Sublight Drive (Star Wars)-(C99) The Tower’s Epilogue

Wroona Orbit, Wroona System

Harrin Sector

Something wasn’t quite right.

Jedi Commander Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy had fought enough of this damned war to read the Tombmaker like an open book–or at least, she liked to think so. Which systems he would commit to and which he would bypass; when he would press the offensive, and when he cut his losses and withdraw; what worlds he would treat with an open hand, and what worlds he would sooner crush with the iron fist of battleship Antecedent as one would an insect. The script was found in the pattern of his deployments, stretching over months, seemingly disconnected unless you know his objective.

And the Tombmaker’s objective was to isolate and surround the Wroona Star System, home to the now officially designated fortress world Wroona, and host of the 20th Sector Army’s forward headquarters–the Open Circle Fleet notwithstanding.

Fact of the matter was that her war was not on the frontlines, of split-second judgements and flashing lightsaber, of battlefield tactics where a single misstep could see thousands dead in moments. In summary, the war Scout thought she would be fighting the moment Anakin Skywalker chose her his Padawan Learner.

But that was not the war Commander Esterhazy was fighting now, in the silence of the command deck, hunched over starcharts and tactical holos long enough to make the eyes water, presiding over light-years upon light-years, playing out at a snail’s pace. Where there was a constant pressure in the air, knowing that every decision made then was weighed with consequences that may not be known until days and weeks later. Here, a single educated guess could decide if the war was one won or lost.

If Scout was the compare it to the battlefields of Operation Trident, where the blistering offensive saw one thunderous battle after the next, the defense-in-depth against the Pantoran’s Operation Storm-Door was marked by long periods of apparent inaction–as if staring down a barrelling conveyex transport just long enough to decide which way to jump in order to avoid it.

It was not difficult to imagine, then, that when the conveyex starts sliding off its rails, all sorts of alarm bells ring off in the mind.

Scout leaned over the holoprojection table, tracking the vector updates as closely a cat would a mouse. For all she had grown into her role as a strategist, she was still a Jedi, and the senses that earned her the nickname were flaring; the odd pressure at the base of her skull, her hackles rising and hairs standing on end, and flesh rippling with warning and danger prickling at the edges of her awareness.

Her fingers tapped lightly against the side of the holo-table, tracking the movements with silent, growing unease. It was not an unfamiliar sensation–not to her, and not to Aurodia’s crew. Indeed, the staff crowding the Battle Room has since gotten used to their commanding officer’s habits; especially when it warned them of imminent danger far sooner than analysts could extrapolate useful data from collated reports.

Thus, when Aurodia’s Commander Esterhazy stiffened like a threatened kitten, they took notice, and the news was passed down through the stations like a human early-warning system.

“Commander?”

Lieutenant Commander Ussin Fajinak had already materialised beside her, a mix of apprehension and curiosity tightening his face. Indeed, the sudden shifts in her posture, the thinning of her lips, the way her shoulders squared before even the best strategic analysts could even feasibly realise anything unordinary was happening.

Before Scout even realised it, that feeling had already spread through the stations like an invisible wildfire.

And now, everybody was waiting, their attention fixed to that of their Jedi Commander, even if their gazes overtly weren’t out of politeness.

“...What is the latest situation on Vandelhelm?” Scout furrowed her brows.

Fajinak pivoted to confirm with another officer, before spinning back to her, “Jedi General Ry-Gaul has pushed them off Vandelhelm. It’s a complete victory system-wide.”

“–And Woostri?”

The first officer opened his mouth halfway, but must have thought best to confirm the latest reports before saying anything. The Lieutenant Commander departed to accost the appropriate station for information, leaving Scout and the officers in earshot of the holo-table suspended in the limbo-like state of uncertainty.

What news would come? They wondered. Last we heard the 20th Sector Army was being pressured hard on Woostri.

Then came the worry.

How would the Tombmaker react to his defeat on Vandelhelm? Woostri was the next major star system down the Rimma Trade Route–what painting of butchery could we expect next?

That stew of over-imagination continued for at least ten minutes until Commander Fajinak returned with a datapad in hand. Scout glanced at him, hands still firmly planted on the holo-table. He cleared his throat, and said;

“The Confederate Fourth Fleet had executed a surface bombardment of all planetary sectors over which they enjoyed orbital control–” Fajinak then squinted at the text, frowning as he skimmed the full report, “–before evacuating their ground armies. General Ry-Gaul confirms the enemy is now in the process of a full-scale withdrawal from the Woostri Star System. No pursuit action is currently being considered, in order to avoid being caught overextended.”

General Horn Ambigene, retreating? No… Scout shook her head; retreat was not an option unknown to the Tombmaker. Horn Ambigene was far more malleable than the overactive HoloNet media channels make him out to be. The man had cut his teeth on guerrilla warfare, and he understood how to preserve his organic resources; she even daresay he was more conservative with his manpower than most Republic commanders she worked with.

This was why the Tombmaker always preceded ground invasions with saturation bombardments when the defending planet refuses to accept his terms–either to convince them to accept, or to make sure there was no organised resistance left to accept.

But this was the first time he bombarded a planet before leaving it. Especially after a defeat like that on Vandelhelm.

Her fingers drummed against the cool metal of the holotable. In the back-and-forth war in the galactic south, planets were taken and lost and lost and taken regularly. Woostri itself has exchanged hands three times over the course of Operation Storm-Door. A strategic withdrawal made sense–but a scorched-earth approach? In this context, a scorched earth approach of this calibre would only make sense if…

If the Confederate Fourth Fleet wasn’t intending to return back to Woostri.

Fajinak exhaled, glancing back at the datapad, “General Ry-Gaul requests advisement.”

“No… General Ry-Gaul is wise to consolidate his position on Woostri,” Commander Esterhazy murmured, “But request that he deploys forward scouts to track the enemy’s fleet actions.”

She lifted her head then, her voice rising, sharp and clear through the command deck; “The enemy is pivoting again! I want to find out where they will attack next, and when! Move it!”

Aurodia’s command center erupted into motion. It seemed as if the manpower in the compartment had suddenly doubled, as officers crowded around holotables, datapads exchanged hands at blisterings speed, voices rising and overlapping as the pulsing heart of the Republic’s southern theater came alive with activity. Aurodia’s comm relays pulsed with incoming transmissions, flickering with priority alerts as messages from frontline commanders flooded in.

[STOBAR HQ] SEPARATIST FLEET WITHDRAWING FROM ORBIT–NO INDICATION OF COUNTEROFFENSIVE. PLEASE ADVISE.

[ORD VAUG HQ] ENEMY GROUND FORCES EVACUATING AFTER SCORCHED-EARTH TACTICS. SUSTAINED DAMAGE TO CIVILIAN CENTERS—REQUESTING ENGINEERING AND MEDICAL TEAMS.

[EPSI HQ] ALL SEPARATIST FORCES ALONG HYPERLANE WITHDRAWING–CONFIRMED MOVEMENT TO CONSOLIDATE DEFENSIVE POSITIONS.

It was organized chaos, the kind that always followed an unexpected shift in enemy behavior. Officers leaned over their stations, barking reports to the tactical analysts, who worked at breakneck speed to consolidate the flood of data into something actionable.

At the center of it all, Commander Esterhazy stood motionless, her eyes darting across the holoprojected map of the galactic south, absorbing each update as it was relayed. Her mind raced to fit the jigsaw puzzles together as they came in, the collected data forming a picture–but it wasn’t the picture she had expected.

Fajinak leaned in beside her, voice low and urgent, “It’s all withdrawals. Every front.”

Scout’s fingers tightened against the steel edge of the table.

Horn Ambigene was an aggressive commander, a fluid tactician, always pushing forward, always dictating the flow of battle. Whenever he relented in one front, he redoubled his efforts in another, constantly prodding for the path of least resistance. His last major offensive had been up the Harrin Trade Route, a move that forced them into a costly defense-in-depth response. Last they heard, General Anakin Skywalker had been fighting a prolonged defense on Lohopa II; one proving far more bloody than anybody could have expected.

But now?

Now, there were no offensives. No rapid movements. No new attacks.

Only withdrawals.

Every report, every incoming message confirmed the same pattern: scorched earth, then entrenchment. Forward scouts were finding newly erected ground-to-orbit batteries on Daemen, brand new deflector shields on Jurzan, bunkers and field fortifications on Qat Chrystac.

“They’re digging in,” Fajinak said aloud what Scout had been turning over and over in her mind, “Wherever they still hold ground, they’re fortifying instead of pressing the attack.”

Scout felt it too, the shape of something just beneath the surface. Because the Tombmaker didn’t fight like this. She could only imagine two possibilities; somebody had replaced Horn Ambigene at the head of the Confederate Fourth Fleet, or Horn Ambigene was now obeying new orders from Raxus Secundus.

Her gaze flicked to the star systems further down the Rimma Trade Route, deeper into Separatist-controlled space. Entrenchments along the defensive lines. Fleet consolidation over industrial worlds. Reinforcements streaming inward rather than outward.

Commander Esterhazy had a stark feeling it was a case of the latter, rather than the former.

“We can assume the Separatist High Command has ordered Ambigine to adopt a defensive posture,” she announced, just loud enough for everyone to hear here, “We can only speculate as to the reason, but right now we should be seeking advice from General Octavian Grant. We will begin drafting possible attack plans based on the incoming information of Separatist fortifications, but we will not act on them until the Twentieth Sector Army explicitly authorises a full-scale counteroffensive.”

“Contact General Grant and relay all intelligence to the Emerald Banner Command,” she then ordered, despite the knot tightening in her gut, “I want confirmation from the Governor-General himself on the strategic response.”

“Understood,” Commander Fajinak responded, already turning to the comms officers,

“Establishing a priority line with 20th Sector Army HQ now.”

…

She hardly heard him.

The knot in her gut tightened.

Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

It wasn’t the same feeling as before, when the Tombmaker made his strategic redeployments, the fear of a new stage in the campaign. It wasn’t anything she could see. The holotable still displayed the same pattern of Separatist withdrawals, the same entrenchment lines along the Rimma and Harrin, the same logistical repositioning of the enemy fleets. Her officers still moved about the Battle Room with the same urgency, their voices sharp, their focus undistracted.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing, except for the sudden chill that pierced Scout’s bones.

The tightness in her chest had begun as a whisper, a flicker of unease curling at the edges of her mind. Now, it was spreading, slow and insidious, like a shadow creeping into her thoughts. She looked at the holo-table again.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing, except for the goosebumps rippling across Scout’s flesh.

She instinctively knew the feeling. It was that feeling in those terrible seconds before an attack was sprung, before the first turbolaser blasts erupted from the dark, before the enemy revealed itself in a brutal, irreversible moment. She looked at the holo-table again.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing, except for the bile rising up Scout’s throat.

There was no enemy here. No battle. No sudden offensive. No reason for her body to suddenly stiffen with the quiet, creeping dread that was rising up her spine. Her fingers twitched. Her breathing slowed. It was absurd. Impossible. And yet, the feeling only grew, intensifying without reason.

The walls of the Battle Room–so familiar, so known–now felt too close. The sharp holographic glow of the strategic maps cast unnatural shadows against the durasteel walls, as if the light itself was no longer trustworthy. The murmuring of her officers–voices she knew, voices she trusted–became distant, blurred, reduced to the echo of words spoken behind glass.

A tightness coiled in her chest, not pain but pressure, an unseen force pressing down on her ribs, closing in.

She turned her head sharply, expecting to see someone standing behind her.

No one.

But the feeling didn’t go away.

Her eyes narrowed, scanning the edges of the Battle Room, her fingers tapping the steel rim of the holotable too quickly now, too sharply.

Her crew noticed. Of course they did.

“Commander?” Ossin Fajinak was watching her now, attentive as always, the other officers slowing in their tasks, sensing the shift in the air.

Scout forced herself to steady her hands.

Get a grip, Tallisibeth! She scolded herself. This is nothing!

But it wasn’t nothing.

Something was wrong.

She could feel it in her bones, in the unshakable sense that something unseen was closing in, watching, waiting, standing just beyond the edges of her vision, constantly stalking in her shadow. Her hackles raised, a cold sweat beading at the base of her neck.

Then, in that moment, the feeling spiked, a sudden, overwhelming weight pressing down on her like a crashing tide.

“We– we just lost contact with General Ry-Gaul’s HQ!”

Her breath hitched.

Her pulse spiked.

Her muscles locked.

Her eyes darted toward the Battle Room entrance, expecting–waiting–knowing–

The blast doors slid open, and a pair of clone troopers entered the compartment. Over two-dozen pairs of eyes whipped towards them at once. Scout recognised one of them immediately; Clone Captain Kano, whose battalion General Skywalker personally posted on Aurodia to defend the flagship. Except, right then, Scout swore she could have been mistaken, for if not for the distinctive markings on his armour, she could not see Kano’s face through the impenetrable T-visor of his helmet.

Maybe it was how she looked at Kano with more fear than relief, or how Kano marched in with his blaster at his hip, but Lieutenant Commander Fajinak swiftly moved to intercept the two clonetroopers.

“Something the matter, troopers?” he questioned their entrance.

Kano nodded over Fajinak’s soldier, directly at Scout.

“Orders from Coruscant–” but she did not recognise Kano’s voice, “–All Jedi are to be executed for treason.”

A ripple of unease surged through the Battle Room. Jedi Commander Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy flinched. Treason? Jedi? Then–Jedi General Ry-Gaul–!? What about General Skywalker!? Her thoughts scrambled for some sense of reason, some explanation that fit, that made this anything more than the impossibility it was.

Around her, the officers looked to her–some in confusion, others in hesitation, and a handful with the beginning of realization. But no one moved.

Because she was their commanding officer. Because she had stood by them for a year, working with them to fend off attack after attack after attack from the Separatist menace. Because even if the Jedi were traitors, that didn’t mean she was. Because if she was a traitor, she was doing a terrible job at it.

She was not the only person in the room who found the order completely unbelievable.

Commander Fajinak straightened, his face unreadable. Unconvinced.

“Treason? On what grounds?” he snapped, then whipped towards the comms station, “Any update from Coruscant?”

The communications officers hesitated–then hurriedly scanned the latest high-priority transmissions. The room remained locked in a suffocating stasis, time stretching into an unbearable eternity as the officers scanned the encoded messages. Then–

“Confirming priority transmission from Coruscant,” one of the techs reported, his voice tight, uncertain, “Classified as Executive Order 66. Issued directly by the Executive Office via Republic Intelligence.”

Scout felt the floor tilt beneath her feet.

The officer kept reading: “The Jedi Order has attempted to murder the Supreme Chancellor and overthrow the Galactic Senate.”

A sharp, collective intake of breath. No one spoke. No one moved.

The universe shifted, reality twisting into something Scout could not recognize. She wanted to deny it, to argue, to scream that this was impossible. But the words wouldn’t come.

Because suddenly, all at once, the tidal wave came crashing down on her. As if the realisation, the realisation of what was happening was all she needed to feel the dam break.

Death. Jedi, everywhere. Death.

And she was next lined up against the wall, before the firing squad.

The unease. The feeling of walls closing in. The creeping, suffocating dread. It hadn’t been paranoia. It hadn’t been nothing. She had felt it before it had happened. A shrouded hand, deep and ancient and unseen, had reached across the galaxy at that moment, and closed its fist around the Jedi Order’s windpipe.

Scout didn’t know she had been unconsciously backing up until she felt the metal rim of the holo-table bite into her back. She looked around, but couldn’t see the faces of all the men and women surrounding her through her blurred vision, her head swimming with a raging pain. Were they all unclipping their self-defense blasters too? The blurry figures move closer.

She reached for her lightsabers. She may be in no state of mind to defend herself, but her instincts certainly were.

But before she could draw them–

“Be that as it may, there is no evidence Scou–Commander Esterhazy is in any consort with the traitors!” Commander Ossin Fajinak insisted, his voice like a vibroblade cutting straight through Scout’s consciousness.

Just like that, her vision cleared up, her breathing stabilised, and her headache faded like a retreating wind. By the time she had gathered herself, there was a sea of grey-green uniforms in front of her, crowding the space between herself and the two clonetroopers.

“These orders come directly from the Supreme Commander, sir,” Captain Kano bit back, “Approved by the Galactic Senate and Security Council. Commander Esterhazy may be our CO, but these orders from High Command directly override her authority. We have no right to question–”

“Your training may forbid you from questioning orders,” Fajinak frowned, “But it is very much our prerogative as officers of the Republic Navy to question a dubious order. At the very least, permit an internal investigation as to whether Commander Esterhazy has done any wrongdoing. Let us be reasonable; you are being far too hasty.”

As if to prove his point, the rampant pounding of bootfalls could be heard echoing down the corridor not a moment later, along with the clatter of plastoid armour. As if buoyed by the sound of impending reinforcements, Captain Kano raised his blaster carbine. His partner readily followed his lead.

“Are you acting with the intention of mutiny, Commander Fajinak?”

Commander Fajinak lifted a hand, as if in surrender. But from the corner of her eye, Scout spied a small woman reach for her console–

The blast doors slammed shut with a bellowing thud, completely masking all of the sound outside.

“...No, Captain,” Fajinak lowered his hand, the other reaching for his belt, “It is you acting in mutiny right now.”

Clone Captain Kano slowly tore his attention off Ossin Fajinak, his T-visor sweeping the Battle Room. He wasn’t looking for Scout anymore. He was looking for the traitors. And as Scout’s mind snapped into clarity, she realized what Kano saw.

The officers. Her officers. Her crew.

The men and women who had fought alongside her for years, through sieges and retreats, victories and losses, endless hours in the dark of war rooms just like this one. They weren’t looking at her as a traitor. They weren’t unclipping their self-defense blasters for her.

They were standing in front of her.

A wall of gray-green uniforms, the color of the Republic Navy, the color of people who had been loyal to their Jedi Commander long before any order came down from Coruscant. Scout felt something sharp wedge itself between her ribs–not fear, but shame.

She had doubted them. For a moment–a terrible, fleeting moment–she had believed they would turn on her. That they would look at her and see nothing but a Jedi, another pawn in a galactic game she had never wanted to play.

Instead, they were facing Clone Captain Kano.

She felt gratitude, raw and painful, clawing at the inside of her throat. Kano saw it too.

And in that moment, he knew. His shoulders tensed beneath the plastoid armor, his blaster snapping upwards. He wasn’t going to argue, he saw there was no point to it. He was just going to execute the order, even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

Scout’s instincts screamed at her to move. She reached for her lightsabers, her muscles tensing, her stance shifting–

Too slow.

The first shot never left Kano’s blaster.

A thunderclap of blasterfire erupted in the Battle Room, a dozen bolts slamming into Kano’s chest and gut before he could even squeeze the trigger. His body spasmed, armor plates burning through in bright red holes, his carbine tumbling from his hand. He hit the ground with a dull, final thud.

Scout barely had time to register his death before she saw the second clonetrooper move.

Her mind screamed another warning–

And then a blur of movement behind the clone’s shoulder. A glint of a vibroknife.

The second clonetrooper jerked forward as the vibrating, serrated blade sank into the exposed gap between helmet and chestplate. The officer behind him twisted the knife once, then ripped it free, letting the body crumple. A sharp, wet gasp. The clone fell forward, lifeless.

Silence.

The only sound left in the room was the faint hum of the holoprojectors, flickering over the battle map that had stopped meaning anything.

Scout exhaled, slowly.

Commander Ossin Fajinak lowered his blaster last. For a long, terrible moment, no one moved. Scout wished to any stars that were listening that she could read their thoughts or at least their emotions at that moment, as many Jedi Knights could.

“The corridor,” someone said, “They'll be through the doors in minutes.”

Commander Ossin Fajinak moved first. He turned sharply, his blaster still smoking in his grip, and the officers before him instinctively parted as he crossed the compartment.

He barely spared Scout a glance.

Instead, his focus was fixed on the comms center at the far side of the Battle Room. Bootsteps clipped against the floor, his pace brisk, almost casual. As if he had not just ordered for the deaths of two clonetroopers a moment before.

But Scout knew Ossin Fajinak.

She had seen him angry before–at the Republic’s higher command for its sluggish responses, at the bureaucracy that slowed their every action, at Scout’s own indecisiveness and naivety at times, at the Tombmaker’s stubborn advances, at the sheer waste of resources and lives that this campaign had become.

It was just like this. This silent, fuming rage. Because loud and explosive anger wouldn’t do any good in the Battle Room, and only serve as an unneeded distraction from the mission at hand.

He reached the comms panel and slammed the override key, locking down access to the ship’s internal channels. The screen flickered once, confirming his command clearance, and then the entire ship would hear his voice.

“Attention all personnel aboard the Aurodia. This is your First Officer speaking, Lieutenatnt Commander Ossin Fajinak.”

The Battle Room was dead silent.

“There is a mutiny in progress aboard this vessel.”

Scout felt her breath hitch.

“The traitors are primarily among the clonetroopers assigned to this vessel. They are attempting to execute our commanding officer under highly suspect orders.”

A flicker of static–an acknowledgment ping from multiple decks. Fajinak’s grip on the panel tightened.

“All officers and enlisted crew of the Republic Navy are to treat any armed mutineer with extreme caution. If they do not surrender their weapons immediately, they are to be met with lethal intent.”

Scout clenched her hands into fists.

A death in the Force was not like seeing it with one’s own eyes. It was not the violent brightness of an explosion, not the sharp crack of blasterfire tearing through armor, not even the agonized cries of the wounded.

It was a light winking out.

Softly. Suddenly. Absolutely.

Scout felt the first death within minutes. A cold void where a presence had been. Then another. And another.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but it did nothing to stop the fading echoes of life from cutting through her senses like blades. If she was too weak in the Force to feel the Jedi dying out across the galaxy, she was certainly not too weak to feel the men being gunned down beneath her feet.

The Aurodia was at war with herself.

The clone troopers had fought in warzones across the galaxy, had stood in the trenches, had stormed strongholds with precision and discipline unmatched by any military force in history. But they were not aboard a warship built for them. This was not a troopship. It was a command vessel. There were not more than six-hundred clones aboard.

Against seven-thousand spacers.

The first shots were fired near the barrack quarters, as the clones attempted to seize weapons and regroup. Naval officers fought with whatever they had–sidearms, hydrospanners, even their bare hands. Some failed. But most did not.

The clones also attempted to reach engineering–to take control of the ship’s reactor. They never made it.

And in the corridors, spacers hunted down isolated clone squads where they could find them, demanding their surrender to no avail, and ultimately gunning them down. The men of the 501st Legion were still clonetroopers, born, bred, and trained on Kamino, but all their skill and discipline could not deny the sheer numbers against them. And any spacer who sympathized with them–who would rather obey the orders from Coruscant–was widely dissuaded by the fact that doing so would be a death sentence.

And soon enough, the footfalls and pounding beyond the blast doors to the Battle Room was replaced by shouts and advancing blasterfire. Scout gripped the edge of the holo-table, her knuckles white. The storm of death in the Force had begun to slow.

The fighting was dying down. That blast door would open, to reveal friendly faces on the otherside, rather than masked and anonymous ones.

Lieutenant Commander Ossin Fajinak exhaled, holstering his blaster as the last updates flickered across the internal comms.

“The mutiny is contained,” he confirmed, turning toward Scout. “We have control of the ship.”

Scout swallowed, her throat tight. The air still felt heavy, thick with something darker than smoke, heavier than silence.

“Why?” she could only ask.

Commander Fajinak paused, sharing a look with a number of officers in the compartment.

“To be honest, sir, I’m not sure what to think of the Jedi Order on Coruscant,” he told her flatly, “But even if the Jedi have decided to launch a coup against the Senate… I doubt you or General Skywalker is involved. Unless, of course, you have anything to admit…”

“N-No!” she denied vehemently, “Of course not! I wouldn’t even know what’s happening on Coruscant, not since… well, since coming here!”

“I imagined so,” Fajinak nodded, “You have performed admirably thus far, to the best of your ability, and I–nor anybody in this room–doubts your allegiance to our Republic. Besides that–I’m not going to be in the business of murdering any children.”

A detail on the plotting board suddenly caught Scout’s attention, “...Thank you for your trust, all of you. Really. But we may have a harder time convincing them.”

She pointed at the boards, where the drive cones of multiple warships were converging on Aurodia’s location. Warships of Task Force Aurodia. The officers in the Battle Room followed Scout’s gaze, their eyes flicking to the holo-projection of the sector. The drive cones of multiple warships in orbit of Wroona were firing their sublight drives. The comms station was already blowing up with multiple incoming transmissions.

“What are your orders, Commander?” Fajinak suddenly asked.

Scout’s mind blanked, “Orders?”

“What are your intentions now?” he clarified, “I may be able to convince these men, but I will need to know for what reason. Will we continue fighting against the Tombmaker? I doubt the Grand Army would obey our orders if they know you are alive, however.”

For a long moment, she could only think.

“...The Tapani Federation hardly participates in the Grand Army as is,” she suddenly said, “And General Octavian Grant is still our superior officer. From what I know from him, he hardly listens to Coruscant anyway. We have already sent him a transmission for further orders, so we might as well take our chances with him.”

“A reasonable course of action,” Fajinak nodded slowly, “I agree with your assessment. It gives us a veneer of plausible deniability as well. And what about General Skywalker.”

General Skywalker–he is still fighting on Lohopa II.

“...Do you think we can reach him?” Scout tentatively asked. She already knew the answer before she heard the reply.

Of course not. They would have to cross light-years of Republic space who wanted her dead. Scout, for all she was a child, was one of the most prominent commanders on the southern front. Even as they spoke, she could imagine a number of nearby battle groups deflecting their vectors to the Wroona Star System in order to investigate.

Ossin Fajinak must have seen the look upon her face, because he smiled apologetically before calling for a fleetwide channel.

“–This is the First Officer of flagship Aurodia speaking, Lieutenant Commander Ossin Fajinak. We have just put down an attempted mutiny trying to execute our commanding officer without trial or deliberation. We have all received orders from Coruscant: however, these orders must be treated with extreme suspect until further confirmation,” he took a deep breath, glancing at her, “We have already taken Jedi Commander Esterhazy into custody until further notice. We will be contacting Emerald Banner Command for advisement as to how to proceed.”

A beat of silence followed Fajinak’s transmission.

The officers in the Battle Room barely breathed as they waited for Task Force Aurodia’s response. After what felt like a short eternity, their drives cut out, and at last–

"Acknowledged, Aurodia."

A flood of confirmations poured in. Scout and the gathered Battle Room breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Another flickering signal confirmed the fleet’s new heading: Procopia. the capital world of the Tapani Federation. A world that still held loyalty to the Republic, but one that had always kept its distance from Coruscant’s central authority. The CO of Emerald Banner Command and the 20th Sector Army, Octavian Grant, was a friend–or as close to friend as they could get. He had never failed to support them with ships before, and shared their woes with Coruscant. It was the best chance they had.

“We’ll wait for further orders from General Grant,” Fajinak turned around, “Until then, I suggest we try to find out what the hell is going on.”

For the first time since the whole affair began, Scout felt her breath return to her lungs, like a flood of fresh relief. Except, even as Task Force Aurodia altered course, even as the ship’s officers turned back to their stations, her mind was already moving elsewhere.

Lohopa II.

Anakin Skywalker.

Her Master, her General, her friend.

He was still fighting on Lohopa II, still deep in the trenches of a war that now wanted to see him dead. Did he know? Had the clones turned on him? Had he seen the same betrayal, the same cold, blank visors turning against him? Was he still alive?

Scout closed her eyes.

She wasn’t strong in the Force. She had always known that. She couldn’t do the things Skywalker could do, couldn’t see across the stars, couldn’t reach through hyperspace itself to touch another mind.

But she tried. She reached out, searching, straining, pushing past the darkness, searching for that familiar presence, that burning, brilliant light that had always been there.

She found nothing.

Just a void. A blackness so vast, so suffocating, so utterly absent that for a terrible moment, she feared–

She bit her lip, hard, forcing herself to breathe.

“No. Not him,” she muttered to herself, “He wouldn’t die so easily.”

“What was that, sir?” an officer nearby turned to her.

She cleared her throat, “–I was just thinking it would be wise to send a transmission to General Skywalker; to inform him of the events that had transpired here, and our next course of action. In case we ever decide to rendezvous.”

The officer stared at her for a long moment, unreadable, but finally nodded and saluted.

Scout shook her head and exhaled violently, shoving the doubt away.

Anakin Skywalker was still alive. He had to be. He was the Chosen One.

And if she couldn’t sense him, it was only because she was weak.

She cursed herself for it.

⁂

Lohopa II, Lohopa System

Boeus Sector

Lohopa II was a prosperous mining colony in the Expansion Region, straddling the bustling Harrin Trade Corridor and positively bustling with off-world trade. Her vast extraction fields once fueled the Republic’s expansion into the Outer Rim, whilst providing the Core’s manufacturing industries with raw materials. She was rich and wealthy, not just from her exports, but from being a lucrative trade hub connecting the Trailing Sectors and Western Reaches of the galaxy.

Was.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Jedi General Anakin Skywalker surveyed the progress of his ongoing defensive campaign through the holoprojection, courtesy of Harbinger’s planetary scanners. Lohopa II may once have been a thriving world of eight-billion souls, but Anakin could no longer see it as anything but a blasted wasteland.

What had once been sprawling mining complexes were now blackened, cratered husks choked with the wreckage of shattered war machines. The prosperous ore foundries that had once fueled the Republic’s shipyards now stood gutted, their refinery towers collapsed into scrap heaps, their conveyor lines buried beneath collapsed ferrocrete and smoldering slag.

And the cities–all shelled into oblivion. No more streets, no more structures, only the charred skeletons of buildings, some half-submerged in the endless sludge that had once been roadways, now melted into a poisonous mire by months of orbital bombardment. No more people too; those not already shipped off-world had been shipped to the frontline.

The frontline. Anakin Skywalker’s lips thinned, his gaze drawn away from cratered ruins to the lands where Loyalist and Separatist armies met in combat.

Trenches and fortifications scarred the earth, a web of defensive lines snaking across the ruined landscape, wrapping around industrial strongholds, collapsing in on themselves over fields of craters. The frontlines were fortress-cities, vast mining districts converted into strongpoints, where the last remnants of refineries and production yards had been repurposed for war. Some were held by the Republic. Others had fallen to the Separatists. Between them was no man’s land–a stretch of blasted, muddy terrain littered with wreckage and corpses, where entire divisions had been swallowed up by gunfire, artillery, and the merciless advance of machines.

This was the war that Separatist General Horn Ambigene waged.

A war of attrition, where soldiers drowned in mud before they died from blaster wounds. A war where barrages pounded the same stretch of ground for weeks, only for both sides to claw over it again, losing thousands for a gain of meters.

A war, that seemed, had no end.

Forget about the southern front. Forget about the war against the Separatist Alliance. All those grand campaigns and awesome strategic maneuvers spanning across light-years and light-years.

On Lohopa II, you didn’t have the luxury of the thought of greater things.

Every single day was already consumed with the single lasting desire to see the next hazy sunrise.

This was not the Chosen One’s storied and legendary battlefield, but Anakin Skywalker was still here nonetheless.

His boots sank into the sodden trench floor, muck pulling at his ankles with every step as he moved through the excavated corridors of the 501st Legion's forward command post. The trenches were alive with movement–clonetroopers lined the fire steps, their armor streaked with filth, medics hurried past with stretchers, field engineers worked to shore up defenses already half-sunken into the mud.

And the rain. The rain hasn’t stopped. Not for weeks. Not clean rain, not something that could wash away the scars. It was thick, oily, reeking of metal and chemicals, the runoff from decades of industrial pollution, and the war. Toxic, acidic, seeping into faulty armor seals, corroding equipment. The trench sumps were flooded with stagnant, blackened water, a chemical soup that clung to skin like a film of filth and ate through flesh like rot if left unchecked.

Everywhere he looked, he saw exhaustion. Troopers hunched over portable comm stations, officers poring over tactical displays, medics working over the wounded beneath flickering field lamps. The legionaries of the 501st hid their tired faces behind their impenetrable T-visors, but the troopers of the Grand Army had the bleakness of the battlefield etched into their faces. They hugged their rifles, their packs, slumped against the trench walls or huddled under fashioned lean-tos and dugouts. Many of them were local Lohopans, their eyes sunken so deep Anakin could not look them in the eye for so long lest he lose himself in that black abyss.

This was not the lightning-fast warfare of the Perlemian Campaign. Not the rapid planetary assaults that had defined the early days of the war. Not the constant victories of the Hydian Campaign that they occasionally heard on the radio repeated ad infinitum.

Lohopa II had been a nightmare since the first landing. With the orbital contest in ostensible deadlock, the planetary front was a war of inches.

This was the war that the Tombmaker waged.

And Anakin Skywalker was sick of it.

He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, shielding himself from the perpetual downpour, but it did nothing to drown out the sound of distant artillery rolling over the trenches; a steady, rhythmic thunder, like a hammer pounding the earth over and over.

That pounding all grew louder and louder and his ears, accompanied by… splashes? The splashes of stagnant water.

Anakin raised his head. Clone Commander Appo stood before him, his once obsessively polished armour now lacquered in that perpetual grime coating everything on this cursed world. The Jedi General could hardly make out the blue paint that marked him as one of the 501st.

“General Skywalker,” he greeted, snapping to attention.

Anakin’s reply was hoarse; “Please tell me it’s something good, Commander.”

“I would say so, sir,” the Clone Commander handed him a handheld holoproj, “Latest intel from the fleet: the Confederate Fourth Fleet is pulling out.”

Anakin’s brow furrowed. He glanced at the device, then shook his head.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he scowled, but activated the feed with a flick of his thumb nonetheless.

The flickering blue light solidified into a figure. A familiar face, in the sharp angles and perfect creases of freshly pressed Republic Navy uniform, staring back at him.

“General Skywalker,” Admiral Yularen gave a polite once-over of his sorry state, and made no mention of his depiction of a sodden rat, “Task Force Aurodia had just relayed to us news from the front. The Confederate Fourth Fleet is currently in full withdrawal on the Rimma and Harrin hyperlanes. They appear to be abandoning contested worlds and consolidating Rimwards on more defensible strongholds.”

Anakin Skywalker stared. He could only stare; for the longest second, he didn’t even move. Then, he let out a harsh, incredulous laugh.

“That’s not possible.”

General Horn Ambigene, retreat? Anakin had seen plenty of Separatist commanders over the years. Some were calculating, some were merciless, some were idealists, even if their ideals were twisted.

Horn Ambigene was all of them, yet none of them. He was a name, more symbol of terror than a man. He was a name, a specter of war whispered in the final transmissions of dying commanders, in the surrender pleas of broken garrisons. A shadow on the HoloNet, a butcher who issued no threats, no demands, no justifications. His fleets were a silent one, a shadow of death that approached one world after another, seeking their tithe of blood.

His war here wasn’t one of liberation, nor one of conquest or profit. It was simple annihilation, the burning desire to torch the Core and smash down everything in his way.

Lohopa II was no different.

The 501st Legion had fought tooth and nail for every factory block, every trench line, every ruined processing plant, only for the Separatists to obliterate entire sectors the moment they lost ground. Because even when the enemy wasn’t winning, they made sure no one else could either.

It was everything Anakin Skywalker hated.

This senseless slaughter, this needless destruction, this… this base desire for revenge.

He was not blind to the grievances of the Outer Rim. He knew why they fought. Misguided, twisted as their leaders were, their people had suffered under the weight of the Core’s rule for generations. But this?

This was not that war. This was not that justice. This was destruction for destruction’s sake.

From Eriadu to Derra IV, entire worlds burned, billions slaughtered, entire legacies wiped away.

And for what?

What would this war ever accomplish, beyond turning Ambigene into the most abhorrent monster the Republic had ever known?

There was no reasoning with the Tombmaker.

And the more Anakin thought about it, the more his fingers twitched toward his lightsaber. Jedi were taught restraint, patience, discipline. A lightsaber was not a tool of execution, not a weapon of revenge. But should he ever stand before Horn Ambigene, the Tombmaker, the man who had drowned worlds in fire and ash for no reason beyond satiating his own lust for retribution.

Anakin was not sure he could stop himself from cutting him down before a single word left his mouth.

“Nevertheless, the Open Circle has independently confirmed fleet redeployments moving away from the front,” Admiral Yularen’s expression didn’t change. This is a fact, the man seemed the urge, not some subjective opinion or best guess.

Even still, Anakin could not believe it. It was not an instinctive or knee-jerk reaction of denial, but a deep and burning conviction. There was no way the Separatists were pulling back.

Anakin shook his head again, “Not a chance, Admiral. I’m on the battlefield right now; they are not pulling back.”

Not now, not after months of bloodletting, not after filling Lohopa II’s mass graves with enough Republic troops to populate a Core World. Not after investing so much materiel and manpower into this great offensive to break the Republic front.

“Be that as it may,” Yularen folded his arms behind his back, “Intelligence still suggests a major shift in Separatist fleet movements. This is the conclusion of Commander Esterhazy’s personal staff.”

Anakin scoffed. Yularen said it as if mere mention of Tallisibeth would change his mind. He had grown to trust Aurodia’s judgments, yes, especially after they correctly predicted Ambigene’s next offensive.

Indeed, he is proud of how far Tallisibeth has grown. Frontline combat did not suit her strengths, he knew, and so he purposely put her under the tutelage of strategists like Yularen and Fajinak. As expected, he was met with widespread protest. To put a girl barely of age at the helm of the war effort? Ludicrous, is that not? But how was bringing her to this ashen, muddy hell, any more preferable? At least on the Aurodia, she could learn the skills that mattered in a war in a safe and trusted environment, moreso than any Anakin had at his own disposal. He may not be the best master in a traditional Jedi sense, but they all have their own parts to play, to their own strengths. It was clear to him that posting Tallisibeth to Aurodia had not been a mistake.

Only… the battlefront in front of him showed none of the signs of a retreat. The battle still raged under the overcast sky, the staccato of blaster fire still echoed across the blasted land, the constant rumble of artillery that never stopped. Had Tallisibeth made a mistaken judgement? Not so. But so what if the Separatists were pulling back everywhere else? They were not here.

Commander Appo remained silent, but Anakin could feel him watching.

He gritted his teeth.

This wasn’t right. None of it made sense.

“Is the Separatist fleet still contesting orbit?” the Jedi General demanded.

“They are–” the transmission flickered, “They are descending into low atmosphere. We are moving to intercept–”

The feed abruptly cut.

Appo startled, “Interference!?”

A blaring siren split open their eardrums. The moment they shrieked through the trenches, Anakin’s instincts screamed with them.

“INCOMING!”

A deafening explosion rocked the trench network, shaking loose dirt and ferrocrete dust from the overhead braces. Above their heads, the sky began to glow. The ground began to shake. The distant thunder grew louder.

The response was immediate.

Troopers burst from their dugouts, officers shouted orders over the roar of the bombardment, medics scrambled to relocate the wounded before the artillery turned their stations to smoldering craters. And overhead, the sky burned.

Anakin shoved past a pair of clone troopers and pulled himself up the trench ladder to get a clearer view.

The horizon was a wall of fire.

Mass drivers and artillery rounds streaked across the sky, their blue-white contrails carving lines through the air. Impact after impact slammed into the earth, throwing mud and shattered duracrete high into the air, obliterating an entire Republic artillery position in seconds. The screams of dying men followed suit.

Anakin gritted his teeth.

“We need counter-battery fire now!” he roared over the comms.

A moment later, the Republic’s artillery roared back.

Along the rear lines, the towering SPHAs locked their massive turbolaser cannons into position, their targeting scopes painting enemy artillery positions in the distance. The next moment, the sky flashed red as they opened fire, their heavy blasts streaking across the battlefield. Further afield, AT-TE walkers adjusted their positions, their cannons tilting downwards to lay a suppressive barrage into the enemy lines.

“All units, prepare for ground assault!”

The firesteps of the trenches flooded with troops, clones gripping their blaster rifles, army troopers bracing themselves behind heavy repeaters, mortar teams loading rounds as fast as their arms would allow.

Just in time for the first enemy shells to land in the trenches.

Somewhere, a trooper screamed as an explosion engulfed his dugout, flinging bodies into the air like ragdolls. Further down the line, an entire section of trench collapsed inward, swallowing an entire squad alive.

“General!”

Anakin turned just as Commander Appo sprinted up beside him, his armor streaked with mud and smoke.

“We failed to re-establish comms with Admiral Yularen,” the clone reported, “But our scopes have observed the Open Circle intercepting the enemy fleet in orbit. But some have slipped through.”

The Jedi General looked up towards the sky, covered as it was in a carpet of heavy grey clouds. His gut tightened– “They’re not descending to evac their troops, are they?”

Appo shook his head, “Infantry push, I’d say.”

“Thought so,” Anakin muttered.

As soon as the last syllable was uttered, he suddenly realised the utter, unnatural quietness surrounding the lines. The thunder of artillery fell silent. The firing lines hesitated. The only sound left was the distant crackle of flames, the groan of sinking metal, and the ragged breath of soldiers waiting for what came next. It was as if the war had paused, for a single heart-wrenching moment.

But then the earth trembled.

It began as a vibration; a faint, unnatural rumbling beneath the mud, rippling through the stagnant pools of water that collected in the craters and sumps. The vibration spread, growing stronger, shaking the reinforced walls, causing stray pieces of debris and spent munitions to jitter across the ground.

Somewhere in the trench, a trooper muttered, “Oh sweet Caraya’s soul–”

Then they heard it. A high-pitched whine, distant at first, but growing louder, building into a keening, mechanical scream that split the air apart like a blade. It drowned out the distant explosions, piercing through the static-filled battlefield like a wailing angel descending from the heavens.

Anakin, and a million others, instinctively whipped their heads upwards.

Through the smog-choked sky, through the swirling storm clouds and battle debris, the sky flashed. A sheet of artificial lightning–explosions and turbolaser blasts, the battle in orbit bleeding into the atmosphere, backlighting the dark silhouettes of descending warships.

The clouds split. Harsh floodlights speared through the storm like lances, stabbing down into the trenches, bathing the entire battlefield in blinding white beams. A deep, bone-rattling horn blast echoed from above.

Anakin was already diving for cover.

“GET DOWN!”

The SPHA-Ts and AT-TEs pivoted their cannons skyward, servos whirring in desperation as gun crews scrambled to adjust their firing vectors. A split-second later–

Hell fell from the sky.

The first wave of orbital fire struck like a meteor shower, streaking through the clouds in streaks of blue and red. Turbolasers, massed missile barrages, and hypervelocity slugs rained down on the trenches, obliterating entire sections in an instant.

Shockwaves tore through the earth. The ground buckled and ruptured, throwing mud and shattered ferrocrete high into the air. A detonation struck just meters from Anakin’s position, sending a spray of dirt and shrapnel whipping past his face. Screams filled the air.

To his left, an AT-TE was struck by a direct hit, its crew vanishing in an instant as fire engulfed the wreckage. Screams filled the comms.

Through the chaos, Anakin shoved himself up, gasping for breath. He squinted through the glare of the floodlights, heart pounding, mind already racing. He scrambled to peek over the parapets, felt the trembling earth, and realised the Separatist infantry and armour were now pushing up to their lines. And the 501st was unable to respond, pinned down by the fire from up high.

We’re sitting ducks like this!

He snapped towards Appo’s last position, the order to call in for air support already on his lips. Anything to drive that battleship’s attention away. He found the Clone Commander already staring at him through his glowing T-visor, reading his expression. His intentions.

Appo brought a finger to the side of his helmet, a habitual ritual, one that meant he was accessing his comms.

The earth exploded right in front of him, and the Jedi General was thrown back into the trench by the blast. Landing on his back and facing skywards, all he could see was the blinding glare of the spotlights painting their positions. Shielding his eyes, he turned to see men dashing for cover, cowering under the flimsy lean-tos that could perhaps shield rainfall but definitely not thousand-pound shells.

As Commander Appo helped pull him to his feet, Jedi General Anakin Skywalker made a split-second decision.

“We need to go over the top,” he nodded his gratitude and uselessly brushed his robes off, as if the mere gesture would rid him of week-old blood and muck, “If we stay here, the only thing the Separatist infantry are gonna find when they arrive are corpses.”

“A full-scale counterattack?” if Appo was skeptical, his voice didn’t show it, “Across the entire line?”

Anakin nodded, “AT-TE’s over the trench first, providing covering fire. Our troopers follow their lead. Keep our SPHAs pointed at that battleship. You have a better idea? I’m all ears.”

Commander Appo shook his head, bringing his hand to his comms again– “This is Commander Appo. We will begin a counterattack immediately! Troopers on my mark; walkers advance!”

A deep, mechanical rumbling filled the trenches as the walkers lurched forward, servos whirring, their massive legs clawing up over the parapets. The first AT-TE crested the trench wall, metal grinding against the reinforced ramparts. Its main turret swiveled, locking onto the burning silhouettes of Separatist armor in the distance.

“Firing!”

A lance of plasma erupted from the main cannon, slamming into an oncoming Separatist AAT, turning the enemy vehicle into a burst of fire and twisted metal.

The Force shouted in Anakin’s ear–and his limbs were already moving.

Appo caught on; “GO! GO! GO!”

A shrieking whistle was blown, and the first wave of troopers surged up the ladders, vaulting the trench lines. Anakin climbed after them, boots slamming onto the churned-up battlefield. The ground was a shifting sea of mud and broken debris, craters filled with thick, toxic liquids, a forest of rusted-out husks littering the way forward. A storm of blasterfire erupted from the Republic lines, illuminating the battlefield in red and blue flashes.

Anakin looked once, to the left, then again, to the right.

It was a boiling mass of humanity, a tidal wave of flesh and steel surging into the fire, the rising battlecry–as if to scare away their own fears–drowned out by the roar of lumbering walkers and thundering artilleryfire. Despite the situation, not even the army troopers needed further convincing, not when the Separatist battleship loomed over them like a vengeful god. In the rear, their SPHAs focused their fire into the battleship’s underbelly, trying to take out as many ventral guns as possible.

“General!”

Anakin shook his head.

“Right.”

His blue lightsaber ignited like a blinding torch, and the Hero With No Fear dove into the fray, weaving through the storm, dodging past running troopers, carving through barbed wire with a single slash of his saber. Blaster bolts whizzed past him, tracer rounds streaking in every direction. The air was thick with smoke and static, the acrid scent of ozone from ion cannons discharging overhead.

Ahead, the Separatist front lines reacted.

Turrets swiveled, artillery crews adjusted their targeting scopes, superheated plasma slashing through the darkness, tracer fire arcing like lightning, streaking between the descending floodlights and artillery bursts. To his right, a squad of troopers were cut down mid-stride, their armor shattered by incoming fire. To his left, an AT-TE erupted into flame, its legs snapping as a tank shell ripped through its hull. Another round struck just ahead of him, a mass driver shell slamming into the mud, kicking up a wall of dirt and shrapnel.

Anakin Skywalker didn’t stop moving. He couldn’t stop moving.

The Force surged through him, sharpening his instincts, pulling him left, then right, then dropping him to the ground as another round screamed past.

The next impact opened a crater right in front of him.

Anakin had no time to stop.

Instead, he leapt forward, sliding down the embankment, his boots skidding through the sludge at the bottom. The severed head of a Sullustan stared up at him through blank eyes, half-buried in the mud and rot.

Above, the sky split open again.

Another barrage from that damned battleship. But it was lightening, Anakin felt, as the Republic and Separatist lines melted into the firefight. The battleship was still targeting their trenchworks, far to the rear, in hopes of destroying their auxiliary forces whilst avoiding friendly fire.

Anakin spat. It was not just day and night that merged together in this locked twilight, even the hours and seconds seemed to converge into one. He leaned back against the slick embankment of the crater to catch his breath, watching the silhouettes of soldiers charging around its circumference.

“Keep up the advance! Do not stop!” he heard Appo shout in the distance.

Or was it from his comms?

The Jedi General urged himself to his feet, struggling to find purchase as he scrambled over the crater lip, before vaulting over a twisted durasteel support beam and landing in the middle of a cluster of clone troopers pressing forward. In a turn of luck, Appo was among them.

Tracers lit up the haze, red and blue streaking past as the 501st tore through the enemy positions. As he deflected bolt after bolt, Anakin struggled to make out the enemy lines through that constant fog and haze that permeated the battlefield.

A crack of lightning; the black form of an AAT pivoting toward them, its heavy cannon lowering.

He could only see its silhouette, but that was all a Jedi Knight required.

He extended his free hand, and the Force rushed through him like adrenaline. The AAT’s turret wrenched violently to the side, slamming into the mud with a sharp screech of twisting metal. A split-second later, a Republic missile slammed into its side, detonating its fuel cells.

The fireball roared high into the sky, and for that brief moment, the perpetual, clogging smog shrouding Lohopa II was burned away.

And what Anakin Skywalker saw then–the sight seared itself into his memory, burned into the backs of his eyelids even as the fire died and the smoke rushed in to reclaim its dominion over the battlefield.

A hundred-million. A meaningless number, hardly reconcilable in a mortal mind. It was impossible to count, impossible to grasp, but he felt their presence like an approaching thunderhead, stretching from one blasted horizon to the other.

They were not machines.

Not the endless waves of B1s and B2s that he had cut down for three years, not the cold, unfeeling circuits of commando droids or the unrelenting advance of droidekas.

These were people.

Every silhouette was different from the next, every soldier unique in shape and size, every set of eyes carrying something he hadn’t seen in droids. Determination, rage, fear, hope. And they came in endless numbers.

Skakoans, sealed in their pressure suits. Koorivar shock troops, their long, crested skulls swaying as they broke into a sprint. Sullustans in reinforced exo-armors, Harch warriors, their imposing figures like giants. Ishi Tib riflemen, their green faces twisted in snarls, and their low, guttural war cries barely audible over the roar of battle. Ando, Bith, Dug, Sluissi, Tritonite, Saurins–

The entire Southern Arm of the Galactic Rim, brought to bear in a singular march against the Republic.

Anakin unconsciously tightened his grip around his lightsaber. This was Horn Ambigene’s war. He had always known, but never could quite bring himself to accept it. This was not a battle against soulless droids.

This was the Outer Rim.

The forgotten, the abandoned, the disenfranchised, the worlds that had suffered under the Republic’s neglect for generations. This was the freedom that Count Dooku had promised them. A war where their anger, their suffering, their long-held grudges had been sharpened into blades and turned on the Republic’s throat.

And yet, they were fighting the Tombmaker’s war.

The Jedi General Anakin Skywallker exhaled sharply, shaking his head, trying to push the thoughts away, trying to force himself to see enemies, not people. They were all complicit in the Tombmaker’s crimes. They presided over atrocities, even pulled the trigger themselves. They watched from up high as Eriadu burned, for forty-eight hours, day and night, and did not bat an eye.

Anakin Skywalker was a soldier. And the Separatists were his enemies. So why did he hesitate?

The Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker squeezed his eyes shut, and opened them again. He saw the flashes of color among the ranks, the hastily-drawn insignias of homeworlds on their armor, the battle standards lifted high above their lines. These men and women may be fighting under Ambigene’s command, but they were not fighting for him. They were fighting for their homes, for those scrappy symbols they raised overhead. For their families, for their people, for their futures.

Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi. And the citizens of this galaxy were not his enemies.

“General!”

Appo’s attention wasn’t even on him. The Clone Commander was still firing into the teeming mass of sentient life assaulting their lines. But he could see straight through Anakin nevertheless. His tone pierced the Chosen One’s heart, almost saying ‘this is no time for a crisis of conscience.’

Just then, another clonetrooper rushed up to Appo, the bulky comm booster pack on his back giving away his identity; Ince.

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“We’ve got new orders, Commander!”

Appo didn’t budge one inch, “From Yularen? Or Esterhazy?”

“From Coruscant!”

That drew the attention of everyone in earshot, Anakin included. Even as he deflected bolt after bolt, he couldn’t help but listen in.

“Send it to my feed!”

“Right away, sir!”

Appo ducked behind the wreckage of a fallen AT-RT and holstered his carbine, bringing a finger to his helmet.

“Good news–!” Anakin grunted as he caught an incoming grenade with Force, and threw it back the way it came, “–I hope!?”

At first, it was as if nothing had changed–but at that moment, Anakin need not be a Jedi to sense Appo’s lips draw into a thin line behind his helmet. The Clone Command slowly lowered his hand, as if to buy time, and turned to face him.

“Say, sir,” Appo suddenly snatched his carbine, “Right now, with Republic at your back and the Separatists ahead of you–do you fancy yourself a soldier or a Jedi?”

“We’ve been over this, Commander,” to say Anakin was puzzled would have been an understatement, “And this is hardly the right time or place.”

From the corner of his eye, he spotted more clones converging on their position, almost forming a protective circle around him.

“If you wouldn’t mind, sir!”

Am I a soldier or a Jedi? Anakin didn’t feel like much of either. But if he had to admit, standing there, fighting there right then, he was more a soldier than he could ever be a Jedi. Not many chances to be Jedi-like, on the frontlines. Who am I? He suddenly found himself asking, his training and instincts taking control as his attention lapsed.

Who is Anakin Skywalker?

Anakin Skywalker was a phenomenal pilot, a genius mechanic, and an effective frontline leader. Anakin Skywalker was the Hero With No Fear, General of the 501st Legion, and a soldier of the Galactic Republic.

Then why exactly, he wondered, are my reflected shots not hitting anyone? Indeed, it was common practice for Jedi who practiced deflecting blaster bolts to reflect them back into the shooter. In most cases, it was an efficient form to defend and attack in a single motion. When Anakin fought droids, that motion came naturally.

Yet here, he found his deflected bolts throwing up plumes of vapourised mud more often than not.

And isn’t that because Anakin Skywalker was also the son of Shmi Skywalker, pupil of Qui-Gon Jinn, brother and friend of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and mentor of Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy? Because Anakin Skywalker was the Chosen One, and Knight of the Jedi Order.

The war wanted him to be one or the other. To choose between two realities. But Anakin Skywalker couldn’t. He wasn’t one of the old Masters, who’ve been a Jedi far longer than they’ve been a soldier. Nor was he one of the young Padawans, whose only experience as a Jedi was one of a soldier’s.

He was many things. Some times, he felt like he was any one of them. Many times, he felt like none of them at all.

Anakin Skywalker was… just Anakin Skywalker.

“I’m a Jedi General, Commander,” Anakin Skywalker finally replied, “I’m your Jedi General.”

There was a long pause in the men surrounding him.

Finally, Appo exhaled sharply, “Understood, General.”

For the briefest moment, there was something almost regretful in his voice– “Sorry, sir, but orders are orders.”

Then, he lifted his blaster carbine.

The world tilted.

Anakin felt it in the Force before he saw it–a sudden, sharp tear, a rippling wave of murderous intent rolling through the battlefield like a shockwave. His first instinct was defense; to turn, to pivot, to let his blade catch the bolts and send them spiraling away.

But they were everywhere.

His own men, the 501st, his brothers-in-arms, their rifles raised, their visors blank, their shots ever-precise and without hesitation. As if it was only natural that he was their enemy, and not the Separatists just over the hill. Anakin staggered back, deflecting as fast as he could, but the bolts kept coming.

A shot grazed his shoulder, burning through his cloak. Another seared past his ribs, heat licking at his skin beneath his armor. His body moved on instinct, but his mind lagged behind, trying to comprehend, trying to make sense of the impossible.

Orders are orders!? What order is this!? To execute their commanding officer–or to kill me, and only me, in particular!? On whose orders!?

Anakin’s breath came fast and ragged, his mind a whirlwind of disbelief and fury. He wanted to reach out, to Ry-Gaul, to Tallisibeth, to anyone, but he had hardly the luxury to. And all he could do is silently scream and wonder–

How!? Why!?

Why now!?

Why them!?

“Appo!” he shouted, even as he turned, sidestepped, carved through an incoming bolt before it could hit his knee, “Appo, stand down! What the kriff are you doing!?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he simply repeated, his blaster unloading bolt after bolt after bolt at his own General in such quick succession the barrel glowed with heat.

His voice seemed just as impassive as ever–but Anakin could swear he heard it. That fraction of hesitation, buried deep beneath the rigid adherence to orders, the flicker of something human. Not that it stopped him from pulling the trigger.

Anakin twisted, the Force flaring through him, driving him into motion. Defense was not his strong suit, so as soon as he found the chance, he surged into the attack.

He burst forth in a blur, weaving between the bolts, his saber a wall of blue light. His footwork was instinctive, automatic, his mind shutting out everything but the next step, the next attack, the next survival move. His saber sliced low, cutting a rifle in half, sending it sparking to the ground. His boot came up, kicking a trooper back into two of his brothers.

But they kept coming.

Anakin lost all sense of time. Minutes blurred into seconds, seconds into nothingness. Struggling in the fight for his life, Anakin could hardly recognise the adverse effects of the breakdown in command. After all, their countercharge was in response to the Separatist push, and now, in the middle of their offensive, the army’s high command was suddenly seized by infighting.

It was no surprise that, with command breaking down across the front, and clonetroopers behaving erratically, the army regulars would begin flagging.

Anakin spun, saber flashing, cutting down a trooper lunging with a vibroblade. He ducked under a barrage of fire, let the Force pull him forward, wrenched a rifle from a clone’s grip with a sharp tug, sending him sprawling into the mud. Somewhere in the haze, he saw Lohopan and Grand Army units breaking formation. It began as a loss of momentum as the two armies met in no-man’s-land, then a steady withdrawal on the Republic side, then a retreat, and finally, a full blown rout.

Even as Anakin knocked out one clone after another, his battlefield senses could feel the situation unravelling at the seams. With the 501st Legion in disarray, the Republic lines were collapsing inwards, allowing Separatist armour to smash through.

How long did he fight? It could have been hours, or mere minutes.

All he knew was that it then stopped. Suddenly. There were no more blaster bolts streaking through the air.

Anakin’s chest heaved, his body aching, burning, trembling with exhaustion. His saber was still raised, but there was no one left to fight.

He looked to his feet. The battlefield around him was littered with fallen clonetroopers. He spotted Appo’s limp form almost immediately, and rushed to the Commander’s side, violently prying off his helmet. A part of him shouted–what are you doing, he just tried to kill you! But strangely, Anakin brushed off the thought easily. I already lost one friend in Rex, the other side of him seemed to reply, I won’t lose another.

…Is he even still your friend?

Anakin checked for a pulse.

Appo was still alive. Unconscious, but alive. He could still find answers.

He breathed out a sigh of relief, glancing at all the other crumpled forms. Anakin had held restraint, and pulled his punches. But not all were so lucky. Some were hit by stray deflected bolts, others shot in the back by approaching Separatist… troopers…

The universe seemed to have gone mute.

No blasterfire, no explosions, no shouted orders–just the distant rumble of artillery, the whine of distant engines, and the soft, rhythmic sound of boots sinking into mud.

He raised his head, blinking away the rain from his eyes.

They were everywhere. Silhouetted against the burning horizon, figures emerged from the mist, their armor slick with rain and muck, their weapons lowered but on the standby. Closer to him, scattered squads of isolated Lohopan troopers bunched up around him, like moths attracted to the blue glow of his lightsaber. Anakin saw their terrified, shivering backs, and forced himself to his feet.

A pair of combat medics rushed to the clones at his feet. If they had seen the brawl between them, the medics didn’t show it.

He breathed out again, and pushed his way forward, mentally tallying the remaining army troopers around him.

No more than a regiment.

They must have been isolated and surrounded. Likely… likely because of Anakin himself. He was a veritable beacon in the darkness, his saber still raised, the blade sizzling softly in the rain, its blue glow casting harsh shadows against his face.

…The rain then stopped. If it had been twilight before, it was now downright nocturnal.

Anakin squinted his eyes and craned his head skywards.

That Separatist battleship–it was now directly overhead, and flying so low Anakin could see the gunports embedded in its ventral surface. He traced its hull, and came to a single conclusion: that’s battleship Antecedent.

He hardly had the energy left to show surprise.

The Separatist ranks, silent as a grave, opened up. There were no shouted orders, no sudden movements. Only the sound of shifting boots, the soft scrape of armor brushing against armor, the whicker of capes and banners whipping to and fro.

They parted like water, and a single figure emerged.

“I’ve come seeking the head of the Hero With No Fear,” the man said as he approached the Jedi Knight, “But you certainly don’t look the part.”

This is Horn Ambigene. Maybe it was the Force whispering the name in his ear, or maybe it was simply that Anakin recognised the voice. Whichever the case… Anakin didn’t feel any sudden desire or urge to strike the man down.

Maybe because he wasn’t a monster made flesh, some devil given form. Horn Ambigene was just a… human. One a little shorter and stockier than himself was. Anakin spied the soiled greys of a Confederate uniform, peeking out from under a damn and heavy great coat. His hair was white, his eyes sunken, framed by kindly crinkles, though his face was stern.

He didn’t look like the Tombmaker. He looked like the First General of the Confederacy.

General Horn Ambigene reached into his great coat, and produced a metal flask, taking a once over of Anakin’s sorry state, “Care to surrender now, Jedi General?”

Anakin clenched his lightsaber, “I should kill you.”

The Tombmaker took a swig, and grunted, “You would not be the first.”

A red beam of light sliced through the air between him and Ambigene. Where there was once empty space, there was now a girl, dressed in all black garb. Older than Tallisibeth, for sure, but not much larger in size.

“One of Dooku’s acolytes?” Anakin muttered hoarsely.

“Stand down, Wiffa,” Horn Ambigene waved her down, and the girl cut her saber like a loyal cat.

Anakin did not respond to the gesture in kind, “You’ve come to Lohopa personally? What is it on this planet you ruined that interested you, even as you retreated across the south?”

Ambigene shrugged, “I desired to eliminate one of the Republic’s best generals.”

“And that changed?”

The man gestured at one of the fallen clones, “It seems the Republic no longer considers you one of their best generals. Or one of theirs at all.”

Anakin glanced over his shoulder. Lohopans and other disparate army troopers were still staring at him through their gaunt eyes and sunken cheeks. They weren’t trying to kill him. Was the order only sent to the clones? Horn Ambigene seemed to know more about the situation that he did… on the off chance that the man was not bluffing. But… regardless of the situation, Anakin was still the commander of these men, and he still had a duty to see them through.

It only took a single once-over for him to understand the battle was lost.

“...What will become of Lohopa-Two, when you’re done with it?” he asked, retracting his lightsaber with a hiss.

“I will raze its cities,” the Tombmaker responded promptly, “I will salt its fields. I will poison its mines. I will do everything to ensure the powers in the Core that reclaims this world will never benefit from it for a hundred years. Then, I will leave.”

Anakin clenched his jaw, but held his temper. Homes can be rebuilt, but the dead cannot be brought back to life. So he asked next: “And these men?”

“Surrender, and we will take all of you into custody,” he replied simply, “And we will negotiate your release to the nearest willing authority.”

“You take prisoners?” Anakin challenged, some part of him–his pride–forcing his defiance against the enemy.

“I only target active combatants.”

“Is that what you called the civilians of Eriadu, Derra?” he scorned the audacity, “Active combatants? Does that help you close your eyes at night?”

The Tombmaker met his eyes blankly, “Does it look like I catch any sleep, Jedi? Do you think this war is horror? My trade has been war since you were but an egg in your mother’s womb.”

Once again, he resisted the urge to leap forth and cut down the man right then there. He spotted the black-garbed girl observing him closely, with suspicion, and scoffed. He turned around to the soldiers, and asked, “Who’s the ranking officer here?”

A Lohopan trooper in broken armour limped forward.

“Do you accept the Separatist’s terms?” the Jedi Knight asked, “You will lose your homes, but you will live.”

The Lohopan glanced around at his fellow soldiers, then dumbly nodded. There was not a light behind his eyes. All Anakin felt in the Force was the forlorn desire to live. Nothing more.

He turned back to the Tombmaker, “And the fleet?”

“Order your admiral to withdraw, and we will consider the matter settled.”

Anakin’s mind wandered back to the mysterious kill-order. Did Yularen receive it too? How did he respond?

“He might not listen.”

“Then he will forfeit your lives.”

“...Let me contact him.”

Horn Ambigene dipped his chin, and waved a massive Harch trooper forward. In one of the great creature’s six arms, was the limp body of a clonetrooper with a comm booster pack. Anakin’s stomach dropped when he spotted a clean hole slagged straight through Ince’s helmet.

The Harch unceremoniously dropped Ince’s corpse on the ground before Anakin, prompting him to kneel down and activate the comms pack. After a long moment of fiddling around with the knobs and keying in Harbinger’s address, the comm pack finally extended its antenna.

“Hello?” Anakin leaned back onto his bottom, feeling the cold mud seep into his robes, “This is General Anakin Skywalker, contacting the Harbinger–”

“Skywalker!” Yularen’s voice burst forth. There was no image, no holo, but Ambigene seemed content with the audio, so Anakin continued.

“Yularen,” he greeted, “It’s good to hear you.”

“General Skywalker, we just received an order–”

“I know,” he cut in, “Appo just tried to kill me.”

Silence.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he continued slowly, “The battle’s lost. I’ve decided to surrender, to save everyone that’s left. I don’t… I don’t know anything about the order. I don’t know what you or the fleet think of it… but if my opinion still matters, I advise that you withdraw from the star system. Don’t let the Open Circle fall into enemy hands.”

Silence.

“...I see,” Admiral Yularen said, “I will take your word for it. Shall I arrange an evac?”

“I’ve already been captured.”

“...So this is part of the terms,” Yularen sighed, catching on quickly, “Very well, sir. Good luck, and should fortune permit it, may we meet again.”

Anakin cut the transmission, and gazed up at Ambigene, “You will evacuate the entire planet before you begin your bombardment.”

The Tombmaker didn’t hesitate, “Done.”

Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker unclipped his lightsaber, and raised it into the air. The Sith Acolyte stepped over Ince’s corpse to pluck it from his hands. And just like that, the clatter of equipment filled the air and thousands of Lohopans pried off their helmets and dropped their arms.

The clean-up operations began almost immediately. The Separatist army dispersed; some to take in the prisoners-of-war, others to confirm the dead, others to search for survivors, the rest to set up field facilities right in the middle of no-man’s-land. The dead were loaded onto carts, the unconscious onto hover-racks and stretchers. Anakin impassively watched as Appo was carried off by a pair of Quarren soldiers.

He slumped backwards, his two hands sinking into the mud, Ince still at his feet, years of fight bleeding out of him all at once. The ache seeped into his bones, and right then, he felt as if he was Ambigene’s age.

A glint of burnished silver caught his eye. Horn Ambigene was standing over him, offering his flask. If he minded Anakin’s mud-caked fingers smearing his flask, he didn’t show it. The Jedi Knight downed the drink in a swig, feeling the warm liquid slide down his throat. He felt his limbs were revived by a fuzzy, comfortable warmth he hadn't felt in months.

It reminded him of…

“I miss Padmé,” he mumbled beneath his breath.

“I didn’t know Jedi were allowed to keep women,” Ambigene remarked, somehow overhearing him.

The Sith Acolyte was staring at him, not with any suspicion this time, but with wide and surprised eyes. Ah… Anakin mused, she must’ve been one of the defectors from the Temple. He smiled blandly at her.

“She’s my wife,” he told them.

“–You’re supposed to be the Chosen One,” the girl–Wiffa, was it?–blurted out.

“I am,” he agreed.

“But you have a wife.”

“I do,” he agreed.

“Family keeps a man grounded,” Horn Ambigene nodded in apparent approval, “That’s a necessary thing.”

It was a strange sight, the three of them in the middle of a blasted wasteland. A Jedi Knight, a Sith Acolyte, and a Separatist General, sharing a warm drink under the hull of battleship Antecedent. The situation was absurd enough to elicit a laugh from Anakin, wondering if they were about to share a heart-to-heart. The atmosphere certainly seemed ripe for one.

“You have a family, Tombmaker?” Anakin asked suddenly. If he had any thoughts about killing the man before, they seem to have faded away with the pouring rain.

“None,” the Separatist took back his drink, “But I am considering taking in a child after this is all over. Something to keep me occupied in my retirement.”

Anakin couldn’t even begin to imagine what retirement for a war criminal would begin to look like. Nor could he imagine a child who would consider the greatest mass murderer in the galaxy’s living memory a father.

“I fear for that child,” Wiffa remarked dryly, crossing her arms.

“You… you speak as if the war will end soon,” Anakin murmured softly.

The two of them stared at him as if he had grown a second head. Anakin stared back at them, his eyes widening. Wait… seriously? The war is ending? An odd feeling began rising in his gut, lifting into his chest and warming his heart.

“Why do you suppose I retracted my fleets?” Ambigene asked him, “If not because the war is at its end? t this very moment, I would hazard the Pantoran is treating with Republic delegates on Mimban.”

Anakin’s breath quickened. The war is… over?

Wiffa slapped the Tombmaker’s back lightheartedly, “You’ll be going back to Tydane after this, old man? Rebuild your home?”

“If the Confederacy no longer has any requirement of me,” the Ghost of Tydane tucked his arms into his great coat for warmth, “I do not know how many more years of fight I have left in me.”

“The Pantoran will always have use for you,” Wiffa retorted, “You’re the First Separatist! If you want to retire, better get a leg up on it.”

Said ‘First Separatist’ grunted noncommittally.

“And you?” Anakin jabbed his chin at Wiffa, “What do you plan to do? Continue serving Count Dooku?”

“I left Dooku’s side a long time ago,” the girl pursed her lips, “I want to see Sev’rance’s work succeed. I think I’ll continue serving in the Fourth Fleet; make myself a home somewhere in the Southern Arm. Somewhere that isn’t that damned Jedi Temple. Surely you think so too, Chosen One? You’ve got a wife! She must be waiting for you.”

She said those words as if she still couldn’t reconcile the Chosen One having such an attachment. Maybe it would have incensed him once, but now it only served to fuel Anakin’s amusement.

“I don’t think you can return to the Jedi Temple anymore, anyway,” Wiffa rubbed her hands together, “Not with Palpatine having his way.”

Palpatine? The Chancellor? Anakin Skywalker had been fighting on Lohopa II for so long he has lost track of time, much less the progress of the greater war effort. Coruscant had never called him or the Open Circle Fleet back, marking their defense against the Tombmaker as of the utmost importance. I wonder what’s Palpatine’s hand in all of this…

“You’ve got a home, Jedi?” Ambigene questioned gruffly.

“Home…?” Anakin echoed, “What for?”

“Somewhere we can deliver you to.”

“Oh,” he replied, rather dumbly.

He never thought much about it. Where is my home? Anakin Skywalker had been a slave, shipped from one world to the next, and that did not change when he became a Jedi. Because of his upbringing, Anakin Skywalker’s home had never been a planet, a world, a house on a hill. His home had never been that hut on Tatooine, the grandiose halls of the Jedi Temple.

His home had been his mother’s love and care. His home had been Obi-Wan’s teachings, and the place at his side. Anakin Skywalker’s home had always been the people he cared about, the people he kept close to his heart.

But his mother was dead, and Obi-Wan was no longer his teacher.

So where was his home now?

Only one person came to mind. Padmé Amidala. Padmé’s arms, her tender embrace, her soothing words that never failed to ease his mind, her kind smile that always melted his anxieties away. How was she now? Was she alright? Was she worried about him? A hundred questions rushed through his mind, and he only knew one way to answer all of them.

Naboo.

The war was… over, wasn’t it? The hellscape had no longer any place for him now. So might as well… I might as well…

“Yes,” Anakin Skywalker, just Anakin Skywalker, whispered, “I think I want to go home.”