clone’s lunch and sending it flying into the back of a Trooper’s head, which he had assumed had been thrown by another Clone, because in his mind, no Jedi would ever be that clumsy.

That said, having to dodge all those projectiles had added a new level of difficulty to the spar.

“Well…did he win?” Anakin asked, concentrating on the important matters.

“What does it matter if he won!? He nearly demolished a mess hall!”

Which, again, not my fault.

I would defend myself, but I did not wanna get caught up in the dressing down myself.

“I, umm, I didn’t know Master Kenobi could be this…spirited.” Asami said, watching her Master with wide eyes.

I snorted. “In the part of the archives I totally didn’t read because it’s restricted, I absolutely didn’t read about this ancient philosopher who thought that you do not really know a man until you’ve seen him furious.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SPARRED ONCE AND FIGURED HE WOULD FIGURE IT OUT!?”

“Congratulations.” I said, gently nudging Asami with my hip. “You’ve just met your Master, I’m willing to bet few in the Jedi Order have ever seen this side of him.”

She made a confused humm.

“Sith Sweets?” I asked, holding out a few wrappers of the hard, caramel flavored candy.

“My Crèche Instructor always said those candies had the Dark Side in them.” Asami said, absently taking the wrapped bit of hardened sugar and popping it in her mouth.

“Clearly that’s what makes them so good.” I said, chewing the crystalized sugar and popping another one into my mouth.

Obi-Wan’s dressing down of his former Padawan continued for a surprisingly long time.

Action Adventure PlotBeforePlot SliceOfLife StarWarsTheCloneWars Violence

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Santo's Workshop

Jun 15, 2025 08:45 pm

Public post

Rage Against The Dark Ch 7

Good afternoon y'all! And happy father's day.

I could probably do a few more editing passes on this one. But it's storming outside and I'm perpetually afraid that I'll lose power and internet. So better to do it now, cause I don't wanna leave y'all high and dry.

Can't be breaking my streak!

Some more stuff to talk about, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Hope you had a good weekend. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

=][=

CT-7567, better known as Captain Rex had been somewhat reticent about the General’s new Padawan.

Yes, he had proven himself twice over, but both of those times the General had been around to catch the pieces in case he miss stepped. With the General leaving for an away mission with the VIP, Torrent had lost its safety net.

Yes, the General’s Padawan had yet to disappoint him, but two operations, one of them ongoing, was not enough to be certain their new Commander could handle himself.

This ran through the clone’s mind as Rylanor jumped from the ground to the top of the AT-TE and roared. “Alright men listen up!”

Torrent company stopped and looked at the warlike Jedi.

“We have gotten our hands on something the Seps want! They want it so much they are scrambling over each other to get it!” He said, his voice carrying as he paced back and forth, his helmeted head turning, seemingly gazing at each of the troopers. “Well I don’t care if it’s the Force’s own child or a giant slug! We are not gonna let ‘em have it! What we will let them have, is a belly full of plasma, and a pool of their own oil to drown in! AM I RIGHT, TORRENT!?”

Despite himself, Rex found himself roaring alongside his men.

“Damn right!” Rylanor said, his voice carrying over the noise, as he continued speaking, the men all quieted. “Now, I won’t mince words. We are outnumbered over twenty to one.”

On a different army, perhaps a different Legion, there would be shuffling feet, or worried murmurs. But not the 501st, and certainly not Torrent. The only thing that met the Padawan’s declaration was grim, determined silence.

The Padawan continued. “Too bad, for that only makes it an even contest! Keep your eyes downrange, fingers on your triggers, and the moment those doors open? Let them have it!”

He gestured, and one of the tanker troopers he’d saved yelped as he was levitated onto the tank’s turret. “You! What’s your name!?”

“Uhh, Gunner, sir!” Gunner replied, coming to attention as best he could.

“Gunner, aim that cannon at the biggest, most heavily armed thing, and fire only when I tell you to!”

“B-But sir! The overpressure!” Gunner began.

“Put your trust in me and the Force trooper.” The Padawan said, turning to the gate and aiming his rifle at it. “Trust me and the Force. But fire only when I tell you, clear!?”

“Sir!”

Before Rex could open a private commlink to the Commander to ask for further details, the enormous gate to the monastery groaned as it retracted toward the ceiling.

“FIRE!” The Commander roared, loosing a fusillade of laser shots into the opening, scything down a squad of B-1 battle droids in seconds, the rest of Torrent opening up an instant later. “For the Republic! For the Chancellor! But most of all, for the Brother at your side! Fire until they melt under the glow of your barrels!”

Torrent roared, explosive blue death streamed out of the monastery gate, scything down entire platoons of B-1 battle droids, squads of B-2 Super battle droids turning cherry red under the onslaught, guarding the smaller machines until their systems failed.

The onslaught of blue plasma released by Torrent was such that the filthy Separatist machines could barely get a shot in. But, slowly, by sheet weight of metal, they began to gain ground, pushing the piled-up scrap metal of the destroyed droids as cover from Torrent’s blasters.

And that’s when the AT-TE opened up with its front mounted Quad-RHE-Enforcer Repeater Cannon. It all but deleted the piled-up droids being used as cover, under its ruinous light what metal did not detonate was rendered liquid.

Even so, by numbers alone, the machines marched on. Red blaster bolts peppered in, most of them sinking harmlessly into the cover the Republic soldiers had prepared. But it was inevitable that a few would strike his brothers.

After all, it was all about numbers.

What he didn’t expect, was for the struck clones to flash with a green light, look around confused for a few seconds, then stand up and once again add their fire to the battle.

Unable to stop himself, Rex looked to the back line, where the Commander’s diminutive companion raised her staff, it flashed green, and on Rex’s HUD, a Brother went from critical condition to wounded, another flash and he went to fighting fit, and eagerly rejoined the battle.

Destroyer droids walked forward, their shields screening an entire platoon of battle droids behind them, and before Rex’s very eyes they crumpled like crushed beer cans, their shields shorting out and allowing the weight of the Clones’ fire to obliterate the platoon they’d been shielding.

“Keep firing! They cannot break us!” The Commander roared. “Show them that unliving steel cannot defeat the spirit of Man! Show them why you are part of the greatest fighting force in the Galaxy! Show them why Torrent is the best company in the GAR! Not a centimeter shall they take without paying for it in an ocean of oil! Concentrate fire on the left quadrant!”

Fire intensified in the battle space the Commander indicated, an instant later, a platoon of B-2 droids pushed it and were gunned down by the concentration of plasma. Despite himself, Rex found his spirits lifted by the Commander’s impromptu battlefield sermon.

At least until he saw the tank. Blaster bolts ricocheting off of and detonating harmlessly against its vaguely aquatic looking front.

“AAT incoming!” Rex called out, highlighting it in his HUD, lighting it up on the HUDs of his men. “Ready the rocket launcher!”

“No need!” The Commander called out, he slung his blaster rifle so it locked to his backpack, then took a strange stance, his knees bent, back hunched, his arms pushed forward, his hands coming together into a rough cone. In front of the tank, Rex saw the air wavering as if there were a heat haze. “Gunner! Fire!”

To the Tank Trooper’s credit, and Rex’s horror, he did not hesitate to follow his Commander’s order.

The cannon flashed, the tank rocked, Rex’s ears popped.

Outside the monastery, the AAT gained a new molten hole in its chassis before almost immediately exploding into a ball of shrapnel and plasma as its magazine torched off, several platoons of B-1 battle droids were knocked off their feet by a wave of overpressure that tore the stone tiles off the floor as a sound like thunder shook the walls of the monastery.

But Torrent was unharmed by what should have turned the Commander, Rex, and all of his men, into a liquid.

“Give them another Gunner!” The Commander called out amidst Torrent’s exultant cheers.

“YES SIR!” Gunner gleefully answered, firing another oddly silent round that shook the walls of the monastery, exposed the sand and soil under the paving stones out front, and collapsed part of the monastery’s outer wall.

“Last one Gunner!” The Commander yelled, his arms trembling.

There was a third shot, the foundation out front sheared off by the air pressure, the battle droids that had managed to almost climb to their feet, those that had survived the ruinous overpressure, were scythed down a third time, a group of spider droids, perhaps the ones that took out the sister tank, were rendered into molten metal and shrapnel.

The Commander sagged, falling to a knee, his breathing visibly impaired, but even then he pulled out his blaster rifle and added his fire to Torrent’s. “Do not let up! For the brothers they’ve taken from you! For the brother at your side! Shatter steel! Spill oil! Kill!”

A united cry of “SIR! YES SIR!” went up from Torrent’ as their firing once again intensified.

Rex began to worry however, as the charge on charge-packs was not infinite. They would eventually run out of ammo.

That said, being miserly would not serve them at all if they were overrun, and the tinnies weren’t smart enough to know to take cover when under suppressive fire.

Suddenly the Commander gestured to the side, there was a nearly inaudible boom! And several of the men were knocked off their feet by the Commander’s Jedi magic.

And a svelte form wearing a dress was knocked backwards, and into the monastery’s interior wall, a pair of red lightsabers clutched in her hands. Had the Commander not acted, she would have landed on and killed Torrent’s newest and already favorite medic.

The Dark Jedi, Ventress.

“Captain Rex!” The Commander called out, dropping his blaster rifle so its cable automatically retracted into his backpack power-pack, snapping the rifle to his back. His lightsaber igniting in his hand, bathing him in blue light. “You have command! Keep our boys alive!”

The Commander roared, a scream of rage that shook the walls as he threw himself at the Dark Jedi, who threw herself to the side, barely dodging the detonation as the Commander landed where she’d fallen. Ventress hissed, and moving far faster than a humanoid had any right to, slinked back into the darkness of the monastery, the Commander hot on her heels.

“You heard him, Torrent!” The Captain called out. “The Commander’s busy, so it falls to us not to let the tinnies interrupt him!”

Torrent roared its agreement.

But even as his men fought even harder to make up for the Commander’s sudden exit, one of his men, CT-3635, Keeper, fell, and when the green flash covered his body, he did not get back up.

=][=

Asajj Ventress grunted, her arms trembling as she blocked yet another slash from the armored Jedi Knight. He twisted his body as he stepped forward, forcing her to follow his motion or be bowled over by his momentum, then drove forward and slammed his shoulder into her side, pushing her back and driving most of the air out of her lungs.

She screamed and used a Push to both stagger the Knight and fling herself away from him. And nearly lost her head as he drove forward once again, his lightsaber coming down on a ruthless Falling Avalanche that nearly collapsed her arms when she crossed her sabers to block it.

“Slow!” He growled, Pushing her back, then Pulling her toward him, forcing her to slash with her lightsabers or be impaled on his. “Weak!” He twisted his hips, pushing with his blade, forcing Ventress to maintain the blade lock or be cut in two, her feet leaving the ground as he swung her like a rag, she Pushed, once again attempting the gambit to gain space.

He snatched a slug thrower from his waist and fired a three-round burst. Ventress dodged two rounds and slashed the third out of the air, to her surprise, it detonated. The concussive force struck her like a punch, peppering her arms and legs with shrapnel, though thankfully the majority of the material had vaporized on contact with her lightsaber.

“Sad!” The Knight declared, having taken advantage of her distraction to close the distance, forcing Ventress to once again cross her lightsabers to block yet another two-handed Falling Avalanche. “Your form is unrefined! Poor! Sloppy!”

Each word was a strike, physical and on her psyche, she could feel his use of the Force stabbing into her brain with each utterance, driving his disdain into her with each swing of his lightsaber.

That his words stung as much as the injuries to her flesh made her angry.

She took that anger, stoked it into rage, and threw it at the Knight with a howl as she launched into a flurry, putting him on the back foot, forcing him to switch from Form V into Form III.

He didn’t dare block her strikes, instead redirecting each of her blows into the floor, walls, and ceiling.

“You know nothing, Jedi!” She snarled, pushing him out of the hallway they’d been fighting in and into a large room, crumbling stone columns holding up the domed roof. “You do not know the true power of the Force! You are blind! Blinded by your hubris! Blinded by your dogma! I know the power of the Dark Side! You cannot stand up to it!”

She finished her declaration by successfully managing to lock the magnetic field of her blades against his, then kicked him square in the chest, channeling the strongest Force Push she could through her foot, sending the Jedi Knight skidding backwards.

She threw herself forward with a hiss, but rather than the Form III deflection she expected, he used a Form I parry and repost that nearly sliced her belly open. Ventress backpedaled as his blade swept into a sideways figure ‘8’ which would have left her in pieces.

“You know nothing of the Force!” He snarled, forcing Ventress to dodge around the wide sweeps of his blade, using his advantage in reach to once again push her. “So blinded by your ignorance that you do not realize you’ve already lost the battle!”

Ventress laughed, jumped backwards, swept her lightsabers through a pillar then Pushed the stone at the Jedi.

To her surprise and chagrin, rather than dodge it as she’d expected, or capture it mid-air to set it gently down as she’d hoped, he roared and Pushed it back at her, twice as fast as she’d flung it at him.

Rather than contest his strength, she dodged, leaving the projectile to crash through another column, and was nearly skewered by a quintessential Form II thrust.

They fell into an exchange of thrusts, before the Knight transitioned once again into Form V as the roof above them groaned. After a few exchanges he pushed her into another of the monastery’s hallways, their duel leaving molten scars on the floor and walls.

Suddenly he stopped, Ventress jumped back, settling into her preferred stance, waiting to see what trick the Jedi would try and pull.

“You can’t even feel it, can you?” He said, chuckling, his mirth making her rage climb higher. “Your ‘master’ isn’t teaching you very well.”

“I won’t fall for your tricks, Jedi!” Ventress hissed.

“What trick?” He asked, keeping his lightsaber’s blade between them. “Just open yourself up and feel it. Hell, you don’t even need to concentrate, it’s obvious.”

Ventress scowled but spared just enough concentration to truly feel the Force, and while she couldn’t place her finger on it, she could tell something was different, something was…missing.

No, not something; someone.

Her eyes widened in recognition.

“Correct.” The Knight said, his amusement cutting into her like a blade. “Anakin Skywalker has left the system, with him left the huttlet. Your mission ends in failure.”

He was right, Anakin Skywalker’s presence in the Force was always suffocating. Where he walked, all Force Sensitives simply knew it.

The handles of Ventress’ lightsabers groaned as her hands tightened on them.

“Do not count your victories yet, Jedi!” She hissed hatefully. “Now nothing is stopping me from leveling this worthless building with you in it!”

“But there is one thing you fail to realize, little puppet.” The Knight whispered, his tone almost loving. Then, with a quick application of the Force, he’d shut off his lightsaber and swapped it for the handle of another one at his waist. “Now that Knight Skywalker, my Jedi Master is no longer in the system, I no longer need to hold back.”

The Dark Side howled in rapturous glee.

And the lightsaber on his hand ignited into a blood-red blade.

=][=

Obi-Wan Kenobi felt the Negotiator leave Hyperspace, the main hangar doors opening to disgorge the ship’s compliment of star fighters and LAAR-Is as they immediately launched into an assault of the planet Teth, his Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptor shook as he broke through the planet’s atmosphere at the head of the formation.

Reports came in over the comms, the Resolute was currently battling a trio of Separatist Frigates, they’d suffered severe damage to their main hangar which had stopped them from launching their full complement of fighters, leaving the carrier ship on the back foot.

“All fighters, aid the Resolute. Negotiator be ready to accept fighters from the Resolute for refit and resupply.” He ordered calmly as he turned his fighter toward the monastery. “Royal Squadron, with me, our job is to escort the 212th to the Monastery and bail out my former Padawan.”

He let the affirmative replies wash over him as he turned his fighter, squeezing the firing stud on his controls at the Force’s prompting, his shots streaking out and destroying a vulture droid that was bearing down on a clone pilot from the Resolute.

[Thanks for the assist, sir!] The pilot commed him before returning to the battle.

“Give me whatever information you have on what’s going on at the Monastery, R-4.” Obi-Wan said. “Last we knew, Anakin was in a battle, meaning that’s where we’ll find him.”

Hopefully. Obi-Wan couldn’t feel his former Padawan in the system, meaning he either wasn’t in the system, or he’d remembered to put up his shield to spare others his presence in the Force.

With Anakin, it could be either.

He shouldn’t have bothered, even from several kilometers out, the huge amount of battle droids swarming at the monastery’s entrance were very easily visible. Furthermore, he could feel the Dark Side surging from somewhere in the building.

Worrisome.

He activated his comms. “Royal, do some strafing runs, soften up the battle droids before our ground forces arrive.”

He flew in a circle above the monastery, destroying three vultures that attempted an attack run on the LAAT-Is, then angled his fighter in the direction of the monastery as Royal ran several strafing runs on the swarming droids. The machines utterly exposed, packed in tightly and without cover, were decimated six times over in seconds.

“Take over R-4.” He said, before popping the fighter’s canopy and jumping out. His fighter’s astro-mech made a few panicked beeps before the fighter was too far away for him to hear any more.

He landed on a spider droid, Pushing down to soften his landing and crushing the machine beneath his feet.

An instant later, the first LAAT-I landed and disgorged its fighters, the troopers of the 212th gleefully firing into the confused mass of droids, who soon were under fire from two fronts as more and more men joined the fight.

He waited, spotting the ship that held his Padawan, reflecting the occasional blaster bolt that came too close back at the droid that shot it, and waved Asami over to join his side as she disembarked.

“Battlefields are chaotic, young one.” He said, his voice serving to center the young woman, visibly overwhelmed by the cocktail of emotions of the men around them. “Feelings fly very high, do not let the anger and fear of those around you infect your mind, only if you remain calm can you properly channel the Force.”

She nodded, she thankfully did not close her eyes as she forced herself to take deep breaths, her hands trembling less as she regained her center. She flinched, and deflected a blaster bolt that would have otherwise hit her into the ground.

Her lightsaber was a thin yellow blade, most unusual that, Ilum almost exclusively produced blue and green crystals.

“Good.” He praised with a nod, deflecting the other three that would have impacted close enough to spatter molten rock into her robes, then began walking calmly forward. “Let the Force flow through you.”

“Master.” She said hesitantly, her face pinching in worry. “I feel…I feel something. I don’t know what it is but, but it feels vile.”

“That’s the Dark Side, young one.” He answered. “Only the weak willed succumb to its call. Nonetheless, you must become familiar with this feeling. You will battle it, so long as the war continues.”

“Yes, Master.” She said dutifully.

“Now, try to keep up, but above all things keep yourself safe.” Obi-Wan ordered. “If you cannot keep up, that is to be expected. You are a Padawan learner, not yet a Knight. Do not take foolish risks trying to stay by my side. My duty is to see the battle ends quickly, yours is to keep yourself safe and learn. Understood?”

“Yes, Master.” She answered with a nod.

“Good.” He said, opened himself up to the Force, let it flow through his body, and threw himself into the greatest concentration of B-2 Super Battle Droids he could see. As he closed the distance, he deflected the blaster bolts that would have slammed into him as he bounded forward.

He reached the battle droids he’d targeted, and with a quick flurry of strikes, the twenty or so Super Battle Droids were so much scrap electronics, and the back of the resistance that had been forming in the droids was broken. The scattered and confused Separatist forces were encircled, cut off from each other, and destroyed piecemeal.

As the last droid fell, cheering could be heard from inside the monastery, echoed by the 212th.

He rushed inside the monastery, where he saw troopers dragging the wounded toward the back wall, sheltering them next to a tank that had been squeezed into the building. He spotted Captain Rex and made his way over.

The Captain stopped giving orders to his men and turned to address him, standing at attention. “General.”

“At ease, where is General Skywalker?” He asked.

“Sir! He’s left the system.” Rex said.

Obi-Wan blinked. “Then…who is that fighting in the monastery?”

“That’d be Commander Rylanor, sir!” Rex said. “When a Dark Jedi infiltrated the monastery and tried to kill our medics, he drove her off and engaged her in single combat, ordering Torrent to hold the line. I’ve dispatched a squad to meet up with him and back him up!”

Anakin had left without his Padawan?

The saddest thing was, Obi-Wan wasn’t even surprised.

His new Padawan arrived, subtly escorted by a platoon of men. “Cody, work with Captain Rex and get organized, I’ll go see about the Force User. Let’s go Asami, we need to go rescue my former Padawan’s Padawan.”

“R-Right, Master Obi-Wan.” Asami said awkwardly, falling into step behind him as he jogged into the Monastery. Obi-Wan hoped she’d quickly leave behind the fear that he’d return her to the Order. So far her greatest fault as a Padawan was that she was a little too timid.

Then again, the girl was fifteen, quite late to be taken as a Padawan, not quite on the cutoff for being sent to the Council of Reassignment. He supposed the fear of rejection was quire logical. Chances were that if he did reject teaching her, she wouldn’t find another Master to take up her education. There being a certain stigma to rejected Padawans, unfair as that stigma often was.

The Dark Side was like a beacon drawing him forward, as he got close, he saw obvious signs of a lightsaber duel; molten scars on the floor, walls, and ceilings, shattered walls, toppled columns, the occasional spiderweb of cracks along with a vaguely body-shaped indentation on a wall.

Looked like the duel had been quite fierce.

He eventually came out to a stone bridge linking the main building of the monastery to a tower, where he saw Anakin’s armored Padawan and ten Troopers, all of them firing at a shuttle that was quickly disappearing into the distance.

“Sir! I’ll comm our air forces, she won’t get away!” One of the troopers said.

“Don’t bother, Hose.” Rylanor said. “All we’d achieve would be to get some of our boys killed. She’s running with her tail between her legs, that’ll have to be enough for now. Let’s head back to the monastery, we need to get our exfil figured out.”

“Sir!” The troopers said, turned, and twitched as they spotted him. They all stood to attention. “General!”

Obi-Wan nodded at the troopers and waved at them to indicate they could relax. “Rylanor, I see you’ve been busy.”

“Oh, you know.” He said, his voice so calm it was nearly mocking. “Just doing my soldierly duty.”

“Something feels weird in the Force.” Asami said, her brow furrowed and her nose twitching. “It’s, like a miasma, or something.”

“That’ll be the Dark Side.” Rylanor explained. “The woman, I think Anakin called her Ventress. She was all but swimming in Dark Side Sauce. Said all the cliché lines too, ‘you know nothing, Jedi!’ and ‘fear the power of the Dark!’ and other such nonsense.”

Obi-Wan scowled and ran a hand through his beard. “If she leaves a residue in the Force, then she’s fallen far farther and faster than I’d feared in a remarkably short time.”

“Dark Side Sauce.” Rylanor repeated with a shrug. “Thanks for the save. I was running out of ways to stall her escape. The moment she was away, I feared she’d have bombarded the monastery to rubble.”

“Right, speaking of which.” Obi-Wan glared at the Padawan. “Why are you not with your Master?”

Rylanor shrugged. “We split up, he extracted the sick huttlet and is on his way to deliver it to Jabba. I stayed with the men to counter Ventress. She’d have gone through them like a bloody lawnmower if I hadn’t stuck around.”

“Be that as it may, a Padawan’s place is beside their Master.” Obi-Wan chastised.

“And a Commander’s place is beside his men.” Rylanor stated. “Master Skywalker had to leave because the mission comes first. But the two of us judged that there was no reason to sacrifice Torrent if we could achieve the objective without that sacrifice.”

Obi-Wan sighed, but chose not to pursue the matter further, not in front of the men, at least.

To his surprise, Rylanor seemed to naturally take charge, first of the squad of troopers sent to reinforce him, then Torrent Company once they rejoined the larger group, Captain Rex seceding command without complaint or reservation as Rylanor arrived, surveyed the room, and began issuing orders.

All in all, Torrent had been subjected to some terrible odds, outnumbered almost two dozen to one, they’d fought off wave upon wave of droids and while they had suffered several dozen casualties, they’d suffered less than a dozen fatalities. A truly miraculous performance. For comparison, the 212th had suffered twice what Torrent had just in their assault into the back of the Separatist forces.

He did take note of the diminutive near-human who seemed to have taken the position of head medic, with the Torrent Company medic seemingly content to, essentially, act as her second and assistant. He’d have to look into that regulation that allowed for ‘Command Squads.’

It wasn’t long before they received news that the two Venators had successfully driven off two of the Separatist Munificent-Class frigates, the third being mission killed, then scuttled by the Separatists once it was too crippled to make an escape.

Both the Clone Companies retreated in good order, the Resolute transferring the 501st to the Negotiator before retreating to a friendly port for refit, the damage their main hangar had suffered being too much to repair on their own.

The Negotiator for its part, turned its prow toward Tatooine and jumped into Hyperspace. It would pick up the 501st’s wayward General, and finish negotiations with Jabba the Hutt.

Leaving behind a scarred, crumbling ruin, where once a magnificent edifice had stood.

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Santo's Workshop

Mar 23, 2025 04:41 pm

Public post

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.

=][=

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.

+I am but a humble caretaker, oh mighty sir. You have liberated me from those dreadful battle bots. I am most grateful.+

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

+The battle bots kept their prisoners in the detention level. I must warm you, it is very dangerous down there, my friend.+

“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.

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